How I Define A "Great Album"

Any great album, as a whole, should be able set a mood and unfold in accordance with that mood, even if that mood is completely schizophrenic (see: Frank Zappa). In fact, ambient music exempted, I find that the more intense the mood is, the more memorable the album tends to be. This often means I'm usually the guy championing a band's most "difficult" albums, but somehow I'm okay with that. Put it this way: wallpaper can be pleasant, but I wouldn't put it in a frame and hang it in a gallery. A bit elitist, sure, but you have to understand: I think anything - anything - that constitutes a creative form of self-expression counts as art. Johnny Cash, Bob Marley, The Beatles - all massively popular, all near-universally loved, and all artists of the highest order, as important to their respective genres as Shakespeare was to english literature. If anything, I think the whole "music for the people" rhetoric that critics use to praise artists like Bruce Springsteen is condescending bullshit. Don't praise an album because you think it speaks to or for a particular audience you never took the time to know personally. You'll look like an asshole, or perhaps even worse, a rock journalist.

Great Albums That Absolutely Nobody Talks About, Part Two: The Pursuit Of Happiness - One-Sided Story

Forget "I'm An Adult Now". For just one second, forget that song even exists. There is a deeper, smarter, more sensitive band lurking behind that one hit, one with a capacity for songs that are as infectiously catchy as they are poignant. Lead singer/songwriter Moe Berg writes some of the most honest and down-to-earth lyrical examinations of love I've ever read, strange only in how they manage to so perfectly nail the innerworkings of the Average Joe (and Jane). In Moe's world, love is parasitic (Something Physical), fleeting (No Safe Place), manipulative (Runs In The Family), and occasionally beautiful (All I Want). What's strangest is how quick Moe is to point out his own flaws, making his expressions of genuine desire seem that much more honest as a result. He's one of the few singers I've heard who'll describe the ways in which he can be a jerk and not try to make it sympathetic.

Of course, you also have to the like the music, which is essentially crunchy mid-tempo power pop with an almost rigid sense of songwriting formula (Chorus goes HERE! Solo goes THERE!). But then, it also features the gorgeous backing harmonies or Kris Abbott and Leslie Stanwyck, a perfect compliment to Moe Berg's endearingly dweebish whine of a voice. It's all overseen by producer Todd Rundgren, Mr. Power Pop himself, and hell, if he liked the material enough to produce two albums for an almost totally unknown Canadian indie group, they must've been doing something right. If you can find a copy and it sounds like something you'd enjoy, please give it a chance.

A Followup To The Marilyn Manson Post

Mulch says: (10:18:50 PM)

There's a video for Arma-goddamn-motherfucking-geddon, if you enjoy things that'll make you hate music

Alex says: (10:19:43 PM)

haha I think I'll watch it just to see

Alex says: (10:19:48 PM)

what an awful title

Mulch says: (10:19:56 PM)

It's the chorus.

Mulch says: (10:20:03 PM)

The chorus to an actual song, Alex.

Alex says: (10:21:19 PM)

That shouldn't be.

Alex says: (10:21:26 PM)

That shouldn't ever have happened.

Great Albums That Absolutely Nobody Talks About, Part One: Yello - You Gotta Say Yes To Another Excess (1983)

The title must be ironic. This is Yello at their most focused and least excessive, ditching the atmospheric experiments of their first two albums and flexing their muscles as a pure dance act, albeit one of the most absurdly funny, subversively weird dance acts to ever hit the floor. Let's take the minor hit I Love You, for instance. It's slick, spare, club fodder that has more sound effects than actual instruments, and the lyrics all about... driving. No, really. That's actually what it's about. The main vocal hook is a sample of a woman saying "I love you!" and it barely has anything to do with the rest of the song, except when Dieter Meier responds with a hissed "I know!". God, I love Yello.

Anyways, the whole album pretty much follows in that vein: archly stylish dance music that eagerly exploits it's own inherent ridiculousness. Dieter Meier had finally found his groove as a frontman by this point, mostly using a hushed, deadpan speaking voice that occasionally lets a melody or two creep in - but not often. Frankly, I like it better this way, as the campy irony of his lyrics comes through a lot clearer without it ever being pushed too far over the top. Hell, maybe he's not even being ironic. Frankly, it's hard to care when the music manages to be so compulsively danceable and fascinatingly strange all at once. 

