Bob Dylan: Blonde On Blonde

BOB DYLAN: BLONDE ON BLONDE (1966)

1) Rainy Day Women # 12 & 35; 2) Pledging My Time; 3) Visions Of Johanna; 4) One Of Us Must Know (Sooner Or Later); 5) I Want You; 6) Stuck Inside Of Mobile With The Memphis Blues Again; 7) Leopard-Skin Pill-Box Hat; 8) Just Like A Woman; 9) Most Likely You Go Your Way (And I'll Go Mine); 10) Temporary Like Achilles; 11) Absolutely Sweet Marie; 12) 4th Time Around; 13) Obviously 5 Believers; 14) Sad-Eyed Lady Of The Lowlands.

Usually, whenever I get the urge to fantasize about yet another version of a shortlist of the «Greatest Al­bums Ever Recorded», I tend to exclude albums from solitary singer-songwriters or «dictatorial bands» dominated by one towering figure (like Jethro Tull). As phenomenal as any one particular mind may be, two phenomenal minds, properly coordinated with each other, are unquestionably even better. Pet Sounds is a fantastic album, yet it is fundamentally the product of not simply one mind's (Brian Wilson's), but one vision's, one purpose's, one creative vector's: almost any random song off it already has the seeds of every other song's inside it. Not so with a truly great record from, say, a peak period of the Beatles or the Stones, where thoughts and aspi­rations ran in different directions, and the way they interlocked opened up a virtually limitless number of combinations. Perhaps this could come at a certain expense of coherence, or perhaps some of the ideas could get a wee bit dissipated or out of focus, but I never see this as a real pro­blem — a great idea that makes its point in two minutes rather than forty is still a great idea.

However, every rule knows its exceptions. «I get your point about Pet Sounds, but it speaks to me on such a fundamental level that I really don't care if all of its songs are essentially about the same thing. What really matters is that they are about THE THING, and nothing is greater in the whole world than THE THING». That is certainly a respectable position — and that, more or less, is the way I feel, and have always felt, about Blonde On Blonde. Except I could argue, perhaps, that, unlike Pet Sounds, it is not all about the same thing, but for the sake of simplicity, and equ­ality of argument, let us assume and agree that it is. For the moment.

One thing that Dylan shared with the Beatles around late 1965 / early 1966 was this uncanny, rationally inexplainable ability to progress in the face of all odds. The more they all became bur­dened with «public duties» — never-ending touring, ridiculous press conferences, excessive so­cializing, not to mention groupies, sycophants, girls, drugs, and whatever else might be coming that way — the more their creative juices seemed to overflow and pour out in a completely dif­ferent direction. Revolver had Paul's finest odes to loneliness and John's strongest hymns to the transcendental; Blonde On Blonde almost completely dispensed with the aggressive rock'n'roll spirit and dived into the introspective and the ephemeral. It would have been one thing if Re­volver were recorded after the band's decision to quit touring and retreat into their private worlds, or if Blonde On Blonde were created after the infamous motorcycle incident that temporarily cut off Dylan from the outside spheres. But history stubbornly insists on the reverse, «unnatural» or­der of these incidents, and this should, if anything, enhance our respect for — and our enjoyment of — both these sonic wonders of 1966.

Formally, the crucial difference between Highway 61 Revisited and Blonde On Blonde was due to Bob's decision to move to Nashville for the main sessions. He had made several attempts to record with his new touring band, The Hawks, in Columbia's New York studios, but nothing seemed to work the way he wanted — and it is relatively possible to follow Bob's train of thought on that one if one listens to a selection of outtakes from those sessions that have since been made available on the various Bootleg Sessions (ʽI Wanna Be Your Loverʼ, ʽShe's Your Lover Nowʼ, etc.): most are listenable, but sound like somewhat uneasy transition pieces from the blazing rock of Highway 61 to the moody sounds of Blonde. In the heat of the moment, the Hawks and Robert Zimmerman just wouldn't gel in the studio — it would take the motorcycle incident, a relaxed peri­od of Woodstock seclusion, and a name change to The Band to make them under­stand each other so much better.

Meanwhile, the move to Nashville in February '66 turned out to be a genius move. Dylan took only two musi­cians from his then-current retinue — Al Kooper on organ (a very wise choice, since the organ parts are essential ingredients in many of these songs) and Robbie Robertson on guitar (maybe not so wise a choice, since Robbie, with his still very «rock-oriented» style of playing, does not seem to always understand what is going on. "It's not hard rock", Bob would later say about ʽVisions Of Johannaʼ, "the only thing in it that's hard is Robbie", and I am not sure that the statement was not actually meant as a slight critique. On the other hand, some of the songs here do require small amounts of hard rock guitar, so the decision to bring the lead Hawk along was not entirely pointless, either).

The rest of the band was all picked up at Nashville, including the already well-known guitarist Charlie McCoy and the soon-to-be well-known artist Joe South on bass. None of them were bona fide «rock'n'roll» players, so, in a way, one could argue that Dylan's personal «roots revolution» had already begun well prior to John Wesley Harding, or, at the very least, that the seeds for those roots had already been planted in early 1966. But that would be a moot argument anyway, because Blonde On Blonde goes beyond these petty discrepancies — its world transcends the limits of «rock music», «roots music», whatever. Somehow, during those sessions, something, some sort of sound was captured, the likeness of which I have never, ever heard on any other re­cord. Out of a complex bunch of ingredients arose a once-in-a-lifetime combination that, for a brief moment, opened the doors to a completely befuddling dimension. The motorcycle crash slammed those doors back shut — but, in all honesty, I highly doubt that they would be kept open by themselves even without the crash: the moment was simply too good to last.

So what's up with that «thin, wild mercury sound», the way Bob himself described what was hap­penning here a decade later? In individual terms, the closest equivalent to a «thin mercury sound» that my ears tell me about here is probably Kooper's subtle organ lining for the basic melody of ʽVisions Of Johannaʼ — very thin indeed, and trickling down from your speakers like mercury, though, hopefully, with less lethal consequences. Not coincidentally, this is also the album's stand-out tune par excellence, a thoroughly «nighttime» song compared to the louder, brighter, generally more «active» or, sometimes, more «ceremonial» performances elsewhere, but still, in most of its ingredients, very typical of the general approach of Blonde On Blonde. The lyrics themselves subtly hint at nocturnal impressions — "ain't it just like the night to play tricks when you're trying to be so quiet?", "lights flicker from the opposite loft", etc. — and the whole song ultimately becomes a musical seance, and leave it to Al to come up with the perfect ghostly whistle of an organ tone to complete the picture (whereas Robbie's sharp, piercing licks, as I already said, rather detract from the atmosphere than add to it — fortunately, not a lot).

There was nothing, and I mean absolutely nothing, that even hinted at this kind of material earlier on in 1965. There is no anger here, no irony, no condescension, no pissed-off feelings, and it even looks like there ain't that much in terms of «shock value»: ʽVisions Of Johannaʼ is not set to stun, its only way of working is to gradually crawl under the skin, which partially explains its running time of seven and a half minutes. I have no intention of saying that this is «Dylan at his most sin­cere» or «as close to the real Dylan as it gets», because by early 1966, what with drugs, touring, pressure, and, above all, Bob's complete slide into the realm of self-mythologization, he himself may not have been entirely secure of what was real and what was, well, a «vision». But there is a very special kind of magic running through the air every time the chorus comes to a resolution.

