Archive for the ‘music’ Category

Rock ’n’ roll is the union between one man, one woman, and one hit record

Posted: February 14, 2012 in music, Record reviews
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For years, my dogs Emma and Sailor collaborated on free-form and synchronized barking. Though Emma was older and smaller than Sailor, she never took a backseat to him. In fact she kept him on probation for seven years. As a producer of sound, Emma was a formidable unit who could shake the shack with her John Philip Sousa thundering. In memory of Emma and Sailor and their body of work, which is still echoing through the cosmos, here’s a look at some famous female/male musical duos.

Look At Us
Sonny & Cher
(Salvatore Bono and Cherilyn Lapierre)
1965
Sonny and Cher were perfectly matched, as neither of them had a particularly good voice. Sometimes I can’t tell which one of them is singing. But they harmonized well! Sonny rarely ventured beyond his limited range; when Cher swung out, as in her solo hit “Gypsies, Tramps, and Thieves” (1971), it sounded like controlled yelling. When they worked together, Sonny did the composing, Cher did the hair. Most of their albums aren’t worth spit, but if you were a teenage love couple in the ’60s you have a soft spot in your heart for “I Got You, Babe.” The dopey lyrics don’t hurt the surprisingly strong finish, the spare but effective piano arrangement, and their genuine affection for each other.

River Deep – Mountain High
Ike & Tina Turner
1966
I could’ve picked any of their albums because none of them are memorable, but I picked this one because it features “River Deep – Mountain High.” This is either Phil Spector’s masterpiece or his monster mash. Tina sounds like she’s floundering in a tidal wave of strings, but she’s one of the few vocalists of that era who could stand against the full fury of the Wall of Sound. Crosby, Stills, & Nash would’ve been sucked into another dimension. Ike wrote most of their material (not “River Deep”), but Tina topped him when she wrote their last hit, the upbeat, funky “Nutbush City Limits” (1973).

Make Your Move
Captain & Tennille
(Daryl Dragon and Toni Tennille)
1979
It pains me to even consider these characters, as their lukewarm music makes Bananarama sound like The Buzzcocks. However, I can appreciate their special status in the music industry: A husband-and-wife team who have been recording and performing together since the early ’70s. The only other couple I can think of with that kind of staying power is June Carter Cash and Johnny Cash. Dragon wrote most of the Captain & Tennille catalog, so he’s the one who deserves the lengthy prison sentence, but the bland-voiced Tennille is guilty of aiding and abetting. She also contributed their final hit, “Do That to Me One More Time” (1979). If this blog survives until 2015 it will be my pleasure to wish them a happy 40th wedding anniversary.

While we’re discussing substandard music of the ’70s, let me briefly mention The Carpenters, Donny and Marie, and Roberta Flack and Donny Hathaway. Roberta Flack by herself was by far the biggest talent in this sorrowful group, but none of them were as good as (to cross into another genre) Ian & Sylvia. [Note from me in 2015: I was thinking here of the Flack/Hathaway duets, which I didn’t care for. Flack on her own was a force, if not The Force. Hathaway wasn’t my style, but I recognize how good he was and the tragedy of his early death.]

Sweet Dreams (Are Made of This)
Eurythmics
(Annie Lennox and Dave Stewart)
1983
Annie Lennox has a truly outstanding voice, and in Eurythmics she was also a formidable artistic partner. Sweet Dreams (Are Made of This) gave us two iconic ’80s hits: the title track and “Love Is a Stranger.” Here’s a rumor I remember from 1983: Lennox’s transsexual look in the “Love Is a Stranger” video alarmed some radio programming heads, who demanded to know her gender before they would play the single. Which reminds me, I somehow managed to leave Ms. Lennox off my Ladies of the ’80s post, even though “Love Is a Stranger” is one of my favorite songs of that era.

Eurythmics were no fluke, as on later albums they produced “It’s Alright, Baby’s Coming Back,” “Here Comes the Rain Again,” “Sexcrime (Nineteen Eightyfour),” and “Would I Lie to You Baby?” which I think is their finest moment. The band dominated the middle of the decade, but didn’t last into the next one. Lennox and Dave Stewart long ago split up, personally and professionally. Two things Lennox has done in her solo career have caught my attention: the covers album Medusa (particularly her interpretations of Neil Young and Procul Harum) and her Mick Jagger impersonation on “I Want a Man.”

