Drunk or not, swimming in the Mississippi with clothes on was a stupid move. And not just because it's a physical feat that would bedevil a seasoned swimmer. No, it was stupid because it was a waste of real, raw talent. In fact, it was as stupid as Grace is brilliant. Jeff Buckley's debut album is an eclectic masterpiece that showcases mind-boggling versatility, restless creativity, and a voice that should've been on the federally protected species list. It positively sprawls. And not in the sense of The Suburbs, where "sprawling" means the purposeful march to annex more of the same. There's nothing quite so systematic here. Rather, at turns, this album fitfully and listlessly spreads out a wide open musical landscape and then settles it with unsettling valleys, peaks, and plains. On the title track, it lopes. On "Lilac Wine," it drapes. On "Mojo Pin," it lingers (and malingers). Buckley wails and croons, moans and cajoles. And like any good Renaissance man, he does all of them well. His range is dizzying. "Lover You Should've Come Over" is about as romantic as songs can get (even if it likely launched a thousand John Mayers). It being 1994, a few of the tracks are weighed down by a leaden grungy crunch, but most of the arrangements are tasteful and invigorating. Particularly, the cover of Leonard Cohen's "Hallelujah" - a song that seems to have been sung more than "Happy Birthday" - is a perfect compromise between restraint and exultation. It begins with Buckley letting out a weary, sighing exhalation and then, over the tones of a lone chiming guitar, he moves between sweet, whispered lows and heart-breaking, hollered highs. Here and elsewhere ("Corpus Christi Carol") he exhibits a gift for sometimes formal, sometimes jazzy enunciation that calls to mind his famous father or more modern singers like Antony. The riverboat hustlers of the Mississippi probably robbed millions of dollars from rubes and dupes over the years, but those crimes are petty next to what Big Muddy stole from music when Jeff Buckley waded in for that fateful midnight swim. Grade: A-
If there are rules to reviewing, the cardinal of these must be: "don't criticize something for not being what you'd prefer it to be; judge it on its own terms." Not only is it the only honest way to go about comparing apples and oranges, it also mitigates against the biases we all carry with us. Simply put, if you're listening to a rock album from the 1950s and you think that what it's really missing is extended organ solos, then maybe you're not being a fair arbiter. And while it might not be realistic to believe you have the imagination to put yourself in the time and place when and where your subject was produced, you nonetheless have to try. Machine Head is one of the marker stones for the journey that blues-inflected rock 'n' roll took on its way to heavy metal. On a purely historical level, Deep Purple is an utterly fascinating outfit. They are pioneering architects of sound. The music on this album, however, is of inconsistent quality. "Highway Star" explodes out of the gate with almost as much insistence as "Black Dog." From there, the band dials it back on "Maybe I'm a Leo." Maybe too much. I understand not wanting to blow your wad all at once, but for an album that comes in at a little over 37 minutes, you really don't have any room for weak tracks and this snoozer looks back to Led Zeppelin more than it looks ahead to anything fresh. "Pictures of Home" starts to turn things around before "Never Before" pulls the full 180. It is likely the best song on the album with its slow, funky start giving way to some seriously hard-rocking verses and a killer bridge melody that would make Alex Chilton proud. Then comes the radio staple "Smoke on the Water," with its autobiographical lyrics detailing the band's trials and tribulations in Montreaux. Unfortunately, the song's ubiquity tends to work against it here. In 1972, the listener would have likely considered it the high point, a centerpiece. Now its omnipresence surrounds it with a "been-there-done-that" aura rendering a once-powerful song tepid and tired. The penultimate "Lazy" is anything but as most of the band's experimentalism is consolidated within its seven-minute span, but album closer "Space Truckin'" does seem a little half-assed. The song is a disappointment if only because its music & words forge an uneasy truce between bleating R&B and semi-serious sci-fi. It is no less dignified than Robert Plant's Tolkien-inspired flights of lyrical fancy, but somehow sillier because it comes off as a half-measure. Had Ian Gillan gone all in with the theme - instead of occupying a kind of fatuous middle distance between ramblin' blues rumble and Lost in Space-level lyrics - it might have been far more successful. Plenty of prog-rock bands at that time were exploring the outer reaches of the universe, so it doesn't strike me as unreasonable to take Deep Purple to task for goofing about. Think about it: when you're in China, eating the local cuisine, you no longer call it "Chinese food." And when you're a real space trucker, you'd probably drop the adjectival qualifier on that phrase, too, wouldn't you? Grade: B
