Of the music I’ve been listening to lately there’s been two stand out choices and both are kind of important when looking back at 2012 musically.
I’ve been getting back into the habit of listening to classical music lately. I tend to prefer the more intense stuff, the Russians like Shostakovich and Rachmaninoff but also a bit of Bach courtesy of my wife’s appreciation for it. This year we went to see the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra’s Spanish Fiesta – a great way to remind us of our trips there this year, last and back in 2009. An amazing evening of music and a great bit of exposure to some Spanish guitar music of which this is on steady repeat on my iPod:
The part from the seven minute mark, building up to what – to me – is a euphoric moment at 08:14… absolute bliss.
The Replacements
This year – after continually reading their name in numerous bios and write-ups – I finally got around to checking out The Replacements. Holy crap balls. I feel like a complete tool for not having gotten into this band sooner or at least having been aware of them before now. Their influence is huge – I read somewhere that Nevermind was named for the track on Pleased to Meet Me – from Green Day, Goo Goo Dolls to Ryan Adams and Wilco with the likes of Kurt & Co and The Lemonheads in there too.
They came out of the early 80’s hardcore / punk scene but bought with them an undeniable sense of melody and Paul Westerberg’s ever-evolving songwriting skills. While they moved clear of the trash and poor production of their initial early years they never lost the sense of urgency and energy from it but welded it to ever-finer crafted songs.
I started out by ordering their Don’t You Know Who I Think I Was compilation and re-released Let It Be album and have rapidly added all their studio albums up to and including Pleased To Meet Me since May and – despite the recent fucker of a month we’ve been having – I never fail to find myself invigorated and charged by them.
I’m aware that when I’ve muttered about new albums from ‘big’ names – referring, that is, to their importance in my music taste-range – I’ve been pretty negative. There have been more than a few albums released this year that I’ve loved (whether or not I’ll end up doing a Best of 2012 is another thing) so I thought I’d start mentioning a couple of those instead of just slamming new albums.
One of those bands that were always around but I never really acknowledged or paid attention to almost until it was too late, was Dinosaur Jr. By the time I got round to checking out one of their albums it was their comeback disc Beyond. It was being hailed as a ‘return to form’, and people were ecstatic as it was ‘as if they’d never been away’ – except to me they hadn’t really because this was the first time I was listening and knowing who was playing. I played the arse off that album. It absolutely slayed me. So much so that within a pretty short space of time I’d gotten the rest of their stock – my wife even managed to find the otherwise “bastard to locate at a decent price” Without A Sound for me in Paris. Suddenly the buzz around Beyond made sense. It was a phenomenal return to form after the lucklustre release J. had made during the 90’s with other musicians under the name of Dinosaur Jr. Which is odd because I really liked his two efforts with The Fog – so much better than, say, Hand It Over.
From that point I’ve been eagerly awaiting new Dino albums (or the recent J. Mascis solo record) and was not disappointed either with Farm or this year’s I Bet On Sky. It’s true that the three albums are all very much similar (even excusing the use of keyboards on opener Don’t Pretend You Didn’t Know); 10 or 12 songs, the bulk of which are sung by J and contain either hurried or gently fuzzy rocking leading up to the point at which J can’t hold back any longer and lets loose the guitar solo that continues until the end of the track. And you know what? I bloody love it. The melodies are a world clearer than they were on the bands original trio before the lineup became a rotational club, J’s a lot more confident at the old singing game and his guitar tone is beatific. His phrasing and fluidity mean that when each song breaks it’s more like being wrapped up in a warm blanked of tone. Somehow each time he breaks it sounds different and he finds something new on that guitar neck.
After my wife and I recently dug back into the 90s I was flicking through a book she got me last Christmas. It’s the photo collection Grunge by Michael Lavine and with a bit of text from none other than Thurston Moore. There’s a bit of a love-in with Thurston and J – Thurston (along with his basement and daughter) were in the video for Dinosaur Jr’s Been There All The Time and J played some shit-hot lead on Thurston’s amazeballs solo lp Trees Outside The Academy. Anyway there’s photo of Dinosaur Jr in there and – at the back of the book – a summary of all the bands featured within. Thurston’s summary of Dinosaur Jr reads:
“Awesome heavy melodic power trio from Amhers, Massachusetts…. Gerard Cosloy convinced the band to record an LP fr his Homestead imprint and it, along with its successor, You’re Living All Over Me, released on SST, became indelible blueprints for a generation of extreme yet beautiful guitar love core”
I like that phrase “guitar love core”. While the original trilogy was certainly something and the years in between yielded a few gems too I think the most recent clutch of albums from the band a lot more of a guitar love in. Plus it game on a gorgeous slab of purple vinyl and nice, high-quality gate-fold too.
