2012 in Review

I was going to quit, you know.

It was very stressful living up to certain expectations I had set for myself in the year I had done this site. I felt like if I waswn't writing 900-1000 words I wasn't doing it right. That if I truly loved an album I could probably bash out at least that much about it that fully encompassed all the greatness living within it.

I had a mini-breakdown around the time I did my write-up on Big Star's #1 Record. It exposed to me something that I've known all along, but tried to forget: That I have absolutely no business calling myself an authority. That being able to sense when music is good does not mean I have the complete mastery over it or a natural gift for explaining why, exactly, that is. That was one of the hardest write-ups I've ever had to do and I think it's probably one of the best articles I've written and I still think I failed to do that album justice. I had this drive to be somehow definitive. Which is silly, in a way, because part of what I love about music is that so much of it eludes me. I'm not a musician or a composer so as I tell my musician friends, I have an entirely different sense of what is in a song than they do. When I like something, I really just want to stand in awe of it.

So I took the summer off and I wasn't sure when or if I was going to come back, but I had all this stuff backed up that I could review if I wanted to. As you may recall I spent the summer largely thinking about Aerosmith and not trying to tell people that I was talking about Aerosmith because I didn't want to have to defend it or discuss it -- I just wanted to appreciate this band that I have liked on a primal level for a really long time. What I hoped to accomplish from that, and maybe it worked, is to get back to first principles and a more basic, in some ways more relevant mode of musical enjoyment.

Then finally in September I came back with a better attitude, a resolve to be easier on myself. Since then I've been making less of an effort to be grandiose and total in my review and am feeling comfortable honing in on one or two things I truly love about an album. And sometimes, as when I write about the Beatles, that leads to a write-up topping 1000 words, and sometimes it leads to something closer to 500 words like my write-ups of Death From Above 1979 or Pretty Girls Make Graves, both of which I absolutely love.

I'm still learning. I don't think I'll ever be happy with my writing style but somehow I'll get to a point where I think it's worth sharing and you'll get to read it. I'll always be working on it in some way or another, or else I'll finally just tap out on doing it. I keep questioning the value of what I do here, but ultimately I keep coming back because this is not the last word in objective quality criticism, this is a personal blog masking itself as criticism. It's me doing something that I feel like I still need to do after two years, which is find more awesome music for me to listen to. And if I get to be the one to tell you about it first, so much the better.

The truth, though, is this. I'm typing this at the tail end of three months of intense productivity on this site. I don't see it sustaining itself much longer. I feel very good about what I've been doing lately, and how I've learned it, and that if I could walk away for a while in the new year - if just for a while, again, that's what I choose - I could feel pretty all right with it. It's not like review writing is some act of great creativity, anyway. They don't hand out awards for making pointed observations and trying to influence consumer habits.

My own observations are often, by my own standards, mundane and pedestrian, but I think they sometimes speak more to what draws people to whatever kind of music. A little while ago I happened upon this interview with the Ramones on YouTube, where they pointedly stated that rock and roll music is supposed to be fun. And there are many great writers and essayists who can take that material and write out fascinating, significant essays about it, but as much as I enjoy and am envious of what they do, I will never be them. At least not when that's what I'm trying to be. I want this to be as fun as I find listening to and discovering (and talking about!) music, and if it's not, I don't know why I would keep doing it.

Keep on rockin'
-Scotto

Japandroids: Celebration Rock

Celebration Rock is a simple pleasure, but a real and valuable one. It sounds like a car roaring down a lonely highway, barreling through at twenty over the speed limit, windows open arms flailing out in the wind. This is not so much an album made up of individual songs that are great, but a great cachet of a sound, of thundering drums and roaring guitars that scorch and seem to multiply the longer they are left playing. It sounds like a triumph over humility: brash and bold and of course, celebratory. This is victory.

"Authentic" is a dumb word but they come by their thrills honestly, with anthemic chords and shout-along choruses, like "The Nights of Wine and Roses" and "Fire's Highway" and "Adrenaline Nightshift" and "Younger Us" and "The House That Heaven Built," never marred by overthought. They're all visceral and physical and instinctual. So many "Ohs" and "Yeahs." Albums rarely get made like this, because of the natural desire to flex creative muscles and go in a different direction with each song, but haven't you ever listened to a song and thought "That was awesome, put it on repeat!" Of course you have. And Celebration Rock does that for you by making the tracks themselves the repeat - with slight subtle new wrinkles each time to keep you interested. It puts you in that young, exuberant, energetic state of mind and keeps you there. The call-and-answer lyrics reaffirm every positive, defiant thing, and the mix lets those vocals sound like the sound of a distant crowd clamoring to be heard above the more immediate instruments, all-powerful guitars and propulsive, firework-like drums. The lyrics themselves underscore the mood of overcoming yourself and throwing yourself into the thick of it.

There are two tracks on the album that are distinct in any way, and they still fit the overall aesthetic of the album pretty damn well. One is the menacing southwestern-tinged "For The Love Of Ivy," which snarls a bit too much to be one of the album's highlights, and the other is the slow-burning "Continuous Thunder," which gradually slips us out of the fiery dream this album has created. It's the cherry on top.

I dig the single-mindedness with which this album approaches its music, and by committing to it wholeheartedly it becomes compulsively listenable, loopable, livable. Not (merely) an album loaded with great songs but an album built out of a great sound, like the bizarro world counterpart to the xx, where loudness and raucousness were a virtue, rather than spareness and restraint... but the result is oddly similar, a genuine, no distractions, piece of concrete.

This has been a loud year for me. Of the albums I heard in 2012 - not just the ones that came out this year - I've mixed in Sleigh Bells, Death From Above 1979, Pretty Girls Make Graves and Sonic Youth (as well as Dinosaur Bones and Naked & Famous, which weren't exactly lullabys.) Japandroids are by no means the loudest, but they are so dedicated to their sound that it's impossible to deny the power they wield. They strip away all extra bits that conventional wisdom would insist are important to any kind of music, scrubbing away any bit of self-consciousness about repetition or any pretense of self-effacement... this is trance-inducingly good, body-rockingly good, soul-movingly good. This is what we need. When they cry out for "Younger Us," that's exactly what they bring you with this music.

Buy this album now: iTunes Canada // iTunes USA // Amazon.ca // Amazon.com

The Tolerable Christmas Playlist: David Bowie & Bing Crosby

"Maybe I'm a Grinch, but fuck all non-Bowie Christmas songs." I tweeted something to that effect a little while ago, and have been compiling this list as a way of proving myself wrong. Yes, there is awesome Christmas music out there, but there is still not one song I like better than this one.

The story goes that Bowie was "actively trying to normalize" his career in 1982, and so agreed to appear on Bing's Christmas special. However, he balked at singing "Little Drummer Boy." Personally, I always found it incredibly corny, although like all Christmas songs it has a store of genuine emotion and significance beneath the must and tradition.

So to start, you have Bing Crosby, he of "White Christmas" legend, performing this old holiday chestnut, the sweet sentimental song of the Little Drummer Boy, and then you have Bowie coming in with something more outwardly meaningful, a direct plea for peace in our time, to raise children to care for one another. But it isn't a platitude, it's weighed down with realism: "Years from now, perhaps we'll see."

It isn't just that there's a new wrinkle on this song that makes it so brilliant. It's the combination. It's the fidelity to the past, the tradition that is so perfectly represented in Bing Crosby singing "Little Drummer Boy," and the forward-thinking verse and new generation crystallized in Bowie (at the time a mere 15 years into his career,) coming together to highlight one another, to evoke a timelessness in the message and spirit of Christmas that still sends a chill up my spine to this day.

The Tolerable Christmas Playlist: South Park, "Mr. Hankey's Christmas Classics"

South Park always had a close relationship with Christmas. It began life as "The Spirit of Christmas," then brought us "Mr. Hankey the Christmas Poo." For the first eight years, the show had a tradition of providing outstanding Christmas episodes that only really stopped when their airing schedule stopped coinciding with late December.

