Reviews by verlainemorrison96

People, including Mick Jagger himself, say they hear Sticky Fingers on this blues-rock record, but Teenage Head is also adjacent to Safe as Milk. For one, Cyril Jordan is more experimental than Jagger. For another, the blues is the matrix of Teenage Head, not just the base as it is for Sticky Fingers. Finally tho, the Flamin' Groovies are their own thing entirely, a damn good time & an impressive venture into living large & positive. 'But I'm a fool to go on wishing / Might as well go on w/ my fishing.' One hears rumblings of classic rock radio, e.g., Tom Petty, as well as very early furnishings of punk blues via The Jon Spenser Blues Explosion. It's really very, very good. My only grumble is that the production is sometimes thin. Still, quite an album.

'& all the bridges blown away keep floating up.' Most people don't - can't - do attitude this well & this comfortably, but Liz Phair is a wholesome genius of the pop persuasion, & Exile In Guyville is a miracle of a record. It's very tempting to compare Phair to PJ Harvey, but comparing woman to woman can be not all that nuanced a business, & their styles are actually different enuf for the comp to be empty. More like an amalgam of Lucinda Williams & Malkmus, Phair is wise but not too wise, sensitive but not too sensitive, a punk hero, pop master, rock realist, & a conclusive vocalist. 'Explain It To Me' is simply extraordinary, one of those tracks you hear for the first time & know it'll be one for the books. Yet so much here is extraordinary. I love it.

I guess all revelations are unexpected, but Traffic's self-titled release is the redefinition of what it means for a record to catch you by surprise. Of the albums I've listened to this year, only Gene Clark's No Other surpasses the feeling of discovering something new I now associate w/ Traffic. A funky, & folksy, & psychedelic, & above all catchy record, it ne'er does what it isn't in the end supposed to, but then again, it plays by no rules but its own. For the most part, I say no to the incorporation of flute-play on rock albums - it suggests Jethro Tull & all things bad in Britishisms - yet e'en the flute is a welcome addition to Traffic's landscape. Now, I also recognize that it flirts w/ prog, & I shudder to think of where Traffic will go after, but this is prime.

'Now your eyes are like tortures / Your presence is bliss / I never knew time / Could speed & zip like this.' I love the green cover & the gold lettering, & I love how seriously unserious they take themselves, & I love that they're of no apparent age at all, & I love them instrumentally as well as lyrically, but I love nothing more than the fact that they're so eager & yet so punctuated. The Waterboys' Fisherman's Blues is both untamed & placid, exhibiting a savage control of medium & attitude. True, it's a bit long, & not every song shines absolutely, but if you can pull off a proper cover of 'Sweet Thing,' you've got my attention. Representing a gorgeous transition between Liam Clancy & The War on Drugs, The Waterboys are a stunning reminder of life.

I guess thrash carries a somewhat punk disposition, mainly due to the style of drumming, but if it's punk adjacent, it's not very interesting or profound. Metal has a unfortunate tendency to mythologize itself to the point that it usually devolves from sincerity to stupid self-seriousness. 'Land of anger, I didn't ask to be born / Sadness, sorrow, everything so alone.' Alas, this is on full display on Sepultura's Arise, an album that by the third track says all it's got to say, which isn't very much to begin w/. Instrumentally proficient but unvaried, Arise also proves that if you strip away the 'extreme,' which in the end isn't extreme but just wasteful energy, you're left w/ redundancy & unimaginative lyrics like: 'I can't trust anymore / Criminals within the law.'

'I've done nothing / I've achieved nothing.' Wild, wired, & weird, Non-Stop Erotic Cabaret is & isn't only 'Tainted Love,' their classic '81 cover of Gloria Jones's '64 original. Soft Cell prove themselves to be more than a one-hit wonder, but that's the best track. The record is more smooth & decadent than it's erotic - it doesn't exactly set the mood, & a creeping moroseness a la The Cure renders it all but too sad to have sex to. I have more than my fair share of reservations b/c I think they either depend too much or not at all enuf on shock value. A good, somewhat memorable album, it yet has me thinking of better ones, e.g., Pet Shop Boys's Very, which ravishes me. This doesn't ravish until the final track, my fav, tho 'Tainted Love' still tops.

White, sweet, yet surprisingly soulful, Nanci Griffith is like the female John Denver: her heart's clearly in the right place, she knows what she's doing, but there's a level of embarrassment that comes w/ listening to her. I think the best country, e'en at its most festive, has a great deal of pain behind it - it's tragedy that funds its humane language & melodies. I don't hear a lot of pain in Griffith's voice, just as I don't hear much in Denver's. That has to be a considerable drawback. & yet, Griffith, like Denver, can surely sing, & she has good songs to her name. Is The Last Of The True Believers an all-out mess of sentimentality & whiteness? I don't think so. Is it ultimately a record that is yet too white & too sentimental? I think it must be. WHITE!

