Music Collection #8: Aerosmith and Tori Amos

Artist: Aerosmith
Album: Greatest Hits
Favorite Song: Sweet Emotion (I guess)
Origin: Annie's

Why is this in the collection? I don't know. It's a pretty random Aerosmith cd to own - it only covers the early part of their career, from 1973-79. I was less than a year old when the final song on this collection was released. Being a child of the MTV generation, I'm of course more familiar with Aerosmith in their Run DMC and Alicia Silverstone incarnations.

Artist: Tori Amos
Albums: Little Earthquakes, Crucify, Winter, Under the Pink, Cornflake Girl, Boys for Pele, Hey Jupiter, From the Choirgirl Hotel, To Venus and Back, Concertina, StrangeLittleGirls, Scarlet's Walk, Tales of a Librarian, The Beekeeper
Favorite Song: Winter
Origin: One of Annie's favorites

This is a lot of cds to cover in a single entry. I was originally going to make this two, but then I realized that I hardly have enough thoughts on Tori to fill a single post, let alone two.

My friend Sarah in college was a huge Tori fan. Huge. Like, camp-out-for-hours-before-the-show-to-meet-Tori huge. And she did meet her - twice actually. But by Sarah's own admission, she wasn't even close to being a truly rabid fan - some of the other girls, apparently, were carve-her-name-into-your-skin rabid. All of which is to say that Tori is not the type of artist who you can listen to casually. I actually purchased Little Earthquakes from BMG once, but sent it back before I opened it. She's a Bush Doctrine artist - you're either for her or against her. And I just didn't feel like lugging around that much emotional baggage.

I actually once spent an evening with Sarah and one of her roommates watching a VHS tape of Tori performances recorded off of TV (all my other friends had gone home for the weekend). I don't remember if it was something that Sarah put together herself, or if it was something that she traded for online from another fan. It was from that tape that I decided that Winter was my favorite song of hers, though at this point I frankly can't even remember how it goes.

Music Collection #7: Ryan Adams, finale

Artist: Ryan Adams and The Cardinals
Album: Cold Roses; Jacksonville City Nights; 29
Favorite Song: If I Am A Stranger; The End; Strawberry Wine
Origin: Borders, downtown Milwaukee; ditto; and a birthday gift

2005 was a banner year for Ryan Adams. Or, at the very least, a marathon year - releasing three albums within the span of 8 months or so, the first of them a double album. At first I was going to write separate posts for all of these albums, but I decided that it made more sense to combine them, even though the album don't hang together as a trio. Cold Roses and Jacksonville City Nights are, in a way, companion pieces. Each stands alone, but they also complement each other. Really, they probably could have been released (with a few edits) as a single long double album - dump a couple of the slower tracks from Roses and some of the more generic songs from Jacksonville, shift a few others from the former to the latter, and voila! Which isn't to say that Adams should have done that, just that he could have (if I had more time and I was more awake, I'd throw together my hypothetical double-album setlist).

These two albums mark Adams' return to more country-influenced rock, but with Cold Roses having a more alt-country, bluegrass feel, and Jacksonville City Nights the more honky-tonk, straight-up country feel.
Cold Roses strength lies, then, in the more up-tempo rockers like If I Am A Stranger, Beautiful Sorta, and Let It Ride. All three are classic Adams - noise and bluster paired with melancholy, self-pitying lyrics. Jacksonville's strongest tracks - The End, A Kiss Before I Go, The Hardest Part, The Peaceful Valley - by contrast, have a more atmospherically country feel to them in place of the bluster. The lyrics tend more towards classic country themes, too - small towns, lost loves, death.

What really makes both of these albums work, though, is Adams' new backing band, The Cardinals. Though he plays guitar and piano in addition to singing, Adams has always relied on other musicians on his albums. But those musicians change from album to album, track to track. Here, he's got the same four-piece band backing him on every track (with a couple guest appearances by Rachael Yamagata and Norah Jones), which provides a consistency in both quality and overall sound. I have to admit that I was skeptical at first of the idea of Adams bringing in a regular band - partly because of the personnel-changing chaos that was Whiskeytown, partly because of the fear of a band diluting his music, and partly for fear of the pretense that comes with being ______ ______ and the _______s!


