This may not be entirely my fault, at least initially. Fugazi started putting out albums when I was still in grade school, and their most active years were over by the time I’d formed my full musical consciousness. But who’s at fault for my not having listened these past few years? With iTunes and Amazon in my living room, I can’t blame anyone but myself. It’s just one of those things, like reading Dostoevsky or organizing my past tax returns, that I have the best of intentions about, but never actually get around to. But when Fugazi’s compilation of their first two EPs, together titled 13 Songs, hit Amazon on a discount, it was time to take action.

To put it frankly, I can’t believe what I’ve been missing.

This album is a solid classic, instantly grabbing the ear with a timeless quality that you just don’t find every day. I get a special feeling with those rarest of rare albums; The very first time I played this one, I knew I would own it forever and listen to it often. Fugazi, you had me at “Waiting Room”, a poignant, post-punk dirge laced with six inches of irony: “I am a patient boy, I wait, I wait, I wait, I wait,” the lyrics themselves impatiently repetitive. The funky bass chords on the intro seal the deal: Show me what you’ve got, kids, because I’m in it for the long haul.

The album’s quality holds steady from there on out. “Bulldog Front” plays with traditional punk grossness: “My analysis: It’s time to harvest the crust from your eyes.” Mmm, layers of meaning and disgust in the same line. There’s no bad song here; “Burning” has a lot of drive and flavor, “Give Me The Cure” slows things down with some Clash-flavored reflections on mortality. “Suggestion” and “Margin Walker” both experiment with rhythm and guitar in an intriguing manner. I know this music is over 20 years old, but it sounds like it’s pouring out of someone’s garage down the street. You can’t fake this kind of timeless authenticity, though God knows many have tried.

“Provisional”, a later favorite of mine, slows things down in a way that you can palpably feel influencing the Get Up Kids and others down the road. But don’t think Fugazi’s gone all soft on you; “Lockdown” comes hard and fast immediately after, and they close out with “Promises”, which for all its post-rock glory (I cannot help hearing the intro to Death Cab’s “Title and Registration” when the song starts) bears a metric ton of post-breakup angst. I did not know how very, very much I needed Fugazi in my life until right now. “You will do what you do, and I will do what I do, and we will do what we do, rearrange, see it through”; yes, yes, a thousand times yes. Thanks for writing that, guys, 20 years before I knew I’d need it.

Missing Fugazi has been a serious, gaping hole in my musical education, the measure of which I didn’t know until just this week. Rest assured that I shall never miss them again. Next on my to-do list: Repeater.

The Loon, the band’s 2005 debut release charmed critics everywhere, placing Tapes ‘n Tapes on the map with the then indie elite. This all happened relatively fast. After listening to the 40+ minute disk, I quickly realized why the band comes up in certain circles every so often. Much to my chagrin, I’m a little disappointed that I didn’t lend them my ear before. The Loon has its moments of simplicity, much like a band who’s just getting its feet wet, but there’s a surprising wealth of complexity, too. At times, the group sounds less like an indie band stretching its legs and more like scruffy, seasoned veterans.

The first track, the bouncy and yet aptly titled “Just Drums” is now on every day rotation when I shuffle my iPod. Although Josh Grier’s distorted vocals and the song’s poppy sound veer in a different direction from the rest of the album, its one of the telling tracks on the album, employing a highly enjoyable jam session that naturally fits in a drum solo, as if to keep to its namesake. Basically, they delivered a tune for percussionists, but managed to satiate the rest of the crowd, too. Well, at least myself.

“The Iliad” has a softer sounding intro and remains rather simple, at least musically. It clocks in at only a short change after two minutes, but in that small amount of time, it hits hard lyrically, as Grier channels his inner Cobain, screaming: “The burning size of sirens lies/At least we tried to make it.”

Perhaps the bands biggest hit, or at least the most well known tune off The Loon, is “Insistor”. Right when the guitar strikes, it makes you believe you’re going on a wild ride, similar to the beginning of Muse’s now classic live track, “Knights of Cydonia”. Compared to the rest of the album, “Insistor” feels so advanced. The song writing, the overall performance, and the story itself doesn’t sound like a band who’s recording its first album. Thanks to Grier’s confident vocals, he sounds less vulnerable as he shouts out lines like “And don’t be terse and don’t be shy/just hug my lips and say good lies.” It’s a heavy tale with a not so happy ending as I perceive it.

“Crazy Eights” drops the lyrics for strong instrumentation. This song is actually the one that made me appreciate this band and album the most. It’s an easy listen as it doesn’t work that brain of yours much. It’s not like you’re reading too far into their chanting of “the loon”. It’s a complete 180 from the previous track, in addition to the one that follows, “In Houston”. Many artists, especially on a debut, may be a little more timid for experiementation, but what I gathered from this album was that they were making this for themselves as musicians, not for fans or fame. Respectable.

“Cowbell” takes its place as the heaviest song on the effort. A slow bass line and a fast acoustic strum lead the way to the odd yet humorous lyrics, leaving the band to let out some steam and get angry (“Leave me now/in solitude and stress/I’ve been a better lover with your mother”). Although it’s not something I’d recommend to my friends, it’s an interesting and noteworthy side of the band. They have very tongue in cheek and sarcastic lyrics at times and whether they’re slowing the tempo or speeding it up, it’s worth taking notice.

In one album you can hear as the band matured through the process that is a debut. Final track “Jakov’s Suite” concludes the debut on, well, a bad ass note. There’s no better way to say it. It’s a track like this that makes you think Tapes ‘n Tapes could work as a jam band and still keep the same crowd. All in all, judging from this effort, two things remain clear. This is a band with great chemistry and one that remains true to their sound and intentions. It’s rare I’m tossed back by a first listen. The Loon makes me rethink my listening process altogether. Yeah, pretty strong.

Over fifteen years ago, Oasis released a little debut called Definitely Maybe, a title that has helped spawn small-town New England emo bands and half-assed romantic comedies. The title itself is a rather interesting linguistic paradox. Definitely is a word showing something is official, like “That party is definitely happening tonight.” And maybe is a word basically meaning that the future is uncertain, such as, “Maybe that party is happening tonight.” Clearly these British rockers were thinking outside the box, and that is, quite frankly, an understatement.

Ten years after this album was released, scored high on the charts, and turned Oasis into some cultural orgasm, they made a documentary expressing how each song off Definitely Maybe came to be, what they were going through upon writing them, etc. The band told a multitude of stories about how they ate lots of acid, lived on an island, and recorded their debut. It was a true story of rock and roll, searching for success and getting lucky as millions of kids from the 90s put that cassette in their stereos. However, in 1994, I was not one of these kids.

My memories of Oasis go back to very early in my childhood. I can recall afternoons listening to “Wonderwall” on the radio as I built Legos. And I definitely bumped (What’s the Story) Morning Glory all the time throughout high school. But in the fall of 2005, I still had never heard the birth of Oasis. That was until my friend Tyler, who has a tendency to call me out on my insufficient music knowledge (so he says), was shocked at the fact I had never heard their song, “Married with Children”, while we sat around being lazy one day after school. “Married with Children” is the album’s closer, a clean, dual-guitar track with tongue-and-cheek lyrics about an obnoxious girlfriend. It was the sonic equivalent of my first time being drunk in the sense that it provoked feelings I could never explain aloud: the melody, the simplicity, Liam’s half-Pistols/half-Beatles sneer and Noel’s guitar. And this was the end of the album? I had to hear the rest…

The rest of the album is equally as fantastic. If Morning Glory is a concept album about dealing with being a famous rock star, then Definitely Maybe is a concept album about trying to get famous (if the title wasn’t a big enough hint already). A kickoff track like “Rock and Roll Star,” proves that. Noel Gallagher would go on to explain that this song was his call to get out of the environment he felt so trapped within (“I live my life in the city/There ain’t no easy way out”). “In my mind/my dreams are real/No one can understand the way I feel,” Liam Gallagher calls out before the first chorus. There was a common debate amongst my friends whether or not Liam is dreaming of becoming a rock star, or he’s on some amazing acid. Oasis was either a group of poetic geniuses, or just describing something everybody in the world thinks. Either way, we ate it up.

The album only gets better and better and better, which upon my first few listens, I did not think was possible, and the prevalent theme of an artist starving for success is shown within the lyrics. Tracks like “Shakermaker”, “Columbia”, and “Up in the Sky” keep the story going. On “Shakermaker”, possibly one of my favorite Oasis tracks ever, Liam sneers one of the most simplistic but universal lines on the album. “I want to be somebody else/And not know where I’ve been.” This showed the world Oasis was as ordinary and down about their situation as the next guy in line. Aside from that, the lyrics reference Mr. Clean, a British record store where the Gallaghers bought records, and singing to oneself in the car to remain happy. “Columbia” is a psychedelic gem and possibly the trippiest song the band ever wrote. “I can’t tell you the way I feel/Because the way I feel is oh so real to me,” Liam sings, over drawling guitars. We still couldn’t tell if he was talking about his dreams or his acid.

The album contains a few of Oasis’s best known tracks as well. “Live Forever”, as I would soon find out, is one of the most popular love songs in the United Kingdom. Noel even says in the documentary that he reads it on countless lists of the best love songs (evidence?), and the melody does indeed conjure up romantic imagery. However, Liam is singing about leaving the girl, while the feelings they shared will live forever. “Maybe I just want to fly/I want to live/Don’t want to die,” he says, showing he wants to spread his wings and (most likely) get famous by rocking. “Cigarettes and Alcohol” is also on the record, by far one of the best and most honest Oasis singles to date. Filled with sarcasm, a fantastic blues riff that grinds your eardrums and a chorus calling to fame (“You gotta make it happen”), it was a sheer sign that these young British musicians were more talented than one would think.

Two songs that do not really follow the formula of the story are “Supersonic,” my absolute favorite track by the band, and “Digsy’s Diner,” a track about their kooky friend who apparently had an obsession with lasagna. “Supersonic”, however, was the point where I became hooked on Oasis. After listening to its surreal lyrics, amazingly catchy solos, and melodically perfect tune once, I quickly put it on repeat and listened to it about a hundred more times. By the end of the day, I knew the whole damn song (lyrically and on guitar). Noel Gallagher would even go on to call this “his favorite Oasis song,” and the fact that he quickly scribbled it down one afternoon in the studio makes it that much more of a success. If you can honestly listen to that song and not get juiced when the chorus comes on, your musical sensory is clearly fucked. As for “Digsy’s Diner,” well, the chorus of that song sums up all my memories of this album. “These could be the best days of our lives/But I don’t think we’d be living very wise.”

And that’s how it was, looking back on it. I was a senior in high school, ready for college, the parties, graduation, and some kick-ass tunes. Oasis’s Definitely Maybe was the perfect album to discover at that point in time. Liam and Noel Gallagher’s songwriting (back then) was truly brilliant, and the songs were unbelievably catchy. When you listen to this album in retrospect, you can totally understand how Oasis blew up in everybody’s face faster than Dre can say “Hell yeah.” It was the call to go out in the world, grow and prosper. It was a call to arms to go off and do some good with our lives. Hell, if it worked for Oasis, it can work for anybody….as long as they don’t loath one another by the end of it all.

One thing that became apparent very quickly is that most of Duane Denison’s guitar work doesn’t follow a chordal structure but instead croons, drones and screeches through bitter, heavy punk rock. This all helps to create a brooding, multi-layered atmosphere that is fantastically unique.

