Andrew Bird: Oh! The Grandeur

ANDREW BIRD'S BOWL OF FIRE: OH! THE GRANDEUR (1999)

1) Candy Shop; 2) Tea And Thorazine; 3) Wishing For Contentment; 4) Wait; 5) The Idiot's Genius; 6) Vidalia; 7) Beware; 8) Dora Goes To Town; 9) Feetlips; 10) And So...; 11) Coney Island Shuffle; 12) Respiration; 13) (What's Your) Angle; 14) The Confession; 15) Beware (reprise).

All right; this sounds almost exactly like Thrills, but it no longer sounds like homework. There was a little bit of Andrew Bird already present on Music Of Hair, but it is his third LP where the Andrew Bird part becomes seriously comparable in size to the «Andrew Bird influences» part. Most of this has to do with the lyrics, ever more entangled, personal, and mixing hip modern ways of thinking about life with traditional ways of expressing these thoughts. At least, such is my tentative explanation of why Oh! The Grandeur is the first FUN Andrew Bird album. Or, as Andrew admits himself, "I've got a new-found fangled fandango tango angle — and it keeps things curious, and it makes folks furious; it takes two part tango and a little tingle tangle, and two orangutans like me and you" ('What's Your Angle').

Bird's biggest achievement here, perhaps, is that he has managed to make that old time music feel relevant once again, and maybe even disclose some potential depth that we rarely, or never, per­ceive when listening to Kurt Weill or Fats Waller, not because they were not «deep», but because, in creating all these new sounds, they never bothered to explore them right down to the core. By adding new levels of technical precision, combining rarely combined instruments, juxtaposing rarely juxtaposed sub-styles, and filling them up with present-day realities, the guy gives the old carnival thing a second breath — and does this with more subtlety and personality than the Squir­rel Nut Zippers themselves, who also tried to revive the form but did not truly succeed in filling it up with the proper spirit.

On 'Candy Shop', which opens the record on a fast, brawny, danceable note, Bird promi­ses that he is "goin' to set fire to your glamour", but the song is a cunning deception: it merely sounds like a fast outtake from Thrills, another bit of well-polished tribute but with little chance of being sele­cted for preservation in the National Archives. But then 'Tea And Thorazine' takes off at a much slower, in some ways, even creepier pace as Bird sings memoirs of his autistic brother, and from then on, it is a strange journey into the world of gypsy fiddles and jump-blues guitars and voodoo percussion that, at times, evokes images of an early morning dreamy hangover after a long night at the local speakeasy.

The record's centerpiece is, I believe, to be faithfully found right in the center: 'Beware', moving from its regular violin intro to the lazy shuffle mood and then, without warning, into the sphere of drunken ominousness: with huge vocal, violin, and piano crescendos, Bird gives us a warning against... uh, I actually have no idea what he is talking about, but I do like the idea of using that old-fashioned cabaret sound to sing about some sort of impending apocalypse. In fact, all through the record there is a vague sense of danger at the end of town, but what kind of danger — that is not so interesting for Andrew to specify.

Of course, I may be reading too much into an album that, even with all the darker themes, keeps debasing itself with cheerful lightweight SquirrelNuttish throwaways like 'Dora Goes To Town', but bear with me: Andrew Bird is too smart a guy to be restricted by the tag of «lightweight enter­tainer», and there is no other way to let him escape this restriction than to keep talking about his non-trivial artistic conceptions. And, above all, you cannot accuse him of insincerity or inadequa­cy: if his goal truly is to «keep things curious» and «make folks furious», these are two things that Oh! The Grandeur does splendidly. At the very least, it made my brain cells furious enough and my heart strings curious enough to guarantee this the first truly solid thumbs up in Andrew Bird history.

Ani DiFranco: Not So Soft

ANI DIFRANCO: NOT SO SOFT (1991)

1) Anticipate; 2) Rockabye; 3) She Says; 4) Make Me Stay; 5) On Every Corner; 6) Small World; 7) Not So Soft; 8) Roll With It; 9) Itch; 10) Gratitude; 11) The Whole Night; 12) The Next Big Thing; 13) Brief Bus Stop; 14) Looking For The Holes.

Perhaps this is just my problem, but, for as long as I can remember, I have always felt a strong alergy towards those brands of art that place agenda and propaganda above the force and style of artistic expression. (Growing up in the Soviet Union did not exactly help relieve that alergy, too). There is nothing inherently wrong about the mere presence of agenda in one's art, because, well, if you strongly believe in something, you'd have to be a superhuman not to share those beliefs with non-believers in your art. But if the agenda starts overwhelming you, you're in trouble.

Not So Soft is different from Ani DiFranco in two crucial respects. First: the music, at least the way I seem to discern it, is generally simpler, folkier, and more predictable than it used to be. Se­cond: the lyrics are about five or six times as socially charged as we heard them last time. On Ani DiFranco, the artist concocted hypnotizing sonic waves, occasionally stuffing them with thin slices of «fight-for-your-right» that performed their job on an almost subconscious level. Not So Soft is totally true to its title: the stuffing has burst through the skin and corrupted the sonic wa­ves to the point where I, for one, cannot possibly enjoy them at all.

Some day, when all of humanity has reached some sort of advanced, StarTrek-ian conscience le­vel, people will look back at this and wonder what it was all about. «So», they will say, «this wo­man wanted men to treat her like a human being instead of a sexual object. So she liked to insist upon her right to freedom of creative expression. So she dropped direct hints about there being nothing wrong whatsoever about being bisexual. So why not just put up a memorial plaque on the street where she lived, and go listen to some Ted Nugent instead? Hey, at least that guy kicked some solid ass back in those days! And he was FUNNY, too!»

I totally solidarize with Ani's feelings, and admit that the songs on Not So Soft work pretty damn good as ballsy feminist propaganda. The words cut, the voice bursts out of the chest, the guitar strings twist, ring and creak as if they were needles driven with full force under the fingernails of the lady's male adversaries. For instance, on 'Itch', she squeezes the line 'I am scratching at my con­sciousness like a bitch with fleas' from between her teeth as if she were a bitch with fleas, and the admirable touch of imitating real scratching with a little percussion effect as she chants the refrain 'Yours was the hardest itch to relieve' throws even more fuel on the fire.

But why must I discuss this stuff, and what should I say? «Uh, yeah, nice work asserting that bi­sexuality on 'The Whole Night' — quite a slap in the face of them bigots and chauvinists». I am far more worried about the fact that the music behind this only exists to give her a rhythmic back­ground, nothing else. In fact, there is only one song here that I would consider «musically intere­sting» — 'Anticipate', boldly rolling along on a strong bluesy loop. The rest are, at best, retreads of chord structures already explored the previous year, and, at worst, a waste of finger tissue.

Oh, it is true, as William Ruhlmann of the All-Music Guide reminds us, that some things are new, like the (overdubbed) vocal harmonies on some choruses and «the occasional bit of percussion» (wow, that is some musical growth). He also says that Ani «plays her guitar more fluidly»; I am not sure what this means, but «fluidly» is a nice word, and, evidently, a serious artist is supposed to be playing his/her guitar more and more «fluidly» with each new album, at least until he/she has finally jumped the shark and lost the ability to receive more than two stars from the All-Mu­sic Guide. Maybe, in this particular case, «fluidly» is supposed to mean that she makes much less use of the stop-and-start broken structure that was so frequent on Ani DiFranco, and does not rely as heavily on her nervous, jagged, staccato style. Well, goddammit, I liked that style. Most of the songs on here sound like boring folk demos instead.

