Albums or Singles? You Decide!

Then:

Were you a singles person or an albums person?  Did you prefer the simplicity and immediacy of a single song, or the adventure of an album full of them?  Did you just wanna dance?  Or were you, like me, pretentious? 

Did you hover over the record player, ready with another 45 the moment the first one finished?  Or did you sit back while the more leisurely 33 1/3 rpm unwound over twenty or so minutes?

My hovering with the forty five period began at age seven and lasted until about twelve, which is when singles began to suck, which encouraged the aforementioned pretentiousness, resulting in the switch.

Would I be wrong to say that girls liked singles and boys liked albums?  I find this weird because while singles seemed more slutty (Sorry, I didn’t catch the name of that song), albums were more monogamous.  They required some commitment to listen all the way through, including the weaker songs. 

There is a short story/novel equivalent here, and as you might guess I prefer novels. 

The singles people had more fun, but they worried about seeming superficial, so every once in a while, they’d buy albums.  They usually ended up with a single disguised as an album - you know, an album with only one good song on it.  They’d get bored and go back to the singles life.

At least until they turned thirty, when they thought they should settle down and be album people.  And even if they got a pretty good album, they’d get bored with it because whatever they might have thought, they got themselves a relationship when what they really wanted was just another one night stand.  Such people should just accept themselves and stick to greatest hits albums.

It could be embarrassing to be an albums person.  Everyone thought you were very serious.  (You were.)  And depressed (ditto).  And not having fun (true, which is why you needed those albums - to fill up the time.)

We album folk were the first geeks.  Lacking anything else to be geekish about, we could quickly get past the music itself and focus on the album as package.  After all, what did you get with the single, anyway?  A flimsy paper cover, a very suspect B-side (unless it was a Beatles or Stones record).  And not even a yellow plastic thing to stick in the hole in the middle, in order to play it without feeling seasick.  To this day, I’ll hear a song from the sixties on the radio and marvel at how much less woozy it sounds now.

And no matter how badly you treated your albums, you still treated them better than your singles.  The occasionally skip caused by the scratches on an album could never compare to the dust and grime encountered on the average 45, which should have had us arrested for physical abuse.

Album covers were like paintings.  They gave you something to look at - something to study while everyone else was talking to girls.  The untitled front covers were the best, with no words to distract you from the image (like "Abbey Road").  But the minutia on the back, about the songwriters, musicians and production would make up for this. 

And let’s not forget the most fascinating, or at least most minute, minutia of all - song durations, which I thought had no reason for being except to fascinate me alone.  (The fact that it helped radio stations figure out what they could fit on their programs was just a side benefit.)   My fascination began when I noticed that “Strawberry Fields” clocked in at just over four minutes!  The last time I had looked was when “Help” clocked in at 3:15 - the longest I had ever seen up to that point. 

(Real Quick: How long is “Hey Jude”? A: 7:11).

And they got longer and longer.  “In a Godda Da Vida”, “Dark Star”, took up entire sides.  Canned Heat’s “Refried Boogie” and the Allman Brothers “Mountain Jam” took up TWO sides each.  How cool is that, huh?  Not that cool?  Okay.

And how can you forget the slug line?  (Uh, by not knowing what it is to begin with, Jaybee.)  All right, let me school you.  The slug line is the labeling on the left edge of the album cover - usually the Artist Name and Album Title.  Don’t care?  Well just try to find your favorite album on your bookshelf then.  Okay, I’ll admit that CDs make this much easier, but back in Vinylandia you needed it. 

But it couldn’t help if it wasn’t straight and even, like the spine of a very (very) thin book.  And it just looked awful if the lettering spilled over onto the front or back of the cover.  There was a time when I would not buy an album because of this.  I would look for another copy – one with a straight and even slug line.  It told ya it was nuts.

And the lyrics!  (Uh, I really don’t care about lyrics.)

In any case, with the front picture, the useless minutia, the slug line and the words I didn’t understand, with an album, you really had something in you hand.  Hopefully the album.



Brave New World:

So do these two distinct types of people exist anymore?  I don’t know.  I think the line is blurring.

My son’s been downloading music.  The albums sit somewhere on his iPod and the computer’s hard drive.  There isn’t much to look at.  And I don’t have the slightest clue what he’ll do if either device crashes.  Are they backed up?  Is there a receipt?  Or do they just buy and download them again?

And I don’t feel any better about it when he plays an album directly from his iTunes library, without even putting the CD in the drive.  And the slope gets really slippery when you can play the songs selectively.  In other words, you can play only the parts of the album you really like.  Which sounds an awful lot like singles heaven to me.

So, as an album person, I’m having some trouble with it – not so much with the digital age, but rather the virtual age.  The “thing” itself seems to be fading away, leaving only the music.  But if it’s the music that matters to me, why do I find this so disconcerting?  Because I’m still a freaking albums person, that’s why.

