1001 Albums Summary

Though I generally prefer the 1950s Rockabilly Sun sides for the sheer ramalama, this Colonel approved polish job does have "Blue Moon". "Blue Suede Shoes" is killer. "Tutti Fruitti" just feels jizz-less.

When I was 12, this was a constant tape, along with RUN DMC. Both are equally responsible for why I love noisy guitars. It's weird to think how I got from this to the VU in five years (Bowie!). The Beastie science is totally present, but the knowledge in much of it is the lizard beer brain of it's time. Still, the samples and beats slam, and hint at the riches to follow. Bust it.

Not much too say about this that hasn't been said already, but I'll try: 1. This album has a world you get lost in, like a film for your mind 2.That world is a teenage twilight zone, an uncynical ponderance of the child, the adult, and the desire to save the child from the adult. It pushes deep buttons that are memories free of nostalgia of flickers of time of the age when you know your folks are full of shit, and you will never be full of shit. 3. Angelic Choirs abound. So beautiful, they should paint the lyrical narratives on the ceilings cathedrals and the like. 4."The Sloop John B" is when you score beer. Just fabulous.

Any Beatles is practically oxygen at this point, but while I enjoyed to now retrospective power-pop sound, alot of it was remarkably forgettable. "All My Loving" is a stone classic, and I like "I Wanna Be Your Man" a lot, the rest just sort of just became "Beatles sound". Certainly, not indicative of the riches to come.

Good contemporary torch songs. Recommended soundtrack for self-care. Does require a mood tho...

I recognize the artistry in this album, but I am very ambivalent.

The beginning of Davis's "sellout" period, marked by a powerful reimagination of not only jazz, but the very nature of music and art. Davis, it turns out, played the wah treated horn that collapsed genre walls. The gatekeepers would howl, and succeed, to forcing jazz into the heritage industry ghetto. Davis just kept playing. We are richer for it

It's hard to overstate the importance of this record, its influence on subsequent artists, and Ian Curtis as cultural totem. Heavily indebted to obvious (The Idiot, Lust for Life) and less obvious (The VU), it makes these materials into its own thing. Inspired by, but never derivative of, Joy Division are because they are.

The birth of the "wild mercury sound". The birth of the wild, mercury lyrics. Dylan splits this genius between "sell-out" and "proper" sides, both dumping folk genre exercises in favor of continental poetics, and whether tasteful acoustic, or ramshackle rama-lama, it is an awe-inspiring listen, as relevant now as it was epoch inaugurating then. You don't need a time traveling weather man to know the wind blows from this disc. Possibly his best

*sigh* I'm bored at approximately the same place as the last time. I should like this; I've tried to like this, but there's something so earnestly self-serious that is leaving me underwhelmed. It's hermetically sealed for the already fans, and I can't get in. I'm sure it's important, just not to me. I like Hawkwind.

Context: Having just confronted my own ambivalent torpor that was The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway, and previously declared my own bias toward Rockabilly Elvis, there is true magic in Elvis with a big band, and this collection punctuates this point sublimely. Utterly soulful. Human. Problematic as he is culturally, this is as stone cold awesome as Elvis the artist would ever produce.

I once read Nile Rogers and Bernard Edwards conceived of Chic as being suave and sophisticated, taking inspiration from Roxy Music. It is certainly elegant funk, and the influence is hard to overstate. I really dug it.

This collection of last call ballads is an achingly beautiful triptych through the depressing realization that, once you finish that last drink, you can only go to a dark and empty house, alone, because she left your maudlin ass. Those that know, know.

Despite Dick's (played by Todd Louiso)'s High Fidelity assertion that Green Day were directly influenced by Stiff Little Fingers, the fact is that the Buzzcocks are the INVENTORS of Pop Punk: short, melodic, catchy songs about love, alienation, and masturbation. The Buzzcocks's American children took this template, dolloped a spoon full of Cheap Trick, and blam! Squillion dollar success, which in Green Day's case, is richly deserved. This debut largely scraps the weird angularity that Howard Devoto brought to the group while still acknowledging his influence: the "Boredom" quote that opens "Fast Cars", the off-kilter rhythms of "Moving Away from the Pulsebeat". The album is chock full of infectious earworms; more importantly, it is just a fucking blast. Only edgelords and gatekeepers will deny its power.

I was ready to hate this. Here's why: 1. The Omnipresence of Bad Boy Acts in the 90s, the glossy videos, and general, undefined loathing of Diddy--ho ho go hee hee hee. 2. The Westside is the best side. Years later, when the media created East vs. West Rap War had a body count and the pernicious, historical gangsterism of the Music Business has been laid bare, and listening with ears removed from those days and it's static, I dug this record quite a lot. Great beats, good instruments, and thoroughly inventive lyrics delivered with confidence and grace in human/not capitalist concerns. People love the ostentation; I love people coming true.

Sight unseen and unheard, the band name and the title were pretty cool, so I was curious what I would find... I found occasionally mondo distorted basslines anchoring pop songs that are good on paper, but just...don't...get there. Props to Jamie Reynolds, and his style, but it can't carry blah. "Gravity's Rainbow" is one place when "good on paper" transcends, and Reynolds's fuzz, achieve something pretty great. Other than that, and what could be a Beck mid-nineties fuzz-metal freakout "Four Horsemen of 2012" is my favorite, the rest is, yeah, blah.

Fun, dubby basslines. Bright, cracking drumming. Angular, reverb drenched, noisy guitars. Songs about Chelsea Girls and Murder. Jim Kerr's compelling vocals. Yes, Life in a Day is an excellent record. Check it out. . . Except that's not the album I was dealt. I did supplemental research and listening to attempt to get a handle on the one I was dealt. One thing I read is that producer Peter Walsh was tasked with capturing the sound of the band live. If this is how Simple Minds sounds live, it may be the lamest thing I have heard. Was Walsh responsible for turning Derek Forbes onto Stanley Clarke, and recording Forbes slapping in the most generic fashion imaginable? Did Walsh purposefully murder the drums into a mush of cardboard thuds? Can we blame Walsh for the whole band sound sliding into the the kind of AOR 1980s dribble that made worldwide moms think they, too, were "kinda punk". Post-Punk beginning into Air Supply bullshit? People that like this probably voted for Reagan or Thatcher. Get those acid washed Sassoons on. Chop up those baby laxative lines. Get an angular haircut. Find some shoulder pads. Put this on, and let the nothing happen. Recommended for Incels and Conservatives. If I could give this a black hole as a review, I would.

Bob Christgau described this album as "Sade for Androids", as though the electric sheep dreams of Androids don't require a trip-hop masterpiece of alienation and misery. Humans need this, too, for the cold and rainy days, for weed, for booze, for pills, and for the sheer existential performance of pensively staring out of window, smoking cigarettes, and expressing utter ennui. This is the album for these sour times.

Disclaimer: For most of my life, I was content to, at best, merely annoyed by The Byrds. "Turn Turn Turn" was supposedly a deep song; it always seemed to play everywhere and somebody would opine about the Summer of Love, and for the next interval, you were forced into rose-tinted news footage of hippies and peace signs, knowing that you'd had missed something, but unsure what and wondering why Reagan was the president and why the bloviator had, more often than not, totally sold the fuck out. Also, David Crosby always bugged me as a pompous ass. I did really love "Eight Miles High" because, well, it's druggy as shit, and even when I was a kid, I was drawn to that sort of music. Much later, I found my way to Sweethearts of the Rodeo, and that changed things for me. So, I circle back, and found myself really enjoying it. Probably because of the drug influence clearly evident in the lyrics, music and production. It has aliens talking. It's provocative, decidedly not "Turn Turn Turn". "So You Want to be Rock n Roll Star" invents Big Star inventing REM and late stage Replacements. "My Back Pages" does Dylan justice, which most covers do not. "Everybody's Been Burned" world weary lyrical delivery and an arpeggiated guitar (the intro would be home on Ride the Lightning) evoke a languid resignation, a kind of Existential "fuck it". "C.T.A" makes me want to dance. I dig it a lot. And Crosby died a pompous tool.

I came to understand Dion as more than "Runaround Sue" via, of all goddamned things, Mott the Hoople, and 1971's Brain Capers, an album I hold in the highest of esteem. They covered "Your Own Backyard", and I was really knocked out by the soulful humanity of the lyrics. So I was intrigued when this came up, and by the end of this Leonard Cohen-ish, collection, I can say I am a fan.

Simply stunning. There are no other words.

As one of those who remember when Kurt Cobain walked with earthly feet (and witnessed the band fucking destroy Dayton's Hara Arena), the resonance of this now swan song is the old soul resignation of its poetry and the fury of the sound. If your songbook contains a line like "Give me Leonard Cohen afterworld/So I can sigb eternally" you have transcended space and time, the apotheosis artist to something new. Too bad, we would learn it would be the same old. And we are impoverished now. Not for the want of the Star, nor a Legend, nor a Generational Spokesperson (what we call those we draft to destroy) but some one poignantly telling us about the world.

The Black Crowes's (not the Robinsons Ego wank we see now) strength has always been its unabashed throwbackness, reasoning that since the Faces were no more, we still need the Faces. We did, and we do, and this buttrock antidote did so admirably, though the next record fully flowered into something wonderful.