Like a more guitar-driven Talking Heads, Devo are almost always catchy & I love what they're 'bout. In a way, they're the Doors of new wave - you can intuit their inconsistency, & they're a bit too artsy for what they actually are at the end of the day - but at least on their debut, they pull it off, whate'er it is they want to get across. Things really started to coalesce for me on the curt 'Space Junk,' one of the more emotional tracks on the record, & there simply is a great deal of creativity manifest here. Unfortunately annoying at times, especially the 'title-track' 'Jocko Homo',' Q: Are We Not Men? A: We Are Devo is nonetheless a necessary & meaningful classic. I have no idea what they went on to do after, & I kinda don't care, but w/ this one they did enuf.

A still somewhat unsung hip-hop classic, Step In The Arena is the perfect Gang Starr album, boasting the strange, the mundane, the old-school, the new-school, the monotone, & the unexpected. The reason why Premier & Guru work so well together is that the former is a movement unto himself while the latter is an utter original. What I mean is that it'd be difficult to find a producer more in touch w/ the boom-bap style than Premier. Sure, we have Pete Rock & Large Pro, but Preemo IS boom-bap. Guru, on the other hand, is 'bout as alien as they come. 'You better sit again, citizen / Weak MCs, I get rid of them.' Who else but Guru would inject 'citizen' into that rhyme? W/ great social commentary, Step In The Arena is superlative.

Tho this doesn't prove that Ginger Baker is the great drummer of the 20th century (he's not - Tony Williams almost certainly is), it does prove that he could 'hang.' Most 'rock' musician can't transition from their home genre to other expressions. Shit, most can't e'en play their base genre, which is the unadulterated blues, i.e., I'm thinking of Clapton. But Ginger could, & he should be celebrated for that. Yet, Live! isn't all or at all 'bout Ginger - it's 'bout Fela & the band that redefined international music. It's weird to review an album like it. To some degree, it's just another Fela release, & I don't know enuf 'bout his catalogue to judge it relatively. All I know is what I hear - & that's the magic of a master arranger whose rhythms are a conscience.

Kiss is a miss, & will always be one for one simple reason: they don't rock, no matter how much they tell us they do. '12 o'clock, I gotta rock.' They create a rank atmosphere of nostalgia for something they ne'er possessed to begin w/, i.e., rock 'n' roll, which in their grasp is in its most abstract & fleeting form. 'God of thunder / & rock 'n' roll / The spell you're under / Will slowly rob you of your virgin soul.' It's a general rule of thumb that rockers shouldn't sing 'bout rock music: The VU & Oasis are notable exceptions. I can appreciate the production on Destroyer, & a lesser-known track like the Brit-inspired 'Great Expectations' is interesting, but as a record it fails b/c Kiss fails at what they're supposed to be good at: making poppy hard rock.

From being a rock 'n' roll star to married w/ children, Oasis runs the gambit of life in your early twenties. 'You're not down w/ who I am.' No group has e'er come up w/ as effective a formula for making you feel like you can live forever as the Gallagher brothers band, & they succeed most of all on their debut, really one of the great rock albums of all time. I know, I know, they are shallow, they are laddish, & they're not exactly pushing the boundaries of sound or vision, but they're also down to earth & offer the all-important wisdom that taking the time out to have a good time is almost always the right thing to do. In many ways the Ferris Bueller's Day Off of rock n' roll, Definitely Maybe says to me, 'life moves pretty fast...' Having fun is radical.

'Planet Rock' is the definition of a classic, for good & for bad - but mostly for good. It's one of those tracks that encodes history rather than merely being a part of history, & thus deserves not only our adulation but our time. Yet, unlike say 'The Message,' another definitional classic, which I listen to happily & willingly, I can't say the same about Bambaataa's essential tune. It simply doesn't do as much for me. The album is yet more than that one hit, boasting 'Looking for the Perfect Beat' & 'Renegades of Funk,' at least as good as if not superior to 'Planet Rock.' Having turned the corner from Kraftwerk to hip-hop as we'd know it, Africa Bambaataa will remain forever a key to our global music. A 'complex,' i.e., fucked-up legacy, sours it tho.

