Blogging, Books, Cats, Music, Mayhem
Today’s pick is a look at the early work of The Cure. Standing on a Beach and Staring at the Sea are co-sharing the pick for #76, because the titles are almost the same album. Let me explain… Continue reading ““Standing on a Beach / Staring at the Sea” by The Cure (No. 76)”
Free, the second album from LA-based Concrete Blonde is today’s pick for my top 100 favorite albums.
Concrete Blonde sits in the 80s/90s “Alternative/Indie” bucket, which means they’re not exactly top 40, not exactly hard rock, and they didn’t have a major label behind them for their first few albums. Free was released by I.R.S., which had also been home to R.E.M. before the band jumped over to Warner Bros. and released Green.
There are many sins in programming music on radio stations, but here are a few biggies: “Train wrecks,” where the second song is jarring and takes the listener out of the moment; “Ramps,” when the deejay talks over the instrumental lead of the song; and failing to program Journey’s “Lovin’, Touchin’, Squeezin'” and “City of the Angels” back to back. Continue reading ““Evolution” by Journey (No. 78)”
On the off chance that anyone is actually playing along at home, I feel bad about listing records that you can’t easily find on Spotify, Google Play, or other digital music services. Yet, like Prison, I can’t really leave Ekstasis off the list. (You can find it on Bandcamp, though.)
Ekstasis is in a similar vein with Hallucination Engine, being a heady mix of funk, jazz, rock, world music, and the kitchen sink if it adds anything. The album is credited to guitarist Nicky Skopelitis, but the cast of characters contributing looks a lot like a Material album. Continue reading ““Ekstasis” by Nicky Skopelitis (No. 79)”
Liz Phair‘s Whip-Smart is a perfect Saturday afternoon album. By happy accident, that’s when I’m re-listening to Whip-Smart and writing this post.
Whip-Smart is not a radio-friendly album, unless the radio station is an early 90s alt-rock station with a penchant for pissing off the FCC. Unusual at the time, Phair drops more than a few f-bombs on Whip-Smart, and Phair’s songwriting doesn’t produce a lot of accessible tunes ready to push out as a single anyway.
Sure, “Supernova,” is an exception to this rule. Clocking in at just 2:48, it sports a chunky, fuzzed out guitar hook that makes the song as crowd-pleasing as they come.
[youtube https://youtu.be/9EUT9Bo0IEg]
But many of the tracks on Whip-Smart are ethereal and un-rushed. More like vignettes or short stories with a backing track. Phair’s delivery alternates between hushed and vulnerable and the confident alt-rock goddess.
“Cinco De Mayo,” is a more straight-forward rocker with Phair’s trademark off-key delivery and garage band sound. “Dogs of L.A.” is somewhere between the lands of ethereal and off-key garage rock.
Then there’s the title track for the album, “Whip-Smart.” Easily one of my favorite Phair songs, it’s a song about how she plans to raise her son, someday. The chorus is irresistible, and it’s just a magnificent track all around.
[youtube https://youtu.be/QAqPG1a0uz0]
“Jealousy” is another more direct number, with a heavy bass throb and loose rhythm guitar. Phair is wrestling with the green-eyed monster in this one, singing:
I can’t believe you had a life before me
I can’t believe they let you run around free
Just putting your body wherever it seemed like a good idea
If you’re new to Phair, give it a chance, then dig out Exile in Guyville and the rest of her catalog. Sadly, it’s a bit slim – Phair has only put out six full-length albums since Exile in 1993. Say what you will about Phair, she doesn’t hold back. Maybe that’s why I enjoy Whip-Smart so much: It’s raw, unfiltered, and deeply personal. Its lack of polish is a feature, not a bug. On repeated listens, it gets even better.
Hack may, in fact, be the only album to sample a Walt Disney read-a-long album and James Brown on the same track. The fact that it works is just the icing on the cake.
The follow-up to their self-titled album, Information Society put out Hack in September of 1990. This one Takes on a decidedly harsher and more experimental tone than Information Society and failed to have the same kind of success that the debut album did. But commercial success and successful music aren’t always the same thing. Continue reading ““Hack” by Information Society (No. 81)”
XTC‘s The Big Express pulls into the top 100 station at number 82. Roughly in the middle of the band’s discography, The Big Express successfully melds the awkward New Wave-y XTC nicely with the more lush, Beatlesque XTC to come.
Picking my favorite XTC album or albums is sort of like trying to choose my favorite limbs or organs. Yes, when absolutely necessary, I could choose. That’s not to say that I’d be happy losing any of them. Continue reading “The Big Express” by XTC (No. 82)”
Today’s pick, Hallucination Engine by Material is a bit of a sharp departure from the likes of The Who, L7, Rollins Band, and the rest of the list so far – excepting, perhaps, Steven Jessie Bernstein.
Where I mostly go for straight-forward classic rock, hard rock, or alternative, Hallucination Engine mostly instrumental, or only features background chants or singing – and much of that not in English, so that the vocals are also treated as another instrument or texture in the fabric of the song. Continue reading ““Hallucination Engine” by Material (No. 83)”
If you ever need an album to derive inspiration from at the gym, Weight is your friend. The Rollins Band’s 1994 Weight is the Rollins Band at its most accessible, but losing none of its hardness.
“Disconnect” starts relatively placidly, Rollins speak-singing about wanting to get away from the noise of other people before putting the song abruptly into high gear. Rinse, repeat. It’s the best anthem for the weary. Continue reading ““Weight” by Rollins Band (No. 84)”
The Minus 5 may be one of the best bar bands ever assembled. Made up of a rotating cast of alt-rock heroes like former R.E.M.’er Peter Buck and drummer Bill Rieflin, and headed by Scott McCaughey of the Young Fresh Fellows, the self-titled The Minus 5 is a loose, rollicking set of songs that practically beg to be performed live.
I can thank Robyn Hitchcock for my introduction to The Minus 5. Several members of The Minus 5 (Buck, McCaughey, and Rieflin) backed Hitchcock on his 2006 album Olé! Tarantula as “The Venus 3,” and I had the chance to catch the bands in Seattle, playing the Crocodile Cafe in November 2006. So I nabbed The Minus 5 too, to see what they had to offer. Quite a lot, as it turns out. (Spoiler alert, this isn’t the only time Hitchcock or Buck will appear in the top 100.)