In 1976, then Gary Webb met bassist Paul Gardiner in a short-lived punk band called the Lasers. Splitting a year later, the two along with drummer Bob Simmonds formed Tubeway Army with a goal to fuse the amateurishness of punk with a newfound interest in synthesizers. Replacing Simmonds with his uncle, Jess Lidyard, and changing his name from Webb to Numan, this lineup recorded two singles, “That’s Too Bad” and “Bombers” for Beggars Banquet in 1978. Think robotic power pop meets the likes of Kraftwerk in a mosh pit.

Certainly influenced by Kraftwerk, Tubeway Army also exhibited characteristics associated with glam rock’s experimental and electronic side seen in outfits like the John Foxx-led Ultravox and Roxy Music, and Bowie’s Berlin Trilogy, as well as Krautrock by way of Can and C(K)luster. Understanding that using synthesizers could help Tubeway Army break free of the clichés associated with punk, Numan began incorporating a mini-Moog synthesizer into the mix after finding one left behind in the studio. Free from punk’s limitations and avoiding any synth stigma via prog rock, Tubeway Army’s self-titled debut helped lay the foundation (along with bands like Suicide and Futurisk) of what became synth-punk.

Considered by many as a transitional album, bridging the punky nature of the band’s first two singles with the more familiar synth-driven material found on the band’s second (and final TA album) Replicas and Numan’s later solo credited material, Tubeway Army is at once hard-driving proto-electro clash and coldly calculated robotic synth pop, coupled with a science fiction dystopia a la Philip K. Dick (The first line of album opener “Listen to the Sirens” lifts directly from Dick’s novel Flow My Tears, The Policeman Said) and an oddly perverse perspective courtesy of William Burroughs’ seedy underworld.

The beginnings of Numan’s fascination with mystery, intrigue and espionage as seen in later songs like “I, Assassin” can be traced back to Tubeway Army’s “The Dream Police” and “Zero Bars (Mr. Smith)”. Other songs speak to male prostitution (“Friends”), teenage masturbation (the quirky and humorous “Everyday I Die”), and friendship with robots (“Steel and You”, complete with sci-fi effects leading into a blistering guitar riff). From singing about failed homosexual encounters on “Jo the Waiter” (one of the few acoustic numbers in Numan’s catalog) to living on life support (“The Life Machine”), there seem to be few topics that Numan is unwilling to tackle.

To speak well of Numan and Tubeway Army’s contribution to today’s musical landscape would be nothing less than understatement. With the electro-clash-punk-synth-pop-rock sounds of yesteryear returning via retro sounding outfits as well as newer artists evolving into fresher takes on the familiar, Numan’s influence is far greater than simply giving the world “Cars”. Listen to the guitar progression of “My Shadow In Vain”, which sounds like an early template for the Knack’s “My Sharona”, or the intro to “Friends”, which rivals that of any Foreigner or Foghat track of the day, and you’ll see his influence did not need to wait 30 years to be felt. Regardless of the time period, Gary Numan’s contributions to music, either solo or with Tubeway Army, in both the electronic and rock idioms are unmistakable, undeniable, and unrivaled.

One of the guarantees in the world of music journalism is that any discussion of the history and relevance of shoegaze will inevitably focus on how Cocteau Twins and The Jesus and Mary Chain pioneered the shimmering style, while My Bloody Valentine perfected it. Sometimes, Slowdive and Ride will be included, but Lush will likely earn a passing reference at best. Despite generally positive reviews and a commercial viability that found the London quartet playing television shows everywhere and successfully touring American cities other British bands of the ’90s never dared to tread, Lush has seemingly been forgotten or omitted for consideration as one of the shoegaze greats. This diminished legacy is at least partly because Lovelife is when Lush allegedly “went pop.”

“Ladykillers” opens Lovelife with an attention-seizing circular melody and spunky vocals from Miki Berenyi that are no longer floating along in a sea of reverb. Confidently at the forefront, Berenyi eviscerates Anthony Kiedis, Matt Sharp, and men with transparent agendas and dubious attitudes towards women everywhere with an infectiously sarcastic wit. It’s what would have been hyped as a girl power anthem had it been released a couple years later.

Driving the point home that Lush is too confident and extroverted to be content with ethereal drifting and effects pedal-fixating are spirited power pop anthems “Heavenly Nobodies” and chart hit “Single Girl”. The sublimely sweet “500” is probably the finest ode to a car of the era and a bona fide 90′s staple. Pulp hero Jarvis Cocker guests on “Ciao!”, which is enough to make the song a fascinating novelty at the very least. Here, Cocker and Berenyi channel Nancy Sinatra and Lee Hazelwood as they go back and forth, each one-upping the other’s “I’m so much better off without you, so fuck you” sentiment. This death-of-a-relationship celebration is a potent anti-love song that’s especially cathartic for anyone who’s ever needed convincing that they were more over a former flame than they actually were.

Aside from the earworms, Lush is still in touch with their roots on Lovelife. “Tralala” and “Last Night” capture that haunting, dreamy ambience that made the arrangements on Spooky so stellar, while enveloping it with layers of mystery and trippy sensuality. Yet, the general consensus is that Lush ran away from shoegaze in favor of Britpop on Lovelife.

Since shoegaze and dream pop had been on the decline for a few years, some critics and fans have dismissed Lovelife as a case of bandwagon-jumping. In the mid-90′s, the infamous war between Oasis and Blur dominated the media and the charts, Pulp achieved superstar status after a legendary headlining performance at Glastonbury, Ocean Color Scene, The Boo Radleys, and other second-generation acts of the scene were on the rise. In short, it was the peak of Britpop. Although Lush never set out to make a such a record, its touch persists throughout the album. As the dominant style of the time, it was inevitably going to serve as one of the largest wells of non-retro influence for a forward-seeking band to draw upon. Even if they had deliberately shifted gears to fit the times, is that so wrong? M83 has been increasingly dialing back the shoegaze stylings and scored a crossover hit with “Midnight City”, yet there’s nary an accusation of jumping onto the idealized-vision-of-the-’80s synthpop bandwagon, and such acts are hotter than ever. Rather, Hurry Up, We’re Dreaming is nearly universally acclaimed for its grand ambition.

Pulp got to ride the Britpop wave because they had some anthemic and unabashedly English tunes filled with hooks at exactly the right time. However, once they released the bleak, anti-catchy This Is Hardcore in 1998, it became apparent that their blend of glam, disco, and post-punk was always fundamentally different from the sound traditionally associated with the genre, such as that of Oasis, Supergrass, and Blur. The history of Lush parallels this rise and subsequent shattering of illusion. Yes, Lush’s jangly sound on their debut album Spooky was brought to life in part by none other than producer Robin Guthrie, but even then the band clearly had a poppier side. Songs such as “Superblast!” and Split’s “Hypocrite” are as purely pop as any of the singles from Lovelife. The fact that the band’s sound shifted on Lovelife is indisputable, but it’s just not that drastic of a change since Lush was always more than just a purely shoegaze outfit.

Back in 2010, Graham Bendel of The Quietus argued that Lush is not only just as deserving as My Bloody Valentine of shoegaze legend status, but that they are an even better band. One aspect of Lush that Bendel skipped in his compelling case is the significance of Lovelife. The understated legacy of Lush seems to signal the danger of turning away from shoegaze, yet artists that have been similarly labeled in recent years, such as M83, Asobi Seksu, and School of Seven Bells, continue to move on and evolve. Like My Bloody Valentine’s failed, costly attempts to follow-up Loveless, the stylistic shift of Lush indicates that the genre is one in which an artist can sound fresh for a limited time only.

Would My Bloody Valentine still be held with the same mythical status had they followed-up Loveless with that reported jungle music experiment or “gone pop?” It’s doubtful. Perhaps what has changed over the past 16 years is that “pop” is no longer considered such a dirty word. Rather than relegated to guilty pleasure status or dismissed as a symbol of artifice and pandering, the value of a good hook is more widely appreciated by even the most jaded of music consumers. Whether it’s ethereal or anthemic, the sound of Lush is an irresistible one, and Lovelife deserves a reexamination.

As Swans evolved, all of that remained. The blueprint was well established and they were just expanding on the existing architecture. One such expansion, perhaps the most important in the band’s entire history, was the addition of two highly influential new members: Algis Kizys as a second bass player and vocalist/keyboardist Jarboe La Salle Devereaux, or simply, Jarboe. When people mention the change in Swans’ sound with Children of God, what they are in fact referring to is the expanded role that Jarboe took on this album.

Jarboe first appeared on the Swans’ Time Is Money (Bastard) EP, credited for simply, “scream”. With her wordless background vocals coming in and out on the album’s title cut, Jarboe expanded her presence on the follow-up full-length Greed. However, for the true markings of these so-called changes and transitions, we must look to Holy Money. Released a year before Children of God, Holy Money (and the A Screw EP) features the prominent use of acoustic instruments via the guitar and piano. With her range beginning to be explored here, from hauntingly soft to gospel/blues infused wails, Jarboe elegantly sings over a simple piano as on “You Need Me” or the similarly designed “Blackmail” (from A Screw, and reappearing on Children of God), one of Gira’s most poignant love lyrics. This performance marks Jarboe’s debut at lead vocal, and though all the lyrics would continue to remain Gira’s, the vocal duties were now a shared responsibility.

Michael Gira has never been one to back away from uncomfortable topics in his music. As leader of Swans, his songs touch on power and corruption, violence, rape and sex, murder, slavery, and oppression. His lyrics reflect the mire of humanity’s dark side, exposing truths and hypocrisies that far too many of us would rather pretend didn’t exist. He does so with such authenticity and sincerity that it’s as if he has been on both sides, the master and the servant; he has both wielded the sword and suffered its blade. That Gira would eventually shift his focus onto the institution of religion, one of the most corrupt, violent, and oppressive of man’s creations, should be of no surprise.

People fear change– or more often, simply do not like it. With Jarboe’s increased presence in the band, many in Swans’ fanbase showed concern that the hard, explosive, and deafeningly obtuse band they had come to know and love might go soft. Perhaps to belay such ignorance (though I cannot imagine Gira placating anybody), Children of God opens with many of the familiar aspects of early Swans’ songs: an explosive grinding guitar, bombastic, mindcrunching percussion, a tempo that trudges forward, and Gira’s voice, that dark, heavy baritone that sends shivers down the spine. On the surface, “New Mind” is very much in line with older material. But go under the surface a little and you begin to see subtle changes like call-and-response vocal arrangements and discernible lyrics that are not screamed, just directed very intently as when Gira yells, “I am ready to receive the new mind” and the band reinforces the sentiment through repeating the phrase, “I am ready”. Speaking to the corrupted mind, “New Mind” is as shockingly direct as anything that came before, only a bit more refined and focused.

“Beautiful Child”, perhaps the most brutal song on Children of God, begins with the pops and cracks of gunfire before proceeding to become a blood-drenched dirge backdropping a ritual human sacrifice. As Gira sings from the point of view of the one whose duty it is to sacrifice children, his words “The beautiful child, I will kill the child…This is my life, this is my choice, this is my damnation”, the fear is palpable. By the song’s end, Gira is screaming “This is my sacrifice”, indicating not only the obvious sacrifice of the child, but also the sacrifice of his own soul.

Children of God ebbs and flows between the outwardly aggressive and the more reserved, yet equally disturbing. The presence of the acoustic guitar isn’t necessarily new, but it’s prevalence on Children of God certainly is. “Our Love Lies” remains a relatively acoustic song with the addition of percussion, giving it that gothic feel that Nick Cave perfected in his earliest Bad Seeds’ records. “Real Love” takes the Cave-ism to another level, and perhaps hints at a more accessible Gira. “You’re Not Real, Girl” begins with a simple, repeated guitar phrase and an elegant layering of strings. Gira’s hollowed timber and the achingly lonely lyrics leave you feeling as if you are the subject of his bitterness as he closes with “You’re not real, you’re not real.”

The soft acoustic intro to Jarboe’s “In My Garden” is an immediate contrast to the album’s opening barrage. In a manner akin to the Cocteau Twins/Harold Budd project, Jarboe’s voice rises and falls over a steadily coasting guitar/piano coupling but never rises above an ambient state. This sentiment is revisited later in the album with the song “Blackmail”, perhaps the most angelically beautiful moment of the entire record, featuring Jarboe’s achingly haunting vocals over a simple piano. In contrast to those delicate, almost gossamer arrangements, “Blood and Honey” uses Jarboe’s lower register. Arranged with chamber bells, minimal percussion, a darkly hollow echo, and Jarboe singing lyrics like “I found you lying where I drowned you” and “Our blood will flow black in the dirt and a black rose will grow where we laid”, this song could provide the soundtrack to the film What Dreams May Come if Robin Williams was played by Diamanda Galas.

Jarboe is not quite the yin to Gira’s yang as she doesn’t necessarily provide balance. Many of her performances act as foil to Gira’s abrasive aggression, helping to elevate the overall message and its delivery. With Children of God, Swans completed the turn towards a new phase in the band’s development. A key album in the band’s career, just as Holy Money hinted at the band’s near future, Children of God would be the launch point towards more complex, adventurous, and ambitious endeavors.

After years of recording and releasing material on their own, The Wedding Present made the jump to a label after the company they relied upon for distribution, Red Rhino, went into receivership. Signing with RCA in 1989 granted the band a few contractual perks, such as retaining an option to independently release material rejected by RCA without contractual breach, as well as having their own choice of what singles to release and which producers to work with. Taking RCA at its word, The Wedding Present released ?????????? ??????? ? ????? ???? (Ukrainian John Peel Sessions), a compilation of the band’s first three Ukrainian language Peel Sessions, in February 1989 and, in October 1989, dropped Bizarro, the band’s first “proper” album for RCA.

The following year, Gedge decided to re-record Bizarro’s opening track, “Brassneck”, with Steve Albini producing. The collaboration led to the Brassneck and 3 Songs EPs. When asked why Albini was his choice, Gedge said, “I heard Surfer Rosa by the Pixies, and that record just sounded so fantastic. I was interested in some of his [Albini’s] other stuff as well, but I think that was the first record where it was… a pop group as well as a rock band, and I thought it would actually work for us…”

Despite the initial success of the two EPs, Gedges was still hesitant to record a full album with Albini: “I was quite scared it would end up coming out like [makes a series of horrible noises] all the way through.”  Overcoming his slight acousticophobia, in the winter of 1991, Gedges, along with guitarist Peter Solowka, bassist Keith Gregory, and drummer Simon Smith, flew to Minnesota and recorded Seamonsters over a span of 10 days.

Today, Seamonsters is looked upon as somewhat of a contemporary classic. However, upon its initial release, both the band and album faced a backlash of negative criticism, including New Musical Express’s Steve Lamacq likening it to “having sandpaper rubbed over your ears.” Much of the criticism was fraught with misunderstanding and misplaced fears that the band had perhaps strayed from their more recognized style of pop, with one critic even arguing that The Wedding Present had gone grunge. The root of much of this stemmed from hiring Albini as producer.

From the moment Seamonsters begins with opening track “Dalliance”, there is a notable difference between this album and previous efforts.  Gone are the jangly guitar lines that populated George Best and Bizarro, as well as the fuzzed-out guitar pop frenzy on songs like “A Million Miles” and “Take Me I’m Yours”. They’re replaced with darker, more direct guitar lines, an audibly more aggressive song attack, and raw percussion, all hallmarks of Albini’s production style. That aside, when you listen to this album, you’ll hear a pop album, plain and simple. It is not shambling, frantic pop, but pop that rocks, exactly what Gedge was looking for.

Complimented by Albini’s production and love of percussion, the album’s secret weapon is drummer Simon Smith, with his rapid, almost machine gun drum rolls punctuating Gedge’s songwriting. Though the music may have more of a punch to it thanks to Albini, the songs are pure Gedge, lyrically telling the same lovelorn tales. With a voice aurally similar to Ian Curtis, Mark Burgess, or Paul Banks, much has been made of Gedge’s limited vocal range. However, coupled with his conversational lyrics and idiosyncratic delivery, these apparent limitations are perhaps the one true constant on any Wedding Present record, helping to give the band its sonic signature.

Albini’s production, by his own definition, is limited, and therefore any changes to The Wedding Present’s sound, be they real or perceived, should be equally attributed to the band itself. Regardless of producer, this is still a Wedding Present album.

Gedge tries to convince a girl that it’s okay to cheat on her boyfriend with him in “Dare”, the album’s all-out rocker. Perhaps as a musical bridge to their previous work, that track is the closest thing to jangle that Seamonsters has to offer. Bubbling with a rolling guitar line that would become ubiquitous in indie pop by the end of the decade, “Lovenest” blasts forth his inability to get over an old flame, much to the possible demise of his current relationship, while “Suck” slows the pace a bit, with a tad of sludgy-ness applied, complimenting the song’s mood. Albini’s discordant noise makes appearances, and his production style certainly adds weight to the distortion employed by the band, but Seamonsters isn’t all abrasion.

“It’s not like that at all,” Gedge said. “Apart from the Pixies and The Breeders, we’re the only other band he has worked with who do acoustic type songs. He spent a lot of time getting the sound of an acoustic guitar right…”  That shows on tracks like album centerpiece “Rotterdam”, resentment- and anger-filled track “Heather”, and album closer “Octopussy”, with its deceptively soft and simple guitar lines looping over and over, bringing the album full circle.

Hindsight being what it is, it’s rather difficult to understand why Seamonsters was not universally accepted when it was first released. One of the most uniquely crafted breakup albums ever written, its musical contributions to the blueprint of ’90s rock can be heard alongside the influences of Pavement, Guided by Voices, and Nirvana. Unfortunately, unlike Nirvana and more like Guided by Voices, The Wedding Present’s influence is not overt (and probably never will be).

Starting with an ambient house template developed by artists like the Orb, the Hartnoll Brothers sought to expand the perceived limitations of electronic musicians and DJs. Most evident in their live performances, the brothers would often play live instruments and include elements of improvisation in their sets. They were often seen behind the consoles with flashlights attached to their heads, bobbing to the beat, shattering that invisible wall of detachment perpetuated by the likes of Kraftwerk. Adopting the name Orbital, after the M25 orbital motorway (a beltway to those of us in the States) that wraps around Greater London and was the main thoroughfare for would-be ravers to get from the city to the hinterland region north of London during 1988’s Summer of Love, the brothers recorded their first single, “Chime”, in 1987. An instrumental dance anthem initially released in 1989 and then again in 1990, “Chime” not only introduced the band to the world but also their desire to take electronic music out of the club and into rock arenas.

