CD Odyssey Disc 615: Aimee Mann

It has been over four hundred albums and almost four years since I last rolled an album by this artist – so long that when I did my last review of her, this next album wasn’t even out yet. 

Disc 615 is…. Charmer

Artist: Aimee Mann

Year of Release: 2012

What’s up with the Cover? Look deep into my eyes – are you getting sleepy…?

This cover creeps Sheila out. It is one of those cognitive illusions that is two different things depending on how you look at it. In both cases it is a mesmerist of some kind, but one has a beard and one does not. I like this cover and enjoy the mental exercise of trying to actively see both faces at once.

How I Came To Know It:  Both Sheila and I are big Aimee Mann fans, since Sheila first discovered her. I bought her “Charmer” as a gift when it came out (for birthday or Christmas). My usual rule is to only buy Sheila music as a gift that I wouldn’t buy for myself. This ensures I’m not just getting an album I’d buy anyway. In this case I knew she would want it just as badly as I did, so I bent the rule.

How It Stacks Up:  We have seven Aimee Mann albums, which is all of them except her Christmas album “Drifter in the Snow” (we don’t do Christmas albums). Of the seven, I’d put “Charmer” in a statistical dead heat at fourth with “Fuck Smilers” (reviewed back at Disc 171). If I had to pick, I’d say “Charmer” edges it out ever so slightly.

Rating:  3 stars but close to 4

“Charmer” is an example of pop music done right. This didn’t surprise me; Aimee Mann consistently demonstrates what pop music is capable of in skilled hands – lively, catchy music with clever melodies and insightful lyrics.

Not all pop is so fortunate. Earlier this month Avril Lavigne released the truly terrible “Hello, Kitty” for example. I’d like to think it is because she married that Nickelback guy (Nickelback being the source of many of the world’s worst audio crimes) but the truth is pop music has gotten progressively more awful all on its own – slick production hiding weak hooks, autotuned voices and choppy image-centric video packaging. Greasy, crappy rock bands like Nickelback have nothing to do with it.

Fortunately, Aimee Mann is a light in the dark and vacuous world of pop music, showing that you can still make meaningful music that is also catchy and enjoyable.

Style-wise, “Charmer” maintains some of the ambient sound and groove that was present on 2008’s “Fuck Smilers” but she also returns to some of the simpler production that was present on her masterpiece, “The Forgotten Arm.” While not as good as “The Forgotten Arm” (few albums are), “Charmer” pleasantly reminded me of it in terms of song construction and approach.

It also returns to the sad relationship themes from “Forgotten Arm” including “Labrador” which compares the faithfulness of a dog to the whims of a love interest (or a friend, it is always unclear if Mann is singing from experience, or as a different character). “Labrador” is the best song on the record, and a reminder that when you have someone’s unconditional love, you shouldn’t abuse it.

Conversely, “Crazytown” is a reminder that sometimes we are the architects of our our own misfortune, when we should know better:

“And for who?

A girl who lives in Crazytown

Where craziness gets handed down

Who? Whoever’s gonna volunteer

Will only end up living here.”

Well, hopefully the rent was cheap and the sex good. Bad relationships abound on “Charmer,” artfully depicted, including the aforementioned songs plus a fine duet called “Living a Lie” featuring James Mercer (Shins, Broken Bells).

Some applause is also in order for Mann’s videos for the album, which are both awesome. Since the demise of the music video channel, videos don’t get the same attention they once did, but Mann always puts care and attention into hers. Her offerings off of “Charmer” include the title track, which depicts Mann purchasing a lifelike replica of herself (played by actress Laura Linney) to go on tour for her. Click here to see the resulting hijinks.

She also does a video for “Labrador” where she recreates, shot for shot, the video she did for the ‘Til Tuesday hit “Voices Carry.” That video was ridiculous in the day, and seeing it redone roughly thirty years later is even more hilarious.

Both videos show Mann’s exceptional talent for poking fun at herself. The first video mocks her well-known dislike for touring and her second has a laugh reminding us that as far as many people are concerned, her career ended in 1985.

The real joke is on the people that think that, of course, because Mann’s solo career continues to be both inspiring and chock full of great records, as “Charmer” ably demonstrates.

Best tracks:   Charmer, Disappeared, Labrador, Crazy Town, Living a Lie, Barfly

CD Odyssey Disc 614: Marty Robbins

This next record I discovered through my Mom, so it was appropriate that the review was delayed while I showed her around town for the past few days. 

Disc 614 is…. Gunfighter Ballads and Trail Songs

Artist: Marty Robbins

Year of Release: 1959

What’s up with the Cover? This cover is a bit of a bummer, because it is not the original. The original vinyl cover had a pinkish-red background and all the songs listed, and had no weird eighties colour lines. Fortunately both the CD and vinyl version has this image of Marty decked out in his gunfighter outfit, ready to shoot any man dead as soon as look at ‘im. I can remember as a young boy staring at this image for hours, imagining all the romanticism of the Wild West, but particularly enthralled with the idea of The Gunfight.

How I Came To Know It:  My mom had this record when I was growing up, and it was a favourite of everyone in our house, so it got played a lot. Now that I’m an adult I have it on CD, and it still gets played a lot.

How It Stacks Up:  Although I have another Marty Robbins album on vinyl (1966’s “Saddle Tramp”) this is the only one I have on disc. Even including “Saddle Tramp” “Gunfighter Ballads” would easily be the best, and I can’t imagine there being an album better.

