David Bowie - Blackstar - (2016)

It's been an awful start to the New Year with regard to influential musicians.  The ending of last year was probably a horrible warning of things ahead, beginning with Scott Wieland, Natalie Cole, and Lemmy Kilmister.  Every single one of those musicians left such a mark in music as a whole, it's hard to actually conceive music moving ahead without each of them.  It's even more difficult to quantify what their best work was.  Each of them left us with something new and unforgettable.  Each of them defined their genre of music and kept evolving it.  All of them will be remembered for being larger than the music they created.

That brings us to 2016.  Believe it or not, the first album that I planned on buying and featuring here this year was David Bowie's 25th album, Blackstar.  With the dearth of musicians announcing their releases this year I had to go on faith that David Bowie wouldn't disappoint and delay his release.  After all, he hasn't released an album since 2013, and frankly I was shocked when I heard about this one over the summer.  I decided immediately that would probably be one of the biggest and best albums I could own, at that point, it became a matter of when it would be released.  Fast forward to Record Store Day light, (AKA Black Friday) when I found out the official release date would be David Bowie's Birthday, it was official.  Blackstar became the first David Bowie album that I ever bought on release day.  A distinction that I'm sure my parents couldn't even claim.  A good bunch of the 24 other releases Bowie has had over the years has managed to elude me while crate digging.  So to be able to get in on the ground floor of something I knew I literally waited my whole life for was so worth being one of the only people in the record store that morning buying that album.  The question is, was I waiting for this experience because of the music, David's talent, a release of an icon or all of the above?  The answer, at the time, was easy.  New music from someone that I knew I needed to have.  Now, a week later my reasoning has changed.  I knew I needed to have Blackstar on its release day because I knew I needed to have Blackstar on its release day.  That's all nothing more.  Turns out, it's one of the best decisions that I've made all year.  

Friday, November 17, 2015:  The first single, the title track was released and I had heard it for the first time on Satellite radio.  Blackstar, at first, wasn't immediately recognizable as something that David Bowie was even capable of.  I thought that it was an intro for something.  It was calm and haunting.  Not in a way that any of his other music was.  You see, David has had a way across 25 albums of evolving his sound so much that you would have a very difficult time placing what era a particular song of his was even released.  About 5 minutes into the song, something really interesting happens.  The entire song changes from haunting and ominous to something so fantastical, you would think that it came from the Labyrinth soundtrack.  It became hopeful and poignant.  Elements of jazz and funk invaded what was once something setting up to be a wall of sound in an experimental soundscape, to become a real complex hybrid of instruments and orchestrated brilliance. The remaining 4 minutes of the song became something special.  It became something that an entire album could be carried with.  This was a 9-minute teaser of what David could very well have been working on for the past 3 years.

Blackstar

Monday, December 14, 2015:  I posted here what would be for the final time of 2015.  I had made it up in my head to map out how I was going to begin the new year.  I was going to open with a New Years day post and follow it up with a release day vinyl pick of Lazarus on Friday, January 8th, David Bowie's birthday.  Somewhere in that post, I even remember suggesting that David's new album was one to be anticipated.  Hopefully, I made that point as clear as vinyl.

Thursday, December 17, 2015:  I had already made up my mind to buy this album after listening to the first single multiple times whenever it was on.  The 9-minute song is something of music past that I have long missed, and having one that was so good be so current was so worth waiting in your car to finish listening to before you went off to do whatever you were doing.  So on this day when his 2nd single was released, Lazarus, this was a complete surprise.  This sounded like classic Bowie set to Jazz.  The only visual I had in my mind was something akin to his 1999 album, Hours.  It reminded me of "Something In The Air".  It had the same pedigree, it began slow and solemn and over time built to something massive with so much emotion you actually felt better when it was over.  It was like a hype song without the rapping.  That was the vision of Lazarus with nothing more to go on than the radio.  It's a week before Christmas, and release date for this album can't get here soon enough.

Wednesday, January 6, 2016:  I elected to skip a New Years day post.  It would have been little more than a pointless Happy New Year to everyone with little substance.  Because of that, I was now investing all of my time pre-writing what was in my mind, the most anticipated record release in a long time.  In 2 days I would finally own a release day copy of an album, which up to this point, is incredible.  A lot of reviews had come in and this album sounded incredible.  For the first time, David Bowie made an entire album with a 4 piece Jazz ensemble. There were rumors of influence from hip-hop artists such as Kendrick Lamar.  This whole thing is building up to something real special.  Later this day I saw the video for Lazarus.  Suddenly the world changed.  Did I really just feel uncomfortable seeing David act like this?

