2008 – Year in Review

To say 2008 was one hell of a year is, to put it lightly, one of the biggest understatements anyone could make. In just 365 days, we witnessed a global economic crisis, China’s rise to power through the summer Olympics, increased tensions between Russia and the United States, and one of the most historic campaigns in all of politics – culminating in the election of America’s first black President. And we saw quite a lot in the music world as well. Bands came and went, drama increased among former friends, we had an almost ridiculous amount of reunion albums and tours (everyone from My Bloody Valentine to Limp Bizkit decided to make amends and get back together!) and we witnessed the comeback of some of the most legendary and influential bands ever. While it would be a bit too much to talk about every single great or noteworthy album that was released this year, I’d like to pay special attention to some of this year’s greats.

Radiohead – In Rainbows

I know this was technically released in 2007, but if the Grammys think it’s a 2008 record I do too. This was a brilliant album in a long series of brilliant Radiohead albums, not just for its unique release but for the band’s new stripped-down, introspective sound. Songs like “Nude”, “Weird Fishes/Arpeggi”, and “House of Cards” are among the best the band has ever written, and Thom Yorke’s vocals and lyrics remain as moving now as they were ten years ago. Although the record was a bit short for some people’s tastes, the band’s amazing sense of dynamics and songcraft make you want to savor every minute.

Coldplay – Viva La Vida or Death and All of His Friends

This album turned four soft-rock balladeers into the biggest band in the world. After the somewhat lackluster X&Y, it was hard to know what direction Coldplay would take next, and fans held their breath until the very end. With Brian Eno in the producer’s chair, the band drove themselves to experiment constantly and always look for a new song or style. And it worked: from the sweeping opener “Life in Technicolor” all the way to the majestic ending of “Death and All His Friends”, Viva La Vida… is beautiful, deep, and epic in every sense of the word. It’s got arena-ready anthems, orchestral pop, dark piano tunes, and the thrilling confidence of a band that knows they’re on top of the world.

Metallica – Death Magnetic

This record wasn’t particularly innovative, and it didn’t break any new ground. What made Death Magnetic so special is how it totally redeemed Metallica from the mess that was St. Anger and returned the band to their old glory. Littered with 8, 9, and 10-minute songs with killer riffs and Kirk Hammet’s face-melting solos, this album was meant to reaffirm Metallica’s status as the gods of thrash metal. You can almost see James Hetfield’s sneer as the band launches into rockers like “That Was Just Your Life” or the epic outro of “The Day That Never Comes”. But the biggest surprise of all is “Suicide & Redemption”, an epic instrumental that Cliff Burton would have loved to hear.

Kanye West – 808s & Heartbreak

Nobody expected an album like 808s & Heartbreak to come out from a musician like Kanye West. After the release of 2007’s Graduation, the world just expected Kanye to continue his winning streak of school-related rap albums and release a record called A Good-Ass Job. But things turned out very differently: his fiancée left him, his mother died, and he decided to make an introspective, minimalistic electronic record sung with the aid of a little program called Auto-Tune. It was a huge gamble, but, in the end, Kanye made the right decision. Rather than using Auto-Tune as a crutch like so many other Top 40 artists, he used it to create a cold, isolating feeling. And he enhanced the melancholy feeling with tinny beats in “Heartless” , haunting piano in “Love Lockdown”, and a string section that turns “Robocop” into a work of art.

Guns N’ Roses – Chinese Democracy

As if to try to top off all of the incredible things that happened this year, Axl Rose and company turned off all the thermostats in Hell and finally released Chinese Democracy. The story of how this record came to be is so convoluted as to be ridiculous, but on November 23, we all held our breaths. And it was *almost* worth the wait, because Chinese Democracy is a brilliant record filled with irresistable rockers, heart-wrenching ballads, and (of course) mind-blowing guitar solos from Buckethead, Bumblefoot and Robin Finck. Even without the aid of his old band members, Axl managed to create an epic, sprawling album with amazing melodies and that same voice that sent chills up your spine so many years ago. It might not live up to the hype, and the absurd length hurts the record a bit, but with gems like “There Was a Time” and “Shackler’s Revenge”, Chinese Democracy exceeded *almost* all expectations.

Honorable Mentions:

The Foxboro Hot Tubs – Stop, Drop, and Roll!!! - An exciting throwback to 60’s garage rock with spunky guitars and irresistible hooks. They may be Green Day in disguise, but the Hot Tubs sound so fresh you’d think they were a brand new band.

R.E.M. – Accelerate - A fantastic comeback for a band whose future was uncertain after the abysmal Around the Sun. The name says it all, really: this is a blistering, no-nonsense record with literate songs and punk-rock energy. It’s so exciting to see a veteran band crank up their amps and learn how to rock again.

Nine Inch Nails – The Slip – Ghosts I-IV may have gotten more press, but it was NIN’s free giveaway album that got blasted in my car stereo time and time again. A short, sweet industrial-rock record filled with crunchy riffs and killer hooks, it’s easy to see that Trent Reznor’s songwriting is still top-notch. Probably the best free album ever.

Well, that’s it for this year. See you in 2009, and let’s hope for another awesome year in music!

R.E.M. – Lifes Rich Pageant

What is this strange sound coming out of Mr. Buck’s amplifier? Distortion?…I like it!