After all, isn’t downloading songs just a small innocent step away from making a mix tape (or, in a quantum leap forward, burning a mix CD)?  But the difference now is that our iPods and computers don’t have nearly the space limitations that tapes and CDs have.  Those 90 minute mix-tapes had to be planned, and they could take hours to make.  CD burning took less time, but encouraged tinkering to get the songs in the right order.  (If you don’t understand why that’s important, you should have stopped reading a long time ago.)  Not only could one be a musician by proxy, but also a DJ by proxy, too.

So now with your 100 Gig hard drive and whatever gig iPod, you can listen to whatever you want and as much of it as you want. If you choose to, you could listen to an endless playlist of songs you know and love.

This might sound like a great thing, and I’ve spent many a morning playing songs randomly from my Windows Media Player library, and enjoying it immensely.  But I feel there’s something missing.  I feel as though the album - the self contained unit that “forces” you to listen to a number of songs you haven’t heard before, thus giving you an opportunity to discover hidden treasures, or to have something really grow on you - as a concept, is fading away.

And that’s the bad news.  We can, if we wish, ignore the rest of the music world.  But hopefully you don’t want to do that, because, if anything, it’s almost too easy to identify and find music you like. 

When you were a kid, you could have been captivated by a song on the radio, but miss the title, and be haunted by it, waiting for it to come on the radio again.  Or, you might have been in a record store, staring longingly at the album you wanted to explore, but didn’t have the money for. 

But as an adult, you could spare the money to buy that record you love.  And the radio stations even post their playlists, so that if you hear something you love (not likely), you could look it up and then buy it from amazon.com.

So there are no more obscure songs that catch your attention and then fade away, haunting you forevermore.  The mystery is gone. 

The only limitation is us, and what we’re interested in hearing.

It’s a sick world my friend.

Music Even I Can Dance To

Denial:

Remember how disco sucks?  If you do, then I’ll ask that we instead speak of dance
music. 

Back in the day, I hated disco as much or more, than the next (white, straight) guy.  Being
a very serious person, my music had to be serious, too.  No fun allowed.  Fun included
dancing, which wasn’t allowed the moment “Dancing in the Streets” finished playing. 

I had my way for a few years when all those singer-songwriters came from out of the
woodwork, but then all of a sudden, another crowd began having a great time doing
something I couldn’t (dance) or wouldn’t (dress up) do.  Obviously disco - oh, sorry, 
dance music - had to be stopped.

I’m not saying that the music didn’t drive me up the wall.  That big, steady beat seemed
to be aggressively stupid.  Hey, what can I tell you?  I’m a snob. 

Looking back now, I’m sure that disco has as good a batting average as any other music
genre for having something interesting to say, even if it appeared to be designed to avoid
saying it at all costs.  My personal taste prevented me from perceiving or even
experiencing a lot of it.


Bargaining, Depression, etc:

Cut to 1979, and I’m listening to “I Zimbra”, the opening track from Talking Heads “Fear
of Music”, a record I deemed somewhat inferior to the life-changing (mine, that is)
“More Songs About Buildings and Food”.  There was more weirdness than melody this
time around, and “I Zimbra”, with its chanting and throbbing beat, seemed less like a
song than a novelty that happened to be good to dance to.  I struggled to explain to
myself how Talking Heads – a band I loved – made a record that sounded a lot like music 
I hated.  This minor crisis threatened my enormous self satisfaction.

Jump now to the summer of 1980 when the Heads are playing around town at an outside
venue.  I don’t actually get in, but I hear enough to be appalled.  “I Zimbra” turned out
not to be a novelty but rather a new direction.  And now at this show, instead of the spare,
angular minimal Talking Heads, I get a big band.  There are about 10 people on stage,
including background singers (I hate background singers, by the way), and the guitar
player is actually shimmying.  I left, disgusted.

Later that year, they came out with “Remain in Light”, which featured the new sound
they were previewing that summer - but for some reason by now I can handle it.  In the
privacy of my apartment I can appreciate what I couldn't then.  I hear the words and the
core sound of the Heads, and can better handle the new trappings.  I also realize that they
wanted people to dance to their music, not just stand around being ironic.


Acceptance:

Speaking of irony, I can now see a clear difference between disco and the newer Talking
Heads sound, but it's a good thing I couldn't then.  It forced me to confront the likelihood
that I was just an uptight stick in the mud. 

I also caught them again about a year later, and this time they sounded great, even though
the show wasn’t much different from the earlier one.  So I guess they forced me out of
my comfort zone.

Once outside of it, it becomes much easier to enjoy other dance music (although I have
my limits – the Salsoul Orchestra Christmas Album still sucks).  I negotiated a
compromise with myself, and have developed a tic when this music is on.  I call it
dancing.  My kids call it Tourettes.


So the following are some records that helped me in this transition. I have to stress that
these are not objects for study.  They are extremely enjoyable records:

Substance - New Order
This greatest-hits-at-the-time is just the right blend of new wave and dance music.   It
takes you from their dark Joy Division roots to the prime of their dance floor hit era.

Saturday Night Fever
Okay, the hits are way overplayed, and the filler is, well, filler, but attention must be paid.

Discography - Pet Shop Boys
So you can dance and be ironic at the same time!

Very - Pet Shop Boys
And then the irony wears away, to reveal actual feelings.