The third, "Mr. Hankey's Christmas Classics," may not be the funniest or best-remembered... it came at a time when the shock of newness that accompanied the show had worn off, and a while before it discovered its gift for topicality. It's basically a hit-and-miss series of musical numbers, of which my favourite is the lounge act between Jesus and Santa. Considering the two had been introduced in their first short as sworn enemies, it's fun to see them kidding each other and trading off numbers.

Then Jesus shoulders Santa out as Santa can't think of a second decent "Santa" carol, and so the jolly fat man bursts in with a rendition of Duran Duran's "Rio," which to me has been an honorary Christmas song ever since.

I like it, because it turns the idea of the "War on Christmas" on its head, with Santa patently unable to overcome the focus on Jesus in the songs and culture on the season (never mind that "Rudolph" is at least implicitly a Santa song and "Jingle Bells" at least contains a sleigh, Jesus is still pretty well represented overall.) The song they end up duetting on, "Let It Snow," is secular, but not commercial, it's just a nice ditty about spending time together (and possibly making sweet love.) The whole context of it makes the songs so much better.

And for completeness, here's South Park's best contribution to the Holiday canon, "Lonely Jew on Christmas."

The Tolerable Christmas Playlist: How the Grinch Stole Christmas, "Welcome Christmas"

Probably the most outwardly cheesy song I will post on this Christmas Playlist. And while "You're a Mean One, Mr. Grinch" gets all the glory, "Welcome Christmas" is the song that really encapsulates the wonderment of the Christmas season, especially the reprise, as they start "singing without packages, boxes or tags." It probably has more gibberish lyrics than actual ones, which is not unusual for Christmas music with all its "fa la las" and "rump pum pums." It's just that, being Dr. Seuss, the gibberish is unusually specific, "Fah Who Foraze, Dah Who Doraze..."

But of course, it has such quick, simple distillations of the Christmas spirit:

Christmas day will always be,
Just as long as we have we

[...]

Welcome Christmas, while we stand
Heart to heart, and hand in hand.

What more do you need? Shame this song never became a standard.

The Tolerable Christmas Playlist: Trans-Siberian Orchestra, "Christmas Eve/Sarajevo 12/24"

This is that one Trans-Siberian Orchestra song you're looking for.

The Tolerable Christmas Playlist: Barenaked Ladies & Sarah McLachlan

As far as contemporary takes on classic carols go, I'll always love this mashup from Barenaked Ladies and Sarah McLachlan, who make "God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen" a swinging, jazzy number, and lend "We Three Kings" some soul. The combination works astonishingly well and it was probably early exposure to this one that gave me a love for a good holiday medley.

The Tolrable Christmas Playlist: Straight No Chaser, "The Twelve Days of Christmas"

I will forever appreciate any group that manages to have fun with the standard Christmas songs/carols and not come off forced. Yes, Straight No Chaser's a capella schtick is as middle-of-the-road as anything but not only are they good at what they do, the charm they bring to their goofy now-legendary performance is pretty infectious.

The Tolerable Christmas Playlist: Beatles Christmas Records

In his book, Beatles Press Agent Tony Barrow recalls how the tradition of doing an annual fan club Christmas disc came about. Basically, as their fame grew, the fanclub had a hard time servicing its members (answering fan mail and such) so to keep it relevant he pitched the band the idea of recording a short disc to send out thanking them generally at the end of the year. It was somewhat crass - a way of keeping the club relevant without having to do too much extra work (the first record was made with extra time left over at the end of the "I Want To Hold Your Hand" session.) But it worked out, of course, because part of the Beatles' immense appeal was their personalities. Even if being in the club didn't literally get you closer to the Beatles, you were rewarded with a little glimpse of them. It became an annual tradition. They're fun and in their way sincere, which makes them fairly key Holiday listening.

The Tolerable Christmas Playlist: Weird Al, "The Night Santa Went Crazy"

When you're a kid, few things amuse you more than a twisted Christmas song. Everybody remembers "Jingle bells, Batman smells." My personal favourite was "We three kings of Washington Square / Try to sell some cheap underwear / This elastic, it's fantastic, $3.99 a pair."

Anyway. This was probably the first one I heard in recorded form, and it wasn't even based on a pre-existing carol. "Weird Al" went to the trouble of penning an all-original (two, if you include "Christmas At Ground Zero," which I like less) Christmas song, about Santa going on a murderous rampage. He knew his audience.

The Tolerable Christmas Playlist: The Muppets "One More Sleep 'Til Christmas"

I just happen to think the Muppets Christmas Carol is one of the best versions of the story, and that this song, like so much of what they do, manages to be both fresh and classic-sounding at once. Kermit as Bob Crachit sings this tune that sums up the innocence and joyfulness of the Christmas season - the anticipation - so well, which ties of course into the fact that for some (Scrooge) this will be a very special night indeed. This is not just a Muppets Christmas song, this is a "A Muppets Christmas Carol" song.

The Tolerable Christmas Playlist: The Ramones, "Merry Christmas (I Don't Want To Fight Tonight)"

Punk rock, at its best, is not merely angry, but sarcastic, clever, and observational. In the world of the Ramones, having one night without having your loved one jump down your throat over every stupid, frustrating thing is the best you can hope for - it would be enough because goddamnit, it's Christmas, and I just don't want to fight.

The Tolerable Christmas Playlist: Paul Simon, "Getting Ready For Christmas Day"

The first track off Paul Simon's really great 2011 album So Beautiful or So What is not really about Christmas, but uses Christmas as a shared cultural experience, as a way to tie together the disparate feelings Paul feels about aging and mortality... but, you know, in a fun way. Maybe someday I'll not just enjoy it, but fully understand it.

The Tolerable Christmas Playlist: Adam Sandler, "The Channukkah Song(s)"

For a long while (perhaps even to the present day) my understanding of the Jewish faith and their December holiday festival sometimes called "Hanukkah" came largely from Adam Sandler's songs listing various Jewish celebrities (sometimes obscure, sometimes fictional.) In general it's a nice message to Jewish youngsters, "All these people you've probably heard of probably celebrate the same things you do, so own it." It helps that the songs are catchy as hell, so even if they're basically just lists of names and forced rhymes with "Hannukah," you remember them.

My favourite line is "You don't need deck the halls or Jingle Bell Rock / 'Cause you can spin the dreidel with Captain Kirk and Mr. Spock - both Jewish!" in case you forgot what the point of the song was. Also impressive, that he did all this before you could just go on Wikipedia and look up "List of Notable Jewish People."

The Tolerable Christmas Playlist: A Christmas Gift For You from Phil Spector

Probably the only Christmas album you need. I've written before about how Darlene Love's "Christmas (Baby Please Come Home)" is one of, if not the only Christmas songs you could probably enjoy any time of the year. Producer/Murderous Psycho Phil Spector's approach to recording had a marriage made in heaven with Christmas music. His "wall of sound," laden with strings and backup vocalists and little twinkling glockenspiels are brimming with seasonal good cheer, and the performances he got out of his many performers always knew how to hit the right pitch of excitement, or sentiment, without ending up somehow overwrought or in any way bland. It's a fine line that few have walked successfully in the Christmases since... and those that have, often because they followed in his footsteps.

The Tolerable Christmas Playlist: Bruce Springsteen & The E Street Band, "Santa Claus is Comin' To Town"

My memory of this song is so tied together with the Boss' anthemic repetition of the title phrase that I couldn't remember if this version actually contained any verses. I was pleased to find I wasn't far off. A lot of Christmas songs have obligatory 2nd verses that are not as iconic or well-remembered (and definitely not as good) as the first one, and I always thought this song had that going on in its other versions. Bruce's smart play with this one is to not waste any time on any part of the song that is not awesome.

