"The Monkees" by The Monkees (1966)

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"There's just no percentage in remembering the past."

Key Tracks:
Take a Giant Step, Last Train to Clarksville and Sweet Young Thing

Obvious Filler & Swings-and-Misses:
This Just Doesn't Seem to Be My Day and I'll Be True to You.  I wasn't feeling the Davey songs on this LP, except of course for his smartass interjections on Gonna Buy Me a Dog.

My Overall Rating of the Tracks Separately:
Recommended Listening (3/4 stars)

When I sat down to listen to this record, I already had an idea of what I was going to write about.  Between the questionable "live-ness" of Kiss "Alive!" and the not-really-questionable lack of playing on their own records by The Monkees, it was going to be about "faking it."  I already had the argument lined out: I would defend "faking it" to the hilt; The Archies and Gorillaz would be my linch pins; I would stop just short of Milli Vanilli.  It was brilliant; you would have had absolutely agreed with me. 

But then somethiong happened...

As I was relistening to "The Monkees," I found myself singing Beatles' songs.  I know, I know, that comparison is as inevitable as it is engineered.  But I wasn't just reminded of Beatles' songs, I was actually hearing the melodies and the guitar sound smack in the heart of the The Monkees' tunes.  Here are some examples I noticed without even really trying:

I first picked up on it with Tomorrow's Gonna Be Another Day.  It sounds eerily like Another Girl.  Matter of fact, I kind of zoned out and started singing Another Girl without even realizing it.

Next came Papa Gene's Blues.  While not a dead on carbon copy (probably because it wasn't written by Boyce and Hart), it absolutely copped to the down-home attitude of the songs Ringo sang like Matchbox and Act Naturally.

Last Train to Clarksville - wait, no!  This is a signature Monkees' song, it's insanely catchy and laced with an uber-subtle anti-war message.  It also smacks heavily of Paperback Writer with that great guitar hook and high tenor countervocals.  Go listen to 'em both and see for yourself.

Let's Dance On on the other hand doesn't even try to pretend that it's not Twist and Shout.  (I know T&S is an Isley Brothers' song, but The Beatles totally remade it into their own thing.)

I'll Be True to You just wants to be an early Beatles' love song, it doesn't even care which one.

About the only thing that sounds at all original on that first LP is a tune Mike Nesmith co-wrote.  It's the acid
tripping, hillbilly freakout that is Sweet Young Thing.

So, The Monkees are Beatles knock-offs.  I realize I'm about forty-five years late on that astute observation.  I had just never realized just how MUCH like The Beatles they were trying to be.  The back of the LP even proclaims "Meet the Monkees" in a huge font.  That similarity waned with each successive release, but "The Monkees" doesn't stray from the equation.

What I find interesting about it is that the group was clearly conceived during the early days of Beatlemania, but the group wasn't assembled and the songs weren't recorded until the Fab Four's pre-psychedelic weird middle years.  That comes across like a smack in the face on "The Monkees."  It's got the harmonies and skiffle-tinged early bits, but it's also got the almost-looped oddness and bizarre detours into strange instrumentations.  "The Monkees" really is like "Revolver"-lite.  By the way, that's a pretty big compliment.

So, is it an album?  No.  While it's a compliment, it doesn't overrule the fact that there is nothing tying these songs together.  It just happens to be a compilation of the first dozen songs they recorded and released.

Up next, we get to hear a voice that could probably convince me to rob a liquor store.  Naked.  It's "Cimarron" by Emmylou Harris.

"Alive!" by Kiss (1975)

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Filed Between: B.B. King and The Knack

Fun Fact: My stance on the whole controversy surrounding how much of this LP was was recorded in a studio rather than live is this: who cares?!  It sounds the way it should and that's all that matters in my book.

I used to think you were either part of the Kiss Army or you hated the band and there was no middle ground.  These days I find myself part of that middle ground.  So, how did this seminal live recording pan out?

SIDE I:

Key Tracks: The one-two punch of Deuce and Strutter that get things going are among the best recordings Kiss has ever made.

Weakest Track: Got to Choose

My Overall Rating of the Tracks Separately: Recommended Listening (3/4 stars)

Kicks Off With: "you wanted the best, and you got it!"

Sounds Like: the bombastic announcement of their arrival that the band had been trying to achieve for years.  It's complete energy and swagger in a really good way.


SIDE II:

Key Track: Parasite chugs along to its own heavy groove.  (It's also the only Ace Frehley composition on the first disc.)

Weakest Track: Nothin' to Lose

My Overall Rating of the Tracks Separately: Recommended Listening (3/4 stars)

Kicks Off With: cowbell!

Sounds Like: a spotlight on the somewhat different approach taken by each of the primary songwriters.  This side features songs penned by Paul, Gene and Ace, and they all move in their own direction.


SIDE III:

Key Track: Watchin' You simply because it is the only track less than six minutes long.

