RS 500 Album Review: 491. Born Under a Bad Sign (1967) by Albert King

Born Under a Bad Sign is the album that put Albert King on the map as a recording artist, and it’s also a bit of a deceptive record. King himself only has writing credits on two of the album’s 11 tracks, but don’t mistake this for King leaning on the work of other musicians and writers. King effectively wrangles these songs like runaway bulls and leaves his mark on them, making many of these tunes iconic. Some of these songs have more famous versions, like I Almost Lost My Mind by Ivory Joe Hunter or Kansas City which was recorded just three years earlier by the Beatles. But none of these earlier renditions seem to give King any pause or any doubt. Kansas City gets reworked by King as a slightly lower key tune compared to the Beatles version or even the earlier Little Richard version, but it’s no less smooth and seductive. On the seductive note, King also brings a dirty rendition of Crosscut Saw, where he brags about his...ahem, fantastic saw, and how he’s gonna drag it all over his woman’s wood, if you catch my drift. The wordplay is really clever, but it’s the weeping guitar that keeps the heart of this track pumping. Of course, one should be careful not to discount the work being done by King’s backing band. The Hunter and As the Years Go By both highlight the talented musicians King is working with here, especially on that latter track with the just fantastic horns and saxophone provided some much needed flair to his largely traditional blues. King and his band both bring their A-game and craft some of the best blues this side of the Mississippi.

Rating: 3.5/5

RS 500 Album Review: 492. Touch (1983) by Eurythmics

“Deus ex machina” is a term which literally means “god from the machine” in Latin. Eurythmics’ Touch, I would describe as anima ex machina, translated as “soul from the machine.” Indeed, soul and rhythm and depth is what lead singer, Annie Lennox, pulls from the synthesizers and pulsating beats of this album, from the very opening spider-like notes of Here Comes the Rain to the closing bleeps and bloops covering a looming bass in Paint a Rumour. This album does two things very very right. One is a vast variety of sounds and textures pulled out of their synths, and what few live instruments were available. Most, though not all, of this came from the silent man behind the curtain, Dave Stewart, who handled much of the production. Stylistically, this means that the album includes a cascade of different styles of electronica and new wave. The other half is the sheer muscle put behind Lennox’s vocals, and she brings much of the life to tracks. And her voice knows as few bounds as the music, swinging from the sexy and dangerous Regrets to the longing Who’s That Girl to the bombastic and almost joyous Right By Your Side, a song that takes a musically more tropical aesthetic. Her voice even ends up as much of an instrument as any other, especially on the song No Fear, No Hate, No Pain (No Broken Hearts), where her vocals seem to pulsate as much as the synths that back it. Aesthetically, the album is cold to the touch, but with such a warm embrace, and such a great example of 80’s synthpop and new wave at some of its best.

