Alanis Morissette: Supposed Former Infatuation Junkie

ALANIS MORISSETTE: SUPPOSED FORMER INFATUATION JUNKIE (1998)

1) Front Row; 2) Baba; 3) Thank U; 4) Are You Still Mad; 5) Sympathetic Character; 6) That I Would Be Good; 7) The Couch; 8) Can't Not; 9) UR; 10) I Was Hoping; 11) One; 12) Would Not Come; 13) Unsent; 14) So Pure; 15) Joining You; 16) Heart Of The House; 17) Your Congratulations.

So, before we proceed to discussion, here are the Google statistics as of December 12, 2009: [1] the correct way — Morissette: 1,560,000 results; [2] Morisette: 367,000; [3] Morrisette: 263,000; [4] Morrissette: 109,000; [5] Morissete: 52,000; [6] Morrisete: 29,000; [7] Morris­sete: 11,200; [8] Morisete: 19,600. (Of course, many of these are just bot copy results, but it is the relative statistics that matters, not the absolute numbers).

The conclusion is that about a third of people writing about A. M. do not even know how to spell her name properly. Of course, it is a rather hard name to spell (trickier even than Mississippi, where one just has to remember the «two of each» rule), but still, you'd expect a bit more attention paid to such a household item. Or, perhaps, it is just the name — misspelt — that is a household item, and not the music? How many people have written about A. M. without actually listening to her (as opposed to without hearing her, which is more or less impossible)?

I cannot say that Morissette's follow-up to her major commercial success is a "great" album. I cannot say that I love it, or that I will ever have a big desire to return and explore it some more. But it was Supposed Former Infatuation Junkie, not Jagged Little Pill, that finally convinced me that there is artistic merit to this girl's work. For all its flaws, Pill was not a hollow forgery — but this is best evident only after listening to the next in line. It is no coincidence that Alanis ne­ver managed to surpass the "triumph" of Pill: not only are her subsequent records sounding more and more "out of date", but they are actually sounding less and less market-oriented.

Junkie is a tremendously long, horrendously brooding, and emphatically personal record that, first and foremost, is dedicated to growing up. Once you spot the ugly horse grin on the cover, the first thought is that you will probably be subjected to even more screeching and caterwauling than last time, but the intention is rather... 'Ironic': in fact, Alanis is much more restrained and much more oriented towards a conventional understanding of 'singing' here (from time to time, with a little Indian flavor she somehow picked up over the last three years — uh, possibly as a result of her visit to India?).

More importantly, she overcomes her major weakness — inane lyrics. It is still easy to sneer at all the different, yet equally obvious ways in which she blows up her rather simple emotions; it is more difficult to admit that she has at least advanced to the stage at which she is implicit rather than explicit about it. The encription is not very difficult, but it needs to be broken; certainly a chorus like 'Thank you India, thank you terror, thank you disillusionment, thank you frailty, thank you consequence...' is more deserving of notice than 'I've got one hand in my pocket and the other one is giving a high five'. Or so it would seem.

The music is a more difficult matter. Brushing away occasionally silly critical raves ('Wow, she is writing pop songs without choruses, whoever heard of that?'), we are left with a gloomy mix of "alternative rock" with "adult contemporary", thick on atmosphere and personality, but generally thin on hooks. There are even Goth overtones on some of the numbers: Alanis is certainly intent on letting us know either that success has not gone to her head and that she has no desire to im­per­sonate a pop-rock diva, or, perhaps, more cynically, that the very success she has earned was entirely due to her neuroses, so next time around, she is happy to heap even more of those on the listener. You want trouble? You got it.

Just like before, the main problems are with the basics of the arrangements. Same boring funky beats, same lack of detail, same moribund guitar backing — a few of the riffs are good, but for the most part, they are just grumbling away in the background. Add to this the seventy-plus mi­nute length, and it becomes a real chore to sit through all of this, especially since midway through you clearly begin to understand that no, you are not getting much of anything else. For a long time, this effect prevented me from seeing 'Joining You' as the catchiest song on the album, or 'Heart Of The House' as the song with the best strings arrangement. Alas, she is still letting Glen Ballard have control of the situation, and these are the results: she has unquestionably grown up, but he has, most definitely, nowhere left to grow.

All the same, I think that 'Baba', even with all the pretentiousness and with all the grungeness, is a powerful tune; that 'That I Would Be Good' is the best Diane Warren song that Diane Warren, fortunately, never wrote (or else I would have to reluctantly pray that her approved billion years on the fry­ing pan be reduced by a few months); that the lyrical concept of 'Unsent' is pretty clever; and that I fully understand why Robert Christgau gave this record an A- as opposed to Jagged Lit­tle Pill's B+, but have no idea why he gave Aimee Mann's Lost In Space — an album that is thematically not that far removed from Junkie, but musically surpasses it in every way known to mankind — a C+.

My own verdict would be that the whole thing is monotonous but mildly intelligent; musically poor but perfectly honest; conventional but desperately trying to overcome conventionality, and for all these counterpoints, first time in this section, I would deal it out a cautious emotional-ratio­nal thumbs up. But prepare to be bored stiff.

Adrian Belew: Belewprints

ADRIAN BELEW: BELEWPRINTS (1998)

1) Men In Helicopters; 2) Cage; 3) I Remember How To Forget; 4) Young Lions; 5) Never Enough; 6) Things You Hit With A Stick; 7) Everything; 8) Big Blue Sun; 9) Bad Days; 10) One Of Those Days; 11) Return Of The Chicken; 12) Dinosaur; 13) 1967; 14) Free As A Bird (Live At Longacre Theater); 15) Nude Wrestling With A Christmas Tree.

Subtitled The Acoustic Adrian Belew Volume 2, this is exactly what it is, and, from a general standpoint, a big improvement over Volume 1. The basic message is the same as before: this is not a technically-minded, virtuoso-bestowed experiment, but just a modest bunch of Adrian's pop numbers sung, played, and arranged minimalistically, friendly, and with feeling. But there are a few pleasant additional touches that are worth mentioning.

First, the arrangements are a bit more complex and diverse; many of the numbers have Belew ad­ding bass and drums, or switching from guitar to piano, bringing on a true "Unplugged" feeling rather than deconstructing every­thing in favour of his singing. As such, some of the songs, like 'Young Lions' and 'Never Enough', still manage to rock out even in this setting. The album also opens with a big surprise: 'Men In Helicopters' accompanied by a string quartet (the only non-Belew musical presence on the album), a very joyous touch.

Second, the song selection is perfect — apart from three pieces of musique concrète (which are actually short and fun), Adrian runs through his catchiest, pleasantest pop creations from 1989 to 1994, even reproducing the entire mini-suite '1967' which I am adoring more and more with each passing day: in this setting, with all its unpredictable, but memorable sections laid out even more transparently than in the original, it threatens to convince me of being his one true masterpiece in the psychedelic pop genre.

One last surprise is the live recording of Lennon's 'Free As A Bird', taken from Adrian's acoustic solo interlude during King Crimson's Broadway show. Ever the hip purist, Belew covers Len­non's original demo rather than the McCartney-enhanced version on Anthology, refusing to re­produce Macca's 'Whatever happened to...' section and sticking instead to the mumbled la-la-la's of John's old recording, and even the audience seems to be getting the point and digging it. May­be it symbolizes a sincere belief in purity and authenticity; maybe it is snubby and pretentious; but, in any case, it is one more small non-trivial move from a small non-trivial artist. A most heartfelt thumbs up, even for such a trifle.

