Sounding Out! Catching Up. . .

I have not updated this blog in quite a while, but nor because I have stopped listening to music (or in some cases even writing about it).

For example, I am now a regular contributor to Sounding Out!, "a [b]log [that] provides an outlet for ruminations on the role of sound and listening in our contemporary culture." So while I am not always writing about music for this blog, music does come into it.

For example, I wrote the popular, but much-maligned "In Defense of Auto-tune," and a reflection on one of my least favorite songs, entitled "Ain't Got the Same Soul."

I hope to be writing a piece for next Halloween on Michael Jackson's "Thriller" and black sexuality, but before then I have to write to other posts, and probably one will be about music.

In addition, I have been tweeting about my "AlphaiPod" project, in which on my commute I listen to the contents of my iPod in alphabetical order by album title. I noticed that I tended to listen to the same sets of albums depending on my mood, but there was music languishing on my iPod that I hardly (if ever) listen to. So I made myself listen from the beginning and hear what was really on there. Some folks have asked me, "Why alphabetical by album and not artist?" Who wants to have to force themselves to listen to every album by a particular artist? Because of the way I am listening (while driving) that could mean days or even weeks of the same artist with no break. I am not sure I could handle that for most artists.

And yet, my next planned project is just that: I plan to listen to every Prince studio album in the order they were released.

Anyway, if you use Twitter be sure to follow me: https://twitter.com/#!/commutemusic

I hope to add some more posts to this blog over the coming winter break, but at the very least I should be posting links to my music-related posts to Sounding Out!

Rubber Revolving Soul

I've been listening to a lot of the Beatles lately. I go through cycles and phases with different artists, but the Beatles are one of those groups that come back into heavy rotation every year or so - perhaps I should say heavier rotation - but regardless, it is not uncommon that there be a few weeks where I am likely to listen to one or more Beatles albums a day.

The other day on my way to work I listened to Rubber Soul and really enjoyed it, but put on Revolver immediately after and once again came to the conclusion I have long held: Revolver is just clearly a better album - it is a more impressive set of songs. This is not to say that Rubber Soul is bad. It is still great, but Revolver is better.

In truth, they really work well together - not quite bookends, but more like dividing line, as Rubber Soul despite a few touches that fore-shadow the coming Beatles' sound, has more in common with the older sound, the old rock n'roll sound that came along with covers of Chuck Berry songs and "Twist and Shout." This is not to say that "A Hard Day's Night" and "HELP!" don't have inklings of that later sound and aren't great records in their own right, but it is pretty clear to me that "Revolver" pushes towards what would come in their more psychedelic and experimental phase - stuff on "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band" and "The Beatles" (aka "The White Album").

Aside from the sound of the albums (they both sound great and have those classic Lennon/McCartney synergetic harmonies), I think part of the issue is I find the songs on Rubber Soul to be lyrically simpler and more problematic. Sure, a song like "Drive My Car" is cute, what with its simulated car/traffic sounds in the staccato delivery of some of the lyrics ("But I've got a dri-ver and that's a start!") and the sexual innuendo of the hook - and, "Norwegian Wood" is a classic song, certainly inspired by Dylan in ambiguous content (though not quite in sound like Help's "You've Got to Hide Your Love Away" - more of a folky Birds sound).

But then there are songs like "You Won't See Me," which are not much more than boring in my estimation - though I can't help but think of Lennon's backing "Ooh la la" as kind of sarcastic. "Nowhere Man" is similarly boring, both melodically and in content. This may be a case of it feeling dated in message with its misplaced optimism. The song just seems like a particular product of a 60s mentality of "consciousness" that really doesn't say anything in and of itself and seems to have never changed.

"The Word" may suffer from a similar problem, but I love the way it sounds - the harmonies, the guitars, the shaker.

I will leave aside the banality of "Michelle." Perhaps if they had gotten Ringo to sing it, it might have been salvaged by kitschiness. "What Goes On" works because of that countrified sound that goes along with Ringo's voice. And "I'm Looking Through You" is a classic break-up song. Love it. I love McCartney's lead vocals and the little organ/guitar licks between the verses.

I usually skip over "In My Life" - some people list this as their favorite Beatles' song, but it seems too treacly, what with the sentiment and the fake clavichord. I have never liked it.

But most problematic of all these songs has to be "Run for Your Life." Whoa. I mean, I love the song - The sound of it, that is, but from the very first line "Well, I'd rather see you dead, little girl / Than to be with another man" it is kind of cringe-worthy. What amazes me most, I think, is not just the blatant violence towards women that lyrics suggest, but how acceptable it really is in a mainstream pop song. The title of the song becomes even more ominous when you consider how many women have to do just that, run for their lives, from men who claim to love them. "Baby, I'm determined / And I'd rather see you dead." Of course, the acceptability of violence towards women in music ("Hey Joe," anyone?) and in our culture (many cultures. . . most cultures?) is nothing new and definitely not a thing of the past (Chris Brown, anyone?) - but I have to shake my head when I think about how many years of my youth I heard "Run for your Life" and similar songs without thinking twice about their message.

Revolver, on the other hand, is full of song after great song. Sure, some are better than others, but overall I find them to be more challenging and experimental in content and construction. From the bizarre intro to "Taxman" to the strings of "Eleanor Rigby" to the east Indian sitar intro and drone of "Love You To" and the background tapeloops of "Tomorrow Never Knows," Revolver does things almost none of the songs on Rubber Soul do, and when it does, it does them better.

"I'm Only Sleeping" is a great example, the echoey jangling guitar accented with backward splices of guitar playing (and a "solo" done in similar style) in a song about nothing more than sleeping, not a cliched love song (not that there aren't love song cliches on this albums). It is one of my all time favorite Beatles songs and has a nice taste of Paul McCartney's understated and underrated bass-playing. (oh, and I love the background "oooohs").

Sure, "Here, There and Everywhere" is one of the boring tracks and "Yellow Submarine" is an overplayed kiddie track, but that can be forgiven - few records are perfect (and no Beatles records are, it is just that for the most part even their warts are productive in the broader view) - but then there is another of my all-time faves, "She Said She Said," which opens with one of those classic Beatles sound guitar riffs, has a weird high-pitched whine, and lyrics inspired by tripping on acid with Peter Fonda. I love the weird lurching rhythmic delivery of those lyrics accentuated with awkward repetition of the same words.

