Review # 71
Artist: Bauhaus
Title: 1979-1983 Volume One
Format: CD
Label: Beggars Banquet
Year: 1986
Songs: 14






Hi everyone, and welcome to the first review from the new and less restricted 30,000 songs. Now that I'm not trying to do everything in alphabetical order anymore, I can make choices like this one, which I selected not only in keeping with rainy blustery weather and the approach of Halloween, but also in honor of Bela Lugosi. Lugosi, best known for playing the role of Dracula in the classic Universal Studios film of the same title, was the subject of Bauhaus's best known song "Bela Lugosi's Dead." Lugosi would be 130 years old today.

I love listening to Bauhaus this time of year. Without retreading too much of the same territory from review #30, I'll just mention here that Bauhaus are considered by many to be the first goth band. This cd spans the first four years of the band's singles, and you can hear the progression here from what was essentially a dark and strange take on the punk sound to something  that has evolved into an independent genre (albeit one with punk roots still clearly evident). Throughout, Bauhaus sounds dark and ominous. Their musical approach to this is an interesting one.  Drummer Kevin Haskin's lays down rhythms that sometimes border on tribal, relying heavily on his toms to keep time rather than ride or high-hat cymbals a typical rock drummer would use.  The song structure of most tracks is held together primarily by bassist David J., who's style is often minimalist and droning in a way that provides an ominous feel to the songs.  Guitarist Daniel Ash, meanwhile, lays down guitar tracks that, in many cases, primarily add an eerie texture created through high-pitched, echoey noises that you might think were improvised, if they didn't sound so perfect.  Only on a few occasions on this disc does he play what one would consider a chord progression. Peter Murphy rounds out the sound with nasal, almost shrieking vocals.  The overall sound is bleak and cold, and fits well with their generally creepy lyrics.

What are the songs about? Much of the time, it's hard to say but I think the short answer is "nothing nice." Death, strange sex, alienation. As I mentioned before, their best known song is "Bela Lugosi's Dead," a tribute to Lugosi that describes his funeral as if he were an actual vampire, an undead being who would probably rise again to continue his lonely existence. That might sound silly, but it's actually a great song in my opinion. My favorite, however, is "The Passion of Lovers." The lyrics of this song paint a surreal picture of tragic woman. The Internet tells me the song was inspired by the true story a couple that killed themselves, although I have no idea if that's actually true. I just know the chorus gets stuck in my head for days.

On that happy note, merry Lugosi Day.  More spooky-type music reviews coming soon!

Here's "The Passion of Lovers" if you want to check that out, and here's "Bela Lugosi's Dead."

Also, in case I depressed you with my review of this record, here's a fun video about Bela Lugosi's birthday.


Total songs listened: 871

The Cars: The Cars

Review # 68
Artist: The Cars
Title: The Cars
Format: LP
Label: Elektra/Asylum Records
Year: 1978
Songs: 9



Many people say that the Cars were basically a cleaned-up, commercial version of early punk, made marketable by stripping away most controversial elements of the form and divorcing it more or less entirely from the subculture. I think that's pretty much correct, but I like the Cars anyway. Even though the Cars were basically selling a safe version of much more interesting music happening at that time, it's impossible to deny that they knew how to write great pop songs, and on no record is that so wonderfully clear than on their self-titled debut LP. In fact, I'd go so far as to say that it is really the only Cars album you need.

Side A features three perfect pop gems that are, not coincidentally, three of the band's best known tracks: "Good Times Roll," "My Best Friend's Girl," and "Just What I Needed." I have stories about two of these three. Back when I used to work retail, I worked with a guy who'd been playing rock music for a long time and had toured as an opening act for the Cars way back in the day.  He claimed to have written "My Best Friend's Girl." Not the lyrics, but the music, he claimed, was taken from a song by the band he was playing with at the time. They were never, he said, given credit for writing the song nor payed for their tune. While his story sounded feasible, I'll never know if it was true or not. I can say that even 20 odd years later, he was still bitter about it. I guess if a famous band stole my song and I never made it, I'd be upset too.