Denison is Jesus Lizard’s ex-guitar player, which explains quite a lot about the unbelievable work here. Mike Patton’s vocals and screams fit the very individualistic wanderings almost to a tee. The only bands that can compare to the same atmospheric tones are Tool and Led Zeppelin, specifically Jimmy Page’s darker endeavors.

The album opens to feedback and chirps of birds in the background. A slide guitar kicks in and beloved Pink Floyd songs “Mother” and “Shine On You Crazy Diamond” come to mind. “Birdsong” fully opens up at about a minute in with a strong constant drum beat and a groovy bass line. Once the heavily distorted guitar falls into place, the true reason for the atmospheric ideas is found. Denison’s guitar parts are structurally important in supporting Patton’s constantly changing, schizophrenic vocals… and the guitar’s psychotic for a reason. The lead singer is completely out of his mind here, but in the best way possible.

The band’s unique atmosphere becomes fully realized once Patton’s keyboards kick in. Songs such as “Harelip”, “Harlem Clowns”, and “Aktion 13F14″ feature some of the creepiest and loneliest sound samples to come out of the Patton camp, sound samples that would only be found in the darkest regions of the imagination. Frankly, this album sounds like dark, kinky sex that ends with reverberating guitar notes and strange Patton hums.

“Desastre Natural” is the only song that seems to stand out like a sore thumb. The whole albums flows quite well until it hits this road block. The music is a bit more accessible and Patton sings in Spanish… I know, it’s weird, but maybe that’s what the group was going for. I mean, it is called “Desastre Natural,” so maybe they were looking for a natural disaster, one that complimented the album in a strange way. Whatever the case, I think Tomahawk achieved what they set out to accomplish.

Mit Gas is a true auditory oddity. Mike Patton brought together the best players in the metal and punk worlds to create a true home for his visionary vocals. While Faith No More will always be his real playground, Tomahawk is an amazing project that deserves more of his attention. I don’t know why I never took the time to listen to it before. Oh, but thank god I did.

Damaged was released in December 1981. I was 11. At the time, I had no idea who Black Flag was. I had no real clue at the time what hardcore was, despite living in Southern California. I was still a pawn of the industry. Aside from listening to a lot of Iron Maiden, I listened to what radio and MTV played (it was 1982, so it’s all good), and Black Flag wasn’t it (except maybe on 91X, and I just didn’t know it). I wouldn’t come across a Black Flag album until 1983, and even then it was just looking at them in record stores.  I was drawn to the cartoon covers of albums like Slip It In and My War. I often wonder what would have happened had I bought one.

The cover to Damaged is anything but cartoonish. The image of Henry Rollins and his bloodied fist reflecting in a shattered mirror (all faked) has since become iconic; however, in 1981, it was pretty heavy. If a picture is worth a thousand words, this cover image is a pictograph summarizing the aggression, rebellion, angst, anger, and desperation in Greg Ginn’s lyrics.

Damaged was the first full length recording by Black Flag despite playing and recording for three years. By all accounts, it is their best album. It is also the first album to feature Henry Rollins on vocals, a role he maintained until Ginn dissolved the band in 1986. From the very first moments of the album, the band pulls you into the pit with its anthemic “Rise Above”, acting as a call of unification to the youth of America to gather up their strength and not succumb to the system. When Rollins joined Black Flag, he brought a seriousness to the band. Greg Ginn commented in an interview regarding Rollins, “We couldn’t do songs with a sense of humor anymore; he got into the serious way-out poet thing.” Regardless, there are some pretty funny moments on Damaged, the most obvious being “T.V. Party”.

If any song was Black Flag’s pop song, it is probably “T.V. Party”. I think it was even used in the closing credits of a Simpsons episode once. A song ridiculing (or maybe slightly praising) the hedonistic lifestyle of the homebody isolationist, the best part of the song has got to be when the band members scream out their favorite shows. This also grants a brief trip down memory lane, as I recall watching all those shows. Today when bands cover this particular song, the show shout-outs are a bit more contemporary.

Humor exists elsewhere on the album in songs like “Thirsty and Miserable” and “Six Pack”. In fact, the band screams almost as much about booze and alcohol as they do about the system. However, upon repeated listens, the humor in those songs is shed to show the seriousness of the issue at hand: Fat, drunk and stupid is no way to go through life.

As with titular roar of “Rise Above” and anger in “Spray Paint” and “No More”, “Police Story” is another very anti-authoritarian song that has gone on to become a Black Flag classic. However, rebellion is not the only theme. If it were, this album would not have lasted nearly as long as it has; rebellion is only part of it. Songs like “Gimmie Gimmie Gimmie” and “Depression” hint at far deeper issues, as do both versions of the title track “Damaged”, the original version of which closes the album. This album captures all the pain and anger associated with many people who feel they have no control over what is happening around them.  In today’s world, this is all the more important as there is a huge potential for a large part of this country’s youth to become disenfranchised and pissed at the system in much the same way that American punks did in the ’80s and UK punks did in the ’70s. If that does come to pass, let’s hope that they can produce music as definitive as Damaged.

There’s this band you don’t know about. There’s this band, and they’re called Pavement. There’s this band, and they’re called Pavement, and they have this album called Brighten The Corners that came out, for you, last year. You would never know about it because you don’t have a cool, older sibling telling you what to listen to, there’s no good college radio in your fly-splat town, you don’t have a car (yet) to go see concerts an hour away in Milwaukee, and frankly, you are a poser. It’s 1998, and you’re just 13-years-old with a whole world of terrible decisions ahead of you. But that’s fine. SM would toast to your creeping disaffection.

Before delving into Brighten The Corners, I should tell you that Pavement actually has at the very least two critically acclaimed albums that were released before it: Slanted and Enchanted and Crooked Rain, Crooked Rain. I bought the former in college and borrowed the latter around the same time. I didn’t like them much. Rather, I didn’t understand them, which led me down a path toward hostile, contrarian thinking: “I’ll be hip if I say, ’I hate Pavement.’” People will think I possess some rare, overlooked knowledge about this band that somehow makes them terrible.” Nothing could be further from the truth. Pavement is a brilliant band, and Brighten The Corners is the album that brought me to this realization.

Lately, there was this gnawing suspicion that my animosity toward Pavement was growing increasingly stale and narrow-minded. It was time I tried a new track into their catalog with something newer, I guessed. After some cursory research, I went down to the record store and bought Brighten The Corners. I put it on my player, let the needle hit the groove, and… and finally… this door opened, flooded with the sounds of hundreds of bands in my subconscious radiating something fresh, playful, and new. From the first whammy-bar jerk on the tonic in “Stereo”, the song has color, presence, and dimension. Imagine this music is pouring into this void inside me once occupied with ignorance and sophomoric opposition. The tossed-off attitude coupled with the straightforward rock attached to the wry and witty lyrics lit squeezed dopamine through my body. Its abrupt length just begs for it to go on for minutes more. Kid, this is just the first track.

After their last release, Wowee Zowee, Pavement’s drummer, Bob Nastanovich, said of this album, “We were going to go into people’s rooms and brighten their corners with music.” Producer Mitch Easter, famous for R.E.M.’s early production, owned the Drive-In Studio in North Carolina, and Pavement recorded the entire album quickly, many of the tracks being first takes. The preparation and streamlined process of the recording rears its pretty head several times through the record such as the laconic and reflective “Old To Begin” or the breezy acid-pop “Shady Lane/J. Vs. S.” And while the band ambles along deftly with guitar-centric alt jams, it’s Pavement’s lyrics that resonate with me above all else.

I know you don’t listen to lyrics now, but start. When you chew on Malkmus’ and Kannberg’s lyrics, some of them sweetly dissolve while others are more tenacious. “A voice coach taught me to sing, he couldn’t teach me to love,” Malkmus muses just a little off-key. “I want to grow old, dying doesn’t meet my expectations,” he puts it simply. But book-ending these epithets you’ll find surrealist poetry masked in slacker gospel, and that dichotomy is what makes Pavement’s music so limitlessly awesome.

“Type Slowly” is a benchmark example of the underlying emotion that courses through Pavement’s songs. The same guy that made tossed-off jokes about Geddy Lee’s voice is now singing, “echelon your dreams and they’ll come true” and “cherish your memorized weakness, fashioned from a manifesto.” This kind of reflection on age and self is something you’ll need in the near future. The willingness to accept the seemingly bizarre will get you miles. Just a few more brief notes.

Lead singer Stephen Malkmus controls, to a large extent, Pavement’s aesthetic, but here on Brighten The Corners, fellow founding member Scott Kannberg (Spiral Stairs to anyone who asks) contributes two solid gold tracks couched in some more great sounds of the college-rock ’80s and ’90s and tinged with classic rock. “Date W/ IKEA” and “Passat Dream” show off Kannberg’s distorted vocals and offer variance still within the same sonic and thematic column as the rest of the album. It was pretty cool back then to be less impressed with his work, so go ahead and feel this out for yourself.

Permeating this album is a dissatisfaction with who you are, where you are, what you are, why you are, and what you can do that will make you happy in spite of this. Existential dread is not something you’re too concerned about now (don’t worry, Tiffany totally likes you, but you won’t go to The Mummy together for another year), but when you realize your middle-class white male issues, you’ll be glad you have “We Are Underused” in your back pocket. If you sing the final strains of the song while driving along Wisconsin back roads in your forthcoming ’93 Ford Taurus, you’ll feel on top of a world you don’t quite understand. Keep driving, and listen all the way to the end, and pull over somewhere quiet and listen to “Fin” and all its angst and beauty as Malkmus’ guitar solo fades out on to the end of the album.

But you won’t hear this for years–12 to be exact. Maybe this letter will cause you to listen to it sooner, but honestly? Don’t do it. It’s me who wishes I was there now, not you.

There’s a magic to the moment you finally love a band, and anyone who says he or she was with every band from the beginning is a lying sack of shit. We all miss/avoid trends, we all get on wrong paths (you will have countless wrong paths), and in 2010, many of us, including myself, are becoming slaves to a revisionist history being written by the zeitgeist molders and the hegemonic media, so much so that when they tell you what to listen to, you co-opt that belief as if it truly was your own. How can you know if you even “like” something anymore? Before you started reading Rolling Stone or Pitchfork, there was just something in you telling you that Led Zeppelin was awesome, and no one can ever deny you that.

It took me years to have Pavement sink into my subconscious and for me to like them. I can’t promise you that it was as organic as the first time you heard “Black Dog”, but, I can say, with truthiness, “I love Pavement.” Sure, it may have come through an onslaught of exposure, seeing them on Top 10 lists every year, being ridiculed by some friends, or even the more disturbing fact that I now like them “because I’m supposed to like them.” But it’s there. Finally.

Point is, Jeremy, that the future is fucked up, hyper-real, and no one knows what to do here. In the 90′s, Pavement knew exactly what to do, and they did it well. I think I like knowing that they did something perfectly back then, and part of me wants you to experience some of that, so I can experience it. (I know, could I be more self-serving at this point in the letter?) But the other part of me wants you to listen to whatever the hell you want, and don’t worry about a thing, about being cool. Just do what you want, man. These aren’t new tropes, but they’re incredibly important ones. And Pavement’s ethos might just be all you need to get you through high school.

For now, I’m going to listen to “Gold Soundz”, which reminds me of you listening to “Black Dog”, which is indescribably cool on a whole variety of levels.

