A BLAST FROM MY PAST:

The following are some reviews I'd written and published on Amazon a while back.

Paul Simon: Graceland (Warner Bros., 1986). I've gone both ways with Simon. Too often his efforts are at best sophomoric (see Hearts and Bones) and unworthy of his talent. Then there are times when his reach equals his grasp - Paul Simon. This is hardly the world music album his fans think it is, but it does, nonetheless, appropriate superbly those things world music albums are supposed to have, namely a great R&B band. He is what he is, a profound pop artist, who knows a thing or two about making hits, as You Can Call Me Al, will surely attest. Not even Sun City scab Linda Ronstadt can dampen the moment. A

Bruce Springsteen: Born to Run (Columbia, 1975). Springsteen is that rarest of characters. He's scared but hopeful, indignant but steadfast. How else to explain contradictions like "maybe we ain't that young anymore" with "we gotta get out while we're young" or "you ain't a beauty but hey you're alright." He can't reconcile these contradictions, but in the grand tradition of rock-n-roll that doesn't stop him from trying. And it is the trying that we see the angst of his soul. From the title track to Jungle Land the album reeks of a confused man in search of answers, who can't stand still long enough to find them. Like most rebels with a cause, his mission is righteous. Here's hoping when he solves the riddles he still has something significant to say. A

Aerosmith: Rocks (Columbia, 1976). In a genre that now boasts as its mainstays the likes of Boston, Styx, and Blue Oyster Cult, and with the Stones apparently taking some time off for bad behavior, this psuedo gem leaps off the page and begs attention. Where Toys in the Attic made use of the every predictable rock riff possible, this album is tighter, more sparse, more rock-n-roll. Listen to Back in the Saddle and compare it to, say Sweet Emotion and decide for yourself. While the fact that they are now the defacto premier American rock band of the '70s is more an indictment of the industry in general than a recommendation of talent, disqualifying them would be equally unjust. I say sit back and enjoy the show. A-

Elvis Costello: Blood and Chocolate (Columbia, 1986). Never one to shy away from his emotions - particularly those devoted to anger - Elvis the C. comes up with what is easily his most raucous and consistent effort since This Year's Model. His flirtation with ballads and blues on King of America - a poor man's Trust - notwithstanding, and with three failed attempts before that staring back at him from the abyss, he finally decides to do what all great artists do: he wings it. Credit Nick Lowe who channels Costello's rage into a controlled implosion. Tokyo Storm Warning and Uncomplicated are the best six-plus minute songs since Hey Jude hit the charts. And if I Hope You're Happy Now still reminds you of the sniveling runt he's always sounded like, then at least on I Want You, he finally gets up the nerve to give his girl a piece of his mind. Maybe he is Woody Allen after all. A

THE A's HAVE IT!

Here it is, my first annual best of list. Every one of these collections of ditties gets at least an A-, and, naturally of course, every one should be considered essential for your CD collection. As befits a critic, though, I reserve the right to change my mind and add or delete to said list as I wish. For now, we'll leave it at this.

HAPPY NEW YEAR!

1. Gogol Bordello: Gypsy Punks: Underdog World Strike (Side One Dummy).
2. The Rough Guide to the Sahara (World Music Network).
3. Sufjan Stevens: Illinois (Asthmatic Kitty).
4. The New Pornographers: Twin Cinema (Matador).
5. The Go-Betweens: Oceans Apart (Yep Roc).
6. M.I.A.: Arular (Interscope).
7. Kanye West: Late Registration (Roc-A-Fella).
8. Ani DiFranco: Knuckle Down (Righteous Babe).
9. The Hold Steady: Separation Sunday (Frenchkiss)
10. The White Stripes: Get Behind Me, Satan (V2)
11. Amadou & Miriam: Dimanche a Bamako (Nonesuch).
12. Sleater-Kinney: The Woods (Sub Pop).
13. The Chemical Brothers: Push the Button (Astralwerks).
14. 50 Cent: The Massacre (Shady/Aftermath/Interscope).
15. Clem Snide: End of Love (Spin Art).
16. Lizz Wright: Dreaming Wide Awake (Verve).
17. Bright Eyes: I'm Wide Awake (Saddle Creek).
18. Clap Your Hands Say Yeah (Clap Your Hands Say Yeah).
19. Spoon: Gimmie Fiction (Merge).
20. Amy Rigby: Little Fugitive (Signature Sounds).
21. Cheb I Sabbah: La Kahena (Six Degrees).
22. The Ponys: Celebration Castle (In the Red).
23. Missy Elliott: The Cookbook (Atlantic/Goldmind).
24. Stevie Wonder: A Time To Love (Motown).
25. Bruce Springsteen: Devils and Dust (Columbia).
26. Loudon Wainwright III: Here Come the Choppers (Sovereign Arts).
27. Franz Ferdinand: You Could Have It So Much Better (Domino).
28. Daby Balde: Introducing Daby Balde (World Music Network).
29. Danger Doom: The Mouse and the Mask (Epitaph).
30. Neil Young: Prairie Wind (Reprise).

