Bettye LaVette: The Scene of the Crime

As a rule, I don't like singers who only perform other people's songs. We don't celebrate authors who simply re-tell other writer's stories, and we don't go to galleries to see paintings by artists who blatantly copy other artists, so why should we praise singers who only sing other people's songs?

Bettye LaVette has made me reconsider the value of my rule. LaVette does magical things to other people's songs. She finds things in the originals that none of us knew were there, and she reinvents the songs based on her discoveries.

Music:
On the surface, this album is similar to LaVette's first release on Anti Records. On closer listen, though, it feels totally different. This album seems darker and more painful than I've Got My Own Hell to Raise. Almost as if LaVette raised her hell, and is now sitting in the aftermath, looking around at how different things have become.

The Scene of the Crime is unquestionably a soul record, but hints of rock and country flow through it. It might be because producer Patterson Hood and most of LaVette's session band are all members of alt-country heavyweights Drive-By Truckers, or it might be because LaVette understands all great music shares a common spirit that transcends categorization. Take a listen to Willie Nelson's "Somebody Pick Up My Pieces" and you'll hear how LaVette found the soul inside a great a country song.

And don't even get me started on her rendition of Elton John's "Talking Old Soldiers". This one gives me chills.



Packaging:
The liner notes follow the same basic theme as LaVette's last album: simple design, minimal use of color, a few stark photos, detailed credits, and an essay. The essay is well-written, and it gives me an appreciation for pretty much every person and place that was involved in the making of this record. On the downside, the photos -- mostly of the vintage studio gear from Muscle Shoals' Fame Studios -- are generic, and the striped back cover doesn't make any sense. I guess it's supposed to represent the stripes on a prison uniform, but it just looks like some kind of random, seizure-inducing optical illusion.

Listen if you like: Tina Turner, Wilson Pickett, Drive-By Truckers

If it were food, it'd be: a late-night shot of whiskey in a lonely Alabama dive bar

Celebration: The Modern Tribe

Three things about Celebration piqued my interest when I first heard of them: they're tight with TV On The Radio, they're on 4AD records, and they're local.

I was excited to hear TV On The Radio's David Sitek work as a producer instead of a band member; 4AD has one of the best track records of any independent label out there; and even though I'm sadly ignorant about the local Baltimore scene, I know we've got more than our fair share of really good bands.

Needless to say, I was very happy when I spotted The Modern Tribe on the shelf at the EPFL.

Music:
Celebration sits at a point midway between TV On The Radio and The Creatures. It has the relentless creativity and energy that both bands possess, and it combines the unusual-yet-catchy songwriting of the former with the driving percussion and horns of the latter.

The Modern Tribe gets better with each listen. My initial reactions were lukewarm, but I've been listening to the CD for a few weeks now. I put it in my stereo this morning, and I caught myself singing along with every song and getting more and more excited as the disc progressed. It's the same reaction I had to TV On The Radio's Desperate Youth, Blood Thirsty Babes, which eventually became one of my very favorite albums of the past decade. Honestly, I wouldn't be surprised if The Modern Tribe ends up having the same kind of hold on me.

As soon as I'm done writing this, I'm heading over to Sound Garden to pick up a copy of The Modern Tribe. I guess that probably speaks louder than any of the words I've written here, doesn't it?

Packaging:
The cover is bizarre. It looks like some kind of stage set from an awards show or a bad '70s TV variety program. It's got the dancing girls and everything. The text is printed in a metallic gold foil, which is a very nice (and expensive) touch. The thing is, the cover isn't a very good representation of the music. I'm not certain what kind of artwork would best accompany the music, but it's not this. In fact, I almost skipped right over this on the EPFL's shelves, because I assumed it was some sort of dodgy compilation of party tunes.

Listen if you like: TV On The Radio, The Creatures / Siouxsie and the Banshees, PJ Harvey's later albums, Lydia Lunch, Nick Cave

If it were food, it'd be: Stuffed jalapeno peppers

Can: Ege Bamyasi

If Can's Tago Mago hadn't completely blown me away, I wouldn't have given Ege Bamyasi a second listen. That's how much I hated it the first time I heard it. But I did listen again, and then I gave it a third listen, and a fourth... and I still hated it.

Eventually, I listened on some great headphones. I heard some nice production tricks and experimental ideas buried in the background. Nice production tricks do not make a great album.

After my sixth listen, I gave up and wrote this review. Needless to say, I'm unimpressed.

Music:
Tago Mago is a complicated and challenging album that undeniably rocks. It is one of the best CDs I've checked out from EPFL.

Ege Bamyasi sounds like its dumb little brother.

I'm surprised, because every review I've read says Ege Bamyasi is a great album, 5 stars, perfect introduction to Can, yada yada yada. I don't hear it, though. The band sounds disengaged and uninterested. The songs don't do anything or go anywhere. The improvisation is dull, and the composition is uninspired. It sounds as if Can couldn't decide between being accessible or experimental, so they compromised at some boring point in the middle.

"Sing Swan Song" has the same introspective naval-gazing blandness that characterizes too much of Radiohead's music from the past decade. "One More Night" sounds like a Fela Kuti jam with no fire or passion. "Soup" starts with another dull jam, then inexplicably disintegrates into five minutes of noise that has nothing to do with the first five minutes of the song. (For what it's worth, those five minutes of noise are the most interesting thing on the album, but even they devolve into the kind of generic free-form improvisation that marked the third-rate followers of people like Ornette Coleman and... well... Can.)

The last two songs, "Spoon" and "I'm So Green," are the best on the album. Both are very short and very poppy ("Spoon" was a top 40 hit in Germany), but what's really interesting is hearing how those two songs laid the foundation for the Madchester scene that popped up about 15 years later. It's easy to listen to "I'm So Green" and imagine the Stone Roses or Primal Scream playing it.

Packaging:
Great. Another essay by David Stubbs. This one is filled with gems like, "It was all part of Can's flight from occidental hegemony in rock music." Yeah, man... rock's occidental hegemony really pisses me off.

(For those of you who don't possess a Stubbsian vocabulary, an "occidental hegemony in rock music" basically means that all the rock bands of Europe and America were oppressing the poor, struggling rock bands from the rest of the world. Apparently, when Ege Bamyasi was recorded back in '72, Can was pissed off about the way the IFWR [the International Foundation of Western Rock] was secretly conspiring to crush all of the great Asian, African, and Eastern European rock bands that were on the verge of stripping the evil patriarchal Western Rock Gods of their power.)