"Just What I Needed" is my favorite track from the record, and indeed, my favorite Cars song. This song will forever conjure for me memories of the Hi*Score Arcade on Capitol Hill in Seattle. The Hi*Score was one of my favorite places to hang out between 1998 or so and the night they closed, which I think must have been 2001. It was a video and pinball game arcade that also sold 80s nostalgia items and often had all-ages punk rock shows in an era when those were very hard to come by in Seattle. There was a also a pretty good collection of zines there, and the owners didn't mind if you just came in and sat on the couch and read them. It was a real community space for the punk and DIY music scenes in Seattle for several years. The newspaper I helped found had its first meeting there, and I saw countless shows and spent hours playing pinball over the years that it was open.  And, for whatever reason, "Just What I Needed" always seemed to be playing on the jukebox when I walked in. I came to associate that song with the Hi*Score arcade. I went there the last night they were open, for the farewell party, and for once, it wasn't playing. After playing some games and chatting with the owner for a bit, I put "Just What I Needed" on the jukebox. It was the last quarter I spent at the Hi*Score, and I still feel wistful when I think about it.

So those are my stories.  The rest of the songs are also good. Side one concludes with "I'm in Touch With Your World" and "Don't Cha Stop," both of which are Devo-esque and the later of which has a driving beat and a lead guitar part that I love. Side two has another of their pop hits "Your All I've Got Tonight" and the eerie and synthesizer heavy "Moving in Stereo," which always conjures images for me of driving at night in the city. The only thing I don't like about this record is that it has a pretty weak finish. "All Mixed Up" is the only song on this record that sounds like boring '70s rock. It lacks the herky-jerky feel of many of the other songs on the record and the harmonies just come off a little too smooth and produced. Plus, it's the slowest song on the record. Poor choice for a closing number.

Aside from that though, it really covers just about every Cars song you could want, except I suppose "Let's Go" and "Drive," the latter of which I've never actually cared for, but I guess was a big hit. You can find this album at thrift stores (I did) and you should pick it up if you don't already own it.

Here's "Just What I Needed." If you can remember the Hi*Score, put this on and raise a glass.

Total songs listened: 836

Blondie: Blondie

Review # 54
Artist: Blondie
Title: Blondie
Format: LP
Label: Chrysalis
Year: 1976
Songs: 11



Everybody has heard Blondie. Their hit songs like "One Way or Another" and "Heart of Glass," along with Debbie Harry's quasi-sex symbol status, cemented a place for the band in the history of rock music. But before Blondie was a hit, they were just a good little punk/new wave band with some catchy tunes. Their self-titled debut LP captures this lesser-known era of the band's music.

Originally released on Private Stock Records in 1976, this record contains the band's first single, "X Offender," along with several other irreverent catchy songs. In the early days of the punk and new wave scene, before the Sex Pistols LP had even debuted, definitions of what was considered punk were more flexible. For Blondie, it meant high energy, bouncy pop songs, often with a retro feel to them. "X Offender" and"Little Girl Lies" sound like a really good 1960s garage band, with organ, straight up rock 'n roll guitar riffs, and hand claps. "In the Flesh," one of the better known songs on the record, sounds like something out of the late 1950s or early 1960s. "In the Sun" is evocative of 1960s surfer bands like the Beach Boys or Jan and Dean. At other times, the organ also contributes to an almost carnival feel to some songs, like "A Shark In Jet's Clothing." The record finishes with a sci-fi film homage, "The Attack of the Giant Ants," which features a maddeningly catchy "la la la" chorus that I should find annoying but love anyway.  All in all, this is a melodic, fun, and catchy record.

