After 17 years of
professional music-reviewing, Noel Murray is taking time off from all new
music, and is revisiting his record collection in alphabetical order, to take
stock of what he's amassed, and consider what he still needs.
When I was
in 9th grade, I had an English teacher who nurtured my interest in
rock 'n' roll by loaning me copies of The Rolling Stone Record Guide and Greil Marcus' Mystery Train, and by making tapes of anything I
asked for from his collection. I moved on to a different school in 10th
grade, then in 11th grade—for reasons too complicated to get
into—I was reunited with my favorite English teacher, who was still
willing to tape for me whatever I was interested in. Only by then I had
extended my music studies in directions that diverged from his; and even when
we overlapped, it wasn't exact. He loved Van Morrison's Moondance; I wanted Astral Weeks. I requested Plastic Ono Band; he preferred Imagine. And while he was into Neil Young's Harvest, I was
into Rust Never Sleeps and Tonight's The Night, two albums he didn't much like.
I'm sure my
musical mentor chalked up my interest in drearier, moodier records to
adolescence. I was also listening to a lot of The Cure, The Smiths, Bauhaus and
Sisters Of Mercy at the time, and wearing my hair all swooped over my eyes so
I'd look mysterious and brooding. Yet here I am in my late 30s, with a wife and
two kids, and still one of my favorite things to do in this life is to drive
around on a rainy afternoon, listening to slow, sad music.
Is this
impulse common? I'd like to think that we all enjoy a good wallow, except that
I've met plenty of people who can't stand depressing music or depressing movies,
and can't understand why anybody would want to be sad. For me though, a
melancholy song is like a mood-alterering drug. My breathing slows, my heart
rate lowers, and my whole brain chemistry changes. It's not unlike sleeping.
And when the song is over, it's like waking up from a disturbing dream, feeling
refreshed and relieved.
A dark album can be transporting in a different
way. When I listen to Plastic Ono Band or Tonight's The Night, I'm not focused on myself at all.
I'm joining a musician on a journey through their most pessimistic thoughts and
soul-crushing experiences, and commiserating. I feel sympathetic,
concerned—connected. I don't mean to imply that I understand exactly where the artist is coming from,
but I at least get a rough feel. I can't fully imagine what Young was going
through when he wrote and recorded Tonight's The Night, but the context is built into the
music, which sounds washed-out and ramshackle, like the work of man just trying
to make it to the end of the day.
In 1973,
Neil Young was enjoying the success of Harvest and preparing for a tour when he
fired his heroin-addicted guitarist Danny Whitten—who died of an overdose
the same night Young dismissed him. Despondent and unstable, Young embarked on
an erratic three-month tour that saw him playing new, crankier material to
sometimes hostile crowds, and recording the results for the album Time Fades
Away (which bombed
when it was released in 1973 and has never been available on CD). Then Young's
roadie Bruce Barry also died of a heroin overdose, and Young continued his trip
into the darkness with Tonight's The Night, an album that in its original form reportedly
featured long spoken-word sections in between bouts of loping, disjointed
country-rock. The label didn't want to release it, so Young headed back into
the studio and pumped out the relatively cleaner On The Beach, another mournful record that at
least sounded professional, and contained the optimistic "Walk On." When that
record bombed too, Young recorded an album called Homegrown, which both his label and all his
closest associates felt was the true follow-up to Harvest, and a definite hit. But Young
waffled about releasing it, and instead insisted that Reprise put out Tonight's
The Night in a new,
more truncated form.
I've never
heard Time Fades Away and I'm up-and-down on On The Beach, but Tonight's The Night is one of those albums that makes
me glad to be alive and listening to rock 'n' roll. Young has always taken an
active interest in the literal sound of the records he makes, and during the early '70s he was
kicking around ideas about a new kind of music, a sort of "audio verité," in
which a record would be a document of the musician was going through, captured
in the moment, unedited and unaltered. You can hear that impulse in songs like Tonight's
The Night's "Speakin'
Out:"
The song
starts with a slowed-down barrelhouse piano riff, acquires a touch of bluesy
guitar and cowboy slide, and then Young ambles in, slurring his words,
following seemingly unconnected trains of thoughts about movies and loneliness.
Each band member sounds like he's off in a room by himself, with the playback
turned so low on his headphones that he only has a rough idea how what he's
playing fits into the mix. "Speakin' Out" recreates the feeling of a group of
people each off in their own worlds, barely understanding each other, but going
through the motions of camaraderie regardless.
Later in
the album, the playing is more cohesive on songs like "Albuquerque:"
Here, Young
sounds more sober and the band is more in concert, but tamping down the
recklessness of "Speakin' Out" has had consequences. The music now feels muted
and mournful, shot through with shame and regret. This is morning-after
music—fraught with the awareness that while partying hard wasn't as much
fun as we might've hoped, waking up the next day is even worse. And so it goes
with Tonight's The Night, an album about drugs, death and existential despair that doesn't
express much hope, aside from the fundamental faith that getting into a room
and making music with friends will eventually bring order and meaning to a life
spinning out of control.
I can
understand why some people wouldn't want to put themselves through that kind of
experience voluntarily, as a leisure activity, but when I listen to Tonight's
The Night I can
smell the dank practice spaces and taste the warm beer and feel the gastric
juices burning my esophagus—and when it's over I'm me again, and can hear
my son reciting the total cash and prizes of some game show contestant he just
saw on TV, and watch my daughter pretending to be a cat. And I can go into the
kitchen and start washing and slicing the fingerling potatoes I'm going to
roast to go along with the cheese omelet and fruit salad I'm going to make my
family for dinner. And I can be grateful.
