1996. 09. 'scream, dracula, scream!' - rocket from the crypt

something about latter day punk just doesn't do it for me -- some bands i like, but others, well, whatever.  if you put this album on (with the exception of a few songs that i remember from the way back when) and asked me who it was, i'd probably say rancid or NOFX.  eventually, i'd get around to rocket from the crypt, after i'd cited most artists on epitaph records and had to go back even further in time.  i can say there are a hell of a lot of bands -- some i like like the hives, others that are horrendously atrocious like blink 182 -- that probably listened to this mid-to-late-90s punk and started a band.  so fine, that's what punk was always supposed to accomplish.  but i draw the line with horns in my punk music -- that's just a little too mighty mighty bosstones for me to take you seriously.  why would you listen to this if you had the choice to put on social distortion or the descendents?

i found this quote from the band's lead singer about 'on a rope', which probably was the one of these songs i remembered most.  if this is how he feels about what is essentially the most tolerable song on this record, then i just give up:  "[it's] the song that will forever be our piss stain on the footnotes of underground 90s rock lore...I still get checks for $13.92 every year. In some parts of the world I can buy an ox and fuck it for that price." continue your ox fucking -- it's clearly working for you.

1995. 09. 'the great escape' - blur

so, so much has been written about this album over the years that there's probably very little i can add... i agree that it gets suburban life very, very right -- i used to live in a house, a very big house, in the 'country' for years before i got so fed up with the sameness of it all that i came to live in a house, a very small house, in the city... i've worried about the size of my behind, and all those age lines, and made peace with my ageing body and my humdrum life... and this album says it -- straightforwardly, snarlingly, snidely, sincerely... this albarn chap knows from whence he speaks...

at the time, i didn't appreciate the lyricism fully -- i was a long way from suburbia, living in urban manchester and sheffield where pulp and oasis were more the order of the day... this sounded like a dissatisfied millionaire sending up his own existence with more of that 'we're smarter down south' nonsense that i wanted to torch at every turn... and indeed, they were dissatisfied millionaires... but sometimes, when they were out gallivanting with banksy and keith allen and damien hirst, they weren't... and i was agitated that so much of this ripped off the kinks and the specials... but now i can live with that...

really, overall, this album is exactly what i read in an interview with damon albarn a few years back when blur were having a reunion do -- it's messy... 'modern life is rubbish' and 'parklife' were so spot on that, of the trilogy, this is the longest and most redundant to listen to... but it has gems -- besides the singles, 'top man' will have you thinking of every footballer you can think of, and 'mr robinson's quango' could be retitled 'mr robinson's super-PAC' for US listeners right now and still hold relevance... and the heartbreaking last song, 'yuko and hiro' can make you cry -- when you love someone, but you just have to say goodbye...

if you have time, listen... it was one of the most intriguing albums of 1995... but approach with caution -- it's kinda all over the place, a little fascinated with that power world that we all thought we were a part of (but later found out we weren't) when tony blair took office, and in some cases derivative... 'parklife' would still be the recommendation for the newbie...

1994. 09. 'music for the jilted generation' - the prodigy

really, really hadn't heard this album in 18 years... must say, i was pleasantly surprised... i enjoyed it -- i liked the menace in the music... it was there, clearly, without being so overt that you wanted to scream 'get over it' at the nearest wall... 'poison' is still probably my favorite of their songs -- i remember it being on some free sampler that either i had or my lord jce's brother had -- next to a song by therapy?, which makes me giggle -- so lots of memories of being out in england just enjoying the scene...

fewer vocals than 'fat of the land' -- no 'firestarter' keith flint screaming here -- but to me, more powerful... this is what breakbeat sounded like when it was still indie... by the time we were smacking all our bitches up, the lager boys in ted baker -- before they grew up and became chavs -- were already listening, and it wasn't fun anymore... put it on and dance, dance, dance...

1993. 09. 'become what you are' - juliana hatfield three

i'll give juliana hatfield this -- she can write a decent hook... she can also write a pretty crap lyric, but then, so can we all... but this album -- and it is the personification of dated, with an attempt at grungy guitars interwoven with all the precursors to that horribly derivative 'i'm just a girl' no doubt nonsense and the worst of the lilith fair cliches -- is just aimless... i'm sure it sounded all cool and trendy back in 1993, when you couldn't turn a corner without hearing 'my sister' anywhere, everywhere... but now?  well, the album is just saggy, of its time and not really irksome one way or another...

i see from the interwebs that she's still out there making music... good on her for doing what she apparently loves, but this, i'm afraid is just going to remain to me another average album from 1993.  between 'my sister', her maybe relationship with evan dando, and the early blake babies stuff she did, i've dug deep enough... no need to get any closer...

