I should do that at some stage

325-321

2011-05-25T21:02:00.000+12:00

325: Eric Clapton – Slowhand. I blame drugs for much of the decline of great musicians during this general period. The Stones, for example, were never as good after Keith discovered smack. By this point Clapton had kicked heroin, but had been wracked by the drink that had filled the void it left. Although the solid attack of "Cocaine" feels reassuringly rock and roll and “The Core” has some primo guitar, by in large EC has abandoned the sort of power (both musical and by way of cultural migration) he used to muster at will. It isn't so much that he's headed for the middle of the road: Fleetwood Mac would triumph aiming for the same target. It is that he's become bland. At times this is as soft as you could imagine a major rock star ever getting; in fact I could imagine hearing “Peaches and Diesel” down my phone while I'm on hold at my bank. 11

324: Linda Ronstadt – The Very Best of Linda Ronstadt. The CD age brings many blessings, but also its share of curses. Twenty three tracks cannot disguise Ronstadt's decline, which calls into question the value for money of this purchase. In fact they stack her horrible duets with Aaron Neville and James Ingram fourth and fifth on the track listing, as if daring you to go on. You do get back to good stuff, like “When Will I Be Loved” and her knack with Buddy Holly songs endures. This shows that she was a top-shelf pop artist in her prime. But the journey is patchy. 11

323: David Bowie – Station to Station. Three of these six (only six?) songs are great Bowie: the hallucinogenic New Orleans future-funk “TVC15”, the opening and title mini-suite which introduces his new character and enduring nickname, and the guitar rave-up “Stay”. “Golden Years” is a good single, with its “Superstition” riff providing a way into an otherwise un-commercial album. The remaining two songs, one a cover, are both dubious, evoking Elvis's decadent period and tempting Bowie to over-sing as he strives for normal patterns of meaning. 13

322: The Police – Ghost in the Machine. They've lost their way. “Every Little Thing She Does Is Magic” is no “De Do Do Do De Da Da Da” or even “Don't Stand So Close to Me”. “Spirits in the Material World” is politically asinine, a piece of dubious wisdom that will net people nothing but a shitty status quo unless they happen to have real money, like the Police at this stage. Much of the remainder pits Sting's voice, which works quite well with energetic punk and even well-played MoR, against some fairly gimmicky eighties production that never fits the band's strengths. Plus only a few of the songs are among their best, many of them seemingly grappling with dehumanisation or some such. 11

321: Randy Newman – Sail Away. “You all gonna be an American...” The devastating title track is about America's original sin, about its relationship to race and to its myths. It carries more weight than anyone could possibly expect a pop song to carry, and more than possibly any pop song ever has. Nothing else here can possibly match it, and indeed the other satirical songs, entertaining as they are, are either obvious (“Political Science” and “Burn On”), or too mean-spirited (the twinned songs about religion that present the same idea from two points of view). The character songs take us into more familiar Newman territory, two of them covered memorably (by Joe Cocker, and the Muppets, believe it or not). But by writing “Lonely at the Top” for Sinatra, albeit two years earlier, he gifts this apparent stop gap album a second immortal moment, one of the great pranks of the age. 13

330-326

2011-05-04T21:51:00.002+12:00

330: James Brown – In the Jungle Groove. By not pretending to be anything but a beat extravaganza, this coheres far better than 20 Greatest Hits. Brown approached his funk like a jazz band-leader, demanding the highest levels of discipline and chops of his players, and a selection of results from 1969-1971, perhaps messed with just a bit, are presented in their conceptual glory here. It rocks and funks from beginning to end, an almost perfect world unto itself. Rhythm beds coloured by hard horn charts, some choice and sometimes rocking guitar, and Brown's singing, usually focussing his songs around simple phrases so as not to distract from the rhythmic drive underneath. Flung at a rap-besotted street in 1986, by the end of the 80s these beats were everywhere, and the world was once again a rhythm nation. 15

329: Sonic Youth – Daydream Nation. Whereupon the prior haunters of deepest underground New York perfect their post-indie guitar attack and their William Gibson themes simultaneously. Let them take you down to a place where nothing is real, where sinister things come in at you from the right as you breathe in the information flows, where you wander around in a dazed wonder, to where the teens riot and total trash rules. Their music now suits the mood they are in – they can now play fast and furious, which means that they only strike terror and doom into the heart when they intend to. And while they do occasionally intend doom, more often they intend bliss and escape. The world they are in holds promise for those daydreaming in the deep underground even though like everything it can be co-opted by the powerful. 15

328: Liz Phair – Exile in Guyville. One thing critics are perhaps too polite to mention about this singer-songwriter record in disguise is how basic it is musically. Many of its songs are arranged with a simple electric guitar droning along, perhaps some drums tapping away, and Phair's every-woman vocals. Others sound like rock, when she wants the setting to be jauntier or perhaps just wants her singing to have more presence. But Guyville doesn't often encourage her out of her psychological rut. She's not PJ Harvey and has no ambitions to take possession of a moaning long-snake. She's nonetheless beholden to her own sexuality, and vulnerable to the foibles that communication with the opposite sex often involves. Phair's songwriting paints a deep portrait of conflicted, all too human women who know they want something but can't work out exactly what or how to get it. Sometimes these women get fleeting moments of pleasure or happiness; more often they feel gun shy or hate the object of their affection. 14

327: Alanis Morissette – Jagged Little Pill. With no street cred at all (a former teenage pop star must be all showbiz, no authenticity) it was inevitable that Morissette's debut would fail to attract the rock hierarchy. Why should her core audience of thoughtful teenage females care about that though? She won them over because she's both a confessionalist and far from boring, her lyrics shamelessly guileless prose. If the market was willing to make Jewell a big star, why not someone that actually leads a band, creating a credible sound to express jealousy through petty sexual competitiveness? That sounds like a real person to me. Sure, the results are mixed, and for every "You Outta Know" and "What I Really Want" are platitudes like "You Live, You Learn". But her guilelessness is charming in itself: I'm a fan of the much-derided "Ironic", which captures a perspective many share and understands that language does change, a fact that snooty pedants ought to take more seriously. 12

326: The Cure – Disintegration. I admit to being baffled by this one. While I enjoy the texture of Robert Smith's and Porl Thompson's guitars, I find it fatally undermined by their noodling, where they stretch some tracks (which hold little enough interest in the first place) to seven, eight and nine minutes. The result is pure kitsch. In addition, Robert Smith's overwrought vocals make him a very unconvincing romantic sort, even when a relationship is coming undone. The only song here I am likely to ever play again is the genuinely creepy (and comparatively brief) “Lullaby”. The rest sounds like Broadway goth. 9

335-331

2011-04-10T21:30:00.003+12:00

Five more albums from Rolling Stone's list of the 500 greatest albums.

335: Graham Parker – Squeezing Out Sparks. “You Can't Be Too Strong”, a pained ballad about an abortion, sounds like it is sung by an asshole attempting to be tender but instead coming off as patronising. Because of this it manages to avoid wider political baggage, baggage that wouldn't suit these terse rock songs, each of which come back to personal relationships and dissatisfaction of one sort or another. Parker's anger is not the basis of good politics; in fact it is likely to be reactionary at heart, although he's good enough not to make this explicit. Instead, his sneer sparks off the songs and gives the music focus, energy that powers a great and nasty record. 14

334: X – Wild Gift. It is a dangerous world for young punks to fall in love in, a world ruled by singles looking for fresh blood and endless rope with which to hang themselves. Even though nightmares and wars aren't going to stop Exene and John from looking into each other's sweet eyes, these things occupy their thoughts, and, worse, so does the possibility that one's partner might kiss any child that passes through. So they are conflicted and immature, facts that lend complexity to their simple and effective rock 'n' noise. John's and Exene's voices are the voices of normal people, but however untutored, they are still the equal of Billy Zoom's wondrous punk-rockabilly guitar attack. These aren't just fine songs once you get to know them, they are punk poetry, poetry that includes punkily poetic music. 14

333: Richard and Linda Thompson – Shoot Out the Lights. The no-nonsense, muscular, often slow-burning guitar-based arrangements the Thompsons use for their final album together make it a difficult record to get to know initially and ensure the depth of your commitment to it over the long term. Give it enough spins and all eight songs stay with you, a few more and they are forever in your head. Although Shoot Out the Lights is a famous divorce album, its power does not solely depend on the disintegration that colours its songs. They are durable in their own right and collectively tell a tale that is wider than any specific relationship. Perhaps the Thompsons' performances are deeply committed, however, because the singers identify so profoundly with their material. This is singer-songwriter craft both as catharsis and as literature. 14

332: The Beatles – Help! Help! presents a Beatles who are absolutely accomplished and on top of their craft, apparently reinvigorated even if they aren't always happy. There's a ghost of their early formula – they give Ringo a country track to belt out, they finish by getting John to cover a rock and roll touchstone. But here the well known classics are titanic: “Help!”, “Yesterday”, “Ticket to Ride”. Many of the other songs are gems: “You've Got To Hide Your Love Away”, “The Night Before”, “You're Going to Lose That Girl”, “I've Just Seen a Face”. “Act Naturally” is perfect for Ringo, and “Dizzy Miss Lizzy” for John. And if the rest of the songs only fill the gaps, they do the job divertingly. 15

331: Neil Young – Tonight's the Night. Young is one of the greatest melodists of the rock era: his ballads have an unsurpassed delicacy and sweetness, which he flavours by recording them rough. His rockers are basic, tattered, powerful when he wants them to be. Here his approach is even more ragged than normal because that's they way life seems to him – the drugs that come with the rock lifestyle have taken too great a toll, and he feels guilty about the losses he's endured. Sometimes he feels paralysed by it: “I'm singing this borrowed tune/ I took from the Rolling Stones/ Alone in this empty room/ Too wasted to write my own”. 14

340-336

2011-03-23T21:04:00.003+13:00

Another 5 Rolling Stone top 500 albums as I try to get to know the established classics.

