Monday, February 25, 2013

Talk about the Passion: Wrapping up the First Year


View the orginal Premise & Ground Rules for Revisiting Vinyl.


So, there’s been a definite lag on me writing my conclusions from the past year.  I wasn’t fuzzy on what they were, I’ve been compiling them since about March or so.  Honestly, I just wasn’t feeling it.  And I am so glad I waited.  Something happened this morning that put it all into perspective.
 
I walked into my cubicle at work and literally gasped out loud.  A friend had dropped off an unexpected early birthday present for me.  It’s an LP by a band I really, really love and one I have never seen on vinyl.  I spent the next twenty minutes just holding it and checking it out, spellbound like a shaman in a fever dream.
 
Let’s start with the title.  The layout does nothing at all to help you figure out if it’s supposed to be called “Fables of the Reconstruction” or “Reconstruction of the Fables” or “Reconstruction of the Fables of the Reconstruction of the...”  (Keep in mind, you couldn’t just google it to find out back in 1985.)  To further confuse the issue, the packaging is all laid out so that it can be read either way.
 
Speaking of packaging, both sides of the jacket look like cover art, and neither is oriented normally in regard to the spine.  A small barcode is really the only thing that distinguishes which one should be the back cover.  And it’s not a square package.  It’s slightly rectangular, so the insert will only go in sideways from the way that would seem to make sense – and again, not in any clear orientation to the sleeve.
 
And then there’s the LP itself.  One side is labeled the A Side (it is titled “Fables of the Reconstruction).  There is no B Side.  Instead, there is Another Side (it is titled “Reconstruction of the Fables”).
 
Not to mention all the cryptic word games and bizarre marginalia in the liner notes.  The whole thing feels like some sort of weird puzzle box.  It is totally awesome.
 
R.E.M. isn’t alone when it comes to creative packaging.  Led Zeppelin wins that category hands down.  I can’t really describe it or even post an image because most of their covers were interactive in some way.  And Steve Harris still brags that people bought early Iron Maiden records not because they had heard the music, but because they were intrigued by the artwork. 
 
So even though I’ve had the clearly titled “Fables of the Reconstruction” on CD for almost twenty years now, I was utterly excited about my gift this morning.  Vinyl is a very different beast.  There is absolutely a sense of discovery and a feeling of something when you hold an LP in your hands.  Very little of that ever translates to CDs, and none of it to thumbnail images on an MP3 player.
 
And that’s what I think some of us feel like we’re missing when we lament the passing of the album and the onrush of the digital age.  It’s taken me a hundred records and over a year to realize that my original notion of what constitutes “an album” didn’t include the full picture.  It’s not just about a cohesive sound.  It’s about a listener’s commitment to a time and a place; it’s about involvement of four senses rather than just one.  To me, it’s about wonder.  And wonder, it seems, is a decidedly analog quality.

Monday, February 11, 2013

"Abracadabra" by Steve Miller Band (1982)



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"Bet our love until you lose, then give back what you've been stealing."

Key Tracks: Abracadbra, Give It Up

Surprise Gem: Young Girl's Heart

Obvious Filler & Swings-and-Misses: While I'm Waiting

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

Growing up without cable or a decent radio station, some of my earliest exposure to new music came at our local skating rink.  (It also provided my exposure to forgotten video game gold - Kangaroo.)  That's where I was first creeped out by the video to Rockwell's Somebody's Watching Me as it was projected onto a wall in the corner of the rink.  That's where I developed PTSD from a seemingly endless loop of Chubby Checker's Limbo Rock as scores of children careened onto their butts.  That's where I first heard Prince and Madonna.  That's where I learned to hate the hokey pokey.  Seriously, who ever thought the hokey pokey on rollerskates was a good idea?!

And that's my strongest memory of Steve Miller's Abracadbra.  Turns out, it's a really good song to skate to.  I guess it's that little chorus of "round and round."  Funny thing though, Ratt never caught on there.  Abracadbra played every weekend I was there for at least two years.  And it never got old.  It's just a fun song, even if never mentioned black panties... which it totally does.

Long story short, I really liked the song.  But, popular music being just that, it dropped out of circulation and out of my mind.

Until...

Stupid Sugar Ray.  I don't even have anything against Sugar Ray in particular.  I mean, they weren't great or even pretty good, they were just kind of there.  But they had to go and do something that I didn't understand at all so I will call it stupid.  They made an almost note-for-note remake of Abracdabra.  There was nothing new, no interpretation, nothing.  Just a "hey kids, this is a song from when we were kids and you may not have heard it and we didn't feel like writing another track, so here ya go!"  Total cop out.

To contrast, their version came out right after one of the most left-turn, devisive covers of the time.  I am speaking of course of Alien Ant Farm's post-punk rendition of Smooth Criminal.  Whether you loved that song or hated it (I was in both camps), you took notice when it came out.

