Play To Z: 1977 to 8701

Random Observations

  I've heard some recent commentary on The-Dream AKA Terius Nash's career, claiming that 1977, the album length free EP he put out in 2011, was half-baked and thrown out to keep his name afloat in critical circles. I haven't listened to half as much of his earlier stuff as I'd like to, but if there's any truth in that it must be some of the best music out there, because I love 1977. Songs like "Used To Be", "Ghetto" and "Wish You Were Mine" are all astonishing works of confessional RnB, with the infectious "Wedding Crasher" serving as a centrepiece to the album, all wounded pride and self-conscious self-destruction.

  When I was young and ignorant, I was clueless about a lot of music, but even though I only knew their poppier stuff, I was aware that The Beatles had transformed modern music and were incredibly innovative. When I finally made the effort to listen to their discography, it's clear how truly groundbreaking they were. But in terms of their legacy and how they are viewed in modern culture, it feels like the Beach Boys should be spoken of in the same breath. The Beatles have acknowledged how much Pet Sounds impacted their own music, and Brian Wilson is often held up as a tragic genius figure. Still, listening to 20 Golden Greats, the Beach Boys compilation that is the sole piece of music I've taken from my father's meager collection, it seems like the minds behind such complex, multi-levelled songs as "Help Me, Rhonda" and "Good Vibrations" showed be treated with the same regard.

  I'm going to need some more time with Justin Timberlake's newest album. JT is one of the finest contemporary purveyors of danceable, disposable pop music, so his decision to fill his latest album with slower songs that average out at six and a half minutes is a puzzling one. It's a sign that he didn't just return to music to shoot out a barely-considered album on autopilot, but it's still a curious choice. Still, with songs like "Mirrors" and "Strawberry Bubblegum", I'm happy to give it time to grow on me.

  It's a couple of years old now, but Azealia Banks' "212" remains electric. So far, she's shown no signs of being able to move beyond it's eclipse, but it's a hell of an act to follow.

  If you've enjoyed reading these blogs and you haven't seen 24 Hour Party People, Michael Winterbottom's biopic of Factory Records, stop reading now and go find a copy. The soundtrack alone is worth your effort and time, even without the fantastic performances and thrilling portrait of England in the 70s, 80s and 90s.

  Listening to 4, Beyoncé's most recent album, it feels like she's moving closer and closer to her own genre-defining work. Like the aforementioned Pet Sounds, Revolver, Nevermind or My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy (to name but a few), Beyoncé's next album could well be one that will truly stand the test of time. Every album she's produced has pushed her sound further and harder, and brought with it singles that will help define this time period, musically. It will be harder for her, of course, because she is a woman, an unapologetically commercial pop artist and co-writer at best on most of her songs, but looking at where she stands right now in the cultural landscape, she absolutely deserves to be remembered alongside the great artists of our time. Listen to songs like "Countdown", "End Of Time" and "Run The World (Girls)" and tell me she doesn't.

  It feels somehow appropriate that my last few songs should include John Cage's "4'33". You better believe I listened to the whole damn thing.

  Kanye West's 808s & Heartbreaks was obviously divisive, but it feels like the step he needed to take, both as a producer and a lyricist. He never exactly shied away from speaking his mind, but this album strips away a lot of the bombast and reveals a more intimate portrait of West, just in time for the surge in confessional hip-hop he helped start to reach its crest. Musically, it takes him into a new direction, again stripping back and finding his core, ready for the next album to build layer upon layer on that core. It's got less hits that the previous three albums, but it was a shock of honesty at a time when his own myth was threatening to swallow him whole.

  And what was the final song of this whole endeavour?



Rediscovered Gem

"Heroes and Villains" by The Beach Boys



What Now?

I'll be back shortly with a directory post that makes it easy to chart this whole project from start to finish, plus a conclusion post where I sum up whether I actually learned anything from doing this. I hope I did, otherwise it's been a hell of a way to waste 10 months...