340: Black Flag – Damaged. Even by the standards of punk, Black Flag's sound is a raw, loud and intense blur. Their themes of suburban alienation and aimlessness are not especially original, but they bring to them a sense of comedy. The genial-sounding dolts that are so disappointed when their TV breaks down, give a sense of humanity that more programmatic social critiques fail to engage with, and they come across truer as a result. And the intense blur, like the aimless lives the protagonists lead, has its harsh pleasures: the way the roar behind “Six Pack” ramps up gets me jumping every time. But the underlying message is that the kids aren't alright. They have nowhere to go and they are in pain or purgatory as a consequence. 14

339: Tom Waits – The Heart of Saturday Night. Much as he might want to deny it, the young Waits was far from a weirdo, more like a talented poseur. He is in love with some nior-movie version of Los Angeles in which everyone drinks neat spirits at sailor-frequented joints, and beat poetry and jazz are the language of bloodshot neon purgatory angels. Literary pretensions (something Waits became far better at once he found his own voice) aside, his gifts of melody and tenderness shine through. But I don't particularly identify with either the world he depicts or the out-of-its-time music he colours it with, and I find his art at this stage of his career to be nascent at best. 11

338: Big Brother and the Holding Company – Cheap Thrills. Janis Joplin's approach to blues singing isn't completely unprecedented for a white singer, but she takes it over the top. An outgrowth of the increasing influence of black and folk vocal antecedents in 1960s rock, her apparently improvisational (although actually highly planned) approach to expressing strong emotions became all the rage: this album (Big Brother's second), Joe Cocker's drunken interpretations of pop standards, and Robert Plant's massive bowdlerisations of the blues were all on the charts within a few months of each other. Big Brother's long, rambling songs, spacey blues featuring lots of fuzzy guitar sounds and a rhythm section that occasionally loses track of itself, are both “over-soul” themselves and modernise traditional form. They now sound like period pieces of course, but also sound great: Joplin's such an intense presence (as she had to be as a woman outdoing men) that she turns shtick into triumph. Songs of despair and submission are transformed into songs of pure pain, impossible openness and protest at the price she is forced to pay to exist in a rocker's world. 13

337: Jethro Tull – Aqualung. This heavy landmark begins with several story-songs featuring a common cast of losers. These include the sleazy old man of the title, someone called Mother Goose and the prostitute Cross-eyed Mary, none of whom are portrayed particularly sympathetically. They are grotesques, bearded ladies and chicken fanciers, scarecrows and snowmen. Augmenting these are attacks on organised religion in the title track and “My God”, which reinforce what appears to be Ian Anderson's rather dim view of people and society. This impression is offset a little by acoustic tracks of surprising delicacy and warmth. These are stronger than the heavy tracks, which occasionally make me respond physically, but not often enough. 12

336: Soundgarden – Superunknown. One of the two major hits from Superunknown is about depression, the other about a guy playing the spoons, which is just the sort of thing Led Zeppelin would do. Not that these guys are Zep: they are quintessentially 1990s. In other words they are two further steps from the blues, less virtuostic, less corny, and less entertaining. Even the light songs feel slightly weighed down. Despite this, the record has many virtues, skill and passion perhaps foremost among them, and their fast ones are good chunky rock. However, it also fails my length test: unwilling to commit to 70 minutes I often choose another record to play. I'm happy to admit that I'm old, that the gravitas Soundgarden pursues gives the kids a sense of meaning, and that Soundgarden's audience is cool with CD-defined lengths and 16 song albums. The fact that I feel it drag is a data point and no more. But it is also a fact. 12

345-341

2011-03-05T22:38:00.001+13:00

345: Talking Heads – Stop Making Sense. I'd recommend the movie to anyone. Not only that, these versions of “Once in a Lifetime” and “Life During Wartime” are magnificent things, and everything else here is fine. But this is still only my second favourite Talking Heads live album, and I recommend 1982's The Name of This Band is Talking Heads (not to mention three or four of their studio albums) over it. 13

344: Lou Reed – Berlin. Lou's rock opera seems sad. Its protagonists are persecuted just for being outside society's norms, a state with which Lou strongly identifies. It is a pity he doesn't communicate rage (just sadness, as in the climactic “Sad Song”, and the quietly lovely “The Bed”, about a suicide), and therefore can't make effective politics out of it. He even struggles to make art out of it. Although the seeds of Reed's conversational mature style are in place (particularly his approach to singing and lyrics) the big-shot session players he hires generally muddle the music, and Reed's lead guitar is missed. The story isn't too difficult to follow, but the album's lack of musical focus means I don't identify with Reed's characters to anywhere near the extent he does. 11

343: Meat Loaf – Bat Out of Hell. I know it is possible to enjoy this as so-bad-it-is-good and it may even have been meant that way, but fuck that, life's too short. The fifties were long gone even as they were making this, the point of Phil Spector was teen innocence coupled with an awesome sound, not operatic drama or some other sort of contemptuous parodic bullshit, and while the two most famous ballads are both enjoyable cheese all those nine minute rock and roll piss-takes are downright provocations, not least because I resent it when I start to enjoy myself. Plus the non-singles are utter crud - “Heaven Can Wait” anyone? “For Crying Out Loud?” 7

342: Depeche Mode – Violator. This album is some sort of mid-point between Another Green World and the soundscapes of the 1990s, with sonic signatures recalling New Order and British new-pop thrown in, although the sounds on Violator are cheesier. For example, you can dig the random sounds buzzing across the headphones on the tranquil “Waiting for the Night”, and bits of “Blue Dress”. It has some good lyrics (“World in My Eyes”, “Personal Jesus, “Waiting for the Night” again) but does not rock as convincingly as most New Order (or even Duran Duran). All-synthesizers or no, Depeche Mode appear uninterested in anarchy or explosions; in fact there is a hint of politeness about them that reminds me strangely of some folk singers. Their sound-palate isn't as juicy as those 90s soundscapes (or Eno for that matter) as a consequence. Personally I mildly enjoy it, but rarely find a reason to play it. 11

341: Moby – Play. This is perfect, beginning with the marriage of an ancient blues voice to a fast, modern (and yet old) beat, pulling the trick several times more without its effect diminishing, and then fading into lyrical club pastoral. Moby's fascination with betrothing old and new is thorough – field hollers hold hands with modern soul backup vocalese, traditional melodies with explicit hot beats and electric guitar solos. But the whole album is anchored by an intangible that is neither old nor new. Whatever soul is, it pours out, not just of the old vocals but out of every glorious, organic-sounding groove. 15

350-346

2011-02-27T21:42:00.001+13:00

350: Neil Young and Crazy Horse – Rust Never Sleeps. With its slow build up and incendiary finale, its eccentric preoccupations and master-class in melodicism, I think this edges out Exile on Main Street and/ or Who's Next as the best rock album of the 1970s. 15

349: The Yardbirds – Roger the Engineer (a.k.a. Over Under Sideways Down). Titled (perhaps more accurately) Over Under Sideways Down outside of the UK (and officially just called The Yardbirds) this raves up more consistently than Having a Rave Up did. At times it even approaches the energy of The Who Sings My Generation or The Rolling Stones Now! The Yardbirds lack a singer with the authority of Roger Daltry or Mick Jagger, but they are legendary for their succession of guitarists. Here Jeff Beck's early feedback exercises (nothing too radical) generate plenty of heat. The songs, meanwhile, all originals, are club barn-burners. 14

348: Muddy Waters – At Newport 1960. Muddy and his band are in fine form for the benefit of the Newport Jazz Festival-goers, rocking up the joint with songs that would keep reappearing throughout the 1960s - “Baby Please Don't Go” “I'm Your Hoochie Coochie Man”, “I've Got My Mojo Working”. He appeared at Newport as jazz's core audience was gathering increasing numbers of middle-class whites, and Muddy does not spare them the carnal side of his blues. “I'm gonna mess with you” indeed. 13

347: Pink Floyd – The Piper at the Gates of Dawn. Like a number of forward-looking major British (and even a couple of American) rock albums from this general period, Pink Floyd's debut is half-immersed in a world that had almost disappeared by the time I was born. Sgt. Pepper's looks back at show-tunes and farmyards and meter maids and Victorian circuses; The Who Sell Out aims its marketing at very traditional family arrangements, Happy Jack likes its marching band, Pet Sounds its bicycle bells and animal noises and sailors, and here we have kings and unicorns and bicycles and scarecrows and mice called Gerald. It is as if the gateway to the new somehow holds the ghost of the past, as if experimental excursions such as "Interstellar Overdrive" and the electronic geese that gently see this album off have to surround themselves with the guilt of changing the world. This nostalgia sure makes Piper an interesting record, the nostalgia is almost more interesting than the experiments. Piper also has passages of solid hard rock and lazy beauty. But the nostalgia and feyness also dates it, perhaps not fatally, but noticeably. 13

346: De La Soul – 3 Feet High and Rising. Cartoon innovators create a classic with one foot still in reality, which explains the pain underlying the day-glo. These are cartoons with uncommon musical depth, particularly in their grooves, which are funky and knowledgeable, and their samples, which are encyclopaedic, unprecedented and now pretty improbable. 14

355-351

2011-02-16T20:59:00.001+13:00

I'm back with some more reviews from my listening journey of acclaimed pop, making my way through Rolling Stone's list of their 500 greatest albums.

355: The Rolling Stones – Between the Buttons. Clearly a transitional album, but in some ways a throwback too. For example, the Stones' song-craft is more consistent here than on Aftermath, but the nastiness of that record anticipates later developments more clearly. They have still to find the sound they would go forward with on “Jumping Jack Flash” and Beggars Banquet. Jagger's drawled American affectation has not fully settled in either, and this is one of the last times they would sound identifiably British (although to hear him say of an acquaintance “she's so affected” while taking on a posh accent is to giggle). So, rather than having its own firm identity, Between the Buttons is a grab-bag of gems. The path from the raunchy “Let's Spend The Night Together”, to the nasty “Yesterday's Papers”, the somewhat more accepting classic “Ruby Tuesday” and the naif-like characterisation “Something Happened to Me Yesterday” is a walk without a single mis-step. 15

354: Randy Newman – 12 Songs. The key to Newman's masterpiece is the paring at its centre. The probably not-ill-meaning but undeniably racist old vaudeville hit “Underneath the Harlem Moon” is sung as sincerely as the similarly racist original “Yellow Man”. The only reasons to think that Newman is making social comment are the fact that the alternative is too painful to contemplate, and our own knowledge that society moved on in the intervening 50 years. Newman's saying that it hasn't moved on as much as we like to think. The stalkers, pyromaniacs, simpletons, paranoids and other misfits that populate the rest of these ironic miniatures are presented with sympathy because Newman sings from the first person. But they are still simpletons and misfits, still damage other people such as the women that they objectify, and racist language can still persuade the unwary, including when it isn't ill-intended. 15

353: The Yardbirds – Having a Rave Up With the Yardbirds. The rave up is on side two, which has four live tracks (with Eric Clapton on lead guitar), the last three of which climax the album with a great deal of energy. The first song, though is a shapeless cover of “Smokestack Lightening”, which is more like what preceded it. Side one is less raucous and includes the first and weediest of of two versions of “I'm a Man”, but also has some good mid-sixties style British R&B playing (with Jeff Beck on lead guitar) and a classic single in “Heart Full of Soul”. 12

352: Billy Joel – 52nd Street. Joel's nothing if not a skilled professional; perhaps that was always his ambition. So on this pop-album-for-everyone we have a couple of intended standards, one of which is a ballad so skilfully executed even I listen to it with mild pleasure, the other of which is a kiss-off. Neither became standards though, because to write those you need inspiration, and that's in relatively short supply. The main character of “Zanzibar” is an unlikeable failed muso like a younger Joel, and the song's exoticism doesn't go over the top into “Rio” territory. The other major ballad, “Until the Night” is a clichéd horror. But then fuck me if “Stiletto” doesn't have the piano part upon which DJ Polo would later base one of the greatest singles of the 1980s. Joel uses it sparingly, the rest of the song penny-ante masochism providing no particular insight. But those half-minute bursts of piano are inspired, and easily the most memorable moments here. 11

351: Dire Straits – Brothers in Arms. The notorious hit “Money for Nothing” is about a bunch of working class guys talking about how good life must be on the MTV circuit compared to their jobs. Although the stereotype of the workers is offensive, as are the slurs they utter, there is actually some truth to the scene (despite Dire Straits' failure to develop it far). Moreover, it is easily the most convincing piece of music on the album. The rest tends dreary. Why does the slow and doleful “Your Latest Trick”, with its dated 80s sax, have to plod on for 6:34? Why is the prettily banal and terminally slow “Why Worry?”, the very next track, stretched to 8:31? After this something called “Ride Across the River” and the title track, which both plod, last just on 7 minutes. Each. Mark Knopfler's a lovely guitarist. But he's no sultan of swing. 11

360-356

2010-12-27T21:19:00.002+13:00

Merry Christmas! Here is the next five records on my "get to know the rock canon" marathon, by way of Rolling Stone magazine's top 500 albums of all time special.

