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Review #33: Back to Black, Amy Winehouse

Amy Winehouse, her music and her memory fills me with pain. I remember precisely the moment I found out she had succumbed to her insidious addiction. I was with my Mother, in West London, and we had enjoyed a nice afternoon (which was odd). It was suddenly overshadowed with news of Amy’s death. Every now and again the death of a “celebrity” has some weird intense impact on you. That was Amy for me.

She was a few years older than me and we stumbled around the same haunts in Camden and East London. Everyone had a story about her for better or worse. They knew her or had seen her. We were in the same orbit at the same time and she was an enigma to me. She was the butt of a ton of jokes — Halloween costumes of a pale thin woman with blood coming from her nose and the iconic beehive hair. It is so upsetting to say that this was even before her death. It says a great deal about where we were as a society and culture that a young woman with raw talent, real pain, and surrounded by people who didn’t have her best interests at heart was just commodified and used as comedy fodder. We love to hate women. We love to make it impossible for them to be human and to mercilessly destroy them when they dare to live their struggles openly. I feel so sorry. Not for her, but to her, for the cruelty and callousness she endured, all while she was clearly communicating her pain to us. Like, what the fuck?

There was no music around at the time that was anything like her. Her voice, still present, is like no other. I wonder if we will ever hear a voice like hers again, and songs that bare the soul in such a way. In Back to Black, Amy laments a painful relationship in which she “died a hundred times”. I’m not sure if this is a feeling that is relatable for most, or whether it’s somewhat unique to people who have had lived particular experiences. I just know that I’ve been there. I don’t know how many times a painful relationship has made me feel this way. I just know it’s too many. I sometimes don’t know how anybody gets through this life and keeps it together. The people who don’t are the ones who are honest and vulnerable, and we treat them like shit.

I can’t quite figure how that was how it went. So clearly a sensitive soul overwhelmed by a talent and voice that was bigger than her increasingly tiny frame. How could we hear these words (Love Is A Losing Game) and not show some empathy?

“Though I battle blind

Love is a fate resigned

Memories mar my mind

Love is a fate resigned

Over futile odds

And laughed at by the gods

And now, the final frame

Love is a losing game”

This album was written by a woman who was not yet even 28, and when you listen to it, nearly 20 years later, that’s absolutely mind blowing. Even just the title of My Tears Dry On Their Own always knocked me off my feet. She felt alone in her pain. I always loved that song. It’s genius in being so sad and full of heartbreak but accompanied by big band bombasticness and a bouncy tempo:

“I cannot play myself again

I should just be my own best friend

Not fuck myself in the head with stupid men

He walks away

The sun goes down

He takes the day, but I am grown

And in your way

My blue shade

My tears dry on their own”

Fucking poetry. This woman wore her heart on her sleeve and told us all exactly how she felt and was still reduced to tabloid frenzied content. I don’t know man, it distressed me then and I feel no differently now. I feel it even more if anything. It leaves me feeling hopeless about humanity — and there are plenty of objectively more important things to feel hopeless about in the present day. I don’t even know how to work through that.

It took fucking balls and courage to share the songs she shared with us, and it’s no surprise she was shat on. She had the audacity to pen Addiction, a song about needing weed more than the love of a man:

“I'm my own man

So when will you learn

That you got a man but I gots to burn?

Don't make no difference if I end up alone

I'd rather have myself and smoke my home grown

Oh, it's got me addicted

Does more than any dick did”

She was her own man too. And still had the space to try to love. Ugh. In Cupid, she lays it all out, yet again:

“I don't want to bother you but I'm in distress

There's danger of me losing all my happiness

I love a man who doesn't know I exist

And this you can fix”

No comment.

These reviews are unimportant and read by few, but I do feel weirdly personal about this album and about Amy Winehouse. She deserved better and I despair at the reality of her short life. Things could have been different for her. Even in death her memory is manipulated and peddled for profit. Let the god damn woman rest. Leave her alone. Let her songs be her memory and nothing else. Fuck these clowns, especially the clown that is her father. Fuck him, fuck tabloid papers and the motherfuckers who run them, and fuck anyone who dared to diminish such beauty and talent so brazenly.

If it needs to be said: a PSA that a great deal of posthumous Amy content — including the upcoming biopic — are money grabs that dishonor a real persons life, memory, and legacy. Retelling a story that frankly isn’t theirs to tell and with shitty motives. Anyone that really cared for her wants nothing to do with it, and that tells you everything you need to know. If you wish to get to know Amy Winehouse, listen to her songs. I yield my time.

#album review #music #music review #rolling stone top 500 #amy winehouse #back to black

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Review #390: Surfa Rosa, The Pixies

In honor of Steve Albini, who passed away this week at 61 and who produced an unbelievable amount of classic records… The Pixies’ Surfa Rosa is up. It’s just one of many he worked on.

I know I’ve whined about The Pixies in comparison to The Breeders, but I still adore them. Kim plays the bass on Pixies records, despite being a guitar player really. She learned the bass just to join The Pixies who were seeking a new player and she was the only one that applied. So there you go.

I love their shitty harmonizing. It’s so fun. I love their bizarre lyrics. They’re so fun. I love their loudness. It’s so fun. There’s plenty of Kim’s voice on this record which makes me happy.

Something Against You almost has a little ska vibe as it begins, and really takes me back to being like 14 or 15 and just going absolutely bananas at any loud raucous show that I could. I’m currently en route to a festival — having sworn I’d never attend one again after the debacle of Primavera 2022 where me and all of my friends nearly throw hands at each other because we were so tired and cranky (and old and sore) and they just didn’t have their shit together. Oversold and underprepared for so many attendees. Getting a drink of any kind was an ordeal. Anyhow, thoughts and prayers for me to keep my chill at Kilby Block Party.

When I started attending festivals, I was 14 and got day tickets to Reading Festival, which was still a fucking riot at the time. I was so lucky to have that on my doorstep for all of my teenage years and I saw so many amazing bands and unforgettable music moments, one which is particularly memorable to me, is The Pixies. Don’t ask me to remember what year it was, I don’t know, I just remember I was with that shitty boy. And I vividly remember them playing Broken Face and it just blowing my socks off. It’s remained my favorite ever since. I just really enjoy the weird lyrics, the noise, the squawking and the brevity. The Pixies are really good at that. I’ve never thought too much about the verses, but the most fun is the chorus which is just hooting and hollering of the following:

I got no lips, I got no tongue

Whatever I say is only spit

I got no lips, I got no tongue

I got a broken face

Uh-hu, uh-hu, uh-hu, uh-hu, ooo

I got a broken face

It’s energy has always just done something to me. It’s my exact shit. But why that is I can’t tell you. It’s just some primal way of being that I find relatable. Just making a huge discordant nonsensical noise.

Most of us (probably?) are familiar with Where Is My Mind? Which I would assume is their most well known song. For good reason, it’s amazing, but also it’s been covered by so many different bands and artists with completely different styles I imagine anyone who hasn’t heard the original has still probably heard it. Off the top of my head, covers include: Nada Surf, Placebo, even Miley Cyrus has done some kind of cover/mash up. That is by no means a full list. I tend to enjoy a good Where Is My Mind cover. It’s a hard song to mess up and sounds good with lots of different arrangements. Check them out.

We already know my feelings on the members of the band (see The Breeders, Last Splash). Musically, The Pixies are just such a good time. At least they were in the 90s. I confess I haven’t kept up with them because I find Frank Black to be so off-putting (there is a brief interlude where he is — apparently — “goofing around” and what that sounds like is him shouting very loudly at Kim in a way that I find unpleasant). I appreciate I just have a negative bias towards him. He reminds me of someone I truly despise. Even so, truly some of their songs are just grungy rock indie classics that if you aren’t familiar with you really should be. Interestingly, by producing Surfa Rosa for The Pixies, both Nirvana and PJ Harvey sought him out for their own records. What is interesting about that is that Albini hated the record, and took plenty of opportunities to trash both Surfa Rosa and The Pixies… Can’t help but wonder if he found Frank immensely off-putting too, because in a new pretty recent podcast, Albini is quoted praising Kim Deal, stating how much he respects her and her lo-fi analog aesthetic. I think he and I would have been buds, based on this assessment alone. He did eventually recant his hatred for Surfa Rosa, and this was a pattern for him anyway. He also thought In Utero by Nirvana sucked, only to come around to it later and appreciate its place in classic 90s records. I guess some people just don’t know how good they are.

Cactus receives a mention simply for the line “I miss your soup, and I miss your bread, a letter in your writing doesn’t mean you’re not dead”, what is that about? I have no idea but I love it. A lot.

I’ll finish with the fact that there’s a song about a guy named Tony, who is apparently a superhero (reasons unknown) and they really just chant TO!NY! A bunch of times. It’s a racket. Tony must be a pretty rad dude.

Anyway, one of many memorable and powerful records that Steve Albini put his hands on. I intend to do more of a deep dive on his work because it’s some really great shit and I imagine I have new songs to hear and entire albums to fall in love with. Surfa Rosa is just a big fat dose of high energy noise and crazy tempos on the drums. It’s not for everyone but it’s for sure for me.

ETA: it’s not in The Rolling Stone Top 500 list, which I think is a big miss, but while I’m on the subject of Steve Albini and his work, everyone, and I mean everyone, should listen to Magnolia Electric Co by Songs: Ohia. As fast as you possibly can. The production and recording is some of the best to ever be done, and the result is an entire album where you can simply hear and feel a young Jason Molina’s deep pain. He did not live much longer. You understand why when you hear this record.

#album review #music #music review #rolling stone top 500 #the pixies #Surfa rosa #steve albini #kim deal #frank black

[girlreviews]

Review #128: A Night At The Opera, Queen

Growing up in England, Queen and their songs are just part of life. I kind of love thinking about how a tiny little island has so much of its own art, music, and culture, and how when you step away from it you see how quirky and cool it is. Queen and their hits are still on heavy rotation on the radio, get people dancing at parties and big events, and every Millennial has probably seen the We Will Rock You musical 20 times.

So how is it that I had never actually listened to a single Queen album from start to finish? I since learned I am far from alone on this. Most of us haven’t! It makes sense. Everyone has the Greatest Hits album, and that’s what they know.

I was DELIGHTED by A Night At The Opera. Queen in their truest form, the most British sounding record ever. Lazing On A Sunday Afternoon is silly, whimsical, operatic, has a Kinks vibe, and lets you appreciate the harmonizing ooooohs and aaaahs that are signature.