Although they maintained a firm belief that an electronic album could function as an artistic statement just as well as a rock album and not simply serve as a medium for collecting singles, Orbital’s first full-length seemed to counter that conviction. The group’s self-titled debut (aka The Green Album), though filled with mostly new material, lacked a cohesiveness to it, preventing its elevation above simply a collection of singles. Overcoming some of the pitfalls of adolescence, Orbital’s second album, also self-titled but often called The Brown Album to differentiate it from its predecessor, is a far more fully realized effort. Beautifully balancing the band’s ambient house sensibilities, perfectly crafted and developed over six years of singles, with a trance-like aesthetic, Orbital–both the band and the album–sounds years ahead of its time. In hindsight, Orbital 2­­­­ could even be described as the bridge Underworld took from their lackluster pop days of Under the Radar to become the band that recorded “Born Slippy” and “King of Snakes”.

Opening their second album with the same vocal sample that opened the duo’s first album–Star Trek: The Next Generation‘s Lt. Worf speaking to a theory of time looping back on itself–was meant as a jab to the group’s audience, intentionally trying to confuse the buyer into thinking they purchased a misprinted or re-printed version of the band’s debut. It can also serve as somewhat of an aural pun on the album as a whole. However, unlike on Orbital, where the song titled “The Moebius” develops into a fully realized piece, on Orbital 2, the song, this time entitled “Time Becomes”, serves more as an example of an experimental technique known as phasing. A technique first used by Toni Fisher on her 1959 single “The Big Hurt” and subsequently popularized by composer Steve Reich, phasing is the process of playing two pieces, samples, sections, etc. at slightly different tempos. Orbital uses this technique twice on the album, effectively serving to bookend the musical portion of the record. “Time Becomes” begins with a clear, spoken phrase that becomes garbled and somewhat incomprehensible by the time its two minutes are up. Countering that is the album’s closing track, “Inside Out”, where the spoken phrases “input translation” and “output rotation” are first layered atop each other, and as the track continues, the two separate enough from each other to become barely understandable.

The musical portion of the album also begins with a slight tongue-in-cheek jab, this time aimed at the vinyl purists among the group’s fan base. As the second track, “Planet of the Shapes”, begins, the listener is treated to a little aural chicanery courtesy of the brothers Hartnoll. Purposefully adding the sounds of pops, cracks, static, and a record needle skipping to the song’s intro, the brothers wanted to tease those who bought the vinyl copy of The Brown Album into thinking that they had purchased an inferior product. Of course, less than 30 seconds in, the joke is revealed and an amazing rolling drum progression propels you forward for the next nine minutes.

The songs on The Brown Album have an integrity among themselves that unifies the album as a whole. This is heard first and foremost in the tendency of the songs to flow into one another, not so much as in a nicely beat-matched mix, but rather as one preparing the way for the next. The transcendent progression heard in the pitch-bending “Lush 3-1” and its follow-up, “Lush 3-2”, is a great example of this approach: two songs that could exist independently of each other but create a much larger, multifaceted piece when put together. The cascading effects, drum & bass, and proto-trance elements in “Impact (The Earth Is Burning)” help to make that song the epic centerpiece of the album, paving the way for tracks like “Monday” and “Walk Now…” (with its looped didgeridoo) to predict the sounds of the late ’90s electronica championed by the likes of Underworld and big beat gurus the Chemical Brothers.

As Orbital looked to the future on their second self-titled album, the most celebrated song on the album (and maybe even in the band’s entire canon), “Halcyon + on + on”, is actually a remixed version of an older single, “Halcyon”. Originally written as a response to the Hartnolls’ mother’s own struggles with an addiction to the sedative, “Halcyon” first appeared on the Radiccio EP and later as an independent single released in the U.S. The song also features a hauntingly beautiful vocal sample by Opus III singer Kirsty Hawkshaw from the song “It’s a Fine Day”. The remixed version on The Brown Album is slightly more upbeat and melodic and serves as firm proof of Orbital’s ability to make a gorgeous pop song within an ambient/trance-esque matrix.

Almost from the moment it was released, Orbital 2, aka The Brown Album, has been considered a landmark release in the field of electronic and dance music. Twenty years after its release, the songs and album as a whole sound as fresh as ever, never coming off as dated or worse, derivative. The authenticity and sincerity behind the Hartnoll brothers’ convictions are clearly on display, as they blend a rock delivery with a dance beat, orchestrating layers and textures over updated minimalist techniques and producing a warm and inspired album that transcends genres, labels, and so far, time.

After dropping out of the University of Minnesota during his freshman year, Bob Dylan moved from Minneapolis’ Dinkytown to Greenwich Village, New York, a residential plot on the west side of Lower Manhattan, in the beginning of 1961. The littlest information of Dylan’s early ‘60s might explain why: The pull of the Village’s brimming music scene was simply too much for the 19-year-old to ignore, as he had been exploring its folk records, not to mention the Beat literature emerging from the area’s sometime denizens Jack Kerouac and Allen Ginsberg, since high school.

Dylan played his first gig in the Big Apple the day he arrived, at esteemed coffeehouse Café Wha? It’s doubtful any significant documentation from the gig exists, and it’s even hard to guess what songs Dylan might have played that day (although it’s likely one or more of them was by Woody Guthrie, ever-obviously his idol at the time). But no matter, interest would flock to Dylan soon, as he was regularly performing covers at New York clubs within a few weeks and would be signed to Columbia Records, despite its reluctance to record folk singers, during the fall. Then, on two late-November days, Dylan’s self-titled debut LP, an album built mostly from time-honored folk songs, was recorded.

For a few reasons, Dylan now recollects the album, produced by John Hammond and released 50 years ago this week, with an air of regret. “I thought I’d recorded the wrong songs,“ he said in No Direction Home, Martin Scorsese’s 2005 documentary about Dylan prior to his summer 1966 motorcycle accident. “When I got the disk, I played it and I was highly disturbed. I just wanted to cross this record out and make another record immediately… I was way past that record.”

At least from a sheer musical standpoint, Dylan* really isn’t all that exciting. It’s one of only four Dylan studio LPs (The Times They Are a-Changin’, Good as I Been to You, and World Gone Wrong being the other three) whose only instrumental accompaniment comes from acoustic guitar and harmonica. And even with that, all the guitar playing here is generously basic; on most songs, Dylan strums major- and minor-key chords in their most basic shapes, with occasional instances of single-string articulation, under his singing. 50 years on, it’s safe to say that he’s never been flashy, but the sonic palette here is so basic, so lacking of flash, that it’s hard to not focus on the words.

The first track on the album, “You’re No Good” was written by Georgia native Jesse Fuller, whose work would eventually be covered by the Grateful Dead, Paul McCartney, and Eric Clapton, among others. It lasts exactly 100 seconds, too short to have a whole lot of lasting value, but its tempo reaches over 150 beats per minute and Dylan rushes through the thing with a contagious energy. “You got the ways of a devil sleeping in a lion’s den/I came home last night and you wouldn’t even let me in,” he sings, abbreviating the lines with a husky chuckle, one of the nuances of the song indicating how well he could interpret a song that wasn’t his, even back then.

The brisk pace of the opener extends into second track “Talkin’ New York”, wherein Dylan does little more than account his first few days in the Village: “I swung onto my old guitar/Grabbed hold of a subway car/And after a rocking, reeling, rolling ride/I landed up on the downtown side/Greenwich Village.” Yet apart from the autobiographical information, there’s really not a whole lot to the song; there’s no discernible melody, and Dylan’s singing is really him talking with lilts thrown in here and there. It just kind of floats by, and even after a few listens, it’s hard to recall, at least melodically speaking.

Then something changes: The next song, “In My Time of Dyin’”, a traditional gospel number, thrusts the album into a world of self-seriousness. The track, later covered by the likes of Led Zeppelin and John Fahey, is based around Psalms 41:3 (“The Lord will strengthen him upon a bed of languishing, though will make all his bed in his sickness”), and Dylan’s version finds him straining his voice, in part because he likely wanted to underscore the song’s anguish and in part because, well, his voice had some virility to gain. Emotionally, it’s a far cry from the first two tracks, and it’s the album’s first instance of its fatalistic slant.

Following the lineage of “In My Time of Dyin’” and, to an extent, world-weary fourth track “Man of Constant Sorrow”, “Fixin’ to Die” is a song fixed on, well, death. Written by Memphis blues singer Bukka White, it was originally titled “Fixin’ to Die Blues”, and since Dylan’s version is much less slow and deliberate than White’s, it makes sense that he dropped the last word of the original title. Like several other songs here, Dylan’s playing of the song led to a small renaissance of the artist who wrote it, as Fahey and ED Denson would cover White songs in subsequent years.

Refreshingly if not thankfully, “Pretty Peggy-O” snaps Dylan out of the dismal streak of the previous three songs. A Scottish traditional song with a long, complicated history, it was originally titled “The Bonnie Lass o’ Fyvie”, and Dylan may have been the first American artist to record the song for a major label. Like “You’re No Good”, the version here sounds hurried, but because of its sort of giddiness, not superficiality.

Sometimes mistaken for a Dylan original, “Highway 51” may be the least notable song on the album. In essence, Dylan just cranks out hard strums, with an occasional deliberately struck bass note, for the duration of the song. Plus, since there’s much repetition in the lyrics, it all comes together like it maybe should have been an outtake of the album. (And no, it’s bears no real connection to Highway 61 Revisited nor its title track.) By and large, that’s all true for “Gospel Plow” and “Freight Train Blues”, appearing later on the album, too.

The only song Dylan would be performing (albeit electrically) years after the album’s release, “Baby, Let Me Follow You Down” begins with him accounting Erik von Schmidt, who arranged the song and taught Dylan to play it. It makes sense that Dylan would keep it in his live set. From the first words he sings – “Baby, let me follow you down/Baby, let me follow you down/Well, I’ll do anything in this God Almighty world if you just let me follow you down” – he takes on his smoothest and most comfortable-sounding vocal of the album, never straining and always giving the song a fitting charm.

Dylan didn’t sell well immediately upon release, moving only 5,000 copies in its first year, but that was mostly due to how Dylan played the songs, not necessarily the songs themselves. A case in point is “House of the Risin’ Sun”, a song he heard from Dave Van Ronk regularly in New York, which would become a bona fide hit for the Animals in the summer of 1964. The reason for Dylan‘s non-success is simple: Detailing what seems to be a New Orleans brothel, his version, stark and arresting, can be truly haunting, unlike the pop-centric renditions of the Animals and most who subsequently covered the song (notably, Dolly Parton in 1981 and Sinéad O’Connor in 1994).

Arguably the lone song here that truly provides a glimpse of Dylan’s worldview at the time, “Song to Woody” was his first original lament of repute and purportedly written in five minutes. Though invariably, and rightly, considered an homage to Guthrie, it also allowed Dylan to step inside the mind of his hero  - and, perhaps, imagine himself as a hero in his own right. “Hey, hey, Woody Guthrie, I wrote you a song/About a funny old world that’s a-comin’ along/Seems sick and it’s hungry, it’s tired and it’s torn/It looks like it’s a-dyin’ and it’s hardly been born.” Those are very possibly the first lines that Dylan wrote, and then sang on a recording, that overtly accounted for something outside of himself, that generalized a feeling into something visceral and grabbing. In this way, “Woody” is a monument of Dylan’s recorded career and subtly flashes a scintilla of forthcoming genius.

The album’s grace note is another number about death, “See That My Grave Is Kept Clean”. Written by Texas native Blind Lemon Jefferson and notably adopted by Son House, it might be the most famous song here that never became a hit for anyone. There’s nothing really wrong with the song, but it can leave a listener cold because of how seemingly abruptly it ends. (Fortunately, Dylan would record a more satisfying version with the Band, released among The Genuine Basement Tapes).

In fact, that the album transitions, rapidly and seemingly randomly, from exuberantly playful to downright chilling becomes one of the things that makes this a curious record. It’s a good album, sure, but it’s never been likely to change anyone’s life; Rolling Stone’s 2011 list of the 70 greatest Dylan songs doesn’t feature a single number from it, nor does Amnesty International’s recent Chimes of Freedom 75-song tribute. And somewhat rightly so, because, apart from “Song to Woody” and maybe “House of the Risin’ Sun”, there’s almost nothing here to really get into, at least relative to some of the career-defining songs Dylan would record within three or four years (“Blowin’ in the Wind”, “A Hard Rain’s a-Gonna Fall”, “The Times They Are a-Changin‘”, “Mr. Tambourine Man”, and “Like a Rolling Stone“ chief among them).

So, aside from it being an absolute icon’s first coherent artistic statement, what makes Dylan so notable? The main reason: It might be the only album in which Dylan sounds a touch confined, like he was trying to fit in with whatever it was he perceived to be going on in the Village at the time. Talking and thinking at length about Dylan tends to yield a few observations, one of them being that, throughout most of his career, anyway, he did whatever he wanted, regardless of what critics, fans, and friends might have preferred to hear from him (overt examples include his Christian period and his going electric at the 1965 Newport Folk Festival). Dylan, when listened to closely, is an exception.

It’s all a little ironic, because while Dylan joined the Village movement in part to avoid, as he would put it in his 2004 memoir, Chronicles: Volume One, the “empty pleasantries” of pop radio, he ended up making a record that, intentionally or otherwise, lumped him in with any number of other Village performers. That’s not to say the record sounds conformist, but there’s no question that Dylan still had a lot to figure out, to invent, both in his songwriting and in his delivery. It wouldn’t be until the following year that the freewheeling Bob Dylan would truly emerge, ready to change and challenge popular music forever.

* – From here on in, “Dylan” refers to Bob Dylan, not the 1973 album nor the 2007 compilation.

Child formed after Springsteen, while still with Earth, was approached by Lopez, who had come looking for a new guitarist. A week later, on February 21, 1969, Springsteen, Lopez, Roslin, and Lopez’ bandmate Danny Federici played for the first time under the name Child. The band crafted its trade along the Jersey Shore with the occasional jaunts to Richmond, VA. After one such Richmond show in November 1969, the band, after being mistaken for another act out of New York also named Child, changed its name to Steel Mill. Springsteen has referred to Steel Mill as a Humble Pie-type band, and with reference to that band’s heavy blues-rock foundation, the comparison is understandable. However, upon actually listening to Steel Mill (at least in the live setting), they come across more like an American Traffic crossed with the psychedelic nature of H.P. Lovecraft (the band, not the author).

After playing and touring together along the East Coast for nearly a year, Steel Mill received an invitation to play at the Matrix in San Francisco. Opened in 1965 by the Jefferson Airplane’s Marty Balin, the Matrix was one of the venues responsible for what became known as the “San Francisco Sound”, often hosting such artists like Big Brother and the Holding Company, Santana, the Dead, and, of course, the Airplane (effectively the venue’s house band). Another such artist featured regularly at the club was Boz Scaggs, an early member of the Steve Miller Band and Bay Area mainstay. Steel Mill’s invite to the left coast would be as Scaggs’ opener for a three-day run in January 1970.

Even the sun shines on a dog’s ass some days, and for Springsteen, one such day was January 13, 1970. When Scaggs called in sick at the last minute, what was to be the first night of a three-night run opening for Boz Scaggs instead became a Steel Mill showcase. As the sole act on the bill, Springsteen et al delivered a monumental hour-plus long performance to a small but attentive audience, one of whom was journalist Philip Elwood. As music critic for the San Francisco Examiner, Elwood showed up that evening to review Boz Scaggs and instead ended up being blown away by four Jersey boys, referencing Springsteen in his column: “I have never been so overwhelmed by a totally unknown talent.”

Listening to the seven-song set is an eye-opening experience, showing a side of Springsteen that I personally never knew existed – that of a grooving, bluesy, semi-psychedelic rocker. The band opens the set with the anti-war themed “The War Is Over” and its haunting two-minute, ever-winding, slowly climbing guitar intro. As Springsteen arrives at his fuzzed out peak, the remaining members announce themselves and suddenly what began as an experimental solo is now a full on psychedelic blues rock explosion. After the shock and awe of the band’s entrance, the song descends from on high, leaving Federici and his organ to set the mood. The first lyrics are sung in a soft, somewhat gentle voice over what sounds like a lute.

With lyrics about kings and queens and castles, and a voice that didn’t correlate to what I thought this young Springsteen would sound like, I was initially afraid that this recording was actually of the English prog rock band Steel Mill. However, with the second stanza came the growl: that screaming, not quite a vibrato but more like a gurgle, sound from way back in his throat that I had come to associate with Springsteen. All the passion, all the rage was here.

As Springsteen mourns, “You can murder in the name of freedom but you just can’t hide,” the band breaks down into what becomes more or less a bluesy jam, similar to Traffic or The Doors. As the bass/drum combo provides the groove, Springsteen tears it up on his guitar. Federici’s organ just adds fuel to the Boss’ flames. Almost 15 minutes later, the song fades out, and you hear a faint “Thank you” over a smattering of applause. Lyrically, the song speaks to the American involvement in Vietnam and how the American public was distracting itself from the realities of the situation, a sentiment that most certainly resonated with many in the audience. This sentiment was echoed on “America Under Fire”, played later in the set.

“Lady Walking Down By the River” is the first time that we see a hint of the future. As Springsteen begins to sing, and especially when they all sing the titular refrain together, it isn’t hard to see the “Rosalita” Springsteen that was to come, smiling, while giving it everything he had. Once again, the band extends into a blues jam a la Cream meets a bit of Blue Cheer’s heaviness, ending with the band singing the title over and over almost a cappella. With barely a pause, Federici lights it up, announcing “Jeannie I Want to Thank You” with the intensity of Santana’s Greg Rolie, leading the band into a hell of a groovy blues number that is maybe best described as Steel Mill at its most Traffic-like.

Seriously slowing things down with “America Under Fire”, Springsteen returns to the anti-war theme. A song filled with harsh and cynical lyrics condemning the war, Springsteen lays it all out, ending the song with half the band singing “America the Beautiful” and the other half singing the theme to the Mickey Mouse Club. As the band thanks the audience, you can hear one of the members say, “That was for those of you that read.”

