Alice Cooper: Hey Stoopid

ALICE COOPER: HEY STOOPID (1991)

1) Hey Stoopid; 2) Love's A Loaded Gun; 3) Snakebite; 4) Burning Our Bed; 5) Dangerous Tonight; 6) Might As Well Be On Mars; 7) Feed My Frankenstein; 8) Hurricane Years; 9) Little By Little; 10) Die For You; 11) Dirty Dreams; 12) Wind-Up Toy.

From a rigidly formalistic point of view, Hey Stoopid is an utterly faithful sequel to Trash: one more batch of big fat glam-metal tunes that sacrifice the Cooperishness of Cooper for the sakes of mo­dern commercial values. From the economic point of view, Hey Stoopid was a financially un­satisfactory venture — not only did it fail to repeat the success of Trash, but it plummeted down so fast that people might have missed its appearance altogether, were it not for the lucky move of featuring one of the songs in Wayne's World. From my personal point of view, Hey Stoopid sim­ply kicks ass in a way that none of the three preceding albums could ever hope to.

Let me put it this way: Trash, for the most part, could have been recorded by any ballsy artist of its era, and nobody would have winked. It was Alice's conscious experiment in getting himself anally penetrated with corporate songwriting, from which he inarguably gained financial and ar­guably — sexual satisfaction. Hey Stoopid, on the other hand, shows the man still embracing the trappings of the genre, but it is an undeniably Alice album, one on which he has finally initiated the process of restoring his artistic integrity. And I do not even mean such superficial messages as the haunting wail of "Steven!.." at the album's end, bringing on a feeling of nostalgia for 1975. I mean that an Alice Cooper album is supposed to sting, and this one stings.

Let us begin with the worst. We still have a share of moronic cock-rockers and pompous power ballads. 'Snakebite' is not a very useful song, not much of an improvement over 'House Of Fire', except a little faster. 'Burning Our Bed' and 'Die For You', following tradition, dress cheap sen­ti­mentality in hymn form and fail, quite miserably so (me never having been a major worshipper of 'Only Women Bleed', I cannot help but wonder just how much «weightier» the average com­mer­cial­ly-oriented pop ballad of the 1970s used to be).

But overall, the standards have improved. For instance, 'Dirty Dreams' could have easily been the equal of 'Snakebite'. Instead, it is given this crunchy, catchy, hilarious riff that is more T. Rex or Cheap Trick than Mötley Crüe, and only the obligatory (but somewhat fun) finger-flashing guitar solo truly gives it away. And 'Might As Well Be On Mars' (which is not really about Mars, but about the inability to get together — apparently, even non-stop fucking eventually has to stop) could have easily been the equal of 'Die For You', but it is given an artsy, «spacy» arrangement that befits the title and a lengthy coda where guitars engage in a fierce battle with strings until both run out of steam and get swallowed up by 'Feed My Frankenstein'. Hardly a timeless classic, because the powerhouse chorus still sucks, but the classy touches certainly justify Dick Wagner's one-time involvement with the creation of this particular tune.

Wagner, however, only guests on one track. The rest are dominated by more trendy guitar heroes — no expense has been spared, as Alice enlists Vinnie Moore, Slash, Joe Satriani and Steve Vai, sometimes several of them on the exact same song. (For pointless trivia lovers, Ozzie Osbourne also helps out with backing vocals on the title track, and Nikki Sixx of Mötley Crüe fame plays bass on 'Feed My Frankenstein'). Of course, this is overkill, and even those who claim to be fans will probably enjoy these guys more on their own records. Still, it is undeni­able that all of them have better technique than Kane Roberts, and more inventiveness than who­ever it was responsible for the guitar work on Trash. And if you are determined to make a glam metal album, why should you want anything less than the best? This is a very demanding genre — nothing but the best really works.

I sincerely believe that three of these songs at least deserve as much recognition as anything Alice ever did, before or after (with the fourth one — the title track, a spitting warning for the fans not to waste themselves away — closing in not too far behind). First, 'Love's A Loaded Gun'. This one should be in everybody's handbook on how to write a non-cringe-inducing power ballad, ex­cept it is not properly a ballad, because it is a threat song, not a love song. Tense, memorable, pa­ranoid, acid sharp in terms of both riffs and solos, it follows the outlines of Trash, but with much more wit and bite, and it has the second most exciting use of the "Pull the trigger!" exclamation in rock history (the first one, of course, is attested for AC/DC). Plus, it gives you something to think about when you consider Alice's ironic tribute to Robert Johnson: where the latter used the image of 'her suitcase in her hand' as a starting point for unraveling his own misery, Alice uses it as the starting point for revenge — no time for sissying around for this guy.

Second — yes, you guessed — 'Feed My Frankenstein'. Vai and Satriani battle it out in the solo section, but that is actually the least interesting section for those who already know a little about either of them. The most interesting thing is how, torn between the necessity of writing about dirty sex and horror shows, Alice manages to come up with a song that deals with both at the same time, using healthy, decent cannibalism as a metaphor for sick, indecent you-know-what, and combining it with great riffs and (finally!) his old sense of humour for good measure. "Feed my Frankenstein, meet my libido!" is certainly silly, but it makes you laugh, and yet, at the same time, this is nowhere near the comfy safety of sex-oriented material on Trash — I can hardly imagine the respectable bourgeois headbanging to "I'm a hungry man but I don't want pizza..."

Third and most important — do not miss on that one! — is 'Wind-Up Toy'. Refreshing! Alice returns here to what he does best: impersonating the mentally deficient. (Leave it to guys with a seriously higher-than-average IQ to be the most efficient spokesmen for the retarded ones). Appa­rently, what we have here is the reappearance of Steven, shut up in an asylum and shut out from the outside world; but to hell with "Steven" — this thing need have no name. One big mistake that people commit with this song is calling it «spooky», or expecting it to be so: the actual music is not one bit spooky, nor is Alice's performance; this is not 'Black Juju', this is a realistic song that tries to pick at the deepest inner feelings of the Down's syndrome guy, and it really does not hit its full stride until the coda, when Alice's piercing wail ('I'm just a wind-up toy, a wind-up, wind-up, wind-up toy!') cuts through the wall of sound. That is the scariest moment — «scariest», not «spookiest» — much more so than the Steven King-ish voiceovers at the end, and it is one of those rare instances where the Coop succeeds in getting across real pain, suffering, and desperati­on rather than their exciting, but cartoonish projections.

All of this translates as «mixed bag, but with a well-discernible positive trend for the whole fac­tory», and, consequently, as a hearty thumbs up — with only three or four songs out of twelve ranking below expectations. To this I should probably add that Hey Stoopid was released just a few months before the grunge ex­plosion, which possibly explains its inability to find the same market as Trash, but something tells me that, had the hair metal rule managed to last for another decade, Cooper's next record in the same genre might have completely overcome the genre's weak­nesses. Fortunately, with the hair metal empire collapsing around him, for his next offering he already didn't have to.

Aretha Franklin: The Tender, The Moving, The Swinging

ARETHA FRANKLIN: THE TENDER, THE MOVING, THE SWINGING (1962)

1) Don't Cry, Baby; 2) Try A Little Tenderness; 3) I Apologize; 4) Without The One You Love; 5) Look For The Silver Lining; 6) I'm Sitting On Top Of The World; 7) Just For A Thrill; 8) God Bless The Child; 9) I'm Wandering; 10) How Deep Is The Ocean; 11) I Don't Know You Anymore; 12) Lover Come Back To Me.

More fuel from the Great American Songbook. If you love Irving Berlin, Al Hoffman, Ray Hen­derson and their co-workers, you will love this, because, after all, Aretha truly worked her ass off on these numbers, and Columbia's session musicians were no sissy amateurs either. But, as far as I can tell, this time around she is not even covering the cream of the cream — and it had to take Otis Redding to bring out the hidden potential of 'Try A Little Tenderness'.