Every song has its own persona and they’re all really different, but you can hear how they informed later Queen — the rhythm in ‘39 reminds me of Fat Bottom Girls. It’s different but it is just a glimpse into future paths of future songs. It’s the kick drum I think. It’s also completely beautiful, folky, gentle and whistful. But like they do, they overlay their melodic solos and the rich backing vocals so you end up with what sounds like Simon & Garfunkel if they got stuck at a pub lock in and forgot they were American.

Guitars and their solos sound like they are singing, answering the vocal melody. They really just weave between lighthearted and snarling serious. There is an entire song that is really big and brash that’s literally a love letter to a car. I really feel that, even though I drive a Prius hatchback. I AM in love with my car, and finally a song exists that acknowledges that love. Okay the song has existed since 1975, but I didn’t know that. I’m a late adopter I guess. In this track Freddie is singing about breaking up with his girlfriend so he can be in love with his car. I’m sort of inspired by the idea that one can be complete with nothing more than the freedom and autonomy of a car. It’s tongue in cheek for sure but that’s what’s beautiful about music — it can mean anything to anyone. I can listen to it sincerely if I want to.

You’re My Best Friend is still so sweet, and musically wonderful. What better way to express love and gratitude to someone than by a song in which you tell someone “you make me live”. I love it. It’s charming. It’s such a simple but deep sentiment.

I can’t help but hear The Kinks in these more whimsical songs, like Seaside Rendezvous, it’s the tinkery piano, the vocal effects, I swear this song actually DOES feature a kazoo or something similar. It’s got big Victorian seaside holiday energy. I can’t imagine that’s not what they were going for. It’s so British. It’s so unique. It’s so much more complicated than you initially hear. There’s so much to unpack in every song.

Okay, so Bohemian Rhapsody came to us via this record. Most of us heard it later when it was re-released and popularized by Wayne’s World in the 90s. Obviously it’s iconic and that’s why my mother and her girlfriends went out one night and on the way home Bohemian Rhapsody came on the radio. They got pulled over and questioned about their sobriety because they were witnessed recreating the scene in the car with Wayne and Garth. They were just rocking out.

I heard Bohemian Rhapsody REALLY young. I have vivid memories of sitting in the backseat hearing it and just being totally moved by it. I realize now it’s mostly because I heard it and understood it to be true and autobiographical. I sat and despaired that Freddie Mercury’s mother killed a man and now he’s gone and thrown it all away. I was so sad. I thought it was all true and happened. I got teary-eyed whenever it came on. I was a very sensitive child, if you couldn’t tell, and it wasn’t unusual for me to be moved to tears by music and words, even when I was tiny. That hasn’t changed much, either. I often wonder or wish that I could experience this song through someone else’s ears. What might they notice that I don’t? How might they feel?

I have a friend that shares my love of just going for a drive for no reason to look around and get lost. We often stick Bohemian Rhapsody on to lift our spirits and snap us out of a funk. It’s all the things and covers all emotions. It’s genuinely a journey, and honestly the entire record leading up to it is a journey too. Literally, like a night out at the opera.

#album review #music #music review #rolling stone top 500 #queen #a night at the opera #freddie mercury

[girlreviews]

I am in love with your writing style in these reviews. Out of curiosity, which version of the top 500 list are you using?

Thank you so much! The 2023 list :)

[girlreviews]

Review #172: Bridge Over Troubled Water, Simon & Garfunkel

Simon & Garfunkel have always been hilarious to me. They are such massive goobers. Goobers with huge egos that dated/married/divorced beautiful women. Both insufferable in their individual specific ways. But also they make the most precious and beautiful music together. They know how good they are but lack self-awareness about literally anything else (like that they’re goobers). Everyone likes it though. You want to not like it because your Mom likes it, but you cannot deny its pull. You like it. It’s good. Have you met anyone that hates Simon & Garfunkel? I haven’t.

It really is good. It opens with the title track, which is a big, gorgeous vocal performance that keeps getting bigger. The accompanying music gets bigger too, without drowning out the vocals. The sentiment of the song is just so lovely too: I’m here for you, you’re my friend. It’s nice not to have an entire album of love songs.

Cecilia could be a love song, I suppose, but it’s really about a man who is desperate to reconcile with a cheating partner who sounds pretty toxic. I’d love to hear Cecilia’s side of the story. I really would. I think about this all the time. Especially because they are both such GOOBERS. It’s a really fun song though. When they do upbeat, they really go for it. See also: Keep The Customer Satisfied, Baby Driver (it has a sax solo, c’mon!).

These Goobers know how to put together a damn fine arrangement that makes some of their songs feel deeper: El Condor Pasa has a really Spanish feel to it with the guitar (duh) and some flutes. It’s a whole vibe, that matches the lyrics. Would I rather be a sparrow or a snail? A forest or a street? A hammer or a nail? These are the big unanswered questions in life, right? No, but it feels like it in this song because it’s mysterious and philosophical. This whole vibe thing is also successful in The Only Living Boy in New York. It sounds like what it’s about, and it’s so beautiful. But totally different to Bridge Over Troubled Water and El Condor Pasa. The slower more ballad-y songs on this album sound like a damn Bob Ross painting.

The Boxer is maybe (???) the most well-known song on this album, but that’s based in absolutely no fact whatsoever on my part. I have no idea. It just seems like most people know that one. Like it got more radio play or something. I like it a lot, but there’s low registering repetitive sound running through it that has always just sort of bugged me. Possibly because I just cannot identify what the instrument is? What is that sound? It could be a cello/double-bass, or some kind of horn, or honestly even a percussion type thing. But I don’t know what it is. Honestly it kind of sounds like a duck to me. I’ve even wondered if it’s a kazoo. I haven’t looked it up, but I could. But will I? I’ll just forget about it until the next time I hear it: Sometimes (often) the duck kazoo is all I can focus on instead of the rest of the song which is pretty fucking pretty.

For a really soft, folky, gentle record made by two goobers, I would also definitively state that it’s somehow full of straight bangers. I could elaborate further on that but I’d suggest you listen to it yourself and you’ll see what I mean.

ETA: it’s a damn BASS HARMONICA. I honestly wasn’t that far off with the kazoo. Also, The Boxer took over 100 hours to record. This blew my mind.

#album review #music #music review #rolling stone top 500 #simon and garfunkel #bridge over troubled water #paul simon #art garfunkel

[girlreviews]

Review #438: Parklife, Blur

In some ways this review is going to be like the antithesis to the one I wrote for Pulp’s Different Class. In that, this album features songs that are so important to British culture, and individually to my formative years, that I can’t ever be mad to hear them. However, unlike my ongoing and steadfast admiration for Pulp as a band, I have way more complicated feelings about Blur, and about this album in particular. Okay, so some context and education first. Blur had success in the UK with their debut album, Leisure, but had really dug themselves into a financial hole through poor management. They owed the taxman a lot of money. As such, they were essentially forced to go on a long, arduous tour of the US to promote their successful album. In theory this would be great. But it wasn’t great. They were touring tiny towns and venues that had never heard of them. The grunge scene had just exploded out of the Pacific Northwest and literally nobody Stateside had any fucks to give about Blur, British Music, or what they were doing on this tour. The band themselves have described the space and time immediately preceding the creation of Parklife as pretty bleak. Miserable. Oppressive. They felt backed into a corner, exhausted, downtrodden, underappreciated, and homesick.

Where they sort of lose me on this is where they express feeling as if they were shamed for being British and they were resistant to just create a record that adhered to the current trend of music. They returned to the UK with a concept in mind: a quintessentially British album, about British culture, that makes a statement: British music is a thing of its own, and it’s worth your time. I mean, I don’t disagree with that. I just fail to see how grunge being a popular genre at the time meant that they weren’t able to be proudly British, and proudly produce whatever music suited them. Artists make art for the art, and if someone likes it, that’s great. But they were young men at the time and I imagine egos and the lures of chart success influenced their feelings about it. You don’t get into a tabloid frenzied ongoing rift with the Gallagher brothers because you’re a really chill bunch of guys that only care about the music. There’s an irritating overtone of testosterone and national pride that has an icky vibe to it. It’s too easy for it to be co-opted. And it was! And it still is!

So let me just get the following points off my chest and then I’ll work my way through them:

1. Parklife is and was an important record in British music

2. It’s also not Blur’s strongest album by a BIG margin, but it’s managed to persist as somewhat of a defining album for them. I’m glad they shook it off, and we didn’t just get record after record of Parklife from them. That’s honestly how a lot of people would have done it and I can respect their commitment to art as a band: we’re going to do something different than what you just loved, and if you don’t like it that’s a you problem. People did like it.

3. Parklife also paved the way for an obnoxious marketing/PR ploy from the music industry surrounding British Indie/Rock artists, that created a ridiculous craze and wave that was surfed by bands ranging from incredible and deserving, to absolute dogshit. Ladies and gentleman, I give you: Britpop. If you were there you know what it was like, and you understand all the nuance and resentment surrounding it as a “genre”. We’ll get into this more later. In hindsight it all worked out okay and we live in a world where – at least to my knowledge – you can appreciate and criticize both Oasis and Blur for their talents and their fuck ups without it representing some massive class and cultural divide. This was absolutely not always the case and it was, for some reason, a really big deal, and it mattered to everyone, a lot. Blur or Oasis? I was 7 turning 8 years old at the height of this manufactured-turned-real rivalry, and it genuinely caused me stress. As a child! I loved them both. But I felt forced to choose. I chose Blur. I understand how ridiculous it sounds, but I wish I could go back in time and refuse to choose. It mattered, and it also really didn’t. They don’t sound similar enough to compare or compete? So why did we have to? But WE DID. It was on the news. It was the biggest thing going on at the time. It dominated the papers. Bookies were taking bets on who would be #1 between the two of them. Blur won that battle with Country House. I don’t think anybody won the war. I think everybody got bored, gave up, and went home.

So Blur kicked off Britpop with their return from this grinding US tour and they made a full blown concept album about being British. And it was good. But all of a sudden there was just this… Overwhelming influx of bands who were banking their success solely on this “being British”, thing. It had a look, it had a sound, it had a style, it had a location. The same thing happened with the Indie wave in the early/mid-2000s. It’s so annoying to me though. You end up just having to sift through a whole bunch of fucking garbage to find the stuff that is legit, and would be legit with or without the “scene”. Parklife is legit. It’s just responsible for the aftermath and onslaught of bullshit. Is that their fault? No, but they definitely participated in it all for a bit. There was a lot of great music that technically fell under the Britpop genre, but essentially looking back most of it isn’t Britpop – because that was just made up. It was just good music from various genres, and they all happened to be British artists. That’s not the same thing. It was just a music industry scheme and boy howdy did everyone buy-in.