Weakest Track: 100,000 Years because it is over twelve minutes long and has a really long, really lame drum solo.

My Overall Rating of the Tracks Separately: Don't Bother.

Kicks Off With: a great guitar riff (but it's all downhill from there).

Sounds Like: the overblown, overcompensating self-indulgence and sometimes sketchy musicianship that immediately turn so many people away from this band.  For some reason, Side III always seems to be the low point of the double live recording.


SIDE IV:

Key Track: This version of Rock and Roll All Nite has become the archetypal Kiss song.

Weakest Track: This version of Rock Bottom never finds its footing for reasons I can't figure out.

My Overall Rating of the Tracks Separately: Recommended Listening (3/4 stars)

Kicks Off With: the audience chanting the band's name.

Sounds Like: the encore (and then second encore), as we have come to expect from the double live recording.  This one is like a mini-greatest hits of the band's early years.

So, is it an album?  Yes.  Even if (for some astounding reason) you've never heard of Kiss, you know everything you need to know within a matter of seconds, at that momentum carries through all four sides.  Also, "Alive!" absolutely portrays the feel of being at a high-energy rock show, no matter where or how it was recorded.

Up next, we go back to the pre-fab four with the self-titled debut release from The Monkees.

"Feels So Right" by Alabama (1981)

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"That old flame might not be stronger, but it's been burning longer than any spark I might have started in your eyes."

Key Tracks:
Love in the First Degree, Hollywood, Old Flame, Woman Back Home

My Overall Rating of the Tracks Separately:
Recommended Listening (3/4 stars)

My parents love to tell the following story... When I was three, I went to church for the first time.  The Sunday school teacher asked the class if anyone had a verse or a song they would like to share.  At which point, I raised my hand and delivered a rousing chorus of Nick Glider's Hot Child in the City.

I don't remember that.

My earliest musical memories don't kick in until a few years later.  I was five when Love in the First Degree and Old Flame came out.  Those are among the first songs I can remember hearing on the radio when they were new - experiencing them for the first time at the same time as my parents.  I remember those songs specifically because of how much I liked them.

Obviously, I had no clue what they were about (love being compared to capital crime and the politics of exes), I just knew that I liked the way they made me feel and they were fun to sing along with.  Two decades later, I find myself returning to those simplistic criteria.

But what about the nostalgia filter?  How do those songs hold up when heard by much more sophisticated ears?  Well, they're still a lot of fun to sing along with.  And, to borrow a line from an Alabama song, that's close enough to perfect for me.

So, is it an album?  Yes.  This time they strike a perfect balance between pop and country.

Up next, we spin an LP I mentioned in my first ever entry for this blog.  Break out the face paint, it's "Alive!" by Kiss.

"The Raw & The Cooked" by Fine Young Cannibals (1988)

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Fun Fact: Don't Let it Get You Down is a pretty good homage to / ripoff of Prince

"Don't look back, it won't do no good."

Key Tracks:
She Drives Me Crazy, Good Thing, Don't Look Back

Obvious Filler & Swings-and-Misses:
"The Raw & the Cooked" is yet another victim of closing-track-itis, where they tack on one track at the end that doesn't come close to the caliber of anything else on the record.  In this case, it's an unnecessary and neutered cover Ever Fall in Love as originally done (infinitely better) by The Buzzcocks.

My Overall Rating of the Tracks Separately:
Recommended Listening (3/4 stars)

"The Raw & the Cooked" is one of those time capsule LPs - it's a perfect snapshot of a specific sound from a specific time.  If you're a music fan, even if you didn't know anything about this band or these songs, you coud probably still guess it's release date within a year or two.

The sound is that certain pop-soul blend exclusive to the late eighties.  It's smart, soulful and exactly the right kind of retro for the period.  It makes perfect sense that this album came out the year after "Dirty Dancing" and Never Gonna Give You Up were released.

Well, that's a big part of the sound, but it's not all of it.  What sets FYC apart is that they chose to meld that trend with heavy dolyps of thick electronic beats and splashes of early Brit-pop.  That combination makes for a rather unique sound in a pop act clearly shooting for the top forty.

So, is it an album?  Yes.  I'm kind of surprised to say so, considering that this LP was recorded over three years at various studios around the world (including the famous Paisley Park).  Fine Young Cannibals deserve great credit for clinging tenaciously to the rather unique sound they were trying to achieve and ultimately seeing it through.

Up next, we revisit country juggernaut Alabama again with "Feels So Right."

"Blood, Sweat & Tears" by Blood, Sweat & Tears (1968)

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Fun Fact: I got my entries out of order and wrote up what was supposed to be this Thursday's entry today and skipped Fine Young Cannibals.  My bad, but I'm not rewriting this now, so we'll just push FYC back one - no harm, no foul.

Filed bewteen: Blondie and The Blues Brothers

"Did you find a directing sign on the straight and narrow highway?"

