Apart From the Crowd, Great Buildings

Apart From the Crowd, Great Buildings, 1981, :40

★ ★ ★ ★ ☆

Solid jangle-pop from a now largely-forgotten group featuring two guys who went on to being very much there for us, forming the Rembrants.  But before those two friends got all that sweet sweet TV money, there was this early 1980s slab o'power pop.  Nothing too earth-shaking here, just serious songwriting chops from guys with an ear for a hook.  Sometimes it gets a little corny, like on the five-minute title track that might take itself a little too seriously, but mostly it's smooth listening.  Favorite tracks: "Dream That Never Dies" (foreshadowing that Rembrandts sound), "Hold On to Something," the Squeeze-like "And the Light Goes On."

Bayou Country, Creedence Clearwater Revival

Retrospective Review

Bayou Country, Creedence Clearwater Revival, 1969, :34

★ ★ ★ ★ ★

CCR's double-platinum second album is another masterpiece.  Every song, every note is fire on this disc.  A lot of people assume "Proud Mary" is a blues standard.  Nope, it was written by John Fogerty.  There is a cover on this album, though; it's "Good Golly, Miss Molly," made famous by Little Richard.  CCR's version is just as blistering and raw.  To me there are no skips on this record; even the nearly nine-minute "Graveyard Train," a plodding, swampy, languid blues, is delivered with enough growl to keep you listening.  Favorite tracks: "Born On the Bayou," "Bootleg," "Penthouse Pauper."

Can't Sit Down, C.J. Chenier

Can't Sit Down, C.J. Chenier, 2011, :45

★ ★ ★ ★ ☆

This Chenier cat is the son of the late Clifton Chenier, who was known as the King of Zydeco.  I think C.J.  deserves to have the crown passed to his head.  He definitely makes it look easy.   Of course, you have to enjoy accordion-based blues-funk, but if you do, this is as fine an example of it as you can get.  Chenier's growly vocals and rollicking accordion keep your toes tapping. The original and cover songs blend seamlessly and have the immediate, electric feel of live in the studio records.  Favorite tracks: "Ridin' With Uncle Cleveland," the Tom Waits cover "Clap Hands," "Paper in My Shoe," Curtis Mayfield's "We Gotta Have Peace."

Dust On the Bible, Kitty Wells

Dust On the Bible, Kitty Wells, 1959, :29

★ ★ ★ ☆ ☆

I can honestly say that this is the best country-gospel record I have ever heard.  Yes, Kitty Wells sings like an angel, and the music is flawless, albeit rather sparse to today's ear.  But it is basically steel-guitar gospel, and not my thing.  More importantly, I'm somewhat turned off by Wells' smug "I got mine" flavor of Christianity.  There's no dust on her Bible, you should be ashamed, she has a one-way ticket to the sky, her Lord built her a mansion up there.  Not very many words about helping the sick and poor, but quite a few about how saved she is, and it sucks to be you.  "If from sin you don't retire, he will set your fields on fire," she sings merrily, no doubt warmed by the thought of all those sinners perishing "When He sets this world on fire."  Didn't anyone ever tell her "ain't no man righteous, no not one?"  Favorite tracks: "Dust On the Bible," "Lonesome Valley," "He Will Set Your Fields On Fire."

Excitable Boy, Warren Zevon

Excitable Boy, Warren Zevon, :31

★ ★ ★ ★ ★

This is almost a Retrospective Review, but I have never heard this album in its entirely.  And what an album, just a solid rocker from start to finish!  Zevon's third album has nine tracks (in its original form) and of those nine, four are absolute, five-star classics of black humor.  With "Roland the Headless Thompson Gunner," "Werewolves of London," the macabre title track, and "Lawyers, Guns, and Money" on here, the rest of the album could be recordings of Zevon belching and it still would rank as an all-time classic.  I don't know if Zevon intended these songs to amplify and lampoon typical masculine tropes, but that's how I read them, and either way, they rock.  Favorite tracks that were new to me until now: "Accidentally Like a Martyr," "Johnny Strikes Up the Band."