In one sense, Cat Stevens has always been a man between worlds. He was born Swedish and Greek. Raised in England. Wrote popular songs for money and then introspective, self-consciously "folk" songs for even more money. Abandoned his fame, converted to Islam, and then retired from music, resurfacing every so often to generate controversy and sue those he alleged were copying his songs. Absent the other details, the "celebrity-turned-recluse" story is only slightly less common than the against-all-odds rise from obscurity to popularity. Tea for the Tillerman marks Stevens' breakthrough as a recording artist. It (along with its 1971 follow-up, Teaser and the Firecat), contains his best-loved songs from his period of greatest creative fecundity. So...why is it so annoying? Well, for starters, Tillerman finds Stevens walking the fine line between sentiment and schmaltz and often erring on the side of the latter. "Where Do the Children Play?" asks the opener, a question lamenting the dubious advances of the modern age - a perspective, incidentally, to which I might otherwise be sympathetic - but which is posed in such a laughably earnest fashion, you realize why the name "Cat Stevens" has become a coded punchline for authors like Nick Hornby. From there, unbelievably, things get worse, then better, and finally end. "Wild World" establishes a new watermark for creepy break-up songs as Stevens sings to the girl leaving him, "I'll always remember you like a child, girl." "Miles From Nowhere" is interesting at first until you realize the lyrics only appear to make sense. Being "miles from nowhere" literally means being somewhere, but that's not how Stevens uses it. So, like the phrases "I could care less" or "each day worse than the next," it's nonsense. On "Longer Boats," Stevens scoops Bill "You Can't Explain That" O'Reilly by four decades, insisting "nobody knows / how a flower grows." Yeah, nobody. Except botanists! This is the kind of driveling palaver that gives hippies a bad name. "Father and Son," unlike the other songs here, is genuinely affecting (as opposed to affected), but - tellingly - it is the only track for which co-songwriting credit is given. In 2003, Stevens won a plagiarism lawsuit against the The Flaming Lips, for co-opting part of its melody for "Fight Test." You will notice however that neither they nor any of the other groups sued by Stevens were ever accused of ripping off his lyrics. Grade: C-
If half the stories about Phil Spector are true, then he is a mad genius on the order of Drs. Frankenstein and Jekyll. But whereas most people focus on the monstrosity of their creations, we shouldn't forget that all three, as scientists, were also visionaries. Whether you're dallying in corpse reanimation, striving to unleash the human beast, or toiling away at a towering Wall of Sound, you will meet your fair share of naysayers. By 1966, the public's fickle tastes had veered far away from the early- to mid-60s smashes of "Be My Baby" and "Then He Kissed Me." Suddenly there seemed to be no room at the inn for the meticulous, orchestral pop Spector had made so famous, no room unless your album was called Pet Sounds or Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band. By any reasonable artistic standard, River Deep - Mountain High is amazing. Tina Turner's singing throughout is a thing of raggedly majestic beauty. On the title track, you can actually hear the toll that Spector's fastidious obsession has taken on her voice and it still manages to transcend his dense, overwhelming production. Stylistically, Turner is unstoppable. She goes blow for blow with the blues on "I Idolize You," matches the sound of a late-night soul throw-down on "A Fool in Love," and injects some R&B power into the pop of "A Love Like Yours (Don't Come Knocking Everyday)" and "Save the Last Dance." If Ike Tuner was integral as a sessions musician or as the bandleader for their stage show, you couldn't tell that from this. He does kick in some nice bass vocals on "Make 'Em Wait," but his contributions to "It's Gonna Work Out Fine," the album's closer - and only clunker - are embarrassingly bad. It's an artless, egotistical intrusion - like when Diddy used to do that pointless cheerleading over a Biggie Smalls track. This is a nearly perfect album, showcasing Turner in her prime and Spector at the height of his game. It's...aliiiive! Grade: A
Those well-versed in epistemology probably have a name for the phenomenon, but surely you've experienced it yourself. That funny blind spot that obscures a word or a concept prior to your learning what it means. But, because you can't miss something you've never had, you really only become cognizant of having missed it after you've been formally introduced. Suddenly, it's everywhere, hiding in plain sight, and you wonder how you never noticed it before. A funny (and similar) thing happened to me on the way to getting to know Emmylou Harris. There I was, listening to Desire, hearing Bob Dylan sing "One More Cup of Coffee (Valley Below)" and "Oh, Sister" with some mysterious, silver-throated chantreusse and loving every minute of it. A year later I heard Gram Parsons sing "We'll Sweep Out the Ashes in the Morning" and only then made the connection that the two women were the same woman and that woman was Harris. It began to seem as if you couldn't turn on the music of any red-blooded, country-loving boy without hearing him duet with Emmylou (or someone who was trying powerful hard to sound like her). The Band had her stand in for "Evangeline," a studio-cut add-on to The Last Waltz, while Bright Eyes put her gifts to good use I'm Wide Awake, It's Morning. More recently, Mark Knopfler employed her help to produce the unconscionably gorgeous All the Roadrunning, a collaboration seven years in the making. Naturally, as a cursory glance at her guest appearance credits will tell you, these examples are a handful of sand on the beach of her accomplishments. But what about her and her alone? Is she a glorified sideman? A supporting actress? An anonymous and faceless hired gun called in to save the poor, beset-upon Mexican village, requiring no payment for the chivalrous deed? Maybe. But just because she's a generous spirit doesn't mean she lacks the chops to strike out on her own, as she does here on her debut. First off, she's got personality to spare. Listen as she torches her way through "Feelin' Single - Seein' Double" and "Ooh Las Vegas." You show me a female country singer who flashes more raw talent or honky-tonkin' confidence than her and I'll show you Waylon Jennings in drag. Of course, faster numbers like these were the biggest revelation for me because God knows she can sing a ballad. The only strange moment comes during her cover of The Flying Burrito Brothers' "Sin City." On the original, Parsons & Chris Hillman lend