Side one, for me, does not even begin until the last song, when Aretha kicks up a cute little rum­pus on 'I'm Sitting On Top Of The World'. Side two is significantly better, with two Billie Holi­day classics ('God Bless The Child' and 'Lover Come Back To Me') performed quite convincing­ly and Lil Armstrong/Ray Charles' 'Just For A Thrill' that does not compare so well to Ray's smoky version, but does not spoil it with extra syrup at least.

Still, while the album pushes dangerously close to representing her nadir stage on Columbia, no record featuring a young, fresh, enthusiastic (let alone tender, moving, swinging) Aretha Franklin can be truly bad; when she unleashes the full power of her range and phrasing ('I'm Wandering'), she can take one's breath away even by means of the Songbook — an ability that the manneris­tic, overbearing «soul divas» of today have either lost or caused to mutate in quite a sacrilegious way. Thumbs down, but only because better days were soon to come.

Bessie Smith: Complete Recordings Vol. 4

BESSIE SMITH: THE COMPLETE RECORDINGS, VOL. 4 (1928-1930)

CD I: 1) He's Got Me Goin'; 2) It Won't Be You; 3) Spider Man Blues; 4) Empty Bed Blues (part 1); 5) Empty Bed Blues (part 2); 6) Put It Right Here (Or Keep It Out There); 7) Yes Indeed He Do!; 8) Devil's Gonna Git You; 9) You Ought To Be Ashamed; 10) Washwoman's Blues; 11) Slow And Easy Man; 12) Poor Man's Blues; 13) Please Help Me Get Him Out Of My Mind; 14) Me And My Gin; 15) I'm Wild About That Thing; 16) You've Got To Give Me Some; 17) Kitchen Man; 18) I've Got What It Takes (But It Breaks My Heart To Give It Away); 19) Nobody Knows You When You're Down And Out; 20) Take It Right Back ('Cause I Don't Want It Here); CD II: 1) Standin' In The Rain Blues; 2) It Makes My Love Come Down; 3) Wasted Life Blues; 4) Dirty No-Gooder's Blues; 5) Blue Spirit Blues; 6) Worn Out Papa Blues; 7) You Don't Understand; 8) Don't Cry Baby; 9) Keep It To Yourself; 10) New Or­leans Hop Scop Blues; 11) See If I'll Care; 12) Baby Have Pity On Me; 13) On Revival Day; 14) Moan, You Moa­ners; 15) Hustlin' Dan; 16) Black Mountain Blues; 17) In The House Blues; 18) Long Old Road; 19) Blue Blues; 20) Shipwreck.

It is amusing to learn that 'Nobody Knows You When You're Down And Out' — a song original­ly written by Bessie's minor competition Ida Cox, but eventually immortalized by the Empress — was recorded in 1929, immediately bringing on associations with the Wall Street crash and sub­sequent demise of the blues industry on the whole, and Bessie's in particular. How painfully auto­biographical, one might say.

Yet it is twice as amusing to know that the actual recording took place on May 15 of that year — more than five actual months before the beginning of the Depression. As prophetic as the song now sounds, when Bessie put it in the can, it was just another unhappy blues anthem with Ms. Smith, at that moment — not exactly a millionnaire, but certainly pretty well-off, singing "Once I lived the life of a millionnaire..." as if that past tense were spoken in all sincerity. Atmosphere? Unhappy, for sure, but nowhere near miserable: the emphasis is on frustration — Bessie makes herself sound mighty pissed off at having so stupidly squandered her fortunes, with a whiff of threat that echoes Timon of Athens.

I guess she brought it on herself, though — obviously God could not refuse such a fervent plea for bitter misery, and had little choice but to bring down the stock market. The economic history of the States is well observed by the statistics: Bessie cut 18 sides in 1928, 18 sides in 1929, but only 8 in 1930 (and only two in 1931!). Some of these eight sides were real strange, too, like 'On Revival Day' and 'Moan, You Moaners', the first and last pure gospel tracks that Bessie (whose relations with the Lord were, in general, not very amicable) ever did, and she did them well, even though I would not welcome the idea of a whole collection of such tunes; Bessie's powerhouse assault works well in a gospel context, but if, for some reason, one should want a longer, more de­tailed exposure to the genre, it requires such levels of subtlety as Bessie never possessed (un­like, for instance, Mahalia Jackson).

Nevertheless, let us not forget that all of 1928 and most of 1929 were still part of the roaring years, and there are quite a few tracks here that stand out fairly well, satisfying quite a few different tastes. Hungry for sleazy and salacious? The sprawling, two-part 'Empty Bed Blues', replete with Charlie Green's sexy trombone grunts, features lyrics that would make AC/DC and KISS members nervously blush in the distance ('He boiled my first cabbage and he made it awful hot / When he put in the bacon, it overflowed the pot' — I wonder what Tip­per Gore would have to say about that. Then again, with her level of understanding, she'd proba­bly suggest it as the soundtrack for Ready Steady Cook). If that is not enough, how about 'Kitchen Man'? Eddie Lang's Lonnie Johnson-style guitar, sinuously sliding along, is the perfect accompaniment for lines like 'Oh how that boy can open clam, no one else can touch my ham', and she likes his sausage meat, too, if you know what I mean.

If you want serious and troubled, there is 'Me And My Gin', simply an undispu­table classic ma­s­terpiece; Bessie's 'Stay away from me, 'cause I'm in my sin' transparently shows how the blues is, in fact, true Devil's music a whole decade before the advent of Robert Johnson. And if it does not, certainly 'Blue Spirit Blues' does, as she unfurls a panorama of hellish visions straight from Bald Mountain; a song even more ominously prophetic than 'Nobody...', recorded on October 11 — less than two weeks before the whole world truly went to hell.

If you want strong-willed quasi-feminist anthems, you can go no further than 'Put It Right Here (Or Keep It Out There)', where she explicitly states that no man can, or will, use her up financial­ly — and the even more scorching 'I've Got What It Takes (But It Breaks My Heart To Give It Away)', in which the lady protagonist refuses to bail out her good-for-nothing guy because 'I've been saving it up for a long long time, to give it away would be more than a crime'. One may que­stion the judgement, but not the determination.

To sum it up, Vol. 4 seems to pick up the pace that was somewhat slowed down on Vol. 3, and if it does not have the highest ratio of classic-to-filler, it certainly does have the most diverse port­folio. People occasionally complain that, by the time 1930 rolls along, her voice had started show­ing signs of wearing down, e. g. on such numbers as 'Hustlin' Dan' and 'Black Mountain Blues', but, first of all, I simply do not hear it, and second, even if this is true, it is still impossible: Bessie's voice is of the particular kind that usually stays immune to any troubles, be they smoke, drug, or age-related. The worst she could do was flub a note or two if she came in the studio drunk, but we are not exactly talking opera singers here. She was always in great form.

The Beta Band: The Beta Band

THE BETA BAND: THE BETA BAND (1999)

1) The Beta Band Rap; 2) It's Not Too Beautiful; 3) Simple Boy; 4) Round The Bend; 5) Dance O'Er The Border; 6) Broken Up A-Ding-Dong; 7) Number 15; 8) Smiling; 9) The Hard One; 10) The Cow's Wrong.

The Beta Band, quite officially, all but disowned this record upon release, complaining that they were not given enough time or money to complete it properly. Therefore, be warned, future lis­tener: The Beta Band does not, in fact, fully conform to representing the completeness of artist-in-question's creative vision, but merely presents the basic cognitive structures that trigger the process of self-realization without bringing it to fruition. Putting it bluntly, it's a godawful mess, which Steve Mason has admitted himself.

Then again, I cannot help but wonder how exactly the band could have gone about embellishing these creations, given a more generous budget. Turn them into Lenny Kravitz or Ricky Martin was probably out of the question. Hiring the London Symphony Orchestra would be a better idea, but «The Beta Band with the London Symphony Orchestra» would likely only be as good as the sum of its parts anyway. Spending all the extra money on high-class alcohol and adding a genui­nely drunken vibe to the proceedings would also have been smart, but that would mean the band actually complained about the record being too normal rather than insufficiently accessible.