It's The End of The World As We Know It, and I Feel Fine!

Four entries: one from a born again Christian, one from a Jew for Jesus, a third from a gangsta who's probably going to meet the big guy in the sky any day now, and the last from a group ready to "push the button." And surprise, all four will make 2005's list for best albums of the year.

Saints Preserve Us!

The Hold Steady: Separation Sunday (Frenchkiss, 2005). Speaking strictly as an ex-Catholic, Craig Finn is a born again after my own heart. He knows the depths of sin better than any Sunday school teacher, and he knows more about compassion and mercy than all the TV evangelists put together. Far from being holier than thou, Finn’s characters – the self-mutilators, abused lovers, and deluded youth - are just like you and me; they’ve been through the mud enough times to know it ain’t easy in this world. Temptation tugs on us all, and falling is as easy as getting out of bed in the morning. But redemption awaits all who seek it, and damned if Finn isn’t going to shout it out to the world. My favorite song is Cattle and the Creeping Things, where Finn offers up his own explanation of original sin: “the dude blamed the chick, the chick blamed the snake” and of course they were both naked when they got busted. A

Clem Slide: End of Love (Spin Art, 2005). “No one will survive the end of love,” Eaf Barzalay announces on the opening track. And things only get better from there. On Jews for Jesus Blues he laments, “Now that I’m found, I miss being lost.” An Israeli in Nashville is about as fish out of water as you’re likely to get. But Barzalay overcomes his deficiency, as it were. Like most people, he’s worried about the world we live in; unlike most people he’s preoccupied with how God feels about how we’ve treated this world we live in. The old testament in him torments his soul as the track God Answers Back shows, a song in which the Almighty quips, "If you get everything you hope for/Then I will have to punish you." Here’s hoping he finds comfort in the new testament. A-

50 Cent: The Massacre (Shady/Aftermath/Interscope, 2005). The no good, the ugly and the bad, that’s what this is. Following on the heals of fellow gangstas Biggie Smalls and Tupac, this is about as low as low gets. The usual formula gets played out, too: the degradation of woman and, oh yes, guns, guns, guns. But, try as he does to drive all but hardcore devotees away, his style is irresistible. On this, his latest and best effort, he finds his funny bone. The result is an album that gets more to the point than Get Rich or Die Tryin’; in other words it’s more about sex and killing, and less about conditions in the ‘hood. All you need to know about his mind-set is to listen to the line from In My Hood. “You can be a victim or you can lock and load.” Guess which one 50 is? A-

The Chemical Brothers: Push the Button (Astralwerks, 2005). Like the Pet Shop Boys before them Tom Rowlands and Ed Simons get a lot of mileage out of a genre that was supposedly dead years ago. From start to finish this latest entry (their sixth) is a tour de force. Forget the detractors who still don't get it. Innovation isn't limited to merely those who forge new paths in the wilderness of music; sometimes the real test is how fresh you can sound driving down the same road (see Sleater-Kinney). Q-Tip sets the tone early with Galvanize; from there the party never seems to end. Overall, their best effort. A

R.I.P.:

I recently saw the Johnny Cash movie Walk The Line and started thinking not only about Cash, but Ray Charles and Warren Zevon. The parallels between the three are quite striking. All three had serious dependence issues with at least one drug; all three damn near killed themselves as a result before they finally sobered up; and all three came up with career defining albums just before they died.

