A Deeper Shade Of Soul

The Failure Of Springsteen's Wrecking Ball

noreply@blogger.com (Ben Lazar) — Mon, 05 Mar 2012 20:48:00 +0000

Let’s be straight with each other, shall we?

Bruce Springsteen’s Wrecking Ball is not a great album. In fact, it’s debatable whether relative to Springsteen’s body of work, it’s even a particularly good one. It evidences the same weaknesses that more than a little of Springsteen’s work has suffered from since his last masterpiece, Tunnel OfLove (1987); over-thought and over-intellectualized concepts that border dangerously on self-importance, backed by music that feels like it’s made by an artist who desperately wants to find new sounds that are the equal of his older ones, but who cannot quite locate them. It is an ambitious album and it is certainly a failure, one of the biggest of his career.

If Wrecking Ball is Springsteen honing in on the Great Recession and placing blame where he thinks it belongs, his chronic tendency to overthink things has him deliberately and needlessly link it lyrically it to past American crisis’, whether it’s the Great Depression, the Civil Rights Movement or striking railroad workers in the 19^th century, which only diffuses the power of the songs for the present they are attempting to speak to. And the music, mostly folk based with touches of gospel, r&b, rock and inexplicably, Irish folk, has a modern sheen, but more often than not, it feels old, as though Springsteen is writing songs for the downtrodden workingman from 1937, not 2012. It sounds like Springsteen has chosen to aim the gun--and has picked up a musket instead of an automatic weapon.

When Springsteen sings of “robber barons” and “cannonballs” in “Death To My Hometown;” or “fat cats” on the woefully clichéd “Easy Money,” the ancient language makes everything feel embarrassingly impotent; it’s as though Professor Springsteen has taken over, and instead of powerfully addressing the breakdown in American society as it exists and is spoken of right now, he’s writing the songs to double as history lessons. What Springsteen has forgotten is that great political albums (whether it’s Dylan or What’s Goin’ On) speak and live in the present and then become timeless—they make history more than they sing about it.

Wrecking Ball’s first single, “We Take Care Of Our Own,” is firmly placed in the present as it lists all the places that we don’t take care of our own, but its ode to the E Street sound (yes, including glockenspiel) is all too shiny and glossy, brawny but empty. Producer Ron Aniello (Jars of Clay, Candlebox, Lifehouse) cannot (as Brendan O’Brien could not) find a guitar tone that sound anything other than, well, mainstream cheese. (For the great rocker he is, it’s inexcusable that Springsteen hasn’t had a consistently cool sounding guitar tone on record since 1984.)

Aniello and Springsteen produced the album pretty much as a duo, with Springsteen playing the majority of instruments himself and Aniello providing percussion and sampling. The samples are fine, but they provide little—they feel tacked on, obvious, and ultimately, unnecessary. And why Springsteen, one of the greatest rockers of all time, has chosen to work with the guy whose biggest credits are Jars Of Clay, Lifehouse and Candlebox is a mystery, other than the fact that they met through Aniello’s production of a Patti Scialfa album. The choice of Aniello evidences another breakdown in the Springsteen camp in recent years—the lack of collaborators who are at Springsteen’s level and can elevate him. At the end of the day, taste matters, and many of the production decisions made on Wrecking Ball exhibit a fatal amount of middling taste.

There are some fine moments on the album. “Shackled and Drawn,” despite its Irish lilt, is buoyant enough to overcome its arrangement. “This Depression” leaves the Irish folk by the wayside and with a beat straight out of “When The Levee Breaks,” has a yearning that and sense of loss that is affecting. “Land Of Hope And Dreams,” a great Springsteen song that he’s been playing since 1999, is rearranged and is far more effective rhythmically than it’s ever been with the E Street Band. “Rocky Ground” has an overtly gospel tone that uplifts. But none of these recordings, not a single one, is a classic, and every Springsteen album in the last decade, even Working On A Dream, has had its share.

You can’t fault Springsteen’s good intentions on Wrecking Ball. His passion and commitment is still palpable. But ultimately, this is an album that won’t make the sub prime mortgage guys at Goldman Sachs lose a single minute of sleep. At the end of the day, Springsteen has done no better than the Obama Administration to hold to account those responsible for the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression. If anything, so far in 2012, Obama is having a far better year than Bruce.

Notes On The Big Man, Clarence Clemons: 1942-2011

noreply@blogger.com (Ben Lazar) — Tue, 21 Jun 2011 02:09:00 +0000

I first experienced the healing power of Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band on August 14, 1985. I was fourteen, had just gotten home from sleep away camp a few days earlier, and had a couple of weeks of summer vacation left before school started. And instead of being by the pool, I was in bed, really sick. I knew what it was—I was asplenetic, the result of being in a car accident when I was six, and not having a spleen left my immune system compromised, so I had the same infection that I came down with four or five times each year as a child--swollen tonsils so bad I could barely swallow and a temperature of 104. Given its frequency, I wasn’t worried, but I knew that I had at least three days of being hellaciously sick in front of me.

Then my older brother Robert called.

Robert was almost seventeen years older than me. Technically, he was my half-brother (same father) but he never occurred to me like that—he was my big bro. When I was a little boy I worshiped him and he was about as incredible a big brother as anyone could have. When I was in the car accident that had me lose my spleen (and my mother) and was in the hospital for a week recovering from my injuries, Robert, who was serving in the Army in Germany, immediately came home on emergency leave, and except to go to my mother’s funeral, didn’t leave my side for that week, sleeping in a chair next to me every night.

As I got older, our relationship inevitably became more complicated and occasionally stormy. But the love was still there, and in terms of my musical development, he was critical. It was from Robert that at the age of nine or so, I first held Born To Run in my hands. Robert turned me on to the Ramones and the Talking Heads and a zillion other bands that most pre-teens just didn’t listen to, and when I got into the Who, he insisted on playing Quadrophenia to the exclusion of all other Who records. It was from him that I got a cassette that he had picked up while stationed in Germany. The label copy was all in German except for six words: The Rolling Stones – Let It Bleed.

Robert’s call came in and someone yelled up to me to pick up. I wearily brought the phone to my ear, and the first words I heard were, “You want to go see Springsteen in Philly tomorrow night?”

I shot straight out of bed.

“Really???” I asked. Yep. And he told me that he had paid $125 for each ticket that had a face value of $17.50. I told him I was sick and he just said, “Well get better quick, kid. We’re going.” I told him I would and hung up.

I ran downstairs to tell my dad. I was now something beyond manic. My dad loathed rock and never pretended to understand my devotion to the music, but his response was typically great. “Well, if your temperature is normal by tomorrow morning, you can go.” I gobbled some more aspirin and took a couple extra anti-biotics. There was no way in the world I was missing this. By 8am the next morning, Thursday, August 15, my temperature was 98.6. My dad gave me the green light to go to the show.

My brother picked me up in the afternoon, and we drove down to Philadelphia. I’m not sure I had ever been more excited. It was not only my first Springsteen show—it was my first rock concert. It was the height of Born In The U.S.A. mania and that mania was palpable. Bruce was the biggest rock star on the planet, and Veterans Stadium felt like the center of the earth on that immensely hot and humid night.

Bruce opened, as he did practically all his shows on that tour, with a booming version of “Born In The U.S.A.” I pumped my fist in the air like everyone else. But the loudest applause in the early part of the show, even louder than when the band came out from the wings, was during the night’s second song, “Badlands,” when Clarence played his first solo of the night. The sax signified something larger than the guitars or drums; after all, every rock band had guitars and drums, and most had keyboards. No, the sax meant that we were at a Bruce Springsteen concert for real, and that fact being drilled home through Clarence’s tenor filled 65,000 people with an incredible amount of joy.

The four hours (including the intermission) went by in a blur, and Clarence felt almost as important to the night’s proceedings as Bruce himself. He was the foil, visually and musically, and his solos on “Trapped,” “I’m Goin’ Down,” “The Promised Land,” and “Hungry Heart” lit the whole of the stadium. When Bruce closed “Thunder Road” by sliding across the stage sixty feet across his knees to kiss Clarence right on the mouth, it felt both shocking to my 14 year old self and completely right. In a lot of ways, Clarence felt like the most popular person in the stadium that night.

That night, August 15, 1985, was the first night I shared with the band, the first of dozens to come. The huge majority of those shows came after Bruce reunited the band in 1999, and by then, Clarence was not nearly as mobile as he once had been. But he was still the Big Man, still playing well and his sax served as the ultimate signifier that the band was indeed back together; perhaps that’s why he was treasured more than ever. The centerpiece of the tour, a 20-minute version of “Tenth Avenue Freeze Out” climaxed every night with Bruce’s introduction of Clarence and those first two lines of the third verse of the song: “Well they made that change uptown/And the Big Man joined the band.” That was it. That was what, in a lot of ways, it was always all about.

The absence of the band for 10 years had made hardcore fans like myself very conscious to enjoy each moment we experienced with the band. The experience was no longer to be taken for granted, if it had ever been. And of all the many rituals at a Bruce and E Street show, my favorite was always the first notes of Clarence’s first solo every night. I anticipated it every night, and sometimes would look at the crowd instead of Clarence, so I could watch the faces transform into beams of joy as his sax washed over the crowd. It was a clarion call of sorts, living testament to a lot of what Bruce wanted his music to be about—friendship, joy, the search for connection, meaning and soul. Life right here, right now.

And it was about love. To experience Clarence Clemons was to experience love; the love that he put out every night to the crowd, his obvious and immense love affair with Bruce, his love of earthly pleasures, his love of soul and spirit, and his love of providing people with joy. And that love he gave was returned to him from the crowd every single night in most beautiful of ways. While there are a lot of hardcore fans that have complicated feelings about Bruce over a variety of matters (his politics, his newer material, etc.), about Clarence there was no such ambivalence. We all agreed on Clarence. And therefore, the love reflected back at him from the crowd was pure love, about a pure a thing as I’ve ever seen. Thankfully, he knew it, loved it, and reveled in it.

As a player, Clarence was both unaccomplished technically and completely perfect. He was a honker in the King Curtis tradition extending back to Los Angeles jump blues bands from the 40’s and Atlantic R&B of the 50’s. But he was always the band’s link to soul, in both music and attitude. Like the best of Springsteen’s music, where the songs simultaneously contain joy and sorrow, Clarence’s best solos in “Trapped,” “Jungleland,” “Drive All Night,” “The Promised Land,” and others, felt to me like a burst of freedom with a large heaping of knowing sadness. They may have been triumphant, but the triumph always came with a price.

I saw that price up close in April of 2009, back in Philadelphia, where I had first seen the band almost 25 years previously. The lights went down, and the band went to their spots onstage. I was about 15 rows up on the side, Clarence’s side, and even in the dark, I could see Bruce helping Clarence, who had just undergone knee and hip replacement surgery, to his spot onstage, much the way a son helps one of their infirm parents. It was clear that Clarence could barely walk. When Clarence got to his spot and Bruce knew he was properly situated, they embraced and kissed, and before the lights went on and a single note was played, I was crying.

Hearing the news of his death on Saturday night was both totally expected and a complete shock. But what surprised me was the intensity of my reaction. I got home, poured myself a scotch, scoured the Internet, made a “Clarence” playlist on iTunes—and cried off and on all night into Sunday morning. I drove out to Jersey to be with my dad on Father’s Day and the second I heard that ethereal organ intro to “Independence Day,” I lost it in the car. I cried not because there won’t be any more Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band shows with Clarence Clemons. I cried simply because I really loved living on the same planet as him, and knowing that he won’t be around anymore in the flesh really, really hurts. And it hurts today. It seems ridiculous in a way to me that losing Clarence feels like losing a member of the family, but it does. It’s a death in the family.

No matter. His body may no longer breathe, but his being--who he was for Bruce, the E Street Band, and the people he played for--lives on through thousands of hours of music and will continue to inspire and bring joy to multitudes. Perhaps it will even heal another sick fourteen-year-old boy, but it most likely won’t be because he needs to get better because the E Street Band are playing in Philadelphia the following night.

Rest in peace, Big Man. Thank you so much for everything.

Preview Of Upcoming Springsteen Community Conference

noreply@blogger.com (Ben Lazar) — Fri, 08 Oct 2010 15:16:00 +0000

On October 13 at 4pm, E Street Radio will be broadcasting the latest Springsteen Community Conference that I co-hosted with my good friend John Franck. Titled, "The Ties That Bind: Springsteen and the Next Generation," it's a great exploration of Springsteen's influence on a new generation of musicians.

Our guests for this include Tom Morello (Rage Against The Machine), Pete Yorn and drummer Jay Weinberg. It's a killer show, with some great, informative and often hilarious anecdotes, much like the one below. If you're a Bruce fan, you won't want to miss this!

