In the Wake of Poseidon

Best of Bowie: 35 - 31

2012-01-14T14:41:00.011-05:00

35. "Fame" (Young Americans - 1975) - One of Bowie's more famous collaborations in his long and sordid career would have to be with John Lennon in 1975. After sessions wrapped up for "Young Americans" in Philadelphia, Bowie sauntered up to NYC for a bit where he hung out with Lennon and decided to do a few more tracks. One was a cover of "Across The Universe" and the other was "Fame," one of Bowie's biggest hits. In fact, up to that point, it was Bowie's first #1 in the USA. The song is a three-pronged attack of brilliant writing. Carlos Alomar's groovy as fuck riff was the inspiration, Bowie's anger toward his record company at the time fueled the sinister lyrics (akin to but not as sharp tongued as Queen's "Death On Two Legs" recorded the same year) and Lennon's on voice heard as backing vox as partial credit for inspiring the lyrics added by Bowie after the fact. It's definitely one of the best of Bowie's hits and a worthy player among the many Greatest Hits in Bowie's catalog.

34. "Modern Love" (Let's Dance - 1983) Whether Bowie's Let's Dance was the beginning of the end of Bowie's brilliant run of albums is up for debate. Let's be honest, released the year of my birth and chock-full of fantastic pop rock goodness, a song like "Modern Love" is undeniably awesome. Guitar care of Stevie Ray Vaughn and an insatiable dance-hall beat, this is one of Bowie's best singles. It may also be nostalgia as this was one of the first Bowie songs that I loved. Of all music growing up, Bowie's has held up the most and stayed with me over the years. Much like many songs on this list, "Modern Love" is driven by fantastic saxophone care of Robert Aaron. It's possibly one of the better sax solos in all of Bowie's songs.

33. "Warszawa" (Low - 1977) On the polar opposite spectrum of "Modern Love" comes one of Bowie's most menacing tracks. It's also one of the more curiously composed tracks in his catalog. Music credits go to Brian Eno while the vocals were composed by Bowie, mostly in some foreign, strange language. The music was composed much like that of Bowie's experiments with ambient music. Bowie added his vocal parts, apparently 120 of them, to the track after the fact much in the way that the music was developed. Sporadic click tracks marked the place where chords would be placed and the music and lyrics were added on top of that. Crazy, but it leads to a beautifully haunting track, inspired by the dismal and depressing feel of Warsaw during Bowie's visit in the 70's. It's one of the best sound-scapes in Bowie's catalog and the best of all of Bowie's ambient forays during his"Berlin Trilogy."

32. "Fashion" (Scary Monsters(And Super Creeps) - 1980) Bowie's first album of the 80's is a bit of an underdog. Even on this list I've shafted a few tracks that may have made the cut. tony Visconti has stated that this was his favorite album to produce for Bowie. On "Fashion," we're treated to a sonic feast of awesomeness. The key to this catchy and dancey tune is all in Robert Fripp's howling solos. Amidst the back drop of a groovy guitar riff and a marching drum beat, Fripp adds delightful intensity via his signature guitar tone and one-take technique. The Fripp Factor is prevalent all over this list, but these guitar solos are some of his best outside of King Crimson.

31. "The Man Who Sold The World" (The Man Who Sold The World - 1970) Partial credit first goes to Nirvana for covering this great, almost forgotten Bowie track. "The Man Who Sold the World" was a song I had not known of as a young, greatest hits Bowie fan growing up, but Nirvana was a small part in growing into a super-fan. Bowie's original is much eerier than Nirvana's competent cover, filled with strange percussion floating over the creepy Moog organ. The song is yet another in the catalog of split identities. Some have speculated the song to be about his brother, who was a schizophrenic. Speculation aside, the eeriness of both this song and the album that shares its name is one of the strongest points in the early stages of Bowie's career.

Best of Bowie: 40 - 36

2012-01-13T17:47:00.009-05:00

40. "Cracked Actor" (Aladdin Sane - 1973) - One of the many great, grungey blues riffs on Aladdin Sane, "Cracked Actor" is a song of crazy sexual abandon in L.A. When Bowie was on tour in the US for Ziggy Stardust, he wrote quiet a few tunes about his touring experience. Aladdin Sane would become the album of these tour songs and "Cracked Actor" is definitely the Ziggy vision of Hollywood. It's a vision of sex, drugs and rock 'n' roll that is gritty, dirty and hard rockin'. This album really showed a more aggressive rock and roll approach than the more baroque arrangements of his prior Ziggy material and for that it's worth blasting and rocking out to. The title of the song is curious as well as Bowie himself is an "actor" of sorts, putting on these disguises and costumes. It may have been a reflection of the hard times on the road and the need for "company." This is all speculation on my part. Regardless of the true meaning of the song, "Cracked Actor" is one of Bowie's hardest rockers.

39. "Win" (Young Americans - 1975)- Quite the opposite of the aforementioned tune, "Win" is a slow jam of jazzy and smooth proportions. Instead of aggression, "Win" turns up the charm, but still in an unsettling way, mainly in it's lyrical content. Bowie has rarely looked at the brighter side of life and even in this slow jam that'll make the ladies fall to their knees, there is a sense of doubt. It's not quite a love song, although musically it sounds like a bedroom anthem. It's more of a song about not giving up. "All you've got to do is Win." Bowie's shattered croon is backed up again by glorious backing vocals and a rippling saxophone. It's a wonderful track. If you think that this style isn't an influence on future generations, Beck performed this track on several occasions (including in Philadelphia where the song was recorded.) Beck also did his own mock up of a jazzy, love-fest on Midnite Vultures with the fantastic bedroom jazz of "Debra,"an obvious antecedent to "Win."

38. "Starman" (The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders From Mars - 1972)

One of Bowie's more classic pop-rock moments, "Starman" is a sumptuous treat. This is another side of Mick Ronson that many don't give him credit for. The string arrangements throughout this album and this song are all by Ronson as well as the catchy riffing. He excelled at creating a functionality for string arrangements amidst a rolling rock ballad. Mirroring T. Rex, Bowie's main competitor for glam rock king at the time, but this song soars high and into the ether. This is Bowie's ballad to rock and roll as a saving grace. This was a constant message in a lot of music in the late 60's and early 70's and this is one of the more hopeful visions in Bowie's catalog.

37. "TVC 15" (Station to Station - 1976) One of Bowie's stranger lyrical songs, "TVC 15" is a disco jam for the ages. It's swirling verses, sung with crazed abandon and almost out of breath intensity create an air of unease amidst a killer beat. The track based on a drug binge with friend and cohort Iggy Pop after Iggy hallucinated his TV eating his girlfriend. Strange, but coming from the mind of a guy deeply paranoid and over-drugged, it's no surprise. As many Bowie songs tend to, this track has a brilliant backbone of piano and guitar haze. This track showed that Bowie's new-ish band of Carlos Alomar, George Murray and Dennis Davis really was coming into their own. Although not as flashy a guitarist as Mick Ronson, Alomar's understated playing with the ripping rhythm section was flexing their muscles with this track. (Editor's Note: The video here from Top of the Pops is fucking stellar.)

36. "I'm Afraid of Americans" (Earthling - 1997) It's a common mistake to give full credit to Trent Reznor for "I'm Afraid of Americans." Although the version that he remixed is in fact the one we most know and hear, this track dates back to 1995's Outside, which was recorded and written by Bowie and Eno. Although there version . Much like "I'm Deranged," it deals with paranoia but in a much more sardonic way. The industrial vibe of the song makes it a no-brainer as to why Trent Reznor was tapped for a remix. His version adds just a bit of edge to the song with his usual drum loops and intensely heavy guitar. Even more memorable to most, this is one of Bowie's best videos with a paranoid bowie being stalked by an exquisitely creepy Trent Reznor through the streets of NYC.

Best of Bowie: 45 - 41

2012-01-12T11:09:00.012-05:00

45. "I'm Deranged" (Outisde/Lost Highway Soundtrack - 1995) The 90's were sort of the return of the Thin White Duke. After his highly successful Let's Dance album, Bowie had faded fast in the 80's with a series of sub-par records. It happened to many of the best of the 70's artists (see Neil Young.) Triumphantly returning with Brian Eno producing and co-writing, Outside is an intense, industrial record. "I'm Deranged" is a frantic barrage of drum machines, paranoid bass drones and strings that come in and out. It's a true-blue Eno/Bowie collaboration mixing the best of what the duo can do. It's usage as the opening for Lost Highway is sheer perfection. David Lynch's crazy dialectic of a movie is perfect for Bowie's constant struggle with the duality of man. I can still see Bill Pullman/Balthazar Getty running from the past to the kinetic energy of this song.

44. "Breaking Glass" (Low - 1977) After his stint living in the United States, one filled with cocaine addiction and massive paranoia, Bowie and friend Iggy Pop moved to Berlin to start a new life. Thus began the "Berlin Trilogy" of Low, "Heroes" and Lodger. "Breaking Glass," a short but tasty bit of pop music goodness, is very much the perfect tid-bit of what half of Low was all about. Passing snippets of extremely catchy yet dark pop songs. Recounting a Bowie legend of how he was obsessed with Alasteir Crowley (a constant, recurring figure in Bowie's lyrics and vision) and his ritualistic strangeness while holed up in his L.A. home. It's a creepy, unsettling lyric coupled with a catchy, groove driven by the bass of George Murray and the heavily treated drums of Dennis Davis. Both dudes receive a writing credit, probably due to the very improvisational recording process Bowie undertook during this era. It's kind of a shame that the song only lasts but 2 minutes as it's funky groove could go on and on and not become boring.

43. "Word On A Wing" (Station to Station - 1976) Speaking of Bowie's crazed stint as a U.S. resident, "Word On A Wing" is Bowie's cry for help as he deteriorated from massive stress, personal anguish, cocaine, cocaine and more cocaine as well as a fear that Jimmy Page was out to kill him. A prayer of sorts, or a cry for help, "Word On A Wing" is a powerful song all around. Driven by piano and a lonely, but distant guitar part, this is purely a feat of Bowie's vocal performance. Multi-tracked backing vox lift this into the realm of neo-gospel while Bowie's almost tearful and brutally honest lead knocks it out of the park. This song is the perfect compass point to where Bowie was but where he was going. The lofty, gospel feel is much like some of the tracks on Young Americans, but it's darker lyrical quality was a point to the Berlin era. A beautiful song no matter how you look at it.

42. "Diamond Dogs" (Diamond Dogs - 1974) I'll admit this right away, of all of Bowie's 70's albums, Diamond Dogs is my least favorite. And it's strange as it's a dystopian concept album with a song "1984," one of my all time favorite dystopias. However, of all the glam rock albums it seems the most stale. It was probably the lack of Mick Ronson on the album and on the titular track that made it slide. Bowie's guitar work isn't too shabby, but it lacks the bravado and style of Ronson. "Diamond Dogs" is still a killer track. As Bowie was transitioning to a new band on this album, most of the music is Bowie's own doing, including the super catchy sax riff throughout the track. It's another reason why I don't generally love this album. Bowie's best work was always backed by great collaboration, but here it's a one man show. It's one of only two songs from Diamond Dogs to show face on this list with the other one a long way off from here.

41. "Slow Burn" (Heathen - 2002) In my humble opinion, "Slow Burn" is Bowie's final great single. Although it won't be the last song we see from Heathen, it is the only single from the album to make the cut. It could be my bias for Pete Townshend, who also delivers one of his best and probably the last best guitar solo and performance since "Eminence Front" in 1982, but "Slow Burn" is a fantastic track. It's a timely song, filled with Bowie's usual paranoid vision of society. The line "but who are we?/So small in times such as these" is fitting today, 10 years after the song was originally released. Sure, ten years isn't that long, especially since most of Bowie's material on this list is verging on 40 years old, but it's definitely still a feeling that many post 9/11ers are feeling. Unease about our cultural direction, our political quagmires and just general day to day living are all easily relatable to this hard rocker of a song. By no means am I saying Bowie intentionally went for something with a message, but there is no denying that a line like "And the walls shall have eyes/And the doors shall have ears/But we'll dance in the dark/And they'll play with our lives" is a little too close to reality.

Best of Bowie: 50 - 46

2012-01-05T20:29:00.017-05:00

50. "Beauty and the Beast" ("Heroes" - 1978) Kicking off the frenzied and daunting 'Heroes', "Beauty and the Beast" submerges you into a dual world, much akin to a lot of Bowie's music and imagery. Somewhere buried under the layers of insanely fuzzed guitars care of Robert Fripp and sloshing Eno synths is one of Bowie's stranger dance grooves. If this song wasn't so dark it could have been a great dance hit. Somehow the track is a combination of a disco groove and a post-kraut rock dirge. A dirge that moves your feet. This bi-polar nature is a constant theme through Bowie's career, but this era brought it to it's darkest edge while still being insanely catchy. The overall composition of this song is something of wonder. Unlike it's predecessor, Low, the vocal tracks on Heroes are much more structured and coherent, this being one of the best examples. Definitely one of the stranger singles in his catalog, but one that still rocks.

49. "5:15 The Angels Have Gone" (Heathen - 2002) The stream of conscious ballad is something Bowie excels at. Many of the tracks on this list will fall into this category and "5:15" is one of them. Heathen as a whole is mostly dark and romantic like this track. Tony Visconti returned to produce this album and this song in particular has his stamp all over it. Chorus synths, a woozy bass-line care of Tony Levin and an epic chorus that raises you out of the muddled shuffle of Bowie looking to get out of wherever he was feeling stuck. It's a song about wishing to get yourself out of a rut, out of a town that holds you down. It could just simply be about how Bowie has never really stayed in the same place for too long. Be it London, Berlin, New York or L.A., he's moved quite a bit for inspiration but has never staid in the same place too long.

48. "Panic In Detroit" (Aladdin Sane - 1974) A paranoid riot song with a salsa beat? Definitely strange, but in the realm of glam rock it somehow works. The percussion section really makes this track as good as it is. Layered congas over a killer drum beat with a bouncing bass line and one of many brilliant riffs a-la Mick Ronson. Of all the myriad guitarists that have worked with Bowie, Ronson is easily the one that fit the Bowie's eccentricity the best. His gritty and throbbing tone was the perfect back-drop for Bowie's paranoid lyrics with amazing backing vocals rising behind. It's Santana by way of Ziggy Stardust. Dirty glam rock with a Latin flair. Truly a strange beast of a rocker.

47. "Right" (Young Americans - 1975) Of all the strange alter-egos Bowie has created for himself, the "plastic-soul" outing has to be one of the strangest yet most satisfying. Somehow, and mostly to the credit of his amazing band at the time. The song is a groovy interplay between a groovy piano, a slinky guitar part by Carlos Alomar and a wild and untamed sax solo throughout. It's truly a musical feast. Then the vocals have their back and forth assault between Bowie's fragile yet funky delivery and the soulful croon of Luther Vandross and Robin Clark. Doesn't get much better than that. It's always strange listening to this song amidst the glam rockers and kraut rock dirges of Bowie's standards. But it's that unique funkiness that really makes it worth coming back to.

46. "Look Back In Anger" (Lodger - 1979) - I always envision this song to being the ending credits to Bowie's insane 1970's era. Not that I'm saying he is literally looking back at his career by the title, but more because it's the perfect blend of what Bowie did the entire decade. Carlos Alomar unleashes one of his more understated performances and the rhythm section is a juggernaut of sound. This song sounds like a cut off of The Man Who Sold The World filtered through the mad intensity of Station to Station. Co-written by Brian Eno, it isn't hugely influenced by his style. This is clearly a rocker, great by any Bowie song standards. It definitely has layers of sound that fly back and forth throughout it. If you trade the live band for a drum machine and a synthesizer, you would have the Bowie song of the future. (Editor's Note: Make sure to watch the video for "Look Back In Anger." I just did for the first time while writing this and....wow. It's... something special.)

The Best of Bowie: 50 Great Tracks

2012-01-04T21:57:00.011-05:00

After a friend requested I bring the blog back, I decided to do so and in the only way I know possible....another arbitrary list of sorts. This time, I've broken down 50 great tracks by the one and only David Bowie and put them in a sorta arbitrary but numerical order. Opinions flair, but ultimately, 50 great songs by the unbelievably brilliant David Bowie will be broken down as I see fit. No covers will be allowed so unfortunately "It Ain't Easy" and "Cactus" won't be found on this list. Let's start with five that didn't make the cut, and unfortunately so as these are great songs.

HONORABLE MENTION!

"Unwashed and Somewhat Slightly Dazed" - From Bowie's first proper full length album, this curiously strange song is something worth checking out off of this album. Unlike it's follow up, The Man Who Sold the World, Bowie's Space Oddity has a lack of cohesion overall, but this track is a compass point in the direction of where Bowie was going. Opening like a typical hard rocker off of Man Who Sold but grooving into a more glam bowie stomp afterward, this is something special. Bowie's competent harmonica solo flows over the riff nicely.

"Afraid" - Bowie may have had his "Golden Years" in the 1970's, but his 2002 album Heathen may have been his best album since the 1970's. "Afraid" is a competent rock song with Bowie's brilliant paranoia ladled over it. Tony Vistonti and Bowie returned for this record and Heathen is the perfect blend of where Bowie went in the 90's and where he and Visconti excelled in the late 70's after his glam years subsided. The perfectly tight band with the drapery of cello's and Bowie's trembling lyrics make for an underrated if not forgotten classic in the Bowie canon.

"Hang Onto Yourself" - The Ramones stole their schtick from this classic proto punk riff. It's a bouncy, glamed out track that has an intensely tight bass groove and an unforgettable guitar riff that Mick Ronson cranks out. A hard cut from the top 50 off of Bowie's classic and easily most loved The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust. There is something rollicking about this track that keeps me coming back to it, but overall in the grand scheme of Bowie's massive catalog, it lacks the staying power beyond a good riff and a toe-tapping beat.

"African Night Flight" - Be it because this song is ridiculously crazy in it's existence or because it's the perfect intersection of Bowie's strange subconscious lyric structure and Eno and Carlos Alomar's strange synth/guitar growls. Deep in Eno's obsession with world music and Bowie's love for the strange and foreign, this track drips with strange bleeps and blips as Alomar's metallic guitar riffs in the background. Lodger is a great album, but not many songs come off of it with ease and love. This is one that closely makes the cut for one of those great Bowie gems.

"Fascination" - Bowie was a constant collaborator--we've already mentioned Eno, Ronson and Visconti--and one of his best was with one Luther Vandross on his "plastic-soul" outing Young Americans. Fits right in with Curtis Mayfield and Funkadelic, Bowie somehow is able to tap into the American 70's perfectly. Maybe it was Vandross' tip of back-up singers or the funky-as-fuck sax and bass volleys, but this is one of the groovier songs in Bowie's line-up of greats. Also, this badass track was recorded in none-other than Philadelphia, one underrated music town amidst many great ones.

Coming soon.... a bi-polar track from Heroes to kick off the countdown.

The Return of Poseidon

2012-01-04T21:54:00.002-05:00

After a long, undescribable hiatus, In The Wake of Poseidon will be returning with some new crap. Feel free to join the re-invention...of sorts.

Quite A Year For Silence, Pt. 1

2011-03-01T11:29:00.011-05:00

2011 has been quite the year thus far in not only music, but in cultural events. I haven't written in my blog in quite some time, which is surprising given the momentous things that have been going down in the world. Well, I guess you could call it preoccupations with my personal life and the overwhelming factor of all things both beautiful and terrifying that are going on in the world around us. I'm not sure what exactly my excuse here is, but I know that I have a lot of catching up to do on this here blog. Anyway, here is my all out assault of a musical and cultural explosion as I can. I'm going to focus on the music in this post.

Since January, when I last posted about Destroyer's life altering Kaputt, a ton of great music has been shared with friends through a Facebook group called "Nighthawks." This amazing group is a collective of friends of friends of friends that gets to the point of complete strangers sharing their favorite movements in music. If there is one song that shows the joyous atmosphere of this group has been Foster the People's "Pumped Up Kicks". The comparisons to MGMT aren't such a bad thing if you ask me. They are the SoCal version of this new group of psych pop stars. The hook is undeniable and the Foster the People EP is enjoyable in it's 3-song span.

In a similar psychedelic vein comes Unknown Mortal Orchestra. Their EP is also a catchy yet a freaky throwback to lo-fi 70's groove rock and garage rock all in one. Their track "How Can U Luv Me" is a perfect track. "Nerve Damage!" is a bit weirder on record, but live these guys tear through their set with a crispness and a great groove that makes the lo-fi recording of the EP sound terrible. These guys probably have the most potential of making a splash this year, maybe aside from the much more accesscible Foster the People.

Also excellent, and the thing that lead some of this collective consciousness to UMO, is Smith Westerns. These guys revive Mott The Hoople and Big Star rolled into one and create some of the catchiest, sunniest music of the year. The overall pure rock glory that a song like "End of the Night" exudes is fantastic. "Weekend" is the song of the summer for me. It may have already been outplayed as the album came out in early 2011, but it's a summertime groove that is undeniabley perfect. I'll be cruising to the shore with this album. It's arena rock with a warmth to it.

Included in this bunch of newer bands making 2011 great is three album deep Aussie electro gurus Cut Copy. Zonoscope is a daunting album of catchy synth hooks and big guitar moments. They are carrying the torch of Electric Light Orchestra into the 21st century. "Take Me Over" is a strange combination of Katy Perry and Men At Work that works a little to well. But the real stand out is the slow burner into revelatory anthem "Need You Now" that launches this album into a chaotic pop music festival of sheer glory.

Also in the newer spectrum for this years goodies is Kurt Vile. He opened for Pavement last year and is a Philadelphia native, but I haven't been able to fully embrace his music until Smoke Ring For My Halo, yet another Nighthawks suggestion. "Jesus Fever" is a fantastic representation of the strange psych folk that is coming out of Philly. It's a beautiful song that has some crossover value waiting in the wings.

Enough about the plucky young upstarts. What about the stand by classic rockers?

In the realm of long running projects, 2011 is a bit polarizing and satisfying. Radiohead is the prime example here. The out of nowhere announcement and release of King of Limbs was mythic before it had the chance to let anyone down. And it's not a let down really, but a very curious album. More along the lines of Thom Yorke's The Eraser, it goes in a totally different direction than the more accessible In Rainbows may have had their fans hoping they'd continue to go. Regardless, it's still a great smattering of avante garde music. "Lotus Flower" is as close to a single as you'll find. It's a cool musical experience and an incredibly well written song, but it's moody and glitchy. It's inevitably polarizing. Whether you enjoy it, appreciate it or love it, it's an unavoidable song. Where King of Limbs really shines is in the track "Codex." It harkens back to "Pyramid Song" with it's slow climbing piano and a haunting Yorke vocal track. It's definitely the weakest album in the Radiohead pantheon (excluding Pablo Honey) but there is something beguiling about it. It makes it worth coming back to.

On a different level altogether, The Beastie Boys release their long delayed Hot Sauce Committee, Pt. 2 and for some reason I feel like it has been forgotten. Are the Beastie's finally irrelevant? The answer is no. "Make Some Noise" is a funky ass track that shows an energy and scaled back approach that is refreshing. The Boys still have a little something, but it doesn't carry over the whole album.

Foo Fighters came back with Wasting Light, the closest to a return to form it looks like we're going to get out of Grohl and Co. And while it's not as bland as Echoes, Silence, Patience and Grace, it's still doesn't hold a candle to the glory days of the Foos. It's definitely the best album since One By One. Grohl took some of Josh Homme's juice after working with Them Crooked Vultures to release the best Foo's track since the 90's in "White Limo" but the rest of the album lacks the same gusto and fire that "White Limo" has.

One of my favorite song writers, J Mascis, released a solo album this year called Several Shades of Why. It may be the best selection of songs from Mascis in a long time and they are beautiful and quiet tomes. You can hear all of these songs turn into Dinosaur Jr. songs, especially "Listen to Me." Not sure what the reasoning behind not using these as Dinosaur Jr. songs was, but I'm glad they aren't. The simplicity of this album is what makes it great.

I am sure there are a ton of things I have yet to fully listen to (TV on the Radio, The Raveonettes, Rival Schools) and there are a ton of new albums coming soon. Next post will deal with the tumultous year 2011 has been in the news.

Destroyer Destroyed

2011-01-22T13:05:00.005-05:00

My first impression of Destroyer was 2009's Bay of Pigs EP. A sprawling ambient to disco epitaph of sorts, it was one of the most beguiling and bewildering songs I had ever heard. It took me a while to really enjoy it as Dan Bejar, the brains behind Destroyer, has a very strange songwriting style. Needless to say, it has become one of my favorite musical experiences. I say experience over song as when it comes to Bejar, it's more about the experience than the song. In "Bay of Pigs" he states it perfectly: "I've seen it all." It's a journey. When I heard that Destroyer's latest record, Kaputt, would close with "Bay of Pigs," I immediately was interested. I mean, if the beguiling track was going to fit on an album, the mood would have to be the same, right? Not always the case, but luckily for me, and for everyone, Kaputt lives up to what "Bay of Pigs" delivers.

Lush production design filled with everything from synthetic waves of sound, guitars of all sorts, horns and flutes as well as backing vocals give Kaputt the feel of a progressive new wave record. Somewhere between the smoothness of Steely Dan and the synth pop of the 80's with a dash of Brian Eno ambiance gives this album a nostalgic feel. Lead off track "Chinatown" is a perfect pop song, but this radio-friendly track is only scratching the surface of the strange and sweeping anthems and epics that litter Kaputt. It is the mission statement for the rest of the record. "Savage Night at the Opera" is Modern English update for today's aging wine-o. It's a woozy lament with lyrics like "Old souls like us have been born to die." These two tracks are the best proof of Dan Bejar's eccentric song writing being reigned in for a pop friendly audience. The zenith of Kaputt is in the 8 minute plus "Suicide Demo for Karen Walker." Starting off with ambient, Frippesque guitar squeals in the background and a simple acoustic line, the song slowly takes shape. The smooth jazz flute comes in right before the disco back beat picks up and the song really gets going. It's a beautiful, melancholy song. "Kaputt" is also one of the highlights mixing all the smoothness of the album in one groovy, dream-pop ballad. Be it for the music, the strange yet poetic and sometimes fitfully brilliant lyrics or for the dream state that the album will inevitably send the listener to, Kaputt is by far the best thing I've heard from Destroyer yet. Definitely a great start to 2011.

Grooves: Brian Eno with Daniel Lanois & Roger Eno - Apollo - Atmospheres and Soundtracks (1983)

2011-01-16T11:50:00.005-05:00

It's really hard to write about utility music. By utility music, I mean ambient music. And by ambient, of course I'm talking about Brian Eno. He's a dabbler and an innovator and definitely a consummate collaborator. No matter what the album is listed as credit to Brian Eno, there is always someone helping out or inspiring him. This time around, his brother Roger and Daniel Lanois are behind the scenes adding guitar and other . Apollo: Atmospheres & Soundtracks is exactly what it says it is, an atmospheric ambient album that was sued as a soundtrack to a film called For All Mankind, a documentary about the Apollo space program. The music held on these 12" of vinyl is a journey through the emptiness of space. Sure, no one will hear you scream in space, but regardless of the soundless vacuum of the gulf of space, there is still some sort of music to be made to emote the feeling of emptiness full of stars and celestial bodies. Whether someone thinks it can be constituted as "music" is up to the individual, but there is no denying the power behind this record to emote a feeling of space travel. The wonder and awe of the universe broken down for your ears.

Before I go into the particulars about the music, I want to go back to what I mean by Utility Music. Ambient music as per what Eno was trying to create in the 70's is a type of music that isn't meant for popular consumption but to be used as utility. No greater album to describe this idea is Ambient 1: Music for Airports. It's purpose was to be played in airports to calm the nerves of bustling travellers. Sure, that isn't the case today as I have yet to hear "1/1" while waiting in the terminal, but it was an experiment nonetheless. A soundtrack is utility music of sorts, written for the sole purpose to accompany a visual, however, many soundtracks go beyond this. Apollo is definitely one of those records. Released in 1983, it's a beautiful album that works great for meditation, as a sleep aid and as a beautiful reflection of the night sky above.

"Under Stars", a recurring theme of sorts on the album, is a slow, bubbling and brooding track. It's incessant hum and occasional shifting synths make it one of the most unsettling first tracks on an album. Unless played really loud, "The Secret Place" almost seems nonexistent, except with an occasional sound here and there. Same goes for "Matta" where a strange, almost organic grunting sound comes out of nowhere. "Signals" fits the tide for a very somber and quiet opening of the record. It isn't until the incredible "An Ending (Ascent)" comes in that we get any sense of melody. This is easily one of Eno's most famous ambient tracks. It's an essential in his catalog. It's beautiful rising tide of sound is like watching the Sun emerge over the Earth, filling you with it's warmth and it's unbridled beauty. "Under Stars II" is much like the album opener, but there are tiny differences between all the star themed songs. "Drift" ends the first half of the record, which is a very minimal.