In 1997 after forging a path for the harder-edge of the ‘Seattle sound’ for thirteen years and with a handful of classic tunes and two definitive ‘grunge’ albums to their name, Soundgarden called it a day.
For a while it was a bummer. They released a compilation album at the end of ’97 that seemed like a thoroughly decent wrap-up (complete with the obligatory scrap off the studio floor masquerading as a ‘new’ track). Chris Cornell, having for over a decade been seen towering – he’s a tall chap – over the world of alternative music – released a pretty good solo effort about how shit his life is when messed up by chemicals he should know better than to touch before joining RATM members in Audioslave, delivering another collection of solid tunes then making friends with a Timbaland, making a god awful stab at playing music his voice would be ill-suited to even at its best (it’s been a ravaged shadow of its former glory for some time now), writing a Bond theme and generally becoming a parody. Matt Cameron became the lynchpin that holds the still mighty Pearl Jam together – having taken back the drum stool that he’d filled when the then-untitled group put together the fabled demo that was to reach the ears of Eddie Vedder – and Kim Thayil and Ben Shepherd essentially shopped their services around with guest spots and short-lived group efforts.
It’s strange but it seemed like the lack of Soundgarden as an existing band wasn’t a bad thing. I don’t recall a conversation where anyone said ‘damn I wish they were still making music’. To be honest it seemed like they’d fulfilled their purpose and, while it was dramatic at the time, the demise of these forbears wasn’t such a ‘cut down in their prime’ and that it was probably better to have done so than carry on until sales declined and their legacy diminished.
And yet it would seem nobody told them this. For, sure enough, in 2010, Soundgarden ‘regrouped’. Queue reunion concerts, ANOTHER compilation album and even a live album over an eighteen month period. Now a Soundgarden live album sounded like a great idea except that Live on I-5 was recorded from shows on their awful 1996 tour and sounded like a quickly produced, poorly realised and pointless cash-in. Almost as much as the ridiculously named Telephantasm compilation that preceded it. As if to highlight how unlikely and un-required this one was it was shipped out as part of the Guitar Hero: Warriors of Rock game. Something that revealed what’s really going on here.
Soundgarden were a force to be reckoned with. From Ultramega OK through to Down On The Upside they lead the way. No music lover is without Superunkown and Black Hole Sun still dominates ‘Best of the 90s’ type lists and video run-thrus. However, the importance of Soundgarden and its acknowledgement is one that seems to have escaped the band during its initial lifetime – of course not, in 1997 when they called it a day they were still current. It’s only with the benefit of a decade’s hindsight that people look back on the scene and their role was really noted. So while bands like Pearl Jam are still forging ahead and forward in style and hence never out of the spot-light, Nirvana’s sudden rise and dramatic end ensured their place in the lexicon and yet those same kids that wear the iconic smiley t-shirts weren’t having the importance of Cornell & Co hammered home.
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Which is what it feels like the recent releases from the Soundgarden camp reek of: We’re important too – LOOK! Here’s another best-of, here’s a live album – we’ve got a new album coming soon and so we’re still relevant. Indeed, how best to grab this new generation of music buying youth’s attention than to get slapped in with the Guitar Hero game? Hell, it worked for Aerosmith right and they’re close to Jurassic in age. And here, I believe, is my problem with it: it feels forced and is being forced onto everyone.
The new album was streamed a few days before it’s release and I had a copy of it on my iTunes shortly after that. It’s not there now. I listened to it. I gave it fair chance. I ignored the ridiculous title and G0d-awful artwork and opened my ears as only someone who’s on their second copy of Badmotorfinger can. Yes, I loved Soundgarden. I was hoping for it to be great and to show that Live On I-5 and Tele.. were just poor record company decisions. I was wrong.
