More music recommendations

I did two lists about singles; here are the albums. Most of these don't really have a recognizable single on them, but they maintain a mood for an hour or so.

People often lament the fate of albums in the world of gigantic MP3 play lists, but ya know, it's pretty hard to put together a truly good album which we users don't need to edit a bit. In your mind, you've already edited out that one track on Dark Side of the Moon with that woman wailing, and the entire second side of Thriller. Even Beethoven, the finest f.ing composer who ever lived, had no problem putting together memorable hours with his 3rd, 5th, 6th, and 9th symphonies, but have you heard the fourth played lately? The best albums I can think of, below, still have one track that needs to be cut from the play list.

I can't put up samples of the albums---that would defeat the purpose of this list---so the reviews will be a little more impressionistic, hopefully remaining interesting for those of you who haven't heard the album itself. Again, there's a strong bent toward the atmospheric and sullen, `cause that's what I listen to. Perhaps you, dear reader, can suggest some perky albums in the comments.

Next time: economics, I promise.

¤ The Velvet Underground: The velvet underground. File under folksy.
In high school, I worked at the NOAA library in Rockville, MD. Every single morning, I had R.E.M.'s Don't go back to Rockville in my head, and on the way home, after a day of labeling weather maps and getting hit on by that one creepy librarian, I'd regret not taking R.E.M.'s advice. I can still recall where I was when WHFS played Venus in Furs on the way home, and my affect memory still recalls that sudden about-face in mood.

The first cause of joy was that the track absolutely rocks in its own right, and indicates why the viola needs to be electrified. But second, it gave me joy that the DJ, who really loves music despite having to play the pabulum of the week all day, found a way to slip this into the play list. I mean, it's a song based on a book. The recording is lousy. The lyrics would bother the sort of people who listen to lyrics. Yet there it was: a DJ had slipped it into the New Rock Alternative play list even though there was no tour and no new album to vend. It gave me hope for radio.

But Venus in Furs is on The Velvet Underground and Nico, aka the Banana Album. But for my vote, the later The Velvet Underground is the big winner. According to the boxed set liner, the story is that all their effects boxes were stolen at the airport, so the band had to play everything stripped down and clean. This is what resulted.

¤ R.E.M.: Automatic for the People. File under grain.
I _really_ want to say that Reckoning was their best album. [Pavement did a song about how that album saved Georgia from Sherman's army (or something). Time after Time is one of my favorite songs.] I want to tell you that after they signed with Warner Bros., it was all downhill. Sellouts. But this album, with megastudio support, is the one which most makes their sound work, which most holds together after a decade, and which is least in need of pruning.

The album was shortly after Losing my Religion hit it big, partly helped by a video in which they lip sync the song despite promises to their fans that they'd never do such a thing. E.g., they re-recorded So Central Rain (off of Reckoning) in its entirety for its video. Anyway, they promised to do a stadium-rocking album, but had to get Automatic for the People out, due to too many of their pals dying. It's allegedly about AIDS, and is to some extent a time capsule that way, since we don't think about AIDS as a crisis any more, since only minorities die from it now. The next album, Monster was the stadium rocker, and hit the bargain bins pretty fast. They also frequently said they'd break up the band if any one member had to leave, but the drummer left and they're still chugging away. Sellouts.

[cutout: The sidewinder sleeps tonight. I still don't quite get how this is supposed to sound like The lion sleeps tonight. It's cute that Mr. MS of Athens, GA cracks up over his own joke, but that doesn't save the song.]

¤ Lisa Germano: Happiness. File under noisy guitar.
It's on the 4AD label, which is enough to fully describe the album to some of you. For the rest of ya, 4AD specialized in music that was a little fuzzy and out of focus; not quite a wall of sound but a wash of instruments which you can't identify. E.g. Cocteau Twins or the Breeders' first album. So Lisa plays strings (guitar and violin), in a correspondingly fuzzy manner here.

I saw her play violin for Neil Finn and developed a rock star crush on her. I found out she works at Book Soup on Sunset (in lCdRdNSlRdlAdP, CA); showed up one day and asked for Lisa, but was told she works Tuesdays; never went back. [She's only the second rock star I've ever had a crush on. The first was the bassist for the Breeders, who ironically turns out to be gay.]

Her exhaling `OK' at the opening of Sycophant still gets me all warm inside.

[cutout track: This album should have had Cancer of everything from Geek the Girl. "This is a happy song."]

¤ Death Cab for Cutie: Transatlanticism. File under Seattle.
First, they get points for inventing such a nice word. Then they get more points for maintaining such a consistent tone without being monotone. Many of the songs are about a long-distance relationship, but most of it is just about tenuous relationships of all sorts. I also (heart) the Northwest v Southwest rivalry that comes out in Tiny Vessels, wherein our Seattle hipster insults an LA hipstress. ("I spent two weeks/ in Silverlake/ the California sun cascading down my face./ There was a girl/ with light blonde streaks/ and she was beautiful/ but she didn't mean a thing to me.") I still want to know if he made her up, and if not, how she feels about the song. `Yeah, well he didn't mean a thing to me either. Sellout.'

