Egan's Five Albums for Spring

Every good album should correspond to a season. It's an immutable fact of life, and if you don't agree, it's either because you haven't thought about it, or because you're listening to bad albums.

After all, the essence of the album is its expression of a coherent set of ideas, feelings, and powers in a roughly 60-120 minute timeframe. Albums matter. That's why since time immemorial, bands have talked about the writing process in terms of the album; gushed excitedly about "going into the studio"; and mused about "recording cycles." That's why musicians care about cover art and liner notes--because the album is a medium for the message. We often take for granted that musicians (at least the good ones) are real people, and that their music is an expression of the joys and pains (and in many sad pop examples, the vacuity) of life. Well, life happens episodically, and so does music (compare Weezer's Pinkerton to the Blue Album and tell me that doesn't represent two different phases of Rivers Cuomo's career).

If albums didn't matter, then bands would be content releasing disconnected one-off digital singles with no accompanying art. This might be the Brave New World of Music that Apple Corp. and the Obama administration see when it sleeps, but it will never come to pass. Take heart. When the musical Armageddon is upon us, me and the other heretics will strap on armor of old CDs and LPs, arm ourselves with the raw power of Led Zeppelin II, Beck's Midnite Vultures, and some Fugazi Album. And we shall turn back the tide of .99 cent downloads!

Wait, what was I saying?

Ah yes, life is episodic. Music is episodic. And what's more, our connections to albums are subject to the same random tumult of our own lives. When did you first hear an album? Did someone give it to you? Who? Where were you at the time? Did you have reason to revisit it? How did it make you feel? On and on with questions we never consciously ask ourselves, but that abound when we really dig into an album.

Which brings me to seasons. I could probably group albums in an infinite number of ways, but something just feels right about seasons. Not only are they a reasonable size, but like albums they all have their own characteristics that we tend to associate with certain feelings and ideas-- some unique, some abstract--in a very personal, subjective way. Spring for instance is a time of renaissance. We emerge from our winter cocoons charged with energy and ideas; older and wiser but naive and hopeful. We find music that matches this wave of fresh air. But our enthusiasm is ripe to be dampened. As I write this, the skies have unceremoniously opened up to drench Washington, DC. Meanwhile, the temperatures have surged above 60, and the humidity has coaxed the tulips out only to wash their petals into storm drains.

Without further adieu, here are 5 albums that, for me, are forever tied to Spring. In memory, in experience, and in spirit.


1. Zwan- Mary Star of the Sea

A controversial pick, I know. I am a card-carrying disciple of the temple of Corgan, but hear me out: MSotS came out in the first week of February, 2003, almost three years after the Pumpkins broke up. After listening to months of dirty rumors swirl about what Corgan had up his sleeve, he delivered a payoff-pitch curveball. Zwan was a supergroup for musicheads, featuring Matt Sweeney (Skunk, Chavez), Paz Lenchantintin (Babe/bassist from A Perfect Circle), and David Pajo (Papa M, Slint and Tortoise), along with formerly disgraced Pumpkins drummer Jimmy Chamberlin. Billy Corgan tapping someone from Tortoise was a veritable collision of worlds, and it gave currency to Corgan's renaissance.

And that's what Mary Star of the Sea is about: rebirth; both for Corgan, and his listeners. Arguably no living band/musician of my time (90's on basically) has had a more tumultuous and public career than the Pumpkins. Think about it. There's actually some very deep similarities between Corgan and Axl Rose that I won't pursue now, but they're there. In 2003, memories of the Pumpkins' demise was fresh in every fan's mind, along with the band's last album, the grand, dark and narcissisitic opus Machina: the Machines of God. When Zwan unveiled MSoTS in 2003, (I still remember buying it at Newbury Comics) all we wanted was something to believe in.