The song Parklife, is pretty genius, still. Damon Albarn, unable to commit to the concept with a cockney accent, enlisted well-known British actor, Phil Daniels (of Quadrophenia fame) to deliver the lyrics. This was both creative and super novel. People went pretty nuts about it. They still do. It’s got the same pull as Common People. If you want to see an entire nation lose their shit over a song – you might stick on Parklife. It’s just deeply entrenched into the fabric of British culture and it’s as if it was from the moment it was released. It just is. I actually saw Parklife live at Reading Festival when I was 16 or 17, and they brought Phil Daniels out. The most memorable thing about the whole thing, was that Damon Albarn fell off the stage. I guess the most surprising thing about the wider record, is that you expect it to be more of Parklife the song. And it actually isn’t. It’s just a Blur record, and a not bad one at that.

It's just so weird how a regular album took on this entire life of its own, turned into a cultural phenomenon, and produced this era of music that for better or worse is part of history now. Some of the subsequent singles from subsequent albums honestly seem like they were more “Britpop” than a lot of the tracks on Parklife. Maybe they were running with it for sometime to bank on its success, but ultimately they grew tired of it too and changed directions. I’m glad.

I guess the other thing about Blur, is the individuals its made up of. They’ve been indie darlings forever. Graham Coxon was a nerdy little weirdo, he left and came back. I think Britpop almost killed him if I’m being honest. Damon Albarn was a pretty-faced front man and has gone on to produce some absolutely insane albums for other artists and with other bands. He’s got something, that’s for sure, but it’s not always good. Some ego and misogyny always sort of leaks out and it would make my life easier to enjoy his creative output if he just kept his mouth shut. He seems to have a problem playing nice with successful women and insists on tearing them down publicly, only to be forced to admit that he hasn’t actually worked with them, met them, talked to them, or even listened to the music that he is loudly criticizing. That’s fucking annoying, but, is also par for the course regarding male opinions being inexplicably important and accepted even absent of any actual valid perspective or input. Damon, you have a lot of great things to say with your music. That doesn’t mean you have to say something, about everything, all the time.

Alex James, floppy-haired and handsome bassist, for a time was the biggest darling of them all – attracting praise for being so quirky and unique by establishing a cheese farm. Over the years, I have come to suspect he’s really just hidden in plain sight and really what you get with him is a basic man, with basic opinions, who loves some attention. I can’t ever really quite put my finger on it with him but there’s something deeply off putting about his whole persona. I’ll just say it. Whatever image he puts out and however quirky and cool he makes himself out to be: he’s just a fucking Tory, man. With that comes everything else: classism, racism, misogyny and fucking over everyone worse off than you, so long as you get yours. But hey everyone, who cares right? He makes cheese! Isn’t that so weird and kooky? He’s gotta be a cool guy! It was this exact fucking line of thinking that allowed Boris Johnson to take advantage of the comedy panel show circuit for years and years and years, elevating his reputation among liberal young voters. Everyone thought Boris was a funny joke, so let’s vote for him! He goes from MP, to London Mayor, to high-ranking cabinet member, to the fucking PRIME MINISTER. And it wasn’t a funny joke then, was it? So let’s pay attention to the things people actually say and do, and not just the music that they make and the cheese they produce. The other guy in the band, whose name I can literally never remember – Dave Rowntree – he’s just the drummer, who brought nothing to the band visually, and was just sort of along for the ride. Seems like a nice enough guy, it’s just that nobody cares.

If you’re interested in making more sense of this review, I will recommend that you turn your attention to Netflix series This Is Pop which does a pretty decent overall rundown of Blur, Oasis, and the Britpop era. It’s not perfect, but it’s pretty good, and I appreciate that it gives a voice to the women in that music scene at the time, who were treated like shit and had to deal with all of the masculine national pride shit that came along with it all. It’s pretty clear from listening to them: Oasis, literally didn’t give a shit – about anything – and that was pretty hilarious. Blur, despite being genuine talent with good music to offer, bought into the hype and acted like a bunch of pricks publicly. They were all pricks, it’s just some of them were more authentically pricks than others. Ha.

I guess all I can say is this: I love Blur, and I hate Blur. I don’t know that I’m inclined to agree with Parklife’s inclusion in the Rolling Stone Top 500, but I can also appreciate that I’m talking from the inside and the majority of listeners didn’t also absorb the cultural moment as it was happening. If you happened to be there, you know it was all kind of nonsense. It’s kind of wild watching documentaries or reading write-ups of a particular time in music that you were actually present for in real-time. Like how I imagine people who were at Woodstock, or when Bob Dylan went electric, or the original British Invasion of America with the Beatles. It was a whole thing, and if you were there, you remember.

#album review #music #music review #rolling stone top 500 #blur #parklife #britpop #oasis

[girlreviews]

Review #365: Madvillainy, Madvillain

This is such an interesting, unique record. Madvillain is (was) comprised of Madlib and MF DOOM, and it’s their only studio album. 22 songs, most of them under three minutes and none feature any kind of traditional structure like choruses or hooks. Despite this it’s cemented itself as not only one of the greatest hip hop records of all time, but also albums of all time in general. I feel like maybe it was lightning in a bottle for this one – although both artists have an incredible and respectable discography on their own.

The story of this record is just as interesting and unique. Madlib and MF DOOM had been collaborating on it for a few years, with DOOM responsible for the lyrics and flows, and Madlib responsible for the beats and production. Seems like it was a match made in heaven, really. MF DOOM is sort of unmatched in his word skills. Seriously though, there’s really plenty of write ups and deconstruction of his style and remarkable abilities, and the guy was absolutely out of this world good at what he did. I’m not particularly well versed in the ins and outs of creating good hip-hop or rap, but I do know that anyone making use of so many different literary devices in their music is some kind of genius. It kind of blows your mind to untangle it all, because it’s hard to comprehend someone being just that talented, but also that clever. If you’re a lover of words and language in general, then you will enjoy a lifelong love with MF DOOM. Or rather, you can, if you look in alternative spaces for exceptional wordsmithing.

Madlib has a really unique and specific sound incorporating really obscure samples from really jazz and soul, which at the time was sort of different, but I imagine is less unexpected now, since Madvillainy set the tone for future music. He also pulled from Indian and Brazilian music. Honestly, just as above, you could spend your entire life poring over all of the details, sounds, and samples and you’d never get bored and never cease to learn. Isn’t that fucking spectacular? That these two particularly unique and gifted artists created a single record together that can provide a lifetime of learning and admiration? And that it almost didn’t happen: just over a year before its release, a demo version of the record was leaked publicly and the duo were so disillusioned from the experience that they stopped working on it for some time. Thankfully, they eventually resumed and released it and now there’s life before Madvillainy, and life after it. I wonder if they knew what they had created before they released it. That public leaking of unfinished work is always such a devastating situation for any artist.

I had been introduced to this album in 2013 when several tracks showed up on various playlists made for me by others. One of them also featured Jai Paul’s BTSTU. His debut album suffered the same fate as Madvillainy, and his promising career was seriously derailed. He remains a bit of an enigma to this day, although he is actually playing live shows in 2024, and I’m excited to be going to one of them. I don’t know, it’s always a really strange thing to happen to a record and sometimes it cements its legendary status and sometimes it destroys the creator.

They created it quite separately and with very little communication. Madlib recorded the majority of the beats and music in Brazil on a cassette tape, sent it to MF DOOM who then added his lyrics. They collaborated without really collaborating and it stands out a lot throughout: MF DOOM was in tune to the sound and incorporated it into his words – take Accordian. The accordian sound on loop throughout comes from Experience by Daedelus. But the final line in the song DOOM makes mention of it:

“Your first and last step playing you like an accordian”

It's simple when you consider it, but that they put this together without actually discussing it and just providing their own individual contributions and vibing off of one another makes it that much more unbelievable that this record was the result. They themselves described the process of creating these songs as “telepathic”, without “a lot of talking”. Two artists with a one-time joint creative mind. I don’t know, I find it hard to put into words just how bananas this all is when you listen to it.

Something that I find fascinating about Madvillainy is the way in which both Madlib and MF Doom incorporated their alias persona’s into it. There are song credits that feature MF DOOM and Viktor Vaughn – the same person delivering the words – but towards each other and from differing perspectives. It’s sort of mind-boggling how this was done: Madlib gets into it with his own alter-ego, Quasimoto on America’s Most Blunted, and DOOM creates a weird love triangle between himself, his girlfriend, and Viktor Vaughn in Fancy Clown. Why? What was the point? Well, why not? And didn’t it produce one of the greatest records of all time? Maybe more artists should get this creative and ridiculous with their work. Pitchfork called Fancy Clown “a brilliant concept” and hailed it as “hip-hop’s first schizophrenic self-diss track”. Think about what they’re really saying there. It’s really, really, very cool.

To be able to give my normal descriptions of what it sounds or feels like, I’d have to listen to it another 100,000 times at least. I find it so dense and overwhelming – in the best way – but there’s nothing to do here but to listen to it. No amount of description from me or any other person reviewing it will adequately convey the magic of it. It’s just really that fucking good. Overlook it at your own expense. Enjoy.

#album review #music #music review #rolling stone top 500 #MF DOOM #madlib #madvillain #madvillainy

[girlreviews]

Review #184: She’s So Unusual, Cyndi Lauper

You’re receiving a fair warning right at the outset: there are going to be no less than two references to The Simpsons in this review – possibly more -- and I’m not even a little bit sorry about it.

I think that Cyndi Lauper is one of the very first female artists I ever knew the name of and recognized, and knew her record from start to finish. I don’t think it was this one. I believe it was a compilation CD called Twelve Deadly Cyns… And Then Some, that had a really striking image of her with bright yellow hair and a bright red hat. It had all of the major hits from this album, and the next few, as well as the most interesting remix of Girls Just Wanna Have Fun that was done by the guys from Redbone, and was very much my first introduction to the bassline from Come And Get Your Love. That shit worked.

