Overrated

NOTE: This post is co-written by Good Jaybee and Evil Jaybee. Most of the work was done by Good Jaybee (because Evil Jaybee is, well, evil) but we’ll call it out when EJ has something to say.

I recently threw a stink bomb into a discussion taking place on an Americana music site.

Members were asked which artists they thought were the most overrated. I just came to listen since I couldn’t think of anyone.

Some of the comments were of the kids these days variety. I'd had enough of that when I was an actual kid, but didn’t rise to the bait this time.

And of course there were the conformist-as-hell-but-don’t-know-it nonconformists who trashed the Beatles. For the most part, though, ire was directed at well, Americana artists, as was apt.

But then a few commenters put some pop/dance/rap artists on their lists. Now I’m a dilettante at best regarding those genres. I hate some, I like some. So I wasn’t exactly defending them when I jumped into it.

My point was if you don’t like a genre, how can you say an artist of that genre is overrated? It’s like someone who hates hearing fat ladies sing saying that opera is overrated. Maybe his opinion just doesn’t matter. Doesn’t he know this? Why is he even talking? The fat lady fans just don’t care.

I got a good mix of responses - none of them threatening actual physical harm. And the dialog eventually got to the I like what I like and you like what you like phase, which leads me to wonder what the point of the exercise was.

I always wondered how someone could dismiss an entire musical genre, anyway. Don’t you have to be familiar with something to form an opinion about it? I’d try to picture the person dutifully listening to a whole stack of albums in order to develop an informed opinion just for this occasion. And at the end of all that effort (and money spent), they would pronounce the genre “Sucky”. Really? Isn’t life too short for all that? Unless you’re a critic and you’re paid to do that.

I’ve since learned that most people don’t go to such lengths. They hear what they hear and then they give their opinion about it. And I guess if you hear a few songs and don’t like any of them, chances are you’re not going to like the next one, either.

Isn’t that enough to just leave it all be? Do you really need to make pronouncements about it? As if those who are enjoying it are wrong? (Evil Jaybee here. I will make exceptions for artists like Journey or Rush, who, if you like them, you're definitely wrong.)

So I got to thinking about what overrated really means. When we use the term, we’re essentially saying that we like something less than other people. Not much of a statement.

The logic of it goes something like this:
You like ______ a lot.
I don’t like _______ as much as you.
Therefore, you have rated ______ too highly.
Thus, you are incorrect.
Stop liking _______.

When put into a more global context, it’s more like this:
The whole world really like ________.
I think _________ is okay,
So the whole world has overrated them.
Thus, the whole world is incorrect.
World, stop liking ______.

This all sounds ridiculous to me, but it’s a bit more entertaining than "To each his own".

It comes back to the question of inherent quality. I once heard Mortimer J. Adler talking to Bill Moyers and rating Shakespeare over the poetry of James Dickey. Bill Moyers preferred the latter. Adler said that Moyers saw a quality in Dickey, as Adler saw in Shakespeare, but added that there was an inherent quality in Shakespeare that made him greater than James Dickey.

Funny how the guy who prefers Shakespeare also finds a greater inherent quality in him. What a coincidence. File that under No Shit, Mortimer.

On the other side of the coin, there are very few people who, when asked to choose between the Beatles and Herman’s Hermits, would pick the latter.  But are they wrong if they do?
(EJ: Hell Yes!) 

But once you get inside their heads you realize they're not. They like HH goddammit! And who am I to say that they’re f*cking stupid morons with no taste?  (Oops, that was EJ again.)

A guy at work who once told me - with a straight face - that he preferred Wings to the Beatles. While I shook my head in disgust, another person there agreed with him. Now you expect to encounter such idiocy on the job but these were people I respected! They were older than me and thus preferred the more poppish/commercial Wings to the slightly rockier Beatles.

And the sales figures at the time may have backed them up on this. I’m actually afraid of finding out. (EJ: I'm not. I just checked a couple of sites and it looks like the Beatles are doing better.) 

Thank God. But was it a matter of time?  Were the quality/marathon Beatles inevitably going to beat out the hit-of-the-moment/sprinter Wings? I’d like to think so, but Cats has still grossed more than Gypsy on Broadway.

(EJ) Let’s stop right here. I will (and sometimes do) shout to the rooftops that the Wings people are WRONG about this. That there is an inherent quality (yeah, I said it) in Beatles music that is lacking in Wings. And those Wings fans make Hermans Hermits fans seem like Rhodes scholars.   

Good Jaybee here. A seemingly obvious difference in quality - Beatles vs. Herman’s Hermits -  may only be so because the Beatles are more famous than HH. In other words, perhaps it’s just the majority saying what they like and drowning out the HH fans.

I don’t have any Hermans Hermits albums. so for all I know they’re masterpieces. (EJ: Ah, but life’s too short to find out, right GJ?)

Uh, yeah. But for the hell of it, I checked the allmusic.com essay, and well, don’t you know that the author thinks their second album is just great?

Which brings me to Willie Nelson.

Or rather, that Americana site.

I somehow got pulled into an argument about Willie, or was it just an offshoot of the original Overrated Debate? Anyway, I was trying to play nice and pushed the to each his own line.

One guy was cool with that, since he was being attacked for liking some of Willie’s later albums. The other guy hated anything by Willie after 1985 or so.