Vampire Weekend Flatten Springsteen

noreply@blogger.com (Ben Lazar) — Fri, 10 Sep 2010 16:46:00 +0000

I first heard Vampire Weekend in the summer of 2007 when they were blog buzzing. A friend sent me a link to their Myspace page and said something smarmy about them, asking me where everyone's balls went. I didn't think much of what I heard-this was obviously "smart people" music made by overeducated kids who had probably majored in semiotics, or something in that realm. But whatever, they kind of blew up. I've listened to their albums and while I can listen to them and experience a bit of pleasure, broadly speaking, they do nothing for me.

There's a YouTube video of them doing Springsteen's "I'm Goin' Down" a couple of weeks ago in Vancouver that's been making the rounds. It took me a couple of tries to get all the way through it-it's so horribly cutesy and neutered that it occurs as pointless. I can't help but wonder why they even played it, as they bring nothing to it; not humor, not longing, not sadness and not fun. Yes, there's an interesting novelty about a hot indie band playing a song off of Born In The U.S.A., something that would have been unthinkable ten to twenty years ago, but all Vampire Weekend does is flatten the song into a non-entity. Listening to it, it's no wonder they've been dubbed the world's Whitest Band.

"I'm Goin' Down" is sometimes considered one of the slightest songs on Born In The U.S.A., but it's really not slight at all. It's a Springsteen song that sounds happy but is really sad, following in the grand Springsteen tradition of uptempo songs with much darker lyrical undertones. What it's really about is how love fades or becomes obscured over time. Or said in a better way, how familiarity breeds contempt.

Bruce spoke of this in his introduction to the song on the Born In The U.S.A. tour in 1984-1985. It's a funny little rap, and by putting the song in its rightful context, he takes something that could be seen as slight and elevates it to the level of something truly special, something that eludes Vampire Weekend utterly and completely.

Download: Bruce Springsteen & The E Street Band - "I'm Goin Down" (Los Angeles, CA 10/26/84)

John Legend Finds His Anger

noreply@blogger.com (Ben Lazar) — Wed, 08 Sep 2010 20:26:00 +0000

John Legend with the Roots on September 7, 2010

I've never been much of a John Legend fan. To my ears, he's too damned polite; decent Sunday brunch music perhaps, but entirely middle of the road. Safe. Nice. Harmless. He's clearly in the tradition of upwardly mobile 70's soul - Donnie Hathaway, Roberta Flack, the softer pieces of Marvin Gaye and Curtis Mayfield, and while he may be working in the soul tradition, if you asked me whether the dude has any soul, my answer would have been no.

So I went to last night's John Legend/Roots show at the Music Hall of Williamsburg more excited to see the Roots, well actually, Questlove, than hear anything off of their upcoming album. Wake Up. And indeed, the show was mainly a polite affair, only confirming many of my feelings about Legend.

But for the last song of the main set, they went into a version of Bill Withers' "I Can't Write Left-Handed,"from Withers' classic Live At Carnegie Hall, and a transformation took place. The song, written from the point of view of a wounded Vietnam Vet, was one of the best anti-war songs of its era, and in recreating it in an era of war all the time around the world, both Legend and the Roots got way beyond the polite.

Legend sunk his teeth into the song; in taking on singing for someone else, he gave himself the freedom to not be nice, to give voice to rage, sorrow, and resentment. He moaned, yelled, shouted and caressed his own aggression. He pounded his piano, responding to the anguish in his vocals with thunderous and jazzy little runs. It was revelatory.

The Roots, who had played within themselves all night, like a great basketball player told that they can only do lay-ups and not dunk, finally let loose, and began to tear it up, especially guitarist "Captain" Kirk Douglas who played with both speed and suppleness, elevating the tension with each pass through the chorus. Questlove, who had the visage of a funeral director for most of the night, finally began to beam with a grin as he and Legend looked at each other and kept taking it higher. Each time I thought the song might be concluded, they attacked once more, and when they finally finished, the crowd erupted in both release and appreciation. They came to do an encore, but it was really superfluous - nothing else was necessary.

I came away with a new opinion of John Legend. I still feel no need to put his albums on, but I'm far more interested to hear what he does next - perhaps what's been missing in his music up until now is anger, an anger that would curb his tendency for syrup, and would make his realm of romance far more powerful and earned. And for the question, is John Legend soulful, I have a new answer. His music by and large may not be soulful, but down deep, the man has soul.

The 60 Rolling Stones Songs Of All Time (#20-#11)

noreply@blogger.com (Ben Lazar) — Tue, 07 Sep 2010 23:03:00 +0000

20. "Wild Horses" (1971, from Sticky Fingers)

Recorded in Muscle Shoals in December of 1969 while on the triumphant U.S. tour that cemented their "greatest rock and roll band in the world" status, "Wild Horses" is a classic Jagger-Richards collaboration, with Keith providing the chorus and riff and Mick providing the verses. It's a perfect pop song, managing to drain the cliche out of a cliche and providing sentiment without ever curdling into the maudlin. The Stones may not be often thought of as making beautiful music, but they've made a lot of it, and this might be their most beautiful song of all.

19. “Torn And Frayed” (1972, from Exile On Main Street)

One of their druggiest songs during one their druggiest periods, “Torn And Frayed” is built on three simple chords and the littered reverie of Keith, Anita, Gram Parsons and a boatload of hangers on, leeches, and people looking for a little taste of Glimmer, which as Keith later said, is more addictive than smack. Keith’s background vocals sound like they’re coming from a man’s who’s drowning, which in a way, he was, even though he was at his creative peak.

18, “Dead Flowers” (1971, from Sticky Fingers)

By Peter Ramos

It’s hard to tell how seriously Mick or the Stones took their country-fied song “Dead Flowers” when they recorded it.  British musicians playing the blues was one thing, but country? Of course we know now that Keith was hanging around, trading secrets and habits with Gram Parsons.  As well, the song acquired vocal gravitas, and official country legitimacy, when Townes Van Zandt covered it.  Still, whenever I hear Mick starting to sing in that low, slightly exaggerated Southern twang, I can’t help but think, “He’s kidding, no?”  Later, Mick would officially push the act over the top when the band recorded “Far Away Eyes,” too defensively, perhaps, against the criticism that he—a Brit who went to the London School Of Economics for Christ-sakes!—had no business singing God-fearin’ American country.

I grew up in the suburbs in the 80s. I went to private schools and then a liberal arts college, and though this didn’t completely determine the kinds of music I liked, it seems in some ways no surprise that I listened to classic rock, pop, new wave, punk, and, on rarer occasions, soul and R&B. Hair-band heavy metal couldn’t be taken seriously or even ironically. And country—including the original “classic” kind—was out of the question. And so I must confess, though I’m sure I’m not alone, that hearing “Dead Flowers” for the first time (during the summer of 1990 and right before what should have been my senior year at college) was my first taste of country music.  By this I mean, as I’ve already implied, not that I hadn’t heard country music before, but that I hadn’t yet taken it seriously. However outrageous and artificial Mick’s vocalizing might be, it was the Stones, and not Billy Ray Cyrus (very popular at that time), after all.  Thinking back now, I realize I had already heard “Wild Horses”—in fact it was on a Greatest Hits album I’d owned since middle school—but somehow that song never struck me as being Country in the strict sense, never announced the musical genre it borrowed from in such a loud, self-proclaiming, italicized way.  “Wild Horses” has a country feel; “Dead Flowers,” from the first bar to the last, is Country!  I also suspect that because I’d heard the former so often growing up, on popular radio stations, at mixers and parties, it had become for me naturalized into the genre of “standard classic rock”—not that there’s anything standard about that extraordinary, lovely song. Or maybe, along similar lines, because I’d heard so little real county music growing up—outside of the kind from people like John Denver—I never noticed the influence.

If it matters what and where I was when I first heard “Dead Flowers,” or what state of mind I was in, then I’ll simply state I was with some friends in a field in the middle of summer, very drunk and feeling sorry for myself because of a recent break-up I’d had with my girlfriend of two years. She was not my first girlfriend but my first “true love.” I put the phrase in quotes now to signify that that is how I felt then. So. Your typical suburban college student on summer break, working a shitty job with lots of free time and just enough money to pitch in for and help drink a couple of cases of National Bohemian: sentimental, maudlin, and very drunk.  

This, too, was not a first. In high school, I would also have been drunk, maudlin, sentimental, possibly heartsick, and listening to music—say The Smiths—with this important difference: when I was 16, I really believed my feelings were truly unique to me and that by some miracle Morrissey understood my personal sadness and alienation and articulated it back to me. In college, one comes to understand, more and more, just how typical one’s intense feelings really are. Not that this makes those feelings any less poignant, but it is a relief to finally get beyond the maddening solitary agony of high school narcissism. (Editor’s note: As far as I’m concerned, no one has ever articulated the regrettably long-lasting appeal of Morrissey better than in the sentences above.)

And this last point brings me back to the song itself and to the actual genius of Mick’s performance in it. He knows, as we do, the role drunken heartbreak plays in the economy of country music—it’s a standard, a convention. There’s a tear in my beer. Rather than sing HIS version of country music, his personal take on it, he gives us country music as it is. He uses the standards themselves.  Like any art form, jazz or blues, for example, the standards or conventions of the form, far from inhibiting an artist’s style, personality, uniqueness or originality, are the very media through which his/her personality expresses itself; there is no other way. The Stones are from England, as everyone knows. It’s 1970, not 1955.  If they’re going to play country, they’re going to play it according to its terms, its rules and traditions, and they’re going to do that with the kind of unassailable confidence, that sexy arrogance they’ve had ever since they realized how silly it was perform psychedelic British rock in the wake of Sergeant Pepper’s. Once they’d gotten “2000 Light Years From Home” out of their system, they were ready to become the Stones we’ve come to love ever since.  They would do country, but on country’s terms. Consider the alternatives: if they’d tried, out of a lack of confidence, to insist they were actually playing British “roots music,” some kind of cornball “skiffle” version of country; or imagine if they insisted on there being a connection between country music and Ancient Anglo-Saxon mythology-in the way Led Zeppelin, at their goofiest, sought to establish themselves and their credibility in the genre by drawing parallels between Delta Blues and "The Lord of the Rings." No, that would not do. (Editor’s note: That one sentence sums up Zeppelin’s greatest flaw.)

And yet, Mick is also kidding, after all. Or at least half-kidding. He is capable or being serious when it comes to country. “Wild Horses,” as I’ve implied, is a serious song, a love song, in which the speaker/singer—Mick, obviously—professes his unwavering affection for and dedication to his beloved.  But “Dead Flowers,” lyrically at least, has no such heights of passion. Here the speaker/singer addresses an X-lover. Love has turned to hate: send me hate mail, and I’ll bury you.  But even this passion doesn’t really amount to much; far from being a story of two lovers intent on killing each another, it’s more like, you’re a bratty Southern debutante who looks down on me and my rough neck friends; you also keep sending me these literal reminders that you hate me, but they only show how much you can’t forget me. I, on the other hand, find you annoying, yet neither can I move past you, since I’m a junky and a fuck-up. In fact, I’ll show up at your funeral with flowers but only to finally achieve the ultimate though petty revenge of outliving you.  Again, the banality of this lyrical drama only serves to locate the song more precisely in the very tradition with which the song seeks to align itself.  Traditional country music had already created the story of the lamenting, lovesick-blues singer, endlessly and in so many ways—“If my drinking don’t kill me, her memory will”—it had become itself one more convention of the genre.  

And it’s the genre itself, far from restricting the Stones, that allows them to shine through it.  Consider the song: the loose and lazy backbeat behind that acoustic guitar’s opening open chords, narcotizing and comfortable, the rhythm guitar and honky-tonk piano, and then, a little splash, just the first hints, of that brilliantly whining slide guitar.  In the chorus we hear, just behind Jagger’s low twang but harmonizing with it, unmistakably, Keith’s voice—wonderfully flawed, cracked, but high and lonesome as a bluegrass tenor’s.  And then, best of all, after the second chorus, when the song has completely established itself—Mick Taylor’s solo, a seamless combination of country and blues licks, elegant and tasteful, lowdown and dirty, all at once.  It hits me now that a fine lead guitar solo can make a bad song good (Peter Buck’s on R.E.M.’s silly and otherwise forgettable “Stand") and a good song sublime (Robby Krieger’s on The Doors’ “Moonlight Drive”). And Taylor was new, just finding his way, musically, into the group. This was the first Stones record on which he plays, officially, and on every song. Most amazing of all, he was just out of his teens, “just a lad, nearly 22,” as Hank Williams, himself, sang.

Is it their best song? Maybe not.  But it’s damn good, and more importantly, it opened a door for me into other kinds of music, other traditions within music that deserve attention for their authority, influence and long-lasting beauty.