Hey Stubbs: how's about I plant my foot in your occidental ass, motherfucker?

Anyway, the liner notes contain Stubbs' essay and a bunch of pictures of the band. The pictures are mildly interesting. The essay isn't. End of story.

Listen if you like: Radiohead's Kid A and/or Amnesiac, early Pink Floyd, Boris, experimental music that's not too experimental.

If it were food, it'd be: canned vegetables

Can: Tago Mago

Can is one of those bands that always lurked on the periphery of my musical awareness, but never received my undivided focus. I knew they were early innovators of experimental rock music. I knew that bassist Holger Czukay recorded some beautiful instrumental albums with David Sylvian. I knew I should listen to them, but I just never got around to it.

Now that I've checked out Tago Mago from EPFL, I know what I've been missing. This is a difficult album, but it is completely unique and undeniably awesome.

Music:
On first listen, I guessed that Tago Mago came out somewhere in the mid 1970s, when punk innovators like Wire and Television were proving that you didn't need mad technical chops to create vital and relevant musical experimentation.

I was way off. Can's first album came out in '69, and Tago Mago was released in 1971.

I can't even begin to describe what this sounds like. It's rock music, but it embodies the spirit of punk and the spontaneity of jazz. It's adventurous and experimental, even for a time when the musical world was filled with the adventurous experiments of artists like Pink Floyd and Frank Zappa and the Velvet Underground. It's chaotic, but it holds together without ever exploding.

This is punk before punk existed. This is jazz without the stodgy elitism. This is rock without the constraints that normally define rock. This is, quite simply, everything that makes the greatest punk and jazz and rock so damned exciting.

Packaging:
I haven't read much of British rock critic David Stubbs' writing, but if his essay here is typical of his style, he should be banished to the dark recesses of romance novels and open-mic poetry. His words epitomize the pseudo-intellectualism that makes people despise music journalists. For example:

"There's a moment here when, so in synch are the band that the song actually levitates."

No, jackass, the song did not actually levitate. Your inability to use proper punctuation or sentence structure, however, did make my blood pressure rise.

Anyway. Stubbs' commentary on the album is rotten, but the essay by Primal Scream vocalist Bobby Gillespie clearly demonstrates a love for Can's music, and his story about jamming with 2/5 of Can is genuinely exciting. Best of all, he doesn't resort to any Stubbs-isms like "beetling basslines" or "impassioned vocals creating a mist of condensation."

(Here's some obscure music trivia I figured out from reading the liner notes: The name of the band The Mooney Suzuki comes from the surnames of original Can vocalist Malcolm Mooney and his replacement, Damo Suzuki.)

Listen if you like: Kraftwerk, Sonic Youth, Miles Davis' fusion experiments from the late '60s and early '70s, Zappa, Pink Floyd's early records, Wire, Television.

If it were food, it'd be: One of my co-workers turned me on to the fact that Huy Fong's Sriracha hot sauce is delicious with pretty much everything, including pizza, popcorn, veggie dogs, mac & cheese, and even peanut butter sandwiches. Tago Mago is like the unholy combination of Sriracha and peanut butter: it shouldn't make any sense, but it's utterly fantastic.

My Teenage Stride: Ears Like Golden Bats

It's been awhile since I've praised Baltimore's Enoch Pratt Free Library for their music collection. I haven't been to any other libraries where I can walk in and find dozens of CDs by bands I've never heard (or even heard of), and nearly all of them will at least be decent.

It's not often that I write a really bad review of a CD I get from the EPFL. In fact, very few of the CDs I review end up at the bottom of my rating scale (earning a 1, 1.5, or 2). I wish the music on MySpace or iTunes had that kind of track record!

Music:
My Teenage Stride is Smiths-influenced indie pop, spiced with a splash of '80s one-hit wonders and simmered in a broth of The Beatles. All the songs are short, and like the early Cure records, My Teenage Stride focuses on hooks and melodies without getting bogged down in unnecessary details. Nothing here is in the least bit original, but it's all written, recorded, and performed extremely well.

Packaging:
The multi-colored text on the cover gives a pretty good clue of what the music sounds like, but otherwise, the package is bland. There's nothing except for credits, some nature photos, and a quote that is presumably from one of the songs.

Listen if you like: upbeat indie pop or downcast 80's Manchester new wave. There's enough mope to catch the heart of twee fans, enough joy to please the bespectacled indie rock boys of Brooklyn, and maybe even enough Beatles for fans of Matthew Sweet and the Posies.

If it were food, it'd be: A Hershey's Special Dark bar.

Charles Mingus: Mingus Mingus Mingus Mingus Mingus

Everybody from Elton John to Tom Jones has released a remix album, making them as ubiquitous (and unnecessary) as blogs and tattoos.

But what happened back in the days when the innovators of remixing were still crawling around with diapers full of poop?

Mingus Mingus Mingus Mingus Mingus is one answer to that question. Mingus had proven his musical genius by 1963, so he decided to go back with a new band and revisit some of his earlier ideas.

Music:
I'll be the first to admit I'm biased when it comes to Mingus. There has never been another jazz musician who rocked as hard as Mingus did. The man's music is as energetic and exciting as anything Zeppelin or Sabbath or (enter your favorite rock band here) ever did.

You might ask, "Chuck, why would you say that Mingus -- a man who didn't much care for rock music -- rocked?"

Making music that rocks has nothing to do with making rock music. The latter is a genre, and most of the music within that genre is actually pretty lame. The former is a state of mind that transcends all genres, and occurs when the musicians have completely let go and let their wildness take over.

This music is wild. These ideas were already explored on some of Mingus' greatest albums, but Mingus Mingus Mingus Mingus Mingus is still unique and original. The band is on fire, the arrangements are amazing, and the music is as adventurous as nearly anything the man recorded.

Packaging:
When I was a kid and was home sick from school one day, my mom brought home a novel called This School Is Driving Me Crazy by Nat Hentoff. I liked the book and read it several times, but it wasn't until I began earnestly exploring jazz that I learned Hentoff was like the Lester Bangs of jazz. The liner notes here are pretty much what I'd expect from Hentoff writing about Mingus: a little overblown and a little melodramatic, but also passionate and enthusiastic and informed and deeply respectful of both Mingus the man and Mingus the musician.

