December 16, 2007

Maybe Next Time

Future Favorites. 100 Words.
Albums Too Recent to Rank Just Yet

1. Eisley - Room Noises

“What are you into? What do you listen to?” (Meaningless getting-to-know-you chatter.)

“Oh, you know, a little bit of everything.” (Canonical bands and genres and opinions. Everything unimpeachably cool.)

But let me sing the catchy truth: My one-word answer would have to be “Eisley,” whose whimsical tunefulness is now my favorite sound. Or else I’d play “Golly Sandra” on repeat, letting the magic speak for itself: Melody, harmony, lushness, perfection. The cutest little stutter at the start of the verse. Coldplay fronted by teenage girls.

As amazing as they were as kids, it’s scary to imagine how awesome they’ll become.

2. Once Soundtrack

Yes, I know I’m repeating myself. But how many times can you say it, and mean it? Everything about this project rings true. This movie, this music, changed my life. (Would you believe it bettered me, at least?) The music I’ve wanted to write my whole life, as heard in a movie I’ve wanted to live, Once inspired me never to quit: writing, singing, dreaming, living. Repeating myself, if that’s what it takes, to force my fate to get here already. I’ll play my songs and listen for yours, and maybe, one day, we’ll sing them together. Surely, you understand.

3. Brandi Carlile - Brandi Carlile

To me, her music feels like America: hopeful, defiant, worth getting lost in. To others, I guess, it feels like VH1, or maybe even CMT: rootsy, folksy, not worth defending, which means I have to proselytize harder, and sing its praises until I’m hoarse. It’s a belief I simply have to share, an ideal much greater than I can explain, a mixtape track you need to hear. It’s raw and real, perhaps too much. It’s not a trick of her down-home production. So far, I’ve only converted two friends – just as a friend converted me. Still, I have to try.

4. KT Tunstall - Eye to the Telescope

I frequently talk about growing out of rock, a process that began, in earnest, ten years ago. Still, on the eve of my high school reunion, I sometimes feign shock at how much I’ve changed, or really, how seldom I listen to dudes. Instead, all the time, I listen to women: Tori, Aimee, and now, KT Tunstall, who sells her words and never herself, even though her sexy growl could talk me into anything. The sexiest thing is how fiercely she plays, pounding her guitar like a washtub bass, layering her chords like storm clouds coming in. Actually, she rocks.

5. Death Cab For Cutie - Plans

A group of guys I view as peers, Death Cab makes music to pine over girls to. Offering insights on life and love, their music says more than I would ever dare. For pensive, well-read, sad-sack dudes, the lyrics and sounds of these songs provide solace, a chance to commiserate without getting messy, or otherwise leaving my cozy apartment. Or otherwise dealing with living, breathing people. I joined the Death Cab fan club late, long after Adam Brody exposed them, but now I can’t picture a life without Death Cab, or a band so great with such a stupid name.

November 11, 2007

1-10: Abbey Road to Paul’s Boutique

1. Beatles - Abbey Road

Why? Because there’s no other choice. This is my favorite work of art ever. It’s certainly the album I’ve listened to the most, driving cross-country, or prepping for work, or writing and dreaming and seeking perfection. The prettiest melodies. The most transcendent harmonies. The goofiest lyrics. The phattest bass. George sings his best song ever. Ringo sings his best song ever. Lennon/McCartney’s a duel till “The End.” John almost freestyle raps, Paul believes he’s writing a symphony, and everything crescendoes with love, love, love: The meaning of life. A shiver down the spine. Drumming on the steering wheel, singing along.

2. Jeff Buckley - Grace

The voice alone can break your heart. The music by itself can move you to weeping. It’s hard not to hear this album as a requiem – not for the artist, but for your “Grace”-less self. Play it once; I double dare you. That’s all it took for me to be saved. The ignorant, pre-“Grace” person was dead, replaced by this person whose zeal is probably scaring you. Sorry for witnessing so goddamn ardently. To quote Roget instead of Christ, the album is a classic, a masterpiece, a paragon. The passion of an artist. The voice of an angel.

3. Guns N’ Roses - Appetite for Destruction

Amazing? Awesome? Radical? Ridiculous! From the skulls on the cover to Axl’s shouts of “Yowzas!” everything about this album should suck. Everything seems like something to scorn, now that I’m older and wiser and lamer, more prone to reading feminist texts than listening to hatred packaged as pop. But underneath Axl’s schizophrenic voices, underneath Slash’s xenophobic riffs, I’m hearing something lonely and scared. I feel the way I felt at eleven, ugly and angry, but beautiful inside. Almost two decades after I bought it, I still play this cassette all the time. It never ceases to make me jog faster.

4. Nirvana - Nevermind

Let me recount my musical biography: Loving family. Suburban home. Smart and shy. Creative and curious. Naturally, I listened to antisocial rock, the stuff young Catholics hide from their parents, which, in the early ‘90s, was grunge. I was a freshman when Kurt Cobain killed himself. I’m a walking ‘90s cliche! Maybe these facts will make me original: I listened to this album en route to losing wrestling meets. I had to look up some of its words, particularly “mulatto,” “libido,” and “lithium.” I wrote a placement essay about it, earning the highest possible score. Hearing it still saddens me.

5. Billy Joel - The Stranger

Mostly, I hated the music of my parents, a genre known as “easy listening.” Billy Joel probably seemed rockin’ to them. Two years in a row, which they probably don’t remember, my parents gave me a Joel tape for Christmas. I didn’t really know him, and I certainly hadn’t asked, but the coolest thing is, my parents guessed correctly. One of these gifts was a perfect pop album, track after track of songs I wish I’d written, one of which I sang in my American Idol tryout. This gift gave me the joy of music. My parents rock after all.

6. Stone Temple Pilots - Purple

Fuck Scott Weiland. There. I said it. If not for his struggles with heroin and heroines, this band could’ve ruled the ‘90s, rocking even more, or more often, than they did. They could’ve kept improving on their murky, grungy start, and raced the Smashing Pumpkins to an arty, poppy finish. They could’ve become my favorite band. Instead, they raced my other idols: early dissolution through self-destruction, testing and finally failing their fans. At least they made this masterpiece. Ever love something beyond all common sense, beyond the critical and cultural consensus? This is my band. I can’t explain it further.

7. Tori Amos - Little Earthquakes

To all the women I’ve ever misunderstood:

Play the piano and sing. I’ll get it. At least I’ll try. I really will. I’ll study your voice and learn from your words. I’ll listen to you and fall in love again. Please tell me everything, so clearly yet poetically, so I can know all your desires and fears: Love and lust and body and family. Being late and getting raped and feeling scorned by men. You try to melodize, and I’ll try to empathize. I promise to try my best. I promise.

I know I’ve failed. I hear what you’re saying.

8. Pink Floyd - The Dark Side of the Moon

Four bored kids on a quiet summer night, stuck in the St. Louis suburbs, unless...

“Let’s go out, man. Let’s do something.”

“How 'bout the laser light show?”

We jumped in the car and drove downtown, singing along to Live and Bush. Actually, we didn’t know much about the Floyd. Also, remember, we were all good kids. Our pockets were free of paraphernalia.

We payed the fee. The room went dark. Lasers and stars and spinning and sound. My mind was blown to smithereens.

“This must be what being high feels like.”

I bought the album the very next day.

9. Radiohead - OK Computer

Can you believe I bought this album used? Whoever sold it back was a faulty machine, a radio automaton, a man without a head. This is the reason I shop for used CDs, the bargain I hope to find in the bins, the baby refusing to drown in the bath. As awesomely dystopic as 1984, with scarier riffage than 1984, this is the soundtrack to science-fiction nightmares, a desert-planet pick of both me and HAL 9000. This album is so awesome it’s scary. This album is so scary it’s awesome. Awesome, scary... Scary, awesome.... A broken record, dancing the robot.

10. Beastie Boys - Paul’s Boutique

College gave me so many things: friendship, love, a trip to Australia, mad writing skillz, and respect for good hip-hop. I opened my ears and let myself listen. I browsed the local bargain bins and got an education. I learned what I probably should’ve learned in high school: Everyone needs some rap in their lives. Sorry for projecting myself onto everyone. Also, sorry for being white. But everyone needs a song about egging. Everyone needs to go, “What the hell was that?” as this one bouillabaisse mashes up everything. Everyone needs to hear science getting dropped. Misappropriation is totally fun!!!

11-20: The White Album to Siamese Dream

11. Beatles - The White Album

Pop Quiz

True/False


1) “Helter Skelter” is heavier than metal.

2) This is the album where Paul became my favorite.

3) One time, at a Yankees game, I saw Paul on the JumboTron! Both of us were watching the very same game!! Both of us were sitting in the same freakin’ stadium!!! This was by far the highlight of the game.

4) I’m a better person for having heard The Beatles.

Essays

5) Why do I cover “Rocky Raccoon”?

6) Why do I tolerate “Revolution 9"?

7) Great double album, or greatest double album?

8) Review your favorite Beatles memory.

12. Pearl Jam - Ten

Eddie Vedder probably hates me. I totally respect the last grunge band standing. I totally agree the president sucks. My Pearl Jam tapes are totally worn out. But I haven’t cared about Pearl Jam in a decade. I miss the riffs they used to write. I miss the reverb on Vedder’s voice. I miss the fervor I felt for four albums – one or two more than most former fans – even though they’ve put out x albums since. (Seriously, Eddie, I don’t even know.) I must miss high school, and even junior high, considering how often I still play its soundtrack.

13. Beck - Sea Change

Sometimes, this album rocks me to sleep. Sure, I play it other times, too: whenever I want to feel understood, whenever I want to commiserate with someone, and during long drives with all these other albums. But this is my favorite insomnia music. I play it when other treatments have failed: late-night talk shows, melatonin, milk. I fear I’m making the music sound boring, when actually, to me, it couldn’t sound more beautiful. Quiet, gentle, melodic, sad, it hushes and soothes and colors my dreams. A concept album, or maybe a lullaby, it breaks my heart instead of a bough.

14. Ben Folds Five - Whatever and Ever Amen

The Shit

Ben Folds is a geek like me,
Writing’ white boy poetry,
Listenin’ to Dr. Dre,
Droppin’ dope shit every day.

Clearly, Ben Folds is a better
Singer, writer, and whatever.
Still, I do suspect that Ben
Writes some bad shit now and then.

Ballads, bangers, clever, classic,
Better than the park Jurassic.
Crackin’ wise, but soundin’ smart?
That’s the shit that breaks my heart.

Now I’m older than I was.
Still, I listen, just because.
Even though I don’t have kids,
Love the cartoon shit he did.

Sorry, Ben, for bein’ shitty.
Next time, I’ll say somethin’ pretty.

15. Elliott Smith - XO

Elliott, thanks, man. What can I say? Nothing you haven’t heard before, probably. Nothing to return the favor of your life. Your playing, your singing, sounded like a friend. Your music made me feel less alone. The sadness – the truth – in your songs helped me cope. “Cope with what?” you ask, maybe angry. “Clinical depression? A heroin habit? Increasingly prophetic suicidal thoughts?” Yes, you’re right; I don’t understand. Yes, I know; my sympathy is futile. Yes, this letter is overwrought. Still, I’m sorry I couldn’t give you more. Sorry my fandom wasn’t enough. Thanks, again, for giving me your music.

