Tom Tom Club: Close To The Bone

TOM TOM CLUB: CLOSE TO THE BONE (1983)

1) Pleasure Of Love; 2) On The Line Again; 3) This Is A Foxy World; 4) Bamboo Town; 5) The Man With The 4-Way Hips; 6) Measure Up; 7) Never Took A Penny; 8) Atsa­baby!.

General verdict: No less charismatic than the first Tom Tom Club album, but the lack of originality and too much humble bubblegummy politeness are sort of killing its chances.

I think that deep down in their hearts, no matter how much sincere sympathy was generated, everybody believed that the first Tom Tom Club album would remain a one-time joke — and especially now that Talking Heads were officially back as a band and burning down the house. This might explain why the second album, which really tries as hard as possible to stick to the same formula, got only a small share of respect awarded to the first one — and why, after all these years, ʽGenius Of Loveʼ remains the only thing anybody remembers about Tom Tom Club.

In all honesty, Close To The Bone is just a little bit worse than its predecessor: a bit shorter, a bit less inspired, somewhat less original, and with Alex Weir replacing Adrian Belew on guitar — not the greatest exchange in the world (and it did not work out that well for the Heads, either). But I would not describe it in terms of «sophomore slump», either: the mix of dance grooves, catchy hooks, and lyrical sarcasm remains satisfactory on the whole. Maybe the band moves even closer to B-52ʼs territory — which it would not be able to conquer because of too much shyness and caution (Tina and Chris could never match the stage and studio wildness of the B-52ʼs) — but the more grotesque elements they introduce into their music, the more it rises above the average dance-pop of the era.

They certainly are not being subtle about trying to follow the success of ʽGenius Of Loveʼ up with ʽPleasure Of Loveʼ. Unlike ʽGeniusʼ, ʽPleasureʼ has no instantly captivating melodic riff; it is all about the funky groove and the surprisingly retro atmosphere of the vocals floating above the groove — Tina and the rest of the Weymouth sisters deliver the lines if not with the power, then certainly with the exhilarating spirit of old school girl bands like The Shirelles. I actually like the song more than ʽGenius Of Loveʼ precisely because it is less flashy and more subtly funny, but it is also clear why it never gained the same attention. The other single was ʽThe Man With The 4-Way Hipsʼ, a more sharply defined synth-pop creation with a one-line chorus that runs the risk of quickly becoming annoying, but is still saved by one of Tinaʼs trademark bad(b)ass riffs, giving this somewhat generic tale of a master dancer the necessary sexiness.

Somewhat alarmingly, this is also an album on which Tina and Chris delve into social issues: ʽThis Is A Foxy Worldʼ is just another simple dance-pop anthem if you do not listen closely, but if you do, it is also a surprisingly modern-sounding feminist declaration ("hey boy whatʼs it gonna be / freedom for the sexes full equality / hey boy what do you say / equal work gets equal pay"). But the lyrics seem sillier on paper than they actually sound within the song — precisely because it is all so hush-hush, with Tinaʼs quiet husky falsetto driving it home surreptitiously rather than aggressively, so that the whole thing can be taken seriously or ironically depending on the situation. And when the very next song is ʽBamboo Townʼ, a moody dance ballad about a boy-loves-girl, girl-loves-boy, "bum diddly bum" situation, we are comprehensively back in vapor-head territory anyway, to such an extent where, if you did not properly understand the context, you might have really mistaken the artists for vapor-headed people.

If anything, the second album gives an even stronger impression that they are trying to invent IBM (Intelligent Bubblegum Music) that would be the equivalent of, say, the Ramones in the dance-pop sphere: a post-New Wave style of danceable music that is nevertheless dependent on playing dexterity, yet also deconstructs the romantic lyricism and emotional atmosphere of the music to a bare minimum — like some much needed antidote to Byrneʼs insufferably paranoid and cryptic style. This is, however, precisely the problem: all of this Tom Tom Club stuff works much better if you take it in the context of contemporary Talking Heads albums than if you took it completely on its own. (Although, given my original break-the-spell reaction to ʽGenius Of Loveʼ in the context of Stop Making Sense, I am almost surprised at myself for writing this). At the very least, it helps to know that the creator of this superficially bubblegummy schlock is the same person that is responsible for the bass line of ʽPsycho Killerʼ.

Even so, the public was not impressed: neither the album nor its accompanying singles managed to sell well, and even the success of ʽBurning Down The Houseʼ never really brushed off on the fate of Close To The Bone — which probably explains why there would be no follow-up until late 1988, by which time Naked was out and the future existence of Talking Heads as the same old four-piece unit was put in serious doubt. But this lack of acceptance, I believe, has more to do with the humbleness and general lack of flash than with the actual songwriting: after all, the record was released in the same month as Madonnaʼs debut — feel the difference between that one and Tom Tom Clubʼs old-fashioned way of courting. 

George Harrison: Extra Texture (Read All About It)

GEORGE HARRISON: EXTRA TEXTURE (READ ALL ABOUT IT) (1975)

1) You; 2) The Answerʼs At The End; 3) This Guitar (Canʼt Keep From Crying); 4) Ooh Baby (You Know That I Love You); 5) World Of Stone; 6) A Bit More Of You; 7) Canʼt Stop Thinking About You; 8) Tired Of Midnight Blue; 9) Grey Cloudy Lies; 10) His Name Is Legs (Ladies & Gentlemen).

General verdict: Bland, monotonously self-pitying, not particularly memorable, but still vaguely moving — this record will test your feelings for George for all theyʼre worth.

It is a bit tough to defend an album whose most memorable song (and pretty much the only one still featured on compilations and fondly remembered by critics) is an outtake from five years back: ʽYouʼ is a number that George originally donated to Ronnie Spector, and he did not even bother properly remaking it, utilising the original tape and simply throwing in a few more over­dubs. This is why you may be startled as the record begins playing, thinking that George has managed to rekindle the All Things Must Pass vibe — ʽYouʼ rushes along furiously with the same power as ʽWhat Is Lifeʼ and ʽAwaiting On You Allʼ, though its melodic structure is com­parably simpler (which is probably why it did not withstand competition in the first place).

You will also be misled into thinking that Extra Texture, Georgeʼs first album after the many disasters of 1974, will be a positive, life-asserting statement, an optimistic spiritual cry of defiance in the face of overwhelming, but bravely surmountable odds: that he is finding plenty of strength to go on as long as he has ʽyouʼ — be that a new human love or the old love for God, as it so frequently remains incomprehensible from the lyrics alone, like in classical Persian poetry or something. At the very least, somebody must have been misled back in 1975, when some people in the world still gave a damn about the next George Harrison record.

Alas, once the song is over, it becomes quite clear that not only was it the reddest of herrings, but that, in fact, Extra Texture is Georgeʼs grimmest, glummest, gloomiest, most self-pitying artistic statement to date — even beating out Dark Horse, which was hardly a walk in the park itself. No doubt shaken and stirred by the hostile reaction to his American tour, George pours it all out like never before. Just take a look at some of the words used in the songsʼ titles — "end", "crying", "stone", "tired", "blue", "grey", "lies"; there is hardly even a single reference to that consoling divine presence any more, this is like frickinʼ chapter 3 of The Book of Job all over again.

But that in itself would be okay. George really must have felt like shit at the time, and a great artist who sincerely feels like shit can make great use of it in the studio — and Harrison, of all people, was quite well known for converting sorrow and depression into fabulous music. The problem is that most of these songs are quite far from fabulous. They are not bad, but it seems that at this particular moment Georgeʼs knack for brilliant musical hooks had deserted him: the material is quite ordinary and looks like it was somehow self-forced out of the artist rather than flowed out of him through inspiration. Slow, monotonous, with hardly any striking new chord changes or inventive arrangement details, these songs read more like routine newspaper bulletins on the state of Georgeʼs mental and spiritual health. (Hence the albumʼs title, perhaps?).

