THE BEATLES, “ABBEY ROAD”

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abbey

(My 100 favorite albums in chronological order: #6 – released September 26, 1969. Originally posted on Kriofske Mix, 6/30/2014)

Track listing: Come Together / Something / Maxwell’s Silver Hammer / Oh! Darling / Octopus’s Garden / I Want You (She’s So Heavy) / Here Comes The Sun / Because / You Never Give Me Your Money / Sun King / Mean Mr. Mustard / Polythene Pam / She Came In Through The Bathroom Window / Golden Slumbers / Carry That Weight / The End / Her Majesty

I often think about an August afternoon when I was 17, sitting in the back of a friend’s parked car. “Come Together” comes on the classic rock station—I haven’t heard it in many years. Anyway, I discover I’ve never really heard it before, or at least never thought of it as much more than an oldie from before my time. At that moment, as the hazy, late summer sun beams through the car’s windows, I’m utterly transfixed by this beguilingly swampy music: the percussive shuffle played in conjunction with its six-note bass riff, John Lennon’s nonsensical lyrics about “toejam football” and “walrus gumbo”, the song’s overall push and pull between mystery and lack of guile. It immediately feels richer and far more complex than any contemporary music I was into at the time.

Three months later, while browsing through the CD racks at one of many neighborhood libraries I began frequenting after obtaining my driver’s license earlier that year, I spot a copy of ABBEY ROAD. Perusing the track listing on the back, I see “Come Together” on it, along with “Here Comes The Sun”, a Beatles song I heard far more often in my youth. Not familiar with any of the other tracks (“Maxwell’s Silver Hammer”?, “Mean Mr. Mustard”?), I nonetheless check it out and listen to it in my bedroom at home, looking forward to hearing “Come Together” again, not really expecting much else from the album.

I could try relating what it must have been like to encounter ABBEY ROAD for the first time, but that was over twenty years ago and I don’t even remember if I loved it or entirely understood it on that first go around. But it must have left some sort of impression, because I returned to it again and again until I knew it by heart. Gradually, it influenced my musical taste with intensity unmatched by anything else I had previously heard. Without ABBEY ROAD, I would not have devoured the entire Beatles catalogue over the course of my senior year of high school; nor would I have begun listening to classic rock radio, in turn discovering (and, via many artists, rediscovering) a compact but rich history of popular music I had previously ignored, simply because it was from the past.

For all of its personal significance, and general accomplishments and innovation, what seems most astonishing about ABBEY ROAD now is that it even exists. In the three years since REVOLVER, the Beatles cemented their status as the decade’s most iconic musicians (SGT. PEPPER’S LONELY HEARTS CLUB BAND), and then slowly began to unravel (THE BEATLES, aka The “White” Album” often comes across more as the work of four separate artists than a real band). Following aborted sessions in early 1969 that eventually became the basis for the album and documentary film LET IT BE, one had no reason to expect anything close to a masterpiece from them. Fortunately, we have the persistent Paul McCartney to thank. The legend is that he approached the band’s longtime producer George Martin (who was not part of the LET IT BE sessions), suggesting that the group make an album “the way we use to do it”, i.e. with Martin in control.

Certainly, ABBEY ROAD is the band’s most lush and elaborate production since SGT. PEPPER’S and it arguably even exceeds that studio marvel in concept and sophistication. However, as much as McCartney and Martin tried to recreate past methods, The Beatles simply weren’t the same band they were on REVOLVER, or more accurately, its four members weren’t the same men who conquered the world five years before. When they broke up months after ABBEY ROAD was released, you sensed it was because they had outgrown each other (Robert Christgau was more blunt on the subject: “they couldn’t stand each other anymore.”). Thus, the album’s first half plays like a more focused side off The White Album, almost resembling a nesting doll in that it begins and ends with a John Lennon song, sticks two Paul songs in the middle, and places one song each by George Harrison and Ringo Starr on either side between the John and Paul songs.

John’s “Come Together” is the first track, as powerful and iconic as any of the band’s album openers. It also preceded the album as its single, albeit as part of a double A-side with the song that follows it on the album, George’s “Something”. In the US, where double singles charted in separate positions in Billboard at the time, “Come Together” reached number one, while “Something” peaked at number three. In the UK, where double singles charted as one entity, “Something” was listed ahead of “Come Together”, the first (and last time) a George song achieved this status. Indeed, “Something” is one of his greatest compositions, a swaying ballad whose melody and yearning guitar effortlessly float over one of Paul’s most expressive basslines. Soft and sensual without feeling sappy or sugary, “Something” has become more of a standard than “Come Together”, covered by everyone from Frank Sinatra to Joe Cocker (of course, I had heard it before, but without any idea of who sung it or what it was called).

Paul’s two subsequent songs seem as dissimilar as two tracks could be, until they don’t. Initially, “Maxwell’s Silver Hammer” feels like the most stubbornly silly, flimsiest thing he ever wrote as a Beatle, while “Oh! Darling” is in contention for his hardest rocking, most over the top vocal performance outside of “Helter Skelter”. But then, over time, you notice the former’s perverse, unnerving subject matter, its cheery, upbeat surface repeatedly undermined by disquieting synthesizer flourishes (the instrument then-new and entirely foreign-sounding). On the latter song, Paul is at once so soulfully passionate and at an emotional extreme that verges on self-parody that you don’t know whether he’s being heartfelt, satirical, or both.

“Octopus’s Garden”, the token Ringo songs that follows, is often dismissed as an inferior sequel to “Yellow Submarine”; perhaps I’m just sick of the latter’s ubiquity, but I actually prefer the former to it—I always thought it was an ideal showcase for Ringo’s slightly flat, homely charm, exuding sincerity and wonder that could not have come from John (too cynical) or Paul (too whimsical) at that point. George’s guitar work also lends the song an irresistible brightness—a direct contrast to John’s gloomy sinister epic, “I Want You (She’s So Heavy)” which closes side one. The song literally vacillates between two sections delineated by the title: “I Want You”, a near-lithe, mid-tempo rock number that’s a palette cleanser after Paul and Ringo’s lighter pursuits, and “She’s So Heavy”, a slower, droning dirge in ¾ time with no lyrics apart from the title. It concludes with this latter section as an extended instrumental coda, repeated at least a dozen times, a white noise machine slowly becoming more prominent (yes, with this and “Helter Skelter” the Beatles kind of invented heavy metal), until, seconds away from the eight-minute mark, everything abruptly stops.