16. Rufus Wainwright - Want One

Why isn’t this guy massively famous? Fine, he lisps, and his lyrics are flaming, but this guy’s songs deserve to be standards. Broadway stars should belt them out. Toddlers should sing them at preschool assemblies. Literature geeks should study their metaphors. Poor Elton John should weep into his rhinestones. This guy rewrites the history of pop – Tin Pan Alley, rock ‘n’ roll, sensitive singer/songwriter sap – swinging for the fences and never ever missing, taking a bat to popular cliches. See what I did there? He’d never do that. Instead, he’d make up something new, something to envy forever and ever.

17. Beatles - Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band

Catchier than the common cold! Is it clear yet The Beatles are my all-time favorite band? Number Seventeen – my all-time favorite number – is The Beatles’ third appearance on my all-time favorites list. When I was seventeen, before I wussied out, they might’ve scored even higher than this, higher than women (sorry, Tori!) and artists outside of the grunge-rock canon (Beatle-esque guys like Elliott and Ben). Of course, my boys Aerosmith would’ve been here, too. And lots of Van Halen – and even Van Hagar. But my love of The Beatles has grown as I’ve aged. My listening frequency has never diminished.

18. Aimee Mann - Lost in Space

Thanks to Magnolia, I knew she was amazing, hearing her songs in the mouths of those characters. Still, I was stunned by her storytelling here, hearing her voice and picturing scenes, even without an accompanying film. That’s why she’s one of my all-time favorite writers, not just of songs, but of anything with words. That’s why I wish I could be Aimee Mann, telling the stories that no one else can, singing the songs that no one else will, finding the comfort in being alone. Isn’t it obvious why these songs strike me? No one’s around to answer my question.

19. Blur - The Great Escape

Sometimes, I’m stricken with a touch of Anglophilia, mostly due to albums like this. Chic, cheeky, rapier witty – if all of England sounds like this, I totally need to go.

When I lived in Australia, this album was my soundtrack. One of several bootlegs I bought at a flea market, this tape was my choice for contemplative bus rides, gazing out the window and seeing the world. I hope to play it on all my future travels.

Also, I imagine “The Universal” everywhere. Possibly, for real, the best song ever.

–Best Beatles Albums: No. 4
–Best Oasis Albums: No. 1


20. Smashing Pumpkins - Siamese Dream

I’m jotting this down before the big comeback, before the second coming of the alt-rock Messiah – Billy Corgan, the B-side Jesus – making an angry and beautiful racket, shredding his throat and scorching the earth, beating Axl Rose in the race to risk my fandom, making new music that might not sound like this: the loudest and prettiest dirges and tantrums, youthful anthems that somehow still matter, even more now than ever before, rocking today, in Geek U.S.A., quietly disarmed – a bummer when you hummer – with high school band mates playing different songs. Soon, I’ll discover if we can rise again.

21-30: Blood Sugar Sex Magic to Speakerboxxx/The Love Below

21. Red Hot Chili Peppers - Blood Sugar Sex Magic

This is for Fred, wherever he is.

Fred was artistic, zany, and fun. We’d sit around or drive around and talk about nothing – which, at the time, meant everything to us – playing this album over and over, rapping along to even the B-sides: raunchy tunes like “Sir Psycho Sexy,” whose every obscenity I still know by heart. If any two people can truly have a song, this whole album belonged to us.

But after graduation, we drifted apart. He’s married now, with a couple of stepkids. His sister says he’s found religion.

I wonder if he still knows the words.

22. Weezer - The Blue Album

After the death of Kurt Cobain, I turned to Weezer for songs I could sing. Nerds like me had a new favorite band. After my arrival at Truman State University, I couldn’t turn a corner without hearing Weezer. Liberal arts kids loved that shit. Was it the jokes? The glasses? The sweaters? The fact that the singer was going to Harvard? Throughout my life, I’ve envied Rivers Cuomo: his effortless way with a powerful chorus, his unironic love of a blistering solo, his total domination of a three-minute form. Today, I remain a student of songcraft. Weezer continues giving advice.

23. Hole - Live Through This

Hate the singer. Love the songs. I crave them more than almost any others. Unless you were born around 1979 – plus or minus, what, two years? – and you couldn’t care less about the idea of “authenticity,” you’re probably like, “Really? You like this piece of shit?” and I’m like, “Yes, goddammit, I do.” It reminds me of the years when women used to scare me, as Courtney Love screamed her version of the truth. In fact, it reminds me of the last time I played it – way the hell back in 2007 – when women still scared the bejesus out of me.

24. Pink Floyd - The Wall

Pop Quiz

True/False


9) I like double albums, including ones with films.

10) If the music’s good, I only want more.

11) I don’t believe in downloading singles.

12) Basically, I’m a musical dinosaur.

Choose Your Own Adventure

13)
You are an intern for Spin magazine. Your boss is the hippest person you’ve ever met. Her two favorite genres are indie rock and techno. Unfortunately, a Pink Floyd tribute band is the only band you’ve seen so far in New York.

Do you write a review and reveal that you’re a poser – or not write anything for Spin.com at all?

25. Smashing Pumpkins - Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness

Another double album! Yes!!

Perhaps this album is overindulgent. Perhaps Billy Corgan’s voice is too shrill. Perhaps these lyrics suggest a troubled mind – yes, for the writer, but also for the listener. Still, I’d defend this album as a masterpiece: one whose messiness keeps it cohesive, one whose obtuseness makes it understandable. The biggest CD by my peer group’s biggest band. Song for song, the grandest statement. Track for track, the greatest value. So many singles, dazzling in their difference. So much emotion, all of it dark. Even the font enhances the spookiness. Basically, no, I wouldn’t change a thing.

26. R.E.M. - Automatic for the People

I wouldn’t say I love R.E.M. Although I like them, very, very much, I usually forget to list them as a favorite. I don’t obsess over Michael Stipe’s lyrics. I probably own less than half of their albums. When I think of R.E.M., I think of other people: former band mates (for just one summer), former co-editors (for one whole year), who worshiped this band and cherished this album, who played it so often I missed it when they stopped. “Sweetness Follows?” It surely did. The sweetest and saddest reminder of friends, of nostalgia they probably don’t know they inspired.

27. Metallica - The Black Album

Some of my favorite Metallica moments: Hearing this album for the first time in middle school, at a party in the basement of a girl I had a crush on. Learning the notes to “Nothing Else Matters,” as taught by exchange students from Spain and Brazil. Cruising through St. Louis with my friend from Vietnam, rocking out to Metallica, Megadeth, and Beethoven. Seeing a roadie on fire at a show. Discussing the album’s production in grad school, all of us agreeing, “It’s pretty much perfect.” Hearing “Enter Sandman” at a piano bar this year. Sharing Pat Boone’s version with everyone.

28. Eminem - The Marshall Mathers L.P.

The Marshall Mathers Poem

Marshall Mathers poses problems
“Stan” (with Dido!) can’t resolve ‘em
Killing Kim and Chris Kirkpatrick
Wack? Offensive? Stupid? Classic?

Baffling critics, gaffling gays
Mothers sued and mothers slayed
Truthfulness or total fiction?
Damn, the dude has crazy diction

Marshall Mathers, entertainer
Kept a lawyer on retainer

I cannot defend myself
Keeping Marshall on the shelf
In between the best CDs
Of Missy E. And Eric B.

Even though we rap along
Put another record on
Put another rapper on
Who won’t pretend to rape his mom

Marshall Mathers made a million
Making music for the children?

29. The Notorious B.I.G. - Ready to Die

It took several years of (my) life after (his) death, but I finally understand why other rappers worship him. (I hate myself for dismissing him earlier.) It took several spins, but I worship him, too. (I hate the world for dismissing him early.) Believe the hype: Biggie Smalls is the illest, spitting with charm, charisma, and courage; spinning stories of shock and awww; mythologizing murder, mayhem, and Mom. I listen to Biggie like I watch Scorsese: savoring the stories, feeling the fiction, and disregarding my disbelief. Enter gangsta. Exit suburbia. (I’m Michael Bolton in Office Space, yo.) Vicarious villainy entertains everyone.

30. Outkast - Speakerboxxx/The Love Below

This album features everything I want: Minds expanding. Boundaries breaking. Rhythm. Melody. Wordplay. Humor. Politics. Religion. Friendship. Family. Love. Loss. Life. Pain. Joy. Bitterness. Art. Creation. Pop songs. Love songs. Battles. Jokes. Truth. Realness. Honesty. Fantasy. Stanky funk to shake your booty. Bangin’ beats to bob your head. Dre and Big Boi, still together, pushing, pulling, challenging, changing, daring, dreaming, enlightening, embracing... Hip-hop’s Beatles, hip-hop’s White Album, hip-hop for haters, hip-hop for all... Songs about vampires, Valentines, roosters... Church and war and boom! Amen. This album features everything I need.

– Best Beatles Albums: No. 5
– Best Prince Albums: No. 1

31-40: Core to The Chronic

31. Stone Temple Pilots - Core

Seriously, kids, you don’t understand: I fuckin’ adored the Stone Temple Pilots! Back in the day, when I was kid, Weiland and Co. were bigger than Pearl Jam – at least they sounded that way to me, drenched in reverb and power chords and angst, drowning in whatever the hell they were singing. All I fuckin’ knew was they fuckin’ rocked my face off! I bought a guitar, and I learned their songs – sour chords for my sour disposition? – as if their hardness could rock even more. Blistering my fingers, here’s what I learned: Jesus F. Christ, this band fuckin’ rocked!!

32. Fiona Apple - When the Pawn...

Fiona Apple just might be crazy. That’s what I thought when I watched her perform, thrashing and screaming and exorcizing everything, hiding in a ball beneath her piano, singing her ballads so stately and serenely, depending on the mood or a channeled persona, selling her act or her soul or herself. Either the worst or the best concert ever! I wasted a thousand words to review it – almost as many as the album’s full title! – and still I failed to express my... what? Wonder? Gratitude? “Get well soon?” From lips to ears, from melodies to memories... Words have failed me again.

33. A Tribe Called Quest - The Low End Theory

Fun, funny, and, most of all, funky, this is what every rap album should sound like. Smoky, seductive, and smothered in soul, this is what every jazz album should sound like: The sound of college and coming of age, putting the AP Style into rap (by which I mean I listened while writing). Later, the sound of my New York summer, putting the sub-woofer into the subway (by which I mean I listened while riding). A gateway album into the genre. Hip-hop for people who don’t know they like it. Playful, witty, bangin’, etc., this is music to open minds.

34. Beatles - Rubber Soul

I didn’t always love The Beatles. As a kid, I knew them mostly as images: Beatle hair and screaming girls and psychedelic posters. It took me till high school before I knew their songs, before I spent my money on the best bootleg ever – a Japanese import of The Beatles’ early output (“Super Hits,” “Rock’n Rolls,” and “Love Ballades” [sic]) – before my friend Dave loaned me actual Beatles albums, before my friend Chrissy showed me her parents’ Beatles records, before their songs, from Rubber Soul on, themselves became friends and memories to cherish. Everything I love about music starts here.

