Beastie Boys – Licensed To Ill

When I look at this title, even typing it into the subject bar up there, I get this sinking feeling of “oh no, not Licensed To Ill“, because I think about all the songs that I have to hear every single day on the radio. Any album that contains not one but four songs that are still frequently played on the radio has to be horrible right?

Well, here’s the thing. I have been known to be very hard on the radio, mainly because I am forced to listen to it, but since my daily shift became a 6am-?? schedule, I have been forced to listen to the “New Rock Alternative” and its earliest morning talk show, which, prepare yourself… is actually good.

It’s basically an every-man radio guy (Jason) and an English girl (Deb) arguing about nonsense for 4 hours between the horrid songs and even more horrid commercials (except for one where Gene Simmons talks about Dr Pepper, that commercial is a golden treasure). The thing is, the show is just different enough from all the other “typical” radio talk shows I’ve heard to be interesting. Yeah there are Simpsons/Family Guy clips all the time, the show is interrupted often before it even starts, and of course it’s the damn radio so one wants to claw one’s ears off between chats, but the chats are good because you’ve got a guy who’s anything but an “old pro” (read: he’s roughly my age and doesn’t effect a stupid radioman voice while playing boing noises and well ok he does play noises) and the girl is English so her accent is adorable and her mannerisms charmingly repressed. The interaction between them feels genuine and entertaining, more often than not. In fact, I even tuned into to the show on a Friday when I was off work (the first time I’ve willingly turned on the radio in my life!) So I guess my point is, you can blindly go along with your gut instincts and hate something just because it’s bad, but occasionally, if you look at it with an open mind and a willingness to find the exceptions to the rules, you can come out on top, or at least a nice comfortable place in the middle.

Which brings me to this shining golden turd:

A question that has plagued me for years is “why oh why did I buy this album years ago at Wal*Mart?” Thing is, I was frequently depressed at the time since I worked there and all, and I found myself doing many irrational but harmless things, like apparently buying albums on a whim and expecting them to be any good.

Once every few years, however, I play the album just to unravel the mystery and see whether there’s any saving grace to the thing. Indeed, the beats are interesting and there’s a lot of variety, and one can’t help but at least feel amused at the Beastie Boys’ rapping style. Basically one of the three dudes starts a rhyme using the same vocal rhythm every time, and the other guys either join in on the last word, or one of the others takes it from the last note and raps the next line, kind of like a musical hot potato. This particular album features all the cheesy noises of 80′s rap with Led Zeppelin samples interspersed throughout.

However, this particular album also features a rather juvenile set of lyrics that range from the poetic (“We did it like this, we did it like that, we did it with a wiffle ball bat”) to the quixotic (“I’ve got rhymes like Abe Vigoda”). There are myriad references to drugs, alcohol, and girls throughout. In fact, that leads me to one of the songs I most hate, “Girls”. Starting with a fake xylophone arpeggio that basically plays the tune to “Shout” by the Isley Brothers, which may be the song’s inspiration, the song will go down in history as one of the most annoying songs ever recorded. Hard to believe it was partially written by Rick Rubin, eh?

Oh yes, the hobo-esque producer who helped re-ignite Johnny Cash’s career was the producer for this and only this album in the Beastie Boys’ discography. It’s true that he is considered one of the best producers that Hip Hop has ever seen, and he produced the most successful albums of my favorite artist’s career, but I just can’t proclaim my undying love for the fellow because of stuff like this.

Then, of course, we have the album’s other radio hits (“Girls” is one), and they’re practically in order on the album’s “B-side”. We start with “Fight For Your Right”, a party hit that you just can’t have a party without, love it or hate it. Then it’s “No Sleep ‘Til Brooklyn”, the band’s tribute to metal I guess (featuring guitar work from the Slayer guy, another band Rubin was producing at the time).

Then there’s a bit of a reprieve in the form of “Paul Revere”. It’s possibly the objectively worst song in the bunch (the beat is apparently so bad it had to be played backwards), but it’s always been my favorite. Why? Because I heard it on the radio around the age of 13, and at the time thought it was hilarious. It’s a decent enough song lyrically, as long as one listens to it with an attitude of not taking it seriously at all. It tells a tender story of friendship, love, and betrayal, but ultimate ends with redemption, and beer.

Actually I think “Hold It Now, Hit It” is still played on the radio on occasion. I dare not listen to find out, though. It’s actually a pretty fun song, if not a little draggy.

Maybe I only think that way because the next track, “Brass Monkey”, is so gol’dern terrible that anything seems pleasant in comparison. From the terrible horn sample to the reprehensible chorus, there is nothing one can forgive in this song. The song actually hates you, and wants to do you and your family harm, and to let it have its way is considered a sign of weakness in all major cultures.

“Slow And Low” is actually a cover of a cancelled song from Run D.M.C.’s second album that the Boys wanted to record for their own album. It actually is quite good, definitely a worthy reward for hitting the skip button “Brass Monkey” instead of just turning the whole album off.

The last song, “Time To Get Ill”, is also fairly interesting, if for nothing else, than the sheer amount of samples used just to set up lines like “I’ve got more rhymes than Phyllis Diller”.

Honestly, the songs I skipped are generally pretty good too, and don’t get me wrong, I actually do like The Beastie Boys. Their later albums are much better, and in the grand scheme of things, there are much worse albums out there, especially in the 80′s. The production is very well done, the songs constructed with a great degree of care, and those irritating radio hits actually are very entertaining if you’re willingly listening to them and not just trying to drown them out while at work or a party containing white people. Overall, it’s a good album that sucks.

So what have I learned in listening to Licensed To Ill once again, despite the presence of all those terrible (yet undeniably catchy) hits? Well, I guess I have learned that, though you may not like something because it sucks, sometimes it’s not all bad, and you can delude yourself into thinking of yourself as more matured and open-minded for admitting that some things, like morning talk radio and the Beastie Boys’ first album, are things you can mostly tolerate.

Mostly.

(This blog post brought to you by 3 days of sleep deprivation, an unusually forgiving attitude about a certain radio show I’ve recently warmed up to, and Thundercloud Subs, may they burn forever in Hell for their jingles.)

Johnny Cash – Now, There Was A Song!

It’s a well known fact that Johnny Cash played a lot of covers. In fact, some folks not as hip to him would jab that he barely wrote any music at all. He wrote a lot of music, to be sure, but when your discography reaches over 100 albums, it’s a given that not all of the songs on every album is going to be an original. One thing that everyone can agree on, however, is that when Johnny Cash did covers, there wasn’t a thing about them that even hinted at the idea that the song wasn’t written just for him. Now, There Was A Song! is the first album purely made up of covers, and the title isn’t lying, these are some pretty dadgum good songs:

This album features the first instance of a cover that Johnny would record over 40 years later, and it’s one of my favorites of his “American” catalogue, a cover of Hank Williams’ “I’m So Lonesome I Could Cry”. The version on Now, There Was A Song! does not feature popular singer Nick Cave however, as he was only 3 years old at the time.

The album starts with a song by George Jones (and Darrell Edwards) called “Seasons Of My Heart”.  It’s what I would consider a “rather clever Country song”, and really if I were more of a George Jones fan I could tell you about his version, but I’m not, so I can’t. This song, like most of the others on this album, mysteriously contain a large amount of pedal steel and fiddle, two instruments not found too often in Johnny Cash’s albums. Still, they’re low-key enough to not sound like honky tonk trash, otherwise I would be quietly ignoring this album. The lap steel kind of has that “Hawaiian” effect going for it, and I can dig that at least.

“I Feel Better All Over” is the next track, and it has a great second part to that line: “I feel better all over more than anywhere else”. Not bad, but the rest of the song is kind of so-so, but hey! Did you know it was written by Kenny Rogers? Did you know Kenny Rogers was writing songs before 1960? It might be because he’s fat, but I could have sworn he was younger than that. Another interesting thing about this song is that Johnny hits some uncharacteristically high notes, not as high as the first song he recorded, of course, but that was more of a fluke than anything.

The next song was written by Marty Robbins, a man Johnny admired quite a lot (at least he gave him a very flattering tribute in the latter of his autobiographies). It’s called “I Couldn’t Keep From Crying”, and actually was first recorded by Cash fairly early on when he was at Sun Recordings, though it never surfaced on any albums until this past decade or so, as I understand. It’s a good song, and certainly the Columbia version is better than the first recording as far as I can tell.