Rating:  5 stars

There was a time when country music was actually country and western music. Western music is mostly forgotten now, although Corb Lund keeps the spirit alive, but in the fifties and sixties western music was still a big thing, at least in small towns like the one I was raised in. Of all the western music I’ve heard, however, nothing has ever come close to the sheer brilliance that is “Gunfighter Ballads and Trail Songs.”

The album is a mix of traditional trail songs, compositions by other prominent or up-and-coming western artists at the time and also three songs written by Robbins himself (including the album’s massive and enduring hit, “El Paso”).

Half of the songs are about cowboy life, including taming broncos, herding cattle and in a couple of cases just generally enjoying the frontier lifestyle. The cowboy life is a dangerous one though, as exemplified by the album’s final song, the tragic and heart-wrenching “Utah Carol,” about a farmhand who saves the ranches daughter from a cattle stampede at the cost of his own life.

This and the other trail songs have grown on me over the years, but my favourites have always been the gunfighter ballads. The songs are short, and the story moves forward pretty quickly. On “Running Gun” a man flees Kansas City after killing twenty men (which seems to be the cutoff for ‘badass’ on a gunfighter ballad), getting all the way to Amarillo before getting gunned down by a bounty hunter. It’s all over in 2:14.

As a kid my head would be filled with all kinds of extra detail filling in ever more detail for the characters on “Gunfighter Ballads” as I listened to it again and again. Even as a young kid I knew that as adventurous as these songs were, they were also cautionary tales. As an adult, I am much more consciously aware how all the gunfighter songs have a strong moral undercurrent. The characters in them typically get gunned down at the end, repenting their wicked ways as they die in the streets.

On this listen I was struck by how much of an ass the main character in “El Paso” is. We all know this one, but here’s a reminder on how his tragedy gets started:

Out in the West Texas town of El Paso

I fell in love with a Mexican girl.

Night-time would find me in Rosa's cantina;

Music would play and Felina would whirl.

Blacker than night were the eyes of Felina,

Wicked and evil while casting a spell.

My love was deep for this Mexican maiden;

I was in love but in vain, I could tell.

So to summarize, this guy hangs out in the pub, gets frisky for a pretty local. When she doesn’t feel the same way he assumes she is wicked and evil. Later, when she makes eyes at some other guy, our ‘hero’ stone cold murders the man.

By the end of this song, when a posse guns him down we should be cheering but instead we pity him, like it is some terrible and tragic twist of fate instead of a well-deserved come-uppance. Robbins is so masterful at turning a phrase and filling every lyric to the brim with emotion that this murderous misogynistic horse-thief has become an enduring anti-hero for the past 55 years.

Robbins’ does equal service for every song on the album. His voice is high and powerful, with a tension that makes him sounds like he’s leaning out over the end of a cliff, but somehow never falling.

On “They’re Hanging Me Tonight” we hear that voice drip with emotion, as he begins with the ominous lines:

“When I hear the rain a’comin’ down

It makes me sad and blue

‘Twas on a rainy night like this

That Flo said we were through.”

It isn’t much to read, but in the hands of Robbins it is a harbinger of the murder, regret and bleak frontier justice that follows (spoiler alert – Flo doesn’t make it).

My favourite track on the record is “Big Iron” (also written by Robbins). It is a song where the gunman is a good guy – a Texas Ranger in pursuit of the villainous outlaw “Texas Red.” Robbins voice soars over the song, and the backup singers deliver low supportive harmonies that give the feeling of the townsfolk oohing and aahing as they watch the ranger and the outlaw face off at forty feet. The song ends with this advice (albeit a bit late) for Red:

“O, he might’ve went on living

But he made one fatal slip

When he tried to match the ranger

With the big iron on his hip.”

Robbins’ genius alone might’ve earned the album four stars, but the guitar work by the sessional players is equally incredible. I’d heard the record all my life and didn’t even notice until my friend Casey turned my ear to it. When I did I realized how amazing the Flamenco guitar is, trilling away blue notes in and around the artistry of Robbins’ voice.

I’ve heard some of Marty Robbins non-western stuff, and it comes off as saccharine junk. But when he trades in his white sport coat and pink carnation for a black hat and a six gun, the result is magical. If you only ever own one album of western music, that album should be this one.

Best tracks:   All tracks. Big Iron is a standout, but they’re all amazing in their own way.

P.S. One of my weekend stops with my Mom was Butchart Gardens. I’ve lived in Victoria for over twenty-five years and never been there, but I have to admit it was pretty cool. Here’s a picture from my visit, which I call “Blogger In His Natural State.” It makes sense if you know your flowers.

CD Odyssey Disc 613: Joan Osborne

What a crazy day today. A lot of paid work, then some volunteer work, and I am tired. That said, I am ready to roll another album and that doesn’t happen until I write a review, so here we go.

Disc 613 is…. Relish

Artist: Joan Osborne

Year of Release: 1995

What’s up with the Cover? A slouching Joan Osborne looks out shyly at the camera, like a misfit kid in the back of a high school yearbook photo. There is also a little girl with wings and a guitar (barf) and a bird (better). This cover looks like it was built in Windows Paint. The only thing I like about it is part of the background is Miami Dolphins aqua.

How I Came To Know It:  Like everyone else – I heard the hit single “One of Us” on a music video channel and decided it was pretty good.

