R.E.M. - Around The Sun

R.E.M. was one of the most important bands of the 1980s and one of the most popular of the 1990s. So what mark did they leave on the past decade, if any? Stipe & Co. have released 3 albums since 2000, starting with Reveal in 2001, following it in 2004 with Around The Sun and releasing Accelerate in 2008. Many say that the band slid steadily downhill following the departure of drummer Bill Berry. This mudslide to mediocrity reputedly started with 1998’s Up and ended with the soupy puddle known as Around The Sun. R.E.M. found their rock again for last year’s Accelerate, but the consensus is that the band still hasn’t regained what they had with fillintheblankwithyourfavorite80sor90sR.E.M.albumhere. Being a casual admirer of R.E.M.’s radio tunes and not much more, I was curious about how I would find Around The Sun. Horrifying disappointment? Boring throwaway? Misunderstood masterpiece?

The most interesting tidbit I found pertaining to this album was a quote from R.E.M. guitarist Peter Buck: “ [Around The Sun] just wasn't really listenable, because it sounds like what it is, a bunch of people that are so bored with the material that they can't stand it anymore.” I found this quote to be only partially true – I would agree with the fact that you can detect some boredom in these songs, from the arrangements to the lyrics to Stipe’s voice. I strongly disagree that the album is unlistenable; in fact, if I had one word to wrap up my opinion of the album as a whole, I might use “listenable.” R.E.M. give us no surprises with this record, that’s for sure. But that’s not to say that this isn’t a pleasant album to have around. It’s good background music. I imagine all hardcore R.E.M. fans are now projectile vomiting on their computer screens. But all superfans expect more out of their favorite band then they have any right to.

Things start off with “Leaving New York,” a song very representative of the album: moderately paced, no one element standing out. The song is mildly depressing, about losing someone you love and being alone. This feeling of isolation is a theme that will reappear several times throughout the album. For me, things were at their worst with track three, “The Outsiders.” The song is about an unidentified upsetting event that the narrator learns of, and wondering about the aftereffects of said event. Rapper Q-Tip is here with a guest spot, sounding lamer and more uninspired than ever. I have talked here before about the role of the guest musician usually being to drum up publicity for the album, adding their name more than a musical mark. Here I am sure that Q-Tip participated because both parties were interested in collaborating, but the result just doesn’t work. Even if Q-Tip could’ve come up with something interesting to say, it would’ve been wasted on such a bland cheesy sounding track. I think this is a good time to bring up the keyboards peppering this album. Why is R.E.M. using a keyboard to fake string arrangements? Spring for a real string section if that’s what you’re going for. What’s with the intermittent blip-bloops? And if you want to use a piano sound for a song, find a piano!

The album has an interesting arc to it; tracks 4-7 are all at least decent and sometimes really great. “Make it All Okay” has a catchy lyric structure and sounds like a cross between folk rock and a power ballad. “The Final Straw” is the most overtly political song on the album, pretty much directed solely at then-president Bush and his oppressive regime. The song works, but the next song, “I Wanted To Be Wrong,” is a much more effective and interesting protest song in my opinion. The lyrics describe the phony flag waving SUV driving post-9/11 patriotism surge very accurately without being so blatant as to beat you over the head. Lyrics like “Salute Apollo 13 from the rattle jewelry seats” made me smile. Things continue to be enjoyable with the jaunty pop of “Wanderlust” and then get a little dreary with “Boy In The Well.” It’s too long and not too much happens, but it’s very easy listening with a chorus likely to get caught in your head. I really enjoy the lyrics to “Aftermath,” a song about just that, the aftermath of the loss of a loved one: confusion and pain making way for the rediscovery of self. From there on, things get pretty same-y sounding; the next three tracks tend to blend together, especially if you’re not paying close attention. The album closes with its title track, a decent but unmemorable tune.

One of my favorite rock critics, Jim DeRogatis, wrote a small article last year in response to his 2004 review of Around The Sun. The initial review was a positive one; he claimed the album was “better than anything R.E.M. has recorded in a decade. “ In his 2008 article, DeRogatis explains that while he stands by his assertions, even going so far as to say that Around The Sun was better than anything the band had released since 1992’s Automatic For The People, he now finds Around The Sun a “dreadfully dull” album and says that he would probably be okay never hearing it again. This is an issue that the majority of the most prolific and important bands face: living up to your back catalog. Sometimes a group or artist simply runs out of things to say or new musical statements to make; this is not to say that a band isn’t still producing good music, but if you’ve made 4 or 5 masterpieces, does good cut it? I guess there isn’t a clear-cut answer. For me, this album was a pleasure to listen to and although like Mr. DeRogatis I may not have the urge to take this album off the shelf and listen to it front to back, there are definitely songs I will return to. Check out “Leaving New York,” “I Wanted To Be Wrong,” and “Aftermath” for starters, and give the whole album a listen if you get the chance.