Next we have “Time Changes Everything” which was written by Tommy Duncan, who sang for the original Western Swing band Bob Wills And The Texas Playboys (a band my great-granddad turned down an offer to play drums for, incidentally).  It’s a rather refreshing anti-love song, as it goes, because it defies all the other broken heart songs by declaring quite logically that he doesn’t love the girl in question anymore because “Time Changes Everything”. The sentiment would not carry over to any of the other songs, however.

For instance, “My Shoes Keep Walking Walking Back To You”, is another love-lost song (really though what Country song isn’t?) at nearly the breaking point to “obsequious”. Actually this song was part-written by Bob Wills, so the inconsistency in messages is at least inconsistent at its source! Both songs are mighty catchy too, just to let you know.

Ahh, now we’re about half-way through the album, and I think the second half is far better. First off is “I’d Just Be Fool Enough (To Fall)”, a self-deprecating unrequited love song that has a great line:

Oh please don’t be so careless with your glances
Don’t look at me that way and breathe a sigh
Please don’t get too close and let me love you
Cause I just might be fool enough to try

As a dude who is a self-confessed “hopeless case” with the ladies, I can identify with this a little more than somewhat. However, I’m not a coked-out fiend, so I don’t identify well with the next song, except to say I love it.

That song, of course, is “Transfusion Blues” which you may know by its proper title “Cocaine Blues” when it was sung on At Folsom Prison and waaaaaay later on Mystery Of Life. Why the title had to be changed from “Cocaine” to “Transfusion” is beyond me, when the whole story of shooting your woman and running from the law and being sentenced to life in prison is all still intact and, in my opinion, much more severe. I can understand the final line, “I can’t forget the day I shot that bad bitch down” being changed to substitute “bad bitch” for “woman”. I guess cocaine wouldn’t be fashionable until 20 years later, so it was a bit taboo back then. Either way, this song is fantastic, and the awkward substitution doesn’t take away from it THAT much.

Next we have yet another song to stack on the pile of evidence that all women are evil, “Why Do You Punish Me (For Loving You)?”, a tune by Erwin King. It’s one of the more clever ones, however, as the chorus is thus:

My heart cries out behind these prison bars
It pleads to you for your true love to set it free
Why do you punish me, is love a crime?
If so, I’ll spend a lifetime loving serving time

Not too bad, suspiciously close to a song I wrote long before ever hearing this song… whoops!

A much more concret song is “I Will Miss You When You Go”, which almost needs no explanation, as it’s so effective and simple it’s almost not even a song. This, however, is a facet of Country music that can not be denied. It’s not really a genre where a lot of imagination is required, but God bless it anyway.

Which is not to say there aren’t imaginative people in Country music, I don’t really care who you are, Hank Williams will always be one of the top if not the top Country songwriters (in fact, the only person to topple him from the top of the “Greatest Country Artists Of All Time” list is Johnny Cash). Despite his short life, he wrote well over 200 songs, nearly all of which are expertly crafted given the 3 chords he was given. Quite possibly my favorite of these songs is “I’m So Lonesome I Could Cry”, which sounds like your typical Country fare, but in fact the lyrics paint an indellible picture of country landscapes and birds and a starry sky to illustrate the twisted reality of a broken heart. Brilliant stuff, if you have an open mind to it. Of course, the quintessential version of the song is the one Johnny would record on one of his final albums with Nick Cave, but we’ll get to that when it comes.

The next song is one of my favorites on this album, too. It’s another George Jones tuned called “Just One More”, which is (rather late in the album) a song about drinkin’ your woes away. Of course, I don’t drink, so I can’t say I personally relate to the song, but then again I do:

Put the bottle on the table let it stay there till I’m not able
To see your face in every place that I go
I’ve been sitting here so long, just remembering that you are gone
One more drink of wine
And if you’re still on my mind
One drink
Just one more
And then another

The adding of more and more drinks to the chorus is, in a simple way, very clever indeed. It’s hard to picture Johnny Cash getting drunk on wine, as that was never really his style, but he sings it believably enough, as that is how he sings songs, if you weren’t aware.

Finally, we’ve got the unlikely song “Honky-Tonk Girl”, which is kind of a novelty song about a certain kind of girl… one that breaks hearts… and hangs out in Honky-Tonks. Ok, so not EVERY song is a winner (though it’s performed well enough for sure). Maybe it’s just my inability to understand Honky-Tonk culture that well. Oh well!

So that’s Now, There Was A Song!, it’s actually a rather short album at only 26 minutes, in fact I listened to the entire thing on the way to work and again during my lunch-break, with one more play of “Seasons Of My Heart”. So yes, if you are looking for a quick and cheap ($12.99 for the re-issue that came out this month that includes 2 other full length albums!) Johnny Cash album and aren’t particularly fond of songs he has written, then this is perfect for you!

Leonard Cohen – I’m Your Man

Ok, I’ll admit that I wanted to write about this album ever since I started this blog, but the antagonist for my choice of today is the fact that, in my desk, I have a ticket (a rather nice one too) for the first (or possibly second as they may have added another date) show of the first American tour the legend Leonard Cohen has done in over 15 years. The man’s shows have been described by critics as something of a religious experience, no matter where your beliefs lie. In fact, if I may steal from Wikipedia, one noted critic of music said the following:

“It is hard work having to put this concert in to words so I’ll just say something I have never said in a review before and will never say again: this was the best show I have ever seen.”

As I understand, much of the show will contain selections from one of Cohen’s most popular and alluringly perplexing albums, I’m Your Man:

Like with The Beatles, I am a little intimidated, even on my daily blog of talking half-hearted trash about music I love, to speak of Leonard Cohen. One reason is because, since the 60′s, the man has put out only 11 albums. There’s also something to his music that makes it grand to the point of being virtually untouchable. I’m not being vague though, it’s because  of those masterful lyrics. I’m not going to quote anyone else today, but let’s just say there’s a certain agreement by anyone who’s ever written a song that there is a level of songwriting one can only hope to achieve in one’s life-time, and among the best and brightest of that top tier is Mr. Cohen.

Right, enough of that, let’s get into why this album perplexes me so.

Basically, as I’ve discussed twice already, Leonard Cohen started his career in music (after being an acclaimed poet and novelist apparently got boring to him) as a folk singer. He has an amazing ability to play these classical triplets that compliment his singing perfectly. Somewhere after Songs Of Love And Hate, however, his style gradually changed over the course of a few albums, eventually blossoming into… get ready for this… an entirely synthesizer and drum machine-based form of jazzy pop (complete with saxophones), backing up Cohen’s voice, which has somehow transformed from a delicate, laid-back tenor to a bass-baritone that beats out even Johnny Cash’s early recordings.

Why did Leonard Cohen, one of folk music’s most enduring iconic figures, choose to transform himself into an 80′s-tastic lounge act with a voice that will make the staunchest non-smoker start craving a pack of unfiltered cigarettes? The answer, as evidenced by this album, is because he can.

I am completely against the idea of replacing practical instruments with synthesizers, and the less saxophone the better, but I can not help but love this album, to the end that it’s actually one of my favorites. Plus, in a way, it’s good that the style changed the way it did, because a song like “First We Take Manhattan” just wouldn’t be the same without it. It’s a hell of a thing, really, because you start to hear the music and you might think “well this is stupid” but then the wave of warm synthesized strings come in and Leonard starts singing his golden words:

They sentenced me to twenty years of boredom
For trying to change the system from within
I’m coming now, I’m coming to reward them
First we take Manhattan, then we take Berlin

And suddenly the song makes perfect sense. Nearly every line, including the one where he chuckles amusingly in an almost creepy way, conveys a message that can only be carried across an army of Casio circuitry. Indeed, the song is oppressive and urban, and nylon strings, at least this time, just aren’t going to cut it.

Despite how much I thoroughly enjoy “First We Take Manhattan”, even I will admit that the next song, “Ain’t No Cure For Love” is a tower of amazing lyrics surrounded by all sides by a moat filled with poisonous saxophone blowing and terrifyingly giddy guitar and keyboards, accessible only by way of the very strong bridge. Still, it’s not a bad song by any means, just a bit of a shock that may take the entire 5 minutes of the song’s length to get used to.

