Tag: Best albums

Albums

Best albums of 1998: #2 Billy Bragg and Wilco “Mermaid avenue”

Post author By jprobichaud
Post date May 2, 2019
9 Comments on Best albums of 1998: #2 Billy Bragg and Wilco “Mermaid avenue”

After seeing him perform at a Woody Guthrie tribute concert in New York City, Guthrie’s daughter Nora contacted Billy Bragg in 1992 about a project. It seemed Woody Guthrie had left the lyrics for thousands of songs he had written but not recorded and for which, no music had been notated. Nora wanted to bring these songs to life for a new generation. Bragg agreed but not before enlisting the help of American alternative rock band, Wilco. The results were better than anyone could have expected, garnering critical acclaim, record sales, and a Grammy for everyone’s troubles.

I picked up on this album a few years after its release and mostly because I’d been a fan of Billy Bragg for a number of years. I’d heard a few of its songs beforehand but didn’t know then that they were re-creations of those written by Guthrie. Of course, when I first listened to it, I preferred the songs sung by Bragg to the others sung by Jeff Tweedy because I only knew Wilco by name, not their music. However, I have since grown to love all of the songs and appreciate the difference Tweedy’s voice lends to those others.

The sound and instrumentation of “Mermaid avenue” was definitely different from what I was used to with Bragg, which is likely why he wanted Wilco to help: to signal to all that this was not about him. It is old school Americana but with a modern edge, like actors dressing up in old costumes but speaking in modern colloquial. I’m not all that familiar with Woody Guthrie’s music, save for the iconic “This land is your land”, of course, but I have to imagine he would’ve been happy with the results. His daughter definitely was because the success of this album spawned two later volumes, as well as a box set collecting all of the compilations in one set.

It is typically difficult to narrow down my picks for you to three but this one was near impossible so I just took the first three in running order. Enjoy.

“Walt Whitman’s niece”: My first pick here is a song that sounds like a tall tale that might be spun in any bar in the world. “Last night or the night before that, I won’t say which night, a seaman friend of mine, I’ll not say which seaman…” It is a literary conquest sung (and told) by Bragg with the band members of Wilco as house band. You can almost picture Bragg sitting precariously on a stool having at it on his guitar after one too many and the band stomping along with him at the piano and harmonica, shouting along with him at the appropriate parts. It’s unseemly and full of innuendo and lots of good fun. Whitman would’ve been proud.

“California stars”: Jeff Tweedy (of Wilco) sings this next one around the campfire after a hard day’s work in the fields with fellow workers. “I’d like to rest my heavy head tonight on a bed of California stars. I’d like to lay my weary bones tonight on a bed of California stars.” It is a clear but lonely night. The sky is big and full of stars but not the same ones that watch over California, where his beloved lays sleeping and waiting for him. You can feel this longing and dreaming in every strum on the guitar, whine of the pedal steel and peal of fiddle. Tweedy’s voice is perfect here, giving it a completely different than it would’ve had if sung by Bragg. It’ll charm you for sure.

“Way over yonder in the minor key”: This one’s got a feel that reminds me of Huck Finn or The Little Rascals. “Her mama cut a switch from a cherry tree and laid it on the she and me. It stung lots worse than a hive of bees but there ain’t nobody that can sing like me.” Its language is childish, like a skipping game or patty cakes, and suggests a young first love. Billy Bragg leads the tale with Natalie Merchant adding her lovely vocals at the chorus. It’s gentle and melancholic, perhaps a remembering of a time long gone. It’s so beautiful, you’ll want to listen to it over and over again.

Check back next Thursday for album #1. In the meantime, here are the previous albums in this list:

10. Sloan “Navy blues”
9. Cake “Prolonging the magic”
8. Embrace “The good will out”
7. Mojave 3 “Out of tune”
6. Rufus Wainwright “Rufus Wainwright”
5. Manic Street Preachers “This is my truth now tell me yours”
4. Pulp “This is hardcore”
3. Neutral Milk Hotel “In the aeroplane over the sea”

You can also check out my Best Albums page here if you’re interested in my other favourite albums lists.