AC/DC: T.N.T.

AC/DC: T.N.T. (1975)

1) It's A Long Way To The Top (If You Wanna Rock'n'Roll); 2) Rock'n'Roll Singer; 3) The Jack; 4) Live Wire; 5) T.N.T.; 6) Rocker; 7) Can I Sit Next To You Girl; 8) High Voltage; 9) School Days.

From a certain point of view, AC/DC never made a better album than T.N.T. Logic? Simple. It is unquestionably an improvement over High Voltage, as they throw out everything that promises to screw up the winning formula — pompous guitar duels, love balladry, glammy stuff like 'Show Business' — and concentrate exclusively on what they do best: balls-out, crunchy, sweaty RAWK that gives no quarter and shows no compromise. And since, from here onwards, this description perfectly fits every other AC/DC album, it is impossible to argue that any single one of them — even Highway To Hell and Back In Black — shows AC/DC in artistically finer form than they shaped themselves into by late 1975.

Perhaps only 'Can I Sit Next To You Girl', a re-recording of the band's first single which they'd released back in 1974 with Dave Evans as lead singer, and Chuck's 'School Days', the last cover they ever did, still point one little finger backwards. But even so, one needs only compare the ori­ginal version of 'Can I...' — tiny and whiny — with the new one to understand that there is no going back to the original "glammy" image these young punks tried on in 1974.

You actually learn everything and more about AC/DC during the first twenty seconds of the al­bum. Malcolm starts out with the basic riff: simple, rough, brutal, with a guitar tone that seems fairly ordinary — but what is it that makes it so uniquely recognizable? Over just a few bars, you begin headbanging (if you're alone) or toe-tapping (if you have company) or headbanging and toe-tapping (if you have a company of AC/DC fans). A few seconds later, join­ed by Angus: same tone, same brutality, but a countermelody, something to bring the song out of the pure realm of headbanging bait into the realm of exciting rock'n'roll. Finally, the drums kick in, only to make you realize in astonishment that all this time, you've been violently headbanging to a song whose rhythm was not even emphasized by a steady drum pattern. But now it's here, and it's steady as a rock, and now they are the true Gods of this style.

The rest is a bunch of nuances, only serving the purpose of distinguishing one album from the other in some way at least. On T.N.T., nuances include: Bon Scott's notorious bagpipe solo on 'It's A Long Way To The Top', arguably the only time they ever used an extra instrument in the studio or onstage; the ridiculously ultra-fast tempo on 'Rocker', as they try to generate absurdly over-the-top excitement, making the rockingest rocker that ever rocked; and the corny 'oi! oi! oi!' bursts on the title track, delivered by the Young brothers as Bon Scott's powerload threatens to explode. We also have 'The Jack', which, depending on your tastes, may contain the corniest or the wittiest double-entendres of the 1970s ('her deuce was wild, but my ace was high'); I used to belong to the former group before understan­ding that this must have been Bon's heartfelt tribute to the salacious blues greats of the pre-war era, and thus it works all the better by being AC/DC's starkest 12-bar blues number in the catalog, minimalistic as hell — even the chorus consists of nothing but 'she's got the jack!' repeated over and over again.

Finally, T.N.T. must be the most anthemic album recorded by the band: 'It's A Long Way To The Top' and 'High Voltage' are both heartfelt hymns to rock'n'roll and rock'n'roll lifestyle as such, while 'Rocker' and 'Rock'n'Roll Singer' (I think I spot a trend here, don't you?) are odes to parti­cular bearers of that lifestyle. Future records would generally be restricted to just one louder-than-life statement per album, but T.N.T., of course, is a powerload. Thumbs up for both historical (raising ass-kicking standards sky-high) and personal (bagpipe fan!) reasons.

Alice Cooper: Muscle Of Love

MUSCLE OF LOVE (1973)

1) Big Apple Dreamin'; 2) Never Been Sold Before; 3) Hard Hearted Alice; 4) Crazy Little Child; 5) Working Up A Sweat; 6) Muscle Of Love; 7) Man With The Golden Gun; 8) Teenage Lament '74; 9) Woman Machine.

The original Alice Cooper Band's last album is a strange, twisted creation, hard to categorize, explain, or understand. Conventional knowledge states that the main reason of the split between Furnier and his trusty bandmates was artistic: "Alice" was pushing the band further and further in­to theater / vaudeville territory, beyond the already broad-beyond-belief borders of the Billion Dollar Babies show, while Buxton, Bruce, Dunaway, and Smith, on the contrary, were tired of the theatrics and wanted to retreat to the more music-oriented sound and show of the Love It To Death era. But before they parted company, they made Muscle Of Love — an album that is, most definitely, neither here nor there.

On one hand, there is very little overt theatricality in this record: in fact, it is much easier to see a direct transition from Babies, with its shocking excesses, to Cooper's first solo album, with its shocking excesses. Muscle Of Love has no shocking excesses, unless one considers the presence of Liza Minnelli as back vocalist a shocking excess in itself. But on the other hand, it is just as hard to call Muscle a "rock" record: it has its share of rock riffs, for certain, yet try to compare the al­bum's heaviest, crunchiest number — the title track — with 'Long Way To Go' or 'You Drive Me Nervous' and then tell me which of them rocks the harder.

The inescapable impression is that Muscle Of Love represents a compromise — further confir­med by the removal of Furnier's pal, Bob Ezrin, as producer — that has satisfied no one and, in fact, made things worse than they were. So, Furnier removes the snake theme and the necrophilia theme and the giant toothbrushes and chopped dolls, but the band still goes for vaudeville-like and glam-style arrangements (and, moreover, notice that Alice is listed as co-writer on every track, first time ever). No ballsy rock and no breathtaking show? Not easy to understand why the album was a relative flop compared to its predecessor.

Even the lead-off single, 'Teen­age Lament '74', roughly broke the string of radio-ready classic hits: imagine the eternal teenager, who was once given the anthem of his life with 'I'm Eighteen' and then shown the right way to treat his bitch ('Under My Wheels'), his teachers ('School's Out') and society as a whole ('No More Mr. Nice Guy'), now getting a vicious lashing himself: 'What a drag it is, these gold lame jeans, is this the coolest way to get through your teens? Well, I cut my hair weird, I read that it was in — I looked like a rooster that was drowned and raised again.' And the worst blow — Alice is laughing at him with Liza Minnelli in tow!

But history seems to have been kind to Muscle Of Love. Shrugged off upon release as a clear sign of the band running out of steam, it has since seen a slow, but steady return of esteem. It is a sleeper and a grower: for the first time in Alice Cooper history, here is a record that tries to reach its core audience not through delightful cheap thrills, but by gradually sinking in. I would go as far, perhaps, as to name it the most intelligently designed record by the original band: nowhere near a masterpiece, but an album that makes plenty of smart musical and lyrical points all the same. The thinking man's Alice Cooper!

