A repeat!
It seems like a concept that would be kind of evergreen - ska up some jazz standards, add a few originals, off you go. But somehow, it had diminishing returns? Each album worked a little less than the previous one, and by the third, it was down to just “fine”. It’s fine! But that’s all.
Goddamn!
[Read More]Well, we’re back at Leatherface, and I once again confront my opinion that this basically sounds just like late 80s/early 90s southern California punk, except for the vocals. And I’m not wild about the vocals. We need to get Dave Smalley involved here!
I think it’s easy to be cynical about overnight successes and huge pop hits, especially when your taste sort of runs towards the less popular end of the pool. If you’re not really that much of a fan of popular genres, the simplest take is to just assume that popular songs are all pandering garbage, made by bloodless producers milking the latest fad for all its worth. And sure, there’s plenty of pre-fab trash that gets popular, but that cynical take is really a dead end. Who cares? Where does that cynicism lead you? If you don’t like pop music, you can just ignore it, but that’s true of any genre. The popularity or otherwise of a song does nothing to change its artistic merits, and the only question worth evaluating is what a song does for you or those around you.
[Read More]We’ve had a couple tracks from this record, which is Crazy, The Demo Sessions. Every time it comes up, I’m reminded how much I like this, and then I go look at his discography, get intimidated, and kind of give up. Not very laudable of me, I suppose.
See, the beginning to this song is the sort of thing that got people dismissive of the third wave. There’s no real point to adding the “rude 69!” bits to the song other than to just have the whole enterprise be all smirky. Other than that, it’s a totally reasonable instrumental. Well, whatever.
[Read More]“King of Pain” is the first song I can recall reading the lyrics sheet for in order to try and figure out what was going on in it (the lyrics sheet didn’t help much). While I’m fully on board with digital delivery for music, and I’m happy to not fill my house with CDs and stuff, I do think that there are certainly small pleasures lost without the physical packaging.
[Read More]By the time Synchronicity came out, the Police were really out of gas. There are some fine pop songs on it, but lots of filler, and even the good songs are kind of tame compared to some of their previous songs. I really liked this album a lot back when it came out, but find myself listening to it only very rarely now.
There are about three seconds at the beginning of this song when you think it’s going to be a classic rock vamp. But then the horns kick in, and it’s a regular Budos vamp. But with some classic rock touches here and there in the guitar, which is a lot of fun. It kicks off another classic record from the Budos Band, an album which dials back the psych stuff from Burnt Offering just a little bit. It ends up being right in the middle for their albums, behind Burnt Offering and I, but ahead of III and II. I haven’t placed Long in the Tooth yet, but I think it winds up probably right around III somewhere.
[Read More]Dodecahedron is a black metal band that plays in the very dissonant end of the pool like a bunch of my favorite metal bands. It’s all murky noise and ugly churn, warty and unpredictable. They only have two albums out, and I’ve only got this one based on a positive reivew I read somewhere, but I like it pretty well.
Almost seems wrong to put this in the same genre of black metal as Dodecahedron, doesn’t it? I mean, there are blast beats and tremelo picking, I guess, but there’s something resembling melodies here, not to mention some clean singing, strings, and other non-grim shit. If you played this to somebody who had no exposure to modern metal, it would at least make some sense. Dodecahedron? Not so much.
[Read More]Well, it’s been an interesting seven months, I guess. I stopped updating Five Random Songs because I was doing another blog (Game & Tonic) and that was taking up my time. And then, uh, a global pandemic hit (you may have heard about it!), and my creativity just went to shit.
So, yeah. Without any fanfare, I’m back. I wanted to listen to more of my music, simple as that.
[Read More]Yes, this is the Bob Marley song. Yes, this song rules. Yes, this cover is probably pushing the tempo too much, but whatever, see point #2 above.
Ghost In The Machine is easily the worst Police album, with neither of the energy and catchiness of the best of their early work, but not yet settled into the progressive pop of Synchronicity. It just doesn’t really hang together well for me, and I basically never listen to it.
[Read More]Oh, hell yes. The piano! The swinging drums! Those horns! Goddamn, y’all.
I have a pretty simple opinion on the Police: first three albums yes, last two, no. It’s really kind of that simple. The energy of the punk-influenced early stuff had finally dissipated entirely by the final album, which was chock-a-block with Dad Rock. That’s not to say that I can’t enjoy bits of it, but I just don’t find myself wanting to listen to it either.
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