CD Odyssey Disc 545: The Beastie Boys

I’m just back from my first workout in over a week and a half.  It went surprisingly well.  A workout is one of those things you never look forward to, but are always glad you went.

Disc 545 is…. Check Your Head

Artist: Beastie Boys

Year of Release: 1992

What’s up with the Cover?  A very hip hop cover, with the boys looking cool n’ urban.  I assume they are waiting for the bus or something. They have instruments with them, which foreshadows their foray into playing some jazzy licks on this record, but more on that later…

How I Came To Know It:  This was just me drilling through the Beastie Boys collection, although I bought this one pretty early.  My friends Casey and Nick both had it and it was often quoted in my circle of friends (more on that later as well) so it was an easy pick.

How It Stacks Up:  I have nine Beastie Boys albums, including their two instrumentals.  “Check Your Head” is good, but hardly their best.  I’ll put it sixth.

Rating:  3 stars

Three albums into their career, “Check Your Head” showed once again that the Beastie Boys weren’t content with simply being a bunch of white kids taking the rap world by storm.  They were intent on experimenting with the style in as many directions as possible.

This makes “Check Your Head” a damned interesting album, and a piece of music history.  It also prevents it from having much focus, detracting from what it is trying to accomplish.

On the rap front, the Boys are in fine form from the outset, with “Jimmy James” a funky masterpiece and “So Whatcha Want” introducing audiences everywhere to the power of the squawk box.  The fact that artists would go on to abuse and misuse the power of the squawk box is not the Beastie Boys fault any more than Pearl Jam can be blamed for Creed.  Nickelback however, can be blamed entirely for Daughtry, and many other auditory atrocities besides.  But I digress…

Back to “So Whatcha Want” a deserving hit song, chock full of down and dirty energy and rhymes that sound like they are being spat onto the mike.  Every one of the Beasties is right in the pocket on their raps on this song and as noted above, the squawk box effect actually makes things better.  The song features rock guitar offset against some grade A scratching.

The Beastie Boys’ sense of humour is also everpresent, and there are a few songs that became heavily quoted among my circle of friends in the day.  “Funky Boss” is only 1:35 long but spitting “funky boss, get off my back!” in a fake (for us) New York accent was always great therapy after a hard day of work.  I’ve been pretty lucky in the boss department, but this song is the anthem for all those out there that aren’t so fortunate. 

The bass sample at the beginning always sounds to me like the beginning of the song on “The People’s Court” and I expect Judge Wapner to enter at any moment.  After his judgment the Beastie Boys would probably tell them to get off their backs, of course.  For years I operated under this sampling assumption and only recently found it was actually from some obscure song.  I think I have the song, but now that I’m writing the review I can’t find the damned thing.  Like a missing pen, I’ll find it as soon as I’m finished and no longer need it.

The other winner is “Professor Booty” which begins with a little dialogue:

Man’s Voice:  “Professor, what’s another word for pirate treasure?”

Professor:  “Why I think it’s…booty!”

Damn that line got used a lot in my feckless youth and it still gets quoted even now.  I’d say it was overused, but I’m not sure that’s possible.  It’s fresh, funny and extraordinarily helpful when working on a crossword puzzle.

Like previous albums, there are a lot of seventies influences, both soul and rock, but the Boys also branch out into jazz-inspired instrumentals.  On these tracks, which are also very groovy, they aren’t sampling, but rather playing their own instruments, showing a whole new side to their talent.  Four of the songs, “Groove Holmes”, “POW”, “In 3s” and “Namaste” would show up four years later on their first entirely instrumental “The In Sound From Way Out.”

It is an interesting experience, but I would have debuted all four tracks on the later record rather than extend “Check Your Head” which is already very bloated at twenty tracks.  The Beastie Boys are exploding with creative talent but “Check Your Head” just has too much filler surrounding all the highlights and listening to it from front to back is a bit of chore, despite its innovation.  Know when to say when, guys.

Best tracks:  Jimmy James, Funky Boss, So Whatcha Want, Professor Booty

CD Odyssey Disc 544: REM

Happy Monday!  I have today off, which is great because I need a little decompression time after a busy weekend.  I went to my twenty-fifth high school reunion this weekend.  Overall it was a pretty positive experience, and nice to reconnect with some people I hadn’t seen in a long while.

Perhaps it is fitting that my next album was released when I was in high school, even if at the time I never gave it the attention it deserved.

Disc 544 is…. Document

Artist: R.E.M.

Year of Release: 1987

What’s up with the Cover?  It appears to be Michael Stipe’s assignment from some first year photography course.  A bunch of pictures have been taken, apparently without advancing the film, one of which is a self-portrait.  Through the power of photography we can reveal that Stipe once had hair, but the photo is so busy we can’t learn much beyond that.

How I Came To Know It:  Sheila was into R.E.M. when I met her, and she raved about how great this album was.  She was right.

How It Stacks Up:  We have six R.E.M. albums and although Sheila would put this one second, I think I’m putting it first.

Rating:  4 stars

While hard core R.E.M. fans will often point to “Life’s Rich Pageant” as the greatest R.E.M. album, it was “Document” that – for good or ill – put the band into the mainstream consciousness.  This is quite a feat for a band that went to such painful lengths to stay independent and non-commercial (note to modern indie bands, being popular doesn’t mean you make bad music, it just means that you make more money making music, and that’s OK).

In high school if something was popular you could pretty much count on me not liking it.  While this iconoclasm still rears its ugly head from time to time, fortunately over the years I’ve realized that applying it to musical tastes just means you miss out on a lot of great music.  I am now making up for lost time.

