Music I’ve Gone Off

Oddly enough, there isn’t a great deal of music I’ve gone off over time. I tend to remain loyal to stuff I liked when young, even if I objectively know it’s dreadful now (i.e. hair metal); or just not really like it much to begin with. Still, some music just doesn’t hit me as it once did. Here’s a few examples.

Tricky

Tricky I suppose is a relic from my pot-smoking days. When a student, I took to hash like a duck to water; it enhanced my imagination, made studying more interesting (if far from efficient – I would wonder down mental tangents for minutes at a time then have to backtrack) and made music more sensual, colourful, and vivid. Studying an arts/humanities course is very agreeable to pot, too, in that your class time will probably be no more than a few hours a day, leaving plenty time for “self study”. It took some time to find the right musical accompaniment, as I’d been too much of a goody-goody to indulge whilst at school (too chicken, also), so it was a case of suck-it-and-see. I first thought the dazzling technicolour of the Beatles’ psychedelic period would suit; but no. It was too bright, too pretty. Once I tried Pink Floyd’s sonorous early rhythms, I was on the right track, and hearing Tricky one day at a friend’s room, I was all over it like white on rice.

Tricky’s first album Maxinequaye is a masterpiece of deep lush rhythms, sensuous atmospheres and understated melodies, with occasional floaters of anxiety and paranoia darkening the emotional palette. Songs like “Abbaon Fat Tracks” are almost preposterously sensual, without being explicitly, juvenilely sexual – this is 4am hash-smoking session getting it on: no rampant animals spirits, but a heightened sensory experience with a languid physical response. “Hell Is Round The Corner”, with its Portishead sample, is similarly languid (with the nice touch of vinyl crackles), but counterpointed by a lyric of ghetto darkness and social breakdown. There are up-tempo songs – “Brand New You’re Retro” takes the riff from “Bad” over which Tricky and Martina both perform great raps, but still sounds deep and fluid in its rhythms; while “Black Steel” is a thrash metal version of a Public Enemy song which left critics non-plussed (they rarely know how to interpret the more aggressive strains of rock), but which effectively breaks up the homogeneity of atmosphere and tempo. The album is not consistent – it declines quite markedly after “Brand New You’re Retro” – but it hits numerous enormous bulls-eyes, and deserved its nomination in numerous “Best of 1995” lists.

Maxinequaye however got Tricky rather pigeon-holed into “dinner party music”, nice “trip-hop” categories. And he didn’t seem to like that at all. But rather than outgrow this with quality output, he reacted in an I’ll-show-them way. His next three or four albums become increasingly dark, sinister and paranoiac. Check “Vent” as an opener to third album Pre Millennium Tension: the thundering drums, the ominous feedback loops, Tricky’s rasping vocal (“can’t hardly breathe!”), sharp guitar attack, and lack of melody or rich bass tones make it a marked development, and a skillfully developed atmosphere, but you have to be enormously creative to sustain people’s interest in such a dark, oppressive ambiance. (C.f. Joy Division). And Tricky just isn’t good enough as a musician. Pre Millennium Tension does start well, with “Vent”, then the understated menace of “Christiansands”, while “Makes Me Wanna Die” is stark and affecting. But tracks like “Tricky Kid” are boring hip-hop braggadocio, and “Ghetto Youth” a long boring raga, while “Bad Things”, “My Evil Is Strong” and “Piano” evoke an atmosphere (yup, a dark, oppressive one), but do nothing with it – Tricky just rasps his familiar lyrical motifs, and that’s it. It’s boring.

Next album Angels With Dirty Faces is a further progression along this route. Dispensing with melody almost entirely, the album comprises tracks of skittering beats and breakbeats, over which Tricky and Martina (there’s rather less or Martina on this album) mumble or wail their problems. When it works, as with “Singing The Blues” or “Broken Homes”, it’s very good – both creative and effective. But usually, unfortunately, it’s just boring. “Carriage For Two” does nothing much, nor do “Tear Out My Eyes” and “Analyze Me”, and… well, the whole second half of the album, frankly.

After this Tricky had clearly backed himself into a corner and took three years to release his next album (and re-think his entire approach). Comeback album (I feel that should be in neon: COMEBACK ALBUM!) Blowback saw Tricky with about a dozen guest performers, from the Chilli Peppers to Alanis Morrissette to Cyndi Lauper. (Yes, really). And while the album is more varied and melodious, it’s really just sad and embarrassing, feeling and sounding like famous wellwishers grafted on at record company behest to help pull Tricky out of his hole. Some of the effects are diabolical – the Nirvana cover “Something In The Way” features perhaps the worst raga you’ll ever hear. It’s atrocious. And that was where my patience snapped and I gave up.

I’ve perhaps laboured the point, but there was a time when I felt Tricky was outstanding, and Maxinequaye was a very fine album (up until track nine). But he’s a clear example of someone with a very clear musical vision which was all used up after two albums.

Cypress Hill

There was a time when I was interested in rap and hiphop. This was the early 90s, so it would be oldskool stuff, I guess, like Ice T, Public Enemy and NWA. The progression is pretty natural for rock fans who like anger and dissent in their music; and with the injustices featuring in Public Enemy etc both genuine and demonstrating the ugly face of the ruling class and culture, some felt even more into it. While I liked Public Enemy, whose skewering of American institutions, myths and culture was both brave and immensely skilful, the others I went off of very rapidly. Tales of ghetto histrionics and bravado are just fucking tedious to me, and symptomatic of a sterile destructive culture. Subsequent artists in this vein, from Snoop Dog onwards, I just despise.

There was a time that’s embarrassing to recall though, when I thought Cypress Hill were good. Simple funky rhythms and “fuck-the-law” lyrics and all that. I liked it for about a month when I was thirteen, then the repetition of the beats became glaringly obvious, and their appeal wore out like cheap chewing gum. Fin.

(If you’re wondering why I’m embarrassed to recall a musical passion at age 13, well consider that at that age I had already discovered Nirvana, the Sex Pistols, Guns N’ Roses, Pink Floyd, The Clash, Slayer, etc, who in their various ways I still love).

The Smiths

It’s not so much I’ve gone off The Smiths, maybe, as that my adolescent infatuation with them wore off. When I was in the grip of it, I listened to them daily, religiously; now, I put on The Queen Is Dead, Hatfull of Hollow or Best of Vol 1 occasionally, but that’s about it. With the best will in the world, they are something of an teenager’s band – their lyrical preoccupations particularly. The music is dazzlingly lyrical, running the gamut of emotions, but with a few mordant slabs of sadness, gloom and even downright self-pity, they were easy to dismiss as miserabilists. As I’ve aged, what’s become more important to me in music is lack of affectation, a reality, the conveying of true emotions passionately felt. You get this in abundance throughout the greats, from Miles Davis to Bob Marley to Kraftwerk (once they’d hit their stride). With Morrissey’s lyrics, one sometimes feels a distancing, so that his word-play and allusions become not verbal pleasures but self-protection from revelation. There have even been books about the interpretations people place on his lyrics, such are their opacity/allusiveness. Take “What Difference Does It Make?”:

All men have secrets and here is mine,
So let it be known
For we have been through hell and high tide
I think I can rely on you
And yet you start to recoil,
Heavy words are lightly thrown
But still I’d leap in front of a flying bullet for you

I’ve always thought this was about someone telling a friend (or desired lover?) that they were gay. But equally it could be an argument, a confession about anything, etc.  Allusion and resonance are nice, but there comes a time when you ask “Where’s the beef?”

Other things that irritate about Morrissey’s lyrics are their preciousness, and the preening intellectual pretension. Again, fine when you’re fifteen, and you’re just discovering DH Lawrence and EM Forster and Martin Amis. But when you get to 30+ and you’ve read a book or two and aren’t afraid of using, you know, big long type words, it gets a bit tedious.

