REO Speedwagon, Hi Infidelity

A furious, freewheeling arena rock masterpiece, formulaic themes, by-the-numbers melodies and strictly perfunctory licks and solos notwithstanding, the performance is flawless, the execution is seamless and the result is peerless. While "Follow My Heart" falls relatively flatter than the rest, "Tough Guys" is just plain fun, "In Your Letter" and "Shakin' It Loose" mix in a little doo-wop for stylistic variety, and "Don't Let Him Go" and "Take It On The Run"'s gentle touch on human imperfections may be hackneyed but still comes across as mature and thoughtful. And despite the title, the wistful closer "I Wish You Were There" still makes us long for that forever relationship just out of reach. I've never wanted to skip a track and I've never wanted to miss a moment. Sure, call the production cynically commercial pablum, but since when was giving the customer what they want a sin? (Content: S-bomb on "Tough Guys," mild adult themes on "Someone Tonight.")

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Phish, A Picture of Nectar

It's worth it to read the band's dedication to Nectar Rorris, the album's namesake beverage(ur), in which they gratefully acknowledge he "was happy to give us a gig despite our lack of experience, organization, or a song list long enough to last two sets." All that is true, and all that is reflected here with the possible exception of the latter. Indeed, this hippie gemisch of nonsense vocals and multi-instrumental brilliance ("whatever you do, take care of your shoes") doesn't really cook until somewhere into the third track ("Cavern," named for no good reason) and then it just takes off. Exceptional moments: the smooth, skillful guitar jam leading "Stash," the scatty imprecise jazz of "Magilla" b/w hot guitar licks and sweaty tropical rhythms in "The Landlady" (!), and rhyming "tweezer" and "freezer" in (what else?) "Tweezer" and its closing encore. On the low end, besides the first two weaker tracks, "Glide" is pretty dumb and the mercifully short "Faht" and "Catapult" just feel shoveled on to fill out that second set, but they're all balanced out either by the beautiful juxtaposition of graceful keyboards and agonizing drug withdrawal in "The Mango Song" ("your hands and feet are mangoes, you're gonna be a genius anyway") or the hard-driving indictment of how badly the educational system serves berserkers in "Chalk Dust Torture." Nectar was onto something. They were on something. But it all worked out in the end, didn't it? (Content: S-bomb in "Poor Heart," drug references in "Stash" and "The Mango Song.")

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10cc, How Dare You!

An exemplar of prog rock taken to a possibly illogical extreme, it's still a nearly unmitigated marvel to listen to. Complete even with overture, every single track is practically an operetta in miniature: laments of the bullied ("I Wanna Rule The World"), the mentally ill ("Iceberg") and harassed parents ("Rock 'N' Roll Lullaby"), wrapped up in boyhood sexual awakening (the bluesy "Head Room") and a layer of nostalgia ("Lazy Ways"). Any regret of the album's sole weak track (the desperately witty but monotonous morality play "Art For Art's Sake") is quickly dispelled by two more of exceptional skill: the saucy yet studiously formal "I'm Mandy Fly Me" featuring a remarkable bridge instrumental between the two halves of a shaggy stewardess story, and the absolute best of all, "Don't Hang Up"'s tale of a relationship on the skids, with heartfelt performance, perfect orchestration and knife-sharp wordplay ("when the barman said whatcha drinking, I said marriage on the rocks"). The subject matter may occasionally be a bit startling (how dare they, indeed!) but its originality never falters and neither will your interest. The CD reissue adds the lightweight "Get It While You Can," not of the same studio quality or level of wit as the rest of the album, but a worthy track all the same. (Content: adult themes.)

