A Small Victory

I got two emails today asking me about Clutch. They've come up a lot in the HoF voting, especially in the underrated band category and now in the C category. The closest I can come to describing Clutch is: Frank Zappa meets early Black Sabbath. Or, imagine a funkadelic sort of heavy metal with lyrics that warp your brain.

I've uploaded three songs for those who want a taste.

Shogun Named Marcus
Soapmakers
bignews

Clutch site
Lyrics

Enjoy. I really want you to like this. If ranked by the strength of my passion, they would be second only to Faith No More on my favorites list.

Posted by me at 07:25 PM | Permalink | Comments (5)

I am such a sucker for music memes. So here's another.

Via Johnny Bacardi and Pop Culture Gadabout:
A.) Go to musicoutfitters.com
B.) Enter the year you graduated from high school in the search function and get the list of 100 most popular songs of that year
C.) Bold the songs you like, strike through the ones you hate and underline your favorite. Do nothing to the ones you don't remember (or don't care about).

1980:

1. Call Me, Blondie
2. Another Brick In The Wall, Pink Floyd
3. Magic, Olivia Newton-John
4. Rock With You, Michael Jackson
5. Do That To Me One More Time, Captain and Tennille
6. Crazy Little Thing Called Love, Queen
7. Coming Up, Paul McCartney
8. Funkytown, Lipps, Inc.
<9. It's Still Rock And Roll To Me, Billy Joel
10. The Rose, Bette Midler
11. Escape (The Pina Colada Song), Rupert Holmes
12. Cars, Gary Numan
13. Cruisin', Smokey Robinson
14. Working My Way Back To You/Forgive Me Girl, Spinners
15. Lost In Love, Air Supply
16. Little Jeannie, Elton John
17. Ride Like The Wind, Cristopher Cross
18. Upside Down, Diana Ross
19. Please Don't Go, K.C. and The Sunshine Band
20. Babe, Styx
21. With You I'm Born Again, Billy Preston and Syreeta
22. Shining Star, Manhattans
23. Still, Commodores
24. Yes, I'm Ready, Teri De Sario With K.C.
25. Sexy Eyes, Dr. Hook
26. Steal Away, Robbie Dupree
27. Biggest Part Of Me, Ambrosia
28. This Is It, Kenny Loggins
29. Cupid-I've Loved You For A Long Time, Spinners
30. Let's Get Serious, Jermaine Jackson
31. Don't Fall In Love With A Dreamer, Kenny Rogers and Kim Carnes
32. Sailing, Christopher Cross
33. Longer, Dan Fogelberg
34. Coward Of The County, Kenny Rogers
35. Ladies Night, Kool and The Gang
36. Take Your Time, S.O.S. Band
37. No More Tears (Enough Is Enough), Barbra Streisand and Donna Summer
38. Too Hot, Kool and The Gang
39. More Love, Kim Carnes
40. Pop Muzik, M
41. Brass In Pocket, Pretenders
42. Special Lady, Ray, Goodman and Brown
43. Send One Your Love, Stevie Wonder
44. The Second Time Around, Shalamar
45. We Don't Talk Anymore, Cliff Richard
47. Heartache Tonight , Eagles
48. Stomp, Brothers Johnson
49. Tired Of Toein' The Line, Rocky Burnette
50. Better Love Next Time, Dr. Hook
51. Him, Rupert Holmes
52. Against The Wind, Bob Seger and The Silver Bullet Band
53. On The Radio, Donna Summer
54. Emotional Rescue, Rolling Stones
55. Rise, Herb Alpert
56. All Out Of Love, Air Supply
57. Cool Change, Little River Band
58. You're Only Lonely, J.D. Souther
59. Desire, Andy Gibb
60. Let My Love Open The Door, Pete Townshend
61. Daydream Believer, Anne Murray
62. I Can't Tell You Why, Eagles
63. Don't Let Go, Isaac Hayes
64. Don't Do Me Like That, Tom Petty and The Heartbreakers
65. She's Out Of My Life, Michael Jackson
66. Fame, Irene Cara
67. Fire Lake, Bob Seger and The Silver Bullet Band
68. How Do I Make You, Linda Ronstadt
69. Into The Night, Benny Mardones
70. Let Me Love You Tonight, Pure Prairie League
71. Misunderstanding, Genesis
72. An American Dream, Dirt Band
73. One Fine Day, Carole King
74. Dim All The Lights, Donna Summer
75. You May Be Right, Billy Joel
76. Hurt So Bad, Linda Ronstadt
77. Should've Never Let You Go, Neil Sedaka and Dara Sedaka
78. Pilot Of The Airwaves, Charlie Dore
79. Off The Wall, Michael Jackson
80. I Pledge My Love, Peaches and Herb
81. The Long Run, Eagles
82. Stand By Me, Mickey Gilley
83. Heartbreaker, Pat Benatar
84. Deja Vu, Dionne Warwick
85. Drivin' My Life Away, Eddie Rabbitt
86. Take The Long Way Home, Supertramp
87. Sara, Fleetwood Mac
88. Wait For Me, Daryl Hall and John Oates
89. Jo Jo, Boz Scaggs
90. September Morn, Neil Diamond
91. Give Me The Night, George Benson
92. Broken Hearted Me, Anne Murray
93. You Decorated My Life, Kenny Rogers
94. Tusk, Fleetwood Mac
95. I Wanna Be Your Lover, Prince
96. In America, Charlie Daniels Band
97. Breakdown Dead Ahead, Boz Scaggs
98. Ships, Barry Manilow
99. All Night Long, Joe Walsh
100. Refugee, Tom Petty and The Heartbreakers

Wow, 1980 was a horrible year for popular music. Horrible. I know 99% of the songs on there, but most of them are left blank because...meh. They were songs I heard on the radio and dismissed as not good enough to like but not bad enough to hate. Honestly, I can sing almost every single song on that chart word for word. I'm not proud of it, but it's not my fault. These things just seep into your head through some sort of top 40 radio osmosis. And they stay there forever, embedded in your brain and mosly forgotten about until one day you wake up singing Coward of the County and you don't know why. It's just your brain fucking with you, is all.

