The Beatles - Rubber Soul

Capitol Records: 1965/2009

The only Beatles album you're supposed to have, even if you're not much of a Beatles fan. Because let's be honest: who really likes all the studio experimenting they did after Rubber Soul? There were plenty of good songs, but so much of it fell victim to weirdness like tape manipulations, overdubbing, orchestras, and Indian tonal scales. Whatever happened to the good ol' rock 'n' roll that made the lads from Liverpool super-huge megastars? Yeah, it's here and there, but almost in lip-service rather than their defining musical style. No, best stay away from latter-era Beatles, where they even let Ringo write songs.

That isn't to say Rubber Soul doesn't have its share of new ideas either. If anything, this album marked a major step away from the happy do-lucky mop top rock that created all sorts of screaming girl havoc. They’d just completed a second North American tour, and in that time had taken in plenty of local flavours that were gaining popularity in the USA alongside their own music. This included the impeccable vocal harmonization of The Beach Boys and authentic Motown soul, but most importantly the folk rock styling of Bob Dylan and The Byrds.

In the case of Dylan, their lyrics took a big step for Beatlekind, distancing themselves from easy couplets and simple phrases screaming girls could sing along to when they weren’t screaming for Paul or John or that emo George. Now their songs contained mature content for an aging audience and lovely imagery. Okay, it’s almost all still dealing with love and relationships, but there’s plenty of wiggle-room for exploration in these topics too, areas their early teeny-bop tunes couldn’t deal with. Like such intimacy with Norwegian Wood, or a melancholic Christian parable in Girl, or times long past in In My Life, or the nasty post-breakup threats of Run For Your Life. Whoa, where’d that come from? Meanwhile, the dour Harrison had about enough of love songs by that point, and wrote Think For Yourself, something of a governmental screed. He also co-wrote the reflective Nowhere Man, though that was mostly John’s song, apparently inspired by a bought of writer’s block. Damn marijuana.

Speaking of Harrison and drugs, another thing he learned from David Crosby of The Byrds was a kooky string instrument called a sitar. He learned to play the darned thing and even incorporated it into Norwegian Wood, though in keeping to a Western scale, it don’t sound as ethnic as his later uses of it – a perfect bit of spice to the tune’s charming folksiness. A few more new additions to The Beatles’ repertoire was fuzz box for McCartney in Think For Yourself, French lyrics in Michelle, and a sped-up piano intended to mimic a harpsichord for In My Life.

The biggest contribution Rubber Soul provided the rock world, however, was the notion an album could have end-to-end great songs rather than consisting of filler servicing the singles. Yep, the entire pseudo-genre of Album Orientated Rock was birthed here!

Various - Pulp Fiction

MCA Records: 1994

Shame I didn't get to this CD a little sooner – say, last yearish. I could’ve generated cheap traffic by piggy-backing off clickbait articles like “Hey, It’s The 20th Anniversary Of That Movie You Can’t Stop Quoting!” But alas, we're already two weeks deep into 2015, long past the expiry date of people nostalgically revisiting Pulp Fiction's 1994 release. Who cares that it came out mid-November of that year, thus making us but two months late for twentieth-anniversary prestige. Hell, as I recall, Tarantino's opus to the mush of storytelling didn't catch popular buzz until well into '95, finding more fanfare on the home video market where all us impressionable underage Gen-X types could finally watch it. And hoo, what a movie to behold, making not a lick of sense but strangely captivating as Hollywood stars waxed bullshit over obscene circumstances.

Plus the music! Wow, where did ol' Quentin find all that awesome music? His personal record collection apparently, turning many of his flicks into as much a mixtape as they are ‘70s genre-sploitations. Of course, with over two decades to study his methods, having rare, odd, and perfect tunes’ become the expectant norm, and unfortunately nothing’s made quite the impact that the surf rock of Misirlou did. Still, Tarantino made a style of music that had been absolutely dead for three decades hip again. That’s quite an achievement, and though it didn’t resurrect into a reinvigorated scene, it did create a new generation of crate divers digging a little further into obscure musical cul-de-sacs. Erm, not me though – I still had ‘techno’.