They are reviewed here in order of when they were released only, but really all three are quite indespensable.

Johnny Cash: American IV: The Man Comes Around (American, 2002). If ever there was a major artist so poorly served by his record company - and who equally served it poorly back - it was Cash. Only The Sun Years on Rhino and the Folsom Prison/San Quentin live albums do him proper justice. Call this redemption, if you will. The man knows his time his short and credit Rick Rubin for realizing what he had to work with and making the most of it. And while the title track sums up, if you will, his faith, a faith that was road tested long ago, the track that seals it for me is Hurt, a song so painful and gut wrenching it might just as well have been extracted from his liver. Note the lyrics: "What Have I become, my sweetest friend / Everyone I know goes away in the end." His anguish is as genuine as his redemption. For a man who couldn't kill his demons fast enough with pills, and who in the end had only his memories to taunt him, this is about as fitting an album as he could've expected. A

Warren Zevon: The Wind (Artimis, 2003). That our hero knew he was dying is not really germane to our story. In fact, Zevon seemed to relish the idea of exiting stage left. How else to describe his decision to forgo chemo? In the end he challenged death the same way he challenged life, by running right at it at full speed. Songs like Knockin’ on Heaven’s Door and Keep Me In Your Heart seem more satirical than autobiographical now that he’s gone. While the cynic in me is suspicious of this effort, the fan in me treasures it and can’t help but reflect on a career that ended a bit too short; but knowing how hard he lived probably lasted a bit longer than it should have. Original grade A-. A

Ray Charles: Genius Loves Company (Concord/Hear Music, 2004). Forget the fact that most of these "guests" couldn't play their way out of a paper bag, this is about as genuine a love statement as a major artist has had in quite some time. Co-producers John Burk and Phil Ramone manage to bring out Charles' indelible spirit and love for the material, while at the same time not allowing said material to overwhelm his sometimes frail voice. No small feat. And, as for the material, like his career, it spans the gamut of pop music. No other artist could've pulled this off so masterfully. Not even Michael McDonald can ruin things here. A

2005 albums, continued

The New Pornographers: Twin Cinema (Matador, 2005). Here’s where all the supergroup comparisons come home to roost. Like Led Zeppelin before them they lay claim to their rightful place as the preeminent rock band of this century. But where the former used blues as their main drive engine, A.C. Newman and company rely on ‘60s power pop formula. Call them the Shins, but with extra octane, the album is relentless in its energy from start to finish. And everyone gets to play this time, which is nice. Neko Case is joined by newcomer Nora O’Connor on vocals. Even Newman’s niece gets to play the keybs. Staying power will be their biggest test; after all we all know what happened to Zeppelin after IV, and this is their third album. A

Ani DiFranco: Knuckle Down (Righteous Babe, 2005). Maturity has not dulled her gifting. With 15 years and 17 albums behind her, the not pretty enough little girl who lashed out brilliantly at the world for all her troubles has grown into a fairly even-tempered young woman. She still has a chip on her shoulder, and good for her. But, unlike her earlier efforts, here she focuses her anger and her pen too. The result is as well rounded an album as she as ever recorded. Lyrics like “But a lesson must be lived / in order to be learned / and the clarity to see and stop this now / that is what I’ve earned,” reveal an artist wise beyond her 34 years of life, and far more accomplished than most women ten years her senior. A

The White Stripes: Get Behind Me Satan (V2, 2005). Sure My Doorbell signals a desire on the part of Jack White to go pop as it were. So what? Since when has commercial success been a crime? Not even Meg's rather average drum playing can hide the fact that despite all the hoopla over their supposed ground-breaking, indie cult following, what they really are is a pretty damn good rock and roll band. And Jack, for all his rather predictable emoting (do I hear a trace of Robert Plant?) is following in a grand tradition of rock stars that went before him. Did I also forget to mention he writes good lyrics? A

Loudon Wainwright III: Here Come the Choppers (Sovereign Arts, 2005). Never one to mince words or cover up the fact that he’s been a pretty deplorable father (Hello Martha, Hello Rufus), Loudon this time goes macro. His angst over Bush is genuine as is his mourning over 9/11 (No Sure Way). If he sounds less, well, funnier than usual, maybe it’s because at this stage of his life the jokes don’t come as frequently as they used to. Or maybe it’s because he’s stopped running long enough to know that humor was always his number one narcotic. A-

TURKEY SHOOT, continued.