So, yea, I like Air Supply. I think I've admitted to that enough times by now. And even though I was big into the "Disco Sucks" thing, that one Donna Summer song makes me want to dance, and who in their right mind can really resist Funkytown?

And Emotional Rescue? Easily the worst song the Rolling Stones EVER made.

My god, look at that list. Olivia Newton John. Captaine and Tenille. Keeny Rogers. Bob Seger. Neil Diamon. Mickey freaking Gilley. How white bread America (read: boring) were the charts back then? No wonder I holed myself up in my room with my ginormous headphones and my satanic metal and "dangerous" punk.

Here's what I was really listening to in 1980 (not an all inclusive list, just a list of songs that were played a lot that particular year)

• AC/DC - "You Shook Me All Night Long"
• Split Enz - "I Got You" (wrote about that one here)
• The Clash - "Brand New Cadillac" (need I get into the whole LONDON CALLING ROCKS thing again?)
• Talking Heads - "Once in a Lifetime"
• Pink Floyd - "Comfortably Numb" (yea, everyone was playing Run Like Hell or Brick in the Wall, but the stoners mellowed out Gilmour's solo)
• The Vapors - "Turning Japanese"
• The Jam - "That's Entertainment"
• The Pretenders = "Tattooed Love Boys"
• B-52's - "Dance This Mess Around"
• The Cure - "Boys Don't Cry"
• Boomtown Rats - "I Don't Like Mondays"
• Van Halen - "And the Cradle Will Rock"
• Ramones - "Rock 'n' Roll High School"
• Steve Forbert - Romeo's Tune" (long story)
• Utopia - "Set Me Free" (what an amazing albumP
• Rush - "Spirit of Radio"
• ZZ Top - "I'm Bad, I'm Nationwide" (which would have been my tagline had blogs existed in 1980)
• Peter Gabriel - Games Without Frontiers (from a truly amazing album I should write more about)
• U2 - "I Will Follow" (best debut album ever)
• Queen - "Crazy Little Thing Called Love"
• The Police = "Canary in a Coal Mine" (I just could not bring myself to sing that dodododadada song out loud. this one was far superior)
• Judas Priest - "Breaking the Law" (ok, show of hands: how many of you automatically do the Beavis and Butthead thing when you hear this song?)
• Black Sabbath - "Heaven and Hell" (Ronnie James Dio!)

Posted by me at 06:33 AM | Permalink | Comments (33)

Songs 1-8 here.

9. The Doors - The End

Most people -including the originator of this list - would pick Light My Fire as the most overrated Doors song. Not me. Do you know how many people think The End is the greatest piece of poetry ever written? Well, I don’t have an exact number for you, but suffice it to say it’s a lot.

Again, confession time.

See, I was a Morrisonaholic. One of those people who thought Jim was the voice of a generation, a genius, a scholar, a poet, an icon to burn candles for and masturbate to thoughts of. Jim spoke to me. From beyond the grave. From the poster on my wall. You can see how I was easily swayed into believing this, right? There he was, in glorious black and white, shirtless, arms outstretched like a scarecrow martyr[Yes! That's the one!]. His eyes followed me around the room. He used to tell me things, whisper to me in the dead of night when the only light in the room was from the red-tinted bulb that pointed towards my Morrison shrine. When Jim whispered, he said things like You cannot petition the lord with prayer! Perhaps, like many other things I believed in my misspent youth, Boones Farm wine and Columbian Gold and purple microdot had something to do with my deranged ideas.

Anyhow, The End is probably the most quoted Doors song of all time. It’s quoted by pretentious potheads who think they are being deep and meaningful; by retro beatnik poets who carry tattered paperback copies of On the Road in the back pocket of their faded jeans; by psuedo-intellectuals who claim that Adlous Huxley’s Doors of Perception is the single greatest thing ever written by man; and by despondent, razor-weilding, confused, emotional teenagers who think they have this connection with Morrison, a connection with the sixties, man and hey, the blue bus is calling us.

Ride the snake, ride the snake
To the lake, the ancient lake, baby

The snake is long, seven miles

Ride the snake...he's old, and his skin is cold

Do you know that otherwise intelligent people have spent entire weekends drinking vodka and deciphering those very lyrics? Here’s a news flash: It’s nonsense. No matter what you want to believe, no matter how allegorical and deep you think those words are, no matter how much Freud you studied or Smirnoffs you drank, those words are the magnetic poetry of the Age of Aquarius.

So, yea. The killer awoke before dawn and put his boots on and killed his mother. Or did he fuck her? Ohhh, the mystery! Fistfights have broken out over whether he fucked or killed her. Will we ever know? Of course not, because Morrison, realizing that he was nothing more than a sham, a bad poet and a bloated parody of his own idols, killed himself before he could tell us that, well, he had no fucking clue what he was saying there. He ad libbed it. Winged it. Made shit up as he was going along.

I’m not saying the Doors sucked in general. I was a big fan and I still dust off the albums once in a while. But if you’re over 18 and not hindered by drug addiction or alcoholism that may cloud your thinking and you still believe these words are the most powerful thing you ever heard, you might want to find the nearest bathtub and emulate your idol.

