Thursday, October 13, 2011

Vol. 2 Episode 43


Here is the review that I have been avoiding for a few years now. I am not sure why I have been avoiding it but here it is in its full 20 years later experience. There are, of course, some other goodies included after it.

This is the second album from Nirvana. It was released in the fall of 1991. It is now 20 years later and everyone is doing reviews on it. I have been avoiding doing the review since I got a repressing of the album. There is not much to be written about this album that will change anybody’s personal view. It is and always will be the album that started grunge and alternative music to me though. It is also just as iconic today as it was on its release date. Surprisingly, I never owned this album until a few years ago when I purchased it as a repressing on vinyl. I always felt that there was no reason to get it since all of the good songs were already played on the radio. I could just about turn on the radio and hear one of the songs almost instantly. The songs from the album were overplayed enough to me to justify not getting the album. I do remember hearing the first single, Smells Like Teen Spirit, in the fall of my freshmen year in high school. I can even pinpoint where I was at the time. I was in the car, a station wagon I think, at the grocery store parking lot, Rainbow Foods (Cub was not near by then), with my mother and sister. I asked my mother to keep driving around the parking lot because this song was on and I wanted to hear it very badly. It sounded so cool and different from what I had been listening to in the past. The time was probably after dinner, mom worked during the day, but it was still light out. It had to be the end of summer or early fall. What I can’t remember is if the new school year had already started. I think that it would have had to have started already. But this, along with everyone else in the USA, was a start to a new world in music for me. The second single from this album is called Come As You Are. The song features a chorus pedal being used on the guitar and in parts of the song on the bass. I think that it is because of the sounds on this song that I became infatuated with the use of the chorus pedal on the bass guitar. I bought the cheapest pedal I could find, not knowing much about pedals, and it worked. The problem I have is that the pedal eats nine volt batteries for lunch. I never did get a power cable for that pedal either. Lithium is the third single from Nevermind. This song follows in the classic Pixies sound, loud soft loud. I loved the quiet parts of this song. It was so mellow and melodic, these parts spoke to me. The hard parts, especially the break in the song, were hard edged perfection to me. I also like the sound of the Fender Precision Bass that the bassist used on this album. I don’t own one, I have a Fender Jazz Bass, but the sound works so perfectly with this group. The last single to be released on this album is called In Bloom. Apparently the song was about those people who were not into the underground music at the time and did not understand the groups’ message. The video that went with this song was parodying the variety shows of the 60s’.The video was quite funny, I recommend seeing it as it is the funnier video of all four songs.

This is the third album from Oingo Boingo. It was released in 1983. This is one of my favorite albums from Oingo Boingo, next to           Nothing to Fear (the second album). I bought this album in the early 00s’, I know, it is a little late, My point is that I am not sure about what the singles were on this album. I have some favorite tracks but I don’t know if they were the singles or not. I do have some interesting facts about some of the songs though and will pass them on here. First off, the album has been out of print since 2009. You can still get it as a download though. You could also probably find it used if you looked for it too. One of my favorite tracks is the first track on the album. It is called Who Do You Want To Be. The song basically asks the question, “Who do you want to be when you grow up?” It is more specific about time though, replacing “when you grow up?” with “today.” The lyrics then go on to offer some ideas of what you may want to be to day, such as someone on TV or a stranger in a strange strange land. The next song, called Good For Your Soul (The title track), is about trying new things to see if they should be things that you are doing. The full line goes, “Once or twice is good for your soul.” I think that for the most part it is an interesting way to live life, finding out the things that you should and should not be doing in life. The next song, No Spill Blood, is an interesting song based on the H.G. Wells novel The Island of Dr. Moreau. It would seem that they are taking lines from the 1933 movie adaptation of the novel called Island of Lost Souls. I have not seen this movie but would be interested to for this reference alone. The next song that I like is Wake Up (It’s 1984). This song is obviously a direct reference to the George Orwell novel Nineteen Eighty-Four. There are references to Big Brother and that everyone is watching you. I had to read this book in high school (I am sure that everyone did) and I thought that it was an interesting concept. To have a song reference the song makes a link to that time in high school and of course to the book. The last song that I want to share as a favorite is called Pictures of You. It has a repeating bass synth line that is so simple; I can’t get enough of it. There is also the use of the Rhodes keyboard that also gets me. There is also something special about this song. It could run on forever and I would not mind at all. I think that some songs have a certain cadence that really attracts me to them. This happens to be one of them. The description of the strange pictures in the song is also very intriguing. They are very interesting view points.

This was his second solo album apart from The Smiths. It was released in 1994. This is a very dark album. This may have been because he had lost three people very close to him. This was a perfect spring album for me. I was in a depressed moo at the time of this albums release. I would go walking by myself for long periods of time with just this album playing. This was released at the end of my senior year of high school. I fell in love with the sounds and stories on this album. The first single, The More You Ignore Me, The Closer I Get, always reminded me of my first girlfriend. When we stopped dating (in seventh grade) she did just that, ignored me, and I just kept pushing for us to get back together. It did not work of course. It is not that I pushed to get back together for six years but that the song put a reminder about that first girl I was interested in. There were two other singles released from this album. The second single was called Hold On To Your Friends. This was not one of my favorite songs from this album but it does have a very catchy guitar riff which is its saving grace. The tone of his vocals also works very well in the song. I think that the song doesn’t work for me because I never thought that I had many or any real friends. Every one in my school were more like acquaintances than friends. Aside from my wife, who I met more than a decade after high school, my best friend is someone that I met almost at the end of my last year of high school and did not really get to know him until after I graduated. This song did not really apply to me when it was released. The last song released from this album is called Now My Heart Is Full. This is a beautiful song in its entirety. It is beautiful. Morrissey’s voice works so well with the other tones that are used by the guitar and background synth sounds. The song comes off as happy and sad at the same time. It just works so perfectly to my ears. What a great way to start off an album, this is the first track on the album.

This is the third album from The Hives. It was released in 2004. For me, this is a fun album with lots of music to behold. There are four singles released from this album. The first is called Walk Idiot Walk. There is an awesome sounding distorted bass in the song that hits like a brick. The song takes hints from the previous album and builds on them while having fun at the same time. The next single is called Two-Timing Touch and Broken Bones. This song has been compared to (I’m Not Your) Stepping Stone from The Monkees, Kicks by Paul Revere & The Raiders and in general sounding like Devo. The song has been compared to these bands because of certain similarities to the songs or artists. I can totally see the similarities but The Hives are a garage rock band with interest and influences in these types of bands, similarities are bound to happen. The third single released is called Abra Cadaver. For me this song is just another fast paced punk song from the group. It is not great, it is not awful, it just is. The good part is that it is very listenable and leads into the rest of the album. The last single from this album is called A Little More For A Little You. This song is a very bouncy fun song with a early 50s’ style pop sound mixed with the punk sound. It gives it a very unique sound. This album went right under most people’s radar. The singles were hardly played on the radio. I would recommend this album to anybody interested in punk or indie in the mid/early 00s’.

That is all I have for now...

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