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]]> Counterbalance: Astral Weeks tag:www.elarceny.com,2010://1.281 2010-08-26T17:29:52Z 2010-08-26T17:38:55Z 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... Fresh http://www.elarceny.com 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?

In this week's edition of Counterbalance: Van Morrison's Astral Weeks. Funny name, nonsensical lyrics, tracks that creep toward the 10 minute mark and more improvisational spirit than you can shake a stick at. What exactly was Van Morrison smoking when he dropped this one on the unsuspecting populace? Fresh and the Qualifier investigate next:

astral.jpgFresh: I'm completely confounded by Astral Weeks' place on The Great List. Don't get me wrong, I like Van Morrison and I'm not above singing "Brown Eyed Girl" to Mrs. Randy Fresh Ocean (because she has brown eyes and she thinks its sweet). But Astral Weeks sounds like a couple of Beatniks, a folk band and a gaggle of hippies were involved in some freak transporter accident that left them fused together in some seething, ugly mass that still has enough dexterity to play the flute. What am I missing?

Qualifier: That's a beautiful story about you and Mrs. Fresh. It gives me helpful insight into your marriage.

I have no idea where to begin as far as what you're missing, because this is quite simply one of the finest albums of the 1960s. Achingly beautiful. I ache.

Remember too that Van Morrison had previously been the pint-sized head thug for the ruffian R&B combo Them, followed by an abortive stint as a top 40 pop singer (the aforementioned "Brown Eyed Girl" era). The leap from all that to a delicate, graceful musing on romanticism is basically unprecedented. It's as if Lost in Translation had starred Tony Danza.

]]> F: I get the whole transformative thing (and maybe if Danza had starred in Lost In Translation it might have actually won one of those Oscars). Transformation is powerful - it has helped anchor a couple albums on this list, and I completely understand why the Flower Generation would have been loving all over it but Astral Weeks is pretty much a free-form jazz record disguised as a rock record. That kind of stuff isn't supposed to be popular.

Q: Oh, it wasn't popular. Astral Weeks more or less sank without a trace upon its release. It's mostly through the critical rehabilitation of guys like Lester Bangs that this album achieved its widespread standing.

And it probably sounds like a jazz album because its mostly jazz guys playing on it. Connie Kay and Richard Davis played with the ever-stately Modern Jazz Quartet and guitarist Jay Berliner had worked with Charles Mingus, among others.

Is it the flute that's bugging you? Is it giving you too much of a Jethro Tull vibe? Because even the jazzy flutes (never a favorite of mine outside this record) can't deter me from aching when I listen to this record. And the older I get, the more I hear.

F: It's the flute. Flutes have no business in rock music. The only place flutes should be allowed are in marching bands and only because they can be effectively drowned out by more substantial  instruments. Van Morrison's pining does a poor job of blocking them from coming through loud and clear.

I also feel a bit conflicted about Lester Bangs and Co. campaigning for this album after the fact. I'm not saying it doesn't deserve the accolades but Astral Weeks (and I feel a bit silly saying this) may be the least accessible record we've talked about thus far. The Sex Pistols' Nevermind The Bullocks would be ahead of this record if I didn't refuse to acknowledge it's mere existence.

Astral Weeks is rambling record with a heavy jazz influence, lyrics that rival beat poets and the average track goes on for seven minutes. It's no wonder no one cared when it came out. There is a lot to climb through before you get to the meat of this record.

Q: See, now this is one of those times where you and I can say the exact same sentence and mean the exact opposite. After all, Astral Weeks is rambling record with a heavy jazz influence, lyrics that rival beat poets - and the average track goes on for seven minutes! What's not to love?

But you're right; it's not a very accessible record. In fact, it might be the closest rock music has ever gotten to literature. (You hear that, Warner Bros. publicists from 1968? That's a pull quote!)

So I certainly have my theories, but in your opinion what is the meat of the record?

F: I think it's Van Morrison's ability to draw together some very disparate influences and mold, as you put it, an "achingly beautiful" record. There are elements of jazz, folk and big band, coupled with stream of consciousness lyrics that paint pictures more than they tell stories, all stitched together with Van's gravely, mumbly delivery. It's almost too much until you start pulling it apart and examining it piece by piece.

But once you've done that, its kind of like looking over the pieces of a motorcycle spread across a garage floor. Only gear heads find that kind of thing exciting and in this analogy, I'm not a gear head. I'm just some regular dude who wants to see someone jump said motorcycle (fully-assembled or not) over a ravine or a line of burning cars or something. Listening to Van ride this album down Broken Heart Lane just isn't doing it for me.
 
Q: Call me an incurable sad sack, but I find Broken Heart Lane to be a most enchanting place, especially as Van cruises slowly up and down, wistfully weeping. But your analogy hits on something that really struck me as I listened to Astral Weeks for this. Lyrically, Morrison constantly shifts between high-falutin' romantic poetry and the mundane realities of that same romance, often within the same song. The title track, for instance, takes us from slipstreams and viaducts of your dreams to his lady-love doing her kid's laundry, presumably while our hero is slumped on the couch watching Green Acres.
 
Van has continued to do this throughout his career, jumping from mystical evocations of Caledonia to how he can't get his phone to work, but it's never been quite as seamless as it is on Astral Weeks.
 
F: I'd find Broken Heart Lane more enchanting if Van set himself a blaze and popped a wheelie.
 
Having spent some time entrenched in literary academia, I can appreciate Van's juxtaposition between the ethereal and the mundane in the same way that I appreciate an author like, say, Charlotte Bronte. Both Van and Bronte do what they do very well, their works are undeniably solid, they both have a strong following (for good reason) and if I had to, I could bust out a ten-page paper on either without blinking. But, and the is the big BUT, they both make me want to gouge out my eyes/cut off my ears due to the excessive amount of moping found in their respective works.
 
I would have enjoyed Jane Eyre a whole lot more if Jane would have whored it up a little bit and I'd definitely enjoy Astral Weeks more if Van were to act a little more like a rock star and a little less like a love sick puppy. Not to take anything away from these two talented artists, but seriously, suck it up and move on.
 
Q: For Van Morrison getting his rock star ya-yas out, I'll refer you to his turn in The Last Waltz - that man can rock a skintight jumpsuit. And he did seem to get his mopery out of his system in time for his next album, 1970's Moondance, which replaced the jazz and the flutes with R&B and horns. Perhaps not surprisingly, it was his commercial breakthrough and probably showed which side of the bread the butter's on. He never made another record quite like Astral Weeks again.
 
But say what you will about his, uh, wistfulness on this record, but you can't fault his band on this one. Connie Kay and Richard Davis in particular push what are actually pretty simple songs with an empathy that's seldom seen outside jazz. It's what makes the nearly ten-minute "Madame George" hypnotic and compelling instead of a three-chord drone. It's not so much a motorcycle leaping a flaming ravine as it is a motorcycle levitating gracefully over a flaming ravine.  
 
F: Van wouldn't get so much as a front tire off the ground if it weren't for his crack band.
 
I'm still bothered by where this record is on the list. Thus far, each album we've gone through seems to hold a deserved place. They were iconic, they represented  a major change for the artist, they helped start or end a musical revolution and all of them have been monumentally influential to the artists that followed. I don't see that with this record. Sure, we see a turn of character from Van, but I think that's where it ends. I don't see this record having the reach that the rest of it's predecessors have had.
 
Q: I've recently learned that Astral Weeks inspired Martin Scorsese as he was making Taxi Driver - does that help? Actually Van's strange poesy amid the mundane may not be so far removed from Travis Bickle's... apart from the shooty bits, I suppose.
 
But as I did with our old friend Pet Sounds, I'm going to have to play the rock-critics-are-actually-very-sad-people card. Beneath their wrinkled flannel and pit-stained Bad Brains shirts beats the heart of a navel-gazing romantic. Add in the fact that Van Morrison is, shall we say, not conventionally attractive, and it's easier to see how this album appeals to the dumpy and the chinless within us all.
 
F: You must have a huge stack of those cards over there. And just for the record, you didn't have to be pretty to make records in the 1960s - that didn't start until the 1980s, although I'm not sure how Steve Perry slipped by that directive unnoticed.
 
Q: But while Steve Perry is certainly an unusual looking man, he bears the markings of the pop star - the feathery hair, the tight trousers, even the schnoz. Van Morrison on a good day looked like Gary Burghoff; the critics couldn't resist.
 
But we could spend all day rating the celebrity superhunks. Are we at an impasse regarding Astral Weeks? Has the immovable force met the unstoppable object?
 
F: If the immovable force (you) were to meet the unstoppable object (me) the resulting cataclysmic explosion would decimate the universe, returning our infinite energies back to our surroundings thus negating all of existence. Let's just agree to disagree - it would be safer.
 
Q: I couldn't agree to disagree more.]]> Counterbalance: The Beatles (The White Album) tag:www.elarceny.com,2010://1.280 2010-07-13T20:00:06Z 2010-07-13T20:26:44Z 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... Fresh http://www.elarceny.com 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?
 
Often parodied, referenced by everyone from Joan Didion to Vincent Bugliosi, and literally analyzed backwards and forwards, few albums loom as largely and ominously as The Beatles, aka The White Album. With a whopping 30 tracks ranging from bare sketches to ornate arrangements, The White Album may be the most controversial album in the Beatles' oeuvre. But is it a masterpiece or self-indulgent wankery from four guys who haven't heard the word "no" in a while? Fresh and the Qualifier investigate.

white.jpg
 
Qualifier: Before we begin, Sir Fresh, we should probably establish one ground rule: avoid discussing whether this should have been cut down to a single album. That parlor game has been played since November 1968, and I'd say it's pretty well played out. That being said, this is an unruly tangle of an album, and even though I've heard it hundreds of times, it still feels like a lot to digest.
 
