Reinvention has it's place. Where many critics will chastise an act for not growing, I am not fond of change for change's sake (nor am I critic, but that is a different matter). I wrote just yesterday that if you find your groove and the songs continue to be high caliber, you should stick to it.
Take Bob Mould. His last record, Silver Age, was one of my favorites from 2012. It was a straight-forward noisy power pop record. It wouldn't be surprising if he changed things up again, exploring the darker side of things Black Sheets of Rain style or even going more electronic. But Bob Mould has other things on his mind. Namely, it's the death of his father and of his own mortality. His new record Beauty & Ruin deals with that life change.
Musicially, "Low Season" starts off as a slow burn, it's deliberate pacing giving way to the punk kick of "Little Glass Pill," which segues into the Sugar-infused "I Don't Know You Anymore." His band of Jason Narducy and Jon Wurster is top shelf.
But the lyrics bite. Take the last of those three tracks: A thousand pieces of my heart/Swept across a weathered floor/And no idea how to start/Solving puzzles from before. Side 1 of the record is labeled "beauty" but beauty is hard to find here. Take side closer "The War:" And all these songs I write for you/They tear me up, it's not hard to do/Listen to my voice/It's the only weapon I kept from the war."
The second side, titled "ruin," is where the light begins to shine. Surrounding the Replacements-esque "Hey Mr. Grey" (complete with a kids don't follow reference), it flickers through songs like "Forgiveness" (and it's Brick-In-The-Wall guitar intro), "Tomorrow Morning" and "Let The Beauty Be" before coming to a close with "Fix It" where Bob sings it's time to fill your heart with love/Fix it, fix it, full enough/Time to fix who you are."
Bob Mould's homosexuality undoubtedly caused whatever friction, whatever distance he and his father had in their relationship. This album sounds like catharsis. It sounds like closure after the fact. I don't know the back story, I don't know anything about what Bob's mindset is here, but the music shows a broken relationship's turmoil. It shows an artist dealing with heavy shit. And for a master songwriter like Bob Mould it's a powerful listening experience.
Rock and roll is the proverbial young-mans-game. Slogging through a tour, night after night, eating garbage, sleeping little, wearing dirty clothes, sitting around all day waiting to play for anywhere from 30 minutes to 90 minutes looks like it would be drag for someone old and tired like me. When my band does a show it is exhilarating, but I think doing it every night for three months would get taxing. Unless you are the Rolling Stones and fly around in your own jet and stay at the Plaza, but any life out of a suitcase even if you are Mick Jagger can get tiring.
Bob Mould - Silver Age
Bob Mould is 52 years old. He became known as the front man for Hüsker Dü, went solo for a bit, did Sugar, did more solo, became a DJ, came out as gay somewhere in there, then did this record, the best guitar pop record of the year. If you heard Sugar before then you know what is happening on this record. Last year he did a guest spot on the Foo Fighters record and it must have re-awakened the loud guitarist in Bob because this record just roars. It comes out firing and just doesn't stop. Thirty-eight minutes of power pop heaven. Bob has only a handful of tour dates in 2013 and that is sad because I would love to see him do this record on the road. But then again, he is 52 and he paid his dues with the Dü, so maybe we should appreciate him taking it easy. He's doing a bunch of shows in Australia and that isn't too bad.
Here's the lead track "Star Machine." It is in a word frakkinawesome.
Up next: Steve unveils his number one record of 2012. He is pretty sure you have NOT heard of it.
Some records are considered big. These are the ones that get all the hype, get the magazine covers, get the casual music fan interested. Three records of that ilk which have come out recently are the new ones from Muse, Green Day and The Killers. All three are bands I am fans of.
The Killers records is a par for the course with them. A few really good tracks ("Runaways" being the stand-out) and a good amount of filler. Which is a shame because they are a good sounding band and Brandon Flowers is a great front-man. The songs are not always up to snuff, though. Nevertheless, Jodi and I will be seeing them in December because this will always be one of my most favorite songs.
The Green Day record is the first of three the band is releasing in the next six months. It is...well....meh. I didn't really start liking Green Day until I got their RockBand game at the urging of my brother-in-law. After playing, and getting to really listen to the songs and I made my fingers hit the right buttons, I found their songs to be catchy and rather enjoyable, at least to fool around with in a video game. The new record is more of the same, but nothing on it really stands out.
The Muse record is simply dreadful. I have no idea what Kate Hudson is doing to Matt Bellamy but it isn't good. I loved Absolution, liked Black Holes and Revelations, but found The Resistance kind of meh. The new one, The 2nd Law is just not enjoyable. It seems they are trying to morph into Queen, which to me isn't a good thing. If ever there was a band that got more traction out of so few decent songs it's Queen. Muse were always over-top and bombastic, and when they took up the Radiohead mantle by remaking The Bends on their behalf I dug it. But the problem with this new direction is it's uninteresting. It feels like they want to follow the Radiohead map by getting away from their sound and carving out something new. But where Radiohead made something unique (and not always to my taste admittedly) Muse are churning out uninspired junk.