35. Beatles - Revolver

I play these albums as halves of a whole, as yet another double album, except in my times of acute Beatlemania, when I’m fiending for everything Beatle-esque and sacred, and I play these two albums among all the others, much to the exclusion of everything else. I know I’m not being original here, and you might be immune to critical hyperbole, but I, too, believe The Beatles are the greatest, in terms of how heavily they’ve influenced my tastes and given me reasons to live each day. And this one features “Eleanor Rigby,” their saddest song and thus my favorite.

36. Carole King - Tapestry

Like numerous other classics on this list, I wasn’t alive when this album was released. (And I didn’t even hear it until my mid-twenties.) I’m old enough, though, to remember cassettes – my favorites are the ones in liquidated bins – a fact that amused at least one singer/songwriter. Carole King actually laughed at me! In Kirksville, MO, in 2004, she kindly let this reporter ask her questions, including, “Why are you stumping for Kerry?” and also, "Would you sign my tape?” “A tape?” she said. And then she laughed – totally with me, sharing the moment.

Equally noteworthy, the songcraft is ace.

37. Nirvana - Unplugged in New York

Cobain was not my generation’s voice. After all, the dude was a good decade older, and it’s not like everyone worshiped him or anything. Many of my classmates didn’t even like him, choosing to kneel before other so-called spokesmen: Tupac, Trent Reznor, Alanis Morissette... I even knew a dude who thought Primus was the greatest. But I succumbed, like I was supposed to, to the artist’s deconstruction of popular art, to one man’s attempt to find some redemption. Of course, he failed, himself and his fans – but not MTV, which repeated this eulogy. Then, I watched it. Now, I listen.

38. U2 - The Joshua Tree

U2 believes it’s the world’s biggest band, and that’s how this album sounds to me: BIG. Driving through Kansas has never sounded better, with Bono’s voice echoing over the plain, the Edge’s guitar work ringing out for miles, the other two guys in the band creating thunder... The music crescendoes... The sun or the stars... You wanna get home but you’re already there... Wherever you look, whatever you hear... America the beautiful, how sweet the sound... Except for St. Patrick’s Day, I’ve never felt more Irish... I still get goosebumps every goddamn time, even though I’m not in Kansas anymore.

39. Beatles - Magical Mystery Tour

This album, though disjointed, offers everything I’m seeking: beautiful melodies, intricate production, wit and metaphor and numerous excellent band names to steal: Corporation Teashirt, Crabalocker Fishwife, Semolina Pilchard... All that, and more, in “I Am the Walrus!” After this, I promise, I’m done with The Beatles – you’ve already read a million words – so I can write more about music from my lifetime. But this band’s music has soundtracked my life, and inspired my own attempts to make music, more than any other band.

Finally, one last note on Abbey Road: The last twenty minutes are the greatest of all time.

40. Dr. Dre - The Chronic

The beats on this album make it a masterpiece, still sounding fresh a decade-plus later. The lyrics, however, make this old man cringe. Full of misogyny, murder, and more!* I can’t defend their anti-woman stance. Unless, that is, I’m being philosophical, or feeling argumentative, or viewing them historically (most of the disses were aimed at Eazy-E). Here’s an example, quoted from memory, and totally worth a couple dozen words:

Gap teeth in your mouth so my dick’s got to fit
With my nuts on your tonsils, when you’re onstage rapping at your wack-ass concert

Hateful. Repugnant. Guiltily hilarious.

* More misogyny.

41-50: Fear of a Black Planet to The Soft Bulletin

41. Public Enemy - Fear of a Black Planet

In truth, P.E. never made a perfect album. Important? Innovative? Mind-blowing? Yes. Shocking? Scary? Provocative? Sure. So, even as I quibble with album lengths and Flavor Flav (a rapper much cooler in concept than sound), I know there’s much more to love than to dislike: Lessons in history, sociology, politics. The loudest, craziest, most sample-licious beats. Chuck D’s booming baritone flow. An album, an experience, that changed this white boy’s life. And Flavor? Fine. The jester breathes fire, damning 911 operators as Chuck damns everything else. The standard to which all rappers should aspire, of which P.E. itself falls short.

42. Coldplay - Parachutes

A funny thing happened when I tried to write a novel: My narrator turned me on to this album. I already owned it, I already liked it, but somehow I decided my narrator loved it. In fact, he played it whenever he wrote, so I started to play it whenever I wrote. A cup of coffee, my favorite chair, and quiet, pretty, ethereal anthems, pretty much every day for a year. The character was already a stand-in for me – and then I became a stand-in for him. Truth is always stranger than fiction, unless that truth contains melody and atmosphere.

43. Beastie Boys - Check Your Head

Really, the Beasties’ third debut album, or at least their second reinvention, this album is the first where they sounded like grownups. That’s probably the reason I love it today. Regrettably, however, my fandom is retrograde: I claimed to hate rap in my post-grunge youth – even rap made by nerdy, whiny white boys – so I missed my chance to grow up with these boys. In college, when I finally realized what I’d missed – and realized my ignorance, stupidity, etc. – they’d long since discovered love and spirituality, in addition to videos chockablock with robots. Hence, their music has aged very well.

44. John Mayer - Heavier Things

For the first time ever, an artist truly spoke for me, or at least for the way I wanted to appear: confident but full of questions, knowing there’s something greater than myself, fearing I’ll never discover my purpose. It also helped that I viewed him as a peer, similar in age and singing poppy tunes. (His were better and bluesier than mine.) This album was something to share with my friends, a classic we envied but also admired. Basically, it dropped at the perfect time and place, starting my shift from hard to soft, admittedly making me boring and old.

45. Prince - Purple Rain

Here’s my dilemma: Music or history? Criticism or autobiography? Prince’s success or my elusive searching? I bought this tape the same year as Tapestry, not that it matters, really, at all, except to me, or maybe to you, as each new album, experience, etc., teaches and changes its listeners forever, always adding, never subtracting, notes and quotes and theories on art, discussion topics for fans and friends (one of whom wrote his thesis on the guy)... Can I just say these songs are catchy – and even though they’re in my life now, I really regret those years when they weren’t?

46. Van Halen - Van Halen

Oh, to be sixteen again, discovering the music of teenage boys everywhere, blasting this album in bedrooms and cars – the most exciting thing to happen in those places – rocking out on air guitar in homage to my hero, knowing that music has never sounded better – or louder, at least, and faster! faster!! faster!!! Praise be to Eddie, like Jimmy before him, and Jimi before him, and other guitar gods and magazine cover boys, who gave me their religion, the one I still practice, playing my guitar and this album even now, admittedly worshiping crappier deities. Oh, to not be old!

47. Tori Amos - Under the Pink

I know this guy who’s in a cult. He shares his religion with everyone he meets, giving them lectures, CDs, and books. He goes to these rallies with thousands of people, waiting in line for the chance to see his priestess, conjuring spirits, speaking in tongues. And he wonders why people don’t want to listen, devoting whole days to just one voice, finding her influence in every other woman? He must’ve forgotten his first scared impression, finding his roommate’s bootleg collection, before he developed his own sick obsession. He listens, sings, loves, quotes: "Need a woman to look after you?"

48. Nellie McKay - Get Away From Me

"When my buddy Matty G said, ‘Matt, I’m gonna marry her,’ I thought he was just a delusional fan, kinda like me at ten or eleven, telling my friends I would marry Nancy Drew. (Pause for laughter.) But Matt was serious. And twenty-five years old. (More laughter.) Of course, I had a crush on Nellie myself – I even introduced her – but how can you not when she’s so darn adorable? She sings, she raps, she plays the piano. She even has beef with Norah Jones – even though Nellie’s a vegetarian! (Uproarious hilarity.) Actually, I love her, too. (Gasp!) To Nellie!"

49. Kanye West - Late Registration

Some days, I think I’m the best critic ever, not just of music but of anything artistic. Other days, I know I’m the best unknown writer. I’m certainly the best who lives in my apartment, which also means I’m the most egotistical, the most apt to mimic Kanye West’s delivery. If I believe it, it might come true, and I might earn the equivalent of platinum plaques and Grammys. I might create something this musically adventurous. (A book on tape with Ray Charles samples?) Even as Kanye mocks my degrees, he inspires me not to let crappy rapping stop me.

50. Flaming Lips - The Soft Bulletin

Pop Quiz

True/False

14) I only wrote this down to earn some indie cred.

15) Ha! As if. I have indie cred to spare.

16) I pretty much hate all music that’s fun.

17) These answers are true, and the earlier ones were false.

Fill In The Blank

19) "Race for the Prize" is the ____ song ever about scientists.

20) "Waitin’ for a Superman" is the ____ song ever about Superman.

Multiple Choice

21) This album sounds like:
a) being amazed.
b) reveling in one’s beautiful strangeness.
c) late nights editing my collegiate alternative newspaper.
d) nothing else I’ve ever heard.

51-60: Tidal to Led Zeppelin II

51. Fiona Apple - Tidal

Her next two albums were all about production, while this, her debut, was all about the lyrics, sung in a voice both sultry and scary, bigger than her body and wiser than her years, vivid and honest and painful and real, like nothing else I’d ever heard (I didn’t know Tori or Aimee just yet), a welcome alternative to phallocentric rock, an early text for my feminist bookshelf, five gold stars for my misses-education (I still don’t know when to hold back the wordplay). This album didn’t change my life, but it did change the type of music I liked.

52. Aimee Mann - Magnolia

The best soundtrack ever to the best movie ever.

The perfect marriage of music and film, both of which comfort me in sickness and health, with songs and scenes I’ll remember till death, praying for redemption and less clunky metaphors.

Am I a guy "in need of a tourniquet"?

God, I wish I wrote with such grace.

God, I wish my voice was so distinctive.

God, I wish I were Aimee Mann.

Lyrics much better than any of my words. A sound so perfect I can’t do it justice. A singer, musician, writer, artist to whom I owe an apology.

53. Nada Surf - Let Go

In the past two years, since I started my novel, I’ve written more words on this band than any other, coming to terms with our buzzed-about pasts, albeit through the words of my Matthew Webber stand-in. (There’s a kid who’s got it figured out!) For one-hit wonders and valedictorians, the future seemed limitless in 1997. Now, we’re joined in tiny clubs by dozens of travelers whose moments have passed, singing and swaying along to these words: "I wanna know what it’s like on the inside of love." If they can continue to grow, so can I. Maybe I’ll let go.

54. Tears For Fears - Songs From the Big Chair

I did a disservice to Prince by not praising him, ignoring his pop to talk about myself, failing to mention the funk that angered Tipper. I also didn’t mention how much I hate the ‘80s, music’s fakest and cheesiest decade, which is why I’m having trouble here big-upping Tears For Fears. I love the way these guys write songs: quiet buildups, hooks galore, synthesizer fills that enhance instead of dominate. Again, the hooks, like a kindergarten coatroom. And that’s why this album transcends my eighties-phobia, probably because I discovered it later, thanks to a girl who made me a mixtape.