So the surf rock is primarily what Pulp Fiction’s music is remembered for, and for good reason. Beyond the killer opener, at least a third of the music on this soundtrack is in that style. Another significant chunk is taken up by dark, bluesy country, though not always specifically from that scene. Heavy rockers Urge Overkill do a cover of Neil Diamond’s Girl, You’ll Soon Be A Woman, and then-newcomer Maria McKee goes full-on whisky folk, but every track has that ‘outlaw’ feeling that Tarantino loves writing into protagonists. Not so much always the ‘bad guys’, as he’s featured his fair share of vigilantes too. More like desperados, and can you think of any sub-sub American culture that was filled with those sorts than the outlaws of the country? Sure, the surfer nation! Nothing caught that vintage American West desperado spirit like freeloaders taking on the mighty waves of the Pacific Ocean, risking life and limb to prove Man was undefeatable in the face of his Mother Nature’s fury. Well, the music suggested as such.

Look, I’m just waxing bullshit here for the sake of my own ego (like a Tarantino movie!). Even if you haven’t seen Pulp Fiction (!), you’ve probably seen a parody or two, and know its music and culled bits of dialog from those. You don’t need me telling you to check this out, because you already have, even if only by cultural osmosis.

Moby - Play

V2: 1999

Play is a very important album released by a very important artist at a very important time in electronic music’s history. It set the very important precedent that one need not rely on very important radio play for promotion, but could succeed by licensing the music out to very important movies and very important commercials for maximum exposure. Then you could smugly sit back watching those same very important radio stations crawl back to you now that your very important hit singles have wormed their way into the popular discourse. Take that, Very Important Radio that’s no longer so very important!

Sorry, had to get that bit of silliness out of my system. I know it goes without saying that Moby’s Play stunned everyone with how commercially successful it became, but it holds especially true for many ravers who’d been following him since the beginning of his career (or at least after hearing Go). Though he'd always been a little erratic with his muse, most figured he'd all but left electronic music following Animal Rights, seduced by the vigor of protest punk rock in lieu of his growing social conscience. Maybe he'd make another techno album down the road under his Voodoo Child alias, or something ambient leaning should he get the reigns to a film score, but not much else that could interest his old audience.

And it went when Play first dropped, many unsure what to make of all the ragtime and blues samples littered about. While his past indulgences with gospel were charming enough, tracks like Honey, Find My Baby, Run On, and Natural Blues gave us a Moby gleefully exploring American roots music not seen since... well, ever, at least where electronic music was concerned. These weren't simple historical raids for catchy or quirky loops; rather, he honored their legacy, providing little more than serviceable contemporary dance rhythms and his distinct piano, strings and pad flourishes. Everyone agreed it was different, yet uniquely Moby; a defining moment in electronic music's history though? Hardly. Just another indication the Moby brand, once a darling of American rave, had fallen further off from scene relevance. I mean, listen to those squeaky-clean 'rocktronica' cuts Bodyrock and South Side - no way those will catch on with the underground.

Silly underground, there's more to music than you. But okay, if you’re really forlorn for the Moby of old, there are a few tunes that play to his melancholy strengths, including the dreamy Porcelain and surprisingly uptempo Machete. Most of the vintage Mobes is found in the back end of Play though, with haunting ambience (Inside, My Weakness) rubbing shoulders with downtempo takes on his newfound blues infatuation (Everloving, The Sky Is Broken).

Though I doubt anyone reading this blog hasn’t come within earshot of at least a few tracks off Play, it is worth your while to hear the album in full if you haven’t yet. Its simple charm makes for a surprisingly difficult LP to turn off.

Huey Lewis & The News - The Only One

Disky: 1997

I got this as a joke. All right, also because I kinda’ like Workin’ For A Livin’. What harm was there in getting a Huey Lewis & The News CD, though? It was just sitting there in that bargain bin, little more than a buck or two of investment. It didn’t have any of the ‘notorious’ songs on it either, mostly a collection of the band’s early material – the good stuff, in theory. Yeah, this would be fun for a laugh if folks are over for some drinks. I mean, it’s not like I was going to share the fact I had a Huey Lewis CD in my collection to the world at any point, was there? Haha, ha…!

