1001 Albums Summary

Prowler - Definite punk DNA. TSOL jumps to mind. Great wankity solo. Remember Tomorrow - Starts very metal ham n cheese, then a monster riff leads into some RUSH-esque proto-prog ornate badassery. Metal ballads have a silliness requirement for vocals/lyrics, but sometimes it works. Running Free - Big Crue vibes at the outset. But the riff is slightly Anthrax-y. More complex/interesting than the songwriting. The breakdown with the triplet riffs is fire. Phantom of the Opera- Hell yes. Operatic (duh). I love the bridge. The muted chunka chunka is straight Fugazi-esque. And the one-line choral is beautiful. This song has like 7 sections. It evolves beautifully. Structurally recalls ‘…And Justice…’. Transylvania- I generally think metal is better without vocals. This instrumental argues strong in my favor. Strange World - La Villa Strangeworldo. Milky keys are a nice add. Pink Floyd reporting. Charlotte The Harlot - Creepy slut-shamer. “I wanna see blood”? Iron Maiden - The main riffs are so loose. This is like a brawl between a stadium rock bro and a metal nerd where the bro wins but the nerd fights better. And, so, is Eddie the Iron Maiden? Is the serial killer a medieval torture device? Or a robot girl? Was this the inspiration for M3GAN? Overall a fun time and an education. I prefer the crisp, chunky metal to the bar rock elements, but I favorited a few tracks and will likely listen again.

R Crumb album cover. Cool. Combination of the Two - Live track. 2 track mix is crazy. Audience in one ear. Janis comes in late and brings a dead hippie jam to life. Solo is garage punk dirty. Guy singer is meh. I want to go listen to The Make Up now. I Need a Man to Love - Ok this is dark bluesy fire with Janice sounding sexy hoarse from the jump. Dual track guitars probably cut together from different performances is a happy accident. Summertime- Subdued music box picking. Janis adjusting volume and intensity like Robert Plant without the over glossed Britishness. Piece of My Heart - That intro is like Janice rushing up to you and yelling in your face..and it’s cool. Clear champ. Partially bc it’s stripped down, mostly J. Almost VU in its sparseness. Turtle Blues - J channeling Etta. Good track sequencing; transition feels perfect. Soulful af. Tinkling of glasses in bg is a nice touch. As is J’s coughing lol Oh, Sweet Mary - Surf rock Durango. Giving the drummer some. Gorgeous build. This is the track you time your LSD peak to. Ball and Chain - Superfuzz bigmuff intro that must have popped Mark Arm right out of the womb. Probably Glenn Branca’s favorite track on the album. This distortion tone is a thick furry caterpillar and you’re riding her into the psychedelic sunset. Roadblock - Hippie tonk. Funsies. Drums go on and git it. Flower in the Sun - Upbeat skiffle telling a romance fail story. “Once in a green time” is evocative as hell. Best lyrics on the record. Catch Me Daddy - Sparse shrieker that kicks into a punky jam. Dance floor kick drum siren call. Memphis repped in the solo, which fuckin rips. Really wish JJ had stuck around. She would have been the Queen of Punk. Magic of Love - Elvis-y barn boogie that fell in a vat of LOVE-style acid jam. Just the right length. This is the only track you can say that about. Not particularly my jam, musically, but enough risks taken that I appreciate it. JJ is easily the highlight, and at this point she was just getting started.