360: The Smashing Pumpkins – Siamese Dream. In my humble opinion, this is where Billy Corgan's vision most truly encounters the Zeitgeist. He hadn't yet shaved his head, or (despite the fact that he plays almost every guitar on the record) otherwise succumbed to messianic tendencies. He hadn't yet conceived an arcane or long-winded art-rock juggernaut either, at least not publicly. He just led an excellent alt-rock band in an era of good alt-rock bands, making a huge, warm guitar-led sound, and performing a bunch of well-wrought, slightly angsty, slightly ironic songs very much in keeping with the 1990s' slightly angsty, slightly ironic character. It is easily their most pleasurable record. It's a wonder of nature that humans should see fit to create a sound that might compete with a rocket fighting its way slowly into the heavens. 13

359: Outkast – Stankonia. With their street-background authenticity, verbal dexterity and determination to get noticed, Outkast were always stars in the making. With Stankonia, their musical force rarely falters and their grooves are all play. Between the politically charged opener and “Xplosion” with its Cypress Hill guest spot, their flow of juice only slows with the atonal “Snappin' & Trappin'”. Like a lot of long hip hop albums, this one doesn't quite make it to the end, and I'm sure I could live happily without many of the interludes. But there are plenty of moments to remember in the album's latter-half as well, empathy, outreach and vision. 14

358: Buzzcocks – Singles Going Steady. This is cannily entitled: except for the opening shot at the sexually obsessed, all of these eight pop singles are in some way about love and its complications. They have tunes that you can hum and a guitar sound with physical presence, mass played at velocity, a punk component that was still steadily producing exciting records for people thirty years later. The B-sides are more varied and in some cases more internally focussed. They take in such bits of life as bad days, frustrated desire, the need to exasperate your parents. Together both the singles and the structure of the album act like someone's public and private faces. 14

357: Elton John – Honky Chateau. Elton's hit-to-miss ratio was pretty unpredictable, even during this his peak period (although sadly it has been easy to pick for years now). Here, unpredictably, he nails a bunch of good ones, his commitment, melodic sense, and feel for accessible dynamics even making something of a trifle addressing the weighty topic of Mona Lisas and Mad Hatters. On the way he negotiates the complexity of tone required to sing pop songs about mock suicide and slavery, and his music tends to have agreeable go-ahead whether meant ironically or not. 13

356: Miles Davis – Sketches of Spain. Looking forward and perhaps even initiating the modernist sound-moulding of Terry Riley and Steve Reich, Sketches of Spain bears only a tangential relationship to the blues, jazz or popular music generally, but this most famous of Davis's collaborations with arranger and composer Gil Evans is nonetheless freer and has more bottom than much of the modern highbrow music that it otherwise resembles and in some cases derives from. It is also beautiful, which is a trait a lot of conservatory music shares, but you wonder if it really can be as beautiful as this, whether it is ringing out clarion calls or simple improvisations over an insistent if frequently buried pulse. 14

The main themes for today were

2010-12-15T22:05:00.001+13:00

hectic day with lots of interruptions
initial planning for the end
lovely evening

The main themes for today were

2010-12-14T21:27:00.000+13:00

rocks and hard places
weird misty rain
running out of time before the end of the year

The main themes for today were

2010-12-13T21:06:00.001+13:00

tripped by the weather
defeated by Iggy and Elton
hot crowded ride home

The main themes for today were

2010-12-09T21:33:00.002+13:00

busy day
bills to pay and rubbish to put out
Nixon is a fine movie, with a more convincing insight at its heart than JFK had. The character is well rounded no matter the liberties that may have been taken with history, and the scene where Nixon interacts with the protesters at the Lincoln memorial is brilliant.

The main themes for today were

2010-12-02T22:01:00.001+13:00

another lovely day
bonus library blogging!
stories of AC/DC's drummer

365-361

2010-12-01T21:07:00.002+13:00

Now deep into the 300s, the next 5 records on Rolling Stone's list find one great record and four very good ones.

365: The Smiths – Louder Than Bombs. I was left underwhelmed by The Smiths, and this compilation suggests why: it is far less subtle lyrically and, more crucially, musically than the group's debut. Johnny Marr's guitar is here used to generate excitement as well as interest. Meanwhile, Morrissey's unharmonised vocals work his slight melodic range for all it is worth. And he keeps coming up with good lines, even better because of how ambivalent they make you feel. He may get miserable sometimes, but inside the shy lad lurks enough passion to want to burn down the nightclub. They play the wrong music for a sensitive provincial like him, you know. Etcetera, etcetera. 13

364: Johnny Cash – American Recordings. He's got no sort of voice (but how little did we know how croaky it could get), but he's a great singer. This means he's quite capable of carrying an album with only an acoustic guitar and a group of classic country melodies to help him. This first-in-series is easily the lightest and most tentative of his late-career hits: he may already be contemplating his upcoming death, but he's not above frivolity, and the austere authority he would lean on later is deployed sparingly. Cash the legend is a work of art in itself, but Cash the working singer still has some mileage in him. 12

363: Madonna – Ray of Light. Despite the hype this came with at the time, religious significance does not dominate Madonna's reaction to half a decade of increasingly subtle club soundscaping: the subtle soundscaping does. Most of Ray of Light's songs are good, although they are slow, slightly damaged sonically, their sound rather blissful as a result, and too subtle no matter how fetching the disintegration. The album's energy is held in reserve, and, except for the title track (and maybe even then), what energy there is is directed inwards as if it had a secret to keep. It is three songs too long as well; I'm usually ready for it to end after “The Power of Goodbye”. It isn't that the remaining tracks are bad, but the are more of the same. 12

362: The Doors – L.A. Woman. I've complained in the past about this group's stiffness, but the great bass, drum and guitar playing on this album is a pleasure in itself and I no longer care very much when Jim Morrison's plays the jerk. Because he's also a damn good singer when he just goes with the material, such as in the opening “The Changeling”, the title track, and the closing pair “Texas Radio” and “Rider's On the Storm”. Obsessed about his huge phallus, he can't understand women, he remains unconvincing when he is self-conscious about being an artist – he was never interested in overcoming his weaknesses. It is amazing what a difference music can make. 13

361: New Order – Substance. What a strange and uplifting journey it was. As if they were going through half a decade's mourning, they began a fragile human psyche in an inhuman landscape, enduring pain and loss and broken spirits, before slowly climbing out to the tune of “True Faith”, which sums up where they had gotten to. You can perceive them change, from-dance-music-to-express-their-isolation to reach-out with pop tropes like “Shell Shock” and “State of the Nation”, and with clean beats rather than murky ones. I do miss the mystery of “Temptation” and “Blue Monday”, but I realise that they needed to heal, needed to normalise. Later they would be so normal they would write one of the great football anthems. 14

The main themes for today were

2010-12-01T21:03:00.001+13:00

mist and drizzle!
coming to a view
good customer service from Amazon

The main themes for today were

2010-11-30T21:00:00.002+13:00

another glorious day
discussions of 517/1d and other important matters
Natural Born Killers: massively OTT, confused thematically, very much of its Zeitgeist brilliant technically, far funnier than anyone is willing to admit

The main themes for today were

2010-11-25T20:25:00.001+13:00

another brilliant day
working on numbers
ashes

The main themes for today were

2010-11-24T19:43:00.002+13:00

Glorious day out
Always things to do
Sad day though

The main themes for today were

2010-11-23T21:33:00.001+13:00

back better today
pleasant lunch
ringed planets

The main themes for today were

2010-11-22T20:02:00.002+13:00

stiff back
library visit
Heaven and Earth is the clearest anti-war movie of Stone's Vietnam trilogy. It is very grim. Very well acted, although Le Ly and Steve's marriage is a series of edited highlights.

The main themes for today were

2010-11-18T22:01:00.001+13:00

false start
lunch on the run
the Heart of Midlothian

370-366

2010-11-16T21:38:00.002+13:00

Whoo-haa 5 more albums from Rolling Stone's list. Boo hiss, there is only one genuine great here, and a couple of very goods.

370: Jefferson Airplane – Volunteers. Grace Slick's coyness in pronouncing “motherfuckers” sounds bourgie to these bourgie ears and what is more the timeless verse “free happy crazy people naked in the universe/ we speak Earth talk/ go ride the music”, and “Wooden Ships ... very free” and songs about trees talking, sound ridiculous to these bourgie cringing ears, even in the context of the post-apocalypse. Would it be unfair to think they were exploiting the latest thing going? How in the distant future the remnants of this group were to buy right into the corporate machine and produce airhead AoR rock I really can't imagine. They sure don't sound like they are ready for real guerrilla warfare anyhow, an impression backed up by the slightly limp, dated sound they achieve here, however occasionally pretty and folkie their tunes might be. 11

369: The Police – Reggatta de Blanc. I guess the title might mean “white reggae”, but I count precisely two genuinely memorable songs here, one right at the start of side one and one right at the start of what used to be side two, and only one of them sounds like it has anything to do with Jamaica. The other songs all pass by pleasantly enough, and the band is tight. But this feels badly undercooked, Regretta da draft. 11

368: Rage Against the Machine – Rage Against the Machine. Agit-prop that is more uncompromising than any mere liberal in the political mainstream would dare but not programmatic or in any real sense revolutionary. Just like the music, in which hectoring Zack de la Rocha and guitar genius Tom Morello simulate hip hop for rockers but don't actually break new ground. They do sound damn good, however, and in so doing exploit the machine for everything it is worth. 13

367: The Strokes – Is This It. Actually I rather like this. It's importance might be ridiculously overstated by some (album of the decade, really?), but that is hardly The Strokes' fault. Okay, perhaps a little, depending on how calculated you think their return-to-rock-virtues move is: it is a return home for a certain type of rock critic. Nonetheless, they've written some taut, fast, catchy rock songs and put them onto a plastic disc for us to buy and play, and while I don't think the songs have much significance beyond themselves, that isn't going to stop me trotting this out when I want some rock and roll for the vacuuming. 13

366: Mott the Hoople – Mott. From giving us a figurative history lesson about rock itself, to giving us a history lesson or two (or three) about Mott the Hoople; whether slipping between “violence” and “violins” or essaying a pitch-perfect Dylan impersonation; in fact all the highly capable rock and roll throughout, these songs get you eventually. They are funny, grand, rocking and touching and just plain there, they are great to a man, and Ian Hunter is a lost visionary of the period. 14

The main themes for today were

2010-11-16T21:31:00.002+13:00

Digging up ancient/recent memories
Seeds of Doom - but DVD scratched in the mail :-(
JFK isn't a movie so much as an obsessed polemic; so the bits with Garrison's family don't really fit. Man can sure make an argument, although he does over-reach

The main themes for today were

2010-11-15T21:02:00.001+13:00

stiff back
good weather
walk home helped my back

The main themes for today were

2010-11-10T21:07:00.002+13:00

Distracting
Date set for Xmas lunch
Chasing different things

The main themes for today were

2010-11-09T21:40:00.001+13:00

glorious day
The Doors portrays a cosmic asshole but doesn't give us many insights into Morrison beyond this
victory at quiz!