8/10

Best song: Fall on Me

1986 I.R.S.

It’s always difficult for a band to bring out major changes in their sound or style, because doing so can alienate an old fanbase or cause friction within the band. And the means by which groups go through this change is always different: some build up gradually to a certain point (Metallica, Sonic Youth), some radically transform their sound with almost every new record (Radiohead, Frank Zappa), and some avoid change entirely (AC/DC). For R.E.M., bringing about change just meant cranking up their amps, but even that wasn’t easy. Their jangly-folk rock had been perfected early on classics like Murmur and Reckoning, but by their third album, the band needed to make a bold move. After all, you can’t be deep and mysterious all the time. So the band hired John Mellencamp’s producer Don Gehman, put some much-needed edge into Peter Buck’s guitar riffs, brought Bill Berry’s drums into the forefront, and turned Michael Stipe’s mystifying murmurs into powerful, daring vocals where you could *gasp* actually understand the lyrics. In the end, the band not only took a big step towards commercial success, but created an album that rocks, dude.

On “Begin the Begin”, the first song off of Lifes Rich Pageant, it’s inherently obvious that we’re dealing with a different band than the four boys who gave us Murmur just three years before. The opening guitar riff not only packs a feedback-laden punch, but has a crunchy and almost funky side to it that, until now, was completely alien to R.E.M. And Michael Stipe’s newfound confidence matches the upfront political lyrics: his exclamation of “Silence means security, silence means approval” in the verse is probably the song’s biggest hook. The band continues the rock vibe with great cuts like “These Days”, which fits a rocking guitar riff onto some great Stipe/Millis vocal harmonies, “Just a Touch”, which brings punk sensibilities and killer hooks together, and “Hyena”, which mixes typical garage rock action with some pumping piano.

Oddly enough, though, what makes this record stand out is not the bold rock numbers but the sensitive, endearing ballads. Let’s face it, R.E.M. were never a “rock and roll band” in the strictest sense: although they definitely influenced bands like Nirvana and the Replacements, the band generally preferred to make softer music with more emphasis on melodies. So it’s only fitting that the new production values and direct approach brings two brilliant ballads to the forefront. The first, “Fall on Me”, starts pretty innocuously, but as soon as Michael sings out that soaring chorus you know you’re dealing with something special. It’s one of those songs that you can remember forever after hearing it only once. “Cuyahoga” comes right after, and although it doesn’t match up to “Fall on Me”, it still offers a wonderfully melodic bass line and a cool vocal harmony. And those who dislike the band’s more upfront tunes will love “Swan Swan H”, a dark ballad with an acoustic guitar lick that wouldn’t be at all out of place on 1992’s Automatic for the People.

Unfortunately, a few things prevent Lifes Rich Pageant from being on the same level as that album. R.E.M. were running low on material when this record rolled around, which resulted in them recording obscure covers like “Superman”, filler cuts like “The Flowers of Guatemala”, and out-of-place experiments like “Underneath the Bunker” While there are no truly bad songs here, and occasionally even the weaker tunes can be entertaining (I particularly like Mike Millis’ lead vocal on “Superman”), the record always feels like it could have used a few more good songs. And since the record is relatively short (just under 40 minutes), it’s hard not to feel that with a bit more time and effort, Lifes Rich Pageant could have been much more than what it is now.

But consistency issues aside, this is one of the best albums in the R.E.M. catalogue, and one of the most criminally underrated. Although it’s a big fan favorite, Lifes Rich Pageant seems to be insignificant as far as radio airplay and the music press are concerned. And that’s a shame, because this is truly an album that sounds better every time you listen to it. “Begin the Begin” might not sound that great at first, but after a little while the guitar groove and vocal melodies become infectious. The environmentalist lyrics of “Fall on Me” and “Cuyahoga” help make the songs become even more memorable. Songs like “I Believe” and “What If We Give It Away?” start to stand out bit by bit. And even “Superman” can become a little guilty pleasure of sorts. It might not be the first record I’d recommend to someone just getting into R.E.M., but for the devoted fans, Lifes Rich Pageant is a minor masterpiece.

Track listing:

1. Begin the Begin
2. These Days
3. Fall on Me
4. Cuyahoga
5. Hyena
6. Underneath the Bunker
7. The Flowers of Guatemala
8. I Believe
9. What If We Give It Away?
10. Just a Touch
11. Swan Swan H
12. Superman

Weezer – Make Believe

One of the most interesting bands of the 90’s makes one of the most boring records of the 00’s. What the hell happened?

3/10

Best song: This Is Such a Pity

2005 Geffen.

You know you’re listening to an awful, awful album when a song comes up, you pause, and you think to yourself, “Didn’t I hear this song before, on this same fucking CD?”

Most critics seem to hate Make Believe with a burning passion, but some people side with it and compare the soul-searching, emotional appeal to their magnum opus, Pinkerton. These are respectable, intelligent human beings who just happen to be completely full of shit. Make Believe is nothing like the band’s 1996 classic: in fact, I’d go as far as to call it the anti-Pinkerton. That record was idiosyncratic, deep, and edgy. Make Believe is dull, shallow, and completely lacking in any kind of edge or excitement. It’s as if frontman/lead guitarist/songwriter Rivers Cuomo got a lobotomy and found himself completely unable to write the catchy, exhilarating pop songs he used to write with almost no effort.

Or maybe the band just put no effort into this record, because they knew it was going to be a smash success anyway. The record basically rides on the first track and leadoff single “Beverly Hills”, which is just about the least tasteful hit since “Shiny Happy People” hit the airwaves way back when. Everything about this song screams “commercial pandering”, from the synthesized handclaps to the rapped verses to the “gimme gimme” in the chorus to the…what the fuck? Is that a talkbox on that guitar solo? I thought those things died along with disco. And I’m still wondering why the guy who wrote a song about Dungeons and Dragons wants to be in “Beverly Hills, rolling like a celebrity!” Blech.