Ouch. If this thing is truly random, that’s spooky as fuck. (RIP Brian Wilson.) Our Prayer/Gee - Heaven made of harmonies. / The encapsulated BBs. Stripped to the kernel. Heroes & Villains - A personal favorite. Trombone slip n slide. Mini opera of naïveté. Just beautiful. Mercutio’s lament. Roll Plymouth Rock - “Just see what you’ve done to the church of the American Indian”. When Brian writes about a boat, it’s always sad. Barnyard - CA boy romanticizing farm life. I’ll let it slide, bc I love him. Great cello bit. Old Master Painter - A Waits-Ian character digression. Contributes to the toss-it-in-the-wagon vibe of the album. Strings remain a highlight. Sexy sax crawls in the window in the end. Cabin Essence - One of the weirder ones. Symphony (“first movement”) of twinkling bucolic wishes interrupted by martial chorus-ing. Iron horse? Ominously militaristic. Wonderful - Family love and vague religious/existential musing. Harpsichord (shudder). Turns spooky as it transitions into… Song For Children - Medieval or mythological devil’s advocate to the previous “movement”. “Maybe not one…“. Brave Sir Robin with Ben Folds stomp-march. Zeus whispers in here. Child is Father of the Man - A favorite. Refrain in the round. Bohemian Rhapsody vibes give way to Walker Bros lush solemnity, then to silky Isaac Hayes strings & brass making sweet sweet love. Surf’s Up - Back to mostly piano and chorus. Lyrics less vague, more visual. I don’t think anyone does oozin ahhs like BW & the BBs. S/T to a restful nights dreams. I’m in Great Shape/ - Drunken little circus waltz. Transitions to… I Wanna Be Around/ - Sinatra tribute cribbed from a lost TMBG demo. Transitions to… Workshop - We’re back in the circus waltz, but now somebody’s building a deck. Literal workshop sounds. Bless ‘im. Bottom third of an adorable pop Frankenstein(‘s Monster.) Transitions to… Vega-Tables - An ode to leafy greens. Musically, an old dusty saloon. On a Holiday - Another mini-opera. Pirate story played on children’s instruments. Including… Wind Chimes - Meditation (confession?) of wind chimes with a dark undertone. Swells into the choral refrain and then chaos as… Mrs O’Leary’s Cow - Escalating clatter of ambient noise that is enveloped in a roar of guitars and straight Zorn-ian sonic superstorm. Wonder if B knew Goblin. The sound of his nightmares. Into… In Blue Hawaii - Echoey BW over just solemn oohs recalls ‘King of Pain’ and Morphine. Then trotting wood block light Leone gives way to more Hawaiian scat. Much of this record feels like a Wild West theme park in the middle of the Big Island. Pretty little minuet outro into Good Vibrations - Concession or not, this song is a magic spell. Brian’s innocence and hope perfectly distilled. Overall, a messily packed suitcase full of toys, fears, and imagination on a conveyer belt, entering paradise. We’ll miss you, Brian. RIP.

When people ask me “what’s your greatest fear?”, I say “the riot scenes from The Wall.” The abuse of police and military power. Fascists dragging people out of vehicles and battering them with impunity. Now it’s happening outside my door. In America. Because Greedheads and religious rubes elected a psychopathic child rapist president.

They can take away our freedoms. They can beat us in the streets. But they’ll never make music like this. They can brutalize their way to a fake veneer of power but they will never know the power of creation. The magic of art is ours and we can weaponize it to protest and protect. Punk is my armor.

The US gave up its last free breath to a pedophile dictatorship today. This record is a distillation of the fury in me.

I didn’t like this album the first time I heard it. I’d been excitedly anticipating more thumping dark wave TBYML. This record was jangly, slick, way more “produced”. A while later I heard a track somewhere and revisited the album. I found a lush, carefully layered hand in hand escort through a metropolis where the dark is always entwined with the light, like the perfect amount of bass in the reverb on PJ’s guitar.