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Pet Shop Boys, Behaviour

What impresses me most about this album is how, simultaneously and effortlessly, it captures one man's experience and yet everyone else's all at the same time. Who hasn't struggled, in ways small or writ large, with their lovers ("So Hard"), or evolved your views and profession ("Being Boring"), or felt the despair of a failed relationship ("The End of the World"), or, for that matter, wondered what to do with October, the absolute worst month of the year ("October Symphony")? Only the otherwise competent "How Can You Expect To Be Taken Seriously?" breaks the unity, however on target its criticism of shallow popstar humanitarianism might be, and Harold Faltermeyer's masterful co-production sharpens the beats to be as compelling as the lyrical vignettes. As evidence of their skill, consider "Nervously:" when Tennant came out in 1994 it became clear whom he wrote it for, and yet its universality of the trembling of falling in love seeps deeply into any human soul. I could see myself in that song; couldn't you? For an album as personal as this one must have been to them, how much more so its crystalline moments of humanity make it to the rest of us. Unfortunately, the Further Listening companion disc doesn't quite reach the heights of the main album, and the almost 11-minute "Being Boring" remix gets vaguely tedious, but U2 was wrong to dismiss their cover of "Where The Streets Have No Name" and their pastiche of Morrissey in "Miserablism" is right on the money. (Content: no concerns.)

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Men at Work, Cargo

Much as Wham! couldn't top their finest moment, these Melburnian new wavers lived in the shadow of theirs, but that doesn't make their sophomore outing a bad record. If you're expecting more of the infectious reggae of their blockbuster Business As Usual you'll be disappointed, but while none of the tracks here (with the possible exception of "High Wire") are as big a gut kick as the singles from that album, in some ways they're actually stronger. Although the leadoff "Dr Heckyll & Mr Jive" with its bloodyminded time signature is a bad way to start, "Overkill" is as good as anything they've done and the effervescent "High Wire" nearly as much; no less worthy are the anti-nuke "It's a Mistake," shades of the Police in the insistent beat of "Upstairs In My House" (with Colin Hay's piercingly clear vocals), the Sparks-esque "I Like To" and the richly mournful elegy of "No Sign of Yesterday." Not all is stellar: stylistically "Settle Down My Boy" is a little trite and "Blue For You" is a little lazy, though its callbacks to the first album should delight fans as much as closer "No Restrictions." Whether or not this is the album their fans wanted is another story, but it's no less a solid one, and sadly the last notable release of their brief discography. The 2003 reissue adds two fairly strong B-sides (the Far East fairy tale "Shintaro" and the fast if slightly underdeveloped "Till The Money Runs Out") and three bland live tracks. (Content: no concerns.)

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Jefferson Starship, Red Octopus

Of all the various flying contraptions this band has adopted and the local maxima they've reached, they've only ever had one perfect lineup and this 1975 album is its solitary record. A faintly demented combination of folk, fiddle, rock and Grace Slick's sonorous Joplinesque contralto, love is the theme and they sing it all kinds of ways (even the poor Japanese of "Ai Garimasū," properly ai ga arimasu yet inexplicably on the CD reissue as "Al Garimasū" as if he were some sort of nisei sportscaster). Marty Balin returns for some writing and lead vocal duty, most notably on the startlingly sexual lead single "Miracles" (with its slipped-in-the-shower saxophone), but for me the most remarkable part of the album is Papa John Creach's stratospheric, almost trilling electric violin on its two instrumental tracks. Another notable aspect: the faultless programming, deftly building its energy from the zippy opener "Fast Buck Freddie" and the first side's lighter feel through the big finale of "There Will Be Love" on the second. Their apparent concerted effort to make a more commercially friendly album clearly paid off, as well as successfully avoiding the overwrought psychedelia of their previous incarnation even if the lightweight lyrics never quite equal the sophistication of the musicship. Creach's exit in 1975 and Balin's and Slick's (first) in 1978 doomed this morph of the band to never fire on all cylinders again, so enjoy it and think of what might have been. The CD reissue adds the single of "Miracles," whose shortening is an indignity, but the 1975 Winterland Arena live tracks do possess some interest (especially the band introduction) despite unfortunately their recording after Creach's departure. (Content: adult themes on "Miracles" and "Sweeter Than Honey.")