“Guilty” is another Federici-fueled number, with his furious keys all over the song’s intro. Also credited as “He’s Guilty”, “Send That Boy To Jail”, and “The Judge Song”, Springsteen apparently wrote this song after being arrested for not paying an entrance fee at the Jersey Shore. One of the more lighthearted tracks of the set, elements throughout this song would definitely reappear later in the evolution of Springsteen and his band(s). The same could be said for the next number, “The Train Song (aka Long Time Riding)”. A little ditty in a country-sway vein, this song could have easily been done up by the likes of the Byrds or the Flying Burrito Brothers and along with “Guilty”, was one of three songs the band recorded a month later for their Bill Graham funded demo.

The final track is a 17-minute bluesy rocker, “Going Down Slow”. To say that this is some funky shit is a bit of an understatement, with organ work like this usually reserved for the likes of Big John Patton or Al Kooper, while he was with Mayall. After a series of sick solos and Springsteen’s vocals, the band breaks down into something along the lines of Take Five₊ Kind of Blue a la Van Morrison. The jazziness of the piece would be heard in many of Springsteen’s future songs, especially when played live. Not to get too dragged into the jazz, the organ’s determination is felt and the band returns to the hard-rocking blues that has been the ongoing theme of the night.

Is this show as revolutionary as Ellington’s comeback at the 1956 Newport Jazz Festival, or the Beatles’ Aug 15, 1965 performance at Shea Stadium, or the Sex Pistols’ Manchester gig in the summer of ‘76? Probably not, but between a glowing write up and strong enough buzz generated by the three-night run in January, the band returned to San Francisco a month later and once again opened a three-night run with Boz Scaggs. While there, a suitably impressed Bill Graham recorded a three-track demo with the band in his Pacific Recording Studios. Having just formed his label Fillmore Records, Graham offered the band a contract for $1000, which the band declined. After the band returned back east, Roslin, possibly upset due to not signing with Graham, left the band and was replaced with Steven Van Zandt.

By January 1971, Springsteen and the crew stopped using the name Steel Mill, and continued to play together under various names: Bruce Springsteen & The Friendly Enemies, The Sundance Blues Band, Dr. Zoom & The Sonic Boom Band, and The Bruce Springsteen Band – all of which would evolve into one of the most impressive and dynamic groups in the history of rock, the E Street Band.

By the time the Cranberries released their debut album, Everybody Else Is Doing It, So Why Can’t We?, in spring ‘93, they had already been together for three years, been the subject of a minor bidding war among UK labels, and gotten screwed over by their manager/producer, Pearse Gilmore. After tensions began to rise within the band during the construction of their first full length, news came to bear that Gilmore had set up a back-door deal with the band’s label, Island Records. Rather than break up, the band cut off all ties with Gilmore and moved back to Dublin, hiring Rough Trade’s Geoff Travis as their manager. As Gilmore had also been working with the band in the studio, a new producer was needed, which was found in Stephen Street. Street’s work in the ’80s with bands like the Psychedelic Furs and the Smiths helped shape the sound of UK pop, and his work in the early ’90s with Blur would help forge the foundations of Britpop.

Although Street had been heavily involved with Blur at the time he began working with the Cranberries, the sound of the Cranberries’ debut bears little to no resemblance to the newly evolved sounds of Blur or the emerging Britpop. Rather than bombard the listener with outright guitar, Street and guitarist Noel Hogan weave the tinny jangle of his guitar lines subtly with O’Riordan’s voice (often layered two or three times on top of itself) and emerge with a delicate balance between exquisite balladry and luscious pop. Throughout Everybody Else… there is an ebb and flow of heartbreak and joy, ebullience and melancholy, expressed through both O’Riordan’s vocals and Hogan’s understated guitar.

“I Still Do” opens the album in a rather subdued fashion, tending to build slowly over the opening minute, with O’Riordan’s ghostlike voice rising from the building tension. Despite the outwardly aggressiveness in parts, the underlying dreaminess of the song lends itself as the perfect long form introduction to the opening cascade that begins the album’s second track and first single, “Dreams”. The Cranberries’ first single is a wonderful pop song that has moments akin to the Sundays, until O’Riordan’s voice breaks free from its grounding. As soon as she soars with a series of “la’s and la-da’s”, her following lyrics “impossible to ignore” could not be more prophetic.

“Dreams” isn’t the only uptempo island in a sea of sad ballads. Tracks like “Wanted”, with its pace setting hi-hats, and “Waltzing Back”, one of the more Celtic influenced songs on Everybody Else…, all proceed at a steady pace and perhaps even provide hints of future efforts. Released as a promotional single in the US, “Still Can’t” (also called “Still Can’t Recognize the Way I Feel”) is perhaps the most Smiths-like song on the album, and not just because of the jangly guitars. With its chorus and O’Riordan’s strained vibrato, “Still Can’t” sounds as if it could have been found on the Smiths’ cutting room floor. The similarities to Morrissey during this song are eerie.

Also released as a promotional single to the US market, “Sunday” is one of those songs that begins entirely differently than it ends. Introduced with a soft guitar and a minor string section, “Sunday” begins as what could be a sad, heartbreaking ballad. O’Riordan’s voice, initially buried in strings, doesn’t do anything to alter the assumption. After a slight break, the rhythm section comes alive, Hogan’s guitar begins to strum on top rather than lost in the background, and O’Riordan’s voice, no longer the ghostlike waif, bounces with the lyrical refrain, “You mystify me”. “Sunday” is perhaps the perfect blend of both styles exhibited on Everybody Else…, beautifully blending the sublimely ethereal with straight-up pop rock. Despite its initial promotional release in America, the label sought to scrap its promotion in lieu of re-releasing the band’s first two UK singles, “Dreams” and “Linger”.

“Linger” is perhaps the best known song by the Cranberries (next to “Zombie” from their follow-up album No Need To Argue, which was also produced by Street). With its wonderfully enunciated r’s and O’Riordan’s brogue dialect enhancing the titular word (and its rhyming counterparts), the vocalist’s singing often overshadowed the song’s true elegance. In a manner similar to “Sunday”, “Linger” begins with a haunting dream pop-like passage cresting with the entrance of a gorgeous string section. It is this orchestral section throughout the song that elevates “Linger” above all the other tracks on the Cranberries’ debut. All the elegance sought on “Sunday” is found in perfect synchronicity on “Linger”.

On its initial release, “Linger”, much like first single “Dreams”, barely made a notch in the UK charts; however, as the band began to tour the US opening for groups such as the The and Suede, MTV began to take notice. After the song was put into rotation on the channel, “Linger” began to climb the mainstream charts in the US, eventually peaking in the Top Ten.  Both “Linger” and “Dreams” were re-released in the UK following the new found success in the United States. The success of the Cranberries’ debut album, which crested somewhere around eight million sold, was ultimately eclipsed by their follow-up No Need to Argue, but it is here on Everybody Else Is Doing It, So Why Can’t We? that O’Riordan’s and Hogan’s songwriting, matched with Street’s production, best captured the Cranberries’ lilting romanticism and pop elegance.

The roots of The Winding Sheet lay in a never fulfilled project between Lanegan, Screaming Trees’ drummer Mike Pickerel, and Nirvana’s Kurt Cobain and Krist Novoselic that began in late 1989. Why the project fell apart is hard to say. Nirvana had just released the Blew EP, and the band was over five months from beginning work on Nevermind. Originally planned as an EP of blues songs, only one track, “Where Did You Sleep Last Night”, featuring both Cobain and Novoselic, managed to survive the aborted project and find its way onto the final album. Another number, “Down in the Dark”, features Cobain on background vocals. After Cobain and Novoselic left the project, Lanegan and Pickerel recruited Mike Johnson, Lou Barlow’s replacement in Dinosaur Jr., who co-wrote the majority of the songs on The Winding Sheet with Lanegan, and Jack Endino, the man who produced the lion’s share of grunge bands in the mid-to-late 80s.

With a lineup of two Screaming Trees, the bass player for Dinosaur Jr., and the producer largely responsible for the “Seattle Sound,” the resulting album might be expected to be extremely loud, aggressive, and testosterone-laden. In other words, like much of the output from the region already. Rather than amp up the volume and blaze forward with a barrage of guitars and drums, Lanegan and co. instead stripped down the songs, using mostly acoustic instruments with electric guitars used for nuance and body. As a result, the songs are more personal and introspective, focusing on more serious concerns, with the acoustic nature allowing more attention to be put on the lyrics. Alcohol-drenched dirges expose a dark night of the soul as Lanegan battles his inner demons, be they physical or emotional, chemical or sexual–the struggle to overcome but often failing into the bottom of a bottle.

Upon listening to The Winding Sheet, the contemporary listener may feel compelled to note stark similarities between this album and Nirvana’s Unplugged from a few years later. There is good reason. The roots of Nirvana’s unplugged performance are firmly grounded in the blues sessions with Lanegan. Dave Grohl, who at the time of this album’s recording had yet to even meet Nirvana, in later years has praised The Winding Sheet and cited it as a huge influence on how Nirvana approached the Unplugged project. Instrumentally, it’s a no-brainer; however, vocally, it is eerie. Cobain’s vocal inflections heard throughout his more nuanced and delicate material can be traced to Lanegan’s vocal approach. When Lanegan strains his voice singing, “You can’t kill what’s already dead” on opening track “Mockingbird” or during the gentle “Museum”, or perhaps most evidently, when Lanegan is screaming the final lines of “Where Did You Sleep Last Night”, there is little doubt to his influence on Cobain.

Lanegan’s vocal style not only informed Cobain’s approach but also that of Alice in Chains’ Layne Staley. On “Down in the Dark”, the acoustic nature is temporarily set aside for a deeper, heavier, bass-driven approach. The vocals hover within the electric fuzz, not quite buried, but not overtly out in front. The wrenching “Woe” is a great example of Lanegan “lending” vocal phrasings (and even perhaps topicality) to Staley, while “Down in the Dark” is more musically connected to Staley’s band’s sound. In fact, there is a lot on The Winding Sheet without which Alice in Chains’ August 1990 debut, Facelift, might have sounded dramatically different.

Softer, more purely acoustic tracks like “Museum”, “Wild Flowers”, “Eyes of a Child”, and album closer “I Love You Little Girl” show a more open and emotive Lanegan, vulnerable and reserved. It is on these acoustic numbers that Lanegan’s prose is most evident. Not content to write lyrics that plainly and simply convey a story, Lanegan’s songs are truly poetic. The album’s title track exposes Lanegan as a man at war with his own soul, and the opening stanza of “Eyes of a Child” is haunting with lyrics “See through the eyes of a child/And it won’t be real/Eyes neither hateful or cruel/No lies conceal/Eyes that wander, eyes that strayed/While the shame in your heart remains.”

In addition to containing songs and music that would later influence other, perhaps more recognized, artists, The Winding Sheet also has moments highlighting influences on Lanegan. “Ugly Sunday” gives hint at the Hazelwood-esque side of Lanegan’s artistry that would emerge 25 years later with his Campbell duets. With lyrics like “It’ll take a hard rain to wash your taste away,” “Ugly Sunday” could be a cousin to Hazelwood’s “Some Velvet Morning”. In addition to Hazelwood’s handprint, the blues make appearances all over The Winding Sheet, specifically with the cover of “Where Did You Sleep Last Night”.

Most commonly attributed to Huddie “Leadbelly” Ledbetter, “Where Did You Sleep Last Night”, originally called “In the Pines”, has its roots in Americana going back to the 1870s. With as many lyrical alterations as there are performers who have covered it, the song almost universally features a female character under suspicion and usually accused of doing wrong, often something of an adulterous nature. The song effuses with jealousy and rage almost to the point of genuine horror and tragedy. In Lanegan’s version, jealousy doesn’t seem to fit. The lyrics begin asking where the girl was the night before. Her answer, “In the pines… where the sun don’t ever shine,” would be enough to allow for suspicion; however, the final stanza provides the big reveal. “Her husband… his head was found… but his body never was found” seems to suggest that the protagonist of the song may have indeed been in the woods… burying her murdered husband.

American Gothic would continue to fill crevices in Lanegan’s songwriting, but it is here on The Winding Sheet where it all began. The understated sounds on this album have been magnified exponentially through its tremendous influence, adding more weight to Grohl’s belief that The Winding Sheet is “one of the best albums of all time.”

Originally, album opener “War Pigs” was meant to be the title track until US distributor Warner Brothers had the title changed, afraid of alienating pro-Vietnam supporters. Originally called “Walpurgis” and themed around a witches’ sabbath, the lyrics were also changed to reflect a more anti-war theme after the label complained of the song sounding too satanic. Musically originating out of jam sessions and often played live with different lyrics, singer Ozzy Osbourne said of the lyrics that the band knew nothing of the Vietnam War and that the song is simply an anti-war song. Bassist Geezer Butler disagreed, saying the song was “totally against the Vietnam War, about how these rich politicians and rich people start all the wars for their benefit and get all the poor people to die for them.” Ironically, though, when played live, the imagery used behind the band was World War II footage.

“Electric Funeral” takes the concept of war’s destruction even further, with the aftermath of nuclear devastation and lyrics telling of sub-human mutants and destructive robots in a post-apocalyptic nightmare. Rearranging a theme from “Mars, the Bringer of War” from Holst’s Planets, Tommy Iommi’s guitar, with its distorted warbling, musically opens the second side of Paranoid right where side one left off with “Iron Man” and thematically continues the album opener’s anti-war sentiments.

Alienation, depression, and a sense of aimlessness provide the fodder for the album’s title track as well as “Hand of Doom” and “Iron Man”. Early heavy metal guitar driving a rugged paced riff with Butler’s hypnotic bass chugging alongside makes “Paranoid” easily one of the most recognized of Sabbath’s songs. One of the band’s most uptempo songs of the entire Osbourne era, it fades into the psychedelic, mellowed-out number “Planet Caravan”, described by Butler as “floating through the universe with your lover.”

Countering the speed inflicted by “Paranoid” but continuing with both the themes of isolation and humanity’s doom, “Iron Man” takes a completely different route, slowing things down to a laborious crawl and beating down with some of the heaviest bass/drum coupling on record. Butler wrote a story of a time traveler who has seen the apocalypse and upon returning home to warn his world is turned into a man of steel, unable to convey what he has seen. After he is mocked and ignored, his frustrations and anger cause him to unleash the devastation that he was trying to warn against.

The album closes on the Cream-like, blues-infused freak-out “Rat Salad”, showing a bit more of the blues influence that was often hidden under the minor chords and drudging dirges, and the heavy, yet light-on-its-feet “Fairies Wear Boots”, a driving number inspired by a time when Butler and Osbourne were smoking outside and were allegedly attacked by skinheads. Though the song may have been inspired by such an incident and the band may have referred to skinheads derogatorily as “fairies,” the lyrics certainly seem to convey a more hallucinogenic and drug-addled reason for fairies to be lurking about. Regardless, both songs are excellent to close the album, with the final track going on to become a modern day classic.

When Osbourne finally left, or was fired from, Black Sabbath, the band was left with the task of finding a replacement vocalist, which they did with Elf and Rainbow vocalist Ronnie James Dio. Their first album together, 1980′s Heaven and Hell, marked the return of Black Sabbath and is considered to be one of the band’s best albums of any of its eras. The magic sparked with Heaven and Hell was continued on the band’s second outing with Dio, MobRules. Their second album together would also be the last album that Dio would record with Black Sabbath until the ’90s. (He left after being accused of going into the studio and manipulating his vocal volumes.)

Produced by Martin Birch (Deep Purple, Whitesnake), fresh off working on Iron Maiden’s Killers, 1981′s Mob Rules goes on the attack right out of the gate. Opening track “Turn Up the Night” rocks like no other Sabbath song before it (except maybe Heaven and Hell’s “Neon Knights”), but it also sounds far more like a rock anthem than traditional Sabbath metal. Followed by “Voodoo”, the album initially falls into the trap of trying to replicate the success of Heaven and Hell almost to the point of mirroring that album’s opening numbers. Strong and steady, “The Sign of the Southern Cross”, with its heavily laden basslines, splitting guitar, and Dio’s distinctive voice, not only reflects Sabbath of old but also foreshadows Dio’s solo efforts.

The oddly electronically manipulated and feedback-driven instrumental “E5150” acts almost like an extended intro into the title track, ending with a gentle cascading of spacey bells. Immediately Iommi’s guitar charges forth with one of Sabbath’s greatest numbers, “Mob Rules”, bookending the album side nicely with opening shredder “Turn Up the Night”.

Dio Sabbath sounds remarkably different than Osbourne Sabbath, musically and obviously vocally. The fact that these are two different bands is clearly evident on the second side of Mob Rules. Opening with “Country Girl” and sliding into “Slipping Away”, the songs carry with them far more influence from Dio’s lyrics and presence than either Iommi or Butler’s musical contributions. “Falling Off the Edge of the World” begins like a typical Dio effort but by the song’s climax has achieved a level comparable to that of earlier Sabbath numbers blended with the influence of Birch’s work with Maiden. The dual assault of Iommi’s guitar and Butler’s bass thunders through, definitely making this track the highlight of the second half and probably would have been served better if the album’s closing track, “Over and Over”, came before it, allowing “Falling…” to end the album in epic fashion.

Mob Rules was the second and final (not counting Live Evil) to be recorded by Black Sabbath with Ronnie James Dio at the front. When Dio left, he also took with him drummer Vinny Appice. The band would go on to have three more vocalists by the end of the ’80s before Dio and Appice (and Butler, who had left after 1984’s piss-poor Born Again) returned in 1992 to record Dehumanizer, a sad, misdirected, and blown opportunity to return to greatness.

Released the first week of January 1984, the sixth and final “Van Halen” album (Yes, the band with Sammy Hagar was a good band and produced some good music but anyone who claims Van Halen without Roth is the same band is like saying Queen with Paul Rodgers is still Queen), 1984, was Van Halen’s creative, commercial, and critical peak.

The songs on 1984 represent the best (and maybe some of the worst) elements of eight years together as a band, fusing the party rock sounds of VHI & II, the maturing nature found on Women and Children First and Fair Warning, and the band’s flirtation with the mainstream/pop world through the cover heavy Diver Down. In hindsight, it’s appropriate that this album would also be the band’s swan song.