Agnes Dei - Interesting intro, with that scraping woodblock thing. The man can sing. This kind of thing goes better as soundtrack, to me. The One You Love - Scissor Sisters Go To Prep School. Peach Trees - I like the dry strum guitars. I’m just really not into pretty voices. “All my favorite singers couldn’t sing.” Little Sister - I like the jaunty strings. Strip down the production and you’ve got a little Van Dyke Parks (who I really should have talked about in my ‘SMILE’ rating) ditty. The Art Teacher - I like it when every word is a different note. I don’t like it when every word is multiple notes. Hometown Waltz - My favorite so far. I dig a waltz. If his voice was as shabby as the instrumentation I think I’d really like his records. This Love Affair - A soap opera. Gay Messiah - Best lyrics. This one feels real, if filtered through this cocktail lounge performative veil. Maybe it’s not “pretty voices” I don’t vibe with. (Wedren, for example, I love.) Maybe it’s FORMAL or TRADITIONAL voices. Vibrato on every word. Everything all stretched out. The way you’re “supposed to sing”. Lounge music? IDK. Memphis Skyline - This music makes me impatient. Maybe it’s an ADHD thing. Waiting For a Dream - Maybe I’m too working class to properly appreciate this. That statement would send most of my family into hysterics. Crumb by Crumb - I remember Squirrel Nut Zippers. Old Whore’s Diet - “Either here or Hell will employ you.” Great lyric. If the record sounded like this funky Sly and the Family Stone shit all the way through, it’d own me. Something about this undercuts the histrionics. The man can sing. I’m glad he has done well. Just not my bag.

Listened to this when it first came out. I was much, much more naive then.

Best rhythm section ever. Guitarist is good but steals all his best ideas. Singer has a hobbit fetish.

What eventually became nu-metal, when I was a teenager, was called rap-rock. We (my freaks and geeks friends group) were obsessed with it. The Judgement Night s/t, 311, Orange 9mm, and of course the perfectors of the genre, Rage Against The Machine. The Beasties dipped in, especially with Check Your Head, but were generally sample-based in our era. Most of these bands retained the anti-authoritarian and street culture of punk and hip-hop, even when grooving on some reggae or ska. So when Limp Bizkit emerged, we didn’t take them seriously. And I mean musically. And Linkin Park seemed to duck in the door after them, riding the wave of boom bap and Marshall stacks that all the kids (and by this time our gang were kids no more) loved. To us it was a politically neutered, dumbed down, radio-shiny version of rap-rock, and we were glad at the advent of the term ‘nu-metal’ because it separated this pablum from the raw ferocity and the real real of Zack DLR and Chaka Malik. But at some point all that gatekeeping became unimportant, and I was able to hear what was special about this band. It IS the massive, stadium-in-your-ears production. It IS the “slick” layers of guitar roar and synth wail that perfectly set the stage for the late great Chester Bennington’s metal god vocals. Whatever you think of the band, nobody can deny this kid’s voice was a phenomenon. And of course he is gone way too goddamn soon, another victim of depression, the forever curse of those who can’t help but see through the facade. Overall, it’s still a little too clean at the edges for my taste. I’ll always be drawn back to RATM or even early 311, neither of which are particularly punk in their production, but which have a more stripped down, focused approach to the music all around. Some bands try hard to make hits, and that’s fine, but those bands, no matter how innovative, will never be a part of the discussion about music as something more.

Nah.

I only know about Donovan bc of Husker Du. I liked the song so much I actually looked up the writing credits. Donovan laid some of the track for punk rock. Working backwards from punk I’ve learned a hell of a lot about music. As far as the full recording, I’m not super into the medieval folk shit which occupies most of it, but I dig a lot of the bass and the echoey bongos. Bert’s Blues is cool. Make that bass fretless and lower D’s voice an octave and you’ve got a Morphine song. Season of the Witch will always rule. D was cool in a way that Morrison desperately, ostentatiously wanted to be. More proto-punk hiding in the jangly Eastern hippie shit. Also one of the best horror-related songs. Up there with Zevon. The Trip has a fun dirty groove. The second half of the record feels really different than the first. No more pastoral folk ballads. We’re rockin’ ahora. Guinevere: …I spoke too soon. The Fat Angel rolls up the medieval tapestry and fills it with Maui Wowie. Celeste - Self-excoriating emo lyrics on a bed of moog clouds and psychedelic violin. Really lush production. Sometimes I hear a prefigure of Stephen Merritt in his voice. He definitely deserves the indie forefather credit. Yeah, subtract the Guinevere-ish stuff and I’d spin this a lot.

Welp, I wrote a whole track by track review and then fucked up when pasting or something and now it’s lost. Best I can remember, my rating of this album is essentially “better than I expected” + “more interesting than Smoke on the Water.”

