Google “1980s pop music” and you’ll discover an often horrifying litany of cheesy MTV videos, dopey drum-machine DOR, and women with ridiculous manes of teased hair wearing bustiers outside their blouses. Just beyond the mainstream, however, where the pools and eddies of artistic creativity whirl and roil, the decade proved a watershed of sorts for girls with guitars. Lucinda Williams, Sam Phillips, Rosanne Cash, Kirsty MacColl, Nanci Griffith, Tish Hinojosa, Sara Hickman, and many others, each staked out their own unique and personal musical oasis amidst a cacophony of dinky English synth bands and sharkskin-suited fashion victims. Scottish singer/songwriter Eddi Reader, after breaking into the business as a backup singer for the Gang of Four, co-founded Fairground Attraction (”Perfect”), released 10 solo albums, and in 2006 was awarded an MBE. “Wonderful Lie,” is archetypical Reader: lithe and lively, punctuated by a melancholy yet celebratory accordion drone swirling around Reader’s rich, resonant vocals, insisting on the bittersweet futility of losing yourself to love.
In celebration of The Runaways movie, Joan Jett has always loved rock ‘n’ roll as documented in song and now in the movies. ”You Got A Problem” is rock with an attitude!! You can hear the venom in her voice as she yells out the words to the world. Her punk influences show through on this diatribe with a beat. Don’t mess with her or her life and she means it.
Indie experimental goofballs Dean & Gene Ween made their jump to the majors in 1993, scoring a surprise novelty hit with their track “Push Th’ Little Daisies;” however, it wasn’t until their 2nd Elektra LP (Chocolate & Cheese) that they utilized their bigger recording budget to fully explore the musical possiblities of their twisted minds. The double album was an eclectic feast of dirty funk, sweet philly soul and Ween’s usual forays into twisted bathroom humor.“What Deaner Was Talking About” shows a previously unseen side of the duo, presenting a lovely piece of melancholic baroque pop, clearing inspired by the Kinks’ “Waterloo Sunset.” Without knowing the source, you’d swear this was a product of the Elephant 6 collective rather than the usually notorious duo.
Besides his scorching electric fretwork and his deft touch on the acoustic, guitarist and songwriter Richard Thompson’s appeal to me has always been his narrative story songs.Continuing the darkness that infects his more musical workouts like “Calvary Cross” or “Wall Of Death”, Thompson’s mainly acoustic story songs tend to have some bittersweet element or ending, making the beautiful melodies all the more sad. While “Galway To Graceland” tackles mental illness and the iconic “Black Vincent 1952” ends tragically, “Beeswing” spins a tale of romance and expectation that doesn’t end well.It’s not the Goth subject matter that brings me in, but his ability to couch such great melodies and clever lyrics into something that isn’t all sunshine-y. Please give a listen and explore more.He’s not all doom and gloom and the adventurous listener will be justly rewarded by the treasure they find in Richard Thompson.
A powderkeg year like 1994 (O.J. Simpson, the ascendant Republican party, the deadly return of the gangsta lean, the rawness of race relations) required a powderkeg statement, which arrived in the form of Public Enemy’s Muse Sick-N-Hour Mess Age, the band’s first state of the union in almost three years. Unfortunately, the popular landscape had changed in their absence: no one was in the mood for a Chuck D lecture anymore, or the rubber-necked antics of Flavor Flav. Their big-picture sociological rap seemed antiquated in a time of Snoop and Dre. Consumers sniffed; even critics wondered if P.E. were testifying past their sell-by date, spitting doomsday in an empty wind. This ignorance was a damn shame. Today, Muse Sick deftly reflects its turbulent times, capturing America in all of its wondrous ugliness. We may not have listened then, but it would serve us well to listen now.
Wildflowers features all the original members of The Heartbreakers with the exception of drummer Stan Lynch who left earlier that year. However the album was not credited to The Heartbreakers in order to allow for more creative arrangements and plenty of guest stars. This Sunday will mark the 15th anniversary of Wildflowers’ release.
