Alternative

Record #760: The Cure – Kiss Me, Kiss Me, Kiss Me (1987)

/ Nathaniel FitzGerald

Perhaps there is no candidate for Pop Superstar more unlikely than The Cure’s Robert Smith. With his frizzy moptop, pale complexion, and full face of makeup, Smith was the face of the 1980s goth rock movement and its obsession with darkness—the kind of guy that Satanic Panic folks would point to to prove that society was in the icy grip of the Dark Lord.

While their output was nowhere near as evil as Christian Fundamentalists would have you believe, The Cure’s music did have a gothic darkness that would make religious parents plead for their childrens’ souls when they heard it through the bedroom door.

And yet, their seventh full-length, Kiss Me, Kiss Me, Kiss Me, somehow broke the Billboard Top 40,  despite its extended instrumental passages, flirtations with Eastern folk music, and a massive runtime. Even for all its weirdness though, it managed to fit in some absolutely stunning pop hits.

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Record #742: Beck – Hyperspace (2019)

/ Nathaniel FitzGerald

Since scoring the megahit “Loser” nearly thirty years ago, Beck Hansen has established himself as one of the most inventive—and inconsistent—musicians in the mainstream.

His prolific career has run the gamut from Technicolor hip hop to cartoon funk to sparse singer-songwriter ballads to trippy electronica to psychedelic ring leader to fuzzy alt-rock (he wrote all of the Sex Bob-Omb songs in Scott Pilgrim vs. the World), grabbing elements from dub reggae, punk rock, jazz, and country music. The term “chameleon” is thrown around to a lot of artists, but Beck truly embodies that.

While he usually hits more than he misses, his extensive catalogue is not necessarily perfect. Identities are shed and revisited with varying success. But when he does it well, he really does it well. 

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Record #740: Gorillaz – Gorillaz (2001)

/ Nathaniel FitzGerald

It was supposed to be a joke, right?

No one would start a band fronted by cartoon characters who fight robots and ghosts and expect to be taken seriously, right? Especially not when that person already has an incredibly successful band that blurs the lines between Britrock and punk?

They were just supposed to bring in a couple underground rappers for some fun features, write some jokey tracks, and call it a day. They certainly weren’t supposed to eventually bring together legendary artists like Lou Reed, The Clash, Bobby Womack, Grace Jones, and Snoop Dogg to create multiple masterpieces. 

That seemed to be the plan when Gorillaz released their debut record on the world. Have some laughs, release a couple novelty singles, and call it a day. No one expected them to become one of the most impressive projects in the landscape of modern pop music.

But looking back at Gorillaz from the other side of their now legendary catalogue, it’s clear that this understated LP was hiding a bit more than they let on.

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Record #729: Baroness – Yellow & Green (2012)

/ Nathaniel FitzGerald

Image may contain: 1 personI started 2020 with the realization that Baroness could do no wrong, and that I might as well just buy their entire catalog. Red was the first record I purchased in 2020, and so there’s a certain poetry to the fact that Yellow & Green—the final missing piece in my collection—was the last I purchased.

It’s admittedly an odd choice to purchase this record last—by most accounts, Yellow & Green is their masterpiece: a massive, sprawling double album that finalizes their transformation from sludge metal heroes to genre-defying Metal Gods. It was perhaps that monstrous reputation that me tentative to approach it, but every second of this album lives up to its legacy.

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Record #728: Marriages – Kitsune (2012)

/ Nathaniel FitzGerald

Speaking of Emma Ruth Rundle…among the long list of projects in her genre-spanning CV, one of my favorite releases is Salome, to date the only full-length project of the experimental group Marriages, featuring fellow Red Sparowes member Greg Burns.

Salome has entranced me since I was introduced to its chameleonic, at times eldritch, blend of post rock, alternative, and metal sensibilities. But that chimeric quality is perhaps even more prominent on Kitsune, the EP that preceded their full length by three years.

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Record #720: Foo Fighters – Greatest Hits (2009)

/ Nathaniel FitzGerald

There are two things that I generally don’t care about at all: radio rock and greatest hits compilations.

But in this case, I will make a huge whomping exception.

For one, at this point in my life, I have little interest in diving deep into the extensive catalog of the Foo Fighters. However, I am not above admitting that Dave Grohl & Co. have produced some of the best radio rock the genre can offer. This collection of singles (in no particular order) is wall to wall bangers, showcasing Grohl’s perfect instincts for writing rock and roll hits.

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Record #717: Deftones – Ohms (2020)

/ Nathaniel FitzGerald / 1 Comment

It took me a while to get into the Deftones. The ebbs and flow of my opinion of them are well-documented on my social media: a few years ago, I took it upon myself to figure out how I felt about them once and for all, and dove headlong into their discography, taking detailed track by track notes of each album, which shift between aggressive alternative metal and dreamy shoegaze. Their discography sometimes feels like a fight between these extremes, heavy riffs sitting uneasily against the more billowing songs on the tracklist.

But here, Deftones frontman and admitted The Cure fanboy Chino Moreno opens the record singing, “I’ve finally achieved balance.” And then the band spends an entire album proving that they’ve one just that. Over thirty years into their career, Ohms might be the most cohesive and consistent record in their catalog.

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Record #713: Citizen – Everybody Is Going to Heaven (2015)

/ Nathaniel FitzGerald

As closely as young me followed emo, post hardcore, and the various other splinter groups in the broad punk umbrella, I lost touch somewhere for a while. Personally, I blame the Third Wave of emo, with its ranks of guylinered front men who were more concerned with fashion and deals with Hot Topic than they were with the music.

So aloof was I that I almost  completely missed several great bands—the Emo Revival, “the Wave,” and other scenes that resurrected the best parts of the music I grew up with with sincerity and skill.

I’ve seen Citizen’s name (and albums) for almost a decade now. But it took finding this album in my local used shop to spur my curiosity to finally pull them up on Spotify.

And boy, am I ever glad I did.

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Record #712: CATERPILLARS – Where Shadows Go To Speak (2020)

/ Nathaniel FitzGerald

A couple years ago, a friend invited me to join a Facebook group he had started called “Midwest Emoposting.” It has since grown to many thousand members, but in its humble beginnings, there were precious few of us.

As expected, the group didn’t just attract music fans alone, but also a number of musicians. Every so often, there would be a post by a member promoting their own band. Admittedly, I often ignored these posts, as the songs felt like lackluster American Football copies. But one day, a man named Stephen O’Sicky posted about his band, CATERPILLARS, and my first reaction was, “wait…this is actually good.”

Since then, a lot has changed. CATERPILLARS and my own band SPACESHIPS are now label mates on Friend Club Records, and we both released new full lengths a couple weeks apart (another friend from that group did the cover art).

Said full length is Where Shadows Go to Speak, a super solid collection of songs that are at once ethereal, emotive, and powerful.

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Record #711: American Arson – A Line in the Sand (2020)

/ Nathaniel FitzGerald

Last year at Audiofeed, I accidentally found myself spending an awful lot of time near the American Arson merch table. They were situated in the shade right between the main stage and the impromptu stage where many of my friends (and my own projects) had claimed slots, and so as I killed time between sets, I talked a fair amount with Jesse and Evan, the only two members of American Arson.

When the time came for their set, they had already described  their sound to me, but descriptions alone could not have prepared me for the blistering onslaught of hardcore energy, lush walls of sound, intricate compositions, and singalong choruses—pulled off by two people using a combination of live loops and samples.

But as their recent full length proves, their appeal goes far beyond the spectacle of watching them build these songs live. A Line in the Sand captures every single element that drew my ear to them in the first place—both musically and personally.

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