P.S. I have
a long list of "dark albums" that take me on very specific bum trips: American
Music Club's California, Nick Drake's Pink Moon, Bruce Springsteen's Nebraska, Wilco's A Ghost Is Born, Joy Division's Closer, and on and on. What are your downers of choice?
*****************
Pieces
Of The Puzzle
The Moody Blues
Years Of
Operation
1964-present
Fits
Between The Alan
Parsons Project and Genesis
Personal
Correspondence Two
Moody Blues memories recur every time I hear their music. The first is recent:
In a Sunday Nancy
comic strip by Guy Gilchrist—a cartoonist who's increasingly used Ernie
Bushmiller's strip to voice his own appreciation for all things sacred to
boomers—Aunt Fritzi announces that she's going to a concert, and when
Nancy asks if it's a rock or classical concert, Fritzi says, "Both." The big
reveal? She's going to see The Moody Blues! Corny, yes, but I have to say: Not
entirely off-the-mark. My second lingering memory of The Moody Blues involves
listening to Days Of Future Past with my folks. When they got their first car with a tape
deck, my mom and stepfather went cassette-shopping at Wal Mart, plucking a
handful of their favorites from the bargain bin to play when we all went on
long trips. My favorite tape they bought was Steely Dan's Aja—a subject I'll be getting to
in a couple of months. My second-favorite was Days Of Future Past, which never ceased to surprise me.
First off, the record honestly does sound traditionally symphonic—to the
extent that I'd often be surprised when the orchestra faded and the spoken-word
poetry and trippy pop songs started. And those trippy pop songs flow in and out
of the classical passages so fluidly that sometimes it was hard for me to
remember how exactly I ended up in the thick of a thumping rock number. Days
Of Future Passed is
completely kitschy, from its "day in the life" conceit to its grandiose "rock
as art" pretensions. But it's one of the rare concept albums where the sum and
the parts are equally well-conceived. Each fragment sounds rich and fully
realized, and the whole listening experience is oddly satisfying too.
Enduring
presence? My Moody
Blues expertise is low, I have to confess. I have Days of course, and a cheap anthology
that includes a smattering of the band's hit singles, from the Nuggets-y "Ride My Seesaw" to the AC
favorite "Your Wildest Dream." But I haven't properly connected the dots, and
every time I listen to Days Of Future Passed, I think that any band who can pull
off this particular fusion so successfully probably has other triumphs I'd
enjoy. (I also think of The X-Men; comic book fans will know why.)
[pagebreak]
Morrissey
Years Of
Operation
1988-present (solo)
Fits
Between Pulp and
James
Personal
Correspondence By
all rights, Morrissey's solo career should've been a footnote to the run of The
Smiths, since by the time The Smiths broke up, the prevailing opinion was that
Johnny Marr was the real genius in that band, and that Morrissey's preening
self-absorption was becoming a distraction (and starting to verge on
self-parody on Strangeways Here We Come). The first Morrissey solo album, Viva Hate, was a happy surprise, featuring
producer Stephen Street and co-writer/arranger Vini Reilly doing their best to
maintain Morrissey's momentum. Songs like "Suedehead," "Hairdresser On Fire"
and "Everyday Is Like Sunday" were clearly Smiths-worthy, combining lush late
'60s pop with new wave and rockabilly. Then Morrissey followed it up with Bona
Drag, a compilation
of non-LP singles and Viva Hate rehashes that started something of a trend with Morrissey:
repackaging old material over and over, and flooding the market with ungainly
novelties like "The Last Of The Famous International Playboys" and "Ouija
Board, Ouija Board." When he's focused, Morrissey writes songs that are
effortless and evocative, telling offbeat, clearly personal stories about resentful
loners. He's even shown himself capable of holding it together for a full
album. (Your Arsenal would be my favorite.) But there's an element of buffoonery to him too
that makes him very frustrating to follow as a fan. He's too good to dismiss;
too uneven to laud.
Enduring presence? I hate to be one of those "if you
don't like it that's your problem man" kind of guys, but there's something
perversely satisfying about the fact that even now, 20 years after we went
solo, Morrissey is still so hated by so many. Many of his peers are still
making music for dwindling fan bases, but people don't care enough about them
to get annoyed by their very existence. Meanwhile, Morrissey comes along every
couple of years with another set of snappy songs about outlaws and outcasts,
and finds yet another generation of 16-year-olds who feel like they've finally
found someone who understands them, and yet another generation of 22-year-olds
who find their former Morrissey fandom so embarrassing that they lash out. The
cycle of cool rolls on.
