Random Rules, Just Married Edition

1. Morrissey-Alma Matters

Probably the best track off of Moz’s somewhat average 1997 Maladjusted album. That being said, there are still a lot of excellent tunes on it—it’s just that the filler tracks are reallly filler-y.

2. Britney Spears-Gimme More

It’s Britney, bitch!  I don’t think Brit has put out a stone-cold solid album yet, but that’s not the sort of “artist” she is. She’s a cipher really, merely a conduit for the songs and production work of genuinely creative people. Kind of like how a steak is a really lame piece of meat without a sauce of some kind.

3. Yeah Yeah Yeahs-Softshock

This latest YYY’s album was a nice surprise. Each successive album they release is more and more cohesive, and I was struck by the similarities between this one and concurrent Metric release Fantasies. It’s difficult to articulate why, but the two albums really have a Beatles vs. Stones, Blur vs. Oasis kind of vibe, not in a rivalry sense, but in how these two relatively evenly-matched groups sysnthesize their influences and interpret their chosen sub-genre’s musical conventions. The YYY’s are fuzzier, grittier, and rougher around the edges while retaining enough of a pop sensibility to get on radio and be popular with the kids (a la the Stones), and Metric is all about the gloss, even when they stretch out into more avant-garde territory in terms of song construction (a la the Beatles).

4. The Verve-The Drugs Don’t Work

The further away 1997 appears in the rear view mirror of my life, the more saccharine the production of  Urban Hymns becomes. Still a nice tune, just a bit cloying if you’re not in the right frame of mind to hear it.

5. INXS-I Need You Tonight

Hahaha, OK, so, this song, for whatever reason, has become completely intertwined with the word “striptease” in my mind. There’s something very sexy about it, but in that very superficial, plastic sense that 80s sexuality possessed within the mainstream. Once grunge (and subsequently “modern rock”) entered into the equation in the early 1990’s, you had an altogether dirtier well of musical “inspiration” to draw from as a sex worker. Less Patrick Nagel, more Michael Turner. Compared contextually, ‘I Need You Tonight’ is positively oozing with innocence!

6. Speed McQueen-I’m In Love With

One drawback of the alternative boom of the early to mid 90s (there were many, but that’s a long discussion for another post) was the glut of indie labels that sprung up, were bought out my majors, and then shat out in the form of a tax write-off. A lot of promising bands couldn’t survive the constant upheaval, which is a shame, and everyone’s loss. One such group was New York’s Speed McQueen, who put out one very solid full-length before getting got by the powers-that-be. Protect ya neck, little bands that could!

7. Blur-On The Way To The Club

A stand-out cut from Blur’s underrated Think Tank, this is a weird song, because the band basically sabotage what could have been a really odd-but-beautiful single by only going through the “chorus” only twice, and then fading out into a strange dub coda. It reminds me a lot of their song “Death of a Party”, but without the sinister overtones.

8. The Jam-Every Little Bit Hurts

A nice, if lightweight, rarity from the band who built a career on mining 60s R&B and soul music and running it through a punk blender. Paul Weller’s voice isn’t quite up to the task of matching the nuance of the Brenda Holloway original, but he gets some points for feeling (he was totally closing his eyes when he recorded this.)

9. Portastatic-I Wanna Know Girls

Perfect. Pop. Song.

10. Tom Petty-You Wreck Me

Such a great driving song, off Tom’s second solo joint. So many people I’ve met over the years usually have two Tom Petty CD’s: The 1993 Greatest Hits compilation, and Wildflowers. Which stands to reason, as those are unequivocally his two strongest discs, top to bottom.

The Cure-Halo

There are only a handful of “modern” bands out there that achieved their success on such a massive but also long-term scale that with each new album they released, they were able to please their core fan base while always bringing new listeners into the fold. A few spring to mind, but not a ton: R.E.M., U2, Radiohead, Blur, The Dismemberment Plan, Death Cab For Cutie, and to a lesser extent Nada Surf (don’t snicker–they’ve done some pretty amazing things since ‘Popular’). Another of these bands would definitely be The Cure.

For every album they’ve released, there is a distinctive segment of their fan base that owes their fandom to that particular album; there are people that love the more truly “gothic” stylings of Faith, Seventeen Seconds, and Pornography, while others prefer the exploratory pop of The Head on the Door, Kiss Me Kiss Me Kiss Me, Disintegration, and Wild Mood Swings. For me, though, it doesn’t get any better than the unabashed straight-up guitar-pop of 1992’s Wish. Back during the apex of my Cure fanaticism (oh, eleventh grade!), I read an interesting review of the album which posited that while Disintegration was singer Robert Smith’s ode to the band’s male fans, Wish was (I’m paraphrasing here) “an open love letter to the band’s female audience.” What does that say about me? Nothing more than that I’m a well-balanced individual, I hope. But anyway, I’m not sure if I entirely agree with the assessment. I like to think of the two albums as bookends of a 4-5 year period, with Disintegration representing Smith’s stretching of his pop-craft to the breaking point within the context of a coherent thematic song cycle. Wish bookends this period by offering the same focus and purpose of Disintegration, but with tighter precision. Track lengths are shorter, melodies are brighter, and the production is less ethereal and murky. This poppy single-mindedness was so inspiring that it spilled over into the era’s outtakes and b-sides, of which ‘Halo’ is possibly the most impressive.

A classic example of “a B that shoulda been an A”, ‘Halo’ first appeared on the single for ‘Friday I’m In Love’. There’s an effortless joy to this song, from the simplicity of the lyrical sentiment equating a love interest with a member of the Heavenly host to the interwoven, layered instrumental melodies throughout. Personally, as much as I love ‘Friday I’m In Love’, ‘Halo’ stands up the most to repeated listens and probably should have at least made it onto the album, if not been selected for a single A-side.