"These visions... pause... of Johanna... pause..." ...note the ultra-short punch of the first i in "visions" and the first a in "Johanna", they are like two rhythmic hammer blows, sharply con­trasting with the generally drawn out stressed syllables in the verses — that obligatory conscience modulator, without which our senses might have simply been lulled to sleep. This type of careful, meaningful enunciation is something decidedly new: there just wasn't time, space, or opportunity for it on Highway 61. Nor were there any similar tricks, in fact, on any of Dylan's early acoustic albums. He'd learned to turn the weakness of his voice into a powerful communicative tool alrea­dy prior to entering the recording studio — but I think that it wasn't really until these Nashville sessions that the knife became truly jagged.

In fact, it is the Blonde On Blonde voice, I think, that usually falls victim to all sorts of «Dylan parodies», be it Adrian Belew on Zappa's Sheik Yerbouti or Weird Al Yankovic on his own ʽBobʼ (with an accompanying video that parodied Dylan's original clip for ʽSubterranean Home­sick Bluesʼ — which Bob certainly did not rap out with that kind of voice). On many, if not most, of the tracks, Bob sings here in a significantly lower register than he'd used to before; and since so many of the songs are taken at relatively slow tempos, this gives him the opportunity to draw out, twist, mutilate, and make otherwise suffer as many syllables as he wishes to — including that odd manner of adding a rising tone to everything that's stressed: "but you-OO said you knew-OO me and I too-OOk your wo-OOrd..." ...in fact, he even manages to push it over to the fast tracks, like ʽI Want Youʼ — "the gui-II-lty underta-AA-ker si-II-ghs...". Why the heck does he do it? What's to be gained, other than mockery and parody?

Perhaps — simple explanation — it all has to do with the side effect of mind-expanding sub­stances. Perhaps — slightly more complicated, but I actually like this more — it's all about scree­ning himself and his output from outsiders: by putting on this half-theatrical, half-mental guise Dylan instinctively protects the songs from being adopted, adapted, misconstrued, and desecra­ted by outsiders. Indeed, how many notorious covers of songs off Blonde On Blonde do we know of? Other than ʽJust Like A Womanʼ, which the ubiquitous Manfred Mann immediately latched on to (but even the Byrds, who only attempted to do it around 1970, dropped it from the official relea­ses of Untitled and Byrdmaniax) — almost nothing. Not that people didn't try to do it — they did, and usually failed, not «getting» the original spirit of the song and not succeeding in imbuing it with a different one, either. Of all Dylan collections, Blonde On Blonde is arguably the least pliant when it comes to the art of plundering — and there are good reasons for that: its strength is not in the «melodies» per se, but in the fortuitous combination of its sonic structures. The «mer­cury sound», the «Nashville orchestra» bent to carrying out the will of the Minnesota genius, the ridiculous — and ridiculously unforgettable — singing manner, and the endearingly nonchalant spontaneity of it all. How does one improve on such a cocktail?

At this point, it would probably make sense to talk in more details about the individual songs, which places the reviewer in an awful condition: brief blurbs would be redundant and uninfor­mative — thorough analyses would turn the review into a monograph, and for that we already have Clinton Heylin and a host of less prolific Dylanologists. Consequently, instead of going one way or the other, I will try the «random observation» route. If you have not yet had your required listen to Blonde On Blonde, stop reading this stuff already; if you have, and wish to compare impressions, you might want to think about the following:

— how is it possible, on the part of so many people, to rail against ʽRainy Day Women # 12 & 35ʼ? It is the perfectly expectable Dylanesque shocker: after the mindblowing explosions of ʽSub­terranean Homesick Bluesʼ and ʽLike A Rolling Stoneʼ, to open up your next album with a super­ficially dumb, deranged, plodding carnival freakout. But if it sounds stupid, that does not neces­sarily mean that it is stupid — if anything, it might be the best ironic pun on the double mea­ning of the verb ʽto stoneʼ ever offered by anybody, and Bob's totally triumphant intonation on the verse-closing "everybody must get stoned!", as he turns the tables on his imaginary oppressors, reveals that he is perfectly aware of his own greatness in the matter;

— don't the rhythmically counterbalanced guitar and organ flourishes, framing Bob's vocals on the verses of ʽStuck Inside Of Mobileʼ, remind you of relentless, unchanging, unyielding cogs inside a machine, enhancing the «stuck inside» feeling? No conventional depression or despera­tion here, despite the lyrics' obvious debt to old-timey plaintive blues poems — but, somehow, the song still manages to pass for Blonde On Blonde's pinnacle of depression;

— what's up with all this odd passion for long-winded adverbs? ʽAbsolutely Sweet Marieʼ, ʽOb­viously 5 Believersʼ, "anybody can be just like me, obviously... but not too many can be like you, fortunately..." It's one thing to be head over heels in love with words, and another, much less comprehensible one, to be obsessed with complex derived adverbials. Maybe it was just a kind of intellectual mockery, especially considering how these adverbs usually seem to be employed in the «wrong» context. On the other hand, the longer any particular word is, the more fun you can have with it while mouthing its syllables — let us not forget that, at this point in time, phonetics was just as important to Bob's act as semantics;

— if there is a single «anti-sexiest» manner of pronouncing the words "I want you" than Dylan doing so on ʽI Want Youʼ, I have yet to hear it. Much has been said about how sweet and senti­mental the song is, but if so, it is being all that only by having all the sweetness and sentimenta­lism «purged» from its chorus, much like Robert Bresson preferred to purge all signs of «acting» from his actors before casting them in his movies;

— there is only one occasion on the whole album where I am truly grateful to Robbie Robertson for his presence: the maniacal garage-style solo during the instrumental break on ʽLeopard-Skin Pill-Box Hatʼ. Sure, the song, recorded while still in New York rather than Nashville, is formally a bit of filler, but it does feature one of the funniest sets of lyrics Bob ever wrote ("you might think he loves you for your money, but I know what he really loves you for — it's your brand new leopard skin pillbox hat!" remains one of my favorite cliché inversions in the world), and Robbie's break has him rising to the screechiest of heights, crazier and punkier than he'd ever get anywhere else, be it backing Bob, fronting The Band, or even flash-duelling with Clapton on The Last Waltz. This is just to note that these Dylan albums do not generally have filler per se: there are simply more and less ambitious tracks, that's all;

— regarding ʽJust Like A Womanʼ, my favorite part has always been the final instrumental verse, which I regard as the album's most beautiful moment: not coincidentally, perhaps, it is the only instrumental verse that does not count either as a «fade-out» (since it does not fade out) or as a «break» (since it terminates the song) — that way, it draws additional attention, and for a good reason, since the guitar / organ / harmonica trio is simply out of this world. Regardless of what the song's lyrics are supposed to mean, and whether they are «misogynistic» or merely «risqué», it is the music that truly counts here, not the words, and the music is a tender, dreamy serenade with just a tiny, but an important, bit of sarcastic sorrow (look for the meaningful harmonica note change at precisely 4:08, among other things) beneath the surface;

— ʽSad Eyed Lady Of The Lowlandsʼ is basically an Eastern, Persian/Arabic/Jewish-type tapestry of verse, crossed with a streak of beatnik influence and set to the «mercury sound»: be­yond its obviously innovative surface there actually lies a grand archaic tradition, which is the exact reason it works so well, or else it would have been simply perceived as a spout of boring nonsense. Consequently, I think this is the only song on the whole album where his new singing style fits in perfectly — because this is not really even beginning to approach «singing», it is grand-style rhythmic poetry declamation set to a rich accompanying soundtrack, and the only things that are missing include a turban, a long beard, and a flying carpet, though it wouldn't take a whole lot of imagination to put them all together, because the music already supplies the re­quired magic fuel. My only complaint at this point: the song could have used an extra three or four verses, since 11:20 is kind of a pitiful length for an entire LP side, don't you think?