their voices to an ethereal two-part harmony, but here Harris - backed up by Rodney Crowell & Linda Ronstadt - adopts a weird, third-way melody that, while beautiful, gestures toward the absence of the original Grievous Angel. In terms of arrangements, it's analogous to setting a place at the table for someone who's passed on, as Harris pays tribute to her fallen mentor and friend, Parsons, who died of an overdose in '73. It's a moving version of the song, but it also underscores that she will likely always be better known for the ways in which she enhanced other people's music than her own. But, before you're tempted to offer any bullshit, "behind-every-man" platitudes, know that if Harris is pop music's ultimate team player, then it's by design. One listen to Elite Hotel and you'll be convinced that the only person standing in the way of her becoming a superstar in her own right is herself. To be or to be collectively, that is the question. Either way, Emmylou Harris - as a solo artist and as a collaborator - is her own fiercest competition. Grade: A-
I love Bill Bryson. Whether writing about the Appalachian Trail, the English language, or the sum total of our scientific discoveries to date, he has a real flare for making dry topics exciting. More accurately, he specializes in framing a subject in such a manner as to make that which is most exciting in it reveal itself. I also like his modesty as an author. He knows when he's licked. If there is content - like quantum theory or the boredom of arduous hiking - that by its very nature is either too vague or too tedious to be compelling, he doesn't force it. Rather, the writing becomes a meditation on the difficulty of describing the indescribable or the nondescript. And, because he's intelligent and funny, this works in a pinch to draw the reader back in. I wish Bryson could ghost-write this review of Elliott Smith's Either/Or because I can't for the life of me find a single interesting thing to say about it. It's not that it's bad exactly. "Bad" can still provoke a response. This is just bland, boring, by-the-numbers indie rock. What Jack Black's character from High Fidelity might call "sad bastard music." On the song "Rose Parade," when Smith sings, "They say it's a sight that's quite worth seeing / It's just that everyone's interest is stronger than mine / When they clean the streets, I'll be the only shit that's left behind," all I can think is "Oh, somebody just give this guy a hug and get him to shut the fuck up already." Of course, Bill Bryson would've put it in a much wittier way. I know Bill Bryson. Bill Bryson is a fave of mine. I am no Bill Bryson. Grade: C-
Back in 2003, Michael Caine was on a press junket publicizing his then-current project, Secondhand Lions. In the movie, he and Robert Duvall are a pair of geriatric action heroes living in Texas, when they are forced to play nursemaid to their 14-year-old nephew (Haley Joel Osment). In an interview on Late Night with Conan O'Brien, the very British Caine explained how his accent coach helped him achieve his character's impressive Lone Star lilt. He said that the King's English has a stiff, upright pronunciation. Think of someone with good posture in a heavily starched shirt. The Texan, on the other hand, 'llows his words to lay down on top o' one 'nother like they're jes settin' a spell. Caine's demonstration provided not only entertainment, but also some homespun wisdom about the intricacies of regional dialect patterns. Certainly there is something inherently musical about southern speech, with its prolonged drawl and lazy cadences. Indeed, nowhere is the hip-hop concept of "flow" used quite so instructively as when describing southern rap. Pharrell once described T.I. as the "Jay-Z of the south," but listening to King, I admit I didn't quite see the connection at first blush. Then it dawned on me that while the two artists share a background in drug dealing, what really unites them is delivery. One of Jay-Z's strengths - among many - is his otherworldly ability to rhyme words that on paper have no business rhyming. No ready-made example springs to mind at the moment, but, depending on the context, he could make a word like "car" line up with "there" in one verse and "her" in the next, without allowing such enunciative license to undermine the structural foundation upon which his lyrics are built. T.I. takes this effect and applies it to whole lines, bending them at will. Plenty of rappers are "lyrical," in this sense of the word. 2Pac, Snoop Dogg, Bone Thugs-N-Harmony - all benefited from their sing-song styles. And "rapping to the beat" has been standard operating procedure since Wonder Mike. But T.I. does something extra. He doesn't rap over a beat so much as he raps in it. There's a peculiarly chameleonic quality to the way his voice takes on the shape of its surroundings, whether it's the sound of a Blaxploitation soundtrack ("King Back"), 90s dance club boilerplate ("Why You Wanna"), or the quiet storm of contemporary R&B ("Live in the Sky"). Perhaps his most impressive shape-shifting feat is coming off like the third member of OutKast, his fellow Atlantans, on "I'm Talking to You," where his pace on the last verse threatens to overtake the beat itself, having long since left most listeners behind. Grade: B+
