albums you should own

[sunrah]

1 Isi 5:06
2 See Land 6:54
3 Leb' Wohl 8:50
4 Hero 7:11
5 E-Musik 9:57
6 After Eight 4:44

After a three-year break, Neu! members Klaus Dinger and Michael Rother buried their differences temporarily, and reunited for another go at the "motorik" sound they had developed with their debut in 1971. The strange tension and presentation of Neu! 2 and the emergence of their former band Kraftwerk may have precipitated the reunion, but, whatever the reason, the end result proved worth the time, effort, and bickering it took to crank this one out. One thing that is noticeably different on 75 is the presence of synthesizers and the preference of them, it seems, over Rother's guitar. "Isi," which opens the album, features Dinger's metronymic percussion holding down the 2/4 rhythm and a trademark one-note bassline provided by a piano, but the gorgeous sonic washes and flourishes normally handled by Rother's guitar-slinging hands are now painted with a synth. "Seeland" offers a return to the six strings with what would in subsequent years become Rother's ornate "singing" style of playing. Dinger's rhythmic patterns here are deceptively simple. They create a long, trudging 4/4, syncopated every other line, and punctuated by a small ride cymbal at the end of each phrase as Rother's guitar provides both cascading single string notes and a shifting, pulsing bassline. It's a beautiful wasteland, this track; sparse yet full of melodic interplay and layered guitars and keyboards. The last track on side one is "Leb Wohl," an exercise in white noise, industrial textures, and natural or, "found" sounds, a piano and gorgeous, spare and intricate guitar chords. For side two, Neu! adds Dinger's brother, Thomas, and Hans Lampe on various percussions to allow Dinger to play guitar, piano, and organ, and to add some bottom end to the band's sound. The funny thing is they come off sounding more like a melodic punk band on "Hero," with Dinger's growling vocals being reminiscent of a young Mick Jagger on steroids. His Keith Richards-style chords stand in stark contrast to Rother's more lyrical approach. Perhaps this isn't such a surprise when we consider the Damned's first album was recorded in 1975. The ten-minute "E-Musick" becomes Neu!'s signature track for this disc, however. With distorted percussion -- courtesy of a synth and sequencer, as well as a drum kit put through a phase shifter, Rother's melodic synth lines are free to roam, wide and far, carrying within them a foreshadowing of his guitar solos a few minutes later. These long screaming lines, reminiscent of Steve Hillage at his best, with Dinger's wonderful rhythm backing and treatments of the instruments, provides a definitive statement on the Neu! "motorik" sound. This is music not only for traveling, from one place to the next, but also for disappearance into the ether at a steady pace. This may have been Neu!'s final statement -- at least in the studio; Dinger issued (without Rother's permission) an inferior live '72 album -- but at least they went out on a much higher note than Neu! 2, and in a place where their innovations are still being not only recognized, but utilized.

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[sunrah]

Recorded: 1957
Released: 2005

1 Monk's Mood 7:52
2 Evidence 4:41
3 Crepuscule With Nellie 4:26
4 Nutty 5:03
5 Epistrophy 4:29
6 Bye-Ya 6:31
7 Sweet and Lovely 9:34
8 Blue Monk 6:31
9 Epistrophy [incomplete] 2:24

Larry Appelbaum, the recording lab supervisor at the Library of Congress, came across this tape by accident while transferring the library's tape archive to digital. What a find. Forget the Five Spot recording that sounds like it was recorded inside of a tunnel from the far end. The sound here is wonderfully present and contemporary. More importantly, this band — which also included drummer Shadow Wilson and bassist Ahmed Abdul-Malik — had it right on November 29, 1957, at Carnegie Hall. The John Coltrane on this date is far more assured than he had been four months earlier on the Five Spot date and on the initial Prestige side Thelonious Monk with John Coltrane. He'd been with Monk for four months and had absorbed his complex, multivalent musical system completely. It's clear from the opening track, "Monk's Mood," where the pair play in duet, that Coltrane is confident and moving into his own. Monk feels that confidence with his nearly Baroque entrance on the tune. This is a hard-swinging band with two front-line players who know how to get the best from one another. Coltrane knows the music inside out and his solos reflect an early version of his sheets of sound methodology. Check the joyous "Crepuscule with Nellie" for the hard evidence. Coltrane's cue and Monk's arpeggios are wondrous, swinging, and full of fire and joy. Trane's fills on the melody that leads into his solo are simply revelatory, and the solo itself is brilliant. Or check Wilson's cymbal work on "Nutty" before the band kicks it in full force. Even on the knottiest of Monk's tunes, "Epistrophy," Trane shines and takes charge of his instrument while being utterly receptive to the continual shape-shifting Monk put into his compositions in a live setting. There are nine tunes here (an incomplete version of "Epistrophy" finishes the set) taken from early and late performances. These 51 minutes of music leave the Live at the Five Spot date in the dust. This is one of those "historic" recordings that becomes an instant classic and is one of the truly great finds in jazz lore. It documents a fine band with its members at the peak of their powers together. The package also contains voluminous liner notes by the likes of Ira Gitler, Amiri Baraka, Ashley Khan, Stanley Crouch, and others. This is a must-have.