That's just me, and just my thumbs down, of course. Perhaps it is simply the sudden outgrowth of the FIGHT FIGHT FIGHT schtick that got me down and hid Ani's true musical advances from my ears. But it is also not excluded that, for some people, it is exactly that schtick that counts as a true musical advance. I don't know about that. Next thing you know, she's a great musician be­cause she got a tattoo on her breastplate. That's gotta count for something, too, right?

Anthrax: Spreading The Disease

ANTHRAX: SPREADING THE DISEASE (1985)

1) A.I.R.; 2) Lone Justice; 3) Madhouse; 4) S.S.C./Stand Or Fall; 5) The Enemy; 6) Aftershock; 7) Armed And Dan­gerous; 8) Medusa; 9) Gung-Ho.

Big changes all around. New bass player Frank Bello may or may not be as good at his weapon as Dan Lilker, but he is certainly more disciplined. More importantly, new vocalist Joey Belladonna (real name of Bellardini) provides the band with an entirely new image. Unlike Neil Turbin, Joey is not a screamer (he can scream, as is clearly demonstrated on 'Medusa' and a few other songs, but clearly does not want to capitalize on that); most of the time he sounds like a normal, sweaty, friendly working class guy that, for some to­tally unclear reason, ended up in a thrash metal band without belonging either to the banshee or the Cookie Monster variety.

The contrast works, if only due to the surprise factor. So when you listen to the big hit 'Mad­house', it is fun to interpret lines like 'Trapped in this nightmare, I wish I'd wake' and 'It's a mad­house, or so they claim, it's a madhouse, am I insane?' as sincere psychosis on the part of the sin­ger who, in a perfect world, would rather find his place in REO Speedwagon than a thrash band. But then these are hard times, calling for heavy answers, and even normal guys like Joey Bella­donna have to join Anthrax instead of Grand Funk. What is thrash metal, after all, if not a suita­ble reflection of all the evils and wrongdoings of society? And why does it have to be dominated by grotesque singing personalities, if it's all about the common guy anyway?

But if the image has changed, the music has not. They slowed down a bit; fewer songs are taken at ultra-speed than before, and the excessive Judas Priest influence, of which they had been accu­sed the previous year, is nowhere any more obvious than on 'Madhouse' itself. The riffs are just as moderately memorable, to be admired for their precision and power rather than specific emotions stirred up differently on different songs. The choruses are not too catchy. In short, I fail to see how the band's songwriting — always their weakest side — has managed to improve with the de­parture of Lilker and Turbin.

The important thing is, they are trying to get rid of the cartoonish factor, or, rather, the stupid car­toonish factor. The songs still deal with all the traditional themes of thrash metal, but with the earthlier singing and slightly less clichéd lyrics, the intelligence bar rises, and with it — the level of critical respect. With Spreading The Disease, Anthrax managed to find themselves new, more demanding fans, without losing the old ones. The difference is clearly seen if you compare the bulk of the album with the last song, 'Gung-Ho', a leftover from the Neil Turbin days. Belladonna still tries to save it with his humanly presence, but, overall, the insane tempo multiplied by idiot lyrics about the evils of army service condemns the song to the realm of silly excesses.

My favourite numbers are the simply titled 'Madhouse' and 'Medusa'; the former — because it is the perfect summary of everything that Anthrax are about at this time, thrash riffage and grit and a bit of anti-social punch, and the latter — because it is a cool epic metal song about a mythologi­cal monster... 'nuff said. But, of course, I wouldn't know how or what to write about them indivi­dually. The important question is: does this stuff kick plenty of ass without making one feel like a third-grader? The answer, I think, is yes, but then I have missed the third grade for so long that I cannot feel too sure already.

Definitely a thumbs up: emotions-wise, the senses perk up each time Belladonna clashes his jaws behind a mighty Ian Scott riff, and brain-wise, I understand how this is heads and tails above the «average» thrash product (or maybe I don't — truth is, real thrash metal requires so much ef­fort on the part of the player that the brain is almost bound to be impressed). But hardly all the way up — I don't remember much except the two 'M'-songs once the experience is over, and if I were to train my brain to melt in the face of each well-trained, well-armed band, there'd be very little of it left in no time.

Aerosmith: Rocks

AEROSMITH: ROCKS (1976)

1) Back In The Saddle; 2) Last Child; 3) Rats In The Cellar; 4) Combination; 5) Sick As A Dog; 6) Nobody's Fault; 7) Get The Lead Out; 8) Lick And A Promise; 9) Home Tonight.

The Day At The Races to Toys' Night At The Opera, Rocks mines the same depths and extracts the same amount of precious metal — if not actually more, because, now that all the holes have been drilled, the flow is made even easier. The general critical consensus tends to think that, al­though it was the big hits on Toys that continue to make Aerosmith a household name, Rocks is, overall, more consistent, and pounds harder all the way through. Well: there certainly is no 'Big Ten Inch Record' on it, and for many, this argument will be decisive.

Without getting into fights over quality, let us just notice that Rocks is much thicker than Toys. Since drugs, internal fighting, and changing times had not yet corroded the band's creative spirit, they were still willing to try out new approaches and techniques, which, in the case of Rocks, amounted to more overdubs, an overall heavier sound (some of the riffs here rank among the band's most brutal), various small experiments with song structures, and a damn high tax on Ty­ler's vocals which he has, nevertheless, been able to pay for several more decades of concert life.

Another important personal achievement is that second guitarist Brad Whitford steps into his own element as well: not only is he directly responsible for writing two of the album's best songs, but he plays lots of lead guitar throughout, and his quaky, trebly, at times, almost threateningly psy­chedelic textures are a great contrast to Perry's «earthier» riffs. Simply put, Rocks contains some of the greatest bits of twin guitar interplay on an American rock'n'roll band album; with this re­cord under their belt, Aerosmith were now completely immune to the «Stones clones» accusation, since they now rocked way harder than their older brothers. In all likeness, in 1976 Aerosmith were the world's greatest rock'n'roll band.

The major hit, still overplayed on classic rock radio, was 'Back In The Saddle', a goofy tale of cowboys, barrooms, and the sex drive, and that is the spirit of Rocks all right. There is no danger here, no incentive to run for your life or to lock up your daughters: when Tyler sings "I'm calling all the shots tonight, I'm like a loaded gun", you know that, in reality, his protagonist is so full of booze (and shit) that a single punch of the nose is prone to make him keel over — not to mention that whether "this snake is gonna rattle" indeed is highly questionable. But there is no question at all that no average Joe is ever going to match the tearing intensity of Steven's 'I'm ba-a-a-a-ck!', every instance of which leaves aching gashes across my own throat from merely hearing it, or the unbelievable high pitch of the final 'riding high!'. He may be dead drunk all right, and unable to get it up when it comes to real action, but boy, what an image — with an attitude like that, few brave men will be able to call the bluff.

The rest of the album never lives up to the opening punch, but this is not so much slighting the album as merely stating the fact that 'Back In The Saddle' is in its own class. The good news is that Rocks totally lives up to its name: the next seven songs, from start to finish, do rock like cra­zy, and manage to do that in lots of different, but equally exciting ways. 'Last Child' starts out de­ceivingly, with a mournful line borrowed from the Beatles' 'I Want You', but in a matter of se­conds becomes a cocky, swaggering funkster that is about... going back to the plough? 'Take me back to south Tallahassee'? Uh, ex­cuse me, has someone substituted the wrong lyrics sheet at the last moment? Were Lynyrd Sky­nyrd recording in the next studio? Oh, all right, just some more irony on the part of the proverbial bad dudes. One of these days, they are really going to get it.

