Had to list this. As old favorites go, they don't get much older, anyway. I was into this record when I was a little kid and my parents had a cassette (or was in an 8-track?) of it... You've probably heard it a million times. Tracks like "A Taste Of Honey" and "Whipped Cream" (written by Allen Toussaint) are imbedded in our cultural conciousness aren't they? Certainly the "racy" album-cover shot of the lady wearing all the whipped cream sure is -- Soul Asylum thought so anyway. Trumpeter Herb Alpert and his Tijunana Brass (LA studio musicans, not real Mexican mariachis) were a '60s pop sensation, and this hit 1965 album was one of Alpert's best. Oh so swank instrumental jazzed up pop, Alpert's arrangements demonstrating his knack for mixing stick-in-the-head melodies with south-of-the-border exotica. You've got your bombastic, toe-tapping numbers, your Latin-tinged party-pleasers, your lush romantic themes, and a Tijuana-ized version of "Love Potion #9".
Now, as part of a "Herb Alpert Signature Series", this classic has been reissued on cd in a digipack, all deluxe-like, complete with two bonus tracks, a booklet full of photos and liner notes, and a poster of that cover. Can't always be listening to new wave rock, glitchy electronica, droning dirge, and avant-garde jazz now can we? Dated but delightful.
So good! Axelrod founded the "black music" division of Capitol records in the '60s. During his reign at Capitol he produced amazing records by Cannonball Adderley, Lou Rawls and David McCallum. He also pretty much created the two weirdest Electric Prunes albums. What has been hardest to track down are three of his own records during that era: Songs of Experience, Songs Of Innocence, and Earth Rot. On these, Axelrod put together an orchestra of sound complete with strings, hammond organ and a super rich backbeat that's been sampled and worshiped by the likes of DJ Shadow, Madlib and Dr Dre. This collection compiles tracks from those three albums as well as a few choice cuts he produced for other artists at Captiol circa '66-'70. His sound is one that laid the foundation for the explosion in fusion which would happen in the '70s. Miles Davis always gave props to Axelrod and one could argue that he was very responsible for helping lay the foundation for a work like Bitches Brew to be born. Taking the richness of soul, the freedom of jazz, elements of classical composition and hints of rock and psych-pop Axelrod is one of the few guys who can get away with wearing sunglasses inside 'cause he was just that cool!
BOC (that's Blue Oyster Cult, not Boards of Canada!) has always been mistakenly regarded as some sort of heavy metal band -- and while they originated and/or embraced much of the imagery associated with HM (umlauts, leather pants, long hair, occult symbols)
Contains the hard rockin' hits "Transmaniacon MC", "Cities On Flame With Rock And Roll" along with several other somewhat more obscure but equally brilliant tunes full of the surreal, psychedelic lyrics and guitar work of which these guys were geniuses.
And this reissue also includes four bonus tracks, taken from the band's rejected 1969 demos under the name Soft White Underbelly. These are released here for the first time (well, outside of the recent mail-order only Rhino Handmade release of the Stalk-Forrest Group's entire unreleased album demos, which contains 3 of these cuts). A few of the SWU/SFG tracks were later reworked into BOC tunes, like the bizarre "I'm On The Lamb But I Ain't No Sheep" found on this album. Recommended!
It goes without saying that within the indie rock circles this will sell a lot of copies, regardless of our praise of this record. But in feeling somewhat self-indulgent...
As you all know Perfect From Now On was their major label debut. With a substantially larger budget for recording costs, Built To Spill seemed not really to know what to do with the money, resolving their situation by articulating a Sisyphian amount of energy into their complex almost psychedelic epic. In this contradiction of expending so much energy to make as little noise as possible, bleak metaphors of solar malevolence and mutinous friends devolved the perfect pop songs on There's Nothing Wrong With Love into a rare album that works so much more as a whole than as a conglomerate of its parts.
Keep it Like a Secret finds Built to Spill far more comfortable within the studio. The lack of antagonism from the process of making the record has kept away the morose qualities of Perfect, yet Doug Martsch has crafted the album, again, as perfect unity. His predeliction for drawing metaphors to the sun continues, but in place of any malignancy, there is an ironic bent to the content... most notably seen in a pastiche of lyrical anthems from such dinosaur rockers as The Doors, The Rolling Stones, and other merchants of neo-romantic tripe.