King Animal is dull. It lacks the originality and fire that used to ignite Soundgarden albums. There’s no sense of purpose to this collection of songs other than “look, we’re here still and called Soundgarden” only it’s more “we’re here now and called Soundgarden just like that awesome band in the nineties were; we deserve attention”. Once a song starts you know exactly how it’s going to go, how it will get to the end and that, really, you don’t need to hear it. There is zero surprise. It’s riffs by numbers and Cornell’s bellow is now akin to a lion cub imitating a roar as loud as possible yet without any real balls or feeling behind it.
What’s worse is the amount of build up and media whoring that’s surrounded it. Pearl Jam have been hyping it out – given that Cameron is still a serving member that’s no surprise, emails from music press and label and the band have been bludgeoning my inbox with news and teases of riff-heavy snippets from “the new album by the legendary Soundgarden”. It was already huge and important before anyone had heard a full song! I’m not making this up – people were giving it 5 star reviews on online stores while it was still on pre-order and not a note had been heard – just because it’s Soundgarden. One comment I distinctly remember was “people who hate this are just stuck in 1994.” True, 1994 was a great time for Soundgarden but I also love Down on the Upside and there’s been a whole lot of music released since then that makes me go gooey inside. No, those that don’t like King Animal aren’t stuck in the past – they’re simply those who were hoping for a good album, not a reheat of decade old stodge.
You cannot release an album and have it become amazing just because you say it is. An album should be great by its own merits not just because it’s by a group that defined a genre and happen to have made it. They can’t make an album great just because it’s made by Soundgarden. Had Cornell, Thayil, Shepheard and Cameron spend a year coming up with an album that was fresh, tight, vital and solidly original then that praise would be deserved. Had the album been chock full of the dynamics and variety that earlier work was then yes, hat’s should be off. King Animal is not that album. It’s tired even before the first song ‘Been Away Too Long’ – “oh look! Look what they did there with that song title! YES YES YES you have been away too long”, please – is finished.
The overall feeling from this album is that it’s just another few songs that will be stuck between Rusty Cage and Spoonman while the crowd look for a breather before shouting along to Fell On Black Days on the inevitable huge ‘we’re here still’ tour that follows. King Animal and the reunion surrounding it feels like a case of “we’re Soundgarden, we were important, pay us, we like the idea of acclaim but cash will be fine.”
Sorry but this sits up there with Smashing Pumpkins’ Oceania in terms of let downs from the years big releases from big bands. In fact, it’s more of a led down for at least Corgan is writing off the past and trying to do something new rather than simply expecting plaudits for what he did twenty years ago. Let’s be grateful Mark Lanegan isn’t feeling the need to grow his hair long again and give Gerry Lee Connor a call.
This is a bit of a negative post. Feel better, remind yourself of why Soundgarden needed to try harder:
So – for all the grunge, alterna-indie, post-rocking selectivity of music collection there’s a fair few not-so-guilty pleasures. Amongst those is a large selection (yep, every album and a lot of singles) from a band that are oft described as America’s biggest rock ‘n’ roll band – that’s right; Aerosmith.
I’d like to be able to say something like “I only started listening to them because of Buffalo Tom’s referencing them in the linear notes on ‘Asides From'” or “it was the cover of Toys in the Attic that was on ‘Lifes Rich Pageant” but I can’t. The truth of the matter is, in a similar way to Peter Buck’s statement that “if you grew up in the 70s you like Aerosmith” , if you were watching MTV and taking it all in like a hungry sponge in the 90s there was no way to not know Aerosmith. If you happened to be a 15 year old boy watching Joe Perry blast out a guitar solo on a railroad track then step out the way of a speeding freight-train with that “too cool to give a fuck” attitude in the vid for Livin’ On The Edge, then there was no escape. My first concert was an Aerosmith show – The Toxic Twins Towers Ball. The band were riding their late-90s high, post “Don’t Wanna Miss…” and with an album harder and rawer than they’d done for a while – the superb Nine Lives – it was, really, the ideal time to see them. They were still strong and tight and it was just before the dip that would take over a decade to pull out from, really.
