#353 Neil Young - Everyone Knows this is Nowhere

I'm really not sure how I came around to this one; it may have been on another of the road trip lists that I glanced over before I left on this trip. I've also found myself comparing people to Neil Young and realized I really haven't heard a lot of his classics. This one got heard for the first time on miles 183-232.

Most of what I've learned about Neil Young is that he is never quite what I thought he was. Each time I'm exposed to something of his, it's not in line with my subconscious expectations. Here, things kick off with a song that is neither overly sunbleached, nor very folksy, nor even very traditionally 'classic rock', in most ways. The tempo surges, the band bends and folds, energy builds, climaxing in a stuttering breakdown. The title track is a little closer, but even here the energy pushes against its walls, and lalala's sound more Zappa than Clapton. Running Dry leads us through weird, arty, dissonant, early 60's reverb, heading into the epic closer, which build tension over and over and over again, not so much climaxing as imploding.

On the other end of things, Round and Round is whiny and awful in a way that is in line with my (otherwise largely mistaken) misgivings about Young, and Losing End is bad-Stones honky tonk, but otherwise, the songs are surprising and great and surprisingly great.

The overall impression is very live, utterly a record of a moment - it doesn't sound like anything that could be recorded again. There's a desperation here that gives it its soul, there is ample anxiety in between notes and slathered over them.

This whole mess is bedposted by a suite of rolling, loping basslines that pull songs apart, that drag your attention and give structure to the jammiest, bits - a sherpa that's a short a couple feet of rope.

This wasn't quite the joy of the Josh Ritter album, but it was still definitely a good road trip album, making the expanses epic, the turns matching the bass swerves. It was all a bit heavy though, and after hour 4+, the music had to come off for a bit. Not hitting a lot while I've been on this trip, but tune in for what I tuned into on my last drive South - maybe ever!? Oh right, 4.5/5

#351 Josh Ritter - Golden Age of Radio

I found a list of "road trip albums" and liked the cut of its jib, totally into the albums I know on there. Didn't know this one, which occupied miles 128-182 on the 5.

Fu Shnickens worked just fine through LA, but I found myself hating it through the rolling hills. This though, was perfect, perfect music for driving through the spaces North, as California shakes off the city and opens up its mighty breast to be anywhere America. The songs are bittersweet, straining, with a reedy low alto at the backbone, strums and skeletons and bristles - the melodies melt, it is all structure and texture. Elliot Smith (track 1), Nick Drake (track 3), The Decemberists (track 4) Okkervil River (track 9), Blitzen Trapper, and Songs: Ohia all make their DNA known in turn: the result is basically a really great, windblown, hopeful, mournful road trip mix that just happens to be the work of one man, making the entire thing hauntingly consistent.

The songs are a bit repetitive, but in a way that builds each verse on the last in haybale walls. And there's a slightly amateur, live feel to the whole thing that gives it scruffy charm. And a couple of the songs are just fucking amazing, the title track in particular is just a stunning piece of churning rock with a soul-bending chorus turnaround hook and ooo.

Maybe I just liked this because it was good for the time I heard it. Fair enough. Instant classic, in its own dusty simple way 4.5/5

#350 Fu-Shnickens - F.U. Don't Take it Personal

Still getting caught up - the very last bookmark in my allmusic guide, played on miles 76-127, through LA and on into the grapevine.

The easiest reference point is that there guys were the black Beastie Boys, coming out around the same time, with a similar shouty, all-3-on-the-end delivery and a similar, broad since of humor. Even the production has a similar feel. Listen to Check it Out and tell me that couldn't have been a Beasties song on paper.

Fact is, I don't much like the sound. The rapping's impressive in places, from the trippleup-slowdown one-two punches, to the one-after-another breathless bursts. On paper, it's pretty good. These guys have skill, the result just isn't very listenable in practice: too annoying, to repetitive in the production, for me to like it nearly as much as I appreciate it 2.5/5

#349 Curtis Mayfield - Superfly

Miles 38-76 on the 5 - the last of the Soul run.

Here we have some legitimate funk, really getting into the first vestiges of proto-rap with the spit delivery and the social message, all roiling basslines and wickawack guitar. It's actually an interesting middle ground, resting somewhere between Al Green and a full-on-Funkadelic sense of richness and grandeur; a relentless energy builds and builds. Meanwhile, a loose narrative gives it all structure and backbone and makes the album more than the sum of its parts.

That said, the realy problem is Mayfield himself - I still don't think he's really that good of a singer, sounding strained nearly all of the time. He's no Al Green. And its enough to keep this squarely at 3.5/5

#348 Al Green - I'm Still in Love with You

Getting caught up on some stuff I listened to on my OC-Palo Alto drive on the 12th (miles 0-33 on the 5). I've been out of town, way behind. This was one of the very last AMG rated albums to hear, part of the soul kick.

This is really a nice one. His voice is a crawling drawl, dragged over ragged bumps, coming at Macy Gray's androgynous purr from the other direction. The songs have a deep soul groove, with some awesome basslines, and only minimal orchestral nonsense. The overall feel is closest to the best Sly and the Family Stone moments, with the melody lurking in and out and around the dark crannies of the song, light glinting off of eyes slyly, with the occaisional knife flash of a James Brown shriek.