And that Spring, we got it. Happiness and hope lived in Zwan. The three-guitar ensemble rocked, Chamberlin was in top form, and even Corgan's voice sounded rejuvenated. The first single, "Honestly" was a bouncy, emotive rock love song. When was the last time we were gifted one of those on the radio? Well-known Pumpkins-haters started approaching me to sheepishly admit tht they loved the single. We even found out what Billy looks like when he smiles (strange). Corgan's songwriting was thriving on a sense of spiritual certainty that had been absent in the Pumpkins' final years (though never explicitly religious, Corgan's "spirituality" could not be ignored on MSotS, or in the press surrounding Zwan). The music was fresh and unique--it was hard not to think big. The most direct statement of the album's spirit is first track, "Lyric." Watch the video and you'll see exactly what I mean. Marching through the streets of Chicago behind Billy Corgan? Yes we can!

It seems dubious in retrospect, but at the time, MSotS was a powerful and inspiring album. Even though it was released in Winter, it was a staple in my rotation throughout my final Spring semester of college. It also helped that Zwan came to Boston in April, and played one of the best shows I've ever seen to sold-out Orpheum. What better soundtrack for times of such importance? Listening to this album could literally make make a trip to the grocery store seem like an existential experience. My personal favorite: on "Ride a Black Swan" Corgan preaches the refrain, "Remove my spirit from darkness / love become my hammer" over a cresting tidal wave of guitars and drums. Music can have great power, and Zwan harnessed it, albeit briefly. This album is every promise--realistic and unrealistic--you make to yourself on the first sunny day in April.


2. Richard Hawley- Cole's Corner

It's Spring, 2006, and I've taken up residence in the gothic fortress of solitude that is Yale's graduate dormitory. Richard Hawley is a regular on 2005 year-end top ten lists, so I buy the album on an impulse. I know what to expect: lush sound, emotionalism, and Hawley's throwback crooning. After all, that is his calling card. I listen; I like. Over time, I am slowly conquered by the feeling of the album. Taken in pieces, it's easy to marvel at Hawley's talent for simply writing good love songs. Not songs expressing love per se, but songs inspired by love. Taken together, the songs on this album suggest something far more powerful--a longing that exists in and out of our relationships with loved ones. New Haven thaws and blossoms and I open the window, despite the biblical rains pouring into the concrete gutter outside. We long for the those we have left, and despite ourselves we long for the ones we have at hand. It's a persistent loneliness of society, and a deteremination to defeat it. Hawley's songs weave in and out of physical and emotional confines: wandering the street at Cole's Corner, eager to encounter love or something; inside a Hotel Room, locked in arms with an old friend and lover; down by the ocean; watching the city lights from a car on the hill, trying to forget someone. Hawley seeks and seeks, unable to escape his romantic hex, finding no refuge, and leaving us only with a reassuring lullaby: "Papa's gonna shoe your pretty little feet/ mama's gonna glove your little hand/ I'm gonna kiss your ruby red lips/ mmm hmm hmmm." I walk the streets of New Haven, my own Cole's Corner, and reacquaint myself with the evening.

3. Destroyer- Your Blues

Interestingly, this abstract (some might say inaccessible) album was my first exposure to Destroyer. I still remember listening to the opening song, "Notorious Lightning" for the first time, looking out the back window of a lonely Georgetown apartment in Spring 2004. It was trial by fire--that first track, "Notorious Lightning", is everything audaciously good and bad about Daniel Bejar's music in one 7 minute opus. It starts with graceful acoustic guitars draped in true poetry ("I lay myself down to observe your gilded jeans hit the ground and still haven't grown from this worship"), and then crescendos into a crashing, synthesizer-laden, flamboyant refrain in which Bejar caws "someone has to fall before someone goes free!" It is the beautiful but awkward emotional climax of the album, five minutes into the first song. But it sets the tone.

Afterwards, Bejar goes about his business exploring all sorts of unfamiliar people and places: Oakland, Warsaw, fops on the terrace, actors seeking revenge, inviting army sluts, lovers stealing gondolas to sea. All orchestrated around a synth, accoustic guitar, light drums, and that piercing voice. There are moments of light and happiness in this effortlessly imagined world, but all of it is imbued with a vague sense of foreboding, of collapse; of a weight that hangs on even the most mystical images. That unnamed feeling is of course, sadness, and Destroyer's music about that feeling is, by artful definition, the blues. His blues. Your Blues. Think about that for a second.

