Meco, Star Wars and Other Galactic Funk

The first half: an inspired and wacky disco rework of the Star Wars theme, complete with cantina bridge and character themes, enjoyable on repeat for hours on end. The second: a flaccid, underdeveloped jazz fugue that screams contractual obligation — the descriptor "galactic" solely applies in the sense that whatever planet it sounded good on wasn't this one. Fortunately for the album 2.5 stars rounded up is three, but look for it at an EP price because that's really what you're getting. Like most novelty acts, lightning only struck once here. (Content: pure instrumental.)

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Lil Nas X, Montero

Mostly a gritty Auto-Tune mess exploiting the same tired riff; there's no genre-busting this time. Dollar signs and fronting was so last decade, and this man is no gangsta. And just because he's not heteronormative doesn't mean he's not a chauvinist (notably ugly moments: the title track, "Scoop," "Dolla Sign Slime"). But when he slows down and stops the preening, he can be contemplative, even complex: "Lost in the Citadel," "Tales of Dominica" in particular, and I dug the sweetly yodelly falsetto of "Void" but also his candid self-reflections in "Sun Goes Down." Clearly he has talent. Why doesn't he use it? (Content: F-, S- and N-bombs, adult themes.)

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REM, Green

The zenith of REM's discography is this scattershot, eclectic collection of vignettes and jangle where the cover doesn't even match the title. The best part is that they learned from their mistakes on Document: the politics persist, but more subtly, Scott Litt's production is richer and higher quality, and a solid balance of radio-friendly ("Pop Song '89," "Stand" and "Orange Crush") and cerebral ("World Leader Pretend," "Hairshirt" and particularly the heart-rending "The Wrong Child") songs make the album eminently listenable in pieces or end-to-end. 1988-me played the cassette single of "Stand" non-stop, and when I finally bought the full tape it turned me into an REM fan for life. Their later work is where they started to believe their hype, and their worthy earlier works were too often too insular, but this one was their Goldilocks — and that title might even match. The 25th anniversary disc adds another one of those live CDs which is a full example of their then-current setlist but mostly makes you want to buy the originals. (Content: no concerns.)

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Def Leppard, Pyromania

This album didn't create hair metal (it's not even clear High 'n' Dry did that), but between the ballads and banging it sure made it work. Tossing their heavy metal roots in the bin, they channeled their inner Dokken and turned out an album that you'll dig every track on even if none of it burns, er, breaks any new ground. Choice moments: the as-you-see-it "Rock Rock (Till You Drop)," some actual albeit actually cheesy pathos in "Photograph" and power anthem "Foolin'." Oh, and don't forget Mutt Lange's mock German count-in to "Rock of Ages," the most relevant contribution a producer has ever made to any album. The 2009 reissue adds a 1983 show live set-list, though other than their cover of CCR's "Travelin' Band" die hard Leppardists won't find a lot there that's new. (Content: mild adult themes.)

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Anthrax, Persistence of Time

I'm not sure if the title is an accidental observation on the album's length, but too much of it ends up being an unstable long-form slog that doesn't quite capture the energy of their earlier releases. The shiftier time signatures make it harder to get into instead of drawing you in, and the barer production doesn't showcase their strengths. There are solid cuts: "In My World" has a punchy punk lead-in and great galloping drums, "Intro To Reality" is superb prog metal with almost Queen-like guitars (leading into the paranoia-fueled "Belly Of The Beast" and its grimly literate grind) and closer "Discharge" finally pulls its finger out around two-minutes-thirty. Plus, of course, there's their wonderful headbanger cover of Joe Jackson's "Not The Time," a raucous improvement on the original and probably the high point of the disc. That said, though, most of the tracks just don't reward you enough for sitting through them, and the tracks that are good are mostly too short (or maybe that's why). This album doesn't know what it wants to be and sadly its identity crisis isn't interesting enough to make it worth it. (Content: violent imagery, F-bombs on "Discharge.")