If you want an extensive history of Huey Lewis & The News and a nuanced description of their musical facets, go read All Music Guide or American Psycho. Know only that what started as a San Francisco answer to Bruce Springsteen & The E Street Band (*chortle*) turned into a corporate beast embodying all that was weak and abhorrent about mainstream ‘80s rock music. Plus, they were a talented bunch of successful musicians that got a bad rap as cooler, alternative music took to the college airwaves. The story depends on how fond of memories you have of the group, if any at all (I’m looking at you, people who’ve never seen Back To The Future). Some of their music could be incredibly insipid, true, but they had some fun jams in their discography too.

That said, The Only One is a curious CD. The content seems straight-forward enough, a concise gathering of the band’s first two albums, the self-titled debut and Picture This. Oddly, it’s a Dutch label that’s responsible for it, Disky, and it came out in 1997. Bear in mind that’s nearly a decade since Huey Lewis & The News had any significant hit, three other ‘best of’ collections on the market, and well into an era deeming anything they did uncool (the Dutch sure know their cheese, though). You might think The Only One serves as a greatest hits package for the European market then, but that can't be true with only two album's worth of songs, all from their pre-fame period. The biggest hit here is the “Mutt” Lange produced Do You Believe In Love, Workin' For A Livin' the closest second. Tattoo could have been too, if it wasn’t already a B-side to Believe In Love. Hey, there’s a reason to get this CD: rare B-sides! Or not.

The only theory I have for The Only One's existence is somehow, someway, Disky got the distribution rights to Huey Lewis' first two albums, and knocked this quicky-discy out to capitalize on whatever selling potential Mr. Lewis and his News had in the Netherlands - in 1997, mind you. And this CD somehow found its way into a supermarket bargain bin in Western Canada. Now my head hurts, the logic of that theory twisting my brain in upon itself.

Neil Young - On The Beach

Reprise Records: 1974/2003

So, how's your day going? Good, you say? That's cool, peachy. I'm doing pretty good myself. Enjoying my new Sennheiser Momentum headphones very much, thank you. What's that, you found $20 on the ground? Wow, that's some swell luck. You know, I think everything's looking bright for us. I almost feel guilty feeling good about things and stuff right now. Hey, I know what will bring me right the fuck down, Neil Young's On The Beach. Few things depress you quicker than that ode to post-hippie '70s existential crisis of being!

Not that you could blame the poor guy. Sure, he was a commercial success and all that, but at what cost had that fame come? If his musician friends weren't dying from drug overdoses, they were getting lost up their needles and noses with the stuff. He could sell out concerts, but considering how often he felt compelled to flee his fanatical fans, what comfort was there in that? And everything else in Americana seemed to be going tits up, the prosperity of the '50s and counter-culture idealism of the '60s getting hit with hard, bitter, cold reality of events out of their control. Where else could Neil Young go but straight for the ditch, burning his bridge to fame (but not his fortune!) as he tried making sense of it all.

Thus, you get a track like Vampire Blues, condemning the Western world’s growing dependence on fossil fuels. There’s Revolution Blues, painting redneck culture as ever the jaded reactionary types as we’ve stereotyped them into today. For The Turnstiles paints a dour picture of other charming Americana like county fairs and baseball games. See The Sky About To Rain is more poetic, coming off like After The Goldrush material (I think it was written around that time anyway). Motion Pictures laments his fame, and Ambulance Blues flat out criticizes all that hippie optimism that accomplished squat in the ‘70s. “Pissing in the wind” indeed.

As those song titles suggest, there’s quite a bit of blues music here, though only the titular cut’s out-and-out blue-blues as you imagine. Revolution Blues is a basic southern rock out (that bass!), and Vampire Blues is the chipper version of blues rock, what with a cool shuffle percussion, a bit of organ action, and one of Shakey’s weirdest solos ever (is he trying to sound like bubbling crude?). For The Turnstiles, meanwhile, goes for a banjo duo, and Ambulance Blues sounds like a whiskey-soaked country jam, including a ...bass fiddle? Whatever it is, it sure sounds sad. I think Toby Marks used something similar on Big Men Cry.

Okay, this is a depressing album, but the music is quite creative and beautiful in its misery. It also helps that Young’s perspective on things got better a few years after, so a happy(ish) wrap to this story. On The Beach is best treated as a time-capsule, a period in Young’s life where he captured a despondent spirit of a generation.

