CD Odyssey Disc 668: Various Artists

I’m having a fun weekend; so much fun it feels almost too full.

Case in point – I am scrambling to write this review so I can go watch my beloved Miami Dolphins plan the Oakland Raiders. If this review posts after kick off don’t judge me – I’m taping the game to make sure I don’t miss a single play.

On to the record!

Disc 668 is…. Badlands: A Tribute to Bruce Springsteen’s Nebraska

Artist: Various Artists

Year of Release: 2000

What’s up with the Cover?  An abandoned car on the side of the road offsets a string of power poles stretching into the distance. No grain-yellows of Nebraska are here, just a washed out brown-grey that speaks to the stark loneliness of the Great Plains and the desperate characters that inhabit them on this album.

How I Came To Know It:  I’ve only had this album a few months. I think I was falling down the Youtube rabbit-hole one day and saw the Chrissie Hynde/Adam Seymour version of the title track. A little digging at the local record store unearthed the rest of the album.

How It Stacks Up:  This is a compilation album, so doesn’t really stack up. It does make me wish more classic albums would get this treatment.

Rating: 4 stars

Hearing other artists sing the songs from Springsteen’s “Nebraska” underscores what a masterpiece the original album is. “Badlands” is an exact replica of the original 1982 record, with various artists putting a new spin on each of the songs. I generally prefer the Springsteen originals, although there are many tracks here that equal the original recording. The great thing is you don’t have to choose one over the other – “Badlands” gives you a chance to hear the whole record again with fresh ears.

The original album is filled with the stories of desperate characters doing desperate, often illegal things, as they stumble through a life with a lot of hard turns. Since I haven’t reviewed “Nebraska” yet, I’ll focus on the treatments given the songs, rather than their subject matter.

The album opens with Chrissie Hynde and Adam Seymour covering “Nebraska.” Hynde’s deep and soulful rock voice is the perfect match to this song, and she perfectly captures its sparseness and desperation. An organ echoes throughout, underscoring the emptiness of bad decisions and broken futures. It is one of the album’s standouts.

Folk singer Dar Williams comes through strong as well, covering my favourite song on the original, “Highway Patrolman.” The song is about two brothers – one good and one bad – and I like that Dar doesn’t change the main character’s sex. It doesn’t matter that she is singing a male part. It just gives the song a great storytelling quality.

In fact I was listening to this track right as I arrived at work earlier this week and it inspired me so much that I immediately looked up the chords and printed them out so I could learn it on guitar. I haven’t picked the guitar up in two months, but when I do so next, it will be to learn “Highway Patrolman.”

Hank Williams III is the perfect touch of lowlife twang to give “Atlantic City” a new feel. Hank III’s redneck approach to the song makes the character in the song simultaneously more cocksure and less able to handle the trouble that’s bussing in from out of state to Atlantic City. I had this cover from Hank III’s album “Lovesick, Broke and Driftin’” but that version had a ‘hidden track’ tagged onto the end of it, which is annoying. It is nice to have just the song on its own.

On “Used Cars” Ani DiFranco’s whispered delivery brings out Springsteen’s character of a young child’s first understanding of economic disparity. These are the kids that grow up to the crime sprees on “Nebraska” and DiFranco gives you a front row seat to the innocent kids they start out as in a way the big an manly Springsteen can’t do.

The original “Nebraska” album ends with the relatively optimistic “Reason to Believe” and the cover on “Badlands” by Aimee Mann and Michael Penn is even more upbeat.  My only quibble on this song is wishing Mann took the lead on vocals, rather than providing loose harmony support to Penn. That’s just because I love Aimee Mann’s voice though, not an indictment of Penn’s solid work here.

Instead of ending with “Reason To Believe” the CD has three bonus Springsteen covers off albums other than Nebraska. The best of these is Johnny Cash’s version of “I’m on Fire,” but Raul Malo and the Mavericks version of “Downbound Train” and Damien Jurado and Rose Thomas’ “Wages of Sin” are both excellent as well.

When your original material is five-star quality you’ve already got a leg up, but you also have a lot of pressure to do the work justice. “Badlands” comes through beautifully, providing new takes on one of Springsteen’s great achievements, without losing the core elements of the original that make it such a classic.

Best tracks: Nebraska (Chrissie Hynde), Atlantic City (Hank III), Johnny 99 (Los Lobos),  Highway Patrolman (Dar Williams), Open All Night (Son Volt), Reason to Believe (Aimee Mann/Michael Penn), I’m on Fire (Johnny Cash)

CD Odyssey Disc 667: Pat Benatar

I’ve been rolling a lot of good albums from the late seventies lately: Emmylou Harris’ “Quarter Moon in a Ten Cent Town,” Neil Young’s “Rust Never Sleeps” and now this gem. Less respected critically than those others, but no less loved by me.

Disc 667 is…. In the Heat of the Night

Artist: Pat Benatar

Year of Release: 1979

What’s up with the Cover?  Pat Benatar brushes back her hair, her skin covered by the lightest sheen from the heat of the night.  This picture (and the one below) together forms part of my earliest awareness of just how sexy a woman could be. I was only nine at the time, but even I knew something was going on when Pat Benatar threw her strappy stiletto up on the radiator and looked at you like this:

Around the same time this album came out I also remember looking at my first girly magazines (they belonged to our next door neighbor, and his grandson and I got into them). Thirty-five years later the naked ladies of Penthouse and May Year have long since faded from memory, but Pat Benatar can still put some heat in the night just standing near a window.

How I Came To Know It:  I’ve known this album since the year it came out – I believe my brother bought it. He liked hard rock at the time and at the age of 16, probably appreciated Pat Benatar even more than I did, although I didn’t realize it at the time.