Next on my list: Sonic Youth’s 2000 NYC Ghosts and Flowers, followed by Dog Eat Dog by Joni Mitchell.

Paul McCartney - Press To Play

The first half of the 1980s were something of a roller coaster ride for Sir Paul McCartney. He started the decade by breaking off from his wildly successful second band, Wings, and put out a weird little album he recorded at home, McCartney II. Then came Tug of War, which included the hits "Take It Away" and "Ebony and Ivory," a duet with Stevie Wonder. The album made #1 in the US and UK. He followed it with the less popular but still profitable Pipes of Peace, which featured the duet with Michael Jackson "Say Say Say." Then came Give My Regards to Broad Street, the film Paul penned himself and also starred in. It was panned by the critics, and considered by the public and McCartney himself as a flop.

McCartney decided he needed a change, and wanted to update his sound, apparently. He enlisted the help of Dave Stewart of 10cc and they co-wrote 6 of the songs that ended up on Press to Play. The album was co-produced by Hugh Padgham, who had worked one David Bowie’s Let’s Dance and Genesis’ Invisible Touch. The album did worse than any other solo McCartney or Wings album in the US, not reaching gold record status and only making it to 30 on the charts. It was marginally better received in the U.K. Critics’ reviews are mixed; Rolling Stone’s Anthony Decurtis called the album “one of the sturdiest LPs of McCartney’s post-Beatles career” in his 1986 review. I poked around to try and find more recent reviews to see how other people felt this album held up and couldn’t find much of anything – so let me get down to it!

I should disclose that the Beatles have always been my favorite band. I own all of Paul McCartney’s albums in one form or another, and I have had a vinyl copy of Press To Play since I was in 4^th or 5^th grade. I have listened to bits and pieces over the years; mostly it has collected dust. The album is hard to approach, as it sounds so incredibly dated. All the songs have that awful gated drum sound (which Hugh Padgham is credited with creating, at least by Wikipeda!), the corny keyboards. Windchimes abound. If you are able to push past it and listen for the actual music, you come up with a couple interesting songs worth spending some time with. The first song, “Stranglehold,” is a fun rock song with a strong driving acoustic guitar part underneath everything else. This song would’ve been great if it had been arranged and recorded in a more straightforward manner. The next track, “Good Times Comin’/Feel The Sun” would’ve been an enjoyable throwaway track on an album like Venus and Mars or even Back To The Egg, but again, that production takes things down several notches and makes it less fun to listen to. “Footprints” was the initial standout track for me on this album. It is quieter, with some acoustic instruments and the words painting a portrait of a man nearing the end of his life, finding a kind of peace in quiet solitude. This is what McCartney does best, in my opinion – rich and vivid character sketches as in “Eleanor Rigby,” “Another Day,” and the more recent “Mr. Bellamy.”

“Press” was the album’s first and most successful single. A music video was made for the song, featuring Paul riding London’s “tube” system lip-synching the words to the unsuspecting commuters. It’s a cute pop song, catchy and harmless. It overstays its welcome, clocking in at almost five minutes, and has some pretty weird lyrics (what is “Oklahoma was never like this” supposed to mean, anyway?) but overall is an okay track.

Press To Play also contains some of McCartney’s most pretentious and awful songs ever put to tape. “Pretty Little Head” finds Paul singing about hillmen coming down from the lava and Ursas major and minor. Most likely an experiment in obnoxious electronic sounds of the time that was allowed to go waaaaay too far - the song was released as a single and had a music video made for it. The video was added as a part of The McCartney Years DVD set; McCartney says in a commentary track for the video something to the effect of “the song sounds very much of its’ time.” I suppose that’s one way of putting it. The low point of the album and probably my most hated Paul McCartney song of all time is “Talk More Talk.” I would almost advise you to purchase the album just to hear how bad this song is, but I am simply not that cruel. The track is peppered with the speeded up and slowed down voices of Linda and their son, James, talking about grey flannel suits and biodegradable spaceships. The chorus consists of the words “talk more talk, chat more chat” repeated several times. The sound of the song is so obnoxious, everything that is bad about ‘80s production pushed to its’ furthest extreme. Of course, it is the longest song on the album, clocking in at almost 5’30”.

Several guest musicians appear on the album, namely Pete Townshend and Phil Collins playing on the track “Angry.” The song is just O.K., the most interesting thing about it being that the aforementioned musicians are playing on it. As noted in my last entry for Bob Dylan’s Under The Red Sky, it seems like guest musicians are brought in often for their names, to make the liner notes interesting; such is the case here.