Also of particular note are 'Rats In The Cellar', with its breackneck speed that tries to outdo 'Toys In The Attic', and that evil, evil break in the middle, with its punk riffage and bluesy harp; and, of course, Slash's favourite song, 'Nobody's Fault', where Tyler drops the comedy and tries on a true apocalyptic mood. The usual saying is that the song is about Californian earthquakes, and so it is, literally, but Tyler is trying to move it beyond that level, to turn it into a macabre pamphlet on man's stupidity (it does remain a little unclear whether the point is that man is so stupid that he cannot prevent earthquake damage, or that man is so stupid he has been sent earthquakes in pu­nishment, or both), while Bradford contributes the correspondingly «rumbling» music. The song would have made Black Sabbath proud, and it is no surprise that quite a few metal bands have covered it with reverence.

The incessant, insane ass-kicking only stops on the last track: 'Home Tonight' is another textbook example on how one should tackle the art of the power ballad — by not only writing a decent me­lody, but also giving it a great arrangement, with sharp electric pianos and gruff, garage-style distor­ted guitar breaks instead of anti-musical synths and genetically engineered guitar substitu­tes. And the sense of humor is back, too, with the Beatles quote (everyone knows, after all, that Rin­go Starr was the first person in the world to say 'Now it's time to say good night', although, in gentle­manly fashion, he immediately ceded the copyright to Lennon/McCartney).

Rocks is so very much mid-Seventies, and yet, so very much timeless, still a delight after all these years — it is exactly the same age as myself, and here's hoping I might never get old eno­ugh for it. Thumbs up from all sides, of course. This is how Aerosmith are going to be remem­bered by future generations, the children of the children of the children of 'Crazy', 'Cryin', and 'I Don't Wanna Miss A Thing'. No question about that.

Alice Cooper: The Life And Crimes Of Alice Cooper

ALICE COOPER: THE LIFE AND CRIMES OF ALICE COOPER (1999)

CD I: 1) Don't Blow Your Mind; 2) Hitch Hike; 3) Why Don't You Love Me; 4) Lay Down And Die, Goodbye; 5) Nobody Likes Me; 6) Levity Ball (studio version); 7) Reflected; 8) Mr And Misdemeanour; 9) Refrigerator Heaven; 10) Caught In A Dream (single version); 11) I'm Eighteen; 12) Is It My Body; 13) Ballad Of Dwight Fry; 14) Under My Wheels; 15) Be My Lover; 16) Desperado; 17) Dead Babies; 18) Killer; 19) Call It Evil; 20) Gutter Cat Vs. The Jets; 21) School's Out; CD II: 1) Hello Hooray; 2) Elected (single version); 3) Billion Dollar Babies; 4) No More Mr Nice Guy; 5) I Love The Dead; 6) Slick Black Limousine; 7) Respect For The Sleepers; 8) Muscle Of Love; 9) Teenage Lament '74; 10) Working Up A Sweat; 11) Man With The Golden Gun; 12) I'm Flash; 13) Space Pirates; 14) Welcome To My Nightmare (single version); 15) Only Women Bleed (single version); 16) Cold Ethyl; 17) De­par­t­ment Of Youth; 18) Escape; 19) I Never Cry; 20) Go To Hell; CD III: 1) It's Hot Tonight; 2) You And Me (single version); 3) I Miss You; 4) No More Time For Tears; 5) Because; 6) From The Inside (single version); 7) How You Gonna See Me Now; 8) Serious; 9) No Tricks; 10) Road Rats; 11) Clones (We're All); 12) Pain; 13) Who Do You Think We Are (single version); 14) Look At You Over There Ripping The Sawdust From My Teddy Bear; 15) For Britain Only; 16) I Am The Future (single version); 17) Tag, You're It; 18) Former Lee Warmer; 19) I Love America; 20) Identity Crisises; 21) See Me In The Mirror; 22) Hard Rock Summer; CD IV: 1) He's Back (demo version); 2) He's Back (The Man Behind The Mask); 3) Teenage Frankenstein; 4) Freedom; 5) Prince Of Darkness; 6) Under My Wheels; 7) I Got A Line On You; 8) Poison; 9) Trash; 10) Only My Heart Talking; 11) Hey Stoopid (single version); 12) Feed My Frankenstein; 13) Fire; 14) Lost In America; 15) It's Me; 16) Hands Of Death; 17) Is Anyone Home; 18) Stolen Prayer.

Release of monstruous, multi-CD box sets for artists whose creative careers still go on is an ethi­cally questionable business. How can you call something The Life Of... when the life in question is far from over? Since the day this boxset came into existence and up to the time when this re­view has been written, Alice has released no less than five additional studio albums, and a sixth one is reportedly in the works. So, who will really need The Life Of... ten years from now, apart from curio collectors? No doubt, it will be superseded at some point by an even fatter, an even more gruesome, and, perhaps, even more senseless collection.

So let us take this review as simply an excuse for a few scattered general and particular remarks. First, Vincent Furnier, even discounting the last decade, has indeed had a long, unpredictable, thrilling, and wobbling career. Perhaps it does take the space of four CDs to prove that, and the selections are well-planned, placing slightly more emphasis on the Alice Cooper Band period than his solo career — reasonably so — but still careful enough to track down fine selections from each and every one of his records, even the ones that were decidedly uncommercial. (I do take offense at the slighting of Special Forces, Zipper Catches Skin, and Dada, though).

Second, unlike Bob Dylan, Vincent Furnier does not have a ton of concealed goody-goodies for future generations to uncover and delight in. Rarities and previously unreleased material that are in­cluded contain a few tasty bits, but no forgotten masterpieces. I count three songs exactly — no more — that really interest me as elegant pieces of art rather than curios/novelties. The B-side 'No Tricks', from 1978, written and recorded in the confessional manner of From The Inside, ve­ry much belongs on that album, and should count as one of the four or five most intensely perso­nal songs Alice ever dared to deliver publicly.

The 1982 single 'For Britain Only' was, true to its name, only released in the UK, and is a fine sharp stab at either Britain or those who visit Britain, I have forgotten which, but I do remember it is as hilarious as everything Alice did in those weird days of New Wave. (Two other little-known tracks from that period, movie soundtrack contributions 'Identity Crisis' and 'See Me In The Mirror', are only semi-decent, but at least show that he was still writing bizarre material as late as 1984, so his conversion to hair metal in 1986 must have been quite immediate).

And the 1991 cover of Jimi Hendrix's 'Fire', while obviously inferior to the ori­ginal in terms of music (those were the hair metal years, remember?), yields a deli-salaciously sleazy vocal per­for­mance — it fits in perfectly with Alice's dirty sexual escapades like 'I'm Your Gun' or 'Snakebite', but the latter were written by corporate sleazebags, and the former by you-know-who. 'Jimi's rol­ling over', the Coop sneers during the coda, and he most certainly was, but I am pretty sure that, had the Coop included more cover versions like these instead of third-rate outside material from his delivery guys, Jimi wouldn't have minded rolling over a little bit to uphold Alice's artistic re­putation. For all of its campiness, this way of doing 'Fire' is one of the few things that can, to an extent, redeem our nostalgia for the days of The Big Frizz.

