music reviews

Back in the music time machine with Queen

As expected, I used more of my iTunes funds to dig up another relic from my youth, this time the 1980 album The Game by Queen. I originally had this on vinyl and I remember the album slip was very silver and shiny.

How does it rate on the Neil Diamond sparkle shirt scale 33 years later? Let’s find out.

Sparkle shirt. Sparkly!

Queen, The Game
“What I knew of Queen in 1980 consisted of a few hits, notably “We are the Champions” and “We Will Rock You”, both of which I found slightly annoying even while admitting they were effective arena/power-anthem songs. I was, however, a huge fan of their silly mini-epic “Bohemian Rhapsody” and played my sister’s 45 enough to get her peeved at me. This was back when media could actually wear out, so her reaction was not entirely inappropriate. She’d also had a lot of her vinyl trashed by being left out in the rain by one or both of my brothers during one of their infamous sibling battles so she was maybe more protective than usual about her music collection. But I digress. I liked the song and yet Queen was never really on my radar.

In 1980 the band released The Game which was the start of a new direction for the group, mainly through the introduction of synthesizers and an overall softer sound. I recall their next album, Hot Space, was condemned in one review as being “over-produced” and The Game was definitely the first step toward that. At the time I wasn’t aware of any of this, all I knew is that “Another One Bites the Dust” was catchy as all get-out and a huge hit and was followed by the equally catchy Elvis callback “Crazy Little Thing Called Love”, the video (pre-MTV) of which features the least convincing display of machismo ever:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EE34cSvZCd8

With two solid radio hits I picked the album up and generally lurved it, though it falls into that curious collection of albums I really enjoyed and yet never purchased anything else from the same artist ever again. It remains the only Queen album I’ve ever bought.

Listening to it today some aspects are dated, mainly the way the synths are used, along with reverb and other sound effects. They mostly distract from the music, adding little to the songs.

The songs themselves cover a pleasing variety of styles in the span of a brisk 35 minutes. “Don’t Try Suicide” may still be the catchiest yet most cynical anti-suicide song ever, with lyrics like “Don’t try suicide, nobody cares/Don’t try suicide, nobody gives a damn”. “Rock it (Prime Jive)” features drummer Roger Taylor’s weird growling vocals and Brian May provides an appropriately smooth voice for his ballad “Sail Away Sweet Sister”. The focus remains on Freddie Mercury and he struts through the rest of the tracks with the confidence of a veteran performer (The Game was Queen’s eighth album). There are really no bad songs on the album, though “Rock It” comes across lyrically as a bit inane (Taylor also wrote “Radio Ga Ga”).

While at times a bit dated and dotted with unnecessary flourishes, The Game remains a strong testament to the talent of Queen. I can listen to it now and separate it completely from my time in high school when I originally bought it, which speaks to the overall quality of the music.

Rating:
8/10 Neil Diamond sparkle shirts

I shall call it The Alan Parsons Project

I’ll go into more detail at some point but for now here is my ranking of the 10 albums released by The Alan Parsons Project, from 1976 to 1987. It is telling that the best albums are the earlier ones. The Alan Parsons Project is an example of a band (in as much as they were one) devolving its sound into one that became slicker and less interesting with each album before finally getting back to the wacky and evocative sounds of their earlier work.

  1. Eye in the Sky (1982). The first half of this album is some of the most beautifully-crafted progressive rock recorded.
  2. Tales of Mystery and Imagination (1976). By turns weird and wonderful. It sounds almost alien today.
  3. The Turn of a Friendly Card (1980). An entertaining precursor to Eye, stately and always catchy.
  4. Pyramid (1978). A short album with no filler and perhaps the broadest range of material, with the mood ranging from melancholic to bombastic and even playful.
  5. Eve (1979). Not exactly an anthem to women, the lyrics are the most cutting of any Project.
  6. I Robot (1977). A bit dated now but the best tracks hold up well.
  7. Ammonia Avenue (1984). The follow-up to Eye apes that album in a number of ways but has its own standout tracks, especially the title track and the ‘wall of sound’ in “Don’t Answer Me”.
  8. Stereotomy (1986). A decent attempt to return to form that mostly succeeds.
  9. Gaudi (1987). The pop part of the Project was getting a little too glossy by the final album but the closing instrumental is stirring.
  10. Vulture Culture (1985). Not a bad album but not particularly memorable. Without the orchestra a number of songs feel plain. Oddly, the bonus track “No Answers, Only Questions” which is a spare acoustic number, is one of the best.

