RS 500 Greatest Albums of all Time: #38 Muddy Waters - “Anthology”
As many of you know, Rolling Stone
LESS THAN HALF!
I had listened to less than half of those goddamned albums! I was shocked—and so I set a goal to give every single one of these albums a good once-through. I’d like to share some of the results with you here. These short “blurbs” will more than likely not have the analysis as other reviews I do. How can I possibly write about these albums when many of them were released before I was even born? I can’t. Instead I’ll try to give some background and perhaps maybe a “why it was important” kind of analysis based on what the old folks say, and then conclude with my ill-informed and snide comments.
So, to begin, we have at #38 on Rolling Stone’s list of the 500 greatest albums of all time Muddy Waters’s The Anthology, 1941-1972. I’d like to be the first one to say that I thought is was strange that “Best of” or “Anthology” type albums made it on Rolling Stone’s list. It seems a bit of a cop-out, especially for seasoned artists who may have a large catalogue to choose from (which didn’t seem to bother any of the other maladroit editors and judges who picked, like, eight Beatles albums).
So, what can a 30-year old say about a vetted collection of music from, arguably, the man who created the standard for modern blues guitar-playing?
Nothing.
I can say nothing about that. You can read much better writing about Muddy Waters and his incredible legacy on other blogs and in books. Yes, BOOKS!
What I can comment on is the quality of the remaster. Modern audio recording and mastering technology have rendered these ancient recordings diverse and pronounced with slide guitar sound. Make no mistake, these are still artifact recordings, but only in the sense that the charming clicks and squeaks from rustic and ground-breaking guitar playing shine through like Muddy was breaking down a brick shit-house with his bare hands.
“I Feel Like Going Home” is a slide guitar joy with thick and nasty runs that are made even more tangible from the quality of the remaster.
“You’re Gonna Need My Help” is dirty and intimate. The slide noises, while shunned in more polished blues records add much to the quiet, but always dynamic intimacy of the track.
Some tracks will be familiar to first-time listeners: “Baby, Please Don’t Go” is a Chicago Blues classic, familiar to even those not versed in blues history; others will find recognize “I Just Want To Make Love To You” from the cover featured on a Diet Coke commercial featuring lecherous, female office workers.
Other tracks are are made remarkably modern-sounding with the remaster. “You Can’t Lose What You Ain’t Never Had” sounds dark and distant when presented with a wide stereo berth.
This is a great collection for a budding blues-enthusiast to get him or her started with one of the greats of Chicago blues. For others already familiar, this is a lovely reintroduction with a more glorious sound. Even though I am not a fan of Rolling Stone’s cop out of choosing a curated anthology over a “slice out of time” album, this is a great collection and is worthy of repeated listens.
The Muddy Waters Anthology: 1947-1972 is available to download on the iTunes Music Store.
Drummer - Feel Good Together
Have I told you how much I love Super Bands? You know, like when members of different bands get together (perhaps on their mastered instruments, sometimes trading out) and rock out Hall of Fame style? You know, “Super Bands.”
Well, I do. I love them. I love Super Bands. They’re like my favorite comic book super heroes getting together to kick some ass or expand on their different character attributes.
Such is the case with Drummer, the side project of The Black Keys’s Patrick Carney and several other drummers from various other (unknown to me) independent bands. The lineup includes Patrick Carney on bass, Gregory Boyd from Ghostman & Sandman on drums, Steve Clements from Houseguest on keyboards and backing vocals, Jon Finley (who I had never heard before but am now a fan of) on guitar and lead vocals from the bands Party of Helicopters and Beaten Awake (is he perhaps a Super Band Slut?), and Jamie Stillman of Teeth of the Hydra on guitar.
For a Super Band composed entirely of full-time drummers, the drum parts on Feel Good Together are relatively straight forward. Instead, the album is heavy on synth and guitar riffs which, though they may show a degree of competency making them indistinguishable from other full time players, the writing and craftsmanship tends to show a narrow vision about what a guitar should sound like, or what a synth should sound like. This apparent fanaticism for the melodic instruments also means that in a lot of songs (“Lottery Dust,” “Mature Fantasy,” “Diamonds to Shake”) the vocals and lyrics seem to take a pretty big step back—and not in a good, Exile on Main Street kind of way.
