Violent Femmes - Violent Femmes (1982)

My Rating: 1.90 out of 5

All-Time Top 1000 Albums: √

Rolling Stone 500 Greatest Albums: X

The Mojo Collection: X

Chart Peak (UK/US): --/--

Favourite Tracks: Blister in the Sun, Kiss Off, Gone Daddy Gone
Least-Favourite Tracks: Please Do Not Go, To the Kill

Well I've known a few violent femmes in my time, but I don't know much about this band. I quite like that though - listening to a record with no preconceived ideas, opinions or other baggage. I also try not to read any reviews or artist biographies until after I've heard the album for myself - just in case my puny viewpoint crumbles under the might of collective critical opinion.

For some reason, I'd imagined this group to be a good deal more sophisticated than they are - probably just because they use a french word in their bandname or they have an arty album cover. Anyway it's not what I expected. For a start, it turns out that I do know something about the band - I recognised the opening track Blister in the Sun straight away - all twangy guitars & a maddeningly catchy riff. I like the acoustic, quasi-rockabilly feel, but like so many songs with instantly infectious tunes I can also imagine tiring of it pretty quickly. (A measure of its catchiness/disposability is that burger chain Wendy's have used it for their adverts). But it's a bright start & the second track Kiss Off continues in a similar vein with more pleasing acoustic bass work & singer Gordon Gano, a cross between Lou Reed & Howard Devoto, continuing to display a certain fey charm.

The problem is as the album progresses its one-dimensional appeal begins to wane; the songwriting starts getting very ordinary, the often tuneless vocal melodies & squeaky intonations start getting irritating, the whimsical lyrics make way for the kind of 'kill the world' nonsense you can read in the margins of a thousand school roughbooks & the musical arrangements never stray far from sounding like some busking trio. (I just read here on Wikipedia that it was actually penned while they were at high school & that they used to busk the songs on street corners so that explains a lot). The album closes out with Good Feeling, a slow number that sounds like a rip-off of Lou Reed's Perfect Day to me & I was left wondering why so many people rate this album so highly. Judging by the gushing customer reviews over at Amazon.com I think I may well have felt differently if I'd been brought up in the US & I'd first heard this when I was fourteen. But I wasn't. When I finished listening to it, I took off my headphones & Avril Lavigne was playing on the radio and I hardly noticed the segue at all. Which is probably not a good thing.

[from my Top 1000 Albums blog]

Pogues - If I Should Fall From Grace With God (1988)

My Rating: 2.54 out of 5

All-Time Top 1000 Albums: √

Rolling Stone 500 Greatest Albums: X

The Mojo Collection: X

Chart Peak (UK/US): 3/88

Favourite Tracks: If I Should Fall From Grace With God, Bottle of Smoke, Worms
Least-Favourite Track: Streets Of Sorrow/Birmingham Six (because of the lame
chorus, not the lyrical content)

As a spotty-faced youth back in the 80s I spent a lot of time in the Irish clubs in London, so listening to this album conjures up some strange disjointed images from the past. Sounds like some clichéd stereotype but it was pretty riotous - absolutely everyone really was smoking, drinking, laughing & (occasionally) fighting (well that's how I remember it anyway). I have a bizarre memory of one particular comedian who used to drag tramps in off the street & dress them up as women. They made quite a grotesque spectacle on stage in flouncy dresses & full make-up, especially as he'd then generally abuse them & kick them up the arse as part of his act. They'd endure it all on the promise of free Guinness & I'd see them drunkenly flailing around later in the night still wearing smeared lipstick & mascara.

The bands that played the Irish club circuit were generally pretty riotous too, but also patriotic, nostalgic & cheeky & listening to this album The Pogues seem rooted in much the same tradition. I like the way they update the traditional storytelling ballad form using modern subject matter - Bottle Of Smoke tells the tale of a big win at the horse track in Shane MacGowan's inimitable style ('The moon is clear / The sky is bright / I'm as happy as horses' shite'). And I think MacGowan is the key here; his lyrics are poetic, witty, irreverent & drenched in nostalgia & historical imagery; his voice is bristling with character & passion. Moreover the tracks that don't feature MacGowan tend to fall a little flat, as without him they can sound like any other 'fiddley-diddley' band. Similarly I felt that another key ingredient was the band's energy; on the faster tracks there's a manic punky influence that really works alongside the traditional Irish instruments, whereas on the slower, reflective numbers the band loses much of its originality & can sound like any number of bands that used to play the clubs. That's not to say that it's exclusively Irish - there's a European flavour on Fiesta, Worms & Turkish Song Of The Damned that allied with the evocative lyrics sounds very much like late-era Tom Waits. All in all an enjoyable listen - shame it reminds me of grizzled old men in bras & tights.