If side two of ABBEY ROAD was exactly like the first, I wouldn’t be writing about it here. Not to diminish those six songs in any way, but they simply make up a solid album side. Comparatively, the album’s second half, in my opinion is the most impressive sequence of songs the band ever devised and sequence is the key word here. As we’ve seen on all of the preceding five albums I’ve written about in this project, a big part of their appeal is in how they’re structured—not just the consistency and quality of the songs, but how one song fits next to another and how they often resonate both individually and collectively when heard in a particular order. Attention paid to sequencing is obviously a fundamental part of what makes an album great. On ABBEY ROAD’S second side, compositions that alternately feel complete and half-finished are strung together to form a medley of sorts. As the last side of the Beatle’s last recorded album, it now registers as a farewell, a summation of all of their individual strengths that also collectively pushes them to a place perhaps not as sonically reaching as “ A Day In The Life”, but certainly one exceeding it in emotion and spirit.

It begins with George’s “Here Comes The Sun”, as excellent a song and as much of a standard as “Something”. Hearing it immediately follow “I Want You (She’s So Heavy)” on the CD, the contrast between the two tracks could not be more pronounced: whereas John’s feels like an inexorable trudge towards death, George’s evokes a sense of rebirth. He sings, “I feel that ice is slowly melting” over an ebullient, up-tempo backdrop where the synths emit as much warmth as the acoustic guitars. If it’s an ideal side-opener, then John’s “Because” makes for a perfect, minor key segue. Over a melody that’s purportedly inspired by Beethoven’s “Moonlight Sonata” played backwards, the tripled-tracked, three-part harmonies by John, Paul and George are among the most complex and gorgeous vocals the band ever recorded.

The mournful, opening piano chords of Paul’s “You Never Give Me Your Money” follow and side two’s ambition begins to reveal itself. Much like “Band On The Run”, that later solo hit of Paul’s, this song has three distinct sections: the first resembles a chorus, featuring the song’s title sung over those piano chords, the second increases the tempo and comes off more like a verse, and the third elevates the momentum to the point of rocking out, concluding with a guitar riff entirely different from the opening melody. Examined closely, you can spot the vestiges of three separate unfinished songs, but when you hear it as a whole, it doesn’t matter because everything seems to fit together: a testament to Paul’s songwriting prowess, George Martin’s expertise as an arranger, or simply luck?

The next few songs suggest a combination of all three possibilities. As that final riff of “You Never Give Me Your Money” repeats and fades into the ether, a beautifully slow, quiet, meditative instrumental emerges. Carried along by a twangy guitar riff, “Sun King” allows listeners to catch their breath after the previous song’s multiple changes. Following a sudden, wordless, heavenly wash of harmonies at 0:52, the lyrics finally appear: “Here comes the sun king,” an obvious callback to side two’s first song. After the lyrics blissfully dissolve into gibberish and the guitar riff plays a final time, the drums pick up and “Mean Mr. Mustard” begins. One of John’s playfully grotesque character sketches, its second verse introduces the title character’s sister Pam. Not long after that, a booming, Pete Townshend-like power chord provides an intro into the next song, “Polythene Pam”, which amps up the tempo (and John’s clever wordplay) even further. It also has another callback—not to another song on ABBEY ROAD, but to an earlier one in the band’s career with its knowing “yeah, yeah, yeah” chorus. An instrumental coda then barrels towards a sonic crash (preceded by Paul warning us, “oh, look out!”), seamlessly leading into “She Came In Through The Bathroom”, a shuffling, mid-tempo rocker featuring one of Paul’s most agile and indelible melodies.

At this point, you can’t help but step back and marvel at all the ground ABBEY ROAD has covered over the past five songs. Then, a moment of silence appears–remarkably dramatic because it’s the first one in ten minutes and 45 seconds, since the end of “Because”. “Golden Slumbers” breaks that silence with plaintive piano and one of Paul’s loveliest melodies and vocal performances—more passionate than that of “Oh! Darling”, certainly more profound than that of “Maxwell’s Silver Hammer” and emotionally nearly overwhelming as the orchestration adds majesty and purpose. Just before you expect the chorus to return after the second verse, it seamlessly segues into the next song’s chorus, “Carry That Weight”. And then, in perhaps the album’s most resonant callback, the opening melody from “You Never Give Me Your Money” returns as an orchestral fanfare. Paul incorporates another verse of that song into this one, only the lyrics have changed (“You never give me your pillow…”). Then, the “Carry That Weight” chorus returns, before the song concludes with the melodic riff from the ending of “You Never Give Me Your Money” as another orchestral fanfare. I’m certain the first time I recognized this connection, my head was spinning—it’s also likely the moment when I truly fell in love with the album.

The only way the Beatles could possibly top or extend all of this would be to go out with a bang. After that second callback to “You Never Give Me Your Money”, the tempo shifts again, and “The End” kicks off with Paul singing, “Oh yeah! All right! Are you gonna be in my dreams tonight?,” before giving way to a simple but effective drum solo—significant in itself because Ringo rarely did drum solos. With a few final propulsive beats, it leads into an extended vamp recalling the joyous, primal rock and roll of the band’s first few albums. John, Paul and George all participate in a three-way guitar solo, taking turns every two measures, each of their styles immediately recognizable and distinct. Then, the drums cease, a lone piano appears, and over a few guitar filigrees and a return of the orchestra, Paul sings the simplest yet most profound lyric he ever wrote: “And, in the end / the love you take / is equal to the love / you make.” One couldn’t ask for a better finale to a song, an album or a career—particularly from the most popular band of its time.

The Beatles being The Beatles (or perhaps Paul just being silly), ABBEY ROAD actually doesn’t end with “The End”. Eighteen seconds after that final, resounding orchestral flourish, another song literally crashes in. “Her Majesty” lasts less than a half-minute and sounds like something Paul came up with on the spot. After that first chord (actually the real ending to “Mean Mr. Mustard”), over a lone acoustic guitar, Paul sings the type of ephemeral little ditty you’d expect from a street busker or music hall comedian. The album equivalent of a brief bonus scene appearing after the long credits roll of a feature film, it doesn’t diminish its grandeur, but it does bring The Beatles down to earth a little. Although nearly a half-century later we continue to perceive them as pop music gods, the band’s brilliance and lasting imprint on pop culture was due as much to our ability to relate to them as it was to their vast musical innovation. From “Love Me Do” to “Her Majesty”, they rewrote the script as to how pop stars could behave and create. The most tragic thing about their breakup is that none of them individually could accomplish anything on the scale of what they were capable of collectively. No John, Paul, George or Ringo solo albums will appear in this project, because none are half as great as ABBEY ROAD (or REVOLVER… or SGT. PEPPER’S… or A HARD DAY’S NIGHT etc;). Perhaps tragic is too strong a word—every time I hear ABBEY ROAD, I still wonder how anyone could possibly top it, or why anyone would want to.

