1.16.13

On January 16th I listened to Queen Queen, Nirvana Bleach and Mark Lanegan Band Blues Funeral.

I love Queen! Freddie Mercury was one of the best showman that ever lived and in front of Brian May’s guitar this band was a fucking force! Plus, there’s a whole mess of other brilliant shit going on, but I’m too dumb to write about it accurately. Dumb or lazy? Little of both right now.

It has been too long since I last heard the opening track, “Keep Yourself Alive,” from Queen’s self-titled 1973 debut. I really missed it!

The rest of this disc is pretty new to me, I’m pretty sure I never listened to it all the way through. It rocks, its theatrical, it’s bluesy and dirty. “Modern Times Rock ‘N Roll” reminds me of Black Sabbath, Led Zeppelin and a little AC/DC… a side of the band I didn’t really know about. “Son And Daughter” is now my new favorite Queen song!

And then something weird happens. “Jesus,” is a song about, well… Jesus. It is glorious! It is uplifting. I got choked up listening to it! I’m so glad I listened to this album. Thank you baby Jesus!

I wish I could say I knew who Nirvana was before “Smells Like Teen Spirit” came along, but I can’t. I picked up a copy of Bleach sometime around 1992. I've spent some time with this album over the years. 

Recorded for something like six or seven hundred bucks, she sounds pretty good! (That’s the first time I referred to an album as “she.” Can you do that?) Lots of great stories about the making of this record, none of which I will attempt to tell. Just a quick factoid! Although, this album features two drummers, neither one is Dave Grohl. Chad Channing and Dale Grover kept the time on this one.

Bleach is a perfect Indie Rock album. But it has some intangible quality to it that separates it from just any old Indie Rock being churned out at that time. Bleach has pretty much everything.

Is it loud? Check – “Blew” “School” “Paper Cuts”

Does it have a hit? Check – “About A Girl”

Are there goofy song titles? Check – “Floyd The Barber” (Andy Griffith Show reference.) “Mr. Moustache”

Is there a obscure cover song? Check – “Love Buzz”

Does it foreshadow the brilliance that is to come? Check.

Mark Lanegan sings one of my all-time favorite Queens Of The Stone Age songs, “In The Fade,” and one of my favorite Twilight Singers songs, “No. 9,” with Greg Dulli! He was in Screaming Trees, he’s put out a lot of solo stuff and he’s a shy motherfucker.

I once saw a Queen's show and they started playing “In The Fade.” So, you instantly think, “cool Lanegan’s here!” He was, but I never saw him. He came out in a shadow and left under a blanket of applause. (Yeah, I just wrote that cheese!) And I just read he will be on the new Queens Of The Stone Age album!

Mark’s solo albums are usually let’s-go-stick-our-heads-in-the-oven kind of affairs with Tom Waits comparisons up the ass! His last, Bubblegum, came out way back in 1994. So, this one was kind of a big deal when it came out last February. Sadly, I never listened to it until now!

I thought I had a good idea of what to expect on Lanegan’s first album in years called Blues Funeral. I was pleasantly surprised at how wrong I was. 

The English mag, The Quietus, supplied me with exactly what I was going to say about this album, why write it twice? "Blues Funeral incorporates beats marshalled by sequencers with grand cinematic sweeps and a rock & roll sensibility that reveals an artist refusing to paint himself into a corner." That’s why Rock journos make the big bucks, kids!

I’m almost shocked at the tempo and veracity of the album’s opener, “The Gravedigger’s Song.” I was half expecting a minute of shoveling sounds into a long builder about cold bodies in the ground.

“Gray Goes Black,” and “Riot In My House” are two definite standouts.

Almost a full hour of music, there’s a lot to digest. Especially, how unlike Lanegan it is.

1.12.13

On January 12^th I listened to Genesis Selling England By The Pound, The Pixies Doolittle, and Muse The 2^nd Law.

I was listening to Genesis for about a minute, maybe, and thought to myself “what kind of egghead bullshit is this?” It was cool to hear Peter Gabriel singing for a second and then the novelty wore off.

I do not get Prog Rock. I barely spent 15 minutes skipping around Selling England By The Pound and couldn’t take it anymore. I seriously doubt there're more than fifty people in the world that have listened to this stinkbomb in the last 10 years from front to back. To put it in dork ease… I’d avoid this album much like the Starship Enterprise 1701-D avoids the planet Vagra II.

I’m not sure why I didn’t start off with Surfer Rosa and went straight to The Pixies second effort, Doolittle. I think because this is the first album from the band I really noticed and it took awile for me to get into. The Pixies, to me, was like a cold pool. I eased in for a while but then once I was in, I was in.

Doolittle is a solid album. But, just to play devil’s advocate, I think this record would have been nearly flawless at ten songs. At fifteen it’s just a wee bit bloated.

Let’s play armchair producer and come up with the perfect tracklisting;

1.       “Debaser”
2.       “Tame”
3.       “Wave Of Mutilation”
4.       “I Bleed”
5.       “Here Comes Your Man”
6.       “Monkey Gone To Heaven”
7.       “Crackity Jones”
8.       “No. 13 Baby”
9.       “Hey”
10.   “Gouge Away”

Now that looks like a perfect album!

“Monkey Gone To Heaven,” and “Gouge Away” are two of their best! I still like “Here Comes Your Man,” but I gotta be in the right mood to get into it. “Debaser,” “Wave Of Mutilation,” and “Hey,” are songs I’ll never get sick of ever.

This Muse record is almost a little too majestic for me. I’ve always liked Muse, but I’m not a super fan. If I boiled down their six albums, there's probably three albums worth of music that I would consider awesome!

Was Muse in the running to be on the last James Bond sountrack? Because that’s what this album’s opener sounds like. “Supremacy” starts off strong, loses me in the verse, kind of wins me back on the “chorus,” and then just makes me think of Queen.

“Madness” is a hit. But I don’t find myself loving it, or wanting to hear it more.

Does “Panic Station” remind anyone else of like Robert Plant in the 80’s?

“Survival” really brings home the “too majestic” criticism I have for this album. Where is anybody going to listen to this song? It sounds enormous and I’ll give them all the credit in the world for shooting for the moon, but it’s just a bunch of really great sounding elements piled on top of each other without a great song at the base.

“Follow Me,” should be the Twitter national anthem. But, also the first song on this disc that I enjoy. It’s got a hook, it’s got a bouncy 80’s beat and I can bug out to it. (Beastie Boys reference for no reason.)

I got to “Explorers” and was like “what does this sound like?” Obviously, it wears the Queen influence on its cock ring, but it sounds like something. What? What? What? Oh, I know! It’s Radiohead’s “No Surprises!” I like it!

Second half of The 2^nd Law is definitely better than the first and I have no idea why “Liquid State” reminds me of The Beach Boys. It doesn’t even sound like Muse at points, and I love that.

I’m curious to see how much of what I just bitched about, I’ll 180 on and love in a few more listens!