“Document” is a collection of great music, from an era where the album was a set piece, and not just a collection of singles you could download one at a time for your i-Thingy.  The songs have a thick, room-filling quality to them.  It starts with singer Michael Stipe’s voice and Peter Buck’s guitar, both of which have a vibrato to them that perfectly complement each other.  The whole band is very tight and despite all the musical layers going on concurrently in these songs, they never feel busy or over-stuffed.

As noted earlier, “Document” extended R.E.M.’s career out of the university coffee houses and into the living rooms of mainstream America.  The two big songs on it that accomplished this are very different from each other.

“It’s the End of the World As We Know It (And I Feel Fine)” is a frenetic, slam-dance inducing track, loaded with enough pop culture references to challenge its awful and unlistenable cousin, Billy Joel’s “We Didn’t Start the Fire.”  “End of the World…” is better than that crap, but it still feels a bit too overstuffed.  The music is fine, but lyrically it tries to cover too much ground, as it attempts comment on a whole host of societal ills.  At least it is partly redeemed by a very catchy chorus.

By contrast, the other big hit, “The One I Love” is intimate and filled with longing.  It no doubt inspired many a young love in 1987 (as noted above, first in university coffee-houses and later everywhere else).  Stipe is at his best when he gets his hurt on.  He manages to pull of the pale and wan poet and never seem whiny.  Instead this is a simple love song, from a complicated man.

“The One I Love” is a classic, but what makes “Document” such a strong record for me are the many underappreciated deep cuts.  “Exhuming McCarthy” is a great example, wrapping Orwellian, deeply political lyrics in a sugar-coated triumphant melody.  It is a fine bit of subversive music making.  1992’s “Ignoreland” does the same thing, but beats you over the head with the message.  “Exhuming McCarthy” is not only a better overall song, it is a lot more subtle as it reminds listeners to always be on the lookout for the next Joseph McCarthy who will have you:

“Sharpening stones

Walking on coals

To improve your business acumen.”

Bonus points for getting the expression “business acumen” in a song lyric without it seeming forced.

My favourite song on the record is “King of Birds.” This is a song that despite the very limited space on my MP3 player (2 GB) never gets removed.  The haunting repetition of the line “standing on the shoulders of giants, leaves me cold” always resonates deeply for me.  As with most of R.E.M.’s songs, you’re never entirely sure what it is about, but for me it is a constant reminder to not be over-wise.  There are a lot more things we don’t know than things we do know.  Just as importantly, most things we do know are built on massive assumptions, our foundations being inherited by other people that did the real work.

Years ago I read an article (the writer’s name escapes me) describing what it was like to learn a martial art.  Basically, everyone comes to martial arts with the same lack of knowledge and has to slowly build from the ground up.  By the time someone is a black belt, with the power in their hands to actually kill drilled into their very muscle memory, they have had years of training to support the decisions they make for those hands.

Out of necessity, most of our modern conveniences are too complex for us to start at ground zero; we simply plug them in and take how they operate on assumptions.  This can be as seemingly innocuous as this word processor I’m using right now up to a $30 million jet aircraft capable of delivering a nuclear payload.  The discipline and training to use either is miniscule compared to the work that went into its design and construction, but we rarely think about it that way. It’s all user-friendly interface, and narrow focus. “King of Birds” is a reminder that the vast majority of things we do in our daily lives have us standing on the shoulders of giants, with very little understanding of how we got there.  If the experience doesn’t leave you feeling a little cold, then it should.  But I digress…

The point is that “Document” is not only an excellent rock album, it is an excellent rock album that makes you think.  I’m not always sure what the hell Michael Stipe is talking about.  The man deserves to be locked in a room with the Tragically Hip’s Gord Downie and Radiohead’s Thom Yorke so he can get a dose of his own medicine.  What I do know is that he is thinking, and he’s encouraging his listeners to do the same.  He doesn’t challenge your assumptions, so much as he asks you to do that for yourself.

Best tracks:  Finest Worksong, Exhuming McCarthy, Strange, The One I Love, King of Birds, Oddfellows Local 151

CD Odyssey Disc 543: The Eurythmics

I’m up and still groggy from a 45 minute nap I didn’t have time for, but couldn’t put off any further.  I have a lot of chores to accomplish in the next couple of days and not a lot of time to accomplish them but without that map I think I would be down for the count.

Instead – another music review!

Disc 543 is…. We Too Are One

Artist: Eurythmics

Year of Release: 1989

What’s up with the Cover?  If your subject matter for your photo shoot is Annie Lennox and Dave Stewart, then putting the stunningly stark beauty of Annie Lennox front and centre and, putting the very average appearance of Dave Stewart in the blurred background is the right call.  Obviously someone made the right call.  Also, I'm loving the old school "list the tracks on the front" thing.  Very retro.

How I Came To Know It:  I remember my friend Curt being really into this album when it came out, but it was years before I would finally shed myself of the anchor of the Eurythmics greatest hits and collect their individual albums in earnest.  When I did so, “We Too Are One” was one of the first albums I bought.

How It Stacks Up:  I have five Eurythmics albums, and I like all of them. I’ll say this one is about third best of those five, but close to second.

Rating:  3 stars, but almost 4

“We Too Are One” came out in 1989.  The eighties were ending and so was the collaboration of Dave Stewart and Annie Lennox, who would go their own way for the next ten years.  The fact that they remained friends is cold comfort to Eurythmics fans who also wanted them to make more beautiful music together.