Fresh: I'll adhere to that ground rule, even though I've groused about just such things in previous installments. But just so we're clear, I don't think this album should be consolidated - I think it should be chopped up and re-released as three separate albums. The Beatles (Pretty, Well Orchestrated Songs), The Beatles (These Songs Rock A Little) and The Beatles (We Are Taking Copious Amounts Of Controlled Substances And Then Recording The Results And Selling It To The Public As A Lark).
 
Seriously though, I love this record. Mostly because it's full of gems and it documents the Beatles slowly unraveling. It's like watching them realize they are stuck in a very small box. They do their best to push against the boundaries but after failing to break out they turn their aggression on each other. And then it's just a free-for-all. Well, maybe not for Ringo.

]]> Q: Ringo famously quit the group for two weeks during the recording of this album, and when you manage to tick off Ringo, you're clearly dysfunctional. Tensions apparently ran high during these sessions, possibly exacerbated by the fact that they had just returned from an extremely long camping trip with Mike Love. That tension appears to have manifested itself in the lack of esprit de corps that is painfully evident here.
 
For example, go back and listen to "Martha My Dear." It's a lovely little tune, but I maintain that had its marshmallowy sweetness been alleviated by a more pronounced contribution from the more acerbic faction of the group, it would have been one for the ages. In other words, put some backing vocals on that number and people would stop jabbering on about how it's about Paul's dog. (Similarly, a touch of Macca cheekiness could have really driven home the point that "Yer Blues" was a satire of British blues.)
 
F: Agreed - the collaboration that drove the Beatles to the height of the music world is no where to be found on this record. Instead, the listener is treated to lots and lots of Schadenfreude - sweet, sweet Schadenfreude - as the boys from Liverpool claw at each others throats.
 
And yet, out of this messy professional train wreck, we get to see the Beatles, albeit separately, at the apex of their writing prowess and enjoying the pure thrill of exploring music. Harrison writes "While My Guitar Gently Weeps," the song that arguably defines him as an artist, Lennon answers the Rolling Stones' "Street Fighting Man" with his proclamation of peace on "Revolution 1", McCartney further refines that sappy sweetness that will carry on through Wings and, as normal, Richard Starkey is left to follow up the rear.
 
Sure, it's a hodgepodge but just think about what kind of album they would have put out if they still liked each other. It may have made Sgt. Pepper's look like a silly little rock dalliance . . .
 
Q: Or it could have just been Sgt. Pepper II: Nerds in Paradise. Remember, too, that there had been some pretty big changes in that year and half. Dylan and the Stones had put the smackdown on psychedelia with John Wesley Harding and Beggars Banquet. Hendrix and Cream were stripping down their sounds, and hippie-friendly oboists everywhere suddenly found their services no longer required.
 
The Beatles, at their core, were expert synthesizers. Their greatest strength was taking all of the things that were going on in 1960s pop and through their songwriting prowess create a definitive statement on the state of pop music. You could almost think of their albums as '60s Rock Annual Reports. The White Album shows the transition that was taking place between the more baroque sound that was passing and the rootsy style coming to the fore.
 
Still doesn't explain "Revolution 9," though.
 
F: I don't think they would have made Sgt. Pepper Part Deux: Still Marching. The Beatles were too smart for that. But think about the album that could have been. No distractions. No infighting. No Yoko (there's your explanation for "Revolution 9"). It's one of those unanswerable questions that could have changed rock history. Instead, we're left to pick through the detritus.
 
Q: Ah, but the debris left behind can be fascinating, and I think it's the "minor" pieces on The White Album that give it its unique character. When I first got this record as a mere lad of 13, I focused on the immediate pleasures of "Back in the USSR" and "Glass Onion." But the more time you spend with this album (and for me it's been nearly 30 years), I find a greater appreciation for a song like "Long Long Long," which swoops elegantly from near-silence to a genuinely spooky climax, all without raising its voice. Or the way that "Good Night," a song I once considered way too schmaltzy, sounds almost sinister after "Revolution 9" (and yes, even with a skip button right handy, I still listen to "Revolution 9").
 
It seems that the infighting and the distractions lent themselves to the darkness that seems to surround the album. But is it possible that the darkness has been assigned to this record ex post facto, given its association with Manson and the general sense that 1968 marked the end of the utopian hippie dream?
 
F: You raise a good question. It's tough to look at some of those albums through the fog of history. Despite the baggage, I don't think The White Album has any ominous overtones. It's a sprawling, sugar-coated behemoth.
 
But sweet always goes down better with a touch of sour. On the flip side, I don't think it would hold the place it does with out all of the craziness.
 
Q: And maybe that's what I think sets The White Album apart. It's a bite of sweet, then a bite of sour, then a bite of cheesy, then "Revolution 9," which is, I'm pretty sure a big bite of vanilla, mustard and ashes. Prior to this, the Beatles were masters at combining flavors, like when my dad started dipping tortilla chips in caramel. I thought we were going to have to put him in a home, but they were delicious! Like kettle corn - in chip form!
 
F: Your family has weird snacking habits.
 
Q: Like the Aqua Velva in Zodiac, you wouldn't make fun of it if you tried it.
 ]]> Counterbalance: OK Computer tag:www.elarceny.com,2010://1.279 2010-06-23T01:57:54Z 2010-06-23T02:16:02Z Fresh http://www.elarceny.com 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?

And then there was Radiohead. Arguably the biggest band over the past decade, the Oxford quintet made their label a mint, jumped shipped and then printed their own ticket, effectively remaking the music industry's business model in their own image. But before the super stardom, the sold out world tours and the eventual creative and financial independence, Radiohead had to transform themselves from a college radio rock band with a respectable following into the juggernaut that gives even the most stolid record exec nightmares, and it all started with 1997's OK Computer. Is Radiohead's OK Computer the towering dynamo critics say it is or is it just another flash in the Britpop frying pan? Fresh and the the Qualifier debate - next:

OK_Computer.jpg

Fresh: Before we talk about where we first heard this record or how it made us feel or why our world is a better place because of it or any of that - I'd just like to throw this out there: Radiohead's OK Computer is to the 1990s (and probably the next two decades) what the Beach Boy's Pet Sounds was to the 1960s (and 70s and 80s). 
 
Qualifier: Hmm... sonically daring, aesthetically bold and fetishized beyond its standing by pale mopey geeks? You may be onto something there, Freshy.
]]> F: It's not just the pale, mopey geeks who love this album, OK Computer went platinum almost every country, spawned three chart hits and a hit video in the waning days of MTV when music videos were being shown the door. We're talking about a pop masterpiece with a commercial and critical appeal that hadn't been seen in a decade or more preceding and still hasn't been matched. We're talking about one of the last great albums here. Very possibly the last entry into the Great Rock 'n' Roll canon. Whether or not you like Thom Yorke's crooning and the band's sad-sack guitars, you have to give this album its due.
 
Q: Really? Burundi? East Timor? I'm quite sure that there are countries where this album is less than entrenched in the public consciousness. Of course, these may well be nations in which paleness and mopery are far less a way of life than say, Norway, where I suspect that "Paranoid Android" is played at most weddings.
 
All right, Fresh, I cannot deny that OK Computer is going to be the last entry into the Canon. In fact, fifty years from now when Ken Burns III does the inevitable PBS documentary on Rock and/or Roll, the final installment ("Grunge and Beyond") will probably trail off with the arrival of this album. Beyond  this point lies boy bands, the demise of the recording industry and ultimately the end of rock history. (Remind me to have that phrase copyrighted.)
 
F: I said "almost every country." I understand that there are places in the world where music consists mostly of a drum beat, guttural chants and clicks - like everything on the radio right now. And there are places where music has remained unchanged for thousands of years. But despite varying degrees of mopeyness and skin pigmentation I think OK Computer speaks a universal language packaged neatly in expressive pop music.
 
Although, all this talk of The End of Rock History© has got me bummed out. Maybe it's just because I've been listening to a lot of Radiohead just now. 
 
Q: Hoo-ey, that'll do it. These guys are just about the glummest bunch of glum glummers that ever glummed. And I think that's why I have such a hard time connecting to this record. I pull this down every once in a while to see if I can enjoy it, but in the end it just starts to fade away on me. And that makes me glum. Fresh, what am I missing here?
 
F: It's not glum, necessarily. It suffers from having a low average BPM but the subject matter shouldn't make you want to slit your wrists. Try framing it as a treatise on the perils of modern life, an existential snap shot of the trappings of the technologies that permeate the fabric of our lives. And if that seems like too much work (because it is) look at it as a pop masterpiece masquerading as an alt-rock album. 

The thing I love about this album is how big and expansive it can seem one minute, only to shrink to the most intimate record I've ever heard. I'm not going to claim its perfect. Most days I won't listen to it from start to finish. Skip "Exit Music, ""Fitter" and the tacked on "Tourist" and suddenly it's a much tighter and not so languid.
 
Q: I believe there already was an existential snapshot of the trappings of the technologies that permeate the fabric of our lives, and that album was He's the DJ, I'm the Rapper. But I'll concede your point that this album is also one of those.
 
I'm sure Radiohead fans will egg my car for this, but "Fitter Happier" is one of my favorite things about this record, possibly because it is one of the few instances where Yorke and Co. sound like they're taking the piss out of their own mopey, mopey image. And as for this wrist-slittery of which you speak, I think I'd like this album better if they expressed their emotions with a bit more vigor one way or the other. Maybe alienation just isn't my bag, an idea I'm sure we'll be revisiting just seven short albums from now.
 
