Cake, Fashion Nugget

Something of a debut, and something of the fashion, even though it's actually their second record and noticeably, almost obtusely, sui generis. I like the determined horns, the stripped down but clean guitars and the snide delivery of frontman John McCrea; any album that leads off with a reedy organ and a throwaway Sinatra reference at least earns their audience with sheer oddity. In similar fashion, "The Distance," the album's stand-out single, combines brass, bass and almost beatboxy vocals together into a throwback sound that makes you swear you're right at the racetrack with them. Impressively, the music is matched at intervals by lyrics at least as well constructed (such as "Open Book" and particularly the acerbic "Friend Is a Four-Letter Word"), and the sometimes surprising mix of genres wins points for originality. Unfortunately this otherwise promising album also has a number of significant deficiencies, such as a questionable overreliance on covers (including their infamous F-bomb in the otherwise clever retread of "I Will Survive," provoking Gloria Gaynor's everlasting disdain), useless or inscrutable filler like "Race Car Ya-Yas" and "Daria," and the obnoxious "Nugget" which features profanity without a purpose and attitude without a clue. But the country influence is skillful and unique ("She'll Come Back To Me," the Willie Nelson smirker "Sad Songs and Waltzes") and when the style works it's refreshing, proving that alternative bands don't have to be grungy to be interesting. (Content: F-bombs on "I Will Survive" and "Nugget," sexual themes on "Italian Leather Sofa.")

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Pink Floyd, Relics

Pink Floyd has never done well in compilation form (as proof, see particularly A Collection of Great Dance Songs but also Works) except for their earlier, less conceptually rigourous outings, which is probably why this one succeeds where other such accumulations fail. A strange throwback album from 1971 when EMI was concerned about their apparent lack of studio output, the label collected a few A-sides and B-sides here and there and a couple odds and sods from some of the previous albums and even threw in the unreleased "Biding My Time," a rare studio version from the live favourite "The Man and the Journey" which was never otherwise properly recorded. Even the album art was a motley bunch, officially a Nick Mason doodle of some Rube Goldbergian contraption, but my LP and cassette have a bizarre four-eyed and double-tongued bottle opener which was used States-side. The problem is not the actual songs, which are solid in and of themselves: for example, leading off with "Arnold Layne," their first big single about a cross-dressing underwear thief (!); then later the gauzy, breezy psychedelia of "See Emily Play," their other big early single; and sandwiched between them, three meditative B-sides ranging from the baroque lyricism of "Julia Dream" to the menacing shrieking terror of "Careful With That Axe, Eugene" (the original version, later remade for film at least twice). No, the real problem is what EMI left out. I rather like "Remember A Day," but there were better tracks on A Saucerful of Secrets, and no one was desperately asking for cuts from More to round out the second half to replace the A-sides they didn't include like "Point Me At The Sky," "Apples and Oranges" or "It Would Be So Nice" -- all of which are only represented by those aforementioned B-sides. For that matter, "Remember A Day" was itself another B-side b/w, er, a/w "Let There Be More Light," from the same album and also omitted, and I'm not sure what the space-jam instrumental "Interstellar Overdrive" or endearingly daffy "Bike" (both from Piper At The Gates of Dawn) are doing here at all. Still, "Biding My Time"'s studio incarnation is excellent, with its jazzy jam middle intact, and it pretty much redeems the second side all by itself. Overall it's a strange album from a strange time, and by no means a complete portrait of their early work, but because it's so weird it's certainly worth a spin. The CD reissue reverts to the original mono (instead of Duophonic) mixes for "Arnold Layne" and "See Emily Play," flattening them to my ears even though the inclusion is arguably more authentic, and actually has a photograph of Mason's contraption fully built in miniature which I am told now sits on his desk. (Content: mildly adult themes in "Arnold Layne," implied violence in "Careful With That Axe.")

