Break ‘Em Out: U2 – Achtung Baby

They came.  They saw.  They grooved.

Depending on the band, 1991 was either the best of times or the worst of times.  A wave of young new bands a part of the massive grunge movement was taking over the world while some of the most popular acts of the 80s were being pushed aside into obscurity.  Most 80s bands did not welcome the change and tried to continue their reign into the 90s, most ending up with poor results.  U2, arguably the biggest of these 80s bands threatened by extinction, decided to not play it safe like their peers but to reinvent themselves with a new look and sound for the new decade.  The result was Achtung Baby, the weirdest, and greatest, thing U2 has ever made.

The band sounds weird right off the bat with album opener “Zoo Station”, where Bono has traded his hymns of Bloody Sundays for a good time in the club (“I’m ready for the laughing gas / I’m ready for what’s next”).  Then the next track “Even Better Than The Real Thing” has Bono trying to seduce a significant other – is this really the same Bono that sang “Running To Stand Still”?  Yes, this is the same Bono, and this is still U2.  Bono, the Edge, and the other two guys you don’t know (Adam Clayton on bass and Larry Mullen Jr. on drums) have always been able to create impassioned songs that play off the raw emotional power of Bono’s singing and the Edge’s inspiring guitar playing.  The only difference on Achtung Baby is that Bono is trying to reach us through our hips and desires instead of our spirituality – Bono is trying to be sexy!

There are no fillers on Achtung Baby – each song adds something different to the album.  “One” is the song everyone loves and sounds the most like old U2.  It’s an excellent song, but it’s not as romantic as most people make it out to be (“Did I ask too much, more than a lot? / You gave me nothing, now it’s all I got / We’re one, but we’re not the same / Well we hurt each other, then we do it again”).  Things go back to being weird again with “Until The End Of The World”, which is probably the sexiest song about the end of the world.  “Who’s Gonna Ride Your Wild Horses” is my current favorite song off the album.  With its big guitars and bigger chorus, it’s a song only U2 could have made.  “So Cruel” feels much longer than it actually is, always consistent with the drums, piano, and bass but keeps layering with each verse and chorus.

The second half of Achtung Baby starts off with “The Fly”, one of the Edge’s finest guitar moments – if you can believe that it’s a guitar he’s playing on.  “Mysterious Ways” is the other famous track off the album, the other being “One”, and its beginning guitar lick and infectious chorus is as annoyingly catchy now as it was back in 1991.  There’s not a lot I can say about “Tryin’ To Throw Your Arms Around The World” except that it is such a cool song, something that could have only been made in the Achtung Baby universe.  “Ultraviolet (Light My Way)” and “Acrobat” are both solid songs, but the best is saved for last.  “Love Is Blindness” ends the album on a dark, but powerful note.  The song depicts love as “a dangerous idea that almost makes sense” with spooky organs and raw guitar that builds but then slowly fades into nothing, leaving listeners hanging onto the very last note.

Considering the album that came before this was The Joshua Tree – sorry Rattle and Hum, but you don’t count as a legitimate album – Achtung Baby sounds so foreign, because it is.  Bono had found what he was looking for (get the reference?!) in Berlin, where the band initially tried to record the album (Achtung means “attention” in German).  The band absorbed European electro-club music and industrial music and gave it their own special twist.  Gone is the spiritual thirst and soaring guitars that accompanied songs about searching for truth and peace in America.  Now the Irish foursome is grooving to European club beats and distorted guitars looking for hot babes instead of God.

The album sounds like a giant industrial cluster-fuck because the recording of this album was the worst period of U2’s career.  Constantly on the verge of breaking up, the band just could not click and was getting nowhere.  Directionless and fearful of becoming culturally irrelevant, The band’s time in Berlin only made things worse when a lack of progress challenged the band’s patience and threatened the band’s career.  But then, in one of the great Rock n Roll stories of all time, the band came together and wrote “One”, which they credit to keeping the band together.  After “One” was completed the band got their shit together, went back home to Dublin, and finished recording what would be their best album.

Much like what Radiohead would do a decade later with Kid A, U2 created an album that was a complete 180 from what had worked for them in the past for the sake of artistic integrity.  The album is challenging to hear at first, and if you’re not a U2 fan this sure as hell won’t convert you into one.  However, after many listens, I would argue Achtung Baby to be one of the greatest albums to come out in recent time (Spin Magazine would agree with me).  Also like Kid A, the value of this album is just now beginning to be appreciated in a new generation.  Bono described Achtung Baby when it first came out as, “the sound of the band chopping down the Joshua tree”, and the wood that came from that tree made one hell of a fire.