A good case in point is ʽThis Guitar (Canʼt Keep From Crying)ʼ, a song that was very obviously conceptualized as a «sequel» to ʽWhile My Guitar Gently Weepsʼ — a bad, bad, bad idea. With clumsy and quickly dated lyrics ("learned to get up when I fall / Can even climb Rolling Stone walls" — poor rhythm, silly jab), a melody that seems like a seriously inferior, broken variation on the original classic, and very awkward and unnecessary use of the ARP synthesizer, it has a distinct whiff of unintentional self-parody. It demands to be taken seriously, but in the general context of George Harrison as a master songwriter this is impossible to do — in fact, it only makes matters worse. It might have been easier to stomach if it were openly parodic.

Much better is ʽThe Answerʼs At The Endʼ, whose verse melody recaptures some of the majesty of All Things and Living... — a simple, but stately progression with George clearly in better control of himself and the bass / piano dialogue reminiscent of ʽIsnʼt It A Pityʼ. But it pretty much falls apart in the chorus ("donʼt be so hard on the ones that you love..."), which is annoyingly repetitive, lacks a convincing conclusion and ultimately gets looped over and over again as if it were openly mocking the songʼs title — not only is there no answer, there is not even any suitably memorable end.

As the record goes by, you gradually understand that this slow, smooth, depressed vibe is going to characterize every single song — even love ballads such as ʽOoh Babyʼ and ʽCanʼt Stop Thinking About Youʼ are full of tragism: ʽOoh Babyʼ has lines like "I wonʼt say itʼs forever / Right now while weʼre together" and a vocal delivery that is somewhere in between «tenderest ever» and «dying dog», while ʽCanʼt Stop Thinking About Youʼ is about separation and loss, with a nice buildup in the verse but, once again, an excruciatingly repetitive chorus.

I do like the weepy flow of ʽWorld Of Stoneʼ and the quirky jazzy chords of ʽTired Of Midnight Blueʼ, but even those technically good songs overstay their welcome and very quickly run out of ideas. This is weird, because the overall song lengths do not seem that large compared to previous records, yet somehow there is this uneasy feel that every single tune here drags on and on, with the album severely padded out despite only having nine songs on it (the tenth track, ʽA Bit More Of Youʼ, as you can guess, is an all-too-brief reprise of ʽYouʼ at the beginning of Side B). Clearly this is just because the tempos, tones, and melodic backbones leave much to be desired.

The very last song is significantly different, yet it also happens to be pretty bad: ʽHis Name Is Legsʼ is a literally out-of-nowhere tribute to ʽLegsʼ Larry Smith, the drummer of The Bonzo Dog Band and Georgeʼs good pal — with lyrics that will only be comprehensible to major fans of the Bonzos and Monty Python and a jumpy, but oddly stiff melody with elements of funk-pop and absolutely no humorous undercurrent to it. I mean, if you are writing a tribute to a comedian, you might as well make it funny, no? And if you were in no shape to create something funny, then why indulge your good friend at precisely such an inconvenient moment in your life? A very weird and misguided gesture that ends this weird and misguided album on the most weird and misguided note one could ever imagine.

That said, while this is probably one of the least likely Harrison albums for me to revisit, Extra Texture holds enough sincerity and charisma to at least be accepted as another important chapter in the life of this extraordinary person. You do get to understand that he was feeling quite shitty, and you do get to sympathize; whether you would want to embrace these songs for yourself and save them up for your own rainy day is quite another matter. It is interesting, too, that George must have hit that wall at about the same time as John (whose own crisis was set in stone just one year earlier with Walls And Bridges) and just a wee bit earlier than Ringo (who was never that hot about spilling his own troubles on record, but would still go through a fairly dark streak in 1976–78). As for Paul... well, Paul had Wings. ʼNuff said. 

Beach House: 7

BEACH HOUSE: 7 (2018)

1) Dark Spring; 2) Pay No Mind; 3) Lemon Glow; 4) LʼInconnue; 5) Drunk In LA; 6) Dive; 7) Black Car; 8) Lose Your Smile; 9) Woo; 10) Girl Of The Year; 11) Last Ride.

General verdict: Making cosmetic adjustments to oneʼs sonic formula at the expense of hooks and original musical ideas is typically not a very good plan... but perhaps in 2018 itʼs the only plan that could work anyway.

The more it changes, the more it stays Beach House. Having previously released their B-Sides And Rarities as a separate album, Legrand and Scally stated that they were done "cleaning out the closet" and hinted at a new direction with their next project. It is safe to assume that nobody really expected them to move on to polkacore or vapormetal, but if change we must, then even the most minimal deviations from the established formula would inevitably end up in the very center of critical discussion. And indeed, be prepared to hear from a lot of different sides about how the duo has evolved, how they are taking risks, how they are moving outside established boundaries — in short, paraphrasing Dylan, "itʼs not Beach House, itʼs Beach Home!"

They even changed their producer, moving from long-term partner Chris Coady to Sonic Boom (Peter Kember) of Spacemen 3 fame; since the latter seems to be somewhat more versatile in the world of digital sound than the former, one could possibly expect more electronic textures, and, indeed, a few of the tracks are quite nastily splattered with the ubiquitous «church organ in your pocket» synth tones of the 2010s that mainstream and indie artists seem to love just about the same. That is, however, not a problem in itself. The problem is that, while I, like everybody else, can clearly see a desire to evolve here, I wish to God it was never present.

7 features a denser, heavier sound than all their earlier records — ʽDark Springʼ opens things with a full-on heavy drum roll, something that would be unimaginable in the early days, and the track is so bass-heavy that with but a few extra production tweaks, it could have become rock, something in the vein of British Sea Power or even Arcade Fire. Because of the icy restraint of the players and of Victoriaʼs predictably somnambulant vocals, it does not quite get to that level, but the damage has been done: ʽDark Springʼ is less magical and moody than classic Beach House stuff, but it does not compensate for this with rocking energy or dynamic instrumental passages. It also does not have even a single memorable hook: Legrand recites, rather than truly sings, the lyrics in a tired-sounding, monotonous manner, accompanied by a generic minimalist indie chord pattern — and at the end, Scally lets rip with an equally minimalist solo that sounds exactly like the average stuff on any given British Sea Power album.

My major disappointment in the album are the vocals. I do not know if Victoria happened to lose all her higher range or if this was intentional, but pretty much all the album is delivered at a single frequency, in a single mood, regardless of the tonality, tempo, or mood of the music. The difference between verses and choruses has been nullified by this approach, and with it, the only hope for me to memorize some of the songs (and yes, I still remember ʽZebraʼ and ʽUsed To Beʼ with their lovely dream-pop curvatures). But then the music, too, has become substantially less interesting: they may have changed the producer, added more drums ʼnʼ bass, but arguably the only time where the record tries to offer something out-of-the-ordinary is on ʽBlack Carʼ, which has a funny looped arpeggiated chiming pattern all over the place — in no way original (I think they end up sounding like the great late Broadcast that way), but at least temporarily pulling my attention out of the solid slumber state.