It's always been a little funny to me, to talk to people who don't «get» Blonde On Blonde (much as it has probably been equally funny for lots of people to talk to myself, not «getting» Miles Davis or, say, Radiohead, so this should not be taken as a snobby remark), an album that has always connected to my psychic radar like no other — yet, somehow, there still remain lots of those who wouldn't even agree with the thumbs up, much less with such pompous, but sincere appellations as «greatest Bob Dylan album ever» or «one of the greatest albums ever re­corded», etc. On the other hand, the very fact that, unlike, say, any given Tim Buckley or Scott Walker al­bum, Blonde On Blonde has never been awarded a «cult status», but has continued to enjoy an unbroken world-wide reputation ever since its release, should also speak volumes to at least those of the unconverted who do not suffer from acute bouts of conspirology and can be persuaded to think about the impact of this album outside of the «Great Dylan Hoax» theory.

At the very least, here is my own sincere testimony: at one time, these songs — heard around the age of 13-14, still in Soviet times, thoroughly disconnected from any potentially accompanying reviews, praise, hype, etc., and not even fully understood as far as the actual words were con­cerned — somehow managed, nevertheless, to rock some of the foundations of my personal world. And in a way, that old feeling still remains. This is one of those very few albums that occasionally reminds me — listening to music, after all, is not such a silly way to spend one's time as one's logical reasoning might suggest.

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Brenda Lee: Brenda, That's All

BRENDA LEE: BRENDA, THAT'S ALL (1962)

1) I'm Sitting On Top Of The World; 2) Fool #1; 3) White Silver Sands; 4) Just Out Of Reach; 5) Sweethearts On Parade; 6) It's A Lonesome Old Town; 7) Organ Grinder's Swing; 8) Gonna Find Me A Bluebird; 9) Why Me?; 10) Valley Of Tears; 11) Someday You'll Want Me To Want You; 12) You Can Depend On Me.

Fortunately for all of us who like a good friendly beat for our pop ditties, this album rectifies the mistake of Sincerely and returns to the tried and true: a balanced mix of «adult» and «teen» pop, without any one side trumping any of the others (although, as is always the case, my internal teen keeps gaining the upper hand over my external adult). Technically, perhaps, this is not altogether true, as the ballads numerically dominate over the bop stuff — 8 to 4, to be precise — but only the last three songs present a genuinely noticeable uninterrupted romantic stretch. Elsewhere, the sound is moderately and acceptably diverse, even if the songs themselves still tend to come from the pre-war era: notably, not a single recent teen pop standard is getting covered.

Predictably, both of the singles were ballads: ʽYou Can Depend On Meʼ is a bluesy one, previously tackled by Armstrong and Nat King Cole, and ʽFool #1ʼ is a freshly written country waltz, first tried on by Loretta Lynn before hitting the charts in Brenda's version. Nothing of particular inte­rest can be said about either one — the melodies are thoroughly generic, the arrangements fairly trite, and the singer certainly does not seem too interested in adding any subtle nuances, because, really, there is only so much one can do with this sort of material.

Things get much more interesting, in relative comparison, on the upbeat stuff, particularly on two songs. The organ-led speedy blues-pop of ʽWhite Silver Sandsʼ puts more of a rock'n'roll spirit in the song than the Don Rondo original from 1957 — leave it to the pirate girl to teach the suave baritone how to get that blood boiling. And ʽOrgan Grinder's Swingʼ is even more «piratish» in nature, putting a hooligan twist on a song that had been in need of rejuvenating ever since Ella Fitzgerald cut it with the Savoy Eight back in 1936, and, true to the song title, featuring cool organ swing a-plenty.

Other than that, there is not much to say, unless one is ready to take a crash course in writing about minor emotional inflections in stereotypically patterned country ballads. The worst thing about all of them is that they prevent Brenda's backing band from showing their chops — guitars, organs, saxes, the works, all of it only really comes out when the strings lose their monopoly, and this only happens during the anti-romantic breaks. But this was late 1962, after all, back when some people were beginning to think they'd finally done away with the rock'n'roll craze...

Baroness: First & Second

BARONESS: FIRST & SECOND (2004-2005)

1) Tower Falls; 2) Coeur; 3) Rise; 4) Red Sky; 5) Son Of Sun; 6) Vision.

First of all, I have no clue as to why these guys call themselves «Baroness» — it cannot be excluded that one or more of them have those subconscious hots for Margaret Thatcher, but it sure as heck wouldn't have much to do with the music, which blends the conservative framework of heavy metal with the liberal framework of math-rock and is consequently of a neutral nature. There does not seem to be any heavy excess of barons or baronesses in Savannah, Georgia, either, so, ultimately, the name may have simply been chosen in order to distance themselves from their surroundings — the surroundings of yet another band from the Deep South that would do every­thing in its power to avoid reminding us of their local roots.

Actually, in this way they only followed the example of their direct predecessor, Mastodon (from Atlanta, Georgia), whose slightly inferior copy version they are sometimes stated to be. Which is not entirely true: although Baroness naturally owe a heavy debt to Mastodon, they have plenty of ideas of their own, or, at the very least, they combine the ideas plundered from Mastodon with ideas plundered from other artists (which sounds like a slur, but in reality is merely a way of de­scribing the working manners of about 90% of the people reviewed here).

John Baizley's growling vocals excluded, the music of Baroness really falls more in the «math-rock» than stereotypical heavy metal category. Although each of the band's first two EPs, re­leased in 2004 and 2005 and later packed together on a one-CD edition from 2008, formally con­sists of three tracks, all three are seamlessly joined together and seem to represent three different movements of a single «electric guitar symphony» rather than separate entities. And the sym­phonies in question place more emphasis on complexity, density, and unpredictability of their sound than on «heaviness» as such: no matter how distorted the guitar tones get, or how closely Baizley's vocals approach the mating calls of a stone troll, neither First nor (even less) Second have a truly «metallic» feel to them. Altogether, in order to appreciate this music, one has to appeal to that particular brain department which is responsible for your chess skills, rather than the one that urges you to play the Necromancer campaign in Heroes of Might & Magic.

The lyrics, mostly coming in short, spasmodic, frequently unfinished phrases, do have a slightly medieval / fantasy pull rather than, for instance, the «science rock» flair of BATS: the very title of the first track, ʽTower Fallsʼ, and its constant references to burning, pressing soil into dust, and «nothing will ever return», shows the expectable taste for dramatic flashiness. But the music it­self shows nothing of the kind: both Baizley and the second guitarist, Tim Loose, generally avoid screechy, mock-cathartic tones, setting their axes to sludgy «grumble-and-growl» moods, some­times with an acid tone overhaul. This does not work well for immediate memorability, but it also helps them avoid many of the usual metal clichés — and convert those listeners who are initially predisposed to appreciating «intelligent» rather than «heartfelt» heaviness.

The downside is that, for all of this «intelligence», pretty much every song on here is played with the exact same intellectual — and emotional — message. The different «movements» shuffle fast and slow tempos without any clear guiding principles, but fast or slow, all the sections have a similar feel of what I could describe as «light-gray melancholia», inherited by these guys not so much from their metal ancestors as from their indie-rock influences. Maybe the worst thing about these EPs is that this kind of music is often salvageable by its inlaid sense of musical humor, yet Baroness show no sense of humor whatsoever. The mission — to save metal-based music from its corny conventions and make it more academically respectable, so to speak — is indeed noble (although it is always a puzzle to me why so many of these noble efforts are ultimately still spoi­led by the obstinate reliance on growling vocals), but the resulting music, technical respect apart, is still way too samey and, in the end, too boring to generate genuine excitement. And the fact that First and Second, from the very outset, present a well-formed, confident, professional sound means very little — these days, most bands in these genres start out with a well-formed, confident, professional sound, or else they do not start out in the first place.