How It Stacks Up:  I have three Pat Benatar albums – her first three, and I’ll probably get a fourth (“Get Nervous”) before I quit. Of the three I have, “In the Heat of the Night” is easily the best.

Rating: 4 stars

Pat Benatar is not just another pretty face. With the first urgent staccato notes from Neal Geraldo’s guitar on “Heartbreaker” you know that “In the Heat of the Night” is going to be an energy-infused record. When Benatar launches into the song with “your love is like a tidal wave” her easy power feels like it could knock down buildings all on its own. This album bowls you over from the first bar, and never lets you go.

On top of it all is that voice. Benatar is so damned tiny that hearing that voice come out of her feels like it is breaking the law of conservation of energy. There just shouldn’t be that much big sound in that little person.

The songs are mostly not written by Benatar, but they are written by a lot of craftsmen on that front, including Nick Gilder, John Cougar Mellencamp, Alan Parsons and lead guitarist (and paramour) Neil Geraldo. They are also carefully chosen to showcase her talent. “Heartbreaker” is a classic rock song that just climbs and climbs and yet Benatar never loses any power. On “We Live For Love” she hits a whole other octave altogether and yet that power burns just as bright, a 100 watt bulb in a Tiffany lamp designed for a 40, throwing colour all over the room like a musical kaleidoscope.

Amid all that easy power, Benatar could easily fall into the crooner trap of laying down a series of soulless runs and vocal gymnastics. Instead she belts it out loud and proud, infusing what could otherwise have been empty pop songs into pure rock anthems.

Through it all, Benatar is unabashedly sexual. Some would say she traded on her beauty in the video age to make herself famous. It’s true that her beauty helped her in the video age, but it doesn’t take away from her talent. And besides, when did being alluring become a crime?

Few people could sing “Rated X,” a Nick Gilder song about porn stars, and make it work. Frankly, hearing Gilder do it is a weird and off-putting experience. ‘Coupled’ with Giraldo’s rough-edged guitar it works, however. Moreover, Benatar gives this rather silly song some gravitas. In her hands, the character in “Rated X” is an independent businesswoman as much as she’s an object of man’s desire.

On “My Clone Sleeps Alone” (one of only two songs Benatar gets writing credits for) she showcases an alternate future. It is a false utopia, where everyone lives in harmony, at the cost of all the passion in their lives. As she puts it in the song:

“No naughty clone ladies allowed in the eighties

No bed names, no sex games, just clone names and clone games

And you know and I know my clone sleeps alone.”

Not high poetry, but the point is made all the more powerful as Benatar belts it out, beautiful and intimidating all at once. She isn’t going to hide the sexual side of herself and as we enter the eighties (at the time – the future!) – we shouldn’t either.

Speaking of clones, the album has an undercurrent of science fiction that I appreciate. The Alan Parson’s Project song “Don’t Let It Show” was originally on their concept album “I, Robot.” Benatar’s version adds a depth of sadness and uncertainty that makes it a purely human plea – or a true tapping into the separation and anxiety what early artificial intelligence might feel. However you want to hear it.

Pulling together pop constructions into a rock vibe and adding a seventies sci-fi aesthetic undertone without the whole thing becoming a hot mess is a tall order, but “In the Heat of the Night” somehow pulls it off. A big reason for this is the production, which has just the right amount of modern technique without resorting to synthesizers.

In fact, the production is so smooth it could make the album feel contrived like a Broadway show. I don’t get that experience at all, but I can see how some do. Maybe they’ll say it is just that I know all the songs so well that familiarity alone makes me love it. Maybe they’ll say I’m just wrapped around Pat’s finger; that she’s been giving me that ‘come hither’ look from over by the window for so long I can no longer resist her.

I still say that this record is more than a pretty face and a powerful voice – it’s a rock classic that has stood the test of time.

Best tracks: Heartbreaker, I Need a Lover, My Clone Sleeps Alone, We Live For Love, Don’t Let it Show, No You Don’t

CD Odyssey Disc 666: Cake

Given the number of this next review, I would have loved to have rolled a Black Sabbath album or maybe some Robert Johnson, but it was not to be.

Disc 666 is…. Showroom of Compassion

Artist: Cake

Year of Release: 2011

What’s up with the Cover?  For Cake covers this is pretty involved – they usually just put some graphic drawing on a manila background and call it a day. The flourish of line art adds a touch of class to this image of a tiger mauling a young child.

How I Came To Know It:  I’ve been a Cake fan for years, and this was just me buying their newest album when it came out.

How It Stacks Up:  I have seven Cake albums, which I believe is all of them. I enjoyed “Showroom of Compassion” but it still came in 6^th out of 7 albums. I like all of Cake’s albums so it isn’t a slight.

Rating: 3 stars

A great bass line can go a long way, but you’ve got to work some new tricks on that old dog as well if you want to keep making good records fifteen years into a music career. Cake demonstrates ably on “Showroom of Compassion” that they can do both and for the most part, do it well.

“Showroom” is largely standard Cake fare, featuring the ironically detached but strangely magnetic singing of John McCrea and generally funky bass licks from Gabe Nelson. Trumpet flourishes and basic guitar riffs are the icing on the…er…cake. The whole thing comes together nicely for a band who has long since figured out what they do, and now focus on doing it well.

The bass is particularly sweet on “Long Time” and “Moustache Man (Wasted)” where it makes everything else work. I’m not one for noticing the bass that often, but Cake really draws your attention there and makes it worth the visit. “Moustache Man” has a very similar construction to their 2001 song “Comfort Eagle.” This is unfortunate, because “Comfort Eagle” is the better track, and hearing it echoing in the background took away some of the fun I had with the new song.