One of the body's cleverer mechanisms for dealing with the hubbub of the modern world is called sensory adaptation. Simply put, if it wanted to, the mind could try to process all the stimuli with which it is confronted every moment - the light and shadows that bounce around a room, the micro-weather patterns of a house, the sound of the blood pulsing in one's ears, the various points of contact where clothes meet skin - but, quite likely, such a constant barrage would be excruciating. Consequently, we adapt. I think something similar happens once we become immersed in a particular style of music. So inured do we become to certain elements that traits we might otherwise find grating if we were more aware of them tend to pass by relatively unnoticed. Just as the novice may be expected to miss the nuance of a style to which he is new, so may a devotee cease to notice features the outsider might find odd. Alexis de Toqueville's Democracy in America is a classic text primarily because, as a foreigner, he was able to perceive the United States of the 1830s with eyes unjaundiced by familiarity. It was this same attitude I tried to adopt when I approached the critically-acclaimed Master of Puppets by the seminal heavy metal band Metallica. So what did I hear that the native-born headbanger might have missed? Themes so comically dark it was hard for me to take them seriously. But, that's alright, because Metallica take themselves seriously enough for all involved. And the lyrics - oh, the lyrics! - they positively luxuriate in pain, death, insanity and violence, as if they were indulging in a shiatsu massage spa treatment...in hell. Not that I could focus on the words all that much as the vocals took a backseat to the cacophony enveloping them. Good thing, too, because otherwise I might've had to endure a greater intimacy with James Hetfield's groan-inducing, faux-medieval, German-style syntax on lines like "never you betray," "in madness you dwell," "nothing could I say," and "with fear you run." Read those out loud and it sounds like Yoda translating the diary of Vlad the Impaler. Several of the songs, most notably "Battery" and "Damage, Inc." begin softly and melodically before descending into the band's brand of sludgy thrashmageddon. Unfortunately, these are more fake-outs than they are forays into meaningful variety. For a band that thrives on compositional innovation, it comes off a bit lazy going to that same well time and time again. Still, this album reminds me of nothing more than it does classical music and that might be the proper context in which to view the band itself. These are highly adept musicians writing mini-symphonies that feature shifting time signatures and complex transitions all played at break-neck speeds. They are also stuck in arrested development, articulating puerile ideas and exuding an often amateurish theatricality. But is it so strange for these disparate qualities to coexist? If Amadeus is to be believed at all, Mozart was three parts genius, one part buffoon. Such a summary might also be applied to Metallica, even if their ratio is somewhat closer to 1:1. Grade: C
Like many others for whom Creedence Clearwater Revival provided the first introduction to the name "Buck Owens," I wasn't sure what to expect from the man himself. Given that John Fogerty's shout-out to his fellow Golden Stater came during "Lookin' Out My Back Door," one of CCR's happiest, hokiest, hillbilly-est hymns, I should've known. Both that song and the Buckaroos' Bakersfield batch are cut from the same cloth: short, sunny, and spry. Oddly enough that mood persists throughout I've Got a Tiger by the Tail, despite variation in subject matter. Even when Owens is getting his ass kicked by love ("Trouble and Me," "Cryin' Time"), the only thing that really seems to change is the tempo. It's telling that even though the third track is titled "Let the Sad Times Roll On" and the seventh is called "We're Gonna Let the Good Times Roll," there is no appreciable difference in his voice. Take a good look at that album cover (he sort of looks like a clueless Mel Brooks, doesn't he?). Maybe he's just an upbeat guy. You can't exactly fault him for that. And you wouldn't want him to manufacture the pathos you hear on so many other country albums. It's just that when it comes down to it, as a vocalist, he's not all that versatile. He comes close to that "high lonesome sound" on a couple of occasions, but ends up more high than lonesome. For the most part, when a song needs an injection of some feeling other than optimism, Owens relies on the dependably mournful pedal steel to do the heavy lifting. Likewise, some much-needed variation is supplied by "The Streets of Laredo" - a highlight - when bass player Doyle Holly takes over singing duty. You know, they say you can't keep a good man down. Perhaps you can't make an up man good. Grade: C+
'Twas the daytime in Newport, the afternoon show
when a Delta-born bluesman stood rarin' to go.
The folkies had flocked from far and from near
in hopes he'd play blues they'd all come to hear.
The buttoned-down crowd nestled snug in their seats
(no visions of dancing to those big Chi-town beats)
and Muddy at the mic-stand, his band at his back,
broke full-throttle through with a sonic attack.
They jived just like butterflies, they stung hard like bees,
"I Got My Brand On You" had 'em all weak in the knees.
But then "Hoochie Coochie Man" started up soon
and the crowd - to a man - could not help but swoon.
The sun and the heat likely both took their toll,
but neither deprived the poor crowd of its soul.
No, that was Muddy's, his prize fair and square.
He scalped 'em with sweetness, with grit, and with flare.
With his band, he was lethal, so poised and so tight,
having logged all those hours in the juke joints each night.
In rope-a-dope fashion, he reeled in the fish,
called out their songs like he was granting a wish:
"Now, 'Tiger,'
Now, 'Mojo,'
and now, 'Soon Forgotten.'"
Their "I Feel So Good" made "O.K." look rotten.
To the end of the song!
To the end of the set!
With "Mojo" once more
(as if you could forget!)
His harp, how it zig-zagged! His keyboards, how jazzy!
His drums brought out big guns, so thund'rous and spazzy!
His speech between songs was humble, polite,
bringing black southern charm to the young northern white.
The lyrics he slurred and motorboat-barked,
and the axe in his hands - so electric it sparked -
sent currents through him, from his brain to his belly.
Ladies shook when he sang, like a roll full of jelly.
With "Goodbye Newport Blues," he got up and went.
Believe it or not, a half hour was spent
on just nine little songs, of which none was a dud...
...and that is how Newport got baptized in Mud.