One of the slight changes in songwriting that Leonard Cohen took in this album was to make the songs more “clever”, and I could not be happier about that. A prime example of some excellent clever lyrics are in “Everybody Knows”:

Everybody knows that the dice are loaded
Everybody rolls with their fingers crossed
Everybody knows that the war is over
Everybody knows the good guys lost
Everybody knows the fight was fixed
The poor stay poor, the rich get rich
Thats how it goes
Everybody knows

In reading through the lyrics to grab a selection, I realized something about Leonard Cohen’s lyrics. It’s nearly impossible to grasp the kind of quality we’re dealing with in just one line or stanza. Sure, you can quote a line and someone who is familiar with the song will smile and probably give the next line, but Cohen’s lyrics are to be enjoyed in full, because they build on each other, so that by the end of the song there’s just a sense of awe in the creativity that went into each song. This is no accident, of course, it took him over a year to write a single song for an album that wasn’t even popular enough to get distributed in America initially. That particular song, of course, is “Hallelujah”, and I really should have waited to tell that story until the day I talk about Various Positions, but I’m sure I’ll remind myself of that later.

Ahh, now the title track. You know, Leonard Cohen is presently 74 years old, and yet when he sings about women, usually in a sexual way, you are absolutely sure that dozens of women are throwing themselves him way as a result. If you weren’t sure about that, just listen to the song on his new album where he points that out in a very tongue-in-cheek way. The song “I’m Your Man” is little more than Cohen’s super-deep whispering against a light jazz beat and chords played by fake horns via synthesizer, but of course, all the better to understand the words through:

If you want a lover
I’ll do anything you ask me to
And if you want another kind of love
I’ll wear a mask for you
If you want a partner
Take my hand
Or if you want to strike me down in anger
Here I stand
I’m your man

This song is quite the midnight song, I would say.

Next, the album takes an unusual turn. It’s a song called “Take This Waltz”, and it’s actually a Waltz, complete with the synthesized version of an orchestra of strings and singers. The melody brings about the image of a golden banquet hall with all its very fancy patrons dancing in time to Cohen, in a tuxedo, singing against an orchestra about gettin’ it on. At least that’s what goes on in my mind, and it’s fine by me. The lyrics, actually, are the English version of a Spanish poem, and are not really Leonard’s, though interestingly very consistent with his style.

And, in another unusual turn, a dissonant group of notes assail you as Cohen comes back in to sing about the “Jazz Police”. It’s kind of a humorous song, and doesn’t actually have a whole lot of words, but is a funky tune nonetheless.

“I Can’t Forget” is a song that is musically better (I feel) than “Ain’t No Cure For Love”, but is similar in many ways, particularly with the fake horns and real vibraphone. The lyrics are interesting in this one, but perhaps not as mind-blowing as the next song.

The album ends with a kind of blues track called “Tower Of Song”. I say “kind of” because it has all the makings of a blues song, except that the fake instruments don’t make it very obvious, it’s almost like a mechanical tropical song. In the song, Leonard Cohen gives a bit of a tribute to another songwriter that belongs on that top tier of songwriters, Hank Williams:

Well my friends are gone, and my hair is grey
I ache in the places where I used to play
And I’m crazy for love but I’m not coming on
I’m just paying my rent every day
Oh in the tower of song

I said to Hank Williams: how lonely does it get?
Hank Williams hasn’t answered yet
But I hear him coughing all night long
A hundred floors above me
In the tower of song

When Leonard Cohen was inducted into the Rock N’ Roll Hall Of Fame last year, one thing he made sure to do was quote this song, nearly in its entirety. That’s how good this song is.

So yes, I have said many times before that I can excuse poor or non-sensical lyric-writing if the presentation is good enough. Well, quite the flip-side is true for Leonard Cohen. His lyrics basically forgive and in fact justify any bizarre moves he may make in music, but 11 albums and 40 years after his debut, the most bizarre thing he did was drop his voice an octave and add some synthesizers. Other acts have changed much more dramatically over the years, but you know you’re something doing something right when the least expensive ticket to your show is over $90.

Man I’m looking forward to next Thursday!

Bleach – Space

One element of the somehow-unpopular-with-the-other-religions genre of Christian Rock that one has to accept before becoming any kind of a fan is the “Doppelganger Effect”. Basically, any “good” Christian band is invariably going to be compared to and even accused of ripping off a popular non-denominational band. If there were any shred of truth to these accusations, then what we have today is a band that, at least for one album, is either the Christian version of The Smashing Pumpkins or Weezer, depending on how far you wish to reach for comparison:

Thing is, if you are going to base any kind of argument by taking the stance “they sound like Weezer”, you’ve kind of already lost. Weezer is composed of questionably able whiny nerds who insist on using 4 chords to create music that really drunk people believe is just like Buddy Holly, man (or, you know, people who have never heard Buddy Holly’s music). You can take any band that uses two guitars to make the same chord, or any band that uses the most obvious and simple beat in all of rock music, or any band with a lead singer who wears glasses, and call it “Weezer”. Bleach’s main problem in this regard is that they came out right around the time Weezer-mania was sweeping the junior high and high schools across America, the only place where one might have heard of a secular band AND a Christian band at the same time.

The point has also been made that they’re kind of like The Smashing Pumpkins of Christian Music, which is based on only two criteria. One, that they layer guitars together to get a really thick sound, and two, that the singer (Davy Baysinger) sounds uncannily like a Billy Corgan from which all of the ego has been stripped. Again, the “Doppelganger Effect” is only an illusion, because the layered guitar is still raw as hell (whereas Pumpkins’ guitars are nothing if not refined to a silky smooth buzz), and the singer just happens to have that whiny voice thing.

Here’s the thing, if you drop the comparisons to other bands you’re more familiar with, and if you happen to not have heard any of the band’s other work, their debut album is really good!

The first track, “Eleven” (I love numerical song titles), opens the album up the way one should, with a lovely guitar/bass riff that pounds away for a couple of bars before going into a layered fuzzy guitar chord, complete with controlled feedback! Until the chorus, the song tends to repeat this pattern as the guy sings a “gettin’ saved” song that contains many references to earthly things in the muddiest way possible. The pre-chorus strikes the most profound chord:

You love your pretties and your things
Are you nothing more than just a fashion scene?

And, for the second chorus:

It’s time to kill your glamor life
It’s time to live from inside

Not too shabby, really. Any time I am inspired to come up with a list of songs people who know nothing of Christian Rock might like, this song usually shows up somewhere. Indeed this album shows up as well, I consider it one of the 10 or so albums that should be heard regardless of what you believe.

The second song, however, kind of takes the edge off the previous song. It’s a totally innocuous track (utilizing a really old-fashioned chord pattern) called “The Perfect Family”, and while you may expect such a song to have some hint of irony to it, or maybe some element of tragedy or opposition… it doesn’t. It’s about a couple who get together under ideal circumstances, get married, have kids, grow old, and nothing bad happens. If you’re fine with that, this is the song for you!

The next song brings us back to the original “live from inside” message in the form of “Epidermis Girl”. It’s a very good song, musically speaking (how could I say it’s not, it’s led by the bass), but seems a bit immature in its simplistic message of resisting the sins of the world by way of a really hot girl. If you can look past its outward appearance of being a “pro chastity” song, it’s a good enough metaphor of living a decent, moral, patently un-rock-n’-roll life.

“Tea For Two” is much more like it as far as lyrics go, it’s a song about friends divided by ethnicity, religion, war, whatever, and though the message is simple, it’s effective enough:

An eye for an eye, tooth for a tooth
Or a cup of tea for two

Interesting, the biblical quote that has to do with justice being turned in on itself… edgy indeed.

Just when you think you’ve got this album figured out, however, it throws “Cold & Turning Blue” on you, which is a concrete message wrapped up in abstract imagery:

Cheesy moon boy throw your space rocks all around
Your friend balloon boy is tangled, can’t get unwound
You find it funny, meanwhile he squirms around
He struggles, strangles, your friend the funny clown

Can’t you see he’s cold and turning blue?
It makes sense in a way, but doesn’t in many others. What else can you expect when the drummer writes a song?

“Child Of Sod” connects rather nicely to “Eleven”, as it contains many more references to mud, which in a way ties into the band’s name, “Bleach”. It all fits together! The song itself is pretty good, but not fantastic by any means, which is unfortunate because it was one of the songs for which a video was made.