Your Blues is every rainy day in April that you decide to walk instead of taking the subway. It is, as he sings in "Certain Things You Ought to Know," when we reflect on our "springtime on the barricades/our Springtime charades." And it is the peace of the evening after an April shower, in "What Roads?", when Bejar chants, "Tonight we work large, we aim high, pillars stare at a sky designed to come down upon everyone at once."




4. The Clientele- Suburban Light // Preston School of Industry- All this Sounds Gas-
I'm cheating. These two go together because I bought them together in Spring, 2002 at a 2-for$20 sale at newbury Comics in Boston. These are two niche albums that I can't explain my love for. The former is a collection of Clientele B-Sides (I don't even own any A-Sides!!!) that feels like a Sunday evening with friends (or a lover) outside on a freshly cut lawn. The second--the underrated solo project by Spiral Stairs from Pavement--is just plain good. It's about traveling, and understanding home-neither especially deep subjects but pertinent ones at that time in my life. More importantly, the songwriting and recording embodies a spirit of adventurism and ambition that Spring dutifully renews every year.



5. Modest Mouse- We Were Dead before the Ship Even Sank
Another controversial pick. This one generally goes down like ballast water with most Modest Mouse fans, who decided that the band sold out long, long ago. Longer ago, in fact, than you even realize. So goes the predominant hipster narrative, anyway.

These days, wringing your hands over the fate of Isaac Brock and compatriots is strongly discouraged, if not passé. The mainstream commercial success or 2003’s Good News for People who Love Bad News betrayed the band's trademark gritty esotericism, which now appeared to be bordering on the trite. Even Brock’s trademark guttural screams were starting to sound more like polished growls. As the band picked up legions of new fans (I cannot forget one local homeboy in a Redskins jersey and sideways cap, flailing around to "Float On" like a Kanye West song at Constitution Hall in DC), those more heavily invested in one of the best rock acts of the late millennium began to feel a distance from the band. This is the point at which we generally project on others as "selling out." The seeds had been sewn—many were quick to remind themselves—in 2000, when Modest Mouse left Up Records for Epic. [never mind that the album, LP and side project that followed were blisteringly good]. What came after that was just fait accompli. First there was Good News, with "Float On" in heavy rotation on Clear Channel adult contemporary radio stations [Say it ain't so!]. We Were Dead was just a followup. Same label, same sound...why even bother?

There's just one problem with this revisionist history: it forgets what it means to be involved with a band; to root for them. If you listen to WWDBTSES in search of reasons to dismiss it, you'll find them. There's no denying that Isaac Brock's poetic psychosis has ebbed, and taken his lyrical edge with it. The band has expanded from a 3-piece crew with a larger-than-life sound to a 5+ member well-produced collective. The addition of former Smiths' guitarist Johnny Marr (a major press point leading up to the album's release) produced riffs that hang like repetitive ornamentation on songs throughout the album. And do we really know what that second drummer is for?

On the other hand, if you listen to the album with a forgiving ear, an entirely different experience emerges. From the very first chords and lines of the first song, "March Into the Sea," the album rolls and pitches like a cutter lost in the straits of Magellan, with Isaac Brock as the grizzled, and generally insane, Captain. "March into the Sea" swells like a storm around choruses that featuring Isaac's self-mocking laughter: "Bang your head like a gong/ Because it's filled with all wrong/ A-ha-ha!/ Clang, clang, clang!" It sounds weird--maybe even a little contrived--and no doubt the Modest Mouse longingly cry to themselves,"what have you done with the REAL Isaac Brock?!" Then, in the eye of the storm, we hear a voice that resembles something real: "If you think you know enough/ To know you know we've had enough/ And if you think you don't, you probably will/ Our tails wagged and then fell off/ But we just turned back, marched into the sea." Sounds like he's sending a message... Then the raging sea is back, slamming your eardrums to the climax of the song: "Cut me down like the trees/ Like the lumber or weeds/ Drag me out of the sea and then teach me to breathe/ Give me forced health till I wish death on myself/ Give me forced health till I wish death on myself/ [more maniacal laughter]."