Combining the new wave/synth pop sounds of keyboards and the over-the-top guitarisms of hair metal on the opening single “Jump”, Van Halen managed to blend two of the most popular sounds associated with the early ‘80s allowing the band to crossover to an audience that they had briefly approached with “Dance the Night Away”, “You Really Got Me”, and half of Diver Down. One of the first songs written in Eddie Van Halen’s newly built personal recording studio, 5150, elements of “Jump” (including a synth line taken from Hall and Oates “Kiss On My List”) had their origin as far back as 1980 during the Women and Children First sessions. The song originally came together when Eddie, his brother Alex, and band engineer Don Landee met together in the middle of the night for some quasi-secretive sessions during the studio’s construction. According to band producer Ted Templeman, upon completing what would become “Jump”, the brothers called him up full of excitement over what they had just written.

Eddie Van Halen remembers it differently, saying in 1995, “The first thing I did up here was ‘Jump’ and they [David Lee Roth and Ted Templeman] didn’t like it.” He went on to insinuate their dislike for the material was rooted in them being upset at Van Halen building their own studio away from Roth’s and Templeman’s influence. Roth’s hesitation, however, appears more the result of a clash of artistic visions. Roth sought to maintain the band’s focus on traditional hard rock, avoiding the overt and obvious usage of synthesizers and to have his guitarist concentrate on the guitar. Despite Van Halen’s new studio, the stylistic conflict between Roth/Templeman and Van Halen can be seen as early as the band’s Fair Warning sessions, when Van Halen’s complex songwriting was counter to Roth’s pop flamboyance. There singer and producer gave in to guitarist, resulting in a commercial disappointment with moderate sales and no chart hits, despite live favorite “Unchained”. When the horns locked again during the making of 1984, once again singer and producer acquiesced, only this time the result was the biggest hit of the band’s career. Released a few weeks before the album, “Jump” became the first Van Halen song to hit #1 (where it stayed for five weeks) and the primary reason for the album’s commercial success.  With its rolling synth line, “Jump” is easily the most recognized song in Van Halen’s catalog.

Despite 1984 having the label as a keyboard/synth rock album, it really isn’t (other albums used keys just more subtly). The only other song to feature synthesizers is “I’ll Wait”, the second single released from 1984 (not including the one-minute intro titular track “1984”, given that it’s used more as an intro to “Jump” and elements of which were actually performed as an intro to Michael Anthony’s bass solo on the Diver Down tour). Co-written by Doobie Brother Michael McDonald, where “Jump” had the obvious circular synth loop playing upfront in a very “happy” tone, the keyboard intro to “I’ll Wait” is actually a bit dark, yet still retaining a heavy nature to it. If Roth felt that the use of synths on “Jump” would distract and dilute the band’s sound, he probably shit a brick when he first heard “I’ll Wait”.  The song features keys almost exclusively, including a synthesized bass line and drummer Alex Van Halen’s heavy use of a Rototom drum kit. Rototom’s had been used by rock greats like Nick Mason and Roger Taylor, but their extensive use on Duran Duran’s self titled debut probably drove Roth nuts. Both he and Templeman sought to have the song removed from the album; however, thankfully for the benefit of the album and the listener, they once again lost to Van Halen and Landee.

Both “Jump” and “I’ll Wait” serve to prove that despite the inclusion of keys a band could still retain its hard rock edge without sounding prog or campy. But if any other proof was needed that Van Halen could still sonically destroy arenas it is the remainder of the album. The obvious go-to’s are the album’s third and fourth singles, “Panama” and “Hot For Teacher”, both of which feature Eddie Van Halen’s blistering fingerwork and his brother Alex’s earth shattering drumming. They’re also prime examples of Roth’s seedy sense of humor, heard lyrically and seen through the band’s videos.

A great example of Van Halen’s party rock antics combined with the monstrous sound a la “Unchained”, the dual assault by the brothers Van Halen as “Panama” opens should immediately put to rest any concerns that the band had gone soft with their first single. And if it doesn’t, wait an additional 10 seconds for Anthony’s bass to smack your head. Roth’s lyrics combine his trademark wails and his seductive slow-burn resulting in a classic case of misdirection. Later, Roth would tell Howard Stern the source of the song came from watching an auto race featuring a car named “Panama Express”, however, Panama is also the name Roth gave his 1969 Kadett Caravan. The song was written as a response to critics claiming that all Roth ever wrote about was partying, sex and cars, when in fact he had never written any “car songs”. Despite its suggestive lyrics, reading them knowing the song’s true impetus, everything fits and makes sense.

Suggestive or not, “Hot For Teacher” is about sex. Specifically the pubescent school-boy desires that fill young teenage boys’ minds. Beginning with Alex’s steady drumming akin to a revving engine, once he settles into a rhythmic pattern the stage is set for Eddie to slide in with his classic virtuoso noodling on the fretboard.  Despite “Hot For Teacher” being one of the hardest rocking songs on the album (as well as one of the most humorous with its tongue in cheek background dialogue), it would have never received all the attention without its accompanying video. Following through on its theme, the video can be boiled down to a class room becoming a stripper’s runway as the teacher provocatively dances in a bikini over fawning teenage boys. Of course, the video caught the ire of Tipper Gore’s Parent Music Resource Center, which protested its sexually explicit nature, however, such complaints simply fueled sales, extending 1984’s success as well as becoming one of the most successful and influential videos for a young MTV.

The remaining four tracks are all serious rockers and all do so in their own way. “Top Jimmy” begins with a soft, slow noodling on Van Halen’s guitar that breaks out into a frantically driven number, that tributes James Paul Koncek of Top Jimmy and the Rhythm Pigs, a resident band at the influential Cathay de Grande nightclub in Hollywood and would sometimes feature guest performances by Roth. “Drop Dead Legs” also begins with a slow, methodically laid out intro but unlike the softness of “Top Jimmy’s” beginning, “Drop Dead Legs” is a bit sludgy and fuzzed out more, and in hindsight as the song opens up, the guitar lines are very informative as to the future of Van Halen’s guitar sound with Hagar on vocals. After the intro and once Alex’ drums blow the doors down, “Girl Gone Bad” can easily claim the title of the hardest, most rocking song on 1984. The extreme power delivered here makes it almost impossible to believe that Van Halen wrote it in a hotel closet to avoid waking his then wife, actress Valerie Bertinelli. Lastly, “Girl Gone Bad” is everything that Van Halen ever set out to be in one complete, tight package.

Considering that 1984 went on to be the final VH album with Roth it is only appropriate that the band chose to close the album with “House of Pain”, not so much for the lyrical content but rather its historic nature. In Van Halen’s early days prior to being discovered by Ted Templeman at the Starwood in Hollywood, the band had recorded a demo tape with an alternative version of what became “House of Pain”. The band passed the demo to Gene Simmons’ of KISS, only to have his management say that the band had no chance of ever making it.

Despite the critical and commercial success of 1984, it wasn’t enough to prevent the band from fracturing. Whether he quit or was fired, the stylistic and personality differences between the band’s two major forces eventually forced Roth and the remaining three band members to separate. Roth carried his traditional hard rock leanings to 1985′s Crazy From the Heat EP, and a year later on his debut solo LP, Eat ‘Em and Smile. However, he never managed to achieve any success akin to that which he enjoyed with Van Halen. The band on the other hand, as history has shown, carried on with a new singer, a new direction, a larger audience, more creative freedom and more money (though, as of 2011, it’s now arguable that the Roth Era has finally outsold the Hagar Era). Of course, conflicts eventually arose between Hagar and Van Halen and history would repeat itself, but rather than have a monumental game changer like 1984 come from the conflict, this time the end result was to add Extreme’s Gary Cherone. They chose poorly.

In a manner akin to Pavement, whose success with Slanted and Enchanted prompted Drag City to compile and release the band’s extremely limited first three EPs on the collection Westing (By Musket and Sextant), Guided by Voices’ Box compiles the band’s first five full-length albums and an album of rarities and outtakes, complete with reproductions of the original artwork. (The CD version of the collection fails to include the band’s fifth album, Propeller, and neither format includes the band’s 1986 debut EP, Forever Since Breakfast, made available on the Hardcore UFO’s box set).

If you’re discovering GBV through this collection, don’t let the rawness and seemingly amateurish sound throw you off track. It gets better, trust me. If you are well aware of the band’s mid-90s “classic lineup” or Pollard’s 2000’s era GBV material but know little of the band’s early work, shake off all preconceptions, as the material contained on these six albums is not as sharp or creatively unique as the “classic lineup” material, despite many of the players being the same. Box is a step through the looking glass, providing the opportunity to see the earliest signs of life and evolution of a band that many people would consider as important as Nirvana or Pavement.

Before many bands find a sound to call their own, they often emulate another’s. Historical analysis of GBV points that arrow at early R.E.M. A lot of the material on GBV’s first two albums, Devil Between My Toes and Sandbox (both released in 1987), sounds like unpolished, rougher versions of Chronic Town/Murmur-era R.E.M. – at least musically. Devil’s opening two tracks, “Old Battery” and “Discussing Wallace Chambers”, jangle straight out of Peter Buck’s repertoire, as does side two’s “Hey Hey Spaceman”. Jangle pop aside, scattered throughout the album are forgettable tracks like “Artboat” and “3 Year Old Man” that come off more like the recorder was on during tuning, whereas songs like “Crux” blast forth with the intensity of a Wipers track sans Greg Sage’s anger. The album closer “Captain’s Dead”, easily one of the record’s best tracks, recalls some of Ride’s early fuzztone sound. Recorded in an actual studio, the sound of Devil Between My Toes has little to none of the lo-fi effects put to use on later albums but still bears the band’s minimalist approach. Most of the music on Devil sounds very little like the band’s post-Vampire on Titus material (the album many consider to be where Pollard truly found his voice).

GBV’s second full-length, Sandbox, is noticeably harder and more aggressive. Tracks like opener “Lips Like Steel” and “The Drinking Jim Crow”, try to harness a hard-edged guitar sound to the point of almost sabotaging Pollard’s vocal melodies. The band’s early experimentation with lo-fi recording tricks can be heard on “Adverse Wind”, a track so lo-fi you may start to check your speaker connection and needle to make sure it isn’t your equipment. Guided by Voices continues to mine R.E.M. with “Can’t Stop” (though vocally it is a bit more Let’s Active than R.E.M.) and showcases Pollard’s ability to craft great vocal melody (while also channeling The Beatles) on “Long Distance Man”, which easily stands out as one of the album’s shining moments. However, these two lovely pop gems aside, many over the years, including Robert Pollard himself, have considered Sandbox to be one of GBV’s weakest albums and most lackluster efforts. Listening to Sandbox as the band’s second album with no knowledge of what is to come would surely grant the album a far kinder reception, and it should only be viewed as a step backwards after listening to Self-Inflicted Aerial Nostalgia, the band’s 1989 follow-up.

Widely viewed as the first to sound like a Guided by Voices album, Self-Inflicted Aerial Nostalgia marks the point where the band moved past its influences and began defining its own sound. Starting to use lo-fi techniques to their advantage as on “The Future Is in Eggs”, the feedback-laden opener that slowly trudges along, or on “Dying to Try This”, a song that despite some nice finger work can’t get past sounding like a bedroom demo, Pollard and Co.’s style begins to solidify. Pollard’s pleading vocals on “Liar’s Tale” are straight out of his bag of tricks from the ’60s, as are the psychedelic vocal harmonies on “Great Blake Street Canoe Race”. There is the power chord heaviness of “Chief Barrel Belly”, one of GBV’s sludgiest, and the revolving guitar line in “An Earful O’ Wax” features vocals recorded to sound distant and removed but not hollow or fuzzed out and breaks out in a brief moment of rocking before returning to its beginning. The musical angst of “Slopes of Big Ugly” teases an ending only to pick up with a lo-fi, fuzzed guitar coupled with spikes of drumrolls. When it does end, it does so abruptly at the beginning of the sweetly acoustic “Paper Girl”. Of all the characteristics and personality traits becoming evident on Self-Inflicted, nowhere are they better put on display than on the final track, “Radio Show (Trust the Wizard)”, a straight-up rocker that pays tribute to the greatness of the prestidigitator of the airwaves, the disc jockey. It ends with tape loops, backwards recording tricks, and a gorgeous blend of fun and noise.

The fun is temporarily set aside on Same Place the Fly Got Smashed, perhaps the darkest album in the band’s catalog. Not quite a rock opera, but certainly a concept album of sorts, the subject matter centers around the tragic life of an alcoholic. Not the easiest album to get into with a single listen, album opener “Airshow ’88” is a forgettable rant, as is its thematic cousin “Ambergris”, which appears later on the album. “Order for the New Slave Trade” moves at the pace of a power ballad with 2/3 the heaviness of Self-Inflicted’s “Chief Barrel Belly”, and the appropriately titled “Blatant Doom Trip” is heavy as its name implies but comes across as a song better played live. The acoustic nature of “When She Turns 50” is reminiscent of a young Matthew Sweet and beautifully evokes the sense of hopelessness and guilt of the album’s subject matter. One of the few songs found on later collections, the acoustic sound on “Drinker’s Peace” has a demo quality to it. Coupled with distant-sounding vocals and the memorable refrain “I get a contact buzz…”, you feel sadness oozing into apathy. The two highlights are album closer “How Loft I Am”, another wonderful acoustic song with great vocals, and “The Hard Way”. One of the earliest tracks I would consider suitable for “classic” status, “The Hard Way” features an amazing guitar hook on top of a great vocal melody and is one of the best early examples of Pollard’s ability to take a simple lyric repeated over and over again and still make a great pop song.

1992’s Propeller was originally meant to be a farewell album until it had the opposite effect of raising the band’s profile and influence. Propeller was recorded in a studio but, as the liner notes indicate, was “lovingly fucked with by Mike ‘Rep’ Hummel” and is the first album to feature the use of four-track cassette decks and lo-fi techniques as their own instruments and aesthetics unto themselves. Odd effects and sounds are littered throughout the recording with punctuations of noise, unexpected edits, tape loops, slow downs, and ramp ups. The opening chant of “G-B-V” that appears to come from a large chanting crowd was entirely made up by the band in the studio (as they had never played to more than a few dozen people at this time) but has gone on to be heard at almost every live performance since.

With the apparent chanting of thousands, the album slides into “Over the Neptune/Mesh Gear Fox”, a fusion of two disparate songs in a manner similar to T. Rex’s “Tenement Lady”. The trudging “Weedking”, a rocking number that could easily survive without the vocals, has a vocal track that sounds as if it was recorded at a different speed, and to call the vocals on “Particular Damaged” distortion would be an understatement. Experimentation unfolds on “Ergo Space Pig” with multiple songs spliced together in an experimental blend that eventually takes off into an oddly surreal rocker. Epic tracks like “Metal Mothers” and “Quality of Armor” rock out in the vein of classic GBV, while “Exit Flagger” is the album’s monster track, filled with chromatic guitar and an anthemic chorus. Originally limited to 500 copies pressed to vinyl, the CD issue of Propeller came in the form of an appendage to 1993’s Vampire on Titus release. Eventually, both albums received separate compact disc issues and a new non-limited, non-handmade vinyl reissue was made available in 2005.

Closing out this compilation is King Shit and the Golden Boys, a collection of rarities and outtakes. With two songs recorded in 1988, five in 1991, and 12 from 1993, the majority of material found on King Shit was recorded around the same sessions that produced the band’s landmark breakthrough Bee Thousand. Regardless of being recorded at various times, the album has the feel and sound of a solid release. The ’60s garage feel of “Tricyclic Looper” and the classic GBV sound on “Crutch Came Slinking” build on a ’60s pop feel only to abruptly end. Both represent great tracks in the band’s catalog but sadly are fated to sit out their time as bonus tracks on a disc that few will ever enjoy. The first two tracks alone could have fit nicely on Self-Inflicted, and there are plenty of other tracks that make you wonder why they are bonus tracks and not legitimate inclusions on albums.

Tackling a collection as large and comprehensive as Box is a daunting task, even for the most die-hard fan, and in this age of torrents and economic downturns, unless you are a diehard, you may not feel compelled to purchase the collection. However, from a musicology perspective, the chance to hear a band develop and evolve into becoming possibly one of rock’s most subtly influential groups is worth every penny.

The Icelandic quartet recently released a CD/DVD combo, Inni, and is finally returning from hiatus with a new studio album sometime next year. Interest that never truly waned seems to be kicking up in high gear again for the group, and what better way to look towards the future than to take a brief trip back to the past. Takk… is an interesting piece for retrospection. The music is as gorgeous as ever, as are the goosebumps that Jónsi and company forever inflict upon us. And there’s that song that continues to make its way into every trailer for movies that wind up getting nominated or win every Academy Award. Greatness belongs with greatness, and we’ll definitely get to “Hoppípolla” during our look back.

Sigur Rós can go ahead and claim the word “soundscape” as their own. As Takk… will attest to, not many other bands playing today can paint a picture with gibberish quite as effectively as this one can. With the shimmering string section that opens the album, you can see the houselights go down and the red curtain part, just as the lights shine across the stage. The broken-down music box of “Heysátan” closes the proceedings just as visually, just as effectively. There are even moments where you can hear the musicians in the studio, shuffling around as though they are backstage during a play. As glossy and bombastic as some of the tracks are, the quiet moments display the band at their most naked and intimate; reminding us that four mere men are behind the wheels of this often stunning machine.

The orchestral work that accommodates so much of Sigur Rós is in perfect working order throughout Takk… Take the haunting strings that slowly take over from the percussion towards the end of “Andvari”. The song seems to reach its end several times during those chilling, final three minutes, but it just keeps sweeping along; soft then stirring, and back to soft again. “Sé lest” finds the strings not overpowering, but joining with Jónsi’s ethereal vocals and timpani. These are merely two indicators of the importance of the orchestra section when it comes to Sigur Rós’ music. Stripped down, the music is still good, but compare “Hoppípolla” on Takk… and the version found on Inni sans horns and strings. There is no comparison.

In addition to the symphonies that just take Sigur Rós’ music into other (ahem) soundscapes, there’s the production work from John Thomas and the rest of the band. The march of “Glósóli” accompanying Jónsi’s impossibly high tenor feels as though it’s actually taking us somewhere. When the steps abruptly stop, we pause until they start up again. By song’s end, it’s Jónsi’s wailing guitar and Orri Páll Dýrason’s percussion that deliver us to wherever we were going. “Með blóðnasir” takes the music from “Hoppípolla” and transforms it into a workout for the rhythm section; fiddling with the original music by skipping over certain beats or adding brand new effects over them. It’s a modern day “track three into track four” evolution, like that of The Stone Roses’ “Waterfall” getting cut-up and becoming “Don’t Stop”.

