Republican Music Police
Thursday, April 20, 2006
11. Bob Dylan – Blood on the Tracks (1975)
If Sylvia Plath’s Ariel was debatably the hallmark of the confessionalist movement in poetry, BOTT was the be all and end all of the selfsame movement in songwriting. This is completely odd for a man known for being cryptic and remote. Here, though, he finally gets personal, even when he’s speaking in the third person. And he speaks in the third person quite a bit.
The ultimate breakup record (Christ, am I writing for Cosmo or Rolling Stone?) BOTT is intimate while still mainting the cryptic and unremitting quality Bob built his career around before this. Although this album seems centered around his failed marriage with the infamous Sara, it’s impossible to really pin that down – the lyrics dance around an infinite amount of storylines that aren’t related. Even so, the lyrics possess the brilliance, or at the very least, the intelligence, that has come to define the man who redefined pop music. Has there ever been a more scathing song than Idiot Wind? It’s not just the lyrics (“There’s a lone soldier on the cross/ smoke pouring out of a boxcar door”) evoking heinous war crimes in relation to a failed relationship. It’s the way he sings it. “It was gravity that pulled us down/ and destiny that tore us apart./ You tamed the lion in my cage/ but it just wasn’t enough to change my heart.” How can you really possibly believe that, given the way he sings it? The album’s full of these parting shots. Hell, there’s even a song called “You’re Gonna Make Me Lonesome When You Go,” which has one of my favorite parting passages: “Situations have ended sad/ Realationships have all been bad/ Mine have been like Verlaine’s and Rimbaud/ But there’s no way I could compare/ All those scenes to this affair/ You’re gonna make me lonesome when you go.”
But it’s not just the lyrics. The music is as melodic as Bob’s ever been and would ever be (with the exception of, perhaps, “One More Cup of Coffee”) Banal lyrics in songs like Meet Me in the Morning and You’re a Big Girl Now are saved by fantastically understated lead guitar work. And the chord changes in If You See Her Say Hello would be enough to break your heart. When you add the lyrics whatt you end up with is one of the most soul shattering songs of all time, if you’ll forgive me the potential hyperbole.
And you know what? I haven’t even mentioned Tangled Up in Blue which rivals Bob’s best opening tracks of all time, and he’s had some good ones. And of course it goes without saying that no one can really touch Bob when it comes to opening songs, unless you want to talk about Neil Young or Lou Reed or something, and I don’t particularly care to. I don’t care for Buckets of Rain, and that’s the way I choose to end the discussion of this album – with the same lack of prescience that Bob exercised in ending his album with that dull and cloying song.
12. Weezer – Pinkerton (1996)
I contemplated starting the discussion of the album in two distinct ways. First I considered telling about how I listened to this album yesterday in my car while I was delivering sandwiches, radio turned all the way up, all the windows open and all the associations thereof. Then I realized that’d be pretty solipsistic and potentially uninteresting. Instead I’ll go the other direction.
Basically, anyone whom I talk to extensively about music with (thank Jesus if you’re not among these people…believe me) know I’m crazy about track 1’s. As in, I love track 1’s to the point where my friend Matt calls me out on it all the fucking time. Whatever. What I’m trying to get around to saying is that Pinkerton, of all the albums I absolutely love, has by far (and I mean BY FAR) the shittiest track 1. That’s not to say Tired of Sex isn’t a decent song, that it doesn’t do anything well. I dig the chorus with its itinerary of girls getting “made”. And the solo’s kind of amusing in a butt-plug irony kind of way. But it’s not all that good song. And things don’t particularly pick up with Getchoo, which, although being kind of unfairly dogged, isn’t ALL that unique or interesting a song. It’s got kind of an interesting verse progression but the chorus is pretty bullshit. A pleasant song, but the point is that Pinkerton doesn’t start out with its best foot forward.
