Archive for the ‘Record reviews’ Category

Baseball, hot dogs, apple pie, Chevrolet

Posted: February 27, 2011 in music, Record reviews
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Godsmack, “Love-Hate-Sex-Pain” (2010)
Red Hot Chili Peppers, “Blood Sugar Sex Magik” (1991)
The Godfathers, “Birth, School, Work, Death” (1988)

Today I’d like to bring to your attention a rather disturbing trend in the naming of songs and that is the assemblage of four consecutive nouns as the song’s name. The examples given above are the only ones I’m currently aware of, and while three data points spread over 22 years is very possibly not a trend you can never be too careful in these matters. Someone might have recorded a song called “Crosby; Stills; Nash; Young” and we’d never be the wiser.

What do these songs have in common? What are they trying to tell us? Let’s ask each of them to cough and give them a thorough examination.

Godsmack, “Love-Hate-Sex-Pain”
Theme: OMG! We’re all gonna die!

“Love-Hate-Sex-Pain” lurches into motion with the reflective “In this life I’m me/just sitting here alone,” which makes me think the boys should join Facebook, or maybe Adult Friend Finder. In the next 150 words they explain that love, hate, sex, and pain are “complicated.” These physical and emotional states are not just “lies,” they’re “underestimated lies,” which I believe means the final bill is going to be a lot higher than what we were told on the phone.

The members of Godsmack are also concerned that one of their moms is going to bury them. When I was a kid, I worried that my mom would step on me because of her poor peripheral vision, but apparently moms today have more options.

“It’s hard to say that I will be complete/before I die,” they wail. I guess if that happens, God will give you an incomplete. Won’t matter to you, though, because you’ll be dead.

“Love-Hate-Sex-Pain” is performed in the trademark Godsmackian manner, in which every sentence is a proclamation and every guitar is stuck in second gear.

Red Hot Chili Peppers, “Blood Sugar Sex Magik”
Theme: Right now would be a good time to have sex.

No band with a bassist named Flea can ever be underestimated, and RHCP shows you why in this saga, in which they spend about a third of the song repeating the title in alternate lines and in different combinations: “Blood sugar crazy/She has it/Sex magik sex magik.” These repetitions, while they are not what literary experts term “good,” do have power, like Gregorian chants performed by monks with middle-ear problems.

The song eases us into its sexual theme with a line one of them wrote in the back of math class (“Kissing her virginity”), but before they’re done the Peppers’ vocabulary increases (“Glorious euphoria”) and their wordplay grows more playful (“Operatic by voice/A fanatic by choice”). Flea and friends “keep it on the soulside,” inviting their idealized female listener to “be my soul bride.” “Every woman/has a piece of Aphrodite,” they explain. That probably destroys her value as a collectible.

Of course, RHCP’s real moment in the sun was their cover of The Ohio Players’ “Love Rollercoaster” from the Beavis and Butt-Head Do America soundtrack.

The Godfathers, “Birth, School, Work, Death”
Theme: Godsmack is a bunch of wankers.

Sometimes when a band gets together they become overly inebriated and don’t realize they’ve let in someone who knows how to write until all the papers have been signed and the liner notes to their first album have already been run off. So it is with The Godfathers, as you can see from the opening stanza of “Birth, School, Work, Death”:

Been turned around till I’m upside down
Been all at sea until I’ve drowned
And I’ve felt torture, I’ve felt pain
Just like that film with Michael Caine
I’ve been abused and I’ve been confused
And I’ve kissed Margaret Thatcher’s shoes
And I been high and I been low
And I don’t know where to go

Birth, school, work, death…

In eight sprightly lines this English post-punk band presents a new perspective on rock ’n’ roll’s original theme, alienation. While I admire this passage I admit that I have no clue which Michael Caine film is being referred to. I’m willing to bet it’s not Beyond the Poseidon Adventure. It’s probably not Zulu, either, in which Caine plays a character with the very attractive name of Gonville Bromhead. It’s also unlikely that Mr. Caine ever played Margaret Thatcher, except perhaps for a few close friends or that certain someone, but she does make the line scan nicely.

“Doesn’t matter what I say/Tomorrow’s still another day.” Are The Godfathers fatalists or do they believe in the eternal springing of hope? Turns out that it doesn’t matter: “I don’t need your sympathy/There’s nothing in this world for me,” the defiant Godfathers sing, while the music marches on as if the band has declared victory and can now go home.

More. Data. Points. Please.
If you know of a four-noun song, please write to this blog. We will never find the meaning behind this song-naming convention until we have more information. In the meantime, I’ll be right here at Run-DMSteve World HQ singing “Birth, school, work, death” and trying to avoid all four of them.

