Friday, December 20, 2013

Audioslave by Audioslave (2002 Epic, Interscope Records)




Recently, a Brazilian ESL student named Carlos asked me if I liked Audioslave. After I responded "No, I didn't", he acted like I had just cursed the holy bible. Evidently, this album/band fared well in Brazil. This was the inspiration for this entry. 
So, this is my first "suggested" album for this project. If you would like to suggest album titles for me to listen to, send them to me via the comment section of this or any other entry or to mediahobo@gmail.com 

WHY I NEVER GOT AROUND TO LISTENING TO THIS ARTIST/ALBUM
  • When you are, as David Mamet once eloquently wrote, "young, dumb, and full of cum" and the significant music movement of the day reflects your naive values and aesthetics, that is called a perfect storm. In the early 1990s, I was one of those goofs with long, stringy hair, dressed in the thrift store-chic uniform of knee-length shorts over some flannel long johns, a pair of 10-hole Doctor Martins, and a plaid, button-down shirt. I was pretty much the textbook grunge kid, angst and peach-fuzz goatee included.
  • Musically, two significant players for me during this time were the political funk-metal combo Rage Against the Machine, and Seattle's sludge rockers Soundgarden. And I was a mark for both bands! During my years at Humber College, where I double-majored in advertising and euchre playing, I would practically injure myself (and anyone in my vicinity) while “dancing” to Soundgarden’s “Jesus Christ Pose” and Rage’s “Killing in the Name of…” during Thursday night pub nights, much to the chagrin of Brian Wicks – my oft pub night partner-in-crime – who would usually just laugh at me while nursing his rye and cokes.
  • When both bands played at the 1992 Lolapalooza festival at Molson Park in Barrie, Ontario, I was among the knuckleheads  in the steaming-hot mosh pit - while wearing Todd Atkin’s paint-covered leather biker jacket no less – as Rage Against the Machine bombastically told the establishment to go fuck themselves. I was also one of the many of those lauding Soundgarden later that same day, when they performed a cover of thrash band Body Count's controversial song "Cop Killer" in protest of record company Warner Bros. banning the track from Body Count’s self-titled debut record. At twenty years old, I thought all that shit was pretty righteous. But ten years later, when a glut of over-stylized bands (many of which  Rage Against the Machine and Soundgarden help begot) were churning out irrelevant schlock rawk, a supergroup consisting of three parts Rage Against the Machine and one part Soundgarden sounded about as appealing as a supergroup consisting of three parts Guns N Roses and one part Stone Temple Pilots…
WHAT I KNEW ABOUT THE ALBUM BEFORE THIS PROJECT
  • The only time I'd heard Audioslave prior to this project was in a car driving through Christmas traffic in Manila, Philippines in 2002 with Raymund Marasigan. The radio was tuned to now-defunct alt-rock station NU107 and "Cochise" was playing. My only memory of that moment was saying to myself "There's a reason I stopped listening to Rage after their debut record ( 1992), and Soundgarden after their Badmotorfinger  (1991) album..." I equate that memory to seeing an ex-lover at a party after ten years and feeling rather uncomfortable about it. 
AFTER A WEEK OF DIGESTING THIS ALBUM
  • I am not one who pines for the bands I grew up with to stay the same 20 years later, like those who go to a Styx and REO Speedwagon concert just to hear the hits. Hey, I ain't judging. If seeing a Styx and REO Speedwagon show gets you off and you have a great time, fantastic, the more power to you. But it was not my intention to listen to this album and hope it would sound like Rage and Soundgarden circa 1992. Quite the contrary. I enjoy embracing the musical growth and progression musicians and songwriters go through. I think it is vital for those who love/play/study music to strive for change (except if you are AC/DC, who have been kicking ass while playing the damn same record since 1974). 
  • That being said, there was a sense of familiarity to the songwriting on Audioslave that made me feel nostalgic, so some of the album registered with me. If I may revisit the analogy of Audioslave being like an ex-lover, I do recognize why I was attracted to them (or at least the components of the band) back in the day: they were intense, heavy and enthralling. Do those things affect me the same ways now as they did then? In some part, yes. That's why some of the sludgy, monster guitar riffs on Audioslave had me doing the chicken neck, specifically "Cochise", "Set if Off",  and "Bring Em Back Alive". Yet, there were also things about the album that annoyed me somewhat, specifically Tom Morello's guitar playing. While Morello is a decent axeman, I never was really into his style even during the Rage days. And what's with the acoustic guitars on this album? 
  • Bottom line: Did I dig Audioslave? Not really. Would I listen to other Audioslave records based on this one? Nope.
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Monday, December 9, 2013