But goddamn…there’s melody here! There’s tunesmanship! And, by God, you can’t help but listen to this record LOUD!
Favorites: “Lottery Dust,” “Buddy Scapes,” and “Diamonds to Shake.”
Get the record here.
The National - High Violet
It’s hard to be a baritone singer in a world that is gender/frequency biased. You want to know something? I get it. I get it all. It’s detached, but sensitive. I understand that. Isn’t that what we loved about Jim Morrison and John Lennon? Sure, I may have thought the voice was weird and droning. I didn’t understand the constant morose until I actually became constantly morose.
I know you feel the same way.
We felt this way about Leonard Cohen, and, to a certain degree, we felt it about Tom Waits (except a lot of us felt more vehemently). It’s okay. We’re all friends here. Let’s be honest:
We’re all afraid of things that are “different.” The majority of us like our singers whiny and “Kurt Cobainish.” I suppose part of that is due in part for our need for dynamic front men. We want them manic with respect to what is immediately before us. To a certain extent, however, this isn’t very genuine—and this is exactly where High Violet succeeds. Indeed, we as a listening public (fucking whiny hipsters) have come along way since listening to music to make us feel validated about being angry about our dads. Now we have songs to accompany us while obsess over lost loves (“Sorrow”), songs to make us feel less weird about our morbid, post-mortem thoughts (“Anyone’s Ghost”), and songs that simply acknowledge that most of us are simply accruing debt and getting old (“Bloodbuzz Ohio”).
Matt Berninger’s vocals and lyrics are, for all purposes, the “front man” of The National. On High Violet we are treated to organ swells, persistent, paranoid drumming, and guitars which color the album like a giant Guernica-sized canvas.
Make no mistake—this is a BEAUTIFUL album. Through and through, attention has been paid to every sonic flourish and overtone. Every rhythmic touch is planned and schemed to be perfect for the moment. The lyrics are inspired and appropriate.
“I was afraid that I’d eat your brains…becuase I’m evil.” - “Conversation 16”
It is a dark and depressing album—and that is awesome. It is awesome because it is real depression about real problems, and it is expressed through real musicianship and real songwriting.
I’m an Apple Stockholder so I would prefer you get it here.
But you can also get it here: High Violet on CD from The National’s Website.
Wilco - Wilco (the album)
Chicago rises again (and not too soon either).
I reject this notion that the sound of a band’s music must stay static record to record, I also reject the notion that a band’s sound must change or that a group must release an experimental or “concept” record to be relevant. Since when did we start judging ourselves on what has been done or not done rather than what is good vs. what is bad? Perhaps the lines have gotten much too close for even the audiophiles to discern.
Yet, With a new Wilco album, there are a few things that you can consistently count on. Every record is fastidiously planned and executed. Every note, lyric, and drum beat has a home, and it is difficult to say that anyone else could do Wilco better than Wilco does. Sure, the band isn’t perfect. There are moments in the discography and track listing in which the band may get lackadaisical, but on their new self-title LP, there is an energy present here missing since Yankee Hotel Foxtrot and to a larger extent, Being There.
In spirit, however, the record is closer to Summerteeth than anything else—and while comparisons to an artist’s back catalogue don’t often portray the personal and introspective effort made for a new release, there are many comforting things about this album. From the confident and straightforward opening “Wilco (the song)” to the curiously Americana “You Never Know” to the sacharrine “You and I,” there seems to be something for everyone here. However, the high points seem to be when lead singer/songwriter Jeff Tweedy gets out of his Alt/Country comfort zone and gets honest lyrically, (see a reflectively humble and apologetic “Solitaire” or when the entire band has a little fun and sounds like a bunch of high school seniors fucking around with old instruments in a garage (see “Bull Black Nova” with its low-end guitar flourishes over a backdrop of hypnotic eighth note hypnotic organ sounds, 70’s style prog rock guitar riffs punctuate the verse-chorus-verse-solo, and Tweedy much more excitable and vocally expressive than other ventures).
