One fine day

Sumday - Grandaddy (2003)

Who says melancholy can't be fun?

Everytime I listen to this album, I think I'll just listen to the first half and then move on to something else. For some reason, this album sticks in my mind as top-heavy, with all the songs I like being on what would amount to side one of a vinyl album. Without fail, however, I'm still around when the album ends and remember how good the record finishes up too.

This tends to be a "hard times" album for me, one I likely first heard in such throes and one I invariably return to when they come again for more. It's good meds, empathetic without being patronizing, wistful and tinged with a rare light-hearted sadness.

As a matter of fact, the opening track, "Now It's On", (86/100), is downright triumphant. After a few seconds of sound effects, the album begins gathering momentum with a catchy guitar riff that takes off with the chorus at :49 and never looks back. Jason Lytle's lyrics on this song, as on the entire album, are as playful as the synth bursts that punctuate them. "I've got no reason to be weathered and withering like in the season of the old me," he sings and the "woohoo" at 1:40 backs it up. The guitars in this song have a similar flavour to those in The Smashing Pumpkins' "1979".

"I'm On Standby", (82), could fit in just as well on Grandaddy's previous album, The Sophtware Slump (2000), with its thematic robotic obsolescence. The kind-of-sad subject matter is belied by a bouncy, infectious melody that makes me want to be five years old again.

Unpleasant feelings are also handled with cheerful keyboards and breathy harmonies in "The Go In The Go-For-It", (84), which could be the most beautiful middle finger ever flown. Anyone who has ever not fit in at one time and/or another can appreciate Lytle's "When they expected that, they instead got this, a broken but pretty mess. What they cared I could care less."

Don't waste one second of your life doing something you don't want to do. That's as good a credo as I've heard and it's an idea emphasized in "The Group Who Couldn't Say", (90). Somebody made a cool video of this song here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=esxNH90-j5k . What happens when a group of salespeople win a trip outside their office? More people should stand in creeks and come up with lyrics as whimsical as "Becky wondered why she'd never noticed dragonflies. Her drag-and-click had never yielded anything as perfect as a dragonfly."

"I wonder what they'll make of me when I'm good and gone," is an anthem for those always on the run from something. "Lost On Yer Merry Way", (97), (http://www.mediafire.com/?yc9zj8iiv5i90e7), is one of my favorite songs ever. The disillusionment with one's self and one's surroundings can make one feel trapped in one's own life and this song is an explosive bust out response to that. The lyrics and ideas are (once again) razor sharp, the tune warm and leisurely and the extended fade-out just adds to the epic feel of the track.

The track after my favourite one on almost any album tends to get lost in the shuffle for me. "El Caminos In The West", (80), is like that. It's a catchy enough tune and, like "The Group", begins with a carefree "doo doo doo". Also dealing with alienation, it offers that in the quest for "peace of mind and happiness", as far away from home as that might take you, "the demolition can still be a lot of fun." Chaos happens. Accept it.

It takes some talent to ask "In this life, will I ever see you again?" without being saccharine. "'Yeah' Is What We Had", (85), succeeds and makes me wonder how many people have passed through my life like a whisper, or burned through with the strength of a supernova only to disappear completely through the resulting black hole. I really like the guitar riff at the end.

"El Caminos" and "'Yeah'" both have great official videos which can be found on YouTube.

"The Saddest Vacant Lot In All The World", (79), is a dirge about lost love. There are better ones out there, but it is still well written and performed, maybe stretching out a little long.

Before you can get bummed out though, the bleeps and bloops are back with a vengenance on "Stray Dog And The Chocolate Shake", (80). Though I might feel a little sorry for abused hard-working robots and lonely limousines, this song is breezy enough to make me smile. "OK With My Decay", (83), might be the happiest song about dying out there, literally rejoicing with yet more "doo doo doos."

"The Warming Sun", (86), laments a lost love and longs just to be with someone on a warm, sunny day. The singing is especially honest and beautiful on the chorus of this song, and then the album concludes with "The Final Push To The Sum", (91), which is brave enough to ask if all the running and escaping has affected any change, and if so, "what have I become?"