In other words, this record is pretty fucking good.
Late Byrds album (1968) with Gram Parsons with many more classic songs than required to make an album essential. This inexpensive but nicely appointed reissue features eight never-before-available tracks/outtakes, including a GP vocal.
Now on Vinyl!
One of the trends that we've noticed in the last several years with many of our favorite music makers is that it's seemingly become about releasing as MUCH as you can as OFTEN as you can. And while it's awesome to get so much new music from bands you like, there is still something to be said for really taking your time and crafting fully realized albums that may take a few years to wait for. At the rate that everyone is putting out releases, we almost just figured that Crystal Castles had somehow vanished or had broken up since we haven't heard a peep from them since their infectious debut from a couple years ago.
Luckily they are indeed back and sounding perhaps even more focused, frantic, infectious and engaging than on their debut. (Though would it have killed them to have spent just a few more minutes and come up with an album title? Having two self-titled discs is a bit confusing!) Equal parts '80s flashback, electro-pop with cold wave persuasions, primitive electronics, post-punk spazzy convulsions (the first track would have sounded right at home on one of our favorite spazzcore records by folks like The Locust, The VSS, or Clikatat Ikatowi), and catchy pop prowess. This is one of those records that really does appeal to so many different musical ears, and just about all of us at AQ can't stop listening to it. While it's not too unusual for Andee and Allan to come running up to the front of the store to see what's playing, this time it was Cup, whose desk is the furthest from the front, who had to make a beeline to the speakers to find out who it was covering '80s Canadian glammy new wavers Platinum Blonde! And the fact that Crystal Castles even chose one of the lesser hits of theirs to cover, not to mention that singer Alice Glass hadn't even been born yet when the original was released, just proves this duo has done their homework over the years and are now WAY ahead of the pack!
Like The Knife lending a helping hand to lead Adult. back to greatness, or Caribou, Hot Chip, Goldfrapp, Chromatics, M83 and The Junior Boys all somehow poisoned by a much darker goth-like magic potion. Even those of us who are usually a little shy when it comes to beat orientated music are totally digging this as there is something much more weird and nuanced happening than on lots of other electro-pop records that come our way. It's super fun but not dumb, varied but not erratic, gets out-there but not alienating, sexy but not a put on. Bottom line, it's a fucking awesome record!
Ha! Ha! Ha!!! It comes with a fucking credit card! A credit card, forsooth! What a bunch of scrubs.
This 1972 Miles Davis album stands as one of our favorites and one of the most played at AQ over the years. And for good reason, it seriously is one of the most gritty, dirty, funked out jazz records of all time. Influenced by his then wife, Betty Davis's vision of raw, nasty funk, this was Miles at his most forward thinking, inventive, deep hitting, psychedelic and purely bad ass!
Part of the concept of On The Corner, was to try to get black youth engaged and brought back into the world of jazz, as Davis saw that the jazz scene was getting so straight laced, watered down and stale. This album really served as his biggest 'fuck you' to the jazz establishment, all the squares that wanted him to just make pretty sounds with his trumpet and not rock the boat. But Davis was interested in much more then what jazz was traditionally considered to sound like, as this is an album equally influenced by psychedelic rock, true funk, and spiritual ritualistic music.
It's an album that has found such a devoted and diverse following. Hip-Hop heads and krautrock alike count On The Corner as sacrosanct! Distorted guitar, fucked up organs, these sounds laid the foundation for so much of our favorite music of the last several decades. While Bitches Brew, always gets the most attention, On The Corner might just be THEE one, and quite possibly one of the most brilliant and game changing albums of all time!
Somehow we never managed to review the debut ep from retro new wave poppers The Drums (not to be confused with local double drums duo also called The Drums, featuring members of Oh Sees and Ezeetiger), which is a shame cuz it was one of our favorite records. And then we managed to track down an import version of the full length, but couldn't get enough to review, and were forced to wait for the domestic version, which is finally here, so now we can gush over this fantastic chunk of moody retro pop.