Side two is way more conventional. When Eno was given the task, he found that slide guitar and country/western style twang kind of fit in well with the role of the astronauts. Like space cowboys (not the movie!) they were travelling uncharted frontiers. This is where Daniel Lanois steps in. Side two starts with an impressive and gorgeous Lanois helmed track "Silver Morning." The tones on the guitar are beautiful and other than maybe a few minor production notes, Eno takes the back seat here. "Deep Blue Day," Eno's other very popular ambient track, invokes the vastness and beauty of the universe. It's flowing tones wash over the listener with an array of sounds and accents care of Lanois' guitar. It's one of the best songs to ease the mind. "Weightless" is an electric piano and guitar piece that definitely invokes the sense of floating. The sleepy slide guitar gently moving in and out of the simple and elegant piano line. "Always Returning" is a lullaby of sorts, one filled with a sense of wonderment and joy. The title is no doubt in reference to the astronauts returning, so the simpleness and quietude of the track is fitting. "Stars" finishes the record and much like "Under Stars" and "Under Stars II", actually, exactly like them except all other instrumentation aside from the simple drone is extracted. It's hypnotic in it's minimalism.

One thing is for sure; Brian Eno's ambient records are not for everyone. Utility in music seems a bit obtuse, yet Apollo is not as sterile as some of the other ambient projects. Maybe because it was used for a film it evokes more? I can't explain it. I just know that if you can embrace this album, you will truly be delighted.

Top Ten Albums of 2010

2010-12-23T18:28:00.019-05:00

2010 was a pretty excellent year for music, but only 10 albums have been chosen. These were the ten that got my ear. Sorry for the delay in publishing.

10. The Sword - Warp Riders - The Sword lost one of their integral parts in 2010. Trivett Wingo, their drummer, left the band. Not on bad terms, but just needed to end his tenure. Luckily, it was before the recording of Warp Riders, easily The Sword's cleanest and most rock influenced record yet. The riffs are huge and the rhythm section is bone crushing. On their first "concept album"of sorts, The Sword ditch the Viking lore of their past two records and create a universe of their own. Interstellar travel, mystic orbs and a lone archer wandering a desolate planet litter the lyrics with stoner metal geekery. Rush's 2112 must have been an influence here. "Tres Brujas" owes a lot of it's sound to southern rock. The obvious send up of ZZ Top's bluesy guitar licks are backed up by a nasty cacophony of Wingo's drumming. "The Chronomancer I: Hubris" is the albums chunky epic with riffs that go back and forth. The pinnacle of the record is in "Lawless Lands", a blues metal masterpiece. With Zeppelin-esque guitar effects and the albums best guitar solos, it stands as the best hard rock song of 2010. The Sword gets a bad rap for their vocalist J.D. Cronise's kind of laid back delivery, but not every metal singer needs to scream their convoluted lyrics. In fact, the more blues rock delivery makes this record sound like a step forward in The Sword's sound.

9. Arcade Fire - The Suburbs - It's no surprise that The Suburbs would be the record to bring indie favs Arcade Fire to the forefront. I'm still surprised that this record hit #1 on the charts. That being said, it is definitely Arcade Fire's most ambitious and relateable record yet. The Suburbs is a very intense and complex record. It takes a few listens to fully absorb everything that Win Butler is trying to tell us in his indie rock opera. This album doesn't have the same kind of vibe as either Funeral or Neon Bible and in that, it really stands out. "The Suburbs" is the perfect opening to the record, setting the scene of the story to come. "Ready to Start" is a static yet tense track, building the kind of tension that explodes later in the album on tracks like "Sprawl II (Mountains Beyond Mountains)", the apex of Arcade Fire's epic intensity on the album. It's a long record to listen to, with 16 tracks and clocking in over an hour. But ultimately, it's as gratifying as any Arcade Fire album.

8. Black Mountain - Wilderness Heart - Black Mountain ditched their lofty, grandiose prog rock anthems in 2010 in exchange for a mixture of fast-paced rockers and acoustic power folk. Wilderness Heart's longest track clocks in at five minutes and fifteen seconds as apposed to their last album (a sixteen minute epic called "Bright Lights.") This is a welcome change. For psych rock, nostalgia bands like Black Mountain to keep it fresh, you got to change your game up from time to time. Take for example the extraordinarily catchy "The Hair Song." The layers of instruments make it sound like a Who song with acoustic and electric guitars playing the main riff and the rhythm section keeping it real and a touch of Deep Purple organs. "Old Fangs" is an eerily static song with nary a guitar solo to be found. The creepy organs take center stage here. Other highlights are found in the more metal moments like the lone highway biker anthem of "Let's Spirits Ride" and the pastoral closer "Sadie." It's Black Mountain's catchiest record yet. Short, but sweet, Wilderness Heart was the crossover that never happened.

7. Brian Eno featuring Jon Hopkins and Leo Abrahams - Small Craft on a Milk Sea - Ambeint king and producing juggernaut Brian Eno elicited the help from Jon Hopkins and Leo Abrahams for easily his best instrumental record since 1983's Apollo: Atmospheres and Soundtracks. As far as calling this an ambient record, I think that's a little off. It starts off quiet with the beautiful "Emerald & Lime" but by the time you reach track three, a darker edge takes shape. The mid-section of the album is where the real magic happens. Tracks like "Horse" are fodder for electro-remixes and dance club backing tracks, but on this record they take another more harrowing effect. You feel as if you are adrift on the titular sea, weathering the elements bombarding you in a foreign landscape. "2 Forms of Anger" is static yet tense and layered. "Paleosonic" is a feast for the ears. It slowly builds with bleeps, gurgles, scraping synthetic waves and electric guitars that pierce and pull apart. What does it all add up to? The years most intense headphones experience and a beguiling record filled with otherworldly sounds that really put you in another dimension.

6. Gorillaz - Plastic Beach - An album about materialism, societies wastes and the digitizing of the world, Plastic Beach is the best concept album of the year. With loads of cameos from Bobby Womack to Little Dragon to Snoop Dogg and back again, it's a huge collaboration of an album. At it's center is Damon Albarn and Jamie Hewlitt steering the Gorillaz in a more grandiose direction. There is hardly a song such as "Feel Good Inc." on this record. Instead, the real shining moments come in the melancholy spacescapes. "Empire Ants" is easily the Gorillaz most poignant and beautiful track to date. It oozes with melody and saccharine sweet hooks. The album also has mostly a darker undertone, especially on the Mos Def show stopper "Sweepstakes" and the static anti-funk jam "Stylo." Bobby Womack steals the show on "Stylo" with improvised lyrics that seem to come from the inner depths of his soul. And if you are looking for the danceable side of Gorillaz, you aren't completely out of luck. The kitschy consumer culture lampoon "Super Fast Jellyfish" and the Bashy and Kano led "White Flag" will tie you over for now. It's a busy album with a ton going on, but in the world of the Plastic Beach, it's all about excess and waste.

5. MGMT - Congratulations - MGMT's Oracular Spectacular lit a fire under the indie rock scene as well as the radio airwaves of your local alt-rock music station. "Kids" was inescapable and "Electric Feel" was the real shining star of that record. But Congratulations to most seemed to be a sophomore slump. A study in art rock deemed too weird to set the world on fire the way the previous album had. Well, for my dime, the experimentation and wackiness of Congratulations is far and away better than the faux pop of it's big brother. Say what you will about MGMT's horrid live show, where they lib synch their most beloved song to a crowd expecting to get that in full glory. Songs here are sprawling, like the 12 minute epic "Siberian Breaks" that essentially dissects all things psychedelic into a beautiful landscape. "Flash Delirium" may be the closest to a single you can get off this album, but as the song builds and builds it explodes in a fury at the end. "I Found A Whistle" is a delightful psychedelic fever dream and "Brian Eno" is a art-rock ode to the patron saint of all things weird. As far as albums go, Congratulations shows more experimentation and has more moments than Oracular Spectacular did. Sure, nothing is going to launch them to fame off of this record, but I have a feeling that is exactly what MGMT wanted. And they are better off for it.

4. Grinderman - Grinderman 2 - Nick Cave is unstoppable. Be it writing awesome screenplays for badass Australian westerns, writing novels of depraved lunatics, scoring films with Warren Ellis, releasing albums with his Bad Seeds or taking a load off with Grinderman, the 52 year old rock veteran has yet to slow his pace. On Grinderman 2, he ups the ante big time. The depravity, the distortion and the overall intensity are through the roof. "Worm Tamer" is a harrowing affair. A classic blues riff with a raspy recitation of his "serpent wrangler" of a woman; it's a dark yet fun track. "Heathen Child" is just as dark. For fans of King Crimson, there is a brilliant reworking called "Super Heathen Child" with Robert Fripp tearing at your skin thanks to his ridiculous guitar work. Slow burn to start, but bombastic and loud by the songs midsection, "When My Baby Comes" is one of those Nick Cave affairs that oozes with melody until exploding forth with noise care of Warren Ellis' distorted violin and Jim Sclavunos' ferocious bass line. Some would say this seems like a mid-life crisis, as Cave's lyrics swoon over dangerous women and depraved activities that no 52 year old should be writing about, but Nick Cave is a special kind of person. He's above it all and with a new Bad Seeds record coming in 2011, there is no end in sight.

3. The Black Keys - Brothers - The Black Keys have always been on my radar, and select songs have always caught my grasp. But something about their dirty blues production was never enough to captivate me. It wasn't until this years Brothers that I was able to really fully immerse myself into one of their albums. Top to bottom, it's hands down their best. Rather than stripped down guitar and drums, this album is filled with sound and layers of instruments. The big single, "Tighten Up" is an undeniably catchy track, but it's B-Side, "Howlin' For You" is the true highlight of the pop sensibilities of this record. "Ten Cent Pistol" is a good bluesy number and "Too Afraid to Love You" is about as close to R&B the Black Keys have ever gotten. In a time when pop music is riddled with over-produced junk and a lack of good rock and roll, The Black Keys really stepped up to the plate to save us from the muck and mire of today's rock music wasteland. I'd rather be blasting "Next Girl" with it's guitar fireworks and blues stomp then ever hear any other new rock song on the radio ever again. It's lyrically excellent and excellent musically. Not a lot of rock bands out there that can say they nail both on one record.

2. Tame Impala - Innerspeaker - When Kevin Parker posits on album opener "It's Not Meant To Be" that "...I boast that it is meant to be, but in all honesty/I don't have a hope in hell..." he is definitely not talking about the greatness that is Innerspeaker. Far from the truth. Tame Impala's full length debut is a workout in psych pop unmatched by any other album that I can remember. It's pop songs are drenched in a haze of reverb and effects beaming in songs like "Alter Ego" from another dimension. Their undeniable comparison's to The Beatles due to Parker's eerie similarity to 60's John Lennon can sound like they are any other run-of-the-mill 60's nostalgia act, but that's not the case. There is still something new about these hooks and the sound design. Soaring effects take front and center, but effects can just be that. Luckily, the songwriting is just as strong. "Lucidity" crackles and fizzles with a hook as good as any rock song from the past 10 years. "Jeremy's Storm" is a sprawling instrumental that is surging and relentless. The closer, "I Really Don't Mind" is an apathetic anthem for the times. All in all, the voyage from start to finish on Innerspeaker is what makes this album so good. You are quickly whisked away to a psychedelic landscape and you'll end up getting lost in the wash of reverb that ensues. As far as psych rock albums go, this is easily one of the best in a long history of psychedelia.

1. Charlotte Gainsbourg - IRM - It's safe to say that Charlotte Gainsbourg is the best muse around. Her second album, 5:55, was beautifully crafted by the hands of Air, Nigel Godrich, Jarvis Cocker and Neil Hannon. It's a beautiful record. This time around, she has just one callaborater in Beck Hansen. Beck writes, produces and surely plays copious instruments on the best album of 2010. After a water skiing accident that left a blood clot in Gainsbourg's brain, it's no real surprise that she'd team up with Beck. The titular track is just as jarring as the experience of being put into an MRI machine. All the tracks are ladelled with death imagery, but it's all sort of accepting. rather than a fearful record, IRM is an album that's dark, but willing to admit the fragility of life. That's where Charlotte Gainsbourg's voice comes in. "In The End" is a short poem where Gainsbourg's fluttering voice really soars. "Who's to say it's all for the best in the end" is a beautiful epitaph of sorts. Although death is a constant overtone on the record, the album isn't short of it's sultry turns as well. "Trick Pony", a bluesy riff embedded in a bass and drum showdown is about as sultry as it gets on IRM. Just like on 5:55, some of the best songs on IRM are in French. "Le Chat du Cafe des Artistes" is an eerie string laden track that sounds sinister and below the sultry French spoken are easily the albums darkest lyrics. The album wraps up nicely with "La Collectionneuse" that slowly spirals out of control, unraveling at the end. Charlotte Gainsbourg is the finest muse oen can find these days. The music and lyrics are easily Beck's best since Sea Change, which is saying a lot as he's released several decent records in the past ten years. The two duet on "Heaven Can Wait," a straightforward pop song, but don't be mistaken, this is still Charlotte's show.

Top 30 Tracks of 2010

2010-12-22T11:10:00.006-05:00

HAPPY 500 POSTS, POSEIDON!

Sorry for the long delay! Between work, life, getting engaged and the holidays, I've been stressed and too lazy to write. So we're back. Grooves will continue with Brian Eno's Apollo: Atmospheres and Soundtracks in 2011. Until then, here are some year end insights starting with In The Wake's Top 30 Tracks of 2010!

30. Mumford & Sons - "The Cave" - My sister demanded me listen to the Mumford & Sons album Sigh No More for quite some time and sadly I took too long to get to the quality folk rock record. "The Cave" is definitely a stand out single for the new band. When the banjos kick in, this song really takes off.

29. John Legend & The Roots - "Compared To What" - The smoothest man in R&B plus the smoothest band in hip hop team up for an album of 70's soul cuts with a slant on social justice and change? Yes please! This cover of the Les McCann and Eddie Harris stands up nicely with todays world politics and the American experience in 2010. You can get this track on Wake Up!

28. Neil Young - "Walk With Me" - Neil Young + Daniel Lanois = LeNoise. A strange album of sorts as it's just Neil and his guitar plus effects and production care of Lanois. The end result is a spaced out take on Neil's chunky, grunge guitar playing. It's a refreshing track.

27. Broken Bells - "The High Road" - Although Broken Bells is an overall disappointing album, it has a of few catchy, inescapable tunes. The straightforward poppy goodness of this track is undeniable and is one of those songs that you can't help but sing along to.

26. Goldfrapp - "Alive" - Goldfrapp's Head First is a slice of delightful pop music. Where many are swooning for Lady Gaga, I swoon for Alison Goldfrapp. A blindingly catchy synth pop tune in the vein of Olivia Newton John in the 80's, it's saccharine sweet and amazingly fun to party to. The video is also pretty amazing.

25. Ariel Pink's Haunted Graffiti - "Bright Lit Blue Skies" - Although this may be the worst band name of the year, the album Before Today has some crazy good pop tunes smattered around some weirder experimentation. This track is a surf pop anthem, simple in it's hook but catchy as hell. This song reeks of California.

24. The Black Keys - "Tighten Up" - Brothers was a revelation for the Black Keys. extending their sound past their gritty Delta blues roots into the realm of soul, rock and R&B at times really extended the fan base of the veteran blues men. The lead single from the album is definitely one of their catchiest tunes yet.

23. School of Seven Bells - "Dust Devil" - Much like their first album, the sophomore effort Disconnect From Desire is taking a while to really sink in for me, but it's a great musical experience. The incessant beat and static musical track intertwined with the Deheza twins' impressive vocal arrangements lives up to the intensity of the titular windstorm.

22. Sleepy Sun - "Marina" - Psych rock was KILLING it in 2010. Sleepy Sun is no exception. Fever is a fantastic record and the lead off track "Marina" is a hodge podge of great sounds. Starting off with a fuzzy, heavy riff and swaying into sublime vocals and back again before breaking into an islandy breakdown, it's got everything a psych rock fan could want.

21. Autolux - "Spots" - Waiting for Transit Transit was the worst. When it finally came, it was good but it was hyped up for me being a huge Autolux fan. That being said, the record has it's fair share of great tracks and this sleepy, swooning track is definitely the best of the lot. Carla Azar's jazzy drums are the highlight of this beguiling track.

20. Gorillaz ft. Bobby Womack & Mos Def - "Stylo" - The darker cousin of "Feel Good Inc.", this track is hectic, static and overwhelmingly catchy. Bobby Womack steals the show.

19. Kylesa - "Tired Climb" - Another late addition to the 2010 album line-up, Kylesa's intense Spiral Shadow starts off with a raging blast. "Tired Climb" feels like the title, an uphill battle of heavy guitars, snarling vocals and an catchy hook that digs in deep.

18. Surfer Blood - "Floating Vibes" - Remember Weezer? Neither do I until I listen to Surfer Blood. Astro Coast is what Weezer should aspire to. Smart yet still catchy. Youthful yet not cliche. Lyrically great and with a hook to speed down the Atlantic City Expressway to, "Floating Vibes" was the real song of the Summer of 2010.

17. The Black Angels - "Yellow Elevator #2" - Honing in on a much more concise and hook laden approach, The Black Angels' Phosphene Dream is just as psychedelic as their previous two albums. Jefferson Airplane and The 13th Floor Elevators (wonder if this an homage?) melted into a new psychedelia. One of the spaciest tracks of the year.

16. Owen Pallett - "Midnight Directives" - When Owen Pallett was forced to drop his former moniker Final Fantasy due to a video game franchise, he emerged with his most triumphant record. "Midnight Directives" is a revelation. It's frantic, melodic and bombastic.

15. Brian Eno - "2 Forms of Anger" - Brian Eno with Jon Hopkins and Leo Abraham create one of the most paranoid songs I've ever heard. Starting out with what sounds like the churning of some robotic fortress, the song slowly builds and builds with sounds both foreign and rudimentary. The pulsating bleeps that come in and out and echo to the final building guitar riff. It's a glorious feast for the ears.

14. Teenage Fanclub - "Sometimes I Don't Need To Believe In Anything" - Power pop's greatest revivalists came out with their best albums in years. The sprawling album opener is about as good as it gets. Swelling synth strings, smooth vocal harmonies and and a catchy fuzzy riff bring this song to new heights of catchiness.

13. Grinderman - "When My Baby Comes" - Nick Cave's Grinderman is obnoxious. But it's the best kind of obnoxious because it's Nick Cave. The first half is a weird tribal croon that swells with Warren Ellis' strings before the build to ecstasy, then takes a dive into dark, twisted guitar snarl and drums that break bones. A fantastic song from the coolest record of the year.

12. The Sword - "Lawless Lands" - ZZ Top meets Iron Maiden with a dash of Zep. The Sword finally has found the right balance of southern blues rock, cock rock swagger and back to basics metal on Warp Riders. This track is easily the best unheard hard rock song of the year.

11. Charlotte Gainsbourg - "IRM" - Have you even had an MRI? This song embodies that feeling perfectly. Echoey, bone rattling percussion, buzzing sounds that are unnatural and that come in and out randomly and somehow just in time with each other. Charlotte's dazed vocals add just enough dynamic to this drone of a song.

10. Tame Impala - "Alter Ego" - Psychedelia is definitely on the upswing, especially in inide rock circles. Tame Impala's Innerspeaker is a fantastic record. When this track beams in and starts it's otherworldly shift into guitars drenched in all sorts of effects, you are instantly transported to another place that is all at once unique and familiar.

9. MGMT - "Siberian Breaks" - I'm a sucker for epics and "Siberian Breaks" is the best of the year. A pop epic is something that doesn't come often. Usually metal or prog will cover that, but MGMT have written their most dynamic song here. Shifting from Kinks-esque sunny pop and morphing into McCartney style melodies and landing in a future scape of synthesizers, this is a travelogue for an acid trip.

8. Dr. Dog - "Shame, Shame" - Philadelphia's own freak folkers consistently release quality albums and Shame, Shame follows suit. Their songs are honest, heart wrenching and fun. This titular track pulls on the heart strings and Toby Leaman's fantastic vocal performance brigns this song to it's lofty pop goodness.

7. Grinderman - "Worm Tamer" - Have I mentioned how badass Nick Cave is? He doesn't get all the credit as Warren Ellis, Jim Sclavunos and Martyn Casey are a helluva backing band. "Worm Tamer" is a static garage rocker that snarls with beeps, buzzes and all sorts of feedback squeals as Cave croons about his girl being a "mambo rider" and a "serpent wrangler." It's dark, sexual and it's creeps forth like the worm of the title. And it fucking rocks.

6. Black Mountain - "The Hair Song" - Black Mountain ditched the long-winded epics on Wilderness Heart and the songs are better for it. The poppiest Black Mountain song yet, "The Hair Song" is the best the Webber/McBean vocal duality and features one of the most wonderfully constructed psych pop tracks of the year.

5. Arcade Fire - "Sprawl II (Mountains Beyond Mountains)" - The best song to encapsulate the overall feeling of The Suburbs (both the album and the place.) Regine Chassagne steals the show with yet another brilliant vocal performance over what sounds like the end credits to a lost John Hughes film.

4. Charlotte Gainsbourg - "Time of the Assassins" - Producing and writing the album, Beck has lifted Charlotte Gainsbourg's music career to new heights. Her brush with a near death experience and his obsession with death matched perfectly on IRM and this haunting tune is the perfect embodiment of that. slow plucked acoustic guitars, lofty backing vocals and strings combine with Charlotte's gentle voice for a dark yet sweet tune.

3. The Black Keys - "Howlin' For You" - Starting off with a Gary Glitter infused drum beat and developing into a fuzzed out reconstruction of classic blues riffs drenched in muddled fuzz, "Howlin' For You" is undeniably my favorite Black Keys song yet. It's quirky, catchy and ultimately satisfying.

2. Tame Impala - "Lucidity" - When bands tap into the sound of The Beatles, a lot of people shrug, but I must completely disagree. Taking a taste of "Tomorrow Never Knows" acid and launching into a crunchy garage rock riff drenched in reverb, this song takes off (much like the video) and immediately lifts the listener into the stratosphere before crashing back down in a fury of guitars and fuzz.

1. Gorillaz featuring Little Dragon - "Empire Ants" - The dreamiest song of the year. What is so special about this particular Gorillaz track? Well besides it sounding unlike anything else in the Gorillaz canon, it's a space rock anthem for the ages. Beautiful shimmering piano, dream pop guitars and Damon Albarn start the song up and midway through, Little Dragon's Yukimi Nagano takes over as does the synth parade. It's a beautifully melancholy song (superior to "On Melancholy Hill" from the same record.) If you were to tell me that Gorillaz, the makers of "Clint Eastwood" and "Dare" were to ever release a song of such pop sweetness, I'd probably have laughed in your face. But on Plastic Beach, there are several of these moments, none of which compare to "Empire Ants."

Grooves: Pink Floyd - Animals (1977)

2010-11-02T13:32:00.011-04:00

Pink Floyd is one of the gods of rock and roll. Be a hater or a lover or a casual fan, you cannot deny the impact of the bands catalog on rock music. As much as the bands early, psych pop career and their huge stadium appeal are two huge factors of Pink Floyd's success, it really all boils down to their daunting catalog of albums. Pink Floyd used the medium, from album art to musical concept, to perfection. They thrive on vinyl. The two sides of a record make Pink Floyd albums what they are. In this case, Animals stands as a stark testament of what else was going on at the time on record. The punk rock scene was exploding in England and it seemed as if bands like Pink Floyd were immediately doomed. Luckily, however, the band channeled the punk rock spirit on Animals, even if only in it's lyrical darkness and skeptical view of the world at large. Otherwise, this is as anti-punk rock as it gets. A whopping 5 songs, three of which are over 10 minutes, Animals is a beast of a record. It also happens to be one of the best of Pink Floyd's career and in my opinion, the last, truly great Floyd album.

As a youngster, I remember my first steps to the Church of Pink Floyd. I purchased Dark Side of the Moon and The Wall before any other Floyd albums mainly because as a naive kid, they had more songs on them. When I first looked at Animals, I scoffed at it due to only have five songs. i figured five songs to not be worth $12 or whatever cds cost in 1998. My mind didn't understand five songs! I just wasn't having it. As I grew older and discovered vinyl, I realized my stupidity and embraced albums with short track listings. I bought Wish You Were Here which had five songs, but not Animals. I don't recall when I first listened to Animals in its entirety, probably in college, but I do remember getting this vinyl at Repo Records on South Street sometime in 2004, around when Floyd reunited for Live 8. It's clearly an album meant for vinyl. From it's fantastic artwork to the music contained on it, Animals is a necessary vinyl for any collection.

"Pigs on the Wing (Part 1)" is the calming first half of the bookend of the album. A love song of sorts, it's simplistic acoustic guitar with Roger Water's trembling vocals. It's a short intro to the harrowing affair that you are about to get yourself into. Slowly fading away as quickly as it begun, the track leads right into "Dogs." At a staggering 17 plus minutes, "Dogs" is as daunting a task as any to listen to. However, unlike many super long tracks in the history of rock, there is enough dynamic changes in the song that it never feels as long as it is. "Dogs" is pretty standard prog rock sprawl, with copious movements within the song. What makes a lot of this album stand out is that it has some of Roger Waters' best lyrics, not something standard to prog rock. Waters takes dead aim at those on the top of the heap, comparing them to the ravenous dogs that prey on the weak of society. Gilmour steals the show with a fantastic vocal delivery and even better guitar posturing. As the song builds and builds toward the end, Waters takes over the vocals and spits out some of his harshest lyrics on side one that builds with anger and intensity as the song comes to a crashing close. It's an impressive track that is gargantuan in size.

"Pigs (Three Different Ones)" is one of Pink Floyd's best tracks. Much like "Dogs," it's lyrically vicious and sonically a monster. David Gilmour uses a talk box for the first time to emulate the pigs snorting at the very start of the song (and in the solos to come) and Roger Waters steals the show with one of his best bass workouts yet. It's no wonder Les Claypool covered this album with his Flying Frog Brigade. It's a funky bass groove throughout the track with loads of guitar howling and boogie organs in the back ground. Waters is in control until the bridge when David Gilmour gets his stab. The bridge slowly builds with the flanged out guitars and all of sudden launches you into the pig pen. Gilmour's talk box solo is devastating. Not just on that level, but on the underlying guitar howls of Floyd's past underneath it. The midsection is so fat and full and textured, it fits the theme of the song perfectly. When we return, Waters wails back into our ears and we continue with the groove laden front half of the song. As the song comes reeling to a close, it's hard who to pay attention to more. Gilmour slams into a classic solo and Waters competes at full force, keeping the bass groove yet intensifying it. It's easily one of the greatest moments in Pink Floyd's history of classic guitar workouts. Then come the mindless masses. "Sheep" is essentially Rick Wright's time to shine. His organ intro is delightful and continues as the rocking intensifies. Possibly the most seething lyrically, "Sheep" digs into the mindless masses with a pitch fork. "Meek and obedient you follow the leader down well trodden corridors into the valley of steel" may be one of the single best lines of lyric Roger Waters ever wrote. As the mid section bursts with sound and builds with synthesizer beams, leading back to the main riff, we seem to get some glimpse of hope before plunging into a dark and spacey mid-section. Over vocoder, a re-working of Psalm 23 is read as the slow rumble of sheep bleeting before blasting into the final verse and explosive laugh care of Roger Waters. Then with an explosion, David Gilmours final volley of guitars digs in and slowly fades away. We are then in clearer pastures and "Pigs On the Wing (Part Two)" ushers us out with another ray of hope.

This is essentially one of the best album experiences one can get. The needle lifting off of the record at the end of this intense journey is icing on the cake for some reason. Built perfectly, Animals is a record that would be lost on the iTunes and even the CD generations. "Only five songs?!" That was my impression of this album at first. What you don't realize is it's essentially three monstrous songs that the ADD generation of singles and 99 cent MP3's can't wrap their head around. When you go to your record player you know just how much you are getting per side in music. It's more tangible to see the value of a record. Animals has been the most gratifying listen of this undertaking thus far, and it will no doubt be a trend of the most enjoyable experiences being Pink Floyd albums.