Fearless by Taylor Swift (2008, Big Machine Records)



WHY I NEVER GOT AROUND TO LISTENING TO THIS ARTIST/ALBUM
  • There hasn't really been a situation where I've found myself listening to Taylor Swift. In fact, there hasn't really been a scenario where I've had to even think about Taylor Swift. At all. Actually, that's not entirely true. I remember waking up one morning to a news report coming from my alarm clock radio stating that Kanye West had interrupted  Taylor Swift's acceptance speech after winning  the Best Female video award at the 2009 MTV Video Music Awards the night before. As I rubbed the sleep from my eyes and absorbed the audio clip of the incident, I remember thinking two things: 1.“Kanye West sounds like a goof” and 2. “Who the hell is Taylor Swift?” To paraphrase the late NHL coach Pat Burns, I wouldn't know Taylor Swift if I hit her with my car.
WHAT I KNEW ABOUT THE ALBUM BEFORE THIS PROJECT
  • Absolutely nothing at all!
  • Recently, I've been asking people I know for some music recommendations, and several co-workers – mostly women in their mid-20s – told me that I needed to listen to Taylor Swift. Why? Well, first of all,  they explained, she plays her own instruments, including the guitar, piano, banjo, and ukulele. She is also a Nashville-based-country-pop-crossover singer-songwriter who apparently penned most of her early hits. On top of all that, I came across a report from a couple of years ago, stating that Neil Young enjoyed listening to Taylor Swift. I thought that was pretty cool.
AFTER A WEEK OF DIGESTING THIS ALBUM
  • I can see why Taylor Swift appeals to those ladies in their 20s. There is some charm to Fearless, albeit in a vanilla-flavoured, mid-west teenager kind of way. Along with the requisite catchy hooks and breathy vocals, Swift's lyrics tell stories of adolescent love and heartbreak. I have to admit, I felt a bit creeped out listening to Swift sing on "Fifteen": When your fifteen/ someone tells you they love you/ you're gonna believe them or on "The Best Day": I'm thirteen now/ and don't know how my friends could be so mean. It just seemed like I was eavesdropping on a bunch of high school girls chatting about boys while riding on the subway. That being said, there always something compelling about a songwriter who wears her emotions on her sleeve and allows herself to be vulnerable, regardless of age, gender, subject matter or musical style.
  • Despite some decent country-pop songs on the album - "You're Not Sorry", "Breathe", "Hey Stephen" and "Change" -- it took a lot for me to spend seven days with Fearless. I couldn't connect to her at all. While her list of accolades are impressive - she has won numerous awards and has sold millions of records -- ummm nope.

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Friday, September 27, 2013

Korn by Korn (1994, Immortal/Epic Records)



