Elvis Presley: Paradise, Hawaiian Style

ELVIS PRESLEY: PARADISE, HAWAIIAN STYLE (1966)

1) Paradise, Hawaiian Style; 2) Queenie Wahineʼs Papaya; 3) Scratch My Back; 4) Drums Of The Islands; 5) Datinʼ; 6) A Dogʼs Life; 7) House Of Sand; 8) Stop Where You Are; 9) This Is My Heaven; 10) Sand Castles.

General verdict: The good news is that there is not as much «Hawaiian Style» here as you might be afraid to expect. The bad news is thereʼs not much style here, period.

Looking at Elvisʼ serious expression on the album sleeve while listening to the music concealed within, I canʼt help but feeling like now I finally understand, after all these years, what Rodinʼs Thinker is thinking about after all. Beyond any doubt, what is troubling him is the most urgent, most important, most cosmic question of them all — does Queenie Wahineʼs Papaya truly rate higher than pineapple, pumpkin, or poy? And if we pick her papaya and hencewith play the game "Existence" to the end, are we truly guaranteed to put Queenie Wahine in perfect perpetual joy?

Perhaps if more people established such vital links back in 1966, Paradise, Hawaiian Style might have shared a better fortune than sinking without a trace, at best ignored and at worst maligned by critics and fans alike. Unfortunately, the movie still managed to make half a million dollars worth of profit, and the soundtrack still managed to sell 250,000 copies, all of which was fairly low, but enough to convince the Elvis Hit Machine that the formula was still working, and that it made more sense to stick to the tried and true than take any chances with the ongoing musical and cultural revolutions. Besides, itʼs hard to blame the Machine — after all, Hawaiʼi werenʼt any less popular as a tourist attraction in 1966 than they were in 1962, and with people having forgotten everything about Blue Hawaii, why not refresh their memory again?

Surprisingly, though, other than the really stupid tongue-twister masquerading as a song about «Queenie Wahine», the soundtrack is largely free of frontally obvious embarrassments (the ones usually consisting of trying too hard to make Elvis sound «hilarious» or trying too hard to fit him into some native costume or other). There are fewer genuinely cringeworthy moments here than I counted on either Harum Scarum, with its mock-Orientalism, or Frankie And Johnny, with its Buffalo Bill caricatures. Instead, it simply recreates and amplifies the standard flaw of that whole period — once again, they hire the same old team of corporate songwriters who do not give a flying fuck (sorry) about turning in quality work. As usual, each and every song on here falls back on old tropes and clichés, and not a single one needs to be remembered because they are all just pale imitations of past glories, be it ballad, rocker, or «catchy» pop song.

I mean, seriously — if you were to put a gun to my head and force me to declare at least one «winner», my innate sense of honesty would probably see my brains splattered on the wall rather than say, «...uh... uh... I dunno... ʽA Dogʼs Lifeʼ, perhaps? — no, not really, no». What can you do about the combination of a rigidly fluffy atmosphere with hooks that have all the freshness of a dead dog nicely stewing under a scorching Arizona sun? I cannot even bring myself to mentioning any of these tunes by name because, seriously, none of them deserves it. All of this only goes to reinforce my suspicion that «Paradise» is a very boring place indeed, and «Hawaiian Style» just throws some grass skirts into the pot, but does not make it any less boring. 

Pixies: Doolittle

PIXIES: DOOLITTLE (1989)

1) Debaser; 2) Tame; 3) Wave Of Mutilation; 4) I Bleed; 5) Here Comes Your Man; 6) Dead; 7) Monkey Gone To Heaven; 8) Mr. Grieves; 9) Crackity Jones; 10) La La Love You; 11) No. 13 Baby; 12) There Goes My Gun; 13) Hey; 14) Silver; 15) Gouge Away.

General verdict: A Beach Boyʼs brain on Salvador Dali... or should that be the other way around?

[This is a slightly modified version of an earlier review written for the short-lived Great Album series.]

The major difference between Doolittle, the bandʼs second and (according to general critical consensus) most perfectly realised album, and Surfer Rosa, is that it was recorded on a bigger budget, distributed by a bigger label (Elektra), and recorded and produced after the Pixies got their first round of warm critical (if not commercial) reception. This is important, because the scope and general aim of the songs here is clearly more ambitious, and even if we wonʼt go as far as to say that it represented Black Francisʼ plan of world conquest, we still must admit that it goes beyond merely "having fun": for Surfer Rosa, it is not clear that Francis had any plan at all, but for Doolittle, he most certainly had one. Very roughly speaking, we have a lo-fi to hi-fi transition here, so if you are a lo-fi adept, you shall probably want to brand this one a «sellout», which is okay by me — if only everybody were capable of selling out this way...

Despite the obvious upgrade in opportunities, the Pixies largely stick to the tried and true four-piece lineup — only augmented, for experimental purposes, by a string quartet on ʻMonkey Gone To Heavenʼ. The recording itself took place in studios in Boston and Stamford over almost a month in October-November 1988, with Gil Norton (previously associated largely with Throwing Muses) producing, at a rate of approximately one song per day — rather curious, in fact, considering how short most of the tunes are; but it sort of makes sense in the end, when you begin to truly understand the bandʼs perfectionism and close attention to minute details, no matter how brief the song. With serious press coverage, MTV videos, decent airplay, and general word getting out, Doolittle literally put the band on the charts — although it is instructive to know that they would always be more popular in Europe than in their native country, with Doolittle stalling at #98 on the US charts while rocketing all the way to #8 on the UK ones (and all of the bandʼs subsequent releases, including the 2014 reunion record, would follow the same pattern): apparently, their brand of intellectual pop was a bit too much for mass American audiences to take in (stupid Yanks and all that). As of now, it remains their best-selling record, and the most common answer to the question "where should I start with the Pixies?", not to mention the one LP to feature the most memorable sleeve — itʼs not that often, after all, that you get to see a monkey with a halo trapped inside an octagram.