Probably best to skip right to THEE JAM, "Let's Go Surfing", with its whistled melody, its sped up Joy Division bassline, clipped simple drumming, Smiths guitar jangle, handclaps(!), vocal harmonies, fuzzy synth bits and an absolutely KILLER summery sunshiney chorus. Imagine some mix of Echo And The Bunnymen, the Cure, the Boo Radleys and Surfer Blood, if that makes any sense, totally hook filled jangly new wave pop, with just enough modern weirdness to fit in with the current crop of retro pop futurists, but looking way back to the best of Creation and Factory records. "Best Friend" is all spidery guitars, earnest crooned vox, heartfelt lovelorn lyrics, plenty of ooooh's and aaaah's, all wrapped around an almost funky bassline and another stripped down rhythm. "Skippin' Town" is like "Let's Go Surfing" part 2, jaunty melodies, sweet vocals, more oooh's and aaah's, still more fuzzy synths and handclaps, and another dreamy hook. "It Will All End In Tears" is like a jauntier peppier take on Ultravox, "I'll Never Drop My Sword" adds a cool buzzy synth bassline, and some strange lyrics about Jesus, but all wrapped around that impossibly perfect jangle pop and some total minor key Cure synth shimmer. So good!
Totally catchy, impossibly irresistible, breezy and Britpoppy, perfect summery retro dream pop jams that we can't stop listening to...
Mixing elements of world, funk, dub, and electronic music has for the most part turned out to be a recipe for disaster. All too many have attempted this mix with a glossy shine and a clumsy hand and without fail have produced pretty tepid attempts at cross cultural imagination. From 1979-1980 Brian Eno and David Byrne recorded -their- take on this fusion years before it became chic and of course with just the right kind of careful and talented hands, and were actually able to make those elements come together and create a brand new language. What's so nice about hearing this reissue is how it's both ahead of its time but also so OF it's time as well. With moments that bring you back to the bits on early Talking Heads records that you could listen to over and over, and with a recording quality so refreshingly raw and primitive. This record was recorded by a large ensemble cast including Bill Laswell who was just then starting his band Material with lots of the same ideas and elements. While not totally related in exact sound we can totally see how many of today's cross cultural sonic explorers were influenced by this record. There's no doubt these were sounds soaked up by the best hip-hop & electronic producers of the '80s and '90s as well as folks like Animal Collective, Excepter and even Glissandro 70, whose record we review elsewhere on this list. This reissue adds a handful of bonus tracks not on the original version and unlike most extras these are in fact all essential.
"Warning: This is a unique recording. These 8 compositions are to be played using as many as four compact disc players, and have synchronized start times. This recording also contains frequencies not normally heard on commercial recordings and on rare occasion has caused the listener to become disoriented."
That's right, four cds meant to be played simultaneously, that nonetheless sound engrossing and interesting one by one. That Warner Bros saw fit to release this wonderful experiment in sonic collage is amazing. Then it went out of print for a while, so what's even MORE amazing is that Warner Bros. decided to repress it, again!!
Buy this and conduct your own "boombox experiment"...
Nobody makes misery and endless longing sound better then Stephin Merritt. As it's been raining nonstop in San Francisco we've been eagerly awaiting this new Magnetic Fields album since pretty much nothing sounds better when it's gray and grim outside, than the beautifully morose pop that Merritt and his comrades create.
Realism is very much the counterpoint to the last Magnetic Fields album, Distortion, which was all plugged in, in the red, filled with fuzz, a sonic nod to the Jesus & Mary Chain. Realism goes in the opposite direction. Made completely with acoustic instruments, this is their 'baroque folk' album. In many ways it has much of the same kind of sound and style found on 69 Love Songs, the masterpiece which catapulted Magnetic Fields from indie sweethearts to full on cultural icons. Merritt is no doubt one of the best songwriters of this generation, both in the memorable lyrics he writes and the nuanced arrangements he creates. Like all great songwriters Merritt is able to create in a wide variety of styles. In the past he's made electronic pop, fuzzy lo-fi rock, ukulele stompers, and shoegaze like dreaminess. And when you see The Magnetic Fields play live its so awesome because they often change the arrangements and styles of their songs, like when they toured for Distortion they actually played all those loud rocking songs all hushed and acoustic!
Realism is another reminder that no matter what style, aesthetic or theme Merritt choses to work within he's always able to emerge with memorable and moving songs that will have remain emotionally and sonically relevant for so many years to come.