F: I don't like that you just compared Radiohead to DJ Jazzy Jeff and the Fresh Prince (of Bel-Air). In my younger days, I would have told you that we now have to fight. But being that it's the middle of the afternoon and I'm feeling sleepy, I'm going to let it go and seek my revenge at a later date.
 
I know I can't make you like this album - no matter what fancy reasoning I come up with, Yorke still sounds like a puppy being squeezed in a vice while the rest of the band is too hopped up (or down in this case) on barbies to set aside the guitars and loosen the screws. The only real solace I can take is that Will Smith will not be remembered for his music career, while Radiohead will go down as the Last Great Rock Band. I mean, unless they release another Hail To The Thief. Or find religion. Or release a Christmas album. Or appear in Victoria's Secret commercials.
 
Q: Ah, but that's the nice thing about the Canon - you can't get kicked out! No matter how incompetent you become, no matter how many Self Portraits or Dirty Works or It's Hards you make, you still get to be in the Canon. It's like rock and roll tenure.
 
After all, Bob Dylan did all three of the things you mentioned, and... Hey wait a minute - I see what you did there. You know, for a guy who gets so sleepy in the middle of the afternoon, you sure are eager to pick a fight. Lucky for you it's the middle of the afternoon and I'm half in the bag, so I'll agree to postpone any fisticuffs for a later date as well.
 
F: Maybe we could both use a nap. I used to put OK Computer on expressly for the sole purpose of taking a nap. Not that it would put me to sleep, I just found it relaxing. Maybe it's a good fit for the last entry into the Canon - as we unceremoniously put the Great Rock 'n' Roll tome to bed. A final ode to the technology and globalization that killed off the old school record business model.
 
Q: Well, no one's going to miss the industry's business model, but it's still vaguely depressing that the music that brought so much vitality to my formative years is becoming a museum piece. Has it really reached its endpoint?
 
And if we really have, couldn't we have gone out with a more lively party than this Bergmanesque bleakscape of an album? Come on rock 'n' roll, let's have one more throwdown before we lock up here - preferably one so joyous even Thom Yorke would cut loose a bit.
 
Of course, I was pushing 30 when this record came out. I was well on my way toward distancing myself from pop music long before grunge reared its stanky unwashed head. I've really only ever listened to it as an academic exercise. Can one really form a bond with this wire monkey mommy of an album?
 
F: One man's wire monkey mommy is another man's real monkey mommy. I still return to this album when I'm in need of comfort. OK Computer was the final building block of my musical being during my formative years and much of what I listen to today can be traced back to this record. 

Sure, it's not Rock 'n' Roll like the Rolling Stones were Rock 'n' Roll, there's no guitar grit and boogie-woogie swagger but it embodies everything rock stands for - DIY, rebellion and alienation, loss and love, and ultimately, destruction. Yorke and Co. built a record with complete disregard to what was popular at the time and it went onto become a cultural touchstone. 
 
Q: You see, Fresh, elegant paeans such as yours are what keep me coming back to this album, even though I'm consistently unable to form a bond. I guess it's me then. Perhaps I'm the one who's isolated here, scorned by my fellow critics for my provincial views and unable to love this album. I feel so... alienated. If only there were an album that could crystallize the alienation I feel.
 
I mean besides He's the DJ, I'm the Rapper, of course.
]]> Counterbalance: Are You Experienced? tag:www.elarceny.com,2010://1.278 2010-05-06T15:16:49Z 2010-07-15T15:34:31Z 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... Fresh http://www.elarceny.com 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?

Before Jimi Hendrix hit the scene, face-melting guitar solos were an unheard of commodity. But with 1967's Are You Experienced? The Jimi Hendrix Experience blew the doors of the unmelted face market and began searing flesh with every transcendent guitar lick. Rock, rhythm and blues were never the same afterward but can this all be laid at the feet of Hendrix (and then set on fire) or was it the inevitable evolution of rock and roll? Fresh and the Qualifer investigate in this installment of Counterbalance.

hendrix.jpgFresh: We've talked previously about separating the myth from the music, but this one is a doozy. The Jimi Hendrix Experience's Are You Experienced? has 40 years of mystique to dig through. Where do we begin? The classic rock radio staples, the psychedelic freak outs, the down and dirty revisionist blues?

Qualifier: Let's start at the very beginning (a very good place to start). The introduction to "Purple Haze," the album's opening track, employs the tritone, also known as the diabolus in musica. By playing the root note and the flatted fifth, you create an ominous, discordant sound that, believe it or not, was once banned by the church for invoking demons or some such thing. And unlike some of the other famous uses of the tritone ("The Siiiiimmp-sooons!"), Hendrix never resolves the melody by going up to that natural fifth that your brain is expecting. The effect is jarring, and it's a good indication of why Hendrix's music is so well-regarded today.

What I'm trying to say is that in listening to this album anew for this Counterbalance, I was struck by how tightly constructed it all sounds. Hendrix is all over the place, but it never once sounds like he's out of control.

]]> F: Well look at you, diving into music theory and dropping knowledge bombs about tritones and Latin phrases. I didn't think I'd need to pull out the old college education but I guess I was wrong. My favorite example of diabolus in musica is Igor Stravinsky's "Rite of Spring." While it doesn't employ the aforementioned tritone, Stravinky's use of dissonance to shock the listener - removing them from their comfort zone and forcing their brain to interpret music that does not have a discernible pattern proved to be a musical landmark and helped solidify its popularity among the masses (after they rioted) - was the fore bearer to many modern rock bands. Hendrix updated Stravinsky's techniques with the guitar, using the tritone and wildly irregular, yet controlled compositions to shock the listener, forcing the brain to work a little harder and ultimately leading them down a path of musical exploration the likes they have never heard.

And now that I've used up all of my 10 cent words: Man, this Hendrix dude can shred some hot licks! Right?

Q: Bwwwowwwwwww...deedledeedledeedle... dyyyyyyoooooowwww!!! You got that right, man!

But on Are You Experienced?, it's pretty clear that Hendrix knows exactly what he's doing. It's one thing to play blues licks while a couple of wooly-headed Brits ply their psychedelic stylings behind you; but I'm surprised to be hearing a lot more composition and a lot less noodling than I was expecting after years away from this record.

So I'm glad you're backing me up on the whole idea that, on this album at least, Hendrix was in complete control. (You are backing me up on this, right? I have trouble with modern irony.) Hendrix has too often been painted as some sort of Wild Man of Borneo, and a few too many stoned, out-of-tune performance tapes have made that an unfortunate part of his legacy.

F: I've got your back, Q-man. Hendrix displays a precision and mastery of composition that has since been oft imitated but never rivaled. The noodling that, as you pointed out, which become part of his legacy, doesn't show up until a couple years down the road. On Are You Experienced? all of the songs are tight little nuggets of blues, rock and psychedelic pop. Hendrix managed to straddle all of those very different genres and he does it effectively without making it sound forced. That in itself is a serious accomplishment. Add in his guitar skills and you have the perfect storm. Why isn't this album number one on The List?

Q: Because that would make Brian Wilson cry.

Honestly, I think the wild man reputation has cost him in the long run. When Hendrix first showed up on the London scene in the mid-'60s, the pasty blues crowd had no idea what to do with him. Given the fact that he was black and American and he could play all of them under the table, there was definitely a sense of the Other about him.

And much as I hate to do this, I'm going to have to play the race card here. There was a tendency among these supposedly enlightened flower children to depict Hendrix as a Noble Savage, compared with the "meticulous virtuosity" of his Anglo counterparts. Subtext, my friend - read an interview with Clapton or Townshend and you'll get the idea.

F: That's a bit disheartening but it helps validate my dislike of hippies and The Who.

Adding to Hendrix's reputation is the fact that he was also one of the greats who was felled by drug abuse, fueling a legacy that might not loom as large had he been alive to put Electric Lady Studios to good use. But then his early accomplishments may have been overshadowed by decades worth of records full of nothing but guitar noodling.

Now I feel like I've lost my way. All this talk is heavy, man! Racism, drugs, untimely deaths and pasty little Brits who fear the Other. This isn't the kind of experience I'm looking for. I'm going to put on "Manic Depression" and turn it up as loud as I can right when he hits that hellacious guitar solo.

Q: Yes, the eternal question - what if they had lived? Hippies, bless their simple little souls, tend to operate under the assumption that their fallen heroes would have continued to create brilliant music, each album more paradigm-shifting than the last.

Short answer, although I'm sure we'll elaborate on it over the course of the next 2,988 albums, is that they would have had careers. Much like the ones who survived, they would have made terrible records (probably in the '80s) and would have continued to make boutique records for their fans, followed by reasonably lucrative greatest hits tours. Jimi Hendrix, having made a series of ill-advised disco-jazz fusion albums in the '70s, followed by more traditional blues records in the '80s, would surely be in approximately that place now. In fact, I'll bet those records might actually be pretty good, although his embarrassing mid-period would have made them a tough sell to today's snark-fueled youth.

F: I imagine that Hendrix's mid-70s disco-jazz fusion discs would sound a lot like the Mahavishnu Orchestra. But I would have loved to hear some more traditional blues records from Hendrix. His take on the blues was magnificent, the Jimi Hendrix: Blues and Martin Scorsese Presents compilations are stellar. Hendrix always seemed more suited to the blues - he could write a great pop song but didn't have the vocal chops to pull it off.