Finally, you'll note that I haven't said a word yet about 29. There's a reason for that - it's not very good. A couple of the tracks could have maybe fit on another album, but as a whole, it is simply too understated, too quiet (the volume is turned to -11), too pretentious (lots of strings), and too self-indulgent (it's a concept album about his twenties, for Christ's sake). Plus, it contains the single worst Ryan Adams track ever put to record - the spaghetti-western outtake The Sadness, which is just too awful to accurately describe.

So, that ends my foray into Ryan Adams. Having one of my favorite artists right at the beginning of this music project has really, I think, thrown off the feel of the project - most posts after this will cover multiple albums, and will be less like album reviews and more like some random thoughts on the albums strung together. But, given that I'm only doing this once, I couldn't after-all shortchange some of my favorite albums.

Music Collection #6: Ryan Adams, Love Is Hell

Artist: Ryan Adams
Album: Love Is Hell
Favorite Song: English Girls Approximately
Origin: Amoeba, $9.99

So this is Ryan Adams' mope-rock album. God, I hate that term. It is, I'll grant, an album of mostly downbeat love songs, but then, so is Heartbreaker. Where this album is different is in the production values - lots of reverb in the guitars and vocals - which give it more of an urban feel that Heartbreaker's decidedly country aesthetic. Lyrically, this album covers an urban landscape as well - London, Manhattan, Baltimore. Maybe that's why I like it so much - I've always been a city guy at heart. The country is nice to visit or drive through, but I'd much rather ride on a noisy streetcar through rainy streets at 2 o'clock in the morning. So I don't hear this as a depressing album, I guess, which is why I like it so much.

Another thing this album does well - and which Adams improves on with Jacksonville City Nights - is tell stories. Many songs up to this point in his career were very impressionistic. Dear Chicago, for instance, is a beautiful, heartbreaking song, but the details of the relationship that is breaking down in the song are pretty sketchy. With this album, especially This House Is Not For Sale, I See Monsters, and Thank You Louise, Adams starts to flesh out his tales with little details that make repeated listens more intesting - I'd probably heard I See Monsters a hundred times before Annie pointed out that it's above Adams' girlfriend having a nightmare.

Finally, I guess I couldn't cover this album without mentioning the most famous song - a cover of Oasis' Wonderwall. And I'll admit, that was the song that first made me intrigued about this album back when it wasn't a proper album, but rather two EPs. Wonderwall was probably my favorite track, too, the first dozen times or so I listened to the album. It's a great stripped-down cover of a song so iconic as to be almost un-coverable. But I think it's a testament to the strength of this album and it's ability to grow on me over time that Wonderwall now seems almost a gimmicky addition - not even one of the best half-dozen tracks, to be sure.

Incidentally, if you're only a casual Ryan Adams fan, this is the final essential album of his - in addition to Heartbreaker and Gold.

Gratuitous 100th Post!

This is the 100th post on this blog since it started a year-and-a-half ago (though the blog was dormant for roughly half that time). In honor of the blog's achievement (or rather, mine), you should totally buy me something!

Music Collection #5: Ryan Adams, Rock N Roll

Artist: Ryan Adams
Album: Rock N Roll
Favorite Song: So Alive
Origin: Best Buy, 76th Street in Greenfield

So I made the comment in regards to the Gold bonus disc that I didn't like it at first, which was surprising for a Ryan Adams album. But now that I think about it, I didn't like this album at first, either. In fact, after a couple initial listens, I basically stuck this on the shelf and forgot about it for several months. Which was a shame, given what I went through to buy it. I had gone down to Southridge mall to buy Christmas gifts. But I don't drive (and Annie had driven our car to St. Louis that weekend anyway), so I had to do all of my shopping via bus and walking. And Milwaukee is not made for that sort of thing. I could have bought this album at a store in the mall, I guess, but I had a coupon for Best Buy, so I went there instead, which is at the opposite end of the 76th street shopping area. Between the mall, Bed Bath & Beyond, and Best Buy, I probably walked a mile or two up and down 76th St. (which doesn't always have sidewalks) in 30 degree weather, and I was sweating like a pig.