When it comes to the blues, "it all sounds the same" is a frequent refrain from the uninitiate. Of course, epithets like this wear the guise of considered opinion, as if, after exhaustive research, one has concluded that there is water, water everywhere but not a drop one would deign to drink. Jimmy Reed is especially susceptible to this type of critique, being such a populist purveyor of the blues. Yes, you'll hear those familiar twelve-bar chord progressions, for the most part played slow and steady. Reed is no virtuoso and never aims to "challenge" his listeners with experimental noodling or soaring solos. But don't confuse his genial, unambitious style with lack of talent or vision. What he seems to understand, maybe better than anyone, is that the foundational pattern of the blues was established not merely because of its simplicity, but rather its deep, abiding power. In the right hands it becomes the sturdy skeletal framework upon which the musician may hang the sustaining stuff of life. In Reed's hands, the way he adorns that skeleton becomes everything, which is what someone who thinks "it all sounds the same" will miss ten times out of ten. The most serious charge I can lob at this album, is that its title constitutes false advertising. "Rockin' with Reed" is the last track and it does, indeed, rock, but the rest of the songs here do everything but. There's his loving desperation on "A String to Your Heart," his penitence (and incorrigibility) on "I Know It's a Sin," his smirking sense of humor on "Take Out Some Insurance," and his smooth cool on "The Moon is Rising." The blues structure is limited and requires a kind of lyrical economy, so he wrings the most out of his lines when he throws in alliterative touches like "green grass grows" on "Down in Virginia." In the same song, he flexes his vocal range, finishing off each verse with a low, smoldering tremolo that hits like a haymaker every time. Blues like this teaches you to "see a world in a grain of sand," to love those tiny details, those little moments that make all the difference. Grade: A-
One of the great moments in Malcolm Gladwell's less-than-great Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking involves the elaborate forgery of an ancient Greek statue, the authenticity of which was confirmed by several scientific tests and denied outright and immediately by three art historians. The point Gladwell uses the anecdote to make is that oftentimes an expert's human hunch can trump the analyst's cold calculus. The point I'd like to make with the story is that the reason the statue befuddled those who studied it was that the form was right, but not the essence. Early Christian theologians made use of a similar distinction when they repurposed the Aristotelian taxonomy of matter to explain the mystery of transubstantiation. They argued that the characteristics of a thing (looking, feeling, tasting like bread) are quite separate from that essential quality that makes it what it is (the body of Jesus). All of this is my admittedly circuitous way of saying that Gillian Welch nearly had me fooled with the songs she wrote and performed on Revival. They sound in so many ways just like the old-timey material of the 1920s and 30s with which she is so thoroughly engrossed. The close harmonies, the mono recordings, the hard-luck tales of orphans, factory girls, moonshiners - if you didn't know better, you'd swear she had uncovered some dusty trunk of songs in Joe Bussard's basement. It seemed like Welch had figured out a way to contact the spirits of another time and place. And, to crib a line from Scooby-Doo, "she would've gotten away with it, too, if it hadn't been for this meddling listener." Everything seemed first-rate and pitch perfect until the sixth track, "By the Mark." I had been anticipating this song as it approached, hoping the title might be an allusion to Samuel Clemens. In it she sings, "When I cross over / I will shout and sing / I will know my savior / by the mark where the nails have been." Now, on the surface, this is the type of rustic gospel tune you might expect to hear from a Carter Family acolyte. It's got that reward-in-heaven theme, that humble evocation of Jesus' bodily suffering on the cross. You know, that good, ol'-fashioned blood of the lamb stuff. The only problem is the concept. As any holy-rollin', God-fearin', Bible-thumpin' Christian (or, in my case, 20-year veteran of Catholic schools) can tell you, it's highly unlikely that someone very familiar with the New Testament would say, "I will know my savior by the mark where the nails have been." To do so is a little too like calling oneself a "doubting Thomas," the pejorative term that refers to the apostle who insisted on confirming the identity of the risen Christ by feeling his wounds. This is also why you don't hear a lot of gospel songs that talk about "kissing Jesus," for fear of being associated with that most notorious of kiss-and-tellers: Judas, the betrayer. Am I being too picky? Probably. But I also think it's likely that Welch, who grew up in a secular household in New York and L.A., is more inspired by gospel music than she is by the religious feelings that produce it. Of course, none of this is to suggest she meant to perpetrate fraud or pass off her songs as anything other than a sincere homage to the Appalachian folk that so moves her. At Boston University I had the pleasure of working for, taking classes with, and attending lectures by the incandescently brilliant literary critic Christoper Ricks. In a lecture on "The Lonesome Death of Hattie Carroll," much of which appears in his labor of love, Dylan's Vision of Sin, Ricks said there was a big difference between writing a political song and writing a song politically. The former requires little skill or imagination. Mention George W. Bush and you're halfway there. The latter, however, implies an ability to effect a particular response in your audience by the manner in which you write the song itself. I think the same goes for religious music, which is why "By the Mark" misses its mark. Welch has mastered the form. Now all she needs is the essence. Grade: B+
1 : any of a variety of Icelandic songbirds celebrated for their distinctive tonal quality, yodel-like trills, ability to live in symbiosis with swans, and talent for mimicking human beings. The björksang at my windowsill, content mostly to observe "Human Behaviour," while occasionally imitating its mannerisms.