Great question. Great album. It doesn't paint an unrealistically positive portrait of the world we live in, but neither does it accept to wallow in its own inevitable self-pity.

The special edition of Sumday features a bonus disc with nine live tracks: "'Yeah'", "Go-For-It" and "Vacant Lot" from this album; "He's Simple, He's Dumb, He's The Pilot" and "The Crystal Lake" from Sophtware; and "A.M. 180" and "Laughing Stock" from Under The Western Freeway (1997). "For The Dishwasher", originally from the 1998 EP Machines Are Not She, is also included, as is a version of "Crystal Lake" b-side, "Our Dying Brains", (http://www.mediafire.com/?wb2jto56i9p8tgc). The tracks are all at least decent, with "Brains" being the standout, its very title made ironic by Lytle's pre-song admission to ingesting copious amounts of banned substances.

Sumday (album): 85/100.

World wary

Brutal Planet - Alice Cooper (2000)

Here's a great album for those days when you just want to kick the world in the nuts. It rocks hard, plain and simple.

The album in one word: Heavy. That applies musically and thematically. Brutal Planet takes that proverbial cold, hard look at many of the things that people are not comfortable taking a cold, hard look at: hate, hunger, abuse, alienation; those parts of our humanity, both personally and as a race, that we'd rather not admit to.

While heavy, this album is never burdensome, however. Somehow Alice Cooper manages to keep his trademark sense of humour, as gallows as it may be, to, if not quite lighten his subject matter, then at least help us navigate the darkness. Still, it's certainly a precarious tightrope and, honestly, I don't know how in cheek his tongue may be this time around. Most often it seems pointed straight out.

As soon as the guitars start chugging to open the album, and the vocals begin with "We're spinning round on this ball of hate", you know this isn't going to be a leisurely frolic through a sunny park. The lyrics on this album hit as hard as the riffs. The opening title track, (90/100), laments our fall from Eden into a harsh history of war, pain and death. It doesn't get much heavier than "Right here is where we hung him upon an ugly cross/ Over there we filled the ovens, right here the holocaust".

Sadly, chill-inducing inhumanity of that level didn't pass away in 1945, as "Wicked Young Man", (75), attests to. Written from the point of view of a neo-Nazi who "never ever sleep[s]" but "just lay[s] in ... bed/ Dreaming of the day when everyone is dead", hatred fuels violence to this day. This "vicious young man", though, doesn't lay any blame for his rage on society and its movies or music, rather on just his own depraved soul.

"Sanctuary", (93), is a great song, with its explosive chorus, "Go A - Way!" The slow crawl to death via the mundanity of rat-race existence and its ultimate effect of pushing people further and further apart is examined here under Cooper's satiric eye. Perhaps a heavy metal answer to the late Hank Cochran's "Make The World Go Away", (1963).

The bullets fly in "Blow Me A Kiss", (86), a song with great-sounding background response vocals on the verses. This could be an anthem for the alienated who would rather die than face another brutal day on said-same world.

The oft-rendered, but no less tragic, juxtaposition of the gluttony of the western world with the fatal hunger of the third world provides the canvas for "Eat Some More", (79). The lyrics bring to mind Bob Dylan's classic, "People starving and thirsting, grain elevators are bursting/ Oh you know it costs more to store the food than it do to give it" from "Slow Train" (1979), while grinding guitars give it a flavour all its own. Sub-titled "Taste The Pain" in some media, it's kind of a sonic equivalent to Morgan Spurlock's 2004 documentary, Super Size Me, as a good listen to the lyrics may cause appetite loss.

I don't know what "Pick Up The Bones", (94), is about, but it's awesome in its bizarre and dark imagery. It begins, "Collecting pieces of my family in an old pillowcase" and goes down the shadowy rabbit hole from there.

"Pessi-Mystic", (93), manages to encapsulate the album's great dichotomy in being at once funny and disturbing in how close to home it cuts. What I find oddest about this song, however, is that it may be directing its venom towards the very people who would be most interested in an album like this.