55. David Bowie - Ziggy Stardust

I hear this album; I hate myself. Not because of its interstellar rock, but because of how late I discovered David Bowie. I didn’t own this album until my mid-twenties, even though I’d listened to scores of his apostles. Now, I hear traces of Bowie almost everywhere, which would’ve been cool to have noticed in my youth, back when I was rocking the "classics." Instead of progressing from Nirvana to Bowie, I regressed from Nirvana to bands their singer hated, whose albums failed to educate or challenge me. Damn the corporate-rock hegemony! I learned too late this album kicks ass.

56. Beck - Odelay

Except for Sea Change, Beck’s music doesn’t move me. I don’t play his albums to dwell on my emotions. Instead, I play them because they move me. They actually make me want to dance. It’s weird, because they’re not really dance music, a genre I "hate" or "don’t understand." They’re not really rock, or rap, or funk. Instead, they’re experiments, collages, mashups. Also, of course, they’re totally ‘90s, even the ones he’s made in the ‘00s. And this one album, the one he’ll never top, sounds like the whole of my music collection, even with just a sampling of country.

57. The Muppet Movie Soundtrack

For a bunch of puppets, these things emote! Their voices aren’t what you’d call technically good, but they carry the tunes and the weight of the world. More than just a soundtrack to one of my favorite films, this album is a soundtrack to all my favorite dreams: making friends, falling in love, and daring to dream at all. Plus, according to Webber family lore, this record was the first in my now-expansive library, a gift for – sigh, do you really wanna hear it? – successfully going potty. Sigh. Regardless of that, these songs remain magical, for lovers and dreamers and you.

58. Nirvana - In Utero

Another awesome soundtrack to physical exertion, this album by Nirvana (again) kicks ass. Guitars are shredded, (ear)drums are punished, and feelings are screamed and literally bled. We actually studied these lyrics in school – albeit in a lesson by an eager student-teacher – not that I knew them without the helpful lyric sheet, not that I know what all of them mean. I do know, however, the images linger, the screams sound primal even today, and the scholarly treatment hasn’t ruined my band. Another awesome soundtrack to being young and angry – or being old and mellow and feigning youth and anger.

59. Led Zeppelin - Led Zeppelin IV

A top-ten album when I was twelve. A top-twenty album when I was sixteen. But now that I’m the age when rockers start to die, I don’t need this album, this band, in my life, at least not every day after school, or pretty much the whole damn weekend, working out or re-reading The Hobbit or aimlessly driving around and around, turning it up till it shakes my rearview mirror... which doesn’t mean I hate them or never want to hear them. (I’ll never grow out of playing "Stairway.") I just don’t love them as much as I used to.

60. Led Zeppelin - Led Zeppelin II

Again, I like them. Really. I do. I recognize their influence on music and my life, as well as how awesome they sound when I need them. But this band’s fans have told me I suck, since I’d rather spend time with Mayer and Mraz, artists who actually speak to me today. My tastes have been replaced along with my cells. But these two albums? Fine. They rock. A punch to the gut and a kick in the nads. The music, really, is unimpeachable. Still, I can’t defend the words: "Squeeze my lemon till the juice runs down my leg?"

61-70: The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill to Hedwig and the Angry Inch Soundtrack

61. Lauryn Hill - The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill

Pop Quiz: Teacher’s Edition

Analogies

22) Lauryn Hill : rap :: _______ : rock
a) Paul McCartney
b) Axl Rose

Note: Either A or B is acceptable. Like Paul, Lauryn split from a critically acclaimed and universally beloved group for an album of (silly?) love songs that equaled, if not surpassed, the work of said group. (While Paul didn’t accomplish this till Band on the Run, Lauryn accomplished this immediately. She’s bigger than a Beatle, and also, therefore, Jesus.) Also, as deeply as I love Paul, a girl I used to love loves Lauryn.

Like Axl, Lauryn’s probably crazy. I’m waiting for them both.

62. Beach Boys - Pet Sounds

After I mastered the teenage boys’ canon (Zeppelin, Aerosmith, AC/DC...), I wanted to somehow broaden my horizons. (I noticed the chicks weren’t into the Rock.) I started my quest for new and different music, singers who sang instead of screamed, guitarists who strummed instead of soloed, art that expressed a second sweet emotion, not that there’s anything wrong with lust. I also discovered the beauty of the Beach Boys, thanks to college and music magazines. Before, I’d dismissed them as corny and dumb, just because they sang about cars instead of lemons. But now I know they’re sad and brilliant.

63. Moby - Play

The album begins with a bangin’ hip-hop beat and ends in a sort of new-age-y trance, perfect for driving and dinner parties both. Otherwise, I don’t know how to describe it. Not that I need to; you’ve heard it on TV – as well as in the movies, and probably in the mall, and anyplace else where something’s being sold. Around track two, his shtick becomes obvious: sampled bluesmen, tinkling pianos, Moby’s own monotone and inexpressive sing. Around track three, his shtick becomes repetitive: sampled bluesmen, tinkling pianos, Moby’s own monotone and inexpressive singing. Somehow it works, though. Somehow it works.

64. 2Pac - Strictly 4 My N.I.G.G.A.Z.

I’m not supposed to own this album. Its title expressly forbids me from listening. And yet, I find, whenever I play it, I not only love it, I live it for an hour. A frequently jogged to, top-five classic, it’s louder and faster and angrier (and hotter) than anything else by Tupac, or rappers, or anyone else I’d dare to enjoy, but pointed, and poignant, and sorrowful, too, with violence exposed as a sorry fact of life, caused by a society that segregates and censors, which is why Dan Quayle (!) should "eat a dick up."

Also, ‘Pac predicts his death!

65. U2 - Achtung Baby

I love U2's sound here, especially the guitar, full of their trademark, chime-like reverb, and all those other supercool tricks The Edge pulls out of his stocking cap live, and also on classic records like this, as evidenced by "Until the End of the World," with playing so blistering it’s on their greatest hits, even though I’ve never heard it on the radio. You hear it one time and you know it’s The Edge, and then Bono wails as only Bono can, as confident as Christ himself, singing of love and also betrayal, making the whole world cry with "One."

66. Live - Throwing Copper

Live wins the nostalgia competition, beating Bush (1) as a one-album wonder, Collective Soul (2) as a band I don’t hate, and everyone else from 1994 (3) as the only dudes ever to mention placentas (4). Poppy, polished, possibly perfect, this album piqued my interest as the post-grunge era peaked – and actually matters in my flannel-free life. From its quiet/loud dynamics to its psychobabble lyrics, somehow it transcends itself (5).

1. See also Sponge and Toadies, the
2. See also Silverchair and Offspring, the
3. See also 1995
4. See also Nirvana's "umbilical noose"
5. See also Green Day’s Dookie

67. De La Soul - Buhloone Mind State

If you don’t get – or don’t like – rap, this rap album will buh-low your mind. I’ll bet you a mixtape you’ll laugh at least once, another that your muscles will move involuntarily (head nods, toe taps, and ass shakes all count), and another that you’ll be like, "Matt, gimme more!" It’s socially conscious and sonically adventurous, but best described with one word: fun. There’s nothing to ponder, but nothing to fear. It’s blissfully free of gunshots and ho-downs; it’s bursting with jokes and non sequiturs. Whatever you’re thinking it sounds like, it doesn’t. It’s even better than you can imagine.

68. Simon & Garfunkel - Bridge Over Troubled Water

This album is as timeless as the magazines describe it. Every song is expertly crafted, perfectly played, superbly sung... It means as much to me as it does to your parents. (Also, I crossed a bridge to it once.) It’s almost like Simon issued a challenge: "Find a better writer than me. Exhibit A: ‘The Boxer.’ Booyah! Exhibit B: the title track. I double dare you not to get chills. Here’s ‘Cecilia.’ Play it at a wedding. (And think of your mom, who has the same name.) Find a better singer and hanger-on than Garfunkel. We represent the N.Y.C., muthafuckaz!"

69. Beck - Midnite Vultures

I can’t explain why Beck is a favorite. He’s not the best musician, or singer, or rapper, or sound collagist, whatever that is, but he might be the best at doing it all. He reinvents himself better than most, to the point where not having a sound is his sound. But now I’m, like, rapping in critical jargon, instead of just singing this weird album’s praises. These songs about sexxx are truly freaky-deaky. Their unabashed horniness is goofy, not sexxxy. Their smarm is a major part of their charm. It’s totally, like, the funnest album ever. Maybe that explains it.

70. Hedwig and the Angry Inch Soundtrack

"What’s it about?" my girlfriend asked, after I’d recommended this movie. Well...

Hedwig is the story of a male-to-female tranny, on a quest for love and rock superstardom. "The Angry Inch" is her band – and her penis. Her sex-change operation got botched, you see, inspiring songs about being a freak, as well as her fear of being alone. She dreams of escaping her "Wicked Little Town" while wearing different "Wig(s) in a Box." Also, she sings about sex a lot.

It’s not a film I’d watch with my mom.

"It’s basically a love story," I said.

So it is.

71-80: Kid A to Rockin’ the Suburbs

71. Radiohead - Kid A

With this album, Radiohead stopped making anthems, and made this noise pop, these soundscapes, instead, pieces of music to study and write to, and also to criticize for not being songs, even though I play these whatevers all the time, trying, no, hoping, to find what I’ve lost: joy and excitement and hopefulness itself, for music and life and their glorious potential, to shock and challenge and be an event, when someone says, "Listen," and that’s what you do, sitting with them in silence and awe, sharing a moment of wonder and terror, fearing such sublimity will never strike again.

72. Alice In Chains - Jar of Flies

Old Matt: Why the hell do you listen to this? You’re not on drugs, you’re not suicidal–

Young Matt: Dude, I’m in high school. What’s your excuse?

OM: Well, it’s pretty–

YM: You sound surprised.

OM: It’s not like they’re known for their quiet reflections. They’re known, if at all, for their caterwauling "harmonies," as well as for putting the "in" in "heroin." It’s hard to justify liking this stuff.

YM: What’s there to justify? You said it yourself. The album’s pretty.

OM: You mean, the EP.

YM: Whatever. It’s quiet. With harmonies, yes. It’s unplugged–

OM: Shh! Just listen.

73. Beastie Boys - Licensed to Ill

All throughout high school, I hated this shit, grouping it with Coolio, Sublime, and beer as things I didn’t get or want to partake in, thereby making me boring at parties. (I always went, though, just to observe, hoping each time that something would happen. Also, I drank a lot of soda.) Everyone else would rap every word, the math of which seemed incomprehensible. (Weren’t we all seven in 1986?) Thus, this album wasn’t mine.

Later, I actually listened to it, loving the old-school beats and rhymes, wishing I’d been cooler in 1997. This album and hindsight are both funny things.

74. Jason Mraz - Waiting for My Rocket to Come

I’m hereby starting beef with this dude, hoping he’ll read this and diss me on record, thereby launching my recording career, and maybe letting me into his crew. It works for rappers, so why not singer/songwriters – especially ones who adore Young MC (an influence Mraz has actually cited)? Actually, despite his genre, and also despite his choirboy voice, Mraz’s hip-hop jones is clear. It’s there in his humor, but also his wordplay, disarmingly witty and polysyllabic. I want to write more songs like his, if only to paint in less depressive colors – and also, like him, to avoid trite cliches.