Next: two men—one singer, one songwriter.

The ABBEY ROAD medley:

 

“Come Together”:

DUSTY SPRINGFIELD, “DUSTY IN MEMPHIS”

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dusty in memphis

(My 100 favorite albums in chronological order: #5 – released March 31, 1969. Originally posted on Kriofske Mix, 6/22/2014)

Track listing: Just A Little Lovin’ / So Much Love / Son Of A Preacher Man / I Don’t Want To Hear It Anymore / Don’t Forget About Me / Breakfast In Bed / Just One Smile / The Windmills of Your Mind / In The Land of Make Believe / No Easy Way Down / I Can’t Make It Alone / What Do You Do When Love Dies* / Willie & Laura Mae Jones* / That Old Sweet Roll (Hi-De-Ho)*

*The last three tracks weren’t on the original album, but they appear on every CD reissue I’ve seen. Since I first heard the album on CD, I’ve included them here.

Imagine a chilly, dreary Monday morning. You might be lounging on your living room couch, waiting for the coffee to brew, or stuck in traffic in your car or on a packed-to-the-gills bus, or even sitting at your desk, faced with an inbox full of unread mail. Wherever you are, no matter how you listen to your music (CD player, ear buds, iTunes or Spotify on your computer), you dial up DUSTY IN MEMPHIS and its opening song, “Just A Little Lovin’”. Its first ten seconds of lush, orchestral fanfare gives away to Dusty Springfield’s husky, delicate vocal—she sounds, as always, impossibly beautiful yet fully approachable, beaming with strength and reassurance (but not the kind that’s easily earned). All the grey and dourness surrounding you just fades away as she sings, “In this world / it wouldn’t be half as bad / it wouldn’t be half as sad / if each and everybody in it ha-aad / (dramatic pause) Just a little lovin’.” The song, like its parent album, is pop music at its most transformative, born out of a serendipitous confluence of vocalist, musicians and material.

At the time, Springfield was a 29-year-old London-born singer who had first achieved success six years before with a string of hit singles spanning the perky pop of “I Only Want to Be With You” to her English-language rendition of an Italian torch song, “You Don’t Have To Say You Love Me”. Although often categorized as the era’s premier practitioner of “blue-eyed soul” (to be blunt, white people performing black music), you sensed she could sing anything, putting her own stamp on whatever she attempted. For that, American audiences embraced her more wholeheartedly than initial English contemporaries like Cilla Black and Sandie Shaw. Springfield’s love of and ability to more-than-credibly perform such American music as Phil Spector, Stax/Volt and Motown led her in 1968 to sign with Atlantic Records and work on an album at the American Sound Studios in Memphis, Tennessee. The sessions were produced by Jerry Wexler and Tom Dowd (who had both recently worked with Aretha Franklin) and were backed instrumentally by the Memphis Cats, session musicians who had also played on recordings by Wilson Pickett and Memphis’ favorite son, Elvis Presley.

So, Dusty went to Memphis and made her most famous, enduring album, right? What actually happened is a little more complicated. An all-out perfectionist, Springfield was reportedly unhappy with a majority of her vocal takes in Memphis, to the point where what’s heard of her on the final album was actually recorded later in New York, where she sang along to the Memphis-produced rhythm tracks. For an album called DUSTY IN MEMPHIS, this revelation’s nearly up there with finding out Santa Claus doesn’t exist, yet one mustn’t let this color one’s own perception of the final product. Springfield’s aesthetic, after all, was as committed to authenticity as it was to artifice: she could sing rings around any other pop star (‘cept for Aretha, arguably) and would often do so while wearing a dyed-blonde bouffant hairdo and over-the-top makeup and dress that would inspire many a drag performer. Once “Just A Little Lovin’” fills the air you simply don’t care where it was recorded because it sounds so sweet, so right, so complete—you wouldn’t change a single thing about it.

As with most other singers of her era, Springfield was not a songwriter but an interpreter. On DUSTY IN MEMPHIS, she and her producers cherry-picked selections from an elite assortment of tunesmiths: Barry Mann and Cynthia Weil (the aforementioned “Just A Little Lovin’”), Randy Newman (the uplifting “Just One Smile” and the melancholy “I Don’t Want to Hear It Anymore”, the latter evocative enough to make one long for never-ending rain), Burt Bacharach and Hal David (a faintly psychedelic, sitar-accentuated take on “In The Land of Make Believe”) and no less than four selections from Gerry Goffin (RIP) and Carole King—the best of which, “Don’t Forget About Me” nimbly alternates between yearningly genteel verses and a pleading, belting, triumphant chorus. While Springfield is clearly the song’s star attraction, she’s also gifted enough to know not to overpower the arrangement: without those horn parts working in tandem with her vocals, the song wouldn’t soar so high.

Likewise, the album’s highest highs are a result of how Springfield supplements the arrangement and also allows herself to be enriched by it. “Son of a Preacher Man”, the album’s biggest hit works not only because of Springfield’s phenomenally nuanced reading of it but also by the way her slinky tone and the horn blasts appear as sort of a call-and-response, each one slyly commenting on the other. “Breakfast in Bed” boasts a pillow-soft opening that makes you never want to get out from under the covers. Seductive and deeply emphatic, Springfield coos over soulful guitar and electric piano licks, but as the ballad effortlessly ramps up to its horn-filled chorus, her temperament shifts naturally as well, retaining warmth and charm while displaying more assertion and urgency. Michel Legrand’s elegant “The Windmills of Your Mind” may seem like an odd duck on DUSTY IN MEMPHIS, due to its lack of seemingly having anything to do with soul or the American South, but its sumptuous orchestration and Springfield’s performance (she plays as well with string sections as she does with horn charts) makes it fit right in with the album’s earthier moments (listen to how convincing she is on the nearly funky bonus track “Willie & Laura Mae Jones”, and how much fun she’s having as well).