Later dude,

Future Jeremy

While I’d known about the New York trio since I was about seven, my first Beastie Boys album experiences date back to fifth grade, when Hello Nasty was brand new and Licensed to Ill was becoming perceived as a classic. As a result, these were the first two albums I ever heard from them, introducing me to the Beasties’ rare breed of intellectual hardcore and hip-hop. On top of that, my neighbor was always bumping Ill Communication before school and during intense sessions of skateboarding. Also, VH1 was constantly babbling about how Paul’s Boutique was the album that saved the Beastie Boys’ career, and To the Five Burroughs was released by the time I understood how rad these guys truly were. Hell, I even had Some Old Bullshit from my days as a punk rocker when I wore Misfits wristbands. But somehow, there was one album that I did not hear until much, much later.

Around the time I got into college and into trouble, I spent a lot of an isolated summer downloading infinite amounts of torrents. One day, I decided it was time to actually own every Beastie Boys album. Most of them I had heard at this point in time, but one  I had not heard was Check Your Head, the Beastie Boys’ hidden masterpiece. This record would go on to become my favorite record by the posse, serve as the soundtrack to several college dance parties, and turn into the definitive Bible for what I thought was possible with music. There is probably a good reason it’s such an elusive record. For one, the album only contains one single that was widely accepted (“So What’cha Want”), while the other two were sort of brushed aside from the charts and received little airplay. The album was also released in 1992, the height of grunge, alternative rock and Seattle, so people were probably not as stoked on the newest white hip-hop release (thanks, Vanilla Ice) as they were about a hip-hop record like The Chronic. Too bad, though, since this is by far the Beastie Boys’ most creative, innovative, and underrated album.

For one, just look at the cover of Check Your Head. In a truly punk rock depiction of the Three Wise Monkeys (see no evil, speak no evil, hear no evil), the Beasties look their rawest: sitting on the curb with instruments, awaiting their next gig. The Beastie Boys returned to their more punk rock side on this album, but didn’t abandon the hip-hop personas they had achieved on Licensed to Ill and Paul’s Boutique.

“Jimmy James” starts off the album, with a classic Cheap Trick sample (“This next song is the first song on our new album”) from Live at Budokan. The song expresses the band’s love for Jimi Hendrix, and the production on this track is some of the best on the album, while the Beastie Boys sound genuinely excited as they rap over the Hendrix-influenced beat. “Funky Boss” follows, which is, well, funky, even more so than the Seinfeld interludes. The classic bass opener into the chorus will always put a smile on my face and make me sing out, “Funky boss, funky boss, get off my back!” “Pass the Mic” follows and is possibly one of the most complex rap songs ever written. The beat changes up quite a few times, but the Beasties have no problem keeping the rhyming intelligent, the beat raw, and everything meshing together in a beautiful mess, including a clip from the boy’s heroes, Bad Brains.

“Gratitude” was where they started to bring out the rock and roll guns again, with a guitar riff so diabolically catchy, it’s no surprise that it’s now a highlight of their live repertoire (which kicked ass at Bonnaroo 2009). By far one of the best sampled tracks on the album is “Finger Licking Good” with its mythical flute loop and quick-paced bongos keeping the rhythm, as well as the beat dropping for a quick clip of Bob Dylan’s “Just Like Tom Thumb’s Blues” to close things out. Then there is finally “So What’cha Want,” the most acclaimed and possibly the finest track on the album. The Beasties say some of the best lines of their career (“I’m as cool as a cucumber in a bowl of hot sauce” and “I got news for your crews, you’ll be sucking like a leech”), all accompanied by one of their grittiest beats to date.

After that, though, the album gets really unique, and one can truly see why the Beastie Boys are so influential. “Time for Living” follows, a truly magnificent punk rock number that would later become the opener to their live shows, only to get the crowd into a mosh pit frenzy reminiscent of their early hardcore days. It’s songs like this that show how hard this band really can rock.  One of their trippiest numbers, “Something’s Got to Give,” shortly follows, complete with Peter Frampton-style vocals and spacey guitar progressions. Both “Pow” and “In 3’s,” being funky instrumentals, really spaced out the last portion of the album and somehow wound up scoring a scene in the Larry Clark movie Kids. The album closes with a track “Namaste,” another funky instrumental to bring it all to a fantastic finale. In my mind though, “Professor Booty” is the perfect and true finale to the album, with the line that changed my life forever: “Life ain’t nothing but a good groove/A good mix tape to put you in the right mood.” It all says so much.

I’d always known I loved the Beastie Boys, but Check Your Head made me truly appreciate them as a collective unit. The three MCs that are Ad-Rock, MCA, and Mike D. have been doing this game for almost 30 years, and along the way they have yet to truly disappoint their audience. Check Your Head was the point where they went from a bunch of lucky dudes to full-blown, talented musicians. On this album, they weren’t trying to be on the cutting edge of rap, or gather their old fan base back, or  change the world. The Beastie Boys did what any group of talented people would do when making something: They enjoyed themselves. They had the money, the fame, and the talent, so for once they could make the record they truly wanted to do. Check Your Head might not change your life, but it’ll definitely make you realize that the Beastie Boys were important, are important, and will go down in history as one of hip-hop and punk’s most significant acts.

The songs on The Harder They Come were all written and recorded between 1967 and 1972, with the lion’s share performed, written and/or produced by Jimmy Cliff. Legendary “king of ska”, Desmond Dekker makes an appearance as do Toots and the Maytals, Scotty, the Melodians and the Slickers. Cliff and Leslie Kong, Cliff’s manager/producer and one of the most influential people responsible for the international success of Jamaican music, produced the majority of the album’s 12 tracks. Other legendary Jamaican producers Derrick Herriot and Byron Lee produced Scotty and the Slickers respectively.  Looking back with the benefit of aural hindsight we have all heard the majority, if not all, of these songs since this album’s release, but at the time this album was a watershed event.

Scotty’s track “Draw Your Brakes”, produced by Derrick Herriot, was a deejay arrangement of Keith & Tex’s “Stop That Train”.  The song features a mellow, groove and is almost dizzying at points as it loops around Scotty’s proto-dub vocals. Scotty’s singing style pre-dates what would become “sinjay”, a style of singing that became popular in late ’70s Jamaica, similar to a toaster. Its name is derived from a conjugation of deejay and singer. The song was later used in another film, Guy Ritchie’s Snatch.

The other single producer credit, Byron Lee, had been involved in the Jamaican music scene pre-dating ska in the early ’50s. His role had evolved from band leader to become producer, entrepreneur and touring/recording artist by the time the Slickers recorded their now legendary “Johnny Too Bad” in 1970. The song, a dark description of the lives of a rude boy and a serious warning to those romanticizing the lifestyle, would go on to become one of the most celebrated songs recorded in Jamaica. From the beginning, controversy surrounded the song regarding songwriting credits with history eventually pointing towards band member Trevor Wilson being both the author of and protagonist in “Johnny Too Bad”. When I hear this track I often think of Bob Marley’s “Johnny Was” as the perfect follow-up, topically if not musically at least.

Leslie Kong was one of the earliest and most successful producers in Jamaica from the days of ska through reggae. Kong was behind Bob Marley’s earliest recordings “Judge Not” and “One Cup of Coffee” and was Jimmy Cliff’s producer, manager and mentor until his unexpected death in 1971. Four tracks on The Harder They Come feature the gentle caress of Kong’s production.

His work on the Maytal’s “Sweet and Dandy”, a song about a poor rural wedding, carefully mixes the vocal talents of the three Maytals with backing vocals provided by the Dynamics. On “Pressure Drop”, one of the Maytal’s most popular songs (and covered by the likes of the Clash and the Specials) is demonstrative of the call-and-response songs often typical of their more spiritual songs while at the same time being harmony driven like “Sweet and Dandy”.

The Melodians “Rivers of Babylon” is an interpretation of Psalm 137 re-written for a black audience. The spiritual message behind the song is undeniable and through the delicate treatment by both producer Kong and the sweet harmonies of the Melodians, the psalm was transformed into a Rastafarian prayer for a return to Zion. Despite the original source’s violent end, the Melodians chose to end their song on the more positive and truly spiritual note.

The final track produced by Leslie Kong was Desmond Dekker’s smash “007 (Shanty Town)”. Dekker’s classic calls to the rude boys, thug-like hoods who shot their way through the shanty-towns of Jamaica’s poorest neighborhoods. “Shanty Town” contains mentions of hip elements like James Bond and the Rat Pack and at times can be a minor glorification of the rudeboy culture, however, in the end the song warns against the lifestyle and its dangers. “Shanty Town” along with another hit “Israelites” would propel Dekker to stardom in the U.K. Desmond Dekker would eventually achieve a level of influence comparable to Bob Marley.

Leslie Kong was more than a producer to Jimmy Cliff. The man not only “discovered” Cliff as a young 14 year old kid singing in Kong’s studio streetfront, Kong mentored him for his entire career. When Kong died from a fatal heart attack in the summer of 1971 Cliff was at a loss both personally and professionally. It was during this time that Cliff wrote “Sitting In Limbo” and “Many Rivers to Cross”, two of Jimmy Cliff’s most intimate and hauntingly personal recordings. “Many Rivers to Cross” is one of the most beautiful and spiritual pieces in Cliff’s entire catalog. Cliff sings with the deeply personal cry of a lost soul searching for answers; the confusion in his personal life paralleled in song. I recall a conversation with bassist David Hood about the “Sitting In Limbo” recording session when Jimmy Cliff worked with Muscle Shoals Sound. He described Cliff as literally lost without Kong and this song was one of the first attempts of Cliff to deal with it. After years of being produced by Leslie Kong, Jimmy Cliff decided to continue forward choosing to produce himself rather than replace Kong.

Jimmy Cliff’s “You Can Get It If You Really Want” opens the album up (and appears again near the end). The Cliff penned tune captures the author’s (and film character’s) sentiments of rising up out of the dust and mud of the shanty towns and making something of oneself with the right attitude and determination. It also symbolizes the recent internal conflicts he had been suffering after the loss of mentor Leslie Kong and his strength and determination to keep going. Of course in the film the character takes the criminal path, however, lyrically this is a very positive and uplifting song. The original recording was by Desmond Dekker, at the insistence of Kong. Dekker’s version became a hit in both Jamaica and the U.K. When it came time to record his version for the film two years later, Cliff took the exact same recording of Dekker’s original single and simply removed Dekker’s vocal tracks, recording his own in their place.

The fourth and final track recorded and produced by Jimmy Cliff was the title track “The Harder They Come”. Like “You Can Get It…”, it appears on the album twice. Much along the same theme as “You Can Get It If You Really Want”, “The Harder They Come” is a triumphant song of carrying on and overcoming the odds. It was also taken on by rude boys because of the song’s protagonist being a kid from the ghetto rising up and taking “what’s his”. The song both parallels the movie’s theme and is one of Cliff’s most autobiographical songs. Its placement in the middle of the album, following the sweetness of the Maytals and just prior to the tragic warnings in “Johnny Too Bad” and “Shanty Town”, gives the song an entirely different feel than when it appears as the album’s positive and uplifting closer.  This song has gone on to be as synonymous with Cliff as “Legalize It” is with Peter Tosh and has been covered by bands as diverse as Madness, Joe Jackson and Jerry Garcia.