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The Ink Spots' Greatest Hits

All but forgotten pioneers of Black music, Bill Kenny and his compatriots were singing R&B in the 1930s and '40s before it was even called that, enlivened by their instrumental skill and signature "talking bass" vocal bridges. Now that the semi-official 1979 compilation If I Didn't Care is all but out of print, intermittent retreads like this somewhat wanting 2012 UK Fabulous release are the easiest way for modern audiences to hear these distant trailblazers croon. Compared to most of the reissues, this album has an incomplete cross-section of their hit singles but includes enough of the hits like "If I Didn't Care," "The Gypsy" and "Java Jive" to please while also throwing in less-well-known versions, covers and B-sides. (Most notable: their version of "You Always Hurt The One You Love," which sounds nothing like Spike Jones' inspired style pastiche; he even added a Hoppy Jones mimic to do the spoken word.) The selection was no doubt budgetary, and the programming sells the band a little short by making them sound more samey than they were, but it's tracks you won't get many other places and a clear stylistic evolution is obvious from the 18 tracks as a whole. What this band needs most is a remaster: the poor quality of their early recordings can be forgiven because of the technology of the time, but this groundbreaking initial incarnation (other, less accomplished, versions followed) deserves better than to disappear into obscurity on the back of bad audio. Unfortunately, however, by remaining the remit of budget outings and special products like this one, and with no one to carry their torch, they still won't get the respect they ought to for as long as they get packaged like this. That's why you should listen to them. (Content: no concerns.)

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Depeche Mode, Violator

A veritable oil slick of a disc, black and sleek and smooth on the surface but with iridescent flows and transitions that really grab on to you. It's a little, uh, unrefined in parts and the first couple tracks ("World in My Eyes," "Sweetest Perfection") are thematically banal, but the melodies cover its rougher moments and set up the finer ones to come, especially "Enjoy the Silence," the ominous "Policy of Truth" and "Blue Dress," admittedly a little pervy, but featuring a lovely emotive bridge to the final track. And hey, dig the Floyd "One of These Days" callback in "Clean," and "Personal Jesus" gets points for being conceptually memorable even if the erratic beat isn't exactly a religious experience. A landmark for the twilight of new wave, this album is where they most lived up to their talent. The 2006 reissue adds four bonus tracks on the DVD companion disc, though the two remixes that follow them feel more perfunctory than innovative. (Content: Adult themes in "World in My Eyes" and "Blue Dress.")

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The Killers, Pressure Machine

The barbed wire on the cover makes it plain: there's no fun to be had here. Frankly, quarantine pop as a whole has turned out to be a real collective downer at exactly the time we don't need to be any more depressed, and this album, like a vinyl Eeyore, just wallows in it. We're a long way from Hot Fuss when the headliner track is a gay teen circling suicide ("Terrible Thing"), or songs of the family black sheep ("Cody"), or domestic violence and adultery ("Desperate Things"). It's not all grim ("Sleepwalker" is reflective without being overwrought) and it's not all molasses (the crazed Cure vibe of "In the Car Outside" has a beguilingly unbalanced appeal), but it feels to me like Brandon Flowers wanted to rip the scabs off his hometown and record the bleeding and the bruises, right down to the spoken word interludes, and turned in the disc as such. As catharsis or social commentary, it's understandable. Heck, I've spent some time in the purgatories of eastern Utah myself, so I get it. But this album is too parochial, too ponderous, and dare I say it, too preachy. Records like this are where keeping it real goes wrong. (Content: F- and S-bombs in "In the Car Outside.")

