Secret record club handshake
Parsley, 01/22/03
Comments on CDs that arrived in my mail today
Demolition
Ryan Adams
Holy Christ, this sucks ass. Which I guess I kind of suspected, or I would have bought it several months ago when it came out. But the full extent of its ass-sucking is a surprise. On the first Whiskeytown album (a good record) there’s a song where the chorus ends: “So I started this damn country band / ‘cuz punk rock is too hard to sing.” Now Ryan’s voice is so smooth you can hardly hear the separation between words and a lot of the time he’s obviously just showing off. Maybe he’s been drinking reverse whiskey in clear violation of the rock star code. Do you think fans of such Adams gems as “Excuse Me While I Break My Own Heart Tonight” and “Drank Like a River” are gonna go in for some over-produced VH1 heartthrob who’s practically scatting?
Some probably will, if only because people in general are pretty stupid. But everyone who carries on about how great Ryan Adams’ solo albums are should be tied up and forced to listen to Stranger’s Almanac on repeat until they come to their senses.
Note: Has there ever been a case of someone leaving their band to start a solo career and ever being good again? I can only think of one right now, plus I might give you John Lennon. Never quit your band.
Note: The CD wrapper had a sticker bearing this quote from some British music magazine: “Ryan Adams is the most important new songwriter to emerge from America in the last 20 years.” The awe-inspiring stupidity of this statement hardly needs to be noted. A while ago I was going to write an Onion-style fake news piece for this site called “British Music Press Declares Self Next Big Thing.” I didn’t, because the headline is pretty much the whole joke. So there’s the headline.
My advice: download “Gimme a Sign” from Kazaa and pretend the whole album sounds like that. Maybe also get “Nuclear” and think about how much better it would sound as “Nuke-yuh-ler.”
The Heart of Saturday Night
Tom Waits
Not his best, but still really good. There is no better music to drink coffee by than early Tom Waits. The title song is a favorite of mine.
Life’s Rich Pageant
R.E.M.
Pretty good. It’s hard to imagine that there was ever a time when R.E.M. was actually sort of vaguely badass. Plus at that time (1986) all the eco-crap would have come across as far less irritating. I don’t think these guys could rock now if they wanted to (they don’t), and that is sad. My favorite old R.E.M. album remains Fables of the Reconstruction.
We Sold Our Soul for Rock ‘N’ Roll
Black Sabbath
I actually already have the LP version of this, I just wanted it in a form I could actually listen to. Alas, two songs were removed to fit it onto a CD. And it was a pretty bad transfer.
I worry about the kids of today. Obviously Ozzy has done pretty well with The Osbournes, and I admit it’s a somewhat entertaining show, but the youth of America will never again be able to say “Ozzy Rules” (or scratch it into their history notebooks) with the same conviction. It used to be that if you didn’t know Ozz’s music you probably thought of him as a little scary - didn’t he bite the heads off things, and didn’t he pee on the Alamo? And he might even be kind of a Satanist.
Now the mental association of non-initiates is going to be a feeble old man who totters around chasing dogs and mumbling. Which is sad, because OZZY RULES. It’s not just a cliche. He’s probably the greatest vocalist in the history of metal (don’t give me that Robert Plant shit), and certainly the definitive stylist. His work with Sabbath, as well as his solo albums, have brought joy to burnouts, shop class superstars, and rejects of all stripes non-stop since their release. If that sounds like mockery, I don’t mean it to. The kids of America need you, Ozzy.
Anyone with even a passing interest in metal, or rock in general, should probably read Chuck Klosterman’s Fargo Rock City. He makes the interesting point that after Nirvana finally established that “anybody could be a rock star” the effect was not the liberation of garage bands and suburban kids the punks expected but a record-industry led flood of faceless nobodies (I dare you to name two members of Our Lady Peace) - after all, “anybody can be a rock star.” Now if some hypothetical organization known for killing radio stars could show that the Prince of Darkness himself was just some harmless feeb, they could - just theoretically, mind you - start giving funny looking guitars and distortion pedals to any old frat boy, teach him how to rough up the back of his throat when he sings, and he could produce acres of sludge with practically no overhead for costumes, stage shows, rehab, etc., plus he would be cute enough to appeal to the girls! I don’t think that would ever happen though. If MTV is giving the Osbournes a show it’s just because they’re funny.
We need Ozzy. We need rock stars we can be scared of - not because they rape groupies or carry around guns, but because they eat bats and they may just be satanic priests. The fact is that Ozzy actually is a really nice guy by all accounts, and quite disturbed by the perception that he worships the devil. I have no doubt that finding him - his music and his personality, and the contrast between them - has literally saved hundreds of lives. But teachers don’t know that, parents don’t know that, and cheerleaders don’t either. I don’t know how much longer it will be possible to look up to Ozzy. If we have to have The Osbournes, they should at least play some fucking Sabbath.