What if Salieri weren't second rate? What if Mozart's shadow obscured an equal instead of an inferior imitator? Wouldn't that be a greater tragedy?
Such a thing occurred in the late 1970's. If you went looking for the best album put out by a bespectacled guitar toting new-wave punk with a tight band roaring out of London, you'd probably wind up with Elvis Costello and the Attractions 'This Year's Model' or 'My Aim Is True' from '77 or '78.
But the best album that fits that description from that time period is actually 'Squeezing Out Sparks' by Graham Parker & The Rumour from 1979.
In one form or another, every album that is on this Top 50 List is, to my mind, perfect. They might be filled with mistakes, bad recording quality, even experimental music that fails. But they are perfect, either in the place they hold in my heart or an overall aesthetic.
This is a perfect album through either prism.
It opens with 'Discovering Japan' which is about (in no particular order) the A-bomb, a Japanese woman brokenhearted by the callous attention given to her by GI's, and the new American lover who is obsessed with her but can't break through the cultural barrier. It could also be about mankind hurtling toward a nuclear holocaust. Or hot Japanese schoolgirls. Basically all of the above.
Key lyric? 'I shouted sayonara/It didn't mean good bye'.
So what do you do after you've been burned by an international relationship overwhelmed by the nuclear zeitgeist? You turn to 'Local Girls'. This provincialism leads Parker to ruminate, 'You look all right in that cheap green dress/But every time you swish it round you make me disappear'. While the complications that arise from a globe trotting lifestyle are vast and sexy in their impossibility, Parker winds up spitting to himself, 'Don't bother with a local girl/Don't bother with 'em they don't bother me'.
He then takes a step back to look in the mirror with 'Nobody Hurts You' which contains the Dr. Phil-worthy bromide, 'Nobody hurts you harder than yourself'. Somehow coming from Parker it doesn't feel trite or patronizing but rather a hard-fought grim determinate necessity.
So far the album has been a sexy little joy ride, careening from girl to girl, lost in the ramifications of modern love.
You know that moment in a horror movie when a scene with a laughing crowd of teenagers goes on a wee bit too long? You have a small voice telling you the hit is coming, the fright is waiting, but you don't quite listen fast enough so when the monster jumps out at you it is doubly frightening because you almost saw it coming?
'You Can't Be Too Strong' is that scene in 'Squeezing Out Sparks'. The title of the album comes from a lyric in the song. It is hard to write about this song. It is a song about abortion. The voice of the song alternates from the voice of the mother to the voice of the unborn child. Now, I am a Pro-Choice guy. Read John Irving's 'The Cider House Rules' for a treatise on why.
This song makes me question my beliefs. I come out on the other end still believing in a woman's right to choose but Parker does something extraordinarily brave with this song. I don't even feel comfortable quoting the lyrics here, so perfectly married to the music are they.
The song has a dual effect. One you cannot ignore the central question inherent in the song. You are forced to contemplate your beliefs without any barrier of myth or analogy. And in context, it pushes the album to a higher plane, one in which all human behavior is up for judgment, one where every action however slight can have disastrous consequences.
Hence the next song, 'Passion Is No Ordinary Word'. The singer struggles inside of a relationship where 'The world is easy when you're just playing around with it/Everything's a thrill and every girl's a kill/And then it gets unreal/And then you don't feel anything'. The music throbs behind his moan and we sense his dissatisfaction in a visceral way. Plus it rocks.
He then howls that 'Saturday Night Is Dead' which is perhaps the most self-explanatory song title in the history of rock and roll. His rage has boiled down to the finest point and the next song is the aural equivalent of throwing your hands up in frustration and anger...'Love Gets You Twisted' twists and turns like an old-time dance reel and ends in Parker repeating 'Love gets you twisted/Screw yourself up/Screw yourself up/Screw yourself up up up'.
Here is where the shit starts to storm. The tension within the album has been building, like a tightening screw, like a tautening rope, and you get the sense that something will snap. In 'Protection' he opens with 'So all of you be damned/We can't have heaven crammed/So Winston Churchill said/I could've smacked his head' which is akin to Bruce Springsteen telling FDR to go fuck himself. Paranoia has overrun his synapses and he begins to obsess on negative imagery, saying 'It ain't the knife through your heart that tears you apart/It's just the thought of someone sticking it in'.
In a minor impossible moment of levity he then sits and turns his attention to the sky in 'Waiting For The UFOs'. To give the song that little bit of absurdity it needs, he does not pronounce UFO as three separate letters but all as one word, Yufos. It is hilarious but chilling as we've witnessed his descent into madness until he can no longer relate to people at all but can only obsess about visitation. In what seems like an aside, he muses, 'This new obsession is turning us alien too/Much more resounding my heart just stopped pounding for you'. The prospect of an invasion is the only thing that can kill his love.
In the finale 'Don't Get Excited' what seems like an order is actually a description. He can't feel. The new girl doesn't get it. She tries but his capacity for arousal has been stunted after what he's been through. He croons, 'You try to reach a vital part of me/My interest level's dropping rapidly/It's all excuses, baby/All a stall/We just don't get excited'.
And that is the final fallout from the nuclear disaster which opens the album. How can you get a hard-on in the face of the devastation of the planet? How do you commit to a woman when she can't stop the dead voices in her head? How do you have a good time when Saturday night is dead?
If you'd never heard of Elvis Costello you'd listen to this album and say you'd found a Mozart.
Friday, May 15, 2009
Wednesday, May 13, 2009
5 Greatest Albums: The Broken Remotes - 'Tonight's Last Stand'
I don't know how to review this album.
Full disclosure. Jon Leahy is the creative force behind this band and he and I are close friends and collaborators. I played my first show in Los Angeles with an early incarnation of Jon's band, he's produced a good bit of my music, and he is basically an honorary O'Malley.
But it is not my closeness to Jon that renders this review a treacherous little ride. His music is unsettling while being deeply satisfying. His lyrics feel like that moment every kid has, standing in the dark of their room, hand stretched out to a closet door, willing themselves to get over the fear and just open the damn door already. Before you open the door what's behind it is real.
His voice is quite often tucked around a killer guitar. He doesn't insist that you hear every word. He is not hiding or mumbling which many of his indie rock brethren do. But the music is so assured that he is confident of how it will land. So he'll whisper, he'll be restrained, he'll let the crash of a drum or the drone of an organ do the talking for him. Until the moment strikes.
When Jon Leahy raises his voice something CONCRETE happens. There is a retroactive aspect to this...when you hear that roar you realize that he has been sitting on it. That he doesn't feel the need to use it unless it is absolutely necessary. That his expression is deliberate.
I can't tell you how many times I've been disappointed in singers when I feel them riding their favorite part of their voice. They aren't concerned with the song or what needs to be said. They are concerned about sounding as good as they can. They are like big sluggers who can only hit fastballs. It's all well and good until someone throws you a nasty curve.
The Broken Remotes write songs that are (to continue the baseball pitching analogy) filled with curves, splitballs, knuckleballs, high heat, brushback pitches, flat out beanballs, and even the occasional wild pitch that flies into the stands.
And like a Rubik's cube one move from completion there is a sense of breathless anticipation to EVERY SINGLE MOMENT on this album. Like the kid outside of the closet. Like a man on a bridge. Like a car about to roll. Like a finger on a trigger.
Somehow they manage to maintain that tension without sending the listener over the edge into some sort of panic attack. Mostly 'coz the shit is fun to sing along to. Leahy's voice has that deceptive quality all great singers have in that you hear it and want to sing along. Then when you do you are struck by how HARD he's actually working, how difficult it is to be a real front man. Go listen to The Broken Remotes and it will help you clear all the posers out of your iPod.
The song titles have what I call totemistic qualities. They seem like physical things. They could be mantras. They have power.
Shut Off The Machines
Stick With Me, Kid
Lose The Swagger
This Time Is The Exception
On The Take
I could type each song on the album but I'll let you discover those for yourselves. Just like you discovered that there was no monster in your closet. But if that's so, why do you still get afraid?
Full disclosure. Jon Leahy is the creative force behind this band and he and I are close friends and collaborators. I played my first show in Los Angeles with an early incarnation of Jon's band, he's produced a good bit of my music, and he is basically an honorary O'Malley.