The main themes for today were

2010-11-05T21:31:00.000+13:00

Friday
Busy Friday
Friday

The main themes for today were

2010-11-04T21:14:00.000+13:00

"Dave, you can't do that Dave"
fun chasing numbers
new recycling system announced

The main themes for today were

2010-11-03T19:58:00.000+13:00

diverted from what I intended to do
the paintings of Turner
nice day out - pity I was in

Born on the 4th of July

2010-11-01T20:24:00.001+13:00

Fine movie, excellent performances all round, especially by a pre-mentalist Cruise.

375-371

2010-10-28T20:48:00.002+13:00

375: John Lee Hooker – The Ultimate Collection (1948 – 1990). Despite the mystique that has gathered around the blues singers of the period (and their often quite primal sound), Hooker and his compatriots conceived of themselves as entertainers first and foremost. They weren't wanderers with a line to Satan but musicians who were capable of rocking a club or charming an audience with sweet ballads, depending on what they thought was required. Not that Hooker didn't see the mystique of country-derived blues as a selling point: “a lot of people ask me where I get that beat from”, he tells us right at the start “well, it goes way back”. But before too long he's geeing us up and telling us, “now you're cooking... with gas”. The keys to his long career were purely musical, however: his soulful, initially supple singing and his hard-boogying guitar, which he could make rock even when he played solo acoustic. For all the roughness of his records, this two-disc collection, while hardly definitive, isn't intimidating or mysterious at all. In fact, it is quite fun to listen to. 13

374: The Eagles – The Eagles. You want to really hate them, but the level of their craft makes their debut impossible to pan honestly. That isn't to say it is good per se - “Take it Easy” remains annoying lyrically, as does “Witchy Woman”, about how contact with females will do you in in the end. But both songs are effective ear-worms at the same time, and so it goes. The Eagles' country-rock playing is effortless-seeming and slick, but combined with their similarly slick group-harmonies the effect as a whole palls. As does their general distrust of women and portrayal of a laid-back lifestyle beyond the means of those of us who aren't lucky enough to be rock and roll stars. 11

373: Björk – Post. Björk bursts straight into our sense centres with one of the biggest bass blankets ever thrown, under which lies the threat of a multiple Björk which could be aimed at a good for nothing acquaintance or partner or refer obliquely to political scapegoating. What follows is far more low-key: some decent soundscapes that tend drier than sweet, and that are mostly about her emotional existence and her slightly askew relationship with the world. Good for headphone listening. Not low-key is the faux-big band cover, complete with jokey sledge-hammer cute singing. Twee beyond words, though, and I'm not laughing. 12

372: Jackson Browne – Late for the Sky. Okay, I'll admit that Browne's lyrics are relatively fascinating to listen to; they are ambitious and skilled and there are a lot of them, and while not giving us very many narrative specifics to grab onto, you can at least feel the emotional journeys of his protagonists. But even his most ambitious lyrics are no fun to listen to because the songs they serve are shapeless and slow. Singer and band alike sound as if they barely have the strength to utter the songwriter's words or push his arrangement along. The opening track crawls along for nearly six minutes, and then just to test our faith, the next is even more lethargic for nearly seven. Two songs with an allotment of energy creep in near the end, surrounding something he cares about (because he takes his time over it) called “For a Dancer”. Some people should never be allowed to read poetry; they get the wrong idea. 11

371: Roxy Music – Siren. There is thematic development at work here as they progress from love being a drug to the closing “Just Another High”. The thrill, as they say, is gone. Bryan Ferry's idea of romance involves disconnection, reaching out in singles-bar darkness, games that produce fast thrills and deeper let-downs. Now that his singing has become less affected yet retains the pre-rock sensibility of his opening concept, the comedowns feels as morose as the highs are giddy. This has the most consistently attractive and compelling music of any Roxy album I've heard so far, which helps more level-headed types connect. 13

The main themes for today were

2010-10-28T20:43:00.001+13:00

awake at least!
finished Pynchon's Mason and Dixon at last!
long walk home

The main themes for today were

2010-10-27T23:10:00.001+13:00

slept poorly
pay-day cake
theatrical extravaganza involving 400 kids!

The main themes for today were

2010-10-26T19:58:00.000+13:00

tired Tuesday
Library day
Talk Radio is a terrific, intense and brilliantly acted film, the best so far of my weekly Oliver Stones

The main themes for today were

2010-10-21T20:51:00.000+13:00

Sudden downpour
Enjoyable pint after work
almost choked

The main themes for today were

2010-10-20T21:50:00.002+13:00

Slept poorly
bought new phone
Wall Street is quite a good film but boy the break up scene between Darryl Hannah and Charlie Sheen is risible!

The main themes for today were

2010-10-19T21:52:00.001+13:00

cricket post-morti
victory at quiz!
quite right I should have mentioned Turkish Delight yesterday!

The main themes for today were

2010-10-18T21:20:00.000+13:00

Homecoming
Choices to make
Taking the tunnel route

The main themes for today were

2010-10-14T20:10:00.001+13:00

Sore back makes it hard to sleep
Pleasant morning rainy evening
Ironic Times amusing

The main themes for today were

2010-10-13T19:30:00.000+13:00

Sunny day out
Tired in the afternoons
Big shop

The main themes for today were

2010-10-12T20:01:00.000+13:00

Much nicer!
Pleasant walk home
Uneventful

The main themes for today were

2010-10-11T20:12:00.000+13:00

caught in hailstorm
library visit
Platoon remains a very fine film

380 to 376

2010-10-10T22:07:00.002+13:00

Five more of the greatest albums of all time! I'm motorvating through 'em.

380: The Beach Boys – Sunflower. By now old timers on the circuit, having gained life experience for better and worse, the Beach Boys have updated their doo-wop roots rather than trying to keep up with the pop or rock scenes. Although this feels slight musically as a result, its songs do reflect where they are in life – they aren't singing about girls and hot rods any more, rather relationships new and lost. Nonetheless life hasn't dampened their positive spirit; they remain lovers at heart, and suggest we add music to our day. Which, thanks to their doo-wop roots, is rather beautiful much of the time. 13

379: Bruce Springsteen – Greetings from Asbury Park, NJ. At its best, which include many of the numbers that feature electric instruments, Springsteen's debut introduced a strain of R&B (not rock) that a post-60s white kid could claim for his own. It is warm and loose, music for driving around rather than for getting some place in particular. Many of Bruce's lyrics are utterly bonkers, but they do capture a feeling – good times may not always roll, but the characters get them often enough to get into this thing called life. In fact, it is only when he seeks to write sincerely poetic lyrics, for example about Queens of Arkansas, metaphoric floods and angels, that I lose him. 12

378: Toots and the Maytals – Funky Kingston. The comparison I keep hearing is Otis Redding, but Toots' voice is quite different; I think what we have here is another of the first rank classic soul singers, his own man entirely rather than any sort of imitator. The Jamaican accompaniment (not reggae, which is slower and deeper, even though one of his songs lent its name to the style) gives his songs an extremely attractive countrified feel, and the songs themselves are ace, old R&B covers and originals both. 14

377: TLC – CrazySexyCool. There are more than three good songs here, but the trifecta of great singles on this typically over-long R&B album really do stand out. Perhaps if they had applied the good old 40 minutes discipline that vinyl demanded instead of almost a CD-hour, it wouldn't threaten me with too much of the same and I'd be happy playing it more often. I mean, one of those other good songs is a cover that sounds almost identical to the original, the original being a stunning piece of genius. Here it sounds like yet another mid-tempo post-soul number. 11

376: Oasis – (What's the Story) Morning Glory? It is a vision of rock and roll, not necessarily one I share, but a perfectly valid one. Cocky, swaggering, stoopid, stupid, annoying and good fun all in one package. The Gallagher brothers may be overrated by the Gallagher brothers, but I bet most of their audience understood this for what it was and is: shallow but highly enjoyable nonsense. 12

The main themes for today were

2010-10-07T22:46:00.001+13:00

not a great deal to report
Shadow talk
walked home

The main themes for today were

2010-10-06T20:13:00.003+13:00

Fantastic test match
Addition to work's extended family!
Uninterrupted view regulation

The main themes for today were

2010-10-05T19:55:00.001+13:00

hay fever season
pleasant lunch and chat
people out enjoying the delightful day

The main themes for today were

2010-10-04T20:17:00.001+13:00

legal theories
library day
lovely weather for a walk home

The main themes for today were

2010-09-30T20:54:00.001+13:00

fantastic weather
sorting things out
Andrew Marr's History of Modern Britain

The main themes for today were

2010-09-28T20:31:00.001+13:00

another frustrating day
warship
library day

The main themes for today were

2010-09-27T20:15:00.002+13:00

back to work after a pleasant weekend
focus on the one negative thing out of all the plus points!
Salvador - slightly cheap and schlocky but powerful nonetheless

The main themes for today were

2010-09-23T20:38:00.001+12:00

Chook with no head
Sherlock!
Long way home and walk up the hill

385-381

2010-09-23T20:04:00.001+12:00

Five more records on our countdown of Rolling Stone's Greatest 500 albums ever.

