CD Odyssey Disc 413: Janelle Monae

I listened to this next album for a couple of days knowing that I’d be going to see the artist in concert last Thursday night, and wanting to get in the mood.  Strictly speaking, I didn’t roll the album randomly, but since I’m going to review the concert, it seems as good a time as any to review the album.

That's random enough for me and besides - the rules are supposed to be fun!

Disc 413 is…The Archandroid (Suites II and III)

Artist: Janelle Monae

Year of Release: 2010

What’s up with the Cover?  A head & shoulders shot of Janelle Monae, dressed as her alter-ego, the 28^th century android Cindi Mayweather.  The less said about that the better, so I’ll just say – cool hat.

How I Came To Know It: I was watching late night TV – I can’t remember if it was a music channel, or just one of those times that a channel has five minutes of dead air time and they put on a music video.  I saw the video for the now-famous “Tightrope” and I thought to myself – “here is something really good, that I haven’t heard before.”  I searched it out and discovered Janelle Monae.  Sadly, the song has gone on to star in many boring car commercials.  I hope they at least paid her well for it.

How It Stacks Up:  I only have this one Janelle Monae album, so it can’t really stack up.

Rating: 3 stars

This review is two-in-one, and I’ll start with the traditional studio album review, before I get to the concert at the Royal Theatre.

The album 

“The Archandroid” is an ambitious project by an artist with a keen appreciation of the rich musical history she is building on.

If you’re in any way a student of music, you’ll enjoy the many musical traditions Monae draws from, to create a very fresh and new sound.  Some songs like “Dance or Die” or “Tightrope” have clearly drawn lines back to 60s and 70s R&B, and mixed them with modern hip-hop stylings.  Other songs, like “Locked Inside” and “Say You’ll Go” sound like 70s pop throwbacks, part Disco and part AM radio.

When Monae is rapping, she has a rapid-fire, but clearly enunciated delivery that Erik B. & Rakim would be proud of.  She fills short lines with a seemingly impossible number of syllables, cut short at the end of each bar just as your brain is about to run out of short-term storage for what she’s just told you.  When she is singing more traditionally, she is equal parts pop princess and jazz diva.  She has great vocal chops, although the many layered production on “The Archandroid” downplays the sheer power of her voice, in favour of a more textured, otherworldly sound (you know, for the sake of all the ‘I’m an android from the future’ bumpf – yawn).  When she does cut loose, like on “Cold War,” you find yourself wishing she’d go even further, but that’s just not how the album is put together.

The album is a loosely held together concept album, and for an artist’s first full length record, that is a brave decision, particularly in today’s climate of the downloadable single.  It is a testament to Monae’s strength of character that she was able to get someone to buy into this concept and let her record this album as it is.  It is a testament to her genius that she is able to pull it off and deliver a very listenable product – it could easily have ended up a hot mess.

This album jumps around styles quite a bit, but it generally works.  “Tightrope”, “Dance or Die” and “Cold War” are exceptional pieces of art, which feel like they could be a hit in any decade all the way back to the sixties.

Other songs, like “Mushrooms and Roses” and “Make the Bus” are a bit over-wrought and try too hard to be musically or lyrically clever.  For example, on “Make the Bus” we hear Kevin Barnes from the band “Of Montreal” singing “You’ve got ‘Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep Under Your Pillow.”  Um…just because the title of the book features androids, doesn’t mean you should just pointlessly put it in the song, particularly given how clumsily it is dropped in, and then never referenced again. 

On these songs I feel the fingerprints of one of her mentors, Big Boi (from Outkast fame).  For more on how Outkast actively wreck their own songs, read my review at Disc 269.   Despite being relatively new to fame, Monae is the far superior artist, and shouldn’t let these folks overly complicate what she’s got going on.

Also, “The Archandroid” is 18 tracks long, which is far too many.  As usual, if four to six of these songs had been left off the album, it would be a lot tighter and easier to listen to.  As it is, it is brilliant, but just a little too long.

I think objectively, “The Archandroid” is a four star album, but because of some of the production decisions and the length, I’m bumping it down to the high end of three star territory.

The Concert – June 28, 2012 – The Royal Theatre, Victoria BC

Sometimes, when an artist’s record has such heavy production, it can result in a very poor live show – but not in this case.  If anything, Janelle Monae’s live show is so dynamic and amazing it made me appreciate the album even more after I’d seen her.

Stripped of all of the layered production the first thing that shines through is the power of Monae’s voice.  She must be all of five foot nothing and ninety pounds soaking wet, but when she opens her mouth she is a vocal giant.  I couldn’t believe the power and purity of the sound that came out of her tiny frame.  It was like listening to Sheena Easton, Billie Holiday and James Brown all rolled into one.  Monae is on point from the beginning, and her energy consistently pulled us out of the Royal’s plush chairs and onto our feet (which is not easy to do in that building, which is known for its staid audience).

The band is tight and plays with passion, including a Rick James look-a-like on lead guitar with a few moves of his own and the most energetic big man I’ve ever seen on the trombone.  None can hold a candle to Monae though, who mixes amazing vocals, with some truly funky dance moves.  Some of them are her own, and some are borrowed from R&B and pop greats of the past (she does a first-rate moonwalk, and reverse moonwalk).

She is possessed with the music and when she’s dancing, it is like watching Elvis, possessed with the spirit of James Brown.  When at one point she drops to one knee and her band mates toss a cape over her, it seems a perfectly appropriate homage.  Monae is Soul Sister Number One.  She is Ms. Dynamite.

She played all the songs from her album I wanted to hear, and none of the filler (see my overlong comments in the album review above).  Of course, when you’re relatively new, you often have to supplement with some cover songs, and Monae hit these out of the park.

She sings the Jackson Five’s “I Want You Back” and Prince’s “Take Me With U” with such energy and enthusiasm that I think I preferred her version to the original.  For her encore she does a James Bond set, singing “You Only Live Twice” and “Goldfinger.”  Monae doesn’t do a lot new with these classics, but she absolutely nails them nonetheless.

As if that weren’t enough, at one point Monae belts out a song while simultaneously painting a picture live in front of us (of a nude woman, seen from the back).  At the end of the concert, audience members wearing tuxedo-inspired clothes are invited onstage, and the person with the best outfit is given the painting, which has been framed backstage while the concert was going on.

