Category: Album Reviews

Midnite Vultures | Beck | 1999 | DGC | #307

You know how the boomers got their lot in life then pulled the ladder up, so as to onset a process whereby – at their mercy – we chronically have a large, lumpish implement unceasingly thrust into our powerless, destitute anuses (already cramped from the abundance of other such pears of anguish from the various mechanisms of capitalism)? Well, imagine the torture our anuses must feel in this metaphor.

That’s how my soul feels when I listen to Beck.

It’s a Shame About Ray | The Lemonheads | 1992 | Atlantic | #308

Life doesn’t really add up. How am I supposed to hold down a full-time job whilst having days where from the moment I wake up to the moment I go to bed I wonder how it is that people actually enjoy life, and yet also fit in days where I’m satisfied enough with my innermost self to not feel like I’m a bit part in whatever world it is where people are comfortably resonating with this album?

I really understand this album. I just feel like like it was written for people who live in a real-life Friends-like sitcom universe.

In a way, It’s a Shame About Ray is an allegory of 90s casualness to life that was part of the zeitgeist of our parents’ generation. Except, littered with trauma and strife (cheap housing stock and an – albeit fucked by Thatcher – post-boomer social economy notwithstanding), they were hardly afforded to indulge in that in their own lives either. So for whom was this written? Folded into the contents of this album are themes of break-up, regret, love-lost, and the general fuckery of life. But as it’s presented it is a mockery of those things. The absolute audacity to deliver these topics in a laissez-faire, jangle pop, easily digestible container. I’ve lost years of my life where The Lemonheads wrote a 3 minute palatable euphony. The arrogance; the gall.

I love this album which is a huge struggle for me because I hate it.

Metallica | Metallica | 1991 | Elektra | #309

I was planning on listening to this again now – some 15 years after I first did so – with a kind of disparaging, snobbish retrospect that being twice the age of my Metallica-debuting teenage self naturally allows me. As it happens though, it’s just a fucking good album isn’t it? I don’t know why I cynically thought that way, I just expected it to be so. And for some reason doing things like entirely rejecting everything my younger self stood for makes me feel better about getting older.

I didn’t care that Metallica apparently sold out when they released this album then, and I certainly don’t now. Because funnily enough at age 14 I hadn’t cultivated a purist taste for thrash-metal. I don’t even care anyway; all I know is that this is a rightfully commercially successful album which – for many – was a gateway to appreciating metal. That’s because nearly every song is an absolute classic that made the genre accessible. At least, they did for me when I discovered this album.

Even though it’s definitely more of a masterclass in production than songwriting (nod to Bob Rock), there’s plenty of riffs and motifs that are surely now musically immortalised; nobody will ever not instantly recognise Enter Sandman, and I’ll forever happily, unashamedly be that wanker who can and will recite the entirety of Nothing Else Matters – note-for-note – at parties whenever a guitar is brought out. Because it’s just that good. And because I can’t play Stairway.

The attempts of lyrical sensitivity dealing with issues of war, death, and betrayal, at first seemed silly in an album of otherwise chest-puffed, head-banging metal anthems but ultimately they’re lapped up when presented to us in arrangements such as The Unforgiven and My Friend of Misery. In fact the entire thing is an assortment of somewhat-grievance, served on a platter of easily digestible heavy metal, and I like it.

Countdown to Ecstasy | Steely Dan | 1973 | ABC | #310

It sounds like what I’d imagine a mid-morning BBC Radio 2 presenter would play if they were being daring. For example, Donald Fagen finally exclaims “look out!” before the breakdown/solo/outro of “Bodhisattva” begins – a blues guitar solo over a swing rhythm section complete with an organ! To be fair there was hardly any time to react to New York Dolls in 1973. Cautionary lyrical warnings preceding innocuous 70s guitar solos only seem naive now because we know about the invention of punk.