Better is “Sick of You” an up-tempo sequel to “Take It All Away” their angry break up song from 2004’s “Pressure Chief” (reviewed back at Disc 431). McCrea’s bleak delivery is the perfect approach to a song about how everything you like about someone can become the very things you hate about them in the end. This can be an artist, a leader or a lover in equal measure; nothing breeds contempt like familiarity, after all.

The short instrumental “Teenage Pregnancy” attempts to create a musical caesura halfway through the album, but just drags the energy down. I found the track very – wait for it – unwanted. Bands take note – you don’t always need a pause midway through your album. Momentum can be a good thing.

In the second half of the album the band tries a few twists on their sound, to varying degrees of success. “Bound Away” is a cross between barroom swing and a sea shanty, but despite it being a good song, McCrae doesn’t have the crooner’s soul to pull it off. I’d love to hear Tom Waits or even Mark Knopfler tackle this one instead, but they’re busy writing their own great stuff these days.

“The Winter” is an introspective folk song, where the bass riff is traded in for a sparse piano piece. This song shouldn’t work for McCrae’s style either, but this time it somehow does. By singing higher in his range his detachment becomes a bit more desperate, which is what a breakup song like “The Winter” calls for. Also the lyrics here are the strongest on the album:

“The winter's chill chilled me to the bone this year

And something in my mind just got away

Being in the places where we used to be

Somehow being there without you's not the same.

“Parking lots, office parks and shopping malls

And all you left were bills you hadn't paid.

The winter's chill chilled me to the bone this year

And something in my mind just got away.”

I love that the places that they used to be are all big, emotionally empty places like parking lots and shopping malls. It is the loneliness of being surrounded by people who don’t give a damn why you look so sad. Instead, they just push past you on the way to their own business. That's a chilly truth, regardless of the weather.

Cake is known for doing innovative covers of old standards. The entry for “Showroom” is the Sinatra classic “What’s Now is Now.” The key to this song, is capturing the right mix of heroism and resignation – two people who’ve done bad things to one another, but still willing to start fresh. Cake captures the paradox perfectly, and adds a nice modern funk to it as well. I prefer the Sinatra version, but that doesn’t make Cake’s effort any less good.

Indie music is pretty diverse – there’s indie versions of folk, pop, rock. Cake is on the rock side of the equation but is also a fairly close approximation to indie funk. They throw in a lot of the other genres on “Showroom of Compassion” as well. While they didn’t blow me away with creativity, for the most part it works out well for them. I wouldn’t start your Cake collection with this record, but I wasn’t disappointed with it either.

Best tracks: Federal Funding, Long Time, Moustache Man (Wasted), Sick of You, The Winter

CD Odyssey Disc 665: Body Count

As some of you will know, every once in a while I get together with a few friends who share my love of music. At our last gathering, we did a quick, informal (and not entirely sober) poll of everyone’s favourite concerts. Here are the results, unassigned to protect the innocent:

• Motorhead (1983)
• Leonard Cohen (1993)
• April Wine (1979)
• Melvins (2000)
• Steve Miller Band (1988)

Cool mix and I’ve got a bit of every band in my collection, with the exception of April Wine. Obviously that one wasn’t me.

Disc 665 is…. Body Count (Self Titled)

Artist: Body Count

Year of Release: 1992

What’s up with the Cover?  An artist’s depiction of a man who looks like he is very diligent about going to the gym, but not so diligent about carrying his pistol in a safe and secure manner. Someone should tell this guy what happened to Plaxico Burress.

How I Came To Know It:  My old roommate Greg owned this album and we both loved it. Also, a lot of the songs got played at clubs when I was into that scene. I bought it years later when – after years of searching – I found a complete copy with all the songs on it.

How It Stacks Up:  I was surprised to find Body Count has five studio albums, including one that came out earlier this year. I only have this first one, but I would be surprised if the other four were better. That said, this encourages me to check them all out.

Rating: 5 stars

On his 1991 rap album, “Original Gangster” Ice T included a metal song and served notice that he was preparing to blow the doors off the world of heavy metal. A year later, Body Count’s self-titled debut didn’t just blow the doors off; it stood in the ruined entryway, shoulders back and dick out, and proclaimed “We’re here. We ain’t goin’ anywhere.” For anyone who didn’t like it – that was just too damned bad.

I loved it then, and I still love it. In 1992 I didn’t know Ice T much at all before Body Count, beyond his reputation as a plain spoken rapper. It wouldn’t have mattered either way, because great music transcends genre, and Body Count laid down track after track of great music.

Ice T’s delivery is definitely aided by his rap experience. When singing, he stays on time. When he is spitting invective over the mad guitar riffs of guitarists Ernie C and D-Roc he knows just where on the beat to come in for maximum impact. There is something about swearing on time that is compelling – kind of like knowing when to drop a punch line in a comedy routine.

I’m from a small mill town and I like to think I can swear with a free and easy flow myself, but Ice T puts me to shame. He makes swearing an art, and moreover he uses it for effect; catching your attention when he wants you to know just how angry he is about social or racial injustice and why. All those who would ‘tsk tsk’ and say ‘there is always a better word you could use’ should listen to this album. Or maybe they shouldn’t – they’d likely be deeply offended.

Back to Ice’s singing voice. While it isn’t a powerful instrument like Rob Halford or Bruce Dickinson, it definitely gets the job done. On “The Winner Loses” Ice really delivers the emotional context needed for this song, which is about losing friends to addiction. Not a swear-word to be found here, because it would be out of place.

This album has so many great moments for me personally, including slamdancing at Scandal’s nightclub to the rambunctious “Evil Dick” an anthem to our baser needs and the other ‘head’ that whispers in men’s ears about how to achieve them.