How It Stacks Up:  Shockingly Joan Osborne released seven more records after “Relish,” the most recent of which (“Love and Hate”) came out earlier this month. “Relish” is the only one we have though, so I can’t really compare it to the others.

Rating:  3 stars

There’s always the danger when you buy an album for a single song that it is going to be the only good track there is. Fortunately, “Relish” as a record is much more than one song.

Of course that one song, “One of Us” was a pretty big hit. It was number one in Canada, and top ten around much of the Western world and with good reason, too.  Despite a clip of a very strange old lady chanting at the front of it (o nineties production, how I don’t miss you) it quickly switches over to a catchy melody. Osborne has a powerful voice, but on “One of Us” she reins it in as befits the song’s whimsical and bitter-sweet musings about if God were one of us.

The song explores the metaphysical quandary of whether we would really be happy if we could prove the existence of God. Would the realization weigh heavily on our souls, or worse still would it remove the mystery around the whole question? The song has a gentle humour in it which mostly works. That Osborne can sing a ridiculous line like this:

“Nobody calling on the phone

Except for the Pope maybe in Rome.”

And make it work, I count as a minor miracle of some kind, but she pulls it off. Elsewhere in the song God attempts to take a bus home, but I’m pretty sure none of the routes go there, at least in my city. I think he might be better off with a cab, and it’ll be a hefty fare as well. But I digress…

Back to the rest of this record, which is pretty strong. Later in her career Osborne would do whole albums of cover songs, but on “Relish” she only does a couple. The most notable of these is a remake of Bob Dylan’s “Man in the Long Black Coat” and while different, I think it is the equal of the original, which is saying something.

The album has a lot of pop sensibilities, but Osborne’s roots are rock and blues, and they show through in her throaty, powerhouse delivery. She draws the notes out at times, but in a good way that avoids annoying vocal runs like you might hear on American Idol or the Voice (note to contestants of those shows – stop that).

 “Right Hand Man” is very bluesy and owes a lot to Ray Charles in flavour. The album even has a song later on (“Spider Web”) which is directly about Ray Charles. I don’t love that song, but it is a helpful signpost about one influence on Osborne’s work. She draws from that well a little bit too often, and songs like “Dracula Moon” and “Pensacola” try a bit too hard to capture the blues without fully managing it.

I prefer her songs where she’s working her own funky pop style into the rock n’ blues, as she does on tracks like she does on both the upbeat “Ladder” and the sadder and slower “Crazy Baby” which both show off her vocal chops.

“Let’s Just Get Naked” is a darkly fun track, about a relationship that isn’t always healthy but where there is at least one thing the two lovers do well together. This song is sexy and playful and it didn’t surprise me to see the album’s producer, Rich Chertoff, also produced Sophie B. Hawkins’ album “Tongues and Tails” featuring the song “Damn, I Wish I Was Your Lover.”

Overall Osborne has her own blended sound and demonstrates a lot of range artistically. I like the different approaches she takes to a single genre, but I suspect made it hard to market her. She also never sexed herself up like modern video-era divas, and at 33 years old she probably represented limited potential to the soulless record execs waiting for her to pump out a bunch of schmaltzy pop ballads that would make them all rich off of her talent.

She didn’t want to do that anyway, and you can tell listening to the record she is willing and more than able to set her own course. This record didn’t blow me away, but I think “Relish” has an original sound and deserved more than to be saddled with a single hit. Of course a single hit is more than I ever had, so good for you, Joan, and congratulations on carving a musical career doing exactly your own thing along the way.

Best tracks:   Man in the Long Black Coat, Right Hand Man, One of Us, Ladder, Let’s Just Get Naked, Crazy Baby

CD Odyssey Disc 612: Bruce Springsteen

This next album is a ‘desert island’ album, meaning if I were stranded on a desert island and could only have a small number of records, this would be one of them. Hopefully I'd also have a record player.

Disc 612 is…. Darkness on the Edge of Town

Artist: Bruce Springsteen

Year of Release: 1978

What’s up with the Cover? I feel like someone should’ve told The Boss that he was having his photo taken for the cover of his new album. Maybe then he would have put on something nice. At the very least he could’ve run a comb through his hair.

How I Came To Know It:  My friend Casey put me on to this album. I was enjoying Sheila’s two Springsteen albums (“Tunnel of Love” and “Born in the USA”) and I was eager for a recommendation of what to get next. Without hesitation, Casey said “Darkness at the Edge of Town.”

How It Stacks Up:  We have ten Bruce Springsteen albums. There are a lot of good ones in there, but none better than “Darkness at the Edge of Town.”

Rating:  5 stars

When a record is so good that you can make another two four star albums out of just its discarded outtakes (see Disc 305), you know you’ve got a good record.

This album is Springsteen’s crowning achievement. On it he captures all the heartbreak and triumph of working class America. It isn’t just relatable to the late seventies or just to Americans either. It stands outside of time and space in a place of its own, accessible to any generation.

This is a record about the long lonely intervals between the so-called events in our lives, and how those spaces are events in themselves. The music is perfectly suited to the task. The album is subdued, and relies on sparse instrumentation. The star of course, is Bruce’s voice, which is never better in his career. He sings with an earnest, back-throated power, bringing the poetry of blue collar experience to life with a slow deliberateness.