Q: Right, for all his mod trappings, Hendrix was pretty fully steeped in tradition. He played on the Chitlin' Circuit, backing up all the guys at whose altar the British musicians worshiped. And really, he brings this traditionalism to bear throughout Are You Experienced? There are R&B and blues licks all over this record, and they never once sound inauthentic.

In fact, might I suggest that this album is at its least effective the further he strays from this tradition? I don't know for sure that "Third Stone from the Sun" is going to be a go-to track for me, unless I've been into those funny brownies Dave from Accounting brought to the last Counterbalance Christmas party. (I didn't think I'd ever get out of that bean bag chair!)

F: If you think Dave's brownies are good you should try the Kool-Aid he makes. Transcendentally refreshing.

This one is going to end with us patting each other on the back while complimenting the other's good looks and sharp wit. Your assesment is dead on. Hendrix took blues to the next level, setting the bar so high that no one will ever be able to match it.

Q: Well, yes, having arrived at the bold statement that a well-regarded album is in fact quite good, I think we can now begin the long, arduous process of congratulating ourselves profusely. Nice tie, by the way.

Although I am concerned with the idea that no one will ever match Hendrix's contribution to the blues. Of course, now that the blues has largely become party music for drunken middle-aged white people, the damage may well be done. Still, I'd like to think that someone somewhere will find yet another new way to approach this venerable music and make us all listen with fresh ears. Say, what's that John Mayer kid been up to lately?

F: I'm sorry, I just threw up in my mouth a little bit. I tend to do that whenever anyone mentions John Mayer.

I think the sad reality is the blues will never get any better with out Hendrix. Over the last 40 years they've devolved into a simulacrum of what Joe the Plumber thinks blues music should sound like.

Q: Well, that is a drag. If only there were some form of music that would crystallize my sad feelings, perhaps involving a 12-bar chord progression and an AAB lyrical structure.

Never mind, I guess. At least we have this fine LP to remind us of what could have been.]]> Counterbalance: Highway 61 Revisited tag:www.elarceny.com,2010://1.277 2010-04-08T15:45:10Z 2010-04-08T16:07:24Z 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... Fresh http://www.elarceny.com 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?
 
Bob Dylan makes a return appearance on the Big List with 1965's Highway 61 Revisited. Bob's second LP since going electric, the album features his best-known tune "Like a Rolling Stone" and has been a hallmark of college English classes for 45 years. But are those tweedy eggheads introducing young people to the Lord Byron of our time or polluting students' minds with a lot of liberal claptrap? There is, of course, no middle ground. But our intrepid Counterbalancers will do their best to navigate their way along Highway 61 Revisited.
 highway61.jpg
Qualifier: Well, well, well... look who's back, Fresh. It's your old arch-nemesis Bob Dylan! This time, though, I think you'll find that the tables have turned. This isn't the logy, substance-addled Bob that you summarily dismissed a few weeks ago. This is the lyrically focused, razor-sharp, other-substance-addled Bob you're dealing with. And I challenge you to find fault with this LP, my friend.
 
Fresh: I'm not even going to try to pretend to find fault. I like this album mostly because I like this version of Bob - the rest of them, not so much. Also, there is a whole lot less of Bob on Highway 61, which makes loving Bob that much easier. The one thing I will say: I still have no idea what he's talking about. That's not necessarily a bad thing but . . .
 
"And Ezra Pound and T.S. Elliot are fighting in the captain's tower, while Calypso singers laugh at them and fishermen hold flowers."
 
Seriously, Bob? WTF?!
]]> Q: Oh, honestly Fresh - it's like you're not even trying. Obviously Ezra Pound and T.S. Eliot are Dean Rusk and Robert MacNamara, the Calypso singers represent the Viet Cong and the fishermen are the Catholic Worker Movement. Any schoolchild can tell you that.
 
I'm not sure what you mean by a lot less Bob. You're pretty much carpet bombed by Bob's lyrics throughout this record, and even when you're not sure what exactly he's talking about, it's still a lot of fun listening to him go. I had forgotten how much fun Highway 61 really is.
 
F: Rusk, MacNamara and Cong? That's what that means? Suddenly the veil has been pulled back. I feel like I'm seeing the world clearly for the very first time. Also, at the next Counterbalance board meeting we need to establish a sarcasm font. I don't feel like I'm getting my point across with plain old Arial.
 
Comparatively, Highway 61 is a full half-hour shorter than Blonde On Blonde. And despite the fact that Highway 61 is one fun album, and it is, I can only take about an hour of Bob before his lyrical riddles turn from amusing to annoying.
 
"Your gravity fails and your negativity don't pull you through, don't put on any airs when your down on Rue Morgue Avenue."
 
Again, WTF?
 
Q: Ah, see now here, "gravity" is Barry Goldwater, while "negativity" refers to his running mate, Representative William E. Miller (R, N.Y.), whose Catholicism (the yin to Dylan's Judaic yang) was expected to help the Republican campaign in the post-Kennedy 1964. But Main Street America (the "Rue Morgue Avenue," as Dylan calls it in a delightful bit of mordant wordplay) wasn't having it. Their "hungry women really made a mess out of" the ticket. Sheesh - did you fall asleep in Dylanology 101, Fresh?
 
Seriously, though, I love the way Dylan toys with words, especially on this album. Was he trying to say something in some sort of code? Maybe at times, but I suspect that he was often just digging the way the language was flowing, and what that language could evoke.
 
Of course, when he's focused in his attack, he can be devastating, like on "Like a Rolling Stone" and especially "Ballad of a Thin Man." Yikes. I wouldn't want to be that guy.
 
F: Dylan definitely knows how to cut with his lyrics. And when its obvious, its very obvious. I think that's what gives the rest of his nonsensical lyrics so much weight. We spend a lot of time trying to decipher them because we know how pointed he can be, but all Bob has really done is performed an end-around on his listeners so that he could sneak off and do what ever it is Bob Dylan did in his free time. Meanwhile, our minds are stuck in a Chinese finger trap.
 
"Mailboxes drip like lampposts in the twisted birth canal of the coliseum."

C'mon, Bob! Really? Double WTF?!
 
Q: OK, this one's actually a little tricky. Here, the mailboxes are a clear reference to napalm, which soldiers would call "Lamppost Molly," for reasons that are sadly lost to the mists of time. And of course the twisted birth canal of the coliseum suggests the attempts to bring democracy to Southeast Asia. Condoleezza Rice was in fact slyly referencing the line when she described the 2006 anti-Hizballah campaign as the "birth pangs of the new Middle East." It's all out there, man . . .
 
Dylan has always messed with people's heads, to the point where even his simplest statements come across as hidden in plain sight. How many people have dedicated countless hours to studying "Ballad of a Thin Man," parsing each line for meanings and references, when it might well be little more than a gay panic dig at some guy who gave him the stink-eye in a restaurant?
 
Of course, the fact that Dylan's songs get people asking the questions in the first place is what keeps records like this alive, and it why he's ranked so highly in the pantheon.
 
F: Do you think he did it on purpose? Or was it just some serendipitous coincidence that people thought his lyrics meant something but he was just too stoned to set them straight? I imagine he slipped a few veiled references in here and there (I do it in Counterbalance all the time. Spread the purple jelly on the frisky biscuit), but do you think he stayed up at night thinking about ways to twist his words just to mess with our heads?
 
Q: What was in the briefcase in Pulp Fiction? What's with all the Esperanto in the OK Computer artwork? Young people love looking for hidden meanings and the 1960s were a perfect storm of artists stretching the boundaries of pop music and a vast audience of eager (and possibly high) young people. Some of the "clues" may have been accidental and some of them may be an intentional misdirection. A MacGuffin, if you will.
 
But I don't think Bob was ever especially interested in setting people straight, stoned or not. It's the post-Dylan singer-songwriters, your James Taylors and Joni Mitchells, who made the songs so inherently personal and specific. We may be trying to retrofit Dylan's lyrics into that template, and especially in this mid-'60s incarnation, that's really not going to work out so well.
 
F: The briefcase in Pulp Fiction contained the diamonds that were originally stolen in Reservoir Dogs. The diamonds were most likely cursed and resulted in  the death of whoever looked at them, including, coincidentally, the brothers Vic and Vincent Vega, played by Michael Madsen and John Travolta, respectively. And if I had to wager an educated guess, I'd say that Radiohead speak Esperanto because they seem like the kind of egg-headed nerds who would do something like that. These I can easily explain away. However, I have a harder time parsing Dylan . . .
 
"When all of your advisers heave their plastic, at your feet to convince you of your pain. Trying to prove your conclusions should be more drastic."
 
What the WTF?
 
Q: False. Ringo wouldn't have said "Is that what I think it is?" He knows what a big pile of diamonds is when he sees one. He also wouldn't have said "It's beautiful" if he were looking at a quantity of diamonds. He would have said "they're beautiful."  Also he doesn't get killed. Fact: the briefcase contained Marcellus Wallace's soul, which had been sucked out of the back of his head (hence the bandage in the scene with Butch). Everyone knows that, and to disagree is folly.
 
But you can't trick me with "Queen Jane Approximately." When everyone else turns their back on you because you weren't what they thought you should be, and when everyone's talking about you and second-guessing your motives, you can always come see Bob because he'd understand. Pretty self-explanatory and actually kind of sweet
 
At least that's my take. Your interpretation might be different, and I get the impression Dylan's OK with that.
 
F: Yeah, yeah - whatever you say about Dylan. Good stuff. But you are completely off base about Pulp Fiction.
 
