alt dot rock

basically any music that originated in the 90s and could be called alternative

Sonic Youth – Rather Ripped

I picked up the latest Sonic youth recently but hadn’t gotten around to listening to it until this evening. Because of my tunequest rule of “no repeats,” I won’t be able hear it again until the next year or I complete the project, whichever comes first. It’s safe to say that when I pass either of those milestones, I’ll be itching to hear it again, along with the handful of other new releases/acquisitions for the year.

If I had to come up with one word to describe Rather Ripped, it would have to be "effortless." At this point in their carreers, Sonic Youth can waltz into their studio and produce this stuff in their sleep.

sleep-waltzing, i like it

The one thing that struck me on this first and only play-through was how much cleaner, unified and melodious, as well as harmonious, the band sounds. There’s nary a trace of their trademark fuzz, noise and distortion. I like that too.

a freakin bear

reason number 32 why bears are the number 1 menace to the nation: i was late to work because of one. you see, this particular bear decided that this morning was a good time to go on a shopping spree. as a result, traffic on my interstate route backed up about 12 miles. well, it’s always backed up, but this morning was far more dense, thanks to the closing of a lane and exit so that bear apprehension tactics could be performed.

on the plus side, i got to listen to alice in chains acoustic ep, jar of flies. i was into the chains pretty heavy in high school, enjoying their grunge-soaked, pop-friendly version of metal music. over the years though, i had grown tired of the group’s abrasiveness and by the end of the 90s, i had cleared out most albums, except for that 1993 out-of-character ep.

jar of flies is a fantastic collection of somber, meditative music that avoids indulging itself in balladry. the 30 minute record is only seven songs long (yet two singles were released, which makes it more of a mini-album), and i think it shows that, under the hardened metal exterior, alice in chains could actually put together some very good songs.

Foo Fighters descent into wuss rock?

I’m currently listening to Foo Fighters 2005 double-album, In Your Honor, and for some reason, it feels like a chore. Foo Fighters has been a perennial-favorite band around these parts, but, starting with There’s Nothing Left to Lose, each album gets increasingly more disappointing. and that’s ironic, because the band’s popularity and mainstream success seems to be inversely proportional to its slide toward mediocrity.

I don’t know if Dave and company are simply having a shortage of ideas or if it’s a matter of production values. My general feeling is that it’s the latter. The songwriting is generally on the up-and-up though there’s nothing like everlong or oh, george or even stacked actors, but In Your Honor, much like One by One before it, gives off the strong impression of being over-produced. Not so much on the acoustic second disc, but the first “hard rock” disc reeks of it. The mixing just plain smells bad and dave’s vocals are lost in the mud.

The first few Foo Fighters albums benefited from the rough edges provided by Dave Grohl doing all the work himself. Those records have an caution-to-the-wind, do-it-yourself spirit, and were even released on Dave’s own label (Roswell records). but most importantly, they were a little bit quirky and a lot of fun.

Somewhere during the There’s Nothing Left to Lose era, however, it seems that the band somehow earned corporate credibility. It even won a Grammy for Best Rock Album. I’m not the kind of person who cries "sellout!" when someone finds success, but it’s around this time that Foo Fighters’ sound and attitude changed, becoming more polished and increasingly likely to be the "go to" band for "mainstream media" rock events. In 2006, it’s really not that hard to imagine Foo Fighters splitting the bill with Aerosmith to headline a Superbowl halftime show. Oooo, I know that’s cold, but think about it, would you be surprised by that?

If i were a meaner person, I might suggest that the band has intentionally watered-down its sound in order to court commercial success (c’mon, a duet with norah jones??). But I’m not that guy. I’d rather just listen to the music and hope that the band turns it around.

R.E.M. – Fables of the Reconstruction

Back at the height of my R.E.M. days the mid-90s, Fables of the Reconstruction was my favorite of the group’s records from the IRS Records era. I hadn”t listened to it in years and now I suddenly remember why I loved it so much.

It’s mid-tempo and melodic, with a "sparkling" production value that’s professional but not too slick. And the songs themselves are compellingly well written, though Green Grow the Rushes is a bit of a downer. Making up for it though are Driver 8 and Can’t Get There From Here, which practically rock well, as much as R.E.M. could before Monster.

Interesting side note: The album artwork implies that the title of the record could also be Reconstruction of the Fables and is to designed to create an infinite loop: Fables of the Reconstruction of Fables of the Reconstruction of the… and so on.

A video for you: Driver 8 and Can’t Get There From Here, live on Tyne Tees The Tube TV show (circa 1985). Check out Micheal Stipes’ hair!

Pretty hate machine

i wasn’t conscious of nine inch nails when pretty hate machine was released. in 1989, i turned 11 and whatever counted for my music appreciation at the time was mostly limited to the weekend top 40 countdown with casey kasem. it wasn’t until a couple years later that i had my first nails experience. i was about 14 by then and starting to comprehend music as an art and as pop culture phenomena. my dad had finally opted to subscribe to cable and the video for ‘wish’ was in heavy rotation on mtv, back when the M stood for "music" and not "mediocre." i was expanding my musical boundaries rapidly as the so-called "alternative revolution" was sweeping the nation.

though i was hooked by the end of the first guitar riff, i remember other, older nin fans just trashing ‘wish,’ proclaiming broken a disappointment (an understatement) compared to pretty hate machine. it became a refrain i would hear often with each new release. why those people continued to be nine inch nails fans, i still don’t understand, just as much as i don’t understand the pedestal PHM has been placed on. aside from a few stand out tracks (the opening trio is gangbusters), pretty hate machine is probably the weakest overall release in the catalog, even compared to all the weak material on the fragile. and why shouldn’t it be? it was a debut album after all, and trent has had 17 years to experiment, refine and improve his style.

bossa nova, batman and elbow

65 looks like an impressive number, but today it’s not. whereas the 66 songs from yesterday represent just over 5 hours of music, today’s 65 only amount to 3.5 hours. this is partially because the severed dreams soundtrack is only 33 minutes for its 22 songs, while mahler’s 6th from yesterday clocks in near 90 minutes but counts as only 4 songs. in any event, i did hear some worthwhile music.

fantastic plastic machine [beautiful]
elbow [alseep in the back]
elliot goldenthal [batman forever]
christopher franke [babylon 5: severed dreams]
ultralounge bossa novaville

Ah, the bossa nova…. it, and to a lesser extent samba, are among my favorite forms of music, so it’s surprising that i don’t have more of it in my collection. nevertheless, it should be no surprise that i’m highly enthralled by bossa novaville, no.14 in the ultralounge series. nineteen super-smooth and relaxing tracks that can’t help but take the edge off whatever’s on your mind.

of course, this is ultralounge we’re talking about, a product of capitol records. it’s designed, packaged and presented to appeal to boomers and retro-culture hipsters alike without being in the slightest way offensive. despite the marketing schtick, the music is quite effective and at the very least, acts as a launching pad for further explorations into the various genres it resurrects. les baxter alone almost justifies the series’ existence.

also in today’s roundup: a somewhat disappointing score for batman forever. beyond treatments and re-workings of danny elfman’s batman theme, nothing here really jumped out at me. about half the tracks got the boot.

and a quick note about elbow: the group is from the UK (manchester, specifically) and i’ve heard them referred to as equal parts radiohead and coldplay. which is sort of true, if radiohead wrote more ballad-type songs and didn’t enjoy rocking out as hard, you might get the mellow stylings of elbow. i guess that’s where the coldplay reference comes from, but elbow is not nearly as insufferable.