Reviews by verlainemorrison96

A very musically inclined friend of mine once told me that AC/DC punched above their weight b/c 'if you need a song for a chase scene or an action-packed heist, they got you covered.' This has always seemed to me their essential issue. Not smart enuf to be 'dumb,' they're also far geekier than they'd ever admit to being, & I hate a nerd acting like he's hard. 'Cause I'm the one who's gonna make you burn.' W/ this said, Back in Black is a better record (marginally) than Highway to Hell b/c it flirts w/ melody ('You Shook Me All Night Long') & Brian Johnson is a more sensible frontman than Bon Scott. Unfortunately, it also boasts 'What Do You Do for Money Honey,' an egregious example of 'cock rock', a pejorative I don't go for but works here.

On Talk Talk Talk, The Psychedelic Furs' classic second, storytelling leads the way while noise is a vital tho subtle component. That adds up to damn good interpretation of post-punk, pop sensibilities & all. What sets it apart from other albums of that era is its gorgeousness & the profundities of its insights, lyrically, instrumentally, inventively: 'Here's another nine o'clock / & here's another day / Wonder how the weather is / & what the people say'; 'Talk about yourself again / Talk about the rain again'; 'She's making me a plastic wig / She's making me again.' Never maudlin, only appropriately & meaningfully sentimental, these blokes offer faith in the process that is life & its ordinariness. Painful even, but pain never gets the final word. Wisely.

'Oh, the two white lines / Distant gods & faded signs.' In my book, if it ain't easy to tell if something is pretentious, it's more than likely not. There's a chance it's just surprisingly beautiful & touching. This is to say that I think The Flaming Lips are pretentious but Mercury Rev, the Buffalo outfit closely related to that Oakland band, are not. 'The way it changed, into a strange / Cole Porter phrase.' Art rock, art pop, art's not a problem if it's done well & truly. Deserter's Songs is not a perfect record - the vagaries aren't always bountiful & the ghostly themes are silly - but the big tracks ('Holes,' 'Opus 40,' 'Goddess on a Hiway') are fantastic & the overall affect of the album is one that takes me somewhere. When consuming art, I go for that, ya dig?

'But have I forsaken you by / Telling you what you must do.' I have no idea what the fuck that means. 'It's time to take a stand / Brothers and sisters, join hands.' I know what that means but it's flat, faux, & uninspired. I don't need Lenny to make up his mind - to choose between Prince, The Beatles, & Marvin Gaye - but opting for a boring hybridity to prove that you have the chops to both rock out & be soulful leaves a whole lot to be desired. It isn't even bullshit. It's just so poorly executed & unimaginatively effected that it collapses into inevitable bullshittiness. I want to think that there are certain standout moments, like 'Does Anybody Out There Really Care' or 'Mr. Cab Driver,' but they're just not good enuf. Like, I want good songs. They not.

If there were ever an instance of soulful electronica, this would be it. Moby leans on blues/soul samples, but there's more to it than that - he creates a soundscape rich in a searching, digging, living quality, essences of soul as a genre & a state of mind. The music is oceanic & dream-sequenced while also being of the soil & the muck: 'Why does my heart feel so bad? / Why does my soul feel so bad?' It's fun to compare this to Entroducing..., that other masterpiece of electronica, tho I guess it's better to call that hip-hop instrumentalism: so different, yet really two sides of the same coin b/c the two records are the grandest this genre has to offer. I'm partial to Shadow & the straighter hip-hop aesthetic, but simply put, this is the 'natural blues.'

'Is there anyone else who's too / In love w/ beauty?' Rufus Wainwright, just like Sufjan Stevens, wants things beautiful & witty, but neither one of them has mastered that conjunction to the extent that Stephin Merrit has. 'Stop me making movies of myself.' Nothing here is exactly incoherent, but it's always reaching for some sort of intellectual integrity that's boring & vapid. Prolific arrangements & (all things considered) solid songwriting save this album from being a complete dud, & Want One is far better than Want Two, but too much of the following irritates: 'Wouldn't it be a lovely headline / "Life is Beautiful" on The New York Times?'; 'Pretty things / So what if I like pretty things?' +, as a vocalist, he has too much of that Thom Yorke affect.