1. How would Ringo know what a soul looked like?
 
2. You can say "It's beautiful," if you are looking at a quantity of diamonds. A pile of diamonds can be referred to in the singular especially if the you are referring to the group's beauty, not just the beauty of the individual diamonds making up the group. Also, said diamonds may or may not have been hot-glued into the shape of a woman in a semi erotic pose, therefore also satisfying Ringo's previous comments.
 
3. Jules decides not to kill Ringo and Honey Bunny because Jules, after his religious epiphany, has become an instrument of God there by nullifying the curse, allowing Ringo to view the diamonds and walk off unscathed to start a new life with Honey Bunny or star in a sub-par TV show on Fox.
 
Q: Ah, but Vince is killed by Butch after Jules quits and after he "nullifies" the curse. The soul in the briefcase is absolutely the only story that makes any sense, although I'm intrigued by your semi-erotic hot-glue jewelry pile. Please supply crude drawings on the back of a cocktail napkin. Also, "sub-par" and "Fox" is basically redundant.
 
But there you have it. Sweet, sweet misdirection. That's just how Dylan gets us every time, from going electric to releasing a Christmas album. The MacGuffin strikes again, and the Jokerman lives to fight another day. We'll be seeing him again real soon, too...]]> Counterbalance: Never Mind the Bollocks, Here's the Sex Pistols tag:www.elarceny.com,2010://1.276 2010-03-18T20:41:58Z 2010-03-18T21:03:49Z 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... Fresh http://www.elarceny.com 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?

Rounding out the Top 10 is the Sex Pistols' Never Mind the Bollocks, Here's The Sex Pistols, the album that helped launch a thousand ships - full of sailors who couldn't play an instrument to save their lives. The album laid the ground work for the punk revolution - which then gave way to post-punk, alternative, grunge and a myriad of other genres plus the countless bands that inhabit them. On the other hand, critics have lambasted the punk movement, especially the Sex Pistols, for placing more emphasis on style than on substance. Will Fresh and the Qualifier lambast? Or just baste in the rotten, rancid tunes? Never Mind the Bollocks, Counterbalance is next.
 Sex_PistolsNever_Mind_The_BollocksFrontal.jpg
Fresh: I appreciate what Never Mind the Bollocks did for music in general. That's probably the last nice thing I'm going to say about this album. How about you, Qualifier? Do you have any nice things to say about the Sex Pistols?
 
Qualifier: I went out of my way to really listen to Never Mind the Bollocks in preparation for this Counterbalance (unlike previous editions where I just had my manservant give me the gist of the record). I had no idea what to expect. Like many impressionable teens, I picked up the disc in a fit of youthful rebellion then put it aside when the demands of maturity (you know, like finals and stuff) made it seem a little silly.
 
Now here I am, a 41-year-old man with a wife and kids and a mortgage, waiting to see what this disc has to offer me. And at first I was pretty pleased with the overall adrenaline rush of "Holidays in the Sun." The guitars are crunchy, the tune clips along nicely, and overall it was quite pleasant. But after 35 minutes of being hectored by a barely coherent teenager, I was about ready to dig out some old Yes albums and pretend punk never happened.

]]> F: You made it through the whole thing? How many times? I can only stand about ten minutes of this and I made the mistake of starting over each time so I ended up listening to the first three songs a couple of times - and then I just gave up. Because I don't like this album. Even when I was a rebellious teenager I never liked this album. And I had some really bad taste in music back then.
 
But after working our way through the first nine albums on The List, I'm beginning to understand the reason behind these album rankings. It seems that a large part of an album's ranking depends more on the cultural effect than on the music. Which is not to say that cultural effect shouldn't be taken into account, but if you are going to compile a BEST ALBUMS OF ALL TIME list, I think it should focus more on the actual music and not the media blow back.
 
Q: Ah, but the critics have spoken, and the reviews have been overwhelmingly positive. Everyone from Rolling Stone and VH-1 to Pitchfork and The Anarchist have ranked it on their lists and it's appeared on lists from the UK to China. Meanwhile, the best I can muster up is that a few of the songs are sort of catchy - and you think it stinks outright. Either they're hearing something we're not or this is the greatest case of groupthink since the Bay of Pigs.
 
Maybe we should start by having you go into greater detail about what you dislike about Never Mind the Bollocks. It may prove illuminating.
 
F: I'm a firm believer of music as the message. Music for the sake of music. The pure artistic expression as the sole motive for music. Not that music can't have a message - the message is an important part. But it should be music first, message second. I'd maybe go as far as a fifty/fifty split. But the message should never outweigh the music.
 
The Sex Pistols were never about music - they were about the message. It was the message that got them attention, it was the message that made them famous and it was the message that inevitably brought them down. The message: "We're young, we're angry (but we don't know why) and we hate you (because our mothers didn't hug us enough)." Never Mind the Bollocks was just a byproduct of that message.
 
Take a quick look at the band's history. There were only two "real musicians" in the group; Johnny Rotten and Sid Vicious were brought in for their look. Strike one. The band then goes on to draw more attention for saying naughty words on live television than for the music they play. Strike two. And while the Sex Pistols may have galvanized the punk movement, paving the way for much more talented bands, they themselves had little in the way of talent. Strike three.
 
If I had to guess, I would attribute the Sex Pistols' universal popularity to the fact that most music geeks hate disco and most of the people who did like disco either rode the white pony for too long or ended up in middle management and now can't be bothered to listen to any music, let alone write about it.
 
Q: When you separate the Pistols from their myth - a myth that was largely created after the fact by Malcolm McLaren - the album that you're left with isn't terrible. I'll say it's a serviceable rock album with a few catchy hooks and some pretty solid songs. It's just hard to hear what the fuss is all about.
 
But that myth is the most frustrating thing about listening to Never Mind the Bollocks. You can't escape the awareness that you're listening to one of THE GREATEST ROCK ALBUMS EVER MADE, and you also can't escape the feeling that it so clearly isn't.
 
F: No, nowhere close. And using the word "great," in any of its conjugations, as an adjective to describe this record is a gross misuse of the English language. Unless its something like, "I'm greatly disappointed by this record and all of the music nerds who consider this "music" to be worthy of praise."
 
Don't defend Never Mind the Bollocks. It's OK if we both dislike it. Give in to the dark side. Let's just pan it, chalk up it's popularity to rampant drug use, vow never to listen to it again and move on down the list. I hear the next guy on the list actually knows how to play his guitar.
 
Q: But the myth, Fresh, the myth! The idea that rock and/or roll is supposed to about inchoate teenage rebellion, smashing the state, sticking it to the man, punching people who use words like "inchoate!" The Sex Pistols were all about that. They totally destroyed everything that came before them and nothing was ever the same again! They rinsed their feet in Jethro Tull's lemonade, man! They were the flowers in our dustbin! The flowers! In our dustbin!
 
Whew. I'm tired. And a little dizzy.
 
F: They were a couple of young punks with bad teeth and even worse musical sense. If they hadn't had a shyster manager/cat wrangler pushing them from one open microphone to the next, they would have never amounted to jack squat because they were too stupid to work the system for themselves. I appreciate what they did for music but not what they did to the music.
 
You argue message and I counter with music. This could go on all night . . .
 
Q: Well, I'm willing to call this one, but make no mistake this is an argument we'll be revisiting again and again, given the rich back catalog that is the Sex Pistols' true legacy.
 
F: Oh, the inchoate irony!

]]> Counterbalance: London Calling tag:www.elarceny.com,2010://1.275 2010-03-05T20:34:32Z 2010-03-05T20:59:16Z 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... Fresh http://www.elarceny.com 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 number nine album on the Big List was released in December 1979 and still managed to get called the best album of the '80s. Was it truly a spoiler for an entire decade, or was Rolling Stone just so coke-addled by that time that they lost count? Find out as Counterbalance offers up the right profile of the Clash's London Calling.

london.jpgQualifier: Well, Fresh, this marks the third double album in a row here at Counterbalance. Once again, the rockist love for the grandiose statement carries the day. Are you feeling fatigued? Aggravated? A little too eager to drop the word "sprawling" into the review?
 
Fresh: There are so many different ways I could go with this but for right now, I'm going to stay on topic: I'm sick of the double disc. Also, "sprawl" is a great vocab choice. I'm going to use it in a sentence. The Clash's London Calling is an epic, sprawling disc that will leave you sprawled out on the floor as your mind tries to wrap itself around the sprawl of genres this British band touches on in the course of an hour plus. That last use of "sprawl" might be a bit questionable, but I challenge you to use it in one sentence three times.
 
My problem with the double album is that they go on too long. While my writing may not always reflect the following statement, I'm a firm believer that if you can say something in three words, there is no reason to write an entire paragraph. I think the same thing applies to music. If you had sent London Calling to the chopping block and came back with a solid 40-minute record, would it be any less great?
 ]]> Q: Sure, you could make a brilliant 40-minute album out of the tracks on London Calling. But then it wouldn't be London Calling. I'd be hard pressed to find a wasted moment on the album.
 
Would The Godfather have been better without that whole bit where Michael goes to Sicily? I reckon it depends on what you're trying to do. If you're looking to get from Point A to Point B, then you need to keep the plot moving. But at its best, a double album can be as much about the journey as it is the destination.
 
F: I think there is a fundamental difference between trimming a few tracks from London Calling and cutting a large part of the story arc out of one of the best movies ever made. But then, the relationship I have with The Godfather is much deeper than my relationship with London Calling. I think we may have reached an impasse, in which case I will simply change the subject and blame The Clash for the mid 1990s resurgence of horrible ska music. And I should know because I listened to a lot of bad ska bands in my younger days.
 
