Reviews by verlainemorrison96

Emmylou learned from Gram to sing country from the depths as well as the surfaces, which means going pop, going rock, and going for nothing but the soul. 'I have come to listen for the sound / Of the trucks as they move down out on 95.' She's more Joni and Mary (Travers) than Patsy or Dolly - she's more of a soarer than a crier, hence the title of this record. But that doesn't mean she's an ethereal or vapid angel. She has her problems, no doubt, and she gains from Merle to be straight, to be actual: 'The one true friend I thought I'd found / Tonight, the bottle let me down.' I prefer Dolly's 'Coat of Many Colors,' and tho Harris is an Alabamian, it don't always feel that way. If I want southern, this isn't where I'd go, but good for you it is.

'If I ventured in the slipstream / Between the viaducts of your dream.' I've heard that opening refrain n+1 times, and it always means the same thing, which is that, for me, there is no album that matters quite as much. It has no real genre, but I'd say in the realm of 'rock,' the only record that comes close is Marquee Moon, but I heard this first, and there it remains. I'd have to go to pre-60s music - Armstrong and Monk, Patsy Cline and Ray Charles - to find a sound as revelatory. The track I initially heard was 'Sweet Thing.' Then it was 'The Way Young Lovers Do,' the song that most resembles the style he'd go for on Moondance. From there, it was everything. I can't, in the end, analyze Astral Weeks. I can merely say that it's taught me to love.

'Damn the water, burn the wine / I'm going home for the last time.' Grunge is heavy and often cheesy, but at its best, it's also 'real,' however you'd like to disentangle that adjective. It was at its best and its most real w/ Nirvana and Soundgarden, never w/ Pearl Jam, Alice In Chains, or Screaming Trees. Importantly, it's 'real' but not necessarily an exponent of realism: it comes from the marrows of the human condition, it's guttural and lousy, it's spit-up and scummy lunchmeat. It's real b/c you fucking feel it, even if want to get the fuck away from it: 'Hello, don't you know me? / I'm the dirt beneath your feet.' I don't think Chris Cornell was the voice of a generation as Kurt was, but in his relentless darkness, you're pillared: 'Head high, head high.'

'Mama, don't go / Daddy, come home.' I know it's fashionable to dig Paul more than John these days, and I can see the argument from a musical and an ethical perspective, but Lennon is a presence, a lifeline, a way of being in the world. He has got to be on for his magic to work, but boy is he on w/ this record, a moving confirmation that he was the most soulful Beatle, and it's not that close. He was also the most petty, which I love, contending w/ Dylan for the best get-back artist: 'Old Hare Krishna got nothing on you / Just keep you crazy / W/ nothing to do.' He's not particularly in the mood to protest here, at least not outwardly, until the atheist-anthem 'God,' and that's affirmation via negation: left is love + the self, reality not the dream.

'All they got inside is vacancy.' Like all rockers, Jack White is a romantic as well as a Romantic. At bottom, he's a gentleman, w/ the proper etiquette and a feel for civility, but he also has an itch for self-expression at all costs: 'Maybe I should carry you / Then you said "You almost dropped me" / So I did / And I got mud on my shoes.' Jack and Meg are more than economy, and certainly more than rock revival, they're good sense + the stewardship of rock 'n' roll decorum. The songs that comprise this record, arguably the best of their tenure, are neither cool nor uncool, unusual nor prosaic: they exist on the plane of rituals and mores. Jack knows he's just a fella: 'I'm coming thru the door / But they're expecting more of an interesting man.'

The fact that three of the six original tracks on Larks' Tongues In Aspic (a savory title!) are instrumentals shows a degree of growth on the part of the OG progressive band: prog is a foul and soulless genre primarily due to its lyrical failings. These instrumentals are especially poignant b/c Bill Bruford and Jamie Muir are excellent percussionists, adding far more than detail to this already intricate record. I'd be false, however, if I said I despised what this album has to offer lyrically: the other three tracks were well worth my time. 'She responds like a limousine / Brought alive on the silver screen / To the shuddering breath of yesterday.' In short, way better than the debut - and tho it's still pretentious, I take to it like I take to Wish You Were Here.

'Politicians' funeral pyre / Innocents raped w/ napalm fire.' I know that it's branded as one of the first prog rock records, but lyrics like that remind me of what was to come w/ the political metal of Black Sabbath, e.g., 'Burning globe of obscene fire / Like electric funeral pyre.' Instrumentally, that first track also has the heaviness of metal, or, at the very least, hard rock. Yet, things regrettably soften as the album goes on, and that's coming from a member of not-crazy-about-metal-pack. It's soft b/c it's sentimental and nostalgic, corny and pretentious, no matter how compelling their anti-war sentiments were. The sole thinker in the band appears to be Michael Giles - I wonder how much I'd dig this release w/ just the drum parts. He's neat.