Haddaway
Friends laugh when I tell them how much I like this Eurodisco album.  Is it because I’m a
dead ringer for the fella on the cover?  Not.

Wise Guy - Kid Creole and the Coconuts
Between the carribean beats, the funny/intelligent lyrics and the tunes, this was one of the
greatest surprises of my record buying life. 

The Immaculate Collection - Madonna
I don't even own this one yet, but I dare you to not like “Borderline”.  Once you’ve done
that, there’s “Holiday”, "Vogue", etc.  And before you know it, you’re practically gay.


At root, dance music encourages the display of a grace and self assurance that
I simply can’t identify with.  It just isn’t modest or awkward enough for me.  These
people are having way too much fun.

Stop me before I dance again!

My Wife's Big Star Problem, and Most Likely, Yours

My wife is the only person I know who can listen to a CD that I put on, hum all the way through it, and then, when it’s over, say “God, I hate those guys!”

There I’d be, so proud of myself for bringing home yet another brilliant CD (which I’d somehow come to equate with being brilliant) that gave her joy and broadened her horizons (my specialty, since my horizons are fine just the way they are) only to find that I’d merely given her yet another reason to question why she married me.  Such questions arise frequently, but usually in regard to my character, so who cares?   But when it comes to my taste in music…well now, that's serious.

And it keeps happening when I put on Big Star.  You've heard of them.  They’re one of those “seminal” (you know, important, but not necessarily good) artists you’re always reading about, but never finding yourself interested enough to investigate.  Well I did all the work for you,

Their first two records are available on a single CD, and it’s one of the essential documents of 70s pop music – a critical piece to an otherwise confusing picture. 

Their third record – recorded in 1974 but not released until 1978, rivals “The Basement Tapes” in hip aura.  It also rivals “Tonight’s the Night” in its depiction of a soul’s – Alex’s Chilton’s – dark hour.  I can understand someone just not getting it, but to me, it’s almost as good as their greatest pop moments.

I think they’re great.  Not so my wife.  What’s her problem?  I’ll try to break it down:


What’s undeniably great about Big Star:

From “Number One Record” – "Thirteen", "India Song", "When My Baby’s Beside Me", "Give Me Another Chance", "Watch the Sunrise".  In other words, perfect pop music.

From “Radio City” - "Oh My Soul", "What’s Goin Ahn", "Back of a Car", "Daisy Glaze", "September Gurls", "I’m in Love with A Girl".  Even better now, but a little strange.

From “Third/Sister Lovers” - "For You", "Nighttime", "Blue Moon". Desolate, but beautiful.

The above, if combined into a single record would be one of the greatest of all time.  And yet the above, burned onto a CD, still drives my wife nuts.

And I didn’t even get to…


What may be off putting about them:

“Number One Record” – "Feel", "The Ballad of El Goodo", "In the Street", "Don’t Lie to Me", "My Life is Right".  Maybe a touch too ironic, and lots of adenoids.

“Radio City” - "September Gurls", "Life is White".  Purposely out of tune, a little demented.

“Third” – Most of it.  Tortured, dark.

Mind you, I’m not saying that this second list is “bad”.  It’s just what I’d consider the most likely source of irritation if you’ve found yourself on the fence about them.  But even the first list didn’t win anyone over.

Like me, my wife is a big Beatles fan.  I consider Big Star to be the missing link between the Beatles and late 70s power pop/new wave.  It would only be logical for her to love them, but no.

And she’s not alone.  I gave copies of that same mix CD to my siblings a couple of years back, and haven’t gotten a word back.  (I think they moved.)  The mystery deepens.


Not the Beatles:

So, who the hell are they anyway?  Jody Stephens and Chris Hummell make up the powerful rhythm section.  Then there’s Alex Chilton, who you know from the Box Tops.  That’s him singing on “The Letter” and “Cry Like a Baby”.  Somehow, that deep, soulful voice went backwards through puberty, and with Big Star, he’s singing like a skinny twelve year old white kid.

The other major creative force was Chris Bell, who wrote or co-wrote the songs with Chilton.  Chris seemed like the nice guy/Paul McCartney type, while Chilton was the loose cannon misanthropic/John Lennon type.  Their songwriting partnership only made it through the first album.  By the end of “Radio City”, Chris is gone and it’s the Alex Chilton show.  Which is okay by me - Chris’s nasally voice was even more annoying than Alex’s could sometimes be.

Alex went on to make a lot of erratic music, and Chris died in a car accident in 1978.  His solo album was eventually released, and while it’s not bad, it’s hampered by Chris’s vocal limitations.  The highlight is “You and Your Sister” which has a guest harmony by Alex.  This poignantly brief reunion has movie written all over it.

But while we wait for it to be made, buy the twofer.  But don’t say I didn’t warn you.

My Eric Clapton Problem, and Hopefully, Yours

I made a number of resolutions for the New Year.  You know, the usual - be more negative, appreciate things less, be less patient. 

And how to better put these resolutions into practice than to reconsider an old idol?   Especially one who has suffered great tragedy? 

So first let me say sorry, Eric, about what happened to your son.  And I’m glad you’re not drinking any more.  But god (remember your other name?), you were such a jackass.