Neil Young - Archives, Vol. 1: Disc 0 - Early Years (1963-1965)

Reprise Records: 2009

It figures. No sooner do I finally start on a new letter than I get hit with a bloody box-set. So long, forward momentum. Tackling this sucker will easily eat up a week's worth of reviews. True, I could give a quick overview and be done with it, but as with The Electro Compendium from last year, it'd leave an obscene gap of content on this blog if I didn't keep some record of my progress. Fortunately, Neil Young: Archives is nicely divided up into manageable chunks, so at least things will move along in a logical fashion. Obviously, if you don't give a flookin' Canook about Neil Young, check back in around seven days – I should be back to regular(ish) electronic music again.

You’re still with me? Aww, you're awesome, really you are. Gotta know what's up with some more good ol' Shakey, does ya'? Well, if you stick around, you'll find out just about everything there is to know about the first ten years of Mr. Young's musical career. More than you'll likely care to know, if I'm honest – heck, it was more than I cared about, though it is interesting from a fan's perspective. Whether you got the CD, DVD (yo), or Blu-Ray version of Archives, Vol. 1, everything was split into chronological sections. It also includes Live At The Fillmore East and Live At Massey Hall, which I've covered already; plus his oddball movie Journey Through The Past, but I won't cover that since this isn't Musician Movie Critic. Oh, and Live At Canterbury House was apparently a bonus DVD/Blu-Ray, but since it wasn't part of the original Archives, Vol. 1 MP3 download bundle, I won't cover that either. Whoa, a breeze of wind all of a sudden rushed through my apartment, as though dozens of people breathed a sigh of release.

Okay, let’s get this thing started, by starting at the start of Young’s career – back when he was still young-Young! (eh? eh...? No, wait, come back...). Most were first introduced to ol’ Neil when he was part of the Los Angeles band Buffalo Springfield, but before heading out there, he played for an old-timey surf-rock band called The Squires. Since they were still teens, the boys mostly played high-school dances and community halls around Manitoba and Ontario, hardly the sort of exposure one could hope for breaking into the big time. They did manage one official single with a couple instrumentals called Aurora and The Sultan though. It’s, well, surf-rock. Cowabunga?

Everything else on Early Years (1963-1965) is previously unreleased material. This includes leftover Squires material that never saw the light of day, a few blues numbers he recorded with Comrie Smith, and an extended recording of a studio session featuring early takes of Sugar Mountain and Nowadays Clancy Can’t Even Sing. These sound like hastily recorded demos likely intended to spread around Toronto or Motown. Pft, you’ll never make it there with such folksy songs, kid. Go west, my son, go west.

Various - The Music Of Cosmos

Cosmos Studios: 1981/2000

How fortunate. I can talk about The Music Of Cosmos at a time when interest in Carl Sagan’s excellent series is part of the public discourse again, thanks to nu-Cosmos currently airing on TV. The Neil DeGrasse Tyson hosted series is pretty good so far, though tends to lack the gravitas the original held, too often bypassing the philosophical notions Sagan brought forth while explaining the wonders around us. The Alan Silvestri score sadly doesn’t help, missing those iconic musical cues that flourished throughout the original series. C’mon, mang, you did Back To The Future, you can do memorable themes. Only thing sticking so far is that bit of piano diddle in the opening credits, and only because it reminds me of the Contact score.

Right, right, this is an unfair comparison, but let’s be honest here: along with everything else, Cosmos stands peerless as a documentary because of its music. Not only did it include synth wizards of the era (Vangelis, Tomita, Synergy), but also works from classical composers (Mozart, Vivaldi, Bach, Pachelbel, Holst, Stravinsky), and even contemporary music like blues and prog-rock (Louis Armstrong, Roy Buchanan, Pink Floyd). No way could Silvestri compete with such a range of music, and one wonders why they didn’t try licensing music out like before. Surely nu-Cosmos has a bigger budget than the original. Did all the money go into those spiffy atom animations?