What does remain about The Smiths are Marr’s unerringly fantastic guitar playing – which is yet never wankily flashy, which makes for a great relief in the 1980s – and when Morrissey’s lyrics are genuine and heartfelt. “How Soon Is Now?” (despite the dreadful pretension of the opening lines) remains painfully true:

I am the son
and the heir
of a shyness that is criminally vulgar
I am the son and heir
of nothing in particular

You shut your mouth
how can you say
I go about things the wrong way
I am human and I need to be loved
just like everybody else does

“Back To The Old House” creates a brooding, desolate atmosphere, heightened by a stark Marr accoustic finger-picked piece:

I would rather not go
Back to the old house
I would rather not go
Back to the old house
There’s too many
Bad memories
Too many memories

When you cycled by
Here began all my dreams
The saddest thing I’ve ever seen
And you never knew
How much I really liked you
Because I never even told you
Oh, and I meant to
Are you still there ?
Or … have you moved away ?
Or have you moved away ?

While the sharp observation of “Girl Afraid” is rich with biting humour and pathos:

Girl afraid
Where do his intentions lay ?
Or does he even have any ?
She says :
“He never really looks at me!
I give him every opportunity!
In the room downstairs
He sat and stared
In the room downstairs
He sat and stared
I’ll never make that mistake again !”

Boy afraid
Prudence never pays
And everything she wants costs money
“But she doesn’t even LIKE me !
And I know because she said so!
In the room downstairs
She sat and stared
In the room downstairs
She sat and stared
I’ll never make that mistake again !”

“There Is A Light That Never Goes Out”, “Never Had No One Ever” and “Last Night I Dreamed Somebody Loved Me” are in the same direct, emotional, vein. But notably, of course, all focus on doomed romance and loss, the typical narcissistic adolescent complaints. The emotional resonance of this is somewhere around zero for me, and so despite The Smith’s numerous great gifts of expression, I’ve just don’t listen to them much these days.

Top Ten Mega Favourite Music Acts In The World Of All Time Ever

1. Beatles
2. Pink Floyd
3. Kraftwerk
4. Miles Davis
5. Velvet Underground
6. Sex Pistols
7. Guns N’ Roses
8. Boards Of Canada
9. Joy Division
10. Nick Drake
11. Metallica
12. Rolling Stones
13. John Coltrane
14. Mike Oldfield
15. Nirvana
16. Queen
17. Pubic Image Limited
18. Spiritualized
19. Talking Heads
20. Aphex Twin

Edit – added an 11-20.

I guess it really comes down to albums – though Queen, for example, have an strong list of classic tunes, their albums are a bit hit-and-miss, with only A Night At The Opera and The Game really consistent, I’d say; and their 80s stuff is pretty banal, to my ears.

Cavalier and Roundhead

Is it just me or can all music be divided into two categories – Roundhead and Cavalier? This dichotomy comes from the English Civil War, where Roundheads were Parliamentary/Puritan soldiers who wore tight fitting un-ornamented metal helmets, while Cavaliers were Kings men who wore large ornate hats with feathers. Cavaliers were renowned for their expensive clothing while Roundheads cared more about fighting (and winning). So essentially, it’s the difference between florid/excessive and spare/vital.

The Beatles (yes, them again) became increasingly cavalier from 1965 to 1967, peaking in the almost absurdly florid excesses of “All You Need Is Love”. Flowers, kaftans, excessive orchestra, massed everyone-together-man hippies, yada yada.

Just a year later, Lennon has massively reacted against this cavalier excess and gone for roundhead fundamentalism, with gritty blues, plain proletarian denim, and howling disaffection (“In the eeeeevening…. wanna die!”).

Punk, essentially, was a roundhead reaction to the perceived cavalier excesses of prog rock. Though many punk bands in their own experimentations (and well-hidden love for a good pop melody) became more cavalier as time went by. The Clash’s first album is of almost Stalinist breezeblock brutality – as seen in album tracks like “What’s My Name”. (Just 1.41, too!)

By their third (and best) album, London Calling, The Clash had incorporated influence like rockabilly, reggae, rn’b, and old time rock n’ roll. “Revolution Rock” has some nice parping brass and a reggaeish beat. Its lengthy outro makes it quite the counterpoint to the severe simplicity and brevity of their first album.

Their next album is the triple LP (!) Sandinista!, which pretty much speaks for itself, while their fifth, Combat Rock, would be a back-to-basics with enormously successful singles “Should I Stay Or Should I Go?” and “Rock The Casbah”.

Even The Damned, whose first album is a speed-fulled adrenalized delight without an ounce of fat, got all cavalier – see their Beatles take-off The Black Album. By the time they invented goth rock, they were in full cavalier mode.

Blame Captain Sensible and his love of showtunes!

Prog rock, obviously, is cavalier. But while Pink Floyd were no strangers to excess (the “birds in a cave” section of “Echoes” lasts from nearly three full minutes!), I would suggest that Roger Waters was more of a roundhead than cavalier. The Wall, surely, is an album of full roundhead aggression, disdain, and musical severity. No more florid colourful Rick Wright keyboards!

Dance music, being rhythmic in inspiration, is mostly cavalier. But surely The Prodigy’s Music For The Jilted Generation is a roundheaded exercise in gritty beats, and cause-driven rage. “Their Law” has some of the best guitar riffs I’ve ever heard in any music.

Primal Scream have alternated throughout their career between cavalier lovey-dovey (Screamadelica)and roundhead anger. XTRMNTR is a hell of an album, with Stooges-inspired overblown guitars and an overwhelming rage at the state of the nation. “Kill All Hippies” couldn’t be any clearer about its anti-cavalier intent!

Most bands, of course, stick to one side or other. Joy Division were relentlessly roundhead. Animal Collective are gleefully cavalier. Elton John a helpless cavalier, David Bowie a reluctant one. Nick Drake was a roundhead working in the cavalier medium of folk. The Incredible String Band perhaps the most cavalier group of them all. But then, many of the greats oscillate: The Beatles, Miles Davis, Pink Floyd, the Rolling Stones.

What do you think?

More Beatles Bests: Albums

So I looked at my fave top best all-time Beatles tunes a while ago. But what about the albums, asked no-one? Well, let it never be said I left an unasked question unanswered. The Beatles were one of the first pop/rock bands to embrace the album and then develop it into a coherent statement, though interestingly enough, jazzers like Miles Davis and John Coltrane had been doing much the same thing about five years earlier. Coltrane’s A Love Supreme (1964) I see as the first non-classical concept album. (I really hate the phrase “concept album” – I just mean a longer piece of work that has a sustained meaning or atmosphere – the sort of thing you find in most classical symphonies, in other words). But when you compare the Beatles’ 12″ output to that of their forbears like Elvis and Chuck Berry, or even against rivals like the Beach Boys and the Rolling Stones, you can see how they grabbed the medium and made it their own. So here are the Beatles studio albums ranked in reverse order.

Yellow Submarine

This is only half a Beatle album anyway, with the latter half consisting of George Martin’s film orchestration. The Beatle tunes vary from almost “hidden gem”, such as “It’s All Too Much” and “Hey Bulldog” to the trite “All Together Now” to the dismal “Only A Northern Song”. Previous releases “Yellow Submarine” (understandably) and “All You Need Is Love” (a horribly sickly-sweet cloying song) are there too.