We got to the you like what you like... phase (or, as the anti-Willie guy said, the you’re blind phase). (EJ: Didn’t he mean deaf?)

So to break the tension I decided to ask them both for their suggestions on good Willie Nelson albums. And guess who gave me suggestions? Not the Anti Late Willie guy, of course. You’d think that with all the effort he put into trashing stuff, he'd happily direct me to the "good". But no. He must have gotten bored.

So what’s the point of a negative opinion?  I mean, it’s fine to have one. I have plenty.

Like this one. These guys are overrated:
Led Zeppelin
U2
The Police

Discuss!

And while you’re doing that, here’s one of the greatest songs of the sixties by the just-about-correctly-rated Hermans Hermits.
(EJ: Just try to think of a song by Wings you’d say was one of the greatest of the seventies. Good luck with that!)

Life of Brian, Part Two

My album database (yes, I have an album database, doesn’t everybody?) shows that I have more Albums by the Beatles than any other artist, by a wide margin. But if I were able to count by how many times an artist simply appeared on or participated in a record in some fashion, I think Eno would win it. He’s just all over the place.

So, as promised, here’s a quick rundown of records Brian Eno was involved with, limited, of course, by my knowledge:


Eno As Bandmate:


Roxy Music (1972)

Their first, with a lot of weird but infectious tunes and Phil Manzanera playing some great guitar. It almost all comes together, too, especially when they just. rock. out. I suspect Eno’s one reason it doesn’t. But Bryan Ferry’s hyper-vibrato (think the Little Rascals dog Petey on the weight loss machine) is kind of off-putting, too.  B+

"Virginia Plain"



For Your Pleasure (1973)

I already had this disappointing record on cassette and thought I’d give it another try on CD. Maybe the sound would be better. And it is, a bit, but not the music.

Their first record at least seemed to be the product of a single (demented) mind. This one has two sensibilities at war with neither one winning.

Bryan Ferry was the lead singer/songwriter of the band  and arch-nemesis of Eno. It just goes to show you can only have one Brian in a band at a time, and if you have to have two, for heaven’s sake have them spell it the same way.

It was probably a good thing Eno split. Both he and Roxy Music would go onto better things, like one of my all time favorites Siren.

But they’re not there yet.   B+

“Do the Strand”



Eno Goes Solo: 


Here Come the Warm Jets (1974)

His first solo record after leaving Roxy Music, he’s now unleashed and comes on like gangbusters. Jets is an aggressively harsh and twisted affair, yet with some wonderful tunes mixed in.

Weird and fun and in your face. it’s a favorite of Enophiles. He’s got something to prove, but I think he’s trying to do too much at one time.  He’d soon settle in for the long haul, and learn to modulate the craziness. He’s only getting started. B+

“Cindy Tells Me”



Taking Tiger Mountain (By Strategy) (1974)

His second, and my favorite of the pop-oriented ones.

At first, frustrating but it would grow on me. And hearing it again after all these years, the experiments work, and the willfully weird stuff is just plain fun. The production is clearer here and he’s not trying so hard. The songs are more tuneful and imaginatively arranged overall.
Sorry Friend Mike , but this one’s made me what I am today (which may explain a lot more than I had in mind).

And while I’ll admit, it’s still not “going to the beach” music, it is music for a long drive. Mrs. Jaybee specifically requested it while coming home from a long weekend away last month. A

“Mother Whale Eyeless”



Another Green World (1975)

And here is where the big change occurs.  He’d been preparing for it on side projects with Robert Fripp.

He takes a step back from the everything-and-the-kitchen-sink approach of the prior two records. Instead, this one is minimal, and mostly instrumental, but eerie, beautiful, serene, and a little scary. It’s still in my all-time top five.

And he would continue down this path for many years.

One could argue that New Age starts here, but at best it’s a stepchild, albeit one that made all the cash. See Pure Moods.

Instead of the warm embrace of simple “prettiness” the Eno I know always holds back a little, or throws a monkey wrench in. And I wouldn’t have it any other way. A+

“Everything Merges With the Night”



Discreet Music (1975)

And he goes even further - and maybe too far - here, devoting side one to 30 minutes of slightly varying tape loops that result in a kind of background music but with ever-shifting tones. He says it’s intended to be played at a volume just below audible, which is just one step away from 4’33, if you ask me. I still want to hear the damned thing, after all.

But when you do, you kind of know where he’s coming from with it. In its way, the very definition of serenity.

Side two comprises three slightly different experimental takes on Pachelbel’s Canon that are each nice enough, but when played one after the other, a bit much.

So, not a bullseye, but very worthwhile. B+

"Discreet Music"



Before and After Science (1978)

He pulls back a little here, coming back to earth on side one. which is devoted to pop-oriented cuts, but then goes off into space again for most of side two, which is quite lovely.

Overall a good summation of what he was up to at the time. A-

“Spider and I”



Ambient 1: Music for Airports (1978)

One cut, a simple piano figure played over and over.  Another, harmony vocals only  Another a combination of the two. And finally a vintage Eno synthesizer buzz out.

Ambient? I guess. But simple and beautiful.  A-

“1/1”



Eno the Collaborator:

The big mystery for me is what the hell he was doing in 1976.

But in 1977 he goes to Berlin with David Bowie.