With close to 20 years of hindsight, so much of what came out of the 1990s sounds dated and rather predictable, an obvious and angsty cheese, even less palatable than much of the 1980s synthetic curd. Plain Records has chosen wisely to reissue the three Mazzy Star LPs, that, despite containing countless guitar solos, have absolutely no cheesy moments. These three brilliant records draw from the bluesy drones of Spacemen 3 and The Jesus and Mary Chain (amongst others), dropping most of the irony and jagged edges to create music that might be described as the soft(er) psychedelia to Spacemen 3's harder stuff. As readers of this list know, Hope Sandoval, the singer, sometime rhythm guitarist, and (many would argue) the force behind Mazzy Star, has gone on to create amazing records with her new band the Warm Inventions. She has a voice that penetrates with a whisper, that carries like a wind floating above the music, that is instantly recognizable, and that influenced scores of singers. David Roback wrote most of the basic melodies on all three Mazzy Star records and plays all of the guitar solos. He has an innate sense of space and sound, a slightly twangy simplicity that might fade into just a few notes, or that can explode into reverb drenched ecstasy. You won't find better guitar tones anywhere, especially on So Tonight That I Might See. A lot of the arrangements are sparse, almost minimalistic, but the quality of the recordings and the melodies make even a track with only vocals, a guitar and an organ seem full. Especially through headphones, the warmth of Sandoval's voice is a magical compliment to Robeck's guitar. Everyone from Beach House to Grouper to Cat Power to PJ Harvey owes Mazzy Star a huge debt, or at least a big shout-out. All three of these records are HIGHLY RECOMMENDED.
She Hangs Brightly came out in 1990 and is the most "rocking" record of the three. The drums are definitely the busiest and the songs less dreamy, less laid back. This record establishes their reverby, slightly twangy sound but hasn't quite found the right mood. This is the Mazzy Star record to listen to with friends because it won't depress the hell out of you.
It's not until 1993's So Tonight That I Might See that Mazzy Star perfects their sonic elegance. The band's most commercially successful record, it's probably got the songs you remember: "Fade Into You", "She's My Baby", the title track. The beats have slowed way down, the vocals have decided to ride parallel to the music instead of right up on it, and the arrangements have become simple and piercing. A shoegaze classic.
Among My Swan is, in our opinion, maybe the best of the three Mazzy Star releases. The overt psychedelia has been taken away and replaced with a confident playfulness, a distinct melancholia. The reverb is turned way down, allowing for the simple compliment of acoustic guitar and Hope Sandoval's vocals to contrast with the sparser layers of fuzzed leads and harmonica. "Rhymes of an Hour" goes all Velvet Underground, losing almost all percussion, floating forward on a drone of strings. A moodier offering for those who find catharsis in despair and loneliness.
Huh? We've never reviewed this classic Melvins album, their 1993 major label debut on Atlantic Records, though we did review the live version of this album they released on Ipecac much later, in 2005. Time to rectify the situation!
Houdini destroyed any doubts anyone could have had about the Melvins "selling out", it was pure Melvins through and through, tracks like "Night Goat" and "Hag Me" were just as fierce and devastating as anything they'd done up to then, "Hooch" and "Lizzy" as heavy and rockin', and the likes of "Sky Pup" and "Pearl Bomb" utterly as eerie and puzzling and weird...
How the heck did the freakin' Melvins get signed to a major? One word: Nirvana. And it was a more direct connection than just another "grungy" indie band getting swept up in the major label alt-rock signing hysteria of the era, as the Melvins and Kurt Cobain were old punk rock pals from their Aberdeen, Washington days. And indeed Cobain appears as a guest on a couple of the tracks here, including the finale, "Spread Eagle Beagle", a song in the glorious Melvins tradition of truly WTF? album-closing tracks, over ten minutes of echoing abstract percussion.
Oh, and this album features their harrowing, heavier than thou cover of "Going Blind" by KISS, which even moreso than some other songs they've covered, sounds like it was written FOR the Melvins.
Maybe the reason we never reviewed this before (besides the fact this album's release predated us doing "the list" anyway) is that we had to figure that any/all Melvins fans must already have this. But if by chance you don't, good grief, get it! And if you're NOT a Melvins fan, but would like to be, here's a great one to start in on.