Anyway, I wish that every three-year-old girl got to hear Cyndi Lauper like this because she’s fucking iconic. Powerhouse voice. Uninhibited. Artist. Creative genius. A girl’s girl and a woman’s woman. I’d love to get drunk with her and play a round of cards. I bet she’s been treated like a child while navigating this industry. I just feel it in my bones and guts. Because of the earnest, girlish, sincere, whimsical music she’s making, as well as her unapologetic cute and girly aesthetic and small frame. But she’s always demanded to be taken seriously. She’s the inspiration I’ve carried around as an experienced professional in my field: I can have a bubble tea pencil case with a smiley face on it, and cute stationary, and a notepad with a bird on it, and a cute haircut and fun outfits. It doesn’t mean I’m childish, or any less good at my job, and I will rip you a new asshole if you fucking cross me or any of my employees, cool? Do not be fooled by the enamel pins on my jacket. I could stab you with them if I wanted. I just don’t, that’s all.

My notes: Money Changes Everything, which it does, has a harmonica solo in it, and I think we all need to take a moment and bow down to the boldness of that. How many harmonica solos do we hear outside something like Bob Dylan? It’s pretty few and far between and it’s really fucking great in this song. Every single track on this album is deep, fun, and interesting. And some of them have harmonica solos! When I was a doofy little teen, I used to have a necklace with a tiny harmonica on it. It was ugly as could be, but it was pretty cool. I recently started looking into whether there were any cute, adult versions of it. There are. And I am once again inspired by Saint Cyndi to be cute, functional, and badass.

I’m going to save Girls Just Wanna Have Fun for last because I have so much to say about it. So next up will be Time After Time, which to be honest is every bit as iconic. Genuinely. It’s absolutely beautiful. Stunning. Moving. How does one write a song so incredibly poignant and dedicated to someone? Can anybody listen to this synth ballad and not just feel their heart plunge into it? Maybe they can. Maybe they’re a monster. Not a Simpsons reference, but to illustrate my point: even April Ludgate, known to be cold-hearted and dead inside, can’t resist the pull of this song.

She Bop is one of my favorites. I think I loved it when I was really tiny. It makes sense that I would have. I loved nonsense. I still love nonsense. It’s a lot of nonsense (Oop, she bop, she bop, she bop, he bop, we bop, I bop, you bop, they bop, be bop, a lu bop), but it’s positioned over some very serious-sounding synths and electric drums. That’s my exact shit and always has been. There’s a good chance Cyndi Lauper and this song are largely responsible for my entire persona, in hindsight. That’s fine with me. I think this song is about bad boys and having crushes on them (hey, hey they say I better get a chaperone, because I can’t stop messin’ with the danger zone). Cyndi Lauper has always been completely about her uninhibited noises. Woops, and breaths, and squeaks, and squawks. They’re amazing, and they add absolutely everything to the experience. Simpsons reference #1 coming up here. They made it the butt of the joke, but I loved it. Cyndi Laupi (yes, Laupi), singing the National Anthem at a baseball game, with all that breathy, squeaky, baritone nonsense. Absolutely fucking hilarious. Also the way in which I mostly learned the words to the National Anthem (you try knowing it when you grew up in Europe? I do not accept your judgment, and frankly I’m still pretty shaky on the words and I don’t care).

Every track on this album slaps, and you should listen to it, but it is one of those where you kind of have to focus on the singles/iconic tracks because they are iconic for a reason. So here we go. Girls Just Wanna Have Fun. I want to say that this song is so happy and upbeat and means everything to every girl and woman that knows it, which, is like, all of them, ever, and if it isn’t, it should be. However. There’s also a sad undertone to it, or at least I have always felt one. It’s always just tugged at my heart a little bit. I actually have no idea whether that’s just me or whether that’s a universal experience. It’s like a gentle feminist wish. She’s singing about oppressive experiences — from parents, from partners, from society:

“Oh Mama dear, we’re not the fortunate ones”

“Oh Daddy dear, you know you’re still number one”

“Some boys take a beautiful girl, and hide her away from the rest of the world”

It genuinely hurts my feelings. I’m not sure a song has ever so captured the simplicity of experience. Just trying to exist. Just trying to walk in the sun. Just trying to go home and chill after work, and for some reason, it’s just hard to do. But, in singing it, she’s fulfilling the wish, because she’s having fucking fun. It’s fun. I don’t know man, that’s really cool. I love this song. But it’s way deeper than I imagine a lot of people have ever given her credit for. I imagine to a lot of people, it’s just a silly little party song. But it’s not. And if you want to fight with me about that, I’ll get my cute enamel pins ready. Here’s Homer Simpson singing it, which I have always found extremely endearing. Do you think it’s lost on him? Probably. That’s sort of what’s endearing about it.

#album review #music #music review #rolling stone top 500 #cyndi lauper #she’s so unusual #the simpsons #parks and rec

[girlreviews]

Review #359: Radio City, Big Star

When I got to see Big Star in Memphis in 2022, they went ahead and played all three of their records more or less from start to finish. It was to mark the 50th anniversary of #1 Record. Time loses all meaning lately and death is all around us, but the point is, Radio City turned 50 in February 2024.

When I first fell in love with Big Star (see review #474) it wasn’t even possible to find their records. Anywhere. The only format available at that time was a reissue double album that had both #1 Record and Radio City on it. That was fine with me, and I found it at McKays when visiting my cousin before moving here. But I never super separated the two albums since I always heard them together. Based on ranking, and general popular opinion, Radio City is better than #1 Record. I really don’t know about that, but I do know that the tracks on it that are really good, are really fucking good, and that’s what gives it’s older sister a run for her money.

It opens with O, My Soul, which is… Well, what can I say. The drums really steal the show on this track. When I got to see Jody Stephens play this song, I damn near lost my tiny mind. He also messed up, so they started over, which meant that I got to hear it twice. I had waited long enough so I like to think that was just for me. This song can’t decide if it wants to be some kind of garage band banger or if it’s too lazy and just wants to take a nap. And you know what? That fucking speaks to me.

When I was turning 17, which is how old you have to be in England to learn to drive, I was offered driving lessons or a guitar from my parents. First of all, I wanted the guitar so badly, it wasn’t even a question. I also knew it was annoy the shit out of them that I would pick it over driving lessons. Driving lessons meant driving, which meant a car, which meant freedom. Except that I knew that it didn’t really. If it came from them, the lessons, the car, the anything, I’d really have no freedom and it would all be an illusion. So my wise teenage ass took the guitar, and remained so painfully committed to public transportation that we could do whatever we wanted (with a lot more effort), for real. I used to really lament that decision as all of my friends got their licenses and cars and I was stuck on the damn bus, but I knew what I was doing. I used to listen to O, My Soul to remind myself of why I did it, and to build up my confidence:

“I can’t get a license

To drive in my car

But I don’t really need it

If I’m a big star”

Love when a band references themselves, for starters. I kept this tradition up, though. I listen to this song any time I have a big meeting that I need to crush, an interview for a job, or just anything that I need to hype myself up (you’re really a nice girl, and I think you’re the most, and when we’re together, I feel like a boss). Yeah I sing it to myself about myself, what about it? It’s my very own Eye of the Tiger. I learned to drive when I was 24 years old, in London, with my lessons and car entirely self-funded. I have no regrets.

Mod Lang sounds like a T. Rex song. I’m into that. I hear The Byrds in this record, especially in September Gurls, which really is a Big Star classic and is a pretty compelling reason for this album to rank higher than its successor. It’s had more influence on pop culture than I had ever realized — for example. Katy Perry’s California Gurls was titled with that spelling because her producer was a Big Star fan and wanted to pay homage. It’s a really beautiful song, about Alex Chilton’s complicated love life. The three women he was involved with, or formerly involved with, that the song is about, all had birthdays in September. Chilton was very into astrology, as it turns out. That seems about right for him.

I have always had a real soft spot for Morpha Too. It’s so strange and simple. It feels like being dizzy and trying to walk a few paces. The harmonies are really striking and it just seems like a song that never really got finished. That’s how it sounds to me. I love it exactly how it is.

The record ends with I’m In Love With A Girl, which rivals Thirteen but is cute, rather than poignant. I had a man sing this to me once, on a roof. He stole my guitar and just had at it. It kind of makes my skin crawl to think of it (think Ken singing Matchbox 20 to Barbie). But, we all know how I feel about letting those kinds of things spoil songs for me, especially Big Star. Wilco’s Pat Sansone was in charge of this track at the 50th anniversary show and he was perfect, sang “gorl” and everything. All was right with the world. I was there, he wasn’t. The best part of this song is one single line repeated that serves as a bridge of sorts:

“All that a man should do

Is try, oooooh, oooooh

All that a man should do

Is try

Ooooh ooooooh”

Listen to it. It’s a beautiful sweet song. Please do not serenade any women with it on their (or any) guitar. Don’t be that guy. All you have to do is try, and trying doesn’t involve that.

#album review #music #music review #rolling stone top 500 #big star #radio city #alex chilton

[girlreviews]

Review #434: Crooked Rain, Crooked Rain, Pavement

I always considered Pavement to be the cool (well?) older brother to The Breeders. Same vibe, same energy. I stand by that. I resisted listening to Pavement very deeply and embracing them for a long time based solely on who it always was pushing them on me: terrible men. I didn’t even realize this until I gave this record a listen all the way through and realized I now associated Pavement with a really good dude friend who shares my love of music, treats me like a sister and tells anyone who will listen that I’m the best kind of friend. I once described his style as “90s goofball” that was half the Seattle grunge-scene and half young Adam Sandler. I stand by that too. He loved it. Anyway, I’d forgotten the original associations and resistance to begin with. I like that your brain can do that: forget, and remember to forget to remember.

Some notes. Silence Kid, to me, sounds like Buddy Holly’s Everyday melodically. I can’t help but hear it and expect it to go a particular direction. Of course it doesn’t, because it’s Pavement and their songs have moments of being twinkly and melodic but ultimately insist on descending into discordant chaos. Their lyrics run more like slam poetry than traditional songs with verses, bridges, and choruses. All the same. When I hear Silence Kid, I hear Buddy Holly and I’ll always wonder if it’s on purpose.

Cut Your Hair is probably the one Pavement song that you do know if you know any, it was their only real bonafide “hit”. It’s got some very radio friendly twangy guitar and oooh-oooh-oooh-oooh-oooh-ooooooohs in it. I have never minded the song but certainly never thought it was anything particularly special. It does have a fun little break in the middle where it all gets a bit silly on the guitar. Honestly for me the best part is the opening line:

“Darlin’ don’t you go and cut your hair

Do you think it’s gonna make him change?”