Low (1977)

Hard, sloppy rock on side one, and very Eno ambient on side two. Arguably my favorite Bowie album.  A-
“Subterraneans”



“Heroes” (1977)

The same structure as Low. The rock on side one is edgier and and the ambient on side two more daring.  Overall, very good, Low edges it out slightly. A-

“Moss Garden”



Lodger (1979)

The experiments here are in the songs themselves rather than the sound. A perfectly good record, but the weakest of the three. B+

“Boys Keep Swinging”



Talking Heads: More Songs About Buildings and Food  (1978)

And then in 1978 he heads to NYC. And when you hang around the coolest places, you meet the coolest bands. And so now he acts as producer and fifth band member of Talking Heads, shifting them (and me) into a different direction.  Melodic, harsh, funky, beautiful.  One of my all time favorites. Definitely in the top 25. A

“The Big Country”



Fear of Music (1979)

This one’s a bit of a letdown because David Byrne’s songwriting opts for the weird instead of the melodic. Not Eno’s fault, I don’t think.  B+

“Paper”



Remain in Light (1980)

Ah, now that’s better! The songwriting and the band and Eno are all on one page and the results are wonderful. But by now the other Heads want to toss Eno out of the band.  A-

“Born Under Punches”



David Byrne/Brian Eno: My Life in the Bush of Ghosts (1981)

This was actually being worked on before Remain in Light and can be seen as the intense experimentation that would eventually lead to the relatively pop(!) of that record. Made up of snippets of radio broadcasts of some very charismatic preachers (the main inspiration for David Byrne’s vocals on RIL), and the musical arrangements designed to fit around their vocal tics and rhythms. This works a lot better than one would expect. Not for parties, but very intense and interesting throughout.  B+

“Help Me Somebody”



David Byrne: The Catherine Wheel (1981)

Music from the dance production of the same name, and a great balance of songwriting and overall sound.  Eno’s really just a sideman here. Officially at least. But the music is right out of Eno territory throughout. An extremely underrated record.  A

“Two Soldiers”



Jon Hassell/Brian Eno: Fourth World: Possible Musics (1981)

A collaboration with Jon Hassell - an Ocean of Sound  conspirator.  The wind instruments give this a Middle Eastern sound, but with some fog and electronica.  Not much fun, but by the time it’s over you’ve definitely been somewhere.  B+

“Delta Rain Dream”



Apollo: Atmospheres and Soundtracks (1983)

Eno’s attempt to provide a soundtrack to the Apollo missions, and a pretty darned good one.  His brother Roger and colleague Daniel Lanois share the billing.

I often can’t tell the difference between what would sound good late night vs good early morning music. Not anymore. This is definitely a night album.

It’s a bit schizophrenic, though.  Eno supplies the deep space buzz, but then Lanois comes on with the more poppy guitar. They eventually split the difference and it ends up being a distant cousin to Another Green World.  That’s a compliment.  A-

“An Ending (Ascent)”



The Pearl: (1984)

A mid-80s ambient collaboration with jazz(-ish) pianist Harold Budd (another contributor to Ocean of Sound).

The formula here seems to be short piano melodies treated with echoes. The sound of a glacier (if the glacier played the piano). Every time I put this on, I hear something different. I don’t mean a different detail or a different aspect. The whole thing sounds different.

As ambient goes this one is pretty chilly. Must be all that ice, even if it is melting.

So why can’t I stop listening to it?  A-

“A Stream With Bright Fish”




John Cale/Brian Eno: Wrong Way Up  (1990)

He spends the next few years with U2, producing the underrated Unforgettable Fire and the slightly overrated Joshua Tree and Achtung Baby, which probably got him interested in trying pop music again.

As I said last year it took me a little time to love this record because it was so damned normal. But love it, I do.  A-

“Crime in the Desert”


And On and On and On...

And that’s only brings us up until 1990.

He’d go on to produce many other artists, including Coldplay, Sinead O’Connor and James. Wikipedia credits him with 43(!) production jobs.

And I’m not done yet, either. I’ve still got to check out Music for Films, and Roxy Music’s third (and first post-Eno record) Stranded.

But I think I’ll stop there.  Rumor has it there are other artists out there, too.


Recommendations:

Before and After Science if you want to get the gist of it and still enjoy yourself
Wrong Way Up for fun
Another Green World if you’re ready to explore, well, another world.
Music for Airports for surprisingly simple and straightforward beauty
Taking Tiger Mountain if you want to hear something forty years old that still sounds fresh and strange.
Low if you want to hear how Eno could impact an already well respected artist.

Life - or at least Year - of Brian, Part One

Like a frenemy at work, but way more interesting, Brian Eno has this way of insinuating himself into the most unexpected places. He’s got more mentions in my blog than anyone else, except the Beatles, of course.

You don’t think you’ve heard him but you have. If not his own recordings, certainly his collaborations with Talking Heads, David Bowie, Devo, U2 and a slew of other artists. He even tried to make Coldplay sound interesting again and almost succeeded.

I have a number of his records but I hadn’t gotten anything by him in years.

And yet, he ended up being my Artist of the Year for 2015.

Let me explain.


1972:

While carefully studying the latest issue of National Lampoon, I came across an ad for Roxy Music’s second album, where I first saw Eno. My reaction was one of utter revulsion.