Also, after a few listens ʽDrunk In LAʼ suddenly emerged as the most disturbed and desperate song on the album, almost a cry for help — well, as much of a cry for help as you could expect from somebody frozen in liquid nitrogen. Maybe if they really took a serious risk and dared to break that musical ice, instead of solidifying it even further with all the new (old) keyboard tones, the song could have struck a genuine emotional chord. As it is, welcome to yet another teensy-weensy little deviation from the formula. For the same reason, I cannot fall head over heels in love with the «bold» transition from quiet dream-pop to loud arena-pop in the middle of ʽDiveʼ: the first half is too lulling and hookless — the second half sounds like somebody, well, totally half-assing it. If I want that kind of sound done properly, I will go to Arcade Fire. Otherwise, guys, just do what you do best — except that you seem to have sort of forgotten what it is.

With no desire whatsoever to talk about the other songs (if you have heard one, you pretty well have a good idea about them all), I will simply sum up that Beach House certainly stay true to their general conception and spirit on the album, and that their arduous task at upholding their «AC/DC of dream pop» reputation goes on unhindered (maybe Sonic Boom should be considered their personal ʽMuttʼ Lange, bringing their music into the next era of sound while at the same time making sure that nothing essential has changed). But the fact that these days it only takes a few tiny production tweaks to make critical opinion go "woo-wee, best album ever since their previous best album ever!" is funny — and depressing.

My Bloody Valentine: Ecstasy And Wine

MY BLOODY VALENTINE: ECSTASY AND WINE (1987; 1989)

1) Strawberry Wine; 2) Never Say Goodbye; 3) Can I Touch You; 4) She Loves You No Less; 5) The Things I Miss; 6) I Donʼt Need You; 7) (Youʼre) Safe In Your Sleep; 8) Clair; 9) You Got Nothing; 10) (Please) Lose Yourself In Me.

General verdict: A pretty brand of psycho-folk, but still with only indirect signs of the greatness to come.

This sounds much more like it. With Conway out of the band, replaced by amateur vocalist Bilinda Butcher (who was also made to play second guitar, despite having almost no prior experience with the instrument), the classic lineup of My Bloody Valentine is now in place; and by early 1987, Shields, who had emerged as the bandʼs primary songwriter and artistic leader, decided that, instead of bashing their luck against the dark rocks of «goth» and «post-punk», the band should focus on its natural strengths and go in a more psychedelic pop direction. The shift of direction was so abrupt and thorough that they even contemplated changing the bandʼs name (seing as how there was hardly anything «bloody» about this new music), but ultimately stayed true to the old moniker because (a) they were unable to come up with anything better and (b) they probably secretly enjoyed the dissonance between the terrifying self-appellation and the soothing musical content behind it.

The album under review was actually issued a couple of years after the release of the original material: it puts together their early three-song single ʽStrawberry Wineʼ, where the new sound fully coalesced for the first time, and the following seven-song mini-album Ecstasy, both of them released on the Lazy Records label. Together, this makes for about half an hour of continuous play — and, although the sound is consistently pleasant, thirty minutes is actually still much too long for this kind of stuff.

Much of what would later make Loveless so great is already here — the lulling dream-pop guitar rhythms, the vocal harmonization between Kevin and Bilinda where the latter plays a romantic dream echo for the former, and, most importantly, the ghostly production where the guitars and vocals seem to diffuse into each other, creating a dirty-ish, lo-fi-ish psychedelic effect that can be visualised as «making your way through the deadwood of a magic forest late at night». What is still missing, however, is the ability to create strong instrumental hooks and monumental walls of acoustic and electric sound to go along with them. (Interestingly, the majority of the songs depend on acoustic jangle rather than electric distortion — at this point, the band has rejected heaviness so completely that they would have to catch up on it later on).

If you have heard ʽStrawberry Wineʼ, you probably already have a very good idea of how the rest of the record is going to sound: fast, energetic, lo-fi, and — if you can make out any of the lyrics, which you are not really expected to — surprisingly influenced by the old folk scene when it comes to verbalizing some of the emotions, though, truth be told, the text of ʽStrawberry Wineʼ is largely just a collection of old-timey lyrical clichés that could quite easily be produced by one of those modern songwriting bots ("misty morning in the springtime... on the darkside let the light shine... these lips will find strawberry wine..." etc. etc.). Melody-wise, they are influenced by both Cocteau Twins and The Smiths, but ʽStrawberry Wineʼ and its ilk have the complexities and intricacies of neither — the band membersʼ instrumental skills are amateurish, and the voices of Kevin and Bilinda, though very pleasant and soothing, have no special coloring to them. On the other hand, these circumstances also make the material easily accessible: artsy and psychedelic, sure, but burdened with none of the weirdness that can put an inexperienced listener off Liz Fraser or Morrissey.

Some of the songs go even deeper in time in regard to their influences: slow ballads such as ʽCan I Touch Youʼ are really just your good old-fashioned Sonny & Cher-style folk-pop given a modern lo-fi sonic coating, while ʽClairʼ sounds like a long-lost Byrds outtake from circa the 5th Dimension period. And in those rare instances where they decide to throw in some electric distortion and fuzz, after all, the result is an equally old-school garage rock sound (sentimental on ʽThe Things I Missʼ, more hard-rocking on ʽLose Yourself In Meʼ). This is not particularly important for this early try at artistic relevance, but it does help to understand where My Bloody Valentine were really coming from and what actually made them so different from the majority of «shoegazers» — they really had a fairly conservative attitude when it came to songwriting, and it is mainly their manipulations with soundwaves that made all the difference.

In any case, unless you are a major fan of guitar jangle that can, for instance, differentiate between each and every album (or song!) released by The Bats, Ecstasy And Wine, like This Is My Bloody Valentine, will largely be interesting for historical reasons — though, unlike its predecessor, it can actually be enjoyed through and through without involuntary reactions of the «oh, what a pitiful attempt to sound like so-and-so» variety. Also, it is one of the best places to go if you want to hear what Kevinʼs and Bilindaʼs voices really sound like, or even to discern some of the English syllables that they are enunciating — not that the latter matters much, since the lyrics arenʼt anything to write home about, either. 

Talking Heads: Speaking In Tongues

TALKING HEADS: SPEAKING IN TONGUES (1983)

1) Burning Down The House; 2) Making Flippy Floppy; 3) Girlfriend Is Better (For Alex Alex); 4) Slippery People; 5) I Get Wild / Wild Gravity; 6) Swamp; 7) Moon Rocks; 8) Pull Up The Roots; 9) This Must Be The Place (Naive Melody).

General verdict: A gentle, but satisfactory, funk-poppy slide off the heights of Remain In Light — fortunately, still crazy after all these years.

Whether or not Talking Heads, under certain circumstances, could have made another Remain In Light — or, more accurately, an album that would dare go even further than Remain In Light, thrusting the gates to another musical dimension wide open — is an open question. What they did instead was take a break and focus on their solo projects — and when they got back together, things would never be the same again. The level-A magic was gone; the big bird flew the coop.

Not that Speaking In Tongues is a bad record, by any means. Taken on a song-by-song basis, it is perfectly consistent and can still be safely counted as one of the best pop albums of 1983. But its ambitions were thoroughly different. Without Eno, without Belew, featuring a large variety of first-rate funk and electropop session players, Speaking In Tongues is no longer a musical link between archaic primal forces and futuristic projections, as was Remain In Light, but rather something that I would simply call Intelligent Dance Music, if only that term werenʼt hijacked by a specific brand of electronic artists a decade later.