In 2021, Radiohead did what I had (and many others had--I created an MP3 disc that had all the things, so I could listen front to back) and released Kid A Mnesia, which encompassed both albums and assorted extras. This is relevant only insofar that, for me, it is damn near impossible to think of either as individual albums, but rather part of a larger artistic statement. But here I am. And feeling a bit wistful. I remember thinking that both of these albums were capital "A" "Alternative", in A&R parlance, a synthesis of all that was cool and cutting edge in the 90s thrown in a blender with Berlin-Era Bowie. And I also remember wondering if this was as much weirdness as the mainstream would allow. Shortly after, "Garage Rock" happened, with its raw stylings, consciously primal blues stomp-pastiche and notably, beats that should've generated tons of scratch for Hunt Sales if sampling rules applied to live performance. Concurrently, Radiohead-esque groups, diluting the above weirdness into Air Supply quality schmaltz for suburban moms who used to be edgy, continued apace, coat-tail riding it all the way to the Super Bowl. This is not artifact of place and time; it remains compelling, beautiful, terrifying, dystopic, more of a warning or prophecy. It promises nothing, and delivers everything. We find ourselves its world, confused, disheartened, the binary of simulacra and simulation smashed, the sign and the signifier, scrambled. The truth of no truth, and the human resignation that we must move forward.

Energy top to bottom. It's amazing this band is not more worshipped in the US. Just Awesome Ramalama. People that don't dig this are lying or dead inside

If Amnesiac era Radiohead formed a supergroup with Stereolab, got SFA for harmonies, and decided to make Smile. Compelling stuff demanding continued reflection.

The most overrated American singer of all time.

Trigger Warning: Heavy Metal Heresy The first time I heard this album, I was totally bored. Aside from a truly epic riff (Walk), the rest sounds like wannabe Prong and Helmet, with a wannabe Henry Rollins spitting weak "Come at me, Bro" meathead platitudes. "This Love" was and is the incel anthem. This, simply, sucks.

Fantastic, inventive quintessentially working class meditation on what it meant to be "British" in the 20th Century. Poignant, snarky, topical and weirdly ahistorical demonstration of the brothers' genius

It's easy, after decades of semi-constant Classic Rock play, club play, hanging with gay friends play, college radio play of "Heart of Glass" or "One Way or Another", to forget there is a whole album of good stuff here, indebted to garage rock and girl groups, very much a downtown NYC band rather than the product of AOR "New Wave" marketing and all that shit. So check out "Pretty Baby" and "Fade Away and Radiate" are a potent 1-2 punch. "Hanging on the Telephone" is a helluva opener. And within the context of such solid tunes, the single/classics become even more emphatic, dare I say, even more classic. A fun record, back to front.

If Nick Drake and Bill Callahan would be that baby. And Ayers would deny paternity to this mawkishness. *snore*.

The Move, a sadly little known band in the states (look em' up and be amazed) birthed two bands in the 70's featuring two mercurial members: Jeff Lynne, he who became the fifth Beatle (or the fourth, after the murder of John) and a Wilbury, who brought us classic rock AOR standards with ELO, along with Move drummer Bev Bevan, and Roy Wood, who left after the first ELO album to pursue his own idiosyncrasies with Wizzard, a tragically cult-band in the US. It's fair to say that ELO had creative and critical juice throughout the 1970s until 1986, when ELO's AOR Imperial Phase ended, and produced a great many classic tunes ("Strange Magic" being my personal favorite) with their patented Beatles-esque songs and harmonies, powered by rock band + orchestra flourishes, where Wizzard produced one record Wizzard's Brew and a handle full of singles (notably, the holiday chestnut "I Wish It Could Be Christmas Everyday"), after which he busied himself with solo-albums, the Wizzo Band, and sundry performances. By all appearances, a one-hit wonder. But appearances be damned: Check out the sole Wizzard album; it is one of the most "what the fuck is happening" albums of the 70s, in every conceivable way. Don't sleep on that shit. (If it seems like I'd rather be reviewing Wizzard Brew, I would—but no disrespect to Lynne, Bevan et al.) The four sides of Out of the Blue show the full flower of what ELO could do, with rockers, weird orchestral pieces, all solid writing, all produced as though beamed through space. If we communicate with aliens like in "Close Encounters" through music, I imagine the aliens would like this quite a lot. Standout Tracks (all, really. It's a front to back proposition). Take the ride... And maybe wonder if Roy should've stuck around.

With a squillion-selling pop culture totem like Madonna, it's easy to keep to the hits and only the hits. Albums, and their deep cut riches, fade into obscurity. Though boasting all-time classics "Like a Prayer", "Express Yourself" and "Cherish", the real gold is literally everything else. No filler. And Prince!

...that moment when your Mom declared she likes "Alternative".

Full Disclosure 1: In middle school, I wore the t shirt. This was 1987. Full Disclosure 2: I, like millions of kids, loved those rock guitars. Full Disclosure 3: Even then, I only listened to three of the songs on this album. I felt the rest were, a term that was new to me in 1987, "filler". Full Disclosure 4: I have always found Bruce Fairbairn's production to suck the life out of any musical statement. Christ, the man got paid for that horn sound. The guitar sound is powerless overdrive. The vocals sound enthusiastic without actually being enthusiastic. The drum and bass sounds are best described as the "impression of bass and drums". Wrap it up, pack it out and ship it Platinum. Fairbairn has created the "impression of rock" without any actual rocking. RIP Bruce Fairbairn. Fuck that guy. Full Disclosure 5: I love dumb rock. I really do. Slade is one of my faves. I'm self-loathing KISS fan (see Ron Nevison's impression of Fairbairn on Crazy Nights)… Secondly, I haven't listened to any of this, either ironically or not, since about 1988, maybe early 1989, and despite the baggage, I wanted to give this a fair shake; I still love early Ratt, Look What the Cat Dragged In gives me the feels, so I wasn't coming with the critical punk-snark. I really wasn't. So Here We Go: Bon Jovi "Slippery When Wet", Polygram, 1987 Cover: The original art, featuring the kind of swimsuit cheesecake you would have found in full poster glory at the local Spencers, was deemed too "racy". If that shit was racy to you, then you'll probably love this record. Side One: 1. "Let It Rock": A keyboard intro, hinting at something in the Deep Purple/Rainbow epic tradition gives way to something to Cop show hard rock about good times while accidentally hinting at a world view like "Watching the Wheels" in the most boorish way possible. 2. "You Give Love a Bad Name": One of the classics that I might have conceded its classic status around 5000 listens ago but like someone who drank themselves sober, I can only finding it grating in sound and lifeless in execution. There is no doubt these guys can play and Jon can sing and write. Listening to this instant cliché, you never can tell. 3. "Livin' on a Prayer": More impression of Hard Rock, with a hard luck narrative knicked from Springsteen and a shouty chorus that has all the catchiness wrung out of it by Fairbairn. 4. "Social Disease" : Wikipedia said Aerosmith wanted this. And why not? It has the signature shitty horn sound that makes post Rehab Aerosmith suggestive of Rock, but without actual Rocking. 5. "Wanted Dead or Alive": Can't say too much here. All the fruit lined up. Stay Gold, Pony Boy. Side Two 1. "Raise Your Hands": Just the suggestion of Rock. 2. "Without Love": [14 year old C.V] "I wouldn't wish this turd on Taylor Dane". 3. "I'd Die for You": Layer Cake Schmaltz clinically tested to create singing and dancing in really stupid people. 4. "Never Say Goodbye": The kind of prom song that wants you to be nostalgic for your now, rose tinting sepia impressions that become precious memories for later. If this describes you, you peaked Senior Year. 5. "Wild in the Streets": More suggestions of Rock. So the "Suggestion of Rock", or "The Impression of Rock" certainly nods to Derrida, but I don't feel like exploring that implication any further, lest I parlay my sobriety into mega church attendance and Trump support. No, no more semiotics here. At no time did I have feel anything with this music. I entertained myself by writing criticism. That's really all this was--an exigence to write about something from my past, to see if it evoked anything. Revised art was of a wet , apparently unused trash bag. Sums up my feelings really well. Suggests, but ultimately empty.

Oh goody! Somebody bought the "Oh Brother!" soundtrack, and became super-earnest.

After the Bon Jovi near popcorn fart that was the hermetically sealed, clinically concocted Slippery When Wet (excuse the Air-Disaster lingo), I was pleased cleanse my ears and psyche with the ever killer, always on point and one of the most grossly un-known bands in the last forty years: FISHBONE. How the fuck RHCP are filling stadiums and student keg parties with—and in complete agreement that Flea, Frusciante and Smith are maybe the most over-capable threesome in AOR; however, weighed against Douche King Kiedis – at best medium talent tunes truly boggles the imagination (a point the former would likely concede while Kiedis is trolling for his special gum and jailbait to sell it to him). Fishbone were and are the sound of the incredible imaginations of young black men from South Central L.A. throwing thirty years of outsider music, American and Jamaican, into a cauldron and adding a whole heap of "fuck I can't", produced some of the most exciting collisions in music. Sure, Ska and Reggae already had a relationship with Punk, but not with Funk. And why not throw some Blackmore on sherm soloing in the pot, as contrast. Why not? If you have the tenacity and the verve, these mutants become possible. Like Jane's Addiction, Fishbone were who they were, are who they are: Occasionally self-defeating or self-destructing, but always human, always telling you a truth, not they truth. Unfortunately, unlike Jane's Addiction, Fishbone failed to become an Industry of Cool, which means we get Perry Farrell gibbering pontifications instead of the beautiful, graceful poet-warrior Angelo Moore, reminding us that alive and when weirdoes make music, amazing things happen. Fishbone is the exact opposite of Bon Jovi. ECCE HOMO.