If I thought at the time that David Bowie must have sucked because he was acting gay (what can I say?, I was 15), or that the New York Dolls couldn’t have any talent because they dressed like women, then the made up, strutting, boa-wearing, aggressively androgynous (and on top of all that, balding!) Eno seemed like the worst of the worst.

Here he is at the time:



As you can see, he dressed on the extreme end of the glitter rock spectrum and, like Bowie, was a prime target for anyone with an ax to grind about spectacle as a distraction from music (a legitimate concern), or effeminate guys in general (not so much).

Mind you, I hadn’t yet heard any of the music made by him, Bowie or the Dolls. It wasn’t my finest hour.


1975:

Now at college, prowling the music library I dug up some old issues Stereo Review, and came across a review of one of Eno’s early solo records. The review used the term “rip off rock”. And not in a nice way.

Now it could have been written by someone who genuinely didn’t like the record (I forget which one it was), but it sure had the stench of someone who’d made up his mind before putting it on. And it had the effect of reinforcing my prejudices, and boy did I cling to them.


1978:

It’s pretty clear by this time that Brian Eno was the kind of guy you were less likely to be into if you were into Classic Rock a la Bruce Springsteen, Boston or Led Zeppelin. You’d have had to stray to where, say, the Velvet Underground broke off in their own direction in the late 60s.

And I stayed on the main path, until I finally got curious enough to try Talking Heads More Songs About Buildings and Food - a life changing record (all time top 25) that I don’t enthusiastically recommend to people just because I love it. It’s just a bit too weird, but exactly the amount of weird I needed at the time.

And who’s name did I find on the back? Eno, of course.

By this time, I was having trouble separating him from Bryan Ferry (his old Roxy Music bandmate), and Peter Gabriel from Genesis. (All of them weird Brits.) But his name just kept popping up all over the damn place, and always with the coolest bands.

There was even some graffiti spotted in the Village that said “Eno is God”.  Move over, Eric Clapton!


1980: 

It’s June and I’m supposed to be studying for a final but am instead at J&R Music World, in what would become one of the great record store trips of my life, picking up a sh*tload of records that would push me further down that alternat(iv)e path.

Earlier that year, there was an extensive overview of the music of 1970s in the Village Voice. It piqued my curiosity, and I made some mental notes, but like a good schoolboy, committed to doing nothing about it until finals were over.

I almost made it, too. I told myself I’d be in the store for only an hour or so. Plenty of time to study, I said. I ended up spending half the day there, and only managed about an hour of half-hearted studying in the school library.  Got an A, though!

One of the records mentioned a few times in that article was Eno’s Taking Tiger Mountain (By Strategy).  It was cited by at least two critics, who put it in their list of top ten records of the decade. So I decided that was a good place to start.

Ah kids, watch out for those gateway drugs!

I listened to this record for months - not always in complete ecstasy, mind you.  There was a lot of exasperation, too, as I tried to understand some of the weird things going on.  Friend, and then Roommate, Mike looked back on that time and said “Man, that was a terrible album.”

And I can understand his reaction. Mine was more mixed. There were several great pop moments mixed in with a lot of oddity and experimentation. I couldn’t quite love it because of this seeming inconsistency.

I may have related playing it while getting ready to go to the beach, and was pointedly told it was not “getting ready to go to the beach music”.  My first lesson in context.

But it persisted over the years. becoming a sort of go-to record. And Mrs. Jaybee would tell me she knew I was feeling a little down when I’d put it on.

If I was smarter, I’d give up on things when they first perplexed me. But instead, later that summer I’d double down on Eno and get Another Green World. This turned out to be one of my rare good decisions because it became one of my top five all time favorite albums.

During that same record trip, I’d finally broken down and gotten David Bowie’s Ziggy Stardust and the Spider’s From Mars. (What, no New York Dolls, you ask? That's another post.) And now having had David break my cherry, I remembered how Childhood Friend Doreen told me how great Low
was way back in 1977, so at the end of 1980, while trying to repeat the great June record store trip and coming pretty close,  I picked it up, along with “Heroes”.

And I turn the record over, and who’s name do I find? Eno, again.

It turned out that Eno collaborated with Bowie on both records, with Bowie dedicating most of side two (remember side two?) of each record to the tracks that were very Eno-ish.  They would turn out to be a among my very favorite records. Definitely top 100.

Over the next few years, I’d move on to his other 70s records and some ambient stuff, but as time passed I heard Eno the same way you did - as a producer.

Oh, there were the occasional knockout pull-the-car-over-and-just-listen moments, like “Ms. Sarajevo” with U2 and Luciano f*cking Pavarotti. in 1995, but otherwise I decided there were other artists who deserved my attention more, and stopped buying his records.


2015:

So he starts throwing spitballs at me via Shutter Island and Ocean of Sound, with “Lizard Point”, which I still can’t hear.  But you now know how I react to exasperation.

So I thought, okay dude, let’s see what you (still) got, and got Wrong Way Up, which turned out to be one of the musical highlights of the year.

And then I read the liner notes to Yellow Moon and there he is again.

So in the fall, I’m in a record store - I don’t have enough records, you see - and spot a leaflet for a show called “Music for Enophiles” which turned out to be a tribute band doing covers of Eno’s solo work from 1974-1979 - his prime pop period.

Now, one of the things I love about Mrs. Jaybee how she always surprises me. I thought I’d have to drag her to this show, but she reminded me that she liked Brian Eno, too. He was, after all, the soundtrack to our lives when we first started dating.