75. Bob Dylan - Blood on the Tracks

I’d never dispute the artist’s brilliance. And yet, I seldom listen to him, favoring people with prettier voices, prettier songs, and sometimes even prettier faces. Perhaps it’s because I heard him so late, or else it’s because his cult turns me off, or maybe I’m just a contrarian critic, favoring "artists" who don’t write their songs, but most of his music, sadly, fails to speak to me. It’s way too dense, too riddled with allusions, to resonate as more than an intellectual exercise – except for this album, his softest and prettiest. I listen, I mourn, I relate, I get it.

76. Nas - Illmatic

Ill-Matt-ic

Here, with wordplay witty, gritty
He chronicled a crumbling city
Here, with sampled subway trains
He rapped of people fleeing pain
Some through death and some through crime
Some through beats and some through rhymes
The best debut in all of rap
Then he made a bunch of crap

Still, his wordplay murders mine
Skillz this bad should be a crime
Even though my raps are wack
I battle Nas so he’ll attack
If he reads this, he will laugh
"What the hell is this?" he’ll ask
Yet I pray he’ll take his pen
And write a worthwhile rhyme again

77. GZA - Liquid Swords

Wanna get your nerdiest white friends excited? Ask ‘em about the Wu-Tang Clan! Raps about swordplay bond us together; heated arguments about our favorite Wu members (GZA) and solo albums (this one) make that bond inseparable. It also makes us really loud in bars. Really, really, really loud. This album, like the others, is best left undescribed. You’re better off hearing its sounds for yourself – its kung-fu samples and head-chopping beats, its battle raps and sword battle raps – than letting this white boy ruin it, excitably. Spilling more ink would lead to regret, kinda like spilling more blood. Or something.

78. Belly - King

If everyone I know is a representative sample, then I am Belly’s biggest fan. Some of you, I bet, have never even heard of them, much less listened to or bought their albums used. (However, if you’re curious, you’ll find them in the bargain bin, next to R.E.M.’s Monster and Hootie!) History will say they’re a ‘90s cliche, a Next Big Thing that never really was, a female-fronted curio better left unheard. Objectively, I might agree. Subjectively, personally, I disagree with history. I think, I feel, I know I love them, for sounding exactly like bands like this should sound.

79. Marilyn Manson - Mechanical Animals

He writes the songs that make the whole world kill – but only if you believe what you read. If you actually read his lyrics and interviews, it quickly becomes obvious that the most shocking things about this "shock rocker" are his deep insights into humanity – the depressed and occasionally depraved parts of humanity, sure, but humanity nonetheless – and his surprisingly tuneful way of conveying them. Few albums have changed my perception of an artist so completely, from willful ignorance to unabashed fandom. He writes the songs that make me want to re-read his autobiography. Music to spite other people to.

80. Ben Folds - Rockin’ the Suburbs

Surely, you have your own favorite artists, those artists whose B-sides you’ve purchased on the Internet, whose work makes you feel like you know them, and like them – like, if you got to hang with them, you’d be, like, BFFs – and though they might break their piano stools in concert, or crack your shit up with their giddy profanity, they also understand how to get inside your head, and also your heart and your soul. (It’s metaphysical.) Listing them empirically limits your expression – ranking your most-favored favorites, like, sucks – when all of their work, in whole, is what moves you.

81-90: Wish You Were Here to Under My Skin

81. Pink Floyd - Wish You Were Here

I liked Pink Floyd much better in high school; however, I still make time for them now, much more so than other former favorites, namely, The Doors and post-Black Album Metallica, staples of a teenage boy’s rock ‘n’ roll diet, at least those post-Black Album boys who watched The Doors and played guitar... and who was I talking about again? Pink Floyd? Perhaps their greatest strength is their music’s versatility. It’s perfect for writing or falling asleep, or any other setting where quietness reigns, but also for driving and testing new speakers – or really whenever you want to hear music.

82. Bjork - Homogenic

Bjork’s bizarre music is hard to describe, other than saying what I just said. I also could’ve said it’s poppy and catchy (at least until later, when it got too, well, Bjork-y), which happens to be the way I describe it. Sure, there are orchestras battling computers, and songs about whales and bachelorettes and blood – and that’s just one song, with its mesmerizing video – and Bjork’s own voice like a baby or a bird, screaming and cooing like no one else on Earth, passionate, powerful, barely controlled, hitting every note like a temple-stabbing icicle, albeit one that warms your heart.

83. Northern State - Dying in Stereo

Three white chicks who pass the mic, Northern State are the female Beastie Boys. Liberally educated, politically liberal, they target those rap fans who vote and volunteer. Despite their three albums being so phenomenal, they’ve only sold eighty-three copies to date – six of them to me and the other K-State Matt. Thus, this group is another that’s mine, one I promote through rantings and mixtapes. I seldom mention our parallel lives, both of us peaking in 2003: The group got profiled (briefly) in Spin, when I was somehow an intern there. I hear these girls; I think of New York.

84. Elton John - Goodbye Yellow Brick Road

This album is perfect for pizza-place jukeboxes, late-night walks to all-night diners, a random gift to your piano-playing mom...

I’m struggling here to say something new, to not repeat what I’ve written before, to maybe say something approaching concision, instead of treating every review like a sprawling double album in need of paring down, an action I’m thankful Elton didn’t take, allowing me to mimic his rollicking piano, one of the many that inspired Ben Folds, whose other awesome albums I fear won’t get reviewed, six months after I started writing, and one or two more before you’re going, "What?"

85. Stone Temple Pilots - Tiny Music

Pop Quiz

Word Problems

23) Tuesday morning. New STP! You simply can’t wait – it’s been years since Tiny Music, STP’s third, and third-greatest, album. Your favorite record store opens at 10. The trip takes 15 minutes by bicycle. Your first class starts at 11:30. Considering the store sells new and used CDs, how many minutes can you spend there, browsing?

24) The album you're buying has a number in its title. Multiply this by Tiny Music’s ranking.

25) How many people, besides yourself, actually bought their next and final album?

26) How many people, besides yourself, want them back together?

86. MC Paul Barman - Paullelujah!

Another def choice among tone-deaf English grad students, this guy boasts about having five fans. I’d like to argue here that everyone should hear him, rapping, as he does, about higher education, hot female authors, and, unfortunately, "Burping & Farting," but I realize he’s an acquired taste. For every rapped instruction on how to write a paper, there’s a wannabe zinger on gender relations: "There’s more of the same come where that come came from." There’s also a buttload of sick internal rhyme schemes – and even whole verses rapped in friggin’ palindrome. His flow is ill; the beats are, um, iller?

87. Guns N’ Roses - Use Your Illusion I & II

For sixteen long years, I’ve waited for the followup. Look for more words here in 2023.

88. Missy Elliott - Under Construction

For about two albums, I believed in Missy Elliott. Full of Far East sound effects and onomatopoeia, her songs were pushing envelopes in mailbags on the moon. Missy was fat, and she joked about it, phatly. Backwards rap she did? Yes hell! Sure, her R&B jams were wack. And her spoken-word interludes were clearly unrehearsed. But that was the whole of their ramshackle charm. Missy was throwing a party for everyone – black, white, male, female, old, young, East, Dirty South – anyone willing to giggle a little. She pretty much reinvented the album. So why don’t I buy her albums anymore?

89. Jay-Z - The Black Album

God, this dude’s a cocky bastard, telling you how dope he is in every other line. The new B.I.G., the hip-hop Michael Jordan, a bitch-free dude with ninety-nine problems... Actually, homeboy’s the hip-hop Dizzy Dean, ‘cause it ain’t braggin’ if you rap about rapping. (I’ve got ninety-nine problems, too, but baseball allusions sure ain’t one.) All this dude’s albums are perfect for businessmen; they’re self-help books on tape, with beats: "How to Make Records for Affluent People," "Don’t Sweat the Small Stuff (That’s Just Nas)." This one has my favorite beats; thus, it’s my favorite to blast on my commute.

90. Avril Lavigne - Under My Skin

I’ve already written and argued this to death. I don’t care who wrote these songs. I don’t care how "authentic" they’re not. I don’t even care how annoying Avril is. All I care about is how the music sounds: well-played, well-sung, well-written (by whomever); darker in tone and subject than expected; something I love despite myself, for all the previous reasons and more. (Um, I’m a 28-year-old man. Hello?) You shouldn’t judge art for what it’s not. This album, I believe, is great for what it is. Compared to Beethoven, sure, it’s shit. Compared to Britney, it’s solid gold.

91-99: (What’s the Story) Morning Glory? to I’m Wide Awake, It’s Morning

91. Oasis - (What’s the Story) Morning Glory?

If a band wants to pick a band to rip off, The Beatles are a better choice than most. You don’t have to be a virtuoso on your instrument, you don’t have to be a genius with your lyrics, and you don’t even have to enjoy your band mates’ company. All you need is love – and tunes. (Numerous Beatle references probably can’t hurt.) No band has ripped off The Beatles more blatantly than Oasis, so few have come as close to the early Beatles’ tunefulness. (Others are much more original about it.) Mind-sticking melodies + universal platitudes = this collection of cocksure classics.

92. Dave Matthews Band - Crash

I finally saw this band in concert, which means I saw them years too late. I really should’ve seen them in college or earlier, when I would’ve appreciated their jamming much more, instead of checking my watch on a work night. But at least I’m not sick of their songs anymore. In college, you see, their music was everywhere: every dorm room, every lawn, every open mic night in every campus coffeehouse... I never needed to play my copies, hearing everyone else’s every day. Now I can miss this band’s best work and hear it with fondness instead of dread.

93. Neil Young - Harvest

Reading reviews of Neil Young today, I’m struck by the claim that he almost sold out. What, because this album’s accessible, Young can’t be an iconoclast anymore? For someone who’s made a career out of changing, why wouldn’t this change also be acceptable? I don’t know, and I don’t care. It wouldn’t be the first time a "sellout" album spoke to me. I know I love the lyrics and melodies. I know I love how American it sounds, despite or because the artist is Canadian. I know I’d love to make such a statement, capturing the world in three-minute tunes.

94. The Who - Who’s Next

The best drum solo in all recorded history. The least cheesy use of a synthesizer ever. One of rock’s most famous screams. A cover with rock gods peeing on an obelisk. Yes, this album truly has it all. Despite or because it’s not a concept album, Who’s Next is more cohesive – and better – than Tommy. (Of course, at sixteen, I disagreed, vehemently.) Credit is due to Pete Townsend’s songcraft, which reaches its zenith on "Baba O’Riley," which pointedly articulates a strange "teenage wasteland." Exhibit A that words are overrated, but playing your heart out never, ever is. Play it loudly.

95. Hole - Celebrity Skin

"God, this guy has horrible taste. This shitty band appears on here twice? What about my favorite band? Or anyone more important than this? I’m sick of him praising this copycat crap. His stupid, indefensible, subjective beliefs... doesn’t he know how objectively they suck? I bet he’s gonna say he heard this in college, and its ‘bittersweet sound’ reminds him of something – emotions and feelings and homework and shit – or else he just likes it, you know? He likes it! I bet he’s not being contrarian either. He actually likes this shit unironically. This is something we have to debate."