“Crystals & Cash” kind of plods along, as well. It’s got some interesting lyrics that I wish were better explored, they’re abstract but may contain drug references or even sexual ones, but as they stand are just kind of non-sequitorial. It’s the curse of the never-ending chorus, I guess.

“Wonderful” is kind of the 1st-person version of “The Perfect Family”, a totally innocent and undefeatable love song set to an old-fashioned chord progression played on heavy guitars. This one I like a bit better, though, and at least it’s there to keep “The Perfect Family” from being a one-off song about love and happiness, which incidentally is the theme of every Bleach album from here on out.

Then we have “Cannonball”, which is the closest the band comes to inverting The Pumpkins’ style (in fact the first line is “The world is drained” which is almost a twist to well you know). The difference is that this is a whiny-sounding praise song, which is interesting in and of itself.

My second favorite song on the album is right at the back, which is unusual but not unheard of. It’s called “Sugarcoated Ways”, and it has not only the catchiest melody, but it’s got an awesome acoustic guitar and e-piano added to the mix (with the barely-contained guitar feedback ever looming in the back of the right channel). I really wish the band hadn’t gone completely pop-rock and instead stuck to this style, but I can’t exactly go back to the mid-90′s and convince them to, now can I? Oh wait, actually I did meet them in ’98 just as they were coming out with a second album, and I could have totally told them that if I would’ve thought about it. They’re the nicest dudes, by the way.

Finally, we have “Space”, which starts with grungy jazz chords and almost mechanical sounding drumming. If it were up to me, I would have put the coolest bass-line on this song, but it was not to be, the bass-line follows the boring old root notes. Oh the torment of being a musician listening to music. The song is still good enough, it’s got that message of “Hey! I’m a Christian but I’m not the judgmental type!” which is all fine and dandy, but as we’ve established, my favorite way of dealing with evangelism is with songs like “If you don’t love Jesus, go to Hell“.

Deep Purple – Fireball

Man, so I got the inspiration for writing about Deep Purple again, quite on a whim, on the 27th of this month, when I wrote about them on the 25th of January, and the 22nd of February. Apparently late in the month I tend to feel like I have to get my Deep Purple on!

Well, though Deep Purple certainly has a large enough discography to check out every single month, the “best” lineup, MKII, put out only 4 albums (and one incredible live album), of which this is the second (the first being In Rock and third being Machine Head, which we’ve already covered):

Indeed, Fireball is a force to be reckoned with among 70′s brit-rock albums, and despite the fact that it’s overshadowed in the band’s catalogue by Machine Head, which was released only 6 months afterward, it’s got all the energy and some to spare.

Like the other albums, Fireball puts its best foot forward with the fast, driving, heavy, and double-bass-pedal-tastic title track. I have made no secrets about how much I enjoy songs that start with really kickin’ beats where the other instruments have to keep up, and this album delivers on that. The other instruments, of course, make catching up with Ian Paice’s amazing drumming seem like no feat at all. Of course, like most fireballs, this one burns hot but is gone after only 3 1/2 minutes, which is incredibly short for a Deep Purple tune, I gotta tell ya.

The next tune, also reminiscent of the other albums, is a bluesy jam, only unlike the other albums, it’s called “No No No” instead of something different. It’s catchy all around, but the chorus in particular will stick with you unless your mind is made of the purest teflon:

Have we got our freedom? No, no, no
Is it getting better? No, no, no
Do we love each other? No, no, no
Must we wait forever? No, no, no

Of all the Deep Purple songs dealing with protesting… well, whatever’s around… this one is probably my favorite. Not my favorite is one that will come with the 4th album in the MKII lineup, but that’s an entry for the late part of another month.

The third song… varies heavily depending on which country you bought this album in. If you bought it or downloaded it in America, you either got the version with “Strange Kind Of Woman”, or if you bought the most recent special edition, or the original version in the UK or Japan, you got “Demon’s Eye” as your third track. Of course, if you have the special edition, you have both songs, but “Demon’s Eye” is going to come up third.

“Demon’s Eye” starts off with that lovely distorted keyboard sound pounding away at a chord that the guitar joins, followed by Ian’s trademark over-the-top vocals, all set in a dire minor-key blues boogie. Interestingly enough, “Strange Kind Of Woman” is also a boogie, so it’s interesting to note that you’ve got 2 songs of similar length, both of which with nearly the same beat, only one is a song about not wanting a woman because she’s “sly like a demon’s eye” (I don’t know either), and the other is about really wanting a woman despite her being really resistant to the singer’s uhh, obvious charm. Then again, “Strange Kind Of Woman” has that last line “I won my woman just before she died”, which kind of puts an abrupt tragic spin on what started as a tale of trying to win a woman’s heart, but such is the way of rock n’ roll. You’re gonna have the occasional song where the subject, object, or everyone dies. You’ll just have to accept it.

“Anyone’s Daughter”, the pan-continental fourth song, is rather unique among its compatriots in the Deep Purple MKII discography. It’s a country-sounding jig featuring some quite good finger-picking from noted wizard Ritchie Blackmore, and also a 7th-chord heavy electric piano part. It’s immensely catchy, and then the vocals come in, and they’re not rock vocals at all! He sings the song perfectly clearly, which is good because the lyrics are fantastic. It’s about sleeping with the wrong kind of women because they’re someone important’s daughter, until the song’s ending, of course, which is a great metaphor for denouncing authority figures in society or something, I don’t know.

The next song is quite different as an album song than as a live song, where it has had a sure spot in for nearly 40 years now. The reason it is such a concert staple is because it is home to a 6-10 minute drum solo from the afore-mentioned super drummer, Ian Paice. It starts with a cool, sweeping drum beat and the tune being played by guitar and keyboard while the bass line rolls away. It’s a decent enough song, but definitely a spectacle when played live. According to Ian Gillan, it’s a song about “Lucifer, and all his friends”. Again, it’s hard to have any decent rock without the devil getting in there somewhere. Replacing the extended drum solo, in the album version, is a guitar solo and fancy drum part that then goes back to normal while the guitar solo continues to pound away. Again, drum solo, much more impressive.

After “The Mule” is a song called “Fools”, which is 8 minutes long so strap yourself in. It’s a tune mainly centered around a riff established again by the keyboard and guitar working in tandem. Those two work really well together, I should mention. The vocals come in with a soft and very in-the-background “Ahhhhh, I’m crying”, and you know you’re in for one of the more “progressive” songs that pervaded Deep Purple’s otherwise rather metallic repetoire. If you’ve got a spare 2 minutes to wait for the rocking part of the song to come in, I promise it’s well worth it. Just try not to fall asleep, otherwise that first guitar hit might wake you up unpleasantly. I kind of really love the line:

Rocks and stones won’t bruise my soul
But tears will leave a stain

It’s cheese but it’s good cheese. By the way, at around the 4 1/2 minute mark, you can get your pillow ready, because Ritchie Blackmore is going to perform, for you, his impression of a bad cello player by basically combining “tapping” on the fret board to get the notes and using the volume notes to fade every note in, with a little assistance from Jon Lord, the keyboardist. This was apparently an unescapable part of the live show as well, and smacks of pretension, but that’s Ritchie Blackmore for ya.

It should also be noted that “The Mule” and “Fools” are mixed up in name and track number on the Zune download of the special edition of this album. Zune buyers, beware! You’ll have to re-adjust the ID3 yourself, fool.

Finally, an extra-deep guitar note brings us the song “No One Came”, a song about being a old rock star who has lost all relevance who continues to pound away despite the fact that “no one came”. I would love to jab Ian Gillan at this one, but in fact the band is still selling out stadiums and, at least in Japan, they’re still very impressed. They’re on tour there right now, as I understand! So… well played!

And that’s Fireball. Another album that seems short, but you probably lost about 5 years off your life listening to the fake cello in “Fools” so the album has lengthened itself relative to the remainder of your life here on Earth. The band says “you’re welcome”.

The Offspring – Smash

“What? You like The Offspring?”

This question has been drummed up in response to me talking about this band for about half my life now. Why yes, I do like The Offspring, sure I don’t own any of their albums other than the one I’m talking about, but the fact remains. You can blame my cousin, the same one responsible for getting me into these guys and these guys, only the latter in a less obvious way.  He had this album too, and us both being pre-teenagers/early teenagers at the time, it was pretty much perfect. It’s punk-rock, only not as crappy, and it’s angry, but still has that sardonic angle that coming-of-age kids just love.