Whatever irreconcilable differences there were between the two do not come through on this record, which is a brilliant and seamless connection of Lennox’s deep, soulful vocals and Stewart’s flair for combining a techno-inspired rhythm section with the power chords of rock guitar.  All this stuff together should be a hot mess, but instead it creates a groove that gets your head shaking and your foot tapping.

The opening two tracks are good, although “The King and Queen of America” has lyrics that are a bit forced.  For me the album really starts to show its true self on track three with “(My My) Baby’s Gonna Cry.”  The song starts with a techno sound that travels speaker-to-speaker (thank you inventor of stereo) and then morphs into a classic Stewart guitar riff.  Half the lyrics are sung by Stewart as well.  Stewart can’t hold a candle to Lennox’s powerhouse vocals and to his credit he doesn’t try to compete. Instead he stays low (and even a little fuzzy) in the production.  This gives maximum contrast to the songs, and every time Lennox sings it is that much more awe inspiring.

This is the musical feel throughout the record.  The Eurythmics, who began as a new wave/techno-inspired band now come around to their soul revival roots.  There is even a song called “Revival” which alternately makes you feel like you are dancing in the aisles of some southern church or in some East Berlin club scene depending on how you let your ears approach the song.  I like it equally both ways.

These up tempo tracks are as good as anything I’ve ever heard for getting you up out of your chair and hitting the dance floor hard.  Anyone who thinks the eighties didn’t have any good music for dancing didn’t listen to the Eurythmics.

For all that celebratory atmosphere, the album is even better when it explores the sad and introspective.  Maybe this is a function of a band about to break up – I really don’t care what cause it, I just know it creates beautiful music.

“Don’t Ask Me Why” is one of the decade’s great break up songs.  When Lennox sings:

“I don’t love you anymore

I don’t think I ever did

And if you ever had any kind of love for me

You kept it all so well hid.”

She sings it in a powerful and certain way that wipes you out as a listener, even as it makes it clear she is going to be OK. 

This theme is less powerfully delivered on “You Hurt Me (and I Hate You)” which lets you peak behind the curtain of the grand experiment of music style combinations that the better songs hide so well.  Even these lesser tracks, however, have Lennox’s voice to carry them through from shaky to solid ground.

The third theme on the record is that of disconnection.  The hit “Angel” is a genuine dirge; a eulogy for someone who lost the battle with the forces of isolation the modern world so readily deploys.  Driven as ever by Lennox’s power and a stripped down production, we have a suicide laid bare in all its tragic waste and finality.  Yes, this song is depressing, but it is also strangely uplifting in Lennox’s tender tones.

The album ends on an uplifting note with “When the Day Goes Down.”  This is a song for all those people who’ve ever felt out of place.  It is one for all the freaks and losers, and ultimately for the freak and loser deep inside each of us.  “When the Day Goes Down” is the musical equivalent of that final scene in “Revenge of the Nerds” when everyone comes down to stand together, united with their inner weirdo.  Lennox sings high and sweet here, and Stewart matches her with some tastefully subdued guitar work.  The album ends with these words:

“And this is for the broken dreamers

This is for the vacant souls

This is for the helpless losers

This is for the helpless fools

And the burnt out

And the useless

And the lonely and the weak

And the lost and the degraded

And the too dumb to speak.”

Like any great preacher, Lennox makes it clear that this motley collection of castaways is ultimately every one of us.  More than any other album, “We Too Are One” has a spiritual connection to its music.  Rather than dissipating the band’s early new wave sound, it shows just how far you can go with it if you’re willing to free yourself of the limits of genre and expectation.  On the one hand it makes me wish they’d stayed together and kept pumping out records.  On the other hand, it seems a fitting way for them to end it, going out on top.

Best tracks:  (My My) Baby’s Gonna Cry, Don’t Ask Me Why, Angel, Revival, Sylvia, When the Day Goes Down

CD Odyssey Disc 542: Tom Petty

I spent last night hanging with a few fellow music lovers playing tunes and my head is now spinning with all the great songs I’ve heard.

It is also spinning (less pleasantly) with all the chores I need to accomplish today before the work week begins again.  Before I tackle those, I’ll make some time for a something a lot more enjoyable - sharing this next music review with y’all.

Disc 542 is…. Long After Dark

Artist: Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers

Year of Release: 1982

What’s up with the Cover?  A boy and his guitar with a red filter.  I don’t mind the cover, but that logo looks very dated now.  I didn’t like that “corporate triangles” look in 1982, and it hasn’t aged well since.

How I Came To Know It:  I love Tom Petty and for many years I worked at getting all of his albums (mission accomplished!).  “Long After Dark” was just one of those I bought when I saw it.

How It Stacks Up:  I have fourteen Tom Petty albums.  “Long After Dark” is up near the top.  I’ll put it 4^th or 5^th, in a statistical tie with 2006’s “Highway Companion.”

Rating:  4 stars

I bought “Long After Dark” at the same time as a couple other early Tom Petty albums (“Hard Promises” and “You’re Gonna Get It”) and as a result all of the records didn’t get the focused attention they deserve.  Coming back to it with a critical eye years later, I was surprised just how much I liked it, and from here on in, it is definitely getting played a lot more frequently.

The album was released in 1982, but it is a lot more than an eighties record.  In listening to it, I was impressed how well the best elements of seventies and eighties rock are combined.  Three years later, Petty would release “Southern Accents” which fully falls into the fuzzy synth sound that claimed so many rockers at the time, but on “Long After Dark” these elements are still in their nascence, and employed with the proper amount of discretion.