Like any number of other artists who started out in the sixties, and managed to not die, Eric Clapton is still making music.  I wish he’d stop.  Baby boomers continue to buy his records when they could be listening to more worthy artists, many of whom can actually sing and write songs.

I’m not saying that he’s never written a great song, or sung well.  But Jesus Christ, he's been at it for almost fifty years.  I’ll bet you’ve written some good ones by now, too.

These nasty thoughts are prompted by a couple of things.  The first was my post last year about Led Zeppelin, where I sort of champion Eric over Jimmy Page.  The second is my reading of the Clapton autobiography,

So a few observations:

Way back when, Clapton seemed like the quintessential nice guy musician.  Always part of a band, didn’t sing much, but boy could he play guitar.  This period – with the Yardbirds, Bluesbreakers, Cream, Blind Faith and Derek and the Dominoes - represents his high point.  He also did a lot of memorable work as a sideman on other people's records.  This seeming shyness was very winning, and made his subsequent addictions seem more forgivable. 

But based on his autobiography, I must conclude that Eric was a drunk stupid idiot, and I no longer have the patience for people like that, or their current and recalled misdeeds.

Yeah, I know he stopped drinking a while ago, and he’s done some good work with his foundation, but since his book has a happy ending for him, let me just speak for the humans who had the misfortune of crossing his path, just as a sort of rebuttal.

It’s not that he comes across as an asshole.  But given all the dumb things he recounts in his book, he does sound like someone who spent too much time around people who told him his sh*t didn’t stink.

Looking back on what I took for his shyness, I now see someone who couldn’t stay with one band for more than two years.  And once the records get labeled “Eric Clapton” I start to have problems.  Aside from the live stuff, which of his records do you play with any consistency?  And don't tell me about his blues records.  They all could have used a singer.  (Is it me, or did he actually sing better when he was younger?)

Looking back on that huge pile of mediocre solo albums, I can’t help but think that Eric should have always remained a sideman.  Another George Harrison, if you will – someone who can contribute the occasional gem, but who mainly plays guitar real good.  Then, every few years, they’d let him go make a pretty good solo record.

He mentions how he let everyone down at the concert for Bangladesh, because of his heroin addiction, where he at least showed up and did his job as a sideman, but not so during his 1974 tour – where he was the, uh, headliner - when he let hundreds of thousands of fans down by showing up drunk and playing  abbreviated sets. 

The typical fan – like me (no, I’m not too bitter) - spent hours standing in line for tickets, came to the shows hours early because of the general admission seating, only to see an seventy minute show.  In other words we each put in about six hours to Eric's 1 1/2.  Oh, and the money.  We probably paid about $7.50 per ticket – then a high price.  So Eric, I figure you owe us five bucks each.  I’ll take mine as an eggplant parmigiana hero from my local pizzeria, without the spit, thank you.

The bottom line here is that you shouldn't have hit the road until you were ready to play.  That's what people came for.  He even mentions how he played an entire show lying on the ground drunk, but rationalizes it by saying that everyone in the audience was drunk, too.  Well, I guess that’s what a drunk would say.

And what about the driver of the van you smashed into when you were driving drunk?  Was he okay?  You don't say.

And now that George Harrison is dead, you give the impression that you and he weren’t as close as we all thought.  Better to make the whole Patti Harrison episode appear a little more palatable, I guess.  What a jerk.

You express surprise that punk rockers saw you as part of the rock establishment, since you didn't consider yourself part of it.  But you were doing whatever you liked and getting paid a ton of money for it.  That’s sort of the definition of it, Eric.  If you weren't part of the rock establishment, who was?

I should have stopped buying your records after “EC was Here”, which I got because it was live and you actually play guitar on it.  Now I find out that you really were as sexist as the cover indicates.  And there I was, thinking it was a joke.  I was dumb enough to get “No Reason to Cry”, which was not terrible, by the way.  Just unnecessary.

Jon Landau’s criticism of your guitar playing while Cream was at the height of its fame is often cited as one of the reasons Cream broke up.  But you totally ignore it in your book.  You attribute it to hearing the Band and wanting to join them.  But they already had a guitar player, Eric.  And let’s face it, you would have quit after a couple years anyway. 

The sad fact is that Clapton made more memorable music between 1965 and 1970 than during the nearly forty years since then.  His electricity drenched circa-1968 solos were his signature sound.  Self indulgent?  Yes, but that was the order of the day.  His blues licks were awesome, but I’m in no position to say how original they were.  To someone like me, they were revelatory.  I’ve just been a little slow on finding their origins.  But just you wait.

So Eric, you should have enough money and adulation you need by now.  Some of it even earned.  So why not just join a band, let someone else sing and write the songs, make some records and tour?  I dare you to keep that up for five years.

Can’t?  Fine.  Then just go away.

The 00s, or, Why I Aughtta...

Delayed Reactions:

At family gatherings, my dear old dad had the curious habit of reviving topics that we had finished discussing the hour before. At 4pm, let’s say, we would be discussing how the local football team sucked, but by five we’d have moved onto how the local baseball team sucked. Just as we’d be ripping into an overpaid leftfielder dad would bring up the overpaid quarterback again, and suddenly we’d all be back on football.