Nerd alert: Lennox wrote “Into the West” for the third Lord of the Rings movie.

Poolside
Nu Shooz
(Valerie Day and John Smith)
1986
Nu Shooz are here only because they’re from Portland and because Valerie Day and John Smith are still together and still performing. They had a hit with “I Can’t Wait,” which is an excellent warm-up number before you start spinning the dance music. As for the rest of their stuff…I can wait.

Details
Frou Frou
(Imogen Heap and Guy Sigsworth)
2002
This one-off from two British musicians is noteworthy even before you get to the music: The couple is not romantically involved, and the woman not only does the singing, she also co-writes, co-produces, and plays some of the instruments. Imogen Heap’s voice is not as powerful as Annie Lennox’s, but it’s more expressive, like Tina Turner’s without Turner’s Wagnerian wallop. Some of the tracks on Details are pleasant (“Hear Me Out”), some are Gary Numan-like electronic excursions that are humanized by Heap’s voice (“Flicks”), one is upbeat despite its ambiguous lyrics (“Breathe In” – are they breaking up or what?), and one is every bit as melancholy as Pink Floyd, but with adult lyrics (“Psychobabble”):

You couldn’t be more wrong, darling
I never gave out these signs
You misunderstand all meaning
Snap out of it
I’m not falling for this one

I only like a few songs from this disc, but I like those a lot, and I wish there’d been a follow-up to this at times mesmerizing debut.

Supernature
Goldfrapp
(Allison Goldfrapp and Will Gregory)
2006
Time for more guilty pleasures! Goldfrapp is an electronic dance outfit for people who are just a tiny bit scared of Lady Gaga. Goldfrapp’s music is danceable, but not as frantically as Gaga’s. Goldfrapp is willing to chance some downbeat numbers, which might make her the thinking woman’s Gaga if you don’t listen to the lyrics. Both performers flaunt their legs, but they’re both built like sticks so it’s hard to say who is superior in this area. (Actually, it’s not hard to say: Tina Turner.) They cover some of the same thematic material; Gaga wants to ride my disco stick, Goldfrapp wants to ride a white horse. As David Byrne sang, “Everybody. Get. In. Line!”

The main difference between the two women is Allison Goldfrapp’s voice, which must be one of Britain’s natural resources and the main reason I keep listening. “Felt Mountain,” the title track from the album before Supernature, is like a story by H.P. Lovecraft – nothing but atmosphere. She’s singing, but there are no lyrics. If there’s a radio station on Mars, “Felt Mountain” is in heavy rotation. “Do That to Me One More Time” is not.

Supernature has quite a few misfires, but I can recommend “Fly Me Away,” “Ride a White Horse,” and “Ooh La La.” (“Little Bird,” from their Seventh Tree  album, could’ve been a Magical Mystery Tour  outtake.) Ms. Goldfrapp is the co-author with Will Gregory of most of the band’s songs and she has considerable influence on the videos, so I am placing the responsibility for the “Ride a White Horse” video on her shoulders. This footage must be seen to be believed. You might be tempted to bail after the first 30 seconds, but I urge you to hang in until 2:05 when The Underwearers climb out of a dumpster and form a zombie conga line behind her.

Volume One
She & Him
(Zooey Deschanel and M. Ward)
2008
I’ve tangled with these people before. I still haven’t succeeded in developing any affection for them. This is pretty much how I feel about another cult couple, Richard and Linda Thompson (I Want to See the Bright Lights Tonight, 1974).

Zooey Deschanel has a precious, little-girl voice that’s as warm as tin. M. Ward is too country and frankly kind of tame. (He is from Portland, though, so extra points there.) “Why Do You Let Me Stay Here?” sounds like the B side to something by Badfinger. Perry Como would’ve rejected “I Thought I Saw Your Face Today” as too laid-back. “I Was Made for You” is simulated ’60s Girl Group. I couldn’t help tapping my foot to it, and I also couldn’t help asking myself who could’ve done this better. I finally settled on The Monkees.

Deschanel writes all the lyrics, and they give the illusion of meaning, which is more than I can say for Goldfrapp. But it’s still an illusion. I am interested in their covers, though. Ward’s lo-fi arrangement for “You Really Got a Hold on Me” is austerely beautiful, and they were gutsy to record “Swing Low, Sweet Chariot.” Deschanel’s voice rises to the occasion on that one, so bravo, She & Him!