The band came on and reminded us how powerful these forty year old songs were. We had a great time but I didn’t recognize the last song. So I asked one of the singers, and it turned out to be the title song of his first record Here Come the Warm Jets. How did I not recognize this song? I’d clearly been away too long.

So I decided to give him another try and got The Pearl.

And another, and got Apollo.

And finally, decided to pick up Taking Tiger Mountain on CD.

Oh, and I also got Roxy Music’s second album - For Your Pleasure -  on CD because he’s on that too.

To the point that I came to realize that it’s Brian world and I’m just living in it. Or may he’s still God, and when he loses a sandal, half of his fans get rid of one of their’s, too.

And in case the earlier picture has frightened you off, here’s a picture of him now:



See?  He turned out just like you and me.

Next, I’ll give a quick roundup of his music - limited by what I know, which is at most 30% of his overall output - and make some recommendations.

See you then.

"Burning Airlines Give You So Much More"

The Very Good Will Just Have To Do

Unless you yourself are perfect, I suspect you’ve heard the phrase the perfect is the enemy of the good.

My variation on that would be searching for a masterpiece will distract you from a lot of excellent music.

Sometimes I just don’t appreciate the situation I’m in.  Here I am searching for great music, and end up disappointed if it’s only really good.

I’m getting older (that means “closer to death” kiddies) so I want every record to “count”, whatever that means.

Maybe that I’m humming it all day at work, that it jumps into my head and takes over randomly (not good while driving, by the way). That it makes me feel good about being alive. That it changes my life.  Don’t laugh. It’s happened.

So I aim high, get overly ambitious because I don’t stay in my comfort zone, and get disappointed, at least at first.

I end up putting too many really good records aside, only to have to them creep back up on me to convince me how good they really are.

And it happened again.

And I feel bad about it because I’m sure the Neville Brothers have been worried about how I’d react to this album. Which came out about thirty years ago.  You can rest easy now guys!




The Neville Brothers: Yellow Moon

The last time I’d gotten a record by the Neville Brothers, they were hiding amongst The Wild Thcoupitoulas, playing quintessential - earthy, tuneful rhythmic - New Orleans music.

Flash forward a decade or so, and they’re being produced by Daniel Lanois (U2 before to this, and the Dylan resurgence afterwards) I was fearing that this might go a little too atmospheric, which would not be a good fit at all.

No need to worry, though. They manage to keep things down to earth for most of the way through,

One way was to do some heavy duty cover songs,

I typically don’t like artists doing covers. It can distract you from what is unique about the artist, and it can be a cheap shortcut to actually writing your own material.

And it can be a bad idea in the very practical sense . I mean, how often do you hear a cover and say, “Hey, That’s Even better than the original!”.  And it doesn’t happen here, either. But they come close enough.

While “With God on Our Side” goes on a bit too long, they do stirring versions of “A Change is Gonna Come” and “Will the Circle Be Unbroken” (but really how do you f*ck those up?). And there’s a pretty haunting version of “The Ballad of Hollis Brown”.

It helps when the singing and playing are spot on.

And how about their originals?  Just fine! Not too generic. Topical. And well produced. "My Blood" being my favorite.

So there’s an excellent balance of elements here. Nothing brilliant, mind you, but overall the songs, playing, singing and production come together enough to let this one rise above mere genre.

When you put this one on you know you’re going to enjoy the next hour.

B+

“My Blood“

Rock Music for the Old at Heart

There I am, yearning for some great new music, and get Aphex Twin instead, so I decide to go musically conservative, hoping that will improve the odds of hitting a winner. I end up with something that the old and not very bold WNEW-FM would have been proud to play.

And that's the problem.




The War on Drugs: Lost in the Dream

Spacious, but grounded, or something like that, said the blurb on the cover. Which is a way of saying it’s well produced, I guess.

Leader Adam Granduciel is trying to sounds like mid-60s Dylan, vocally, but puts a thick slab of U2-ish spaciness on top and ends up with some pretty commercial sounding AOR.

But Christ, he sure takes his time.

With its long intro and attempted build-up of momentum, the good but not quite great opener, “Under the Pressure”, never quite takes off the way it's meant to, and after eight minutes, ultimately collapses under all that, well, you know. Unlike Bowie’s “Station to Station” - an even longer song with an even longer intro - which builds and builds to reach an actual climax, this song never gets to that level of intensity.

And this is the fatal flaw of the record. Ten songs adding up to over sixty minutes of music, each attempting an intensity that is rarely reached, indicate that this guy doesn’t know how to turn things up a notch, or when to wrap it up. And well, I’ve got a bus to catch.

It's like he's trying to achieve the trance-like state you might normally get from an extended dance track, but via the intensity of rock and roll. But he never gets there. He’s just too damned slow. Plus dance music typically has  you know, a beat.

Maybe because he sounds so much older, he can only go so fast. Believe me, I can sympathize with that. But unlike Dylan, whose ever-whinier voice was always at least urgent, this guy sometimes sounds like that uncle you’re always avoiding at family get-togethers.

The second song, “Red Eyes”, does okay, but the third one - called "Suffering" - is kinda slow, so I guess it's aptly named. Not a bad song, Just a bad one to have follow two that didn't quite meet their potential.