So is the album good? Well, it’s “good for punk rock”, in that, no it’s not very good, but if you look at a lot of the influences this band had and especially some of the bands this band influenced themselves, you’ll find this is pretty much cream of the crop.

None of that matters when you’re young, however, especially if you don’t know or care much about music. The fact is, these guys are shouting about people shooting each other in schools and cars and just guns in general, but in this way that you KNOW they’re not promoting it, they’re tearing down a system that allows it to exist. Plus, the lyrics are so concrete that even a pre-teen can understand what’s going on in songs like “Self Esteem” and “Not The One”. Plus, there’s a ton of cussing, but since this is 1994 we’re talking about, my CD copy does not have a Parental Advisory sticker on it. Whoops! Looks like I listened to music with cussing and am now, myself, a deviant!

The album is actually really well put together. For one, you’ve got a nice vocal intro of some relaxed guy telling you to sit back, relax, and enjoy the compact disc, after which of course is the first proper song with its typical driving punk beat. The guy revisits us a few songs in after the song “Genocide” and is present at the end of the album before an instrumental fadeout.

The hit singles on this album, which you will recognize by them not sounding like every other song, actually occur fairly late in the album, which is odd. The two biggest ones (at least in my mind) on this particular release are “Come Out And Play (Keep ‘m Seperated)”, the afore-mentioned song about bringing your guns to school (with the poignant “(if) You’re under 18, you won’t be doing any time”, and “Self-Esteem”, a song that is still played every single day on the damn radio.

That doesn’t mean there isn’t any rockin’ goodness early on in the album. In particular, “Bad Habit” is like the ultimate shout-along road rage song. Only, you know, you should probably not really gun down other motorists, but by the same token, you motorists who are not very good shouldn’t flip off other motorists for getting mad at you, because you never know who has been listening to too much Offspring.

“Gotta Get Away” is apparently another hit single, but I don’t remember ever hearing it outside of listening to the album myself. It’s pretty good but quite slow compared to the rest of the album (lead guitar with more than 1 note at a time? For shame!) It’s about schizophrenia, though, and I can get behind that.

“Genocide” is a “profound Generation X” styled song about something or other, but I can’t shake the fact that the first line in the chorus, which is “Dog Eat Dog”, sounds remarkably like “Donkey Kong”, so that’s how I’ve always heard the song. Some parodies write themselves, I guess.

Interestingly enough, starting from “Gotta Get Away” and right on through “Something To Believe In” is an interesting phenomenon, Early Album Slowdown. If I didn’t know the “hits” were coming up right around the corner, I might have skipped this album entirely, at least if I were listening to it today, which I am.

Thankfully, the next two songs are quite the party, but surely you have heard them by now, so I don’t have to say much else about them.

“It’ll Be A Long Time” brings the typical punk beat right back in, along with the political unrest. It’s a good enough song, for sure, but really if you want your political points to be known, you might try singing them to where people don’t have to read along with the lyrics sheet. Also, if you are going to make people read along on the lyrics sheet, maybe make the lyrics a font slightly bigger than that which requires a magnifying glass. Honestly though, if I felt like that it was an intentional move to make your lyrics undiscernable and then print the lyrics of your important words on microscopic font, I would award these guys a medal.

“Killboy Powerhead” is an interesting song, since it makes absolutely no sense at all. It’s also much more “punk rock” than even the punk songs from the earlier parts of the album, so kudos there, I suppose.

“What Happened To You?” is a much better song lyrically (not musically, it’s ska), and explores the dangers of drug abuse (see, The Offspring are socially responsible!) I’m not sure smoking too much marijuana is going to really kill you, the jury’s out on that one, but it will make you extraordinarily stupid, so I guess you might as well be dead at that point. Either way, it’s a song that would not work except in the back of the album, where the “extra” songs go.

“So Alone” is a song that wouldn’t even exist if I didn’t just say it does, it’s that short and tediously like the other filler songs. I do like the shouting, though.

Finally we’ve got “Not The One”, which ends the album on a stunning political note! Ok, so it’s not stunning, there were about 20 billboards on the way to this song saying “Political Song – Next Exit”, but really isn’t that the point of punk-rock? It just so happens that a couple of catchy alternative rock songs paved the way for this album to be not only one of the best-selling punk albums, but the number one best selling independent label album of all time! Luckily, having only one foot in the pond of American disestablishmentarianism means that the fans didn’t get all pissy when this band sold out… time and time again.

I never really got into The Offspring after Smash, I’ll admit, mainly because songs like “Pretty Fly (For A White Guy)” and “Original Prankster” are far too irritating to warrant an entire album listening. Even as an early teenager, I knew this in my heart. Still, Smash is a good occasional listen, if for nothing else, than to elicit that ever-present question from anyone that knows me and my musical tastes:

“What? You like The Offspring?”

Warren Zevon – Bad Luck Streak In Dancing School

I woke up this morning in a terrible state, basically I had to take a very physical lesson in not eating lime-flavored shrimp ramen, no matter how broke you are. I now find myself with an entire day to sit around in pain, and it reminded me that we haven’t checked in on one of my favorite artists in a while:

Now, last we left Warren Zevon, he had just gone from total obscurity playing piano in an Irish pub in Spain to releasing two amazing albums and was well on his way towards the top… or at least a very comfortable place closer to the middle. Either way, as it always is, the pressure was on to follow up Excitable Boy with something equally… well… exciting. At least, I imagine the pressure was there, apparently Warren himself never felt it. In an interview from about 8 years ago, he revealed that he never really considered himself a rock star who would rise and fall according to the whims of the public, but instead a successful folk singer who somehow stumbled into fame once or twice.

That’s really a good attitude to have about it, but Zevon’s approach to folk music was certainly rock-inspired, at least in Bad Luck Streak In Dancing School. Nearly every song is a rocker, and some of them seemed destined to be great live hits, since they hardly deviated from the established chord progressions and melodies, and this album would perhaps be the only example of Zevon subscribing to the “more choruses, the merrier” attitude of recording that has remained so popular in country music. However, none of these things are particularly bad, in fact this album is quite a strong release, but the lack of “Werewolves Of London” type hits signaled a decline in record sales that the next album would solidify.

The album starts, interestingly enough, with a bouncy set of strings playing a piece of music that gives way to the rock guitars. The song “Bad Luck Streak In Dancing School” is very sparse lyrically, but seems more concerned with throwing out dual lead guitar solos and a really kickin’ march-inspired beat. The oft-repeated line “Down on my knees in pain” is certainly something I can relate to.

The one “single” that charted from this album is “A Certain Girl”, which is a very catchy R&B song, actually first recorded by Ernie K-Doe (written by Allen Toussaint), and is thus a cover. It was rare for Zevon to cover songs, but whenever he did it was usually way better than the original (as I understand, he covered Leonard Cohen’s “First We Take Manhattan” which is yet another instance of artists I love crossing paths). The hook is this song is really excellent:

Zevon: There is a certain girl I’ve been in love with a long, long time
Backup singers: What’s her name?
Zevon: I can’t tell ya.
Backup singers: Ahhhh…

That “What’s her name” bit is repeated through many lines, with the backup singers conversing with the singer on many points. I always love this move. Something similar happens on The Rutles album too.

The next song is a bit of a rhythmic jam called “Jungle Work” which is another song about mercenaries, only without the ballad-type storytelling of “Roland The Headless Thompson Gunner”. It’s still groovy, though, and is a type of song he came back to a few times in the earlier albums.

Then, as is customary in these types of albums, the mood is slowed down with a piano piece called “Empty-Handed Heart”, which is a song of heart-break, a subject Warren seems to have no trouble writing about, no matter how complex the subject. This time, it was divorce from his wife, but not a messy, hate-filled one, in fact they remained friends and he charged her with the task of writing his biography when he died. The lyrics to this song are somehow better than the ones in the previous albums’ ballads, which is something that Science once called impossible, but Warren did anyway.

An interlude brings us from that song to the next, which is quite fancy, but the next song is “Play It All Night Long”, a live favorite poking viciously at Southern life and, in particular, “Sweet Home Alabama”, which opens up the chorus:

Sweet Home Alabama
Play that dead band’s song
Turn those speakers up full blast
Play it all night long

As Wikipedia concedes, it’s probably the only song to make full use of the word “Brucellosis”. The song is quite catchy and actually one of my favorites from his Stand In The Fire live show.