A Hard Day’s Night

I suspect people will disagree with me here, but I really don’t think this album much cop. Okay, there are a sprinkling of utter classics (the indelible title track, “Can’t Buy Me Love”, “Things We Said Today”, and “And I Love Her”, but the rest are distinctly fillerish. I have a special disdain for “I Should’ve Known Better”, while “Tell Me Why” and “Any Time At All” coast by on the strength of Lennon’s outstanding vocals. This is the sole album comprising only Lennon/McCartney originals, with songs written in the frantic period following their first conquering of America. A little more time to up the invention would have helped, but in 1964 the Fabs made two albums, two singles (not on the albums) and a film, toured a great deal, while Lennon also released In His Own Write. Surely the most incredible calendar year of activity from any band ever.

Beatles For Sale

The Fabs’ Xmas ’64 album gets the odd slating – the reversion to covers indicaing a lack of inspiration, or more likely time, this being released just five months after A Hard Day’s Night (!) – but to me it has more characterful touches than the earlier album. The covers are a mixed bunch, to be sure, but revealing – “Mr Moonlight” shows their penchant for piss-taking, “Word Of Love” is a debt of honour to Buddy Holly, and “Kansas City/Hey Hey Hey!” has Macca equalling Lennon’s “Twist And Shout” (both done in one take, too!). On the originals, “No Reply” is a bitter slice of Lennon which shows their increasing mastery of the studio, “Eight Days A Week” magnificent, “Every Little Thing” exceptional and underrated, and “I’m A Loser” perhaps the first to feature distinctly Lennonian wordplay. “Honey Don’t” and “I Don’t Want To Spoil The Party” are both pretty meh, though.

Please Please Me

The first album usually gets plaudits for being recorded in a 12 hour session, but that’s all you got for albums in those days. Even Miles Davis’ complex orchestral recordings like Sketches Of Spain (1960) and Porgy And Bess (1958) got a few takes at best. I remember reading an interview with Tony Iommi saying that Black Sabbath’s early albums were done in half a day too, and that was in 1970. But regardless of this eulogising, Please Please Me remains a dizzyingly fresh and varied album, from the soaring title track to the emotional “Anna (Go To Him)” to the dancehall favourite “I Saw Her Standing There” to the harmony workout “Baby It’s You”, to the furious riproaring lust of “Twist And Shout”. It’s an awesome declaration of intent.

Help!

Like Beatles For Sale, Help! is not usually very highly regarded, but its unerring songcraft and the increasingly superb arrangements make it one of perhaps more subtle pleasures, and definitely point the way to the subsequent inspiration in Rubber Soul. While no-one is really going to rhapsodise over “The Night Before”, “Another Girl” or “You’re Going To Lose That Girl”, all three feature virtuoso backing vocals, breaking away from simple harmonising to increasingly complex and memorable patterns. Macca continues to broaden his range at an incredible rate, with the wonderfully breathless “I’ve Just Seen A Face” (with tremendous guitar) and “Yesterday”, about which nothing more need be said. Lennon meanwhile produces a string of classics, from the aching yet rocking “Help!” to “Ticket To Ride” (where The Beatles start to fully expand their music from what has gone on before) and the alpine accoustics of “You’ve Got To Hide Your Love Away”. Weak points include “I Need You” and “You Like Me Too Much”, both from George; at least Ringo’s song, “Act Naturally”, is better than “Honey Don’t”.

Let It Be

The breakup clearly suffers from lost interest and inspiration. George’s “For You Blue” is a slide-guitar exercise and that’s about it, “Dig It” is nothing much, “Maggie May” is best forgotten as a joke, and “One After 909” is charming juvenalia. However, there are some monumentally good songs on it. “Two Of Us” is some of the best bass playing I’ve ever heard in any song ever (though it’s not actually played on a bass), and some totally winsome vocal melodies (Lennon and McCartney singing in unison throughout the verses). “I’ve Got A Feeling” is majestic, so rich with Beatle empathy and humanity; the music’s just as terrific. “Get Back” (not the single version) is fine and deft and enjoyably daft; the sense of rhythm is remarkable. Dig Ringo’s drumming in the keyboard solo (from 1.33), and how they subtly alter the rhythm, giving it more emphasis than on the guitar solo (from 0.59). “Across The Universe” sits awkwardly in its kaftan sounding all late-’67, and demonstrating how rapidly the Beatles developed (I mean this is less than 18 months later!), while I have never really enjoyed “Let It Be”, perhaps through too many school music lessons.

Magical Mystery Tour

This is really a double EP, but as a collection of the Beatles’ late 67 work, it works very well. It’s an amazing dazzleburst of hallucinogenic colour, from “Strawberry Fields Forever” to the wonderful instrumental “Flying” to the murky “Blue Jay Way” to the exotic “Baby You’re A Rich Man”. Macca delivers two nostalgic tunes with “Your Mother Should Know” and “The Fool On The Hill” (recorders, forsooth), but Lennon’s “I Am The Walrus” is one of the most tricksy, cunning, put-on songs ever – and that’s only to consider the music! As a double EP, MMT lacks the coherence and skilful sequencing of other albums, but it does contain some of the finest songs ever recorded by The Beatles and others mined from the same vein of inspiration.

With The Beatles

This album essentially refines the formula of Please Please Me, with its mix of R&B, girl pop, and rock and roll. The originals are sassier and better crafted – “It Won’t Be Long” shamelessly milks the “Yeah!” of “She Loves You”, “All My Loving” is sheer fun, “Hold Me Tight” (a holdover from Please Please Me because they ran out of time) is a fine layering of sounds (though Macca’s vocal is unusually weak), Lennon’s “All I’ve Got To Do” is a soulful confessional, and George’s “Don’t Bother Me” is a nice, tart, piece of disdain. The covers are really exceptional, though: “You’ve Really Got A Hold On Me” is wonderful, “Money” almost repeats the hysteria of “Twist And Shout”, and “Roll Over Beethoven” shows how George could rock and roll with the best of them. “Please Mister Postman” with its double-tracked vocal however is a bit overcooked. This is the best demonstration of The Beatles’ early influences and inspiration.

Rubber Soul

This was as usual rushed for the Xmas market (in 1965), but you’d never know it. Incredible considering that their workload in 1965 was as heavy as it was in 1964. This is where The Beatles start to make music in their own image, instead of improving on what had gone before. Creativity and articulation bursts out of (nearly) every song. “Drive My Car” sets out their stall, with its brilliant drum n’ bass rhythm, satirical lyric, exceptional singing (brilliant belting verses from Macca, and Lennon’s vinegary cynicism souring the mix). “Norwegian Wood” follows, with the tart twang of the sitar, the rich accoustic strumming and Lennon’s masterful, allusive lyric. The level is almost sustained throughout: “Nowhere Man” has a wonderful rich tapestry of sound (with exceptional bass from Macca), “If I Needed Someone” is a classic piece of jangle-pop, “Girl” is where John’s songs start to become ever more dense and allusive, even if on the surface it’s just a German two-step, “The Word” inaugurates the hippy vibe, and “In My Life” is magnificent, a sighing poignant reminder of times gone (from a man of twenty five!). The last song “Run For Your Life” is a baffling closer, with its vicious caveman misogyny a jarring contrast to a wry, knowing, (self)mocking album.