Only very recently did the album finally see an expanded edition: Doolittle 25 came out in 2015 (should really be Doolittle 26, but round numbers win over production delays) with two additional CDs worth of material — one with a bunch of B-sides and live radio sessions, and one with a whole set of raw demos. Since I have not yet laid my hands on that one, I am not sure if it is going to be of much interest to anybody except collectors, but in any case, it is nice to know that the albumʼs classic status has finally been confirmed with a proper deluxe edition.

So, where should we start? Okay, first and simplest, Doolittle is just a classy little pop album. Itʼs got enough detours from the generic pop formula to be eligible for "important artistic statement" status, yet at the heart of almost each of these songs you will find ear-worms — modestly repetitive, well-constructed, emotionally resonant instrumental and vocal hooks that clearly show how «music therapy» was priority number one for the band, well before any intellectual appraisal of the albumʼs lyrical or symbolic content. You do not need to go further than the beginning of ʻDebaserʼ: many bands would not bother to push beyond the opening bars of Kimʼs bass and Francisʼ droning rhythm guitar, but what really matters here is the uplifting-romantic pop riff that Santiago throws in at 0:08 into the song, clearly setting the stage for something brash and heroic. And I do not even need to mention ʻHere Comes Your Manʼ, with its guitar riff that should proudly carry the Buddy Holly Seal of Appreciation on it (in fact, itʼs hard for me to believe that Francis and Santiago did not steal that chord sequence from some Buddy Holly song, but fortunately for them, I can never think of an actual source).

For a small bunch of guitar-wielding indie kids with no Mellotrons or even Jew harps, itʼs quite pleasantly diverse, too: fast, mid- and slow tempos, melodies ranging from punk to pop to surf-rock to dark folk (ʻSilverʼ), with enough variety spread across those 15 tracks to prevent easy pigeonholing. Yet behind all this variety also lies a certain unifying concept, which is hard to formulate in words, but if roughly approximated, it would sound something like "Incidental Music For A Culture Overdose". Black Francisʼ songs are like tiny capsules in which he concentrates and diffuses gazillions of mini-impressions — musical, literary, cinematic, highbrow and trashy alike — and which he passes off as the average reactions of a culture-crazed, or simply an information-crazed Joe driven to inadequate, and sometimes downright crazy, behaviour by the world pressing down and around on him. Itʼs very much the same principle that is essential to grasp in order to understand Talking Heads, but there is also a big difference: Doolittle does not have that much reflection and introspection, it is not about the protagonist wallowing in his own paranoia... it simply is.

The anthemic ʻDebaserʼ lays it on the line fairly quickly — with not-too-obscure references to Un Chien Andalou, itʼs like a laymanʼs gut reaction to being exposed to the world of artistic strangeness and unpredictability, something a slightly offset teen could experience and pronounce upon a fortuitous visit to an arthouse. Like most Pixies song, it is very tongue-in-cheek, too — you never truly know if the band is celebrating this attitude or mocking it, and you will never truly know it even when you reach the end of the album. One thing is for certain: Doolittle is all about growing up to be a debaser, and most of the time itʼs on, weʼre busy debasing everyone and everything in sight. Second song, case in point: donʼt you think that the correct words for the scream-your-heart-out overloud chorus section of the song is not "Cookie, I think youʼre TAME! TAME! TAAAAAAME!", but rather "Cookie, I think youʼre wild?" A very simple, direct, and unforgettable inversion of values. 

But as far as I am concerned, the real highlights of Doolittle are the anthemic songs rather than the cooky-gimmicky interludes. ʻWave Of Mutilationʼ opens with arguably the albumʼs greatest guitar melody, a wobbly wave-like trill that resolves into an arena-rock set of power chords, and this is followed by Francisʼ most inspired bit of vocal arrangement — heʼs not a great singer at all, but he is a genius artist, and thereʼs nothing quite like that contrast between the enigmatic breathy whisper of the first two lines ("cease to resist, giving my goodbye / drive my car into the ocean") and the loud, distant, echoey third line ("you think Iʼm dead, but I sail away"). Itʼs like during the first two lines they are brushing in a speedboat across the waterʼs surface, and then the third line shifts their trajectory 60-70 degrees and propulses them to high heavens, before making the backwards plunge for the chorus ("on a wave of mutilation"). Let alone the fact that the second verse unquestionably features the most seductive manner of pronouncing the noun "crustaceans", the song is like the perfect ode to narcissism and masochism rolled in one — I only hope that nobody gave in to its lyrics and atmosphere too easily, because it really taunts you to hop in your car and drive it off the highest cliff to make the grandest exit known to mankind. At least itʼs a good thing there ainʼt no cliff overlooking Mariana.