The Clash are already a well-oiled machine on their debut, displaying pop & punk perfection w/o a shred of irony or insincerity. 'It's so gray in London town / Panda car crawling around.' I love - love - the Ramones, but it's true that it's difficult to tell where the joke ends & their soul resides, but w/ The Clash, such is ne'er an issue: they're an absolute runaway train as masters of social critique, but parody is not only not their forte - it's something they resist. Give me The Clash on a bad day or a miraculous one: they cover all bases & ne'er e'er act like they're better than you. 'Hate & war (I hate all the English men) / Hate & war (Just as bad as wops) / Hate & war (I hate all the politeness) / Hate & war (I hate all the cops).' They do hate tho - that's life.

'Get your hands off of my woman, motherfucker / Get your hands off of my woman, motherfucker.' Glam rock that's as weird as anything you'd hear in a long time while also being no different from so much other rock music of the early 20-aughts including lame bands like The Killers & underrated acts like The Libertines, The Darkness are a fun, delightful group that grow on you b/c, deep down, their pop sensibility is all that really matters. This is to say that melodies reign supreme: 'Love Is Only a Feeling,' 'Givin' Up,' & 'Friday Night' are classics of dispensable triviality & deep joviality. The Darkness are at times too close to 70s radio rock for me to tune in ravishingly - I'm thinking of Boston, Journey, etc. - but I guess that's also a part of the play.

Bowie's not one of those legends who can do no wrong - his catalogue has some clunkers - but a genius is a genius, & that genius is on full display on this record. Tho it doesn't have the epic finality of Blackstar - it isn't, in the end, quite as moving - it has that fecundity that Bowie at his best maneuvers into a space of emotionality & virtuosity. 'You've cut out your soul & the face of thought.' The lyrics border on Scott Walker's real-time abstractions while the songs themselves track back to Bowie's late 70s Berlin-run. 'Valentine told me how he'd feel / If all the world were under his heels.' Obscure yet immediate, significant yet pop-disposable, The Next Day has that magical Bowie quiddity, a gorgeous essence that gave popular music a permanent uplift in strange loveliness.

Dusty is sui generis to the extent that she's the best blue-eyed soul singer the British Isles have e'er produced, bar none. Eric Burden - lead singer of The Animals - has the other claim to that title, but Dusty wins in the end b/c she's deeper, stranger, more marvelous, & more varied, an artistry that is a crucial component of the sixties experiment. I love her image, obviously, & I love how that dusty image is the perfect visual expression of her voice, a dusty & delicious vocal tendency that operates according to the logics of a whole lotta effort & none at all. My favorites from this expanded edition are really too many to enumerate, but 'Wishin' And Hopin'' is a song I can't get outta my head & thus deserves a special shoutout. Thanks Dusty - love ya.

'I'm absolutely / & totally / Quite uncontrollably happy.' Save the difference of length, which is substantial, A Short Album About Love is very much like 69 Love Songs. Neil Hannon is no Stephin Merrit - he lacks the stunning & absolute virtuosic element - but Neil nonetheless follows the love theme - the theme none of us can do w/o - beautifully, &, like Merritt, he is able to marry wit w/ sincerity. Count me as surprised - I didn't like Cassanova, & didn't think that The Divine Comedy had it 'em to make music this moving & meaningful - but that's what sincerity will get you. 'But the moment I can feel / That you feel that way too / Is when I might fall in love w/ you.' Add to that a recovery of baroque pop a la Scott Walker, & I'm a happy camper.

From what I can tell, Jane's Addiction managed one great song, the classic & superb 'Jane Says.' Beyond that, I guess I don't hear what all the fuss is 'bout. Ritual De Lo Habitual continues to combine the heavy hardness of Led Zeppelin w/ the apparent fun-loving-&-goof-off sentiments of another overvalued LA act, the talent-waste of the Red Hot Chili Peppers. B/c I've always loved Zeppelin & have considered the Chili Peppers to be annoying, Jane's Addiction is somewhere in the middle for me in terms of how I feel 'bout them, tho I do lean towards the negative. 'Been Caught Stealing' is a good single, tho it impresses less upon further listens. 'Then She Said' is the best track on the album. I'm yet still underwhelmed in the generalities.

'They own you to the grave / Nobody's here to stay.' There's heavy heavy & then there's light heavy - Mudhoney's second record is a very, very good instance of the latter. What this means is that Mudhoney has moved away from grunge, which is saying something b/c Superfuzz Bigmuff was already a punkier grunge than would be exhibited by Nirvana, Soundgarden, Alice in Chains, & Pearl Jam. But Every Good Boy Deserves Fudge is e'en lighter & e'en faster than their first EP - & it works brilliantly well. 'I lose my bank of memory / How did we e'er get on?' Tracks that take on a slower tempo, like 'Broken Hands,' are ballads rather than slow-burning depressive cases that you'd get from other grungers. +, the harmonica-use is fucking killer.