17, “All Down The Line” (1972, from Exile On Main Street)

To promote their 1975 U.S. tour, the Stones played "Brown Sugar" on a flat-bed truck down Park Avenue in New York. It was Charlie's idea, lifted from New York jazz bands of the 30's who would promote their gigs that way. "Brown Sugar" may have been the "right" choice, but "All Down The Line" would have been the more appropriate one.

When the Stones were at their best, they embodied strut and swagger combined with a devastating uptown elegance, almost as though they were a 1970's version of the Count Basie band - swinging hard with an irresistible and sensual gleam. They'd ravage your town and take your woman - and do it with impeccable style. Nowhere was that more present than on "All Down The Line."

Towering and majestic, lowdown and dirty, this is the music of men at the peak of their powers; musical, sexual, and every which way. "Hear the women sighing," Mick sings, and you know it's true. But even at this peak, this being the Stones, there are no unqualified celebrations. "I need a sanctified girl with a sanctified mind to help me out now," sings Mick, lonely at the top, and way too smart not to notice that all is not well with the Exiles. But judging from the devastating groove, you'd never know that there's a problem. That would come later.

16. “Saint Of Me” (1998, from Bridges To Babylon)

It’s January, 1998 and I’m with my friend John at Madison Square Garden to see what turns out to be a pretty great Stones show. By now, I’ve seen enough Stones tours behind mediocre albums (Steel Wheels, Voodoo Lounge) to know that when Mick introduces a song by saying, “Here’s a new one…,” I’ve got five minutes or so of downtime. On this night however, I hear some interesting drum loops, a cool riff and as Mick starts singing, it dawns on me that this is not the usual paint-by-numbers late-period Stones song, a la “You Got Me Rocking” or other such dribble. I don’t catch all of the lyrics, but “you’ll never make a saint of me” in the chorus comes off loud and clear. The song rocks, the band slashes its way through it, and when it ends, the applause in the Garden is louder than usual for a new song. John and I look at each other, nod, and say simultaneously, “Good song.”

So I go back to the song, and it immediately becomes clear that this is not just a good song - it's a great Rolling Stones song, with every element of the arrangement working magnificently. Actually, it's really a great Mick Jagger song, as Keith is nowhere to be found on it. The guitars are courtesy of Ron Wood and Waddy Wachtel; the bass is from Me'Shelle N'Ddgeocello; the keyboards are from Mick and Billy Preston and the background vocals are by Bernard Fowler and Blondie Chaplin. Keith may have disparaged the Dust Brothers production on Bridges (he recorded most of his contributions with Don Was), but on this track he's just dead wrong; their modern touches work perfectly, giving Mick some vindication in his continued pursuit in keeping the Stones at least a little au currant.

And unlike many Rolling Stones songs post Exile, the lyrics don't sound like they were written in a cab on the way to the studio. The religious imagery alludes to "Sympathy For The Devil," but since by now it's clear that Mick ain't Lucifer, it's essential that he establish that he's not going to grow old gracefully either, which the semi-mean spirited bastard does rather well. Their last great song.

15. "Sweet Virginia" (1972, from Exile On Main Street)

Beyond the sex and violence, the Stones are also a party, and "Sweet Virginia" is the party. When you're out with friends, at someone's home or out at a bar, there's a look that passes over people's faces when "Sweet Virginia" comes on: it's a wry smile, recalling bad things done and bad things yet to be done.

14. "Waiting On A Friend" (1981, from Tattoo You)

Few partnerships/friendships have been more questioned, dissected and speculated about than the one between Mick Jagger and Keith Richards. It's easy to understand why; they're such an aesthetically pleasing partnership - in look, sound and in the contrast of their personalities.

The standard rap has become that Keith is the true artist in the band, the one dedicated to the music first, and that Mick is the far more calculated one, the cold-eyed businessman. Keith is the rebel and Mick is the bourgeois social climber with a knighthood, for Chrissakes! And while there's truth to that, the whole truth is far more ambivalent and complicated.

Some of the riffs that are most identified as "Keith Richards riffs," like the one in "Brown Sugar," are Mick's. And no one can be more cold than Keith Richards, who after Mick Taylor's resignation from the band, dismissed him with a one sentence telegram. Mick has written some of the band's greatest music by himself, and kept the band together when Keith was too smacked out to hold up his end of the bargain. The real truth is they need and love each other - more than either would care to admit.

They fight like schoolboys - or an old married couple, and they know where to hit where it hurts. But they're clearly bound together, and women aside, they're obviously the most important person in the others life, a fact that they seem to often resent. And I would assert that it's that resentment, more than anything else, that is responsible for so much mediocre Rolling Stones music in the past thirty five years.

But "Waiting On A Friend," whether about Mick and Keith or not, captures the spirit of the relationship the way we would like to imagine it. It's a gentle and loving, and Nicky Hopkins twinkling piano and Sonny Rollins sax say everything that Keith and Mick Taylor's guitar may have left out. Originally recorded in Jamaica for 1973's Goat's Head Soup, this was one of the songs that Tattoo You associate producer Chris Kimsey recommended that the band rework for the album (it needed lyrics and vocals), and the idea was a stroke of genius on Kimsey's part, as it turned out to be not just one of their best songs, but also one of their most perfectly arranged ones.

13. "Happy" (1972, from Exile On Main Street)

And then there is Keith.

I am not a man who has many heroes. But he's one of them. I love him for the elegance and earthiness of his playing; a style, that while simple to play, no one has ever come close to replicating even half as well. I love how much he loves music; how his face lights up when he talks about Muddy Waters or the effect that hearing rock n' roll for the first time had on him. I love his no bullshit, reality based, anti-pretention, be-your-own-man attitude. I love that the man, deep down, is a romantic of the first order, a believer in chivalry, something of a gallant knight. He's funny as hell and a raconteur of the first order. And he's a man of honor.

It has me forgive his shortcomings: his stubborn and seemingly reflexive dismissal of new sounds; his addictions that no doubt have had an adverse effect on the band; his occasional coldness; and, most importantly, the fact that somewhere down the line, his ability to discern the truly great from the serviceable in his own music went to shit.

"I need love to keep me happy" goes the chorus of his best, most famous, and most beloved song, and it's a truism that sums up the man in some fashion; so simple and yet so affecting. I like living in a world with Keith Richards in it.

12. "You Can't Always Get What You Want" (1969, from Let It Bleed)

I've heard this song a million fucking times and every time it comes on, I'm in awe of it. The arrangement is so astounding as to be almost unbelievable; that chorale opening, the acoustic guitar that cuts like a knife in the first verse, the maracas, Al Kooper's organ, Jimmy Miller's drums (Charlie couldn't get the groove on it), and that outro. It's a perfect song.

11. "Jumping Jack Flash" (1968, from Through The Past, Darkly [Big Hits Vol. 2])

The song that launched them into the band we know and love today, getting them off of psychedelic imitations of the Beatles and taking them of their baroque period. The riff works just as well forty-two years later, if not better, and if you can take it out of its "I've heard this song on classic rock radio thousands of times" context, you'll hear, once again, how amazing it is.

When rock magazine's do their lists of the "Greatest Singers Of All Time," Jagger isn't usually mentioned at the top, which is a shame, because he's an original. Even when he was trying to imitate soul singers, he wasn't really trying to imitate soul singers because he was too smart not to know that he wasn't going to sound a black American soul singer. But he's done his own thing - conjuring, threatening, seducing, sashaying. You'll never get all of him the way you'd get all of, say, Redding, Lennon or Springsteen, but at his best, Jagger gives you enough, teasing you and leaving you wanting more.

Arcade Fire Beyond Niche

noreply@blogger.com (Ben Lazar) — Mon, 16 Aug 2010 18:37:00 +0000

I'm sorry I didn't see the Arcade Fire's shows at Madison Square Garden on August 4th and 5th. From what I've read, the shows were anywhere in the range from very good to great, and while I'm generally positive but far from super-enthusiastic about The Suburbs, live is apparently how you need to get this band.

I'm not going to review the album. Rob Harvilla from the Village Voice has written a review that neatly and smartly encapsulates many of my views about both the band and the album, which for me is another in a series of epochal "good but not nearly great" albums in the tradition of Ok Computer, Yankee Hotel Foxtrot, Is This It?, Up The Bracket, the entire Spoon catalog, and more - music whose praise has me listen and listen and listen, only to end up scratching my head at what all the fuss is about. I'd love to ascribe it to my contrary nature, but I yearn for consensus about the great far more than I yearn to make everyone else wrong.

And while it'd be nice if the herd of independent thinkers had a more consistent ability to discern the truly great from the good, the success of the Arcade Fire is heartening in that it shows that there is a demand, even amongst the too cool for schoolers, for music to be something more than one's private, nichefied pleasure. Just imagine if the Arcade Fire's songwriting chops matched their ambition. Now that would be something, because Springsteen comparisons or no Springsteen comparisons, Born In The U.S.A. this ain't, rhythmically, humor wise, in insight or any which way. But there's always the next album, and I guess I gotta see 'em live.

The 60 Greatest Rolling Stones Songs Of All Time (#30-#21)

noreply@blogger.com (Ben Lazar) — Thu, 12 Aug 2010 19:48:00 +0000

Well, it only took me three months to start the second half of the countdown, but good things come to those who wait, right?

30. “Start Me Up” (1981, from Tattoo You)

It’s the late fall of 1981. I’m 11 years old, in 6th grade, and I’m visiting my big sister at Syracuse University, where she’s attending law school. My father has allowed me to take the bus on my own to see her, so I’m feeling pretty manly. Big stuff. We’re out getting food at some place that feels “college-y” to me, and I’m feeling really, really cool. “Start Me Up” comes on, and I’m quietly singing along to it all the way through. It’s been a big hit all through that fall of 1981, and I’ve got the Tattoo You cassette, which I like, but don’t love. (It would take me about 25 years to become a big fan of side two.)

The song comes to its coda when Jagger, as the song begins the fade out sings, “You make a dead man come.” I sing along to the line. My sister, who is almost 15 years older and super-protective of me, gets an urgently worried look on her face, and asks semi-frantically, “Do you know what that line means???” “Yeah,” I explain somewhat impudently, very sure of myself. “It means that the girl is so pretty that the dead guy comes out of his coffin.” My sister explodes in laughter, relieved that at least for a little while longer, her baby brother is still very innocent.

29. “Stop Breaking Down” (1972, from Exile On Main Street)

I’m 19 years old, and I read something in Rolling Stone where Steven Tyler is saying that he’s kept time to “All Down The Line” while fucking. Being that I’m not particularly experienced or confident in the area of sex and know that Steven Tyler is, I remember little nugget, and use it the next chance I get. It kind of works, as I’ve got a solid beat to concentrate on and keeping time has never been an issue for me. But something isn’t quite right. I share the Steven Tyler story with the woman I’m with, and she laughs. Fortunately, she knows Exile well and says that “All Down The Line” is way too fast. She suggests that I keep time to “Stop Breaking Down” instead, and implores me to make sure to include some of the syncopation within. Smart woman. Great woman.

A year or so later, I’m with a friend in his dorm room, and we’re heavy into some really great acid. We’re drinking beer after beer and listening to Exile. “Stop Breaking Down” comes on, and we get completely into the fiber of the song, in that special way that only people who have used hallucinogenics will completely understand. I turn to my friend and say, “Jesus. This is really violent.” His eyes bulge, and he responds “Oh My God, you’re right!” like I have just revealed the secret of the Universe. If the Secret was going to be anywhere, I guess it could be in “Stop Breaking Down.” Good times.

28. “Moonlight Mile” (1971, from Sticky Fingers)

It’s the sound of the sun coming up after coming down very, very long night; the fear hovering, a “head full of snow,” and all of it impossibly weary and impossibly romantic. The band’s most beautiful arrangement, thanks to mainly to Mick Taylor, who built the song off a short riff by Keith, elongated and elaborated upon it, and then had the brilliant idea to give it to Paul Buckmaster (“Tiny Dancer”) to add strings. Of course, he got no credit (royalties) for it.

Jagger may never have claimed to be speaking for anyone other than himself, but “Moonlight Mile” captures post-60’s alienation and exhaustion about as well as anyone – and makes it shimmer. One of the greatest ballads by anyone at anytime.

27. “Can’t You Hear Me Knocking” (1971, from Sticky Fingers)

Keith takes his fetish for open G tuning and creates one of his most memorable riffs; a slashing dagger of a sound that’s part violence and part sex – the Midnight Rambler coming off a Gibson.

I’ve always been ambivalent about the jam that fills out the last four or so minutes of the song. It’s a fine jam, but it’s impossible to be anything other than a letdown after what’s come before. Mick Taylor may have been the best lead player the Stones ever had; lyrical, melodic and technically brilliant, but unfortunately, he wasn’t necessary, just like the jam on “Can’t You Hear Me Knocking.”