It can’t be that surprising that “Hoppípolla” has popped up a few times during this look back. It is the centerpiece of the album and arguably (I repeat: arguably) the band’s finest four-and-a-half minutes. From the opening piano keys to the gradual build-up of the percussion, from Jónsi’s initial coos to his triumphant final cry, “Hoppípolla” is the musical equivalent of a life ending and an afterlife beginning. If you don’t believe in that, it’s, like, another emotional equivalent. It’s been used in promotions pertaining to the films Children of Men and Slumdog Millionaire, and even pops up in Cameron Crowe’s latest, We Bought a Zoo. Suffice to say, we’ll be hearing this song here and there for the rest of our lives.

Whether Takk… is Sigur Rós’ best effort is a moot point. If anything, the band proved that not only could they avoid the sophomore slump with their breakthrough, Ágætis byrjun, and then release a nameless album featuring nameless tracks, but that they could keep creating music with a predominantly made-up language, and we would continue to listen. In the words of Jónsi: “Og ég fæ blóðnasir/Og ég stend alltaf upp.”

No clue. Still awesome.

The entire album is informed and inspired by James Joyce’s novel Ulysses, with the title track originally meant to be the character Molly Bloom’s final monologue detailing her thoughts on sex and sensuality put to music. “I originally heard the piece read by Siobhan McKenna years ago… and we had this piece of music in the studio already, so it came together really quickly.” Unfortunately, Bush was not granted permission by the Joyce estate to do the song as she had originally intended. “Because I couldn’t get permission… it gradually turned into songs about Molly Bloom the character stepping out of the book into the real world and the impressions of sensuality; rather than being in this two-dimensional world, she’s free, let loose to touch things, feel the ground under her feet, the sunsets, just how incredibly sensual a world it is.”

Opening the album with the celebratory ringing of bells, the title track and first single released in the UK presented an eager British audience with a more grown-up woman than the one who left them last with Hounds of Love. Barely a moment into the song, Bush’s angelic ghost-like whisper caresses the instrumentation, easing your arrival into her realm. Not being given permission to use parts of Joyce’s novel in her song, Bush was forced to rework the piece. “It transformed the song. Obviously, the words had to change, but also the musical sections were completely different. By them being uncooperative, it made the track better in many ways, but it was very difficult to keep the rhythmic sense of the words.” In April 2011, after finally receiving permission from the Joyce estate, Bush re-conceived “The Sensual World” complete with Molly Bloom’s soliloquy, re-titling the song “Flower on the Mountain” and releasing it on The Director’s Cut. The single’s B-side, “Walk Straight Down the Middle”, was added to the compact disc and cassette releases as a bonus track.

It seemed that sometime around the making of The Sensual World, Bush’s label, EMI (and in particular, its US branch, EMI America), somehow “forgot” to renew her contract for US distribution. In doing so, the US market missed out on the album’s first and second singles. With this seeming lapse in judgment by the label, Bush jumped over to Columbia Records for the US market. Her debut single for the label was the album’s third and final single, “Love and Anger”. Written over the course of 18 months, Bush described the song as one of the most difficult songs to put together despite it being one of the first written for the album. Featuring blistering guitar work from her mentor, Pink Floyd’s David Gilmour, “Love and Anger” hit #1 on Billboard’s Modern Rock chart, becoming her only single to top any US chart.

Love has always formed Bush’s artistry. “In many ways, nearly every song I’ve ever written is a love song,” she said when discussing her philosophy. However, just because love is a common theme in her songs, it doesn’t mean its presence is always so black and white. “Never Be Mine” is often written off as a song about unrequited love; however, Bush herself describes it as “…the dream you want, not the real thing.” “Between a Man and a Woman” actually found its origin in a line from The Godfather when Brando’s character says, “Don’t interfere, it’s between a man and a woman.” “Heads We’re Dancing” spins a story of a young woman captivated by a charming, elegant man only to find out a few days later, upon seeing his image in the paper, that the man was none other than Adolf Hitler.

The entire album, though, is not all about love, sex, and/or sensuality. Songs like “The Fog” and “Reaching Out” revolve around children growing up and experiencing the adult world, with Bush’s own father speaking some of the lines. “Rocket’s Tail (for Rocket)” is simply a collection of images, originally inspired by Bush’s cat, Rocket, but with the end result having little to do with her beloved pet. Referencing the old-school modem connection noted by the lyric “I pick up the phone and go, execute,” “Deeper Understanding” reveals a somewhat prophetic Bush speaking of the isolation found in living life through a computer after being seemingly betrayed by humanity. (“As people grow colder/I turn to my computer.”)  That a critic revisiting this album a few years back criticized this song by asking, “What’s wrong with spending evenings on a computer, anyway?” demonstrates that her fears may well be true. Revisiting this song on 2011’s The Director’s Cut is simply apropos.

Bush characterized The Sensual World as containing the most “positive female energy” in her work to date. Relating Hounds of Love to The Sensual World, Bush stated, “It was important for me to get across the sense of power in the songs that I’d associated with male energy and music. But I didn’t feel that this time, and I was very much wanting to express myself as a woman in my music rather than as a woman wanting to sound as powerful as a man.” The album’s title track certainly embraces that sentiment, but nowhere is this attitude more apparent than the album’s original closing track, “This Woman’s Work”.

The second single released off The Sensual World, “This Woman’s Work” was originally written for the John Hughes film She’s Having a Baby. During the film’s dramatic climax, complications arise during childbirth that endanger the lives of both the mother and child. As the father sits helpless and alone in the waiting room, Bush’s music fills the air. “That’s the sequence I have to write the song about, and it’s really very moving… it’s exploring his sadness and guilt, suddenly it’s the point where he has to grow up.” Despite the happy ending in the film, with lines such as “I stand outside this woman’s work” and “Now starts the craft of the father” coupled with lyrics wrenching in guilt and loss, I have always interpreted the song as if the mother had died. Leaving the man alone to not only grow up and become a father, but to do the “woman’s work” of raising a child on his own, made the song all the more powerful to me. One of Bush’s most beautiful songs, she re-recorded this song as well for The Director’s Cut, reducing it to simply her voice and a piano.

The Sensual World demonstrated a marked growth in both Bush’s lyrical and structural composition. She not only surpassed the bar she had set with Hounds of Love, but also managed to come full circle with her art, returning to her literary connections while evolving her sexual identity from provocatively sexual to evocatively sensual.

Formed in 1961, the same year as the Beach Boys, the Honeys were three sisters, Marilyn, Diane, and Barbara Rovell, and were originally known as the Rovell Sisters. When Barbara left the group, she was replaced by their cousin, Sandra Glantz, who went by the stage name Ginger Blake. While touring the amateur talent show circuit, they were discovered by producer Gary Usher. Usher featured Ginger on his 1961 single “You’re the Girl” b/w “Driven Insane” and the entire trio under the name Gary Usher and the Usherettes on his 1963 single “Three Surfer Boys” b/w “Milky Way”. Usher, who had co-written with Wilson Beach Boys’ hits such as “409” and “In My Room” among others, introduced the trio to Wilson, who in turn agreed to produce the group.

The group’s first order of business was to change their name from the literal to the colloquial. Taking their name from a lyric in the Beach Boys’ single “Surfin’ Safari” – “Early in the morning we’ll be startin’ out, some Honeys will be comin’ along…”– the Rovell Sisters became the Honeys, a slang term for a girl surfer, and in doing so became the world’s first all girl surf band, though it should be noted that prior to taking their more permanent name the group did record an unreleased single, “Miss My Little Surfer Boy”, under the name the Westwoods produced by Wilson in September ’63.

The last quarter of 1963 saw the Honeys release three 7” singles, all produced by Brian Wilson. Their first single, a novelty take-off of the folk song “Swanee River”, co-written by Wilson, “Surfin’ Down the Swanee River” featured the Beach Boys singing back-up in what comes off as more of a marketing tool than an actual contribution to the song. The B-side “Shoot the Curl” shows a truer surf sound complete with the ubiquitous staggered drum beat, rolling toms, and a totally groovy rhythm. An early lesson in girl power, lyrically, the girls call out their haters, even challenging them with lines like:

We’re gonna ride those boys right out of style
We’re gonna shoot the curl for one clear mile”

and

The Surfers have it spreadin’ all over town
That the Honeys way of surfin’ just isn’t around
But we’ve got moves … we’ll out surf them until the end”

As the song winds towards its end, the group repeats the phrase “Shoot shoot, shoot the curl” while a barrelhouse piano rolls the song out, capping off a far stronger single than the A-side.

“Pray for Surf” b/w “(Oly Oxen Free Free Free) Hide Go Seek” followed quickly on the heels of the group’s first single. Following the surf rock template to the letter, the song features thundering, hollow drums clubbing along a skronking saxophone and a very simple titular phrase repeated almost ad nauseum. The single’s B-side “Hide Go Seek” is one of the earliest indications of the Honeys aiming for a more traditional girl-group sound over surf. The continued use of sax skronk keeps it rooted with the surf rock community; however, the vocal harmonies and arrangements provide foreshadowing for the band’s desire to branch out.

What was hinted on “Hide Go Seek” was fully formed on their third single “The One You Can’t Have”, a track written and arranged in the style of the girl group sound of Phil Spector, himself a huge influence on Wilson. Easily one of the group’s best singles, Marilyn Rovell sings about all the great, wonderful boys in her world who will do anything for her, while Diane Rovell and Blake harmonize with their sweet “oohs”, softening the hard truth that “the one you can’t have is the one you want the most”. Coupled with an uptempo driving dance beat and swinging harmonies, the song is infectious and should rank up with the best of the girl group singles of the era.

The single’s flip-side “From Jimmy, With Tears” is the classic heart breaker. A slightly slower number, the song’s tempo hints at the potential seriousness of what is to come in the lyrics, but it never slows to that of a ballad or a blues. Sung by all three in harmony, this B-side is a sad tale of a girl getting left for another but still clings to a small bit of either denial or hope that he still loves her – even if just a little.

With their next single, the Honeys hopped labels to Warner Brothers. Released in early 1964, “He’s a Doll” b/w “The Love of a Boy and a Girl” was the first and only single by the Honeys for Warner. Beginning with Wilson giving production directions to the studio orchestra, the song has the feel of both surf rock and girl groups fused into one. The percussion and drums are highly linked with surf rock, but the harmonies are pure girl group pop and the horns are too clean to call skronk. A simple number, featuring a piano, two sticks clicking together and the girls’ harmonies, the backing track, “The Love of a Boy and a Girl” is akin to a doo-wop ballad along the lines of Penguins’ “Earth Angel” or the Flamingos’ “I Only Have Eyes For You” only without all the “shooby doobies”.

In December 1964, Marilyn Rovell married Wilson and the group, possibly due to a lack of commercial success, did not record a single again until 1969. In between recording their own music, the Honeys also served various backing roles for the Beach Boys (cheerleaders on “Be True To Your School”), Jan and Dean (“Dead Man’s Curve” and “New Girl In School”), the Surfaris (“I Wanna Take a Trip to the Islands”), Glen Campbell (“Guess I’m Dumb”) and Gary Usher (“Sacramento”). They even recorded demo tracks for Bobby Hart & Tommy Boyce, the Shangri-Las and Hayley Mills (post Parent Trap but well before “Saved By the Bell”).

The Honeys returned to Capitol Records and released their cover of Patience and Prudence’s “Tonight You Belong To Me” b/w “Goodnight My Love”. Beginning with an announcement of trumpets, the vocals, once again harmonized by all three, coupled with a brushed drum kit, can only be described as soft and sugary. The song itself is so goddamned sweet and carefree that one must question “how and why” if you aren’t bobbing your head along with the rhythm section. At such a volatile time in America’s history, the release of this single is almost like a throwback to simpler, more innocent (or naïve) times. The B-side, “Goodnight My Love”, is a ballad much like their single “The Love of a Boy and a Girl”; starting off with a similar feel to the semi-saccharine love songs of the ’50s, by the song’s midpoint the production and vocal arrangement begin to pull away from the past with a cleaner, sharper sound. The orchestra rises in volume almost covering the vocals rather than embracing them. It is a pleasant number but pales against its A-side.

In the early ’70s, Blake left the Honeys and started her own publishing company while continuing to sing back-up for artists like the Supremes and Jimmy. The Rovell sisters, Marilyn and Diane, continued to work with Brian Wilson, recording two singles and one full-length for United Artists under the moniker Spring. A third single under the name American Spring (due to copyright infringement in Europe) was released in 1973. All three Honeys reunited in 1983 for a lackluster comeback album Ecstacy on Rhino. Since then, a couple of compilations collecting both the Honeys and Spring’s output have come out, and the Honeys themselves have remained active, singing studio back up for artists like the Smithereens and Marilyn and Wilson’s children Carnie and Wendy with their group, Wilson-Phillips.

In hindsight, the Honeys’ lack of commercial success might be attributed to multiple causes. Perhaps it was playing a style of pop that was too new and unfamiliar to much of the country, or maybe bouncing between surf rock and girl group styles never allowed the group to get a foothold in either and thereby getting lost in the wake of Motown and Phil Spector. Regardless of why the band was not as big as maybe they should have been, the Honeys, with their gentle, yet indelible harmonies, provided a layer of texture, depth, and warmth to the songs they contributed their voices to, be they their own or someone else’s.

It’s been over a decade and two studio albums since S&M, and next week, Metallica returns with another collaborative effort (and first in studio) with the legendary Lou Reed, entitled Lulu. What the new album will not be able to capture is the live emotion and obvious excitability that you can see and hear in Metallica while they played live for those two dates with the symphony. Looking back on this album, it really was one of a kind. Symphonic metal has been done before, but it never sounded so pure or seemed so right.

When the bands first come together during the instrumental “The Call of Ktulu”, you can instantly feel the anticipation building within the musicians and in the crowd. Listening to this album is kind of like the first time you experience Dark Side of the Moon and the The Wizard of Oz together for the first time: You’re amazed by the sounds and how they can match up and blend together so seamlessly.

One of the best parts of the album is listening to the crowd. They are completely unaware of anything they are about to see or hear. Small interludes of strings serve as eloquent introductions to some of metal’s most popular songs. “Master of Puppets”, “Fuel”, and “The Memory Remains” are all feverish and heart-pounding on their own, but the symphony breathes a new kind of power into them. You can feel how overwhelmed frontman James Hetfield is during the latter when the crowd belts out “but the memory remains” as he responds with his trademark response of “oh yeah”.

Two previous unreleased tracks also join the setlist, sounding like they’d been played for years. The frightening “Minus Human” could’ve come straight out of a horror movie murder scene, and the album’s single “No Leaf Clover” is one of the more underrated songs out of the band’s countless hits. The strings are prominent throughout, especially in the soft introduction and at the chorus. Hetfield’s performance on this track alone is reason enough it performed strong on the modern rock charts. He can haunt with his deep grunts just as well as he can sing along with a section of strings. This track is one of the main highlights on the disc.

It really cannot be said enough how much life the symphony brings into these already powerful tunes. Whether it’s the softer “Hero of the Day” or the absolute must-haves in your iTunes library (“Enter Sandman”) you can always catch something different that you didn’t hear before. The band was able to add and subtract little things from songs; normally, that could take away from a song’s essence, but backed by the symphony, it’s unnoticeable to the untrained ear and in every case works.

More and more these days, artists are teaming up to collaborate on music. Some are just doing it for money, others for the actual enjoyment of working with their fellow musicians. This album was about creating something that no one had ever heard before, and Metallica was able to blend two genres from opposite ends of the spectrum and make them sound like they always belonged together.

The Smiths dropped in late February 1984 and was released on Rough Trade records. Recorded in multiple sessions that were scattered throughout a tour, The Smiths began working with producer John Porter in September 1983. Porter’s involvement began after receiving a demo tape of an earlier session produced by Teardrop Explodes’ guitarist Troy Tate and declaring the sessions “out of tune and out of time.” Despite the new producer (and eventual long term Smith collaborator), the band was still unhappy with the final product.

Met with controversy upon its initial release, tabloids accused Marr and Morrissey of condoning child abuse and supporting pedophilia through songs like album opener “Reel Around the Fountain” and “The Hand That Rocks the Cradle”. The former is a dour number that opens with a reverbed snare and Morrissey’s distinctive baritone. Lyrically suggestive of a romantic (but not necessarily sexual) relationship, lines such as “It’s time the tale were told of how you took a child and you made him old” and “You can pin and mount me like a butterfly” fueled the accusations by many who misunderstood Morrissey’s words.

Telling folktales of monsters coming for bad children as a means of scaring them straight has been a storytelling tradition since storytelling began. Much of English folklore is laden with such tales of gothic haunts and creepy characters. “The Hand That Rocks the Cradle” switches up the tale by telling it from the point of view of someone or something that has taken a child from its mother rather than from the victim’s or a third person’s point of view. One of the first songs written by Marr and Morrissey, the song’s name was originally intended to be the album’s title before it became simply self-titled.

The supposition and vagueness of “Cradle” is set aside for true, factual horror in “Suffer Little Children”. Taking its name from a verse in the Gospel of Matthew, this song quickly became one of the most notorious in The Smiths’ catalog for its shocking lyrical content. Singing from the point of view of the victims’ ghosts, Morrissey tells the story of “The Moors Murders”, a series of sexual assaults/murders of five schoolchildren aged 10-17, at the hands of Myra Hindley and her boyfriend Ian Brady that occurred between 1963 and 1965, when Morrissey was just child. Sparking controversy for stirring up a decades-old crime, “Suffer Little Children” contains easily some of Morrissey’s most personal and beautiful lyrics. Using the real names of the victims, Morrissey weaves a tale of sadness and horror but also one of vengeance from beyond, as he sings, “We may be dead and we may be gone, but we will be right by your side until the day you die…” He further suggests that Hindley’s and Brady’s victims will haunt their killers guaranteeing that “[they] might sleep, but [they] will never dream”.