Motörhead
Years Of
Operation
1975-present
Fits
Between Black
Sabbath and Queens Of The Stone Age
Personal
Correspondence In
high school, some friend or another loaned me a videotape that contained about
a half-dozen episodes of The Young Ones, the British cult comedy series that briefly aired
on MTV in the States, alternately befuddling and delighting we Yanks with its
slapstick surrealism. That tape was my first exposure to Motörhead, who
performed "Ace Of Spades"—one of the greatest heavy rock songs ever
recorded—on the first episode of The Young Ones' second series. With no context for
comprehending who Motörhead were and how they were perceived by the rock
community at large, I pegged them as a particularly badass punk band, and
promptly forgot about them, until Lemmy popped up in Penelope Spheeris'
documentary The Decline Of Western Civilization Part II: The Metal Years. (Aside: When I was in college,
everyone I knew looked down on the second Decline because the bands weren't as "cool"
as the bands in the first Decline; but the second is a much more ambitious and thoughtful
film, and it's always been the one I prefer. Of course, they're all out of
circulation now, so it's a moot debate.) I'm afraid I may have given the wrong
impression earlier this year when I wrote about being afraid of certain music
when I was a kid. It's true; I was. But that phase passed, and I do make loud,
fast, heavy music a regular part of my listening diet. It's just not a big part. (I don't eat barbecued ribs
that often either, though I think they're delicious.) Because I don't listen to
much in the way of hardcore punk or metal, I'm not all that adventurous with
what I do consume. I have my two Motörhead anthologies—one studio, one
live—and I return to them as often as I do to anything similar. I think
what appeals to me about them is that much like AC/DC, if you strip Motörhead
of their noise and speed, they're basically an old-timey rock 'n' roll band,
bashing out roadhouse boogie. While possessed by demons.
Enduring
presence? You know
what else I like about Motörhead? Nearly every song in their repertoire sounds
like it's the last one of the night. They go out with a bang, over and over.
My Bloody Valentine
Years Of
Operation
1984-present (?)
Fits
Between Cocteau
Twins and Swervedriver
Personal
Correspondence My
Bloody Valentine provides a reasonable counter to the "dark album" phenomenon,
since the band's most celebrated album Loveless is at once a superior wallow in
dismay and an uplifting journey out. I first discovered MBV via Isn't
Anything, which was
exactly the kind of album I wanted to hear as a sophomore in college: chaotic
yet oddly beautiful, rewarding close attention and unthinking devotion. I
bought the Glider
EP a year later and heard "Soon," which married the MBV sound to a dance track,
promising an exciting new direction. And probably because of the promise of Glider (and my ongoing obsession with Isn't
Anything), I was
disappointed with Loveless at first. It seemed to move too far toward tuneless murk,
not really breaking into anything melodic until "Soon," the final song. But the
way the record opened up at the end with "Soon" was so thrilling that I kept
taking the Loveless ride to re-experience that moment, and with each new spin, I started
hearing melodies and textures that had eluded me the first time. (It says
something about the core quality of Loveless that when Japancakes released an
instrumental cover of the whole record last year, songs that sounded like
formless noise in their original renditions were still recognizable with the
distortion shaved off.) These days, I can hear rays of light throughout the
record, not just at the end, though I still say that the way Loveless moves from confusion to clarity is
what makes it so powerful, and so enduring. As much as I love Isn't Anything, Loveless sounds like that album remixed and
amplified by someone who suddenly understands what the earlier work was meant
to be. It's like a My Bloody Valentine tribute album, performed by My Bloody
Valentine.
Enduring
presence? Well,
that's really the question, isn't it? On the one hand, it's remarkable how the
reputation (if not exactly the influence) of Loveless has persisted, given what a
commercial washout it was at the time. On the other hand, Shields inability to
come up with another record doesn't taint the achievement exactly, but it does make it hard to
contextualize. Is Shields a genius, or did he just get lucky? The fact that Isn't
Anything is such a
strong album too is a mark in his favor. But when I saw the band live on the Loveless tour, opening for Dinosaur Jr.,
they sure didn't strike me as world-beaters. They were just an ordinary
alt-rock band, playing too loud and too long. How they ever recorded an album
like Loveless is
hard to explain.
My
Morning Jacket
Years Of
Operation
1998-present
Fits
Between The Court
& Spark and Band Of Horses
Personal
Correspondence
There aren't too many great band names left, so give Jim James credit for
coming up with a perfect one. "My Morning Jacket" conjures images of a crisp
fall day that warms up as the sun moves over the mountains—which pretty
well describes the music, too. Initially, I counted MMJ more as a promising
band with a great name than one of the premier rock acts of their generation,
but they started coming into their own with It Still Moves, about which I wrote: "Kentucky-bound singer-songwriter-guitarist Jim James is yet
another indie-rock guitar hero attracted to big sounds with country tinges,
letting his twang drift outward and upward until it fills the atmosphere.
Accordingly, James' band My Morning Jacket has drawn comparisons to the epic
country-rock thump of Neil Young, but the quintet sounds more like secondhand
Young, perhaps borrowed from Mark Kozelek's hypnotic, somber Red House
Painters. The difference, at least on the third My Morning Jacket LP It
Still Moves, is that James captures the
tone and texture of Young and Kozelek without adopting their personalities. It
Still Moves is more lilting than its
influences; the album has the joyous Americana of The Band as a defining
characteristic, evident in the generous piano and brass coda of 'Dancefloor,'
and in the brightly folky 'Golden,' which equates the open road with great sex
(making its point sonically by mating strings with slide guitar). My Morning
Jacket creates cavernous spaces for James to fill, and the guitarist (alongside
stringmate Johnny Quaid) approaches each opening a little differently, from the
quixotic arpeggios of 'One Big Holiday' to the Dylanesque rumble of 'Easy
Morning Rebel' to the sorrowful pluck and slide of 'Steam Engine.' Like a lot
of bands who favor warm drone, My Morning Jacket doesn't do enough with rhythm;
drummer Patrick Hallahan doesn't swing as much as he should, and the times
where bassist Two-Tone Tommy breaks from a lockstep beat to follow his own
melody show him to be an underused asset. But the monumental feeling works well
on loping weepers like the slow-building 'Rollin' Back,' and on heavy,
resounding rock anthems like 'Run Thru,' which sounds like something pieced
together from the vaults of Led Zeppelin, Pink Floyd and Jefferson Airplane
(with a tribal interlude that would suit Jane's Addiction). It Still Moves courts the easygoing, the wistful and the devastating all
at once, and the band's strange, wonderful gift is that it understands how
those three moods are all shades of the same blue."