One could chalk this up to the personal influence of David Byrne and his monopolizing the group, but unless we are willing to include footage from Stop Making Sense as evidence of that, one could equally well say that there is plenty of Tom Tom Club influence in Speaking In Tongues just as well. A better supposition would be that the band had a «burnout» of sorts, or, even more simple, realized that Remain In Light took things too far in terms of complexity — after all, they would not want to take half of Africa with them on tour every single time they would have to promote new material. So Speaking In Tongues leaves in and further develops all the funk themes they had introduced, but largely abandons the costly overdubs, the imposing atmospheres, and the cosmic implications of its predecessor. This is their «lightest» album since 1978, and, all the «why donʼt you do something greater than great?» quibbles aside, they had certainly earned a right to make a light album.

They certainly earned a right for some serious commercial success as well: ʽBurning Down The Houseʼ sounds very much like an intentional, hard-pressed, clenched-teeth effort to make the charts, and make them they did — the only time that the band made it into the US Top 10. The song has a party groove to it: only the most devoted fan would distinguish some of Davidʼs trademark paranoia in the lyrics, vocals, and musical arrangement. The rest would just take the song as an irresistible invitation to dance — even despite the oddly ululating acoustic fade-in that opens the song on a weird, suspenseful note before it bursts into an all-out dance craze. There is no other song in the bandʼs catalog that comes as close to being an unbridled celebration of the joie de vivre, something that is even reflected in the live performance on Stop Making Sense, with every single player just goofing off without a second thought.

However, anyone caught off guard with that opening explosion and terrified that the Heads might have crudely sold out to cheap «poptimism» will most likely be reassured as soon as ʽBurning Down The Houseʼ fades out, giving way to more familiar territory — social awkwardness, fear of life, perception of everything around as potential problems, and, at the end of it all, a faint glimpse of possible salvation: this time, openly stated in the lyrics and reinforced by the music. ʽBurning Down The Houseʼ is a song for everybody; everything else on Speaking In Tongues is for registered members of the David Byrne Society.

Return to familiar spiritual / atmospheric territory does not mean, however, that Speaking In Tongues is a complete musical retread to the rhythms and textures of 1977–78. For one thing, the Heads are no longer a minimalist four-piece band: keyboards, intermittently played by all four members as well as guest musicians, are by now an absolutely integral part of the sound, though (fortunately, I would say) they are still somewhat conservatively relegated to the function of offering a countermelody or ambient decorations. For another thing, the rhythms and riffs are very strongly influenced by the contemporary electropop scene — everything from Prince to late-era Funkadelic — and this results in a slight simplification of the classic Heads sound, with the Byrne/Harrison guitar interplay no longer serving as the focal point; even on such relatively uncluttered tracks as ʽMoon Rocksʼ it is more about the rhythmic groove itself than the melodic effect generated by the interweaving of rhythmic grooves.

Nevertheless, the songwriting talent and the work ethics of the band are still very much in place. Even if the songs are, on the whole, less complex and more accessible, they are all catchy, odd, and true to the bandʼs spirit; also, even as the music gets simpler, Byrneʼs lyrics grow more and more cryptic as time goes by, so each specific song is best described in question form — is ʽMaking Flippy Floppyʼ about personality disorders? is ʽGirlfriend Is Betterʼ discussing woman problems or is it about delirium? is ʽSlippery Peopleʼ a political rant or is it about hallucinogens? these are all stimulating things to think about as you give in to all of these songsʼ rhythmic temptations and slowly begin to realize that Tinaʼs bass may have surreptitiously crept in to occupy the place of top-crucial-instrument throughout the record (Tom Tom Club strikes again!).

Eventually, you might find yourself in danger of feeling that all the songs kind of gravitate towards each other and cluster in a single monotonous mess, as it may have happened on More Songs. To prevent this, the album breaks up the proceedings with ʽSwampʼ, an unexpected piece of 4/4 blues-rock that could be construed as somewhat of a tribute to John Lee Hooker and all them other murky dark blues guys from long ago ("now let me tell you a story / the devil has a plan..." is a pretty telling commencement) — except that, somehow, it also manages to sound like a Teutonic war march (particularly in the "hi hi hi hi hi" chorus), so... more like John Lee Hitler to me (I always half-expect to see Byrne sporting a moustache for his Stop Making Sense performance of this number). Of course, it only becomes creepy when you begin overthinking it, but the advantage of Talking Heads is that their music deserves overthinking more often than not.

Even the discomfort of ʽSwampʼ, however, does not properly purge the feeling that the band has somewhat sold out to the good times — not that thereʼs anything inherently wrong with this, not if the required optimistic coda to the album is represented by a song as charming as ʽThis Must Be The Placeʼ (with a slight feel of humble embarrassment, subtitled ʽNaive Melodyʼ). This one shows David giving in to sentimentalism, which in the past was either suppressed or played out ironically (ʽThe Big Countryʼ); but he redeems himself with a vocal flow that smoothly goes from energetically-passionate to soft croon, and with one of the most unforgettably delivered opening lines in the history of sentimental pop ("home is where I want to be" — uttered in the precise intonation of somebody who has just returned from a long, tiresome journey to the end of this funky world). Arguably, the beauty of this song can be best understood in the context of Stop Making Sense (the lamp! the lamp!), but here, too, it forms a wonderfully placating conclusion to the overall herky-jerky experience — a far cry from the unresolved doom-laden suspense of ʽThe Overloadʼ that left us cliff-hanginʼ at the end of Remain In Light.

In the end, there is this sneaky lingerinʼ feeling that on Speaking In Tongues, the Heads are, every now and then, dipping into somebody elseʼs tongue — playing too much of the general game rather than focusing strictly on their own one. Intentionally or not, this is their first record where they are more trend-followers than trend-setters. But sooner or later, it happens to every­body anyway, and classy, intelligent, entertaining trend-following is a cool and rare art in itself, so here you are with another respectable chapter in the history of a band which, arguably, had already earned twice as much respect as most of the competition. 

Paul McCartney: Venus And Mars

VENUS AND MARS (1975)

1) Venus And Mars; 2) Rock Show; 3) Love In Song; 4) You Gave Me The Answer; 5) Magneto And Titanium Man; 6) Letting Go; 7) Venus And Mars (reprise); 8) Spirits Of Anicent Egypt; 9) Medicine Jar; 10) Call Me Back Again; 11) Listen To What The Man Said; 12) Treat Her Gently / Lonely Old People; 13) Crossroads.

General verdict: Paulʼs slightly overdue answer to the glam-rock era — professional, perfectionist, and ultimately quite confusing, though there is no denying the high entertainment value.

Rock critics have rarely, if ever, shown any serious love for the post-Band On The Run career of Wings — and even if they are wrong in general, it is hard not to acknowledge a certain barely tangible, but persistent line that separates the (perhaps involuntarily) visionary soundscapes of Band from the somewhat shallower and trendier sound of Venus And Mars. By early 1975, it was clear that Paul had his mind set on becoming a rock star once again; and to do that, he needed a record with a big, crunchy sound, adapted for the era of glam-rock and arena-rock. Inspiration for such an album would now be coming not from the seedy depths of Africa, but from the much more safe and familiar American territory — New Orleans and Los Angeles, where most of Venus And Mars would be recorded. The band, too, would be much bigger: in addition to the core trio (Paul / Linda / Denny), there would be young guitar wizard / drug addict Jimmy McCulloch, a separate drummer (Geoff Britton, later replaced by Joe English), and plenty of guests, as could be expected for anybody recording in New Orleans.

