While the stupidity of June 23rd and the fumbling-in-the-dark it lead to continues to dominate the news (unless America votes in a racist, misogynistic Oompa Loompa today) I thought I’d revisit my initial “Out of Europe” list… I thought I’d go for a region, in this instance Scandanavia, but quickly found I’d come up with five from the same country.
So, in the same “this is what we’re saying goodbye to” thought, here’s a Top Five From Sweden (in no particular order, of course, and without a Waterloo in sight*):
Kristofer Åström – How Can You Live With Yourself
There’s just something so amusing and great about the juxtaposition between those gentle strums and lyrics like “I hope you’ll burn in hell”.
Refused – New Noise
I don’t think I ever was or ever will be – especially as my clock has just clicked over another year closer to 40 and I merge quietly into listening to ‘Dad rock’ – to talk about Refused or profess fandom in the same way I’m probably unlikely to be considered serious when I talk about At The Drive In’s Relationship of Command (“Hello, mother leopard. I have your cub”). I will say, though, that I love and loved The Shape of Punk To Come in all it’s screaming, emphatic and brutal force.
Shout Out Louds – Oh Sweetheart
I cannot recall how I found this band back in the mid 2000’s. Their first album Howl Howl Gaff Gaff is chock full of cracking, upbeat and well crafted tunes like this and The Comeback. I can’t say I’ve heard a great deal since though, so perhaps it’s time to head to Spotify….
Junip – Line Of Fire
Having found solo success on his own with his bare, acoustic tracks and covers (including Heartbeats) José González did the sensible thing and got the band – Junip – back together again. I first found them on the The Secret Life of Walter Mitty soundtrack and then their 2013 self-titled.
Last Days of April – The Thunder & The Storm
I could have put anything from Last Days of April here, they remain my favourite European export and I’d be hard-pushed to find a dud in their catalogue. So I went with something form their latest – last year’s Sea of Clouds – if only for the moment halfway through when the pedal-steel and guitar takes over and just keep going. For a quick LDOA bracer:
There’s some honourable mentions for this one (Sweden has sent some wonderful music out into the world) including that one-hit-wonder Glorious by Andreas Johnson, The Knife – purveyors of the original Heartbeats, and Lykke Li’s wonderful Melodies & Desires.
*no matter how many people claim there’s something great in ABBA I cannot stomach them, the DJ at my wedding was even banned from playing them no matter who made a request (I have a list of those that did, too).
Since he was old enough to pull himself up and stand holding onto the shelves, my son would reach into the CD shelves that line our hall and pull out an album (or a handful) while I put on my shoes and zipped his coat of a morning. Initially because that’s what toddlers do but subsequently because he’d learn that when he thrust one into my hands odds were that I’d take it out with us and we’d listen to it during the drive – him to the child-minder and me onwards to the office – and the idea of choosing the music for the day appealed to him greatly.
Aside from the fact that he’s already forming favourites and calling out requests (“where’s that Dinosaur Jr?” “Foo Fighters please”) from the back seat before he’s three, it’s meant that as his physical development allowed him to do more than repeatedly grab clusters from the M/N area – he’s been selecting albums that I wouldn’t otherwise do so for myself and, in many instances, hadn’t listened to for years and giving me the impetus to spin things I hadn’t for some time.
Hence; revisiting.
Collapse Into Now
In 1997, a couple of years after a suffering a brain aneurysm on stage in Switzerland, and as the band were due to commence sessions for a new album, drummer Bill Berry told his band mates that he was leaving REM. In the seventeen years he’d sat on his drum stool behind Messrs Stip, Buck and Mills the four-piece from Athens, Georgia had gone from underground, college-scene heroes, broken through with Document and achieved major-label success and sales with Out of Time, Automatic For The People and assured permanent rotation wherever music videos are played with clips for ‘Everybody Hurts’, ‘Losing My Religion’ and, to their own chagrin, ‘Shiny Happy People’.
After announcing his intentions Berry added a caveat; he would only vacate his stool if the others agreed to carry on. As such, the publicity for the band’s next album Up often contained Stipe’s “I guess a three-legged dog is still a dog. It just has to learn to run differently” quote.