I’m not sure there are any women out there that haven’t had their hair commandeered by the patriarchy in some way, whether systemically by societal expectations or whether on an individualized, sinister, controlling level within a relationship. That’s not what the song is even about, but it’s a perfectly posed question. I actually realize I have tons of stories about ways that women’s hair has been weaponized in abusive relationships or just how it factors into male aggression generally. Some are my stories and some aren’t mine to share, but I’m too exhausted to get into it anyway. Cut your hair if you want. Grow it long. Dye it purple. Shave your head. Do whatever the fuck you want. Do it because you want to and because you like it. Who gives a shit what the men in the world think of your hair. And no, they won’t change. Also, your hair looks fucking great.

In my listens of Crooked Rain, Crooked Rain I remembered a couple of things. One, it’s really very good. Two, I love a shitty vocalist. Why is that? I don’t know, but there’s really something about a dude that can’t sing all that well but tries anyway. Unfair is one of my favorites. I don’t really spend a lot of time trying to figure out the meaning behind lyrics in Pavement songs, but I get the sense that he’s not a huge fan of whoever it was written about. It does end with him shrieking “trash, trash, trash”, so you know. I suppose it’s possible he is singing about literal garbage but I wouldn’t bet twenty bucks on it.

Gold Soundz is a good example of how Pavement and maybe Stephen Malkmus specifically have this way of making songs that sound like they should be “nice” or “pretty” (in the context of 90s grunge), but if you really listen he’s never all that nice and anything complimentary is always kind of backhanded:

“So drunk in the August sun

And you’re the kinda girl I like

Because you’re empty, and I’m empty

And you can never quarantine the past”

I bet she sure feels special, gee whiz! Feels about as good as when a love interest of mine described me as a “lost, broken, little girl” as if it was some kind of compliment. I’m only one of those things, and it is little. Same guy made me miss almost all of Pavement’s set at a festival a few years ago in favor of seeing literally no one else instead. Trash, trash, trash. I did get to see Spit on a Stranger so that was a consolation.

Fillmore Drive is pretty spectacular. It’s a big old noise that’s trying to be quiet. Most of it is about being tired and needing to sleep. The rest of it I really couldn’t tell you, I genuinely do mean it when I feel exasperated and exhausted trying to decipher their lyrics. I think this is why Pavement stir up such challenging feelings for me in general. I like the music, I like the sounds, I like the songs, I think they’re pretty great. But they also feel like a really brazen depiction of what it’s like to be in a relationship with a particular kind of guy — the tortured artist. They’ll never love you as much as they love their own suffering, and so you too will suffer. Tortured artists don’t just torture themselves you know.

I like his shitty voice and I like their big noise. You know whose I like better? Kim Deal and The Breeders. I yield my time.

#album review #music #music review #rolling stone top 500 #pavement #crooked rain crooked rain #stephen malkmus

[girlreviews]

Review #162: Different Class, Pulp

I distinctly remember Pulp having their moment in the mid 90s. I was 7 when this record came out, and I burned into my brain is the sound of whatever cool young presenter was rotating in at that moment (I’ll say this was probably peak Zoe Ball/Jamie Theakston era) saying “it’s Friday, it’s seven thirty, it’s TOP OF THE POPS”, and you know, I really absorbed a ton of music being glued to that show so religiously but I particularly remember Pulp’s videos airing because I really felt it and was like, what is this?

That would have been either Disco 2000 or Common People, it doesn’t matter anyway because I love them both. There are a few songs in life that have massive commercial success and infiltrate general popular culture. Sometimes that can really spoil it, because it’s everywhere, it gets overplayed, people aren’t really listening to it, they’re missing the point. To be honest, all of that is probably true for both of these songs, but again it doesn’t matter because I’ve never stopped enjoying them. They’re just as good every time I hear them. Every time. How is that? How?

It’s the subject matter that they’ve chosen to focus on. A particular nostalgia and way of life. It’s the incredible detail that you only know if you know (wood chip on the wall). But mostly it’s the way the emotion seeps out of literally every sound, verbal and non-verbal. Sometimes Jarvis Cocker lets out these little tuts or gasps and you can just feel his disdain and the roll of his eyes. He whispers “Deborah” in such a way. He plays with his delivery and tone so that if you are paying attention you can pinpoint the exact points where he switches from sweet earnestness and sincerity to cutting sarcasm and biting, snarling social commentary that is seething in resentment. There are few artists that can take “ooooohs” and “yeahs” and pack it so full of emotion:

What are you doing Sunday baby?

Would you like to come and meet me maybe?

You can even bring your baby

Ooooooh, ooooh oooh ooooh oooh ooooh ooh

Oooh oooh oooh oooh oooh!

On paper, you read that and think, that’s not great. But you hear it, and you think, damn that’s really something. How? HOW?

That’s just Disco 2000. I really am going to have a hard time not writing an entire dissertation on Common People. It’s incredible. The intro is just iconic, and everyone always loses their minds when it starts to play any time, any place. Rightfully so. It’s so clever. It’s so particular. It captures so well this very particular British feeling of hating, loathing, and having such disdain for rich people who cosplay as poor. We all know someone who’s been that person and it just rubs you the wrong way. Musicians and creatives especially who like to play pretend that they are starving artists when really they have a nice little bit of mailbox money and couldn’t even comprehend the reality of struggling with actual poverty. Their romanticization of being “working class” is condescending, insulting and pathetic. Summed up perfectly by this song, and delivered with absolute perfection, as if Jarvis is really trying to hold back losing his shit at someone. There’s a part where he inhales and holds his breath for a second, and it genuinely feels like he is fucking livid. Seething.

“Like a dog lying in a corner

They will bite you and never warn you

Look out, they'll tear your insides out

'Cause everybody hates a tourist

Especially one who thinks it's all such a laugh

Yeah and the chip stains and grease

Will come out in the bath

You will never understand

How it feels to live your life

With no meaning or control

And with nowhere left to go

You are amazed that they exist

And they burn so bright

Whilst you can only wonder why

Rent a flat above a shop

Cut your hair and get a job

Smoke some fags and play some pool

Pretend you never went to school

But still you'll never get it right

'Cause when you're laid in bed at night

Watching roaches climb the wall

If you called your dad he could stop it all

Yeah

Never live like common people

Never do what common people do

Never fail like common people

You'll never watch your life slide out of view

And then dance and drink and screw

Because there's nothing else to do”

Fuuuuuuck. You give us all of that, and on top of it, it’s an undeniable banger too. Iconic. I loved it when I was 7. I love it now. I’ll never, ever, be mad to hear this song.

Moving on, which I’m proud of myself for doing because it’s difficult for me to not spend more time picking apart Common People. I could easily go on, but instead I’m going to talk about Something Changed which is quite a different vibe from those two singles. It’s very sweet, and has lovely strings in it, just about how your life changes when you meet someone new and fall in love. Everyone spends time asking questions about how you ended up meeting, what if this, what if that? It’s really lovely. You can meet someone and suddenly everything is different — for better or worse.

Giving a nod to Sorted for E’s & Wizz, which, again, through their talent of perfectly describing specific scenes — I’m taken back to days of frequenting muddy festivals or going to some raggedy show at a pub in Camden that really felt like it wasn’t structurally sound and that if we didn’t stop dancing the top floor might actually fall beneath us. But it was okay you know, because we had our drinks and/or substances. Except, then comes the days following, which aren’t so good:

“In the middle of the night

It feels alright

But then tomorrow morning comes

Ooooh, ooooh and you come down”

Yes. You do.

2020 was the 25th anniversary of Different Class, and on social media it was being posted a lot with the question of what song was the best from the album. Everyone had a lot of opinions, of course, but my correct opinion is that Underwear is the best track. If for no other reason than for this line:

“If fashion is your trade

Then when you’re naked

I guess you must

Be unemployed, yeah”

Don’t go too much longer in your life without hearing this song. It’s classic Pulp, that same thing: earnestness, longing, sincerity, mixed with resentment and bitterness. Delivered perfectly. It’s like hearing someone expressing that they want to save someone that they kind of hate.

Something I think about all the time. And I mean all the time. Is how at the 1996 Brit Awards, Michael Jackson was performing Earth Song. It was this very hammed up thing where essentially he was portrayed as the messiah and it really obnoxious (although I loved this song, but in a comical kind of way, once sang it at karaoke — do not recommend). Anyway, Jarvis Cocker was genuinely appalled at the display and rushes the stage to moon MJ. What should have just been an amusing moment turned into a whole thing. There were children on stage and he was even questioned by police. It was all fine in that there was no serious wrong-doing found to have taken place, but his mental health sure did take a hit after that.

BUT I SWEAR, I swear, and I can’t find it and can’t find any evidence of it, but I swear on my life that in the following few weeks, Pulp were on TOTP again, and they made light of the situation by having Jarvis performing from a set that looked like a jail cell. It’s so specific I don’t feel like my brain could be making it up, but it’s possible I’m wrong.

They had broken up or at least gone on hiatus by the time I was old enough to see them live, which really hurt my heart. Fortunately they would reunite occasionally and I did get to see them at Hyde Park once. Now they actually tour fairly regularly, and are even returning to North America after a long-ass time, who knows. Maybe I’ll see them again. Maybe he’ll cover Earth Song (again, do not recommend).

#album review #music #music review #rolling stone top 500 #pulp #different class #jarvis cocker #common people #disco 2000

[girlreviews]

Review #113: The Queen is Dead, The Smiths

Morrissey really turned out to be a disappointing and vile piece of shit, and it’s a damn shame. Went from being this quirky, pretentious, off-beat guy that you sort of tolerated because it was funny and the music was so damn good and you could let go of his holier-than-thou shit because you could never really tell if he was being totally serious, and every now and again the internet would gift you with a picture of him with a cat on his head. You were like “OH Morrissey, what are you like?!”, but over the years it got a darker and more insidious until it became abundantly clear that we weren’t dealing with some performance artist who liked to play with irony and push boundaries – we were dealing with a hateful man. The dude supports a political party that is too far right for Nigel Farage. I hand on heart did not know such a thing could exist, which is truly disturbing, but Farage himself described “For Britain” as “made up of Nazi’s and racists”. To be fair, Farage didn’t actually qualify that he thought that was a bad thing, so maybe Morrissey is still in appropriate company with that sorry excuse of a human.