That way, much better to emphasize the unique fervor Springsteen is capable of whipping up. His band is uniquely suited for that kind of brimming electricity. Dig Clarence Clemons' solo, which is one of those awesome moments in music of any kind.

The Tolerable Christmas Playlist: Chuck Berry, "Run Rudolph Run"

I love this song because its lyrics are unabashedly Christmassy, but the song itself sounds like something Berry would have recorded anyway. He didn't have to put on any holiday contrivances to wish people a merry, he could convey all the excitement of opening gifts and waiting for Santa in the same language and style he used when signing about cars and chicks. It was written for him by Johnny Marks and Marvin Brodie, but they knew his strengths and played to it.

The Beatles: Rubber Soul (1965)

About a year ago, I was talking to a friend who isn't much of a Beatle fan. It was weird to me that someone wouldn't "just be into them" as a natural state, that anyone would ever need to find a way in. Nobody could tell her for sure which one would help her in. After a moment's thought I realized Rubber Soul was the one. The simple explanation for that is that its pleasures are the easiest to understand. Yes, there's a greatness to those first five albums, mostly within the sub-genre of "Beatlemania" music, which they were just starting to transition away from on the previous record. The sad truth, which I have suppressed in my reviews, is that if you're not into that music, if you don't just get "A Hard Day's Night" or "Ticket To Ride," there's maybe no reason you would start. And those later albums are brilliant and brimming with invention and ideas... but they can be a little off-putting. Try to convince someone the greatness of "Lucy in the Sky With Diamonds" or "A Day In The Life" or "She Said She Said" or "Across The Universe" or "Ob-La-Di Ob-La-Da," and again, they might balk. But, catching them at the precise moment they were kicking open the doors of creativity and inspiration, Rubber Soul is the most accessible, most evergreen album in the longview Beatles catalog. Its appeal is so basic yet so deep.

And the reason, I guess, is that this is still recognizable pop music, and if it was revolutionary at the time then it was a call from the future form that pop music would settle into. I've been thinking a while about some of the points I've made about "authenticity," and about how experimentalism and sensing the character of the author in the music became essential in rock music after the Beatles. As each Beatle pursued their own interests, it added up to a collection of 14 great songs with their own voices, together yet apart - a quality that would be blown up to epic proportions of subsequent records. Here, though, John's "In My Life" and "Girl" sit well with Paul's "Michelle" and "You Won't See Me" and it's all of a piece.

I think that because this album isn't as up-front about its brilliance, and subtler in its pop appeal, it's the most underrated Beatles album. It has rough points - the closing number, the unabashedly misogynistic "Run For Your Life" despite being catchy, is one of the most embarrassing things the Beatles recorded. Literally, I get embarrassed for listening to it. (John stole the opening lyric, "I'd rather see you dead, little girl, than to be with another man" from an Elvis song called "Baby Let's Play House," but the King managed to wait a whole song and build up to that statement so you wouldn't take him too seriously, whereas John put it right up front so you would.) "Wait" is considerably better, if simplistic by mid-60's Beatles standards. It has a zen-ness to it, in its shaking tambourines and softly bent guitars. "But if your heart breaks, don't wait, turn me away / And if your heart's strong, hold on, I won't delay." It would have been considered excellent just two years earlier. "What Goes On," the obligatory Ringo tune, shows how his microcosmic career within the Beatles was diverging, keeping true to that Western twang he displayed on "Act Naturally." Kind of a neat diversion in this folk-tinged proto-acid album. And in any case, it fits well with the album's undercurrent of trying to see into the hearts of others.

George Harrison's two contributions, "Think For Yourself" and "If I Needed Someone" both enhance his songwriting profile. Lyrically, they're extrapolations of his earlier efforts, putting a somewhat "iffier" spin on boy-girl narratives, wrenching open the quirks that tend to get missed out by mainstream writers. Sonically, they're lavish bits, with the roaring fuzz bass on "Think" and the commanding Byrds-esque 12-string on "Someone." He only got a few spots per album, but he made good use of them, drizzling each with special features.

A bunch of the songs, mostly Paul's, were really forward-looking pop numbers: smart but not psychedelic, meaningful but playful. "Drive My Car" doesn't get enough love. "You Won't See Me" and "I'm Looking Through You" are other great solid pop pieces that fill in the gaps of this album, do the heavy lifting, the way "The Night Before" and "You're Going To Lose That Girl" did on Help. Except they're way better. Every inch of "You Won't See Me" is slathered in greatness, from the backing vocal to the spiky guitar to the title phrase, which has been noted seems like the next step up the evolutionary scale from Help's "Tell Me What You See." It takes that John-esque angst from "No Reply" and replaces it with Paul's common touch. Dig also the scattershot guitar bursts in "I'm Looking Through You," it gets my heart racing. That these are the relatively minor tunes, not the blockbusters, shows how on-top-of-their-game this band was.

The album is laced, however, by several extreme highlights, mostly "Lennon" songs, although one really sweet spot is "Michelle," whose success is in being very simple without being simplistic, sweet but not saccharine, minor but not forgettable. Think about how it exemplifies the difficulty in communicating feelings. McCartney's songs on this one have a throughline of romantic disconnect. Lennon's are more observational. "Norwegian Wood," one of my favourite Beatles songs ever, is a perfect short story which offers no insight or explanation for the behaviour of its characters, it's just stuff that happens and speaks largely for itself. The sonic landscape, based on acoustic guitar and sitar (my favourite use of that instrument on a Beatle song) sweeps the listener up in the tale, then drops us back out of it, leaving uswondering what we've peeked in on. And in the long run, it's part of the Beatles' charm that sometimes they did things like this, just once, so perfectly, then never went back to it again. Because they had more stuff to try.

Then there's "Nowhere Man," which honestly always shocks me with how good it is. It shows how much they'd learned, from everything they'd been through, from themselves, from Dylan and other musicians along the way. It's a song about how useless and apathetic Lennon thinks everyone (including himself) is. It manages to be both catchy and meaningful -- and features a bitchin' guitar break that, like all great solos, seems to underscore the song's meaning. This was one of the first pop songs you really had to think about. Likewise, there's "The Word," one of many "Love will set you free" type anthems the Beatles penned, and for the first time it seems fairly obvious they're not really talking about romantic love. It's an anthem for the dawn of hippyism that is maybe a tad naive (though far from being "All You Need Is Love,") it's actually a bit practical if vague. Still, it gets its message across and is funky as hell, with Paul's bassline. With songs like these, they were either pointing their formerly teen audience into adulthood, or moving along with them.

And when you talk about "mature pop," you get to songs like "Girl," which espouses complicated emotions of a true love-hate relationship with a well-formed, dynamic female character (although she doesn't come off well,) and "In My Life," which depicts the strange balancing act between the past and the future for anyone in their mid-20's, who has lived some but still has a lot of time ahead. John Lennon was the same age when he wrote this that I am now, and it freaks me right the hell out. As on "Help," he digs down deep and comes up with something very personal, and specific yet extraordinarily relevant to listeners. This is his version of a "Yesterday."

Rubber Soul is one of my very favourite Beatles albums to listen to, one of the least susceptible to changing tastes and times. It's very chance-taking, and yet not in the sense that it's extreme... the music is lively and meaningful at once without ever being too loud or too low-key. All of the songs distinguish themselves with unique features, yet because of where the band was "at" at the time, they sound like they belong together. Here is a thoughtful band, with ideas about their music, writing tunes that have well stood the test of time.

For a while now it had seemed clear that each album was a chance to check in on the band as they moved through their lives and careers. That would only grow stronger as time went on, but here is where "who they are" begins to become crucial to what music they made and how it defined them. This is album is full of that extra ingredient, that sense of "who made this" that makes all great rock and roll what it is.