Rating: 3.5/5

RS 500 Album Review: 493. Yankee Hotel Foxtrot (2002) by Wilco

After lord knows how many listens, I’m still not sure if I’ve listened to this enough times to really accurately put my finger on what I think about this record. It’s also a record that swings from some very notable styles to another, from alt-country to lo-fi to a popier style, and usually on a dime between songs. The opener, I Am Trying to Break Your Heart, opens with a very chaotic and sloppy playing style the betrays the utter heartbreak in the lyrics. Lead singer, Jeff Tweedy, assures us that he’s trying to break our heart. It’s clear that the real heartbreak is the other way around. On the sadder end of the spectrum, Radio Cure takes that heartache and adds distance. Absence may make the heart grow fonder, but as he sings, “distance has no way/of making love understandable.” Heartbreak and sorrow is peppered throughout the album on tracks like Jesus, Ect and I’m the Man Who Loves You, but the album has a very playful side to it, and perhaps even a very conscious side.Tracks like Kamera and Heavy Metal Drummer have a much stronger hook to them that makes them a lot more of an earworm. War on War combines a very catchy main hook with a double entendre about the fight for peace in the world and in a relationship, and how turbulent those can be. Ashes of American Flags gets even deeper into the social aspect, with Tweedy singing about the mundanity of life and how hard it is to find anything meaningful to connect to. And despite the record being recorded before the events of 9/11, there’s something haunting as he sings of burning American flags on this song, or with shaking buildings and smoke imagery in Jesus, Ect. Tonally, a lot of it, both in its lyrics and even in some of the electronic backing lightly used as garnish on many of these tracks evokes a weird hybrid of OK Computer, Kid A, and Amnesiac, all wrapped into one huge burrito of indie alt-country. Ashes of American Flags and Poor Places especially make very interesting use of what sounds like radio static and interference giving this sense of underlying uneasiness. Poor Places closes its drone of electronica with a radio transmission repeating the album title over and over. The album closer, Reservations, is the album’s longest track, and to keep up the Radiohead comparisons, it reminds me a lot of a much longer version of Motion Picture Soundtrack, and that’s not a bad thing at all. The very warm but unnerving drones coalescing with the vocals makes for a really interesting closer, and one that goes on even after the vocals drop out. It’s a very unconventional end to what could really only be described as an unconventional album. And one that might really grow on me as time goes on.

Rating 4/5

RS 500 Album Review: 494. Oracular Spectacular (2007) by MGMT

And now, for something completely different. Indeed, MGMT’s dreamy psychedelic pop listens like little else. At times, seeming like a more coherent Animal Collective, at others, it's own thing entirely. Oracular Spectacular swings for the fences musically, but makes sure not to lose sight of the core of their music: melody and harmony. I mentioned Animal Collective, a group of which I am not a fan of at all, and one of their biggest problems is they get too lost in experimentation and lose track of any kind of melody, and MGMT purposefully does not do that. Many tracks like Time to Pretend or Electric Feel are built on the backs of melody, and very pretty ones at that. Kids is easily the most recognizable single off the record, and that one displays the kind of pop ecstasy that the record can hit. Despite that, MGMT doesn’t forget to experiment with their keyboards, with 4th Dimensional Transition being one of the most experimental tracks on the record. But unlike a more avant-garde act, MGMT doesn’t lose sight of the core of its songs. It always feels like there’s a method to the madness, and it makes the cascade of sound all the more interesting to explore. The vocals on the record are particularly interesting, with the effects that are layered on them making them almost more like another instrument instead of lyrics to try to listen to. Not that you can really hear much of what they’re saying if you were trying to listen, but regardless, it accomplishes what it sets out to do. The whirring and echoing beats of the Handshake end the record on a more experimental note, and ties the record together very neatly. While the last quarter or so is probably the least interesting from a pure pop standpoint, it shows a bit more of the group’s versatility and how weird they can get with their sounds. Of Moons, Birds & Monsters is a particular favorite from the tail end. Overall, it’s a damn fine psychedelic pop record.

Rating: 3.5/5

RS 500 Album Review: 495. Give It Up (1972) by Bonnie Raitt

Slickly produced and soulfully performed, Give It Up is the blues and blues rock as dressed up as it really ever should be. Raitt handles herself with grace, but doesn’t deny the genre its signature down-home grit and spittle. And with Raitt on the reins of the guitar, she’s got her finger on the musical pulse of this record. Not that she’s the only one pulling her weight or anything. Under the Falling Sky (a nice Jackson Browne cover) wouldn’t have near the heft it does without that drum and harmonica powering it like a steam train, and the electric backing Raitt on Love Me Like a Man provide as much power as anything else. The sax on Nothing Seems to Matter also brings a nice smokey nighttime feel. But the heart of this record is Raitt’s amazing voice and her amazing guitar work, like on the opener, Give It Up Or Let Me Go. Too Long At the Fair also highlights Raitt as a songwriter, with her pious lyrics painting a very vivid picture that her guitar can’t alone. And while I won’t pretend that Raitt doesn’t occasionally slip into the same Boz Scaggs trap of sounding perhaps a bit too familiar for their own good, there’s more style to Raitt’s personal brand of the blues. A track like You Got to Know How is a blues track distinguished by its unique style in bringing in a clarinet and a very Old West-type piano to accompany Raitt and co. I won’t lie, I don’t really foresee myself really returning to this record that frequently, if at all, but for what it’s worth, it’s definitely a good one.