Hentoff wrote, "(Mingus) is one of the most alive men I have ever known, and it is this commitment to living rather than only existing which makes his music so energizing and so insistently provocative." No words could nail the music on this record better than these.

A few more pictures would've been nice; otherwise, this is a strong package.

Listen if you like: powerful music, passionate music, wild music, alive music, music that rocks.

If it were food, it'd be: The first thought that came to mind was "a can of Red Bull," but that analogy captures such a small part of the album's greatness that it's actually a disservice. Really, this album is like a giant meal that encompasses every imaginable flavor, and leaves you excited for more. I've never actually eaten a meal that tastes like this music. Readers? Any ideas?

Daniel Lanois: Acadie

It must be bizarre to have countless platinum records -- critically acclaimed platinum records, nonetheless -- under your belt, yet be unknown to all but the most die-hard rock fans.

As a producer, Daniel Lanois is at least partially responsible for seminal albums by U2, Peter Gabriel, Bob Dylan, The Neville Brothers, and Dashboard Confessional. (Not often that you see Dashboard Confessional and Dylan on a list together.) But how about on his own? Can he make the same kind of magic when he's in control of every aspect of the music?

Music:
The answer is, "not really." There are a few songs on Acadie that flirt with greatness, there are a few that are almost embarrassingly bad, and there are a bunch that sound like they came from a guy who spent a whole lot of time listening to The Joshua Tree.

Now, in Lanois' defense, he did spend a whole lot of time listening to The Joshua Tree. As the album's co-producer, that was his job. It's hard to say whether his influence had a dramatic impact on U2, or vice versa, but a lot of the songs on Acadie sound like Joshua Tree throwaways.

As for the good songs, I've had the bassline from "The Maker" stuck in my head since 1991 (the year I last heard Acadie), and for nearly 20 years I've been trying to figure out from what song it comes. If that doesn't qualify as a hook, I don't know what does. "White Mustang II" is a simple instrumental track that is solemn yet spooky. "Amazing Grace" is easily the strongest song on the record, and Aaron Neville's vocals make it one of the most interesting and impassioned versions of the gospel standard that I've ever heard.

Packaging:
This is one of the worst packages I've ever seen. The cover sports a cheesy '80s photo of Lanois standing in the snow with hair that looks like a cockatoo with a bad dye job. And the rest of the package is... well, it's nothing. No credits. No lyrics. No photos. No stories. Nothing. Just a note that you can read the credits at Lanois' web site, which is a lie as far as I can tell, because I couldn't find a single thing about who played on this record. If I'd spent $10 or $15 on this CD, I'd be pissed. There is no compelling reason to buy this. If you're interested in the music, just download the songs. (And that's coming from a guy who hates downloading songs.)

Listen if you like: U2 from the mid '80s, Peter Gabriel from the late '80s, Lanois' production style. There's a strong New Orleans sound on several of the songs, so if you like The Neville Brothers, you might enjoy this.

If it were food, it'd be: Gumbo and Guinness

Bettye LaVette: I've Got My Own Hell to Raise

(I've been away from the blog for awhile, but I'm hopefully back to the regular Tuesday/Friday updates.)

Bettye LaVette is proof that, in some people's careers, everything can go wrong. Bettye LaVette is also proof that sometimes, after everything's gone wrong for a decade or four, the fates finally smile down upon you.

I'm glad the fates smiled on Bettye LaVette. I'm glad because she worked for a long time and deserved a break, but I'm also glad because her voice is incredible and if she hadn't gotten a break, I never would've heard her sing.

Music:
I've Got My Own Hell to Raise opens with a powerful cover of Sinead O'Connor's a capella "I Do Not Want What I Haven't Got." It's a great song and a great start to a very good album.

The second song is when that truth of the album really begins, though. It starts with a guitar that is a little rough and a little sexy and a little raunchy. Then a second guitar kicks in, and it's the kind of guitar that sounds as if it spent a few years wandering the streets before it decided to walk into the studio and be recorded. The drums creep up, and they are as thick and rich as the soil that holds the roots of a mighty tree. Then the bass starts, and it sounds as deep as the desire to discover joy when you're stuck in the roughest parts of a rough place.

Then LaVette starts singing.

The second song on the album, "Joy," is amazing. It is everything that simple music -- rock or soul or country or blues or hip-hop or punk -- can and should be. It is emotional, it is powerful, it is awesome, and it sets the tone for an album that practically overflows with soul.

(If you're wondering why I only gave the album four library-cards after those glowing comments, it's because there's very little range in the song tempos and dynamics. It's a relatively minor complaint, but it makes the album feel somewhat monotonous.)

Packaging:
The package has almost everything a CD jacket should have. There are a handful of photos that fit the mood of the record. There's a little bit of information about each of the songs (all of which are covers). There aren't lyrics, but it's easy to understand every word that LaVette sings. Best of all, though, is the essay by Rob Bowman, in which he tells LaVette's story. It's a good essay, and it makes me grateful that more and more artists are choosing to add more and more words to their liner notes.

Listen if you like: Stories. LaVette's got a fascinating story, and it comes across both in how she sings and the music she performs. Every song on the record is a cover of a song originally performed by a woman; if you like the stories that Fiona Apple, Dolly Parton, Aimee Mann, or Lucinda Williams tell, wait 'til you hear Bettye LaVette tell them.

If it were food, it'd be: a classic and complex wine that's been hiding out in dark rooms for 40 years, just waiting for its delicious flavor to be discovered.

PJ Harvey: White Chalk

PJ Harvey has reached that difficult-to-achieve level in her career where she could pretty much record herself taking a dump, and critics and fans would praise her courageous experimentalism.

My first reaction to White Chalk was, "Wow, she pretty much recorded herself taking a dump." But given that I've liked most of what she's released over the years (even the stuff that took a while to sink in), I figured I owed her the benefit of the doubt. So I listened again, and then I listened a few more times.

Music:
The only way I can describe Harvey's sound on this record is to call it modern folk, but that conjures images that aren't at all appropriate. Piano is the dominant instrument, but it's a very basic and stripped down piano, the kind you might expect to hear coming from the living room of a ramshackle house somewhere in Kentucky.