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Parliament, Up for the Down Stroke

At its nadir this album wastes almost twelve of its 40 minute running time on an interminable noodly nothing even the six-string genius of Eddie Hazel couldn't save ("The Goose") and a biliously regurgitated beat from the title track ("I Can Move You (If You Let Me)"). Of the remaining EP length, though, it's sheer genius. Yes, there's some delightful gospel flavours ("Testify," "Whatever Makes Baby Feel Good"), airy psychedelia ("I Just Got Back," with a truly beguiling whistled bridge) and pompously ponderous musings ("Presence of a Brain"). But the two best tracks by far are "All Your Goodies Are Gone," the bitterest, schadenfreudiest, meanest anti-love song anyone with a broken heart will wallow in for sheer venom, and the title track, with its stupendously trippy signature reversal sure to leave the dance floor littered with bodies. Just pay no attention to what Geo. Clinton is doing to that woman on the cover, skip tracks two and three and thank me later. The 2003 remaster adds slightly extended versions of "Testify" and "Up for the Down Stroke" plus the previously unreleased party funker "Singing Another Song," and is definitely worth the hunt. (Content: album cover notwithstanding, no concerns.)

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They Might Be Giants, Lincoln

On the back of the CD is a hand-drawn diagram of, um, "something" that if you sit down for a moment and compare the dimensions would yield something slanted, silly and slightly unstable if anyone actually tried to build it. It's a good analogy for the album, in fact: eighteen tracks of quickly tossed-off off-kilter word play ("life is a placebo/masquerading as a simile") set to a bunch of styles thrown into a hat and shaken around a bit, with no particular reason other than fun and no dwelling on them for very long. If you tried to take a serious seat on that, you'd slide off and hurt yourself, so don't. Like much of their output the babble for its own sake means they miss the chance to matter, but the spare production is clean and appealing, and they still get in some witty social commentary now and then (particularly the terminally snarky closer "Kiss Me, Son of God," but also to a lesser extent the unapologetically nonsense "Shoehorn With Teeth") and even some warped musical references ("Where Your Eyes Don't Go" interpolating bizarro snippets of Bach). Best pun on the album: "Everyone looks naked when you know the world's a dress." With such platitudes on offer, who can resist? (Content: no concerns.)

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Todd Terje, It's Album Time

The whole reason I have this album is United Airlines when my wife and I were returning from Australia, got delayed landing in LAX and missed our flight to Toronto for a business conference. While we were jetlagged and grouchy in an overpriced room at the airport Hilton, waiting for the next flight at omg o'clock the next day, she put on Better Call Saul and in the midst of my sour mood was the gnarliest, funkiest caper music playing over Kim Wexler's morning movements. That was "Alfonso Muskedunder," one of several excellent singles from this DJ turned electronica producer's first album. Indeed, most of the tracks here are exactly that sophisticated with "Preben Goes To Acapulco"'s delicious slice of almost orchestral synths, the Jan Hammer-esque "Delorean Dynamite" and my personal favourite, the atmospherically pensive yet pulsating "Oh Joy" featuring sparkly arpeggios and a modern disco beat. And even though the tracklist spans several years and some previously released material it still mostly comes together as a coherent whole, even with a couple lower points such as the somewhat uninspired "Swedish Sauce," the recycled and slow to start "Inspector Norse," and the album's weakest (and only vocal) track, a limp cover of Robert Palmer's "Johnny and Mary" sung like a 50-pack-year smoking habit by Roxy Music's Bryan Ferry. Fortunately, those low points are as rare as his talent isn't and there's a lot to love with the breadth he crams into one disc. At last it's album time, and if this is his way of getting off the pot and putting out an LP I'll be certainly looking forward to the next one. By the way, we made the flight, too, in case you were wondering. (Content: no concerns.)

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Sixpence None The Richer

This is not actually their début but one might accurately call it their crossing-over. Originating as a slight act in the Christian alternative scene, this outwardly secular third album expands their oeuvre and enlivens their style without compromising their perspective. While This Beautiful Mess was somewhat moody and overly prone to navel-gazing, Matt Slocum's songwriting has both matured and lightened to leaven the pensiveness with better beats and a little pop yet preserve the signature lyrical heft so sweetly delivered by lead Leigh Nash. Whether a meditation on emotion's fragility ("I Won't Stay Long") or just a gentle plea for romantic affirmation ("Can't Catch You"), her breathy nightingale vocals serve as the band's soul while the richer production by Steve Taylor yields a stronger body. The spiritual themes have not been abandoned ("Anything," "Moving On"), yet they ground the album without smothering it just as much as the sugary moments like "Kiss Me" don't trivialize it. It's not perfect — the Pablo Neruda-derived "Puedo Escribir" is fatally pretentious, one jarring note in a great symphony — but the fact they stay true to themselves throughout only makes this earnest, appealing album more delightful. The reissue adds "There She Goes," another airy single in the vein of "Kiss Me" and no less charming. (Content: no concerns.)