Rating: 3.5/5

RS 500 Album Review: 496. Boz Scaggs (1969) by Boz Scaggs

This list at times comes up with some kind of strange choices every now and then. Well, maybe more than “now and then,” but this is perhaps one of those times. Not that this is a bad record, far from it. It’s your fairly straight-forward blues rock record, and for what it’s worth, it’s a damn competent one. I’m Easy brings a swagger and a style that becomes infectious the more you listen to it, and the simple rocking style mixed with the backup singers reminds me a lot of middle-period Bob Dylan. It especially reminds me of When You Gonna Wake Up off his Slow Train Coming record. Finding Her also ends up as a very effective crooner, with an expertly played guitar and a lone piano setting a great tone, and Scaggs’ voice is great. And if the record has a centerpiece, it’s the mammoth 12-minute funeral march of Loan Me a Dime with a piano that sounds like Ballad of a Thin Man if it had been born and bred in the deep south. And the soulful guitar work on this track especially tugs at the heartstrings. But forgive me if you will for a moment to call the rest of the record a tad...generic? No doubt there’s some great work here, and part of it might be a result of influence retroactively cannibalizing its source material, but a lot of it feels like retreaded ground that’s been done better elsewhere. Especially when the album takes some turns into country like on the song Waiting for a Train, which honestly sounds a lot like a Western take on It Takes a Lot to Laugh, It Takes a Train to Cry (okay yeah I’m making a lot of Dylan comparisons, it was the 60’s okay?). Maybe it’s my jaded old heart, and I can definitely appreciate why someone would get a kick out of this record. And I definitely appreciate the record for turning me on to a former member of the Steve Miller Band (one of my dad’s favorite acts). Like I said, it’s certainly not bad. I was just perhaps expecting a bit more.

Rating: 3/5

RS 500 Album Review: 497. White Blood Cells (2001) by the White Stripes

If the White Stripes have any one overriding design philosophy on White Blood Cells, it’s keep them wanting more. And with the album’s biggest hit single, Fell In Love With a Girl, clocking in at just under 2 minutes, it certainly does just that. Shaking the record to its very core, the track is a kick in the face of the duo’s heavy garage rock with Jack White’s wavering, frantic vocals acting as our guide in the madness that is the White Stripes’ breakout hit. And that’s only track 4, the opening two tracks, Dead Leaves & the Dirty Ground and Hotel Yorba, set the template for the two extremes the album is playing with at all times, heavy garage rock and down-to-earth blues rock and folk rock. Hotel Yorba jangles along with a folk swagger that proves to be the perfect backing to Jack’s playful lyrics. A song like Little Room or Aluminum perfectly encapsulate the dirty grimey quality to the record that gives it real texture. Aluminum in particular is a standout moment of pure intense noise that stands as a highlight of the record’s latter half. Albeit, I can’t help but feeling like after that song, the album overall tapers off. Especially with two of the record’s longest tracks, I Can’t Wait and I Can Learn (albeit they hardly even reach three and a half minutes), being some of the least interesting on the record, and feeling like they belong more in the middle of the record. Regardless, ignoring a somewhat disappointing last quarter, the duo from Detroit bring it with their bluesy and dynamic style on tracks like I Think I Smell a Rat and the Union Forever, both of which have very wonky, but catchy, melodies to them that make them stick in your head. As a breakout album, it’s justifiably tight for the majority of the running time, and tracks like Fell In Love With a Girl and Hotel Yorba are unmistakable smashes.