Egan Caufield contrarian opinion here: "March into the Sea" masterfully sets the stage for one of the most poignant inward-looking concept albums I have ever heard. This album is a posthumous death-knell from a watery grave. Isaac Brock doesn't give a fuck that you think he's sold out. In fact, you might be to blame; you and all the other fickle bastards that unceremoniously marked the band for dead the minute it was cool to do so. You know what? He doesn't care about you either, because even death, it turns out, makes for good music. The album is painted on a canvas of perpetual motion--boats, dashboards, marches, rickshaws, even carbon --and Modest Mouse is the hapless band of travelers, always moving, never settled; never arriving. Death is prominent on the album, as are bugs; it's lovely. But it's the marine motif ties the album together (see the brilliant video for Dashboard for more of the marine motif). The sea: that normally hopeful, infinite expanse on which Modest Mouse once sailed, has now swallowed the band and turned them into another one of Indie Rock's coral reefs.

I'll admit, it's dangerous to interpret albums so simply, but here it's impossible to escape the notion that this is an album about the band; marching, wailing, touring, growing, recording more albums in the face of death (perceived) with a healthy sense of cynicism and even some moments of apologetic hope (at the end of the boisterous "Spitting Venom" when Isaac sings reassuringly "Cheer up baby, it wasn't always quite so bad/ for every little venom that came out, the antidote was had," it kills me). It is art mocking life; theatre within film within music. And when it's all over, we are surprised to learn that no one has drowned after all. Modest Mouse is still alive and breathing, though perhaps amphibiously. Now there's a concept album for you.

The fact that so many Modest Mouse fans write this one off will never make sense to me. There's so much depth [no pun intended] to this album, so much of their gritty spirit, but most seem deaf to it. Unfortunately I don't think the new fans totally get it either. But I'll stand down. What does this have to do with Spring, anyway? Everything. This album is a string of April defeats: getting shafted on tax day, rejected from graduate school, betrayed by a best friend...and keeping on. Dig?

"That shit is a science of everything ill."

Last month, XXL Magazine ran two pieces on the making of Nas’ 1994 major label debut, Illmatic. Those of you who know me, aside from knowing that I read XXL magazine religiously, know that I have a serious crush on Illmatic. While you won’t find me singing Nas’ praises in the general sense (he is an excellent rapper, but his body of work is just not consistently great), this album was born a classic. If you don't own it, don't have an opinion on Nas and, oh I don't know, consider Jay-Z's reign over hip-hop to be undisputed, then do yourself a favor and buy the album. From Nas' gravelly voice to the sparingly funky production; his poetic flow to the sinister but dreamlike vibe that runs through all 10 songs...Illmatic is the wormhole that connects the violent rap culture ascendant from the mid-80's to the early 90's East Coast hip-hop movement that thrived on lyricism and creativity. It's like the two sides of the force, and Nas balances them like a prophesied Jedi. I just wish there was a word for how awesome this is. Oh wait, there is: Illmatic.

As Nasir tells it: "Illmatic is supreme ill. It’s as ill as ill
gets. That shit is a science of everything ill."

Yeah, what he said.

Anyways, be sure to check out the XXL articles, which recount some of the stories involved in the recording and production of the album. It will make you nostalgic for a time and place that you have no connection to...as all classic albums do.

XXL: Still Ill
XXL: Nas, The Genesis

First Listen: Ben Kweller, Changing Horses

When I picked up Ben Kweller’s latest disc, Changing Horses, the first thing that struck me was the packaging. It’s in a slim-folding soft case—which, I might adroitly observe, are becoming massively popular these days—that is all black, adorned with an elaborate white design and lettering. The font is an old-timey script, draped in white vines which curl around an acoustic guitar and culminate in two roses at the top of the album. My first thought was that this album design reminded me of one of those rodeo shirts which have become immensely popular with hipster types.