This is a participatory show, where audience members are encouraged to stand up, and shout out their love.  Monae is a must-see live, who is going to be a much harder ticket in future years, I suspect.

Also, a shout out to the opening act, Mr. Roman Gian-Arthur, a funky guitar player who has a sound that is a mix of Marvin Gaye, Pink Floyd and Jimi Hendrix, and some funky dance moves that almost rival Monae’s.

Best tracks:  Dance or Die, Cold War, Tightrope, Oh Maker, Come Alive.

CD Odyssey Disc 412: Indigo Girls

I spent Sunday and Monday evening cleaning out a couple of closets, which felt pretty good (not the Eminem kind either - actual closets).  In addition to a lot of games and shoes (a man can't have enough of either) I came across a bunch of forgotten keepsakes from twenty years ago.  It is only fitting that the next album I would review would go back to the same period.

Disc 412 is…Indigo Girls (Self-Titled)

Artist:  Indigo Girls

Year of Release: 1989

What’s up with the Cover?  This cover really didn't want to photograph in focus.  Emily Saliers and Amy Ray, aka the Indigo Girls, stand looking pensive.  Usually to appear pensive you keep your mouth closed, but look like you have a lot to say.  That is definitely true with these two.

How I Came To Know It: As I mentioned when I reviewed “Strange Fire” way back at Disc 50, a friend introduced me to the Indigo Girls.  Once I was hooked with “Strange Fire” I went immediately to this album, which was probably even better known, and I was not disappointed.

How It Stacks Up:  I have six Indigo Girls albums.  This one is probably my favourite, although there is one other that might vie for top spot before it’s over.

Rating: 5 stars

Two talented women, playing guitar, singing harmony, and speaking the truth of their hearts – that is this album’s recipe for success.

I always think of this album as the Indigo Girls first album, probably because it is self-titled, but I think “Strange Fire” pre-dates it.  Both records are heavy on complex harmonies, simple guitar melodies and lots of energetic folk strumming.

This album came to me as I was just getting into Celtic folk music, and opened up a new world for me – that of American folk.  It showed me that there are lots of modern and interesting ways to make folk music that stay true to that music’s roots, and still sound fresh.  Despite my seriously overplaying this album in the day, it is still enjoyable today, and listening to it on the walk to work the last couple of days has been like catching up with an old friend.

In many ways, this album is of its time, having such a huge influence on me during my university days.  Coming from a hard rock/heavy metal background, I was hungry for something different, and folk music’s emotional core really resonated with me.  The Indigo Girls are as emotionally resonant as it gets.  An example of this is the opening track, the five star anthem “Closer To Fine” which sums up so well the yearning we have for absolute truths, and all the various ways we search for them – including education (“I went to see the doctor of philosophy/with a poster of Rasputin and a beard down to his knees”), and at the bottom of the bottle (“I stopped by the bar at 3 a.m./to seek solace in a bottle or possibly a friend).  Anything to get some clarity of purpose, but as the chorus reminds us:

“There’s more than one answer to these questions

Pointing me in a crooked line

The less I seek my source for some definitive

The closer I am to fine.”

This was an important message when I was 20, and it still resonates at 40 just as strongly.

Other modern folk bands of this period took their music into politics and social commentary, but this Indigo Girls album stays intensely personal.  It is an album that explores the innermost aspects of the human condition, with lyrics that speak like living poems right to the heart of every issue.  The Indigo Girls are always willing to lay bare their personal experiences for the listener, like this amazing section from “Prince of Darkness”:

“I don’t know when I noticed life was life at my expense

The worlds of my heart lined up like prisoners on a fence

My dreams came in like needy children tugging at my sleeve

I said ‘I have no way of feeding you, so leave.’”

The song then takes this intense personal experience and translates it outward:

“And now someone’s on the telephone desperate in his pain

Someone’s on the bathroom floor doing her cocaine

Someone’s got his finger on the button in some room

No one can convince me we aren’t gluttons for our doom.”

Yes, those last two lines cross into political commentary, but that person in the room with his finger on the button is a ‘someone’ to the Indigo Girls, every bit as much as the brokenhearted lover or the addict from the preceding lines.  The dangers of the cold war (still very much alive in 1989) are ultimately reflected in the individuals faced with the hard decisions of the age.

To pull this kind of high-intensity poetry off the vocal performances need to be pitch-perfect, and both Amy and Emily are at the top of their game here.  I’m not musically literate, but the way they sing their harmonies fairly loosely give the record a rawness that wouldn’t be there if they just matched up and tried to sound ‘pretty’.  Nashville would not be impressed with the edge they sing with, but then I’m rarely impressed with Nashville these days (for a delightful look at the Indigo Girls’ experience with Nashville, listen to their album “Rites of Passage”).

In addition to furious strumming, the guitar work on this record really snuck up on me this listen, with a lot of intricate plucking, played with a depth of feeling that adds just the right spice of complexity to what are, at their core, fairly simple compositions.

Never is this better displayed than on “Land of Canaan”, a song that also appears on the “Strange Fire” album, in a slightly slower version.  I like the one on that album, but I love the version on their self-titled effort, which is tighter, better produced and has some of the sweetest slide guitar you’ll hear (played by John Keane).

Musically, this album exudes talent and an understanding of exactly how to dress up a melody just the right amount with harmony and virtuoso playing.  Lyrically, the record takes emotional chances, but more than that, delivers great poetry.  The combination is simply unbeatable, and is as fine an example of American folk as you’ll find. 

Best tracks:  I like all the tracks, but particularly Closer to Fine, Prince of Darkness, Blood and Fire, Love’s Recovery, and Strange Fire.

CD Odyssey Disc 411: Chumbawamba

At Disc 411, it would have been very cool if this review had been for Beck’s 2006 album, “The Information” but I reviewed that way back at Disc 150.  That album had no hits, but this next review had one I’m sure everyone will remember.

Disc 411 is…Tubthumper 

Artist: Chumbawamba

Year of Release: 1997

What’s up with the Cover?  A disturbing wide-mouthed baby leers at us from the corner of an otherwise pleasant green album cover.  I don’t think babies are too photogenic at the best of times, and giving one a split-mouthed leering grin full of fake teeth doesn’t help any.  This cover is not only a poor effort at art it is downright unpleasant to look at.

How I Came To Know It: There’s this song called “Tubthumping.”  You may not know it by the title, but you’ll know it when someone starts singing “he drinks a whisky drink, he drinks a vodka drink, he drinks a lager drink, he drinks a cider drink.”  Yeah – that song.  So I bought this album for one song, which I don’t usually do, and for good reason.