'Even though I'm righteous / Rotten's what you're yellin' / But I'm not chain-snatchin' / Or drug-sellin'.' Jeru's debut is, in every way, just as innovative and imaginative as Nas's, tho it lacks the seismic quality of that greatest of all hip-hop albums. What I venerate most about this record is the aspect of an east-coast cacophony: Gang Starr, Organized Konfusion, Boot Camp Clik, Nas, Wu-Tang, Mobb Deep, Kool G, Chuck D, De La, Jungle Bros. It is, in other words, NYC hip-hop incarnate. And yet, Jeru is sui generis: a flow that's funky and disjointed, a voice that's sonorous and pastoral, and lyrics that are memorably righteous. 'Your nine spay, my mind spray.' +, Preemo proves that he's the east-coast Dr. Dre: at times, he out-funks the G-funk.

'I've been spat on and shat on / And made to eat soap / I've been working and shirking / For what, I don't know.' Tho they sound completely different, and one would be wont to compare Dexys Midnight Runners to The Clash, Elvis Costello, or The Specials, there's really one band that's comparable to this group, and that would be The Smiths. Kevin Rowland and Morrissey appreciated that anti-establishment music would have to be undergirded by an 'I,' even or especially if that 'I' couldn't help but lament bookishly. So, w/ this said, this is a band and a record theoretically right up my alley: the horns, the soul, the punk, the roaring, the poised and blaring right-side-of-history-adventure. But I think it's overestimated: any great, great song?

'He said, "we haven't had / That spirit here since 1969."' I want to hate the title-track, and in many ways I do, but it has a few things going for it, the guitar solo notwithstanding (I know it's celebrated, but it's soft rock trying hard to be hard). At the very least, it's a peculiar if pretentious success, a song that's enjoyably inexplicable. I want to hate the rest of the tracks, and in many ways I do, but they're not the worst I've heard, despite the milage of faux soul the band covers. The record is essentially a deficient version of Clapton's inconsistent solo work, w/ the subtle reggae nods and all. It does boast a particularly bad song, the arid and brainless 'Victim of Love': 'A room full of noise and dangerous boys / Still makes you thirsty and hot.'

'I will never hide what I really feel.' While her message and stance are clear enuf - she's a feminist intent on acknowledging her mistakes ('I keep going right back / To the one thing that I need to walk away from') - Aguilera is, musically speaking, nearly impossible to classify: R&B, rock, hip-hop, Latin folk, jazz. Tho the influence of this record has certainly been recognized, it's quite the experience listening to it all the way thru: its aesthetic really has gone on to become an ubiquitous presence. Even artists as seemingly self-contained as Solange and Amy Winehouse owe something to Stripped. More importantly, as long as it is, the album is simply a pleasure to listen to. She's also dead serious: fuck those who said it's 'almost' for grown-ups.

'Moments of clarity are so rare / I better document this'; 'Anything peak for clarity.' Björk's breakup record, Vulnicura is not just an honest outpouring of emotion, it's intensely analytical, striving for 'clarity' above all else. She insists on having it: 'I demand all clarity.' Every track resembles some sort of therapeutic procedure, an emotional reckoning that's as philosophical as a novel by Sartre or Camus. In order to get clear about oneself, especially during and after a breakup, one ought to analyze - it's probably not a great idea to chew over things aimlessly and feverishly. The problem is that this doesn't always make for very interesting art. In this case, tho the songs are often beautiful, they drag lyrically + orchestrally: the monotony wears thin.

After 36 Chambers was released, Meth was the Wu-Tang member w/ the most breakout potential, due in large part to the hit single from their debut. And yet, in the pantheon of solo Wu records, Tical isn't celebrated to the extent that Cuban Linx..., Liquid Swords, Ironman, Supreme Clientele, and Return to the 36 Chambers are. I'd like to think that's b/c Method Man was far stranger than anybody could've imagined, tho 'Method Man' isn't your everyday rap hit. The thirteen tracks that make up Tical are all beautifully odd in one way or another, w/ choruses and standalone lyrics that reclaim strangeness as hardness: 'Is it real, son, is it really real, son? / Let me know it's real, son, if it's really real'; 'The ism helps to stimulate my pugilism.'