Up Next: Poseidon hits 500 Posts, takes a long break and will reveal top 30 tracks of 2010

Grooves: The Hooters - Amore (1983)

2010-10-31T11:24:00.005-04:00

Philadelphia, PA. One of the greatest musical cities in the country. From the golden age of doo wop to modern indie rock, Philadelphia always oozes with some great tunes. In the 80's, The Hooters were the darlings of Philadelphia. Growing up, it was impossible to avoid "All You Zombies" or "And We Danced" on the airwaves. Hometown heroes are always well played on local stations and luckily The Hooters created some decent pop hits in the 80's. I would never have gone out of my way to own a Hooters record, but a friend recently gave me some smooth tunes on vinyl as a gift and i am obligated to write about the records in my collection. Amore, the first album by The Hooters will not get glazed over just because it was a gift and not something I would buy. Vinyl gifts are my favorite kind because they make you listen to something you may not have gotten for yourself. That's the joy of records. They are easy gifts, they are great gifts to receive (even as a gag) and you open your eyes to something you wouldn't usually go out of the way to research. The Hooters are the perfect example of this.

Having zero knowledge of the band beyond their hits and Philadelphia's love of their hometown boys, I have to do some research here. Amore was The Hooters debut record and surprisingly was released independently. It's an EP of eight tracks, half of which would be re-recorded for future records. It's all of 25 minutes long. It's impressive that a band in the 80's self-produced their debut to great success. The EP was a hit in Philadelphia selling over 100,000 records. Clearly, The Hooters hit the ground running, launching their career.

Amore kicks off with the titular track, a poppy, kitschy love song. It's got a good hook but it sounds more like a cheap rip off of Duran Duran. The sax solo is the highlight of "Amore." "Blood From a Stone" is the first of several tracks that got re-done on future albums. It's much ore like a Hooters song than "Amore," sounding like the precursor to "And We Danced." The guitars drive this track and we're treated to a fantastic Casio-sounding solo halfway through. Fantastic in a cheesey sense. "Hanging On A Heartbeat" has a different structure, bordering on ska but filtered through the gloss of 80's excess. It's relatively forgettable. We finally get to "All You Zombies." And much different than anything that proceeded it, it's a far step forward in sound. However, it's a version that most would not be used to. It's a tad faster in tempo and a totally different vocal track than fans of the song would be used to. It still is by far the best song on this EP thus far, even though it's not the single version. It's much shorter too, which is a shame as it being the best of the tracks on the EP, you don't want it to end.

Side two starts off with "Birdman," which starts off with an XTC sounding intro. A drum machine churns out an interesting beat as the band plays a very staccato riff. It kicks into a Police like reggae riff. It's easily one of the more interesting songs on the EP. Musically it's much more dynamic than most of the first half. The bass line is a meandering, funky groove. It's an amalgam of 80's sounds that works really well. "Don't Wanna Fight" is another ska infused new wave track, but only moderately. It's far too slow of a song to get a groove going and too upbeat to really be a good power ballad. "Fightin' On The Same Side" starts off sounding like a goofy, carousel music and it doesn't move past that. It's a catchy enough tune, but it's pretty forgettable for the most part, like much of this album. The closer, "Concubine," follows suit. These songs are all structured well and the music is well played, but lyrically and musically in general, it's all kind of boring. None of these songs are necessarily bad, but aside from "All You Zombies" and "Birdman," it's relatively forgettable 80's pop music fare.

Record collections are almost never complete without a few misfits. Everyone grabs albums they later don't go back to. When something is 5 cents, it's hard to say no. The one thing I can take away from The Hooters Amore is that it's relatively impressive for a band to self produce and release a record to such a cult following. Most of these songs would go on to be re-recorded behind major label backing and the bumps on the EP definitely are worked out, especially in the much more intense future version of "All You Zombies." The Hooters are a local favorite of Philadelphia, but Amore is not the way to go for a casual fan. But hey, if it's a gift or its 5 cents, definitely check it out. You don't have much to lose.

Up Next: Pink Floyd's Orwellian Masterpiece

Grooves: Neil Young - American Stars N' Bars (1977)

2010-10-26T19:00:00.007-04:00

I am not a fan of country music. Not in the least. But when Neil Young is doing country music, I love it. Maybe it's because even if it's veiled in country music tropes, like twangy guitars, fiddle players and a bouncy line-dance beat, it's still a Neil Young song at heart. American Stars N' Bars, while not entirely country (especially side two) has some of the best Neil Young country songs one can find. But there is more to this album then some country twang. It's less of an album and more of a compilation. The songs found on this record were all recorded at different times and were intended for albums like Homegrown and Chrome Dreams. Some of the songs were recorded as early as 1974. It gives the album a stranger vibe than most with the first half being country and the second half having a hodge-podge of all sorts of sounds. This vibe isn't necessarily bad, it's just much different than what had come before. It's a forgotten album of sorts as it's only really huge hit, and a huge one at that, comes at the very end in "Like A Hurricane." It still sold well, but you can tell that Young is running out of steam a tad. It would be interesting to see what would have happened if the two failed albums had come to fruition. But, we can only speculate. And luckily, American Stars N' Bars holds up even if it's a collection of songs. It happens to be one of my top 5 Neil Young records.

I nabbed this at Prex, as many will have been, and as usual it's in good condition. But less about Prex and more about this record. Side one, the country side, is Neil Young in top gear. "That Old Country Waltz" is a last call anthem if I ever heard one. The album art itself, created by Dean Stockwell, shows Neil Young flat on his face drunk. I can hear this song coming from the jukebox in the bar. That lone couple dancing the night to its end, that lonely drunk swilling from his glass, tipping his hat to the band before tossing his last quarter into the guitar case. It's a perfect album opener that sets the tone perfectly for the first half of the record. "Saddle Up the Palamino" is about as cliche country sounding as you can possibly get. Linda Ronstadt and Nicollette Larson deliver fantastic backing vocals, a fiddle whines over the guitars and it the lyrics are about heartbreak. It stands out, however, as Young doesn't change the tone of his guitar, leaving his classic grungy crunch on the riff. It's a wonderful track that shows how country under the helm of Neil Young works on a different plain of sonic goodness. "Hey Babe" is my least favorite track on the album. It's got some nice pedal steel guitar care of long time Young collaborator Ben Keith, but otherwise it kind of lacks the same flair that the first two tracks have. "Hold Back The Tears" changes that with a wonderful violin and a show stopping harmony with Linda Ronstadt. The pedal steel and fiddle offering on this track is superb adding to the angsty vibe of Young and Ronstadt's vocals. It's one of Young's best tracks and comes as a surprise to me that it was not a single. "Bite The Bullet" then comes in with the sound and fury we're used to from Young. It's still a country rocker, but the intensity of Young grunge tones elevates it. The solo is a prelude of what's to come at the close of the record, with it's visceral pops and tones of gain. As it strays a little more from the country ballads, it's the perfect bridge from side one to two.

"Star of Bethlehem" is the oldest of the tracks on this album. Whereas the first side was all recorded in '77, this track dates back to '74, around the time Young's "On The Beach" was recorded and released. This shows in the music, even if Ben Keith's dobro playing adds that country twinge that makes it fit in with these tracks. Emmylou Harris steps in to lend her voice here and it's a sweet song down to it's melody. "Will to Love," the first of the two epics, was recorded in '76, is Young all alone playing all instruments. A crackling fire burns in the back as the simple acoustic guitar melody flits and flies over a low end of xylophones and the occasional bass guitar. It's a very unique song in the Young catalog. It has psychedelic elements and imagery in the lyrics and the music bursts and pops with different sounds from here and there. A campfire story song with a psychedelic folk twist. Blasting forth from the sleepy song is Young's flagship guitar anthem, "Like A Hurricane." It's classic Crazy Horse with their heavy and strong backbone as Young wails his weary lyrics over a surging guitar part that explodes into one of the greatest guitar solos of all time. As far as picking favorites among a catalog like Neil Young's it's next to impossible, but every time I listen to "Like A Hurricane"--which is quite often-- I can't help but think that there is no better song. For some reason, it doesn't stick out on the record, either. There are no female harmony parts, twangy fiddles or pedal steel backup, but it fits the mold. Every time I sit through the guitar solo, I'm moved. It's a sloppy solo, but every note is perfect. The explosions of the notes are piercing to the ears but the only way to experience this is at full blast. "Homegrown", the title of the album that never was, closes the record with an equally loud guitar romp. This time in a short little tune that fits in well with the country side of this record, it's a perfect closer bringing all the sounds full circle.

As much as American Stars N' Bars is an album of songs that were all from different times in Neil Young's career, it still works. Without every reading more about this album until this time, I would have not ever known that. It's still a wonderful record, housing some of Neil Young's finest songs. This doesn't have the huge hits like Harvest or After The Gold Rush, but I'd say it has pound for pound more high quality Neil Young songs. It's a fantastic record, and one that I don't see too often when shopping for vinyl. That being the case, if you see it, get it. It's worth it.

Up Next: Philadelphia's finest -- The Hooters

Grooves: Don McLean - American Pie (1971)

2010-10-23T10:31:00.007-04:00

Will Don McLean ever get out of the shadow of his most well known song, "American Pie?" My guess is no, but the fact remains that Don McLean's album American Pie proves that beyond the culture bomb of the titular song, McLean is still a damn good singer-songwriter. My mother is a huge Don McLean fan beyond his one massive hit. His other songs are quiet at times with some of the most beautiful poetry. and I say poetry over lyrics because the way his lyrics run on many songs flow with the beauty of a romantic poet. This album may have some of his best written poems. Only his second album, American Pie is a well crafted album of wondefully arranged tracks. Be it a piano ballad, an acoustic love song or a full band pop song, there is a little bit of everything on this album. Discovering this is the first step in getting Don McLean the kudos as a singer-songwriter what he deserves: recognition beyond just his one huge song. And it's a pretty tough feat to overcome, especially given the fact that this album is named after it.

This is yet one of many of albums found in the walls of Tunes. Tunes is an institution that has been a part of my life since being a kid. Tunes on the Dunes in Ocean City, NJ was my first Tunes of choice. Each summer, I'd stop in there and pick up some classic rock album. Then it was on CD, but Tunes opened my eyes to many new and old artists. They finally started selling vinyl and organizing it sometime in the mid aughts when vinyl fever really started for me. I grabbed this record for $1. It seemed like a must own as I had grown up with it. It's as good a record as it is a piece of nostalgia.

American Pie clearly starts off with "American Pie." Without lingering on too long on a song everyone and especially their mother knows, "American Pie" is an important litmus test in how rock and roll has an effect on society. The death of Buddy Holly, The Big Bopper and Richie Valens was not only a tragedy in the sense of loss, but it was also a first step away from the innocent 50's into the more turbulent 60's. Don McLean obvious notes this in his litany of sorts showing the change after "The Day The Music Died" and what would happen in the country thereafter. I feel as if you could dedicate this entire post to "American Pie" as it is such a transcendent piece of rock history and pop music, but this is a look into the album itself. "Till Tomorrow" is the first of several acoustic ballads. With just acoustic guitar, some mild electric piano playing in the background and some very sparse instrumentation, it's a more conventional singer/songwriter track but still has that beautiful poetry McLean is so good at. Perhaps McLean's second most famous song, "Vincent", a ballad to Vincent Van Gogh, is just as sparse as "Till Tomorrow." One artists lament to another, lyrically it's one of McLean's best. "Flaming flowers that brightly blaze" is a wonderful lyric that is just as expressionistic as Van Gogh's paintings. The troubled mind of Van Gogh must have hit a chord with McLean. It addresses the troubled life of Van Gogh and in beautiful form. "Crossroads" ends the side on a melancholy note. Most of this record is very sad lyrically. Don McLean has a melancholy lament on all tracks, even though they all shine with beautiful melody and wonderful singing. Piano and vocals accompany this very sad song. Lyrically it's about the decisions we make, some good and some bad. It's a touching song and a great end to a wonderful first half of the record.

"Another Side" as this record states, starts with "Winterwood", the first track since "American Pie" to feature a discernible backing band. And although it's a wonderfully groovy track, there is something about the band addition that makes this a little less effective than some of the other songs on side one (called "One Side.") It gives the song a different vibe all together. "Empty Chairs" follows more along the lines of "Vincent" with McLean's wonderful lyrics backed by a gently plucked acoustic guitar that pops. This is my personal favorite of the love songs in Don McLean's collection. It's a lost love song from the stand point of someone who didn't see it coming. It hits home on many levels. Who hasn't felt the loss of someone they loved? It's as beautiful as any Nick Drake tune and just as poetic. It's definitely the highlight of side two. The crackle on this record is perfect, channeling a wonderful spirit behind the loneliness of the song. "Everybody Love Me, Baby" is a bigger distraction than "Winterwood." It's a half tongue in cheek pop song, but something about it really turns me off. I don't think McLean sells the pastiche very well. "Sister Fatima" is a peculiar track. It's a musically beguiling track and lyrically it seems to be an indictment of paying for grace from God. It's another distracting song, which was omitted when American Pie was re-issued in 1980. I guess this means I have an original record? Cool. "The Grave" is a much more effecting track. It's a dark song, almost like Tim Buckley's "No Man Can Find The War" with it's intense lyrics of war and death. It's followed by the traditional "Babylon" which is as chilling of a follow-up as you can get. It's a fitting end to an album about facing death, the ending of relationships and the loss of important figures in life. A traditional which slowly builds upon several tracks of McLean's clean vocals and a banjo being plucked. Indeed a stirring contrast to the almost joyous "American Pie."

With a few tracks left for the throwaway bin, American Pie holds its own surprisingly well. Yet you will rarely hear any song but the titular and maybe "Vincent" if you are lucky. It's a truly wonderful album, and McLean would go on to put some other fine records together. "American Pie" the song eclipses American Pie almost more than any other album containing a big hit song I can think of. It's truly a shame, but one great thing I can say is that those who like singer/songwriters should not be without this record. And what better way to discover it, be it for the first time or all over again, than on vinyl.

Up Next: Neil Young is the first repeat artist and this time, Dean Stockwell does the album art.

Grooves: Louis Armstrong - Ambassador Satch (1956)

2010-10-22T10:10:00.006-04:00

One great thing about vinyl is inheriting it from people who no longer want it. My dad had a co-worker looking to unload and of course I immediately stepped up to take the records. It was mostly Dan Fogelberg records, which I quickly sent to Tunes for cash. However, there were some jazz records and a few gems to be had to assimilate into my collection. One of those was a live Louis Armstrong record called Ambassador Satch. Being an ex-trumpet player from days past, Armstrong has always been an idol of sorts of mine. As the title of this record goes, in the 50's, the State Department named Louis Armstrong and Ambassador of Good Will to Europe and Africa. It's a testament to Satchmo's personality as well as his brilliant skilled and soulful playing. Satchmo's influence on Jazz and music in general was huge and this album is a nice experience of live tracks from his tour of duty abroad as an ambassador as well as a few studio performances. Easily one of the most important icons of American music, owning some sort of Satchmo album should be a prerequisite for having a vinyl collection.

Being a hand-me-down, the record isn't in the greatest condition, but the album plays wonderfully. The outer jacket may be a bit worn, but it's almost 50 years old. It's pretty impressive that the thing isn't warped or scratched to oblivion. One thing I love about vinyl is the history behind it. When you get a hand-me-down record, sometimes the original owner wrote their name on it or doodled on the cover, never thinking that the record would one day be seen to some as obsolete or be seen by the eyes of a new owner. Ambassador Satch for me is a historical document as much as it is a good record. It shows that music can work as an important bridge for international relations. Satchmo is such a great figure in American music. The essay on the back sleeve has a great quote about the power of jazz in the 50's: "American jazz has now become a universal language. It knows no national boundaries, but everyone knows where it came from and where to look for more." Proof positive of the importance of music in the world we live in. Having this record is a piece of history that I appreciate, especially getting for free. I would probably not have bought the record as most of the time I stick strictly to rock in its many forms, but the Comstock Lode of jazz records from this one person was a great gift.

The album kicks off with some audience ambiance and an introduction of Louis Armstrong before tearing into a beautifully fun and bouncing "Royal Garden Blues." The best thing about jazz is that even though this is a Satchmo album, every facet of the music is astounding. The entire brass section lays the boogie down, the drums and bass keep the backbone strong and even get a highlight solo here and there. You can tell when the crowd roars that Satchmo just laid down some impressive trumpet playing. Unlike some live recordings, the crowd noise never distracts. If anything it adds an element of greatness to the record. Satch introduces the next track with that signature growl of his. "Tin Roof Blues" is a classic amongst bluesman. It's a slinky song compared to the bombastically fun "Royal Garden Blues," but it glows with life just the same. Jazz traditionals never sound overdone, especially in the hands of Satchmo. The trumpet solo is as stately as it gets, howling with Satchmo's classic trumpet affectation. "The Faithful Hussar" is a tune Satchmo picked up in Germany whilst on tour. He liked it so much, he added it to his European roster of songs. It's a whimsical tune that sparks with life, especially during Satchmo's fine scat singing during the mid section. Even in the latter age of his long career (he started playing jazz in the 20's,) Satchmo's tunes still sound fresh and new, if not a little dated as the 50's jazz masters like Miles Davis were giving a new cool edge to the institution. The side ends with "Muskrat Ramble," a perfect tune to jitterbug to. It's a fitting number to boogie to and the bands playing is as tight as ever on the track.

Side two opens up with an Italian announcer battling the raging crowd for attention to introduce Louis Armstrong. The only thing that will stop the crowd is for the band to kick in, and they do so with "All Of Me," the first track with vocals on the record. Satchmo's famous growling roars in. It's a perfect jazz standard for Satchmo, whose trumpet playing is easily some of the best on the record. "Twelfth Street Rag" follows adding a touch of ragtime to the mix. In Satchmo's hands, it gains a power all it's own. You can tell Satchmo and his All Stars are having a fun time on this track. The crowd seems to enjoy it just as much with laughter and applause every so often. Side two seems to be brimming with the best of Satchmo's trumpet playing on the record as he adds a fantastic trumpet solo to this rag. Satchmo "keeps it rolling" with "Undecided." It's a quick, bouncy jam. All players are rocking at a breakneck pace, it's hard to keep up. "Dardanella" comes next slowing the pace just a bit. Loads of clarinet over a short bouncing piano and drums, it's a minimalistic song for the most part coming and going faster than it picks up at all. Satchmo breaks out a classic in "West End Blues." This is easily one of Satchmo's most revered songs. The explosions of trumpet are powerful as the bluesy number slinks forth. Closing the album is the explosive "Tiger Rag," yet another classic jazz track. The New Orleans standard was yet another famous track for Satchmo, who blazes through it with his band at a furious pace. It has one of the best fake-out endings ever as the band launches right back into.

There are only a few records in my collection like this and after listening to Ambassador Satch, I look forward to approaching these records again. Jazz is something that to many is misunderstood. But there is jazz and then there is Satchmo. Louis Armstrong transcends jazz. He takes ragtime and melds it around his own New Orleans sound. This album is great to own not just for the contents of it's music, all of which is a welcome change to the rocking I will be listening to throughout this experiment, but it's also a piece of history. The back of the record has an essay about the power of Jazz in the 50's and how Satchmo himself was an Ambassador of Good Will. It also breaks it down track by track. Although it's a tad beat up, it's made it 55 years and still sounds great.

Up Next: Don McLean's masterpiece

Grooves: George Harrison - All Things Must Pass (1970)

2010-10-19T16:28:00.014-04:00

George Harrison is my favorite Beatle. His songs are always filled with lush, beautiful melody. His lyrics are poetry yet simplistic in their meaning. On All Things Must Pass, we get as close to a flawless record as one putting out 3 LP's can get. As stated many times before, my Beatles upbringing wasn't only in the band itself, but almost every facet of their aftermath. For me, there is no better thing to come from The Beatles' demise than that of All Things Must Pass. It's a deluge of greatness. Contractual obligations only allowed George one song per side on any Beatles record. Once the Beatles disbanded, it was go time for Harrison. He unleashes a daunting 23 track assault on his first proper solo album. It's pretty incredible and save for the jams that I hardly listen to, it's more or less a flawless victory. Surprisingly, it's the best selling post-Beatles record from any member of the band. It's only surprising in that George is hardly the most famous or popular Beatle. The content is definitely some of the best post-Beatle output and has some of my all time favorite songs.

One thing that makes this record a treasure for any vinyl collector is it's presentation. Three LP's is a lot of vinyl to store and so it comes in a box of sorts. Each record has it's own sleeve with lyrics and tracks with the third record having a picture of a jar of what's called "Apple Jam" (More on that later.) The album also comes with a poster of George in full beardo mode. His beard takes up most of the poster, but getting an old, kind of dust yet in great condition poster makes buying the album for all of $10 at Tunes in Marlton all the better.

All Things Must Pass is easily the bets non-girl group Phil Spector production there is. Many people don't love his Wall of Sound, but with George Harrison, Spector is in his prime. "I'd Have You Anytime", co-written with Bob Dylan, is a hazy, twangy opener. It sounds like waking up on a beautiful morning, with a little haze in your eye and a yawn deep down. It's a lovely lyric of honest love. "My Sweet Lord" may have gotten Harrison sued, but it's crescendo of back-up singers (all George Harrison) and it's pop sensibility make it a great single. The album really shows its muscle on "Wah Wah." It's an intensely personal song but has a riff that shreds as good as any. The guitar solo is extremely exceptional and the sound coming through your stereo is huge. "Isn't It A Pity" closes side one with one of Harrison's most beautiful ballads ever. It's a brilliantly melancholy song about the human condition. This song isn't as overtly spiritual as some other songs on this record, but it's more humanistic message gives it a universal appeal.

Side two starts with the rocking "What Is Life" yet another one of George's existential tracks. Phil Spector fills every nook and cranny of this song with some sort of sound, be it tambourines, acoustic guitars, drums, backing vocals by George and the Harrisons and loads of reverb. This song should be played through a Fender amp. "If Not For You" is a Bob Dylan cover from Dylan's album New Morning. It's a really beautiful song in Harrison's hands. "Behind That Locked Door", which was written for Bob Dylan, comes next and is a beautifully woozy track. It's slide guitar work via Pete Drake is an inspired touch. I would love to hear Neil Young cover this song (and have heard My Morning Jacket cover it.) Booming in after the hazy beauty of "Behind That Locked Door" is the epic burst of "Let It Down." It's a very poetic song that explodes with horns, wailing guitars and intense drums. It rivals "Wah Wah" for best rocker of the album. "Run of the Mill" ends the side and it's title lives up to it's expectation. It's not one of the better tracks on the album.

Side three makes up for the anti-climatic "Run of the Mill" big time. "Beware of Darkess" is the pinnacle of this album. It's my favorite Harrison lyric. It's very poetic and flourishes with great beauty and sends a great message. It's a truly uplifting track. "Apple Scruffs," a silly ditty dedicated to the Apple Studio groupies is kind of a throwaway if it wasn't so damn catchy. "Ballad of Sir Frankie Crisp (Let it Roll)" is a beautifully whimsical track. Lyrically, it's derived from words that were found at the estate of Sir Crisp, which George purchased. The cover art of the album was a portrait taken on the estates beautiful gardens. "Awaiting On You All" is a romp of a song musically and lyrically is all about spirituality. George lists the kind of things you don't need in order to find spirituality. "If you open up your heart, you'll see he's right there." Spirituality isn't a trek to a holy place or a prayer on your death bed, it's inside you all the time. "All Things Must Pass," originally intended and practiced during the Get Back sessions gets Harrison's first full on treatment. It's yet another amazing portrayal of Phil Spector's production with grandiose guitars slathered in reverb, horn embellishments and it's own unique atmosphere. As is with many of the songs on this album, and much like "Here Comes the Sun," this track oozes with uplifting yet existential meaning. "It's not always gonna be this grey" is just about as great a line as any to show that even the bad times will pass.

Side four kicks off with the kind of goofy "I Dig Love." Before this listening experience, I probably have listened to this song all of one or two times. After this listening experience, I can safely say that it will most likely remain that way. Definitely my least favorite song on the album. On the contrast, "The Art of Dying" is a fantastic song, featuring a 19-year old Phil Collins on percussion. It's yet another bombastic track of monolithic sound. It's a confirmation of all of George's existential strife preparing himself for the end. The ultimate end is inevitable and George faces it directly in this song. "Isn't It a Pity (Version Two)" is a fitting reprise after "The Art of Dying." Shorter in length, but a slower tempo, it's more dirge like with it's organ heavy approach. The side closes with "Hear Me Lord," yet another fitting part of a trio of songs about death and acceptance and repentance. The track stands as a prayer of forgiveness closing the side with a lamentation. As this ends the more proper part of the record, it's a fitting closer.

The last two sides to the record are the Apple Jam, as it is called on the sleeve. I can't lie to you; the Apple Jam is one of those things I rarely listen to. It's the strange misfit of the album, yet on vinyl, it takes on a new life for me. Side five starts with "Out Of The Blue" which is a meandering static jam with not enough variety to make it into a worth while improv jam. Clapton never makes fireworks enough. It flows into the Monthy Pythonesque "It's Johnny's Birthday." It's a carnival goofball throwaway that really doesn't fit with everything else that has been coming our way on the album. It's only worthy as it was recorded for John Lennon's 30th Birthday in 1970. "Plug Me In" is the only redeeming song on side five. It's a classic blues riff and pretty well structured but it feels like it should have been proper vocals. It's less George Harrison and more of some strange super group rocking a blues jam proper. It's a pretty decent track, but again, it sticks out amongst the rest. Phil Spector's Wall of Sound doesn't seem fit as well to the psych jams as it did to the spiritual mantras from the four previous sides.

Side six is two final jams. "I Remember Jeep" is a juggernaut of big names. Ginger Baker, Klaus Voorman, Billy Preston, Eric Clapton and George Harrison all on one track. Flying in on the explosion of tape feedback from a previous George Harrison song called "No Time or Space." From this a boogie jam filled with soulful piano playing, a pounding rhythm section, and jangly guitars. Amidst this boogie jam are explosions of sound. This is a definite upgrade from the meandering sound of "Out of the Blue." There is still something about it that just really sticks out. Spector's reverb doesn't give the song enough edge to really rock hard. "Thanks For The Pepperoni" is a Chuck Berry jam. It's a classic remodeling of the "Johnny B. Goode" riff, but it all gets drowned in the Spector mix. With a little less reverb, this would be a much more eviscerating track. The mix ruins the playfulness of it. My only real take on the whole Apple Jam is that it must be a nice catharsis for George Harrison to take the helm of these great names that he had been working with for years and just conduct a studio jam. He deserves to let loose and have some fun with his friends. One thing is for sure. The joy of vinyl makes it so you can just not put the third LP on and still experience the album just fine without listening to the jam. It's almost the first "bonus disc" in the history of popular music.

All Things Must Pass is a fantastic record. In our age of deluxe boxed sets, this was easily the first of its kind. A big thick outer casing holding three records of original music from your favorite artist, a poster and an in depth track listing with personnel on all tracks, it's really a wonderful presentation. Then we are doubly thanked by getting high quality songs. It's a wonderful listening experience. Even if the Apple Jam isn't really that great, it's still far ahead of its time. The spiritualism of George Harrison's songwriting combined with the wonderful musicians helping to craft the songs and a heaping helping of Phil Spector bombast makes this the perfect proper debut album.

Up Next: In the 1950's Satchmo was an Ambassador of Good Will to the World. That's how great his music is.

Grooves: Mott The Hoople - All The Young Dudes (1972)

2010-10-17T20:12:00.005-04:00

It's quite serendipitous that All The Young Dudes comes immediately after Aladdin Sane. If not just because Bowie produced and wrote the titular track, but also because this A-Z endeavor has gotten me on a real heavy glam rock kick. Mott the Hoople is one of those bands that gets stuck under the weight of their biggest single, "All The Young Dudes." For ages, I just assumed it was David Bowie as it pretty much hits every Bowie-ism possible. When I found out it was written by Bowie and produced by him, I then assumed that the rest of Mott the Hoople's music must not be that great as it's hard to live up to Mr. Stardust. However, further research into Mott's music has been nothing short of a glam odyssey worth every penny. One great thing about vinyl is if you can find an album in a $1 bin and you don't know much about the bands music other than a song or two, you might as well get the album. If it's a terrible record, you lost $1. Such is the case for All The Young Dudes. This is where anyone delving into Mott's catalog will start and it's definitely a proper start.