Personally, I would say that the Beta's Band initiation into the world of long-playing art is per­fec­tly fine as it is. A little tiresome in parts, perhaps; most of the «songs» hang around for too long, which is confusing, considering that the band members are overflowing with creative ideas — yet they avariciously hang on to them, only dispensing a few per composition. Where a guy like Zap­pa would have gone for oversaturation, cramming fifteen different melodies in fifty different ar­rangements per one long track (not a very recommendable approach either), these people take their time, hanging each track on one, at most two, different stable grooves, and then seeing what happens over the course of some whacko improvisations.

This complaint does not apply to the first song, though, which may give a false impression that the whole record may fly under post-modernist banners. 'The Beta Band Rap' does have a rap sec­tion, but only in the middle; the first part is fast-paced folksy vaudeville that sounds freshly deli­vered from the ovens of Sesame Street, and the last one is delirious rockabilly with some mock Elvis/Gene Vincent imitations — but what they all have in common is that the lyrics, rather strai­ghtforwardly and not without humor ("Since we've been signed, we eat real good / We always wash our hands and chew our food"), retell the story of the band up to the present.

But the Beta Band's prime purpose of existence is not to confuse and stupefy your mind: like their faraway ancestors from the unearthly paradise of Pepperland, they are here to blow it, and they begin doing this as early as the second track, 'It's Not Too Beautiful' — which it, fairly eno­ugh, is not, but it is still trippy enough to guarantee a pleasant journey through the white clouds and bright skies, occasionally interrupted with dangerous moments of turbulence that seem to have been sampled from some heavily orchestrated movie soundtracks.

What follows is almost completely unpredictable — and undescribable. Actually, it is very much describable, but a detailed description of each track would occupy a few weighty paragraphs of space and would make about as much sense as describing Bosch's The Garden of Earthly De­lights to someone standing on the steps of the Museo del Prado. There is a whole swarm of groo­ves — folksy, funky, hippity-hoppity, even ambient — each one saturated with whatever turns up on the cards: crazy Keith Moon-style percussion outbursts, symphonic swoops, cowbells, whis­tles, tape loops, white noise, electronically treated vocals, you just name it.

In terms of innovative power, it could be said that the album could have been a direct influence on Wilco's Yankee Hotel Foxtrot — or, at least, it independently did pretty much the same thing that Jeff Tweedy and the boys came up with two years later. When Steve Mason sings "Once upon a time I was falling apart, now I'm always falling in love" in the monotonous, but seductive re­frain to 'The Hard One', he pretty much sounds like Tweedy — but, more than that, what they are do­ing is taking the age-old folk-pop singer-songwriting vibe and dipping it into a complex psy­che­delic-electronic sauce, exactly the kind of thing that tracks like 'I Am Trying To Break Your Heart' would be lauded for in a very short while. It's simply that 'The Hard One' is less catchy and more befuddling in its structure — but this should not make it any less deserving of attention.

With albums like these, the obligatory question is always «Would this sound better if I were on drugs?» Fortunately, I cannot answer this based on personal experience; but if there ever was an argument that psychedelic music as such puts together a grander, more diverse and exciting uni­verse than any amount of drugs could ever hope to, The Beta Band are its chief proponents in the modern age. At least, their psychedelia leaves plenty of space for humour, dancing, and basic human emotions. Listening to this on drugs could, in fact, close your mind to many of this al­bum's charms rather than the opposite. It is quite a brainy experience, and so the brain takes the lead in awarding it a brainy thumbs up, while the heart still cannot help but see this as a slight letdown after the pleasures of 'Dry The Rain' and 'Dog's Got A Bone'.

Alice In Chains: Live

ALICE IN CHAINS: LIVE (1990-1996; 2000)

1) Bleed The Freak; 2) Queen Of The Rodeo; 3) Angry Chair; 4) Man In The Box; 5) Love, Hate, Love; 6) Rooster; 7) Would?; 8) Junkhead; 9) Dirt; 10) Them Bones; 11) God Am; 12) Again; 13) A Little Bitter; 14) Dam That River.

During the long waiting period that followed Tripod — the period when Columbia Records ex­pected Layne Staley to pull himself together, yet he pulled a fast one on them and pulled himself apart instead — slaves were put to the hard task of searching the vaults for more Alice In Chains stuff to satisfy the presumably hungry public. Results consisted of a large boxset, Music Bank, which I do not give a special review because the content of previously unavailable material was quite low (and also for adhering to sinful compiling practices, such as including Dirt in its entire­ty but replacing the final recording of 'Junkhead' with a demo version so that the true fan would have to buy the album separately); and this live album, with recordings culled from a variety of shows, including five songs from their very last two gigs with Staley.

Unlike Music Bank, the live album is well worth your money if you love the band; it is nice, af­ter all, to have a proper document of their live show that is not Unplugged — it certainly feels weird to have one of the loudest and crunchiest bands of the decades represented exclusively through their acoustic out­put when it comes to live shows. Live corrects that problem; technically, its existence is a necessity.

Two things dampen the joy, though. First, the sound quality is very much so-so; not bootleg level, but something tells me these recordings were not originally intended for commercial release. Vo­cals are captured poorly, guitars are not properly separated from crowd noises, and drums can sometimes be very tinny. In comparison with the band's tight-as-hell production standards in the studio, Live almost feels... limp? Which brings us to the second problem: the songs were so per­fect in the first place — brutal, ass-kicking, and simultaneously polished to the highest level of catchiness and expressivity — that improving upon them in a live setting is virtually impossible. Face it: your guitar sound will be sloppier, your vocalist will imminently miss some notes, all the cool tricks you used in the studio to spice up the atmosphere will be irreproductible, and what do you get in return? The mystical, untappable live feel?..

Track-wise, there are only a couple minor surprises: one of the band's two contributions to the soundtrack of Last Action Hero, 'A Little Bitter' (decent, but unspectacular funk-rocker), and pro­bably the oddest song the band ever did but never released in a studio version: 'Queen Of The Rodeo', an explosive mix of country-rock and thrash metal (!) that sends up both genres as rough­ly as possible (particularly the former, with telling lines like 'I ain't no queer, go fuck a steer'). If you have to know what Alice In Chains' understanding of humour amounts to, you will have to get acquainted with the record.

As for the regular material, not a single song opens itself up from any unexpected sides; it is ge­nerally just a question of how well they can reproduce the power of the originals on stage. Props have to be given to Layne, who, despite all the reputed assholishness of his character, works real­ly hard to give the people what they want. But, let's admit it, he is still better in the studio. There is no improvisation, either, or surprising rearrangements of any of the songs — which is under­standable, since most of them are performed here within months or so of the studio release. All in all, Live is certainly truer to the true face of Alice In Chains than Unplugged ever hoped to be — yet, out of the two, Unplugged is certainly the more interesting project.

A-ha: Lifelines

A-HA: LIFELINES (2002)

1) Lifelines; 2) You Wanted More; 3) Forever Not Yours; 4) There's A Reason For It; 5) Time And Again; 6) Did Anyone Approach You?; 7) Afternoon High; 8) Oranges On Appletrees; 9) A Little Bit; 10) Less Than Pure; 11) Turn The Lights Down; 12) Cannot Hide; 13) White Canvas; 14) Dragonfly; 15) Solace.

A whole team of different, but equally respectable producers helped the band out on this one. You'd think the result should have been a mess, and you'd be right: Lifelines is a mess. Sur­prisingly, though, it is not an exciting mess of breathtaking successes and misguided failures. It is simply a lightweight, va­pid, fake-sounding mess. A mess such as would naturally result from the band's expressing a serious desire... to become the new Backstreet Boys. Did they really? I hope they did not. But reason tells me they really did.