JUST A FEW OF THE CLASSICS FOR YOUR THANKSGIVING ENJOYMENT! EAT UP!

Dar Williams: End of the Summer (Razor and Tie, 1997). The worst case of oversignificance to hit an artist since Suzanne Vega, Williams could turn a sunny day into midnight just by opening her mouth. The darling of the FUV jetset crowd, calling her pretentious would do a disservice to pretentiousness. And this is her best effort! C.

John Fogerty: Centerfield (Warner Brothers, 1985). With each passing year my contempt for this half-hearted, half-assed effort grows. Sure, it's competently played, and therein lies the problem. Fogerty could always out play his contemporaries. The trick is to bring something unique to the table. If we are to believe that Rock-n-roll Girls is the next Lookin' Out My Backdoor then we'd be believing in a lie. Truth is this was lame then and it's lamer now. B-.

Norah Jones: Feels Like Home (Blue Note, 2004). "What's not to like?" Robert Christgau once queried rhetorically. Plenty. Oh, I'm sure she's genuine when she emotes, and she comes from good stock, don't you know. If her Grammy sweeping Come Away With Me didn't convince you then perhaps nothing will. Sophisticated, easy to digest, harmless, but with just enough - shall we say - pizzazz to keep the multitudes in step. And you know she isn't some tramp or hip-hop chick, don't you know. No Eminem or Missy Elliott, here. Just the sweet girl next door who happens to play her own instrument; even writes a few of her own songs. Yes, talented she is, but with every note she exemplifies what's wrong with the biz. Jones is that perfect product ideally suited for that adult-contemporary crowd you thought didn't matter. Remember Roberta Flack in the '70s? Even if you like her personally, and by all accounts she is very likable, this is the ultimate sell job, by an industry adept at creating gods. Beware strange men bearing gifts too good to be true. B-.

Ben Folds Five: Whatever and Ever Amen (550 Music, 1997). Boy does this guy need a life. I've haven't heard such a pity pot since Billy Joel. Never trust a piano man who can't get laid. C+

Beth Orton: Trailer Park (Heavenly, 1997). I confess I find myself enjoying She Cries Your Name in my more morbid moments, but aside from that this is just one more example of a folkie way too in love with her misery. B-

Steve Winwood: Chronicles (Island, 1987). Like Marlon Brando in On the Waterfront, Steve "coulda been a contenda." Instead this overwrought and overbearing hack gets the award for doing less with more talent than any other artist in the last twenty years. Even Clapton had Layla. Banal, when it isn't nauseating. C

Sarah McLachlan: Afterglow (Arista, 2003). McLachlan is one of the guilty pleasures I allow myself. Her voice, seductive even when it's soulless, draws you into her world. With 1993's Fumbling Towards Ecstasy (still her finest effort) and the Lilith Fair concerts in the late '90s in her resume, she's hard to resist. But for all the seduction and pseudo mature themes her lyrics portend, this is one woman who still can't escape her insipid melancholy. She's as predictable as a broken country record without the twang. Actually, this is New-Age music without the mysticism. C-

The Mavericks: Trampoline (MCA Nashville, 1998). Country music with horns? Who cares. No matter how authentic their ethnicity might seem these guys are pure El Lay. Another Nashville express out to the masses. If you're looking for some good country music with a latin flavor, try Rank and File for starters. These guys couldn't tune their guitars. C+

Indigo Girls: Indigo Girls (Epic, 1989). Closer To Fine headlines this tripe and nonsensical effort. Tracy Chapman is Dylan next to these two wonderkinds. This is the worst kind of folk: deep but with no meaning. How else to explain lyrics like "In the ink of an eye I saw you bleed." They are intense, they are in need, they are in pain, and, of course, they're in love. Oh, come on, get over yourselves, girls. Your demons are in your music. C-

RAP IT UP!