It’s strange, then, that for the way in which my music collection and taste has grown and varied since I first got hold of an Aerosmith album – Big Ones – I’ve still paid attention to the boys from Boston. For all the lack of interest in the band and potential mocking I’d endure from those friends with whom I would share tastes in more ‘acceptable’ music I still plunk on Pump or Rocks when the feeling takes me. I still remember the ‘really?’ look I got when one such friend caught me coming out of a store having bought their last studio album Just Push Play. That was eleven years ago.
11 years…. in that time the band put out numerous compilations, a couple of live albums and a collection of blues covers. There were suggestions of new albums in the works and so much band bickering that it looked like game over. But still, I held out some hope. Call it nostalgia, perhaps, but I wanted to think that they’d come back and it would be good. Joe Perry released an awesome solo album then another not-quite-so-hot album that hinted that he was still firing out the licks… then Steven Tyler sat behind a desk and passed judgement on tweenie-bopper acts… and then it was confirmed: a new album WAS in the works and it was being helmed by Jack Douglas – Aerosmith’s own George Martin. To say I was hopeful was an understatement. Then I heard the first song, Legendary Child, and kinda thought… ‘oh’. I had images of the band desperately trying too hard to capture a sound long gone. I then heard ‘What Could Have Been Love’ and thought ‘oh, well, I’ll wait until it hits the bargain bins’. The buzz around the album involved talk of revisiting old riffs and song ideas and going for that old sound – it sounded like we were to expect some reheated left-overs.
And yet…
And yet last week on a rare day-off in the week with my wife I found myself in HMV buying the album – Music From Another Dimension – (in Special Edition format for that matter) on the day of release. I then found myself putting it up onto my iPod to play it through my new sound-system (which will make anything sound amazing). Strangely enough, I then found myself fucking loving it.
For a band to go back and play as if they were in their twenties (especially when most of Aerosmith are three times that age) would sound awful – those times are gone and to try and reproduce it would sound sad. But it was never about eras with Aerosmith, it was about the sound, the passion, the fun and the attitude. Something that was desperately missing from Just Push Play. Which is where this works so well: far from going back to the seventies sound Music From Another Dimension takes over from where Nine Lives left off.
Between their last decent album – Nine Lives – and the abysmal follow up, Aerosmith lent a couple of tracks to the Armageddon soundtrack. The big one, the one everybody knows and gave the band some new legs – literally for Mr Tyler – wasn’t the one that should’ve gained attention. There was a track on there that sounded like the next step for the band, what should’ve been the direction and sound to expect on their next album; What Kind of Love Are You On? was hard, gritty, riff-heavy and full of balls. Instead the next we heard was Jaded.
Until now. Music From Another Dimension is everything an Aerosmith album should be; it’s loud, it’s got passion and drive, it’s got guitars ALL over it and it’s got a pounding rhythm that will stay lodged in your head. All topped off with Steven Tyler’s trademark scatting, howling, soul-baring wail and howl. Most of all – and this is probably why I love the band – it’s FUN. There’s no pretension. This is Aerosmith; they came to play. They came to turn it up loud and fuck everything else.
There’s tunes on here that will stay lodged in your head for days – check out Tell Me and Street Jesus. Even Legendary Child is redeemed by it’s placement amongst Out Go The Lights et al. And although you can’t have an Aerosmith album these days without the odd ballad I still don’t think that much of What Could’ve Been Love.
It even got my wife’s attention and she was soon asking to have it dropped onto her iPhone – something she certainly wouldn’t have done with the last couple of Aerosmith ‘albums’. Strangely enough listening to it does spark a nostalgia for the 90s – which is odd as their stock from that period of their career was mostly the work of the late Bruce Fairbairn rather than Jack Douglas (who has done an outstanding job producing this album) – which gave us a weekend of delving into the ‘banks’ for one great tune after another. Finding a time when music was made for the sake of music and what the band had to say – not what a team of songwriters and producers wanted them to use to flog a perfumer.
The overwhelming impression I get from Music From Another Dimension is that this time the band sat down and played together for possibly the first time in a long time and came up with the tunes that they thought sounded great – not the tunes that half a dozen other writers (the most common collaborator this time around is Marti Frederiksen, hence the similarity to Nine Lives methinks), producers and industry folks wanted them to put out. Yes there is a Dianne Warren song on here but there’s also tunes by Tom Hamilton (Tell Me should be ranking up there with Janie… ), Brad Kramer and Joey Kramer along with a decent chunk of Perry / Tyler collaborations. More than that Joe Perry gets to drape his bluesy growl over two songs on this disc.