The pompous opener 'Big Apple Dreamin', the complex ballad 'Hard Hearted Alice' and the Ve­gasy flash of 'Teenage Lament '74' form three pieces of a scattered puzzle where the band kind of takes a step back and takes a sideways look at itself: ambitions, expectations, illusions, disappoin­t­ments. Neither of the three cuts through the senses, but all are at least interesting to follow, and the riffs on 'Big Apple' are actually terrific, although poorly produced. Lyrically, they go way be­yond their previous style, and no sane human being, upon intently listening to this material, could accuse the Cooper band of a lack of substance.

In between, we do get much lighter material — cock-rock swagger on 'Working Up A Sweat' and the title track, music hall melodrama on 'Crazy Little Child', B-movie soundtrack on 'The Man With The Golden Gun' (Alice claims that the song was written specially for the James Bond movie, but the produ­cers chickened out at the last minute), and weird, robotic, sci-fi rock on 'Woman Machine'. But nothing is wrong with these songs, either: they simply give us a show of smaller proportions than usual, and, if anything, Cooper's sneer and sarcasm only becomes stronger when he pushes the "external effects" and the titillating elements further in the background. For all I know, he would not again return to this level of irony until his early Eighties' "New Wavy" period.

Time has taught me to enjoy the Coop both when he is being gross and when he is being smart, so much so that I cannot imagine people honestly hating Alice in either of these states. Therefore, if the idea of an ugly guy confessing to having had sexual relations with the deceased as his own head gets mock-chopped off onstage does not appeal to you, try Muscle Of Love. Hear the ugly guy confess 'Hard hearted Alice is what we wanna be / Hard hearted Alice is what you wanna see' and, perhaps, gain extra insight inside the ugly guy. Thumbs up — brain-wise, mostly, but liking an Alice Cooper album for its intellectual value is no mean feat by itself.

The Animals: On Tour

THE ANIMALS: THE ANIMALS ON TOUR (1965)

1) Boom Boom; 2) How You've Changed; 3) Mess Around; 4) Bright Lights Big City; 5) I Believe To My Soul; 6) Worried Life Blues; 7) Let The Good Times Roll; 8) I Ain't Got You; 9) Hallelujah I Love Her So; 10) I'm Crying; 11) Dimples; 12) She Said Yeah.

This is not a live album (for some reason, American companies had a predilection for slapping the On Tour moniker onto British band releases — the Who had a similar trick played on them — as if these words might have had some magical influences on record buyers), but rather a mishmash of studio tracks partially carried over from the British LP Animals and partially previewing the Bri­tish LP Animal Tracks, not to be confused with the later American LP Animal Tracks (yes, the two sides of the Atlantic are different worlds and people on one side do not have to know any­thing about the other. And if they want to know, they have to do serious research on it).

There is no single classic track on here that could hold up to the grandeur of 'House Of The Ri­sing Sun' — few songs could — but, overall, it is a definite stylistic improvement over the debut. We can still hear ferocious rock'n'roll — Ray Charles' 'Mess Around' and Larry Williams' 'She Said Yeah' are perfect for the rave crowd, as is the band's first post-'House' single, the Burdon / Price-penned 'I'm Crying' — but it is also much heavier on slow, moody blues and soul numbers, which the band shapes more and more in its own image.

John Lee Hooker and Jimmy Reed, in particular, are unrecognizable. When Hooker recor­ded 'Boom Boom' and 'Dimples' in the early Sixties, they were quiet, grim, gloomy, scary tracks: one could just see the hellbound old Negro sitting on the street, creeping out little girls by mumb­ling 'I like the way you walk, I like the way you talk' under his breath. Under Burdon's heavy hand, both become loud, brawny, and quite unsubtle expressions of drunken lust — there are no nuan­ces or suggestions, it's all hanging out in the open, but there is a place for that, too, especially when he unfurls the battle cry of 'Come on, let's shake it!' and the rest of the band start imperso­nating a gang of hoodlums sweeping through town.

Jimmy Reed's 'Bright Lights, Big City', on the other hand, which used to be just another one of an innumerable series of totally sound-alike Jimmy Reed songs, is transformed from something plain and unsubtle into a little symphony, with a new quiet mid-section and ad-libbed lyrics in which Eric names all the city perils that conspire to turn his girl loose — 'long Cadillacs... Rolls Royce... men with money... cigarettes... flamenco... scotch... bourbon...'; an exciting rearrange­ment that further confirms my suspicions about Jimmy Reed as mostly a "songwriting vehicle" for other people to expand on his ideas (or, rather, idea, I'm not sure Jimmy ever had more than one) and build flowery gardens on top of them.

The slower numbers — blues and soul things like 'How You've Changed', 'I Believe To My Soul', and 'Worried Life Blues' — take more time to sink in (and also require inborn tolerance for the 12-bar form), but the Price vs. Burdon contests that are at the center of each are well worth the price of admission. Eric always lets his brawn do most of the talking, but there is always a bit of soul behind it, and his sense of theatricality, as he unfurls the broken-hearted drama before the li­stener, is unparalleled for 1965, whereas Price is Price, showing himself completely worthy of imitating and expanding on Ray Charles' piano style.

So, while this is not a "true" album in any way, its consistency level is higher than on any other collection of the band's early output. Nevertheless, a thumbs up judgement applied to it individu­ally will be of little practical use, since today it is only available as a scattered sub-set on The Complete Animals; and it does not even have a proper chronological sense, since, in terms of dates of recording, On Tour is all over the place.

Alberta Hunter: Complete Recorded Works Vol. 3

ALBERTA HUNTER: COMPLETE RECORDED WORKS VOL. 3 (1924-1927)

1) Everybody Loves My Baby; 2) Texas Moaner Blues; 3) Nobody Knows The Way I Feel 'Dis Morning; 4) Early Every Morn; 5) Cake Walking Babies (From Home); 6) Your Jelly Roll Is Good; 7) Take That Thing Away; 8) Eve­rybody Does It Now; 9) A Master Man With A Master Mind; 10) Don't Want It All; 11) I'm Hard To Satisfy; 12) Em­pty Cellar Blues; 13) Double Crossin' Papa; 14) You For Me, Me For You; 15) I'm Tired Blues; 16) Wasn't It Nice?; 17) Everybody Mess Around; 18) Don't Forget To Mess Around; 19) Heebie Jeebies; 20) I'll Forgive You 'Cause I Love You; 21) I'm Gonna Lose Myself Way Down In Louisville; 22) My Old Daddy's Got A Brand New Way To Love; 23) I'm Down Right Now But I Won't Be Down Always.

The third volume in the series is arguably the best. First, there is a dramatic increase in sound qua­lity: for all the hype around Paramount, its records were known for horrendously low fidelity, and even if that was not the main reason for Alberta's jump to Gennett in 1924 and then to Okeh in 1925, it is still mighty fine for the fans that she did make that jump. The Gennett records, in particular, sound unusually crisp and sharp; alas, the songs on them are not among Alberta's best material. The cracks and pops come back on Okeh, but in a moderate manner.

With such an increase in quality, one can finally start noticing all the subtle nuances in Hunter's singing: she was, quite clearly, maturing as a singer, perhaps striving to bring out all her hitherto undisclosed sides under the pressures of competition; by the end of 1923, the "Blues Queens" era had mobilized a veritable swarm of mighty singers, and it was certainly harder to compete with Ma Rainey and Bessie Smith than with Lucille Hegamin and Mamie Smith. But Alberta almost rises to the challenge, toughening up her act, yet still sounding "lady-like". 'You For Me, Me For You', for instance, where she is only accompanied by a modest piano backing, is a great example: strong and protective, but gentle in overtones.