Well I’m getting more like my dad all the time. Young folks listen to music, decide what’s a hit, and move on to the next thing. With radio being the big waste of time it is, and me with my so-called adult life, I don’t even hear about that music until the next year when the annual-best-of polls come out. (But now, thanks to metacritic.com, I at least know what people think when it first comes out.)

It’s that time lag that kept me from getting a CD from this decade until late 2001. So there I am, pretending to be cool by advocating music that the target demographic has long since finished with, and that my demographic couldn’t care less about.

Now add to that the fact that I’m still catching up on other decades (not to mention centuries), and it means that a lot of my musical highlights came from other decades:

• The 90s: The Magnetic Fields’ “69 Love Songs”, Randy Newman’s “Faust”, Luna’s “Penthouse” and Belle and Sebastian’s “Tigermilk”
• The 80s: Nothing. Screw you, 80s.
• The 70s: Richard & Linda Thompson’s “I Want to See the Bright Lights Tonight”, Nick Drake’s “Five Leaves Left” and “Pink Moon”
• The 60s: Brian Wilson’s “Smile”, The Zombies’ “Odyssey and Oracle”
• The 50s: John Coltrane/Thelonious Monk Quartet - Live at Carnegie Hall

Then there is my lifetime self improvement project, resulting in my getting some great compilations of Hank Williams, Charlie Parker, Duke Ellington, Johnny Cash, Scott Joplin, Louis Armstrong, and Igor Stravinsky. And let’s not forget “Nuggets”.

My reactions to music outside of my favorite genres – rock/pop – can sound more appreciative than enthusiastic. Sorry, it just takes me more time to learn the new territory. Here are ten records - jazz/hip-hop/world/classical - that I’ve probably underrated out of sheer density.

• Jazz: Benny Goodman’s “Famous Carnegie Hall Concert”
• Hip Hop: Kanye West’s “The College Dropout”, Burial’s “Untrue”, De la Soul’s “Three Feet High and Rising”
• World: “The Music In My Head”, “Rough Guide to Youssou N’Dour and Etoile Dakar”
• Classical: Mozart’s and Brahm’s Requiems, Mahler’s Second Symphony,
• Country: James Tally’s “Got No Money, No Bread, But We Sure Got a Lot of Love”

If you care to know all the dirty details of my musical decade, check out these posts: 2000, 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008, and 2009.

Quick Jaybee, Before It’s 2019:

If I winnow it all down to just those records I got this decade that actually came out this decade, and that I love without reservation, they are, no particular order:

Old 97s - Satellite Rides

Good old alt-country-ish rock and roll from start to finish. The voice and lyrics are a bonus.

Fountains of Wayne – Welcome Interstate Managers

Perfect pop songs, about real life.

Shins – Chutes Too Narrow

Tunes up the wazoo, with a couple of the decade’s greatest songs.

Sufjan Stevens - Illinois

Ditto with the tunes, but more orchestration. And at least three of the best songs of the decade.

Arcade Fire - Funeral

So full of passion, you don’t quite believe it. But they mean it, man.

Neko Case – Fox Confessor Brings the Flood

What a voice! And how beautiful is that spare sound.

The Go Betweens – Oceans Apart

Getting older, looking back, just in time.

Badly Drawn Boy – The Hour of Bewilderbeast

A White Album for our decade.

PJ Harvey - Stories of the City, Stories of the Sea

“I feel immortal when I’m with you.”

Wussy - Funeral Dress

“And if they offered I would take it, a free ride out of this place…”

Honorable Mentions/Bronze Medals/Ms. Congenialities:

These records are great! but maybe not GREAT. That’s okay. We’d all like to meet Abe Lincoln, but we probably don’t want to spend the whole party with him:

The Wrens “The Meadowlands”, The Flaming Lips’ “Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots”, Orlando Lopez’s “Cachaito”, The Red Hot Chili Peppers “By the Way”, Modest Mouse’s “Good News for People Who Like Bad News”, Orchestre Baobab’s “Specialists in all Styles”, The Streets “A Grand Don’t Come for Free”, Radiohead’s “Kid A” and “In Rainbows”.

And just to give this some context, here’s a sampling of what some major news outlets said:

Rolling Stone

Paste Magazine

Robert Christgau
Metacritic

NME (if you want to hear what's going on across the pond)

Going Forward:

There was a hell of a lot more to this decade than just music. Not all of it good, by any means. But music is my safe haven where magic happens - just a simulation of life’s real joys, which unfortunately can’t be burned onto a CD to be played at will. Music can, however, reminder me that those joys do exist. Sometimes I forget.

Sometimes music lets me down. It happens when I’ve asked more from it than it can possibly provide. I begin to think that I’m done with it, and that in the new decade I’ll be looking elsewhere (Books? Art? Other human beings, perhaps?) for magic. But then those decade-end polls just whet my appetite all over again.

It’s good to be alive, for any number of reasons. Music is definitely one of them.