“An Ocean in Between the Waves” moves a bit more and thus succeeds at its goal, but still takes seven freakin' minutes to get there.

Then there are a few more on the long and slow side that are obviously trying for some atmosphere, and succeed. If only that atmosphere wasn’t boredom! That’s not fair. They’re nice, but nothing more.

Then he goes all Bob Seger on my ass. Not the fun “Good Old Rock and Roll” Bob Seger. The later oh so older/"wiser" “Like a Rock"/“Against the Wind” Bob Seger. Granduciel also likes the wind. (Now there’s a joke I won’t even try to make.) He "fixes his eyes to the wind” (which I can’t do because I just get crap in them and end up rubbing them raw, so maybe I'm jealous) And god does that wind blow for a long time!

Even the short instrumental interlude takes three minutes!

“Burning” tries to borrow some grandiosity from “Dancing in the Dark”, but by this point things are just getting silly.

Paradoxically, the two tired songs that finish things up are actually pretty good. Maybe because by this point, I'm tired, too. The music (and the sentiments) - by sheer force of will - move beyond the cliche, and are quite moving, even though they’re not very specific. Hey, I’ll take what I can get.

This is “serious” rock music, which I find hard to take seriously. I know this sounds snobbish, but it’s really the opposite. I was always well behaved as a child, but this guy tempts me to throw spit balls from the back of the classroom.

And two or maybe three stirring moments spread out across an entire hour is more than I have the patience for anymore. Maybe some editing and the addition of a sense of humor would have made this the classic it’s clearly trying to be.

But his heart’s really in it, so I have to give him props for that. And it’s growing on me.

But only so much.

B+

When to Play It: When You've Got Company, and They're Your Own Age (Old) But Haven't Admitted It Yet

When to NOT Play It: When you’re in a hurry.

“An Ocean In Between the Waves”

Stupid Moments in Rock History, Part 1:

Well, there was the time I overheard a guy in a record store asking the clerk if he knew the song about "summertime" and "rain on my face".

I kinda thought I knew that it was the Alarm, but I didn't say anything. I still wonder why. I think I just didn't want to come across as a know-it-all, which is a first. So even though it would have helped the guy out, I didn't do anything. Maybe I didn't want to be responsible for more Alarm fans in the world.

But now I feel like Peter Parker when he found out what happened to his Uncle Ben, except for the Uncle Ben part. I just kinda feel bad about it. I hope the guy found it. It was back in the day when you couldn't just look it up on allmusic.com.

So, if you're out there, reading this, it's called "Rain in the Summertime" and it appears on Eye of the Hurricane and The Best of the Alarm. It's not such a bad song. It's just that they were so obviously trying to sound like U2. You know, like Coldplay now.

My apologies for being stupid while trying to avoid being a jerk.
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Now playing: The Alarm - Rain in the Summertime
via FoxyTunes

Sometimes the Wife is Right – Ian McCulloch’s “Mysterio”

Occasionally my wife reminds me that all the good music drifting through our house doesn’t originate solely from my CDs. She has a habit of telling me things I don’t want to hear.

Once, she told me that she heard of REM before I did. I scoffed at this. I had naturally assumed that she liked them because I, her boyfriend, liked them, and that she’d follow me anywhere. Or something like that.

The city we’re in is known for its music scene, but our radio stations were and are still pathetic. But the Mrs. reminded me that, at the time, her job took her out of town, where she got the reception to bring in the station that played “modern rock”, like Depeche Mode, the Cure, the Smiths, U2, New Order and, um, REM. So while her assertion can’t possibly be right, it might be technically true.

But back to her first assertion. She reminded me of an album she got that I had held out little hope for, Ian McCulloch’s “Mysterio”. Ian played guitar for Echo and the Bunnymen, a band I’ve never quite gotten. So the idea of sitting through one of their solo albums wasn’t very appealing to me. I was resigned that the ongoing pollution of my record library was to continue in this way. (It all began with the Great Merge of the record collections that took place right after we got married.)

I like my guitars chiming, which is why I don’t really love grunge or heavy metal the way I’m supposed to. Those bands play chords that are heavy and flat, more percussive than tuneful. The distortion dulls and limits the sound rather than expands it. Power chords without any real power.

But Ian likes his guitars chiming, too. And echoey! He seems cool to an old guy like me because he’s got that “modern” sound that’s been around for about thirty years now, and although there are three guitar players, this record’s bigger on tone than on decibel. Spacey rather than loud, it can be played at any volume and it sounds good. If you have company over, you can lower the volume and still hear the higher trebly notes. If you want rock and roll, you can turn it up and make a good noise. It’s a great record to put on during the summer with the windows wide open.

Something tells me to avoid delving too much into the lyrics. Ian only puts one verse of each song in the booklet, as if to say, c’mon, you’re here for the guitars! One of them goes:
“one and one and five make seven,
One and one and three make five…”
Although I can’t fault the arithmetic as such, I’ll assume that there’s some algebra that brings it all together eventually, but I haven’t noticed it yet. The rest seems kinda portentious, or pretentious, or something, I don’t know. So there’s a silliness factor to be considered, or ignored. And if the guitars sound good enough, I say ignore away.

This record has made me slightly more inclined to try out Echo and the Bunnymen, but I haven’t taken the plunge yet. For now, Ian McCulloch by himself is just the right combination of silly and fun. One guy can take himself too seriously if he plays real good. I don’t know if I can deal with four of them, though.