[4 more to go and still taking suggestions - I'm leaning towards a Billy Joel moment right now]

Posted by me at 10:08 AM | Permalink | Comments (41)

I thought I'd do my albums list (see below) as a work in progress so you can see all the mind-numbing changes my list goes through. Kind of like seeing how sausage is made, though decidely less riveting and/or nauseating.

List will be updated and probably change considerably as the day goes on. I'm hoping to have my 20 completed before I leave work today.

1. Radiohead - The Bends (1995)
   I chose this over Ok Computer for the simple reason that it has has much more depth, musically and lyrically. Ok Computer is fantastic, no doubt, but the songs on The Bends have more character, more soul. Best song: Fake Plastic Trees
2. Faith No More - Angel Dust (1992)
   Sure, I could easily add two other FNM albums if I was going on pure favorites, but this is one, in my eyes, that really deserves to be on the list - musically it's all over the map, lyrically it's pure genius. Best song: A Small Victory, of course.
3. Guns n Roses - Appetite for Destruction (1987)
   Rock and roll orgasm, from start to finish. Best song: Mr. Brownstone
4. Fear Factory - Obsolete (1998)
   Yes, this would only be on my list. This concept album (man v. machine) is not only a story, but a work of aural art. Best song: Ressurection
5. Soundgarden - Superunkown (1994)
   Almost put Badmotorfinger, but I think that Superuknown carries so much more weight as a whole and shows off Cornell's voice in a way that the screechings (sexy as hell, still) on Badmotorfinger didn't. Best song: Limo Wreck
6. Nine Inch Nails - Downward Spiral (1994)
   I love Pretty Hate Machine to death, but musically, DS blows it away. There is so much woven into this album that you may hear or understand things about years after first listening to it. Best song: Reptile
7. Nick Cave - Boatman’s Call (1997)
   Every damn song is great. Never have I listened to an album with such a range of emotions on top of such stirring music. It's gorgeous, it's morose, it's beautiful, it's hope and despair and a thousand tales of love wrapped together. Best song: (Are You) The One I've Been Waiting For?
8. Weezer - Blue Album (1994)
   If I had to take only two albums to a desert island with me, this would be the one I choose without even giving it a second thought. I could not live without this album. Best song: Only in Dreams
9. Hole - Live Through This
   I don't care what you think about Courtney, this album is brilliantly exectuted. Best song: Violet
10. Brand New - Deja Entendu (2003)
    So you never heard of them. I have, and this album makes me believe that rock bands can still write beautiful, poetic songs. Best song: Play Crack the Sky
11. Mr. Bungle - California (1999)
    A beautiful, harrowing trip through dozens of musical genres, lyrics that will make your brain ache and a voice to die for. What more could you want? Best song: Retrovertigo.
12. Smashing Pumpkins - Siamese Dream (1993)
    Cherub Rock, Disarm, Silverfuck, and one of the greatest songs ever written, Mayonaise. A heartbreaking work of staggering genius, so to speak, before Billy Corgan lost his shit.
13. Pearl Jam - Ten (1991)
    What an incredible debut album. I had such high hopes for them. But they started with a "ten" and went progressively downhill since. This album, however, is nothing short of amazing. For the rest of my life, every time I sing that line in Black (you know which one I mean), I will have to choke back tears. That, my friends, is great music.
14. Tool - Aenima (1996)
    I was having a debate with myself about whether I would put this album or Undertow on the list. Eventually I decided on Aenima because Undertow's Prison Sex creeps the hell out of me. Actually, I went with this one because it's more complex - meatier, if you will. best song: Jimmy
15. Sublime - 40 oz. to Freedom (1996)
    Holy shit, this album is amazing. It's something different every time you put it on. From the opening bass on Waiting for My Ruca right on through, with the exception of Date Rape, which I LOATHE, it's like going to a bunch of parties in one day, all of them in different cities, different eras, with different people. This album makes me feel good. It makes me feel like it's always summer and I don't have a care in the world. Best song: Don't Push
16. Korn - Self titled (1994)
    That's right. I said Korn. This album takes all your anger issues and lets you release them in a semi-healthy way. It's driven, it's pounding, it's dark and raging and breathes life into long dead skeletons. It's powerful, which is something all music should strive to be. Best song: Clown
17. The Smiths - The Queen is Dead (1986)
    Ah, Morrisey. Tortured, withered, empty, desperate souls make such wonderful, poetic, touching, wallow-with-me music. Best song: Bigmouth Strikes Again
18. Jane's Addiction - Ritual De Lo Habitual (1990)
    Most people prefer Nothing's Shocking. I like the sparse feel of RdlH. I like that on the surface it seems like catchy rock tunes, but underneath it's so much more. And I love Three Days. There is no song that makes me feel so...trippy, for lack of a better way. Best song: Three Days
19. Def Leppard - Hysteria (1986)
    What? Stop looking at me like that. This album rocks, man. Best song: Love Bites
20. Slayer - Seasons in the Abyss (1990)
    To maintain that kind of pummeling sound for a whole album in a way that the listener never tires of it is an accomplishment. Not enough credit is given to Slayer lyrics - too many people dismiss them without even giving a read through. If you're not a metal fan, you will think the album sucks. If you like metal, then you know that Seasons is an achievement. King and Lombardo especially give this so much power, so much testosterone that you think you can lift trucks with your bare hands after listening to it. Best song: Dead Skin Mask.

That's 20, but it's subject to change at whim. I may drop some and include some titles below, instead.