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REM, Dead Letter Office/Chronic Town

This rare bifurcated rating is because this "album" is, bluntly, a scam. I have to hand it to IRS for the brilliance of taking a steaming turd compilation album of steaming turds and combining it with a decent, if short and relatively inexpert, EP to simultaneously simplify their catalogue and use castoff tracks to pad it to LP length and charge more for it. So let's do the good stuff first: Chronic Town is a nice little album, unpretentious but solid, the prototype of their mumbly pre-Green janglepop in five generally tight tracks. Being an EP there isn't much of it, of course, and that's not to say there isn't room for improvement; for example, I prefer the more soulful Hib-Tone version of "Gardening At Night" (as found on Eponymous, a far better collection than this one) and the overall pacing is a little uneven (pro tip: go "Wolves, Lower," "Gardening At Night," "Carnival of Sorts," "1,000,000" and "Stumble," and then thank me later), but this album has enough quality moments and enough historical interest to be worth owning even by only the casual REM interest. That brings us to the rotgut. It's not (just) that the remaining tracks are bad, it's that they're (also) horribly underdeveloped. Some of them might even be decent if polished. They didn't polish them. The loony Pylon cover they lead off with ("Crazy") sets the tone: it's listenable, even vaguely danceable if you're stoned, but it's like it gave them permission to proudly produce three more execrable defilements, two of Velvet Underground and even a (gurgle) Aerosmith track. Of the rest some are variations on each other ("Ages Of You," probably the only other decent track, versus "Burning Down"), some are trial balloons they apparently just gave up on ("Wind Out," which somehow lives down to its name, "Burning Hell" with the kind of slightly perturbed harmonics suggesting they tuned up on barbituates, and "Rotary Ten") and some are absolutely inexplicable ("Voice of Harold," which uses the already inscrutable "Seven Chinese Brothers" as a backing as Michael Stipe sings — I kid you not — the liner notes of a schlocky gospel album to the melody). The prize bomb is "Walters Theme/King of the Road," which combines an actual drunken recording session, a local barbeque ad and the completely innocent and undeserving Roger Miller standard into an unmitigated auditory war crime. How do we know all this? Because Peter Buck apologizes for it in the liner notes. Yes. The band knew it was that bad, IRS knew it was that bad, and I still bought the album anyway because I lost my old cassette tape and this is the only way you can get Chronic Town on CD. So bravo, IRS. It's brilliant. Absolutely brilliant. I hope you burn in hell. (Content: I think there's a couple muffled curses in there. Please don't make me listen to this again to find out.)

Chronic Town: 🌟🌟🌟
Dead Letter Office: 🌟

Yothu Yindi, Tribal Voice

Australia's most famous indigenous rock act hit political paydirt with this notable album, though its limited success outside its home country was solely summed up by the dubious artistic achievement of appearing in the soundtrack for Encino Man. That isn't to say it's not an important album, and the cultural context alone makes it worth a listen, but questionable licensing choices like that don't advance its sociopolitical aims any and it's one that doesn't translate well the further you get from down under (I'm not just talking about the native Yolngu lyrics, either). An Australian ear will hear a cry for Aboriginal rights and social justice in songs like "Treaty" and "Tribal Voice;" an American ear will hear late 1980s rock with some local colo(u)r thrown in. An Australian ear will hear nostalgia for harmony with nature in "My Kind of Life" while an American ear will hear Crocodile Dundee with a reggae backing. I'm fortunate to have one ear of each, but it helps if your wife grew up in that era in New South Wales to fall back on for meaning because I certainly didn't. Don't mistake my ambivalence over its lasting cultural relevance for disdain: there's solid, even heavy, rock in tracks like "Gapirri" and "Mainstream," the nativist trappings of didgeridoo and bullroarer don't really overstay their welcome or come across as overly gratuitous, and there are some really impressively skillful moments scattered throughout such as the bubbling, trilling guitar intro of "Dharpa." Frankly I admire the (what's the Yolngu word for chutzpah?) of a band that unapologetically jams traditional songs sung in their native language, in their traditional style, between more contemporary pieces and dares you to do something about it. That's not enough, however: the problem with most albums made as political statements, even good ones, is that they are more important for what they stand for than what they sound like. Without understanding the reasons why it exists you're merely left with a competent album punctuated by musical novelty, not the fist of equality its creators intended. The CD issue includes the more famous radio mix of "Treaty," not necessarily better, just different, as well as an additional bonus radio track. (Content: no concerns.)