Despite all my snide remarks to the contrary, I have to admit that this is a very easy record to listen to. So, in the words of many a husband before me, Yes, dear.

Are You Passionate? - The Arcade Fire

I got an exhilarating glimpse of passionate music from two different video clips on YouTube the other night, both involving the Arcade Fire. The first clip featured them live in concert, performing “Keep the Cars Running” - a song from their second album, “Neon Bible”. They were joined onstage by none other than Bruce Springsteen, who fit in perfectly with these young Canadians. This was a Springsteen song if ever there was one. It’s just that someone else wrote it.

The second clip featured the Arcade Fire on stage, this time with U2, whom they toured with recently. They were performing Joy Division’s “Love Will Tear Us Apart” – a song that alone makes up for all of the cheesy synthesizer moves in pop music over the years. But no one was playing a synthesizer in this clip. It was just a bunch of people playing a song they loved with the instruments at hand.

So in the space of two clips, they pulled together four strands of “passionate music”. That should be a redundant term - music is supposed to be passionate, and many artists spend a lot of time trying to simulate it. (I’m no purest, though. I’ll take a good fake over genuine garbage any day.) So whatever you may think of the artists in question, I’m willing to believe that they mean it – that they put it on the line every time.

I like clever as much as the next guy. Funny is good, too. Loud and fast is great. But passionate is best. It burns out, it doesn’t rust.

Such artists are easy to spoof, but that’s the risk they take and I deeply respect them for it. And Arcade Fire, fits right into this category. There are parts on both of their albums when it seems like the singer has gone off the deep end, and the band is right there behind him. This can seem ridiculous at times, but that’s the high wire act they perform on.

Their first record, “Funeral”, could remind you of early Talking Heads, carrying on that grand tradition bands led by complete lunatics. Win Butler’s voice does not always make it up to the register he insists on singing in. But that’s okay. He practically starts crying on the very first song (“Tunnels”). But, damn, if you don’t get totally swept up in it. “Laika” sounds like a gypsy caravan has crashed into your house. “Power Out” is anything but. “Wake Up” and “Rebellion (Lies)” could raise the dead. And it all ends with the beautiful and powerful “In the Backseat”.

But there are several quieter moments, like “Haiti” and “Kettles”, throughout. This contrast in tone is one of the reasons why “Funeral” is a stronger record than “Neon Bible”. The quiet spots make the peaks seem all the higher.

I do like the second one a lot, too, but it’s more like a Springsteen or U2 album, and I miss the quirkiness. I think the problem with it is epitomized by “Intervention”, which begins with a church organ. It’s hard to rev it up further when that’s your starting point. It’s a perfectly good song, and I suspect that it’s brilliant when played live.

“Neon Bible” does have its great moments like “Keep the Car Running” and “No Cars Go”. The finale, “My Body is a Cage”, is fine, but it’s got that damned church organ. “Funeral”s finale - “In the Backseat” – by contrast, settles for a rock-and-roll-with-violin arrangement to much greater effect. And this is the other reason why “Funeral” is the better album. The instrumentation is more limited, but they do more with it.

But maybe I’m mistaken. Perhaps number two has a more powerful overall sound. The issues are less private and more political. Maybe that will resonate more with you than with me.

In any case, the Arcade Fire reach for, and often achieve, a level of emotional urgency are that are undeniable. In this day of calculated effect, they will not settle for entertaining you. Judging from the video clips I saw, their concerts are transcendent.

Their music can be a little uncomfortable but it’s because they are asking you, are you passionate? They sure are.

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Now playing: Arcade Fire - Rebellion
via FoxyTunes

The Old Fogey's Guide to R.E.M.

R.E.M. came along when most reasonable people my age were growing up and getting married. I latched onto them in 1984 after I heard that their first album, “Murmur” very nearly beat out “Thriller” for top album of the year in a major critic’s poll in 1983. Back then, they were even able to get some airplay for “Radio Free Europe”, because they, along with U2, were cult favorites of AOR radio stations. That probably wouldn’t happen now.

The difference between the two bands was that Bono could swallow a stadium whole when he sang, whereas Michael Stipe preferred to go hide in the corner. I could relate a lot better to the latter, so I went with R.E.M.. The wife chose U2, but we worked through it.

No artist who has been around for nearly thirty years can expect their fans to get their every record. After all, there are other artists, too, not to mention baby formula to buy.

If you have nothing by them, I suppose it would make some sense to pick up one of their best-ofs, but such collections rarely give me the satisfaction that I get from the original albums of any good artist.

I can reasonably cover the 1982 – 1997 period, and have summarized the high points below. I work my way down from what I think you might like best, to their less accessible, but very worthy work:

Automatic for the People (1992):

This one seems to please the most people and I can understand why. I don’t think it’s quite their best but it is right up there. You already know the hits – “Man on the Moon”, “The Sidewinder Sleeps Tonight” and “Everybody Hurts”, but you may not have heard “Nightswimming”, “Find a River” or “Sweetness Follows”, which are at least as good.