Sgt. Pepper

Where does Sgt Pepper fit in the Beatles canon? To some it’s the greatest album ever, to others it’s ludicrously overpraised. It is certainly the zenith of their pop-as-artifice period, with subsequent albums seeing resurgent interest in the perceived truthfulness of the blues and folk. Sgt. Pepper’s formal innovations similarly are the kind of thing which get critics all excited, unlike your average fan who remembers the tunes: the meta-awareness of the overture and outro, and the notion of playing at being another band would echo throughout the years (see: The Wall, Ziggy Stardust, 3 Feet High And Rising, etc). But what about the songs, eh? “Getting Better”, “With A Little Help”, “Lovely Rita”, and “Good Morning Good Morning” are all strong album tracks; “She’s Leaving Home” and “Fixing A Hole” are both florid pieces of McCartney which many love (I can live without them); “Within You Within You” is the ultimate expression of George’s mysticism (which, unlike many, I adore); and “Lucky In The Sky With Diamond” and “Being For The Benefit Of Mr Kite” are dazzling examples both of the Lennon imagination and the Beatle/Martin studiocraft in creating soundworlds. “A Day In The Life” is stunning, with good claim to being the single finest Beatle moment. But to my ears, Sgt. Pepper is often too reliant on studiocraft rather than songcraft: the soundworlds it creates are astonishing, but I wonder if they would be anywhere near as memorable without such dressage. Also, Sgt. Pepper is perhaps the only album where Lennon is subdued, with only 3.5 songs out of 13: Macca’s art school leanings need some abrasive Lennon truth-telling amd cynicism to avoid getting florid or unreal, and occasionally Pepper does get that way. But as an expression of imagination and humanity, it’s hard to beat.

Abbey Road

The final three are really hard to separate. All are miracles of creativity and expression. I particularly find it nearly impossible to separate Abbey Road and the White Album. Though I think the side 2 (that’s the second half, kids) of Abbey Road the finest side of any album ever, I’m going to have to let it settle for third. Why? Though the album is a tremendous swansong, the first half is uneven: though several individual songs are magnificent (“Something”, “I Want You (She’s So Heavy)”, “Come Together”, “Here Comes The Sun”), several are weak (“Maxwell’s Silver Hammer” and “Octopus’s Garden”), and worse, they don’t relate well to each other. This is not like the White Album, where though there’s an insane range of styles, the parodies and pastiches, and the frequency of the accoustic guitar, give it an overriding sensibility. On the Abbey Road opening side, Lennon’s songs are bluesy, almost elemental; Macca’s are dreadfully hokey; while George’s, now he’s finally getting his day in the sun, are marvellous. The arrangement of the tunes (Lennon – George – Macca – Macca – George – Lennon) speak more of Beatle politics than musical considerations.

The second half though is truly and utterly magnificent. Its symphonic linking of movements, and its variety of mood and atmosphere, are astonishing, while the warmth, humour and wit – while typical of The Beatles – remind you why they are the best-loved rock group ever. It starts with “Because”, where John, Paul and George sing in icy triple-tracked harmony like disembodied spirits above the clouds. “You Never Give Me Your Money”, a suite depicting Macca’s fracturing with the Beatles, follows; the key section is the lovely, poignant, “But, oh that magic feeling… nowhere to go”. But this melancholy is naturally undercut by the languid, sunlit warmth of “Sun King”, Macca’s bass so supple and fluid, the lyrics in joky cod-Italian (“Cake and eat it, parasol”). This is then followed by three quick-fire fragments, “Mean Mr Mustard”, “Polythene Pam”, and “She Came In Through The Bathroom Window”, which evoke the simple pleasures of a rock band, and hark back to their apprenticeship in Hamburg and Liverpool dive bars and grotty clubs, showing how this basic rock and roll will always be part of them.

But, artfully, this is succeeded by McCartney’s “Golden Slumbers”. It sounds like Macca’s farewell to The Beatles, and the emotion is high, as he strains his vocal chords, the orchestration so august and beautiful. But again, the progression is ideal, for we are lead straight into the rousing, cathartic rocker of “Carry That Weight”, with its group chorus – “Boy! You got to carry that weight! Carry that weight, a long time!” A plangent horn sounds, reintroducing the motif from “You Never Give Me Your Money”, suggesting a further sadness – but no, as we’re thrown together for one last whirl: “Boy, you’ve got to carry that weight! Carry that weight, a long time!” “The End” naturally follows, being a showcase of the main Beatles as guitar players, i.e as themselves, after a unique Ringo drum-solo. They rotate guitar solos three times, as they well evoke their respective personalities – Macca is mid-range and twangy, George higher and priapic, whilst John is a distorted shard of sound. A fluttering heart-beat of piano leads in the famous dictum that “The love you make is equal to the love you take”, ending on a glorious, august final orchestral chord. (Or so it would seem, until “Her Majesty” dashes in, laughingly curtsies and dashes out again).

I’ve laboured the point perhaps, but as I say, the “Long Medley” is incredible. But with the awkward first side, Abbey Road maybe isn’t as good as it could be.

White Album

With most of its songs written on retreat in Rishikesh, the Beatles seem to have been in a playful, send-up mood. Many of their songs were inspired this way (“I Am The Walrus” is linguistic pisstaking, “Paperback Writer” mocks the provincial creatives intent on making it big in London (i.e. people just like them), “Misery” is send-up of adolescent whining, “I’m Down” takes the mick out of Lennon’s self-pity tunes like “I’m A Loser”), but this period was a particularly rich seam. With Rubber Soul-Revolver-Sgt Pepper utilising ever more complex orchestration and arrangements, the Fabs had been creating ever more enveloping sound worlds – but clearly the time had come to cleanse the palette a bit, so the perceived forward momentum stopped. Instead, the Beatles offered pastiches and parodies of both contemporaries (the blues boom (“Yer Blues”), the Beach Boys (“Back In The USSR”), heavy metal (“Helter Skelter”), and ska (“Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da”)), and from their past (30s sing-a-long (“Bungalow Bill”), 20s schmaltz (“Honey Pie”, “Good Night”), chamber music (“Piggies”), classic pop (“Martha My Dear”), and B&W Westerns (“Rocky Raccoon”). Meanwhile their “original” songs, you might say, also strain the boundaries: “Mother Nature’s Son” is pastoral, “Don’t Pass Me By” is country hoedown, “I Will” is fluffy but musically exacting, “While My Guitar Gently Weeps” is ponderous rock, with outstanding guitar from Eric Clapton, and “Revolution #9” is… different.

The other thing that’s noticeable is the lack of backing vocals from other Beatles; this is pretty much solo territory. Though the others loved “Happiness Is A Warm Gun”, there’s no harmonies from Macca (the doo-wop vocals sound like Lennon multi-tracking himself), or on “Glass Onion” (though there is on the final lines of “I’m So Tired”). This does not really detract from the album: the music though varied had solid anchors in rock (“I’m So Tired”, “Happiness Is A Warm Gun”, “Everybody’s Got Something To Hide”), folk (“Julia”, “Mother Nature’s Son”, “Dear Prudence”, “Blackbird”) and even country (“Don’t Pass Me By”). This allows wacko outliers like “Revolution #9” and “Wild Honey Pie” into the broad church.

Because it’s all so varied, the other thing everyone points out is the variable quality. “Happiness Is A Warm Gun” and “Martha My Dear” are two of the best songs the Fabs ever did, but… well, personally I can’t really stand “Birthday”, while there are obvious fillers like “Savoy Truffle”, and “Helter Skelter” is certainly an acquired taste (I love the sinister outro, but the song itself doesn’t do that much for me). But somehow, the rich and varied cornucopia of the White Album hangs together, in a dense, allusive, jokey kind of way. Who else could put out an album with the bestial “Why Don’t We Do It In The Road?” followed by the doe-eyed “I Will”? The album sounds not so much a Beatle studio album where they sweated for perfection as an opening of their desk drawers, their home movies and private jokes. This is what the Beatles play for themselves. “Half of what I say is meaningless,” John sings in “Julia”, “but I say it just to reach you.” The Beatle delight in contrasts of theme, mood, tempo and atmosphere make the White Album an endlessly riveting listening experience: I just love the way the hysterical rock n’ roll of “Back In The USSR”, with the screeching jets, subsides into “Dear Prudence”; how the despairing need of “Happiness Is A Warm Gun” is succeeded by the effortless delight of “Martha My Dear”; how the sinister violence of “Helter Skelter” is followed by the weary surrender to God in “Long Long Long”.