I love this record to pieces. The love child of Velvet Underground and Led Zeppelin, sometimes haunted by the ghost of Buck Owens.

A vortex of every rock sound that had come before and the emerging baby synth tech of the early 80s. New Wave party music by cheeky Brits sneaking obvious masturbation references past oblivious censors. Musically: kitchen sink-core. There’s some cool sounds in here. Tooting Bec Wreck is a highlight, a singalong with Beefheartian lunacy hiding at the center. Lots of Big Hair sound in the middle of the record. Pub and Stadium rock linked by increasingly fading Oingo Boingo weirdisms. Bret Michaels crawled out of this shit like Athena from Zeus’s noggin. At its best recalls Mr Bungle. At its worst, Warrant.

Advent of the original nerd punks. Dry strumming over a scene-heretical groove.

I don’t mess with Jack Antonoff productions for the same reason I don’t mess with Ouija boards. No shade on Lorde, who seems cool.

A perfect, heartbreaking haunting. Kurt providing the soundtrack for his own departure from this life. This record HURTS.

A quick note on the controversy. The man is dead. I assume his children are the beneficiaries of his estate, and they have done nothing wrong. Bad - Machine gun vocals snap and crackle. Drums are whip-cracks. Acknowledging that his very non-threateningness made the psuedomacho palatable. Maybe even delicious. Silly but scrumptious. The Way You Make Me Feel - Elasticity. Rubber band stretch and SnapBack. Perfect dosage of sax. His voice… Curtis, Wilson, Chubby, Berry, Sam, of course JB. A heavenly, mythic concoction of Soul in his blood. And not just. Speed Demon - A rare new to me track. Sounds like a s/t number. To a racing movie. Musically this could be the Hong Kong Cavaliers lol. Liberian Girl - This dark 80s drum sequencer electro groove synth shit puts me on wobbly roller skates in a dark rink with the funk of teenage sexuality in the air and an unnamed tension in my chest. Just Good Friends- Realizing I don’t know this record nearly as well as Thriller. The school dance music from a John Hughes film. Bouncy clavinet solo is great. Harmonies, too. Big movie vibe. I like this one. “My baby loves me but she never shows she cares.” Anthem. Another Part of Me - Positivity gangsta. Somehow all the silliness slides right off. I’m not saying it’s functional as a rallying cry, but his earnestness (from trauma) saves it from parody. Man in the Mirror- How much introspection is a beaten-raw kid thrust into a lifelong surreality carnival really capable of? Could have MJ really seen the mirror clearly? Chorus is perfect. I Just Can’t Stop Loving You - Casiotone Nation. Dirty Diana - Big Mean Girl uses and abuses me, soft and vulnerable beta artist man. (“Take your weight off me” is…telling.) Oh and she’s a gold digger, too. But fuckin A this song ROCKS. Is that Slash? I bet Beyonce could turn this around lyrically and ride this rock to another Grammy. Genuinely dope track. Smooth Criminal- Something about the way he whispers. The chorus is sort of minor key and weird-cool. The overlapping “are you ok”s. It’s short of sinister, but noir as fuck. Guitar and synth spikes interplay is awesome. Possibly my favorite MJ single. Leave Me Alone - Go ‘way, girl, I’m SENSITIVE. Fun beat. Keytar? Not quite Thriller, but chock full o’ hits.

I don’t feel like I’m qualified to talk about SW’s music. Much of it, musically, is beyond me. Jazz stuff. Piano stuff. But that doesn’t matter when these songs hit my ears bc they then bypass my brain and dive straight into my soul.

His 3rd record and his final form as a mostly-traditional jazz troubadour. Small Change comes next and the music and the persona begin expanding. If you’re in the mood for this vibe, it will provide. I return more often to either Rain Dogs or Mule Variations, but he had to be this incarnation to become the Wacky Jack of all musical trades he eventually blooms into.

“Yeah, we’re that one-hit wonder band, but our hit is as long as four regular songs.” Inoffensive organ rock.