[from my Top 1000 Albums blog]

Sly & The Family Stone - There's A Riot Goin' On (1971)

My Rating: 2.91 out of 5

All-Time Top 1000 Albums: √

Rolling Stone 500 Greatest Albums: √

The Mojo Collection: √

Chart Peak (UK/US): 31/1

Favourite Tracks: Family Affair, You Caught Me Smilin', Runnin' Away
Least-Favourite Track: Spaced Cowboy

Over the years everyone harped on about Sly & The Family Stone so much that I was put off listening to them. It always seemed to be the ultra-trendy people; they'd regurgitate everything they'd read from the critics, smugly explaining to me about Sly's innovative & original approach as if they'd just thought of it themselves. And I suspected that they only thought he was cool because he took lots of drugs. (Don't forget these were the same morons who would pay more for a pair of jeans with designer rips & spots of paint than I paid for my car).

Anyway I digress... so I finally listened to this record & my initial impression was 'what a mess'. The album opens with Luv N' Haight & the recording is hissy, lead vocals are mumbled & distorted, bass guitar & horns are out of tune and the song sprawls along like some directionless demo-jam session. But as the album progresses, it all starts making more & more sense. Yes it's raw & unrefined, but it's also inventive & groundbreaking stuff with drum machines, psychedelic filtered vocals (often recorded when he was lying in bed according to this wikipedia feature) and tons of tape edits & overdubs. There's no doubting it's the twisted funk prototype for bands like Funkadelic & Parliament. And I must admit that the critics largely got it right - this may be the sound of Sly slow-falling into a drugs abyss, but it works because it also mirrors our own nagging feelings of aimlessness & disintegration. The lyrics aren't the great social statement that they'd have you believe though (there aren't enough of them for a start) & it doesn't always hit the spot (e.g., the ill-advised yodelling on Space Cowboy), but it still bears all the hallmarks of a classic album.

[from my Top 1000 Albums blog]

Hole - Live Through This (1994)

My Rating: 2.17 out of 5

All-Time Top 1000 Albums: √

Rolling Stone 500 Greatest Albums: √

The Mojo Collection: √

Chart Peak (UK/US): 32/52

Favourite Tracks: Doll Parts, She Walks On Me
Least-Favourite Tracks: Softer Softest, Rock Star (Olympia)

In the unlikely event that I was invited to a dinner party for drugged-out, self-destructive pop stars, I must confess that I'd make a bee-line for a seat next to Courtney Love. Unlike say Pete Docherty, Amy Winehouse, Britney Spears et al, she always seems to me to have a sense of self-deprecating humour, something interesting to say & a streak of sincerity. Listening to this album for the first time has done little to alter my opinion either, because without Courtney Love it'd be a pretty ordinary record. Musically it's not all that original - quasi-punk, mainstream grunge - however you define it, it's still pretty straightforward guitar rock but Love's voice & lyrics elevate it into something a little more special. Her voice may not be note-perfect but it bristles with character - on Doll Parts she switches from sarcastically purring 'I want to be the girl with the most cake' to an anguished guttural cry of 'Someday you will ache like I ache'. I guess what I'm trying to say is that it sounds genuine - I was expecting to find some kind of 'grunge-lite' created by marketing men but this actually has a lot of emotive power running through it.

Reviews always tend to draw musical comparisons to Nirvana though for me there is a distinctive retro quality to the music that harks back to the 1980s UK New Wave acts. I read on Wikipedia that Courtney Love used to live in Julian Cope's house in Liverpool during The Teardrop Explodes era & it sounds like she has absorbed some of that musical pedigree - Jennifer's Body has a jangly guitar & bass line straight out of The Monochrome Set & there's even a (not very good) cover of The Young Marble Giants' Credit In The Straight World. I do wonder how well Hole would have fared without the Cobain connection though - if you strip away all the hype & hyperbole you're left with a reasonable album, but not one I'd regard as a classic.

[from my Top 1000 Albums blog]

Beth Orton - Central Reservation (1999)

My Rating: 1.92 out of 5

All-Time Top 1000 Albums: √

Rolling Stone 500 Greatest Albums: X

The Mojo Collection: X

Chart Peak (UK/US): 17/--

Favourite Tracks: Sweetest Decline, Central Reservation (Ben Watt Mix)
Least-Favourite Tracks: Pass In Time, Feel To Believe

According to CDNOW's review of this album Beth Orton's voice 'aches and yearns, caressing the ears like a worn, wool mitten on a winter day.' Hmmmm. I'd say her voice was more like scraping the ears with a brillo pad soaked in paint stripper. On a very cold winter day.