"Good Day Sunshine" is sneakily fantastic song - deceptive - but I love the Beach Boys-drenched harmonies/repetition of "good day sunshine" and the pianola strolling piano sound. McCartney, however, supposedly credits The Lovin' Spoonful - but Pet Sounds came out in May of '66 and Revolver was recorded through June of '66 (and released in August, which blows me away) and Pet Sounds is Paul's favorite album - "Good Vibrations" influence can be heard in there.

"For No One" might be a sad love song and the melody may be a bit hackneyed, but the french horn is lovely and the approach to the subject is as sweet and heartfelt as "Dr. Robert" is a bouncy rock n'roll tune with some of the most "classic" sounding Lennon/McCartney harmonies (on "You're a new and better man / He helps you to understand / He does everything he can") - a song about their doctor friend who introduced folks to acid.

I almost didn't mention "I Want to Tell You" (I have not mentioned every single song on these records), but I figured that George deserves more attention, and it includes not only a classic Beatles riff, but the almost dissonant harmonies and the pounding two-feel piano rhythm is that kind of jerky-awkwardness that makes the song come alive and helps to underscore the content, explaining the inability of the song's speaker to quite express what it is they want to say about how he feels about a relationship.

"Got To Get You Into My Life" is brought to life by the horns and one of the best pop song hooks of all time. And yeah, those "Ooohs" at the beginning of the lines that lead to the powerful chorus are fantastic. It is perfect example of why Paul McCartney is one of my favorite songwriters of all time and really (kind of) my favorite Beatle.

Aside: This song will always remind me of a very rainy day in New Paltz in 1996 or '97. I was shopping in town and two guys were ducked under a store awning, one with a walkman, obviously listening to this song and singing along loudly in a nice voice, when suddenly the other guy starts singing a harmony with him and I walked up and spontaneously started a third harmony. We just stood there and sang the song aloud, beaming and having a great time and when we were done, nodded to each other with a smile and went our own way.

"Tomorrow Never Knows" is another of my faves (and I guess that makes Revolver win over Rubber Soul right there, more of my favorite Beatles songs come from that record than probably any other). As I said before, it includes all sorts of tape loops and the voice is amplified through a speaker normally used for an organ - just the perfect example of the kind of successful experimentation that makes Revolver the great record it is. And I love that opening line, "Turn off your mind / Relax and float down stream".

I don't have much to say in conclusion, except to reiterate, listening to these two records back to back, Revolver stands out as the clearly better one - though there is still a quality that resonates in both of them (having been recorded and released so closely) that gives the impression that they are a kind of double-album (and I have seen an interview with George Harrison where he said as much, claiming that he often got confused as to which songs were on which). It may not be fair to try to make the distinction I am making here, but I have made it anyway - and the truth is that while I will likely listen to both these records countless more time in my life, I will probably listen to Revolver a hell of a whole lot more.

Makes Me Weak and Knocks Me Off My Feet. .

"Good morn or evening, friends. . . Here's your friendly announcer. . ."

I skipped March's "album of the month" - I was just too busy to finish my exploration of Lyle Lovett's I Love Everybody, and ultimately was not that happy with it. However, rather than retreat a bit from this project and tackle something a little smaller, I went in the other direction and decided to write about Stevie Wonder's Songs in the Key of Life because 1) It is one of the best albums of the 70s, if not all time, and 2) it has been on serious heavy rotation for me lately. It feels like a springtime album to me, and I have been craving some springtime. However, I will only write about the first half of it for now, saving the second half for a latter date, because 1) it is a double album and 2) because I've been listening to the first half more than the second. It is important to keep in mind, that I am discussing the songs here as they are broken up on the CD set. On vinyl, there was an additional EP with 4 songs which were split up and put in pairs at the end of each disc.

The thing about listening to Stevie is that for the most part what you hear is what you get. There are rarely any subtexts or irony in his songs, but everything has that earnestness of soul music - even his metaphors are obvious and his talk of love is unapologetic. But as far as I am concerned that is what I am looking for when I put on Stevie Wonder, and as long you know how to avoid the real cheese (basically most of his stuff from the 80s and beyond), you'll be okay. Songs in the Key of Life may threaten cheese at times, but it is totally mitigated by the earnestness, the funky dynamic grooves and that warm analog production. The album is from 1976 and I think you can tell that by listening. The problem is that sometimes that works in its favor and other times it feels a little dated, both in sound choice and in particular lyrics.

"Love's In Need of Love" opens the double album. Those lovely opening "oohs" are something I find myself singing a lot in the shower, or just walking to the train on a lovely spring day. The opening line "Good morn or evening, friends" speaks to the medium of an album - the listener deciding when to put that vinyl on (Yes, I own this record in both CD and vinyl form) - taking the role of a radio announcer giving a warning over just very soft and solid electric piano and great subtle drumwork with cymbal flourishes and the soft snap of the snare doesn't even come in (along with the backing vocals) until the second time the chorus comes in. There is a real palpable sense of restraint in this song. As Zooey once said when I played him this album, "He sure likes to take his time," and this song is a perfect example, because after those two verses he just plays on a repetition of the chorus over and over, adding little vocal ad-libs while the backing vocals (Stevie overdubs) stretch out the sounds and reinforces that feeling that the song might explode at any moment into some epic paean to love and the need to value it - "Did you ever think that love would be in love?", but it never does. Instead, it tumbles back down to perfect softness, "Just give the world love."

"Have a Talk with God" has a moderate groove that is accentuated with some awesome harmonica work. Hell, if it weren't for the fact that it was the mid-70s I would think it was sampled because of the way it plays with repetition of a phrase. The song is lyrically problematic for me. I mean, I cringe a little every time I hear the lyric, "Well, he's the only free psychiatrist that's known throughout the world / Solving the problems of all men, women, little boys and girls." Which problems is God solving exactly, Stevie? I think of violence, starvation, other forms of suffering and scoff - not to mention how at odds this message is with his more social progressive descriptive songs on the same album (like the following track, "Village Ghetto Land"). However, as someone who finds "talks with God" a helpful exercise, despite my skepticism and belief in a random and absurd universe, I appreciate the message. I can relate to it. The groove helps.