When Morrissey isn’t singing about child murder or isolation, he is often found intrigued by sex, or more specifically his disgust with and avoidance thereof.  With a song entitled “Pretty Girls Make Graves”, first impressions would lead one to believe the subject matter may find itself aligned with the likes of “Suffer Little Children”; however, the truth is quite the opposite. Coined from a line in Jack Kerouac’s 1958 novel The Dharma Bums, the song tells the story of a sexually aggressive girl trying to get her boyfriend to have sex with her, much to his reluctance. With lyrics like “She wants it now, and she will not wait/ But she’s too rough and I’m too delicate,” if ever there was an autobiographical tune on the debut, it might be this one. As she says, “Give in to lust, give up to lust, oh heaven knows we’ll soon be dust” he simply responds with, “I’m not the man you think I am.” As the song ends, the protagonist finds himself watching his girl leave with another boy. Rather than lament his loss, Morrissey subtly and casually sings the opening to “Hand In Glove”, the band’s first single and perhaps one of Morrissey’s most openly homosexually-themed songs. “Not the man you think I am” indeed.

The “Hand In Glove” found on The Smiths is not the same as the original version released as the band’s first single. Two months after the original release, the band re-recorded the song to make up for the failed Troy Tate sessions. This version has a shorter intro and is in a different key. They recorded the song again with John Porter; however, Morrissey rejected it. For the final version that appears on the debut album, Porter remixed the original session mixes, creating more separation between the tracks and pulling Mike Joyce’s drum beats up front a bit more.

It is interesting to note that The Smiths’ second single, “This Charming Man”, released in October 1983, was not originally on The Smiths. Rather, the song was added to all US releases of the album distributed by Sire Records and onto the Rough Trade cassette version in the UK. When The Smiths’ catalog was obtained by WEA in 1992, virtually all versions of this album since featured the single, with the exception of a 2009 vinyl reissue by Rhino Records.

A lot of controversy, some based in truth, some in people’s misunderstanding of lyricist Morrissey, surrounded the band’s debut in 1984, and would continue to hover over the band for its entire existence. But in the years since, much of it has been laid to rest as the true merits of The Smiths, and Marr and Morrissey in particular, outshone any tabloid’s accusations and lies. Though the band only existed for a brief time, in its five years together they produced some of the strongest, most influential music in decades, laying a foundation that was built upon over the next two-plus decades.

In 1995, the band released a four track EP, Angels, and quickly followed it up with full-length, Faithless Street. Finding themselves with an ever-growing cult following and being hailed by music critics, in particular, alt-country press flagship No Depression, after a performance at the South by Southwest Music Festival, Whiskeytown were courted by Outpost Records, an affiliate of Geffen. In order to get out of the contract with Mood Food Records, Whiskeytown was forced to sell the rights to their session master tapes. Almost a full two years after recording, Mood Food, in an effort to capitalize on the band’s new found success, released Rural Free Delivery a few months before Whiskeytown’s major label debut, Stranger’s Almanac, dropped in 1997. Adding insult to injury, the half of music contained on RFD was previously released on Angels EP, with the song, “Angels Are Messengers From God”, simply being an alternate version of Faithless Street’s title track.

Combining electric guitar with country fiddle, album opener ”Take Your Guns To Town”, a song originally found on Angels EP, and later track “Oklahoma”, an uptempo rocker that Adams apparently hates, are probably as close as Whiskeytown ever got to actually sounding like Uncle Tupelo, or at least Jay Farrar. Considering the material on RFD is some of Whiskeytown’s earliest music, it is not surprising to hear a song or two sound similar to the alt-country outfit. However, the similarity ends with these songs, as the remaining tracks on RFD are rather representative of Whiskeytown proper, even the Black Flag cover.

Transforming Greg Ginn’s aggressive guitar work and Keith Morris’ rage infused vocals on “Nervous Breakdown” into a countrypolitan hoot results in a song that is almost uniquely Whiskeytown, and if you didn’t know any better you might think it was an original number. A country/alt-country band covering a punk song is not that surprising in today’s (or even 1995’s) musical landscape. It isn’t that Whiskeytown covered a punk song, but rather that they chose Black Flag’s first single that is demonstrative of where Ryan Adams comes from as a songwriter and performer.

What’s even more telling is Adams’ lyric in “Angels Are Messengers From God”, the closing track to RFD and pseudo-title track to the Angels EP. When he sings, “I started this damn country band because punk rock is too hard to sing”, he puts a spotlight on his entire approach to his art and his band. (And if you’ve ever heard his project The Finger, a little empathy for punk vocalists is warranted.) This song would be re-recorded with a slightly better vocal track and get retitled to become the Faithless Street’s titular number.

In addition to “Angels…”, the songs “Tennessee Square” and “Captain Smith” were also first heard on the Angels EP, with the former making another appearance on Faithless Street. Featuring vocals by Phil Wandscher (who also sang on Faithless Street’s “Top Dollar”) rather than Ryan Adams, “Captain Smith” channels Gram Parsons and has a toe-tapping quality that leads right into the uptempo rollick of “Macon, Georgia County Line”. The remaining song, “Pawn Shop Ain’t No Place For a Wedding Ring”, is a slow, sad piece delivered in a dry manner (a bit ironic for a band notorious for being “wet”) and representative of what a “Whiskeytown ballad” is.

For being outtakes, rough cuts, demos or what have you, the songs on Rural Free Delivery are all well crafted, well performed and well recorded. Considering that half the material has been made available elsewhere, and perhaps in better form, there is some difficulty in warranting ownership of this album unless one is a completionist. If any argument is to be made, it would rest on the strengths of the Black Flag cover, the beautifully sad ballad in “Pawn Shop…” and the fact that, regardless if all the songs aren’t new, they’re still damn good and some, like the previously mentioned songs, are only available on this album.

Prior to Pavement signing with Matador and releasing Slanted and Enchanted the band recorded three EPs: Slay Tracks (1933-1969), released on the band’s own Treble Kicker label in 1989, Demolition Plot J-7, and Perfect Sound Forever, both released in 1990 through Drag City. With the success of S&E on Matador Records, Drag City compiled the band’s first three EPs along with the “Summer Babe” single, “My Radio” from the Chemical Imbalance compilation, and “My First Time”, originally a flexidisc in the fanzine Ablaze!, releasing it under the title Westing (By Musket and Sextant). Preserving the integrity of the original EPs, Westing features all the songs in the same order with the first two EPs on Side A and the remaining recordings on the flip side.

Sprung forth from the tedium that was life in Stockton, CA circa 1989, Pavement’s first EP, Slay Tracks, opens with “You’re Killing Me”, a blend of static, feedback, and nerve grating high-pitched squeals and no percussion. Written entirely by Malkmus, he said of recording the EP, “We decided to use static as the third instrument… It was pretty exciting to be so experimental.” Producer Gary Young became the de facto drummer (and eventual member) during the four-hour recording session, contributing rhythm on “Box Elder” and “Price Yeah!”, the former of which was covered by the Wedding Present on their 1990 EP Brassneck. The pop-like feel of “Box Elder” is almost 180 degrees from the opener and hints at the ironic, even sardonic tendencies (lyrically and musically) that will eventually make up a good portion of the band’s catalog.

During the making of Slay Tracks Pavement was Stephen Malkmus (SM) and Scott Kannberg (Spiral Stairs). After the EP was recorded and released, Malkmus left to tour Europe. Kannberg formed a new project, Pa, with drummer Jason Turner. When Malkmus returned and heard the songs Turner and Kannberg had written it was decided to make it a Pavement project. The second EP, Demolition Plot J-7, was once again produced and recorded by Gary Young and shared many of the same sounds and influences found throughout the band’s first EP. Tension, however, mounted during the recording sessions, as Young expressed jealousy and hostility towards Jason Turner, who in the end only drummed on one track, “Forklift”, with the remaining drumming performed by Malkmus and Kannberg.

Opening track “Forklift”, once again is introduced through a layer of fuzz effects and shimmering guitar lines, with keyboards overdubbed in the chorus. Follow up number “Spizzle Trunk” features thrashy guitars and barroom pianos buried in the mix and comes off as an early, but punk-y, R.E.M. track that is ripe for a cover by a band such as Wavves or HEALTH. On Demolition the song that perhaps closest approaches what was to come from the band would be “Internal K-Dart”. In fact, reduce the over-saturated noise and you can hear what so many bands in the early ’90s co-opted.

Pavement’s third EP, Perfect Sound Forever, continues to sport the band’s lo-fi recording techniques and signature sound idiosyncrasies and, at times, may prove a more difficult and challenging listen than either of the first two EPs. Much of what is on Perfect comes across more as aural/sonic ideas and thought pieces rather than actual songs, such as “Recorder Grot” or “Drive By Fader”, and the opening instrumental “Heckler Spray”. Featuring a reverberating guitar ping, the song builds and builds only to abruptly end. However, the listener is immediately rewarded with “From Now On”, which begins nearly flush with the immediate ending of “Heckler Spray”, continuing to peak and build, only with a slightly different vibe. “From Now On” is one of those songs that can be almost immediately recognized as Pavement, even if your only exposure was via the Matador catalog. This song is the best example of the band migrating toward the Pavement of Slanted and Enchanted. Where “From Now On” echoes Pavement, “Debris Slide” sounds as if it was found on the cutting room floor from the Pixies’ Doolittle sessions. Complete with the rapid fire drumming and the “ba ba ba da da Debris Slide!” chorus, Black Francis and crew seemingly possessed Pavement for one minute and 56 seconds.

Much like how the Watery, Domestic EP can be seen as a transition between Slanted and Enchanted and Crooked Rain, Crooked Rain, the first three EPs represented on Westing can be interpreted as an evolutionary sonic pathway to their eventual signature sound. With that said, the inclusion of the “Summer Babe” single and two other independently released singles feels out of place on this compilation. Where the first three EPs (tracks 1-18 on the compact disc) are collectively unified in their lo-fi aesthetic and sonic manipulations, the clean, focused sound of the Slanted and Enchanted single “Summer Babe” is grossly out of place. While the inclusion of the two one-off songs is appreciated, the exclusion of “Summer Babe” and its two B-sides wouldn’t necessarily be missed.

Allmusic’s Stephen Thomas Erlewine described the music on Westing as “defiantly anti-CD”. While originally listening to the music, one can’t help but feel that the studio chicanery performed with the sonic manipulations beginning Slay Tracks could easily be lost on today’s audience. What was obtuse experimentation in 1989 sadly comes off too similar to the sounds of digital artifacts and poorly compressed mp3s today.  (To ensure myself what I was hearing was indeed real and not the result of a bad digital transfer, I made sure to listen to the vinyl.) The music contained on these three EPs is at times abrasive, even irritating, yet stands true to Pavement’s lo-fi aesthetic that was so heavily praised on its debut. It also serves to prove Smith has some merit with his frustrations as elements of the Fall are scattered all over these recordings and, at times, rather obviously. To make matters worse, the album’s cover is straight from the Fall’s discarded artwork file. That said, after listening to these EPs repeatedly, if anyone truly has a right to cry foul, it would be Sonic Youth. In fact, early Pavement could probably best be described as the offspring of Sonic Youth and the Pixies, with the Fall and Swell Maps as the child’s godparents. Think of Westing simply as the long-form birth certificate.

When you hear the chorus to opening track “Blue” today, you might say, “Oh my God, that’s The Jayhawks?” knowing the song but unfortunately having forgotten the artist. (The same could be said for other single “Bad Time”.) I must admit that I haven’t listened to Tomorrow the Green Grass in its entirety since the late ‘90s, so upon hitting play I was pleasantly reminded of who The Jayhawks were. With the gentle dual strumming opening the album, Mark Olson and Gary Louris’ coupled singing begins soft only to jump up a notch with the second stanza as the band’s rhythm section kicks in. The chorus soon follows, and then the pair hit that note with “And you made me feel so Blue…”  Add the strings and “Wow.”

A nicety associated with revisiting older albums is that sometimes something comes out of left field. In “I’d Run Away”, a mid-tempo number following “Blue”, as the song’s end approached, I found myself reminded of the final 45 seconds of Broken Social Scene’s “It’s All Gonna Break” with the passionate onslaught of horns and percussion. And as odd as that may sound, the next track, “Miss Williams’ Guitar”, sounds as if Robyn Hitchcock had been channeled. Written by Olson for his soon-to-be, if not already, girlfriend, Victoria Williams (who would later be his wife and ex-wife), “Miss Williams’ Guitar” is an up-tempo, slightly rocking number. The song is fun from the get go and is clearly written from the point of view of somebody quite smitten: “I remember watching her play, and the whole damn crowd seemed so far away.” The flow of “Miss Williams’ Guitar” is classic Hitchcock sans the dry wit and even has elements of  Perspex Islands’ “So You Think You’re In Love” lingering about. Before you roll your eyes, revisit the song, and keep in mind that Hitchcock was channeling The Byrds in his song.

The addition of keyboardist Karen Grotberg to the lineup adds an elegant touch to The Jayhawks. Having the daunting task of following Nicky Hopkins and Benmont Tench (founding member of Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers), both of whom appeared on Hollywood Town Hall, Grotberg not only stepped up to the plate but even manages to make you forget about the earlier studio vets. Her delicate touch on the ivories blends elements of Hopkins with rolling cadences often found with The Band’s Richard Manuel, strongly evident on tracks like “Red’s Song”.

Continuing with the name-drops, “Ten Little Kids” comes off as a cross between the Stones’ “Tumbling Dice” and Big Star’s “In the Street”, “Two Hearts” might be a more up-tempo Uncle Tupelo track, and “Over My Shoulder” could easily be seen as an indirect influence on Tupelo offshoot Wilco’s first two releases. That being said, nobody is stealing from anyone, but rather, the nature of the material simply lends itself to such comparison.

If there was obvious joy heard in Olson’s voice when singing “Miss Williams’ Guitar”, from the very first lines of “Bad Time”, “I’m in love with the girl that I’m talking about/I’m in love with the girl that I can’t live without”, the emotions go overboard. But this song isn’t all love and schmaltz; there are doubt and hesitation as well. When Olson follows with “I’m in love but I sure picked a bad time/To be in love…”, it’s almost as if he is unsure of what he should do next: go with the girl or stay.

“Bad Time” and other single “Blue” are two examples of songs that could have and should have been far bigger hits than they were. In a time when the industry was obsessed with finding more and more Nirvanas or Oasis-es, blame radio programmers for dropping the ball on most alt-country outfits in the ‘90s.

With 20/20 hindsight, in addition to “finding” elements of Robyn Hitchcock and linkages to a not-yet-existing Canadian band, looking over the song titles and lyrics, it seems pretty laid out that one relationship was coming to an end (Olson and Louris’) as another was beginning (Olson and Williams’). Not quite a Yoko Ono situation, it may be safer to assume that the more commercially pop-oriented direction of the band’s material might not have been Olson’s cup of tea, as he left to form a more folksy outfit with Williams, and the sound The Jayhawks took on after Olson’s departure shifted away from the band’s earlier output toward more pop/rock.

The Jayhawks’ now-considered-classic album, Tomorrow the Green Grass, features a band indebted to certain influences while not necessarily being utterly defined by those influences. On all the band’s previous efforts, the musical linkage to artists like Gram Parsons, The Byrds, and other early country rock bands is more than obvious. With their fourth album, that’s still true; however, the songwriting team of Mark Olson and Gary Louris, rather than relying on the past, simply use the past as stopgaps as they come to terms with their own sound. The two began fully developing characteristics within their songwriting. Their verses became just as catchy as their choruses, while their slow intros into up-tempo songs felt as if two separate songs were juxtaposed. Unfortunately, as they defined who they were, who they were ceased to exist, as Mark Olson left The Jayhawks after this album.

That’s high praise from a man who once held the title of “God.” Unfortunately, it wasn’t enough to prevent the band from breaking up that same year. The La’s existed at a time in which hair metal was all over American radio, and Manchester had yet to go “Mad” in the UK. Existing in a world unto itself, the La’s and their music helped usher in the era of Britpop, all while retaining a root in the British Invasion.

The biggest presence in the history of The La’s, Lee Mavers joined the band, first as rhythm guitarist, then as the band’s principle songwriter. With founding member Mike Badger’s departure in 1986, Mavers became the band’s de facto leader. In that same year, John Power joined the band on bass, and in doing so forged a solid partnership with Mavers. After an onstage quarrel with Mavers in December 1991, and the increased frustration of having played the same set of songs since 1986, Power quit the band, effectively dissolving it, leaving behind four singles, and one of the most critically acclaimed albums of the decade.

After going through a series of producers including John Leckie (Radiohead, Stone Roses), Mike Hedges (The Cure, The Undertones), and John Porter (The Smiths), the band’s final attempt at recording an album landed in the hands of Steve Lillywhite (U2, Simple Minds), and his now legendary Eden Sessions. Tension was immediate, with the band claiming Lillywhite didn’t understand their sound.

In a 1990 interview with Q Magazine, Mavers described the recording session: “We walked out on it while we were doing it. We hated it because we weren’t getting our sound across, so we turned our back on it. [The record label Go! Discs] got it together from a load of backing tapes and mixed it up themselves and put it out.” The album that was eventually released in the fall of 1990 was put together by Lillywhite, without any input from Mavers or the other La’s. While promoting the album, Mavers told New Musical Express, “I hate it. It’s the worst, a pile of shit. There is not one good thing I can find to say about it.” The band even hated the now somewhat iconic album art.

Andy MacDonald, co-founder of Go! Discs said, in regards to the album, “We think it’s a great record, the reviews have been wildly enthusiastic. Lee is very talented, but he can’t recognize how good the record really is.” Upon its release, The La’s was immediately hailed by critics and adored by college radio. The harmonies and hooks are indelibly tied to early 60s pop, with a strong tip of the hat to another set of Liverpudlians. The band’s sound, despite the obvious linkage to a bygone era, never sounds dated, maintaining a fresh, unique identity without ever becoming derivative or ironic.

The slight Mersey Beat sound of “Way Out” and “Liberty Ship” carries Mavers’ slightly depressing lyrics, while the piercing twang of “Doledrum”, a slight two-step, seems to spring from listening to an excess of early Rolling Stones. A glorious pop song, “Feelin’” has a sunshine pop beat, and a repetitive guitar hook bringing to mind bubblegum era bands like the Monkees. “Timeless Melody” begins in a swirl of guitar and percussion, not quite psychedelic, but enough to provoke the imagery. The song’s clutter drops to reveal the standard four-piece pop band, complete with a chorus harkening the Byrds’ Fifth Dimension era. A rocking pop song without calling on the production clichés of the day, “Timeless Melody” could have very well been as monumental a track as “There She Goes”.