It’s an Aerosmith as a band, not a product, is back album. In a world of jury-selected music artists and auto-tuned hits, to hear an album by such a large, mainstream act that is unapologetic-ally non-pop, is refreshing. It also makes me think that there’s still hope while music is produced this way. That while the specific sounds that first got me into music back in the 90s may not be there, the soul and reasons for making music are. That there’s reason to believe guys who have seen a fair old dose of life and make music that doesn’t involve programmed loops and 15 year old boys singing ‘baby’ can still produce something vital and tough. It’s good to hope…
I’ve been away. Off exploring and experiencing. There’s a lot going on musically right now – there’s so much that I’m listening to that’s exciting me (new and old) and there’s a lot hitting the turntable in the coming months too. There’s also the possibility of my own band getting something together by the end of the year….
While I settle back into things and find my line back in I’ll share my ‘relax, it’s all good’ song. I play this practically every holiday I’m on and every morning that needs a pick up will find this as the first song in the car.
I’ve listened to this first on beaches in Normandy (to be fair it’s probably not the usual choice of song to listen to on ‘Omaha Beach’ but there you go) and Barcelona during my first holidays with my now-wife and since then it’s become a case that every time I’m chilling on a warm beach – while my wife throws herself into the warm (or cold) seas with delight – or digesting a day’s exploration I like to lie back and absorb this….
The whole album – Spoon and Rafter – is a pretty fine slice of bliss and I think I’ve got Neil Halstead’s solo stuff kicking around somewhere too…. must take a butchers.
I recently had the pleasure to hear listened to the new Smashing Pumpkins album Oceania. Thankfully I did this via Spotify for had I paid more than the % of my monthly premium account it took to sit through it I’d have been a bit cheesed off.
I’m not sure why the media (think Rolling Stone, Pitchfork etc) took the strange step of giving this such a push – aside from the obvious industry politics. The biggest superlative I remember being thrown at it was that it sounded familiar, like Pumpkins of old. If, by that, they mean Billy Corgan not giving a fuck about the rest of the band then, yes, it may well be. In the past this meant playing all the parts now it seems not caring who he is playing with.
Billy & The New Kids
To be honest it’s one of the most disappointing things I’ve heard so far this year from the Big Name Bands. The only passing familiarity to old Pumpkins Gold (surely a worthy a blog of its own soon) is the vocal dynamics available thanks to Corgan taking on another female bassist. In fact, it’s the strange line-up of this band that means I tend to refer to them as Billy & The New Kids rather than besmear the name of that band that recorded Siamese Dream.
Let’s be fair though. The New Kids do a good job. They’re clearly capable musicians – how else would they get the gig – and hold their own. There are some good songs on hear. Some might even be among the finest stuff he’s peddled out in years -Pinwheels, Violet Rays and the title track Oceania in particular stand out. It’s a good country mile stronger than the dire ‘comeback’ album Zietgest. The problem is that while the New Kids try hard, it no longer feels like a band, more one man’s newest backing band. There’s no weight to it. A feeling of clout is missing.
Perhaps it’s for that reason – for the fact that of the faces under the ‘Pumpkins’ banner now only one looks familiar (though as a pale, slightly wrinkled, prune like version of the strangely endearing face that once sung of Spaceboys and Bullets With Butterfly Wings) – that this album isn’t doing it for me. Or, I imagine, a lot of fans.
So instead of sitting back waiting to be amazed I find myself listening, instead, for things to go ‘ugh’ over – like how when Billy sings the line “never let the summer catch you down” on Celestials it comes out as “never let the salmon get you down”.
I should point out that this is perhaps more upsetting as I’d quite liked some of the recent stuff put out as part of the Teargarden by Kaleidyscope songs. “Song For A Son” was a slab of what once made me listen to them in the first place.
If this were a Billy Corgan album (even if he called it Billy & The New Kids) or even with a new band, I’d receive Oceania – on this point, seriously; wtaf is with these ridiculous bloody names, you’re not coming across as mystical or mysterious just some strangely creepy old hippy uncle who needs to put the tie-dye shirt away – a bit more warmly. I’m sure critics and fans would be beside themselves too. But to call it a Smashing Pumpkins album despite that there’s only Pumpkin on it, reeks of what it really is: “The new album by Billy Corgan who knows it won’t sell if it’s not called Smashing Pumpkins.”