Whatever. Let’s focus on The Music Of Cosmos, proper original-like. The most famous pieces were the Vangelis compositions. In fact, you can’t hear the gentle piano of Heaven & Hell or synthy bell tones of Alpha without thinking Cosmos, the two completely intertwined in the public consciousness to this day. Folks probably figure Vangelis specifically wrote all these works for Cosmos, but were actually plucked from older albums. There are a couple exclusive synth works here though, both by an anonymous chap named Boydstun, whom even the mighty Lord Discogs knows nothing about. Hell, he never even made the cut on the original ’81 vinyl, though neither did several other works. Thank goodness for twenty year anniversary double-CD editions, eh?

One of the clever things about The Music Of Cosmos is how the tracks are arranged to tell a narrative of sorts, specifically of the cosmos as humanity’s come to understand it, and perhaps foresee our possible fates. Helping the tale along are sound effects bridging the music together. For instance, just before Vangelis’ Alpha starts, a massive explosion erupts from the desolate calm of Shostakovich’s Symphony No. 11. A supernova creating the heavier elements? I’d say so. Meanwhile on CD2, where technology’s run rampant, chainsaws mercilessly cut down old growth forest before the melancholy Prayer of St. Gegory emerges.

Not the most subtle of messages, that, but Sagan’s gift was presenting such messages as a means to inspire ourselves to become better than we are. The rich diversity of music presented in The Music Of Cosmos only proves humanity’s ability to do so.

The Tragically Hip - Live Between Us

Universal: 1998

This is handy - a live album of The Tragically Hip. A decade’s worth of songs, all cribbed from what many declare were their best years. Every member in full swagger, their skills as musicians fine-tuned and honed to the best of their capabilities. Yet, why was this recorded at a show in Detroit – was the potential turnout in their native country not good enough? Then again, knowing Canadians, many of my country men and women braved the treacherous crossing of Detroit River from Windsor, invading the Motor City with Hip tix’ before any American knew what hit ‘em. Don’t laugh, we do it all the time for hockey games as far south as Phoenix and Miami.

I mention Live Between Us being handy because of my unfortunate bias against The Tragically Hip, one that's prevented me from getting into the band. Something about their studio work's always struck me as stiff for an alternative blues-rock band, like they don’t often play as a group during recording sessions. Obviously this is the case for many albums, but good producers hide those handicaps. Again, I blame my upbringing surrounded by rock musicians jamming while practicing in my father's basement for this bias, but it’s there, my 'rock-trained' ears demanding authenticity of band synergy in favor of clean overdubs.

Most folks I've talked to about The Hip claim the band's at their best live anyway, so digging into an album such as this is about as perfect a chance I'll have “getting it”, short of going to an actual concert. The inlay claims this CD is as authentic a recording as they could get, and I believe it. Most live albums tend to place the listener among the crowd, usually close the stage. Live Between Us sounds like you're on the stage (between the band members!), cheering fans oddly distant as though the darkness enveloping the Cobo Arena limits their volume as well. If you've ever desired the experience of joining a rock band on stage, this is as good a representation I've come across.

And The Hip themselves? About as good as I expected. Lead guitarist Rob Baker and rhythm guitarist Paul Langlois have great interplay between them, while bassist Gord Sinclair and drummer Johnny Fay feed them more than enough energy during their extended jams (ooh, Fully Completely and WhereWithal doth kicketh my asseth!). Gord Downie, meanwhile, sounds huskier compared to earlier works, and I wonder if some vocal strain had set in when they did this concert. Many of the main hits up to that point are here - Grace, Too, Courage, Ahead By A Century, Gift Ship, New Orleans Is Sinking - though honestly, they were mostly only hits in Canada.

The question begs, then, whether you folks abroad should check this album out. Sure, if you fancy yourself some alternative blues rock. Live Between Us is easily the best Tragically Hip CD I’ve heard, though given my limited knowledge of their complete works, that’s not saying much.

Meat Loaf - Bat Out Of Hell

Epic: 1977

My first exposure to Meat Loaf was an advertisement in an '80s Transformers comic. You know the one, where all the Marvel Superheroes (Spider-Man! Iron Man! Hulk Man! The X-Men Man?) chime in with kids that they'll help him with the Special Olympics, but they weren't sure how. What a weird comic, thinks 1987 Sykonee, more so this Meat Loaf character. I’d never heard about the 'Humongous Rock Star Of The Universe'. My second exposure to Meat Loaf was as an actor. No, not Fight Club. No, not Rocky Horror. It was the Patrick Swayze flick about big rigs, Black Dog; specifically, the TV ad where the gruff announcer does the cast roll, showing Meat Loaf glowering as he chomps down on a big stoggie. What a weird name for an actor, thinks 1998 Sykonee.