Blondie lost most of their punk credibility when they released  the disco hit "Heart of Glass." I think you'd be hard pressed to find many punk bands that cite them as a major influence anymore. Even so, the influence of this particular record is hard to deny. Several of the melodies on this record can be heard echoing on other records that came out in subsequent years. While I can't say for certain that they borrowed it from this record, the similarities between, for example, "Look Good in Blue" and the Jam's "The Butterfly Collector" are hard to miss. It's worth noting, too, that "Heart of Glass" was not the departure that some people made it out to be. Listen to "Man Overboard" and you can hear the disco influence showing up not so subtly on this first LP.

I'm not a huge Blondie fan, but this is definitely my favorite of their albums. Blondie's punk cred might be assailable, but the quality of this record isn't.

If you haven't hear "X Offender," you should check it out.


Total songs listened: 685

Pat Benatar: In the Heat of the Night

Review # 43
Artist: Pat Benatar
Title: In the Heat of the Night
Format: LP
Label: Chrysalis
Year: 1979
Songs: 10



I'm back for more Pat Benatar, with her album preceding the one I wrote about in review #42. I wouldn't describe this as greatly different from the follow-up, although I do think "Heartbreaker" is a better tune than "Hit Me With Your Best Shot," so as far as the radio hit goes, this record has one up on Crimes of Passion. Otherwise, this is more cheesey, over the top songs about love and lust, as well as some cliches about how gritty urban life can be that are the lyrical equivalent of the smokey pool hall featured in so many music videos in the 1980s.

All of that said, I actually like  this record a little better than Crimes of Passion, the reason for this being that it's actually a little MORE over-the-top and cheesey. If I'm going to listen to over-produced hard rock from the late 70s and and early 80s, I want as much silliness and false bravado as possible, because that what makes this music fun to listen to from time to time. There's definitely a bit more of this going on here than on the follow-up. From the "I've got a bad attitude" feel of "No You Don't," the swagger of "Heartbreaker," the soaring emotionality of the power ballad "Don't Let It Show," and the sex-symbol posturing of "Rated X," this album is about drama, bravado, and cheese from beginning to end. It's got less thematic complexity than high school poetry but it's a lot more fun to listen to.

I would also be remiss here not to mention the ridiculous outfit that Benatar wears on the album cover, best appreciated on the back of the sleeve, where she is positioned "seductively" with one foot up on a radiator heater in a pose that looks nearly as uncomfortable as it does unnatural. The halter-top and puffy pants combo (or is it overalls?) is really a piece of work. With the heavy eye-liner, she sort of vaguely resembles a goth version Jasmine from Disney's Aladdin. Don't you mess around with her.

In short, this is some good cheese if you're in the mood for that. It is innovative one way--this record nailed 80s cheese in 1979. Perhaps it was influential in this respect, as the cliches found herein were repeated frequently in the decade that followed.

Total songs listened: 551

Bauhaus: Weniger Ist Mehr

Review # 30
Artist: Bauhaus
Title: Weniger Ist Mehr
Format: LP
Label: none (unofficial release)
Year: 2006
Songs: 10










 Weniger Ist Mehr is an unlicensed collection of rare tracks by goth/post-punk icons Bauhaus. If you aren't familiar with Bauhaus, they are considered by many to be the first ever goth band, and are probably best known for their ode to the star Universal Studios' Dracula, "Bella Lugosi's Dead."  A British band that formed in 1978, the early Bauhaus songs like those that appear on this record reflect the band's musical lineage. Many of these songs were essentially a distinct, dark, and often creepy take on the British punk sound, with the influence of the first record by the Damned being perhaps the most apparent to me. This record features some rare tracks by the band, the bulk of which are live studio tracks recorded in 1979, and originally released on a cd accompanying a book about the band entitled Beneath the Mask.