I’m a little embarrassed to like this band. But man I’m a sucker for harmonies. Especially if you add some milky rubber band bass underneath. I saw them live with my mom before she lost her mind. “Love is coming to us all.” Maybe. Hippie shit but the real hippie shit.

I’ve never really given this record a thorough listen. I fall pretty squarely on the Ramones side of the first wave punk sonic divide. So let’s go. Gloria - My first touch point for PS’s music. A classic build. I never realized how much she sounds like Gordon from Violent Femmes. Strike that; reverse it. Redondo Beach - White reggae elegy for a dead friend. Birdland - Big props to punk poetry like this. Evocative saga of funereal New England domestic madness. Probably worthy of serious study. Free Money - Galloping excoriation/exaltation of the “fables of opulence”. Punk af. Just seeing how she art-birthed Nick Cave. Kimberly- Radio bop with dancey kick drum and chiming keys that escorts a shaggy dog story about burning barns (and another dead child?) The hand claps… Break it Up - Another New England horror story, this one of ripping through your skin to achieve transcendence? Verlaine on display, his guitar co-narrating in a desperate squeal. Another exquisite build. Land - More October imagery suggesting Romeo & Juliet that gets swallowed by the beat and becomes a jagged cover of Land of 1,000 Dances that in turn gets python-squeezed by high art spoken word surreality into a thrilling acceleration of Patti’s word paintings and Tom’s highest of high end Fugazi-esque fret scratches. The culmination of all the ideas on the album in one chugging sparking engine of punky rock. “A simple rock song”. Elegie - Broadway lives in every NYer, I reckon. Pink Floydy wails of guitar echoing behind the curtain. Torchy and sweet to wrap it up. It’s no surprise people write whole books about her. She’s been vital to Punk in every way. Viva Patti.

A friend of mine in high school went to a Primus concert and tried to give the famously hat-positive Les Claypool a chef’s toque, at which Les shook his head and said, “No thanks, man, not my speed.” Sam’s sentiment applies here. I like some of these sounds, but for the most part it’s just not my speed.

I’ve never really been into Brit…pop? Is that what this is? I like Pulp and Blur ok, and those Verve singles are cool, but this just feels overproduced and unsurprising to me. This also feels like author bias, bc this album isn’t even listed by Apple as essential. No thanks.

Picture the scene: Six white boys crammed into an open top Jeep, rambling through the gated communities of Savannah, Georgia, drinking forties, high as fuck, blasting this album and throwing firecrackers at golfers and other preps. We were so stupid. It was glorious. Fuck Snoop for being a MAGA sellout bitch but this record rules.

Fuck Phil Anselmo and every limp dick Nazi asshole like Phil Anselmo.

Not quite as good without the Y, but still a comfort fit harmony-fest. The “hey girl be my lady” stuff makes you realize they were essentially a boy band. A boy band in willowy man-blouses with too much sitar, but a boy band nonetheless.

I have always kind of hated Rod Stewart. The Sexy business got way out of hand. He was a more marketable raspy-voiced crooner than Tom Waits, and so he sort of stole Tom’s spotlight. (He also made Tom serious bank covering Downtown Train - a cover I actually like, even if the video is stupid.) Small Faces is cool. That AI Ozzy “tribute” he did recently is not.