Outside that field, the goody-goodies are mostly here to remind us that, apart from the Life side of Mr. Alice, he also had his Crime side — and by that, we do not mean his anti-social stage per­sonality, but rather true crimes, subject to capital punishment, such as:

— the agreement to participate in the farce of the Sgt. Pepper movie (a memento of which is left in the form of his strange cover of 'Because');

— the silly early days when The Alice Cooper Band were supposed to be The Spiders, but in reality tried to be lame clones of the ques­tionable facets of The Rolling Stones by covering the likes of Marvin Gaye's 'Hitch Hike';

— the ir­ritable and malodorous love for B- and C-movie clichés, which led the man to contribute corny Seventies' bubblegum rock to corny soundtracks for cornier, com­ple­tely forgotten flicks like Flash Fearless Versus The Zorg Women ('Space Pira­tes' is pure delirious idiocy);

— the unforgi­vable decision to include two alternate mixes of 'He's Back (The Man Behind The Mask)' — both of which are superior to the final version, but still not enough to make it into anything non-stinky;

— the idea to transform the monster original version of 'Road Rats' from Lace And Whiskey into a whiny, wheezy, synth-heavy, smelly little gnome of a tune, donate it to a movie with Meat Loaf in the title role, and then have the nerve to include it on this boxset instead of the original.

That said, such was his life, and such were his crimes, that the two are hard to separate from each other. At the very least, here is a man that has definitely paid for his crimes many times over in his lifetime — you could say that to every person who has ever wished him to hang for un­lea­shing the likes of Constrictor on humanity, he was happy to donate a personal hanging. Or be­heading. Or zapping. In the meantime, The Life And Crimes Of Alice Cooper play out like a sensible, reasonable, properly constructed re-enactment of all these things, even though there is very little reason for anyone to waste money on this.

Aretha Franklin: Aretha Arrives

ARETHA FRANKLIN: ARETHA ARRIVES (1967)

1) Satisfaction; 2) You Are My Sunshine; 3) Never Let Me Go; 4) 96 Tears; 5) Prove It; 6) Night Life; 7) That's Life; 8) I Wonder; 9) Ain't Nobody (Gonna Turn Me Around); 10) Going Down Slow; 11) Baby, I Love You.

Just because this record happened to yield only one major hit ('Baby, I Love You'), instead of the usual two or three or four, it is occasionally dismissed or slighted as a rushed follow-up to the brilliancy of I Never Loved A Man. But if we start thinking of Aretha Franklin as a «singles ar­tist» — quite a possible way of life — we can skip all of her albums altogether, since even the best ones are very strictly divided into the attention-grabbing part and everything else. And, so­me­times, it makes good good sense to come back to the everything else.

There is also the strange album title factor: Aretha Arrives? The Present Perfect tense would have made far better sense, because, with several hit singles and a hit album and a perfectly es­tablished style and image, this is sort of a retarded announcement. Now if they had thought of this title for the previous record, that would have been a ballsy decision. But then, there is really no reason to think of the people at Atlantic Records as some sort of artistic superheroes compared to the marketing department of Columbia. People are always silly.

This is a terrific record. 'Baby, I Love You' is Ronnie Shannon's second great contribution to the catalog — a swaggering, self-assured, and hyper-catchy piece of R'n'B on which Aretha's playful interaction with her vocalizing sisters totally matches the intensity and fun of 'Respect'. How could this not be a hit? More surprisingly, how could Aretha's equally powerful delivery of the garage rock classic '96 Tears' not be released as a single? And, even more surprisingly, how did the world miss the excellent songwriting abilities of sister Carolyn Franklin, who contributes the album's second best tune: 'Ain't Nobody (Gonna Turn Me Around)', a strong, muscular feminist anthem in which the greatest hook is actually delivered by the backup singers ('nobody, nobo­dy!...') — well, we all have to make a living somehow, even if it involves hanging on to the coat­tails of Big Sister.

Aretha's takes on 'Satisfaction' and 'You Are My Sunshine' do not owe so much to Jagger/Rich­ards and The Pine Ridge Boys as they do to Otis Redding and Ray Charles, whose nearly unre­cognizable «deconstructions» she appropriates, and, once again, she beats or near-beats Otis, ma­naging to extract his slightly clownish manner and replace it with pure fire and brimstone, but fails to unsaddle Ray because of her inability to enact vulnerability — still, it is quite thrilling to watch her try, and fun to hear the kickass R'n'B punch of 'Sunshine' emerge after the lengthy non-rhythmic intro that gives no clue to whatever is going to happen.

For those who always search beyond pop hooks (and meticulously log their results so as not to appear empty-handed at the Last Judgement), the album's greatest achievement will most likely be 'Going Down Slow', which used to be a blues number, but now is a profound slab of gospel. I am not a fan; Aretha is not great at the tragic confession genre, and I cannot imagine her actually asking someone to forgive her for her sins, nor can I imagine her asking for a doctor. But it is still the usual powerhouse of a performance, that's for sure.

Altogether, with the exception of a couple semi-lame blunders like a Sinatra number, the record goes down very well. This is formula; it is now obvious that Aretha has found her groove and is going to stick to it at least until the changing times demand otherwise. But from an artist like Are­tha, we do not expect anything but a formula, and as long as the formula makes the world go round, so be it. A totally heartfelt, if not a thoroughly brainy, thumbs up.

B. B. King: King Of The Blues

B. B. KING: KING OF THE BLUES (1960)

1) I've Got A Right To Love My Baby; 2) What Way To Go; 3) Long Nights; 4) Feel Like A Million; 5) I'll Survive; 6) Good Man Gone Bad; 7) If I Lost You; 8) You're On The Top; 9) Partin' Time; 10) I'm King.

It is almost impossible to determine whether King Of The Blues was released before or after My Kind Of Blues, but, in the long run, it does not make much difference: all through the decade, «real» albums like the latter continued to be released side by side with pseudo-albums that con­tinued to combine new tracks, old tracks, hardcore blues, and usually lame excursions into other genres. At least King Of The Blues mostly sticks to hardcore; but the big brass sound is back, and the level of inspiration falls down once again.

Like The Great B. B. King, this is a single-supporting LP, except the hit single is nowhere near as epochal as 'Sweet Sixteen': it is 'Got A Right To Love My Baby', announced by thick pompous fanfares and placing B. B. in some remote corner so that his voice echoes all over the studio — a regular gimmick on this record, supposed to add explicit stateliness — perhaps, even Godliness — to a personality that'd be much better off radiating them implicitly. Truthfully, the song is no better and no worse than the other nine cuts of this blues-de-luxe, most of which are structured around a big brass riff, although B. B. faithfully soloes on every track.

One could speculate that the whole idea was to press down the «king, king, king» image on the audiences, given the diminishing popularity of blues artists, and that the album title, the ever-in­creasing pompousness of the delivery, and the inclusion of a track specifically called 'I'm King' all intended to reinstate the people's belief in B. B. But with the emergence of another King — Freddie — that same year, with the big smash of 'Have You Ever Loved A Woman', far more searing, brutal, and immediate than all of King Of The Blues put together, the idea was doomed. «Mainstreamers» went for totally safe white crooners, and «alternativers» rather went for Freddie, Mud­dy, and Elmore. Efforts like these could only plop through the cracks.

Of course, in retrospect, all of this is nice and perfectly listenable as tasteful background music (muzak). But in its context, King Of The Blues kinda sucks — like most albums that contain the word 'King' and actually intend to mean it. To paraphrase a semi-fictional Roman, "Listen, king of the blues — where is your kingdom?.."