The compositions are among the most skeletal Boris Blank has ever written, meaning that Carlos Peron gets to have a blast littering incongruous samples all over the place. I Love You is full of tires squealing, Great Mission manages to conjure up an entire electronic jungle, and Heavy Whispers (my favorite track) uses a woman screaming as part of the main rhythm. Only Pink Floyd has managed to use sound effects this effectively this often, and remember they had a lot more "real" instruments backing them up.

The main thing I want to emphasize is how much fun this album is to listen to. Like the Art Of Noise's first album, this is early electronic music at it's most playful, back when the concept of music made by machines was still a novelty in itself. Unlike the Art Of Noise's first album, however, this one features a slightly unhinged swiss millionaire ranting in broken english about seduction, excess, and... gorillas. Which party would YOU rather go to?

Nothing's Shocking: The Continual Decline Of Eminem And Marilyn Manson

In the indie-saturated musical landscape of 2009, the only thing more anachronistic than an Eminem album is a Marilyn Manson album. I wish I was dwelling in the realm of the hypothetical here, but since both things have actually come to pass, I'd feel remiss in not registering my... well, it's not exactly disappointment. More like that feeling you get when you've expected something to suck badly enough for long enough that you're actually looking forward to seeing how spectacularly it fails. Let's face it: having something to complain about sure as hell beats having nothing to talk about. Hence, this blog post.

First off, we have Eminem's new album Relapse. I'd had a bad feeling about Eminem's music ever since he went into self-imposed depressed-rich-drug-addict exile. I'm sure the amount of shit he went through during that time could have given him a lot of material to work with (in addition to the drug addiction that spawned the album's title, there was the death of good friend and fellow rapper Proof), but Eminem's biggest strength was always his quick wit, so knowing he spent much of his time off in a depressed stupor wasn't exactly promising. In addition, Eminem's worst trait has always been his self-absorption, so again: depressed stupor = not promising.

When I heard the new single We Made You, my suspicions were more or less confirmed. It's essentially My Name Is... Part 3, the celebrity-baiting shtick now completely worn out by virtue of Eminem's own increasing cultural irrelevance. Maybe it's just my own aversion to pop culture, but I don't care what ANYONE has to say about Lindsay Lohan, much less someone whose only reason to spite her is because it's expected of him.

What I didn't expect, though, was the abundance of serial-rape-and-murder songs on the album. It's hard to tell if Eminem was trying to seriously get in the mind of a psychopath, vent his inner torment in the most unpleasant way possible, or simply go out of his way to offend people. It could very well be all three of these things, but ultimately, who cares? The best these pieces can provoke is a certain sick fascination, but that hardly counts as engaging the listener, even if Eminem still has a hell of a way with words.

The same can't be said of Marilyn Manson who, even at his best, often had the verbal dexterity of a drunk, vomiting Chuck Palanhiuk. On albums like the genuinely-really-good Mechanical Animals this wasn't a problem, as the cheesiness of it was what made it fun. Problem is, a) he wasn't kidding and b) he didn't actually stop.

So now, 9 years after doing anything that isn't a complete fucking embarrassment, we get The High End Of Low, an album with song titles like "Pretty As A Swastika" and "I Have To Look Up Just To See Hell". The lead-off single is called "Arma-goddamn-motherfucking-geddon". He says "abortion", "fuck" and "suicide" within the first 30 seconds. It makes even less sense in context. The first thing you hear him sing on the actual album is "I'll swallow a bowl of you like / a big bottle of big big pills". There's a song called "Unkillable Monster" and it's a fucking power ballad. He sounds bored. The band sounds bored. Hell, I'm fucking bored, except when I reflect on the fact that this album somehow got major label backing. It's at this point that I stop being bored and start being very, very angry.

FINAL VERDICT:

I'll give the Eminem album a 5 out of 10 for the way he occasionally salvages mediocre material with lyrical dexterity. I'll give the Marilyn Manson a 2 out of 10 because it's one of the worst pieces of shit I've ever heard in my life.