Play To Z: What's Poppin' Vol 1 to 1972

Random Observations

  Being a teenager is an awful, horrible experience. It's tortures are innumerable, but large among them is the weight of peer pressure. I am only thankful that I was out of my high school years by the time social networking truly exploded - I cannot imagine the experience magnified through the privacy-denying world of Facebook and Twitter. Anyway, as I've written previously, I didn't really forge any kind of musical taste or identity for myself until I hit 18, so high school consisted largely of agreeing with whatever my friends liked.
  I can remember sneering in adolescent derision at Girls Aloud as they emerged from Popstars: The Rivals. I can remember seeing Cheryl Cole (then Tweedy) arrested for her racist assault in a night club and making what I thought was an oh-so-zeitgeisty observation that with accelerated stardom came an accelerated decline. I can remember deriding their songs and going back to listen to Tenacious D.
  But all the time, a little voice in the back of my head was saying "But their first single...it was really catchy...it was doing interesting things..." When What Will The Neighbours Say came out I was out of high school's pressure cooker and growing into myself. The videos for "The Show" and "Love Machine" were on regular rotation on the two Freeview music channels, and by then, I was willing to accept the irresistible lure of Xenomania's dancefloor ready beats and clever, subversive lyrics, channeled through Girls Aloud's obvious talent.

  Whatever People Say I Am, That's What I'm Not would be an impressive album even stripped of context. Knowing that it was a debut album written by a band when most of the members hadn't turned 20 makes it a marvel. It carries such assurance, in both the instrumentation and the songwriting. There is no sloppiness disguised as punk-rock intention - this is a precise beast, stopping and starting and turning on a dime, humming along with a well-engineered purr. The topics of the lyrics may not vary, but Alex Turner engages them with such fine observation that it doesn't wear. In fact, by taking a universe and exploring it so thoroughly from multiple viewpoints and with a true sense of place, it could almost be a concept album. The fact that the Arctic Monkeys didn't rest on their laurels and simply try to recreate this album, musically or thematically, is the cherry on the already delicious cake.

  "Wichita Lineman" by Glen Campbell is one of the songs I want played at my funeral. His voice is beautiful - rich and simple, carrying loneliness and longing. The song balances a sort of country/Americana aesthetic with a sweet, Burt Bacharach kind of melody, and there's that iconic synthesizer Morse Code tapping out into the night. It's been called "the first existential country song" and there are many who proclaim it one of the best pop songs ever. Listening to it now, it's easy to see how.

  Witching Hour by Ladytron is like carving a passage into a glacier only to discover that it's got the world's coolest nightclub inside.

  As I mentioned near the beginning of this whole escapade (sometime in October I believe), We Are Scientists are one of those straightforward bands that aren't trying to reinvent the wheel, they're just trying to make some great pop music. With Love And Squalor, their first album, is a blueprint for their subsequent ones, producing song after song that you want to be hearing in the slightly dive-y back room of a bar in New York as you dance with your friends at 3am.

  I have no idea what "Lisztomania" by Phoenix is actually about (I'm pretty sure it's not actually about Franz Liszt) but I don't particularly care. I just wanna dance to it.

  Whenever I hear "Joker & The Thief" by Wolfmother, I feel sad that it wasn't around in the late 80s and early 90s, so it could inevitably be used in a Schwarzenegger vehicle. Imagine that spiraling guitar riff being played over the gearing up sequence in Commando and you will share my pain.

  Yeah So by Slow Club is a great album, topped off by a truly amazing song. "Our Most Brilliant Friends" became a touchstone of mine a couple of years ago when it felt like every friend of mine was lurching from tragedy to tragedy. It's hard to watch those you care about dealing with things that they have little control over, and the only help you can really offer is a shoulder to cry on and the distracting power of alcohol. To me, this song will always be about the strength my friends have, strength I didn't even know about, to endure and to triumph even when life is shitting on them from the greatest of heights.

  Broken Social Scene's You Forgot It In People moved them beyond the ambient sounds of their first record into the expansive post-rock collectivism that would come to define them. Released in 2002, it was bought in 2007 at Amoeba Records in San Francisco by Tim Maytom, who proclaimed it "the tits".

  I have 100 songs left to listen to. The next post will talk about them, and the post after will look back at this whole glorious endeavor.

Rediscovered Gem

"Tapas" by Action Bronson