I’d gotten quite into REM at this point in time. While I’d played ‘Drive’ on the jukebox at a holiday camp one summer to the point that the guy working there ended up pulling the plug (to be fair he at least gave me my 50p back even if his ‘I think that song breaks it’ lie was weakly delivered0 – it was New Adventures In Hi-Fi that I held and still hold as a great album (‘Departure’, ‘Bittersweet Me’, ‘How The West Was Won and Where It Got Us’, ‘Electrolite’??!) As such Up was purchased by me on day of release. Sadly Berry’s departure also marked the point I pretty much started losing interest. Up has some good songs (3.5 at last count), Reveal was too stodgy and heavy-handed – and marked the last REM album I’d buy for some time – and Around The Sun (or what I’ve heard of it) had all the punch and staying power of a kitten’s fart. Save for the (Berry-co-written) single ‘Bad Day’ from the Warner Bros comp it seemed like the now-three-piece from Athens, Georgia weren’t going to be finding rotation on my stereo again.
But then…. perhaps tired of the inertia and lukewarm reception surrounding their output – Around the Sun had shifted under 240,000 copies in the US – and enthused by working with (finally) a new producer, REM engaged again and, working under tighter pressure and deadlines, released Accelerate; an aggressively upbeat and purposeful album that was, as one critic said, the “sound of a band having enjoyed a good word with themselves”.
For all it’s praise – and I’ve still not added it to my own shelves – Accelerate was a very single-focus album and lacked the subtleties that enthused their earlier and better tracks. I don’t think there was a single mandolin lick to be found. Still, it made me listen again so that, in 2011, when word of a new album and lyric videos for ‘Überlin’ and ‘Mine Smell Like Honey’ dropped, Collapse Into Now was one I bought on day of release.
Until this last week I hadn’t listened to it for a couple of years but each and every time I hear this album I find more to enjoy – that naggingly catchy riff that kicks off proceedings with ‘Discoverer’, the vocal power of ‘Oh My Heart’, the breaking out of that joyous chorus of ‘Mine Smell Like Honey’ or Eddie Vedder’s contribution to ‘It Happened Today’, the blast that is ‘All The Best’ (in which Stipe portends their plans with “it’s just like me to overstay my welcome”) or the blink-and-you’ll-miss-it joy of ‘That Someone Is You’:
Collapse Into Now may not be perfect but then no REM album is 100% (‘Star Me Kitten’, anyone? No, didn’t think so). It is their most consistent and successfully multi-faceted album for a long time and one in which the sheer weight of positives and the quality of the production outnumber its weaker points. Rather than simply play it fast as they’d done with Accelerate, the songs on this album are given space to breath, there are textures that harken back to their earlier work without sounding like re-treads and there’s an overwhelming sense that, once again, they’re enjoying what they do.
Once you’ve reclaimed your reputation – what do you do, though? With their deal with Warner Bros at an end, would they sign to an independent or will they make another massive-money deal? Will they continue this upward trend in quality with another album? With a seemingly-rekindled joy of playing live will they tour?
But they didn’t go for any of that. For it turns out that when they got together to record Collapse Into Now they did so with the idea of “going out on a high note.” And, in September 2011 (just five months after the album’s release) REM announced their decision to call it a day. With Collapse Into Now, to my ears at least and this is my blog after all, they did just that. After all, I doubt people would be clamouring for more if the last think they’d released had been ‘Leaving New York’.
I’ve been finding comfort in familiar sound recently so those newer releases by the Pixies etc haven’t really been given a listen. But, here’s an idea of the current playlist:
Jack Rose and his mastery and innovation of the acoustic is actually a new discovery for me. I think the lack of vocals made it easier for me to get into over the last couple of weeks. A huge body of work still to hear for the first time as Mr Rose made a lot of music before his untimely passing but this, from the brilliant album I Do Play Rock and Roll is hypnotisingly awesome.
Because I’m still gobbling up House of Cards
I don’t think I’ve even mentioned Mr Petty on here… odd. Anthology; Through The Years is one of those rare compilations that’s absolutely perfect and, after starting to watch Runnin’ Down A Dream on Netflix, is now back in rotation in my car. Eddie Vedder says, at the start of the documentary, “The first time you hear a new Tom Petty song is sounds like, you know, a classic song.” – he’s not wrong. If you only have the aforementioned compilation you’ll know just how many sheer belters the man has written.