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Beastie Boys, Licensed To Ill

The album's barely disguised misogynist tendencies (and not so disguised, see "Girls") wear pretty bad in these enlightened times — for that matter, so has Russell Simmons — and the overall feel of a second-rate frat party before the cops roll up permeates almost all of the first half. But what this record profoundly lacks in tact and social graces it makes up for with some truly original, genre-straddling hip hop: there's "Fight For Your Right" and "No Sleep Till Brooklyn," one more punk than rap and the other the reverse but darn good at both, the famous reversed 808 beat with a reversed revolutionary tale in "Paul Revere" and of course the party favourite "Brass Monkey" with all of its deep bass, howling horns and shallow alcoholic storyline. The production is hungry and minimal and the samples fast, furious and uncompensated, but the beat don't stop and neither does the boisterous attitude (like lead-in "Rhymin & Stealin" and "Slow and Low"). Kurtis Blow they weren't, but if you like your hip-hop raw, raucous and Jewish, it's time to get ill. (Content: sexual and drug references.)

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T. Rex, The Slider

Fuzz and haze rule the album and the sound, and that's a-okay with Marc Bolan, because he sliiiides. I mean, it's even on the cover, where the gauzy photograph (allegedly by Ringo Starr, though accounts differ) looked like Bolan stuck a cooking pot on his head until you glance at the back of the gatefold. There are no great lyrics here, because that's not what T. Rex does, and a lot of the music and the melodies are best described as trivial; similarly, the harder moments ("Chariot Choogle," "Buick Mackane" and, well, "Rock On") rock well enough but ultimately come off as slyly sexualized nonsense. Rather, it's those fuzzy, hazy moments that are the best parts of the album: the gentle backing of "Mystic Lady" and the famous title track ("I ain't never never kissed a car before") to start with, but also the languid, floaty "Spaceball Ricochet," the acid blues of "Rabbit Fighter" and the incomprehensibly compelling glam anthem "Ballrooms of Mars." "Metal Guru" is a great lead-off, though "Telegram Sam" gets all the airplay, and while it's good too it's still a recycled riff from "Get It On (Bang A Gong)" which is probably why. It's the slower, smoother moments that reward the listener, and the improved production values compared to Electric Warrior are at least as important. Glam isn't for everyone, but this album is for everyone who likes glam, because for all their faults this was the band that defined it and this is probably the best work they ever did. There are about a billion reissues of this by now: the early Marc on Wax version has the most unreleased new material, and is recommended to T. Rex fans, while the 40th anniversary version pays only lip service to a few and fills up the rest with the usual underwhelming studio outtakes and live performances. (Content: sexual references, adult themes.)

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The Bird and the Bee

I first heard this album at the best French restaurant in Bakersfield, California. (It later closed, despite my wife and I being regular patrons, presumably because Bakersfield.) The server didn't even know who the artist was either, but the beguiling "My Fair Lady" then playing faintly in the background seemed a perfect complement to my steak au poivre. Indeed, Inara George's light, breathy vocals are the real treasure on this album, and the best songs are the ones that put her front and centre ("My Fair Lady" certainly, but also "Again & Again" and especially the ethereal, soulfilling "Spark" as the final track). This is exemplified by the album's weakest moment, the obnoxious "F*cking Boyfriend," which is strident and unpleasant and seemed thrown on the album purely as a temptation to edgy DJs ("I Hate Camera" would be a better choice and is much more original to boot). George wears her bleeding heart on her sleeve a bit much lyrically ("I'm A Broken Heart") and Greg Kurstin's production is best when he backs off, but the album's softer moments deftly evade drowning in saccharine and its harder moments may be less compelling but are no less original. If I ever find another good French restaurant in Bakersfield again, I'll recommend this to them, and that ineffably delicious game sausage they used to serve too. (Content: F-bombs on "F*cking Boyfriend.")