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[sunrah]

Genre: Glam Rock

1 Vicious 3:00
2 Andy's Chest 3:21
3 Perfect Day 3:48
4 Hangin' 'Round 3:37
5 Walk on the Wild Side 4:17
6 Make Up 3:01
7 Satellite of Love 3:44
8 Wagon Wheel 3:23
9 New York Telephone Conversation 1:35
10 I'm So Free 3:12
11 Goodnight Ladies 4:21

David Bowie has never been shy about acknowledging his influences, and since the boho decadence and sexual ambiguity of the Velvet Underground's music had a major impact on Bowie's work, it was only fitting that as Ziggy Stardust mania was reaching its peak, Bowie would offer Lou Reed some much needed help with his career, which was stuck in neutral after his first solo album came and went. Musically, Reed's work didn't have too much in common with the sonic bombast of the glam scene, but at least it was a place where his eccentricities could find a comfortable home, and on Transformer Bowie and his right-hand man, Mick Ronson, crafted a new sound for Reed that was better fitting (and more commercially astute) than the ambivalent tone of his first solo album. Ronson adds some guitar raunch to "Vicious" and "Hangin' Round" that's a lot flashier than what Reed cranked out with the Velvets, but still honors Lou's strengths in guitar-driven hard rock, while the imaginative arrangements Ronson cooked up for "Perfect Day," "Walk on the Wild Side," and "Goodnight Ladies" blend pop polish with musical thinking just as distinctive as Reed's lyrical conceits. And while Reed occasionally overplays his hand in writing stuff he figured the glam kids wanted ("Make Up" and "I'm So Free" being the most obvious examples), "Perfect Day," "Walk on the Wild Side," and "New York Telephone Conversation" proved he could still write about the demimonde with both perception and respect. The sound and style of Transformer would in many ways define Reed's career in the 1970s, and while it led him into a style that proved to be a dead end, you can't deny that Bowie and Ronson gave their hero a new lease on life — and a solid album in the bargain.

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[sunrah]

Genre: Punk/Hardcore

1 Myage 2:00
2 I Wanna Be a Bear 0:40
3 I'm Not a Loser 1:30
4 Parents 1:37
5 Tonyage 0:55
6 M16 0:40
7 I'm Not a Punk 1:05
8 Catalina 1:45
9 Suburban Home 1:40
10 Statue of Liberty 1:58
11 Kabuki Girl 1:10
12 Marriage 1:45
13 Hope 1:55
14 Bikeage 2:10
15 Jean Is Dead 1:30

And indeed, since he was heading off to do just that, the Descendents bowed out the earliest phase of its existence with another collection of blink-and-you'll-miss-it songs about life, love, girls, losers, and, of course, food. Starting with the classic rip-and-riff of "Myage," which started a long-standing trend of Descendents songs ending with "-age," the four-piece pureed everything it loved — pop hooks, punk and hardcore thrash, and whatever else it enjoyed — and came up with an unpretentious, catchy winner. The playing of the core band is even better than before, never mistaking increased skill with needing to show off; the Lombardo/Stevenson rhythm section is in perfect sync, while Navetta provides the corrosive power. Add in Aukerman's in-your-face hilarity and f*ck-off stance, and it's punk rock that wears both its adolescence and brains on its sleeve. Aukerman lets his heart slip through more than once amid all the hilarious descriptions and putdowns, like the slow-burn introduction to "Catalina," with Navetta's guitar the perfect snarling counterpoint. There are a couple of moments where the band's young age is all too obvious — the trendoids slammed in "Loser" deserve the total trashing given, but the casual homophobia is unfortunate no matter where you stand. As for "Kabuki Girl," you've got to wonder. Generally, though, this is smart, sly music and words coming from people interested in creating their own lives and style as opposed to following trends. There's "Tonyage," another rant against punk/new wave wannabes who "were all surfers last year"; the wise-in-advance-of-its-years "I'm Not a Punk," perhaps the band's greatest song; and the power-singalong "Suburban Home," with its spoken-word start and ending, "I want to be stereotyped, I want to be classified!" The music never stops, neither does the energy — an instant party album of its own kind.