Break ‘Em Out: Weezer – Pinkerton

The greatest sophomore slump of the 90s.

Rivers Cuomo’s worst songs are better than most bands’ best songs.  Say what you will about the band’s last couple of albums (ok, all their albums except their first two), This band knows how to rock out, and Cuomo is one of the most talented songwriters of pop rock.  Most of you probably know Weezer because of their debut album Weezer (nicknamed The Blue Album).  It’s a great album and I recommend it to anyone unfamiliar with the band, though I guarantee you’ve already heard “Buddy Holly” and “Say It Ain’t So” many times.

But this post is not about The Blue Album – there are plenty of great things said about that album elsewhere on the internet.  This post is about the follow up to that great debut album – an even better album that many people forget about.  That album is Pinkerton, a total change in direction for Weezer where they reached a new level of creativity and lyrical depth that the band has yet to match since.  This album deserves to be just as famous, if not more famous, than The Blue Album because I believe this is not only the band’s best album but also one of the best albums of the 90s.

The album starts off with a bang.  “Tired of Sex” has my vote for the best album opener, or at least the most potent.  The whole album can be summarized by the first track: the freakout guitars, the banging bass and drums, the well-constructed songs, and Cuomo’s brutal honesty – he’s tired of sex, and damn it he’s going to tell you about it.

One thing really incredible about this album is how loud it is.  Every moment the band sounds like they are on the brink of destruction, and you find yourself just waiting for the amps to explode.  The sound is a complete 180 from the The Blue Album‘s happy rock sound.  The mood also really clashes with the peaceful album cover (what is it with Cuomo and Japan?).  However, if you listen closely you’ll notice how well constructed these songs are.  The melodies never get lost in the noise, and the band is tight while maintaing all the madness.  Not enough credit is given to the rest of the band.  Matt Sharp is a hell of a bass player and Patrick Wilson’s drumming is some of the best of the 90s, especially on this album.  Cuomo is technically the lead guitarist, but it’s Brain Bell that shines on guitar.

The biggest thing you take away from Pinkerton is this: Cuomo has big trouble with the ladies.  He falls in love with a lesbian (“Pink Triangle”) and a 14-year-old Japanese girl (“Across The Sea”).  He’s in love with a girl who scares the shit out of him (“No Other One”) and another one whom he likes way too much (“Falling For You”).  A lot of the time I have to laugh at how hopeless Cuomo is with the ladies, but sometimes he takes it too far – try not to cringe the first time you hear “Butterfly”.

Other highlights include “The Good Life” and “El Scorcho”, the only songs off the album that were somewhat successful as singles.  But this is not a singles album, which every other Weezer album is.  Maybe this is why I like this album the most from this band – it’s the only one that actually feels like a full album from start to finish.

This album is incredible for another reason – this is one of the first true Emo albums (also one of the few that didn’t suck).  Cuomo isn’t holding anything back from us, and everything that’s on his mind comes out in the lyrics in ways that are disturbing yet relatable.  It might not be as cheeky as Fall Out Boy or as likable as Dashboard Confessional, but this is pure Emo music.

It could have been very easy for Weezer to release The Blue Album II, Cuomo is a good enough songwriter to have written a whole album’s worth of songs just as good as “Buddy Holly”.  Instead this band went the hard way and made an album of true, raw art.  This was a huge gamble, and it hasn’t payed off until recently (the album was considered crap when released in 1996).  But all is good – this album is finally getting the treatment it deserves.

Fun fact: Cuomo ended up marrying a Japanese woman from across the sea.

Break ‘Em Out: The Smiths – The Queen Is Dead

An acquired taste, but it stays with you for life.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I don’t remember when I started to like The Smiths, but I do remember that I used to not like this band.  I’ve heard from many people how influential these guys were and how The Queen Is Dead is considered to be one of the greatest albums of all time, but the music didn’t connect to me and I didn’t like Morrissey’s voice.