WHY I NEVER GOT AROUND TO LISTENING TO THIS ARTIST/ALBUM

  • There have been a few periods in my life when I have been compelled by aggressive music. I guess some lingering anger from my relatively happy, suburban childhood would pop out every now and then. As previously documented in this space, my aggressive musical choices were heavy metal, gangsta rap and industrial music. But for those with birthdays in the late 1980s and well into the 1990s, the phenomenon called nu metal is the drug of choice for the angry and distant kid. The mix of heavy beats, monster riffs, and highly emotive lyrics of the genre should have attracted me immediately, but it just didn't. It's as simple as that.
WHAT I KNEW ABOUT THE ALBUM BEFORE THIS PROJECT
  • It was arguably the record that launched the nu metal movement.
  • I met many Korn fans while I lived and travelled through South East Asia and Australia between 1999 to 2002. They were mainly surfers and young musicians.
  • I distinctly remember Mike Clark playing Korn on his car stereo while we drove to the Finger Lakes in upstate New York a few years ago for Matthew Clark's bachelor party weekend. I still think the reasons why we were delayed at the US-Canada border crossing for so long was not because “I am a brown guy” (my guess), or because “there was an arrest warrant out on another Micheal Clark” (the actual reason), but because Mike wouldn't turn down the music as the border guard asked us some questions. I doubt that particular border guard was a fan of nu metal.
AFTER A WEEK OF DIGESTING THIS ALBUM
  • I have dropped-tuned the bottom E string of my classical guitar to B.
  • These songs are bigger than life, and the dynamics and riffs of “Divine”, “Ball and Tongue”,“Predictable” and “Fake” had me jumping up and down on subway platforms, in line at the local bakery and while doing my laundry. The lyrics on this record are very upfront with issues such as bullying, depression, homophobia, and abuse, which Jonathan Davis' vocal performance exemplifies in “Helmet in the Bush”, “Need to”, “Clown”, “Phaget”, “Lies”, and in particular “Daddy”, which is very disturbing.
  • I'm not too sure if it's Ross Robinson's sound production of his record or my digital copy of the recording, but this album sounded a bit off to me. At times, I found David Silveria's drums too upfront in mix for my liking and after awhile, it was all I heard. Conversely, I could not hear the bass at all, which is curious, considering Fieldy's bass playing style plays a big part in Korn's trademark sound.
  • I now have a better understanding of the allure of nu metal. Korn is an interesting mix of the band's musical influences and it has, through the passage of time, become a very influential record in its own right. But understanding the nuances of nu metal does not mean I necessary want to listen to it on a daily basis.

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Monday, September 9, 2013

Pink Flag by Wire (1977, Harverst Records)



 
WHY I NEVER GOT AROUND TO LISTENING TO THIS ARTIST/ALBUM
  • I did not grow up listening to punk. I don't even front like I did. It was not because I was very young during the first punk wave of the mid-1970s – not at all – I was already into contemporary music by the time I was three yeas old. But it was more on a Led Zeppelin, Black Sabbath and Santana vibe, as my dad used to let the older kids from down the street use our basement as the rehearsal space for their rock combo. And I didn't get into punk because I  was not an angry kid – I certainly was. But my release of aggression came from watching pro wrestling and listening to Iron Maiden and Judas Priest records really loudly. Maybe it was because I did not really start feeling disconnected from the world until I was in my 20s and only then did I get into punk; call me a late bloomer.
  • The punk music I did know (and liked) was rather mainstream – as mainstream as punk could get in the late-1970s and early 1980s – the Clash and the Monks, as well as the local, southern Ontario punk bands the Diodes and Teenage Head. I knew about the New York City CBGB's scene of the late 70s, but I never considered Talking Heads and Blondie (two bands I really got into) to be punk music. In high school, I bought the first two Ramones albums on cassette; three-chord pop ditties played very fast, and I dug the minimalism. It was also around this time I tried to figure out why all the fuss about the British bands like The Damned and Sex Pistols. In fact, that's something I still wonder about to this day.
  • It was not until 1995, when I moved to the top two floors of a house on Montrose Avenue in Toronto's Little Italy, that I discovered punk. One of my roommates in that house was Neill Cunningham; a collector of vinyl records, a reader of many, many books, and a bona-fide punk who was old enough to have come of age during the heyday of the genre. Every morning for the year that we were roommates, Neill would put on some coffee, smoke cigarettes, and loudly play music on the stereo. Little did I know that what he was doing (other than waking me up much too early for my liking) was educating me in punk and post-punk. For the first time, I heard the music of many bands that, up until that point, I had only read about: the Buzzcocks, the Stranglers, the Heartbreakers, Television, the Voidoids, Pere Ubu, Stiff Little Fingers, Magazine, and the Slits. Several months later, Dwayne Slack and his record collection moved in and further supplemented my punk education. In retrospect, I'm sure either Neill or Dwayne played some Wire during my time at the house on Montrose, but I guess I slept in that day.
  • By the way, you can buy your assorted punk rock albums (and any other kinds of records) at Pandemonium Books & Discs, Neill's shop at 2920 Dundas St West in Toronto's Junction neighbourhood.
WHAT I KNEW ABOUT THE ALBUM BEFORE THIS PROJECT
  • While I worked with Jonny Dovercourt and the Toronto independent arts collective Wavelength as an editor for their zine in 2003 and 2004, I remember many of the bands playing Wavelength's Sunday night music series would cite Wire and/or Pink Flag in their zine interviews and press kits as being extremely influential. That should have steered me in the direction of this record, but somehow it didn't.
AFTER A WEEK OF DIGESTING THIS ALBUM
  • Even after the first listening of the record, let alone a week digesting this album, I totally understand why Wire and Pink Flag are cited by so many musicians as inspiration for their own art. Pick up any record by Fugazi, Pixies, Arctic Monkeys, or the Strokes (among thousands of others) and you will find Bruce Gilbert, Graham Lewis, Colin Newman, and Robert Gotobed's collective fingerprints all over them. Just give a listen to “Reuters”, "Lowdown”, “Straight Line”, “Mr. Suit”, and "Commercial" and tell me I'm full of shit. You can't.
  • While being a punk record, Pink Flag goes in musical directions which many records from the era – punk or otherwise – do not go. The musicianship is raw, yet they still play their instruments extremely well (perhaps a lingering misconception I will always have about punks is that they could not play their instruments – I blame Sid Vicious for that). The songwriting is intelligently sparse, yet vast in its presentation, exemplified by the album's title track, “Strange”, “Fragile” and “Mannequin". This album is “all killer and no filler", no easy feat for a 21-song recording. 
     