Mott the Hoople's history is important to this record. Their early records are a melange of Rolling Stones cock rock and Dylanesque lyrical balladry. It's a good mix on some songs, but the albums leading up to their glam years are hit or miss. Songs like "Backsliding Fearlessly" on Mott the Hoople is a perfect mixture of these two sounds. They struggled from their beginnings and were on the verge of breaking up in 1972 when David Bowie stepped in. He has been quoted as saying Mott the Hoople was one of his all time favorite bands. He gave Mott a song called "All The Young Dudes" and offered himself to helm the production of another album. Lucky for Mott the Hoople as they came full circle and brought a fantastic performance on the album. Their reinvention into a glam rock giant was all care of their guardian angel, David Bowie. The thing that really rules about Mott the Hoople is that they prove it that they are more than just a pet band of a monolithic giant of rock history. They are actually great songwriters in themselves. It just took the right muse to get them off the ground.

All The Young Dudes starts with a cover of The Velvet Underground's "Sweet Jane." It's a perfectly apt song for the band, with it's bar room swagger and supremely catchy riff, but in the hands of Mott, it sounds a bit flat. It lacks the intensity in the vocal performance but shines musically. This is all turned around with "Momma's Little Jewel." A shining jewel of a performance all around, the track has a great boogie stomp to it. The songs that shine the most are the ones that Ian Hunter and Mick Ralphs write. Their covers are good, and "All The Young Dudes" is about as great as a song gets, but in the original songs, there is a different vibe to it. "Sucker" is easily one of my fav Mott songs. It's got a great chugging riff, a blazing sax part, care of David Bowie, and some of the best overly sexual lyrics of the glam era. Unlike The Velvet Underground's "Venus in Furs", "Sucker" makes the sado-masochism sound like a romp. "Jerkin' Crocus" finishes the side with equal parts glam vamping from Ian Hunter's vocal performance. If there is any song that seems to be a prelude to the resurgence of glam rock in the 80's, "Jerkin' Crocus" seems to fit the bill. You could gear Poison or Ratt revamping this track with heavier guitars and over-the-top theatrics.

Side two begins with a ringing telephone on the forgotten single "One of the Boys." It's classic track about all the debauchery and other tomfoolery that comes with being one of, well, the boys. It fades out into sounding as if the band is rocking over the phone that was calling us at the beginning before swelling back into the rock. "Soft Ground", written and sung by organist Verden Allen is the weakest link on the record. It's a forgettable rocker that fits well with the rest of the album, but doesn't really stand out. Mick Ralphs' tune "Ready For Love/After Lights" is one of my favorite songs on the album. Mick Ralph's would leave Mott the Hoople after this record and re-record the song with his new super group, Bad Company. Mott's treatment isn't much different from the revamped version other than the production value and the superior vocal performance of Paul Rodgers on the Bad Company album.. The Mott version isn't as good as the Bad Company take, but it's still a rocking good song. The different parts to the song that are added by Ian Hunter definitely adds to the track. The closer, "Sea Diver", is a quite closer and kind of a welcome sound from some of their older albums. It doesn't have the over the top glam rock sound the rest of the album does and it is a perfect respite from the large amount of rocking that just ensued.

Mott the Hoople would go on from their successful All the Young Dudes to record two more albums before disbanding in 1974. Most of the original personnel left after this record, which is surprising as this was their high watermark at the time. It's not my favorite Mott album (we'll save the praise for that record when the letter H rolls around) but it's an quintessential album for anyone's collection.

Up Next: George Harrison's 3 LP Adventure

Grooves: David Bowie - Aladdin Sane (1973)

2010-10-14T15:02:00.007-04:00

Just like Neil Young and The Beatles, David Bowie is one of the 12 Olympians of my love of music. Without Bowie, I'm not sure where my life would be at this point. My parents didn't have a lot of Bowie records, in fact they only owned Station to Station on vinyl and maybe a Greatest Hits on CD. As a kid, I bought the ChangesBowie best of and still listen to it (just did on the way to work today.) When I got older, I finally delved into Bowie's entire catalog and boy was I in for a surprise. The hits are great, but the albums flourish with such fervor and passion that I immediately fell in love all over again. Bowie wore many masks throughout the 70's and went everywhere from glam rock to Philly soul to krautrock. I have a hard time picking a favorite album, but one thing is for sure, Aladdin Sane is my favorite glam-rock era Bowie album. It may not be full of hits, like The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars, but it has some of the best early Bowie musical performances around. Mick Ronson is at his all time best, laying down some of the crunchiest riffs of his career. Bowie amps up the glam and strangeness here, straying away from the overly baroque sounds on Ziggy for more of a guitar assault with some sax, care of Bowie himself, and some of the best piano on any Bowie record. It's a gem and a must own for any vinyl fan.

This is another purchase from Album Hunter in Maple Shade. I think I've had this record for quite some time now and Aladdin Sane will always remind me of a transitional period in my life. I simultaneously got the deluxe edition of this album on CD from Polly's in Vorhees, NJ. It's an album that I needed on both mediums. The deluxe CD comes with a bunch of outtakes and alternate versions and a few other songs, but the album is so good, that the extras were just a small reason for getting it.

Defining glam rock is strange as the classificaton and naming of glam was because of the style and not the music and songwriting. Sure, Bowie was an androgynous, space-aged funky freak who wore man-dresses and make-up, but the music of glam rock is why I go to the genre. Glam rock is usually a combination of both blues and garage rock mixing in lyrics of mysticism, futurism and nostalgia all in one. Especially on Aladdin Sane. "Watch That Man" is a bar room rocker with boogie piano, hard, crunchy guitars care of Mick Ronson at peak form and backing vocals from female singers to give it a little extra kick. It's a wonderful kick off to the album. After the raucous start, we are treated to "Aladdin Sane (1913-1938-197?)" The song has the typical glam futuristic lyricism and one of the best piano performances in rock and roll history. Mark Garson's intense, staccato and frenzied piano solo is unlike any other I've heard. It's truly a fantastic song that explodes with emotion and fury. "Drive-In Saturday" is one of those lost Bowie singles that was much bigger in England than it was in the US. It's a doo-wop throwback and a post-apocalyptic summer time anthem all in one extremely catchy song. It's just as good as any other Bowie single and easily one of my top 10 Bowie songs. The saxophone care of Bowie himself ads such a sexy vibe that wouldn't be heard again in such grandeur until 1975's Young Americans. "Panic in Detroit" is as paranoid as any song on Station to Station and has one of the best percussion sections in any Bowie track. It's very limited on cymbals and let's the guitars and bass meander in and out of each other with the bass taking a funky vibe, the guitar psych rocking it and the drums giving off a tribal pound. "Cracked Actor" is one of the grungiest songs and one of Bowie's hardest rockers. With a Neil Young rattle on Mick Ronson's guitar with a groovy rhythm section, it's a sinister indictment of Bowie's future home. It's kind of strange as Bowie launched into acting , became heavily addicted to cocaine and extremely paranoid. "Cracked Actor" is a futurescape for Bowie himself giving it even more of a sinister edge. Obviously, he didn't know it at the time, but he predicted his near future. It's a hell of a way to close side one.

Side two starts with more Mark Garson magic. "Time" begins as a show tuney piano ballad, all flamboyant and pomp. Then Mick Ronson kicks in taking it up a huge notch and launching Bowie's haunted vocal performance into the stratosphere. It's an extremely intense song and points to Bowie's experimental future while still holding on to his guitar driven rock of the past. It's about as epic as it gets in terms of grandiosity. "The Prettiest Star" by comparison is a pretty basic track. It's easily the weakest link on the album, but it's by no means bad. It's hard to compare another doo-woop, hand clapping pop track after the intense avante-burlesque of "Time." A prelude to Bowie's next album Pin Ups (which will appear on this endeavor,) Bowie tears through an inter-stellar cover of "Let's Spend The Night Together." It comes out of nowhere with this insane synthesizer intro (a prelude to Low, perhaps.) It boogie's forth at an intense gallop and has all sorts of insane twists and turns. "The Jean Genie" is one of the most underrated Bowie songs. It was written the year prior during Bowie's tour of America, as much of this album is based on his first impressions of the USA (the album has a city name attached to every song where it was written.) It's what Bowie calls "a smorgasbord of imagined America." And the lyrics and musical style is wonderfully Americana but with the lens of a Brit. Closing the album is another Mark Garson show stopper "Lady Grinning Soul." It's a truly beautiful song that floats through the air with it's romanticism. It's also one of Bowie's finest vocal performances, unmatched until Station to Station via a cover of Nina Simone's "Wild is the Wind." It is a truly unmatched song in the early part of Bowie's career, save for maybe "Life on Mars?"

Aladdin Sane is definitely my favorite glam era Bowie album after this listening adventure. It has such a raw power and strange, historical importance for the pantheon of David Bowie's career, yet I feel it doesn't get the props it deserves. It definitely is a great vinyl experience with each side being chock full of ear candy. Bowie would then slide into Diamond Dogs, which is my least favorite early Bowie record. It was all excess, even more so than Aladdin Sane. But the Bowie later to come would make up for that with a intense turn in the late 70's during the Berlin phase of his career.

Up Next: One year earlier, Bowie produces Mott The Hoople

Grooves: The Sword - Age of Winters (2006)

2010-10-13T09:40:00.008-04:00

As much as some people may not enjoy playing Guitar Hero or Rock Band, you have to see the value in what it has done for popular music. Mixing rock music with video games is nothing new, but these games bring the music to the forefront and with it, you will inevitably hear something new to you. Be it a younger audience discovering Deep Purple for the first time or someone older getting a little taste of Paramore and finding out it's for them, that has a magical quality to it. What does this have to do with Grooves you might ask? Without Guitar Hero, I would most likely not have heard of The Sword. Sure, maybe someone would have introduced me to it, but GH2 is who I have to thank for this love. The Sword is one of those bands that gets the reason why vinyl is better than CD's. sure, you can't take a record with you in the car, but The Sword always includes a digital download of the album with the record. Their album art is always really cool and each of their records comes in some multi-color format. Age of Winters, which is their first record and the album that has "Freya" from Guitar Hero 2 on it, is pressed on translucent vinyl. Very cool. It looks like a disc of ice, carved from a Norwegian fjord.

The Sword is on easily my favorite non-Matador independent label, Kemado Records. Other bands that had Kemado under their wing at one point or another include Danava, The Fever (sadly defunct), Cheeseburger, Saviours and Vietnam. I purchased the album directly from the band at their show during the tour prior to releasing their second album, Gods of the Earth. As you can see by the album cover, it's got some gorgeous artwork. This is a staple of The Sword as you will see on their two other full length LP's as we continue this grand excursion in analog. I mentioned in the last post how it was fitting that The Sword show up so soon and that is because they are currently on tour and coming to Philadelphia touring behind their new album Warp Riders. Getting to spin this record was already in the cards as I need to amp myself up for the show.

Age of Winters does not fuck around. Side one starts with an instrumetal "Celestial Crown." The guitars rumble in like the surging North Sea tide and as the song picks up, you can immediately conjure up the image of warlords aboard a Viking ship running head-long for foreign shores, preparing for battle. As the song comes to a rumbling close, it immediately launches into "Barael's Blade." Here is when the gang-planks drop and the warriors start their furious fight. It's a riff heavy track that is bludgeoning and fast. The fury doesn't stop (and won't) continuing on with "Freya." It's the kind of battle cry metal chug that got me into this band. It's not so much a song that is showy in it's guitar solos, but more impressive in it's sludging and heavy sound. The mid-section is just a neck breaking back and forth between fast drums and extremely heavy guitars. Probably the best track on the album, "Winter's Wolves" tears at the flesh with it's Iron Maiden chug and intense rhythm. It's a staple of The Sword's live set, where it takes on new heights in thrash goodness. The side ends with "The Horned Goddess" which is hardly a highlight on the record. This track is best suited for the live show where they expound on it's sludgy riff, but on the record it kind of pales in comparison to the rest of side one.

Side two starts off strong with "Iron Swan." This is speed thrashing at it's best, with an acoustic and tambourine stomp intro. It's easily the fastest, heaviest song on this album, only to be matched by Gods of the Earth stand out "Fire Lances of the Ancient Hyperzephyrians." Try saying that ten times fast. "Lament of the Aurochs" is a little long winded. It's the first "epic" of sorts for The Sword and not until this years Warp Riders have they been able to nail down a downright enthralling epic. More instrumetal (n omitted on purpose) comes by way of "March of the Lor." Supposedly it has 8 movements, but it's all of 4 minutes and much like other Sword instrumetals, it's very awesome. The Sword's lyrical content is much like any doomy metal band. It's hardly what you're listening for and the production on this album kind of proves that point. On the instrumetal songs, we get crisp guitars and pummeling drums. But if vocals were involved, they would be buried behind the cacophony of metal demanding a listener who wants to hear tales of warriors and wolves and Aurochs, whatever they are, to turn their record player up to insanely loud levels. This isn't a bad thing as metal should be blasted, but until Warp Riders, the vocals hardly make an impact. "Eberthorn" closes the disc in grand fashion, wrapping everything up in a guitar blitz not much different than the eight tracks prior. This may sound like a dis of sorts, but The Sword write consistently bone crushing tracks throughout Age of Winters. It's only 42 minutes, perfect for vinyl as you may see, and it rocks furiously only getting a little indulgent during the one epic.

The Sword may not be the greatest metal band and I may not be the best judge of metal in general. What I do love about The Sword is their epic consistency. They slightly change their game on Warp Riders by taking their epic tales into the stratosphere, but not much else ever changes with The Sword. This consistency makes them a damn good band. It's hard to release three decent records in a row. They might get harshed on either by hardcore metal heads calling them "hipster metal" or by the average person as run of the mill or cliche metal, but their rootsy vibe and adoration of Black Sabbath aside, they still know how to slay. To me, that's all I need from metal. Ridiculous riffs, splintering guitar solos and cheesey lyrics to get lost in.

{Editors Update: Sadly, Trivett Wingo, Drummer for The Sword, has left the band. This is indeed sad news as he has shown his weight in gold on Warp Riders and is a huge part to my love of The Sword. The website for The Sword has more info. I wish him the best in the future.}

Up Next: One of several David Bowie alter egos

Grooves: Neil Young - After The Gold Rush (1970)

2010-10-12T09:28:00.008-04:00

Neil Young is one of the staples of my life. I've blogged about his various albums, devoted a Discography post to him and have celebrated as many as possible of his 30 plus album catalog. In terms of devotion to listening to an artists music, Neil Young comes in around #3 of my all time list right after The Who and Beck. Needless to say, After the Gold Rush will be one of many Neil albums to get their due here on Grooves. There are many I do not have yet, including such greats as On The Beach or Harvest Moon, but maybe by the time I get to those letters, I will have found them out there in the world of purchasing vinyl. What else is there to say about After The Gold Rush, Neil's third solo album released the same year as the first Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young record Deja Vu. This man was churning out great songs in 1970. From that CSNY album we got "Helpless" and "Country Girl," two excellent tracks. Then we are treated to an entire album of Young songs on After The Gold Rush. Young takes his backing band Crazy Horse and mixes it up with Stephen Stills, Jack Nitszche and Niles Lofgren making some cameos all over the record. The sound gets a little more dynamic than the crunchy, hard edge of Everybody Knows This is Nowhere. And for that, it stands out as one of Young's best records of the early era. It's not my personal favorite from this time frame, but it still packs a huge amount of excellent songs onto one album.

This album was purchased at easily the best record store in New Jersey. Princeton Record Exchange, also known as Prex, never ceases to fail in delivering the goods. Be it new albums, import records, good, moderately priced albums and a nice, orderly fashion and always has some gems floating around. This album isn't necessarily a gem as it has hundreds of copies and re-issues flying around, but the fact is you rarely can get a $3 record in the kind of condition that my copy of After The Gold Rush anywhere else. The record is clean, in really great condition and has no scratches or flaws on the actual album sleeve itself. That kind of meticulous care is hard to come by unless you are in Center City, yet nothing in Philadelphia lives up to the caliber of Prex. It's worth the 45 - 50 minute drive from the Philly area.

If you have no knowledge of Neil Young, After The Gold Rush is the way to start things off. It's the perfect balance of what Young can do with Crazy Horse but with a slightly more cohesive sound from Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere. "Tell Me Why" is just Young and the acoustic guitar in one of my favorite tracks of his. It has one of the most romantic lines in a song: "I am lonely but you can free me/All in the way that you smile." Next comes the titular track. Yet another track of just Young but this time behind the piano. Also one of my favorite tracks, "After the Gold Rush" is a perfect song. The French horn adds a wonderful touch to the beautiful, but sombre piano. "Only Love Can Break Your Heart" is a decent enough song, but it's mostly your standard pop affair. It's Young's emo song, if you will. Young finally utilizes Crazy Horse to their full talents on "Southern Man." The classic track sounds so much better amidst these other songs then it does out of context. It has one of Young's classic guitar solos that turns mechanical at the end. The reason I love it on the album is because we are treated to the short ditty "Till The Morning Comes," which is Donovan by way of barn-yard choir. It seems like a throwaway at first, but it's a really great track that closes the first side.

Side two pales in comparison to side one. It starts off with the classic country ballad "Oh Lonesome Me." It's perfect for Young, but he could write a better ballad than this song. "Don't Let It Bring You Down" is the perfect example of the classic Young song structure. Every time I listen to it, I think of the Dana Carvey bit from his stand up special (you know the one.) For this, I can never listen to it seriously. I'm not sure if that's the songs fault or the brilliant comedic nature of the bit. Needless to say, the song can never be taken out of context for me. "Birds" is another quiet, piano driven song. It's a very pretty song, but leaves no impressive mark like "After The Gold Rush." Then comes "When You Dance I Can Really Love." It's an oft forgotten Neil Young single and it's deserving of praise. Jack Nitszche piano in the background adds a nice layer to the rough guitar work of Neil Young and Danny Whitten. It's a nice mid-tempo jam. "I Believe In You" is a little less impressive, sounding like leftovers from 60's era Buffalo Springfield. It's a little of the old mixed in with a lot of the newer sounds Young was playing with and it kind of sticks out. The album closer is easily one of the best Neil Young songs and it's all of a minute and thirty-four seconds. It gets stuck in my head for days. And I love it.

Funny enough amidst doing this vinyl undertaking, I read the liner notes and discovered that After The Gold Rush was inspired by a screen play written by Dean Stockwell and Herb Berman for a movie with the same title. Upon further research, it seems that the movie never came to be, but the album was a major success. Dean Stockwell also designed the cover for the next Neil Young album that will appear on this. So strange how that worked out. Also, I found inside the record a print of hand-written lyrics about the size of a small poster. I've had this record for a few years now and totally forgot about that. The little treats vinyl brings! Very cool.

Up Next: Perfect timing.... The Sword's first of a few

Grooves: Television - Adventure (1978)

2010-10-11T10:46:00.010-04:00

Television is one of the most enigmatic bands of the 70's. They emerged during the punk rock scene in New York and even though they are labeled as proto-punk or art punk, this seems to be a misnomer. My introduction to Television made them sound much less like punk rock and more like sprawling guitar prog. Where the difference lies is in the production and the songwriting. Marquee Moon is a masterpiece (and we'll get to that later on in this grand undertaking.) It's about as close to perfect as an album gets, so following it up was going to be an inevitable hurdle to jump for the band. Not including their self titled release in the 90's, the only other record of original tunes would come in the form of 1978's Adventure. The biggest difference between the two records lies in the production of the two. And much to any one's non-surprise, it makes the sound completely different, but doesn't ruin what Television does best. In fact, some songs benefit from this different grade of production. Adventure may not be on the same level as Marquee Moon, but it's hardly from a

I'm pretty sure I picked up Adventure at Album Hunter in Maple Shade, NJ. Before diving into the record itself, let me tell you a little bit about this place. Album Hunter lies on Main Street in Maple Shade and is one of the oddest, yet best places to get vinyl. Unlike most record stores, this place is unassuming and is not anywhere near the cool vibe of say Princeton Record Exchange or AKA Records in Philadelphia. In fact, it's far from cool. On the outside, it looks like it's a store that closed in 1986. On the inside, it's a treasure trove. The owner blares Conservative Talk Radio, yet he never really seems to agree with the statements. I was most frequently there during the Bush Administration and he constantly ripped on W. That aside, the man had an impeccable taste apparently as Kraftwerk posters and a large amount of really awesome rare records littered the walls. It's totally unorganized for the most part, but I have found so many great records there that it's worth the hour or two you'll spend going through the cardboard boxes to find something such as Television's Adventure for all of $3.00. To me, putting up with Rush Limbaugh for an hour in order to find something good, is totally worth it. i haven't been back in a long time. I think that needs to change. I highly suggest a trek out to the Shade for anyone in the Tri-State area to check out this strange, yet wonderful place.

Having found a non-reissued version of any Television album seems like a hard task, so when I saw Adventure, I had to get it. I haven't listened to it in a while and I must say that Adventure is a great album. It's not perfect, but it's great. The smoothed out edges on opener "Glory" sounds like Big Star by way of Tom Verlaine. It's a power pop tune of sorts that has some catchy hooks and very interestingly arranged guitars weaving in and out of each other. It's classic Television, but with the refined edges of production, it takes on a clearer vision. It's a typical Television song, but much more streamlined. "Days" follows similar suit. These two tracks benefit from the cleaner production. It's a shimmering beauty of a song. It has one of my favorite lyrics care of Verlaine: "No matter how much I cross, I always see the same stream/I'm standing up on these bridges, that are standing in a dream." Truly wonderful. The next two tracks seem to lose some edge with the polished production. "Foxhole," a truly wonderful guitar rocker and anti-war song gets hit the most by this. The choppy production of Marquee Moon, during which this song was written, would have had a much harder edge to it had it appeared there. Same goes for "Careful" which is a bouncy, pop track and easily my least favorite moment of the record. Both are great songs, but when you listen to them, you can see the untapped potential they would have had. The side ends with "Carried Away", yet another mid tempo track which again sounds better than the harder hitting rockers on the album. It's gospel choir organ gives a nice touch.

Side two is a bit more even then side one, but it's only three tracks long. "The Fire", with it's eerie, opening guitar riff kicks off the side with a spacey, sprawling guitar epic. It's the highlight of the second half. "Ain't That Nothin'" sounds like an older track, maybe written during the Marquee Moon sessions. With it's gang vocal chorus, it's an anthem to slackers everywhere. It's probably one of the only songs with the punk spirit at it's core. "The Dream's Dream" is the finale and unlike "Torn Curtain" from Marquee Moon, it lacks the fireworks and the urgency. But for some reason, it works on this album. It's a slow burn that slowly fades away.

This being the last album from Television in the 70's, it ends leaving us wanting more. I have yet to find or listen to the Television self titled record from the 90's, but I have a feeling that it's not really worth it from what I've read unless I delve into solo Tom Verlaine. Until then, I keep Adventure as a rainy day back-up to Marquee Moon. If anything, the next best record to get by Television is their live album Live at the Old Waldorf which actually shows the true power behind the tracks found on Adventure, especially "Foxhole." I am not saying I don't enjoy Adventure. It just has something missing from it. I definitely am glad to have it on vinyl. The crackle and sizzle of the analog sound definitely helps make the mix sound a little less polished. The CD Re-Issue is far less intriguing as it's so clean, it lacks any of the nostalgic sounds that the vinyl gives forth.

Up Next: The first of many Neil Young albums

Grooves: Santana - Abraxas (1970)

2010-10-07T10:02:00.006-04:00

Santana is one of those artists that many immediately think first of his latter day sins with songs like "Smooth" featuring Rob Thomas. However, on his second album Abraxas, Santana was in true form. His guitar virtuoso status may never be completely questioned, his songwriting has definitely lacked the "black magic" that it had back in 1970. Aside from Love and War (funny how those two band names match up), I can't think of any other Latin infused rock and roll bands active or in existence in the mainstream. Please correct me if I'm wrong as I love all three bands. Anyway, all this blathering on is to say that Santana is an old, and much welcomed friend of mine. His early works can not be tarnished by his latter day sins and Abraxas is proof positive of this. This is the only Santana record I've owned on any format. And although I started my listening as a kid with their greatest hits, this is really a one stop shop for anyone who moderately likes Santana. For uber fans, it's easily his best record. I find myself in the former camp, but still think it's a worthy disc for any record collector. Look at that artwork! So psychedelic!

I believe I procured this delightful album from Tunes in Voorhees, probably for about 50 cents. Yet another John Arena connected record, as he worked at Tunes for many, many a year. It's a tad beat up, but the record still plays exquisitely. What's great about Abraxas is the usage of instrumentals. Santana's music is never about lyric quality. You go for Carlos' guitar and the general vibe that is created around his mystical guitar playing. This record has a special place in my heart as it was mostly listened to whilst living in a glorified walk-in closet in West Philly for a year and a half. As much as the claustrophobic nature of my efficiency was kind of harsh, one thing that got me through some of those more annoying, trying times was vinyl and Abraxas was surprisingly one of the frequent players involved.

The album itself is a treat. It starts with the beautiful and psychedelic instrumental "Singing Winds, Crying Beasts" written by percussionist Mike Carabello. It's one of those songs that the title nails it and gives you said image of a jungle teeming with strange sights which immediately gives way to "Black Magic Woman," a fitting song for the image created. It's as if we traversed these jungles with the band to reach this mystic lady. One strange note, I never knew that the song "Black Magic Woman" was written by Peter Green of Fleetwood Mac. I am world famous for hating Fleetwood Mac. In fact, they stand at the top of my list of least favorite bands. Someone needs to do some deeper research it seems. "Black Magic Woman" is a hell of a song in Santana's hands, and it's easily his best of the period. The beginning riff and ending jam are all taken from a Hungarian track called "Gypsy Queen" which seems to fit rather perfectly with the titular conjurer of Black magic. Even though I hate The Mac, I feel the urge to do my proper research here and give a listen to the original. "Oye Como Va" is yet another cover of a Tito Puente classic. Even though we were treated to two covers in the first half, Santana has a way of making them their own. Be it the tasty guitar groove or the excellent Latin percussion in the background, you know a Santana song when you hear it. lastly there is "Incident at Neshabur", yet another instrumental arrangement that closes the side perfectly. It is truly a wonderful musical experience. Side two ups the Latin ante big time and in a great way. If the first side was more psych rock, the second side is the groovier, Sambacore side. Both "Se A Cabo" and "Samba Pa Ti" are wonderful Latin grooves with plenty of Santana's fluid riffing. "Hope You're Feeling Better" is the lone rocker on the side as more of these tracks traverse the fine line between blues and Samba music. The closing is a tad anti-climactic with the quick sing-along of "El Nicoya" closing things up. Regardless of this, the record is an enchanting experience and for 50 cents, sounds stellar. No scratched, no skips, just a few little crackles to give it that warm feeling that makes vinyl so wonderful.

I have never listened to Santana albums on any other medium other than vinyl. It's the only way I have experienced his music and I think I'm going to keep it that way. It has a certain mystical power on vinyl. Like a magic spell conjuring some ancient jungle voodoo, the music is it's own spell. The arrangements are amazing on Abraxas make it an essential listen for any music lover. Santana may have created some of my least favorite songs in the past 10 years, but his 70's work is nothing short of legendary as this album proves.

Up Next: Television's follow up to a masterpiece.

Grooves: The Beatles - Abbey Road (1969)

2010-10-06T15:00:00.005-04:00

It's a little too good to start this musical discourse about vinyl with Abbey Road. Sure, The Beatles are great, blah, blah, blah, but this post is less about them and more about the vinyl experience. My love affair with the medium goes back to being a youngster. My parents record collection was a bastion for young research and my parents being Beatlemaniacs, it was no wonder that I immediately started my love of Abbey Road on the medium itself. It's easily the greatest record ever made. The technology was all analog and it had limitations. So the music itself is the perfect usage of the album as art to it's fullest potential. It's two sides are beautiful in their own respect. Side one a collection of the last Beatles songs we'd ever hear and side two, the fragmented medleys that work on a level unlike anything else I've heard. You can't make something like Abbey Road any other way.

Returning to this record is nothing but an excellent experience. No matter how many times I change the station when "Come Together" starts, I always look forward to it starting the album up. It's only an overrated Beatles song because classic rock radio has destroyed it. The slow rumble of McCartney's bass and the precession of Ringo's drums are something special. When "Something" comes next, we're treated to easily one of the greatest love songs ever written. Unlike the production of Phil Spector on Let It Be, George Martin's production here is what makes this song so gorgeous to the ears and heart strings. Surprisingly, "Maxwell's Silver Hammer" is indeed my least favorite track on the record, but it's whimsically dark bounce was a sign of McCartney to come. "Oh! Darling" is an explosively, passionate piano-centric ballad that is quiet easily McCartney's finest vocal performance on any Beatles song. The much hated and misunderstood "Octopus's Garden" may seem like a throwback to "Yellow Submarine", but it still shimmers in the ear drums. The guitar work is beautiful. And it makes it all the better when "I Want You (She's So Heavy)", the Beatles take on Psychedelic Rock, kicks in after the under sea antics. "I Want You (She's So Heavy)" is a rival for favorite Beatles song. With it's fantastic bluesy guitar, heavy riff and ultimate crescendo into silence that ends Side A, it's a beast of a track. The cut-off makes the song perfect. It's an action packed first half of a record.

