Josh Ranks His CDs

Lenny Kravitz, Let Love Rule

2009-11-07T10:02:00.001-08:00

This was not the first Lenny Kravitz album I bought. For much of high school, when I veered towards pop and folk songs, Lenny Kravitz seemed like someone whose music I wouldn't like. He seemed almost metal — 'dreds flying everywhere, a severe looking electric guitar. I was wrong, of course. I might have become enamored by his music during the VH1 Behind the Music about him, but I may be mistaken.

In any event, I like Lenny Kravitz. He has a good ear for melody, and is one of those rare artists who can make his rocking songs sound just as good as his slower stuff.

Let Love Rule, his first album, is not him in his prime. I do love the title track, but some of the other songs don't have the hooks that others do. Sometimes on this album, he reminds me of the novice jazz improviser who plays a measure that he really likes during a solo and then just plays that measure over and over again because he knows it sounds good. But then it starts sounding boring and repetitive, and he's got nothing else to save him.

Strangefolk, Lore

2009-11-05T04:57:00.000-08:00

In college, I went with a friend to see a show that featured Percy Hill and Strangefolk; I was a big, huge Percy Hill fan, and my friend was a big, huge Strangefolk fan. Both were local acts from New Hampshire and Vermont, respectively. I remember thinking, even at that show, that Percy Hill's musicianship and innovation far outdistanced Strangefolk's. Strangefolk's chief advantage was that they could rock fairly effectively. Percy Hill felt like it had been formed by a group of music majors; Strangefolk seemed to have emerged from someone's parents' garage or basement.

Their album gives me the same vibe. The first few tracks could passably be included on an indie version of Guitar Hero. The music feels strong, if not particularly inspired. (I just checked their website; apparently, they're still around, though with only two of the original members. Percy Hill went through a similar membership metamorphosis, though I think they've wisely allowed themselves to trail off.) Some of the last few songs on this album are real clunkers, though. And by 'the last few,' I mean the last two-thirds of the tracks. Check out this lyric from "Alaska," which pissed me off in particular: "When Jimmy Carter made the National Arctic Refuge / he could see the heart of the world in an eagle's eye." Stuff like this is so inelegant and it rings so false. I could see a band like the Indigo Girls pulling something like this off because they're overtly political. But Strangefolk seemed to brand themselves as simpleton hippie rockers. Listen to Dr. Dog's song "Alaska" to see how much better a song about the far north can be.

Teenage Fanclub, Songs from Northern Britain

2009-11-05T04:51:00.001-08:00

Teenage Fanclub sounds like a foreign version of The Jayhawks — lots of strummin', country-influenced guitars, with sleek and confident vocal harmonies.

I can't say that any of the individual songs stuck with me in particular, though. Probably more my fault than theirs, but there wasn't anything that would make me come across this CD and say, "Oh, I haven't heard this song in a while." Which is probably not really the point w/r/t this project of listening to albums, but, well, tough.

The Beach Boys, Pet Sounds

2009-09-23T18:55:00.000-07:00

Well, this album definitely sounds like the Beach Boys. Could they sound any other way? Listening to this, I imagined how much it must have sucked to have been the baritone Beach Boy. The answer is clear: quite a bit.

There's a lot to love here - I love the very end of "You Still Believe in Me." "Sloop John B" is also pretty timeless. The instrumentation and arranging throughout is inventive and kind of magical.

Here's what's terrible: after the 14th track, my CD of Pet Sounds featured alternate takes...of every song I'd just heard. I hate this. I hate it. If you're going to put an alternate track of a song on your album, it should be substantially different than the primary version. Maybe you include children yodeling. Maybe the whole song sounds awesome executed backwards or on timpani. These tracks were not that different, so there was no point to enduring 14 more tracks of the same songs.

I also don't think that the Beach Boys sound very Californian or Floridian. They sound like music you'd have heard on the Cape. If popped collars could make music, it would be this. That's not all bad, of course, but it can feel a little precious sometimes.

Hootie & the Blowfish, Cracked Rear View

2009-07-17T14:44:00.000-07:00

America was in a giant, collective fraternity in 1995, because we all loved Hootie & the Blowfish. God, we were such terrible people.

It was a nice story - four nice guys (three nice white guys fronted by one nice black guy) who met at college and played simple songs that sounded like rock but were more like pop (Pop Rocks!).

I went to a Hootie & the Blowfish concert at some ski resort in Vermont when I was in high school. An even more awful band named Dillon Fence opened for them. After one of their songs, when the impatient crowd booed them, I believe their lead singer said, "Fuck you! Fuck you very much!"

When Hootie & the Blowfish performed, they played every song almost exactly as they had recorded it, which I remember thinking was disappointing, which it was, because when a band can barely even trust their members to perform adequate solos, it's not much of a band.

Here's the thing: I like the album. There are several shamefully catchy songs. It's weird that at least three of them seem to be about Darius Rucker's mother's death, because the rest of the album - and Hootie & the Blowfish in general - did not convey much of a mourning vibe. But man, some of these other songs - 'Hold My Hand,' 'Running From an Angel' - are like high school anthems. Put some of these in a mix with, like, 'Lightning Crashes,' and there's a whole swath of the population that will sway and cry and, if drunk, blubber the lyrics in this intense, too-loud sort of way.