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[sunrah]

Genre: Rock

1 Lust for Life 5:13
2 Sixteen 2:26
3 Some Weird Sin 3:42
4 The Passenger 4:44
5 Tonight 3:40
6 Success 4:25
7 Turn Blue 6:56
8 Neighborhood Threat 3:25
9 Fall in Love With Me 6:30

On The Idiot, Iggy Pop looked deep inside himself, trying to figure out how his life and his art had gone wrong in the past. But on Lust for Life, released less than a year later, Iggy decided it was time to kick up his heels, as he traded in the mid-tempo introspection of his first album and began rocking hard again. Musically, Lust for Life is a more aggressive set than The Idiot, largely thanks to drummer Hunt Sales and his bassist brother Tony Sales. The Sales' proved they were a world class rhythm section, laying out power and spirit on the rollicking title cut, the tough groove of "Tonight," and the lean neo-punk assault of "Neighborhood Threat," and with guitarists Ricky Gardner and Carlos Alomar at their side, they made for a tough, wiry rock & roll band -- a far cry from the primal stomp of the Stooges, but capable of kicking Iggy back into high gear. (David Bowie played piano and produced, as he had on The Idiot, but his presence is less clearly felt on this album.) As a lyricist and vocalist, Iggy Pop rose to the challenge of the material; if he was still obsessed with drugs ("Tonight"), decadence ("The Passenger"), and bad decisions ("Some Weird Sin"), the title cut suggested he could avoid a few of the temptations that crossed his path, and songs like "Success" displayed a cocky joy that confirmed Iggy was back at full strength. On Lust for Life, Iggy Pop managed to channel the aggressive power of his work with the Stooges with the intelligence and perception of The Idiot, and the result was the best of both worlds; smart, funny, edgy, and hard-rocking, Lust for Life is the best album of Iggy Pop's solo career.

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[sunrah]

Genre: Bossa Nova

1 The Girl From Impanema [featuring Astrud Gilberto] 5:13
2 Doralice 2:43
3 Para machucar meu Coracao 5:03
4 Desafinado 4:00
5 Corcovado [featuring Astrud Gilberto] 4:13
6 So danco amor 3:31
7 O grande amor 5:24
8 Vivo Sohando 2:52

One of the biggest-selling jazz albums of all time, not to mention bossa nova's finest moment, Getz/Gilberto trumped Jazz Samba by bringing two of bossa nova's greatest innovators — guitarist/singer João Gilberto and composer/pianist Antonio Carlos Jobim — to New York to record with Stan Getz. The results were magic. Ever since Jazz Samba, the jazz marketplace had been flooded with bossa nova albums, and the overexposure was beginning to make the music seem like a fad. Getz/Gilberto made bossa nova a permanent part of the jazz landscape not just with its unassailable beauty, but with one of the biggest smash hit singles in jazz history — "The Girl From Ipanema," a Jobim classic sung by João's wife, Astrud Gilberto, who had never performed outside of her own home prior to the recording session. Beyond that, most of the Jobim songs recorded here also became standards of the genre — "Corcovado" (which featured another vocal by Astrud), "So Danço Samba," "O Grande Amor," a new version of "Desafinado." With such uniformly brilliant material, it's no wonder the album was such a success but, even apart from that, the musicians all play with an effortless grace that's arguably the fullest expression of bossa nova's dreamy romanticism ever brought to American listeners. Getz himself has never been more lyrical, and Gilberto and Jobim pull off the harmonic and rhythmic sophistication of the songs with a warm, relaxed charm. This music has nearly universal appeal; it's one of those rare jazz records about which the purist elite and the buying public are in total agreement. Beyond essential.

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[sunrah]

Genre: Soundtrack

1 Il buono, il cattivo, il brutto 2:38
2 Il tramonto 1:12
3 Il torte 2:20
4 Il deserto 5:11
5 La carrozza dei fantasmi 2:06
6 Marcetta 2:49
7 La storia de un soldato 3:50
8 Marcetta senza speranza 1:40
9 Morte di un soldato 3:05
10 L'estasi dell'oro 3:22
11 Il triello 5:00

A major influence on Western scores right into the nineties, Morricone's music utilizes quite a remarkable array of musical tools. There's a traditional element of Western underscore, with a brassy feel to it, but this is joined throughout by thundering percussion that includes a lot of bells, various arrangements of voices, clanging acoustic and electric guitars, and even a prepared piano. Aside from the famous title track with its Shadows influences, there's a lot here to recommend this particular score — there are moments of intense drama and incredible beauty that are rarely heard in motion picture underscore, giving the work a classical feel. A cover of the title track provided Hugo Montenegro with a major British hit.