Anyway, when I got this home and listened to it, I was very disappointed. It basically sounded like one loud, obnoxious, 45-minute-long song. Around that time, though, I was listening to Virgin Radio on the internet, and they had So Alive in rotation (being the UK, they actually play rock songs on the radio). I grew to like it, and it was some time before I made the connection that it was Ryan Adams (being the radio, they often don't bother to tell you what you're listening to). Eventually, I started listening to the album again, and even started to like it - it served the purpose of loud, cathartic music to wash dishes to. Still, I would often skip tracks, including everything after Anybody Wanna Take Me Home most of the time.

Famously, this album was demanded by the record company after they deemed Love Is Hell not commercial enough. Adams turned in this in its place, and Love Is Hell was released as two EPs. In retrospect, I think it's pretty clear that Love Is Hell should have been the album, and Rock N Roll the EP - except that they should have made it one disc. The following tracklisting I think preserves the glam/punk attitude of the album, while culling it from fourteen mostly mediocre tracks to six relatively strong ones:

This Is It
Wish You Were Here
So Alive
Note to Self: Don't Die
Rock N Roll
Anybody Wanna Take Me Home (the Rock N Roll version, which is superior to the slower Love Is Hell version)

Music Collection #4: Ryan Adams, Demolition

Artist: Ryan Adams
Album: Demolition
Favorite Song: Dear Chicago
Origin: Amoeba, San Francisco

Do you ever get the feeling that the randomizer is reading your mind? Yeah, me neither. But it totally did today. I was thinking what to say about this album, a collection of unreleased songs (demos, if you will - get it? Demolition?), and the randomizer went and played all three of my favorite tracks - Dear Chicago, Chin Up, Cheer Up, and Cry on Demand.

When I first bought this album, it was one of those "hey, neat!" moments that you rarely have, where you first hear of an album by seeing it on the rack in the store. With all of the music press nowadays, that's pretty rare. So I bought it and listened a few times. Like most collection of unreleased songs, it doesn't really hold together as an album, and there are plenty of songs that make it real clear why they didn't make it onto an album. (Nuclear, Starting to Hurt, and Gimme a Sign, for instance, all sound like rejects from Rock N Roll, an album that isn't good enough to have rejects.) But over time, I would find myself singing some song in my head, and I would dig around for a bit before I realized that it came from this record. Chin Up, Cheer Up and She Wants to Play Hearts (another good song) were like this - sorta sneaking up on me over time.

The best track on the album, though, is Dear Chicago, which is one of those rare cases for me where the track that started as my favorite has remained so. It's produced by Adams himself, I see from the liner notes, and sounds like something that would have fit both sonically and thematically on Love is Hell, which he co-produced (same holds for the other two Adams-produced tracks). The music is simple and haunting, and the lyrics are pretty direct, ending with one of my favorite break-up lines ever, sung in a pretty and resigned voice "I think I'm falling out of love ... with you." A perfect 2-minute song of heartbreak. This is the sort of song that makes an odds and ends collection worth having for real fans, and makes you say "How the hell did this not end up on an album?"

Music Collection #3: Ryan Adams, Gold and Bonus Disc

Artist: Ryan Adams
Album: Gold
Favorite Song: New York, New York
Origin: Birthday/Christmas/Hanukkah Gift (I think)

Ah, Gold, named for the title track Gold to Me. Er, no wait ... that's Ben Harper.

Silver and Gold? U2.

After the Goldrush? Neil Young.

