Cultural Detritus, Reviews, and Commentary
Dinosaur Jr. – Beyond PIAS PIL070 CD (2007)
Back at it with another chunk of prime Dino Jr. They haven’t lost a step, though the music does have some of the softened features of a more mature band. Still, they throw in two crappy Lou Barlow songs, just like old times. Although the Dino Jr. comeback has been surprisingly good, this remains the only album from the comeback that really lives up to the best of their original run.
Bob Dylan – Dylan Columbia PC 32747 (1973)
Bob Dylan briefly jumped from Columbia Records to the fledgling Asylum Records in the early 1970s. After he departed, Columbia took outtakes from Self Portrait and New Morning, and, without his knowledge, released them as Dylan. Most likely due to Dylan’s lack of input in the project, the album was never reissued in the United States. It is frequently maligned as the very worst Dylan album. Can it be? No, not really. But the reason that the Dylan fundamentalists dismiss this is precisely because they are tedious bores. There is a large contingent of Dylan fans who love his songwriting so much that they outright dismiss any of his albums that are not built upon it. Dylan is a collection of cover tunes, without a single original Dylan composition. The thing is, this is much more focused than Self Portrait and has fewer head-scratchers than New Morning. Dylan may be purposefully stepping out of character here, but the results are respectable, even if by no means too impressive. Side one in particular is pretty decent all the way through. Side two slouches some more, with Joni Mitchell‘s “Big Yellow Taxi” too self-consciously tethered to an awkward new rhythm, and with much of the backing vocals seemingly under-rehearsed. But you have to admit that Dylan’s singing is generally stronger here than on New Morning. While this is no lost classic, it’s a better album than its reputation suggests. There is no doubt in my mind that Down in the Groove is a worse album, as are Self Portrait and Pat Garrett & Billy the Kid.
Ian Dury – New Boots and Panties!! Stiff SEEZ 4 (1977)
To put Ian Dury in context, I’d say he has a little of the nostalgic and slightly off-kilter, insecure sense of humor of Jonathan Richman (this comes through quite strongly on “Sweet Gene Vincent”), matched with a gritty and edgy lyrical sense and musical vision like Jim Carroll and perhaps less inhibition. Of course, he’s also fundamentally British. You might say he was the wittiest and smartest guy in the same type of scene that would produce working class punk and Oi! like Sham 69 and Cock Sparrer, though his band The Blockheads gives this a funky, sometimes jazzy, almost disco sheen vaguely like Marianne Faithfull‘s Broken English of a couple years later but with more visceral drive. Yet the use of such a nondescript style instrumental backing, almost devoid of personality (not to sell The Blockheads short — what they do here is pitch-perfect), places this, along with The The‘s Soul Mining, as a testament to witty lyrics and vocals that are full of character making any music capable of intimacy and charm. And when they use a prog-rock, jazzy-inflected synthesizer solo on “Blockheads,” it is of course prefaced with a fart sound. There is a sense of wonder about life in this music. Yet Dury never takes himself too seriously. He is always ready to make a fool of himself, and offer a hilariously off-color comment, usually while talking loosely and casually about going out and doing things, having fun, and getting by. Interesting too that Dury released this, his first album, in his late 30s, somewhat a rarity in rock. A great one from the punk era.
Funkadelic – One Nation Under a Groove Warner Bros. BSK 3209 (1978)
Landing on major label Warner Bros., Funkadelic combined the more accessible elements of Parliament (the funk version of the band) and Funkadelic (the rock version of the band) to arrive at the sound of One Nation Under a Groove. The edges have been rounded off some of the rock guitar solos, and the funk is a little less hard — you don’t HAVE to dance, but you still very well could. Things glide by pretty comfortably though. This is definitely shooting for the widest possible audience. So, sure, this is probably the easiest entry point. But at the same time, this falls short of the crazy (and I mean CRAIZEE) unique, grooving, classic music the band made elsewhere. But you could more readily play this for some squares you know (yeah, you know some) and they would be less likely to shit their pants listening to this one than some others.
Funkadelic – Free Your Mind… and Your Ass Will Follow Westbound WB 2001 (1970)
The debut was pretty jammy, and this one is too but, for better or worse, it’s even more freaky, loose and psychedelic. The black Grateful Dead? Sort-of. If you come to this looking for well-defined “songs” you’ll be disappointed. But guitarist Eddie Hazel proves the star. He lights up side one. This one has its place. It can’t compete with what came next though, the stone-cold classic Maggot Brain.
Funkadelic – America Eats Its Young Westbound 2WB 2020 (1972)
Funkadelic made an abrupt turn with their fourth album. Rather than extended psychedelic R&B jams, George Clinton & Co. had shifted away from guitar as a centerpiece of the music to vocal harmonies. Some of this could pass for vintage soul, and one track even could fairly be called country rock. Listeners who appreciate Funkadelic as being one of the stranger and weirder rock acts of their day may not warm up to this much, but on its own terms this is a successful album. It marked the group’s first attempt to be more commercially palatable. The approach makes a certain amount of sense, considering that attempting to duplicate or top Maggot Brain would have been futile.