ʻMonkey Gone To Heavenʼ is often mentioned as an «environmental» song, due to its mention of the "ten million pounds of sludge" and "hole in the sky", but it would be too boring for Pixies to simply write an ecological lament — itʼs really more than that, sort of an apocalyptic prediction where "this monkey" refers to all of us, and the two violins and two cellos are added to the mix to help complete the aura of quiet, but slightly amused sadness already generated by the repetitive chorus (almost makes it sound like the Electric Light Orchestra, in a way). Again, it is a pretty unique lyrical and musical take on the end of the world, neither too angry nor too morbid — although most people will probably remember it for the silly numerological bit in the middle, which Francis just threw in for some extra kicks but which does not really mean much of anything on its own (why does he have to scream "GOD IS SEVEN! GOD IS SEVEN!" at the top of his lungs as if he were having a sudden epiphany, or getting exorcised? No idea, but I guess we all love it anyway).

Thereʼs also «light anthemic», in the form of ʻHere Comes Your Manʼ, which was among the first songs Francis ever wrote — this explains the Buddy Holly-esque hook and the relative «fluffiness» of the tune (which was still released as a single, but apparently the band never liked playing it live in the good old days), yet it fits in very well with all the rest, even despite its innate optimism. Fact is, you donʼt really know what youʼre waiting for, you have no idea of who is your man and where he is supposed to take you to; you might just as well be a monkey waiting for him to take you to heaven. And a bigger fact is, thereʼs no «optimism» or «pessimism» on this record — itʼs morally ambiguous as heck. It lives in two basic states: «overdrive» and «preparing for overdrive», but you got to be prepared to accept that the Doolittle universe knows not the simple contrast between «happy» and «sad». It does know the contrast between «loud» and «quiet», and the louder it is, the more chances you get at getting a great riff, and so ʻHere Comes Your Manʼ  belongs in the same category as ʻDebaserʼ, despite being superficially more «accessible» to the general population.

And where is this overdrive stemming from? Like I said — culture overdose. Hyperbolic reaction to Bunuel on ʻDebaserʼ. Vampiric fantasies on ʻI Bleedʼ. Excitable young man reading the story of Bathsheba and Uriah on ʻDeadʼ, and then the story of Samson and Delilah on ʻGouge Awayʼ. Throw in some memories of a crazy Puerto Rican roommate (ʻCrackity Jonesʼ) and of various types of easy women (ʻTameʼ, ʻNo. 13 Babyʼ), some numerology, some Greek mythology (at least there are no songs about superheroes named Tony on this record), and what you have here is a slightly less educated, but much more easily excitable version of Stephen Dedalus swimming in a chaotic soup of his charged-up memories and encyclopaedic knowledge. Doolittle makes no major statements, issues no accusations, and would commit seppuku if it ever found itself overwhelming us with a much-too-serious attitude — but somehow its twisted, catchy, humorous, surrealist regurgitations of human experience are capable of producing a much stronger effect than oh so many Serious Works of Art.

I do have to say that I have always found the track sequencing a little uneven: most of the big anthems and strongest hooks are lodged on its first side, with the first stretch of seven songs pretty much unbeatable in its onslaught. However, starting with ʻMr. Grievesʼ, whose mock-reggae verses sound like the recordʼs first serious slip-up to me, the record becomes shakier: stuff like ʻNo. 13 Babyʼ, while not bad at all on its own, shares the same tempo and stylistics with ʻMonkeyʼ without being in possession of a comparably strong hook, and I can never remember much of interest about ʻThere Goes My Gunʼ or ʻHeyʼ, either. As sacrilegious as it sounds, I sometimes think they could have taken Gil Nortonʼs advice and make some of the good songs a tad longer, sacrificing some of the weaker ones at their expense — for instance, you can say what you want, but two minutes is way too little for ʻWave Of Mutilationʼ. In other words, Doolittle is not all perfection, although I reiterate that even the weakest songs here still have a sense of purpose — itʼs just that most of the highlights are concentrated in the first half.

You could also say, I guess, that the twin guitar-bass-drums setup for this music does not fully justify its ambitions; and considering how well the strings work on ʻMonkey Gone To Heavenʼ, it is lamentable that more instruments, or at least a larger amount of guitar tones have not been used on the album (being well aware all the time that its budget, though significantly larger than for Surfer Rosa, still wouldnʼt allow for too much whipped cream). Normally, it works, and they are capable of tapping the instrumentsʼ potential (ʻWave Of Mutilationʼ is a prime example of how one guitar part fully compensates for the lack of a symphonic arrangement); but every once in a while, the guitars are just playing «standard» alternative rock parts (ʻGouge Awayʼ), and thatʼs not ideal if you want to leave behind a proper masterpiece. This, too, is a little responsible for the excitement occasionally (very occasionally) dying down. I mean, would it have hurt them too much to at least drag a piano in the studio? Oh well, forget it. Itʼs not like the prosecution has much of a case here anyway.

In some small way, Doolittle does sound like every great pop album produced in the 1990s. It paves the road to all sorts of post-modernistic attitudes in music, combining gut-level, poppy enjoyability with gratuituous (or not so gratuitous?) cultural references, an ability to sound tremendously emotionally engaged and morally abstinent at the same time, and a crazy excited whirlwind that can suck in just about anything that happens to make its way past your window. It might be the closest analogy to a Pulp Fiction for modern music — a gate-opening progenitor that presents unlimited possibilities in an easily accessible and humorous manner, and launches a thousand ships while never being bested by anyone. And itʼs still totally cool after all these years, in all its glorious simplicity and innocence.

