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.

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?

Bob Marley and the Wailers: Catch A Fire

I'm having a hard time with this CD. Maybe it's because I've known too many annoying college kids who smoke up to Bob Marley. Maybe I've heard too many third-rate reggae bands who steal this sound but fail to capture the magic. Or maybe I'm still bitter about the dude from The Wailers who crashed in my living room for a couple of days many years ago. (He made what might be the best stew I've ever tasted, but I've still got a weird feeling about the guy and I have no idea why.)

Whatever the reason, I'm having a hard time. I know Bob Marley is great, and I know Catch A Fire is considered to be one of the greatest Bob Marley albums. Everyone who knows anything about music is supposed to be completely gaga about this, but to me, it sounds like The Eagles.

I know that's not fair, if for no other reason than this album overflows with honest-to-God heart and soul, while The Eagles never cared about much other than scoring coke and screwing girls. But still, this is as slick and polished as an Eagles album. The backup singers, the instrumentation, the melodies, the chords... everything about it is just so... so... so perfect. And when I think of what Marley was singing about, perfect seems like the completely wrong sound.

Music:
I'm giving the album a five-library-card rating, because regardless of my personal biases, it really is a perfect record. The lyrics possess depth and, unlike the dreck that The Eagles spit out, are a call for positive revolution. The guitar solo in "Concrete Jungle" is gorgeous. The bass is fluid and melodic, yet completely rhythmic. The backup singers in "Stir It Up" are reinventing '50s R&B and doo-wop. Peter Tosh's voice is powerful. And Bob Marley rides on top of it all like a ray of sunlight that warms the entire thing and brings it all together. This is an album that nearly anyone should be able to appreciate, regardless of whether they like Black Flag or Barry Manilow.

(Note: The EPFL's version of Catch A Fire contains two tracks that weren't on the original release. There is also a 2CD set that came out a few years ago that includes a whole bunch of extra songs, but I didn't see that one at Pratt.)

Packaging:
The package is pretty straightforward: photos, lyrics, credits. The thing that makes it stand out is the cover photo of Marley smoking a joint. Whether you're pro- or anti-marijuana, it was a pretty courageous move by Island Records -- especially in 1973. I don't know how much controversy it sparked (bad choice of words... sorry!), but Catch A Fire broke reggae to international audiences, so I have to assume that the cover stirred up some trouble.

Listen if you like: The Eagles. KIDDING! This is one to check out if you like pretty much any music from the past 30 years. You can hear its influence on everything from punk to hip-hop to the '70s breeze-rock schlock that Mr. Henley and Co. were writing.

If it were food, it'd be: beans. It's a healthy foundation for countless meals, regardless of whether you're wealthy or flat broke.

Various Artists: Mountain Music of Kentucky

(Note: This is a 1996 Smithsonian Folkways CD re-issue of a 1959 album that documented John Cohen's travels through eastern Kentucky. John Cohen, a musicologist and member of the New Lost City Ramblers, rewrote the liner notes and added more than an hour of music that was not included on the original Folkways release.)

There's a Buddhist concept called the beginner's mind. It basically suggests we approach every moment of our lives as if that moment has never happened before. Which, of course, it hasn't, but we carry our experiences, opinions, and preconceptions with us into each new moment. After we've seen 10,000 sparrows, we tend to miss the wonder, awe, and beauty of sparrow #10,001.

A beginner's mind is incredibly helpful when listening to Mountain Music of Kentucky. If you read a couple of quotes from the liner notes, you might understand why.

"These 1959 recordings present the vigorous music of Kentucky mountain people. They sang and played banjos with a terrific energy that is almost unheard of now. They learned their music in a setting totally different from our contemporary life, in an era before people got their experiences from TV or their music from Nashville, when people plowed with mules, canned beans and tomatoes from their gardens, and reclined on front porches with slatted wooden swings attached to rafters by metal chains. Their musical memories provide us with a glimpse of a pattern which had endured for centuries."

"Back then the musicians were less concerned with audience reception, recording criteria, or stylistic finesse. They sang with an energy that came directly from them. Their voices didn't have to be measured against the standards of the entertainment industry..."

I've listened to a few dozen Smithsonian Folkways releases in the past year, and I've even fallen in love with a few of them. This one was more difficult to get through than any of the others. But the rewards it holds are incredible!