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Now playing: R.E.M. - Nightswimming
via FoxyTunes

Out of Time (1991):

There is so much beauty on this record (“Near Wild Heaven”, “Texarkana”, “Belong”) it’s nearly unbearable. The only reason I don’t rate this one higher is that it you might find it too pretty, or you may not like the rap on “Radio Song”. or the brooding “Low” (which to me is merely the deep breath before the rush to follow, which itself doesn’t stop until the Neil Young-like “Country Feedback”). Okay, that’s everything you could possibly find wrong with this record. The rest of it is absolutely joyous. Oh yeah, it’s got “Losing My Religion” and “Happy, Shiny People”, too. It finishes off with “Me in Honey”, which, thanks to Kate Pierson, is one of the best songs of the decade.

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Now playing: R.E.M. - Me in Honey
via FoxyTunes

 

Murmur (1983):

My personal favorite, on principle really, since I heard it first. But I’m having trouble justifying it since “Out of Time” came out. While it’s arty and obscure (it’s been called “Mumble” by some detractors) I hear it as classic rock coming from the room down the hall. I’ve gotten it as a present for at least a few people, and their initial look of puzzlement eventually gives way to a grudging acknowledgement that this is a really good album. It’s probably the album of the 80s, too.

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Now playing: Pearl Jam - Talk About the Passion
via FoxyTunes

 

Chronic Town (1982):

This EP is their first splash, and it practically trips over itself in its rush to hit you with words, drums, guitars. Fast, tuneful and strange. And I would love for someone to do a more commercial version of “1,000,000” or “Gardening at Night”. It’s also available as part of the B-side/rarity oriented “Dead Letter Office”.

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Now playing: R.E.M. - Gardening At Night
via FoxyTunes

 

Document (1987):

This one is loud and fierce. It’s got “The One I Love” and “It’s the End of the World as We Know It”. It’s also got the great “Finest Worksong”. Great line: “Standing on the shoulders of giants, leaves me cold…”

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Now playing: R.E.M. - Finest Worksong
via FoxyTunes

 

New Adventures in Hi-fi (1997):

A little too long, but with a lot of variety. And “Electrolite” is one of their best ever. And the rock and roll is actually stronger than “Monster”.

The records I’ve skipped over ("Reckoning", "Fables of the Reconstruction", "Life's Rich Pageant", "Green", "Monster") are good but not great. They have many fine moments but seem to be halfway points or commercial compromises. Someone could make a great mix CD from them. But if you start from the top down here, you’ll know what all the fuss is about.

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Now playing: R.E.M. - Electrolite
via FoxyTunes

Cool Music to Play for Company - Coldplay and the Chills

Friends are coming over for dinner, and you're wondering what music you should put on. The same old crap yet again? I don’t think so. Try these instead:

 

Coldplay – “A Rush of Blood to the Head”

You have to hand it to these guys. They are right up there with emo (the genre, not the comedian) when it comes to the male sensitivity sweepstakes. And while I’m not crazy about their third album, and have only heard a little of their first, this one - their second- is quite good. Kind of like a U2, but more emphasis on the melo than on the drama.

Let’s skip over “Clocks”. You know the song – the one with the pretty piano. You’ve heard it. You like it. Let’s move on.

There’s the other one that’s slower – “The Scientist” - which you may have heard, too. Not bad.

My biggest problem with this record is that their lyrics get a little sappy. Chris Martin likes to sing about women saving him, and I’m sure he knows the ladies just eat that stuff up. Yet, I have to admit, these lyrics are attached to two of my favorite songs here – “Warning Sign” and “Amsterdam”. So basically they fake sincerity real well.

And they’re good at throwing in unexpected chords or textures that add more depth to a song. On their third record, “X&Y”, Chris Martin spends too much time singing way up there in a higher register (I guess this time the woman saved him by grabbing him by the balls.) and his voice isn’t strong enough for that. On “A Rush…”, his singing is in the middle range, simply filling in the spaces left by the other instruments, where it’s much more effective.

Other highlights are “Daylight” and “God Put a Smile On Your Face”.

It’s one of those rare CDs that won’t irritate normal people, but also won’t bore those of us who prefer to not be anesthetized.

It’s a hard album to dislike. God knows, I tried.

The Chills - "Submarine Bells"

If you’ve read any previous posts, you’ve noticed that I have the habit, while recommending an album, of trying to inoculate the recommendee against what might be annoying about it. Well, try as I might, I can’t think anything about “Submarine Bells” that falls into that category, except perhaps its preoccupation with mortality. Well, you’re probably a little more pre-occupied with that now, too. And besides, the Chills wrap it up in music that can’t fail to stir you.

They are a guitar based pop band that occasionally revs things up loud. But for the most part they occupy a more subdued middle ground that keeps things from getting too out of hand.

“Heavenly Pop Hit” is exactly that, except for the hit part. And it goes on from there. “Don’t Be - Memory”, tucked away on the second half, is the great one here, but I didn’t come to that conclusion until about the twentieth listen. There were too many other songs that came close. And besides, the wife disagrees – her vote is for “Singing in My Sleep”. It’s hard to argue with her (in general).

The Chills hail out of New Zealand, which experienced a bit of a pop renaissance the late 80s. They released several records before ”Submarine Bells”, and only managed one more afterwards before breaking up.

It's a great “lost” (that is, if anything is ever lost anymore in this digital age) album of the 90s.

This is the music from which great memories are made.

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Now playing: Coldplay - Warning Sign
via FoxyTunes

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Now playing: The Chills - Tied Up in Chain
via FoxyTunes