Decade: 2009 - The Year That Would Not Die

I knew going into 2009 that it was going to be an exhausting year – there was just a lot going on, both personally and professionally – but nothing that an adult couldn’t handle. And my way of dealing with stress is… well, you know.

Winter in Paris (Sort Of):

Ever since I first heard Edith Piaf singing in the background at some fancy-schmancy restaurant I was trying to avoid getting thrown out of - waiters in tuxes, no menu, dining by a living room fireplace - I was smitten. Being somewhat of a procrastinator/cheapskate, it took thirty years and five bucks (cheap date!) to consummate my smittenship.

And a tragedy of sorts - Virgin closed two megastores in my town. (More tragic was their idea of a going-out-of-business sale - prices that were still higher than the everyday prices at my favorite record store, which is doing quite well thank you very much.) The single disc “Voice of the Sparrow: The Very Best of Edith Piaf “ probably wouldn't satisfy the typical Edith Piaf fanatic but it suits me just fine (except that the CD is flawed and the last song craps out on me. The same thing happened to my son’s “Legend” by John Lennon, bought from the same store. No wonder the bastards went out of business.) She’s got that joie de vivre and je ne se quoi and all those other few remaining things we don’t yet hate about the French.
---------------- Now playing: Édith Piaf - La Vie en rose via FoxyTunes

Spring is for Jazz Lovers:

John Coltrane “Live” at the Village Vanguard is your typical JC album, if there is such a thing. Again, I thought I'd get that great song I heard on the radio twenty years ago, thinking perhaps it was "Chasin the Trane." I could swear there was a “train” (or “trane”) in the title. Well, wrong again. But it's never a waste with JC. This one fits neatly between “My Favorite Things” and “A Love Supreme”. I'm just proud of myself that I didn't go off the deep end and get the 4CD expanded version.

Oliver Nelson's “The Blues and the Abstract Truth” has me digging a little deeper into jazz, past the obvious greats, to some lesser-knowns, and why not? Like Avis, they try harder. This early-sixties record boasts an incredible lineup (Bill Evans, Eric Dolphy, Roy Haynes, etc.) great sound, accessible tunes, but with enough of a twist to keep things interesting. Definitely worth checking out.

Stan Getz/Joao Gilberto, Featuring Antonio Carlos Jobim

And why didn’t Astrud (Ms. Gilberto) get her name on the cover? After all, she’s the (admittedly non-professional) singer. You’ve heard them. Remember “The Girl from Impanema”? You could play it in the morning, or for dinner guests, but not, for God's sake, after dinner. You'll put everyone to sleep and then you'll never get rid of them. You'll be tempted to put them up for the night. Don't. Get them up and out with the Hold Steady and Gogol Bordello records I told you about. They'll never bother you again. Ever.
---------------- Now playing: Antônio Carlos Jobim - The Girl From Impanema via FoxyTunes

I Have No Class(ical Music):

Okay, that’s an exaggeration. But it’s taken a back seat to pop and jazz.

I read somewhere that Holst's “The Planets” is one of the most popular classical music pieces for people in my neck of the woods. I’ve gotten CDs for dumber reasons than that, so I picked up the one by the Berlin Philharmonic (I’d put the German spelling, but then you might think there’s a harmonica on the record, and I’m almost positive there isn’t one) with Simon Rattle conducting. This one’s got a bonus disc of other space oriented pieces by other conductors. This is just the type of gimmick to pull in ignoramuses (ignorami?) like me. It’s pretty cool, but you have to keep adjusting the volume, because Mars and Venus, as you might expect, are not on the same page. It takes me months or even years to get into some jazz and world music. It may take a millennium for classical music. But in the meantime, this one won’t make you run away screaming, or sleeping.

The Benedictine Monks of Santo Domingo de Silos – “Chant”

This is the tenth anniversary bonus edition. (Not of the music, dummy. Of the major cash-in on said music just this past century.) Two CDs are more than I need but I can’t pass up a bargain. Is it me or are these dudes singing the same song over and over again? (I wonder if they ever thought of hiring a drummer?) For all I know, they just put two copies of the same disc in there.

In any case, I smell a rat, and suspect the whole thing is a scam, dreamed up in the 14th century, to entice me down this branch of speculation, just to waste my (and now your) time. Morning music. Early morning. Maybe even before those Requiems.

Father's Day!

Ah, my favorite day of the year, when my family has no choice but to let me do whatever the hell I want. This year I spent it in the backyard, listening to the music they got me. How do they know what to get me, you ask? Oh, they know. I make sure of it. Three words: Amazon. Wish. List.

My biggest problem with rap music is that it forces you to listen. As important as the sound may be, it’s the words that matter. Whereas I can listen to and love a pop record for months before I ever understand the lyrics, rap doesn’t give me that luxury. De La Soul’s “Three Feet High and Rising” is very smart hip hop from the late eighties. They don’t fit into any fifty-something’s idea of what rap music is - they’re more nerds than thugs, which makes for a nice surprise. So I’ll need more time with this one.
---------------- Now playing: De La Soul - The Magic Number via FoxyTunes

How about an album of Dylan covers that won’t make you yawn? Well, you start with great but obscure songs, and then you don’t get all serious about it. That’s how McGuinness Flint Coulssen and Dean came up with “Lo and Behold”. I admit that I prefer most of the originals, but then again I’m a “Basement Tapes” fanatic. But for anyone not familiar with these songs, it’s a revelation. The singing is a bit too high, and some of the music isn’t very adventurous, but these guys had the right idea.