Okay, I likely heard his actual music a few times between those two points, but it never registered as anything more than “dad's rock”. And no, my old man wasn’t much for Meat Loaf, but many of his peers were, and Bat Out Of Hell almost certainly has seen rotation on classic rock stations, to say nothing of his ballads playing out at weddings I attended or helped DJ as a teen.

The creation and development of Bat Out Of Hell is a story of perseverance triumphing in the face of relentless doubt, which is likely why its retained rock-n-roll classic status despite so many things suggesting it shouldn’t (kick-ass cover art notwithstanding). For one thing, the music is so over-the-top, almost gloriously so, it’s surprising anyone could take it seriously. Jim Steinman, who wrote most of the music with Meat Loaf and already had a background in musicals, holds little back in unleashing his bombastic arrangements; little surprise Steinman lists Wagner and The Who as influences. Included within are string sections, piano ballads, full complement of blues musicians (including borrowing a few members of the Springsteen’s E Street), and a lead singer with the theatre chops to pull the concepts off with earnest sincerity. Bat Out Of Hell, All Revved Up With No Place To Go, and Paradise By The Dashboard Light may be playing up typical teenage rock ‘n roll tropes in a fantastical way, but they sure are fun regardless.

Paradise By The Dashboard Light in particular’s quite an ambitious bit of rock. Opening with honky-tonk, of all things, it then runs the gamut through arena choruses, goof-ball baseball innuendo, and a wonderful back-and-forth between Meat Loaf and Ellen Foley over going for the ‘home run’, and the implications it would mean for their relationship. Good stuff, and totally deserving of a Broadway musical supporting it.

Steinman reflected that Bat Out Of Hell is “timeless... that it didn’t fit into any trend”, but this album could only have been made in the ‘70s. While not a full-on rock opera, it retains all the swagger of an era fuelled by bold experimentation and aging reflection – it’s ‘70s rock in all its charming pomposity.

The Beatles - Anthology 1

Apple Records: 1995

The Beatles are John, Paul, George, and Ringo, a very important band in the world of everything. When they started, however, they were “just a band”, as Lennon puts it in an interview kicking off this anthology of ancient Beatles music. And do I mean ancient, some of the demo scraps on here sounding like they were pressed on sixth generation wax, copied to eighth generation tape, and burned to two-decade old CDR. Who would even care about poorly-recorded, garbled covers of American blues? Everyone, man! It's the f'n Beatles, the most important band in the world of everything, remember? Okay, enough hyperbole.

Still, as The Beatles reached their 30th Anniversary of existence (and despite not being an actual band for two-thirds of that time), the well was running dry on how to milk their legacy. The albums already existed, plus the re-issues, the re-re-issues, the b-sides, the live recordings, the compilations, the greatest hits packages, the other greatest hits packages, and who-knows what else in the bootleg market. Likely, it was demand for unauthorized audio that got this Anthology series going – if people want to hear The Beatles in their crummy infancy, then give the people what they want (for a tidy financial reparation, of course).

They couldn’t release this music as a regular album though – the early demos were of such shit sound quality that even an ardent fan would feel ripped-off. Instead, Anthology presents itself as a historical documentary, spotlighting the behind-the-scenes growth of the band as they developed from unknown entities to global deities, including exhaustive liner notes detailing extra bits of obsessive trivia. Clearly only the hardcore would be interested in a CD version of a three-part VH1 special, but there is some fascination while listening to this, especially so with CD1.

After half a disc of warbly covers, slap-dash sessions, and playing music as little more than a lark, The Beatles suddenly get serious about their craft, songs and recordings much tighter and focused. It’s like someone convinced them they could be greater than they currently were, and it’s no surprise this transition is marked by Brian Epstein briefly reading passages from his autobiography. The man was almost single-handily responsible in fashioning The Beatles into the stars they’d become, and after he remarks how no one was initially interested in the band’s recording tests, we’re treated to two all-time classic Beatles hits, Love Me Do and Please Please Me. The boys were flying high thereafter, never dropping back to earth again.

