Republican Music Police

16. Nirvana – In Utero (1993)

Whether or not he was killed by Courtney <3> (he was)Kurt Cobain was not as dark as most would have you believe. Call it the Morrissey syndrome. Heaven knows he’s not THAT miserable, even now, six feet under. I bet Kurt’s smirking all the way down the Acheron. Because really, what Cobain really really was (not martyr, not spokesman for a generation, not nothing else) was a smartass. Which is why Nirvana is just that so that fucking damn good. Around the time this album came out Nirvana recorded a song called “I Hate Myself and I Want to Die.” Clearly an ominous song title given the events of 1994, but even so, the lyrics are as sardonic as can be: “runny nose and runny yolk/ even if you have a cold, still/ you can cough on me again/ I still haven’t had my full fill” Not only is the rhyme preposterous, but the Let it Bleed joke is unmistakable. Cf. to Kurt’s chorus of Verse Chorus Verse (one of the most cynical song titles in recent memory) of “We’re in a laundry room/ We’re in a in a laundry room.” This is not a tortured youth. . .well at least, not mostly. This is a stoner with his in jokes and middle finger up at the record industry, the status quo, even his fucking fans.

But enough about “Nirvana” the IDEAL and on to In Utero, which is one of the 20 best albums I own. This is an album by all means. Nevermind, as good as it was, was a plea for commercial attention. No, Nirvana probably didn’t have any stylists or makeup men, but they were poised by Geffen to sell a lot a lot of records with Nevermind and they probably were in on that scheme. Geffen certainly had similar plans for In Utero but Nirvana was clearly less concerned with lining their coffers than making a ripshit rock record. Hiring Steve Albini was step one. Turning volume up from the already loud Nevermind was step two. Writing a lot of really good really bitter really cynical songs was step three. Starting the album with Serve the Servants and its opening line “Teenage angst has paid off well/ now I’m bored and old,” could serve as the touchstone theme of the album. However, perhaps a less-quoted couplet might serve just as well: “I just wanted you to know/ I don’t hate you anymore/ There is nothing I can say/ I haven’t thought before.” This is an album of resignation, but a damned defiant one.

Everything you college kids (us college kids, I guess) think about dissatisfaction: that we can effect change, that things aren’t necessarily hopeless – Kurt and I don’t quite agree. But just because things aren’t likely to change doesn’t mean you can’t get something out of them. This album, forgive the overreaching, is an existentialist outburst. An ejaculation, if you will, of pure frustration. I hate to read too much into Kurt’s book report “Scentless Apprentice,” but his narrative as the outcast murderer from some damn French book begs the question of whether he is happy to function normally in a society in which fratboys were playing his songs loud as fuck out of the open window of their jeeps. You know, the same fratboys who were taking his lunch money 10 years earlier.

The album is full of this discontent. Heart Shaped Box (and forgive me this digression, but did anyone else cringe when Courtney Love said in an interview in Spin that this was her favorite Nirvana song b/c she “likes any song about her vagina”?) is one of the most fucked up love songs of all time. “Hey wait! I’ve got a new complaint!”? It beats the hell out of even “Go Your Own Way,” for dysfunction. Rape Me and Frances Farmer Will Have Her Revenge on Seattle are two of the most acid tongue in cheek songs ever penned, with the latter’s “I miss the comfort in being sad” chorusline serving as an ethos for the entire mid-90’s oeuvre. Pennyroyal Tea is a haunting song about, of all things, contraceptive liquids (although it’s performed quite a bit better on Unplugged). And Dumb and All Apologies are always read as suicide notes, but am I the only one who hears them as drug odes?

What makes this album stand out over Nevermind, for me, is how it goes in so many different directions, how it never seems to find itself, and in that way, not in any other way, not a single other way, exemplifies the 1990’s. Kurt Cobain is dead. Long live Kurt Cobain, as some asshole once said. But it may be true. If Nirvana didn’t exist would we have been able to invent them? Or half the stuff that they made possible?

17.REM – Automatic For the People (1992)

The thing is, I’ll always say I don’t like something, and there’ll be an exception to prove me wrong. Like The Flaming Lips and Love countering my “I don’t like Psychedelia” thing. But nothing is more troubling than the fact that I love this album despite my complete disinterest in ambient music. Because this album is so buttfucking ambient it nearly makes me sick. But the other thing is that it’s so goddamned good, I can’t stop listening to it.

Starting with Drive, Stipe’s nonsense lyrics just begin to beat themselves into your head over and over again. What other song could be so successful with an orchestra, no chorus, and the lyrics “Ollie. Ollie. Ollie ollie ollie.”? I mean, I am honestly curious as to whether Stipe means anything by his lyrics. Clearly they came from somewhere, but I’ll be g-goddamned if I know what “smack, crack, shack-a-lack/ tie another one to your back/ baby,” means. I have to assume the “Hey kids/ rock and roll/ nobody tells you where to go,” line is an homage to David Essex’s “Rock On,” but I’ll be damned. And Peter Buck’s guitar tone continues to cover up his real lack of technical ability. But isn’t that always the way in rock and roll.

