Reviews by verlainemorrison96

Captain Beefheart's psychedelic counterpart, prefigurement of late-style Tom Waits, and bayou-gris-gris shaman, Dr. John is a genius of mood and experience. The blues has never come w/ as many health benefits or heart balms before: 'If you work too hard and you need a little rest try my utilize rub put some on my drop fix and jam, put some in your breakfast.' But it's not really the blues, nor is it merely psychedelia-flavored New Orleans R&B - it seems to me an intimation of 70s funk in a special way. The thematic oddities, the spiritual levity, the outlandish but incredibly tight production all point to something beyond 60s rock. Somewhere between Sun Ra and Parliament-Funkadelic, this has the metaphysics + a narcotic festivity.

Siouxsie Sioux carries on the exuberances of Patti Smith, approaches the animation of Kate Bush, prefigures the spirit of Joy Division, and betters the one-note gothic axioms of The Cure. 'No more second rate movies / From those people outside'; 'Fuck the others kill the mothers.' Clamorous and haunting, they add layers of loudness to what could've been a drag of depression. Good on them for that, since I'd not want to endure a sluggish burn. But ultimately, Sioux suffers from the same shortcomings as Robert Smith. Except for 'Head Cut,' which features fun, frolicking vocals, each track possesses a monotony that is finally exhausted. Salvaged by hefty drumming, effective distortion, and aesthetic resolve, however, it persists.

Blackstar reminds me of Leonard Cohen's last gasp on You Want it Darker - both artists embrace their age and feebleness, and by doing so, engender something far more powerful than forced strength. 'At the centre of it all' is a Bowie still as vibrant and addicted to imaginative production as the early incarnations, but death challenges him to be upfront and intimate in ways honestly not employed by his previous personas: 'I'm so high, it makes my brain whirl / Dropped my cellphone down below.' Especially stunning are the horns, provided by Donny McCaslin, but really the whole experience is instrumentally rich. He claims to have been inspired by Kendrick Lamar and Death Grips. I can see it: particularly K.Dot, the lyricism and riskiness.

'And the feeling coming from by bones / Says, "Find a home."' After the arena anthem that now feels every bit as familiar as our own thoughts, if not more so, Elephant only continues to astound. Meg and Jack White are emblems of consistency: never doing too much, they're not stripped down - that would mean they begin w/ something complicated and remove the unnecessary pieces. Rather, they find a precise, unadulterated entry point into their compositions and maintain that energy w/o fussing around. You may want to call that blues, and certainly a track like 'Ball and Biscuit' is a rare example of 21st-century blues-rock, but it's also altogether something else. Heavy, droning, clarified, sea-parting rock? 'Be like the squirrel, girl.'

'A pair of Nikes, size ten-and-a-half'; 'I sport New Balance sneakers to avoid a narrow path.' Hip-hop had been Adidas-centric for the longest. Tribe's embrace of the other brands implies an ethos of divergence. They diverge from gangsterism, no doubt, but they also deviate from their Native Tongues collective. Tho just as spunky, allusive, and self-consciously soft as De La, Tribe is ultimately heaved to fresh heights w/ Q-Tip's resourceful production. Is there another hip-hop release that is more ingeniously reliant on the technology of break loops and the lowdown addiction to the double bass? 'So low-key that you probably missed it.' But it's a low-key vitalness. 'Who knows but that, on the lower frequencies, I speak for you?'

In my view, there are three indispensable artists from the 2010s: Kendrick Lamar, who is still very much a cultural force, Chance the Rapper, whose Acid Rap greatly endures but who fell off thereafter, and Frank Ocean, w/ a minimal output that redefined experimental R&B. Ocean is the inevitable continuity of Marvin Gaye's workaday confessionals and social awareness, Stevie Wonder's melodic ingenuity, and Prince's casual, yearning sexuality. Whether he's singing about beach houses in Idaho, rich kids on suicidal roofs, or crack rock, crack rock, he incorporates heavy details into an aura that is at once existentially urgent and playfully tongue in cheek. 'You run my mind, boy / Runnin' on my mind, boy.' I'll never forget those words.

Truly safer than Beefheart's 1969 masterpiece, Safe as Milk is still unlike anything you've heard before: 'High voltage man kisses night to bring the light to those who need to hide their shadow deed'; 'Song before song before song blues / Babbette baboon abba zaba zoom.' Weirdness ever rules the day here, but listenability is hardly an obstacle you'll need to overcome. The same can't be said about Trout Mask Replica. My favorite tracks, the R&B-inspired 'I'm Glad' and the somehow catchy 'Electricity,' are permanent achievements. Finally, however, the debut is a mere tuneup for his far more virtuosic, erudite, and satisfying masterwork. A first step in the evolution of our foremost musicologist. 'Harvest moon be nimble.'