The results were satisfactory: Venus And Mars provides a ton of fun, including some seriously underrated compositional gems, great arrangements, and solid feels. But it takes one more step in the direction of turning Wings into an actual band, and one that is more likely to obey current trends than set them. The first goal is achieved by having Wings members that are not Paul either write some of the songs or sing them, as well as make even more use of group harmonies on the heavier numbers, taking attention away from Paul. The second implies an abundance of heavy guitar riffage, cosmic synthesizers, and overblown production — the only things missing are long flowing hair, glitzy costumes, and chest hair a-plenty (and you would get all of that on the ensuing tour... well, maybe without the chest hair; apparently, Paul is shy about that).

Granted, some of this is very tongue-in-cheek. ʽRock Showʼ, the first big number on the record, is clearly more of a parody on arena-rock than the real thing — with its BIG sound, proto-Spinal Tappish lyrics ("in my green metal suit I'm preparing to shoot up the city!"), sarcastic references to Jimmy Page and stretched out hell-raising coda, it was never meant to be taken seriously. It is hilarious, and musically interesting — two different bridges, an uplifting pop riff carrying the main melody, complex overdubs, party atmosphere — but it occupies the same spot as ʽJetʼ (with which it would later be joined in a single medley in concert), and it ainʼt no ʽJetʼ. ʽJetʼ was more than just fun — it was an inspiring flight of fantasy, hard-rocking, funny, and romantic at the same time. ʽRock Showʼ, in comparison, is just a tongue-in-cheek commentary on the mid-1970s rock scene — which is why, unlike ʽJetʼ, it quickly became musically and lyrically dated, and would only be briefly resuscitated by Paul in concert in the 21st century when he became looking for old forgotten goodies in order to add diversity to the setlist.

More show tunes that cannot be taken seriously follow one after another. ʽYou Gave Me The Answerʼ is an old style music hall number, a bit of a Fred Astaire tribute, that follows in the footsteps of ʽHoney Pieʼ but has none of that songʼs sly humor — just the melodicity, catchiness, and a bit of that irresistible (or annoying, depending on your constitution) sugary falsetto from Paul. ʽMagneto And Titanium Manʼ is a bouncy, super-energized pop tribute to Marvel Comics that is... good enough for fans of Marvel Comics, I guess. ʽSpirits Of Ancient Egyptʼ is a deeply strange number whose grim, claustrophobic production style and hyperbolic lyrics make it sound like a psycho killerʼs love declaration — could be disturbing, if not for Denny Laineʼs lack of sufficient coolness to pull it off and for unfortunate stringing of lyrics into sequences such as "you're my baby and I love you... I'm your baby, do you love me?". And ʽCall Me Back Againʼ, a slow New Orleanian soul number, is ruined by Paul locking himself in shouting mode for the entire duration of the song — I suppose he wanted to have another ʽOh Darlingʼ here, but ended up overcooking the brew to the point where it lost all taste.

This is not to say that all of these are bad songs: I enjoy most of them, have most of the hooks entrenched in my head from childhood, and even have fun singing along to "hung on the telly, hung on the telly, hung on the telephone" and "the Crimson Dynamo just couldnʼt cut it no more". It just seems that this time around, Paul was not able to infuse them with enough personality — that bit of human empathy in ʽPicassoʼs Last Wordsʼ, the weary strand of misanthropy of ʽMrs. Vanderbiltʼ, let alone the homebrewn, intimate atmosphere of all the silly excourses in Ram, all of this replaced with an atmosphere that is more carnival, or even burlesque, in essence. Not that Paul was not entitled to a bit of carnivalesque atmosphere — but in the end, it allows one to make the point that «Venus And Mars is sillier than Band On The Run», and then you have the uneasy task to prove that in true art, «silly» is never inherently inferior to «intelligent», and all that accompanying jazz. You know how it is.

The real bad news is that behind all the silliness, one tends to lose track of the several moments of pure greatness. In particular, two of the ballads on the album may be easily planted in the already rich gallery of McCartneyʼs sad-and-lonesome masterpieces. There is ʽLove In Songʼ, another case of nominally cheery lyrics backed by an incredibly melancholic melody, rising to a painful breakdown in the "I can see the places..." bridge section — wedged in between the inebriated glam theater of ʽRock Showʼ and the manneristic tap dancing of ʽYou Gave Me The Answerʼ, it is easily missable, and even Paul himself never cared to perform it live, but it deserves all the acclaim it can ever get. And at the end of the record comes a mish-mashed performance of ʽTreat Her Gentlyʼ and ʽLonely Old Peopleʼ that has Paul at his most humanistic. Melody-wise, this ainʼt no ʽFor No Oneʼ and ʽEleanor Rigbyʼ mashed in one, of course: these are fairly simple, one-trick pop ballads with plenty of repetition and not a lot of invention in the arrangements, but Paul can be utterly convincing in minimalist mode as well.

Another absolute highlight in another style is ʽLetting Goʼ, a song that establishes and develops a mighty groove that actually kicks more ass than ʽLet Me Roll Itʼ — the first thirty seconds before the vocals come in are my single favourite musical moment on the record: the dirty blues inter­play between Dennyʼs and Jimmyʼs guitars, the deep rumble of Paulʼs bass, the way Jimmy deviates from the set course into a few bars of aggressive soloing before he is cut off by the vocals... if somebody ever needed proof that Wings could be a real tougher-than-nails rockʼnʼroll band when they really wanted to, no need to go further. Cherry on the tart: the pompous brass interlude in the middle, followed by a short and utterly brilliant in its rise-and-fall guitar solo from McCulloch.

And speaking of McCulloch, his own contribution to the album, the hard-rocking anti-drug prayer / anthem ʽMedicine Jarʼ, is one of the finest overproduced rock songs of the mid-1970s. Again, the song went out of circulation after the Wingsʼ world tour of 1975–76, and there is nothing particularly «Paulish» about it other than the smooth bass part, but with its sonic thunderstorm, another brilliant guitar solo, seriously touching vocals from Jimmy, and strong lyrical message (particularly strong, of course, in light of McCullochʼs subsequent demise from overdosing), it manages to give Venus And Mars a strong push in the right direction rather than drag it down with a perfunctory «non-Paul» performance. That moment when Jimmy breaks into the solo and launches it all the way into the stratosphere is the most acutely felt «help-me-now-Iʼm-falling» moment on the entire record (though the bridge on ʽLove In Songʼ comes close).

Unfortunately, all these great tunes are usually downplayed by the success of ʽListen To What The Man Saidʼ, another #1 single for Paul in the States — an immaculately crafted, instantly memorable fast pop song with great sax work from Tom Scott, but a bit too «clubby» for my tastes: I can easily see it sharing the bill with something like ABBAʼs ʽDancing Queenʼ, and while I am a big fan of both artists, I would prefer them doing their own schticks rather than encroaching on each otherʼs territory. This one definitely goes with chest hair — and this time, you donʼt even get a sense of irony or anything.

As you can tell by now, the album is one hell of a mixed bag. Greatness mixed with silliness, heart-wrenching moments alternating with pure schlock, and not a whiff of conceptuality in sight, despite the softly epic title track trying to tie together both sides of the record. "Venus and Mars are all right tonight" — a message that could mean just about anything; on the Wings tour, it was taken to mean «here, if the times demand it, I will be your own personal Ziggy Stardust for this one particular evening». At the time, Venus And Mars dutifully fulfilled its task — provided the band with enough original material to play on tour. Once the tour ended, the album was more or less retired, and, unlike Ram, its reputation never truly recovered, for reasons that are easy to understand. Still — it is consistently melodic, it is fun, it gives you Paulʼs own take on the big crunchy rockʼnʼroll sound of the mid-1970s (you may take it or leave it), it has a few really great songs, and it has special added charm for fans of Marvel Comics and Fred Astaire. Are we really going to hold its relative lack of depth against it?.. Well, even if we do, I will still take a shallow Paul McCartney circa 1975 over a deep [insert your favorite 21st century artist here] circa [insert any year from 2000 to 2018 here — except maybe 2004, because, you know, Funeral came out in 2004] any time of day. 