Accompanying Bruce for the most part is Roy Bittan’s piano, which is the underappreciated co-star of the record. On other albums Clarence Clemons’ sax is the poignant counterpoint to Springsteen’s dirges, but here it is Bittan, tinkling the keys in a gentle almost meandering way, that punctuates the emotional touch-points of the songs.

Where the sax or (Steve Van Zandt’s excellent guitar) do rise up in the mix it is to deliver perfectly timed solos or riffs that add dashes of colour, but never overly saturate the canvas. Clemons’ work on “Promised Land” and Van Zandt on “Streets of Fire” are both fine examples.

Thematically, the album builds on Springsteen’s previous work, “Born to Run” (reviewed back at Disc 574). “Born to Run” is about being young and restless in a small, blue collar town, yearning to get out. “Darkness at the Edge of Town” is that same experience years later, when you’re still trapped by fate and circumstance. The opening track, “Badlands” characterizes the experience in this way:

“Workin’ in the fields

Till you get your back burned

Working ‘neath the wheel

Til you get your facts learned

Baby, I got my facts

Learned real good right now.”

“Promised Land” and “Factory” are two of the finest workin’ man songs I’ve ever heard. “Promised Land” develops the themes initiated on “Badlands” and pushes back as the worker bristles at his fate (“Mister, I ain’t a boy, no, I’m a man/And I believe in a promised land”) even as he revels in the quiet nobility it provides him. “Factory” is more resigned, the rolling cadence of the song capturing the day to day drudgery of shift work.

Like everything on “Darkness...”, “Factory” provides both sides to the experience:

“Through the mansions of fear, through the mansions of pain,

I see my daddy walking through them factory gates in the rain.

Factory takes his hearing, factory gives him life

The working, the working, just the working life.”

The factory exacts a toll, but the men who go there provide for their families and bear it all with a quiet stoicism. I’ve had such jobs, and to my chagrin I did not bear them so well as the overall-clad men featured in “Factory.”

Springsteen gives equal attention to the activities outside of the working life, where these same dusty, weary men find a small measure of solace in women and fast cars.

Women are the focus on “Prove It All Night” and “Candy’s Room” with these songs capturing the defiance that exists in finding someone and trying to hold on despite all odds. It is uncomfortable to hear the man in the song assume that Candy loves him more than the others, but worse still to hear Springsteen describe Candy herself:

“There’s a sadness hidden in that pretty face.

A sadness all her own, from which no man can keep Candy safe.”

In the past this song felt weak to me, but like the whole album, it has simply grown better and better with repeat listens.

The biggest escape in this little town, however, is the allure of street racing. These men don’t only love desperately, they race desperately. Themes first developed on “Born to Run” are fleshed out to their fullest extent on “Racing in the Street” which begins with Springsteen’s voice painting a perfect picture:

“I got a sixty-nine Chevy with a 396

Fuelie heads and a Hurst on the floor

She’s waiting tonight down in the parking lot

Outside the Seven-Eleven store.”

The song is supposedly about racing, but it is really about holding onto what is important. Our narrator wins his girlfriend in a drag race, but he can only hold onto her by giving up the sport. The song is also about how love changes over time. His girl ages, as she sits on the porch of her daddy’s house wondering when her man will come home from the road that has always claimed him. The song is beautifully constructed and ends on a message of hope, as he returns for his girl, picks her up and takes her on a drive down to the water; the car still being their common ground after all these years.

“Racing in the Streets” is the pivot to the whole record, and also the perfect setup for the album’s final song, “Darkness on the Edge of Town.” Here the street racer, desperate to give his life meaning on a ribbon of darkness, has in the process lost his girl. Again, the song begins by painting the perfect image, this one writ a little larger:

“They’re still racing out at the Trestles

But that blood it never burned in her veins

Now I hear she’s got a house up in Fairview

And a style she’s trying to maintain

Well, if she wants to see me

You can tell her I’m easily found,

Tell here there’s a spot out ‘neath Abram’s Bridge

And tell her, there’s a darkness on the edge of town.”

This invitation to darkness could be seen as desperate or destructive, but in the world of “Darkness at the Edge of Town” it is a force of renewal. We forge forward into the darkness, because even if you don’t know where you’re going, you know you’ve got to go somewhere that isn’t here, if only for a little while.

The world the album inhabits can be a harsh one, and the endings aren’t always good ones. The record pulls no punches, its characters working hard all day so they can find an ephemeral escape in their pastimes and passions and maybe hold out the hope that if they go far enough they can finally clear orbit and escape for good.

Usually, the effort fails, but like Sisyphus standing at the top of the mountain, watching the boulder roll back down the other side, there is still a recurring and timeless victory. Sisyphus knows he’ll just have to push the boulder up the hill again, but in that moment of respite, as he chooses his fate and accepts it, in that moment he is strangely free. And that moment is an eternity if you choose to view it that way.

“Darkness at the Edge of Town” reminds you that escaping life isn’t the goal, actively living it is. Despite all the grimness and disappointment you can never fully drive away from town, and nor would you want to. Because that place you think you’re leaving is really just a state of mind, and it gave you some of the values that you’re going to need out there in the darkness. Having a copy of this record in your car stereo can’t hurt either.

Best tracks:   Everything except maybe “Adam Raised a Cain” and even that isn’t too bad.

CD Odyssey Disc 611: Fatboy Slim

I’m just home from a very overcrowded workout (seriously, it was like the entire city was working out at the same time as me) and ready to sit back and wait for the lunar eclipse (assuming it isn’t cloudy).