Deservedly, the intersection of East 111th Street and 3rd Avenue in Spanish Harlem, NY is now referred to as 'Machito Square' (thanks Ed Koch!). The popularizer, really the inventor, of Afro-Cuban Jazz (explicit on the album cover), Cubop, and Salsa, Machito merges the swing-centrism of big band arrangements w/ the impossible fluidity of Afro-Cuban rhythms and the frantic celerity of bebop (e.g., 'Frenzy'). This produces something that is equal parts light and close-knit, precise but thoroughly unruly. While the record itself lacks diversity, and to some degree direction, being more of a collection of tracks than a story told, it's not really about that. It's about a movement in music affixed to neighborhoods now universally pronounced.

'Our love turns to rust / We're beaten and blown by the wind, blown by the wind.' Bono's no Boss, but that's clearly what's he's going for w/ this one. Apparently about 'America,' the fantasy as well as the reality, The Joshua Tree is really about U2 being the most maddeningly mawkish band in the history of pop music. 'I can't live, with or without you / with or without you.' I bring up Bruce Springsteen b/c, unlike Bono, he brilliantly negotiates the sentimental and the concrete. U2, on the other hand, is absolute schmaltz. Plus, it goes w/o saying that Bruce knows America better than these faux. The best songs, 'I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For' and 'Running to Stand Still,' are doomed by vague religiosity. The rest? Acute syrup.

Positive hip-hop, somewhere between De La Soul, Jungle Brothers, Dream Warriors (East Coast) and Outkast, Goodie Mob, Little Brother (Southern), Arrested Development arrived at the gangsta juncture of rap's evolution. While they're no bums when it comes to constructing catchy tracks, their anti-gangsta crusade is both unsubtle and uninformed: 'But he wouldn't stop and I ain't Ice Cube / But I had to take the brother out for being rude.' The genius of hip-hop manifests thru the convergences of opposites: Ice Cube coexists w/ Digable Planets, Above the Law w/ A Tribe Called Quest. Gangsta is not necessarily 'anti-black.' Speech is a funky moralist, but he is also self-righteous. Best track by far: 'Fishin' 4 Religion.' True & groovy.

Harvesting sheer soul and goodwill, Neil Young abounds w/ benevolence - the songs here come from the right place, the proper and warmest regions of our humanity. Young is not exactly a poet, tho he occasionally produces the impressive lyric: 'As the days fly past will we lose our grasp / or fuse it in the sun?' More so, he's shamanistic, a medicine man w/ a ghostly voice and strange hearts to offer. The best-selling album of 1972, and Young's most recognizable record, Harvest is yet not his best, but it's still good for you. Tracks like 'A Man Needs a Maid,' 'Are You Ready for the Country?' and 'There's a World' are soft and dullish, but 'Heart of Gold' is a classic, while 'The Needle and the Damage Done' is his startling chef d'oeuvre.

The most uniquely sophisticated lyricist in the history of rock music, Elvis Costello spawns a universe of effortless wordplay, effective storytelling, and pop-punk compositions that stand alone in their capacity to move you cerebrally and lowdown corporeally. Lyrically, he knows that memorability has to do w/ word choices that surprise as much as they align w/ our expectations. He rhymes vengeance w/ sentence, punctured w/ disgusted, listen w/ ignition, visit w/ limit, parents w/ disappearance, as any deft rapper might. The only comparable lyricist I can come up w/ is Smokey Robinson, who likewise grasps the sticky materiality and objectivity of words. And in terms of the music itself, it boils down to rockabilly meets punkabilly. Superb.

Deep trash. It doesn't rock, tho it is dense, it doesn't roll, tho it careens off a cliff of its own bullshit. 'Good Golly, said little Miss Molly'; 'Tutti Frutti was oh so rooty.' This doesn't remotely approximate Little Richard, neither the attitude nor the voice. And then it gets strangely racist w/: 'Got black breast Chinese eyes / Got an English brain that's gonna make me wise.' I don't want to be a moral policeman, but that literally translates as: non-white women are good for their bodies, white women for their smarts. Can they play? Sure, and the central guitar solo on 'Child in Time' is their best thing going. But Ian Gillan's yelping is pathetic, and the gist of the record substantiates the truism that there's nothing worse than aimless rocking.

