5/30/12: Bruce Springsteen: Born in the USA

So what is this thing?  An epic compromise of Bruce's vision?  Or one of the most subversive "fun" albums ever made?  Either way, it's a jarring experience, for me.  If you gave me just the music to "Workin' On A Highway," I sincerely doubt I'd give it lyrics about abducting a girl and going to jail.  I probably wouldn't arrange the rather bleak lyrics of the title track around the simplest, most stupidly crowd-pleasing synthesizer riff in Bruce's canon, either.

Do we call this fusion of pop and art the work of a "genius"?  Or of a "sellout"?

I suppose these questions beg the larger question of whether "serious" lyrics always require "serious" music.  We've been told for a long time that, yeah, they do.  Hence, "Plastic Ono Band" is a serious album built on seriously minimal pieces ("Ram" is not understood as "serious," because it has colorful arrangements and a less confessional tone.  Bah!).

Isn't this a rather restrictive way to look at music?  Why can't we sing about never wanting to go outside again to the squeal of a fun, funky guitar riff?

I don't know.

4/2/13: Jimi Hendrix Experience: Are You Experienced?

This is the way to experience the experience.  If ya ask me, Jimi was one of those talents who required a structure to play off of-- he's a king noodler without a strong melody or time constraint to guide him.  (Jeff Buckley and Van Morrison are the same away.)  This first record is like a jungle gym for his skills.  There are no long, drippy solos, and even in the longer, more improvisational songs, the emphasis is one bending YOUR mind, not Jimi bending his own.  We have structure here, in the form of short, punchy, unbeatable rock songs ("Fire," "Purple Haze," you know), downtempo but forward-moving, gorgeous pop ballads ("May This Be Love," "The Wind Cries Mary"), psychedelic riffing ("Third Stone From the Sun"), and freaky combinations of all three (the clearly made-up-on-the-spot, but still classic, title track; the best version of  "Hey Joe" ever put on tape, etc).  The whole thing rules front to back, even if the sequencing is kinda funny.  Basically, it's a one-of-a-kind record, the finest document of Jimi's singing, guitar playing, and songwriting, with hardly a wasted moment.  (Compare to the multitude of wasted moments on his other two studio albums, and the multitude of wasted moment albums that have been released following his death.)

3/25/13: Fiona Apple: The Idler Wheel...

One of those "mad genius" albums, in the same vein as Neil Young's "Tonight's the Night," Syd Barrett's "Madcap Laughs," and (I'd argue) Wilco's "Yankee Hotel Foxtrot."  It's probably better than those, though, and certainly more fully realized... Fiona projects her "madness" onto some terrific, and terrifically unconventional, melodies, and the percussion arrangements don't feel tacked on after the fact (like, say, the electronic bloops in "YHF")-- they feel like counter-pieces to her singing.  The result is a kind of duet between  piano and drums, words and emotions.

It's pretty fucking eerie.  Again, these are "mad" songs, "raw" songs, but they are not lazy demo songs.  These chords have been thought out; these vocal inflections, as sudden as they are, all make sense in a way. "The Idler Wheel" is thus an album that will shock you the first time AND hold up to repeated listens.

Very thoughtful lyrics, too.  The way Fiona describes her anxieties ("the fight with her BRAY-YAY-HAY-HAY-HAY-HAY-HAY-HAY-HAINNNN") goes so far beyond the standard "I'm insane" patterns of rock words.  You end up knowing and caring for her protagonist (who is, uh, her), even though she hardly presents a stable, respectable character-type.

Who else is making music like this?  Surely this was THE album of 2012.

3/19/13: The Temptations: Masterpiece

I probably have not listened to this one enough to properly "review" it, but this dumb blog is hardly a proper "reviews site," so forget it.  Masterpiece is not a masterpiece (ho ho ho ho HOOOOO), but it's still pretty damn great.  Why is it not placed in the same echelon as Innervisions and What's Going On and other Motown classics of social commentary (and funk)?  Probably because the Temptations didn't write their own songs.  But who cares, right?  Norman Whitfield DID write these songs, and Norman Whitfield rules.  Sure, it all sounds a lot like "Papa Was a Rollin Stone."  But who cares, right?  "Papa" rules, too, and these are not straight carbon copies.  They're just all (with one exception) dark, and all funky, and mostly paranoid.  Who doesn't like that in music?  "Dark," "funky," and "paranoid"... has that not always been a three-word formula for success?

I'm going to argue that, on this day, Masterpiece, the album, is better than What's Going On.

3/19/13: Titus Andronicus: Local Business

This is going to sound tautological, but here we go: if you're not a true fan of Titus Andronicus, you probably won't enjoy Local Business, the band's third and most poorly received long player.  Everybody loved The Monitor, and with good reason: that angry and ambitious record was the Zen Arcade of the 2010s, a concept record with hooks and ideas galore, a fusion of the Pogues, the Mats, the Boss, and the Conor Oberst that was familiar in its parts but unprecedented as a whole (find me a better, more fully realized lyrics sheet in the past ten years).  The conventional wisdom regarding Local Business is that it is not as good as the Monitor and thus, a pretty major disappointment.