“The shine of your Japan/The sparkle of your china/Can you show me Bodhisattva… I’m gonna sell my house in town” and just like that I now love this album. The funk, jazz, rock, easiness is so adept I first mistook it for being a bit tedious, but then I realised we were doing it whilst taking the piss out of Westerners who try to buy Asian culture, qualming over class differences, and other topics I get to feel smug about having self-righteous grievances with.

Actually the whole album is laced with nuances I initially overlooked. I’ve listened to it about 10 times now (it’s been a while since my last entry) and I get something new out of it every time. The album format seems silly and frustrating for what are obviously a bunch of expert jam session musicians who seem like they could probably eternally produce material of equal quality. As a snapshot though this seems pretty good.

Guerrilla | Super Furry Animals | 1999 | Creation | #311

There are many parallels between embarking on this challenge and doing a PhD. Namely that I’m apparently very good at doing it every day for a couple of months followed by 6 weeks of total capitulation and questioning why I’d ever started. But part of being an adult, I’ve grudgingly learned, is knowing the relative consequences of failure for both and to whom it is most important to keep happy. Which is why I’m reviewing 25 Feb’s album on 8 April and consequently why I still have a job.

The truth is sometimes you just really don’t feel like doing something. And sometimes you just really don’t feel like doing something for several weeks. A bit like how Super Furry Animals decided not to record a decent track for some period in 1999 while they were laying down this record. Each song could be the title sequence music for a mid-2000s teenager-targeted sitcom airing during the small hours on BBC3 (RIP/Good Riddance), which puts them in the bizarre and unwanted position of being slightly ahead of the curve for that period of entirely forgettable gaudy popular culture which happened at the turn of the Millennium – it kinda makes me think of Microsoft Word Art. Unfortunately our parents’ generation used up all the nostalgia for things fun and tacky on the 80s. All we get to do now is look back and say things like ‘that was a bit shit wasn’t it’.

Part of me wants to appreciate the varied use of genres that helps create a somewhat original pop-rock album (can’t really argue with that), and even ‘Do Or Die’ is not a terrible track but, somewhere in the middle, there’s a song based on a mobile phone ringtone; visions of trending novelty-based creativity return and all is lost.

Treasure | Cocteau Twins | 1984 | 4AD | #312

I found this quite a difficult album to describe. It plays out like the antidote to a stressful day with its delicate, dreamlike, melodies – not that today was stressful by any stretch. The songs wash about with ambient echoes and indecipherable lyrics with an unobtrusive drum track; it’s dream pop. The problem is that if you’re not looking for music to be medicinal then I found there wasn’t much here to find entertaining; the idea quickly runs bland and it’s just not fun after that.

On the one hand the 80s elements of experimental instrumentalism which technology afforded artists in the day are very obvious, on the other it’s quite remarkable how this doesn’t feel entirely like a record more than 30 years old. The squeaky-clean production leaves hardly a fingerprint with which to identify its place in the musical spectrum which, while normally I hate, I found myself appreciating here. The Enya-like vocals and atmospheric, chilled instrumentals are really effective at creating that peace-of-mind vibe (as is obviously the goal), but it all feels a bit too shallow and eventually the blissful bubble of euphoria bursts and you’re bored again. Having said that it’s easily an album I could come back to on another day and enjoy immensely. Who knows? It’s pretty though.

Franks Wild Years | Tom Waits | 1987 | Island | #313

Being a Tom Waits neophyte, I feel like I’m running through a biography or getting a chronological discovery of the development, or invention, of Tom’s character with every album of his I listen to. I watched him on an old Letterman interview recently. He really is quite a character. But there’s something unsettling about realising his off-record persona matches that in his music. Idiosyncratic characters who are that cool exist only in fiction, or so I thought. Maybe I’m wrong and it’s all genuine. Maybe it doesn’t matter.

