December 2009 Archives

In a past life, Fresh and the Qualifier used to get paid to write about music. For years they toiled through a tag-team article called Counterbalance, going head to head, hashing out the relative merits of new releases for the local Chicken Dinner Newspaper. But that was a long time ago - before the economy crashed, sending their frivolous Arts & Entertainment section down in flames.

After wandering in the wilderness, lost and directionless, Fresh and the Qualifier have returned to take on their most challenging assignment: the Greatest Albums of All-Time. Do these critics' darlings hold up, or are they just hyped up?

The Velvet Underground & Nico's self-titled debut album - number four on the list - started out as all hype thanks to Andy Warhol but somehow managed to become one of the most influential records of all time. Has this record outlasted it's fifteen minutes of fame?

Fresh: I love the way this album starts off with the airy feel of "Sunday Morning" and its ambiguous, non-threatening lyrics. After that its all down-hill, like picking up a rock and peering into the seedy underbelly of urban America in the 1960s. It's fantastic. Except the parts where Nico sings. I could do without that.

Qualifier: Ah, but Fresh, without Nico there might not be a Velvet Underground as we know it. Allow me to oversimplify: Andy Warhol essentially pulled Lou Reed, John Cale and Co. from obscurity in order to have a backing band for his newly discovered "chanteuse," offering up his brand name and connections in exchange for hearing her Kissinger-esque tones on vinyl. After they got in the studio, actual producer Tom Wilson was so taken with Nico's Teutonic appeal that he insisted that Reed write a single just for her. Somehow that song became "Sunday Morning," and Lou ended up singing it anyway. (I'm not sure how that happened; I'm assuming a blonde wig and some coquettish flirting was involved.)

The Flaming Lips are an oddity. What other band has been around for close to 30 years, has been signed to a major label for almost 20 years (despite taking ten years to produce an album that achieved both critical acclaim and commercial success) and loves to play with puppets on stage? The Flaming Lips got lucky. After the quick success in the early 1990s thanks to the single "She Don't Use Jelly," the Lips could have been written off as one-hit alternative wonders and left for dead. Instead, the band just kept rolling, getting weirder and weirder (check out Zaireeka if you need proof) until they found success again in the late 1990s with the critically acclaimed Soft Bulletin. But it wasn't until 2002 that the Flaming Lips reached their full potential with Yoshimi Battles The Pink Robots, marrying critical acclaim and commercial success behind an album full of space pop and strange noise, sandwiched between beautifully written songs contemplating the meaning of existence.

I only like one Modest Mouse album and 2004's Good News For People Who Like Bad News was it. It was the album that helped break the band to the mainstream and it's probably the album that real Modest Mouse fans, the people who have been hanging off Isaac Brock's nuts since day one, absolutely hate.

GNFPWLBN signaled a shift in Modest Mouse's music away from angular, disjointed songs to a more conventional song structure, which made listening to Modest Mouse much more enjoyable and a whole lot less work. And then they released a couple more albums which I couldn't be bothered to listen to. But I still like GNFPWLBN, so there's that.

The 2000's saw hip-hop solidify itself as the premier money maker for the music industry. Unfortunately, making money doesn't mean innovation and as labels pumped out cookie-cutter rappers,  hip-hop devolved into a caricature of itself - all flash and no substance.

But then there were the artists like Spank Rock, though few and far between, who were willing to do something a little different. And Spank Rock's debut YOYOYOYOYO is different. The beats are full of electronic glitch and strange noise, a raw mix that flirts with the avant garde and provides the perfect back drop for Spank Rock's off-kilter lyrical flow. Sure, Spank Rock raps along the hip-hop norms, with rhymes full of braggadocio and (sometimes raunchy) sexual reference but refreshingly absent is the prerequisite violence and no matter what he says, its always said with tongue placed firmly in cheek.

The only real criteria I had when putting this list together was answering this one question: In another ten years, what albums will I still be able to return to without feeling nauseated? Quite frankly, everything between number 11 and number 1 is filler and pretty much replaceable with any other album on the Best of the Decade List. But, I'm going to do this regardless, mostly because I'm bored and this should make for a good laugh another decade from now.

Coming in at number 10 is the Avett Brothers' I And Love And You. Previous Avett Brothers albums have been a bit raw, lacking the sophistication to lift their North Carolina hill harmonies much above their country-fied boogie. But it was that raw mix of folk, country and rock that scored them a major label deal and the chance to work with Rick Rubin. Rubin pushed the band to new heights, helping them elevate their game and craft lush, ornate pop music reminiscent of the Beatles (if the Beatles had clawed their way out of N. Cakalaky, soothing cantankerous tobacco farmers with their dulcit melodies after getting caught in the haymow with the farmer's daughter).

Like Spinal Tap amps, this top ten list goes to 11. I'm going to squeeze this one in on a technicality. Technically, Erlend Øye's DJ Kicks isn't really an album, its a compilation, which is a nice way of saying glorified mix tape. But this silky voiced, string plucker from the band Kings of Convenience, isn't just another musician crossing the DJ pickets lines. Øye may have left his guitar at home but that didn't mean he gave up singing just because he was spinning wax. No, the Singing DJ brought along his sense of showmanship and song craft and compiled a stellar mix that is just at home on the dance floor as it is chilling out on the living room floor. Øye's DJ Kicks is a flawless exposition of the art of mixing and when it dropped in 2004 it contained tracks from current and future tastemakers with cuts from Cornelius, Phoenix, the Rapture and Röyksopp. On top of all of this, Øye manages to seamlessly weave himself in and out of the mix creating an air of cohesiveness that is a rarity within the DJ culture.

In a past life, Fresh and the Qualifier used to get paid to write about music. For years they toiled through a tag-team article called Counterbalance, going head to head, hashing out the relative merits of new releases for the local Chicken Dinner Newspaper. But that was a long time ago - before the economy crashed, sending their frivolous Arts & Entertainment section down in flames.

After wandering in the wilderness, lost and directionless, Fresh and the Qualifier have returned to take on their most challenging assignment: the Greatest Albums of All-Time. Do these critics' darlings hold up, or are they just hyped up?

Find out as we examine the number three LP, Nirvana's Nevermind. Dust off your flannel shirt - it's going to be a grungy good time!
 
Qualifier: Hey, Fresh, remember the 1990s? What a crazy time! What with the Friends gang and the heroin chic and that hilarious guy Clinton makin' mischief in the White House. Woo! Well here it is, crystallized in musical form!
 
Fresh: Ah, the 1990s. I remember that decade (vaguely). It was a simpler time, an age of innocence. You could still carry water bottles on airplanes and tell airport security screeners where they could stick that metal detector wand without fear that you might end up in Gitmo. Plus, grunge was everywhere. Depressed, apathetic kids, looking for an out from the system. They were angry and authentic. Not like today's emo children. Deep down, all the emo children want is a hug from Mommy. Back then, all the grunge kids wanted was heroin - the only real existential escape from their existential hell. Albert Camus would have been proud. Or completely indifferent. Probably completely indifferent.
 
Q: Yes, Camus practically crackles with frissons of indifference. And now we come to Camus' modern day equivalent, Kurt Cobain. (That's right, teenagers writing research papers, I said it! Include me in your bibliographies!)
 
What's your take on Nevermind coming in at number three on our big list, Fresh? Above Bob Dylan, above the Rolling Stones? It strikes me as a little odd that rock critics the world over have placed this album so consistently high. Are they just trying to prove that even aging, doughy, bespectacled rock nerds are down with the modern sounds, or is this album as groundbreaking as this ranking would have you believe?