Ranking R.E.M. albums from 1983 to 2011

It’s music week on the blog!

R.E.M. released 15 studio albums between 1983 and 2011. I tend to group the albums into three eras:

  • The Early Years. This covers their first four albums from 1983-1986.
  • The Big Success. This covers their platinum sales era, six albums from 1987-1996.
  • The Post-Berry Funk. The five albums they were under contract to do after drummer Bill Berry left the band. Covers 1998-2011.

I’ll eventually come back and justify my rankings but for now here are two lists, the first is all 15 albums in chronological order followed by my arbitrary list of best to worst.

  • Murmur, 1983
  • Reckoning, 1984
  • Fables of the Reconstruction, 1985
  • Lifes Rich Pageant, 1986
  • Document, 1987
  • Green, 1988
  • Out of Time, 1991
  • Automatic for the People, 1992
  • Monster, 1994
  • New Adventures in Hi-fi, 1996
  • Up, 1998
  • Reveal, 2001
  • Around the Sun, 2004
  • Accelerate, 2008
  • Collapse Into Now, 2011

My ranking:

  1. Automatic for the People
  2. Lifes Rich Pageant
  3. Monster
  4. Collapse Into Now
  5. Murmur
  6. Reckoning
  7. New Adventures in Hi-fi
  8. Fables of the Reconstruction
  9. Out of Time
  10. Accelerate
  11. Document
  12. Reveal
  13. Green
  14. Up
  15. Around the Sun

It’s a testament to the ultimate resilience and strength of the band that the top five albums encompass their entire 28 year span of releasing albums.

Although I do not listen to it as often these days I still rank Automatic as their best album because it’s a perfectly balanced combination of maturity, experimentation and accessibility. The band went ‘dark’ but lost none of their tunefulness in the process. They also produced some of their most beautiful songs.

Their follow-up Monster nearly matches every strength of Automatic, including having no filler but does so with a completely different sound, as brash, weird and cacophonous as Automatic is quietly majestic. In between the two I’ve placed their final album Collapse Into Now which has the band exiting in fine form with an album that offers a little of everything in an energetic, well-crafted package that recalls their best work while staking out its own identity.

At the bottom of the list is the only R.E.M. album I’d describe as weak. Around the Sun is not a poor effort but much of it has a listlessness that suggests the band was either bored or tired of the whole thing.

Illustrating how whimsically I can change my mind, reference this post in which I ranked the top five R.E.M. albums as follows:

  1. Lifes Rich Pageant
  2. Murmur
  3. Automatic for the People
  4. Reckoning
  5. Collapse Into Now

In which I rank Pink Floyd albums 1971 to 1994 from best to not best

Nute on Broken Forum recently posted the following (in reference to the Pink Floyd album A Momentary Lapse of Reason):

Best Pink Floyd album.

COME AT ME, HATERS.

As I love any excuse to make a list this has inspired me to list from best to worst the Pink Floyd albums from 1971 to 1994. I don’t include the pre-1971 material because I am not familiar enough with it to offer up an opinion.