The Divine Comedy, A Secret History

2009-07-17T14:34:00.001-07:00

The good songs on this best-of compilation are pretty great. They feature great orchestration, cheeky lyrics, and a general wall of sound. See 'National Express,' or 'Your Daddy's Car.'

The worst songs on this album are pretty insufferable. Neil Hannon's voice walks a thin line between soaringly endearing and lounge-singer-y. See most of the rest of the album, unfortunately. Especially unfortunate since this is a best-of.

He might want to leave this genre to the more reliable XTC.

Lauryn Hill, Unplugged

2009-07-17T14:23:00.000-07:00

This album makes me angry.

I thought about just leaving it at that, but I guess I'll elaborate a little. The Lauryn Hill that appears on this album is wimpy. She makes excuses for her lack of preparation, talks too much about 'reality,' and sounds pretty much the same on every song. She complains that she hadn't been allowed to be real before. Really? How about when she sang that song about her son Zion on The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill? Does she count that as selling out? Or how about when she came across as powerful and independent - was that problematic?

To not warm up, to not memorize the words to your songs, and then to inform the audience that you didn't do those things because you wanted to be real - that's terrible. Real people prepare. Real people dress up for their performances. Great artists are real people.

The affirmation she receives for her bogusness from the audience is almost too much to take.

And on it goes, for two discs. Man up, Lauryn Hill! Make awesome records again!

The Beatles, Magical Mystery Tour

2009-07-17T14:09:00.000-07:00

My parents had several Beatles albums on record when I was young, and I enjoyed playing them, often when I came downstairs for breakfast. I liked staring at the jackets of Revolver and Sgt. Pepper. And I loved the first, eponymous song of this album. It sounded nothing like the Beatles were supposed to sound like: there were a lot of horns, it was loud, they were singing in harmony at something resembling the top of their lungs, there was a circus barker introducing the album. It was awesome.

The rest of the songs are, I think, in a weird order. Would you be surprised if I told you that this album has 'Strawberry Fields Forever,' 'Penny Lane,' and 'Hello Goodbye,' but that the tracks that immediately follow 'Magical Mystery Tour' are 'Fool on the Hill,' 'Flying,' and 'Blue Jay Way,' one of those rare contributions from George Harrison. (I scoured the liner notes as a youngster. That's the sort of thing I remember.)

I loved 'I Am the Walrus' as a lad because of all the crazy lyrics. It still resonates, though maybe to a lesser extent. None of the rest of the songs on this album - even the famous and popular ones - are among my favorite Beatles tunes. Those populate albums like Abbey Road and Sgt. Pepper. But this, curiously, is the only one I have on CD. Maybe it's because I wanted to spend more time studying which animals the Beatles are dressed up as on the cover.

Melanie C, Northern Star

2009-05-27T13:10:00.000-07:00

This was on in my car when I was giving my mother a ride back to the hotel where she was staying, and she asked, "Is this The Story?" referring to a band I liked in high school (and, okay, much of college).

A few days later, when the CD was still on in my car, my wife asked me what we were listening to, and I tried to make the case that it was better than one might expect, and she gave me just this withering look, as though I had no sense.

And, as is often the case, I realized that she was kind of right. The reason my mother couldn't tell what we were listening to (other than her not knowing former Spice Girls by name) was because this album sounds like every bland girl-power effort. En Vogue chose a similar route - doing a Rock Song and a Ballad or two and a Dance Number, etc. - but they did it much better. Mel C does not have the pipes to really make this worth it.

Which is too bad, because she was kind of my favorite Spice Girl. Truth be told, I don't mind much of this album - the first song, "Go!," is especially not-bad - but it's just not good enough to leapfrog worthier (and more talented musicians).

Someone Still Loves You Boris Yeltsin, Broom

2009-05-27T12:59:00.001-07:00

I remember a friend saying that he was not a fan of Little Miss Sunshine because it obeyed every indie movie stereotype: the grandfather who swears! the little pageant girl who's homely! and so on! I think I liked it maybe because of the comfort of the familiar patter. Maybe I'm a lesser person for it.

But no one will make me think I'm a lesser person for liking this band, never mind this album. They probably fit into the indie music box quite snugly - just some crazy kids from Missouri! odd pop culture reference in its cumbersome name! But you know what? They embraced the cliche and they did it perfectly. There are some really effective hooks here, and some well-constructed music. The lyrics don't try too hard, and the band doesn't sound like they all wear skinny jeans. They sound earnest - like they actually meant to make an indie album instead of making an album that sounded like an indie album, a meta-indie album that would strain street credibility. Only one track - I forget which one - sort of loses its way, and the spaces before and after some songs can be a little jarring, but you can take the first two tunes and match them up against anything on any disc I own, and they would probably come out ahead.

