1969: Dick Hyman - Moog: The Electric Eclectics of Dick Hyman
When you picture the future, what does it look like? If you take your cues from pop culture, the view’s a little bleak -- a landscape of distant, desolate planets and bright white spaces inhabited by cyborgs and machines, all marching to the vocoder-powered voice of Kanye West. Come to think of it, it’s a lot scarier typed-out than it is through the gloss of a music video.
The funny thing is, since the dawn of the space age, our vision of the future hasn’t changed that drastically. For evidence, one needs only look at the cover of Dick Hyman’s 1969 album, Moog: The Electric Eclectics of Dick Hyman. Reverse carbon copies of Hyman himself emerge from an early model spacecraft; they stand stiffly, sometimes floating above a sparse, crater-filled terrain. The emptiness of space looms in the background.
And then there’s the music contained within -- jazz and pop spun through the modular waves of the then-emerging Moog synthesizer. Hyman, a classically-trained jazz pianist and composer, was, along with his contemporary Wendy Carlos, one of the pioneers of the machine. Electric Eclectics was his first foray into composing for the Moog (he’d previously pioneered similar use of the Lowrey organ), and the resulting album is one of the most successful of its kind. "The Minotaur," a classic proggy jam, was the first Top 40 hit composed entirely on the Moog and would subsequently provide a bit of shameless “inspiration” for Emerson, Lake & Palmer’s "Lucky Man." The rest of the tracks (including a transcendent yet still danceable take on James Brown's "Turn It Up or Turn It Loose") range from pure kitsch to loungey pop to hazy improvisational jazz. It all comes together to form the "sound of the future": pulsating blips, jaunty bloops, and funky bleeps; undulating sine waves and modulating grooves; melody and human emotion, processed through the heart of a machine. The result, however, is surprisingly warm and undeniably entertaining.
So how does the sound of the future hold up today? Well, sort of dated, actually -- a bit like a space age bachelor pad relic. This is hardly a criticism, though. Hyman was doing something new, testing the boundaries of an instrument that had rarely been used to its full potential before. And the result, while occasionally veering into questionably cheesy territory, is for the most part a set of virtuosic instrumental pop tunes iconically indicative of the era. To say they’re dated? Well, do you imagine Daft Punk won’t sound a little kitschy after 40 years? How about Kanye’s aforementioned robot vocals? It’s not a knock to anyone’s creative integrity, just a note that artistic merit shouldn’t always be judged based on the technology available at the time.
So maybe the future doesn’t sound exactly like Moog predicted it would. That doesn’t diminish the contributions of Hyman and his contemporaries to the modern musical sphere. Beyond all of the analog noodling, all of the killer sampling fodder, and all of the influence the guy’s clearly had on everyone from Beck to Stereolab to Momus, Hyman’s most important contribution is the enlightened realization that electronic music doesn’t have to be cold and distant, so long as the person playing it’s got a little soul.
1. Topless Dancers of Corfu
2. Legend of Johnny Pot
3. Moog and Me
4. Tap Dance in the Memory Banks
5. Four Duets in Odd Meter
6. The Minotaur
7. Total Bells and Tony
8. Improvisation in Fourths
9. Evening Thoughts
10. Give It Up or Turn It Loose
11. Kolumbo
12. Time is Tight
1997: Hellbender - Con Limón
Hellbender as a whole made three albums, but if we’re going to talk about the band from a “retrospective” point of view, it's important to mention a legacy that encompasses far more than just catchy, anthemic punk rock songs, like those found on 1997's Con Limón, Hellbender’s final album record. There are also New York Times Book Review ravings, gallery listings, and a namesake cocktail.
In 2009, two of them write, one makes art. Guitarist Wells Tower is author of the recent acclaimed short story collection Everything Ravaged, Everything Burned, and bassist Al Burian is the man behind the long-running Burn Collector zine. Harrison Haynes, meanwhile, splits his time between making visual art and playing drums in Les Savy Fav.
That there were writers in the band isn’t much of a shock, even to someone who first encountered the work of Tower and Burian in a musical context. The lyrics on Con Limón read like aphorisms, bleakly funny from the titles on down: “You Gutted Me With a Switchblade Shaped Like a Telephone” is the best example, and it’s in a tradition that also includes Footprint of the American Chicken’s “Unsolicited Anthem for the Portland Hipsters.” As a band, Hellbender had the ability to capture the posturing of a scene while still tapping into the angst behind the clichés. Take the lyrics “Long distance is just a tool to keep us down,” or “Do you recognize this song/ This is our song/ My favorite slow jam/ My favorite quiet storm.” It’s hard to imagine any other punk-rooted bands playing the late-90s VFW circuit and referencing quiet storm in their lyrics.