To say that this is a great album is an understatement. This album is a perfect starter album; an album that you would give someone to introduce them to a style or genre; Kind of Blue or Headhunters would be ideal jazz starters for example. It’s one of those albums that can be interactive with the listener (especially when combined with the film) drawing them in to all the lyrics and intricacies of the melodies or it can be perfectly content resting in the background, providing a free flowing easy going soundtrack to your activities. The Harder They Come is time capsule and is the perfect album to introduce early ska and reggae to somebody. Everybody knows someone who has Bob Marley’s Legend (and if they are really feeling groovy, its follow up Natural Mystic) and that is their total exposure to reggae (not counting any Shaggy tunes of course). Give this album to them. In fact, give this album to anyone who thinks that ska came from reggae and not the other way around. It’s not only a great listen, but a wonderful history lesson.

This is why I chose Elvis Costello this go around. Being a huge fan of bands like They Might be Giants, you would think that I would own an Elvis Costello album or two (he has over 30 for crap’s sake), but that isn’t the case. I haven’t even heard an entire album of his all the way through. I decided to start at the beginning and listen to his debut album, My Aim is True, through the suggestion of fellow CoS writer Dan Caffrey. After several listens, I’m completely happy with my decision and Dan’s suggestion.

I know that I like Elvis Costello. I have heard songs of his many times before—“Radio Radio” and “Alison” for example—but have just never sat down with an album. My Aim is True is fantastic to me for a couple of reasons. One being that this is Costello’s debut album. The first album he ever recorded. You couldn’t find a stronger way to bring your style to the world. It’s one of the strongest debut albums I have ever heard. Second reason it’s fantastic is now I can see where his influence goes. This album shows me why They Might be Giants sound the way they do in certain songs. It shows me definitively (as if I didn’t know before) where The Hold Steady partially get their sound and look. I really enjoy being able to look back and see where an artist starts and who nowadays tries to start in the same place.

I love that My Aim is True has all the urgency and power of the British punk movement combined with ’50s and ’60s pop aesthetic. Songs like “Miracle Man”, “No Dancing”, and “Alison” push that pop aesthetic to the forefront and create fantastic doo-wop and R&B melodies. It’s similar to what Jamie Lidell is doing nowadays to an extent. Taking the ’50s and ’60s ideas and adding the modern spin. Then he has songs like “Less Than Zero”, “Mystery Dance”, and “Sneaky Feelings” that borrow from 50′s rockabilly. “Less Than Zero” is one of my favorites on the album. The opening sounds like the same chord intro as “Twist and Shout” but stays more even keel than The Isley Brothers’ and Beatles’ hit. Another favorite is rockabilly heavy “Mystery Dance”. The chorus of “I can’t do it anymore and I’m not satisfied” with accompanied guitar riff is absolutely spot on, and the wailing piano in the background makes me want to shake all over the dance floor.

As I listened through the album, I was hard pressed to find a song that I didn’t like. The version I listened to was the 1993 Rykodisc reissue, which includes three bonus tracks plus six demos, two of which are album tracks, and the others were unreleased. Even the demos on this version are good. Most of them are just Costello on guitar and nothing else but vocals. The demo for “Mystery Dance” sounds like you’re sitting on Costello’s front porch while he stomps his foot on the boards and welcomes you to sing along with the chorus.

In the end, this feature does still make me feel a bit moronic but also happy that it gives me an excuse to listen to these albums. Not that I need an excuse other than that they are fantastic albums, but when you have a deadline, it makes it easier to get motivated. My Aim is True is a fantastic record, and it definitely makes me want to start a collection of as many Elvis Costello albums as I can get my hands on. I can now add “Alison”, “Less Than Zero”, and “Mystery Dance” to my list of favorite songs. Check it out if you haven’t before and are a fan of any of the bands I mentioned. It’ll be worth it. Thanks to Mr. Caffrey for the suggestion!

I hate that song, I hate its overplayed status, and I was in utter agreement, but before I could interject, I was suddenly hit with the realization that this wretched single’s origins were unfamiliar to me–I had never heard Empire from start to finish. I cringed at my lack of insight, and when this article was assigned to me, I took it as a challenge, a chance at redemption for both me and this band I may have assumed too much about.

Queensrÿche is probably greatly responsible for influencing some of my favorite prog metal outfits, most noticeably Dream Theater and Altered State. The overall mood of Empire can be best described as a series of  songs Queensrÿche fans probably shook their head at, the vibe of overtly ’80s hair bands and balladry seeped from “Best I Can”, “The Thin Line”, and the other highly-popular power rock single on Empire, “Jet City Woman”. Throughout the course of what is considered a conceptual trilogy of songs on Empire, the biggest impact nowadays borders sternly nostalgic, while upon initial release it was probably considered much stronger than it appears, probably due to the union of stellar production and pop sensibility. “Della Brown” comes across like Living Colour in parts, very ’90s cusp in a sort of way that makes you go, “How interesting.”

Empire feels, through its duration, a little less like a stand-alone great, and more like a safe zone stepping stone away from the direction of Mindcrime, or the bands it gave musings to. I am content to believe that without Queensrÿche, so much good music would not exist as a whole, so I cannot sidestep it any longer. The title track here is dark and disturbing, while on the flip side, “Hand On Heart” and the majority of the latter half is pretty hit or miss. “Silent Lucidity” is a genuine radio-friendly diatribe like “Faithfully” with an edgier overtone, and the entirety of the record, though bearing decent portions, targets a mark far from the band’s true potential.

Queensrÿche, in my humble opinion, is a different breed of ballads and balls altogether. Queensrÿche is for those who consider Alan Parsons or ELO a bit too far out for their radio stations–they are a safe choice to name-drop in a hipster round table on the evolution of modern song structure, or how Tool lost its animal instinct (did anyone else think 10,000 Days was a Lateralus clone?). I am totally down with Operation: Mindcrime as a legitimate concept album–the story arc was captivating, and truthfully, if I were not fearful of some studio exec neutering the production, I’d love to see a film adaptation made. Unfortunately, Empire seems a bit too much like the same old same in its given time period, and that really defies whatever Queensrÿche might’ve been (don’t even get me started on American Soldier…ugh). additional creativity and vigor is replaced with something akin to a less female-oriented Journey.

Empire was a redeemable one-up recording, but it pales in comparison to previous efforts, and its dated atmosphere leaves much to be desired nowadays.

Up until last summer my personal experience with The Band had been limited. I knew of it, and had heard “The Weight” hundreds of times on baby-boomer radio, but other than that my only experience with its work had been as Dylan’s backing band. The infamous Basement Tapes had lived on my record player during my last years in college, as did live recordings from the late ’60s, but any albums by The Band itself had yet to be unfurled. Last summer, I decided that needed to change, and I started from the beginning with Music from Big Pink.

To be in a backing band, especially Bob Dylan’s, you have to be far beyond skilled. You have to be able to play his songs flawlessly, as well as deal with any curve balls he, or the audience, may throw at you. Dylan needed a band that could take his Woody Guthrie folk songs and make them into something that hadn’t been heard before, something that could be his. In short, he needed songwriters, not just musicians, and The Band took the challenge, pulling it off in a game-changing way. The Band didn’t know it then, but the work it did would also be its own introduction.

That’s just how they were, though, crafting seemingly flawless songs that would make other musicians wish they would have thought of that. With a little help from Dylan on a few tracks, Music from Big Pink would see The Band’s sound coming to fruition as it did what came naturally, what it’d been doing since the beginning; only this time it was The Band’s songs, and no one else would be in the spotlight. The Band reinvented Dylan, and in doing so found its own identity that would give its debut a lasting presence.

The record is musically spotless, cementing the “where-have-you-been” feelings that come with discovering a classic record so late. The guys involved are masters, with every verse, solo, bridge, and so on flowing perfectly and effortlessly. Some of the 60′s most iconic tracks are found on the record, from the groovy opening keys on “Chest Fever”, which has made its way into almost every movie about that time period, to, of course, “The Weight”, which has become a prized piece of Americana. Beyond the obvious, though, is a record filled with stories and gospel country rock. The Band leans heavily on the organ for soul, be it emotional on “Tears of Rage” or just to accent as on “To Kingdom Come”. Those same keys go on to define the core of its sound, adding more R&B to the southern rock.

With tracks  “Long Black Veil” and “We Can Talk”, it makes sense why Dylan would have chosen The Band. This record was only the start, but it shows you the missing link between the sound of young, naive Dylan to the legend we know now. The sound is smooth, and even as an old recording, the music hits like a hammer on the nail, as on “This Wheel’s on Fire” and album-closer “I Shall Be Released”. It’s a rock record for the purists who love the old R&B influences that make “In a Station” feel so right.

For me, though, this was another record that opened my mind, and sits with the few others that are perfect from start to finish. Big Pink has always been required classic rock listening for any audiophile; I just happened to take the roundabout way of getting there. Like picking apart a head of lettuce, with every layer removed, it just keeps getting better. Listening, you can’t ignore how The Band’s sound has become the foundation of rock music, and anything else, no matter how great, feels like an imitation. Some of today’s best music comes from those imitations, though, and I wouldn’t have it any other way.

But this description hardly does justice to an album that’s been credited with shaping the alternative hip-hop genre. Truthfully, one could fill a few shelves extolling this album’s many virtues, and indeed, hip-hop fans and aficionados alike have pored over every note of this classic. Track by track, the album flows like few in the genre.

Opener “Excursions” begins with impossibly deep bass, and its languid pace sets the tone for much of the album. Almost immediately, Phife and Q-Tip establish their quicksilver wordplay and verse trading. The more upbeat “Buggin’ Out” follows. Like its predecessor, this song is propelled by a vivid bass line and a blistering vocal performance from Phife.

Theory also features some of Tribe’s most trenchant socio-political critiques, particularly on the track “The Infamous Date Rape,” which features appropriately sinister sounding instrumentation. “Rap Promoter” and “Show Business” both critique music industry fakery, all over bass and ephemeral keyboards. On this album, the flow of the MCs provides the melody, a counterpoint to the upright bass plucked by the legendary Ron Carter and the jazzy instrumentation.

Though the band eschewed the jazz rap label, some of the songs here deftly merge the sounds of jazz with the swagger of hip-hop. This is most obvious on “Jazz (We Got)”. An unassuming keyboard figure creates a mellow vibe, and at one point, the song lyrically alludes to The Doors’ “Light My Fire”. The loungey-sounding “Verses from the Abstract” traffics in dissonant jazz keyboards. “Vibes and Stuff” is as laid as back that title implies and features laconic rhymes from Q-Tip and Phife.

The album closes with the epic posse song “Scenario”, featuring (among others) Busta Rhymes and Charlie Brown of Leaders of the New School. Like the rest of the album, this anthemic song never feels out of date and can still get a club full of people to sing along with every lyric.

Almost two decades on from its release, this 14-song collection doesn’t merely age well. It brims with energy, wit, and the brash sound of geniuses at work.

But who cares about one of the longest-running sitcoms and a President of the most influential countries of Africa – especially when you’re six years old in New York? When I wasn’t in school, I was playing man-hunt and swinging on playgrounds. And when I wasn’t doing that, I was glued to vinyl records and watching cartoons.

So, you could imagine my surprise when I flipped through the channels and discovered an extremely well-written and catchy tune by a man that resembled a younger-version of Buddy Holly from The Crickets. I later learned that this was not Buddy Holly – but a man by the name of Rivers Cuomo. And that the song I had just discovered was an ode to the man I mistook as Rivers (the aptly titled “Buddy Holly”). So I convinced my mother to drive me to Sam Goody the day the album was released. I was one of four people (and certainly the youngest) standing outside before the store opened. When the doors opened, I searched frantically for the bright blue cover. Once I had Weezer in my hand and gave it a listen, I knew that my musical styles would become more progressive.