Happy Valentine’s Day everybody, whether your union is heterosexual, homosexual, multidisciplinary, or independent/undecided. And as for our current dog, The Notorious S.M.A.L.L., he’s been a solo act too long. We’re getting a puppy.

Seize the soprano

Posted: January 22, 2012 in Miscellaneous, music
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Opera has done so much for the USA that I’m surprised we haven’t put up monuments to the genre. Opera gave us the words “diva” and “prima donna” and gave baseball announcers one of their most beloved lines, triumphantly pronounced during every improbable comeback: “It ain’t over ’til the fat lady sings!”

Opera gave us the Wagnerian battlewagon clutching a spear and wearing a Viking helmet with ram’s horns, the theme music to the helicopter attack in Apocalypse Now, and the Rice Krispies commercial in which an operatic basso profundo runs out of cereal and has to be rescued by his meddling mother-in-law.

If there’s one thing we Americans know about opera, it’s that women are hilarious!

A day at the ballpark
Million of unsuspecting children have been introduced to opera through Saturday-morning cartoons. In Bugs Bunny’s Wagner parody “What’s Opera, Doc?” Elmer Fudd calls upon the elements to help him kill the wabbit: “Bwow, North Wind! Bwow, South Wind! Typhoon! Huwwicane! Earthquake! SMOG!” In “The Rabbit of Seville,” the Italian “barbero” Bugs defeats Signore Fudd with every instrument in his barber shop, including an electric razor on a cord that he snake-charms out of a basket.

When I was a kid, I confused opera with the songs my mother sang while washing the dishes, which came from The Sound of Music, Never on Sunday, and especially The King and I. Opera to me was Yul Brynner crooning “Shall We Dance?” to Deborah Kerr. I didn’t begin to understand the true nature of the beast until 1969, when Sports Illustrated published an opera about Baltimore Orioles first baseman Boog Powell. It was this spoof that introduced me to such opera building blocks as the libretto, the aria, and hysteria. I then tried listening to opera on the classical station. Wow, I thought. If only Mozart could’ve written music for Boog Powell. I’ve already started the libretto:

Shall we bat?
On a double off the wall shall we fly?
Shall we bat?
Shall we hit it over the fence and say “Goodbye”?
Or perchance,
With runners at the corners and no one out,
Shall we still work together
With our bats and gloves of leather
And our post-game brews in a vat?
On the clear understanding
That this kind of thing can happen,
Shall we bat?
Shall we bat?
Shall we bat?

A night at the opera
I never go near this stuff. But I owe opera for one of the best moments in chess: American champion Paul Morphy’s victory during a performance of Vincenzo Bellini’s Norma in Paris in 1858.

Morphy had defeated all of the best players in the United States by the time he was 21. He then came to Europe where he caught and vaporized most of the leading players. At a party in his honor in Paris, Morphy was invited by the German Duke Brunswick and the French Count Isouard to sit in their private box at the opera house to take in a performance of Norma.

Norma, in case you haven’t seen it since its first run in the theaters, is a soothing story about doomed love and trophy wives in which Norma and her ex-boyfriend end up tied to the stake and set on fire before being hit by a train. The Duke and the Count had watched this one numerous times on Netflix, but it was all new to a very excited Morphy. Unfortunately, his Eurotrash friends put a condition on his attendance in their luxury seats: Morphy had to play one game of chess against the two of them, with his back to the show. This is how the 1% rolls. Morphy agreed to Occupy the Opera House on their terms. He probably figured he could sweep his opponents aside pretty quickly and only miss the first couple of innings.

Even though they could consult with each other, the royals had no hope of defeating Morphy. The disparity between their puny skills and their guest’s was about the size of the Grand Canyon. But that doesn’t mean that Morphy was bound to produce something brilliant. I teach chess to kids whose average age is 10 or 11. I’ve been playing chess longer than their parents have been alive. Even with this edge, our games are rarely elegant. The damn kids won’t cooperate! They either throw their pieces around like we’re in a huwwicane or burrow in like prairie dogs. It sometimes takes me 20 minutes before they’ll admit that I rule.

But Morphy, in that box in a hall that has long since turned to dust, created the immortal “Opera Game.” It is so crystal clear in the meaning of each of its 16 moves that it’s a joy to teach to children and adults alike. Even cynical, eye-rolling 15-year-old boys become entranced as Morphy sacrifices almost all of his pieces, including his Queen, before checkmating his unhappy hosts and immortalizing them in a million chess books. It helps that when I teach it, in addition to moving the pieces I can act out all the parts, including what everyone was thinking. That’s opera for you.