As the earlier reference to Portland suggests, Hellbender were also a geographically-minded band, based at various points in the aforementioned Oregonian city as well as North Carolina. Con Limón’s travelogue also includes stops in South Dakota and New England, as well as the memorably titled “I-95 Is Tattooed On My Brain.” And while the trio could shift into slow-burn mode throughout the album, those distances don’t necessarily sound metaphorical: Haynes drums with a momentum that sounds essential, as though his kit was responsible for powering the band’s traversals of interstate highways.
A strong vein of knowing misanthropy runs through Con Limón: “Untrusting You,” in which the line “Aren’t you lonely yet?” is repeated again and again before giving way to a pair of rueful “God damn it”s, might be its apex. As much as accusations of romantic instability fly through the lyrics of these 10 songs, there’s an equal amount of guilt -- confessions made in the presences of judges and other authorities.
It’s a bitterness balanced by wry humor, however, exemplified by the album’s penultimate number, “A Song About Some Girls.” “This is a song that I wrote about some girls,” it begins, segueing into references to Jeeps, Coppertone, and Bob Seger. It’s also a scary prediction of what would become mall emo: anonymous female figures in the background and monstrously-sized “whoa-whoa” choruses that one can’t help but sing along to. Yet in this case, it’s the lack of depth that’s the joke: the song's protagonist has apparently wandered into the kind of track designed for stadium sing-alongs and quickly finds himself wholly unsuited for the role. It is, I suspect, no coincidence that the song is without accompanying lyrics in the liner notes.
The album comes to its bitter end with “Graveyarded.” Lyrically desperate, it inverts or makes explicit all that had been previously hidden: the distances described without romanticism; the literacy couched in paranoia and desperation; a landscape of dead-end jobs and dying momentum; and a narrator who’s “[a] million miles from home/ a blank slate/ a throw-away.” And while the jokey, funk-influenced hidden song that properly ends the album isn’t the band’s high point, its presence is an indicator of a greater truth about Hellbender: even when they reached their lowest emotional depth, they never lost their sense of humor.
1 Fake I.D.
2 You Gutted Me With a Switchblade Shaped Like a Telephone
3 Long Distance Phone Bill Runner
4 Untrusting You
5 I-95 is Tattooed on My Brain
6 Call Me When You're Dead
7 Make Up an Excuse
8 The Inevitable Social Awkwardness of the Junior High School Prom
9 Song About Some Girls
10 Graveyarded
1971: John Prine - John Prine
In the nearly four decades since John Prine’s self-titled debut came out, a lot’s been said. This was the album that had people flying the “next Bob Dylan” flag, that spawned some of country and folk’s most lasting standards. The album that the man himself never could quite top, even though he came damn close on Burnt Orange. But no one has written about John Prine as what it is to me: perfect music for a funeral.
Now, don’t get me wrong. John Prine is anything but macabre, morose, or maudlin. He simply tackles all the things we think about at funerals -- life, death, love, and loss -- with the poignancy, wit, and empathy that earned him all those Dylan comparisons in the first place. Lives well-lived, lives less-than-well-lived, loss, redemption -- it’s all in here, presented earnestly and without a hint of cloying sentimentality.
The reflective nature of John Prine doesn't merely result from the range of themes explored, however. Ultimately, it's Prine’s strength as a songwriter, the earnest lens through which he filters his subject matter and the unadorned delivery of his warbling voice that give the album its poignancy.
The humor of "Illegal Smile" is foiled by the stinging tragedy of one of the Vietnam era’s greatest songs, "Sam Stone." The sad pastoral beauty of "Paradise" eulogizes simpler times lost to progress, while "Angel From Montgomery" finds hope in death. These songs are as much the sound of a thousand American flags being folded as they are the soundtrack to the most revelatory wake, and they are just as good, just as relevant, and just as timely today as they were in 1971.
Maybe I’m biased. In fact, scratch that, I absolutely am biased. For the sake of full-disclosure, this is the album my father wanted played at his own funeral, and when the day came, we cut off the organist prematurely and hit “play” on "Your Flag Decal Won’t Get You Into Heaven Anymore." Through all the somber moments of that day, these songs made me feel human, a reminder that death’s just one part of life. And in the end, that might be the highest praise I can give to any album -- that even in the face of death, it can make you feel positively alive.