I’m old enough to (vaguely) remember the TV commercial of the early 1970s wherein the hit “I’d Like To Teach The World To Sing” morphs into a Coca-Cola pitch. For some reason that’s all I can think of when I hear Liam Gallagher sing the opening line in “Shakermaker” from Oasis’ first — and still best — album, Definitely Maybe. Beyond the melody, though, there’s not a lot of common ground between the feel-good sounds of The New Seekers and Brit-Pop’s biggest stars. The lyrics feature a touch of surrealism a la late-’60s John Lennon (one of songwriter Noel Gallagher’s favorites), while the ominous arrangement has a slow motion feel to it enhanced by a bit of slide guitar as it builds in intensity. Sunshine pop it ain’t.
In their song “Teen Age Riot,” one-time SST labelmates Sonic Youth tipped their hat to Dinosaur Jr. leader J Mascis, singing, “It takes a teen age riot to get me out of bed right now.” For a musician who plays the guitar loud enough to wake the dead, Mascis’ vocals can often sound like he’s about to nod off, and nowhere is this more clear than on “Outta Hand,” from 1994’s Without A Sound. A near-martial drumbeat and an acoustic guitar moves the song steadily forward, practically dragging J along as he rhymes “make it,” “fake it,” and “take it” more times than you can count, with some pretty piano work and a high-pitched chorus taking the song in unexpected directions. I’ve spent many a night splayed out on the couch hitting the replay button while waiting for this song to lull me to sleep.
If, as John Lennon once said, “The blues is a chair,” then Victoria Williams’ music is a rickety old rocker, strapped to the top of the cab of a rusty pickup truck hightailing it straight for the Promised Land. Loose is Williams’ first LP following her devastating 1992 multiple sclerosis diagnosis. There are those who, standing face-to-face with the hooded specter of their own mortality, would curl up and disappear. Williams, however, invited the bony bastard to a hoedown. And she corralled a passel of her friends to join her, including Soul Asylum’s Dave Pirner, R.E.M.’s Mike Mills and Peter Buck, the Jayhawks’ Mark Olson and Gary Louris, plus Van Dyke Parks. Williams tapped Parks for the string arrangements for “Polish Those Shoes,” a glorious mini-symphony celebrating all the truly wonderful little things in life that no stupid disease can ever take away from you.
Thanks to the success of Nevermind, eager-beaver major labels swept through the Pacific Northwest in the early ’90s, contracts in hand, advances at the ready. Among their more interesting procurements was Nirvana’s Aberdeen, Washington, neighbors (and Kurt Cobain fave), the Melvins, a trio who gorged on Black Sabbath sludge, buzzsaw punk, and acid flashbacks. Lucky Atlantic! The band recorded three albums on that deep-pocket dime, each more abrasive than the last (their final disc, Stag, was a defiant statement so jaw-droppingly weird that the arrangement was doomed); Stoner Witch is their hevvy (heavy’s for pikers) peak, highlighted by the stripped-brake van rock of “Revolve.” Buzz Osborne’s menacing riffs rattle mountains, Dale Crover’s skin-taps stab holes in the Earth—you’d better get your ears checked after they’re done with you.
Dream Theater recently released their Greatest Hit compilation, and while that tongue-in-cheek title may aptly sum up their mainstream career, the New York progmeisters have written songs with plenty of “commercial” appeal for guys who like their guitars heavy and their music aggressive and complex. The quirky quintet has always reveled in being over-the-top. “The Mirror” offers Metallica chug meshed with gothic keyboards and some sweet tempo changes and dynamic shifts. A tale of facing temptation, battling betrayal, and feeling out of control (with implications of addiction), it segues fluidly into the more grooving, galloping companion piece “Lie.” Best downloaded and listened to together, this metallic couplet may not be hit material (OK, “Lie” did make #38 on Billboard’s Mainstream Rock radio chart), but it’s catchy as hell in its heaviness and is among the best of the vintage Dream Theater songs.
Little in this world can be as affecting as the right song at the right time, especially when it finds you through a perfect scene matched with the perfect score. “My Life”’s placement in Harmony Korine’s 2007 Mister Lonely hit with a force I hadn’t felt from a new film (read: not something from the early/mid-’70s, when music supervision set standards yet to be surpassed) since Nico’s “These Days” destroyed the collective mind in Wes Anderson’s The Royal Tenenbaums back in ’01. I wasn’t 100 percent on what I’d just seen, but the song had stuck. I played it constantly for the weeks to follow and found my admiration for the film itself growing exponentially with each spin. Feelings on the film aside, I remain forever indebted to Mr. Korine for leading me to one of the most exquisitely written and executed three and a half minutes I’d ever heard. Thank you, Harmony.