Alas, DUSTY IN MEMPHIS is only a drop in the bucket when it comes to Springfield. I could go on about her definitive covers of songs as disparate as “Spooky” and “Make It With You”, her transcendent part on Pet Shop Boys’ “What Have I Done To Deserve This” (briefly reviving her career in the late ‘80s), how Quentin Tarantino’s usage of “Son of a Preacher Man” in PULP FICTION made both the film scene and the song iconic, how she was a closeted lesbian, how breast cancer ended her life just before she was to turn 60. Still, for all of these facets of her life and career, would we be talking about Springfield if she hadn’t recorded an album as alive and accomplished and letter-perfect as this one? Perhaps, but then we’d only remember her via a series of overlapping compilations, as is the case with another female singer we’ll hear from a few entries on.

Up next: one of two albums I first heard when I was 17 that had a massive impact on my taste in music.

“Just A Little Lovin'”:

 

“Breakfast In Bed”:

THE VELVET UNDERGROUND, “THE VELVET UNDERGROUND”

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VU

(My 100 favorite albums in chronological order: #4 – released March 1969. Originally posted on Kriofske Mix, 6/9/2014)

Track listing: Candy Says / What Goes On / Some Kinda Love / Pale Blue Eyes / Jesus / Beginning To See The Light / I’m Set Free / That’s The Story Of My Life / The Murder Mystery / After Hours

Just as everyone has a favorite Beatle, every music obsessive has a favorite Velvet Underground album. The debut, THE VELVET UNDERGROUND AND NICO appeals to devotees of the titular Teutonic chanteuse, a band member for only that record (she sings on just three tracks, although each one is iconic). The second album, WHITE LIGHT/WHITE HEAT is for those who prefer them at their loudest, most relentless and experimental. The fourth album, LOADED, is for those who first heard “Sweet Jane” or “Rock and Roll” on classic rock radio and thus favor the band at their most accessible. That leaves the self-titled third album (nobody likes the Lou Reed-less fifth album, SQUEEZE), the band’s quietest, most introspective and spiritual work. (Hereafter, I refer to it as VU, not to be confused with a “lost” album released under that name in the 1980s).

John Cale, the group’s founding bassist/cellist/co-songwriter left after WHITE LIGHT/WHITE HEAT, so it would’ve been unlikely to expect another album in that vein. Besides, how could anyone top the extremities of “Sister Ray”, the seventeen-minute drone/groove/feedback epic that closed WL/WH? Thus, VU begins with a ballad, one softer and more fragile than anything they attempted before. As if to further emphasize this is a radically different band than the one who made WL/WH, “Candy Says” is not sung by primary vocalist Lou Reed, but (at Reed’s insistence) by Cale’s replacement, multi-instrumentalist Doug Yule, who delivers it in a softer croon than Reed could ever manage. Lyrically, however, it’s still recognizably a Reed song, a character sketch about Warhol superstar Candy Darling and incidentally the first in a number of similarly titled songs Reed would record both with the band and as a solo artist (“Stephanie Says”, “Lisa Says”).

Rest assured, Reed’s vocals return on “What Goes On” (one of VU’s two up-tempo rock songs), and not a moment too soon. While never one of the genre’s best singers on a technical level, Reed possesses one of rock’s most distinctive voices. On VU, he arguably never sounded better—still able to hit a relatively agile range of notes, but not yet lapsing into the knowing shtick that would color much of his solo career. Here, he sounds impassioned and engaged, a bandleader in every sense but not one who obscures the other members. “What Goes On” builds into a fine groove, the basic guitar-bass-drums lineup augmented by a soulful organ—it’s far more uplifting and optimistic than anything the band previously recorded. One could say the same, perhaps tenfold, for the other rocker, “Beginning To See The Light”. Reed’s vocal here is even more animated, reaching for (if not quite hitting) impossibly high notes but it doesn’t matter because his enthusiasm is so damn infectious. He sounds like a man redeemed, someone who has experienced the very worst but has yet come out the other side reborn and revitalized, ready to take on anything. The song ends with the repeated mantra, “How does it feel to be loved?”, simultaneously bursting with joy and wisdom; I could listen to it on repeat until the end of time.

Still, those two tracks are hardly indicative of what VU is about. As a whole, one could almost describe the album as folk rock, only it doesn’t sound anything like contemporaries Simon and Garfunkel or The Byrds—no chiming 12-string guitars, pretty harmonies or string arrangements. The majority of VU is strikingly minimalist. “Some Kinda Love” consists of a guitar in the right channel, a bass and a cowbell in the left channel, and Reed’s half sung, half spoken interjections in the middle, alternating the silly (“Put some jelly on your shoulder”) with the sublime (“Between thought and expression lies a lifetime”). “Jesus” accumulates intensity not just from its hymn-like allure and sudden crescendos, but also from the quiet spaces in-between—that old adage of what’s not played having as much value as what is (the song’s final, echo-laden rendition of its title is a suitably haunting conclusion to VU’s first half–it’s served as a great transition on multiple mixes for me). “Pale Blue Eyes”, nearly the Reed-sung twin of “Candy Says”, might be VU’s best-known song, not to mention the band’s most influential (followers from Yo La Tengo to R.E.M. (who later covered it) and countless other indie rock bands would not exist without it). I have nothing more to say about it except that Reed’s reading of the potentially rote lyric, “It’s truly, truly a sin” only works because he absolutely sells it.

I’d much rather talk at length about “I’m Set Free”, in which Reed tempers the optimism of previous track “Beginning To See The Light” with a resolution that approaches enlightenment. Majestic and nearly inspirational-sounding, it avoids seeming pretentious or overblown by sticking to simple-yet-profound language. Reed sings that he’s been free and he’s been bound, that he’s seen “his head laughing, rolling on the ground” and the chorus plainly but effectively repeats the song’s title, only to conclude it with the phrase, “to find a new illusion”, taking the wind out of a potentially fatuous statement while remaining in awe of the power of renewal. In full disclosure, it was a key song in helping me through a bad breakup years ago, and it still transports me back to that particular time in my life—it sort of underscores how much the Kübler-Ross five stages of grief not only apply to death, but also to a relationship’s demise.