But it is not my closeness to Jon that renders this review a treacherous little ride. His music is unsettling while being deeply satisfying. His lyrics feel like that moment every kid has, standing in the dark of their room, hand stretched out to a closet door, willing themselves to get over the fear and just open the damn door already. Before you open the door what's behind it is real.
His voice is quite often tucked around a killer guitar. He doesn't insist that you hear every word. He is not hiding or mumbling which many of his indie rock brethren do. But the music is so assured that he is confident of how it will land. So he'll whisper, he'll be restrained, he'll let the crash of a drum or the drone of an organ do the talking for him. Until the moment strikes.
When Jon Leahy raises his voice something CONCRETE happens. There is a retroactive aspect to this...when you hear that roar you realize that he has been sitting on it. That he doesn't feel the need to use it unless it is absolutely necessary. That his expression is deliberate.
I can't tell you how many times I've been disappointed in singers when I feel them riding their favorite part of their voice. They aren't concerned with the song or what needs to be said. They are concerned about sounding as good as they can. They are like big sluggers who can only hit fastballs. It's all well and good until someone throws you a nasty curve.
The Broken Remotes write songs that are (to continue the baseball pitching analogy) filled with curves, splitballs, knuckleballs, high heat, brushback pitches, flat out beanballs, and even the occasional wild pitch that flies into the stands.
And like a Rubik's cube one move from completion there is a sense of breathless anticipation to EVERY SINGLE MOMENT on this album. Like the kid outside of the closet. Like a man on a bridge. Like a car about to roll. Like a finger on a trigger.
Somehow they manage to maintain that tension without sending the listener over the edge into some sort of panic attack. Mostly 'coz the shit is fun to sing along to. Leahy's voice has that deceptive quality all great singers have in that you hear it and want to sing along. Then when you do you are struck by how HARD he's actually working, how difficult it is to be a real front man. Go listen to The Broken Remotes and it will help you clear all the posers out of your iPod.
The song titles have what I call totemistic qualities. They seem like physical things. They could be mantras. They have power.
Shut Off The Machines
Stick With Me, Kid
Lose The Swagger
This Time Is The Exception
On The Take
I could type each song on the album but I'll let you discover those for yourselves. Just like you discovered that there was no monster in your closet. But if that's so, why do you still get afraid?
Tuesday, May 12, 2009
6 Greatest Albums: Green Day - 'American Idiot'
Calling this album a shock is an understatement of the highest order. By the time September 2004 rolled around, Green Day had become an after-thought at best. Fans of the band will dispute this but those are true-believers. If you had said that Green Day's next album would be a blockbuster along the lines of The Police's 'Synchronicity' or Michael Jackson's 'Thriller', you would have been laughed out of the room.
But that is just what happened and more. Somehow these bratty snot-nosed punks pulled a rock opera out of their collective ass that perfectly encapsulated the malaise of Post 9/11 American consciousness. They did wha????
I will again use my son as a barometer. Cash is not huge into music. He has always loved The Beatles, he loves the music of John Williams from Star Wars fame, and he champions the music that I make out of love. As far as modern music goes, he doesn't care, and doesn't even want to. This will probably change once he hits puberty and then he'll start bringing home crazy new stuff but as of now he is in that pre-pubescent state where music just isn't all that important.
But 'American Idiot' struck a major chord with him. He wanted to read the lyrics. He wanted to talk about the meanings behind the songs. He was impressed by the longer epic tunes and equated them favorably to the longer orchestral pieces that he loves so much by Williams and other classical composers. He was/is in AWE of this album.
Now I'm not saying that because my son likes it it is great. But it pierced the dream world of a child and touched the part of his brain that is already an adult. And kids resist that stuff when you try to impose it on them. To me that says that the content of this album is so perfectly achieved that it rids him of the anxiety that contemplating adult questions naturally elicits in an 11 year old. Of course, he was 6 or 7 when it came out and that quality was even more pronounced back then. He didn't want to listen to music in the car; he wanted to talk to me about Star Wars, or Kermit, or spaceships.
For a modern punk rock opera to grab his attention so forcefully that he stopped that kid-like stream of consciousness and TOOK IT IN is a testament to the clarity and force of the songs.
We're both psyched to pick up '21st Century Breakdown' and talk about it in the car. He's almost old enough to sit up front with me.
But that is just what happened and more. Somehow these bratty snot-nosed punks pulled a rock opera out of their collective ass that perfectly encapsulated the malaise of Post 9/11 American consciousness. They did wha????
I will again use my son as a barometer. Cash is not huge into music. He has always loved The Beatles, he loves the music of John Williams from Star Wars fame, and he champions the music that I make out of love. As far as modern music goes, he doesn't care, and doesn't even want to. This will probably change once he hits puberty and then he'll start bringing home crazy new stuff but as of now he is in that pre-pubescent state where music just isn't all that important.
But 'American Idiot' struck a major chord with him. He wanted to read the lyrics. He wanted to talk about the meanings behind the songs. He was impressed by the longer epic tunes and equated them favorably to the longer orchestral pieces that he loves so much by Williams and other classical composers. He was/is in AWE of this album.
Now I'm not saying that because my son likes it it is great. But it pierced the dream world of a child and touched the part of his brain that is already an adult. And kids resist that stuff when you try to impose it on them. To me that says that the content of this album is so perfectly achieved that it rids him of the anxiety that contemplating adult questions naturally elicits in an 11 year old. Of course, he was 6 or 7 when it came out and that quality was even more pronounced back then. He didn't want to listen to music in the car; he wanted to talk to me about Star Wars, or Kermit, or spaceships.
For a modern punk rock opera to grab his attention so forcefully that he stopped that kid-like stream of consciousness and TOOK IT IN is a testament to the clarity and force of the songs.
We're both psyched to pick up '21st Century Breakdown' and talk about it in the car. He's almost old enough to sit up front with me.
Monday, May 11, 2009
7 Greatest Albums: The Streets - 'Original Pirate Material'
London is fucked for me now. All my friends are wankers who owe me money or won't give me a break on the money I owe them. My girl is fucking some other guy and I saw them eating fish and chips out of tiny cardboard containers at some outdoor shop and laughing. Pretty much all I do is drink and smoke and play video games.
The weed seems like it'll help but then I just get all paranoid and creepy. The gray of the city seems to come from inside of me when I'm stoned when what I want is to add some fucking color to shit. The World Cup is going on and I could give two shits. Unless they lose and then I'll probably start a fight with the next Spaniard I see.
See, the trouble is, I blame myself that she's fucking this geezer. I snapped on her about something trite like where she put my hand-held TV after she borrowed it. Don't know why I got so angry but things were never the same after that. I begged her for another chance and she gave it to me but when she started working at that bar in Chelsea I barely saw her. I got a sneaky feeling so I followed her one night after she got out of work and she met this fucking bastard and they smoked up in his car and then she went up into his place. Now when I'm not at darts with my geezers I'm traipsing around SoHo letting them put daggers in me every time they kiss.
Plus I owe a guy a whole lotta cake from this deal I tried to pull off last monf. I bought a bunch of brown (not using that shit yet but you fucking never well know) and passed it on to this numbskull who was trying to get it over to Paris through the Chunnel. Of course he got pinched and now I have to pay up and worry about Scotland Yard all at fuck once.
But, yeah, I still have a good time with my geezers down the pub when I can relax and balance the beer and weed just right. Without them I'd be noffing.
And yeah, this music might be something if I could get some time to work on it. The 808 is busted though. And all I want to write about is how I want to kill the motherfucker who is probably out with my girl right now. Not that I blame her. I did a number on her in the beginning and she just can't let it go.
Memory is a bitch.
I am the last/latest in a long line of outsider philosophers. While I'm scraping along these dirty London streets I am high above it all, staring down at the slate rooftops and pointed steeple spires, and you all seem absurd, rushing about as if your every move mattered past the edge of your molecules. And it don't, homie. It simply don't. All that does matter is a vision of the world that you'll never have, the singular vision, the one that includes all of us, but by very definition this vision is unreachable to any one of us, it cannot be attained. But our belief in that vision while being unable to perceive it is maddening to us so we transfer the intent of thought into meaningless things hoping to infuse them with meaning...a bird, some weed, a football match, a brick of cash. And you'll never see it for what it really is.
