#46 - Elliott Smith's "Either/Or" (1997)

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-

#12 - P J Harvey's "Rid of Me" (1993)

Background information:  I saw P J Harvey open for U2 in Albany on their Elevation tour in 2001.  Seeing Bono & the boys in concert was the realization of a decade-long wish for me and they really did put on a great rock show.  Bono was under the weather but still worked the crowd like a pro, name-checking J. B. Scott's, the Albany rock club U2 visited on one of their first runs through the states.  So, I was in good spirits and required nothing extra to make the evening complete.  But Harvey kicked off the show in a slinky, silvery, glittering cocktail dress, alternately roaring and cooing into the microphone for more than half an hour.  She was, in a word, sexy.  And I made a note to check out some of her recordings.  Finally making good on that promise today, nearly ten years later, I listened to Rid of Me, which many critics consider to be her crowning artistic statement.  Helmed by Steve Albini, the erstwhile Pixies producer who months later would help craft Nirvana's sound on In Utero, the recording bears his mark throughout.  But whereas with those artists the quiet/loud dynamic inherent in the songwriting requires a heavy hand to help drop the hammer, here the technique is applied much more indiscriminately and to a much less interesting effect.  The songs are awash in messy, sludgy excess.  On stage, standing alone, Harvey had shone, her signature, throaty moan filling the arena to the rafters with sex and catharsis.  On tape, her vocals are either drowning in a tedious, monochromatic angst or futilely competing for space with Albini's "Wall of Grunge."  Maybe the lyrics are good, I don't know.  The heavy-handed production values were too dated and distracting to notice.  It certainly doesn't help that she attempts an ill-advised and directionless cover of Dylan's "Highway 61 Revisited."  I mean, shit, if she wanted to time travel, why couldn't she have worked with Bob Johnston & Tom Wilson?  Sigh.  At least I can enjoy her whipping her hair back and forth on the cover art.  Grade:  C-