"Gimme", (88), continues the contagious riffing and frightening narration: "Don't you deserve to have it all? ... Everything has a price ..."

What makes Alice Cooper angry? "It's The Little Things", (75), which strikes me as almost too cute with its less subtle humour and self-referential chorus: "Welcome to my nightmare/ No more Mister Nice Guy". It's still a solid rocker, though, followed by what may be the album's strongest track.

"Take It Like A Woman," (95),(http://www.mediafire.com/?0u19mx3pkqy71o1), is Alice's latest ironically-titled tribute to the most-assuredly stronger sex, a la "Only Women Bleed". The strings on the chorus only elevate this already-awesome ballad to the wonderverse.

The guitars are back in full force for the album's closer, "Cold Machines", (77), a final reminder of the space between us all.

The Japanese edition also features a track with one of the best titles I've ever seen: "Can't Sleep, Clowns Will Eat Me", (79), (http://www.mediafire.com/?bx0gey82xubh3ws). It's a fairly straightforward rocker, though not quite as hard as anything on the album proper. It finally saw the light of day in North America on the Dragontown Special Edition in 2002.

The 2001 Tour Edition of Brutal Planet also features four live bonus tracks: "Little Things" and "Wicked" from this album, each a fine performance, but in my opinion, the main draw of Alice live is visual. There's also a rocking, raspy, can't-reach-the-high-notes-anymore version of "Poison", (the original of which appeared on 1990's Trash) and an aborted version of The Who's "My Generation", which, clocking in at a minute-and-a-half, simply begs the question, "Why?"

Brutal Planet (album): 86/100

Light side of the moon

Moontan - Golden Earring (1973)

So much to hear here. Even putting aside radio staple "Radar Love", this album deserves a serious evening listen.

We open with a nice wah lick, which for me, is probably the best way anything can open. "Candy's Going Bad", (88/100), is the first track on the European release and I'm guessing that's Candy there on the European album cover. You can imagine how bad she's going easily enough, and while that may not sound like the most inspiring premise for a song, this song defies any preconceptions one might have.

Keyboard flourishes follow soon after the guitar intro settles in and there's a really nice understated guitar solo at the two-minute mark. What Golden Earring are so good at on this album is layering -- starting with a simple little progression, then adding another instrument, then another and then finding some killer riff to go to town with. Then when they've got that going, they change the song completely and do it all again. At the 3:37-mark, "Candy" changes with a nice, long, mellow fade-out.

"Are You Receiving Me", (95), (http://www.mediafire.com/?gnkywnj2znk) follows the same successful formula, including a little wah to start. Boasting a beefy, brass chorus, this song possibly deals with the impossibility of communication in a human race that can barely understand each other, or even wants to. These themes are also addressed in Neil Young's brilliant 1982 album Trans, perhaps a future post. This song shifts into another dimension at 3:43 with a wonderful five-minute guitar-laden digression, before dropping us back off at the chorus to conclude.

"Suzy Lunacy (Mental Rock)", (60), is a great title. The song itself is okay, although I'm always still recovering from the sheer awesomeness of "Receiving" for it to stick out much in my memory.

"Radar Love", (79), is great, but suffers a little from overexposure for me. I love when the drums kick in at 3:50, and the the 'oohs' and 'aahs' on the build to the chorus sound awesome. How many songs name check Brenda Lee? There's also "Dream Of A Child" by Burton Cummings, (1978), off the top of my head.

Speaking of name checks, who's Vince Taylor? Apparently, he was the "Black Leather Rebel", a British rock-and-roller in the Elvis era, with his band "The Playboys". His star waned in the mid-60s, however, drifting into drug casualty and religious nuttery, (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vince_Taylor, for more info). "Just Like Vince Taylor", (66), is Golden Earring's tribute to the tragic figure, stylistically faithful to that era's music, with a post-chorus riff that brings Barrett Strong's 1959 "Money (That's What I Want)" to mind.