Alice In Chains: Rainier Fog

ALICE IN CHAINS: RAINIER FOG (2018)

1) The One You Know; 2) Rainier Fog; 3) Red Giant; 4) Fly; 5) Drone; 6) Deaf Ears Blind Eyes; 7) Maybe; 8) So Far Under; 9) Never Fade; 10) All I Am.

General verdict: Yet another pile of generic mock-grunge sludge to tarnish the good name of Alice In Chains, the Seattle musical scene, and rock music in general.

Unfortunately, my hopes did not come to pass. Five years after The Devil Put Dinosaurs Here (has it really been that long? feels like yesterday!), the bunch of second-rate impersonators calling themselves Alice In Chains are back again to saddle us with one more hour of songs that have no reason to exist other than gently flog the still quite dead horse of Seattle grunge. The only difference is that the flogging is now accompanied with flashier PR: the album title itself refers to Mount Rainier, and the album release was promoted with several well-advertised Seattle gigs and even a pop-up museum installation on the bandʼs history.

All of which, actually, is a rare case where PR activity is superior to the main work. Going to an Alice In Chains concert or educating oneself on the history of Alice In Chains is one thing — trudging through this predictable, unbearably generic sludge is quite another. Rainier Fog passes the «bland shit» test with flying colors: two listens in, I cannot remember a single musical phrase or vocal hook from any of the songs — at best, I have a distinct recollection that some of these phrases and hooks very vaguely reminded me of certain moments from Facelift and Dirt, albums that still live on quite vividly in my memory even if I may not have relistened to them properly for several years.

At this point, I think, the band is doing a disservice not only to itself but also to the rock genre in general: younger generations who have no idea what the fuss is about and whose first exposure to the world of grunge guitars and rock screaming just might be this album will only emerge from the experience with a strong sense of disbelief about how anybody in anybodyʼs right mind could ever enjoy something like this. Believe me, kids, there used to be a time when (the best) grunge singers could actually convey feelings of real spiritual pain, rather than sound like monotonously programmed voice synthesizers. And there used to be a time when guitar players like Jerry Cantrell could search out the most motherfuckingly meanest guitar tones in existence and use them to play chord changes that actually reminded you of a real Mount Rainier eruption, rather than of tranquil rivers of dense shit steadily flowing through Seattleʼs sewers.

Rainier Fog offers no variety, no diversity, not a single musical, vocal, or lyrical idea that has not already been executed in better form by these guys themselves or any of their other Seattle pals. There is very little to distinguish one song from another; of course, Alice In Chains were never known for featuring variegated mood palettes, but at least they could range from angry to pensive to mournful to agonizing — Rainier Fog enters the «slow simulated anger» mode on the first track and never ever lets go, even on the one and only track where they switch to acoustic guitars for a brief spell (ʽFlyʼ — which the song refuses to do), not to mention the excruciatingly torturous seven-minute finale (ʽAll I Amʼ), a dirge based on, I think, a totality of two musical phrases that might have been recovered by Cantrell over a couple of minutes of «creativity».

None of this is a surprise — you would have to be an almost parody-level kind of optimist to expect a miracle after the previous two records. The only thing that still seems surprising is the occasionally encountered reaction of admiration, from fans and critics alike, for how Alice In Chains still manage to «evolve» and «find new directions». "The band are much more than a simple grunge band these days", writes one journalist (right, and in the Layne Staley days they were apparently just a simple grunge band!); the band is "breathing new life into their signature sound, with a diverse (sic!) and deeply emotional collection that history will surely view as a career-defining statement", writes another — are you shitting me? Come on guys, this is Jerry frickinʼ Cantrell you are writing about, not Pablo Escobar. He is harmless, he can take some well-deserved beating — nobody is going to deprive him of his past laurels for his current sins. Oh well, at least their album sales seem to be slipping at this point; maybe that is a good sign (who knows, maybe if The Devil Put Dinosaurs Here did not miraculously hit #2 on the charts, they would have lacked the incentive to churn out this even shittier follow-up). 

My Bloody Valentine: This Is Your Bloody Valentine

MY BLOODY VALENTINE: THIS IS YOUR BLOODY VALENTINE (1985)

1) Forever And Again; 2) Homelovinʼ Guy; 3) Donʼt Cramp My Style; 4) Tiger In My Tank; 5) The Love Gang; 6) Inferno; 7) The Last Supper.

General verdict: Not so much humble as slavish beginnings; a historical curio that is as astonishingly disconnected from the bandʼs major legacy as your baby teeth are from your grave.

Okay, I honestly wish I didnʼt have to do this, but since I do run a small collection of «hopelessly hopeless beginnings by future great artists» down in my imaginary basement, This Is Your Bloody Valentine still requires a quick check-in. Recorded somewhere in West Berlin sometime in late 1984, this seven-song mini-album fulfills the important mission of letting you, the listener, understand why the band that made Loveless happened to be called My Bloody Valentine in the first place. Featuring seven songs, with all credits shared equally by guitar / bass player Kevin Shields, drummer Colm Ó Cíosóig, and vocalist David Conway, this mini-album is a collection of just about every cliché that these guys could appropriate from the post-punk, goth-rock, and noise-rock underground of the late 1970s / early 1980s — and nothing else.

It is not unlistenable: the West Berlin production is passable, the playing is decent enough, and Conway had some vocal talent to burn. And, at least in theory, there is nothing inherently wrong in having your first album sound way too close to its influences. Problems begin when you under­stand that there is nothing here, nothing at all, except for unsatisfactory results of the process of searching for oneʼs own identity. On one song, this results in them sounding exactly like Bauhaus; on another, they end up sounding exactly like The Birthday Party; a third one, and you get Joy Division; fourth, you get Echo And The Bunnymen; fifth, you get The Smiths. The only thing you do not get at all is even a single sign that this band is going anywhere special. Or just any­where, period. This is as generically imitative as it gets.

I suppose we could congratulate them on some impressive imitation talents — Conway pulls off quite a convincing Morrissey on ʽThe Last Supperʼ (even though Tina Durkinʼs keyboard solo is more close to ʽLight My Fireʼ era Ray Manzarek), and his Peter Murphy on ʽForever And Againʼ ainʼt half-bad either. On the other hand, his Nick Cave on ʽDonʼt Cramp My Styleʼ could use a lot more roar and gargle — clearly, Conway never possessed the required madman essence. As for Shields, I suppose that some of the guitar and bass melodies here could serve as indications of the talents-to-come, but the manʼs major contribution to mankind would be in the form of sonic textures rather than chord sequences, and since there are no original sonic textures here to speak of, all we can do is pretend to enjoy the deeply derivative feedback crunches or, occasionally, the even more deeply derivative fuzzy garage riffs that hearken all the way back to the Nuggets era (ʽTiger In My Tankʼ could just as well be written by The Chocolate Watchband).

From this point of view, I suppose that really huge fans of the entire early 1980s post-punk scene, the ones who just keep on wanting more and more of the same, could allocate enough time and goodwill to enjoy this stuff. Those who love their MBV for the stuff that made them MBV and not second-rate imitators, though, will simply accept this as a brief lesson on the bandʼs history. 