Tags 1990s, 1998, Alt-country, Alternative, Alternative Rock, Best albums, Billy Bragg, Cover, Folk, Folk-Punk, Retro, Tribute album, Wilco, Woody Guthrie

Albums

Best albums of 1998: #3 Neutral Milk Hotel “In the aeroplane over the sea”

Post author By jprobichaud
Post date April 25, 2019
14 Comments on Best albums of 1998: #3 Neutral Milk Hotel “In the aeroplane over the sea”

It was my friend Jez that tried to get me into Neutral Milk Hotel many moons ago, albeit five or six years after the release of this, their seminal album. I had met Jez at my call centre job in the early 2000s and I’m not quite sure how we got to talking about music but it was on this that we had clicked as friends. We were constantly introducing each other to bands. He gave me a copy of “In the aeroplane over the sea” to sample, telling me they sounded like The Decemberists, a band I was just getting into at the time, but for some reason, the album didn’t click with me.

My friend wasn’t wrong in his comparison though, I can totally see where this album influenced Colin Meloy now. In fact, a lot of indie folk bands of the 2000s were influenced by it. However, when Jeff Mangum started the project in the late 80s, the sound was decidedly different. It was a lot noisier and raw and even less put together, if you can believe it. “In the aeroplane over the sea” was the second album released by Neutral Milk Hotel and the first recorded as an actual group. Before that, the ‘band’ was whoever was around at the time to perform with Mangum. This second album is still very lo-fi but it is also an electric mishmash of genres and instruments. It is ugly but beautiful, the lyrics influenced by Mangum’s reflections on Anne Frank.

Adding to the lore of the “In the aeroplane over the sea” is the fact that Jeff Mangum put the band on indefinite hiatus the year following its release after becoming disenchanted with everything. The album did well critically but not commercially right away. However, it picked up steam over the years, people discovering it way too late, has since sold many copies, and has now appeared on multiple best albums of the 90s lists. Mangum reformed the band in 2013 and toured extensively into the spring of 2015 before disappearing back into the night.

I finally the picked up this album again around that time because they were announced to play the folk festival in my city and this time it clicked. Yep, I fell in love with it just in time to see them live. The three picks below are amongst my favourites on the album but they are by no means the only great tracks.

“Ghost”: It is aggressive acoustic strumming and a rumbling and distorted fuzz bass, almost obscuring Jeff Mangum’s stream of consciousness-like lyrics. Indeed, at times, it sounds like he needs to be yelling above the cacaphony. “Ghost, ghost I know you live within me. I feel you as you fly in thunder clouds above the city into one that I love.” The words started out from the thoughts that his apartment was haunted and like many of the songs on the album, reflections of Anne Frank creep through. From there, frantic drums kick in as well as a pocket of duelling horns, none of which sound super proficient or rather, their attention to detail is lacking. Yeah, it’s a shambles. But it’s a wonderful shambles.

“In the aeroplane over the sea”: “And one day we will die and our ashes will fly from the aeroplane over the sea but for now we are young, let us lay in the sun.” The title track of the album is still hinting at the supernatural but has a somewhat happier bent. The acoustic strumming that starts the tune and carries on throughout is of the head swaying type and never fails to bring a smile. You can almost picture Mangum singing this wth his eyes closed in ecstasy. He adds in those same horns we heard in the previous track to the party and for shits and giggles, some singing saw. Seriously. How often do you hear a singing saw in popular music? Right.

“The king of carrot flowers, pt. 1”: “And this is the room one afternoon I knew I could love you. And from above you how I sank into your soul into that secret place where no one dares to go.” The opening track with the seemingly nonsensical name is but part 1 of a two song trilogy (parts 2 and 3 follow on the album’s next track). It’s short at two minutes and not necessarily as frantic as some of the other tracks that follow it. It’s like a warm up for the joy and bliss that’s to come. It is simple and innocent, that aforementioned kitchen sink instrumentation and breathless and almost random lyrics are present here as well, evoking yellowed polaroids and long ago discarded toys and favourite blankets. It is the purity of first love set to an off-kilter accordion and what is better than that?