How It Stacks Up:  I have only this one Chumbawamba album.  I fully expect that there are Chumbawamba devotees out there with several more, but I am not one of them and won’t become one anytime soon.

Rating: 2 stars.

Sometimes a record can be too clever for its own good, and that is case with “Tubthumper.”

This record shows flashes of true talent, not the least of which is the memorable, entertaining and thoroughly party-inducing “Tubthumping.”  The way this song can make you feel inspired about an all-night drunk, and at the same time infuse that celebration with an air of desperation is both subtle and successful.

Have you ever been to that party where you stayed an hour too late, and when things started to get uncomfortable you were unable to locate a cab?  You end up standing in the doorway with your coat on for half an hour, awkwardly making small talk before finally deciding to walk home.  Chances are not only have you experienced this, but your memories of that party won’t be that part at the end, but rather something  humorous or entertaining that happened earlier in the evening.  That’s what “Tubthumping” makes me think of – our selective memories filtering out only the good experiences.  Or as the song says,

“He sings the songs that remind him of the good times

He sings the songs that remind him of the better times.”

Then, right at the end the song loses me, morphing into a strange 45 second excerpt of music wholly unrelated to the earlier song, that isn't nearly as enjoyable to listen to.  Sadly, this self-indulgent, self-absorbed, ‘look how clever we are’ moment is subsequently employed on almost every other song.

The musical style of the album is a thin slice of rock and roll, mixed with a thick wedge of dance music, but Chumbawamba clearly don’t see themselves as a dance band.  They seem to identify as a political protest band (I think I read/heard somewhere that their other albums are much more focused in this direction, but don’t know for sure).

So even though there are a few other songs that have great energy, vocals, composition and melodies (“Amnesia” and “Scapegoat” are particularly good in this regard), they have these weird musical post-scripts to deliberately knock you out of your groove.  It is like Chumbawamba is worried that their songs are too catchy, and that you might miss that they are singing about serious topics.

Except that their lyrics are not particularly good.  They try to tackle serious topics like economic theory, poverty and class warfare, but the way they approach their subject matter is both dated and awkward.  There are bright spots where they do a slightly better job of social commentary, particularly “The Big Issue” but overall, the message just seems poorly suited for dance-hall production.

I enjoy protest rock, but it is much better handled by artists like Billy Bragg, Steve Earle or even the Dropkick Murphys.  None of these are dance music (OK, maybe the Dropkick Murphys, but a very different type of dance music in their case).  I’m not saying you can’t do it with dance music, but I think you have to really nail it to make it work, and Chumbawamba miss the mark.

Instead, they’ve written some very enjoyable pop hooks – songs that can fill a dance floor on a slow night, and then have done everything in their power (preachy lyrics, weird 30-60 second fade outs to each song, awkward dialogue samples) to clear the floor before anyone has too much fun.

When “Tubthumping” blew up into a huge hit back in 1997, the band was clearly conflicted about their newfound fame.  This was a band that had made seven albums previous to this one – and to their credit, they’ve gone on to make nine more since (thank you, Wikipedia).  They must have a very good idea of who they were, and when they received all kinds of attention, and invitations to various awards shows, they looked uncomfortable, and even a little bit cranky.  They wanted to be taken seriously, not treated like a novelty act – at least that’s how it came across to me.

That could have happened, except that the album itself is too much of a mash-up of various notions to be able to deliver any cohesive message.  “Tubthumper” has promise, but to truly deliver it had to get off its soap box, and write songs that were less clever, and more heartfelt.

Best tracks:  Tubthumping, Amnesia, Scapegoat.

CD Odyssey Disc 410: Rush

I’m home from a long day at the office and looking forward to the review.  Sheila is out tonight for dinner with a friend so I have a window to get my blog in before she gets home.  I’ll try to cover as many points on this amazing album as I can before I run out of time, shotgun style.  Bonus points to anyone who can tell me a second reason this would be considered a shotgun review.

Disc 410 is…Hold Your Fire 

Artist: Rush

Year of Release: 1987

What’s up with the Cover?  A typically prog rock cover.  Three balls of colour hang motionless, seemingly stuck in time over a background of the same deep red.  I love this cover’s simplicity, but the same red colour is used on the back, and the black writing is hard to read on top of it.  Otherwise, I have no complaints.

How I Came To Know It: This is my ninth Rush review, so by now you’ll know that I grew up listening to Rush, although mostly albums previous to this one.  When this came out in 1987 it didn’t really register with me, which was my loss as it turned out.  I’ve had it now since it was remastered on CD in the late 1990s.

How It Stacks Up:  I have all 18 of Rush’s studio albums, and am quite excited that later this week their 19^th is being released. While not a big deal for either avowed Rush fans or the masses, “Hold Your Fire” speaks to me and I think it is between 3^rd and 5^th best, up there with classics like “Fly By Night”, “2112”, and “Caress of Steel” – and probably speaks more deeply to me than all of those.

Rating: 4 stars but a very thin line from 5.

Rush often gets panned for their ‘synth pop’ period, and when I recently reviewed “Grace under Pressure” I too had a mixed opinion.  However, knowing that the experiments undertaken on “Grace under Pressure” and later “Power Windows” would eventually lead to the masterpiece that is “Hold Your Fire” makes any missteps along the way well worth it.

Yes, Rush left some fans behind with their creative conversion to drum machine sounds, and organ over their original guitar driven progressive rock.  They left me behind as well for a time.  The fuzzy production on 1983’s “Signals” annoys me to this day, and I simply found other music to pursue for the latter half of the eighties.

In the process, though, I glossed over Rush’s best work in this period, “Hold Your Fire.” It is my distinct regret that this album has really only been in my life for fifteen years, when it could have been twenty-five.

So what did they do right?  Firstly, they finally manage to perfectly meld their complex arrangements to the new sound.  The ‘electronic percussion’ (drum machine) works in the mix where on so many albums of this period, like Springsteen’s “Tunnel of Love” or Tom Petty’s “Southern Accents” it falls flat and hollow.  “Hold Your Fire” is Rush going all-in for the sound, and not trying to hold onto past successes from their work in the seventies.  The Petty and Springsteen albums have great writing diminished by inappropriate arrangements.  Rush builds the songs to the sound from the ground up.  It is brave and crazy, and it works.