I don’t know. Perhaps it’s just me that hates it when this happens. It’s not the first instance and sure won’t be the last – there’s the on going Guns N Roses chuckle and the new Courney Love’s Hole (though I saw that Hole had a genuine reunion that went without controversy recently) – instance of frontmen realising they can’t pack em in on their own like they do with the band.
Or perhaps it’s nostalgia. The biggest impact the new album had on me was to go back to the older, full-band albums and listen to those again.
Let’s finish this on a comparison.
VS my favourite (and, thanks to a Rolling Stone poll, I see the fan favourite):
So I was in the process of preparing a post on the ultimate Pearl Jam set list (I should point out that Pearl Jam are on that list of Bands Who Can Do No Wrong) were time and times not a factor when I came across a particular rendition of Bu$hleaguer and this post was born as a stopgap.
Now not only am I lucky enough to have caught Pearl Jam live back on the Binaural tour (they haven’t really played here much since when I’ve been able to catch a show) but I’m also lucky enough to have a wonderful wife who kitted me out with the full set of merch surrounding the PJ20 film last year – the soundtrack and book. While reading through I came across a more detailed account of something that I’d only really heard a little about – the negative response the band would get to the song.
For those that don’t know the tune here it is:
Quite the Bush-baiting track with a pretty decent guitar phrase and a nice touch in the sinister “black out weaves its way through the city”… it’s a pretty decent tune on an album (Riot Act) that was overlooked despite having it’s fair share of them.
Anywho. The track didn’t go down at all well with the Republicans among PJ’s fanbase and on April 30th the band played it at Nassau Coliseum in Uniondale with Vedder in his shiny suit and Bush mask. It doesn’t go down well at all. From the PJ20 book:
Matt Cameron: There was a hail of quarters being thrown at us, and that was the first time at Pearl Jam show where, like, I felt the crowd was really mad, and they were trying to hurt us.
Mike McCready pointed out that there was “one fireman in the front row, and he was, like, showing me his badge. He looked at us like, “you’ve betrayed us”. I felt like, as Americans, we should have the right to say what we have to say.”
Of course I went straight to the PJ20 soundtrack where said performance is captured and it’s true you really can hear a wave of hostility (even though it was just a small part of the crowd that weren’t digging it) being fired back. Problem is that the track cuts off after Vedder’s “I busted out the nice suit for you, yeah.”
Thankfully I then decided that given how many amazing live shows the book documented, it might be worth seeing if I could get some of em on the Bootleg series. Bit pricey but never fear, the internet is here and there’s an amazing site – Pearl Jam bootlegs – that had an amazing array of the band’s live shows so I could listen and download until my iPod exploded. Among those shows is the April 30th 2003 show at the (ah, this might explain a bit more of the Republican feeling) Nassau Veterans Memorial Coliseum, Uniondale.
On the bootleg the track isn’t cut and what you get is the full 4 minutes after the tunes last bar. What you get is Vedder trying to talk to a crowd while still Bush-baiting – “maybe you like him cos he’s gonna give you a tax cut, maybe you like him cos he’s a real guy that relates to you cos he’s so ‘down home'” – while they’re still booing. He goes as far as to point out that, of course, he’s pro-USA and for the most part the crowd lap it up but what gets me… and I guess what got them too.. is that there’s one guy who’s voice is so cutting it sounds way too high in the mix. Not only is he booing but he’s chanting something repeatedly: PLAY ROCK N ROLL, PLAY ROCK N ROLL…
Now, I can imagine this guy as being what the American call your typical jock. A meat head who thinks that music should be devoid of message and meaning and should be just mindless, thumping music to chug beers and get out of your head to. I’m not sure what that is (though I have a suspicion it’s Nickleback and Ted Nugent) but I’m pretty sure it’s not Rock N Roll. Hell, look at when rock n roll started – it was pure rebellion. It was something purely for teenagers, it was anti-establishment before Punk was even conceived and it’s spirit is about freedom and challenging the rules. Why else do you think it made such a stir?