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Frank Zappa, Francesco Zappa

No relation, apparently. Now, mind you, classical music (even the synthetic variety) is not the normal brief of this reviewer, but I salute this rather unusual entry in the Zappa canon on three levels: first, it's delightfully obscure, second, it's delightfully different, and three, it's delightful. It is exactly as it bills itself, a digital performance ("his first digital recording in over 200 years," proclaims the album cover) of some of the notable or at least easily obtainable works of this lesser known Baroque-era Italian composer, no less and no more. The Synclavier's relatively limited tonal oeuvre does wear out its welcome a bit too quickly despite Zappa's light touch and short tracks, and frankly (hah) you could have just as easily said Wendy Carlos did this and no one would notice, but it did clearly satisfy his dual artistic goals of advancing the formalism of pop music while simultaneously giving big ripping middle fingers to the pop music industry. And hey, that's worth something. (Content: pure instrumental.)

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Vampire Weekend, Contra

If the revolution will not be televised, will it at least be recorded? And if it will be recorded, could it be set to something more meaningful than a largely homogeneous though admittedly peppy mass-market beat? Could I not at least question the revolution for, on the one hand, an apparent unwavering commitment to thematic interpersonal transgressiveness and conflict, whilst obscuring it beneath trivial synthobeats and sampled drums? If I said I enjoyed "White Sky" for its faultless Paul Simon impression, which I swear is more positive than it sounds because I adored The Rhythm of the Saints and that track is the "Proof" of this album, does my accusation of derivation mean I oppose the new social order? If I said I like almost every track except the artlessly garbled "California English" (where the Auto-Tune is ironic but the tape speed is obnoxious), but mostly for their unvaried inoffensiveness, does this taint my ideological purity? Except for the wistful murmurs of intimacy despoiled in "I Think Ur A Contra," is my shame that even as I play the rest, nodding my head to the beat as I type, that this album's vain attempts at depth do not envelop me? Turning to the jewel case as I write, is that enigmatic starkened vision of loveliness upon the cover coming to pierce my loyalties? Will she know my secret regret? Will she be the firing squad that ends me?

Do you think I'm a contra?

(Content: adult themes on "Diplomat's Son.")

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Blue Öyster Cult, Fire of Unknown Origin

There's a good reason this is the BÖC album everyone remembers, and that's because it's easily some of their most consistent output on one record. Calling it heavy metal is a bit of stretch, ironically given "Veteran of the Psychic Wars" prominence in the actual Heavy Metal movie (for which "Vengeance (The Pact)" was also intended), but there is solid and listenable hard rock to be had in general, particularly those two and (heh) "Heavy Metal" itself. This doesn't mean this album is perfect, though: "Burnin' For You" is a Cult classic, but its pop single tendencies sound out of place with the other tracks, and on the second half "After Dark" is boring drivel and I've still got no idea what to do thematically with "Joan Crawford" (though I've always liked the piano intro). Those latter two oddballs are fortunately quickly forgotten with my favourite track as closer, "Don't Turn Your Back," a fascinating feast of menacing lyrics, disquieting harmonies and unsettlingly cheery syncopation. If there is truly a central theme to this stylistically varied album, it would be indeed that undercurrent of menace and looming disaster as forces beyond our control assemble against us, and yet we shoulder on, knowing we have no choice. Such forces, in the disinterested cosmos this album paints, descend upon us from somewhere we will never truly know or understand. And this album does capture that feeling of hopeless struggle, however unevenly. (Content: no concerns.)