26. “Salt Of The Earth” (1968, from Beggars Banquet)

Keith sings sincerely for the Proletariat, because it might have sounded ridiculous coming out of Mick’s mouth, given that he wrote it completely cynically. The Stones were never really a working class band; at the outset, they chose their poverty rather than having it imposed upon them. But they sound completely convincing, mainly because Mick undercuts the sentiment within by acknowledging his own alienation from the masses he courted so successfully. And whoever made the call to include the Los Angeles Watts Street Gospel Choir on it deserves a Nobel Prize.

25. “You’ve Got The Silver” (1969, unreleased alternate take)

The version from Let It Bleed with Keith on lead vocals is great. The alternate, unreleased version with Mick Jagger on lead vocals is otherworldly. It speaks for itself.

24. "Midnight Rambler" (1970, from Get Yer Ya-Ya's Out, recorded 1969)

Violence as sex, sex as violence - all of it so compelling that you don't know whether it's a fantasy or a nightmare. A "Blues Opera" is what Keith calls it, and I guess that's sort of true, although there's plenty of striptease in there too.

Listening to the version from Get Yer Ya-Ya's Out, recorded at Madison Square Garden in November of 1969, I can't help but wonder: What the hell were a band making music this violent doing throwing a free concert? Jerry Garcia said that the Stones were that bit of red and black that one has in their sex life, and when he said that, he must have been thinking about "Midnight Rambler" - this is about as far from peace and love as it gets.

23. “Love In Vain” (1969, from Let It Bleed)

I had a sometimes weird and sometimes wonderful on/off relationship with a woman in my mid-20’s. She was thoroughly inappropriate for me and we had disastrously bad sex (once), but she was beautiful and I loved her anyway, somewhat unrequitedly. She got me into drinking scotch and I kept her cat, two things for which I will forever be grateful to her for. We’re now great friends, so it all turned out.

We didn’t agree on much musically speaking. She was a punk and indie rocker – but punk for her wasn’t the Sex Pistols or the Ramones; she had never even heard Never Mind The Bollocks Here’s The Sex Pistols. For her, punk rock meant a lot crappy, soulless, pretentious and sexless indie bands on K Records that I tried to like – I was smitten enough by her that I was willing to give an open ear to anything she was into – but found utterly dreadful. The one thing we agreed on was the Stones (and Al Green – she hated Springsteen - so much for taste).

We would get drunk on Johnnie Walker Red, put on Let It Bleed, and we’d start singing “Love In Vain,” not particularly well. The lyrics would always hit hard and I would feel that pit in my stomach; I knew this was a relationship that wasn’t going to happen, that she wasn’t even appropriate for me – and I wanted her anyway, and couldn’t have her. Love in vain indeed, but in the end, all for the best.

22. "Casino Boogie" (1972, from Exile On Main Street)

My first copy of Exile was on a 60 minute cassette that I recorded off of someone else. Exile is 66 minutes long, so I had to cut a couple of songs and “Shake Your Hips” and “Casino Boogie” were the casualties. (And there was something to be said for going right from “Rip This Joint” into “Tumbling Dice.”) At the time, the two songs seemed insignificant to me. Even a couple of years later, when I got a full copy of the album, the magnificence of “Casino Boogie” was something that I was not yet equipped to grasp. It took probably several hundred listens for me to finally get the majesty of the thing. But when I did…

To the uninitiated, “Casino Boogie” feels more like a groove than a song. But what a groove! Part New Orleans, part juke joint, part Chicago blues and part bordello, it’s a groove that screams wonderfully decadent times and nasty habits, all of which seem like so much fun, it makes me wonder if in the end, the casualties left in the wake of the Glimmer Twins thought it was all worth it.

21. “Sympathy For The Devil” (1968, from Beggars Banquet)

"Sympathy For The Devil," one of the greatest songs ever about humanity and evil, is terrifying in its perfection. Everything about it is brilliant - the conga intro, primitive and timeless; the way the Nicky Hopkins' piano drops in perfectly; the slow build of it and the perfect dynamics; Keith’s solo, one of the greatest in rock history; and of course, the “woo-woo’s." It’s guttural and earthy yet completely cosmopolitan and sophisticated - Bohemia moved to Africa.

It’s a band triumph - they worked for this one, refining the arrangement over and over again until they got it right, but the biggest triumph belongs to Mick, as both lyricist and vocalist, who captures the terrifying and thrilling frenzy of that Spring of '68, as revolution and murder weren't just in the air, they were the air.

Recorded during the period of Bobby Kennedy's assassination, Jagger takes us on a trip through history to assert that the devil isn’t some presence out there, but something that lurking within all of us, a message missed by many who took the song literally, thinking the song is a paean to Lucifer. The Stones were always smarter than their detractors. But even that speaks to Jagger’s genius; with smooth, cool and controlled fury, he could really make you believe he was the Devil. Or at least back then he could.

Springsteen Community Conference: Bruce & Politics

noreply@blogger.com (Ben Lazar) — Thu, 24 Jun 2010 14:00:00 +0000

At long last is the posting of the Springsteen Community Conference on Sirius/XM's E Street Radio from this past April. The subject was "Bruce and Politics" and I moderated a great panel featuring writer Dave Marsh, John Franck, Jovan Mrvos, Stan Goldstein and Lisa Ianucci. We covered a broad range of subjects and I'm really pleased with how it turned out. Enjoy.

Download: Springsteen Community Conference: Bruce and Politics (zip file)

The 60 Greatest Rolling Stones Songs Of All Time (#40-#31)

noreply@blogger.com (Ben Lazar) — Wed, 12 May 2010 14:26:00 +0000

Round three, with a disclaimer to start:

I would LOVE to post streaming links to the original versions of these songs, or mp3's. But that just ain't possible right now, so if you're checking out some of these songs for the first time, make sure to find the original versions on the albums I've noted they're from.

And with that said, we continue.

40. “Mercy Mercy” (1965, from Out Of Our Heads)

In their earliest incarnation as an R&B cover band, the Stones didn’t always improve on the original they were covering. Usually, they toughened up the sound, making it faster and leaner. With Don Covay's "Mercy Mercy," they not only toughened the song up, they took it away from him. The original is pretty standard R&B fare; a pleading, lilting number begging the singer's love interest to stay. It's a good soul song, but far from special.

The Stones made it special. Keith's intro line supplies an ominousness that is nowhere to be found on the original, and Bill and Charlie outrock and outgroove Covay's rhythm section. But Jagger is the star here; you can hear the first hints of him finding his own style as a vocalist; leonine, with a naughty edge - the Midnight Rambler, junior version. "Mercy Mercy" is the sound of the band growing beyond their source material.

39. "Jigsaw Puzzle" (1968, from Beggars Banquet)

If you grew up on late 70's/early 80's AOR radio as I did, it was easy to miss the true greatness of the Stones. Perhaps there were about 15-20 songs in rotation on Classic Rock radio, mainly from Hot Rocks, along with a handful of late 70's and early 80's hits. I'm embarrassed to say that there was a time I thought the band was overrated.

But that's because radio never played songs like "Jigsaw Puzzle," one of those criminally lesser known treasures from the band's creative peak, 1968-1972. It's got everything - a sinewy and sensual Charlie groove; a propulsive and nasty bass line from Bill; a driving acoustic guitar track from Keith; ferocious slide playing from Brian that is both a peak and a last gasp; and vocals from Mick that are so slyly and smartly phrased it's as though he brings discipline to decadence. Which, of course, is exactly what Mick Jagger does.

38. "Winter" (1973, from Goat's Head Soup)

By 1973, the Stones were exhausted, and they sounded like it. Following the masterpiece Exile On Main Street with the lackluster Goat's Head Soup, you could hear the bill come in on the years of continual work, play and abuse. But on this track, unlike many of the other songs on Goat's, Jagger didn't pretend that he was anything but exhausted, and that's what “Winter” great.

37. "No Expectations" (1968, from Beggars Banquet)

I fell in love for the first time when I was 20. She was older than me, sexy as hell, and far more experienced than me. (I wasn’t a virgin, but I might as well have been.) On our first date, we ended up going back to her place, and we put on my cassette of Beggars Banquet on one side and Let It Bleed on the other and made out continuously, long enough to listen to both albums twice, all the way through. It was magical. For me, at least.

The second time “No Expectations” played, I got distracted, and started thinking about Brian Jones, while this woman’s tongue was in my mouth. “I wonder what it would have been like if Brian had stayed in the band,” I asked myself. “If he had stayed, there would have been no Mick Taylor,” I countered, “and then there’s no Sticky Fingers, no Exile.” As I was having this ridiculous conversation with myself, one of Jones’ great slide licks from the song emerged, and I got my head back to the task at hand, moving slowly but surely from the world of innocence to the world of experience.

36. “It’s All Over Now” (single release 1964, from Big Hits (High Tide and Green Grass) released 1966)

Another good R&B song that they Stones completely stole into something sublime. The original was done by the Valentinos, an R&B outfit featuring Bobby Womack, who would go onto greater glory. The power chord that Keith nails in the chorus is one of the great moments in the history of rhythm guitar. Their first number one hit in England.

35. “Hand Of Fate” (1976, from Black And Blue)

Black and Blue isn’t a bad album, but it presages later albums like Dirty Work, Steel Wheels and Voodoo Lounge in how inconsequential it feels. But there's nothing inconsequential about "Hand Of Fate," with has just enough impending doom to make it very, very interesting.

34. “Live With Me” (1969, from Let It Bleed)

“I got nasty habits,” Mick declares as I’m closing up the bar where I’ve been DJ’ing all night. I’m there hanging out and indulging myself with the drop-dead-fucking-gorgeous bartender, who doles out lines with every drink she pours us. Johnnie Black on the rocks for me, Southern Comfort straight for her. The sun is coming up, and I have to be at work in about three hours.

Despite the stimuli, I’ve begun to fade, but "Live With Me" immediately gives me a jolt, and I revive, with a big shit-eating grin plastered on my face. I’ve gotten this DJ gig by bonding with the bartender over the Stones, so while it plays, we both light up and sing to each other. I think about how silky the bass is, and I kvell over Keith’s sublime harmony vocals. I also think about what I can do to get this amazing woman into bed, but I don’t make a move on her. I get that I’m so not Mick – he would have gone home with her - but when I kiss her hand and say goodnight (at 8am), I do it gallantly, and I know that Keith would approve.

33. “Miss You” (1978, from Some Girls)

In retrospect, it’s both difficult and easy to understand what all the hubbub was about disco. Difficult, because it’s only a four on the floor beat. Easy, because with its black and gay influence, and its explosive popularity, it was a significant threat to rock’s unquestioned popular dominance. Bruce Springsteen once described the anti-disco backlash as “veiled racism,” and he was right, except that he could have added homophobia as well.

The Stones one contribution to the disco era is also one of their great singles, their comeback after their desultory mid-70’s period, and a statement that they still mattered. It’s also New York in the 70’s; black, white, and Puerto Rican, on roller skates and flatbed trucks, hustling through Central Park, perhaps not getting what it wants, but definitely getting what it needs.

32. “Sway” (1971, from Sticky Fingers)

Mick counts off and the band sort of falls into it, reminding me of what the engineer Andy Johns once said about the Stones, something to the effect of hearing them rehearse hour after hour and them being awful. Then suddenly, it all comes together and they’re the Rolling Stones. “Sway” is murky and ramshackle – and devastating. Jagger’s vocals are white hot and committed – there’s none of the lazy phrasing he would take on later. Charlie’s fills hit harder than almost anything he’s ever played, and Mick Taylor plays a closing solo that the band should be paying him royalties on.

31. “Under My Thumb” (1966, from Aftermath)

The opposite of love isn’t hate – it’s indifference. And even then, the Stones knew that the only way to really gain control is by being indifferent to the object of one's desire. Paradoxical, but when aren't the Stones paradoxical? Power is a central theme of love in the Stones' music, and no one has ever explored power in relationships like they have. Of course, the way Jagger comes off, it seems as though he's the always the one in control, but given how in control he needs to be, you might have to wonder if he's hiding something.

The 60 Greatest Rolling Stones Songs Of All Time (#50-#41)

noreply@blogger.com (Ben Lazar) — Tue, 11 May 2010 14:32:00 +0000

And round two begins...

50. “Not Fade Away” (1964, from England's Newest Hitmakers)

Jovan Mrvos writes:

It’s April 1964 and the location is Chicago, Illinois. I’m 15 years old and a sophomore at a large all boys high school. I’m working at a fancy grocery store on the North side. Life is hell. My parents are all up inside of me. I’m stone cold girl crazy going to school with 5000 other Neanderthals. I’m drinking Budweiser and Canadian Club but looking for reefer whenever I can. I’m confused and starting to get early stages of being dazed.

