Republican Music Police

61: X - Los Angeles (1980)

The first time I wrote about this album, about three years ago, I said “If they dance in Hell, it must be to X’s ‘Los Angeles.’” I reiterate that sentiment and add this corrolary: “If they dance anywhere, it should be to X’s ‘Los Angeles.’” Not that the rockabilly doesn’t grow a little tiresome and not that Exene’s vocals never grate, but this simultaneous melding of about 5 movements (punk, post-punk, rockabilly, Doors-era pyschadelia, beat poetry) always seems to have something about it that catches your ear in a new way every time this album spins. The Chuck Berry guitar patterns, the Robby Krieger organs, the man-woman duets. There aren’t a lot of bands that sound like X these days, but to underestimate their effect on rock and roll would be a huge mistake

62: The Stooges - Raw Power (1973)

Iggy Pop is in many ways the definition of rock and roll. What a banal statement. I almost wish I hadn’t put that out there but it’s so true it’s hard to ignore. When we think of the rock star that’s the image we have, cast in pasty flesh. But this album isn’t about Iggy Pop, really. Or at least it’s not about his persona. It’s not about the drugs (well mostly not about the drugs) or the live shows with the glass and the cuts and all that energy that you just had to be there man. This album’s about what actually comes out of your speakers and the things that go on on this album just flat out rock. Everyone’s heard Search and Destroy. Most people have heard Raw Power and Gimme Danger. But it’s the other songs like Your Pretty Face Is Going to Hell, which is like the rock song the Misfits should have could have would have written if they weren’t so fucking weird, that make this album. Never mind the Sex Pistols, this album, along with a couple others, are what punk music is really all about.

63: Smoking Popes - Destination Failure (1997)

Is there really room on this list for an overlong album by a pseudo emo pop punk band whose singer’s obvious vocal influence is Frank Sinatra? Frank fucking Sinatra? Well, if that band’s the Smoking Popes and that album’s Destination Failure, then the answer is yes. Yes there is. The songs on this album are so melodic and rock so hard, you almost forget that Josh Caterer sounds a little more like Kermit the Frog than any rocker should. And when Morrissey says this is his favorite band, well maybe there’s something to it. Megan, the story of a dead girlfriend (one would assume) is devastating with lines like “Butter on a summer day when I hear that name it’s a dream that never came true/ sat down on the tracks and waited for a train to bring me back to go.” And it’s not just the lyrics, the intervals are amazing and altogether heartbreaking. Furthermore, Pretty Pathetic has on numerous occasions come to describe my life a lot more accurately than I care to think about. Goddamn. That’s enough.

64: Hieroglyphics - 3rd Eye Vision (1998)

I remember how cool this album was junior year of high school. One of my stoner friends who got me into underground hip-hop lent me this cd, calling it “hydro-glyphics” and it exemplified the ideal I had of underground rap at the time: hidden gems, better than the “commercial shit” on the radio. Now things done changed – underground hip-hop is largely unlistenable, esoteric crap, more concerned with not selling out than making good music and commercial hip-hop is where most of the good music is. But back in the late 90’s this album could hold its own against even the most credible of the mainstream rappers. Del, A+, Opio, and a lot of the other mc’s in Hiero would have probably fit right in with the Wu-Tang Clan or the Illadelph scene. But they didn’t and this is one of the few west coast cds I still listen to. There’s a lot of solo tracks for the individual members to shine, and they aren’t bad, but where this album really shines is on the group tracks – You Never Knew, The Who, and Mics of the Roundtable were all bangers, in addition to the Del and O track “Oakland Blackouts, which actually made sermonizing about how “commercial rap is all about guns and hoes” sound interesting, as O muses, “keep flashing up in his rap/scenes of fatalities/ like he was Tarantino/ the analogy is we know/ that Quentin writes fiction.” A reference to Del’s cousin Ice Cube perhaps? One of the many layers that makes this album so interesting.

65: Big Star - #1 Record (1972)

I’m far from an Alex Chilton devotee. However, I AM a fan of the bands that were Alex Chilton devotees. And to be quite honest, I really like #1 Record. It’s the only Big Star record I can listen to as just great music and not an instance of inspiration. It’s still not perfect, and doesn’t have a lot of cohesion. It’s just a collection of 7 or 8 really great songs and 3 or 4 pretty good ones. The way you can tell this album is great is the fact that although you almost certainly haven’t heard any of the songs off it on the radio besides a bastardized Cheap Trick cover of In the Street (unless you happen to have heard the obscure Counting Crows cover of El Goodo ) most of them sound immediately familiar. Their wall of sound and cocaine-pop is instantly addictive and ecstatically frenetic. When My Baby’s Beside Me and Don’t Lie to Me manage to sound like southern rock meets the British invasion which seems like a physical impossibility, but ends up resulting in some of the better rock and roll out there. Important for its historical significance, perhaps, but as an album it stands alone.

