SOUNDTRACK: BLACK SABBATH-Paranoid (1970).
Black Sabbath’s second album is certainly their most famous. I mean, it features “Iron Man,” the first song everyone learns to play on the guitar.
But the whole first side of the disc is pretty famous. “War Pigs” is a wonderful anti-war song. “Paranoid” was their first big hit, and I read recently that it was a last minute addition to the album. And it’s really short, too!
The next track, “Planet Caravan” is, in context, insane. It is an incredibly slow, meandering track. Back in the day, we used to skip this track all the time. But since then I’ve grown to appreciate this trippy psychedelic song. It feels a bit long, especially when you want to rock out, but it’s still pretty interesting.
And then there’s “Iron Man,” and, well, there’s nothing much to say about it that hasn’t been said elsewhere. Except of course that it rocks!
Side Two was pretty unlistened to before CDs made it all one side. “Electric Funeral” is a major downer about nuclear war, but it has an amazing opening riff with a wonderfully wah-wahed guitar. “Hand of Doom” begins slowly with what’s more or less just bass and vocals. And then guitars blare forth like sirens leading to some cool heavy sections. About half way through it turns into this fast rocking song and becomes yet another anti-drug song. This anti-drug stance is rather surprising given what lies in store in the not too distant future.
“Rat Salad” is a short instrumental. It’s one half extended guitar solo with the second half comprising a drum solo. Despite that, the riff of the song is pretty awesome. The final track is the wonderfully named “Jack the Stripper/Fairies Wear Boots.” The opening is another cool riff with lots of drums that melds in to a wonderfully heavy, bad-assed song (“a fairy with boots dancing with a dwarf”). It ends the album very well.
For a record that’s nearly 40 years old, it’s still remarkably heavy and it set a great standard for heavy metal.
[READ: November 29, 2009] “The Not-Dead and the Saved”
This was a sad story about a woman with a dying child. The child is older (late teens) and he has been coping with this issue for all of his life. Consequently, he is cynical and more than a little bitter.
It’s hard for me to be critical of the story seeing as how it won the VS Pritchett Memorial Prize. However, I didn’t find the story all that compelling. I think it was the completely detached narrator (third person distant, I would say) or maybe it was something else. Whatever it was, I just couldn’t connect to it.
[UPDATE: December 15, 2009. The story also just won the National Short Story Award. Maybe I need to re-read it]. (more…)
SOUNDTRACK: SONIC YOUTH-Dirty (1991).
I think of Dirty as a pretty commercial album. I mean, it’s got Butch Vig as a producer for crying out loud. And, it has three singles released from it.
SOUNDTRACK: SONIC YOUTH-Goo (1990).
I’m not sure exactly why this Sonic Youth album was the first one I really got into. I assume it’s because I was working at the radio station and probably got a bit of hype about their switch to DGC records.
SOUNDTRACK: ART BRUT-Art Brut vs. Satan (2009).
I’ve mentioned Art Brut before. I enjoy their talky/punk style. This, their new album, is produced by Frank Black of Pixies fame. I can’t honestly say that I see a real difference in production values, but I don’t usually notice things like that.
This album seems to get overshadowed by the anti-George Bush track “Bu$hleaguer.” Evidently many people were turned off by this track, and that may have had an impact on sales. Of course, I’m sure many other people were introduced to the band by this song, too. Regardless, the rest of the album shouldn’t be judged by this track, as it is rather unusual.
SOUNDTRACK: PEARL JAM-Ten (1991).
For me, Nirvana was the band that brought the 1990’s into alternative-rock-land. But, it was Pearl Jam that brought hard rocking music back to the masses. Like everyone I know, I loved Ten. But I gradually lost excitement about Pearl Jam over their next couple of records.
SOUNDTRACK: SUFJAN STEVENS–Ding! Dong! Songs for Christmas Vol. III (2006).
Disc Three of the Sufjan Christmas collection is my favorite. It returns to the more mellow, folksy style of the first disc (and is replete with banjo!). It opens with some thing of a reprise of “O Come, O Come Emanuel” (only a minute long). It’s piano and vocals and very pretty. It proceeds to his boppingest, Christmas song on the whole set: “Come on, Let’s Boogey to the Elf Dance” with multiple singers and lots of instruments (and a fugue pattern of voices, too). It continues with two traditional songs: “We Three Kings” (possibly the best version I heard all season) and “O Holy Night.” I’ve mentioned that “O Holy Night is one of my favorite Christmas songs, and this version is quite good, with lovely harmonies (from different people listed although, no one credited specifically for the track) and the way it builds to such a full song by the end.
SOUNDTRACK: FISHBONE-Set the Booty Upright Bonin’ in the Boneyard single (1990).
SOUNDTRACK: FISHBONE-In Your Face (1986).
Fishbone’s first full length starts out with two great songs. “When Problems Arise” has the great stop/start techniques that Fishbone uses so well, as well as a great riff and some fantastic funky bass playing. The second track “A Selection” has a great ska feel, and could easily be The Specials or Selecter; however, Fishbone throw in a bit of humor (“No toothpaste?”) to make the song their own.
I Just Read About That... 