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[sunrah]

Genre: Post-Punk

1 Mansion 1:21
2 Bombast 3:08
3 Barmy 5:20
4 What You Need 4:49
5 Spoilt Victorian Child 4:13
6 L.A. 4:09
7 Vixen 4:01
8 Couldn't Get Ahead 2:36
9 Gut of the Quantifier 5:15
10 My New House 5:15
11 Paint Work 6:38
12 I Am Damo Suzuki 5:41
13 To N.K. Roachment: Yarbles 1:22
14 Petty (Thief) Lout 5:20
15 Rollin' Dany 2:23
16 Cruiser's Creek 4:17

"Feel the wrath of my Bombast!" exhorts Smith on this follow-up to their groundbreaking Wonderful and Frightening World of... the Fall, and this collection is ample proof of the pure confidence the group had at this time. Stompers like "Barmy," "What You Need," and the mighty "Gut of the Quantifier" are all led by Brix Smith's twanging lead hooks, filled by distorted guitars and bludgeoning drums, on top of which Smith rants with conviction. But it's the departures from this sound that mark the real interest here: The synth-driven "L.A." looks ahead to the Fall's experiments with electronica; "Paint Work" is an impressionist piece interrupted by Smith accidentally erasing over some of the track at home; and "I Am Damo Suzuki," a tribute to Can's lead singer, which borrows its arrangement from several of that group's songs. The Fall sound mysterious, down-to-earth, and hilarious all at the same time. The CD reissue adds the singles "Cruiser's Creek" and "Couldn't Get Ahead" as well as their B-sides making this an essential purchase.

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[sunrah]

Genre: Psychedelic Rock/Pop

1 Fight Test 4:14
2 One More Robot / Sympathy 3000-21 4:59
3 Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots pt. 1 4:45
4 Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots pt. 2 2:57
5 In the Morning of the Magicians 6:18
6 Ego Tripping at the Gates of Hell 4:34
7 Are You a Hypnotist?? 4:44
8 It's Summertime 4:20
9 Do You Realize?? 3:32
10 All We Have Is Now 3:53
11 Approaching Pavonis Mons by Balloon (Utopia Planitia) 3:09

After the symphonic majesty of The Soft Bulletin, the Flaming Lips return with Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots, a sublime fusion of Bulletin's newfound emotional directness, the old-school playfulness of Transmissions From the Satellite Heart, and, more importantly, exciting new expressions of the group's sentimental, experimental sound. While the album isn't as immediately impressive as the equally brilliant and unfocused Soft Bulletin, it's more consistent, using a palette of rounded, surprisingly emotive basslines; squelchy analog synths; and manicured acoustic guitars to craft songs like "One More Robot/Sympathy 3000-21," a sleekly melancholy tale of robots developing emotions, and "In the Morning of the Magicians," an aptly named electronic art rock epic that sounds like a collaboration between the Moody Blues and Wendy Carlos. Paradoxically, the Lips use simpler arrangements to create more diverse sounds on Yoshimi, spanning the lush, psychedelic reveries of "It's Summertime"; the instrumental "Approaching Pavonis Mons by Balloon"; the dubby "Are You a Hypnotist?"; and the barely organized chaos of "Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots, Pt. 2," which defeats the evil metal ones with ferocious drums, buzzing synths, and the razor sharp howl of the Boredoms' Yoshimi. Few bands can craft life-affirming songs about potentially depressing subjects (the passage of time, fighting for what you care about, good vs. evil) as the Flaming Lips, and on Yoshimi, they're at the top of their game. "Do You Realize??" is the standout, so immediately gorgeous that it's obvious that it's the single. It's also the most obviously influenced by The Soft Bulletin, but it's even catchier and sadder, sweetening such unavoidable truths like "Do you realize that everyone you know someday will die?" with chimes, clouds of strings, and angelic backing vocals. Yoshimi features some of the sharpest emotional peaks and valleys of any Lips album — the superficially playful "Fight Test" is surprisingly bittersweet, while sad songs like "All We Have Is Now" and "Ego Tripping at the Gates of Hell" are leavened by witty lyrics and production tricks. Funny, beautiful, and moving, Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots finds the Flaming Lips continuing to grow and challenge themselves in not-so-obvious ways after delivering their obvious masterpiece.

