A Month of Nearly Nearly Perfect Albums (#9 and #10)

Hurrah eclecticism is back….sort of.

9. Real Emotional Trash – Stephen Malkmus & The Jicks (2008, Matador Records)

The solo work of Stephen Malkmus can be a bit like a lucky dip at a village fayre, full of promised goodies, but often also full of cheap unwanted tat.  If you dip you hands into anyone of his solo albums (and let’s be fair, even with the joint billing that the Jicks get, this is a Malkmus album full stop), you might get an excellent unashamedly upbeat slab of slacker rock or you might get two minutes of him tuning his guitar or worse three minutes of him jamming with someone from Quasi and shouting “Woah” every fifty seconds.

To some extent ‘Real Emotional Trash’ is no different, its just that you are more likely to pull something excellent out of the lunch box than something erm, ‘jammy’.  ‘Real Emotional Trash’ is easily Malkmus’ most cohesive record, the lyrics are as usual, brilliant, and full of character based songs that spin intricate tales of life and love.  Musically it is stellar, part swaggering indie, part radio friendly alternative rock, the guitars are fuzzy, the drums pound, the bass is chirpy and all of it held together by Malkmus’ vocal style.

Dragonfly Pie – Stephen Malkmus and The Jicks (2008, Matador Records)

But and here’s the lucky dip analogy again, there is some unwanted stuff inside this box.  Some of the songs are overly long, ‘Hopscotch Willie’ for instance is brilliant for the first five minutes but peters out to be repetitive after that mark (and its seven minutes long).  The title tracks clocks in at the ten minute marks and again starts brilliantly with a proggy rock sound before just meandering off down some cul de sac that Malkmus doesn’t seem to be able to (or doesn’t want) to reverse out of.   At least four of ten tracks could be trimmed by a minute or two.

Hopscotch Willie – Stephen Malkmus & The Jicks (2008, Matador Records)

Real Emotional Trash – Stephen Malkmus & The Jicks (2008, Matador Records)

Thankfully, the rest of album is not like that at all, lead single ‘Baltimore’ is excellent throughout and is probably the closest Malkmus gets to ever making a Pavement record when he was not busy making Pavement records.  Elsewhere ‘We Can’t Help You’ is a decent slab of White Stripes influenced garage rock.

Baltimore – Stephen Malkmus & The Jicks (2008, Matador Records)

Right, Alexa, put up or shut up,

10. Pay Close Attention XL Recordings – Various Artists (2014, XL Records)

A good mixtape should above everything else by expertly compiled.  It shouldn’t just be a bunch of songs cobbled together that sound good.  It should be a bunch of songs that when cobbled together flow seamlessly, educate, and sound good.  Considering most mixtapes have a purpose, be it to make you dance, mosh, shag, run, clean the house, it also has to do the thing that it set out to do.  A good mixtape must never spoil the mood.

The purpose of ‘Pay Close Attention’ is simple, to celebrate the brilliance of one of the most forward thinking record labels out there.  A label that has dared to experiment, to invest in acts, and has led to some or all of its roster pushing music in directions that we never quite expected it to.

Out of Space – The Prodigy (1992, XL Records)

The album is kind of split into two halves of a double CD, the first half concentrates on the dance records that made XL what it is today, acts like The Prodigy and SL2, but it also reminds us of some less successful – but just as influential acts such as Jonny L, Liquid and Awesome 3.  The first half takes you on a bleeptastic journey through breakbeats, techno, house, grime, big beat and jungle that is nothing short of great.

The Piper – Jonny L (1997, XL Records)

Sweet Harmony – Liquid (1992, XL Records)

The second part of the album that picks up when the label shifted slightly towards a more commercial sound – I say that – they were still putting innovative and influential records, they were just successful.  In the space of a few years, XL Records gave us records The White Stripes, Radiohead, Adele, Vampire Weekend, the XX, The Horrors and M.I.A to name but a few.