But never mind, because it doesn’t look back after those first two tracks. Explore the remainder of the tracklisting and there’s not a lagger among them. No Other One, Why Bother, Across the Sea, the Good Life, El Scorcho, Pink Triangle, Falling For You, and even Butterfly (which is appropriate for an album closer, if not world smashing). All these songs are so well-executed it’s very nearly frightening. The high note on “realiiiiiize” on El Scorcho has been, for me, one of the best vocal moments in rock music (along with the tremulous wail from Jeff Buckley’s Last Goodbye and Axl’s entire performance on Patience). And how is it possible that Pink Triangle could ring so true despite the fact that I am very quite certain I’ve never loved a lesbian.
I’m quite aware that my taste for this album might stem directly from nostalgia. But honestly, I don’t think that four billion people from my age bracket could possibly ALL be so clouded.
13. The Velvet Underrground – White Light/White Heat (1967)
The last VU album, I pointed out its 1968 release date in order to highlight how ahead of the curve they were. I could do the same with this album and it would likely have the same effect. But I think it’s also interesting to note that this album came out the same year as The Velvet Underground and Nico, an album I find interesting, if not particularly good. What this says to me is that in the months between January and November of 1967, The VU found fit to fire Nico (thank God), and completely change their focus to radical experimentalism. The pop sensibilities that hallmarked VU and Nico’s best moments (Sunday Morning, Heroin, Waiting for the Man) are still here but the experimentalism found on songs like Black Angel’s Death Song have become the rule here.
Besides Here She Comes Now, there’s not a moment’s respite from hard rock, distortion and experimentation. Consider how The Gift blurs the line between literature and rock and roll, begging the question of whether rock lyrics could possibly be considered high art (although Reed’s story isn’t particularly stirring prose – it’s the STORY that’s interesting). Also consider the modernism of this postmodernist exercise. In turning a rock song into the story of Waldo Jeffers, Reed and Cale are practically Eliotian in their dredging up of the dead ballad form and rekindling and reshaping its dark presence. Lady Godiva’s operation is another peculiar exercise, with Reed and Cale trading vocals in a way that doesn’t just change the tone, but nearly changes the song completely, with Cale’s soothing Welsh vocals setting one scene and Reed’s dark rasp setting another one. Then you have the trio of noise-rock – the title track, I Heard Her Call My Name, and Sister Ray all housing the caucophanous din of squealing guitars seemingly ambling to nowhere. The last song in particularly is exhausting in its 17:30 minute freeform workout, beating repetition, experimentation and feedback into the ground until it rises from its ashes like some sort of phoenix of some sort.
Could this album have been rated higher? Perhaps. I think this is appropriate for an album that is very very good, if a little short, but that possibly is most important for what it allowed subsequent artists to do. That is, there would likely be no indie rock, for better or for worse, without this album.
14. Wu-Tang Clan – Wu-Tang Forever (1997)
There are over 20 songs here. That’s why this is good. If it had 40 songs, it might be in the top 10. Triumph, Hellz Wind Staff, It’s Yourz, Dog Shit, The Projects, Little Ghetto Boys, Reunited, For Heavenz Sake, Deadly Melody, Impossible, Cash Still Rules (Scary Hours) Visionz – all these songs have meaning for you if you’ve heard the album. The samples are classic too:
“I despise your killing and raping. It’s just, you should be punished. I’m going to chop off your arm.”
I could listen to this album….forever.
15. The Rolling Stones – Exile on Main Street (1967)
What this album does better than Sticky Fingers is in what you don’t notice. There are similarities, of course. Even Rocks Off, the album opener, is reminiscent of Brown Sugar in the way its riff moves down from up. But it’s the things you don’t notice about Exile that make it so good. Like Brown Sugar, or other songs off Sticky Fingers, Rocks Off features a full band but the songwriting is pushed to the forefront. It’s the Stones, so they could never truly be SUBTLE…but it’s almost like they’ve HEARD of subtlety in the short year between Fingers and Exile.
And speaking of Rocks Off, what is it with dissatisfaction and rock music. I guess it shouldn’t be all that surprising from the band who couldn’t get no satis-faction, but “The sunshine bores the daylights out of me,” might be the best fuckoff line in rock music. Then you’ve got Let it Loose’s “I ain’t in luck, I ain’t in love,” and you can imagine the lineage all the way down to The Strokes. But I suppose Exile is so damned good, they might even be forgiven for that.