96. Smashing Pumpkins - Adore

"Dude, we get it. You love the ‘90s. Since Billy’s the decade’s quintessential rock star, at least among those who didn’t die, you like him more than you can explain. Despite and because your moment has passed, you bought his comeback album, didn’t you? You claim to like it, but do you? Really? Isn’t it just a reclamation project, for Billy and you and everyone else, now that we’ve all moved on to other people – which, in your case, are quiet singer/songwriters? Thus, despite Adore’s techno touches, doesn’t it preview the stuff you like now? Quiet? Melodic? Wussy? It’s you!"

97. Red Hot Chili Peppers - Californication

"What, no Foo Fighters? Green Day? Sponge? Didn’t you mention The Toadies earlier? Weren’t you into Spacehog in college? I know you like to sing along – you’re probably a dork who likes to try to harmonize – so I guess this album is ‘perfect’ for that. I guess it’s loaded with ‘hummable tunes.’ I’m sure it reminds of you of people and places, since that’s what you seem to value in music, as well as its, I don’t know, ‘fiery fretwork,’ ‘lecherous grooves,’ and ‘lyrical gangsterdom.’

"You gave your game away too early. I’d write a poem, but you’d get surly."

98. Marvin Gaye - What’s Going On

Finally, an album that’s actually important, not just to me, but also to the world, as Marvin’s questions remain unanswered. What’s going on? Well, that one’s easy. War, greed, poverty, racism... the sorts of ills a pop song can’t cure. And that’s why Marvin’s asking why. If everyone knows what’s going on, why don’t we try to better this world? Why don’t we stop to listen to each other? If nothing else, we should listen to Marvin. Spreading love and soothing pain, Marvin’s voice comes close to breaking – all the hearts of everyone listening. Even his sighs convey the truth.

99. Bright Eyes - I’m Wide Awake, It’s Morning

The newest and Dylan-est of all the "new Dylans," Conor Oberst transcends this lame shorthand. Sure, his band’s music is pure Americana, a mix of country, folk, and rock. Sure, he wields his pen like a sword, which actually makes his liner notes readable, to see if he really said what you heard. Dylan’s the best, but Conor’s just Conor, an artist who’ll inspire "new Conors" in the future. In a world of computers, he’s bringing wordplay back; you other troubadours don’t know how to act.

I still want someone to be the new me. Take that to the bridge.

100. Vanilla Ice - To the Extreme

100. Vanilla Ice - To the Extreme

No, I’m not being ironic or contrarian. Or funny, cutesy, amusing, etc. What I’m doing is being real. I simply can’t leave this album out.

I truly, honestly love this album. At least I used to, which means I still do, remembering a time when I wasn’t so critical, when I didn’t even own five albums to rank, when I loved music just because.

I love it subjectively, irrationally, openly. It’s not a guilty pleasure at all.

I know this choice is indefensible.

I know I’ve lost my critical credibility.

I’ve probably lost my dignity, too.

Word to your mother.

100. Vanilla Ice - To the Extreme

Nope, I’m not the least bit objective, knowing, as I do, how bad this album is, but knowing, also, how music works. I’ve never forgotten how much this album meant to me, as something I’d bought with my very own money, a totem I’d chosen to represent myself.

I still know most of the words to this – the whole goddamn album, not just "Ice Ice Baby," a song that always makes me feel happy, giggling like the former schoolboy I am – and rap them whenever I’m feeling extreme. Vanilla ice cream? V.I.P. passes? These are the triggers to schoolboy flashbacks.

100. Vanilla Ice - To the Extreme

My other early, pre-grunge cassettes? Stashed in a drawer, forever unplayed. This dumb album? I never stopped playing it, all throughout high school and college and beyond, and even today for the sake of having fun.

Music doesn’t always need to be meaningful. It doesn’t need to change the world. As long as it changes your world, it’s enough.

Just remember the year I was born, and everything I’ve written on music, life, and memory. I won’t apologize for liking this music. I can’t apologize for being myself.

This album deserves its honorary ranking. Why? Because there’s no other choice.

Albums I’d Stash in My Desert-Island Travel Bag

Tori Amos, Boys for Pele & From the Choirgirl Hotel. Fiona Apple, Extraordinary Machine. Beatles, Let It Be. Busta Rhymes, Extinction Level Event. Cake, Comfort Eagle. Eagles, Hotel California. Fleetwood Mac, Rumours. Ben Folds, ...Reinhold Messner. Foo Fighters, The Colour and the Shape. Green Day, Dookie. Megadeth, Countdown to Extinction. NWA, Straight Outta Compton. Beth Orton, Central Reservation. Pearl Jam, Vitalogy. Liz Phair. Poe, Haunted. Pulp, This Is Hardcore. Radiohead, The Bends. Run-DMC, Raising Hell. Spacehog, Resident Alien. Sponge, Rotting Pinata. Justin Timberlake, Justified. Toadies, Rubberneck. Tupac, Me Against the World. Van Halen, Fair Warning. Rufus Wainwright, Poses. Brian Wilson, Smile.

Matthew Webber's 100 Albums

The Printable List

1. Beatles - Abbey Road
2. Jeff Buckley - Grace
3. Guns N’ Roses - Appetite for Destruction
4. Nirvana - Nevermind
5. Billy Joel - The Stranger
6. Stone Temple Pilots - Purple
7. Tori Amos - Little Earthquakes
8. Pink Floyd - The Dark Side of the Moon
9. Radiohead - OK Computer
10. Beastie Boys - Paul’s Boutique

11. Beatles - The White Album
12. Pearl Jam - Ten
13. Beck - Sea Change
14. Ben Folds Five - Whatever and Ever Amen
15. Elliott Smith - XO
16. Rufus Wainwright - Want One
17. Beatles - Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band
18. Aimee Mann - Lost in Space
19. Blur - The Great Escape
20. Smashing Pumpkins - Siamese Dream

21. Red Hot Chili Peppers - Blood Sugar Sex Magic
22. Weezer - The Blue Album
23. Hole - Live Through This
24. Pink Floyd - The Wall
25. Smashing Pumpkins - Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness
26. R.E.M. - Automatic for the People
27. Metallica - The Black Album
28. Eminem - The Marshall Mathers LP
29. The Notorious B.I.G. - Ready to Die
30. Outkast - Speakerboxxx/The Love Below

31. Stone Temple Pilots - Core
32. Fiona Apple - When the Pawn
33. A Tribe Called Quest - The Low End Theory
34. Beatles - Rubber Soul
35. Beatles - Revolver
36. Carole King - Tapestry
37. Nirvana - Unplugged in New York
38. U2 - The Joshua Tree
39. Beatles - Magical Mystery Tour
40. Dr. Dre - The Chronic

41. Public Enemy - Fear of a Black Planet
42. Coldplay - Parachutes
43. Beastie Boys - Check Your Head
44. John Mayer - Heavier Things
45. Prince - Purple Rain
46. Van Halen - Van Halen
47. Tori Amos - Under the Pink
48. Nellie McKay - Get Away From Me
49. Kanye West - Late Registration
50. Flaming Lips - The Soft Bulletin

51. Fiona Apple - Tidal
52. Aimee Mann - Magnolia
53. Nada Surf - Let Go
54. Tears For Fears - Songs From the Big Chair
55. David Bowie - Ziggy Stardust
56. Beck - Odelay
57. The Muppet Movie Soundtrack
58. Nirvana - In Utero
59. Led Zeppelin - Led Zeppelin IV
60. Led Zeppelin - Led Zeppelin II

61. Lauryn Hill - The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill
62. Beach Boys - Pet Sounds
63. Moby - Play
64. 2Pac - Strictly 4 My N.I.G.G.A.Z.
65. U2 - Achtung Baby
66. Live - Throwing Copper
67. De La Soul - Buhloone Mind State
68. Simon & Garfunkel - Bridge Over Troubled Water
69. Beck - Midnite Vultures
70. Hedwig and the Angry Inch Soundtrack

71. Radiohead - Kid A
72. Alice In Chains - Jar of Flies
73. Beastie Boys - Licensed to Ill
74. Jason Mraz - Waiting for My Rocket to Come
75. Bob Dylan - Blood on the Tracks
76. Nas - Illmatic
77. Genius/GZA - Liquid Swords
78. Belly - King
79. Marilyn Manson - Mechanical Animals
80. Ben Folds - Rockin’ the Suburbs

81. Pink Floyd - Wish You Were Here
82. Bjork - Homogenic
83. Northern State - Dying in Stereo
84. Elton John - Goodbye Yellow Brick Road
85. Stone Temple Pilots - Tiny Music
86. MC Paul Barman - Paullelujah!
87. Guns N’ Roses - Use Your Illusion I & II
88. Missy Elliott - Under Construction
89. Jay Z - The Black Album
90. Avril Lavigne - Under My Skin

91. Oasis - (What’s the Story) Morning Glory?
92. Dave Matthews Band - Crash
93. Neil Young - Harvest
94. The Who - Who’s Next
95. Hole - Celebrity Skin
96. Smashing Pumpkins - Adore
97. Red Hot Chili Peppers - Californication
98. Marvin Gaye - What’s Going On
99. Bright Eyes - I’m Wide Awake, It’s Morning
100. Vanilla Ice - To the Extreme

--11:45 p.m., November 10, 2007

October 25, 2007

Bright Eyes, Big City

So, after very little prompting from a friend (who basically said if I had the time and the money I should check it out), I decided to go to Monday night's Bright Eyes concert here in Milwaukee after all. I mean, it was a weeknight, I had the cash, and I live in the Midwest, so what else was I gonna do?

Surprisingly, in light of his wimpy reputation, Conor Oberst and his band came ready to rock. They played a mostly electric, and always loud, set that definitely convinced at least this attendee that he's a true Rock God -- a boyish, frail-looking Rock God whom I could probably take in a fight, but a Rock God nonetheless.

Conor was so confident in his benevolent Powers of Rock that he mostly ignored the songs from this year's Cassadaga album in favor of some older, harder numbers. (Unfortunately, I can't give you a playlist, because I just got into Bright Eyes two albums ago.) In fact, he only played one song from his most recent release, a song that, much to my chagrin, wasn't "Four Winds," a song that's on my shortlist for Song of the Year. (Other contenders, among many, on this not-so-short list include Rufus Wainwright's "Going to a Town," Lady Sovereign's "Random," and Aly & AJ's "Potential Breakup Song." Sigh. If only I were joking.)

Our boy was "in fine voice" all evening, as boring and unoriginal newspaper writers like to say, and very, um, intense. He came to rock, and nothing else, certainly not to chitchat. He didn't address the audience until the encore, although his drummer made a couple of dorky and poorly timed announcements throughout the show. Note: A drummer talking is always a bad idea, folks.

For his grand finale, The Boy Wonder kicked over his amp, slammed his guitar on top of it, and rammed this new instrument to the foot of the stage, where he damn near poked out some poor chick's eye, before exiting the stage to the accompaniment of much squealing (from all the feedback) and, um, even more squealing (from all those Indie Kids in ill-fitting jeans). Note: Skin-tight jeans are a worse idea, people.