Elvis Presley: Frankie And Johnny

ELVIS PRESLEY: FRANKIE AND JOHNNY (1966)

1) Frankie And Johnny; 2) Come Along; 3) Petunia, The Gardenerʼs Daughter; 4) Chesay; 5) What Every Woman Lives For; 6) Look Out, Broadway; 7) Beginnerʼs Luck; 8) Down By The Riverside / When The Saints Go Marching In; 9) Shout It Out; 10) Hard Luck; 11) Please Donʼt Stop Loving Me; 12) Everybody Come Aboard.

General verdict: Sending Elvis down the Mississippi in 1966 seems to have worked exactly the same way as sending him to the Middle East — out of time, out of place, out of style, out of taste.

Well, it is now 1966, the year of Revolver and Pet Sounds, and at least we are not in pseudo-Ottoman Empire time any more — no, we have been merely relocated to faux-1920s, an age of vaudeville, Dixieland, crooners, and gypsy dancing. Replete with Mississippi River boating, fortune telling, gambling, visions of distant Broadway, and a cheesy happy ending, the movie managed the amazing feat of nosediving its way through stereotypes of Americana in an almost as embarrassing a fashion as Harum Scarum did with its Oriental imagery — and, once again, the soundtrack masterfully fitted the crime.

The absolute majority of the songs here faithfully recreate the musical formulas of the Jazz Age, without making these recreations interesting in the slightest — this is not so much «retro» as it is a laughably cartoonish projection of everything that could be hot and provoking back in those times. Starting off with the title track, a big band cover of the old popular standard transformed from a murder ballad into a piece of fat glitzy pomp in which Elvis cannot even play the clown with sufficient conviction; and then descending into such abysses of vaudeville cheesiness as ʽPetunia, The Gardenerʼs Daughterʼ (the kind of song youʼd usually expect to be performed without oneʼs pants on) and ʽChesayʼ (wooh, Elvis as the suave gypsy seducer!), this pathetic collection loses any glimmer of hope at redemption.

Not that it even tries. You could try to expect at least something half-decent from the albumʼs single Pomus-Shuman contribution, but ʽWhat Every Woman Lives Forʼ is a fairly lazy and totally predictable slow doo-wop dance number with a message that must have been pretty questionable even back in 1966 ("what every woman lives for is to give her love to a man" — gee, talk about presumptuous generalisations). Joy Byers, who used to be relatively reliable on the previous couple of soundtracks, must have also been caught on one of her off-days, contributing the ballad ʽPlease Donʼt Stop Loving Meʼ which uses exactly the same chord progression as approximately 10,000 other love ballads and whose lyrics were thrown together in five seconds by a human equivalent of a modern day bot.

Perhaps the most embarrassing thing on the album is a mash-up of ʽDown By The Riversideʼ and ʽWhen The Saints Go Marching Inʼ, officially credited to Bernie Baum, Bill Giant, and Florence Kaye — apparently they used some sort of loophole because of those songsʼ presence in the public domain. Admittedly, Elvis isnʼt too bad when he is singing this sort of material, but the mash-up thing feels corny, the «credits» feel lame, and trying to spice an overall rotten collection with a brief reenactment of a couple well-known classics is a pathetic idea which can only be justified by the fact that non-pathetic ideas were not officially allowed in that season — like Harum Scarum, everything here seems specially designed to make The King come across as The Clown. Long gone are the days of King Creole, when he was able to — or, well, «they» were able to make these Southern motives come alive, be fun, vibrant, and occasionally provocative. In their place we now have this sorry bunch of unintentionally parodic clichés which no respectable lover of New Orleanian culture will ever mistake for the real thing — they are every bit as comfortable as the look on Elvisʼ face as he stands there tucked into his Gone With The Wind outfit and probably wishes theyʼd send him back to the army or something, instead. 

Pixies: Surfer Rosa

PIXIES: SURFER ROSA (1988)

1) Bone Machine; 2) Break My Body; 3) Something Against You; 4) Broken Face; 5) Gigantic; 6) River Euphrates; 7) Where Is My Mind?; 8) Cactus; 9) Tonyʼs Theme; 10) Oh My Golly!; 11) You Fucking Die! I Said; 12) Vamos; 13) Iʼm Amazed; 14) Brick Is Red.

General verdict: A punk-pop / kid-rock masterpiece of viciously aggressive childlike innocence.

The biggest difference between Come On Pilgrim and the Pixiesʼ first full-length LP is not the length (actually, the LP is still fairly short, only beating Pilgrim by about ten minutesʼ worth), but the presence of a bona fide producer in the face of Steve Albini — in fact, the album pretty much established the reputation of both the band and Steve, who was hitherto much better known as the leader of Big Black, but would henceforth be known almost exclusively for his talent in making vicious and ferocious bands sound even more vicious and ferocious. 

Curiously, Steve would go on to make fairly scathing remarks about how these sessions went, implying that the band was only too happy to be recording for a big label and followed his directions like a bunch of lap dogs (I guess that Mr. Albini only has the proper respect for those who regularly tell him to fuck off). But then again, he probably did give them exactly what they wanted — teaching the band how to make those guitars sound like high-tension wires, broken glass, or flames of Hell depending on the circumstances, based on his own career in Big Black. As a result, the album has much more crunch and punch than Come On Pilgrim, without losing either its masterful pop hooks or its post-modern flavor.