Hip-Hop was the first truly Post-Modern Popular Music; it deconstructed what we understood, since Elvis (and before, really) what music WAS: Beats and Words. This upset people, particularly "Rock" People. What's more, it took existing recordings, and created sound collages. Sure, musicians had been quoting other artists forever. Modernism had established the rationale for quoting, elevating it to veneration of tradition. And Rock, the arty, self-conscious, child of Rock N Roll, is thoroughly Modernist, as was (and kinda still is) the critical apparatus that sought to describe it. There are rules, you know, and Hip-Hop didn't play that. While Modernists love ahistorical, transcendent meaning to their art, the Rock Modernists love the tradition and firm contexts with their hermetically sealed rock songs, and hip-hop ignored tradition, firm contexts, in their collages, grabbing from James Brown, Queen, Blondie, even each other, with gusto. Melody, schmelody, we got something to say. The tool of these collages, samples, we essentially free in the early days. You could borrow from anyone, without fear. And while there is certainly a conversation that could be had about the ethics of things, the money-go-round already decided that the owners of the master recordings, if they can't stop it, wanted a piece of it. Before Moloch boomed his heavy judgment on the industry, what emerged from HipHop was nothing short of astonishing, particularly with two master-classes in sampling as art: The Beastie Boy's Paul's Boutique, and Tribe Called Quest's Three Feet High and Rising. Neither of these albums could be made today, or would have a Marvel Blockbuster Budget if they were made. Gleefully sampling Classic Rock Gods, throwing these venerated musical utterances into a gumbo with film dialogue, news snippets, recorded skits, and the then ubiquitous James Brown samples, and you had something brand new. In Tribe's case, the ubiquitous samples were not James Brown so much as the kaleidescopic various releases of George Clinton and the Parliament-Funkadelic collective, providing a certain grooviness to the tracks, and really becoming not only the defining sound of the Native Tongue commune, but the next five years of Hip-Hop. Digital Underground came on the heels with Sex Packets, thick with Clinton-P-Funk Aquaboogie, and after, Dr. Dre built The Chronic on that rock. The influence of this album on popular music is incalculable, contrasting powerfully with the auto-tuned tales of bitches and money, "Dear God" hack confessionals, and minimalist, DJ free " beats", or the big money, legend in their own minds of Drake and the self-serious, self-parodic, Ye, with its freedom and abundant joy. These gents did not have time to beef; they were simply making some of the most vital music of this, or any era. They did not bite, they did not hack, they simply, for a while, were incapable of doing wrong. It is, perhaps, the judgment of Moloch, and his licensing demons, that kept this from streaming platforms and perhaps, allowed this gem to get overshadowed by the bullshit that passes for hip hop now. I loathe nostalgia, but I will gladly time machine my ass back to the Daisy Age.

The Beatles and the Beach Boys elevated album production beyond coherent-ish song cycle to immersive happening, each creating their own universes of natural laws, logic, mythology; later on, it would be Bowie, Pink Floyd and Queen pushing the form to epic, cinematic spaces. Where the Beatles had Dance Hall, and the Beach Boys had Americana, the new kids smashed and grabbed for the 1970s—garage rock, Glam, Space Rock, Psychedelia as well as folk, blues, rock n roll, anything else they could get their hands on, creating classic albums that were both timely and timeless, anticipating the next thing while rooted in their thing. Bowie would be the only member of this class to truly turn and face the strange. And then there's ABBA, nobody's first choice as an album artist, aside from a Greatest Hits Album. And that would be where you fucked up, because ABBA were album artists, when everything was working, the finest of the 70s. All of the above had serious students in ABBA, who crafted Girl-Group-Inspired Glam soaked what's the Swedish word for Schlager with a strange penchant for Spain and Mexico—the unexpected ingredient from a smiling, affable bunch who looked to be straight from a Lebensborn farm, and it is this weird white otherness that sharpens what, by all appearances, is pure karaoke fodder. You'd be fucked up again if you left this there. One of the best of the whole decade.

Chrissy Hynde is from Ohio. I am from Ohio. Opposite sides of the state, but still, there is something "Ohio" I recognize and adore. She digs the VU. She was a UK Punk 77 interloper (after all, the form was invented in our collective neck of the rust belt), and she is an overall bad bitch. Yet, aside from the chestnuts we all know, this album doesn't do all that much for me. Could be the chimey, early-Police, guitar sound, but...actually, I think, I really hate the production. No grime.

I am conflicted: while I am always interested in how different peoples and cultures approach thought and expressive, I have made it a point to remember my Said, and interrogate my likes and dislikes for artists outside European/North American scenes. The difference, the novelty, is fine. Does it make me feel human, connected, in the world, or am I a tourist in these differing expression, reveling in some noxious notions of the exotic. Is there a tote bag? Do these Chakas communicate my love of "World Music"? Am I Paul Simon or Peter Gabriel in their colonial 80s period? Did I vote for Al Gore? What I can say about this album is the Olomide's voice is truly remarkable. Ambrosia in all registers. I really dig hearing the music of sung Congolese French; my other experiences of sung French are of the smoky, phlegmy, world-weary alcoholics of the Piaf, Brel and Gainsbourg type, who don't do breezy sunshine well cuz, well, death. What mars this album is the apparently world contemporaneous hermetically plinky piano sound, and the general production, suck the human spirit out of it in favor of nods to safe 80s-90s R&B tropes. When Olomide keeps it organic, it is stunning. If you like "SlowJam" sonics, you'll like this. If you regularly listen to NPR, you'll like this (and everybody around you at the wine tasting will have to because you are worldly or something). If you listen to this, hear the good things and want more, work backwards to get connected.

There's word I've always loved: ersatz--an inferior substitute. When Bon Jovi achieved the appearance of rocking, without an actual rocking, what they achieved was ersatz rock. Calculated, drained of humanity, reminding us that we can return to our torpor if only a manufactured need is met. Bon Jovi himself said they rushed in when Van Halen broke up. Van Halen, a lot of things, but not ersatz with the classic line-up and that six album run. I'll die on this hill... Anyway, whatever Lambchop's intentions with Nixon, it is undermined with the ersatzness of the approach. Aiming for the sublimity of Pet Sounds and any number of classic Bacharach sides, avoiding the druggy wooze of Love's Forever Changes, it feels twee by two and a half. When Air released Moon Safari, with its vintage electronica and chamber pop arrangements, it showed how the styles of the past can find a relevant and vital home in the present--an actual progression for the form. This ain't that. If you like the form so much, you'll settle for the cheese food version, then have at it. I'll stick to aged cheese, and wait for the next innovation.

Like the Pretenders, this VU inspired group, boasting a Modern Lover and a bass player who was never photographed with Queen's Roger Taylor, proving they are the same person (Red Pill: Roy Thomas Baker, who produced the first five Queen albums, is in charge of the excellent sonics here, so fuck you). But Queen this ain't. This is "New Wave". You can tell because they got their wardrobe from the same hip catalog. "Thin ties. Snazzy Suit jackets" (always room for Jello in some shit I'm writing). I really shouldn't lump them together, or type the words "New Wave" with an underlying contempt for the mass consumption it emblemizes; my knowledge of both is limited to 80s FM radio, and with The Cars, that was a lot. And the videos. And the Super Models. And the Wayfarers. So taking this front to back, its solid, competent. No sign of Mutt Lange (the mulleted jagwagon who glopped up the MTV iteration of the band). It boasts one all time classic in "My Best Friend's Girl", one associated with Phoebe Cates coming hither (and a generation of horny teenagers coming yon), and a bunch of rock radio hits. I have never met a Cars obsessive-not a slam, they must exist-but they must exist. This shit gets constant play on FM Rock Radio. Anyway, its cool, I guess.

The Strokes were maybe the drunkest band I have ever seen live. Still totally brought it. I love this album. Great sound, real rama lama attitude, good songs and downtown lyrics. I'd give this a 5 star for "New York City Cops" alone.

It's easy to forget that MegaDave used to be legit harrowing, and his riffage was like the dentist drill: Babe Levy, strapped down, drill whirring like some ancient galactic death, the sound of a collapsing star. Total. Slayer sounds like Hell. Anthrax sounds like Gotham. Metallica sounds like the history of metal. Megadeth sounds like the Hegemony picking the bones of the capitalism eating itself. Gamma World, if you're nerd of a certain age. Returning to this reminds me that I am a nerd of a certain age, and as such, I always liked Anthrax the best (at least in this critical grouping) and after that, Megadeth because of the punk influenced riffage and intensity. The songs were about politics and sci-fi, and if you played RPGs and listened to Metal in St. Reagan's America, these things gave soundtrack to the dread which twisted your guts into the repetition of accepted forms and modes, cuz, Gay Commies or something. It reminds me that every Good Friday for thirty five years you've made a conscious decision to blast "Good Mourning/Black Friday" where ever the ashen domes congregate. It reminds me that MegaDave was always douchebag who used to make killer albums. The first four albums (even the maligned So Far...) are fucking classics, each a peculiar sonic attack (thanks Mssr. Calvert) orbiting or stratospherically within a nuclear wasteland. Peace Sells always seemed to me to be like the jets over the wasted U.N, sad and lethal reminders of how it went so horribly wrong. This one, with its spot on representation of the White male hegemony, witness the cosmic power of Vic Rattlehead, presiding over a frozen alien, feels and seems space battle. The drill could be the whirring hard drives randomizing death, controlling plasma weapons, charting more places in the galaxy that need white guys who run shit. This is cold horror, folks You are insignificant in the void. Thinking about it, the unexpectedly expansive sci-fi metal of AX7's The Stage borrowed a few of the guitar sounds, a few of the themes, and made an album that was, frankly, too smart for the "Hail to the King" lot. Rust is galactic horror. Total. It makes no sense to me to even think of it in terms of individual tracks. The changes in tempo, "Black Alert" riffs suddenly appear, and start blasting, these are usual for this era of the band; the innovation is it is 41 minutes of being a harrowing total. Strap in .

I was absolutely prepared for worst: Somehow, when Muddy's pale kids-all who made squillions appropriating his sound-played with him, it sucked. Here, with, with an integrated band featuring Johnny Winters, they managed raw and lively. Thank Johnny Winter for understanding the strength is in it's humanity. Polish the blues and you end up with solo Eric Clapton-a museum piece, a heritage industry. Clapton should cut an album with the Marsalis brothers, and drain the blood out of blues and jazz, making both safe for the Lexus crowd. Maybe a Starbucks exclusive release. NPR would jizz. Naw. The stomping, hollering, amp humming, distorted harp mic announcing the macho strut of "Mannish Boy" heralds the goods to follow. You can smell the stank, and, kids, that's what you want in any music.