Paper Planes – M.I.A (2008, XL Records)

Weird Fishes/Arpeggi – Radiohead (2007, XL Records)

You could argue that the label hasn’t dug that deep into its artists back catalogue to compile this album (‘Seven Nation Army’, check, ‘Rolling in the Deep’, check ‘Dizzee’s ‘I Luv U’, check, The Prodigy’s ‘Firestarter’, check etc) and it could have dug a little deeper than the obvious but it doesn’t really need to, the fact that there is a label out there where the grime pop of Dizzee Rascal can sit next to the Afro pop of Vampire Weekend or where the schlocky krautrock of The Horrors can be labelmates with the feral horrorcore rap of Tyler the Creator is refreshing.  XL Records remain a bold and massively influential label.

Here is Monday’s rather bleak lyrical clue

“Northampton General, 1994. Mixed race baby born. Christmas well a week before. Mum’s 16, family’s poor”

The Best 40 Crossover Tracks (22 – 20) – Littering the coffee tables of the dull and boring

In 1997, Roni Size, a DJ and producer from Bristol won the Mercury Music for his debut album ‘New Forms’.  I won’t say too much about that as it will feature on the Nearly Perfect Album Series relatively soon – but what I will say is that, with that one (sensible) decision, the judges on the panel of the much maligned Mercury Music Prize, outraged most of the indie fraternity.  The reason for that is because nearly everyone, critics, fans, bus conductors, all expected Radiohead’s much celebrated third album ‘Ok Computer’ to walk off with the prize (everyone it seems apart from the judges and Radiohead themselves, who openly criticised the award before, during and after the voting process) 

Karma Police – Radiohead (1997, Parlophone Records)

But as good as ‘Ok Computer’ is (and lets be clear, it is very good, but let’s also be honest, on reflection, some twenty five years later, its not even close to being Radiohead’s finest hour), it is not a patch on ‘New Forms’.   Very few records released in the mid to late nineties changed music in the way that ‘New Forms’ did.  It took drum n bass and thrust it in the faces of the record buying public.  It catapulted a genre that was previously largely only heard in clubs or on pirate radio stations (and I’m generalising a bit here, go with me) into the homes of accountants and estate agents as well as students, young people and music lovers. 

22 – Brown Paper Bag (Full Vocal Mix) – Roni Size (1997, Island Records)

See Also – Jungle Brother (Urban Takedown Mix) – Jungle Brothers (1997, Gee Street Records)

Previously the only drum n bass records that I’d heard of were full of long drawn out laidback tracks that made up what people called ‘Intelligent drum and bass’ which was more influenced by jazz and ambient music than the other stuff (which was influenced by unintelligent stuff like punk rock presumably).  The problem with intelligent drum and bass was that it littered the dull and boring coffee tables of men who thought it was still cool to wear caps well into their forties and thus ironically became deeply uncool.

If you have to explore that – then 4Hero’s ‘Two Pages’ is perhaps the best place to start.

Universal Reprise – 4Hero (1998, Mercury Records)

Talking of deeply uncool….

21 – Blue Monday (Hardfloor Mix) – New Order (1995, London Records)

See Also – Bizarre Love Triangle (Armand Van Helden Mix) – New Order (1995, London Records)

Don’t See Also – Blue Monday ’88 – New Order (1988, Factory Records)

Now the purists amongst you will of course be shaking your heads in disagreement and by and large you are correct – but the Hardfloor Mix of ‘Blue Monday’ was for the dancefloor aficionados of the Surrey Students Union indie club, the mix of choice.  The reason for this is probably more to do with the fact that it was on the ‘Wipeout’ soundtrack album and was for quite a while the only mix of ‘Blue Monday’ that I owned.

Talking of only owning one mix…

20 – 3AM Eternal – KLF (1991, KLF Communications)

See Also What Time Is Love? – KLF (1991, KLF Communications)

I once left my CD copy of ‘The White Room’ on a bus somewhere between Chatham and Rainham.  I had just bought it from a charity shop (along with a George Orwell novel) and placed it on the seat next to me, opened the book and forty minutes later totally forgot where I was, and in my haste to not miss my stop – I left the CD on the seat.  So if you found that and happen to be reading – could I have it back please? 