Top Forty radio rules the fetid air waves and WLS is the king with their Silver Dollar Survey and at number 26 (up from 33) after four weeks are England’s newest hit makers, (ha!) with their rambunctious version of Buddy Holly’s “Not Fade Away.” And it has got me hooked lined and sinkered. I was just a tad bit too young for the original (more my older brother’s thing) but was set up perfectly for this.

Part of my (pre-New York Dolls) “personality crisis” was that I never quite fit in anywhere in my world at the time. My ‘hood was rock solid working class borderline “greaser” culture-racist at heart and intolerant at soul but I loved the gritty bottom of blues based music that was starting to leak out of the UK. Sure, I loved The Beatles harmonies, but it was their Chuck Berry shit that made me nuts and when the Stones popped, I had my identity. I was no mod; I was a rocker…not some amped up Teddy Boy but a long haired misfit just trying to get laid or loved, whichever came first.

Back to “Treasure Island” (the grocery store that I was working in and stealing from). When the store would close at night- we would have to mop the floors and re-stock and would change the station from wall-to-wall MUZAK to 89AM and run goods out the back door to pick up on the way home. It was there that I first heard the sounds that simply would change me forever…”I’m gonna tell ya how it’s gonna be…you’re gonna give your love to me…I’m gonna love you night and day… well love is real and not fade away…” Crazy ass harmonica and that gone daddy gone Bo Diddley beat…Game Over.

Thus began a lifelong relationship with the Stones, one that like any other has had its ups and downs, but has sustained for 40+ years. And, as a side bar, came to full fruition when in 1989 I was The Stones A&R person at Columbia for their Steel Wheels LP and did about a dozen dates with them on the tour. Highlight (among many) was being up at Quad Studios with Michael Brauer remixing the first single ("Mixed Emotions") when Mick came up with a leggy Italian by the name of Carla Bruni but, that, my friends, is a story for another day.

“Your love for me has got to be real
For you to know just how I feel
Love is real and not fade away
Well love is real and not fade away”

49. “Bitch” (1971, from Sticky Fingers)

I’ve always relished how unsentimental the Stones can be about love, and on this track, they depict love as both an agent of disorientation and the ultimate distraction. A bitch, indeed. The riff is like a ’65 black GTO with the pedal floored, driving at 100 mph at night down a dark two-lane road, and between the guitars and the horns, it’s a perfect three minute ride. Only Mick Jagger could write and sing a bad metal/S&M lyric like, “When you call my name/I salivate like a Pavlov dog” and make it sound just right.

48. “Before They Make Me Run” (1978, from Some Girls)

Keith Richards isn’t the coolest man in rock n’ roll; he isn’t even the coolest member of the Rolling Stones. (That honor goes to Charlie Watts.) But to many, he is rock’s greatest outlaw, and this is his greatest anthem. If Frank Sinatra had been a rock and roller, he would have sung this song. Think of it as Keith’s “My Way.”

47. “19th Nervous Breakdown” (single release, 1966)

Right from the start, The Rolling Stones projected a bohemian decadence that made them very attractive to the children of the upper class and won them entry into that world. Jagger soaked it all in, and in “19th Nervous Breakdown,” he depicted the world of the idle rich; the Edie Sedgewicks of the world - beautiful, spoiled and doomed, and he lacerated them. He must have known that his put downs would only make him more attractive to them.

46. “It’s Only Rock And Roll” (1974, from It’s Only Rock And Roll)

Chuck Berry is the Louis Armstrong of rock n’ roll, and the Rolling Stones are his greatest progeny. In the midst of their mid-70’s nadir, one of the relatively few highlights was this updated and mutated version of Berry’s “Little Queenie.” Of particular note is the ridiculous video, with the band in sailor suits, overwhelmed by of all things, bubbles.

45. “The Last Time” (single release 1965, from Big Hits (High Tide And Green Grass) released 1966)

This one is thanks to early manager Andrew Loog-Oldham, who, knowing that there were a limited amount of great R&B songs that the band could cover, locked up reluctant songwriters Mick and Keith in a room until they came with something that they could “take to the boys without being embarrassed.” It’s got one of Keith’s great early riffs, which as writer Dave Marsh later noted, seemed to compensate for the band’s lack of a horn section. The song also helped to establish the Jagger persona – tough and callow – and he sounded far more convincing singing this then more than a few of their beloved R&B numbers. And while they didn’t know it at the time, “The Last Time” served as one of the first nails in Brian Jones’ coffin: Once Jagger/Richards had their writing, the terminally insecure former leader of the band was forever on the outside looking in, getting the Mick and Keith freeze out.

44. “Stray Cat Blues” (1968, from Beggars Banquet)

“Would you let your daughter date a Rolling Stone,” asked a tabloid in the mid-60’s, as Andrew Oldham positioned the band in the media to be the anti-Beatles. Perhaps at first it was only imaging, but the band soon learned to live into it, and with tracks like this one, where Mick proposes a threesome with a 15-year old girl and her friend, it’s easy to understand why they were both revered and reviled as objects of both fantasy and worrisome reality. Perhaps Mick can be dismissed as joking on this, but everything here probably happened in reality, and the snarling guitars and the sinewy bass mean nothing but some very nasty business.

43. “Street Fighting Man” (1968, from Beggars Banquet)

Recorded in the Spring of 1968, when the world seemed to be unraveling (Paris student riots, Prague Spring, the murders of MLK and RFK), the band took all the events in, heard the youthful call for revolution, and viewed it far more skeptically than any of their peers – which had them be wiser than any of them. “Think the time is right for Paris revolution/But where I live the game to play is compromise solution,” sang Mick Jagger, former student at the London School of Economics, his cynicism serving him very, very well.

42. “Shattered” (1978, from Some Girls) New York City in the late 70’s was a gritty and grimy mess, and Some Girls was the perfect match for that version it – dirty, tough and pornographically sexual. For a certain kind of person, New York City in that era was the greatest adult playground in the world – the same kind of person who didn’t just love the Stones, but lived them, too.

41. “Little T&A” (1981, from Tattoo You)

“Tits and ass with soul,” sings a very much in love Keith Richards, and it’s a line that has always served as a dividing line for me. If you’re offended by it, we probably shouldn’t meet for lunch. If you love it, we might want to talk about getting married.

The 60 Greatest Rolling Stones Songs Of All Time (#60-#51)

noreply@blogger.com (Ben Lazar) — Mon, 10 May 2010 14:04:00 +0000

Paul Westerberg may have a lyric that says he never goes far without a little Big Star, but I don't go anywhere without having the Rolling Stones nearby. More than any artist - and yes, that includes Bruce, Aretha and Al - I've lived the full range of my life to the Stones - I've listened and conjured with them; fallen in love to them; discussed, advocated and argued for and about them; danced, fucked and partied my ass off to them; and, most importantly, formed many, if not most of the seminal relationships in my life through them. Bruce and Aretha may reach into a deeper, more solitary and spiritual dimension of my soul, but the Stones hit pretty deep, and Bruce and Aretha haven't been there when I've been hanging out with a beautiful woman at 3am. For that kind of peak life experience, there is nothing like the music of the Rolling Stones.

The timing of this list is fortuitous, given the media blitz surrounding the re-release of the Greatest Album Of All Time, Exile On Main Street, but it's not deliberate. I've been working on this list for a while, and there are some guest contributions coming in the next segments.

I have little patience for those who hold opinions that are dismissive of the Rolling Stones. Actually, I have plenty of patience - it's just that I'm not very interested in them. If you don't like the Stones, I'm probably not going to be very interested in anything else you do like. As Robert Christgau has written,

Only rock and roll? The Stones are the proof of the form. When the guitars and the drums and the voice come together in those elementary patters that no one else has ever quite managed to simulate, the most undeniable excitement is a virtually automatic result. To insist that this excitement doesn't reach you is not to articulate an aesthetic judgment but to assert a rather uninteresting crotchet of taste. It is to boast that you don't like rock and roll itself.

And with that, here we go...

60. “Emotional Rescue” (1980, from Emotional Rescue)

“I’ll be your savior, steadfast and true,” sings Mick in a falsetto borrowed from Al Green and a handful of other soul singers. And while it’s hard to imagine that bastard Mick coming to anyone’s rescue, emotional or otherwise, the bridge is so beautiful that you’re desperate to believe every word out of his mouth. Of course, he has to let you know that he’s totally full of shit at the end of it, with that absurdly sung “I’ll be your knight in shining armor” line. Bitch, please. You probably sang that buttoning up your pants as you were walking out the door.

59. “She Said Yeah” (1965, from December's Children (And Everybody's))

Yeah, the Clash may have sang “no more Elvis, Beatles, or Rolling Stones,” but they loved the Stones, especially Keith. And with this buzz saw piece of proto-punk from ’66, you can hear how important the Stones, in both sound and attitude, were to the formation of punk rock. And given that the version they covered was by American R&B artist Larry Williams, you can see the link between R&B and punk, a link that unfortunately, not enough people see or recognize.

58. “Beast Of Burden” (1978, from Some Girls)

What makes “Beast Of Burden” so great is how wonderfully every single member of the band plays on it. There’s another member of the “Keith Richards Opening Riff Hall Of Fame”; Charlie’s laid back swing, with subtle patterns on the hi-hat that reveal his love of jazz, specifically Count Basie drummer Jo Jones; the deceptively simple throb of Bill Wyman’s bass; the guitar weave of Keith and Ronnie Wood and finally, Jagger’s vocals, in which he unveils his full arsenal – from aggressive growl to the sensually effeminate falsetto. And the lyrics are unusually tender - and believable.

57. “Heart Of Stone” (single release 1964, from Big Hits (High Tide & Green Grass) released 1966)

From Smokey Robinson, Leiber and Stoller and other great R&B songwriters, Jagger learned early on of the value of putting subtle twists in his lyrics, which, for an ironist like him, was less a clever writing device than an expressive necessity. The song seems like another early piece of “Jagger-as-Cad,” but when he finds that girl who doesn’t fall for his bullshit, he of course is smitten. An early piece of Rolling Stones irony. There would be much more.

56. “Cocksucker Blues” (Unreleased, 1972)

Weary of battles galore at the turn of the 70’s – with the British government, who wanted 90% of their money, with manager Allen Klein (who won the rights to their pre-1971 recordings) and with policemen everywhere – Jagger sings it like he’s being bent over and taking it; getting fucked for sure, but making sure his antagonists get no satisfaction.

55. “Memo From Turner” (1970, credited to Mich Jagger solo, written by Jagger-Richards)

The sound of mixing drugs – hallucinogenics, heroin, and lots and lots of cocaine – with amoral sexuality (or is it the other way around?), thereby making emotionaly and psychological breakdowns inevitable. Recorded for Jagger’s role in the film Performance, it’s said that Mick and co-star Anita Pallenberg (Keith’s girlfriend) fucked on set while Keith stewed in his Rolls outside, which led to communication breakdowns that probably still haven‘t resolved between the twins of Glimmer. Putting in on forty years later, you can still smell the coke.

54. “Undercover Of The Night” (1983, from Undercover)

Saw the video for this when I was 13 and thought it was absurd – Jagger in a white suit, wearing a pencil mustache - and I was right. But the song has had a longer shelf life then could have been imagined back then. The groove remains monstrous and the riffs sound like they were scraped from a crucible – boiled to the essence, rock hard and true. And the song itself has enough fear and loathing to make it one of their best – a little sexy and a little scary.

53. “Let’s Spend The Night Together” (1967, from Between The Buttons)

Let’s get this straight: The Stones were at their best taking from R&B and making it something of their own. They weren’t as great ripping off white rock artists (white country artists being another matter entirely). So this little Beach Boys-esque ditty is from a period where the Stones didn’t really rock all that hard, but Jagger makes it triumph with a searing vocal coming out of the bridge into the final verse that presages the many triumphs of 1968-1972 to come.

52. “Time Waits For No One” (1974, from It's Only Rock And Roll)

It’s Only Rock And Roll is far from a great album, but “Time Waits For No One” serves as a gorgeous last gasp for the Mick Taylor version of the Stones, the version that created much of the band’s greatest work. Jagger’s vocal is unusually uncertain; he must have known how much time he was wasting in the midst of a lousy marriage, a partner temporarily lost to heroin and a band going through the motions. But it’s Taylor who shines brightest; his solo winds and ascends, as if the Yellow Brick Road went high into the air instead of further down the road. Knowing how it all turned out, for both Taylor and the Stones, you can’t help but be a little sad.

51. “Luxury” (1974, from It's Only Rock And Roll)

One of my favorite lines from a record review is Robert Christgau’s review of The Harder They Come: “The Rolling Stones would have killed to make this album.” Indeed. And here, the Stones make their best reggae ever, filled with humor and a little wistfulness.