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Ohio Players, Gold

The best of their work for a general audience, not least of which for being one of their few album covers you can actually show in public (that is, if your mother's fairly open minded, or if she previously appeared in Playboy). Most of the big hits made it — one glaring exception to be noted — like "Love Rollercoaster," "Skin Tight" and "Fire," but there are also two decent new tracks ("Feel The Beat (Everybody Disco)" and the disordered but earnest "Only A Child Can Love") and a couple excellent album cuts, notably "Far East Mississippi," which fully captures the sweat and seamy menace after dark of the 1970s Deep South like no other song. Plus, by being a mid-career compilation, they managed to avoid including the crap the band churned out after it. The funk is fabulous and the beat is solid, but it loses a fifth star for two omissions: "O-H-I-O," from Angel immediately following, so we'll partially forgive that, but I can't abide them failing to add "Funky Worm." ("Jive Turkey," which is included, is zippy but no comparison.) After all, if they really did to Ester Cordet what rumour says they did, surely that reputation would have induced Westbound sniveling in fear to negotiate its inclusion. (Content: mild adult themes.)

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EMF, Schubert Dip

I like this more than most alternative dance in that you can, you know, dance to it. Now, do also be advised that the lyrics are throwaway, the music doesn't really go anywhere and the beats are generally indistinguishable from track to track; there were only really two songs (the twisty thumping hit "Unbelievable" and the new wave-NRG four-on-the-floor of "Children"), maybe three ("Girl of an Age"'s unattainable subject) that seriously hooked me in. That suggests an obscured talent not well demonstrated on the remainder but that doesn't mean the album's bad, just not what it could have been. Other than the ill-advised Mark David Chapman cameo on "Lies" ("that's the way destiny works") and the obnoxious live hidden track "EMF," it's something energetic you don't have to listen to very closely, and I'll never condemn an album solely for that. (Content: F-bombs in "EMF.")

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The Beach Boys, Smiley Smile

The chief sin of this album is being the castoffs of Smile instead of actually being Smile, but Smile has solely achieved its legend by not existing such that it becomes the tabula rasa justification for every pre-meme meme about Brian Wilson's genius. (In these later, more enlightened times, we have Wilson's own 2004 attempt, as well as the actual early recordings as The Smile Sessions. By also not being Smile, they enable Smile to continue being better than any album that ever existed.) This is not to say, however, that Smiley Smile is an unappreciated jewel cursed by cultural circumstance. The production is largely lo-fi home studio quality, and not in a good way, and the intentionally simplified nature of the recordings comes off more as lazy than inspired. Yet the damnedest thing about this profoundly unprofessional work is how earwormy some of it is: tracks like "Heroes and Villains" and "Vegetables" (crunch crunch) — and of course "Good Vibrations" — are so inventive and audacious they'll sit in your auditory tract for days, and you'll like it, as they're so appealingly original that the unapologetic technical faults (like, notoriously, the control booth's "good" in "With Me Tonight") end up just being part of the magic. That said, an album this haphazard is bound to throw more than a few duds, and it does; the "W. Woodpecker Symphony" probably sounded better as an idea than the actual track, "Wind Chimes" is unpleasant and particularly unfocused, and worse still for the baffling "She's Goin' Bald" and vaguely creepy "Gettin' Hungry." But it ends well on an atmospheric note, most strongly the gauzy, trembling first love story of "Wonderful" but also the amiable "Whistle In." The verdict still stands: not Smile, and the myth remains undefeated, but enough rough elements of it exist that the fans can still what-if with conviction. Capitol paired this album in CD reissues with the less adventurous but also less gonzo Wild Honey, also not Smile, and not nearly noteworthy enough to stand even with its unrefined predecessor. To fix this, they threw in a radically different "Heroes and Villains" with a differing bridge and ending, along with a couple good quality B-sides (especially their acapella version of "Their Hearts Were Full of Spring") and one of the longest versions of "Can't Wait Too Long" from the Wild Honey sessions. Unfortunately, the "various sessions" and early take of "Good Vibrations" are at best intermittently interesting, but I do like this two-for-one idea. (Content: mild adult themes on "Gettin' Hungry.")