Going back to an earlier discussion on Dire Straits… I’ve been listening to Making Movies the last couple of days, in particular this opening track (and Skateaway). It’s made me wonder something though; in 1980 Mark Knopfler borrowed both a producer (Jimmy Iovine – having loved the production sound of Patti Smith’s ‘Because The Night’) and band member (Roy Bittan) from Bruce Springsteen to make what was the band’s breakthrough third album (Iovine had a thing for making third albums). A few (seven to be precise) years later Bruce dropped his own (and arguable one of his finest) album and song called Tunnel of Love. Where Knopfler’s track featured lines like “Come on and take a low ride with me girl, on the tunnel of love”, Bruce used “Cuddle up angel cuddle up my little dove, we’ll ride down baby into this tunnel of love”… Now, while both album’s dealt fairly prominently with love’s broken promises, Bruce’s album and lyrics were significantly different, more nuanced and the sound very much of his own but… I have to wonder; surely Bruce must’ve heard what his piano player and produce had been moonlighting on and did that plant a seed that, over a few years, grew into one of his most brooding and significant albums?
Despite the record breaking temperatures we’re getting for this time of year, there’s an unmistakeable hint of autumn in the air.
It’s at this time of year that two songs which somehow (to my ears) manage to capture the sensation that summer has just slipped away come to mind and they’re both by the same guy – Bill Janovitz.
Summer is from Buffalo Tom’s fifth album Sleepy Eyed and they’d tried to move away from the polished sound of the previous album to something a little more live, in-the-studio feeling:
Best Route comes from Bill Janovitz’ most recent solo outing – a somewhat concept album about his hometown which had “got trapped in amber of nostalgia” . Whether it’s the timing signature, that electric guitar line, the undeniable warmth of that nostalgia when applied to the end of summer… I don’t know, but Best Route is the stand-out for me.
He thought the man was fast asleep
Silent, still and deep
Both dead and cold
Shot through
With bullet holes
This is an odd one and probably the least ‘cool’ track on this list which is strange and mumble-worthy in itself… Of all those bands revisited and touted as influences, given the remaster treatment and dusted off in the wake of nostalgia revivals, Dire Straits remained immune. Perhaps it was down to Knoplfer’s unfortunate headband / hair combo during the Money For Nothing era or that Harry Enfield sketch, or the over-presence of Sultans of Swing on the radio but, for a band that shifted over 100 million records (30 million shifted by Brothers In Arms alone), Dire Straits are still one of those bands that are sneered at though I’m sure there’s an awful lot of guitarists and bands influenced by Knopfler’s playing.
I’m willing to bet, though, that Knopfler himself couldn’t give a rat’s arse about it. Likely contributing to that lack of attention is the fact that, having quietly dissolved the group in 1995 having become uncomfortable with the scale of the tours and productions, Mark Knopfler has resisted any and every urge (if he even has them) to revisit the group having forged ahead with his solo career and no calls for the ‘Legend’ spot at Glastonbury are likely to change that.
I grew up with the sound of Dire Straits thanks to my Dad and the same is true of Knopfler’s solo material – it’s one of those common tastes we share. While I’m not a big enough fan to own anything beyond a Best Of comp I do know the songs and will keep an ear out when I hear them, if only for sentimental reasons. That and the fact that Knopfler’s guitar phrasing and tone is an absorbing an beautiful thing all by itself, especially on his solo albums. Shrangri La – Knopfler’s fourth solo record – is a different story though.
Recorded after a seven-month break from the guitar imposed by recovering from a motorcycle accident, I’d state this is my favourite thing Knopfler has put to tape and certainly his most-consistent. The slow-burn, blues tone is dominant, gone are the celtic/folk leanings of his earlier efforts and his laid back phrasing and story telling is leant to a much wider range of subjects including Elvis (Back To Tupelo), the founding of McDonalds (Boom Like That) and those uniquely British tales like the plight of the modern fisherman in The Trawlerman Song and the One-Armed Bandit Murder in what has to be my favourite Knopfler composition; 5.15am.
It’s an atmospheric tune that begins with a gentle strum that builds into a real bluesy tone as it tells both the story of the discovery of “one armed bandit man (who) came north to fill his boots”‘ body and its impact on the local coal-mining community where “generations toiled and hacked, for a pittance and black lung”.
The odd thing about blogging is that when you leave a gap and slip out of the habit it’s not immediately obvious how to get back in. It’s not like reading a book, say, where there’s a bookmark holding your place or Netflix to remind you which episode of House of Cards you’re on (I’ve just finished Season 2 and am hooked).
Once you lose the rhythm, it can be tricky to find the point / manner in which to re-engage. Or at least it is for me.
It’s not that I lost interest, I’ve just been away on holiday and disconnecting from it all.
So I’ll pop back in with a Currently Spinning job while wishing I was still enjoying the Spanish sun rather than the murk and drizzle of Kent.