Well, then maybe it's just named after Adams' ambition that the record would go gold. And I think it did. And I'm pretty sure it's the only one his albums that has. In a way, that's because probably got the most publicity - the lead single was New York, New York which just happened to be released right around September 11th. I remember my brother complaining once that it was a little unseemly that Adams had rushed out a New York City tribute single so quickly. I had to tell him that it was actually recorded well before 9/11 - the video, in fact, features the Twin Towers in the background. But that song was the first by Ryan Adams I ever heard, and it was enough to get me to put the album on my holiday wishlist. (The only sour part of the song - the weird sax outro, which one review I saw mentioned as the highlight of the track. No. Saxes in rock music is a definite no.)

The real strength of the album, though, is its variety of style. Most of Adams' albums are genre exercises, and each has a different feel to it. This one, I think, does the best job of melding his various styles and influences. Now, maybe it's just because I got this album first, but this, to me, is what Adams sounds like. One common thread through the album is the heavy use of the organ. When The Stars Go Blue, for instance, contains one of my favorite musical moments ever - a little 2-second organ riff about a minute in. (Touch, Feel & Lose is another organ-heavy track, made more sublime/ridiculous by the scene in Ryan Adams: Live in Jamaica where he performs it with a gaggle of Jamaican schoolchildren singing backing vocals. "Cry, cry, cry.")

Artist: Ryan Adams
Album: Gold Bonus Disc
Favorite Song: Cannonball Days
Origin: Birthday gift from my parents

I got this last year for my birthday. When I opened it Annie was like "Doesn't your mom know you already own that?" Well, yes, but not the 21-track, 2-disc version! I've actually not bothered to get all of Adams singles, b-sides, rarities, etc. as, frankly, he puts out enough music already - 8 albums since 2000. But this was easy enough to get, and a 5-song bonus disc seemed to make it worth the extra few bucks (I've always hated paying $12.95 for import singles with 2 extra lousy tracks, or even asking for such things as gifts.) Problem is, the first time I listened to this, I didn't like it, which is odd for Adams music. But I gave it a few more spins, and I certainly warmed up to it. Sweet Black Magic and Cannonball Days are good enough that they probably should have made it onto the album. Only The Bar Is A Beautiful Place, unnecessarily long and string-laden, is a clunker.

One of the first times I remember listening to this and really digging it was shortly after Jamie was born. He was probably 3 months old or so, and I was dancing in front of the large window in our living room (he enjoys looking out at the front yard and the cars in the street). There I was, dancing with my infant son and singing along with lyrics about shooting up.

Music Collection #2: Ryan Adams - Heartbreaker

Artist: Ryan Adams
Album: Heartbreaker
Favorite Song: Oh My Sweet Carolina and To Be Young (Is to be Sad, Is to be High) - tie
Origin: Amoeba, San Francisco, I think (purchased new)

This album is, without a doubt, Ryan Adams' finest. At least, that's what all of the critics say, and I always listen intently to what music critics say, since there words are like manna from heaven. Anyway, I really like this album, but I'm not sure that it's my favorite by Adams. I'm not sure that I have a favorite, actually. But this album certainly captures in 15 tracks many of the themes running through his work - heartbreak (Amy, Come Pick Me Up), drug use (To Be Young), existential angst about his Southern roots (Oh My Sweet Carolina).

What it lacks, except for a couple tracks, is the dueling bombastic/melancholy split in Adams' persona. It's this split, I think, that causes a lot of critics and listeners to feel that he's not very authentic, or even that's he's just a plain ol' asshole. I think there's two things wrong with this analysis. One, I think it assumes that most musicians/artists really are authentic, and that Adams' inauthenticity is therefore unique and bad. This, frankly, is either a willfully blind or exceedingly naive way of looking at rock music. All musicians construct a persona, so that you're not listening to John Lennon or Joe Strummer or Mick Jagger, but "John Lennon," "Joe Strummer," and "Mick Jagger." They are all, to different degrees, playing characters based on themselves. Or, perhaps that's being too harsh. They are all putting forth a different side of their personality that they feel is appropriate for the situation, just like how you don't behave the same way in front of your Grandma that you do in front of your friends.