Kentucky. That's actually why I had such a hard time with White Chalk. These songs made me think of Mountain Music of Kentucky, a record whose performances are as naked as music can possibly be. Its happiest moments are snapshots of pure joy, and its haunted moments are so powerful that you can hear the ghosts in speakers.

White Chalk doesn't capture any ghosts or snapshots of joy. Not to say Harvey sounds bad, because she doesn't. She sounds like a rock artist who tried something challenging and difficult, and almost pulled it off. I think she wanted to record a completely naked album, though, and these songs are definitely wearing clothes. Maybe nothing more than an old t-shirt and some stained underwear, but that's a far cry from being naked.

Packaging: n/a (Altered by EPFL)
I understand that the good folks at the Enoch Pratt Free Library need to identify their CDs, but it's really annoying when they put big stickers right over the front cover. The picture seems to be Harvey in a typically unflattering portrait, but this one is interesting because she has the uncomfortable stiffness that a rural woman who is posing for her first photo might possess. Otherwise, the EPFL chopped and mangled and destroyed the rest of the package, so I'm not sure what else might've been there.

Listen if you like: As with much of Harvey's later work, fans of Nick Cave will find something here. This record shares some common ground with Isobel Campbell & Mark Lanegan. Anybody who likes traditional American folk might like this.

If it were food, it'd be: beans and cooked greens. Unfortunately, the ingredients all came from cans and bags at the supermarket, rather than from Mason jars filled with last summer's crop.

Black Lips: Good Bad Not Evil

When I lived in LA back in '91, there was a band called Life Sex Death (Get it? LSD. Clever, clever, clever!) who were supposed to save the quickly dying hair metal scene. The crazy quirk with LSD was the fact that their singer didn't have long, pretty hair! The dude was some filthy guy who was rumored to be homeless. It didn't matter that the band sucked: Seattle was turning heads with all their homeless-looking bands, so LSD was LA's ticket to the future.

I'm certain that Black Lips sound nothing like LSD, but the first couple songs on Good Bad Not Evil sound like my memory of LSD's extremely stupid (but memorable) song, "Jawohl Asshole." Kinda energetic, kinda dirty, kinda funny, kinda catchy, yet ultimately not worth thinking about more than once every couple of decades.

Music:
If Good Bad Not Evil had come out in 1965, it probably would've been mind-blowing. Then again, The Who and The Beatles and The Stones were already blowing people's minds, and Black Lips can't compare to those groups. This is psychedelic garage rock filtered through everything that's happened since the Velvet Underground. To its credit, it's much more raw than most of the garage revivalists of the '00s.

I can't imagine not liking this record if you're into garage or psych. For those of us who aren't, though, there's nothing here worth hearing.

Packaging:
With all the cut-out eyeballs and ironic moustaches and clever nicknames, it's obvious that Black Lips have a sense of humor. The little comments before the lyrics of each song are kind of charming, but I don't understand the point of including only part of each songs' words. The package is entertaining the first time you look at it, but there's not much need to look at it more than once.

Listen if you like: Mudhoney, Thee Headcoats, The Rolling Stones. Ween fans might dig the humor, even though the two bands sound nothing alike.

If it were food, it'd be: a cheap pizza from a take-out joint in a small college town that's filled with pretentious liberal arts students who think they're the most witty and insightful people to ever walk the face of the Earth.

Richard Hawley: Lady's Bridge

Nick Hornby is one of my favorite writers. I like the way he writes about music by telling stories, and I like the way he tells stories by writing about music. I'll sit down to read his thoughts on a record, and I'll end up reading about how a song changed his life.

In my fantasy world, Nick Hornby is my wise musical friend -- you know, that guy who spends all his free time listening to music, knows every weird band, and always has the perfect musical recommendation for you. In this alternate world, Nick Hornby gives me a call whenever he's passing through Baltimore and turns me on to a bunch of great new music.

Of course that never happens, but if it did, I'm pretty sure Nick would've turned me on to this album.

That's what kind of album this is. This is the kind of album that your wise musical friend says you must hear. So you listen, and as so often happens, your wise musical friend is absolutely right.

Music:
Lady's Bridge is an album to listen to at night, when you're sad and alone. This is also an album that's dangerous to listen to at night, when you're sad and alone, because it knows how you feel and will help you to keep feeling that way. But it will remind you that you're not really alone. At the very least, Richard Hawley is there with you. The two of you can stand on the bridge between the past and the future, and throw stones into the water, and be at peace... for a while... before you move on.

Packaging:
For whatever reason, the cover photo makes me think of Ben Stein, so that's an immediate half-library-card ding. Otherwise, this package is as good as the music. Every photo is gorgeous in its own, understated right, but more importantly, every photo tells a story about loneliness and loss and sadness. I could've lived without the color filters on the pictures, but they don't bother me as much as most cheesy Photoshop tricks. The lyrics are included, and the two quotes about the real Lady's Bridge (a bridge in England) tie the entire package together.

Listen if you like: Roy Orbison, Chris Isaak, Elvis before he became a caricature of himself, Morrissey's Vauxhall & I and Your Arsenal. "The Sun Refused to Shine" could've been on The Cure's Disintegration, and "Tonight the Streets Are Ours" captures the essence of Springsteen without sounding anything like him.

If it were food, it'd be: "I have crossed Lady's Bridge back and forth many times over the years, mainly to get to Kenny's Records on one side (now long gone sadly) or to the Castle Market on the other, both places provided me with food of different sorts." (from Hawley's quote in the liner notes.) If Lady's Bridge were food, it'd be the kind you get on a day when you visit both the grocery store and the record store.

Reckless Kelly: Reckless Kelly's Bulletproof

Ingredient list to create an album that straddles roots-rock, country-rock, and alt-country:

1. Roads. Lonely and wandering highways are best, but freeways and dark city streets will do in a pinch. Interstates are out, as are tree-lined cul-de-sacs. Dust is always good.

2. Alcohol. Beer and bourbon are ideal, French wine is to be avoided at all costs.

3. Guys named Johnny or Billy. Tommy will do if Johnny and Billy are busy working on other albums.

4. A wild woman with a cheatin' heart. It's best if she's involved with your best friend, a drunk at the bar, or your best friend who's drunk at the bar.