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Beck: A Western Harvest Field By Moonlight

BECK: A WESTERN HARVEST FIELD BY MOONLIGHT (1994)

1) Totally Confused; 2) Mayonaise Salad; 3) Gettin' Home; 4) Blackfire Choked Our Death; 5) Feel Like A Piece Of Shit (Mind Control); 6) She Is All (Gimme Something To Eat); 7) Pinefresh; 8) Lampshade; 9) Feel Like A Piece Of Shit (Crossover Potential); 10) Mango (Vader Rocks!); 11) Feel Like A Piece Of Shit (Cheetos Time!); 12) Styro­foam Chicken (Quality Time).

A bit too long for a proper EP, seriously too short for a proper LP, this release probably deserves only a brief mention, mostly for housing Beck's first ever decently produced composition — a new version of ʽTotally Confusedʼ, with proper acoustic guitar, bass, percussion, and even some moody (but seemingly uncredited) female backup vocals for the sake of extra richness of experi­ence. It was already one of the most meaningful tracks on Golden Feelings, and here its lazy loser vibe is expanded with a helpful wave of tenderness. Other than that, this humble EP, limi­ted to 7,000 copies upon initial release (but each with its own unique finger-painting!), consists of the following audio elements:

— two more acoustic folk songs: ʽGettin' Homeʼ is the exact same version as the one on Golden Feelings, and ʽLampshadeʼ is a newly written guitar-and-harmonica ode to killing time that all the Jeff Lebowskis in the world would find very easy to identify with;

— three versions of the same, slightly disturbing, electronic loop (ʽFeel Like A Piece Of Shitʼ) taken at different speeds in order to illustrate the differences between different feelings of dif­ferent types of pieces of shit (my personal interpretation; I'm pretty sure there might be others, but who in his right mind would really bother?);

— several short pieces of randomized stuffing, including what sounds like absent-minded tuning prior to launching into a Spanish serenade (ʽPinefreshʼ), what sounds like a one-minute tribute to Lou Reed's Metal Machine Music (ʽMayonaise Saladʼ), what sounds like an attempt at acoustic-based psychedelic folk mood piece (ʽMangoʼ), and what sounds like a never-ending noise loop (on the vinyl version) reminding you to switch off your turntable (ʽStyrofoam Chickenʼ).

In other words, it's just one of those «freedom-asserting» indie releases whose only function is of a reputational nature. It takes the guy exactly twenty minutes to let us know that (a) he will not be pigeonholed; (b) he will neither shy away from recording fart noises if his individuality requires such an act, nor from trying to sell them to us; (c) he does have talent, but it is entirely up to him if he wants or does not want to make use of it at any particular time. I get the message all right, but this time, I wouldn't let it fool me into declining a thumbs down reaction, even if it means lapsing back into old boring predictability. Serious Beck aficionados will need this to complete their collections — psychiatrists might need this as promising research material — the rest of us hardly need think of it even in terms of bare curiosity.

Bathory: Nordland II

BATHORY: NORDLAND II (2003)

1) Fanfare; 2) Blooded Shore; 3) Sea Wolf; 4) Vinland; 5) The Land; 6) Death And Resurrection Of A Northern Son; 7) The Messenger; 8) Flash Of The Silver Hammer; 9) The Wheel Of Sun.

Considering how much time — around five minutes altogether — ʽThe Wheel Of Sunʼ requires to go through with its massive coda, one might have thought that Nordland II was not only de­signed to be the last Nordland installment, but was actually to be the last Bathory album ever, that last big fat chord after which Quorthon could finally retire, or remove his presence from this Christianity-soiled earth altogether. Which he actually did around June 7, 2004, allegedly dying of heart failure — so very impatient to finally honor that Valhalla reservation.

In reality, though, Quorthon himself had stated that there were to be four Nordland albums, and a third one was already in the works when misfortune fell. And, indeed, other than the grand coda to ʽWheel Of Sunʼ, there is nothing on Nordland II to suggest intentional account closure. Quite on the contrary, it sounds a wee bit disappointing as a follow-up to Nordland I: obviously, one could not expect any major stylistic changes, but a minor twist or two would have been nice. The only minor twist I see here is that the ultra-heavy, «industrial metal» vibe of Nordland I has all but disappeared, and that, consequently, the second volume made one small step away from bru­tal heaviness and towards «artsiness» — a tiny step that will make it seem a bit more visionary to some fans and a bit more boring to others.

The «fanfare» sequence that opens the album is a good illustration: three and a half minutes of stern icy synth-pomp — for my tastes, this stuff is way too crudely composed and produced to be emotionally engaging, but there will always be some Bathory fans ready to see it as a Grand Opening of the Gates to Ancient Scandinavian Consciousness. Thereupon, ʽBlooded Shoreʼ is a stately one-riff march, full of predictably martial solemnity, but it is neither heavy enough to pro­perly wake up my inner Viking, nor perfectionistic-majestic enough to disturb that old Wagnerian temptation. The song, and most of the other ones that follow, is worthy of a sleepwalking Quor­thon, not so much a Quorthon ambitious to prove that he is able to go beyond the confines of Hammerheart while playing by the rules of Hammerheart.

In fact, the album is surprisingly mild and slow all the way through to ʽDeath And Resurrection Of A Northern Sonʼ, where the old thrash instinct finally awakens and starts generating truly thunderous riffage: too bad that the «thunderous» sections of the song occupy less than half of its ten-minute duration. The major highlight comes a little later, in the form of the shortest song on the album: ʽFlash Of The Silver Hammerʼ (Paul McCartney and Maxwell dropped by to say hello, no doubt) is the first, if not the only, number to dispense with the stately majesty and simply bash it out in a «take-no-prisoners, show-no-mercy» style — none too soon, actually, or you might start wondering whether Quorthon really began to mellow out in his last years.

He did not, but overall, Nordland II is hardly an achievement to brag about: if the remaining two albums were to show the same quality, my guess is that the man would be running a serious risk of running out of fans before the saga was over, except for the usual bunch of diehards who would be happy enough if their idol released an entire album of minimal variations on ʽThe Hall Of The Mountain Kingʼ. The only saving grace of the album is the man's commitment to his mis­sion, and clear understanding of his own role in it — but it is well nigh impossible for music like this to run on commitment alone: would it have hurt too much to add some emotional variety and a slightly larger number of memorable riffs? As of today, only Odin knows the answer.

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Barclay James Harvest: Welcome To The Show

BARCLAY JAMES HARVEST: WELCOME TO THE SHOW (1990)

1) The Life You Lead; 2) Lady Macbeth; 3) Cheap The Bullet; 4) Welcome To The Show; 5) John Lennon's Guitar; 6) Halfway To Freedom; 7) African Nights; 8) Psychedelic Child; 9) Where Do We Go; 10) Origin Earth; 11) If Love Is King; 12) Shadows On The Sky.

By the late Eighties / early Nineties, some of the prog dinosaurs were willing to show signs of life, but most were still hibernating in «commercial» lairs, and Barclay James Harvest, of all people, were fairly safe in one of those lairs as long as the East European markets were open — and open they were, with more and more breachings of the Iron Curtain, as lovingly commemorated by Les Holroyd in one of these album's worst songs (ʽHalfway To Freedomʼ). Consequently, Welcome To The Show — no, this is not a live album, wouldn't it be too damn obvious even for a band like BJH if it were? — simply offers you twelve more slabs of different varieties of adult contem­porary muzak for all tastes. Sappy adult contemporary, hard-rocking adult contemporary, mysti­cal adult contemporary, anthemic adult contemporary, ethnic adult contemporary — you name it, we got it, as long as it is glossy, «serious», and deadly dull.