She even engages in singing more provocative stuff, rich on double-entendres — on one record at least (Okeh 8268), where the A-side is 'Take That Thing Away' (what thing?) and the B-side is 'Your Jelly Roll Is Good' (no comment necessary). And she lets her hair down on faster, merrier, speakeasy-friendly numbers more frequently than before (the classic chestnut 'Cake Walking Babies (From Home)'; 'Heebie Jeebies', etc.). All in all, fans of the Roaring Decade will probably get a kick out of at least half of these performances. There's also supposed to be some Louis Arm­strong backup on a few of them, but I do not know where exactly.

Arcade Fire: Funeral

ARCADE FIRE: FUNERAL (2004)

1) Neighborhood #1 (Tunnels); 2) Neighborhood #2 (Laika); 3) Une Année Sans Lumière; 4) Neighborhood #3 (Power Out); 5) Neighborhood #4 (7 Kettles); 6) Crown Of Love; 7) Wake Up; 8) Haiti; 9) Rebellion (Lies); 10) In The Backseat.

The «noughties» have predictably brought back a common interest in the Eighties, as new bands are springing up whose members sacrificed their childhood to that decade. Theoretically, this is quite creepy: what kind of music can we expect from people whose minds had been shaped by the likes of Cyndi Lauper or Duran Duran? Or Mötley Crüe, for that matter? How can one be influen­ced by plastic sound and end up not producing recycled plastic sound?

But on practice, it's all in the mind. If somebody can make David out of a spoiled block of marble, then some other body can make great music out of a simple synth-pop theme. And if the members of Arcade Fire had not properly absorbed their childhood influences, there is no way they could have produced an album as flawless as Funeral. Even Cyndi Lauper has its proper place on it — somewhere — maybe in the kiddie keyboard line of 'Haiti' — maybe elsewhere.

Funeral was recorded in late 2003, in Montreal, by no less than fifteen musicians who, collecti­vely, call themselves Arcade Fire. All the tracks are credited to «Arcade Fire» as such, but the leading force behind the wall-of-sound is the nuclear family unit of Win Butler and Régine Chas­sagne; they are the only two lead singers, play a good half of the instruments, and, arguably, write the bulk of the melodies and the lyrics. These are the bare facts. Another bare fact is that Funeral has been lauded by just about every critic in existence (including even grumpy old codger Robert Christgau), so that hipsters and indie snobs should find it their duty to hate it — or join the herd. Then again, with the unbelievable degree of musical segregation that we experience today, I am sure many people have not even heard of it in the first place. So let's talk about it all the same.

Many critics have already dubbed it the best, or one of the best, albums of the decade. I cannot, and do not want to, speak in those terms, but I would certainly like to discuss it on its own terms, and that way Funeral is no less than perfect. At its heart lies an honest infatuation with the biggest-sounding, pomp-oriented bands of the Eighties — primarily U2 and the Cure (influences which band members confess to quite freely in their interviews), but I also detect whiffs of R.E.M. and New Order and... well, this can go on for quite a bit. Yet, with fifteen members sha­ring the rights and privileges of this democratic musical community, none of the songs really sound like second-hand tributes; rather, this legacy serves as the backbone around which they build up mus­cles from a whole heap of other sources, resulting in a unique kind of synthesis.

Obviously, there are progressive elements, with various classically derived subthemes weaving around the main melodies. There is also a strong folk-rock tendency, especially on the record's quieter numbers. The «baroque pop» genre of the Sixties leaves its imprint on songs like '7 Ket­tles' and others. There is unity, for sure, but no strong sign of driving themselves into one particu­lar corner or niche — just as you think you got them finally figured out, along comes some unex­pected surprise that crushes your attempts at pigeonholing them as «arena rock» or «mope rock» or «the Cure with less reverb and a chick playing violin».

At the same time, they are very «commercial», very strongly pop. They know the drill: important thing number one is to establish a basic hook, a simple riff, an unsophisticated, maybe even recy­cled theme, but one that necessarily resonates in the soul. Once that has been done, you hit on all the cylinders, draw on all the resources of your fifteen-strong army to turn your «pop» into «art», and that's when the cat is firmly in the bag.

This is what makes 'Wake Up', the album's anthemic centerpiece, the potboiler that it is. I am all but sure I already heard that riff, maybe with some minor changes, somewhere else. But where­ever it was, it was never used in such a powerful, tear-inducing setting. When Win Butler sings 'Somethin' filled up my heart with nothin', someone told me not to cry', you know that he is really inviting you to cry — not to mention that his very voice inherently betrays a man constantly on the verge of breakdown — and when he goes on saying 'But now that I'm older, my heart's col­der, and I can see that it's a lie', I am glad to accept that invitation. And when all the band mem­bers start chanting the song's refrain in unison, how joyful it is to see the return of the good old cathar­sis: truly, the song's purifying power is easily comparable to 'All You Need Is Love' (and the chorus, quite obviously, is a direct reference to 'Hey Jude'), except it just comes about thirty years too late to exercise that power all over the world.

'Wake Up' is the album's only anthem, but there are quite a few other rock-out monsters: 'Rebel­lion (Lies)' with its power-bass derived from the Joy Division school, but used in a far more opti­mistic context; 'Neighborhood #3 (Power Out)', with Edge-style guitar playing over a Robert Smith-style raging-sea sonic panorama; and the album's most tongue-in-cheek tribute to post-mo­dernism, 'Neighborhood #2 (Laika)', combining New Wave arrangements with accordeons, drunk folksy choruses, and lyrics about vampires and, well, Laikas.

Then there are the quiet moments, every bit as stimulating — the folk drone of '7 Kettles', the gentle French mannerisms of 'Une Année Sans Lumière', and my favourite, the (perhaps slightly overemoted) confession 'Crown Of Love'. In this quiet section, Butler cedes the spotlight to Régine on two occasions: the lovely nostalgia of 'Haiti', where she sings about her ethnic back­ground, and the gorgeous conclusion of 'In The Backseat', a very autumnesque baroque ballad that somehow combines the subjects of her aversion to driving and her grandmother's death.

Death is frequently mentioned, by the way, as the main subject of the album — Captain Ob­vious will be happy to direct you to its title, and a little research tells you that several band members had lost their relatives around the time of its recording (properly speaking, though, most of it was recorded after the death of only one person, Régine's grandmother). But I do not get the impres­sion that it is «about death», per se; that would be too blunt, too Goth. Funeral is a very sad al­bum, indeed — much of it has to do with Butler's voice, which I could see as over-annoyingly whiny for some people — but its atmosphere is not depressive or «funebral».

I would rather describe it as ranging from «frightened» to «confused», describing the fright and confusion that arise from living in society — not «Society» en large, but just your immediate so­ciety, the one that forms the central focus of the four parts of the 'Neighborhood' suite. There are no truly grand social statements, which is where they part company with U2 (but not with the Cure, though): Funeral does not deal with Irish independence or poverty in the third world. But there is an idea of discomfort and, perhaps, incomprehension — feelings that every mentally un­challenged person in our society experiences from time to time. The wall of sound that the fifteen members produce is mostly used in a claustrophobic manner — part of it surrounds you with an actual, almost-real wall, and the other part represents your inner demons that, having broken out but found no way to break on through to the other side, only return to torment you more. And over all that din, Butler's tearful voice resonates like the feeble, but stable blubbering of a broken down patient in an asylum. It's not all that bad or inescapably dangerous or apocalyptic, but it is all unsafe and uncomfortable, and only if you 'Wake Up' can you ever regain some comfort.