Honorable mentions:

Deftones, Around the Fur; Propagandhi, How to Clean Everything; MTX: Revenge is Sweet and So Are You; Dead Milkmen, Bucky Fellini; Slipknot, self titled; Godflesh, Songs of Love and Hate; Skinlab, Bound, Gagged and Blindfolded; Ultraspank, self titled; Type O Negative, Bloody Kisses; NOFX, Heavy Petting Zoo; Green Day, Dookie; Alice in Chains, Dirt; Queens of the Stone Age, Songs for the Deaf; AFI, The Art of Drowing, Bloodhound Gang, One Fierce Beer Coaster; Clutch, self titled; Danzig, Danzig 4; Hayden, Everything I Long For; Life of Agony, River Runs Red; Marilyn Manson, Portrait of an American Family; Portishead, Dummy

Posted by me at 11:08 AM | Permalink | Comments (15)

[Note: If you are looking for my review of RotS, which apparently people are, it's here]

So TIME Magazine, not to be outdone by every other list making magazine, came out with its own list of ALL-TIME 100 MOVIES as chosen by critics Richard Corliss and Richard Schickel. I'm thinking the list was originally just called Time's Greatest Movies, but they added on the author credit blurb after they saw the final list, so no one would think that this list somehow belonged to TIME as a whole. They were distancing themselves from the two Dicks.

First of all, any time you have the word "critics" in a list title, you know it's going to be pretentious. "Reader's list" or "listener's list," while they may include such titles as Debbie Does Dallas or Freebird, respectively, at least will have a certain feel to them, like the compilation of titles could be kindred spirits with your very own list. But when you add movie critics to the mix - not critics in the sense that you and I (or even the people at Rotten Tomatoes) are, but critics in the sense of sense of this is my nose and I'm looking down it at you - you end up with a list that rivals ROLLING STONE's Albums of the Year list for sheer pretensiousness, snobbery and, in some cases, utter head scratching. It's as if some of these titles were thrown onto the list in an effort to keep people like me from calling the critics unrepentant twits. Let's have a look, shall we?

Complete list

First of all, I never heard of some of these movies. That doesn't, in and of itself, make the list good or bad. It just means that a) I don't get out enough or b) the critics thought the inclusion of obscure foreign films would make the list highbrow.

The usual suspects are present and accounted for: Godfather, Casablanca, Singing in the Rain, Some Like it Hot, E.T., Goodfellas...you know the drill.

No Seven Samurai. Star Wars, but not Empire Strikes Back. No Shawshank Redemption or even Fantasia.

Oh, I know. You make a list of 100 movies and see how hard it is to include all the great ones. That's what you're thinking. But let's see what IS included.

Drunken Master. The Fly (1986). Finding Nemo. FINDING NEMO? Yea, it was a good movie, but one of the best ever made? If they wanted to throw in some animation to appease the lovers of that genre, Toy Story, Spirited Away, The Incredibles...all better than Finding Nemo. And they count The Lord of the Rings (2001-03) as ONE movie! That's cheating.

I'm not saying these movies are bad. But how can you take seriously any list that has DRUNKEN MASTER as one of the 100 best films ever made? And am I the only person alive who hated Raging Bull? (OH, and remind me to tell you of the nightmare I had about a remake of Taxi Driver, starring Adam Sandler)

Ok, you know what this means. What happened when Rolling Stone came out with their list of 500 greatest songs ever and I took issue with the whole damn thing? That's right, I made my own.

Get ready for the ASV 100 Greatest Movies of All Time, coming soon to a blog post near you.

Meanwhile, I fully expect you to start picking apart TIME's list. Bonus: How many of the 100 movies on this list have you actually seen?

Posted by me at 06:03 AM | Permalink | Comments (23) | TrackBacks (2)

I had to laugh at myself last night as I was yelling at DJ to turn his music down. He was listening to a mix CD of Van Halen, Led Zeppelin and early Black Sabbath. I laughed because my mother used to tell me to turn down the exact same music.

Which got me wondering. Does today's music have any staying power? Will my kids be telling their kids to turn down that damn Limp Bizkit 25 years from now? It seems like the rock bands from the 70's/80's have such staying power - I see middle school and high school kids wearing Pink Floyd, Ramones and AC/DC shirts all the time. While I listen to a lot of current rock music, I just can't imagine these bands having the same generational impact that Van Halen, Zep or the other "classic rock" bands have. Hell, K-Rock (NY radio station) just changed their format to play more of the classic rock.

I imagine that by the time my children are old enough to have teens of their own, old Pink Floyd albums will still be outselling the current rock scene and Linkin Park will be a footnote in music history.

Just some food for thought. Discuss at will.

Posted by me at 11:24 AM | Permalink | Comments (22) | TrackBacks (1)

The following is from the "best of ASV" archives, though it wasn't printed here originally

There have always been divides in the country. It's just that some of them get more coverage than others. Sure, protests and riots will always get the front page, but it's the little wars that have waged within that people tend to forget about. Yet these wars are part of our history and, to this day, the animosity and acrimony exist between the participants in these great battles.

One of the most bitter wars fought between Americans took place in the late 1970's. It pitted brother against brother, husband against wife, neighbor against neighbor. It threatened to tear the very fabric of our nation until the war finally ended in a great wave of flames on July 12, 1979. However, the embers of that battle between countrymen still exist today and threaten to flare up again every time a radio station plays Donna Summers's Last Dance.

Yes, I'm talking about the great war between Disco and Rock (alternately known as the Disco/Punk war).

Continue reading "Culture Wars: i saw some people stompin' around sayin' disco sucks" »

Posted by me at 07:03 AM | Permalink | Comments (11) | TrackBacks (1)

I am listening to the entire Weezer album here, and reviewing it as I listen to it for the first time.