Wilco, Sky Blue Sky

2009-05-05T11:30:00.001-07:00

This album is extremely good. It doesn't have the unfettered emotion of some previous Wilco albums - Tweedy's angry guitar on A Ghost is Born, the whirring, mechanical intensity of Yankee Hotel Foxtrot - but it's still pretty fantastic. Sky Blue Sky is warm; it's the first apartment after college that finally starts feeling grown up - a real bed instead of a futon, a fridge of bottles instead of cans. There are some wistful feelings about moving on, getting older, but there's plenty of joy in the satisfaction and comfort that a return to structure can bring.

While there are standout songs - "Either Way," "Hate It Here," "Shake It Off," "Impossible Germany," - this album impresses in being able to stay within a fairly narrow range and remain vibrant throughout. There's a consistent, pervasive sound, but it doesn't weigh Sky Blue Sky down. Rather, everything takes flight - not as in fireworks, but as in migrating birds. It is, if not spectacular, then regular and good and homey.

Steve Reich, Early Works

2009-05-01T14:53:00.001-07:00

While I don't know if this will actually end up ranked that high on my list, just because the probability of repeat listening is low. But without much doubt, this album is one of the most interesting that I own.

Steve Reich is a minimalist composer who I started listening to because, way back when I was in pre-school, I was buddies with his son, Ezra. Steve's wife used to take us to see movies or filmstrips at the public library in Woodstock. My parents hung out with them; I can safely say that my parents have never had any other friends with as interesting a profession as 'minimalist composer.' Well, no - I can think of two: one of my dad's colleagues was a law professor and a nationally-ranked Scrabble player; one of my dad's childhood friends served in the army, then in the Peace Corps, then built log cabins, and is now a nurse.

But I digress.

There's space inside each of the pieces on this album to hear new things and to think about what you're hearing, and I really like that.

In minimalism, you can pretty much hear the beginning of everything. Three of the pieces rely on tape loops - the first, his most famous, is called "Come Out," and features two audio clips of a boy accused of murder during the 1964 Harlem riots. One clip is slightly slower than the other; both are looped - after a while, they go out of synch, and then you start hearing things: different emphases, new words, new rhythms, new sounds. It is a crazy experience.

But, as minimalism can do, it gets repetitive. I don't wish the album to be any different - the songs aren't supposed to have a pop hook or anything, and if they were constructed like that, Steve Reich would be competing with the likes of John Tesh and Yanni instead of with John Adams and Philip Glass - but it's not something you can hear over and over again because it loses its impact the third or eighth time through.

Still, it's like the Wizard of Oz/Dark Side of the Moon experience of a few weeks ago: something everyone should try at least once, and then again every so often just to make sure their head's still working.

Stevie Wonder, Talking Book

2009-05-01T14:26:00.001-07:00

It's odd that this album finishes stronger than it starts. Usually, the trend is the opposite. Then again, Stevie Wonder could pretty much do whatever he wanted during that spell of his career. This portion of Wonder's career is the equivalent of Pedro Martinez in 1999 of Picasso during his Blue Period. He was at the height of his game.

I actually don't think Talking Book is his best work. Like I said, the beginning is weak — probably not his fault, but "You Are the Sunshine of My Life" has long been in the cliché gutter. ("Superstition" is getting there, too.) But I love exactly half the songs here: "Tuesday Heartbreak," "Big Brother," "Blame It On the Sun," "Lookin' for Another Pure Love," and "I Believe."

I'll have more to say about good ol' Stevie when I listen to his other (better) albums, but this one is certainly not without its merits. He manages to combine the depth of Marvin Gaye with the pop of the Jackson 5.

Carole King, Tapestry

2009-05-01T14:21:00.000-07:00

If Rick Rubin had produced a Motown record, this is what it would have sounded like.

En Vogue, Funky Divas

2009-05-01T14:12:00.000-07:00

It wasn't that I'd forgotten this album; it's that I'd forgotten that I like this album. For a group that was essentially and entirely a constructed marketing concept, En Vogue is no Spice Girls — they're much better than their UK counterparts. I say that as an admirer of the magnificent gimmickry that was the Spice Girls; En Vogue excels as a group of talented musicians.

The best songs are really good: "This is Your Life," "Never Gonna Get It," "Free Your Mind," Giving Him Something He Can Feel," and "Give It Up, Turn It Loose."

Unfortunately, not only are the bad songs bad, it's palpable that En Vogue knew it, too. They sound weirdly shaky on the misses — "Hip Hop Lover," "Desire," "Hooked On Your Love," etc. — lacking the confidence that must come with being true divas.

This album represents the peak of their talents and success; I enjoy that it takes risks and breaks the mold of a stereotypical girl band — even if those risks were taken by a corporate songwriter, breaking the mold of stereotypes he helped create.

Lyle Lovett, Lyle Lovett & His Large Band

2009-04-14T10:31:00.001-07:00

This album sounds like the strange band that played at the wedding of your slightly-uncomfortable friends.

Even though it seems as though Lyle Lovett's Large Band is, in fact, made up of actual instruments, they sound suspiciously like keyboard effects on certain songs, especially the beginning of "Stand By Your Man." Lyle conjures up some folk, gospel, and jazz influences, which made this one of the few — and maybe the first — country albums I own. Back when I used to listen to it more frequently, I really only listened to three songs: "Here I Am," "Nobody Knows Me," and "Once is Enough." The first and last are still fun, particularly the last. Otherwise — well, there's something odd and vaguely bemused about Lyle Lovett's face, as though he's playing something and wonders if you're in on the joke. And I guess I'm not sure if I am.