Other songs sing about social justice, including “Body Count” the song, which captures the sheer frustration of a lot of inner city youth. Here’s an experience I have exactly zero personal experience with, but Ice T paints a painfully detailed portrait:

“Goddamn what a brotha gotta do

to get a message through

to the red, white and blue?

What I gotta die

before you realize

I was a brotha with open eyes?

The world’s insane

while you drink champagne

and I’m livin’ in black rain

You try to ban the A.K,

I got ten of ‘em stashed

with a case of hand grenades.

Tell us what to do…Fuck you!”

There’s that swearing again. If as a listener you weren’t focused in enough on the frustration of the previous lines, now you are.

Body Count is perfectly happy to insult you to get your attention – offend your sensibilities even. How this record became a lightning rod of anger over one single song (“Cop Killer”) still seems absurd to me. Let’s not forget that other songs muse about defiling Tipper Gore’s twelve year old nieces (“KKK Bitch”), or murdering your mother, chopping her into pieces, and driving her around the United States in plastic baggies (“Momma’s Gotta Die Tonight”). Like Bob Dylan, Alice Cooper, and Johnny Rotten before them, Body Count are trying to be offensive so you’ll pay attention. Frankly, this album has my attention purely through its amazing musicality, but that doesn’t mean I want to blunt other aspects of what makes it so viscerally powerful.

I was disappointed when Ice T removed the one song that offended everyone the most, but I fully understand his frustration. The controversy was threatening to overshadow his accomplishment of having conquered not only the rap world, but the metal world as well. I’ve got the full version, and I’m glad of it.

The album has 18 tracks, which should be too many, but six of those are little snippets of conversation or skits. None of these are more than 45 seconds long and those are all good anyway.

The remaining twelve songs are each a masterpiece in their own way. Sometimes they have something important to say, and sometimes they are just tales spun from a dark imagination for our horror and amusement. “Body Count” is a bold and brash project that has left its gooey telltale traces all over the history of rock and roll.

Best tracks: I like all of them, but in particular Body Count, KKK Bitch, The Winner Loses, There Goes the Neighbourhood, and Evil Dick.

CD Odyssey Disc 664: Neil Young

The Odyssey keeps trucking along. Five years in with no end in sight, I sometimes wonder why I’m doing this (hint: it is neither money nor fame). Then I remember three good reasons.

First, this continues to be a great way for me to reacquaint myself with music in my collection, and by forcing myself to write a little about it, pay more attention to some of it than I have in the past.

Second, it gives me a joy in something as simple as walking to and from work, and ensures I’m aware for the experience. Sometimes it even makes me more aware of my surroundings; the music paints a soundtrack over everything and makes all the colour that much more vibrant, all the movement of the city that much more like an elegant dance.

Finally, this is like a massive audio sand mandala. Even if I never finish, it is a meditative exercise to just go through all my records, taking each as it comes without worrying if there is some greater purpose. In some ways, I hope I never finish.

Disc 664 is…. Rust Never Sleeps

Artist: Neil Young & Crazy Horse

Year of Release: 1979

What’s up with the Cover?  An honest picture of what it’s like to watch a concert from the nose bleed section. With a few exceptions I associate stadium rock with bad views and inferior sound. I’ll take a smaller venue every time I can get it.

How I Came To Know It:  I knew a bunch of these songs as covers by other artists, so it was a pretty safe way to increase my Neil Young collection.

How It Stacks Up:  Speaking of my Neil Young collection, I now have twenty of his albums (I recently purchased two newer ones, which I’ll talk about when I roll them). Given that he’s got 34 studio albums, that’s not so many but I’ve pretty much got what I want from his collection at this point. Of the twenty, “Rust Never Sleeps” is way up there. I’m going to say it is #2, although “Comes A Time” and “On the Beach” are also amazing and in the conversation for the silver.

Rating: 4 stars

Like “Hawks & Doves” (reviewed way back at Disc 188) “Rust Never Sleeps” is a tale of two albums, fused together in a way that feels simultaneously awkward and beautiful.

The first five songs are performed acoustic, with a small accompanying band. They are Neil on his folksy side. This is introspective Neil, really drilling down into himself, calm and fearless in a way that is very hard to maintain when you’re really looking deep.

The album’s second track, “Thrasher” is my favourite surprise on the album. The song’s title refers to the big grain harvest thrashers on farms, but the song is really about embracing idealism. The narrator of the song loses a lot of friends as a result and finds himself heading out west to find like-minded spirits, as Neil eloquently puts it:

“It was then I knew I’d had enough, burned my credit card for fuel

Headed out to where the pavement turns to sand

With a one-way ticket to the land of truth and my suitcase in my hand

How I lost my friends I still don’t understand.”

“Sail Away” and “Ride My Llama” have that languorous hippy-in-the-sun vibe that Neil does better than anyone. When you hear him sing like this, it’s like he’s sitting around a beach fire, sandals on his dirty feet and hair hanging in his eyes.

The two songs I knew already were “Pocahontas” and “Powderfinger,” and both because I had originally heard them as covers that I thought were originals at the time.

Crash Vegas do a great rocking job of “Pocahontas” on their 1995 album “Aurora” (reviewed back at Disc 440) and it is different enough that I can love both it and Neil’s folksy version equally.

The same goes for “Powderfinger” which I first heard on the 1990 Cowboy Junkies album, “The Caution Horses” (reviewed at Disc 155). Like Crash Vegas, Cowboy Junkies are Canadian, and together they show the huge influence Neil has had on music up here north of the 48^th parallel. In the case of “Powderfinger” it is Neil’s version that is more rocking, appearing on Side Two, where Neil abandons the smaller set up and brings in Crazy Horse and an electric guitar to rock out.