2 : a liqueur distilled from refined Sugarcubes and treasured for its pleasantly intoxicating effects, which include mild hallucinations and an absolute freedom from stylistic inhibitions. After downing a carafe of björk, I envisioned "Venus as a Boy" and became "Violently Happy."
3 : a clinical diagnostic term referring to a patient suffering from the rare psychological stresses associated with first being a child prodigy, going on to achieve consistent - yet unremarkable - success, and finally coming into one's own as a late-blooming Debutante. By the time she was 29, many critics had written the björk off, wrongly assuming her best days were behind her.
1845 - Henry Thoreau, having lived at Walden less than a week, notices he has worn a path from his "door to the pond-side," and reflects, "how easily and insensibly we fall into a particular route, and make a beaten track for ourselves."
1975 - Writers for Lorne Michaels' Saturday Night Live, while attempting to create a show that subverts time-honored television standards & practices, come to find that the hardest thing to do when developing a skit that "breaks all the rules" is figuring out a way to end it.
1994 - Guided By Voices releases Bee Thousand, a twenty-track album of hissy pop rock fragments, quite likely a necessary foil to the slick, bedizened production currently ruling FM radio. Most bands who record in lo-fi do so for one of three reasons:
(1) it's all they can afford
(2) they enjoy the tinny, mashed-together sound
(3) they are being deliberately non-commercial
At one point or another in the career of Guided By Voices they subscribed to this scrappy aesthetic for all of these reasons. The problem is that much of its effect derives from the way in which it purposefully alienates itself from its audience's expectations. In other words, the novelty of a song that cuts out mid-lyric is entirely contingent on the belief that music should have recognizable structures with firmly delineated boundaries. Likewise, by cultivating this contrarian perspective, you run the risk of substituting one kind of fundamentalist rigidity for another. Once you don that rebel apparel, the mainstream garb becomes a bad fit and a worse look. Ultimately, I think this album is a noble exercise in devil's advocacy, a gadfly to keep the music community honest. There are funny lines and catchy hooks galore, even if they're embedded in texturally homogeneous songs that don't last long enough to imprint themselves on your memory. I'm not sure if sticking to your indie principles is a goal worth continually sabotaging such promising ideas for, but GBV didn't ask me. Grade: B-
Who did Steve Earle think he was putting out a debut album this self-assured, sounding like a more rural Bruce Springsteen or a cooler John Mellencamp? Who were the A&R geniuses over the years who decided this guy wasn't a marketable artist?
What
What else does a body have to do to be successful besides write songs as insightful as "Goodbye's All We Got Left" and as pretty as "My Old Friend the Blues"? What was going through the producer's mind when he included that tinkling synthesizer nonsense on the lullaby "Little Rock 'n' Roller," taking an acceptably sentimental song and killing it with cuteness?
Where
Where does that same producer get off neutering the best material, like "Fearless Heart," by keeping that solid backing band chained up on the porch? Where do you suppose Crazy Heart drew inspiration for Jeff Bridges' character - other than Waylon Jennings - if not this rambling force of nature?
When
When exactly did the drugs change Earle's voice, helping the "nasal" part of his nasal twang win out over the rest?
How
How can I believe in justice in a world where Steve Earle struggles in relative obscurity and Justin Bieber is on the cover of Vanity Fair?
Why
Why are you still reading this review when you could be listening to this album? Grade: B+
Remind me again why the pianos and saxophones were made to surrender their seat at rock 'n roll's round table? I know, I know. In the 1960s, as amplification technology improved, most bands deep-sixed their keyboardists and horn sections thinking they might sound too retro. "Electric guitars are the future," they thought, not realizing it was a self-fulfilling prophecy as they knocked down the pillars of rockabilly in the name of renovation. What they didn't grasp was that the piano and the horns hadn't just added volume. They added a robust, full-bodied wholeness to the mixture, the presence of which makes the entire ensemble sound richer. Dr. John got his start as a musician in the 1950s and on Dr. John's Gumbo you can hear his memories of that era come alive. To be sure, he had a psychedelic phase like everyone else in the late 60s. But you wouldn't be able to tell that here. For this album, he's largely jettisoned those influences, preferring instead to return to a classic rock 'n' roll sound by way of his favorite New Orleans r&b and jazz musicians like Huey "Piano" Smith and Professor Longhair. This is joyful, Saturday night music, the type of tunes that draw customers into Bourbon Street bars. Listening to the organ intro to "Big Chief," backed by that buoyant bass line and those shuffling drums, I thought, "Wow, someone should sample that!" Then I realized someone already had as Lily Allen's "Knock 'Em Out" started playing in my head. If you like "feel-good" music, I recommend Dr. John's Gumbo, with gusto. It'll stick to your ribs. Grade: B+