Enduring
presence? I liked
the next album Z
even more, saying, "It's both rare and marvelous to hear a good band make its
first really great album. This hasn't been an era for disciplined, focused LPs,
which makes listening to My Morning Jacket's Z—with its ten fantastic tracks
packed tightly into 47 minutes—so bracing that it's hard to trust. Maybe Z's all surface, and will tear easily
with repeated use. And isn't it kind of choppy? My Morning Jacket usually
follows a smoothed-out boom-and-twang sound, but Z's all over the map stylistically,
and the songs don't seem to fit together too neatly. Or maybe they do. Better
play it again. It's not hard. The record's undeniably the work of My Morning
Jacket—all grandeur and pounding heart—but Z's take-a-shot spirit is bound up in
the nutty, insanely catchy 'Off The Record,' which stacks up a stolen surf
riff, a reggae rhythm, lurching vocals, and an extended, spacey coda. At first
it sounds too wild and beastly to be any good, but the hook is as infectious as
freedom, and around the third time through the song, doubts dissolve. If it
takes some time to adjust to, it's only because it's hard to recognize a
classic right away." As you might imagine, I can't wait to hear their next
album. Then I can't wait to hear their inevitable "dark" album.
[pagebreak]
Mysteries Of Life
Years Of
Operation
1995-present (?)
Fits
Between Blake
Babies and The Rosebuds
Personal
Correspondence I
have a fair-sized list of critics I count as personal heroes, and towards the
top of that list would be Ira Robbins, one of the founding editors of Trouser
Press magazine and
record guide, and a writer who's always struck me as appropriately measured in
his analysis of music, and not inclined to ape or reject the prevailing critical
opinion just for the sake of it. In the late '90s, Robbins began championing
Mysteries Of Life, a straight-ahead pop-rock band from Indiana that released a
couple of records through RCA and a couple of records on indie labels, but
never garnered much in the way of radio play or press plaudits. I got a copy of
MoL's Keep A Secret—either used or through a publicist, I can't recall—and
enjoyed it immensely. It was clean-sounding and catchy, with a strong emotional
undertow that especially appealed to my wife. But because no one was talking
about them much—and because none of the friends I loaned Keep A Secret too were overly impressed—I'd
chalked them up as just another pet band that I liked because they struck me
right, not because they were anything worth getting excited about. Then I
learned that Robbins liked Mysteries Of Life too, and his reviews gave me a
framework for appreciating the band. Robbins used words like "unassuming," "economical"
and "eloquent," and about their album Come Clean, Robbins wrote, "From the haunted
title track to a lonely, solemn cover of O.V. Wright's 'That's How Strong My
Love Is' that channels stirring soul power through the delicate folk-pop voice
of a white Midwesterner, the album is a marvel… one melodic song after another
deftly outlines an emotional moment of regret, desire or disappointment and
leaves an echo to ponder once it's done." And summing up the band's discography
on trouserpress.com, Robbins wrote, "Ultimately, it's the sound of the records
as much as their content that conveys what Smith and company are getting at,
and therein lies the fineness of art." I know it may sound weak to say that I
couldn't fully appreciate a band until another critic told me they were okay,
but that's not really what I'm getting at here. It's not just Mysteries Of Life
that Robbins gave me the okay to praise—it's every band that speaks to me, and few
others. Being aware of the trend of critical thought is important, and being a
knee-jerk contrarian isn't especially fruitful. But the best critics are the
ones who learn to love what everyone else is ignoring, and can express that
love in such a way that wins converts.
Enduring
presence? All three
of Mysteries Of Life's albums are good, but Keep A Secret is the one I'd call one of the
'90s' forgotten classics. Because there's never been a huge fanbase for MoL, I
couldn't find any info on-line about whether they'd broken up for good or if
there will ever be another album. Even if they're gone forever, Ira and I will
always have our memories.
Negativland
Years Of
Operation
1979-present
Fits
Between The
Firesign Theater and Steinski
Personal
Correspondence I
bought Escape From Noise when I was in high school, based on reviews in Rolling Stone and Spin that described a visionary record
that stitched found audio into a comic commentary on Reagan-era paranoia and
popular culture. Which, indeed, sums up Escape From Noise fairly well. But I wasn't prepared
for Negativland's freeform approach to song structure, born of years spent
improvising sonic collages on the radio. I don't know that I was expecting "hooks"
exactly, but I'd thought there would be a certain degree of concision, as
opposed to the jumble of archival sounds and avant-garde electronica that
constitutes a typical Negativland track. Still, the luxury of being a teenager
with a collection of only about 150 or 200 albums is that you tend to return
over and over even to the ones you don't like that much. (I can't tell you how
many times I played Paul McCartney's Pipes Of Peace album when I was 15, and that
album's terrible.)