Sixteen years later, Weezer still stands as one of my favorite bands. I have seen them four times already and have tickets to see ‘em another two or three times this summer. I also have Weezer stickers on close to everything I own. But more importantly, I also have every album ever released. At least, now I do.

It wasn’t until two weeks ago that I decided to listen to Weezer’s releases in chronological order – only to find out that there is a pretty huge gap between the band’s blue album and green album. Yes, I had everything the band has ever released – except Pinkerton. How a super-fan like me overlooked one of the most critically acclaimed albums is beyond me. Imagine that parent that accidentally brings home a doll instead of the child. While you sympathize with that parent, you are still disappointed with them.

So, once again, I went back to the record store with the same wide-eyed enthusiasm I had 16 years earlier – and picked up an album dating back to 1996. I grabbed the CD and threw it on. I was amazed by how much of my life was wasted by not having this album.

Before listening to Pinkerton in its entirety, what little I knew was this: With the exception of “El Scorcho” and “Why Bother”, the album is generally untouched live. Here is what I discovered and have concluded from this gem:

On one hand, I can absolutely see why Cuomo and Co. leaves this album locked up tight. While the songs off of Weezer (1994) exposes Rivers’ emotional side (“In The Garage”, “Only In Dreams”), the 11 songs here bring out a darker side of Cuomo – a side reminiscent of his solo material. “Tired of Sex”, the album’s opener, is a raunchy alternative song with lyrics that suggest self-wallowing and an ever-growing state of depression. “Pink Triangle” explains that love isn’t always what is seems – and that is the saddest theme to any song, right?

Instrumentally, the album is not like the early alternative of Weezer (1994) or the radio-friendly singles from its 2001 (or, green) counterpart. Instead, the raw emotion of Rivers’ vocals is complemented with the raw, garage-rock sound iconic of the decade. “No Other One” and “Why Bother” are the two songs that stand out instrumentally, incorporating the shrill wail of guitars and fast-paced drums.

“The Good Life” is one of the most underrated songs on both the album and in the Weezer discography. A number that opens with a simplistic and catchy guitar riff and “Yeahhhhhhh check me” in a smooth, velvety voice is definitely one of the more light-hearted moments on the entire album. The song then goes into an Earth-rattling bass riff, the same catchy riff and synced vocals. Take a listen to the chorus and bridge of the song — the two highlight Weezer’s expertise in executing the album.

Even my personal least favorite track on the album, “Falling For You”, is better than most songs I have on my iTunes and is part of the memorable formula Rivers and Co. bleed into every track.

Oh well, even the collector often overlooks treasure.

Of course, I also knew the song “Creep”, as did anyone who had a pulse in 1993. And I think I grew to hate it for the same reason the band grew to hate it: overexposure. I’m sure it made an appearance on many a mix tape compiled by a 12-year-old peer who had no idea its lyrics were about stalking. But apart from those few songs–and apart from the fact that I’ve clearly seen Clueless one too many times-–I’m a veritable Radiohead virgin.

On the other hand, it’s likely I’ve heard a number of Radiohead songs, especially if I’ve left the radio tuned to Chicago’s Q101 for more than a half hour. Here, I’ll remind myself of the argument I draw upon when people tell me they’ve never heard a single Led Zeppelin or Bob Dylan song (both have happened, by the way): “You probably know quite a few of their songs,” I tell them. “You just don’t know that you know them.” When it comes to Radiohead, then, perhaps I’m not a virgin so much as I’m “everything-but” girl.

Horrible analogies aside, it’s mostly by default that I’ve chosen Radiohead as the subject of this article. One of my students had written an essay about Radiohead, and so, in much of a “hey-that-sounds-good” spirit, I asked him which album he would recommend for this little project.

Which brings us to The Bends. I’ll say straight away that I now know why, despite the possibility that several of Radiohead’s songs are already buried within my subconscious, I’ve never become a fan: I just can’t get behind Thom Yorke’s voice. He sounds like a bit of a wienie, not to mention the fact that his voice evokes images of men who are skinnier than I am, which only makes me crabby. (I have no idea what he looks like, nor will I Google him (just to keep this fun), but I’m guessing he pulls off skinny jeans better than the hippest hipster hanging out in Chicago’s Logan Square).

I’m aware that the voice complaint is a fairly irrational prejudice. I’ve never liked Eric Clapton for the exact same reason.

The good news, though, is that I wouldn’t say Yorke’s voice necessarily grates. It just doesn’t appeal to me. And the other good news is that the music itself rocks pretty hard.

After listening to the album in its entirety several times, the first note I jotted down was “beautiful riffs.” The aforementioned opening strains of “My Iron Lung” serve as a perfect example: What an amazing hook. It’s the sort of riff that gets inside you, note by note.

The album opener, “Planet Telex”, offers a bit of a psychedelic, keyboard-heavy intro, and, from what I can tell, this song might epitomize some of Radiohead’s signature tactics: a musical slowdown at the bridge and a good deal of electric distortion. The second–and title–track earns my vote for best on the album, even though I’m not sure what “the bends” refers to. Google is telling me that this term could refer to a scuba diver having oxygen bubbles in his or her blood vessels, which would fit the theme of the lyrics.

I consider the third track, “High and Dry”, to be the second-best song on the album. Its melody is very beautiful, and the fact that I love this song says quite a bit, considering this track also serves as one of the biggest showcases for Mr. Yorke’s… gentle-sounding voice, what with its “Don’t leave me hiiiigh, don’t leave me dryyyy” chorus.

But wait just a minute. Confession here: I broke down and looked up this album’s entry on Wikipedia, and supposedly Thom Yorke said of this song, “It’s not bad … it’s very bad.” Well, whoops. Apparently this is one of the band’s more mainstream tracks, so I guess that means it’s supposed to suck. I disagree. Either way, Mr. Yorke, if I could paraphrase Ben Stiller in Reality Bites, so sorry for having stepped over some line in the sands of coolness with you. The fact that everyone likes it does not mean it inherently sucks. And hey, I’d never heard it until a few days ago. Oh, and P.S., I’m completely uncool, so it all works out.

Moving on to “Fake Plastic Trees”, I must say: How could you not love a song that rhymes “green plastic watering can” with “fake Chinese rubber plant?” It’s impossible. Do I know what this song is about? Not really, and I suspect Radiohead doesn’t, either. In that way, perhaps it’s their “I Am the Walrus”.

“[Nice Dream]” slows things down just a little too much for me. Moreover, if it weren’t for knowing the song title, I would have had no idea what Yorke was singing in the chorus. Again, it’s that wimpy voice–not so bothersome on some songs, wholly annoying on others. On that note, a friend informed me that Yorke sounds different on this album from all of the band’s other records. Maybe I’ll research this assertion for myself in the future.

The opening of “Just” contains some simple plucks on the guitar leading into a heavier hook, creating an infectious groove. And what can be said about “My Iron Lung”? I’ve already talked about the opening arpeggio. Layering that with an increasingly urgent drum, the arrangement is just lovely. Too bad the song devolves into intentional confusion about two-thirds in. It takes away from what was built so promisingly in the opening two-thirds, rendering the track only about 66%-awesome. At least the noise always gives way to that sexy riff once again.

“Bullet Proof … I Wish I Was”, for me, somehow evokes thoughts of The Doors’ brand of black magic. The final track, “Street Spirit (Fade Out)”, contains a hardcore arpeggio, one that fits the song’s overall tone of longing. Seriously, I’m becoming a little obsessed with the guy who’s plucking out all those sounds.

Am I going to become a follower of Radiohead? It’s not likely. Will I queue up The Bends in future party mixes and listen to it while grading papers? Absolutely. And will I declare that I’m not worthy of guitarist Jonny Greenwood if I ever meet him? You know it.

Artist admiration sans devotion is akin to your relationship with that one high-school acquaintance: You probably won’t call her up and ask her to hang this weekend, but you’ll gladly be her lab partner in Monday’s chemistry class.

I’ll just come right out and say it: I’ve never been able to get into Sonic Youth. As a result, I’ve never listened to what P4K named the number one album on their top 100 albums of the 1980s, Daydream Nation. To defend my uncultured self, it hasn’t been a resolute decision to never get into Sonic Youth, it kind of just never happened. There is a never-ending list of good music out there, and unfortunately Sonic Youth and I never crossed paths.

I decided to mend this flaw when I heard it was going to be playing a free show in SLC last summer as part of the Gallivan Center’s annual Twilight Concert Series. I had obviously heard of this band’s unending prestige, and I figured it was probably time to see what all the fuss was about, however late to the train I was. After all, some of my very favorite bands (Radiohead, Sigur Rós, and The Flaming Lips to be specific) had cited them as influences, and I trust the word of those bands to the grave.

So, I loaded up my iPod with Daydream, EVOL, Sister, and The Eternal with the intent of familiarizing myself with Sonic Youth before it rolled through town. At the time, I was doing construction on a neighboring house where I had access to an iHome (I’m doing a lot of unintentional plugging for Apple in this paragraph…), so I threw on Daydream Nation and pumped up the jam. As soon as the catchy riff and the hauntingly organized percussion came in over Kim Gordon’s wispy vocals, I got my first glimpse into what the aforementioned hype was all about. I thoroughly enjoyed (and still enjoy) this track. And the plan was to move forward with the album while I worked on this house. Unfortunately, that plan never came to fruition due to an unexpected outside influence. At about the 1:30 mark into the album’s second track, “Silver Rocket”, where the music turns to pure noise, the dogs that lived in the house began barking wildly and insubordinately. Apparently Shih Tzu-Brussels Griffon mixes dislike noise rock: Who knew?

Anyway, the barking got so bad, I opted to switch from Sonic Youth to M. Ward for a lighter tone of music. And then I never really got back around to my original plan of getting into Sonic Youth. The weeks went by and finally Sonic Youth came, and I went to the show regardless of my unpreparedness. I wasn’t repulsed by what I saw and heard, but I certainly felt like a lot went over my head. Looking back, I feel like I probably missed a really awesome opportunity.

So, to redeem myself, this week I’ve been guzzling down Sonic Youth in massive quantities to make up for lost time, and I must say, it’s a flavor all its own. There isn’t another band that sounds quite like Sonic Youth, and I find that to be quite impressive. Daydream Nation is probably its most accessible album, and it’s far and away my favorite. I can’t seem to get “Teen Age Riot” out of my head, and every time I listen to the album I like it more.

It’s tough to digest all 71 minutes of the album in one sitting, and it is one of those that grow on you over time. On first listen, it all seemed to blend into one messy, noisy track. I had a hard time distinguishing one track from the next. But the more I listen to it, the more things I notice, and the more I fall in love with each track for its individuality and creativity.

“Teen Age Riot” remains my favorite for its ambient and flawless blend of noise and melody, but the others are making their way up the list. Lyrically, “Hey Joni”, “Kissability”, and “The Sprawl” are highly impressive. Gordon’s vocals on the latter track, “Come on down to the store, you can buy some more, more, more, more,” are so contagious and fit the noise and the impressive guitar work beautifully. As a whole, the guitar work is so unique and so impressive, every single track brings new sonic concepts to the table. My only criticism is that the album starts with such a bang with “Teen Age Riot”, “Silver Rocket”, and “The Sprawl”, and it seems to slow down from there. It’s like the standout tracks were put on first, and then the rest were scattered throughout the remainder of the album. But if this is the only criticism I can come up with, then Daydream Nation is worthy of its acclaim.