Am I disappointed that Alex Lifeson’s guitar is so muted on the record?  In a way yes, but that’s not what this record is about any more than the cowbells you’ll hear on their 1974 debut.  There is a time and a place for everything.

I also believe this is one of Geddy Lee’s greatest vocal performances.  Sure he shows more range on earlier albums, but on “Hold Your Fire” he takes time to really wrap himself emotionally and intellectually around Neil Peart’s lyrics.  He sings them with conviction, and helps them sink into the listener.

And there is a lot to sink in on this album.  I read a recent interview of Peart where he talks about how he gets an idea or a theme in his head and he works through it in depth, and that is definitely true of “Hold Your Fire.”  Here we have a record where the band is at a mid-point of its journey musically, maybe even a crossroads, given the mixed reception they were receiving from fans.

Peart explores the importance of taking the time to look around on life’s road at these moments; not to be too focused on where you’ve been, or where you’re going next.  Never is this better expressed than in the perfectly constructed “Time Stand Still”:

“I let my skin get too thin

I’d like to pause,

No matter what I pretend

Like some pilgrim –

Who learns to transcend –

Learns to live

As if each step was the end.

“I’m not looking back –

But I want to look around me now

See more of the people

And the places that surround me now.

“Freeze this moment a little bit longer

Make each sensation a little bit stronger.”

Listening to this on my walk to work I couldn’t help but be filled with marvel at the present, and how we walk through it without paying attention.  It made me pay attention.  I don’t know what it was, maybe the combination of the lyrics, and the engaging inspirational tune.  Maybe it was the ethereal beauty of AimeeMann’s background vocals singing “time stand still” elfin-like in the background.  Whatever it was, time might not have stood still, but I could imagine it flowing around me like a river.  It’s not every day a five minute rock song gives you a new appreciation of time, movement and the very human experience of being conscious of both things even happening.

There are a lot of great ‘take a look around’ moments on “Hold Your Fire” including the opening track “Force Ten” reminding us that “we can rise and fall like empires/Flow in and out like the tide” and on “Prime Mover”:

“From the point of ignition

To the final drive

The point of the journey

Is not to arrive.”

Of course, I did arrive at work (after all, they pay me) but I had a new appreciation for every experience along the way, and then through the day.  I’ve listened to this album dozens if not hundreds of times, and it got to me all over again.

For Rush awareness starts (and maybe ends) with self-awareness.  The songs are not just about consciousness, but our unconscious minds as well.  On “Lock and Key” Geddy sings:

“We carry a sensitive cargo

Below the waterline

Ticking like a time bomb

With a primitive design.

…

“I don’t want to face

The killer instinct

Face it in you or me

And so I keep it under lock and key.”

We’re conscious, but we’re not far removed from the lizard brain.  “Lock and Key” reminds me that these undercurrents to our genetic makeup aren’t going anywhere.  We need to reconcile them to our ‘civilized’ self or we risk letting them drag us back into deep waters that our ancestors spent a lot of time and effort crawling out of (and yes, the album features a wonderfully geeky song about this exact evolutionary notion – “High Water).”

And finally, Rush reminds us that being aware of our place in time, and in touch with our own limitations at the same time, the next step in our evolution is empathy.  “Second Nature” opens with an echoing organ, a near-divine invocation for us to care more about one another.  A song on par with Pink Floyd’s “On The Turning Away” the lyrics are beautiful and inspirational, but since I’ve already heavily quoted other lyrics, and since I can’t preach it anywhere close to the way Geddy Lee sings it, I’ll just suggest you go and look it up on YouTube.

The best thing about this album is how everyone – not just Lifeson – dial their own egos back in service to a higher cause.  Lee sings with passion instead of power, and Peart writes about awareness and humility and – even more tellingly – lends a relaxed feel to his drumming.

I get that “Hold Your Fire” isn’t for everyone.  Those who only want Rush to rock out, will not get their fix here.  If you want Rush at their most musically complicated, this is definitely not for you either – stick to “Hemispheres” or “2112” and you’ll be well served.  Maybe the eighties production is so hated to your ear you can’t get past it to hear the music – I am always surprised that I can do it.

 “Turn the Page” is the one song that is a bit silly, and poorly constructed, but not so much to knock me out of the groove by the time it shows up at track eight.  “Tai Shan” has been panned by critics for its dissonance with the rest of the songs on the album (it takes inspiration in topic and construction from traditional Chinese music) but I love it.  “Open Secrets” always sounds to me like Rush is borrowing from Blue Oyster Cult’s sound on 1983’s “Revolution by Night.”  I happen to love Blue Oyster Cult so, again, I’m not complaining.

I’ve yet to run into someone who likes the album as much as I do, and even though critically, there are at least three or four records I should rank above it, I’ve got to be honest with myself.  The honest truth is that I like the way this album gets my head talking to my heart, and along the way gives me some time signature changes and pretty melodies to keep the music interesting as well.

Best tracks:  I like almost all of the tracks but Time Stand Still, Second Nature, Prime Mover, Lock and Key, and Tai Shan have particular appeal.

CD Odyssey Disc 409: The Alan Parsons Project

I’m pulling an early shift at work this week, and the combination of not feeling 100% healthy and the odd hours leaves me feeling strange and fuzzy-headed.  This is perhaps the best frame of mind for this next review, though.

Disc 409 is…Tales of Mystery and Imagination:  Edgar Allan Poe

Artist: The Alan Parsons Project

Year of Release: 1976

What’s up with the Cover?  A pretty cool cover.  It has that old and leathery manuscript feel, and combined with the line drawing and inset photo of someone wrapped head to toe in tape, captures the creepy world of Edgar Allan Poe perfectly.  Then, separating the album title is a futuristic picture of pillars and a plain stretching away that looks like it was drawn with painstaking care on a very primitive computer, which captures the bizarre synth world of the Allan Parsons Project perfectly.

How I Came To Know It: Sheila put me on to this album, after it was introduced to her by a coworker who knew that I enjoyed concept albums.  I had never heard of it prior to that point, although I obviously knew who the Alan Parsons Project were from their one hit, “Eye In the Sky.”  That song does not appear here.

How It Stacks Up:  We have three Allan Parsons Project albums, and they are all pretty strange.  I’d say this one is the second best, although I like all of them in their own way.

Rating: 2 stars.