The album’s only notable hit, “You Got Lucky” probably strays as close to the edge of that discretion, with a dominant organ sound that threatens to drown out the Heartbreakers rock sound.  Fortunately, tasteful Mike Campbell guitar licks through the song give it just the right amount of edge to keep it in the shallow end of the Moog pool.

Most of the other tracks have just a hint of synth and organ providing colour around the edges of the song, which are hard driving rock anthems.  “One Story Town” opens the record with a visceral energy, making me think of fast muscle cars and the desperation in the guy driving it hard, even though he’s got nowhere to go.

This feeling of desperation pervades the record, but it does so gloriously.  Rock and roll has always been in large part about rebellion, as we raise our voices against the things we can’t change because that’s the only outlet we’ve got.

“Deliver Me” combines the theme of romantic relationships with the irresistible urge to play rock and roll, whatever the price.  Both are depicted as something not entirely good for you, but that can’t be turned away from.  It isn’t original but it is well…er…delivered.

The album is mostly up tempo, Petty’s greasy croon floating over top of the Heartbreakers tight playing and creating a perfect tension to the music.  These are songs that wouldn’t look like much on the page, but come to life in the hands of the band.

The songs range all over, from accusatory (“The Same Old You”), to regretful (“Straight Into Darkness”) but mostly they stand for holding fast against life’s many pressures.  You can’t always decide how things will go; all you can do is decide how you’re going to react to those things when they come.  The tension of gritty seventies guitar pulling you down, tinged at the edges with upbeat piano and organ are a perfect delivery system for the songs’ subject matter.

For the last track, “A Wasted Life,” the album’s energy dissipates, and leaves us with a slow, piano driven lullaby that lightens your load.  Petty sings:

“They give it to you from the time you’re born

Someone’s always got to put the pressure on

Wrong or right, you’ve got to stand and fight

“So when you’re lonely and you feel let down

You can call me I’ll come around

And treat you nice

“Don’t have a wasted life

I love you too much.”

It is like he’s singing directly to you, letting you know that life can be hard, but there is no need to despair.  Listening to this song is like having Tom Petty on speed dial to cheer you up.  After all the hard truths earlier in the album this song arrives thematically long after the dark, but it comes at just the right time, like a sorbet at the end of a heavy meal, cleansing the palate.

Like most albums from the golden age of vinyl, space considerations have helped lead us to a tightly scripted record, at only ten songs and under forty minutes playing time.  A word to modern artists – less is more!

A minor quibble is that my CD booklet is misprinted.  The booklet has two duplicate pages, and so I only ended up with the lyrics to half the songs.  I like having a lyrics booklet, so this was a bit of a bummer, but taken alone the lyrics on “Long After Dark” wouldn’t resonate anyway.  They need the music to make them soar, simple ideas that are elevated by the talent of the musicians and good decisions in the arrangements and post-production.  At no point does the band forget that their mission is to make a kick ass rock record, and the eighties are held at bay, at least for a couple more years.

I am learning acoustic guitar, but this record definitely tempts me to plug in.  The chords are simple and filled with power that you just can’t get without electricity.  Despite the themes of heartache, these songs are triumphant in their construction.  They fill you with a hope that even though it can sometimes seem like your spinning your wheels, you can always burn some rubber and leave your mark regardless.

Best tracks:  One Story Town, Deliver Me, Change of Heart, Straight Into Darkness, Same Old You, A Wasted Life

CD Odyssey Disc 541: Radiohead

Although I allow myself to immediately review newly purchased albums, in recent years I rarely do.  Usually it only happens when I have a new album that coincides with a live event I’ve seen, like the recent Lyle Lovett or Shins albums.

Instead, where there is a gap in the CD shelf, I just stack the new albums I’m still getting to know, and hope that I roll one.  On this last roll, I rolled the section with all the new albums, but disappointingly I ended up with an old one anyway.  It is fitting, I suppose; Radiohead often disappoints me.

Disc 541 is…. OK Computer

Artist: Radiohead

Year of Release: 1997

What’s up with the Cover?  Remember those old photos of freeways, before they were busy, and all the cars were old fifties models?  Remember how those photos were kind of OK?  Well, here is one of those photos, which appears to have been scratched all the hell by some demented child wielding a rusty nail.  I believe it is intended that this be considered some form of art, and I suppose it is – bad art.

How I Came To Know It:  I already knew Radiohead from their early days, but this record was bought by Sheila who liked their sound and had heard good things about “OK Computer.”

How It Stacks Up:  We have seven Radiohead albums.  This is one of the better ones, and I put it third best.

Rating:  3 stars

At the outset I’d like to admit that I am going to enjoy writing a lukewarm review for an album that is the darling of music lovers and critics alike.  Radiohead is a talented, capable band, but that doesn’t mean I like everything they offer, and for me, “OK Computer” is the beginning of their descent into self-absorption.

This is a band with a tortured genius for music.  Their first album, “Pablo Honey” may be reviled by many of their fans, but it is a solid, thoughtful rock album and its follow up, “The Bends” is even better.  Yet fast forward five years to “Amnesiac” and these guys have been reduced to an insufferable series of technological sounds only vaguely resembling music.

When the hell did this happen? The start of that answer is, sadly, “OK Computer.”  This is an album that is lauded for its experimental sound, but like Beck’s “Odelay” is also partly limited by its own ambition.

First, the good stuff, and there is good stuff on this record.  “OK Computer” ably captures a mood of social disconnect and its resulting feelings of dread and depression.  Lead singer Thom Yorke always sounds like he’s channeling the secret messages of aliens, and on songs like “Paranoid Android” that is exactly what is called for.  The song is complicated, and the fact that it and “Karma Police” were both embraced by radio seems an unlikely, but happy accident.  They are good songs, even if in places they are a bit overwrought in their production and arrangement.  Even that I can forgive, as that is Radiohead’s gig.