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Genre: Psychedelic Rock/Pop

1 Race for the Prize 4:18
2 A Spoonful Weighs a Ton 3:32
3 The Spark That Bled 5:55
4 Slow Motion 3:53
5 What Is the Light 4:05
6 The Observer 4:10
7 Waitin' for a Superman 4:17
8 Suddenly Everything has Changed 3:54
9 The Gash 4:02
10 Feeling Yourself Disintegrate 5:17
11 Sleeping on the Roof 3:10
12 Race for the Prize (Remix) 4:09
13 Waitin' for a Superman (Remix) 4:19
14 Buggin' (Remix) 3:16

I recently moved out of The Box. The Box was where I lived in Seattle for my first year-and-a-half-- a small room in a terrible house. I had an ogre of a next door neighbor named Richard who didn't like any decibel level that went above a whisper. Another neighbor, a homely looking mama's boy of some sort, had weird nasal problems that forced him to make this really loud noise that sounded like a collision between an orgasm, a yawn, a primal howl, and the deafening roar of a tortured honker.

The morning of my move, I checked my e-mail only to discover a rather unfortunate note in my box. A particular woman whose only flaw was in her geographic location (Jerusalem) told me not to come and visit her this summer, and that it was time for her to "get on with her life." I'll translate that: "bang other people without guilt." I saw it coming, but by e-mail? A year and a half of tortured long-distance amore dissolved via Hotmail? By a certain point, you're worth more than e-mail. A phone call. Shit, a letter would have done. No. Not only am I being broken up with, I also have to look at a banner ad for TalkCity.com. Can my life sink any lower?

Last night, I tried to figure out where my life was going. It seems to be on the course where I'm just thinking about where my life is (or isn't) going. Great. Wake me when it gets exciting.

Well, today, it got exciting. I was at work for about six hours when I decided to call my old number and retrieve my messages. There was my temp agency telling me not to go into work today. I guess the object was for me to find out before I left for work (it was 7:30 when they called), but instead, there I was working when and where I shouldn't have been. I called the agency and they said they'd call me back. I sat at my desk awkwardly. Should I be working? If so, why? If not, what should I be doing? I tracked down my supervisor who gave me two reasons for my termination. One was that the workload had dropped and they didn't need that many people. The second reason, of course, was that five people had commented to him that I didn't seem to love my job.

Well, duh. Sorry to go monosyllabic, but... well, duh. I sit at a desk. There's some asshole who insists on whistling all day, and man cannot live by headphones alone. Even today, before I found out I was already yesterday's employee, I commented to a co-worker, "Pretty soon, I'm gonna stab that guy in the throat." Of course, I wouldn't do that. But sometimes, I think that's my big misgiving in life-- no follow through. "I don't hate my job," I told my supervisor. This was true. Boring? Yes. Hate? No. This was going to be the job that gave me enough money to go on a vacation this fall.

"Well, I noticed it, too," he said. "If five people see it and I do, too, then doesn't that tell you something?"

"Did you ever think of asking me?" I asked.

Of course, there wasn't a good answer for that, so I immediately shifted gears. "Hey, if five people came and told you that I was practicing black magic, would you believe them?"

"That's completely different." When I asked him why it was different, he changed the subject to me leaving.

And that was that. To top all of this shit off, I was supposed to interview Wayne Coyne of The Flaming Lips tonight. It didn't happen because my new roommate isn't a stickler for paying the long distance bill. I can see Mr. Coyne sitting by that phone wondering when I'm gonna call. That's a lie, by the way. Wayne has better things to do, and if I had just recorded the Album of the Year, I wouldn't care what anybody else thought.

That's right kids. Album of the Year. The Flaming Lips. Who knew? Sure, they had some great albums like Transmissions from the Satellite Heart and Hit to Death in the Future Head. They also had Zaireeka, a piece of shit. (And stop with the hate mail, already!) This time, no fat, no filler, no shit. This is one of those albums people are going to obsess over for many years to come. One of the only albums I can compare it to is Dark Side of the Moon-- a sonic exploration into a bunch of morbid themes that sound extra good when you've been kissing Ol' Lady Bong.

A big key to the success of The Soft Bulletin is producer Dave Fridmann. Fridmann's an aural genius who did wonders with his band Mercury Rev's last album, Deserter's Songs. As great as that album was, this is a bigger, bolder leap. Sure, the moment you hear the strings on the second cut, "A Spoonful Weighs a Ton", you're thinking 'bout the Rev. That's only half the battle, though:

The song alternates between pixie dust and angel dust-- first it flows, then it swaggers with a killer Moog-and-drum battle with the audience going Qui-Gon at the altar of the Bulletin. The following cut, "The Spark That Bled", is even more adventurous. Coyne's little boy vocals take on a philharmonic of yearning, tackling it down with its ambiguous "I stood up and I said 'Yeah'" chorus. 4AD used to be this dreamy-- now they're picking at leftover Red House Painters demos and wondering when people are going to like Kristin Hersh. (Never, by the way.) This is on Warner Brothers?!