And while “Beverly Hills” is by far the most obscene gesture on the record (or, really, in Weezer’s entire career), what is really embarrassing about it is that it’s the most memorable song on the record. Most of these songs have completely predictable chord progressions and melodies that could be written by just about anyone. What happened to wonderfully quirky songs like “El Scorcho” or “Undone (The Sweater Song)”, tunes that separated Weezer from the horde of 90’s garage bands? They’re replaced with by-the-numbers cuts like “Pardon Me”, with clichéd lyrics like “Sometimes I let you go/Sometimes I hurt you so”. What happened to the heart-lifting guitar pop of “Buddy Holly” or “The Good Life”? They’ve been replaced with “We Are All On Drugs”, which takes its melody from the “Diarrhea” song (I swear to God I’m not making this up!) and plasters a government-approved anti-drug message on top of it. This is what happens when your favorite geek rocker starts hanging out with celebrities: he starts being just as vapid and boring as they are.

It’s true that Rick Rubin’s flat, overly polished production doesn’t help – it’s amazing how the man went from working on albums like Licensed to Ill and Johnny Cash’s American records to something like this, with unthreatening distortion and no sense of dynamics. But Rubin, as a producer, is nothing more than a guide to the actual music-making, and I really have to blame Rivers for creating this almost-listenable dreck. On the unflattering love song “My Best Friend”, the only redeeming part is the peppy organ in the background. On the emo ballad “Peace”, the only thing that stands out is Rivers Cuomo’s nonstop whining. The way he sings “There is no way I can stop/My poor brain is gonna pop” makes me vomit in my mouth a little. Yes, it (as well as an even more annoying ballad called “Hold Me”) is emotional and heartfelt, but wearing your heart on your sleeve doesn’t work unless you back it up with interesting music and thoughtful lyrics.

Granted, it’s not as if every song on the album is horrible. As lazy as Rivers seems to be on Make Believe (odd, considering he wrote some 300 songs for the record!), he has a lot of talent, so there are a few decent cuts even here. My personal favorite is “This Is Such A Pity”, a trip back to the New Wave era (cheesy Casio synths and all) with a fun melody and an ironically cool guitar solo. “The Damage In Your Heart” also has a fun guitar line, and the melody is good enough that even the crappy lyrics can’t bring it down. “Freak Me Out” is a weird little ballad built around guitar harmonics. And “Perfect Situation” is almost a good Weezer single, although the corny “whoa-oh-oh” chorus ruins the well-written verses and bridge.

But it’s just a testament to how bad this record is that these songs stand out among the dreck. Nothing on this album manages to rise above the level of “decent”, and if they were on better Weezer albums I’d probably brush each and every one of them off as filler. And every time Weezer delivers an okay cut like “Pity”, they seem to follow it up with an all-new level of suck. The songs on Make Believe are so generic, repetitive, and flat-out boring that longtime fans might look at their dog-eared copies of the Blue Album, Pinkerton and even the Green Album (which, by the way, was a good record despite it being pretty formulaic itself) and wonder what made this band so special in the first place. On the band’s other albums, even the worst cuts were at least fun to listen to. Now they don’t even reach that level. It’s a record that Rivers, Brian, Scott, and Patrick should be ashamed of making. Avoid this record, unless you’re looking for a really good reason to hate Weezer.

Track listing:

1. Beverly Hills
2. Perfect Situation
3. This Is Such a Pity
4. Hold Me
5. Peace
6. We Are All On Drugs
7. The Damage in Your Heart
8. Pardon Me
9. My Best Friend
10. The Other Way
11. Freak Me Out
12. Haunt You Every Day

The Beatles – Revolver

BANG.

10/10

Best song: all of them are great! Except maybe “Doctor Robert”.

1966 Capitol/EMI.

It’s amazing how time flies. Just three years before Revolver, The Beatles were nothing more than a group of mop-top lads who wrote delightful, but mostly insubstantial pop/rock songs like “Love Me Do” and “Please Please Me”. Two years after that, they had two movies under their belt and were making the journey to serious, intelligent pop music with albums like Help! and Rubber Soul. But those albums in no way prepared the world for Revolver, the first in a series of Beatles classics that threw convention into the wind and contained such mind-blowing, powerful music that the world, over forty years later, still can’t shut up about.

Simply put, Revolver changed the way people thought about The Beatles – and pop music in general – forever. The level of experimentation on this album is unbelievable, with the band constantly making new sounds and producer George Martin driving them to try every style of music they could cram onto one album. Obviously, part of this has to do with the fact that the Fab Four was experimenting with certain, um, non-musical elements as well: John Lennon and George Harrison had both started taking LSD at the time, and this habit created some very psychedelic music and lyrics. George, in particular, has really come into his own here, writing three great songs (the most he had ever done on a Beatles album) and having one of them as the opening track. That song – the rocking “Taxman” – is easily one of the album highlights, starting with a weird scratching intro as George counts out the song and launching into a groovy interplay between his guitar and Paul McCartney’s swooping bass. It’s also memorable because of Paul’s backwards guitar solo (the whole album is full of weird backwards guitar tracks) and the biting political lyrics. The other two songs aren’t quite as awesome, but are still great in their own right: “I Want to Tell You” is a folksy track with some great three-part harmonies, and “Love You To” is George’s first real foray into Indian music. Sure, he played the sitar on Rubber Soul’s “Norwegian Wood”, but this is the first song where he uses traditional Indian stylings, and it comes together beautifully.

But even these classics can’t match up to the best songs that John contributes to the album. My personal favorite of these is “I’m Only Sleeping”, a drowsy acoustic track where John sings about the joys of sleeping and wonders why people always hurry in life. (I often wonder the same thing.) There’s also the weird and wonderful “She Said She Said”, which describes an acid trip with Peter Fonda set to a very psychedelic guitar riff and some of Ringo’s best drumming on the record. “And Your Bird Can Sing” is simply beautiful, with some heavenly harmonies, a gliding guitar riff and some of John’s most moving abstract lyrics ever. And the album closer, “Tomorrow Never Knows”, is absolutely mind-blowing, the stuff people write books about. John’s vocals are warped and droning as he eerily reads passages from the Tibetan Book of the Dead, while Ringo bashes away on his drumkit and Paul loops some guitar tracks to create the weirdest sound effects this side of Pink Floyd. It’s one of those tracks you have to hear to believe.