So were you ever listening to Interpol, or Maximo Park, or Franz Ferdinand, or the Killers and just thought to yourself, "If only this band ROCKED a little bit harder. If they were just, you know, REALLY HEAVY"... well, then Nine Black Alps is for you. Sure they have the whole angular new wave guitars, the pusling groove, the killer hooks, but what they have that those other bands don't is guitars. We mean GUITARS. Big, loud, fuzzy distorted guitars. And real riffs. Er, that is RIFFS! Interpol or the Killers might make you want to dance around or bounce up and down or nod your head to the beat, but rarely do any of those sort of bands get your head banging and send you careening around your room in a wild rock frenzy of air guitar-ing or air drumming. Somebody (me maybe?) once described Nine Black Alps as a heavy metal Franz Ferdinand which isn't too far off the mark. We also hear a little Burning Brides, umm, actually the more we listen to this the more BB we hear. Which is definitely a good thing. Nine Black Alps are sort of like the perfect mix of neo darkwave electro new wave whatever-you-call-it and fuzzy grungy hard and heavy garage rock. Take all that angsty new wave and Joy Division worship, tight pants and angular haircuts, rought 'em up a bit, roll 'em in the dirt. smear the make-up a little, exchange some of that silk and sharkskin for some denim and leather, and then lock 'em in the garage with some Marshall stacks, some BIG drums, a handful of LSD and a bunch of weed! Fuck yeah!
What?! Aquarius picked a No Doubt release as a Record Of The Week? And it's a best-of type thing? What gives?
We're sure that's what a lot of you out there are thinking. Others, maybe, already are aware of what most 14-year old girls know -- No Doubt actually are pretty great. Some songs of theirs anyway. Heck, even some of my 34 year old friends into psych-folk and minimal electronic improv and black metal or whatnot will admit that No Doubt have some good songs. Which of course you'll find here, this being a singles collection after all! But it's the non-believers to whom this review is dedicated, those of you know don't know Gwen Stefani from ____________ [insert name of tennis pro or microorganism or something], and/or think that a 'best of' No Doubt is a concept not unlike a serious book devoted to the wit and wisdom of George W. Bush. So that's why we're recommending this brand new greatest hits type disc for you all. See, we're not trying to make you buy an actual No Doubt album, with all the filler that such top 40 products usually contain -- I don't have one of those either. But, after being around for like 17 years, they've got enough great singles to make one hell of an album, and this is it right here. You get the goodies from their last elpee Rock Steady (the irresistable "Hey Baby" produced by reggae legends Sly And Robbie, featuring the amazing Bounty Killer toasting over the break! and the just as catchy "Hella Good" produced by Nellee Hooper), plus of course their anthem "Just A Girl" from their star-making 1995 album Tragic Kingdom, Andee's favorite No Doubt song "Spiderwebs" with it's loping almost ballady verse and bouncing rollicking double time chorus, and their latest hit "It's My Life" (a Talk Talk cover! but re-done with fuzzed out bassbin rattling low end synth lines that make the song sound even better). And more, 15 tracks in all, many of them #1 hits. And for good reason. These songs fucking rule. If you can get past the aversion we all have to MTV fodder and Entertainment Weekly gossip and focus on just the music, No Doubt are pretty kick ass. So, even if you never thought you'd own a No Doubt album, or even an album by *any* band with a ska-punk background, just stop pretending and admit you like 'em and get this. You'll feel better (we did). And yes, there's the total teen heartache emotional button-pushing and an abundance of sleek candy apple pouts, but beneath the high gloss finish they've retained plenty of personality and a will of their own to make some damn infectious, well-crafted, smartly detailed pop songs. At the root of it all though, one of the best things about them is that they still burst with youthful exuberance, and this is more than evident in each of these singles. So c'mon, stop being snotty, you know you were secretly psyched when "Hey Baby" would come on in the supermarket, And if you were alone in the car, you know you cranked up "Hella Good" and sang along until the dude in the next car caught you. Oh. You didn't? Well you should! We do!
Decades before Sufjan Stevens was singing about the landscape of the the states, or Jim O'rourke was deconstructing pop, Van Dyke Parks was giving us all a crash course on orchestral avant-pop. Best known as Brian Wilson's collaborator on Smile, and decades later the producer and arranger of Rufus Wainwright's debut, Parks has made several challenging pop records of his own. Along with Discover America, this is for sure his landmark recording. A warped and thrilling affair exploring the southern California landscape. One moment he takes us to palm desert then laurel canyon blvd. and one moment you feel like you're in a musical on acid and then a psychedelic pop opus and then a folk song spiked with flowery colors and warped sensibilities. When Brian Wilson began hanging out with Van Dyke Parks, it's rumored they spent their nights doing amphetamines and Parks would read Wilson literature that he felt would touch his heart. Of course the more square side of the Beach Boys camp considered Parks an enemy, Mike Love in particular was totally intimidated by the intellectual and avant-minded nature of Parks. And well, any enemy of Mike Love is probably a friend of ours! But back to this record, it's for sure one of the most adventurous, ambitious, deranged, delightful albums of pop created in the last quarter century. And wow, how dapper a young Van Dyke Parks looks on the cover of this record. Eat your heart out Sufjan! Just thought we should get this on our site, at last...