If “I’m Set Free” is VU’s emotional peak, the three tracks that follow are strictly diversions, paths stumbled upon but not explored too extensively. “That’s The Story Of My Life” is in tune with the album’s overall gentler tone but is positively wistful in comparison, its two-minute duration ensuring that it comes and goes in the blink of an eye. One could make no further contrast than by placing it next to the nine-minute “The Murder Mystery”, VU’s sole callback to the band’s avant-garde roots (Robert Christgau amusingly called it “another bummer experiment.”) It mechanically alternates between overlapping spoken word poetry nonsense from Reed and guitarist Sterling Morrison (“Relent and obverse and inverse and perverse and reverse the inverse of perverse…”) in the verses with similarly overlapping disparate melodies sung by Yule and drummer Maureen “Mo” Tucker in the choruses. On first listen, it sticks out like a sore thumb on VU. However, if you’re open to it, it’s endlessly listenable, densely packed with content and almost hypnotic in its repetition-without-redundancy (and also highly influential, anticipating bands from Can and Television to Stereolab and Radiohead).

If it was VU’s closer, “The Murder Mystery” might be an ideal time for less adventurous listeners to tune out. As the penultimate track, it’s worth muddling through for the actual closer, “After Hours”, which you could not imagine placed anywhere else on the album. Presented as a simplistic, guitar strummed goof, it’s one of two songs in the band’s entire oeuvre sung by Tucker. To put it bluntly, she doesn’t have the vocal ability of even someone like Nico. You could call her voice thin, amateurish, even homely, and you wouldn’t be wrong, but you’d be missing the point. Despite such perceived deficiencies, Tucker sounds incredibly human, a lot like you or I would singing this song. This is why VU, which missed the charts entirely upon release has aged far better than most of the more popular records of 1969: it doesn’t overtly feel like the work of rock stars but instead of real people, inspired amateurs, if you will. Not to diminish the band’s talent or accomplishments (or overshadow that fact that they sung about such things as drag queens and kinky sex) but today, VU’s fragility and rawness are refreshingly humane—the full-blooded efforts of flawed individuals, playing to their collective strengths simply via how well they played together.

Up next: we (finally) arrive at our first solo female singer.

Video for “Beginning To See The Light”:

 

Video for “I’m Set Free”:

THE KINKS, “THE KINKS ARE THE VILLAGE GREEN PRESERVATION SOCIETY”

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kinks village green

(My 100 favorite albums in chronological order: #3 – released November 22, 1968. Originally posted on Kriofske Mix, 6/2/2014)

Track listing: The Village Green Preservation Society / Do You Remember Walter / Picture Book / Johnny Thunder / Last of the Steam Powered Trains / Big Sky / Sitting By The Riverside  / Animal Farm / Village Green / Starstruck / Phenomenal Cat / All of My Friends Were There / Wicked Annabella / Monica / People Take Pictures of Each Other

Nostalgia inevitably permeates any facet of popular culture. Think of all the books, plays, films, TV shows and music that either deliberately recreate or pay homage to something from the past or simply admire and ruminate on a way of life that no longer exists. As a rule, critics tend to berate nostalgia—what is the value of looking back when a blank canvas carries the potential for anything? What is art, after all, but an opportunity to advance the culture, to devise new ways of seeing and hearing, nothing short of altering one’s perception of the entire world?

The catch is, for art to resonate it must also provide enjoyment and, at some primal level a sense of familiarity. Nostalgia is just another word for familiarity, and we respond to what we recognize. If the mere term gets a bad rap, that’s because most of it is lazy and pandering, at worst utilizing period-specific wardrobe or songs in order to prey on the audience’s sentimental receptors. At best, however, nostalgia simultaneously celebrates and critiques, longing for the past while trying to understand it and place it within a relevant context.

The Kinks are arguably one of the four great British Invasion bands (along with The Beatles, The Rolling Stones and The Who) and easily the most cult-ish one today. They peaked in popularity early on with a series of riff-driven rockers you can still hear on oldies/classic hits radio (“You Really Got Me”, “All Day and All of the Night”). As with their contemporaries, the band’s sound evolved as the decade wore on—only, instead of maintaining their appeal with the masses, they increasingly appeared more British, more fey, more off on their own unusual path. They still scored the occasional fluke hit (“Sunny Afternoon”), but replaced the youthful brashness of their earlier recordings with a more wistful, intricate sensibility. Robert Christgau has called their 1967 British hit “Waterloo Sunset” ‘the most beautiful song in the English language’ and he’s not exaggerating. This maturation in tone resulted in a string of classic albums, from FACE TO FACE (1966) to LOLA VERSUS POWERMAN AND THE MONEYGOROUND, PART ONE (1970), the latter itself scoring its own fluke hit with “Lola”.

THE KINKS ARE THE VILLAGE GREEN PRESERVATION SOCIETY, their sixth album overall, arrived in the middle of this run. Released on the same day as THE BEATLES (aka The White Album), it was an unmitigated commercial flop, failing to chart in the US and the UK (whereas The White Album became one of the Beatle’s all-time best-sellers). Why VILLAGE GREEN failed to find an audience in 1968 is a good question, indeed. Some blame the band’s inability to promote the album in the US due to a temporary touring ban in that country, although this wouldn’t explain its nonperformance in the UK, where they had had three hit singles the previous year. Although presently one could easily date VILLAGE GREEN, in 1968 it might’ve seemed a little out of time—not so much in sound (The Kinks are still a guitar band, albeit one now enhanced with acoustic instruments, a few baroque orchestral arrangements and the occasional Mellotron) but in temperament. Although by this time, the Beatles and the Stones had expanded their repertoire to include such stylistic diversions as “When I’m 64” or “Ruby Tuesday”, neither group had released an album dominated by them. VILLAGE GREEN is the first album by a major rock band to look inward and back rather than expand its scope (and by default, the whole genre’s). It has little in common with the trendy, flashy rocker of its time (Janis Joplin, Jimi Hendrix, The Doors)—today, it plays like an alternate-world 1968, one where an act like folk-rock collective Fairport Convention might’ve had more sway over the musical conversation.

The title track kicks off the album with nothing less than a manifesto: under the proud guise of a grassroots community organization, the band is “Preserving the old ways from being abused / Protecting the new ways for me and for you,” and asking that God save all sorts of effluvia, from strawberry jam and custard pie to Tudor houses and coffee cups. Subsequent songs reminisce over long-lost childhood mates (“Do You Remember Walter”), social rites of passage (“All Of My Friends Were There”), vanishing technology (“Last of the Steam Powered Trains”) and former residences (“Animal Farm”). Both “Picture Book” and “People Take Pictures of Each Other” are paeans to the most nostalgic act imaginable: paging through old photo albums. Throughout, lead singer/songwriter Ray Davies displays appreciation and affection for his subjects, especially in “Village Green”, which reprises the title track’s declaration of purpose on a more personal scale. The song’s narrator longs to return home, or at least to a home he once knew. He says a lot with a repeated phrase as simple and straightforward as “I miss the Village Green.”