Sometimes, there is no insight, no process, no coming to terms when presented with such infinite gifts. You just let it happen. That said, hearing the actual wood and humanity in the recording was a respite. A piano that breathes as the woman breathes reminds me of my own human self. Fucking stone classic.

The Killer piano pounds away, and thus begins the quintessential tale of a clueless Rockstar and his lost guitar, culminating in a meeting with a black guy who provides some much needed perspective. "All the Way from Memphis", indeed. [Contemporary listeners will hear a racial slur, and wonder "WTF?" Seventies lyricists, for whatever reason, were willing to experiment with such things—blame Norman Mailer— to provide "grit" and "realism" (see above), to apply tension to the word in order to drain it of its negativity, a la Lenny Bruce (Patti Smith, and the now deleted barnburner "Rock N' Roll N—) or whatever Freddie Mercury was doing with it in "March of the Black Queen" (wait, is it literally a "Black Queen", and Freddie, being a brown person, complicates things). Anyway, to album...] I needs to be clearly understood that I absolutely love this album; it also needs to be clearly understood that this, indeed, is the swan song of the band. Mick Jones (not the Clash guy, nor the Gories guy) would flee to start Bad Company, and banality would ensue. The perpetually shaded Ian Hunter would not be long. Like Motley Crue Farewell tours, this had happened once before, and then Bowie showed up with "All the Young Dudes". Why did Bowie gift them with such a stone classic? Because he loved the band. You know who else loved them? Mick Jones the Clash Guy. The mighty Dictators covered them. The fucking Dead Boys covered them. Prior to the "Dudes" interrupted Swan Song, Mott (and Hawkwind for sure) were the cult bands of the UK scene, ignored by everybody in the record stores but the disciples, fervent and fanatical in the concert halls. And why not? Dylan inspired lyrics (though not the sensibility. Bob is Bob; Ian is Ian) married to rabid Rock N Roll played with conviction. Real Rama Lama, the mutant hybrid of the MC5 and the Kinks. In the States, the cult of Mott is even smaller than Roxy Music; at least Roxy is becoming understood as something not entirely "More than This" MOR favorites. Dude, their shit is weird. And so is Mott's, and apparently people didn't get it until Bowie showed up. And while "Dudes", "Mott" and "The Hoople" are great records, but prior to that, there are FOUR albums, varying in degree from Very Good ("Mott the Hoople", "Wildlife") to flawed exceptional ("Mad Shadows") and transcendent ("Brain Capers"). These I came across during the Napster days, stoned and drunk with the buddy Pat, downloading songs based on search terms that were at turns absurd and obscene, and there was "Death Maybe Your Santa Claus"; it blew my mind. And after, "When My Mind's Gone" (squeaky drum pedal and all), my mind was, ummm... Anyhoo, my Mott experience goes "All the Young Dudes", thanks to Classic Rock radio, then random downloads from the first four, then physical purchase, and then back to the last three, which are a weird elegy for Rock N Roll. Nostalgia—old wound pain in the strictest definition— seems to be the theme that is simpatico with the Deviant's Mick Ferren, rock n roll intellectual and so stranger to proper Rama Lama's prophecy "The Titanic Sails at Dawn". The old wound, in this case, is growing chasm between the Big Beat/Blue Suede Shoes Rock N Roll and the "Serious" Rock, and what follows for those fiddlers, and both Ferren and Ian Hunter see it, expressed in their respective idioms. Ferren is damning fortune teller; Hunter, in his role as chronicler of all things Rock Star on Tour, a sardonic participant in the orgy on the precipice. Hunter has always had a way with a dramatic tragic-beautiful ballad with a cabaret flavor; "Hymn for the Dudes", a nod to the big hit, is a glam rock ( Rock N Roll?) elegy. "I Wish I Was Your Mother" shimmers pan-gender languid longing. Gorgeous. The self (also Bowie)-referential "Ballad of Mott the Hoople (26th March 1972, Zürich) is the obituary for a group that had died once, and would die again, poignant and bitter as the weird trajectory of this band. If the above is not your jam, there are the rockers that fit neatly in the Mott the Hoople Boogie mode, all nice to grove to. Only "Violence" goes off the mode, a slice of yobbos oiking their way through scrap after scrap, is a keenly drawn character study, and easy to see as an influence on the nascent Punk movement. Shorter: Mott the Hoople's Classic Rock staple "All the Young Dudes" is the tip of the iceberg. The riches are below.

sic. If Taylor says she ain't a fan, she's fucking lying. Her whole career. And yet: Maybe this is not something I'll ever get. It's not terrible, but there are no truck stop speed hair stands. My wig is not flipped. I don't feel like its Buckley's world. I am lacking in awe. This seems peculiar, considering Page, Plant, Bowie, and Dylan all think this is the shit. I understand why they loved it, though I would ask Dylan about the "sensitive, troubled boyfriend" songs that seem run the track list. It's boring. I'd ask Bowie about prevailing dramatic earnestness, and why is feels empty on both counts. I'd ask Page and Plant about absence of epic rocking, epic ballading, and the lack, pardon the pun, of band presence beyond Buckley's amazing voice. I'd ask Buckley if he had something aside from "boyfriend" songs in his pocket, or was he going to go full louche lover man like Dad? Then I'd ask Leonard Cohen about eternity, and he'd say I was just a spectator. I am a third eye gazer, Len. Mudhoney, take it away: "Oh god, How I love to hate Slidin' in n out of grace Save me lord, fuck the rest Slidin' in n out of grace."

In the muggy serenity of a red sky morning, I revisit this dichromatic glam rock gem, which I first heard on a chilly, acid soaked night/morning thirty three years prior. Still high. Not as high. Still high, though. Different times, ya see. "Goth", as I came to understand, signifies nothing but black and white silver screen teenage glam. As a genre of popular music, its useful to understand that these sorts of labels are the inventions of critics who, regardless of other ideological considerations about the phenomenology of music, all want to be great taxonomists: the Coiner of a Genre Name. A band like Bauhaus, like the punks before them, were studied in the same artists and records. The Velvets, The Stooges, Bowie, Roxy Music and all the great Dub Reggae that were floating around the UK. In the US, the latter really wasn't a thing; Aside from the phenomenal Christian Death out of LA, The Doors got substituted for the Dub, and well, if you like Jimbo Lizardpants, have at it. The difference is depth and proportion; The original punks, by and large, loved the immediacy of what can be done with four rock n roll chords when played fast. The best, in my opinion, went from there. The rest got mohawks and established the official sartorial choices. Bauhaus went hard into the weird psychodramas of early Bowie, communed with the deep cut VU, favorited masochistic love songs, Bryan Ferry's silver screen louche and ennui stricken debonair, the absolute basslines of Dub. And, clearly, explored the rabbit holes only fans will follow. Bowie hero Scott Walker. The art rock of John Cale, Nico, and Eno. All of it theatrical. All Glam. Theatrical kids are drawn to the theatrical, the dramatic to the dramatic. Throw in silent and mid-century art films. Bauhaus. That first impression was of the self-contained universe the album created. It had its own physics. The bass is rainbow gravity, and everything else bounces around, with songs forming like cloudshapes, instruments and sounds objects in the sky, death ray guitars, Peter Murphy, sounding like Iggy Bowie at their most decrepit and spent, offering commentary. Vapor trails. Disquietude. Exiliration and the ecstasy of the psychic connection one can have with a record: the mind meld. Bauhaus. These years later, and still high, though different shit, different times (fuck you teenage me; I got a license to Ill), and, aside from time permitting me to really explore the same rabbit holes as Bauhaus; proceeding from the same sources. That exploration led me to same places, a, and I am able to spot the same influences. Edge Lords, naturally, would declare this as derivative and therefore, shit, and return to glaring women out of the record store. Edge Lords are Rogans—obvious and obtuse. Tree-spotters, if you like. What Bauhaus do, song to song, is take those things, and remake them inside of their universe. What if John Cale had Dub as inspiration. What would the low end on "Sister Ray" sound like? And what would the imagined black and white movie look like? Theatrical. Glam. One of my absolute all -time favorites "The Passion of Lovers" is the second track, all melodrama and with a huge hook, and all of it sounds new. "Of Lillies and Remains" teleports the VU's "Lady Godiva's Operation" into a twisted Victorian parlour drama starring Conrad Veidt. "Hollow Hills" is pure pagan horror. Everything on this album is completely compelling. My first impression was the correct impression, and my appreciation has only deepened for this epic dichromatic glam classic. Within its universe, I find myself appreciating the fine details, the nuances, the shifting context of then and now. I guess I haven't mellowed—at least not in the important ways. Me and my licensed Mowie Wowie found the experience amazing.

