Counterbalance: January 2010 Archives

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

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

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?

Number five on the list has become practically synonymous with Great Artistic Statements. But was Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band really the Beatles' Sgt. Pepper? A splendid time is guaranteed for all as Counterbalance figures it out.


 
Qualifier: Well, we've been told that Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band is the most important album ever and that it's over-primped, over-cooked and over-rated. It's an insubstantial tea-and-crumpets trifle that changed the face of rock forever.
 
Here's an illustrative example: In 1974, the UK magazine NME ranked Sgt. Pepper at number one on its Greatest Albums of All-Time. When they published a similar poll in 1985, the album didn't make the Top 100. Such is the duality of Sgt. Pepper.
 
Fresh: I understand the duality. Sometimes I would listen to Sgt. Pepper and be blown away, other times it would be a bit of a ho-hum affair. Listening to it again for this project, I'm slightly underwhelmed (on the upside, I'm listening to the remastered mono version of the album and it sounds completely different than I remember). But where did all the rock go?
 
Q: I picked up the stereo remaster a while back (and in fact yammered on about that over here), so I did recently experience a Pepper epiphany. It is one album, though, that I've so fully internalized that it took something as dramatic as the remastering to kick me out of my comfort zone.
 
But you can't find the rock? This is a statement that I find to be a bafflement.