Neil’s ability to drag a melody through feedback is on fine display throughout the side and it shows that while this record was inspiring alt-rock in Canada ten years later, it was simultaneously helping give birth to the grunge movement in the United States.

“Powderfinger” is my favourite song on “Rust Never Sleeps” but the electric approach to Side Two isn’t quite as strong as the acoustic start. “Welfare Mothers” is pretty jumpy and fun, but “Sedan Delivery” is a bit too aimless and punk for me. That said, it is nice to see if Neil feels like it, he can play a punk song as effortlessly as any other style he chooses.

The album is bookended by the acoustic “My My, Hey Hey (Out of the Blue)” and the equally awkwardly titled electric “Hey Hey, My My (Into the Black),” both of which are great and (I believe) give us the now famous line “better to burn out than to fade away.” They are basically the same song, with a different treatment, showing a powerful melody shines through every time. Together they tie the whole record together

In fact throughout the record, Neil is laying down folk, rock, punk rock, or grunge, all the songs feel like they fit together even when logic says they shouldn’t. Every one of Neil’s albums has some beautiful and grotesque flaw in them that makes them strangely better. “Rust Never Sleeps” just does it better than most.

Best tracks: My My, Hey Hey (Out of the Blue), Thrasher, Ride My Llama, Pocahontas, Sail Away, Powderfinger

CD Odyssey Disc 663: Emmylou Harris

A long and fun-filled weekend is nearing its end on a down note, with the hated Buffalo Bills beating my beloved Miami Dolphins.

I’ll try to wash the taste of that experience out of my mouth with this next review, which I delayed by a couple of days just so I could keep listening to the record.

Disc 663 is…. Quarter Moon in a Ten Cent Town

Artist: Emmylou Harris

Year of Release: 1978

What’s up with the Cover?  Instead of a quarter moon and a ten cent town we get a crescent moon and no town at all. Consider me underwhelmed, especially when a picture like this one…

…is available inside. Emmylou has the kind of unearthly beauty that takes your breath away even when hair is covering most of her face.

How I Came To Know It:  I’ve been drilling through old Emmylou Harris records for a few years now, and this is one of my more recent additions. Once I like an artist, I tend to stick with them unless they give me cause not to.

How It Stacks Up:  I have eleven Emmylou Harris albums, with specific plans to buy at least four more. “Quarter Moon in a Ten Cent Town” is one of her best. As I noted when I reviewed “Roses In the Snow” back at Disc 459, I think of her career as two parts. I’ve got six of her early albums, and another five later ones. Of the six early ones “Quarter Moon” is just ahead of “Pieces of the Sky” (reviewed at Disc 417) at number two of her early work, and third overall.

Rating: 4 stars

Cajun spice, Kentucky bluegrass and free and easy folk songs all blend beautifully together on Emmylou Harris’ “Quarter Moon in a Ten Cent Town,” her fifth studio release.

From the very first notes of “Easy From Now On” Harris’ voice had the hairs on the back of my neck rising. Every word aches its way into your heart, and while she can still belt them out today, in 1978 the purity of her tone is at the height of its power. This is a song about a spurned woman determined to turn her life around; its genius being that it isn’t going to be easy from now on, but you know Emmylou is going to get there all the same.

“Two More Bottles of Wine” is a Delbert McClinton song, and a classic example of how Harris takes a song written for a man, and completely recasts it to suit a modern woman. Life is hard, with dead-end jobs and dead-beat lovers, but at the end of the day there’s always wine.

The album then takes a sad turn, with the mournful “To Daddy” a Dolly Parton song about a wife and mother who always puts her own needs second to husband and children until one day she doesn’t. I love the way this song ends on the five, leaving it feeling unresolved but also implying that wherever mommy has left for, things are going to be better when she gets there.

“My Songbird” follows, a song about not letting someone go even when you know it is the right thing to do and a perfect emotional bookend after “To Daddy.”

The entire album is filled with love’s slow collapse, but Emmylou’s delivery threads a string of hope through each of them. It isn’t hope that maybe the relationship will recover, but a more subtle hope based on how these characters endure heartache, and even use it to motivate them to a better place.

By the time the fifth song comes on, I am always feeling a little maudlin and loving it. Right when you need it, Harris jumpstarts your spirits with the up-tempo Cajun classic “Leaving Louisiana in the Broad Daylight.” The easy swing of this song, the quick and clever lyrics and the delightful touches of fiddle and accordion make for magic that had me playing it two or three times in a row before moving on.

Harris doesn’t write any of these songs, which is a pity because when she does write a song it is usually a good one. Still, it is hard to argue with what she chooses to record – her ear for a good song has never failed her. Naturally her muse Rodney Crowell is front and centre, co-writing “Leaving Louisiana” as well as the similarly sassy “I Ain’t Living Long Like This.” Both songs give the record its swing as well as provide dynamics that keep the record overall from being too somber.

My copy of the album is the 2004 remaster from Rhino, and has a couple of bonus tracks: a live version of Guy Clark’s “New Cut Road” and a Cajun song called “LaCassine Special” sung in French. Both are good, but don’t add a whole lot to the record.

“Quarter Moon in a Ten Cent Town” is a classic country record that still sounds as fresh and relevant today as it did 35 years ago. The songs are a triumph of inspiration over adversity, sung by an artist who can take any style of country music and make it her own.

Best tracks: Easy From Now On, Two More Bottles of Wine, To Daddy, My Songbird, Leaving Louisiana in the Broad Daylight, One Paper Kid, Green Rolling Hills

CD Odyssey Disc 662: REM

It was hard to process an album by one of my rock heroes, Alice Cooper, receiving a one star review and I really needed this next album to be a good one. Thankfully it didn’t disappoint.