The new tactics are heard from the very first beat, when David Loweringʼs drums crash down on the senses with the mammoth energy of a John Bonham — and without a single trace of those all-pervasive electronic echos which now make all mainstream Eighties records so tightly attached to their own and no other decade. In between those crushing drums, Kimʼs thick and lumbering bass tone, and the half-punk, half-psychedelic guitar riffs, ʽBone Machineʼ actually sounds like one: a very heavy, very squeaky, very crude, but perfectly functioning bone machine. (I wonder if the song title could actually influence Tom Waitsʼ title for his own groundbreaking 1992 album — admittedly, Tomʼs idea of a «bone machine» differed fairly significantly from the Pixies, with much more emphasis on percussion, but still, too much of a coincidence). It is not a particularly favorite tune of mine — beyond establishing that sound, I do not think it makes that much of a point, and its acappella hook ("your bones got a little machine...") is emotionally vague; but as a prime example of how it would be all working out, and how it would be nearly impossible to ascribe these songs to any particular genre, itʼs fairly great.

That said, Surfer Rosa, even more so than its shorty predecessor, shows that it is very hard to pin any Pixies tune to any sort of specific «point». Analyzing Black Francisʼ lyrics is usually even more hopeless than analyzing classic Dylan — they typically have an impressionistic flow, where randomly snatched out images of fuzzy personal experiences, contemporary political realities, and trashy pop culture elements may have a billion different interpretations. The melodies to which they are set, combining diverse and disparate genre elements, will disconcert and befuddle the mind quite harshly — traditional emotions such as joy or anger all seem to have a place in the Pixiesʼ musical philosophy, but you can never really work out their relations to each other or their underlying basis. Try and ask yourself the question: «Okay, something like ʽRiver Euphratesʼ is great, but what exactly makes it great, and what does ʽgreatʼ even mean in this context?» Then you will understand the creative pain in which I find myself while writing this review.

Perhaps it might be better to try and unwind this confounding ball of yarn if we first lock on to something really short, simple, and accessible — like, say, ʽCactusʼ, a two-minute ditty that would later be resurrected by David Bowie for the Heathen album in a much louder and epic arrangement. In the original, bare-bones version, with its jagged guitar and bass chords and slightly whiney vocal delivery, it sounds more like something which, say, Neil Young could have considered for After The Gold Rush — a mini-anthem of loneliness and yearning, expressed from a dangerously deranged mental perspective. A simple blues-rocker with some subconscious musical ties to early Seventiesʼ slow boogie à la T. Rex (they say that the idea to surreptitiously spell P-I-X-I-E-S in the middle of the song was inspired by a similar move on one of Marc Bolanʼs tunes, and I am pretty sure the connection must have come to them from the musical arrangement of the song in the first place), but with Neil Youngʼs rather than Marcʼs spirit inhabiting the melody. In fact, I think it actually shares a couple of its menacing chord changes mid-verses with a similar thing on Neilʼs ʽWhen You Dance I Can Really Loveʼ — another tune that crosses loving yearning with disturbing darkness. But the Pixiesʼ approach is playfully dark rather than disturbingly dark — the faster tempo, the quirkier vocals, the ridiculous lyrical imagery all implore you to not take things too deeply and personally.

And yet at the same time, it was hardly for nothing that Fincher would choose ʽWhere Is My Mind?ʼ for the credits roll to Fight Club. If there are at least a couple themes that tie together most of these songs, these themes would be introversion and insanity. If it seems to you that the music of the Pixies is way too silly and way too cheerful to have served as an obvious source of inspiration and admiration for Kurt Cobain, just realize that the key element tying together Pixies and Nirvana is a general sense of detachment from common reality and alienation from the hoi polloi, except that Nirvana would be angry at and condescending to the world at large, whereas the Pixies treat the world at large from the standpoint of a more David Byrnian paradigm — what are all these strange organic beings doing in this weirdly uncomfortable location? ʽWhere Is My Mind?ʼ is a fabulous example of that paradigm — from its eerie «lost deep in the forest» backing vocals to its «swimming» lead guitar line to its odd opposition between the screechy verse and the surprisingly quiet chorus (usually it is the other way around), it is the perfect personal anthem for the ever so slightly autistic loner, realising that there might be something wrong with his mind but being essentially at ease with it — after all, there it is, "way out in the water, see it swimminʼ", so itʼs basically all right in the end. No need to shout about it.

When the Pixies get romantic, itʼs all very hush-hush, too — like in the Kim Deal-sung and co-written ʽGiganticʼ, in which the protagonist apparently gets emotional about spying on a big black guy making love to a girl in «a shady place», wherever that might be. The melody is post-punk, the vocal chorus is starry-eyed retro pop, the lyrics would make Mick Jagger blush, but the overall impression is that the Pixies are observing what goes on in this crazy world out of some deep burrow, where Kimʼs bass is a little bulldozer slicing through soil, and the vocals are those of excited (and ever so slightly perverted) chipmunks, amazed at the conduct of their technically more advanced organic brethren above ground. The moral of the story, of course, is that if you ever had the urge to feel like a chipmunk in its burrow, then the Pixies are the right band for you.

Of course, if it were all just about the vibe and little else, the album would not have produced the same impression on musicians as it did at the time. In fact, the band displays an almost alarming level of professionalism for a DIY-underground act — Francis and Kim may not be virtuosos on their instruments, but they can play tightly and cohesively, turning fast, punkier numbers like ʽTonyʼs Themeʼ and ʽOh My Golly!ʼ into ferociously efficient blitzkrieg attacks; and Santiagoʼs talent at making creative chaos is even more fully displayed on the extended version of ʽVamosʼ, whose middle section somehow manages to channel the spirits of Jimmy Page, Hendrix, and Marc Bolan at the same time — although the songʼs insane bumble-bee riff remains the key element which makes it a Pixies song and nobody elseʼs.