Not Cream, b/c psychedelia was never Eric’s deal, the Clapton of the Blues Breakers & the Dominoes were the best the world ever saw. For the many of us who find the bloke’s reputation bloated & undeserving, what we need to realize is that he was never a hack, he was just hella boring. A fan of the blues, an almost painful admirer of a form he knew he’d never master, Eric didn’t just appropriate black music, I think he was agonizingly in love w/ an outlet that would essentially elude him always. Agony, no matter its source, often makes for good art, & the guy has genuine breakthrus on this record, especially 'All Your Love,' 'Have You Heard,' 'Ramblin' On My Mind,' & the big-sounding 'Steppin' Out.' Oh yeah, Mayall & the rest ain't so bad either.

Perhaps overdubbed, by not overdone, Thin Lizzy's classic if controversial live record is not just an exemplar of the live form but an effective intro to a band I assume is now mostly remembered for that one hit. It's not that the Irish hard rock outfit is all that inventive or original, it's that they do Queen better than Queen & they're more T. Rex than they are Judas Priest or, oh I don't know, Def Leppard. Dumb is dumb, & these tracks don't exactly live in our wittiest or deepest brainwaves, but call me surprised, tho I may just be ravished, this doesn't just go hard & wild, it's got depth & soul. I'm not even that moved to say that it sounds live, i.e., this is no At Fillmore East. I think it just sounds alive, which is really all you want out of music anyways.

'If the summer change to winter / Yours is no disgrace.' The Yes Album has got some unwonted funk - not Floyd's 'Money' funk, but funk nonetheless. But it also has the worst of the British Folk Revival, which is really the basis of the whole prog thing anyway, e.g., check out 'The Clap,' definitional of instrumental inanity & amnesia. Of what I can remember of Close to the Edge & Fragile, I took to this one more, but prog has a way of reliably spoiling the fun, i.e., not just pretentious but undetermined & languorous. I will concede tho that 'I've Seen All Good People' is a worthy track, & better than that 'Roundabout' shit. 'Make the white queen run so fast / She hasn't got time to make your wife.' Yeah, a lyrical mess, but it sure sounds right.

'Goin' faster miles an hour.' In a sense, The Modern Lovers took over just where The VU left things with Loaded, indeed improving on Lou's grand & noble love affair with 'rock 'n' roll.' Interestingly enuf, John Cale produced six of these tracks, tho to my knowledge, Cale was nowhere to be seen in the latter years of that first & greatest of alt acts in rock history. Anyhow, I love this album even more than Loaded. Above all else, I love it b/c it has to do with what's happening 'late at night,' when 'it's getting dark,' but not w/ respect to the magic of a metropolitan nighttime. Nope, this sings to the tune of when 'you're alone in your room.' In a strange way then, it's got to be one of the most romantic & heartbreaking records of all time: 'Hospital.'

Essentially the Italian Satchmo - NOLA origins no less - Louis Prima, at the very least on this wild record, is a revelation. Here's the scatter that rivals Pops & Ella, & tho not quite as seismic as those geniuses, Prima is a real deal talent, a whole lotta fun, & the begetter of this one classic album that deserves rotation rights per sempre. What's more, Keely Smith, spouse & vocal batterymate, sings her ass off, & the instrumentalists, particularly Sam Butera (Italo-American di nuovo) on 'Body and Soul,' have got kick & legit power. You don't put this on for a dated laugh or two - you don't put this on for some sort of trifling time-travel enjoyment - you throw it on b/c it's stellar music. 'A woman is a woman & a man ain't nothin' but a male.'

Too you know what to be rock 'n' roll, too I don't know what to be pop, The Everly Brothers were committed to one genre & one genre only: harmony. That harmony could often be corny, but for the most part it was incredibly horny & it was never boring, at least not as it manifests on this record & its predecessor, It's Everly Time. We love the sixties for its range, & whether we like it or not (& we should love it), The Everly Brothers were integral to that range. Just go & ask Paul & Art how they feel 'bout this seminal duo. Let's remember that these boys are from Knoxville, TN: the country/blues spirit resides deep inside 'em, no matter how sweet or cozy their sound is. 'If I ever lost you / I'd cry & cry.' Innocence, not so much. Experience, yah.

W/ some works of art, you just know & you kinda can't believe what's going on. 'Words can be empty tho filled w/ sound / Stoned, numb & drifting / Hard to be profound.' Perfecting not only the American visions of Graham Parsons, but the Grateful Dead, CCR, Neil Young, Townes Van Zandt, & The Band, Gene Clark's No Other is out of this world like an ocean tethered to the cosmos - it has no choice but to expand & expand brilliantly. That's 'til you get to the title track, & suddenly funk's very much a part of the formula & you'd swear Stevie Wonder entered the chat. Ultimately, this is no more than a remarkable rock 'n' roll album, but I'd be damned if that means it can't transcend category. 'In my life the piano sings.' Art that lives & gives.