• Beverly Hills - You’ve all heard/seen this by now. Rivers’ ode to being the odd man out. I think many, many Weezer fans can identify with the sentiment within. That the band managed to make the song infectious and fill the video with babes will make this one a chart topper.
• Perfect Situation - good song, catchy, but almost expected, in a weird way.
• This Is Such a Pity - bleh. Not liking it. Leaving me feeling dead inside, like I’d rather be washing my hair or digging crumbs out of the couch, anything but sitting here listening to this.
• Hold Me - melancholy, yet pretty in the way Only In Dreams was
• Peace - right now this is my favorite. it's sweeping and emotional and plaintive and I imagine a million teenagers will be singing this one with their headphones on in their darkened bedrooms, little emo tears running down their cheeks
• We Are All on Drugs - this is the next single. made for radio. Read into that what you may.
• The Damage in Your Heart- it's just...Weezer. Can't explain it further than that. It's a typical Weezer song and when you listen to it you think that Rivers is the world's oldest teenager.
• Pardon Me - I'm getting bored with the album now. I imagine that if one were to listen to the album several times in a row, the songs would all just blend into each other. The beauty of the Blue Album and Pinkerton was that each song seemed different than the next and not just a continuation of the one before it. I’m not feeling that here, nor am I feeling the fun that was on the Green Album and Maladroit. Ok, I like the end of this song, the way it builds up and lets go.
• My Best Friend - You're my best friend and I love you. Gack. Insert finger in throat. I will not be singing this one in my car with the windows down. Despite the fun guitar in the middle of the song, it makes me feel way too Patridge Family to enjoy it. I wonder if he's singing to himself. After reading the Rolling Stone interview with Rivers, I can only conclude that he is his own best (and only) friend
• The Other Way There's hand clapping in this one. I hate hand clapping in songs. I'm bored with this one, too. On it's own, it may be catchy and peppy and hit radio friendly, but when listened to as part of this album, well, it's like looking at one of those hidden pictures things in Highlights Magazine. Is that a tiger? No, it's a leaf. Wait, it's the tiger!
• Freak Me out - I like this one. Oh, yikes, there's a harmonica. I think I just like the idea of singing, man, you really freak me out, man you really freak me out....it's got a surreal feel to it. Much better than the pop fest of most of the other songs. This will be one of my favorites.
• Haunt You Every Day Weezer really knows how to end an album. This one is going to be my favorite. I swear, it's this one. The words are good and Rivers sings them with the strange passion that made Say it Ain't So and Only in Dreams give me chills. This is the one that will not make it to radio, but will be the one that older Weezer fans hit repeat on.

So, I like about half the album. It’s no Blue Album, but nothing in the history of rock, past or present, will be. It’s just ok, on first listen. I think Make Believe is going to be one of those discs that grows on me after several listens, but it’s also going to be skippable, meaning there will be several songs that will get the NEXT button treatment.

As an aside, I think Rivers should give it up. It feels like he doesn’t want to do it anymore and rather than be the Rickey Henderson of the music world, he should just go into seclusion now. It’s only a matter of time before he becomes an eccentric recluse, anyhow. Why not get an early start?

Posted by me at 08:02 AM | Permalink | Comments (12) | TrackBacks (2)

If it were April 30, 1980. Or 1980 in general.

On my mix tape of the day (the iPods of 1980) was the following playlist:

AC/DC - "You Shook Me All Night Long"
Split Enz - "I Got You" (wrote about that one here)
The Clash - "Brand New Cadillac" (need I get into the whole LONDON CALLING ROCKS thing again?)
Kurtis Blow - "The Breaks" (and this wasn't the last Kurtis Blow song that would appear on one of my playlists - look here at #246)
Pink Floyd - "Comfortably Numb" (yea, everyone was playing Run Like Hell or Brick in the Wall, but the stoners mellowed out Gilmour's solo)
The Vapors - "Turning Japanese"
The Pretenders = "Tattooed Love Boys"
B-52's - "Dance This Mess Around" (here)
The Cure - "Boys Don't Cry"
Boomtown Rats - "I Don't Like Mondays"
Van Halen - "And the Cradle Will Rock" (I really need to get finished on ode to DLR in which I refer to him as the most underappreciated entertainer in rock and roll)
Ramones - "Rock 'n' Roll High School"
Steve Forbert - Romeo's Tune" (long story)
Utopia - "Set Me Free" (what an amazing album, saw them live three times, will never forget any of those shows)
Rush - "Spirit of Radio"
ZZ Top - "I'm Bad, I'm Nationwide" (which would have been my tagline had blogs existed in 1980)
Peter Gabriel - Games Without Frontiers (from a truly amazing album I should write more about)
Billy Joel - "Still Rock and Roll" (you know that village green he sings about in Italian Restaurant? we hung out there. It was required of us at that stage, and at that particular high school, to listen to Billy Joel. Thank jeebus that phase passed, though I still maintain that his early stuff [think Summer, Highlands Fall] is fantastic.)
U2 - "I Will Follow" (best debut album ever)
Queen - "Crazy Little Thing Called Love"
The Police = "Canary in a Coal Mine" (I just could not bring myself to sing that dodododadada song out loud. this one was far superior)
Judas Priest - "Breaking the Law" (ok, show of hands: how many of you automatically do the Beavis and Butthead thing when you hear this song?)
Black Sabbath - "Heaven and Hell" (Ronnie James Dio!)

1980 is also noteable for being, in my eyes, the year Led Zeppelin died. I don't remember ever being as disappointed in an album like I was with In Through The Out Door.

Note - some of these songs didn't come out until later on in 1980, so it's more of a "year" thing than an exact "on this date" thing. And some came out in late '79 but gained popularity in '80.