Oh, but there's more. So much more. Drummer Steven Drozd gets mad props for his thundering percussion which, for the most part, was recorded on one microphone. Hard to believe during a dense number like my personal favorite track, "The Gash". As much as I giggled over the title, I was bowled over by the song. A gospel choir sings an inspirational (!) song of perseverance over tweaked synth tracks and louder-than-Christ funky drumming. I defy you to listen to it without seeing just how loud your stereo can get.

Drozd also makes quick work of "Waitin' for a Superman", another inspirational piece-- one that was inspired by the death of Coyne's father. The result is this band's "Losing My Religion". Seriously. If Top 40 gets ahold of this song, we're all going to be very, very sick of it. Still, it's an amazing track, a shuffling dirge with a few bells, and two amazingly well-placed trumpet blasts, but mostly just some slightly hungover piano.

Speaking of death, it's a lingering theme on The Soft Bulletin. "Suddenly Everything Has Changed" is a neat, twisty little ditty about how thoughts of mortality can attack you when you least expect it. "Feeling Yourself Disintegrate" is a more direct rumination on the subject, a dreamy blast of vacuum cleaner guitar and reverb, reverb, reverb! Again, hardly party music, but remember Dark Side of the Moon? Pass the bong. This is some good shit.

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[sunrah]

1 The Power Of Independent Trucking (1:27)
2 The Model (2:34)
3 Bad Penny (2:33)
4 L Dopa (1:40)
5 Precious Thing (2:20)
6 Colombian Necktie (2:14)
7 Kitty Empire (4:01)
8 Ergot (2:28)
9 Kasimir S. Pulaski Day (2:28)
10 Fish Fry (2:06)
11 Pavement Saw (2:12)
12 Tiny, King Of The Jews (2:31)
13 Bombastic Intro (0:34)
14 He's A Whore (2:38)

Songs About Fucking is the second and final album by the post-hardcore noise rock band Big Black. It is considered by many to be the band's better work and was placed 54th on Pitchfork Media's 'Top 100 Albums of the 1980s'. Included are covers of Kraftwerk's "The Model" and Cheap Trick's "He's a Whore".

Steve Albini has said that Songs About Fucking is the Big Black album that he is most satisfied with. In a 1992 interview with Maximumrocknroll magazine, Albini said: "The best was side one of 'Songs About Fucking'. I was real pleased with the way we did that. We just hopped into the studio, banged all the songs out and hopped out. Didn't take long, didn't cost much, just real smooth. Side two we recorded at a more leisurely pace and I think that hurt us. And that Cheap Trick song got on the tape and the CD by accident, and we just left it on."

Songs About Fucking has been called "certainly the most honest album title of the rock'n'roll era".Lyrical themes on the album include South American killing techniques ("Colombian Necktie"), bread that gets you high ("Ergot"), and how "slowly, without trying, everyone becomes what he despises most". While the album's title (commonly blanked out when displayed in shops on its release) and the sleeve were controversial, according to one reviewer, "as brutal as that cover is, the music is even more so",and it was considered "as dark and frightening as the band name suggests" by another, Treble webzine's Hubert Vigilla, who goes on to say "Songs About Fucking is loud, it's abrasive, it's unattractive in the extreme...So really, it's everything that made Big Black so great in the first place".

The band had already decided to split up before the album was recorded, prompted by guitarist Santiago Durango's decision to enroll in Law School, and the band's desire to quit while at their peak.

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[sunrah]

stiu ca-l aveti, dar e esential si mergem la sigur.



Genre: Funk

1 Little Child Runnin' Wild 5:25
2 Pusherman 5:04
3 Freddie's Dead 5:28
4 Junkie Chase (Instrumental) 1:39
5 Give Me Your Love (Love Song) 4:16
6 Eddie You Should Know Better 2:18
7 No Thing On Me (Cocaine On Me) 4:54
8 Think (Instrumental) 3:45
9 Superfly 3:53