Buy this album now: iTunes Canada // iTunes USA // Amazon.ca // Amazon.com

Does it Rock? Divine Fits: A Thing Called Divine Fits

I'm the least qualified to bring you a thorough examination of Divine Fits' pedigree: I can remember a couple songs by Spoon, I've never heard of Wolf Parade, and I generally don't like comparing things to other things even when I might know what I'm talking about. This band has some people who were in other bands.

I really dig about half the tracks on this album. In the middle it meanders a bit and loses my attention, but it begins with four really solid tracks of groove-heavy, indie-fuzzed art-funk. "My Love is Real" has a tight groove and "Flaggin a Ride" cuts loose. "What Gets You Alone" is racked with tension. Another good track is the later one, "Like Ice Cream."

One of my two favourites from this set are "Would That Be Nice," which seems like the most solid manifestation of the stilted white funk sound they were going for, bass-heavy, almost Elvis Costello "Pump It Up" at quarter-speed. Then for the last minute you really get to see where their heads are at when the whole thing erupts in a climactic coda, made out of synths that have been bubbling under the surface for the whole song. The other is the staggering slow jam "Shivers," which is a standout on its own terms, unlike anything else on the disc, staggeringly cool.

The remaining tracks aren't without merit, they try things and ultimately it's up to you if you like them or even if you need to like them to justify adding this to your collection. I like their moxie, though.

Death From Above 1979: You're a Woman, I'm a Machine

There's an old jazz saying that goes "There's some folks, if they don't know, you just can't tell 'em." There's a certain instinctual nature to music, and while there are plenty of acts I could probably build a case for an explain the appeal, DFA is simply not one of them. You're either on board, or you're left behind. And there's no shame in that, but it definitely speaks to your tastes. I guess, in embracing this album, I surrender my right to joke about dubstep, because this album's appeal is a lot like that subgenre's - hard to "get" from the outside, but ravenously consumed by those who are "in" on it. Even today in my store, people will grin and rub their hands when they think about this album.

Death From Above's landmark 2004 release is everything that frightens people about music. It obeys nothing but its own wild impulses, grooving, crashing, bashing, squealing and yowling with complete disregard for who might be listening. This is a high water mark for raucous, noisy, abrasive, disruptive, unpretty music. When you record something like this you take a huge risk, because it throws so many conventions in the garbage. It speaks to an audience that feels like there's nothing loud enough for them, nothing messy enough, nothing freaky enough, nothing elemental enough. It isn't punk, although its very existence is an act of punkish rebellion. It isn't metal, but it's certainly metallic in its hardness and heaviness and disregard for humanity. It isn't electronic, but it's definitely mechanical... if a bit haywire.

Here in fuzz and feedback and megaphoned larynx-testing vocals, is the continuation of the work that Iggy and the Stooges began once upon a time: hard, heavy, fast, repetitive, basic, sense-overloading, unsafe. Bombastic and uncontrollable from the get-go. This is the thread that was later picked up on the first Sleigh Bells album. This is music for young motherfuckers who are sick of being told what a song is supposed to be like.

Is it totally impenetrable? Not at all. Just because it goes for the rough edges doesn't mean it's without rhythm and melody. To my ears this is most definitely music. Those that get it get it, and nobody else needs to.

Buy This Album Now: iTunes Canada // iTunes USA // Amazon.ca // Amazon.com

The Tolerable Christmas Playlist: Linus & Lucy

Although not generally considered a "Christmas song" as much as a general theme for the animated Peanuts specials, "Linus & Lucy" qualifies because it first appeared on Vince Guaraldi's soundtrack to A Charlie Brown Christmas and has a gentle merriness that invokes the spirit of the season as much as any piece by Tchaikovsky. Simple, elegant, sweet.

Does it Rock? The Airborne Toxic Event, "Changing"

Airborne Toxic Event's second album, All At Once, is halfway to a good album. And that isn't to say that half the songs are good and half are bad. Most of the songs here have something to recommend them. They're obviously good musicians with an ear for massive, arena-level hooks in the tradition of U2. The production is crisp and although there's a lot going on in each song, and from one song to the next, taken on their own they work.

My own issue with the album, though, is that they could stand to loosen up. Massive hooks go a long way to setting a mood and imprinting a song in people's minds, your lyrics don't always need to be so particular. There's a reason why most U2 songs have lyrics that are maddeningly vague: because the music, and Bono's delivery, does so much of the heavy lifting. ATE leader Mikel Jollett is obviously pretty literary, which is why he named his band in reference to a Don DiLillo book that you have to have been a Contemporary Lit major to have read (hey guys) but if he could follow the old writer's axiom to "kill your darlings," he might pare his lyrics back to something that enhances rather than distracts.

That's why I like "Changing," which is the best example, among a few, of the band letting the music do the talking. It's a good, lyrically uncomplex, yet still complete song. The way he sings the chorus, that's exactly what you're supposed to do with a song like this. There are a few other tracks on the album that really get it, like "Numb" and "All At Once." "All I Ever Wanted" comes close. But I can't quite put my stamp of approval on the whole piece.

The Beatles, "We Can Work It Out" / "Day Tripper"

"We Can Work It Out," like most great songs, mostly speaks for itself. There are few songs in the catalog more Beatley: it's brimming with the personalities McCartney and Lennon supposedly embodied, Paul's sunny optimism in the verses and Lennon's gritty realism in the middle eight.

It's an important single not just because it sounds awesome but because it sounds so distinct from every previous Beatles single. It's identifiable as pop, but doesn't quite follow that classic Beatlemania formula for a hit. It's not really in the mold of "I Want To Hold Your Hand" or "A Hard Day's Night" or the recent "Help!" and "Ticket To Ride." This single's release marks one of my favourite periods for the Beatles, as the drive to be creative and seek out new forms for their music kicks into high gear, but before experimentalism overtook them completely.

It comes back a bit to what I was saying about authorship and "authenticity" in rock and roll. Part of what makes rock and roll so good is that the audience wants to feel like the band is playing their own music: being a good musician isn't enough, you have to be an originator, finding your own voice. 1965 was more or less the year that songwriting itself became an instrument for the Beatles, moreso than it was already.



The on the other side of this double-A single is this riff-based rocker, not totally dissimilar to the Stones' "Satisfaction" or Roy Orbison's "Oh, Pretty Woman." But the riff is friendlier than the Stones', and the song rocks harder than "Pretty Woman" (with due respect to Roy.) The lyrics, about a "weekend hippie," find a nice balance between detailed observation and vague allusion, the kind of song where you might not quite know what it's about if you didn't already somehow know. They couldn't be mean like the Stones, but they could be cheeky and fun.

Anywhere. Here, more or less, is where they start making music that escapes the times. I love the early Beatlemania songs, they are perfect, catchy pop tunes that I can always listen to and probably won't be improved upon. But with this single and onward, you get songs that in 2012 sound like they've come out of nowhere.

Sonic Youth: Hits Are For Squares

I should never claim to be an expert. There are too many things I know I don't know. But what keeps this blog going is my curiosity. I'm not here to preach at you, I'm here to learn. Up until this year, my experience with Sonic Youth was that I knew the song "Kool Thing" from Guitar Hero, and their cover of "Superstar" from Juno. I knew that by and large, their sound was experimental and generally seemed like something you really needed to be prepared to hear. You can't listen to Sonic Youth like you would to a normal radio-friendly pop group. They will twist you around, chew you up and spit you out in all their wild, mercurial, feedback-laden experimental glory.

So that's the sense in which a compilation album - not really a "Greatest Hits" by traditional standards - comes in handy, because I honest to God would never know where to begin with Sonic Youth. The format of this CD is brilliant in that regard, because instead of picking chart singles, an irrelevant measure of success for this band, they contacted famous fans of their music and got them to pick a song for inclusion. More bands should imitate this cherry picking form of a package.