Anyhow, I thought this would make an interesting meme type thing. What would have been on your playlist in the year you graduated high school? (And I don't mean what was popular that year, but what were YOU listening to)

Posted by me at 11:29 AM | Permalink | Comments (30) | TrackBacks (8)

Ok, I'll be honest with you here. I bought the album. I bought the hype that went with the album. I thought it was brilliant, amazing and a work of art. It was 1977. Elvis had just died. I was momentarily blinded by heartache. No, I was trying to revolt against the constant crush of Eddie Money songs being played on 99X. I was trying to drown out the disco craze. I was looking for an alternative to my friends' constant playing of Billy Joel's The Stranger. My local department store where I bought my records didn't have Elvis Costello's My Aim is True. I was suckered in by Meatloaf's amazing turn as Eddie in Rocky Horror.

I could come up with a million more excuse, you know. But the fact is, I liked Bat out of Hell when it first came out. Don't look at me like that. Like you didn't lay in the dark with the headphones on and just wait for the part...

Then I’m dying at the bottom of a pit in the blazing sun
Torn and twisted at the foot of a burning bike
And I think somebody somewhere must be tolling a bell
And the last thing I see is my heart
Still beating
Still beating

That was beautiful, man. Genius. See..he was telling a story. But set to music. It works on two levels! And you had to sing it just like Meatloaf, as if you were on a high school stage in the midst of some overwrought musical about love and loss and umm...motorcycle accidents.

Ok, that one hasn't really stood up to the test of time. What about...

On a hot summer night.
Would you offer your throat to the wolf with the red roses?
Will he offer me his mouth?
Yes

I'm sitting here wondering how I ever thought that was good. Maybe when you're drunk on Boones Farm wine at a party in someone's basement that's decorated to look like some kind of art deco cave and that Canadian kid you have a crush on is mouthing the words to you...well, that's hot when you're 15 and stoned on fermented strawberries. Now, in 2005 - even with a glass of Chardonnay down the hatch - it's cringe worthy.

But it's not even those two songs that relegate this album into the annals of Insipid Moments in Rock History. No. It's the song I hate more than any other song that has ever been written, performed or copyrighted since time began and will always, forever continue to be the one song that can make me run screaming from a wedding, bat mitzvah or block party. The song that can reduce grown men and women to pantomiming actors in a surreal line dance of lust.

It was at my sister's wedding ten years ago when I realized that Paradise By the Dashboard Light was my kryptonite. As soon as the first note emitted from the speakers, the dance floor was flooded with revelers. All the people who sat on their asses for the great dance songs of the night (oh, like you don't want to dance every time you hear Funkytown) were suddenly lined up on the floor, males forming a line down one side, females doing the same on the other side. It was reminiscent of a movie musical, where somehow everyone knows the words to the song and all the lines to sing. Maybe I hadn't been to enough weddings or bars lately, but I had no idea that Paradise had become a line dance/interactive favorite. It was the new Hokey Pokey!

Let me tell you, even with a couple of shots of tequila under my belt, and even with the giddiness that comes with complete exhaustion, there was no way I was loopy enough to join that crowd on the dance floor. No, I just stood back and watched as grown men and women - including town councilmen and judges and the president of the local Kiwanis - took turns singing the boy/girl parts and totally acting the part of lust filled teenagers in a steamy car. One couple actually stood in the center of the two lines during the whole baseball announcer verse and acted the whole thing out. I kid you not. When my jaw dropped and a cousin realized I was stunned, she told me that this went on at every wedding, in every bar, every night of the week and I needed to get out more. No, no, I told her. I need to never leave the sanctity of my house again.

When my kid's religious ed teacher did a sliding split into the middle of the dance floor, holding up her hand and singing "STOP RIGHT THERE!" and my uncle twirled his way beside her and responded with the "let me sleep on it" verse and then all of them did the whole back and forth thing and this went on until the very end, where they all did some bizarre dance as they whispered glowing like a metal on the edge of a knife, I thought I had been transported to the ninth level of hell and Satan himself was going to rise out of the dance floor.

Yes, that was ten years ago and I remember every little thing as if it happened only yesterday (sorry, couldn't resist). It was such a horrid experience that not only is it etched in my memory forever, but it has made me loathe the whole Bat Out of Hell album and even Meatloaf himself (his man tittie turn in Fight Club notwithstanding), as they are all part and parcel of one of the most nightmarish experiences of my entire life.

So I got off on a tangent there and probably failed to convey why Bat Out of Hell is overrated, but that doesn't even matter anymore. I have Paradise stuck in my head and I have to go find a way to get it out of there.

[cross posted at Blogcritics]

Update: So maybe the whole album is worth it just to sing the last minute of All Revved up With No Place To Go (download)

Posted by me at 07:44 AM | Permalink | Comments (42) | TrackBacks (3)

I finally closed the poll. And the winner of the coveted prize for most overrated album is:

White Stripes - Elephant

View final poll results here.

Now, I'm sure there was some rigging of the vote by one single person who is so offended by the sound of the White Stripes that he alone counted for 225 of the 226 votes. But that's the nature of polls (see, American Idol last night, for proof of that) and those are the results we shall go with.

That's not to say I disagree. Somewhat. I think. The whole White Stripes/Strokes/Hives thing baffled me. I suppose one could make the argument that the embracing of garage rock was in direct response to the proliferation of overproduced teeny bopper bands and flaky, yet hot, blonde singers and/or the rise in popularity of 30 year old men in nu-metal bands writhing in agony, still angry at their mothers for grounding them when they were 12. Who knows?