The Unintentionally Post-Modern Soul Of Sharon Jones & The Dap-Kings

noreply@blogger.com (Ben Lazar) — Sun, 25 Apr 2010 15:00:00 +0000

It would be easy to dismiss Sharon Jones and the Dap-Kings as an exercise in nostalgia, but that would be a mistake. Sure, there's an obsessive dedication to capturing the sonic elements of classic soul records; the horn arrangements, microphone placements, drum sounds, vintage gear, etc., but it's clear that Jones and producer and Daptone Records head Gabriel Roth are committed to classic soul as an ongoing concern as opposed to being mere preservationists. Whether it's simply a matter of aesthetic preference or a greater desire to return to a musical Eden, in their minds at least, it's all about the authenticity.

But there's an unwritten rule in music that if you're going to work in a well worn genre without expanding its boundaries, you have to have great songs and a great singer, and unfortunately, with their new album, I Learned The Hard Way, Sharon Jones & the Dap-Kings have proven once more that they are in possession of neither.

Like their previous albums, I Learned The Hard Way is an amalgam of late 60's and early 70's soul stylings. There's hints of Stax, late 60's Chess Records soul and early Philadelphia International. And once again, the precision with which producer Gabriel Roth captures the sound is impressive, but only impressive in the way a tribute band impresses - you're impressed in the moment with the meticulousness of the re-creation, but ultimately, it rings hollow.

None of the above would matter if the songs were great, but there isn't a great song here. Occasionally good, yes, but more often sounding like a paint-by-numbers home soul kit, like the cliched track about a lover with a wondering eye, "Window Shopping." The sentiment of "Money" may be absolutely true, but the track itself sounds silly, and it'll only make you run to your stereo to put the O'Jays "For The Love Of Money" on. Perhaps the songs could transcend the mediocre if Jones could become a singer who makes the listener actually feel something (the whole damn point of Soul music), but she merely sounds like a soul singer - she doesn't sing particularly soulfully. If you put her on any Stax compilation, she'd be a second or third tier presence at best.

What works about Jones is her story; the persistence, the dedication, her partnership with the Dap-Kings and her current success. And it is a great story. I'm happy for her; she's busted her ass. But while her music may be a soul experience, it's never a true experience of soul.

And it's ironic given their soul roots, but what Sharon Jones & the Dap-Kings have unintentionally created is the ultimate expression of post-modernism; the stylistic form of the music is their content, instead of the emotional expression within the songs themselves. That has won them a career and much goodwill, but it will never have them matter, and great soul music, no matter the decade, always matters.

I Learned the Hard Way - Sharo...

E Street Radio Broadcast: Springsteen In The 1990's

noreply@blogger.com (Ben Lazar) — Tue, 06 Apr 2010 13:17:00 +0000

Last week, Sirius/XM's E Street Radio broadcast another roundtable discussion that I participated in. This time, the topic was Bruce Springsteen in the 1990's, a decade that many fans, myself included, view with varying degrees of ambivalence. I hesitate to say that it was a "lost" decade, as Springsteen wrote and released some wonderful music, but looking back, it's clear that things didn't work with the same consistency as they had in the 1970's and 80's. And as a new generation of great rock bands emerged in the early part of the decade, Springsteen's place in the rock world was somewhat upended and newly up for grabs.

My co-panelists for the discussion were Flynn McLean and Jonathan Pont of Backstreets Magazine, and John Franck, the only man in the world I know who can speak expertly about both Springsteen and the New Wave of British Heavy Metal. We had a lot of fun, and I think it comes out in the broadcast. And we are not shy with the criticism.

Download and enjoy.

Part One
Part Two
Part Three

On Pop, Rock & The Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame

noreply@blogger.com (Ben Lazar) — Tue, 16 Mar 2010 19:14:00 +0000

I don't like Abba. I've never liked them; not when I was a kid, nor when I was in my early 20's and they came in vogue amongst the alternative/indie/hipster set (ironically or not). I was at a party this past Christmas season, and when the guests started dancing and singing loudly along to "Dancing Queen," "The Winner Takes It All" and the like, I did all I could not to groan in their faces. Listening to them is like eating Sweet N' Low straight out of the packet; an experience that causes much retching.

Actually, I'm being too polite. Abba suck. Their songs always sounded to me to be on the level of advertising jingles, and if one tries to defend them by saying how great their melodies are, or how memorable their songs are, all I can tell you is that I can remember and sing the Oscar Meyer theme song that I last heard in the late 70's, but that doesn't make it "Like A Rolling Stone."

Last night, Abba were inducted into the Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame, and there's considerable debate as to "what it all means." Long time rock writer Steve Morse has an editorial piece in Sunday's Boston Globe in which he basically states that Abba don't belong in the RRHOF, not because they suck, but because they're pop, not "rock." And he said Madonna doesn't belong the RRHOF either, for much the same reason.

This is a standard complaint amongst some rock fans, who wonder why "rock" artists (white guys with guitars) like Kiss or Alice Cooper aren't in, yet "non-rock" artists like Run-DMC or Madonna are. But I think most of these fans get it wrong, mainly because they have little-to-no historical context for rock n' roll.

Rock n' roll, as it germinated in the 1950's, was like most new forms of music, a hybrid of many styles and forms. Obviously, it's biggest influences were black - blues, r&b and gospel (a fact that is all too often forgotten by many rock fans). But there was plenty of country and pop in artists like Chuck Berry (who has spoken of his influence from country and Nat "King" Cole), Buddy Holly and Elvis (who along with his r&b influences, loved Dean Martin), just as there was plenty of pop in the Beatles and Motown. Rock is inconceivable without pop.

And the corollary with modern pop artists is that most are inconceivable without rock. There is no Abba without the Beatles; there is no Madonna without David Bowie. In terms of hip-hop, at its lyrical best, in Public Enemy, 2Pac and others, they're all difficult to imagine without the revolutionary lyrical impact that Bob Dylan had on artists like Marvin Gaye, Stevie Wonder, Curtis Mayfield and Bob Marley. One feeds off the other in a process that doesn't lend itself to neat categorization.

Do pop, hip-hop and non-rock artists belong in the Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame? Sure, if they produced a great body of work. For my money, LL Cool J, the Beastie Boys, Public Enemy and other seminal rappers should be in there. They all made music that rocked harder and simply matters more than many of the artists that rock fans continually lobby for, like Rush, Alice Cooper, Dire Straits and others.

Abba may not belong in the Rock and Roll Hall Of Fame, but it's not because they weren't a rock band in the technical sense of the term. It's because they sucked.

Postscript: If the Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame is in trouble, it's because as time goes by, there are fewer and fewer bands that everyone can agree on, and there are fewer and fewer bands that have had the cultural impact of its ancestors. There weren't going to be arguments about Little Richard or the Stones. But the Red Hot Chili Peppers? The Smiths? Duran Duran? Nirvana, Guns N' Roses and Pearl Jam (who I'm not a fan of) are shoo-ins. But 15-20 years from now, what bands that emerged from the 2000's will be deemed RRHOF worthy? The Strokes? Please. In that respect, the debates about the RRHOF only reflect the fragmentation of the music itself and the audience for it. You've got your music, I've got mine, and every once in a while we'll argue about it and let each other know that the other doesn't know what the hell they're talking about.

MP3 Of Apperance on Sirius/XM

noreply@blogger.com (Ben Lazar) — Mon, 08 Mar 2010 13:40:00 +0000

So at long last, here is the mp3 version of the panel discussion I co-moderated on Sirius/XM's E Street Radio on the 25th Anniversary of the Born In The U.S.A. tour. We had a great panel and I couldn't be more pleased with how the discussion turned out. If you're a Bruce fan or a student of rock history, this is for you.

Download: Panel Discussion on the Born In The U.S.A. tour

Radio, Radio

noreply@blogger.com (Ben Lazar) — Wed, 24 Feb 2010 17:04:00 +0000

Today at 4pm E Street Radio on Sirius/XM radio will be broadcasting the show I co-moderated last Thursday, on the 25th Anniversary of the Born In The U.S.A. album, tour and phenomenon. The show has turned out wonderfully - our panel is fantastic and the conversation is illuminating, funny and in parts, beyond geeky. If you're a Springsteen fan, or someone who's interested in a seminal moment in rock history, definitely tune in.

The Story Of Laura Lee

noreply@blogger.com (Ben Lazar) — Mon, 22 Feb 2010 18:53:00 +0000

Sometimes the stories of the artists who didn't quite make it are far more interesting than the ones that did.

A case in point would be 60's & 70's soul singer Laura Lee. Hailing from Detroit, Lee sang gospel with Aretha Franklin's sister Erma; recorded for Chess Records; was pursued for signing by Frank Sinatra; recorded for Hot Wax, Holland-Dozier-Holland's post-Motown label; was Al Green's girlfriend before he broke and was the inspiration for songs like "Tired Of Being Alone."

You can hear a fascinating five-part history of her life at Laura's website here. It's definitely worth your time; it's a living, personal history of soul.

Quote Of The Day

noreply@blogger.com (Ben Lazar) — Fri, 19 Feb 2010 17:22:00 +0000

"You've got to find some way of saying it without saying it."

-Duke Ellington

Tonight At Sirius

noreply@blogger.com (Ben Lazar) — Fri, 19 Feb 2010 04:56:00 +0000

Tonight I co-moderated a panel discussion on E Street Radio on Sirius/XM about the Born In The U.S.A. album/tour/explosion/phenomenon. To say it was fun would be an understatement of epic proportion. We had a great panel: My dear friend John Franck co-moderated with me, and as panelists we had Jovan Mrvos, a former A&R man for Columbia Records who I worked with at CMJ; Lewis Largent, a former MTV VJ and a former co-worker of mine in A&R at Island Def Jam; Backstreets columnist Flynn McClean; and record store owner Stu Wexelbaum.

John has been one of my best friends for over 16 years, and Jovan and Lewis have been wonderful friends as well, people whose ideas, thoughts and opinions about music have been enormously influential in my own relationship with music. I met Flynn and Stu for the first time tonight, but they felt like kindred spirits immediately - twenty minutes into the taping, people were finishing each other sentences and completing conversation threads that others had started.

I write this because the evening was such a joy that it reminded me not only of how much I love music, but how much I revel in discussing it with people whose love for music equals my own. I'm also reminded that music has been the greatest means of friendship I've ever known, and perhaps that, as much as anything, is why my passion for it remains undimmed. There are few things more wonderful than the spark of connection between two people when you discover a shared adoration for a piece of music. It remains as much of a thrill for me pushing 40 as it did when I was 15. That's pretty miraculous.

The show will be airing Wednesday, 02/24 at 4pm ET; Thurs, 02/25 at 12am ET and 8am ET AND Wed, 03/03 at 4pm ET. If you have half as much fun listening to the show as we had making it, you're in for a treat.

Corinne Bailey Rae's Magical Thinking

noreply@blogger.com (Ben Lazar) — Thu, 18 Feb 2010 02:06:00 +0000

Corinne Bailey Rae's first, self-titled album was a breezy affair, a collection of open and friendly neo-soul songs that worked well enough to earn her a wide-ranging following and to go double platinum in the U.S. But that was in 2006, and for her, that's a lifetime ago.

In 2008, Rae's husband, musician Jason Rae, died, and it's in that aftermath that she has just released The Sea, a meditation on grief, pain and living amidst the ghosts of memory. It's also a joyous affair, but it's a joy very much tempered with the edge of death, which simultaneously makes it subdued and truly beautiful. It's a magnificent album, one that pays off with repeat listens, as its subtleties open and give themselves over to the terrible and miraculous wonder that is living.

The Sea has a harder sound than Rae's debut. Rae's vocals are a bit buried in the mix; the guitars have an occasional growl and the bass sometimes throbs with a malevolent intent. It is less a sound of foreboding than it is about the sound of pain realized. Yet there's no ploy for anyone's sympathy. On the album's first single, "I'd Do It All Again," she sings like a late-period Marvin Gaye, defiantly revealing her hurt and vulnerability while declaring that despite her pain, she wouldn't change a damn thing:

"Someone to love is bigger than your pride's worth
It's bigger than the pain you got, for all it hurts
It outruns all the sadness
It's terrifying light to the darkness
And I'd do it all again"

Even better is "The Blackest Lily," easily the toughest and sexiest Rae song has ever recorded. You can feel the lingering memory of lust pervade every nuance of Rae's vocal, where that lust transformed into love - and where finally, she lost it. This is adult music, and it's music that's vaguely uncomfortable, like watching someone strip in front of your eyes, simply to show you who they really are.

It seems a cliche that great soul music comes from something more than a passing acquaintance with pain, but cliches are cliches for a reason - they're usually true. The Sea, Corinne Bailey Rae has made her version of a truly soulful album, one that does what the best of soul has always done - unflinchingly acknowledging life's most devastating blows, while also experiencing their terrible and magical ecstasy.