Many of these tracks are songs that even a casual fan of Bauhaus would recognize, like "A God in the Alcove" and "Dark Entries," although the recordings are more raw and stripped down than those the band commercially released. Generally, these are good recordings, different enough from the commercially released versions to be worth owning, but not departing drastically from the sound of final versions. The one possible exception is the slowed down version of "Telegram Sam," a cover of a song by Marc Bolan from T-Rex.  Bauhaus's version of this song has always been one of my favorites in their catalogue, but the version that appears on this record seems to lag behind and lose steam a bit due to it's slower pacing. Highlights from the record include the crushing dirge "Nerves," the spooky "Hollow Hills," and the energetic version of "Dark Entries" found on this record.

By far my favorite track on this record though, and the one I actually bought it for, is the band's tongue-in-cheek cover of the 1960s Christian rock hit, "Spirit in the Sky." The band delivers the song sparsely while Peter Murphy recites the lyrics in a perfect deadpan, sometimes slightly drawing out the syllables:

"I'm going up the spirit in the sky... it's where I'm gonna go when I diiiie."

The songs just drips with understated bad attitude until the climax, when Murphy lets loose with crazed shrieks of "Jeezess! Jeeeezzesss!"  A coworker of mine introduced me to Bauhaus by playing this song for me back in the 90s. I didn't really care for goth stuff at the time, but I loved this, and I searched in vain for a copy of of it until a couple of years ago when I found my copy of  Weniger is Mehr. If you're a Bauhaus fan, I'd call this record an essential supplement to their regular albums.  But if you're not a fan, well, this record might be a good way to become one.

Check out "Spirit in the Sky."

Total songs listened: 351

The Avengers: Avengers

Review # 23

Artist: The Avengers
Title: Avengers
Format: LP
Label: C.D. Presents
Year: 1983
Songs: 14

It may be due to the scarcity of recorded material by this band, but I feel that the Avengers are an underrated band in the history of punk rock. Sure, aficionados of the genre are into them and their first single usually makes any top 100 punk singles list that Mojo and various other music publications will release from time to time, but for whatever reason, you just don't often see punk kids wearing patches and shirts for this band, even on the same level as many other bands with equally (if not more) limited discographies from the same era. And I've never understood why that is, because this band was great.

"The Pink Album," as this release is sometimes referred to by the band's singer Penelope Houston, is a compilation of tracks from across the band's short life (1977-1979) that includes much of what the band recorded and I think most or all of what they actually released while still active. It starts with "We Are The One," the opening track to the band's first single and an exciting and inspiring declaration of the punk identity: "we are not Jesus Christ, we are not fascist pigs, we are not capitalist industrialists, we are not communists: we are the one." "Look everyone," Penelope seems to be saying, "we're not like what you've seen before and we're taking over, so deal with it." On "I Believe in Me" this confident declaration is reinforced: "I can do it myself and make up my own rules, I believe in me, I'll make my dreams real." If that's not the manifesto of punk (or at least the early punk scene), I don't know what is.

 

Lest you should think this band is posi-core though, they show they can be snotty, dark, and critical as well any punk band with songs like "Fuck You," "The Amerikan in Me," "Car Crash," and a powerful cover of the Rolling Stones' "Paint It Black." The songs are gutsy and hard driving without needing to scream and grind. Unlike most of the California punk bands from the early days, the Avengers did not play hardcore. But it also manages to be melodic without needing to be poppy or having a new wave sound. The Avengers played straight-up old school punk with compelling, melodic vocals and sing-along choruses that owe a lot to the Sex Pistols and the first Clash record without being derivative of those bands. These are songs to sing along and pogo to, and they'll be stuck in my head for days after listening to this. It's a punk classic, made that much more so by the fact that several tracks on it (from the band's second EP) were produced by Steve Jones, the guitarist of the Sex Pistols. Punk historians will also note that the Avengers opened for the Pistols at their fabled final show at the Winterland in 1978. From what I hear though, that was no fun, and people left feeling like they'd been cheated.