Take my word for it. 'Coz I see it all from up here above all you petty little bitches. Don't stop me from crying over her though.
The weed seems like it'll help but then I just get all paranoid and creepy. The gray of the city seems to come from inside of me when I'm stoned when what I want is to add some fucking color to shit. The World Cup is going on and I could give two shits. Unless they lose and then I'll probably start a fight with the next Spaniard I see.
See, the trouble is, I blame myself that she's fucking this geezer. I snapped on her about something trite like where she put my hand-held TV after she borrowed it. Don't know why I got so angry but things were never the same after that. I begged her for another chance and she gave it to me but when she started working at that bar in Chelsea I barely saw her. I got a sneaky feeling so I followed her one night after she got out of work and she met this fucking bastard and they smoked up in his car and then she went up into his place. Now when I'm not at darts with my geezers I'm traipsing around SoHo letting them put daggers in me every time they kiss.
Plus I owe a guy a whole lotta cake from this deal I tried to pull off last monf. I bought a bunch of brown (not using that shit yet but you fucking never well know) and passed it on to this numbskull who was trying to get it over to Paris through the Chunnel. Of course he got pinched and now I have to pay up and worry about Scotland Yard all at fuck once.
But, yeah, I still have a good time with my geezers down the pub when I can relax and balance the beer and weed just right. Without them I'd be noffing.
And yeah, this music might be something if I could get some time to work on it. The 808 is busted though. And all I want to write about is how I want to kill the motherfucker who is probably out with my girl right now. Not that I blame her. I did a number on her in the beginning and she just can't let it go.
Memory is a bitch.
I am the last/latest in a long line of outsider philosophers. While I'm scraping along these dirty London streets I am high above it all, staring down at the slate rooftops and pointed steeple spires, and you all seem absurd, rushing about as if your every move mattered past the edge of your molecules. And it don't, homie. It simply don't. All that does matter is a vision of the world that you'll never have, the singular vision, the one that includes all of us, but by very definition this vision is unreachable to any one of us, it cannot be attained. But our belief in that vision while being unable to perceive it is maddening to us so we transfer the intent of thought into meaningless things hoping to infuse them with meaning...a bird, some weed, a football match, a brick of cash. And you'll never see it for what it really is.
Take my word for it. 'Coz I see it all from up here above all you petty little bitches. Don't stop me from crying over her though.
Thursday, May 7, 2009
8 Greatest Albums: Paul Kelly and the Messengers - 'So Much Water So Close To Home'
I had not read Raymond Carver's short story when I first heard this album so I didn't know what to expect when I heard the title. CD players were new, I was a member of the Columbia House CD club so I was going into debt buying compact discs. This one was an after-thought.
'Sweet Guy' had been on the radio during the fall of '89 and my college life was in full-bore disaster mode. Disaster like a roller-coaster ride, like the moment before you pull the rip-cord on your parachute, the knowledge that you've made some very dangerous choices and the chickens will either be very tasty or coming home to roost and roost fucking hard.
When they came home to roost, they burnt this album onto my psyche. I don't own another Paul Kelly song. I know every note of this album by heart. If you isolated any particular track I could sing it, bass, keyboard, vocals, drums, you name it.
I think I never bought any more music of his because I just couldn't handle another obsession. This is one of those albums that is sheer perfection soup to nuts. Songwriting, performance, production, packaging, perfection.
'You Can't Take It With You' opens the proceedings and it is a sweet pop rock concoction, just a reminder, just a small tap on the shoulder to let you know that you are GOING TO DIE SOMEDAY. The sing-along quality becomes somehow perverse. You are celebrating your own demise, accepting our universal fate by singing in the shower.
Next is 'Sweet Guy' and right away you are put off your guard. It is a rollicking desperate rocker told from the point of view of an abused woman who still can't get enough of her man. He beats her and she keeps coming back for more. She wonders 'what makes such a sweet guy turn so mean'. Now, this isn't uncharted territory, but Kelly sings about it as if HE IS THE WOMAN. This will be a recurring device throughout the collection of songs and it gives the whole work a strange fluid quality, much the way the omniscient narrator does.
He then leaps into sheer romantic territory, embodying a hard-working laborer who can forget all his troubles because he is 'The Most Wanted Man In The World'. The physical connection that he shares with his woman leaves him in wonder at the beauty of the world. From enabling violence to blissful connection, these two songs piggybacked let us know that the whole range of human connection is ripe for exploration.
Next up is 'I Had Forgotten You' and I just don't know how the fuck he does it. There is more melodrama and gossip packed into this song than in the entire 'Desperate Housewives' episode guide. Somehow in a 3 minute rock song that RHYMES, Paul Kelly tells us a story of a man who gets a letter from an old friend. A woman has asked after him. Until the letter arrived he had forgotten all about her. She has been the subject of a lot of talk in the town because she has recently married a man whose wife has just passed away. She had nursed the woman as she died and that connection led them to a romantic relationship. The reader of the letter is then flooded with memories of a long-ago time when he briefly dated the woman. He lays next to his own wife and can barely feel her there. It RHYMES, people.
'She's A Melody (Stupid Song)' follows this and it again takes the opposite approach. Instead of a sucker-punch from a long forgotten flame, this song puts us inside the heart of a man who CANNOT stop thinking about her. In the same way that we get stuck singing some hateful bit of a song, he cannot cease obsessing. To deliberately call to mind those snippets of musical Tourette's and then write a song that embodies that lyrically and musically so that you find yourself humming THIS (STUPID SONG) for days and days is a kind of power that leaves me in awe of Paul Kelly.
In 'South of Germany', Kelly once again becomes a woman. Only this time he is an old woman nearing the end of her life. She's had 7 children. She's led a good life with a good man. But as the end approaches she can't help but think back to an unspecified incident in the South of Germany. A soldier. A love affair. Things would have been so different.
Happy person haunted by memory as well as sad. Kelly seems to be showing us that there is no escape, no hallowed place, no respite from the vagaries of life and love. Even those lucky enough to find and keep a love are still trapped by the specter of what might have been.
'Careless' comes along and it might be the boyfriend from 'Sweet Guy' gone through some enormous transformation. Slowly he sings of having lost his tenderness, of wondering where his kindness went, of how he became so 'Careless'. Once again, the tenor of the song is so bittersweet and the music so gorgeous that to pair it with such hard-fought realization makes for a dagger of emotion.
He jumps back to romance with 'Moon In The Bed' which is a short erotic jolt in which the singer is so turned on by his love that he can only equate it to having a celestial visitor actually under the covers with him.
And just when you think you can relax and enjoy those carnal pleasures, Kelly follows it with a howl of a song called 'No You'. Here all story is stripped away and this narrator keeps waking up astonished to find he is alone, that there is 'No You'. Here the lilting melody is embodied in a searing guitar lick and a snap shot drum which feels like the first slice of cold air hitting you as you trudge to your car the morning after a terrible break-up. There is a hint of romance in the air but it is an after-effect, the image that stays burnt onto your retina once the lights get snapped off.
Here we come to the crown jewel of this perfect album. 'Everything's Turning To White' is Kelly's retelling of the Carver song which gives the album its title. This short story has been re-enacted in the Australian film 'Jindabyne', in 'Short Cuts' by Robert Altman, and probably other times as well.
The song is devastating. For the final time, Kelly becomes a female narrator. She sings a gentle country rock wailer and tells how her husband goes off fishing with his buddies. They find a dead body of a young girl upon arriving at their fishing spot. Instead of rushing to report the find, they move the body out of the way of their fishing and spend three days catching fish. They report it upon returning to civilization.
Something breaks inside the woman when she learns what her husband has done. Or hasn't done really. She feels a million miles away from him. She goes to the funeral and watches. She wonders why he had to go fish there when there was so much water so close to home. In her head, everything's turning to white.
Again, Kelly makes this shit RHYME. It is a lesson in story telling that any artist should pay attention to. There is no extra, the story happens and then ends. The words rhyme but the rhyming is not the point. The story is the point.
Two more songs follow the album but they feel more like bonus tracks to me, proof that life goes on after such atrocity, proof that even the worst of times are followed by other times. And that somehow is worst of all.