A friend for life
I’m writing this for my dear friend Jack Palmer, who passed away on Saturday, January 15, at the age of 84. Jack loved his family, football, birds, postcards, blimps, ocean liners, the Kalakala, kites, new restaurants, playing in the mail, making art, making fun of me, and opera. He feared snow, bagpipes, statistics, high prices, fat guys eating corn dogs, and I think The Eagles. In the ’90s, before he retired, he observed that his colleagues played the Classic Rock station all day and that “every other damn song is by The Eagles.” Later he told me that every other damn song was by Fleetwood Mac. Or Chicago. It was clear that he couldn’t tell these groups apart. I could insert a snarky comment here about The Eagles, Fleetwood Mac, and Chicago, but Jack has already done so far above my poor power to add or subtract.

I miss you very much, Jack, and I’m thankful that you had 30 years of grace following your first heart attack. I don’t know what kind of man I would be today if you had slipped away from us in 1981. Probably a lesser one.

But I still wouldn’t like opera.

Wiiiiillllll-ma!

Posted: January 6, 2012 in music
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“I Wanna Be a Flintstone”
Screaming Blue Messiahs
1987

No critical deconstruction of The Flintstones can commence without first mentioning my sister, who was born the same night as Pebbles. Although I was 7, I sensed that this was a teachable moment, and I told my brother, who was 4, that when Mommy came home from the hospital, she’d bring with her our new sibling – a cartoon. My brother couldn’t decide if he was thrilled or terrified, so he spent that evening at my grandparents’ house being both. Because I’m a natural teacher, I also showed him how to set all the clocks in the house to ring sometime after midnight. Being little children, no one noticed us, and being little children, we slept through the resulting Flintstone-like chaos. The adults were all crabby the next day.

Today I’d much rather refer to The Flintstones than watch them. (Same with the Stooges. Would you rather imitate a lamebrain or spend half an hour watching three of them slap each other?) Every year I call my parents on their anniversary and sing them Fred’s “Happy Anniversary” song (to the tune of the William Tell Overture):

Happy anniversary
Happy anniversary
Happy anniversary
HAPPPPPY anniversary!

We enjoy that, but I doubt we’d enjoy sitting through the entire episode where Fred buys Wilma a hot piano from 88 Fingers Louie and barely has time to sing “Happy Anniversary” before being hauled off to the hoosegow. Though I still think it’s funny that Fred was such a dope that he only remembered their anniversary because that year it fell on trash day.

In our house, whenever a deadline is looming and we’re almost out of time, we announce, “This is Operation Red Light. Repeat. Red Light!” But I’m not interested in rewatching that episode, in which Fred dressed up like Wilma and made meatballs out of golf balls to try to fool…oh forget it.

How did they make everything out of rocks?
There were many original songs on The Flintstones, including the Miss Water Buffalo theme (“O we’ve searched high and low/for Miss Water Buffalo”) and the opening number from Wilma’s Martha Stewart-style show, The Happy Housewife (this was about 10 years before The Happy Hooker): “Make your hubby happy/keep your hubby happy/when he’s a little chubby/he’s a happy pappy…”

And who can forget Wilma and Betty’s immortal car-hop jingle:

Here we come on the run
With a burger on a bun
And a dab of slaw on the side,
Oh your taste we will tickle
With a great dill pickle
And all of our potatoes are french fried, fried, fried,
Our burgers can’t be beat,
’Cause we grind our own meat,
Grind, grind, grind, grind, grind!

And when you’re on your way,
A tip upon our tray
We hope to find, find, find, find, find!
We hope to find, find, find, find, find!

Two Neolithic women in short skirts singing “grind, grind, grind, grind, grind” isn’t the same as The Commitmentettes pleading “Take me, take me, take me,” but it’s not bad for a prime-time cartoon circa 1961.

Fred worked in a gravel pit as a dino operator. Why did he always wear a tie?
Scholars agree that The Flintstones jumped the shark with Pebbles’ birth. A new baby is pretty much the end of any successful sitcom. Après Pebbles, The Flintstones went downhill like a load of rocks (Exhibits A and B: Bamm-Bamm and The Great Gazoo). Repeated attempts to build on The Flintstones‘ legacy have failed. Pebbles and Bamm-Bamm as teenagers? That’s not writing, that’s typing. Live-action movies? Torture. Fruity Pebbles cereal? Gross!