George Clinton (or his Ghost Writer) recalled in his book about Funkadelic, tripping balls, accidentally driving onto the set of Night of the Living Dead. It's one of my favorite Rock N Roll tales. Funkadelic were a raggedy ass, rowdy, Hendrix loving, Zappa inspired, proudly defiant Black band from Detroit who produced some of the wiggiest head music of the era on their debut record and it's follow-up, Free Your Mind...and Your Ass Will Follow. Sonically, it closer to the MC5 or Stooges anchored to Sly and the Family Stone if the Family Stone were on acid. This was the sound of Funk's birth; Not designed to comfort White people, this was for freaks of all races to smoke grass, drop acid and groove. Everybody with a brain and an ass to shake loves this shit. Everybody. Then and now. By the time of 1978's "One Nation", Clinton had invented the Wu-Tang model of main group, side groups, solo stuff, except it was Parliament, Funkadelic, and occasionally, P-Funk. Generally speaking, Parliament was the Afro-Futurist positive cosmology; Funkadelic was the sarcastic satire. Occasionally, this distinction became indistinct, as Funkadelic moved from raggedy to a more polished, bigger sound, embracing the psychedelic qualities of the synthesizer. Still Wiggie. Still Sarcastic Satire. Totally killer The title track has my vote for the United States National Athem. The poetry is better, and it's got a bottomless grove. "Grooveallegiance" might be a better choice, but its slippery contours, coupled with Bernie Worrell's left feel sci-fi synthesizer experiments, make this the front runner for a World Stoner Anthem. "Who Says a Funk Band Can't Play Rock?!" invents Fishbone's sound, with bouncy funk, distorted guitar, and uplifting chorus that both affirms and reminds us that motherfucking Funkadelic got that shit locked down. "Promentalshitbackwashpsychosis Enema Squad (The Doo Doo Chasers)" lyrically, works several meaning of the Word "Shit" to both celebrate "cleaning your shit" and decry a variety of bullshit artists all who are hangers-on, all delivered with the patented Clinton sermon/insane coke prophet-rant. The line "The fear of being eaten by a sandwich" is so far-out, it reads now as a kind of deconstructive koan, radiating subjective energy. It means *something*, goddammit. I love it. Musically, the languid groove produced by the various players is so chill, you feel compelled to clean your pot and start rolling joints. "Into You" is a wonderful example of the kind of plaintive but extremely horny kind of ballad that Bootsy is known for. If we don't fuck, baby, I will die of this boner. Fuck smooth. Fuck rough. Fuck Jeffrey Osbourne and his suburban slow jams. "Cholly (Funk Getting Ready to Roll)" is an insanely catchy, immanent ass shaking, thesis for the all of Funkadelic. Cholly likes all kinds of music, and will play all it over fat-ass basslines and beats so fucking funky, they kind of short circuit logic. Just move, dumbass. Just move. The bonus EP's "Lunchmeataphobia (Think! It Ain't Illegal Yet!)" and ""P.E. Squad/Doo Doo Chasers " are even weirder slight returns to the themes and characters on the LP. Berlin- Bowie soundscapes and lyrics suggesting that the Bowie thing went to lyrics, with the themes feeling Burroughs Cut-Up. "Maggot Brain/Chant (Think It Ain't Illegal Yet!)" is pure vicious guitar rama-lama, played soulfully, and, in the context of the melody, is absolutely righteous. Eddie Hazel should be in the same breath as Hendrix. Simply, incredible tunes for outer and inner space. Mind your sandwiches, stoners!

Aside from "Champagne Supernova", this is strictly for buckethatted anglophile meatheads and any one interested in the Next Big Thing or absurdly demanding critical re-evaluation. Hard Pass.

What's the difference between the Velvet Underground and the Grateful Dead? Taste and Smell. Reductive, I know. So what happens if take the percussive harsh of the VU, add some Bay Area psychedelia and invite the Bitches Brew rhythm section. The short answer is a weird plasma lager. Served in a Can, naturally. The best head music should challenge perceived reality. Good time vibes make for a nice time at a summertime lake at dusk, but the best should always be a "what the fuck?!?" proposition, assaulting the quotidian. It should scare in uncanny beauty/ugly. It is a trip, after all. This scary shit. There is so much disorientating jamming here, none of it wanky, all of it wiggy. Clatter clatter electric jazz rama lama, Stockhausen as Miles heard it, perhaps. "Paperhouse" and "Mushroom" head lay a whole world out, caustic, unhinged whisper to scream Damo in full banshee savant over whoozy drones with soaring guitar lines. • ; "Oh Yeah" is a mutant motorik silver machine, relentless, and backwards vocals, maybe like the engine room of a wormholed ship. "Halluwah" is the centerpiece, a nearly twenty minutes funk workout that suggests an avant-German blaxploitation, part VU, part Gong and part Funkadelic "Wars of Armageddon". Dance the Revelation. Plus, Damo sounds like he's saying "Searching for my Lochnar", which is pretty great. The renewal, as it were is the transcendent prayer after, "Augmn", pure space deities chorus, asking, then answering "What if Syd Barrett made Atom Heart?". "Peking O" is pure psychedelibabble, a poem set to tape loops, dramatically read and totally riveting. The denouement, "Bring Me Coffee or Tea" is a nice, woozy bit a disquietude, perhaps the most conventionally "psychedelic" song of the record. The Deadheads would like it; it's a bit like something from "Anthem of the Sun". Deadheads love the goodtime vibes. Velvetheads like confrontational vibes. Me, I like mostly the latter and some of the former. But being a total creep, I enjoy feeling unsettled. Just. Like.This.

As constant as gravity, Johnny Cash serves a masterclass in audience awareness. Liquid as the sea, that sharp as razor ebbs and flows. Johnny Cash is unto himself. Elemental, like Ray Charles, Little Richard or Elvis. This is how you to a live album.

In a life and career of astronishing creativity and artistic left turns reaching to the very human soul, this is the most astronishing, and, to paraphrase Kirk's Spock Eulogy, the most human. Epically human.

There is no point in theorizing about Syd Barrett; when he left London for good, he left Syd the MadCap behind to be filled with elegies, eulogies, fan theories, Nick Kent's musings and Roger Waters's bitter envy, Bob Geldof as ersatz Syd and the ghost that haunts Dark Side of the Moon. There is no point in explaining Barrett to the cinematic self-serious Post Dark Side partisans; Waters et al. wrung out all the whimsy and pastoral terror themes in favor of Grand Theorizing. Gone are the janky psychedelic effects and chaotic fuzz evolved into towers of recording technology, true audiophile shit. Gone is the Zippo slide cosmic guitar, and instrumental excursions into altered outer and inner weirdness. Homemade light show gives way to full arena rock extravaganza. What we can do is think about the work Barrett left us, as much as it pains me to nod to very important men like Eliot or Ransom, and their delusions of transcendent, ahistorical meaning. "Piper" is the apotheosis of general psychedelia into both space rock and unhinged insanity in the mundane. The hit singles, "See Emily Play" and "Arnold Layne" take the latter and make it somewhat disturbing. I like disturbing pop songs. And "MadCap" is all of the latter; no space rock here. Just ditties from different perspectives, all light and shade. Barrett had an ear for pop hooks, and does not disappoint here. But these are not easy songs. The highlight for me has always been "Golden Hair", the adaption/cover of the Joyce poem, all mist and mystery, aching in the shadows. A few of the song seem to reference/take lighthearted swipes at Waters and Co. and the whole business of Rock N Roll and Syd Barrett as a cautionary tale/LSD totem. The MadCap wasn't really that MadCap, and not the cripple-fried genius. Jimbo Lizardpants can have that. What's here is the hand of an artist, making art without a thought to commerce. And in our late stage Capitalist Dystopia, I suppose that counts as crazy.

Two Things: Rod Stewart possessed the finest searing rasp of a Rock N Roll voice ever committed to tape. He recorded some amazing shit with some heavy hitters, but as his solo career began to take off, he strayed from this epic ability presented in a rough and ready way toward something that appealed to masses, and it's been a slow slide to Vegas ever since. Last time I checked, there were showgirls and a holy fuck ton of lame, and Rod fartin' through his hits. After Marriot left and they became The Faces (not Rod Stewart and...), their genius was never captured in the LP format. Never. If you want to fall in love, track down the boxset Five Guys Walk into a Bar... . It is the BBC performances that truly make the legend. After that, hit YouTube and type in "Faces BBC Live" and watch that shit in action. That's why they are legendary. That's why Rod Stewart is ROD FUCKING STEWART.

Pete Townsend and his management apparently conceived of the term "Rock Opera" as a bit of culture jamming. Tommy stands as the towering achievement, the gold standard for expansive concepts. Townsend's idea is the story of transcendence, of spiritual evolution; with a few adjustments, Tommy is essentially Plato's Cave filtered through the cosmic nonsense of Maher Baba. The adventure takes Tommy to various places, both strange wonder and harrowing, horrific shit, toward full consciousness. It is, ultimately, a positive bildungsroman, a joyous thing. And Tommy becomes Jesus or something. The Pretty Thing's SF Sorrow was Born, in contention for the first "rock opera" isn't like Tommy in sound or attitude; there is no "rebirth". The bildungsroman here is straight to the grave. To borrow from The Godfathers, it's straight Birth School Work Death. An Existentialist concept record. If that ring a dings your fancy, be warned: This ain't The Cure. Not mopey in usual teenage way. Mopey in living one's whole life with something major being wrong. Powering through life, as it were. No, there is nothing epic like a blind deaf-mute becoming God; naw, the Pretty Things approach the epicness of life in the Joycean sense—the mystery and grandeur of the banal that is everyone's birthright, the connections we make from overheard conversation, our wild minds plugged in linguistically and semiotically, the daily micro and macro horrors we witness, our hearts heavy with powerlessness and regret. Our context: Like Tommy, the discombobulation of war babies making meaning out of the atrocities of capitalism and the Vig it will take in blood. I honestly will leave the play by play to you. Know that we have wild swings from left field overture, English Folk-ballads, straight up rockers (and the Things love it gnarly and aggressive, like their antagonists The Who, but a lot more "fuck you"), navel gazing meditations and legit scary psychedelic explorations. Poetic lyrically without being self-consciousness or twee, the instruments and production frame the words. Know that there is a world within these forty minutes, and you will need to be here for the duration. Know that this world, like our own, is a mixture of shit and sunshine, and know that there is no transcendence offered, save for meanings that are made therein.

