Non-Generic Pop Music:

But as the year progresses and you’ve had your share of genres, experiments and oddities, sometimes you want a sure thing.  Which for me is guitar based pop/rock, with either a requisite amount of passion or intelligence, from a band that’s put in a strong showing before.  

So I go to a band that made me very happy last year:

Imperial Teen - Seasick (1996)

Okay, so I played it safe. And I get exactly what I wanted. And as the media constantly tells us, we all deserve the best. (Uh, what happens to all that stuff that’s second best? To paraphrase Homer Simpson, it’s for the poor.)

Finally, a straight ahead rock/pop record with good vocals - by the guys with the guitars and the gals with the drums and bass - and a light on its feet yet loud when it needs to be rhythm guitar. The snarky lyrics don’t hurt a bit, either. They go soft and loud, fast and slow, punk and pop, funny and serious.

This record is everything the two Shoes records aren’t. Unique, in that very pop non-unique way.

You can tell when a pop record has been  engaging from beginning to end - the first and last songs can be slow ones, and you don’t even mind.  A

"Pig Latin"

Great Expectations, or Lucinda Williams vs. Santa Claus, Jesus and Herself

Sometimes I do the worst thing someone can do to an artist. I compare their newer work to their older work, almost knowing I’ll be disappointed. I’m hoping the artist can somehow leap over the Wall of Pessimism I’ve built in my head. Alas, Jaybee’s Wall of Pessimism makes the one in "Game of Thrones" seem like a slight incline.

Why do I do this? Well, there’s, J&R selling what few CDs they still have for $3.99. (The good ones, anyway.) And there’s also how some records insist on showing up on every "Greatest Albums of the Century This Week" list the internets can come up with.

Lucinda Williams - Sweet Old World:

Like this 1990 follow up to her 1988 classic self titled album, which is slightly disappointing in comparison, but also more fun in comparison to the slightly overrated Car Wheels on a Gravel Road.

SOW contains a couple of my favorite Lucinda moments - “Something About What Happens When We Talk”, which shows how her quirky singing can find more melody than what’s actually written down, and “He Never Got Enough Love”, whose melody and passionate delivery more than make up for the cliche in the title. Some of these songs kept my Americana station from wearing out its welcome a lot sooner than it did.

But the problem this record has to overcome is how to keep the music fresh when you’re working in a rigidly defined genre, and it didn’t fail to disappoint. LW managed to be bouncy and energetic and emotional all at once. This gets, in turn, serious, moving and melodic but rarely at the same time. It keeps up with its predecessor just fine for the first five tracks, but starts to wear down during “Pineola”, which underlines the mention of a gunshot with a smack of the drums (kind of cheesy), and where I’m supposed to be impressed with the mention of “the Pentecost”. And yet, it’s a good song, as are all the rest, none of which are great, except for the Nick Drake cover.

But I ask too much! Not only was her prior record wonderful, it was also a quintessential holiday record, stamping itself on my December (of what year, I wonder), So it occupies a hallowed place in my psyche. By an unfortunate coincidence, I happened to get SOW during a another pre-Thanksgiving record store drop in, when I set my expectations way too high to begin with.  So there’s another hurdle to jump.

And, as Mrs. Jaybee can tell you, it takes some doing to for anything to make its way into Jaybee’s brain. The fact that SOW hasn't yet just means I have a good album instead of a great one. Check in with me again in six months. B+

Super Know-Nothings

Well, I’m still cleaning up my 2013 mess. This one from, oh, October, when an innocent trip to the record store (is there any such thing?) yielded a bunch of $3.99 specials, at least one of which keeps showing up on All Time Best Lists (nevermind whose list it is!). I tell you, I could almost feel the gun at my head.

Soundgarden - Superunknown (1994):

There’s something about Chris Cornell that I just don’t like. Guys with those huge singing voices are not to be trusted around your girlfriend. But I think it was when he went solo and cleaned up his look. He used to look like your typical grunge slob, which didn’t threaten my ego. Now he was doing things like bringing in Timbaland to do production and shaving. He clearly wanted a hit and to be a star. Way too professional for me. And what would Kurt say?