“There She Goes” has gone on to become the album’s centerpiece, literally and figuratively. “I thought it would be big, a lot bigger than it was, but then forgotten like a lot of pop songs,” said guitarist John Byrne. “In retrospect, the opposite happened.” Along with one of the most memorable opening riffs in pop rock, the major-minor chord changes and the Mavers-Power harmonies have helped make “There She Goes” one of rock’s more memorable and poignant love songs. Urban legend once attributed the meaning behind much of “There She Goes” to be an ode to heroin, citing lyrics “…racing through my brain…pulsing through my veins…no one else can heal my pain.” This was denied by ex-guitarist Paul Hemmings in MW Macefield’s 2003 In Search of the La’s: A Secret Liverpool.

Mavers’ perfectionism and constant tinkering has often been blamed for the delay in the album’s recording and release. Byrne later claimed that “I’d try a guitar part 20 different times with 20 different guitars,” and producer Leckie characterized his two months working with the band in 1988 as “spine-tingling.” Lillywhite claimed that Mavers is in denial of even having completed a record, likening it to Brian Wilson’s SMiLE. “He’s not going to do any more recording until he makes that album,” Lillywhite said. “In his mind, he still hasn’t.” While working with the La’s in London, Lillywhite remembered Mavers playing a song he wrote called “Fishing Net” that Lillywhite described as one of the best he ever heard. When he asked Mavers if they could record it, Mavers replied “No, that’s for the second album.”

Until Mavers gives the world that second album, or is able to record his perfect version of this album (if that is even a possibility), the 2008 deluxe edition which features a version of the entire album as mixed and sequenced  by producer Mike Hedges will have to do.

Pearl Jam released its debut album, Ten, on August 27, 1991, less than a month before Nevermind dropped. As a result, despite critical praise, the album and band failed to get major commercial recognition right away, instead living in the shadow of Nirvana’s second album. Sales picked up over time, with Ten eventually surpassing Nevermind (and all of Pearl Jam’s later releases) in sales, chart success, and industry awards. Pearl Jam may not have been the band “responsible” for the “Seattle Sound” or grunge in general, but it was probably the biggest reason for the sound’s success as well as for the public at large embracing alternative rock.

Taking the collective sounds of Pearl Jam guitarists Stone Gossard and Mike McCready, you won’t necessarily find punk or grunge allegiances. The principle reason being that Pearl Jam was never a grunge band. The grunge label was applied due to geographical coincidence. Instead, Pearl Jam’s sound is embedded in the roots of classic rock artists like Led Zeppelin, Eric Clapton, Jimi Hendrix, and especially Stevie Ray Vaughan… minus the blues influences. Sure, founding members Jeff Ament and Stone Gossard were formerly in Green River (perhaps the first grunge band to release a record) with future Mudhoney grunge-iteers Mark Arm and Steve Turner, but almost everything about the band, from writing with open tunings (notable in the blues and folk) to the delicate layering/mixing of the players to singer Eddie Vedder’s ostinato/vibrato singing style, tends to steer away from the abrasive sludge and anger often associated with grunge. Pearl Jam’s anger and seriousness come across via Vedder’s lyrics far more than through the band’s instrumentation.

Ten begins with approximately 30 seconds of a sonorous, haunting intro, which is actually the beginning to hidden track “Master/Slave”, before the true opening number, “Once”, kicks in. “Once” may begin the album, but it is actually the second part of a song trilogy Vedder called Mamasan (or Momma-Son), beginning with “Alive”, the album’s first single, and concluding with “Footsteps”, originally released as a B-side to Ten’s third and most successful single, “Jeremy”.

“Even Flow”, the second single, immediately throws the listener into the middle of a musical melee and features one of Stone Gossard’s funkiest riffs. Taking upwards of 70 takes to get the song down, the final version on the album is not the version heard in the video (hell, the song is not even the song being played in the video) or released as a single, and it features a different drummer (Dave Abbruzzese replaced Dave Krusen) who re-recorded the song while the band was recording for the Singles soundtrack.

“Agytian Crave”, “Dollar Short”, “Footsteps”, “E-Ballad”, and “Richard’s E” were five instrumental songs originally recorded by Gossard, Ament, and drummer Matt Chamberlain while the former two were preparing a demo in search of a drummer and singer. Vedder, upon receiving the tape from former Chili Peppers drummer Jack Irons, famously wrote the lyrics while surfing in his home of San Diego. “Agytian Crave” turned into “Once”, “Dollar Short” became “Alive”, and “E-Ballad” was re-titled “Black”. (“Richard’s E” became “Alone”, originally recorded for Ten, and an alternate recording is featured on the “Go” single off follow-up album Vs.)

Though “Oceans” was the fourth official release from Ten, it was “Black” that became the unintentional hit. Originally pushed by Epic Records to be released, the band refused based on the extreme personal nature of the song’s content. Vedder even said, “Fragile songs get crushed by the business.” Never officially released as a single, the song took on a life of its own and actually peaked at number three on the Billboard Mainstream Rock charts. The song is easily one of Pearl Jam’s most beautiful and has since gone on to be one of the band’s most known and regarded tracks. Guitarist Mike McCready commented, “That’s more of a Stevie [Ray Vaughan] rip off, with me playing little flowing things… Stone wrote it and he just let me do what I wanted.”

Vedder’s lyrics accompanied by Gossard’s and Ament’s compositions go beyond the typical angst and alienation commonly heard in earlier punk and grunge outfits. Not content to just scream about society’s or the government’s general disregard for the populace, Vedder’s lyrics instead take specific aim at hard-edged, often uncomfortable topics like homelessness (“Even Flow”), incest (“Alive”), psychiatric ailments (“Why Go”), serial killers (“Once”), teen alienation and familial dysfunction (“Jeremy”), in addition to the age-old topic of lost love (“Black”). Despite the album’s release in August 1991, none of the singles released to radio and video outlets were available commercially in the United States until July 1995. Until then, if one wanted to own the singles, the only option was the more expensive import discs from Europe.

On a closing note, it is interesting to point out that despite the commercial success of Ten (certified 13x platinum) and fan frenzy that resulted from the album, none of the band members were particularly happy with the results of their recording efforts, specifically the mixing of the album. Ament commented, “I’d love to remix Ten… it wouldn’t be like changing performances; just pull some of the reverb off it.” Vedder remarked that he cannot listen to the first album due to its sound saying, “…it was mixed in a way that was… it was kind of produced.” With the anniversary reissue of Ten in 2009, the band members got their wish with producer Brendan O’Brien remastering and remixing the entire album. The rest is just ’90s history.

Merritt has always been the principle mover and shaker behind The Magnetic Fields. While he wrote most of the songs, the majority of vocal duties rested with the wonderfully twee-pitched Susan Anway. As Holiday went into production, Anway left the band to move to Arizona. Rather than search to find a new vocalist, Merritt simply did what made the most sense: step up and sing the songs that he himself had been writing. However, it may be interesting to note that an alternate version of the album closer “Take Ecstasy With Me” was released on Oh, Merge: A Merge Records 10 Year Anniversary Compilation and featured Susan Anway on vocals.

Merritt’s voice is perfectly suited for his lyrics, even more so than Anway’s, especially on ballad-like material such as “Sad Little Moon”. The not-quite-nasal, lovelorn strain in his bass baritone voice drips with emotive intensity and compliments the actual words in such a way you almost empathize with the song’s protagonist–most often Merritt himself, regardless if you can actually relate to his tales.

Holiday begins like most other Magnetic Fields’ albums, with a tender blend of acoustic and synth instrumentation fused via a lo-fi approach. The opening 20 seconds is an oddly eccentric looping of tones one wishes would actually develop only to have it end too soon. Following a short break of silence in the program, the first full track, “Desert Island”, pops out of the speaker. The fuzzy reverb on “Desert Island” may cause you to try and shake the sleep off–until you realize it isn’t you.

Merritt’s songwriting has more often been based around more non-traditional rock instruments such as cello, Marxophone, ukulele, and, on “Deep Sea Diving Suit”, what may be a Jew’s harp. The upbeat, quirky, plucking sound associated with the instrument sails along as if it was bed music to the song itself. And, of course, it wouldn’t be a Magnetic Fields’ album without synthesizers (not counting the “no synth” trilogy of course). The synth riff accompanying the titular choral phrase on “My Secret Place” embeds itself in your brain almost as infectiously as the band’s earlier hit “100,000 Fireflies”.

Many of Merritt’s songs are just snapshots of moments in time with no more story to them than the tales themselves, an example being the opening to “The Flowers She Sent and the Flowers She Said She Sent”: “I saw you standing in the airport/with your chihuahua in your hand/crying on the moving sidewalk/on your way to Disneyland.” Other times, like in “Take Ecstasy With Me”, the words are poetically heavier: “You used to slide down the carpeted stairs/Or down the banister/You stuttered like a kaleidoscope/’cause you knew too many words…”

Lyrically, all of Merritt’s songs are short, managing to deliver his sentiment in just a couple of stanzas, if that. Despite the songs’ lyrical brevity, the music and emotive sentiment associated with his tunes amplify and expand the message to become far greater than the sum of their parts. Holiday marked the beginning of a new phase for The Magnetic Fields, where Merritt took the reins full-on and, in doing so, helped to create one of the most unique yet recognizable voices and bands in 90′s indie pop/rock.

For the rest of us, the cusp of new millennium summers got buttoned on June 1st, 1999, by a record that still makes me feel half my own age: Blink-182′s porn star-garnished Enema of the State.

After switching from drummer Scott Raynor to the now-infamous percussion devastator Travis Barker, Blink-182 set out to follow up 1997′s Dude Ranch with something cleaner in production, yet still marked by a staple pop-punk cacophony. The end result landed this trio of immature rockers three major singles (“What’s My Age Again?”, “All the Small Things”, and “Adam’s Song”) and a mainstream fan base that would soon thrust summer pop music into blessings (the peak of ska and swing revivals) and curses (think Len, Sugar Ray, etc.) for what felt like forever and a day.

The question surrounding Blink’s pending album, and first in eight years, is identical to that which Enema of the State posits now: Is Blink-182 still relevant? Dusting ‘Em Off articles tend to serve an educational purpose, and unlike revisiting a vinyl I wasn’t originally around to witness, this piece is a retrospective for me as well as a prompt exposition for you. What is there to be gleaned from this era in music, and furthermore, why bother dusting this CD off at all? Sheer nostalgia cannot be the only purpose, can it?

Maybe this is a plug for readership? Nah, surely we jest. What’s our age again?

Blink-182 has, to my knowledge, rarely ever been meant to be taken seriously (though “Adam’s Song” could be considered a slight deviation from the norm). Enema of the State makes me want to prank call the bar 15 minutes from my house, and it makes me want to crank a stereo and make out with a fat and easy emo chick (in all fairness, she’d probably prefer a HIM track or two); on the flip side, it also reminds me that my senior-year song was “Graduation” by Vitamin C, and that makes me want to punch something (“Break Stuff”, anyone?).

“Aliens Exist” is a kids’ song for teenagers, “Going Away to College” would be right at home on any soundtrack to a coming-of-age teen comedy (like, say, how “Mutt” was used brilliantly in 1999′s American Pie, which the band actually cameo’ed in), “Dumpweed” is a great tune to play for those times you wish you could get your girlfriend to roll over, and don’t even get me started on the implicit self-deprecating innuendo of “All the Small Things”. Face it, you cannot listen to this CD without smirking to yourself a little bit–that shit-eating grin that people don right before shaking up a beer can and launching foam all over their least-favorite, football-playing douche bag.

The benchmark for any great or classic record is timelessness. While I wouldn’t exactly place “The Party Song” or “Don’t Leave Me” alongside [insert obligatory Beatles title here], coming back to Enema of the State is like visiting your loser ex who took you to awesome concerts only to discover his/her acne has ceased to be and that they’re suddenly approachable again – you know, for old time’s sake.

It’s a lot like that, actually. Hmm…I should go and track down my little black book. Oh, behave!

Often described as a punk band, the easiest way to describe the Exploding Hearts’ sound is power pop – pure, unabashed pop rock & roll, with catchy hooks and instantly memorable melodies. Power pop as a genre began to peak around the same time that punk broke, and as a result got swept up in the momentum. Power pop bands like the Only Ones, the Records, 20/20, the Undertones and the Rubinoos approached their art with a punk attitude; they just chose to express it with more melody and less aggression. The Exploding Hearts manage to capture that same aesthetic and sentimentality with their music.

Shortly after forming in 2001, the Exploding Hearts found themselves in the forefront of a mini (and short lived) power pop revival in the Pacific Northwest. However, despite fronting any scene, the Exploding Hearts were not mere revivalists nor was their sound a pale, blanch derivative of someone else. The look of the band and their singles all reached back to the late ’70s style, but none of it was campy or seeking retro status. They were sincere and true to their art, unfailingly adhering to a distinct aesthetic. Label head Fred Landeen said, “The boys had a great style. Nobody was rocking pink and yellow together with white denim.” With its bright pink and yellow cover featuring a grainy image of the band shamelessly posing, Guitar Romantic could easily be mistaken as a vintage release, from the heyday of the genre. Upon listening to it, it most certainly could be.

As the band readied to record they lost keyboardist Louie Bankston and reinstated their original bass player, Matt Fitzgerald. In the spring of 2002, vocalist Adam Cox, bassist Matt Fitzgerald, drummer Jeremy Gage, and guitarist Terry Six entered Studio 13 in the basement of a house in Southwest Portland along with their friend and producer Pat Kearns and together recorded the Exploding Hearts’ debut album, Guitar Romantic.

Opening track “Modern Kicks” might immediately bring to mind John Peel’s favorite pop song, the Undertones “Teenage Kicks”. Beyond the titular connection, both songs are driven by a gritty guitar line, however, where the Undertones open their number with percussion, the Exploding Hearts blaze through the gates with five seconds (all in the left channel) of Terry Six knocking on your door with his riff prior to the band knocking the door in. When Cox’ vocals enter – a sort of nasally pseudo-British sound, as if Johnny Lydon’s and 20/20’s Steve Allen’s voices merged – you swear you entered a time warp.

Switching channels for the next intro, Six’ strumming intro to “I’m a Pretender” brings to mind a more playful kind of rock and roll.  Written by former member Bankston prior to joining the band, the title reaches back to rock’s early days while the song’s melody, like the Ramones, springs from 60s pop.

Practically every song on this album wears a different influence on its sleeve. “Thorns and Roses” and “You’re Black and Blue” are firmly rooted in power pop, with the latter easily fitting in with the Yellow Pills collection. “Rumours in Town” and “Boulevard Trash” scream of Dwight Twilley and Nick Lowe.  The “ballad” of the album is “Jailbird”, whose construction could easily have been a re-imagined rockin’ country ballad from the ‘50s, while the album closer, “Still Crazy” rocks out like an outtake from Suede’s debut (1993!) until the vocals kick in, grounding us firmly in the land of the sweet and sour explosive pop.

With all these songs fighting for top honors, two others stand out as my personal favorites. “Sleeping Aides and Razorblades” arrives in the middle of the album. From the very first time I ever heard this song I fell in love with its instantly catchy melody. Lyrically, the song tells an old story about a boy who thought he was over a girl until he hears a song on the radio. Bringing back all the memories, Cox tries to convince both himself and the girl that he’s moved on, but somehow, you just know that he hasn’t. On a tangent, if there was ever a movie made about the Exploding Hearts, this song would be perfect as the film ended and the credits began to scroll.

Along with “Sleeping Aides and Razorblades”, the other stand out is “Throwaway Style”. The gentle inclusion of a short piano riff that peeks out from under the blankets every little bit provides a little hope in an otherwise sad tale of a guy who is continuously mistreated at the hands of a girl. Copping the same Motown beat that the Strokes used with “Last Night”, if there was ever a connection between the post-punk revival bands of New York and the Exploding Hearts, it would be with this track.

Upon the release of Guitar Romantic, the album was immediately called a power pop classic.  Critics all over the west coast hailed the band and fans flocked to see them play.  As the band toured in support of Guitar Romantic, Lookout! Records began to show interest in them.  After playing a couple of gigs in San Francisco, the band began the long drive back up Interstate 5 to Portland.  On the morning of July 20, 2003, with just over an hour left in their trip, the band’s van flipped over north of Eugene, OR after Fitzgerald, who had been driving, fell asleep.  Cox and Gage were thrown from the vehicle and died at the scene.  Fitzgerald died later at the hospital.  The band’s guitarist, Terry Six, and their manager were the only survivors.

Deciding not to carry on the band’s name, Terry Six ended the Exploding Hearts leaving behind a collection of singles and one incredible album.  A few years after the end of the Exploding Hearts, Dirtnap records released Shattered, a collection of outtakes and singles from before and during the Guitar Romantic sessions.

1999’s Seven More Minutes is a picture of the night in these foreign towns and cities. Songs bounce around from rock fests with moog assists to pure, acoustic ruminations. Even the sunnier tracks can only leave the impression of a day filled with overcast skies and impending humidity. However, Matt Sharp (yes, ex-bassist for Weezer), the mastermind behind The Rentals, doesn’t allow the weather to dampen the fun that can be taken from every song on the LP. It’s a schizophrenic spectacle recorded during a time where boy bands were emerging from the fiery pits of the underworld, and rap-metal was finding an army of followers. Despite all of this nonsense going around, The Rentals’ sophomore effort proved that just because it’s shit outside shouldn’t stop one from living it up a little.

Case in point: “Getting By”. It’s buzzsaw guitars clashing with doo-wop moogs; Sharp’s nasally voice telling a tale of fooling around with a twenty-something that he has nothing in common with, but it’s all good. The production is excellent, a rare album from the 20^th century that doesn’t shout out for a remastered edition. We’re there, running around the beached of Spain, drinking on and on and on to get by. Acting as the lead song on the album, “Getting By” sets the table for the excellence yet to come.

A few tracks later we’re now circling “Barcelona”, a stream-of-conscious-like flow from a night to remember. “Got absinthe/Got Gaudi/And I got Jamboree/Got my chicas/Maria, Anna, Monica/And I got Noemi.” It’s another electric parade through the streets of the aforementioned capital, which can’t help but to explode near its conclusion, leaving Sharp struggling to release his final words. There other big rockers which deserve a listen on Seven More Minutes, the contradicting “Keep Sleeping” and “Insomnia”. The former erupts on impact with electric guitars and drums playing at the same high speed, with sweet call-and-respond choruses from courtesy of Sharp and the great Petra Haden. The latter is a flat-out punk number, with screeching chords and thudding percussion attempting to drown out Sharp’s cries of “Insomnia, won’t let me go!”