In contrast to a previous Milwaukee show from earlier in the tour (or so I've overheard), he kept his on-stage drinking to a minimum. While he did occasionally swig from a bottle of beer, he thankfully didn't fall on top of any of his bandmates or have to be carried off the stage afterwards by a security guard (in much the same way, one imagines, as Jesus was carried by his Mother from the cross and directly onto the canvas of a Renaissance painting, if the hushed, reverent recountings of Conor's earlier performance are to be believed).

Basically, he gave the old fans something fresh and all the fans, both old and new, something fierce.

In short, and somewhat unexpectedly, he rocked. At length, he rocked my Nicolas-Cage-John-Travolta-face-switching-movie.

So, no more troubadourdom (troubadordumb?) for him, no sirree. He left that to his snooze-inducing opening acts.

Mixtape Time!

I may have purchased my last new CD of 2007 today: We Are The Pipettes, the debut album of the British girl group the Pipettes that I've seriously been hearing tracks from since 2006. Seriously. At least they added a couple of tracks for this belated American version.

So why's it my last album of the year? I realized today, as I started planning the tracklist(s) for my now annual year-end mixtape(s) -- when I was supposed to be proofreading descriptions of all the latest High School Musical pajama sets at work -- that I'm still struggling to digest all the music I discovered this year. I just kept buying and buying and listening and listening... So now's as good a time as any to get to know some of those albums a bit more intimately. Take 'em out to dinner or something.

Plus, according to Rolling Stone's preview of upcoming albums, there's absolutely nothing coming out for the rest of the year that I want to purchase. So I'm done. Mixtape time!

While I don't have any statistics in front of me, and while I don't even keep such statistics, I'm pretty sure I bought more CDs this year than I ever did before. Further, I feel like I'm simply into music more now than I ever was before, with the ever expanding amount of shows I attend, the artists I absolutely love, and the words I'm still able to spill on the subject whenever I find the time. There are so many musicians out there writing and playing songs for me that I almost feel religious about it. Like, if there really is a God, the music He's giving me is the proof that He exists. (My boy Kurt Vonnegut said something similar but much more profound.)

So, instead of talking about it all, here's my tentative top 5 albums list of 2007: the Once soundtrack, Rufus Wainwright, Rilo Kiley, Tori Amos, and... Brandi Carlile? Arcade Fire? Common? Shit, it's too early. I can't do it yet. I'm pretty sure nothing will top Once, though, as either a movie or a film, at least in their total impact on my life. Definitely watch for it on DVD.

And, as I might have mentioned, briefly, to some of you a couple months ago, the Rufus Wainwright show I saw might have been the best show ever. I wanted to write a review of it, but I feared I couldn't do it justice, so here's a string of words and phrases just for you, without any punctuation: filmed by the guy who filmed Gimme Shelter and several hours long with all the new songs and most of the hits and several awesome do-overs and costume changes and a Judy Garland tribute with voice and piano in almost perfect form and opera and jokes and totally utterly gay gay gay.

Hey, are any of you into Rilo Kiley at all? Their new album was pretty much targeted directly to me. The band was all, "Hi. You might know us from that one girl at work's music collection. You know, the one band of hers that you actually like and you don't have to lie about liking? That one. Anyway, we're on a major label now, and we're pretty much going to sell out by blending all of our rock, country, and pop influences into one poppy mixtape, with a little bit of rock, and a whole lot less country, and we're gonna make every track sound like a single. Love, Rilo Kiley."

Love,
Matt

September 11, 2007

The First 100

Congratulations to my good friend Matt Groneman for being the first person to finish his Top 100 list! I'm only slightly jealous he beat me... by about three months. But please visit his blog, The Cultural Impresario, read his list, and argue with it. And then write your own.

September 10, 2007

The Greatest Man

An excerpt from my forthcoming memoir:

Paul turned to me and said, "You play guitar?" and I was like, "Yeah," and he was like, "Cool," and there I was playing on stage with my hero. Sir Paul McCartney was singing "Hey Jude," close enough for me to hug him or punch him, or do what I did, which was dumbly strum along, with President Clinton smiling from the wings. (Of course, that pun was totally intended.) Ten minutes later, my novel was finished, cancer didn't exist anymore, and your favorite hot actress was texting me emoticons. The hand of God had clapped, and I liked it, better than even your mom, whom I loved.

Sadly, I knew, the moment was fleeting, and the bitter wind of destiny would blow me on my course, a path beset with hungry wolves and other scary metaphors -- and long and winding run-on sentences, probably ungrammatical. I thought of my youth, and I thought of my sled, and "Rosebed" fell from my lips like a loogie.

Being the Greatest Man was a curse...

The Long and Winding Novel Excerpts

From my unfinished novel, Most Likely to Succeed

Because even when I'm writing fiction, I'm really writing music reviews.

1. Jordan’s All-Time Top-Eight Albums

That summer, I listened to The Beatles everyday, preferring their work from the years when they weren’t on speaking terms. The Beatles, or The White Album, was then my all-time favorite, just as The Beatles were then my favorite band.

As I cleverly opined in "The Long and Winding Column" (The Rage, October, sophomore year), "Not only were The Beatles bigger than Jesus, but they harmonized better, too."

Two other albums by The Beatles, Abbey Road and Sgt. Pepper, also ranked high on my All-Time Top-Ten Albums list, following albums with skulls (Guns N’ Roses’ Appetite for Destruction), a naked baby (Nirvana’s Nevermind), and a dead guy (Jeff Buckley’s Grace) on their covers. Sure, the covers totally ruled, but the music on the albums was pretty cool, too.

The next two albums were by The Smashing Pumpkins (Siamese Dream and the double-disc Mellon Collie), and I better stop soon – or rather, like, now – so whatever this is remains what it is and doesn’t turn into a Special List Issue (Entertainment Weekly, seemingly every three months).

2. Jordan’s Stereo vs. Johnny’s iPod

My problem was I read too much: The Catcher in the Rye (again and again and again), Romeo and Juliet, Huckleberry Finn... And I watched too many movies like Rebel Without a Cause. And I listened to songs like DJ Jazzy Jeff and the Fresh Prince’s "Parents Just Don’t Understand," which I heard every Friday for a two-to-three-year period, thanks to our attendance at Roller World’s "Flashback Friday."

I know, I know, it’s a silly example, but it’s also the one that proves my point the easiest: Parents just don’t understand, no duh, not in the world’s greatest masterpieces anyway. (Will Smith’s other masterpiece is "Girls Ain’t Nothin’ But Trouble." No shit.)

Perhaps it was the Beatles, my parents’ favorite band, who made me less reticent than usual to speak, at least until after I’d drunk a second cup, at which time I’d start to enjoy my verbal rants. I can’t understate the importance of the Beatles, the consensus pick for the best band ever, in a rare case of the huddled masses being right. Other examples include the deliciousness of pizza, the comfort of jeans, and the total adorability of babies.

Or perhaps The Smashing Pumpkins, whom I’d listened to up in my bedroom, had awakened or invigorated or otherwise inspired me: to express myself outwardly, to re-think my habit of internalizing everything, and to seek a connection with other human beings, instead of merely substituting writing and reading for living.

Sandwiched between The Beatles and Nirvana, The Smashing Pumpkins were then the number-two artist on my All-Time Top-Ten Musical Artists list. As I theorized in "The Greatest Band of Our Time?" (The Rage, May/June, freshman year), The Smashing Pumpkins are "at least the greatest band to have named themselves after a gourd."

Even though the band had their heyday when I was in kindergarten, I somehow fell in love with them when I was in junior high, thanks to an Ottumwa, Iowa, radio station, which only came in on clear nights in the summertime, and its hourly rock blocks, organized by decade.

I knew and believed and understood completely the rage and the loneliness and the pain in the lyrics. And the knowledge of being unique and alone was something I related to and let myself be defined by. And the music itself was the sound of pure emotion, somehow giving melody to everything I felt, from whispering doubt to deafening uncertainty to all the shades of pink in between, with piercing guitars and face-busting drums, which broke and mended and re-broke my heart.

Billy Corgan, the band’s singer, guitarist, and songwriter, was one of the heroes in my personal pantheon, right up there with Thomas Jefferson (because even great men can be hypocrites), Jeopardy! whiz kid Ken Jennings (living proof that nerdiness can be lucrative), and Mr. Peanut himself, Mr. George Washington Carver (without whom we wouldn’t know the joy of Reese’s Pieces). And Benjamin Franklin, who goes without saying. (See chapter one for a discourse on his bad ass.)

But The Beatles, not The Pumpkins, were playing during breakfast, and "Paperback Writer" came on the stereo. You could say the song was becoming my anthem. It was either that, or The Smashing Pumpkins’ "Zero." In third place was another fine choice, Elvis Costello’s "Everyday I Write the Book."

Johnny, to provoke me, said, "Is this the Monkees?" Johnny, a daydream believer himself, had dated three homecoming queens in the tri-county area in just that one summer. The twinkle in his eyes revealed he was playing.

I took the bait. I tried to play back. "You know who this is," I said, with a razor’s-edge less of an edge than usual. I wasn’t exactly what anyone would call cheerful, but at least I was less dour than my usual pre-noon self. "Take a wager. Who do you think?"

Johnny, as always, was nice enough to humor me. "The Kinks? Herman’s Hermits?" Wow. Where’d that come from? His musical knowledge surprised me that morning. Typically, he listened to "whatever’s on the radio," and he didn’t buy CDs or read music magazines like I did. He claimed his favorite rock bands were Green Day and Metallica, even though, when questioned by me, he couldn’t name five of either band’s songs.

When he ran, somewhat inexplicably to me, he listened to guys like John Mayer and Jason Mraz, acoustic singer/songwriters who "put (him) in the zone." His iPod was full of Jack Johnson downloads, songs that were as mellow and cool as the listener. "They help to clear my head," he once told me. "They help me not to think. It’s music to run a sub-five-minute mile to." For me to run a sub-nine-minute mile, I would’ve required an all-star, all-ghost band: John Lennon’s songs, Jimi Hendrix’s guitar, Keith Moon’s drums, Janis Joplin’s vocals, and Beethoven’s and Mozart’s dueling pianos.

His theme song, in my mind, though, was Nada Surf’s "Popular," full of "Johnny Football Hero" and his conniving "cheerleader chick." Yes, of course, my brother ran cross country, but just that summer, he’d dated two cheerleaders. Also, after winning state, he’d become "the biggest fish in (the) pond," the guy who set the standard for "being attractive," which, of course, as everyone anywhere knows, is pretty much "the most important thing there is" in high school.

3. The Nada Surf Defense

I’ll end by sharing one key detail: My favorites, as a rule, were not from this millennium, except for Nada Surf’s Let Go, which the band released when I was in middle school – i.e, those years when we’re all the most impressionable. Nada Surf, as I say, and I say it quite often, is kind of, like, well, I guess, like, "my band," as no one I’ve ever met owns this album, and everyone who’s heard of them thinks they’re one-hit wonders.

But Let Go, their third album, has a song that’s even better: "Inside of Love," which I learned about in a chatroom. "‘Inside of Love,’" wrote NadaBoy8, "will change ur pathetic life." Endquote.