Andrew Bird: Thrills

ANDREW BIRD'S BOWL OF FIRE: THRILLS (1998)

1) Minor Stab; 2) Ides Of Swing; 3) Glass Figurine; 4) Pathetique; 5) Depression/Passillo; 6) 50 Pieces; 7) A Wo­man's Life And Love; 8) Swedish Wedding March; 9) Eugene; 10) Gris-Gris; 11) Cock O' The Walk; 12) Nuthin­duan Waltz; 13) Some Of These Days/Chinatown, My Chinatown.

«Andrew Bird's Bowl Of Fire» is hardly the best name for a band recording this kind of music. «Bowl of Fire» suggests «Ball Of Fire», and «Ball Of Fire» suggests either Deep Purple, or that corny, but funny movie of Billy Wilder's where Gene Krupa and Barbara Stanwyck collectively explode over a version of 'Drum Boogie'. If there is a fire somewhere on Thrills, Bird's first seri­ous contribution to the outside world, it is a highly metaphorical one.

Surrounding himself with fellow Chicago musicians, as well as guests from the Squirrel Nut Zip­pers, Bird pays his personal homage to pre-war popular music. Delta blues, small combo jazz, a little swing, a little Charleston, and lots of Kurt Weill. If you are too young to care about them old times, think Tom Waits without all the experimentation and with a sweet croon instead of the toilet rasp. Beyond that, some older folk influences are carried over from Music Of Hair: there are two and a half minutes of a 'Swedish Wedding March' (apparently, the Swedes make little distinction between a wedding and a funeral), and a new, fuller, and slightly less grating version of 'Nuthinduan Waltz' from the previous album.

The listing says «all songs written and composed by Andrew Bird», with but a couple exceptions; this is obviously untrue, since on most of them, the only true original writing concerns the lyrics — Bird's end-of-the-century verbal updating of the beginning-of-the-century subjects is astute and funny: even Brecht would have had trouble coming up with stuff like 'Studies have shown that we, like sheep, are prone to sure fatal doses of malcontent through osmosis; but don't be sympathetic, just pass the anaesthetic, 'cuz sheep are benign and on the young we will dine' ('Eu­gene'). The melodies, on the contrary, are fully in the traditional vein, and this means, in mild terms, «appropriated» — 'Cock O' The Walk', for instance, is no more composed by Andrew Bird than 'Amazing Grace' (for some nice competition on that melody, how about checking out Robert Johnson's 'They're Red Hot'?). I have no idea why the tune is credited to Bird when, at the same time, 'Some Of These Days' is credited to Charley Patton (not that Charley Patton actually wrote 'Some Of These Days', either, but I suppose that Andrew just wanted to namedrop the man, which is a cool gesture. If you happen to be the lucky winner who has learned about Charley Patton through Andrew Bird's Bowl Of Fire, contact me and we'll make history together).

There is not much to tell about individual tunes: a tribute is a tribute, a stylization a stylization, and all of this has a solid post-modern flair that justifies the album's existence in the first place. Bird and his musicians love their influences, they have a real good time doing what they are do­ing, and yet, Thrills is still not really as thrilling as Andrew's further evolution; at this time, he has made the transition from homebrewn experimentator and self-teacher to a likeable and intel­ligent entertainer, but he is still doing his homework. Thumbs up for the homework, and I will reserve more writing space for things to come.

Ani DiFranco: Ani DiFranco

ANI DIFRANCO: ANI DIFRANCO (1990)

1) Both Hands; 2) Talk To Me Now; 3) The Slant; 4) Work Your Way Out; 5) Dog Coffee; 6) Lost Woman Song; 7) Pale Purple; 8) Rush Hour; 9) Fire Door; 10) The Story; 11) Every Angle; 12) Out Of Habit; 13) Letting The Tele­phone Ring.

Ani DiFranco is a poet. This is not surprising: few people in the state of New York aren't. It would be far more surprising if she were a stunningly original poet, a lyrical innovator capable of turning the entire decade upside down. At least, normally, when you release an entire album of original songs, heavy on the lyrics and light on instrumentation — nothing but her and her acou­stic guitar all the way through — you'd have to be stunningly original if you wished for one rea­son for such an album to be remembered one month after being released.

However, there is nothing stunningly original about Ani DiFranco's poetry. It is a fairly expecta­ble product of its times: an unpresuming offshoot of the beat genre that, at its best, adds little to the legacy of Suzanne Vega (which, in itself, was no gold mine) and, at its worst, is just... well, bad poetry. Most of the songs are about relationships, delivered from the obvious viewpoint — «the fact that I am a woman does not mean my inner world is in any way poorer than yours» — and dedicated to offering as many different proofs of this single fact as possible. Which means that reading the lyrics is sort of fun for the first song, sort of disappointing for the second song, sort of irritating for the third song, and sort of completely pointless from then on.

Which is entirely unrelated, by the way, to the fact that you do meet interesting concatenations of lexemes from time to time, such as 'I opened the fire door to four lips, none of which were mine', or 'Perpetrating counter-culture she is walking through the park', or 'It's not important to be defined, it's only important to use your time well' — here is a fine line for high school students to use as an epigraph for their generic essays — or 'I wonder what you look like under your T-shirt'... uh, okay, forget that last one. Although Ani's army of fans will probably rally with much more fer­vor around the doctrinal lines, such as 'I'm not going to sacrifice my freedom of choice' (about her abortion, of course) or 'When I'm approached in a dark alley, I don't lift my skirt' ('Talk To Me Now', the album's feminist anthem par excellence).

Nevertheless, if all there was to Ani DiFranco's debut record, self-released on her aptly titled «Righteous Babe» label, was mediocre poetry and by-the-book feminism, I would hardly bother to write about it. The real reason to listen to her records, even fully acoustic like this one, is the music. The songs, as «songs» in a traditional sense, do not really exist — they are bits of poetry that she does not so much sing as recite — but they are set to truly brilliant playing. This is not pop and not blues and not folk, but rather a weird, unpredictable amalgam of all kinds of styles, showing off a mindset unhampered by formulae, barriers, or conventions.

Well, probably the two big forces behind this are free-form jazz and dark folk, with a heavy pen­chant for staccato (to communicate the idea of this woman's «toughness», I guess), but, since they are both tamed into forming a light, rhythmic background for her recitals, they never come across as self-conscious genre exercises. Everything flows sort of naturally and unpretentiously, despite the use of «pretentious chords». And much of this is gracile and beautiful, like the thin, vulne­rable line that drives 'Talk To Me Now' (in strange contrast to the anthemic lyrics), or the nervous, ominous picking of 'Lost Woman Song'. Come to think of it, these two songs represent the two main patterns: light, pretty, nonchalant ('Pale Purple', 'Fire Door', 'Every Angle', 'Out Of Habit') and dark, paranoid, depressing ('Work Your Way Out', 'Letting The Telephone Ring'). But the actual melodies are different enough to count all these entities as different songs, and the overall result is so pleasing to the ear that it does not take long before you simply forget that the words she pronounces are supposed to make sense and just get carried away by the song waves. If you are into all that singer-songwriting-acoustic-playing shit at all, of course.

The only track that has to be pulped into oblivion is 'The Slant' — a recital that has no music at all. It is encountered at a very wrong moment, just as the ear settles down into the appropriate mo­de of converting the human voice into a musical instrument with all the semantics stripped away, yet 'The Slant' demands to get the semantics back, and, unless you are a fan of «serious modern poetry» in general and DiFranco's in particular, I would recommend throwing it out of the playlist at the insistence of The Committee To Prevent Unhealthy Disruption Effects. If you are a fan, of course, this one's for you, and, moreover, you are likely to get twice as much spiritu­al ecstasy from listening to Ani DiFranco as I am. Besides, I guess it's not such bad poetry, after all. Maybe it is just the lack of six-syllable words that bugs me. Thumbs up for the music, any­way.