First, here’s the chronological order of the albums:

  • Meddle, 1971
  • The Dark Side of the Moon, 1973
  • Wish You Were Here, 1975
  • Animals, 1977
  • The Wall, 1979
  • The Final Cut, 1983 (minus Rick Wright)
  • A Momentary Lapse of Reason, 1987 (minus Roger Waters)
  • The Division Bell, 1994 (minus Roger Waters)

And here is my ranking, with notes attached:

  1. The Wall. This is a sprawling and at times meandering and indulgent album but when it works it works fantastically well and the shining moments are transcendent ones, from the theatrical opening crescendo and fade to David Gilmour’s soaring guitar that concludes “Comfortably Numb”. The Waters/Gilmour work on this album is consistently strong and the album is the better for it.
  2. Wish You Were Here. More a mood piece than any of the albums on this list, Wish You Were Here is bookended by the long instrumental “Shine on You Crazy Diamond” and if you don’t like that song you’re left with all of three others to enjoy. Fortunately even these are terrific. “Welcome to the Machine” is creepily effective, the title track fittingly melancholy, with only “Have a Cigar” being a bit ordinary.
  3. Animals. Bookended by the spare and short acoustic track “Pigs on the Wing” this concept album contains one of the band’s longest songs, “Dogs”, which clocks in at 17+ minutes and it’s on the strength of “Dogs” that I place Animals where I do. The song begins slowly then plays through several movements, using sound effects, reverb and more to capture the feeling of alienation, of drowning in an unhappy world where fairness is a rare commodity and loneliness is in abundance. Not exactly make-out music but a mesmerizing journey.
  4. The Dark Side of the Moon. The biggest problem with this album is that certain parts of it, notably the instrumental “Any Colour You Like” are rather dated, sounding very much of the era they were recorded in. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing but you can’t help but imagine people grooving out on the shag carpet while listening to this. The classic tracks here are tight and strong and hold up perfectly 40 (!) years later. Sure, “Money” has been overplayed as much as any other 70s FM hit but even putting it aside you still have “Time”, “Us and Them” and “The Great Gig in the Sky”. More than any of the other albums here, this contains Rick Wright’s strongest contributions.
  5. The Division Bell. This was the last album the band recorded and came seven years after the previous. Much like Dark Side it has moments that firmly tie it to its era, with the ringing guitar of “Take it Back” bringing to mind U2 of all things. At its worst it presents some of the same calculated moves as Momentary Lapse but overall holds together with greater consistency. There are no standout tracks here but Gilmour’s reliable vocals and guitar work, alongside solid contributions from Wright, make this a good effort.
  6. Meddle. An odd album that is the final embrace of psychedelic weirdness before the band would establish its more familiar sound. This is a fairly mellow record, apart from the propulsive opening instrumental “One of These Days”, with most songs feeling like the aural equivalent of a gentle stroll. The oddities come in the form of the bluesy “Seamus” complete with barking dog accompaniment, the breezy confection of “San Tropez” (penned by Waters, of all people) and the mostly instrumental track “Echoes” that comprises the entire second half of the album. Over 23 minutes, “Echoes” drifts from Gilmour’s wistful vocals to strange, even unnerving sound effects and back again. There is no easy way to listen to this album. The shorter tracks and “Echoes” could be from entirely different records. If you’re in the mood for a bit of everything, though, you’re set.
  7. The Final Cut. This is more a Roger Waters solo album than a Pink Floyd effort. Gilmour’s guitar is absent from many songs, he provides only one vocal, and the rest of the tracks are given over to Waters’ overtly political and pessimistic observations of humanity. While there is a consistency in both the music and tone, this is not an easy album to get into, but if you give it time you’ll be rewarded by several standout tracks, from “The Gunner’s Dream” to the now-included “When the Tigers Broke Free” which was previously only found in the film version of The Wall.
  8. A Momentary Lapse of Reason. Why is this ranked last? It began as a David Gilmour solo effort, and indeed a lot of it sounds like Giilmour’s solo album About Face from three years earlier. I have two major problems with the album. The first is the effort to make it sound like Pink Floyd feels overly calculated, as if the female backing vocals, guitar solos, and themes of alienation were items on a checklist. The other problem is the lyrics. While Waters had his excesses and obsessions, he could craft some nice wordplay. Gilmour, even when helped by others, writes mostly in clichés and catchphrases, tackling ‘big’ ideas with trite phrasing. At best the lyrics stay out of the way, at worst they actively work against the song. “One Slip” is a wonderful sounding track, but the lyrics are awful.