5. A good woman with a golden heart. She must possess angelic qualities, and she's never found real love.

6. Untamed men and/or bad boys who do any combination of the following: run away, steal away, break away, drift away, and occasionally devote themselves wholly to the woman in #5. Being as free as a bird is a definite asset, provided this bird can change. At least for a while.

7. A train. Train tracks will suffice, as long as you're on the wrong side of them.

8. A war. In lieu of a war, a fight will do.

9. A bar. Without this, #2 and #4 are much more difficult to achieve, and Nos. 5 and 6 are virtually impossible since all true love begins in bars.

10. Night. Apparently, when the sun is shining, nobody ever gets their heart broken, travels on a lonely road, meets an angelic woman, or gets drunk.

Music:
If I didn't know these rules, Bulletproof would be pretty good. The band is solid, the songs are decent, and there's a sense of joy that pervades even the darker moments.

Unfortunately, these rules have been around for decades, and I've heard Bulletproof countless times before. I heard it when The Georgia Satellites recorded it, and when the Gear Daddies recorded it, and when Lone Justice recorded it, and when John Mellencamp (née Cougar) recorded it, and when Steve Earle recorded it, and when Uncle Tupelo recorded it, and... yikes, that was just before 1991.

Bulletproof is fine if you've heard all the great albums in this genre, and all the really good ones, and you still can't get enough. Otherwise, skip it.

Packaging:
This cover makes me feel cheated. It has a dude in what appears to be an iron mask, holding two revolvers, surrounded by the caption "DEATH DEFYING SONGS FOR LOOTERS AND THIEVES. FEARLESS & ACTION PACKED." Talk about misleading. Nowhere does the cover say "GENERIC SONGS WITH GENERIC LYRICS PERFORMED IN AN ADEQUATE MANNER." It's a good package though, with lyrics and photos and credits and lots of drawings of the dude in the iron mask... which actually just makes me wish the music lived up to the promises on the cover.

Listen if you like: Any of the artists above. Fans of country guys like Tim McGraw or Dwight Yoakum might like Reckless Kelly's songs, and fans of the Dixie Chicks might like Reckless Kelly's politics. (If you want songs that tell down-on-your-luck stories in a much more original manner, check out their label-mates Marah.)

If it were food, it'd be: Cold beer late at night served by a veteran named Johnny in a bar on a lonely road where you meet an angelic woman from the wrong side of the tracks who just might tame your wild streak and mend the heart that your cheatin' woman broke.

The Beatles: Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band

Okay. We all know the deal with Sgt. Pepper's: five-star record, revolutionary recording process, best rock album ever, yada yada yada.

I'm listening to Sgt. Pepper's from start to finish for the first time, which hopefully gives me a somewhat unique perspective on the record. My goal is not to slaughter a sacred cow, nor is it to blindly celebrate an album just because I've been told it's great. I'm merely reviewing Sgt. Pepper's as a guy who loves rock music but is very late in getting around to a really important album.

Music:
Sgt. Pepper's only major flaw is that most of the songs don't rock. The experiments on this record forever changed the face of rock music, but hardly anything here possesses the excitement or energy of the earlier Beatles recordings. This album planted the seeds of great musical creativity, but it also planted seeds that grew into flaccid musical genres like Adult Alternative. For that alone, it's flawed.

With that said, I loved listening to Sgt. Pepper's. I heard new things in songs I've known for years, and I fell in love with songs that are new to me. "A Day in the Life" is amazing, and "Within You Without You" blew me away. "Fixing a Hole" and "She's Leaving Home" are very touching and emotional, and it's hard to believe they came from the mind of a 24-year-old rock star. I'd always dismissed "When I'm Sixty Four" as being just another silly love song, but it's actually a wonderfully poignant sentiment about two people sharing a life together.

On the down side, "Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds" is stupid, "Lovely Rita" is trite, and "With a Little Help from My Friends" is annoying. The occasional cultural references date the music far more than the production does, and the drug references sprinkled throughout the record reek of cheap rebellion.

Packaging:
The cover of Sgt. Pepper's is almost as influential as the music. It's nice that this CD release includes additional information about how both the record and the jacket were created. For instance, I never knew that this was the first record to include printed lyrics, that Mae West initially refused to be included in a "lonely hearts club," or that John Lennon requested an extremely high-pitched noise be put at the end of "A Day in the Life" to annoy people's dogs. (This last bit of info makes me suspect that Mr. Lennon was a bit of a douchebag.) This was a superb package the first time around, and despite the reduced size of the CD jacket, the additional information makes this a great package on CD also.

Listen if you like: Any music from the past 40 years. It reflects poorly on me that I'm just now listening to this record for the first time.

If it were food, it'd be: water.

The Pratt Songs Best of 2008

It's time for another list. In 2008, I posted a total of 84 reviews of CDs and/or LPs that are available from Baltimore's library, the Enoch Pratt Free Library. In no particular order, here are 10 of those 84 albums that have stuck with me.

• Various Artists: Mountain Music of Kentucky -- I've listened to some difficult music this year, and I think it's fair to say that no CD presented me with more challenges and rewards than this one. This is about as naked as music can possibly be. And by naked, I don't mean supermodel naked, I mean naked the way most of us look without any clothes: completely flawed, yet absolutely beautiful.


• Kings of Leon: Aha Shake Heartbreak -- Of every rock album I heard for the first time this year, nothing won my heart the way Aha Shake Heartbreak did. This album possesses nearly everything that makes rock music wonderful.


• Lord Invader: Calypso in New York -- This record completely changed my mind about calypso, and began a year-long journey into an incredibly compelling style of music. Anybody who truly loves hip-hop should give this a listen, because the parallels between hip-hop and calypso are fascinating.


• Harry Belafonte: Belafonte Returns to Carnegie Hall -- I love it when I'm forced to change my opinion on an artist, and this record forced me to change my opinion about Harry Belafonte. I'd previously dismissed the man as a musical and social lightweight, a provider of fluff for the masses. In truth, the man was incredibly courageous, both musically and socially. No, his calypso doesn't move me the way Lord Invader's does, but Belafonte is truly a heavyweight.


• Various Artists: Nicky Siano's Legendary "The Gallery" The Original New York Disco 1973-1977 -- About 10 years ago, I learned about the differences between original underground disco and the corporate swill that was spoon fed to the masses throughout the '70s. It wasn't until I stumbled onto this gem at the EPFL, however, that I discovered Nicky Siano. This is a fantastic CD that captures the original spirit of disco.