It doesn't quite reveal anything I didn't already think about Sonic Youth: I was prepared for the squealing, halting crunch of "100%" and the bracing, melted-down grunge of "Sugar Kane." And while I didn't necessarily think of this band for the whispery, soft-focus "Shadow of a Doubt," it makes a nice tension-breaker and shows how well they play moods, not just loudly. At 16 tracks, an hour and 16 minutes thanks to some of the lengthier jams on here, the compilation hangs together in a surprisingly gripping, cohesive experience. As many thrashy, off-kilter experiments as they whip up, it's always ear-catching, never tedious or laborious. It's one thing to be an adventurous, experimental group, it's another to be one that really sounds good for 75 minutes of tracks culled from a 25-year career. If you're looking to become a fan of this band, or convert someone you know, this set will do the trick. It doesn't feel like a club I have been shut out of, it feels like a vital part of my everyday listening now.

The highlight of the album from me is the sublime "Stones," which has a great two-minute build, proceeds as an only-slightly-off-center pop song for a little bit, before exploding into one of the simplest, yet most effective final three minutes on the album. Also great is the utterly mesmerizing near-instrumental "Rain on Tin." These songs highlight exactly what this band does so well, taking rock and breaking it out of its shell.

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Pretty Girls Make Graves: The New Romance

When I was in grade 12, I was friends with a girl who had a Pretty Girls Make Graves pin on her backpack. I was always afraid to try bands my friends liked, especially obscure indie groups, because for whatever reason I was worried that whatever they sounded like, it couldn't live up to what I imagined they sounded like. This is, in case you didn't realize, an incredibly stupid way to go through life. I didn't try a lot of things. I had long gotten over this fear by the time I was in a used CD store this year and I saw this one filed under "Staff Picks." I thought of that girl from my high school and it seemed like there was no way I'd be steered wrong. I was delighted to find it sounded exactly like I thought it should, and yet like nothing I could have imagined.

This is a busy, frantic, nerve-wracking version of indie rock. There's so much going on here, such fidgety, jittery guitars, thundering drums and skittering hi-hats. Laid on top of it is the sweet, ominous, sometimes hair-raising vocal of Andrea Zollo. The opening track, "Something Bigger, Something Brighter" sets the stage exactly, taking over a minute to unfold, bubbling under the surface, until its fussy guitars and keyboards kick in under Zollo's chorus "Make it electric, make it electric!"

The production adds to the chaos, as parts dodge in and out, creating a rock solid sound collage made up of very particular parts. The ear catches on level after level of the mix, as each instrument does whatever it needs to, yet the whole project never succumbs to the risk of collapse under its own energy... take "The Grandmother Wolf," "All Medicated Geniuses," or "The Teeth Collector." Tough stuff but easy to swallow, because as confrontational and unrelenting as it often is, it's got such good energy, such performance, and such impeccable construction. It's pretty wonderfully ordered chaos. Take "Holy Names," with its smooth, soaring hook, underpinned by that nervy guitar, leading into the title track with its hyperactive MIDI-like hook, one of the best rhythm rock exercises in the set.

I'll never know how I would have felt about it in 2004. Odds are split whether I would have been impressed without really getting it, or dismissive for no good reason. What I know is that I love the slow burn of "Blue Lights" and the pulse-pounding punk-funk pay off in "Chemical, Chemical." What I do like it is that I liked it a lot when I finally did hear it in 2012, that somehow all this sound speaks to me.

Even though "fast-paced synth rock with a female vocal" has become a pretty well-trod ground in recent years, hearing this for the first time really felt fresh. This is a distinct thing, so wholly itself as to be inimitable except in its broad strokes. That kind of thing tends to stand the test of time, as scenes and trends fall away.

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Spotlight: Claire's Diary

I was a huge fan of Sophie and Izzy's last band, Care Bears on Fire. I thought they were at the head of the class as far as young pop punks go. Adding synths to the mix and developing their style into more of a dance-rock sound (a la Franz or The Sounds,) doesn't dull their edge at all. The momentum is kept high: if it's not "punk" it's still action packed, and they've retained full knowledge of how to hook a tune, not to mention a sense of purpose to their lyrics ("Build Me A Hero" is particularly good.) They're strong enough songwriters to pursue their ideas but never forsake a good rock-out sesh. It's real growth, I dig it. And Sophie sounds a bit like Debbie Harry now, dontcha think?

The Beatles: Help! (1965)

One of the understated pleasures of Help! is that it brings a level of polished pop that isn't found on most other Beatles albums. They're now at the height of their pop songwriting abilities, and starting to dabble in genre-expanding exercises that would define their later career. In between exhilarating singles like the title track and "Ticket To Ride," and other songwriting high water marks, there is a surprisingly good mid-60's pop album, marking this one as a strangely underrated Beatles piece.

Underrated not without cause, because nobody is coming around for "The one with 'I Need You' and 'Another Girl.'" They represent a jangly, soft-bellied version of album-filling pop not present on the previous albums and not quite realized on the previous, mostly rockier ones. The latter of those is has a good, swift-paced twang to it, which shows that the Beatles at their worst are still as good as most bands. "I Need You" marks George's return to songwriting, his first since the universally underappreciated "Don't Bother Me" (which got to John's place Beatles For Sale mood a year early.) Really, George's better song here is "You Like Me Too Much," which like "Don't Bother Me" has a rather specific take on an otherwise generic scenario. He had d a gift for pointed lyrics, when he pushed himself. It's almost a taunt - "You're not going to leave me, no matter how I treat you. You like me too much." It's the kind of thing you couldn't get away with nowadays.

Likewise, nobody's going to point to "It's Only Love" as one of John's best lyrics, but it's one of his best-sounding songs to this point, hitting home a note of nervousness and self-consciousness at being in love that the lyrics don't quite live up to. It benefits from the fact that, as I've said, the band just sounds so good on this one: there's a certain beauty to it. The same can be said for "Tell Me What You See," whose climactic callout of the title phrase is really boss. Again, not one of their best taken at face value, but with hindsight it's an early clue to their growing fascination with perception and identity. Maybe, a little? No? Maybe not. But it's an A-moment in a B-song, pointing to the Beatles' growing ability to build their tunes around unique sounds rather than merely being songs for their own sake - soon they would lavish enough attention on even the minor songs that the minor songs would cease to exist. But I'm getting ahead of myself.

The two most telling songs about the Help album aren't the very best ones, but give a good sense of how far along their basic pop craft had come: "The Night Before" is a rollicking McCartney number based around an electric piano boogie that has a more innocent, affable take on similar terrain as Lennon's earlier "No Reply." It was a curiously off-kilter, funky guitar solo on it, courtesy of McCartney. Then there's Lennon's "You're Gonna Lose That Girl," based on a lightweight bongo tapping percussion, and "girl group" harmonies reminiscent of With The Beatles, but compositionally far beyond most of that record. Great album tracks like these did the heavy lifting while they explored new directions elsewhere. Not every track was a home run, but the ones that weren't were getting better.

As an album, bolstered by two bona fide hit singles (a rarity in the Beatles catalog) this album also has several other genuine blockbusters. One is Paul's motor-mouthed "I've Just Seen a Face," which perfectly captures in song that heart-pumping adrenaline feeling of meeting someone and instantly falling in love. Paul's narrator barely has time to collect his thoughts before spilling them all out. Then there's Lennon's Dylanesque acoustic heart-stomper, "You've got To Hide Your Love Away," which was one of the best indications that the band's sound could take on new, unprecedented dimensions and thrive. It succeeds in being "folk" because for all its being a song about isolation and dejection, it's still rousing and somehow unifying. Makes you want to link arms and sway.