1. Illegal Smile
2. Spanish Pipedream
3. Hello In There
4. Sam Stone
5. Paradise
6. Pretty Good
7. Your Flag Decal Won’t Get You Into Heaven Anymore
8. Far From Me
9. Angel From Montgomery
10. Quiet Man
11. Donald And Lydia
12. Six O’Clock News
13. Flashback Blues
1996: De La Soul - Stakes Is High
3 Feet High and Rising remains an indisputable classic, and there’s something charming about De La Soul’s efforts to match its heights. You can hear this awkward scrambling in the dark humor of De La Soul Is Dead or in the funky experimentation of 1993's Buhloone Mindstate. By 1996, De La Soul were not only trying to live up to their own reputation, they were trying to remain relevant in a new hip-hop landscape. A lot had changed in the seven years since the trio’s debut, and Stakes Is High found the group attempting to blend their signature charm with 90s production (by a young Jay Dee, no less). The result is a laid-back, confident effort that still sounds fresh 13 years later.
As if to immediately establish their resilience in a changed hip-hop universe, the record starts (after a brief introduction) with the question “Whatever happened to the emcees?” “Supa Emcees” hinges on that question, allowing the trio to demonstrate the kind of rapping they think is missing in 1996. What follows is a series of variations on that theme, complete with cameos from supa emcees Common and Mos Def. Some artists claimed to bridge gaps between generations, and De La Soul actually succeeded in doing so.
The best tracks on Stakes Is High are the ones that don’t try too hard: the laid-back party track “Dinninit,” the funky “Betta Listen,” and “Big Brother Beat” featuring Mos Def, which is a career highlight for both him and De La Soul. Both a nod to a young artist and a gesture to some of hip-hop’s forefathers, "Big Brother Beat" is confident in its swagger and catchy as hell. In a word, it’s brilliant.
The rest of the album goes down easy. The group’s penchant for terrible skits is mercifully absent here (though the fictional radio station WRMS from De La Soul Is Dead shows up on “Baby, Baby, Baby, Baby, Ooh Baby”), while the record closes with some strong moments, including the title track, which is a polemic against the then-burgeoning bling phenomenon. “I’m sick of half-assed award shows/ I’m sick of name-brand clothes/ The Native Tongues has officially been reinstated” reads one lyric, referring to the African culture-centric hip-hop movement that included De La Soul, A Tribe Called Quest, Queen Latifah, and later Mos Def, Common, and Erykah Badu. It’s a stinging Declaration of Principles that, in any other hands, would likely have been cliché.
1. Intro
2. Supa Emcees
3. The Bizness
4. Wonce Again Long Island
5. Dinninit
6. Brakes
7. Dog Eat Dog
8. Baby Baby Baby Baby Ooh Baby
9. Long Island Degrees
10. Betta Listen
11. Itsoweezee (HOT)
12. 4 More
13. Big Brother Beat
14. Down Syndrome
15. Pony Ride
16. Stakes Is High
17. Sunshine
1980: The Feelies - Crazy Rhythms
As a genre, new wave is one tricky son of a bitch. It gave us some of the most artistically remarkable and blatantly self-indulgent music of the 1970s and 80s, from Talking Heads to Culture Club, Joy Division to A Flock of Seagulls. Then there are The Feelies. Cited by later, more illustrious bands as an important influence, the group may not have graced the covers of glossy magazines during their modest zenith, but those who heard them would drop their name left and right. It is not difficult to see how or why this occurred -- at their best, The Feelies were what R.E.M. always hoped, but never had the cojones, to be: carefree, reckless, fun.
But forget R.E.M. The Feelies, and specifically their stellar debut, deserve a review based on their music’s own merit. Crazy Rhythms, released in April 1980 amongst a veritable shitstorm of like-minded groups, stands grinning madly at the top of the pile -- a shining monument to new wave at its quirky best. Many bands of the era shared certain inexorable similarities, and these guys prove no exception to the rule: yelping, loopy vocals; clean, noodly guitar (“angular” by todays parlance); quick, driving rhythms. However, The Feelies stand out because of their willingness to look beyond the genre’s boundaries and explore some genuinely electrifying territory.