Eclipses originally awed humanity because they were so mysterious. Even though I think I know why they happen, they still awe me, because they are tangible reminders of the massive and delicate dance going on in the heavens. We see the same miracle when the sun comes up each morning, but there’s something special about the rareness of the eclipse that makes you sit up and take notice.

Disc 611 is…. You’ve Come A Long Way, Baby

Artist: Fatboy Slim

Year of Release: 1998

What’s up with the Cover? Records! I can only assume this is Fatboy Slim’s record collection, which is quite a bit larger than mine. I love the sound of vinyl, but I keep my record collecting to a minimum, since I already take up a lot of space with my CD collection. I try to limit myself to seventies rock or country that I really want to hear in the original format.

The original British cover has a picture of some very fat dude wearing a tight t-shirt that reads, “I’m #1 – So Why Try Harder.” It is a pretty funny photo, but also kind of sad to see a dude let himself go so badly. I prefer the records.

How I Came To Know It:  I don’t remember – probably through videos. I remember really loving that nerdy guy dancing in front of a movie theatre in the “Praise You” video. That said, it was Sheila who bought this album.

How It Stacks Up:  Fatboy Slim has five studio albums, but “You’ve Come A Long Way, Baby” is the only one we own, so I can’t really stack it up.

Rating:  3 stars but almost 4

“You’ve Come A Long Way, Baby” cements for me how I will never truly be inspired by electronic music, if for no other reason than it is so damned good.

Fatboy Slim – real name Norman Cook – is just a middle-aged unassuming white guy like me (note: I have better hair). If you didn’t know his alter ego and saw him walking down the street, you’d probably think he was a lawyer or a teacher or something. Unlike me, he is an exceptionally talented DJ (I still have better hair, though).

This record was a huge hit, so much so that it successfully crossed out of rave culture and into the mainstream. Raves themselves were doing the same thing in the late nineties, so Mr. Cook was aided a bit by the zeitgeist of the time, but he was also at the forefront of creating that zeitgeist.

Usually I find electronic music dull and repetitive. However, the songs on “You’ve Come A Long Way, Baby” are so catchy they could never be called dull. The funky dance riff on “Fucking In Heaven” the sing-a-long quality of “The Rockerfeller Skank” (“right about now, the funk soul brother/check it out now, the funk soul brother” etc.) and the infectious horn sample on “Gangster Tripping” are as good as anything I’ve heard on any soul or disco recording I like rate higher. Despite my general aversion to techno, Fatboy Slim just feels damn good to groove to. As Mr. Slim nicely sums up on “Acid8000”:

“If this don’t shake your booty, your booty must be dead.”

Cook’s ear for how long to repeat one concept before introducing another is amazing. He’s like an audio juggler, adding layer after layer of sample without ever dropping the ball or missing a beat. He knows how to put in bass lines that move your hips and melodic concepts that make you throw your arms around in crazy ways and surrender to the music. Well, at least I do that, but that’s how I roll on the dance floor.

Yet even amidst such electronic perfection, the repetition eventually still gets to me. I am a traditionalist in song structure and I like my songs to begin a concept, develop it, and then resolve it. It doesn’t have to have a fascinating lyrical narrative (although that’s nice) so long as it has a beginning a middle and an end.

“You’ve Come A Long Way, Baby” gets two out of three. Fatboy Slim introduces and develops a concept well enough, but once it is up and running he has a hard time closing it out, usually resorting to some kind of repeating sample, cut off slightly earlier each time until it wears itself out. That’s the nature of electronic music though – it isn’t supposed to end, it’s just supposed to roll into a new song that never ends. I’m looking for something that’s not even supposed to be there.

Just like my rave experiences, the energy starts out great but eventually the feeling becomes kind of overly familiar and I’m ready to leave. Even when the songs are this good, I just want a break from the same old same old.

On “You’ve Come A Long Way, Baby” that happened about six songs in, with “Kalifornia” which starts out telling you that California is very very…druggie? Then it descends into repeating “druggie, druggie, druggie.” Later “Love Island” further works the “plot development” theme, repeating over and over again, “I’m at a house. I’m at a house.” I assume this is our narrator trying to call his buddies and tell them where he is but too wasted to provide specifics.

“You’ve Come A Long Way, Baby” is about as good as techno gets, and if you like this kind of music at all, it would be easy to rate this record 4 stars at the very least, and maybe even 5. It is a bellwether in the electronica music scene, and the songs sound as fresh today as they did fifteen years ago when I first heard them. I even like hearing individual tracks when they come on in a larger mix. As a full album listening experience, though, it is just too much of the same thing for my tastes.

Best tracks:   The Rockerfeller Skank, Gangster Tripping, Praise You

CD Odyssey Disc 610: Counting Crows

If I’m addicted to music (and I think it likely) then I’ve had a bad week. I bought three albums over the weekend and yesterday I bought two more (an LL Cool J record and a Salt N Pepa record).

As addictions go, it isn’t a bad one, mind you. Music is good for the soul – I’m not sure there’s anything better for it.

Disc 610 is….August and Everything After

Artist: Counting Crows

Year of Release: 1993

What’s up with the Cover? Someone’s very ugly and awkward penmanship, made even harder to read by the printing of a bunch of song lyrics in the background in the same bad handwriting. My handwriting is atrocious – probably the worst I know – but at least I’d know better than to decorate my album cover with it.