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Pearl Jam, Ten

No alternative band likes to be a prototypical anything because everyone's a special snowflake, but this album set the aesthetic a billion acts consciously aped for a decade to follow and arguably none of Pearl Jam's own follow-ons transcended it either. Despite the fact contemporary listeners might find it comparatively sedate or maybe even slow, and the production isn't always dynamically adventurous, the album delivers with weighty themes, McCready/Gossard's skillful guitar riffs and the bassy, groaning vocals of Eddie Vedder. The grind is good when it's hopping ("Even Flow," "Deep"), and there's a surprising amount of philosophical thought ("Alive") mixed with genuinely tender, raw emotion (from the conflicted eroticism of "Black" to the aspirational nostalgy in "Release"), at least when it doesn't devolve into amorphous angst ("Once," to its detriment). In fact, that accessible level of emotion is the strongest part of the album, translating unobstructed by artifice even when the band's stylistic reach gets past their grasp (the harmonic ambiguities of "Oceans" get an A for effort but an incomplete for melody). It's why a single like "Jeremy" succeeded: despite, or perhaps because of, the childlike lyrics and the disturbing subject matter, you could feel the buried anger fume in every string and syllable, and for five minutes we were all that tortured kid together. Indeed, exactly that sort of effortless auditory transference is why this album still succeeds today. The 2009 reissue adds a few Mookie Blaylock demos from the interregnum between Mother Love Bone and this incarnation; they are inferior to the worthy B-sides and session outtakes that are also included (especially "Brother," which really should have been included to start with). Although the iTunes re-release's live bonus tracks make for a solid show, the physical reissue is really the one most fans will enjoy more, though the replica cassette and LP inclusions might be a little much. (Content: F-bombs, adult themes, violence.)

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Tangerine Dream, Optical Race

Sterile and formulaic, but it's the right kind of sterility and formula, and the album even brags about it, too: in the CD liner notes, on the other side of the flap from the die-cut cover, it proudly states it was produced on an Atari ST complete with the fuji. (No doubt Jack Tramiel didn't pay a dime for that plug, either.) Birthed in the midst of their more approachable, synth-heavy 1980s phase, they still take too long to get to it — nearly all of the first four tracks are well-produced but uninteresting — but persistence rewards you with gentle beats ("Cat Scan" and the title track), some precision melody weaving that makes the most of the algorithmic approach ("Turning Off The Wheel") and an appealing slow closer ("Ghazal (Love Song)"), even if the saccharine's a little heavy to the taste. For formulaic, sterile new age fusion you could do a lot worse. (Content: pure instrumental.)

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Prince, Welcome 2 America

A posthumous release of a 2010 recording, this newly released gem from his estate is one of the better outings and certainly the best release so far since his unfortunate demise. The funk and R&B are solid but sufficiently updated for the modern taste, and while his self-production is a little stingy with the dynamics, its live jam feel is blessedly free of booth diddling; both he and his skillful backing mercs play like he never left this earth. Lyrically it's a mixed bag, some great uplifting semi-gospel ("1000 Years From Here," "One Day We Will All B Free") and thoughtful topicality (title track, "Born 2 Die") undermined by puerile manstrutting ("Check The Record," "When She Comes," snicker snicker nudge nudge), but the insta-singles are fun ("Hot Summer") and the slow moments burst with soul ("Stand Up And B Strong"), and his now almost nostalgic use of single character words means you won't have to spend a lot of time texting the track names 2 ur friends. (Content: adult themes.)