The choice of Curtis Mayfield to score the blaxploitation film Superfly was an inspired one. No other artist in popular music knew so well, and expressed through his music so naturally, the shades of gray inherent in contemporary inner-city life. His debut solo album, 1970's Curtis, had shown in vivid colors that the '60s optimist (author of the civil-rights anthems "Keep On Pushing" and "People Get Ready") had added a layer of subtlety to his material; appearing on the same LP as the positive and issue-oriented "Move On Up" was an apocalyptic piece of brimstone funk titled "(Don't Worry) If There's a Hell Below, We're All Going to Go." For Superfly, Mayfield wisely avoids celebrating the wheeling-and-dealing themes present in the movie, or exploiting them, instead using each song to focus on a different aspect of what he saw as a plague on America's streets. He also steers away from explicit moralizing; through his songs, Mayfield simply tells it like it is (for the characters in the film as in real life), with any lessons learned the result of his vibrant storytelling and knack of getting inside the heads of the characters. "Freddie's Dead," one of the album's signature pieces, tells the story of one of the film's main casualties, a good-hearted yet weak-willed man caught up in the life of a pusher, and devastatingly portrays the indifference of those who witness or hear about it. "Pusherman" masterfully uses the metaphor of drug dealer as businessman, with the drug game, by extension, just another way to make a living in a tough situation, while the title track equates hustling with gambling ("The game he plays he plays for keeps/hustlin' times and ghetto streets/tryin' ta get over"). Ironically, the sound of Superfly positively overwhelmed its lyrical finesse. A melange of deep, dark grooves, trademarked wah-wah guitar, and stinging brass, Superfly ignited an entire genre of music, the blaxploitation soundtrack, and influenced everyone from soul singers to television-music composers for decades to come. It stands alongside Saturday Night Fever and Never Mind the Bollocks Here's the Sex Pistols as one of the most vivid touchstones of '70s pop music.

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[sunrah]

Genre: Pop/Rock

1 Kizza Me 2:44
2 Thank You Friends 3:06
3 Big Black Car 3:36
4 Jesus Christ 2:39
5 Femme Fatale 3:30
6 O, Dana 2:35
7 Holocaust 3:49
8 Kangaroo 3:47
9 Stroke It Noel 2:06
10 For You 2:43
11 You Can't Have Me 3:11
12 Nightime 2:53
13 Blue Moon 2:06
14 Take Care 2:47
Bonus Tracks
15 Nature Boy 2:30
16 Till the End of the Day 2:15
17 Dream Lover 3:35
18 Downs 1:51
19 Whole Lotta Shakin' Goin' On 3:21

A shambling wreck of an album, Big Star's Third/Sister Lovers ranks among the most harrowing experiences in pop music; impassioned, erratic, and stark, it's the slow, sinking sound of a band falling apart. Recorded with their label, Stax, poised on the verge of bankruptcy, the album finds Alex Chilton at the end of his rope, sabotaging his own music long before it can ever reach the wrecking crew of poor distribution, indifferent marketing, and disinterested pop radio; his songs are haphazardly brilliant, a head-on collision between inspiration and frustration. The album is a kind of self-fulfilling prophecy, each song smacking of utter defeat and desperation; the result is either one of the most vividly emotional experiences in pop music or a completely wasted opportunity, and while the truth probably lies somewhere in between, there's no denying Third's magnetic pull — it's like an undertow. Although previously issued on a variety of different labels, Rykodisc's 1992 release is the initially definitive edition of this unfinished masterpiece, its 19 tracks most closely approximating the original planned running order while restoring the music's intended impact; in addition to unearthing a blistering cover of the Kinks' "At the End of the Day" and a haunting rendition of Nat King Cole's "Nature Boy," it also appends the disturbing "Dream Lover," which distills the album's messiest themes into less than four minutes of psychic torment.

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Genre: Blues Rock

1 Singapore 2:47
2 Clap Hands 3:50
3 Cemetery Polka 1:48
4 Jockey Full of Bourbon 2:49
5 Tango Till They're Sore 2:53
6 Big Black Mariah 2:45
7 Diamonds and Gold 2:34
8 Hang Down Your Head 2:35
9 Time 3:58
10 Rain Dogs 2:59
11 Midtown (instrumental) 1:05
12 9th & Hennepin 1:58
13 Gun Street Girl 4:39
14 Union Square 2:26
15 Blind Love 4:22
16 Walking Spanish 3:09
17 Downtown Train 3:55
18 Bride of Rain Dogs (instrumental) 1:11
19 Anywhere I Lay My Head 2:48

With its jarring rhythms and unusual instrumentation — marimba, accordion, various percussion — as well as its frequently surreal lyrics, Rain Dogs is very much a follow-up to Swordfishtrombones, which is to say that it sounds for the most part like The Threepenny Opera being sung by Howlin' Wolf. The chief musical difference is the introduction of guitarist Marc Ribot, who adds his noisy leads to the general cacophony. But Rain Dogs is sprawling where its predecessor had been focused: Tom Waits' lyrics here sometimes are imaginative to the point of obscurity, seemingly chosen to fit the rhythms rather than for sense. In the course of 19 tracks and 54 minutes, Waits sometimes goes back to the more conventional music of his earlier records, which seems like a retreat, though such tracks as the catchy "Hang Down Your Head," "Time," and especially "Downtown Train" (frequently covered and finally turned into a Top Ten hit by Rod Stewart five years later) provide some relief as well as variety. Rain Dogs can't surprise as Swordfishtrombones had, and in his attempt to continue in the direction suggested by that album, Waits occasionally borders on the chaotic (which may only be to say that, like most of his records, this one is uneven). But much of the music matches the earlier album, and there is so much of it that that is enough to qualify Rain Dogs as one of Waits' better albums.