Non Sequitur

2009-04-13T19:49:00.000-07:00

Enough with the CDs for a moment. This year, my wife and I decided we were tired of the same old Passover story and foods, so I decided to alter history a bit. Here's the fruit of my labor — I call it Alternaseder. Feel free to download and check it out — heck, there's still time to use it for this year's holiday.

Call & Response, Nightflight

2009-04-12T10:59:00.001-07:00

This may be the only album I've ever bought because I heard its music played on The Real World. I forget what season it was, but I'm thinking Hawaii, which was the last season I really watched, mostly because all of the subsequent cycles have featured increasingly vapid and terrible characters who only want to drink and hook up and fight and get arrested. Hawaii had Ruthie, who fit that bill, and terrible Amaya, who was a big ol' waste of space, but there were some eminently watchable people: Teck, who was the best kind of impulsive; Kaia, the moody schemer; and Justin, the manipulative prodigy. Basically, the cast wasn't as predictable as the following seasons have been.

Call and Response's album is pretty monotone. Fortunately, that single note is this: happy. When I put this on, I was fighting traffic, and for the first few tracks, I felt happier. I wasn't fighting traffic; I was collaborating with other cars to get closer to our destinations. The music is lightweight and innocuous. The lyrics are supremely unimportant. You have to smile when you listen; it's a Pavlovian response.

That said, it gets old quickly. Two of the songs started with minor chords and/or ominous sounds, and I was hopeful that Call and Response had some range, but no such luck — the breezy qualities quickly returned. There's a certain unsustainable naiveté that bubble gum albums like this produce, and it's not particularly becoming. You want some difference, some conflict from track to track.

Duke Ellington, Black, Brown, & Beige

2009-04-12T07:39:00.000-07:00

I took a class on Duke Ellington in college, and thus feel prone to liking albums like this one — indeed, other than A Love Supreme, I can't think of a long-form jazz piece I enjoy more than Black, Brown, & Beige. Having taught English, though, I know that it's often the case that studying a book can weigh it down more than one you read for pleasure. Interesting, then, that listening for credit can have a positive influence on music. Probably, it's Mahalia Jackson's sincere and bold voice that makes me love this work more so than knowing odds and ends about its history and structure. Duke Ellington's strength as a composer and arranger was playing to the strengths of his assembled orchestra, and he puts Jackson's solo right in her wheelhouse — she belts without being showy, a hallowed rendition of faith. The theme she sings in "Come Sunday" wends its way throughout the other movements, too, which cleverly makes the piece more accessible for a broader range of listeners.

This album features several takes of Mahalia Jackson singing, mostly welcome though one or two not. I don't need to hear her get halfway through "Come Sunday" and then announce that she needs to cough.

Pink Floyd, Dark Side of the Moon

2009-04-02T11:47:00.000-07:00

It's kind of absurd how much I like this album, but there's little doubt in my mind that I would not have discovered it had I not listened to it while watching The Wizard of Oz on mute. Pink Floyd belongs to a genre/era of artists for which I don't have much time. Fortunately, by creating this multimedia experience, they significantly expanded their audience. What freaking geniuses.

If you're not familiar with this thing, you start the CD just after the Goldwyn-Mayer lion's third roar right at the beginning. Scenes change with the music, lyrics synch with action on the screen, characters walk in time to the beat - it is an astonishing achievement, made even more astonishing by two things:

1) It works when you repeat the disc a second time, which absolutely blows my mind.

2) The music is good. Without the context of the tornado that strikes the Gale homestead in Kansas, I might not have noticed what a wailer Clare Torry is on "Great Gig in the Sky," but a lot of the other songs stand on their own. "Us and Them" and "Eclipse" are as powerful as "Money" is playful. Writing music to correspond to a film made Pink Floyd construct an album instead of a mere collection of songs, and an album that not many musicians could hope to top.

For Stars, We Are All Beautiful People

2009-04-02T07:25:00.001-07:00

There was a record store in Ann Arbor that I wanted to love more than I did. It was almost entirely used music, balanced in teetering stacks. You had to shift and turn to negotiate your way through the aisles unscathed. That's where I found this album, which I bought without ever having heard or heard of For Stars.

Listening to this album was like finding rough in the rough - you think, in those indie stores, that you're somehow more likely to stumble upon a diamond, but I guess that's probably not true. The lead singer's voice seemed to draw its influences from some combination of Shannon Hoon and Glen Phillips - creaky and out of range. There were some nice moments, I think I remember, but mostly this album just washed over and through me without leaving much of an impression.

Outkast, The Love Below

2009-03-17T20:53:00.000-07:00

Is there anyone in America who is as foppishly heterosexual as André 3000? The man is a clothes horse and a sophisticate, but the perceptions that often cling to someone who so self-identifies don't stick to him.