Waterline - Mark Knopfler makes maximalism sound minimal. He’s playing a lot of notes, but within a limited range and percussively. He’s Clapton but with Dick Dale replacing the endless noodling with B E A T S. Water of Love - Agua theme. Is this from a plant’s POV? Folky ‘Dead vibes and chord progression. Mark isn’t the most cryptic lyricist. Setting - Funk 48. Honkytonkified F U ditty. Feels like a more dudely companion piece to 9 to 5. A Dolly duet on this would rip. SBK - Creepy serial killer love song with spare chill strums. Southbound - Barroom bounce with a great repeating riff that dances up and down the fretboard. A song that makes me grateful for Dire Straits by way of being thankful for The Minutemen. SOS - This song feels like the previous sounds on the record coalescing into a sudden revelation that is the Dire Straits. A stroll through a city of “competing” bands. A bemused scene expose with Harry and Guitar George and the bitter boys on the corner each having a say what music is. But MK and the Sultans — masters of chill - knows the secret: it’s never just “strictly rhythm”. Mark’s guitars pogo. Gallery - Goddamn, funk and folk make some beautiful babies. MK’s leaning, lyrically, into the character sketches and neighborhood reportage, and music is better for it. Mark’s guitar’s got more “soul” than a hundred Claptons. (I don’t hate EC; I just strongly object to him being called “blue eyed soul” bc that shit is white af.) WWE - Maybe it’s that it starts out with “Stepping Out” that made me think of Joe Jackson — or maybe it’s the prosaic poetry of the mundane found in the greasy corners of the city and the subdued reverence that sneaks in at the end as the blue collar WC Williams feels the revelatory sunshine on his face bouncing from concrete and glass. A love song to London’s West End with dirt under its fingernails. Lions - The most intriguing lyrics on the record. Another beat travelogue through Metropole but the flip of West End, focusing on the Fear. “She read about a swing to the right but she’s thinking of a stranger in the night” reads as far too relevant to me. I’m not sure who the Lions are or where they have gone — or why Mark misses them. Protectors? Kings of the City Jungle? An interesting song to allow to linger, as your outro. A really great record, especially the second half. MK’s percussive spare-where-it-matters guitar and beat poetry influenced and informed so many of the bands I love — Minutemen, Silver Jews, Unwound, even Fugazi just to name a few. His DNA is a crucial ingredient in the most savory indie rock ever made. Delicious, delicious DNA.

I like Cinnamon Girls. I confess to using it as a pet name for multiple partners. I think I’d like to go back home and take it easy. But my home is now occupied by the KKK. Neil’s down home gee-tar and his revolt against the Confederacy is me. It won’t be long. It won’t be long. A comforting approaching final silence. I saw this thing today with David Byrne talking about James Brown and he said the Godfather said, “Every instrument is percussion.” N&CH get it. Bounce and snap and growl under Young Neil’s plaintive eternally childlike falsetto. Fucking love these spare squeaky solos flirting with discordance. Be on my side; I’ll be on your side. It’s so hard for me now, but I’ll make it somehow, though I know I’ll never be the same. Won’t you ever change your ways? The violin is the whole story and it broke my fucking heart. But soon these things are overcome and can’t be recognized. Cowgirl in the Fucking Sand. The fecund soil of genius from which grew Camper Van and Flaming Lips and Dinosaur Jr and a million bright brilliant burning babies that still guide me through the dark. Exiled gods of goodness bless Neil Young. I’ve seen him twice. Once at Conan‘s last Tonight Show. Conan and Andy hunched together in the shadows in commiserative mourning. Neil in the spotlight, picking and wailing and enveloped in an aura you could fucking SEE. We all levitated just a bit off our seats. All of us. This is a perfect record to me.

ZZ TOP IZZ ZZTUPID FUN

Schizoid - My link to this song is Bad Religion’s quasi-cover. I’m that kid. But I also had a heavy Zorn/Knitting Factory phase. The clear immediate descendant. These days I like prog elements in my rock, but I generally like a straighter backbone. Love the voice fx and the sax on this the most. I talk to the wind - My first instinct was coiled revulsion. But then I unwound when the slick-like-that drums kicked in. There is a clear and simple, almost stoic/detached delivery of the vocal lines. Restraint. Very pretty. This would make a sick jazz-rap loop. You listening, Kendrick? Dig this dancing flute. Motherfucker is FREE. Epitaph - BIG ROLLING TYMPS deposit us before a quiet crooning doomsday poet who is gradually joined by rising gusts of somber strings and dense synth clouds painting a sonic portrait of a Goya nightmare future. Yes, I fear tomorrow I’ll be crying. Moonchild - So far the record, despite the frenzy of Schizoid, is more Floyd than Zorn. Very pretty. Chill. A bit too wizard-y for me, lyrically. But I’m digging the spaces between. My 90s indie rock brain pulling in Tortoise and Lambchop. Court - Don’t get me wrong. I love D&D. Just not in my music. I feel like I’m being forced to listen to a professional LARPer’s poetry while I’m trying to hear the spacey Pinky Floydy band jamming next door. The last three minutes are the best of the record. Ends just when it’s getting really interesting. As stated too much fantasy imagery for me. Schizoid remains my favorite, and makes me want to go listen to some Painkiller. EDIT: (Thanks for this feature!) I didn’t listen to the live tracks before I rated. I should have. ‘A Man A City’ was the operatic Zornian frenzy I wanted from this album from the start. I know this band parented much of the weirdness I love from Sonic Youth to Don Cab to Bungle ad infinitum. This is the DNA proof. And the reason I’m bumping the whole album up a star. Viva weird!