These are horrible arrangements. Horrible. The instruments have lost all life, the rhythm section reduced to stereotypical bad movie soundtrack pulsations, the melodies relying on clichés, the lyrics being clichés. Good moments — moments — abound throughout, but they are almost im­mediately washed away by rivers of syrup, streams of corn, and oceans of cheese. How the heck could this be possible, so soon after the inventive dark maturity of Minor Earth? Who told them to return to the primitive teen aesthetics of 1986, accomodating it to the needs of the new millen­nium? At least in 1986 they were pretty much teens themselves. But in 2002?..

The only song that qualifies as a relatively solid bit — the only one — is the title track, whose dreamy sequence of 'What do you see, what do you know? One sign, what do I do?..' recreates the treasurable part of the A-Ha spirit in a believable manner. Its «adult contemporary» sound seems to have a wee bit of depth that the rest of the songs does not. But the other hits do not even begin to reach it: 'Forever Not Yours' is American Idol-style pablum, miserably failing to put Morten's singing to good use (the way he bleats out the chorus is just painful), and 'Did Anyone Approach You?' is clearly just a marketing ploy, concocting a «mysterious» atmosphere around a very flat dance melody that is really no fun whatsoever.

'Less Than Pure' is just about the only song on the album that preserves faint traces of aggressive desperation, the same emotion whose puncturing made previous records so enjoyable. But even that song is definitely «less than pure». Everything else is simply too shallow, too happy, too dis­gustingly clean. Clearly, the experiment did not work. Thumbs down for a record that the band members, if they are really smart, should have long ago disowned, putting the blame on their pro­ducers. Amazing, though, considering that one of the producers used to produce for the Pet Shop Boys, and the other two used to produce for Elvis Costello. Was this a subtle revenge on their part, getting even with their protegés' commercial competition in the Eighties?

AC/DC: Live

AC/DC: LIVE (1992)

CD I: 1) Thunderstruck; 2) Shoot To Thrill; 3) Back In Black; 4) Sin City; 5) Who Made Who; 6) Heatseeker; 7) Fire Your Guns; 8) Jailbreak; 9) The Jack; 10) The Razors Edge; 11) Dirty Deeds Done Dirt Cheap; 12) Moneytalks; CD II: 1) Hells Bells; 2) Are You Ready; 3) That's The Way I Want My Rock'n'Roll; 4) High Voltage; 5) You Shook Me All Night Long; 6) Whole Lotta Rosie; 7) Let There Be Rock; 8) Bonny; 9) Highway To Hell; 10) T.N.T.; 11) For Those About To Rock.

This memento of the Razor's Edge tour exists in two versions — single-disc and a «deluxe» two-disc variant — and if you care about the band at all, there is no reason not to go for the double CD version, giving a much more precise and detailed impression of a late-period AC/DC show. Culled from various venues, it is very «honest» in that the sound fades out after each track, but on practice this constant fade-in/fade-out is annoying and gives the impression one normally gets from cheap Greatest Hits Live packages, even though the album is actually quite representative of the true AC/DC live set of the period, big hits, fresh numbers from the last two albums, and occasional rarities and oddities interspersed.

Arguably, The Razor's Edge tour was the last time the band rocked on stage with the usual amount of juvenile delight — during their subsequent live shows, old age started biting at their heels, which is particularly well visible on video (Angus being a little more restrained and less psychotic), but is subtly reflected in the overall sound as well. On Live, there is no such thing — the band rocks like crazy, which makes it all the more sad to see the further deterioration of John­son's voice, particularly showing on the old Back In Black hits. Of course, he tries to compensate by fini­shing the announcement of each song's title with a beastly roar ("this one's called... 'Sin City', YYAARGGH!"), but this schtick gets fairly obnoxious second time around, not to mention third, fourth, and forty-fourth. Poor guy.

Apart from the voice problem, the only other question is the same I have already asked about If You Want Blood: what's the point of an AC/DC live album in the first place? That previous live record made good mainly on the strength of Bon and Angus. This live record, on the contrary, succeeds despite Brian Johnson rather than because of him, leaving Angus as the only undisputed hero, but even Angus cannot make all of the tracks special, and the recent ones, in particular, are played very much by the book ('Thunderstruck'), meaning you have to pay for more or less the same thing twice.

So, what's actually different? Well, some things. You get to hear a less squeaky clean production of 'Who Made Who', without the electronic effects on the drums. You get to hear 'Heatseeker' be­gin with a few bars from 'Rocker' (a song that Brian only performed briefly with the band at the start of his tenure — it was too much of a personalized Bon vehicle for him to hold on to it). You get to hear 'The Jack' with Bon Scott's original «uncensored» lyrics — much less interesting than the double-entendre version, if you ask me (see how censorship rules?). You get to hear Angus play a little bit of Scottish folk music ('The Bonnie Banks O' Loch Lomond') as a happy crowd of Scots actually sings the words. And, most importantly, you get to hear heavily extended versions of 'Jailbreak' (as Angus masturbates — figuratively — and strips — literally), 'High Voltage' (Brian's bit of audience participation), and 'Let There Be Rock' (which spends the last five mi­nutes or so desperately trying to stop, but always failing).

None of this is essential, but little is disappointing (I would recommend to skip 'Hells Bells', a song that Brian never managed to get right onstage even in the early days, much less now when the pearly gates to the required high notes have been sealed with nicotine and alcohol), and, be­sides, this is the last young AC/DC album you are ever going to hear. Three years later, they would officially change their names to Angus and Malcolm Old, and the world would never be the same. So, thumbs up for now.

Alice Cooper: Trash

ALICE COOPER: TRASH (1989)

1) Poison; 2) Spark In The Dark; 3) House Of Fire; 4) Why Trust You; 5) Only My Heart Talkin'; 6) Bed Of Nails; 7) This Maniac's In Love With You; 8) Trash; 9) Hell Is Living Without You; 10) I'm Your Gun.

Trash is a puzzle. At least, it is fun to think of it as a puzzle. First, it was Alice's startlingly unex­pected commercial breakthrough, his biggest critical and especially commercial success since God knows when. Second, it eventually became one of Alice's most despised albums — at least, on the part of both the old guard of The Monster's long-term fans, and the newer generation of picky eaters, free from the virus of the Eighties. Third and final, it is not really as painfully flat and obvious a re­cord as it may seem — it deserves some serious thinking.

That the primary idea behind Trash was to endear Alice to a whole new brand of young admirers and to solidify his commercial base is beyond doubt. Why else would he want to enlist corporate songwriter Desmond Child to help out with the writing and recording of most of the songs? Why else all the guest star appearances by Jon Bon Jovi and members of Van Halen and Aerosmith? Why else replace the perversely charismatic, but over-brutal figure of Kane Roberts with slicker, more self-controlled, but even more faceless guitarists? Why else have Diane Warren in person co-write one of the songs (thankfully, not one of the ballads)?

And yet, I do not think it is entirely correct to dub Trash a direct «sell out». Rather, it is a curious «experiment in selling out» — a little game that the Coop played on society for his own personal amusement. When people «sell out», this normally surmises a conscious (or, sometimes, subcon­scious) rejection of one's own artistic ambitions as you plainly enslave whatever talent you have — singing, playing, writing — to the industry people, who gain the right to fuck with it in any way they like, depen­ding on the current fashion. Most frequently, however, people are at least marginally ashamed of selling out, trying to somehow mask the cheapness of their product by in­cluding something «personal» or «complex» or trying to save at least a couple of their old trade­marks, so they can cling to some straw in case they get pummelled in interviews.