Side B starts off with "Here Comes the Sun" which feels like a sunrise in musical form. Again, Harrison brings his A Game to the table with a beautiful and uplifting track. But immediately following it is the dirge "Because", things turn from sunny to sinister in a flash of synthesizer gloom. Then a final complete track of sorts, "You Never Give Me Your Money" works as a prelude to the fragmented end of the record. It's signals musical moments to come and is one of my all time favorite songs, possibly my favorite on the side. Then we are treated to the two medley's. The "Sun King" medley is more of Lennon's undertaking. Its a psychedelic walk down a street of random weirdos, far superior to "Penny Lane." "Sun King's" psych glow of gibberish into the more plodding "Mean Mr. Mustard" and the intense "Polythene Pam" are all fragmented and last all of a minute and a half before the longer of the parts of the medley, "She Came In Through The Bathroom Window" takes over. Then the "Golden Slumbers" medley comes to steal the show. McCartney's strung together fragments are less of parts of a whole and more movements in the best mini rock opera not written by The Who. "Carry That Wait" brings the call back to "You Never Give Me Your Money" back into the picture for a beautiful music moment. "The End" is a beautiful closer. Ironic as it is that this was the end of The Beatles, it makes it even a more perfect finale. A triple guitar solo with gang vocals singing "love you" can't be a better way to set up that famous of epitaphs. Of course, then there is "Her Majesty" to come and sweep the lasties blanket from under the medley's heels, but it's fitting for The Beatles silly side. It's a Monty Python move of sorts.

My vinyl copy was a gift from former band mate and brother in everything John Arena. It, along with another record on this list coming up, was one of the best gifts I've received. Funny that I didn't already own Abbey Road but it seemed rude to buy a new version from the one I had listened to and made mix tapes off of from growing up. Instead it felt right that my friend and drummer in a band Noringo (see the connections all over?!) gave me this excellent album. It sounds great and is in beautiful condition. It should be one of my framed records in my guest room, but I want easy access to it as it's easily one of my favorite vinyl experiences. Not many other albums rival it in it's magical way.

Next Up: A return to an old groovy friend. Santana.

Grooves

2010-10-05T17:30:00.002-04:00

Ok folks... here it is. The next long-winded, I-need-a-reason-to-keep-this-blog-alive feature from the folks (me) at Poseidon.

Much like the AV Club's Popless where one writer sat down with his record collection and only listened to it A - Z without listening to new music mixed with Picasso Blue's Vinyl Vednesday, I will undertake my own record collection in the same vein. From A - Z. This feature will take a few days to get off the ground, because I'll need to reorganize my record collection, but I will listen to every record LP or EP I have from A to Z and give you my rundown accordingly. Interesting, right? No? Well, I'm doing it anyway! It will be fun when I get to the more embarrasing records (see Supertramp's catalog.) It will also be fun because there are a few hand-me-down records that I have yet to listen to. This feature will include everything from track-by-track album reviews, sound quality issues, album art critiques and a history of how it fits in to my general scheme of things as a music listener. There won't be a set day for posting. So just keep a look out. This could get ugly.

Oh yeah, and I'm calling it Grooves.

No Country For Old Men?

2010-10-01T09:32:00.006-04:00

In this new decade, a handful of rock's legends have proven their relevance. It seems a hard task for aging classics to compete with the way music has changed so drastically, but 2010 sees two standout recordings from two very different, but equally prolific icons of music: Nick Cave and Neil Young. We'll start with the former.

Nick Cave is 52. He's been making music since 1976 with his first band The Birthday Party making an impact in the early 80's. He then went on to The Bad Seeds who have changed from post punk darlings to Gothic ministers to balladeers to gospel grunge and back again from the late 80's to their current lineup. And then there is Grinderman. A menacing, garage rock soaked album of squealing guitars, foreboding and distorted violins care of Warren Ellis and a boogie thump from other Bad Seed members Martyn Casey and Jim Sclavunos. Now we have a second offering from Grinderman (aptly titled Grinderman 2) and it is nothing short of glorious. Sure, it's still gritty and messy at times, but unlike their first offering, it seems to have more direction. Cave's vocals and lyrics are at their all time scummiest, maybe the closest to The Birthday Party he'll ever get. That being said, he's channeling his spirit from close to 30 years ago now to create this raucous romp of bluesy, gritty tunes.

Grinderman 2 starts off with a chugging riff on "Mickey Mouse and the Goodbye Man" with cave's insane lyrics kicking in like a lunatic washing off the haze of last nights boozery. It's an outstanding album opener that gives way to the second single "Worm Tamer" which compares his love to all sorts of crazy demonic and sexual beings. However, this is just a prelude to the catchiest and most gritty track on the record, first single "Heathen Child." The guitar gurgle at the start of the track is just like watching the Big Bad Wold (on the ridiculously bad ass cover and a common character on this album) creeping around a dark corner, snarling. The bass line keeps everything together as Cave paints a tale of a seemingly helpless child in a bathtub, which turns out to be much more of a beast than the wolf man that she's waiting for to come and take her away. We then get the one-two punch of the dynamic "When My Baby Comes" and the pastoral to an extent ""What I Know." "When My Baby Comes" starts off in familiar Cave territory, sounding at first more like a Bad Seeds cut from 2008's Dig, Lazarus, Dig!!! but takes a sharp mid song curve off the cliff into a psychedelic sludge coda. "What I Know" is the only breath of air Cave and Co. give us with as close to a slow ballad as we're going to get. "Palaces of Montezuma" is another highlight with it's litany of crazy bad asses throughout history. What makes Grinderman 2 so good is that underneath the murk and darkness is a really catchy album. The music swells and explodes at times, sometimes in noise, other times in sweet melodies, but always sounding dynamic and awesome. Nick Cave may be getting old, but he hasn't lost a single beat in his songwriting.

Neil Young, on the other hand, has had a longer career, stranger at times, career. After a Golden Age in the 70's, a dark period in the 80's, a small renaissance in the 90's and a strange 00's, Young finally gives us something a little bit newer in Le Noise. Here lies an album unlike anything (for the most part) in Young's career. Not since 1982's unfairly hated Trans has Young ran off the rails into new territories in sound. Teaming up with legendary producer and pedal steel virtuoso Daniel Lanois, Young straps on his electric (and brings back the old acoustic for two tracks) and has at it. You get Young's guitar, vox and Lanois "sonics" and that's it. It is anything but stripped down. In fact, the sound is huge. Not unlike his soundtrack for the 1995 Jim Jaramusch acid western Dead Man, the guitar is the real focal point. As much as these songs are not instrumentals, the lyrics are really just your usual Neil Young fodder. The magic is in the music and the atmosphere. "Walk With Me" lyrically is all about feeling. And even though they are unremarkable lyrics, they do echo (literally and figuratively) the music played along with them. This music is all about feeling. You feel the guitar buzzing and humming and crackling along with the atmospheric flow of the effects. Young simply asks us to do as the title asks and on this disc, we join just him on a quest of sonic wonderment. As grand an experiment Le Noise is, it doesn't have a dynamic touch aside from it's overall thesis statement. It's a sonic experiment that doesn't really play great as an album, but more as a study in just how important Young's guitar playing is in the grand scheme of rock and roll. At 65, Young is showing us his relevance with Le Noise.

Album Review Catch Up

2010-09-05T15:48:00.008-04:00

I've been in a funk lately with blogging, but I haven't not been rocking some new music. Here are a few catch up reviews from the past month!

Autolux - Transit Transit - It's been six years since Autolux's beautiful Future Perfect was released and finally, after some time off, heavy touring and the almost career ending injury to drummer Carla Azar, we have been treated to the follow up album, Transit Transit. For fans, it was a long road to wait for more from the space rock titans, but the wait was ultimately worth it. If it were to have been released sooner after Future Perfect, this would have been a revelatory record. But with 6 years in between, not much has changed in sound. These tracks sound as if they were meant to be unleashed upon the world at least two years prior to 2010, but that being the only beef, we are still served a tasty record of spacey and a tad bit mellower songs. Although an air of melancholy hangs overhead, songs like "Census" still explode with sound and shimmering distortion over a intense drum beat. Dreamy tracks like the titular album opener and "Spots" are the highlights of the album with Eugene Goreshter's sweet voice trickling over the spaced out ambiance and hushed piano. It isn't anything new or exciting, but Transit Transit is still a solid album. I guess the long wait lead to a sense of longing and hope for something genius when instead we were just treated to more of the same, which is never a bad thing when we're talking about Autolux. Keeping shoegaze alive is a triumph enough, in my book.

Arcade Fire - The Suburbs - The epic The Suburbs is one of the years most intense and gratifying listening experiences. Intense that it's a huge album. Over an hour long and sixteen tracks deep, it's a daunting task to look at on paper. However, Arcade Fire's concept album is easily their best since the stunning debut, Funeral. Unlike the dirges found on Neon Bible, The Suburbs has a more pop savvy and brighter sound. The underbelly of the titular suburbs comes out in the lyrical content rather than the music this time. Strolling through your neighborhood whilst listening to the album, you'll get a sense of Win Butler's experience growing up in a Texas suburb. The baroque swirl of the extremely catchy "Rococo" to the simple guitar pop of "Modern Man" to the synth boogie of "Sprawl II (Mountains Beyond Mountains)", the musical style varies better never goes off the rails of it's overall sound and vision of the concept at hand. It may sound less like Arcade Fire at times, but a band three albums in with such varied sounds and stories really reflect on the way Arcade Fire can change just slightly and progress forward musically as a band. The Suburbs is definitely a step in the right direction.

The Sword - Warp Riders - Unexpected new albums from bands you love is always a delightful experience, but when I saw that The Sword was releasing their 3rd album just a few days shy of my birthday, I was overjoyed. I swiftly ordered the record and it has exceeded any thoughts I've had on The Sword to this date. Also a concept album, Warp Riders takes The Sword's doomy stoner metal to new heights. Away from our earthly threshold, The Sword's space epic telling tales of scorched planets, archers of foreign lands and orbs that help bend the space/time continuum never gets in the way of the badass and somewhat groove ridden riffs that apear on Warp Riders. In usual Sword fashion, "Acheron/Unleashing the Orb" is a wicked instrumental opener that chugs and wails with the best of any Sword track. But swiftly afterward, "Tres Brujas" opens up like a ZZ Top song played at two times speed. There is a southern rock vibe on the track that seems like a strange, yet utterly awesome divergence compared to anything found on Age of Winters or Gods of the Earth. The outstanding "Lawless Lands" trumps any Sword song yet. It's swagger is unlike any other and it's epic churn and burn riffs never cease to inspire. This is music made for air guitar and headbanging. It's easily the best rock album of the year thus far.

Black Mountain - Wilderness Heart - Ok, so the Wilderness Heart isn't physically out yet, but the folks over at Jagjaguwar are so kind to satiate my need for more Black Mountain that when you pre-order the album, they give you the digital download two weeks before you'll get the record. In laymans terms, preorder the album. Totally worth it if you are a fan as this is a delightful record. The album is a paltry 37 minutes, which is short compared to the epic self titled and the even more epic In The Future, but the album benefits from it. No longer will you see a song of epic girth like "Tyrants" or "Heart of Snow." Instead, there is more a focus of great, hard riffing rock tracks that hardly break the 5 minute mark. Album opener "The Hair Song" is a wonderful pop rock track that doesn't sound like Black Mountain until McBean and Webber take over with their two part harmonies. It isn't until "Old Fangs" that we get that same Black Mountain churn. With it's hypnotic and heavy riff filled with Joshua Wells' organ and synthesizers, it's a drugged up, psych rock standard. Highlights come in the copious mellower tracks. "Radiant Hearts" and "Buried By the Blues" trade the electric guitar howl for acoustics with beautiful spaced out embelishments from Joshua Wells. Overall, this might be the album that catched Black Mountain even more of a fan base. It's succinct, clear and beautifully performed and written. These songs are going to be amazing live.

Discography: John Cale 1970 - 1979

2010-08-22T12:25:00.011-04:00

When people think of the Velvet Underground, they think Lou Reed first and foremost. The other brainchild, at least behind the first two records before departing, is that of multi instrumentalist John Cale. Unlike Reed, Cale never really crossed over into the mainstream. His only well known song to most would be his cover of Leonard Cohen's "Hallelujah" which came much later in his long, sprawling career. Cale's music goes from pastoral pop to punk rock in a span of 10 years. His collection of albums in the 70's are some of the best albums I have listened to. Here's a discography spanning from his solo debut Vintage Violence to his live album Sabatoge/Live.

Vintage Violence (1970) Cale's first solo work after parting ways with The Velvet Underground is definitely a fledgling affair. Vintage Violence is more akin to a pop recording of the 60's than the new scope and intrigue that would follow in Cale's collection of albums, but it's definitely still worthy of a listen. Cale's more serene and sweeping tracks like "Gideon's Bible" shine through past the rest of the record. With it's twangy guitars and swirling viola's, it's more akin to what he was doing with the Velvets than what he'd do on his own. It's definitely the best track on the record filled with pastoral pop songs that don't ever really stand out on their own. It's a good pop record with twee songs like "Adelaide" or the jaunty opener "Hello, There" but nothing on here lives up to what would come soon in Cale's career. A worthy beginning, but one that is easily overshadowed.

Key Track: "Gideon's Bible","Hello, There", "Fairweather Friend"

The Academy in Peril (1972) Cale's second solo offering is just as much of a strange beginning, a lead in, to what would come next for his career. The Academy in Peril is mostly instrumental and definitely a reworking of his classical training from before his time with the Velvets. Gone are the pop songs of Vintage Violence and instead we get what could easily be the brewing of classical pieces that would then solidify into the classic sound of his next album, and one of his best, Paris 1919. Anyway, this is a nice selection of tracks but nothing that really stands out as anything transcendent or memorable. It's a good meditative piece and definitely worthy of a few spins here and there, but it will never be known as Cale's go-to album for listening pleasures.

Key Track: "Brahms"

Paris 1919 (1973) If Vintage Violence was a testing ground for Cale's pop music sensibilities and The Academy in Peril is Cale's working of classical structures, then Paris 1919 is the joining of these two ideals, meeting to make a really altogether special masterpiece. Cale's finest pop music moments can all be found here and the entire album is worthy of high praise. Be it the swaying baroque of "Childs Christmas in Wales" to the outright stomp of "Macbeth", Cale can rock and roll as well as make beautiful and aching pop ballads all in one stop shop. Paris 1919 never turns it up to a level that Cale would after singing with Island Records for his next three albums, but that isn't a blemish on these songs. "Paris 1919" is easily one of the haughtiest and prettiest songs of the 70's, never feeling to self righteous, but with enough pomp and circumstance behind it's strings and french horns to make it a wonderful song. The brooding and sweeping epic "The Endless Plain of Fortune" is one of those songs that instantly hits every right note for the listener. The melodic "Half Past France" and surreal and brooding "Antarctica Starts Here" close out the album in a glorious lull that isn't anti-climactic as much as the feeling of total release and cathartic beauty. It is the best gateway into John Cale's career. It's instantly catchy and deep with emotion, subtext and tons of literary references for the nerd in us all.

Key Tracks: Masterpiece Status means all tracks are excellent. My favorite? A tie between "The Endless Plain of Fortune" and "Paris 1919"

Fear (1973) After the beautiful Paris 1919, Cale moved to Island Records and produced three fitfully brilliant and intense albums. The first of which, Fear, is the first of three to showcase Phil Manzanera and Brian Eno of Roxy Music and has some divergent sounds from earlier works. This is obvious from track one, "Fear Is a Man's Best Friend." Starting off with an intense crush of the piano and swaying back and forth from the mellow verses into a more staccato chorus and ending in a freak out that Beck would love to cover, it's definitely less flowery and baroque than anything he had done since The Velvet Underground. But those flowery, pop pieces were not long gone. Songs like the swaying "Buffalo Ballet" and the dreamscape of "Emily" prove that Cale still had a touch of beauty in his songwriting. Then there are the intense tracks. "Gun", at a sweltering 8 minutes, is as intense as anything he had done with the Velvets and definitely a huge leap forward from anything else he had done as a solo act. The thing that is fully realized on Fear is the ability to explore and defy genre. It's a schizophrenic record which would be telling of the next few Cale releases and would point toward his late 70's foray into punk rock. It a frazzled mess at first glance, but the sounds of Fear would solidify on the next album and pay off on a grand scale.

Key Tracks: "Fear Is a Man's Best Friend", "Buffalo Ballet", "Ship of Fools", "Gun", "Barracuda", "Emily"

Slow Dazzle (1975) Slow Dazzle is easily one of the coolest records you'll ever hear. A genre shifting rocker that has everything from an homage to Brian Wilson of the Beach Boys to a searing and dark cover of an Elvis tune, Slow Dazzle is Cale letting loose and giving us a grungy, loud and sometimes weird musical journey. Out of many albums from the 70's, it has a special charm and sound all of it's own. Kicking off with "Mr. Wilson", we get a breezy, Supertramp-esque organ and string ballad to the titular Beach Boy filled with beautiful melody and a faltering falsetto care of Cale. Equal in pop sweetness and splendor is "Taking It All Away" with Cale's voice sticking out here with it's odd but endearing timbre. "Dirtyass Rock N Roll" is as apt a title as one can get with it's boogie piano, backing vocals and overall swagger. The real highlight on the record is the cover of Elvis' "Heartbreak Hotel." Starting off with a swirl of Eno synths and a heavy riff, the usually sad and lamenting rockabilly number turns into a dark and sinister sounding track of regret and self loathing. It's a stunning track. The album has some strange departures like the overtly giddy "Ski Patrol" and the strange and rollicking "Rollaroll" but these rarely weigh down the brilliance of the rest of the record.

Key Tracks: "Mr. Wilson", "Taking It All Away" "Dirtyass Rock N Roll", "Heartbreak Hotel", "Guts"

Helen of Troy (1975) In the same year, Island Records released Helen of Troy. Besides showing the creative burst mid 70's Cale was going through, it also lead to his end at Island as it was released prior to him finishing it. Regardless of that, Helen of Troy has some amazing moments. It's a little less focused and uneven than the prior two records, but when it shines, it shines brightly. The titular track is a groovy, sexy track about an overweight femme fatale. "My Maria" kicks the album off with a stomping bass and piano part intertwining and swirling as we come into the epic sounding verse and chorus. The highlight of the album comes in the heart-wrenching song "I Keep A Close Watch", a riff on Johnny Cash's "Ring of Fire" opening line. Lyrically it's one of Cale's finest moments on Helen of Troy and of all of Cale's career. The rest of the disc is hit or miss, but I'm not sure whether to chalk that up to the rushed release of the record or to the end of Cale's firebrand output at this time. Maybe burnt out or maybe not, regardless of that, Helen of Troy lacks the luster of both Fear and Slow Dazzle.

Key Tracks: "My Maria", "Helen of Troy", "I Keep A Close Watch"

Sabatoge/Live (1979) In 1977, Cale would release Guts, a compilation of tracks from his three Island albums. The next album of new material wouldn't surface until 1979. And much like Neil Young in 1979, it was a live record. Also much like Neil Young's Rust Never Sleeps, Cale embraced the new and exploding punk rock scene. Recorded at CBGB's in the heart of the Television, Talking Heads and Blondie explosion, Cale keeps himself relevant in the music industry. The loud and clunky live disc is chock full of punk rock moments. From the searingly dark and sinister "Mercenaries (Ready for War)" to the funky twee grunge of "Dr. Mudd" filled with it's do do do's but backed up by a heavy riff, Cale embraced the renegade edge of punk rock and made it work for his own sound. If anything, this is the beginning of a new era for Cale rather then the end of the old one. Helen of Troy was his final record that had any semblance of his 70's career whereas Sabatoge/Live is the true beginning of Cale's career in the 80's which would go anywhere from the minimalist Music for a New Society to the spoken word of "Words for the Dying."

Key Tracks: "Mercenaries (Ready for War)", "Dr. Mudd", "Walkin' the Dog" "Sabatoge"

The Layered Labryinth of Inception

2010-07-30T16:10:00.005-04:00

It's been a long, long time since I've been to the movie theater. With all the 3D junk and over CGI'ed action films out, it's harder for me to be motivated to see anything this summer. Even Iron Man 2 was a bit of a bore with too much CGI action and not enough of the sleak and snark that Tony Stark brought to it's predecessor. But leave it to Christopher Nolan, our generations Stanley Kubrick, to bring something thought provoking as well as action packed to the summer movie screen. Inception, the highly anticipated and highly talked about psychological thrill ride, is the perfect summer movie. Just as he did with The Dark Knight, Nolan creates a chaotic world filled with gun fights, thrilling chase scenes through Mombasa and textured worlds within worlds that are all at once recognizable yet skewed. But what makes Inception more than a perfect summer movie is it's labyrinthine maze of a story. What lacks in most summer movies is plot and for those in need of a story that is less neanderthal and more stimulating to the mind, Inception is it.

The plot revolves around "extractors" who are hired to steal information from people via their subconscious. Cobb (Leonardo DiCaprio) and Arthur (Joseph Gorden Levitt) are two extractors who are trying to convince Mr. Saito (Ken Wantanabe) into using them for a job. One thing leads to another and instead of extracting information, Saito wants them to plant an idea. From here on out, a team of several different skilled professionals dive into the mind of a high profile banking executive (Cillian Murphy) into splitting up his giant corporation. Sounds pretty straightforward in the sense of a sci-fi heist of sorts, but the layered texture of the dream world is what comes into play here. Going much further into the plot would become tedious and probably be impossible to describe without ruining the movie, so I will stop there.

What makes Inception so great is it's master's voice. Christopher Nolan's screenplay is tight as is his direction. Clues are abounding all over the screen but they are never too heavy handed or in your face. Much like the extractor, the audience must glean evidence and clues within the layers of dreams to figure out what exactly is going down. In the long run, the real heart of the story is the emotional pull of Cobb's subconscious and his wife, Mal (played by the exquisite Marion Cotillard.) These heart wrenching scenes between lovers add an emotional splash to the otherwise somewhat conventional heist plot. Without this caveat, Inception would lack the kind of originality that it does indeed have.

Whether or not Inception is Christopher Nolan's finest film is definitely debatable, however, it is no denying that it is yet another grand achievement from a director who has yet to give us anything sub par (even if Insomnia is uneven and rife with casting errors, it's still a decent movie.)

VHS: The New Nostalgia

2010-07-23T13:22:00.003-04:00

Nostalgia is something I obsess over. Be it the archives of junk I have collected from over the years or listening to vinyl, the experience is something I utterly love. It's not just the actually music or the pictures of yesteryear, it's the fact that it's all tangible. The digital age may have ushered in better quality home movies and cleaner sounding audio files, but owning an album on vinyl is just a more satisfying experience. Looking through photo albums is more enjoyable than perusing Facebook for pictures from that ridiculous party. The point of this post, however, isn't about vinyl or 35mm pictures but about another now well outdated medium of technology that I feel still has a gratifying experience attached to it: VHS.

Having worked at a video store for four years, the VHS/DVD transition was inevitable and I took advantage of that. Plucking up VHS as we sold them all off for $1 at the time seemed like a great idea. Sure, I'd have a VCR for years and probably could buy one for cheap. Now that DVD will soon see it's end to Blu Ray or even other formats, VHS is a new relic. DVD's made the cumbersome "be kind, rewind" a moot point and the quality is worlds better for sound and picture. But something about VHS is magical. Recently getting a VCR (or as I prefer to call it a VHS Player) from a friend, I opened my Rubbermaid filled with VHS tapes and it was a treasure trove of goodness. Be it out-of-print classics like Hal Hartley's Trust, which is only available on Netflix streaming, or old tapes of stuff taped from television, I really do miss the idea of VHS. The trailers, the classic commercials for Coke before 1988's Batman, having your high school prom video interrupted for 8 seconds for a brief glimpse at The John Larroquette Show... all of it made me miss VHS even more.

So I say Hooray to VHS. Keep purchasing them when you see them at the $1 bin at a yard sale. You never know what kind of hilarious trailers for forgotten movies you'll see or what commercials are packaged before the trailers. It's that kind of vintage nostalgia bomb that really makes the VHS experience something worth more than skipping the trailers before a DVD and getting straight to the movie. Maybe it's too soon after the death of VHS to call it too nostalgic, but I revel in the death of VHS and hope that someday it sees the same rebirth that Vinyl has.

Side Note: I pride myself in only owning a VHS copy of Videodrome.

Mid Year in Review: 2010

2010-07-01T11:27:00.010-04:00

2010 has been a pretty solid year for music. A lot of great acts coming back to put new records out and a lot of great new music from bands just springing up at the turn of the decade. Usually I try to rank my favs but I think this time I'm just gonna chat about each record that I've enjoyed thus far.

Goldfrapp - Head First - The great thing about Head First is that it's the most accessible and closest to pop music Alison Goldfrapp and Will Gregory has gotten yet. This may seem like a detraction for those looking for the moody, synth noir of Felt Mountain or the Marc Bolan infused glam of Supernature. Quite the contrary. Even if Head First sounds like an unearthed album of Olivia Newton John from 1982, it's still a damn good record. It's a tad top heavy with the one-two-three punch of "Rocket", "Believer" and "Alive" soaring high above the rest, but it's still an album worthy to do aerobics to, even if you are a goth guy.

Gorillaz - Plastic Beach - Ok here's the thing...those looking for "Feel Good, Inc." or "19-2000".... don't bother. For those looking for a concept record on the excesses of humanity, the plasticine nature of our world culture and some killer hooks and countless guest spots, welcome to the world of the Plastic Beach. Damon Albarn and Jamie Hewlitt get everyone from Mos Def to Bobby Womack to Little Dragon to add a little taste of brilliance to a record that some will hate and some will love. There is no in between with Plastic Beach. It comes off as an excessive mess on first glance with so many different sounds and shifting themes, but let it settle and you'll get the point. And if you are looking for good tracks to take away from it, look to "Stylo" it fill you future funk needs, "Empire Ants" for your space travels and "Sweepstakes" for your complex hip-hop infused with a brass section and a constantly building sound. It's a daunting listen, but it gets better every time.

Broken Bells - My initial review sounded a tad harsh. Danger Mouse and James Mercer's team up may not be anything transcendent but good pop music is good pop music. And what it boils down to is two great minds think alike and together they create some magical moments. "Vaporize" or "The High Road" provide plenty of high floating hooks to keep you company on a lazy day or on a drive to the shore. Tracks like "Mongrel Heart" and "The Ghost Inside" are groovy enough to dance to or trippy enough to zone out to. My only beef with the record is that it doesn't have a solid unique sound to its own rather than a back and forth between what The Shins or Gnarls Barkley sound like. But since when has sounding more like either of those bands been a bad thing?

Charlotte Gainsbourg - IRM - If there is one thing to know, it's that Charlotte Gainsbourg is one of the best muses around. Her airy voice and alluring coo were enough to call in the likes of Jarvis Cocker and Air to collaborate on her first record but this time, we get Beck. And can I say something being a huge Beck nerd.... this record is better than anything Beck has released since Sea Change. Seriously. It's that good. After being put through an MRI (in French it's IRM) due to blood in her brain, Charlotte's life flashed before her eyes and the fragility of existence is what IRM is all about. The titular track has all the clicking and clanking and other worldly sounds of an MRI as a back bone for the music. It's utterly captivating and rather transcendent live. "Time of the Assassins" is a beautiful, melancholy number filled with all the usual Beck arrangements. Every song is beautiful be it the catchier tunes like "Heaven Can Wait" or the brooding and slow moving tracks like "Vanities." Wonderful lyrics and arrangements with Charlotte carrying them to new heights. It doesn't get much better than this.

The Black Keys - Brothers - Muscle Shoals has done nothing but wonders for The Black Keys. Sure, Brothers is the most un-Black Keys album to date. Gone are the grimy blues riffs and lo-fi buzz and stomp and in it's stead is an R&B soul and multi-layered tracks with multiple guitar parts, harpsichords and synthesizers. To me, this is the Black Keys best effort yet. I may be alone in this camp, but the album is sumptuous and heartbreaking and catchy as hell. Whether it's the Gary Glitteresque stomp of "Howlin' For You" or the heartbreaking ballad of "Unknown Brother", Brothers is delightfully tight and varied in it's sound.