[Cutout: Death of an interior decorator. I guess it's supposed to fit into the theme, but I'm not seeing it myself.]

¤ UNKLE: Psyence Fiction. File under hip hop.
I've worn through the section of my hard drive with Rabbit in your headlights (starring Thom Yorke, emoting as only he can). First heard the album on the way back from Vegas (baby) and thought that Mr. RSB of lCdRdNSlRdlAdP, CA had just put together a really brilliant mix.

[Cutout: Ballbreaker. It wasn't funny the first time, and gets less funny after that.]

¤ Massive Attack: Protection. File under chill.
The opening single (Protection) almost literally kept me alive during a motorbike trip through England. The track may or may not be referring to the Smith's Sheila take a bow (you're the girl and I'm the boy/you're the boy and I'm the girl). Tricky made a mini-career out of different versions of Karmacoma; I think I have three on my hard drive. After you get this album, you can stop buying trip hop.

[Cutout: I so wish the reggae cover of Light my fire wasn't on the album---the perfect example of the bonus track that is a detriment to the album.]

¤ XTC: Skylarking. File under straight-out pop.
They sort of cheated with this: they took pairs of songs and just sort of swooshed them together to give the impression that the album has coherence, but it kinda works. Ballet for a rainy day/1000 umbrellas especially stands out as a great pair of numbers. XTC has two songwriters who are very different, so it was evidently a massive clash of egos between the producer and both writers (`you want to smash together my masterwork with his crap?'), but aren't we all glad the producer won out.

[Cutout track: There was originally a track with Mermaid in the title which they replaced with Dear God, which became famous when some sullen kid came into school one day and played it on the PA, holding the secretary at bay with a knife until the track finished. Thus, haven't heard the mermaid song.]

¤ Arto Lindsay: O Corpo Sutil. File under avant garde bossa nova.
This just has so many songs I (heart). It took me a long time to grow into the album, because it in no way calls attention to itself, but somehow I persevered and started to notice how fabulous it was if you listen closely. I laughed for about five minutes when, after the twentieth listening, I finally made out the phrase "I let the music make fun of me.".

[Cutout: No meu soutaque, which has the syrupy feel which killed the bossa nova the first time round. I have a pal who thinks Anima, animale is a song about rape ("Love can be taken by force/sometimes you just make up your mind.") and therefore also needs to go, but I'm not convinced that that's what Arto is getting at.]

¤ Beach Boys: Pet Sounds. File under lush, sullen harmonies.
Even the songs that have an upbeat tempo are imbued with saudade. I read somewhere that the album is supposed to be about a coming of age, beginning with innocence like Wouldn't it be nice and ending with that desperate cry of Caroline, no. But I'm not seeing it; the whole album is consistently disillusioned.

[Cutout: The original lyric was Hang on to your Ego, but the band made Mr. BW of Hawthorne, CA change it to I know there's an answer. When you sing along, just sing the right line over the adjusted lyrics, like you do with the "you're so very special" line in the radio edit of Radiohead's Creep.]

¤ Concrete Blonde: Mexican Moon. File under haunting/haunted vocals.
Their whole oevure is pretty good, but most of their albums lose it about halfway through. Even Bloodletting is mostly filler. But on this one, they chill out and take their time, which means that they easily fill an hour with slightly creepy but affectionate atmosphere. The album ends three times: the Roxy Music cover End of the Line; the wrist-slitting Love is a blind ambition, and the another-annoying-bonus-track translation of Bajo la luna Mexicana. (Roxy's original version of End of the Line is among their best tracks; it's on Siren, which would be on this list if I were a different person).

[Cutout: The bonus track, of course. Also, the one-minute opening to Jonestown is scary, but like all spoken tracks, isn't worth putting on repeat.]

¤ Magnetic Fields: The Charm of the Highway Strip. File under morbid synth music. Gets across the tragedy of distance even better than Transatlanticism: "Roads are dark and long/in all those country songs." "Time/ measured in dotted yellow lines has passed you by", the simple mumbling of "when the time comes to say goodbye", and cut from the album: "Never stuck around long enough/ for a one-night stand." It's one of those bands that plays good music regardless of genre or instrumentation. They're crappy Casios, and it's still great music that I find myself whistling a lot.

[cutout: The one about the Indian chyck, Fear of trains. Listening to it makes me think these guys have never left Manhattan.]

¤ Gin Blossoms: New miserable experience. File under country. For the longest time, I couldn't work out why I liked this album. It's just another country album, really, except somehow they got play on MTV with some kitschy videos. Yet all the lyrics are well written, and I found myself humming the tunes all the frigging time. Like the Magnetic Fields, these guys are just good musicians.

¤ The goats: Tricks of the shade. File under rap. This is from about 1990, but retains relevance as long as people keep electing somebody named Bush. Sample line: "Columbus killed more Indians than Hitler killed Jews/ But on his birthday you get sales on shoes."

[Cutout: every other track (literally: the odd-numbered ones) is a sketch. Some are funnier than others.]

More music recommendations

Ps: More singles