Eventually, I got on Negativland's wavelength and began to enjoy Escape From
Noise; I also
eventually realized that compared to the rest of the Negativland discography to
that point, Escape From Noise counts as a pop record. Nevertheless, I continue to be
disappointed every time I hear a new Negativland album that such smart,
talented guys show such little interest in couching their message in actual
music, as opposed to largely indistinguishable rambles. But their style is
their style, and there are times when it really works—most notably on
their soda-wars deconstruction Dispepsi, which isn't any more song-oriented than their other
albums, but does put all the frenetic sampling to fair use (no pun intended),
replicating the blitz of advertising messages that corporate psychologists and
marketing gurus sweat over, and they we all largely tune out. (Or do we?)
Enduring
presence? I had a lively
conversation a few years back with the two main Negativland dudes
about copyright law, piracy and commercialism. I talked to them
separately for about 45 minutes each, edited the transcript together into a
seamless conversation, then as per request, submitted the rough draft to them
both for any edits or clarifications. That's not standard procedure, but I
didn't mind; I'm not in the business of "gotcha" journalism, and the reasons
they both wanted to see the interview before it went into print struck me as
legitimate: each didn't know what the other was going to say, and given the
legal trouble they'd had in the past with bands and individuals they'd sampled,
they wanted to make sure that neither one of them said anything that might land
them both back in court.
Neil Diamond
Years Of
Operation
1962-present
Fits
Between Bobby Darin
and Barry Manilow
Personal
Correspondence For
a large chunk of my life, I was convinced that I hated Neil Diamond. I've always had
fairly broad taste in music, even in my snotty punk years, but riding in the
back of my mom's car listening to adult contemporary just about drove me
bonkers sometimes—especially when Diamond came on the radio with that
deep rasp and shmoozy persona, singing "Love On The Rocks" or "Heartlight." In
the '90s, I grew more familiar with his bouncy '60s pop, and grew to like the songs, even if I was still skeptical of
the man who wrote them (Why do so many of them sound alike?) and the way he
sang them (Why does he seem so emotionally removed from the actual content of
his lyrics so much of the time?). Over the past decade I've adjusted to
Diamond, and have started to lump him in with Judy Garland and Liza Minnelli
(and others) as a quintessential example of a showman who actually expresses
his true self through schmaltz and cliché. The difference is that Diamond isn't
as ebullient a figure as most showmen, and his run of hit songs over the first
decade of his solo career are almost preternaturally great—to the extent
that I almost have to wonder what kind of deal he struck with what kind of
devil in order to write pop music so simple and perfect.
Enduring
presence? Neil
Diamond is responsible for some of the snappiest hits of the late '60s, like "Cherry
Cherry," "Solitary Man," and "Sweet Caroline," but he's never been a slave to
quality control, and his catalog is littered with rhinestones. More people
think of him as an adult-contemporary schlockmeister than a classic pop
craftsman. Rick Rubin had Diamond tone down some of his Middleville Performing
Arts Center theatrics for the recent album 12 Songs, and the result is an intimate
recording with a rocker's restlessness and a showman's confidence. I haven't
heard the follow-up, but I'll be curious to see it continues the rehabilitation
of Diamond's rep.
Neil
Young
Years Of
Operation
1968-present (solo)
Fits
Between John
Fogerty and My Morning Jacket
Personal
Correspondence
Speaking of riding in the back of parents' cars—and when do I not?—it was in the back of my
dad's car where I once heard the old man refer to Neil Young as a "whining
faggot" and switch the station when "Heart Of Gold" came on the radio. I
carried that impression of Young as not-good with me until high school, when my
English teacher made me a tape of "American Rock Classics" that included "Down
By The River" and "Helpless." (Yes, I'm sure my teacher knew Young was
Canadian; so let's call them "North American Rock Classics.") That was in 9th
grade, and Young has been such an integral part of my music-listening ever
since that I had a hard time settling on a song to post to represent the Young
I love best. Something from my first year of Young fandom, when I was all about Harvest and After
The Gold Rush?
Something from the second wave, when I got into punk and blasted Rust Never
Sleeps, Everybody
Knows This Is Nowhere
and Tonight's The Night? Something from Freedom, which came out when I was a freshman in college and
restored Young as a vital player in the decade to come? Something from one of
the underrated '90s or '00s records, or from one of the hit-and-miss '70s
albums that Young turned into Decade-fodder? Eventually I settled on the Live Rust version of "The Loner," from
Young's first solo album (a song as explosive yet finely shaded as any of the
artists Young has inspired over the decades) and the Rust Never Sleeps version of "Thrasher" (a gentle
country ballad featuring Young in subtle character sketch mode… a side of
himself that doesn't get enough play with people talk about him as the
godfather of alternative rock).
Enduring
presence? Neil
Young is easily the most vital rock star of his generation, but that doesn't
mean he can't fall into a rut. Young continues to take chances with his
albums—writing ambitious multi-song narratives, hiring veteran session
men and fledgling alt-rockers, turning records into movies, and so on—but
his style remains stuck in the same dichotomous mode it's been in since 1970.
Either Young plays loud and droning, or he plays soft and melodic. And since
his gifts have mellowed greatly over the last decade, the noisy Young tends to
be kind of dull these days, while the gentle Young creates beautiful things
almost in spite of himself. I really loved the recent Prairie Wind, and I'm sure that before Young
dies, he'll record another album or two that I'll love just as much, and a slew
of stuff that I'll find boring and beneath him. (And I'm sure he'll infuriate
me by postponing the Archives project again… probably right after I buy a Blu-Ray player
so I can listen
to the damn thing.) When Young finally does expire, I expect I'll be as sad
about an entertainer's passing as I've ever been. I feel like I felt when
Robert Altman died—like I've lost a true companion.