Tame Impala - Innerspeaker - Just when I thought my days of discovering more psych rock that fits the bill of what I love about music, Tame Impala had to come galloping up from nowhere (Australia to be exact) to create one of the best records I've heard all year. Lead singer Kevin Parker is going to get a lot of comparisons to John Lennon in the Revolver era and if you ask me, how the hell can that be bad? Opening stunner "It Is Not Meant To Be" is the perfect trance like psych garage rock that will immediately thrust you into Tame Impala's universe. "Lucidity" is the stand out here which is this years "Chemtrails" in it's perfect encapsulation of all things 60's psychedelia in a single track. Whatever your take is on bands taking older sounds and making them their own is, Tame Impala's Innerspeaker has the craftsmanship and the catchiness to keep you wanting more.

Surfer Blood - Astro Coast - When Weezer died after Matt Sharp left, there was a void in my life for good, catchy power pop. Sure, bands like Teenage Fanclub (whose album Shadows is a solid entry into the Power Pop catalog) are still around, but nothing stood out until this year. Surfer Blood comes out of nowhere and what do I get? What Weezer should be sounding like. Catchy riffs, interesting song structures and just damn good summertime music. From the initial guitar riff in "Floating Vibes" we know we're in store for some catchy rock tunes. One good thing is that the tracks are never formulaic. The single "Swim" is very intriguing with shifts in sound, tempo and all together catchiness. The vocals are supremely fun, if not a little hard to hear amidst the cacophony of reverb, but it enhances the experience. Overall, Astro Coast is the best pop rock record of the year.

Other notable albums that I have yet to fully soak in but like what I hear:

Teenage Fanclub - Shadows
Ratatat - LP4
Crystal Castles
School of Seven Bells - Disconnect From Desire

Albums I am feverishly anticipating:

Autolux - Transit Transit
Interpol
Black Mountain - Wilderness Heart
Panda Bear - Tomboy

And Im sure there is more. 2010 thus far has been really great.

Brothers Sticks Together

2010-06-02T13:09:00.005-04:00

The Black Keys are a band that have eluded my musical grasp for a while. Not by any conscious choice, but just by random chance. Up until a few weeks ago, I was only privy to enjoying the track "Thickfreakness" as it was a selection in a group of friend's online music community known as Nighthawks. It was a rocking good track, but it never sparked the kind of "I NEED BUTTER ON EVERYTHING" approach to music that some bands are able to captivate me. What that last comment means is that I have become a rock completest (sp?) when it comes to the music I love. I want all of it. Every album possible, b-sides or covers. I want them. Some bands can do that to me instantaneously (Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds, John Cale, Neil Young to name a few) but the Black Keys haven't grabbed me yet. Until now.

A friend of mine recommended Brothers to me and as I am in the mood for more new music lately, I picked up a copy. Upon first listen, the blues rock combo of Dan Aeurbach's gritty guitar and Patrick Carney's intense drumming backbone was all there. After a few more spins, the productions really popped and came together solidifying these songs, while classic in their blues format, had an extra lining of insane guitar tones, usage of various synthesizers and effects as well as a soulful approach to the Black Keys classic grittier sound. This may come to many fans as a turn off, but to me it's a triumph.

The album, which is more or less a break-up record, is chock full of songs about heartache and love. The songs never stray into the realm of melancholy and the album benefits from that. Rather than wallowing in it, The Black Keys create an album of beautiful R&B tracks infused with their own garage rock sensibilites. The first single, "Tighten Up" is chock full of guitar tones from another world but at it's core, it's a truly wonderful blues song. The bside, "Howlin' For You" is half Gary Glitter half Yardbirds. With a familiar drum beat and loads of overlapping guitars with all kinds of tones, it's one of the best tracks on the record. A fun romp of a blues song. "Too Afraid to Love You" is ripe for Amy Winehouse to cover. It's harpsichord laden melody and swooning good vocals make it a stand-out track not only for the album, but for the year. What makes this record great is that although at first it sounds like a standard blues album, the added flair of production that usually kills a band if its too much makes The Black Keys soar. It has many overdubs that add more bass, more ethereal reverb and with loads of organs and other instruments gives a great help to the otherwise straight forward blues rock of their other albums. Working with Danger Mouse on their previous record and their stint in Blakroc has definitely paid of and Brothers is the result.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DNXwicxlsvI

You're Dead To Me

2010-04-22T16:52:00.005-04:00

It's funny when things you may have at one time loved or at least enjoyed somehow enter the realm of "get this off of my stereo/tv" fodder. It can be caused by a break-up, commercial radio, growing up or just plain "what was I thinking!?" Anyway, as today is extremely slow at work, here's a quicky guide to the things that In The Wake of Poseidon no longer tolerates. This list is totally seperate but sometimes might overlap the list of things I just personally hate. But most of these artists are not on a Fleetwood Mac/Jimmy Buffet level of hatred. No many can come that close to pure revilement.

Billy Joel - The real catalyst for this entry is in fact a conversation with a friend. Recently I've become more and more completely against anything Billy Joel. I blame classic rock radio for this. Billy Joel is an artist whose hits are way better than his album material, but even then those hits have become increasingly less palatable as the years go by. I'll still enjoy a handful of his songs. There is no way that I won't ever enjoy the silliness of "Movin' Out" with it's heart attack-ack-ack-ack's and overly produced sound. I also extremely enjoy "Just The Way You Are" maybe because it's my parents wedding song. But if I have to hear "Scenes From an Italian Restaurant" in full ever again.... bad things may happen. His songs lost all luster to me. He tacks himself on tour with Elton John and comparing the two gets annoying. Elton's piano playing is far superior and lyrically (well for the most part) Bernie Taupin does a better job. EJ isn't without his blemishes, but Elton John's catalog at large has countless classics that go beyond the singles. I find this one half a shame and half a loss due to overexposure so maybe BJ is less "dead to me" and more "on notice." Regardless, I could care less what Brenda and Eddy are doing.

Donnie Darko - No real surprise here. Donnie Darko was introduced to me at a very transitional time in my life. I had yet to become the uber snob of movies that I can safely ay I have become (I can't stand to watch most movies and have found myself watching documentaries or Criterion Collection selections more than anything else.) I was still young and somewhat angsty, so the characters in Darko seemed pretty relatable. I also enjoyed pretty much anything as long as it had an intense world that sucks you into and that I've found is the only thing Donnie Darko has going for it. I haven't watched it in a very long time, but I can safely say that I have very little desire to do so. Richard Kelly has proven his hackery to us through the insanely horrible Southland Tales and looking back at Darko proves that only a few things good have come from it. A great scene put to Tears For Fears' "Head Over Heels" which is a fantastic song and a few lines of dialogue, specifically one that has become the moniker for our Fantasy Football League. "They need to go for a safety."

Pink Floyd's The Wall (Album) - Strangely enough, whenever I listen to The Wall, the only two things I think of are Hoskins and Geldoff. As I assume a lot of people realize, The Wall is an epicly overrated album. It's not bad. This is one of those things that I'm sure I will still enjoy from time to time, but in no way would The Wall be in my top 10 Pink Floyd albums. The overstuffed album is just too long to really enjoy anymore and it's story, although intriguing, is done better on albums like Wish You Were Here or Animals. It's also strange that I'd prefer to watch the film version rather than listen to the album. That's right. I said it. I enjoy the movie more so than the album. The movie is half really bizarre filled with amazing animations and half hilarious acting care of Geldoff and Hoskins (who is only in it for like once scene... but he steals the show!) I can't really explain it much further but everytime I hear "Comfortably Numb", all I picture is Geldoff's face during the "AAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHH!" part and I just start laughing. That's not good, especially for a song that used to be easily my fav Floyd track.

Cable TV - I've never been a huge TV watcher, but I can safely say that I don't really need a television. Sure I'm missing Treme which poses to be the next best TV show since.... maybe since The Wire and Arrested Development ended? Not that I don't enjoy TV if it is on, but lately I can't really tell you any shows that I've been dying to watch. Most of what I want to see is BBC Comedy or is somehow available via Netflix streaming. Since four seasons of No Reservations with Anthony Bourdain is available at all times, why bother? I also have no capability of keeping up with most TV shows. Since TV has it's new golden age bubbling forth (suppsoedly), I get hooked on a show, forget what channel its on or just have something more pressing to do then watch a TV show on any given night off. I just don't have time for it! Since everything is put on DVD, I'd rather watch it all in one sitting or over the course of a few weeks. Gone are the TV shows that aren't interconnected by some story. The sitcom is basically dead and the best TV dramas are all on HBO or Showtime. Screw cable. I'll be behind the curve with TV then. I guess I'm cheap. The only thing I will miss are sporting events but I can always go to a friends place or to a bar to catch that.

That's all for now. I'm done complaining about things I used to enjoy.

Goldfrapp Taps Into 80's Gloss Perfectly

2010-04-22T11:18:00.005-04:00

Somewhere in the beginning of 2009, I finally sat down and started my Goldfrapp research. I had loved a selection of songs that a friend of a friend turned me on to and this past year I finally put the effort into her catalog. One thing about Goldfrapp that makes me like her so much is that she has a sense of style but is constantly changing and trying something different within her sound. Alison Goldfrapp and William Gregory have their fingers on the pulse of intriguing pop music. The duo's latest record, Head First, is less like any of their previous offerings. In a certain sense, this is their most approachable record. Supernature is pretty poppy but there are still elements there that make it a little less open to mainstream success. This isn't to sound like a dig into the new Goldfrapp record. Head First has many excellent moments on the record and a handful of excellent pop songs that should make Goldfrapp a more commonly loved artist.

The first single, "Rocket" is a synthetic dance number that aims to please on so many levels. Sounding like it should be used in a montage scene from a mid 80's film, "Rocket" takes on a level of catchiness that is reminiscent to Hot Fuss era Killers meets Kenny Loggins knee deep in his soundtrack era. The hook is huge and the chorus is epic. I find it hard getting the track out of my head. It's a fantastic way to kick off the record. The next track, "Believer" sounds like a Kraftwerk song played at a slightly higher speed. It's synth beats and hooks are more pronounced and would go excellently with a work out, a run or any high octane experience. It's excellent driving pop music. "Alive", the second single to come in June, is the perfect anthem. Put this song into a time capsule, send it to the soundtrack creators of such films as One Crazy Summer or Better Off Dead. It's infectious with a hint of uplifting lyrics. The rest of the album kind of wanders within this territory. Unlike other Goldfrapp discs, this is very much a one trick pony. It's a damn catchy one, but there isn't as much variety as say Supernature did. A solid record overall, Head First is a nice edition to the ever changing synth pop sounds of Goldfrapp, one that any fan of good, fun pop music could and should embrace. There is no doubt I will have this record blasting on road trips to the shore or at parties. It's fun. Nothing super engaging, but incredibly fun, poppy music.

Congratulations, MGMT!

2010-04-22T09:50:00.004-04:00

When I first heard MGMT back when Oracular Spectacular was released, I only ever connected with the big hooks on the big hits on the album. A track like "Electric Feel" is unnecessarily catchy. "Kids" is anthemic and has a pulse pounding riff that is inescapable. "Time to Pretend" is a dark yet funny take on fame and, as with the other tracks here listed, is addictive to a high degree. The rest of the disc in general is somewhat forgettable when stacked up with the kind of hooks that these three power players had. Flash-forward to this year. 2010 boasted a new MGMT album and all I could think of is "they are either going to have a sophomore slump or have more mega hits." Well, Congratulations has finally surfaced but a few weeks ago and it is something entirely different. As if evolving into a totally different band, MGMT have a new sound that is spectacular and works in complete opposite to their much loved debut.

Surprisingly, there are no songs like "Electric Feel" or "Kids." Not any sign of that catchy pop sensibility anywhere. Instead we get complex, sprawling tracks that are easily just as catchy, but with a less sunshiny feel. Something seriously sinister is lurking in the background somewhere. What is apparently obvious is that MGMT is not slumping but growing and becoming more than what the debut album would lead you to believe. One thing many reviews points out is that MGMT is "going to lose fans" due to the departure. Well, then screw them for not seeing the light. The album kicks off with a catchy enough tune in "It's Working." The track is a combination of 60's baroque pop with soaring harmonies and a little harpsichord splashed in the background as well as having all the trappings of a post punk band like XTC with it's fast paced guitars and overall spastic drone. Tracks like "Flash Delirium" and "Brian Eno" are two very strangely intriguing and beguiling tracks. "Flash Delirium" slowly morphs and evolves as the track goes on ending in a fast paced punk rock finale that ends abruptly. "Brian Eno" is a strange story about the titular artist/producer that reminds me a little of Oingo Boingo with its jumpy and jittery guitar passages. The grand "Siberian Breaks" is a brilliant epic. Over 12 minutes, the song shape shifts and is extremely progressive in sound. The only track remotely close to possibly being a single is the titular finale, but it's far from the best moment on the album.

MGMT set out to make an album experience as they have said in interviews. They've definitely succeed. Oracular Spectacular is a great collection of tracks with a few dull moments which is better than most bands could wish to do on a debut. Luckily, unlike most bands that start with a bang, Congratulations really blows away the first record. Even if it isn't singles friendly, it's an experience all to itself. It deserves full immersion and start to finish listening only that few artists can pull off without any lulls. This, my friends, may be the best record released this year thus far.

Broken Bells Underwhelms, But That's Not a Terrible Thing

2010-04-21T11:26:00.005-04:00

This article was strange to write. After several spins of the James Mercer/Danger Mouse collaboration Broken Bells, I was left with a feeling of mild joy and felt a bit underwhelmed.. And I didn't feel bad about it. Joy only in the sense that certain tracks make me long for more of The Shins. The album as a whole is a collection of songs more than an album experience. You never feel fully immersed in any atmosphere from Danger Mouse. I must have a complex but I can't really pull myself away from the thoughts that certain songs would have sounded better in their respective groups. The only track that really takes on a wholly unique sound on the album is "Mongrel Heart." Easily the best track on the album, it takes on a swagger that is different from the overtly pop infused tracks of the rest of the album. "Vaporize" is the best of the two singles, but while listening the only thing that goes through my head is how this would have sounded great on a Shins record. Inversely, the track "The Ghost Inside" clearly would sound much better as a Gnarls Barkley single. These tracks are missing something extra to give it that extra punch that would make them Broken Bells. At the end of all of this, I still enjoy these songs. It's hard to put my head around it as more than a collection of tracks rather than an album. I can flip through and pick a few decent tracks to enjoy, but I will never really return to this record as a start to finish experience. As much as I don't think Broken Bells is a good album experience, it still has decent contents. "The High Road" is catchy and has some cool sounds floating through it, but I just can't really get into listening to the whole record in one sitting. What it boils down to is that I have a hard time detaching myself from James Mercer's The Shins and Danger Mouse's previous work especially Gnarls Barkley. I don't really see a band called Broken Bells. To me that's a bit disappointing, but only a little bit as when they go back to their respective bands, they may have learned something from each other.

Eno and Budd Create Magic

2010-04-20T14:01:00.003-04:00

In a previous post, I ran through the albums of Brian Eno and his solo projects from the prog glam of Here Come the Warm Jets to the polar opposite space infused ambience of Apollo: Atmospheres and Soundtracks. I strayed away from his collaborative albums due to my inability to find many of them and the fact that there are so many. I will probably do another Eno discography in the future as I have picked up a large amount of these collaborations lately, but I can't really wait any longer to share my love of Harold Budd and Brian Eno's fantastic Ambient 2: The Plateaux of Mirror. Some may say ambient music has the same utility as an oscillating fan or sounds nothing more than a bunch of avant garde musicians being snooty and lazy. To me, at least this album more than any other I've encountered, is an experience. It's an emotional experience filled with warmth and hope and completely compelling soundscapes. What The Plateaux of Mirror does better than any of the other countless Eno Ambient outings, especially of the 4 actually labeled in the Ambient series, is create the mood of ambient music with a little more warmth. This might be a distraction if you solely enjoy ambient music to just soak into the atmosphere like volcanic ash. To me, it's a huge plus. Much like most of Apollo: Atmospheres and Soundtracks, there is more than just tape loops. Harold Budd's piano, either electronic or not, takes front and center. Eno will lob up some nice atmospheric tones or some tape looped vocal arrangements and Budd takes these elements and runs with them. A song like "Not Yet Remembered" is a beautifully devastating track. The back and forth sway of Budd's elegiac piano coupled with the synth vocal swells is moving to a huge effect. "The Plateaux of Mirror" is on an electric piano and it takes on another side of what Ambient 2 excels at. It sounds all at once classical and futuristic. It's all in all beautiful music and an album that shouldn't be forgotten.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AVlnbMNFLN4

Diversion: Hop City DJ's

2010-04-07T14:47:00.006-04:00

As I start to soak in the Broken Bells debut album and prepare a lil write up, I've decided to do a quick list again of a few unforgettable beers. I rarely talk food or drink on this blog, but beer is a huge part of my life as I love all things craft beer and would dream someday to brew my own beer (happening sooner than later.) This isn't a best of, it's more of a "Damn this is the stuff I need" at the moment kinda thang.

Flying Fish Exit 16 - The Flying Fish Exit Series has been excellent thus far. Exit 4 is now available in 6 packs and cases year round and Exit 11, the Hoppy American Wheat was one of the best beers I've ever tasted, but the latest series, the Wild Rice Double IPA is something to behold. It is easily the best IPA Flying Fish has released, far overshadowing there standard Hopfish IPA. Here's the description of this brew:

"Exit 16 Wild Rice Double IPA is named for the exit that leads travelers across the salt-marsh of the Meadowlands to the Sportsplex and Lincoln Tunnel. The beer was brewed with over 1,200 pounds of wild, organic brown and white rice, which helps the beer ferment dry to better showcase the five varieties of hops that are brewed in. It is later dry-hopped with generous additions of Chinook and Citra hops, creating a complex nose with hints of tangerine, mango, papaya and pine. The Exit 16 label includes a Web site, www.hackensackriverkeepers.org, with more information on preservation and restoration projects in the Meadowlands."

North Coast's Old Rasputin Russian Imperial Stout - Last night at The Pour House, a local South Jersey watering hole, I was inclined to get a Stout with my order of oysters and luckily Old Rasputin was in stock. This may be my favorite stout out there. It is complex and delicious with each sip. The brownish gold head of the beer showcases the brews beauty and the flavors of coffee and chocolate don't overwhelm but add to the darkness. It went rather well with the raw bar oysters and the cup of soup I rocked. I couldn't think of a better beer to pair with a warm cup of soup and tasty oysters now that I think of it. And all you need is one. Might just have to pick some Rasputin up and look into some possible recipes. Maybe slow cooked flank steak? Not sure. Regardless, Old Rasputin is fantastic.

Southern Tier's Unearthly - My world was rocked recently when the last batch of Nugget Nectar seemed to leave a different taste on my flavor pallet then what I remember. This is sad news as Nugget Nectar was easily my favorite beer. Luckily I did have some great draught Nectar's so it's not completely dead to me. However, when I first started to dabble in the Southern Tier catalog, I found what is easily my new favorite beer: Unearthly. This may be the best beer I've had. One bomber is all you need, so it's not a long player of sorts, but it's deliciousness is impossible to avoid. It's also a bit on the alcoholic side. Rocking in at 11% ABV, one bomber of Unearthly will fit all your needs for the night. Tonight I break out the Oak Aged Unearthly. Stay tuned on that one....

That's all for now. Every once in a while I'll post about some brews I think you should check out.

Desert Island Discs

2010-03-31T15:09:00.012-04:00

Many people blog about what would be on their desert island list of albums to take. Making a limited supply of music is a challenge in and of itself but to think of what you would listen to alone, stranded and with nothing ever else to bring along is even harder. So here it is, a top ten if you will of Desert Island Discs, Cropulis style. No particular order....

1. The Who Live at Leeds - Why would I bring a live record over the various rock opera's and perfect albums The Who has had? Maybe for variety or maybe because Live at Leeds is the premiere live recording of all time. To me it's a combination of the two. One thing is for sure, listening to a live recording while you are alone might help you day-dream your lonely existence into soaking yourself into that crowd that you'll hear roar after songs like "Young Man Blues" or the insanely epic jam version of "My Generation." I know one thing for sure: I don't ever want to live without the live version of "A Quick One, While He's Away." It may be the pinnacle of their career in a way. It's an extensively long song and on original recording, it lacks a certain power. But this live rendition is anything but lacking in power. It seems strange but a band whose actual albums, from Sell Out to Quadrophenia at least, are so prolifically brilliant, but sometimes they aren't as good as their live counterparts. The Who was deemed the greatest live rock and roll band of all time at one point and I would be remiss to leave this at home.

Key Track - "Young Man Blues"

2. Nick Cave & Warren Ellis - The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford OST - Another strange choice, but when it comes to contemplative recordings, there are two coming along for the ride. This being the first, the Jesse James soundtrack is one of the greatest recordings I have ever heard. It's a strange melange of folk sounds, with Ellis' fiddle taking center stage and Cave's broodingly sad piano behind it all. The album works as it's own piece of music outside of the film brilliantly and may be one of the only soundtrack albums that gets constant rotation. A song like "Rather Lovely Thing" is something I just can never do without. It helps ease a wounded mind or assists a contemplative moment and it stirs with beauty. As much as it's not straight classical music, it has the same effect on me and even more so than taking a classical piece with me on this desert island.

Key Track: "Rather Lovely Thing"

3. Stan Getz - Captain Marvel - As much as my list of Jazz albums is very limited, Stan Getz' ultra salsa-ey groove album Captain Marvel is a fantastic work of fun and challenging jazz. The album also will forever be associated with cooking. When I wanted to get amped up for working in the kitchen be it for myself or for friends or loved ones, Captain Marvel was my assistant keeping the groove upbeat allowing for me to be more in the zone. "La Fiesta" and "Times Lie" are two excellent tracks. It's an album that keeps you moving, keeps you motivated and is just intensely excellent music. Such an album would help mix things up a tad.

Key Track: "La Fiesta"

4. The Zombies - Odyessey and Oracle - With its baroque arrangements and pop music sensibility, The Zombies proper studio album is easily one of those can't live without listening experiences. The songs are all lush and flourish with life. No matter how sad a song like "A Rose For Emily" or "Brief Candles" might be, they are gorgeous. Whenever someone tries to tell me Pet Sounds is the lushest album of the late 60's, I much rather turn to Odyessey and Oracle. With everything from the Gothic World War I tale "Butcher's Tale (Western Front 1914)" to the fantastically harmonized minimalism of "Changes," this is the most fantastical album I could think to bring along.

Key Track: "Changes"

5. Beck - Midnite Vultures - I guess one would say that you probably don't want to bring a record that reminds you of better days if you were stranded on a desert island. But then again, won't you want to try to remember those times through the music that assisted them? In this case, the Beck album I mulled over bringing would have to go to Midnite Vultures. The nostalgia and tradition factor behind the intensely awesome grooves found on this record would be an excellent companion piece so one does not lose it completely. I'll just have to sing "Debra" by myself. Anyway, you'll need to dance and party and for my dime, Midnite Vultures is my favorite dance/party album of all time. Chock full of sexual hilarity and honest to goodness great musicianship, Vultures kills it from start to finish. I don't know how I'd feel living without songs like "Broken Train" or "Hollywood Freaks."

Key Track: "Hollywood Freaks"

6. Goldfrapp - Felt Mountain - Maybe it's because her music is on my mind now a lot or because I will be in need of a female voice, but Goldfrapp's Felt Mountain is a special record. After fully soaking it in, it's easily much higher on my favorite albums of the Aughts list where I believe it came in at #100 at the time of making the list. Anyway, the record is a space opera of sorts with Alison Goldfrapp's lonely and beautiful voice floating high above sparse electronic arrangements. A song like "Paper Bag" is an upliftingly strange tune. The notes seem to swirl in the air. "Pilots" is easily one of my new favorites of any song with it's fantastic vocal range and sweeping cinemascapes. I was between this and Charlotte Gainsbourg's 5:55, but Felt Mountain has a little more diversity. "Utopia" is a dancey track and "Felt Mountain" is a contemplative instrumental. A perfect disc to tag along with the others.

Key Track: "Pilots"

7. Van Morrison - Astral Weeks - There is no denying the sheer amazing nature of Astral Weeks. Van Morrison's epic tale of existence is nothing but a beautiful and unique experience. Musically it doesn't fit the mold with much else in Morrison's catalog. Not quite the jazzy pop of Moondance or the garage rock of Them, it's somewhere else high above in the stratosphere. "Astral Weeks" is a gorgeous song and one that I can't seem to ever forget since first hearing it. "Slim Slow Slider" and "Madame George" are great relaxation music and the album as a whole works as a way to forget what worries you and rises above it all to ease the mind.

Key Track: "Astral Weeks"

8. Pink Floyd - Meddle - I may think Dark Side of the Moon is the perfect Pink Floyd album, but something about Meddle makes me default to it to take it if I were to be stranded forever. The case being that Side A is a perfect blend of Floyd's best moments. "One of These Days" is a perfect stoner rock anthem, "A Pillow of Winds" is a contemplative and beautiful acoustic ballad and "Fearless" is a song I just can't live without. "San Tropez" will be for the fun times on the shore lines of my lonesome home. And then there's "Seamus." But Side B is "Echoes" and there isn't a better single side of a record in Floyd's catalog like "Echoes." Say I find some crazy frog in the forest that I can lick for hallucinogenic fun? You better believe I shouldn't be without Meddle.

Key Track: "Fearless"

9. The Beatles - Abbey Road - I had proposed this question to my girlfriend: if stuck with only one Beatles album to listen to for the rest of your life, what would you pick? It's a next to impossible question to ask. Most people would easily default to The Beatles (White Album) which is the most eclectic and offers the best array of songs and easily some of the bands best. But something about that answer just doesn't jive with me. To act like I could live without ever hearing Abbey Road again would be to fool myself. It's funny that this will be the only top 10 album from my favs list to make the desert island cut. It's just as eclectic as the White Album, but it has zero filler. It's like choosing your last meal to be at a buffet where not everything is to your liking. Abbey Road is like choosing one absolutely satisfying dish that is sure to never fail you.

10. Warren Zevon - Zevon's lyrics are some of the best ever. His songs are beautiful and his self titled album is beyond magnificent. Whether you go to it to wallow in cynicism along with Warren to songs like "Poor Poor Pitiful Me" or "I'll Sleep When I'm Dead" or sing along to the stories of " Mama Couldn't Be Persuaded" or "Frank and Jesse James", this album has many options. The beauty of "Desperadoes Under the Eaves" to the brooding of "Join Me In L.A." this album has lasted with me for many years. As much as Excitable Boy has some amazing songs that I would dearly miss, Warren Zevon is next to irreplaceable. It's truly a magnificent masterpiece.

Key Track: "Mohammed's Radio"

As I look at this list I realize it probably can change from year to year, but for the most part this is a pretty solid smattering of great song collections. What are your desert island must haves?

Welcome to the World of the Plastic Beach

2010-03-31T14:41:00.003-04:00

I've been trying to figure out just how to approach the new Gorillaz album from a reviewing stand point. And after many many listens, it's clearly evident that Plastic Beach is the most intriguing record in their small catalog. It offers intense amounts of collaborations and many different sounds throughout while still holding onto themes of artifice, environmentalism and a false sense of utopia. And it's still damn catchy. I was asked recently by a friend, Adam McGrath, to write up something for his website, The Creation of Adam. Head on over there and check out my article on Plastic Beach.

Diversion: Drawn to the Places of the Dead

2010-03-30T15:56:00.012-04:00

Okay so I have been kinda quiet for a few. Monday afternoon, while still recovering a hangover and an awful neck ache from too much thrashing with Noringo on Saturday, I watched this awesome History Channel show on Netflix about Egypt and the engineering feats of their culture. Insane stuff. Anyway, my diversion from my usual blog talk about music and movies, I want to talk to you about cool places in the world I'd love to see. Most of these will be ancient places or abandoned places as my attention has been drawn to them lately. What are some cool old places in the world you'd like to see?

The Necropolis of Dahshur, Egypt - Sure, I want to see Giza as well, but something about Dahshur has captured my attention. Mainly, the Bent Pyramid. It's pretty amazing to see the learning curve that the Egyptians went through in making these insanely dramatic dwellings for their deceased pharaohs. The Bent Pyramid was built for Sneferu around 2596 BC and shows how part way through the construction of the pyramid that they found it wouldn't work at the original angle they were building. So they changed the degree of the sides from 55 degrees to 43 degrees giving it the bent shape. Aside from this intriguing pyramid, The Red Pyramid also lies here, which was the first true smooth sided pyramid. Dahshur seems like a really intriguing place.