• Moby: Play -- This CD proves that musical genres are meaningless, and maybe we should spend more time categorizing our music as either "good" or "not so good."


• Fela Kuti: The Underground Spiritual Game -- An intriguingly simple summary of Fela's incredibly complex music.


• Lead Belly: Keep Your Hands Off Her (a.k.a. Leadbelly Sings Folk Songs) -- It shouldn't have taken me nearly 40 years to find Lead Belly, but I'm thankful I finally got around to listening to him. No single artist commanded more of my attention this year than Lead Belly. This collection is a concise and interesting introduction to a great musician.


• Mclusky: The Difference Between You and Me Is that I'm Not on Fire -- I played this CD expecting bad emo. Instead, I got one of the most energetic and exciting albums I heard all year.


• Horace Andy: Dance Hall Style -- Dance Hall Style was not only my favorite of the half-dozen reggae albums I reviewed this year, but it's become one of my very favorite reggae albums, period.

There were three albums I reviewed in 2008 that have been on my personal "favorite albums" list for years: U2 Pop, The Postal Service Give Up, and Death Cab for Cutie Plans. Since these albums weren't new to me in 2008, they weren't really candidates for this list. All three, however, are very strong albums that deserve a listen. Particularly the U2 record: it was largely dismissed by critics and fans alike, but the last three tracks on Pop are as good as anything the band ever wrote.

Finally, an honorable mention goes to Goldfrapp Seventh Tree. It's a very dull album, but "A&E" is one of the best songs I heard in 2008.

Thanks for reading. If real life doesn't consume too much of my time and energy, I look forward to hearing and reviewing another 80 or 90 CDs from the EPFL this year!

Jewel: Goodbye Alice in Wonderland

Not long ago, I reviewed Everything I Touch Runs Wild by Lori Carson. As I listened to Carson, I wondered why she and her peers are celebrated by rock snobs while artists like Jewel are mercilessly mocked.

Well, the day I took that Lori Carson CD back to the EPFL, what did I see on the shelf? That's right, Jewel's Goodbye Alice in Wonderland. Serendipity, right? No matter the pain, I vowed to work my way through this Jewel album and see if I could figure out why people like me love Carson but hate Jewel.

(To be entirely honest, I've always had a soft spot for Jewel. Everytime I hear one of her songs, it inspires an indescribable sense of nostalgia for a past I've never known. Since I haven't ever heard one of her records from start to finish, this gives me an excuse to check out some Jewel without totally losing my right to call myself a man. Just do me a favor and don't tell anyone, okay?)

Music:
Musically, this is a pretty cold album. It sounds as if producer Rob Cavallo mapped every chord change and orchestral swell out in an Excel spreadsheet, ran a formula to calculate the maximum amount of emotion, then hired a bunch of studio mercenaries to play the solution. It's disappointing, because Cavallo has made some pretty incredible records in his time.

Jewel's words and delivery save Goodbye Alice in Wonderland, though. She makes it believable, and that's a mighty good thing since she calls this her musical autobiography. The words are sincere and sentimental, sometimes raw and confessional, and are clever enough that they even made me laugh out loud once or twice.

You know what'd be nice? If she performed all of these songs by herself, just her voice and her acoustic guitar, without a session musician or an Excel spreadsheet anywhere in sight. If she did that, she might give Lori Carson a run for all that critical acclaim.

Packaging:
It's a good package filled with photos and drawings, but the layout of the lyrics is awful. I would expect an artist who released a book of poetry to know better than to cram each song's lyrics into a big block of difficult-to-read text. Most of the photos of Jewel are very flattering, but there's one where she looks like a drunk who got into Tammy Faye's makeup bag. Not a good look for you, honey.

Listen if you like: Sarah McLachlan, James Blunt, Goo Goo Dolls, Alanis Morissette but you've grown up a bit since you bought Jagged Little Pill. The production is probably way too slick to appeal to fans of singers like Lori Carson.

If it were food, it'd be: jalapeno poppers from a chain restaurant. The core ingredients are spicy, but they're cooked up in a way that won't offend consumers with very bland tastes.

Lori Carson: Everything I Touch Runs Wild

I'm not always certain what the difference is between the Sarah McLachlan / Jewel and the Heidi Berry / Keren Ann artists of the world. Why do critics disparage the former and heap praise upon the latter? Is there really that much difference between the two styles? Is one bereft of integrity while the other overflows with artistic credibility? Or is it simply a matter of popularity? Would music snobs celebrate the entire catalog of Jewel if she'd never sold more than 50,000 copies? Would they berate Keren Ann if she earned a Grammy?

Lori Carson is the kind of artist who makes me ask these questions. On the surface, she falls squarely in the camp of the critically acclaimed and commercially under appreciated singer/songwriter. But her music is so simple and so open that there's no reason it couldn't appeal to millions of lovelorn women who are resigned to curling up in bed with a cat and a Jane Austen novel. A couple of plays on Grey's Anatomy or The OC, and something tells me that Carson would've earned as much love and mockery as Sarah McLachlan and Jewel do.

Music:
The album is easy to dismiss at first, but each listen proves more rewarding than the last. At various moments, Carson's songs make me think of Heidi Berry, Keren Ann, Tanya Donelly, Nick Drake, Kristin Hersh, and even Shawn Smith. The music is simple, and at times it is so simple as to teeter on the edge of cliché. The lyrics have none of the complex poetry of Donelly or Drake, but their simplicity cannot disguise a very warm and real humanity. The only stinker is her cover of "I Saw the Light," a song that plays to the worst elements of Carson's sound. Otherwise, this is a perfect album for dark highways and lonely bedrooms.

Packaging:
The design has some subtle touches, but overall there's nothing particularly special about it. It's a shame the cover looks like an outtake from a Bjork photo shoot, because it completely misrepresents the music inside. The photos are very good, but they say nothing about the mood of the album. The lyrics are included, but the musician credits are either in a miserably tiny font or I need glasses.

Listen if you like: Heidi Berry fans should definitely check this out. Her voice is occasionally similar to Tanya Donelly, but her music sounds more like Kristin Hersh. If you like Counting Crows songs like "Raining in Baltimore," you'll probably find something here that you like. And yes, Sarah McLachlan and Jewel fans might like Carson's music.