Sense memory is a powerful thing. Once you've associated a perfume with an old girlfriend, it's hard not to remember the relationship when you catch the scent of her brand while walking past a stranger in the mall. Or try drinking ginger ale and seeing how long you can go before your mind conjures up images of staying home from school with a stomach bug, watching The Price Is Right. Music is subject to the same phenomenon. Whenever I hear Cream, I think back to being nine years old and seeing the commercial for Freedom Rock, a collection of songs from the '60s and '70s. In the ad, which my neighborhood friends and I quoted ad infinitum, a couple of pre-fab hippies are lounging next to their VW Minibus. The familiar opening strains of "Layla" erupt from their stereo prompting one to ask the other, "Hey, man, is that Freedom Rock?" It's a fun, silly, cheap commercial. The kind that used to insist on "No CODs." Cream's contribution to the set was "White Room," which doesn't appear on Disraeli Gears, but "Sunshine of Your Love" does. That unmistakable opening riff - on par with those that kick off "Satisfaction" or "Smoke on the Water" - links this album inextricably to 1967. Being able to capture the zeitgeist in just a few bars is impressive, but it's also a double-edged sword. On the one hand, you've created a monolith for the ages. Current and future generations yearning to learn about nascent acid rock will find Disraeli Gears to be required listening. On the other hand, your monument is a tribute to Ozymandias, a statue that began its long, slow, crumbling decline the moment it was erected. But it's not all doom and gloom and several of these songs hold up very well. Cream sound great when they're not trying to filter their beloved blues through too many layers of psychedelia. Or when they're not trying to commune too closely with the muses as they do on "Tales of Brave Ulysses," which sounds like their Homeric homage to Dylan's "It's Alright, Ma (I'm Only Bleeding)." They explore a variety of guitar textures as the songs warble, peal, drone, and jag. However, some of the other instruments - particularly the keyboards - get buried too deep in the mix and render them irrelevant. Likewise, many of the vocals suffer from an almost polite formality (read: British) that sublimates their power and contrasts sharply with the imagination of the lyrics. You can get away with lines like "Outside my window is a tree / There only for me" from "World of Pain," but only if you loosen it up a little. And, in general, though it will tip my hand and betray my preferences to say so, they're at their rootsy best at the beginning and the end, with "Strange Brew" and "Take It Back," respectively. These songs have a loose, earthy quality truly deserving of the name "freedom rock." "Well, turn it up, man!" Grade: B-
When it comes to certain forms of pop music, orthodoxy has a way of setting in so gradually, so agreeably that almost no one questions it until an artist comes along and pulls the curtains down all at once. More often than not said artist will be vilified as much as she is celebrated depending, of course, on just how desperately the masses cling to their cherished expectations of what a particular music should be. The obvious historical example is Bob Dylan in the mid-60s turning the folk world on its ear by knocking the golden calves of American music off their pedestals and reassembling them in his own image. But pop music has had to weather similar storms on other occasions as well. If I'm allowed to paint in broad strokes, then in my opinion, by 1989, the conventional approach to popular pop music had become so ossified, so staid, that it no longer had any danger or aspiration to greatness. Furthermore, it was excruciatingly uncool. The revolutionaries had abandoned ship for hip hop, new wave, punk rock and all the other proto-indie movements that arose during the 70s and 80s. Pop music was in a bad way. Rock 'n' roll was even worse. Rock, for most of its tenure as a popular art form, had been dance music. It had strong beats and addictive melodies that had people out of their seats before they knew what they were doing. But as music fractured into genres and subgenres, "dance music" came to mean a lot of different things (house, techno, club, rave, disco, trip-hop, trance) and none of them even remotely resembled rock. Rock 'n' roll wasn't dead, but - when it came to dancing - it had been locked up in a home for convalescents. Within this climate, The Stone Roses' debut was a breath of fresh air to an audience that hadn't realized it was oxygen-deprived. This is brazen, tough, unimpeachably cool pop. There's jangle and hooks for days, but there's also a good deal of swagger from a band who knows just how good they are. To some extent their messianic fervor - the rock-band-as-savior motif they half play for laughs - can be off-putting. But, then, any band willing to name an 8-minute freak-out "I Am the Resurrection" and their sophomore album "Second Coming" can't be taking their own hype all that seriously. Besides, rock music has always been in love with its own mythology, with guitar players cutting their teeth down at the crossroads. But why hone your chops when you're good from the get-go? As lead singer Ian Brown sings on the opener, "I don't need to sell my soul / he's already in me." Now all they want is to be adored. With music this expertly played, this consistently catchy, this well-supported by such a danceable backbeat, that has held up this well over the past twenty years, adoration shouldn't be a problem. Grade: A
It is conventional wisdom not to go grocery shopping when you're hungry. Well, you probably shouldn't listen to ambient pop either because you might wind up thinking about everything in terms of food. Brian Eno's Another Green World reminds me of nothing more than a multi-course meal served up by a seasoned cook. Years of watching Top Chef have taught me the important distinction between mastering a culinary technique and cooking intuitively. Those who concentrate on the former - like Hung with his sous-vide or Marcel with his molecular gastronomy - are essentially scientists who work methodically, with precision. Those who concentrate on the latter - the Carlas and Caseys who "cook with love" - refine their natural instincts for food and how it will be received by its audience. Last weekend, I used a gift certificate to check out Hattie's in Saratoga Springs. Now, I've been to the south. I've eaten boudin in Lafayette, crawfish étouffée in New Orleans, pulled pork in Memphis, catfish in Georgia, pit-fired sausage in Texas, and brisket in Kansas City. But I've never had fried chicken better than Hattie's. Now it may be a