The thing is, after bitching and moaning for months about how much I hated the Stripes and that whole stripped-down-rock sound, they kind of grew on me. Not so much that I started to actually sing their praises, but enough so that I didn't turn "Seven Nation Army" down when it came on the radio. In fact, songs like "Ball and Biscuit," "I Just Don't Know What To Do With Myself" and "The Hardest Button To Button" remind me of what I first liked about rock and roll all those years ago and yes, the sound is quite reminiscent of sitting in Pat Henley's garage on summer evenings in the 1970's, listening to the band with no name play the same songs over and over again, but enjoying every chord, every beat. The simplicity of "Seven Nation Army" is it's beauty; there's hardly anything to the song, but yet it makes me want to do something - dance, or drum my pencil on the desk or tap my foot at least, much like the repeated chords in the Henley garage did. The band with no name's sound was born of pure desire to just play some music, and that's what I get with the Stripes.

However (there's always a however with these things), White Stripes are not the saviors of rock and roll. They are not the greatest thing since MC5. Elephant isn't so much a triumph of the simple sounds of rock and roll as it is a triumph of style over substance. The album is too simple to be anything more than a big, fat candy bar. Jack White's efforts to be everything to everyone in the re-emergence of pure rock bands is admirable; but his reliance on Meg White's mediocre drumming skills and his penchant for trying to do too much with too little overwhelms the sincerity within. It's a good, fun album. It's good background music for cleaning the house or pretending to do yardwork while you're just drinking beer and neighbor-watching or driving through rush hour traffic with one hand out the window and one hand on the horn. And there's nothing wrong with that. It's good music. It's rock and roll. But it's nothing that's going to change the world. Not even the music world.

I don't think Elephant is the most overrated album of all time. Not even close. But I just surprised myself here by what I wrote about it. I didn't know I liked the album so much until now.

You learn something new every day, even about yourself.

[Just because the poll has ended doesn't mean I'm done - I'll be "reviewing" some of the other overrated albums later today]

Update: Again, don't shoot the messenger! I'm only doing these albums because you people nominated them! If it was up to me, I'd just list every Dylan, Beatles, Eagles, Nirvana, Madonna and Stones album and be done with it. Maybe we should be doing underrated albums instead? Or just underrated bands in general? Anyone?

Posted by me at 06:34 AM | Permalink | Comments (19) | TrackBacks (1)

Before I get into The Wall, I need to clarify something in order to hold the pitchfork and torch crowd at bay. I did not randomly choose the albums that went into this poll. I pulled them all out of the comments here. Personally, I love London Calling - I wore out three copies (cassette tapes) in my car alone - and I feel nothing but pity for the people who can't understand what's so great about that album (and maybe later I'll do a post extolling the virtues of London Calling). Anyhow, White Stripes is currently holding a giant lead, so if you are really eager to see The Eagles win, get over there and vote. I'm closing the poll this afternoon.

I love Pink Floyd. My relationship with that band goes way back. I mean, I was seven years old when I first heard Careful With That Axe, Eugene. And all these years later, I'm still listening. My 12 year old son is listening. My 66 year old mother listens obsessively. I guess PF is somewhat of a family tradition. So I feel comfortable in sitting here explaining to you why The Wall is overrated. I'm not some PF play hata throwing rocks at Roger Waters. I'm a fan who can admit when an album just over reaches.

First, I'm not a big fan of double studio albums (see, Frampton Comes Alive). More often than not, you end up with six or so good songs and lots of filler. Most of the time, that filler is a songwriter's narcissistic exercise in hearing himself think. And so it goes with The Wall.

Most of the album is an acid-fueled ego trip for Roger Waters. It personified angst before Cobain put on his first flannel jacket. It was emo before the guy from Dashboard Confessional ever shed his first heartbroken tear. It was the epitome of mother issues set to music before all those nu-metal bands made parental abandonment a niche market. It's a group therapy session at a drug detox center set to music.

And it is the music that saves The Wall from being nothing more than a pretentious, self-absorbed LiveJournal entry. From the frenetic pace of Run Like Hell to the sheer poetry of Gilmour's solo on Comfortably Numb, it is the sounds and not the words that held this album together and kept it from falling into the cut-out bins of record stores everywhere. Yet even the music in some parts contribute to the "what the hell were they thinking" aspect of this album, most notably the disco background of Another Brick in the Wall. The whole song is tedious - it's as if their goal was to come up with an anthem that the kiddies would sing along to, that would resonate with them and make them believe that this album was about them, too. "We don't need no education" was the Pied Piper line of The Wall. It suckered in millions of teens and young adults who shouted along with the lines and bopped their heads to the disco beat and never gave thought (at least not until their later years) to the fact that Waters and company were pounding out the disco beats (also on Run Like Hell and Young Lust, which makes the "dirty woman" line feel somehow justifiable) just a year after disco was declared dead. Was he being ironic? Was the whole album ironic? Who knows. The message sort of got muddled in between the Oedipal odes and the admonishments of eating your whole meal before you have dessert.

Don't get me wrong. I love Gilmour's work on this album. Comfortably Numb contains one of the greatest guitar solos in the history of guitars - Gilmour is able to evoke more emotion with the movement of his fingers than Waters managed to eke out in all the words within the album. I listen to The Wall mainly because I still get a rush from the inherent violence and anger unleashed in the short, yet powerful, Happiest Days of our Lives; but that's from the way it's set up musically, and not from the lyrics - which really hammer home the point that Waters had some deep seated issues with authority figures.

It was when I finally saw the movie version of Waters' nightmare that I started to go from "what a work of genius" to "what a load of narcissistic crap." My god. Two hours of sitting through someone else's bad acid trip. That's what the movie was. I had enough of my own, thank you, without watching someone else have the freak out of their life. Not even the wretched depression of Brian's Song could top the depths of despair one feels when watching The Wall.