The songs on Crazy Rhythms are individual exercises in the expansion and contraction of energy. Opener “The Boy with the Perpetual Nervousness” begins in complete silence before a couple snaps and clicks announce its advent. Drummer Anton Fier quickly throws a Krautrock beat on super-overdrive, accompanied by a first two-chord guitar line, then another more intricate line, then a third, and so on. The song begins on the ground and ends up, like most Feelies tunes, somewhere in the stratosphere. But this is not some strange species of psychedelia; that word is bandied about carelessly these days, and these songs are too quick, too tightly wound for such a loose, unflattering term. No, this is pop music, albeit pop music with legs. Sonic Youth’s seminal Sister comes to mind, if they had been even more concerned with crafting hooks than noise.
Indeed, where The Feelies so often succeed is where others fall short; ironically, given the title of the album, it's not the beat which elevates these dudes, it's their sense of melody. The album’s first single, the catchy standout “Fa Cé-La,” is a two-minute seminar in tunefulness and -- take note bands -- tastefulness. A lone acoustic guitar introduces the track, but is soon accented by a potent poom-poom-pah drumbeat and two soaring electric guitars that squeal and moan over the first verse. The simple, mesmeric chorus carries some of the only vocal harmonies on the record and is over before you know it. The guitars wail, more purposefully this time, over the second verse; there is a final chorus, a quick outro, and yep, that just about does it; close ‘er up, nice job!
The following track, “Loveless Love,” begins with some quiet, understated guitar harmonics before unfolding with the agile push-and-pull dynamics employed with constant success on Crazy Rhythms. Most of the song, like the album’s opener, is a two-chord exercise in sped-up Kraut-pop, but right around the 4:15 mark, its stomach bursts -- guts fall all ass-out and a great, slithering snake of a guitar line appears. It is decadent and spooky, but blissful, almost orgasmic in its sense of abrupt release. In true Feelies form, this catharsis lasts only 20 seconds before the song is done, spent, kaput. “Can't relax when there's things to do,” singer Glenn Mercer declares later on the title track, and one gets the distinct feeling he might be singing about the band’s epileptic artistic process.
Crazy Rhythms is brilliant and indispensable, partly because it doesn't beg to be dissected and explained, but simply to be listened to and absorbed. It's a difficult album to write about from any typical critical standpoint -- there is little embellishment to be found here, no studio trickery, no misguided pomposity of any sort. Even the requisite cover (a Beatles cover at that -- who are these guys, Aerosmith?) manages to avoid the pitfalls such undertakings generally risk by instantly becoming, well, a Feelies tune. It’s fun, fast, and melodious, and it works -- nah, it rules. This album just plain rules. So frequently the records we deem Great and Important are difficult, unapproachable, pedantic. How refreshing it is when one of them just wants us to dance.
1. The Boy with the Perpetual Nervousness
2. Fa Cé-La
3. Loveless Love
4. Forces at Work
5. Original Love
6. Everybody’s Got Something to Hide (Except Me and My Monkey)
7. Moscow Nights
8. Raised Eyebrows
9. Crazy Rhythms
10. Paint it Black [CD reissue bonus track]
2001: Various Artists: Strut Records - Nigeria 70: The Definitive Story of 1970s Funky Lagos
By 1970, Nigeria was in the midst of a radical political, economic, and social transformation. An economic boom resultant from the discovery of rich oil reserves in the Niger river delta had turned Lagos into a rapidly growing metropolitan center for the region, while graft and corruption had a chokehold on the political scene. Although Nigeria, a new OPEC member, was growing wealth on paper as oil production revenue flowed into the country, that wealth was ultimately held by a few, while the expanding population suffered. Military rule, a legacy of the Biafran War (a civil war fought over the secession of the Southeastern region of Biafra), meant a total absence of democracy and fiscal policies that undermined economic stability.
All of this strife, corruption, and money usually means the same thing no matter where one resides -- people will be pissed off about the terrible state of affairs. Seeing money and growth in your country, yet no benefits for you and your family begets dissent and anger. Since those who are disenfranchised often have no real organized political voice, they find alternate means to rebel. Music is often that voice, and in 1970s Lagos it was used in a truly revolutionary manner.