Friday, January 8, 2016:  It's finally here.  I called Newbury Comics and had them hold a copy of the album for me, which they amazingly obliged, I was finally going to own this album.  The plan was to grab it, run home and finish the first post of 2016 with a bang.  I had been listening to the album all day on Spotify at this point, like someone listening to an album on their way to a concert.  I couldn't wait!    Unfortunately, I ended up working later than I thought, I didn't make it to Newbury Comics till just before they closed and I was consumed that whole weekend.  I was so frustrated with that, that I scrapped everything I had written up to then in advance of posting the album.  I thought, I'll listen to the album all weekend and do a Vinyl Monday post instead.   The more I listened to the album, the better it got.  I also watched Lazarus once more, this time, it became even more unsettling. 

Monday, January 11, 2016:  I was awoken at about 2 am by a friend of mine who simply asked if I had heard the news.  "What news?" I asked.  David Bowie had passed away late Sunday night.  Fast forward to 8 am, I couldn't believe it, still.  Over the past few days as more details came out about what he had been suffering from the past 18 months, and really listening to the lyrics of all of the songs on this album, I finally understood that this was his last album.  

It took a few days of listening to damn near all 25 albums and watching Labyrinth more times than I chose to admit to getting here.  This isn't the post that I wanted to make.  The original post was about how it took 24 albums for David Bowie to sound at peace with himself.  It would have talked about how through 25 albums, this one, Blackstar, was the first one that ever reached #1.  The post I wanted to write would have compared this album to Heathen, and Hours and contrasted with Earthling and Young Americans, (Frankly his best album).  I would have gone on at length about how David Bowie, more than any other artist was capable of remaining relevant.  His style, his music, his artistry, and everything else about him kept him in our minds.  Whenever an artist as unique as Bowie releases anything, it's a big deal.  That's what people look forward to, being first to see what comes next.  That's why it struck me as really strange...  Friday night January 8th when I picked up the album, I asked the clerk if they had sold out of the album.  She said no, they had plenty left.  I looked at her strangely, thanked her and went on about my night.  Why was I the only person in the store buying that album?

So here we are, a week after the release of Blackstar.  5 days after the death of David Bowie.  I can honestly say that owning what has become one of the single best records of my collection, has become one of the greatest albums in the history of music.   This beautifully packaged and presented final swansong of David Bowie was purchased at Newbury Comics on Newbury Street in Boston.  All 180gm of it and it came with a mp3 download code.  Own this album any way you can, and never stop till you find the rest of the Bowie that you'll come to love if this is your indoctrination to the incredible talent that David Bowie is.  With that, the video that defines his career.  Happy New Year.

RIP David Bowie.

Lazarus

Cyndi Lauper - So Unusual - (1983)

At some point between the mid 70's and the rise of what was then known as the WWF circa 1985, Cyndi Lauper went from fronting a group called the Blue Angel to managing in the first ever Wrestlemania, and putting out one of the 80's greatest synth-pop albums ever.  

When it comes to 80's music and it's popularity, there weren't too many musicians that couldn't pump out a song worth recording from the radio.  Ok, that's not a completely true statement, there were a bunch that you would have a difficult time trying to remember if you ever heard of them at all.  Not everyone can be as magical as Mick Smiley.  Cyndi Lauper's a curious case...  The Queens native was an accidental star.  She was discovered while singing for the outstandingly horrible group, Blue Angel as the lone star in that outfit.  Apparently her voice was the only bright spot there.  Think I'm kidding, do a Google search for them.  They were Apple Maps bad.  

Like any repressed artist should, Cyndi went for the solo career.  As such, she kinda hit it big.

Girls Just Wanna Have Fun

The first single released from this album, came about a month before the albums drop making it a late summer banger.  Matter of fact, that one song was so popular that it charted #2 on Billboard and that single alone was certified platinum.  This album actually set off a trend when it came to that anomaly.  Obviously a musician would want to tease you with their best work on their album so that based on the strength of that song or songs, you would go out and buy the album,  It's been going on since the beginning of time.  What makes this single on this record special is that it was the first of many singles from the album, and this single alone sold better than a lot of artists full length albums! That changed how important singles were to the success an album.  It also validated some musicians right to stop creating albums and just work on singles and videos, a horrible trend that hit it's stride in the 90's and is now quite the norm today.  Hell, this single was so big that at it's time, it was the most recorded single on FM radio.  (Hoover your mouse over that last part if you have no idea what I'm talking about,)  Then there was the 2nd single...

Time After Time

Three months after So Unusual was released, Cyndi's 2nd single, Time After Time landed. That one ended up spending 20 weeks on the charts, certified gold, and set up what I'm calling the first commercial song about masturbation ever, Single #3...

She Bop

As has been the history with Cyndi, this single charted for 18 weeks, again certified gold and at this point it's July 1984.  There's still 2 singles to go, and lots of good music out there.  Elsewhere in the music world at this point, Michael Jackson's Thriller was still in full swing having been released earlier in 1983, So Unusual was released up against The Police with Synchronicity.  Right when  She Bop was nearing it's run of air play, Prince popped up with an album I'm sure you may have heard of, Purple Rain.  So what does Cyndi do?  Releases single #4.