Looking back it seems like I knew there wasn't a parachute behind that rip chord. So why did I pull it anyway? Why?
'Sweet Guy' had been on the radio during the fall of '89 and my college life was in full-bore disaster mode. Disaster like a roller-coaster ride, like the moment before you pull the rip-cord on your parachute, the knowledge that you've made some very dangerous choices and the chickens will either be very tasty or coming home to roost and roost fucking hard.
When they came home to roost, they burnt this album onto my psyche. I don't own another Paul Kelly song. I know every note of this album by heart. If you isolated any particular track I could sing it, bass, keyboard, vocals, drums, you name it.
I think I never bought any more music of his because I just couldn't handle another obsession. This is one of those albums that is sheer perfection soup to nuts. Songwriting, performance, production, packaging, perfection.
'You Can't Take It With You' opens the proceedings and it is a sweet pop rock concoction, just a reminder, just a small tap on the shoulder to let you know that you are GOING TO DIE SOMEDAY. The sing-along quality becomes somehow perverse. You are celebrating your own demise, accepting our universal fate by singing in the shower.
Next is 'Sweet Guy' and right away you are put off your guard. It is a rollicking desperate rocker told from the point of view of an abused woman who still can't get enough of her man. He beats her and she keeps coming back for more. She wonders 'what makes such a sweet guy turn so mean'. Now, this isn't uncharted territory, but Kelly sings about it as if HE IS THE WOMAN. This will be a recurring device throughout the collection of songs and it gives the whole work a strange fluid quality, much the way the omniscient narrator does.
He then leaps into sheer romantic territory, embodying a hard-working laborer who can forget all his troubles because he is 'The Most Wanted Man In The World'. The physical connection that he shares with his woman leaves him in wonder at the beauty of the world. From enabling violence to blissful connection, these two songs piggybacked let us know that the whole range of human connection is ripe for exploration.
Next up is 'I Had Forgotten You' and I just don't know how the fuck he does it. There is more melodrama and gossip packed into this song than in the entire 'Desperate Housewives' episode guide. Somehow in a 3 minute rock song that RHYMES, Paul Kelly tells us a story of a man who gets a letter from an old friend. A woman has asked after him. Until the letter arrived he had forgotten all about her. She has been the subject of a lot of talk in the town because she has recently married a man whose wife has just passed away. She had nursed the woman as she died and that connection led them to a romantic relationship. The reader of the letter is then flooded with memories of a long-ago time when he briefly dated the woman. He lays next to his own wife and can barely feel her there. It RHYMES, people.
'She's A Melody (Stupid Song)' follows this and it again takes the opposite approach. Instead of a sucker-punch from a long forgotten flame, this song puts us inside the heart of a man who CANNOT stop thinking about her. In the same way that we get stuck singing some hateful bit of a song, he cannot cease obsessing. To deliberately call to mind those snippets of musical Tourette's and then write a song that embodies that lyrically and musically so that you find yourself humming THIS (STUPID SONG) for days and days is a kind of power that leaves me in awe of Paul Kelly.
In 'South of Germany', Kelly once again becomes a woman. Only this time he is an old woman nearing the end of her life. She's had 7 children. She's led a good life with a good man. But as the end approaches she can't help but think back to an unspecified incident in the South of Germany. A soldier. A love affair. Things would have been so different.
Happy person haunted by memory as well as sad. Kelly seems to be showing us that there is no escape, no hallowed place, no respite from the vagaries of life and love. Even those lucky enough to find and keep a love are still trapped by the specter of what might have been.
'Careless' comes along and it might be the boyfriend from 'Sweet Guy' gone through some enormous transformation. Slowly he sings of having lost his tenderness, of wondering where his kindness went, of how he became so 'Careless'. Once again, the tenor of the song is so bittersweet and the music so gorgeous that to pair it with such hard-fought realization makes for a dagger of emotion.
He jumps back to romance with 'Moon In The Bed' which is a short erotic jolt in which the singer is so turned on by his love that he can only equate it to having a celestial visitor actually under the covers with him.
And just when you think you can relax and enjoy those carnal pleasures, Kelly follows it with a howl of a song called 'No You'. Here all story is stripped away and this narrator keeps waking up astonished to find he is alone, that there is 'No You'. Here the lilting melody is embodied in a searing guitar lick and a snap shot drum which feels like the first slice of cold air hitting you as you trudge to your car the morning after a terrible break-up. There is a hint of romance in the air but it is an after-effect, the image that stays burnt onto your retina once the lights get snapped off.
Here we come to the crown jewel of this perfect album. 'Everything's Turning To White' is Kelly's retelling of the Carver song which gives the album its title. This short story has been re-enacted in the Australian film 'Jindabyne', in 'Short Cuts' by Robert Altman, and probably other times as well.
The song is devastating. For the final time, Kelly becomes a female narrator. She sings a gentle country rock wailer and tells how her husband goes off fishing with his buddies. They find a dead body of a young girl upon arriving at their fishing spot. Instead of rushing to report the find, they move the body out of the way of their fishing and spend three days catching fish. They report it upon returning to civilization.
Something breaks inside the woman when she learns what her husband has done. Or hasn't done really. She feels a million miles away from him. She goes to the funeral and watches. She wonders why he had to go fish there when there was so much water so close to home. In her head, everything's turning to white.
Again, Kelly makes this shit RHYME. It is a lesson in story telling that any artist should pay attention to. There is no extra, the story happens and then ends. The words rhyme but the rhyming is not the point. The story is the point.
Two more songs follow the album but they feel more like bonus tracks to me, proof that life goes on after such atrocity, proof that even the worst of times are followed by other times. And that somehow is worst of all.
Looking back it seems like I knew there wasn't a parachute behind that rip chord. So why did I pull it anyway? Why?
Thursday, April 30, 2009
9 Greatest Albums: Stevie Wonder - 'Innervisions'
Imagine you are preparing for the Singing Olympics. You will be competing against all other singers. The competition goes like this: You don't know what you will sing. It might be rock, it might be opera, it might be R&B, it might be jazz, it might be Broadway, it might be a standard, it might be a folk song.
How the hell do you prepare for these Singing Olympics? (Now that I've imagined them I desperately want them to happen and I want to compete...)
Here is what I would suggest. Put Stevie Wonder's 'Innervisions' on repeat and sing along. If you do that for a year, you will be in great shape. And you will have touched on just about any style you might need to draw on in order to win the Singing Olympics.
Unless of course Stevie himself is entered into the competition.
Then you might as well drop out and watch because you ain't winning. I first heard this album in college and as I wrote about in my reviews of The Who and The Stones, it was still a shock that I would find something I liked in the mainstream. But on closer inspection there is nothing mainstream about this music at all. Sure it is wildly popular but mainstream? Nope. This is experimental, personal, angry, wild, unpredictable, passionate and BIZARRE music.
When you realize that every sound you hear is pretty much being made by Stevie himself, the impact grows. When you know that he fought for creative control and left Motown so that he could stretch away from being the cute kid who played the harmonica, it explodes. 'Living For The City', the famous centerpiece of the album, is shocking TODAY. Imagine how it sounded a mere 5 years after Martin Luther King, Jr. had been assassinated.
But let us go back to the imaginary Singing Olympics for a moment, shall we? In 'Living For The City', we hear the Stevie we've all come to know and love. That voice, clear as a bell, opens the song and we settle into it like you settle into your favorite outfit. It is familiar but perfect. Then the song breaks down into a narrative at the center of it, telling the story of a young black man coming to New York and immediately being railroaded into the penal system by a desperate drug dealer and racist cops. When the vocal line comes back in, Stevie Wonder is virtually unrecognizable.
The melody is still there, yes. But it is buried in a bark, a growl, the voice of a man who is unable to even see the difference in skin color that is somehow at the heart of the tragedy he has imagined. His anger is palpable. It drips in every word and Stevie Wonder, the smiling warm-hearted genius is TERRIFYING. The mere tone of his voice has indictment INSIDE of it somehow.
Flip that emotion on its ear and you will have 'All In Love Is Fair' which just might be the single saddest most beautiful recording of Wonders' career. The plaintive pain that informs the vocal arrangement is so perfectly articulated that you barely notice the effort it takes to achieve it. In other words, the Pyramids have an effect simply by being there. You have to force yourself to imagine a moment when they weren't there. And the work that went into them has completely disappeared but for the final product.