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Kanye West, Jesus Is King

There is a pernicious problem in religious media (and in these United States, this generally means Christian media) that because it's religious, religious people nod and say it must be good, even when it isn't. This is a big reason why I don't review Christian music here generally, even being Christian personally, because since the dreck isn't skimmed off there's actually more artless junk in Christian record catalogues than secular ones and I don't need to wallow in that sad realization. Yet now and again a religious album appears of such artistic quality and/or sophistication that given how high it stands above its contemporaries I end up feeling terribly wrong in praising it. With at most rare errancy West crystallizes his journey towards and with God into eleven tracks bookended by gospel and livened by hip-hop, and even at its clumsiest the album is smarter than people want to give it credit for. "What have you been hearin' from the Christians?" he asks in "Hands On," predicting accurately "they'll be the first one to judge me." At the same time, though, he shares their same aspirations and voices the common struggle to righteousness, "Made a left when I should've made a right ... told the devil that I'm going on a strike; I've been working for you my whole life." His metaphors on Christian reliance may be a little hamfisted in "On God," and his alleged tribulations might ring hollow to the struggling masses, but how else could a net worth of $250 mil pass through the proverbial eye of the needle? (On the other hand, although I'm hoping "Closed On Sunday"'s Chick-fil-A references were tongue-in-cheek, it just comes off as kinda dumb.) Musically, however, the production is exceptional as it splices more traditional gospel pieces to wrap around the singles (the rich "God Is" being the best example), and the performance quality is stellar. If it weren't for the fact it's unforgivably short, almost EP length, I would be seriously faced with the prospect of giving an album half this readership merely on principle will despise a full five stars. I don't know what's gone on in Kanye's life and I don't know how to walk a single inch in his shoes. I won't judge what he believes and I won't know how long he'll believe it. But here is a religious album that is still as scrupulously professional as his other productions yet unambiguous in his belief that it's his time to stand up for God. What he's saying here will bother or offend many and this album's unapologetic proselytizing makes it deeply controversial, yet he's determined he's still gonna say it and say it with the highest artistic level of quality he can muster. My beliefs may be my bias, but to my great personal astonishment I too nodded and said it was good, because it is. (Content: as stated.)

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Wham!, Make It Big

Exuberant fluffy nonsense, but it's good exuberant fluffy nonsense. The music is relentlessly upbeat to a fault and the lyrics are mostly throwaway, but it's slick, well-produced and irresistibly irrepressible. The slower moments are not exactly their best ("Like A Baby" does little for me and "Everything She Wants" is distastefully bitter) but the updated take on bubblegum pop in "Wake Me Up Before You Go-Go," "Freedom" and even non-singles like "Credit Card Baby" will bring a stupid grin to just about anyone's face. Of course, the capper is "Careless Whispers," now completely ruined by Deadpool to the point where an otherwise straight if similarly cheesy song now makes me helplessly snigger whenever it comes on the radio. Who doesn't love a review with a happy ending? (Content: no concerns.)

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They Might Be Giants, Apollo 18

More sophisticated and musically daring than Flood, their immediately preceding crossover hit, the darker tone and more inscrutable songsmithing will be simultaneously more delightful to TMBG fans desiring a less FM-friendly feel yet less appealing to that album's residual casual interest. Not that they care, I suspect. The lyrics are their usual amusing doggerel, though "I Palindrome I" gets particular points for its actual palindromic vocals; it's more the variety of their musical dressing that distinguishes this album especially. In that vein particular standouts along with said tortuous example of wordplay include "My Evil Twin," "Turn Around" (delightfully ghoulish), "The Statue Got Me High" and my personal favourite "Dinner Bell," a joyful bounding ode to Pavlovian overindulgence. (I would also be remiss not to mention "Spider," in a whole new category of weird, with bass-heavy crushes and vocals like the dub from some long-lost Toho monster flick.) If you don't like a particular track, just wait, because they're all pretty short -- and this is taken to a rather startling extreme with the album's damnedest feature "Fingertips," an end-to-end gapless collection of tracks 17 through 37, all just a few seconds long, each unique and distinct like some tantalizing clip from a DJ cart before your dad switches stations to something else. The album cover will be your guide: if you are puzzled, nay, repulsed, by its juxtaposition of a lunar lander, a giant squid and a sperm whale then you should take it as representative of what you're about to hear and move on. But you'd be missing out, madam. (Content: mild language in "I Palindrome I"; a couple songs might be a little too ghastly for very little ones.)

