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.
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  • 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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