If you're brave enough to find your beginner's mind and forget everything you know about music, you just might find a humanity within this CD that is as deep and beautiful as anything you've ever heard.

Music:
These are field recordings that were made with primitive recording equipment in living rooms and front porches. For lack of a better comparison, listening to Mountain Music of Kentucky is like reading a novel written on tattered scraps of paper that were found in the closet of an old house. This is music created by real people in the places where they lived their lives. Subtle nuances like the bird chirping in the background of "Fair Miss in the Garden" are just one of the countless things that help make this music so special. Yes, this is a difficult album, but its difficulties are a vital part of its perfection.

Packaging:
The booklet deserves a five library card rating for the photos alone. Every one of Cohen's pictures tells a story, and every story is fascinating. But while a picture may be worth a thousand words, a picture cannot substitute for a thousand words. So Cohen's words are here to flesh out the story. When you put the pictures and words together, you end up with a wonderful story. The historical aspect of the notes is great, but my favorite part is Cohen's recollections of the brief time he spent with each of the performers. His words bring even more life to a very lively set of recordings.

An interesting element of Cohen's notes is that, by revisiting these recordings 35 years after they were made, he acknowledges some of the ways he's grown and changed. He writes about why he chose certain songs for the original release, and why he feels he was wrong to overlook other recordings that only saw the light of day on the '96 reissue. It's interesting to see growth and humility in a man who is obviously extremely intelligent and passionate about music.

Listen if you like: Merle Travis, Jean Ritchie, Alan Lomax, Bill Monroe, Ralph Stanley, Pete Seeger. Listen if you like outsider art. Especially listen if you like the idea of normal people sitting around and playing music together.

If it were food, it'd be: home made from scratch

Johnny Cash: American V: A Hundred Highways

(This is my 100th review of a CD that's available from the Pratt Library in Baltimore. It's kind of fitting, then, that this review relates back to my first visit to Charm City.)

I still remember the first book I bought in Baltimore. It was a sunny summer afternoon in 2000, and we were waiting for an Orioles game to start at Camden Yards. We had a few hours, so we wandered over to the Inner Harbor. Of course, I didn't know the difference between the Pratt Library and Pratt Street at the time, but I was immediately smitten by the gentrified charms of the Barnes & Noble that sits in an old power plant on the water. I walked up to the second floor and, as light streamed in one of the giant windows, I saw a book titled Japanese Death Poems, which happened to be a collection of farewell poems written by ancient Japanese monks just before they died.

A Hundred Highways is Johnny Cash's death poem. It would be hard to imagine a better farewell from one of modern music's greatest artists.

Music:
This probably wouldn't get a five-library-card rating if it hadn't been Johnny Cash's last record, but it's a perfect way to close the circle of his musical career. Interestingly (and fittingly), this is the only album in the American series that is almost entirely rooted in country. Yeah, there's a Springsteen song on there, but Cash and producer Rick Rubin had the wisdom to see that "Further on Up the Road" is actually a mighty fine country song at its core. A few of the songs kind of fade into the background, but there's not a bad moment on the album.

Packaging:
The cover contains a photo of Johnny Cash singing. Otherwise, the liner notes are black, and contain only credits and a powerful eulogy by Rick Rubin.

Listen if you like: life, love, and/or death

If it were food, it'd be: A last meal

Lord Invader: Calypso in New York

I thought I hated calypso. I've heard Harry Belafonte's "Day-O" and The Beach Boys' "Sloop John B." and John Denver's "Calypso," and I don't like any of them.

But now that I've heard Lord Invader (aka Rupert Grant), I realize that disliking calypso because of those songs would be like disliking rock because of "Yakety Yak."

Lord Invader was amazing. His music was powerful and political, literate and lyrical. His music was funny and sexy and spiritual and violent and sad and proud and... and it was alive.

All of this, and every song is a story. Some are fun and silly, others are dark and troubling, but they all make for fascinating listening.

There are a lot of similarities between Lord Invader and the best hip-hop from the past 25 years. First of all, there's the same sense of oneupmanship. The album is filled with Lord Invader's boasts of superiority: In "Ten Thousand to Bar Me One," Invader equates singing to stick-fighting, and he tells his rivals, "Duke of Iron must surrender, Houdini it is fire and slaughter ... tomorrow is blood in the gutter, I mean to commit manslaughter." It's violent imagery, and it's a powerful metaphor for his musical superiority.