My Husker tapes that got worn to the point of demagnetization were New Day Rising and the early comp, Things Fall Apart. The Warehouse era to me was a ‘Bob Songs Vs Grant Songs dump’. You can feel the division through the entire album and it throws a weird vibe over an otherwise enjoyable set of early pop punk tracks. I love Ice Cold Ice, You Could Be The One, and Friend You’ve Got to Fall. (All Bob songs.) I do like a few of Grant’s, including You’re a Soldier, which has always felt like a sad jab at Bob and the punk rock touring life that was killing Grant. Grant may, as some argue, be the better or more evolved lyricist. But Bob still and always knows hooks. Not a bad record, a fine batch of rockers, including a lot of what could be considered pre-emo. A solid 3/5. Blasphemously, perhaps, I prefer Sugar.

A journey to another, funkier world where the goddess is all.

This is a major oversight. For years I for some reason thought CAN was a minimalist proto-techno band. Like early Ministry. Like Pailhead. I don’t know why I thought this. But this album feels like meeting the parents of all the bands I love the most. The spare, percussive guitar. Fugazi’s dad. The loosey-goosey on-the-verge-of-collapse drums. Pavement’s mom. The punchy syncopated bass. LCD Soundsystem’s uncle. The whole thing rumbling and clanking like a rusty ramshackle train about to come off the tracks at any moment. Count me as a CAN fan from here on out.

The sound of my adolescence scored by the radio. Beach days, pool days. The reason I hate synthesizers and the reason I’m a sucker for synthesizers. Sometimes I find his lyrics goofily earnest and then I remember I am too. I make a joke: “Peter Gabriel is god and Phil Collin’s is the devil and that’s why that band was called Genesis.” But I don’t hate Phil or think Peter’s a god. A minor deity, maybe. Definitely a creature of light from a higher plane. Much higher than strained self-effacement. Red Rain - “Fuck you I’m starting my first big pop record wailing about the environment hee hee.” That two bar refrain can get stuck in your head and fuck you up, man. Sledgehammer - I could be your anything and everything. Don’t Give Up - Golden Boy picks up the bullied nerd and dusts him off and Kate Bush is there smiling. That Voice Again - The Golden Boy realizes he IS the nerd. Mercy Street - Feels personal. Or maybe it’s all in Anne’s head. You, me, everything. Big Time - “Ha ha I’m so famous now. Permanently stuck between satirist and satirized.” A fucking BOP. We Do What We’re Told - Yes, we do. For better and worse. This Is The Picture - A meditation. A hint at why there are so many paintings of birds. With Laurie Anderson’s breathy accompaniment and tinkling percussion. In Your Eyes - Say anything. A perfect record.

This is a new one on me. I’m not super up on my Brit-rock, I confess. But let’s have a listen: Ooh I like these hurky-jurky riffs. Lots of stuff going on in the background. Groovy. I like the singer. There’s a nice balance of croon and growl. It’s very Kinks-y. Very Jam-ish. Stone Roses? Ohhhh, this is the band that does ‘There She Goes’. If I’m being vulnerable I’ve always liked this song. Big desperate anime smile. I appreciate how short the songs are. Not in a bad way. In a Buddy Holly and the Crickets way. Yeah I dig that dry-riffing acoustic a lot. Mix is great, too. Little bit of Gogol Bordello in ‘Freedom Song’. Welcomed. Yeah this was a fun chunk of scrappy chunky punky pop with that reliable working class British snarl.