Q: Yeah, I thought that Godfather thing might get your goat, but I stand by my point. The generation of mooks who hang Godfather posters up in their dorm rooms right next to Scarface and the Swedish Bikini Team is looking for forward plot movement and general bad-assery. I'm sure they think of the Sicily scenes as a chance to pee and grab another Bud Light. You can make London Calling (or Exile on Main St. or the White Album) into a non-stop hit machine, but in the end you're missing out.
 
And blaming Reel Big Fish on the Clash is like blaming Led Zeppelin for Warrant. I think someone's looking for reasons not to accept London Calling as one of the greatest albums of all time (in fact, depending on my mood, I'm tempted to call it the greatest). Why, Fresh, why?
 
Why?
 
F: I am trying as hard as I can to find a reason to dislike London Calling. Here's why:
 
           "Q: London Calling is a great album. Maybe the greatest of all time."
                                   
           "F: I concur. Truly stupendous in my book."
 
           "Q: Yes. Uh . . . now what?"
 
           "F: Let's go get a taco."
 
That's, why, Qualifier, that's why. I have nothing but time to kill today and if I just agreed with you I'd spend the rest of the afternoon eating tacos, which I would end up regretting tomorrow. And I can totally blame the Clash for Reel Big Fish (among others) because greatness usually inspires sub-par imitation. And if I can't blame the Clash for RBF, who can I blame? Who?
 
Q: You mean to tell me that we could be eating tacos right now if you weren't so hell-bent on being contrarian? Jeez.
 
I see your point anyway, although I prefer to blame Madness for that third wave ska nonsense. But now that we've gotten past the initial awkwardness of basically agreeing, I think it's important to take a look under the hood of this thing and see just why it works so well. After all, this marks a great leap forward for the band, whose first two albums only hinted at the breadth of songwriting they'd bring to fruition here.
 
F: There is a lot going on here. A lot - a lot. It's almost overwhelming trying to wrap your head around it. Where do you want to start? The genre-bending blend of rock? The stellar lyrical content? The fact that it goes one for more than an hour and spans two discs? Oh, wait, we already talked about that.
 
Q: How about the way it basically signaled the death knell for punk? The same group who had been so bored with the U.S.A. and calling for an end to the Elvis-centric view of rock 'n' roll were now embracing rock heritage - or at least the things that made it cool in 1979. They started touring with Bo Diddley and Lee Dorsey, and that rootsier sound had a huge impact on their music. The standard issue U.K. punk sound must have seemed a bit pedestrian, and it wasn't like Sham 69 was going to all of a sudden up their game.
 
Not to put too much on a single album - there were probably a lot of signals that this schism was about to occur - but it seems to me that this marks the period where you were either going to get bigger picture or move toward the more dogmatic sound of hardcore. History's been a lot kinder to the widescreen approach of the Clash.
 
F: So by my fuzzy math, punk only got two years? The Sex Pistols released Nevermind The Bollocks - Here's The Sex Pistols (which, coincidentally, is next on the list - much to my chagrin) in 1977 to break the movement across the mainstream consciousness and then in 1979, the Clash killed punk by showing the jaded, mohawked geezers that there was more to music - like knowing how to play your instruments, being able to string together a melody and having enough of a grasp of the English language to write some meaningful lyrics. Does that make sense? Oi?
 
And while Sham 69 didn't bother to up their game, they are still touring.
 
Q: And more power to 'em, really. But yeah, punk is/was like any movement - it was bound to splinter eventually, and given its already volatile nature, and the fact that punks were mostly bratty teenagers and grown men who acted like bratty teenagers, it was going to happen pretty quickly. The Clash took a lot of guff almost from the beginning when they signed to CBS. And for all their talk in "Death or Glory" about keepin' it real, they bought into the rock star mythos in a pretty big way. Mick Jones played it for all it was worth (and now resembles a Dickensian mortician possibly as a result), while Joe Strummer recognized its power as a bully pulpit. But in "selling out," they very nearly beat the machine at its own game.
 
F: It's pretty hard not to sell out in the music business, especially when you attain your goal of playing music for a living. Music fans, mostly those in the underground, feel a personal connection with their favorite bands and think mass attention is an a front to themselves and the band they "helped" create. Achieving any measure of success will be ultimately be viewed by some as "selling out," even if the musicians are barely making a livable wage. I think I remember Green Day complaining about this same situation. Unfortunately, them selling out didn't hamper their popularity in the slightest.
 
Q: Well, that's kind of the point of selling out, isn't? Sacrificing your cred among a bunch of geeks who were probably going to throw you over anyway so that you can have the fleeting adoration of a bunch of rubes and sorority sisters who'll still throw you over - but in the process you get a really nice house.
 
At any rate, history is still written by the winners, which is why the Clash are in the Rock and Roll Hall of fame and Sham 69 are arguing over who ate the last fishstick.]]> Counterbalance: Exile on Main St. tag:www.elarceny.com,2010://1.274 2010-02-22T16:53:14Z 2010-07-14T04:48:47Z 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... Fresh http://www.elarceny.com 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?
 
In 1972, the world's biggest rock band was holed up in a rickety mansion in the South of France, writing an epic love letter to the American music they loved. The result is now hailed as their masterwork. But can any album live up to the accolades that the Rolling Stones' Exile on Main St. has received? Fresh and the Qualifier separate the fever from the funk house - now!

exile-on-main-street-front.jpg Qualifier: Ah... that opening riff... the salacious "Oh yeaahhhh..." that sweet, sweet groove... Truly, my friend, I think you'd be hard pressed to find a better side one/track one tune than "Rocks Off" from the Rolling Stones' Exile on Main St. And from there the rock just keeps coming, for 67 glorious minutes. I'm not gonna lie to you Freshy - Exile is quite possibly my favorite album of all time.
 
Fresh: You forgot the mention the horns, man, the horns! I'm going to get this out of the way as quick as I can - my first run in with the Rolling Stones was Mick Jagger's appearance in Freejack, which came at a precarious time in my musical development and pretty much turned me off of the band until many years later. Conversely, it was David Bowie's performance in Labyrinth that turned me on to his music. Go figure. Regardless, I climbed on the Rolling Stones bus just a couple years ago, but I love what they've done to and for the American blues.
]]> Q: I'm glad to hear that the damaging effects of Freejack were only temporary. From the synopsis on Wikipedia (which, by the way, is nearly 750 words long), it sounds like it could have been quite scarring. I, of course, didn't see it, because I have the sense God gave a billy goat.
 
No matter, though, Exile on Main St. is unassailable, and anyone who says different probably listened to the record incorrectly. Perhaps they were vacuuming while they were listening to it, or they were on the phone with their mother. Perhaps the CD was in the player upside-down. I don't know, but I do find it interesting that one person who refuses to give Exile its due is none other than Mick Jagger. I find that quite telling indeed.
 
F: Mick doesn't like it? Really? Did they have his microphone turned down too low or something? Not enough grooves for him to do his chicken dance? Wait, what am I saying? This is the guy who accepted a starring role in Freejack. His judgment appears to be questionable, at best.

What I find interesting about this album is it's lack of that one monster hit. The Rolling Stones have a stable of number one songs to rival any band but a cursory look through the song titles on Exile doesn't reveal anything the Regular-Joe Radio Listener would be able to belt out in a karaoke bar.
 
Q: No, there's no "Brown Sugar" or even a "You Can't Always Get What You Want" on this one, to cite Exile's two preceding albums. "Tumbling Dice" was apparently a top ten single when it was released, but it certainly doesn't get the Oldies radio treatment these days. And I've gone so far as to say it's the Stones' single greatest song. Just ask Mrs. Qualifier. She'll tell you I never shut up about that song.
 
If low vocals are a factor in Mick's dismissal of the album, he does have a point. His voice is buried in the mix; I think it gives the album a lot of its mystery and vibe. It's kept me listening raptly for about 25 years, and I still don't think I've sorted out all the lyrics.
 
Nice of the band to set side two apart as a sort of country bear jamboree for us, too. When I first picked this record up, I was maybe 13, and parts of this album seemed a little too dark and impenetrable, especially on the super-druggy second LP (never before have gospel grooves sounded so unseemly). Side 2 was perfect, though - just bawdy enough to titillate, but with an overall good-timey feel to it.
 
F: The vocals could be turned up - way up. It sounds like Mick is singing inside of a box off to one side of the stage. But I've noticed a lot of rock bands, especially some of the emerging groups, are employing this little trick. And I don't know if its because the producers don't know how to produce or if the band is just trying to hide the fact that the lyrics are derivative. But that's not really the case with Exile.
 
Q: No it's not. The lyrics as I understand them are some of their best - in fact, the entire band is firing on all cylinders here. Exile is reported to be something of a rag bag of songs that they hadn't gotten around to finishing over the previous few years. It's striking, then, how they were able to turn it into a pretty cohesive whole. And it's curious too that they did something similar with 1981's Tattoo You, which to my way of thinking was their last unqualified success as an album.
 
It seems the Stones, like a lot junkies, tend to leave stuff lying around. It's what they do with the bits and pieces when they tidy up that sets them apart.
 
F: Junkies who remember to clean up after themselves? Sounds unfathomable, but then Keith Richards is still alive, so stranger things have happened. I'm going to go off on a tangent real quick. I wish the Rolling Stones would stop touring. This is going to sound selfish and evil (because it is), but every time I see those walking skeletons gyrating on stage, I lose a little bit of respect for them.
 