Then sometime ago I put my iTunes on shuffle and the song “Cemetery Gates” came on.  For some reason, I still do not know why, the song caught me off guard and I found myself repeating the song over and over.  Everything about the song was incredible, from the melody, to the guitar, and the bass – you know a song is great when you notice the bass.  I was hooked and I listened to The Queen Is Dead all the way through multiple times.  My listen of the album was like listening to “Cemetery Gates” that faithful day, there were short moments of brilliance and many moments that catch your attention unexceptionally.  This album might not be the greatest ever made, but it’s an album I would consider to be essential.

A good idea of what the album entitles is from the second track “Frankly, Mr. Shankly.”  At first the song seems like a joke, one of the reasons why I didn’t like this band before, with a funky beat and weird lyrics.  But soon the chorus kicks in and the beautiful guitar work of Johnny Marr come out of nowhere and stays present for the rest of the song – good luck trying to get it out of your head.  The songs on The Queen Is Dead don’t sound particularly special the first couple of seconds you listen, but if you stay with the song it will hook you in.  “Cemetery Gates” and other songs like “There Is a Light That Never Goes Out” and “I know It’s Over” grow on you with each listen with the melodies getting stronger, and soon you start to appreciate Morrissey’s combination of wit and dark humor in his lyrics.

The strong tracks here are classics but the album does drag on for many moments, and Morrissey’s voice is an acquired taste.  This also isn’t a very happy album – hopefully you got that sense from the title.  It is a collection of songs that are mournful, cynical, and dark, and Morrissey’s lyrics sound like pages from a Victorian novel he should have written, but not everyone is a fan of Jane Eyre or Great Expectations.

This album is one of the most important albums of the 80s and of all Indie music, and if you listen to all the big Indie bands after 1986 you can hear a little bit of Morrissey’s voice and Marr’s guitars in all of them.  Morrissey in “Frankly, Mr. Shankly” sings, “I want to go down in musical history,” and with The Queen Is Dead he was dubbed the king of Indie rock – too bad the queen is dead.

Break ‘Em Out: Jeff Buckley – Grace

A glimpse of what could have been.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Jeff Buckley died in 1997 in a freak drowning accident while making his second album.  Three years earlier he released this mess of a masterpiece, Grace, an album that could have been so much better and yet is already perfect.

This album is all over the place, going from soft jazz to loud garage rock to Radiohead-like ballads, and most of the time it’s all in one song.  And speaking of Radiohead, Thom Yorke, Chris Martin, and Damien Rice all owe Buckley big time for their singing.  His voice is one of the most unique vocals in popular music, ranging from quiet whispers to loud passionate yells.  He’s also quite the guitar player, sounding like a jazzier Jimmy Page – see “Hallelujah” and “Lilac Wine” to hear what I mean.  This album takes its time, so there is a bit of patience required for this album.  Every song starts slow but soon grows and builds louder and more powerful before eventually fading back or disappearing completely.

In the end, this is the debut of a man still trying to figure himself out.  It would have been interesting to see what kind of music he would have gone on to create after Grace, but his death is one of rock n roll’s greatest tragedies.  At least he was able to give us this album before he left us.

Break ‘Em Out: The Replacements – Let It Be

Is timeless the proper word?

I’ve been preparing a long time to write about this album, and I really wanted to get it right.  I really wanted to talk about this band’s importance to the 80s alternative rock scene (they were pretty much the Nirvana of the 80s).  I really wanted to convey the idea of Paul Westerberg’s growing maturity as a songwriter and how he created a near flawless pop record without it sounding anything like pop.  I would like whoever is reading this to understand what a beautifully messed up album this is and how every teenager needs to listen to this.

But I can’t.

This album is wonderful in a way that I can’t describe in a summary – go to Rolling Stone or Pitchfork if you want that.  All I can tell you is that this record is like The Breakfast Club to me.  It is a look at being a teenager in all it’s tragedy and glory.  All the promise, all the disappointments, all the fears, everything.

Every track on this album is great, and some are even incredible.  “I Will Dare”, “Sixteen Blue”, and “Unsatisfied” are some of the band’s best songs, and “Androgynous” is one of the most unique, and beautiful, punk ballads ever created.  The album’s greatest moment is its ending with “Answering Machine”, a song that could relate to us more now, with text messaging and Facebook, than it did in the 80s (“How do you say I miss you to an answering machine?”).

Truthfully you might not even like this record. You might think it’s sloppy, unorganized, and has too much filler. Even if all the above is true – and it probably is – this is a record you need to listen to.  Go out and get it now.