Although VILLAGE GREEN as a whole wallows in nostalgia, it also subtly (and sometimes none-too-subtly) transcends it. Even as a straight-faced manifesto, the title track leaves one wondering if there isn’t a dollop of satire hidden within, particularly when “virginity” suddenly but quietly appears as a thing to be saved. Both “People Take Pictures of Each Other” and “All of My Friends Were There” skip along on jaunty, music hall rhythms that emanate sarcasm rather than reverence. And both “Starstruck” and “Johnny Thunder” have sections where the lyrics drop out, replaced by lusty, possibly mocking “ba, ba, ba’s”. By title alone, “Big Sky” could be praising wide open, unspoiled spaces, but examine the lyrics more closely, and you’ll see it’s really about skepticism towards spiritual belief and man’s miniscule place in the universe (“People lift up their hands and they look up to the big sky / but big sky is too big to sympathize”).

This is playful album above all. “Starstruck” and “Picture Book” now sound like peppy, great lost singles, while the moodier stuff—the gentle and utterly daft “Phenomenal Cat” with its delightfully drugged-out, sped-up vocals, or “Wicked Annabella”, a vaguely sinister vocal showcase for guitarist (and brother of Ray) Dave Davies—still retains a lightness of touch that The Beatles could no longer manage at that point without seeming strained. Placed midway through the album, “Sitting By The Riverside” neatly sums up the Kinks’ ambition at this stage in their career: it’s a breezy lament about a memory of a cherished, ideal afternoon, albeit one in danger of fading into oblivion as the song’s revolving three-note motif ebbs and flows in volume and distortion, like a unstable merry-go-round forever threatening to go off the rails completely. Fortunately, it’s a near-miss emergency, any danger obscured by a pleasant surface that concludes on a calm, reassuring note.

Despite its commercial failure, VILLAGE GREEN and The Kinks in general will heavily influence at least two bands we’ll hear from much later in this project. Up next, though, comes another massively influential group that similarly abandoned raucousness for reflection, although few would ever accuse them of being nostalgic.

Video for “Starstruck”:

Video for “Sitting By The Riverside”:

LEONARD COHEN, “SONGS OF LEONARD COHEN”

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leonardcohen

(My 100 favorite albums in chronological order: #2 – released February 1968. Originally posted on Kriofske Mix, 5/26/2014)

Track listing: Suzanne / Master Song / Winter Lady / Stranger Song / Sisters of Mercy / So Long, Marianne / Hey, That’s No Way To Say Goodbye / Stories of the Street / Teachers / One of Us Cannot Be Wrong

I once read somewhere that Robert Altman heard SONGS OF LEONARD COHEN at a party and had an “eureka!” moment, thinking it the perfect soundtrack for the film he was working on, 1971’s McCABE & MS. MILLER; never mind that McCABE was set in 1902 and the album was recorded 65 years later. Both the film, an idiosyncratic, revisionist western from a New Hollywood auteur and the album, itself an idiosyncratic, revisionist collection of folk songs written and sung by a poet from Montreal convey timelessness and reflection, favoring poetry over prose while maintaining a narrative structure.

Although McCABE uses only three of Cohen’s songs (“Winter Lady”, “Stranger Song” and “Sisters of Mercy”), both film and album are forever linked together in my mind. I had heard the latter first via a dollar-bin vinyl copy purchased as a college undergrad, not long after discovering Cohen’s 1988 album I’M YOUR MAN. By then, he had altered his sound radically, favoring a deliberately chintzy aesthetic full of cheapo keyboards, cooing female background vocals and his own low, ravaged voice a more-often-spoken-than-sung growl. SONGS, Cohen’s debut album from twenty years before sounds like the work of another man: it’s primarily acoustic guitar-based, often accentuated by strings and occasional horn and organ flourishes. Most alarmingly different is Cohen’s higher vocal timbre–I was initially unable to reconcile it with the lower tone I knew and loved, playing SONGS once or twice and filing it away.

A few years on, I’d moved to Boston to study film. As I made my way through Altman’s filmography (particularly his peak early-70s period), I finally got to McCABE, having put it aside simply because it was a western, never one of my favorite genres. However, as “Stranger Song” played over the opening credits, where the lead (Warren Beatty), concealed in a hat and period gear, rides a horse into a rain-drenched, Pacific Northwest milieu, it’s no exaggeration to say it took my breath away. Rarely had I seen such an unconventional yet ideal match between song and image—Cohen’s plaintive but effective vocals, a musical backdrop consisting entirely of plucked guitars and a repetitive but engaging minor-key melody all carrying within them a quietly awestruck wonder. It felt more immediate and intimate than a more traditional, orchestral score would have; it also successfully set a precedent that this would be unlike any movie western I’d ever seen and that I’d never forget this first impression.

As “Stranger Song” becomes associated with McCabe himself, Altman utilizes the film’s two other Cohen songs as themes for specific characters. Ms. Miller (Julie Christie), the earthy, sharp whorehouse madam whom prospector McCabe goes into business with, is paired with “Winter Lady”, a gentler, more wistful but no less melancholic tune than “Stranger Song”, fleshing out the guitars with a lone flute and a soft, celeste-like chime. Meanwhile, the roughhewn, inexperienced women who become Ms. Miller’s initial employees are detailed a sequence that makes ongoing use of “Sisters of Mercy”, which has the most traditional and richest arrangement of the three Cohen songs. Some of cinematographer Vilmos Zsigmond’s most striking images accompany the song, in particular a church steeple set against a painterly, glistening sunset.