CD2 features more live shows, TV spots, studio sessions, and covers of well-worn rock staples; again interesting as a chronology of their exploits than the musical content. There’s an appearance with the British comedy series The Morecambe And Wise Show, gigs with endless screaming girls (not The Ed Sullivan Show though), and other assorted wise-cracking moments that runs their career up through 1964. What happened after that… well, that’s detailing for further down the Abbey Road (no, I’m not reviewing the other two Anthologys).

Beck - Mellow Gold

Bong Load Records: 1994

Now who the Hell is this guy all of a sudden, and what's with this hit single Loser? It's got a hip-hop beat going for it, and Beck's even rapping on it, but there's bluesy, country twang making up the hook. And his appearance on the back of Mellow Gold, that's grunge wear, me bucko. It just don't add up! Awesome song though. It also propelled Beck from an utterly unknown entity to overnight star, practically sustaining his wild and wonky musical career as a result.

Loser remains Mr. Hansen's top charting single, even though follow-up albums like Odelay and Sea Change were overall better selling LPs compared to Mellow Gold. Come to think of it, there weren't any other successful chart-topping singles off this album either. Uh oh, Beck's debut is one of those albums, isn't it - known for that one killer song, and a whole bunch of forgotten filler. Pft, if you honestly believe that, you don't know Beck. Still, for many folks out there coming to Mellow Gold looking for more sing-along anthems like Loser, they were in for a world of confuddlement.

Psychedelic blues is the main name of Beck's game on this album, with liberal amounts of rock, punk, folk, and electronic beat-craft rounding things out. If you're someone who admires song writing, ingenuity, musical skill, and the swagger to pull it all off on a freakin' debut, then Mellow Gold is definitely for you. Despite lacking anything else as immediately catchy as Loser, Beck's diversity of sound is catnip for those into bold music making. There's 'soaked-in-booze' lo-fi mourners like Pay No Mind, Whiskeyclone, Hotel 1967, and Steal My Body Home (hey, who put this acid in my bourbon?), upbeat funk on Beercan and Soul Sucking Jerk, noise freak-outs like Sweet Sunshine, Mutherfucker and secret-song Analog Odyssey, and sunny psychedelic folk-rock like Blackhole and Fuckin' With My Head. Yessir, there's a lot of different kind of music on Mellow Gold, for sure. Unfortunately, that's also its problem.

While this album's supposed to have a running theme of Los Angeles on the skids, it's rather obtuse under all his mumbly-singing. Besides, that's just the blues, man, but for all folks knew, it was also Beck's style, a modern-day blues-smith based out of the City Of Angels. Confounding things further is all the stylistic hopping he does, hobbling any album flow when playing Mellow Gold front to back. It comes off like Mr. Hansen had a ton of musical inspiration and, being the youthful cavalier he was, made any ol' tune that sprung forth from his mind. And if I'm struggling with this album in this regard, I can only imagine the poor folks who only bought it for Loser. Probably left his career in the rear-view mirror post-haste. Ooh, who’s this OMC?

Ah well, who cares about those people. Beck's endured for two decades now, despite never having a commercial success like Loser again. I'm sure he's perfectly happy how things turned out thusly.

Neil Young & Crazy Horse - Greendale

Reprise Records: 2003

I mean, what else was Neil Young gonna do in his career? He'd explored rock music in nearly all its forms: country, punk, grunge, etc. He did classic rock before it was ever 'classic', and he even did proper classic rock, rockabilly. Folk music? Done it. Blues music? Conquered. Electronic music? Damn straight he went there! Death metal? Well, okay, maybe not that one – I can't imagine ol' Neil's 'baying at the moon' singing working too favourably when Cookie Monster growls are the norm. Still, Hey Hey, My My (Into The Black) isn't too far off from power-chord distortion metal...