From an alternate perspective, Surfer Rosa may certainly come off as too juvenile, too screechy, too insubstantial, too self-consciously artsy, or all these things at the same time. People who expect all great music to be no less than cathartic will never agree about the greatness of this record — though, if you ask me, it only requires a little patience and a little upgrade of some screws in your brain to perceive elements of catharsis in songs like ʽGiganticʼ and ʽCactusʼ. And people who do agree about the greatness of this record will always have a hell of a time trying to convey it to those who do not — or even, for instance, explain what it is that separates a first-rate post-modernist band like Ween, whose main function was to close the book on 20th century popular music, from an exceptional post-modernist band like the Pixies, whose main function was to point the way to the future (which, for that matter, many people were able to see but not many were able to follow).

If you ask me, though, one of the markings of a truly great artist is to be able to awaken the inner child in a serious adult — something at which such bands as The Beatles and Talking Heads truly excelled, and Surfer Rosa follows faithfully in their footsteps. No wonder they cap things off with a song whose title befits a counting out rhyme (ʽBrick Is Redʼ), and whose lyrics alternate between similar counting-out nonsense ("a fish is fast and Jimmyʼs cast, hang me") and a proclamation that the band is here to stay ("itʼs not time for me to go"), while its absurdly distorted riff sounds like a twisted fanfare from some teen-oriented Sixties TV show. This, I guess, is what properly separates Pixies from Nirvana — Kurt Cobain could be influenced by this stuff, but he could never write stuff like this because heʼd murdered his inner child long before he became known to the public. Ironically, though, Surfer Rosa could never dream of reaching the sort of mass appeal reserved for Nevermind — precisely because the art of awakening oneʼs inner child has become too complicated and esoteric in the modern age for people to understand its proper importance.

Elvis Presley: Harum Scarum

ELVIS PRESLEY: HARUM SCARUM (1965)

1) Harem Holiday; 2) My Desert Serenade; 3) Go East, Young Man; 4) Mirage; 5) Kismet; 6) Shake That Tambourine; 7) Hey Little Girl; 8) Golden Coins; 9) So Close, Yet So Far; 10) Animal Instinct; 11) Wisdom Of The Ages.

General verdict: Elvis as the Thief of Bagdad? Going back to the 1920s for inspiration in 1965 probably wasnʼt the best possible idea.

Sometimes I am actually left stupefied when tracing Elvisʼ gradual degradation in the mid-Sixties. With pop culture in all of its forms and manifestations generally becoming more and more sophisticated in those years, one could have at least expected the King to try and retain the already established levels of mediocrity and corniness, even if he proved unable to adapt to the artistic requirements of the time. Instead, what we see should be inspiring conspiracy theorists all over the world — because movies and soundtracks such as Harum Scarum are pretty much unbelievable as «accidents», much more like somebodyʼs conscious attempts to bring a formerly respectable artist to the utmost depths of humiliation.

You need go no further than the movieʼs synopsis on Wikipedia to understand that the screenplay could, at best, be appreciated by 8-year olds, and that is even before we get around to discussing all the ridiculous Middle Eastern stereotypes which could only come from the mind of a screenwriter fully convinced that Lawrence Of Arabia was a movie about headscarves and camels. What is even worse, though, is that the soundtrack, this time, is in 100% agreement with the aesthetics of the movie — consisting largely of songs whose only purpose is to accumulate every single «Arabic» cliché known to Western society and convince us that, for some reason, this dude from Memphis would be an excellent medium for unleashing them upon our senses.

Remember these names: Bernie Baum, Bill Giant, Florence Kaye, Stanley J. Gelber, Sid Tepper, Roy C. Bennett — remember them, because when the Last Judgement comes and the Lord begins personally admonishing you for having led a life of sin, hedonism, and passive resistance, all you have to say is «Lord, Iʼve been a sinner, but do I really deserve the same treatment as all those people who wrote songs for Harum Scarum?», and the Lord will relent on you, just as he did with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. All of their songs for this album are cringeworthy exercises in joining elements of country-western and vaudeville with «exotic» Eastern musical motives and truly abysmal lyrics. The song titles alone, starting with ʽHarem Holidayʼ, tell you all you need to know — but, trust me, the melodic and emotional content of all these ditties rarely strays away from the banality and corniness of the titles.

To try and prove that I really did listen to the album more than once (its only advantage, after all, is that, like all of Elvisʼ soundtracks, it is gracefully short), I will say that one particular songwriter here stands an actual chance of avoiding the flames of Hell, and this is Joy Byers, the same Joy Byers who had a highlight on Viva Las Vegas! with ʽCʼmon Everybodyʼ. Her two contributions are fairly inoffensive and even somewhat attractive: ʽHey Little Girlʼ is a simple, generic, energetic piece of twist with mildly amusing predatory notes and growling piano interludes re-borrowed from ʽWhatʼd I Sayʼ, while ʽSo Close, Yet So Farʼ is a simple, generic, unvarnished doo-wop ballad with arguably Elvisʼ best vocal performance on here — at least there is some sort of dynamics and build-up, though some of the melodic moves seem to have been copped directly from Phil Spectorʼs ʽTo Know Him Is To Love Himʼ. But at least if you are mining for your songwriting ideas elsewhere, it is so much better to be mining in the mines of Ray Charles and Phil Spector than in the mines of your local strip clubs with «Oriental» themes.