The Love Below is awesome, even more so than I remembered. Where Speakerboxx was restrained and stiff, this album was manic, sweaty, and hilarious. The songs are all listenable, and several are better than that. 'Hey Ya,' overplayed for months after its release, was really fun to hear with fresh ears. 'Prototype' is a nice slow jam, and the overtly sexual 'Spread' is more than just misogyny.

There is range here; it doesn't try too hard - it just is what it is: a heaving ode to love and lust, with a big wink to its fans.

Rufus Wainwright, Rufus Wainwright

2009-03-17T20:33:00.000-07:00

Some Red Sox fans are Manny Ramirez apologists. I'll admit that I was, for a long time (and probably still, to some extent), among their number. He's not a bad guy — just a goof. Except there was that month he spent last season trying everything possible to make us all hate him enough for us to be all right with him getting traded to the West Coast. That was kind of unexplainable. But the happy-go-lucky Manny who just crushed the ball? That guy is awesome to watch.

Rufus Wainwright may be my Manny Ramirez, and this album may be the symbol of my affection for his music. It's so, so different from any other pop effort, probably because of the sensibilities that inform his inspirations: his Quebeçois mother, his folk hero father, and his obsession with opera. I'm gonna guess that Kelly Clarkson's not operating with the same set of experiences.

There's something whimsical about Rufus Wainwright's eponymous debut, especially on 'Beauty Mark' and 'Millbrook,' about the boarding school in upstate New York where he went. It's fun music. There are a couple of meandering duds, but nothing of much consequence.

Now, Rufus has done plenty to try and break us up with him, falling into a darker time that he detailed for the New York Times a few years ago, and I think he's narrowed himself a little in his last few albums by identifying more as a gay performer than just a performer. But you listen to his voice on this album, the undistracted strength of his baritone, and it is awesome to hear.

The Weakerthans, Reconstruction Site

2009-02-14T15:45:00.000-08:00

I should be working on my novel, but instead, I'm going to spend five minutes telling you why I like The Weakerthans:

• They are Canadian.

• Their lyrics are deadpan, self-deprecating, literate, and lovely.

• The cover art for this album was done by Marcel Dzama, another Canadian.

• They alternately rock and alt-country up the place.

• It's Valentine's Day, and I don't really have much criticism in my heart: the album congeals, with two standout songs: "Plea From a Cat Named Virtue" and "One Great City!". The former is about a cat whose owner seems depressed; the latter is about exactly how much Winnipeg sucks. That's some pretty awesome songwriting right there.

Weezer, Pinkerton

2009-02-12T20:22:00.001-08:00

I like four songs on this album, but I also like that there aren't more than six songs that I don't like.

The one thing that Weezer has perfected is the album length. They get in and they get out. I used to sing in a group in college and we were always very careful not to stay too long during the requisite encore. Leave them wanting more, we'd crow. Weezer does this well. I'm not sick of them by the time their 35 minutes are up.

Pinkerton is a fun album in the way that the Blue Album is an album of hits. It seems obvious that the lads from Weezer enjoyed making this CD, even if Rivers Cuomo was recovering from some major leg surgery at the time. It feels sincere without seeming uppity, which is often hard for Weezer to achieve.

The songs I like on this album are "No Other One," "The Good Life," "El Scorcho," and "Pink Triangle." The rest of them sound like Weezer, but nothing really distinguishes one from another.

Wilco, Summerteeth

2009-02-12T20:09:00.000-08:00

Annnnd we have a new favorite.

How I hadn't listened to this album in a long time escapes me. I will listen to it often now.

I love Wilco — Jeff Tweedy has one of the five singing voices I'd like to have (Martin Sexton, Jeff Buckley, Rufus Wainwright, and Mel Tormé are the others) — but I fell in love with them first through Yankee Hotel Foxtrot. This album is different, and — well, we'll see — might be better. It sits somewhere between the sometimes desolate lyrics that Tweedy provides and the joyous, alt-country band that sprung out of Uncle Tupelo.

Wilco songs are like how I want to write whatever I write — books, short stories, essays. They're full of energy, but they're restrained and thoughtful at the same time. Even the songs that I don't remember hearing before — "Pieholden Suite," for example — felt familiar. It was easy to let myself like them.

The one blemish on this record is the entirely unnecessary remix of "A Shot in the Arm." If it's not obvious what's been changed on the remix, it probably wasn't worth including on the album.

Outkast, Speakerboxx

2009-02-09T08:22:00.000-08:00

I decided to review this album separately from its partner-in-crime, The Love Below, since Outkast split their duties accordingly, and they're such different albums besides.

I bought this album originally because I am a fan of Andre 3000, and I figured I'd like a few songs on Big Boi's side as well.

Listening to Speakerboxx makes me think of my return to graduate school. Some of the coursework involved math: statistics, microeconomics, etc. I hadn't taken a math class since high school, mostly because I'm just not a fan of the subject, but I figured that, given the time away, I'd be able to develop a newfound appreciation for it. Not so, as it turns out. Math continued to be an absolute bear for me, both in terms of the amount of energy required to understand it and in terms of my lack of enthusiasm for it.