I don't begrudge them their ability to do what they love and make money hand over fist doing it, but whatever happened to that old rock and roll maxim of "it's better to burn out quickly than fade slowly away?" What's more rock and roll than releasing a string of great albums and then going down in a fiery blaze because you snuck your pet monkey on to the plane, accidentally dosed it with LSD and it ended up biting the co-pilot because his yellow uniform makes him look like a gigantic banana thus causing the plane to crash on a deserted tropical island where the band and their groupies lived for three months trying to "repopulate" the world before they were all devoured by a mysterious smoke monster?
 
Q: Whoa, what've you been smoking? Co-pilots wearing yellow uniforms - now I've heard everything!
 
Honestly, though, I think the burn out/fade away dichotomy is such a rock cliché that I wonder if it really even applies anymore. The phrase was, after all, immortalized by a guy who's now in his 60s and still making intermittently quality music. And there are plenty of other examples of aging rock stars who still have the ability to compel. The main reason the Stones are little more than a touring cash grab, I suspect, is due to their own group dynamic.
 
In the past, Mick and Keith have shifted the power between them as their own personal lives/problems dictate (Exile is a Keith album, Some Girls is Mick's). Now that there's less pressure on them to remain creatively fertile, they can shift the blame for their lack of "relevance" onto one another. And lord knows Ronnie's not going to upset the applecart.
 
But no matter what level of self-parody they may reach, no matter how much Mick may resemble the Incredible Mr. Limpet, no matter how silly Keith looks in his Flashdance-era t-shirt and bejeweled hair, Exile on Main St. is the reason why pop culture nerds like us award lifetime passes.
 
F: And so long as Mick doesn't make a Freejack II, that pass will remain in good standing.
]]> Counterbalance: Blonde on Blonde tag:www.elarceny.com,2010://1.273 2010-02-04T20:20:02Z 2010-04-01T17:36:36Z 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... Fresh http://www.elarceny.com 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?

Robert Allen Zimmerman is a man of many faces and many names. As Bob Dylan he created Blonde on Blonde, album number seven on our great list, and cemented himself as the songwriter among a generation of songwriters. Dylan's music has been dissected every which way from Sunday. Can it stand a little bit more? Fresh and the Qualifier step into the ring with Bob Dylan's Blonde on Blonde.
 
blonde.jpgFresh: Q-Man, I'm about to commit blasphemy. I like Dylan. But I don't love Dylan. When it comes to Dylan, given my druthers, I'd rather listen to Highway 61 Revisited. When it comes to music in general, given my druthers, I'd probably choose to listen to something other than Dylan. Is there something wrong with me? Did I just cash a one-way ticket to music critic hell?
 
Qualifier: I'm glad you said that, Fresh. It's true that your abject blasphemy has most certainly earned you a place in rock critic hell (move over, guy from Entertainment Weekly). And while I'm sorry about that, I must thank you for blunting the force of my own transgression - I don't think Blonde on Blonde is anywhere near Dylan's best album, and I wish the criticerati would take a breath from their incessant fawning over it.
]]> F: I have to tell you, that's a huge load off my shoulders. I thought there was something wrong with me - like I had gone insane but I was the only one who knew I was insane and if I opened my mouth everyone would realize I was insane and I would be institutionalized. Please, don't have me put away, I just don't get it. I don't get Zimmy in general but the position of Blonde on Blonde on the list befuddles me.
 
In an effort to understand this album I went out and read reviews on it until my eyes started to bleed. To keep a long, boring and bloody story very short - I came away with the impression that everybody was reading a little too far into this record. Which leads me to ask, is everybody reading into Dylan a little too far as well?
 
Q: Short answer, no. Dylan's lyrics do work on a number of different levels, and when he's on fire he's pretty much the best there is. I think people get hung up on the idea that his lyrics need to be deciphered, and when you crack the code they'll reveal the mysteries of the universe, the meaning of life and a few new tasty ways to cook chicken.
 
Most of what Bob has to say, once he got away from his protest period, is couched in riddles and wordplay. A lot of it's left up to you to sift through what sounds like gobbledy-gook to find the words that resonate with you. I find quite a bit of that on Blonde on Blonde, even at different points within the same song.
 
F: I don't understand anything that Bob has to say. Also, I don't like to work when it comes to listening to music. The only thing I want to "sift" for is gold or precious gems - not for the nuggets of wisdom hidden underneath the mounds of Bob's gobbledy and gook. Since we both agree that this isn't Dylan's best record, can we talk about why it's in the Top Ten? Musically, there's nothing outstanding aside from the de/reconstruction of the blues. Lyrically? Well . . .
 
I don't see anything revolutionary here. No sea change, no redefinition. Why is it here? Why number seven?
 
Q: Ooh, I really have to disagree with when you say that there's not a lot going on musically. By combining acoustic and electric sounds, plus pop and blues structures, Blonde on Blonde does in many ways form the basis for much of the roots rock that came after. Dylan's gift for melody is all over this record ("I Want You," "Just Like a Woman," "4th Time Around"), too, and I maintain that it's his ability to create great melodies that set his songs so far apart. The fact that we're able to discern them through his, uh, unconventional voice is testament to that.
 
But why is Blonde on Blonde at number seven instead of, say, Highway 61 Revisited? Critics like big statements. The ability to create a rockin' Guernica, a pop War and Peace - that's considered the pinnacle of the rockmaster's art.
 
F: Ah ha! Looks like I hit a nerve. I also forgot to mention that I think Bob Dylan is fugly and probably smells funny.
 
Honestly, though, I still don't see it. But I think it's because Bob Dylan permeates everything. Dylan is the sugar of the music world. Before sugar, people really didn't know how great food could taste. When sugar first made it to the western world, people flipped. It was sweet (before that the only flavors they had were salty, bitter and cheesy), it made everything better and by making everything better, it changed the world. But today, sugar is in everything, and no one cares or notices. It has gotten to the point where escaping sugar is almost impossible.

And that's the way I feel about Bob Dylan. The only way to quantify Dylan is to find the absence of Dylan. And I've never been able to find the absence of Dylan. At least not in good music, any way. Try sifting through that simile.
 
Q: Now that's some quality similizin', Fresh, and 100% accurate as well.
 
Part of the reason why I don't often reach for Blonde on Blonde when I'm looking for some Dylan can be chalked up to the sequencing of the album. First you've got the actually pretty annoying "Rainy Day Women #12 & 35," then there's the kind of plodding "Pledging My Time." After that you get "Visions of Johanna," which could have been one of Dylan's greatest songs ever if anyone had bothered to teach the bass player the chord progression (really, once you start listening for fluffed notes, it's all you can hear).

You're three quarters of the way through the first side before its first unequivocal success, the soaring "One of Us Must Know." After that, it's pretty much strength to strength, but that first 15 minutes can be a bit of a slog.
 
F: It's funny that you say that because on my recent trips through this album I too have been skipping past the first three songs. And I feel a bit conflicted about doing that. For me, a top ten album is a record that you should be able to listen to straight through, first note to last, with out even thinking about skipping around. But then, there is a lot of album here, cutting out those first three songs still leaves the listener with a solid hour of Dylan's jibber-jabber, more than enough for anyone. I think I'll amend my iTunes library and make Dylan work for me, not the other way around. He'd be down with that, right?
 
Q: Bob is more than willing to work for you these days, from amending your iTunes library to everyday yard work. He's really mellowed in recent years. He might not even mind you calling his magnum opus "jibber-jabber."
 
I'll be interested to see how your Bobophobia plays out as we make our way through this list - he's on here no fewer than 23 times.
 
F: Ohhhh, mama . . .
]]> Best of the Decade - The Top 10: #1 tag:www.elarceny.com,2010://1.272 2010-01-29T16:50:26Z 2010-01-29T16:55:33Z I can still recall with absolute clarity the day I first heard Radiohead's Kid A. In early 2000 there had been some rumblings on the infant Internet about a new Radiohead album. Whispers that Kid A might be wholly different... Fresh http://www.elarceny.com I can still recall with absolute clarity the day I first heard Radiohead's Kid A. In early 2000 there had been some rumblings on the infant Internet about a new Radiohead album. Whispers that Kid A might be wholly different from what had come before. These rumors proved true as I had managed to score some demo songs from Napster about three months prior to the album's release date. The demos were rough, missing the final production that would flesh out the songs, that proverbial bolt of lightning to bring them to life. I was weary of what may come, how could they top OK Computer? Were the boys of Oxford really forsaking their guitars for electronic noise? Was Radiohead on the verge of committing career suicide?

For the past three years, Radiohead had been arguably the biggest band on the planet as OK Computer racked up critical and commercial acclaim at every turn. It may not have been the biggest seller from 1997 to 2000 but where OK Computer lacked in units sold Radiohead put the boy bands and the teeny boppers of that era to shame with unwavering credibility and pure musical talent.

Despite what I knew about Radiohead and the few advance demos I had found, nothing prepared me for what I heard as I drove away from Finder's on that crisp, clear fall morning. The guitars were not completely gone but at the forefront were indeed electronics, a cornucopia of soundscapes as Radiohead dismantled and then reconfigured rock music in their own image, releasing a bleak, heartfelt record that was at once obtuse yet an astute reflection of our modern world.

In the decade since, Radiohead grew even bigger, releasing three more albums and remaking the music industry's business model with their self-released In Rainbows, offered for download directly from the band's Web site for any amount the consumer wanted to pay. In 2015, the band will celebrate its 30th anniversary, so after leaving an indelible mark on the last two decades, what will Radiohead have in store for the next one?  ]]> Counterbalance: Whats Going On tag:www.elarceny.com,2010://1.271 2010-01-20T19:24:46Z 2010-01-20T19:36:42Z 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... Fresh http://www.elarceny.com 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?
 
