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