The strangest thing is how well Vedder keeps his cool. He has the vast majority of the crowd on his side, he also has the microphone but rather than doing, say, a Josh Homme (have you heard him tackle a heckler on Monster In The Parasol on Over The Years? “Hey cock-smocker, eat a bag of dicks…. you cock-smocking fuck hole”), he tries to reason and calm. Then again he’s clearly pissed off – you can hear the anger in his voice when the band breaks into Know Your Rights next (seriously, how Rock N Roll is that – playing an even more anti-government song after being booed for playing your own?) and then calls it quits after another – Rockin In The Free World – two songs early.
Surely the frustration isn’t so much the fact that they were booed – and had quarters thrown at them – they’ve had it before (“shoe the shoeless” in a youtube will give you some smiles). I think the frustration is that they’re still getting these jocks in their audience some 12 years in. It’s a common thing really with similar bands. I’ve seen and read enough biogs on Nirvana to know that they were equally surprised and frustrated to see these jocks appearing in their crowds because certain tunes had a bit of rock muscle on radio. The recent Grohl biog even points out that when they all heard Alive for the first time they expected Pearl Jam to be those big high school jock types.
Of course with songs like Alive stocking up the mainstream radio it was unavoidable that people would love the power and the rock in it (and there’s no harm in a bit of rock) without paying attention to the songs lyrics but after 12 years? It’s not like during those ten years Pearl Jam put out a cover of Cat Scratch Fever. No, they deliberately went underground in comparison. They made records like No Code and Vitalogy as non-rock as possible. Their political voice may not have been too loud at that point but surely nobody goes to the trouble of buying a Pearl Jam ticket without knowing more than one song from their albums or even giving Riot Act a cursory listen? I guess this guy did, I guess he went expecting them to simply stand still and play the hits.
Anyway it did create magic because that track got new life live as a result of the tension it would breed – some of the tunes best performances followed the night at Nassau – and the power of Know Your Rights following it also makes for a standout performance:
I’m not sure what Mr Meathead was after, something soulless, something that doesn’t challenge the rules, didn’t make you think, doesn’t make you want to get up and DO something – anything. I’m not sure what that is but it isn’t rock n roll.
Let me kick this post off with a couple of statements, in a ‘don’t get me wrong’ manner. Firstly, I love a bit of Rage Against The Machine and the first Audioslave album was an absolute monster musically – the other two had their highlights too. I’m also a huge Springsteen fan, many of his albums are perpetually in my car’s multichanger or playing through my iPods. It’s easy enough; I have them all, some in multiple formats and even a few of the boxsets.
Accordingly, my point is even stronger than an unbiased few as I admire both men as artists and some of their songs have featured in key moments in my life. One of the things that I really don’t like is hypocrisy and I can’t help but think they’re both guilty of it to a large extent at the moment.
Let’s take Wrecking Ball as an example. It is a fine album. It’s certainly a lot stronger than Working On A Dream. It’s tight, it’s cohesive and sounds vital and packs a real punch – surprising given the lack of cohesion in the assembled musicians (there’s no real band more different groupings of musicians) which speaks volumes about the writing and production. We Take Care of Our Own, Jack of All Trades, Land of Hope & Dreams, Rocky Ground and even the title track are belters that will no doubt be setlist staples on the next few tours (Land… has been for the last decade already but the newer version is tighter than a duck’s arse). Death To My Hometown is a corker of a song that sounds like Bruce swallowed the songbook he’d been sniffing at for Seeger Sessions, chugged down some rocket fuel, strapped a guitar on and let fly (I sniffed a musical-criticism-cliche book before writing this).
The thing that stops me loving this album as much as Magic (of his recent splurge of productivity Magic and The Seegar Sessions sit up there with Darkness, Born To Run and Tunnel) is the inclusion of a couple of clunkers. I’m not talking about We Are Alive or You’ve Got It (every classic Boss album has a track or two like that but you know they’ll eventually grow on you in the same way as the jokes in a Hemmingway novel stop you getting overpowered by the weight of the drama). It’s the songs of ‘anger’, the songs that address the State of the Nation – you know, a financially and morally bankrupt America (not that the U.S of A is alone in such a state but Bruce’s Jersey is New not of the Channel Islands) – that irk me.