I’m trying – and, I hope, achieving to some extent – to get a bit mellower / less uptight with certain things as I get older. I’m pretty sure that’s happening with music, at least. Otherwise I doubt I’d be currently listening to Ryan Adams’ 1989. I cannot say that I have ever knowingly listened to a Taylor Swift song nor that I would. As much as I do try to be less of a musical snob the manufactured, substance-less fluff of that world can still not find my ears open. I can say, though, that I love a lot of Ryan Adams’ work. Accordingly it’s been some time between release and – this week – my listening to his song-for-song remake/recasting of her most recent album.
Given my unfamiliarity with the source material I cannot compare. It’s a strange concept of an album; by all accounts Adams listened to the original during the breakdown of his own marriage and decided to recast it in a way that sheds new light on the song-writing (perhaps to appeal to grumpy old sods like me) and while he’s always had a way with a cover it’s odd to enjoy his genuinely emotive and distinctive take on these songs despite their having been written by writers-for-hire that have also penned tracks for Britney Spears, Lopez et al. Oddly, Adams himself has said that “the goal was to find a middle ground between the sound on Springsteen’s 1978 album “Darkness at the Edge of Town” and the Smiths’ 1985 album “Meat is Murder.””
On the one hand you could say it’s what happens when a prolific artist has his own studio and a lot of time on his hands. On the other it’s also what happens when one artist finds the work of another so compelling that they have to pay a tribute. It seems to have been quite polarizing in terms of reviews – from 5 star in The Telegraph to a 4/10 from Pitchfork – and thanks to Swift’s own following it’s odd that this will likely be his most exposed release.
Still, his voice and playing are continuing along the same quality evolution that was present on his last album and I can’t help but enjoy a lot of this album. Probably why the vinyl has just arrived on my desk as it graduates from a Spotify-only listen.
Dreaming, dreaming of how it’s supposed to be
But now this tunic’s spinning – around my arms and knees
I feel like I’m disappearing – getting smaller every day
But when I open my mouth to sing – I’m bigger in every way
I’ve mentioned before how huge Sonic Youth are/were for me. Every now and then I still get bummed when I realise that I won’t hear ‘new’ material from them again. That being said it’s not as though there’s a shortage of songs to listen to; 15 studio albums, 9 SYR instalments and a number of post-dissolve releases trickling through.
It’s close-to impossible for me to choose a favourite Sonic Youth album but when it comes to an individual song it’s always Tunic (Song for Karen). I can’t recall my first hearing of it – I have some idea it involved something being smoked – but I know I was instantly hooked.
Yes; it’s a song about Karen Carpenter. Kim Gordon has said ‘I was trying to put myself into Karen’s body. It was like she had so little control over her life, like a teenager – they have so little control over what’s happening to them that one way they can get it is through what they eat or don’t. Also I think she lost her identity, it got smaller and smaller.’ In the instrumental breakdown in the middle of the song Kim and J. Mascis are singing Carpenters songs – it’s buried deep in the mix but on the demo version (included in the 2005 Deluxe Edition) you can hear this more clearly.
The music certainly carries a dark edge appropriate to its subject matter but it’s pure hook and driving rhythm pinned down with guitar squeal. The collapse in the mid section, pulled out by the re-start of the drums and rhythm, is heaven to my ears.
In 1989 after touring behind Bug, escalating tensions and frustrations lead to Lou Barlow being booted out of Dinosaur Jr. He should have seen it coming; when the group first played together they were called Mogo and the seemingly shy and reticent guitar-shredder Mascis wasn’t upfront, the frontman was Charlie Nakajima who lasted precisely one show after using that stage as a platform for a lengthy anti-police tirade. Appalled by Nakajima’s actions but “too wimpy to kick him out” (J’s words not mine), Mascis instead asked drummer Murph and bassist Barlow to form a new band without Nakajima.
Despite his slacker vocals and aforementioned demeanour, Mascis was something of a control-freak with whom communication was a continual burr. By the time of Barlow’s dismissal they’d created a trilogy of legend-forming and hugely influential albums and had begun to scratch at commercial success with songs like Freak Scene and their cover of the Cure’s Just Like Heaven. What followed for Dinosaur Jr was a major-label deal, the subsequent change in mix/production dynamics with lyrics and vocals being pushed higher in the sound, getting caught up and buoyed forward by the changed landscape formed by Nirvana’s Nevermind, the departure of drummer Murph, their most commercially successful album and song in Without A Sound and Feel The Pain before the seemingly inevitable drop-off in sales, major-label disinterest and J’s retiring of the band name in 1997.