Needless to say, Holroyd's half is about twice as putrid as Lees' — mostly either electronic pop junk with a steady beat, but no true hooks (title track; ʽThe Life You Leadʼ) or Phil Collins-style big ballads with big brass saxophones and so much h-e-a-r-t you'll cry out for liver in no time (ʽWhere Do We Goʼ; ʽShadows On The Skyʼ). Of particularly specific cringeworthiness is ʽAfri­can Nightsʼ, a nostalgic remembrance by Les of the band's tour of South Africa in 1972 — if the annoying electronic congas do not do you in a matter of moments, the lyrics surely will: if it is indeed true that one of Les Holroyd's most lingering memories of traveling through the apartheid-torn South Africa in 1972 is how "the sound man played The Eagles / As we listen / ʽTake It Easyʼ echoes on through our lives"... words fail me so utterly.

But every once in a while, Lees comes quite close to matching the tastelessness of his crumblier partner. The juiciest «highlight» is ʽJohn Lennon's Guitarʼ, a song about how — listen to this! — a guitar, borrowed from John Lennon at Abbey Road Studios in 1970, turned out to be instrumen­tal for the recording of the Barclay James Harvest song ʽGaladrielʼ. Yes, that is what the song is about, and it tells the story in plain documentary fashion. No, there is nothing wrong in borrow­ing a guitar from John Lennon, or even in acknowledging that fact twenty years later. Yes, one does not usually do this in the form of a sentimental ballad, for fear of not only looking stupid on one's own, but also making every recipient of said ballad feel equally stupid. Yes, the Beatles were great and all, but why all this relentless sucking up? ʽTitlesʼ were bad enough, and now "I remember the day, I remember the day, the day that I played John Lennon's guitar, I remember the day, as if it was yesterday, and I know that the memories will never fade..." — am I the only one to suspect some neural imbalance here?

Almost as bad, but in a different way, is ʽPsychedelic Childʼ, a slurred logorrhea of «flower power clichés» set to... no, not retro-stylized «psychedelic» sounds of fuzz guitars, harpsichords, and sitars, as could be thought, but to a muscular riff-rock sound with a serious hair metal flair: the «heaviest» that Lees gets on this album, perhaps under the influence of a Def Leppard concert or something in the same style. A song that sounds awful and makes no sense whatsoever at the same time — mission accomplished to perfection.

Struggling to find anything even vaguely redeeming about the album, I can only think of two songs that have potential: ʽLady Macbethʼ is John's valiant attempt at writing and recording some­thing inscrutably mysterious (but the song is still butchered with plastic electronic key­boards), and ʽIf Love Is Kingʼ features one of those quintessential-classic Lees solos that can be melodic, intelligent, and kick-ass at the same time — unfortunately, it has the unluck to be stuck on top of yet another forgettable pop-rocker, driven by a corny synth riff. It really baffles me how this obvious talent — at his best, the guy could rival Dave Gilmour as a soloist — could be com­bined with such poor skills at decision taking, but natural selection works in mysterious ways.

If BJH are the poor man's Moody Blues, then Welcome To The Show is the equivalent of a poor man's Sur La Mer, and that, as anybody vaguely familiar with Moody Blues history can easily tell, is not much of a compliment. And, naturally, the album runs for one whole hour straight, be­cause, according to an unbreakable law of physics, the worse a BJH album is, the longer it has to run. To give the record a thumbs down is to say nothing — I'd like to submit an official demand to remove it from public circulation, but, fortunately, it seems that nature has already settled this in its own wise way.

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Blood, Sweat & Tears: Blood, Sweat & Tears 3

BLOOD, SWEAT & TEARS: BLOOD, SWEAT & TEARS 3 (1970)

1) Hi-De-Ho; 2) The Battle; 3) Lucretia Mac Evil; 4) Lucretia's Reprise; 5) Fire And Rain; 6) Lonesome Suzie; 7) Symphony For The Devil / Sympathy For The Devil; 8) He's A Runner; 9) Somethin' Comin' On; 10) 40,000 Head­men.

We can safely bet that way too many admirers of ʽYou've Made Me So Very Happyʼ must have been fairly puzzled to buy an album called Blood, Sweat & Tears 3 right after having bought an album called Blood, Sweat & Tears — sending them out on a hard-to-explain quest for that mythical second album that never was. With a little less safety, we can also bet that these same admirers may also have been puzzled by the fact that the band's lack of creativity in choosing their album titles had, unfortunately, also extended to their albums' contents. With only two ori­gi­nal compositions out of nine, the new-look Blood, Sweat & Tears were now clearly positioning themselves as a cover band. And who the heck needed a cover band back in 1970?

Worse than that, they did give a concise answer here as to why it might have been wiser for them to stick to covers. The «artsy» past of the band catches up with it, and fills its collective head with unnecessary ecstasy, on the thoroughly pointless, and sometimes rather offensive, version of ʽSympathy For The Devilʼ. For some reason, somebody thought that a little bit of free-form jazz, with plenty of tuba and trombone polyphony, made a good companion to the pseudo-Satanic vibe of the Stones' contemporary classic — probably picked out of the lot not by pure chance, but due to increased public in­terest with it in conjunction with the Altamont disaster — but the result is not so much «experimental jazz-rock» as «Vegasy jazz-schlock», especially given Clayton-Tho­mas' «Tom Jones with tail and horns» vocal delivery. Nothing gels, nothing makes sense, and most of it genuinely irritates, because the band really feels quite clueless throughout the entire performance. Maybe it could have worked better, had they picked out a track that wasn't already «epic» in the first place — then again, maybe it couldn't.

Therefore, when they actually cover stuff without any attempts to turn it into a «symphony», it usually works better. Goffin & King's ʽHi-De-Hoʼ, a smart choice for the album's first single, suits Clayton-Thomas' normal singing style much better than any Rolling Stones song, and there is also a nice climactic buildup to the grand «Southern gospel» finale. ʽHe's A Runnerʼ is another Laura Nyro song that they do full justice to (not to mention that Laura Nyro could always use a good popularization from a more popular act), and there is a very nice piano/bass instrumental inter­lude that certifies their jazz chops without turning into a pretentious mess.

Most of the other covers, too, range from passable (ʽLonesome Suzieʼ has the lead singer doing a Richard Ma­nuel impression that almost works — although, who really wants to hear David Clayton-Thomas sing like Richard Manuel when one can instead listen to Richard Manuel not singing like David Clayton-Thomas?) to likable (Traffic's ʽ40,000 Headmenʼ). The problem is, none of them make much sense apart from the «and now, your favorite song by Mr. X... done with horns!» message. In fact, I'd say that James Taylor with horns (ʽFire And Rainʼ) is a down­right sordid idea, but that's just me.

All the more puzzling it is to realize that the two originals here are pretty strong songs in their own right. ʽThe Battleʼ, co-written by Katz and keyboardist Dick Halligan and sung by Katz, continues Steve's tradition of gallant baroque / medieval-influenced folk compositions, but is tighter, catchier, more ambitious and less mushy than usual — a nostalgic minstrel tune with a good balance between the harpsichord and the brass section. As for Clayton-Thomas' ʽLucretia Mac Evilʼ, yes, it is overwrought, over-exuberant, and Tom Jones-y, but it does have a good slew of memorable brass riffs — something that ʽSpinning Wheelʼ, for instance, did not have, and the instrumental reprise gives Jim Fielder the best of opportunities to practice his nimble bass runs, as the rest of the band, too, feels invigorated by the tightness of the funky groove. So why did they have to waste solid musicianship on clumsy attempts to get into somebody else's groove, then (ʽSympathyʼ), when they were still capable of growing their own? Beats me.

