Reviews by verlainemorrison96

'You little child, what makes you think you're tough / When all the people you think you're above / They all know what's the matter.'; 'Nobody broke your heart / You broke your own / 'Cause you can't finish what you start.' There're many records out there directed at a 'you,' but Smith's Either Or is an obsessively you-oriented album, painfully, angrily, singularly for a you he's no fan of but can't let go of, so much so that as a consumer you start questioning your intentions & your positions in the world. I'm not sure if Elliott is a genius or not, but he's certainly written songs - subtle, beautiful songs - that take a hold & a piece of you. In short, I believe him. In many ways the Nick Drake of the 90s, he's yet angrier & more musical than ND.

Impossible to 'rate' - one is not sure if you're rating Krause herself, Eisler-Brecht, or the instrumental backing - Tank Battles isn't so much acquired taste as it is a submission to a history lesson. There's nothing to get used to here: no one, I imagine, listens to this 'genre' on a regular basis. So the question becomes: what do you do w/ a record like it? Krause's vocals are impressive but not particularly memorable, there is a gathering sense of atmospherics, but I'm not immersed in a world, I understand the desire for historical interpretation, but I'm not thoroughly moved. Knowing that the album arrived a year before the Berlin Wall fell does add an interesting wrinkle, tho that makes me want to read more Brecht. As for Krause - meh.

'Oh, God of Progress / Have you degraded or forgot us? / Where have your laws gone? / I think about it now.' I was both really looking forward to this & wary going in, eager to finally listen to this celebrated songwriter but a bit on guard in re the potential for an pretentious & overdone project. It turns out I was right in both respects: Sufjan is indeed uber-talented, worthy of our adoration & the maker of music you'd genuinely want to listen to, but it kinda goes w/o saying that, yes, it's pretentious & overdone. What's rare is that a record this long grows on you, that you learn to tune out the concept for the sake of the beauty. In this regard, Sufjan is the Kanye West of this genre: overwrought, no doubt, but too smart & too good to ignore for long.

Overshadowed by Dylan & Cohen, i.e., the obvious candidates, as well as other lesser known tho still celebrated entities like Dave Van Ronk, not to mention Harry Nilsson, whose cover of 'Everybody's Talkin'' endures as the one everybody's still talkin' about, Fred Neil is the definition of an obscure artist. Like Jackson C. Frank, known by those in the know but too obscure to be a cult figure, Neil sings for himself & himself alone. I mean, who the fuck sings about dolphins except for a fucker w/ a personal attachment to the animal & who could give a damn if you've got one too. Fortunately tho, his voice is heartbreakingly gorgeous, & tho not every track here matters, those that do, especially the quieter ones, are stunning, essential, & real.

This is a pretty bizarre record really, tho it's superficially digestible. These Norwegians combine three basic aesthetics: American punk vis-a-vis the Ramones thru The Replacements, pop-rock a la Oasis, & dense hard rock via AC/DC. Turbonegro probably think of themselves as punk in essence - 'Gimme deathpunk baby, & I like it' - but they're basically just a rock band - 'That rock is such a gift so make it last.' I don't really go for the whole just-a-rock-band-vision, mostly b/c I don't know what rock music is at bottom, but that's what this is, for good & for bad. Not enuf variety here to keep me invested for nearly an hour, but it rocks out, & for that reason I can get down. I'd just take other rockin' albums over this, ahem, Definitely Maybe.

This is good. Tho not quite Sly & The Family Stone, Earth, Wind & Fire are about as close as you'll get to that genius. The only thing missing is Sly's ability to turn cliché into something necessary, unexpected, & original. Few artists have that capacity: Sly Stone, Marvin Gaye, Stevie Wonder, Smokey Robinson come to mind. That's a major deficiency, & it's a wonder that the collective can overcome sappy sounds & soppy lyrics: 'Share the feeling w/ your brother / Don't stop caring for one another'; 'Take the time, make up your mind / It's all about love.' But they do overcome it, they overcome it w/ soul & sincerity, w/ lightness of vision & simplicity of heart. Don't think too much is what they seem to be saying, e'en on Slyish 'Yearnin' Learnin'.'

'She'll suck your thumb / She'll make you come / 'Cause she's your gun.' I know what that means w/o knowing what it means, if that makes any sense, you know what I mean? That's kinda how I feel about this record: if I'd go ahead & say I dig this album, I'm not sure what that would mean, but then again, dismissing it would be equally meaningless. The album is, it seems to me, essentially meaningless, but somehow it's not complete blah or rot, & I hate to admit that I may've been wrong 'bout Blur all along. But then again, maybe I was exposed to the wrong Blur, b/c, tho this is not quite at Pavement's level, these Brits do American indie pretty damn well, & it was always Blur as Brit shit that I had resisted. +, the comp to Oasis is empty.