And I myself asserted as much, in "Three Important Rules for Breaking Down Your CD Collection, or Why Nada Surf Deserves to Be ‘Popular’" (The Rage, December, freshman year):

The alternative-rock trio Nada Surf, known today, if at all, for their one big hit, "Popular," an MTV "Buzz Clip" that was popular (get it?) back in our elementary school daze, makes me feel like a schoolgirl with a secret, which is something I don’t even know how it feels, other than giddy and dying to tell you.

Their recent CD,
Let Go, is their masterpiece, despite or because it lacks the song "Popular," and because, not despite, it has a better song, the beautiful, moving "Inside of Love," perhaps, no joke, the greatest song ever, a song that, if the world were right, and if the world were fair and just, and if this silly world of ours were not afraid to love, well, it’s the one that would be their one hit, a new "Amazing Grace" or "The Star-Spangled Banner," an improved "Hallelujah" or "Y.M.C.A.," because it deserves to commemorate your life, a life that, once you’ve heard this song, deserves to be commemorated.

And sure, that’s hyperbole, like I’m foaming at mouth, but I meant it when I said it, and I’ve sometimes meant it since. I sent the piece to Rolling Stone, where it must’ve gotten lost.

September 9, 2007

Goodwill Hunting: We Are The World

The first post from my other blog, The Battle of Hastings:

Goodwill Hunting:
Record Reviews of Actual Records!

My studio apartment doubles as a library, with hundreds of DVDs, CDs, and books – and now, even records, actual records, warped and dusty, but surprisingly playable. For just one dollar, sometimes less, I can add whole albums to my music collection, a bargain too good to be anything but true.

With prices so low – they must be crazy! – I’ll gamble on a record, or two, or a dozen, where maybe I wouldn’t on a higher-priced CD (even though thrift stores sell them, too, often for less than $2.99). I’ll double up on albums I already own, just so I’ll own them in their older, cooler forms. I’ll even buy albums I’ve only slightly heard of, or albums I suspect will suck, just because there’s nothing to lose, except space.

And some people wonder why I don’t have an iPod. Ninety-nine cents for just one track?! Apple’s treasure is this man’s trash; Goodwill’s trash is this man’s treasure. St. Vincent de Paul is my rock (or my source); armories of misfit Toys in the Attics are my salvation.

But anyway, here’s a fossil I found:

USA For Africa, We Are The World

Like The Beatles’ Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band, an album often named by music magazines and the Sgt. Pepper liner notes as the greatest of all time, the cover of USA For Africa’s We Are The World features a group photo of musicians and melty-faced wax statues (no less than six Jacksons took part in this “historical recording”!) for future pop-cultural historians (um, me, I guess) to struggle to identify. Thankfully for me, there’s a list of names on the front. Sadly for the members of Huey Lewis’ backing band, “& The News” is listed collectively.

Some of the faces are obvious today. Others are James Ingram and Jeffrey “Definitely Not Ozzy” Osborne. But peep this collection of mid-‘80s talent! Dylan, Springsteen, (Lionel) Richie... that Geldof dude who organizes benefits (he also played Pink in Pink Floyd’s The Wall!)... two token blind guys (and four other posers in sunglasses, indoors)... and, leading off the alphabetical lineup, Dan Aykroyd, representing all the white people who ripped off black people’s music, I guess. (In 1985, when this record was released, the Sgt. Pepper-suited Michael Jackson was still identifiable as a member of the latter race. The banana-suited LaToya, however, is as white as Kenny Rogers’ USA For Africa sweatshirt and matching beard.)

But more than merely a “We Are The World” single, We Are The World is an album, you see. Sure, there’s the song that everyone knows, but then you discover the deep album cuts: “Nine Previously Unreleased Songs,” according to the back cover, or “Nine New Superstar Songs!” according to the front (exclamation point mine). Here’s the tracklist in decreasing superstardom: Prince & The Revolution, Bruce Springsteen & The E Street Band (so far, so good), Tina Turner, Chicago, The Pointer Sisters (good at one time, or so I’ve been told), Huey Lewis & The News (great in Back To The Future), Steve Perry (solo), and Kenny Rogers (ugh).

The ninth superstar is Northern Lights, a supergroup you’ve never heard of, even though you’ve heard of some of its members. Unfortunately for actual superstars Joni Mitchell and Neil Young, the list of Canadian recording artists (Northern Lights, get it?) is alphabetical, so higher billing goes to the artists you’ve heard of either slightly less or possibly not at all: Bryan Adams, John Candy, Corey Hart, Gordon Lightfoot, Anne Murray, Aldo Nova (who?), Oscar Peterson (um?), and Mike Reno (who’s probably not even real). “And Others” also appear.

But wait! There’s more! Holy pop-cultural artifact, Hatman (my new nickname for the goofily hatted Steve Perry)! The record sleeve is an ad for even more outdated USA For Africa products: books, buttons, pins, posters, sweatshirts, T-shirts, and muscle T-shirts! USA! USA!! USA!!!

Tragically, this offer ended Feb. 1, 1986.

Before I even played this record, I knew the following statements would be true:

1. The title track is gonna be treacly.

2. The superstar B-sides are gonna be bad.

3. This is where Quincy Jones jumped the shark.

After one play, I knew I was right. This processed cheese is why I hate the ‘80s. (The Prince and Bruce cuts aren’t too bad, thought.) Also, although we might be the world, we actually harmed the world with this music. (And Steve Perry, please, just reunite with Journey.) I’ll file this record as a conversation starter, not as something I’m going to play.

August 27, 2007

Billy Corgan's Super Hits!

Zero

I’m struggling with something Billy Corgan’s never known: a chronic case of writer’s block. I don’t have a buddy to drum me into shape. I don’t have a file of B-side reviews. I’m not so confident (read: megalomaniacal) to name this comeback article Zeitgeist, as if it’s ‘95 again and melancholy rules. My style hasn’t influenced hungry young writers to pick up their laptops and cite me as their hero. (Are any My Chemical Romance fans reading this?) I never had a Zwan, just a bunch of solo projects, works that meant the world to me but everyone else ignored. Despite all my rage, I’m basically a blogger. Emptiness is loneliness and loneliness is cleanliness and cleanliness is my alphabetized CD collection.

1979

Probably the best partial year of my life. I slept a lot and ate a lot and women called me cute. When the decade ended, so did my innocence, or at least the carefree part of me that liked to watch mobiles. Born the same year as a Billy Corgan memory, it seemed I was born to rock the fuck out. Even though the Pumpkins wouldn’t smash till I was twelve, I’d already mastered the screams of their genre. I’d also mastered the smell of grunge.

Blinking With Fists

Sixteenth summer. Parents’ car. Everything hot and oppressive as hell. The radio played my new favorite songs, including some tracks from this one upcoming album – a double CD with six distinct singles – as well as the same band’s Fleetwood Mac cover. The band’s old hits had never stopped playing, their noise and their speed in sync with the car, louder, faster, zooming onward, somehow never falling apart. I wasn’t sure what they meant, but I got them, gleaning their truths from daily repetition. They sounded like lessons I needed to hear. They felt like memories I needed to keep.

As the Smashing Pumpkins rattled the windows, frivolous pop was an object in the mirror. Ahead of the car, my life stretched out, full of questions and glimpses of answers, blurry directional signs and lights, from dawn to dusk, from twilight to starlight, the greatest days I’d ever known, scenes I’d try to re-create later, minus the pain of being a boy, plus the pain of being an adult, listening, writing, never slowing down, wondering now if I took the right path, mixing my words like vanity poetry.

They might not have been the world’s biggest band, but they were the biggest band in my world.

But even back then, I was old in my shoes.

Today

I’m somewhat old now, damn near thirty, and most of my idols are peddling nostalgia. Rage Against The Machine is back, raging against your last sixty dollars. Pearl Jam headlined Lollapalooza, playing songs with riffs again. Velvet Revolver is a teenage boy’s dream team, or really a bloated old-timer’s game. Get up, get, get, get down, Flavor Flav’s job is a joke in your town. (Chuck D, bless him, is lecturing at colleges.) At least ol’ Tupac’s still making records.

And half of the Smashing Pumpkins are back, the only two band mates who ever really mattered: Billy, of course, and drummer Jimmy Chamberlin, a.k.a. Billy’s best friend forever, Billy’s partner for all his projects (except for Adore, when Billy kicked him out), and perhaps the only person in the world Billy likes.

Here’s how the credits of their new album read, typographical quirks intact:

songs by WILLIAM PATRICK CORGAN
performed artfully by
JIMMY CHAMBERLIN: DRUMS / BILLY CORGAN: ALL THE REST

So basically, yeah, it’s your typical Billy project.

This comeback of sorts – because Billy never left – seems to pose questions for a self-indulgent essay: Can this band capture the Zeitgeist again? Can a former teenager still rock out, now that he’s living as a twenty-something drone? Why the hell is “Tarantula” called that, other than the fact that tarantulas are scary? Did I ever really care about Billy’s deep thoughts, especially those on the state of the union? Good or bad, kick-ass or shitty, how will this album affect the band’s legacy? How do I judge it – against what criteria – Siamese Dream or someone else’s album? Do I really prefer the Stone Temple Pilots, a more collective songwriting team, equally ambitious and occasionally maligned, whose body of work contains less filler – but also less of everything else? Am I actually damning Billy’s productivity? Why the hell do I listen to music? What do I even get from it anyway? If someone honestly wanted to know – “What does music mean to you now? Why does it remain such a force in your life?” – would playing this band’s greatest hits be acceptable? Is it possible today to love them like I used to, back in the days when everything was new, before I became so critical and boring? Does the fact that Billy sounds like himself – after he tried to sound like the Cure – make him consistent or merely repetitive? Does this make Zeitgeist rad, or a failure? Really, isn’t it better than Gish? That unmistakable voice – do I hate it?

What would I think, if I were sixteen?

Holy fucking shit, this rocks. Loud and fast and heavy and hard and kinda like “Zero” thirteen times over. Actually, no, it’s more like disc two, or maybe a bunch of Mellon Collie B-sides, any of which could really be singles, compared to some of the shit on the radio. I bet I’m gonna play this album a lot. I bet it’ll sound really cool on the highway. How the hell does Billy do it? Does he simply wake up, eat breakfast, and write? I can’t wait till 1997!

At twenty-eight, I crave more variety. I miss the occasional piano-based ballads, or maybe just songs without so much distortion, or anything else to save me from the pummeling. I also would prefer some prettier melodies, or something as perfect as “Disarm” or, well, “Perfect.”

“Tarantula,” though, is monstrously rad, and so are the songs with these words in their titles: “Doomsday,” “Black,” and “Bleeding the Orchid.” “United States,” whatever it’s about, also rocks my ramparts off. With or without my gratuitous profanity, the album does, as the kids say, rock. I give it at least a thousand words, some of which, hopefully, won’t be rock. Maybe I’ll drop a couple of rads.

Zeitgeist isn’t as great as I hoped. It clearly falls short of capturing its title. You can’t go back to 1995. But thankfully, it’s not as bad as I feared. In fact, it isn’t bad at all. Judged against anyone other than Billy, it’s the best rock album I’ve heard this afternoon.

It’s good to know nostalgia isn’t always false, and some things – old friends, music, writing – are not so different from what I remember. Despite my old age, I’m still the same Matt on the page.

And songs that sound like “Zero” rule.