All in all, this week Sonic Youth created one more budding fan in me. And while I’m still in the infancy stage of fan-hood, I have every intention of exploring this band’s extensive catalogue comprehensively. More than anything, I just feel glad that I’ve familiarized myself with this band and this album in particular. It was long overdue. Sonic Youth proved to me with this album that it is absolutely deserving of its unequaled fanfare, and once again, it can now add me to the list of fans.

One of the first things I noticed about London Calling is how consummately mixed the album is. Tracks slipped through my headphones and almost escaped me, so easily do they flow from one to the next. This may also be due in part to my near-fatal inability to understand Joe Strummer’s lyrics. On the first two listens, I had almost no idea what he was saying, aside from the choruses. Finally, I pulled up the lyrics online and read along, and it became much more comprehensible. Immediately, though, with or without the words, I could tell what people mean when they say this album is a classic. There’s a timeless quality to it, a newness that lets you imagine the album came out just last week– except no one is writing music like this today.

The album opens with title track “London Calling”, a wicked dark tune with a slightly sinister beat. It’s intriguing, sinuous, and extremely catchy, and it’s impossible not to love the balls-to-the-wall chorus declaration: “Cause London is drowning and I/ live by the river”. Bring it on, world! The Clash isn’t afraid to open with some attitude, which immediately makes them okay in my book.  “Brand New Cadillac” has a pop-oriented beat but punkier lyrics, and is laid over a dark counter-melody that gives the song undeniable drive. “Jimmy Jazz” is a fun tune and has the additional charm of the very British verbal spelling “j-a-zed-zed”, but like many songs on the album, the fun melody conveys a darker story, this one about hiding out from the cops. Fourth track “Hateful” is an amazingly effective earworm with a lively call-and-response chorus. It’s hard to listen to that one and sit still on the train.

“Rudie Can’t Fail” is fun and fast, like most tracks here, with the addition of some reggae/ska flavorings that make the track stand out from its neighbors. And never to be out-politicized, next track “Spanish Bombs” manages to make warplanes sound fun, all while incorporating some strategically placed Spanish lyrics. Who wouldn’t want to be political, if the revolution sounds like this? “The Right Profile” is darkly cynical, lightened with some seriously soulful horn. “Card Cheat” has a fun, tropical tone to it, and is, naturally, about gambling and a murder (I’m noticing a theme here). Another reggae-themed song, “Revolution Rock”, is a lot of fun to listen to and practically demands open car windows in the summer. The album is so well-stocked with so very many good tunes that it seems a disservice to try to squeeze them all into one review!

A few songs on the album, sadly, somewhat escape me. One of those is “Clampdown”, which doesn’t stand out sonically to me as much as its neighbors do. Similarly, “Wrong ‘Em Boyo” is an alright song, but it just doesn’t do as much for me as some of the other tracks. “Koka Kola” is fun—especially with its elevator intro—but I don’t feel the rhythm as much as I feel some of the other songs. In fact, the “weak” songs on this album are so good when considered individually that one wonders if they look pale only by comparison.

But there are a few life-changers on here that more than make up for any lower impact moments. “Lost in the Supermarket” mixes a deceptively simple plot with serious imagery about growing up, set over yet another wide-awake backing arrangement. Modern punk bands wish they could write things half this catchy; I love this song so much, I’m starting to dream it. “The Guns of Brixton” has a kicking reggae sound and a simple but irrepressible rhythm. “Death or Glory” has a hard-rocking chorus and a truly punk rock philosophy about one of life’s more existential questions. I never want to get this song out of my head. “I’m Not Down” is cheering in the way that only tough music can be. “Like skyscrapers, rising up/ floor by floor, I’m not giving up”—these are the sort of lyrics that make me love punk music from the depths of my soul.

And at the last moment– a charming little surprise—there was one song I did know after all. “Train in Vain” is fun, catchy, endlessly singable at drunken post-break-up karaoke sessions, and a delightful way to end the record.

There are a few tracks I skipped in this review, and many more that didn’t get as much ink as they deserve, but if someone’s to blame, I say it’s The Clash; this album is essentially too good for a concise review. It’s packed to the gills with lyrically potent, musically interesting, crowd-pleasing songs, and it’s totally obvious to this newbie that it deserves its status as a classic. I can’t believe I made it this far into life without having heard London Calling before, but suffice it to say, it’ll be on repeat—and featured on basically every mix CD I ever make—from here on out.

Now if I’ve learned anything about musicianship over the years, it’s that an individual album is often reflective of the artists’ shared experiences and overall state of being at said time. Which of course means that even the greatest bands alive have had their fuck-ups and with this being my first real listen to Primus I wanted to avoid all of that nonsense and hear a grade A example of the band at their finest. As I began my search for an album quintessentially Primus, a few friends immediately steered my direction towards the band’s debut record Frizzle Fry; which audiences initially found so captivating the band was forced to dub the ironic catch phrase “Primus Sucks”.

When I finally sat down to listen to Frizzle Fry, I soon discovered that musically it was everything I had ever anticipated to hear from Primus. However, I’ll admit that from the beginning I never expected to enjoy it. Then, to my surprise, with each listen I slowly uncovered the unique awesomeness that for so long I had been told this eclectic band possessed. I just didn’t expect to find it within the lyrics.

Usually dark music like this, that seeps into your skin with forceful double bass drum pedaling, heavy bass and winding electric guitar riffs, doesn’t do it for me. It’s usually just too angry or aggressive for me to really enjoy. But somehow, Primus tapped into some uncharted territory (which subsequently made them famous) where they roam aimlessly through a futuristic desert landscape whilst mashing up funk, rock, metal and alternative music into one giant bundle of fun.

As I mentioned earlier, what really sold me on Primus were Claypool’s off-beat vocals and each song’s dark, clever, devious and rather depressing lyrics. While it may seem ignorant to some, I honestly never thought Primus’ songs, heavily ridden with raucous solos and incessant jamming, could possibly possess strong and intelligent interpretations of important world issues that many of us often choose to ignore in life such as murder, war, crime, hatred, abuse, human degradation, false hope, and human sacrifice. Maybe this was due to Claypool’s often echoing, megaphone altered vocals or his tendency to blurt things out fast and with distortion so that his lyrics were almost impossible to make out. However, upon deep analysis each song unfolded as a morbid story of lost opportunity, cruel punishment and human error.

From “Too Many Puppies” to “Pudding Time” Claypool mercilessly attacks human ignorance, comparing humans to dogs and dwelling on the selfishness of children stating, “San Francisco bay the Striped bass are dying/But you’re gonna get that brand new bike/Oh, joy” in the later. Another song that sticks out is “The Toys Go Winding Down”, which focuses on the inevitable process of growing up, facing reality and reaching the point where all hope seems lost. But it was the album’s title track that really hit the nail on the head. Here, Claypool reveals his statement of intent, so to speak, as he remarks “Hello all you boys and girls/I’d like to take you to the inside world/It’s quite an irregular place to be/But never fear you’re safe with me/Well, maybe” before erupting into a list of things he doesn’t believe in. Then, when you least expect it, Claypool closes out the song with the light-hearted statement “I do believe in Captain Crunch”, showing the audience that he still maintains his sense of humor.

With Frizzle Fry, Primus managed to create a pure and selfless critique of human life in which they shed light on human err, while forcing the audience to feel guilt, shame and humiliation for their entire race. Unfortunately however, its true brilliance is hidden beneath the music’s heavy, fast paced funk-rock-metal rhythms, which easily distract the listener from learning the band in depth.

Kudos, Primus! Now, I’m curious to find out what else you are capable of musically and lyrically.

My embarrassment grew more and more with each suggestion. How could there be so many?? And so many classics?! The Beatles, The Clash, Fugazi, The Rolling Stones. Yes, I had heard of these bands and have more than likely heard many songs from their albums, but never straight through and not the deep tracks on the albums. Plus, I wanted to write about a band that was not as easy or that I didn’t have as much knowledge of their catalogue as The Beatles and The Rolling Stones. In the end, I had a list of nearly 50 albums to choose from, but there was one album that multiple people suggested. An album by an artist that I had always been meaning to listen to more, but his sheer volume of albums had me worried I would pick a dud and be turned off from going further. So I decided to take the suggestion and pick Neil Young and the album Harvest.

Having grown up with parents who were children of the ’70s, and a mother who was a big Crosby, Stills, Nash, and Young fan, I have definitely heard Neil Young songs. His distinctive high nasal whine is as hard to forget as his guitar/harmonica/long-haired/wide-brimmed hat image. However, I had never heard a single one of his albums from start to finish. After doing some research, Harvest seemed like a good place to start. It was Young’s solo commercial breakthrough and it came highly recommended from people whose word I trusted. When it was released in February of 1972, Harvest shot straight to the top of the Billboard chart along with its lead single, “Heart of Gold”, which remains Young’s only number one song in his career. (And yes, I have heard that song.) He recorded the album with help from some Nashville country session musicians that he dubbed The Stray Gators, the London Symphony Orchestra, as well as Linda Ronstadt, James Taylor, and previous band mates David Crosby, Steven Stills, and Graham Nash who all provided backing vocals with Taylor also providing some banjo work.

After giving the album a few solid, headphone-and-no-distraction listens, I was surprised that this album was his big commercial hit. The songs are well produced and clean, but the album itself is somewhat uneven in style. It goes from quiet country/folk songs to almost movie score theatrics then back to quiet then a random live track and then ending with a long electric guitar rocker.

Opener “Out on the Weekend” is what I expected the album’s sound to be: a slow, simple guitar and harmonica folk-tune with lyrics of longing and lost love. The rhythm section of Tim Drummond and Ken Buttrey, on bass and drums respectively, is tight and concise on this track and throughout the album. Young continues the simple country-style on the title track, and adds in John Harris on piano. Young sings to a girl for which he hopes to change her fortune by fulfilling her “promise of a man.”

The next track, “A Man Needs a Maid”, changes styles drastically with the addition of the London Symphony Orchestra. Young’s voice seems to fit well with the opening bars of piano, but then suddenly his voice and the song seem out of place against the soaring strings, ringing chimes and dramatic brass section. The lyrics, on the surface, seem like a misogynistic musing from a lazy man wanting some woman to come clean his place while he deals with life “changing in so many ways.” But once I listened a few more times and a little more closely, I realized Young is continuing his theme of lost love. Although he says he just wants someone to come by and clean and cook, it is more of a reluctance to commit to someone than just using someone. It’s as if he is singing to a prospective “maid”: “It’s hard to make that change/when life and love/turns strange/and old/to give a love you gotta live a love/to live a lot you gotta be ‘part of’/when will I see you again?”

Next comes the number one hit, “Heart of Gold”, where Young falls back into the guitar/harmonica-style with solid results. The signature guitar work along with great backing vocals from Ronstadt and Taylor, show why this was, and continues to be, a fantastic hit song. Young then returns to the piano for an upbeat honky-tonk jam in “Are You Ready for the Country?” featuring Crosby and Nash on backing vocals. He then launches into the other hit song from the album, “Old Man”. With the help of Ronstadt again on backing vocals and Taylor on backing vocals and banjo, Young crafts another solid 70′s folk song which captures the lost feeling of his generation during the Vietnam era.

The gears completely switch again as Young calls upon the orchestra for plucking and then soaring strings and slamming tympanis for “There’s a World”. Reviews at the time of the release hint that the song may be a peek at his soundtrack work for the film, Journey Through the Past, however the film is actually a retrospective on Young’s first five to six years as a recording artist including Buffalo Springfield songs and Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young songs, so I’m not sure this even fits the film score. It along with the previous track “A Man Needs a Maid” would have been best as solo guitar or piano works such as the second-to-last track “The Needle and the Damage Done”. As they stand they break the flow of the album and sound completely out of place against the slide guitars and banjos in the rest of the album.