Trash, however, is different in at least two ways. First, Alice never made a single other album that sounds like it — Hey Stoopid did carry on with the glam-metal image, but, in effect, already began the «artistic healing» period for the man. Second, it is so overtly cheap, so blatantly com­mercial from top to bottom, so completely un-Alice-like, that, once you look at it sideways, it be­comes all but impossible to regard it as anything other than a vile joke played upon the old fans, or, come to think of it, upon the new ones as well — the mindless idiots who are bound to be zom­bified into sending the man's least relevant record high up the charts. After all, isn't the album title a dead giveaway? Couldn't the sole reason behind this record consist in Alice, and others, being able to say «Look at them kids today, digging all that trash!»

So what do we have here, anyway? Ten metallic tracks (eight pop rockers, two power ballads) that have switched their allegiance from W.A.S.P. to Bon Jovi. The guitar riffs and solos are still heavy, but have been thoroughly cleaned up, sanitized, and made catchier. The horror imagery and slasher movie references have been expurgated — but the dirty sex remains, multiplied ten-fold. Basically, Trash is an album about non-stop fucking, which was just about the hottest topic in mainstream America in 1989, Tipper Gore notwithstanding; predictably, it takes a couple ro­mantic breaks on the ballads that appeal to higher sentiments, but, since we all know that a real man is supposed to use higher sentiments as simply a required pretext for anal sex and golden showers, the romantic breaks never take too long. Sure, we know that it's 'only my heart talkin', but what it really says is 'I'll lay you down and when all else fails, I'll drive you like a hammer on a bed of nails'. Now that's some talking!

Are the songs any good? Well, it is certainly not the worst that Eighties' glam-metal had to offer. In terms of songwriting, actually, I would think of it as an improvement over the previous pair of records. There are some interesting riffing ideas — simplistic, but effective, as on 'Spark In The Dark', or slightly more complex, as on 'This Maniac's In Love With You'. The choruses are nearly always catchy, and some are fun to sing along with, unlike that 'chop chop chop' abomination. Really, if you manage to quench the theoretical fire of indignation — «Alice Cooper, the creative artist, recording something like this?» — Trash is an okay piece of Eighties' party muzak.

I have no idea, though, why the album's biggest hit (and, up to this day, still Cooper's best re­cognized tune, a situation unlikely to change until the cursed Eighties generation, myself included, has died out) was 'Poison'. 'Poison' is simply too slow and lumbering to offer much in the way of headbanging, yet too aggressive to qualify as a power ballad. These two extremes are much better represented by, respectively, the title track, whose dirty riffs and raspy vocals are «trash», and 'Only My Heart Talkin', on which Alice and Steve Tyler merrily compete over who gets to sing in a more «ugly beautiful» manner. But 'Trash' wasn't even a single, and 'Only My Heart Talkin' failed to become a significant hit. Go figure.

'Spark In The Dark', with its near-perfect pop structure, and 'Trash', which transcends ugliness, are, to me, the only true standouts on the record. Most of the other songs do their job well, adding to the general success of the experiment. But the only reason for the overall album to exist that I can think of is that Alice's experience as a veteran shock-rocker may matter, and that, from a certain point of view, a fourty-year old guy can sing a bunch of songs about animal pleasures in a more convincing manner than twenty-five-year old whippersnappers. In other words, there is something about Trash that is viler, meaner, and dirtier than about any Mötley Crüe or Twisted Sister record. But is it a good thing? I have no idea. One thing is for certain: if you like catchy pop-metal tunes about sex sung by a decent family man pretending to be a dirty old pervert, Trash is your number one re­cord to satisfy that passion. Out of respect for this market niche, I re­frain from rating it.

Aretha Franklin: The Electrifying Aretha Franklin

ARETHA FRANKLIN: THE ELECTRIFYING ARETHA FRANKLIN (1962)

1) You Made Me Love You; 2) I Told You So; 3) Rock-A-Bye Your Baby With A Dixie Melody; 4) Nobody Like You; 5) Exactly Like You; 6) It's So Heartbreakin'; 7) Rough Lover; 8) Blue Holiday; 9) Just For You; 10) That Lucky Old Sun; 11) I Surrender, Dear; 12) Ac-Cent-Tchu-Ate The Positive.

By the time of Aretha's second album on Columbia, it was pretty obvious that Columbia was ste­ering her in all the wrong directions. There are people who can work wonders with glitzy show tunes — Ray Charles, for instance — and there are people who can't. That Aretha, per se and by default, is an electrifying kind of person is undeniable, but most of these songs are like rubber, completely incapable of conducting her electricity.

Again, John McFarland comes to the rescue, contributing several original compositions, of which 'I Told You So' is a likeable pop shuffle and 'Rough Lover' the closest thing to a forgotten classic, swinging with fervor and perfectly tailored for the young queen's aggressive stride. Clearly, Mc­Farland was «getting» Aretha better than anyone else in the management, and, even though he was hardly above writing sappy ballads for her as well, his eventual removal from the pro­cee­dings was just another in an endless series of marketing mistakes on Columbia's part.

So, 'Rough Lover' rocks hard; the rest is a test — a test to see if Aretha's determination and exu­berance will prevail over the shadow of Hoagy Carmichael and Bing Crosby. I do not find that it does, but if you happen to love show tunes regardless of the way they are done, this can be a nice experience. After all, as Harold Arlen tells us towards the end, we gotta 'accentuate the positive, eliminate the negative, but don't mess with Mr. In-Between'. I do feel tempted to say that messing with Mr. In-Between is exactly the kind of thing that's going on this record, because otherwise I just can't bring myself to eliminate the negative, no matter how hard I try.

Thumbs down, not even because I cannot stomach Bing Crosby (that happens to be my personal problem), but be­cau­se I cannot see any rational reason behind Aretha Franklin doing Bing Crosby. At least Pat Boone singing heavy metal had a bizarre novelty ring to it. This one just sucks in the good old plainly boring way.

Bessie Smith: Complete Recordings Vol. 3

BESSIE SMITH: THE COMPLETE RECORDINGS, VOL. 3 (1925-1928)

CD I: 1) Red Mountain Blues; 2) Golden Rule Blues; 3) Lonesome Desert Blues; 4) Them Has Been Blues; 5) Squeeze Me; 6) What's The Matter Now; 7) I Want Every Bit Of It; 8) Jazzbo Brown From Memphis Town; 9) The Gin House Blues; 10) Money Blues; 11) Baby Doll; 12) Hard Driving Papa; 13) Lost Your Head Blues; 14) Hard Time Blues; 15) Honey Man Blues; 16) One And Two Blues; 17) Young Woman's Blues; 18) Preachin' The Blues; 19) Backwater Blues; 20) After You've Gone; 21) Alexander's Ragtime Band; CD II: 1) Muddy Water (A Mis­sis­sip­pi Moan); 2) There'll Be A Hot Time In The Old Town Tonight; 3) Trombone Cholly; 4) Send Me To The 'Lectric Chair; 5) Them's Graveyard Words; 6) Hot Spring Blues; 7) Sweet Mistreater; 8) Lock And Key; 9) Mean Old Bed Bug Blues; 10) Homeless Blues; 11) Looking For My Man Blues; 12) Dyin' By The Hour; 13) Foolish Man Blues; 14) Thinking Blues; 15) Pickpocket Blues; 16) I Used To Be Your Sweet Mama; 17) I'd Rather Be Dead And Buried In My Grave; 18) I'd Rather Be Dead And Buried In My Grave (alt. take).

Heard from the perspective of our utterly spoiled modern-day ears that quickly get tired of repe­tition, Vol. 3, covering Bessie's years of prime glam and luxury, is somewhat of an intuitive let­down; but from the perspective of contemporary audiences, there is hardly even one small sign here that Ms. Smith might somehow be «losing it». After all, her voice and emotional force are going as strong as ever, and her backing players are still the top of the crop — when you have Fletcher Henderson, Coleman Hawkins, and James P. Johnson all delighted to back the lady, you know her fortunes have not changed much.