The 10 Best Pop(-ish) Albums Since The Beatles Broke Up

WARNING: Mostly white guys.

1. John Lennon/Plastic Ono Band (1970):

Argh. Where do I start with this one? Pain. Pain, pain, pain. Lots of it. A lifetime's worth of emotional baggage and disillusionment pressed on to one piece of vinyl. Alternative rock before such a thing even existed. Blunt honesty, aching sincerity, and painful, hard-earned truth? Nah. Too pompous. Better start over.
It's not that this is a particularly complicated album from either a musical or lyrical standpoint. Rather, this is an album so simple, so sparse, so bullshit-free, that to try and dress it up in the flowery language of conventional rock criticism would miss the point entirely. All it does is give it to you straight, over musical backing that somehow manages to be as raw, wounded, and intimate as the lyrical content, even when the gorgeous balladry gives way to a gut-wrenching screamfest like "Well Well Well". At the climax of the album, when all the instrumentation drops and Lennon simply sings "I just believe in me", you feel like he's earned it, 'cause you believe in him too.

2. David Bowie - Low (1977):

wait, no

2. David Bowie - "Heroes" (1977):

but then again

2. David Bowie - Lodger (1979):

This is probably Bowie's most underrated release, followed by... um... wait, wait, wait, actually

2. David Bowie - "Heroes" (1977):

By a very slim margin, this is probably the best of David Bowie's groundbreaking late-70s collaborations with Brian Eno, an album that takes all the sonic innovation of Low and beefs it up with 1) more focused songwriting and 2) the always-brilliant guitarwork of Robert Fripp. Bowie - oh fuck I forgot about that album he did with Iggy Pop GOD DAMN IT

2. Iggy Pop - The Idiot (1977):

When David Bowie and Iggy Pop fuck this shit, I wanna talk about something else

3. Ramones - Ramones (1976):

The glorious return of great rock and roll music, now in the form of what would eventually be called "punk". It never improved on the blueprint, though. How could it? No one did simple, straight-up rock like The Ramones, because no one did it simpler, and few rocked harder. Best of all, it's flipping hilarious, too. And in the spirit of their music, I'm keeping this review blurb short and sweet. 
Okay, so laziness is a factor too. Look, I'm writing this at four in the morning and I have shit to do tomorrow. Cut me some slack.

4. Public Image Ltd. - Metal Box (1979):

Coming out the same year as The Clash's London Calling, I've always viewed this as that album's evil twin - all the confrontational attitude of punk, but without any musical concessions to the "general record-buying public" (gee, can I be any more condescending? Never mind.) So what do we get instead? Death Disco. This is Never Mind The Bollocks for snobs, an album that has something to alienate almost everyone. And yet, the amount of musical innovation on display makes it impossible to dismiss. The rhythm section is solid as a rock, pumping out hypnotic, Can-derived grooves over which Keith Levene's guitar spews fractured arpeggios like a lawn sprinkler full of stomach acid. On top of that, John Lydon wails about such cheerful subjects as watching his mother die and being raped and murdered in a forest. And it's gloooooorious.

5. Utopia - Swing To The Right (1982):

Fuck objectivity. I love this album. It deserves to be here. Basically, the premise is this: Todd Rundgren's new wave-oriented side project notices America's going to hell in a handbasket, gets pissed, and releases an album that casually flips the bird at yuppie conservatism (the Steely-Dan-by-way-of-Zappa title track), music industry blowhards (Junk Rock, with its mindless robot chorus of "my name is music, I see that the music gets done"), and hypocrites of all stripes and colors (Shinola). An ancient greek anti-war satire becomes pop song fodder in Lysistrata, and Ray Bradbury's Fahrenheit 451 is transformed into an intentionally tacky disco monstrosity. In the midst of all this snarkiness, however, comes Rundgren's glorious ballad Only Human, soaring gracefully above all the spite and cynicism and giving the album the wounded heart it needs to balance out the cranky cleverness. It's also worth noting that, for all the negativity on display, this is still an incredibly fun, energetic album. It's just that the energy is galvanized and angry, and Utopia's usual cheery optimism takes a backseat to an urgent need to comment on what's happening before it gets any worse. It did get worse, of course, but you can't fault them for trying.