At least it is a bit of a relief to know that this was the only such experiment in Elvis history, and that the near-total critical and commercial failure of the entire enterprise made the gang come back to their senses and return to the tried and true — because even among the endless sea of boring, unimaginative, derivative, and stereotypical movies and soundtracks produced for Elvis in the Sixties, Harum Scarum proudly lives up to its title and scares hares up to this very day. 

Pixies: Come On Pilgrim

PIXIES: COME ON PILGRIM (1987)

1) Caribou; 2) Vamos; 3) Isla De Encanta; 4) Ed Is Dead; 5) The Holiday Song; 6) Nimrodʼs Son; 7) Iʼve Been Tired; 8) Levitate Me.

General verdict: Short as heck, but already contains every single seed of the greatness to come.

If Come On Pilgrim fails to immediately establish the Pixies as one of the most major acts of their generation, then we have no one to blame but Ivo Watts-Russell, the president of 4AD, who was given the entire «Purple Tape» — the results of the bandʼs first major recording session, with 17 tracks in all — but cautiously decided to cherry-pick only a sample of it and release it in mini-LP format, with a UK-only release that was, allegedly, fairly strange for a US-based band, but apparently little had changed in the way of things over those twenty years since Jimi Hendrix had to prove his worth by jumping across the Atlantic.

Even so, the ridiculously short length is just about the only major complaint I could raise against the Pixiesʼ debut — because even these eight short songs suffice to let you know that here was another band all set to change the world. The first thing that comes to mind is that it is all but impossible to put a label on the kind of music they are playing. It seems to be equal parts «pop» and «rock», but it is certainly not «power pop» in a Cheap Trick sense — the guitars have none of that thick arena crunch which can sound so uplifting in skilled hands and so plebeian in not so skilled ones. More apt is the often heard assessment of the music as a hybrid of «surf rock» and «punk rock», but that, too, might give one unwarranted visions of the Ramones playing ʽSurfinʼ Birdʼ when in reality the Pixies sounded nothing like that.

Why donʼt we go straight to the source material? ʽCaribouʼ opens with a thrice repeated flashy little guitar flourish that would not have sounded out of place on some late Sixtiesʼ Californian folk rock album — except this one is lo-fi and distorted in prime underground Eighties fashion. From there, the guitar goes into epic folk-blues mode (think ʽHouse Of The Rising Sunʼ), except it keeps staggering and stuttering around in pseudo-drunk DIY mode. When the vocals kick in, they come in short, simple, minimalistic bursts, evoking the old beatnik spirit both in form and essence ("I live cement / I hate this street / Give dirt to me / I bite lament" is almost Allen Ginsberg, though it probably rhymes a bit too much for him) — and the wobbly man-woman unison between Black Francis and Kim Deal gives the song an oddly universalist atmosphere despite only featuring two people. Itʼs a mournful dirge that can easily turn into rebellious anthem, a creepy mystical incantation that can mutate into prime anger — and it never takes itself too seriously, like the Birthday Party or something like that.

That last part is actually essential, as is the bandʼs infatuation with elements of surf music. The Pixies introduced a level of «meta» into rock and pop music that few, if any, other Eighties acts had dared to, or even thought to introduce. When you think back to all the non-mainstream music from those days, what comes to mind is probably the hardcore punk scene, the industrial and experimental noise bands, the starry-eyed or bitter-cynical college rockers, all or most of them bent on stressing the sincerity and immediacy of their sound as opposed to the artificial gloss of synth-pop, hair metal, and power balladry. But what makes Come On Pilgrim so awesome is that it has a little bit of it all —hardcore, noise, idealism, cynicism — yet always leaves you a way out so you do not end up pledging all your life and all your values to any single one of those elements. Serious and playful, sincere and ironic at the same time, all the while pursuing crazier and crazier ideas of musical synthesis that are valuable inside and outside their social context.

Thus, ʽVamosʼ is at the same time a bitter satire on stereotypes of Hispanic immigrants in New England ("estaba pensando sobreviviendo con mi sister en New Jersey" — no way this song wouldnʼt get these guys «canceled» in modern times if they had a million dollars and a million Instagram subscribers), and an innovative and exciting experiment in guitar playing. Amusingly, its structure reminds me of that old Amboy Dukesʼ reinterpretation of ʽBaby Please Donʼt Goʼ: like Ted Nugent in his psychedelic period, Joey Santiago here is all bent on making his guitar go as wild as possible over a very basic, very fast, very headbanging rhythm track, and even though this early version is shorter and less efficient than either the extended variant on Surfer Rosa or their even more extended and crazy legendary live performances, itʼs still a lot of fun — and, of course, that «bumblebee siren» bended riff coming in at key points in the song is easily the most unforgettable single moment of the entire mini-LP.

Perhaps most of the things attempted on these songs would be done better later, on the Pixiesʼ first two full-length LPs, but this should not detract from the fact that there is not a single bad song here — and by «bad» I actually mean «not containing at least one or two fresh musical ideas, let alone the lyrical content». ʽIsla De Encantaʼ mixes a hardcore punk riff with crazy Angus Young-style guitar solos, stop-and-start techniques, and more of Francisʼ hilarious Spanglish (all those Puerto Rican experiences paying off). ʽEd Is Deadʼ would later be reshaped into the much more memorable ʽWaves Of Mutilationʼ, but Joeyʼs use of sustain still makes it into a gaping psychedelic monster in its own rights. ʽThe Holiday Songʼ has one of the bandʼs happiest punk-pop riffs shadowing lyrics full of references to such happy themes as masturbation and incest. ʽNimrodʼs Sonʼ, I believe, actually steals the melody of Motörheadʼs  ʽAce Of Spadesʼ, but plays it in a more retro, almost Fifties-like fashion, with another story of an «incestuous union» tacked on top of the crazy beat (does Black Francis know something about his family history, I wonder, that he has not explicitly shared with the public?). And while ʽIʼve Been Tiredʼ is more of a spasmodic indictment of brainless radicals ("sheʼs a real left-winger ʼcause she been down south and held peasants in her arms") than a musical breakthrough, it still ends the record on a ska-punk note with lots of fun interplay between bass, rhythm, and lead.