  • I usually deem a record as a My Album Project success if it leads me other musical works that I might not have otherwise picked up. I have just procured Chairs Missing, Wire's 1978 follow-up to Pink Flag. So, shit yes, success!

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Friday, August 30, 2013

Millennium by Backstreet Boys (1999, Jive Records)


WHY I NEVER GOT AROUND TO LISTENING TO THIS ARTIST/ALBUM
  • Boy bands are pre-fabricated singing groups that exist simply to produce hit records, sell merchandise and attract screaming young fans to concerts at shopping malls and arenas. And yes, even I – the most rock-and-roll, long-haired, head-banging, twelve-year-old you could ever imagine – bought into the boy band thing back in 1984. Even if it was for just a little while. My group of choice was the pioneer of the modern boy band, New Edition, featuring a young Bobby Brown (years before he'd become Mr. Whitney Houston), the guys who would eventually become Bel, Biv Devoe, and a guy named Ralph. And I thought they were cool as shit! One of the most significant memories of my childhood was lip-synching New Edition's “Cool it Now” with my late cousin Hubert Ramos in his living room. Those were good times. But soon after, my voice broke and I became one-track minded. So by the time the monster that New Edition spawned (New Kids on the Block, Take That, Boyz II Men, and then later, the Backstreet Boys and 'N Sync) came along, not only was I no longer part of the boy band target audience, but I also did not have the capacity to digest all that shloppy pop music. 
WHAT I KNEW ABOUT THIS ALBUM BEFORE THIS PROJECT
  • My most enduring memory of Millennium's monster hit single “I Want it That Way” was during the autumn of 1999, while I was living in the Philippines. Although I would constantly hear the track in the taxis, restaurants and shopping malls around Manila, it was a small rock club in Quezon City, called 70s Bistro that will always remind me of the song. One night I went to the venue to photograph my friends Kris Gorra, Donna Macalino, and Annette Ortiz of the band Fatal Posporos – a Filipino power-pop trio, a la Shonen Knife – during a gig promoting their debut album Paper View. I remember they started their show with an acappella rendition of the chorus of “I Want it that Way”, before they ripped into their set. It was lovely. Ever since then, I have had a great affinity for that particular song.
  • Almost every ESL student that I taught between 2003 and 2008 has loved this album and they have always urged me to listen to it, to no avail.
AFTER A WEEK OF DIGESTING THIS ALBUM
  • There is a reason why this record has sold in excess of 40 million copies worldwide. As you would expect, Millennium has some very catchy, slickly-produced songs. These are not only tunes to sing-along to, but more importantly, these are songs to dance to. Shamelessly, there were times while listening this album on my ipod on the subway, or in my kitchen cooking dinner, I would choreograph my own dance routines to some the songs.
    •  
  • And it goes without saying that these boys can sing. I will not pretend to know whether it is A. J., Kevin, Howie, Nick, or Brian singing at any given time, but none of their voices seem weaker than any of the others. Obviously they especially excel when they harmonize.
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Friday, August 23, 2013

