April 19, 2004

Notes from a small iPod

Posted by Ted
  • Listening to “Appetite for Destruction”. I wasn’t much of a metalhead, but it’s still a terrific album. It’s noteworthy that in a genre known for showboating drummers and extended drum solos, their drummer is the very opposite of a showboat. (A “tugboat”, maybe?)
  • Rakim, of Eric B. and Rakim, has been occasionally named the best MC of all time. His surly baritone voice hasn’t really been successfully imitated, and his near-total lyrical focus on his own rap skills has been imitated far too much. But he did one thing that’s ripe for a good rip-off. Most rap songs have 16 bars for verses between choruses. Rakim would often keep going, well past where the ear expected a break. It gave his songs a sense of urgency that others would be wise to replicate, instead of handing off to Ashanti.
  • The Temptations’ Ultimate Collection is one of the best albums in my collection, or anyone else’s. For ten or fifteen years there, those guys could do doo-wop, soul, and funk as well as anyone. If there’s a heaven for songs, “Can’t Get Next to You” will be there.
  • Listen to “Violent Femmes” from beginning to end. It sounds as though the drummer plays absolutely nothing but a snare drum on the whole album, with the exception of a lone cymbal crash at the end of the first verse of “Add It Up” and the xylophone in “Gone, Daddy, Gone”. This may be common knowledge, but I didn’t realize it until I started paying attention.
  • You know who’s an amazing drummer, if you like showboats? Jimmy Chamberlin from the Smashing Pumpkins. There were rumors that Billy Corrigan played all the guitar and bass parts on the SP albums, but no one doubted who was on the drums. Listen to “Bullet With Butterfly Wings”; he makes the transition from low-key jazzy drumming to punishing heavy-metal pounding, and it’s just beautiful. The song wouldn’t work without it.
  • If you’re a Pixies fan who can’t afford $500 tickets to see their reunion tour, you can buy a limited edition CD of each of their concerts. They’re going fast. Invite a lot of friends over, smash together in the middle of the room, spill beer on each other, and play it really really loud.
  • “Poses”, by Rufus Wainwright, is one of the most gorgeous songs that I’ve heard in a long time. Through some weird chain of coincidences, I never heard the song “Danny Boy” until I was an adult. When I did, I was instantly struck, and it’s become one of my favorite songs. “Poses” has much of the same thrill. Wainwright’s voice sounds like a cello that can talk, and the orchestration makes it sound like it came from an especially lovely time capsule. Highly recommended.
Posted on April 19, 2004 11:11 PM UTC
Comments

The xylophone on “Gone Daddy Gone” is actually played by Brian Ritchie, the bass player.

Posted by Stentor · April 19, 2004 11:19 PM

I remember seeing violent femmes videos in which the drummer seemed to be playing an upside down tin bucket. Much as I’d like to believe this was actually what I thought it was, I suppose it might have been some kind of drum.

I think the vastly reduced drum kit was in line with the band’s choice of musical style, which was, I believe, highly skiffle influenced.

Posted by Ben Benny · April 20, 2004 12:50 AM

“Sweet Child of Mine” is one of the all-time greats. I also like “Welcome to the Jungle” and “Paradise City” quite a lot. But I can barely listen to the rest of the album. Do I feel that way only because those were the singles that were played so much or did they really choose the right singles to play?

Posted by Jon Mandle · April 20, 2004 02:42 AM

Wainwright’s eponymous first album is worth getting too. I’m not as impressed with his latest. He’s worth seeing live, esp. if his sister’s touring with him. She’s got a great voice as well.

Posted by Bill Humphries · April 20, 2004 03:49 AM

Ted, if you like the Temps’ Ultimate Collection, you may want to consider their box set, Emperors of Soul. It’s five discs, and the last disc and a half or so is devoted to mediocre stuff after that fifteen-year prime you mention. But the first three discs are mind-blowing. Well worth the investment.

Posted by Danny · April 20, 2004 04:03 AM

I agree about Jimmy Chamberlain; he tears through the early Smashing Pumpkins albums. Zwan is unfortunately too fluffy to give him much opportunity to use his muscles.

Posted by Nels Nelson · April 20, 2004 08:43 AM

The first six tracks on Appetite for Destruction are all awesome, but only the first and sixth are airable.

Posted by digamma · April 20, 2004 02:37 PM

FYI, those Pixies CDs are all sold out.

Posted by cleek · April 20, 2004 02:42 PM

I saw the Femmes in Oct or Nov of ‘83 at Tut’s in Chicago. There was indeed an inverted metal container of some sort used in the (minimal) drum kit.

Great show.

Posted by Fritz · April 20, 2004 04:06 PM

…so of course, after Appetite, Axl promptly fired Adler and replaced him with Matt Sorum, the living incarnation of the meathead showboating drummer. This should have been the tip-off to us all at the time that Axl had lost it, but I rely on the (IMHO reasonable) excuse that I was 19 at the time as my alibi for actually buying both Use Your Illusion albums.

Posted by Doctor Memory · April 20, 2004 06:35 PM

…so of course, after Appetite, Axl promptly fired Adler and replaced him with Matt Sorum, the living incarnation of the meathead showboating drummer. This should have been the tip-off to us all at the time that Axl had lost it, but I rely on the (IMHO reasonable) excuse that I was 19 at the time as my alibi for actually buying both Use Your Illusion albums.