Big egos and boasting cannot make a vital album, though, as any hip-hop fan can tell you. There has to be some substance. At various moments throughout Calypso in New York, Lord Invader is political, spiritual, social, commercial, sexual, comical, and even humble (Invader loses singing battles in "Sly Mongoose" and "My Intention is War," while "My Experience on the Reperbahn" portrays his surprise at a German whore with some unexpected... uh... parts).

Music:
The music on Calypso in New York is definitely calypso. There are lots of steel drums and Caribbean rhythms, but don't let that scare you away. This is much closer to early reggae and ska than it is to the whitewashed, sterile garbage that has been presented to American audiences for the past 50 years. Most of the music sounds festive and joyous on the surface, but a good amount of the subject matter is very serious. There are only a few songs on the disc that leave me completely cold, and they are grossly outweighed by the tracks that are filled with passion and fire.

One thing that is especially notable is the richness of the lyrics. "My Intention Is War" is a (presumably improvised) lyrical battle between Lord Invader and Mighty Dictator. Invader busts out with lines like, "Dictator, you insolent boobie, delirious mule, audacious slum monger you're out of rule ... you gabilous squabbler illiterate ape, now you are in a terrible scrape." At the end of the song, after Invader has lost (which I don't understand, because his opening verse is awesome), Dictator offers a gracious, "Now Invader, you too are really great, and my statement no one can adjudicate, put your hand in mine, let our friendship remain sublime." This is great stuff, both musically and lyrically.

Packaging:
It's pretty much a given that anything from Smithsonian Folkways will have fantastic liner notes, and this is no exception. Prior to checking this out from EPFL, I knew nothing about calypso. Now, I know the names of a handful of the genre's greatest artists, I have a high-level understanding of its history, and I've got a half-dozen CDs on order from Ebay. There are only two flaws in the packaging that I can spot: 1) Not enough photos, and 2) The song title "Auf Wiedersehen" is misspelled, but that may be how the song is copyrighted, so I think I can forgive them for the typo. Anyway, the song more than makes up for the typo with the line "Hear them jivin' meine lieber, das ist screamer, which mean that I'm a good love-maker."

Listen if you like: reggae, hip-hop, or folk music. It's a must-hear if you like steel drums.

If it were food, it'd be: A plate of curry chicken, a bowl of callaloo, some plantains, and a few sugar cookies. And a rum and Pepsi-Cola of course.

Various Artists: That's Why We're Marching - World War II and the American Folk Song Movement

Good compilation albums tell a story. It's not a story that can be told by any single song on the compilation, but a story that recognizes each song as a vital part of something larger. Good compilation albums find a big truth within the voices of small songs.

That's Why We're Marching finds the big truth within 25 small songs. The individual songs might be about political hypocrisy, racial inequality, unions, war, or Fascism, but the big picture is about love. Each of these songs is about a powerful love for the poor people and the tortured people and the neglected people and the black people and the Russian people and the Jewish people and the people who worked in factories and the people who joined unions and the people who bought war bonds and the people who enlisted and the people who fought and the people who buried their children and the people who sacrificed their own lives in order to help save the lives of strangers who were being slaughtered on the other side of some mighty big oceans. These are songs of love for all of those people and countless others.

The songs on That's Why We're Marching might be about politics and race and war and fighting and dying and working. The album, though, is simply a collection of great love songs.

Music:
I can't imagine how this collection of songs could be any better. Everything on here is good, even the stuff that's kind of tough to get through. What might be the best song on the album isn't even a song, it's a story by Jimmy Longhi about being with Woody Guthrie and Cisco Houston on a ship that was under attack. When the story ends and "When the Yanks Go Marching In" begins, it is a joyous musical moment that literally gave me a chill.

Packaging:
Like virtually everything from Smithsonian Folkways, the booklet in That's Why We're Marching is superb. It's 28 pages long, with two columns of small print on each page. There's an extraordinary amount of detail, even by Smithsonian Folkways standards, and it's fascinating to read. There are a couple of minor typos and factual mistakes, though, and for a CD that acts as a historical document, errors like that can bring its credibility into question. In the EPFL's version, there is a hand-written correction on the first page of the booklet, which means that someone checked out the CD and cared enough to fix a mistake. That's the kind of thing that can only happen with CDs from the library, and that's the kind of thing that makes the EPFL so wonderful.