1992. 09. 'harvest moon' - neil young

i have to be in the mood for this record, and luckily, today, it was just what i needed... today, i found the personal lyrics soothing instead of maudlin... today, i found the instrumentation melodic instead of anodyne... and today, i truly appreciated the beauty of 'war of man' and 'natural beauty', which i always like regardless of which neil young mood i'm in... because sometimes, i want screaming anger -- 'ragged glory' or 'rust never sleeps' style... sometimes, i want storytelling, like 'after the gold rush'... sometimes, i want jadedness, like 'tonight's the night'... and this is why neil young is one of my favorite artists -- because over the years, he's never been afraid to try something different, to create what he believes at that time, at that point in his life, is the statement he needs to make to stay sane... i guess you'd call it not compromising -- i call it true artistry...

i saw neil young tour for his 'greendale' album a few years ago... i knew that he was performing the whole album with a stage show included, but i suppose a lot of the audience didn't... people yelled, people screamed, people left -- and lots more of the people who stayed were pissed as all get out when he came back on for a one 'greatest hits' song encore, played a decent version of 'like a hurricane', and we were done... he had a new album -- a concept album no less -- that he wanted to tour... that's his right... and that's why i respect him so much... it would be so damn easy to cash in, have everyone do a 'heart of gold' or 'down by the river' singalong, pretend like he was still in his 20s, and walk away with tons of cash and no artistic satisfaction... so long may he run -- because there are fewer and fewer artists with his integrity every day...

1991. 09. 'loveless' - my bloody valentine

i remember first hearing my bloody valentine on WMNF's old 'underground circus' show... they played a song off of the EP 'glider', so it must have been 1990 or 1991, before 'loveless' came out... i remember buying the cassette at turtles records in carrollwood... i listened to it a whole lot -- way back when, i was pretty heavy into shoegaze... my bloody valentine, ride, EARLY verve ('storm in heaven' and not 'urban hymns'), spiritualized and lush were probably my favourite pure shoegaze bands... and of all of those records and all of that music, there are really only three of those albums i still listen to regularly -- 'nowhere' by ride, 'lazer guided melodies' by spiritualized, and this album...

there's something i find incredibly beautiful and relaxing about the degree to which the music on 'loveless' is distorted -- it's warped and bent in a surreal way that makes you question just what a note or a chord can sound like... it's like the musical form of silly putty to me or like when you're tripping (sorry, yes, i did just admit to doing LSD as a teenager and 20something -- hope i never have to run for president) and objects seem to bend around the edges, or drip but not fall... i suppose to other people, this album would sound like noise or feedback or something so questioning of linear, clear notes that they wouldn't enjoy it... that to me, it's the pinnacle of so many albums i listened to at an odd intersection of my life, well, that makes it my own private treasure...

john, thanks for bearing with all of those mix tapes that may have included 'only shallow', 'when you sleep', and 'blown a wish' probably 1000 times over... i'd still put them on a mix tape for you today...

1990. 09. 'songs for drella' - lou reed/john cale

i hadn't listened to this record in many years -- a shame for me... but i'll make sure that i have a copy at all times in the future so that when someone asks me who andy warhol really was or why we care about him at all, i'll have an oral history account of just why warhol is still, to me, the quintessential definition of the 20th century american artist.  nothing defines post-war american culture to me better than crass, conspicuous consumerism -- and if warhol's art succeeds in nothing else at all, it's elevating, celebrating, and making part of the canon that very zeitgeist... what lou reed's songs on 'songs for drella' remind us is that andy may have been a dilettante, andy may have been fickle, andy may have been a bitch -- but he worked bloody hard, grafting and grafting, to encompass artistic forms from a core of painting through the outer rings of cinema, music and television... our higher culture nor our popular culture today would exist as they do without andy warhol -- maybe that's for good, maybe that's for bad, but in my mind, that's a fact... i always see the "celebrity andy" of the 70s and 80s as someone looking for a shell -- he'd given all he could give for his vision of art (whether you buy into the vision or not), was sucked by leeches and nearly killed doing it, and chose to find shelter in the most conspicuous of locations... he could hide there best...

this album reminds me what a great, cerebral musician john cale is... his words are poetry, and his arrangements are pitch perfect... a true musician, true artist -- and as always, a pitch perfect ice to lou reed's snotty, street smart fire... i understand completely why the two of them couldn't possibly work together again... the tension, when it's there (listen FOR GOD'S BLOODY SAKE if you never have to 'white light/white heat' by the velvet underground -- i love 'velvet underground and nico' for the fusion of the two, but there's so much more dynamism for me in 'white light/white heat') is something that just speaks to me on such a basic, primal level that when we lose these two, like we lost andy, a little piece of my definition, of my understanding, and of my faith that my 'vision' (for whatever it's worth) is not unique in the world, will evaporate...

masterful...