"Village Ghetto Land" has a simple repetitive melody over a bed of synthed out strings sound that is some of what I was talking about when I said that sometimes this record sounds like it is from 1976. It is like Stevie got a new toy when he recorded this song and could not help but use it in a way that is a little overwhelming - baroque even - and the synthed strings gives that impression of the baroque as well. Lyrically, it is a descriptive song that gives us views of life in the ghetto - it particularly gives me feel of the urban deterioration of the 70s. "Broken glass is everywhere / It's a bloody scene / Killing plagues the citizens / Unless they own police." And then there is the conclusion that I feel is at odds with the afore-mentioned, "Have a Talk with God": "Now some folks say that we should be / Glad for what we have / Tell me would you be happy in Village Ghetto Land?"

"Contusion" is a poorly thought out instrumental fusion piece that I guiltily admit I skip almost every time I listen to this album.

"Sir Duke/I Wish" - These two songs are so well-known and so classic, I feel almost as if I don't need to write about them at all. They also go together in my mind, thus my listing them together. "Sir Duke" is one of those songs about music that I love. It is just so fresh and lively and sincere and speaks of music in a way I can deeply relate to - but more than anything it is the horns on this song that make it work, and the guttural encouragements that Stevie gives them, telling them to "Go!" The flourishes they give at the end of the lines and of course, the repetition of that melody on horn while the high-hat keeps time. . . You can't help but "feel it" just like the song says we do, "They can feel it all over!" - The bassline and plucky guitar of "I Wish" comes right out that last call to the horns to play that line again capped off with two hard staccato notes of ending/transition. (Though interestingly on the vinyl Side A ends here and Side B starts with "I Wish") It is the that electric piano groove that really carries this song. It is subtle, but holds aloft the wordy descriptive lyrics of unrepentant nostalgia - and that is exactly what it is, unrepentant. Singing of childhood, "I wish those days could come back once more / Why did those days ev-er have to go? / Cause I love them so." Again, to me this song is about good feelings and I don't like to undermine that too much by considering the fact that we do ourselves (and those that still suffer from it) an injustice when we sentimentalize poverty. So when Stevie sings of Christmas, "Even though we sometimes would not get a thing / We were happy with the joy the day would bring" I can't help but think that for a child suffering want, it might not be so easy to understand or appreciate that joy. Or on a more personal, less political level, I think that childhood, as wonderful as it can be, can also be a time of deep frustration and lack of choice. I think a lot of adults who express a desire to be young again forget how much of their lives were determined by others and institutions in those years, and how typically your resources are severely limited in terms of changing that. But whatever, it is still a great song, especially if you can forget the travesty that was Will Smith using it as the basis for the "Wild, Wild West" song for that awful movie. . . Stevie even agreed to be in video. . . Did I mention the movie was awful? I mean, giant robots in the old west sounds good until actually happens - I am all for remakes of mostly forgotten mash-ups of genre - but ugh! The highlight of the movie is the flash of Salma Hayek's butt you get in one scene, but not worth the price of admission even when played on cable.

"Knocks Me Off My Feet" - I have been listening to this song obsessively lately, and if you don't already own Songs in the Key of Life then you need to get off your ass and go buy it, or if you are into the whole downloading thing like the kids are these days, keep your ass in the chair, open up a tab on your browser or go to iTunes and get the album! And if not the album then this song. (Or I guess you can just listen to it on You Tube here). I am not going to say much about it except that I feel it lately. It is in some deep rotation for me - and despite its warning that its message may cause boredom, the repetition and earnestness work for me every time, especially when that syncopated high-hat comes in for the chorus near the end, to give it that underlying disco feel despite its soulful ballad origins, with the soft touches and the drum hits that parallel the melody that build to that beautiful chorus. Listen.

"Pastime Paradise" - People recognize this song because Coolio used it as the basis for "Gangsta Paradise" for that awful Michelle Pfieffer movie, whatever, whatever it was called. . . I forget. I don't care. Or, perhaps you prefer Weird Al's "Amish Paradise" (the beef between Coolio and Weird Al is legendary! - the former getting pissed at the latter for parodying his song! Uh, Coolio? Let me play something for you. . .) Anyway, again the lyrics of this song seems at odds with both "I Wish" ("They've been wasting most their time / Glorifying days long gone behind") and "Have a Talk with God" ("They've been spending most their lives / Living in a future paradise / They've been looking in their minds / For the day that sorrow's gone from time / They keep telling of the day / When the savior of love will come to stay"). It is a simple song and the refrain repetition of words that end in "-tion" seems like perhaps it may not really mean anything, "Dissipation / Race relations / Consolation / Segregation / Dispensation / Isolation / Exploitation / Mutilation / Mutations / Miscreation / Confirmation...to the evils of the world." But again, the song works. Strong music and earnestness can overcome weak lyrics for me, and in this case the string quartet (is it a synth? - don't think they sounded that good in '76 - it is.) over the moderate latin groove on the conga and a guiro more than make up for it.

"Summer Soft" is another song I have been feeling particularly lately because of April's inconsistent inclemency and unwillingness to get progressively warmer like I remember spring once doing, but maybe it never did that. . . Anyway, the song is the most poetic of the album, and while the metaphor of the unpredictability of the seasons/weather with love is pretty obvious it is still not as transparent as typical for Stevie's lyrics. The verses are as softly sung as what he is singing about, and the piano is quick, sprightly even, but with a strong build of rhythm accentuated by the rimshot snare until the gush of the refrain hits.

Summer soft ....
Wakes you up with a kiss to start the morning off
In the midst of herself playing Santa Claus
She brings gifts through her breeze

Morning rain ....
Gently plays her rhythms on your window pane
Giving you no clue of when she plans to change
To bring rain or sunshine

The second set of verses gives winter a male gender and I love how there is a bit more forcefulness and menace with this seasonal personification: "Winter wind..../ Whispers to you that he wants to be your friend / But not waiting for your answer he begins / Forcing dangers way with his breeze," suggesting that masculine aggression we all know so well.