If it were food, it'd be: a cup of cocoa on a cold and lonely day.

(I think it's worth noting that, while I've bought copies of several of the CDs that I've reviewed here, this is the first time I ordered multiple albums by an artist while I was writing a review.)

Madvillain: Madvillainy

Each genre of music has a period of greatness, a time when every unique aspect of the style's past, present, and future melds together in an almost magical way. In jazz, it happened between the late '50s and the late '60s, when Mingus and Monk and Miles and Coleman and Coltrane broke the rules faster than they could make them up. In rock, it was from '66 to about '73, when bands as diverse as The Beatles, Led Zeppelin, Black Sabbath, and Pink Floyd created previously unimagined sounds that would be emulated and regurgitated for the next four decades. Folk had the period between Joseph McCarthy and Lyndon Johnson, punk had the years between the formation and the dissolution of The Clash, and reggae had the creative explosion in the '70s that resulted in everything from dub to dancehall (and some dude named Bob Marley).

That's not to say that no great artists existed outside these periods of greatness. Duke Ellington and Charlie Parker certainly pre-dated the peak of jazz by several decades, and Jane's Addiction and Metallica arrived long after rock's brightest lights had either burned out or faded away.

Hip-hop reached its creative peak somewhere in the late '80s and early '90s. The music was sophisticated enough that the novelty had worn off, but young enough to freely embrace new ideas. It was a time when aggression, violence, dissent, revolution, love, lust, drugs, intelligence, stupidity, pride, hope, and humor all shared the stage in an uneasy but creative peace. Sampling was still fair game, and young producers and DJs were experimenting with making their own sounds in the studio rather than relying on what other people had made.

I don't love hip-hop enough to search for the rap equivalents to Jane's Addiction or Metallica, the artists who came long after the genre's peak and completely changed the music for the better. Sure, I'll occasionally hear some guys who blow me away, but mostly I hear the hip-hop equivalents to Boston and Smashing Pumpkins and White Stripes: artists who might have an original voice in isolation, but are lacking when compared to the greats within their genre.

Music:
In isolation, Madvillainy is a fairly unique and striking album. Madlib's production is interesting, and Doom's words (or MF DOOM's words, to be technically correct) flow well. In a year (2004) when mediocre records by Beastie Boys and Kanye West were receiving Grammy nominations and rotten records by TI, Nelly and Jay-Z were selling like hotcakes, it's no surprise that Madvillain was almost universally regarded as a breath of fresh air.

The problem is, Madvillainy is only fresh when compared to the worst the genre has to offer. If you hold it up to TI and Nelly, the record is absolutely brilliant. But it's pretty damned lame when you compare it to the creativity that burst forth from people like Gangstarr, De La Soul, NWA, Public Enemy, and countless others a few decades ago. Yeah, there's an accordion sample in "Accordion," but who cares? (A whole bunch of critics, apparently.) I hate to break it to y'all, but accordion has been around for a long time, even in hip-hop!

There are some good moments here, but they're cloaked in so much of the same old dope-smokin', chest-thumpin', money-grubbin', bitch-hatin' crap that you have to search for the true gems. And really, guys, can't you get past how awesome pot is? I mean, didn't everybody figure that out with Dr. Dre and Snoop Dogg like, 15 years ago?

Packaging:
The cover on the EPFL's version is different than (and not as strong as) the cover I see at Allmusic, but it's still decent. The overall design is simple, but it has a lot of personality. The lyrics are included, and they're easy to read without being dull to look at. The credits are straightforward, and don't get bogged down with a bunch of unnecessary nonsense. It's tough to balance simplicity with individuality, but designer Jeff Jank did an excellent job.

Listen if you like: the many incarnations of Madlib and/or MF DOOM. If you're one of those people who thinks N.E.R.D. was the most innovative production team this side of George Martin, you'll probably like the tasty grape flavor of the Madvillain Kool-Aid.

If it were food, it'd be: read the previous sentence, please.

RTX: Western Xterminator

Some album covers are so awesome that you just have to listen to the music. I'd never heard of RTX, but Western Xterminator has a cover that is one part high school notebook cover, one part '70s hard rock, and one part drug-induced insanity. I figured I had a 50/50 chance of getting either some crazy hard rock or some crazy underground hip-hop.

Music:
This is the second-worst album I've checked out in the 18 months I've been reviewing CDs from the EPFL. (This is the worst.)

The opening of the album is deceptive. "Western Xterminator" is a flute-driven song that is low-key and trippy and incredibly promising. Yeah, the album would've gotten boring if everything else had followed in that style, but it would've been better than what's here. Imagine a cross between the most clichéd Heart song and the most clichéd AC/DC song, and you have Western Xterminator. The title track and "Wo-Wo Din" are the only tracks that have an even remotely original sound. The rest of it makes the first few Foreigner albums look like creative masterpieces.

The production sounds like a cheap demo recorded in the studio that some dude's brother's pot dealer built in his garage. It would be forgivable if the production hid something great, but this sounds like the engineer tried to polish a turd with a poopcloth.

And yes, I get the fact that this is, like, totally ironic, man. The thing is, I just don't care. Irony or not, it's rotten.

Packaging:
The album cover totally sucked me in. Really, go take a look at it. Maybe it's just nostalgia for my old notebook covers and hand-drawn band fliers, but there's a whole lot of good imagery on this cover. It's unique and interesting, yet it looks completely DIY. The band photo on the inside is unoriginal but not terrible. The font in the booklet is nearly illegible. That might be OK if it was crazy, hand-drawn text, but this is just a stupid font that someone thought looked cool. Guess what? You were wrong.

Listen if you like: Bad songwriting, bad performances, and bad production.

If it were food, it'd be: Does anyone remember the 29-cent Hamburger Stand, an '80s cheap-ass burger joint that fell somewhere between McDonald's and cardboard? Yeah, that's pretty much Western Xterminator.

(I wrote this review before I read anything online about RTX. In trying to read the stupid, illegible font on the tray card and the jacket, I figured out that RTX is somehow related to the wildly overrated Chicago band Royal Trux. This album reminds me of why I thought all the junkie hipster bands that rose to fame in the '90s were complete asshats. Obviously, being a musical asshat has survived well into the first decade of the '00s.)