And then of course there's "Yesterday," sitting like a sneak attack toward the end of the album. It marks a significant moment for Paul because it reveals a path that only he could follow, writing a song that nobody else could have. It's a perfect pop piece, the way the lyrics and vocals invoke sadness and sorrow without ever attaching it to an important concrete storyline: "Why she had to go, I don't know, she wouldn't say / I did something wrong now I long for yesterday." The strings are key: they're soft and understated, not melodramatic. This isn't a teen car crash song, this is something a bit more sophisticated. It could be anybody's pain. And though it's very sad, it's not so hurtful to listen to as it is sweet, because this pain is wrapped so neatly all together. Great pop music gives a voice to those things you can't necessarily sort out for yourself.

This album is filled out by two cover versions that basically shut the door on the idea of the Beatles as a cover band. "Dizzy Miss Lizzy" doesn't have the juice of a "Twist and Shout" or "Rock and Roll Music," no matter how forcefully John growls on it. "Act Naturally" at least makes better use of their instrumental dynamics with its reverberated twang. It's a perfect Ringo song, casting him as the likeable, put-upon everyman. It feels at least a bit more natural (har har) than the Carl Perkins and Buddy Holly covers from Beatles For Sale. Looking back, these covers are a farewell to the roots of the Beatles as they move to concentrating on engineering the future of music.

Help! is the growing pains album. They were mostly out the other side of it by the next LP, but for now they were still sorting out exactly what the way forward was. With Help!, things started falling into place, setting up the domino effect that would carry them through the rest of the 60's, the most even mix of rule-bending experiments and pop pleasures. So it gets forgotten a bit, left behind in ways, because it is an awkward part of the "narrative:" an album without a specific character. But in that split, it excels twice. So there.

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Cuff The Duke: Sidelines of the City

Something I say a lot is that the best Country music is often made by artists not found in the Country section, ones that owe no debt to the genre's conventions and have no desire to appeal to that genre's main followers. They're more interested in the feelings invoked by classic country: of loss, distance, the passage of time, vulnerability, and fiddles and steel guitar all over.

On the ominous opening track, it's clear that Cuff the Duke have the interest but not the allegiance. The fiddle squeals like a warning sign while the guitars kick up behind it and Wayne Petti comes in like Tokyo Police Club doing a Johnny Cash tribute, laden with weariness and resignation. That combination of the unconventional and the traditional makes for some of the album's best moments. Take "Failure To Some," with its gorgeous chorus, expressing a rather nuanced worldview, and its lengthy psychedelic wailing guitar coda letting you ruminate for four minutes or so.

There's a lot of contemplation, and a lot of melancholy on this album. It's baked into the band's sound, but they really explore it with their songwriting, on tunes such as "Remember the Good Times," "The Ballad of the Tired Old Man," "Rossland Square" which deal in their ways with time, change, and loss. The first is reluctantly celebratory, in its Byrdsy way. "The Ballad of the Tired Old Man" is an anti-war parable, "Rossland Square" is a light jab at urban development and the way our hometowns alter themselves if we're gone too long: it's an ode to Oshawa, which is on the other side of Toronto from me. (Great lyric courtesy of their tourism board: "Prepare to be amazed / That's the slogan of the city where I was raised.") This album is not made of pick-me-ups. Highlights include the crystalline, haunting "When All Else Fails And Fades" and the intimate "Confessions From a Parkdale Basement." My personal favourite song here is the barnstorming "By Winter's End." Let also let their character show with moments of quirk like "Surging Revival" and "Long Road."

And yet despite its bleak imagery and tone, I don't consider this album to be a bummer. It's refreshing, because it's a big, rustic production that never feels like it's kidding you. It's honest and sincere, eyeball-to-eyeball with the listener, laying out all these fears and doubts and wrapping them up in great sounds, confessional but not without sweetener. I don't know how much of the sentiment expressed is "authentic" or "real," but it succeeds in stirring something up in me and attaching it to some damn fine music. Sometimes it's one or the other, but in the best cases, it can be both.

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Sheepdogs: The Sheepdogs

When I listen to the Sheepdogs' music, I often think of the movie Dazed & Confused. Set in the mid-70s, one of its major characters is Randall "Pink" Floyd, a star quarterback for his high school team outside Austin, TX, who has to choose between signing a waiver to abstain from sex, drugs and alcohol for the season, or quitting the game. His fellow jocks plan on signing and worrying about getting around the waiver later, but Floyd has a dual identity: moreso than his teammates, he's equal parts jock and burnout. He doesn't look too athletic, wears his hair long, doesn't like the hazing rituals as much as everybody else. He basically has to choose between living up to his coaches' and teammates' expectations or embracing freedom and a worry-free lifestyle.

Not only does the Sheepdogs' music evoke that era, it calls up that same feeling, that same mood of the time, the idea that rock and roll should be something easy and fun. Not cheap, mind you, but that if you have to work hard at it you aren't going to end up with a result that feels natural. I'm sure the boys in the the Sheepdogs work hard at their craft, but it certainly feels, from my outsider, listening perspective, that they're just naturals, that they've absorbed their music so much that they picked up their guitars one day and a fully-formed set of 14 tracks suddenly manifested out of thin air. That's a bit naive, but the trick is not to make a show of it. The guitars twang very nonchalantly, the songs roll by in a solid groove, the lyrics very openly preach of a relaxed, let-it-be lifestyle. Some of the tracks are pretty fiery: "While We're Young" is a fist-pumping anthem, and "Is Your Dream Worth Dying For" is certainly a standout, the way its dreamy, neo-hippy chorus contrasts with the muscle-rock verses. But mostly the music is very loose and casual. Look at the titles: "Laid Back," "Feeling Good," "Alright OK," "The Way It Is." Even "I Need Help" is just a lot more of a shrug-of-the-shoulders than an outward cry for change. They approach this idea, or overall sound, from enough different directions that they make the album a treat to listen to.

Retro-classic rockers have it easy, in a sense, because they're working in a millieu with certain expectations and well-worn song forms. They're not far at all from their roots in the Allmans and Skynyrds and CCRs on the past. But the trick is in creating something that appeals to classic rock fans without merely being a cover band. And I think that, on their debut as they do here, the Sheepdogs manage to sound both faithful and fresh, bringing their own righteous energy to the set.

They come out on this CD, in case there was any doubt after Learn & Burn, proving that they are a genuine article rather than cheap knockoffs. It should be enough to say that they are extremely good at playing a type of music that most would agree is inherently pleasurable to listen to. They bring a lot to the table and ultimately, create a fantasy land version of classic rock, rebuilding out of memory and practice a version of the past that never really existed. All their skill, then, is in making sure it never becomes a shallow imitation. Cream rises to the top, and they're just very, very good at what they do.

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Spotlight: Stella Ella Ola

There's a lack of music in this world that is actively fun to listen to. Stella Ella Ola starts out with the advantage of being made for fun, by people who just seem to love being together jamming on instruments and tossing together lyrics like it ain't nothing. Each of the seven songs released to date by Stella Ella Ola has an infectious joy to it, start with with their seemingly casual, loosely-constructed nature and radiating outward in the vocal deliveries of its various members, its wild solos and catchy riffs, whether in the twist-like "Peter Sellers," the bubbly jangle pop of "New Year Song" or the blistering "Summerette." Simple, pure, good clean fun. And they make it look so easy. Hell yeah.

The Beatles, "Help!" & "I'm Down"

John Lennon often lamented that they ruined this song by speeding it up, instead of doing it as a contemplative, Dylan-like ode of self-reflection. Maybe that would have made for a remarkable recording, but it drains away so much of the song's charm and character - that immediacy, that bracing plea. Notably ,that "Help! / I need somebody" bit at the beginning, which does not re-appear, would simply not fit. It's such a visceral way to open a song.

Listen also to the way those guitars sink into lower tones, Bum, bum, buhhhh. There's something remarkable about how poly-syllabic the verses are ("I'm not so self-assured", "My independence seems to vanish in the haze.") These lyrics, these long sentences, are not built for a pop song and yet he delivers them like thy appeared in every pop song ever. I like the song the way it is, because it's articulate, and Lennon rattles off his problems and woes in such a motor-mouthed, panicked way, it adds to the urgency. I don't think this is a song that should be sung seated on the floor.