Critically, one could argue that many of the songs pander to more “traditional” fans who may not have liked Yankee or A Ghost is Born, however, it is hard to deny that when Wilco does something, it’s high art every time—see the big and driving “One Wing” and the delightfully manic “Sonny Feeling.”
When the world has gone to shit, we can count on Wilco to make a solid record better than most new releases; and where there have been critics and fans alike who called this record “bland,” it sounds more like an olive branch to American music (and symbolically America in general). Times are tough, most of us are sad, and we need—and Wilco provides—a good and light escape.
After having such an extensive and varied catalogue over a career spanning more than 15 years (and that doesn’t even include the Uncle Tupelo years!) Wilco still manages to get up the energy and put out a well-performed and well-written LP.
So thanks, Wilco.
In a time when it seems everyone around us wants to pass off laughable and inferior music (the class clowns of art), you still give a damn about solid musicianship and songwriting.
Get Wilco the album, available in lots of places, but you can find it on iTunes, Amazon, and Lala.com
Frightened Rabbit – The Midnight Organ Fight
When in Scotland, do everything you can to avoid getting your ass kicked.
Seriously.
These are tough people with a tough mindset and a history of bravery, independence, and a persevering attitude that has left them, in many cases, unwittingly ahead of the cultural curve.
In the past decade, Scotland has given us many reasons to frequent our local record store. And, while this might be a blow to my natural, patriotic, “Born in the U.S.A” type of sensibility, I cannot deny and I must revel in the quality output.
I present to you Frightened Rabbit from Selkirk, Scotland. Frightened Rabbit is primarily two brothers, Scott and Grant Hutchison, who deliver energetic and meaningful indie rock on the 2008 release of The Midnight Organ Fight.
From its well-executed and urgent opener, “The Modern Leper,” Frightened Rabbit dance their way through big, fast, and dramatic tunes as if it were a Scottish Céilidh gone awry (look it up on Wikipedia). “I Feel Better” is almost defiant as Scott Hutchison proclaims that “I feel better and better and worse and then better/Than ever than ever than ever then ever” then goes on to say “This is the last song I’ll write about you.” This stick-it-in-your-eye spirit is extended to the joyful “Good Arms vs. Bad Arms” and the exuberant and musically tongue-in-cheek “Old Old Fashion” which kind of reminds this humble critic of a Scottish version of Bob Seger’s “Old Time Rock and Roll”—that is if Bob Seger were young…and Scottish…and awesome.
Frightened Rabbit seems to be able to do a nuanced approach to this same feeling with the sexy and sensual “The Twist” which adequately depicts a lot of nights that occur in the land that brought us drunken indiscretion and leaves this critical asshole wondering why it has taken this long for someone to say (sing) what most of us guys have always been thinking: “Lets pretend I’m attractive and then/You won’t mind, you can twist for a while/It’s the night, I can be who you like/And I’ll quietly leave before it gets light.”
I suppose the problem with an album such as this that contains such high high’s is that the low’s seem that much more egregious. “Fast Blood” seems indulgent and emo, “Head Rolls Off” slips into a tired diatribe on the cycle of life and death and the uselessness of organized religion (Yeah, yeah, yeah—just get back to the rocking and drinking, please. Thanks.), and unfortunately, there are songs here that are too short—and not in the good way as in “leave them wanting more,” but rather “underserved.” (See the instrumental “Bright Pink Bookmark,” “Extrasupervery,” and “Who You Kill Now.”)
Like I said though, the high’s are high. “Keep Yourself Warm” is solid and consistent and reminds us that “It takes more than fucking someone you don’t know to keep warm.” Well put. “My Backwards Walk” saves itself with the anachronistic breakdown of “You’re the shit and I’m knee-deep in it,” and “Floating in the Forth” saves itself by, well…saving himself (“I think I’ll save suicide for another year”).
So—long live Scotland, long live Frightened Rabbit, and may we never have peace from The Midnight Organ Fight.