The musical period's main name Fela Kuti got his start in the 1960s, as a whole host of sounds -- including Yoruba percussion, Igbo, Highlife, calypso, jazz, juju, and funk -- sautéed together into an influential entrée we now know as Afrobeat. Nigeria 70, being reissued eight years after it was released as a three-disc box set, has been the most prominent compilation documenting the height and origin of funk and jazz in Afrobeat. Many compilations have come since Nigeria 70, but none have been able to supplant its status as the best and most-well rounded snap-shot of Africa in the 70s. And it is no coincidence that the name of the comp is derivative, at least partially, from Kuti’s backup band.
Part of what defines Afrobeat are the complex drum rhythms that descend from Ghana, among other places. Yet to a casual listener, the steady, repetitive nature of the beat superimposed over big band sounds is most evident. Horns blasting in a call-and-response style break into extended, jazzy solos that stretch track lengths beyond eight minutes. Each horn or guitar line sounds much more like Charlie Mingus or Sun Ra than popular American funk of the 1970s. Afrobeat, in its funkiness, is more intelligent and determined than the funk of Cameo or the Ohio Players.
So don’t be fooled by the title; this is not another party-funk comp with “Brick House,” “Fire,” and “Lady Marmalade” queued up to get your guests moving to a familiar beat and chorus. Unless you have the music cognoscenti on the invitation list, this will not be the funk compilation you put on to get your wedding party rolling. These “funk” tracks are for listeners who don’t mind that they can’t understand the lyrics. You have to feel your way through each song, and understanding that there are serious themes of political oppression under-pinning the genre goes a long way towards fleshing out the sounds.
Indeed, the Afrobeat on Nigeria 70 is more sophisticated than popular funk, but that doesn’t mean it's not hot as hell. The tracks are still fresh and truly hype, and Afrobeat virgins will likely pour over them repeatedly, investigating the intricate rhythms. For instance, the beats that open Tony Allen's “No Discrimination” are in tricky signatures that usher in a clever bass line, weaving its way around some sly guitar and subtle vocal scatting. The fuzzed-out guitar notes at the beginning of Ofo's “Allah Wakbarr” explode at 0:45 into a raucous and raunchy chorale that’s as gritty as you might imagine Lagos around 10:00 PM. You can contrast that with the ridiculous pop-synthesizer sound of Bongos Ikwue to get a grasp of how wide-reaching the Lagos scene was. There’s a lot of ground to be covered for sure, and this compilation does a good job of showing the breadth of Lagos’s sound while still keeping a thread running through it all.
Many of the tracks are in the pocket, locking into grooves that allow the big bands plenty of room to explore and show off their skills as individuals, without having any member overshadowing the whole deal. “Enjoy Yourself” is a good example. The message -- enjoy yourself despite your poverty and oppression -- is never lost behind the rolling, syncopated beat. Putting these tunes in context makes them that much more powerful, because on the surface they are simply some of the best Afrobeat tracks ever made. Beneath that surface is a galloping tide of political messages that tie together the grim state of 1970s Nigeria with the modern sound of Afrobeat, a sound that has since percolated into the American mainstream. Nigeria 70 is simply an indispensable addition to any music collection.
Disc 1:
1. Ololufe Mi (My Lover) - Koola Lobitos
2. Tire Loma Da Nigbehin – Monomono
3. Chant To Mother Earth – BLO
4. Jeun Ko Ku (Chop 'n' Quench) - Fela Kuti & The Africa 70
5. Ifa - Tunji Oyelana & The Benders
6. Ikon Allah - Bala Miller & The Great Music Pirameeds Of Afrika
7. La La La - Segun Bucknor & His Revolution
8. Shango - Peter King
9. No Discrimination - Tony Allen & His Afro Messengers
10. Akayan Ekassa - Sir Victor Uwaifo
11. Better Change Your Mind - William Onyeabor
12. Woman Made The Devil - Bongos Ikwue
Disc 2:
1. Alo Mi Alo (Parts 1 And 2) - Orlando Julius Ekemode
2. Allah Wakbarr - Ofo The Black Company
3. Enjoy Yourself - Sahara All Stars Band Jos
4. Dancing time - The Funkees
5. The Quest - Afro Cult Foundation
6. Greetings - Joni Haastrup
7. Kita Kita - Gaspel Lawal
8. Orere Elejigbo - The Lijadu Sisters
9. Upside Down - Fela Anikulapo Kuti And The Africa 70 featuring Sandra Akanke Isidore
10. Agboju Logun - Shina Williams & His African Percussionists
11. Ja Fun Mi (Instrumental) - King Sunny Ade & His African Beats