"Strange Intellectualism": KINDA QUEER Americans, for the most part, don't do nuance. It's not a genetic stupidity, but the default birth right. You have not only opt out, but spend the rest of your American life contending with Capitalist bandwagon of single serve, a la carte Me Me Mes who lose their minds if you don't want to join in the "fun". Sometimes during, or shortly after, one of the 1980s I've lived through (when this crass conformity was the St. Reagan Article of Faith, and the full Idiocrat hellscape was just the constipated cum bubble in his corporate whoring shriveled contra), the full thunder Diddley beat and nasty rama of Iggy's "Lust for Life" was readacted for popular consumption in the form of family fun cruise ships--where memories are made. Happy Moms and Dads look on as perfect children cannonball into the abundant pools, which is metaphysically the opposite of the actual self-destructive theme of the song. The lust for family memories has an edgy beat for today's "edgy" families, but not the drugs or degradation; just family fun on a disease vector flotilla, drinking up to three overpriced mimosa. "Oh Johnny" (dude threw off Bryce energy) and Kayleigh (his too young to have eight and eleven year olds and be able to afford a fucking cruise) puts her head of perfect beach hair on his gym sculpted shoulder "aren't we great.". Aren't we great. A rhetorical question without the question mark. An assertion. A humble brag. Around the same time, the chickens came home to roost with terror and fire. There were thousands dead and thousands more would die slow horrible deaths. In America, this was impossible, the "end of history", and called for an immediate charity event for the various heroes who gave it all. And a terrific marketing opportunity for blind obedience to the genocidal liturgy of the last century's corporate driven ethos with extreme Hamaraban prejudice. Yankee Azreal/Death comes ripping. This anti-human, anti-reason conventional wisdom free wisdom festered in the culture. John Lennon was banned on the radio. Songs of protest, of uplift, of perseverance, were all appropriated to the white noise drumbeats of war. This nauseating zeitgeist permeated everything, even a charity event for first responder heroes. For David Bowie, it was a hometown gig; He'd lived in NYC better than ten years at that point, so I completely understood why he'd want to do his part. The cops were his cops. The fire people were his people. His neighbors died. So Bowie does "Heroes". And then it happened again; like his pal Iggy, nuance was erased, and a few words we amputated from context and meaning, becoming advertisement, a mental and emotional short hand. Like what happened to Cohen and his Old Testament sexxxy time repartee "Hallejulah"--now cum free. It is a fact that the lived ethos, for most Americans, that nuance is some elite parlour trick by strange intellectuals, and only plainspoken folks are the real deal. In a complicated world, these folks like to keep it simple. And simple is why we are totally fucked: If it can't be dumbed and down and made pliable to simple reading, then it must be banned or burned. If it is different, it must be killed--all pogroms begin with serious people being serious about things, even if those things are laughably stupid. Since the uncanny songs and sublime instrumentation of this song are the product of such strange intellectualism, I am going to lean simple and serious, and finish this screed/review with a track by track (true) All-American incessantly self-regarding Reader Response misunderstanding. 1. "Beauty and the Beast" : Seems Kinda Queer. 2. "Joe the Lion": LET'S GO BRANDON! Cats seem Kinda Queer. 3. "'Heroes'": "THE SONG IS CALLED HEROES, COLLEGE BOY! IT'S ABOUT HEROES. PUNCTUATION MARKS ARE STRANGE INTELLECTUALISM. PRAISE HIS NAME! END OF SUBJECT!!! I GOT MY BACK TO BLUE FLAG FLYING RIGHT NEXT TO MY TRUMP FLAG. For the HEROES. 4. "Sons of the Silent Age": We ain't a silent majority no more! And it ain't "Daughters" here; only Proud American boys. 5. "Blackout": Seems Kinda Queer. 6. "V-2 Schneider": He was a hoot on One Day at a Time. Seems Kinda Queer. 7. "Sense of Doubt": Doubts are Kinda Queer. 8. "Moss Garden" : My oldest daughter tells me she likes this one for Holy Yoga at Crossroads. Seems Kinda Queer. 9. "Neuköln": Seems Kinda Queer. 10. "The Secret Life of Arabia": They hate Jesus H. America. Also-Seems Kinda Queer. Disclaimer: If you are, in fact, kinda queer, then I recommend listening to "Berlin" trilogy sequentially, Low, "Heroes", The Lodger. However, if you really want to disappear, put all three on shuffle. The "Berlin" universe is boundless mysteries and treasures. UPDATE: The abundant "offense" of Americans who mistook the The Feast of Dionysius as The Last Supper, and, upon learning of their error, doubled-down on their offended-ness really proved my thesis: "Lust for Life"--about Family Fun Cruise Ships. "Heroes" (without ambiguous Bowie supplied punctuation)-- about first responders and soldiers. The Feast of Dionysius-- All representations of dinner not The Last Supper are offensive. Americans are too stupid for art, even if its representational. Besides, art is Kinda queer.

When I was a self-serious teenager, I found myself at odds with the quotidian, and began to explore how to escape the trap of God and Country, Football and Band, school spirit and fucking corn fields. Trying desperately to not turn into a Republican, I searched outside of Metal and suburban Punk. Naturally, I was drawn to the mystery that The Doors represented, and for an important reason:;they seemed literate. Keen on lyrics that went past the usual, that hinted at actual poetry. And that poetry should speak to—and for me. The Doors, in retrospect, never spoke for me. I never felt anywhere near what The Doors represented; there was something that was L.A. specific about what they did. I enjoyed Manzarek's bass key work. I thought Robbie Krieger was an excellent musician, and with Densmore percussion and Morrison's baritoned poesy, they created a vibe, and I liked that. I would forever love those songs and albums that were self-contained universes, that teleported me out of Shitbag, Indiana, to a world of possibility. Morrison, who I now regard as mostly hackneyed Imagistic poetry, was responsible for showing that such a thing was possible at all. Full disclosure: At this point, Dylan was a vague figure for Hippies. Didn't want to be a Hippie. I grew out of that shit. And Morrison gave me a reading list, so whatever indignities I heap on Jimbo Lizardpants, the Bing Crosby of acid fried alcoholics, I do owe him that. So when I was dealt this, I was relieved that it was one of the first two albums, the only back to front classics the band ever produced, and even then, this comes with the qualification that the self-titled has the phenomenally dumb "20th Century Fox" and the follow-up has three terrible songs "Unhappy Girl", and two back to back turds, "My Eyes Have Seen You" and "I Can't See Your Face in My Mind", between the stone classics "People are Strange" and "When the Music's Over". The relief dissolved into ennui quickly. Do I really need to ever hear "Break on Through" ever again? Is "Light My Fire" really going to set anything ablaze in my soul? Can I enjoy "The End" without the Coppola connection? The answer, today, seems to be "meh". I didn't feel anything, thought about the Dead Milkmen through side one, and realized that part of the problem is they don't move me, like make me physically want to move my body. They just don't. Don't feel like dancing. The Velvet Underground make me want to do fantastic 1960s dances, the chopping clean guitar, the ominously omnipresent bass, the cymbal, high-hat and ride removed from the drums, just beats beats beats, noxious blasts of fuzzed out noise enveloping everything in white noise fog, send electricity through my body (Goddamn that New York Subway Sound. Everytime). Reeds lyrics don't speak for me, either, but they do feel familiar in the rust belt. It's unfair to compare the two, perhaps, as one was a Psychedelic Rock Band, and, if you've even took the twenty minute "Follow the Leader" ride, recorded in San Fran, you know they were a dance band. Certainly, there are multitudes that love The Doors for their own complicated reasons. Maybe they feel it, maybe it’s the cult of Jim Morrison, maybe its nostalgia for the time. And by all means, enjoy it. I don't.

The other week, I tried to listen to this album after a looonnnnngggggg time since I listened to it--maybe like twenty-eight years--and I was instantly reminded why it had been such an interval: It's hear they abandoned the crushed velvet psychedelic patchouli and cloves mope of Gish (and a bunch of fantastic singles and b-sides) and decided to be Styx instead. "Cherub Rock" is kind of annoying in a cloying way. "Disarm" is more mawk than moody. These being the hits, they kind of ate the album in my consciousness. However, there is plenty here that still reminds you this is a band and not the Billy Corgan show. Destructro Rock, super-ramalama, dream pop, and shimmery instrumentation still abound, and still make for a thrilling experience. I can't say this is back to front good, but if you dodge the obviousness, there is much to love.

"I see The Sword of Damocles is right above your head They're trying a new treatment to get you out of bed But radiation kills both bad and good, it can not differentiate So to cure you, they must kill you The Sword of Damocles hangs above your head"-Lou Reed Lou Reed would be the first gone. I wonder if Bowie listened to Magic and Loss as he privately battled liver cancer, an organ, like Reed, he had abused more than his own cock, and was finally giving up. I can speculate that this is likely the case, but then again, who really knows? There are plenty of theories about Bowie's last album, though Jude Moore's 2016 assertion in The Guardian that the key to the album is an Elvis deep cut remains my favorite. This one made sense to me. I can't really theorize it though; Bowie's death took a pound of soul out of me, one, now two, Angels of Weird no longer available to comment to astonishment about the world I must now live in, and make sense of, on my own. So I haven't made sense of this puzzle poem of an album, aside from it seems to be the panoply of human experience and aspiration and desperation and ultimately, illumination. There is revelation here, though don’t expect the universe; the revelations are personal, and Bowie is pointing you in the direction. A life of art is LIFE-everything else is on the order of barely sentient means of production. I write this one without re-listening, because I don't have all day to contemplate the journey of the album, the insights therein or can be illuminated. The banal requires attention. The apostolic will have to wait. But you don't have to. Go be with this. And remember: IGGY STILL LIVES. https://www.theguardian.com/music/2016/jan/21/final-mysteries-david-bowie-blackstar-elvis-crowley-villa-of-ormen

Does not contain that perennial wedding reception classic guaranteed to get your proudly fat auntie works that double hip replacement barefoot on the dancefloor like it ain't no thing. Does not contain any of the songs said auntie would know unless she is a very hip lady (and a pot head). Does contain a kaleidoscope of sumptuous pop, elegant funk, jazzy changes and songs looking toward a better future. EW&F were always headed toward something that transcended small genre considerations toward a cosmic totality of human being music. Maurice White is fucking genius. Philip Bailey has the voice of a space angel. You like sophisticated dance music? Don't sleep on this.