Mr. Bungle by Mr. Bungle (1991, Warner Bros)




WHY I NEVER GOT AROUND TO LISTENING TO THIS ARTIST/ALBUM
  • It should be made known here and now that “experimental” music – especially those based on jazz, metal, and funk – is a very touchy subject with me. I'll just say that I don't really get it. The Theme park/Jazz Odyssey scene from the 1983 rockmentary spoof This is Spinal Tap pretty much summarizes the silliness of the concept. Call me simple, call me closed-minded, whatever you'd like, but you probably will not be able to change my stance on that. 

  • During the mid-to-late-1980s, while I was in high school, my older brother Rod's girlfriend at the time, Dominque Pepin, would make these mixed cassette tapes for my brothers and me to listen. She would intricately design the outside portion of the j-sleeves, using brightly-coloured paints, making each cover a unique piece of art. She would then scribble the song titles and the band names on the back of the sleeves. That is, of course, if she actually knew the song titles or band names. She would leave a blank space in the listing, in place of where the unknown song titles would go, and we were left to listening without ever knowing what the piece was called or who performed it. Remember, this was two decades before we could point our mobile device at the speaker and use the Shazam app to identify the song. Those Dominique tapes exposed me to many different types of music, as they contained songs from punk, glam rock, post-punk, thrash, and funk bands – mostly from the U.K and the American west coast – with, what seemed like at the time, very obscure names and whacked-out sounds. While some eventually made it to my own collection (Minutemen, Fishbone, Red Hot Chili Peppers, Slack, Butthole Surfers, Gang of Four), much of the music – which I considered too weird, self-indulgent, or just plain out-there for my tastes – were long-forgotten. In retrospect, some of those disregarded songs from Dominique's cassettes may have been Mr. Bungle tracks, probably from their independently releases Bowel of Chiley (1987) and/or Goddammit I Love America! (1988).
WHAT I KNEW ABOUT THIS ALBUM BEFORE THIS PROJECT
  • A girl that went to York University with my twin brother Andrew was the first person to ever mention Mr. Bungle and Mr Bungle to me, in about 1992 or 93. I can not remember her name, but she did have big hair and wore combat boots. I always think about those attributes when someone mentions Mr. Bungle.

  • The band's lead vocalist Mike Patton was able to secure a deal with Warner Bros in 1991 based on the success of Faith No More, the group Patton joined in 1989.

  • The fact that the record was co- produced by avant-garde jazz musician John Zorn was enough for me to stay away.
AFTER A WEEK OF DIGESTING THIS ALBUM
  • Whether using heavy guitar and keyboard riffs, funk bass, ska rhythms, carnival melodies, or jazz chords, this record is intense. But at the same time, it was a rather fun record to spend a week with. Along with the good-time-all-the-time knucklehead-ness, Mr. Bungle has a charm that I was not expecting.

  • In the late-1990's, Red Hot Chili Peppers vocalist Anthony Kiedis reportedly started a feud with Mr. Bungle, apparently accusing Mike Patton of ripping off his vocal style. Granted, there are moments on Mr. Bungle, specifically the funky/rap portions of “Squeeze Me Macaroni”, “Girls of Porn” and “Carousel”, that may sound similar to Kiedis , but it is quite clear after listening to "Quote Unquote", “Slowly Growing Deaf”, “Egg”, “My Ass is on Fire”and “Love is a Fist”, Patton has a more versatile vocal range than just that shtick.