How I Came To Know It: This is one of Sheila’s albums – I think she owned it when I met her. She has played it so many times she knows it like the back of her hand, but I’ve only heard it a few times, usually when she puts it on while we’re playing board games.

How It Stacks Up:  We have three counting crows albums.  Before I started listening to this one, I would have guessed my favourite was “Hard Candy” (reviewed back at Disc 331) but now that I’ve given them all a careful ear, I must admit that “August and Everything After” is the best.

And since this is the last Counting Crows album in the collection, here’s a recap:

1. August and Everything After: 4 stars (reviewed right here)
2. Hard Candy: 3 stars (reviewed at Disc 331)
3. Self-Titled: 2 stars (reviewed at Disc 477)

Rating:  4 stars

When I rolled this album, my first reaction was disappointment. Not Barry Manilow level disappointment, mind you, but disappointment all the same. After a couple of listens, I am pleased to announce that my initial reaction was very mistaken and that despite all the bitching and moaning on this downer of a record, it is actually a pretty fine album.

Let’s get what I hate about this record out of the way first, so we can mirror my listening experience by ending on an up note.  I’ve hated the song “Mr. Jones” for years. I hate its frantic, directionless riff. I hate the way they try to break it down in the middle and try to make it artsy. I hate the way it starts with Adam Duritz going “la la la la” over and over again like a demented out-of-control toddler at a supermarket. Most of all I hate how overplayed it was. Unlike “Sweet Child O’ Mine,” no amount of time will ever rehabilitate “Mr. Jones” from all the overexposure it received because it just wasn’t any damned good to begin with.

OK, now that this is out of my system, I can turn the rest of this review to what I like about this album, which is quite a lot.

First off, Adam Duritz’ voice, which is used to good effect here. In previous reviews I’ve characterized it as “self-absorbed” and “overwrought” but it avoids both pitfalls here. On “August and Everything After” his voice is powerful and emotionally provocative, framed – but never caged – by his innate gift with phrasing. It is hard to tell if he’s connecting better to the material, or if it is just that the material is so much better. It is likely a bit of both.

The band is best at its quietest, particularly on songs like “Omaha” which I think is both a tribute and an indictment of Middle America wrapped up in one song. “Perfect Blue Buildings” is also a pretty song, with a muted groove to it. I’m not 100 per cent certain what “Perfect Blue Buildings” is about – I think addiction and homelessness. Certainly it is about hopelessness, and the inner demons everyone carries within them to one degree or another. Some people just got it worse. As the narrator notes:

“I got bones beneath my skin, and mister…

There’s a skeleton in every man’s house

Beneath the dust and love and sweat that hangs on everybody

There’s a dead man trying to get out.

Please help me stay awake, I’m falling…

“Asleep in perfect blue buildings

Beside the green apple sea

Gonna get me a little oblivion baby

Try to keep myself away from me.”

As these sad and fatal lyrics wrap up the song, a mandolin comes out noticeably in the mix, adding just the right amount of poignancy to the previously bass-driven tune.

The album is a bit of an emotional roller coaster ride, but it has the right amount of peaks and valleys to work and rarely feels artificial or over-done. The exception is Duritz repeating the line “I really need a raincoat” on “Raining In Baltimore” – that is very badly over-done but it is the exception to the rule, so I’m willing to look the other way.

Production-wise, the record has that layered, busy sound that was very popular in the early nineties. I don’t love that production approach, and think it would benefit in places from a sparser arrangement. However, it works well overall, drawing the nuances out of all the various instruments, and letting them compete individually for their moments with good effect.

The album spawned four top ten hits, yet none of those songs are the best tracks. For all their ability to spawn a pop melody and catch the fleeting audience of radio, “Counting Crows” are at their best when they are quiet and introspective; drawing you in and daring you to pay attention. “August and Everything After” does exactly this, and it is easy to see why it is one of Sheila’s favourite albums. It is deeply emotional, lyrically interesting. Like any good album the more you get to know it, the more you appreciate it.

Sheila said she would give it five stars. I would ordinarily give it three, holding it back one star just because of “Mr. Jones.” However, I’ll be damned if I’ll give that song the satisfaction of pulling the rating down; it doesn’t deserve to matter that much on a record that is otherwise so thoughtful and interesting. Four stars it is.

Best tracks:  Omaha, Perfect Blue Buildings, Anna Begins, Time and Time Again, Sullivan Street

CD Odyssey Disc 609: Guns N Roses

While I’m randomly listening to a particular album as per CD Odyssey rules (newbies see sidebar) I am usually grooving on something else on my ‘spare’ time as well.

This week it has been a combination of indie band The New Pornographers (I am really digging their 2007 album “Challengers”), early LL Cool J (both “Bigger and Deffer” and “Walking With A Panther”) and most recently Salt N’ Pepa’s “Blacks’ Magic” and “Very Necessary.”

None of these remotely prepares me to write a review about this next artist. At least Salt N’ Pepa uses the abbreviation ‘n’. I guess that’s something.

Disc 609 is…. Appetite For Destruction

Artist: Guns ‘N’ Roses

Year of Release: 1987

What’s up with the Cover? The ingrate-full dead? Here we have the band represented as skulls (with hair) on a Celtic cross. In addition to being a pretty cool cover, it is heartening to find that while you can’t take most of your possessions with you into the afterlife, hats and bandannas are allowed. Like the devil himself was going to pry-bar Slash’s top hat off his head.