Talking Heads: The Name Of This Band Is Talking Heads

TALKING HEADS: THE NAME OF THIS BAND IS TALKING HEADS (1977-1981; 1982)

CD I: 1) New Feeling; 2) A Clean Break (Let's Work); 3) Don't Worry About The Government; 4) Pulled Up; 5) Psycho Killer; 6) Who Is It?; 7) The Book I Read; 8) The Big Country; 9) I'm Not In Love; 10) The Girls Want To Be With The Girls; 11) Electricity (Drugs); 12) Found A Job; 13) Mind; 14) Artists Only; 15) Stay Hungry; 16) Air; 17) Love > Building On Fire; 18) Memories (Can't Wait); 19) Heaven.
CD 2: 1) Psycho Killer; 2) Warning Sign; 3) Stay Hungry; 4) Cities; 5) I Zimbra; 6) Drugs (Electricity); 7) Once In A Lifetime; 8) Animals; 9) Houses In Motion; 10) Born Under Punches (The Heat Goes On); 11) Crosseyed And Painless; 12) Life During Wartime; 13) Take Me To The River; 14) The Great Curve.

General verdict: Hard work, adventurous innovation, boundless energy, constant evolution — you know you have yourself the gold standard for live albums when you somehow manage to combine all four.

More than any other classic live album aside from, perhaps, The Whoʼs Live At Leeds, this chronological retrospective of the evolution of Talking Headsʼ live sound from 1977 to 1980 is a living monument to the benefits of the CD format. Originally released in 1982 as a (relatively) humble double LP that could have easily fitted onto a single laser disc, twenty-two years later The Name Of This Band was lovingly doubled in length, clocking in now at an impressive one hundred and fifty-six minutes and containing live versions of approximately two-thirds of the band's entire catalog up to Remain In Light — preserving the correct chronological order, and only including duplicate recordings for a small handful of tunes, many of which had evolved almost beyond recognition anyway (ʽPsycho Killerʼ).

Was this behemoth mutation necessary, or was it merely another case of archival overkill? I have no idea how to answer this objectively; all I remember from my own experience is that the very first notes of ʽNew Feelingʼ got me hooked so much that I munched through the entire 156 minutes in one sitting, and that The Name Of This Band is still one of the very few live albums from post-1975 artists for which I have a very, very special (if no longer exactly ʽnewʼ) feeling. Not only that, but it is also one of the very few live albums from post-1975 artists that might arguably be better than the respective studio records — more accurately, I think that, if I had to choose, I would have easily traded ʼ77 and More Songs for the first of these two CDs, and that the only reason why Fear Of Music and Remain In Light would have to remain is Brian Enoʼs production, some aspects of which understandably could not be recaptured on stage.

One thing that we often overlook, if not forget, about Talking Heads is that behind all the show­manship, all the weirdness and eccentricity of their art used to lie an insane amount of harsh self-discipline — it is totally not a coincidence that out of all the New Wave acts, it was the Heads that were selected by Robert Fripp, the hardest working man in progressive rock, as the role model for the Eightiesʼ reinvention of King Crimson. Their early formative years at CBGB were spent not in merely trying to find and define their artistic niche, but, perhaps even more im­portantly, in turning themselves into a perfectly churning four-headed machine of funk-pop-a-roll that could find no equals or even similars. Like, the first thing you obviously notice about David Byrne when watching the bandʼs early videos are his jerky antics — the second thing is that behind these antics, the man actually manages to be complex, precise, and super-expressive on his guitar, even when singing and dancing at the same time. Without all that grueling, exhausting disciplinary action there would be no Remain In Light — whose polyrhythmic perfection could only be achieved after years and years of training.

What is even more astonishing, though, is that the results of this training are even clearer felt on the band's live recordings than in the studio. Of course, the tracks that constitute The Name Of... were culled from a variety of shows, ranging from small gigs broadcast live in radio studios before a very small audience to much larger venues (culminating in a major performance in New Yorkʼs Central Park) — but even if we cannot guarantee that every night in the bandʼs history of live performing sounded like that, what difference does it make? All the way through, Tinaʼs bass typically sounds louder, grumblier, heavier than in the studio; Chrisʼ drums sound imbued with more energy and precision than in the studio; and the Byrne/Harrison guitar interplay seems to be locked in even more complex and well-timed grooves than in the studio. Admittedly, this might be an illusion that is primarily caused by technical aspects — differences automatically stemming from production techniques employed in different environments. But I am sure that it also has everything to do with the same old dilemma that, for instance, used to transform The Who into two absolutely different bands: one hunting for a more melodic, polished, nuanced sound in the studio, another one going for an all-out kick-ass energy ball in the concert venue.

In the New Wave era, this differentiation was largely abandoned, as one half of the new artists simply sought to reproduce their studio sound onstage as carefully as possible (which makes live albums by bands such as The Cure fairly redundant, since it was technically impossible to transfer all their studio complexities to the stage), while the other half, on the contrary, were bent on reproducing the wildness of their live shows in the studio (which is why punk rock usually works better live). Talking Heads were one of the very few new acts who remembered the old perks of having yourself a studio avatar vs. a live avatar — all the more charming for one of the most innovative / progressive acts of the decade — and this is why hearing all your old favorites in these live versions, instead of being predictably boring, ends up breathing new life in them. (For the record, I never even began to properly differentiate between all the different-but-similar numbers on More Songs before being introduced to their counterparts here).

Speaking in terms of highlights and lowlights makes no sense for an album like this, so I will just mention a couple of special moments to illustrate my general points. For one thing, the scary intro to ʽMemories (Can't Wait)ʼ is made just a bit scarier when Harrison brings in more diversity to his lead guitar countermelody, playing scragglier, jaggier, angrier chords butting against Davidʼs steady rhythm playing (for some reason, in this arrangement the songʼs main melody reminds me even more of one of Iommiʼs riffs from Black Sabbathʼs ʽWar Pigsʼ — coincidence or not, this is the main source of the creepy vibe). The slightly extended intro to ʽPsycho Killerʼ, with David and Jerry playing in different tonalities, the former doing his chunky-funky thing and the latter weaving in a bit of a blues-pop guitar melody, adds delicious tension as you wait with bated breath for them to «come together» for the main twin riff. And the crescendo coda to ʽFound A Jobʼ, with both guitar players, perfectly aware of each other's presence, laying on extra volume and intensity with every next few bars, just makes it all so much more real than the studio version, where the idea of mutual competition was nowhere near as well-pronounced.

Special mention should be made of ʽA Clean Break (Letʼs Work)ʼ, one of the bandʼs best early songs which, for some unknown reason, never made it onto any of the studio albums — a true funk-pop thunderstorm and an excellent showcase for Byrne/Harrison «guitar dialogue» tech­niques, with Byrne, as usual, providing most of the funk and Jerry compensating for this with poppy licks and occasional blues-rock explosions, all taken at top speed and seasoned with some more trademark vocal hysterics (although the song is so fun that it is hardly possible to take David's "in a minute I'll wash that love away!" close to serious).

The second disc, whose tracks were all taken from the Remain In Light tour, is a much different affair: this was the «deluxe» version of Talking Heads, the expanded ultra-special show with a grand entourage, adding backing vocalists (Nona Hendryx in particular), extra keyboard and percussion players, and, most significantly, Adrian Belew on third (or second, depending on whether Byrne was playing or clowning) guitar. This partially justifies the inclusion of alternate versions of some of the songs — the coda to ʽPsycho Killerʼ, for instance, is completely trans­formed under Adrianʼs maniacal influence as he single-handedly turns the song into ʽPsycho Arcade Game Playerʼ; but it also makes possible to render sufficient justice to all those Remain In Light masterpieces like ʽThe Great Curveʼ that would have been nowhere near as impressive without Adrian or the extra singers supplying the kaleidoscope of vocal melodies and counter­melodies. Unfortunately, the second disc is still just a tad less effective than the first one because there is less space left for improvisation and individual touches — nevertheless, Belew never plays the same solo twice, and the disclaimer is really only valid for Remain In Light material that occupies less than half of the discʼs running time. (In contrast, this live version of ʽLife During Wartimeʼ kicks the shit out of the studio original — in no small part due to Bernie Worrellʼs added clavinet solos that complement the songʼs paranoid mood admirably).