  • Like many of its funk-jazz-metal contemporaries, Mr. Bungle has not aged very gracefully. And while I have some issues with this album, I can see the attraction to this record at the time of its release in 1991. If you take into consideration how safe popular music was at the time, I would say this album was a kick to the mouth of the mainstream. And I'm sure the 19 year-old in me would've certainly approved.
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Monday, August 12, 2013

Selling England by the Pound by Genesis (1973, Charisma Records)




WHY I NEVER GOT AROUND TO LISTENING TO THIS ARTIST/ALBUM
  • My older brother Roderick was into Genesis in early 1980s during their “trio” phase, after guitarist Steve Hackett's 1978 departure from the band – which was three years after original vocalist Peter Gabriel left the group – leaving them with the lineup of Phil Collins, Mike Rutherford and Tony Banks. All I really knew of Genesis were the hits I heard as a kid on Toronto's classic rock radio station Q107, from 1978's ...And Then There Were Three (“Follow You, Follow Me”), 1980's Duke (“Turn it On” and “Misunderstanding”), 1981's Abacab (“Abacab”), and their self-titled 1983 release (“Mama”, “That's All” and “Illegal Alien”). I had thought Genesis was this vanilla band from England who wrote some catchy tunes. 

  • In grade six or so, I started listening to Q107's Psychedelic Psunday, a weekely event every Sunday where the programming consisted entirely of music from the 1965-1975 era. This is when I started hearing “old” Genesis material, including Selling England by the Pound, released in 1973. As much as I could tolerate Genesis' pop songs, I could not bring myself to listen to Genesis because, as it turns out, they were this vanilla band from England that wrote too many wanky tunes.

  • I never really got into prog-rock. I would lump Genesis in a category with bands like Yes, King Crimson, and Emerson Lake and Palmer – three bands I heard a lot of from Roderick and Q107 – which, to me, meant they were self-indulgent music snobs playing 19-minute epic songs about science fiction or fantasy.
WHAT I KNEW ABOUT THE ALBUM BEFORE THIS PROJECT
  • It was Genesis' breakthrough album, as far as being considered a progressive-rock powerhouse.
  • Almost every music nerd and record collector I know likes this album: Humphrey Koraag, Stephen Winkley, the Slacks, and Vid Cousins just to name a few.
AFTER A WEEK OF DIGESTING THIS ALBUM
  • While I was deciding the list of records for this project, there were few albums I was more hesitant about spending seven days with than Selling England by the Pound. The mere thought of a week listening to this Robin Hood music was enough to render me physically ill for a few days (hence the lateness of this blog entry). But I must say I was pleasantly surprised. 

  • The fact that I am such a big fan of Peter Gabriel and his solo material (the first rock show that I ever saw was Gabriel at the Montreal Forum in the summer of 1987 when I was 15 years old), helped me handle the wordy vocal performances on Selling England by the Pound. Otherwise, I think I may have turned the record off after the first listen and never turned it back on again.

  • With the later-Genesis radio hits, I never really paid attention to the great musicianship of the band members. But with Selling England by the Pound, it's all I focused on. Collins' drumming is fantastic, exemplified on the latter half of “The Cinema Show” (starting at the 6:00 mark). And what about Rutherford's monster bass playing in “I Know What I Like”? Or Hackett channelling Mick Ronson on “Dancing With the Moonlight Knight”. Or Banks' epic keyboard playing on “Firth of Fifth”? I find the unifying track on the album is “The Battle Epping Forest”, where all the members, including Gabriel, absolutely kill it.

  • After years of trying to get me into Genesis, Dwayne Slack would be happy to hear that I actually have begun listening to Selling England by the Pound's follow-up album, the very ambitious Lamb Lies Down on Broadway (1974). All I can promise is that I will listen to it. The jury's still out on whether I will like it.