This is the message I'm reading into Funeral, and it may be all a lot of bull, but it is one of those classy records which you can try to decode from multiple angles — or just enjoy mindlessly with­out any decoding. It is big, sprawling, ambitious, and, in a rare instance, it deserves to be just that. My undying respect goes to Butler and Chassagne for pulling it all off. Thumbs up, and, most amazingly, with the melting heart slowly in the lead. Sentimentalism is gonna be the death of me one of these days.

Alanis Morissette: Jagged Little Pill

ALANIS MORISSETTE: JAGGED LITTLE PILL (1995)

1) All I Really Want; 2) You Oughta Know; 3) Perfect; 4) Hand In My Pocket; 5) Right Through You; 6) Forgiven; 7) You Learn; 8) Head Over Feet; 9) Mary Jane; 10) Ironic; 11) Not The Doctor; 12) Wake Up.

As of 2009, thirty-three million people worldwide have purchased this album (I'm assuming, of course, that nobody bought it twice or thrice). This figure means that hype and trend alone cannot be responsible for its success; that its formula had what it takes to capture the mindset of the ave­rage music consumer in 1995 and, apparently, has not quite lost its potency even today; and that, whether we want it or not, Alanis Morissette will feature on the pages of "alternative rock" histo­ry forever, no matter how many anti-Alanis crusades we may call for.

And I, of course, am seriously tempted to join an old one or call for a new one. Jagged Little Pill is one of those records that is not awful per se — merely unremarkable — but whose thoroughly inadequate reception makes it into an awful mass conscience phenomenon. To illustrate, let me quote a user review from RateYourMusic which dubs Pill a "Great, Important, Revolutionary Al­bum": «When Alanis Morissette emerged... in 1995, the world quickly sat up and took notice. This was the pre-Lilith Fair era, when women weren't supposed to make a scene in music. And then there was Alanis — combining harmonicas, catchy melodies, and nearly screaming lyrics that we couldn't get out of our heads.»

PRE — FUCKING — LILITH FAIR ERA? I can only hope this statement is not altogether typi­cal of the thirty-three million people who bought Jagged Little Pill, but if it is and the "female musical scene" is commonly associated with Lilith Fair in the popular mind, feminism should truly pack it in, because nothing whatsoever has shifted in the dominant male perspective over the last fifty years. But forget Lilith Fair, let us ponder a more serious question: what the heck made the world "quickly sit up and take notice" of Alanis and her "near screaming lyrics" in 1995, when, for instance, just two years ago the world could have just as quickly sat up and taken notice of — to quote but one of the many possible examples — Aimee Mann's Whatever, an album that objectively rocked harder, had unquestionably better lyrics, and far more depth than all of Alanis' efforts put together?

Actually, it is not difficult to explain. When Alanis Morissette decided, after a long period of in­ternal and external struggle, to make the transition from third-rate dance-pop chick to honest sin­ger-songwriter — a decision that, by itself, can only be welcome — she did not have a clue about two things. First, although endowed by poetic aspiration, she hardly knew how to write complex, multi-layered lyrics that would be "on the level", let alone over it. Second, she may be responsi­ble for (some of) the basic melodies, but she has let her collaborator Glen Ballard come up with the arrangements, and he gives it all the most normal, predictable, unimaginative musical backing that you could expect in 1995 — yucky compressed guitar sound, danceable, mechanistic percus­sion, post-adult-contemporary keyboard sheen etc. etc.

These two flaws — corny lyrics and bland sonics — have forever banned Morissette from the predilections of sophisticated music consumers, but, of course, it is exactly these two flaws that, from the perspective of the music buyer en large, represent her greatest advantages. It does not take much effort on the part of the average Joe/Jane to get what she is singing about, and it does not take much time on his/her part to get how "modern" and "contemporary" she is, either, what with the entire production style screaming '1995!' into the ear of the time machine constructor.

And, just so that there could always be some space left to argue, every now and then the average Joe will fall upon a mystical line or two — for instance, 'I'm consumed by the chill of solitary, I'm like Estella, I like to reel it in and then spit it out' — and come running and shaking his fist at cri­tics: 'You think you're cool, man, talking all that trash about Alanis, let me tell you now, she really knows her classics, that gal, if not for her, I'd hardly ever guess what that South Park epi­sode no. 62 was all about!' Or: 'Before Alanis came along, I'd have to google for Webster each time someone said 'ironic'. Now I have finally memorized that 'ironic' is like rain on my wedding day, or a free ride when I've already paid! Sure I'm too dumb to ever have a wedding day or a free ride offered to me by anybody, but at least I know what that word means now! Stop bashing Ala­nis, go and fuckin' sell thirty million records yourself and then we'll see!'

Not to mention the harmonicas. How cool is having the album open with a folksy harmonica note — washed away in less than a second by a ge­neric power chord — harmonica battling grunge guitar — say, isn't that what true art is all about?

In short, Jagged Little Pill unsettles and depresses me, but not for the reasons that are supposed by its creators to unsettle and depress me — rather for its gruesome inadequacy and unjustified pretense. It is far removed, musically and lyrically, from Alanis' dance-pop efforts, but not far enough to lose any connections whatsoever: just like those two, it attempts to bite off much more than it can chew, and would have ended up being unintentionally funny, if only the number of copies it managed to sell didn't make it all so unintentionally sad.

But now that I got it off my chest like I am supposed to, I must approach it from a different angle and say that, taken out of its social context, Jagged Little Pill isn't all that bad. One simply has to disre­gard the trite lyrics and run-of-the-mill arrangements and concentrate on its positive sides, not the least of which is Alanis' melodic gift — yes, she does have a gift for melody, and this is one of the, if not the only one, good reason why the record shipped so many clones. The hits are catchy — 'You Oughta Know', 'Ironic', 'You Learn', etc. all have fine catchy choruses that contain some emotional essence, and although few lines can be more banal than 'You live, you learn, you love, you learn, you cry, you learn, you lose, you learn', I have not the least doubt that they are delivered with unfaked passion by someone who truly believes that she is making a big, impor­tant, personal point here. I just close my eyes and imagine she is singing in Kiswahili instead, and it brings me some odd brand of internal happiness — and it's not hard to do.

Alanis' singing is a major point of contention. Some have accused her of masking her lack of sin­ging talent or vocal power with yelling and screeching; this is pure libel — please refer to her dance-pop era to ascertain that she does have a great set of pipes and that she is well able to stay on key whenever she wants to. The style she chooses on Pill, where many of the emphatic mo­ments are, indeed, characterized by excessive paranoid whining and yelling, is intentional and works on a take-it-or-leave-it basis, the same way one gets around Kate Bush's horny kittycat in­tonati­ons on The Kick Inside. I take it, and, in fact, think of it as the record's major asset; at least this is its only working element that won't ever allow you to confuse Alanis Morissette with any­one else. If only that yelling were set to better lyrics than 'Is she perverted like me, would she go down on you in a theatre, does she speak eloquently and would she have your baby?', I'd have even fewer problems with it.