I was so dumbfounded when I read that review, that I wondered whether I'd actually listened to the right album. I seriously went back & played the whole thing again through a different music system. After that I concluded that it must have been just the lone ravings of a crazed mitten-fetishist, but hang on, over at Allmusic we discover that 'the focal point is Orton's evocatively soulful voice' & down at Amazon that 'she's blessed with the rich, warm voice of a true pop singer'. I mean, is it just me or do we have a serious case of the 'Emperor's New Clothes' here? Because all I could think of was what a great album this would be if it was performed by someone who could actually sing.

When Orton keeps it laidback she sounds ok, but as soon as she starts pushing her voice it really starts to grate. She has a tendency to go very flat & then hits this thin, reedy tone like one of those toy plastic saxophones that occasionally swells to a full nails-down-the-blackboard screech. Dont believe me? Listen to Couldn't Cause Me Harm or Feel To Believe & tell me that I've got it all wrong. It's a shame because both the music and lyrics are really very good. It's a mellow, organic sounding record that often reminded me of Everything But The Girl (if only Tracey Thorn was singing it). Perhaps one of the problems is that Orton's piercing vocals just sound so incongruous over such gentle music. There's some excellent arrangements too, with melancholic strings & shimmering vibraphones, but for me everything was just overshadowed by those vocals.

[from my Top 1000 Albums blog]

Paul Simon - Paul Simon (1972)

My Rating: 3.45 out of 5

All-Time Top 1000 Albums: √

Rolling Stone 500 Greatest Albums: X

The Mojo Collection: X

Chart Peak (UK/US): 1/4

Favourite Tracks: Everything Put Together Falls Apart, Run That Body Down
Least-Favourite Tracks: Duncan

The album cover photo says it all; here's Paul Simon up close & personal, he peers shyly out from under his hood & there's a warm, glow over everything. Oh and most importantly he standing there on his own with no sign of the curly-haired guy. And that sums it up pretty well, for this is a richly melodic collection of songs that offers an intimate portrait of Simon the solo performer.

I was quite surprised by this album as there's quite a variety of musical styles from reggae to gipsy jazz and yet it all holds together as a complete & unified record. It's almost as if he set out to prove just what he could do once he was freed from the shackles of the 'Simon & Garfunkel' formula. The versatility & songcraft he demonstrates puts a lot of today's trendy singer-songwriters to shame - a song like Everything Put Together Falls Apart manages to be both complex & catchy at the same time and craps all over the bland balladeering of people like James Blunt & Daniel Powter. I also liked the deeply autobiographical nature of the lyrics - he sings about the minutiae of his own life & relationships and that makes the whole thing sound so sincere & heartfelt - especially compared to the contrived so that everyone-can-relate-to-it songs that dominate our airwaves these days.

[from my Top 1000 Albums blog]

Curtis Mayfield - Superfly (1972)

My Rating: 3.89 out of 5

All-Time Top 1000 Albums: √

Rolling Stone 500 Greatest Albums: X

The Mojo Collection: X

Chart Peak (UK/US): 26/1

Favourite Tracks: Freddie's Dead, Pusherman
Least-Favourite Tracks: No Thing On Me

What's this doing propping up the tail end of the Top 1000? Surely one of the definitions of a good album is whether you can play it from start to finish without encountering one duff track & that's exactly what we have here.

This is seventies funk at its most supercool - driving rhythms & groovy basslines coupled with lush strings & slick brass. If this music hadn't been written for a movie in the first place, you can be sure that Tarantino would have grabbed it by now. But what elevates this beyond being just another solid funk record are Mayfield's incisive lyrics & stunning vocals; his singing is straightforward and yet so soulful. And I mean soulful in the sense that he is genuinely emotive & stirring - there are none of the vocal acrobatics & showboating that seem to define 'soulfulness' to a whole generation of X-factor-Mariah Carey-wannabees.

It does share many similarities with Isaac Hayes' Shaft soundtrack (which incidentally did come out a year before this) though what sets it apart for me are the brooding, streetwise & influential lyrics on songs like Pusherman ('I'm your momma, I'm your daddy / I'm that nigga in the alley / I'm your doctor, when in need / want some coke, have some weed').

It may have been penned as a movie soundtrack but this record works supremely well as an album in its own right. It's no surprise then that according to Wikipedia Superfly is also one of the only films ever to have been outgrossed by its soundtrack. Let's face it, if you don't like this one, you're as dead as Freddie.

[from my Top 1000 Albums blog]