Funeral to Finish

  Imagine for a second that the Grateful Dead never became the GRATEFUL DEAD with the tours and the Deadheads and the scene and everything and instead were just a semi-well-known psych-roots-rock band from Northern California.  Unladen of all the baggage, you might put this album on and think "Oh wow, this is a really nice record! I wonder what became of these guys." Because it is.  This is Americana before "Americana" was a genre, an extremely chill mixture of rock, country, bluegrass, blues, just about everything in American music.  Kicking off with "Uncle John's Band," an invitation to listen to the band and also a meditation on the liminal, semi-conscious state you enter when completely engaged with music, the album progresses through country-folk ("Dire Wolf"), straight rock ("New Speedway Boogie") and something like bluegrass-stomp-rock ("Cumberland Blues").  Then it ends with one of the band's best-known songs, ...

  How often do you hear a freaking Beach Boys album and think "Sounds like they just knocked this one out in about half a day in the studio, just fucking around, you know those lo-fi loving Beach Boys"?  How about fucking NEVER?  Well, sit down because I've got one for you. This was recorded post-Pet Sounds and the tortured Smile project, which both sound like hell with Brian Wilson in the studio demanding 735 takes just for the tambourine and taking 3 weeks to record one song.  So after that, naturally you'd just want to kind of take it easy and have some fun, right? And this album sounds fun!  There's definitely some R&B/Motown influence here.  Sometimes it's subtle and sometimes they just cover a Stevie Wonder song ("I Was Made to Love Her").  But the whole thing is interesting; you would know it's the Beach Boys right off the bat, but it's a mellower, less structured Beach Boys.  It sounds like they're having fun.   This came out...

  I started out not really liking this album, which I had never heard before, and then I listened some more and started to like it, and listened some more and liked it more, and now it's totally grown on me.  Then I went back and started reading reviews and so many thought this was just magical and wonderful and while I don't think it's QUITE as good as all that, it certainly is interesting. First, Bob's voice.  We're all used to the weird intonations and nasally lilt Bob Dylan sings with but here he's featuring a deeply craggy, seen-it-all, weary and maybe close to death.  It's a remarkable sound, enough to even be distracting at times, but it fits in with the overall themes of the lyrics, which concern loss and contemplation and looking back over life. Musically, it's all over the place.  Or, really, all over the place within its narrow confines of "music Bob Dylan listens to."  But there's pretty straight country, and some jazz swing, an...

  GodDAMN this album is good.  Like I knew all about "Tracks of My Tears," which of course is one of the best/most important songs in rock history, and "Ooo Baby Baby," which is instantly recognizable,  and I'm relatively sure I knew the title track and maybe "My Girl Has Gone" but there isn't a bad song on this record.  When I first heard "Let Me Have Some," I immediately hit replay and then again, and again.  I think I listened to it four or five times in a row yesterday. It's the piano riff and the handclaps and the incredible harmonies - incredible harmonies being a main feature of this record - but it's really the swingy vocal melody that does it.  Man, Smokey Robinson, why don't you save some melodies for the rest of us.  Also big shout-out to guitarist Marv Tarplin, who not only had the original vocal idea for "Tracks" but wrote the absolutely iconic guitar part.  Really, if you haven't listened to this al...

  Creedence was the original Just Us Guys band.  This album is named for the warehouse in Berkeley where they practiced.  The cover shot looks like you just walked in on some bros passing a joint around.  And the songs are such serious beer commercial Rock that they've become an indelible part of the collective consciousness. How about starting off an album with a 7-minute song that's mostly a (kind of boring) jam?  Sure, why not.  Then a cover song.  Then let's unleash one monster hit after another.  Man, when John Fogerty got on one the man could write the fuck out of a song.  "Lookin' Out My Back Door," "Run Through the Jungle," "Up Around the Bend," "Who'll Stop the Rain," and "Long As I Can See the Light" are all on this album.  Can you imagine?   There's also a (very not boring) 11-minute cover of "Heard It Through the Grapevine" that I dare you to listen to and not do the air-drum-crash-cymbal mo...