Whew! Sorry for the harshness. Let me mention a couple records that have come out the last month that DO deserve your attention. These are the "little records" referenced in the title. And most of the time, it's the little records you haven't heard of by bands and artists you might not know or have forgotten that are the ones that should be getting the Rolling Stone covers.
Lonerism by Tame Impala. An Australian band doing a very modern and, unlike Muse, interesting take on psychedelic rock. Vocally, it's very reminiscent of John Lennon (a good thing). Musically it has that late-60s vibe but with a modern take. I saw them tour behind their first record InnerSpeaker and they put on a great show. This record is a great next step from that record. Here's the lead single, "Elephant:"
Silver Age by Bob Mould. The former front-man of Hüsker Dü and Sugar is back doing what I like best: straight ahead loud power pop. Hanging out and guesting on the last Foo Fighters record seems to have gotten Bob's power-pop juices going again, and this album is a revelation. Man, I hope he tours. Here's Bob on Letterman.
Both these records are great great great and you should check them out. Both will be high on my favorites-of-2012 list.
Sometimes I amaze myself. Granted, I have a ton of music. According to iTunes there is 257G of music in it. Artists = 1637. Albums = 4033. Songs = 46180. It would take me 131.6 days of non-stop listening to get through it all. That's a lot to listen to. I understand there are many people who have more. But it's still a lot.
Sometimes I stumble across an artist that is inexplicably not part of my collection. Today's case in point: Sugar. I was making a 1990s mix to listen to while driving through the backroads of New York and Pennsylvania. My car has satellite and I like the Lithium channel but there is only so much Offspring and Red Hot Chili Peppers (neither band appears in my collection, except for maybe a song or two from RockBand) I can take an hour. So I made a mix that would what I would program Lithium with. Let's just say it has a LOT more power pop than Lithium would ever have the guts to play.
I was looking through Pitchfork's best of the 1990s lists looking for more esoteric stuff. There I was reminded of Bob Mould's post Hüsker Dü band Sugar. I remember an old friend from work (Nathan) was big on Bob Mould and made me play Sugar every now and then. For whatever reason it didn't sink in. Now, I am listening to Copper Blue and wondering why in the hell, when I was almost exclusively in my power pop phase, I didn't go nuts over "The Act We Act." What's that? Here:
Frak me, what a great tune. And the rest of the album sounds like that. Here's a line I really wish I wrote: "Hours slipping by as you watch/The worlds collide/And now you're nothing more/Than another passer-by." Then again "Helpless" might be a better song. Whatever.
I think my missing out was due to two things primarily: a) I only had so much money in the early 90s and couldn't buy EVERYTHING; and b) I had already fallen into The Replacements camp. Let me talk about that second one because it's infinitely more interesting.
Hüsker Dü and The Replacements were two of the important bands to come out of Minneapolis in the 1980s. Both did the ragged pop-punk thing and had modest success. Some of the guys I was working with at the time were Mats fans so being the impressionable lad I was I became a Mats fan.
Both bands eventually wore themselves out when the leaders, for lack of a better term, went sober. In Hüsker Dü case the aforementioned Bob Mould and for the Mats Paul Westerberg. Mould did a couple records with Sugar before going solo and then ultimately becoming a DJ. Westerberg did the solo thing for two good albums, then a couple head-scratchers of album before falling off the face of the planet.
Listening to the first Sugar record and then the first Westerberg record (14 Songs) it's the Sugar record that holds up better, yet it's the Westerberg record I have had for nearly 20 years. The best song on that record is "World Class Fad." It's the only song on the record where Westerberg sounds like he means it: (of note the first 30 seconds has some odd German-dubbing...god bless the Internets!)
That's also a great song. But that's pretty much the only great song Westerberg did post-Mats. Sugar, and Mould on his first handful of solo records, do what I call "bring it." Westerberg seems like he ran out of ideas. Hey man, that happens. I love the story about him firing Brendan O'Brien during the making of his second record because if he "wanted to make a Replacements record I'd hire the fucking Replacements." HA that's awesome. But maybe making Replacements records is what he did best. I am not saying that an artist should stay in their comfort zone but that doesn't necessarily mean it will make for a great record. Bob Mould went from punk in Hüsker Dü to harsh power pop with Sugar to..well not much lately but he did do a couple songs with the Foo Fighters when I saw them in DC earlier in the year. Westerberg went from punk to power-pop in the Mats to the old-soul-world-wearied-guy kind of power pop to records that are almost unlistenable. I prefer Mould's arc better.
So good for me for finally realizing what a great band Sugar was. It only took me 20 years. But better late than never, right Nathan? I wonder what other gems are out there waiting for me to find them.
(On a happy note and according to his website Paul Westerberg seems to be quite happy being a dad and doing family stuff. Good for him!)