Anyhow, what I'm getting at here is, after a long, long history of having done about all one could ever hope to in rock music, taking a stab at a rock opera wasn't so daft – no less odd than his other quirky ventures over the years. This being Neil though, Greendale wasn't going to be a performance piece on the scale of The Wall. Rather, it was a small, intimate effort, relying on just him and Crazy Horse’s brand of kick-ass country-blues rock to tell the tale, though the tunes are musically simple, even for them. Incidentally, so was the production itself, almost on the level of a community theatre show, which makes sense from a thematic standpoint, as it's all about a small town and a series of events that shake a family to their very core.

Spoilers? Well, since I know barely anyone reading this on an electronic music blog is likely to listen to Greendale - even long time fans were rather confuddled over it – I may as well let you in on the story that takes place.

A family called the Greens lives in a sleepy town called Greendale. About the only major ruckus they caused was when Edith and Earl Green changed the name of a rancho they bought. Sacrilege! How can anyone change the Double L to the Double E? Aside from that though, not much happens for the first few songs of Greendale. Then, in a chance pullover by Officer Carmichael, he catches Jed Green drug running. No one knew Jed was a bad apple, and he only makes things worse when, in a panic, he shoots the policeman! Oops.

As you can imagine, the townsfolk aren’t too pleased, and following Carmichael’s funeral, the media seeks to interview Grandpa Green about the incident, an old curmudgeon traditionalist (with a sense of the Fourth Wall no less, often complaining about “that guy singing”). Just as the old man literally tells the media to get off his lawn with a shotgun, he has a heart attack and dies.

Sun Green, the firebrand young activist girl, doesn’t take kindly to seeing her family fall apart due to the media, and... oh dear, I’m running out of self-imposed word count. I’ll just leave on the note that by the end, the FBI kills a cat, and the final song, Be The Rain, is all kinds of awesome!

Neil Young - Freedom

Reprise Records: 1989

Even for my generation, I came to the Neil Young Wagon rather late. My first proper exposure was during his Harvest Moon period, when you couldn't escape that song's video on MuchMusic. For quite a few more of my demographic, however, they'd been hip to the old rocker since the late '80s, when they either learned of Young's initially banned-from-MTV video This Note's For You, or the rousing follow-up chart hit Rockin' In The Free World. I probably heard it at some point, but I was more into The Beach Boys in those years.

More so, Young was getting named dropped as a major influence by several up-and-coming alt-rock and grunge acts like Sonic Youth, The Pixies, and such. Growing inspired by this new legion of noise makers, ol' Neil dropped his current blues outfit and gathered a few chaps for a straight-up rock session, the results of which became the rare Eldorado EP, limited to only five-thousand copies and not sold in America. Da'fuq?

Oh well, most of those songs showed up on his next full-length, Freedom, and thank God they did, 'cause they're some of the most kick-ass music he’d made since the early '80s Crazy Horse album Re-Ac-Tor. Though his wonderful mess of noise occurs on songs On Broadway, No More, and Eldorado, Don’t Cry’s a real highlight for that sound, twice featuring a blistering wall of incredible distortion (having an industrial clank as part of the rhythm’s hilarious too!).

But Freedom wouldn’t have been considered a comeback album if it’d been a bunch of noisy rock. Young’s musical appeal was broad, many enjoying his folksy side along with forays into country and blues. This album has it all, which is a win-loss situation, depending on where you stand on such things. Me, I’m all for a little pleasant folk like Hangin’ On A Limb, plus the lengthy blues-rock Crime In The City’s great if you enjoy tales of everyday people (Eldorado’s awesome for this too, though obviously with more of a Mexican bent). Heck I don’t even mind the country tunes The Ways Of Love and Too Far Gone - Young’s about the only guy I can stand doing country, for some reason (probably because it’s Neil F’n Young). Unfortunately, two of his ballads - Someday and Wrecking Ball - are pants, especially so the former, coming off like an incredibly weak mid-‘80s country ditty (okay, not everything he does turns out). Really, the whole album has that “only in the ‘80s” production sheen to it, though not nearly as bad as many other releases of that decade.

So obviously I’d recommend Freedom if you’re looking to get acquainted with ol’ Neil, but aside from Rockin’ In The Free World, there aren’t any all-time classics on here. It’s probably more enjoyed after indulging in a greatest hits package or something, to find out if his style of music’s even your taste. While Freedom does have something for everyone, it’s unlikely everyone will enjoy it all.