passed-down technique that helps her restaurant continue to satisfy its customers, but her original recipe? That was intuition all the way. Brian Eno is an intuitive cook. He didn't go all in on ambient composition until Discreet Music, which came out later in the same year as Another Green World, but this album is nonetheless a powerful document of the direction in which he was moving. In many ways, this is a painless, accessible introduction to experimental rock. First, there are vocal tracks - gorgeous synth-pop songs like "St. Elmo's Fire," "I'll Come Running," and "Golden Hours" - so fans of Roxy Music won't feel too far from home. But there are also wonderful instrumental pieces ("The Big Ship") built around very simple melodies that, like comfort food, contain tremendous stores of emotional resonance. Like any cook, Eno pays a great deal of attention to textures and pairings. Some of the shorter pieces ("In Dark Trees," "Sombre Reptiles") seem to perform the function of sonic palate cleansers, muting the haunting notes of the most recent flavor and preparing the way for the next. It is a satisfying album from start to finish. Only, maybe don't listen to it on an empty stomach. I'm going to get something to eat. Grade: A
I am a latter-day convert to Weezyism. Having abandoned most of hip-hop and much of other music for several years, it was only relatively recently that I began taking an interest in some of last decade's luminaries. When it came to my students, Lil Wayne was a universal favorite. They might have been temporarily distracted by the latest dance craze from Soulja Boy, but, at the end of the day, Weezy was it. The last man standing after others had been laid low by jail (T.I.), corporate stewardship (Jay-Z), revelation of artistic mediocrity (50 Cent), Auto-Tune/public humiliation (Kanye West) and drug-fueled, self-imposed exile (Eminem). Of course, nominating yourself "Best Rapper Alive" under such circumstances is akin to declaring yourself a team's biggest fan in an empty stadium after the game. Simply put, Lil Wayne was wearing a crown that nobody else seemed to want. That is not to say he doesn't deserve it. Only that we'll never truly know. How would the great Satchel Paige have fared against an integrated major leagues in his prime? The possibilities are enough to make your head spin. But, more troubling than Lil Wayne's assertion of supremacy is his paranoid style, an unfortunate extension of the hyperbolic narcissism that has come to dominate American rap. Finding it lonely (and unchallenging) at the top, much of his lyrical content is devoted to tussling with imaginary foes. "They" say Lil Wayne's a bad influence. "They" say he's addicted to cough syrup. "They" say he's lost a step. OK, but who are "they"? Pundits? Politicians? Journalists? Internet commenters? Maybe. Whoever they are, they aren't anyone who could feasibly exert a negative influence on his career. In fact, in the case of the pundits and journalists, one could argue that the publicity they generate, however negative, is invaluable. Teenagers like nothing better than music that pisses their parents off. As far as everyone else, who doesn't love an underdog story (see: New York Mets, The) even when the odds against which the underdog struggles are either unequal to the task or altogether nonexistent (see: New York Mets, payroll of). So for Lil Wayne's ego to be as big as it is, he needs to inflate these strawmen accordingly. And thus you get a long, nearly incoherent diatribe against Al Sharpton on the Tha Carter III's closer, "Don't Get It." By railing against every perceived slight, however insignificant, what is meant to be a show of strength reveals only raw nerves and a glass jaw. Eminem, too, is especially guilty of this hypersensitivity. It is duplicitous to say "I don't give a fuck" in one breath and then take on all comers in the next. To construe every critique to be an ad hominem attack, to treat all resistance as an existential threat - even figuratively - is, at best, overly compensatory. At worst, it's indicative of delusion too deep to fathom. The hardscrabble, something-from-nothing, ashy-to-classy story arc permeates hip hop so thoroughly that rap stars continue to push the line long after they've made it. They're so emotionally invested in their own Horatio Alger rags-to-riches narrative that losing success is a prospect tantamount to having never achieved it in the first place. Ironically, Weezy would have a surfeit of genuine obstacles to overcome without these bogeymen; it's just that the largest of these is himself. Consider his prolificacy. Lil Wayne's mixtapes and guest spots are legion. To the casual observer, it would seem that he is either recording tracks or else he's asleep. This type of output might have been necessary in helping him to hone his skills (we're talking about practice!) or to vault his celebrity into the stratosphere. But, at this point, it serves only to decentralize his artistic control, dilute his best ideas over too many songs, and further divide his already hopelessly splintered attention. Lil Wayne has always had more talent than taste, but imagine how good he could be if he refused to commit sub-par performances to tape? His verse on last year's Distant Relatives was easily the weakest moment on the album, an appearance that underscored how substantive was the vision of Nas & Damian Marley and what happens to Lil Wayne when he's spread too thin. As far as one-liners are concerned, he is rap's Henny Youngman. And, on that basis, he may indeed be the "Best Rapper Alive," the Usain Bolt of hip-hop. But true legacies require marathon runners and when it comes to endurance, "Weezy" is a perfectly appropriate nickname. The longer the format, the more conspicuous his flaws become. Pick any song on this album and you will most likely hear a line that makes you laugh and a line that impresses you. But, taken together, it's really just a compendium of brilliant non-sequiturs, full of sound and fury, spouted by a weed-addled savant so hooked on phonics he can't see the raps for the rhymes. Grade: C+