During the "Promise?", Bruce Springsteen explains, among other things ("stick"!) that this album was made in the context of Punk and Rock N Roll type management issues during an enforced hiatus. Jon Landau later interjects some bullshit that is NOT an apology for what he did the MC5 Back in the USA. It is a thing, the pressure to follow up Born to Run, and the management thing is definitely a thing in the music biz-ask the Stones and everybody else - but in this apparent Insta Pot pressure, back to the wall, death or glory scenario, is born his finest back to front album. Maybe it's Iovine's uncluttered, panavision mix, maybe Landau shut the fuck up (seriously, how did this hack ass talk his way into the job? Maybe civilization is a series of blowjobs?) or maybe, like all great rock n roll, the desperate circumstances really made them go for it. I dunno. The shit is powerful, providing a gut bucket theatricality to the Boss's grandly dramatic lyrics. Each is complete, sympathetic pathos; each is well wrought to resonate maximum human vibrations. I feel this is the simpatico of Little Steven's love of the ramalama garage band arrangements and production assists. And the thing to be understood about the E Street Band is that it needs to be pushed: thus, the live legends. And studios, if one is not careful, it will absolutely sterilize everything to the point where it can hardly be said to rock at all (see Bon Jovi), and certainly, when left to his own devices, Springsteen has been Bon Jovi. When Springsteen is fully in band mode, he becomes the legend. Legends that they are, this album contains the best Springsteen song ever: "Racing in the Streets". Despite Springsteen's assertion that the song is about keeping one's purpose against the banality of life, the song is hard times "Glory Days", people stuck with their young choices, finding the old youthful care-free turned to bitter resignation to the consequences of such hubris. The joke about "peaking in High School" ain't funny, turns out. The other stand-outs front this front to back classic "Prove it All Night" and "Streets of Fire" and the title track are anchors to other tracks integral to filling out this image that is joyous, triumphant, somber, bitter, grainy polaroid accounting of young americans in the mid to late 70s, radiating an existential truth that is technicolor and gray in finding honest ways to be. This is one way to be that I understand in my core. Just fabulous, really.

In the late 1980s, Hip-Hop started absorbing more of the history of Black/American Pop Music outside of samples, and started to look to other song stylings, if you will, to inform the rhymes and the flow. Jazz vocal styles started to creep in, which was cool, to hear other approaches to riding a beat, or indeed, float over the beat. And, thank the Gods of the ever ringing Note, MCs and DJs remembered Mr. George and the glorious cosmology Afronauts, Mad Scientists, and in the Jimi Hendrix sci-fi tradition, tales of Atlantis (or Atlanta) the underwater glory of Parliament/Funkadelic, the elemental (periodic abbreviation PF) body-mind groove emanations from beyond space and time. The East Coast De La and Tribe get accolades for their PF inspired wry kaleidoscopic tracks of 70s Gen X pop culture obsessions, which is no doubt why that shit is like oxygen to me. Later, the West Coast would polish down the wry and polish to chrome the chill factor samples over fat fucking basslines and beats. PF are perfect for this; they made records for people to take drugs to—an invaluable public service. Couple this will street tales and calls to party, and Dr. Dre becomes a producer on par with George Martin (no argument here—Let Me Ride is a forever song of the summer song), Ice Cube and Snoop Dog become national treasures (incrementally, we baby step to better/ the ever devouring hegemony smells money: the track makes me forget all that shit). This becomes the style most associated with PF. Not associated with the West Coast style are the northern California groups, all of whom are apparently "alternative hip-hop", a term less useful than "alternative", but hey, all critics want to coin a genre term, right? You can say fairly "alternative" bands like REM were more exciting and interesting than the Outfield, and that seems sensible, though no accounting for taste. "Alternative Hip-Hop" as opposed "mainstream hip-hop", where Run-DMC, the Beastie Boys and LL Cool J et al sold squillions of records making great fucking records? "Alternative" assumes a pure superiority over such things, flinging "authentic" and "sell-out" shitballs at such artists. Except only fuck heads would assert that these artists were garbage. Like total morons: the white college radio dickheads who cliched their way through "underground superiority" pronouncements and "sell-out" horseshit. Incidentally, these people all love "that one DK song" but really creamed their Morrissey approved Levis about the Stone Roses, but I feel like I'm drifting a bit... From a Bay Area known for Thrash and Punk Rock, the weirdos of Digital Underground scored one stone cold classic: "The Humpty Dance", a song so ubiquitous, your pasty Me-Maw knows the groove (If your pasty Me-Maw busts out "I once got busy in a Burger King bathroom", you should probably smoke a joint with her and talk that out). If you grew up in the Safe as Milk burbs, that is likely the end of it. The problem with the lightning in a bottle super-pop song is that everything thing else necessarily gets overlooked, cindered crispy by the exploding sublime pop ecstasy. The foreverness of "The Humpty Dance" as cultural totem obscures the album it came from, which is a terrible thing, because the rest is an absolutely fabulous alloy of PF samples a la De La Tribe, some bop lyrical phrasing and boogie beats weaving a sci-fi tale about a psychotropic pill that induces the sensory overload of fucking without actual fucking. Not masturbation. You take it, and the drug does all the rest: "Safest Sex there is" they proclaim. And for the AIDs terrified and stygmata afflicted Eighties, what could be better. St. George of Clinton doth say "The bigger the headache, the bigger the pillin'". We needed huge pills after the devastation of Reagan. The songs are all thematically related, highlighting different good times (music festivals, chilling with your pals, being butt naked, swimming pools, wanting to go home and get fucked up by yourself) orbiting the prospect of getting laid, which will change all previous plans for a lot of people. However, with in this sci-fi tales, the parallels to the war on drugs emerge, street crime and the life of a hustler, pop in and out of the rainbow pan-racial vision of booties shaking and boys boogying. This light approach to dystopian themes may have let folks sleep on this classic, but not me: I like gorgeous pop songs of utter despair, so give me party vibes and serious ideas, the sounds of the Underground. Shock G had to know he and his conspirators created a rare thing indeed—an utterly dancable, funky fun high-concept album that is never ponderous and contains no in·ter·sti·tial filler. This shit does not let up. It is a feature length universe of PF weirdness, bop phrasing, and sci-fi sexcapades. They should have made a movie. The poster would have had "Sex Packets" in the Star Wars font. Shock G's Nose lit up like a light saber. The tagline would be "Peace and Humptiness to You All". Get some humptiness, y'all.

Better writers than me have rhapsodized for far longer than I have been aware, and I don't think I can add anything apart from deep appreciation. They got it right

I don't hate the Boss. He usually has a few stone classics his albums, but I can't really think of him in terms of "albums", only songs I dearly love. And this has a few. With the stone classics, you get a real sense of rock n roll without bullshit, and lyrics that are among the best ever laid down. With the rest, you get a real sense of bullshit rock n roll, with lyrics Bon Jovi could have shit out. In all cases, the album cuts are poor stand-ins for the live performances. Even the shitty ones become epic. This begs the question: why not just put out live albums. The Live at the Hammersmith 75 set is a much better representation of this songs. That reading of "Thunder Road" almost makes the rest of the show unnecessary--unit the rest of the show, of course. Bruce does look hunky cute on the cover though.

"Krautrock" begins here. Not because this is first German "Rock" band or anything like that. No, the first song on this album is called "Krautrock"; Julian Cope named his legendary mixtape/CD/vinyl of German Psychedelic-Progressive music, and, the intrinsic critical boner in those days was to coin a genre, even if it was specious and utter bullshit (see Grunge; see New Wave), and so, the term stuck. 1971 was kinda the rebranding year for psychedelic music into Progressive Rock. In the mid 60s, progressive rock was the tag on the emerging album artists, or people who were considered very far out. The Velvet Underground. The Mothers. The Fugs. Jefferson Starplane. Jerry Bear and his Merry Bearsters. The West Coast got re-branded as Acid Rock. The East Coast as Art Rock. Sometimes, correctly, all were considered "psychedelic", which is phenomenologically true if it's ever been personally, pharmakologically true, as is everything in compass between (Stooges, Funkadelic, MC5, 13th Floors, *gasp* Alice Cooper Group--I dare you. Remember: I like to be disturbed). Over yonder, a similar process occurred. Basically, it was Barrett Pink Floyd and Soft Machine pushing the far out, the former proceeding to space, and the latter, strange pastoral vibrations. These, of course, are not absolute statements. From this, Hawkwind went full sci-fi; Yes and ELP went orchestral. The latter would keep the "Progressive" label--showy virtuosity, songs with movements, lyrics about whatever the fuck they were going on about. Hawkwind became "Space Rock". Pink Floyd transcended to cinematic. And naturally, between, disturbance in the form of the Deviants, the Pink Faeries, and various incarnations of what would become heavy metal. Unto to itself in this constructed psychedelic duopoly, the freakiest shit in England was not space but not pastroral, virtuosic but not showy, all angular damage: King Crimson. Weird ramalama, poetic lyrics, feedback and ray-gun sound effects, good on and off drugs, existing as a giant "fuck you" to rampantly enforced nice. Crimson were not nice. We freaks thank you And, in Germany, they took these basic English tools and set about crafting the shit crazier than Crimson. What happens when the pharmakon creeps into a counter-culture that previously did not exist because actual NAZIS ran your country, and any historical Counter-Culture touchstones had been gassed out of existence? You have to start making shit up, that's what. And the German bands looked west, grabbed the good stuff, and decided, well, to be German. Can Tago Mago, which I endorsed as truly Freaky shit is one example, grabbing the VU and electric Miles Davis to create music funky enough to move to, if you don't need to be hand held into Dead Patchouli Spun Torpor. These psychedelic freaks are both like Can and definitely not like Can: The Beatles are in the entree on "Just a Second" and "Giggy Smile". Paul Walrus "Ob bla Di" echoes through the "Sad Skinhead" if Paul had been more serious about drugs and reggae, and if the lyric was about meatheaded bootboys. Donovan vibrations animate "Jennifer" if Donovan was more serious about drugs and into the VU. Bowie and Eno learned a lot here. The titular opus, birthing a genre title, "Krautrock" is trip--imagine a Barrett Floyd/VU mutant, pulsating to proto-motorik, attempting to move like machine,but still sentient minimal: Interstellar Cyborg Sister Ray. Simply Saucer would achieve little success but my undying loyalty, doing some serious Stooges damage on this idea a few years later on planet Canada. This and "Lauft" are the most Can like,weird, art projects but still more tuneful, less primeval. Epic shit. Full stop. If this critical exposition is still murky, I probably lost you at the Dead snark. If that wasn't the problem, I would suggest looking at the admirers: Bowie. Eno. Hawkwind. PiL. Bauhaus. John Cale. Julian Cope, who compiled the sampler, obviously. Killing Joke. All Industrial artists. EDM has some of this DNA. If you want noodly virtuosity, a la ELP, go elsewhere. Brass tacks: If you consider pre- Ambient Eno psychedelic, this is for you.