While Youth & Young Manhood is no masterpiece, it's a memorable debut w/ a lot of tangible energy, & while Aha Shake Heartbreak is not a slamming followup, it's basically on par w/ Leon's first. They'll never be a great band - their aim to southernize The Strokes is not bound to fail but it's bound to be w/o much substance - but I do appreciate their more rockin' endeavors, especially in the vein of Zepp on 'Pistol of Fire.' +, Followill's voice, tho not Plant's, grits and scrapes itself to its soulful place. Problem is, the brothers dream to be deeper than they are - they want to be Tennessee's finest folk group and rock band, they reach for a 'can I get an amen' - but they should just keep it simple like Is This It. Or get down like Brittany Howard. 3.5/5.

'It's the Fun Lovin' Criminal out to represent / I know it's tough being hard & politically correct'; 'I'll break into your house & I'll smell your bed.' This is not as bad as I thought it would be, mostly b/c it's got at least some of the elements that make House of Pain a classic group, but it's still a lazy record that's committed to a musical style that was always inevitable but often too corny & really, really boring. It's not the rap-rock thing that's the problem, it's too-smooth-for-school aesthetic that (white) interpreters of blues & hip-hop get so wrong, it's Huey Morgan's insouciant & featureless voice. I dislike it even more knowing that Reasonable Doubt, The Coming, It Was Written, Stakes is High, & Ridin' Dirty were released in '96. This ain't that.

B/c I consider Sonic Youth & Pavement to be the chief exponents of noise, it's hard to characterize the Birthday Party along the same lines, so diff are these aesthetics from those. This is commotion, horror & commotion, &'s got a momentum that even the best of Pavement doesn't posses: nothing is alright here, it's all speeding to disaster & depravity. 'She's hit she's hit she's hit she's hit'; 'Junk-junk-jun-jun-un-un-un'; 'He wears a crucifix, he wears a crucifix / Pow, pow, pow, pow, pow.' The obvious comps are Tom Waits & Beefheart, but The VU, Suicide, & Joy Division are there as well. & I basically dig it. My beef is not that it's crazy or fucked up, but that it's not funny enuf, that it takes itself too seriously, & that metal is a creeping axis.

'Can't you see I'm trying.' The first words you hear on The Strokes' 2001 classic, they should tell you all you need to know about this awesome little record. Casablancas & co. try but they're not try-hards. Going for 'simple' or 'basic' is not a simple or basic matter, & can easily devolve into the kind of pretentious that worshippers of the rudiment are wonted to carry w/ 'em. But these NYC-private-school-fuckers aren't posers, not b/c they're real or pure, but b/c there've decided that there's nothing to pose for. '& now my fears they come to me in threes.' Each less-than-four-min-song has got a great deal of soul: they're flashes in the pan that yet linger long after you hear 'em. That's what punk ought to be. The Strokes are great punk band.

Unlike meat & potatoes, a mirepoix, or a roux, Lynyrd Skynyrd doesn't exist for the foundation of anything else. If they're plain & simple, basic & a part of our everyday vicissitudes, they're this for themselves & only themselves, i.e., they're the nuts & bolts before they've been attached to a larger frame. It hasn't been seamless for this group to be taken seriously in the U.S. of A north, partly for political reasons, but mostly b/c 'Sweet Home Alabama' is an overplayed anthem that's essentially a parody at this point. But listen to their debut, & their effective combination of The Stones (Exile on Main St.) w/ Creedence will hit you like a delightful ton of bricks. 'Forget your lust for the rich man's gold / All that you need is in your soul.' That's leftist, right?

Cliché is especially bad when it's incoherent, as the following snatch from the first track brings to light: 'Stand up in a clear blue morning / Until you see what can be / Alone in a cold day dawning / Are you still free? Can you be?' It's hard to tell what that means, tho you know it's not much & not all that interesting. I quite dig the Steve Winwood of Blind Faith but confess to knowing little about his work w/ Traffic or the Spencer Davis Group. On this record, he gets more and more annoying, especially that high tenor voice, which had been endearingly soulful w/ Clapton, Baker, & Grech. Often, he just sounds like a far less poignant Van Morrison. Also, you know that cat Bobby Caldwell J Dilla sampled for 'The Light'? That guy's better as well.

