I really liked the first Lily Allen album, as a bubbly and charming piece of pop that borrowed some elements of ska to add to her confections. Really quite a delightful album. I have largely gotten diminishing returns from each subsequent record, though. This is, to my ears, a pop song that doesn’t really excite me about anything. It might be great, I dunno, it’s just not for me.
[Read More]I poke fun at Screeching Weasel pretty often when they come up here, mostly because their formula most didn’t change over the course of a zillion albums. But their early albums are still a lot of fun - just cheerful, energetic punk. There’s nothing at all wrong with this formula when it’s hitting.
This song is one of the pillars of post-punk, a template for so many following bands. That’s the reason this still sounds fresh more than 40 years later, because it was groundbreaking at the time, and bands still try and sound like this.
[Read More]Can is the sort of band that intolerable rock dorks will never shut up about, but frustratingly, they’re also right about them. Tago Mago is a double-album, stuffed full of hypnotic rhythms, oddball sounds, plenty of shout-singing, and stretched out compositions. This is one of the founding documents of Krautrock, but that’s not really an argument for the album as Krautrock itself was mostly an influence on other things. So don’t focus on that, focus on the fact that the album is still a great listen. Sometimes even rock docks are worth listening to.
[Read More]Had I encountered this when I was 17, I’m sure I would have adored it. As it is, I like it just fine, but I’m also far more likely to listen to the punk that I encountered when I actually was 17. It’s nothing personal, we just make emotional connections with this kind of thing when we’re young.
squints Jazz fusion? Elaborate post-rock? Post-math-rock? Math jazz?
[Read More]What can you say in the presence of true art?
I spend a fair bit of time kind of complaining about Screeching Weasel, and that’s probably a little unfair. This is from their second record, Boogadaboogadaboogada!, and it’s a lot of fun. Yes, very basic punk, but plenty of energy and it gets in and out.
An oddity of Go For Your Guns is that the first four tracks are all two-part songs. I’m not entirely sure why that was - formatting things for easier radio play, perhaps? We don’t have to worry about that, so we can just let the funk linger in our ears. Isn’t that nice?
[Read More]Another cut from Television City Dream, which as far as I know is the last Screeching Weasel album (it absolutely is not). I’m kind of hard on Screeching Weasel in this space, but you know, I do like this junk, even if I know it’s kind of the Pringles of punk rock.
Meanwhile, I’m more likely to listen to something kind of garage-y at this point. I dunno, something a little grittier just kind of gets me going more than the Ramones-inspired stuff.
[Read More]The essential insight of Rocket From The Crypt, that garage rock is even more fun with a saxophone involved, is an elemental truth of music. It’s a lesson that more bands should learn.
Like, this is a perfectly good song. But, let’s add a sax and see how it smokes!
I’m going to avoid the obvious joke of saying this song needs a sax. It absolutely does not. It just needs to be cranked to tooth-rattling volume to be perfect.
[Read More]Probably the most Beastie Boys song on Check Your Head, this is the kind of thing that anybody who parodies the band is kind of gesturing towards. Given that it was deliberately constructed to be kind of an update of the sound from their first album, it does make sense.
Have I expressed the opinion that I think Anthem For A New Tomorrow is the best Screeching Weasel record? They had a couple albums to refine the pop-punk/Ramones-knockoff sound they were going for, and there are moments that almost sound sincere on this album that work pretty well. Past this point, they kind of got snottier and snottier and it wasn’t pleasant, and before this, the sloppiness can sometimes get in the way.
[Read More]Bark Like A Dog is the first Screeching Weasel album that came out after I’d graduated from college. It was also the first record after Ben Weasel decided to end his Ramones worshipping band, the Riverdales. And, you know, return to his previous Ramones worshipping band. At any rate, this stuff wasn’t quite hitting me totally right, and it was the first Screeching Weasel album where I found myself questioning why I was still picking up the records. I did last one more, though, because of course I did.
[Read More]Ben Weasel started letting some of the songs on Anthem For A New Tomorrow stretch out a little bit, and let the Ramones worship go just a tiny bit. The result is probably his best record - still very much punk, still very familiar, but tuneful and fun.
The second Selected Ambient Works album from Aphex Twin doesn’t quite hit the same way the first one did. It’s very long (two discs of 70 minutes each), and it doesn’t seem like it was edited down enough. The first one is the most important ambient electronic album ever, and this one is more of a curiosity. Add in that I’m not a huge ambient guy, and this album hasn’t really gotten much play since I got it.
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