Even the music, although generally boring, is rarely disgusting. Were it oversaturated with syn­thesizers, or capitalizing on three-chord grunge riffs, like a proto-Avril Lavigne, I would have screamed bloody hell; but it is simply unremarkable rather than awful — some semi-decent riffs, lots of simple, but un-annoying folksy acoustic playing, some electric 12-string stuff, none of it has dated as badly as the synth-pop arrangements of Alanis and Now Is The Time. No revela­tions — no unexpected bathroom calls, either.

In the end, I am quite unsure about any final judgement. A thumbs down rating would mainly be me decrying the sad fate of mainstream music and expressing pity for thirty-three million people who hardly have any business taking it from me. A thumbs up rating, on the other hand, would compromise any remains of integrity I still might be preserving somewhere. I guess it is just one of those albums where any fence-straddling type of rating would never satisfy anyone.

So, instead, I will leave you baited with a little bit of funny Internet trivia I have indulged in. Appa­rently, the Great Mystery of Alanis does not even begin with her music, it begins with the way you spell her family name. Quick, close your eyes and reply: How many R's, S's, and T's are there in the name Mor(r)is(s)et(t)e?

Now open your eyes and check the statistics in the next review to find out whether you form part of the intellectual Google majority and have won your prize — a lifelong supply of jagged little pills and a used copy of Great Expectations.

Adrian Belew: Op Zop Too Wah

ADRIAN BELEW: OP ZOP TOO WAH (1996)

1) Of Bow And Drum; 2) Word Play Drum Beat; 3) Six String; 4) Conversation Piece; 5) All Her Love Is Mine; 6) I Remember How To Forget; 7) What Do You Know? (Part 1); 8) Op Zop Too Wah; 9) A Plate Of Words; 10) Time Waits; 11) What Do You Know? (Part 2); 12) Modern Man Hurricane Blues; 13) In My Backyard; 14) A Plate Of Guitar; 15) Live In A Tree; 16) Something To Do; 17) Beautiful; 18) High Wire Guitar; 19) Sky Blue Red Bird Green House; 20) The Ruin After The Rain; 21) On.

To look back at the fate of this record is a little funny and a little sad. From a purely theoretical standpoint, it should be remembered as Belew's magnum opus — a long, diverse, ambitious al­bum that pursues the goal of capturing all of his sides: Belew the sci-fi freak rocker, Belew the guitar-driven, Beatlish style pop lover, Belew the avantgarde whacko explorer, Belew the incu­rable romantic loner. On practice, Op Zop Too Wah has not yielded even one 'classic' Belew track, and is usually left aside in any serious discussion of the man's music.

Why? The obvious answer would be that there is just so much of everything that, in the end, there is too much of nothing. But then the same argument could be flung at The White Album; if the songs are good enough, their cumulative effect would override any confusion. So maybe it's just that the songs are not good enough? But I really would not say that. Look all over the place and you will find plenty of inspirational bits in all styles. Obviously, if you jam twenty-one tracks onto one CD, some are bound to come out as (relative) failures, but what's a few one minute-long failed bits to a generally solid recording?

Quite a lot, as it turns out. The album oozes ugly discoherence, maybe because the connecting bits are as loud and in-yer-face as the main songs, and although the desire to transform a simple rectangle into a Möbius strip is understandable, it sacrifices the pure value of the songs to the ove­rall bizarre atmosphere that is not even totally new or particularly interesting. As a result, I find many of the individual tracks lovable once I tune in to them individually, but the album as a whole impresses me about as much as its cover: green, wobbly, and yucky.

My advice is to try and filter out all the short links, rearrange the remaining thirteen songs in an order that you find personally comfortable, and this will leave you with about fourty-five minutes of good music. Then it becomes possible to sort out the dreamy psychedelic ballads ('All Her Love Is Mine'), the Zappa-style guitar heroics ('High Wire Guitar' — a parody, actually, on use­less guitar wanking, replete with silly "crowd cheering" as the fans admire their "idol"), the po­wer pop exercises with a little Roy Orbison flavour ('Six String', a love ode to Adrian's favourite fetish; 'I Remember How To Forget'), the sentimental acoustic idillies ('Time Waits'), the obliga­tory Beatlisms ('On', a tribute to Lennon circa Revolver; 'Something To Do', a tribute to McCart­ney circa... uh, Red Rose Speedway?) and something else I apparently forgot.

On the average, these songs may be slightly weaker than the average estimate of his 1989-1994 records. At least, there is nothing to make me relive the weighty stimulus of 'Young Lions' or the catchy heart-on-sleeve atmosphere of 'Burned By The Fire We Make'. But this is something that can be lived with; many of the tunes are growers. What really disrupts the continuum are all the silly links. It is as if, looking at his past efforts and also "rejuvenated" by the latest phase of King Crimson's career, Adrian, having made a fifth solid pop album, decided, at the very last minute, to spice it up for the sophisticated fan. But then the sophisticated fan, being perfectly happy with the Fripp-dominated KC, would not buy Belew's "pop stuff" in the first place.

So, in the long run, I doubt that Op Zop will fully and completely satisfy anyone. But brain-wise, I still give it a thumbs up because it gives me enough savory ingredients to make up my own con­coction. It is a failure only inasmuch as it aspires to be more of a success than the previous records — and ends up less. Which is not to say that 'Six String' does not rock, or that 'Time Waits' does not comfort, or that Adrian Belew is any less of a damn fine chap than usual.

AC/DC: High Voltage

AC/DC: HIGH VOLTAGE (1975)

1) Baby Please Don't Go; 2) She's Got Balls; 3) Little Lover; 4) Stick Around; 5) Soul Stripper; 6) You Ain't Got A Hold On Me; 7) Love Song; 8) Show Business.

Australia's national pride did not have much of a growth period: the basic sound, style, and testosterone level of High Voltage has remained steady ever since. But in early 1975, the band had not yet completely slammed the door and turned the key on their intentionally ascetic rock formula, and the album arguably holds more "surprises" for the seasoned AC/DC lover than any other in the catalog.

The only AC/DC album to start off with a cover — and the cover being the album's highlight as well; the only album to feature guitar sparring duets between brothers Angus and Malcolm Young (after that, Malcolm would forever stick to rhythm); the only album to have a love ballad (unless one counts 'Let Me Put My Love Into You' as a ballad, of course); and all that during the period when lead singer Bon Scott would still occasionally perform in a woman's dress rather than his later trademark blue-collar bare-chest outfit. Yes, wonders a-plenty.

History has not held the record in particularly high esteem, though. Not a single of these songs has earned the status of an AC/DC classic — even 'High Voltage' (the song) ended up on the next album, one more victim of the confusing 'title track relocation' principle — and few, if any, sur­vived into the live setlists of 1976, not to mention later times.

In the long run, this may be just, and if the Young brothers prefer to remember High Voltage as merely a first-time semi-successful teeth-cutting effort, I see no reason to argue with them about it. The album most definitely loses steam after the first three songs, being built around simple, but not very captivating riffs that fail to deliver the proper AC/DC crunch: sort of thin and second-rate, particularly 'Stick Around', 'You Ain't Got A Hold On Me' and the totally generic 'Show Business'.