But wait – what about Paul? Well, Paul has broken just as much ground as John and George have, and he’s brought his sense of joy and great songwriting to more genres than he had ever done before. Of course, his most famous song on the record is “Eleanor Rigby”, a wonderful tune that proves The Beatles can even be great when they put down their guitars. The only instruments here are a haunting baroque string section composed by George Martin, and they work perfectly when combined with Paul’s lyrics about loneliness and isolation. (Oh, and for music theory nuts: this masterpiece uses a total of two different chords for the whole song. Even the Ramones didn’t do that!) His other songs, however, are equally worthy. “Here, There, and Everywhere”, one of Paul’s personal favorite Beatles songs, is a beautiful, sensitive love ballad with some of the band’s best harmonies and completely earnest lyrics. “Good Day Sunshine” is a peppy, piano driven pop piece, and “For No One” is a depressing piano ballad whose melancholy mood seems like the foundation for a hundred Elliott Smith favorites. Finally, there’s “Got to Get You Into My Life”, an upbeat, horn-driven gem about Paul’s love for the ganja.

Add all of this up, plus what is possibly the greatest children’s song ever (“Yellow Submarine” with a sublime Ringo lead vocal) and one of the coolest album covers I’ve ever seen, and you have one of the most outstanding and mind-blowing albums ever made. What really amazes me is not just the quality of the songs, but how they were able to pull off so many experimentations and incorporate so many genres of music into what would otherwise be short, sweet pop songs. (Almost all the songs on Revolver are two minutes long, with the longest song plodding along at 3:02!) And the consistency is downright astonishing: out of the 14 cuts here, there is one weak track (John’s “Doctor Robert”, which isn’t necessarily bad but doesn’t measure up to the greats either) to be found. It’s an absolute classic of an album whose value has only increased over time. When it came out, it was a milestone for not only the Beatles but for pop music as an art form. Today, it remains an essential album for any fan of classic rock, pop, or just music in general, and stands as one of the greatest records ever made. Don’t wait until tomorrow, buy this record right now. You’ll be glad you did.

Track listing:

1. Taxman
2. Eleanor Rigby
3. I’m Only Sleeping
4. Love You To
5. Here, There, and Everywhere
6. Yellow Submarine
7. She Said She Said
8. Good Day Sunshine
9. And Your Bird Can Sing
10. For No One
11. Doctor Robert
12. I Want to Tell You
13. Got to Get You Into My Life
14. Tomorrow Never Knows

Metallica – Death Magnetic

Kirk Hammett plays guitar solos on this record. What more could you possibly ask for?

8/10

Best song: The Day That Never Comes

2008 Warner Bros.

If 2007 was the year of reunions (see: Led Zeppelin, The Police, Genesis, Van Halen…), than 2008 must be the year of comebacks. Take R.E.M., who seemed like they were wandering aimlessly after Bill Berry quit the band, only to come back, guns blazing, with their thrilling rock record Accelerate. Or take Weezer, who, after making the commercial trash that was Make Believe, returned with what might be their best album since Pinkerton. And with news of a new Metallica album this year that could have been a return to the epic thrash seen on Ride the Lightning, Master of Puppets and …And Justice For All, fans all expected a triumphant comeback. I, personally, was too skeptical for that at first. R.E.M. and Weezer had unexpected dry spells, but Metallica hadn’t made a good record in over twenty years. And it wasn’t like you could compare St. Anger to Make Believe or Around the Sun anyway: the latter two records were just uninspired and boring, but Metallica’s 2003 “comeback” was an affront to good taste.

Well, with Death Magnetic, Metallica has proved me and all of those other skeptics wrong and released their most hard-hitting, focused, and ass-kicking record since the Black Album. That’s not to say that Death Magnetic sounds anything like the band’s 1991 breakthrough record: the songs here have much less to do with “exit light, enter night” hard rock riffage and much more to do with the complex, aggressive, and sometimes downright brutal metal classics of the band’s 80’s heyday.  The traditional “verse, chorus, verse two” structure that St. Anger abused to death is completely gone. Instead, Death Magnetic’s multi-part songs will give you one riff or melody and then instantly switch to a thundering climax or guitar solo.

You heard me. Guitar solo. Lead axeman Kirk Hammett, after being reined in by producer Bob Rock (who, by the way, has been axed in favor of record guru Rick Rubin) on St. Anger, has finally gotten loose and unleashed some epic, shredtastic guitar solos on all ten songs. He absolutely rips on thrashers like “That Was Just Your Life”, and thanks to the ridiculously long song length (the shortest song is a “modest” 5:01!), he gets plenty of time to show off his skills. New bassist Rob Trujilo also gets to have a bit of fun on these tracks, and although I wish he were pushed higher in the mix, I really dig his tasteful, versatile style. He works well with Lars Ulrich, whose pulsing drumbeats are a lot more tolerable than they were on the last record. Really, the only problem as far as musicianship goes is James Hetfield’s voice. He’s got the same light growls that he did last time, and he often struggles to hit higher notes or even to get the same menace that he did in the 80’s and early 90’s. Not only that, but his lyrics are terrible. There’s nothing on the same level as “Frantic-tick-tick-tick-tick-tick-tock!”, but his clichéd and boring musings on death just don’t have any staying power. Most of the time, they are tolerable, but occasionally the frontman spits out nu-metal garbage like “Internalize and decimate/Pitting it as complicate” or “Suicide/I’ve already died/You’re just the funeral I’ve been waiting for” that makes me wonder if all that rehab and therapy is really helping the man’s creative side.