The Sea - Corinne Bailey Rae

A Deeper Shade Of Soul Podcast: Soul Surviving

noreply@blogger.com (Ben Lazar) — Sun, 10 Jan 2010 21:54:00 +0000

It's January - the dead of winter. As I write this, it's 17 degrees in New York. The holidays are in the rear view mirror, and there are a lot of folks facing some tough times. A lot of my friends and loved ones are going through, for a variety of reasons and circumstances personal, professional and economic, some of the most challenging times they've ever faced - and you can count me in as one of those people.

So this podcast, Soul Surviving, is designed to help get you through whatever you're going through and to come out inspired and better for the experience. On it, we have Curtis Mayfield, Jerry Butler, Dusty Springfield, Television, Flaming Lips, Aretha Franklin and many more. Enjoy!

Download: Soul Surviving

The Incomparable Willie Mitchell

noreply@blogger.com (Ben Lazar) — Wed, 06 Jan 2010 23:13:00 +0000

Willie Mitchell died yesterday. If you don't know who Willie Mitchell was, put on an Al Green record from 1971-1976. It was Willie Mitchell, as much as Al Green, who was responsible for the sound of those epochal, miraculous records, and for the sound of Memphis soul in the 1970's, post-Stax.

As a trumpeter, bandleader, producer and eventually, a co-owner of Hi Records, Mitchell had few, if any peers. Like another great Memphis producer, Sam Phillips, Mitchell was a true original whose biggest demand of the artists he worked with were that they be no one other than their most authentic selves. Such producers and music people are a rare commodity, but the best of them leave a mark on the world that can scarcely be measured.

If you want to know the impact that Willie Mitchell had, close your eyes and imagine a world without "Tired Of Being Alone," "I Can't Stand The Rain," "Call Me," "You Ought To Be With Me," "Let's Stay Together," "Take Me To The River," "Trying To Live My Life Without You," "Back For A Taste Of Your Love" and a few dozen others. The world is a better place for him being in it. That's a life.

I Can't Stand The Rain - Ann P...

Love And Happiness - Al Green

You Ought To Be With Me - Al G...

Springsteen's Top 25 Of The Decade

noreply@blogger.com (Ben Lazar) — Tue, 29 Dec 2009 15:36:00 +0000

Not only was this past decade Bruce Springsteen's most productive decade ever, with five new studio albums released, it featured some of his best work ever. Album for album, none of them (The Rising, Devils & Dust, We Shall Overcome: The Seeger Sessions, Magic, Working On A Dream) were quite at the level of Springsteen's work from 1973 to 1987 (from the Wild & Innocent through Tunnel Of Love), but the following 25 songs rank favorably with the best of his work, and I'd love to know another artist who had 25 songs that are the equal of these.

1. "Girls In Their Summer Clothes" (Magic, 2007)

The sound of a weathered and bruised man trying to get out from under a whole lot of loneliness and heartbreak, stepping out and ready to love again, knowing that love is the only thing that saves, and all too aware time waits for no one, especially him. With a super-compressed 12-string acoustic guitar, a Pet Sounds influence all over the thing, and lyrics so vivid that they're worthy of the bridge of "Born To Run," this isn't just Springsteen's best song of the decade, it's one of his best songs ever. An absolutely magical recording - it's no wonder they never got it right live.

Girls In Their Summer Clothes ...

2. "Lonesome Day" (The Rising, 2001)

If you read "Portraits Of Grief," The New York Times section on the victims of 9/11, it sometimes seemed as though in each day's section, there was at least one victim who was a huge Springsteen fan. Springsteen took in the events of that day and even more importantly, the aftermath, speaking to families about what they were going through in the wake of the horror. Then he made it all personal - people with an uncertain determination to pull through betrayals private and public, with music that was like a phoenix rising from the ashes.

3. "How Can A Poor Man Stand Such Times And Live" (We Shall Overcome: The Seeger Sessions [American Land Edition], 2006)

Taken from Ry Cooder who took it from Blind Alfred Reed, Springsteen kept the original first verse, and then rewrote it as an indictment of the Bush Administration's response to Hurricane Katrina. One of Springsteen's most powerful protest songs, it burned with an anger and resentment that made it one of his greatest songs ever. If there was a better protest song written and released in the wake of Katrina, I don't know what it is.
4. "Long Time Comin'" (Devils & Dust, 2005)

Debuted live in 1996, but released in 2005, "Long Time Comin'," with its pedal steel, and the swing of Steve Jordan on drums, hit the mark perfectly in the studio - the beauty of the arrangement matching the hard earned contentment of the lyrics.

5. "O Mary Don't You Weep" (We Shall Overcome: The Seeger Sessions, 2006)

I was hooked on this from the moment I heard it in the spring of 2006, and the natural joy of it never ceased to thrill me after dozens and dozens of listens. Unlike the Brendan O'Brien produced material of the decade, The Seeger Sessions was recorded live and had an ease about it that hearkened back to The Wild, The Innocent & The E Street Shuffle. Bruce's mastery of soul and gospel shone through abundantly on this, and it makes me long even harder for a whole album of soul style originals.

6. "My City Of Ruins" (The Rising, 2002, debuted live 12/17/00)

From the moment it debuted at Springsteen's Christmas shows with the Max Weinberg 7 in Asbury Park in December of 2000, it was recognized on first listen as a special song. The Asbury crowd, despite never hearing the song before, had their fists in the air by the second chorus, singing "Rise up!" along with Bruce.

After 9/11, it was obvious that the song, despite being written for and about Asbury Park, fit the aftermath of the horror perfectly. So Springsteen opened with the 9/11 telethon with a smart and hymn-like version of it, led with acoustic guitar.

On The Rising, Springsteen found the perfect arrangement for it, with Max Weinberg's drums, sounding more modern in feel and tone than he ever had, leading the way. And anyone who has ever lost someone can relate to the final question Bruce asks, "How do I begin again?"

7. "The Rising" (The Rising, 2002)

Think about the subject matter of "The Rising" for a second, and then think about how utterly disastrous it could have been: A firefighter is called to duty, ascends into the darkness and then ultimately, his death, and then speaks to his beloved from beyond. What other rocker could write about that, and then write about it as movingly and effectively, without pathos, as Springsteen did?

On record, Springsteen found the perfect balance between the somber and the exultant - live with the E Street Band, played in a higher key, the song eventually became anthemic overkill. But Springsteen found another home for it on acoustic guitar, playing versions of it on 2005's Devils & Dust tour that were heartbreaking, and made it clear that it's one of his greatest songs.

8. "Reno" (2005, Devils & Dust)

A song that was an instant "love it or hate it" proposition for many Springsteen fans, with the majority winding up in the latter camp, "Reno" is one of Bruce's saddest songs, a song about a man debasing himself, fantasizing about his lost love while with a prostitute. On record, Springsteen missed the mark on it, but live, he found the true power of the song, turning it into something like a Hemingway short story set to music.

9. "Maria's Bed" (Devils & Dust, 2005)

Bruce introduced "Maria's Bed" in Cleveland in 2005 by saying it was about "the ecstasies of love, the pleasures of passion," and you could taste both the ecstasy and the pleasure in every note. Whether on Devils & Dust or live, the song was a moment on the peak, before the inevitable descent into the valley.

10. "You're Missing" (The Rising, 2002)

A song about the incomprehensibility of sudden death - how the mind struggles to understand loss when the physical evidence of a departed loved one's presence is still around. The genius of this song was in the details - the shirt hanging in the closet, the children asking if their parent will be back - and then an organ coda by Danny Federici that put in whatever the lyrics might have left out.

11. "Livin' In The Future" (Magic, 2007)

A rarity in Springsteen's career - a brilliant studio track that almost completely missed the mark live. On the album, it swung, and Springsteen's harmony vocals, doubled against each other along with Steve and Patti, provided moments of pure bliss for a lyric that was filled with dread for a second George W. term. Simultaneously the sound of the old Asbury boardwalk and something new, mainly due to the primacy of the guitars, this is one criminally underrated song.

12. "Eyes On The Prize" (We Shall Overcome: The Seeger Sessions, 2006)

Bruce take the old spiritual and does the almost impossible - he makes it sound like he wrote it. Maybe that's because there's not much spiritual difference between "it's a town full of losers/and I'm pulling out of here to win" and "keep your eyes on the prize, hold on."

The vitality of the recording - from Soozie Tyrell's fiddle to the New Orleans feel of the horns - it astounding, a river that knows exactly where it's flowing. When Bruce cues the horns for their second solo by commanding, "Horns Go!" it's a little piece of Springsteen heaven. Hold on.

13. "You'll Be Coming Down" (Magic, 2007)

Lyrically, it's a sort of weird song, seemingly a message to a beautiful young woman, someone like Lindsay Lohan, warning her of being ground down and used up. Nothing particularly profound, but the song sounds so goddamned good that it doesn't matter. He should have played this one live a whole lot more.

14. "Empty Sky" (The Rising, 2002)

From the moment I heard its opening drum loop, I knew that Bruce made the right decision to work with Brendan O'Brien. O'Brien brought an unmistakably modern feel to the E Street Band, while still having it sound like the E Street Band. The sound of the acoustic 12-string; the natural sounding crack of Max Weinberg's drums, the perfect placement of Roy Bittan's piano in the chorus - the whole arrangement worked in a new way for Springsteen.

Filled with grief, rage and confusion, "Empty Sky" may be about the aftermath of 9/11, but it's also beyond the event, which is why the song will continue to resonate powerfully in the coming years.

15. "Leah" (Devils & Dust, 2005)

"With this hand I build/and with this I burn." In that lyric in "Leah," Springsteen posits that we, and we alone, are the genesis of both our salvation and destruction. How to avoid the destruction? Love. And you gotta work at it.

The impossibly beautiful arrangement embodies the lyric perfectly, and when a mariachi trumpet blows, it's enough to make you want cry. Had Devils & Dust had 11 songs all this good, instead of about five, it would be one of Springsteen's greatest albums.

16. "The Last Carnival" (Working On A Dream, 2009)

A tribute to E Street organist Danny Federici worthy of their 40 years together, that encapsulated the sadness of his death; the acknowledgment that the band was going to keep going on without him; and lastly, the fact that Danny made Bruce utterly crazy at times. And with a beautiful and ethereal vocal coda, it felt as though the band was trying to be with Danny one last time.

17. "All I'm Thinkin' About" (Devils & Dust, 2005)

Bruce showing off the falsetto that he developed in the mid-90's for a joyous little love song with some great steel guitar. It's one of those Springsteen songs that can slip by unnoticed, but when you dig in, you get its greatness.

18. "Let's Be Friends (Skin To Skin)" (The Rising, 2002)

This is the song that should have been the second single off of The Rising. With a great groove, gorgeous background singing and an instantly rewarding chorus, the song had me at hello, but alienated a lot of Springsteen fans for whatever reason. The song was probably a little too black for them.

19. "Code Of Silence" (The Essential Bruce Springsteen, 2003)

June 12, 2000 at Madison Square Garden was the only time I've ever been scared at a Bruce Springsteen concert. The first concert of 10 as the controversy around "American Skin (41 Shots)" became incendiary, with Fraternal Order of Police head Bob Lucente calling Springsteen a "dirtbag" and "floating fag." There were a lot of off duty cops there that night, and most of them seemed, especially the ones in the row in front of me, were drunk and pissed off.

So to start the stand, he opened with this song, a great rocker about a breakdown in communication that creates suspicion and distrust. This was his statement, and it was a great one, for all 10 nights.

As far as the cops went, they booed during all of "American Skin," and then they sang along with "The Promised Land." Then, when Bruce did an incredible acoustic version of "Born In The U.S.A.," one of them shouted, "You have no right to sing this song anymore." Three songs later, he was passed out, drunk.

20. "Long Walk Home" (Magic, 2007)

Disillusionment and the realization that in the Bush Administration we veered so far off the path of what this country is supposed to be about, that we may never get back.

21. "All The Way Home" (Devils & Dust, 2005)

Written for Southside Johnny in 1991, Bruce changed the arrangement completely, speeding it up, making it far less reflective, effectively turning it from a Sinatra-esque torch song into a cool country end-of-the-night come on. Worked for me.

22. "Devil's Arcade" (Magic, 2007)

Love, sex, death, destruction, a killer arrangement and a dramatic high point of Magic.

23. "This Life" (Working On A Dream, 2009)

A gem of a song that should have gotten a lot more attention, mainly from Bruce, who played it barely at all on the Working On A Dream tour.

24. "Gypsy Biker" (Magic, 2007)

An odd song in a way - it's characters seeming more like Vietnam Vets than veterans of Iraq, "Gypsy Biker" burned with some great lead guitar and one absolutely killer line: "To the dead it don't matter much/about who's wrong or right."

25. "American Skin (41 Shots)" (Live In New York City, 2001)

It's too long, and it's lacking a killer melody, but the power of it is undeniable, especially considering the ruckus it caused. It was never a diatribe against the police; after all, the person praying for the victim's life in the first verse is a cop who knows what a deadly error he's made.