I've been remiss in my picks for top rap/hip-hop albums. So as not to suggest unwarranted bias, here are some of the better efforts out there.

Kanye West: The College Dropout (Roc-A-Fella, 2004). Like Ice-T before him he has no fear of breaking taboos and telling the world where to stick it. But whereas the former turned to unenlightened sociologist/philosopher, and saw a duty to rat out even his own kind, West really does see himself as the savior of hip-hop. His arrogance is not in a critique of what ails the world, but in how he can exploit it for his own good. But, like Mick Jaggar, his ego doesn't detract from his talent; it only enhances it. This is the best damn album in a genre that has seen more violence and insanity than any since rock music got started five decades ago. Yes, I know it's dangerous; quite frankly what he advocates will somehow come back to haunt him in his later years, assuming he lives that long. But deny him, you can't. A+

The Fugees: The Score (Ruffhouse/Columbia, 1996). Alternative rap is a sub-genre you don't hear much about, and for good reason. These guys just invented it. They balance gangsta rap with a world-vision humanitarianism. This is poetry with an attitude. Killing Me Softly and No Woman, No Cry aren't just covers, they're reinventions the likes of which the original artists would have been proud of, and in the case of the former, impossible for Flack to even create. In a genre that sings praises to the dopest of the flyist and more often than not ignores underlying root causes of the plight that besets its own artists, their triumph is considerable. That they managed to pull it off is a credit to their vision and courage. A

P.M. Dawn: The Bliss Album . . . ? (Gee Street, 1993). Is this rap light or light rap? Following up on the heals of their very fine Of the Heart, Of the Soul, and of the Cross, this album takes their caramel flavored rhythms and soul-searching lyrics to the next level. Its simplicity and, yes, sincerity, hook you in like no other music of its kind. Prince Be is one part Lionel Richie, one part Otis Redding, one part Brian Wilson. In other words he croons, but with soul and pop smarts. I'd Die Without You is a classic that lesser men would fall flat on their pretensions trying to copy. Dismiss them and you'll regret it. They're good for you. A

Ice-T: O.G. Original Gangster (Sire/Warner Bros., 1991). Gangster my ass. This guy's about as dangerous as the weather man telling you there's a hurricane coming. His humor - and by humor I mean sick humor - is matched only by his ability to play it hard and mean. He knows where he comes from, and his dislike for the hypocrites who preach the golden rule is genuine. When he scoffs "Imagine that, me working at Mickey Dee's," he's reading the riot act to any and all who still don't get it that down by his neck of the woods a "nigga" can make more in an hour selling than working all week at a straight job. And for those who would just like him to go away, his self prophetic line from the song New Jack Hustler is haunting: "They'll be another one after me." A

Notorious B.I.G.: Life After Death (Bad Boy, 1997). In the end he got what was coming to him. Songs like Somebody's Gotta Die and You're Nobody ('Til Somebody Kills You) proved to be more than just portending doom becoming reality; for him it was a way of life that he could never escape. But there was so much more to Biggie Smalls than mere death. For in his brief life the hope this ex-dope dealer had, first for his kids, then perhaps for us all, survived him. He was, if nothing else, warm and funny. He could laugh at himself, too, something most of his contemporaries could learn a thing or two about. He could've been a legend, instead of a footnote. The shame is we'll never know. A

Digable Planets: Rachin' (A New Refutation of Time and Space) (Pendulum, 1993). Eschewing the hardness of hip-hop for the lighter side, this reads like P.M. Dawn with a social conscious. They like their sex, but are respectful of their partner's needs. These rappers turned bohemians dig the spiritual realm like nobody else. And the music, it borrows as much from jazz as it does from R&B. Sort of Charles Mingus meets Curtis Mayfield. They are to hip-hop what The Buffalo Springfield was to rock. A