Goldfrapp: Seventh Tree

I have a confession. A nice woman at Mute records sent me Seventh Tree earlier this year, in hopes that I'd review it at one of the other sites where I write. I never reviewed the CD, though. In fact, I never even listened to it. It sat on my desk for months, and I never even took the shrink wrap off of it. That's how much I didn't want to listen to this album.

I don't know why I hate Goldfrapp. Alison Goldfrapp has a perfectly reasonable voice, and Will Gregory, her musical partner in crime, seems to be a talented fellow, even if his hipster hair and hipster beard and hipster glasses make me want to smite him with irony. (Is that wrong of me? If you take the honest-to-goodness sociopaths out of the mix, is there any group of humanity more annoying than hipster musicians? And is there any better way to abuse them than to use their favorite literary device against them?)

Anyway, I digress. I don't like Goldfrapp. The very thought of listening to Goldfrapp makes me feel icky. I dislike Goldfrapp to the degree that if someone tells me he or she likes them, I immediately think a little bit less of that person, the same way I would think less of a person who told me they hate black people or they kick puppies. Because bigotry and cruelty really have so much in common with bad musical taste, you know?

So, when I looked at the New Releases shelf at the EPFL and I saw Alison Goldfrapp in her stupid pirate hat on the cover of Seventh Tree, I knew it was finally time to listen. Here goes. Wish me luck.

Music:
The only way I can honestly review this album is to break it into two sections: all of the songs except "A&E," and "A&E."

The music on Seventh Tree isn't as awful as I expected. In fact, it isn't awful at all. It is dull, though. Listening to Seventh Tree is about as exciting as finding that long lost Carpenters album, Karen and Richard Sit Around and Sing about How Much They Love Ironic Electro-Hipsters. The music is pretty and well-produced, but it's just not that interesting. The words are clever and biting, but they just aren't that good. It's easy to listen to the songs on Seventh Tree, but not a single musical moment from the album sticks with me after the disc ends.

Not a single musical moment except for "A&E," which is absolutely fantastic. The music curves and climbs in a wonderful way, and it supports lyrics about a woman waking up in the emergency room after a lovelorn suicide attempt. (A&E, or Accident & Emergency, is apparently what the Brits call their emergency rooms.) The song is a beautiful juxtaposition of joy and pain. The lyrics are simple but they're remarkably effective: for example, the narrator's "backless dress" -- whether taken on its own or interpreted as a metaphor for a hospital gown -- manages to convey a great deal of imagery with a paltry three syllables.

Packaging:
Owls, pirates, boobies, owls with boobies... the whole thing screams "pretentious." Or maybe "stupid." Or maybe even "crazy." Whatever it is, the photos are well done and the owl costume is pretty impressive, even if it is pretentious/stupid/crazy. It's a shame that the lyrics are printed in muted gold ink on cream paper, but they're not all that good anyway. My petty complaints of legibility aside, the package does have a kind of other-worldly sense to it, like a poster for the Renaissance Faire or something.

Listen if you like: lite dance/pop like Air, and maybe twee nonsense like Belle & Sebastian. Bjork or Kate Bush fans might give it a chance, but it's remarkably tame when compared to either of those two. All those deaf people incredibly insightful people who loved that annoying brilliant mid-'90s tribute to The Carpenters will probably like Goldfrapp. Owl fetishists and/or furries could seriously dig the artwork.

If it were food, it'd be: sugar free cake with extra saccharine and one deliciously out-of-place piece of fresh fruit right in the middle.

Sheryl Crow: The Very Best of Sheryl Crow

You, dear reader, have no idea how deep my love for you runs. You think it's all fun and games over here at the offices of Pratt Songs, but we suffer for you. (That's offices, plural, mind you. Tonight, for instance, we're working from our office at the window table at the Panera Bread in Rosedale, mostly because our staff feels like shit and really needs some hot soup. And don't even get us started about how we're referring to ourselves in the plural. Just because you don't hear voices in your head doesn't mean you need to spoil our fun.)

Anyway. As I was saying, I suffer. To prove it, I'm listening to The Very Best of Sheryl Crow, a hits package from my third-most-despised artist in the history of rock music. (The list goes something like 1: Steely Dan; 2: Joni Mitchell; 3: Sheryl Crow; 4: Carly Simon; 5: Steely Dan.) But I'm listening, and I'm doing everything in my power to listen objectively, so I can give you the Fair And Balanced™ review that you've come to expect from Pratt Songs.

Music:
There's really nothing wrong with Sheryl Crow. Her songs are all memorable, her bands are made up of top-notch session musicians, and she's not a bad storyteller. The problem is, her music sounds like Los Angeles.

A writer named Michael Ventura wrote the most insightful thing I've ever read about Los Angeles. He wrote that the city has no innate personality. You can move to New York and become loud and obnoxious, or move to New Orleans and listen to jazz, or move to Baltimore and snort heroin while you call everyone "hon." But you can't move to LA with the expectation that the city's personality will supplement what you're lacking.

Every song on this album sounds like Los Angeles. These are songs whose personalities are so vague that you can dump your own experiences into them and let them become your personal soundtrack. These are musicians who can play anything under the sun, but who never succeed at developing their own unique sound. These are stories whose characters and plots are more than willing to step aside and let someone else's life story take over.

My problem is I love songs with personality. I love musicians who put emotion before proficiency. And while I love stories that have a universal appeal, I really love stories that are best told by the person who lived them.

I don't believe that Sheryl Crow lived a single one of the songs on this album. And if I don't believe in the truth of a song, there's nothing it can offer to make up for what it lacks.

Packaging:
This is a good package, particularly considering the lackluster inserts given to most best-of collections. There's an essay that talks about how Sheryl Crow possesses a truly unique and passionate voice (I'd take it more seriously if it weren't written by a guy who lists The Teen Choice Awards 2005 and Christina Aguilera: My Reflection among his TV writing credits) and about 8,000 photos of Crow. There are no lyrics, which is disappointing, but the overall design of the package holds together well and compliments the music.

Listen if you like: The Eagles, Joni Mitchell, Melissa Etheridge, Los Angeles

If it were food, it'd be: A late-night sandwich at "Rock and Roll Denny's" on Sunset and Vista in Hollywood. The place seemed exciting and genuine on the surface, but it was really just bad food and dull people, both claiming to be far greater than they really were. As far as I can tell, the place has closed down, and I can't say I feel one bit of nostalgia for it.