I even love “Revolution #9”. You might think it a piece of stitched-together chaos, but in its fragmentary arbitrariness, there is in fact a great deal of craft. It seems like a direct connection with the subconscious if you took off the helmet of your ego and let the world inject itself into your awareness, direct and undiluted. The sort of total awareness and marginal understanding a baby has.

There’s a lot to say about the White Album, but it is the sort of album that rewards repeated listening, as meanings and allusions unfold themselves in your mind. Cryptic puzzle or glass onion?

Revolver

This is simply the strongest single release by The Beatles. Creativity, imagination, wit, empathy, pathos, grief, cosmic mysticism, nostalgia, frivolity, insouciance, irony, cynicism, joy… they’re all there. It’s not just the emotional range: every track is an entire new soundworld in itself, but married with the strongest songcraft the Beatles ever brought to the table: no song is longer than 3.00 (oddly, “I’m Only Sleeping”, “Love You To”, and “Tomorrow Never Knows” are all 3.00 exactly, or so iTunes tells me), and they cram so much into each track. Revolver is the Fabs at their most precise, their most concentrated. When combined with a stunning leap in imagination, that makes for the best album they would ever make.

“Taxman” kicks it off: the distorted intro, the bluesy guitar riff, the brilliant bass playing from Macca, that scorching guitar solo (apparently also by McCartney rather than Harrison), and that daring condemnation of both political party leaders. It is typically sour, but it teems with invention, down to the way Ringo’s cowbell suggests falling pennies.

“Eleanor Rigby” follows, with an equally saturnine view of the world, of the lonely spinsters in a fragmented community where religion cannot salve nor save. Stark, with a string octet and staccato chords, it is a sharp clear view of isolation in the modern world. The lyric, with lines as good as “Wearing a face that she keeps in a jar by the door” is exceptional, especially considering that it was put together at a social gathering.

“I’m Only Sleeping”, with Lennon’s vocal sped up to give a nasal, old-man’s voice (it reminds me of Steptoe Senior – they would be familiar with Wilfred Brambell from the Hard Day’s Night film), the sibilant halo of the slowed cymbals and the deep-pile cushion of the bass, is dreamy and otherworldly. The reversed guitar solo by George is amazing.

“Love You Too” is (alongside the lovely “The Inner Light”) the best of George’s Indian excursions, with its energy, caustic vocal and fast moving melody making it quite the contrast to “Within You Without You”.

“Here, There And Everywhere” is probably the lushest of all Macca’s love songs, with superb harmony from John and George, and a smart lyric from Macca – the first verse they’re here, the second they’re there, etc. Paul apparently rates this as his favourite of his own songs, which seems a bit odd to me (not “Hey Jude”?).

“Yellow Submarine” is delightful children’s play, with Lennon giving a great, funny antiphon response in the final verse, and so many terrific atmospheric sound effects. It’s amazing how many Beatle songs are standards: they are in the bones of Western culture, just like how many of Shakespeare’s phrases pop up in everyday conversation.

“She Said She Said” is I think the essential John song of this period: on the surface it’s a terrific jangling pop song, but the metre is so contorted and convoluted, and it hits at so many emotional areas (nostalgia, madness, death, yearning, confusion, seeking), and the playing so terrific (Ringo’s drumming is amazing – check how easily he handles all the changes in time), that it towers far above anything The Byrds, say, could ever do.

The contrasting “Good Day Sunshine”, with its effortless ease and sheer delight, is essential McCartney, with terrific piano (the way it leaps about is superb – filled with constant surprises), and excellent backing (Ringo is just right on the rhythm). The contrast with “She Said She Said” is of course intentional, and anticipates another Lennon/McCartney pairing in the White Album: “Happiness Is A Warm Gun” and “Martha My Dear”.

“And Your Bird Can Sing” is Lennon at his hipper-than-thou – “You don’t get me” – with terrific parallel guitar playing and excellent work on the top-hat from Ringo. (Seriously, the man was an amazing drummer).

“For No One” is what Macca has called “a 4/4 waltz”, and as a formal experiment it is masterful: the pauses and shifts in the piano suggesting the doubts and hesitations in the relationship, the sad little French horn suggestive of decaying middle-class adult relationships, rather than the teeny love of “She Loves You”, and his emotionless vocal suggesting the end of love as a drying rather than a disaster. Poignant and affecting, musically superb, it shows Macca at his best.

“Doctor Robert” is the one relatively weak point – I find the chorus off-putting, with its children’s choir effect in the multitracked “Well well well, you’re feeling fine…” line. Its jangling guitars make it quite similar to “She Said She Said”, and the lyric (an ode to the dentist who first spiked Lennon with LSD) a bit juvenile.

“I Want To Tell You” is an unprecedented third George song on a Beatle album, and the first regarding his spiritual concerns. Rather than preaching, he wisely sticks to discussing the moment when you realise you can’t articulate what you feel, when words become a barrier rather than delivering. This is dramatised through the repeated use of the sudden discordant shift – “My head is filled with things to say“, “The games begin to drag me down“, “I feel hung up but I don’t know why“. Here is where the Beatles first begin to explore beyond Western ideas into Eastern concepts, acknowledging the limits of knowledge and articulation.

“Got To Get You Into My Life” is Macca’s ode to pot (he really digs the reefer), but with its tension and full bodied brass, it feels rich with sexual desire, only relieved in the final chorus. The choruses before that he only allows one line of the title, and then Ringo resumes the beat, keeping the tension rising deliciously. If “I Want To Tell You” was the opening to alternative approaches, perhaps “Got To Get You Into My Life” is the full delighted embrace of (ahem) alternative methods.

“Tomorrow Never Knows”… wow. Just fucking wow. Immense. Majestic. Stunning. Revelatory.

With precise attention to detail, soaring imagination, endless craft, humane empathy and awakening spiritual consciousness, Revolver is to me the best Beatle album.

*

Sorry this is such a long piece! but what a body of work the Beatles produced in seven years. The funny thing is, much though I have rhapsodised over the albums, this isn’t even their best work – most of that was reserved for the singles! “She Loves You”, “I Feel Fine”, “Strawberry Field Forever”, “Hey Jude”… oh my.

Best Of, 2012

This blog has been running about 18 months now, and I’ve managed to keep going at about a post a week. Hopefully you can see that the posts I write are mostly quite lengthy (about 1000 words) and so do take time. I haven’t really gone out of my way to publicise it – I don’t even tweet or Facebook most posts, so the audience (you lovely people) has grown slowly, steadily and organically. Thanks to everyone for stopping by, and especially to those who have commented. It really does spur you to keep on writing when you feel there’s an audience there.

To round off 2012, I thought I would simply take a leaf out of Froog’s book and recap on what I feel were the most interesting posts. Here’s six of the best from me to you (again). The order is simply chronological.

1. “Biographies”

Bit of a monster post, going over ten of my favorite biographies (by which I also include memoirs, letters and diaries). Being a lapsed intensive diarist and journal-keeper myself, I find these kind of books fascinating and just devour them. From William Burroughs to Oscar Wilde to Alistair Campbell to Philip Larkin, here are some of my most recurrent interests/obsession.

2. Punk-Rock-O-Rama

Twenty great videos from twenty different punk (in the broadest sense) bands, from X-Ray Spex to The Exploited to 999 to Stiff Little Fingers. Yup! 😀

3. BANGIN’

I like this post for the opening sentence:

I may have given the impression in the blog that I take music waaaay too seriously, that I sit and pore over every last bar and nuance like a lepidopterist gingerly analysing the skeletal remains of a rare and exotic butterfly.