Apparently this was out of print for a long time and tied up in publishing rights issues. So maybe this is why this band hasn't gotten the attention due to them in recent times. Fortunately, they're back in print and actually back on tour as well! I saw the Avengers a couple of years back at the Funhouse in Seattle. Not all original members, unfortunately, but still really powerful and fun as a live band.

If you have even a casual interest in punk rock and you don't know the Avengers, check this record out. It's fantastic.

Here's a little taste: "We Are The One"

Total songs listened: 274

Frank Friday! Frank Sinatra: Close Up

Review # 6
Artist: Frank Sinatra
Title: Close Up
Format: LP (X2)
Label: Capitol
Year: 1970
Songs: 20




Welcome to the first "Frank Friday" post, in which I take an opporunity to review some Frank Sinatra and in doing so avoid having to review too many of his records all at once when I get to "S." Close Up is a double LP set that is more or less an extended collection of the greatest hits from the Capitol Records years of Sinatra's career. There's a lot of well known Sinatra recordings here: "From Here to Eternity," "(Love is) The Tender Trap," "Love and Marriage," and many others.  I picked this record up at a library book sale for a buck. Unfortunately, I only inspected one of the records very closely.  Thus, disc one is a bit warped. It only affects the first couple of songs on each side of the disc, but it's a little nauseating to listen to those songs. It doesn't distort the tracks beyond recognition, or even comically, it just makes it sound like Frank and the band are a little drunk.

Most of the songs on these records are the swinging Sinatra stuff. The fun stuff that most people think of when they think of Sinatra, along with some of the well known romantic ones like "Everybody Loves Somebody." These songs are considered by a lot of Sinatra fans to be his best material. Definitely classics, but I tend to prefer the moodier and more introspective songs Sinatra recorded in the 1960s on the Reprise label. That, however, is a different story we'll get into another time. There are some fine tunes on this collection, make no mistake. "Young at Heart," for example, is one of my favorite of the many songs Frank sang during his extensive career. There are also a couple I don't like as well. I've only just recently gotten to where I can listen to "Love and Marriage." For the longest time, I couldn't disassociate it from the show Married with Children, and for that reason it's still not one of my favorites.

A couple of interesting features of this collection: The last three songs all have the word "dream" in the title, and the song that precedes them, "I Believe," also mentions dreams several times in its lyrics. I guess whoever put this collection together wanted to create a theme here. Also, while this isn't that unusual, this record is in "duophonic" sound, which, if I understand correctly, was essentially an attempt make monophonic recordings sound like stereo.  Hard core audiophiles disapprove of this process, and I believe it's not used anymore. I only recently heard about this, so that's interesting to me.

Overall, this is a nice collection of songs, even though many of them appear on other Frank Sinatra recordings in my collection. It also has a cool gatefold cover (which unfortunately has seen much better days) with a bunch of pictures of Frank in the studio inside. Worth a buck, definitely.

Songs listened so far: 81

Alternative TV: The Image Has Cracked

Review# 4
Artist: Alternative TV
Title: The Image Has Cracked
Format: LP
Label: Get Back
Year: 1978
Songs: 12



Alternative TV's The Image Has Cracked" rounds out our de facto trilogy of Get Back releases by artists starting with the letter "A," and it also follows nicely on the heels of the Advert's review, as this was another band born out of the first wave of British punk that sought to expand the boundaries of what punk could be. This record includes their first full-length, as well as their first two singles tacked on at the end.

Fronted by Sniffin' Glue" fanzine editor Mark P., Alternative TV begins this record, which followed a more traditional (if also scene-critical) punk single, with a bold statement. After a brief synthesizer-heavy opening, the record goes straight to a live track entitled "Alternatives." This was taken from a live show in which band, riffing quietly in the background, offered members of the audience the opportunity to come up on stage and talk about something important to them.  For a couple of minutes, no one has anything to say.  The band riffs on as Mark P. scolds the audience for its apathy.  Eventually someone comes up and tries to recruit a singer for their new band, and then a fight breaks out.  "I love you people," Mark tells the crowd, "but I hate it when you act like this because that's when they can grind you down." The track concludes with a rant about how punk music on television doesn't represent a victory, but rather a co-opting of the movement that allows it to be sold back to its members. Musically, there's not much going on on this track. As a song, it's kind of rubbish. But as an opening to a record by a band that was thought by some to be the next big thing, it's a powerful statement.