Luckily, you can ignore the lackluster vocals and lyrics for the most part, because each song goes at least one or two minutes without them, and because the music, with only a few exceptions, is uncharacteristically awesome. Opener “That Was Just Your Life” opens with a simple heartbeat and clean guitar (a trip back to the acoustic intro to “Fight Fire With Fire”, maybe?) right before a monster riff crashes in, and the band plays with just as much energy and aggression as they had on Kill ‘Em All twenty-five years ago. “All Nightmare Long” has a headbang-worthy riff (really!), a chorus that buries itself into your consciousness, and a wonderful instrumental section. “Cyanide” is a midtempo rocker with a crushing guitar riff and a melody that almost makes you forget the awful lyrics. “Suicide & Redemption is the big shocker on the album: it’s a ten-minute instrumental with “Orion”-esque riffs and some tastefully melodic lead parts. I can’t help but wonder what the late, great Cliff Burton would think about it. “The Day That Never Comes” is a brilliant Metalli-ballad whose soft intro and machine-gun riff remind me of “One”. And that guitar solo at the end? That’s the sound of your face melting.

Unfortunately, at well over an hour long (and with just ten songs on it!), there’s quite a bit of filler on Death Magnetic too. Sometimes this even appears in the prime cuts: even a sure highlight like “Suicide & Redemption” seems like it drags out a bit too much. Sometimes the band loses focus, throwing together generic riffs that James Hetfield could have written in his sleep. This really hurts the lesser tracks, like the unmemorable “The End of the Line” or the boring “The Judas Kiss”. Both of those tracks go on for around eight minutes, and neither of them deserve to be that long. “My Apocalypse” has a cool riff and is a great throwback to the band’s garage days, but the vocals and lyrics just kill it for me. “Broken, Beat & Scarred” has this really stupid chant of “SHOW! YOUR! SCARS!” as a chorus, and is otherwise completely forgettable. Oh, and “The Unforgiven III”? It’s not a bad track, but it feels unnecessary after the shitfest that was the second installment, and the piano and French horn sound like a sad theme in a bad movie soundtrack.

But if Metallica fans are willing to forgive (ha) a few misfires and quite a bit of riff recycling, there’s no reason they won’t find Death Magnetic to be one hell of a ride. It’s not nearly on the same level as Ride the Lightning or Master of Puppets, but that really doesn’t matter. Nobody expects The Rolling Stones to make another Sticky Fingers either. What does matter is that, for the first time in decades, Metallica have made a thrilling, challenging, and legitimately metal album. Even if these forty-something millionaires will never recapture their youthful hunger, they have become relevant and fun again. Welcome back, Metallica. What the hell took you so long?

Track listing:
1. That Was Just Your Life
2. The End of the Line
3. Broken, Beat & Scarred
4. The Day That Never Comes
5. All Nightmare Long
6. Cyanide
7. The Unforgiven III
8. The Judas Kiss
9. Suicide & Redemption
10. My Apocalypse

Weezer – Pinkerton

As raw as a grunge record, as honest as a singer-songwriter record, and as likeable (after a few listens, maybe) as Weezer’s first record. It’s almost perfect, in the sense that it is completely imperfect.

9/10

1996 DGC.

One of the most common clichés of music journalism is the “difficult second album”, and in 1996, there wasn’t a better album to fit this niche than Weezer’s Pinkerton. For those who got hooked on their self-titled (blue) album, hearing this for the first time must have been an unpleasant shock. “What happened to the Weezer we knew and loved?” fans asked. What happened to the happy, geeky pop of “Buddy Holly” or “Undone (The Sweater Song)”? What happened to Ric Ocasek’s polished, shining production? For Pete’s sake, these guys can barely sing in tune now. It made sense, then, that Weezer’s “difficult second album” sold poorly and was famously trashed by Rolling Stone magazine, who named it the worst album of ‘96. But this treatment was undeserved, because Pinkerton, while not having the immediate charm of the Blue Album, is not only the better album but one of the best records of the 90’s.

From the very beginning, it’s easy to tell that Pinkerton is an entirely different record, both in a stylistic and emotional sense, than Weezer’s debut. While the latter opens with a pretty acoustic guitar riff that leads to the sweet-sounding “My Name Is Jonas”, the former starts with guitar feedback and the noisy, un-tuned drums of “Tired of Sex”. But “Tired of Sex” is the perfect opening track for this album, as its instantly memorable bassline and emotional vocal delivery make it one of Weezer’s best songs. The raw, distorted guitars and screaming vocals make this song sound like it was written by Pavement, but the lyrics, which describe frontman Rivers Cuomo’s utter dissatisfaction with groupie sex, are uniquely Weezer. And who can’t relate to the persistent, wailing chorus: “So why can’t I be making love come true?”

“Tired of Sex” is only one of the many alternative rock classics this album has to offer, and these greats sound even better with every listen. There’s the amazing fan favorite “Across the Sea”, which describes Rivers Cuomo’s hopeless infatuation with a Japanese girl amidst a delicate piano intro, a wailing chorus and disturbingly honest lyrics. Right before that is “The Good Life”, which deserved to be a hit single on the same level as “Buddy Holly”. It’s a crunchy rocker with a bold vocal hook, but what makes the song truly special is Rivers’ sheer frustration with himself. “I’m a pig, I’m a dog, so ‘scuse me if I drool”, he screams, right before declaring “I don’t want to be an old man anymore!”

The most well-known song on the album, however, is probably “El Scorcho”, a quirky and instantly appealing slow rocker with some of the oddest lyrics Cuomo has ever written. Can anyone please explain why he namedrops both Public Enemy and Green Day in the verses? Either way, the song is brilliant, with a stoned acoustic riff and one of the most memorable choruses the band has ever wrote. The guys are so off-key it’s hilarious, but somehow that lack of care just makes the song even better.