Pop this song on when you are in the shower so you won't be embarrassed. I have been PAID to sing professionally and let me tell you...this shit is IMPOSSIBLE. It goes so high, the lyrics are deceptively simple but hard to articulate clearly, and all of it has to be filled to the brim emotionally or else it will sound like a bad Hallmark card opened on a Grandma's birthday. Opening yourself up to the attempt of singing this song is to almost guarantee that you will burst into tears at some point.
Oh, right, let's go back to the fact that he played every instrument on the album. This is literally the music that happens inside of his head. My ex-wife used to say that his stuff sounds ALIEN, as if it were created by a higher power, or an outside force, something beyond humanity.
Stevie Wonder. Perennial Gold Medalist in the Imaginary Singing Olympics. In fact, let's cancel the competition until he decides to hang it up.
How the hell do you prepare for these Singing Olympics? (Now that I've imagined them I desperately want them to happen and I want to compete...)
Here is what I would suggest. Put Stevie Wonder's 'Innervisions' on repeat and sing along. If you do that for a year, you will be in great shape. And you will have touched on just about any style you might need to draw on in order to win the Singing Olympics.
Unless of course Stevie himself is entered into the competition.
Then you might as well drop out and watch because you ain't winning. I first heard this album in college and as I wrote about in my reviews of The Who and The Stones, it was still a shock that I would find something I liked in the mainstream. But on closer inspection there is nothing mainstream about this music at all. Sure it is wildly popular but mainstream? Nope. This is experimental, personal, angry, wild, unpredictable, passionate and BIZARRE music.
When you realize that every sound you hear is pretty much being made by Stevie himself, the impact grows. When you know that he fought for creative control and left Motown so that he could stretch away from being the cute kid who played the harmonica, it explodes. 'Living For The City', the famous centerpiece of the album, is shocking TODAY. Imagine how it sounded a mere 5 years after Martin Luther King, Jr. had been assassinated.
But let us go back to the imaginary Singing Olympics for a moment, shall we? In 'Living For The City', we hear the Stevie we've all come to know and love. That voice, clear as a bell, opens the song and we settle into it like you settle into your favorite outfit. It is familiar but perfect. Then the song breaks down into a narrative at the center of it, telling the story of a young black man coming to New York and immediately being railroaded into the penal system by a desperate drug dealer and racist cops. When the vocal line comes back in, Stevie Wonder is virtually unrecognizable.
The melody is still there, yes. But it is buried in a bark, a growl, the voice of a man who is unable to even see the difference in skin color that is somehow at the heart of the tragedy he has imagined. His anger is palpable. It drips in every word and Stevie Wonder, the smiling warm-hearted genius is TERRIFYING. The mere tone of his voice has indictment INSIDE of it somehow.
Flip that emotion on its ear and you will have 'All In Love Is Fair' which just might be the single saddest most beautiful recording of Wonders' career. The plaintive pain that informs the vocal arrangement is so perfectly articulated that you barely notice the effort it takes to achieve it. In other words, the Pyramids have an effect simply by being there. You have to force yourself to imagine a moment when they weren't there. And the work that went into them has completely disappeared but for the final product.
Pop this song on when you are in the shower so you won't be embarrassed. I have been PAID to sing professionally and let me tell you...this shit is IMPOSSIBLE. It goes so high, the lyrics are deceptively simple but hard to articulate clearly, and all of it has to be filled to the brim emotionally or else it will sound like a bad Hallmark card opened on a Grandma's birthday. Opening yourself up to the attempt of singing this song is to almost guarantee that you will burst into tears at some point.
Oh, right, let's go back to the fact that he played every instrument on the album. This is literally the music that happens inside of his head. My ex-wife used to say that his stuff sounds ALIEN, as if it were created by a higher power, or an outside force, something beyond humanity.
Stevie Wonder. Perennial Gold Medalist in the Imaginary Singing Olympics. In fact, let's cancel the competition until he decides to hang it up.
Wednesday, April 29, 2009
10 Greatest Albums: The Who - 'Who By Numbers'
I blew off The Who in high school. There was no 'Beggar's Banquet' as there was with the Stones. I lumped them in with the establishment rock and roll that I had come to despise. Boy, was I wrong.
Even now it is hard to look at The Who with a fresh perspective. To imagine you'd never heard them, heard of them, knew anything about them at all. If you could create such circumstances you would have some hypnopomp indeed.
My college years were like most, I suppose, intense partying, new people, new experiences. My world centered around the theater department which was a world like any other undergrad world, with maybe a higher percentage of out-of-the-closet gay folks. This was the late '80's the difference between then and now is like the difference between answering machines and cell phones.
My tastes weren't really expanding into more mainstream areas. The new stuff I was hearing was mainly euro-pop like Erasure, New Order, Bronski Beat, etc. I wasn't crazy about this music. It had technical perfection and glossy beats but there seemed to be some sort of hole at the center of it.
Into that atmosphere came a couple of guys. One was actually a high school friend who'd briefly played bass in my band. Joe was a DJ at WRIU and took classes in the theater department. He was a good actor but mainly he enjoyed being behind the scenes. Stage managing, building sets, etc. He and another guy named Bill had similar tastes in music and they became friends.
I still can remember the first night I wound up hanging out with them down by Narragansett Beach. Bill had a huge record collection and we got beer and sat down to enjoy it. While he and Joe had nothing against punk rock, they held The Who, The Stones, Roy Orbison, and Buddy Holly in as high esteem as I did The Replacements, Husker Du, and The Clash.
Bill went to play a Who record and I made some sort of nasty snorting sound and said something negative. You'd have thought I'd insulted his mother. He and Joe then proceeded to lecture me for (I'm not kidding) an hour and a half about why I was wrong, how full of shit I was, and how I simply did not have the information I needed.
I begrudgingly admitted that I had heard 'My Generation' and maybe 'Pinball Wizard'. To this day I don't like those songs because the shadow of my punk prejudice hangs over them.
Then Bill opened me a Budweiser and played The Who's 'Who By Numbers' from front to back. And by the time it was over I was apologizing to Bill, Joe, and the members of The Who for my ignorance and malarkey.
I also found it ironic that in a year in which I'd been introduced to a whole subset of gay artists that the gayest thing I'd hear would be an album by The Who. To me it is clear that Pete Townshend is struggling to define his sexuality here, chafing at the restriction that fame puts on his interactions with people, and feeling as if the perception that people have of him is at odds with his real truth.
Many have doubted that Townshend ever ventured into any gay relationships. But here is the opening stanza of 'How Many Friends', a blistering self-excoriation that comes at the close of the album.
I'm feelin' so good right now
There's a handsome boy tells me how I changed his past
He buys me a brandy
But could it be he's really just after my ass?
Now, I might be jumping to conclusions here...um, is it me?
In any case, whether he is or he isn't gay, did or didn't sleep with men, the point is that he is introducing the subject matter as a reality unto itself. The greater questions at the heart of the album are all about identity and what happens to a person when they are seen as something that they are not, or as something they desperately want to be but cannot.
This album is one long howl of pain, all dressed up in beautiful melody, bouncing bass lines, pounding drums, and soaring guitar solos. If you didn't know English your basic response might be enthusiasm, or vigor. These songs are calls to action musically. But when you climb inside the lyrics they are a morass of self-doubt, hatred, and questioning.
To a sheltered kid at college it was like a bolt of lightning from the sky. I had been wrong! The Who were as amazing as everyone said. And subversive! And ballsy! At the height of their fame they're singing about getting picked up in a bar by a young guy and being a 'well-fucked sailor'. I mean, are you kidding me? Total bad ass-ness.
In the middle of the album is a small song. It doesn't call much attention to itself but I think it is The Who's finest moment. It is called 'Blue Red and Grey'. I'm going to include the entire lyric sheet here...