385: Steely Dan – Pretzel Logic. As any major dude will tell you, high-level chops and an urbane strut aren't on their own enough for rock and roll. Soul and inspiration is what this game is about, and that is hard to combine with studio fastidiousness. But Steely Dan love their chops because music inspires them. And on that basis they are able to prove that in the 1970s tasty jazzy funk, white as can be, can be a vehicle for superb songwriting, and that MoR singing, now that the influence of soul music has become ubiquitous, can be expressive, humane, comforting, mystifying, outraged – all that human stuff. 14

384: Def Leppard – Pyromania. These guys epitomise the (temporary) transformation of metal from a sweaty bar and concert music signifying teen rebellion and adult danger into an unbreakable surface sheen that is all fake flash and empty gesture. I'm no fetishist of the myth of authenticity, this isn't without entertainment value when you are in the right mood, I find the attraction of teenagers of all ages to the style fascinating, and the gender-confusing signifiers of glam-metal costumery are, frankly, worthy of intellectual enquiry. But I find it difficult to care about as music because as a work of inspiration and imagination it offers little I can't find better elsewhere. 10

383: The Who – A Quick One (Happy Jack). It is the British version that I have, which does without the excellent parenthetical single that was included in the American release. You should own a good Who compilation anyway – if you want to stick to the 1960s, Meaty Beaty Big and Bouncy has a lot of character. A transitional album, before they became truly conceptual, A Quick One starts off in sixties novelty mode, including one about a spider, an excellent Motown cover and a mad march featuring Keith Moon in full-on English eccentric mode. It then settles into a fine songwriting groove. Of course the album is legendary for its title track, a suite about a girl who, out of pique, did something she later regretted, and for which she was forgiven. Rightly so; this is the sound of The Who's future, and in it you can hear their music developing before your very ears. But you can hear it growing too in the craft they apply to the more orthodox songs such as “Whiskey Man”, “Don't Look Away” “See My Way”, and “So Sad About Us”. They were damn good. 14

382: Talking Heads – More Songs About Buildings and Food. David Byrne's slightly skewed view of America is of a jungle of signs and objects, each of which comprises a form of language. These are to be approached by songwriters with the willed naïvety and objectivity of an anthropologist. So, the warning sign he sings of is likely to be the metaphor we all know, but at times it is also the literal object, a sign with "Warning" written on it. The observation of social/sexual mores is from the point of view of someone who apparently never grew up among people. Byrne's own views apparently occasionally poke through, perhaps accidentally when he appears to pass judgement on the value of an argument over TV channels, but deliberately when he flies over the continent stating "I wouldn't live there if you paid me". The pose of the fallible scientist certainly lend the songs originality, and make them memorable. But their music make them more memorable still - funky, sharp, and when required teeming with beauty or busting out with guitar. 14

381: The Modern Lovers – The Modern Lovers. A sort of missing link between the Velvet Underground and the indie bands of the 1980s and later, the Modern Lovers eschews the Velvets' nihilism for a similarly unusual perspective. Whether misspelling “girlfriend” or declaring their love with rock and roll radio, the theme is coming to terms with the Modern World, a phenomenon that renders us all as slightly childlike. From the Velvets they take the flat drone that we now associate with indie rock, juiced up by keyboards and some fine guitar. From the art world they take the unlikely idea that Pablo Picasso was never called an asshole. 14

The main themes for today were

2010-09-22T19:28:00.001+12:00

jam packed public transport
snow on the hills
another tiring day

The main themes for today were

2010-09-21T19:10:00.002+12:00

better night's sleep
too much to do!
efforts unappreciated

The main themes for today were

2010-09-20T20:24:00.000+12:00

I don't like my new shower head
Madly busy day
peaceful evening

390-386

2010-09-09T20:48:00.002+12:00

Ah screw it, why not another five albums. Nothing else of interest to report - nothing I wanna write about, anyway.

390: The White Stripes – Elephant. In their evolution from an emerging indie rock group with their own blues to superstars in waiting, Jack and Meg White broadened their sound, took some of the sharp edges off, and traded off some of the thematic depth of White Blood Cells, still a better album in my opinion. It isn't much better, though, because Elephant is a more inviting listen. And Jack White's guitar is on fire: it transforms the lengthy jam “Ball and Biscuit” into a punch the air climax, and that's just to pick the most obvious example. 13

389: Don Henley – The End of the Innocence. It is true that this exemplifies professionalism and musical competence. High-production adult-oriented rock is what they are aiming for, and their tools include lots of budget, top session players and guests (over 33 credited musicians!), a modest ability with tune, and Henley's voice, which, with its blue-eyed soul strain, was and is commercial gold in the vast rock midland. In addition, the artist also has something he would like to say. But none of these things guarantees good music. For one thing, the adult-oriented rock median that each song aspires to includes drag: most of the tracks become deeply boring two minutes before they end. Then there is Henley's singing, which may simulate soul, but that's just another appropriation, like country was with the Eagles. Anyway, do you really want to encounter this man's soul? As he strives for social relevance or seeks common cause with ordinary people, we must reflect that this is the man who would later co-write “Get Over It”, in which a smug millionaire judges his lessers. 8

388: The Beatles – A Hard Day's Night. If With the Beatles was defined by how good the covers were, the original British version of the soundtrack to the Beatles' first motion picture is a triumph for Lennon/ McCartney. Not only is every song theirs, but at the same time it sets down the pattern virtually every subsequent Beatles album would follow: a couple of throwaways or ill-advised inclusions, several good to great Beatles songs and a cluster of all-time classics that often strain at the leash of what was thought possible from a pop band. 14

387: Roxy Music – Country Life. Roxy music were often described as art-rock, and that is fair, but it needn't be a bad thing. Although I subscribe to the idea that blues-based art doesn't need the European tradition to validate it, and therefore in principle I disapprove when Bryan Ferry breaks into German opera-with-guitars! on “Bitter-Sweet”, in practice I look forward to it coming on every time because it makes me laugh. Roxy Music don't give the game away, but I'm even convinced that laughter is the response they are after. Plus the opening “The Thrill of it All” and the closing “Prairie Rose” are fine pop on their own terms, no irony required. Some of the ballads may feel too performed, and I certainly don't feel Ferry's romantic cynicism on any personal level, but overall I enjoy the sophisticated entertainment they serve up here. 13

386: Wu-Tang Clan – Enter the Wu-Tang: 36 Chambers. Aiming to be nothing more or less than entertainers, this troupe of young folk organises itself around some combination of old Saturday morning cartoons and martial arts movies. In doing so the Clan make the cartoon egos peddled by many street rappers explicit. They're rough and they're tough, and bad guys have had enough, but as variety artists they are a witty and compelling song and dance act. When wild-child Ol' Dirty Bastard suddenly sings quite deliberately in tune for moments at a time, it is just part of his persona. Their puns run deep, the subject matter occasionally surprises, and they are even touching occasionally. Also compelling and witty and occasionally touching is the music, which helps to define and reinforce the overall concept. 13

395-391

2010-08-18T21:17:00.003+12:00

...And again. One day I'll get back into the habit of updating this thing more often, but in the meantime while life remains hectic I come for this.

395: Massive Attack – Blue Lines. An early example of the marriage of late-night soul with post-hip hop beatmaking, an approach that would prove very influential. It is in the nature of such things that they sell for their deliciousness and the wonder of their soundscape. Both of these things can erode over time, especially for those of us who do not spend much time at after-parties at 5am. So for new listeners unencumbered by nostalgia, this sensation relies on the strength of its songs. The most famous of these is “Unfinished Sympathy”, which also relies on the emotional drama of the breakup at its heart. But as a song it barely exists, and only those who are into a little late night emotional drama are likely to feel it. The rest is all whispers and late Marvin soul moves. These haven't been treated too badly by time, but with 20 years having removed enough of the wonder only Tricky's hooky, slightly pissed-off “Daydreaming” connects full on. 12

394: Roxy Music – For Your Pleasure. The slow, heavy, psychedelic “In Every Dream Home a Heartache” is the centrepiece here and the key to this record's unusual tone: deliberate comedy sung with absolute seriousness. The “Whoo!” in “Editions of You” suggests camp, as does the theatrical rock and roll groove that predominates, and I won't even mention Bryan Ferry's outrageous vocal affectation. However, while the music is theatrical, it is credible rock and roll, and sometimes even beautiful (especially when Eno gets involved). The long arty track in the second half works. Ferry's singing may be mannered but in this context it is more rock and roll than theatre. Verdict: interesting certainly, good probably, but with reservations. 12

393: Randy Newman – Good Old Boys. The satire of “Rednecks” is far more sophisticated than you usually get in rock and roll, and Newman doesn't let anyone off the hook: sung from the point of view of a Southerner witnessing one of his own being skewered by a TV interviewer in New York, the narrator plays quite deliberately into cracker stereotypes but has the better of the argument and he knows it – “keeping the niggers down” is a project that every region of America shares. There follows a series of character portraits and period pieces that are equally complex – these are sung from the points of view of characters so well realised that songs like “Birmingham”, “Marie”, “Louisiana 1927” and “A Wedding in Cherokee Country” approach the status of literature. “Louisiana 1927” is a deeply sympathetic portrait of disastrous flood, but there is a subtle undertow of paranoia and insularity that provides a context for “Rednecks”. By implication it also comments on the myth of America. As the glimpses of detached politicians throughout suggest, the myths about American possibility diverge drastically from the experiences of the ordinary people, of whatever colour and creed, that inhabit the land. 15

392: Creedence Clearwater Revival – Willy and the Poor Boys. To tell you something you already knew, Creedence were a great band. Their rockabilly, updated for the late 1960s and early 1970s, was tight and tough, full of tunes and fire, and John Fogherty's post-Stax singing was the icing on the cake. The clutch of classic singles on Willy, led by the fury of “Fortunate Son”, but with the good times of “Down on the Corner” and the incarcerated longing of “Midnight Special” just as powerful in their way, don't end the story. “It Came From the Skies”, and “Feelin' Blue” and “Don't Look Now” and “Effigy” are just as good as the better known tracks. My only regret is that, at 35 minutes they needed filler – a perfunctory version of “Cotton Fields Back Home” and two shuffling instrumentals. But these are not greater sins than can be found on Rubber Soul, to pick an example at random. 14

391: Jackson Browne – The Pretender. Browne no longer sounds languid and complacent – experience and personal tragedy have likely seen to this. And although I still find his writing overrated (he is best to avoid “poetry”, he appears unable to quite get to the heart of matters clearly and effectively, and I really do find his rhyming in the title track to be contrived), it is often also insightful and even powerful. In addition, his music has more energy than it used to and his singing is now expressive and assured. 12

400-396

2010-07-28T20:07:00.002+12:00

The main themes for today were

2010-07-12T21:59:00.002+12:00

Espana Ole!
Stunning view of the Rimutukas on a rare clear day
Slow bus day

405-401

2010-07-11T21:23:00.002+12:00

...of Rolling Stone's countdown of their 500 greatest albums ever. Let the counting begin.