Hot Pants, James Brown

Hot Pants, James Brown, 1971, :30

★ ★ ★ ★ ☆

Maybe not one of JB's greatest albums — it feels rushed out and desultory — but somehow, it all works, despite offering a scant five tracks and a fair number of those consisting of the Godfather just grunting or talking to his bandmates over sweet funk beats ("Pull off your pants! I mean your long pants!").  (All of which made me wonder as I listened how much of this material can properly be said to be James Brown derived material; the groovy improvisation of his crack band really makes this stuff shine.)  Somehow, against all odds and logic, this ends up being a very good album.  The ten-minute "Blues & Pants" isn't the strongest start, but some solid tracks follow.  "Escapism" is mostly where Brown ad-libs and vamps over the funk.  The music's great, but James asking where the lads are from doesn't rise to even Bo Diddley levels of proto-rapping.  Favorite tracks: "Hot Pants," "Cant Stand It."

Grace Under Pressure, Rush

Grace Under Pressure, Rush, 1984, :39

★ ★ ☆ ☆ ☆

Kurt Loder said it best: if you're a Rush fan, you'll like this, and if you don't, it won't exactly endear you to the band.  I like Rush — a bit — and I was quite overwhelmed. (But he's right; reading all the online worshippers at the feet of the Unblemished Neil, rating every song on this album five out of five, gives you a sense of how lockstep the fanbase is.)  Anyway, yeah, it's a Rush album with a lot of synths (it was the '80s and glossy production was the cutting edge) and off-putting lyrics about the apocalypse, angst ridden robots, and concentration camps.  "The Body Electric" is narrated by a robot; it has the rousing, relatable chorus of "one zero zero one zero zero one, S.O.S."  So obviously these tracks touch the kind of universal chord that all humanity can enjoy, and that makes the Rush audience so diverse.  People and color, women, and people all over the spectrum love their Rush!  I kid. I kid.  As "Red Lenses" says, "could we talk about something else instead?"  Sigh; I miss the frantic yowl of Fly by Night Geddy Lee. Favorite tracks? *shrugs, points unenthusiastically* "The Enemy Within," "Distant Early Warning."

The Fame Monster, Lady Gaga

The Fame Monster, Lady Gaga, 2009, :34

★ ★ ★ ☆ ☆

A dance-pop album with a rough overall concept of the dark side of fame.  (Apparently as a sort of addendum to her huge album The Fame, which I didn't know.)  So, this is this era's Madonna, only, you know, darker.  It's not really my thing, not made for me.  But it's good; I appreciate it for what it is, even if it isn't what moves me.  For example, the line "Baby likes to dance in the dark / Because when he looks at her, she falls apart" is a great line, but I'm an old man.  I don’t need to hear it a thousand times over a dance beat.  I knew what genre it was when I first spun the black circle (read: played it on Spotify), but when something has sold 18 million records, you kind of have to give it a try, right?  Favorite tracks: "Bad Romance," "Teeth," the Queen-inspired "Speechless."

Encore, Eminem

Encore, Eminem, 2004, 1:17

★ ★ ★ ★ ☆

Another big ol' Eminem album, all overloaded with dumb skits and heaping helpings of misogyny!  As I said before, despite the negatives (the skits, the megalomania, the unrelenting sameness of the verse-double chorus-verse structure of his songs, the simple beats), Eminem is such a madman on the mic that a lot can be overlooked.  Like, for example, "Mosh," a suitably angry but ultimately histrionic protest song against wars for oil that Eminem somehow also manages to make all about him.  "Puke" starts off with a too-accurate titular sound effect, and ends up sounding like someone trying to do a parody of an Eminem song.  Come to think of it, so does "Big Weenie."  But when he's on fire, or playing it straight, Eminem can hit hard, both lyrically and emotionally.  And hey, a guy who is willing to rap a chrous like "you make my peepee go doing doing doing" can't be all bad.  From the weird sounds he sometimes makes (prrp!) to the over-the-top goofball humor, there are signs that Em might not take himself so seriously after all, and that helps overlook his weak points, too.  Favorite tracks: "Evil Deeds," "Curtains Up," "Like Toy Soldiers," "Mockingbird."

Dónde Están los Ladrones?, Shakira

Dónde Están los Ladrones?, Shakira, 1998, :41

★ ★ ★ ★ ☆

An all-Spanish album before Shakira made it big in the States. "Ciega, Sordomuda," the opener, is by far the best song on the album, blending Mexican, South American, and Lebanese sounds to create a style-defying mix that kept pleasantly surprising me.  Of course, I can't judge the songs on their lyrical content (although I find her English lyrics engaging and creative), so we have to go with what the truthful hips say about them.  An amazing voice and a meld of musical styles makes it a strong album.  Of course I like the hip-shakers better than the ballads.  Favorite tracks: "Ciega, Sordomuda," "Si Te Vas," "Que Vuelvas," the Middle Eastern "Ojos Asi."