Disc 662 is…. Life’s Rich Pageant

Artist: REM

Year of Release: 1986

What’s up with the Cover?  I call this cover the Nickel. It has two sides – a giant human head and a picture of some buffalo, just like a Canadian nickel. I guess this is early in REM’s career, before they could splurge on an elk or something.

How I Came To Know It:  I like REM on my own, but it is Sheila that bought most of the early stuff in her collection. I know this one through her as well, although I used to hear these songs a lot at the University pub back in the day.

How It Stacks Up:  We have six REM albums, and although I originally ranked “Automatic for the People” and “Document” 1-2, I think “Life’s Rich Pageant” is going to take over the #2 spot from “Document.”

Rating: 4 stars

Who knew university protest rock could be this good? Not me back in 1986, but thanks to both my wife Sheila and my buddy Casey I’ve had a slowly growing appreciation for “Life’s Rich Pageant.” For the last two days I’ve immersed myself in this album and finally internalized how good it was.

Like a lot of really good records, “Life’s Rich Pageant” grows on you over time. On a casual listen it might just feel like any ho hum radio rock, but once you bend both ears toward it, you realize the artistry behind the songs.

I don’t know REM’s first three albums but “Pageant” feels a bit folksier than what would come later. Not folk, but you can hear this sound echo through folk bands like Spirit of the West as much as you’ll hear it in the clarion nineties rock of bands like Cracker. It feels like “Pageant” had an impact on a lot of what followed in both genres.

The music has a vibrating tone that makes the air thick with sound but it never feels muddy or overdone. The way the simple structures of each instrument alone combine into something greater feels a lot like modern indie music.

What “Pageant” has that a lot of modern indie music is lacking is an emotional core. The record is driven by Peter Buck’s guitar first and foremost. Buck  is content to lay down a simple riff that the songs construct themselves around. It is the stem that supports the flower of each song.

The brightest part of those flowers is Michael Stipe’s vocals. His vibrato style rings out like a broken bell announcing revolution. His delivery is a mix of hope and frustration that defines the protest music of the day. It is a necessary element, because many of these songs are angry songs, and they would come off overwrought in lesser hands.

The album isn’t without its warts – the strangely placed tango “Underneath the Bunker” just doesn’t fit with the rest of the album. It creates a division of sound for the ear about halfway through, but I think the songs are strong enough to stand without such a musical caesura.

In fact a much better break would be the next song, “The Flowers of Guatemala.” This song is a peaceful mantra about the beauty of Guatemala. It is all the more poignant given that country was in the midst of a decades-long civil war when the album came out. There’s always beauty to be found, even in dark times. If nothing else, there are flowers.

In other places, Stipe’s weirdness takes over the vocals and makes me wonder what the hell he is on about. “Swan Swan H” (the H is for hummingbird or hoorah – not sure which) is a great example:

“Night wings, or hair chains?

Here's your wooden greenback, sing

Wooden beams and dovetail sweep

I struck that picture ninety times”

This stuff seems really important, but I can’t for the life of me tell you exactly what he is going on about. Ronnie James Dio would be proud.

The album ends with “Superman” the anthem that would finally make REM reasonably famous. Ostensibly a song about confidence and empowerment, the song has a core of doubt. REM delivers it in a way that encourages you to sing along triumphantly, but leaves you aware of the ironic consequences of your happiness.

Much more telling is “These Days”:

“All the people gather, fly to carry each his burden

We are young despite the years

We are concern, we are hope despite the times

All of the sudden, these days

Happy throngs, take this joy wherever, wherever you go”

REM celebrates hope despite the times. It is still a celebration, but they don’t want you to feel too satisfied, so they make you wait to feel like Superman until the end of the record, when you’ve heard everything else they’ve got to say. It’s a slow burn, but worth the journey. Much like my re-kindled appreciation for “Life’s Rich Pageant.”

Best tracks: These Days, Fall on Me, Cuyahoga, Flowers of Guatemala, I Believe, Superman

CD Odyssey Disc 661: Alice Cooper

After a crazy weekend where I behaved like I was twenty years younger, I awoke today hung over and feeling decidedly 44 again. It was a great weekend though, surrounded by friends and revelry so I regret nothing.

Speaking of good friends, discerning readers will note that I seem to have skipped reviewing Disc 660 – that’s because it was an album by a friend of mine. I listened to it and I loved it (and generally love all the music he’s made over the years) but way back at the beginning of the Odyssey (at Disc 56/67, to be precise) I decided I wouldn’t review albums by my friends.

In addition to excess, it was a weekend full of music, starting on Friday night where Sheila and I and some friends went to see Canadian punk legend Art Bergmann at the Upstairs Lounge. Bergmann was great, and so was the opening act RADco. In fact although I loved Bergmann, it was RADco that inspired me to buy one of their downloads – they are a cool band with a great energy. They reminded me of L7 crossed with very early No Doubt. I’m looking forward to downloading their music, once I get enough courage (I always buy my music in hard format, so this is new territory).

With all these good musical experiences, this next review is a sharp turn into disappointment.

Disc 661 is…. Science Fiction

Artist: Alice Cooper (mostly)

Year of Release: recorded in 1969, although not released until 1987.

What’s up with the Cover?  A young Alice Cooper, sans eye makeup, looks thoughtful and – dare I say it – reasonably sober. Behind him, his alter ego lurks, haunting and haunted at the same time.

Also note in the upper right hand corner the logo for “music options.” Not all options are good, my friends.