Although the record enjoyed heavy commercial success, on the huge impulse of its predecessor, it must have been obvious to everybody that the overall reaction would be one of disappointment — or, perhaps, they thought they could make it on the strength of the singles alone, in which they were only partially right. Oh well, at least they did retain a good taste in covers, and at least there is a working logic in that Al Kooper would cover Harry Nilsson and Randy Newman where Clay­ton-Thomas would cover Joe Cocker and Steve Winwood. No thumbs down in the end — the awful ʽSym­pathyʼ is nicely counterbalanced by the excellent ʽLucretiaʼ, and most of the rest is so utterly neutral that the band seems more poised for a shrug than a negative judgement.

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Bob Dylan: Highway 61 Revisited

BOB DYLAN: HIGHWAY 61 REVISITED (1965)

1) Like A Rolling Stone; 2) Tombstone Blues; 3) It Takes A Lot To Laugh, It Takes A Train To Cry; 4) From A Buick 6; 5) Ballad Of A Thin Man; 6) Queen Jane Approximately; 7) Highway 61 Revisited; 8) Just Like Tom Thumb's Blues; 9) Desolation Row.

By this time in Dylan's career, it is already best for everybody to refrain from asking questions (if only out of fear of losing one's sanity), but I still find it hard to resist from at least this short one — why «revisited»? The song itself, duly mentioning a «highway 61» in each verse, makes no mention of revisiting anything; and although the title does, perhaps, allude to Bob's cover of the ʽHighway 51ʼ blues on his self-titled debut album, well, that was 51, not 61, so he is not exactly revisiting that old place. The word «revisited» is really out of place on this album, considering how bent it is on breaking new ground rather than revisiting old one — but maybe that's what we think, after all, and in reality Bob was using this faint hint to let us know how little has changed ever since he entered the recording business?..

On the other hand, who could really tell what this guy wants and what he does not want to let us know when he keeps staring at us like that from the album cover. And it is not even the stare that produces the best impression: it is the kingly pose that he adopts on that chair, as Bobby Neu­wirth, the loyal courtier, stands right behind the throne, ready to whop any potential dissenters over the head with that camera at the slightest notice. (And now we know that this impression wasn't that far from the truth, what with the Dylan/Neuwirth couple practicing intellectual assas­sination on the weak, meek, and humble with brutal social-darwinist fervor throughout that en­tire period — be it Joan Baez or Donovan, no one was safe from their verbal wrath).

It worked both ways: on one hand, Dylan's definitive breakup with the folksie movement earned him plenty of scorn, flack, and derision — but on the other hand, most of it only went further to fuel the well-lit fire, and pushed him to new creative heights, most of them mean, lean, and vici­ous in nature. Highway 61 Revisited, heralded by ʽLike A Rolling Stoneʼ and the non-LP single ʽPositively 4th Streetʼ, showed the world what it really meant to be pissed off when you're Bob Dylan: next to these two songs — as well as about half of the other ones on the LP — ʽMaggie's Farmʼ is Sesame Street-level material.

Fortunately for us, Dylan's vitriolics can always be pushed aside from the listener, or, even better, empathized with — in need, one can always side with the protagonist, and then you can giddily rail at all the mistreated disillusioned young girls of ʽRolling Stoneʼ and all the dazed and con­fused Mr. Joneses of ʽThin Manʼ, borrowing the appropriate machine gun from the Zimmerman Industries, Hibbing, Minnesota. And just as fortunately, the unbeatable, incomparable sneer of Highway 61 Revisited is only one of its major attractions — had it been its only attraction, the album probably would never come to be regarded as one of the finest products of Western civi­lization in the 1960s by so many people (myself included, to make things clear right away).

The other attraction, of course, is the overall sound of the album, which is where the gist of Bob's genius truly lies. The assembled musicians were neither renowned professionals (although many of them did have plenty of session experience behind them, like Paul Griffin on piano or Bobby Gregg on drums) nor immediate unmistakable geniuses (even though Mike Bloomfield did, on occasion, earn the «guitar genius» tag) — nor did Bob spend any serious amount of time training and disciplining them. Instead, what usually happened during the sessions was that everybody just hammered away, in various styles, moods, and combinations, and every once in a while Dy­lan would signal — keep it right there. Every single time, that is, when his bloodhound instinct picked up a hint that there was finally something happening out there. It is this instinct, and this instinct only, that explains why Bob, when he was in a proper hunting spirit, was able to get so much out of almost any musician, no matter how well-trained, experienced, or innately talented. And he was never in a more proper hunting spirit than during these summer sessions of 1965.

Even if we take a relative «lowlight» from the album — say, ʽFrom A Buick 6ʼ, a fast blues piece that is probably the least well-known track on here — it still got that sound. The guitar does not seem to be playing anything other than a standard ʽMilk Cow Bluesʼ-type pattern, but it does play it with an arrogant brutality and decisiveness that, for some reason, many a blues-rocker at the time was unable to achieve — and when you overlay it with Al Kooper's flashy, incessant organ swirls, the result is a thick, heavy sonic tempest. Most likely, the song title, which has nothing whatsoever to do with its lyrics (a beat-era-update of the traditional "praise for me woman" type of blues ode), could have been inspired by this drive — it is the sonic equivalent of landscape flashing past the windows of a speeding vehicle.

And that is just the lowlight, of course. In general, Dylan continues with the «proto-punk» aes­thetics here: once the band or a particular band member happens to fall upon a crude, simple, but working chord sequence, Bob locks it in place and makes him / them stick with it for three, four, six minutes — as long as it takes him to empty his lyrical inspiration pot. So is the deal with ʽTombstone Bluesʼ, for instance, which gallops at a crazy pace on the power of about three guitar notes and about as many organ ones — hello, Motörhead? (I could actually see Lemmy doing ʽTombstone Bluesʼ in a flash — as a matter of fact, ʽAce Of Spadesʼ does sound surprisingly similar) — and has Bob unfurling his acid dreams one by one until it all comes together in this hilariously sound conclusion: "I wish I could write you a melody so plain / That could hold you dear lady from going insane / That could ease you and cool you and cease the pain / Of your use­less and pointless knowledge". Off-top piece of advice: always try to pay the most attention to the last verse of Dylan's songs, it is that one that usually — but, of course, not always — holds the key to the whole story.

Or take the case of ʽIt Takes A Lot To Laughʼ. Is it the slow, almost lethargic tempo that makes the song? Is it the harmonica soloing? Is it the completely generic, thoroughly uncreative blues shuffle melody? Is it the lyrics? Well, I don't know about you, but the first thing I remember and cherish about the song is that ridiculously loud, «primitive», archaic-feel barrelhouse piano part from Paul Griffin. Most likely, had he been recording this stuff with a different artist, he would have played it differently: less flash, more technique, less power, more notes. Under Dylan, he is guided to «deconstruct» that part, dropping the complexity and emphasizing only the «key» moments, and goddammit if it doesn't work, even if, after all these years, I am still not able to verbally express how exactly it makes the song so unique. Leave it to me deathbed.

Or take ʽQueen Jane Approximatelyʼ, which I remember as the very last song on Highway 61 that I learned to love, but now I probably love it more than anything else on the album — perhaps because it is the only genuinely friendly and compassionate song on here, created in a rare fit of sympathy, I believe, for those few people whom Bob did not overtly dismiss as phonies upon first sight and who have been merged together in this single collective «Queen Jane» image. The ly­rics are great, the invitation to "come see me, Queen Jane" is delivered in a great tone that is fifty percent irony and fifty percent empathy, but none of that would work if it weren't for that four-note descending bass line and Bloomfield's conclusive arpeggiated chord before the final lines of the chorus — marking the transition from the critical "you're in one hell of a mess, girl" stage to the con­soling "but hey, no prob, I got the cure!" one. Like everywhere else, the non-stop crushing waves of the lyrical onslaught may initially prevent one from seeing this — but ʽQueen Jane Ap­proximatelyʼ could have worked almost as well in completely instrumental mode.