Andee made us put this one on here.
It's a piece of history that none of the current staff were old enough to remember, yet nostalgic fragments about the initial arrival of "Nevermind The Bollocks" at Aquarius Records back in 1977 occasionally emerge from conversations with our old school customers. By now it's probably as factual as any urban mythology; but as it makes for such a great story, I'm much more inclined to believe it than what may have really happened. With record distribution back in 1977 even less streamlined than it is today, Aquarius resorted to using an importer to ship copies of "Nevermind The Bollocks" from England. The import company in question did not have a direct route into San Francisco from London, and thus had to drive the boxes up from Los Angeles. This shipping detour gave Aquarius the opportunity to throw a big party in anticipation of the album's arrival, with attendants rumored to include Crime and the Residents (in full Eyeball costumes squeezing within the confines of Aquarius' then Castro Street location). To heighten the suspense, Aquarius had arranged with the driver of the truck to call up the store every 30 minutes or so to let everybody know his progress up the I-5: "Just passed Bakersfield." "Made it through Coalinga." "Yup, I'm in Tracy."
Yet, I feel the story could end with the truck crashing somewhere near Pleasanton, as I've never felt that The Sex Pistols' music lived up to their massive cultural cache and spectacular publicity stunts. John Lydon's uncomfortable fixed stare, sneered cultural heresies, and theatrical madness (which, in fact, was lifted from Richard Burton's performances as King Lear) always appeared to be destined for greater things than the Pistol's musically thuggish simplicity. Within The Sex Pistols, John Lydon had control over the Pistol's syntax, spewing threats against royalty and decent society at large; but there was little room (and even less ability) to explore the far more challenging proposition of igniting the sound of Lee Perry and Can with the powderkeg of punk. Internal politics and Malcolm McLaren aside, Rotten needed to form Public Image Limited.
Flanked by Keith Levene on guitar and Jah Wobble on bass, Lydon began PiL with two perfectly complementary musicians to pursue his aesthetic goals, as Levene's spindly shards of metallic guitar splatter acted as the textural counterpoint to the rhythmic centrality of Wobble's low-slung dub basslines. While this line-up inevitably imploded (and with it the success of Public Image Limited), the Lydon / Levene / Wobble core for PiL reached its creative apex during their second album, originally released back in 1979 as a 3LP housed in a metal film container. PiL's second, more economical pressing of the self-evidently titled "Metal Box" garnered an equally self-evident title "Second Edition." As a whole, this album hasn't easily been upstaged in its synthesis of dub production techniques, stealthy disco grooves, and punk antagonism bathed in Situationist critique. "Second Edition" opens with Wobble's huge rolling bass in "Albatross" which finds Lydon straining to sing with a swooping baritone to match the song's unwavering plod. Yet Lydon's viperous snarl returns for the rest of the album, which picks up the pace considerably in building their signature 'death disco' sound. All around "Second Edition" is an unnerving, complex album that was never the cultural force "Nevermind The Bollocks" was but is clearly the artistic masterpiece in Lydon's career and one of the quintessential post-punk albums.
As an aside, it was a huge curatorial mistake for Soul Jazz to leave Public Image Limited off of their "In The Beginning There Was Rhythm" compilation, as PiL fits into Soul Jazz's ideology for the project better than anybody else on the record. Thus, "Second Edition" is highly recommended (if not required) for anyone who was into that compilation.
Once again this reissue has fallen into our hands. Recorded in 1975, Lou Reed created some of the most brutal, blistering guitar noise and feedback ever heard. A four track sonic, subversive assault. The best and/or worst record in the history of rock & roll. Of course it depends on who you ask... we find it rather beautiful. Then again, several of us also own Merzboxes. And this probably *inspired* Merzbow. As well as pissing off legions of Reed/VU fans.