If Sylvia Plath’s Ariel was debatably the hallmark of the confessionalist movement in poetry, BOTT was the be all and end all of the selfsame movement in songwriting. This is completely odd for a man known for being cryptic and remote. Here, though, he finally gets personal, even when he’s speaking in the third person. And he speaks in the third person quite a bit.
The ultimate breakup record (Christ, am I writing for Cosmo or Rolling Stone?) BOTT is intimate while still mainting the cryptic and unremitting quality Bob built his career around before this. Although this album seems centered around his failed marriage with the infamous Sara, it’s impossible to really pin that down – the lyrics dance around an infinite amount of storylines that aren’t related. Even so, the lyrics possess the brilliance, or at the very least, the intelligence, that has come to define the man who redefined pop music. Has there ever been a more scathing song than Idiot Wind? It’s not just the lyrics (“There’s a lone soldier on the cross/ smoke pouring out of a boxcar door”) evoking heinous war crimes in relation to a failed relationship. It’s the way he sings it. “It was gravity that pulled us down/ and destiny that tore us apart./ You tamed the lion in my cage/ but it just wasn’t enough to change my heart.” How can you really possibly believe that, given the way he sings it? The album’s full of these parting shots. Hell, there’s even a song called “You’re Gonna Make Me Lonesome When You Go,” which has one of my favorite parting passages: “Situations have ended sad/ Realationships have all been bad/ Mine have been like Verlaine’s and Rimbaud/ But there’s no way I could compare/ All those scenes to this affair/ You’re gonna make me lonesome when you go.”
But it’s not just the lyrics. The music is as melodic as Bob’s ever been and would ever be (with the exception of, perhaps, “One More Cup of Coffee”) Banal lyrics in songs like Meet Me in the Morning and You’re a Big Girl Now are saved by fantastically understated lead guitar work. And the chord changes in If You See Her Say Hello would be enough to break your heart. When you add the lyrics whatt you end up with is one of the most soul shattering songs of all time, if you’ll forgive me the potential hyperbole.
And you know what? I haven’t even mentioned Tangled Up in Blue which rivals Bob’s best opening tracks of all time, and he’s had some good ones. And of course it goes without saying that no one can really touch Bob when it comes to opening songs, unless you want to talk about Neil Young or Lou Reed or something, and I don’t particularly care to. I don’t care for Buckets of Rain, and that’s the way I choose to end the discussion of this album – with the same lack of prescience that Bob exercised in ending his album with that dull and cloying song.
12. Weezer – Pinkerton (1996)
I contemplated starting the discussion of the album in two distinct ways. First I considered telling about how I listened to this album yesterday in my car while I was delivering sandwiches, radio turned all the way up, all the windows open and all the associations thereof. Then I realized that’d be pretty solipsistic and potentially uninteresting. Instead I’ll go the other direction.
Basically, anyone whom I talk to extensively about music with (thank Jesus if you’re not among these people…believe me) know I’m crazy about track 1’s. As in, I love track 1’s to the point where my friend Matt calls me out on it all the fucking time. Whatever. What I’m trying to get around to saying is that Pinkerton, of all the albums I absolutely love, has by far (and I mean BY FAR) the shittiest track 1. That’s not to say Tired of Sex isn’t a decent song, that it doesn’t do anything well. I dig the chorus with its itinerary of girls getting “made”. And the solo’s kind of amusing in a butt-plug irony kind of way. But it’s not all that good song. And things don’t particularly pick up with Getchoo, which, although being kind of unfairly dogged, isn’t ALL that unique or interesting a song. It’s got kind of an interesting verse progression but the chorus is pretty bullshit. A pleasant song, but the point is that Pinkerton doesn’t start out with its best foot forward.
But never mind, because it doesn’t look back after those first two tracks. Explore the remainder of the tracklisting and there’s not a lagger among them. No Other One, Why Bother, Across the Sea, the Good Life, El Scorcho, Pink Triangle, Falling For You, and even Butterfly (which is appropriate for an album closer, if not world smashing). All these songs are so well-executed it’s very nearly frightening. The high note on “realiiiiiize” on El Scorcho has been, for me, one of the best vocal moments in rock music (along with the tremulous wail from Jeff Buckley’s Last Goodbye and Axl’s entire performance on Patience). And how is it possible that Pink Triangle could ring so true despite the fact that I am very quite certain I’ve never loved a lesbian.