All of which meant that three years later whilst DJing in a student basement bar whenever I played the KLF it had to be the version I had on a crappy indie compilation CD (INDIE HITS!!! 15 alternative hits including The Farm and Candy Flip!!! – it was a present from my nan, shut up).  The fact that it had ‘3AM Eternal’ on it was pretty much the only reason I kept that CD for as long as I did.

The Best 44 4th Albums of All Time #15

Kid A – Radiohead  (2000, Parlophone Records)

“Everyone around here”

Points 82

Highest Rank 6^th (twice)

The National Anthem – Radiohead (2000, Parlophone Records)

Radiohead were never a band to rest on their laurels, seemingly overwhelmed or bemused or horrified by the godlike status that people thrust upon them after ‘OK Computer’, the band decided to abandon the stadium friendly indie rock that had followed them around and for their fourth album, embrace their avantgarde sides and invest in a saxophone, a bassoon and some vintage electronica.

Enter then, side door probably, ‘Kid A’, the dictionary definition of what a fourth album musical departure should sound like.  Unpredictable, experimental, devoid of obvious hits, and (mostly) brilliant.   ‘Kid A’ was more than an attempt to reinvent themselves as outsiders, it was a record that made Radiohead a band where seemingly anything was possible and nothing was ever going to be simple with then again. 

‘Kid A’ states with ‘Everything In Its Right Place’ which right at the start sounds like an Aphex Twin or a Four Tet track, until Thom starts to sing that is.  You immediately get comfy because you think that the band have stopped mucking around and we are going to get some trademark Johnny Greenwood guitar kicking in any second now.   Nope, you get precisely no guitars.  But.  It is remarkable though.  A beautifully understated track, it jitters about surrounded by an electric piano and what can only be described as bonkers lyrics from Yorke about sucking lemons.

Everything In Its Right Place – Radiohead (2000, Parlophone Records)

Its not all experimental pianos and mashed up vocals though.  ‘How to Disappear Completely’ sees the band return, albeit differently, to a tried and tested format of the lighters aloft ballad.  Strings swoon as strings should and Yorke’s voice soars to how we remember it doing so back in 1995.   It’s marvellous, obviously (even if it does sound like Tindersticks).

How to Disappear Completely – Radiohead (2000, Parlophone Records)

You get the odd occasion where Radiohead forget that they are in supposed to be a free form space jazz band now and give us tracks like ‘Optimistic’ in which they do a more than passable impression of a band that might be entering a REM phase to their music.  I mean it has drums and everything and its outstanding (and underplayed).

Optimistic – Radiohead (2000, Parlophone Records)

There are bits where the experimentalism doesn’t work (but it mostly really does), like on ‘In Limbo’ which kind of meanders along not really doing much before dissolving in something of a non song.  But, this is Radiohead and you can forgive them because even if they can produce something as uninteresting as ‘In Limbo’ in a matter of minutes they will throw up a tune as essentially brilliant as anything they have ever done before or after.  On ‘Kid A’ that song would be ‘Idioteque’.  A brilliant mixture of glitchy beats, stop start guitars and wildly uneasy vocals from Yorke.  It is truly groundbreaking and clearly signposted the future.

Idioteque – Radiohead (2000, Parlophone Records)

When it first came out ‘Kid A’ got mixed reviews, The Guardian, usually my go to place for a decent unbaised review famously signed off their review with a personal message to the band that read “Sorry, its just not much cop” and gave it 1 and a half out of five (a review as it happens that the author stands by to this day).  It was perhaps easy to understand why.  It took me around fifteen years to properly accept ‘Kid A’ for what it is – an outstanding record made by geniuses instead of a record that sounds like it has been recorded inside a working industrial tumble dryer, which might have been how I once described it.

On Monday we will like Marty McFly heading back in time, and we will be featuring for perhaps the first time of this blog, a review of a record that has already been posted elsewhere, as the wonderful Robster from the Is This the Life blog talks us through one of his favourite 4^th albums from a piece that he wrote about it several years ago.