66: Brand New - Deja Entendu (2003)

I really didn’t like this album all that much when I first got it as advance demos. I don’t have those advance demos anymore, so I’m not sure if the reason I didn’t like this was the quality of the demos or the quality of the songs. At any rate, I’ve changed my tune. Even on their previous album they debuted with a unique gift of cramming as many hooks as possible in a four minute song. By this album that selfsame gift was back this time a lot more subly displayed and tightly wound around tense, anxious songs that literally wind around the tracks. This is almost a theme album, which works against it in many ways, particularly in the overlong and dull intro track and in the decision to include songs like Jaws Theme Swimming and Good To Know That If I Ever Need Attention All I Have to Do is Die over the unreleased Flying At Tree Level. However, the songs that are there and do work are excellent. The lyrics are tongue in cheek without losing their sincerity (if that’s even possible). You get the feeling when Jesse Lacey sings “Hope you come down with something they can’t diagnose...don’t have the cure for,” he both means it whole heartedly and doesn’t mean it at all at the same time.

Who would have thought emo could go postmodern?

67: Paul Wall and Chamillionaire - Get Ya Mind Correct (2002)

Cham and Paul. Paul and Cham. Oh what oh what happened to them? They were going to be the next big thing in rap, the next UGK. The gruesome twosome. Cham and Paulie. Their solo major label albums gave no indication of how two people selling records out of their trunk and on a makeshift website could have moved 100,000 copies of this collection of songs about cars and diamonds. But this was a hot hot album – rap with a sense of humor. Paul and Cham were perfectly matched, their voices distinct but not polar. And throughout the album you got the sense of two dudes having the time of their life talking about how big their rims were and how much money they made hustling.

The spirit of the album can probably best be shown as the two trade verses in Thinkin Thoed:

PAUL: To tell the truth, Chamillionaire’s better than me. His flip flop shines a little bit wetter than me. But it don’t matter we both on the same team. I’m thinking thoed and I know he think the same thing.

CHAM: Paul I’m impressed. I thought you was the best, but you just said I was the best so it’s a tie I guess.

Can you imagine these two saying that shit now? Me either.

68: Saves the Day - I’m Sorry I’m Leaving (1998)

This EP accounts for all but three of the good songs on the very good B-sides comp “Ups and Downs.” It also happens to be flawless. Yes it clocks in at a trim 15 minutes but it’s altogether flawless. It has Hold, Jessie & My Whetstone, Take Our Cars Now, and the title track, all classic eem-punk songs, and the cover of Melt With You that isn’t on Ups and Downs. For my money Chris Conley is one of the best lyricists in music history, his lyrics as plain spoken and wide-eyed as (forgive me) Frank O’Hara’s love poetry. Who else could have written so ecstatically “Please come dive in puddles with me,” and seemed to have really meant it?

69: Taking Back Sunday - Tell All Your Friends (2002)

For the last three months this album has seemed to be able to intuit my entire life. This forgives it, in my book, any shortcomings. What does it mean when your life perfectly resembles an emo album? It’s not pretty, and I suspect it’s along the same lines of Pretty Pathetic – pretty pathetic. Even so, despite being about 4 songs too short, and treading rather familiar ground, this album has its merits indepedent of my relating to it so damn well – it’s one of the most complicated arrangements in contemporary emo, with arpeggiated breakdown sessions reminiscent of The Promise Ring or American Football’s best work, and the lyrics and vocals aren’t too bad, if you can stand that whole emo-punk thing (I certainly can). Some people can’t get past the vocals, and that’s too bad for them, but it’s out there and it’s pretty goddamned good.

70: Sublime - 40 Oz. to Freedom (2006)

Everything that is good about Sublime’s self-titled album is good about this one. Everything that is bad is also bad, but this album has so many good fucking songs that anything bad about it (it’s a little simplistic, the lyrics are often embarrassing, there’s that horrible freestyle rap track with the drummer singing) get pushed to the back. Any album that has songs like 5-4-4-6 That’s My Number, Don’t Push, Badfish, and the title track deserves mention among the best punk-rock albums of all time. Certainly the best Ska-punk album I can think of.