Speakerboxx is the same way - I thought I might like it better after several years of having buried it inside one of my Caselogics, but I just don't like the sound. First, I like rappers to be more emotive - even Jay-Z has some range to his voice - but Big Boi is often nearly monotone, and his rhymes, clever as they sometimes are, don't manage to outweigh the narrowness of the aural experience that is him.

The Venn diagram of his instrumental choices and my musical tastes wouldn't overlap much, either - I don't like his beats very much, nor even the sound of his percussion, and that goes for the synthesizers, hoochie-lady backing vocals, etc. Maybe it's this: I always get the sense that Andre 3000 is joking, and that Big Boi is completely serious, and I gravitate towards Costello instead of Abbott.

William Shatner, The Transformed Man

2009-01-31T14:16:00.001-08:00

I don't remember where or when I purchased this album, but I'm pretty sure I'd never listened to it the entire way through before the other day. It is weird. I don't even know what it is - a dramatic audition? Shatner reads Shakespeare and some other monologues - each with pretty much the same inflection, as though it's the same character every time - with big band orchestral music backing him up. And then, he intersperses those monologues with covers of songs like "Mr. Tambourine Man" and "Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds", except he doesn't sing. He recites the lyrics - dramatically!

This album is a lesson in chutzpah. I'd say it's delightfully terrible, except that it's also just plain terrible - beyond camp. At the end of his Dylan cover, he cries, "Mr. Tambourine Man!" as though his heart is literally in danger of being wrenched from him.

The Avalanches, Since I Left You

2009-01-29T20:16:00.001-08:00

This CD reminds me of two things:

1. You know the radio station that's always playing dance music — not pop songs, but, like, remixes of songs faded into one another? I fail to understand the purpose of this kind of radio station, because I can only imagine one scenario in which anyone would listen to it, and that's a bunch of girls with terribly platinum hair and tube tops pre-gaming for a night out at a bunch of clubs. I can't imagine that this audience is loyal enough to actually keep such radio stations in business, so I remain confounded. But the bleeding of one song into another on The Avalanches' album was similar - I couldn't tell when one song ended and another began, and while the music is obviously better than what one might find on the aforementioned station, it's nothing to write home about.

2. When you're listening to someone who's just starting to learn how to improvise in jazz, you'll hear them find a pattern of a couple notes and then repeat it for measure after measure because their brain's not quick enough to make up anything more complicated. That's the other impression that every song but one on Since I Left You gave me - it was a DJ saying, "Look what I mixed! Now...listen to it a few times to let it sink in." It gets boring, and quickly.

The one shining star on this CD is, of course, "Frontier Psychiatrist," both because it's cohesive and epic. It doesn't sound like anything else on any other album out there; were it not surrounded by songs that seem almost literally capable of numbing one's mind, I would rank this album far higher than I do.

Jamiroquai, Travelling Without Moving

2009-01-25T06:58:00.000-08:00

Do you know how many people are in Jamiroquai? I've been a fan since owning this album, though having rediscovered them through Pandora, I think there are better songs than most of what is on this. But I'd always imagined the band to be made up of Jay Kay - who used to sound like Stevie Wonder and now no longer does, to me - and maybe three others. There are nine people in the band. There are thirteen former members of the band. Doesn't that seem ridiculous? I guess, because Jay Kay seems so much like the singular focus of the band, it doesn't matter who else backs him up - are they mere interchangeable parts?

This album has several high points, including 'Virtual Insanity,' with its awesome video that I mostly remember from Pop-Up Video, and, well, much of the first half of the album: 'Cosmic Girl,' 'Alright,' and 'Use the Force.' The end of the album isn't bad, either, but the middle is mostly just evidence that one of the qualifications for whoever's been in the band is that they smoke copious amounts of pot. Two consecutive tracks are aimless tributes to the didgeridoo. You listen to the album and suddenly, you're wondering where you are, where Jamiroquai went. Maybe that's what they meant by the title: taking off on some sort of magical journey, and then realizing when you open your eyes again that you haven't moved an inch.

Harvey Danger, King James Version

2009-01-19T15:40:00.001-08:00

I bought this Harvey Danger album because I liked a few songs on another Harvey Danger album; turns out that the properties I enjoyed elsewhere were not transitive. This one lacks the energy of songs like "Flagpole Sitta" and, better yet, Carlotta Valdez", and to some extent, it feels like there's a disconnect between Sean Nelson, the alterna-hipster lyricist with the capability of punk (the band's Seattle-based), and the rest of the band, who seem merely to be strumming along, at some distance from their potent leader. There's one pretty great song on this album: "Sad Sweet Heart of the Rodeo", which makes me believe that the Harvey Danger I liked still existed when this album was released; they just didn't manage to capture it very accurately in the studio.

Rage Against the Machine, The Battle of Los Angeles

2009-01-10T08:18:00.000-08:00

Honestly, I think I may never have listened to this album before. I'm trying to remember what made me buy it in the first place.

In any event, it's good. Its raw energy is deeply satisfying, and Zach de la Rocha excels at infusing his shouting with meaning - something that, say, Chester Bennington of Linkin Park does not. Now, if only I could understand what he's saying in any place but the chorus. The effectiveness of Rage's music is surely in its sound, but if someone were trying to pull a message from the lyrics, they'd have to read them somewhere. And while Rage excels at sounding exceedingly pissed off, when they come down even a notch from that level, the music suffers.