Uluru & Kata Tjuta, Australia - I have been obsessed with Uluru, more commonly known as Ayers Rock, for many years now. And after reading about it more and more, I would love to make a trip there. Australia is definitely high on my list of must see places in the world and I'm not talking Sydney and the other outlying major metropolii. I'm more interested in the Outback and the mystery behind it. Uluru is a spiritual place for the Anangu people who are indigenous to Australia. One thing I've constantly read is that people can climb Uluru, but to the Anangu it's against their laws to climb Uluru. It is in that case then that I will see this rock formation but respect their tribal laws and see it just from the ground. Also, I hear many people die on the walk up. Seems kinda scary. Kata Tjuta, the adjacent small range of mountains, also looks breathtaking and natural beauty is something I need to do more of in my travels around the globe.

Centralia, PA - Of all the places I will be talking about, Centralia is the only one I plan on doing this year. Back in the 60's, a giant mine fire was inadvertently started when nearby residents were burning trash near the entrance to many connecting coal mines that were abandoned underground. The result: massive amounts of fuel for a fire that has yet to stop burning. That's right.... it's still burning. And so is built the perfect precursor to what a post apocalyptic environment may look like. What makes this deserted burgh so enticing? Well it's just the fact that by human hands, a whole community has been slowly ravaged to it's end. It's the perfect place to see for anyone obsessed with apocalyptic scenarios and it's only a few hours away.

Machu Picchu & The Nazca Lines, Peru - Growing up their were a few things I was obsessed with. Australia, Dinosaurs, The Titanic, Mt. Vesuvius and the South America/Central American tribes of the Incas, the Mayans and the Aztecs. My favorite of these were the Incas. These Peruvian natives conquered land as far north as Ecuador and all the way down the spine of the Andes in Chile. Machu Picchu is their grandest site with an amazing complex of ruins. It was never found by the Spanish Conquistadors and it wasn't brought to international attention until 1911. It seems like a perfect place for a trek through the jungle. Amazing how people lived in ancient times. While Europe was beginning to flourish in the 1400's, the Inca's were coming near an end to their excellent empire. It's sad that these people were lost due to small pox and it may seem like sacrilege to walk on one of their most intensely famous landmarks, but I feel drawn to it.

Also nearby, The Nazca Lines. The Nazca's predate the Incas in their culture and their most insanely genius gift to the world comes in the form of geoglyphs that when seen from a plane create amazing portraits of animals and other great figures. It's incredible to see a picture of these lines, which were built well before anyone on Earth could ever see them. I can't even wrap my brain around these lines and just how amazing it is that they were constructed, if you want to call it that, between 200BC and 700 AD. Truly unbelievable.

Aokigahara Forest, Japan - Why would anyone want to visit the second most famous spot in the world where people go to commit suicide? Well, it's not because I feel as if this place is a fun place to visit as much as maybe it's a visit one should make to honor those who decided the ultimate fate. Aokigahara Forest is by Mount Fuji in Japan and has a strangeness to it. Aside from being second to the Golden Gate Bridge for suicides in the world, it's a forest that is devoid of wind due to it's density and mostly devoid of life. There is something captivating about this place. I'm no ghost hunter either, but apparently the amount of paranormal activity in the forest is unprecedented. It might just be worth the experience.

I guess I'm on a quest to discover some of the more eerie and almost spiritual places on earth. Am I obsessed with the dead and their tales? Do I enjoy the idea that all things move toward their end and the places on earth that outlast the lives that appreciate them? Maybe I am. But there is a beauty and tranquility to these places where people once tread and where death is a common thread to their very existence. And it's in abandoned places or remote locales that seem against the grain of humanity to exist regardless that maybe we can truly find the meaning of life. That's my diversion for the day.

In Memorium: Alex Chilton

2010-03-18T09:17:00.006-04:00

Sadly as many already know, Alex Chilton of Big Star has passed on today. His death is sad news as his band was to reunite at SXSW this weekend for the first time in some time. Big Star has become a large part of my life. It marked an important time when I was fully delving into their albums. I was living in West Philadelphia at the time in a hole in the wall apartment and the bright sounds of Big Star's pop infused sounds really resonated for me. In honor of this great man and his excellent run in Big Star, here is my tribute. As I only have Big Star's three major albums, I will stick to those. I know them very well and the recordings mean a lot to me. Enjoy.

#1 Record (1972) Big Star's debut record, #1 Record, is a fantastic start to the power pop genre. After The Beatles break-up, the end of the flower generation and the sharpening of the teeth of bands like The Rolling Stones or the grandiosity of The Who, it seemed strange that Big Star would embrace a sound more akin to the late 60's then to the early 70's. Where some bands expanded and got bigger and the sound became huge, Big Star stripped it back down to the basics. A guitar jangle rocker like "Feel" would sound bloated in the hands of anyone else. Instead it's a luscious song filled with amazing harmonies, dazzling yet simple guitars and a falsetto cry of a lustful angel. "In The Street" is a stripped down arena rock track built for singing along. On the other hand, #1 Record has a lot of heart. "Thirteen" which was part of the Rock of Ages songs list, is a beautiful and timid infatuation song that is sweet and honest. Songs like "The India Song" with it's intricate flute sound could find itself on a Wes Anderson movie soundtrack. Other rockers like "When My Baby's Beside Me" and the rollicking "Don't Lie To Me" are just stellar classics that would herald the power pop movement and influence bands from The Cars to Weezer and solo artists like Beck, Jeff Buckley and Elliot Smith. There is no denying the impact of this record.

Radio City (1974) Very little changed from Big Star's debut and Radio City. Maybe a little reverb was added, but for the most part it's consistently good songwriting and great driving power pop. The opening track "O My Soul" is one of the more intricate Big Star songs for this time. It's structure is constantly changing, the reverb laden guitar parts are complex and the overall song structure is unique to most else in the Big Star catalog. The most famous song, "September Gurls" is a fantastic pop track that is a direct predecessor of much of the 90's alt rock movement, such as The Lemonheads or Teenage Fanclub. Heartfelt lyrics and simple guitar melodies make it a memorable track. "Life is White" and "Back of a Car" are stellar tracks as well with the former being one of my favorite. It has loads of harmonica and a great driving chorus. It's not a bad album by any stretch, but compared to the debut and their finale record, it lacks anything new to the table.

Third: Sister Lovers (1978) After another founding member left, Big Star took a long time in between albums here and Third: Sister Lovers. The result is a drastic departure in sound. Gone for the most part are the happy melodies and soaring harmonies and in their place is a dark and gloomy atmosphere. It's a beautiful record throughout but one rife with melancholy and darkness. A song like "Holocaust" is a raw odes with poetically dark lyrics about death and insignificance. Although there is an air of darkness, some beacons of hope come pouring through. A love song like "For You" filled with fantastic string arrangements and some great lyrics, care of drummer Jody Stephens, we see a little different side of where the band was at. "Kizza Me" is one of the most covered Big Star songs and one of Alex Chilton's finest songs. "Take Care" is a beautiful finale to the album and now with Alex's passing is a perfect track to say farewell to. The albums is haunting from start to finish but it is a must own record. Start to finish it's one of the most beautiful albums I've ever have listened to.

Here are the lyrics to "Take Care" and a video in honor of Alex Chilton. You will be missed dearly, but your music will live on.

Take care not to hurt yourself
Beware of the need for help
You might need too much
And people are such
Take care, please, take care
Some people read idea books
And some people have pretty looks
But if your eyes are wide
And all words aside
Take care, please, take care
This sounds a bit like goodbye
In a way it is I guess
As I leave your side
I've taken the air
Take care, please, take care
Take care, please, take care

What's the deal with Lady Gaga?

2010-03-15T14:13:00.004-04:00

I have posted this query before, but as someone who loves music, I really am intrigued by the Lady Gaga phenomenon. Her name appears everywhere, but every time I hear one of her songs, I immediately have a stomach churning experience akin to that of watching the projectile vomiting scene from The Exorcist and then promptly reenacting it much to the chagrin of my friends. Now most of all pop music is garbage. Whether it' Katy Perry or the Jonas Brothers, it has a purpose somewhere in the world and obviously I'm no longer in the age bracket that this music is geared to. However, with Lady Gaga, there is a large population of adults that are into her. And don't get me wrong, her out of control sense of style and fashion is pretty out there and I'm sure the stage show is something worth seeing but for me all of that is lost when an integral part of a musical artist is missing: good music

You see, Lady Gaga's bombastic persona is all smoke and mirrors. Although akin to David Bowie, one of my favorite artists, she has all the flash and bang of a Ziggy Stardust or Aladdin Sane, but none of the musical ability or talented band to back her up. And I know taking a jab at a pop culture phenomenon makes me sound like an old man, but when someones music is just plain bad, the pomp and circumstance falls flat on it's face. At least it should.

The long and short of it is that this is nothing new. It's the same pop music that has been around since the dawn of time. I just really wanted to understand the phenomenon beyond the visual side of it. I figured maybe she was more than Britney Spears or Madonna. Maybe she was pop culture and somewhat cutting edge but that's just all false.

The real icing on the cake was being shown the full length video for her track "Telephone." It's.... bizarre. I mean, it makes little to no sense. It goes all over the place and blatantly rips off of Quentin Tarantino (although you could say he blatantly rips off from movies, but this is just ridiculous.) It's over-the-top for the sake of it. And if I'm missing the social commentary of it all, then please tell me. I know it can't be subtle because there is nothing subtle about that video. From the Virgin Mobile close-ups to the "Pussy Wagon". I don't think I've seen anything as strange as that video. The write up of the video premiere in the following link is proof that the music doesn't matter anymore. It's all superficial and it all has to be made into an event in order to make it a viable... I don't even know what to call it.

http://www.mtv.com/news/articles/1633772/20100311/lady_gaga.jhtml

Maybe I was bred to only like old music and maybe I'm just not hip enough to get it or this is the true sign of my aging process, but Lady Gaga as music is just something I don't get. If I'm at a club or a wedding, sure I'll dance to her music. But outside of that setting, is there really anything special about it? Shouldn't dance music be more versatile? Probably not, but I do enjoy my fair share of dancey music. An artist like Goldfrapp for example is equally as poppy and a little toned down but still flamboyant, but her music is far and away better. A song like "Oh La La" or "Strict Machine" is just as danceable as "Poker Face" or "Bad Romance." But since she's less of a persona, her music doesn't resonate on this side of the Atlantic. The other question at hand: Should I even try to understand Lady Gaga? No I shouldn't. My best advice was "Don't try to understand it" and although I tried to not get it, I still can't enjoy it. It just comes down to it being bad music with a flashy distraction.

What it boils down to is that maybe I am a craggy old bastard who just wants to know what youth, and more importantly my peers, are all going.... well... you can finish the pun.

Discography: Neil Young - The Golden Age (1968 - 1979)

2010-02-19T16:23:00.025-05:00

Neil Young's Discography is a daunting one. He may be one of the most prolific artists of all time with albums spanning almost 5 full decades. That's just his solo work. If you factor in Buffalo Springfield and CSNY, the man has a staggering track record (no puns intended.) I am going to focus strictly on Neil Young's solo work. It was sort of his Golden Age from 1968 - 1979. Almost every album went at least to Gold status in the United States (only his first album did not reach this goal.) It's an astonishing career that continues past Rust Never Sleeps, but to tackle all of this in one post is just absurd. So without further ado....

Neil Young (1968) - After leaving Buffalo Springfield, Neil Young started his career with an album that sounds more in tune with his past then the true spring board for what he would sound like in the next decade. It isn't without it's best points, but the self titled debut lacks the energy and feeling that the forthcoming albums would have. One of the best songs, which is beautifully performed in Johnathan Demme's film Heart of Gold is "The Old Laughing Lady." A beautiful timid song in the vein of "Sugar Mountain", it's the biggest stand out the record has going for it. "Ive Been Waiting For You" is another stand out song that if Crazy Horse was behind it, would have made it even better. "Last Trip to Tulsa" is the last of only a few really stellar songs that paves the way to some other Neil Young epics in the not to distant future. It's not a complete waste of time, but it's definitely the weakest of all the albums you will read about here.

Key Tracks: "The Old Laughing Lady", "Last Trip to Tulsa", "I've Been Waiting For You"

Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere (1969) Easily one of Neil Young's premier works, his sophomoric album was no slump, but a huge leap forward. Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere contains 3 of Young's most important songs as well as a few other gems. It's the first appearance of his long time backing band Crazy Horse. His backing band would be mocked by old friends as being sloppy and not very good at their craft, but Neil Young's own guitar style had always been a little grittier than most rock guitarists of the time, so Crazy Horse seems a perfect fit. On a track like "Cinnamon Girl", the extra fuzz and crunch of the band gives even more power behind the guitar part. Extended jams "Down By the River" and "Cowgirl in the Sand" are delightfully sprawling with some of Neil's best early guitar craftsmanship. The titular track is a nice little quick ditty and "Round and Round (It Won't Be Long)" is a sweet lullaby. If you like Neil's grunge roots, this is the first of many signs of this to come. Later in this discography we'll be discussing his first true grunge album Rust Never Sleeps.

Key Tracks: "Cinnamon Girl", "Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere", "Round and Round (It Won't Be Long)", "Down By the River", "Cowgirl in the Sand"

After the Gold Rush (1970) Young kept the big albums coming with his next fantastic record, and easily one of his most famous, After the Gold Rush. The early 70's saw Young at the prime of his home run hitting. For some reason upon it's release it was not immediately recognized as one of his better albums, but somehow in time it's garnered more praise. An album containing the pot stirrer "Southern Man" with it's indictment of the South's treatment of blacks as well as the amazing piano ballad in "After the Gold Rush", it's hard to see where critics saw the negative points in the album. Even lesser hits like "Tell Me Why" with it's simple acoustic strum along feel and the simple love song "Only Love Can Break Your Heart" may not be complex by any stretch, but still top notch. It doesn't have the raw power and fury that Everybody Knows had, but it still has that Neil Young quality.

Key Tracks: "Tell Me Why", "Southern Man", "After the Gold Rush", "Only Love Can Break Your Heart", "Tell Me Why", "Oh, Lonesome Me", "Cripple Creek Ferry"

Harvest (1972) Well regarded as Neil Young's magnum opus, Harvest is more or less the best of the early era Young material. It's not my personal favorite, but there is no denying a classic. With massive hits like "Old Man", a song about a kindred spirit Young met while buying a ranch, and "Heart of Gold", Young's most recognizable tune, are unavoidable in their popularity and unavoidable in their perfection. "The Needle and the Damage Done" is a staple of Young's archives and it's a heart wrenching song on the destruction of heroin, which hits close to Young as many of his friends and fellow rock stars from that era died of drug overdoses. Then there are the gems of the disc. The sweeping "A Man Needs a Maid", which the London Symphony Orchestra lends it's hand, is a beautiful song. "Out on the Weekend" is a melancholy opener and "Words (Between the Lines of Age)" is an intense closer. Where it lacks the intensity and grittiness of Everybody Knows This is Nowhere, it is a little more eclectic than After The Gold Rush. If you don't own this album yet, I don't really know what to tell you. It's an essential to any record collection.

Key Tracks: I'll consider this one Neil's flawless album. I can't pick any song to leave off, even if it's not m personal favorite.

Time Fades Away (1973) I would just gloss over this, but it's too intriguing to not to. For Neil Young fan's, this is the Holy Grail. Only released on vinyl and never on CD or any other format, Time Fades Away was recorded during the tour for Harvest and features songs that I have yet to hear. It along with the soundtrack to Neil Young's super rare film Journey Through the Past are two rare treats that are only able to be found on wax. I hope someday to stumble upon it because the concert started a trilogy of wildly divergent, dark and abrasive Young records after the death of his long time friend and Crazy Horse guitarist, Danny Whitten. This was the start of a three album stretch called "The Ditch Trilogy." The next albums to come after this are stark in their contrast to Young's previous work and I can only imagine this being just as intense, especially since Whitten was supposed to tour for this record and died shortly before it of a drug overdose. If anyone reading this has a bootleg, has a vinyl copy OR sees a vinyl copy, get it. I will pay you handsomely (which means you will get the amount the record cost and I'll wear a suit.)

{Editor's Note: Holy Crap! I apparently have found 7 tracks of the total 8. Will listen to what I got and redo this section!!}

On The Beach (1974) On the heels of the massive Harvest, Neil Young's follow up to his biggest hit is something of a strange beast. On the surface, it would seem that is a dark, gritty and huge departure of an album. It's sounds aren't the lush, orchestrated productions of his past few studio records, but for Young that was the point. Recorded after Tonight's The Night but released first, of the two albums it is far better produced. It's minimal in it's structures and arrangements and the songs somehow still soar even though they are bathed in a muffled sound. A song like "Ambulance Blues" sounds as if it were recorded in a bath tub, but this claustrophobic sound mixed with the intense lyrics of loss and of dissatisfaction benefit. The titular track is a sprawling guitar anthem and sounds a bit like a slowed down "Like A Hurricane." "Vampire Blues" is an organ laden blues track and "For the Turnstiles" is one of Young's most underrated lyrical moments as well as a fantastic song in it's composition. Whereas Harvest was a conventional album in it's production, On The Beach is a 180 degree turn away from convention and turns into complete art. It's a forgotten treasure.

Key Tracks: "On The Beach", "Vampire Blues", "For The Turnstiles", "Ambulance Blues", "Motion Pictures"

Tonight's The Night (1975) The final release of the Ditch Trilogy, Tonight's The Night is as gritty as it gets. Louder and more clamor then On The Beach, the tracks here are heavier and denser in their usage of electric guitars and Neil Young's vocals are even more war torn and weary. When dealing with his grief, Young churned out three brilliant albums and they all lead to Tonight's The Night. A song like "World on a String" has more pep in it's step than anything on On the Beach, but it still has that dark and melancholy overtone to it. The titular track here sounds like it could fit well on Everybody Knows This is Nowhere but with an extra layer of grime on it. "Borrowed Tune" is the sister song to "After the Gold Rush" with it's piano laden beauty and Neil's delicate falsetto performance. "Come On Baby Let's Go Downtown" is a fantastic rocker romp co-written by the then deceased Danny Whitten. It's a nice, live cut sung by Whitten for the most part and one of the tributes to his death on the record. As dark and unrelenting this record is, it makes for an intense but satisfying listen.

Key Tracks: "Tonight's The Night", "World on a String", "Borrowed Tune", "Mellow My Mind", "Come On Baby Let's Go Downtown", "Albuquerque"

Zuma (1975) Released the same year as the dark, foreboding finale to the Ditch Trilogy, Zuma is a more traditional Neil Young album. With more of a focus on poppier songs and extensive guitar jams, this album is the closest follow up to Everybody Knows This is Nowhere in sound and style that you'll get. It's a fantastic album start to finish. Crazy Horse backs Young up yet again with their signature sound. The first kind of track you get are the pretty country vibed pop songs. "Don't Cry No Tears" is catchy as hell and a great sing along while "Pardon My Heart" is one of Young's saddest love songs. The two biggest and best tracks are the sprawling guitar rockers. "Danger Bird" is one of Neil's most underrated and finest guitar outings, while the fantastic and sprawling "Cortez the Killer" is one of Young's most covered and favored tracks. Young feels back on his feet after three albums of dark disparity and although the Ditch Trilogy is a fantastic monument to loss and death, it's nice to hear Young and Crazy Horse move on from tragedy to create fine music.

Key Tracks: "Don't Cry No Tears", "Danger Bird", "Lookin' For a Love", "Pardon My Heart", "Cortez the Killer"

American Stars 'n Bars (1977) After working with Stephen Stills on Long May You Run, Young followed up Zuma with American Stars 'n Bars. With a lot more country soaking into the songs and a much cleaner sound. An amalgam of tracks that were to be released on two different unreleased records, Homegrown and Chrome Dreams, this album seemed to have worked out regardless of the two other never released projects. Side One is far and away a country rock album. Songs filled with violin and more traditionally country styled lyrics, it isn't overbearing as much as Neil Young at his finest country mode. "Saddle Up the Palamino", which features Linda Ronstadt and Nicollette Larson on backing vocals is a powerful ballad. Young's jagged electric over violin and toe tapping beat, it makes for an interesting hodge podge. "Hold Back the Tears" is the highlight of this side with it's heart felt vocal performances from Young and his back ups as well as a beautifully simple fiddle line. Side two is notable for it's two sprawlers. The first of which, "Will to Love" is an eerie acoustic track with a crackling fire. Equally sprawling, but much louder, "Like a Hurricane" may be Neil Young's finest guitar outing. It's intensely rough, as it is the only track on the record to feature Crazy Horse, and it's slap-dash but controlled guitar solo is one for the record books. As much as it's a mixture of different sounds, American Stars 'N Bars is also one of Young's finest albums as a whole.

Key Tracks: "That Old Country Waltz", "Saddle Up the Palamino", "Hold Back the Tears", "Will to Love", "Like a Hurricane", "Homegrown"

Comes a Time (1978) With even more of a solid country rock sound, Comes A Time may be my least favorite record from this era, maybe aside the self titled debut. That's saying a lot as this album has some of the best harmonies care of Nicollette Larson. The titular track is the most memorable of the straight up country tracks where as the real shining moments are on the two tracks that stick out. "Look Out For My Love", with Crazy Horse backing, is a fantastic track that seems like it would have fit better on Zuma than Comes A Time minus it's heavy acoustic guitar feel. "Lotta Love" is a sparse track which would later be redone by Larson with more grandiosity. It's a beautiful song. The other notable track is the cover of "Four Strong Winds", which shows up many times live throughout Young's career. Comes A Time has redeeming moments, but the album to follow would blow it out of the water.

Key Tracks: "Comes A Time", "Look Out for My Love", "Lotta Love"

Rust Never Sleeps (1979) A huge departure from what Young was working on and apparently Young's move to make himself feel less irrelevant in his sound, Rust Never Sleeps is a live record with two faces. Side one is an acoustic side of more traditionally sound Neil Young fare whereas side two is the birth of grunge. The album opens with the acoustic version of "Hey Hey, My My (Out of the Blue)." It's his ode to the fact that his sound was becoming dated and his new found love for the punk rock scene that was taking over. The acoustic version was the initial intent for the track, but upon touring, Crazy Horse would back him up for an electric version (same title with the addendum "(Into the Black.)") that would be the landmark of this record. It predates many bands that would come in the post-punk scene and grunge movement from Sonic Youth to Dinosaur Jr. "Powderfinger" was originally written by Young for Lynyrd Skynyrd who would never record it due to the death of Young's friend Ronnie Van Zant. It's a fantastic country electric rocker. "Welfare Mothers" and "Sedan Delivery" are screeching and brutal rockers that are blisteringly intense. "Thrasher" is a particularly great song on side one with it's simple acoustic and harmonica sounds. As much as Rust Never Sleeps was a revitilization of Young's career, that wouldn't last long as his 80's output and turmoil with record companies would plague him for a decade and a half. Rust Never Sleeps is the official end to the Golden Age of Neil Young.

Key Tracks: "Hey Hey, My My (Into The Black)", "Thrasher", "Pocahontas", "Powederfinger", "Welfare Mothers", "Sedan Delivery"

Discography: Brian Eno

2010-01-30T13:31:00.012-05:00

My next discography is going to be an interesting one. Brian Eno has a doppelganger career as both a glam/avant rock musician and then slowly transitioning into the world of Ambient music. It's also going to be somewhat incomplete as most of this will be Eno and not any of his collaborations (with the likes of Harold Budd, John Cale and David Byrne as well as his two album stint with Roxy Music.) Sadly some of Eno's other Ambient albums are harder to come by, but alas I feel as if this will be pretty complete regardless of this. So this is more or less a half discography spanning from 1974's Here Come The Warm Jets to 1983's Apollo: Atmospheres and Soundtracks.

Here Come the Warm Jets (1974) Brian Eno's first solo record after departing Roxy Music as well as after his experimental work with Robert Fripp on (No Pussyfooting), Eno teamed up with countless musicians for Here Come the Warm Jets. Surprisingly recorded in 12 days, the album is filled with frenzied guitars, bombastic lyrical wordplay and one of the best guitar solos you'll ever hear. The record is about as close to glam rock as any in Eno's career. Songs like "Needles in the Camel's Eye" and "Cindy Tells Me" are spacey rockers chock full of wonderful sounds. The stellar track, and easily Eno's best of the more straightforward rock era, "Baby's On Fire" has easily one of the best guitar solos care of King Crimson's Robert Fripp. It's a searing track that is filled with sound. Fripp's guitar takes over and brings it to a new height. Warm Jets may be one of Eno's more standard albums in the sense of straight rock music, but even in that case it's still out there and ahead of it's time. Eno would have a different take on what pop music could be a few albums later, but even here he juxtaposes what his experiences with Roxy Music were like.

Key Tacks: "Needles in the Camel's Eye", "Baby's On Fire", "Cindy Tells Me", "On Some Faraway Beach", "Blank Frank"

Taking Tiger Mountain (By Strategy) (1974) In the same year, Eno would progress his sound immensely from the awesome Here Come the Warm Jets to the strangely sparse yet utterly captivating Taking Tiger Mountain (By Strategy.) Although this album still boasts a rock sound, it's almost a punk rock statement to release music as choppy and strange as what appears on the album. A song like the rollicking "Third Uncle" or the gloomy and foreboding "The Fat Lady of Limbourg" are polar opposites and strangely distant. The art rock takes on forms like "Burning Airlines Gives You So Much More", a wonderful pop track as well as the quirky "China My China" with it's typewriter solo. All in all, Taking Tiger Mountain (By Strategy) seems to be a leap forward in some respects even if it's a small step.

Key Tracks: "Burning Airlines Give You So Much More", "Fat Lady of Limbourg", "China My China", "Third Uncle"

Another Green World (1975) Just another few months after Taking Tiger Mountain, Eno released easily one of his best records in Another Green World. Gone are the glam rock trappings and only five songs have lyrics and vocals. This record is the first indication that Brian Eno was going to take his music into a new direction. The spaced out expansion of his music is a divergent turn from the previous years two records. Songs like "St. Elmo's Fire" and "I'll Come Running" is as close as a pop song as you'll get here. Both are way more spaced out than the more hard hitting tracks from Here Come the Warm Jets or the strange and stark songs from Tiger Mountain. Instead these tunes are floating in the ether. "The Big Ship" slowly comes in witha wave of guitars that sound like the music of another world. "In Dark Trees" plays up more paranoia in it's sound as an interesting arrangement of guitars and strange bleeping percussion ripples in and out. All of these emotions are felt through the music and not through the lyrics. It's in this that Brian Eno would really find his home as Another Green World is the first sign of his ambient career to come.

Key Tracks: "Sky Saw", "The Big Ship", "St. Elmo's Fire", "In Dark Trees", "Golden Hours", "Becalmed", "Everything Merges With The Night"

Discreet Music (1975) Again with two albums in one year (not including Evening Star with Robert Fripp), Discreet Music is the first fully fledged piece of ambient work that Eno undertook. The titular track is one whole side of the record and is an experimental tape loop. For a better, detailed description, go here. The sounds of the synthesizer loop over each other and create different sounding passages that are just overlapping threads of sound. It's intention is best used for meditation, background music or what I prefer to call a "dream machine." It's calming and ambient and in that respect, it's perfect for all sorts of activities to fill in the dead air of silence with something more engaging. The second half of the record is variations on Canon in D Major by Pachelbel. These are intriguing deconstructions, but for the most part the best thing of Discreet Music is the single side track. The album in that sense is more of an interesting experiment and observation on the deconstruction of music.

Key Track: "Discreet Music"

Before and After Science (1977) Eno's last album with lyrics for some time, Before and After Science has more conventional tunes, but it's a perfect place to see how Eno's ambient sound would meld with more conventional pop tunes, all found on the second half of the record. The first half picks up the speed more so than the previous two albums with the anagram rocker "King Lead Hat" and the silly yet entirely engaging and catchy "Backwater." Where the album really shines is in it's spacey and brooding second half. Each song has an ethereal element to it, bringing his ambient sound and blending it perfectly with conventional songs. "Julie With..." is a perfect track that slowly sways in with its delicate guitar and piano as one of Eno's best vocal performances then gently comes into view. "By This River" is a deeply saddening track giving the feeling of utter and complete stagnation. The stellar outing is "Spider & I" which has some of the most beautifully stark and simplistic, yet emotionally captivating music and lyrics that Eno has ever captured. It's all dreamy and hazy and as with many of the songs on the second half, slowly comes in and fades back out with utter beauty. It's easily Eno's perfect record.