This turns out to be quite a poignant observation. When I slide the disk in to stereo, instead of Kweller’s typical grunge rock, I am greeted with the sparse twang of steel guitar and soft bass. The first track, “Gypsy Rose,” is defined by this simplicity. Over the gentle back-and-forth of the strings, and an even gentler kick-and-snare drum rhythm, Kweller croons to his lady muse. the song is praising, yet it is also longing and sad. I consult the lyrics sheet: "Bring ya food, money, shoes just to lye here with ya 'neith yer sheets / I see hope in your life / it's the world that makes me cry." [verbatim]

I take a look back at the album cover, and think: Rodeo shirt.

Wait a minute….is this a country album?

The affirmative comes on track 2, “Old Hat.” Slide guitar laces through a slow, plodding drum rhythm while Kweller proclaims, “I never wanna be/that old hat you put on your [whoops! yer] pretty head.” The song builds into a modest crescendo, while Kweller sings the refrain in a higher register. Make no mistake, this is a country ballad.

Now, I'll be honest: I didn’t read anything about Ben Kweller’s upcoming album before buying it, nor did I see him when he came through DC, so I wasn't expecting a country album. But maybe it’s not all that shocking. After all, Ben Kweller’s talent centers on in his effortless sense of harmony, songwriting ability, and versatile voice—something like a hip version of a young Paul McCartney, or a simple man's Elton John—so branching out into new kinds of music was never out of the question. Nor is there any debate regarding Kweller's chops.

Most importantly, it’s not like the decision to produce a country album is anything novel. Three examples come to mind: Bob Dylan’s Nashville Skyline, Ween’s 12 Country Hits, and Beck’s Sea Change. Not to mention hundreds of individual songs ("Rocky Racoon"). Artists of all stripes love to co-opt the county & western style, either to explore it musically (Dylan), to mock it (Ween—see “Piss up a Rope”), or to mine its natural power in telling stories of love lost and sadness (Beck). Where will Ben Kweller fit?

In any case, it will be a tough sell, since so much of Kweller’s appeal is based on his stature as an indie rock figure of note. An understated wunderkind and a rock songwriter on his own terms, Kweller is (in my opinon) an unsung successor to the post-90’s rock mess. [Not to mention, the album cover for On My Way was one of my favorites in recent memory] His songs and albums are never groundbreaking, but they're determined, quirky, and independent in the literal sense. As a result, his music has always been an anthemic alternative for a generation that kills itself trying too hard to be cool. Which begs the question: can Ben Kweller change horses with his standard aplomb?

“Fight” and “Hurtin' You” are unsettling answers to this question. In the former, Kweller oddly juxtaposes cliche country motifs of lonely truckers and playing cards with the more urban image of an intern, frustrated by love. The song rallies to a boot-stomping chorus (“You gotta set yourself on the lord in your life/ you gotta fight til your dyin’ day”), but it seems forced and kitschy. In “Hurtin' You,” Kweller tries to cheer up an old friend whose “pretty point of view” has been dampened by generic sadness. Kweller speaks the right language, and plays the right notes, but on songs like these, he seems most like a rodeo-shirt wearing indie kid attempting to paying homage.

The strongest song by far is the album's first single, “Sawdust Man.” Laid over a piano riff that would make young Billy Joel and Elton John proud, Kweller belts out a song to a returning love from the top of a Greyhound Station. Here, Kweller finds his country groove: he is unpolished, energetic, quirky, and very endearing. It's ironic that amongst all the standard country themes on this album, it’s when Kweller puts himself back in his peculiar environs (on top of a bus station) that the listener finds his act the most authentic.

The second half of the album surges on this peculiarity. “Things I Like To Do,” a song in which the singer literally lists the things that make him happy ("I like talkin' in the diner 'stead of screamin' in the noisy bar"), wouldn't pass muster in Branson or Nashville. But when Kweller drops the pretense and just lets it flow, listeners find a pleasant marriage of his trustworthy talent and country ambitions.