Unfortunately, the whole album does not hold itself up to this standard.  Musically it is interesting yes, but it is also drones and moans in places.  “Exit Music (For a Film)” was particularly annoying.  It literally sounds like exit music for a film; inoffensive, but somehow summarizing that you’ve just had some experience or other.  I say that in vague fashion, because that is exactly how the song leaves me feeling, vague and disconnected.  It is the kind of song that when it appears at the end of a movie you push stop and then “delete recording” and go watch something else.  Recreating that experience is not what I look for on an album.

A lot of the music on “OK Computer” would be better served without a lot of the extra effects filling in all the space.  Even a sonically thick song still needs room to breathe.  As an example, “Karma Police” gives the piano room to establish mood, and that deliberate piano keeps everything on an even keel, letting the rest of the song’s construction something to flesh out.  From there, the boys can really draw you in with their genius.  Also, “Karma Police” isn’t a bad idea, although I think technically Karma delivers its justice without the need for police.  Maybe that’s the point.

While it is true that a lot of what leaves me not wholly satisfied with  “OK Computer” is the weird production decisions and self-absorption, I strangely enjoyed the Stephen Hawking-like spoken word piece “Fitter Happier.”  A nice use of computer simulated voice to underscore our lack of human connection and then the kicker – summing up our various ‘virtues’ and then labeling us as nothing more than pigs in cages on antibiotics.  It is disturbing and Orwellian, but effective.

Unfortunately, too often the album just descends into weird mood songs, like the distorted falsetto of “Climbing the Walls” groaning away in minor chords.  Sure it makes you feel uncomfortable, but not in an interesting way.  It is like eating too much cotton candy; the experience makes you feel queasy, but all it really teaches you is to not eat so much cotton candy.

Because all over this album I see the band preparing to descend into the mirror-covered spider hole of “Amnesiac” and “Hail to the Thief” it is hard to truly love it.  That said, there are enough flashes of brilliance that I also can’t deny that it is still worth a listen.

This record is – for lack of a better word – OK, but I can’t help being disappointed in feeling only OK about something the rest of the world seems to think is Radiohead’s greatest work.

Best tracks (although they could use shorter titles):  Paranoid Android, Karma Police, Let Down

CD Odyssey Disc 540: Belle and Sebastian

I’m just back from a disappointing workout.  I pulled a groin muscle playing Ultimate on Saturday and it is still quite tender, so I can do weights but no running.  Also, my headphones (the good ones, not the work ones) were acting up today with both low volume and crackle.  Luckily it turns out it was just a low battery that I replaced.  If only my body had a similar fix.

Fortunately, good music suffers no such degradation; it just stays good over time.  Here’s some of that!

Disc 540 is…. The Boy With the Arab Strap

Artist: Belle and Sebastian

Year of Release: 1998

What’s up with the Cover?  A nineties hipster has been stabbed through the heart by a spear.  He seems to be doing remarkably well, all things considered, or maybe it just happened and he hasn’t started bleeding, etc.  Like other album covers it looks like a one of those random pictures on a Jones Soda bottle, albeit a bit more violent than usual.

How I Came To Know It:  This album was my first Belle and Sebastian album – a gift from Jennifer and Cody many years ago.  Since then, the band has become a favourite, so many thanks to Jenn and Cody for putting me on to these guys.

How It Stacks Up:  My Belle and Sebastian collection is far from complete, although since I reviewed “Write About Love” back at Disc 301 I’ve bought another and now have five of their eight studio albums.  Of those five I would put “Arab Strap” second best, behind only “If You’re Feeling Sinister.”

Rating:  4 stars

Sometimes Belle and Sebastian remind me of those kids dancing around in “Nightmare on Elm Street” – you know the ones, they hold hands and happily sing disturbing children songs like:

“One, two, Freddy’s coming for you.

Three, four, better lock your door.”

It is all happiness and light until you listen to what they’re saying.  Belle and Sebastian have a similar effect although the music is way better, and while depressing, no one ends up getting slashed with a five bladed gardening glove.

Belle and Sebastian’s strength is in their melodic song writing.  Light and carefree, it traipses along in sprightly fashion, often emphasizing the first beat, making it feel like it really wants to get somewhere.   This is music that makes you want to spread out a picnic blanket and share a glass of wine (sparkling, because the music will make you want to feel the bubbles) and relax.

Songs like “Sleep the Clock Around” and “The Boy with the Arab Strap” exemplify the experience, combining high, vulnerable vocals, an insistent beat, sixties pop piano and hints of trumpet.  This song – like much of the album – will make you want to dance on a jetty with that pixie girl from a romantic comedy you just watched.  I’m thinking Isla Fisher or Anna Kendrick, but I’ve got a thing for Isla and Anna.  Feel free to insert whoever best matches your version of the vision.

But amidst all the joy, as you do a twirling airplane dance, arms extended (and this music will drive you to such infectious fun) there will be something nagging at your consciousness.  A few minor chords here and there are hinting at thorns among the flowers. 

Then you’ll start catching snippets of the lyrics.  First, just fragments of sentences like in the song about hanging out at the beach called “Ease Your Feet Into the Sea”:

“Maybe if I shut my eyes

The trouble will be split between us.”