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Billie Eilish, Happier Than Ever

Or more likely the title's just one big snarky troll. Her repertoire has expanded and the breathy-girl vocals mellowed and refined (with the intentionally ironic exception of "Male Fantasy") and it goes well with the slinkier, smoother initial tracks, even the harshy "I Didn't Change My Number." (Stand-out: "Billie Bossa Nova." Yes, literally. You can almost imagine the stage show.) The slower, more introspective moments show real maturity ("my future" and "Halley's Comet" in particular), even if "Getting Older" doesn't quite wash with her age ("NDA"'s interesting power reversal reads more like it), and a little bit of grit doesn't harm "OverHeated" or at least doesn't harm "Therefore I Am" fatally. Still, "Oxytocin" is annoying and even a little thuggish, "GOLDWING" doesn't have enough of a hook to overcome the weak writing and the half-hearted angsty R&B in "Lost Cause" comes off even worse. The accuracy of the title notwithstanding she's still got growing up to do and the bad habits of her prior art die hard, but this album shows growth for sure, and those unmoved by her earlier efforts might find more to like in this one. (Content: F- and S-bombs, adult themes.)

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Badfinger, Timeless ... The Musical Legacy

This band suffered, at times unjustly, and they suffered bad. Their compilation producers aren't doing them any favours either. The obvious and deserving hits made it ("Day After Day," "Come and Get It" and "No Matter What") plus at least one worthy B-side ("I'll Be The One"), and the group's (well, more) Beatlesque days as the Iveys are at least somewhat represented by "Dear Angie" and the beguiling "Maybe Tomorrow." Unfortunately their irritating original version of "Without You" shoots itself in the head early (any of the covers are superior), "Baby Blue" was a dopey choice for a single (the George Harrison-produced tracks from that album like "Name of the Game" and of course "Day After Day" are better) and "Believe Me" is as good as it is only because it's actually interpolating "Oh! Darling." Still, this collection gets the nod over 2000's The Very Best of Badfinger for completeness, especially the inclusion of Ass, though there was probably good reason in earlier attempts to leave off the aimless "Apple of My Eye" and the dreary, overstuffed seven-and-a-half-minute excess of "Timeless." Two of their Elektra tracks also made it, paragons neither one, but they're here ("Dennis" from Wish You Were Here takes a little while to get where it's going, while Airwaves' "Love Is Gonna Come At Last" never does). The most accurate compilations capture a group's aesthetic clearly, and while listening to this one it's hard to shake that as unfair as life was to the members of this band, they weren't entirely blameless for it either. (Content: no concerns.)

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Sparks, A Steady Drip, Drip, Drip

The pandemic turned everything upside down: besides face masks and Zoom mutes, Sparks was back on the charts in what feels like the first time in decades. There's even a movie out about them. Did greater America finally rediscover these two after all those years quietly keeping their corner of L.A. weird? Twenty-four albums and fifty years later Russ Mael's range is down a storey or six and Ron's glasses are a bit thicker, but the production's better than ever and the wit still doesn't quit, and they've wisely moved away from their less approachable chamber music days to something, yes, closer to their last chart success of the 1980s. That doesn't mean they've gotten artistically lazy, mind you: "Lawnmower" feels like a zippier earworm version of "Suburban Homeboy" in all the right ways, I like the splash of insincerity in "All That" and the thinly disguised indictment of modern disinformation in "Nothing Travels Faster Than the Speed of Light," and solid pop grooves keep it moving like "Left Out in the Cold" and "One for the Ages." Not everything fires on all cylinders, such as the lurching beat and opaque lyrics of "Sainthood Is Not In Your Future," and "Stravinsky's Only Hit" is high-quality but hard to follow, while their other attempts at topicality ("iPhone" and closer "Please Don't F--k Up My World") are a bit too hamfisted to fully enjoy. Stiil, they make up for it with other entrancing tracks like "Self-Effacing," a wacky anthem of the excessively modest (lyrical highlights: "I'm not the guy who says 'I'm the guy'" and "Thank you but Autotune has been used/used and perhaps a trifle abused"), fabulous humour-infested throwbacks to their zany 70s output in "Onomato Pia" and "The Existential Threat" (a prescient COVID commentary?) and my favourite "Pacific Standard Time," a luxurious buffet for the ears that simultaneously mocks and celebrates the superficiality of southern California in devilish equal measure. Meanwhile, they're recording another album and they're actually going to tour in 2022. I, for one, blame the Delta variant. (Content: F-bombs in "iPhone" and obviously "Please Don't F--k Up My World.")