But his old band Soundgarden had its moments. And aside from the superficial Zeppelin similarities it only gets ridiculous on “Limo Crash”, where I can almost overhear the conversation in the studio:

Soundgarden Person 1 (probably the guitar player, but really who knows?): Hey I’ve got this cool groovy atmospheric thing going. Listen! (Plays it.)

Soundgarden Person 2 (probably Chris, but really, who can say?): Oh yeah, that sounds cool!  Let me come up with some lyrics to go along with it. Hmm, something indicating a state of confusion. And perhaps being in a daze… (Begins writing.)

Person In Charge: Hey idiots, you’re totally ripping off “Dazed and Confused” (which would be, oh, let's say ironic).  

SGP 1: Oh sh*t, you’re right.  But I like it!

SGP 2: I’ve got it! We’ll change it midway through.

SGP 1: Cool! No one’ll suspect a thing.

And the rest is not quite history.

And yet. And yet  There’s a lot of references to destruction and death here that probably sounded silly before 9/11, but now give me a little chill.

And Chris Cornell? His stupendous vocals mesh quite well with the big guitar and drums. And yes, it's all been done before, but Chris fills his role (and every available space, too) quite well. For a Robert Plant substitute, we could do a lot worse. As a matter of fact, we have done a lot worse.

An actual loud and fast song doesn’t show up until track 11, but that's okay. We like the loud slow ones just fine.

And “Head Down” is just sublime. I had it in my head all day last Friday at work. Couldn’t get a damn thing done. And really, isn’t rock and roll supposed to get people to stop working and f*ck off more?

So I say good job fellas!

A-

“Head Down”

I Was Expecting Noise, But All I Got Was Beauty

But it was time to get back to this decade century:

The Yeah Yeah Yeahs: It's Blitz

Karen O's voice isn't all that strong but she deploys it to great effect.  And her punk band goes along with her, this time opting for lighter textures and fragile melodies.  And it's one of the few records that gave me some immediate - but lasting - gratification. They top it all off with four beautiful alternate acoustic versions of some tracks that, for my money, are better. There's really not much more to say than it may be my record of the year. A

From Ear to Ear!

Still wandering around the internets, I stumbled upon Nils Lofgren’s old band, Grin.  I’d mostly heard Nils  on Neil Young albums, as part of Crazy Horse, with Bruce Springsteen and as a solo artist.

But never his earliest - and some would say best - period. It turns out that some are right.

The Very Best of Grin, featuring Nils Lofgren:

This is pre-solo, pre-Bruce, sort of pre-Neil, back when he could backflip without the trampoline.

And as much as I enjoyed his first solo record, and his contributions to other artists, this record manages to be a revelation. Nils has a sweet voice, plays a razorsharp guitar and - writes some great, melodic songs.  And rockers, too!

You might find the first listen questionable. The first song, especially, where Nils’ brother Tom, sounding a hundred years old, accompanied by a country western piano, kicks off  “Everybody’s Missing the Sun” . But don’t worry, just when you think you’ve bought the wrong album, Nils jumps in, singing the melody he’s been holding back just for that moment, and a wave of warmth washes over you!  

I’m embarrassed to say that I didn’t know how good a songwriter Nils was.  Even the Jaybee-Brother-annoying 1975 solo record wasn’t as good as this softer and sweeter side.  The guitar’s as good as ever, too. A

When to Play It: Any old time.

When NOT to Play It: Around young people.

“Hi, Hello Home”

I Think I Killed Lou Reed:

When I’m not out there trying to bring the entire musical canon into my house, I can be found wandering off into the nether corners of the musical landscape. For some odd reason, I decided it was time to check out what the hell John Cale had been doing since the Velvets, aside from producing some great bands and playing on other people’s records.

Now why would I do this except to piss off (a not dead yet) Lou Reed? Cale and Reed never really got along. Reed kicked Cale out of the Velvet Underground, and made sure no one had any fun during the reunion tour in the 90s.