Rating: 3.5/5

RS 500 Album Review: 498. The Stone Roses (1989) by the Stone Roses

“Interesting” doesn't even begin to cover The Stone Roses.”Bizarre” or “strange” would maybe be a more apt description, and I don't mean that to say that this album is the most out-there music on the planet. On the surface, a lot of the songs read as very interesting forerunners to the Britpop scene that would later flourish with Oasis and Blur a few years later. With that being said, there's an echoy, atmospheric air that sets it very much apart from those later acts, evidence of how their style has a foot entrenched deep in the 80's. It almost listens like if the Smiths had gotten really into Pablo Honey era Radiohead. The jangly beats of a song like Waterfall or I Want to Be Adored speak to that early-Radiohead sense of peppy discontent. And then, right after Waterfall, which is arguably the most radio-ready song, you get hit with Don't Stop, an avant-garde collage of sound with a shakey beat behind it that almost acts as a guide through the madness. It speaks to some real ambitions that the band had, and unlike something like a Revolution 9 from the Beatles, this is at least mostly pleasant to listen to. With heavu distortion clouding the instrumentation, vocal distortion and at time even backmasking, and reverb out the wazoo. I can't say if it's a good move from a structure standpoint, but it's certainly an interesting one. I kinda wish there were more tracks this experimental on the record. So isn't it ironic that the following Bye Bye Badman underwhelms is only by being a bit too by the numbers? Unlike something like Waterfalls, it doesn't quite have the same kind of danceable quality to it. The beat moves, but not quite enough, it feels a bit shallow. And then there's Elizabeth My Dear, the Stone Roses' brief homage (if you want to be kind) to Scarborough Fair. I don't think it works. At all. The melody is way too close to the unaltered original and doesn't feel like there was anything really there. The lyrics have been changed, and the short length helps a bit in making sure it doesn't overstay its (very short) welcome, but it really feels like the album derailed for a moment. Fortunately, the record picks back up with (Song for My) Sugar Spun Sister, with a song that bounces and rocks its way through its sea of reverb with confidence and style. It's not quite the best thing ever, but it's better. Made of Stone rides the wave of vocals in another very radio-friendly single that wouldn't feel too out of place on a playlist next to Tears for Fears or Eurythmics. Shoot You Down and This is the One come down to a bit of a slower tone, and while Shoot You Down is perhaps a bit too meandering for my tastes, This is the One has this very nice crescendos that add nice texture to the record. Despite that, much of the record seems a bit too typical for its own good, despite some stand outs like Made of Stone, Waterfall, and I Want to Be Adored. Fortunately, the record goes out on two of its biggest highlights, starting with the 8-minute long I Am the Resurrection, which rocks harder than anything served up thus far. The fuzzy guitars and more energized beats really show how this album influenced a band like Blur. Meanwhile, the closer, Fool's Gold, jives and grooves with a rock beat that gets the toes tapping and the hips moving in a way few tracks before on this album did. And the echoy vocals and the almost disco-esque guitar gives it a slick sense of style that it unlike most of the other tracks on display. The Stone Roses is a complex beast. Varying in tones and in style, it's uniform in its sound if not by its vision, and did a remarkable job setting a tone for the future Britpop scene, even if those bands would take more of certain aspects than others. As an album itself, it's a flawed record, but it comes back to what I said at the beginning. It's flawed, but it's interesting. And interesting is enough to get you in the door. What happens beyond there depends on how in tune you and your feet are to some of the infectious (and some of the lesso) beats therein.