Lord of the Hair Dyes

Posted: February 13, 2011 in music, Record reviews
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Toys in the Attic
Aerosmith
1975

You don’t have to be a music critic to sense that Aerosmith sucks dead bears. If Led Zeppelin and AC/DC were battleships, Aerosmith would be barnacles. If my roof was leaking, I’d nail Aerosmith LPs over the leaks. Exposing their vinyl to acid rain could only improve the sound.

But you once loved these guys!
You know me too well, Mr. Subhead. I’ve played air guitar for years to Aerosmith’s version of “Train Kept A-Rollin’.” If it came on the radio right now I’d do it again, and then I’d call NPR to ask why they’re playing Aerosmith in the middle of Thistle and Shamrock.

As long as I’m confessing, I might as well confess it all. Some years ago, after the glaciers had retreated but before we speared the last saber-toothed tiger, the young Aerosmithers played an all-ages dance at the National Guard armory in Fall River, Massachusetts. We high school journalists-in-training wanted to interview them for our school paper, but we never got backstage. In my memory we were chased from the building by an enraged Steven Tyler wielding a flaming guitar, but if I could travel back to that moment I’d probably find it was just a Pabst-swilling roadie with a Carl Yastrzemski baseball bat.

Eventually I grew up, realized just what it was I was listening to, and traded my Aerosmith records for something better, like a frog.

Aerosmith: Plague or pestilence?
If scientists cannot answer this question, why am I suggesting you put yourself at the mercy of Toys in the Attic? Because Toys transcends the congealing sludge of the Aerosmith discography on the strength of one song, “Sweet Emotion.” How this band produced that song is a mystery. “Sweet Emotion” is one of the supreme driving songs in Western culture. It even sounds good when you’re parked.

Give the rest of this disc a chance and you’ll be pleasantly surprised by the passably rockin’ title track, as well as “No More No More” and “You See Me Crying,” which showcases Tyler’s bargain-basement voice but somehow wins you over with its amateur theatrics. (I don’t include “Walk This Way” because I never saw the point of that song until it was hip-hopped by my namesakes.)

If you’re planning a party, “Sweet Emotion” pairs well with another winner by a loser band, Foghat’s “Slow Ride.” Don’t forget to invite Run-DMSteve.

How’s that for suck: A fair and balanced look at Yes

Posted: February 6, 2011 in music, Record reviews
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“Owner of a Lonely Heart”
Yes
1983
Yes has been around so long, they had to postpone their first gig until Sir Francis Drake could defeat the Spanish Armada. In the 1970s, Yes and a collection of art-school escapees including King Crimson, Jethro Tull, Traffic, Pink Floyd, and Emerson, Lake & Palmer created their own playpen of popular music: progressive rock. Prog-rock songs have two underlying characteristics:

1) Too many notes.
2) Boredom.

Yes enjoyed tremendous commercial success with their overinflated songs, and long after the rest of these pompous mammoths had been stuffed and mounted, Yes was still blundering about, bugging the hell out of me. Because Special D says I should stop being a grump, I’ve decided to say something nice about Yes. In fact, my research has revealed so many nice things to say about Yes that I’ve tabulated them for your convenience.

Table 1. Have You Heard the Good News About Yes?
The song “Owner of a Lonely Heart” is superior to all of its contemporaries:

  • Bonnie Tyler’s “Total Eclipse of the Heart”
  • Quarterflash’s “Harden My Heart”
  • Hart to Hart starring Robert Wagner and Stephanie Powers
  • Most crud by Heart

If the sacred mission of prog rock is to clear the dance floor of all human life, why did Yes record a dance song? Not only does this heresy remain unexplained, “Owner of a Lonely Heart” became Yes’ only #1 hit! In 1983 this seemed about as likely as the Dukes of Hazzard hosting Masterpiece Theatre. I understand now that the years in which Jon Anderson, Steve Howe, Rick Wakeman, and the band’s 1,000 other members spent honing their craft, blowing everything out of proportion and infusing their albums with a heady dose of tedium, was all in the service of this one moment.

Where eagles dare
The song starts with the guitar clearing its throat like a brontosaurus heading for its mud hole. I like it already. Over the next two minutes, the spectacle of a band this inept attempting to create a dance-club hit by straining Thomas Dolby through Deep Purple can’t help but win you over. They even snap their fingers. This stretch of music isn’t really danceable; it’s slow and lumbering. But Yes fans can dance to it, for they are slow and lumbering.

And then, with the music swelling and the falsettos becoming ever more false, we’ve safely reached the end. Right? The song has acquitted itself with honor and can now retire. Right? You know I’m going to say Wrong! We have instead arrived at the bridge. The band doesn’t transition into the bridge so much as trip over it. This is Steve Howe’s cue, or maybe this is what wakes Steve Howe up. With a mighty heave of his fingers, he uncorks a guitar solo that kicks like a line of retired Rockettes. Don’t you always laugh at this point and flail about the room with your air guitar? Of course you do.