Another song that’s great live is “Jeannie Needs A Shooter”, which is the first Zevon song to feature Bruce Springsteen, as I understand. However, I’m not sure what he did in the song, other than helping to write it, because there are no background vocals, and that doesn’t seem to be him playing guitar. Oh well, it’s a song about being a “shooter” (perhaps an outlaw) and wooing a girl named “Jeannie” much against her lawman father’s wishes, but finally he gets his way… or does he? This song is so much better played raucously live.

Another interlude brings us to the song “Bill Lee”. I have no idea what this song’s about, though I love the opening lyrics:

You’re supposed to sit on your ass and nod at stupid things
Man, that’s hard to do
And if you don’t, they’ll screw you
And if you do, they’ll screw you too

Another fun part is where he says “Sometimes I say things I shouldn’t, like…” and instead of saying anything, he plays a harmonica line. It’s kind of like how trumpets would be used to signify adults speaking in all those Peanuts cartoons.

A strange song indeed, given the minory tone of the rest of the album, is “Gorilla, You’re A Desperado”, which has this wood-block driven tropical beat, accordion sounds, all kinds of synths, and an interesting story about a gorilla stealing your identity. Don’t get me wrong, the song is entertaining and very clever, just a REALLY sharp left turn compared to the rest of the album. Still, this is also a sound that Zevon would re-visit, and he always writes his “funny” songs with this kind of cheesy electronic music. I have no other explanation than that this is 1980 we’re talking about here.

Then we’re right back to the fancy piano playing for “Bed Of Coals”, as if the previous song didn’t even happen. The lyrics were co-written with T-Bone Burnett, a famous guy, and seem to be about alcoholism, maybe not to the profound effect of “Desperado Under The Eaves” but certainly to some kind of effect. My particular favorite line is:

I’m too old to die young
And too young to die now

It’s a good song, overall, and has a slide guitar solo that sounds suspiciously like it is being played by one of The Eagles. I bet it’s Joe Walsh. He played slide on one of my favorite Zevon tunes that I will talk about in many, many months.

A strange piano and bass melody opens up “Wild Age”, in fact the interplay between bass and piano is interesting all throughout. I guess that’s what happens when you’re playing with a legend like Leland Sklar. The song is basically about living “the wild age”, and is about irresponsible youth, and would probably be only 1 minute instead of 4 1/2 if it weren’t for the chorus. Man, so many choruses! At least there’s some screaming descant near the end.

With that, Zevon’s first of many “unpopular” albums ends. Again, I consider the whole thing to be strong, particularly the first half, and I believe it’s the last album Zevon used strings quite so heavily on. He even avoided using very many of them (if any at all) on his final album.

Now I am off to lay down and listen to more music and maybe eat some toast. Please join us next time as we examine yet another album, every single day, here at Album Du Jour.

Primus – Sailing The Seas Of Cheese

I mentioned in my Cake writeup the other day that certain bands, at the risk of becoming entrenched in a certain sound, will defy the whole idea of “genres” and will mix so many things together that it becomes something entirely different. The “prime” example of this phenomenon would be Primus, a band that, if you have ever heard a song by them, you should know all too well by now. Though I’ve owned one album since it was brand new (Antipop), the album that stuck with me the most is Sailing The Seas Of Cheese:

Now, I don’t know a whole lot about Primus the band other than listening to the music, seeing some of the concerts, and recognizing the fact that they have a pretty sizable and very dedicated cult following. However, having heard more than a couple of songs, I can attempt to boil down their unique sound for you. Basically, it takes slap-funk bass, surrounds it with metal guitar and drums, and then takes the whole thing and pushes it on a swingset ALL THE WAY AROUND so that it’s inside out and barely recognizable yet you instantly know something’s wrong.

That something I believe is what’s called “Dimished” chords, which work well as transition chords, but when they ARE the chords being transitioned, suddenly you’ve got the Devil’s own rock n’ roll, and when you put that to a rhythm set up by slap bass, well it’s now very evil music indeed, but the kind of evil that is attractive in its own way.

Of course, since the chords and structure of the music has all been subverted, so too are the lyrics. Primus lyrics, when they make sense (they usually don’t), are themed around degradation and despair, but in kind of a heroic way. The band kind of sort of maybe has something to say, but most of it’s said with the bass, and indeed some of the best bass-driven songs are very simple ideas, lyrically. Something like “Jerry Was A Racecar Driver”, which contains one of the best bass-lines in history, is lyrically about a racecar driver… named Jerry.

Other songs, such as “American Life” and “Those Damned Blue-Collar Tweekers”, are based around a relatively simple bass-line, but are also very heavy-handed social commentary on the poor and mistreated in this land of the free.

The album is bookended by a very interesting set of songs, one is “Here Come The Bastards”, which is, well, a song about bastards who are imminent. The second part of this, “Los Bastardos”, samples one of my favorite episodes of one of my favorite British comedies, The Young Ones, specifically the episode “Sick” where Vyvyan, the “Very Metal” character, is shouting at church bells to “SHUT UP YOU BASTARDS”.

Lead singer/bassist Les Claypool is both a self-taught bassist and a self-styled singer. I’ll give you a hint and tell you that he does one of those things extremely well. However, “good” singing doesn’t seem like it would suit the style of Primus, as toneless mewing works so much better for chaotic music than toneful mewing. Plus, when your singing is that bad you can enlist folk like Tom Waits to have pity on you and guest-vocal on one of your songs. Such a song is “Tommy The Cat” where Tom lends a very cartoony and raspy voice to the title character, while Les narrates the story very, very quickly. The whole thing turns into a swapped-around chorus of “Hey baby do you wanna lay down with me” which is sung rhythmically and then shouted, and it’s like the best thing ever and such.

Actually, the best thing ever would have to be “Is It Luck?”, because you not only have the crazy-fast-I-have-no-idea-how-he-did-that-bass-line, but the lyrics are excellent in the same way, rhythmic narrating and rhythmic shouting. Particularly, the bridge narration is wonderfully witty but still twisted.

Also twisted is the song right after, where he sings in a goofy baritone/bass voice in the shower. Or maybe even more twisted is the “Sathington Waltz”, which is more “Sathington” than “Waltz”, I feel. If I were a much better writer/music appreciator, I could tell you exactly what’s going on in the minute and a half of this track, but as it happens I am going to evade the subject entirely.

There is also apparently a “Fisherman’s Trilogy” going on between three of the Primus albums, but since this is the only one I have heard all the way through in this particular “era”, I only know Chapter 2, which is “Fish On”, and one of the other ones (but only through one of the Guitar Hero games). Fishing, it has been noted, is one of Les Claypool’s favorite pastimes.

Another of Claypool’s favorite pastimes is coming up with interesting characters to build songs around. Of course we have the previously-mentioned “Tommy The Cat”, but “Sgt. Baker” is another interesting one, since it’s a twisted marching song sung through the perspective of a salty old drill Sgt. It reminds me a great deal of the more authoritative adults from my past life, so I can relate, particularly with the remark “Steers and queers, steers and queers, where you come from is all steers and queers, and I don’t see no horns, boy!”  Lovely touch of satire, there.

Actually, now that I think about it, I think my favorite song is “Jerry Was A Racecar Driver” probably just because of the bass-line, and how much time I spent trying to figure it out before learning just how many strings I would have to have on my bass to pull it off correctly. Hint: the answer is “more than four”.

So, in no particular order, that’s Sailing The Seas Of Cheese for ya, and I am happy to report that there is a lot more variety within Primus’ unique sound than Cake, in my opinion anyway. Both bands really have nothing to change for, though, because their sound is unique to the point that unchecked replication is never really frowned upon, and neither band has every done commercially “well” enough to have to change their sound to stay in the limelight. You know Primus does not crave the limelight, however, as one of their most popular concert tradition is the audience chanting “PRIMUS SUCKS!” That takes a special kind of class all its own.

Also the band opened for U2 at some point. What?!

Flight Of The Conchords – Flight Of The Conchords

The occasionally updated and even more occasionally entertaining racial comedy blog Stuff White People Like considers “musical comedy”, that is, comedy set to music, to be something that only White Anglo-Saxon Protestant people of today find entertaining. Sure about 80-90% of rap music is comedy-based and Korean music IS comedy, but you know the guy’s got a book, so that kind of gives him license to say whatever he wants on a blog.