Ket Tracks: A masterpiece is a masterpiece. Not sure if I can say any tracks aren't great.

Music For Airports (1978) As Before and After Science ended Eno's career with more conventional music, he started his ambient career off on the right foot. It may be the most unbearable record if you try to approach it as conventional music. Instead, it's best treated as a meditation piece or music you use to study to. The tracks are divided up into numbers without titles and each piece, much like Discreet Music, the music is looped tapes of synths, pianos, guitars or vocals for each track that seem like pre-written songs, but it's all just as it happens. The vocal track "2/1" is just a series of 20 second loops, each a different length, repeated. The sound is utterly breathtaking and dynamic. It sounds as if they interact with each other but in reality it's just a loop. The best of these tracks is the 16 minute "1/1" with it's simple piano slowly creating something beautiful.

Key Tracks: "1/1", "2/1"

Music For Films (1978) Although Music for Films works less on an album level then other ambient records, it is worth noting that unlike both Discreet Music and Music for Airports, the music is not just looped material but actual musicians working on the pieces of music. An all star line up including John Cale, Phil Collins and Robert Fripp are all in tow and each track has it's own idea. The tracks are meant to be the score to "imaginary films" and are soundscapes that could easily be used as a soundtrack. Some songs did go on to be in films, such as "Slow Water" which utilizes Fripp's sonic guitar tones. It's more or less an intriguing selection of songs, but as a whole it pales in comparison to much of the other prominent Eno ambient recordings you could get. I find myself going back to this record the least.

Key Tracks: "Slow Water", "There is Nobody", "Quartz", "Patrolling Wire Borders"

Apollo: Atmospheres and Soundtracks (1983) Although there were other ambient albums in between this and '78's Music for Films, those were all collaborations and also extremely hard to find. That being said, someday I will update this section with Discography: Brian Eno and Various Collaborations. Anyway, of all the ambient records, Apollo is by far the best. It contains some of Eno's finest moments and has been used in several films, namely the documentary For All Mankind. It has several different styles involved on the record ranging from the stark and minimalistic "Stars", the almost ambient-country feel of tracks like "Weightless" and the synthesizer driven and utterly heartbreaking "An Ending (Ascent)." This dynamic calls for a little more variety on the album and also opens up the lanes for some amazing guitar work care of Daniel Lanois. A song like "Deep Blue Day" is ever grateful for Daniel Lanois' amazing guitar flourishes. This being the best of Eno's ambient albums, if this type of music is something that you are into, then this would be the best place to start.

Key Tracks: "An Ending (Ascent)", "Deep Blue Day", "Stars", "Always Returning", "Spirits Drifting", "Silver Morning"

That's all for now. There are many more Eno albums, some I've heard some I can't find. But this is more of a part one. Someday down the line I will hunt all of these records down.

The Magnetic Clamour of IRM

2010-01-28T14:57:00.007-05:00

When I read earlier in 2009 that Charlotte Gainsbourg was releasing a second album in Janurary 2010 with Beck writing, producing and playing a lot of the music, I was immediately frothing at the mouth with anticipation. Charlotte's 5:55, which stood at #59 on my decade albums list, is a beautiful record. However, knowing that Air was her backing band then and Beck would be handling that now, it would come as no surprise when the album would sound shockingly progressive and different. Luckily I was able to hear IRM in part when Charlotte stopped in Philadelphia recently, her first time touring and first time in our fair city. Now that the album has officially graced our shores, I can safely say that it is a work of delightful genius. It's important to know that several songs address the near death experience Charlotte faced, hence having to have an MRI (IRM in French.) That said, the track "IRM" has the claustrophobic sounds that and actual MRI has. The clamour and shifting of mechanical parts and the otherworldly sounds that are emitted from the machine. The album has many sides, but one thing is apparent; Beck draws on percussion, acoustic guitars and orchestral arrangements (some done by his father.) The song "Vanities" is a delightfully stark track filled with a delicate guitar pluck to shadow Charlotte's voice and then the strings come in and change the mood even more. "Time of The Assassins" is a short but sweet tune with Beck's cooing in the background of the chorus. As usual, a highlight of the record is when Charlotte sings in her native French. The track "Le Chat du Café des Artistes" is one of the most Beck sounding tracks taking a page from "Dark Star", the best track from his record The Information. Brooding drums and bass are accentuated by a Hitchcockian string arrangement. What IRM does is expand upon Charlotte's strengths as a singer. Although 5:55 is an excellent record, IRM progresses beyond just the love song driven piano ballads and goes somewhere else in the stratosphere. Her duet with Beck, "Heaven Can Wait", shows that there is even more promise for her career. The album is a delight and if she returns to the United States to tour it further, be sure to check it out. It was a fantastic experience.

Discography - Beck

2010-01-19T11:33:00.019-05:00

It's no surprise I'd tackle my favorite solo artist next. Beck's album arc is stranger than most artists. He's our era's David Bowie in that respect. He's more prolific than most artists of the newer generation. Ten records out from 1994 to 2008 and that does not include some of the indie records and the slew of B-Sides and unreleased stuff. For our cause, We'll start with Stereopathetic Soul Manure.

Stereopathetic Soul Manure (1994) The first of three records in one year, Beck released Stereopathetic Soul Manure on Flipside Records before his debut came out on the major label on DGC. The album is a schizophrenic hodge-podge of all kinds of strange experiment, traditional tracks and other sound clips. It's definitely Beck's most peculiar album in the catalog, but it also contains some stellar samplings from Beck's early career. Songs like "Satan Gave Me A Taco" show Beck's troubadour/slacker story teller roots that would be paramount throughout Beck's early era. "Rowboat", a fantastic blues song, was covered by Johnny Cash at one point, shows also that Beck still has a firm foot in the blues. It's less of an album and more of brain droppings. I can't really recommend this outside of rabid Beck fandom.

Key Tracks: "Rowboat" "Crystal Clear (Beer)" "Satan Gave Me A Taco"

Mellow Gold (1994) Beck's first major label release is a time capsule of the 90's counterculture. Much like "My Generation" by our first band to get the Discography spot, "Loser" is an anthem of the 90's and one that is undeniable to the culture of the time. It's a lot harder now that Beck has become so prolific, but for the time many thought "look at this guy." and thought he would slip into obscurity. Luckily the album pointed to the future with tracks like "Pay No Mind (Snoozer)", a surprisingly stark look at the record industry, "Blackhole" which is an underrated sleeper on the record and "Soul Suckin' Jerk" which is a punk rock sloppy mess of a brilliant track. What Beck does best is take genre and sound and juxtapose them and Mellow Gold has plenty of gems worth playing some 15 years later into his career. The cool thing here is that the genre melting is so intense that it really just sounds like Beck. Mellow Gold isn't by far my favorite album, but it's a genuine classic and a must own.

Key Tracks: "Loser", "Pay No Mind (Snoozer)", "Soul Suckin' Jerk", "Whiskeyclone, Hotel City 1997", "Beercan", "Blackhole"

One Foot In The Grave (1994) Getting a very sleek and extended re-issue this past year is one of Beck's most underrated albums, One Foot In the Grave. It's a swampy, muddy blues album that has slapdash production but an honesty that is pure and wonderful. This record, released on K Records, was the second indie released album by Beck in the same year and is by far the more superior. The songs are rather short, but unlike Soulmanure, they are at least not fragments of songs but consistently good blues. The Skip James cover "He's A Mighty Good Leader" is the front runner of the sound on the album with just a guitar, a stamping foot and Beck's wayward vocals. "Fourteen Rivers, Fourteen Floods" is the best Delta blues song that Muddy Waters didn't write. "Cyanide Breath Mint" lends to the anti-major label execs wanting him to stick to the "Loser" shtick and "Asshole" is one of Beck's finer songs of love lost. One Foot proves one thing and that's Beck knows the blues.

Key Tracks: "He's A Mighty Good Leader", "Sleeping Bag", "Cyanide Breath Mint", "Asshole"

Odelay - (1996) What else can I say about Beck's perfect album? I mean, start to finish Odelay is something else. The addition of The Dust Brothers in the production room would usher in an era of cool and probably be his best production collaborator. I know that's hard with Nigel Godrich being his other constant companion, but we'll get to that soon enough. Whether it's the big hits like "Devil's Haircut", "New Pollution" and"Where It's At" or the fan favorites like "Novacane" and "Hotwax", there are a slew of excellent folk-hop goodies to be had. When the end hits you with "Ramshackle," it's hard not to see just how brilliant Beck really is. Nostalgia aside, I still don't know if Beck has sounded as good as on Odelay. It's really a stunner of a record and one that should join the ranks as one of the best of all time.

Key Tracks: Hard to not list every song.... the only not so great track is "Derelict" and even that song rules.

Mutations (1998) Before I was hardcore into Beck, I didn't even know Mutations existed. I knew songs from the record, but it was a VH1 Behind the Music type show about Beck that got me intrigued by this album. Bought it immediately and found the first introspective look into Beck without all the clamour and bang of his prior records. That's not to dilute the meaning behind his blues or crazy records, but Mutations strips it away and brings on the baroque. Nigel Godrich's production brings in a less frenzied pace and on songs like "Cold Brains" and "Lazy Flies" we still get the upbeat Beck style, but from a different angle. The amazingly beautiful "Nobody's Fault But My Own" brings in sitars and tons of other sounds swirling in the background making it easily one of Beck's finest songs. Overall the album is one of Beck's finest artistic statements with heart felt songs to his Grandfather like "We Live Again" to the calypso of "Tropicalia." It's all Beck still but it was something different. Beck's first serious album of sorts.

Key Tracks: "Cold Brains", "Nobody's Fault But My Own", "Canceled Check", "We Live Again", "Dead Melodies", "Tropicalia"

Midnite Vultures (1999) After Beck's more personal, quite and reflective album Mutations exploded the most enjoyably fun record of the 90's, Midnite Vultures. That's right, most fun record of the 90's. Especially for it to drop amid the late 90's suck zone of popular music, Beck created an electrical sex explosion of an album. With Prince and David Bowie's Young Americans being his muse, Beck concocts sexy lounge tales of love("Debra",) Kraftwerk infused debaucheries robot sex ("Get Real Paid") and straight up dance floor ready jams ("Sexx Laws".) His hyper frenetic take on hip hop, "Hollywood Freaks" takes the whole sound to the highest and most ridiculous with screams of "he my nun!" in the background as well as calling out Norman Schwarzkopf. Vultures was also a Dust Brothers production and the clamour of sound effects, sampling, instrumentation and all other sorts of wackiness add to the sheer fun that Midnite Vultures can bring. From the first time I heard it to today, it's been a staple for any party (and originally was played at midnight at every party) as well as a staple for getting amped for any good time. For some reason, this is Beck's most misunderstood record, and to me that is a crying shame. Your loss, really.

Key Tracks: "Sexx Laws", "Nicotine and Gravy", "Hollywood Freaks", "Get Real Paid", "Broken Train", "Debra"

Sea Change (2002) Almost every great artist has their heartbreak/break-up album of sorts, but Beck's Sea Change, coming after his over sexed and hyper kinetic Midnite Vultures was a surprise left turn. When I saw Beck for the first time on his small pre-Sea Change one man show, Beck shed his heart out on forthcoming tracks like "Sunday Sun" which immediately stunned me. It was a beautiful and heartbreaking number and on the album it takes a whole level of beauty with it's arrangements and freak-out ending. Tracks like "Lonesome Tears" never lets the listener rest with the ache that he feels. "The Golden Age" is a faux prosperity. The line "these days I hardly get by" is a heart wrenching feeling for a supposed Golden Age. "Already Dead" is definitely a feeling many have gone through when the loss gets so hard, but what's funny is that beyond the lyricism being straightforward and honest, the music is still compelling and fantastic. It's by far the best of the Nigel Godrich albums, with stunners like "Paper Tiger" filled with swooping strings and a funky bass groove. There is no denying that Beck's finest work in the past decade comes from the heart rather than from a stranger place that Beck usually traverses.

Key Tracks: "Paper Tiger", "Lonesome Tears", "Sunday Sun", "Already Dead", "Lost Cause"

Guero (2005) Beck's latter career in the 21st century had troubles after Sea Change. Although Guero is chock full of excellent songs, something is missing from it as an album. Part of my feeling in that regard is the fact that the leaked version of Guero was much more captivating. "E-Pro" had less production and an abrupt ending, "Scarecrow" was a 7 minute static jam with some amazing Beck harmonica and bluesy guitar work and some songs that ended up being B-Sides ("Send A Message To Her" and "Chain Reaction") were actually superior to some that ended up on the actual release. Regardless, songs like "Missing" and "Earthquake Weather" luckily remained intact and ended up being some of my personal favorite Beck songs. The album boasts some nice celebrity guests like Jack White rocking the funky bass line on "Go It Alone" and a surprisingly strange turn by Christina Ricci on "Hell Yes." Overall, Guero is one of Beck's more uneven albums but it still has a ton of excellent music. Maybe he should have stayed with the original leak track listing, but something that trivial isn't worth dwelling on. Guero is a nice little record that has a great selection of tracks.

Key Tracks: "E-Pro", "Missing", "Hell Yes", "Girl", "Earthquake Weather", "Farewell Ride"

The Information (2006) Easily the weakest link in the chain, The Information is a muddled album. It is one of those cases where an album could easily have been an EP with the best tracks numbering in at around 4 or 5 and the rest is just there. Nigel and Beck wanted to do a hip-hop record of sorts and this is what came about. Woozy bores like "Soldier Jane" and "Think I'm In Love" are muzak compared to your usual Beck and only work when used as background music. However, songs like "Cellphone's Dead" and "Dark Star" bring the heat with more intriguing musical elements and lyrical wordplay at first glance absurd and at second glance great social comment. The album shifts back and forth from redeeming tracks to boring sleepers and the final track is a bit of a mess. It's surprising that Beck's long worked on record ended up being less enjoyable then Guero which was pounded out between sessions for The Information.

Key Tracks: "Cellphone's Dead", "Dark Star", "We Dance Alone"

Modern Guilt (2008) Luckily Beck picked up a new companion in the studio with Danger Mouse and in 2008, beck released a morbid but delightful psych pop record in Modern Guilt. It's by far Beck's shortest record since One Foot in the Grave and it's even shorter than that record. Somehow Beck learned his miscue with The Information and instead of packing in tracks, gave us the ten best. Short, poppy but dark, Modern Guilt boasts one of the defining moments in Beck's career in "Chemtrails." Although not the usual clamour of funky grooves and sounds, the track swells in and out like the tide with fantastically woozy synths and falsetto and then comes crashing in with it's intensely groovy bass and Moonesque drums. "Gamma Ray" may seem like a cheap rip off of "Girl" form Guero, but it still works as a beach blanket party shuffle. "Volcano" is Beck at his darkest giving up on humanity to get "back into the womb of the world." The titular track is an ode to the Zombie's and "Orphans" is a perfect album opener. It also houses one of the most poetic and beautiful Beck lyrics of all time, and it is in this lyrics that I leave you on this edition of Discography:

If I wake up and see my maker coming
With all of his crimson and his iron desire
We'll drag the streets with baggage of longing
To be loved or destroyed
From a void to a grain of sand in your hand

Key Tracks: "Orphans", "Chemtrails", "Walls", "Volcano", "Replica"

Beck is up to lots on his website via Record Club where him and musician pals will get together and cover full albums. He's almost three records deep, but I will not be reviewing these. Beck, more so than The Who, has a mountain of B-Sides and unreleased tracks as well as other smaller indie records. My apologies for not delving into these but due to their wildly out of print nature, I would not want to tease you into thinking you can get them without it being illegal or damn lucky to get.

The Summertime Haze of Real Estate

2010-01-18T16:16:00.007-05:00

Psych surf sounds like the wrong way to describe Real Estate, the titular debut of the Jersey born band. It isn't quite classically surf rock like Dick Dale or Link Wray and it is somewhat hazier and covered in a thin veil of darkness to be as sunny as The Beach Boys. It's psychedelia, but never hard rocking and it's pop music, but it's never over produced. Real Estate is the album I missed last year that has potential to be a lasting favorite. There seems to be something much more honest and special about this group. The first track, "Beach Comber", comes in slowly and drifts up to your ears as it's drum beat shuffles in from the haze and the guitar picks away at a catchy little riff. It's simplistic music but the production, rife with the white washed glow of a summers day at the beach allowing all the optimism of a vacation come through in the calming sound, still has some uncertainty to it. The opening lyric "What you want is just outside your reach/You keep on searchin’" is of that wondering spirit many get with just a moment that the music conveys. That clouded, summertime restlessness. The music is perfect for that feeling. "Pool Swimmers" is that twilight feel of sneaking into backyards to find a spot for night swimming and the song is filled with an eerie joy. "Atlantic City" is an instrumental groove jam that sounds like the euphoria and depression that you get at the same time from entering the casinos. If anything, Real Estate may be the perfect album for dreaming of the summer. If anything, the group have been my crutch through this cold New Jersey winter. I can't wait for this record to become the soundtrack for relaxing down the Jersey shore, where the inspiration for the record came.

Discography: The Who

2010-01-15T16:24:00.019-05:00

I always come up with some ambitious idea and never really keep up with it, but while new albums trickle in, I will be going back to my favorite artists and picking out key moments on record in a new series called Discography. I know, boring name, right? Don't have the creative juice to jazz that up just now.

What better way to start then with my all-time favorite group, The Who. Each album will get a short write up and a rating of some sort. Think of this as a rip off/watered down version off A.V. Club's Primer. This won't include every single release, but at least for The Who it will include all studio records AND one live record, integral to the listening experience of the band.

My Generation - (1965) - The Who's debut is an explosive piece of 60's mod rock. The album sprawls and shows a band in it's early phase. This record is the definition of Maximum R&B. Moon and Entwistle carry this record, which was the moniker of The Who's early career. The fuzz and distortion all over this record and the power the band has is obviously best described through easily their one song everyone knows, "My Generation."
Other great take-aways are "The Kids Are Alright" and "A Legal Matter." The sense of Pete Townshend's British wit and his sense of the mod scene is prevalent in these lyrics as they are all for the rebellious youth of the mod culture.

Key Tracks: "My Generation", "The Kids Are Alright", "A Legal Matter", "The Ox"

A Quick One - (1966) - After only a year between debut and sophomore release, A Quick One showed signs of progression. It would be the first Who record to have songs written by each member, it includes a delicious cover of "Heat Wave" and has the very first rock opera of Townshend's career in "A Quick One, While He's Away." The best tracks include lead off rocker "Run Run Run" and Entwistle's growly kids tale, "Boris the Spider." The progression shown was in the varying depths of songwriting from the cutesy love songs like "Don't Look Away" or the powerful instrumental mayhem of "Cobwebs and Strange." It's easily one of The Who's most underrated albums, although it still lacks the magic that would come in just another year.

Key Tracks: "Run Run Run", "So Sad About Us", "A Quick One, While He's Away"

The Who Sell Out - (1966) Where A Quick One is an underrated Who record, The Who Sell Out is one of the most underrated albums of all time. Period. What this record does may very well be the pinnacle of rock and roll in the 60's. It epitomized an era and has some of the most unique Who songs you'll ever hear. Shaped around the concept of pirate radio, Townshend whipped up some of his best love songs ("Sunrise", "Our Love Was") and easily his best rock song in "I Can See For Miles." There isn't a dull moment. Between the catchy jingles, the varying approaches to rock or the brilliant and bombastic nod to the future in "Rael" this easily could be The Who's best record. It's tough to admit it when there are 3 more studio albums of equal but different importance coming up.

Key Tracks: "I Can See For Miles", "Sunrise", "Tattoo", "Mary Anne With the Shaky Hand" "Rael"

Tommy - (1969) - A long gestation period and loads of touring occurred in between Sell Out and Tommy lead to speculation of The Who breaking up and plenty of other controversy, but luckily instead Tommy drops and everything changed. A bonafide classic rock center piece, there is nothing wrong with Tommy except its ambition. Even with tons of takeaway tracks, Tommy is still a record that demands attention for 74 minutes. From "The Overture" to "Where Not Gonna Take It", there really is no time to put the thing down. This was groundbreaking and insanely ahead of its time at this point and it was the end of the 60's for The Who. 40 years later, Tommy still sounds fantastic. It's really a no brainer, but anyone not owning a copy of Tommy is doing themselves a huge injustice.

Key Tracks: The entire album? But especially "Overture", "Amazing Journey/Sparks", "Underture", "I'm Free", "We're Not Gonna Take It"

Live At Leeds - 1970 - Although it's a live concert, there is no way Live at Leeds can be left off this discography. It is one of few live albums that are must own material. It's also a must own Deluxe Edition. The stripped down LP and early CD releases are an abomination compared to the Deluxe Edition which has the entire concert, including the live version of Tommy. That disc is good and all but it's the blistering covers of Mose Allison's "Young Man Blues" that proves why The Who is the greatest live Rock and Roll band of all time. "Heaven and Hell" kicks it off in usual Entwistle dark comedy, but this version trumps any studio copy of the same song. The real kick in the pants is the insanely fantastic live version of "A Quick One, While He's Away." After hearing this first and not knowing it was live only to here the audience kick in was mind blowing. It's a ride that every fan of The Who must take and even the casual listener would enjoy.

Key Tracks: "Young Man Blues", "A Quick One, While He's Away", "Summertime Blues" "Shakin' All Over"

Who's Next - 1971 - After Woodstock and Live at Leeds, The Who entered the 70's and changed their act massively. Using tons of studio technology to lay down tons of tracks, Who's Next is a remarkable record that sounds pristine and authentic to this day. "Baba O'Rielly" still packs a massive punch to the heart strings, "Bargain" is an underrated rocker, "The Song is Over" is some of Pete Townshend's finest songwriting and "Won't Get Fooled Again" never fails to blow it's listener out of the water. With the added sound of synthesizers to the mix, The Who embarked on a fantastic journey with Who's Next which is easily their most appealing album. Not a single song on the record is weak. It's hard for a band to release something this good.

Key Tracks: Start to finish perfect.

Quadrophenia - 1974- Another really long break between albums, due in part to the Tommy movie, Pete Townshend had time to write one of the most daring and ultimately would become their greatest achievement, Quadrophenia. It may not have the easy access that Who's Next does, but Quadrophenia is a challenging album. It definitely marks the high water mark of musical ability in the group. John Entwistle shines brightest here especially on tracks like "The Real Me" and "Sea and Sand." Pete's lyrics are at their most introspective and his guitar work stands as a testament of sheer power. Moon's drumming on songs like "I've Had Enough" and "Bell Boy." It definitely has some of the groups darker moments with tracks like "Doctor Jimmy" showing the dark side of boozing. All in all, it is a beautiful record filled with intensity and the best musicianship The Who ever showed.

Key Tracks: "The Real Me", "Cut My Hair", "I've Had Enough", "Sea & Sand", "Love Reign O'er Me"

The Who by Numbers (1975) - Over ambition will usually lead to some sort of slump, and although The Who by Numbers is a stellar album, it still pales in comparison to four home runs in a row. The biggest beef fans and critics had with By Numbers was it's dark and cynical tone, but it is easily one of the most daunting lyrically in The Who catalog. Songs like "However Much I Booze" or "Imagine A Man" sound less like Who songs and more like Pete Townshend tracks, but nevertheless still rock. It's in this split that makes the album a tad bit weaker than most. Rock tracks like "Slip Kid" and "Success Story" sound more like what the band would bring to the table collectively and they are shining moments. However, something is lacking in coherency throughout that makes this record a weak follow up. It lacks the intensity of Who's Next and lacks the overarching ideas of Tommy and Quadrophenia. It works well as a collection of songs, but not as an album.

Key Tracks: "Slip Kid", "However Much I Booze", "Dreaming From the Waist", "Success Story"

Who Are You (1978) - The final Who record with the full line-up, Who Are You is an intriguing mess. It has dull moments when the songs just fail to do much such as "905" and "New Song," but it also showed that The Who still had lots of power. The titular track is still one of the best songs The Who have ever produced and the intriguingly sparse "Music Must Change" are two tracks that have tons of capacity. "Sister Disco" is also a favorite with it's intriguing swirling guitar and synth effects. Sadly, Keith Moon passed on shortly after the album was released and The Who would never be the same.

Key Tracks: "Who Are You", "Sister Disco", "Music Must Change"

Face Dances (1981) - Even though The Who was changed forever with Keith Moon's death, they soldiered on for a few more albums. Some may say that the late era Who discs are more like Pete Townshend solo records would be somewhat true. Pete's better songs landed on his 1980 standout solo record Empty Glass. Still, there were enough tracks that were deemed worthy of The Who moniker and they are lasting as well. "You Better, You Bet", a tongue-twister lyrically, is easily one of the Who's finer late period songs. "Don't Let Go The Coat" sounds more like a Pete song, but Daltry's kinda screwy vocal performance makes the track magical. John Entwistle also brought his A-Game with "The Quiet One" which is a fantastic rocker. Other than that, Face Dances fails to deliver much more.

Key Tracks: "You Better You Bet", "The Quiet One"

It's Hard (1982) Just one year later, It's Hard was released and left much to be desired. It is by far the weakest of all Who records. Again, most material was sub par to what Pete Townshend was releasing by himself, but there are still glimpses of genius. Maybe just one. "Eminence Front" is The Who's best 80's track filled with a droning and constant synth back bone, Pete's furious guitar jamming and John Entwistle kicking in here and there. Absent is Roger Daltry on this track, making it and odd choice as a Who track when I'm sure on a Pete Townshend album it would have worked just fine. "Athena" is a catchy enough track, but it fails to really be too lasting of a track. It's Hard proved that The Who, although still fantastic live, had a hard time creating magic in the studio. Somehow Rolling Stone gave It's Hard five stars. I'm still trying to figure that one out.

Key Track: "Eminence Front"

Endless Wire (2006) - Oddly enough, the best tracks from Endless Wire, a better album then It's Hard or Face Dances as a whole, are the tracks where the two surviving members of The Who are all you can hear. Tracks like "Man in a Purple Dress" lambasting religious figures who feel the need to wear ridiculous vestments to give them credibility, or the beautiful, poetic and poignant "God Speaks of Marty Robbins." The final track, "Tea and Theater" became a fan favorite as it sadly represents what could easily by the final track on the final Who record. The only rocker on the disc to really captivate is part of the Wire and Glass EP called "Soiund Round." It's a quicky rocker reminiscent of early era Who that really makes you remember the greatness of the band. Overall, the disc feels a bit stale at moments, but when the two Who members left come together, something whistful and beautiful was created.

Key Tracks: "A Man in a Purple Dress", "God Speaks of Marty Robbins", "You Stand By Me", "Sound Round"

Contra Not So Revolutionary

2010-01-14T09:24:00.005-05:00

It's no surprise really that Vampire Weekend's second effort, Contra, is anything but revolutionary. At times, it has all the pop elements and trappings of a fine record, but other times it strays into the world of "We want to be Paul Simon REALLY bad" territory, which is a bit labored. There also seems to be a track that uses auto tune? Anyway, let's get to the matter here: Vampire Weekend is not anything to write home about, as per usual, but they can still write a decently catchy song. The lead of track and second single, "Horchata" shows that the band does have some room to grow bringing in new sounds like marimbas and more synths taking place of the jangly guitars from the first record. To me, that has it's ups and downs. What I loved most about songs like "A-Punk" or "Cape Cod Kwassa Kwassa" were the interesting guitar arrangements. The track "Holiday" most replicates this sound, but without going further. If these Ivy League boys wanted to, they could probably shred some sweet rock music. The first single "Cousins" is a raging rocker buried under this polished sound. It has the most redeeming elements, with hyper-kinetic drums and super fast guitar theatrics. After that, everything else seems to be trying to hard. Every song sounds like it's purposely supposed to sound islandy or Carribean. There really is not sense of self on the record. "California English" is a laughable track with it's unnecessary use of the awful auto tune effect. It adds no depth to the music or the lyrics and if anything it's a detraction. There are many decent moments on Contra, but they are overshadowed by the weaker tracks. With a little more guitars upfront in the mix, Vampire Weekend could have tapped into something spectacular. Instead, we got a failed experiment of sorts and an album stretching for direction. I guarantee, as many other publications have already proved, that this album will launch the band for some reason into a sort of limelight that any indie band could achieve, but there is not much left to enjoy on the record. Oh, and did I mention that the album art really annoys me?