I’m quite aware that my taste for this album might stem directly from nostalgia. But honestly, I don’t think that four billion people from my age bracket could possibly ALL be so clouded.
13. The Velvet Underrground – White Light/White Heat (1967)
The last VU album, I pointed out its 1968 release date in order to highlight how ahead of the curve they were. I could do the same with this album and it would likely have the same effect. But I think it’s also interesting to note that this album came out the same year as The Velvet Underground and Nico, an album I find interesting, if not particularly good. What this says to me is that in the months between January and November of 1967, The VU found fit to fire Nico (thank God), and completely change their focus to radical experimentalism. The pop sensibilities that hallmarked VU and Nico’s best moments (Sunday Morning, Heroin, Waiting for the Man) are still here but the experimentalism found on songs like Black Angel’s Death Song have become the rule here.
Besides Here She Comes Now, there’s not a moment’s respite from hard rock, distortion and experimentation. Consider how The Gift blurs the line between literature and rock and roll, begging the question of whether rock lyrics could possibly be considered high art (although Reed’s story isn’t particularly stirring prose – it’s the STORY that’s interesting). Also consider the modernism of this postmodernist exercise. In turning a rock song into the story of Waldo Jeffers, Reed and Cale are practically Eliotian in their dredging up of the dead ballad form and rekindling and reshaping its dark presence. Lady Godiva’s operation is another peculiar exercise, with Reed and Cale trading vocals in a way that doesn’t just change the tone, but nearly changes the song completely, with Cale’s soothing Welsh vocals setting one scene and Reed’s dark rasp setting another one. Then you have the trio of noise-rock – the title track, I Heard Her Call My Name, and Sister Ray all housing the caucophanous din of squealing guitars seemingly ambling to nowhere. The last song in particularly is exhausting in its 17:30 minute freeform workout, beating repetition, experimentation and feedback into the ground until it rises from its ashes like some sort of phoenix of some sort.
Could this album have been rated higher? Perhaps. I think this is appropriate for an album that is very very good, if a little short, but that possibly is most important for what it allowed subsequent artists to do. That is, there would likely be no indie rock, for better or for worse, without this album.
14. Wu-Tang Clan – Wu-Tang Forever (1997)
There are over 20 songs here. That’s why this is good. If it had 40 songs, it might be in the top 10. Triumph, Hellz Wind Staff, It’s Yourz, Dog Shit, The Projects, Little Ghetto Boys, Reunited, For Heavenz Sake, Deadly Melody, Impossible, Cash Still Rules (Scary Hours) Visionz – all these songs have meaning for you if you’ve heard the album. The samples are classic too:
“I despise your killing and raping. It’s just, you should be punished. I’m going to chop off your arm.”
I could listen to this album….forever.
15. The Rolling Stones – Exile on Main Street (1967)
What this album does better than Sticky Fingers is in what you don’t notice. There are similarities, of course. Even Rocks Off, the album opener, is reminiscent of Brown Sugar in the way its riff moves down from up. But it’s the things you don’t notice about Exile that make it so good. Like Brown Sugar, or other songs off Sticky Fingers, Rocks Off features a full band but the songwriting is pushed to the forefront. It’s the Stones, so they could never truly be SUBTLE…but it’s almost like they’ve HEARD of subtlety in the short year between Fingers and Exile.
And speaking of Rocks Off, what is it with dissatisfaction and rock music. I guess it shouldn’t be all that surprising from the band who couldn’t get no satis-faction, but “The sunshine bores the daylights out of me,” might be the best fuckoff line in rock music. Then you’ve got Let it Loose’s “I ain’t in luck, I ain’t in love,” and you can imagine the lineage all the way down to The Strokes. But I suppose Exile is so damned good, they might even be forgiven for that.
posted by Chris W # 2:21 PM 
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