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[sunrah]

Genre: Jazz Fusion

1 Meeting of the Spirits 6:53
2 Dawn 5:11
3 Noonward Race 6:29
4 A Lotus On Irish Streams 5:41
5 Vital Transformation 6:17
6 The Dance of the Maya 7:18
7 You Know, You Know 5:09
8 Awakening 3:32

This is the album that made John McLaughlin a semi-household name, a furious, high-energy, yet rigorously conceived meeting of virtuosos that, for all intents and purposes, defined the fusion of jazz and rock a year after Miles Davis' Bitches Brew breakthrough. It also inadvertently led to the derogatory connotation of the word fusion, for it paved the way for an army of imitators, many of whose excesses and commercial panderings devalued the entire movement. Though much was made of the influence of jazz-influenced improvisation in the Mahavishnu band, it is the rock element that predominates, stemming directly from the electronic innovations of Jimi Hendrix. The improvisations, particularly McLaughlin's post-Hendrix machine-gun assaults on double-necked electric guitar and Jerry Goodman's flights on electric violin, owe more to the freakouts that had been circulating in progressive rock circles than to jazz, based as they often are on ostinatos on one chord. These still sound genuinely thrilling today on CD, as McLaughlin and Goodman battle Jan Hammer's keyboards, Rick Laird's bass, and especially Billy Cobham's hard-charging drums, whose jazz-trained technique pushed the envelope for all rock drummers. What doesn't date so well are the composed medium- and high-velocity unison passages that are played in such tight lockstep that they can't breathe. There is also time out for quieter, reflective numbers that are drenched in studied spirituality ("A Lotus on Irish Streams") or irony ("You Know You Know"); McLaughlin was to do better in that department with less-driven colleagues elsewhere in his career. Aimed with absolute precision at young rock fans, this record was wildly popular in its day, and it may have been the cause of more blown-out home amplifiers than any other record this side of Deep Purple.

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Genre: Shoegaze

1 Only Shallow 4:17
2 Loomer 2:38
3 Touched 0:56
4 To Here Knows When 5:31
5 When You Sleep 4:11
6 I Only Said 5:34
7 Come in Alone 3:58
8 Sometimes 5:19
9 Blown a Wish 3:36
10 What You Want 5:33
11 Soon 6:58

Isn't Anything was good enough to inspire an entire scene of My Bloody Valentine soundalikes, but Loveless' greatness proved that the band was inimitable. After two painstaking years in the studio and nearly bankrupting their label Creation in the process, the group emerged with their masterpiece, which fulfilled all of the promise of their previous albums. If Isn't Anything was the Valentines' sonic blueprint, then Loveless saw those plans fleshed out, in the most literal sense: "Loomer," "What You Want," and "To Here Knows When"'s arrangements are so lush, they're practically tangible. With its voluptuous yet ethereal melodies and arrangements, Loveless intimates sensuality and sexuality instead of stating them explicitly; Kevin Shields and Bilinda Butcher's vocals meld perfectly with the trippy sonics around them, suggesting druggy sex or sexy drugs. From the commanding "Only Shallow" and "Come in Alone" to breathy reflections like "Sometimes" and "Blown a Wish," the album balances complexity and immediately memorable pop melodies with remarkable self-assurance, given its difficult creation. But Loveless doesn't just perfect the group's approach, it also hints at their continuing growth: "Soon" fuses the Valentines' roaring guitars with a dance-inspired beat, while the symphonic interlude "Touched" suggests an updated take on Fripp and Eno's pioneering guitar/electronics experiments. These glimpses into the band's evolution make Shields' difficulty in delivering a follow-up to Loveless even more frustrating, but completely understandable — the album's perfection sounded shoegazing's death-knell and raised expectations for the next My Bloody Valentine album to unreasonably high levels. Though Shields' collaborations with Yo La Tengo, Primal Scream, J Mascis, and others were often rewarding, they were no match for Loveless. However, as My Bloody Valentine fans — and, apparently, Shields himself — will attest, nothing is.

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