'Soul Stripper', in stark contrast, tries to give us a somewhat more complex picture, with atmosphere-setting instrumental intros, an artsy-sounding hard rock melody, and the above-mentioned guitar duel between Angus and Malcolm as the centerpoint. But they end up sounding more like Thin Lizzy than AC/DC, and we already have one Thin Lizzy. Worst offender is cer­tainly 'Love Song': if there ever was one person less fit for conveying sentimentality, it was the band's lead singer, and if there ever was one guitarist less fit for generating a state of "emotional catharsis", it was the band's lead player. On a pure historical level, though, 'Love Song' is a glo­rious oddity that deserves to be heard at least once.

Still, High Voltage does have three very high points that deserve honourable places on any AC/DC collection. 'Baby Please Don't Go', continuing the tradition of playing this old blues stan­dard in an ass-kicking, speedy rock'n'roll manner (The Amboy Dukes, Budgie, etc.), takes it to a whole new level, showing that the Young brothers' playing technique was perfectly immaculate from day one in the recording studio — the perfect coordination of the playing, the ability to play fast, precise and fiery at the same time, Angus' "proto-hammer-on" style, it's all there. 'She's Got Balls', dedicated by Bon Scott to his wife, no less, is their first "less-is-more"-type classic, with the dumbest, but scariest riff on the entire record. And last, but not least, is 'Little Lover', a Bon show all the way: unremarkable in terms of playing or arrangement, but establishing his sly, sleazy, sexy, disgustingly lovable personality once and for all. Where other cock-rockers sounded merely dumb — animal sex machines, winding up and down when told to — Bon's 'Little lover... I can't get you off my mind...' is pure Mephisto, and it feels nice, warm and cozy sitting so close to the flames, doesn't it?

For these three songs alone, High Voltage would deserve a thumbs up even if all the rest were Carpenters covers. It simply looks that the band did not have much of a strong parcel when faced with the prospect of recording their first album, or perhaps they just wanted to test several directions before choosing the main one.

Alice Cooper: Billion Dollar Babies

ALICE COOPER: BILLION DOLLAR BABIES (1973)

1) Hello Hooray; 2) Raped And Freezin'; 3) Elected; 4) Billion Dollar Babies; 5) Unfinished Sweet; 6) No More Mr. Nice Guy; 7) Generation Landslide; 8) Sick Things; 9) Mary Ann; 10) I Love The Dead.

Taken cut-for-cut, Billion Dollar Babies probably does not have the same number of truly high points as Killer; and it is certainly not a return to the "rocky" sound of 1971 after the Broadway excesses of School's Out, as some suggest — it is pure glitz and show-biz all the way. But this is not a record to be remembered through its individual songs; its sum is much bigger than its parts, big enough to make the entire album one of the most unforgettable symbols of its time.

The accompanying show, partially captured on the Good To See You, Alice Cooper video, was the band's biggest, flashiest, and goriest, culminating in the introduction of the guillotine, and, as usual, the studio record reflects it relatively faithfully; those wondering about what all these odd noises are during 'Unfinished Sweet', or about why we need the repetitive chorus of 'I Love The Dead' sung four times in a row should check out the stage versions for their answers. Again, on the level of individual songs these "soundtrack" elements may not work, but Billion Dollar Ba­bies is not about individual songs: it is a loosely strung concept album about the vices of the so­ciety we live in — some of them open and obvious, but most latent or concealed.

This makes Babies the quintessential "glam rock" album — if we want to understand "glam" as rock music's equivalent to the decadence of the late XIXth / early XXth century. Sceptical, cyni­cal, disillusioned as to any past ideals, diving into hedonistic excess and hating it at the same time, terrifyingly suicidal and loving it: 'I love the dead before they're cold/Their blueing flesh for me to hold' — any questions?

Mockery and sarcasm do not get more mocking and sarcastic than with the album's opening — if you have ever heard Judy Collins' original version of 'Hello Hooray' (credited to little-known Ca­nadian writer Rolf Kempf), you will know what I mean. The song, sounding like a sweet, roman­tic, slightly hippiesque hymn to the beauty of life, in the hands of the Coop becomes a flashy, tongue-in-cheek intro to the evils of life; his passionate wails of 'I feel so strong!' do not come from an innocent lover of life, they come from Mr. Mephisto in person. Fun stuff.

From then on, the songs may not be memorable throughout, but they are always interesting — we get tales of female-induced sexual molestation ('Raped And Freezin'), wannabe politicians with inflated egos ('Elected'), obsessed fetishists (title track), spoiled candy lovers with rotten teeth ('Unfinished Sweet'), outcasts who hate society as much as society hates them ('No More Mr. Nice Guy'), and, of course, Alice's pet themes — herpetophilia ('Sick Things') and the mother of 'em all, necrophilia ('I Love The Dead'). Not a single one of these themes is made to look truly scary, except for little kids, perhaps, but this is not Hitchcock or Carpenter, this is a variety show that just happens to be ever so slightly on the gory side of life. And what a show!

Musically, the high point, after all these years, is still 'No More Mr. Nice Guy', the major single from the album and a nagging rock radio classic along the same lines as 'I'm Eighteen', 'Under My Wheels', and 'School's Out'. The opening riff is basically copped from the Who's 'Substitute', but other than that, it is quite an independent Brit-pop number streamlined for catchiness and singalong, if a bit clumsy in the lyrics department; still, it is fun to see the classic optimistic, anthemic sound of Brit-pop "borrowed" for such a wicked anti-social statement.

The rest of the tracks may not be equally as solid, but all are loaded with little gimmicks to make them special. They get Donovan — Donovan the hippie symbol! — to trade vocals with Alice on the title track, singing lines like 'rotten little monster, baby I adore you' and sacrificing his angelic reputation in the process (not that his reputation mattered much around 1973). They get a little James Bond-style music in the dentist's office as enormous drills penetrate Alice's cavities on 'Un­finished Sweet'. Out of nowhere, a little 'Martha My Dear'-like music hall number emerges and gives us a fairly believable Alice McCartney ('Mary Ann') — that is, until we learn that Mary­-Ann might really have been a man, and that Alice's interest in her/him has not waned upon the latter's sad demise, if you know what I mean.

Fans' opinions are frequently divided as to the final track. 'I Love The Dead' raises the stakes on Alice Cooper's kitschy ugliness: the band's previous accounts of death and delirium were at least disguised as "social statements" (e. g. 'Dead Babies' was really about parental neglect, 'Killer' was about a lost soul etc.), but in 'I Love The Dead' there is nothing except pure, untampered shock value, making it possible to argue that this is the point of no return where Alice Cooper is forever trans­formed from the threatening rocker of Killer into the Mr. Showbiz of Welcome To My Night­mare. Perhaps; to my eyes and ears, though, this is way too fine a distinction, and, besides, impressions can vary.

After all, is there really any impenetrable distance between 'Dead Babies' and 'I Love The Dead'? Sure the former was about the amorality of the parents, but it was just as much about chopping baby dolls onstage. And sure the latter is about feeding on dead flesh, but it is just as much about the amorality of the band's audience — who pay real money to watch and listen about this. You could, in fact, argue, that as the song sweeps into its grand, anthemic chorus, 'the dead' to whom Alice refers are not the corpses he claims to be attracted to, but the very people in the concert hall for whose eyes and ears the show is intended. Who is, in fact, more dead — the guy about to have his head chopped off on the guillotine or the people intently watching the process from a safe distance, licking their lips in anticipation? And who loves the dead more — Alice, "sacrificing" himself for the public each night or the public itself? He's got you there, fans and lovers.