The rest of the record is eclectic and interesting, ranging from tongue-in-cheek pop ("Why Don't You Do Me Right"), traditional punk ("Good Times"), a chaotic, piano-driven statement on Paris ("Viva La Rock'n'Roll), the heavy drone of "Nasty Little Lonely" and the the catchy yet angular "hit" of the album, "Action Time Vision." The record doesn't do the same thing twice at any point, and very little of it sounds like the early punk singles. Many of the tracks have more in common with the minimalism of, say, Can than they do with the Clash.

Honestly, I don't listen to this record that often, because only about half of the tracks actually do anything for me from a musical standpoint. Such are the pitfalls, at least sometimes, of so much eclecticism and experimentation. But I appreciate this record's boundary pushing and efforts at making punk more than just what was, by that time, starting to appear on Top of the Pops.  While I love the more straight-forward punk of the early British punk scene (including Alternative TV's early "How Much Longer/You Bastard" single), history largely proved Mark P. right when says, near the close of "Alternatives:" "What you're getting is diluted shit. No way have you won brother.... No way have you won sister."

The next record I'll review demonstrates this in a particularly amusing way....
Total songs listened: 52

Here's "Viva La Rock'n'Roll" on youtube.

The Adverts: Singles Compilation

Review #3
Artist: The Adverts
Title: Singles Compilation
Format: LP
Label: Get Back
Year: 1998
Songs: 14



This collection of singles, along with the essay on back of the sleeve by guitarist T. V. Smith, puts on display the band's trajectory  across the years of 1976-1979, from a straightforward first-wave British punk band to something darker and more nuanced. The record begins with the band's first single, "One Chord Wonders/Quick Step," which is energetic and upbeat, and lyrically is a manifesto: the punk ethic of "just go out and do it and to hell with what anyone thinks" made explicit. Both of these are classics of the genre, as are "Gary Gillmore's Eyes" and "Bored Teenagers," the second single.  But the aforementioned "to hell with what anyone else thinks" ethic is more evidently musically in the later tunes of the record, which step away from typical punk subject matter and sounds. "Safety in Numbers" critiques the growing conformity in the punk scene, while "We Who Wait" breaks away from it startlingly, as T. V. Smith sings forlornly about "dancing in the penny arcade." The significance of this line is unclear to me, but it has a sort of haunting imagery to it that is in stark contrast to the early material's "up yours, we're punks" attitude. By the end of side A, the Adverts ask us "I wonder, is a new day dawning?" in a song marked by a desperate plea for a different kind of world. Change is evident.

By side B of the record, we're entering entirely different sonic territory. "Television's Over" tackles a topic that's not unfamiliar to punk fans, but the downbeat choruses with whispered vocals take us to an entirely darker place than your standard "TV sucks" song. "My Place" would not be out of place on a much more contemporary indie rock record. The final single, as T.V. Smith puts it in his essay, "had one foot hanging over the edge of what most people would call 'punk'" at all. "Cast of Thousands" is driven more by piano and soaring choral vocals than by guitar or drums, and the b-side, "I Will Walk You Home" is a slow and eerily haunting dirge, with the whispering vocals of "Television's Over," the piano of "Cast of Thousands" now playing dark jazz, the lead vocal echoing the desperation of "New Day Dawning," and a monotone backing vocal repeating the song title again and again as the song, the record, and the band draw to a close.

Punk rock kicked open a lot of doors. The Adverts were a band who wanted to see what was behind some of them.

Total songs listened so far: 40