Also a nice and perhaps slightly off-the-beaten-track selection, for me at least. I mean, no Beatles??

4. Favourite Bands Through Time

Interesting to look back in time and see the bands and artists who entranced you. Fortunately, nothing too embarrassing there! My journey through music, from Queen to Tricky to Miles Davis, has been enormously entertaining and endlessly interesting.

5. Three Top British Films

Bit of a monster post here, too, culled from three individual posts from my old blog. Obviously I’m more of a cultist when it comes to films; I just get so utterly bored by films which lack imagination or creativity (hello 2012!). Maybe I should do a Three Top American Films in counterpoint?

6. An Introduction to John Lennon

This is by far the most viewed single post in the blog, though not the most commented (that’s the “I Hate Peter Jackson’s “Lord Of The Rings” post, now at 22 comments and counting – they’re still coming in!). It’s the introduction to the putative biography of Lennon during his Beatle years which I have been yearning to write. I think this is probably the best writing I’ve posted.

How about you, dear reader? Were there any posts you liked more than this selection?

Overrated Albums

I can’t be bothered reading the music press any more. Partly this is an age thing: the new music magazines tend to cleave either to the kids, who are looking for something to call their own, or hipsters who seek out the obscure, while the “classicists”, like Q and Mojo etc, endlessly venerate the middle of the rock, the tried and true. This is all very well when it comes to the Classic Rock Canon. The trouble is when they prattle on about tepid shite like David Grey or Springsteen or Coldplay or the endless would-be Joni Mitchells: derivative nothingness that ekes out a living in the slipstream of really creative musicians. How I utterly loathe and detest lack of imagination in music! And how common it is. So easy to follow whatever trend, whatever genre, whatever production formulas and fads.

Both types of writing, more specifically, endlessly irritate with their attempts to hitch whatever releases to the zeitgeist. It must be every music journalists’ dream to the next Geoff Barton, he of Sounds who popularised the “New Wave of British Heavy Metal” (aka the NWOBHM, which so inspired Metallica). This leads to absurd drivel trying to read more into music than is there. I remember some ridiculous twat saying how Bloc Party were “scarily prescient” with an album or single called Tsunami, just before the 2004 disaster. I mean, that is low. Or how The Strokes apparently inaugurated a CBGBs/lower-East Side revival, when they really were nothing like punk forebears like Television or The Ramones or Blondie etc, and were actually embarrassed by such comparisons.

This is the trouble: at times, media and fashion trends will dictate the “need” for a certain type of band, and if there isn’t one to hand, well, they’ll try to shoehorn one in. Thus, Suede “inaugurated” Britpop, despite Brett Anderson’s contempt for its parochiality and jingoism. The Almighty, older metalheads may remember, were to be the Great British Metal Hope of the early 1990s, were it not for the fact that they sucked ass, and were really a punk band in it for the money. Iron Maiden, going even further back, originally had a distinctly punky edge and had to turn down record label request to cut their hair to fit in with the by-then goonish punk style. (Their first album, with its street-level aggression, budding ambition (see “Phantom of The Opera” – check this video of Paul Dianno-era Maiden live at the Rainbow – thought its telling that the best part is the instrumental section) raw charm, and lack of filler (always a Maiden problem) remains my favourite). This kind of fashion-led music journalism is a joke, never conveying the merits of an album nor contextualising what the artist(s) are doing musically. It leads to albums which might be flavour of the month but which is actually vastly overpraised. Here’s some I think never lived up to the hype.

Blur – Parklife

It is a clever album, sure. At a time when British music was looking westwards to grunge, dance or hip-hop, this was a bold proclamation of British cultural tropes and memes. The trouble was, it was so fucking arch, so sneeringly ironic, that a good half of the album comes over as callow posturing. Case in point: “Parklife”, a song I have always detested. Song for song, it starts very well – “Girls And Boys”, “Tracy Jacks” and “End Of Century” are a fine 1-2-3 (though not as good as “Tender”, “Bugman” and “Coffee and TV” from 13), but gor blimely guvnor, if the second half ain’t filled with oh-so-satirical portraits of working class life and Londonisms and all that guff.

Kraftwerk – Trans Europe Express

OK, this will be controversial. Trans Europe Express is a mighty fucking fine album, and songs like “Europe Endless”, “Metal On Metal” and the title track are indisputable classics. Trouble is… “Hall Of Mirrors” and “Show Room Dummies” both leave me cold. When you compare that to their other great albums, that’s an unusually high dud ratio (The Man Machine: no duds; Computer World: no duds; Radio Activity: no duds). I just find it a bit weird that TEE is always cited as the Kraftwerk album to listen to, the one that makes all the Best Of polls. I’d put The Man Machine first as their best, most consistent, most Kraftwerkian – and then Computer World.

Beastie Boys – Paul’s Boutique

I don’t quite get why this one is so critically lauded. It seems to me like a bunch of samples of good songs thrown together. Might have been a relatively new idea at the time, but hey, if you sample a lot of good songs, you can’t really go wrong. The range is nice, but… unless you’re really doing something new and imaginative with them, not just rapping over them, it’s not much of a stretch. I FAR prefer the subsequent Check Your Head, which is an even denser stew of samples and excellent rootsy live instrumentation. I love that warm fuzzy bass sound they have, and the richness and range of the styles of music. In comparison Paul’s Boutique is a series of clever backdrops to the Beasties’ rhyming – alright, but not, I’d say, what they do best. (The Check Your Head follow-up and partner-piece Ill Communication is perhaps even better, if less original).

Daft Punk – Discovery

As much as I loved Homework, I loathed Discovery. “One More Time” – what an appalling song! When I briefly worked in Edinburgh, it was on high-rotation on Radio 1 – must have been something like once an hour. No wonder songs no longer rise on the charts when they get flogged to death like that. This is not to say I dislike house-style electronica – I like the stuff the DP duo did in between Homework and Discovery, especially “Music Sounds Better With You” (lovely video) but also (even!) “Gym Tonic“. It’s just that the housey/R&B stylee of Discovery discards everything I’d liked about Daft Punk – the abrasive rhythms, the abandon, the intensity – in exchange for pretty mediocre pop/disco tunes. Meh.

Others:

Definitely Maybe is infinitely superior to What’s The Story Morning Glory?, even considering Wonderwall.

Music For the Jilted Generation is faaaar better than The Fat Of The Land.

Animals is better than both Wish You Were Here and Dark Side of The Moon.

Ride The Lightning, Master Of Puppets and …And Justice For All are ALL greatly superior to the Black Album.

Miles Smiles, In A Silent Way and Jack Johnson are all better than Bitches Brew.

Guilty Pleasures

I’ve previously mentioned some unfashionable music I like. But now let me wade through the darkest recesses of my music collection and give a taste of the tunes there are not only unfashionable, but which would get me laughed out of town. Something strange seemed to happen to my music taste around 2005: somehow, what I had previously disdained as cheesy naff pop/rock seemed to make sense. Its exuberance and upbeat feel connected in a way that it never had before. You probably won’t be surprised to learn that I was something of a Serious Young Man prior to that: everything I listened to was “seminal”, from the Velvet Underground to Miles Davis to Joy Division to Kraftwerk to early Metallica to Radiohead to Sonic Youth. It’s the kind of thing you listen to when you’ve only got art to cling to, it seems to me now. When you’ve got your hands full with life, sometimes you need baser pleasures. There is no qualitative difference in effective music – it either articulates an emotion or atmosphere, or it doesn’t. (There’s also the question of whether you empathise with the feeling conveyed – this is why I despise Coldplay, Keane and Travis, who have the emotional range of the mollycoddled suburban middle-classes). There’s also the simple fact that my mood in 2004/5 rose up from the miserable post-adolescent depression I’d endured for the past 5 years, so upbeat songs would naturally resonate with me more.