*****************
Stray
Tracks
From the fringes of the collection, a
few songs to share….
The Mooney Suzuki, "O Sweet Susana"
I used to
hunt for big record stores with big inventories, where I might stumble across
some of the harder-to-find albums on my wish-list. Now I can find pretty much
everything I know about on-line, and I'd rather look for record stores where I
might discover something I don't know. Such a place is Grimey's in Nashville, which opened
after I left town but quickly became one of my go-to destinations whenever I
returned. Grimey's was especially helpful in the early '00s, when I got
interested in the neo-garage movement and needed tips about what avenues to
pursue. That's how I found The Mooney Suzuki, the star-crossed New York rock
band that briefly seemed like one of the best things going on the scene, until
they made their big push by hiring Avril Lavigne's sound technicians The Matrix
to lube and tighten their sound into a smooth-running, high-powered mechanism.
The band's major label debut Alive & Amplified was a shlocky record ideal for TV
ads and strip-club DJs—and not much else. Prior to that album though, The
Mooney Suzuki made one fine album, Electric Sweat, about which I wrote: "The Mooney Suzuki are all about old
clothes, unkempt hair, and loud music with handclaps. They're cooking up the
essence of retro adolescent hormonal surge, and making music that's all 'go,'
recalling an exact out-past-curfew, hours-before-bedtime moment. The Mooney
Suzuki's one moment of pure rock glory is the uptempo ballad 'Oh Sweet
Susanna,' with its tire-skid guitar sting and frug-friendly shuffle. When the
song tails off after three-and-a-half minutes, it matters not a bit whether the
band is stuck in the past, perpetually recycling. What matters is that the song
demands to be played again, like immediately."
[pagebreak]
Morphine, "I'm Free Now"
The late
Mark Sandman and his band Morphine were blessed with a sound like no other,
with a noir-ish saxophone and rhythmic rumble underscoring Sandman's basso
raps. But they suffered some from the "when all you have is a hammer,
everything looks like a nail" syndrome. I liked Morphine from the start, and
liked them all the way up to Sandman's untimely end, because they were one of
those bands that was instantly recognizable. And, inevitably, a little
predictable
Mose Allison, "New Parchman"
Speaking of
one-note acts who had a good long run, here's Mose Allison, a jazz pianist and
vocalist who combined a spare cabaret playing style, soft monotone voice, and
arch beatnik lyrics into his own special style—adopting the persona of a
twinkle-eyed old hipster who likes puzzles and secrets. Allison's a good
example of how a musician can extend a one-note style into a fruitful career,
just by being the only one out there off-beat enough to play that note.
The Most Serene Republic, "Where Cedar
Nouns And Adverbs Walk"
Ontario's
The Most Serene Republic is Broken Social Scene's closest non-blood relation,
sharing a Canadian province and a record label, though The Most Serene
Republic's poppier sound (and their charismatic lead vocalist Adrian Jewett)
are partly at odds with the goals of Broken Social Scene's faceless art-rock
collective. The Most Serene Republic are making indie-prog with personality.
Their debut album Underwater Cinematographer shifts gears so often that the lack
of a formula becomes paradoxically formulaic, as nearly every song cycles
through a half-dozen styles and two-dozen instruments over an average of four
weird, wonderful minutes. But Jewett and company have such a gift for melody
and such an enthusiasm for joyful noise-making that they make fringe music
sound endearingly natural
The Motels, "Only The Lonely"
It took
almost a decade for Martha Davis and The Motels to get any attention from
labels and record buyers, and it wasn't until the wide-open new wave
era—when any LA band that dressed the part got a second look—that
they were propelled into the Top 10 with this wonderful, shadowy ballad,
followed by the similar-sounding "Suddenly Last Summer." Like a lot of other
musicians from their scene and their time, The Motels had a little success and
tried their best to tease it out, by letting go of whatever might've been
distinctive about their sound in favor of something more contemporary. A couple
of minor hits later, they were consigned to the hell of line-up changes,
ill-fated reunions, stiff comeback records and the state fair circuit. Only the
lonely, indeed.
Mother Love Bone, "Chloe Dancer/Crown Of
Thorns"
Mudhoney, "You Got It"
As I've
written before, I'd read all about the Seattle scene well before I heard any of
the actual music, and the grunge sound ultimately impressed me more on paper
than it did when the albums finally started showing up in Athens record stores.
My first real exposure to the Seattle wave came via Mudhoney's debut EP Superfuzz
Bigmuff, which was
certainly good—some Stooges, some Sabbath, and some Sonic Youth, casually
combined—but which hardly seemed worth all the excitement in the rock
press. I felt the same way about the band's self-titled debut, despite the
presence of undeniably awesome rockers like "You Got It," and that's pretty
much been my relationship with Mudhoney ever since. I buy their albums, and
I've even seen them live twice, and while I enjoy them for what they are, I can't
help feeling a little disappointed that they're not smarter or more monolithic.
Of the bands that spun off from seminal Seattle band Green River, I'm more
intrigued by Mother Love Bone, if only because they evolved into Pearl Jam, a
band that I also have mixed feelings about, but which has shown more ambition
and range over time. (I'll be covering them at length in a couple of weeks.)