The single, All Through The Night, really slowed things down on the album.  Over time it became a standard for easy listening music or adult contemporary.  The coolest part about this song is while it didn't resonate quite the same way the previous 3 singles did, it showed her range as an artist.  Cyndi was able to go from power punk borderline riot grrl, to having a super soft persona.  It's kinda scary particularly considering the make up of the song.  Part of the reason that this song didn't become larger has everything to do with Prince and damn near every song from Purple Rain.  As a musician, you literally had to pay to get your music on the radio, and if you didn't hear Prince at least 4-6 times an hour, something was wrong with you.  That said, here we are over a year since So Unusual was released, and she's about to drop the 5th single.

Money Changes Everything came out in December of 1984.  

Money Changes Everything

That single, a cover of a 1978 song by the group, The Brains, was the downside of the album.  Money Changes Everything, while a great commentary on relationships and how money has a funny way of fucking them up, didn't do too much better than 27 on a lot of charts.  Curiously enough though, it was the 2nd in a series of easy listening songs that we would hear from this album.  Thinking that since there were only 10 songs on the album, why not make 1 more single or two?  

Cyndi went on to release 2 more singles into 1985.  Neither of them with the same degree of popularity of anything she had released prior.  That's not a problem seeing as though her next album, True Colors in 1986 will do just fine.  So unusual won her quite a few awards through it popular life span.  She won a Grammy for Best New Artist, and a MTV award for Best Female Video for Girls Just Wanna Have Fun. Cyndi is an outstanding activist as well.  Her work for and with the LGBT movement has kept her in the public eye through today.  If you're lucky enough to see her live these days, you'll see that she can still sing and her live shows are something to witness.  While she isn't as "punk" as she used to be, she can still power with the best of them.

I picked this original pressing up over at Replay Records in Hamden CT.  I highly recommend that if you're ever in the area that you check this place out.  He's got a great collection of R&B, well curated used Rock, and some of the most obscure soundtracks that you'll see in a used record store.

Next week, I may be in a period of transition, but I think I'll be dropping the needle on something really different.

Lana Del Rey - Honeymoon (2015)

I think I may have mentioned it once before, but I plan on revisiting a few super old posts from over a year ago when I was just making posts that consisted of a sentence or two and ending with a remark as to why you should own something on vinyl.  Fast forward to now where I have the same thing with videos and sound clips and about 10 paragraphs ending quite the same way.  (Perhaps I should consider a format change soon?)  Regardless, one of those old posts was Lana Del Rey's  (LDR) Ultraviolence from last year.  The reason that I need to revisit that post and others is, that I have a lot more to say about it that I just couldn't condense into a few sentences.  That said, here we are a year later with another album from LDR, that for different reasons is just as good as, if not better than Ultraviolence.  

At some point LDR figured that she was done with making new music and we almost never saw Ultraviolence.  At the time, given the experimental psychedelic indie rock I'm sure a lot of people felt the same way.  It would have been a career highlight that's for sure.  How was anyone to know that just a few months after the release of Ultraviolence that she would begin work on her 4th studio album, today's pick, Honeymoon.  I made mention of how good this album might be when the video for Honeymoon was released.  

Honeymoon

So here's where things get awesome.  This woman is downright sultry.  She may have the oldest soul of any 30 year old around.  There's a haunting mystique behind everything she does.  Whether it's a short film not to dissimilar from above or her music.  It's almost like she sings as if she were an art noir piece.  Kind of like music you would see in a fine art museum as it were.  There aren't too many mainstream artists in the world that can make even the most downright bizarre lyrics sound like a story you want to hear.  I'll even go a step farther, she has always had a way of making the most vulgar lyrics sound NPR ready, turns out they're good too.

High By The Beach

High By The Beach was the first official video/single released in August from this album, and it's easy to figure why.  It's got a very generic beat, and "fuck the norm" lyrics, that combined made for a very marketable single.  It was also about as close anything from Ultraviolence, her biggest selling album,  as you're going to hear.  

Music To Watch Boys To

The 2nd single, Music To Watch Boys To, sounds like something that that a self aware teenager would write about in her journal.  Somehow, you might feel a little dirty listening in on it.  Nothing wrong with that ,as a matter of fact, I'm going to be bold and suggest that LDR has succeeded in making pop music for adults.  How awesome would it be if there were a mainstream movement in where more artists did just that.  Drown out the repetitive candy pop that lever so popular now?  Sure it exists in spades, bot not everyone is fortunate enough to live in a major city where live music venues cater to that regularly.  You shouldn't have to live in LA, NY, Seattle or Boston to hear great music.  (Clearly a lot of you don't cause you're listening to it here, shout out to the fans in Russia!)