  It's Friday and that's great because this album is PERFECT FOR FRIDAY.  In fact, it's good for any day of the week.  Nothing like starting out a record with "Good Times," an obviously iconic song on its own that didn't do anything else except go on in life to be the backing track for "Rapper's Delight" and thus be a part of the foundation of rap.  Talk about a song delivering more than you asked it to. But there are other disco bangers on here!  You will swear you've heard "My Feet Keep Dancing" because it sounds so familiar, even if you haven't.  It also has the unexpected and charming tap shoes sound about halfway through, to really play up the "dancing" thing.  "Can't Stand to Love You" is a more straightforward funk vibe, and there are the requisite slow jams like "A Warm Summer Night."  You can hear so much of today's music just flowing out of this.   Let's pause here and talk abo...

  This is the kind of thing that would be playing during brunch at All You Knead restaurant on Haight Street in the early 90's.  I know because I used to go to brunch at All You Knead restaurant on Haight Street in the early 90's and I'm positive I heard this playing.  All You Knead had a really good brunch, and I specifically remember it was the first place I ever had a beer with brunch, mostly because back then I couldn't drink champagne so, you know, no mimosas.  Funny story: I didn't drink any wine or champagne AT ALL, not one sip, between the time I was about 15 and maybe 30 becaue when I was about 15 I drank way too much champagne at a restaurant opening afterparty and got violently ill and couldn't stand the smell of it for at least 10 years. Back to this record.  Of course, it has an absolutely locked-in funk groove, and one memorable song at least (the title track), but let me be straight with you, I am really not crazy about instrumental funk albums, o...

  There is just so much to like about this album, an absolute listening pleasure that I heretofore had never heard all the way through (Phrenology being my intro to the Roots and the only album I ever really explored).  I guess it falls under the "alternative rap" heading, and it is definitely reminiscent of other alternative rap stuff like Tribe Called Quest and some De La Soul.  But definitely its own thing, due I think to the incredible rapping of Black Thought, Malik B, and others.  And not just the lyrics - which are also great, of course - but the way they wrap their voices around a line, punctuate it just right, and mold it to the beat and the music under it.  It's magical. See what I mean?  I really love the way the whole song is put together, from the vocal parts (including that little background vocal; it sounds like a choir but I suspect it's not) to the Fender Rhodes to the steady backbeat.  And the whole album is like that.  It sounds...

  My Mom loved art and going to art museums, but, being a "child of the Depression" as she reminded us whenever we asked for something extravagant like name-brand bread, she really was only interested in figurative art.  She was befuddled and maybe angered by abstract act, and, although she had taken art history classes and been to the finest art museums in the world, would say stupid shit like "I don't understand this.  Anybody could do this" when looking at anything that wasn't an Impressionist or whatever. That's me with this album.  I am a dumb idiot who knows nothing, and I mean, nothing about jazz.  As far as I know, this is the second jazz album I have listened to all the way through in my entire life, the first being Miles Davis' "Kind of Blue" which I got in my 20's to put on at dinner parties to seem grown up.  And while it was recognizable to me as "jazz," I have no vocabulary for it, no base of knowledge to use to ...

  When does an album become a Dad album?  Led Zeppelin albums started off for kids, then became Dad albums, and are now officially Granddad albums (not Grandaddy albums).  Pavement albums are now Dad albums.  Even Green Day albums are now Dad albums.  (When you have a Broadway show based on your music, you are automatically a Parent Band).  This album, however, was a Dad album the day it came out and has somehow become even Dadder as time goes on. (There are also, of course, Mom albums.  Bruno Mars.  Any former boy bander.  John Mayer.  The Hamilton original cast recording.) I hate to break it to the Dads out there but a lot of this album is B-O-R-I-N-G.  Of course you know "Money for Nothing" and "Walk of Life" and you might now "So Far Away" but man, once you get past those things really drag.  Why does every song have a too-long intro?  And why do half the songs sound like Mark Knopfler was just noodling around on guit...