Breaking up the raucous atmosphere are the equally impacting acoustic-driven tracks. “She Says It’s Alright” comes from a character who could be playing at a local bar in Barcelona at an open mic, with beer as payment. It’s a melody that hasn’t escaped my mind in over a decade, and there’s a great bit in one of the choruses: “I love The Smiths and my cigarettes/I like you in the bed/But I don’t need you to get by.” The gorgeous “Overlee” (which evolves into a slow-tempo electric number) appears near the album’s halfway mark, the sobering reminder of a love lost. “It’s still the saddest day/When you say this is not my home” is a memory that can be shared with just about any listener.

Sharp collaborates with a few outside forces of the ’90s (hell, the current) music scene. “Big Daddy C” is a tongue-in-cheek, rap-infused grunge track with choral assists from Damon Albarn, of Blur and Gorillaz fame. There’s even a shout-out to The Rentals’ one hit, “Friends of P.” in the chorus, and a slight dig during a break in the song (“Who the Hell is ‘P’ anyway?’). Albarn’s then-girlfriend, Elastica’s Donna Matthews, guests on the sleazy, moody “Say Goodbye Forever”, with its occasional bursts of electric guitar popping up in between chorus and verse. The final assist doesn’t come in the form of vocals, but in music and lyrics.

Rivers Cuomo, Sharp’s former Weezer bandmate, co-wrote the album’s penultimate track, “My Head Is in the Sun”, the last collaboration on record between himself and Sharp as of now. It’s a reflection of where Cuomo was at the time more than anything; that dark period of time between 1996’s Pinkerton and 2001’s eponymous “Green Album”:

Silence in the air
At the end of the affair
End of the run (it’s just begun)
Silence in the air
I don’t know if I even care
About anyone (you look overrun)

It leads into “Jumping Around”, whose music box intro and outro fits in perfectly with the concept of the record. It’s the end of the long night, and the partier is officially partied out. If “Getting By” is the album’s alarm going off at the start of the day, this track is easily the lullaby to wind you down.

Seven More Minutes is still an absolute gem of an album; a masterful lost album of the nineties. It’s the last Weezer-related piece of greatness, slightly ahead of that band’s 2002 release, Maladroit, and a few laps behind the “Blue Album” and Pinkerton. The Rentals were around years before referencing anything from the 1980s was “cool.” The Strokes  and The Killers wouldn’t arrive for a couple of years, so resemblances to The Cars and Gary Numan didn’t garner the band a great deal of popularity at the time. So be it.

Back to the streets of Barcelona. Drinking the night away…

Formed in 1978, “The Wipers were more of an idea than a band,” explained founder Greg Sage. “I wanted to do something different with music.” As such, Sage’s original intent was “to do fifteen albums in ten years, never do interviews, never release photographs, have absolutely no information about [the band] at all, and never tour.” Sage reasoned that the lack of information would force fans to listen deeper to the music, which according to him was “the heart and soul of what music is all about.” Unfortunately for him, his dream was never allowed to happen.

Wipers recorded their first album, Is This Real?, on a four-track in their rehearsal space with no overdubs. Laying the foundations for Sage’s songwriting style, the album was propelled by his blazing guitar and exuded raw vitality. However, in order for the band to get distribution, Park Avenue Records made the band re-record the album in a professional studio. Sage and his band learned very early “even on the independent basis… you have to make nothing but compromises.”

Sage’s approach to making music was never commercially driven.  When he was barely a teen, his father’s job in broadcasting gave him access to a professional record-cutting lathe. As such, he learned how to press records before he learned how to play an instrument. “I would spend countless hours studying the grooves I would cut under the microscope [attached] to the lathe… it gave me a completely different outlook on what music is,” he said, providing an insight into his personal musical philosophy. For the band’s second album, Sage took complete control. The record has been noted as a departure in sound and style from the first. However, it also shows the band’s personality developing free of label interference.

Released in 1981, the Wipers’ second full-length album, Youth of America, saw the band leaving behind the short, raw, more traditional songs in favor of a creative process involving longer, more complex material.  Faring better in Europe than the US at the time of its release, the six-song, 30-minute-long album included a 10-plus-minute title track. This Wipers’ album was a deliberate reaction against the vogue.

Opener  “No Fair” begins with a dark, heavy mid-tempo intro, accompanied by Sage’s lyrics, muffled under a wave of sound. The first truly audible thing heard is his multi-measured wail of “It’s not fair!” A brief moment of silence ensues, and then the bass begins walking. After this point, the song blazes forward with fury. The angst, aggression, and disenfranchisement in Sage’s lyrical outrage can be heard in his anthemic, repeated titular cry.

The second and final song on side one is the epic title track. Clocking in at almost 10 and a half minutes, the song is a long form representation of Sage’s typical song structure: layers upon layers of noise, distortion, and feedback building before veering slightly off-theme with guitar solos and vocal cries. The whole thing is bridged with short melodic breaks and then returns to theme. A psychedelic frenzy of guitar work accompanies Sage’s screams of alienation and isolation, as the song’s lyrical pendulum swings between hope and despair, ending with a positive “I believe in you” as the song fades out. Sage explained the song’s epic length by saying that “it was the trend that most songs by bands were very fast and short, to the point… I had to do the opposite.”

Flipping the album over, the brooding atmosphere is still present on side two opener “Taking Too Long”, the chaotic, driving aggression of  the first side replaced with a steady, grooving bass line and playful guitar reminiscent of Pere Ubu’s “The Modern Dance” coupled with early XTC. If any aggression was lacking there, it is made up for with “Can This Be” and “Pushing the Extreme”. The fuzzed-down, brutal angularity of Sage’s guitar in the former is rooted in the same early rock and roll as the Ramones, but shaped with a driving power pop structure. The brutality of the latter has an intensity surrounding it found in later bands like Mission of Burma (who, appropriately enough, have covered the Wipers).

On an album filled with epic moments, the closer, “When It’s Over”, is by far one of the biggest. Primarily an instrumental piece, Sage fills this song with a chorus of swirling guitars as if rising up a spiral staircase only to blast through the top of the tower. The song builds to crescendos only to pass them, extending the breaking point. The threat of deconstruction looms over the rhythm section but is never realized. At the song’s midpoint, the guitars drop out, and a steady, distorted piano steps in. As Sage’s vocals, spoken, yet hidden under the rhythm section, add  mystery to the song, the tempo begins to pick up as Sage’s guitar comes in, returning the song to the original theme and finding a climax accompanied by Sage screaming lyrics like “Will you be laughing when it’s over?”

Sage never considered his band to be punk, seeing the Wipers as “even farther out in left field than the punk movement.” When talking about his band’s first album, Sage claims that “it definitely did not fit it… then [10] years later people are saying, ‘It’s the punk classic of the 80s.’” The same can be said for Youth of America. From its style of production and songwriting to its driving, angular guitar work coupled with anthemic hooks, Youth of America is as strong and fresh-sounding today as it was 30 years ago.

They are still together, they did write a new album, and yes, it is really 2011. Saves the Day is still going strong, but it’s no secret that their fan base loves the classics. Around the time controversial album In Reverie was released (2003), many die-hard STD fans crawled into the back catalogue and never came out. But it being 2011 and all, perhaps it’s been a while since you spun some classic STD on a sunny afternoon. I’d like to nominate 1999 release Through Being Cool for your next trip down memory lane.

While most fans need no introduction to this record, it’s worth revisiting for many reasons. Its tracklist is a veritable master course on the band: “Shoulder to the Wheel”, “Rocks Tonic Juice Magic”, “Holly Hox, Forget Me Nots”, and “Third Engine” to name just a few. These tracks (the first two in particular) have aged so well that they haven’t really aged at all; they sound just as vital 12 years down the road as they did pre-cell phones and September 11th. Maybe that’s partially because the idea of the road trip is an iconic part of American culture:

“We drive/Dave steps on the gas/The world that’s flying by is slick and smooth/Big waves of light/the radio’s playing Queen/And we’re rocking out” –from “Shoulder to the Wheel”

“Rocks Tonic Juice Magic” also boasts one of lead singer Chris Conley’s earlier forays into lyrical self-mortification. Starting with a now-iconic image (“Let me take this awkward saw/run it across your thighs”), the lyrics concern eyeball removal and the offering of the protagonist’s heart to step on, both literally and figuratively. “I’d buy you lemonade right now if you were here/then I’d throw it in your face/and I’d listen to you cry,” Conley wails, heartbroken in every sense of the word.

Other prime breakup material on this album includes “My Sweet Fracture” (“Could you tell me the next time that you’re choking/I’ll run right over to shove some dirt right down your throat”) and “You Vandal” (“I woke up to my cold sheets and the smell of New Jersey/… my ribs have parted ways/said ‘we’re not going to protect this heart you have’”).

The songs still burn with all the sincerity of emotion Conley penned into them a dozen years ago, partly due to the tart sting of the lyrics but also due to skillful instrumentation. Judicious use of electric guitar and an aggressive percussion section remind the listener that STD shows were once not as acoustic as they are now. The intro to “Shoulder to the Wheel” and all of “Banned From the Back Porch” burn with the punk-rock intensity of this energy. “Banned” in particular rocks pretty hard, the kind of song that makes kids of any generation thrash a little harder in the mosh pit.

Alternative Press put Through Being Cool on their 1999 list of most influential albums; to that accolade we might also add that it was the most influential album of Saves the Day’s career. Their follow-up, Stay What You Are, is equally popular and contains a similar number of notable singles, but Through Being Cool is the one that established Saves the Day as a force on the music scene while supplying them with setlist material for the rest of their career. Brush the dust off this puppy, and believe again in the magic that was cruising with the windows rolled down and the music turned up, “Shoulder to the Wheel” blasting on your stereo, circa 1999.

It goes without saying that New Orleans and the Gulf Coast (from which I live about half an hour away in North Florida) has a had a string of shitty luck in the last few years. Maybe “luck” isn’t the right word. Divine improvidence or damning from God, perhaps, if you believe that. However you want to explain it away, it fucking sucks for the Coast and particularly New Orleans, once the thriving commerce and cultural capital of America and The New World.

In short, New Orleans has got the blues.

People, particularly white folks, underestimate the existential, all-encompassing nature of what “the blues” is. Even stylistically, blues applies to artists from the authentic Robert Johnson to the co-opted John Mayer, from as seemingly disparate as Leadbelly to Jimi Hendrix or, hell, Rush. The blues is all-encompassing musically and philosophically. It was, is and forever will be America’s most signature form of music. Jazz evolved from it. The white Alan Lomax may not have understood “the blues” in its primal infancy but he knew it well enough, or knew it to be special enough, to use it to gain opportunity from it, even cravenly profit off of it.

And thank God that Lomax did, otherwise we wouldn’t have Elvis Costello or, for that matter, Allen Toussaint, who orchestrated 2006’s The River in Reverse so utterly perfectly– re-contextualizing songs, rearranging them, reanimating them– it’s as if a hand transcending time and space guided the creation of the record. It’s that good.

To understand the record’s weighty significance, you have to understand where New Orleans is more than where it has been. As someone who just visited New Orleans two consecutive weekends, including Jazz Fest, let me give you my personal encapsulation of where New Orleans is now:

Hurricane Katrina’s clouds still linger over the city in some form. A Jazz Fest publicist told me she was still on “Katrina time” in doubting that press materials dropped into a U.S. Post Office box would get to me in time for my arrival.

And let me hammer this home: If you don’t think The Deepwater Horizon oil spill still gushes like a fresh wound on the traumatized psyche of the city, state and region, you’re out of your mind. British Petroleum still stains the city’s consciousness and inspires some of the most angry, ugly street art I’ve ever seen scrawled.

Speaking of righteous anger, at Jazz Fest, Dr. John mentioned Louisiana’s endangered wetlands, as he does constantly, it’s a pet cause of his, but it’s hard for me to quote him directly. Sometimes, if you clean his words up, his quotes aren’t much of a sentence. For example:

“How much do they expect us to take?” Dr. John asked New York Magazine’s Mark Jacobson. “The inside information is guys on the rig saw rubber and shit, stuff from the blowout protector, coming to the surface back in late February, early March. They were told to keep drilling. Drill, baby, drill. Kill, baby, kill. There ain’t no place in this country that’s been attacked like Louisiana. Forty percent of our coast has been destroyed, washed away. They’re trying to get the rest, the fuckers. The marshes are dead. Dead from greed. When you’re a coon-ass kind?, you eat coon, shrimp, all that. What are you going to eat now? These scumbags are trying to starve us out.”

There’s always trouble to be found in port and river cities: folks getting into trouble (N.O.’s crime rate is infamously high) but also the “troubling of the water” (to paraphrase the slave-song, gopsel refrain that would later evolve into a secular blues one), the same that  flooded the city six years ago this summer and the oily mix on the Gulf of Mexico floor. And still, the crescent-shaped city clutches the canal that has given it life, port industry and artistry for so long, and so much misery lately. New Orleans is simultaneously a city in decay and decline, yet still insistently, almost naively, thriving. Like a girlfriend you break ties with because she’s kind of a fuck-up and run into 10 years later… only to find she’s exactly the same.

Former Pantera and supergroup Down front man Phil Anselmo is a New Orleans resident. Anselmo titled one of Down’s songs “New Orleans Is a Dying Whore”. Bassist of essential New Orleans funk band The Meters, George Porter Jr., called New Orleans “an old, fat whore.” This is not a coincidence.

Of course, there’s lots of love in the N.O., too.

At Jazz Fest, I heard strains of “Who’s Gonna Help Brother Get Further?” written by Allen Toussaint, who I was chagrined to chat with briefly at the festival. The song is progressive populism in the language of funk. As New Orleans is in one, it needs funk to get out of one.

In the sequence of “River in Reverse”, the track is near the centerpiece of the record: its title track, with a slow, churning New Orleans funk groove where Costello sings, “Here comes the flood if you catch my drift,” a double-meaning kiss off worthy of being put next to “Radio, Radio” or, hell, “London Calling”, in which Joe Strummer sneers that “London is drowning and I live by the river.”

It doesn’t stop there. There’s so many examples of flood and water metaphors and double-meanings not just in this record but throughout human civilization. Awfully wide-lensed, I know, but the subject matter, and album, demands it. When all is said and done, The River in Reverse will, at least, go down as an essential document of post-Katrina New Orleans music.

When there’s a burning in your heart
An endless fury in your heart
Build it bigger than the Sun
Let it grow
Let it grow
And there’s a burning in your heart
Don’t be alarmed”

The first lyrics we hear from Death Cab for Cutie’s latest single, “You Are A Tourist”, sound buoyantly hopeful, to say the least. And to say even less, hopeful exemplifies my feelings toward their forthcoming seventh studio album, Codes and Keys. Three years have passed since the Pacific Northwest quartet unveiled Narrow Stairs, and if you recall, they last left us with the downhearted closing track, “The Ice is Getting Thinner”. A pick-me-up, if you will. Fortunately, Codes and Keys seems to grant us the promise that it’ll pick up the energy some.

But there’s something to be said about the melancholy nature to Ben Gibbard’s vocals and Chris Walla’s homely instrumentation. It’s very inviting, even if Gibbard’s wailing on and on, as he does on, say, “Title and Registration”, where lyrics like “There’s no blame for how our love did slowly fade, and now that it’s gone it’s like it wasn’t there at all,” read like an ultra depressing status message on AIM. (We’ve all been there – myself included.) But that’s the allure. There’s a feeling inferred there that yearns to be understood. It’s this unique intrigue that grips its listener, especially any teenager experiencing those awkward years of high school. (Again, we’ve all been there – myself included.)

It’s no surprise Death Cab’s fourth studio album, 2003′s Transatlanticism, became the band’s breakthrough effort. Incredibly accessible by nature (“The Sound of Settling”, for example), the 11-track jaunt, which clocks in at just over 44 minutes, sees Gibbard opening up to his fans. These days, the songs here offer a great parallel to where they are now. Album opener “The New Year” brings on a tone that seems like the antithesis to the new single, “You Are A Tourist”. Gibbard retorts, “I wish the world was flat like the old days/Then I could travel just by folding a map/There’d be no distance that could hold us back,” while now he insists, “And if you feel just like a tourist in the city you were born then, it’s time to go/And you find your destination with so many different places to call home.” While maybe lacking the fresh optimism of Ben Gibbard’s lyrics as of late, the Transatlanticism single still provides an anthem-like sound, which is hard to resist, with its hard-hitting guitar riffs.

Soon after, we arrive at “Lightness” and the aforementioned “Title and Registration”, which works wonders within the album, rather than as a stand-alone track. By itself, “Title and Registration” remains a melodic tune accompanied by some gripping lyrics, but followed by “Lightness”, there’s a remarkable depth that occurs. On “Lightness”, Gibbard croons, “Your brain is the dam and I am the fish who can’t reach the cord,” which empowers what comes next on “Title…”, as he continues, singing, “There’s no blame for how our love did slowly fade…” It’s very familial.

Then finding the middle of the album, we arrive at “Transatlanticism”,  the title track whose melancholy piano and hopeful guitar licks toy with your emotions almost immediately. They carry us through the song and hold us steady until we get to Jason McGerr’s drums, which ignite the final push to what Gibbard insists upon us again and again. As the drums escalate, the final chants of “So come on/Come on” begin and we get the feeling that hope is finally surfacing. We feel like we’re really getting somewhere.

After passing over the sweet innocence of “Passenger Seat”, “We Looked Like Giants” startles with its aggressive pick up. At this point in the record, albeit the second to last song, Death Cab takes this time to tell  us they have a darker side they flirt about with from time to time. When Gibbard yelps, “God damn the black night with all its foul temptation,” you can’t but help feel that this isn’t a soft and sappy Death Cab album…but something more powerful and widespread.

Then the proverbial credits roll and we’re presented the last song, “A Lack of Color”.  This is where the listener returns to the foundation that Death Cab has always offered: intimacy. Intimacy in the sense that it’s almost as if the band, as a unit, is talking and speaking personally to how you feel – that the message within the song is just for you. Perhaps that’s always been the band’s vantage point; we have all at one point felt lost and disconnected and the song speaks to this. The band does, come to think of it.

With that said, we can only take this hope and direct it towards what we’ve heard thus far from “You are a Tourist”. In a month we’ll finally get something new, and the “burning in our hearts” that Gibbard speaks of will finally cease. Maybe.