Listen if you like: folk artists like Pete Seeger, Woody Guthrie, and Lead Belly; folk revivalists like Billy Bragg and Wilco; protest songs; love.

If it were food, it'd be: the kind of homemade stew that simmers on the stove all day long and contains pretty much everything that's leftover in the fridge and the pantry, and it tastes like all of those things but it tastes like something more... perhaps it tastes just a little bit like love.

The Velvet Underground: The Velvet Underground and Nico

Admission #1: To the best of my knowledge, I have never heard a single song by The Velvet Underground. Until today.

Admission #2: When I checked out The Velvet Underground and Nico from the EPFL, I really wanted to trash it. I hate VU followers like The Pixies, and I think Lou Reed's "Walk on the Wild Side" is one of the lamest rock songs ever.

Admission #3: I think this album is amazing

You don't need me to rehash what's been said a thousand times about The Velvet Underground and Nico. Is it melodramatic and scarier-than-thou? Yes. Is it nihilistic and self-absorbed? Yes. Is it caught up in some ignorant and short-sighted viewpoints about life? Yes. Does it push boundaries? Absolutely. Do Lou Reed and Nico have annoying voices? Yes, but they're the right voices for the music. Is it difficult to listen to? At times, but in a good way. Is it unlike anything that came before it? No, but it changed everything that came after it.

Music:
The album possesses a timelessness that eluded most bands from the late '60s. Sure, a few of the songs are dated: "Run Run Run" sounds like a Stones throwaway, and the backup vocals in "There She Goes Again" are generic trippy drivel. As a whole, though, this could've been recorded at any point in the past four decades. I understand why it's received so much praise over the years.

My favorite moments are when the band sinks into an almost abstract sonic assault, like on "European Son." They weren't relying on mounds of guitar effects, impenetrable layers of electronic samples, or overdeveloped technical prowess to create a dense wall of noise; they were simply taking what they had and wrecking shop with it. Hearing this song makes me realize that I was correct in dismissing Boris as a bunch of wankers.

Packaging:
The cover, Banana by Andy Warhol, is pretty awesome, even if you're not a Warhol fan (which I'm not). It's simple, it's unique, it's eye-catching, it's immediately recognizable, and it's impossible to imitate. It has to be one of the greatest album covers in the history of rock. The inside of the CD jacket isn't nearly as impressive, though. Some of the photos are dark portraits of forboding characters staring at the camera, while others are dark portraits of forboding characters staring at the camera with cheesy lighting effects on their faces. It was probably cool at the time, but now it just looks corny.

Listen if you like: art rock, punk, indie, goth, noise, doom metal, experimental music, drug music, psych... really, I guess you should just listen if you like any rock music from the past 40 years.

If it were food, it'd be: A Twinkie. It's as fresh today as it was 40 years ago.

Lead Belly: Keep Your Hands Off Her

In honor of Lead Belly's birthday, I'm devoting this week's posts on Pratt Songs to his music. Today, I reviewed the only Lead Belly recording in the EPFL catalog, a vinyl copy of Keep Your Hands Off Her. (You can buy the same songs on a CD titled Leadbelly Sings Folk Songs from Smithsonian Folkways.) On Friday, I'll review a vinyl copy of Woody Guthrie Sings Folksongs, which includes one song with Lead Belly. Hopefully, the good people over at Pratt will order some Lead Belly CDs soon!

I've known Lead Belly's name for years, but I never bothered to listen to his music. It didn't matter that nearly every great rock band -- from Led Zeppelin to Nirvana -- has praised Huddie Ledbetter (aka Lead Belly), I just never cared enough to listen. But then I checked out Classic Railroad Songs from Smithsonian Folkways from the EPFL. When I heard his recording of "Linin' Track," I was floored.

Lead Belly was amazing. I don't even know how to describe his voice, other than by saying it was real. It's not trained, it's not refined, and it's not pretty. It's hard and flawed, and it's completely compelling. Apparently, Lead Belly held audiences captive when he performed. When you hear his voice, it's easy to understand why; something about the man was magnetic.