Regardless, one of the great aspects of this retrospective is that it is... well, a retrospective. Some of those «watch-me-through-the-years» spectacles end up relatively disappointing, like Bruce Springsteenʼs Live 1975–85, where you see the artist, while consistently retaining the same level of energy and professionalism, gradually succumb to more and more arena-rock clichés. Here, on the contrary, you see Talking Heads grow and develop from a local club phenomenon to a massive force of nature without ever losing a single inch of adequacy — the bigger they get, the harder they work at justifying that bigness. The distance traveled from the humble-subtle opening of ʽNew Feelingʼ to the grand mother-Earth finale of ʽTake Me To The Riverʼ and ʽThe Great Curveʼ is enormous, but it feels so natural and logical that you will probably not even sense the transition if you listen to the whole record in one go. All in all, this is the single greatest story of musical evolution from the «Silver Age» of rock music unfurling here before your ears over two and a half hours, and, needless to add, one of the greatest live albums of all time.

John Lennon: Rock'n'Roll

JOHN LENNON: ROCK'N'ROLL (1975)

1) Be-Bop-A-Lula; 2) Stand By Me; 3) Rip It Up/Ready Teddy; 4) You Can't Catch Me; 5) Ain't That A Shame; 6) Do You Want To Dance?; 7) Sweet Little Sixteen; 8) Slippin' And Slidin'; 9) Peggy Sue; 10) Bring It On Home To Me/Send Me Some Lovin'; 11) Bony Moronie; 12) Ya Ya; 13) Just Because.

General verdict: For those who like their rockabilly greased-up, coked-up, and injected with a strain of tortured and wasted personality.

For the sakes of lady impartial objectivity, it must be confessed that Rock'n'Roll, John Lennon's last album before his retreatment into self-imposed musical exile, was never intended to be much more than an irrelevant toss-off — a record forced on the artist by a lawsuit: in order to atone for the sin of ripping off Chuck Berry's ʽYou Can't Catch Meʼ with his own ʽCome Togetherʼ, John had to promise to record several oldies from the backlog of major publishing companies and hand over the royalties. Apparently he disliked the idea so much that he intentionally stalled the project, prioritizing Walls And Bridges over this kind of indentured servitude, but in the end, justice was served, and it could all be arranged under the banner of Fifties' nostalgia, triggered by the likes of American Graffiti and symbolically depicted by a stock photo of a young John in Hamburg on the album sleeve.

One could imagine that getting totally wasted in mid-1970s L.A. in a company of equally crazed-out loonies would be a good setting for a retro rock'n'roll party, even one that you had to throw on somebody else's orders. The main problem, however, was that John hadn't really done proper rock'n'roll in ages — the last time the man let loose at full speed might have been a decade earlier, when the Beatles were still touring; and even back then, the man never felt completely comfor­table when emulating the likes of Gene Vincent or Larry Williams. In addition, having Phil Spector produce your record when aiming for something like All Things Must Pass is one thing, but when covering old time rockabilly... maybe not such a good idea, no matter how much personal adoration you have for walls of sound.

With all that in mind, it is no wonder that Rock'n'Roll rarely gets sufficient accolades even from those who do not regard John's solo career in the mid-1970s as a total failure. But on a personal level, I have always liked the record anyway. It may not be true «rock and roll» in form — too bombastic, too overproduced, and even too slow for that — but it is still very rock and roll in spirit, and while it is hard to imagine John enjoying being forced to do something like this, it is just as hard admitting that he did not have fun while recording it. Because it all sounds like fourty minutes of wasted, demented, over-the-top, glammy musical orgy — letting many more inches of hair down than, for instance, McCartney's similar experience with his Back In USSR.

This bigness of the sound does have to be embraced, though. There is no question that the pure raw energy and the ferocious vocal magic of Little Richard's ʽSlippin' And Slidin'ʼ could not be matched by this coked-out band of depraved rock stars. But that does not prevent the coked-out band of depraved rock stars from hitting the zone anyway — and when they all manage to sound in tune and keep the fire well-stoked, the result is a veritable tornado of sound that nobody in his right mind could resist (at least definitely not while inebriated). Likewise, ʽBe-Bop-A-Lulaʼ here takes the echoey essentials of Gene Vincent's rockabilly style and spinal-tappishly pushes them to eleven — the entire two minutes and thirty seconds are just one big sonic wobble, with the bass, piano, and vocals trembling like a camera with Parkinson's, and only the shrill guitar solo (Jesse Ed Davis? I am never sure about individual players here because there are so many of them in the credits) emerging from the quake with untampered precision. First time around, it's a mess. Give it a couple more spins, and it coalesces into a jello ball of insane energy — overdriven to excess, but still true to the spirit of the original. Fun!

The decision to slow down so much of the material was weird, almost as if John decided to take petty revenge on Chuck Berry by turning his fast dance numbers (ʽYou Can't Catch Meʼ and ʽSweet Little Sixteenʼ) into slow shuffling drags — let alone something like ʽDo You Want To Dance?ʼ, somewhat more of a ʽDo You Want To Limp?ʼ. But even these slow shuffling drags can be fascinating, if only for the novelty of the approach: I do not think that anybody else had ever tried this «slow 'em down while slapping on the wall-of-sound» approach before, and there is a strange shamanistic magic here as John slowly, but steadily, whips himself up into a raging screaming frenzy on both of the Berry numbers; by the end of ʽSweet Little Sixteenʼ, it is as if he is madly whipping himself against the steady and unnerving brass riff, loving and hating this material in masochistic rage. In the same way, he transforms Larry Williams' flimsy joke number ʽBony Moronieʼ into a bubbling witches' brew, screaming at the top of his lungs as if trying to break out of a padded cell — where they supposedly keep him away from being able to make love to her underneath that apple tree.

Arguably the most famous track from the album, largely because it was released as the lead single, is his take on Ben E. King's ʽStand By Meʼ — deservedly so, I believe, because it is the only track here that completely annihilates the original, elevating it from a pretty, but formulaic, one-out-of-many R&B ballad to the status of bombastic personal prayer. Production helps a lot (deep bass and earth-shaking brass tones create an almost lava-like atmosphere of rumbling tectonic plates), but mainly it is just the vocal performance, one of John's very finest from that decade and visibly much more personal here than on the other tracks, though his reading of the Sam Cooke / Buddy Holly ʽBring It On Home / Send Me Some Lovin'ʼ medley comes close — all having to do with staying out of reach of his one true love, I am sure.

In the end, Rock'n'Roll is a unique experience — a unique failure, some might insist, but then again, even a unique failure from John Lennon can be so much more fascinating than a set of triumphs from much lesser artists. These days, it certainly sounds dated, but it does not cease to sound unique — and, like Bob Dylan's Self Portrait, it somehow manages to convey a familiar, but different side of a great artist's personality through the prism of somebody else's work. Also, anybody who would like to check it out in a larger context should either buy the expanded new edition (with bonus tracks) or, rather, hunt down the archival release Menlove Ave., which we will get around to eventually: be warned, however, that this larger context will be more about John's love affair with Phil Spector than with Chuck Berry and Little Richard.