This album released in September, debuted at #2 on the charts.  Once again, LDR partnered with Urban Outfitters for a "limited" edition vinyl version of this album which looks great, and sounds really good for colored vinyl.  Both records are candy red translucent and it includes a 16 page picture book inside of that huge gate fold.  It felt great to open, but I didn't get it from Urban Outfitters.  A reader of this blog sent it to me, and for that I thank you kind stranger.  (Hey, my Discogs want list is right up top, just sayin...)    I will never advocate Urban Outfitters as a destination for your vinyl needs, however, I'm not going to stop you either.  Vinyl is vinyl, and I say if you can stomach Urban Outfitters Hipster chic, go for it.  You can alternatively find the regular release of this album, but it's a bit more difficult as it wasn't given a proper North American release, any standard vinyl release will be an import for now. 

Next week, it's all about the throw back, classic 80's cheese. {Giggles}

Black Angels - Directions To See A Ghost (2008)

Way back in the days before this blog was a blog, I posted an awesome find from The Black Angels.  See it here.  It's from when I was restricted to 1 or 2 sentence vinyl picks and "Vinyl Fridays" was little more than an Instagram/Facebook post once a week or so.

The 2nd album from the Austin "Tripster Rock" psychedelic group, The Black Angels, is nothing short of musical acid for the modern day.  For over 70 minutes, and 3 pieces of vinyl, you really trip the hell out to what has the be the perfect blend of Velvet Underground meets The Doors meets filthiest blues sound you can find.  Now, this isn't music you get high to, this is music you enjoy to feel high with.

You have to work up to the title track that is just so deep, at some point it feeds itself and only till the song needs to end, does it end.  Make sense?  Check it out, but listen to it with headphones for the full immersion effect.

Science Killer

Yeah but dat bassline tho..

.

As a group the Black Angels were born of their influence from The Velvet Underground.  They got their name from The Velvet Underground song, Black Angel Death Song from their debut album, The Velvet Underground & Nico in 1967.  The Black Angels were largely an underground act till 2006 when they released their first album, Passover.  Passover is actually better than Science Killer, and as such a bit more difficult to find, as such if I stumble onto it in my travels and crate digging, you best believe I'll go out of my way to pick and post it immediately.  When I say largely underground, I mean psychedelic rock as a whole is still a sub genre of music that will never achieve main stream popularity.  Possibly not even the levels it saw in the last 60's through the 70's.  Psych rock more or less morphed into alternative and variants thereof.  Case in point, the most popular psych rock groups active now are probably The Flaming Lipps and Tame Impala.  15 years ago, it would have been The Stone Temple Pilots, and 40 years ago it was The Who, Pink Floyd, Velvet Underground, The Doors, and so on...

The other single from this album, the lead single, was the one that hooked you and sold you on the fact that their last album wasn't a fluke.  You On The Run was an exercise  in mindful sound.

You On The Run

The lyrics that the group weaved together tell some of the most tortured stories that you'll ever hear set to a trip out album.  They're literally haunting.  Some may even consider them a variant of dark wave.  Listen to the story that is Never/Ever.

Never/Ever

Yeah but dat intro tho...

For the over 8 minutes of epic mind-fuck of a song, you hear the story of a kid in WWII.  Who does that!?  I knew I was hooked on this group when heard their first single from their first album, Passover way back in 2006.  It wasn't really till about a year or 2 later when they licensed tracks from that album out to movies and commercials that people took them seriously.  You've probably heard that single, Young Man Dead in a few places.  They got really popular in 2008 when that single was bundled with a few popular video games and again in 2010 when Fable 3 was released as the soundtrack to the teaser trailer.  The incredible thing about these guys, they've managed to never sell out and remain underground while making money doing what they're best at.  You'll hear their music all over the place if you know what you're listening for, but you'll always end up music searching them to find out, "Who did this dope track?"

Another question real quick...  How on earth did this album not win any awards?  Where's the category for best indie/underground artist?  We need to start a movement here....  Just sayin'.

When you think about it, aren't those the best, real indie bands?  The ones that are so awesome to you that you know them better than anybody else.  You won't hear it on the radio, and you'll probably never seek them out on iTunes or Google Play, but you'll definitely see a show if they're in town because they're playing at your favorite small venue.

This album, Directions To See a Ghost was out in 2008 in a multi part release.  It was kind of awesome the way they did it too.  If you were silly enough to buy the album digitally, you could go into some record stores and exchange the code for an actual hard copy of it.  One of the benefits afforded to indie artists is their ability to do cool stuff for their fans.  Having been to quite a few Black Angels live shows, I can tell you first hand you're not leaving without your monies worth.  I snagged this 3LP behemoth of an album from Red Scroll Records in Wallingford CT on a whim.  It was a tough decision between this and something equally as spectacular that I'll own someday but that's the thrill of the hunt now isn't it?  Sometimes you have to catch and release till the time is right. 