Rating: 3.5/5

RS 500 Album Review: 499. Live in Cook County Jail (1971) by B.B. King

My dad used to tell me, when talking about Carlos Santana, that Santana could make the guitar sing. On this record, B.B. King makes the guitar cry. Playing to an audience of Cook County inmates, B.B. King connects instantly to their feelings of sadness, depression, and loss, and pumps it all into raw blues and R&B standards. The record begins humorously with the show's host introducing first the warden and the judge in attendance, both of which get waves of boos and jeers from the convicted audience, followed by a raucous applause from the same when King is brought on. King keeps this lively spirit alive on tracks like How Blue Can You Get with his tales of lovers he could never satisfy, and on Worry, Worry, Worry, where he lectures the (criminal) audience about how to properly treat their lovers. And despite how tough a crowd that must be, they're with him every step of the way, they can feel his sincerity and his realness. And accompanying this fun all the way through is King playing out of his skin, blues riffs and spider-web like melodies coming out of his guitar, Lucille, as if it were a cup that runeth over. King doesn't play these songs, he releases them after holding them in so long that he could burst. The emotion and the sorrow in a song like Worry, Worry, Worry is palpable, and his voice quivers and wavers in all the right places and echoes into the listener's very soul. King also performs a medley of two of his early hits, 3 O'Clock Blues and Darlin' You Know I Love You, and paired with Sweet Sixteen, it makes for a trip down memory lane for an artist who's glory days are technically long behind him, and yet is still playing like he's in his prime. And in what stands as probably the highlight of the show from a musical standpoint (albiet Worry, Worry, Worry is probably my favorite moment on the record, period), King brings out one of his signature tunes, and a very recent one at that time, The Thrill is Gone, one of the most mournful and soulful performances of the show. In every way, King takes his hits and plays them like they'd never been played before, pouring his heart and soul into every track. By any estimate, King earned his surname that day in one of the best live records to ever grace the blues.

Rating: 4.5/5

RS 500 Album Review: 500. Aquemini (1998) by Outkast

It was around the time that Andre 3000 started rapping about Atari and Coleco that it became apparent what kind of lyrical expertise I was dealing with. After an album of styling themselves as pimps and another doing the same but with an alien gimmick, Outkast emerges as a cohesive whole, gimmicks be damned. In its place is tight, no holds barred hip hop that at times skews funk, pop, gangsta, and soul, all done with a clarity of vision and a drive that leads Andre 3000 and Big Boi to one singular destination: Aquemini. Andre and Big Boi come equipped with socially conscious lyrics and catchy hooks that keep your head bopping and your hips shaking, all the while your mind's racing. The opener, Return of the “G” with Andre rapping a spitfire, dropping lines about hypocritical rappers and calling out everyone from competitors to neglectful parents to a society that marginalizes to even himself. The duo returns to these topics in tracks like Da Art of Storytellin' (Part 1) and Liberation, but the duo doesn't lose sight of its sense of humor and purity of heart. It's a very specific balancing act, one that parallels the album's main theme of duality. The tones of social commentary and science-fiction genre rap is as distinct as each of the two rappers, and as connected as the duo's vision for the record. A song like Synthesizer is very easy to chill out to, especially with the very silly Frankenstein homage stuck at the very beginning, but the dirty production doesn't let the air of looming dread lift from the track. Fun is encouraged, but keep your eye on the ball, there's more going on, even with the titular instrument creating a texture that distinguishes this track from the rest. Not an easy feat on an album full of unique tracks. And after all of that, the duo never loses sight of their roots, with multiple tracks on the record devoted to giving a spotlight to the duo's hometown of Atlanta, and in the wake of the East Coast-West Coast feud that dominated much of the 90's, it makes the Atlanta-centric tracks all the more powerful. On tracks like West Savannah (a track carried over from the Southernplayalisticcadillacmuzik sessions) and Slump, the duo rap about their experience growing up in Atlanta, and do so with style, with Big Boi especially taking the spotlight on these tracks, especially on Slump. Aquemini brought the southern style to the masses, and set the gave the duo responsible the platform to expand into becoming one of the biggest forces in rap in the new millennium. But to a listener like me, Aquemini stands as a testemant to the lyrical prowess and the atmospheric power behind Outkast.

Rating: 4/5