When taken apart, rather than listened to as a whole, The Wall fails on so many levels. Sure, when I was 17 and still finding genius in the lyrics of Genesis and the gaudy masterpieces of Emerson, Lake and Palmer, The Wall came off like a brilliant novel, a work of art, an anthem and a stoner's delight all in one. But years later, with the blinders of youth gone and the last joint stubbed out too many years ago and the knowledge that Roger Waters is a prick, The Wall just doesn't hold up like I thought it would. Oh, I still listen to it. Just not with the same awe I did in 1979. And that's not because I'm so far removed from that time that I can no longer appreciate it, because I still listen to Dark Side of the Moon with the same jaw-dropping awe I did when I first heard it at the tender age of 12. Which, coincidentally is the same age my son first heard DSOTM and fell in love with it. When I asked him how he likes The Wall, though, he said "I only listen to it for the guitar" in much the same way, a few years from now, he will say "I only read it for the articles."

So, did anyone else sit in their friend's basement with the headphones on and the bong water gurgling and try to find the deeper meaning in "if you don't eat your meat, you can't have any pudding?" No? Ok.

[cross posted at blogcritics]

Posted by me at 06:03 AM | Permalink | Comments (38) | TrackBacks (3)

[I put the poll below the fold because it was killing the load time on the page.]

Continue reading "Overrated Albums I: The Poll" »

Posted by me at 03:05 PM | Permalink | Comments (40) | TrackBacks (5)

[see here for reference]

On my 14th birthday I received Frampton Comes Alive.

A few friends had chipped in to get me the album. They didn't have enough money left over for wrapping paper, so they wrapped it in tin foil.

As usual for a late summer afternoon in 1976, we met that August 25 behind the local 7-11 to drink beer (hidden in Slurpee cups) and smoke cigarettes. They presented the foil present to me and I unwrapped it, knowing what it was, relishing the moment I had been waiting for all week since Lori spilled the beans about my present.

And there it was. The blonde curls, the look of holy ecstasy, the blue lights; I was finally holding the prize of my collection in all its vinyl glory.

I didn't let on that I didn't really like Frampton's music. I liked his hair. I liked his smile. I liked him. I held fast to the lie that I was all into his music, but at that point in my life I was really into Kiss, Zeppelin and Genesis and Frampton was, for me, just a pretty face.

Ok, I went crazy over three songs on the double album ("Show Me the Way," "Do You Feel Like I Do," "Baby I Love Your Way") and two of those songs I only liked because of the "couples only" potential at the roller rink, but the rest was crap.

However, I was cool for having it because everyone wanted a copy. So the troops gathered and we went back to my house and listened for hours to the stupid wah-wah pedal thing.

When you are 14 and you just smoked some pot and the record player is emitting sounds of "do you feel like we do" played through some voice synthesizer, all you think about is some Charlie Brown special where the teachers are doing that wah-wah-wah voice and you keep saying to yourself, if I had just asked for Thin Lizzy's Jailbreak instead, I'd be rocking out to The Boys Are Back In Town instead of pretending to like the music of just another pretty face.

Yet, for some reason, Frampton Comes Alive makes an appearance on every list of top albums EVER. It's not. It's two albums consisting of three overplayed songs, a bunch of crap and some pictures of a really hot guy.

And that's why FCA makes my list for most overrated albums ever (you can still make your nominations). Next up: Why The Wall isn't as grand as people make it out to be (and a big middle finger to those who think Dark Side of the Moon is overrated).

[cross posted at blogcritics]

Posted by me at 09:19 AM | Permalink | Comments (29) | TrackBacks (2)

[I'll get to the overrated albums thing in a bit - I couldn't let go without presenting my annual rant about it]

From 2002, modified slightly for age

I was asked by another mother at baseball practice yesterday if I was observing TV Turnoff Week. No. I mean, Hell No!

If you want to turn off your tv, that's fine. More power to you. If you don't own a tv, that's great, too. That's your prerogative. I admire your staunch stand on the issue. Just don't throw your tv-less ideals at me, ok?

We love tv. And no, I am not going to sit here and pretend that all the tv we watch is educational. Sure, we watch the Discovery Channel and the History Channel and National Geographic TV. We love that stuff. But we also watch cartoons and sitcoms and the adults in this house watch late night softcore porn on Cinemax and violent movies and infomercials. And sports. We watch a whole lot of sports.

Don't tell me that tv keeps us from reading. We are all readers. We read every single night. Sometimes together, sometimes alone.

Don't tell me that tv keeps us from enjoying time together as a family. We manage to cram plenty of family time into the few hours a day we have together. Yes, we get outside. We play sports. We take walks. We run around. We hike through the local nature preserve. We sit on the lawn and stare at the stars and talk. My kids skateboard or play the guitar for hours on end, with - gasp!- no television playing in the background.

Continue reading "TV Turn On" »

Posted by me at 07:40 AM | Permalink | Comments (10) | TrackBacks (1)

So an offhand remark in this post about Framptom Comes Alive sparked a flurry of emails from people either begging me to do a "most overrated album" poll or people wanting to lynch me for calling the album a piece of overrated crap.

I'll write tomorrow about why I think FCA did not hold up well over the years. For now, I'll take your nominations for Most Overrated ROCK Album Ever poll. I'll put up a poll type thing tomorrow, and add some of my choices - with some downloads - later on this evening.

Update: Here's two songs from albums I think are overrated:

Radiohead - Optimistic
Led Zeppelin - The Ocean

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Continue reading "Something New for Your Ears" »

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Continue reading "Best Album Poll Winner: Exit Sandman" »

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Continue reading "Best Album of the 90's: The Poll" »

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Continue reading "Best of the 90's Poll Phase 1: Albums" »

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Continue reading "Iced Earth: Metal From the Right Side" »

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