Here is a lyrical clue to which record he will be talking about,

“Ten green bottles fly down from the hillside”

Nearly Perfect Albums – #76

The Bends – Radiohead (1995, Parlophone Records)

OK – truth time.  I hated ‘My Iron Lung’ when it first came out.  I thought it was miserable, moaning, crybaby music and I might have even said something similar in print. I might have even said something along of the lines of that if that was the best Radiohead could come up with then their second album was going to truly stink the place out (I checked here is what I actually said: -)

“Good Lord, if that’s your lead-off single, then what follows is going to suck”.

Thankfully, I was wrong both about ‘My Iron Lung’ and ‘The Bends’ as an album.  The former is a crunchy, righteous old racket that actually pushes their miserable image far out of the way.  It’s an incredible track.  It kind of teases its way before literally pummelling your ears and as Thom Yorke yells out “You can be frightened….” you realise that Radiohead are going to take you on the ride of your life.

My Iron Lung – Radiohead (1995, Parlophone Records)

I think ‘My Iron Lung’ went Top Ten which sort of destroyed any preconceptions that Radiohead didn’t have another hit record in them.  Anyway, it led the way for ‘The Bends’ which as we all know now is an indie rock classic.  It’s fraught, it’s gentle, it’s noisy, it’s quiet, it’s the perfect antidote to listening to too much Britpop.  It pretty much had everything that indie music needed in 1995 and in ‘Street Spirit (Fade Out)’ it has one of music’s all time greatest album closers.  A perfectly executed piece of brilliance that made you believe (if you didn’t already) that Radiohead could and would push musical boundaries into areas that we never thought possible.  ‘Street Spirit’ is just utterly beautiful.

Street Spirit (Fade Out) – Radiohead (1995, Parlophone Records)

It may end beautifully but it starts nervously with ‘Planet Telex’ a track that shimmers and shudders and sounds a lot like a couple of the tracks on ‘Loveless’ (yes it does).  It is a track that is all about Johnny Greenwood’s guitar playing (as are a few others to be fair) but without it and the way that he makes it sound like things are exploding behind him that ‘Planet Telex’ might have been a tad underwhelming.

Planet Telex – Radiohead (1995, Parlophone Records)

Elsewhere you get songs like ‘Just’ which only exists because Thom challenged Johnny to make a record with as many chords changes in it as possible.  We are pretty pleased that Johnny took up the challenge because the resulting grungy guitars that sound like the musical equivalent of a three year old having a temper tantrum is something to behold and when you add Thom’s almost arrogant sounding sneer to it, it becomes one of Radiohead’s finest moments.

Just – Radiohead (1995, Parlophone Records)

The records title track ‘The Bends’ is an ode to the shallowness of celebrity and its focal point sees Thom Yorke crying out “I wanna be part of the human race” as again the guitars cascade around him as cymbals crash and basslines positively throb and as all that fades away Thom asks almost politely “Where do we go for here?”. 

The Bends – Radiohead (1995, Parlophone Records)

Well, the answer was to that was ‘Ok Computer’ which popular opinion will tell you is Radiohead finest hour. However, it was ‘The Bends’ that sets the scene, it was ‘The Bends’ that woke the public up to Radiohead and whilst popular opinion is sometimes useful on this occasion it is wrong (as it happens ‘OK Computer’ isn’t even in the Top Two’) – ‘The Bends’ is pretty close to perfection, a superb record.

Retrospective Musical Naval Gazing – #2 (1992)

1992’s end of year list was scrawled on a piece of paper that was tucked inside an old folder that I was using for my ‘Business Studies’ course.  The fact that there was more writing about music in that folder than there was about Business Studies probably tells you everything you need to know about what I thought about studying Business Studies. 

My 1992 Top Ten was very indie heavy something that wouldn’t change until around 1995, but it’s still even today a very good list.  Some of the entries are in different coloured pens as well, which probably means I was doing something like revealing a different song every day or some such nonsense, but sat at the top ten, in blue and underlined was this: –

Medication – Spiritualized (1992, Dedicated Records, Taken from ‘Pure Phase’)

‘Medication’ is an astonishing record, it starts all whispered and vulnerable sounding but descending into a complete avalanche of guitars, feedback, and crashing drums.  It is classic Spiritualized, and whilst it may not be their finest moment and ‘Pure Phase’ may not be their greatest album (it kind of bridges a gap between their two monoliths and gets overlooked because of it, well by me at least) back in 1992, it sounded incredible.