In between “There’s a World” and “The Needle and the Damage Done” is the strongest rocker on the album, “Alabama”. Many view it as a companion piece to “Southern Man” from his previous album, After the Gold Rush. It is an ode to Alabama and a feeling of relation between the state and Young: “I’m from a new land/I come to you and/see all this ruin/what are you doing/Alabama/you’ve got the rest of the Union to help you along/what’s going wrong?”

“The Needle and the Damage Done” is itself a bit of an oddity. A strong and sad solo guitar lament to all his friends who have passed away due to heroin addiction, it is the lone live track. It was recorded at a concert at UCLA, and the only way you know it is live is at the very end when there is a quick smattering of applause before it jumps straight into the final track of the album; the rocking and electric solos of “Words (Between the lines of age)”.

After being ignorant for 25 years, I’m glad to have finally given this album a solid listen. I am unsure as to why it was such a strong commercial success. Its flow is uneven and odd, and a mix of too many styles. All that said, it has great songs. When it is good, it is really good (“Heart of Gold”, “Old Man”, “The Needle and the Damage Done”), and when it is bad it is still not awful. As my friend Tom told me, “Harvest is the gateway drug of Neil Young albums,” and now I want to hear more. I definitely suggest checking this one out if you haven’t already.

Speaking of ladies, I have to confess that I had heard the ace Toronto band Bakenaked Ladies before, but I thought they’d only made one record, Stunt, and that was about 10 years ago. What happened before and after completely passed me by. Maybe they were wonders of the one-hit kind. Or they simply returned to the planet with all the best tunes. Stunt was a seriously good record, too, so it’s even more unforgivable that I hadn’t kept tabs on the band. Anyhow, just to prove it is quite possible not to know everything there is to know about popular music, I hadn’t heard of Barenaked Ladies before Stunt, and I heard nothing since then, until a few weeks ago, when our local church held its annual Christmas Bazaar. A better place also to meet girls than a Marillion concert.

There I was rifling through the CD bargain stall (thankfully unable to sniff vinyl), and there was Everything to Everyone by Barenaked Ladies. Thankfully the BNL cover caused no embarrassment to vendor or purchaser. Rather than an outré girl band, it depicted five clean cut guys in heroes of the republic pose alongside a white flag, though looking like they just exited a branch of Gap. I flipped it over to reveal a distant date, 2003, and had to buy it. At least two people stopped me on the way out and asked me if I knew other BNL albums I hadn’t heard of. I just kept muttering Stunt, in a voice not unlike that used by Justin Hoffman in “Rain Man”.

Much of Everything to Everyone is about the fake gloss of celebrity, commercialism, or corporate greed. It’s about how what you always want, or are told that you want, isn’t what you need. Opener “Celebrity” sets the tone. “All that’s left of me is my celebrity” is a great sentiment on the hollowness of it all. Next up, does consumer choice give you license to prevaricate over asking her out for a date? “Maybe Katie” says so. Then starting out like “Slim Shady”, “Another Postcard” reprises “One Week” from BNL’s biggest hit album, Stunt, in its semi-rap style. It’s that annoyingly catchy tune you can’t get out of your head, with clever- if superficially silly- lyrics about chimpanzees. I rationalize that BNL are smart enough for the monkey postcards to be a metaphor for unwanted direct mail. Then again, I think Coldplay’s “Viva La Vida” might be about Tony Blair…

By song four, “Next Time”, you’re still waiting for a duff tune. Wrong. This is another corker and you can even waltz along to the verses. The country tinged “For You” brings a nice change of tempo and highlights BNL’s crisp close harmonies. Then “Shopping” hits with its whirlwind la-la-la’s and gets its point across straight off: “Everything will always be all right when we go shopping”. That’s about it, but it’s a bright tune and clever arrangement, though with more than enough repetition to work for the brain dead.

“Testing 1,2,3”, which follows, is an album stand-out with a classic BNL constructed melody, great dynamics, and funny-ironic lyrics, while “Upside Down” takes you back to the dance floor, this time for a tango. The next song is probably the finest on offer here. “War on Drugs” signifies a serious mood swing, a solemn reflection on human fragility. This is a powerful, compelling song that shows a sensibility wide apart from the wisecracking style the band frequently employs. The keyboard-driven “Aluminium” continues the reflections but with the focus shifted to the theme of appearance and reality: “You can shine like silver all you want but you’re just aluminum”.

“Unfinished” has strong Beach Boys overtones and is yet another great tune with signature bittersweet lyrics. Next, the breezy rocker “Second Best” provides a neat bridge to the wonderful “Take it Outside”, which has most of what you ever wanted from a pop song. The gentle, acoustic song “Have You Seen my Love?” makes a fine closer, seemingly more poignant now that singer and co-writer with Ed Robertson on most BNL songs, Stephen Page, quit the band earlier this year.

Everything to Everyone is a real treat: funny, touching, charming, and always really musical. The record reminds you that there aren’t many bands that write and perform pop songs consistently to such a high standard as Barenaked Ladies. Well, it would do that, if you knew all along that the band had made more than one album.

Due to that frustration, I never sat down to the “game-changing” In Rainbows in its entirety. I’d once sat down to a few tracks at a friend’s and walked out of the room, unimpressed. The pay-what-you-feel downloadable album is certainly innovative, but that didn’t seem to carry over into the music. But, for the sake of exploring my seemingly unbelievable non-fandom, I’ve decided to give the album another shot, from start to finish.

The distended, crunchy, effected synth-drum line that begins “15 Step” is a little less pop than I remember it being when I’d first heard it. The claustrophobic, spilling-out-of-his-mouth lyrics are nothing new for vocalist Thom Yorke, but they sound pretty apt paired with the electro-beat. I’ve got to say, I was enjoying it. But, around 40 seconds in, slinky, Nintendo-synth-sounding guitars produce a goofy, neon-colored world that just doesn’t make sense to me. Then, the guitars, keeping the same tonal qualities, move into a minor key, Yorke’s vocals now an echoed moaning. This is the Radiohead I knew and didn’t get: melancholy, big melodies, and sounds.

“Bodysnatchers” doesn’t seem to sate my query for innovation in the music. The guitar riffage is pretty straightforward, the lyrics of alienation and full of vaguely creepy references. The song’s structure isn’t exactly traditional, but the washing crescendo “structure” isn’t exactly new either. It’s a rocker, to be sure, and the main guitar riff is pretty darn cool, but it doesn’t seem all that different or special from other late 90′s alternative bands’ work. The choral vocal harmonies at the start of the very pretty “Nude” are more Grizzly Bear than Smashing Pumpkins, though, so there’s that. The haunting, just off-center melody, aching strings and faltering warble of Yorke’s voice make this track a winner. It’s something I could see myself listening to, and I guess that’s what this was all about.

Phil Selway’s snappy drumming begins “Weird Fishes”, followed by swooping and falling guitar arpeggios and Yorke’s crooning about how he’s stuck at the bottom of the ocean because he’s in love, to put it simply. At this point, I begin to want to get up and walk around. “I get it, Yorke,” I say to myself. “Life is tough. You’re frustrated and in love and not everything is perfect. Enough already!” The music, though, is great. The big, driving build-up and spiraling guitars are great, but the song as a whole isn’t doing it for me.

“All I Need” continues the trend. Electronic (probably) drumming, blooping, minor, bassy sounds and Yorke wallowing. The lyrics are in the trademarked Thom Yorke is Confused, Vague and Emotional school; case in point, the repeated “It’s all wrong, it’s all right” at the end of the song. It’s not bad music, but it’s just so much more of the same. They’ve changed their musical basis and song-writing structure: the traditional verse-chorus-verse of Pablo Honey is no longer, the rock guitar of “Fake Plastic Trees” and the like replaced by the weirdest electronic instruments money can buy. But the formula still adds up to much of the same result.

The lyrics to “Faust Arp” are vague enough that I can’t confirm they’re about life/love being confusing. The finger-picked guitar and soaring string section  have drawn comparisons to The Beatles, which is fitting. The song’s a real gem, loopy (how’s “wakey wakey, rise and shine” for an opening line) and sincere (the instrumentation is so deep and crushing) simultaneously, the track fuses the best parts of Radiohead without all of the moping. “Reckoner” returns to the cold, musically, complete with icy cymbals, chilled falsetto and frozen, repeated guitar lines. The less specific, more encompassing lyrics keep the coldness from overwhelming, though. The melody is a keeper, too, wafting around, fluid and beautiful.

The sappy ballad that is “House of Cards” follows, and I realize I’m getting rather close to the end of the album. The ghostly, wordless harmonies in “Jigsaw Falling Into Place” are much more interesting than the “boy meets girl, boy is confused” lyrics, and they keep the song from falling into a straightforward trap. The good, but ham-fisted “Videotape” is one I’ll come back to. It’s charming in its sincerity and clarity: Yorke sings about his family and their hold on him, despite all the craziness and difficulty of life on the road. The sentiments aren’t new, but the music and lyrics are too heart-baring to ignore. It doesn’t seem to mesh with the rest of the paranoid, claustrophobia throughout the album, but that doesn’t matter when you produce something as shockingly simple and yet powerful as this.

All in all, I don’t want to throw up. I’ll be more likely to pick out a few songs to keep and scrap the rest of it, but the album isn’t bad. It’s just nowhere near as ground-breaking (musically, mind you) or amazing as Radiohead uber-fans would lead you to believe. I still don’t like In Rainbows. There, I’ve said it. I certainly give them credit for keeping fans happy, establishing a new way to sell music, and producing strong music. But I just don’t love it.

All right, maybe that’s a slight exaggeration. I’m pretty sure I’ve heard all of “Born to Run” and parts of other well-known tracks, like “Thunder Road” and “Tenth Avenue Freeze Out”. But when it comes to hearing this record as a whole, it’s completely alien to me. As one of my friends, a big Springsteen fan, said to me, “This must be rectified.”

My first reaction was one of pleasant surprise. My previous experience with Springsteen’s music, such as the Super Bowl performance, had left me unimpressed for the most part. From the opening track, though, Born To Run had me hooked. The style, the swagger, and the sheer density of this album already makes it a classic. That’s without even mentioning the excellent instrumentation and Springsteen’s insightful, working-man lyrics.

The first few seconds of “Thunder Road” had me admittedly worried. The harmonica sounded a little too much like country music to me. But within a minute, I knew my fears were misguided. The building piano provides great support when Springsteen’s voice comes in. The sense of longing in his vocals adds a touch of emotion that’s difficult to find with many singers. When the full band kicks in, it’s like falling off a cliff into a cacophony of music. I was stunned by how layered this album is. I guess that’s what happens when you have a band as big as Springsteen’s. I can see where groups like the Arcade Fire got it from.

The horn section of “Tenth Avenue Freeze Out” sounds like it could be in a classic (e.g. Sean Connery) Bond film. The transition into a more groovy piano/horn combo flows smoothly where it could have been clunky. Springsteen sounds as joyous here as he sounded desperate in “Thunder Road”. Both he and the E Street band are having a great time.

“Night” kicks the speed up a couple notches. The ringing notes of a guitar fills up the background nicely as the horn section and Springsteen’s voice take center stage. Even though it isn’t a hit song, there’s no reason why it couldn’t have been. It’s got number one written all over it.