...

Next week, probably Thursday again, something new that I took a leap of faith on.  Matter of fact, I haven't even listened to it yet.  Cant wait to hear what she's done this time, but even if it's half as good as her last one, I love it already.

The Dead Weather - Dodge And Burn (2015)

Dat turntable tho!

Readers, music fans, rock and blues fans alike, we need to talk.  Since this corner of the web started as a semi weekly Instagram 2 sentence post of my favorite music on vinyl, I made sure to only pick things that you needed to hear and own only on vinyl.  At some point that shifted.  It slowly became all things that you need to hear on an actual record.  Then it went a step farther, it became anything that you needed to own on vinyl and appreciate in music and pop culture with all of my opinion that you can handle.  Then there's today.  For the first time ever, I'm about to pick a piece of vinyl that I'm going to be critical of, not too critical of course because I would never spend money and invest time in something that I don't care about and didn't like.  I will however take the time and have made an investment in something that is important for the rock and blues fans, fans of music and you readers alike.

RE: Jack White, we need to talk.  Not a lot of people will deny the genius that is, Jack White.  Gifted guitarist, accomplished lyricist, grunge/garage/punk/blues rocker.  You name it, Jack can influence it.  Jack's influence on other artists is something of note.  The combination of Jack and Meg White gave us 14 years of some of the filthiest garage rock since the 70's and basically signed off on the alternative rock era that was the 90's.  Later working with members of what will become The Dead Weather, and Ohio garage group The Greenhorners, we were gifted The Raconteurs. The Go and The Uphosterers really aren't worth talking about as the former was a pet project to keep him busy between Elephant and Get Behind Me Satan.  The latter was a horrible attempt to become an all male version of a core grunge version of The White Stripes.  All that aside, Jack struck gold with The Dead Weather.  

The Dead Weather comprised of members from The Kills, Queens of The Stone Age, and The Raconteurs, have now put out 3 albums.  Each one slightly less like themselves than the one that preceded it, but all of them uniquely spectacular in it's own way.  I'm getting way ahead of myself.  For some more random facts and history, I direct you to a previous post featuring The Dead Weather here.  It was their 2nd album, which by all rights wasn't too bad.

This past Friday, Jack White and The Dead Weather, (Let's face it, that's clearly what's happening here.), released the groups 3rd studio album Dodge and Burn.  From the album cover, you kind of get a sense of what's about to go down here.  But this began long before that.  If you recall a Sirious/ly post not too long ago either, this also happened.  The 3rd and final single released before the albums' launch gave us all hope and a reason for waiting 5 long years for a follow up to Sea of Cowards.

I Feel Love (Every Million Miles)

Awesome right!?  Strong way to lead off the record too.  Hold on a sec.  That was the 3rd single released in advance of this album.  Why is that the only one you heard?  Ok, in fairness it was released about month before the album, so there's a lot to be said for promotion, and well if you've been paying attention here, it's not like it was a secret or anything.  The first single was out back in January of last year, Well, here's where things start go slightly wrong.  Kudos for Jack White planting the seed and all teasing new material from a great group, minus points for basically forgetting about it to promote your solo project only to pick it up later like a true side project and less of a priority.  In doing that, suddenly The Dead Weather became a red-headed step child group so to speak. Now this was either brilliant or troublesome.  Brilliant in the respect that you tease an album over a year in advance and lead up to the killer track just before the drop, which is precisely what I went with, or completely troublesome in that you tease an album well over a year before it's release and try to save face with a killer track in I Feel Love.  I'll let the reviewers and forum trolls debate that one.  I'm going with the former given that this group has been consistently good

So then, what's the problem, really?  Well, in a nutshell after listening to this album multiple times since it's release last Friday, I've come to the conclusion that it's simply a case of Jack White being somewhat of an ego maniac.  Jack White is not a drummer.  For a second though, let's pretend that he is.  Unless the genre of music is Drum & Bass, the drum shouldn't be the center of the musical arrangement.  Jack's mediocre at best drumming skill is all over this mother-fucker, and frankly it's not all bad, if this album was released at the height of the alternative music boom almost 20 years ago.  Anybody that want's to hear Jack White's skill should not hear him as a drummer.  Listen to him as a guitarist.  Trust me.  The fact that he not only over played with the same style through the record, he insisted on dropping vocals in tandem often ranging from rap to his quirky falsetto flutter thing that's actually quite good, on his solo records.

That's the issue, this isn't a solo record.  What's worse is, Jack White at some point forgot that.  He was either too busy making The Kills sound like The White Stripes, or forming Jack White and The Dead Weather.  If you listen to this album with any kind of expectations, don't listen to it thinking that you're going to get anything more than deep driving riffs and sound blues checking from the ever literally smokey Alison Mosshart.  As you heard above, there's about 2 songs on the album that drive as hard as that one.  Let Me Through, and Mile Markers stand out.  Then there's my personal favorite that I have listened to in an unhealthy dose, Cop and Go.