The album really starts to get interesting after Drive though. Try Not To Breathe is probably my favorite song on the album, which is a startling thing considering how many good songs are on the album. A song about, of all things, euthanasia, the melody, cadence, and guitar work make it such a large creation, greater than the sum of its parts could ever hope to be. “I will hold my breath,” Stipe says, “Until all these shivers subside.” Me too. Then Sidewinder Sleeps Tonight follows with a melody that masks perhaps the most ridiculous lyrics in rock and roll history. It’s not that they’re bad. It’s that it’s impossible to render a value judgment on lines like “this here is a place where I will stay here/ there isn’t a number you can call the payphone/ let it ring a long long long long time/ if I don’t pick up, hang up, call back, let it ring some more/ oh/ if I don’t pick up, pick up, the sidewinder sleep sleep sleeps in a coil.” An obvious ode to Lion Sleeps Tonight, it’s almost as if Stipe intends to approximate the nonsense lyrics of the previous songs with actual words. The end result is palpable, to say the least, and the musical and rhythmic structure is ingenious.

When you consider that just the hits alone (add Everybody Hurts, Man on the Moon, and Nightswimming to the mix) would make for a great album, and then add the fact that this LP is constructed to be a complete and wholly autonomous entity, this becomes an astonishing achievement for a band who previous (in my opinion) had not quite glimpsed greatness over SEVEN albums.

18.Elvis Costello – My Aim is True (1977)

One of the most indicative examples of Elvis Costello’s prodigious lyrical talent occurs in the very first line of the very first song on his very first LP. He opens Welcome to the Working Week singing, “Now that your picture’s in the paper being rhythmically admired/ You can have anyone that you have ever desired.” Even ignoring the ingenious euphemism that populates the first sentence, this is a scathing kiss off. The album is full of them. On Miracle Man there’s “I could say it was the nights that I was lonely/ and you were the only one who’d talk/ I could tell you that I like your sensitivity/ but you know it’s the way that you walk." Or on (The Angels Wanna Wear My) Red Shoes there’s “I said, ‘I’m so happy I could die’/ She said ‘Drop dead’ then left with another guy.” At one point my friend Mark and I had a discussion about who you feel more sorry for – the girl from this album or the girl from Blood on the Tracks. At least with Bob you get mercy. On Alison, Elvis all but threatens to kill his ex. For chrissakes!

Beyond the lyrical subject matter, this album’s got a lot of great music. Backed by the Clovers (who would later become the News of Huey Lewis and the News fame) it gave Elvis a roots rock sound he’d spurn later in favor of synth-based new wave. The pose on the cover of this album evokes Buddy Holly and the music is a worthy successor. Really, there’s so much good stuff here, from the winding lead guitar on Miracle Man, to the bluesy licks on Blame it on Cain, to the 1950’s shuffle of Mystery Dance and No Dancing, this is by far the most musically dynamic of his albums. People point to his later work for its innovations, but the ska is here on Less Than Zero, the lounge pop is here on Alison, the pop rock’s on Red Shoes, the soul is there on Working Week, the blues on Cain. It’s lacking the new wave, but who really liked new wave that much anyway?

19.The Libertines – Up the Bracket (2002)

I wrote an article about a month ago where I credited Pete Doherty with saving rock and roll and my appreciation for this album has only increased since then. I might, however amend my claim to say that Pete Doherty AND Carl Barat saved rock and roll. A standout in its pantheon of early aught’s garage rock (and among The “the”’s) Up the Bracket deserves mention among the best albums of all time. And will get it here.

Opening with the Stonesesque “Vertigo,” the album finds its niche early as a motherfucking fun album. One verse, one chorus, repeat the verse, repeat the chorus, all over a singular riff and dueling vocalists it ramps up the energy to a level that you just don’t think they can sustain. But it continues for five tracks, all the way to the acoustic “Radio America” which Pitchfork claimed was much better than it ought to be. I don’t think it’s that good. I think it’s about as good as it ought to be, which isn’t all that good. But the second half of the album picks it back up and resumes the fever pitch.

Much has been made about crack and heroin and Kate Moss, but all that was in the future beyond this album (although, of course, there are plenty drug references, including the album title) and all you have here, really, is unadulterated rock. If you want to envision the enfent terible Doherty and dysfunctional Barat when you hear this album, that’s your prerogative but none of that is audible. What is audible are some of the greatest lyrics this side of Morrissey. On Vertigo, Barat sings, “Rapture of vertigo/and letting go/ but me myself I was never sure/ was it liquor, or was it my soul,” evocatively complementing the chorus’s plea to “climb up on her window ledge/or you’ll forever be/ running under ladders while the people round you hear you shouting ‘please’”. On Time for Heroes Doherty sings of the “Stylish kids in the riot/ shoveled up like muck/ set the night on fire,” before hamming it up with “you know I cherish you my love,” an obvious reference to the Association’s soul-pop hit.

Produced by Mick Jones of CLASH fame (not of FOREIGNER) this album clearly knows its roots. Everything from the VU to the Clash to the Stones to even the Kinks to the brit punk of 80’s bands like The Jam are all clearly respected but never copied. Sure there are songs that might have been by the Clash. The title track clearly conjures up the ghost of Joe Strummer (who wasn’t actually dead yet, but never mind) but like Oasis before them, but much more cleverly, the Libertines succeed by building upon their heroes’ accomplishments, keeping a close mind on what works in their idols’ catalog and what doesn’t. Call it what you want, but this is an outstanding album.

20. Modest Mouse – The Lonesome Crowded West (1997)

Read this: The Lonesome Crowded West