Live albums are my catnip, so this is the ideal way to start. What should have been one of the original raw and unfiltered live albums of the early sixties, explaining the lasting popularity of Cooke and his sound, it was shelved for more than 20 years because it didn't sound polished and 'pop star' enough.
Listening to it now, you can hear exactly why this music electrified everyone who heard it. The bands of the early sixties came directly from this kind of sound, irresistible and electric. Cooke's vocals are ragged and urgent; the audience are part of the sound in a way you rarely hear, and the whole thing rattles along without a pause for breath. I'm generally a sucker for live albums which stretch out over four or even six sides of vinyl, but this captures the whole set and leaves you wanting more after less then 40 minutes.
Don't Fight It.
One of those late sixties albums where you can clearly hear the music shift from jangly guitar pop with catchy choruses into the complexities and layered instrumentation of what came next.
Not to mention the way the lyrics veer from simple love songs to much more introspective poetry to whatever the hell White Rabbit is supposed to be.
It's gone on my 'really ought to own a copy of this' list, as the last time I knowingly listened to it in its entirety would have been in the early eighties (hi Graeme), and it's quite a bit more brilliant than I remembered it being.
Teenaged me would have loved this. However, like a great deal of the music I loved when I was 19, I have absolutely no desire to ever hear this again. The idea that music this juvenile, this whiny, was made in 1994 not - as it appears to aspire to, the end of the 1970s, is remarkable.
Now, I subscribe to David Byrne's theory that most music only makes proper sense in context, but I cannot put myself into any mental state where this music would work for me - at 19, having lived through punk and the best/worst of the New Wave of British Heavy Metal, I'd completely understand where this is coming from musically, but lyrically I like to think I'd have just laughed at - for example - a song about (and I'm not making this up) being so annoyed at being cut off while driving sensibly that the only recourse is to take out a gun and shoot someone, well, maybe it's just that I grew up in the wrong country.
It's not without musical merit - the playing is generally good, and the songs for the most part are short enough that they don't outstay their welcome; there are even hints that this lot are capable of something other than distorted power chords in 4/4 at whatever tempo fits the lyrics, but that only elevates it from one star to two.
In the end, it's the worst kind of music for me - inauthentic. Had this been created by actual disaffected teenagers with genuine complaints I'd have understood, but this is a bunch of guys in or approaching their thirties, so it sounds like a cynical attempt to use as many buzzwords and cliches as they think grumpy 15-year-olds who have been grounded for swearing at the dinner table would lap up. I can see why it might make a list like this, but I was over it about four tracks in, and re-listening hasn't improved things.
I first heard 'Lithium' on the radio one evening driving home from work, and was convinced that this was a return to form for Black Sabbath, or something. It was definitely different from the over-produced and indistinguishable stuff which was convincing me that I had outgrown this popular music thing.
Listening to it now, it's perhaps a little too long - it's definitely front-loaded, although the quality doesn't drop by much, and 'Something in the Way' is worth the wait. I didn't go down the grunge road at the time, but this is an essential album no matter how much or little of the rest of the scene you were interested in.
It's the first album in my list which is a genuine cultural artefact, but I'm trying to restrict my five star ratings to albums which have no flaws, and this is not quite there.
Over the years, more than one person has told me that I'd enjoy this band, including a random stranger in a record store who saw what I was purchasing and recommended The War On Drugs to me.
So it was great to have this opportunity to hear them for myself, and to have the luxury of an entire weekend to try to get to know their music. Turns out, I already knew their music, because I have heard, and in many cases love, all their influences. Even the bit which sounded vaguely like Abba.
As I listened for a second or third time, I found myself anticipating the bit which sounds like Van Morrison, or the bit which sounds like Mercury Rev, or Springsteen, or... You get the idea.
In the end, it's fine; I do like it. But I don't love its meandering excavations of the last 50 years of music, and while I would never object to hearing it again, I equally wouldn't seek it out. In the end - it's fine.