Well, white or not, it’s so unbearably hard not to like Flight Of The Conchords, and why not? Sure every comedian that has a guitar has a hit song, but musically speaking, Bret McKenzie and Jermaine Clement are as capable as any Rutle or Weird Al Yankovic. Flight Of The Conchords has a slight edge over everyone else in the Musical Comedy game at the moment, however, and that is that they’re hip and in and trendy (or indie, if you combine the two):

Indeed, a lot of the humor of the HBO show from which this album is derived is an age-old formula but has been a very popular and possibly over-used device in “indie” comedy films, and that is extreme awkwardness. The first “big deal” in comedy to use this effect that I noticed to use this device as every joke was Napoleon Dynamite, which is a comedy that blends absurd (but often remarkably close to true) situations/events with characters that forever reconcile their awkward personalities with a misplaced sense of confidence. Correctly done, it wins every time (incorrectly done, and you’ve got Nacho Libre*), and Flight Of The Conchords is the best example yet of this humor, because the fact that we, as Americans, know so precious little about other countries, an endless myriad of jokes can be made about New Zealand culture (and their rivalry with the much larger but dangerous continent of Australia), and we’ll be laughing away at the awkwardness while simultaneously looking up Wikipedia to see if the joke would hit home with a native New Zealander, since we’re planning to study abroad in New Zealand anyway (see? it’s remarkably easy to write like the Stuff White People Like Guy).

Run-on sentences aside, I resisted watching Flight Of The Conchords purely on the type of people who were telling me that it’s the most brilliant show in the universe. Thick-rimmed glasses, beards, tight vintage clothing, and unbearably hip short-movement body language… oh yes, indie fans were telling me about how top-notch this show was. I could not help but be on my guard, as I have followed “indie” recommendations before and it has always lead me to the worst music, worst films, and worst anything of anything and everything because holy crap what is wrong with people?! Whew, anyway when Flight Of The Conchords came out with a CD I decided to finally check what this show is about (don’t know why it came down to that). I picked up the DVD series on sale, the album, and The Distant Future EP, since the latter was only $4.

I did the wise thing, and that was to save listening to the album until I had watched the entire series. Sure enough, I put the DVD into my crappy computer and watched one episode… then another…

Initially, I was not impressed. The comedy was exactly what I expected, subtle, rife with irony, and irrepressibly awkward, and most of the characters in the show looked and talked like the very indie cartoon characters that were recommending the show in the first place. However, each episode had 2 songs in it, and something really clicked with me in those songs. I dreaded that I had wasted my money on the DVD, but at least I knew the CD was going to be all right.

Then I saw another episode, specifically the “Mugged” episode, and something clicked inside, maybe it was the rap “Hiphopopotamus Vs. Rhymenocerus“, and the plot revolving betrayal and friendship and Marvin Gaye inspired inspirational music with lyrics like:

They’re turning kids into slaves just to make cheaper sneakers
But what’s the real cost? ‘Cause the sneakers don’t seem that much cheaper
Why we still payin’ so much for sneakers when you got them made by little slave kids? What are your overheads?

And suddenly every episode was solid gold, because I guess I had forgotten that, despite its popularity, I loved Napoleon Dynamite, I loved Eagle Vs. Shark (another “indie” comedy also starring Jermaine Clement), and indeed Flight Of The Conchords is the best of them all. So I guess the lesson here is, just because you’re clever enough to predict when something’s going to be funny doesn’t mean you can’t also laugh at it.

So I watched every episode, re-watched them, found even MORE to love, and then never really watched them again, that is, until I finish with this writeup and then I’m going to totally check out an episode or two.

Then it was time to listen to the album. If I were really one to “review” things I would say that you, too, should probably check out the show before you really listen to the music on its own, because a lot of the music is centered around what was written into the shows, though a few songs were written before the show and thus stand on their own quite nicely.

The first track, “Foux Du Fafa“, based around the joke that people who don’t really know how to speak French LOVE to speak French (please try to ignore that this blog is called “Album Du Jour” while you think of that), and is set to a very jazzy “French” sounding tune. The song’s largely visual, but the fake conversations work in any context, and if you have even a rudimentary understanding of French, you’ll get every joke.

“Inner City Pressure” is a song I didn’t really dig at first, but now it’s one of my favorites, mainly because it’s pure absurdity:

You don’t know where you’re going, you cross the street
You don’t know why you did, you walk back across the street

And it’s about being poor, which I can relate to believe you me.

Then we have the afore-mentioned “Hiphopopotamus Vs. Rhymenocerous” which should absolutely be watched/listened to without the context of the show, because A. it predates the show and is hilarious just for being a rap song, and B. within the show’s context the song is really awkwardly shoved in and it actually diminishes the effect to have it set up by the show.

The concept of absurd lyrics within a very specific type of song idea is revisited for “Think About It”, and I love the gags in the song, but the song itself is in a style I just can’t get behind, so I guess I’m undecided as to whether I really like the song or just like to think about how funny it is.

“Motha’uckas” is basically a rap song that contains a lot of self-censorship (as you can tell by the title), and in one part is based around the episode where Jermaine and Brett, despite being white, are victims of racism. The song’s ok, but the novelty is spread extremely thin, so it may only work as possibly the only instance of “hard core” rapping done on fixed-gear bicycles.

“Ladies Of The World” is another song that, musically, I am not much into, but the song seems to stem from an awkwardness with ladies that translates very well into over-confidence with them, in song. I don’t mind telling you that this is the big secret of writing songs about women. The song has a non-episode video on Youtube that’s quite a lot better than the one in the show, mainly for the intro. Also notice how much better the “album” version of the song is than the “show” version, that’s pretty much true for every song.

“The Prince Of Parties” needs no real set-up, it’s supposed to be an acid-based Indian-influenced number ala George Harrison (or, most recently, indie-folk favorite “Iron & Wine”, though that has nothing to do with this song, I am going to have to write up their latest album here soon).

“Leggy Blonde” kind of requires a bit of set-up, and I’m too lazy to give it. You’ll just have to watch the episode!

The next song, “Robots“, kind of renders me incapable of criticizing the band’s humor too much, since I wrote a “hit” song about Robots a couple of years ago. Indeed, Flight Of The Conchord’s song is way better, but both songs were built around the idea of a person singing a celebratory song about robots in case the robots take over (a favorite subject amongst clever people I suppose), and yeah I wrote my song in 2006, but don’t worry, I won’t sue.

The song “Boom” was apparently inspired by the Reggae rapper Shaggy, but knowing nothing of Reggae, I still found the song hilarious. You might too!

Very strangely, despite “Boom” being a very sexual song, “A Kiss Is Not A Contract” is a very anti-sex song. It’s also nowhere near as catchy! It reminds me a great deal of this pro-abstinence skit done on Tim And Eric Awesome Show Great Job! starring David Cross, and that song is way funnier but I guess is against the rules to put on Youtube.

Then we have “The Most Beautiful Girl (In The Room)“, which is in the first episode and is fairly funny. It predates the show considerably, as I understand, and harkens back to humor that goes all the way back to the beginnings of film and vaudeville (in that, I have seen similar jokes on The Three Stooges and Marx Bros.), and that is to compliment someone with a very mundane observation, or a half-hearted compliment. I’m reminded of an infamous line by Groucho Marx, “Why you’re one of the most beautiful women I ever saw, and that’s not saying much for you.”

Then, ending the 4-song streak about women, is the stale lover love song called “Business Time“, which is kind of like acoustic porn music and Jermaine’s excellent “soul” voice. The album version contains entirely different “spoken word” segments, and both are hilarious, so it’s a great song and can be enjoyed entirely without the show.

Finally, we have “Bowie“, which is a pastiche on David Bowie’s music, with the duo each doing a separate Bowie impression. It’s an immensely entertaining song, and my favorite on the album, and I’m not even a David Bowie fan! Better than the song, however, is the episode it’s tied to, where Brett is visited by David Bowie in his dreams (it’s actually Jermaine doing an awkward impression of Bowie), and it’s funky, I can assure you.