But in terms of classic individual performances, Vol. 3 does not add much to what we already know. The first disc is livened up by occasional dance numbers, such as 'Jazzbo Brown From Memphis Town' and the energetic performance of the classic 'Alexander's Ragtime Band', where Hawkins, Joe Smith, and Henderson fight it out in the background while Bessie shouts it out as if her own salary drastically depended upon her being able to draw as many neighbours as possible to the vir­tues of Alexander's Rag­time Band (well, in a way, it was). But the second half is much more subdued, and, to a large extent, dominated by second- and third-rate songs that do not de­serve special mention (except for such trivia bits as Bessie being, once in a while, backed by gui­tar rather than piano, e. g., 'Mean Old Bed Bug Blues' — but, unfortunately, the player is no Lon­nie Johnson and no Blind Lemon).

Well-recognized classics would likely include 'The Gin House Blues', the first of Bessie's auto­biographical relays of her troubled relations with alcohol; 'After You've Gone', with a big band arrangement and an intentionally epic feel, as Bessie fulfills the relatively easy task of oblitera­ting Marion Harris' original by injecting realism and power into the recording; and the even more anthemic 'Muddy Water (A Mississippi Moan)' — no realism here to speak of, because the «Chattanooga gal» hardly ever set foot in the Delta (then again, neither did John Fogerty, and that is no reason to turn down 'Proud Mary' or 'Green River'), however, her goal is not to recreate any kind of swampy atmosphere, but rather to use the lyrics as a general metaphor for the idea of being proud of one's home and homeland, wherever and whatever that is, and she makes it into one of the stateliest performances of her entire career. The final outburst — 'My heart cries out for muddy water!' — is unforgettable.

A minor half-funny, half-sad oddity that also deserves to be singled out is 'Send Me To The 'Lec­tric Chair', departing from the general blues structure and featuring one of the most repetitive choruses in history, with Bessie repeating 'judge, judge, please Mr. Judge' in the same robotic manner for about thirty times or so, weirdly contrasting with the far more expressive verse melody where she explains that 'I had my knife and went insane, and the rest you ought to know'. Hardly a classic, but definitely a bizarre stand-out in a collection that, for the modern listener at least, threatens to render one of the most impressive blues performers in history less and less im­pressive with each following track.

The Beta Band: The Three E.P.s

THE BETA BAND: THE THREE E.P.'s (1998)

1) Dry The Rain; 2) I Know; 3) B + A; 4) Dog Got A Bone; 5) Inner Meet Me; 6) The House Song; 7) Monolith; 8) She's The One; 9) Push It Out; 10) It's Over; 11) Dr. Baker; 12) Needles In My Eyes.

The Beta Band's first batch of EPs is frequently considered to be their finest, or, at least, most «se­minal» (actually, I hate this word) — and it is fairly convenient that, before going on to LP-length material, they bothered to package all three of them together on one disc, delivering me from the bother of thinking whether to review them all separately, or not to review them at all.

These guys are Scots, but they actually represent the kind of Scots who are fairly happy to get away from their Scottishness — at the very least, bagpipes are notoriously absent from these re­cordings. Their most deep-reaching influences would probably include the likes of the Holy Mo­dal Rounders, the Fugs, and the Incredible String Band — «psych-folk» outfits who found fun in adding various kaleidoscopic pebbles to basic folk melodies. If you think hard, you will discover that the approach, for the most part of the Seventies, Eighties, and Nineties, was all but dead: folk music went its own way, striving for rigidity, solemnity, and authenticity, and the «psych» bit ten­ded to connect with poppier or hard-rockier stuff instead.

Thus it is that Steve Mason and Co. try to revive this spirit — take the folk vibe and marry it to whatever else comes along as long as it's modern and «relevant»: avantgarde, electronica, hip-hop, trip-hop, whatever works. And, for the most part, it works, because it's fresh and fun, and at the same time solidly bound to traditional harmony structures. Do they have a point? No. They are post-modernist goofballs. You are supposed to make that point for yourself.

The first of the EPs, Champion Versions, is the most accessible. It is bookmarked by two relati­vely straightforward folk songs, 'Dry The Rain' and 'Dog's Got A Bone', that are catchy, «toe-tap­pity» and almost obnoxiously friendly — but saved by the lazy, nonchalant, seductively static vibe. 'Dry The Rain's opening lines ('This is the definition of my life: lying in bed in the sunlight, choking on the vitamin tablet the doctor gave in the hope of saving me...') could just as well be taken from some obscure Kinks song, and, in fact, there are nuanced parallels between Mason's singing style and that of Ray Davies — even though the Kinks as such could only have been a re­latively minor influence on the Beta Band.

In between these two tracks, however, they sandwich something a bit more challenging: two odd constructions that combine trip-hop rhythms with folk-pop guitars (feel the ever increasing magic of the hyphen!), and eventually become psychedelic jams where anything is liable to happen. But the challenge is worth living up to, because somewhere in the middle of 'B + A', everything clicks, and the trip is activated without any additional substances. The rhythm will never get you off the hook, and the addition of keyboard, percussion, and vocal harmony levels might unfurl a few extra cosmic dimensions if you are willing to take them.

By the time of the second EP, The Patty Patty Sound, the band has already gone off the deep end. This is full-blown unpredictable psychedelia, also bookmarked by cute folksy ditties ('Inner Meet Me', 'She's The One'), but this time they rather function simply as brief enticing intros / re­lieving outros to the reign of absurdism. Case in point: 'The House Song', which begins with an in­cessant loop going 'Put it in your pocket for a rainy day, sing your song and you know you're wrong now', then adds extra vocal countermelodies reminiscent of Gentle Giant, and then just throws it all away in favor of a (possibly improvised) rap in pseudo-Japanese. The fifteen-minute 'Mo­nolith', for the most part, dumps the rhythmics altogether, and ends up hanging on a deep, brain-drilling bassline while organs swirl, drums crash, guitars reverberate, tapes roll backwards, seagulls whine, and records scratch. It is easy to hate the thing, but there is so much going on that I find myself constantly interested — it is really one of these love-hate-relations that people can have with unpredictable escapades like the Stones' 'Sing This All Together', or certain sonic pano­ramas by Amon Düül II.

Finally, the third EP, Los Amigos del Beta Bandidos, tries to find some middle ground — all the songs are weird again, but they are generally shorter, and less strikingly innovative. For instance, 'Dr. Baker', with its ringing vocals, echoey instrumentation swooping at you from high above ground, kiddie chimes, and mantraic chorus, would not have felt out of place on Nuggets II, whi­le the free-jazzy, repetitive 'Push It Out' brings on memories of the early days of The Soft Machi­ne... well, actually, it is not nearly as retro as it all seems: with modern production, modern ap­proaches to rhythmics, and modern ways of genre-mixing, you could never accuse these guys of wanting to exclusively reproduce the styles of old.

But, in reality, it does not matter all that much to what exact extent The Beta Band are innovating, and to what extent they are merely making us remember the well-forgotten past. What matters is that these three EPs do a killer job in mixing pretty melodic ideas with odd arranging ideas with totally whacko ideas about sectioning and developing the songs. If you want catharsis and senti­mentality and find yourself here, you got seriously sidetracked; but if you are looking for the old psychedelic vibe bottled in a new, vibrant, ironic post-modernist type of container, you came to the right place. It does not exactly make your brain think, but it does split it in the middle, and that sure as hell deserves a thumbs up.

Alice In Chains: Black Gives Way To Blue

ALICE IN CHAINS: BLACK GIVES WAY TO BLUE (2009)

1) All Secrets Known; 2) Check My Brain; 3) Last Of My Kind; 4) Your Decision; 5) A Looking In View; 6) When The Sun Rose Again; 7) Acid Bubble; 8) Lesson Learned; 9) Take Her Out; 10) Private Hell; 11) Black Gives Way To Blue.