I will, I will she sighed to my request
And then she tossed her mane while my resolve was put to the test
Then drowned in desire, our souls on fire
I lead the way to the funeral pyre
And without a thought of the consequence
I gave in to my decadence

“Drowned in desire”? “Our souls on fire”? And I’m not even touching the whole “drowned” followed by “on fire” part. This is just bad and emblematic of the album as a whole. There are some fine songs here. I particularly like the opening instrumental “Signs of Life”, the sprawling closer “Sorrow” and “On the Turning Away”, which has a quiet majesty, even if the lyrics are junior high-level simple. Overall, this is easily the slightest of Pink Floyd’s albums and far from essential.

Peter Buck travels back in time

And another post about music for the heck of it.

I recently wandered over to the official R.E.M. website for some reason and discovered that Peter Buck is working on a solo album due this fall. I suppose if any member of the band was to make a solo album he would be the likeliest since Michael Stipe and Mike Mills seemed almost relieved to not be making music after R.E.M disbanded. But maybe that was more an R.E.M. thing.

Regardless, the studio version of the first track from Buck’s album has been unveiled and it’s called ’10 Million BC’. The song has been aptly described as swamp rock, with an earthy sound distinct from R.E.M. Interestingly, Buck provides the lead vocal and it, too, is distinct from R.E.M. The low-pitched growl is something of an acquired taste but it suits the song. I’m looking forward to the full album when it comes out.

I drove all night (4 times)

UPDATE, November 12, 2023: Proving nothing is eternal, all three originally-linked videos of the song got zapped over time. I have replaced all of them with the videos from their respective YouTube channels, so hopefully they don't go poof any time soon.

Roy Orbison recorded the song “I Drove All Night” in 1987 and five years later it was released as a single — three years after Cyndi Lauper released a cover version of it. A country band named Pinmonkey also recorded a cover in 2002 and finally Celine Dion released her own take in 2003.

I remember the Lauper version and was unaware at the time that it was a cover of an Orbison song. I liked the song enough to actually buy it as a single from iTunes. Since then I’ve listened to each version to compare and contrast, and see how each artist has interpreted the song.

First, we have the original:

Roy Orbison (1992)

The clips of Jason Priestley and Jennifer Connelly were apparently shot for the video, despite looking like movie clips. The attempt to put Orbison in the video by using concert footage from shortly before his death and covering up the fact that he’s not singing the actual song in question by layering on obscuring video effects is both creepy and ineffective.

But to the song itself, it’s fine and stands up well. I’d rate it as a lesser effort than the best tracks from his late career but it’s smooth and his voice is in fine form.

Celine Dion (2003)

This version is a bit odd in that it both calls back to the Orbison version, particularly with the ‘Uh huh, yeah’ part of the chorus, then goes off in a completely different and predictably jet-sleek direction as a Euro-style disco number. Dion’s vocals are soaring, as expected, though she manages to pull back when the song requires it. The ending kind of flails about limply, and the video suggests that Dion isn’t exactly taking the song seriously, what with mugging at the camera and such. This version is better than I would have expected, but it’s polished to such a high sheen it feels a bit sterile.

Cyndi Lauper (1989)

This is easily the most rocking version of the song and the only one where the percussion really snaps. Lauper fully invests in the song, belts it out, brings a sultriness that Dion lacks and in the video dances like a spaz, just as you’d hope and expect. The video also features the most arresting visuals of the three, with images of cars projected onto Lauper’s nude body. It all works well. It’s a shame this was Lauper’s last big hit, she was and is very talented and deserved more success.

Pinmonkey’s cover is a slick countrified take that sounds exactly like what you’d expect from that description. I don’t know that it adds anything to the song but I suppose it doesn’t take anything away from it, either. It’s basically inoffensive.