And, of course, there is always ʽBallad Of A Thin Manʼ to prove my point better than anything else. That somber four-note piano bit — it was not invented by Dylan, it was taken directly from Ray Charles' ʽI Believe To My Soulʼ, but it's almost as if Bob listened to the song and said, "hey, that's a great four-note piano bit! How come there's so much more piano playing on here — doesn't it only detract attention away from that great sequence? Why don't we just zoom in on that?" So they did — and somehow it acquired this additional meaning, one of a musical sword of doom hanging over the head of poor Mr. Jones, walking around and minding his business while the naked people, the geeks and the freaks, arming themselves with creepy horror movie organ parts and this relentless «piano bell toll», make fun of him. It must have took some balls to record something like that — of everyone I know, only Procol Harum tried that trick with similar suc­cess two years later on ʽA Christmas Camelʼ (funny enough, this here song does have the word ʽcamelʼ in its lyrics, too), although it was already nowhere near as effective.

Considering how much of a «garage» spirit there is here on Highway 61, it is not surprising that the chosen guitar player was Mike Bloomfield, probably the «dirtiest» blues guitar player on the American scene at the time, the one who might have had the best balance between blues-rock guitar technique and the overall «nastiness» of effect: his frantic leads on ʽTombstone Bluesʼ here must have inspired everyone from Lou Reed to Marc Bolan. What actually is surprising is that most of the time, this garage spirit is being enforced through decidedly unorthodox means for a garage album — usually, the electric guitar is actually subdued by the keyboards, providing a thick supportive sonic mat for their pounding and swirling. This kind of wall of sound, technical­ly speaking, was not at all typical for the far more minimalistic garage-rock bands of the day — and yet, at the same time, Highway 61 Revisited sounds much more raw, crude, visceral, in-yer-face, slam-dunk than almost any randomly picked garage single from 1965.

I guess, like George Harrison said, «it's all in the mind» — perhaps you could make garage rock with an unplugged mandolin if you really put your spirit to it. And Dylan, by getting additional musical help from his friends and gaining the right to direct and channel that help, was more than qualified in terms of spirit. If anything, though, Highway 61 Revisited transcends «garage rock» — «hangar rock» would be more like it, adding vast, sprawling musical space to the raw power, leanness and meanness of the message. The title track alone is like a bunch of warheads blasting into a thousand directions, each one guided by its personal Al Kooper whistle.

All the more interesting, then, how the album quietly settles down towards the end, gradually cooling its rockets instead of trying to pick up even more steam. First, ʽJust Like Tom Thumb's Bluesʼ, though still thick on sonic stuffing, gives us a sort of «post-acid» Dylan, in a somewhat stupefied and a little «transcendental» state — the only number on here that has quite an explicit­ly druggy atmosphere, particularly when it comes to Bob's vocal delivery: his "I cannot move, my fingers are all in a knot / I don't have the strength to get up and take another shot / And my best friend, my doctor, won't even say what it is I've got" sounds so totally authentic, I have this con­stant urge to get up and take his temperature every time I hear it. Where the first seven songs, with the partial exception of ʽTrainʼ, all show us a «Dylan on speed», this one is definitely «co­ming down», and it ain't too pretty, but it sure as hell is quite mesmerizing.

Then, of course, there is always ʽDesolation Rowʼ. Now my opinion on that song hasn't changed through the years: I still tend to think of it as a «preview», an early, not-100%-successful attempt at tapping into the visionary-transcendental style of Blonde On Blonde. Its lyrics drop just a tad too many name references to not come across as «show-off» stuff; its arrangement, despite the brilliant folky acoustic flourishes from Charlie McCoy, is a little too minimalistic to warrant 11 minutes of repetitiveness; and its overall atmosphere does not gel full well with the word ʽDeso­lationʼ in the title — plenty of surrealist stuff is happening out there, but very little of it has anything to do with «desolation». But an epic, towering album did need an epic, towering con­clusion, and ʽDesolation Rowʼ suits that function perfectly — here is Dylan as Unbiased Neutral Observer rather than the «character-assassin» on the bulk of the album, just to prevent any poten­tial outcry of «so, all that guy is able to do nowadays is sneer and jeer and criticize and complain» from the verbose critics. All that I really hold against this song is that it has always worked much better for me in its specific «Highway 61-closer» function, rather than on its own merits, Charlie McCoy be blessed and all.

And as much as I seem to be gushing here, no, I go with the minority that does not regard High­way 61 Revisited as the highest peak of the curve. For me, above all, Dylan is the world's great­est master of subtlety and understatement, for both of which Highway 61, in its raging garage fervor, has only limited space. Likewise, I certainly do not consider Dylan a «rock'n'roll artist», and this also helps to get detached from the majority that might simply prefer Highway 61 to Blonde On Blonde because the first one «kicks ass all the way through» where the second one can be «kinda boring, at least in some spots» — this may be true, but I genuinely do not need «my Dylan» to kick ass in order to achieve unparalleled greatness.

Nevertheless, there is no question whatsoever in my mind that an album like Highway 61 could only have been done by this one person at this particular time; that it captures and personifies the incomparable «Zeitgeist» of 1965 more intelligently and with more complexity than any other album; that all of its moods and sentiments are as vital and relevant today as they were half a century ago; and that quibbling over pizza toppings is a great way to take some pressure off one's brain, but hardly deserves even a single permanent byte of Internet space. Consequently, let's just top this one off with an enthusiastic thumbs up-de luxe — and move on up.

P.S. Curiously enough, already after signing off, I found out that I forgot to say even a single thing about the album's top song. But on second thought, let's keep it this way — it is sort of tempting to ensure the uniqueness of this here review through a thing it fails to mention, rather than the opposite. Besides, what else new can there be said about that opening snare shot that hasn't already been said by that eloquent preacher of post-industrial existentialism, Mr. Spruce Bringsteen? "He showed us that just because the music was innately physical, did not mean it was anti-intel­lect" — well, leave it to Mr. Bringsteen to once again dangerously toy with the balance in favor of extra «physicality» as his own time would arrive a decade from then on, but at least there is no questioning his judgement on this one.

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Brenda Lee: Sincerely, Brenda Lee

BRENDA LEE: SINCERELY, BRENDA LEE (1962)

1) You Always Hurt The One You Love; 2) Lazy River; 3) You've Got Me Crying Again; 4) It's The Talk Of The Town; 5) Send Me Some Lovin'; 6) How Deep Is The Ocean; 7) I'll Always Be In Love With You; 8) I Miss You So; 9) Fools Rush In; 10) Only You (And You Alone); 11) Hold Me; 12) I'll Be Seeing You.

The first big misstep in Brenda's career — and it's not even as if the times themselves were pres­sing her into taking it. The musical climate, in early 1962, was much the same as in late 1961, and Brenda's team of musicians, arrangers, and corporate songwriters had not changed much, either, but all the same, someone came up with this ridiculous idea of recording an album consisting of nothing but old Tin Pan Alley stuff, increasing the old quota of about 20-30% to a baffling 100%. Most likely, in an age where people still regarded rockabilly and dance-pop as passable kiddie stuff (not entirely without reason), this move was to signalize «maturation» — and if it was im­possible to market Brenda as the next Peggy Lee, well, then she'd at least have to be the next Doris Day. Not Doris Day? Okay, how about the next Connie Francis?

If you like Brenda Lee in general (like I do), and if you honestly cherish pre-rock'n'roll era pop standards in general (like I don't), Sincerely will be right up your alley. From a general point of view on how these songs should be sung and played for maximum effect, Brenda and her band do a competent job — nothing but sheer professionalism from everybody. But the girl did not make the original grade with ʽFools Rush Inʼ: she made it by taking a rowdy Hank Williams song and rowdying it up even further, and this is why she stood out in the first place. When, on the other hand, she tries to convince us that ʽYou Always Hurt The One You Loveʼ, she is doing no better (and no worse) a job than a whole army of her good-looking colleagues in the same business.