Second, I think critics fail to see how the two halves of Adams personality logically co-exist. His situational personality switches between that of a forlorn lover and a hard-partying rocker, but both are ways of dealing with the basic unhappiness of his music. Read through his lyrics - this is not a guy who's happy with his life. I don't mean that he's clinically depressed, just that he never really sounds satisfied with anything, especially love. Most of his love songs are, in fact, songs about break-ups or missed chances. And these songs are full of regret - he's not yet ready to give up on finding the right girl. In fact, contrary to many stereotypes, Adams is usually the one holding out hope for a relationship while the girl walks away ("Oh, I love you Amy/Do you still love me?").

So, getting back to Heartbreaker, I think this album does a wonderful job of establishing the forlorn lover side of Adams' persona, which is the more "authentic" side embraced by the critics. Certainly, Amy (quoted above) or Come Pick Me Up ("Come pick me up/Take me out/Fuck me up/Steal all my records/Screw all my friends/Behind my back/With a smile on your face/And then do it again") are great, great songs of heartbreak and mixed emotions. If your preferred method of drowning your sorrows is drinking beer and whiskey at 2 in the morning at a dive bar in Greenville, Any Southern State, then these songs would be the perfect soundtrack. If you prefer to deal with heartbreak by snorting cocaine and busting up your rat-trap hotel room in Chelsea, NYC, you may be better favored by Adams' later albums, or by listening to To Be Young (Is to be Sad, Is to be High) on repeat ("Young gal, ya done me bad/So I went and did you wrong/Then I got high/Lord, I got high").

Ye Olde Sisyphusean Task

As I stated in my original post explaining my project to blog my entire music collection, the idea came from my wife, Annie. Figuring I suppose that misery loves company, she has now embarked on the project as well. Will this be the moral support I need to soldier on through 800(?) cds? Will our dueling blogs thrive or wither through competition? Will we somehow engage in a division of labor allowing the us to finish the project together? Join me, dear reader(s) to find out the answers to these questions and more!

UPDATE: One thing that's interesting about Annie and I working on this project simultaneously is that many of our opinions are going to overlap. Compare my post on the 10,000 Maniacs with hers. Eerily similar. I'm going to refrain from reading Annie's comments on a particular album before writing my own, and vice-versa, but naturally our thoughts and opinions are going to line-up sometimes - that's part of why I married her, after all. :)

Music Collection #1: 200 Cigarettes, 10,000 Maniacs, Ace of Base

Artist: N/A
Album: 200 Cigarettes Soundtrack
Favorite Song: Cruel to be Kind by Nick Lowe
Origin: Amoeba Music, San Francisco

Annie owned this movie, and I finally agreed to watch it with her one time. It was a lot better than I thought. Not high cinema, but an entertaining look back at the early 80's, complete with the requisite New Wave soundtrack. I found the album for $6.95 (the price tag is still on the case) in the used bin and picked it up. I think this was shortly after we had consolidated our music collection, and I was at Amoeba selling my duplicates (Annie, of course, would not part with her copies, even when mine were in better shape).

The album itself is something of a mixed bag. It's got some awesome early 80's rock - the aforementioned Cruel to be Kind, Elvis Costello's (What's So Funny 'Bout) Peace, Love and Understanding, The Cars Just What I Needed - as well as some passable covers, such as The English Beat's Save It For Later by Harvey Danger. There's also some real crap, such as Bow Wow Wow's I Want Candy and an unbelievably awful medley of Blondie tunes (a medley, wtf!).

The only time I really remember listening to this all the way through was just after we bought our house, and we were painting the living room. I was scraping old paint off the ceiling, and we were alternately listening to fun albums and Bob Uecker's radio broadcasts of the Brewers. Otherwise, I put the 8 or so good songs from the album on my computer at work, and so I hear them on the randomizer now and then.

Artist: 10,000 Maniacs
Album: Our Time in Eden
Favorite Song: N/A
Origin: Unknown

This CD is something of Annie's and so I've never listened to it. A couple of these songs are relatively well-known - These are Days and Candy Everybody Wants (which is sort of a dirty-sounding title, if you think about it). And I've heard a live version of Jezebel. Otherwise, none of these songs sound remotely familiar.