So, my question is: why Sugar Ray?  You certainly didn't make any money off of it, and Steve Miller didn't need the money.  Why couldn't you just have like worn a Steve Miller shirt onstage or dropped his name in some interview?  Ugh.  But anyway, I really liked the song... the first go around.  And Mark McGrath is still paying pennance on Extra.

So, is it an album?  Yes.  Even though Steve Miller only wrote two songs on "Abracadbra," and they stand head and shoulders above almost everything else, everything still sounds distinctly Steve Miller.

Up next... whoa.  This was the hundredth LP.  My yearlong experiment is over.  So, up next we have the results and conclusions.  And after that... remains to be seen.

Wednesday, February 6, 2013

"Natural High" by The Commodores (1978)



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"The memories are all in my mind."

My Favorite Tracks:
X-Rated Movie and Such a Woman

Disco Wedding Mega-Anthem:
Three Times a Lady

Obvious Filler & Swings-and-Misses:
Flying High and Visions

My Overall Rating of the Tracks Separately:
Average (2/4 stars)

The Commodores are a walking contradiction - or maybe they were just trying to corner all the R&B markets of the late seventies.  The same band that wrote Brick House also wrote Easy... and on the same LP no less.  While neither of those tracks are on "Natural High," the dichotomy is gratingly apparent here.

The Rosetta Stone to this mystery is, unsurprisingly, Lionel Richie.  He writes music to make sweet love by.  The rest of the guys in The Commodores write songs for gettin' your swerve on.  Granted they're both genres dedicated to making nookie.  However, they are lightyears apart.  It's kind of like comparing Tony Bennett to Motley Crue.

Motley Crue wins that cage match in my book.  Similarly, I gravitate to The Commodores' funk much more than their ballads.  Unfortunately for me, Lionel writes or cowrites over half of the songs on "Natural High," bringing the whole thing down to slow groove level about one and a half gold-plated-medallions-swimming-in-a-sea-of-chest-hair away from creepy.  When they do slip in a funk tune, it's downright jolting.

One last completely tangential note: the bridge and chorus on Flying High sound eerily like they belong in a song by Yes.

So, is it an album?  No.  It's six different guys coming up with their own ideas and then meeting in the studio to try and fit it all together.

Up next, Steve Miller works his magic with "Abracadabra."  I wanna reach out and grab ya...

Monday, February 4, 2013

"Aerosmith" by Aerosmith (1973)



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"Nobody knows where it comes and where it goes."

My Favorite Tracks:
One Way Street, Mama Kin, Movin' Out

Classic Rock Mega-Anthem:
Dream On

Obvious Filler & Swings-and-Misses:
Write Me a Letter

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

I came of age in the eighties, and so my understanding of Aerosmith is filtered throught that.  The first time I heard Walk This Way was as a duet with Run DMC.  The first time I heard Sweet Emotion, it had a video with James Spader in it.  And the first time I heard Dream On, it was done in an over the top live performance along with a full orchestra conducted by Michael Kamen.

Dream On seemed like a really odd song to me at the time; it didn't feel at all like the same band who had done Love in an Elevator and Janie's Got a Gun.  At the time, I chalked it up to a sound they must have had back in the seventies that I didn't know about.

But since I have gotten into their earlier catalogue, I realize that Dream On really doesn't sound like ANY other Aerosmith song.  It's piano heavy.  Steven Tyler has stated that he intentionally changed the sound of his voice when he recorded this song.  He wrote the lyrics when he was seventeen.  And it's absent the swagger and bravado of pretty much everything else they do.  AND IT'S NOT BLUESY!  I don't mean to try and pigeonhole a band this signficant, but everything they have ever done has drawn a direct reference to the blues - whether as obvious as a twelve-bar shuffle or as subtle as an attitude.  Dream On exists in it's own little universe.  Basically, it's a Led Zeppelin song that got written by the wrong band.

Personally, I've never been a huge fan of the song - at least not the first three minutes.  The words sound like bad high school poetry (because they are), the guitar part is uninspired and the rhythm section sounds plain bored.  But then it starts building for the last 90 seconds, and what a 90 seconds it is.  Dream On is one of the all-time great crescendo songs.  Much like the 1812 Overture, it's a whole lot of something that's just sort of there - not really bad but not really great - until those few final moments of sheer carthatic explosion.  And that's what I love about Dream On.

So, is it an album?  No.  Dream On isn't the only song where it's clear that the band is still finding their footing on this debut.  But I do think that if they had done a few simple things like replacing one or two tracks and changing the play order, it could have been an album.  Seriously, why would you kick off your introduction to the musical world with anything other than Mama Kin?!

Up next, we put on our platform shoes and slink into the world of R&B and funk with "Natural High" by The Commodores.