How I Came To Know It:  I was browsing through the Alice Cooper rack at a local music store looking for rarities and found this – a rarity! Made in Holland, no less so you know it’s…er…European. I’d never heard of any of the songs, which was even better.

How It Stacks Up:  I have all twenty-six of Alice Cooper’s studio albums (I’m kind of a fan). “Science Fiction” is a live album, so doesn’t really stack up against the studio collection.

Rating: 1 star. I never thought it would come to this, Alice.

Alice Cooper is one of my all-time favourite musicians, and he’s given me a lot of joy over the years, which is why it pains me to have to say this, but “Science Fiction” is a wretchedly awful album.

The record was originally a live illegal bootleg, which I guess somewhere along the way became legitimate when some Soulless Record Exec (or Alice himself) figured they could make a buck off of it.

This is very early in Alice Cooper’s career, and while I liked the relative obscurity of the songs initially, it didn’t take long to realize why they have remained obscure. They just aren’t that good. Most are little more than two to three minute snippets of musical ideas. They are performed like the band is wading through knee-deep industrial sludge; slow and plodding.

Not in that good, crunchy kind of way either. The songs lurch around and fail to create any energy. It is like Pink Floyd tried to write Cream songs and then performed them in the shower drunk.

I realize this is a live bootleg, but even so the sound quality is awful. Whoever recorded this should have reviewed what they had and kept it private. In fact, it is an early cautionary tale for all those folks that record concerts on their phones and then post them to Youtube. Mostly, those clips suck. Digging through them trying to find something worth listening to is not unlike digging through “Science Fiction” looking for a song I liked. The main difference being at least some of those Youtube clips are OK.

In fact, the best sounding songs on the album are “Goin’ to the River” and “Ain’t That Just Like a Woman” and those songs are (inexplicably) performed by Ronnie Hawkins, not Alice Cooper at all. What the hell?

For no apparent reason the other songs all have the wrong titles (it’s no wonder I didn’t recognize any of them). This isn’t just a weird CD upload thing either; the album prints them with the wrong titles, and always has. The title track is actually called “Fields of Regret” a song off of their first album “Pretties For You.”  Well, it is half of “Fields of Regret” anyway – at the 2:40 mark it just abruptly stops. I guess I should be thankful for small miracles.

“Fields of Regret” would certainly be a better name for this album, since I deeply regret ever buying it. I’m going to get rid of it so that I can get back to my usual thoughts about Alice Cooper – that he is a great talent and a living legend of rock and roll that consistently gives me joy. I hope I roll one of his many awesome albums soon to wash the echo of “Science Fiction” out of my ears.

Best tracks:  um…no.

CD Odyssey Disc 659: Queen

This next artist got rolling early in the Odyssey and this is already my 11^th review of them. I haven’t hit a bad one yet!

Disc 659 is…. Flash Gordon

Artist: Queen

Year of Release: 1980

What’s up with the Cover?  The Flash Gordon movie logo, because sometimes direct is best.

How I Came To Know It:  I was ten years old when “Flash Gordon” came out and that is the perfect age to be introduced to that kind of movie. Years later when I had some purchasing power (probably the mid-nineties) getting the soundtrack was the next logical step.

How It Stacks Up:  I have fifteen Queen albums. I think that is all of them that feature Freddie Mercury. Being a soundtrack, “Flash Gordon” has a hard time stacking up against regular studio albums, yet somehow it manages it. I’d put this album 13^th or 14^th depending on my mood, but that’s more of a testament to the strength of the Queen discography than anything else. Stacked up against the other soundtracks it does even better – probably 8^th out of 27.

Rating: 3 stars, but almost 4

Sandwiched between 1980’s “The Game” and 1982’s “Hot Stuff,” “Flash Gordon” is Queen at their campiest, synth-iest best. The bombastic, orchestral quality of the songs is the perfect match to the campy overcooked movie they support.

In fact, apart from missing out on seeing Ornella Muti vamp it up as Princess Aura, the “Flash Gordon” soundtrack is superior to the movie in almost every way. The music paints a far better picture of the fifties pulp fiction version of space the movie was trying to achieve – fuelled by soaring synthesizers, occasional rock guitar riffs and (equally importantly) your own imagination.

So often in soundtracks, the dialogue to a movie gets tacked on top of the music, and serves only to distract you from the songs (see my review for “Natural Born Killers” for an example of how I usually feel about that). On “Flash Gordon” Queen has artfully worked in key samples of dialogue and sound effects that make you feel like you are listening to a radio play. “Flash Gordon” makes for a good movie, but with Queen establishing the ambience, it makes a great radio play.

Look no further than “Football Fight” with its driving organ sound, signifying danger and action as Flash Gordon fights Ming’s imperial guard to protect Dale Arden. The film is pretty clumsy here, but Queen makes it both heroic and campy all at the same time. Coupled with lines of dialogue like Ming asking “are your men on the right pills? Perhaps you should excuse their trainer” it couldn’t be better.

Other places, Queen brings you down into mystery and dread for the quieter moments just as artfully, and gives these scenes a gravitas that is hard to gain while watching the film.

And lest you think I’m bashing the film, I’d like to point out that it is a cult classic for a reason. It is silly, but it is delightfully silly, and chock full of great actors chewing scenery left and right (in particular Timothy Dalton as Prince Barin and Brian Blessed as Vultan the Hawk Man). I swear Blessed channels his portrayal of Vultan when playing Exeter in Brannagh’s “Henry V.” When Exeter finishes his speech to the King of France I always expect him to spread his wings and fly out of the throne room, laughing maniacally as he summons his hawk men. But I digress…

What I mean to say, is that “Flash Gordon” is a thoroughly enjoyable film – it is just so much better as a radio play starring Queen.