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REM, Lifes Rich Pageant

Upon purchasing this CD in high school I noticed that the jewel case spines were upside down and carefully detached them and taped them right side up back into position. It did not dawn on me that this might have been a deliberate artistic quirk on the bands part, like the general eschewing of apostrophes, the completely disordered track listing and the number R which comes after 3 and before 5; to this day the jewel case in my office is still like that. This is only one of the many artistic novelties of the album but the biggest was to discard generally the moody air of the troubled Fables of the Reconstruction for a lighter, more eighties-rock flair while keeping their political sensibilities intact. Indeed, lead track "Begin the Begin" reminds the listener the goal is still revolution(ary): their ecological message, soon to be developed further on Green, shines through in "Cuyahoga" replete with burning river references, the dangerous death squads of central America become the poisonous Amanita among the blooms of the populace in the Murmur-esque "The Flowers of Guatemala," and "Hyena" mixes the riff from "These Days" with a fable on the posturing of warlords and the album's most quotable lyric ("the only thing to fear is fearlessness"). Michael Stipe can still get himself tied up in his own intertexual references (witness "Just a Touch" and "Swan Swan H"), but even these are worthy listens, and the exuberant "What If We Give It Away?" and especially "I Believe" (with charismatic rattlesnake church reference) are a welcome return to classic form. The album highlight, though, is the second of two secret tracks (theres another artistic quirk), the band's cover of The Clique's "Superman," whose driving beat, surf rock harmonies and relentlessly bravado lyrics made it and keep it one of the high points in 1980's college pop. One of the last of their IRS releases, the band was poised for a new feel and a wider audience moving to Warner Brothers, but this album fortunately avoids the stylistic instability other lesser bands have suffered during those transitions and greatly to its credit. Later IRS reissues add several of the horrid crappy covers and B-sides from Dead Letter Office (q.v.), and the 25th anniversary version adds the so-called Athens Demos, early versions of Lifes tracks no one was asking for (plus a couple different crappy tracks). But then I suppose you don't have to buy Dead Letter Office to find out how bad they are, so they might be doing us a favour. (Content: no concerns.)

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Johnny Cash, American IV: The Man Comes Around

Listening to the flaps and slaps of his lips stickied by illness and his lispy voice quavered by years, Cash's final album may be eclipsed by his storied discography but not by its raw emotion in this simple, acoustic production. The covers dominate the track list, but not generally to its detriment, especially his sombre tones of regret in Sting's "I Hung My Head" and his words only for June as he sings, earthily and unvarnished, of the "First Time Ever I Saw Your Face." Plus, no one can bring the hoarse truculence of Tex Ritter to a modern audience ("Sam Hall") better than Johnny. (Then again, there's his schlocky version of Depeche Mode's "Personal Jesus," more amusing for its novelty than its actual skill, though I think Cash got the joke more than Martin Gore did.) The album's flaws are not small in number, especially the poor arrangement of "Bridge Over Troubled Water" and the warbly off-key deviations in Lennon-McCartney's "In My Life" and others, and "I'm So Lonesome I Could Cry" is a strange choice tonally (as is his duet with Nick Cave); stranger still is that two stronger tracks from the original double LP ("Wichita Lineman" and "Big Iron") are completely missing from the current single-LP pressings and CD releases, apparently never to return. Fortunately, one song was not cut: none captures the wonder of this album more than "Hurt," the Trent Reznor track that despite the same lyrics, even the same music, turns a despairing, venomous flirtation with darkness into something upbeat, even hopeful, carried by resonant chords, stark guitar and that defiant voice. No sinner and no saint, and let alone the same person, captured the fumbling, faltering journey to God better than this self-described "biggest sinner of them all" and I can think of very few performers who ended great careers on terms as magnificent as this death mask of music. In songs like the traditional "Danny Boy" and "Streets of Laredo," and the album's sunny, hopeful conclusion in "We'll Meet Again," we know he faced his end with peace knowing the Man in Black will be washed white as snow. Godspeed. (Content: drug references on "Hurt," adult themes on "First Time Ever I Saw Your Face.")