  Man, I don't know.  I realize that this whole list is arbitrary, just as ranking anything is subjective and arbitrary, but I jsut do not believe that this album is better than "Coal Miner's Daughter" (440) or even "Lucinda Williams" (426).  I'm willing to take it on its own terms for what it is, but it really just didn't work for me.  This is going to sound like a lame-ass "but I have black friends" disclaimer but I really do love country music and this would not be what I reach for when I want to hear some country. As country does, there are a lot of songs about drinking!  I do not have a problem with that, either the activity or the topic, but it's such a country cliche that it's kinda funny.  So we've got "Drink in my Hand," "Hungover and Hard Up," and, fuck it, let's just name songs directly after booze, "Jack Daniels." Also, this isn't really country music.  I'm not saying that li...

  It's a shame Rolling Stone couldn't have made #420 something like Cypress Hill or one of Bob Marley's lesser albums or something because, you know, like marijuana and 420.  But you could do a lot worse than this 1975 Earth, Wind & Fire album.  The first two songs - "Shining Star" and the title track - are pretty much instantly recognizable if you're a Gen Xer like me.  In fact, if "Shining Star" doesn't immediately transport you to middle school dances I'd be surprised.  Listening to it you can actually smell that Coke machine and popcorn smell I associate with the painful awkwardness of the middle school dance. I did not know until I started reading about this album that it was the soundtrack for a movie of the same name!   Apparently in TTWOTW the movie , "Record executives want a highly-regarded record producer to focus on a white pop act whom they feel has the sound America wants. To keep his creative integrity, Buckmaster care...

  This is such a great album.  I forgot how good this album was, even though I remember buying it on iTunes and putting it on my brushed aluminum iPod mini and listening to it on my long walks through Golden Gate Park and around the city in 2005.  It was just such a explosion of sound that I was blown away by it.  And now, listening to it all these years later, it totally holds up. M.I.A. has a pretty amazing backstory that involves growing up during the Sri Lankan civil war and moving to London as a refugee and going to art school and just casual things like "She met Justine Frischmann, front woman of the British band Elastica, through her friend Damon Albarn at an Air concert in 1999, and Frischmann commissioned Arulpragasam to create the cover art for the band's 2000 album, The Menace, and video document their American tour."  You know, just usual young adult stuff.  Then she grew up and got famous and was engaged to an heir to the Seagrams liquor fortu...

  Every single person in America and most of the world knows the opening four notes of this album, the wah-wah dyoot dyoot doot doot guitar that begins "Let's Get It On," the title track to this album.  It's so ubiquitous that it has become musical shorthand for "person is very attracted to another person" in film and TV and no wonder, it's a great song.  This album was, of course, a huge success and charted for 61 weeks and was the best-selling soul album of 1973. Now I want to preface this by saying this is just one person's opinion and many, many people love this album and I am assuredly an outlier, but: it's a little thin for me.  A lot of the songs sound very, very similar, like Gaye had one good idea and ran with it.  Which, ok!  A middling record from Marvin Gaye is still better than the best record most people will ever make.  I just wouldn't go back to it. ADULT CONTENT FOLLOWS, 18+ PLEASE One interesting thing about the record is ho...

  Everyone has albums that remind them of a particular time and place, and this one for me is Santa Cruz in 1998.  I was living there then and I have an extremely specific memory of listening to this album while driving down Highway 1 near the 41st Avenue exit.  No idea why. Approximate view of my very specific sense memory of this album. None of this has anything to do with this album itself.  If you like Yo La Tengo, and I do, you will like this album.  Yo La Tengo is another one of those bands with an extremely specific sound.  If a Yo La Tengo song comes on, you will immediately go "Hey, this is Yo La Tengo." They're like the easy listening version of My Bloody Valentine, and I mean that as a compliment. And there are some all time classic YLT songs on this album, like "Sugarcube" and "Deeper Into Movies" and "Autumn Sweater" and their cover of "Little Honda."  The only real clunker is "My Little Corner of the World," ...