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Cat Stevens, Catch Bull At Four

For an aggressive anti-anti-traditionalist like Steven Cat Yusuf, the only solution after going a bit pop friendly in Teaser And The Firecat is to go right in the other direction. The inscrutability starts with the title, and the tracks might smack to the modern ear as a prototype for the late 1970s Jethro Tull; there's echoes of the future Heavy Horses in "Silent Sunlight," and we should all be grateful Ian Anderson mostly avoided reprising the tediously syrupy "The Boy With A Moon & Star On His Head." But there are still treasures to be found: when Stevens mixes in just enough bottom and savour to make the backing just substantial enough, you get wonderfully sophisticated textures of delicacy juxtaposed against growly grit ("Angelsea", "Sitting"); when he restrains his prolix lyricism to the abstract and elevated, we exult to the wistful elegy of "Sweet Scarlet" and "Ruins." Unfortunately, he can't avoid overdoing the former or the latter, as in the grotesquely overwrought "O Caritas" (in Latin!), or the sublimely ridiculous "18th Avenue" manufacturing painfully bogus pathos from an airport ride. Ah, but the song indeed does carry on, and through the imperfect window of his soul at least some light has shone, even if we don't always understand what the light is reflecting upon. (Content: adult themes in one track.)

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Steely Dan, Pretzel Logic

Maybe there's some twisted logic to a pretzel after all. The street vendor on the cover, misspelled sign and all, solidly represents the slice of urban life and desperation that the surprisingly muted (for a change) Fagen & Becker capture in these eleven breathy, meaty cuts. They may have been recorded in Los Angeles, as culturally distant from the madding Northeast as Honolulu, but every word is East Coast and every cadence is Gotham and they form a nearly perfect musical snapshot of the mid 1970s. Fackerbegen are at their best when they're at their most relaxed ("Rikki Don't Lose That Number", "Any Major Dude Will Tell You"; as a result, "Through With Buzz" is wonderful and way, way too short) but even the verging-on-pop fluff is fun ("Barrytown," almost proto-Billy Joel) and there's even a superb Duke Ellington instrumental cover in the middle. They break down where they get folksy, though -- "With A Gun" feels like Al Stewart without the lyrical intensity -- and with the possible exception of "Charlie Freak" the last four tracks leave me cold and uninspired, even the title track. They're bizarre and static, devoid of the instantly understandable characterizations you could feel earlier on. They lack the twist and heartfelt verve that made the first half of the album great, that formed its unseen yet strongly felt internal ... logic. There it is. A twisted logic. Pretzel logic. If only they'd realized it the whole way through. The reissue, wisely, insists that the track list is just fine by itself and I've always respected Fabegencker for that. It's rare in this business. (Content: no issues.)

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Bizarre Ride II The Pharcyde

Ron Morris, this is for you, the album you blared like a Pinoy badass out the CD player at all hours; it was pretty funny then, to say nothing of infectiously phat, but food service makes you punchy and just about anything with a beat would have sufficed. Nowadays, I'd have to say I've got some reservations, starting with the cover, not something I'd probably have out when my mother's visiting; let's say I've never seen a rollercoaster with a dentata, and "Oh Sh*t" just goes down from there with the kind of scatological situations that'd make Eddie Murphy blush back in the day. When you have to be over the top to try for funny, you're trying way too hard, but fortunately if you stick with it it's still as fun as I remember overall. J-Swift's production may have been pharmacologically enhanced, but that doesn't mean he wasn't dead on, and it's refreshing to have a hip-hop album infested with a relaxed chaotic insanity that doesn't succumb to cheap gangsta thrills. "Ya Mama" manages to be hilarious without being overly foul, showing they can really be as funny as they wanna be, "Officer" is a great antidote to the excesses of NWA pretenders while still getting their point across about the crime of DWB, "Pack The Pipe"'s subtle smoking snark is amazingly cleverly played and "Passin' Me By" shows what they were musically capable of when they decide to grow up (they didn't). Only the skits get a little dumb at times, and "Return of the B-Boy" sounds like they were phoning it in, the only other low points on an amusing yet influential outing. The best track in my average white opinion is the well-constructed "4 Better Or 4 Worse," complete with Chronic callback and a startling crank call with a very credible female victim; though this one goes off the rails like many the others, Fatlip does have the presence of mind to admit that "Okay, I think we've gone a little overboard." Yeah, maybe. But I'm still enjoying the ride anyway. (Content: pervasive drug and sexual references, profanity.)