In order, then:

  1. Cyndi Lauper: fun, sultry, nutty.
  2. Roy Orbison: sturdy, smooth, solid.
  3. Celine Dion: slick, clinical.
  4. Pinkmonkey: Yep, that would be country, all right.

A year late, my review of R.E.M.’s Collapse Into Now

Released in March 2011, Collapse Into Now is R.E.M.’s 15th studio album, coming 28 years after their first (Murmur, 1983). It also fulfilled their five-record contract with Warner and, as it turned out, was their last studio album period, as the band announced in September 2011 that they were ‘calling it a day’. Despite an interview around that time where Mike Mills, the bassist, had claimed  relief at being free of the contract, Collapse Into Now doesn’t sound anything like a contractual obligation album. Instead, it is a fitting end to a career that spanned three decades.

Before getting to the album itself, a little background on the latter half of those 30 years is worth exploring.

First, this chart:

The last two albums are missing from the list but according to Wikipedia, the sales for them were:

Accelerate (2008): 350,000 in North America, combined worldwide sales of 627,500
Collapse Into Now (2011): 142,000 in North America (prior to the band’s announced breakup)

Out of Time is easily the band’s biggest success commercially and despite being a ‘dark’ album, Automatic did very well, too. The band changed course with Monster, going for a grungier straight-up rock approach but the majority of fans stuck with them. That changed with New Adventures in Hi-Fi, which (barely) failed to reach the coveted 1 million mark. The decline continued apace and didn’t reverse until Accelerate. Collapse Into Now sadly failed to catch on, performing even worse than the somnambulant Around the Sun. It’s hard not to imagine the tepid reaction factored in the band’s decision to break up.

R.E.M signed a gigantic contract in 1996 and at the time it was widely viewed as too rich but the band had proven their worth to Warner with multiple million sellers, so it seemed like a small risk at best. Two things happened, though, that made that risk much larger than it initially seemed. First came Bill Berry’s departure in 1997. While he left on good terms and went on to periodically play with the band, it created the first stirrings of break-up talk. It also coincided with a restlessness the band seemed to be experiencing. New Adventures has a number of good tracks but to me the album feels like an at times uneasy hybrid of the feedback-laden Monster and the darker, more acoustic sounds of Automatic. The impression is that of a band exploring and trying to find new things to stay interested and engaged in the process of creating music, with mixed results.

With their drummer departed the band seized on the chance to play with drum machines or to completely de-emphasize percussion, leading to 1998’s Up, an album that opens with the murmuring echo of “Airportman” and overall has a melancholy feel to it. The band shed most of the melancholy for the follow-up, Reveal (“Imitation of Life” is classic R.E.M.) but the arrangements were becoming ever-denser and elaborate, almost baroque (see: “Saturn Return”). By 2004 the band was adrift and Around the Sun, though opening strongly with “Leaving New York” is a muddled affair, none of the songs actually awful but likewise none distinguishing themselves in the mid-tempo morass that comprised the album. Sales cratered.

In 2008 they decided to strip things down and came up with Accelerate, a 34-minute album that lives up to its name, starting out with the propulsive “Living Well is the Best Revenge” and ending the same way with “I’m Gonna DJ”. In-between the album does slow down to catch its breath on a few tracks. Audiences responded by lifting its sales past Around the Sun. But something happened after that. It’s almost as if a large contingent of fans felt they had met their own obligations in supporting the band so when Collapse Into Now released, it debuted decently (#5) but sank quickly. (The negative-sounding album title and first track “Mine Smell Like honey” probably didn’t help.)

And that’s a shame (here comes the review) because Collapse Into Now is the band’s best album since 1996. It builds on the strengths of Accelerate by maintaining the energy and joy of that album while expanding the musical palette to include a better mix of songs and styles. Still exploring, the band reins in a lot of the excesses of the post-Berry era and for the most part delivers a worthy coda to their career.