Thankfully, The Smiths isn’t Morrissey, and Morrissey isn’t The Smiths. The other members have distanced themselves and made it clear that they don’t have any tolerance for anything center-right, let alone anything that flirts with fascism. One of my favorite moments in British politics is when then Prime Minister/Head Doofus David Cameron tried to be a cool dude in front of his in-bred private schoolboy cronies and said The Smiths were his favorite band. I assume he was not expecting the pure and utter humiliation of Johnny Marr, founding member and legendary guitarist of The Smiths publicly forbidding him to like The Smith’s music and instructing him to “stop saying you like it, no you don’t”. I believe I laughed for a solid 15 minutes. You can have all the power in the world (or the illusion of it), and someone can still just destroy you like that because you’re a fucking dillhole with no integrity, no spine, no chill and everybody knows it.

Anyway, we’ll get to the record and the songs in a second, but circling back to the time in life before we all had to really accept just how much of a turd Morrissey is, you know, we had this sort of whimsical Eeyore crooner type character that was pretty entertaining, truth be told. I had a friend that used to sing Happy Birthday in the style of Morrissey and I’d be lying if I said I didn’t look forward to it every year. There’s a particular delight in singing along and doing your best Morrissey impression or going all in on the “aaaah!” in This Charming Man. We’re grieving that Morrissey. But he’s gone, if he was ever really here. I actually saw him at the Ryman, and there was still some semblance of the witty weirdo that we put up with. He came on stage, took his shirt off, said in his ridiculous voice, “I wuff you!” and launched right into How Soon Is Now? It was pretty great. It really was. But still, fuck that guy, he doesn’t deserve to perform at the Mother Church ever again.

So if I’m being completely honest, I think I’ve gotten to know The Smith’s haphazardly over the years not through their “true” albums. They put out a few compilations that could have fooled me into thinking they were albums (and did), and so I do not believe I ever listened to The Queen is Dead from start to finish until now. It really epitomizes what people mean when they’re like, ugh, The Smiths are so depressing. I’ve never really felt that. I always found them to feel very upbeat, despite the content being undeniably steeped in misery. I always found that very funny and assumed it was intentional. But a lot of these tracks are just straight-up downers (I Know It’s Over, Had No One Ever). It really takes me back to this time, where we had not lived in England too long. We didn’t know anyone yet, and weren’t all that settled – for those of you who have never moved across an ocean to another country, which I’ve now done twice – that shit is hard and it takes so much longer than you realize to feel like you have any sense of belonging or feeling of being home. I knew that even though I was three, because on Sunday we would just aimlessly drive around in my Dad’s company car and try and find a pub that welcomed children (that was not the cultural norm in England in the 90s), and that was even open on Sunday at all. Often we would just end up driving around the countryside or going to a hardware store. This is likely why I associate both Sundays and hardware stores with immense existential dread. I totally knew we were lonely and outcasts as a family unit. It was also so grey and rainy looking out the car window and The Smiths was often the soundtrack. Bleugh.

Bigmouth Strikes Again changes the pace and gets to that upbeat misery that I referred to earlier. A song can get you up and moving even when it suggests that “you should be bludgeoned in your bed”. When I still lived in East London, my friends and I used to frequent this very funny club night, dubbed “Feeling Gloomy”, that was entirely dedicated to dancing your ass off to miserable songs that were catchy as fuck and had a great beat. It was rife with moody 80s serious synth music, and to the surprise of absolutely no one, it was one of my favorite places to go and let it all out. It was my happiest place to be miserable.

Once, after a particularly heavy weekend, I was in my office alone, not getting a lot done because I was… Struggling. Physically, mentally, emotionally, spiritually. This wasn’t a glamorous or stable time in my life, and I did my best all told. As mentioned previously, I had some very unsympathetic and problematic upper management that imposed bans on my music habits. One of my three bosses was a half-decent human being and found my antics sort of endearing. He came in that day, and found me in a very sorry state. I was attempting to eat a banana, curled up on the floor, with There Is A Light That Never Goes Out meekly playing from my shitty laptop speakers. He laughed, shut my laptop, made me a cup of tea, and said “listen girlreviews, we’ve talked about this, you can’t listen to The Smiths when you’ve had a big weekend”. We laughed. On a separate note regarding this song. One of my closest, dearest, and oldest friends assigns this song to me, my life, and our relationship with each other:

“Take me out tonight

Oh, take me anywhere, I don't care

I don't care, I don't care

Driving in your car

I never, never want to go home

Because I haven't got one, la-di-dum

Oh, I haven't got one

And if a double-decker bus

Crashes into us

To die by your side

Is such a heavenly way to die

And if a ten-ton truck

Kills the both of us

To die by your side

Well, the pleasure, the privilege is mine”

Make of that what you will. It’s complicated, deep, and beautiful. The strings that accompany these words are complicated, deep, and beautiful as well. I don’t know what it is about this song but it captures a gratitude and a melancholy. Something that is, but also cannot be. It’s very special and I cherish it. I think it’s too easy to get stuck on the morbidity of it without realizing what it’s really saying: I’m so grateful to be here with you in this car. Even in the face of certain death, you make me feel safe. You’re the home I don’t have, and I love you. What a wild thing for two people to share. How fortunate am I to know and love someone like that, and know that they know and love me like that right back.

#album review #music #music review #rolling stone top 500 #the smiths #the queen is dead #morrissey #johnny marr

[girlreviews]

Review #382: Currents, Tame Impala

Yet another album coming up on ten years old that forces me to reckon with the fact that I too am also almost ten years older than when it came out. They took five years to put out another! By the time they did that we were in the throes of a pandemic. So a lot happened. I had a lot of different haircuts. A lot.

It’s another breakup album. It came out the year I got married. I’m now divorced. It’s been pretty interesting revisiting this record, because my ex-husband and I were super into it. Everyone was, at least everyone who liked alternative music and wore flannel and tiny hats. Whatever iteration of hipster was hanging around East Nashville in 2015, they were playing it in every bougie coffee shop and thrift store. So it fell out of favor for me after a while, I got a little sick of it.

I had actually just seen them live a few years prior, right before moving Stateside. In Australia of all places, where they are from! At a festival called Groovin’ the Moo, in Canberra. I was there on a WILD ride, with a guy I met in London at a NYE party at the Ukrainian embassy (????) through a mutual friend who was dating my bestie. He and I hit it off, stayed up all night doing drugs, talking mad shit, and having a great time. Mans is moving back to Australia in three days. Oh well. Never mind. Nope, four months later I’m there visiting him. This was quite literally bananas, but really fucking fun — also a fucking disaster. It was like we were falling in love, getting together and breaking up all at the same time. The absolute fucking antics we get up to on this trip. We are invited to a house party, and are so drunk before arriving we accidentally break into THE WRONG house trying to attend. We wake up one morning in our room with the bed completely wonky, two legs snapped on it, potato chips absolutely fucking everywhere, all over the bed, floor, surfaces, and there’s just a pug dog snuffling around eating them all. Do not know whose dog it was to this day. Attend this festival, remember absolutely nothing about it other than seeing Tame Impala, return to the UK with a gnarly sunburn, a powerpuff girls pillow bought as a forget-me-not and a plastic frog table marker stolen from a pizza joint. If it doesn’t sound romantic, it’s because it shouldn’t. But we were in LOVE! It was a fucking disaster and it ended quite badly and I arrived in America a broken hollow shell of a woman. This honestly cracks me up. This is exactly the kind of bullshit you’re supposed to pull in your twenties, everyone. And Tame Impala is the exact right soundtrack for it, psychedelic pop rock weirdness. It was their prior album Lonerism that scored that particular moment, with the most prominent track for me being appropriately titled It Feels Like We Only Go Backwards. Teehee.

Anyway, it’s a few years later, I have my shit together a bit now, I’m getting married or already am, and here comes Tame Impala with Currents. It seems like Kevin Parker maybe had some love adventure of his own and he’s gotta get it off his chest, he’s got some feelings. Here’s what I love about this record, and it’s gonna sound like I’m ripping on it, but I’m not. The lyrics, they’re really pretty… What word am I looking for here. They lack sophistication and depth. Man really just says what he would say to his bros when he’s trying to say how he feels about his relationship ending. They’re simple. They’re rudimentary. They’re clumsy. But they’re perfect. Are we poetic when we are messy in a breakup? Do I sound like I was poetic in any shape or form on potato chip pug hangover day? No. It is what it is. There were multiple different KINDS of potato chips, guys. It’s like we thought we were sowing potato chip seeds to grow a little garden. The pug got his head stuck in a bag for a hot second. You can’t make it what it isn’t. It’s a damn mess. But you CAN make the music and sound emote. And that he does, magically and wonderfully, carrying the lyrics. It works together so well. It’s a journey.

Let it Happen, first of all, I challenge you to run to this. It’s almost eight minutes and is great for keeping pace (I have mentioned my running playlists are wild and I’m not kidding). A friend pointed out to me this past weekend that something I tend to gravitate towards in songs — and they’re right — is ones that evolve and take you on a trip. The end of the song is unrecognizable from the beginning. I love that. This is one of those. It also just fucking slaps. Great start.

Eventually and Less I Know The Better are prime examples of the sonic mastery and lyrical lacking just sort of working. They’re also the most obvious breakup tracks and those simple words are what make it so god damn relatable:

“She said it’s not now or never

In ten years we’ll be together

I said better late than never

Just don’t let me wait forever

Don’t let me wait forever”

Past Life. FUCK, this song is so fucking good it’s so fucking DIFFERENT. Can’t even speak on it, just go stick it on and vibe your ass off, okay?

Disciples is my absolute favorite. For a few reasons. I also love me a short track. But this one is SO fun to sing, and it’s so chirpy and upbeat for a song that’s basically about telling someone you used to care for that they’re a shitty person now (“now it’s like the world owes you, walking around like everybody should know you”). By the way, have you ever done that, told someone you loved that you officially think they suck now? Interesting experience. Not sure whether I recommend it or not to be honest, maybe one of those things that you’ve gotta try on for yourself to see if it’s for you. But anyway, also there’s just some really great steering wheel slap moments of bass and percussion that make me want to DIE and ASCEND from this mortal plain to wherever this song was born from. I said what I said.