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The Beatles, Revolver

Revolver comes in second on my best Beatles album list, second only to the exalted perfection that is Abbey Road (q.v.), more tight and focused than the White Album and less full of itself than Sgt. Pepper. Despite that, though, it is adventurous and varied, and while it is not as rarefied or polished as Abbey Road that in and of itself makes it rather more interesting. Besides old throwbackish favourites like "Taxman," "I Want To Tell You" and "Got To Get You Into My Life," it also includes the technologically dazzling (and stylistically sudden) "Tomorrow Never Knows" as well as "I'm Only Sleeping," mixing backwards tracks and Indian-inspired guitars into primal and otherworldly harmony; George Martin's indispensable light touch production shines through on the strings on "Eleanor Rigby" and the Byrds-esque "She Said She Said" but for me most poignantly on the tragic "For No One," reminding me of crushes dashed and bygone days, and if "Love You To" is a little heavy on the tabla and "And Your Bird Can Sing" a little light on sophistication, there's no sin in being merely just good. While some of these tracks (notoriously "Yellow Submarine") might get overplayed a bit on your local oldies station, consider it a compliment paid to a particularly innovative and transformational album from a band that's had quite a few of them. In these overproduced times a little imperfection goes a long way. (Content: mild adult themes on "Love You To.")

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The Beach Boys, Surf's Up

Much as the Santa Monica surf can be, Surf's Up is an incredibly uneven album from a band itself not noted for consistency, but at its peaks it is without peer. A sudden left turn into the nascent ecological consciousness of the early 1970s, the album's best moments are when it mixes innovative, richly layered musicmaking with subtle message and lyric symbolism. This is certainly not the case for the cloddish "Don't Go Near the Water," a terrible way to start the album, and "Student Demonstration Time," a counterculture grind that reeks of desperate irrelevance; nor does "Lookin' At Tomorrow (A Welfare Song)" wear well with its hackneyed social message or the uninspired "Take A Load Off Your Feet," and it should not be considered a coincidence that none of these, save the last, had any involvement from Brian Wilson. Conversely, the final three were primarily or entirely his work, including "A Day in the Life of a Tree," the album's most intriguing track: its lyrics are transparent and almost laughably amateurish, penned by new manager Jack Rieley, but his quavery, faltering delivery against Wilson's stark and subdued arrangement makes it unexpectedly captivating. This goes double for "Til I Die"'s poetic symmetry and wall-of-sound shifting harmonies as well as the introspective title and final track, moody and circuitous but resignedly earnest, a metaphorical elegy for their surf rock days. I would be remiss, of course, not to mention the album's technical masterpiece "Feel Flows" with its sophisticated layer effect and a remarkable reverse echo double-tracked vocal from Carl Wilson, and the first (and only worthwhile) incarnation of "Disney Girls (1957)" later to be butchered by lesser covers and even Bruce Johnston himself. There is so much to like on this album that the low points are almost forgivable; although its vain attempts to invoke contemporary themes occasionally come off as forced, from time to time it still amazes me with its rarefied creativity and deep sincerity even if it can't manage to do so consistently. The 2000 CD reissue pairs this as a double album with the inexplicably less beloved Sunflower, a rare album for the band with its generally more uniform quality, but as such simultaneously lacking the inspired genius of Surf's Up's more outstanding moments — though, to be sure, the lugubriousness of its lesser ones as well. (Content: no concerns.)

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