The refrain is, as I said, a powerful gush, an accepting lament in tune with the inevitability of the changing of the seasons - the inevitability of lost love.

And so you wait to see what he'll do
Is it sun or rain for you?
But it breaks your heart in two
Cause you've been fooled by April

And he's gone
And he's gone
Winter's gone

You find it's October
And she's gone
And she's gone
Summer's gone

The organ work in the is song is amazing, but like many of the songs on this album it is the drums that seem to carry it on - the rhythms are strong and driving with melodic flourishes that accentuate and syncopate. Amazing to think that Stevie played most of the instruments on all of these tracks. Wanna see/hear Stevie jam it out on the drums? Click Here.

"Ordinary Pain" is a wonderful dyad of a song - the first portion being a lament of lost love and the second being a reply by the object of that love that gives the listener new insight, or at least a different point of view, on the situation. The first part of the song is sung by Stevie, sweet and soulful carried by a crisp electric guitar rhythm and vibraphone (or is it a xylophone?) melodic accentuations that parallel every time the oft-repeated phrase "ordinary pain" is sung. The laconic delivery really works for the song, the sense of trying to hold back real anguish with reason - the realization that the feeling of loss from a ended romance is normal, "ordinary," and to think that it is more than ordinary, to privilege your feelings over those any other person might have felt is to appear more than a little foolish. And it is about appearances, because the authenticity of feeling is never in doubt to the person feeling it, to everyone else the authenticity is beside the point, displays of that kind of emotion are slightly distasteful to even the most sympathetic person.

When you by chance
Go knock on her door
Walkin' away
you're
convinced that
it's much more
Than just an ordinary
pain in your heart
It's more than just
An ordinary pain in your heart

Don't fool yourself
But tell no one else
That it's more than just
An ordinary pain
In your heart

The second portion of the song is sung by a woman (Shirley Brewer), and its sentiment is a lot harsher than the sad, slightly pathetic voice of the first part. Shirley's voice has a scolding tone emphasized by a chorus of women repeatedly hitting every syllable with staccato fury "or-DIN-ary pain / or-DIN-ary pain!" It becomes clear that the woman he sings of in the first part might have had reason to treat him so unkindly, "You're cryin' big crocodile tears / Don't match the ones I've cried for years / When I was home waiting for you / You were out somewhere doing the do / You know I'd really like to stay / But like you did I've got to play." The tempo of the music picks up and there is an off-eighths high-hat that gives it kind of pre-disco groove with a spacy guitar further back in the mix accompanied by an alto sax, and Stevie's electric piano keeps it altogether. Back when I used to DJ I used to sometimes play just the second half of this song.

"Saturn" comes in right after "Ordinary Pain" with epic sounding synth sounds over piano chords meant to emulate the strains of royal horns, or perhaps God's heavenly band blowing their brass. I can imagine that it may sound tinny or cheesy to 21st century ears, but there is something about the smallness of the sound juxtaposed with what it is trying to convey that works for me still, as if the hope in the song is beyond the confines of Earth - and rightly so, because here Stevie is so thirsting for a better more just world that he imagines his people coming not from somewhere else on this planet, but from Saturn where things make more sense through compassion and wonder. The longing in this song hits me every time from the very first line, "Packing my bags / going away / to a place where the air is clean / on Saturn." However, the song is as much an accusation as it is a vision of hope, because there is a "you" addressed in its verses that can be interpreted broadly as those in power on Earth, though honestly I tend to think of the "you" as white people and people of color being the people from Saturn - like hey, maybe things are set up the way they are because we are from another planet after all -

We have come here many times before
To find your strategy to peace is war
Killing helpless men, women and children
That don't even know what they are dying for
We can't trust you when you take a stand
With a gun and Bible in your hand,
With a cold expression on your face
Saying give us what we want or we'll destroy

But the chorus is a shout out to the vision of Saturn's wonder, "Going back to Saturn where the rings all glow / Rainbow moonbeams and orange snow / On Saturn / People live to be two hundred and five / Going back to Saturn where the people smile / Don't need cars cause we've learn to fly / On Saturn / Just to live to us is our natural high." Again, Stevie's lyrics are not his strength necessarily, it is the power of his voice, the emotion, the earnestness of soul that elevates his work. I love this song.

"Ebony Eyes" - This song begins with a recording of a group of girls playing double-dutch, singing one of those songs that end with a reciting of the alphabet, with the letter where the jumper messes up indicating who their crush, or true love or whatever might be. The scene ends with the girls screeching at the jumper, "Paul! Oh Paul!" and then the piano that carries the song comes in. It is beautiful and bouncy love song that references the "Black is Beautiful" movement, "She's a Miss Beautiful Supreme / A girl that other wish that they could be / If there's seven wonders of the world / Then I know she's gotta be number one / She's a girl that can't be beat / Born and raised on ghetto streets / She's a devastating beauty / A pretty girl with ebony eyes." It is a positive and uplifting way to end the first part of the album, closing on a soft roll of abrupt drums.

The second part of the record opens with "Isn't She Lovely" and while I said I was only doing the songs on Disc One here, I figured I would mention a little about some of them as who know if and when I'll ever get to a closer overview of it. Anyway, "Isn't She Lovely" is a sweet song to his daughter Aisha, but unfortunately it is made overlong by the addition of a recording of her in the bath. I guess there must be a radio edit, and sometimes I wish I could have the option of that one when I put the record on. I mean, I respect the love and joy that led Stevie to write the song and to include her baby-voice and cooing parental tones to the end of it - but it gets to be a little much. "Black Man" is a song to celebrate 1976, the Bicentennial. There are aspects to this song I really love, despite its problematic use of terms like "yellow man" to speak of Asians, or the fact that despite the little swell of pride I am meant to feel when he sings "I know the birthday of a nation / is a time when a country celebrates / but when your hand touches your heart / Remember we all played a part / in America to help that banner wave" I know that what we were all helping to was steal land from the people already here and that a lot of that building was done on the backs of the enslaved. "If It's Magic" is just voice and harp and a heartbreaking song that speaks to the inevitability of love lost. "If it's pleasing / then why can't it be never-leaving?"