The other great thing about this song are those backup vocals. Typically, backup vocals sing in response, or in echo, but these ones sing the next line in anticipation - only partially, at their own mini melody. Jeezes. For one thing, where does that come from? How do you get the idea for something like that, what makes you think it will work, and since it does, why don't more songs do that?? It enhances the song so much, teasing the listener's ear, but you never even notice. Then, the more time you spend thinking about it (as I have obviously, perhaps too much) it seems so perfect for this song, because it's almost like the other guys are teasing John, rolling their eyes because they've heard the spiel so many times they can recite it themselves.



The other thing about the "Help!" single is that it features one of the first Beatles b-sides that could be an A-side in its own right. Maybe it doesn't have the artistic value that "Help!" was later revealed to, but it rocks to high holy hell, an effort to recreate those Little Richard tunes Paul was so good at covering. What I alays find is that nobody ever emulates anyone perfectly. The process of the Beatles trying to copy Little Richard resulted in something fairly original in its own right.

This song is great because it shows that at this point, the Beatles are still a working, touring rock band. The progress they made as musicians was not by design so much as it was finding their way through that. At this point in their career they were getting so good at so many things.

The Beatles, "Ticket to Ride"

1965 is a crucial year for watching the Beatles in their artistic development. They were still making gigantic pop smash hits but were doing so with an ever-confidence in their abilities to broaden their horizons. For a while yet, it would still be focused distilling perfect pop songs by improving every element they could.

There's something so excellent about this song, the way the music so perfectly conveys the lyrical subject, churning and droning and twanging. It's so gloomy, but never drags, resting as it does on the wistful melody of the vocals. There's a ton of extra goodies in there, from the chiming 12-string intro, which sounds like a little lonely cry sesh, to the little guitar lick that punctuates the refrain and the way the music drops out when they sing "Ri-hi-hiiide" leaving them swinging in the breeze.

Does It Rock? Twin Atlantic, "Free"

Maybe it's just because they have Scottish accents that I find them so charming and affable. By and large, Twin Atlantic trades in a type of music that is very easy to dismiss, overeager to prove its worth as angsty and thoughtful while still being poppy and accessible. To my tired old ears, they seem like an updated, Glaswegian version of Tonic.

But this is a type of music that will always have a currency with the current crop of teenagers, with thundering drums, squealing guitars and vocals centering on breaking free, expressing yourself, taking control at last, etc. On that level it ain't half bad at all. Critics hate it, but it's a necessary creature, generally harmless. I could see being 16 and getting really into this record, then moving on once you discover, I dunno, the Clash or Metallica or Arctic Monkeys or something. This is never going to be the "big thing" but it'll do at that age where you hate whatever the "big thing" is but don't know where to look for something you like.

Even if it's a philosophical affront to the idea that "good" music must have "artistic value," I'll admit I've listened to this record the whole way through without turning it off a whole lot, and if it sucked I wouldn't be able to do that. Sure it's slick and commercial, but not every band gets to be Nirvana, not every band has to define a generation. Some just go along with it.

Black Keys: El Camino

With El Camino, the Black Keys follow through on the promise of Brothers. Oddly enough, to do this, they had to make an album that sounded very little like it. Brothers had a decade of obscurity behind it, and with its unexpected success, brought everybody over to their side. But getting them to stay there was going to require some doing. El Camino represents one of the finest examples of deliberate hitmaking I've seen in a very long time.

Basically, after you have a hit like "Tighten Up" and "Howling For You," you don't get to go back to the little rooms (to paraphrase Jack White.) Some bands elect to chase their newfound audience off. Some bands try too hard to keep them. With a band like the Black Keys, that would be bad. There's the problem: if they made an album that ignored their success, their label would probably chuck them to the curb. If they tried too hard to please their new fans, they'd end up pleasing nobody. Everybody wants to have hits, but nobody wants to get caught in the act of aiming for a hit. The magic of El Camino is that it succeeds and in fact thrives: it gives the people what they want, the Black Keys album they dreamed was next. No more, no less.

All that is why this album is noticeably brighter and more upbeat than the often dour Brothers. That one was good music, and I wouldn't fault them if they didn't change the routine for their next album, but instead they rose to the challenge of creating a great Black Keys album that was also a chart topping monster. This sort of premise is usually a recipe for a compromise that pleases nobody.

What they ended up with was not merely an album that contained hits, but an album that was made out of them. Every track on this album has a welcoming air to it, a feeling like you've been hearing it in the background of your entire life since forever. That's not just because "Little Black Submarines" is a compressed version of "Stairway To Heaven," but also because songs like "Gold on the Ceiling" and "Stop Stop" have those irresistible grooves you didn't know you'd been craving this whole time. Moments in between those peaks, like "Money Maker," "Run Right Back," "Sister" and "Dead and Gone" keep the ear from waning. This album is compulsively listenable. Each track cements the fact that Auerbach and Carney are the makers of great rock music.

Still, it never betrays the sound that brought us to the Keys two years ago. Auerbach's guitar wails with wry, dark pain, his vocals distant and obscure, Carney's drums thundering insistently, tons of interesting minor choices all throughout. This is auteurial rock, still, while also being for the masses.

It works because they're great at what they do, and know how to soak the album with those primal elements that makes music so addictive to so many people. "Lonely Boy," the opening track and first single, announces it with great urgency. There's a reason why this is the "mainstream" stuff, though: it's fun. It's big, it's groovy, it's hook-laden, you find yourself humming it, it moves you. It's fucking delicious. If you're an artist playing to small audience, it's no great shakes to make an album you can be proud of, just by following your instincts. An album like this requires walking a remarkable tightrope act.

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Serious Contenders: Rolling Stones, "Ruby Tuesday"

With the release of the Rolling Stones' 3 disc (or more) retrospective, it occurred to me just how many different things the Rolling Stones did. The standard narrative was that whatever the Beatles did, the Stones had to try too, and did worse: The Beatles used strings on "Yesterday" so the Stones used them here. The difference is that the Beatles were that versatile, that whenever they would try something, they would become it wholly. It can be hard to pin down the exact nature of the Beatles after 1965 because of all the different stuff they threw themselves into. The Rolling Stones, by contrast, never weren't "The Rolling Stones." When they used baroque arrangements, they were still fronted by Mick Jagger's lumbering, dirty white blues vocals. The balladry was not a change or an adaptation or a new identity, it was a reference: the tough guy breaking down, reality crashing into the fantasy backdrop created by the musical arrangement. And because of that, the Stones' ballad work has a different effect than the Beatles'.

The Beatles were method actors, immersing themselves in their current role. The Rolling Stones were character actors, there to be themselves in whatever situation required it.

The Beatles: Beatles for Sale (1964)

Beatles For Sale is one of those hole-in-one shots for music critics. We like to write about it because it boils to two key points:

• The Beatles, exhausted by the rigors of Beatlemania, were starting to get worn out, resulting in some negative music.
• The music itself was still pretty awesome; the Beatles were approaching yet another creative peak, despite or perhaps because of the stress.

The Beatles, short on time and demanding too much of their new songs to crank out 14, went back to using covers to bolster their albums after the all-original A Hard Day's Night. By and large the song selection doesn't add to the narrative that Beatles For Sale was deliberately a negative album: "Words of Love" is very pleasant, and it's hard to read much into "Rock and Roll Music" and "Kansas City/Hey Hey Hey Hey." But the presence of covers at all, even competent, high-quality ones, is looked at as a surrender or a concession: "We have to crank out another album, but we'd need more time to write 14 songs of our own." This might not be the case exactly, but it's hard to blame them for digging down and pulling a few standbys from the back pocket.

My personal favourite is the much-maligned "Mr. Moonlight," which is if nothing else the most interesting. I love the vocal interactions built into the song, which suits the Beatles so well, the slight but jittery guitar work, and that muddy-sounding organ solo. And yet everyone else hates it.