And then there's Alison Mosshart.  Since The Kills she's been the punk hottie with a voice that could have piloted the Riot Grrl movement.  She uses her core punk style to deliver some very in your face vocals.  Listening to her on any track you really get a feeling that she's about one of the angriest vocalists in the game.  Having seen The Dead Weather live, and being the fan of The Kills that I am, I know that to not be true.  Crazy as it sounds, she's just that gifted and underrated as a vocalist. It's not till the last track on this album however that you realize that.

Impossible Winner

Yikes.  This song is almost haunting.  My only wish is that Alison would quit smoking.  She's about 1 album away from becoming Stevie Nicks...  I'm not joking.  In any event, there was an awesome magazine out years ago called Blender.  It was under the umbrella of the guys that print the  Adolescent porn magazine Maxim.  Blender had this feature that I loved.  It took a bunch of releases from an artist and ranked 3 of them from "must buy", to "good", to "for fans only".  I'm taking that road with the Dead Weather now, even though they only have 3 albums in the can.  Horehound, their first one is far and away one of the greatest albums ever made.  Find it and love it.  Sea of Cowards, was their 2nd and 2nd best album.  So worth a listen to multiple times on vinyl.  This album, Dodge and Burn, is for fans only.  Jack White made the Kills worse, and the Kills made the White Stripes better.  Thumbs up if you get me on that last sentence.  I hope Lazaretto wasn't the last good Jack White solo album.  

Velvet Underground - White Light White Heat (1968)

And we're back!  I'm still away from my turntable, (If you could call it that.) but I have access to a dope as all hell setup for a short while and I would be remiss to not take advantage of spinning some serious shit.  

This week, I'm picking an American classic.  NYC's own, Velvet Underground with what is in my opinion the single greatest album they ever did, White Light/White Heat.  Sure, their first album, The Velvet Underground & Nico was outstanding, but I'm giving the edge to their sophomore release simply because they really came into their own out of the NYC grit of the era.  Why you ask?

White Light White Heat

So hear me out first.  You'll listen to that and think, "Woah, this is kinda out there." but if you really listen to it you'll come to realize the genius that was behind the Velvet Underground.  It's in their lyrics.  When you have a poet for a songwriter you get some deeply profound lyrics.  Fiona Apple anyone?  In any event, Lou Reed was way ahead of his time with his craft and skill of writing.  He literally brought an alternative message to punk music.  The Velvet Underground practically invented nihilist punk.

Their 2nd single brought it even harder...

I Heard Her Call My Name

You see, the thing about The Velvet Underground is that they weren't conceived as a mainstream group.  They were part of NYC's gritty underground culture of the 1970's.  Remember anything you may have heard about Lower East side punks and artists?  The Velvet Underground were their voices.  Before the British Punk invasion went full tilt, NYC version or anarchy was established in SoHo.  They touched on themes semi relevant to their time.  Anything from sexual identiy, (Lady Godiva's Operation) to the downright mental, (The Gift).  The gift being an exercise in what happens when you marry a poem to experimental rock.

The Gift

This record has been released many times over the years, but nothing stands up to the original mastered one.  There's such a beautiful mess of psychedelia and instrumental wizardry going on here, you'll have to find either an original or a remastered mono release of this album to get every ounce of pain out of it.  The Velvet Underground wasn't taken too seriously when they broke onto the scene, but through the years their brilliance became the hallmark of all things American punk rock.  They stood for old school anarchy and they were a driving force behind movements of expression and rights.  Run and find this album anywhere you can get it  

Next week, something new...  Something to celebrate the dying weather outside.

Depeche Mode - Violator (1990)

Yeah, so this happened.  Once again, another of the greatest albums of all time.  Up until 1989 Depeche Mode as a group was largely an underground New Wave/Electronic, "thing".   Sure they were popular among their fans, but they really didn't go mainstream till this album, Violator, in 1990.  So if that's true, why the 2 year disparity?   (I'll get to that in a minute.)  Even worse, how did their first album, 1981's Speak & Spell not certify them as legit?  Seriously, it was easily the more superior album.  However, Violator like the Wu Tang Clan ain't nothin' to fuck with.

Violator was officially released in the spring of 1990.  Buzz for the album began began that previous August in 1989 with the release of the first of the 4 singles from Violator, the ever popular and often covered....