"As" is one of my favorite Stevie Wonder songs of all time. The last time I was convinced of the existence of God was when he performed this song at the end of a ceremony in his honor on BET I managed to catch six or seven years ago. There was a halo of divine light emanating from him and I thought I saw God peek his out from behind Stevie and wink at me. Finally, "All-Day Sucker" reminds me of "Ordinary Pain," or at least I used to get them confused. "I'm an all day sucker / Coming to give something to get nothin' / I'm an all day sucker / Coming to give something but to get none of your love." It has great groove and an unlikely wild electric guitar part in the middle of the mix with the repetition of a distorted singing of "all day sucker for your love / all day sucker cup for your love."

Like I said at the beginning "Songs in the Key of Life" feels like a spring/summertime album for me (in a long list of summer/spring albums I love to listen to - like XTC's Skylarking and a lot of hip-hop records) and I am sure I will listen to it in part and in full dozens, if not scores, of more times between now and September. I think you should, too.

Just a Castaway. . .

I started writing this month's essay on one of my favorite albums - Ben Folds Five's Whatever and Ever Amen, but the close-listening just confirmed what I had been considering for a while, which is that the record does not do it for me the way it once did. Perhaps I have "outgrown it," or perhaps I am just not in that same bitter recently broken up moving through a weird relationship mode like I was when I first became enamoured of it. And while I wrote more than half of it and at first I was going to just muddle through and finish examining it, this morning I put Regatta de Blanc by The Police on my iPod and it struck me that this is a classic album that my appreciation for has deepened in the 20+ years I have been listening to it. This was the album I should write about.

I started listening to this record at the end of my freshman year in high school, so 1986, seven years after it had been released. My Police obsession had penetrated my bubble of hip-hop, soul and R&B that I lived in then when Synchronicity came out while I was in 7th grade, but it would not be for a couple of years before I began to explore the rest of their records. For a good part of my high school years if you asked me what my favorite bands were I would have replied, "The Police, Prince and Pink Floyd," and true to teen-aged obsession with obscure meaning, I used to try to figure out what it was about the letter 'P' that made me like the bands - or maybe I was just high. . .

When I first started listening to the Police it was probably the lyrics and the reggae feel that drew me in ("Regatta de Blanc" is supposedly some bastardized French for "White Reggae"), but like any good band as time went on different aspects of the music appealed to me. For a long time it was (and to some degree still is) Steward Copeland's phenomenal drumming, but more recently I have come to feel that Andy Summers' guitar-playing is underrated and is just as phenomenal. I mean, it is so understated and perfect as to blend in and be almost forgotten, but when you train your ear to break the parts up and really listen you can hear both the intricacy of the progressions and the deceiving simplicity of the rhythms he plays. He is not a shreddy lead-guitar kind of guitar player (though he can do that), but rather his rhythmic flares keeps things moving over Sting's journeyman basslines and Stewart's expressive drumming.

The opening track is an example of a song that I might have just heard too many times in my life to still have the same effect on me. "Message in a Bottle" may just forever be one of those teenage songs to me, expressing the collective alienation I was beginning to sense at that age and that is so easy to wallow in at 15 or 16. If anything, it is definitely one of the most straightforward of their songs with the pounding snare and the driving descending progression, but Copeland's fills and his ever-excellent cymbal work fills it out nicely. Of course, I shouldn't discount Sting's ability to carry the song vocally. Sometimes I forget what he was once capable because of the intervening years of his mostly stinky solo records (with some exceptional tracks).

While the title track is nothing impressive lyrically with some fake "world music" nonsense words and sounds, the instruments themselves are excellent from Copeland's great rim-taps to Summers' airy slow appregiating of chords to open the song and just showing how much you can do with nothing but rhythm (even if the bass parts are rather simple and repetitive). "It's Alright For You" might be the weakest track on the record (perhaps second weakest depending on how you feel about "On Any Other Day") with its psuedo-punk approach and rapid-fire lyrics. It just has no depth and musically is not all that interesting - I guess the little "turn around" riff between the verse on the guitar is vaguely interesting, but I can't help but wonder what this song is really about. Hmm, take it back about being completely muscially uninteresting, I guess the guitar break a little more than halfway through the song shows some interesting effects on the guitar making it sound like two different instruments.

"Bring On the Night" would be my favorite song on the record if it weren't for the first song on the second side. I just love how it builds with the high-hat hits and the nearly helicopterish guitar that transforms into one of the most interesting chord progressions in any of their songs, almost behind the beat and finger-picked I can spend 4+ minutes of the track doing nothing but listening to that part alone, but when the chorus comes, the bass is that simple boucey feel that carries you through and perfectly expresses the relief of the night's arrival, aided by the reggae strumming that comes on the guitar. Copeland plays the highhat almost throughout and again, Sting's voice is perfect here, perfectly expressing both the desire and relief. According to wikipedia, the song is supposed to be about the execution of Gary Gilmore, but I never knew that until recently, and I don't know the source for that information. Seems irrelevant. "Deathwish" has no chorus. Just three verses sung amid what is mostly an instrumental. In fact, it is easy for me to forget there are lyrics at all. Like a lot of these songs it has a driving rhythm that is accented nicely by Andy Summers' guitar (great mix of struming, arrpegiating and use of echo). I like the lyrics.

Deathwish in the fading light
Headlight pointing through the night
Never thought I’d see the day
Playing with my life this way

Gotta keep my foot right down
If I had wings I’d leave the ground
Buning in the outside lane
People think that I’m insane

The day I take a bend too fast
Judgement that could be my last
I’ll be wiped right off the slate
Don’t wait up ’cause I’ll be late

Side Two begins with what is probably my favorite song by the Police, "Walking on the Moon." From the instantly recognizable bassline to the echoing guitar chords and jaunty reggae feel that imply some loss of gravity, the song's simplicity is its strength. Again, this song displays Stewart Copeland's excellent highhat work, but it is the feeling it more than adequately describes that is the best part of it. Or perhaps it is just me, the silly romantic that I can be - but the sensation: "Walking back from your house / Walking on the moon / Walking back from your house / Walking on the moon / Your feet they hardly touch the ground. . ." I know it so well, and I love it. It is a moment divorced from the future, just like you'd feel divorced from gravity making giant steps across the moonscape. The song ends with more of Copeland's great cymbal-work and the echoing "Keep it up" suggests not only a common call out in ska and reggae, but also the weightlessness itself. The song is just as close to perfect as you can get, if you ask me.