As well, there are a few original tracks on Beatles For Sale that are not considered exceptional. You won't find too many people placing "Every Little Thing" on top of their list of favourite Beatles songs, same with "What You're Doing." And yet the truth about the Beatles at this point was that, for what they were putting out, even their less notable songs are still pretty awesome. "What You're Doing" has a sublime, muscular riff that perfectly sits in the mid-60s vibe. "Every Little Thing" has a good chorus, if not a hit-caliber one, bolstered by that little dramatic drumroll there. They are, it's said, "better recordings than songs." Not great on the page but really come alive in the studio. "I'll Follow The Sun" gets some love - Paul was responsible for all three of these songs, and this one apparently even dates back to the early years. I find that odd, since its light, sensitive lyrical matter, about moving on confidently after a break-up, sounds very "current" for the Beatles at the time of this album. While John was gaining a gift for introspection, Paul was mastering the art of writing a catch-all, the exact right level of vagueness appropriate for a pop song.

"Eight Days a Week" wasn't released as a single in the UK but was just too obviously a hit not to be one in the States. That's the kind of song you want all over the radio, with its glorious fade-in (who even does that?) It sounds like it's coming up over the horizon, a big towering thing. Lyrically and structurally, it's classic Beatles, catchy and pleasant as all hell, with a few interesting quirks to set it apart. I've also always loved the way they deliver the title phrase, keeping the pitch sharp, maintaining some giddyness. It's an oasis of positivity on this otherwise bleak album.

Bleak, I say. Not that this is a bad thing. Lennon's contributions, the oft-discussed opening trilogy of "No Reply," "I'm a Loser," and "Baby's in Black" as well as "I Don't Want To Spoil The Party," all explore negative emotions and occurrences, like rejection, doubt, frustration, and paranoia. It's hard to tell which is the best. "No Reply" has those dramatic crashes under the title phrase. "I'm a Loser" has one of the single best choruses, "I'm a loser / And I've lost someone who's near to me / I'm a loser / And I'm not what I appear to be." which is maybe a more revealing statement than was usual for a pop song.

And maybe the greatness of it was that it was still pop music. That these were still technically the friendly moptops who had only just taken America by storm less than a year earlier. In some ways it's like meeting someone really nice at a party, but an hour later they're spilling their guts about their recent party (and hey, I just told you there was a song about exactly that.) And yet somehow, they're so friendly, and charming, you hang on every word. These songs are easy to get caught up in, never overly melodramatic or bogged down by the negativity that runs through them. They aren't good because they're darker: they're good while being darker.

This is where it becomes important that the Beatles write their own material. From the shellshocked-looking cover to the title, the Beatles clearly enjoyed kidding their image a bit, apparently aware that people buying their albums were, in a sense, checking in with them every few months, and if they were being honest, this is how they felt: not like superstars but like refugees. They could form that kind of dialogue with their audience, even if it was primarily screaming girls. Maybe they knew I'd still be here 50 years later overanalyzing it. That level of openness and "authenticity" would be a defining aspect of rock and roll from then on. Rockers who don't somehow seem genuine don't get taken as seriously as the ones that do. That's why the Monkees aren't in the hall of fame.


Buy This Album: iTunes Canada // iTunes USA // Amazon.ca // Amazon.com

Alice Cooper, "Elected"

Happy voting, America. Don't fuck this up.

Serious Contenders: Lesley Gore, "It's My Party"

There's a reason why music is mainly for teenagers. Teenagers are still learning the world - learning what they're up against and how to deal with it. That was true in the 60's and it's true today, and there's not much difference between this Lesley Gore classic and a One Direction hit, in that respect. Songs like this walk us through the first shitty times we get thrown our way, in this case having an emotional breakdown at your own goddamn party.

Is it a brilliant song? Is there anything especially great about the lyrical depth or the musical arrangement? Not really, but it's one of those snapshots of being young and having "the feels." This is what good pop music does.

Does It Rock? Alex Clare, "Too Close"

I wouldn't say I am inherently biased against electronic music - house, dance, dubstep, whatever variation you like. I would definitely say it's a blindspot for me, like metal, modern punk or hiphop, and of the major genres. In these cases, I'm not a fan, and I don't know what it takes to be a fan, but it's not like I don't think it can be good. Overall, that's probably the main reason that I don't try to push farther in making this a career. Genre music has been a larger and larger part of music sales for the past few years, and I am not comfortable right now, maybe never will be, telling people why a new Deadmau5 or Skrillex CD is or isn't worth their time. My thoughts on the subject are just not relevant. By and large, this site serves people like me, who aren't devoted to a particular genre, but who aren't typically consumers of Top 40 music - your Adeles and Taylor Swifts. That doesn't mean we can't or don't like Deadmau5 or Adele, but that we're less likely to be deep in their waters.

Like I said, that doesn't mean I am against electronic music. It's rarely applied in music that I would like, and then sometimes it is and I find it impressive. This Alex Clare song, which is all over the radio and in TV ads, is that sort of case. The dubstep backing underlines the tension in Clare's voice as he negotiates a typical hard-love lyric. The combination of the two, I find pretty astounding, because this is the first time, to my (uneducated) ears, dubstep hasn't just been noise for noise sake, or something patched onto another song, but a genuine song that I, someone who's into music and songwriting and rocking out, can enjoy. This is a pop song with legs, a dance song with heart, something you can either move to or sit still and appreciate.

The Beatles, "I Feel Fine" / "She's a Woman"

Lyrically, "I Feel Fine" is one of the most basic tunes the Beatles released, especially right after A Hard Day's Night. But for that simplicity, it was a powerhouse, same as "I Want to Hold Your Hand." Where the past year or so had proven they had nailed down a winning formula, and were learning to produce it at a higher rate (more songs on A Hard Day's Night sound like potential hits than on With The Beatles, for instance) they were taking extra care that the songs that were singles sounded particularly excellent.

Musically, this is one of the best things they did before Rubber Soul. As much as I love the arresting "clang!" that begins "A Hard Day's Night," the fuzzy, feedbacking "geeeooooonnnngggg" that begins this song might be the better touch. It hits just the right level of discord for rock and roll, then last just long enough for the listener to take it, sustaining until the song's main riff, that jittery, jumpy, excitable one that seems so much more involved and particular that the ones that came before. Maybe that's the point - Lennon wrote some of the most basic lyrics possible, with just the right harmonic hooks in the right places to make it sound so smooth, then laid it out over this very intricate, very particular riff, marrying complexity and simplicity into one two minute burst of awesomeness. The music says stuff the lyrics can't. It's exactly the kind of some you want to listen to over and over - just like a hit single should be.

In a way, that complex-simplicity dynamic is what I feel both love and music should be like... it should take a lot of work, but appear easy and natural.



The b-side was "She's a Woman," which actually sounds more like a cover than an original, aping late-50's R&B that the Beatles would have devoured in their youth. To modern years it kind of sounds like CCR, who were years away -- which kind of gives it a timelessness in addition to feeling like a very specific era.

Cover: Bettye Lavette, "Crazy" & "All My Love"

Speaking of Gnarls Barkley, soul singer Bettye Lavette takes their hit "Crazy" to new places by stripping down its production to a slinky nightclub number and really wrenching the vocal phrasing as wide open as she can. The result is quite fantastic. It goes from being a piece of unstoppable momentum, to one where you just hang on every word.



The last few years have seen Lavette on a tear, making up for lost time (look her up on Wikipedia.) One of the best examples of her power is what she does to "All My Love," probably the most-maligned song in the Led Zeppelin songbook. By transforming the tense synth they used on their recording with a much broader piano stroke, she lets the emotion pour into it, and while the song doesn't sound as mournful as it was originally recorded, it also doesn't sound as cold and cut off. Staggering.