Anthrax: Fistful Of Metal

ANTHRAX: FISTFUL OF METAL (1984)

1) Death Rider; 2) Metal Thrashing Mad; 3) I'm Eighteen; 4) Panic; 5) Subjugator; 6) Soldiers Of Metal; 7) Death From Above; 8) Anthrax; 9) Across The River; 9) Howling Furies.

The East Coast response to the Californian thrash explosion of 1983 starts here — and, frankly speaking, I have a hard time understanding how to compare Fistful Of Metal with the likes of Kill 'Em All or Show No Mercy, except that people seem to generally like the latter two but pan the former because it, uh, is too heavy on the Judas Priest influence. Or something. Sure it is — anyone who names one of his songs 'Subjugator' already has a royalty debt to Rob Halford.

It does, however, look that Anthrax's first album rides the coattails of the new storm rather than participate in its creation. All the ingredients have been studied and replicated perfectly. Rhythm guitarist Ian Scott emits steadily pulsating riffs which, when slow, are indeed similar to the sharp polygonal figures of Judas Priest, and, when fast, display technique that is fully on the level with Metallica and Slayer. Lead guitarist Dan Spitz yields speedy melodic solos quite on par with Iron Maiden. Vocalist Neil Turbin bawls, screams, and roars like any good disciple of the Ian Gillan School of Bawl, Scream, and Roar should. And the rhythm section — Danny Lilker on bass, Cha­rlie Benante on drums — do just the kind of things a rhythm section is expected to do in a thrash metal band; no more, and most certainly no less.

But if there is any real reason to why Fistful Of Metal gets a bad rap, it may be understood by simply glancing at the song titles. Few people who name one of their songs 'Metal Thrashing Mad' can count upon immediate recognition — unless they at least give it the spirit of a 'For Whom The Bell Tolls', or the riff of an 'Enter Sandman' or something. All of these tunes are de­cent, middle-of-the-road thrash which, however, almost always promises more than it delivers. If I am given 'Howling Furies', I expect the song to sound like howling furies; if, however, it only sounds like a basic headbanging experience, I am bound to be disappointed.

The album's big surprise is a cover of Alice Cooper's 'I'm Eighteen', which, according to legend, took an entire two days to record because bassist Dan Lilker could not get into the right mood. Its original spirit is completely incompatible with the rest of the record, and Neil Turbin's rendition is totally rotten: he just screams it out like everything else, leaving all the confusion and despera­tion of the protagonist behind the door. Why they were so intent on paying this particular tribute is beyond me; metal bands do owe a lot to the original Alice Cooper band, whether they like it or not, but the song would have worked far better on one of those collective tribute albums (that no one listens to anyway) than wedged in between their apocalyptic metal fantasies.

Still, come what may, 'Deathrider' and the title track at least deserve to be recognized as classic, if not ultimate, thrash anthems that, at the very least, prove that Anthrax have gradu­ated from the Academy of Metal with perfect marks, and set the stage for further drilling into the hard-to-pene­trate soils of the heavy metal genre. My judgement is neutral: well-performed, but generic, thrash is about as much use as well-performed, but generic, blues — gives you a bit of fun time without being as spiritually repulsive as, say, generic prog-metal — and is, therefore, quite recommen­dable to headbangers all over the planet.

Aerosmith: Toys In The Attic

AEROSMITH: TOYS IN THE ATTIC (1975)

1) Toys In The Attic; 2) Uncle Salty; 3) Adam's Apple; 4) Walk This Way; 5) Big Ten Inch Record; 6) Sweet Emo­tion; 7) No More No More; 8) Round And Round; 9) You See Me Crying.

Had Aerosmith never written or played one other song next to 'Toys In The Attic', it should still have been enough to ensure rock immortality — not everyone realizes that, of course, but let me be the first to tell you. Not all blues-rock played at breakneck speed can be breathtaking, and, as a rule, blues-rockers dislike playing at breakneck speed, either out of fear of making too many mis­takes or because they somehow feel that the notes would not be «felt properly». Fools!

If there is any direct predecessor to 'Toys In The Attic', it might be Zep's 'Communication Break­down' or Deep Purple's 'Fireball', but I have always felt 'Toys' to be the better song of the three. As Joe Perry's rough, broken-up, don't-give-a-damn riff breaks out of the speakers, it combines the speed and precision of those two with the tattered and battered Keith Richards spirit, and this unique combination, to the best of my knowledge, has never been improved upon. That single second when, out of a bunch of cymbal hiss, there erupts Perry's distortion, is the single greatest moment in Aerosmith history, bar none.

Let us not forget, either, that the song's riff is only one good thing about it. Tyler expropriates it for another of his «message» songs about connections between past and present, this time, pain­ting nostalgia as horror — "voices scream... nothing's seen... real's the dream..." — and culmina­ting with the ghost chorus of "toys, toys, toys in the attic" that, on paper, may seem like an unli­kely mating pair for the song's brutal riff, but, on practice, merges with it to form the perfect psy­chedelic experience. Somehow, even Perry's frantic guitar break, all Berry licks and broken limbs, is a great find for this.

The album certainly does not live up to the strength of its opener — unsurprisingly, since such openers are generally granted one or two per an entire band's career. But Aerosmith were on a roll all the same. They had found their style: a synthesis of the Stones' rebellious spirit with the achie­vements of hard rock and heavy metal bands of the past five years, and they were still fresh eno­ugh to explore that style's capacities to the very bottom.

Toys In The Attic does it all. It kicks ass all over the place, it threatens, it humours, and it is ne­ver boring. A few of the songs want to be boring ('No More No More'; Brad Whitford's 'Round And Round') by putting too much stock in repetition, but are still saved by the sweet sweet spirit that inhabits them — Tyler, in particular, delivers every song as if he were living it out at the exact same moment, and, considering the unique quality of his voice, this alone suffices to neu­tralize the repetitiveness, or even turn it to his own advantage.

On the other end of the pole, there are the additional classics. 'Walk This Way' is still unkillable by classic rock radio after all these years (the single great thing about «bad boy anthems»: it is ten times as hard to get sick of them as it is to get sick of 'Hey Jude' or 'Stairway To Heaven'), and the original version is still a much tastier vintage than the not-less-famous, but much-more-pragmatic remake with Run-D.M.C. from the next decade. (On an indirectly related note, Tyler's lyrics can certainly give most gansta rap a good run for their money: "you ain't seen nothin' 'til you're down on a muffin" is, in fact, prime time American Academy of Arts material). 'Sweet Emotion', the band's first encounter with the talk box, defines the idea of «bittersweet» in a rock song — a he­donistic anthem with a terrified heart, and a chorus that is most befitting to be chanted by a seri­ous junkie right upon shooting up (which they probably did).

At the center of the pole we find another bunch of moderate classics, including Genesis Accor­ding To Aerosmith ('Adam's Apple'); the joke throwaway cover 'Big Ten Inch Record', where Ty­ler improves on the double-entendres by making the line "...she don't go for nothin' 'cept for my big ten-inch record..." sound exactly like "...suck on my big ten-inch..."; and the obligatory clo­sing ballad 'You See Me Crying', which tugs at certain non-trivial strings in your heart just like the Stones could, at their best, tug at them with ballads like 'Moonlight Mile'.