Key Tracks Big Hits:
And When I Die, Spinning Wheel, You've Made Me So Very Happy

Obvious Filler & Swings-and-Misses:
Once again, we run into that scenario of "hey, we've got a band member who is not the regular singer and doesn't usually write songs who wrote a song and we're going to let him sing it, even though it doesn't sound like anything else we do and isn't particularly good" - that song is Sometimes in Winter

My Overall Rating of the Tracks Separately:
Average (2/4 stars) - this was hard to rate because there are things I really like and really dislike withing almost every song

I'm not much into modern jazz, which means I'm not that much into fusion rock either.  However, the name of the genre does include the word "rock," which means I'm into it at least a little bit.  Strangely enough though, the songs I enjoyed most were the ones that drifted toward psychedelic R&B, like More and More and You've Made Me So Very Happy.

But for the most part, it was songs I liked interrupted by odd detours or songs I didn't care for with interesting
snippets in the middle.

For example, I personally don't see the need to expand God Bless the Child into a long bebop jam number, but I also fully realize that is a matter of taste.  It turns out that my taste is latched firmly onto the original version sung by my favorite vocalist of all time, so that's the version I'm going to link to today.

And that's the really odd thing - "Blood, Sweat & Tears" is not without merit.  They've got some good ideas and seem to dig what they do.  I'm sure there's somebody out there who insists that their version of God Bless the Child is the only one worth hearing, and that's a valid argument from a certain point of view.  It's just not mine.

So, is it an album?  Yes.  Even though it left me kind of cold, "Blood, Sweat & Tears" delivers a complete package.

Up next, "The Raw & The Cooked" by Fine Young Cannibals.  I promise.

"Dream Police" by Cheap Trick (1979)

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Filed between: Ray Charles and Cheech & Chong

"You didn't know what you were looking for until you heard the voices in your ear."

Key Tracks:
Dream Police is a shining example of Cheap Trick's obstinate weirdness.  Gonna Raise Hell finds them locking onto a target and then absolutely decimating it.

Obvious Filler & Swings-and-Misses:
I'll Be with You Tonight is dull, monotonous and uninspired.  And once again, I'm at odds with the band or the label on this call because IBWYT is the lead track on the B-side.

My Overall Rating of the Tracks Separately:
Recommended Listening (3/4 stars)

I used to HATE Cheap Trick.  I thought they were opportunists of the lowest order, cashing in on every genre that dared rear its head into popularity.  You want arena rock?  Here's I Want You to Want Me.  You want punk?  Here's Surrender.  You want a hair metal power ballad?  Here's The Flame.

But then I listened deeper into their catalogue and realized that, instead of being opportunists, they just have a very eclectic sensibility  and a very, VERY wry sense of irony.  Almost everything they do, they do with tongue inserted firmly into cheek.  Cheap Trick has way more in common with Tenacious D than they do Foreigner.  I guess they fall somewhere between Alice Cooper and Queen.

And "Dream Police" proves that to be true.  It goes out of its way to wallow in its own quirkiness and heaviness and uniqueness.  All in all, that plays that out in a pretty good way.

So, is it an album?  No.  I don't want to fault them for being eclectic, but I couldn't find any sort of trajectory or arc for this combination of tracks.  This is another one of those cases where it's a lot of fun, but it's not an album.

Up next, we leapfrog into 1988 with "The Raw & the Cooked" by Fine Young Cannibals.

"Dregs of the Earth" by Dixie Dregs (1980)

Fun Fact: That is some freaky-ass cover art

Fun Fact #2: ...and it is totally misleading

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Filed between: Dire Straits and Doctor Hook & The Medicine Show

My Overall Rating of the Tracks Separately:
Average (2/4 stars).  It's sad, there are some really good hooks and some true musicianship in "Dregs of the Earth," but most of the tracks aren't innovative or interesting enough to stand alone as instrumental pieces.  Several of the the songs could have really benefited from even mediocre lyrics and vocals.

Songs that Could Have Really Benefited from Even Mediocre Lyrics and Vocals:
Road Expense, Hereafter, Broad Street Strut

Key Track:
I'm Freaking Out isn't my favorite track, but it does prove the Dregs have the ability to do a song that doesn't have any need (or even any room) for vocals.

My Favorite Track:
Pride o' the Farm does a good job of swapping off the solos among the guitar, keys and fiddle and always keeps you interested.  To me, that's the key factor for any instrumental that's not ambient or house.

Obvious Filler & Swings-and-Misses:
Twiggs Approved and The Great Spectacular both fall flat on their faces when it comes to being interesting.

So, is it an album?  No.  It turns out that instrumental pieces are much harder to gauge, but I'm going with "no" on this one.  While each song is clearly a composition, there's nothing among all of the tracks that ties them together in any way, shape or form.

Up next, we continue our recent exploration of the music scene circa 1978 with "Dream Police" by Cheap Trick.