This is one of those records I’ve only heard the hits from. Shall we? (This is gonna bum me out, isn’t it?) Feels like church. The music was almost worth the church. “I will lay me down.” That binaural bass you blissed out beauties. Righteous, brother. Hm. Flutes. Warbling ones, at that. 😠 Celia, clap and stomp LFG! Bo po po po bo. And a “pick it up pick it up” worthy of Op Ivy. Cops always hasslin lil Paul Simon. I’ll tell you what those horns are keeping this customer right here damn well satisfied, brother. I’m not sure I “get” So Long, Frank Lloyd Wright, but I love that sexy-ass cello. Getting my ears boxed by these oceanic harmonies. Lie la lie. What the fuck is that? A hurdy-gutsy? Oh so Edgar Wright just stole this shit for that weirdly racist movie? Bari sax battle! Otherwise a cute little Beatlesy skiffle. Bass just slip slidin along. And why not throw in a live cover? Well it rips, so why not? And we’re sent on our way with a little plea. It’s a classic for a reason, y’all.

Pretty. And that’s about all I’m qualified to say

Reminds me of Elliott Smith and Nick Drake (the picking). The waver in his voice reminds me of someone but I can’t place it. I like a lot of the guitar but the lyrics don’t quite grab me. It’s fine.

A little nervous to start this. A record by a genius who knew he was dying. Spooky. Star - IDK where Ormen is but I’m there. Dig these subdued beats. Reminds me of DJ Shadow + Tricky. After the break the strings come in and the ghost of Lennon accompanies. Dips into a smoky bar that exists between folded space. All very dark sci-fi. Evidently a “blackstar” is a name for a cancerous lesion. Like I said, genius. And like I said, spooky. Little yapping flute protest at the end behind arcade sounds. …A Whore - Love the breath at the jump. Knitting Factory post-jazz wail + welcome boom bap. “That was patrol. This is the war.” Is Laswell on this record? (Is Laswell alive?) Either way his ghost is all over this. Lazarus - “Look up here, I’m in heaven.” Chilling. Just realized layered saxophone is the sound of ghosts. He sounds scared. You would be, too. Girds his heart with memories of being king of NYC. Steps up, finds hope in a bluebird. The most transparent song so far. Hurts. “Ain’t that just like me?” A reassuring smirk on exit. Sue - Love these math rock start stop guitars. My generation. “In a season of crime none need atone.” Very cool bar chords ascending in the background of the mix. Sue = the one who got away? Definitely some intent behind the discordance. Girl Loves Me - Oh shit yeah let’s go with the Clockwork Orange vocab. More clattering drum trills. “Where the fuck did Monday go?” Love this refrain. Waitsian echo behind beats that increasingly recall DJ Shadow to me. Dollar Days - More incidental background sounds:papers shuffling. Acoustic guitar snuck in from the Ziggy era. “Those oligarchs with foaming mouths call now and then.” I have a love/hate relationship with the alto sax. Hard to hate here. The light touch recalls Joe Henry’s Scars record. Or some more academic jazz reference my whitebread prole ass is not capable of. “I’m dying to…” I Can’t Give Everything Away - Washed-out sax ushers in the 1980s. Comforting. The most Labyrinth-era (my Bowie) track thus far. Feels like an apology. For fame? For not giving everything. Manic sax behind him the subtext of anxiety. Gets replaced by a confident Knopfler-esque guitar run. The seesaw of contemplating approaching eternity. A shorter record than I anticipated. Yet stuffed to complete with everything the Goblin Prince needed to say, I think. Less depressing than I expected. A man who spent enough time thinking about life and death that was more curious about his end than afraid of it. A position to consider. A fine and dignified self-eulogy. ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Sick beats. Even sicker features.