Music:
There are probably better introductions to Lead Belly, but to my ears, Keep Your Hands Off Her is a perfect place to start. The a capella "Good-Good-Good (Talking, Preaching)" is one of the most delightful portrayals of heaven that I've ever heard, and "Linin' Track" proves there's far more to good rhythm than playing in perfect time to a metronome. "Corn Bread Rough" demonstrates his skill on the accordion, and if it doesn't make you want to get up and dance, you might want to check your pulse. "Stewball" and "The Blood Done Sign My Name (Ain't You Glad)" have been stuck in my brain with a tenacity that is usually reserved for cheesy pop songs like Hanson's "MMMBop."

It's worth noting that the EPFL's copy of this record sounds fine on speakers, but it's virtually unlistenable on headphones due to some kind of imbalance between the left and right channels. The $15 you'd spend on buying this CD from Smithsonian Folkways is absolutely worthwhile, though, and I highly recommend it.

Packaging:
I like this cover art a lot. It's a painting of a woman provocatively posed in a red dress, and it makes me want to listen to the album and see exactly who she is and why I need to keep my hands off her. Otherwise, the package is disappointing. There's no gatefold, and the inner sleeve is plain. There's a Woody Guthrie excerpt on the back, titled "Leadbelly is a hard name," that's interesting, but is far too short to provide any meaningful information. The cover of the CD release is just a black & white photo of Lead Belly. It's a good photo, but the late '50s / early '60s design of the vinyl release is more interesting to me. The CD includes the same essay by Guthrie.

Listen if you like: music that is memorable and catchy, performed by musicians who sing in a straightforward and honest way. But also, listen if you like bands who were directly influenced by Lead Belly, like Nirvana or Zeppelin.

If it were food, it'd be: flapjacks in heaven

Harry Smith: Anthology of American Folk Music

How in the world am I supposed to summarize six amazing CDs in one blog post?

Pretty much everything that has happened in American music is here in one form or another. If you're a musician or a history buff or an anthropologist, or if you simply love music, you should check this out from the EPFL. (Make sure you get the booklet from behind the desk, too.)

Checking it out won't be enough, though. I've already renewed it once, and I've barely scratched the surface. Don't check it out unless you've got 80 bucks to spare, because there's a good chance you'll end up wanting to buy it. And really, this is something that no serious music collection should be without.

It's amazing. Really. Trust me on this one.

Music:
The music on here has, directly or indirectly, influenced pretty much every modern musician. If Harry Smith hadn't put together this collection of mostly forgotten recordings and released it in 1955, pop music as we know it today would not exist. Period. That's how important this is. James Brown and Bob Dylan and Led Zeppelin and Johnny Cash and Tom Waits and Beck and pretty much everyone else would have all become bankers or shopkeepers or haberdashers or something.

Packaging:
Harry Smith's original notes summarized each song with a single sentence, which resulted in garish headlines like "Wife's Logic Fails to Explain Strange Bedfellow to Drunkard." The notes that accompany this 1997 CD reissue aren't quite as much fun, but they are as thick as a book and fascinating to read. Best of all, they list recent versions of each song in a number of genres, so you can really dig in and learn about every piece of music on here. Again, this isn't something that can be digested in the three weeks that the EPFL gives you. Don't check this out if you're not willing to take the risk that you'll want to buy it.

Listen if you like: music and/or people

If it were food, it'd be: Water. The source of all food, and all life.

Marah: 20,000 Streets Under the Sky

I wish I could find a way to make this album fit inside this review. I wish I could take the music and the words and every emotion I've felt while listening to 20,000 Streets Under the Sky and cram it all into this measly little blog, but I can't do it. This album is just too big.

This is urban music, or at least, it's what urban music was before the phrase "urban music" was hi-jacked by record companies and filled with racist overtones. This is music about urban life. These are songs about living and dying and growing up and growing old in crappy streets filled with run-down rowhouses and Chinese take-outs and drug dealers and sunsets that tease you with promises of a better life.

Unlike most rock (and "urban") artists, Marah understands that joy and pain are soulmates who walk hand-in-hand through our lives. It almost seems like the darker the subject matter of the words, the harder the band worked to infuse the music with light. They understand that the city is a tough place, a place of perseverance, but it's also a place of hope and magic and love... sometimes even when you're an addicted tranny hooker or a kid who is dying in the arms of the only girl who loved him.