405: PJ Harvey – Rid of Me. Steve Albini's extreme dynamic separations, combined with the hacksawed raw meat of the Harvey group's music, reflect both the enormity of her mental struggle and her uninhibited carnality. She swings from virtually cowering in the corner in a heap, being completely turned off, to being exaggeratedly responsive, a bundle of sexual fire. Confronted with the biggest phallus she can think of, she chooses to augment herself, man-sized and then beyond, and look out Bob, you better believe she intends to be the one on top. 14

404: The Clash – Sandinista! Well, it is what it is, and because making your album go on to the edge of forever requires trades-off, it isn't what it isn't. Among the latter include coherent, consistent, and focussed enough to be useful as political program music, even though many of its songs make political points. But because this is a major band, what it is is considerable. Always hep to the reggae groove, they expand their scope: from the James Jameson bassline manifesto of “Hitsville UK” to the church music of “The Sound of the Sinners” and the Kingston disco of “Version City” and all the other versions that populate the album, this is where the Clash express their love for black music per se. This is wonderfully gratifying, and would have been especially so in the US in 1980, where music was becoming increasingly segregated. Despite superb bass playing, it isn't always successful as black music. This may partly be because one must compare Strummer and Jones's voices with Marvin Gaye's and Bunny Livingston's, and partly because the music can get too specialised: this is not nearly as universal as London Calling. For example, when it bursts out of the drifting dub “Crooked beat” into “Somebody Got Murdered”, which is the first punk song on the album ten tracks in, it comes as a relief. But taken on their own terms the strike rate among individual songs is surprisingly high, and even the throwaway filler is fun. 13

403: Big Star – Radio City. As a teenage pop star in the late 1960s, Alex Chilton made blue-eyed soul aimed at the charts. Here, having traded in his rich, fat soul growl for a high classic-rock tenor, he's trying to be a big rock star. On the basis of this evidence (and that of the debut), he deserved to make it. This is craft at the height of the style, which although in retrospect is styled "power pop" isn't actually a hundred miles from Mott the Hoople's. Its melodies range from terse to simply lovely, its guitars approach in at least three ways, its string arrangements are eccentric and just a bit sour, its harmonies and structures are unexpected but outgoing, its songs are wistful, desperate or nostalgic. There are eight rock songs here that are as good or better than any chart toppers of the style the period had to offer, and two short codas that almost steal the album. Chilton's group, here already without a key member, would come to be associated with dissolution, his name a cult item. I think it leaves most Rod Stewart in the dust myself. 14

402: Dr. John – Dr. John's Gumbo. As they sometimes say, this does what it says on the tin. It is this eccentric native's tribute to the music of New Orleans, one of the richest musics in history, a stew of influences that add up to nothing less than the wellspring of 20^th century music. It sounds incongruous in the context of 1970 rock, because it is simple and both old and good-timey when competing stars were walking on gilded splinters. But then in rock terms New Orleans is itself incongruous, having less use for rock's myth of rebellion than for its possibility of escape and tone of celebration. 13

401: Lynyrd Skynyrd – (Pronounced Leh-Nerd Skin-Nerd). A debut album by a band clearly going places. You can tell by the way their lovely thick guitar riffs come from an already lucrative Southern boogie mode but are that much more concise, structured and tough, signalling bar-room rather than stadium. Then there is their mastery of a number of forms. There are two excellent blues numbers and some equally excellent straight ahead rockers (they're lovers not fighters). But the clincher for a debut album is not one but two ballads that are not just tolerable (rare enough) but classic: the heartbroken “Tuesday's Gone” and of course the triumphant “Free Bird” which breaks all the rules they set for themselves by being cosmic, flowing and long. 13

Picture of background microwave radiation

2010-07-06T21:23:00.001+12:00

The new Planck telescope is apparently sending some goodies back, and might give us more knowledge of the Big Bang...

This from the Guardian

World Cup

2010-07-06T21:17:00.003+12:00

Based on what I've seen at this World Cup, which has generally been brilliant, I propose these rule changes for football:

penalty goal for deliberate hand ball to stop a certain goal
post-match review panel to hand out 2-match bans to players who dive to fool the ref
no penalty shoot-outs, but instead play extra time until the deadlock is broken. If the teams don't want to be out there for hours, they'll attack.

The main themes for today were

2010-07-06T21:15:00.001+12:00

Sorry about making the rain come back
Frantic day generally
Victory at quiz!

The main themes for today were

2010-07-05T20:51:00.001+12:00

a third fine day in a row!
visit to the library
Wikipedia down!

410-406

2010-06-20T20:20:00.002+12:00

Hi again - been neglectful yet again. So by way of recompense, here is another 5 records from Rolling Stone's epic list.

410: Wire – Pink Flag. Wire were an artier band than the majority of their punk contemporaries, and punk was a movement for aesthetes (although few were as self-conscious about it as they). As such they understood and foregrounded their own contradictions – Pink Flag both embraces and seemingly mistrusts community. Over 21 songs ranging from 28 seconds to a comparatively epic 3:59 in length, with about 1:30 being typical, the album has brains, more hummable tunes than you can shake a stick at, as much brawn as most of Wire's contemporaries could manage, and human feelings ranging from joy to terror. It does this with music that shoots along at a good clip most of the time. At the same time, it exemplifies punk's key formal innovation, definitively breaking from blues-derived chords, structures and soul. Wire understood that self-conscious aesthetes must nonetheless reach out to an audience, even ones exploring the limits of a brand new form of music, and even as they give them the kiss-off I infer from the opening “Reuters'” and the closing “12XU”. 14

409: Eric Clapton – 461 Ocean Boulevard. At times I think there is too much CSN in Clapton's change-of-direction album. Clapton's far from a great singer, and so when he aims for delicate, he sometimes just comes off as undercooked. But only sometimes: he also makes a point of showcasing meaningful material (“Motherless Children” or “I Shot the Sheriff”) great novelties (“Willie and the Hand Jive”) or songs with music that makes up for the lack of a singer's touch (the lead guitar work on “Let it Grow” for example). In other words, he hasn't yet succumbed whole-heartedly to the middle of the road. 13

408: Bob Dylan – Time Out of Mind. It is funny – he will sound younger four years later on “Love and Theft”. But perhaps that has something to do with the health crisis that struck just after he finished Time Out of Mind, a crisis that may have ushered in a new lease on life once he had recovered. Or with the fact that, at least since 1965, whenever he's wanted to enter a new phase Dylan's been changing his voice. Whatever the cause, here it sounds like a voice from the grave, from an old 1950s radio station, the 1,000 year old man. His songs sound like they could have been written at any point in history, a feat that is paradoxically modern. He feels he is at the end of something – his life, a love affair, perhaps both. But from death comes life, and this was the beginning of one hell of an Indian summer. 13

407: The Doors – Strange Days. The Doors' second album presents a group with its own sound, defined by Ray Manzarek's organ, Jim Morrison's charismatic but inwardly-turned blues singing and John Densmore's and Douglas Lubahn's dogmatically un-swinging rhythm playing. They sound dated now. Morrison's aggressive sexism was a product of its time, his innovation, dubious as it was, marrying back-door blues with a Western view of the superiority of high art. In doing so, his self-regard leads him to come off as a bigger jerk than the far nastier Jagger of “Under My Thumb” and “Stupid Girl”. The biggest put-off factor though is that Morrison fails to put enough distance between himself and the dreadful poetry that he may or may not buy into, depending on whether or not you assume he thinks “Horse Latitudes” is a joke. 11

406: Sinead O' Connor – I Do Not Want What I Haven't Got. O'Connor does more than just get away with her slow songs – they can be mesmerising. This is not to slight “The Emperor's New Clothes”. Nor is it to claim that everything here is equally great: three or four cuts are forgettable, which at nearly five minutes a piece on average is a fair chunk of her record. However, when jostling up her dirge with Bomb the Bass, a funky drummer and ghostly reels, mourning or informing lost loves, or calling out Thatcher and Britain for failing to live up to their stated ideals, the heart of her album is that rarest of things – genius, the ability to do what others cannot. 13

The main themes for today were

2010-06-10T20:53:00.001+12:00

stung by wasp!
cold #4
wine

415-411

2010-06-07T20:18:00.003+12:00

I've now gotten through five more albums of the Rolling Stone poll of the 500 greatest of all times. I'm doing this so I can get to know the highly regarded albums out there, and I do find it difficult to write about them and rate them on my 1-15 scale unless I know them pretty well. So I'm listening to them each up to a dozen times, at least a couple of those with quite close attention. Which is why I'm not reporting in about these every other day.

Anyway, we're approaching 100 albums - one fifth of the list!

415: Van Halen – Van Halen. It has an ultra-clean sound, shiny, lightening-quick show-off lead guitar runs, wide spaces coloured by simple riffing, and a charismatic lead singer with an unfreaky voice. Their sound anticipates carefully-styled long hair on men, pastel colours and suit jackets with the sleeves pulled up. What is more, general metaphors for freedom like "running with the devil" don't exactly seek to grapple with what the wild life might actually feel like. I mean, it can get pretty ludicrous. Only when it gets close to traditional blues (on the grunty cover of “You Really Got Me”, and “Ice Cream Man” with its outrageous sexual symbolism) does it get low down and dirty, the traditional virtue of cocksure rock band prior to this. Mostly Van Halen want to live their Hollywood dream, and there is a massive audience of kids that appear happy to live it vicariously along with them. Do these kids worry that the escape on offer is an obvious fantasy? Or is its distance from any life experienced by most non-rock stars the reason it is so attractive to them? 12

414: James Brown – Greatest Hits. This is one artist for whom a single disc really is totally inadequate. It is impossible to complain about what is on here: world-changing classic follows world-changing classic, and then it ends. But it starts by glossing over the first decade of Brown's career, during which he was only one of the finest 50s R&B artists. By the fourth cut he has laid down the musical template that remains dominant today, making him one of the very most important popular musicians in history. Even though the album then focuses on the implications of “Papa Got a Brand New Bag”, it barely scratches the surface. 13

413: Go-Go's – Beauty and the Beat. It was long established that the new wave could flirt with classic girl group sounds – the Ramones were clearly Crystals fans – and now these superstars in waiting do everything they can to update and universalise the idea. If you are going to break through with power pop, why not power up the greatest pop, or a modern version of it? Not only do they got the beat, they have the hooks and feelings and proper rock and roll guitars too. Just like the girl groups, their celebration isn't without its complications, and although sometimes they tempt you to dismiss them as lightweights, on examination the complications aren't without some depth at times. 13

412: Massive Attack – Mezzanine. At first you notice the almost uniformly moderate pace of Massive Attack's songs, and the way they strive for containment, as if they are suffering from creeping inertia. But further listens reveal that on key tracks the energy here is directed inwards, lending the best songs a density that could pass for substance. This doesn't happen on every song, however, and boredom therefore has the invite it needs. Their approach might work more effectively if the tension they generate built up to some form of release, when instead it glides along until it stops. 12

411: Minutemen – Double Nickels on the Dime. Dense, yet fragmented and compressed by design, and very much a long and winding road, this is almost too much to contain in one place. The many tracks that make a point of standing out do so because they have strong instrumental or melodic hooks (riffs n' tunes, although don't expect pretty singing). They provide peaks around which the many songs and lyrics I happen not to hold onto at any particular moment congregate like yet to be unlocked mysteries. Although the journey is too slow to get going, D. Boon's axe is the key to staying on track, and getting to know this album in toto is a life's vocation. 14

The main themes for today were

2010-06-07T20:14:00.002+12:00

Bless Her Magesty for this holiday
Rain. Rain.
Sherlock Holmes played by Jeremy Brett

The main themes for today were

2010-06-03T21:35:00.001+12:00

a cloud enveloping my bus stop
the boy has a haircut
almost too much to do

The main themes for today were

2010-06-02T22:19:00.000+12:00

mild headache
plenty to do
freezing walk in the smog must do my cough good

The main themes for today were

2010-06-01T21:36:00.001+12:00

numbers and more numbers
unusually cold office
victory at quiz!