"Vanilla Queen", (90), starts with a great keyboard tease, foreshadowing some of The Cars' crazier stuff. This song builds and changes as much as the album's first two songs and may itself be a thematic sequel to "Candy", with her "mask [of] sterile dignity". At 3:12, the song begins a beautiful acoustic journey which cuts back too soon to the chorus, before descending into sound-effects insanity. Then at 6:30, we get one final build-up into another killer riff, this time with brass (including a couple shots of trombone (?) that sound like psychedelic elephant). It's an appropriately big and wonderful finish to a nostalgically-bent, intensely catchy album that would also not seem out of place in the Blue Oyster Cult catalogue.

But wait! There's more! The flute-fueled jaunt of "Big Tree, Blue Sea", (74), from the North American version threatens another bombastic epic, then goes mellow. Largely flute-keyboard interplay, the minimalist breakdown may be a fraction too long, but not horribly so. Still ... I'm glad when the bassline starts up again. I like this track better than both "Suzy" and "Vince", which it replaces for the North American release, which also shuffles the track order.

Moontan (album): 83/100.

Someone spiked the whiskey with acid

Ramblin' Gamblin' Man - The Bob Seger System (1968)

This was the first music I ever bought. I was twelve or thirteen in the late 80s, having recently discovered oldies AM radio. One evening I heard this album's title track being played and thought it was a pretty rocking tune, certainly standing out amidst the Paul Ankas, Bobby Curtolas, Frankie Vallis and what-have-you.

The radio station took requests but for some reason, it took them a while to dig out "Ramblin' Gamblin' Man" for another spin.

Perhaps tired of waiting, I saved up my allowances for a few weeks and headed into Zellers where I had seen the cassette on sale for somewhere between five and ten dollars (and I'm thinking eight).

The album blew my young mind away and remains a five-star classic to this day for me. Whyever Seger has no interest in reissuing this long out-of-print gem is beyond me. I was fortunate enough a couple years back, before I even had a computer, that a friend of mine burned me a copy for my birthday.

It had been years since I had been able to listen to my worn-out cassette and the passage of time did not diminish its enjoyment. The title track, (85/100), opens the album and rocks hard but it is when it ends that the album really cranks up the gears.

"Tales Of Lucy Blue", (89), is just one lysergic-drenched tale of messed-up love. "Ivory", (90), is another. Seger's vocals, whether gruff on "Ramblin'", wired on "Lucy", or the grunt of "Ivory", match the frenetic energy of the tracks. "Gone", (85), is a mellow, echo-drowned trip, equally appealing in its mournful wistfulness. "Down Home", (73), kicks hard, taking names, with sweet harmonica work by Mike Erlewine.

"Train Man", (95), (http://www.mediafire.com/?min5tbmygdt), became my favorite song when I was thirteen, its mystery packed ever-so-carefully. The whole song, folky at first glance, but with a haunted underbelly, feels as if precariously balanced on a precipice, just barely hanging by a thread. When it unravels, as all things must, it is a beautiful explosion, which can only be contained by fading out and ending with a bitter, acoustic lament. And that's just side one.

Side two begins with back-to-back complete psychedelic blues meltdowns. Musically speaking, that's a good thing. "White Wall", (89), brings lysergic resurgence to the album, alternating jazzy reverie with wah-tipped nightmare, while "Black Eyed Girl", (93), (http://www.mediafire.com/?zedoddgllnz), is a dirty, hard riff wallowing in slide sludge, like a shot of Jack Daniels with a heroin chaser. "2+2=?", (85), is a catchy politically-charged single, followed by the mellow funk of "Doctor Fine", (66), a short instrumental. The album concludes with, appropriately enough, "The Last Song", or "(Love Needs To Be Loved)", (85), which is beautifully true and has its own crazy breakdown chant, like a song-within-a-song, before closing the album just as it should, with nine solid beats and one last harmonic sigh.

If all you know about Bob Seger is "Old Time Rock And Roll" or "Night Moves", then you will likely be surprised by this album, which might as well be by a Bob Seger from a parallel universe where someone spiked the whiskey with acid.

Ramblin' Gamblin' Man (album): 88/100