Tag: Rock

Bob Dylan – Time Out of Mind

Time Out of Mind

Bob Dylan – Time Out of Mind Columbia CK 68556 (1997)

I have to admit I’m not sold on the idea of this being one of Dylan’s all-time best albums.  Though it certainly is one of the better ones of the last part of his career.  This is certainly more consistent that most of what Dylan had done in the 1980s.  He basically takes the best elements he had experimented with since Oh Mercy and combines them into a unified package, courtesy of producer Daniel Lanois.  Probably the main reasons that this one succeeds is that Dylan actually tries and he lets his producer do his job without much interference.  The result is a testament to the new, more “professional” Bob Dylan, who proved much more likeable than the erratic, boozy, incoherent, bratty Dylan that had overstayed his welcome for the last few decades like a weekend house guest still lingering around a week later.

Wilco – A Ghost Is Born

A Ghost Is Born

Wilco – A Ghost Is Born Nonesuch 79809-2 (2004)

Wilco fully realized their new sound on A Ghost Is Born. Rather than tagging electronic effects onto songs songs that come from somewhere else, the group is making music out of that new sound from the start. Usually that describes a band is at its peak. That may not necessarily be the case for Wilco. The good news is that A Ghost Is Born has a level of proficiency unmatched anywhere on Yankee Hotel Foxtrot (Wilco’s prior effort). Their new sound is a precise tool. And, from time to time, the band can still call on their cantankerous, old-timey melodic sensibilities to make a point. The bad news is that Wilco’s new proficiency has quietly extinguished some of the wonder and excitement of previous efforts. At times, the group is operating in a fairly comfortable place. There, influences run rampant. “Spiders (Kidsmoke)” is little more than a tribute to motorik-style krautrock (bearing an unmistakable resemblance to old Neu! songs like “Negativland” and “Neuschnee”). “Less Than You Think” is like John Cage or Morton Subotnick compositions. Retro or not, the tributes happily resound with enough wit and punch to succeed. In general, the whole album is more durable than much previous Wilco material. Its greatest charms are far from obvious on a first listen. Understated, stately, and almost uniformly inspired, A Ghost Is Born is the group’s best album yet.

Wilco – Yankee Hotel Foxtrot

Yankee Hotel Foxtrot

Wilco – Yankee Hotel Foxtrot Nonesuch 79669-2 (2002)

Bringing in their vision of post-rock to country-tinged pop, Wilco has delivered a pretty good album here. Back a few years, comparisons to Yo La Tengo or The Sea & Cake would be laughable. Nobody would be laughing at that today. The spare arrangements make insinuations to their meaning, no more. Wilco’s preoccupation with thinking this through has let them wander into places they never expected. That is fine, except the results aren’t that punchy. The songs have to jump back occasionally when they realize what is happening about them. Too often the record is a bit light in its songwriting. The high points “I Am Trying to Break Your Heart,” “Jesus, Etc.,” “Pot Kettle Black,” and “Poor Places” do make quite an impact. Elsewhere, the record strays into much pretension despite what still could be called good intentions. Producer Jim O’Rourke perhaps made the mix a bit conservative. Frontman Jeff Tweedy starts out strong, but I don’t think his songwriting holds up for the entire album. This is still a fine piece of work. Perhaps, though, it’s a dead-end for Wilco who have now done all they can in this direction. Yankee Hotel Foxtrot is instantly likable in a somewhat universal manner. Wilco’s real achievement here is making good music that reaches far beyond the insider niche markets where so many other ostensibly similar artists are stuck.

Wilco – Kicking Television: Live in Chicago

Kicking Television" Live in Chicago

Wilco – Kicking Television: Live in Chicago Nonesuch 79903-2 (2005)

I found this album tremendously disappointing.  Wilco spends most of the record trying to pander to the audience by over-emphasizing the sappiest elements of their music.  Kicking Television is a paradigmatic attempt to appeal to an audience’s bad taste.  These live recordings add nothing to the studio versions, save a few awkwardly tacked on guitar solos.  There are rewarding moments, but they are lost in a sea of mediocrity.