The main themes for today were

2010-05-31T20:58:00.001+12:00

massive ball of fire in the sky!
persistent cough
many changes afoot (but not for me, except perhaps by implication)

420-416

2010-05-15T20:32:00.002+12:00

420: The Beatles – With the Beatles. To an extent their followup is an attempt to repeat their debut's formula. The Lennon/McCartney compositions (and the Harrison, his first) are more sophisticated here than they are on Please Please Me, but that album's originals are fresher, and give or take “Twist and Shout” its is the originals for which it is remembered. With the Beatles is defined by how confidently they tackle the covers. Consider John's yearning on “Please Mr Postman”, the way he tears into “Money”, the attempt to match the Chess house band on “Roll Over Beethoven” (the Beatles come an honourable second), the acknowledgment of key influence Smokey Robinson (“You Really Got a Hold on Me”) and how they try their hand at music-theatre balladry on “Till There Was You”. With only a couple of exceptions the originals can't compete. But they will. 13

419: Portishead – Dummy. Portishead's music is a minor triumph: hypnotoc, layered, strange/exotic, packed with detail. And on top of it Beth Gibbons' moody chantuse provides the personality and the glue to make its dolour sing. I'm not nearly as convinced about her lyrics or songs however. As a dull suburbanite who loves rock and roll for its excitement and common touch, I find it hard to relate to Gibbons' pain, which seems as calculated and self-regarding as that of a reclusive movie star. And I end up concluding that this is merely elevated cafe music. It is cafe music of unusual density and imagination, sure, but it has a hollow-body at its heart. 12

418: Wings – Band on the Run. Paul and friends lead strongly with the one-two punch of the title track and “Jet”, a terrific single even if it features Paul being as quaint and eccentric as ever. Or, as Dave Marsh noted (while counting it among the 1001 greatest singles ever), “I don't know what the lyrics mean either”. Which kind of gets at the enigma that is post-Beatle Paul. Here is one of the very best rock and roll singers, a man who was a creative force to be reckoned with during one of the music's defining eras, who goes all the way to a creative centre in Africa and comes away with nothing but charm, pretty nonsense, silly puns, annoying interjections, and some neat rock and roll riffs. But no conceptual breakthrough, and very little that couldn't have been created at home. Also very little that some friends he used to hang out with wouldn't have helped him to improve. 12

417: U2 – Boy. Christian punk – pretty original in its way. Makes you believe (that it could have been recorded in a church, that is). Peaks high too: the furious energy of “I Will Follow” makes for one of the best singles of its year. But the intensity varies as the spirit comes and goes, and the meanings remain elusive too often. 12

416: Tom Waits – Mule Variations. Having largely abandoned the three-penny harshness of his eighties and nineties for slightly arted-up up versions of cabaret blues and soul, this is the best Waits album I've heard. It is truly lovely, all his strengths on display and his pretensions cut to a minimum: here in abundance are his humour and humanism, his melodies and powers of description, that huge, crazy voice in many different registers. Even when he peddles comic grotesques – the showbiz freak, the poem about the obsessed neighbour – he's no longer out to put you off. While his songs are marked with restlessness and a touch of desperation at times, he ultimately just wants to find a place to hang his crooked hat and invite you to join him up at the house. 14

Canberra

2010-05-13T20:04:00.001+12:00

Canberra

2010-05-03T22:23:00.001+12:00

Canberra has a very pretty lake. More next time.

Canberra

2010-05-03T22:18:00.002+12:00

If you peer closely you can see Parliament buildings at the other end

Canberra

2010-05-03T22:13:00.002+12:00

Some random people adding colour to the theatre and library.

Canberra

2010-05-03T22:09:00.003+12:00

This chap stands in the mall opposite the carousel.

Canberra

2010-05-03T22:03:00.002+12:00

Just back from Australia's great capital.This is the carousel they have set up in the main shopping area of the central city, for some reason.

425-421

2010-04-24T13:06:00.002+12:00

Five more ratings for records Rolling Stone saw fit to include in their list of the best 500 of all time, for your entertainment...

425. David Bowie – Changesone. Sometimes I think he over sings (and sometimes I like his vocals plenty), and sometimes I'm convinced half his concepts are meaningless (others times I love his ideas). Chameleon, alien, Great Artist, I'm happy to believe that he is all of those things; occasionally I even feel them myself. But this is nothing more than a very convincing case that Bowie is one of the greatest pop acts of all time, or at least was in the period up to 1976, when this album came out. It is ear-candy for the ages. And you know what, in the long run I'll take that over inconsistently great art. 14

424. Robert Johnson – King of the Delta Blues Singers Vol. 2. A very tricky one, this. With reverence for Johnson running through most blues that came after, very much including the many white rock acts who covered his songs, he's a key figure in 20^th century popular music. His legend rests on his guitar playing, which opened up musical spaces that would be explored for 50 years. It also rests on his rough but powerful singing, and on his early death, myth having it that he paid a debt to the devil for his talent. And then there was his songwriting, which was ahead of its time: it is quite possible to imagine he wrote for a full electrified band. What I'm less sure about is whether modern audiences would listen to Johnson for pleasure, even here where he's less apocalyptic than on the long-classic Volume 1. Heck, country blues is unlikely to have been appreciated by contemporary sophisticates, who preferred their blues syncopated and watered down by big bands. Although many of us have a more finely developed sense of roughness now, the fog of time may have put an unbridgeable distance between Johnson and ourselves. 13

423. The Mamas and the Papas – Greatest Hits. After acclimatising to the distinctive 60s feel, which I seem to want to call “collegiate”, what shines even more than the often brilliant singing is how good their material was. It goes far deeper than the ones everyone knows, most of which are self-penned, and includes well-chosen covers they were capable of doing justice to – there are many failed versions of “Dancing in the Street” but this isn't one, and the radical revisionings of “Twist and Shout” and “Do You Wanna Dance” are triumphs, as is Lennon/McCartney's “I Call Your Name”. 14

422. Various Artists – The Best of the Girl Groups Volumes 1 and 2. Merely 36 songs that are among the greatest pop music ever made. Okay, so perhaps Cher doesn't quite belong, and perhaps Joanie Sommers ends the proceedings on a strangely worrying note. This is still endlessly playable, playful, tuneful, innocent, fun, beautiful, heartbreaking and spine-tingling. Placed one after another the songs gather profundity and historical importance: they represent the emotional resources of teen girlhood, and they show that perfect rock and roll didn't die with the 1950s. John Lennon loved this stuff till the day he died – so will I. 15

421. Buddy Holly and the Crickets – The "Chirping" Crickets. This is the pioneering singer-songwriter Holly rather than the thrill-seeking rocker Holly of such epochal hits as “Peggy Sue” and “Rave On”. Not that it doesn't rock – it has “Not Fade Away” (minimalist) and “Looking for Someone to Love” (look out Carl Perkins) and “Oh Boy!” (whoopee!) on it. And its songs are ace. But its mood is generally quiet, moody, and only sometimes optimistic. Holly's tone is more that of the nerd and loser-at-love than of the neighbourhood lady's man he could sound like when he felt like it. 13

The main themes for today were

2010-04-22T21:09:00.002+12:00

contraband
power outage
shelter in the pub

2009 singles, #1

2010-04-21T21:23:00.001+12:00

1. “Heard 'Em All” – Amerie feat Lil' Wayne.

Most R&B thrushes I can take or leave – they emote with talent and/or chops over music too slow and/or ordinary to hold my interest. Those millions of listeners with more subtle sensibilities are free to immerse themselves and work out what they mean. This one lights fireworks and says: “some of them wonder/ what it take to be my lover/ first you got to be my drummer”. This appears to be true – a few years ago she made a great single by sampling Ziggy Modeste and by implication the very rhythms of New Orleans itself. This one is a funk-rock-samba (almost) beat so propulsive and hooky it sets the room, and jail-bound Lil Wayne (who gets his most fun setting ever), on fire. She's defiant and will not be fucked with, a worthy stance for an R&B thrush in 2009. Beyonce, put a ring on it, and tell Rihanna the news.

And now, the envelope please...

2010-04-21T21:19:00.002+12:00

91 songs later, which means the last year of the decade was its strongest in depth if not at the peak, I'm ready to reveal the song that I thought was better than any of the other singles of the year. For a bit of a change, it is by someone young playing a young person's music. No Tom Waits or Randy Newman this year. It is fast and not the least bit political - bless. It is...

The main themes for today were

2010-04-21T21:14:00.002+12:00

inclement weather
grocery purchase at lunchtime
back exercises

2009 singles, #3 and 2

2010-04-20T21:12:00.001+12:00

3. “House of Flying Daggers” - Raekwon feat Inspektah Deck, GZA, Ghostface Killah and Method Man.

Perhaps the Platonic Form of the Wu-Tang, involving Eastern mystagogy, inflated street tales, killer bees and clan in the front, plus a faux-ancient sample that rocks for excitement's sake and then rocks the excitement buttons some more. Harder rocking than AC/DC. Martial-arts fun like a Bruce Lee movie.

2. “Straight to Hell” – Lily Allen and Mick Jones.

Conceived for a charity CD to raise money for the victims of war, Allen and Jones produce a moving, empathetic reading of the Clash's examination of the plight of the outsider-insider. Whether the newly unemployed, the product of wartime desperation, drug addicts or regular migrants, these are the people that cannot gain acceptance in either of two worlds, and live the hellish effects of this. Allen and Mick Jones may have a new context in which to explain it, but the pattern remains universal, for shame.

The main themes for today were

2010-04-20T21:10:00.000+12:00

getting over cold
debriefings
clear starry evening

2009 singles, #5 and 4

2010-04-15T21:23:00.001+12:00

5. “Boom Boom Pow” – Black Eyed Peas.

Jody Rosen wrote that this was a song called “Boom Boom Pow” about listening to a song called “Boom Boom Pow”, and while I think that idea is fascinating I'm not certain the lyrics support it. If he had said that it was about a group of self-aware robots performing a song called “Boom Boom Pow” all the while telling us about it, I would agree automatically. Not that it matters. Despite their low credibility among almost anyone who likes to publish their thoughts about music, the Black Eyed Peas have made the most avant garde record ever to spend three months on top of the US singles chart – certainly further out than anything either the Dirty Projectors or Animal Collective recorded, to use two random current examples of critical cred. Based around a single sustained synthesiser note, with even that occasionally dropped so that all there is is a metronomic tap, and then moving around in sequence to other weird sounds that interest them, including an android's idea of Arabic music that could be the product of auto-tuning for all I know. Not only is this a more radical record than “My Girls” or “Stillness is the Move”, it is more pleasurable, because despite what boosters of the current indie rock say, it is far deeper rhythmically than those songs. Could this be because it is pop?

4. “Welcome to the Future” – Brad Paisley.

A Country superstar's wide-eyed amazement and joy that the science fiction future of his childhood has pretty much come to pass. And that America has a Black president, or perhaps that's just a decent man in the oval office.

The main themes for today were

2010-04-15T21:19:00.001+12:00

an introduction to my world for an unfortunate colleague!
dental appointment
warm, balmy autumn evening

2009 singles, #7 and 6

2010-04-14T21:10:00.002+12:00

7. “Hey Playa (Moroccan Blues)” - DJ Quik and Kurupt.