Staley's tragic, but more or less predictable drug-related demise in 2002 seemed to have sealed Alice In Chains' future. Not that they really needed one: with Tripod, they had pretty much said all they had to say — and, besides, Layne had already been properly dead ever since that album's release, as can be easily seen on the video for Unplugged. Accordingly, Cantrell, still very much alive and musically active, concentrated on his own solo career. For a while.

A few years after Layne's death, however, it somehow turned out that the remaining band mem­bers sort of missed each other, and this led to a series of reunion concerts with various friends in­vited as temporary lead vocalists. One of these turned out to be William DuVall, singer and gui­tarist of Comes With The Fall, a minor hard rock outfit from Atlanta — and, seeing as how he was able to invoke Staley's spirit better than the rest, one thing led to another, until, at the tail end of the decade, the reformed band unexpectedly found itself in the studio releasing new material under the name of Alice of Chains.

Formally, I suppose, they have a right to do that. After all, Cantrell was not only one of the foun­ding members, but he wrote ninety percent of the music and a good share of the lyrics, not to mention being responsible for most of the band's musical evolution. So, if Black Gives Way To Blue does not sound anything like Dirt or Tripod, this does not imply that the first thing to do is run to the office and change the name. Besides, it does sound closer to Dirt than Sgt. Pepper sounds to Please Please Me.

But we all have our rights, don't we? They have a right to keep calling themselves Alice In Chains — and I have a right to proclaim that this album is a pile of dreck. Add to this your, the reader's, right to follow this up by saying that I am an idiot that should go back to his Barry Manilow collection, and we have all done a great job of asserting our individual freedom and making the world a happy, progressive place.

In all honesty, Black Gives Way To Blue is a fine, subtle title, but I'd rather prefer it didn't. The band does do everything possible to ensure that the record is not simply an exercise in nostalgia, nor is it a commercial trap or a dishonest cash-in on the respectable band name. The music is bru­tally heavy; from a technical point — heavier than Dirt, and undoubtedly much louder. If seen from that point of view, progression is obvious. Yet the musical structures themselves are unfo­cused, going for atmosphere rather than original melodicity. Where Jerry comes up with a really good riff, he rams it into the ground for about five or six minutes, until you start breathing it out like tobacco smoke; and where the songs are shorter, he usually does not come up with a really good riff, no matter how hard I try to convince myself that he does.

I think we need not go much further than the first track to have this understood. The three chords that open the song, you are going to hear a lot of them — they do not go away until the song clocks in at 4:42, and, although there is more stuff happening melodically in between, the back­bone of the performance is more boring than any single Alice In Chains song from the band's glory days. A fine way to start your new album where you are going to have something to prove!

If Tripod could be, with reservations, pigeonholed as «sludge metal», Black Gives Way To Blue is probably closer to «stoner rock» — hypnotic, mid-tempo songs that roll along in a loud, aggre­ssive musical haze, all deep heavy drones and wave-like power chords. That's all right, as long as the haze has a face, that is, can be distinguished from a million other similar hazes. But somehow, somewhere, Cantrell just seems to have lost it. There are occasional flashes of the old genius, but most of them have to do with punch rather than atmosphere: for instance, at 2:43 into 'Acid Bubble', when that chugging, crushing riff emerges from under the rubble and gives you a serious jolt — only to disappear back into the rubble a few seconds later.

The greatest, most active disappointment, however, one that I believe may be trigerring the rest of them, is the singing. To put it bluntly, there is no singing on the record. None whatsoever. None of the songs are instrumentals, and yet it would perhaps have been better, had they all been instru­mentals. Lead vocals are handled mainly by Cantrell himself, sometimes singing in unison with DuVall, but they just have zero presence. Zero. They hit the notes, get across their boring, insigni­ficant lyrical points, and disappear with no emotional response at all. What are they sin­ging about? Pain? Hatred? Disillusionment? Desperation? I have no idea, nor do I strive to get one. I only wonder if this all happens because they are so overshadowed by the loudness of the guitars — or if they intentionally hide behind that loudness to mask this emotional hollowness.

Maybe it differs on different songs. For 'Check My Brain', for instance, Cantrell manages to in­vent a killer riff, probably the best on the album, trickily warped and bent so as to disorient and confuse the mind, yet utterly and immediately memorable. It is a riff that deserves a great vocal melody to go along with it, but do they have one? Nope, it's as if they have not even looked for it. That is most definitely not how it used to be. On the other hand, nothing could have saved a song like 'Private Hell', the very definition of generic, formulaic grunge where loudness is pretty much the only thing that matters. We've all lived through this a thousand times already — why go on wasting our time?

Personally, I propose that Jerry Cantrell (a) say goodbye to this DuVall guy — no hard feelings, but the two do not really need each other; (b) go back to his solo career and, if possible, forget about things like distortion and volume, because if there are any tunes on here that have given me honest, simple pleasure, it is the bits of acoustic material: 'When The Sun Rose Again' and the title track (with no less than Elton John guest-starring on piano!) are touching melancholic bits in the vein of Jerry's «lighter» tunes on Jar Of Flies. Even the folk-rocker 'Your Decision', plumper and more saturated with instrumentation, packs the right atmosphere into the right container.

This is ground for optimism — Cantrell has not really run out of ideas, he has merely enslaved them under the supervision of the overall concept, namely, that this new band somehow has to live up to its old fame. The day he understands that he is, in fact, not obliged to prove anything, is the day when we will really see a nice true follow-up to the original Alice In Chains legacy. This record, unfortunately, is just a misguided dud. It's heavy all right, but so was Jon Brower Min­noch, and I am afraid the album will have an even shorter lifespan than he did. Thumbs down, except for the acoustic songs and that killer riff from 'Check My Brain'. Steal it, someone!

A-ha: Minor Earth, Major Sky

A-HA: MINOR EARTH MAJOR SKY (2000)

1) Minor Earth Major Sky; 2) Little Black Heart; 3) Velvet; 4) Summer Moved On; 5) The Sun Never Shone That Day; 6) To Let You Win; 7) The Company Man; 8) Thought That It Was You; 9) I Wish I Cared; 10) Barely Han­ging On; 11) You'll Never Get Over Me; 12) I Won't Forget Her; 13) Mary Ellen Makes The Moment Count.

There is probably no harm in speculating on the idea that A-Ha's comeback could have been trig­gered by the popularity of the new wave of vocal groups, such as the Backstreet Boys — after almost a decade's worth of grunge, Brit-pop, and R'n'B dominating the charts, sexy teen idols ini­tiated their revenge, and, considering that Morten could still qualify as such (apparently, he is very careful about his diet, which works wonders for both his voice and his good looks), A-Ha agreed to give it one more chance.

It all started with 'Summer Moved On', of course; the resting band was conjured to reconvene at the Nobel Peace Prize Contest in 1998, for which occasion Paul wrote a new song — and every­one liked it. I like it, too. It features the well-recognized gimmick of having the longest note held (in a hit song, at least) — during the bridge, Morten drags the line 'there's just one thing left to ask...' for over twenty seconds (and has, in fact, done this ever since in most of the band's live shows). But even without this bit of Guinness trivia, it is still a golden stan­dard to which every writer and arranger of mainstream adult contemporary ballads should aspire. Rarely, if ever, does this genre feature anything close to Morten's falsetto interaction with the thunderous strings that give it a quasi-Beethovenish punch, although they take great care to preserve the general autum­nal mood that accompanies most of their hits.

With such an obvious success under their belts, it was clear that more activity would follow. Mi­nor Earth Major Sky put them back on the European charts, but failed to make a significant im­pression on the critics. Yet, again, in retrospect it definitely trumps the Backstreet Boys, even though much of it updates the A-Ha sound in an officially «late Nineties» way. Waaktaar-Savoy gets most of the credit: as good as Morten is throughout, it is his minor hooks that ensure listen­ability and, sometimes, even depth. And it is worth waiting for them — at first, the tunes might just seem the usual middle-of-the-road pop stuff with standard mid-tempo dance rhythms, «safe» acoustic backing tracks, predictable structures etc. But with a gifted songwriter and a tasteful sin­ger, A-Ha have broken through the synth-pop of the mid-Eighties and subdued the funk-pop of the early Nineties; what problem could they have with taming the teen-pop of the turn of the mil­lennium? Denying the beauty of Minor Earth is like denying the beauty of a Marilyn or a Sophia Loren — it's possible, it may be tempting, but don't you have anything better to do?