Two of the same keys that worked on Accelerate are featured here — Mike Mills’ prominent backing vocals and keeping the percussion forward in the mix. At the same time the album breathes more freely than Accelerate so quieter tracks like the plaintive “Walk it Back” and “Oh My Heart” fit better as part of the whole. In a callback to their earliest albums Michael Stipe’s vocals are often pushed back in the mix. Not that he seems to mind, as he whispers, shouts and croons with enthusiasm throughout the record.

The standout tracks are the opening “Discoverer”, “Uberlin”, “Oh My Heart” and “It Happened Today”, all if which can easily stand beside the band’s best efforts. The latter features soaring, wordless vocals for much of the song, recalling a similar approach used in the chorus for “Orange Crush” from 1988’s Green. “Discoverer” is a speeding train of an opener, an energetic track that segues into the similarly up-tempo “All the Best” before pulling back for the simple acoustics of “Uberlin”. “Discoverer” reappears as the coda to the album’s final song, “Blue”, closing the circle and perhaps hinting at the band’s coming demise. “Blue” is a great example of R.E.M. going back to its older material for inspiration, with Peter Buck’s mournful guitar at the beginning echoing “Country Feedback” from Out of Time and Stipe’s spoken word performance calling back to the same album’s “Belong”. Heck, even Patti Smith shows up, providing ethereal backing vocals just as she did on “E-bow the Letter” from New Adventures.

In the end, the lack of commercial success for Collapse Into Now doesn’t matter much as R.E.M. is no longer an ongoing concern and the bandmates have vowed never to reunite. I wonder if it will some day become the ‘forgotten classic’ of R.E.M.’s catalog. It would be worthy of the designation.

Review: Accelerate (R.E.M.)

Yeah, I’m reviewing a two year old album. 😛

R.E.M., Accelerate (2008)

This is the best album R.E.M. has put out since the group became a trio with the departure of drummer Bill Berry in 1997 and a dramatic turnaround from the slow, keyboard-driven sound of their previous album, 2004’s Around the Sun.

Some of the tracks here recall the freewheeling performances on 1986’s Lifes Rich Pageant, particularly “Man-Sized Wreath” and “Supernatural Superstitious”. On the former, Michael Stipe offers a cynical view of celebrity death, opening with “Turn on the TV and what do I see?/A pageantry of empty gestures all lined up for me – wow!/I’d have thought by now we would be ready to proceed/But a tearful hymn to tug the heart/And a man-sized wreath – ow!” putting particularly cheeky emphasis on the “ow” and “wow” as punctuation. The song captures everything that makes Accelerate work so well: the percussion is no longer buried deep in the mix, as if in deference to Berry’s absence; instead the drums drive the song forward. Buck’s guitar also returns to the front, aggressive but clean, unlike the muddy play and excessive distortion found in efforts like New Adventures in Hi-Fi. Perhaps the most welcome return is Mike Mills’ soaring background vocals (even getting a brief solo at song’s end). Unlike the sometimes labored and typically downbeat tracks of Around the Sun, the band here seems to be just plain having fun.

On first listen, the album is bound to leave you feeling a bit out of breath despite its short length (under 35 minutes) due to the relentless pacing of the bite-sized songs, but further listens reveal more texture and depth. “Until the Day is Done” is a mournful reflection on America, characterized by Stipe as “an addled republic” and backed by Buck’s acoustic guitar and “Sing for the Submarine” is a weird number that features call-outs to past R.E.M. songs and a suitably submerged organ playing behind the chorus, along with more of Mills’ terrific backing vocals. It is perhaps ironic that the titular song is probably the weakest on the album. It’s competent but never quite realizes the urgency of its lyrics, as if the music is stuck a half-beat behind what Stipe is framing with his words.

Despite its brevity and some quibbles with pacing, Accelerate remains a well-crafted rock album, a worthwhile addition to the R.E.M. catalog and an easy recommendation to anyone who enjoyed the band but may have been put off by its last few efforts.