It's Back in Black for the 90s. It's the beginning of METALLICA--not the Diamond Head cribbing beer mooks roughly becoming becomingThrash Kings--but authentic Cocaine Jet Set stadium draws. Outside of a select few, the work always suffers, and the suffering starts here. Basically, I recognize this is a lot of people's face, so good on that . Me, I didn't give a fuck then, don't give a fuck now. I mean, it's not like they're Anthrax.

...two impressions : 1. This sounds like stock music for a BBC doc about the early Rave scene. 2. Soup Dragons and Gaye Bikers apparently had dirtier X, and thus made better music.

Aside from "Witchy Woman", the only thing this album does is make me love Gram Parsons all the more. Linda Ronstadt owes us an apology for foisting this monster douchebags on the world.

Pass.

of the Americanized "Ska"; enjoy it, check out the original artists, and be astounded.  Then, circle back and check out the American Moon Ska scene.  Then, track down Cincinnati, OH's own Erector Set, and their best Specials song not written by the Specials "Inside Out".    Above all, listen to more ska! 

Radiohead recently re-released this and Kid A together, which is could, because this is the companion piece to a decidedly consistent one-two. Use Your Illusion this is not.

A concept album about dental waiting rooms, lovingly crafted, allowing nothing human in or out, and beechwood aged for maximum inoffensively, which I find incredibly offensive. Makes Gaucho Steely Dan sound like the the Butthole Surfers. I'm told stereophiles love it. If you love this because it sounds awesome on your stereo, you're kinda fucked up, man. This shit is as sexy as taupe.

Good shit.

Great, but is it better than Off the Wall?

"Musical Wallpaper". Occasionally interesting kaleidescope of Kate Bush, Dead Can Dance and Portishead, pleasingly presented, but not my thing at the moment. Good Musical Wallpaper, but background.

Still alive, and wondering what the fuss, hot or cold, is about. *yawn*

It is impossible, in my mind, to separate my impressions of this album from the cataclysmic psychic impact of Metallica’s first ever music video (they had famously refused to make videos when such a thing was absolutely astonishingly a “fuck you” to the big business of metal inspired-rock, and a real statement of thrash metal integrity. We are here for music). A performance video interlaced with clips from the anti-war classic Johnny Got His Gun from the blacklisted Dalton Trumbo. The horrors of being exploded, losing all limbs and all ability to communicate, see, hear, the protagonist's subjectivity exists only in his mind, screaming to be heard. Outside, he is an objective, a test subject, a freak show, so much human meat. Even with Lars's serious drum/coke face mugging, it exists as a triumph to metal on metal's terms, "War Pigs" for the eighties. Bleak truth for truly bleak times, and the harbinger of that goodtimes torpor of the only me decade would come to a crashing end. Popular music, in all its permutations, could do more than bitches and money. And shortly after, it shortly did, before the rotten products of big business churned out the clone army, Metallica became rock stars, and that was that. After Cliff died, the band recorded Garage Days Re-Visited, a rough and ready covers E.P. with new bassist Jason Newsted, and it is my favorite Metallica record because it is rough, punk in its ethos, super fun and you can hear Jason ably laying down the low end. It was a great fit. Too bad, and for entirely bizarre reasons, his contributions to "And Justice" are almost conceptual, or a trace. A bass is in there. A bass should be there, and yet, years before the White Stripes conquerer Alternative Rock, it's Hatfield providing the low end, via guitar. Bafflingly, the various anniversary remixes have not corrected this. It has been about thirty years since I listened to "And Justice" front to back; with recent innovations in both cannabis and sound equipment, there is an uncanniness at work, a familiar made unfamiliar. I find myself noticing details flying out of the relentless full-on brutality of the attack overall. It's a weirdly new wave mix— but all guitar and drums and vicious barking of apocalyptic pessimism that drag on longer than they should yet don't feel that way at all—rather than synth driven concise, airless midrange, The sequencing is totally ace; there's little point to pulling out and highlighting the songs because each are part of a hole. Defiantly thrash, there are not singles, save for "One", which became a single because record companies like singles, but it is not a single of its time. It's not Bon Jovi or Bryan Adams. It harkens back to when some singles were like revolutionary pronouncements, not mere product, closer in structure to "Bohemian Rhapsody" than "Livin' On a Prayer", and there is no ersatz rocking here; they came to tear you apart with precise subjective truths about the Post-Reagan world, the exigence to this dystopian hellscape: This country is fucked. And that's how it felt. That's how it feels now. But with better weed and headphones. With this album, everybody else is chasing the thrash beast Metallica. By the end of the eighties/beginning of the nineties, the leading lights of, including the so-called Big Four, Thrash would release their idiosyncratic, refined and masterful takes on the genre. Rivals Megadeth would drop Rust in Peace. Anthrax would drop Persistence of Time. Slayer would unleash Seasons in the Abyss. Better still, Voivod beamed Nothingface from Dimension Hatröss to an unsuspecting planet, and Overkill would offer a thrash elegy with The Years of Decay. This period would also produce the grumpy gatekeepers debating "real thrash" and whether any of these folks sold out. The Black Album would answer that question for Metallica—however you think about that record. But this re-visit, in this moment in time, it's difficult to conceive of "...And Justice" in generic terms. It is a singular, coherent vision of existential dread, like the cracks in the iconic statuary cover illustrate, knowing that our collective self-delusion about America and Americans, reveal capricious violence and avarice as the truth national credo.

The thing is: Bad Brains is a separate consciousness with its own natural order of things. The energy is constrained only by medium. The chaos charging at you is built out of love, the aggression out of an idealism of positivity. The consciousness is waiting for open minds and hearts--like all transformative art. This is how I can to understand Bad Brains later, and understand them now more than ever. This was not the first impression of Bad Brains. That came courtesy of College Rock Radio stalwarts WOXY, slipping in the St. Germain produced 1986 album I Against I eponymous single wherever the constant onslaught of lame jangle bands and the Stone Roses permitted. They made a video, too, that made it on the MTV College Rock late night show. I was pretty "meh". It didn't suck, but it didn't flip my wig, either. It seemed very well produced, orderly, mid-rangey with eighties drum sounds, but not terribly dangerous or interesting, definitely not life changing. It fit in pretty well with the kind of Red Hot Chili Peppers funk rock of Southern California. I probably imagined they were from California. In short, I wasn't in a hurry to buy it. ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ Some years later, after a totally life-affirming mid-nineties Fugazi gig, and the obsessive weeks where I consumed whatever I could find pre-internet about MacKaye, the Bad Brains blipped back into my confused radar. Really? That totally inoffensive, very well produced, orderly, mid-rangey with eighties drum sounds, but not terribly dangerous or interesting, definitely not life changing, "meh" California band? Curious. A few weeks later, a dude my sister knew divulged two pieces of critical information which prompted me to explore immediately and re-assess: 1. Bad Brains are, in fact, a DC band. Legendarily so. 2. Check out their early shit. This is how shit was in the Queen City pre-internet . Second hand information is what you worked with. Had the internet been around, I would have been transformed a lot earlier. Bad Brains ROIR is the exclamation point, the standard for all American Punk, Post-Punk, Hardcore that isn't called the Ramones. Absolute chaos that is actually supremely well-structured on a quantum level. And oh my God, the Reggae and Dub is so spot on it, one would be forgiven for thinking this was on a Trojan release somewhere. In fact, ROIR, to my ear-thinking, is recorded like any great dreader than reggae, emphasis on low end, emphasis on space, not to fussy or busy, perfect for the 1-3s of the form, and brilliantly, perfect for the rampaging 4 on the floor when the Bad Brains decide to uncork the fucking life-energy of the universe on shit like "Big Takeover". On every level, and in every facet, this is life affirming music. Sadly, this album does none of this. St. Germain's 80s funk production and well recorded, well compressed, well lifeless metaloid guitar sound make this less life affirming and more lifeless husk of what this band could be. Gang of Four proved that actual Commie Funk can sound amazing, but that's not what you get here. This is designed for white suburban kids who fancied themselves "Alternative", and since nostalgia is the drug of choice, would no doubt appeal to white suburban kids duping the late Eighties Alternative thing. It didn't move me much then, and these years later, it is still "meh". I know better. Maybe the silver lining is this might be Bad Brains training wheels, and hopefully, people work backwards to the center.