After a few solo Mascis records (under the name J Mascis and The Fog) and Barlow taking swipes at J in numerous Sebadoh songs, the unexpected happened; the “classic” line-up reformed in 2005 for a tour promoting the reissue of their first three albums. Even more unexpectedly; the reunion held all the way to the studio for release of the first album of Dinosaur Jr’s Third Act; Beyond. Whether it be down to the mellowing out that time, age and even parenthood bring, better communications or just the ease in pressure that comes from realising they’re not expected to make a “Smash Hit Album” but they’ve now outlived both their first ‘classic’ run of ’84-’89 and the band’s major label period of ’90-’97 and are still going strong.
Give A Glimpse Of What Yer Not – as with the three albums that have preceded it – makes a formidable mix of the band’s early heaviness and the tighter, song-oriented structure that came with the major label sound to create a perfect balance off fuzz-heavy riffs and deft melodies all underpinned by J’s trademark soloing and softly-spoken, stoner-like vocals.
Stripping back a touch on the spread of sound featured on 2012’s I Bet On Sky, Give A Glimpse Of What Yer Not is a much taughter and fiercer sounding affair. Opener Goin’ Down tears through at break-neck pace and the following Tiny rips along at a cracking pace and clocks in at just 3:12 of precise intent – cramming in heavy riffs, rolling bass lines, thundering drums and J’s solo without an inch to spare.
Those Mascis solos do take the spotlight throughout but with due cause and never sounding too heavy-handed in their placing. When I mumbled about I Bet On Sky I mentioned that albums of Dinosaur Jr Act 3 are of a formula, with anticipation for the inevitable guitar break but that “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 blanket.” This still holds; Mascis’ guitar is still the star attraction on Give A Glimpse Of What Yer Not, especially on I Walk For Miles and I Told Everyone.
In the interests of democracy or as proof as to how far they’ve come in terms of dissipating tensions – Barlow gets a couple of his tracks on each of the band’s latest albums. Here Love Is… stands out as the strongest, it’s structure calling to mind Led Zep’s III era folkiness before giving way to Mascis’ guitar while it and the album closer Left/Right are both stronger, more comfortable-sounding tunes than any of his which have graced albums since Beyond. Whereas on previous albums they’ve been something of a sore thumb and almost halted the flow, here they slip in gel more cohesively than every before.
The band are clearly getting on well and working together better than ever before and while the ‘if it ain’t broke’ adage can certainly apply to many of the tracks here, songs such as Lost All Day and, particularly, the changing dynamics of Knocked Around show that Dinosaur Jr remains a band willing to stretch its sound and try new ground rather than generate a few more tracks to drop in between Forget The Swan and Lung during the payolah tours.
I’ve yet to catch them live – I wondered recently how they tackle the subject of playing those songs recorded during Barlow and Murph’s absence from the band. Do they include them or do they go the Van Halen route of pretending a huge part of the band’s history and it’s most commercially successful and wider-known tracks don’t exist (in my mind and a little off-topic I’d call this route as stupid a decision as getting Roth back in the fold in the first place was but then the idea of Diamond Dave trying Right Now is as farcical as any part of his hammy vaudeville act) or do they let bygones be bygones and go for the crowd-pleasers? I was very glad then, to see, thanks to SetListFM, that their set lists from recent tours include a good mix of old, mid and new era tracks. I suppose it’s further testament to just how well they’re getting on.
I digress…
I’ve had this album for just a couple of days now but it hasn’t left my CD player since then (I’ll have to wait a little longer for the vinyl) and cannot see a way this doesn’t make the Best Of 2016 list.
Last night I closed my eyes and watched the tracers fly
Through the jungle trees
Like fireflies on a windy night, pulled up and onward by the breeze…
Kids In Philly remains a high water mark for Marah, and it was only their second album. Marah are one of those bands that shoulda, woulda, coulda been so much more but, following their second album, they were dogged by line-up changes and the ever-diminishing press interest and promotion that comes from a band that sign to a seeming merry-go-round of record labels. Back in 2000, though, the band with the Bielanko Brothers Serge and David at its core were coming off the enthusiastic critical response to their début Let’s Cut The Crap & Hook Up Lateron Tonight – which saw them signed to Steve Earle’s now-defunct label – when they released Kids In Philly. The response was hugely positive.