"On Any Other Day" was written by Stewart Copeland and he does most of the singing on it. It starts with him saying "The other ones are complete bullshit. . " which suggests not only that his other offerings are worse, but that they think this track is bullshit as well to some degree - and I cannot disagree. It just has a jokey sophmoric feel that just doesn't sit well with me and doesn't age well. I guess the horrible things listed in the song are happening on the protagonist's birthday. . . But really, I don't care. It isn't even very interesting musically and ultimately not all that funny.

"The Bed's Too Big Without You" on the other hand is another of my favorites off this album. A kind of reggae ballad that puts the guitar, bass and drum pieces together beautifully. The song fades in from the left channel and then comes in stereo (I have heard a mono version), and has the perfect tempo for Sting's languid lyrics.

"Contact" is a weird song with a droning bassline and obscure lyrics, though I like the chorus. "Have we got contact, you and me? Have we got touchtone? Can we be?" It not a very long song, and neither is the song that follows it that at one time I would have probably said was my favorite on the album, "Does Everyone Stare?" This song is unique in that it starts with piano and Stewart Copeland singing a kind of muffled lead that echoes the verses to come until the song really starts up and Sting takes over the lead vocals - just before he does there is a sample(? - can I call it a sample?) of a man's operatic voice further back in the mix, not sure what is up with that, but it works. Again, this is a song that I think my teenaged self related to because of the awkwardness it conveys (reinforced by the purposefully slightly off-time kind of marching drum that goes along with the the trotting piano chords). "I change my clothes ten times before I take you on a date / I get the heebie-jeebies and my panic makes me late / I break into a cold sweat reaching for the phone / I let it ring twice before / I chicken out and decide you're not at home." Of course, the very idea of staring at a woman reinforces the awkward creepiness of it.

The closing track is "The Other Way of Stopping" is a fast-paced frenetic song with some amazing drumming.

Overall, I find Regatta de Blanc to be the Police's best album, though I am leaving aside the problematic aspect of cultural appropriation that come along with the idea of "white reggae," mainstreaming it beyond even the broader popularity that Bob Marley gave it. Reading this over I also find that my enthusiasm for the record is lacking compared to what I wrote about 1999 last month. I think that might because of my recent discovery of TV on the Radio's Dear Science, and right now everything I am feeling about it is what Regatta de Blanc is not. It fills that bottom middle in a way that the sparseness of the Police's tunes do not, and while I love that sparseness, the negative aural space that it creates, right now I am appreciating that fullness contrasted with the falsetto voices and the frequent handclaps. I have also been kind of obsessively listening to some early Springsteen records and they too have a "full" sound laid over with that cramped lyricality with endless eternal rhyme that Bruce was into back then. I may have to write about Greetings from Asbury Park next month, that is, if I am not still so into Dear Science that I just have to write about it.

Listening. . . Remembering

I love waking up on a Saturday morning fixing some coffee, and just putting on albums. Album after album, running through my collection of CDs and LPs, sometimes going by artist, feeling like listening to nothing but Prince - a sampling of his records from the self-titled one with "I Wanna Be Your Lover" on it (I really detest his first album "For You") all the way up through "The Rainbow Children" or "Musicology". Other times it is just albums I feel I haven't listened to in a long time. Ben Folds Five's "Whatever and ever, Amen" or Taj Mahal's "Giant Step/Old Folks in De Home". When was the last time I listened to Fishbone's self-titled first record? Or how about Boogie Down Productions' 'Criminal-Minded' or Public Enemy's 'It takes a Nation of Millions to Hold Us Back'? (How can you not love that title?) Those records just pop out to my eyes as I scan the titles, so I load up the 5 disc changer and let it rip - just laying on my sofa with my eyes closed, listening closely - sometimes sitting up and singing along, sometimes standing and dancing and singing along - sometimes my mind wanders and the next thing I know more than half the song that was on has passed - sometimes I back that shit up and listening again from the beginning - sometimes I let slide.

It is such a lovely way to spend a Saturday morning/afternoon. Experiencing the music in the moment of listening and occasionally letting yourself slip away into the nostalgia of some of those albums. I will never be able to listen to This Mortal Coil's 'Filigree & Shadow' without thinking of lying in the dark in my loft bed in my freshman college dorm room with girlfriend at the time, awkwardly fumbling to undo the buttons of her blouse to reveal those forbidden breasts. I remember having my smooth moment foiled by the size of them. You see, I got great practice unsnapping bras when I was growing up.

My mother would come home exhausted from her job and call me into the bedroom and she'd be standing there, back to me, her blouse hiked up in the back, so I could unsnap her bra, too tired to reach back and do it herself. When I was very young I never thought of it as weird, but when I was little older I always did it reluctantly - but one does not refuse my mother lightly - anyway, at around 11 my older brother told me that I should start practicing doing it one handed as the skill might come in handy one day. I became an expert. I could undo those two snaps with a quick flick of three fingers. And after I got good at doing it right-handed, I started doing it left-handed.

But that two-snap bra was the only kind of bra I had any experience with. I just assumed they were all like that, so that first night as a freshman, as I drew off her blouse and reached to the back of the bra, I did my deft flick and undid two snaps. . . But there were three! I even said, all confused, "There are three?" And suddenly shy again, she folded her arms about her breasts and looked down as This Mortal Coil's version of Judy Collins' 'Ohio' came on. It is emblazoned in my memory.

Don't worry we overcame the awkward moment and I got to behold her in all her double-D glory.