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Tuesday, July 23, 2013

Psychocandy by The Jesus and Mary Chain (1985, Blanco y Negro Records)


WHY I NEVER GOT AROUND TO LISTENING TO THIS ARTIST/ALBUM
  • The first time I'd ever seen or heard of The Jesus and Mary Chain was in 1985 on the local Toronto music magazine television program The New Music, which would feature in-depth profiles and interviews with acts not normally covered by traditional media outlets. Most of the time, the mere fact that a band was being covered by The New Music would lead to me to seek out their material, or at the very least, look them in the latest music magazine (that's what we did before the interwebs). But The Jesus and Mary Chain's appearance on The New Music made me neither want to listen to their music, nor seek any information about them. Notwithstanding their minimalist instrumentation, which I usually went for in a big way, I had no interest in the shoe-gazer noise pop that Jim and William Reid had to offer, or in the antics of Douglas Hart, the drug-riddled bassist who only had two strings on his bass because he only used those two and didn't see the need to spend the money on the other two. Sure, it was a hilarious sound bite, but it did nothing to pique my interest in the band.

  • Fast forward to June, 1990, my eighteenth summer. I go to Toronto's now-defunct CNE Grandstand to see Depeche Mode's World Violation Tour, with The Jesus and Mary Chain opening up. I was not much of a Depeche Mode fan, but Paul Lahey convinced me to go, with the promise of many teenage girls. While I genuinely enjoyed the Depeche Mode show, the same can not be said about The Jesus and Mary Chain's set, which was nothing but a wall of wailing distorted guitars drowning out the vocals. It was perhaps my least favourite show I have ever experienced (and that's saying a lot, considering that I've seen Living Color live). It was pretty much the same result at 1992's Lollapalooza show at Molson Park in Barrie, Ontario, where I thought The Jesus and Mary Chain were simply outclassed by the rest of the field, which included Pearl Jam, Ice Cube, Soundgarden, Ministry, and Red Hot Chili Peppers.
WHAT I KNEW ABOUT THE ALBUM BEFORE THIS PROJECT
  • Back in the late 80s,“Just Like Honey” and "Some Candy Talking" were songs that I would hear a lot at high school parties and on 102.1 CFNY, Toronto's modern rock radio station.
AFTER A WEEK OF DIGESTING THIS ALBUM
  • While it has been relatively easy to rid myself of preconceived notions of the records and artists I have chosen to feature for this project, I must say it was very difficult for me to try and put a fresh set of ears and an open mind to Psychocandy and The Jesus and Mary Chain.

  • The record's dynamics do nothing for me. The droning guitar noise and the washed-out sound quality bore the living shit out of me. That being said, the one redeeming quality for much of Psychocandy is the songwriting. With “Just Like Honey”, “Sowing Seeds”, “Something's Wrong”, “Some Candy Talking”, “Never Understand”, and “You Trip Me Up” the Reid brothers write nearly perfect pop songs, which are hidden -- almost unlistenable -- under unnecessary layers of mucky guitars and/or vocal performances awash in pretentious effects.

  • To paraphrase Sam Malone, I'd rather cut my hair with a cheese grater and chew on tin foil than sit through another listening of Psychocandy. No sexiness, no groove, no thanks!
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Wednesday, July 10, 2013

Survivor by Destiny's Child (2001, Columbia Records)


WHY I NEVER GOT AROUND TO LISTENING TO THIS ARTIST/ALBUM
  • I am a shameless fan of Beyoncé Knowles. Just ask anyone who was at Chef Daniel Henderson's Super Bowl XLVII party last January; I turned into a drooling adolescent while we watched the televised reunion of Beyoncé and her Destiny's Child bandmates Michelle Williams and Kelly Rowland during the half-time show. Yes, I have to say the attraction was, and still is hormonal. But as far as her music is concerned, I barely know her solo stuff, and even then, I am really only aware of her post-DC material from her booty-shakin' videos for "Crazy in Love" and "Single Ladies." I'll say it again: I am shameless.