Having shot its wad with these bold ideas, Yes contentedly rolls over for the last 60 seconds. The song slowly deflates, leaving you with the memory of a good time and the thought that within 24 hours they’ll be ready to do it again.

What other band could’ve done this?
Bruce Springsteen’s “Dancing in the Dark” was a very different song for The Boss, though he sort of repeated that glossy, ’80s-feathered-hair sound a couple years later with “Tunnel of Love.” The Pixies’ “Here Comes Your Man,” a bright, poppy tune, was just a tiny bit out of place on an album that included “Monkey Gone to Heaven” and the rest of their suicidal oeuvre. The Grateful Dead took a stab at disco with “Shakedown Street”; if only disco had stabbed back. But I can’t think of any band that reached so far beyond itself as Yes did with “Owner of a Lonely Heart.”

Now that’s progressive.

Get yer covers out (take 2)

Posted: January 30, 2011 in music, Record reviews
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My learned colleague Clark Hays raises an excellent question about Cat Power and her cover of “(I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction.” Why didn’t I mention it in my round-up of Stones covers?

Power released this song on The Covers Record (2000). On this disc she planes 12 mostly obscure tunes into sawdust. The results are interesting and strange but at times so spare and desolate they border on the nihilistic. The Big Lebowski taught us that nihilism is nothing to be afraid of, but I find that nihilism is nothing much to listen to, either. So I didn’t include her cover of “Satisfaction” in my list even though I think it’s good and certainly one-of-a-kind. I just I can’t recommend more than an annual listen without your doctor’s consent.

While I’m on the topic of multiple covers from the perspective of one artist or band, you might like Matthew Sweet and Susanna Hoffs’ two Under the Covers records, which are happy and Beatles-like. (You older teenagers will remember Ms. Hoffs from The Bangles.) Phil Collins has a new collection of soul covers, Going Back, but it burned my fingers just to type “Phil Collins,” so you’ll have to listen to him on your own.

Portland’s cuddliest, happy-go-luckiest writer
And while I’m on the topic of nihilism, Clark and I had an email exchange at work after I helpfully observed that the lunkhead had refused to smile at a local book-signing event:

Clark: Writers never smile, dude. We’re too “tortured.”
Run-DMSteve: Not when they’re “inebriated”!
Clark: Shut up, I’m a famous author!
Run-DMSteve: Are you inebriated?
Clark: What if I am!!!! What’s it to you? You wouldn’t understand the pressures I’m under…I’m too good for this place. I coulda been writing greeting cards…I coulda been something…
Run-DMSteve: Introducing the Clark Hays line of greeting cards:

  • White card, no picture, black type: Happy Birthday. Inside: Blood stain, probably yours.
  • Card that hasn’t even been dyed white, no picture, rubber-stamped: Happy Anniversary. Inside: Stain.
  • Card from Hallmark, Hallmark logo crossed out with magic marker, big black X on front, inside message crossed out. Card looks like somebody cried in it.

“You get me,” sobbed Clark. “You really get me!!”

Get yer covers out

Posted: January 23, 2011 in music, Record reviews
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As part of the grueling research methodology I employ to produce this blog, I just finished listening to 50 Rolling Stones covers. Results: The Italians win!
Gold: Italy (Franco Battiato, “Ruby Tuesday”)
Silver: France (Freedom Dub, “Emotional Rescue”)
Bronze: USA (The Folksmen, “Start Me Up”)

Runners-up:
The Concretes, “Miss You”
Marianne Faithfull, “As Tears Go By”
Sky Cries Mary, “2000 Light Years From Home”

Honorable mention:
“Welcome to the Third World” by The Dandy Warhols, which is either a loving homage to “Miss You” or an outright rip-off.

I’ve heard this a million times, I can’t listen anymore:
Devo, “(I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction”

What’s it all mean?
I don’t know, Mr. Subhead. The songs I’ve listed here are mostly psychedelia (“Ruby Tuesday,” “As Tears Go By,” “2000 Light Years From Home”) or disco (“Emotional Rescue,” “Miss You”). The two rockers, “Start Me Up” and “Satisfaction,” were redone as jokes: The Folksmen were a creation of the film A Mighty Wind, and Devo was, well, Devo.

Fifty sounds like a lot, but there are far more covers of The Beatles. There are even covers of entire Beatles albums: This Bird Has Flown, a tribute to Rubber Soul on its 40th anniversary (2005). Are The Beatles more open to interpretation? Are The Stones complete as they are? Who’s better? And can either band ever measure up to Right Said Fred?

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