Blue, Red and Grey
Some people seem so obsessed with the morning
Get up early just to watch the sun rise
Some people like it more when there's fire in the sky
Worship the sun when it's high
Some people go for those sultry evenings
Sipping cocktails in the blue, red and grey
But I like every minute of the day
I like every second, so long as you are on my mind
Every moment has its special charm
It's all right when you're around, rain or shine
I know a crowd who only live after midnight
Their faces always seem so pale
And then there's friends of mine who must have sunlight
They say a suntan never fails
I know a man who works the night shift
He's lucky to get a job and some pay
And I like every minute of the day
I dig every second
I can laugh in the snow and rain
I get a buzz from being cold and wet
The pleasure seems to balance out the pain
And so you see that I'm completely crazy
I even shun the south of France
The people on the hill, they say I'm lazy
But when they sleep, I sing and dance
Some people have to have the sultry evenings
Cocktails in the blue, red and grey
But I like every minute of the day
I like every minute of the day
_______________________________________________
I was on the verge of adulthood. But I was still a kid. I had no responsibilities other than finding my favorite party or rehearsing some new play. This hint of optimism in the middle of that dark pool of regret and pain moved me very deeply.
The bravery it takes to say, "Hey, I love EVERY SECOND THAT I'M ALIVE", the determined absence of jaded cynicism in that sentiment, got me through many of my darkest college days, days when I felt like a paint-by-numbers sketch myself, when it felt like I was an outline for others to fill in.
When I had no idea who I really was.
Even now it is hard to look at The Who with a fresh perspective. To imagine you'd never heard them, heard of them, knew anything about them at all. If you could create such circumstances you would have some hypnopomp indeed.
My college years were like most, I suppose, intense partying, new people, new experiences. My world centered around the theater department which was a world like any other undergrad world, with maybe a higher percentage of out-of-the-closet gay folks. This was the late '80's the difference between then and now is like the difference between answering machines and cell phones.
My tastes weren't really expanding into more mainstream areas. The new stuff I was hearing was mainly euro-pop like Erasure, New Order, Bronski Beat, etc. I wasn't crazy about this music. It had technical perfection and glossy beats but there seemed to be some sort of hole at the center of it.
Into that atmosphere came a couple of guys. One was actually a high school friend who'd briefly played bass in my band. Joe was a DJ at WRIU and took classes in the theater department. He was a good actor but mainly he enjoyed being behind the scenes. Stage managing, building sets, etc. He and another guy named Bill had similar tastes in music and they became friends.
I still can remember the first night I wound up hanging out with them down by Narragansett Beach. Bill had a huge record collection and we got beer and sat down to enjoy it. While he and Joe had nothing against punk rock, they held The Who, The Stones, Roy Orbison, and Buddy Holly in as high esteem as I did The Replacements, Husker Du, and The Clash.
Bill went to play a Who record and I made some sort of nasty snorting sound and said something negative. You'd have thought I'd insulted his mother. He and Joe then proceeded to lecture me for (I'm not kidding) an hour and a half about why I was wrong, how full of shit I was, and how I simply did not have the information I needed.
I begrudgingly admitted that I had heard 'My Generation' and maybe 'Pinball Wizard'. To this day I don't like those songs because the shadow of my punk prejudice hangs over them.
Then Bill opened me a Budweiser and played The Who's 'Who By Numbers' from front to back. And by the time it was over I was apologizing to Bill, Joe, and the members of The Who for my ignorance and malarkey.
I also found it ironic that in a year in which I'd been introduced to a whole subset of gay artists that the gayest thing I'd hear would be an album by The Who. To me it is clear that Pete Townshend is struggling to define his sexuality here, chafing at the restriction that fame puts on his interactions with people, and feeling as if the perception that people have of him is at odds with his real truth.
Many have doubted that Townshend ever ventured into any gay relationships. But here is the opening stanza of 'How Many Friends', a blistering self-excoriation that comes at the close of the album.
I'm feelin' so good right now
There's a handsome boy tells me how I changed his past
He buys me a brandy
But could it be he's really just after my ass?
Now, I might be jumping to conclusions here...um, is it me?
In any case, whether he is or he isn't gay, did or didn't sleep with men, the point is that he is introducing the subject matter as a reality unto itself. The greater questions at the heart of the album are all about identity and what happens to a person when they are seen as something that they are not, or as something they desperately want to be but cannot.
This album is one long howl of pain, all dressed up in beautiful melody, bouncing bass lines, pounding drums, and soaring guitar solos. If you didn't know English your basic response might be enthusiasm, or vigor. These songs are calls to action musically. But when you climb inside the lyrics they are a morass of self-doubt, hatred, and questioning.
To a sheltered kid at college it was like a bolt of lightning from the sky. I had been wrong! The Who were as amazing as everyone said. And subversive! And ballsy! At the height of their fame they're singing about getting picked up in a bar by a young guy and being a 'well-fucked sailor'. I mean, are you kidding me? Total bad ass-ness.
In the middle of the album is a small song. It doesn't call much attention to itself but I think it is The Who's finest moment. It is called 'Blue Red and Grey'. I'm going to include the entire lyric sheet here...
Blue, Red and Grey
Some people seem so obsessed with the morning
Get up early just to watch the sun rise
Some people like it more when there's fire in the sky
Worship the sun when it's high
Some people go for those sultry evenings
Sipping cocktails in the blue, red and grey
But I like every minute of the day
I like every second, so long as you are on my mind
Every moment has its special charm
It's all right when you're around, rain or shine
I know a crowd who only live after midnight
Their faces always seem so pale
And then there's friends of mine who must have sunlight
They say a suntan never fails
I know a man who works the night shift
He's lucky to get a job and some pay
And I like every minute of the day
I dig every second
I can laugh in the snow and rain
I get a buzz from being cold and wet
The pleasure seems to balance out the pain
And so you see that I'm completely crazy
I even shun the south of France
The people on the hill, they say I'm lazy
But when they sleep, I sing and dance
Some people have to have the sultry evenings
Cocktails in the blue, red and grey
But I like every minute of the day
I like every minute of the day
_______________________________________________
I was on the verge of adulthood. But I was still a kid. I had no responsibilities other than finding my favorite party or rehearsing some new play. This hint of optimism in the middle of that dark pool of regret and pain moved me very deeply.
The bravery it takes to say, "Hey, I love EVERY SECOND THAT I'M ALIVE", the determined absence of jaded cynicism in that sentiment, got me through many of my darkest college days, days when I felt like a paint-by-numbers sketch myself, when it felt like I was an outline for others to fill in.
When I had no idea who I really was.
Tuesday, April 28, 2009
11 Greatest Albums: The Z-Digs - 'Scared Crows'
A boy watches his father die. He is the youngest of many children and yet he is already somehow the head of the household. He is an odd mix of achiever and artist. His wanderlust led him to the Peace Corps. During his time in Guinea Bissau he happened to read 'The English Patient'. Now, 15 years later, after a world traveling circuitous path, he works for the United Nations helping nations deal with unexploded land mines. If this trajectory were all you paid attention to you would have a lot to unearth.
But there is another side to his story.
In high school he was the wild card guitar player in Fecund Youth. Seemingly from the instant he picked the instrument up he was a lead guitar player. Not everyone has this impulse. I have played guitar now for 20 years and it is still difficult for me to 'solo'. Justin Brady was soloing almost before he knew how to play the damn thing. That's probably why he's so good.
He and I wrote a couple songs in high school, a couple good ones, actually, but he was definitely the George Harrison of our band. He came late and his creativity was not the focal point. He got to college and started his own band where he did most of the writing, music and lyrics. I was shocked (and am still shocked) that he chose a fraternity brother of his to be the singer. I wasn't even considered! Can you imagine? Sure I had no time because I was in 8,000 plays every semester and sure he was a member of the fraternity and I wasn't, but still...shocked I tell you. Shocked.
The Mag 7 was a very good band. But Justin still hadn't taken that final step. Once he bought a 4-track recorder it was only a matter of time. He began singing his own material. And that's when shit went crazy.
It is impossible to describe Justin's voice. In all honesty, it shouldn't work. It's like Neil Young. I still wonder whether Neil can sing or not. Justin is the same way. But the authenticity of that voice paired with the idiosyncratic nature of his songs brought his aesthetic out of hiding. The songs didn't have the same impact with someone else singing the melody.