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Foghat, Fool For The City

I wish this album were as original as the cover, with skinbanger Roger Earl in the middle of a New York street calmly fishing in a manhole to the great perplexity of passers-by. And in fairness Foghat has never really aspired towards advancing the art of music; they have only aspired to giving you solid rock'n'roll with a side helping of blues, and that is that. This lesser but still important calling, to be sure, is clearly evident here -- especially "Save Your Loving (For Me)," which has as obvious a boogie bassline as anything they ever belted out in Detroit (never mind that Foghat are Brits) -- but it also means an album that, overall, is great in the background as generic rock but does not reward the close listener further. The canonical example might be "Terraplane Blues," so derivatively bluesy it has to throw a bit of arena rock veneer on to avoid terminal stylistic cliché, but even the toe-tapping boogie numbers suffer, especially "My Babe," which is one (admittedly slick) riff over and over burdened by lyrics of the same literary value as a Bazooka Joe comic. "Slow Ride," the showcase single, is so overplayed by classic rock stations these days that it undercuts its ability to save the rest of the album. Fortunately, the title track and the unpredictably bouncy "Drive Me Home" (sort of Elton John meets REO Speedwagon) make up for it as the other brighter spots in an album that's best described as competent. You won't go wrong with this album at your next party playing quietly away on loop in the corner of the room. And, damning with faint praise as that may be, I guess that's worth aspiring to as well. (Content: mild innuendo.)

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Led Zeppelin, Presence

Robert Plant observed in subsequent interviews that Presence was essentially the band's cri de coeur in a time of great turmoil. Being laid up in a roach-infested Greek hospital thousands of miles from your family would certainly qualify, but the band turned that strain into sharpness, which to me is a great relief after the excesses of Physical Graffiti. The production is high quality, but stripped down to an unadorned guitar, base and drums trio that yields an almost desperate, hungry feel to the music I'm sure Jimmy Page intended. "Achilles Last Stand" [sic]'s insistent cadence and tumultuous guitars always struck me as the deepest groans of a helpless giant drowning in circumstance, the perfect way to lead off, but it sort of goes downhill from there. Some of the Graffiti-esque Pommie blues keep popping up, unbidden and unwelcome, in tracks like "For Your Life" and (ugh) "Candy Store Rock," complete with its tedious B-side "Royal Orleans," though the former at least redeems itself by dropping the slavering sweet pretense in the second half. These detract from the raw impact not only of "Achilles" but also the other stand-out tracks, the mournful trudgery of "Tea For One" and the punch of "Nobody's Fault But Mine," where you feel the resignation in Plant's voice but the Bonham/Jones rhythm tells you he'll live. And maybe that's the album's message: the invulnerable British hard rock group made mortal, grappling with a maelstrom they'd never had to face, doing their best to make a stand of their own just as the legends did. (Content: drug references.)

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Sonic Youth, Goo

You would be foolish to expect a "normal" or "conventional" album out of Sonic Youth: they'd hate themselves for selling out, and then they'd turn around and hate you for making them. Yet if there were an album that the unwashed tragically unhip masses could grok, nay, just tolerate listening to, it would be this one. I'm not an excessive fan of atonality, even the non-gratuitous kind with the express purpose of expanding musical minds, but you can leaven dissonance with a solid groove and wisely they give you some. The gluggy production quality kind of works for them, kind of against; the muddiness gives the emotionally insightful "Tunic (Song for Karen)" a hazy retrospective quality that fits its historical subject matter, and it helps Thurston Moore's strident vocals stand out from the muck on the truly excellent "Disappearer," but on "Cinderella's Big Score" and "Dirty Boots" the vocals sink into the mire and the dynamics into the mud. That's a shame, because the best part of "Goo" is the earnest snark: when Kim Gordon asks Chuck D ("Kool Thing") if he's going to liberate "us girls from the male, white, corporate oppression" (and he replies, reflexively, "Tell it like it is! Word up!"), you know she really means it, and she knows he really doesn't. They still can't resist lapses into the inscrutable; just drop "Mote" and "Scooter + Jinx" completely off the track list, thank you, and "Mildred Pierce" is just as undeveloped as its history would imply, but you can't fault them for being true to themselves and I just want them to know we can still be friends. (Content: F-bombs, some sexual references.)