Personal Jesus

Think about it, that single was released roughly when Prince's Batman soundtrack came out.  So for those that can remember, you were either listening to Personal Jesus or Batdance....  That's right, I said, Batdance. (Eventually when I get a few more soundtracks in my vinyl collection, you'll see this whole album, it was quite good believe it or not...  When I was 11)

Prince - Batdance

Sorry for that intermission.  Mind you, Personal Jesus was released 13 months after their last single from their previous album, Music For The Masses.  That single, Little 15, solidified Depeche Mode as the dark wave group that we all needed but didn't deserve.  It's almost a crime that we had to wait over a year before we heard anything else.  So obviously, Personal Jesus was the only appropriate follow up of releases.  About 6 months later, still before Violator was released, they released what would become the 2nd single from the album, Enjoy The Silence.  We all now know that's become an anthem of the group.

Enjoy The Silence

At this point, Depeche Mode was easily the most popular group in the UK.  Enjoy The Silence became their biggest hit, and most nominated song by far.  All of this, and they don't even have an album yet.  By the time Violator was released that March, there was so much buzz and anticipation that Personal Jesus and Enjoy The Silence simultaneously became their 2 biggest singles ever.  Blame popular radio for that. In a year that's number 1 single was from Wilson Phillips, Hold On, for the uninformed, it was nice to see that there was still a chance for music to not completely suck coming out of one of music's greatest decades.

So let me interject here for a moment.  By 1989 the dynamic in music was beginning to change.  We all know that some of the greatest creativity in music came out of the 80's.  The newest sounds, and techniques that were born of the 70's hit the mainstream.  New Wave was formed, Pop music was actually good and not popular for the sake of being popular.  Meaning that artists were creating lots of "Pop" music, but not for one off's.  There were entire Pop albums and dance parties organized around those albums.  At some point in the late 80's something happened though.  Many "underground" artists were creating new music, much of it was so specialized that there was a shift in listening habits for a lot of fans.  Music became quite literally, very regional and almost less global.  The dynamic now became east coast, west coast, north east, Detroit garage, euro electronic, world beat, Caribbean and so on.  From there came sub genres of music, Hip-Hop birthed "Gangsta".  Rock Gave rise to "Grunge". Caribbean morphed into "Ska" Detroit Garage became "Indie" or "Underground" Euro Electronic became "Trip-Hop" and Prog "Electronica".  It goes a lot deeper.  Why is this relevant to Depeche Mode and more specifically Violator?  Because Violator marked the last album that spoke to a generation of the alienated youth.  The messages and symbols through this album were filled with some of the heaviest messages without being depressing. (Sort of like if the Smiths were an electronic dance group.)  Whether you were Goth or not, there was something on this album for you that much music from 1990 just didn't provide.  The 3rd single, Policy Of Truth is reflective of that.

Policy Of Truth

The final single, World In My Eyes was released late in the summer of 1990.

World In My Eyes

A few days later Jane's Addiction will release Ritual De Lo Habitual, and Prince will release the soundtrack to Graffiti Bridge.  Can you feel the direction in which music is headed?  Depeche Mode won't release another album for 3 years, a much, much darker, Songs of Faith And Devotion. Though after that things get weird with them till Playing The Angel in 2005.  Frankly, I'm still mad at Exciter.  Come on, seriously?  Dream On?  What the fuck.  Can you say Luxe Saturday Night Dance Party?  (Hosted by Andre, of course.)  

Guys look, Violator is easily one of the best albums ever made, that's not coming from me alone but scholars of music all over the world.  This album was so popular that it was re-released on vinyl and it was an awesome pressing.  All 180gm of it can be had in virtually any record store worth visiting.  
Next week, something new, something "Current".

Prince - Purple Rain (1984) 50th Post

Assuming that most of the readers here are over the age of 35, love the 80's culture, and or have a vast appreciation of popular cultures greatest decade of excess, there was a lot going on to remember in 1984.  Let's set the mood a bit in case you forgot:

• Michael Jackson won 8 Grammy Awards for Thriller, a month after the Pepsi incident
• Herbie Hancock owns at the 1st ever MTV Music Video Awards, guess which song put him over.
• Rick Allen makes Def Leopard jokes funny
• Tipper Gore almost destroys artistic expression by creating the PMRC because...
• Prince releases Purple Rain, no doubt one of the greatest, filthiest, most groundbreaking and successful albums in the history of music.

Purple Rain was a lot of things, fundamentally it was an album, a movie, and a soundtrack.  The 3 being mutually exclusive.  If you've never seen the movie, I implore you to just buy it.  While it's far from cinematic award winning genius, it's an excellent period piece on "teenage" angst with outstanding music.  It's almost the "anti" John Hughes type of 80's flick.  The album itself, Prince's 6th studio album, was made more successful than 1999, his 1982 behemoth album that officially put him into mega star status.   

Purple Rain is consistently, to this day even, ranked by many measures as one of the greatest albums of all time.  In it's first week, it managed to be certified Diamond in it's first week selling a bit less than 2 million copies.  Rolling Stone put it down at 76 in their book of 500 Greatest Albums of All Time.  In 2008 Entertainment Weekly called it the best album released in 25 years.  The single greatest distinction however came in 2012 when the Library of Congress added it to the National Registry of Recordings that are aesthetically, culturally, and historically important.  That means should the earth ever be destroyed and we're forced underground, this album will survive most others.  Sorry Spice Girls.