Ultimately, Changing Horses is an inconsistent but harmless foray into country music, which will leave most fans hopeful that Kweller’s horse change is a temporary one. If that sounds harsh, it's useful to remember that Kweller remains in good company. Bob Dylan adopted a country voice to record Nashville Skyline that was nothing short of awkward. And Ween...well, they wrote a country song called “Help me Scrape the Mucous off my Brain.” Beck’s Sea Change is the most authentic example--in part because Beck fuses elements of the genre with his own musical style, and in part because the album is just so goddamned sad. Kweller gets this, and he certainly has his moments when form and function align, but by all measures this horse change is no sea change.

...but then again, there’s never been harm in having a little country fun.

First Listen: Guns N' Roses, Chinese Democracy

Guns N’ Roses




Chinese Democracy





What the fuck?


Fifteen years of false starts, artistic differences, internal warfare, delayed releases, canceled tour dates, million-dollar payoffs from Geffen, Axl’s dreads, Slash’s Snakepit…it all comes down to this: me buying the first Guns N’ Roses studio album in over a decade at a suburban Best Buy, while the Mom in front of me drops $100 on Wii equipment. Best Buy didn’t even carry DVDs until 1997, let alone VR gaming equipment—that was pure fantasy in 1993, the year GNR released their last studio album, The Spaghetti Incident? In a way, the reappearance of GNR on shelves of music stores feels a complete anachronism. It’s an event at the crossroads of time, like Encino Man being unfrozen; Dinosaurs being recreated in Jurassic Park; King Kong coming back to New York. We’re out-of-our-head excited over this, but everyone is aware it could be a complete disaster.

I should admit outright that I was 12 years old when Spaghetti was released (though Appetite for Destruction was one of the first tapes I owned, in 3rd grade). So even though I understand that Guns n’ Roses exists as some sort of unanimously shared American cultural experience, I have always felt somewhat aloof from it. The music has always been there, and obviously brilliant. But as a child of 90’s, I was behind the curve on Axl & co. For people even one or two years older than me, the rise and fall of the band was something personal that they lived through. Meanwhile I was left scratching my head, trying to connect the dots between the naked woman on the cover of my Appetite tape (a formative experience), the beauty of “November Rain,” and, well, Spaghetti.

In other words, Guns N’ Roses has never made great sense to me.

This is not a bad thing. When I heard several years back that Axl was going to (eventually) release an album under the name "Chinese Democracy," I wondered aloud what every reasonable person should have: “What the fuck?” GNR was never particularly political. So if Axl was turning that corner, he sure picked one hell of a stand to make. If it wasn’t political, well, then Axl was treading in some of the most irreverent (and therefore awesome) territory in recent memory. Either way it’s a win.

Now add to that what we knew about Chinese Democracy [basically, very little]: fifteen years in the making, multiple rumored collaborators (including Sebastian Bach), a constantly changing release date, and production shrouded in utter secrecy, not to mention controversy. Earlier this year, a blogger much more serious than me was arrested—but ultimately avoided jail time—for uploading the album’s tracks. To cap it off, when the album was released this week, it received immediate castigation from the Chinese government.

That’s when it hit me that maybe I’m not so far behind the ball. In all likelihood, no one understands Guns n’ Roses. Not even the Chinese government. It’s time to stop thinking, and buy the album. I’m ready for the event. Bring on King Kong.

The album cover is quaint, black & white, with an old bike with a large basket in the foreground. Behind it, on a wall, is tagged “GUNS N’ ROSES.” This is, no doubt, the mark of the burgeoning Chinese Democratic groundswell. The album starts off equally quaint on the first track, with high pitch squeaks and low grumblings (a Chinese city?) surfacing from the background, simmering and ready to blow. The effect is poignant, and a minute and a half in, we get our eardums scorched by the first of Buckethead’s torrential riffs. Then, making the only appropriate entrance that one can make after a 15-year absence, Axl’s voice slides in like the Death Star laser, and blows our quaint little world to pieces.

There is no time to collect your thoughts. I’m sorry, time? You’ve had 15 years to second guess Axl. So let’s get it straight: this is Mr, Rose’s world we’re living in. He wastes no time destroying any lingering doubt, with his trademark scowling voice over thunderous accompaniment: “It don’t really matter/ Gonna find out for yourself/ No it don’t really matter/ Gonna leave this thing to/ Somebody else.” Nice.