Check back next Thursday for album #2. In the meantime, here are the previous albums in this list:

You can check out my Best Albums page here if you’re interested in my other favourite albums lists.

Tags 1990s, Alternative, Alternative Rock, Best albums, Indie rock, Neutral Milk Hotel, Psych folk, Retro

Albums

Best albums of 1998: #4 Pulp “This is hardcore”

Post author By jprobichaud
Post date April 18, 2019
10 Comments on Best albums of 1998: #4 Pulp “This is hardcore”

What do you get when you have a band, especially a talented and misunderstood frontman, that toils for years in obscurity, always hoping and striving for fame, finally reaches its goal with a couple of hit records and massive headline spots at top festivals, only to find out that the fame is not what he/they wanted in the end? You get an album like “This is hardcore”.

Indeed, Pulp’s previous record, their fifth, “Different class” had them out on top, almost two decades after a 15-year old Jarvis Cocker formed the band with his friend Peter Dalton. Pulp had seen multiple personnel changes over 1980s and they struggled mightily, releasing two albums to almost no impact on the music buying public. They started to gain traction with their third album, 1992’s “Separations”, and then, “His ‘n’ hers” truly broke the band in 1994. It’s sort of a chicken and the egg thing with Pulp and BritPop. Nevertheless, the scene’s wave carried the band with it to the pinnacles of fame and still, it seemed, Jarvis and company weren’t happy. The sixth album took a year to record and was a struggle from the beginning, perhaps this was partly due to the departure of long time member Russell Senior but the band persevered and the results were completely worth it.

When I first heard it, I was a bit thrown off as I’m sure a lot of people were. Of course, I was still young and looking for more of that glam rock to dance to and sing along with Cocker’s wry observations on love and sex and life in general. I wasn’t ready for all this jaded maturity and found the music too heavy on inaccessible side of the scale. Of course, hindsight is 20/20 and with my own jaded maturity, I can now see “This is hardcore” for the masterpiece that it is. An album that is timeless and stands up to Pulp’s best work.

Sample, if you will, my three picks for you below and let me know your thoughts.

“A little soul”: Songs with titles like this are usually a bit more uplifting, soul or R&B pop tracks that shake it, suggesting that ‘little’ is an understatement. However, Cocker turns this idea on its head with a literal take on its theme. The narrative is of a man speaking to his son, likely not a direct conversation though, just one in his head, as he’s watching him from afar or looking at a photo of him. “You look like me but you’re not like me, I hope. I have run away from the one thing that I ever made.” It’s a tired sounding number, an end of the night ballad, a mellow blues band in an empty, echoing club, Cocker sounding sorrowful and full of regret and though he feels he doesn’t have any soul to share, there’s plenty here.

“Help the aged”: Another song here that’s a bit depressing. If you’re sensing a theme, you’re spot on. Amongst the screaming and searing guitars is Cocker eulogizing youthfulness and imploring the young to truly see seniors and not hide from their own mortality. “You can dye your hair but it’s the one thing you can’t change, can’t run away from yourself.” No, it’s not a charitable song, as its title suggests, but an introspective one. A midlife crisis in song form, rage and sadness in a four minute song rather than a red convertible.

“This is hardcore”: The title track is the epic, six and a half minute centrepiece of the album. The sound is very different from the synth glam of their previous record and Jarvis Cocker uses his usual lurid thematics here as an extended metaphor for how he sees the music industry. It’s a slow burning number, dark and seedy, likely something you might hear in a lower end strip joint while a disinterested performer moves to its crawling beat on the grimy stage. Cocker runs the gamut of hopes and dreams and foreplay to being spent and used in every way possible. ”Oh, this is hardcore. There is no way back for you.” This is a great band at peak form.