Had Mother Love Bone's lead singer not died, I don't know that I would've
become a huge fan. They did have an appealingly mainstream rock sound, but
Andrew Wood's voice and persona was a little too Sunset Strip—like a JV
Axl Rose. For all his annoying personality quirks, I prefer Eddie Vedder, who
has a richer voice and an essential earthiness. Vedder would look ridiculous in
a silk bandana.
The Mountain Goats, "You Or Memory"
From 1991
to 2002, John Darnielle and his mostly one-man band The Mountain Goats recorded
hundreds of songs on a hissy old boom box, tackling all the big subjects:
failing marriages, world travel, enduring friendships, souls in crisis, and
baseball. In 2002 Darnielle left his living room to record in a real studio,
and allowed his plainspoken stories to develop like the literate character
pieces they'd always been. My favorite of the "phase two" Mountain Goats albums
(and my favorite Mountain Goats album period) is The Sunset Tree, Darnielle's extended reaction to
the death of his abusive stepfather. An atmosphere of mixed feelings settles
over that record like a thin web. Sticking largely to tight arrangements of
acoustic guitar, piano, organ and brisk percussion, Darnielle sings songs of
sorrowful defiance, full of vivid memories of childhood, sounding sounds like a
youthful Bruce Springsteen backed by The Waterboys (or perhaps Mike Scott
backed by a youthful E Street Band). He gets in and out of his songs quick,
leaving behind a few choice lines as souvenirs. His is a life of artifacts for
further study, like this list of "supplies" from The Sunset Tree's opening song: "St. Joseph's baby
aspirin / Bartles & Jaymes / And you / Or your memory."
Mouse & The Traps, "A Public Execution"
Nuggets brings us this garage-rock riff on
Bob Dylan, trying to replicate the Blonde On Blonde sound for a buck-ninety-eight.
Mr. Mister, "Broken Wings"
There are
one-hit (or even two-or-three-hit) wonders in every era, but in the mid-'80s it
seemed like the charts were crowded with bands like The Hooters, The Outfield
and Mr. Mister—unclassifiable mainstream rock acts cranking out catchy,
state-of-the-art radio fare and then disappearing before anyone could mistake
them for one of the all-timers. Where did they all go? Did their lead singers
all take A&R; jobs with their labels and spend the rest of their careers
hiding out in boardrooms?
Mudcrutch, "On The Street"
When I got
the Tom Petty box set Playback for Christmas one year, my favorite part was hearing the
small sampling of Petty's pre-Heartbreakers recordings, both from his solo
development deal and with his first serious band, Mudcrutch. There's not much
that especially Petty-ish about this snappy tune; there's barely a hint of
Byrds-y jangle or swampy funk. And yet the way "On The Street" zips along,
catchy as a fishing lure, really speaks well of Petty's inherent pop sense,
which has been the foundation for his success all along.
Muddy Waters, "Mannish Boy"
We didn't
have cable when I was growing up, so I saw a lot of the biggest movies of early
'80s when they aired on TV, expurgated. I taped Risky Business off of our local UHF station, and
even without the nudity and profanity, the movie's take on high school pressure
and sexual desire really hit home, and its sensibility became imprinted on
mine. This version of Muddy Waters' signature song "Mannish Boy" appeared on
the Risky Business
soundtrack, and is drawn from the 1977 album Hard Again, for which Waters was backed by
Johnny Winter and his band. I knew nothing about Waters when I head "Mannish
Boy" on the Risky Business soundtrack, but its rawness and rowdiness were so
impressive that it kind of spoiled me for the more polished and tasteful forms
of electric blues—much the way Risky Business spoiled me for other, less
sophisticated teen sex comedies.
Mull Historical Society, "Instead"
I'm not
sure why this Scottish indie-pop band didn't reap the rewards of the interest
in all things rock and Scottish back at the dawn of the new millennium, but
they put out three very good albums between 2001 and 2004, mixing elements of
worldbeat exotica with breezy, arty, folk-rooted music. "Instead" is a good
example of Mull Historical Society in their stately and dreamy mode, which
balances their busy and uptempo mode. It's charming and chiming, with a
stirring lyric.
Mystikal, "Bouncin' Back"
Nas, "Heaven"
I'm not
going to pretend like I'm well-versed enough in either of these
artists—or in 21st century hip-hop—to register any kind
of authoritative opinion about either. So I'll just talk about these two songs,
both of which represents aspects of hip-hop that still resonate with me, even
in my dilettantery. "Bouncin' Back" offers Mystikal as a hip-hop Cab Calloway,
grunting about his resilience in a catchy call-and-response, while "Heaven" is
smooth and cinematic, with Nas waxing philosophical over a moody track. It's
cockiness versus thoughtfulness, but in both cases, the performers' natural charisma
is the most important element in the mix.
Nada
Surf, "Fruit Fly"
Nada Surf
may not have been the last band anyone expected to become briefly relevant, but their
2003 album Let Go
did catch me and a lot of other people off-guard. The New York power trio began
its career performing Weezer-like brat-punk, but Let Go fused post-Radiohead sweep with
Death Cab For Cutie-style indie-rock, complete with airy melodies, heavy
rhythms and sparkling guitar. Bandleader Matthew Caws added lyrics that
invested common items like beer signs, Dylan albums, snowed-in cars and clouds
of fruit flies with richer meanings, reading them as emblematic of modern
lovers' struggles to connect. The album that followed was a bit of a
let-down—too slick, too shallow—and I haven't heard Nada Surf's
latest, but Let Go
is one of those rare cases where a pretty good band works above their
capabilities and produces something amazing.