If not for Disciples, there’s no question that my favorite track would be ‘Cause I’m a Man. I still remember driving my friend Brittney home in my Lincoln LS, and she was like, you gotta hear the new Tame Impala track. I honestly was not impressed. But she was so animated, and made me listen over and over until I got it. This is a rare song for me, because even now I like it more with each listen. It’s not a surprise, since it’s about his own self reflection on how shitty men are, how they’re always just making sad little excuses for why they don’t measure up to women, and are always letting us down. He does a good job, he really does (“Cause I’m a man, woman, I’ll never be as strong as you”). But, throughout the song he makes these kind of lazy, semi-sexual “uh!” noises and they’re honestly hilarious. They just really add something. I can’t explain why. It’s sort of a nice touch of self depreciation that I truly appreciate.

It’s a one of a kind record, really. It was different from their previous, and their follow up didn’t match it. They have a new single out with Justice and I’m told it’s very good. I saw them again in 2022 at a festival in Barcelona, much less wild and drug fueled than my previous go around (I’m in my thirties now, who has the energy). The sound was bad and my feet hurt, BUT Kevin Parker did us all a solid and covered Last Nite by The Strokes which cheered us all up, because they got COVID and pulled out last minute. Ah well, Julian’s a creep anyhow and could never write something as self aware as Currents. He’s still hitting on teenage girls in his late forties. Kevin Parker, I better not find you pulling the same shit or I will be coming for you and it will be ugly.

#album review #music #music review #rolling stone top 500 #tame impala #currents

[girlreviews]

Review #7: Rumours, Fleetwood Mac

I might have met a person who hasn’t listened to Rumours, but I’ve never met a person who has listened to it and was like “no thanks”. Never. If anyone hates this record get in touch, I just want to talk.

So interesting that such an incredible piece of work that holds up decade after decade, represents a band that during its creation was a damn hot mess. It’s not just a breakup record. It’s a double breakup record. Stevie Nicks and Lindsey Buckingham had called it quits, and John and Christine McVie were circling the drain, divorcing while they toured Rumours. Hoo-boy can you feel it all. Never has such an overall cheery and upbeat record been so deeply filled with resentment, anger, heartbreak, defeat and getting the fuck over it. You’re just trying to keep up with which song is a fuck you from which band member to the other. Except you can’t, because you end up just getting lost in the music.

Never mind that before all of that, the drummer had an affair with Mick Fleetwood’s wife and all hell broke loose. Line up changes and whatnot. They started as a blues band, y’know? Yet, here we are, with this gorgeous thirty nine minutes of music and a group of people that arguably should seek therapy, rehab, and probably never see each other again. If David Attenborough is a Fleetwood Mac fan — and let’s assume that he is — he would say, “life… finds a way”.

As is often the case I had actually heard covers of a few of the songs as a young’un before ever hearing the originals or ever hearing the full album. Eva Cassidy covered Songbird. It was my childhood friend’s favorite song, and makes me think of her every time I hear it. The Corrs, Irish sibling band, covered Dreams in the late 90s. Their whole thing was a little weird. Jack Dee used to have a bit about the “odd” Corr brother that wasn’t invited to be in the band, Pat Corr. It was pretty funny. That old boss of mine used to say disparaging things about Andrea Corr as if she’d ever have given him the time of day. It makes me want to punch things, even now. I realize in hindsight he used to tear down any Irish woman musician that saw more success than him (see also: Sinéad O’Connor, Delores O’Riordan). They all did see more success, and they all deserved it, with two of them leaving legendary musical legacies even after death. He never made it past a breakfast show that had two knockoff muppets as presenters. I’m not joking.

Let’s talk about Second Hand News, what a charming and odd way to open an album. Buckingham wrote this and he’s generally acknowledged to be a real piece of work (allegedly, John McVie threw a glass of vodka in his face during the making of the record), even now. He insists he “ain’t gonna miss” Nicks when she goes, and that he’s been “tossed around enough”, but it’s pretty clear he ain’t over it. Boohoo, Lindsey. Such light acoustic riffs, luscious harmonies and hefty rhythm throughout with some outro guitar solo just to really make its point.

Dreams is a Stevie Nicks led classic. Let’s talk about Stevie. She’s been my hair inspiration for most of my life. She put out solo shit that was every bit as good as this record. Her voice sounds like that of a woman who has lived a thousand lives. An old, witchy, wise, woman, living in a young, exuberant, beautiful woman’s body. Like smoke on water. She warns Buckingham of his inevitable loneliness… “when the rain washes you clean, you’ll know”. Oof. For as tough and witchy as she is, there’s a real tenderness to her. I’ve always admired her ability to show the world all of her sides, the badass and the vulnerable. Pretty recently she showed us that vulnerable side when we lost Christine McVie. Stevie let her deep grief be known to the world. Whatever had gone on with that band, that was her best friend, and they’ll never sing together again.

This really is one of those where all of the tracks are amazing, but they’re all really different. Some are like standing in an open field of sunflowers, while some are like that part on a rollercoaster where you’re climbing slowly up the incline just waiting for the chaos. The Chain, I think, has to be my favorite for that reason. What I find so interesting is that they’re all credited as writers on this one, so it was an actual team effort, it would seem. First and foremost, the four (five?!) part harmonies in this are so incredible. It’s no softy squishy Simon and Garfunkel shit. These people are pissed, in different keys. It’s POWERFUL. But each instrument also has a voice of its own, the bass line, the guitar solo, the simple drum beat that evolves into a sprint. Whoever was on the tambourine even was going really fucking hard. It takes you on a damn journey. That rollercoaster was wild, let’s go again. And again. And again.

I used to have this record on vinyl and it sadly was one that got lost along the way between the UK and the US. I’ll say, it sounds mighty fine in that format. For a while in and after college, I lived in a shitty house in East London (it’s definitely fancy now but it was a rathole when I called it home). The kitchen ceiling literally caved in once. Anyway, it was me, my then boyfriend, my best girlfriend, and four other dudes. Sometimes we had just one rotating roommate. The point being it was some chaos, not unlike Fleetwood Mac in the making of Rumours. We were all a damn mess. But we were united any time I stuck this record on my turntable, or any time I was doing the dishes and one of the singles came on my absolutely adorable digital radio that looked like a teeny tiny Marshall Amp (add to list of things I wish I still had). I think of the good times in those kinda bad times when I hear Rumours, which is sort of the point of the album, as pointed out by Stevie in 2002:

“If you took out all the bad stuff in the band, the songs wouldn’t have happened. There simply wouldn’t have been a Rumours if everything had been fabulous.”

I’ll take her at her word, anyone with bangs that effortless can really do no wrong.

#album review #music #music review #rolling stone top 500 #fleetwood mac #rumours #stevie nicks

[girlreviews]

Review #324: A Rush of Blood to the Head, Coldplay

I grew up in England from the age of three to the age of twenty five, when I returned to the US. I am a very weird American citizen who feels American but that has British culture pulsing through my veins. There’s probably nowhere this shows up more than in my music taste. Perhaps my sense of humor or deep cynicism but that’s softened up a good bit over the years since I spent time around more neighborly Americans and got some desperately needed vitamin D.

The point being, there are some rules, and one of those rules is and has always been: Coldplay are not cool. They never were. They never will be. There’s no corner of “decent” music taste where it’s acceptable to say that they’re good or that you like them. But here’s the thing. They’re good, and I like them. Or at least, they were good, and I did like them. I don’t care if they’re “wimpy”, or if Chris Martin sounds like he ALWAYS has a stuffy nose, or if his lyrics border on pretentious (they do), or if they’re just sort of annoying. Here’s my real confession: I was a true, diehard superfan as a teen. More on that later.

Their first two albums were very, very good. Excellent. Beautiful. Not perfect. But for a bunch of wet blankets that really had nothing marketable to offer other than the actual songs themselves: they were good songs. And I’ll even go on the record saying the next two were pretty damn good as well. Things started going a bit off the rails at album number five and I dare say Coldplay fell prey to being lazy and high on their own supply after that. They’ve been cranking out pure nonsense ever since. I tuned out.

But that doesn’t negate the first four, and especially two, and especially second. A Rush of Blood to the Head was really, really, good. Sure, it unleashed the radio nightmare upon us all that was Clocks, and I still can’t listen to it. But that’s totally forgivable if you ask me because we got some other real stunners out of it. Some that when I listen to, which is pretty infrequent these days, I’m like, well shit yeah, this is a pretty quiet little fucking masterpiece isn’t it? You bunch of whiny nerds annoyed everyone so much because nobody wanted to give you the satisfaction. How painfully British.

Some songs that stand out. God Put A Smile On Your Face, it’s maybe about as cool as Coldplay gets really. I don’t really know or care how to elaborate on that other than citing the chorus:

“When you work it out

I’m worse than you

When you work it out

I wanted to

When you work out

Where to draw the line

Your guess is as good as mine”

It’s a love song. You’re perfect, I suck, you’ll figure that out eventually but hopefully you like me anyway, who the fuck knows. I get that.

The Scientist. Still a gorgeous song. It hurts my feelings. My grandpa was hospitalized for a time while I was visiting the US one Summer and I had it on repeat and sat at his bedside making some really pretty artwork of the lyrics, as I often did, because I was a little loser. I remember which lyrics and they’re still the ones that really speak to me:

“I was just guessing

Numbers and figures

Pulling the puzzle apart

Questions of science

Science and progress

Do not speak as loud as my heart”

A special mention to Green Eyes and Warning Sign. I have green eyes, and I always loved his caterwauling when he draws out “and anybody, who tries to deny you, must be outta their MIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIND”. Warning Sign has a truly somber string arrangement in it that always really conveyed the emotion of the song. He’s gotta tell you “in his loudest tones” I fucked up, please take me back.

The standout is the title track. A Rush of Blood to the Head is genuinely an outstanding piece of music. Every time I listen to it I’m like yeah okay, this is why this record is in the top 500. No question. It’s so damn good. This was the thing man, Chris Martin really had some things to say for awhile, and he had a real talent with words. That’s not to say that everything he had to say was worth hearing, or that all of his words were poetry, but he did have a way with them. He knew it too, and therein lies the problem. Anyway, it’s a long song, but my oh my is it really something. There’s a main character who obviously has a lot of feelings and is telling us all of the things he’s going to do, for, it seems like justice or vengeance:

“Because I'm gonna buy this place and see it burn

And do back the things it did to you in return"

There’s various iterations of this: he’s going to buy a gun to start a war, he’s going to put this place six feet underground. It’s sort of some dystopian love song? There’s someone at his side that he seems to be doing this for, although it’s unclear that they want that at all. It’s really bleak. It has this signature Coldplay sound of just droning on musically, heavy drums and just repetitive small guitar notes, but, that changes as it goes on and in comes some really melodic and beautiful guitar that accompanies some lyrics that depart the theme:

“So, meet me by the bridge,

Oh meet me by the lane

When am I gonna see that pretty face again?