Yes, Bruce is at his best when he’s ‘angry’ and brooding. Look at Nebraska, Darkness and even USA. Hell even Tunnel of Love is a record of despair. But that negativity is more of a personal one – it’s his father, his soon-to-be ex-wife or even the Talk Show Stations on the radio. On ..USA, yes, there’s anger at the way the government is treating veterans and a few stabs at the system in Downbound Train but…. But my problem is that here Bruce Springsteen now is singing as if one of the ‘99%’ as the Occupy Movement have come to regard those of us that don’t have a few million in pocket change on any given day.
Bruce who is worth a rough $200 million or so. Mr Springsteen who has sold more albums than the entire Occupy movement has used markers for their placards. On Wrecking Ball’s weakest tracks (musically they’re diamonds cut from the same rock that spawned Seeger Sessions) Shackled and Drawn and Easy Money, Bruce sings about how:
“workingman pays the bill
It’s still fat and easy up on banker’s hill
Up on banker’s hill, the party’s going strong
Down here below we’re shackled and drawn”
Or how he’s going out on the town in search of that ‘easy money’. Now these are admirable lyrics. They are. For someone who can be beleived to be the character in those songs. I desperately wanted to catch Bruce and E-Street Band when they come to town this year but I was put off because I’d be facing a nice £200 cost just for me and my wife to catch the show. Anyone with ticket prices that high is already up on ‘banker’s hill’. If this were the Bruce that sang of operas being played out on the Turnpike and the streetlife of Asbury park circa 1972 it would be believable but for the multi-millionaire musician of 2012 to be singing as if cap-in-hand is as appropriate as Kirk Lazarus having a skin pigmentation procedure to play Sgt Osiris.
Tom Morello - leave it at home mate
Let me reiterate one of my earlier points – Wrecking Ball is a good album. It’s bloody good. One of the highlights is the guitar work (though it’s nowhere near as it good or fiery as it couldshould be) of Tom Morello – not to mention Swallowed Up In The Belly of a Whale which is a dark, broody monster that creeps into your ears and should have replaced Easy Money. The two musicians are pretty close lately and have been popping up together wherever a need to stand on a makeshift stage and sing This Land is Your Land in a real ugh-inducing way – does a 70 year old Woody Guthrie folk song really sum up the problems faced by ‘the 99%’? – presents itself.
Indeed, Mr Morello is seemingly trying to become Guthrie – his guitar painted with whatever cliched slogan pops into his head and singing ‘protest’ songs at every opportunity while doing his damndest to become the champion of the Occupy Movement. Once again, this smacks of hypocrisy to me. How big were Rage? How many millions did they sell? Shitloads. Not only that but how many times have the band members gone “kerching!” to festival appearance requests since reuniting a few years back? How can you speak for the 99% (I should point out that I hate that phrase in itself) when you’re so far from being amongst them?
The only person who was able to imitate Guthrie without being so hideously ham-fisted about it was Bob Dylan but that was in 1962 and even he gave it up quickly – in fact, he never even claimed to be a protester. For multi-millionaire musicians whose talents lie in creating music of a far different beast to be suddenly finding their inner dust-bowl just reaks of cash in.
Bruce recently said that he would never be as active politically as he had been in the run-up to Obama’s victory, saying that artists should be “the canary in the cage.” Absolutley, couldn’t agree more. However, there’s a difference between lending your support and voice to a group and trying to be one of that group. Especially when the gap between their message and your circumstances is so severe. Christ, we’ll have Bon Jovi singing from the point of view of starving Africans next.
To rectify this malaise, stick the first RATM album or Battle of Los Angeles in your CD player – those are real songs of anger and power – or get hold of Wrecking Ball. I still love it but then I’ve adjusted the tracklisting thusly:
We Take Care of Our Own
Death to My Hometown
Jack of All Trades
This Depression
Swallowed Up (In The Bell of the Whale)
Wrecking Ball
You’ve Got It
Rocky Ground
Land of Hope and Dreams
American Land
We Are Alive
Bonus Tracks:
Easy Money
Shackled and Drawn
Like I said, it’s a great album and Bruce is better when he’s packing a punch (I really don’t want another Lucky Town / Human Touch or Queen of the Supermarket) but this way there’s a little less “I’m one of the people” cheese.
Mumbling About... 