  Can you separate the artist from the art?  I know I don't really listen to Ryan Adams any more since it came out that he's a sex pest who continually preyed on  younger women.  I mean, I didn't have any CDs to throw away but I unstarred all his albums on Spotify, SO THERE.  I just can't listen to it knowing what I know now.   Beck is apparently a Scientologist and I'd be lying if I didn't say that this fact colored my appreciation of his work once I found it out.  I mean, I'm generally distrustful of all organized religion, but Scientology is especially nutty and predatory to boot.   But I put all that aside and tried to listen to this album fresh and guess what?  It's great.  It's a great album.  Let's set aside the 3 songs you probably already know ("Devil's Haircut," "The New Pollution," and "Where It's At"), and focus on some of the other tracks first.  "Jack-Ass," based around a sample from T...

  Oh look, it's the guy from the open mic who plays 4 songs when you're only supposed to play 2!  I'm kidding, I'm kidding.  It's the guy who shows he was culturally appropriating reggae ("Mother and Child Reunion") years before he had a huge hit culturally appropriating African music!  Kidding again!  Yes, I'm kidding.  Maybe I've subconsciously adopted my wife's loathing of Paul Simon, a loathing whose source I cannot say. Paul Simon probably invented quiet, introspective acoustic non-country guitar songwriter singing, and his idea lives on in the likes of Sufjan and Bon Iver and all the other sensitive bros you would make an excuse to leave the room they were in if they picked up an acoustic at a party.  NEVERTHELESS, there are some classics on this album, none ever put to better use than "Me & Julio Down by the Schoolyard" in "The Royal Tenenbaums." What else, what else.  "Peace Like a River" is a pleasant ...

  Back in 1988, there was no "alt-country" yet.  I mean, there had been acts that fused country and rock (I'm thinking of Jason and the Scorchers but there were plenty of others), but there was no label like "alt-country" (or, as some parts of it are now known, "Americana").  You can tell this was an early alt-country album because  " The L.A. people said, 'It's too country for rock.' The Nashville people said, 'It's too rock for country. '"   It's a lovely album, really, quiet and understated in some parts, but then big and jangly in others.  There are the little slices of life like "The Night's Too Long" (later a hit for Patty Loveless) and questions about the nature of life and love ("Passionate Kisses," later a hit for Mary Chapin Carpenter; "Price to Pay," as far as I know never a hit for anyone else).  I will say that I love the verse in "Passionate Kisses" but I do...

  The Reverend makes his second appearance on the List " with the patient attention that defines his limitless sex appeal ," an intoxicating record that showcases his incredible voice but you know what?  The Oscar for Best Supporting Artist goes to Charles Hodges on the Hammond organ, which pretty much competes for your attention with Green's voice on almost every song.  Hodges makes the thing burp and croon and swirl around the vocals like it's alive.  An amazing sound. (Side note - Hodges, who's played on a generation's worth of albums , is also on the Mountain Goats' 2020 record Getting Into Knives. The man gets around.) Although every song is worth your time, the centerpiece is surely "Here I Am (Come and Take Me)," a song I knew every note of even though I never owned this album or even listened to it all the way through before.  So I was wondering, how do I know this song so well?  I hardly ever listen to the radio, I never owned this album...

  OK now we're talking.  I don't know if this is THE album where punk rock discovered melody but if not it's close.  Husker Du had already put out some straight-ahead hardcore albums like Zen Arcade, and then along comes this record, which, revolutionarily, has punk songs you can hum along to.   I mean, obviously the title track and "Celebrated Summer" and "The Girl Who Lives on Heaven Hill" but especially "I Apologize," which I think is kind of the template for my favorite kind of Husker Du songs - absolutely crushing, grinding guitar, fast, and a soaring chorus that's the sonic equivalent of the first big downhill on a roller coaster.  This style reached its peak on a later album, Candy Apple Grey, and specifically the song "Sorry Somehow," but we're not here to talk about that album.   The production is extremely punk rock in that it's tinny and flat and not great.  Humorously, true punx thought Husker Du was selling ou...