The worst problem with Aerosmith is that much of the time, given their past record of «Stones worship» and their future record of selling out, it is hard to take them seriously. Toys In The At­tic fires off a brief, but magical, period in their career when — once you forget all context — it is hard not to take them seriously. In 1975, Steve Tyler was the troubadour of the slum party style, far grittier and more cutting edge than Bruce Springsteen, and Joe Perry was his guitar partner extraordinaire. The celebration did not last too long, but for two or three brief years, the band did become the undisputed kings of «shit-rock», in the good sense of the term. Thumbs up.

Alice Cooper: Along Came A Spider

ALICE COOPER: ALONG CAME A SPIDER (2008)

1) Prologue: I Know Where You Live; 2) Vengeance Is Mine; 3) Wake The Dead; 4) Catch Me If You Can; 5) (In Touch With) Your Feminine Side; 6) Wrapped In Silk; 7) Killed By Love; 8) I'm Hungry; 9) The One That Got Away; 10) Salvation; 11) I Am The Spider (Epilogue).

After the brief relaxation of Dirty Diamonds, Alice returns to concept mode — but I am not en­tirely sure if this particular concept is really such a great step forward for the father of shock rock. That the Coop is a huge fan of generic slasher movies, we all know very well: all through the Ei­ghties, he had constantly expressed this love with both his albums and his occasional songwriting and even acting contributions to such movies. But with The Last Temptation and whatever fol­lowed, it seemed like this preoccupation was somewhat behind him, and that he would now fore­ver be focusing his attention on worthier matters.

Apparently not. Apparently we have been wrong all these years. Along Came A Spider brings back the fetish in full force: the entire album is a mini-rock-opera about a serial killer who — ima­gine that — is busy collecting eight human legs in order to construct his personal spider, lea­ving the rest of the bodies behind wrapped in silk cocoons. His only mistake is falling in love with his last victim — justice, after all, must triumph. (He even repents in the end — a good Christian like Alice must always leave his heros at least a theoretical chance of "Salvation").

The bad news, therefore, is that the overall style of the record, out of all of Cooper's past output, is most closely reminiscent of the campiness of Constrictor. The good news is that Alice is not toying with commercialism this time around, and is neither intentionally dumbing down his ly­rics to appeal to the scum of the earth, nor calling upon the most clichéd musical arrangements in exi­stence to «fit the times». He has once again changed his working partners, to be sure, replacing long-term partner Ryan Roxie with guitarists Danny Saber and Greg Hampton, but they fit Ryan's shoes pretty well, so the transition will not be painful for anyone. And these guys help him write decent songs, too — a collective Kane Roberts they are not.

The overall sound is more or less what we would expect based on past observations: heavy and crunchy, but not industrial-brutal crunchy à la Brutal Planet — surprisingly, this may be the clo­sest Alice has ever come to capturing the classic grunge sound: metallic sound tones applied to punkish guitar riffs. He has not asked us if we really want to hear the classic grunge sound all over again, but it does agree with the concept: setting it to the old hair metal style would be just as ridi­culous as setting it to the garage riffs of The Eyes.

None of the songs will probably become classics, considering that their primary way of working is as part of the concept. Alice has not even taken them along for the supporting tour (!), with the exception of 'Vengeance Is Mine', either because, deep down inside, he had a feeling they really sucked, or because he did not think performing them individually would make much sense. (The latter consideration, mind you, never stopped him from staging the freshly released Welcome To My Nightmare in its glorious entirety back in 1975). My feelings exactly: individually, the songs are no great shakes, but together, they work. For B-movie fans, that is.

There is plenty of exciting Cooper-worthy moments, however, scattered around. The opening funk-metal riff of 'I Know Where You Live'. The hooting harmonica on 'Wake The Dead' (where Alice is joined by Ozzy on the vocals, but you wouldn't get it without the liner notes). One more outburst of believable Lennonesque sentimentality on the chorus of 'Killed By Love'. The unex­pected piano opening of 'Salvation'. These are just a few occurrences that make the record musi­cally interesting. If only they were matched by solid riffs and choruses throughout — but they are not. The riffs are «healthy» — they growl, roar, and threaten in all seriousness — but not really «solid». The emphasis is clearly on the storyline, not on the music; too bad, because some time in the past Alice made us believe that he was capable of keeping one eye on the concept and the other one always fixed on the hooks.

And, coming back to where we started, what sort of concept is this, really? Yes, I realize perfectly well that, in our modern world, one can express a far more unique and profound artistic inter­pretation of one's surroundings through a concept album about a serial killer who wraps his victims in silk webs than one about the abstract vices and shortcomings of the planet in general. But, for all of Alice Cooper's genius, he is no Umberto Eco, and Along Came A Spider is no Name Of The Rose. Heck, it is even no M or Silence Of The Lambs. It is what it is: a suitably ade­quate tribute to second-rate horror movies. Perhaps, in the long run, we should be glad that Alice got it out of his system; he must have been waiting a long, long time to do that. Now that he did do it, it is time to get back to bigger and better things. And yet — still a thumbs up, because as a soundtrack to a second-rate horror movie, it works as best as it can. Plus, even though I do not watch a lot of second-rate (or even first-rate, for that matter) horror movies, it is sort of uncool to say they stink, and frequently garners the humiliating response of «go back to your Julia Roberts, you cog», so if you wanna propagate Along Came A Spider as the greatest piece of work to grace the Noughties, I am not going to be so stupid as to argue.

Aretha Franklin: I Never Loved A Man..

ARETHA FRANKLIN: I NEVER LOVED A MAN THE WAY I LOVE YOU (1967)

1) Respect; 2) Drown In My Own Tears; 3) I Never Loved A Man (The Way I Love You); 4) Soul Serenade; 5) Don't Let Me Lose This Dream; 6) Baby, Baby, Baby; 7) Dr. Feelgood (Love Is A Serious Business); 8) Good Ti­mes; 9) Do Right Woman, Do Right Man; 10) Save Me; 11) A Change Is Gonna Come.

One does not need to go much further than the three funky guitar notes that open 'Respect', against a background of big brawny brass, to understand that things have changed. The first two things that the new deal with Atlantic gave Aretha was fine musicianship and strong material; re­acting to the third, long-present, ingredient — her power — they formed an explosive, and the re­action was immediate. At times, one hears faint echoes of a critical backlash against I Never Lo­ved A Man, which has its uses — it goads people into giving more attuned listens to the rest of the lady's catalog — but there is simply no way the album can be budged from its pedestal with­out the side effect of toppling Aretha altogether, and do we want to do that?

The original hit, the one that clearly indicated how well Aretha and Atlantic can do business to­gether, was 'I Never Loved A Man (The Way I Love You)'. The Muscle Shoals supply the rhythm; Aretha herself supplies the piano; and little-known songwriter Ronnie Shannon supplies the song, written specially for Aretha. This is simple, but deep soul, the likes of which she could never ac­cess on Columbia, and, predictably, the public was captured by the awesome contrast of the fiery, ecstatic screaming on the verses and the hot, breathy, animalesque hush of the chorus.

About 'Respect', Otis Redding, while performing the song in concert during the last year of his life, would always mention the «little girl who took it away from me», although in quite a friend­ly manner. He was right, too: singing it from the feminine perspective, Aretha turned it into the women's-rights anthem for her epoch, not to mention the fact that, for Otis, it was simply one more memorable, but hardly outstanding, hit in a long series of classics, whereas for Aretha it was really the song that made her, and even today, when you listen to it, it is easy to understand how she must have known this would be the song that would make her — and how everyone as­sisted her so well in that knowledge, starting from her sisters with their brilliant vocal echoes and ending with King Curtis' sax break. Oh, and the newly added bridge, and the vaguely obscene "sock it to me sock it to me sock it to me" — is this the first time the phrase appears in a pop song? If not the first, it is easily the best.