It’s hard to notice how good these songs are at first, though, because from a structural standpoint they aren’t much different from what Weezer’s debut had to offer. Most of these songs have the same mix of power pop and heavy metal that made the Blue Album a gem, although it’s easier to hear The Pixies and Nirvana in Pinkerton since the production is toned down. And the inherent geekiness of Weezer, while less immediately appealing (not many people want to listen to songs about whacking off, it seems), is still pretty noticeable. This makes it harder to see how much Rivers Cuomo has matured as a songwriter, and how much the band has improved in just a few years. In 1994, the band would have never thought to put such an angst-filled rocker as “Getchoo” on an album, or written such a bittersweet waltz as “No Other One”. But on Pinkerton, these songs stand proudly along the “hits” and are great album tracks that never take away from the value of the highlights.

Unfortunately, the album isn’t quite the masterpiece it’s made out to be nowadays. For starters, it’s too short: at just 35 minutes and having only ten songs, this CD will make quite a few listeners want more. To add to that, most of the songs here are only two or three minutes long, meaning there’s not enough room for experimentation, and no songs like the Blue Album’s magnificent closer, “Only In Dreams”. Also, the sheer angst and frustration gets annoying at times, which is most likely why “Pink Triangle” and “Falling for You” don’t always leave the best taste in my mouth. The subtle acoustic “Butterfly” tries to rectify this but it doesn’t quite mesh as well after all the blistering rockers. Finally, as I’ve said before, this album takes time to grow on you: it doesn’t have any obvious hits like “Buddy Holly” or even “Island in the Sun”, and the noise can be off-putting until you get used to the fact that Weezer can occasionally sound like a grunge band when they want to.

As difficult as this second album is, however, when you finally “get” this record you’ll be in for a treat. Pinkerton, thanks to its brutal honesty, its angst-ridden charm, and, of course, the wonderful songwriting, is an essential album for fans of Weezer or alternative rock in general. At its very essence, it’s Weezer’s answer to Nirvana’s In Utero or John Lennon’s Plastic Ono Band, albums that wore their hearts on their sleeves and were all the better for it. I disagree with the music journalists and fans who call Weezer’s “difficult second album” an immaculate masterpiece for one reason: it was never meant to be a work of art like, say, Radiohead’s OK Computer is. It’s human, and that’s what makes it great.

Track listing:

1. Tired of Sex
2. Getchoo
3. No Other One
4. Why Bother?
5. Across the Sea
6. The Good Life
7. El Scorcho
8. Pink Triangle
9. Falling For You
10. Butterfly

Dead Kennedys – Fresh Fruit for Rotting Vegetables

One of the most intelligent, controversial, and unique punk rock records ever made. And it’s fucking hilarious!

9/10

Best song: Holiday in Cambodia

1980 IRS/Alternative Tentacles

You can form an opinion on Fresh Fruit for Rotting Vegetables by listening to about thirty seconds of the album. That’s not to say all the songs are the same: on the contrary, there are quite a lot of different sounds and styles that the Dead Kennedys were capable of, especially considering they were a hardcore punk band. But all the songs have the same emotion, mood, vibe, whatever you want to call it, attached to them: loud, in-your-face, overtly left-wing, sarcastic, hilarious, and absolutely insane.

Just listen to the first few bars of the opener, “Kill the Poor”. It starts with a sustained power chord while lead singer  Jello Biafra (yes, it’s a stage name) delivers, in his trademark warbly sneer, a very ironic condemnation of the powers that be: “Efficiency and progress is ours once more/Now that we have the neutron bomb/It’s nice and quick and clean and gets things done!” And without warning, the song jumps into hyper speed as the band plays maniacal punk rock that makes the Sex Pistols sound like Pink Floyd in comparison.

And so begins the half-hour barrage that is Fresh Fruit for Rotting Vegetables. The Dead Kennedys were always a punk band, playing surf-influenced moshing music that could easily be compared to the Ramones. But this particular punk band was a lot more sophisticated and intelligent than their peers, and they were definitely more ambitious. Consider this album’s obvious highlight, the brutal Holiday in Cambodia. It’s long, measuring at four and a half minutes (that’s prog length by hardcore standards!), and isn’t nearly as fast as most hardcore songs. But it’s instantly memorable, featuring a too-catchy descending bass line, psychedelic and frantic guitar soloing, and one of the best vocal and lyrical performances from Jello Biafra. The lyrics are way too profane for commercial radio, but somehow the melody and the amazing guitar work buries itself into your brain anyway. It’s not only the best song in the band’s catalogue, but one of the “greatest hits” of punk rock.

There are other classics here as well, like the shock rocker “Chemical Warfare”, which shifts from a bitter and satirical version of the Blue Danube Waltz to the sounds of members of the local country club choking in agony from nerve gases. And, of course, there’s “California Uber Alles”, which compares then-governor Jerry Brown to Big Brother in George Orwell’s novel 1984 amid a pulsing groove and a chant-along chorus. (Don’t chant along, though. It’s supposed to be ironic.) Every song on this album shows a sense of melody and some remarkable instrumentation, things that most punk bands tend to forget in the name of noise. And very few of these songs tend to obey the rules of punk or hardcore, from the experimental “Ill In the Head” to the outright bizarre cover of Elvis Presley’s classic “Viva Las Vegas” (with a few lyric changes, as was the norm for the band’s covers). Every second of this record is geared to keep the listener alert and waiting for what’s going to happen next.