Oh, meet me on the road,

Meet me where I said

Blame it all upon a rush of blood to the head”.

It’s just really good. It feels like it came out 20 years too early to be honest. Much more appropriate for these times than 2002, a simpler time that we would all happily return to if we could. That’s a good segue into my teenage Coldplay fandom. Here’s a list of the things I did out of love and dedication to their music:

- I saw them live no less than five times

- One of those times I skipped school to do so

- At that concert, which was for the X&Y album and was at Crystal Palace, Chris Martin threw disposable cameras into the crowd that he had taken pictures on backstage, and ya girl caught it, I am certain those pics are long gone but it was pretty cool at the time

- I had all of their albums on day of release, and their live DVD (this cracks me up, the idea of owning a DVD like that of a live performance)

- I went to HMV and requested that I be the recipient of the release display artwork when they were done with it and they kindly obliged (this is some real dedication my friends)

- I genuinely attended the G8 protests in Edinburgh (cited in review #500) at Coldplay’s encouragement, due to this album, as this was what Chris Martin had feelings about at the time. Climate change, and Bush and Blair being war criminals. I had feelings about that too and I gave my parents the finger and went all out. Honestly I’m not ashamed of this, it’s something I remain proud of doing. As for Chris Martin, I suspect he wouldn’t be so quick to be so political and outspoken these days, and that’s a shame. I thought you were cool even when nobody thought you were cool, Chris. And now nobody thinks you’re cool and I kind of agree.

- I had a tank top that was spray painted with “Make Trade Fair”, because that’s what he had spray painted on his piano. This is so funny to me.

That’s a real list of my sins right there but I’m not sorry. I’ve never stopped loving those first two records and I never will. It’s been over twenty years — so I’m pretty sure my mind is made up. One thing I have definitely learned is that once you get into your thirties, what feels cool to you is not giving a single shit about being cool. But Clocks fucking sucks.

#album review #music #music review #rolling stone top 500 #coldplay #a rush of blood to the head

[girlreviews]

Review #112: Goodbye Yellow Brick Road, Elton John

There are a bunch of songs on this album that we probably all know and love. If you don’t, you’ve been living under a rock or something and there’s not a lot of hope for you. They’re great. But have you ever listened to Funeral for a Friend/Love Lies Bleeding? The double opener of this record. Half instrumental before leading into its vocal second half. It’s intense. Gotta wonder whose funeral this was and what their wishes were in being remembered. They weren’t messing around.

Bennie and the Jets, a damn classic, recorded in the studio but sort of made to sound as if was recorded live by adding in crowd sounds from different live shows – including that of a 1970 Jimi Hendrix show on the Isle of Wight (???). This song slaps. It’s so ridiculous. The delivery of the vocals is absurd, and it’s just really made for drunk people at a bar to shriek it over and over. I’ve lost my voice a couple of times this way.

A hit, but an underrated one (since there are so many to choose from in Elton John’s repertoire), is the album’s title track, Goodbye Yellow Brick Road. I’ve always been enamored with this song and how it tells a bleak tale of someone with big dreams being faced with a harsh reality. People are all too willing to take advantage of naïve, eager, people like them. You can have everything you want – at a price. It has such stark imagery in it:

“What do you think you’ll do then?

I bet they shoot down the plane

It’ll take you a couple of vodka and tonics

To set you on your feet again

Maybe you’ll get a replacement

There’s plenty like me to be found

Mongrels, who ain’t got a penny

Sniffin’ for tidbits like you

On the ground”

It’s too short and I’m always disappointed when it’s over because I think, man, I could hear that chorus a few more times. The harmonies and production of it are just really striking and really deliver feeling like, “this life isn’t for me”. It’s not sad exactly. It’s maybe like a disappointment and acceptance. A moving on. A hard lesson learned.

What I love about this record is that it’s the original material for a 2011 album that made its way into my all-time favorites, and I felt got massively overlooked by just about everyone and that’s really just to their detriment. In 2011, Elton John and Pnau released Good Morning to the Night, which was essentially Pnau (one half of Empire of the Sun) remixing Elton’s lesser-known B-sides or album tracks into new material. A lot of them came from the album tracks of Goodbye Yellow Brick Road. It. Was. Out. Standing. Pure joy to listen to. I have met approximately one other human being who gives a fuck about it. Anyway, shit was good. For example, in the title track Good Morning to the Night, they take the organ from Funeral for a Friend, and fuckin’ turn that shit into a heavenly ascent that you do not come down from. It’s no funeral. You’re alive.

My favorite track, however, is Phoenix, which lifts its lyrics exclusively from the 1973 record's Grey Seal. While the music in Phoenix is beautiful, uplifting, inspiring, and has encouraged me to run more miles than I can count – it’s the words. When I first moved to the US I spent the first few months of my time here in a very particular way. I slept a lot. A LOT. I got up every day. Made tea, in the microwave (if you know me, you know this pains me to admit), and then I ran three miles on a treadmill to get my feelings out. Then I cried. Then I watched as much Breaking Bad as one human can reasonably consume without crawling up the walls with anxiety. Rinse. Repeat. Eventually, I got a job. But this was my job for a bit while I worked out some shit in my nugget and got some rest. I had a playlist. I still have it, and I still use it when I run. It’s batshit to be honest, if anyone ever listened in on me at the gym, they’d be like what weird shit makes this girl run? Anyway. Phoenix is on there as an up-tempo feet mover, but really, as I maintain, it’s the message, which is really the verses from Grey Seal, that made me go-go-go:

“Why's it never light on my lawn

Why does it rain

And never say good-day to the new-born

On the big screen they showed us the sun

But not as bright in life as the real one

It's never quite the same as the real one

I never learned why meteors were formed

I only farmed in schools

That were so warn and torn

If anyone can cry then so can I

I read books and draw life from the eye

All my life is drawings from the eye

Your mission bells were wrought by ancient men

The roots were formed by twisted roots

Your roots were twisted then

I was re-born before all life could die

The Phoenix bird will leave this world to fly

If the Phoenix bird can fly then so can I”

This song has always made me dig deep and keep going. Whether on a stupid treadmill or in a really hard time. He asks the grey seal “How does it feel to be so wise? To see through eyes that only see what’s real?”. It makes me think of the story of The White Seal, by Rudyard Kipling. A young blue-eyed seal went against his elder's advice to seek a safe place for them all and found it, gaining a lot of wisdom on the way. Striking out on one’s own to avoid a fate that seems completely inevitable, against all the naysayers, and fucking making it happen. Anyway. One version of the song has a seal (and a phoenix) and one version of the song has a phoenix only, both versions are remarkable. Only one is on the Rolling Stones's Top 500 Albums of All Time, and that is Goodbye Yellow Brick Road.

#album review #music #music review #rolling stone top 500 #elton john #goodbye yellow brick road

[girlreviews]

Review #287: Mr. Tambourine Man, The Byrds

I was four years old when I heard The Byrd’s version of Mr. Tambourine Man on the radio and asked my Mom what it was. She knew the name but not the artist. I constantly asked to listen to Mr. Tambourine Man after that. It just cast a spell over me. It was so gorgeous! I hadn’t ever heard anything like this! Okay so I hadn’t heard a lot of stuff when I was four but I still knew when something was magical when I heard it.

But you know, it was like 1992, and you couldn’t just easily listen to whatever song you wanted whenever you wanted (my God how did I function?). So eventually, after little success of actually getting to listen to it, I gave up asking and became obsessed with some other song and largely forgot about it.

And that’s pretty much how it stayed until I was 18 or 19 and got really really into Bob Dylan. Really into Bob Dylan. Obnoxiously into Bob Dylan. My teenage brain had no room for both The Byrds and Bob Dylan to be incredible and legendary — which of course they are — so my natural inclination was to disown my earlier love of The Byrds version and forever commit myself to Bob Dylan’s original, and Bob Dylan’s original ONLY. Why? Because!!!!!!!!!

So two weeks before I leave for college, I’m having a tonsillectomy. Which isn’t ideal. But that’s what we’re doing. I’m on a ward with three old ladies. This is what I remember from this hospital stay:

One: When I was awoken from my surgery, barely conscious from anesthesia, the nurses told me I had to briefly wake up to move from the surgery bed to my ward bed. I had my eyes closed but I was responsive. They kept saying “come on girlreviews, all you have to do is stay awake long enough to move beds”. I said to them “after I move beds, can I go back to sleep?” And they said “yes, of course you can”, to which I replied “this is the happiest moment of my life”. And it was. I could sleep peacefully without any fear or disruption with nobody I knew around. I never had felt so relaxed. I think about this all the time.

Two: They woke me up every two hours to make me drink tea and eat toast, which I also had no complaints about. During one of these intervals, a man was at my bedside that had a very calm and comforting demeanor. He ran the hospital radio station and asked me if I had a song I’d like to hear. I emphatically said “Mr. Tambourine Man, but the BOB DYLAN version!”, and then I was glued to that radio station until the moment I was discharged. Can you imagine how salty I was when he played The Byrds version? It makes me laugh now, because I definitely prefer it again. My four year old self was so much wiser than my sulky teenage mind.

I actually listened to this record a few months ago and was surprised to recognize another song I knew. I’ll Feel A Whole Lot Better, made known to be by Tom Petty. The thing about The Byrds is how they didn’t enjoy the same success, or, magnitude of success as some of their peers even though they’re really responsible for creating entire genres. And their influence is just, immeasurable. I hear in this record a never ending list of records that wouldn’t exist without it. Too many to name. The vocal harmonies, twiddly guitar, and gentle percussion are what captivated me when I was four years old and it’s pretty clear that I was not the only one. It feels like a life reaffirming cup of tea when you’re hungover. That second sleep. That shower where you emerge feeling like a new person and everything’s about 37% funnier. What’s better than that? Other than not being hungover to begin with. Sometimes you gotta ride the Dao, though, you know?

#album review #music #music review #rolling stone top 500 #the byrds #Mr. tambourine man #bob dylan #tom petty