How I Came To Know It:  I’ve had this album so long I can’t remember how I heard of it. I didn’t buy it immediately when it came out – I probably got it in late 1988 or early 1989 (then on cassette) – I think the song that sealed the deal was “Paradise City.”

How It Stacks Up:  I have four Guns ‘N’ Roses albums (what’s with the ‘n’?).  Of those four, “Appetite For Destruction” is my favourite.

Rating:  4 stars

In 1987 hard rock and heavy metal were in a bit of a crisis. Bands like White Lion and Poison had sucked the edge out of the music I had grown up with and while stalwarts Iron Maiden and Judas Priest were still rocking hard they were starting to fade. Warrant’s “Sweet Cherry Pie” was just around the corner. Yikes.

Grunge would soon sweep out the trash with a new approach to sounding hard, but it handed really landed yet with any force. Even if it had, I wouldn’t appreciate how good it was for another ten years. Fortunately, in between all the mascara of hair metal and the moping that was grunge, there was an album that refused to surrender the keys to rock and roll. With “Appetite For Destruction”, GNR refused to open up and say aah when they still could draw breath and unleash a primal scream or two.

This album is filled with the visceral energy hard rock needs to work. Unlike horses, it is OK to ride rock hard and put it away wet, and that’s what GNR does here. The music is fast and furious and yet punctuated in places with a surprisingly sweet and mournful guitar played by Slash (who, ironically, had been passed over to be Poison’s lead guitar years earlier).

Slash isn’t one of my favourite guitar players, but he has his own distinct style; a strange cross between crunchy rhythm and the aforementioned soulful melodies. The most famous of these is “Sweet Child O’ Mine,” which has a guitar riff so well known it is instantly recognizable twenty-five years after this album first landed. In addition to once again reflecting GNR’s general refusal to spell whole words, “Sweet Child O’ Mine” was also criminally overplayed both on radio and video. That despite all of this I still enjoy listening to it, is a a testament to what a pretty song it is.

“Welcome to the Jungle” hasn’t aged quite as well, and like a few tracks on “Appetite For Destruction” it seems a little desperate in its angriest places, but there is no denying it is and always will be one of rock’s most recognizable anthems, warts and all.

The third big hit, “Paradise City” is the one that inspired me to buy the album, and I still think the best of the three. Unlike later records, there are no ballads on “Appetite” but the beginning of “Paradise City” comes about as close as you can. That is until it is overrun by the boundless energy suffused throughout the whole record and transforms into yet another furious rock anthem. Axl Rose sings the chorus over and over again, faster and faster, as Slash lays down a perfectly complimentary guitar lick on top of the mix.

There are plenty of good tracks on “Appetite” apart from the three big hits, however. “Mr. Brownstone” is a gritty little track about heroin with a grim downscale moving guitar riff that mirrors the song’s descent into the wreckage drug addiction makes of your life. “Nightrain” (which again, could use another letter) is another fine deep cut, complete with energetically played cowbell.

Axl Rose has a classic rock front man’s screech, and more than anything his vibrato is what gives the band its signature sound. Also, who among us has not tried to imitate that cobra-sway moves he does while singing, It is like he has no spine and his head is trying to free itself from his shoulders and float away. They used to play “Sweet Child O’ Mine” at clubs all the time and the dance floor would invariably be loaded with young guys trying their best to pull of the Axl-sway.  Sometimes they’d be lucky enough to be holding onto a girl and sometimes they’d just be holding onto themselves.

“It’s So Easy”, “Out Ta Get Me” and “My Michelle” all work really hard to show how angry the band is. It occasionally seems a bit forced but most of the time it just seems like Axl is genuinely furious and furious makes for good rock and roll.

The album has warts, for sure, but I don’t think you can make an album like this without warts. Weaker compositions, like “Anything Goes” and “It’s So Easy” are weak in the right way; they feel a bit raw, but that helps keep the raw vibe of the record alive. Also, no one can say, “You think you’re so cool. Why don’t you just…fuck off!” quite like Axl Rose. He is a classically trained Vulgarian. Axl swears like Barry Sanders scores a touchdown; natural and easy, like he’s done it before and he’ll do it again.

For Guns N’ Roses, it was pretty much downhill from here, but “Appetite For Destruction” got them started so high up that there was still plenty of good music left in them before they finally grounded out. But I’ll talk about those albums when I roll them.

Best tracks:   Welcome to the Jungle, Nightrain, Mr. Brownstone, Paradise City, Sweet Child O’ Mine, Rocket Queen

CD Odyssey Disc 608: Sharon Jones and the Dap-Kings

It has been a week since I wrote a review and for this, gentle readers, I apologize.

This is because I was going to see this next band in concert and I wanted to spend a full week immersing myself in their music so I could review both the new album and the show (both are below).

This also meant that Guns ‘N’ Roses, who were slated to be the next album I reviewed randomly, were bumped. I might’ve felt worse about it except for all the times Axl Rose has left fans hanging when he cancelled a show. It was high time someone cancelled on them.

So instead, I am going to give the people what they want – or at least what I want, and I’m people too. Guns ‘N’ Roses will be coming soon.

Disc 608 is…. Give The People What They Want

Artist: Sharon Jones and the Dap-Kings

Year of Release: 2013

What’s up with the Cover? Half Royal Seal of Soul, half hippy dream sequence. This cover has it all, from ornate lettering, to golden steps to flying pigs. At the centre of it all is Ms. Jones herself, looking like the strong self-assured woman she is.