It would probably be disappointing for Rage to know that the only place I'll probably listen to their music is either on a run or at Boston Sports Club, the corporate gym franchise to which I belong.

Lauryn Hill, The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill

2009-01-10T08:01:00.000-08:00

Lauryn Hill is this generation's Joe DiMaggio, because, well, where has she gone? I can't name another artist, female or otherwise, who can rap and sing with as much strength and clarity as she did on this album. She effectively represented her neighborhood, her family, and her values, all with this steely calm that felt by turns light-hearted and honest. Her vocal acrobatics differed from the Idol contestants that try to squeeze as many notes into every run as possible, because she seemed to improvise because she seemed moved to. She incorporated Motown and hip-hop side-by-side in ways that felt collaborative. Aside from the hits to which you've become accustomed - That Thing, Everything is Everything - you ought to give Every Ghetto, Every City a listen.

Her disastrous follow-up album, the MTV Unplugged effort, was one of the saddest moments for American music - and I even kind of liked that one - because she came across as much less certain of things, including her own talents. She had messages, but they seemed chaotic, coltish - they seemed like Ani Difranco, a little - this nervous energy pervaded her newer lyrics.

Here, though, she's got it. She launched a thousand emulators, but no one yet who's been able to improve on the original.

A final note/caveat: like a lot of musicians of her ilk, Lauryn Hill includes these spoken-word interludes in between songs - sometimes, they're skits; other times, they're transitions from one mood to another. I do not understand their purpose. Her interludes, at least, had a coherent, comfortable feel to them: a series of teacher-led discussions with students about love.

Ani Difranco, So Much Shouting, So Much Laughter

2009-01-07T09:27:00.000-08:00

Ani Difranco is the John Updike of acoustic feminism - her output is as prolific as her lyrics can be relentless. To wit: this is her second two-disc live album. To sit through both CDs all at once was exhausting.

That said, there's a good reason for her to release so much of her concert material: she's good live. The few songs I knew from back when I listened to lots of feminist music (I was a sympathizer in high school) were substantially different than the studio-recorded versions. She brings a raw vitality to her performance, and the instrumentation - flute, clarinet, and horns! - is great.

There are two problems. First, Ani performs a couple of poems. I like Ani Difranco primarily for her musicianship and less and less for her words, especially because her favored topics make her sound preachy almost automatically.

Bereft of music, it's kind of tough to take. There's little thrill for me in hearing with what she's going to rhyme words like 'cunt' (elephant, stunt, grunt), and there's even less in finding out just how I've managed to oppress her.

The other problem is the audience. I went to see the Indigo Girls perform at Mt. Holyoke once, and I have still never heard a noise as shrill and sustained as the one the crowd made when they came onstage. There was a girl in a soccer jersey in front of me who jumped up and down, limbs akimbo, non-stop for probably ten minutes - that's how excited she was. That's the kind of audience, I'm convinced, that shows up at every Ani Difranco show - people who don't merely enjoy her music, but people who are emboldened and empowered by her lyrics. If you're only just learning about what a catastrophe the Bush administration has been by listening to an Ani Difranco song, you're certain to irritate me. The screams of ecstacy throughout the album just get wearying. I kind of wish Ani would let, like, a minimalist composer write her some barebones lyrics, and then get in a studio and record an album like she performs live.

Ryan Adams, Gold

2008-06-25T14:47:00.000-07:00

This album confounds me. Released at the height of Ryan Adams's arrogant phase (drinking a bottle of wine over the course of a set, belligerently shouting down people who requested Bryan Adams songs), Gold feels a little self-indulgent, but it's hard to pinpoint why. I like most of the songs individually - or at least lots of parts of the songs - but few have ever found their way onto my Shuffle.

It took me a couple commutes to get through the whole album - not because it's too long (which it is, at 15 or 16 tracks), but because nothing particularly grabbed me. I found myself in the middle of songs, songs I could sing along to, not remembering them having begun.

This album could really go anywhere in my list, especially given its nascency. Ryan Adams is a bigger name, and probably a better artist than the guys from Slowreader, but I don't think I'd put his album into the CD player over theirs, to be honest. Frankly, I'd even opt for Toad the Wet Sprocket if you put a gun to my head (actually, I'd probably do other things if you put a gun to my head, none of them album-related).

I saw Ryan Adams on the street once. He was talking to Norah Jones on the street after a concert she'd given with her country band, The Little Willies. He was shaggy and scruffy and short - if someone hadn't told me who he was, I wouldn't have known who he was. Parallels are funny things.

Slowreader, Slow Reader

2008-06-17T20:10:00.001-07:00

I've been a Lakers fan for as long as I've followed basketball, and right now, I'm watching them get pummeled by the freaking Celtics in Game 6 of the NBA Finals. I was hoping the Lakers would have a chance to repeat as world champions next year, but I guess they're going to have to settle for just one ring, Phil Jackson's tenth, in 2009 (and then a few more after that). Here's how it'll happen, in case you're curious: Andrew Bynum will return, giving us a frontcourt of Bynum, Pau Gasol, and Lamar Odom, with Derek Fisher and Kobe Bryant in the backcourt and Sasha Vujacic, Trevor Ariza, and Jordan Farmar the first subs off the bench. That team will be hungry and unstoppable (especially if we can unload VladRad, who is awful). I take solace in that fact right now.