Artist: 10,000 Maniacs
Album: Few & Far Between Single
Favorite Song: N/A
Origin: Streetlight Records, Santa Cruz, CA

I believe that Annie got this as part of a buy 3 get 1 free deal from Streetlight's singles bin. Apparently it was $3.95. The a-side is from the aforementioned Our Time in Eden album (boy, that's a really pretentious title, now that I think about it). Two of the b-sides are from the MTV Inaugural Ball from 1993 - back when mixing music and politics was still considered cool.

Michael Stipe provides guest vocals on both of the Inaugural Ball tracks. Which brings to mind the real reason that these 10,000 Maniacs albums are in our collection - they're one of those artists with an R.E.M. connection - Grant Lee Phillips, Husker Du, Pylon, etc. - that, if you're a big enough R.E.M. fan, you feel compelled to own and, if not exactly enjoy, at least know something about. Man, the 10,000 Maniacs probably owe a few hundred thousand dollars worth of royalties to the fact that Natalie Merchant dated Michael Stipe for a while (or at least spent time together being artsy-fartsy).

Artist: 10,000 Maniacs
Album: MTV Unplugged
Favorite Song: Because the Night
Origin: Streetlight Records, Santa Cruz, CA

This one I actually bought myself (see above for R.E.M.-related explanation), and even enjoyed, although this copy is Annie's (see above for explanation of how all of my duplicates ended up at Amoeba). This is one of those albums that I listened to quite a lot for a while, especially Because the Night (Patti Smith cover) and Jezebel. Tracks from this probably even ended up on mixtapes that I made. But at some point, I just stopped listening to it. I honestly don't think I've heard it since I graduated from Santa Cruz in 2001 (omigod, I graduated from college 5 years ago).

Artist: Ace of Base
Album: The Sign
Favorite Song: None
Origin: Known only to God

This is the kind of album that emphasizes rule #3 - every album must be blogged. No exceptions. Only Annie can possibly explain why she owns this. I, however, am reminded of that horrible months-long period in 9th grade when the title track from this album ruled the airwaves and introduced Middle America to the ankh. Ah, memories.

A New Beginning

After a long absence, I have returned to this blog flush with divine inspiration. Well, not divine, really. I have been reading Slate's feature Blogging the Bible, an attempt by David Plotz to blog his way through the Hebrew Bible. It's an entertaining and interesting read, putting a lot of well-known stories in context for someone who's never read the Bible himself. But, more importantly, it's a project. That is, Plotz has set himself a goal (and an attainable goal at that) in writing about the Bible, chapter by chapter, book by book. The problem with many blogs is that they have no direction, and thus it's easy to get sidetracked with mindless posts or by just quitting altogether. But a project has a purpose, a beginning and an end, and with a goal in mind, a reason to keep posting.

So then, what will my project be? My lovely wife Annie suggested something that never occurred to me - blogging my way through our music collection in alphabetically order. Sure, I could just blog about the good albums, the great songs, the best mixtapes, etc. But then, that wouldn't be a project! Going A to Z, covering the lousy albums, the brilliant albums, the embarassing albums, and everything in-between, that's a project worth blogging about.

A project, of course, needs rules. There are only 3 rules:

1) The blogging will proceed in alphabetical order by artist, chronologically by album. This is the order our collection is kept in. A note, however: Annie decided on the alphabetization style, so some artists are, to my mind, out of order. For instance, R.E.M. comes at the beginning of the R's (for shame!), and bands with number names (i.e. 10,000 Maniacs) come at the beginning.

2) Newly purchased albums will be blogged alphabetically as usual, unless that portion of the alphabet has already been passed by, in which case it would be inserted as an addendum whenever I have a chance (and something to say about it).

3) Every album in the collection must be mentioned! The post need not be profound, but the entire collection must be blogged. There are no exceptions.