What really made this album work was it's exposure and raw talent of Prince Roger Nelson.  (Yep, that's his name...  Suddenly Michael Jackson's kids names aren't so strange now are they?)  When I say raw talent, not only can prince sing across different registers, he can play drums, guitar, and keyboards.  At the core, he is a funk musician, but he's so much deeper than that.  There's R&B, as in he wrote and performed one of Chaka Khan's greatest hit's, I Feel For You.  Matter of fact, he recorded it first in 1979 on his self titled album.  Listen to that one on Spotify, or even better if you can find the album, Prince, kinda rare, buy it.  Remember I Wanna Be Your Lover?  Lead track.  Trust me it's worth it.

Then there's the Psychedelic Prince:

How about Hip-Hop Prince, as in My Name is Prince.  

My Name Is Prince

Purple rain featured 5 released singles beginning in 1984 after the release of the movie.  The first one:

When Doves Cry

When Doves Cry in my opinion was the first modern power ballad before hair bands made the term popular.  It's not often that we hear a song so deep and complex till the 3rd single release, Purple Rain.  For those that remember, it was not only the climax of the film, it genuinely provided the emotional connection to the album.  As awesome as Purple Rain the song was, it suffered from the same thing that most underrated songs often do.  It was too long.  Clocking in at over 8 minutes with soaring guitar solos and isolation of everything from the organ to the orchestra to the vocals, it was a mini opera in it of itself.  It was shortened just to get air play to around 4 minutes and change, sadly it lost a lot in translation.

Purple Rain

Other Singles included, Let's Go Crazy, I Would Die 4 You, and Take Me With U.  The latter being the weakest release on the album, but I'm fairly certain it was the only safe choice left given that Darling Nikki was just as fun as it was downright evil.

Speaking of evil, the album certainly wasn't without it's controversy.  Anyone remember Tipper Gore?  Well, this album kind of illustrates her origin story.  Specifically Tipper's creation of the Parents Music Resource Center.  Why?  Because in 1984, her 11 year old daughter was "caught" rocking out to this album, (along with damn near the rest of the world, my 6 year old self included).  What's so wrong with rocking out to popular music?  I'll answer that question with another question?  What was so wrong with Elvis performing Hound Dog on The Milton Berle Show in 1956?  The answers to both frankly, prude's.  In the 50's, culturally it was almost unheard of for people to overtly display public sexuality in any form.  The rub here was, TV was a relatively new concept then so nobody had ever seen anything like that up until then.  Fast forward to 1984, after decades of music fueled by drugs and alcohol by artists that were literally dying because of excessive amounts of both, someone decided to add some sex instead of the former.  Oops.  Once again, sex is bad, but things that can actually kill you, cool and the gang.  It's here that 2 things happened to music.

1.  The rise of sexuality in musical artistic expression launches across genres.  (Madonna, Robert Palmer)

2.  The rise of the family movement begins.  Which will bite the world in the ass when Bush Sr. becomes President.

Oh, and Tipper Gore becomes a thing if for no other reason than to shame artists for their art, for the sake of art.  It's not until the alternative music wave some 10 years later that this course begins to correct itself.  All hail Rage Against The Machine.  

There's no way I'm going to wrap this post up without my closet favorite song.  Perhaps of all the songs that Prince ever did, this is the one I love the most for a wide range of reasons.  Some personal, many more just because it's almost musically perfect.  It really defines the little things that made 80's music so damn unique.  From the tempo changes, to the story telling to the imagery, all tied up in a short tight package.    It's hauntingly so uneven that you can't help but to love it's rhythm if nothing else.  This shit get's powerful in the last act both in the movie, and on the vinyl.  It really should have been a single.  The Beautiful Ones

The Beautiful Ones

All things considered, Purple Rain was a music defining release.  In 1984, you had a couple of choices of how you were going to enjoy this album.  Most people got it on tape and vinyl.  If you were lucky enough to own it on vinyl back then you were able to hear every ounce of precision that went into the production of it.  You heard every solo and every chord from the synthesizers.  The heard the vocal range that Prince possessed when he was in his prime.  At the time, it was difficult to listen to this album multiple times without getting something different from it every time.  There aren't too many albums ever made that managed to capture the voice of it's generation, in the 90's it was Nirvana, in the 50's it was the Beatles, in the 80's it was all over the map.  But like the 70's, you were of 2 schools, Zeppelin or anybody else.  Prince isn't anybody else.  He's his own definition spanning many decades.  Find this album.  Even if you don't have a turntable, you should just own this to say that you do.

Here's to another 50 posts!