Little by little he built an album. Most of these songs I'd heard at one time or another. Justin and I would have long bouts of creativity where we wrote, sang, improvised, joked, laughed, you name it. Then a few weeks would go by where I didn't see him and he'd play me what he'd recorded. Often I'd recognize some snippet that he'd come up with on the spot out on the turf farm next to his house or in the backyard down by the river.
At some point I expect Justin to make this music available to the public at large.
I include this album on this list for sentimental reasons, yes. He is my best friend. This album probably spurred my songwriting more than any other because it was a direct influence...my friend wrote it. But make no mistake...these are great songs. The production is intricate and balanced even though it is home-made. The emotional scope is vast and I defy anyone to remain unmoved when they hear 'Luka Blooms', the imagined words of a dead father sent back to give his son what he needs.
So, yeah, Justin has saved countless actual lives with the work he has done at the United Nations. That is important. But before he ever became a modern day super hero he had already recorded one hell of a debut album.
But there is another side to his story.
In high school he was the wild card guitar player in Fecund Youth. Seemingly from the instant he picked the instrument up he was a lead guitar player. Not everyone has this impulse. I have played guitar now for 20 years and it is still difficult for me to 'solo'. Justin Brady was soloing almost before he knew how to play the damn thing. That's probably why he's so good.
He and I wrote a couple songs in high school, a couple good ones, actually, but he was definitely the George Harrison of our band. He came late and his creativity was not the focal point. He got to college and started his own band where he did most of the writing, music and lyrics. I was shocked (and am still shocked) that he chose a fraternity brother of his to be the singer. I wasn't even considered! Can you imagine? Sure I had no time because I was in 8,000 plays every semester and sure he was a member of the fraternity and I wasn't, but still...shocked I tell you. Shocked.
The Mag 7 was a very good band. But Justin still hadn't taken that final step. Once he bought a 4-track recorder it was only a matter of time. He began singing his own material. And that's when shit went crazy.
It is impossible to describe Justin's voice. In all honesty, it shouldn't work. It's like Neil Young. I still wonder whether Neil can sing or not. Justin is the same way. But the authenticity of that voice paired with the idiosyncratic nature of his songs brought his aesthetic out of hiding. The songs didn't have the same impact with someone else singing the melody.
Little by little he built an album. Most of these songs I'd heard at one time or another. Justin and I would have long bouts of creativity where we wrote, sang, improvised, joked, laughed, you name it. Then a few weeks would go by where I didn't see him and he'd play me what he'd recorded. Often I'd recognize some snippet that he'd come up with on the spot out on the turf farm next to his house or in the backyard down by the river.
At some point I expect Justin to make this music available to the public at large.
I include this album on this list for sentimental reasons, yes. He is my best friend. This album probably spurred my songwriting more than any other because it was a direct influence...my friend wrote it. But make no mistake...these are great songs. The production is intricate and balanced even though it is home-made. The emotional scope is vast and I defy anyone to remain unmoved when they hear 'Luka Blooms', the imagined words of a dead father sent back to give his son what he needs.
So, yeah, Justin has saved countless actual lives with the work he has done at the United Nations. That is important. But before he ever became a modern day super hero he had already recorded one hell of a debut album.
Monday, April 27, 2009
12 Greatest Albums: Public Enemy - 'Yo! Bum Rush The Show!'
In 1986 the blackest music I had in my collection was Prince, and as we all know he hails from Planet Purple, not Black America. I listened to angry music made by young white suburban males. And show tunes. What can I say, I was confused.
I spent an awful lot of time flipping through album covers at Ritchie's House of Bargains, the only local record store. I come from Rhode Island, supposedly a bastion of the liberal north east, but if you'd observed the stacks of Ritchie's House of Bargains you'd have thought there needed to be a sit-in.
If 5 black people and 5 white people were in the store at the same time they could browse and never cross paths. It is similar today in that music has fragmented to such a degree but the divisions then were startling.
One day I was in the store and it was empty. Now I remind you that I listened to nothing but punk rock at this point. I had disowned Prince briefly. Rap was a burgeoning force but I dismissed it as bubble-gum and silly and not creative enough. They aren't playing instruments? That ain't music. Drum machines? That ain't music. No singing? That ain't music.
For some reason, on this particular day, these prejudices were not sufficient enough to keep me from flipping through the rap section. I must have been curious enough to eschew my regular post, waiting for the latest Neutral Nation, 7 Seconds, Descendents, Circle Jerks, Meatmen, Dead Kennedys or Verbal Assault record to appear in the stacks.
So there I flip. My contact with rap had been limited to Run D.M.C., The Beastie Boys, The Sugarhill Gang, and Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five. 'The Message' had caused a sensation when I was in sixth grade but I wasn't really plugged in to popular music at the time. (See above reference to show tunes...ahem.)
Then an album cover leaped out at me. A bare light bulb glares directly into the lens. 7 young black men dressed in vaguely military gear gather around a turntable. The vibe is that of a group preparing for battle.
And their name was Public Enemy. Now I came from the punk world with band names like Social Distortion, Corrosion of Conformity, Youth Brigade, etc. But Public Enemy? Before I even heard a note I knew that this was way more punk rock than anything I was listening to. Even if I didn't like the music I connected to the attitude.
I spent some of my hard earned money. I worked weekends at Belmont Fruit occasionally and over vacations. Anything I wanted I had to buy on my own. There was one copy of the album in the store.
I got it home and put it on. In punk rock, the bare-bones production allowed the emotional content to be completely direct, unencumbered by studio polish or even songwriting craft. Much the same can be said for 'Yo! Bum Rush The Show!'. I became quite a Public Enemy fan and when you compare this album to their later greats there is a vast difference. This are no bells no whistles all force and beat.
What I liked (and like) about it is that you can hear the determination behind the sound. We only have this drum machine? We can only record for a short period of time due to finances? Don't matter. What we have to say is all that matters. You could play a metronome behind Chuck D and it would be compelling.
The instant his voice bangs out in the opening songs, 'You're Gonna Get Yours' it is clear that this is no mere front-man, no mere performer. He is incapable of a song that isn't politically charged, historic in significance. Even something that seems like a sexist rant against a 'Sophisticated Bitch' is rife with the implication that a weak personality in a black woman has social ramifications unlike those for a white woman. Incredibly challenging and difficult material.
Basically I flipped my lid. And wouldn't you know it? A few of my punk rock compadres showed their true colors (pun intended) in their reaction to the mere possibility of putting these black punks up against the white punks they so revered.
Much like many of the choices I highlight here, there are many caveats. I don't even feel that this is the best pure Public Enemy album. That honor for me would go to 'Apocalypse '91: The Enemy Strikes Black'. But I will never forget the thrill I got when those manufactured beats came roaring out of my shitty little speakers.
Public Enemy. Just take a second to say the name stripped of your previous knowledge. PUBLIC ENEMY # 1.
I never looked at the world the same way after hearing that album for the first time. How many works of art can say they affected ANYBODY that way? Let alone the millions Public Enemy reached.
Indeed, it took a nation of millions.
I spent an awful lot of time flipping through album covers at Ritchie's House of Bargains, the only local record store. I come from Rhode Island, supposedly a bastion of the liberal north east, but if you'd observed the stacks of Ritchie's House of Bargains you'd have thought there needed to be a sit-in.
If 5 black people and 5 white people were in the store at the same time they could browse and never cross paths. It is similar today in that music has fragmented to such a degree but the divisions then were startling.
One day I was in the store and it was empty. Now I remind you that I listened to nothing but punk rock at this point. I had disowned Prince briefly. Rap was a burgeoning force but I dismissed it as bubble-gum and silly and not creative enough. They aren't playing instruments? That ain't music. Drum machines? That ain't music. No singing? That ain't music.
For some reason, on this particular day, these prejudices were not sufficient enough to keep me from flipping through the rap section. I must have been curious enough to eschew my regular post, waiting for the latest Neutral Nation, 7 Seconds, Descendents, Circle Jerks, Meatmen, Dead Kennedys or Verbal Assault record to appear in the stacks.
So there I flip. My contact with rap had been limited to Run D.M.C., The Beastie Boys, The Sugarhill Gang, and Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five. 'The Message' had caused a sensation when I was in sixth grade but I wasn't really plugged in to popular music at the time. (See above reference to show tunes...ahem.)