“Tales of Mystery and Imagination:  Edgar Allan Poe” (mercifully referred to from here in as “Tales”) is the kind of big beautiful mess that could never happen in the modern record industry, and this knowledge leaves me both relieved and sad.

The album is the creation of prog/concept rockers, the Alan Parsons Project, a group of studio musician types and producers that came together to basically compose whatever the hell they wanted, at a time when the music industry indulged that sort of thing.

Later these guys would be heavily driven by synthesizers, and although it is only 1976, they gamely work early synth into these tracks as well as liberally altered piano and string arrangements.  They use these instruments to try to evoke the fantastic and disturbing tales of 19^th century writer Edgar Allan Poe, and the whole album is a series of songs that reinterpret various Poe stories to music.

The music is a prototype of their later eighties synth sound, and well ‘ahead’ of what else was going on in 1976 in terms of its smooth and seamless production.  Most rock musicians wouldn’t be doing this sort of thing until 1981 or 1982, with ethereal guitar mixed with synth piano and those high, airy rock vocals that strangely passed for manly in the day.

The whole album has a sort of eighties soundtrack feel which is well put together, but out of place with the subject matter.  It reminded me strongly of watching that old eighties fantasy film “Ladyhawke” starring Rutger Hauer and Michelle Pfeiffer.  The movies was a film that took place in the middle ages, but every time a scene called for a little evocative music, the score sounded like some kid messing around with the beat function on his Casio keyboard.

“Tales” is not quite so bad, and if anything it is a marvel that the Alan Parson Project (mercifully to be called APP from here in) is able to capture 19^th century Gothic horror at all with this style of music.  Yet they do it, especially in the quiet moments where they rely on the strings and piano to do their work without excess interference.

The problem with those moments is that it is just like listening to a good movie score, only without the benefit of the movie.  When the songs are jazzed up a bit with some proto-disco beats and synth they sound a lot more interesting, but are now desperately out of place with their subject  matter.

I’ll give the APP some credit though, when they come up with an idea, they stick with it faithfully.  They throw every dreary, mood-inducing sound they can throw into these songs, including rain, thunder and on two separate occasions, long narrated passages from Orson freakin’ Welles.  In one of these Welles goes on at length quoting Poe (I think) discussing the relationship between music and poetry.  As an avowed music geek I was a little embarrassed by how much I enjoyed that part.

The APP boys cover a good run of Poe tales, including songs based on favourites like “The Raven”, “The Tell-Tale Heart,” “the Cask of Amontillado” and “the Fall of the House of Usher.”  Regrettably they skip one of my favourite stories, “Berenice” which is about the guy who murders his wife but keeps her pretty white teeth in a box rattling around to remind him of her.  If ever a story called for some piano synth this would be it.

“The Raven” is by far the best track, which begins in glorious anachronistic fashion with synth-altered voice singing lines from the poem, and then transforms into a prog rock song filled with organ and odd drum beats, and big, atmospheric guitar sounds that Pink Floyd themselves might not have thought to come up with.  In addition to being beautifully weird, “The Raven” is easy on the ears – even enjoyable.

Not so, “The Tell-Tale Heart” which sounds like something out of Phantom of the Opera crossed with the Rocky Horror Picture Show, which I have no doubt APP band members had seen a few times.  Although it could be catchy, “The Tell-Tale Heart” sounds too much like a character singing dialogue in a stage play for me to enjoy it.

Better is the “Cask of Amontillado” which retells the Poe classic about a man who murders his rival by walling him up in the basement, on the pretext of sharing a cask of wine with him.  Poe keeps the tale of murder worse through the distant and gleeful tone the narrator employs in retelling it.  The APP use slow-paced high harmonies of both the narrator and the tearful pleas of his victim, Fortunado, played against occasional frantic violin sets to accomplish the same thing.  It is more music for music nerds, yes, but that doesn’t make it bad.

The fourth stand-alone song is “(The System of) Doctor Tarr and Professor Fether” is based on a story I was unfamiliar with, and the song is one I wish I were still unfamiliar with.  The music sounds like a combination of Pink Floyd guitar, the Beatles at their silliest and a Pepsi commercial jingle.

The latter half of the album sees the APP boys go all the way down into the rabbit hole, with “The Fall of the House of Usher,” a twenty minute instrumental geek fest with five movements, including such classically named silliness as “III:  Intermezzo.”  This song is a huge mess of classical constructions, synthesized production layering and what seems like a hundred instruments.  The worst part about it is that I kind of liked it.  Not so much to say it was a “best tracks” moment, but enough to be embarrassed that I was drawn in by the APP’s weird, wonderful, inspirational effort.

This album is not for everyone, but if you like to be challenged by musicians who aren’t afraid to take an idea and run a weird marathon with it, then it’s worth a listen.

Best tracks:  The Raven, The Cask of Amontillado.

CD Odyssey Disc 408: The Beatles

After more than 300 reviews, the dice gods have finally seen fit to send me another Beatles album for review.  Um…thanks.

Disc 408 is…Magical Mystery Tour

Artist: The Beatles

Year of Release: 1967

What’s up with the Cover?  This album cover has got to be top ten worst of all time.  There are at least three fonts featured, each more unreadable than the last, including the band’s name spelled out in stars, on top of a star background, making it almost impossible to read.  The band members themselves are dressed up like demented, drunken furries.  You know you are the biggest band in the world when you can put out an album that looks like this, and people will still buy it.

How I Came To Know It: I know some of these songs simply because they’ve been played on the AM radio since I can remember walking.  The album, however, is Sheila’s, as she is the Beatles fan in the house.

How It Stacks Up:  We have seven Beatles albums, all dating between 1965 and 1969.  “Magical Mystery Tour” is not one of my favourites, so I’ll put it 6^th out of 7.

Rating: 3 stars.

The last album I reviewed was the Dixie Chicks’ “Wide Open Spaces,” which showed great promise for the first half and was decidedly average for the second half.  “Magical Mystery Tour” is the opposite; decidedly average for the first half, and ramping up as it closes out.

The first six tracks on the album are the soundtrack to the Beatles’ movie, also titled “Magical Mystery Tour.”  I’ve never seen this movie, and based on the album cover and the songs included from it, I don’t want to.

The opening, and title track is a frantic repetition of “the magical mystery tour is coming to take you away” over and over again in increasingly annoying tones.  By the end of the song, which is mercifully short, I felt like the lyrics were intended as a threat.