In my humble opinion, the historical significance of Come On Pilgrim is easy to define: simply put, it was the last time in the known history of pop / rock that a small band with a classic, traditional Beatlesque lineup (rhythm guitar, lead guitar, bass, drums) was able to come up with a sound completely its own and completely overturning existing models and stereotypes. Itʼs all simple as heck, really, but for some reason nobody else had that kind of genius simplicity in 1987, and nobody — to the best of my knowledge — has been able to come up with another kind of genius simplicity with the same bunch of instruments ever since. In this way, you could argue that this music set the stage for the last important pop/rock revolution in known history — and even if I may be pushing it, I donʼt care, because the more people try to hear this record from this angle of view, the better. 

Elvis Presley: Elvis For Everyone!

ELVIS PRESLEY: ELVIS FOR EVERYONE! (1965)

1) Your Cheatinʼ Heart; 2) Summer Kisses, Winter Tears; 3) Finders Keepers, Losers Weepers; 4) In My Way; 5) Tomorrow Night; 6) Memphis Tennessee; 7) For The Millionth And The Last Time; 8) Forget Me Never; 9) Sound Advice; 10) Santa Lucia; 11) I Met Her Today; 12) When It Rains, It Really Pours.

General verdict: Chaotically mixed outtakes masquerading as an actual new LP — not a good choice for an era in which LPs had actually begun to matter.

There is arguably no better evidence for Elvisʼ total and absolute artistic dysfunctionality in the mid-Sixties than this sorry mess — an attempt at a «proper» studio LP, the manʼs first since Pot Luck three years earlier. Apparently, RCA wanted to give the fans a little something extra special to celebrate the 10th anniversary of their business union with the King, but instead of everybody coming to their senses and arranging a proper recording session, they decided to save everyone the trouble and just vent the vaults a little instead. Why bother with an actual new LP when there were already a couple of new soundtracks on the horizon, anyway?

The result is an odds-and-ends package whose title, surprisingly enough, is somewhat justified: For Everyone! means that any fan of any particular musical streak in Elvisʼ history will find at least one or two tracks to his/her liking in this cauldron. For those truly nostalgic about the good old days at Sun, there is the old Lonnie Johnson ballad ʽTomorrow Nightʼ, extracted from a 1954 session — unfortunately, the idiots misunderstood the appeal of the songʼs minimalistic arrangement and slapped on fully unnecessary percussion, guitar, and backing vocal overdubs (fortunately, nowadays you can easily hear the original version on compilations). For those yearning for the early RCA days, there is a cuddly, but inspired version of Hank Williamsʼ ʽYour Cheating Heartʼ, and the rough, slow R&B number ʽWhen It Rains, It Really Poursʼ, from 1958 and 1957 sessions, respectively. Then, moving on, for those who wanted proof that Elvis could still rock out with the British Invasion stepping heavily on his tail, there is a fairly smoking, if not too exceptional, take on Chuck Berryʼs ʽMemphis Tennesseeʼ, from 1964. Then...

...well, actually, then itʼs mostly pablum / schlock salvaged from early Sixtiesʼ sessions and an occasional song or two from soundtracks which never made it onto previous LPs, e.g. ʽSanta Luciaʼ from Viva Las Vegas or ʽSummer Kisses, Winter Tearsʼ from Flaming Star (the latter actually has a surprisingly sharp guitar sound for a ballad, though its slight «exotica» touch is still somewhat cringey). I am mildly partial to the playful vaudeville approach of ʽSound Adviceʼ, salvaged from the soundtrack to the 1962 movie Follow That Dream, perhaps because it brings to mind ridiculous visions of Elvis in a top hat, but nobody really needs to hear it, honestly. Also, ʽFinders Keepers, Losers Weepersʼ is a pretty decent pop song, musically close to ʽReturn To Senderʼ (perhaps this is why it was originally shelved) and arguably the best the Sixties material here — though this is not saying much, either.

In retrospect, I guess that, taken as a collection of outtakes for the completist, For Everyone! is not nearly as pitiful as it could be — but given that no such warning explicitly accompanied the original release, most people who had not allowed their hormones to completely overtake their brains could hardly regard this move as anything other than a pathetic cash-in, as well as plain admittance that the King was in no condition to make a new LP of his own, and this in an era when pop LPs were finally beginning to matter as genuine artistic statements. To add insult to injury, the back sleeve of the original album proudly presented a list of 15 of Elvisʼ «Worldwide $1,000,000 L.P. Albums» with precise sales records — as if hinting that Elvis For Everyone! had no choice but to join that glorious roster. Guess what — it did not, with the album failing even to go gold, let alone platinum; apparently, the people at that point were smart enough to realise that Elvis For Everyone! truly meant Elvis For No One In Particular, and many, if not most, of them simply left the scraps for the scrap bin.