1992 was of course, the year that I somehow managed to get myself a proper girlfriend, one that would shape my world for at least the next 16 months on and off and much of the top ten (and tomorrows) is heavily influenced by her and my friendship grounds as well.  For instance at Number Two was this: –

Summer Babe – Pavement (1992, Big Cat Records, Taken from ‘Slanted and Enchanted’) – which is a record that I still utterly love and was a record that she introduced me to. It is a track, for a reason that I have long since forgotten, that I always play every time I sleep somewhere new, this is mostly done via headphones now, but when I moved into my halls at university, it was played very loudly.

Elsewhere in that Top Ten at numbers four, seven and eight respectively are tracks by other bands that I still love today more than thirty years after first hearing them

Sheela Na Gig – PJ Harvey (1992, Too Pure Records, Taken from ‘Dry’) – the first time I head PJ Harvey I was eating a bowl of Rice Krispies.  She was the featured artist on a Channel Four breakfast programme and her debut album ‘Dry’ was everywhere at the time.  By the end of that day I had ‘Sheela Na Gig’ on 12” and it remains in the vinyl cupboard today.

Creep – Radiohead (1992, Parlophone Records, Taken from ‘Pablo Honey’) – Near the start of 1992 I went to London to see Kingmaker, the train was late and by the time I got to the venue (which I think was the Town & Country Club) the support band was near the end of their set.  That support band was Radiohead and even though I saw three songs, they were still someway better than an entire Kingmaker set.

Reverence – Jesus and Mary Chain (1992, Blanco Y Negro Records, Taken from ‘Honey’s Dead’) – In December 1992, I saw the Jesus and Mary Chain at Brixton Academy and it was and still is one of the greatest gigs that I have ever been to.

…..ing Bands – #7 The Pains of Being Pure at Heart

Belong – The Pains of Being Pure at Heart (2011, Slumberland Records, Taken from ‘Belong’) – released on pink vinyl

I’m driving home from a gig in Totnes, I have two passengers in the car, one is quite drunk, the other I suspect is very nearly drunk.   The front seat passenger (The drunk one) is on DJ duties.  This involves him putting on CDs and turning the volume up to an annoyingly loud level.  It’s been a great evening.  The CD of choice, is ‘Belong’ the excellent second album from The Pains of Being Pure at Heart, which has been selected ahead of ‘Kid A’ by Radiohead, and ‘Chunk of Change’ by Passion Pit – both of which are in the glove box.

The National Anthem – Radiohead (2007, XL Records, Taken from ‘Kid A’)

Sleepyhead – Passion Pit (2008, French Kiss Records, Taken from ‘Chunk of Change’)

Did I mention that it’s absolutely pissing down as well and for a lot of the journey, pitch black, due to a mixture of there being no street lights and a sky so black that it looks like the world is ending (it’s actually the tail end of Storm Desmond or something).

In about five minutes we have to cross Shinners Bridge, an ancient old road bridge that takes traffic over the River Dart.  It is long, a bit twisty and narrow, flanked either side by a heavy stone wall.  It is traffic light controlled – meaning that you have to wait for the other traffic to come over before you can cross.   When I arrive on the bridge the traffic lights are on green so I pass on over the bridge.

The mood is very jovial.

That is until we see the flashing lights coming the other way along the bridge. 

Now…firstly not those sort of flashing lights, these were orange not, blue.  “He’ll have to stop and reverse” shouts one of my passengers.   Its then we realise the second thing.   The orange lights are a breakdown lorry and it’s towing a double decker bus, over a narrow bridge and it’s coming straight at us.  There is no way this vehicle can reverse along an old bridge.  Why it decided to come across the road on a red light we will ignore for the minute.