Upon release critics lauded the band and the album for its originality and recasting of musical touch stones. References to Springsteen abounded along with phrases such as “imagine The Clash taking on Born to Run” documenting the album’s energy and lyrical call outs. Calling the album relentlessly infectious, AllMusic calls it stunning “in its diversity, and even more stunning in its ambition. The album forges its own confident, note-perfect rock & roll sound, while practising the type of effortless stylistic hopping that hadn’t been executed to such wonderful effect since the heyday of the Fab Four.”
Kids In Philly is an absolute blinder of an album and one that makes my own Essential 100 list (which I’m still miles from returning to let alone completing). It’s not only compellingly addictive in its urgency and song-writing craft but the lyrics come across as hugely authentic and miles away from the phoned-in, play-acting that was rife in so music at the time – 2000 was peak landfill-indie on the radio. Rolling Stone cited how the album “lives and breathes the streets where it was made.”
I found it, as with so much music at the time, via one of Uncut Magazine’s Unconditionally Guaranteed cds glued to the cover (I wonder if I ought to start buying that magazine again). I’ve got an odd soft-spot for these war story songs (Goodnight Saigon serves as another example and even Stand Ridgway’s Camoflauge for other reasons) that try and put something so inhuman into a human context. It’s tricky, though, to get it right – find the balance between affective lyrics, a good tunes and a song that works in its own right. In that respect Round-Eye Blues exemplifies everything that makes the album it’s from great; instantly catchy, full of hook, biting lyrics and great craftsmanship in both the tune and the lyrics.
Somehow these guys manage to make a bitter tune sung from the point of view of a Vietnam vet (another little nod to Bruce) convincingly genuine despite the fact that they would only have been in their early 20’s at the time – “But late at night I could still hear the cries of three black guys I seen take it in the face, I think about them sweet Motown girls they left behind and the assholes that took their place.”
From here it was a bit of a stalling, down hill tumble for Marah. Their follow-up was made by Owen Morris (who was known for producing Oasis so Be Here Now should have served as a red-flag in terms of suitability), the over-produced (so much so that they later released a “de-constructed” version) and aimless Float Away With The Friday Night Gods failed to capitalise on the doors opened by Kids In Philly (or the practically-buried cameo from Springsteen himself) and led to the previously mentioned label-hopping and line-up changes. I stuck around for a few more albums hoping for a return to form but, while they remained capable of turning out the odd little reminder of their song-writing charm the energy and urgency of Kids In Philly eluded them and lack of effective record distribution made it harder to get hold of their work. Still, I understand that they’ve since ‘reformed’ to celebrate the album’s 15th anniversary so who knows.
Oddly enough I like the idea of doing a split, two-parter post as it gives me something resembling a structure to post on rather than ramble – especially when current events are something I need to stay away from if only for the sake of my blood pressure and keeping that black dog at bay.
Earlier this week I got the Pre-Milk Spillage Aerosmith compilation up having been inspired by Jim over at Music Enthusiast’s post-trilogy on the Toxic Twins. Turns out that one was the easiest of my original comps to recreate on Spotify and share. For some reason Falling Off isn’t included on the streaming version of Nine Lives (I guess it was cut from international versions of the album) which meant I head to substitute it for the lesser Walk On Down and Can’t Stop Messin’ has been culled from Get A Grip but once you start substituting….Well, I wanted to get something from the latest Music From Another Dimension on there and Out Go The Lights seemed the only one to fit (I guess because the tune has its origins from the Pump era) which meant I was able to slice out some of those awful ballads that I’d no longer want to hear (and clog up most of Big Ones).
But then with an extra minute or three do any of the tracks from the period between Nine Lives and Music… warrant selection? Well, no. I, like Mr Perry (2010: “I don’t think we’ve made a decent album in years. Just Push Play is my least favorite. When we recorded it there was never a point where all five members were in the room at the same time and Aerosmith’s major strength is playing together. It was a learning experience for me: it showed me how not to make an Aerosmith record”) don’t care for Just Push Play. And, yes, I open with three from Pump and even include two more including the only one of their ballads that I can still enjoy (if you’ve seen them live and been part of the crowd that sings along to the start so loudly it shuts Steven Tyler up you’ll have a soft spot for it too) but Pump is to their latter-day period what Rocks is to their initial run; unimpeachable.
So, it was possibly the trickiest to compile and is by no means perfect but if I were to compile for CD length, tunes from the Post-Rehab (I can’t really call this one Post-Milk Spillage as I’ve selected nothing from Done With Mirrors) now it would probably look like this:
Mumbling About... 