Posted by Doctor Memory · April 20, 2004 06:37 PM

“Sweet Child of Mine” is one of the all-time greats. I also like “Welcome to the Jungle” and “Paradise City” quite a lot. But I can barely listen to the rest of the album. Do I feel that way only because those were the singles that were played so much or did they really choose the right singles to play?

Interesting. To my mind, you named the three worst songs on the album - but perhaps I feel that way because they were on the radio all the time during my last two years of high school.

IMO, the three top tracks on that disc were “It’s So Easy,” “Night Train” and “Rocket Queen.”

Posted by Ed Zeppelin · April 20, 2004 09:43 PM

I must admit to thinking “Sweet Child” is a truly great song — but I also heard it for the first time at the end of the time it was popular, so “Paradise City” was the first GN’R song I heard on the radio a lot. (I started listening to the radio because of “Sweet Child.”) I think “Rocket Queen” is probably second on that album for me, then “Mr. Brownstone” and “My Michelle,” the latter especially for the fabulously sneering vocals. But I love the whole album, with the possible exception of “You’re Crazy,” the version of which on Lies was so much better.

Short answer: I definitely don’t think “Welcome to the Jungle” and “Paradise City” were two of the better songs, though it’s true that they were more airable. (There’s no legal reason you couldn’t play “Night Train,” though, is there?)

And while I agree with the criticism of Matt Sorum, I refuse to be embarrassed about having gotten Use Your Illusion. (But if being 19 is a good excuse, being 15 or so is surely a better one.) I contend that there was one very good album spread out between those two. First step would have been to get rid of almost anything written solely by Izzy Stradlin. That would have eliminated a lot of mediocre songs and 90% of the misogyny.

Posted by laura · April 20, 2004 10:25 PM

… instead of handing off to Ashanti.

Ashanti, hmm … she is cute, and she’s from around the way and I know I’m not representing Strong Island if I’m hating on homegirl, but … she’s just really underwhelming.

Posted by Thlayli · April 20, 2004 11:19 PM

Rufus Wainwright’s cover of Leonard Cohen’s Hallelujah is my favorite version of that song, but I haven’t ever found it on an album. Does anyone know where it might be found?

Posted by Another Damned Medievalist · April 20, 2004 11:31 PM

A.D.M. -
You can find Wainwright’s “Hallelujah” on the “Shrek - Music from the Original Motion Picture” CD.

-Todd P

Posted by Todd Prebynski · April 21, 2004 12:09 AM

Wainwright’s cover of “Hallelujah” makes me weep like a little baby every time I hear it.

So does Bonnie Raitt’s cover of “Baby Mine” from the Stay Awake album of Disney tune covers.

Just though I’d share.

Posted by Rob Humenik · April 21, 2004 01:35 AM

Roughly contemporaneous with “Appetite” is Jane’s Addiction “Nothing’s Shocking”, which was decleared the best hard rock album of all time near the time of its release, though I had become bored by too many years of listening to metal, and had since moved on. I rediscovered this gem recently a few years ago, and now I agree, it is the best hard rock album of all time.

I agree Rakim is underrated and underimitated. Though, of his raps, the ones I enjoy most are the ones not about his own skills, but his precious few forays into Chuck D-like social commentary or confessional introspection.

A dramatic contrast to Eminem, who seems the living example of “someone using his skillz for evil and not for good”. Could you imagine a rapper with Eminem’s skill (backed by Dre’s marketing muscle), and Chuck D’s politics? Now there is someone who truly could change the world overnight.

Posted by publius · April 21, 2004 03:33 AM

Roughly contemporaneous with “Appetite” is Jane’s Addiction “Nothing’s Shocking”, which was declared the best hard rock album long ago, though I had become bored by too many years of listening to metal, and had since moved on. I rediscovered this gem recently a few years ago, and now I agree, it is the best hard rock album of all time.

I agree Rakim is underrated and underimitated. Though, of his raps, the ones I enjoy most are the ones not about his own skills, but his precious few forays into Chuck D-like social commentary or confessional introspection.

A dramatic contrast to Eminem, who seems the living example of “someone using his skillz for evil and not for good”. Could you imagine a rapper with Eminem’s skill (backed by Dre’s marketing muscle), and Chuck D’s politics? Now there is someone who truly could change the world overnight.

Posted by publius · April 21, 2004 03:35 AM

oh I sincerely miss those heavy metal bands we used to go see on the landing in the summer…

shiny shiny pants and bleached blond hair, a double kick drum by the river in the summer
she fell in love with the drummer
another and another…

Posted by mon · April 21, 2004 12:25 PM

All great bands are also great cover bands. G&R’s cover of “Live & Let Die” is soooo lame. & inexcusable: the song is a slam dunk.

I have never understood the Guns & Roses fascination. You kids w/your crazy music!

Posted by Lawrence L. White · April 21, 2004 05:27 PM

GNR’s “Knockin’ on Heaven’s Door” is even worse.

Posted by Catfish · April 23, 2004 02:58 AM
Followups

This discussion has been closed. Thanks to everyone who contributed.