I am never going to be able to listen to Big Black's 'Hammer Party' without thinking those blue-dot blotters I took with my roommate later that same school year. Damn, I used to gobble that stuff up like it was nothing. I was used to it, but it was his first time and I was called away to deal with a 'girlfriend situation'. There I was arguing with her about tripping while I was tripping in a study lounge in her dorm. I trying to alleviate the situation and told her it was no big deal (she was a small town girl. She didn't have experience with this kind of thing - Oh, and I am talking about a different girl here) and succeeding, and even getting her to laugh and fool around a little when her roommate comes to knock on the door of the study lounge. My roommate had called their room. He was listening to Big Black and freaking out. I begged off and ran back to my dorm to rescue him from the mental horrors he was inflicting on himself, lying balled up in one corner of the futon mumbling, "I'm a steel worker. I kill what I eat." He was okay. I just needed to come back and remind him to have fun. The funny thing is I have never really liked Big Black before that - but from that moment on I was a fan, and still am. I think none of the music that it spawned of various industrial modes ever surpasses it for pure snide unfocused expression of anger and dissatisfaction with everything. We are talking 1989-90 here folks. I had a lot of that. Come to think of it, I still do.

It is hard to come up with more recent examples. I mean, music was so much a part of my development as a person, especially in my teens and early twenties, when an album could mean so much. I will never be able to listen to Kraftwerk's 'Trans-Europe Express' without thinking about being about 7 years old and sneaking my older brother's records when he wasn't home and trying to mix two copies of them. I really think that track was the perfect introduction to electronic music and those kinds of beats for a kid because it was about a train, and what seven year old boy doesn't love trains? And how many times did I listen to Pink Floyd's 'the Wall' at age 15 lying in my bunk bed feeling sorry for myself and thinking myself an eternal outsider? It is for that reason it is hard for me to listen to that record these days without associating it with that self-obsessed melodrama that would be embarrassing if it wasn't excused by the fact that I was only 15 years old.

But I hope that that is not the end of such experiences and memories regarding albums. And, now that I think of it, I know it won't be - because I just remembered the repeated listening of the Flaming Lips' 'Soft Bulletin' when I was sick with the flu in early 2003, and becoming overwhelmed by the sounds of it, and the yearning in Wayne Coyne's voice that echoes my own (yearning, that is - not my voice). And those repeated listenings of those albums that come to mean so much and have such strong associations also reveal new aspects to the music every so often, some track or trick of production, some other voice or sound deep in the mix that I had never noticed before.

Ah, the Taj Mahal record just ended. . . I love that I've forgotten what comes on next. . . Oh! 'Yankee Hotel Foxtrot'. I love it.

Do You Realize?

Crossing Manhattan Bridge this morning on the D-train, listening to the Flaming Lips on my mp3 player, listening to the echoing words "the sun eclipsed behind the clouds", I admired the awkward off-balance perch of brown-haired nerdy girl with her hair in a bun and her black glasses close to her eyes, looking like an emaciated turtle in her blackish-green ribbed high-necked sweater, as she leaned against the door crammed into place by me and the rest of the commuting crowd. I admired the high clouds, puffy and distant, as if spying on the weather on the far-away land of the Bronx. I watched the cars skate up and down the FDR and was filled with one of the strongest feelings of being monkey-man-me that I have felt in a long time. Thinking that everyone of those driving apes has his own banana tree to worry about, or maybe some don't have one and that is their worry, but here is one thing that is true: Most of them have forgotten, maybe never known, that it is all just bananas.

Just friggin' bananas.

The Flaming Lips ask "Do you realize that everyone you know someday will die?" And for a second I do, and then consider all the ape-people that have come and gone and are now forgotten. How many generations does it take for the average person to be completely forgotten? I mean, it must vary from person to person and how close they were with their families, how close and/or large their circle of friends was - but still it cannot be very long. I would think three would be a lot for most people. But how many spinster aunts and bachelor uncles, crotchety old grandfathers and weird loner guys that lived in the basement apartment that everyone called "Slosky", even though it said "Rodgers" on his mailbox are never thought of again by any living person, unless it might be wondering who they are when their photo is come across in an old shoebox when your own parents die. There you are at age 6 making a funny face for the posed pictures beside the Christmas tree in 1977 with your brother and sister and this strange person. . . There is no one left to ask.

I once heard mi abuela bemoaning the fact that her large collection of family photos will likely be thrown away when she dies because no one else cares, and even if they did no one knows who all those people are anymore; no one but her. But I want those photos. It is strange how I have little desire to meet most of my extended family, but I don't want to lose the tenuous connections themselves - the relations. . . I want to go through all those albums with mi abuela and tape little index cards beneath each photo listing who is in the photo and their relation to each other and to my immediate family.

But it is really hard to sit down and do something with your grandma that is for when she dies - even if the fact that she will die eventually and probably (even hopefully) sooner than the rest of the family is undeniable. She has lore, but sometimes it is difficult to harvest. She gets tired, and even I find the process of the telling of stories and the answering of my questions emotionally draining. So much of it comes down to how fucked up people can be to each other, and how people coped when fucked up shit happened. Murder, rape, child abuse, spouse abuse, rumor, innuendo, infidelity, poverty, alcoholism - those are the stories my grandma has to tell. And yet, there is still something beautiful about them - like the spiraled sparkles in a shattered window glass.

---

My mind wandered back to when I first started listening to Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots. I remember liking the first three or four songs, but thinking the rest of the album kind of all blended together. It took a while before I discovered the gems of that second half of the record - realizing the texture and layered depth of sound they had - the obvious almost cheesy almost cliche almost simple lyrics - that somehow cuts through all those things to just be earnest and raw.

And it struck me that that time it took to discover that second half was the unintended consequence of unintended consequences.

I am an album listener. Rarely am I in the mood for a single song - and I never use the random feature on a playlist on iTunes or whatever - I like hearing a record from beginning to end - and when I hear a song taken out of the context of its album I automatically begin to hear the next song on the album as the song ends - as if it were to start up - I anticipate it.

Because of this, most often when I do not have time to hear an entire album in a short time, the next time, I listen to it from the beginning again - with CDs and records this is no problem - but I grew up in the era of the tape - of rewind and fast-forward and flipping. Because of the pain in the ass of that - back in the days, it was more likely to hear a single side of an album at a time and when you came back to it - listen to the other side. Album sides had themes and feels of their own - think about how overrated side one of Led Zeppelin IV is compared to side two . . . This flip requirement had the unintended consequence of making me listen to songs on a second side more often - or even prefer a second side - so the unintended consequence of the tape cassette machine - the laziness or impatience of not wanting to wait for a tape to rewind led to one thing - and then the loss of that with the advent of CDs led to another.