---------------- Now playing: Coulson, Dean, McGuiness, Flint - Eternal Circle via FoxyTunes

Summer:

Okay, school’s out. Time for some fun.

Sometime’s a record is so good that I’m reluctant to get something else by the artist, for fear that I’ll be disappointed and feel like a sucker. Belle and Sebastian’s “If You’re Feeling Sinister” was one of the great records of the nineties, and I’ve been wondering which of their several other records I should try. Then I spot “Tigermilk” – their first album, but released in the US years later. Legend has it that this was a final project for a music class they were taking in college. (All I ever did was a term paper.) It’s a bit more tuneful, if that’s possible, than “Sinister”. It’s also a bit less profound, but so what? Tuneful will keep me coming back. Ah, the trials and tribulations of coeds! The highlight for me is the warm, loving "I Don't Love Anyone". Only the disturbing cover prevents me from showing it to company.

---------------- Now playing: Belle and Sebastian - I Don't Love Anyone via FoxyTunes

Pavement was/is a nineties lo-fi, noise-rock group whose approach was to play and sing in tune most of the time. Having gotten their first record, “Slanted and Enchanted”, way back when, I knew what to expect from “Brighten the Corners”, and settled in for about a dozen listens before passing judgment. They dare you to hate them, and there are times when I take them up on it. But I’ve probably listened to it more than any other record this year, if only to get to the bottom of the damned thing. So I guess the joke’s on me. I’d recommend it, but I’m tired of getting those funny looks.

---------------- Now playing: Pavement - Date With Ikea via FoxyTunes

Birthday Overdose:

Did I say Father’s Day was the best day of the year? Yes, because on that day I share the burden of having a good time with all my no good, beer drinking brethren. It provides the solidarity and support needed to keep the guilt away, and the cover to annoy the rest of the population as a group.

Not so birthdays. You’re on your own, brother, as your family watches you sink under the weight of expectations that you know how to enjoy yourself. Sometimes it all collapses and the pathetic charade is revealed. Then, even the Amazon Wish List isn’t enough to save you (or your family).

Maybe it was an end of summer blues. Maybe it was the there’s more to life than music feeling that overcame me. Maybe I’m just done. But I immediately regretted getting The Mekons, the Streets and DJ Shadow. Now I think I get why - I already had something by each of them, and thus was flouting my main shopping basket culling rule (link). Was I lowering my standards and opening the floodgates to even more, and possibly more mediocre, CDs.

Too late now. These guys better pony up.

The Mekons made one of my favorite rock and roll albums in 1989. It was imaginatively titled “Rock and Roll”. “Fear and Whiskey” (really, “Original Sin”, which incorporated F&W and extra stuff) was an earlier, rawer record that had some fierce rock and roll, country and avant garde spoken word mishmashes. It was a little more daunting so I decided to keep my Mekons records spaced out by ten years or so. “OOOH!” is short for Out of Our Heads. It leans more to the country, songish side, but is quite sharp. Still sinking in.

---------------- Now playing: The Mekons - This Way Through the Fire via FoxyTunes

Ten years ago, I got DJ Shadow’s "Endtroducing..." (on the same time as “If You’re Feeling Sinister”!) which was also one of the most potent records of that decade. Now that “Tigermilk” had panned out, I decide to dip in for DJ Shadow’s second record, “The Private Press”. DJS samples hundreds of records, shatters them into a million pieces, and re-assembles them to form something new. It's also not quite sunk in yet (“Endtroducing” took some time, too) and it sounds a bit too much like the first (after all, where do you go from there?) but I've learned to give him some time.

Right now, The Streets first album “Original Pirate Material” is sounding way over-rated. I really enjoyed their second one “A Grand Don’t Come for Free”, which seemed funnier and more tuneful. OPM reeks of self-importance, which comes in handy when the music itself is a little lacking.

Some families are made up of Jedi knights. Some not. But like my father before me, I took my son to the record store. (Okay, dad would have brought me to the corner bar, but whatever.) One of his favorite bands – The Used - was playing there, and I got to browse. That’s where I found Modest Mouse’s The Moon and Antarctica”. This provided some relief because it took the edge off “Good News for People Who Like Bad News”. And like that record, it’s a real “album album” in that it has variety – some good tunes, some challenging cuts, that all hang together very well.
---------------- Now playing: Modest Mouse - Third Planet via FoxyTunes

By now I was feeling that while everything was good, nothing was Great. I had to reach outside of the decade.

Although we can agree that there was a lot of great music made in the sixties, it was not all necessarily crowded together on the same albums. It was a time of singles, and you could only expect great albums from the major artists. So any album outside of that select group is automatically suspect. To my great delight I sometimes find exceptions to this rule.