Also, its totally listenable - I liked it a lot on the drive, and I'm totally lost in the relisten. The Pretty Woman cover and For the Good Times kill the flow quite a bit, but this is good enough for the high end of 4/5

#347 Dio - Holy Diver

Backing out of the path that got me listening to Sabbath to Dio: the D likes him, and heck, the Venture Brothers named a christian maritime superhero after this album (seriously). Worth a shot?

I have a pretty well-established dislike for AC/DC. The sentiment is preposterous, the naughty schoolboy look is ridiculous, the singing is unlistenable. I don't get how anyone likes AC/DC. I mention it because if you walk the line from Sabbath's version of metal to AC/DC's version of metal, you'll find this album somewhere along the way. Compared to early Sabbath, the singing is a lot shriekier, the lyrics are designed for arena-shoutalongs, the menace a lot less convincing. I think it kind of sucks.

The guitars are actually pretty sweet at times, the start-stop structures are convincing, and occasionally the whole thing just comes together. But any enjoyment required an end-around around my initial distaste. Maybe at the time this wasn't cliched, but it is now. I blame AC/DC. 2/5

#508 The Strokes - Angles

These guys are still around? Its telling that after I listened to this I couldn't remember a note of it. Perfectly good, but its just a slightly denser, slightly busier, slightly more adventurous, maybe even catchier, singificantly dancier version of the usual Strokes sound, but with none of that lightning-in-a-bottle cool that propelled their debut to be one of my favorite albums of the decade 3/5

#346 The Pains of Being Pure at Heart - Belong

These guys put out my 2nd favorite song of 2009, but the album barely scraped into my top 10. Fact is, that album's fun level dropped off hard after the first few (brilliant!) tracks.

Here, man, things kick off hard again. 5 seconds of ambient intro. 6 seconds of insistent beat and chiming guitars, 3 seconds of the rawest pumpkins riff you're heard since Siamese Dream, and you're off. If you're not hooked yet, hang up the phone. The songs are dense, buzzy, and borderline euphoric, full of MBV vocals, chiming guitars, M83 wall of sound, FLCL riffing, lovestruck sentiment and all the reverb you can handle. It's much better paced than its predecessor, working equally well for late night wistfulness and hazy spring drives, the emotions hitting harder, the riffs coming faster.

That said, it doesn't have its hooks fully into me just yet. I suspect it might be grower 3.5/5

#345 Black Sabbath - Paranoid

The first one was promising. Keepit rolling!

Fucking. Disclaimer: Track 1 is war pigs, which is also Track 1, underneath some Ludacris, on Girl Talk's All Day. Its amazing how much hearing this song fosters my respect for All Day's intro maneuver, and conversely, how much the Girl Talk song makes me appreciate this album. I've already spent plenty of words talking about Girl Talk though. What about this album?

It is the obvious, great extension of the pure riffage on the self titled predecessor. Here, the sludgyness is trimmed, the overall sound is made more listenable, while sacrificing none of the actual intensity and full thigh foot stomping appeal. There were lots of little surprises here. I sort of assumed that Paranoid was a bloated, overlong slog, but it is in and out in under 3 minutes, blasting through every idea it has, in with some Stoogey solos, and gone long before it gets old. I've heard Iron Man as many times as anyone, but it sounds better in context. Even slow outlier Planet Caravan (along with No Quarter, a couple years later) establishes a template for the trippy metal song, a sound that would rear its head on countless grunge metal side 2's decades later.

Here is Sabbath distilled. Still not my thing, but kind of brilliant anyway. I had no predisposition to give it ay particular respect, but in my listen, it earned it anyway 4/5

#344 Tubeway Army - Replicas

Heard em on the classic rock station on the TV. Old school via new school!

Here's some deliberately paced, synthy, icy, 80's-but-not-that-80's-but-waaaay-80's art pop post punk rock. The funny thing was, the two times I went "this is a pretty great song!" it was the two times that one of the two well-liked songs were playing. Sometimes the public isn't so wrong. Public says Are 'Friends' Electric and Down in the Park are the songs work hearing, and they're right. I Nearly Married a Human is a nice instrumental that evokes some middle ground between Brian Eno, Bowie's Berlin side 2's and a Flaming Lips instrumental. The sum effect ain't so bad, for all its icy distance and general hasslehoffputtingness. That's a handy new word for annoying German dissonance and distance. It comes up more often than you'd think.

There's something adventurous about this that I admire. At very least those two songs provide some baseline evidence that there's something redeemable about the hyper-synthy side of the 80's 80's 80's sound 3.5/5

#343 Black Sabbath - Black Sabbath

Listening to Tenacious D got me looking up Ronny James Dio, which got me looking at Sabbath and realizing I'd never heard their albums, despite their huge influence on the world of rock.