“What’s this? Trouble?” you say, “a minute ago they were dangling their feet in the sea and making sandwiches!”  Then, over repeat listens you’ll realize most of the songs have some terribly sad quality to them.  You’ll start brushing the pretty cobwebs of the melody aside and hearing whole stanzas.  From “Sleep the Clock Around”:

“And the moment will come when composure returns

Put a face on the world, turn your back to the wall

And you walk twenty yards with your head in the air

Down the Liberty Hill where the fashion brigade

Look with curious eyes on your raggedy way

And for once in your life you have nothing to say

And could this be your time when somebody will come

To say ‘Look at yourself, you’re not much use to anyone.’”

Whoa!  This is no pixie girl dream, this is music filled with deep emotional doubt, wrapped in melodic sugar to help it go down easier.  It is like hearing a bird singing beautifully and then realizing it is a song looking for a lost mate that won’t return.

The album is a tasteful twelve tracks and forty-two minutes, and for the most part avoids wallowing in its own melancholy.  By the time you get to the final track, “Rollercoaster Ride,” you’ll realize you’ve been on one yourself, lifted up by the one aspect of the music, and then brought back to earth by sober self-examination.  It doesn’t mean you won’t still dance on the jetty with Isla and Anna, it just means you’ll do it with both eyes open now; joy is fleeting, but that’s part of what gives it value.

Best tracks (although they could use shorter titles):  Sleep the Clock Around, Is It Wicked Not to Care?, Ease Your Feet Into the Sea, Dirty Dream Number Two, The Boy with the Arab Strap, Rollercoaster Ride

CD Odyssey Disc 539: KMFDM

The Odyssey continues with no remorse and no regret.  Kind of like a Metallica song, but different.  I’ve been at this over four years now, randomly working my way through all the music in my collection.  I’ve got at least another four years left but it as we all know, it’s the journey that counts.

Disc 539 is…. Angst

Artist: KMFDM

Year of Release: 1993

What’s up with the Cover?  A creepy, square-jawed man gropes a large breasted woman.  Meanwhile a different large breasted woman – this one much more severe – looks on with an expression of…horror?  Rage?  Frustration?  I know – angst!  That certainly makes sense given the album title.

All of KMFDM’s albums feature this angular, modernist art style by a guy named Aidan “Brute” Hughes.  I love his stuff, and it really suits KMFDM’s music, although I wouldn’t hang it on my walls.

How I Came To Know It:  My friend Patrick put me on to KMFDM within the past year.  Patrick has good taste in music, and has been the source of many a cool band for me lately.  Don’t rely on the radio haystack to find good music when there are people all around you who can point you in the right direction.

Sheila actually bought this record for me (and one other by the same band) when I hinted broadly to her that it would make a good birthday present.

How It Stacks Up:  I have two KMFDM albums, this one and it’s 1995 follow up, “Nihil.”  Of the two, I prefer “Angst” so it is number one.

Rating:  3 stars but a solid three stars.

When I was younger, and still inspired to go nightclubbing, my favourite hangout was a local place called Scandals, particularly on what they dubbed Alternative Tuesdays.  As I grew older (but still liked to go dancing) I sought out the same atmosphere at another local joint called Evolution.  In both cases, my favourite dance music was a sort of industrial electronica mix that could both shake my groove thing, and also help release some of the pointless rage and frustration that comes as part of this package of experiences we call life.  Although I didn’t know it at the time, KMFDM was very likely one of the bands I was listening to.

KMFDM is a band with members from a lot of countries that has been around for years.  According to the magic of Wikipedia (which is never wrong) I discovered the full band name was originally Kein Mehrheit Für Die Mitleid, loosely translated as "no pity for the majority” but they’ve long since just gone with letters.  Good call – that is a bit long of a band name for anything that isn’t modern indie.

The first word that comes to mind when you put “Angst” on for a listen is ‘energy.’  This album has energy to spare.  A mix of pounding beat, guitar riffs and electronica sounds.  This was the early blend of metal and electronic music, and I personally think it is also the high water mark for this style of music.  It is visceral, and pounding and it perfectly captures the sometimes empty but indefatigable pulse of the modern post-industrial experience.

Metal would later come to rely too heavily on the auditory battery of the double bass (something “Angst” mercifully eschews) and electronica would become increasingly detached, focused more on odd sound and syncopation than songs that have a defined melody (you know, that sound like music). For me, this album and Ministry’s “Psalm 69” are the sweet spot.

The opening track, “Light” is a perfect opener, mixing all those elements, along with some sexy background vocals and a guy singing about KMFDM in a sort of self-promotional way (“KMFDM, doing it again” etc.).

This apparent narcissism is reflected throughout the album, but if you pay attention you’ll see the band takes every opportunity to undercut their own star power, and while calling into question various authority figures and systems, also calls into question themselves.  On “Sucks” they sing:

“We don't have no lyrics, our message is nil

We hate all DJs, they're makin' us ill

Whatever we tell you is meant to be crap

We hate all music and especially rap”

Their message is rarely nil, but instead is often commenting on a whole host of political and social questions, often very pointedly.  They couch what they have to say in angst (there’s that word again) and dance licks, but these guys actually have a lot to say.  I suspect they don’t hate rap or most other music either.

I will say that the messages are often a little too simplistic, and tend to boil down into a “question all authority/oppose everything” kind of vibe.  I don’t think it adds a lot to the topics they raise, but at least they raise them, and give them an emotional outlet.

In fact, when dancing to this type of music I like to slip in a move where I cross my arms crossed over my head, and mimic the poor sods in Orwell’s 1984, forced to hate Goldstein at assemblies under the watchful eyes of the state.  It is the irony of participating with the crowd, and yet recognizing the participation as a reduction to individualism.  In some ways it is this same duality that makes this music work down in the guts, even as it rejects itself.