Then an album cover leaped out at me. A bare light bulb glares directly into the lens. 7 young black men dressed in vaguely military gear gather around a turntable. The vibe is that of a group preparing for battle.
And their name was Public Enemy. Now I came from the punk world with band names like Social Distortion, Corrosion of Conformity, Youth Brigade, etc. But Public Enemy? Before I even heard a note I knew that this was way more punk rock than anything I was listening to. Even if I didn't like the music I connected to the attitude.
I spent some of my hard earned money. I worked weekends at Belmont Fruit occasionally and over vacations. Anything I wanted I had to buy on my own. There was one copy of the album in the store.
I got it home and put it on. In punk rock, the bare-bones production allowed the emotional content to be completely direct, unencumbered by studio polish or even songwriting craft. Much the same can be said for 'Yo! Bum Rush The Show!'. I became quite a Public Enemy fan and when you compare this album to their later greats there is a vast difference. This are no bells no whistles all force and beat.
What I liked (and like) about it is that you can hear the determination behind the sound. We only have this drum machine? We can only record for a short period of time due to finances? Don't matter. What we have to say is all that matters. You could play a metronome behind Chuck D and it would be compelling.
The instant his voice bangs out in the opening songs, 'You're Gonna Get Yours' it is clear that this is no mere front-man, no mere performer. He is incapable of a song that isn't politically charged, historic in significance. Even something that seems like a sexist rant against a 'Sophisticated Bitch' is rife with the implication that a weak personality in a black woman has social ramifications unlike those for a white woman. Incredibly challenging and difficult material.
Basically I flipped my lid. And wouldn't you know it? A few of my punk rock compadres showed their true colors (pun intended) in their reaction to the mere possibility of putting these black punks up against the white punks they so revered.
Much like many of the choices I highlight here, there are many caveats. I don't even feel that this is the best pure Public Enemy album. That honor for me would go to 'Apocalypse '91: The Enemy Strikes Black'. But I will never forget the thrill I got when those manufactured beats came roaring out of my shitty little speakers.
Public Enemy. Just take a second to say the name stripped of your previous knowledge. PUBLIC ENEMY # 1.
I never looked at the world the same way after hearing that album for the first time. How many works of art can say they affected ANYBODY that way? Let alone the millions Public Enemy reached.
Indeed, it took a nation of millions.
Thursday, April 23, 2009
13 Greatest Albums: The Sex Pistols - 'Never Mind The Bollocks'
Ever since I can remember I've been angry. It has taken me 40 years to realize that this is not anything brought on by external forces. It is primal. It is soulful. Denying that anger is a baseline for me would be like arguing that my teeth were artificially implanted in my head.
I don't know of any other album that more perfectly captures the sense of what a fit of anger feels like.
The Sex Pistols 'Never Mind The Bollocks' album is a work of art so perfectly realized that you can almost be fooled into thinking that it is artless, that it is the pure form of what it expresses. In other words, it so perfectly embodies rage that one could mistakenly label it as merely an after-effect of rage, instead of a masterful evocation of it.
The music industry was so threatened by these guys that they thought they had no choice but to deride this as mere juvenile ranting, the bark and howl of an underclass that is not worth a nickel. They didn't mind making money off of it but they sure as shit weren't going to hold it up and say, "This is a flawless work." Which it is.
In the 32 years since it was released (!?$#?), music has exploded. Rage has become an economic juggernaut. Volume has increased, censorship both implied and explicit has ebbed, and no one is shocked when they encounter uncomfortable topics presented with all the unpleasant details right out front.
But when The Sex Pistols hit the scene, this was far from the case. They were unseemly. They were unruly. They had unabashed scorn for anything that smacked of the establishment. They hated hippies as much as businessmen. Those baby boomers who thought their softly strummed odes to fucking while stoned were going to change the world were the biggest resisters to the noise and clamor of these hooligans.
Lost in all of that is a gem of a record. Sid Vicious killed more than a couple of junkies that night in the Chelsea Hotel. He also killed any real chance that The Sex Pistols had to be viewed as anything other than an aberration, instead of a meteor.
Getting back to the changes in the record industry, what strikes me is that, as comfortable as everyone has gotten with rote expressions of anger and disappointment (nu metal, grunge, rap/rock, gangsta rap, emo-core, etc.), 'Bollocks' puts it all to shame. Even me with my affinity for anger, for loud uncompromising music, even I find myself wanting to tell Johnny Rotten to shut the hell up, to behave, to act like a gentleman. He is relentless in his vocal attack, seeming to rip convention to shreds with every line.
And this clarity extends right into the production of the album itself. This was no mere angry spurt. The sound of that album is like a chainsaw with a grudge. It is as clear as a bell which gives the emotional content even more weight because they aren't willing to let you escape one second of it via a muddy mix, a muffled drum beat, a garbled lyric. Each musical moment is like a shining dagger headed right for your chest.
Thrilling challenging exasperating alienating incriminating and exterminating. The Sex Pistols killed the 1960's and it was about the fuck time.
As I mentioned at the top, I am almost always angry on a cellular level. Somehow if you were able to test my DNA for rage you'd get an off the charts reading. If you could trace anger itself as an evolutionary force you would slide into the DNA and travel back in time through each scream, each punch, each threat, each explosion. And lo and behold, at the beginning of it all, at the moment that God created anger, you would hear his booming voice in the halls of heaven. He would warn you about the evils of this emotion, how it will warp you and rob you of human connection.
And The Sex Pistols would burst in and say, "Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain."
I don't know of any other album that more perfectly captures the sense of what a fit of anger feels like.
The Sex Pistols 'Never Mind The Bollocks' album is a work of art so perfectly realized that you can almost be fooled into thinking that it is artless, that it is the pure form of what it expresses. In other words, it so perfectly embodies rage that one could mistakenly label it as merely an after-effect of rage, instead of a masterful evocation of it.
The music industry was so threatened by these guys that they thought they had no choice but to deride this as mere juvenile ranting, the bark and howl of an underclass that is not worth a nickel. They didn't mind making money off of it but they sure as shit weren't going to hold it up and say, "This is a flawless work." Which it is.
In the 32 years since it was released (!?$#?), music has exploded. Rage has become an economic juggernaut. Volume has increased, censorship both implied and explicit has ebbed, and no one is shocked when they encounter uncomfortable topics presented with all the unpleasant details right out front.
But when The Sex Pistols hit the scene, this was far from the case. They were unseemly. They were unruly. They had unabashed scorn for anything that smacked of the establishment. They hated hippies as much as businessmen. Those baby boomers who thought their softly strummed odes to fucking while stoned were going to change the world were the biggest resisters to the noise and clamor of these hooligans.
Lost in all of that is a gem of a record. Sid Vicious killed more than a couple of junkies that night in the Chelsea Hotel. He also killed any real chance that The Sex Pistols had to be viewed as anything other than an aberration, instead of a meteor.
Getting back to the changes in the record industry, what strikes me is that, as comfortable as everyone has gotten with rote expressions of anger and disappointment (nu metal, grunge, rap/rock, gangsta rap, emo-core, etc.), 'Bollocks' puts it all to shame. Even me with my affinity for anger, for loud uncompromising music, even I find myself wanting to tell Johnny Rotten to shut the hell up, to behave, to act like a gentleman. He is relentless in his vocal attack, seeming to rip convention to shreds with every line.
And this clarity extends right into the production of the album itself. This was no mere angry spurt. The sound of that album is like a chainsaw with a grudge. It is as clear as a bell which gives the emotional content even more weight because they aren't willing to let you escape one second of it via a muddy mix, a muffled drum beat, a garbled lyric. Each musical moment is like a shining dagger headed right for your chest.
Thrilling challenging exasperating alienating incriminating and exterminating. The Sex Pistols killed the 1960's and it was about the fuck time.
As I mentioned at the top, I am almost always angry on a cellular level. Somehow if you were able to test my DNA for rage you'd get an off the charts reading. If you could trace anger itself as an evolutionary force you would slide into the DNA and travel back in time through each scream, each punch, each threat, each explosion. And lo and behold, at the beginning of it all, at the moment that God created anger, you would hear his booming voice in the halls of heaven. He would warn you about the evils of this emotion, how it will warp you and rob you of human connection.
And The Sex Pistols would burst in and say, "Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain."
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