The first, self-titled Silver Apples lp, from 1968 is a brilliant, landmark recording of swirling, pulsating early psych/synth "rock", from the duo of Simeon (playing a self-built synth called "The Simeon") and Danny Taylor (drums), and comes highly, highly recommended by all here at AQ. The follow-up, Contact, from 1969, is also awesome. The major label that owns these records finally woke up and here is the result: both Silver Apples albums on one disc, complete with new liner notes by Simeon himself and diagrams of their instrumentation etc.
Wow, now back in print on vinyl, all deluxe 180-gram style, for first time since it was originally released!!
It's easy to forget that when Elliott Smith first hit the scene things were a lot different than they are now. There weren't that many sensitive singer songwriters roaming the underground and there was still a pretty huge divide between the 'indie' and the mainstream. Of course that has all changed so much, but when Elliott first started to get wider attention thanks to Gus Van Sant's use of his songs in Good Will Hunting and the Oscar nomination that followed, it was really an exceptionally strange occurrence in the indie music scene. It kind of marked the moment where much of what had been a big well kept secret would soon become a part of popular culture. We can still remember watching Smith on live TV performing at the Oscar's in his white tuxedo looking so sweet, nervous and humble. It truly felt like one of US was finally getting their deserved moment in the spotlight. Of course he lost to Celine Dion, but there was really no one you would rather get to represent so many of the underdogs than Elliott Smith. It was like finally getting to see someone honest and uncorrupted in a mainstream Hollywood setting. His music was so pure and beautiful, with this uncanny ability to make the bitter sound so sweet.
XO was Smith's major label debut and he took full advantage of a bigger budget, and more time in he studio to explore and reach further, honing his amazing ability to construct and orchestrate grand yet never bloated pop songs. There was still lots of the more minimal moments, stark songsmithery and delicate fingerpicking, all hallmarks of his earlier work, but there was a new lush and and much fuller sound on XO. Without trying to sound too hyperbolic, XO is as close to a perfect pop record as you can get. We can't count the times that one of these songs was put on a mixtape we made, or was played over and over and over as it so closely corresponded to a relationship we were having or a moment in time we were going through.
He never hid the fact that he was hugely influenced by The Kinks and The Beatles and while countless others made careers out of trying to rip off both of those bands, Smith managed to tap into the internal world of those bands, their amazing melodies and moods, like no one else has, carrying the torch for smart, sincere, heartfelt and truly timeless pop music.
This is an album so full of warmth, like it was made just for you, the music flowing out of your speakers, filling your room or your headphones with glorious beautiful sound. Songs about lovers, friends, relationships and the human condition, that will ring with warm truth for decades to come.
The year punk broke? Depends on who you ask and if you care. But the documentary sporting that title centers around Sonic Youth and their tour after their first major label record came out, Goo, in 1990. In many ways this was the record that would shape the course of the indie-rock revolution of the 1990's. As it was more often then not Sonic Youth using their new found major label clout to help other bands get more exposure or even deals of their own (i.e. Dinosaur Jr, Mudhoney, Nirvana, etc.). Following up Daydream Nation must have been quite a daunting task and signing with a major label at that time was often the kiss of death for any self respecting band who had roots in the punk rock community. Yet somehow Sonic Youth found a way to forge a new road and rewrite all the rules. While Goo might be one of their more accessible albums it was by no means at all a sellout. SY had always had a pop element in their music and this record let them explore it much more deeply. While not their most critically acclaimed record, we've always had a huge soft spot for Goo, in fact it's Andee's favorite SY record ever! It was the record where SY got to let down their hair and have some fun. There is a playfulness and charisma to Goo that still kicks our ass. And odds are you probably already know and love a bunch of these Goo-tunes.
Aw Goo, a record that would help Sonic Youth reach the masses as it gave them a wider audience than previous albums. Goo launched a decade that would see so many bands flourish taking much inspiration from Sonic Youth. Everyone from Pavement to Sleater-Kinney, Unwound to Blonde Redhead. Years and years later, Goo still sounds so rocking and charming. One of the few bands who have made great records over the course of three decades!
Gosh there's a lot to say about this record.