Regrettably, as great a pony this music is to ride, it only has the one trick, so a whole album of it can start to feel a bit repetitive near the end.  It doesn’t help that despite “Angst”s amazing start, the quality does go down a bit by the time you get to side two.

Still, for turning the music up loud and feeling the power, this is as good as anything in my collection.  For dancing it lets you get down into it and still has enough melody to give your limbs something to do other than shuffle (yes, that is a put-down for you, dubstep).

KMFDM is danceable, energetic and aware of its own ironic self-promotion.  A bit like disco, in that way, I suppose, except totally different.

Best tracks:  Light, A Drug Against War, Blood Evil, Sucks

CD Odyssey Disc 538: Beck

I had a draining day today.  I couldn’t really put my finger on it, just the feeling of being pulled in a lot of directions.

Of course, staying up to write this blog entry is one more thing to get done, but it is a fun thing and if I’m being fair to the day, it was as full of fun moments like this as anything else.  As the saying goes:

“Two men look through the same bars

One sees the mud and one the stars.”

Here’s a disc that always puts me on the positive side of that half-full glass.

Disc 538 is…. Guero

Artist: Beck

Year of Release: 2005

What’s up with the Cover?  A drawing by someone named Marcel Dzama.  I find this cover equal parts obtuse and smug and in case it wasn’t clear – no, I don’t like it. 

How I Came To Know It:  I was already a Beck fan so this was just me buying another album by him when it came out.  

How It Stacks Up:  We have eight Beck albums, and this is one is my favourite.  Number one, baby!  I know I just finished giving “Sea Change” that designation, but I’ve got to bump “Guero” just ahead of that.

Rating:  5 stars

Some albums are just perfect for certain seasons, and “Guero” is the perfect summer album.  This is a top-down, beach-Frisbee, ice-cream-in-the-park kind of album.  It makes me feel young and carefree when I listen to it, and gives me a musical respite from all the various tasks and responsibilities that face me.  It is an album for feeling good.

It is quite a departure from his other great work, “Sea Change” (reviewed recently back at Disc 520.  “Sea Change” is tinged with sadness and self-reflection, feeling like it was conceived underwater.

“Guero” is like a surfer riding the top of that same ocean.  It has the funky syncopation and rapid fire free association poetry-rap of his first big album, “Mellow Gold,” but it incorporates all the musical experiments he has tried on the four intervening album as well.  The funk of “MidniteVultures” is here, toned down to fit into a more summer pop flavour, and less nightclub focused.  The strange technological samples and beats of “Odelay” and “Mutations” are used, but they are worked a lot more seamlessly into the song.

On top of all of these influences, Beck weaves in Mexican-flavoured pop and, unless I’m mistaken, the ghost of Dick Dale.  Not the guitar style, so much as an update to Dale’s effortless beach party vibe.

In short, this is a record that borrows from a lot of influences, mixes Beck’s own copious musical knowledge and somehow creates something wholly new that doesn’t ever sound bloated or pretentious (except, as noted above, the unfortunate cover art).

The free and easy feel is upheld by songs like “Que Onda Guero” with its distinctive Latin feel, but also “Girl,” “Black Tambourine” and “Scarecrow” which are all songs for driving fast with your hair blowing in the wind.

Beck finds room for songs that push the album in different directions, while maintaining the overall feel of the record as well.  “Hell, Yes” is a techno-sample driven song that takes a lot of the lessons learned on 1996’s “Odelay” and just makes them demonstrably more…listenable.  Yes, music snobs, I just put “Odelay” in its place.  That album may be innovative, but it isn’t easy to listen to, and being enjoyable to the ear should always be an important part of music.

“Hell, Yes” is a joy to listen to, with odd drum beats and a variety of samples that apart sound like a jumble, but collectively form into a catchy and extremely innovative riff as good as any straightforward rock song.  When I hear the sample of a young girl saying matter-of-factly “Your beat is nice/your beat is correct” I always find myself smiling and agreeing with her assessment.  In fact, she’s so convincing that in the years since first hearing “Guero” Sheila and I will both indicate our approval of something by using this phrase.  It is a bit weird, but hey – so are we.

Going in another direction is “Farewell Ride” which has all the slow groove of “Guero” but incorporates some of the grim finality that made “Sea Change” such a brilliant album.  While this song is ostensibly about two horses taking a coffin to the cemetery, it is hard not to draw drug allusions:

“Two white horses in a line

Taking me for my farewell ride.”

Horse being a slang expression for heroin, it is easy to imagine two lines of it putting someone into overdose or – in this case – a farewell ride.  The fact that it is never spelled out as such makes me appreciate it more.

I’m not in the habit of giving an album like this five stars without it “changing me somehow” (see the ‘rules’ sidebar), but “Guero” just doesn’t hit any wrong notes.  It is only thirteen songs long, I like every one of them in some way or other, and as a collection it takes you for a nice ride and leaves you relaxed at the end of it, like a warm breeze on a summer day that carries away your troubles.  Sometimes, that's all you need in life.

Best tracks:  I like all the tracks, but in particular I like Que Onda Guero, Girl, Black Tambourine, Hell Yes, Scarecrow, Got It Alone, and Farewell Ride,

CD Odyssey Disc 537: Billy Bragg and Wilco

Sometimes the random element to what I review can be a bit disappointing.  For example, to introduce you to this next album – a collaboration of two great artists inspired by a third - it would have been easier to have done their first album together, rather than Volume II.