I had always thought that, as great as B.B. King is, the truest standards of blues music were Robert Johnson & Howlin' Wolf - that those two touch on the limits of art while King & Muddy Waters were brilliant but containable. I still feel that way about Waters, tho I recognize his genius, but after taking in Live At The Regal, I'm happy to add B.B. to that list of preternatural blues talents. Yes, his guitar playing is superbly nuanced & human, yet what I am most moved by is his singing, especially on 'Worry, Worry.' I don't think of him as a truth-teller, more like a truth-shaker, someone that agitates your foundations w/ a voice that's as sturdy as it is malleable. Maybe it's the live thing, as it is for Sam Cooke at the Harlem Square Club, that brings it out.

'If you're gonna talk on my name / Least say it w/ your chest.' Still her best record, tho she still didn't exactly miss w/ Sometimes I Might Be Introvert, GREY Area is a modern classic. Produced brilliantly by Inflo, the album is yet Simz and fully Simz, who is able, as few 'conscious' rappers are, to be poetical & musical, that is, to be lyric-conscious as well as flow-conscious. Crudely put, on GREY Area, her genre is not fucking spoken word, which is neither poetry nor hip-hop, but a corny hybrid. She's a rapper, a slamming, attitudinal rapper, & doesn't think that to be deep is to be more than that. 'Everything's imperative for the way I live / I know it's material but not irrelevant.' At 35 mins & 10 songs, no, it's not quite Illmatic, but it's close.

'You shouldn't have to jump for joy'; 'Find out, find out / What this fear is about'; 'We can, we can work it out.' Unjustifiably repetitious, Songs From The Big Chair is dark but soft, emotional but small, & not as good as other eighties releases that do more w/ similar stocks of sounds & rhythms, e.g., The Blue Nile. I'm not even sure we can count this as sincere, which would be its saving grace, since the lyrics are mostly uninspired & uninspiring, the saxophonic moments are sterile, & Orzabal bitches faintly, especially when he's louder than he ought to be. This is indeed a record that has one great song, the ubiquitous 'Everybody Wants To Rule The World,' & another one that's at least notable, 'Head Over Heels.' The rest? Drabber than G Ford.

We don't need to put R-E-S-P-E-C-T on her name. She's already regarded as one of if not the greatest vocalist of the twentieth century. Her uncanny power comes from the fact that she's as effortless as Sam Cooke & just as effortful as Otis Redding. In other words, she renders the act of trying an easy-breezy task: giving your all, & straining as you do, has never been so smooth or so simple. Aretha's only weakness as an artist is that she didn't always know how to curate a record. That is, her song selection could fall short. W/ this classic, however, she never misses. My favorites are 'Baby, Baby, Baby' & 'Do Right Woman, Do Right Man,' but you can't go wrong w/ any cut here. The quintessence of vocal talent is & will always be Aretha.

If you know raw, you know this. Nirvana's Unplugged is definitional when it comes to rawness that's true to life, which means that it's not only not put on, but that it takes some time getting used to. B/c that's the only way raw is able to get going: unhurried, unpolished, unplugged. Nothing raw ought to be immediately relatable, even if there's a spark keeping you engaged & present. That is, it SHOULD be too deep for comfort, but once you plunge, you'd be happy you did. Nirvana's never an easy listen for me, & it remains unexplained how popular they are, especially w/ this record. I often have to tune out in order to tune back in, to take a break so I can invest again, as I'd be wont to do w/ Beethoven, Billie Holiday, Ray Charles, or anyone so 'raw.'

This is music that's loud & makes you want to turn it up louder, a soulful & playful romp that teaches you the meaning of rock 'n' rolling. It's attitude, sure, but that's not what's fresh. It's also fun, but Chuck Berry was as fun & full of attitude as anyone before or since. No, what The Sonics were able to tap into was a sound that was simultaneously in your face & subtle, that was unforgivingly bold yet redeemably unadorned. It's not as obvious as it may seem to be loud & lo-fi at the same time, to be that confident in one's rough edges. I know The Beatles did 'Twist & Shout' & a plethora of other soul tracks, but these boys are really doing something else, foreshadowing MC5 & The Replacements's debut in particular. Tho Who? No way. This!

At his rare best, Clapton marries the laidback w/ the desperate, effecting a sort of soft style of yearning, a self-weakening, self-deprecating passion. I usually wouldn't go for that kind of thing, being evidence of self-pity & all the bad qualities of white-boy blues. Indeed, it's often the downfall of solo Clapton, who's as underwhelming as any proclaimed god can be. But Layla & Other Assorted Love Songs is a justified classic, Clapton's most realized work this side of what he did w/ The Bluesbreakers, & that has to do w/ the fact that he can be his casual, heartbroken self. He'll never be a big deal in my listening life, & I'll never understand what all the fuss is about. But then again, I'll never 'get' Fleetwood Mac, tho I recognize Rumours for what it is.