It’s similar antics to Swordfishtrombone. A return of that peculiar, eccentric jazz sound; aching trombones and accordians, carnival organs, and of course the distinct Waits vocal style which is now an instrument in its own right – of which I can’t decide if its still entertaining or just too distractingly artificial. What I like about Tom is the dedication and intensity with which he’s pitching his individuality. His albums are unconditionally a showcase of his talent; whether that’s a funhouse creation of a mad genius, or a brilliant piss-take. For me it’s fascinating but not terribly entertaining, but undoubtedly the kind of music I support. For sure the world is a better place (as is my musical catalogue) for having Tom Waits and his curious works of Operachi Romanticos.

Spiderland | Slint | 1991 | Touch and Go | #314

For me this is so definitively 90s alt-rock. Edgy, spoken-word vocals, grungey guitar riffs, odd time signatures, and sounding like it was recorded in someone’s basement. But it’s also way more than that and it’s impossible to explain why without sounding like a pretentious twat. The lyrics are pensive and cynical – and the music reflects that – but it’s so incredibly mesmerising. It manages to be moody but not sulky; the melodies creep and brood and suddenly flair out with controlled bursts like a breaching whale. (told you)

The more you listen to it the more impressive is the amount of tension and atmosphere they create out of extremely simple, yet methodical, song structures. If I was to get technical I’d suggest a large of part of that is down to the dynamics of the rhythm section – and it’s pretty much all rhythm section – the drumming especially. In fact a lot of the attitude for the album is articulated by the expressive drum riffs. The rarity of the outbursts – the moments of unleashing distorted eruptions – make them seem more pertinent than the almost perfunctory use of this kind of form heard from grunge artists of the time.

I had to listen to this one a few times as it always seemed like it was over too quickly (6 tracks in 39 minutes), but I’d listen to it more if it wasn’t time for bed. It lingers for a while afterwards and disrupts your normal state of mind; occupying space in your thoughts as something vast and significant yet inscrutable. So that’s cool.

Cheap Thrills | Big Brother and the Holding Company | 1968 | Columbia | #315

Should I have known that Janis Joplin fronted Big Brother as her first major label record release? Well I didn’t. She’s a stand-out here; sounding like someone’s ripping out her vocal cord while she’s belting out blues vocals over a classic rock and roll backing band. You could say its an almost Robert Plant-esque “banshee wail” but of course Janis was doing it first.

 

I can’t decide if this really does sound fresh for its age (late 60s release, remember) or if that’s an illusion brought on by the disgustingly stale record of yesterday. Either way it sounds great. The big tracks are raucous, fast and loose, 60s sounding overdrive guitar-led wailing blues/acid rock fracases. Take that image, couple it with Janis’ vocal style and a purposefully undercooked production and it all sums to something incredibly impassioned and musically intense. The quieter tracks are tight and soulful.

There’s some absolute classics here. Obviously the “Piece of My Heart” cover is somewhat a signature for both the band and more so Janis herself. But other stand-outs are “Summertime” and “Ball and Chain”. As far as I’m concerned this matches a lot of what Led Zep ever wrote and, while its peaks aren’t quite as high as LZ’s, Big Brother’s consistency is appreciated which oftentimes is a frustration of mine when listening to Zep. One of the best albums this month.

Imperial Bedroom | Elvis Costello and the Attractions | 1982 | F-Beat | #316

This was one of the most difficult albums for me to sit through. It’s such boring, predictable tripe. The meandering vocal melodies – seemingly deliberate to show sophistication or something – along with gratuitous vocal vibrato and sounding like he’s got a cold all culminate into the most aggravating vocal style I’ve heard on this list so far. I can’t bare to listen to him, it’s torturous.

 

The music itself is some sort of post-jazz, laid-back pop. There’s no doubt that these songs were deliberated over and extensively crafted into what they are. But what are they? What’s the end product but a dull arrangement of lyrically obtuse – what the fuck is he even singing about? – characterless songs with entirely forgettable melodies? The fact this is so critically acclaimed is offensive.