It seems to me that so much of life is like that - handling an inconvenience in one way which leads to something potentially positive - but when the inconvenience is eliminated that is lost and you miss the coping mechanism. Heh, in some cases that leads to addiction.

We stumbled out of the D train on Broadway-Lafayette and I climbed the steep steps two at a time as I always do weaving in and out of lines of one step-at-a-timers and I could not help but laugh out loud momentarily filled with joy for this personal moment of awareness of the finite nature of my life, my memory, my ability to take in information of all kinds of a day to day basis. The thought and the moment felt better than any moment I could wait for or even imagine.

Somehow, the almost unbearable, almost crushing, almost soul-numbing, often enraging aspects were cut right through by being.

Dig if you will the picture. . .

It must be springtime, because I have been listening to Prince almost non-stop.

Prince, no matter what his name was at the time, has been my most consistant love in music since I was 11 years old. I remember being home alone playing with my LEGO^TM Galaxy Explorer on the living room floor, listening to the little radio I had gotten for Christmas that year, when "1999" came on and I was like "Wow, what is this music?" I wouldn't listen to the whole album for many years, but the title track and songs like "Little Red Corvette" were enough for me to be paying attention when "Purple Rain" came on the scene a couple of years later.

Damn, Purple Rain is one of the best albums of all time. When I think about 26 year old Prince fucking rocking the world with that collection of songs and blowing people away with live performances, and how tight a band the Revolution was I feel a streak of envy rise in me. I mean, sure the movie is ridiculous and the only moral I have ever been able to gleen from it, is that when your dad abuses you mom and tries to kill himself, and your girlfriend is on the verge of leaving you for your scummy rival Morris Day after you slapped her around, your band hates you and your career is going nowhere because you only want to do things on your own terms, if you play "Purple Rain" at a show everything will turn out okay.

And not only is the album great, but the B-sides off the singles from that ablum are among his best, I mean, come on "Erotic City"? (on the flip of "Let's Go Crazy"), or "God" (on the flip of "Purple Rain"), or "Another Lonely Christmas" (which accompanied "I Would Die 4 U") or the under-rated "17 Days" (on the other side of one of the best songs ever produced "When Doves Cry")

Oh and speaking of "When Doves Cry" I remember spending the summer with my older brother and his then wife in 1984, and this video show used to come on right around my bedtime, but when the video for the song would come on, my sister-in-law would come and get me to watch it because she knew how much I loved it. I remember being a little disturbed by his crawling naked on the bathroom floor, but at the same time I was so fascinated by Prince's style and his mix of soul, R&B, rock and "new wave" elements.

But there is so much Prince to listen to. . . Both "Around the World in a Day" and "Parade (Music from the second worst movie ever made, uh. . . I mean, 'Under the Cherry Moon')" have some great songs on them, but it is "Sign o' the Times" which followed those two which is probably my favorite Prince album.

Oh, step back: While "Kiss" is the song everyone knows off of Parade - "Mountains" is the best song on that album.

Anyway, while Prince produced his own albums from the very beginning (he would only sign to a label that gave him full control - even though he was only 19 or 20 at that time, and Warner Bros were the only ones that would do it) it was not until "Sign o' the Times" when his production moved from serviceable to masterful - and his varying stripped down and lush and layered arrangements impress me every time - and this actually gets me to the point of this whole diatribe which suffers from a digression into my chronological exposure to Prince's music - which is, that from that point on listening to any Prince album on headphones, or on a really good stereo is a divine aural experience.

The touches that can be heard; the layered voices in gospel swoon, each one an example of his four octave voice that projects with equal strength whether it is his low bass growl or his falsetto soprano ringing - the rich and varied instrumentation, whether it be a funky-fat-ass bassline, or arpeggiated strings. Listen to that distorted over the top bass drum on "Housequake" or chilling vocals on "Adore" and you will know what I mean. . .and speaking of "Adore", it is also a great example of his lyrical proficiency. I mean, the playfulness he allows himself in an otherwise straightforward lover-man ballad shows an ability to poke fun of himself in his music, even if he comes off as not being able to do that in his life. His growled little aside in that song, that follows his singing, "You can burn up my clothes / Smash up my ride" that goes "Well, maybe not the ride" is like a little parenthetical reality check.

Or his cute little reference to Joni Mitchell's "Catch me I Think I'm Falling (in Love)" in "The Ballad of Dorothy Parker" which works so well is another example (and interestingly the song has nothing to do with the real Dorothy Parker - and from what I have read he did not even know who she was - he just liked the name).

I can come up with a ton of examples from nearly every one of his albums after that - and after countless times listening to all of them I still discover new things layered in the production that amaze me in not only how they sound and work for the song - but in how the hell he even thought to do it to begin with. Check out "Jam of the Year" on Emancipation - which starts with a cheesy sounding drum machine, becomes a live drum kit somehow without ever giving away the transition unless you are just waiting and listening for it, and then I discovered years later that later in the song the drum kit become congas for four measures before going back. Flawless.

I know some people tend to say that they like Prince's early stuff the most, but usually when they say that they are really talking about his middle period (let's say "1999" thru "Batman"), as his first five albums are very different (and no less brilliant), but his later albums have some great great stuff and whatever he lost in pop sensibility he made up for with craftsmanship and risk-taking. Hell, even his bizarre inconsistent Jehovah's Witness opus "The Rainbow Children" has some incredible stuff on it (like "Family Name") and definitely is the furthest out there - and ostensibly throw-away albums made to fulfill his contract and "get his name back" have some hot tracks, like "Come". And Musicology's "If Eye Was The Man In Ur Life" is what pop music should sound like. Yes, there are Prince albums I do not like - like "Chaos & Disorder" (aptly named) and "New Power Soul".

So, all I am trying to say is that spring and summer are my times when my obsession with Prince's music comes back and I listen to his albums endlessly. I love an afternoon spent in the park or on the fire escape just listening to album after album on the headphones and doing nothing but taking it all in and discovering new things that make me gasp. And plus, aside from Marvin Gaye, who's catalog is not as deep due to his untimely death and other career issues, who else are you going to find as many dirty songs as you are song about god/love?

"Mama's in the short dress, blowing in the breeze / Papa's just praying for the gust that'll bust that butt out, Please!"