Then, with that, a brief revisit to “Foux Du Fafa” brings the album to a close. It’s a brilliant album, really, but only if you’ve seen the episodes and the music segments were your favorite. So, if you, like me, have resisted checking out Flight Of The Conchords because some beardy guy in an English schoolboy cap or fedora (no offense to my good and non-trendy friend Wes who used to wear a fedora, but offense can be taken by the rest of you trendy bastards) told you it was the best thing on Earth, you can at least take my recommendation as coming from a non-hip and completely trend-less lover of comedy, because these guys really are good. Maybe not the best thing on Earth, but at the very least, the 4th best folk parody duo in New Zealand (which is how the band self-deprecatingly refers to themselves).

*Don’t get me wrong, I actually really like Nacho Libre and have probably watched it more than Napoleon Dynamite willingly, but I’m always absolutely alone in doing so.

Johnny Cash – The Fabulous Johnny Cash

Though many sources (including this one) may tell you that the American Recordings albums from Johnny Cash were his best, it’s actually probably not true. The American albums are certainly the most accessible albums by today’s standards, since the only thing most people like about Johnny Cash is his voice (actually apparently the only thing the current generation likes about Johnny Cash is that he’s an old guy that covered Nine Inch Nails, bastards), and the American albums feature that and really only that. Of course, I am not complaining, since they are my favorite set of albums, but there are what I would call 4 distinct times in his career that have to be appreciated to get a clear understanding of how he worked and continues to work (despite having passed on, now THAT’S dedication), and the 2nd of those times are his late 50′s/early 60′s recordings with Columbia Records, of which The Fabulous Johnny Cash is the first.

The story behind this album is that Johnny Cash, along with a few of his compatriots, had been signed to Sun Records (where he got his start) and had been doing pretty well there, but “Folsom Prison Blues”, “I Walk The Line”, and a few other of his everlasting hits had drawn the attention of all the biggest labels, who all came a-courtin’. Cash decided on Columbia because they offered him, on top of more money and artistic freedom and exposure and trinkets and helicopters and pancakes, also gave him the ability to do one thing that Sam Phillips was famously never interested in letting Johnny Cash do: an album of all Gospel music.

So Cash went with it, but kept it from Sam Phillips and even (regretfully, in his own words) lied to him at one point about going to another label when his Sun contract had expired. Eventually he came clean, and a few artists (one amongst them being newcomer Roy Orbison) left Sun to pursue glittery pop star lives elsewhere. However, to fulfill contractual obligation, Johnny Cash had to record X amount of songs for Phillips, and decided to just do a bunch of covers and less thought-through songs, saving the best for his Columbia debut, which, coincidentally, I’m supposed to be talking about right now!

Indeed this is some of Johnny Cash’s best. He had moved into a nicer studio with fancier equipment (including his slightly gauche Gibson acoustic guitar with “Johnny Cash” written in all cursive letters across the fretboard and 2 inexplicable pick guards but anyway), and had more guest musicians at his disposal, but none of that mattered, because all he really ever needed were The Tennessee Three, who all sound in top form on this recording.

First, stone-faced Luther Perkins brings one of his famous 2-note guitar lines to introduce “Run Softly, Blue River”, which is soon replaced by a team of backup singers, who are not necessary but I’m sure it was a killer sound at the time. The lyrics are about as innocuous as you could possibly imagine:

Run softly, blue river, my darling’s asleep
Run softly, blue river, run cool and deep
Oh I thrill to her kisses, and she thrills to mine
Run softly while she sleeps and dreams for a time

Which might be a shock to people who think Johnny Cash only sings about killing people and going to prison and shooting up heroin. A further shock may come when they find out that this is actually a really good song.

Another really good one, though more of an “updated classic” than an original composition, is “Frankie’s Man, Johnny”, and yes “Frankie” is clearly a girl in this song. It’s a fairly clever song about Johnny, a musician, who is playing a show and trying to score with a red-haired lady, which isn’t so cool, but then hijinks ensue and the story has a moral. How many songs nowadays have a line like “Well the moral of this story…”? It’s a pretty great moral, too.

The next song, “That’s All Over”, should not be confused with a Johnny Cash original called “It’s All Over”, so pay ye heed.

“The Troubadour” is a tune by Cindy Walker, who was around about 20 years before Johnny Cash and actually outlived him by about 3 years, and was praised for having a very unpretentious songwriting style. Indeed, this song seems quite honest, and is about being the lonely showman who sings through the broken heart that inspired the hit music he sings. Such a thing is fairly typical amongst songwriter types, you see. The story is a bit more complex than that, however, as the actual subject of the song is present as well, which I have to admit is very clever.

Though, when putting together the career-spanning concept compilation “Love, God, Murder”, Johnny Cash stated that those are the three main elements to his music, he apparently forgot to mention “Trains”. It’s hard to turn around in The Man In Black’s discography without running into some kind of train song. Not only did he like singing about trains, but he rather enjoyed getting his band to sound like a train, and that is certainly evident in “One More Ride”, since he not only has W.S. “Fluke” Holland playing his famous train drum line, but the backup singers are even singing “Buyaa ba ba” which kind of sounds train-like. The song itself is good too, with an interesting melody and words written by Bob Nolan.

The next song, however, is even better. It’s called “That’s Enough” and it was written by a particularly sassy black gospel singer named Dorothy Coates. The words convey an interesting attitude for a gospel song, summarized quite nicely in the last line “I’ve got Jesus, and that’s enough.”, which has a bit of a dual meaning, being that Jesus is enough in life so you don’t need material possessions or the love of people or anything, but the meaning is shifted slightly in that the singer doesn’t have any of those things anyway. The person in the song has Jesus, and that’s enough,  though in Johnny’s case, a really awkward multi-transition key change is icing on the cake.

The latter half of the album actually contains rather a host of hits as well, starting with “I Still Miss Someone”, a song that Cash gives some credit to his father for helping him write (though in what capacity I have no idea). This song has been recorded and re-recorded many, many times, once even as a duet with George Jones. It also happens to be one of my favorite Cash originals, and this is probably the definitive version.

Speaking of Cash originals, another fine one is “Don’t Take Your Guns To Town”, an extremely sparse song instrumentally, but this is good, because it is an excellent story song. I honestly wish Johnny Cash would have done more songs like this, but the sheer variety of tunes he did is more than sufficient, who could ask for more? Oh, he re-wrote the song to perform it on Sesame Street, that’s what you asked for, right?

One thing that I love about Country music, well, OLD Country music (still, a lot of it has spilled over into today’s garbage) is the “obsequious love song”. A good instance of this phenomenon is the song “I’d Rather Die Young”, which was by a team of Country musicians I’ve never heard of:

I’d rather die young than live without you
So don’t ever leave me, whatever you do

I love songs that assume that there’s no solution to relationship problems other than just not leaving each other.

Another great Country song in the bare definition of the term as it was originally intended is the song that defines how impossibly hard it was to live in the Country and make a living in an Agricultural culture. Indeed, Johnny Cash experienced that first-hand, as he grew up on a cotton farm, and in fact the words to “Pickin’ Time” is one of two early songs he wrote about the subject that are entirely true (the other is “Five Feet High And Rising”). It’s just basically about how bad things are, but how good they will be once the cotton blooms and it’s “Pickin’ Time”. Personally, I think it’s a grand metaphor for another kind of pickin’, that of the guitar player, but maybe that’s just me being idealistic.

“Shepherd Of My Heart” is another song written by a woman, Jenny Lou Carson, who was actually the first woman to score a number 1 hit in Country. It’s odd to hear Johnny singing a song that is supposed to be sung by a woman, but even more odd is the fact that it works every single time.

Finally, we have an excellent song that seems to never get any respect, “Suppertime”. I guess the reason it has never been lauded as a spectacular song is because it’s a gospel song that combines love of family and home with the promise of Heaven. Sam Phillips was right in saying that stuff would never sell. Too bad, really, because it is a great song, and is indeed an oddity in and of itself, as it prominently features a “lap steel”, which is one of the most standard instruments in Country music out in Nashville, but Johnny Cash seemed to have avoided it deftly through the years. In fact, the very first song Johnny Cash ever recorded was with a lap steel player who worked at Sears, worked on recording “Wide Open Road” with Johnny Cash for 3 days, and then retired from music forever.

Speaking of retiring forever, we come now to the end of The Fabulous Johnny Cash proper, an album that is indeed fabulous, even if Johnny wouldn’t admit it himself. In fact, he seemed to hate saying the rather proud title, and in a televised concert, actually had Luther Perkins say the title instead. What a guy, that Johnny Cash. What a guy.