I feel that getting rid of my former snobberies is an entirely positive thing. Now I can unashamedly appreciate dumb fun, whether it be Top Gun or Betty Boo. Kenneth Williams once noted in his Diaries Noel Coward saying, “Strange how potent cheap music is”. This was to disdain “cheap” music, but to me it validates it. To be powerful and memorable, music does not have to be clever or complex. That’s what is so fucking great about it!

1. Betty Boo, “Where Are You Baby?”

Toy piano, intro-verse-chorus-verse-chorus-bridge-solo-chorus- verse-chorus-outro structure, the upbeat, plaintive desire that’s the hallmark of so much great pop, sassily sung by the Boo – it’s just great pop.

2. John Farnham, “The Voice Of Understanding”

Now we’re getting into murky waters… I mean this song has cod-synth bagpipes! There’s a red alert of naffness right there. But the epic intent, the soaring “Aaaah-oooh-oooh-oooh-woo-whoa!” hook, the delicious chorus, the rising-and-rising verses which are simply and obviously there to get to the chorus as quickly as possible – yeah, they’re all cheap tricks, but they work, dammit! (Not too sure about the synth bagpipe solo, though).

3. Wilson Philips, “Impulsive”

My sister is five years older and so I was subjected to her choices when her seniority let her rule the living room music options. She has a mainstream pop taste, particularly Michael Jackson, the Dirty Dancing soundtrack, and the “Leather and Lace” soft rock like Heart, Meatloaf, REO Speedwagon and such. Nothing rock – not even, say, Bon Jovi – but close enough that there was some that I didn’t mind too much. But funnily enough that only one whose album I like in its entirety is the girliest – Wilson Philips by the eponymous girlgroup. Formed by the daughters of Brian Wilson and John and Michelle Philips of the Mamas and the Papas, the group not surprisingly had access to some of the best writers and session musician in 1990-era Los Angeles. Glen Ballard, who had written some tracks for Michael Jackson’s Bad and later went on to write the tunes for Alanis Morrissette’s Jagged Little Pill, has a substantial hand in the album, co-writing six of the ten tracks. (It would go quintuple platinum). The usually insightful Allmusic.com dismisses the album as “lightweight and sophomoric” and “homogenized, mundane fluff” – which might be fair if all you listen to is Black Sabbath. To anyone with an open pair of ears, though, the album is a quality confection of professional hooks, high-values production, gentle but sweet harmonies, and fine songwriting. This song, “Impulsive”, is I think the best, with an insistent chorus and all the virtues I mentioned above, though the album is remarkably consistent.

4. Belinda Carlisle, “Heaven Is A Place On Earth”

This song reminds me of youth club discos and late summer nights when I was eleven, between primary school and high school. Somehow I remember it as one of those golden summers, old enough to be free to roam about, young enough to think this meant anything. We used to go “camping” in the back garden, then “sneak” (I assume now my mum knew exactly what was happening) out the tent and roam the streets all night. We’d sit in the town square and watch people spill out of the pubs, and gawp in frank admiration at the people milling round cars with boots open for the sound systems to blare out old-skool rave. It was when I first “smoked” cigarettes (like Clinton, not inhaling) and discovered the joys of “porn in the bushes“. This song from the former Go-Go’s singer is pure 1980s power-pop heaven, the sort that will be on VH1 unto infinity. Just love the way the chorus resounds to those massive multi-tracked vocals. The soundtrack to one of those (“oh”) summer nights – you’d have to have a heart of stone not to have one yourself!

5.  Kajagoogoo, “Too Shy”

You know Orwell’s Down and Out in Paris and London? His story of life on no money in both cities never gets old, I’d imagine because although few people have had to experience that level of poverty, many have glimpsed it. I went through that kind of scene when living in Edinburgh just after graduating. I had a job and a roof over my head, but that was about as far as my connection with the contented middle-classes went – I had barely enough money for food, lived in a manky bedsitter, and so on. Funnily enough, one of the fellow bedsitter inhabitants played this song incessantly, and it firmly stuck in my head. I hadn’t heard the song before, didn’t know about Limahl’s hairstyle or the band’s ridiculous name, so it just came to me with a clean cultural slate. (I also really like A Flock of Seagulls’ “Wishing (If I Had A Photograph)“, which cover vaguely similar new romantic ground and has ever worse hairdos). It’s not really an electro/New Romantic song, of course, being more of a white soul/cod funk exercise, but hey, whatever you have to do to get noticed, lads)

6. Ratt, “Round And Round”

Ah, hair metal. The story of Ratt is actually pretty grim – the usual fable of excess and ego, burning glory and death. For a brief moment in the mid-1980s, they were up there with Motley Crue as kings of the LA rock firmament. They played the Donington Monster of Rock festival in 1985, ahead of Bon Jovi and Metallica (but behind Marillion and ZZ Top), while John Hughes, that avatar of 80s culture, used “Wanted Man” in Weird Science, the same year. That was about as good as it got for Ratt – they lost momentum, had a Desmond Child co-written album Detonator try to pick up the pieces, but then Nirvana came along, and the LA rock party was well and over. Addictions and AIDS then took their toll, as the hangover kicked in with a vengeance. This song is probably the hookiest of their brief period of glory – a good thing given that they are not a riff-driven band and the guitar sound is surprisingly bland – with nice build up of tension at the end of the verse and a fine chorus.

Songs So Good They Make You Cry

There’s nothing more boring than reading a blogpost where the writer apologises for not posting more. Well – sorry, but I have been really busy. As some of you may know, I’m a magazine editor, and I’m in the process of revamping the magazine a bit, adding columnists, changing layout and all that jazz. I really do love my job – it’s the first one where I feel totally suited to what I’m doing – but the hours are long.

But enough of my complaining. The other weekend, I was at ‘dazefeast with my wife and daughter. Between sets, the DJ was spinning a few tracks, and one came up out of blindside and righthooked me. It was an utter surprise, and I couldn’t even speak, just had to listen in dumbstruck admiration as my eyes moistened at the brilliance of it. The degree of articulation is phenomenal; it seemed to encompass everything I’d ever felt in my life. The encapsulation of the literary frame in the mind and the climactic advice “If you put down your pen, leave your worries behind / Then the moment will come and the memory will SHINE” is so wise, and the musical frame of the quiet murmured opening which builds in colour and potency towards a glorious outro of hope, defiance, and humanity is just so right.

The song was Belle and Sebastian’s “Sleep The Clock Around”.

And, as Robert Plant said, it made me wonder: what other songs are so good, so great, that they bring a tear to the eye? I don’t mean just emotional, ballad-type songs, but ones which fill you with amazement and wonder at the degree of their achievement. You’ll have to forgive me if I retread some familiar ground, but hey.

The Beatles – “Strawberry Fields Forever”

“I knew you were going to say that, Mike!” Well, indeed. But what can I say? This song constantly astonishes me with how good it is. From the dreamy Mellotron opening, to the miraculous splice of TWO DIFFERENT VERSIONS OF THE SONG (at 1.00, when the cellos enter), to Lennon’s slowed-down vocal (a radical reimagining of one of the best rock n’ roll vocalists ever – to think that just three years earlier he had been roaring through “Twist And Shout”!) to the drooping trumpets to the magnificent cellos (thank you, George Martin!) to the glorious climax – “Strawberry Fields Forever” is a song of dazzling imagination, articulation and artistry.