...and then it gets slightly weird. “If they were missionaries/ Real time visionaries/ Sittin’ in a Chinese stew/ to view my disinfatuation.” What? I think this is political (song goes on to mention the Falun Gong), but more certainly, I know it is not a complete thought.

I move along. By the end of song 3, “Better” (a standout track) I am awe-struck by what I’m hearing. The lyrics have subdued themselves to simpler, but still poignant, rendering of Axl’s lingering angst. The music is not only great' it’s fresh and complex. There’s a layering of guitars, beats, and background vocals in this song which makes one think of Korn or Linkin Park. Not to suggest that GNR is stealing from the detestable late 90’s rock scene. More like giving a nod to their wayward disciples, and then sounding the rallying cry to reminds us who rules.

The honeymoon is not constant, of course. Track 4, “Street of Dreams” reaches for GNR ballads of the past, but doesn’t get further than some clichés (“So now I wander through my days/And try to find my ways/To the feelings that I felt.”) and—gulp—a hint of voice modulation. Axl’s voice continues to play tricks on the mind for several songs, and the album briefly loses its way in this early middle portion.

This type of meandering is especially unfamiliar to us because albums of this length are so uncommon these days. Only 2 of the 14 tracks are shorter than 4 minutes, and there are no intentional throwaways. I can’t figure out just yet if this is a concept album, but it’s no surprise that after 15 years, every song has been produced in grandiose fashion, with a deliberate attention to detail. It can be exhausting, but this is where Chinese Democracy (the album) lives and dies. Even though Axl is just a voice to the listener, it’s clear that this album represents his powerful vision. The songs are intricately arranged and extremely polished. When they hit the mark, Axl appears a towering figure returning to claim his rightful throne. When songs falter in the slightest way, they appear overproduced and mechanical. Songs on the first half of the album war inconclusively for the listener's sympathy.

The album finds its way again on several understated and well-written songs, including the thoughtful “Catcher in the Rye,” the guitar-blazed “Scraped,” and the chaotic/operatic “Riad N’ the Bedouins” (“Riad N’ the Bedouins/ had a plan and thought they’d win/ But I don’t give a fuck ‘bout them/ Cause I am crazy”).

The album then surges into an improbable climax on the tracks “Sorry” and “I.R.S.” The former, a simple and effective ballad, typifies Axl’s generic emotion on Chinese Democracy: powerful but impersonal. We don’t know who exactly has wronged him, but we’re not inclined to ask. If we heard it alone, this song would be a castoff. Instead, it crystallizes the tone that runs through the rest of the album—an uneasy sadness, an anger, a desire for revenge. Hanging on the final note of "Sorry," we plunge into “I.R.S.” all-in-all the best song on the album. It rides on the shoulders of the best of Guns n’ Roses’ catalog, loud and soft, ear-splitting power chords, crushing rhythm, and Axl sounding 100% vintage for the first time. The lyrics (like most on the album) are unintelligible, but it’s the feeling that speaks most coherently. The solos are even Slash-worthy (gasp). If 15 years was all leading up to this, it seems worth it.

The rest is just dénouement. 71 minutes later, I’m tired, exhausted, beat up, beat down. I didn’t just listen to an album…I feel like I survived something.

And what, exactly? I have no clue. I do know this: the album is absolutely tremendous. It matches its hype and anticipation in both scale and force. I also know this: the album is over-produced, overambitious, and conceptually absurd. But it is unmistakably the work of a genius.

The Spinto Band

I’ve finally figured it out! The Spinto Band is the modern incarnation of the Sugarplastic.

This has been bugging me since I saw them live at Black Cat two weeks ago. Unfortunately, since no one knows the Sugarplastic, I concede an alternative, more accessible comparison:

Devo + Apples in Stereo w/ a spicing of R.E.M.


They are a band worth checking out. Pop-geeks from Delaware, and very talented musicians. My personal fave, “Oh Mandy” is from their first album, Nice and Nicely Done; “Summer Grof” is the single from their new record, Moonwink.