I don’t know what it is about the flirting 80s pop did with post-punk, but I love it. Billy Idol just about flies in the face of everything Joy Division/New Order was trying to accomplish with their music, with a tuff-guy haircut and permasneer, strutting without a shirt with an unironic machismo that would have made Ian Curtis blush.
Month: February 2012
Record #42: Foghat – Tight Shoes (1980)
This is the only thing I have ever heard about Foghat in my life: in high school, a friend of mine was talking about a bit by a comedian talking about how hypocritical it was that you have to dress up nice to go to church while in all the pictures of Jesus, He looks like the drummer from Foghat.
Record #41: Benny Goodman – Benny Goodman’s Greatest Hits (1966)
I do love me some jazz. Although, as you’re likely to see later on, the subgenre swing does not get too much attention from me. My jazz of choice tends to veer more toward cool, hard bop, and various strands of avant-garde. Although, having played in the jazz band at my high school, I can appreciate good swing when I hear it. And for the most part, Benny Goodman’s Greatest Hits compiles good swing. At times, it teeters dangerously close to clarinet-led monotony, each composition starting to sound the same after a while.
Record #40: Beck – Modern Guilt (2008)
And here, we have my third favorite Beck record (my second is The Information, but it only sells on vinyl as a $200 box set. No way, rec execs). As I mentioned in my review of 2002’s Sea Change, Beck’s relationship with his producers is often much more like that of collaborators than the typical artist-producer working order. Here, he enlists Danger Mouse, of Gnarls Barkley fame, to spice things up a bit. And from the get go, his influence is obvious.
Record #39: Beck – Sea Change, 2002
In the context of his diverse and expansive discography, saying that Sea Change is my favorite Beck record is a weighty claim to make. But, I make it anyway. True, it may be his least Beck-ish release, free of his deadpan rap stretching of the English language; and at times it might feel like longtime Radiohead producer Nigel Godrich might be calling most of the shots here (string arrangements and analog delay abound). But on Sea change, Mr. Hansen proves that his emotional range stretches far beyond self deprecation and a generous helping of irony.
Record #38: The Beatles – Hey Jude (1970)
At some point, someone had the idea that people might be more apt to buy an album full of singles as opposed to a bunch of seven inches. For me, that is completely true. I would much rather sit down for twenty minutes and then have to get up to flip the disc than to sit down for three minutes. And when a group has as many non-album singles as the Beatles did, a singles compilation could be a legitimately rewarding listen. So many great songs litter each side: Lady Madonna, Revolution, Paperback Writer, Don’t Let Me Down, and, of course, Hey Jude, which everyone knows.
Record #37: The Beatles – Let It Be (1970)
As the story goes, after the fragmented, acrimonious, and fragmented sessions that yielded The White Album, Paul McCartney, longing for the old days, suggested the band come together for one last show, writing an album together with guitars instead of with tape reels. The show in question was the infamous unannounced rooftop concert in London (which was beset by party-pooping policeman), which was their final public appearance. The concert was recorded, and then spliced together with studio songs for an album, which was shelved, due to the group’s dissatisfaction with the project, until restraint-less producer Phil Spector got his hands on it. The album that resulted is…a mixed bag. Like The White Album before it, it contains some of the Beatles’ greatest material (see: Across The Universe, pop ballad among pop ballads Let It Be), but it’s wildly uneven (see: Dig It, The Long And Winding Road).
Record #36: The Beatles – Abbey Road, 1969
A few posts back, I said that the best Beatles record had yet to come.
And here it is.
And here it is.
Record #35: The Beatles – Yellow Submarine (1969)
I will say it right now. Yellow Submarine is my least favorite Beatles song (barring Wild Honey Pie). For whatever reason, it’s the first song a large section of the population think of when they think of the Beatles. I have never understood it, since THE WHOLE OF THEIR EXTENSIVE CATALOGUE showcases a better band than that one track. But, it makes for a good premise for an animated film, and being that the Beatles made money, a soundtrack for that film had to be released.
Record #34: The Beatles – The Beatles (White Album) (1968)
The White Album is:
hugely ambitious
scatterbrained
immense
fractured
Legendary.