But hey, that’s the way the random cookie crumbles.  So here’s Volume II – it’s still good.

Disc 537 is…. Mermaid Avenue Vol. II

Artist: Billy Bragg and Wilco

Year of Release: 2000

What’s up with the Cover?  I’m guessing the background of this shot is Mermaid Avenue, around the time of Woody Guthrie, however who cares about that when you have a cute kitty in the foreground!  In recent years I’ve come to love the tuxedo cat, but there’s a lot to be said for the tabby. 

How I Came To Know It:  I had found out about the amazing first “Mermaid Avenue” album just a few years ago, and then learned there was a sequel.  Without delay I sought it out and added it to my collection.  If one album of this music was good, I reasoned, then two must be better.  

How It Stacks Up:  Turns out I was right, and “Mermaid Avenue Vol. II” is a strong record as well, but overall the first “Mermaid Avenue” is stronger, so I have to rank this one second.

Rating:  3 stars but almost 4

On his 1997 song “Christmas in Washington” Steve Earle pines:

“Come back Woody Guthrie

Come back to us now

Tear your eyes from paradise

And rise again somehow.”

A year later, Steve’s wish would symbolically come true, when Guthrie’s daughter Nora met up with Billy Bragg and Wilco and gave them a myriad of song lyrics her father had penned but never recorded.  If there had ever been music to go with these lyrics, they were lost to the mists of time, but with the help of Bragg and Wilco, they were brought to life and with them, Guthrie rose again somehow.

The “Mermaid Avenue” project was such a success (artistically at least) that two years later Bragg and Wilco did another whole second album of them.  That album, not terribly inventively, is called “Mermaid Avenue, Vol. II” again after the street in Coney Island, Brooklyn that Guthrie lived on.  Whatever its title, it is a worthy successor to a contemporary folk classic.

As with the first record, Billy Bragg and Jeff Tweedy of Wilco alternate taking lead vocals and they both bring something beautiful to Guthrie’s original thoughts.  Bragg’s protest folk styles are a more natural fit for Guthrie’s lyrics, but Jeff Tweedy frontman and the rest of Wilco are equally good.  In fact, the indie rock style of Wilco gives a nice counterbalance to Bragg’s more traditional approach.  The ghost of Guthrie is everpresent, and the three artistic voices form a nice triangle, each corner equally propping up the record’s feel.

Given Earle’s prayer for the return of Guthrie, the opening track, “Airline to Heaven” is a fitting start, as Guthrie muses about one day going to heaven.  The words were penned in 1939, but like every song on the record it is as fresh and relevant today as any song.

I enjoyed hearing, “My Flying Saucer” as the next track, a true 1950s whimsical approach to the topic at a time when flying saucers were just becoming a fad.  I’ve always wanted to do a ‘flying saucer’ playlist which would feature the song, plus Blue Rodeo’s “Cynthia”, Blue Oyster Cult’s “Sole Survivor” the Carpenters’ “Calling Occupants” and Tool’s “Rosetta Stoned”  I’m sure I could find a few more once I put my mind to it.  But I digress…

Back to “Mermaid Avenue (Vol. II).”  Not surprisingly some of the most resonant songs are those that speak to social justice issues, something that all parties to the music understand.  “Hot Rod Hotel” is the song about a porter/night clerk at a hotel and all the menial tasks he is forced to perform to put food on the table, until one day he rebels when asked to clean up a particularly horrible room.  The song sounds like it will end sad and defeated, but it actually is a working class triumph:

“The lammy tried to make me clean up that crappy mess

Or else he’d fire me off my job and let me starve to death

I laid aside my polish rag and downed my dusting pan

And I’ve not seen the old Hot Rod nor that old town since then.”

This song is a timely reminder that no matter where we find ourselves on the corporate ladder, we can always choose dignity and honour if faced with acquiescing to the unreasonable.

Not all the songs are as compelling as this, unfortunately.  “I Was Born” sounds like a transcription of a toddler trying to remember when she was born, and the guest vocals of Natalie Merchant plays that up to the further detriment of the song.  “Blood of the Lamb” has a pretty gospel feel to it, but it is just a bit too preachy for my tastes (note:  good gospel never feels actually preachy).  Finally, “Joe Di Maggio Done It Again” would be a fun song if you were a baseball fan, but I am not.

These misses are more about my personal preferences, however, rather than being inherently bad songs, and even so they are the exceptions that prove the rule.

The rule here makes a heartfelt record that misses very few beats.  There is political commentary aplenty, including calling out fascists, and supporting a write-in third party candidate due to disgust with all the people approved on the ballot.

The album also features gentle love songs like “Remember the Mountain Bed” rich with verses dripping with sexy autumnal glory:

“Do you still sing of the mountain bed we made of limbs and leaves

Do you still sigh there near the sky where the holly berry bleeds

You laughed as I covered you over with leaves, face, breast, hips and thighs

You smiled when I said the leaves were just the color of your eyes.”

Whew!  Is it getting hot in here?

                          
Er…anyway, many of the themes on “Mermaid Avenue Vol. II” are twenty or thirty years before their time, and Bragg and Wilco ensure they fit for the modern ear without ever losing the protest folk charm of Guthrie himself.  This album is a worthy successor to a project that was inspired by Guthrie's own 'Airline to Heaven', and a little honest hope from some talented folks still down here waiting in this earthly terminal for their turn to be remembered.

Best tracks:  Airline to Heaven, Hot Rod Hotel, Stetson Kennedy, Remember the Mountain Bed, All You Fascists, Black Wind Blowing, Someday Some Morning Sometime