Who are the great artists of American solitude? Edward Hopper, there's no question, Raymond Carver, the poet Weldon Kees, Bob Rafelson, director and co-writer of Five Easy Pieces. One would have to add Frank Sinatra to that list, who, w/ this record, and Frank Sinatra Sings for Only the Lonely, prompts some of the most profound explorations of that special brand of American loneliness: 'I can't win, but here I am / More than glad to be unhappy'; 'What's in store? Should I phone once more? / No, it's best that I stick to my tune'; 'That I'd awaken w/ the sun / And order orange juice for one.' I can't recall anything quite as intimate or as heartbreaking as Sinatra's vocals here recorded, an absolutely familiar, attentive isolation.

A somewhat innovative statement - I haven't heard sitar incorporated this fluently before, for instance - this record is no less a nondescript event. On a ballads like 'Look At You' or 'Sworn and Broken,' which are melodically satisfying and forceful, or a heavy hitter like 'Dying Days,' cliché lyrics and pointless vocal power corrode what is otherwise convincing songwriting: 'And when I look at you, I've got a second chance'; 'Winter's setting in again / And it feels like the end is near'; 'All these dying days / I walk the ghost town / Used to be my city.' I'm not looking for literary masterpieces, but these bits of saccharine folly can only detract from what could have been a solid product. Besides, it's for Christendom, of which I am not.

'Now you look out the window tell me / What do you see? / I see a golden calf pointing / Back at me.' The Band, at bottom, is gospel-rock, tho they may be completely secular for all I know. It has more to do with their lyrics, which center on the philosophical and parabolic, and their sermonic vocal style and instrumentation. Formed in Toronto, they sure feel like they hail from Modoc, Arkansas ('Caledonia Mission'). Unlike John Fogerty, keening for the unfortunate sons, The Band, organ-driven, proffers an adventure in unconscious religiosity. Their songs are not exactly catchy, tho everyone knows 'The Weight.' More accurately, they grab hold of you, as any deft preacher would. A bit uneven, but mostly an excellent, sui generis affair.

'Our love is rice and beans / and horses lard'; 'Break my body, hold my bones, hold my bones.' Sadomasochistic, not so much: just up-front and in-your-face, involving lyrics that at times detail violence and upset. Few artists can do this gracefully, let alone tangibly, but that's what the Pixies pull off on this record. Black Francis and Kim Deal don't so much as sing as insist, a dynamic matched by the much lauded drummer David Lovering. This is what metal strives for but seldom achieves: if you want to go dark, go ahead, but it only hits when the brutality has intention and grit. This has all that and then some. Besides, no group remotely sounds like them, even tho you can hear the influences (Modern Lovers) and aftermaths (Nirvana).

Heavier and more bluesy than The Byrds, just as unmediated and pertinent as Buffalo Springfield, Country Joe & The Fish bursts in like they know they are underrated. B/c man, what a revelation, I thought they were just the most vocal anti-war activists at Woodstock. In reality, they go toe-to-toe w/ the groups I just mentioned as well as bands like Jefferson Airplane, The Doors, and Love. The music is psychedelic, but never breezing or flimsy - they have nothing to do w/ what's gossamer or insubstantial: just listen to the instrumental track 'Section 43.' Lyrically, it's outspoken but also poetic: 'In startled greens of playground grass / A child jumps rope to rhyme'; 'It's a bird it's a plane, it's a man insane, it's my president LBJ'; 'L.S.D. / L.S.D. / L.S.D.'

'So I tell my mama that I reckon I oughta / Go to the spring and fetch us some water.' The god talk doesn't do it for me, but Parton is undoubtedly a superb, powerful vocalist, and knows quite well how to compose soulful, compelling pop-country songs. Emphasizing the metaphor of 'many colors,' be it of a coat or a butterfly, Parton ensures, at the very least, that some of what she sings about will hit home: if not this color than the other will be a relatable patch of stumbled-upon truths. She's not Patsy Cline, but then again, who is? She sings w/ an impressive amount of vigor and clarity, she's never dull or wanting of life, and her songs are polished in their curtness but raw in their simplicity.

I'll give it to Sparks for being sober enuf to know: 'It's a lot like playing the violin / You cannot start off and be Yehudi Menuhin.' B/c otherwise, tho far more playful than Queen, this record is just as guilty of get-you-nowhere theatrics as any Queen release is. The best tracks, heralded by 'Thank God It's Not Christmas,' have an effective sense of humor that enhance their catchiness, and some of the lyrics are hilarious: 'You mentioned Kant and I was shocked / You know, where I come from, none of the girls have such foul tongues.' But if I'm to judge a record based on how much I'd like to put it on rotation, this isn't a topper for me: tho very creative, especially the jazzy 'Equator,' Sparks is too phony-baloney to be a product I feel.