It’s 1968, and The Zombies’ “Odyssey and Oracle” - their last stab at a hit after a several year dry spell - sinks like a stone. Two years later, “Time of the Season” becomes a hit. But it's too late - the Zombies are no more. Decades pass, and word finally gets around that “Odyssey and Oracle” is a wonderful record. It’s aged quite well, and there's not a bad song on it. I’ve got the one with the ten bonus cuts, all worthwhile and then some. Even the lyrics are good. Highly recommended.

---------------- Now playing: The Zombies - Care of Cell 44 (stereo) via FoxyTunes

Neutral Milk Hotel’s “In the Aeroplane Over the Sea” starts off well enough, and there are some intriguing tunes, but when you give more prominence to the flugelhorn instead of the guitar, don’t expect a big fan base. This is okay. But then the singing is , well.... not that there's anything wrong with it.

Young cousin Michelle is making me look bad, talking classical music, dropping composers names and all. Concerto this, Opus that. Hey, I’m the adult here! But next time I’ll be ready for her. I got Mahler’s Second Symphony, per her recommendation. I plan to get every record she ever mentions just so that I can say “Oh yes, I’m familiar with that one…” (Maybe I’ll challenge her to arm wrestling instead…) Anyway, Gustave’s an emotional guy and he does deliver the goods. You don’t get bored. It’s got a good beat and you can dance to it.

Thanksgiving:

This is the time for song based records that artificially inject magic into what should be a magic time of year. What can I tell you? I need all the help I can get.

And if your idea of magic is the story of a couple from hell slowly destroying themselves, the Mountain Goats “Tallahassee” is just for you. Wow, these guys don’t mess around. John Darnielle doesn’t skimp on the words or over arrange the music. His thin, high voice might be annoying if not paired with striking music and oh so sharp lyrics. Funny too, but dark…

---------------- Now playing: The Mountain Goats - Tallahassee via FoxyTunes

You’ve heard of Richard Thompson, right? He’s been around for ages – playing with Fairport Convention, which did rock tinged versions of English folk ballads and Bob Dylan songs. He left in the early seventies and has been making solo records ever since. So he’s got a career that spans almost six decades, and you’re wondering where to start. I can think of worse places than his first record with his then wife Linda, “I Want to See the Bright Lights Tonight” (1974). It’s all here: the songwriting, the guitar playing, the singing (Linda Thompson has one of the great voices in pop music, and even Richard sounds good.) With its accordion when needed, even my mom would like this record. It’s worth checking out anyway. It might be a great one.

---------------- Now playing: Richard and Linda Thompson - Little Beggar Girl via FoxyTunes

Avett Brothers – I and Love and You

The title song is great, and it was instrumental in making me break one of my golden rules – just because you like the song you heard on the radio, don’t buy the CD because you’ll end up hating it when they play it to death . Besides the album may not be as good. Okay, less a rule than a voice inside my head. The jury’s out on this. It’s certainly tuneful enough. Maybe a little too pretty and polished. But it’s full of feeling, and that’s worth a lot.

I can hold onto a dollar, but it’s hard to resist those “You’ve got a free CD in your cart” offers. I must act. And Radiohead’s “Kid A” has been hanging out on my “to buy” list for some time (along with at least a thousand others) so it wasn’t anything pressing. No sooner do I get it when I find out that Rolling Stone has declared it Album of the Decade. I didn’t realize they were monitoring me that closely. Well, this came out in 2000, and it took me until the very end of 2009 to hear it. Oh, yeah, I’m all over this decade.

---------------- Now playing: Radiohead - Everything in It's Right Place (Head of the House) via FoxyTunes

Christmas:

This is a special time in my house, when we each watch in horror at what CDs the other family members receive. And since these same family members are both perpetrator and victim of this practice, it can be the source of a year’s worth of recriminations.

That amazon wish list heads off those problems for me, if not them. Some are not so lucky.

My gifts included Manu Chao’s hit-them-with-everything-you’ve-got world music “Esperanza: Proxima Estacion” and The Xx’s spacey, spare debut record. I’ll let you know.

Then there’s the gift card to that record store, which might mean yet another record before the years over. So I can’t even sum up a year, let alone a decade.

Great:

B&S

Richard and Linda Thompson

Zombies

Goods:

Mountain Goats

Lo and Behold

Disappointments:

DJ Shadow

The Streets

Don’t Play in Front of the Guests:

Neutral Milk Hotel

Too Soon to Tell:

Just about everything else.

Decade: 2008 - Highway '08 Revisited

Why look back? After all, I got everything exactly right, of course. But one could add:

Modest Mouse turns out to be the weird friend (from Seattle, not the Midwest) who you just can’t help but like. They’ve got staying power.

My Morning Jacket wore me down a little. His voice isn’t as annoying when he isn't straining.

My first impression of Wussy was right on. The guitars, singing and songwriting come together to make for a powerful record.

Which, in sum, makes the 2008 pantheon look something like this:

Loved:

Wussy

Liked:

Modest Mouse

Charlie Parker

Nuggets

New Pornographers

Django Reinhardt

Le Tigre

Now, let's get ready for '09!