If Busy Signal sounds like he travelled the world for his sounds, these two quite probably never left the couch. That is, if the rumour is correct that they found the Moroccan vocal sample that anchors this buoyant melding of two worlds while surfing through TV channels. It is still a genius loop, though, and the more familiar hip hop and R&B elements celebrate music and start a party so cheerful that it brushes off the temptations of playing the street game altogether.

6. “La Mezcla” – Michel Cleis.

This is the international dance sound of the year, its approach at once first world (insofar as ten minute dance jams [as opposed to ten minute trance jams] are first world) and South American. So, folk instruments and Latin pop singing loop over folk drums that both provide flavour and jam hard enough on the one for our unsubtle asses. Cleis himself is of both worlds, Swiss but with roots in Chile. The approach does raise questions about appropriation, and if the trend towards incorporating world music into pop hits becomes an all-out raid it is a debate that we may well have to have. For now, however, the sheer beauty on display is compelling, arresting, intoxicating. And it does jam hard on the one.

The main themes for today were

2010-04-14T21:06:00.002+12:00

light upon the harbour in the stormy morning
frustrating sort of day
feeling a little unwell

2009 singles, #10, 9 and 8

2010-04-13T22:00:00.002+12:00

10. “Da Style Dey” – Busy Signal.

If this is what happens when creative people on the hunt for new sounds scour the world, then sign me up for the expedition. Busy Signal is a Jamaican dance hall artist who has made a rhythm track from what sounds to me like Bhangra (Panjabi, although I'm happy to be corrected on this), and laced it with his own soulfully clipped chanting and call and response with what sounds like a small church choir from Soweto. These are beautiful sounds. It is all very simple, and, like a great doo-wop record, just enough unlike anything else you have ever heard.

9. “Sirens (We Nah Run)” – Stush.

The amazing found sound-collage built from what the title says signifies broken streets. From these a young woman, in command of a mostly impenetrable patois and hiccups like Michael Jackson, disrespects radio DJs and argues with her sisters over men as if she was a young Lisa Lee. One of the most arresting noises of this or any other year.

8. “You Belong With Me” – Taylor Swift.

A classic unrequited love song with what you could interpret as a social class angle. The object of young Taylor’s affection does not appear well suited to his current Heather, or at least that’s the way she tells it. As far as he’s concerned, he and Taylor are just friends who enjoy hanging out; the fact that she’s down the social ladder from him perhaps the deciding factor in the lack of romantic connection. So the story itself is fairly simple and familiar. As usual with this performer, it is the tune-sense, tightly constructed lyrics, and especially the performance – her barely-suppressed bitterness and her naked yearning – that puts her song out in front of a crowded pack. Adding to the attractiveness is the arrangement, which to these non-technical ears sound like prime fast and full indie.

The main themes for today were

2010-04-13T21:55:00.002+12:00

words, numbers, more words and numbers
neck doctor
the arrival of The Universe

2009 singles, #13-11

2010-04-12T21:32:00.001+12:00

13. “Antenna” – Sonic Youth.

Whatever the specific meaning of Thurston Moore's lyrics – has his lover gone for good or is she/ he just on a sabbatical (or is she/ he even a person?) – I hear in this song a blissed-out contemplation of the decay of old media, and a nostalgic re-imagining of 70s classic rock as a great wellspring of alternative music. The reason I keep listening to it is that these sonic old-folk make decay sound so beautiful: under headphones, with my eyes closed, I can melt into this music's flow. The pleasure that it gives me is physical.

12. “Down from Dover” – Marianne Faithfull.

Faithfull's damely croak lends Dolly Parton's heartbreaking song an air of memory and regret. While there may be pockets of the Western world for which a pregnancy out of marriage still comes at the cost of ostracism, and certainly the idea that a man might take advantage of an innocent young woman is hardly novel, she is thinking back to her youth, even as she breaks into the present tense. The well-judged horns and subtly backgrounded organs, all building with the story, also place it in the past. But Faithful grabs the song and doesn't let it go, the memories so vivid, the hurt still very real to her.

11. “I'm on a Boat” - The Lonely Island feat T-Pain.

“Fuck land I'm on a boat motherfucker”.... Between its crunk sounds and crew tag-team structure, its auto-tuned T-Pain and tough-guy conviction, this is pitch-perfect. The secret of parody, or more accurately, pastiche, is understanding how your subject works. The specific gags are funny on repeated exposure because people behaving in a new context just like they did in the old one makes for eternal comedy.

The main themes for today were

2010-04-12T21:28:00.001+12:00

surprisingly free of aches this morning
plowing on all damn day
bus full of pillows!

430-426

2010-04-10T21:44:00.002+12:00

And so it was that we reached another group of five records from Rolling Stone's countdown of their greatest 500 albums of all time. I've, as always, given them a score out of 15, a system of scoring that attempts to acknowledge that, actually, the vast majority of professionally produced albums reaches a fairly acceptable level of competence, and therefore that there is no inherent crime in liking something I may regard as a dud. In this case, of course, if you think something is brillo, and I think it is a dud, and it is part of this countdown, you have the staff of Rolling Stone on your side.

And so, having said all that, onto a group containing no duds at all...

430: Cheap Trick – At Budhoken. They're in fine form, rocking up their crunchy pop tunes into a classic half hour plus blast to an appreciative Japanese audience. I wish other live albums were this focussed, their fun this immediate. 13

429: Gram Parsons – Grevous Angel. It is a cosmic irony that records made in styles that you don't naturally like require more listening time. So if you are like me, persist with this one. After a while the tunes begin to pop their heads out and say hi, and then they become very good friends indeed. Who cares if some are borrowed and others turn out to have a history? And Parsons' singing, which initially seems out of place, like some wannabe folk-rock singer trying country on for size, is actually empathetic, human and a touch insecure, a performance to befit the outsider that wants to belong. It is the voice of a man who can't dance but will do so anyway because desperate love drives him no matter how much it hurts, equal partner and hot stepper Emmy-Lou Harris crucial in keeping him from becoming hopelessly lost. Even the live medley, which initially came across as the worst type of throwaway (complete with sound of smashing bottles!) now sounds like a man forming a bond with an audience not naturally his own. Even though by this time he's put a lot of time into the relationship. 14

428: Radiohead – Kid A. Their dystopian futurism feels cliched to me, but I admit it, they do have a knack for sonics. And this is pretty tasty, with little details coming at you like it were prime Eno. It rarely unloads truckloads of sounds on you, or propels you like future transport should, you'd think. But their cyborgs are more real than Devo's. 13

427: The Ronettes – The Fabulous Ronettes featuring Veronica. This is so typical of the way albums were done in the early to mid 1960s that I'm tempted to steer you in the direction of a good Phil Spector compilation instead. What do we have here? One of the greatest singles of all time, some fine girl group sounds, and some obvious filler including an anaemic live runthrough of “What'd I Say?” and a “Chapel of Love” that doesn't hold a candle to the Dixie Cups'. 13

426: Rage Against the Machine – The Battle of Los Angeles. I don't generally listen to this for the things Zach De La Rocha hectors us about. Even though I'd probably be sympathetic to his point of view, frankly I find most of it hard to make out, and anyway I'm content just to know he can get such stuff up the top of the Billboard charts. But I listen with great excitement to the things that Tom Morello does with electric guitars, and/or the things I think he does with electric guitars (but might actually be him or others making wonderful noises in other ways). I don't mean the thunder, which is good to snuggle under. I mean the funny anti-riffs and/or anti-solos that act as hooks to half these songs. 13

2009 singles, #16-14

2010-04-09T21:24:00.001+12:00

16. “Heads Will Roll” – Yeah Yeah Yeahs.

I get a whiff of futuristic pessimism from the lyrics, which render everything metallic and glistening, making the title refrain difficult to make head nor tail of. But first there is the power of the keyboards as they pile in on the song's space, filling an already pacey structure with sound. Then there is a guitar line that could have come from a new-pop record or U2 disco mix but who cares it is here now. With all this, when Karen O demands that we dance till we are dead, dancing begins.

15. “3AM” – Eminem.

This may back up the theory that he's only at his best when he's blowing taboos away right left and centre. And certainly the psycho he inhabits here commits unspeakable acts from beginning to end, all within a construct of admitted artifice. But it isn't the horror or the taboo breaking that thrills, it is the flow of language and rhyme. His rhyme schemes are breathtaking, delivering the same thrill that you get when Jimi or Jimmy unleash a piece of virtuoso soloing.

14. “Distant Star” – The Heliocentrics feat Percee P and MF Doom.

This is the sound I have in my mind when people use terms like “jazz-funk” – the bass playing uncompromising, vibraphone tones, a little Indian music, mad futuristic thematics. Add two different types of rapper – one a technician, the other a mad stoner whose ambition appears to be to rhyme every word with every other word, and you have the sort of fine hip hop single that was envisaged by the Digable Planets in 1992, a vision that promised much at the time and ended up going nowhere.

2009 singles, #19-17

2010-04-08T21:28:00.002+12:00

19. “Fancy” – The Dream.

Sure the thrill is in the chase, in the subtle, exquisitely judged build-up of tension, but do you really mean to cut us off before the climax?

18. “Hatari” – Tune-Yards.

I love this do-it-yourself concoction, with its cock-eyed perlunking and its uninhibited singing, some of which, I am led to believe, derives from Mbuti Pygmies. It stops and starts, it bangs and rattles, it somehow re-captures the indie spirit from a thirty something ex-Nanny's laptop. Which, thinking about it is pretty definitively indie, isn't it?

17. “The Jolly Banker” - Wilco.

I wonder why these Woody Guthrie fans thought that 2009 was the right time to put music to his tale of working men being swindled by the banking system out of their land during the depression? I mean, we're not in an era when no matter how hard things get the banks keep getting their jolly lolly, are we? There is surely no need to be reminded that they've not always had our best interests at heart? Nonprofit folk music with real use value.

The main themes for today were

2010-04-08T21:23:00.002+12:00

no pleasing some people
haircut
lots of numbers

2009 singles, #22-20

2010-04-07T21:18:00.001+12:00

22. “Combination Pizza Hut and Taco Bell (Wallpaper Remix)” – Das Racist.

This epic quest by two young friends trying to find each other at the aforementioned combined eating establishment is a great dance sound, sure, but dumb, don't you think? Maybe, but don't think stupid, think stoopid – think Bill and Ted, or Wayne and Garth, or the sort of characters dreamed up by the Ramones on their first four albums. And consider that they are operating on the level of the eponymous combined franchise, all the better to immerse in the culture. Satire, huh?

21. “Pocketbook” - Jennifer Hudson.

A young woman finds she has a weapon, and she'll use it to protect herself if she has to.

20. “9 x Outta Ten” - DJ Quik and Kurupt.

Speaking of avant garde (were we? Oh well we might as well): fragmented arias, machine gun beats, self-referential lyrics.

The main themes for today were

2010-04-07T21:14:00.001+12:00

various errands
replacement coffee jar (got to focus on the important things)
Sheppard's pie