Music:
The music is everything great rock music should be: passionate, energetic, and genuine. The album would shine even if the lyrics were generic moon-june-spoon crap, but these words are exceptional. Most of them can stand on their own as poetry, a feat that few lyricists ever achieve. David Bielanko has a genuine gift with words, and in a fair world, he would be held in the same esteem as Bob Dylan, Leonard Cohen, and Tom Waits.

Packaging: (Altered by EPFL?)
The artwork is a bit boring, at least on the EPFL's version. (Versions I see online are slightly more compelling.) The band offered an incredibly deep pool of lyrical imagery (not to mention an obvious reference to the original Alphonse de Neuville and Edouard Riou illustrations of Jules Verne's 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea), and a more gifted designer could've done wonderful things with the cover and liner notes. But the lyrics are included, and with an album like this, that's the most important thing for the package to contain.

Listen if you like: Bruce Springsteen is an obvious comparison, but the band sounds as if they're channeling The Boss' spirit instead of ripping off his notes. Fans of Dylan, Waits, and other great lyricists should absolutely give this a listen. Anyone who simultaneously loves and hates living in the big city will find many friends and neighbors in the characters who inhabit the songs.

If it were food, it'd be: A couple of slices of greasy pizza from the mom-and-pop take-out joint on the corner.

Various Artists: Classic Railroad Songs from Smithsonian Folkways

Classic Railroad Songs understands that, even today, when rail travel is nearly obsolete and we can communicate internationally by clicking a button, trains hold a powerful place in the American conscience. Trains represent freedom and independence and the possibility of an adventure. Trains are the sadness of a lonely whistle in the middle of the night, and the excitement of a passionate kiss on a crowded platform.

Sometimes we forget that humanity didn't begin with cell phones and iPods and TiVo. People in the 19th century were just as captivated by technology, romance, tragedy, humor, joy, sadness, society, politics, and religion as we are today. The music on this collection deals with nearly everything that happens between birth and death, and it manages to do it all in the context of trains.

One thing we share with our ancestors is a fascination with disasters, and this CD is like the 19th century version of a disaster movie. You've got trains crashing into each other, trains going off the tracks, passengers getting mutilated and dying by the dozens, engineers getting mauled when they're supposed to get married... this is some gory stuff. If you remember the train wreck in the movie Unbreakable, well... this CD is like that. Except without Bruce Willis as an immortal superhero.

Of course, this music is about more than just train crashes. There's the awe-struck wonder of amazing machines, the sadness of a child lost at war, the pain of a job that was as likely to kill you as pay you, the class struggle between a wealthy man's daughter and the impoverished men who existed outside her windows, and the humorous look at an engineer who had a wife in every town on the Denver and Rio Grande line.

Humor and joy are a big part of this music. Many of the saddest songs on the CD are accompanied by uplifting music, an acknowledgment that sadness and joy co-exist in life. This art has been neglected by modern artists like Metallica, Taking Back Sunday and Jay-Z, whose songs are almost always a one-dimensional expression of emotion. But the songs on Classic Railroad Songs are not afraid to see the seeds of joy that exist in every moment of pain, and vice versa.

Music: (Last 4-5 tracks of EPFL version won't play)
Like most compilations from Smithsonian Folkways, the music is exceptional. Some of it is very difficult to listen to, especially for those of us who like our music to come from fancy studios where everything is overdubbed and underflubbed and moneygrubbed. But it doesn't matter whether or not this music is difficult, because it's worth hearing. This CD is not just educational (for instance, I never knew that Creedence Clearwater Revival's "Midnight Special" was originally written in Sugarland Prison in Texas, and was recorded by multiple prisoners in the South before Lead Belly's recording became the definitive version), but it is a link to the passions that drove our ancestors -- and drive us. There's not a song on here that should be skipped (which is very frustrating, considering that the EPFL's version of the disc is damaged), and there are several that have as much energy and life as the best music being recorded today.

Packaging:
The design isn't particularly special, but it's effective. The text is easy to read, and it's nice that the designers didn't get caught up in trying to use decorative typefaces or eye-catching layouts. Given the amount of content that's in the booklet, function over form was the right way to go. The text is broken up by photos, but there aren't any captions to describe the context or relevance of the images. Given that the music is about trains and the booklet is a miniature history lesson, it would've been nice to see at least some basic descriptions of each picture.