Finally, exactly what I was expecting. Sludgy, heavy, metal, with short songs, long songs, tons of dark imagery, tons of bass. It's pretty good though, actually. This is an album that sacrifices many maidens at the alter of the almighty riff, spends many a moonlit night dancing in its name, and will allow no deviance from its word. Hendrix and and Zeppelin had been riffing plenty before this album, but there's something singleminded on display here that takes it to a whole 'nother level. Luckily, the riffs are pretty good, held up by surprisingly deft bass lines, and buttressed by some pretty decent solos. The Wizard, in particular, is an excellent stomper.

I don't really listen to music this heavy all that often, but it does what it does well, and you can clearly see its influence all over the intervening generations of music. Worth hearing 3.5/5

#342 Curtis Mayfield - Curtis

AMG'd!

This one was surprising in a different way, with the super buzzy bass sound and the confrontational intro kicking things off with a lot more energy than I expected. The real draws are the epic, powerful tracks that lead off each side, where the horns and bass are right up there with the best parts of Hot Buttered Soul. Unfortunately, outside of those songs, there are a lot of moments that just don't work from me, where saccharine strings, strained singing and weepy sentiment add up to downright annoying, crooney messes. The Makings of You and Give it Up are the worst offenders, but there are bad sections on a lot of the non-rocking songs. For a guy that's known as a singer, I don't much like his singing voice - his grasping falsetto wreaks havoc on good songs and bad.

It's a simple one. Those two tracks are good enough to make the listen worth it, and they'll probably even make occasional mixtape. The rest I have no interest in. Mayfield could make a mean, upbeat funk song, but he's no Issac Hayes 3/5

#341 Issac Hayes - Hot Buttered Soul

Really running low on albums that AMG regards as classics now, finally getting around to some soul and R&B albums that they liked.

The surprises start early: four songs, three of them topping the nine-minute mark; that's not the album structure I expected from Issac Hayes. I expected a fillery run through 13 or so 3 minute crooners, but this is more like James Brown than, well, I don't know anyone in this genre enough to fill out the other half of that simile. Yet! Talk to me in a month.

The first track, Walk on By, is the highlight. It's a swanky, tightly performed, slightly overblown song of heartbreak that swerves and meanders and soars and swoons at turns. Way more epic than I expected. Track 2 gets a bit more psychedelic and Funkadelic, and similarly takes its time going hither and tither as the groove demands. By the time I reached the closer, I though I knew what to expect, but I was wrong. That thing starts off with 10 minutes of spoken word monologue over the sparest of beats, before slow-climaxing in an ethereal, eternal buildup. It is in utterly no hurry what so ever. The payoff doesn't quite justify the buildup, but I have to at least admire the nerve.

Ok, enough about song structure. The actual performances are impressive, and the bass playing in particular is inspirational, just riding up and down and around completely effortlessly. Hayes is actually nothing like James Brown in the delivery, singing about wasted love and losing love and crying and generally being a super sensitive guy. It kind of works, somehow. The whole package is so epic, so taffy pulled in structure, so utterly disconnected from time that it achieves a kind of transcendence. Maybe I'm just shock and awed into appreciation, but this is the kind of shit this project is made for: never knew the guy had it in him 4/5

#340 The Mountain Goats - All Eternals Deck

I like the Mountain Goats mostly, though I only really ever listened to their early stuff, and We Shall All Be Healed, which evokes a sunny day in Nottingham to this day.

Its usually a bad sign when I have to keep stopping an album and coming back to it. Problem the first, John Darnielle's reedy, nasal singing seems even more thin and annoying than ever here. Problem the second, the music is fairly repetitive and mostly uninteresting, the main focus obviously being the Bright Eyes-via-The-Decemberists mellodramatic micro-epics. Which leads me to problem the third. Fuck, this is dark, relating relentlessly depressing imagery and concepts, veering past Okkervil River and on into Why? territory (though stopping well short of Xiu Xiu Land).

I read some review that suggested that Darnielle's bouncy delivery saved this album from bleak oblivion, but I don't see it. Mostly, the disconnect results in uncomfortable songs that jaunt like toddlers to cliffsides.

By the time it was over, I was glad it was over, and not in a good way. Previous Mountain Goats albums took us on harrowing, personal journeys, leaving us feeling like we had lived through something through someone else's eyes. But we came out the other side. All Eternals Deck just builds a wasteland, drives us into it and leaves us there. What is tragedy without protagonist, without movement? Maybe its art, but its not what I look for in music 2/5

#339 Thin Lizzy - Jailbreak

See my Cheap Trick review a couple posts ago: always kind of associated these bands, realized I'd never really heard them.

Ah, see, now this is more like it. This album provides the kind of slightly smooth 70's rock I was hoping Cheap Trick would provide. Its a little lame at times, a little dated, but it is a lot hookier, and a lot cooler than Heaven Tonight, mostly pulling off its swagger, making me smile despite myself a couple times a song. These are tales of troubled but mostly harmless youth, with a pretty good, skittery band behind them - nothing particularly arty, nothing particularly intense, but totally agreeable, never boring. Romeo and the Lonely Girl is a highlight, but all the songs have at least one good, unexpected moment. It is extremely not bad. More really good lemonade than really good scotch, this evokes Dire Straights, Steely Dan, and early Bruce Springsteen - catchy and refreshing, generally unchallenging and plenty easy to enjoy 4/5