“I’ll have to reverse” I say.  I hate reversing.  I’m rubbish at it.  I hit hedges, kerbs, elderly people all the time (well maybe not the last one).  I hit the brakes and stick it in reverse.  Now, my car isn’t fancy, but it does have a reverse sensor that beeps when you get close to something.  Sadly for me, the sensor is a bit temperamental and it beeps every five seconds.   I can’t see a bloody thing, my back window is all steamed up, the person in the rear view is about seven foot tall all of a sudden and no matter where he sits his hair seems in the way.  I opened the window and stick my head out and slowly edge back as the bus monster thing gets closer, as the beeps gets more bloody annoying.

Suddenly another louder beep goes off in my car, the drunk front seat passenger has opened the bloody door.  “I’ll see you back” he slurs excitedly and tries to get out of the car, before remembering he has a seatbelt on.  I tell him to shut the bloody door. I edge back, I keep seeing lights behind me and hope to dear god that nothing comes across the bridge the same way – its about midnight so the road isn’t busy.   It takes me about ten minutes to reverse about 100 metres, what with it being dark, pouring down and my sensor beeping like a prewatershed episode of The Sopranos.  The road widens, and I physically exhale.  The breakdown lorry comes past – the driver roars past, the front of the towed bus, passes far closer to my car than it needs to.  The breakdown lorry driver didn’t even thank me.

The Pains of Being Pure at Heart apparently got their name by throwing a load of words at a fridge when they were teenagers.  It was and remains one of the worst names in the history of music.  Pushing that to one side, they were tremendous though, and their love for releasing records on various colours of vinyl always made me smile.

The bands first album was a lofi fuzzy masterpiece, that harked back to the glory days of shoegaze.  The band ably channelled their inner My Bloody Valentine and sounded at time exactly like the sort of record that Sarah Records would have put out in the early nineties.

Young Adult Friction – The Pains of Being Pure at Heart (2009, Slumberland Records, Taken from ‘The Pains of Being Pure at Heart’) – which was released on a maroon/white swirl coloured vinyl.

The One Word Countdown – #33

You do it to yourself…..

Just – Radiohead (1995, Parlophone Records, Taken from ‘The Bends’)

Points 112

You of course will all recall the marvellous video to ‘Just’.  A man can be seen lying on the ground in a street (actually shot behind Liverpool Street Station in London town).  Slowly a bunch of people start talking to the man who lying on the pavement.  Subtitles appear on the screen displaying the conversation that is taking place between the chap on the ground and the people around him.  He refuses to tell them why he is lying on the ground.  Meanwhile the band watch the proceedings out of a nearby window.

Eventually the man does explain, but cheekily the subtitles vanish at the same time, but what we do know is that all the other people all suddenly lie down on the ground with the original man and we never find out what was said and the band have never revealed it, in a Guardian interview about six years later, a journalist actually asked them and Thom Yorke said that if he told him “We would all have to lie down on the floor” with a smile and so the debate raged on (the real answer is of course that Piers Morgan was just around the corner, giving away free tickets for his telly programme and most people would rather be pretend to be dead that be on that).

The real star of ‘Just’ is Jonny Greenwood, he wrote most it and said that he wanted to write a song that contained more chord changes that any other Radiohead song (and there is about 94 of them in four minutes),   In the video he can be seen going absolutely crazy as Thom does a passable impression of the lovechild of Mick Jagger and Ian Curtis.  Jonny’s solo around two minutes in is the exact point when I realise that Radiohead were not just a good band, but they were an astonishing band who made astonishing records.

In 2006, Marc Ronson almost ruined ‘Just’ beyond repair, by covering it on a Radiohead Tribute Album.  He then re-recorded it for his inexplicably popular covers albums ‘Version’ in 2008.  The vocals on this were sung by Alexander Greenwald from the band Phantom Planet (nope me neither).

Just – Marc Ronson featuring Phantom Planet (2008, RCA Records, Taken from ‘Version’).

Narrowing down the choices as to which Radiohead song made this list was hard work, these were just three of the tracks that were rejected

Creep – Radiohead (1993, Parlophone Records, Taken from ‘Pablo Honey’)

Lucky – Radiohead (1997, Parlophone Records, Taken from ‘Ok Computer’)

Idioteque – Radiohead (2000, Parlophone Records, Taken from ‘Kid A’) – and one day I will get my daughter to review ‘Kid A’.