[1] THE MUSIC: The sonic trajectory Wilco seemed to be on with their last album, Summerteeth, led us to believe the new one would be even more perfect pop-like. But they've gone and thrown us a curve ball. That's right, this is Wilco's weird experimental record. OK, it isn't *that* weird; and if you're an AQ customer then you have far more experimental records in your collection, but it *is* unusual for Wilco. Like a mix between the doleful Giant Sand and the fanciful Latin Playboys (Los Lobos' weird experimental side project), this new Wilco record doesn't have half as many hooks as previous efforts. While it certainly has the tried and true strummed acoustic guitars, lyrical piano, sad fiddles, and alterna-country tone that the group is famous for, they make you wait and wait and wait for the hooks and the melodies, or else they bury 'em in a scattered, cathartic wash of melancholy. Jeff Tweedy, leader of the band and one half of the late great Uncle Tupelo, is a-wanderin' and a-thinkin' out loud and he's a-lettin' the songs write themselves, so they meander a bit, but it's ever so heartfelt. If you can handle the assorted odd sonic elements that pop up all over -- wooden bonks 'n clonks, piano plinks, toys, static and scrapings, feedback, stereo separation novelties, strange rumblings that threaten to overtake the music, etc -- then you'll like this record. (Rumor has it several members of Wilco *couldn't* handle the weirdness, and quit the band.) And even though the ubiquitous Jim O'Rourke mixed the album and you'd think he brought in all random noises, actually the band claims the record was way more weird *before* O'Rourke worked on it. Huh.
[2] THE EXTRAS: Comes with stuff you can play on your computer: a video for one of the songs, plus links to the trailer for the upcoming doc being made about 'em, plus special access to a hidden webpage that's only for folks who've bought the album.
[3] THE SAGA: Wilco's shortsighted major label Reprise decides that sales of 162,000 copies of Wilco's last album isn't enough, and they don't like the new album, so they want the band off the label. Wilco buys back the masters for less than it cost to record them, and sign with Nonesuch (who btw also signed Magnetic Fields). In a nice example of corporate stupidity, Nonesuch and Reprise are owned by the same corporation, so in effect AOL Time Warner paid for the album twice. Ha. Before they signed with Nonesuch, Wilco made this new album downloadable from their website, and thus it even showed up, without ever having been officially released, on a few rockcrits' top ten lists from 2001. Ironically enough, now that the album's saga has been latched onto by the NY Times and NPR, Yankee Hotel Foxtrot will sell more copies than all of Wilco's previous albums, and someone at Reprise will get fired.
[4] CONET PROJECT ALERT: Hey all you fellow Conet lovers! Didja notice the title of this record? Yankee Hotel Foxtrot. Yankee... Hotel... Foxtrot... Yes folks, this record was named after a track on the infamous Conet Project, the 4cd set that collects mysterious shortwave numbers station broadcasts. (We're kind of proud to have sold more copies of this than any other store -- 387 and counting!) And yep, there's a Conet Project sample buried near the end of the record. It's uncredited, which is kind of lame -- I mean if Wilco are such ardent fans of the Conet Project, wouldn't they want to turn other people onto it? Nor did we find Conet credit given on Boards of Canada's Geodaddi, for that matter, but the makers of Vanilla Sky did!
Finally, the record that nearly ruined Neil Young gets a proper cd release! And what better time than in the current electro-resurgence, retro-eighties new wave craze!!! Every band and their mother are now singing through a vocoder, but Neil was doing that shit 20 years ago!!! And people HATED it. 'Trans' was his worse selling record and had everyone predicting the end of Neil Young. But as always, people just don't get it. This record is awesome (though that opinion is not universal among AQ-staffers, we must admit). The first track starts out like any old Neil Young record, good old rock and roll, lulling you into believing nothing has changed. But track two kicks into future-gear, transporting us to 'the future' of music as it could only be imagined by folks in the eighties. A world of robots and robot cars and 'futuristic rock and roll' where everyone sings through vocoders and all melodies are played by wheedling little computers (or guitars rigged to sound like it). And weirdly enough, it's sort of a dark depressing, melancholy world. The melodies are mostly minor key, the emotions evoked are mostly -not- happy, and maybe the future is not so bright after all. That's part of the charm of 'Trans'. All kitsch value aside, this is a really cool record. With some of these songs, you'd think you were listening to that new Flaming Lips album, maybe. Great songs, catchy melodies, all sort of wistful and morose and sorrowfully dreamy -- in a futuristic sort of way!