“The Fool On the Hill” is pleasant enough, minus the self-conscious flute, but mostly forgettable, and the instrumental that follows it (“Flying”) is forgettable entirely.

“Blue Jay Way” is a pretty cool song, with a pretty melody and even some shockingly capable drumming from Ringo.  The addition of strings at the end of the song is pretty inspired.  A lot of what holds “Magical Mystery Tour” back for me is the overwrought production, and “Blue Jay Way” doesn’t blow me away, but at least it stays within itself, while still finding ways here and there to be interesting.

The album really picks up with a song I have long underrated, and now recant my previous criticisms of, “I Am the Walrus.”  The combination of strings, drums, squawk box vocals, horns and occasional exclamations of dialogue, chuckles and grunts in the back of the mix could have gone wrong in a hundred different ways.  Instead, they all work perfectly.  The lyrics are strange enough, but who hasn’t been inspired to sing out “I am the egg man!” because of this song?  Also, without this song, the non-sensical brilliance of later songs like Beck’s “I’m a Loser” might never have happened.

From here, the album picks up nicely, with the catchy “Hello Goodbye” where the band mercifully plays it straight again, and “Strawberry Fields Forever” with both songs demonstrating that you can layer sound without making it sound like you’re deliberately trying to mess with your audience.

“Penny Lane” is one of my favourite tracks on the album.   Sure it sounds a little like something you might hear on the Muppet Show, but simple melodies only sound simple after they’re written – they’re actually hard to write for most people who aren’t named Paul McCartney and John Lennon.  This song sounds as fresh today as the day it came out forty-five years ago.

The album ends on a true high note, with “All You Need Is Love.”  Of course, we all need more than just love, including three squares a day and a roof over our head.  That said, when I listen to “All You Need is Love” it is easy to believe it is true. 

“There’s nothing you can do that can’t be done

There’s nothing you can sing that can’t be sung

Nothing that you can say but you can learn to play the game.

It’s easy.

There’s nothing you can make that can’t be made

There’s no one you can save that can’t be saved

Nothing you can do but you can learn how to be you in time.

It’s easy.

All you need is love.”

It is a song that encourages you to surrender yourself to the things you can’t change in a celebratory tone, rather than a resigned one.  By the time the guitar (presumably George Harrison) cuts in after the chorus, you’re a true believer that love will get you through.

“Magical Mystery Tour” has a lot of experimentation with sound, instrumentation and samples, which I don’t necessarily oppose.  I think some of that experimentation should have been left on the editing room floor, instead of wedged (however cleverly) into songs that would have been better without it.  That said, the Beatles did a lot of innovative things here, and for the most part (after the first few tracks) it comes together and works beautifully.   I didn’t love this album, but it grew on me as I listened to it, and got better and better.

Best tracks: I Am the Walrus, Penny Lane, Baby You’re a Rich Man, All You Need is Love.

CD Odyssey Disc 407: Dixie Chicks

It’s been almost two years to the day since I reviewed this next artist.  That’s a lot of space between reviews.  Wide open space, even.

Disc 407 is…Wide Open Spaces

Artist: Dixie Chicks

Year of Release: 1998

What’s up with the Cover?  Band shot.  Boring ordinarily, but far more palatable when you have women as beautiful as these three.  Notably, Natalie is slightly out of step with Emily and Martie, which is one of the reasons the band works so well.

How I Came To Know It: I saw a video for “I Can Love You Better” on Country Music Television and I was struck by how much I liked the music.  However, I chalked it up to their looks.  Then I saw a video for “There’s Your Trouble” and liked them even more.  By the time “Wide Open Spaces” was released as a single, I figured, I was three for three, and bought the album.

How It Stacks Up:  I have four Dixie Chicks albums, which is all of the ones that feature Natalie Maines as lead vocalist.  I enjoy all of them, but I’ll say “Wide Open Spaces” is second best.  It is a far cry from “Home” (reviewed back at Disc 140), but still good enough to hold off “Fly” for second best.

Rating: 3 stars.

As I noted in the “How I Came to Know It” section above, I warmed to this album slowly.  I am distrustful of anything I associate with the new country sound coming out of Nashville for most of the last twenty-five years, and with good reason.

The fact that the Dixie Chicks are so easy on the eyes was great for the videos, but not for my trust of their music – Nashville is often about style over substance.  Not so, the Chicks, who are every bit as talented as they are attractive.  It was the talent that ultimately got me past their image (hideous as it was) to the point that I’d buy this album, their first commercial success.  I’ve been buying their records ever since.

“Wide Open Spaces” is still the record that got it started, and introduced a wider audience to the Dixie Chicks.  The album is a mix of traditional music structures that hearken back to Hank Williams Sr., bluegrass harmonies, and the modern pop sensibilities and production values of new country.  Ordinarily, the inclusion of that last element would have been enough to turn me off, but the Dixie Chicks’ talent shines through, and successfully pulls off the marriage of the various styles.

Emily plays banjo, guitar and dobro and Martie plays fiddle and mandolin, and both are superb musicians.  Knowing what they can accomplish on later albums like “Home” I was a bit disappointed they don’t have more opportunity to shine.  They mostly play little hooks that supplement the big brash voice that comes out of tiny Natalie Maines.

Say what you will about the awkward change the two sisters made at lead singer after they were signed to record “Wide Open Spaces” but it was the right decision.  Natalie can belt it out with the best of them, and her rock edge is what is needed to keep the schmaltz of new country from creeping too far into the record’s sound.

Instead, she rides up on top of two great players (and many more studio musicians besides) with a star quality that is every bit as equal to her formidable presence on stage.  The sisters fill in beautiful harmonies behind her voice, and support her perfectly.

The album is a bit of a tale of two sides, with the first five songs being the best five songs, culminating with “You Were Mine”, written by Emily and Martie, and a serviceable broken-heart song that shows the promise they’ll fully develop on later albums when the soulless record execs let them put more of their own stuff on the albums.

Three of the other four opening tracks (“I Can Love You Better”, “Wide Open Spaces” and “There’s Your Trouble” were all hits, and the fourth (“Loving Arms”) should have been.  “I Can Love You Better” and “There’s Your Trouble” show the Chicks’ playful quality, despite both covering the decidedly non-playful topic of unrequited love and jealousy.