Rather, it's a lament about an America where we've been taught to fear the other, and what happens in that climate. The fact that it's another song about the lack of communication made the controversy about it even more fitting - everyone who criticized it had absolutely no idea what the song was about.

Best Springsteen albums of the 2000's in order:

1. Magic
2. The Rising
3. Devils & Dust
4. We Shall Overcome: The Seeger Sessions
5. Working On A Dream.

A Deeper Shade Of Soul: Top 40 Songs of 2009

noreply@blogger.com (Ben Lazar) — Thu, 24 Dec 2009 15:44:00 +0000

Compiling this year’s Top 40 was much harder for me than last year. Is that due to a lack of worthy material? I tend to doubt it – but it sure felt like it. I spent a lot of time listening to new music and feeling very uninspired by a lot of it. That makes me start to think that I'm getting old, or not getting what's going on. But I have a feeling that songcraft has become a lost art - or maybe it's just obscured by the glut of mediocre crap that's out there. There may be marginally more needles out there, but the haystack has gotten a hell of a lot bigger.

And with that negativity out of the way, I'm more convinced than ever that all it takes is one - artist, song, album, or innovation to change the game anew. Nothing just is, and while it seems as though, in John Lennon's words from forty years ago, "everybody had a hard year," anything really is possible.

Have an amazing holiday, a tremendous New Year, and let's make next year and the next decade a great and soulful one.

1. Jay-Z with Alicia Keys – “Empire State Of Mind”

The exception that proved the rule to the new music business, the song of the year proved that it’s still possible to get a fragmented audience to agree on something as long as you bring the goods. While the Blueprint 3 may have been inconsistent, this track was indelible, unforgettable and undeniable, and backed up Jigga’s boasts to the hilt. The new Sinatra, indeed.

Empire State Of Mind (feat. Al...

2. Peaches – “Talk To Me”

What I’ve always loved about Peaches is her commitment to making people uncomfortable and shattering their complacency. “Talk To Me” is the sound of her hand reaching through the speakers, grabbing her lover by the collar and shaking them until they get their head out of their ass – simultaneously scary and very sexy.

Talk To Me - Peaches

3. Florence & The Machine – “Kiss With A Fist”

The best song from one of the best albums of the year. “Soul-inspired indie rock” was what I read about this, and damn if this song didn’t back up the claim. And like the best soul singles, Florence Welch makes her point in a little bit over two minutes. AND she did a Candi Staton cover (“You’ve Got The Love”). I’m in.

Kiss With A Fist - Florence & ...

4. U2 – “I’ll Go Crazy If I Don’t Go Crazy Tonight”

No Line On The Horizon didn’t do much for me, and I’ve come to think that they’re the most overrated band of their generation. But this song reminds me why I once loved them – Bono’s phrasing in the chorus is like an eagle in flight, and while I’ve heard that Edge guitar part in a zillion different variations, criticizing him for it would be like giving Keith Richards shit for playing variations of the same riff for 45 years.

I'll Go Crazy If I Don't Go Cr...

5. Tegan & Sarah – “The Cure”

I’m still waiting for them to make a masterpiece, which Sainthood most definitely is not. But “The Cure” is more than enough to keep me intrigued. Filled with compassion, caring and sex, the track is such an irresistible invitation/come on, it’s easy to imagine Prince covering it.

The Cure - Tegan & Sara

6. Me’Shell NdegeOcello – “Mass Transit”

Dislocation, isolation and the simplest and perhaps most profound truth of the year: “At the end of the day, nobody wants to be alone.” Twitchy and discomforting, it sounds as though it was written for Kid A. After almost fifteen years, she’s doing her best work.

Mass Transit - Meshell Ndegeoc...

7. Lily Allen – “The Fear”

The great smart-ass provides a superb critique of the failures of material goods to fulfill, without denying the power of its pleasures. It’s Not Me It’s You was inconsistent, but not only does she have greatness within her, consider that she’s already great - and has a lot more growing up to do.

The Fear - Lily Allen

8. Passion Pit – “Little Secrets”

In an alternate universe, this was a #1 single and its “higher & higher” chorus was played during basketball and hockey games across the country. In this universe, a bunch of hipsters liked it a lot.

Little Secrets - Passion Pit

9. Dirty Projectors – “Temecula Sunrise”

Avant-Garde pop is what this is supposed to be, and they found enough balance between the two to keep me happy. Pretention is this band’s mortal enemy and natural habitat, but if they sprinkle the incandescence of this track in enough of their other work, they’ll be fine.

Temecula Sunrise - Dirty Proje...

10. Franz Ferdinand – “No You Girls”

A great piece of modern dance-rock that’s testament to the eternal power of beautiful women.

No You Girls (Album Version) -...

11. Bruce Springsteen – “The Last Carnival”

There’s no way to look at Working On A Dream as anything other than a misfire, the main proof of which is that Springsteen barely played the thing live. But this tribute to E Street organist Danny Federici is a poignant gem; weighted with 40 years of friendship, love, and the miraculous, where even death does not do them part.

The Last Carnival - Bruce Spri...

12. Dave Sitek – “With A Girl Like You”

The TV On The Radio maestro does a cover of the Troggs song from 1966 for the Dark Was The Night compilation and brings a haunted obsessiveness to the proceedings. Extra credit for a fine use of horns.

13. Phoenix – “1901”

It just sounds good. Sometimes it doesn't have to be deep.

1901 - Phoenix

14. Florence & The Machine – “Rabbit Heart (Raise It Up)”

She gets compared to Kate Bush and Bjork, but Florence Welch is more soulful than either, and her real antecedent is Marianne Faithful – ethereal and angelic, but firmly grounded in the real world and its irresolvable contradictions.

Rabbit Heart (Raise It Up) - F...

15. Naomi Shelton & The Gospel Queens – “What Have You Done”

A Daptoned piece of retro soul, the track transcends its slavish devotion to sonic authenticity because of Shelton’s piercing growl and some sublime backing vocals.

What Have You Done? - Naomi Sh...

16. Madeline Peyroux – “I Must Be Saved”

The pleasures of Peyroux’s Bare Bones are subtle, but infinitely rewarding, much like this track. Peyroux sings with restraint, subtlety, warmth and wit – traits that couldn’t be more out of fashion in today’s pop mainstream.

I Must Be Saved - Madeleine Pe...

17. Animal Collective – “My Girls”

I listened to Merriweather Post Pavilion ten to fifteen times, liked it enough, but it didn’t really speak to me. “My Girls” does. The fact that it has got some killer hooks going help immeasurably. Yeah, the lyrics are probably a tad too oblique, but they’re geeks, so have some sympathy and forgive them their cleverness – they’d be lost without it.

My Girls - Animal Collective

18. Elvis Costello – “My All Time Doll”

The old misanthrope (not really) reaches back and writes a song worthy of his glory days, filled with piss, vinegar, resentment and an arrangement befitting his station in life.

My All Time Doll - Elvis Coste...

19. Justin Townes Earle – “What I Mean To You”

I never got a chance to go to Bakersfield, California in the late 1940’s and slow dance and fall in love with a beautiful red-lipsticked girl with auburn hair wearing a clingy dress that was soft to the touch. But if I had, this is the music I would have liked to have done it to.

20. Them Crooked Vultures – “No One Loves Me & Neither Do I”

In a rock environment where it’s natural to wonder where everyone’s balls have gone, this is a welcome reprieve, even if the songs aren’t all that. But the riffage in this song makes concerns about songcraft seem like a mere trifle, at least for a moment.

No One Loves Me & Neither Do I...

21. Passion Pit – “The Reeling”

I didn’t get to experience this song in its natural habitat – the dance floor. But this song is great enough that it makes me wish I had. God loves well-placed hi-hat kicks – even if it’s in dance music for hipsters.

The Reeling - Passion Pit

22. Bob Dylan – “If You Ever Go To Houston”

In an America of the (not so) creeping corporate takeover, Mr. Zimmerman, more than any major performer of the past decade, seems intent on preserving the musical heritage of post-war U.S. prior to the Interstate Highway System. If he retires to somewhere in rural Mexico to play accordion in a Mariachi band for German tourists, I won’t be surprised.

If You Ever Go To Houston - Bo...

23. Bruce Springsteen – “This Life”

Bruce gets in touch with the white pop/rock of his youth, and with a bass line right out of Pet Sounds, he makes a shimmering ode to late middle age contentment, with an implicit acknowledgment through the whole thing that the end isn’t that far off.

This Life - Bruce Springsteen

24. Yeah Yeah Yeahs – “Heads Will Roll”

I still couldn’t care less about them, but for one song at least, they got me.

Heads Will Roll - Yeah Yeah Ye...

25. Miranda Lambert – “Only Prettier”

Pedal steel and a smart and pretty (in that order) girl that don’t take shit. AND a sense of humor. I don't need much more that that.

Only Prettier - Miranda Lamber...

26. Allen Toussaint – “West End Blues”

The great producer, songwriter, arranger, gentleman and ambassador of New Orleans music makes Louis Armstrong very, very proud.

West End Blues - Allen Toussai...

27. Manchester Orchestra – “I’ve Got Friends”

I got heavily hyped on this one and didn’t really get it, except for this song. A good chorus goes a long way. Remember that.

I've Got Friends - Manchester ...

28. A.C. Newman – “Like A Hitman, Like A Dancer”

I haven’t paid much attention to Newman’s music since the New Pornographers 2001 album, Mass Romantic, finding it increasingly dull. But with an acoustic riff akin to a matador fending off a bull, this track got me re-interested in Newman’s work, at least for the duration of the song’s three and a half minutes.

Like A Hitman, Like A Dancer -...

29. Beirut – “La Llorona”

I have nothing clever to say about this one – I just find it beautiful.

La Llorona - Beirut

30. Monsters Of Folk – “Ahead Of The Curve”

Conor Oberst sings without even sounding remotely whiny, and sounding reminiscent of “The Weight,” he sounds more his own man as part of a band than he ever has on his own.

Ahead of the Curve - Monsters ...

31. Lady GaGa – “Beautiful, Dirty, Rich”

I have a feeling that her shallowness is a sham – but it works for her. Impenetrable in a way Madonna never was, what she has in common with Madge is a killer work ethic. Andy Warhol would have loved her.

Beautiful, Dirty, Rich - Lady ...

32. Florence & The Machine – “You’ve Got The Love”

They make a lost Candi Staton song grand, orchestral and majestic. They’re easily the rookies of the year, no doubt about it.

You've Got The Love - Florence...

33. Built To Spill – “Good Ol’ Boredom”

Quietly one of the best American bands for the past 15+ years, Doug Martch’s voice is a tried and true indie commodity, and he sounds like he hasn’t aged a day. They just do what they do, and do it really well.

Good Ol' Boredom - Built To Sp...

34. The Flaming Lips – “Evil”

I prefer less their more song-based albums like The Soft Bulletin and Yoshimi Battles The Pink Robots, but I found this track hypnotic and moody enough to go back to for repeated listening.

Evil - The Flaming Lips

35. The xx – “Islands”

Slinky and seductive, this new British band has been the recipient of some strong buzz courtesy of Pitchfork and a host of others. “Islands” captures the magic of falling hard and the magical time when the world seems to end at the edge of the bed you’re sharing with the new object of your desire.

Islands - The xx

36. M. Ward – “Never Had Nobody Like You”

A song that could have been recorded in 1957, which is about the biggest compliment I can give it. Except perhaps that Carl Perkins would have sounded great doing it. Maybe Dion should cover it.

Never Had Nobody Like You (Fea...

37. Wilco – “You And I”

I still find them dull overall, and seeing Yankee Hotel Foxtrot (zzzzzzzz) on so many “Best Album Of The Decade” lists annoyed me. But amidst another album I found rather boring, the simple charm of this one broke through to me.

You And I - Wilco

38. The Doves – “Kingdom Of Rust”

Ok, so Kingdom Of Rust is not The Last Broadcast, but I’ll take it. They make somewhat inscrutable music, often more vibe than song, but the orchestral grandeur of this song worked beautifully.

Kingdom Of Rust - Doves

39. Mary J. Blige – “Said and Done”

Listening to Stronger With Each Tear, it’s clear that Mary has been making the same album since 2001’s No More Drama; breakup songs, inspirational songs, self-affirmations, suffering-in-love songs, etc. Here, she teeters back and forth on the line of cliché, but the pre-chorus works so well that I couldn’t care less.

Said And Done - Mary J. Blige

40. Alice Russell – “Hurry On Now”

A re-worked version of a great single she released in 2007, it doesn’t make it any less of a wonderful song. Pot Of Gold was a major disappointment for me, but with quality material, she’s still a singer to pay attention to. Someone get her some good songs, please.

Hurry On Now - Alice Russell