How I Came To Know It:  This was just me buying the latest release from the band, as I have been a fan since 2010’s “I Learned the Hard Way.”  That album came my way after my friend Nick liked the look of it and took a flier on it, so while the new album is on me, getting into Sharon Jones in the first place I owe to Nick.

How It Stacks Up:  I have four Sharon Jones and the Dap-Kings albums. I am still missing their compilation album “Soul Time” as well as their debut, “Dap-Dippin’ With Sharon Jones and the Dap-Kings.” Of the four I have, I must reluctantly rank “Give The People What They Want” fourth. So it goes.

Rating:  3 stars

Being a successful revivalist act means walking that narrow line between being true to the original art form, and creative enough in your own right to be fresh and new in your approach. Sharon Jones and the Dap-Kings have mastered walking this line, bringing sixties and seventies soul music back with a vengeance.

This is my fourth Sharon Jones album, and I have yet to be disappointed. “Give the People…” is more of what makes this band great. The swinging rhythm is a mix of James Brown’s visceral funk and the more subdued and accessible Motown Records sound. The songs, however, are Dap-Kings originals. While they could easily be transplanted back forty years and still be hits, they also sound fresh today. This just underscores that a good song is a good song, regardless of what might be the fashion of the times.

In the case of “Give the People…” Sharon Jones is a bit more Supremes and a bit less James Brown than usual. The tracks have more early sixties background harmonies and is overall less funky than the bands’ earlier records. If you like that more polished side of soul, this is the album for you.

My preferences fall more toward the James Brown side of the equation and so as a result I prefer the earlier records I’ve heard. I do think this is merely a preference thing, though, and you just need to know what kind of soul and funk you like to know if this is the album for you.

The songs themselves are beautifully written and performed. The horn section is crisp and carries the energy of the songs, and Bosco Mann’s bass and Binky Griptite’s guitar shoulder the swinging soul groove that makes this style of music so singularly interesting. Also, it is hard to imagine two guys with cooler names.

On that note, I would be remiss not to generously tip my hat to Bosco Mann in particular for his vision in founding this band and bringing it all together. Mann writes half the songs on the record including “Stranger to My Happiness” which I consider the standout.

Sharon Jones was diagnosed with cancer in June 2013 but you’d never know it to hear this record, where her voice is still a power house. For all of Bosco Mann’s genius, you need a great lead singer for these songs, and Sharon Jones is definitely that.

While I missed the funkier qualities of the earlier albums, “Give the People…” is still a quality entry into the band’s discography, and a welcome addition to my music collection.

Best tracks:   Stranger to My Happiness, You’ll Be Lonely, Now I See, Long Time Wrong Time

The Concert – April 4, 2014 at the Alix Goolden Hall

I might have missed this concert if it weren’t for my friend Patrick who tipped me off that Sharon Jones was coming to town. Sheila and I attended with Patrick and his wife Yvonne and a fine time was had by all.

The Alix Goolden hall is an old church and the acoustics are amazing, and I love seeing shows there. The one downside is the general seating system they employ, which means you have to line up an hour before the show to get a good spot. This time we were only 30 minutes early and I was nervous about getting into our usual favourite spot, but fortunately it all worked out. I’d tell you where that is, but it is a state secret.

British R&B singer and guitarist James Hunter opened the show. Hunter plays in a very old school style that reminded me of Chuck Berry and Buddy Holly. His guitar has a very sharp, percussive style and fills the room with a nice tone. He was hampered a bit by the sound, which was overamplified and causing distortion. I liked him, but he didn’t blow me away.

Then the Dap-Kings arrived and they did blow me away. Guitarist Binky Griptite plays the role of band leader, exhorting the audience to get into it in a way that never feels desperate or forced.

The band was exceptionally tight and every song had a groove that had you moving in your seat, or getting you out of it. Within five minutes of the show starting, everyone on the floor was up and dancing.

Sharon Jones is a force of nature on stage. Dancing around with genuine enthusiasm and a personality that was so big it threatened to blow the stained glass windows out of the old Alix Goolden Hall. At one point she danced herself right out of her shoes, but when she recovered herself she put them back on; Ms. Jones is a lady, after all.

At one point she had an extended run showing off sixties and seventies dances. I can’t remember them all, but I’m pretty sure I saw the chicken and maybe the swim. Whatever they were, the energy of all the fly moves was infectious. The whole experience felt like a traveling revival show, but without all the gloomy prophecy.

Jones also invited a young hipster up on stage early on and serenaded him with a spirited and sassy version of “You’ll Be Lonely.” The hipster had some moves of his own and was a fine addition to the show.

In fact, later on the band bravely invited people on stage wholesale and managed to play admirably while surrounded by 30 or 40 Victorians shaking their groove things. I was not among them (the last time I tried to dance with the young kids I wrecked the ligaments in my thumb).

As for the set list, the band played most of the songs off their new album as well as the better known songs off their earlier records. Most songs were extended well beyond the three to four minute studio versions, and yet never felt forced. The solos that each of the band members were afforded were similarly fun but not over-played.

By the end of the show the famously staid Victoria audience were all on their feet, clapping along (but only where appropriate – take note of that, American Idol studio audience!)

This concert affirmed that soul was never dead, and even if it had been, Sharon Jones could have brought it back to life by sheer force of will.