This week’s Top-10 from Chris C. Davis (in no particular order).
What I’ve been listening to this week.
Big Star – 3rd/Sister Lovers (Rykodisc)
The third and final album from power-pop gods Big Star (according to most, though there has always been dispute about whether this should be considered a Big Star release or an Alex Chilton solo project), 3rd/Sister Lovers is, by a long shot, their least conventional offering. It features a wider array of instrumentation and an emotionally uneven, and at times jarring, tracklist. Despite the drama, or maybe because of it, this album is hard to shake once you’ve let it sink in. Personal favorites include “Thank You Friends” and the heartbreaking “Big Black Car” and “Holocaust”. Also, “Jesus Christ”, on which the vocals sound to me as though they were probably the biggest influence that Chilton and Co. would have on Paul Westerberg (who of course wrote and sang the Replacements classic “Alex Chilton”). Does anybody else hear that, disagree, agree? “Holocaust”:
Superchunk – Majesty Shredding (Merge)
At long last, a new release from Mac McCaughan’s main band, Superchunk (when he isn’t busy with them, you can find him putting out fantastic albums with Portastatic)! One of my Top 5 favorite currently active bands, this is their first new full-length since 2001. The album comes out Tuesday, but has been streaming in its entirety all week at NPR.com. Here’s the scoop, if you loved Superchunk nine years ago, then you’re going to love them now. If you weren’t such a big fan then, you probably still aren’t going to be one. In other words, for better or worse, Superchunk has done little to mix things up here. For big fans like myself this is not only fine, but expected, as despite numerous albums to their credit, the recipe has almost never varied. You’re still getting 11 peppy, poppy, punky, anthemic, tracks that epitomize the sound of 1990’s American indie-rock, and as well as these guys do it I’d gladly buy an album of samey tunes from them a month. If that sounds good to you, then pick this, or any, Superchunk album up and you’re in for a treat. Here they are doing “Digging For Something”, the first single off of Majesty Shredding at this year’s SXSW:
Miles Davis – Bitches Brew (Columbia)
It’s amazing how much 9 or 10 years, the amount of time elapsed since I last listened to this, can change the way that we perceive things. A number of things jumped out at me. First and foremost, the album did not seem nearly as weird or challenging as I remember thinking it was a decade ago. While it doesn’t conform to the sounds or structures of pop/rock or older jazz it’s also not far enough removed from them as to be unrelatable. Additionally, as compared with later Miles Davis or some of the free-jazz experimentation of John Coltrane, Ornette Coleman, Albert Ayler, etc. (I’d never listened to any of this before the last time I heard BB) this is much easier to digest and make sense of. I still won’t rate this album as highly as many do. And I’ll still take 60’s Miles Davis over this or anything that came after it, but this has definitely assumed a much more elevated status in my mind. This reassessment highlights one of my favorite things about music. Listening to BB was like listening to someone speak Chinese when I first heard it, totally incomprehensible. Now it is totally palatable. And I don’t just think that it is increased exposure to jazz music that has made it so (though I do listen to a lot of jazz now and I’m sure it didn’t hurt). I think that absorbing challenging music by the likes of Neu!, Can, Sonic Youth, Boredoms, Glenn Branca, Terry Riley, Philip Glass, etc., etc., etc. across the spectrum has made my mind an infinitely more malleable thing. And while some of that stuff is not always a total pleasure to hear, it is neat to see how it can open doors of understanding to unrelated music and help to place it in a context that makes sense. “Sanctuary”:
Can – Ege Bamyasi (Mute)
Born in the late 1960’s Can was so out there that they were like the avant-garde of the avant-garde, making other experimental and outside of the mainstream rock acts like The Velvet Underground seem almost tame by comparison. Every album that they released, and there were a ton, had a slightly different sound, the one constant being that each was/is sure to challenge listeners with its eccentric explorations of the far margins of popular music. Ege Bamyasi, released in 1972, shows what happens when you mix one part experimental rock with one part avant-garde jazz and one part Damo Suzuki’s versatile and off-the-wall vocals and put it all on top of the rhythmically fluid and totally funky drumming of Jaki Liebezeit. This might not instantly make you fall in love, but I assure you that if you give it a chance to grow on you, it will reward your efforts. “Soup”:
Sonic Youth – Daydream Nation (David Geffen Company)
This week I reread Matthew Stearns’ excellent book about Daydream Nation (from the always entertaining 33 1/3 book series put out by Continuum Books). While this album has been one of my favorites for years, I felt that Stearns explained it in a way that exactly explains how I’ve felt about SY and Daydream Nation since I first heard them: “Typically, scary records blast into our lives just as things are going along without incident musicwise — we know what we like, what we don’t like, and we know how to explain the difference. Hunky dory. Suddenly, from the shadows, some monster album springs on our unsuspecting little ears (tender and vulnerable, swaddled in complacency, kootchy kootchy koo) and —BOOM— all auditory hell breaks loose. Albums like these often serve as crux demarcation points by which we map the landscape of our music life. These albums resonate, recur, and haunt. But initial exposure can be unnerving.” Punishing 2007 live version of “Silver Rocket”:
R.E.M. – Murmur (IRS)
This is often viewed as the album that launched “college rock.” It’s an amalgamation of postpunk, folk rock, and jangle pop that is neither inaccessible, nor status quo. Its varying influences foreshadow the great career that this Athens, Ga. crew had ahead of them and hints at the touchstones of the playlists of hundreds of campus radio stations in the 1980’s. And if you really dig in, you will find some of their most well-crafted songs and some of the best lyrics that Micheal Stipe would ever pen. “Talk About the Passion”:
The Clientele – Minotaur (Merge)
There’s a part in the Nada Surf song “Blonde on Blonde” that goes “I’ve got Blonde on Blonde/ On my portable stereo/ It’s a lullaby/ From a giant golden radio.” I’ve always thought that this served as a pretty good description of what it is like to listen to The Clientele. With their 60’s-inspired autumnal tones, hushed vocals, and lush reverb, one might easily describe them as sounding “like a lullaby/ from a giant golden radio.” Similar to the comments that I made about Superchunk above, leadman Alasdair Maclean and co. don’t seem too keen on messing with what is already working for them. So, the sound largely remains that same as you’ve heard on past releases which, with Fall right around the corner, is perfect if you ask me. I can’t find anything off the new album so here’s and older track that I’m fond of, “Reflections After Jane”:
The Connells – Boylan Heights (TVT Records)
Not often mentioned in the same lofty regard as other purveyors of 80’s southern jangle-pop, such as R.E.M., Let’s Active, and The dB’s“, probably due to the varying quality of their catalog, The Connells nonetheless put out a few amazing albums. Boylan Heights, produced by Mitch Easter, well known for his work with the aforementioned and others, is a solid and underappreciated LP that showcases the band at the height of their talents. “Scotty’s Lament”:
Crystal Stilts – Alight of Night (Slumberland)
Crystal Stilts play ramshackle, muddy, garage pop with a bit of a surf-guitar vibe (especially on the eponymous album standout “Crystal Stilts”). The most obvious influences are bands such as Black Tambourine, The Shop Assistants, and The Pastels. But the quality of the tracks on display here make the Stilts immediate equals rather than just two-decades-late wannabes. This album has remained a mainstay in my listening repertoire since its 2008 release. “Crystal Stilts”:
Orange Juice – Rip It Up (Polydor)
Led by the charismatic and talented Edwyn Collins, Orange Juice is rightfully credited as one of the groups that laid out the blueprint for what would come to be called indie-pop. Most of their most important and revered tracks were actually recorded and circulated in the couple years before they’d even put out an album. While not as essential as these rougher sounding early Orange Juice recordings that were released variously on Ostrich Churchyard, The Heather’s On Fire, and most recently (and completely) The Glasgow School, I’ve still always enjoyed the more polished sounds that can be found on their 1982-84 proper LPs. Rip It Up is the second of three. All of the production gloss and delving into different areas of the pop spectrum, such as dance music, makes for a different but not unpleasurable listening experience. Nowhere is this more evident than on the intoxicating and infectious title track, “Rip It Up”:
