In 1964, when tasked with defining hardcore pornography, Justice Potter Stewart stated, “I know it when I see it.”
In many ways, glam rock faces the same taxonomic difficulty. I’m not sure I could ever dissect and identify the specific elements that make something glam rock. I have tried and failed many times to explain to someone what makes Electric Warrior by T. Rex such a perfect record. I just know that when glam hits, few things are sweeter.
And Mott by Mott the Hoople is sweet.
Usually, I’m a pretty discerning with the money that I spend on records. I have a limited budget, so I want to make sure I get my money’s worth. Very rarely do I go into a purchase without being assured that I already love the music on it.
But on a recent trip to my local record store, I was enraptured by the stern portrait on the cover. A quick google search didn’t turn up much information at all, but it was only $6, so I decided to take the gamble.
Caspar David Friedrich was an 18th century German painter known for his sparse, dreamlike paintings. His paintings stretch from triumph to tragedy to tranquility to torment.
And Locktender’s album that bears his name traverses through the same moods, stretching their fiery sonic palette through their interpretations of Friederich’s work.
For the longest time, I wrote La Dispute off as a mewithoutYou ripoff band. Who else was mixing hardcore poetry with spoken word (shouted word?) poetry?
It was only after hearing the subdued, almost jazzy “Woman (reading)” off of 2014’s Rooms of the House that I gave them any real attention at all.
And while that album had moments that lived in that same sparse space, it spent most of its time in a passionate, throat-ripping hardcore. Panorama on the other hand, stretches their softer side into a full album—and I couldn’t be happier. Continue reading
There ain’t nobody like Elvis but Elvis. And I don’t mean Presley.
Elvis Costello is a singular figure in the history of pop music, encapsulating the purest forms of aloof cool, punk sneering, and pop songcraft.
But knowing him mostly as a new wave icon, I was surprised to hear that one of his most highly regarded albums is a piece of orchestral chamber pop.
For my great love of metal bands that are often described as “Black Sabbath worship” (see: Pallbearer, Elder, Baroness, Isis), I’ve never dug too deep into Black Sabbath themselves beyond some superficial listens to Paranoid.
But on a recent trip to the record store, I decided to change that. Trying to decide between this record and Vol. 4, I pulled up an article that called this record the “ultra-heavy” foundation of doom, sludge, and stoner metal.
I just wasn’t expecting so much overt Christianity.
As a music buff, it’s a weird thing to dig deeper into a band you never gave much attention to, only to discover that they played such a pivotal role in the history of pop music.
And yet, here I am with the Moody Blues, who are often credited as the founders of progressive rock.
And while the previous two Moody records in my collection are undeniably prescient, The Seventh Sojourn finds them fighting to hold their own against a flood of contemporaries.
The hardest part of creating a groundbreaking masterpiece is what you do once it’s changed everything.
The Moody Blues were nobody special before the release of Days Of Future Passed. Then they released an album that transcended pop music and practically invented a whole new musical language (see: prog rock).
And then they continued their career? It’s one thing to carry on after a career-defining record several albums into your catalog. It’s quite another to practically start there. But listening to On The Threshold Of A Dream, their second post-Days offering, it feels like they weren’t too daunted by the task.
Across the history of pop music, there are certain years that feel more momentous than others. Moments in time where the social conversation, artistic trends, and brightest minds converge to create a hotspot of musical innovation that stands out among the arbitrary dividers of time.
One of those years is 1967, a year of psychedelic mastery that continues to unfold new masterpieces to me.
After emo godfathers Sunny Day Real Estate disbanded (again), three of the four original members started a new band called The Fire Theft.
They said often and loudly that they were a completely different project, inspired more by rock bands like Led Zeppelin and Pink Floyd than the punk bands that inspired SDRE.
But listening to the record, it’s pretty clear that the distinction is almost purely nominal—especially considering that this vinyl reissue uses the exact same typeface as Diary and The Rising Tide (and the same producer as Diary and LP2).