So let's make a list, here.  What does Local Business lack that the Monitor possessed?  There are a few things...
1. A unifying "concept," or at least, an immediately apparent one.  The Civil War allusions of the Monitor held everything together-- there is no such linking piece here.  There are no spoken word bits at all, in fact, something which disconnects Local Business from the band's first record, the Airing of Grievances (which is just ok), as well.
2. Horns.  And bagpipes.  And all instruments other than guitars, bass, drums, and occasional pianner.  The tapestry of sound is not as thick or as instantly impressive as that of the Monitor, I'll admit.
3. Huge shouty hooks.  There are a few things on Local Business that come close to "THE ENEMY IS EVERYWHERE" and "YOU WILL ALWAYS BE A LOSER" and "IT'S STILL US AGAINST THEM"... but the "choruses" here are certainly dialed back a few notches.

These things are all missed, yes, for sure.  I mean, who doesn't love a good bagpipe solo?  Who doesn't love to shout?  The fortunate thing is that Titus Andronicus is a smart band, and they've replaced what's gone from the Monitor with a few new things that are pretty ear tickling in their own right.  Things like...

1. Melodies.  I mean, pretty strong, pretty poppy, pretty pretty melodies.  Not just Irish folk ripoffs.  Patrick sings this time.  There's an element of beauty here that's not on the Monitor, especially on the Springsteeny one-two punch of "In a Big City" and "In a Small Body."
2. An interest in "band dynamics."  I still firmly believe that TA is the Stickles show.  But there's no question that the band on Local Business feels more like a band band.  The guitar and vocal harmonies go far beyond the drunk-punk screaming of the Monitor.  These songs feel less pieced together than the Monitor's, more loose and "organic," I dare say.  Ostensibly dumb throwaways like "I Am the Electric Man" have a breezy charm too them.

And many things remained unchanged, praise the lord, such as...

1. Great, great, great lyrics.  This is rap-level detail (including, of course, the many scatological references).
2. A general interest, despite the intensity and sadness of the band's words, in rocking the fuck out.
3. Combining my first two points: a sometimes disturbing level of Stickles' life and personality on display, reaching its height in "My Eating Disorder," a career highlight, and one of the few rock songs I know to have ever dealt with psychological anxiety in physical pain in such a specific, anxious + painful way.
4. Sweet guitar solos!

In short, if The Monitor was TA's Zen Arcade, Local Business to me seems like their Let It Be (Replacements).  This is a personal album, fraught with disappointment and insecurity, yes, but also joy and hilarity.  It's a guitar rock record with heart and soul, one where even the silly "filler" tracks feel necessary.  It's full of anthems, ups and downs, and hooks, and I love it.

2/18/13: George Harrison: All Things Must Pass

The most Beatley of all the Beatles solo records-- the only one that attempts the sort of epic, life-changing grandeur that defined the Fab Four in their later years.  While John was singing about himself and Paul was singing about cutesy crap (not really, but, you know), George-- at least on this record-- was talking about the world, and God, and life, and really really big things in general.  He supplements his huge themes with some of the biggest, most multi-layered arrangements ever.  "All Things Must Pass"... If John gave an album that title, it'd be a dirge-fest.  For George, it's a celebration, a sweeping embrace of the totality of life, as well as the necessity of death.

Is there a song that's not good and meaningful here?  The Dylan cover has the lamest lyrics on the record, and it still takes on a spiritual cast thanks to George's ridiculously gorgeous slide guitar work.

What the album is, essentially, is a bunch of variations on "While My Guitar Gently Weeps"... Same stately style, same wailing guitars, same cosmic vision... Only here, the vision comes in colors, most of them bright, but a few even darker than we're used to from Mr. Don't Bother Me ("Isn't It a Pity" is like the beautifully sad flip-side to "Hey Jude").

Good for George!

1/23/13: Marvin Gaye: What's Going On

A very difficult album to write about.  It's a beautiful record, with a sophisticated and urban and soulful sound  (it's like the concept of "hope" embodied by notes).  You'd be a fool to dismiss it, but I think you'd also be a little naive to call it an interesting political statement.  Marvin is obviously an interesting guy, and you hear in his voice a sort of nuance, a combination of pain and peace and thwarted ambition and intelligence and compassion and anger, that is simply not in the man's lyrics.  Only two songs here, the masterful singles "Inner City Blues" and the title track, have even a hint of the generation-defining poetry that we've always been told the whole album possesses.

The album's other seven tracks form a kind of super-medley.  They all sound very similar-- you know that incredibly rousing intro to "Mercy Mercy Me," with the glockenspiels and the drums and such?  Yeah, that's pretty much at the beginning of every song.  I don't have a problem with this, though.  If there had to be a Motown album where the musicians deserved back-of-the-cover credit, it'd be this one: there is no other record that sounds like it.  It's a coming out party for the experimental and artsy tendencies of Motown's insanely gifted group of players.  Hence, the middle sevens songs all sound jammy and cool and pretty formless, with nary a tune in sight.

A song works on What's Going On when it successfully combines that sound with enough of a tune to allow Marvin to explore his character, i.e. his voice.  "Songs" like "Save the Children," which is basically a (crappy) poem, are sort of flat and corny.  "Right On" seems like a dream at first-- seven minutes of this sound?  WOW-- until you realize that the jam isn't really going to go anywhere, and that Marvin himself doesn't really plan on adding much to it.

ALL THAT BEING SAID, if I have to tell you how great "What's Going On," "Inner City Blues," "Mercy Mercy Me," or even "Flying High in the Friendly Sky" are, then either...

1. You do not possess What's Going On, and you should.

or

2. You do possess What's Going On, and you are an irredeemable idiot.