At number six on the list , Marvin Gaye's What's Going On has been called the best soul album of all time. But is it truly "right on" or maybe a little bit "jive"? Counterbalance finds out what's happening, brother.
 
gaye.jpgQualifier: Aah... there's nothing like relaxing on a pillowy cloud of soulfulness for a half-hour or so to settle the old nerves, eh Fresh? I feel like a new man.
 
Fresh: Q-Man, you nailed it. I had no idea what I was missing. I mean, I'm familiar with Marvin Gaye - who isn't? But I never spent anytime with his albums and if it weren't for this little endeavor we've embarked on, I don't think I ever would. And, oh what I would have been missing!
 
I have a very limited knowledge of soul music, but it seems to me that there is something a little bit different about this album compared to the soul albums that had come before it. Shed a little light on this for me.
]]> Q: Well, I'd say the main thing is that What's Going On is one of the few soul albums of its time that was constructed as an album first and foremost. Up until the late 1960s, soul was almost exclusively a singles genre. LPs were generally a few hits scattered among a handful of covers and lesser tracks. But the advent of serious rock writing gave a few artists a new perspective by the end of the decade. After blowing the hippies' minds at Monterey Pop, Otis Redding was starting to get big picture about his work, but his death seemed to set things back for a couple more years.
 
Ironically, the big breakthrough happened at Motown, a label that had kept its artists under pretty tight control. Maybe Berry Gordy was preoccupied with the move to L.A., the grooming of the Jackson 5, and the shtupping of Diana Ross, but he seemed unusually willing to cede territory to budding auteurs such as Stevie Wonder and, of course, Marvin Gaye.
 
But I take it from your response that What's Going On is to your liking, my funky friend?
 
F: I likes. But with my known predilection for pop music, does that come as a surprise? Gaye packed What's Going On with vocal harmonies, melody to spare and beats - oh those beats! For a closet pop freak, this is music to my hears - literally. It's just a bit more sophisticated.  
 
But on a higher level, I love the raw emotion in this album. At the surface, this album could soothe any savage beast but there is so much anger buried in Gaye's lyrics as he rages against the system, bemoaning the plight of the under privileged and unemployed, calling for equality in a country where equality should reign supreme but seldom does.
 
Q: It's the sweetness of the music that turns the anger and confusion into a beautiful melancholy, which makes all the difference. Would even the most enlightened rock critics, let alone the average AM-radio listener, been as willing to listen to an ecological diatribe, a position paper on the state of the inner city and a bit of Christian sermonizing if it hadn't been wrapped in such an attractive package? Marvin Gaye had learned the lessons of Motown and taken them to the next level here.
 
F: This album is deep, no question. And there's no argument that Gaye pushed soul to a different level, but does this record deserve its top ten status? Was it a game-changer? Or did it achieve its status simply as a sum of its parts? Does Great Soul Music + Social Commentary = Top Ten Placement? Or is it the album's ability to transcend the decades and remain strikingly relevant to this day?
 
Q: I think you've tapped into something very important about rock critics, especially the first-wave boomer guys that initially embraced What's Going On. In order to qualify for this kind of rarified, Top-10-of-all-time air, a soul album would have to meet them on their terms, talking about war, drugs and other stuff that the "heads" could "dig"--preferably by using their own groovy lingo in the process. But none of that's Marvin Gaye's fault, and it doesn't diminish how great this album is.  
 
Those of us who first heard What's Going On on CD, though, missed out on something pretty terrific--the Side 1/Side 2 shift. Notice how the tension builds throughout those first few songs, and then climaxes with "Mercy Mercy Me (The Ecology)." That's a whole different experience when the needle lifts instead of just shifting into the more laid-back grooves of Side 2.
 
F: The subtleties of vinyl are a lost art, my friend. Why write in cursive when you can just dash off a quick TXT full of LOLs? At least with CDs you could get the occasional "hidden track." These days it's just MP3s. Finding a message in the meta data just doesn't have the same effect.

No matter the format, Gaye's music seems to have remained as relevant as the day it was written, much more so than the first five albums on the list. It has a timeless quality, probably because humanity is still struggling with the same problems Gaye so eloquently addresses.
 
Q: Wait, you haven't been writing these in cursive? I thought we agreed that we'd draw these up in longhand and then leave them with Betty who'd transfer them over to cyber format so they can go on the Web site. I mean, Betty's been with Counterbalance ever since our grandfathers founded this operation! I'm all for this "new media" you're always on about, but procedures are procedures, Fresh.
 
If Marvin Gaye were alive today, he'd surely be addressing issues just like these (that is, when he wasn't once again stressing the need to "get it on").
 
F: What are you prattling on about? All of my missives are first written in shorthand, edited and transferred to longhand and then mailed first class to Betty for transcription - how they make it to you or "online" for that matter, I haven't the foggiest (I hear it has to do with a series of tubes). In my opinion, if the written word isn't printed in a nice, neat typeface or inscribed in flowing cursive lettering, it isn't worth reading (That's why Mrs. Fresh won't send me to the store with a grocery list. I never come home with anything she has written on it). I was merely bemoaning the loss of culture that extends from the physical act of flipping a vinyl record to the eye pleasing curls of the King's longhand.
 
Gaye didn't really address "getting it on" on this record, which I found surprising considering singing about "getting it on" is what he is most famous for.
 
Q: Very well then--I'd hate to think that fine quill pen I got you for Founder's Day had gone to waste.
 
It's interesting to me that although he's become known for What's Going On, Gaye never really returned to the social issues that he visited on this album. In that regard, he has much in common with John Lennon, whose own "peace period" was relatively short lived (about two and a half years, in Lennon's case). I suspect that the rock star excesses of the '70s had a lot to do with both artists abandoning their lofty goals.
 
F: It is much easier and much more fun to sing about getting it on than it is trying to bring the nation's attention to the suffering around them. Because, in the end, who would listen to music if it didn't provide some sort of escape from our social ills? Listening to someone harp on me about racial equality and the environment gets old pretty quick. Where as listening to someone singing about getting it on will never get old.
 
Q: Yeah, no matter how pillowy the clouds of soulfulness are, eventually you're going to want to get back to getting it on.
 
Mm-hmmm...
 
Excuse me, I need to call my wife.]]> Best of the Decade - The Top 10: #2 tag:www.elarceny.com,2010://1.270 2010-01-18T21:04:08Z 2010-01-18T21:08:10Z Fresh http://www.elarceny.com z.jpgFor a solid month in the fall of 2005 I was completely infatuated with My Morning Jacket's Z.  I made several posts about the album's greatness. Here, here and here. And then it got to the point where the voice of Jim James, the lead singer of My Morning Jacket, was beginning to tell me to do evil, malicious things, at which point I forced myself to put the album down for a while, mostly for the safety of those around me. Once I was able to regain my self-control I returned to the album and found that I was not suffering from some, delusional mental break - My Morning Jacket's Z was indeed a fantastic album, but there was no reason for me to listen to it over and over again for 18 hours a day.

Z marked an amazing shift in My Morning Jacket's music, away from the spacey, folky, reverb soaked tunes into more rocking territories. The band closed out the decade with 2008's Evil Urges, which was good but no where near to wonders they brought with Z. ]]> Best of the Decade - The Top 10: #3 tag:www.elarceny.com,2010://1.269 2010-01-18T20:59:46Z 2010-01-18T21:02:46Z The Black Keys are my Ohio homeboys. And for most of the last decade they have been releasing some stellar north Mississippi hill country inspired blues. There was The Big Come Up (2002), Thickfreakness (2003), Rubber Factory (2004), Magic Potion... Fresh http://www.elarceny.com The Black Keys are my Ohio homeboys. And for most of the last decade they have been releasing some stellar north Mississippi hill country inspired blues. There was The Big Come Up (2002), Thickfreakness (2003), Rubber Factory (2004), Magic Potion (2006) and Attack & Release (2008). Their musical trajectory over the last decade was about normal for two white guys who quit their day jobs of mowing lawn to tour the country in a hatch back and play beat up blues music. The first album was rough but showed potential, the second album was inspired, albums three and four were a bit of a let down before they recovered with the decade's final album. By the time the Black Keys released the DJ Dangermouse produced Attack & Release, the boys from Akron had built a solid name for themselves, cultivating a serious fan base with years of nonstop touring.

Out of all of the Black Keys' albums, I find Thickfreakness the most intriguing. It was much tighter than The Big Come Up yet they hadn't felt the need to widen their sound as they would on later releases. Thickfreakness was just a straight-ahead blues album, full of dirt and grit. Just a guitar and drums, bashing out the rock as Junior Kimbrough and R.L. Burnside would have intended it. ]]> Best of the Decade - The Top 10: #4 tag:www.elarceny.com,2010://1.268 2010-01-13T21:52:29Z 2010-01-13T21:56:52Z In the spring of 2006, Band of Horses released their debut album Everything All The Time, a lush and beautiful album full of southern-fried indie rock. Everything All The Time would become 2006's album-of-the-summer for me and has since entered... Fresh http://www.elarceny.com In the spring of 2006, Band of Horses released their debut album Everything All The Time, a lush and beautiful album full of southern-fried indie rock. Everything All The Time would become 2006's album-of-the-summer for me and has since entered heavy rotation whenever the weather warms. Here's the quick primer on the band, just so I don't feel like I'm plagiarizing myself. Everything All The Time is one of those albums best heard while driving around with the windows down on an early summer evening. Try it on for size this spring. You won't be disappointed. ]]>