The Screaming Blue Messiahs are another example of Flintstones fail, only weirder. The Messiahs were a British punk outfit with hillbilly leanings. They were led by Bill Carter, who shaved his head at a time when that was still scary, or at least strange. He also played his electric guitar without a pick. He must’ve had adamantine claws for fingers.

The Messiahs remind me at times of their English predecessors, The Clash, and at other times of their Scottish contemporaries, Big Country. They were an intense trio of noisemakers for their era, but even their best album, Bikini Red (1987), has dimmed with age. And it wasn’t all that illuminated to start with. (I do like “Big Brother Muscle,” probably because it sounds like The Clash covering The Rolling Stones.)

“I Wanna Be a Flintstone” (“Dino is my dinosaur/His tail’s in the kitchen and his head’s out the door”) is nothing like the rest of the Messiahs’ catalog. It’s more like a crude copy of The B-52s’ “Private Idaho” as played by The Stray Cats. Naturally, this was the closest the Messiahs ever got to a hit and the only reason they’re remembered today. The song is funny the first few spins, and I admit I once used it at a party to repel boarders, but in true Flintstone fashion it soon becomes something you refer to rather than play. I either lost the record or gave it away as a door prize.

Someday maybe Fred will win what fight? And what happened to that cat?
When Fred was accidentally promoted to the executive suite (a trick every sitcom has used, including The Simpsons), an old hand told him that he could succeed in any business situation by using the following lines:

“What’s your angle?”
“Whose baby is that?”
“I’ll buy that.”

It worked for Fred and with a few variations it’s worked for me. I owe The Flintstones…but I’m not going to watch them. Not even if I was offered the director’s cut of the episode where Fred was cloned by invading aliens into Fred-like automatons who broke into people’s houses and stole their food while monotonously chanting “Yabba. Dabba. Do.” The next day in Bedrock the adults were all crabby. OK, now I’m laughing.

Report from WordPress: 2011 in review

Posted: January 3, 2012 in music
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The WordPress.com stats helper monkeys prepared a 2011 annual report for this blog.

Here’s an excerpt:

A New York City subway train holds 1,200 people. This blog was viewed about 5,300 times in 2011. If it were a NYC subway train, it would take about 4 trips to carry that many people.

Click here to see the complete report.

If you break on through to the other side, you’ll have to explain yourself to the neighbors

Posted: December 11, 2011 in music, Record reviews
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In our last, very exciting episode, I watched The Doors, listened to The Doors, and was floored. I then set out on a quest to find the Best Debut Albums of the 20th Century By Newcomers Who Aren’t Somebody Stupid Like Foreigner. I restricted the contestants to albums named for the band (as in The Doors by The Doors). This squeezed out some worthy discs. Here are my favorites.

The Beatles, Please Please Me (1963)
There are two amazing things about this record. One, The Beatles recorded Please Please Me in, like, a day, even though Paul was dead, John was a walrus, and Yoko had already broken them up. Two, rock ’n’ roll went from holding your hand to sleeping in your soul kitchen in about three years. Shake it up baby now.

The Jimi Hendrix Experience, Are You Experienced? (1967)
I have two connections with Jimi Hendrix. According to Wikipedia, “Hendrix’s first gig was with an unnamed band in the basement of a synagogue, Seattle’s Temple De Hirsch. After too much wild playing and showing off, he was fired between sets.” In 1981, I played in Seattle’s Jewish softball league for Congregation Beth Shalom. Playing Temple De Hirsch was like playing the New York Yankees. They had the money and the manpower – their congregation was five times the size of ours. One of their rabbis searched their roster until he found half a dozen men who had played minor-league ball and then persuaded them to join the temple’s team. You could not hit anything past that infield. And all of those guys had visited that basement.

My other connection comes from the 1997 marriage of my friends Liz and Mitch. While speaking to the bandleader between sets, he confided in me that he had known Hendrix as a kid and had taught him “everything he knew.” I wanted to ask him why the man who taught Hendrix everything he knew was playing weddings 30 years later, but then the bride and groom handed out bubble blowers and I got distracted. Anyway, I shook the hand of the man who taught Hendrix everything he knew.