6. Michael Jackson - Thriller (1982):

Meticulously calculated pop perfection, an album that somehow translates obsessive studio craftsmanship into pure, unadulterated fun. Oh, of course Wanna Be Startin' Somethin' and Billie Jean are incredibly paranoid, uncomfortable songs at their core, but when put in the same context as the guilty-pleasure wimp-balladry of The Girl Is Mine and goofy horror-funk of Thriller, it just feels like another part of the same awesome party. Sure, you could make a lot of valid arguments against this album based on it's cultural impact. Yes, you could certainly do that. Go right ahead. I mean, if you insist. Oh, cheer up.

7. Public Enemy - Fear Of A Black Planet (1990):

Hey, check it out, I think I got this whole "rap music" thing down! All you need is an authoritative, commanding MC with all the charisma of a political leader, a lovably spastic sidekick, and a stew of samples and turntable scratches so dense and overwhelming that it's impossible to process in one sitting. I mean, simple, right? No? Well, maybe I still don't get it. But regardless of your own musical inclinations, I'd say you need to hear this album at least once, if only to realize how it puts most of rock's ideas of "musical sophistication" to shame. These guys (specifically their production team, The Bomb Squad) stack up samples in the same way Jimi Hendrix played guitar or Jaco Pastorius played bass. Put another way, it legitimizes the sampler as a bona fide musical instrument. Best part is, it never upstages Chuck D's considerable lyrical prowess, which is somehow every bit as dense and uncompromising as the music backing it up. It all adds up to some serious sensory overload, an album that doesn't just reward but flat-out demands your attention. It's worth every second.

8. Nirvana - Nevermind (1992):

I still can't imagine what a breath of fresh air this must have been when it came out, bridging as it did the gap between the ever-marginalized underground and the increasingly-lousy mainstream. In a way, this is like The Sex Pistols' Never Mind The Bollocks, revolutionary music in a naggingly catchy, slickly produced candy coating. Still, no amount of effects can dull the razor-sharp edge of songs like Breed or Territorial Pissings. Likewise, Smells Like Teen Spirit is still one of the best, most misunderstood generational anthems ever written. I'll even (almost) forgive the way Come As Your Are swipes the main riff of Killing Joke's Eighties because the rest is just that good. Grunge may have been a dead end road, but this album at least shows why people were to follow it that far.

9. Shudder To Think - Pony Express Record (1994): 

Two years after "alternative rock" hit the mainstream, this album ritualistically disemboweled it, turning the remains into a grisly, Damien Hirst-like piece of corpse art and leading the way to a bold new era of musical experimentation and open-mindedness. At least, that's how I like to imagine it anyway. Unfortunately, the truth's a little more depressing. Alternative rock was co-opted by the mainstream, and genuinely challenging bands like Shudder To Think were relegated to obscurity. I guess one can cram only so many musical revolutions into one decade, especially when one of your main revolutionaries looks like an much-gayer Michael Stipe and sings cryptic, prosaic lyrics in a nasal, octave-jumping vibrato as the band plays mind-bendingly complex, ugly-chorded hard rock that sounds like what you'd hear at a mosh pit in a David Lynch film. Nope, definitely not the stuff of a musical revolution. Still, in a more just, forgiving universe, some radio station like The Buzz is playing No Rm. 9, Kentucky with all the frequency that oldies stations play Stairway To Heaven.

10. Radiohead - Kid A (2000):

Well, it's not for everyone, that's for sure. This is an alienated, alienating album, full of cold, harsh, abrasive textures, nearly all of them either electronic or electronically modified. Thom Yorke sings like he's been frightened into paralysis. The lyrics barely make any rational sense. You have to look for the guitars with a fuckin' map. Even the softest ballads are nearly drowned out by their effects-heavy arrangements. Have you seen the cover? The spiky, computerized mountains and the apocalyptic, blood-red sky? That's what this album sounds like. It's the sound of feeling completely lost in a remote, alien world. It's like all the numbness and isolation that once informed their lyrics got translated directly into musical form via binary. It's like... it's like... fuck it. You know what? It's a Radiohead album, and this list needs a Radiohead album. There. I'm done. Go away.