The other thing consoling me right now is Slowreader's eponymous album. I popped it in for my commute to work this morning and - surprise! - it was refreshing and new. Back when I had listened to this album a few years ago, I had dismissed them, I think, as Elliot Smith-lite. There's some merit to that - if Elliot Smith divided in half, sat up a little straighter, and strummed rather than picked his guitar, that would be Slowreader's sound, kind of.

Slowreader more accurately reminds me of the slow food movement, which emphasizes fresh, simple ingredients, slightly complicated. That's what this band does here - they don't do anything fancy on guitar, on drums, or in production. What gets you are the vocal descants floating above several of the songs, the tight harmonies. Wait; tight is too easy a word for it. It's almost as though the harmonies are lyrics themselves, like the sound they produce have something of their own to say.

And it's not all the same sound, the same song over and over again. There's only one track that I really wanted to skip because it seemed not to end (even though it was only three and a half minutes - "Aging in Rhythm," if you're curious). Everything else felt new and different, innovative.

I recommend this CD to Paul Pierce for when he's recovering from the surgery he'll no doubt require, given how painfully he injured his knee back in Game 1. [/sarcasm]

Sly & the Family Stone, Fresh

2008-06-16T15:13:00.001-07:00

This album fits, in my memory, into that broad category of music I wanted to like, but just couldn't quite back when I initially bought it. It reminds me of when I was little, and my mother used to feed me some combination of things, like peanut butter & jelly, and when I looked forlornly at her, she'd say, "What? You like peanut butter. You like jelly. This is just both of them together." This argument seemed flawed - I like pasta and I like coffee ice cream, but I wouldn't like them together - but who was I to put forth a cogent response like that when I was five or six and my mother was my mother?

In any event, you look at an album like Fresh, and it seems like the elemental components - joyous and fabulously dressed lead singer, funk and soul - ought to have enticed me more than their sum did. For a while, the only song I liked on this was "If You Want Me to Stay," which I liked because it seemed less repetitive than a lot of the other efforts here. The problem, I think, is this: the Family Stone seems to imply a rotating cast of aunts, uncles, second cousins, some other distant relative who might not even be authentic but who can apparently play the theremin. It doesn't imply any structure, coherence, or personality, so the songs all kind of sound the same. Sly sings androgynously, the music sets itself in a vamp, Sly starts making up words, and I found myself sighing with indifference at the point of it all.

The horns, though. The horns rescue the music. I'm a sucker for horns in pop and soul music — it's the secret reason why early Michael Jackson music is so good, and it's the salvation of Fresh. The second half of the album exceeds the first, mostly because Sly's got some great horn riffs in there and the songs have more of a churchy feel to them, as though Sly and the Family Stone were performing for a congregation rather than an audience. "Que Sera Sera" is particularly moving in that regard.

Fresh doesn't knock Dulcinea off its pedestal, but I give it its due — it's better than I'd thought it was.

Toad the Wet Sprocket, Dulcinea

2008-06-16T11:09:00.001-07:00

I first came across Toad the Wet Sprocket, I think, in the summer of 1993, at New England Music Camp in Maine. The summer of my first, and therefore kind of frightening, kiss (to "End of the Road," by Boyz II Men). I played flute, and lived in North Sault, one half of a cabin (the other half being South Sault) that housed probably 24 kids - we had three or four counselors who slept in a room in between us, and one of them, Ed, was a huge fan of Toad the Wet Sprocket. I remember that he had one of their other albums, fear, on tape, and signed by everyone in the band.

The best part, I think, about New England Music Camp, was a song competition, which pitted each of the cabins against each other in song performance - we had to write one ourselves, and perform one cover, and we'd do them for each other in the halfshell on campus. Because of Ed's Toad the Wet Sprocket adoration, we ended up covering "I Will Not Take These Things for Granted" from fear, and behind the strength of our original "We Are the Sault-ines," we triumphed over the rest of the camp that session.

Dulcinea does not sound triumphant or victorious. Its sound is hard and, even on more light-hearted songs, lead singer Glen Phillips's voice is not given to levity. Toad the Wet Sprocket sounds like a band that grew up in the garage of a run-down coastal bungalow, rebelling against their happy-go-lucky, surfing parents. They probably surf, too, but for the band members, the experience of surfing is more intense than spiritual. For the most part, it works - the hooks are enticing and the music is well-constructed. Surprisingly, the bridges strike me as the climax of most of the songs, which is great, since bridges can be such a let-down, sort of like bridge, the card game.

Three-quarters of the album works - a lot of the songs manage to channel that angrier sound and back off a little, but the last three cross the border into full-fledged angst. Which is a little much for a southern Californian band whose members live on the ocean (in my imagination, anyway).

Anyway, since it's the first album I'm ranking, and especially since it's a solid album with an overarching character to it, it gets the number one slot on my ranking.