There are a few flaws on this record, however. For one thing, the production is a bit weak, and tends to bunch all the sounds together and muffles Klaus Flouride’s excellent bass playing. However, as low production values are pretty much the norm for most hardcore releases, this is not really a huge complaint. The most obvious problem is that there are just a bit too many filler tracks: most of the songs under two minutes, while catchy and well-written, don’t pack the same punch as the aforementioned tracks do. Although I love the 80-second rant “Your Emotions”, I don’t particularly care for “Funland at the Beach” or “Drug Me”. Most of these songs are just too short to make a huge impact on those who aren’t hardcore fanatics already, and thanks to that damned mix, the lyrics are sometimes hard to decipher.

But in the grand scheme of things, these are all just petty complaints about what is really a damn fine album and one of the true classics of the hardcore punk scene. Even twenty years after it was created, this album is still an essential for any punk rock fan, and the songs are just as relevant to today’s bureaucracy as they were in the early 80’s. And when I hear the Foo Fighters’ song “The Pretender” on my local rock radio station, or see a picture of Green Day standing in front of an American flag, or hear about members of System of a Down protesting the Dubya administration, I realize that all these musicians have something in common. They all owe their success in writing protest music, in some small part, to the Dead Kennedys.

Track Listing:

1. Kill the Poor
2. Forward to Death
3. When Ya Get Drafted
4. Let’s Lynch the Landlord
5. Drug Me
6. Your Emotions
7. Chemical Warfare
8. California Uber Alles
9. I Kill Children
10. Stealing People’s Mail
11. Funland at the Beach
12. Ill In The Head
13. Holiday in Cambodia
14. Viva Las Vegas

Iggy Pop – Lust for Life

Not as earth-shattering as the man’s previous endeavors, but with songs this good it’s hard to complain.

8/10

Best song: The Passenger

1977 RCA.

In a way, Lust for Life was meant to be Iggy Pop’s comeback album. After the Stooges broke up for good in 1974, Iggy seemed hopeless, lost in a world of pain and addiction. While he and his confidant David Bowie left to Berlin to escape their drug habits, their first album together (The Idiot) was drenched in synthesizers and seemed too far removed from the brutal caveman music that the Stooges perfected in their short career. Lust for Life, it seems to me, was supposed to tell the rock world that Iggy Pop hadn’t burned out quite yet, and that even without his old band he could deliver some mean, edgy, ass-kicking rock and roll. In that sense, it succeeds, even though the album isn’t quite as innovative or shocking as either the Stooges’ records or The Idiot.

And although Lust for Life is co-produced and largely co-written by David Bowie, like The Idiot, it feels more like an Iggy Pop record than its predecessor. One of the reasons for this is because the outstanding backing band, especially the rhythm section of Hunt and Tony Sales. The former kicks off the album with a MONSTROUS drum beat that leads into “Lust for Life”, one of the catchiest and most exciting tunes that either Iggy or Ziggy has ever wrote. Even a thousand cruise ship commercials can’t butcher Bowie’s amazing riff or those bizarre lyrics about stripteases and hypnotizing chickens. And the fourth track, “The Passenger”, is even more astonishing: Ricky Gardiner’s guitar riff is just as powerful as the Stooges’ best tracks, while the “la-la” scat chorus sends chills down my spine.

These two songs alone would justify buying Lust for Life, but luckily the album has a bunch of minor gems too. I love “Some Weird Sin”, which is a dark pop-rocker with the all-too-true (at least for Iggy) opening line: “I never got my license to live/They won’t give it up, so I stand at the world’s edge”. “Tonight” could have easily been a hit in the late 70’s pop formats: it’s one of Iggy’s most conventional songs, but the outstanding backing vocals make it really shine. Finally, “Success” is an absolutely hilarious track where the backing band echoes every single line Mr. Osterberg sings, right up until he curses to himself and the other guys scream “OH SHIT!”, presumably just before falling down laughing.

Unfortunately, the rest of the album is hit-or-miss, and the second side especially suffers from having two overly long ballads on it. The closing track, “Fall In Love With Me”, doesn’t do anything for me: it sounds like a pale imitation of some great Doors song, and there’s absolutely no reason it should be six and a half minutes long. “Turn Blue”, which is by far the most personal song on Lust for Life, is a bit of an acquired taste: some love it for its naked confessions, while others can’t stand the whiny vocals or the dull instrumentation. I like it, if only for the “Jesus? This is Iggy” line, which always seems to make me smile a little. The other two rockers, “Sixteen” and “Neighborhood Threat”, offer a nice slice of post-punk, but the melodies are way too trivial and forgettable. Come to think about it, other than “The Passenger”, “Some Weird Sin” and “Success”, the album as a whole isn’t that strong melodically.

That said, this is a very strong record, but it’s probably not going to wow you if you’re already familiar with the Stooges and some of Bowie’s solo albums. Many of the songs here are pretty standard for 70’s rock/post-punk, although they are all well-written. It’s nowhere near as heavy-hitting as Fun House or Raw Power, and the interesting synth textures of either The Idiot or Bowie’s Berlin records are missing too. (There are synths and keyboards in many of the songs, but they’re mostly in the background.) In that sense, Lust for Life is probably the closest thing you’ll get to a standard rock record with Iggy Pop’s name on it: the guitars are well-played but never dirty, the songs are interesting but somewhat conventional, and the band is muscular but not the most innovative group ever.

Still, if you’re not expecting an album that will absolutely blow you away, you’ll probably find Lust for Life to be a real treat. Bowie fans can eat this record up, because it’s got some great songs and a lot of personality. Stooges fans will be a bit harder to please, but if they get past the somewhat conventional song structure they’re bound to enjoy this. And everyone else can find something of worth, whether it be a killer rhythm section, some great guitarists or just some fantastic songs. If nothing else, get it for “The Passenger” and the title track. The former is an introspective gem, and the latter sounds great if you blast it on a cruise ship.