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The Alan Parsons Project, Eve

If you looked at the cover, where women in Victorian veils and merciful shadows obscure their half-ulcerated faces, you might condemn this album as misogynistic on its very face (which I suppose would be true in a literal sense). Songs like "You Lie Down With Dogs" only complete the initial impression; a cynical interpretation might find the song's fleas a metaphor for other venereal arthropods, and then David Paton piles on as he'd rather be a man "'cuz a man don't crawl like you do," while "You Won't Be There" and "Winding Me Up" repeatedly decry the feminine manipulation of the fragile male ego. However, a careful listening demonstrates just about every line on side 1 was truly subtle satire, evidenced by the sharp contrast with the second side (led by the album's low point, "Damned If I Do") as it morphs into a portrait of the courageous ("Don't Hold Back"), virtuous ("If I Could Change Your Mind", with the wonderful Leslie Duncan on lead vocals), and, I guess, mysterious ("Secret Garden"). The album's chief problem is that the concept is far more adventurous than the music: in almost every artistic dimension this album is absolutely typical of APP's formulaic 1970s output, with a couple semi-heavy tracks, a couple meditative tracks, a couple instrumentals and a saccharine closer. That doesn't make it bad, but it does take the punch out of what could have been an interesting musical commentary on the state of human relationships and gender, leaving only the syphilitic sores on the front cover as a conversation piece. The reissue adds the usual tiresome early mixes and demos, but does have one noteworthy gem, the lovely "Elsie's Theme" from The Sicilian Defence, their infamous contractual obligation album that "never was." (Content: mild innuendo.)

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Phish, Billy Breathes

I bought this CD off the rack in Penang, Malaysia (for RM39.90, if you must know), with the "diimpot oleh Warner Music Sdn Bhd, KL" sticker still on the jewel case to this day; I'd already cut my teeth on the intricate insanity of Junta and the breathless frantic energy of Picture of Nectar, and as I sweated buckets in the equatorial humidity of that June I figured our ichthyoid jam band would be just the distraction I needed. The difference here is the production, by the great Steve Lillywhite, and the result is something a little less off in left field, a little more controlled, which makes the moments when they go off the leash jarring instead of charming: the tightness of "Free" and the mature, melodic undulations of the title track clang against the unsettling imprecision of "Taste," the drop-off-a-cliff ending of "Train Song" and the noodly meander of "Talk." And I could probably do without the last three tracks entirely, even "Prince Caspian." Fortunately, "Character Zer0" and "Theme From The Bottom" still hearken back to the energy of Nectar in the in-between moments, "Bliss" is an undiscovered delectable void of harmonious dissonance, and "Waste" is as tender and earnest as any lyrics they've written. Ostensibly, Lillywhite wanted this to be Phish's great "stoner album" (apparently except for all the other ones), and while my solicitor advises I can't attest to that I can say that his production largely made genuine order out of what had previously been serendipitous chaos. And that got me through a lot of endless, sweaty nights in Asia. (Content: no concerns.)

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REM, New Adventures in Hi-Fi

I consider this to be REM's "insta-album:" readymade, popped out fully-formed in soundchecks between tour dates, sort of the Marcel Duchamp of albums minus the urinals, moustachioed Mona Lisas and artistic pretense. This yields a curious dichotomy: the best tracks, the most inventive and interesting tracks, are the studio tracks, like "How the West Was Won and Where It Got Us" (which also is my personal nomination for Best Titular Swipe at White America), "New Test Leper" (gospel music that literally rejects the gospel, but agrees with some of what Jesus said), and the soulful "Be Mine." But the rocking tracks, the gritty grindouts, then stand in stark contrast with their flat and mushy production and their studiously recycled chords and beat. Heck, "Wake Up Bomb" and "Bittersweet Me" could practically be two parts of the same song. In the word of instant art, Marcel Duchamp's idea of spontaneity was being outrageous and offensive, but after years of original musical concepts REM's apparently is just being loud. Like every old hand band put up on a stage and told to play on the spot, they play what they know. And that's not really all that adventurous. (Content: some F-bombs.)