If The Beatles never made another album after Rubber Soul, they wouldn't have gone on to be (in)arguably the greatest band of all time, but we'd still remember them as one of the more important acts in the history of popular music. Tagged as their transition record, it's perhaps their most creative & subtle release. I adore its various nods to soul and Motown, especially on 'Nowhere Man' (my favorite Beatles song?), I venerate their vague and not always upstanding decorum, i.e., these aren't your run-of-the-mill hippies: 'I'm Looking Through You,' 'Run For Your Life.' In short, I'm thrilled that an album like it exists, one that you can throw on while putting together a brief dinner or listen to thoughtfully. +, Harrison shines: 'If I Needed Someone.'

'Jesus freaks, out in the street / Handing tickets out for God.' I'd be lying & inconsistent if I said I didn't value 'Tiny Dancer,' one of those inane classics that oughtn't work but do and there's not much else to say 'bout it. 'Levon' is a noble second helping of that seminal track, continuing the odd tributes to Jesus + Americana: I never knew Elton John was essentially a Brit doing some kind of prog-country act. By the time 'Razor Face' starts, however, I no longer care for the orchestral pretensions, the melodramatic storytelling (the nadir being 'Indian Sunset'), or John's bright mundanities. Things are slightly bettered on 'Holiday Inn' - 'Slow down Joe, I'm a rock and roll man' - but if there's genius on this record, it's privileged on the first two tracks.

It's impossible to quote Costello adequately, so fecund is his lyrical talent, which has rightly been compared to Gershwin and Porter. A few moments from the first three tracks, tho these merely scratch the surfaces: 'I hang around dying to be tortured / You'll never be alone in the bone orchard'; 'I guess time gave up the ghost too late'; 'I have betrayed you and me / And paid for my own bribery.' Really, there're only a handful of artists who have continued the tradition of classic American songwriting: Costello, Waits, Smokey Robinson, Carole King (sorta) - the rest went the Bob Dylan route. For this, Costello always has my heart. Yet, something about this record, I have to admit, is the product of a try-hard sophisticate. I prefer his naivete.

Coldplay are old souls at heart, for good and for bad: tho their genre is alt, indie, or whichever white moniker you prefer, they share more w/ soft rock from the late 60s and 70s than they do w/ R.E.M. thru Pavement, etc. That is, Chris Martin and co. are essentially a folk-rock group, but they're not all that folksy or homespun: Chris is too graceful a singer to have the required rasp of a folk artist, and the music is gossamer rather than knowing or tender. What really drags them into the mud of mediocrity are their philosophical pretensions, which are even more boring than Radiohead's: 'That the spies hide out in every corner / But you can't touch them, no'; 'We've been living life inside of a bubble.' 'Yellow,' like 'The Scientist,' is a classic, tho.

'I'm still aware of little, but I'm gonna try'; 'It slipped my mind that I could use my brain.' The Lemonheads makes short and catchy tracks that unite the lyricism of Elvis Costello w/ the slacker poses of Pavement. Yet, their catchiness never catches fire, and as one song starts to bleed into another, Evan Dando's voice dawdles and exasperates more and more. It's a shame - I dig their ethos of simplicity and curtness - but they simply don't explore enuf for me to bother: their enervation spells out an indifference even the grandest slackers don't assume. Their cover of S&G is, in fact, the best 3 mins on the record, which says a lot about their inability to invent a serious or memorable sound. The nineties had a whole lot to offer better than this.

It often reveals a benighted aesthetic to call something pretentious - it can even be pretentious to evaluate a work of art that way - but I do not know what else to say about this record or this band: they fit that category too perfectly. Pretentious b/c soullessly self-important - plenty of great artists suffer from self-importance, but if they have soul they have my ears - ELP is what happens when a group of not very intelligent nerds fly the flags of their nerdism via the overabundance of organs and Moogs. It's a truism: if you have nothing to say, blast the organ loudly and annoyingly. It turns out this group has nothing to say: 'Have you walked on the stones of years? / When you speak, is it you that hears?' Altho...an armadillo I like very much.

If Led Zeppelin represented the blues twisted and turned inside out, Tom Waits is a more traditional blues artist b/c he's thoroughly more American than any blues-loving Brit could ever hope to be. His renditions are often bizarre, of course, but for every 'All Stripped Down' there's 'Who Are You,' this record's 'Downtown Train.' The thing about Waits - what makes him a touchstone for me - is that he's essentially a historian of American music + religion, the only sensible thing to be if you aim to command this country's folkloric accents: 'And the great day of wrath has come / And here's mud in your big red eye'; 'I wanna know am I the sky or a bird? / 'Cause hell's boiling and heaven is full / We're chained to the world and we all gotta pull.'