For dessert, treat yourself to the smartest lyrics on the album — off the unjustly forgotten 'Gene­ration Landslide': 'And I laugh to myself at the men and the ladies / Who never conceived of us billion dollar babies'. I am pretty sure it is songs like this that Bob Dylan referred to when, in one of his interviews, he called Cooper "an underrated songwriter". Thumbs up, of course, even if the album has lost some of its freshness — but none of its major points — today.

PS. The double-CD "deluxe edition" is highly recommendable: it adds a near-complete live show from the accompanying tour, recorded in high quality and played with enough variation on the studio album to make it worth your while, although an even better choice would be to get acquai­nted with the video equivalent of Good To See You. In addition, you get the cool Elvis-like rock­abilly B-side 'Slick Black Limousine' and a couple studio demos — and liner notes that trace comparisons between the glam excesses of the Alice Cooper Band circa '73 and the jazzbaby ex­cesses of Joan Crawford circa the Depression, among other things.

The Animals: The Animals

THE ANIMALS: THE ANIMALS (1964)

1) The House Of The Rising Sun; 2) The Girl Can't Help It; 3) Blue Feeling; 4) Baby Let Me Take You Home; 5) The Right Time; 6) Talkin' 'Bout You; 7) Around And Around; 8) I'm In Love Again; 9) Gonna Send You Back To Walker; 10) Memphis Tennessee; 11) I'm Mad Again; 12) I've Been Around.

This and the following two albums are most easily acquired today on the 2-CD set entitled The Complete Animals — but "complete" only as far as their 1964-1965 Columbia recordings go, i. e. representing the "Alan Price" era in which the band had not yet turned into the custom-made vehicle for propagating Eric Burdon's limitless ego, but, rather, was simply one of the tightest, strak-raving-maddest British R'n'B combos that ever came out of Newcastle-on-Tyme. (Now that is a statement that'll be pretty hard to beat).

Eric Burdon, at this point, is merely the vocalist: an essential part of the band, the rough, rowdy, ballsy exterior, its bullroarer communicator. Alan Price is the organist, creating grim, moody at­mospheres derivative of Ray Charles but in a class of their own. Hilton Valentine is the guitar player — nothing particularly special but it was he who first put on record the arpeggios of 'Hou­se Of The Rising Sun', and that alone should suffice. And the rhythm section is... decent.

As with most British bands of the period, it is of no principal importance whether the reviews cen­ter around their US or UK discographies — none of the albums were intended as 'concept' pieces, and, in the case of the Animals, producer Mickie Most could care less about proper track sequencing regardless of the side of the Atlantic ocean that sequencing was delivered to. US dis­cographies are cozier in that respect, since the albums tend to be more numerous at the expense of including material that, in the UK, was only issued on 45s, but it really makes no difference.

Anyway, The Animals — the American version, which, for some reason, happened to come out about a month earlier than the UK counterpart — does faithfully include the band's two first sin­gles, plus seven LP tracks that would also be on the UK album and 'Blue Feeling', which would later be used as the B-side to 'Boom Boom'. The sequencing is a mess indeed, but, more impor­tantly, there is not a single Animals original: all of the tunes are blues / R'n'B / rockabilly covers, with 'House Of The Rising Sun' thrown in for good measure. So, how does it measure up today?

Still great. At the intersection of Burdon's vocals and Price's organ playing, the Animals had de­veloped a unique sound that made these songs their own and make even such universal chestnuts as Chuck Berry's 'Around And Around' or Ray Charles' 'The Right Time' well worth hearing in these versions. Price, in particular, almost singlehandedly turns the electric organ into a rock weapon as powerful as the electric guitar; his playing may be simpler and more "rootsy" and traditional than that of his main concurrent on the instrument — Rod Argent of the Zombies — but, before his successful quest of conquering the organ, no one had ever explored its potential so thoroughly. On the fast numbers, Price-led instrumental passages create an atmosphere of proto-psychedelia that must have driven rock'n'roll dancers punch-drunk in 1964 ('Talkin' 'Bout You'); and the slow ones, through his subtle uses of various effects and volume levels, are transformed from generic blues into artsy explorations of human emotion ('I'm Mad Again').

As for Eric, it is tremendously hard to understand and describe the secret of his singing. He ne­ver had much range, and his "powerhouse" delivery, shocking and stunning in 1964, has long since been beaten by far throatier powerhouse vocalists like Noddy Holder of Slade. But perhaps it is exactly the combination of the powerhouse approach with a certain amount of refined finesse and intelligence — something Noddy could never have been suspected of — that does the trick. Bur­don knows how to play with his voice and intrigue the listener with this play; he knows the value of silence and quiet just as he knows the value of all-out screaming, and he, perhaps best of all the early British R'n'B-ers, had mastered the voodoo art of classic bluesmen and R'n'B-ers who could easily lure the audience into a trance through simple repetition of the simplest phrases. You will know what I mean if, just like me, you will not feel that 'Talkin' 'Bout You' has lasted all of seven minutes, a record-breaker in 1964.

In between these two masters of the trade, even thoroughly lightweight tracks like 'Baby Let Me Take You Home' (copped by the band from Dylan's earlier 'Baby Let Me Follow You Down') are delightful, although I personally lean towards the darker stuff, like 'I'm Mad Again', arguably the most believable impersonation of a nervous breakdown in British pop music up to that time. The only catch is that the darker stuff is in the minority here — in their earliest days, the band liked to rave and rock their audience more than it liked to hypnotize it. But can we blame them?

Then again, of course, few things could be darker than 'The House Of The Rising Sun', which has not lost one ounce of its terrifying power ever since. Its historical influence can hardly be over­rated — it may not have singlehandedly invented 'folk-rock', but it certainly was one of the earli­est indications that pop music made by young rebellious people could have brains and soul in ad­dition to brawn and lust. It also served as an important watermark in the evolution of rock lyrics: apparently, Burdon did not feel as comfortable as Dylan about singing 'it's been the ruin of many a poor girl, and me, o God, I'm one', and changed 'girl' to 'boy' — immediately and, probably, un­intentionally, transforming it from a tragic, but generic, folk lament of a brothel-locked girl with family troubles into an equally tragic, but far more mysterious — mystical, in fact — plight of The Disspirited Young Man, with no common idea whatsoever of what "The House Of The Ri­sing Sun" really is or should represent.

The historical side should then be reinforced by mentioning the record-breaking length of 4:29 for a single release (kudos to Mickie Most for greenlighting the idea), and the emotional side — by mentioning the fantastic crescendo, as the song slowly and steadily gains in volume, beginning with little other than Valentine's arpeggios and then gradually becoming a bloody battlefield be­tween Burdon's epic vocal stand and Price's keyboard-generated tempest. For all its purposes, for all its simplicity, it is most certainly "art rock" at its earliest and freshest, and that organ solo should be canonized; is there anything like an "organ solo Hall of Fame"?

So the album should be getting a thumbs up even if it had nothing but 'House' on it — in terms of historical importance, that's probably just the way it goes — but its overall sound is such a de­light that I am even happy about relistening to the band being proverbially mega-repetitive and ultra-monotonous on 'Memphis Tennessee'. Classic.