Is it just me, or is Jack White, at his least inventive, akin to a talented & v soulful American Idol contestant? B/c as much as I adore The White Stripes, besides a few tracks here, specifically the perceptive ‘Love Interruption’ & the country-inspired title track, this solo is nothing special. I think the guy kinda depends too much on not reinventing the wheel. Not bad, but I need more. & he’s no Bo Diddley. Bo Fiddley?

'If you ever get that chimp off your back / If you ever find the thing that you lack.' Oh so spooky, kooky, & dorky, This Is Hardcore, aka Britpop for the Brit snob, the one too cool for Oasis, simultaneously defeats the purpose & upholds the tradition. One thing is clear: this is a record that sounds good, really, really good, & that's probably more than just a matter of production. These blokes know how to play. But another thing is clear: irony's a losing game when it comes to pop music of a certain stripe. There's a whole lot of Bowie, T. Rex, or even their contemporary Suede here, but those chaps had a sincere vision they were chasing. These lads were chasing their own tail. Not unenjoyable - 'A Little Soul' is a strong one - but not my cuppa.

The Who’s best by far, since they keep it simple & this mostly consists of covers, but I still prefer The Sonics, The Rascals, The Lovin’ Spoonful, The Kinks, Them, early Stones, & early Beatles. It just doesn’t seem to me that they possess an ounce of soul, which makes their ‘hard’ approach an unappealing bore. But I recognize what this record must’ve done to the punctured airwaves, & for that I can respect it. I can even get a degree of pleasure out of it. Just don’t tell me they invented punk.

'I want out now / I want out now.' The most literary-poetic of the hardcore I've heard, & tho the OG, not as dynamic or intentional as Minutemen, Bad Brains, & Minor Threat. 'Embracing my life between your thighs / We will perform in the deadly skies.' By no means an insignificant achievement, or a release only to be admired for it's having been 'the first,' GI is yet not as explosively relevant as other hardcore albums of note. Perhaps those are the stakes of coming out in '79 rather than a few years later when hardcore had time to marinate & develop a sense of self-urgency. Not only messy - I'd say missing something, tho I'm not sure what exactly. Still, it's got the right message. It just doesn't always land the right punch to the gut/face.

B/c it's smarter than you think it is but as dense as you'd hope it would be, Justice's debut is a massive success. The duo samples like DJ Shadow, but the American is all heart and all cerebellum whereas these Frenchies, tho they got some heart & some brain, are mostly in it for a good time. At the end of the day, they make pop music, & being impressive composers of actual songs, they're responsible for some pretty great pop music. I know where I was when this came out, but all I heard from it was that ubiquitous 'D.A.N.C.E.,' & I never paid it any mind. That track happens to be only one of twelve memorable songs that populate this now classic record. It's a work of art that's never boring not b/c of its somatic ideal but in spite of it.

'& you're sitting at the kitchen table / Listening to the radio.' The difference between a record like this & Genesis' The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway is substantial but not all that meaningful, i.e., this one's a failure of a success whereas the latter is a failure of a failure. But failure is failure, however you want to cut it, & Ghosteen embraces prog dimensions far more than I can take, even if Cave demonstrates a believable penchant for the ballad form & often 'sings his heart out.' Don't call it mystical, magical, or spiritual, it's really just Christianity for a Christendom that ought to be obsoleted. Sure, there are moments of beauty ('Night Raid'), but the ethereality is no more than the pangs of his religiosity. Tom Waits & Bruce Springsteen do better.

An authentic r&b/hip-hop record, Butterfly captures the nineties airwaves as well as Biggie's Life After Death & Nirvana's Nevermind. Masterpieces of easy listening are hard to come by, mostly b/c I doubt artists of any real taste strive for that quality, but this is about as easy as it gets, tho we all know the difficulty of Carey's craft. She's yet not overly dependent on the whistle register, & there's a way in which at least some of these tracks can be said to go hard, e.g., specifically 'The Roof (Back in Time)' & that Mobb Deep sample. Call me a sucker for time-&-place albums, I don't care, this is an album I was too young to listen to when it first came out but it makes me feel like I was there when it first came out. Cliché, yah, that's the point.