Bruce Springsteen – Greetings From Asbury Park, N.J. Columbia KC 31903 (1973)
Bruce Springsteen’s debut delivers brilliant folky rock storytelling. At this point, he was concerned with more than just rock anthems. His purpose was something humanistic. Springsteen had that in common with Van Morrison. This album tells of hope for human perseverance. Triumph over adversity is the common thread through all the songs.
Here he is believable. The songs matter, and they matter to more than just their characters. Springsteen was confident to make the everyday an event. It was kind of a pride thing. The sound is a little sparse. Sometimes Springsteen isn’t quite sure of what lies ahead. He leaves just enough rough edges to give Greetings a homespun charm.
Greetings from Asbury Park N.J. did not make Springsteen a star. He was still just a kid from Jersey. The album is humble and endearing in a way that none of his later albums were.
Bruce Springsteen – The Wild, the Innocent & the E Street Shuffle Columbia PC 32432 (1973)
The Boss took a very significant turn with his second album. His debut Greetings from Asbury Park, N.J. was quite obviously influenced by folky singer-songwriters. It also had a youthful exuberance with a sentimental and even romantic attachment to gritty urban concerns. All that managed to be a strength because of the overall sense of earnestness it had. For some reason, that debut wasn’t a big hit (perhaps a very minor one), and continues to be less popular with fans than what came later.
Springsteen’s second album The Wild, the Innocent & the E Street Shuffle makes a conscious effort to cast off any remnants of folk influence. In place, there is a reliance on heavy production. This album tries very hard to sound contemporary, and simply “big.” Overproduced? Yes! Springsteen’s vocal adopt some dramatic flairs (like “Kitty’s Back” with his reaching vocals, set against a hushed vocal chorus, and similarly with the sappy orchestration of “New York City Serenade”). The keyboards and guitar sound more synthetic, with self-consciously jazzy inflections. And isn’t “Rosalita (Come Out Tonight)” just basically a re-write of “Blinded by the Light” from the last album?
So, it’s no wonder that fans who like the Born to Run Springsteen don’t go for the debut, but will probably like this one more. This album is chock full of typically disingenuous Springsteen fare. Springsteen’s attempts to find the glory of middle America have always seemed like something of a joke to this reviewer. For one thing, once Springsteen was a star his attempts to pass as just another “working Joe” seem fraudulent. He was a big star, not the little guy anymore. But it’s the hypocrisy of Springsteen’s writing that really is the most irksome. His tendency to use irony often stumbles when he simultaneously relies on the very things he mocks to do draw in listeners. You know, F. Scott Fitzgerald is often described as writing about the dark heart of the jazz age. Springsteen clearly tries to do somewhat the same type of thing for working-class America of a later time. But, but, but, the problem is that Springsteen becomes more of an enabler for the worst qualities that cause the very problems he laments. It’s this sort of passivity, fatalism and sense of powerlessness in the face of powerful, incomprehensible forces that is really quite pathetic, and it makes its appearance on this album and only grows stronger on later efforts. Fitzgerald never gave his characters the kind of pass that Springsteen does so regularly. For Fitzgerald, his characters have failings, and they most often fail to accept the inevitable consequences of a wealthy lifestyle until it’s too late. For Springsteen, escapism is fine, and he’s gonna glorify the here and now, but he’s never going to set his sights on more. This is found in his songs that pretty consistently stop short of offering any kind of explanation or resolution. It gives the impression of somebody a little naïve about how the world really works, giving comfort to the likewise ignorant. Srsly, fuck you Bruce. This may give short shrift to many great singles and individual songs The Boss has released, that do capture the bleakness of life for ordinary Americans, but the entirety of many of his albums reveal more than a little lack of ambition.
The Rolling Stones – Tattoo You Rolling Stones Records CUN 39114 (1981)
Wait, what??? Where did this album come from? Where did it come from?? The Stones ditched the attempts to sound contemporary of Black and Blue, Some Girls and Emotional Rescue in favor of something a bit more in line with what they had been doing ten years earlier. Yeah, strangely enough it works. What’s more, the ballads and slower material of side two are about as strong as the rockers on side one. A weird anomaly and really the last time The Rolling Stones sounded like they had anything worthwhile to offer.
The Rolling Stones – Black and Blue Rolling Stones Records COC 59106 (1976)
Black and Blue is something of the black sheep of 1970s Stones albums. There are no classic tunes to be found, and the songwriting in general just doesn’t impress. Yet, there is something to say about these simplistic yet gritty jams. Iggy Pop once gave an interview where he commented about his own most recent record being stupid rock music and sometimes you just need stupid rock music. Well, Black and Blue is precisely that kind of stupid rock music! The jams are often quite danceable, especially those with a disco flavor, and work out all right with the help of a rotating cast of guitarists. This one plays best as mood music, background music. If that’s not what you want, it’s time to look elsewhere. You wouldn’t even have to look far, because two years later Some Girls took the stylistically varied approach of this album and combined it with more focused songwriting to generally more acclaim.