The only bittersweet part of this album is hearing “Wedding March and Marriage of Dale and Ming.” Sheila and I had half considered working both into our own wedding to lighten the mood right before the ceremony. Ming and Dale’s vows are hilarious:

Priest: “Do you, Ming the Merciless, Ruler of the Universe take this earthling Dale Arden to be your empress of hour?”

Ming: “Of the hour, yes.”

Priest: “Do you promise to use her as you will.

Ming: “Certainly”

Priest: “Not to blast her into space…until such time as you grow weary of her.”

Ming: “I do”

Dale Arden: “I do NOT!”

[cue Flash Gordon’s triumphant arrival].

That would have been a great clip to play – followed by serious vows of course – and we should’ve done it. If we ever renew our vows I won’t make the same mistake twice. Also, we can use the bombastic rocked out version of the wedding march played by Queen. There’s nothing funny about that – it is pure awesome.

As a soundtrack “Flash Gordon” isn’t exactly a hit machine, but it is great to listen straight through. All the versions of the main “Flash” theme are great, even the dance remix.

The album’s final song, “The Hero,” is classic Queen rocking out for the credits. It serves notice that they’ll be back for an even better soundtrack  - they do the music for “Highlander” on 1986’s “A Kind of Magic.” That album also features the theme song for “Iron Eagle.”

So basically, Queen makes “Flash Gordon” the movie at least half of what it is. Moreover it can be relied on to deliver greatness on any soundtrack as a general rule, and in a pinch can even be used at weddings.

Best tracks:  All the versions of Flash’s Theme, including the 1991 remix, Football Fight, Vultan’s Theme, The Wedding March/Marriage of Dale and Ming, The Hero

CD Odyssey Disc 658: Various Artists

I’m just a couple of hours away from my annual football pool draft. This also means that I’m only a few days away from the regular season starting again. Yeehaw – go Dolphins!

Disc 658 is…. A Portrait of Big Band Swing

Artist: Various artists

Year of Release: 1998 but featuring music from the thirties and forties

What’s up with the Cover?  Some fellas getting their brass on. These guys look square as hell, but they were the rock stars of their day.

How I Came To Know It:  This is one of Sheila’s albums. I think she bought it because she liked big band and it was a hell of a good price.

How It Stacks Up:  This is a compilation album, so it can’t really stack up. Even if it could, this and the “Glenn Miller Story” (reviewed not that long ago, at Disc 617). are the only big band albums I can think of in my collection, so there isn’t much to compare it to.

Rating:  compilations and ‘best of’ albums don’t get a rating. That’s how the CD Odyssey rolls.

Swing was the dance music of its day, and listening to this two disc set full of the finest examples of the form, it is easy to see why. This is fun-lovin’ stuff that feels good to the ear and gets you shakin’ those parts that it feels good to shake.

There were 48 songs and over two hours of music on this album (hence my lengthy absence) and it took three full days walking to and from work to get through it all. Far from being a labour, the music generally put me in a happy mood. Listening to it everyone I passed seemed happier, the colours of the trees, houses and cars around me all seemed brighter; even the passing cars and bicycles traffic seemed to be cruising along in time with the music. I felt like I was starring in my own personal musical. I may even have danced down the sidewalk from time to time.

One of the things that kept coming back to me was how the music had a predictable quality to it, but yet never felt boring. Growing up on western popular music, I’m so used to certain chord progressions that songs always feel like they are going to go in a certain direction. Swing follows all the rules, with melodies that feel so natural it is like they were decoded directly from the Music of the Spheres.

This experience only works if you’ve grown up with western music though. A listener from a different culture might find the melodic progressions unexpected and novel, in the same way that eastern or African music surprises my ears.

In addition to a lack of melodic surprises the music is characterized by the jumping and dragging of the notes through the rhythm (I think that’s what puts the swing in Swing). Whatever it is, it makes you want to dance and even as I type this I find myself swaying in time to the music (currently “Jumpin’ at the Woodside” by Count Basie and his Orchestra).

I was talking about how damned happy this music made me over the weekend with my friend Andrew, and he made a good point. This stuff comes out of the thirties and forties which for the most part featured either economic depression or world war. Maybe Swing was exactly the tonic that the nation needed to forget its troubles. If it feels a bit vacuous or frivolous in places (and it does), then I think we can forgive it on that basis alone.

The songs were almost all three minutes long – to the point of being uncanny. I remember I used to have a “Best of James Brown” cassette tape and all those songs were also three minutes long. It didn’t take much delving into James Brown’s collection to determine that very few of his songs are that short, and they’d all been edited for length.

I don’t know much about this music – maybe radio demanded a short song – but it left me wondering if they’d been edited for length or not. I hope not, because that is always a damned shame. If there is editing, it is artfully done and the songs never feel truncated. Besides, the “extended dance mix” of any dance music is only fun if you are actually at a dance.

The sheer enormity of this package makes singling out artists and songs difficult. I recognized a lot of the Glenn Miller songs, and some other ones that are so iconic that we all know their tune (like Benny Goodman’s “It’s Only a Paper Moon” or Artie Shaw doing “What Is This Thing Called Love?”). The album is full of greats like Miller, Shaw, Goodman, Tommy Dorsey, the aforementioned Count Basie and tons of others.

These guys were all living legends in their day, and listening to them now it is easy to see why. Writing a catchy pop lick and making it feel effortless is one of the toughest things in music, and these guys have them rolling out of the horn section as easy champagne cascading down a wine-glass fountain.

After three days, I’m ready to move on to something more familiar to me, but I’ve had a hell of a good time getting to know another important branch of my musical tree.

Best tracks:  Hell if I know – after three days and 48 songs my head hurts trying to figure them all out. Lots!