The title track “Wide Open Spaces” is a bit more grounded.  It is a song about striking out on your own, and taking a risk to pursue your dreams.  I like the double meaning of the opening lines:

“Who doesn’t know what I’m talking about?

Who’s never left home, who’s never struck out?”

I like the implication of ‘struck out’ because, hey, it doesn’t always work out, but you’ll never know if you don’t give it a shot.  That said the lyrics are not as consistent on the album as the musicianship.  The same song later features strained lines like “If these are life’s lessons/she’ll take this test.”

Even the songs I like have fairly sub-par lyrics, but it works for three reasons.  First, Natalie sings her pants off.  Second, the production might be new country, but it is superbly well done new country (go ahead and smirk, soulless, record exec.).  Third, and most importantly, Martie and Emily are selfless musicians, and have a great feel for when to push forward in the mix, and when to settle back for the sake of the song’s arrangement.  When given the chance, they also show a lot of range, playing pop hooks, fifties guitar hooks and old time bluegrass with equal relish.

The second half of the album is weaker than the first.  It still benefits from strong melodies, but the lyrics are even noticeably bland, and the album loses a little bit of its playfulness, without sufficiently replacing it with gravitas.  In the process it reminds me that you can have all the elements to succeed (and the Dixie Chicks do) but still make a merely good album.  For a great one, I recommend you start with “Home,” which (not so coincidentally) is the one they made after they got out from under the thumb of the record companies.

That’s right, soulless record exec – wipe that smirk off your face.

Best tracks: I Can Love You Better, Wide Open Spaces, Loving Arms, There’s Your Trouble, You Were Mine.

CD Odyssey Disc 406: Alice Cooper

For those wondering why there has been such a slowdown in album reviews, I took last week off from walking to and from work.  Also, I recently got a whole bunch of new music that took up my listening time.  When I did have time to write, I worked on my next novel (and got two chapters drafted, than you very much).  Add it all up and there wasn’t much time for the CD Odyssey.

Today was my first day back at work, and it seems as fitting a time as any to get back onto these music reviews.  We restart the experience with the second album in a row from that great year in music, 1972.

Disc 406 is…School’s Out

Artist: Alice Cooper

Year of Release: 1972

What’s Up With The Cover?:  It is designed to look like the top of a desk, with the initials or partial names of all the band members carved into it.  I’ve never liked this album cover as much as I should.  It is just OK.  It kind of reminds me of “Beggar’s Banquet” in how it makes me feel grimy.  It also reminds me of all those ancient school desks you use in school, so old they still had the hole for the inkwell decades after the advent of the ballpoint pen.

How I Came To Know It: Regular readers will know that I am a massive Alice Cooper fan.  School’s Out is a classic Alice Cooper album, so it is no surprise I own this album.  I’m one of the few of my generation (b. 1970) that heard the title track first on vinyl, rather than on the Muppet Show (although I enjoyed both experiences).

How It Stacks Up:  I have twenty-six Alice Cooper albums.  “School’s Out” is pretty strong, and comes out solidly in the band’s golden age, but competition is tough at the top, so I’ll say 9^th overall.

Rating: 4 stars.

The title track of “School’s Out” starts with one of the most recognizable guitar riffs in rock music, but sadly that is where most people’s knowledge of this album end.  The fact that the other songs range through psychedelic proto-prog to jazz saxophone, classical piano and violin, funky horn sections and strange homages to a Broadway musical is largely forgotten.  Thankfully, I’m here to remedy that.

Off the top, it bears noting that in 1972 we are being treated to Alice Cooper ‘the band’ rather than Alice Cooper ‘the guy’.  While Alice Cooper ‘the guy’ has some classic records after the breakup of the original band, he never matches the creative output of the five classic albums put out between 1971 and 1973.  “School’s Out” falls right in the middle of that period.

Michael Bruce’s skanky, inappropriately delightful guitar is particularly welcome on the title track and “Public Animal #9” and the opening bassline laid down by Dennis Dunaway practically makes “Blue Turk” the bluesy creepfest that it evolves into.  These are fine songs (but more on them later).

First, a quick note on the album overall, which has a loosely themed collection of songs about high school and its many perils.  It isn’t a concept album as such, but it comes close, with the vast majority of songs relating in some way to education, and how little of it those darn kids seem to be getting (Cooper was always a stealth moralist, even at his most troubling).

“Gutter Cat Vs. The Jets” is actually an homage to West Side Story, even to the point of including a large chunk of “When You’re a Jet” re-imagined in Alice Cooper Vaudevillian devil-rock style.  The musical track that ends the record, “Grande Finale” also briefly includes a portion of “When You’re a Jet” but I don’t know if there are other tracks references from West Side Story elsewhere.  I don’t want to know either.  I can’t stand West Side Story, and it is a tribute to Alice Cooper’s bent re-imagining of it that they can make it enjoyable for me to listen to.

“School’s Out” would’ve been interesting enough right here, but the band is not finished yet pushing their musical limits.

“My Stars” sounds like a pop song that dropped out of high school and went and got high on LSD with Timothy Leary.    The track features classical piano, paired beautifully with rock guitar while it straddles the line between psychedelic sixties rock and progressive time signature changes.

The previously noted “Blue Turk” and “Public Animal #9” are both songs founded on an R&B base, and jazzed up with acid rock and, well, jazz.  They’re also two of my favourite tracks lyrically speaking.  “Blue Turk” evokes an encounter with the undead in its chorus:

“You’re so very picturesque

You’re so very cold

Tastes like roses on your breath

But graveyards on your soul.”

“Public Animal #9” starts with a series of unrepentant confessions from a couple of playground delinquents:

“Me and G.B. we ain’t ever gonna confess

We cheated at the math test

We carved some dirty words in our desk

Well now it’s time for recess.”

The song ends with these two misfit dropouts ending up in jail.  “Public Animal #9” is so delinquent that as the song reaches its climax, Cooper’s vocals slowly morph into little more than primal shrieks and screams that somehow still carry the melody of the song.  Kind of like Kurt Cobain, only triumphant rather than depressed.

It seems natural to end this review with a return to the title track, which has become the signature song for delinquents throughout the English speaking world, and an anthem through multiple generations bidding a less than fond farewell to the high school experience.  I remember playing this song the weekend I graduated, and I felt like I was tapping into the collective consciousness of millions of teenagers that came before me when I did it.  I like to imagine that millions more came after me doing the same.