So powerful is Cohen’s music in McCABE that one wishes Altman would’ve used more of it. Hearing those three songs in the film naturally moved me to return to SONGS and in the process, discover its odd, highly distinctive allure. At least three out of its seven other tracks are now unqualified standards. Likely Cohen’s most recognized song after “Hallelujah”, opener “Suzanne” contains lyrics iconic for their specificity and vividness (“she brings you tea and oranges that come all the way from China”); Nancy Priddy’s background vocals also add texture and a welcome sweetness that Cohen’s disarming but homely croak simply isn’t capable of. “So Long, Marianne” ever-so-slightly rouses up the tempo and features one of Cohen’s catchiest choruses without sacrificing his inimitably sung cadences (“to laugh / and / cry / and / laugh / and / cry a-bout it / all a-gain”). “Hey, That’s No Way To Say Goodbye” almost subliminally reprises the melody from “Suzanne” but makes a more pointed, whimsical use of Priddy’s vocals as they pop in and out between Cohen’s lead; the arrangement’s also quirkier, the song’s title providing the main hook as it ends on a curious, nagging riff somewhere between a twanged guitar and a jew’s harp.

Two of the album’s remaining four songs are as great as the three McCABE selections. “Master Song” consists of many stanzas set to the same melody repeated for nearly six minutes, but each verse has a new musical wrinkle, gaining momentum from such additions as a muted trumpet, or a blast of strings, or a curlicue organ filigree. Throughout, it conjures a feeling of majesty, not overblown or calling attention to itself, but forever lurking within, omnipresent and exuding wisdom and gravitas. “Stories of the Street” nearly accomplishes the same feat, but with more sustained orchestration, a higher-pitched melody (in which Cohen, though not the most dexterous of singers, acquits himself well enough) and evocative lyrics such as “And if by chance I wake at night and ask you who I am / O take me to the slaughterhouse, I will wait there with the lamb.” As for the other two, less memorable tracks (“Teachers”, “One of us Cannot Be Wrong”), they’re wisely placed at the end. Neither one is a failure, although when Cohen concludes “One of Us Cannot Be Wrong” with some woefully off-key wailing (almost as if he’s piss-poor drunk or going insane), you could either find it repulsive and inexplicable and want to say, “Oh, Lenny…” or simply laugh at its audacity—a rare glimpse of Cohen not taking himself too seriously.

Cohen apparently was not pleased with producer John Simon’s orchestral additions here. He would go on to record eleven more albums and few of them sound like this one. Alternately, he’d strip down the arrangements to the barest essentials (SONGS OF LOVE AND HATE), take the complete opposite direction with Phil Spector (DEATH OF A LADIES MAN), entirely revamp his sound and voice again in the 1980s with VARIOUS POSITIONS and the aforementioned I’M YOUR MAN and continue to alter, reduce and refine with age all the way through 2012’s OLD IDEAS. His discography is as rich as the life he’s lived (Sylvie Simmons’ recent biography is essential), but I return most often to this, his first album. The McCABE association is a major reason, but by far not the only one: with SONGS, Cohen arrived fully formed, a talent with few precedents and to be honest, relatively few followers. His lyrics, vocal tones and melodies all made for a sensibility that was entirely his own. We will also find this quality in our next entry which comes from a band born out of a movement it eventually broke away from, stubbornly foraging along its own divergent, less commercial path.

“Stranger Song” / opening credits of McCABE & MS. MILLER:

THE BEATLES, “REVOLVER”

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revolver

(My 100 favorite albums in chronological order: #1 – released August 5, 1966. Originally posted on Kriofske Mix, 5/19/2014)

Track listing: Taxman / Eleanor Rigby / I’m Only Sleeping / Love You To / Here There and Everywhere / Yellow Submarine / She Said She Said / Good Day Sunshine / And Your Bird Can Sing / For No One / Doctor Robert / I Want To Tell You / Got To Get You Into My Life / Tomorrow Never Knows

At its 20th anniversary in 1987, Rolling Stone magazine listed their top 100 albums of the past 20 years, and The Beatles’ 1967 opus SGT. PEPPER’S LONELY HEARTS CLUB BAND was at number one. How could it have been anything else? “It was twenty years ago today” was the first line of the first song, after all, and it made for impeccable marketing synergy (it had also recently come out on CD for the first time); it also didn’t hurt that SGT. PEPPER’S was the band’s best selling album and inarguably their most important from a cultural standpoint. If any single effort by a rock band turned the album into an art form, this was it.

As for REVOLVER, the band’s previous album, it didn’t even make the list. However, when the magazine compiled its 500 Greatest Albums of All Time in 2003, REVOLVER came in at number three (SGT. PEPPER’S was still at the top). Just last year, Entertainment Weekly deemed it the number one album of all time. This apparently sudden surge in critical acclaim might’ve been a result of the album as we now know it not appearing in the US until its CD debut in 1987. Prior to SGT. PEPPER’S, Capitol Records released its own versions of The Beatles’ British albums with alternate track listings and, occasionally, different album titles (much to the band’s chagrin). This was presumably done to create more product for the American market. For instance, the original Capitol version of REVOLVER cut out three tracks (“I’m Only Sleeping”, “And Your Bird Can Sing”, “Doctor Robert”) because they had already appeared two months earlier on YESTERDAY AND TODAY, a particularly egregious hodgepodge also containing recent non-album singles and a smattering of tracks from the original British editions of HELP! and RUBBER SOUL.

Still, those three songs are not among the album’s most essential (though one who only knows the British track listing can’t imagine it without them). Perhaps REVOLVER (and, to a lesser extent, RUBBER SOUL) just paled in the shadow of SGT. PEPPER’S for twenty-odd years. I doubt many listeners ever dismissed its merit; I even remember first hearing it when I was 18 (possibly my fourth or fifth Beatles album) and instantly being impressed by its consistency—sure, not everything was as attention-grabbing as “Eleanor Rigby” or “Tomorrow Never Knows”, but it had no filler, either. I admit a few years passed before I warmed up to “Love You To”, George’s first full-on attempt at incorporating Indian instruments and rhythms into pop music (following the sitar in “Norwegian Wood” the previous year), while “Doctor Robert” struck me as a little nondescript until those blissed-out harmonies in the “well, well, well” section eventually got to me. Otherwise, at 18, I knew REVOLVER was a gem, but it wasn’t as outwardly flashy or seemingly ambitious or what the critical establishment deemed to be as “great” or “important” an album as SGT. PEPPER’S.