Mike Oldfield – “Tubular Bells (Part 1)”

The trouble, or difficulty, with the long song is that you must have either a vision or narrative. Without either, you end up with stitched together piece of waffle (see later Oldfield long tracks like “Crises“) or blancmangey piles of steaming nothingness (see the Floyd’s “Atom Heart Mother” and The Doors’ “When The Music’s Over“). Shorter songs can always get by on the verse-chorus-verse-bridge-solo-chorus-outro structure (as memorably demonstrated by Bill Drummond and Jimmy Cauty in their brilliant The Manual: How To Have A Number 1 The Easy Way) but long songs need to either tell a story or take you someplace. (Examples of story: The Who’s “A Quick One While She’s Away”, Guns N’ Roses “Estranged”, Lou Reed’s “Street Hassle” (probably his finest solo moment). Examples of vision and taking you someplace: “Echoes” by Pink Floyd, Miles Davis’ “Bitches Brew”, “Cop Shoot Cop” by Spiritualized (the only song I have ever heard which approximates the sound of a vortex)).

Anyroads. While Mike Oldfield’s later lengthy pieces were just crafted, stitched-together patchworks of nothing much, his early albums had an obvious sense of vision. He really saw what he was creating; they are so visual, so literate. Tubular Bells remains by far the most famous, but I also highly recommend Ommadawn, Hergest Ridge and Incantations. Take Part 1 of Tubular Bells as an example: section by section, it is some of the most emotionally resonant music I have ever heard. And the glorious build up of instrument after instrument seems like a glowing, rich metaphor for and testament to life itself. Amazing.

Nike Drake – “Cello Song”

Compared to “Strawberry Fields Forever”, this song is almost sparse – Drake’s accoustic guitar and voice, bongos, and cello. But my god! What stunning riches within. Drake’s guitar-picking is astonishing, almost mesmeric, and the cello deliciously melancholy. I don’t want to waffle on too much – just listen to the song.

Nirvana – Unplugged in New York

Hard to pick out just one song here. For some reason, and this is a feeling that hasn’t subsided as time has gone by, I feel more empathy with Kurt Cobain than any other musician I can think of. While obviously I hugely admire people like Bob Marley, Paul McCartney, Roger Waters and John Lydon, with Cobain I somehow feel a connection beyond how I feel with the others. Maybe it’s the raw honesty of his music and interviews, maybe it’s his unfortunate crown as King of the Doomed Young Men (taken over from Ian Curtis), maybe it’s his role in tearing rock music away from the dreadful (if fun) posturing of hair metal, maybe it’s his pro-gay rights, pro-feminist, pro-choice, liberal politics. I dunno. But maybe it’s down to the aching grandeur of Unplugged in New York, an album which pulses with emotion. This is Nirvana stripped of all amplified rock ballast, baring their souls. Utterly affecting, it is a tragic hint of what could have been.

How about you?

Mike’s Theory of Musical Progression

(Another from my old blog, but I think it still stands up as a theory).

I would like to postulate my theory on how music acts progress and develop, and why, in general, later albums nearly always suck in comparison with early ones.

If we look at album groups (who manage to stay together for more than three albums, let’s say), there are three types of act:

1. Groups who make the same basic album over and over again. AC/DC, for example. Iron Maiden have two basic styles: heavy metal which is kinda punky or kinda proggy. Morrissey has been a solo artist for three times as long as he was in The Smiths, and although he sounds more inspired at some times than others, Moz’s songs remains the same. Portishead are Portishead are Portishead. The Ramones have never been anything other than The Ramones. Boards of Canada spend years refining their albums, but it’s still essentially the same kind of album. The Rolling Stones haven’t done anything new since Mick Taylor left.

Groups like this work within the basic framework outlined in their early albums. Sometimes a later album is really good, if they are challenged or emotionally adrenalised, but mostly it’s their early work that gets people going, when it was freshest.

Such (successful) acts are quite rare – it’s hard to do the same thing over and over with great conviction.

2. Groups who use music to articulate. These groups are the rarest. They’re the real artists – who use music to express a vision, or some specific content. I’m thinking of The Beatles, the Velvet Underground, Kraftwerk, Radiohead, Pink Floyd, Miles Davis. Take Pink Floyd for example – the increasing bitterness of post-Dark Side of the Moon is perfectly reflected in the aggressive guitars, in Water’s dark cynical lyrics, and the sharpened song-structures. Kraftwerk, of course, constructed sound pictures on aspects of modern life, whether computers, travel, or machines. The Beatles combined form and content in astonishingly articulate, imaginative, immediate pieces that rightly make them acclaimed as the best rock group ever. (Who else could do “I Am The Walrus”, “Revolution” and “Martha My Dear” in just over one year?)

These groups develop organically during their career. Often their later albums are better than their earlier ones, but not always. They know what they want to say and how to say it. They are rightly lauded as the best in their field.

3. Groups who have an idea… and that’s it. This is the vast majority of groups, in my opinion. Acts who have an initial burst of inspiration, have a collection vision, who articulate something new and urgent and expressive. Maybe it’s a new form altogether (c.f. Roni Size’s groundbreaking drum and bass album called, ahem, New Forms), maybe it’s a synthesis of two or more inspirations, maybe it’s just making it faster or slower or harder or more complex or darker or whatever.

They’ve got an angle of some kind, some new sound – so they get popular. They can release more albums. But… whatever inspiration they had dries up. No fault of theirs – such inspiration is a rare thing, and comes and goes with whimsical abruptness. Maybe they can refine their previous vision, but they, like most human beings, want to progress and develop. So what do they end up doing? They end up with craft – with pop. Whatever was raw, edgy, new and exciting becomes more refined, mature, professional… and dead. Rock music is by nature transgressive – it pushes at and goes beyond the boundaries (which is why the dirty sound of the electric guitar defines rock music). Rock music which stays within known boundaries is dead as dodo shit.

Take as an example Belle and Sebastian, perhaps the best Scottish group of the last twenty years. Their first albums did indeed articulate something new, something unique – poetic, literate, understated yet rich tales of failure, loss and childhood. Great stuff; some remarkable albums. But once this seam had been mined, they turned to Trevor Horn, who gave them a professional sheen, a more confident sound… and lost what had been so special about them in the first place. The group playing “The Boys Are Back In Town” (!!!) from their Live At The BBC album is a confident, professional rock band, with nothing unique about them at all. All the rough edges has been smoothed out, and all their character.

Or, from another angle, The Stranglers. A savagely aggressive pub rock band gets all mature and produces songs like “La Folie” and “Golden Brown”. Mike Oldfield – a distinct musical vision, as seen in Tubular Bells, is gradually diminished and diluted album by album (even his side-length later pieces like “Crises” are visionless, crafted pieces), leading to pop tunes like “Moonlight Shadow” and “Family Man”. Nice and all, but… Public Image Ltd, meanwhile, show one of the clearest bifurcations between early abrasion and dissonance, and later poppy-hooky tunes:

REM, Siouxsie and the Banshees, Tricky, Roxy Music, Moby, U2, Metallica (who as they can’t go pop instead cannibalise themselves – anyone telling you Death Magnetic is a “return to form” is deluding themselves), Oasis, Gang of Four, Herbie Hancock, Manic Street Preachers (a classic case), Pearl Jam, Madness (who actually did it rather well), Stevie Wonder, Animal Collective, Add N To (X), New Order, Blondie, Genesis, The Buzzcocks – it happened to all of them. Sometimes they may even do it well, as I’ve suggested with Madness; Animal Collective are certainly having more success than ever. But whatever was new, unique and glorious… it’s gone.

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To continually create (not to produce) is the hardest task in any artform. That we have groups of the calibre of the ones I listed at #2 is a minor miracle in itself. Go listen!