The best lines come near the end, and are missed by a lot of people who just know the chorus.  They are the final verse, and sum up the irreverent humour that Cooper can deliver with tongue planted firmly in cheek.  A gifted lyricist, Cooper finds the best way to make an anti-establishment song about high school end:

“Well we got no class

And we got no principals

And we got no innocence

We can’t even think up a word that rhymes.”

Of course he can, but the deliberate and carefully placed wrongness of it all is the perfect example of why this album is so right.

Best tracks: School’s Out, Blue Turk, My Stars, Public Animal #9, Grande Finale.

Figurine: Vampire Church

Welcome, gentle reader!  Warning - this is a long post on miniatures, with nary a music review to be found.  Music reviews will return soon, however.

In the meantime, at long last I've finished another major project on the figurine front.  This particular item is a diorama both Sheila and I have been working on (in fits and starts) for over two years.  It started with an idea I had of an old, abandoned church that had become a vampire lair.  I bought the initial pieces, but then kept working on other figures instead.

After a while, Sheila asked if she could start doing the diorama, since I wouldn't get on top of it.  I said that would be great, and after we agreed on the general concept, she put together the church and painted it up beautifully.  Then her interest began to wane, and the project sat fallow for a while, until I took it on and finished the grounds and interior.

So two years later, here it is - a collaborative effort with my favourite person! (note - click on photos for larger images):

Note the vampire knight at the left - his other scenes in this post got cut.  I am expecting a call from his agent.

The whole thing is about 18 inches deep by about 30 inches wide.  Any diorama should have a good back story about what is going on, and this one does - but before we get to that, let's zoom in a little on the front end and admire Sheila's stained glass windows.  The church is full of these, and they are Sheila finding great images of stained glass and then shrinking them to the right size, printing them, and fitting them into the church windows.  On the lower right, you can even see where she's simulated one being smashed by a fallen tree.

As you can see, there is some action in front of the church - what's that about?  Let's zoom in and take a look at the interior (with the help of a flash - it's dark in a vampire lair):

They don't like what the vampires have done with the place.

The story goes that years ago an imprisoned vampire was freed when his coffin was thrust up through the floor of the church (I have another cooler coffin for this purpose, but haven't painted it yet).  The clergy were driven out, and vampires took the place over.  For years, this nest of vampires has been preying on the local villagers, who have learned to shun the church as a place of evil.

Now, with the help of some vampire hunters, protected by a holy order of battle nuns (these folks are on the left), the locals have decided to attack the church and drive out the vampire menace.  Or perhaps just rescue that victim in the back right.

Outside, local villagers who've joined in desperately try to hold the door against vampire reinforcements (including a fetching lass that looks fairly relaxed up on the hilltop to the left).  We'll see more of these over-matched villagers in a minute, but I like this shot, which shows some of my work building trees and scenery, and if you look carefully, you can see the lead vampire hunter through the open door, raising his cross!

Below, behind a collapsed column, a local townsfolk holds off a vampire wizard.  She looks like more than a match for him, although going into battle with a yellow moon standard and a goblet is a bit flaky, and doesn't speak well of her judgment.

On the back left  you can see a holy warrior doing battle with the vampire's champion, who is desperately trying to get into the church and lend aid to his king and queen.

I will crush you with my evil sorcery, you balding do-gooder, but first - a toast!

Further down the path to the church, another townsman holds off a vampire knight with his lamp and crudely fashioned mace.  I don't like his chances.  In behind, a lunging vampire leaps from the hill at a determined looking (but older) villager with a two handed sword.  I imagine the last thoughts in the villager's mind will be "he's coming right at me!"

As the battle rages, in the shadows the church evil continues to claim its victims.  Will our heroes win the day, and if they do, will they notice this poor lass before she expires?  Who knows?  This action will be forever left unresolved.

So much for this diorama's PG rating.

And now, since this took two frickin' years to finish, here's a few shots for those who like to look at 'making of' features on their blu-rays.

As I noted prior, Sheila got the ball rolling by assembling and painting the church itself.  Here she is hard at work.  It was very large and unwieldy and at times she just took the whole thing into her lap:

The next step were finishing touches, including the brass on the door, and the stained glass windows I mentioned earlier.  These really make the finished product look great - this church wouldn't be nearly as cool without all the work Sheila put into those.  Also in this shot, Inigo peers up nervously at our work, no doubt wondering 'will there be vampires?'  Damn, I miss you, Inigo.

"Actually, I was wondering if there would be tuna" - Inigo

Then Sheila glued down some basic 'train set' grass as a base to build up from.  She also 'laid' the interior floor, but more on that in a second:

Above:  another sad example of how vampire vandalism is damaging heritage properties.

Around this time, Sheila lost interest and I took over.  She had started to build some model trees, but they are finicky and time consuming.  Here's how they start:

That unpainted miniature with the blue cloak looks exactly like that today.

And here's me doing my magic and finishing them off, one tiny branch at a time.  I'm getting some 'help' here from Vizzini, who is not nearly the well-behaved lap cat for modeling that Inigo was but is still very cute, I suppose:

May I  wreck it now? - Vizzini

And here are the trees complete, and glued to the base.  I really enjoy building these trees.  I'm kind of like that guy in the Tolkien short story "Leaf by Niggle" who loves painting leaves.  I find building trees very meditative and restful.  You can't over-think or under-think the placement of each piece of foliage.  The best I can describe it is that you have to think organically, but try not be aware of doing that.

Originally the 'hill' was made out of a cat food tin, but I switched that out for some modelling Styrofoam.

I though that hiding all the seams and staples holding the grass down would be difficult, but it was actually easier than I expected.  The key is to hide the seams, but not let what you're hiding them with look straight and uniform.  Nature doesn't do that.

A big assist on this front are bushes.  I put a lot growing up against the building, since bushes do that.

Sheila had initially copied a picture of marble over and over again and created realistic 'tile' paper that she glued down on the inside of the church.  To add to this, I built a mound of earth in the middle of the floor with some simulated broken tiles where we could later add a coffin.  Sheila suggested I also put some rubble and rocks around the edge of the interior to make it look more run-down, which was a good idea.  Here it is just before it gets figures added to it.

So that's how you do it, folks!  I'm looking forward to a less ambitious project for my next miniature.  It will be a female elf paladin.  Maybe she can help out the assault on the vampire church, because I think the villagers and battle nuns are a bit out-numbered.