Track listing:

1. Lust for Life
2. Sixteen
3. Some Weird Sin
4. The Passenger
5. Tonight
6. Success
7. Turn Blue
8. Neighborhood Threat
9. Fall In Love With Me

Radiohead – Fake Plastic Trees

Radiohead – Fake Plastic Trees

1995 Parlophone/EMI.
Written by Thom Yorke, Ed O’Brien, Jonny Greenwood, Colin Greenwood, and Phil Selway
Produced by John Leckie and Nigel Godrich
Originally on The Bends

Lyrics:

A green plastic watering can
For a fake Chinese rubber plant
In the fake plastic earth

That she bought from a rubber man
In a town full of rubber plans
To get rid of itself

It wears her out, it wears her out
It wears her out, it wears her out

She lives with a broken man
A cracked polystyrene man
Who just crumbles and burns

He used to do surgery
On girls in the eighties
But gravity always wins

And it wears him out, it wears him out
It wears him out, it wears him out

She looks like the real thing
She tastes like the real thing
My fake plastic love

But I can’t help the feeling
I could blow through the ceiling
If I just turn and run

And it wears me out, it wears me out
It wears me out, it wears me out

And if I could be who you wanted
If I could be who you wanted
All the time, all the time

(In celebration of my upcoming Radiohead concert, I’ve decided my first song analysis will be of one of their most-loved hits, “Fake Plastic Trees”. I chose this song because it’s my favorite Radiohead song and is very dear to me, and the music and lyrics are a lot easier to read into than some of the more abstract stuff on albums like OK Computer and Kid A. Enjoy!)

It’s hard to believe this now, after releasing so many monumental albums and becoming one of the world’s biggest rock bands, but in the early 90’s Radiohead were considered nothing more than a one-hit-wonder group, whose breakthrough single “Creep” was seen as an echo of some of the most cathartic grunge hits like Nirvana’s “Smells Like Teen Spirit” and Pearl Jam’s “Alive”. The band’s brilliant second album, The Bends, and most notably the single “Fake Plastic Trees”, changed that forever. While “Creep” was a well-written song and definitely had some lasting power, “Fake Plastic Trees” is a  work of art. The song starts out as a slow, restrained ballad with just lead singer Thom Yorke’s voice and acoustic guitar, but gradually becomes bigger and more textured: a ghostly synthesizer brings out the song’s simple refrain, and moving string arrangements make the song feel almost epic. Although the rest of the band joins in after the first chorus, the main focus is the gentle acoustic guitar and Thom’s voice, which accents the last line of each verse with an emotional falsetto.

All of that changes at the second chorus, when Thom holds the “it wears me out” line just long enough for Phil Selway’s drums to crash in, introducing an angst-ridden and beautiful distorted guitar line from lead axeman Jonny Greenwood. Suddenly, the whole song has changed from a simple ballad to a heartbreaking symphony of guitars and drums. (When the band plays this song live, it sounds even better: Jonny absolutely rips on his guitar parts and looks like he’s about to smash his Telecaster into pieces!) Even Thom’s voice has changed: when it used to be quiet and gentle, it now shines with emotion. And just as soon as that bit of turmoil begins, it ends, as the instruments fade out and Thom sings “It wears me out”, backed by the same haunting synth-scape as before. But while it seems like the song has finally run out of steam, Thom introduces a new falsetto-laden bridge, and the band joins in again for a peaceful, if resigned, ending.

The lyrics, while not the most original or creative that the band has ever done, are equally emotional and fit in perfectly with the amazing music. Thom Yorke has said the song was written about the rapid commercial development of Canary Wharf in London, and given the use of plastic, rubber and polystyrene as metaphors for people’s lives it’s easy to see “Fake Plastic Trees” as an attack on marketing and commercialization. (The song’s brilliant music video further backs this claim, as it shows the band stuck in shopping carts being pushed around a ghostly white supermarket.) But that explanation is only skimming the surface of the song’s depth. The effects of a world driven by business and mass consumption is a relatively common theme in art today, but Radiohead’s song seems to take things down to a more personal level, showing the lives of individual humans in an un-human world.

The first verse shows this wonderfully: it tells the story of a woman who bought “a green plastic watering can” from a “rubber man in a town full of rubber plans”. Everything about her life seems forced and artificial, as if all the feelings in the world had been sucked out. The town is desperately trying “to get rid of itself”; to destroy its individuality in pursuit of the almighty dollar. (And isn’t it interesting that these sentiments were put to paper in the 1990’s, when even honest songs like this one were being marketed and mass-produced by record labels and Kurt Cobain wannabes?)

The second verse introduces a “broken man” who used to live for the business-driven times (“he used to do surgery for girls in the eighties”) but is now just as distraught as the woman in the first verse (“but gravity always wins”). These two people are joined by their resignation, as Thom directs the “and it wears him out” refrain to both characters. And that leads into the cathartic, beautiful climax: “She looks like the real thing and tastes like the real thing, my fake plastic love.” These are two people in a loveless relationship, or maybe a relationship where all the love is manufactured by chocolate companies and Hallmark cards. Life around them seems to distorted and, well, fake, that maybe escape is the only option: “I can’t help the feeling I could float through the ceiling, if I just turn and run.” The song ends with a whisper, perhaps a sigh of resignation: “if I could be who you wanted all the time”.

Radiohead recorded this song just after seeing a Jeff Buckley concert, and Thom Yorke recorded his vocals in just two takes before breaking down into tears. It’s easy to see why, after listening to this song: “Fake Plastic Trees” is one of the most astounding, moving, and gorgeous songs that I’ve ever heard in my life. While there have been a few cover versions over the years (the most notable being a piano rendition by Scottish folk singer KT Tunstall), nothing compares to the drama of Radiohead’s version. It’s a heartbreaking example of the flaws in our post-modern society, but its message is so universal that it could belong to anybody, in any time.

Videos:

Music Video

Live at Glastonbury 2003