  • I have never really been into the R&B diva-types that my cousin Jane Ramos had always listened to while we were growing up. As a devoted rock and roller, I never made any real effort to get them. Although looking back on how cool Jane and her friends were, maybe I should have. That being said, I have always liked good songs, I have always liked quality vocals, and I have always liked tasty grooves and beats, no matter the music genre, but I can not say with too much certainty why Destiny's Child eluded me.
WHAT I KNEW ABOUT THE ALBUM BEFORE THIS PROJECT
  • The song “Independent Women Part I” was on the soundtrack for the Drew Berrymore-Lucy Liu-Cameron Diaz movie remake of the 1970s television show Charlie's Angels.

  • While not the first time the the term “Bootylicious” was used in a song - I remember Snoop Dogg using it a few years prior - the hit single from Surivior is certainly the most apt use of the term.
AFTER A WEEK OF DIGESTING THIS ALBUM
  • As expected from a big-selling, Top 40 R&B album, Survivor is well written and highly polished in its production. I really dug the first half of this album; the aforementioned songs, along with the title track and “Nasty Girl” come with the suggestive lyrics, nasty grooves, and the girl-power sexuality that became previlant in the genre during the late 90s and early 2000s. The latter half of the album wanes with a glut of album-filler ballads, the great vocal performances notwithstanding. 
     
  • Survivor is a very sexy record and much of this album makes me want to do the things that every danceable record should make you want to do: dance, drink and fuck. I remain a shameless Beyoncé fan.
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The Kinks Are the Village Green Preservation Society (1968) by the Kinks
Me Against the World (1995) by 2Pac
Transatlanticism (2003) by Death Cab for Cutie
Reign in Blood (1986) by Slayer
Bandwagonesque (1991) by Teenage Fanclub

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Thursday, June 27, 2013

The Kinks Are the Village Green Preservation Society by the Kinks (1968, Pye Records)

WHY I NEVER GOT AROUND TO LISTENING TO THIS ARTIST/ALBUM
  • After he was asked the time-worn musical query the Beatles or the Stones?, a wise person (it could have been Delko Blazinin, but I can not remember exactly who it was) replied: “The only correct answer to that question is The Kinks.” Being a lifetime listener of classic rock radio, but not much of a Kinks listener, I can say with much gusto: “It's probably true.” Indeed, the Kinks – and specifically guitarist Dave Davies – has influenced every guitar rock band with their early 60s material like “You Really Got Me” and “All Day and All of the Night.” But die-hard Kinks fans will tell you the band's heyday was between 1966 and 1972, when the band released, by most accounts, eight fantastic records, including 1970's Lola Versus Powerman and the Moneygoround, Part One and Muswell Hillbillies (1972). And although I did listen to some of the radio-friendly Kinks tracks during this era, I never got to listen to 1968's The Kinks Are the Village Green Preservation Society. Growing up, I was exposed mostly to some of the very odd, almost circus-like Kinks recordings of mid-to-late 70s, already sensing that the band had past their due date. I also remember thinking the band was a bit too quirky for my liking, especially Ray Davies' vocals.
WHAT I KNEW ABOUT THE ALBUM BEFORE THIS PROJECT
  • Greenday were in the news a few years back for apparently ripping off the riff from “Picture Book”, a song from this album.
  • Johnny Thunders, the 1970s punk pioneer who was in the New York Dolls and later The Heartbreakers, most likely got his name from the song “Johnny Thunder,” also from this album.
AFTER A WEEK OF DIGESTING THIS ALBUM
  • Holy shit balls! The Kinks Are the Village Green Preservation Society is a pretty amazing record. The songwriting is compelling, with a very British sensibility that, I dare say, rivals Lennon and McCartney. The narratives of the songs are simple and nostalgic; sure a little quirky, but not at all as out-there as I was expecting. I actually found Ray Davies' voice endearing on many of the tracks like "Animal Farm" and "Starstruck" although my favourite track on the album,"Wicked Annabella", is sung by brother Dave. 

  • Something else that stands out for me are the rhythmical elements of this record, specifically Mick Avory' s drumming, which I never really paid attention to before. Give "Last of the Steam-powered Trains" and "Do You Remember Walter?" a listen and tell me I am wrong.

  • This is yet another My Album Project success. Much to the joy of my pal and Kinks fan Trisha Lavoie, I have already started to listen to more Kinks records from their much celebrated 1966-1972 era.
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