The minute-long piano solo of “Backstreets” builds nicely into the first verse. Another song that deals with longing and loss, Springsteen’s voice alternates between sadness and almost anger over the pain the characters have experienced. However, it goes on a little too long for me. By the end, the emotional impact has been diluted too much for it to hold as much effect as it did at the beginning.

From there, the album moves on to “Born To Run”. What’s there to say about this track that hasn’t been said? It’s a classic, and it fully deserves to be one. The guitar, the piano, the all-or-nothing lyrics, and The Boss’s delivery are all perfect. It’s the essential Springsteen song that could single-handedly launch a band to stadium stardom.

The progressive piano throughout the track is what makes “She’s The One” work. While guitar and drums are later layered over it, the piano’s still the hook that everything else latches on to. It takes a blistering saxophone solo in the middle to pull attention away from the piano. This is another number that could have been a hit on any album.

My only low point on the album comes with “Meeting Across The River.” After the excitement and electricity found throughout nearly all the record, this song sounds average by comparison. Springsteen’s half-talking, half-singing delivery falls flat, and the trumpet moves too much into jazzy territory for me. It would have worked better as a shorter interlude between “She’s The One” and “Jungleland” than as a full track.

The violin performance at the beginning of “Jungleland” is hauntingly beautiful. Reminiscent of “Backstreets,” Springsteen sounds tiredly depressed, even as the music swells around him. The crescendo of instruments makes this one of the most epic songs of all time. While it clocks in at over nine minutes, the variety of changes keep it from getting stale, and instead offers an amazing closer to an equally amazing album.

Well, now I know what I was missing: an inspiring, powerful album that saw Springsteen reaching for heights few musicians ever imagined. Thankfully, The Boss’s reach doesn’t exceed his grasp. He fought his way to the top, and the battle is laid out here for all of us to see. What a spectacular battle this turned out to be.

In 2002, when the record came out, my taste in music was in the gutter, so to speak. I was too busy spiking my pink Mohawk, raising hell with The Exploited’s Beat the Bastards, and starting mosh pits at HFStivals to care about anything else. It wasn’t until I moved out of my parents house that my style relaxed a little bit and I let the calmer sounds in. I came a bit late to the Wilco camp, but better late than never right?

As I’ve been told many times, YHF is the quintessential Wilco album for any new comer (even though I started with Kicking Television). It’s the record that caused so many people to fall in love and turn the band into one of the most beloved of a generation. I had heard all these things, and my final understanding of why started with the feedback and drums of “I am Trying to Break Your Heart”.

Not in a long time had poetry like that been put into a song. The music is scatter brained, moving from strums to random background sounds with Jeff Tweedy’s bitter words as the glue. Nothing is more clear than when he sings “What was I thinking when I let you back in, I am trying to break your heart”. Ouch.

Tweedy’s demons are all over this record, tearing him apart on the exquisite “War on War”, and “Pot Kettle Black” with the lines “You’re tied in a knot, but I’m not gonna get caught, calling a pot kettle black, every song’s a comeback, every moment’s a little bit later.” It’s words like these that could resonate with anyone’s experiences, and that is what makes them, and this record so timeless.

It’s that penetrating song writing that first drew me to Wilco. The kind of universal honesty that is found on this record draws you closer until it’s a part of you. Every time you listen, a new side reveals itself. The record could rotate a million times with out it wearing out. Its unique catchiness is still hard to find on records today, making tracks like “Heavy Metal Drummer” absolute classics in every sense of the word.

The real kicker for YHF is that as it progresses, it builds and gets better. The blues rock of “I’m the Man Who Loves You” could have easily lead the record off, but by burying it, you stay locked, your curiosity eager for more. Really, any one of these tracks could lead the record. They all stand out in some way making it one of those required musical experiences.

It’s those kinds of records that I search for, and I have no idea why I procrastinated on this one for so long. It all makes sense why so many will stick this on their best of the decade lists. So much of the music that’s come out over the past couple of years owes at least a portion of itself to this record (and this band). Influential, sure, but before that label, it was just an amazing record, and now I can say I know why.

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As for the band Pavement, I would hear that name in passing when people hearkened back to the days of alternative rock in the early 1990s. The band would be lumped in with groups like Nirvana, Pearl Jam, The Smashing Pumpkins, etc. I never heard them on the radio; I never saw them on MTV’s Alternative Nation. So, I confess that I had never, never, ever, heard of the album, Slanted and Enchanted. That album wouldn’t reach my iTunes library until… 2008.

Phew. I actually feel like a huge weight has been lifted off my shoulders.

Slanted and Enchanted (with members Malkmus, guitarist Scott “Spiral Stairs” Kannberg, bassist Mark Ibold, and former drummer Gary Young) is a beautiful, sloppy mess. It opens with the fuzz anthem that is “Summer Babe (Winter Version)”, accompanied by rat-tat-tat cymbals. Oh, and these words:

Ice baby
I saw your girlfriend and she was
Eating her fingers like they’re just another meal
But she waits there
In the levee wash she’s
Mixin’ cocktails with a plastic-tipped cigar

What? Awesome. The phrases, “you’re my summer girl” or “summer babe”, have been bandied about in pop songs over the last 50 years, but I defy anyone to find the phrase delivered shortly after a line as bizarre as “Every time I sit around I find I’m shot.” Weirded out.

“Trigger Cut/Wounded Kite at :17” builds up to Malkmus singing about fruit-colored nails, as well as the uselessness of electricity and lust. Guitars slice in and out of the call-and-answer chorus, and scattered la-la-las somehow find their way into the track. “No Life Singed Her” features screams of lo-fi fury, and “In the Mouth of a Desert” has echoes of The Pixies. Influences can be heard here and there in Slanted and Enchanted, and in addition to The Pixies, there are definite signs of T-Rex in the song, “Two States”.

“Conduit for Sale!” has Malkmus trying, trying, trying, and. The spoken-word verses indicate where Nada Surf found influence for songs like “Popular”. The fuzzy “Chesley’s Little Wrists” houses xylophones and yelping (naturally). The lo-fi of “Chesley’s” is followed by the reserved, tight production of “Here”, with contemplation:

Painted portraits of minions and slaves
Crotch mavens and one act plays
Are they the only ones who laugh
At the jokes when they are so bad
And the jokes they’re always bad
But they’re not as bad as this

These are all examples of how all over the place the album is, with short songs and long songs, lo-fi and hi-fi, spoken words and singing (“Fame Throwa” even has synths after its drum lead-in). That’s what sets Slanted and Enchanted apart from other albums of the genre. It sounds like a band doing what they wanted to do, without a producer coming in and telling them what he or she wanted.

So Slanted and Enchanted is definitely an album that took a long time for me to discover. I remember thinking I would never see them live, because so many rumors had come and gone. As we know now, they are reuniting! Hopefully they’ll tour the states extensively, so I can ask Stephen Malkmus one question…

Why did you cut my angel in two and leave her bleeding and soak her with a dry sponge?

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Slanted & Enchanted: Luxe & Reduxe

-Michael Roffman, President/Editor in Chief

Imagine your life if you’d never heard Bob Dylan.

No, seriously. Imagine what it would be like if you hadn’t grown up with the angst of his growl, his gravelly voice pouring through your iPod speakers after a hard day of high school or a long day at work. What if you’d never heard a whole Dylan album, not even accidentally?

Well, until a week ago, that was me. Please don’t stone me. I realize I’m a music writer, but a person can’t know everything. As a kid, I was educated by my mom’s personal preferences, so ask me anything about Jim Croce, but as for Dylan, I had nothing. I’d heard “Like a Rolling Stone”, of course — I have ears — but I’d never heard a whole record through, and I’d never heard a song off what many consider to be his magnum opus, Blonde on Blonde. In the name of science-not to mention furthering my musical education-I gave Blonde on Blonde an introductory listen, and agreed to document it for this column.

My very first impression was, wow. People who tease Dylan for being hard to understand will get no arguments from me in the future. But the more I listened, the more the lyrics began to slip out. It’s not that he’s impossible to understand, so much as that you have to be inside the music before you can hear him. It’s like reading a book in a slightly foreign language, a la A Clockwork Orange. On my second listen, I found myself catching many more of the lyrics.

The other major thing that caught me was the delightful folk-pacing of the rhythms. The Jim Croce fan in me delighted at the way the guitar wove and played with the other sounds. Blonde on Blonde really sets up a certain vibe-sitting on paisley pillows in the back of a beat-up van, smoking cigarettes on the way to a live show. The atmospheric quality of the music was really something to experience. I wish I’d had this record in high school.

The album opens with harmonica over walloping, big-band brass, on “Rainy Day Women #12 and 35″. Laced with drug references and with hearty laughs in Dylan’s vocals, it’s the appropriate beginning to a long, strange party. The harmonica-heavy “Pledging My Time” follows, and while it’s not my favorite track, there’s little room for criticism here (except perhaps the extreme prominence of the harmonica).

On the third track, “Visions of Johanna”, Dylan’s versatility really shines. A quieter song, “Visions” rhymes and rolls along quite comfortably, but with a certain quiet beauty that makes it stand out. Even at 7:33, this song never feels too long. “One of Us Must Know (Sooner or Later)” picks up the pace a bit, as well as giving us an apology of sorts: “I didn’t mean to make you so sad/you just happened to be there, that’s all”. Reflecting the split responsibilities at the end of a relationship, Dylan’s protagonist airs a guilty conscience here.

“I Want You” picks up next, much quicker in pace and lighter in subject. One of Dylan’s true strengths is mixing up the emotions and paces of his songs, and the contrast here gives greater effect to each track. “Stuck Inside of Mobile With the Memphis Blues Again” really seems to give feeling to its name. “Leopard Skin Pillbox Hat” mixes extremely light and somewhat amusing lyrics with a heavier guitar line that lends a more serious feeling to the music.

“Just Like a Woman” follows, and my research for this column indicated that this track was rife with controversy. Is Dylan a misogynist? I listened to the track without reading in depth about the lyrics in question, and this woman has to admit that she doesn’t feel the slightest bit offended. I didn’t find anything exceptional in those lyrics. Just in case, though, Dylan lightens up again with “Most Likely You Go Your Way (And I’ll Go Mine)”. The next track, “Temporary Like Achilles”, has a slower beat and a quieter rhythm. Again, Dylan’s mixing talents come in handy.

“Absolutely Sweet Marie” is a prime contender (along with “Visions of Johanna”) for my favorite track of the album. The punchy rhythm and light lyrics are carried nicely by the grit of Dylan’s voice, making the experience entirely enjoyable and endlessly sing-along-able. “4^th Time Around” slows things down again, this time over a driving rhythm that keeps the overall pace up. “Obviously Five Believers” is quick and sassy, with a repetitive line that jazzes things up one last time.

Lastly, “Sad-Eyed Lady of the Lowlands”, an 11:23 minute mountain of a song, rolls along romantically and plaintively, containing the classic Dylan quote “Who among them do you think could resist you?” Written for his then-wife, “Lowlands” would be a lovely song to have written about oneself. I can only imagine how she felt, hearing this for the first time some forty years ago! The haunting, poetic imagery makes this song truly a classic, obvious to even the uninitiated.

Blonde on Blonde represents many of Dylan’s most famous songs, and after a few listens, the reasons for fans’ devotion to it are obvious. The man is a master of composition, balance, and mixing, and the album shines even forty years after its original 1966 release. Bob Dylan, I’m not sure how I got along without you this whole time, but now at least I know what I’ve missing.

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