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Buggles, The Age of Plastic

Trevor Horn has always been an expert at making us think he was more innovative than he actually was, and this is truly a compliment, because this is the way hits are made (the canonical example is 90125, a rather slight effort from his time with Yes that turned out to be a mega-hit in spite of itself). So here we have the album, with the song, that launched the MTV age, and if the actual songs themselves are rather average otherwise that's only to be expected. While the title track and of course "Video Killed The Radio Star" are creative, fascinating and off-beat, the rest of them are schmaltz and phony drama, ginned-up sentiment writ large slickly produced and exceptionally mixed: "Elstree" is cute and light, and the subject is unorthodox, but the music and the production are strictly by the book; tracks like "Clean, Clean" have an interesting story but it's hard to sit still to digest it. But I get the joke, because Mr. Horn always meant the album to come out that way — in his own words, a "mechanised rhythm section, a band where you’re never old-fashioned, where you don’t have to emote." And so it is: it's fun, and it's certainly not old fashioned, but it's exactly as plastic as he meant it to be. The best that can be said about this album, besides the fact it kept future veejays safely employed somewhere they couldn't hurt anyone, is that it led to Adventures in Modern Recording, an expansion of the same style and a superior effort in every respect that is of course nearly impossible to find anymore. (Content: no concerns.)

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Joy Division, Unknown Pleasures

With all the cheer and polish of a dungeon latrine (it may have even been recorded in one), post-punk's grimmest, most Gothic act released its first major work. Uncomfortable and intentionally unprofessional, Ian Curtis' baritone notes clang and trip over themselves as Martin Hannett's stark and murky production adds reverberating toilet flushes and lo-fi telephone wires to the gloom. Really, it only adds to the mythos. I don't think the band set out to define themselves as the barbiturate to punk rock's Benzedrine, at least not initially, and it's as much the production as Curtis' internal demons that set the tone, but they learned quickly that the formula worked; standout tracks like "Disorder," "New Dawn Fades" and "Shadowplay" reveal the depths of the band's souls, the impossibly black tar of their emotions bubbling in slow motion, the pasty white fleshless hands of broken spirits reaching up to pull you down with them. And yes, at times, a sort of joy: the sincerity and raw authenticity makes even this album's average tracks seem meaningful, though those dark times are where the joy fades. (Content: intense emotional themes.)

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The Doors, The Soft Parade

Jim Morrison loved to sing the blues, and darn it, he'll sing the blues even if the blues are not provided him to sing. That's the chief issue with The Soft Parade, which I enjoy for its oddity, but furrow my brow over that same incongruity: it's really a proto-art rock album disguised as psychedelia, and yet there he is, still belting out the boogie. When the orchestral arrangements mesh and the vocals' roughness sharpens, this is the band's best work ("Touch Me" and "Wishful Sinful"), but quite a lot of it noodles aimlessly ("Shaman's Blues," "Wild Child") and I still have no idea what the heck to do with the title track. Still, when it works, it works, and I think the change in style might have been an important direction for the band had they worked out the glitches, but with their return to form in Morrison Hotel it's clear the band thought that particular depth had been overly plumbed. The reissue adds one worthwhile B-side, one less worthwhile unreleased jam and several tedious outtakes. (Content: no concerns.)

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Erasure, Wonderland

If Vince Clarke's work on Erasure's debut album sounds like a Depeche Mode continuance, it's no accident, and if Andy Bell's vocals sound like Alison Moyet, it's no sin. Clarke could always craft a compelling hook and their first outing adroitly demonstrates this ability even if the resulting product is no more than the sum of its parts. Indeed, nothing here is ever less than serviceable, and who can resist "L'Amour" and "Who Needs Love Like That?" (and the prescient "March On Down the Line" in which Bell repeatedly sings he's coming out this time to an audience that clearly only took him literally then), but the duo leaves too many opportunities for greatness or at least gravitas on the table they too easily spurn for going with what they know. Only Bell's "Cry So Easy" tried for distinctiveness with a moving emotive capacity the pair did not yet fully manifest, chastising an unseen partner for desiring the sort of guileless childlike affection he can't provide as a grown man. Fortunately their skills did not go wasted, as the wonderful The Innocents would demonstrate just two years later. (Content: no concerns.)

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