Funny, then, how some albums and their reputations age over time. SGT. PEPPER’S is still a genuinely great collection of songs—only a contrarian like Jim DeRogatis could deny the likes of “She’s Leaving Home”, “Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds” and “A Day In The Life”. Increasingly, though, it sounds very much of its time, epitomizing the Summer of Love and serving as an etching of a historical moment. REVOLVER, on the other hand, now seems more prescient and further reaching. Granted, some tracks betray their age explicitly: “Taxman” builds on the mod-ish momentum of The Who’s early singles and “Got To Get You Into My Life” is a letter-perfect mid-60’s Motown facsimile, right down to its propulsive beat and horn blasts. But most of REVOLVER is timeless due to two factors: it showcases one of the most beloved bands of all time at their musical peak and in retrospect, it has proved massively influential (hard to imagine The Jam existing without “Taxman” or power pop in general before “And Your Bird Can Sing”).

It’s also the Beatles’ most sonically diverse album (until perhaps THE BEATLES (aka The White Album)). Take the range expressed within the first four tracks: the relatively straightforward groove of “Taxman”, the dramatic, anything-but-genteel string quartet lament of “Eleanor Rigby”, the melancholy, hesitantly psychedelic (dig the backwards guitar solo) stoned shuffle of “I’m Only Sleeping”, and the uncompromising Eastern drone of “Love You To”. Similarly, look at the last three songs: Harrison’s contemporary, jaunty, piano-driven “I Want To Tell You” followed by “Got To Get You Into My Life” (a throwback in comparison) and then “Tomorrow Never Knows”, the band’s most radical, experimental composition to date. In theory, none of these songs belong on the same album, but such is the band’s proficiency, chemistry and willingness to be open to the unknown that REVOLVER as a whole is both diverse and unified. In lesser hands, its bold stylistic transitions would simply jar, like placing Paul’s impassioned, firing-on-all-cylinders vocal at the end of “Got To Get You Into My Life” next to the mélange of tape loops setting up the moment Ringo’s seminal drum pattern kicks in on “Tomorrow Never Knows”. But the band displays such a level of confidence and skill here that the shift feels almost inexplicably effortless.

The album’s mid-section is where you’ll find its biggest hit (Ringo-sung kiddie standard “Yellow Submarine”), a pair of lovely Paul ballads (the hushed, modern-yet-classical “Here There and Everywhere” and chamber-pop primer “For No One”) and two perennially overlooked highlights. Side One closer “She Said She Said” is the accessible, melodic flipside to “Tomorrow Never Knows”, placing its psychedelia and dream logic within a more rigid song structure than nonetheless has elasticity (and one of John’s best vocals ever). Side Two opener “Good Day Sunshine” is both deliriously ecstatic and carefully meticulous, deconstructing how one writes a pop song along the way (hey, let’s cut out the expected vocals in this section of the second verse for an impromptu barrelhouse piano solo!) while continually sounding at ease and without any strain.

Perhaps that’s REVOLVER’S brilliance distilled to a singular essence—pop music simultaneously at its most innovative and approachable. However, this is not The Beatles’ only appearance on this list; they will return a few entries in with another record that accomplishes this same feat, only with time and a change in perspective among the band’s four magnetic personalities altering its sound and scope considerably.

Video for “She Said She Said”:

 

What Don Draper thinks of “Tomorrow Never Knows”:

100 ALBUMS: AN INTRODUCTION

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Note: none of these pictured are in my list of 100 favorite albums.

(Originally posted on Kriofske Mix, 5/16/14)

In 2004, I blogged about and counted down my 100 favorite albums, writing at least 100 words about each one. My intent always was to post an updated list ten years later. Initially, I thought about posting two entries a week over the course of the year. That morphed into plans to do ten posts of ten brief entries each, similar to my top 50 albums of the 90s, 00s, etc; Still, the more I tried ranking 100 albums in order of preference, the less I was convinced that my readers would get much out of it, apart from the thrill (such as it is) of guessing what would come next. So, on a whim, I arranged the albums in chronological order. In the resultant list, a few interesting patterns emerged. I soon realized I could create some sort of narrative about my taste in music by looking at my favorite albums this way.

Thus, here are essays (expect about 1000-2000 words each) on these 100 favorite albums in chronological order. The list begins in 1966; one pre-’66 album made the cut but will appear in non-chronological order for reasons that will be made apparent when it’s posted. As to why the list has no pre-1966 albums (apart from that one exception), the album (or “LP”, aka Long Playing Record) was invented in 1948, but where pop music is concerned, it didn’t really take shape as nothing more than a receptacle for cash-ins (singles + filler) or compilations (Greatest Hits and the like) until the mid-1960s. The band that arguably made the LP into a pop music art form will appear in two early entries on my list.

Jazz, however, is another story. Early on, the format proved more desirable to this genre with its lengthier-than-average compositions. When compiling a list of ten pre-’66 albums I adore (but not enough to make my top 100), seven of them ended up being strictly jazz, one kinda jazz (Louis Prima’s referred to as a “jazz guy” in the film BIG NIGHT, but there’s a lot more going on in his hybrid, genre-crossing ‘50s output), one humor (Tom Lehrer) and, of course, The Beatles:

The Beatles, RUBBER SOUL
John Coltrane, MY FAVORITE THINGS
Miles Davis, KIND OF BLUE
Stan Getz and Joao Gilberto, GETZ/GILBERTO
Ella Fitzgerald, FIRST LADY OF SONG*
Billie Holiday, BILLIE’S BEST*
Tom Lehrer, THAT WAS THE YEAR THAT WAS
Thelonious Monk, MONK’S DREAM
Louis Prima, CAPITOL COLLECTOR’S SERIES*
Frank Sinatra, SONGS FOR SWINGIN’ LOVERS

(*compilations released after 1966 whose music was recorded pre-’66)

This project isn’t meant to be a fifty-year overview of pop music in general, but simply an account of the music I like, and how my taste developed to where it stands today. Expect some callbacks in the narrative, as I obviously did not hear the albums in this particular order (I thought about arranging the list that way, but I think this way will resonate more with readers). As for ranking by preference, perhaps I’ll determine that once I’ve made my way through the entire list again. I can say that 57 of my top 100 as of 2004 were still there in 2014, while 17 of the current list were released in the past decade. That leaves 26 others I didn’t include in 2004—of course, I didn’t hear many of them until within the past decade, but the few I had heard in 2004 have grown on me considerably since then.

We will begin with a 1966 album that likely did not make many all-time-best lists thirty or even twenty years ago, but does so fairly regularly today…

(also note: none of the albums in the photo at the top are in my list. It’s just an image I took for a college project nearly 20 years ago, when I was an avid collector of cheap vinyl.)