Listen if you like: Bob Dylan, Josh Ritter, Ani DiFranco, Billy Bragg, Alison Krauss, Ricky Skaggs. (They're not on here, but their roots are.) Also, listen if you like freedom, independence, adventures, lonely whistles in the middle of the night, passionate kisses on train platforms, and sitting in stations until it's your turn to get on and ride.

If it were food, it'd be: served in the dining car as the world races past the windows.

Buzzcocks: Singles Going Steady

Until checking out Singles Going Steady from the EPFL, I'd never knowingly heard The Buzzcocks. Now, punk isn't really my thing, but still... I'm pretty embarrassed by this omission. It's like saying I've never heard Janis Joplin or LL Cool J or Soundgarden. You rock snobs out there know what I'm talking about; our smug personae are built upon the arrogant belief that we know more about rock than, well, anyone. Facing the fact that I've never heard one of the fundamental building blocks of punk rock forces me to accept that all of my self-righteous rants about music are nothing more than compensation for a very, very small record collection. It's so small, I probably couldn't even get a girl from the record store in the Towson Town Center to go out with me. We're talking tiny.

Anyway. This isn't about me, this is about The Buzzcocks.

On first listen, I was simultaneously blown away and disappointed. Let's deal with the disappointment first. This is simple pop-punk, before such a thing as pop-punk existed. It's snotty and fun and a little pissed off, kind of like The Ramones were. That's fine, but so what? How much snotty punk music does the world really need? Yeah, you're white and middle class and smart and gosh durnit, it's just not fair. Blah blah blah, whine whine whine, whatever. You're not the first person to discover sex or think your parents are kind of lame, so just shut up already and do something with all that money and intelligence and pearly skin with which you were cursed.

But I kept listening, because I wasn't only disappointed, I was also blown away. These songs are phenomenal. Pete Shelley either learned about music composition somewhere in his pre-Buzzcocks days, or he's got an innate talent and a gifted ear. When you skim away the snotty punk attitude and the unrefined surface, these songs are compositionally closer to The Beatles or The Beach Boys than they are to The Ramones. No, there's nothing like "Tomorrow Never Knows" or "Good Vibrations" on Singles Going Steady, but every single song has an enormous pop sensibility. Really, there's not a bad track on the album, and the best songs are as good as (or better than) any punk song ever written.

Music:
As much as I love ripping apart sub-par rock albums that are considered to be great, Singles Going Steady lives up to its reputation. Every track is good, if not great, and everything here stands up against anything that's come out in the subsequent three decades of punk. What's kind of neat about this album is that it wasn't recorded as an album; it's a collection of singles released between 1977 and 1979. Songs 1-8 are the A-sides, and 9-16 are the respective B-sides.

Packaging:
Don't even bother looking at it, because there's nothing worthwhile other than the track listing and the dates the original singles were released.

Listen if you like: Any punk band that's recorded an album in the past 30 years. But also listen if you like well-written songs with a fair share of attitude, because if you get past the angst, the music is on par with some of the greatest pop/rock ever written.

If it were food, it'd be: Fresh lemonade. Sour, sweet, delicious, and refreshing... all at the same time.

Blackalicious: The Craft

I've been listening to The Craft fairly regularly for the past few years. When I saw it sitting in the rack at EPFL, I couldn't resist the opportunity to spread the word about this gem.

This is a fantastic album. It's intelligent, political, funny, inspirational, sexy, challenging, and engaging. Blackalicious ignores the trappings of mainstream commercial hip hop, and succeeds because they play by their own rules. This is hip hop at its finest, and if you miss it, you're missing something special.

(Kudos to EPFL for having this in their catalog. Whoever is choosing their music is doing an excellent job.)

Music:
The lyrics are good, the music is good, the performances are good... really, there's not much here that's not good.

Packaging: (Altered by EPFL)
The lyric book is included, and it's wonderful to finally be able to read the lyrics that I've only partially understood for the past few years. I also really like the fact that the lyric sheet lists each person along with his/her words. Like most CDs released on Anti, The Craft wasn't released in a jewel box, so everything but the booklet is missing.

Listen if you like: A Tribe Called Quest, Jurassic 5, Outkast, De La Soul, BDP, The Clash, Pete Seeger, any musician who gave enough of a damn about the world to write a protest song.

If it were food, it'd be: a Blackalicious Burger at the Soul Vegetarian in DC. No, they don't have it on their menu, but they really should.