Nancy Sinatra, "As Tears Go By"
There's
something romantic about the very idea of Nancy Sinatra: the second-generation pop star
with an idiosyncratic style and her feet simultaneously in the worlds of the
establishment and the upstarts. Sinatra could've coasted on her family name,
had a few novelty hits, made a few movies, and lived on as a footnote to her
dad's career. Instead she hooked up with the likes of Lee Hazlewood and Billy
Strange, and developed her own distinctive style—aloof, declamatory,
seductive—that made her a star for a time, and then an enduring cult act.
The National,
"Lit Up"
By all
rights, The National should probably be a Piece Of The Puzzle, and if I were
doing this series in 2009 instead of 2008, they might well be. But I really
just haven't spent enough time with The National. I liked their first two
albums, though little about them seemed to portend that they'd become one of
the most beloved bands of the '00s. Alligator was more impressive, but it came
out at an odd time when I couldn't give it much attention, and then something
similar happened with Boxer. Honestly, the hour or so I spent listening The National
this week is about the most time I've spent thinking about them ever. They're
clearly my kind of band—resounding, dynamic, moody—but I'll have to
put them back in my "subjects for further research" file and get back to them
next year.
The Nazz, "Open My Eyes"
And here we
have the first appearance of Todd Rundgren in our little project, though far
from the last. What's awesome about this propulsive garage-rocker is the way Rundgren
nips snottily from The Who in the opening riff and the way he throws in a
dreamy pop break that's completely unlike the rest of the song. Even here, in
an under-three-minute rock single, Rundgren is showing all the wit, invention
and smart-ass bluster that would shortly become his stock-in-trade.
The Negro Problem, "Father Popcorn"
Even more
than catching up with the new My Morning Jacket and The Hold
Steady—though not so much as getting my first taste of Fleet
Foxes—one of things I'm most looking forward to picking up and digging
into when this project is over is the cast album for Passing Strange, the recent Tony-winning Broadway
musical written by and starring The Negro Problem's Stew. I first heard about
the show after Popless had begun, and I confess I cheated a bit and watched the
cast's performance at The Tonys, and was even more excited to hear the whole
show. (Or at least to see the film of it that Spike Lee is reportedly going to
shoot.) I'll cover Stew in full later on, but I wanted to share this Negro
Problem song, which is practically a demo for the musical theater he was
probably already contemplating back in 2002.
Neil
Finn, "Anytime"
I haven't
really given either of the Finn brothers their due in Popless to date (though
Tim will be getting a big warm hug once Split Enz rolls around), but I've got
nothing but love for this song that Finn recorded for 2001's One Nil and for that same year's live album 7 Worlds Collide.
It's so solidly built and so direct, and yet Finn's earnest voice and plaintive
melody make it sound about as close to the truth as a pop record can get.
Neil Richardon, "The Riviera Affair"
Let's step
out of the dark to end the week, and head into a world of intrigue and
international affairs. Hurry. The jetway is about to pull off.
*****************
Regrettably
unremarked upon:
Moreno Veloso, Mos Def, Mosquitos, Mott The Hoople, Mouse On Mars, Múm,
N*E*R*D, Nanci Griffith, Nat King Cole and Natalie Merchant
Also listened to: The Monks,
Monoaural, Monster Bobby, Monsters Are, Montag, Montserrat Figueras, Mood Elevator,
WaitingMoonbabies, The Moonglows, The Moore Brothers, Moovers, Mophono, The Mops, Morcheeba, Moreau, The Morells, Morning,
StarMorris Pejoe, Mort Stevens & His
Orchestra, Mortlis, Moses Dillard, Moses Guest, Moth, The Motherhood, Motion Commotion, The Motions, Motor Boys Motor, The Motors,
Mountain Con, Mountain Heart, Mouserocket, Moussa Doumbia,
Moviola, Mowett, Mr. Tube, The Mr. T,
ExperienceMrs. Fletcher, Mrs. Fun, Ms Tyree "Sugar"
Jones, Ms. John Soda, MSTRKRFT, Mt.
Egypt, Mud Bluff, Mudvayne, The Muffs,
Mugison, The Multiple Cat, Murder By Death, Murs, Muse, Mushroom, Music A.M., The Music
Explosion, Music For Animals, The Music Tapes, Musiq, Musique, The Mutton Birds, Mutual Admiration Society, Mutya Buena,
My Favorite, My Latest Novel, My Vitriol, Myriad, Myron McGhee, The Myrtles,
Mystiques, Naked Eyes, Nancy Wilson, Nappy Roots, The Nashville Bluegrass Band,
Natacha Atlas, Natalise, Nate Evans, Nate Ruth, Nathan,
Nathan & Stephen, Nathan Oliver, National Eye, The National Lights, The
National Trust, Naughty By Nature, Navies, Naysayer, Nazaré Pereira, Nazareth,
Neal Hefti, Ned Van Go, Nedelle. The Need, Neguinho Da Beija Flor, Neil &
Iraiza, Neil Clear and Neil Richardson
*****************
Next
week: From Neko Case to Olivia Tremor Control, plus a few words on
Anglophilia