If Jimi Hendrix were alive today, he’d be cutting discs with Wynton Marsalis, Danny Elfman, and Yo-Yo Ma, but not, I hope, with Coldplay.

Elvis Costello, My Aim Is True (1977)
This jet-propelled collection of songs gives you absolutely no clue to the musical continents Costello would explore over his career. Even so, he’d still be remembered today even if he had just recorded this disc and his follow-up, This Year’s Model.

The Cure, Three Imaginary Boys (1979)
The normally dour Robert Smith must’ve been on antidepressants when he made this zippy little record. The cover of “Foxey Lady,” once it finally gets going, is hilarious.

Gary Numan, The Pleasure Principle (1979)
When I was 24 I wanted to be an android and I’m sure you did too. Numan isn’t as frightening as he used to be – he’s on The Muppets’ soundtrack. (If you’re curious, The Muppets is Prairie Home Companion with better jokes.)

Echo & The Bunnymen, Crocodiles (1980)
Crocodiles is haunting and dreamlike, which makes it the closest thing on this list to The Doors, emotionally. Echo and all those bunnies don’t rock as hard as The Doors, but they do pretty well with “Read It in Books” and “All That Jazz.” Their lyrics are fun to sing but mean just about nothing. The first few notes of “Rescue” somehow tell the story of my life.

The Dream Syndicate, The Days of Wine and Roses (1982)
In the 1960s, the Philadelphia Phillies had a double-play combination of Bobby Wine and Cookie Rojas. No headline writer of that era could resist the headline “Days of Wine and Rojas.”

The Dream Syndicate was a major influence on what is today called “alternative.” Don’t ask me to tell you what “alternative” means. But I can tell you that this is a terrific rock record, especially the title track. Steve Wynne sounds just like Lou Reed, who initially tried to sound just like Bob Dylan. No one wants to meet the guy Dylan has been imitating.

Nine Inch Nails, Pretty Hate Machine (1989)
One of the best records of the ’80s, with a title that will always describe my first dog, Emma. Trent Reznor, who recorded almost everything on this album by himself and then formed a band, is not a happy man:

Hey God
Why are you doing this to me?
Am I not living up to what I’m supposed to be?
Why am I seething with this animosity?
Hey God
I think you owe me a great big apology.
(“Terrible Lie”)

If you’re feeling euphoric and you want to tone that down a little, Pretty Hate Machine is the album for you.

Liz Phair, Exile in Guyville (1993)
Ms. Phair can’t sing, and when she tries she’s consistently flat, maybe because her mouth is shaped funny. But she has an interesting voice, and she writes piercing songs in the manner of Chrissie Hynde, though she’s more vulnerable:

And the license said you had to stick around until I was dead
But if you’re tired of looking at my face, I guess I already am
(“Divorce Song”)

Liz Phair emerged from the lo-fi indie world. (“Lo-fi” and “indie” are code for “We are so not Steely Dan.”) Exile in Guyville reflects her origins – it sounds as if it had been put together in her living room. It’s one of the landmarks of the ’90s, even though it doesn’t include her big hit, “Supernova,” which is about me. Many of these songs throw structural tricks at you, such as “Johnny Sunshine” – the first minute of that song is the best minute on the album. Like The Doors, Phair has never hit this personal standard again.

Beck, Mellow Gold (1994)
Jim Morrison may have acted like he was a shaman, but Beck actually is. The ubiquitous “Loser” leads off this monster, but it’s nowhere near the best song – just listen to “Beercan.”

Veruca Salt, American Thighs (1994)
You read it here first: Veruca Salt and Soundgarden are actually the same band. Chris Cornell was the voice of Soundgarden; Louise Post and Nina Gordon were the voices of Veruca Salt. You could swap them and the music would be almost the same. I’d love to hear Louis and Nina sing “Fell on Black Days,” with Chris singing “Seether.” Soundgarden released Superunknown, their fourth album, in the same year, which just proves that these are people who get a lot done in a day.

Postscript: No way am I choosing two obvious debuts, R.E.M.’s Murmur (1983) and Pearl Jam’s Ten (1990). These bands are way overrated, plus look how boring the album titles are. And now Eddie Vedder is giving ukulele concerts! The B-52s warned us about what could happen if parties got out of hand. R.E.M. and Pearl Jam are Exhibits A and B. Puny humans.

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