Press To Play was an album that sounded pretty good to some upon it’s release; Geoffrey Guliano in his book Blackbird: The Life and Times of Paul McCartney calls the record a “ten track opus” of “creatively intense soul searching,” and somehow finds it “well constructed and flawlessly produced.” For me without a doubt, the most flawed aspect of this album is the horrendously dated production aesthetic. In most cases the songwriting is not strong enough to hold its own against the grating arrangements, thus making for mostly bad music. I could’ve probably gone on for another thousand words with this entry, as McCartney is one of my top three favorite songwriters, and I can find something to love about each and every one of his tunes. But objectively, I can say this album is not very good. I wouldn’t recommend anyone purchase it unless you are a seriously diehard McCartney fan, in which case you probably already own it. You could download “Stranglehold,” as you will get the best of the songwriting along with a good picture of how the album as a whole sounds, as well as the video edit of “Press” if you can find it. To close, a quote from the man himself, from Guliano’s book: “It didn’t really work out as well as I wanted it to, although we did a couple of nice things. But it wasn’t a very successful album.”

Next up: REM’s 2004 Around The Sun.

Bob Dylan - Under the Red Sky

Bob Dylan is one of the most influential musical artists of the past century. His career has been quite prolific, releasing 33 studio albums, a handful of live discs and several greatest hits collections. His releases have been known to cause much controversy, and several of his albums are hated by most - Self Portrait, Saved, pretty much all the '80s albums besides Infidels and Oh Mercy. I may get to some of these other ones later, but I thought it would be interesting to first look at Under the Red Sky. More than being hated or the subject of controversy, this album tends to kind of just get forgotten about. This is surprising, as the previous album, Oh Mercy, is loved by most and was shocking upon release - many had given up on Dylan producing great and important music. So why did the follow up to a master work get swept under the rug in such a fashion?
I think that one reason this album tends to get lost in the shuffle is the production - Don Was produced, and put a glossy sheen over everything, including Dylan's raspy voice - who even knew such a thing could be possible? The album is all about the cameos, with Elton John, George Harrison, and Slash among the guests in the studio. None of the instrumentation particularly stands out, so I can only imagine that the reason these superstars were included was to generate publicity for the album. If only they had put the effort on showcasing Dylan's songs, the album would've fared much better. Dylan complained after making this album that here were way too many people in the studio, too much going on.
Dylan’s discomfort during these sessions was palpable – Slash complained that Dylan was “really impolite” and that he “didn’t really have a good time” during the recording. Al Kooper, responsible for the legendary organ part on “Like a Rolling Stone,” as well as lots and lots and lots of other stuff during his career, called Under the Red Sky “the hood album” because Dylan wore a sweatshirt with the hood up for the entirety of the sessions and pretty much completely closed himself off. Maybe that is why the arrangements are off; it is hard to say whether the blame should be placed on Was for interpreting the material thusly or Dylan himself, who may have felt pressure to put out another album to quickly follow up the success of Oh Mercy.
Several of the songs are nursery rhyme-ish, explained by critics as being inspired by or written for his then young daughter. “Wiggle Wiggle” is quite reminiscent of the “Wilbury Twist,” if you ask me. The title track could’ve been more interesting if he had used the nursery rhyme motif as a starting point and not sticking to it so much, or maybe if it had been played in the blues style it is written in. “2 x 2” is seemingly about something profound, but the “1, 2 buckle my shoe” lyric structure takes away from the poignancy, and lazy rhymes like “Three by three, they're turning the key, Four by four, they turn it some more” are kind of inexcusable. There are some highlights, though. “Unbelievable” has some fun word play and a nice feel to it. Interestingly, it is the only track on the album with no guest cameos. “God Knows” is a great song. Was, Dylan and the other musicians have got the sound just right, a cruisin’ Rock n’ Roll tune with a strong chord progression. So why do they fade out seemingly in the middle of the track? Look up the alternate version of this song found on Bootleg Series Vol. 8: Tell Tale Signs to hear how the song should’ve been. Other standouts include “Handy Dandy” which is a story song similar to the more recent “Tweedle Dum and Tweedle Dee” and “Cat’s in the Well,” a straight-up blues song that Dylan still pulls out in live performances.
Overall, the reason Under the Red Sky is often forgotten about today is that it’s not bad enough to be hated and not good enough to be interesting. If you ever see a copy in a bargain bin, I would advise you to pick it up and enjoy the stronger tracks on the album. Otherwise, head over to Itunes and purchase “Handy Dandy,” “Unbelievable,” and “Cat’s in the Well.”
Next up: Paul McCartney’s 1986 Press To Play.