The only song on the entire album that is still sung with faint echoes of her «pirate voice» is Hoagy Carmichael's ʽLazy Riverʼ — unquestionably the album's highest point, especially since Brenda's delivery stays happily ignorant of the sentimentalism that one should naturally expect to be packed together with these lyrics: she mouths those "rub away your troubles, dream a dream with me" in such a commanding tone, you'd be all the wiser to quickly take that advice, or else you'll get your ass whupped with that trombone solo — it means real business.

The lack of sugary sentimentalism is the only saving grace that lets one live through the other eleven ballads — but even so, it gets so monotonous so early on that it might be hard discerning where one song stops and the next one begins: that refreshing diversity that made All The Way so easily digestible no longer exists in the confines of this particular formula. Fortunately for us all today, the general public back in 1962 was not particularly impressed, either, and the album seriously dipped in the charts as compared to its predecessor — or, perhaps, this was simply the result of the decision not to put out any accompanying singles. I mean, even in the «saggy» little period between Chuck Berry and the Beatles, a cover of Doris Fisher or Hoagy Carmichael was probably not anybody's best bet for a jukebox attraction. Not a «bad» record altogether (at this time in history, Brenda and her band were physically incapable of putting down a proverbially «bad» record), but a relative thumbs down all the same.

The Avalanches: Since I Left You

THE AVALANCHES: SINCE I LEFT YOU (2001)

1) Since I Left You; 2) Stay Another Season; 3) Radio; 4) Two Hearts In 3/4 Time; 5) Avalanche Rock; 6) Flight Tonight; 7) Close To You; 8) Diners Only; 9) A Different Feeling; 10) Electricity; 11) Tonight; 12) Pablo's Cruise; 13) Frontier Psychiatrist; 14) Etoh; 15) Summer Crane; 16) Little Journey; 17) Live At Dominoes; 18) Extra Kings.

It is not difficult to understand the concept of «plunderphonics»: all you have to do is to agree that, in art at least, the total does not always equal the sum of its parts. If you take sample A from one artist and sample B from another artist and put them together, you are not performing a crude act of «stealing» as long as you acknowledge the sources — you may be trying to generate a new meaning. As in — sample one of Hitler's speeches over ʽStar Spangled Bannerʼ and you will de­finitely be generating a new meaning, albeit one that might cause you some headache if thrown about in the public sphere.

It is much more troublesome, though, to understand if the very art of «plunderphonics» has, in it­self, anything to do with «music». The Avalanches themselves, a merry bunch of Australian DJs with a heavy interest in old used vinyl, would, and have, understandably argued that it does. After all, Since I Left You — their debut, and, so far, their only record — is not merely something that has to be perceived through one's ears, it is also something that is targeted at provoking a rhyth­mic reaction from your body: stuff that you should, and could, dance to, and it is fairly hard to dance to anything other than music. Even architecture.

On the other side, it can hardly be argued that Since I Left You is «just» a dance-oriented pop album. Its composition — a super-complex kaleidoscope of over 900 different samples — all by itself positions it as a work of art, to be processed and analyzed through your mind just as well as it could be picked up by the irrational nerve centers in your body. And this is where one begins to have problems with viewing it as «music»: from this point of view, Since I Left You becomes an analogy of something like a Duchamp readymade.

The hour-long album, all of it structured like one long track, without a single break between the separate tracks, seamlessly flowing in and out of each other, is mostly rooted in the groovy sounds of generic 1970s R&B — so generic, in fact, that I confess to not recognizing any of the samples involved (supposedly, there has to be a bit of Madonna's ʽHolidayʼ in here somewhere, but I don't remember where exactly). Part of the band's preference for these obscure funk / disco grooves probably stems from the understandable fear of getting sued by the big gangstas of pop entertainment (they'd rather be sued by the small ones), but part of it is symbolic — as some sort of adepts of the Andy Warhol school of pop-art, they find their interest in dragging out long-for­gotten chunks of routine mediocrity and going the "it ain't art because it's inherently fabulous, it's art because we are inherently fabulous and we say it's art" route with them.

On the outside layer, having chopped up, remixed, and loop-de-looped those R&B grooves, they mix them with miriads of sound effects, everything from neighing horses to movie soundtracks to phaser blasts from crappy (or not so crappy) 1980s video games, and offer it for our attention and appreciation. The overall effect, if there is an overall effect, could only be described as «The Mad Hatter's Disco Ball» — an experimental, sprawling panorama of sonic absurdity, completely open to analysis, interpretation, admiration, derision, or the occasional flight of a rotten tomato. Unfor­tunately, there is nothing «revolutionary» in this approach per se — «plunderphonics» as a con­cept dates back to at least John Oswald's invention of the term in 1985, or, to a smaller extent, to the works of The Art Of Noise in the early 1980s. So one can only evaluate the merits of The Avalanches based on a question like «so, what exactly are they doing here to convince us that the art of plunderphonics deserves further existence?»

My brief personal answer to this would then be something like «uhhh...». A longer answer would involve mumbling out phrases like «well, I guess they can sound funny at times», «you know, it doesn't really sound all the same if you really put your ear to it», and «hey, sometimes it is more productive to ask questions than to give answers».

In all honesty, I do not «get» this album, and have no reason to think that anyone does (at least, certainly not based on the actual glowing reviews of it that I have read). I do remember myself, in early childhood, playing two tapes on different tape recorders and recording the results on a third one, just for pointless fun — the results could sometimes be unpredictably hilarious. I have very strong suspicions that this here is simply a case of several overgrown kids who somehow re­mained stuck in the same mood, only with access to far superior technologies and far larger data banks. Consequently, the results are essentially the same: sometimes, through sheer chance, it works, sometimes it doesn't, but what works and what doesn't work will most likely be complete­ly different and unpredictable for different people.

On one thing there may be no disagreement: a heavy shitload of work went into the creation of this whole project — several years of toil and trouble, in fact (and the real curious thing about The Avalanches is that, while they are still alive and kicking, they have by now spent more than a decade planning and recording their follow-up record). Serious plunderphonics requires serious skills at plundering — which may be one reason behind all the positive reviews: even if these overdubs make little sense, they are all fitted together quite smoothly, so that the album never ever becomes truly cacophonous. Crazy, but not dissonant or chaotic. The horses are neighing in all the right spots — where somebody else would have probably inserted a repetitive lead guitar lick or synth loop. Even the video game phaser blasts on ʽA Different Feelingʼ are all blasting out on time and in perfect harmony with the disco beats.

In other words, I am quite ready to agree that Since I Left You is a triumph of form — and an awesome soundtrack for a party that has to combine opportunities for dancing, hip intellectualism, and an atmosphere of whacked out surrealism. But on the other hand, I do not wish for a second to overestimate this stuff — for instance, by trying to over-analyze and «interpret» any of these tracks (and, given the complexity of their structure, treating even one of them in this manner could take a long time and make the writer look seriously afflicted). You have your own perfect right, for instance, to regard the record as a symbolic expression of pop culture's diversity, or as a symbolic expression of pop culture's vanity and cheapness, or as a symbolic expression of pop culture's trashy beauty and seductiveness, or as a brave statement saying that nothing that goes into the wastebasket is guaranteed to forever stay in the wastebasket...

...whatever. It's all puzzling, curious, and intriguing, but there is also something disturbing in the fact that Since I Left You so often ends up on people's lists of «best-of-the-decade» albums — a rather desperate, if not depressing, decision, I'd say.

Check "Since I Left You" (CD) on Amazon