There is the usual complaint to be applied: Aretha does not stand up much for diversity, and all of the material, no matter how different in melody or mood, gets the standard Franklin treatment. On the other hand, this is a sport of its own: isn't it exciting to take songs as diverse as 'Drown In My Own Tears', Ray Charles' celebration of desperation, and 'Good Times', Sam Cooke's glorifica­tion of party life, and try to find a common invariant? Aretha's, of course, reads «power». When she sings the former, she is not really desperate — she uses fake images of desperation to exer­cise mind control over her deceitful lover; and when she sings the latter, she does not invite you to "get in the groove and let the good times roll", she commands you. Lady says to get in the gro­ove — what are you, deaf or something?

Understandably, though, material like 'Drown In My Own Tears' works better as a curio than as a soul classic; but when the songs actually do deal with the issue of power, they are immortal. 'Res­pect' and 'I Never Loved A Man' are clear highlights, but so is Aretha's self-penned 'Dr. Feelgood', where she finds the love she needs to be OK with her (poor, poor Dr. Feelgood, whoever he is), and Cooke's 'A Change Is Gonna Come' — no questions asked about that one.

The album contains no obvious filler; some cuts are stronger, some weaker, but the album was designed as a solid blast, and Aretha jumps in it with the same fervor she demonstrated on her first Columbia record, except that, this time, the fervor is not wasted or dissipated on syrupy strings and corny oldies. Even the composition of the record — wisely kicking off with the soul aggression of 'Respect' and closing things with the epic conclusion of 'Change' — deserves an unequivocal thumbs up from the brain department, and as for the heart, well, if Aretha Franklin is OK with you as a source of inspiration, there is no way the heart could feel disappointed with this particular record.

B. B. King: My Kind Of Blues

B. B. KING: MY KIND OF BLUES (1960)

1) You Done Lost Your Good Thing Now; 2) Mr. Pawn Broker; 3) Understand; 4) Someday Baby; 5) Driving Wheel; 6) Walking Dr. Bill; 7) My Own Fault, Darling; 8) Cat Fish Blues; 9) Hold That Train; 10) Please Set A Date.

Somewhat of a turning point on B. B.'s personal highway; according to his own memory (which has little choice but to be trusted, given an utter lack of independent sources), this was his first al­bum recorded as a proper album — over one single recording session with one single small back­ing band — and in full accordance with his own vision of the blues. My Kind Of Blues indeed: the title is far more meaningful in this instance than all the Great B. B. Kings in the world.

It is not hard to believe the story. If you want to hear a fresh, young, not-yet-overweight B. B. King sing and play stark blues — no lounge entertainment, no spirituals, no experimentation with teenage music styles etc. — My Kind Of Blues is the obvious choice. There is no single particu­lar standout; technically, the «heavy» bit is the opening number, 'You Done Lost Your Good Thing Now', which takes five minutes of intense build-up to deliver its point, but it is hardly any more jaw-dropping than the rest of the record.

Which is hardly jaw-dropping at all, to tell the truth, but merely one of those basic delights which make the enlightened blues fan happy. All 12-bar, all formula-worshipping, but with B. B. acting in the role of B. B. to fill in the function variable, My Kind Of Blues is unassailable as long as we agree that B. B.'s guitar playing style itself is unassailable. Because, finally, he is given plenty of room to express himself, unconfined to the limitations of the 2:30 single and unhampered by any fat brass section.

Come to think of it, the first thirty seconds of 'You Done Lost...' may almost be announcing the start of a new era for the electric guitar — that of the loud, pompous, soulful blues guitar intro­duction, abused by millions since then but, arguably, never truly surpassed. And although none of the solos that King plays on this album are as flashy as the ones he would soon be throwing aro­und on stage, most of them deserve to be listened to with special attention. Sometimes he starts playing against the melody. Sometimes he toys around with the volume, puncturing the value of short bits of silence within long bits of loudness. All of the time he is being flawless — not a sin­gle mistake, not a single clumsy transition, and all this within lengthy series of relatively complex licks that explore all the possibilities offered to them by the limited time frame.

All of this has been replicated and surpassed many times since 1960, so that today My Kind Of Blues can be revered only for its historical importance. But enjoyed it can be purely for itself. Unquestionably a thumbs up.

Andrew Bird: Music Of Hair

ANDREW BIRD: MUSIC OF HAIR (1996)

1) Nuthinduan Waltz; 2) Ambivalence Waltz; 3) Oh So Insistent; 4) Rhodeaoh; 5) Two Sisters; 6) St. Francis Reel; 7) Ratitat/Peter's Wolf/Oblivious; 8) The Greenhorn/Exile Of Erin/Glasgow Reel; 9) Pathetique; 10) Song Of Foot; 11) Minor Beatrice; 12) Oh So Sad.

Technically, the date of 1996 makes Andrew Bird an «earlier» artist than the ones tackled in this section. However, Music Of Hair is not really a proper «album» — it is an early self-released ef­fort, belonging in a regular discography because and only because, in our ever progressing world, the phenomenon of «raw early demos», recorded by young inexperienced artists and quickly shel­ved, only to be released decades later as curios — and only if the artist in question had become big enough to warrant some commercial demand for them — this phenomenon has mutated into one of «early self-released tape / CD», in which the artist decides for himself whether he wants or not to have a wider world listen to his very first plinkings and plunkings in the studio (or, even more frequently, in his own bedroom or basement).

This has its good and bad sides, with most people brushing away the bad with the sacral maxim of «If you don't like, don't listen». But it is hard for me to imagine anyone who would seriously like Andrew Bird's Music Of Hair — which really only works as a set of rehearsals / tunings for the first real stage of his career, with Bowl Of Fire.

A professionally trained violinist, Andrew Bird got his bachelor's degree from Northwestern Uni­versity in 1996 and immediately proceeded to demonstrate that the money was not poorly spent by recording an album full to the brim with violin music — or, should I say «fiddle music» beca­use there is not a lot of Paganini influence to be discerned. Much of this stuff is just Bird exerci­sing solo, occasionally — but rarely — singing as well, although on a few tracks he is joined by fellow musicians, including members of Squirrel Nut Zippers.

There is no denying that, already on this patch of demos, Andrew does give the impression of a rare Bird indeed. As long as one does not venture too far outside the first two or three tracks, this is rela­tively traditional folk, mostly Celtic waltzes and ballads played in a rather grating manner, sometimes adorned with Bird's own lyrics that are this music's only hard link to modern times. But the further down we go, the more adventurous the guy becomes, gradually integrating free-form jazz, modern classical, old-style cabaret, and even raga motives into the mix until the only element that ties it all together remains the idea of the violin as lead instrument.

I have to acknowledge that my major reaction from all this is a splitting headache; it is very hard for me to stomach fifty five minutes of violin when the violinist is anything less than David Oi­strakh, and Andrew Bird sure has a long way to go to get there. Competent, unquestionably yes; inventive, most assuredly so; and the album as such has a good synthetic reason to exist — but for about thirty-five out of fifty-five minutes, all it does to me is destroy my ears in a way that only people like Yo­ko Ono may be able to understand.

So I will take the predictable and conventional route: Music Of Hair establishes Mr. Bird as a guy who can make music, and its release served the good purpose of getting him signed to a real label, but leave it to the MoMA crowds to call it a serious work of art; I call it a curious introduc­tion to the real Andrew Bird.