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Metallica, Master of Puppets

I'd never accuse heavy metal of subtlety; I'd never accuse the music of beating around the bush. But only the most banal of the genre would I accuse of brainlessness, and this one sure isn't that. The ornamentation is spare and some of the riffs seem recycled, but Lars Ulrich keeps the drums pounding at a frenetic pace and Kirk Hammett's circuitous solos wind around them like the most sinuous of serpents. Compositionally the skill impresses, especially Cliff Burton on the instrumental "Orion" in the second half (sadly his last great work before his untimely death). And, oh, that nihilism; a lesser, less earnest band wouldn't be able to pull it off with a straight face, but while "heartfelt" is probably the wrong word for James Hetfield's lyrics, they're direct, sincere and the sincerest of middle fingers to the society that made them that way. The sharpest knives paired with the sharpest licks are probably the title track and "Disposable Heroes," but don't think the rest of the album pulls its punches. Duplicitous televangelists, heartless politicians, Lovecraftian monsters all (but I repeat myself), line up and take your beating: in the cover's red light of righteous rage now we see the strings you pull. The digital reissue adds live versions of "Battery" and "The Thing That Should Not Be," still unfailingly energetic, but the album cuts remain definitive. (Content: some violent imagery, F-bombs on "Damage Inc.")

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Pink Floyd, The Dark Side of the Moon

There are many reasons this album loomed large for years like the Kubrick monolith over the Billboard charts, and all those explanations suffice, but the biggest is its unfailing consistency. This album radiates quality from every rainbow-tinged and inky black atom, and every member did his part, whether it was Roger Waters' restrained lyrics, David Gilmour's scintillating guitar, Richard Wright's VCS-3 soundscapes or even a rare solo credit for Nick Mason. The songs vary in style but not in theme and flow perfectly from one track to the next, aided greatly by Alan Parsons' unerring engineering and a startling world-building array of overlaid sounds. Heartbeats and helicopters? Check. Inscrutable quotes? Check. Coins and cash registers in 7/4 time? Check and double check. The technique reinforces the music; the music reinforces the concept; the concept reinforces the experience. Rarely are there true artistic unities in pop music, even when pop music was more explicitly artistic, but this album is indisputably one of them. Notwithstanding various later local maxima you might even say they would never eclipse it. Recurrently reissued and remastered, the postcards in the 20th Anniversary version were fun but to my ear James Guthrie's mix for the 30th is the superior release. (Content: a muffled F-bomb in "Speak to Me" and a single S-bomb in "Money.")

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The Veronicas, GODZILLA

Certainly other electropop acts could learn a thing or two from these ladies. While it's still got the faux annoying grit that says I'm only dangerous in a studio, and their dynamic range varies exactly from tortuous to inaudible with nothing inbetween, the autotune isn't obvious (if it's there, it's judiciously applied), the melodies are more thoughtful and the arrangements and production more sophisticated than this genre's usual fare. And hey, no problem double-tracking the vocals, right? The title track has a harsh grunge vibe that grows on you, the vocals weep especially authentically in "Silent," and I was pretty impressed by the well-realised retro strut in "Stealing Cars." That said, it's still very much an album of its type: "101" has nice backing but recycled sentiment, "In It To Win It" is the same post-modern pep rally you've heard a thousand times and "In My Blood" has possibly the worst metaphor for anatomy and turntables I've ever encountered in pop music. (I've also sincerely got my doubts they themselves remember arcade machines or Atari ("High Score").) On the other hand, the cliché breathy little girl voice is my only major quibble with "Kaleidoscope" and "Catch Fire" could easily be an over-credits theme from the next Hollywood blockbuster. Although it remains irredeemably embedded in a genre not noted for breaking molds, it doesn't take a lot of innovation to stand out either. (Content: adult themes, an S-bomb.)

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