There are misfires. 'I Won't Forget Her' is very catchy, but songs that combine mid-tempo ska-ish rhythms with bubbly synthesizer tones are an official disgrace that should be forever reserved to third-grade pop acts in developing countries; I am astonished that the tune finds a spot on the same CD as 'Summer Moved On', almost to the point of writing a petition. There are a few more songs, nowhere near as offensive, but which simply fail to register. Yet so much is good! The title track, with its cloudy atmosphere, gritty bassline, and genuinely psychedelic chorus. 'Velvet', whose ethereal female harmonies remind me of AIR. The humility of 'To Let You Win', which just floats by at first, but then grabs you by being the only song on the album that absolutely re­fuses to grab you. The odd melancholy of 'You'll Never Get Over Me': it is hard to imagine a con­text for the lines 'you'll never get over me, I'll never get under you' that would not be humorous, but the music leaves no place for humour, only elegant sorrow.

If these little shards of compliments do not sound convincing, how about the band dragging out a friggin' Mellotron for the conclusion — the strange, haunting ballad 'Mary Ellen Makes The Mo­ment Count'? Supposedly it is the band's personal take on the subject of 'Eleanor Rigby', with the depiction of a somewhat similar character, and I would not deem it out of place on any classic late Sixties' art-rock album. It may have been a bit pretentious of them to close the record that way — «look at us, we play it straight and simple, but we will go out with an art-pop song so your last memory will be of us as relevant, responsible, and refined artists» — but the key point here is that they qualify as such, if only with one or two songs, and this raises the overall score. It also delights the brain, a much-needed shot in the arm after the deadly mistake of 'I Won't Forget Her'; and the heart — the heart has long since pledged its support to Morten if he works hard eno­ugh to deserve it, and his is one of the most hard-working (not to mention hairless) bare chests in existence. Thumbs up for a respectable comeback.

AC/DC: The Razor's Edge

AC/DC: THE RAZOR'S EDGE (1990)

1) Thunderstruck; 2) Fire Your Guns; 3) Moneytalks; 4) The Razor's Edge; 5) Mistress For Christmas; 6) Rock Your Heart Out; 7) Are You Ready; 8) Got You By The Balls; 9) Shot Of Love; 10) Let's Make It; 11) Goodbye & Good Riddance To Bad Luck; 12) If You Dare.

The choice of Bruce Fairbairn, the former producer for Bon Jovi and the corporate incarnation of Aerosmith, was weird, especially right after the reteaming with Vanda and Young — in spirit, no two production styles could be more different. However, what with all the critical lashing and the singer continuing to lose his voice at an alarming rate, the band needed a commercial shot in the arm, and, most probably, they expected Fairbairn to give them the same kind of slick stimulus that they had earlier received from Lange. Amazingly, this is exactly what happened!

The Razor's Edge is AC/DC's «poppiest» record since at least Highway To Hell, and, although some of the veteran fans despised its clean and merry nature, the casual listener need not be afraid. Fairbairn was not stupid enough to try to deprive the band of its trademarks — he simply pushed them into exploring other directions than the exclusively blues-oriented hard rock style, and he is probably responsible for the odd diversity of the album.

Indeed, had it sustained the same level of variety as displayed by the first four tracks, The Ra­zor's Edge might have become one of AC/DC's biggest artistic triumphs. The famous «tapping» (actually, «pseudo-tapping») melody of 'Thunderstruck' might have partially endeared the song to hair metal lovers, but it still retains the tone and the punkish spite of AC/DC, never ever going in­to any of the corny van Halenish «God of Thunder» modes, despite invoking thunder all the time — and its busy droning instantly commands the listening attention of just about everyone. Who says this band is boring? On 'Thunderstruck', there is about a miriad subtly different ways in which An­gus' and Malcolm's guitars connect with and disconnect from each other, and, at the same time, it is one of the greatest driving songs of all time. At least today, when people are no longer cursed with having it blast out of every second car window, as it used to be in 1990.

'Fire Your Guns' returns us to more traditional territory, but in a major way — not only is it one of the band's fastest songs ever, but they seem to have remembered what it is like to plan and re­cord a superbly constructed three-minute rocker with not one second wasted. Riff, verse, bridge, chorus, verse, bridge, chorus, instrumental bridge, instrumental verse, bridge, chorus, short ma­niacal build-up to the finale, each in its right place: three minutes of getting your ass kicked by the elite squad of ass-kicking. Johnson sounds like he is busy regurgitating his vomit most of the time, but, in a way, this only adds to the ass-kicking.

Then — one more surprise with 'Moneytalks', another hit single that lands them firmly in the «po­wer pop» camp, what with that anthemic chorus and the song's general party attitude. Who cares? Why complain? The Youngs have provided not one, but two memorable riffs for the occasion — I actually like the brain-pounding verse riff far better than the beer-chugging chorus riff — and what other criteria are there for judging the quality of their songs? Yes, one can understand some of the old fans worrying, but there is no need for us to join their ranks, at least not until we get the true statistics on how many people started going to AC/DC shows hoping to hear 'Come on, come on, listen to the money talk!' and leaving in disgust at the sounds of 'Whole Lotta Rosie' or 'Hells Bells'. And even if some did — so what?

Speaking of 'Hells Bells', the title track clearly strives for a similar apocalyptic vibe, but with a denser, more multi-layered and imposing sound, trying to go a little beyond basic ass-kicking and establish a generally sinister background with its heavy reliance on power chords and «evil» vocal harmonies. Again, while the approach in itself is not all that different from 'Hells Bells', the overall synthesis is fairly new and, I would say, successful. AC/DC were never in great danger of becoming Iron Maiden anyway, but it is fun to see them trying on this kind of image.

It is with the (un)suitably titled 'Mistress For Christmas' that the band starts running out of steam and reverting back to the usual clichés; the remainder of the album is patchy, alternating tight, focused, but not tremendously memorable, rockers ('Shot Of Love', 'If You Dare') with slow-mo­ving lumbering monsters that sound like outtakes from Blow Up Your Video ('Got You By The Balls') and songs that do not have any creative ideas at all ('Goodbye & Good Riddance To Bad Luck', 'Rock Your Heart Out'). They are still crisply produced and all, but this is the breaking point at which Brian's gurgling voice becomes a real nuisance.

Another nuisance is that Brian did not write any of the lyrics. In some of his interviews, he con­fesses that he never really liked that occupation, and was only too relieved to hear Malcolm and Angus propose that they shoulder this burden themselves. This is strange, because, next to the Young brothers' word-wielding skills, Johnson is at least a Yeats (and Bon Scott no less than a Lord Byron). As late as Blow Up Your Video, Brian was writing at least some texts that dealt — crudely, but listenably — with the traditional blues topics of trouble, sin, and redemption; the Youngs, ninety percent of the time, seem to only be able to come up with the traditional blues to­pic of the dirty old man. Their idea of a good lyric goes something like this: "Jingle bells, jingle bells, jingle all the day; I just can't wait till Christmas time when I can grope you in the hay". Bon must have been rolling in his grave.

The album is thus riddled with problems — yet it is still a miraculous achievement for a band of 40-year old codgers who, long past their prime, were still able to make the world pay attention without significantly compromising their style and their values. For that fact alone, as well as the four opening classics, The Razor's Edge is a surefire thumbs up experience. But even on the whole, and even taken out of its context, and even when you have to sit through all the filler, it still delivers the right punches. Since then, the band has failed to deliver anything that would top it, and, at this point, probably never will.