Tom Waits – Heartattack and Vine

Heartattack and Vine

Tom Waits – Heartattack and Vine Asylum 6E-295 (1980)

Here Waits is still operating within the realm of orchestrated pop balladry (“Saving All My Love for You,” “On the Nickel,” “Ruby’s Arms”), but he’s made a noticeable change in welcoming more harder-edged blues-rock sounds to his palette, with heavier drums and guitar and no piano (“Heartattack and Vine,” “‘Til the Money Runs Out”).  This proved to be a transitional album as Waits moved toward his edgier mid-80s sound.  But often he is stuck with a slick, “professional”, L.A. kind of sound (“In Shades,” “Downtown”) that is too much of a compromise between the two poles of the album.  Even when he does succeed in one firm style or another, it is hard to find people who want to swing between gravelly crooning and gruff R&B the way this album is presented.  There is definitely good stuff here, but the sum total is a little unsatisfying.  After marrying Kathleen Brennan, whom he met while working on One From the Heart, he basically committed to the style of Swordfishtrombones and stuck with that approach for the rest of his career.

Tom Waits – Swordfishtrombones

Swordfishtrombones

Tom Waits – Swordfishtrombones Island ILPS 9762 (1983)

A good album, but one I hardly ever revisit.  Of course I dig stuff like “16 Shells From a Thirty-Ought-Six”.  You would have to be a major asshole not to.  But this album as a whole doesn’t resonate with me like some of his others.  Still a fine effort and among Tom Waits’ better ones.  This would be his last album for nearly twenty years to look back at all on the lounge jazz/blues that characterized much of his 1970s output.

Elvis Costello and The Attractions – Get Happy!!

Get Happy!!

Elvis Costello and The Attractions – Get Happy!! F-Beat XXLP1 (1980)

There is a good chance that asking some fans their favorite Elvis Costello album will get the answer: Get Happy!!  What essentially begins as a genre exercise in soul and R&B ends up as an enduring statement that went beyond new wave clichés. It has more energy than seemed possible from Costello. He directs this into a completely honest brew of catchy melodies and soulful backbeats.

This is one of the classic new wave albums because it’s also an anti-new wave album. The ancient modernism of the conflicted emotions stands out. This isn’t so much a fun pop album. Get Happy!! is about music that you often need to hear. It works upon you. The phrase “Get happy” is a hollow motivational catchphrase. This album wonders why. The purportedly trivial gets its due. Anyone who has ever been sad, lonely, depressed, disenchanted, or anything other than what they want to be, has the needs to hear this album.

“I Can’t Stand Up (For Falling Down)” takes the overlooked Sam & Dave classic (penned by Hayes/Porter) someplace new. Costello takes on the song at a double-time tempo. He tweaks a few of the lyrics to his purposes and adapts where needed his vocal style. He emerges with a something entirely more frantic and delusional. Costello wants to escape the inescapable. Sam & Dave sang a slow, bluesy ballad. Costello reinterprets the song where he acts before he thinks as an excuse to avoid his pain. How could he “fall down” at the pace of he sings this song?  His desires are as real as he makes them, conviction his only ally.

Costello was an intelligent hipster. Here he directs his thoughts to the minutiae of life; its illusions fascinate him. The songs don’t come to explicit conclusions. Get Happy!! doesn’t provide answers. Perhaps the only thing Costello and The Attractions do identify with are old Stax and Atlantic soul sides and some wont to act. His usual cynicism is held in check by the glaring deference to pop music of the past.  So under it all is a love for music, and that love gets put to use.

So with “Beaten to the Punch” Costello has his lyrics as sharp as ever (for example, “if you got a head for figures then you better count me out” is a great line wherever it lies). Hesitation seems to be everyone else’s problem but Elvis can’t help but implicate himself in the mess.  While he claims to have no choice in these matters, he certainly knows where he wants to end up. The way to get there just isn’t what he had hoped for. The tables turn and he’s as desperate as everyone else.

Maybe the honesty of this record comes as a by-product of a hasty recording process (think Big Star’s Third). That separates Get Happy!! from Costello’s other sometimes dubious efforts to reinvent himself. With so many great songs like “Black & White World,” “New Amsterdam,” “High Fidelity,” and “Riot Act,” he obviates the need for posturing. This is a last-ditch effort to make something, anything, happen. The record simply isn’t calculated for Costello to position himself as some kind of legendary songwriter or rock star. When talented artists make music they feel, on instinct, without over-thinking, it can be unique in all the right ways.  So it was with Get Happy!!

Sleaford Mods – Divide and Exit

Divide and Exit

Sleaford Mods – Divide and Exit Harbinger HARBINGER121CD (2014)

Sleaford mods basically adopt the rhythmic post-punk sound of The Fall.  Although they certainly aren’t the first to do so, it is interesting that they sound like latter-day Fall (year 2000 onward).  Vocalist Jason Williamson sounds a bit like Ian Dury too.  Decent working class rock.