I was having a lousy summer and was in one of my very frequent judgemental moods. And who better to go after than heroes who disappoint? Like Gore Vidal, who wrote eloquently about politics and history, but whose will left nothing to his longtime housekeeper, and John Lennon, who sang about peace and love, but treated his women like garbage. I’m not sure if this information was in the ether at the time, or I was just stumbling upon it. In any case, I was loaded for bear.

So if you’re thinking of people who create beauty but who do ugly things, who’s a bigger bear than Lou Reed? I might have been looking for a good Velvet Underground video to post to Facebook, when I came across a video or Reed acting out on some poor interviewer. Well, he wasn’t really that awful on it.  But the the bad behavior stories are legion. So, what could little old me do to stick it to mean old Reed? Why, buy a John Cale record, of course.

So I began wandering around the internets for a “popular” John Cale record. Well, there’s no such thing. So I got this one:  

John Cale - The Island Years

Cale brought the non-guitar noise to VU - playing bass and violin, and doing his best to make them sound like ballistic missiles.

His post VU career is probably more varied than Lou Reed’s.  This 2 CD set combines Cale’s three albums for Island records (Fear, Slow Dazzle and Helen of Troy) a few years after VU broke up. During this period, he keeps things pretty conventional, saving the lunacy for some occasional screaming, but otherwise letting others like Eno to do the dirty work for him

Of the three albums gathered here, Fear is the strongest. The moods are varied and the band is tight. The songwriting is pretty good, and the vocals are...well.

Slow Dazzle and Helen of Troy don’t seem to have as strong an identity but of course that can be due to being stuck behind Fear in the playing order. And the more I play this thing, the more I like them. But it turns out that my favorite cuts are the previously unreleased ones and the B Sides. And the ballads!

As good as this set is, it’s hard to love Cale, and just as hard to hate him. Not so with Reed of course, who provoked extreme reactions with practically every album he made.  And he made a lot. Probably more than Cale sold. But given how they felt about each other, every Cale record sold was probably a nail in Reed’s coffin.

Well, I got this record, and it must have been the one to put him over the limit. Within a month, Reed was dead. So I confess, I probably did it. But as Mrs. Jaybee says, I suffer from delusions of grandeur.

B+

When to Play It: When you’re in the mood to explore.

When NOT to Play It: When you want to have fun.

“Sylvia Said”

Let's Party, or the Terrorists Win

This might be as close as I ever get to a philosophic thought about music.  Don’t worry, it dissipates pretty quickly.

Andrew WK - I Get Wet

This record is so over the top it’s funny. It’s fast and loud - the lyrics are usually shouted. And melodies? I wouldn’t know. I haven’t noticed any yet. There’s even some organ to add extra bombast. (Because there wasn’t enough already?)

The theme is PARTY! (Three of the songs have the word in their titles.)  There are love songs, too.  (Okay, maybe not “Take it Off”.)  

One of them to New York, titled, oddly enough, “I Love NYC”, which at first I thought was just a typical “hurray for fill-in-the-city” song. But then I noticed the album’s release date - November 13, 2001, and that some of the album was recorded in New York.

So it hit me. Andrew W.K. is that guy from high school who is big enough to kick your ass, and because he’s a simple guy and you’re a nerd, has every reason to want to kick your ass, but doesn’t.  Instead, he’s actually friendly to you! And like God (I’m told), he likes you and wants you to have a good time.

And after 9/11, he decided that what this country needs is a good party. You know, to show the world what we do best. Party our asses off! And who knows? Maybe we wouldn’t have gotten around to that war. Sorry, wars. Although that’s mine - and possibly not Andrew’s - thinking.

And while I’m a few decades too old to really appreciate it, I admire the sentiment. It seems so singled-minded in its advocacy of said partying, that I suspect it’s all a con.  Which makes it more fun. Otherwise I look ridiculous playing it.

This is such a good hearted record I feel like I owe it a higher grade. But I’m too much of a miserable bastard to play it a lot. If the situation were reversed, Andrew’s such a sweetheart, he’d mark me on a curve. B

When to Play It: When you’ve had too much coffee and, for some reason, love the world.

When NOT To Play It: Late at night when everybody’s trying to sleep. Wakes (maybe the day after, though)

"I Love NYC"