RED HOT CHILI PEPPERS
BY THE WAY
2002-WARNER BROS.
Produced By RICK RUBIN
1. By The Way
2. Universally Speaking
3. This Is The Place
4. Dosed
5. Don’t Forget Me
6. The Zephyr Song
7. Can’t Stop
8. I Could Die For You
9. Midnight
10. Throw Away Your Television
11. Cabron
12. Tear
13. On Mercury
14. Minor Thing
15. Warm Tape
16. Venice Queen
If you know me at all, you know that I am not the greatest fan of the Red Hot Chili Peppers. I think that they put way too much emphasis on trying to be funky. I think that their lead singer comes across way too often as a cartoon character. And I think that they write songs that are more often annoying than they are entertaining. So my first reaction to hearing their eighth album, By The Way, was to ask “who is this band?”. They sounded kind of like the Chili Peppers, but most of the annoying tendencies seemed to be gone. Well, here’s what happened. Guitarist John Frusciante left the band in 1992, and fell into a deep drug addiction. After getting clean, he returned in 1998 for the Californication album. After a long tour, the band went into the studio to record By The Way. But instead of bassist Flea being the guiding force, Frusciante took charge, writing all of the guitar parts as well as Flea’s bass lines. The results are very evident upon listening. The album is more experimental. Singer Anthony Kiedis sounds suddenly mature in both vocals and lyrics. And Flea is heard to be held back from his usual overly funk style, which surprisingly suits the band very well.
The result is, for me, their best album. There are hints of their funky past (and future). The title track is a song that could have been on any of their other albums, with its trademark Flea bass line and Kiedis’ quick rapped verses. “Can’t Stop” is the same way as well. But the rest, while not perfect, is definitely a departure…so much so that Flea was ready to quit the Peppers afterwards, believing that Frusciante was trying to take over the group. But had that happened, who knows how they would have grown? Songs like “The Zephyr Song”, “Dosed” and “Universally Speaking” show that the band doesn’t really need the funk to be good: had they continued in this vein, they may have found a way to become even better. Guitar was never a huge strength in this band except for on this album, and Kiedis and Flea were at their most subdued, which is a good thing. Still, as good as Frusicante’s work is, the rest of the Chili Peppers do sound a bit lost. And even though this may be their best album, it’s still not what the Chili Peppers have always been capable of but have never delivered…a solid, powerful start to finish album. As it is, even their best work caps out at just above ordinary. But on this one, you can at least hear the potential for more.
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THE OUTFIELD
PLAY DEEP
1985-COLUMBIA
Produced By WILLIAM WITTMAN
1. Say It Isn’t So
2. Your Love
3. I Don’t Need Her
4. Everytime You Cry
5. 61 Seconds
6. Mystery Man
7. All The Love
8. Talk To Me
9. Taking My Chances
10. Nervous Alibi
The Outfield was actually a very American sounding British trio that never gained an audience in their home country. But for a moment, “Your Love” was everywhere in the United States. Led by the soaring Boston and Styx like vocals of bassist Tony Lewis, The Outfield presented a more New Wave sounding alternative to the brand of old school classic rock that they were following. When their debut, Play Deep (the baseball references helped to build their reputation as an American group) was released in 1985, their big sound appealed to classic audiences who were starting to get fewer and fewer new bands to follow. The opening vocal: “Josie’s on a vacation far away…” became instantly recognizable, and to this day, the song can instantly spark a sing along. There was a lot of promise for this band, which had the ability to write catchy singles, had big vocals, and which rocked harder than any of their New Wave brethren. But The Outfield was never to match the heights of “Your Love”, and would soon sink into anonymity.
Not that “Your Love” is all there is on Play Deep. Songs like “Say It Isn’t So”, “All The Love”, and “Everytime You Cry” were almost as instantly catchy, and suggested that the band had a big future ahead of it. If they could develop into a more consistent recording act, that is. The rest of Play Deep suffers from a lack of development of the band. Had the four better songs been surrounded by more memorable and tuneful material that they were clearly capable of, they might have had more staying power. Play Deep instead established The Outfield as a singles band, and as it turned out, the singles ran out fairly quickly as American audiences moved further and further away from the group’s sound. Even though their next album, Babylon, was better, they were already on the way out and were done by 1992. They did come back at the end of the 90’s, but were never able to gain the old foothold. There are a few great moments on Play Deep, and if you find “Your Love” to be an annoyance, you might want to revisit it. Unfortunately, not much else to recommend this one.
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WIRE
PINK FLAG
1977-HARVEST
Produced By MIKE THORNE
1. Reuters
2. Field Day For The Sundays
3. Three Girl Rhumba
4. Ex Lion Tamer
5. Lowdown
6. Start To Move
7. Brazil
8. It’s So Obvious
9. Surgeon’s Girl
10. Pink Flag
11. The Commercial
12. Straight Line
13. 106 Beats That
14. Mr. Suit
15. Strange
16. Fragile
17. Mannequin
18. Different To Me
19. Champs
20. Feeling Called Love
21. 12 X U
I’m completely confused by music genres and mostly tend to ignore them…but maybe the most confusing thing of all is how Wire can be classified as post punk when their first album was released in the same year as the Sex Pistols. One of the first wave of punk bands from England in 1977, along with the Pistols, The Damned and Generation X. Wire ended up being the lesser know of these bands, but they were also the most talented. And maybe the most influential. And, with their debut album Pink Flag, maybe the one with the best overall album. Wire was a different kind of band. They were older than the rest of the new punk bands. They were smarter, and they had ambitions that transcended punk. They became bored quickly, which led to wholesale changes in their sound from album to album (changes in quality included). They became bored with themselves, which led to a far too soon breakup in 1981 and another in 1991. The quality of their work since the dawn of the 80’s has been highly sporadic and frustrating, but their first three albums (all from the late 70’s) are pure genius, and all worth having.
None more so than Pink Flag. Cramming 21 songs in a 35 minute album, these short bursts of songs are pure genius. The record is heavy and fast, but it’s also artistic and has layers of amazing music that grab hold and carry you all the way through. The songwriting is superb, and Pink Flag boasts an extremely high number of songs covered by other artists, including R.E.M., The Lemonheads, Henry Rollins and Minor Threat. Six songs come in at less than a minute…nine more at less than two. The result of this is that Wire doesn’t waste a second of your time, or theirs. They aren’t trying to show you how anti-establishment they are, or how pissed off they are at everyone. On Pink Flag, Wire is there to make music. It’s sad that they never followed up with another disc like this, because it’s one of the greatest debut albums you will ever hear. The fact that it was a commercial failure is sad, because this album has sat mostly unheard for going on 40 years now. It’s not too late to discover it, though. If you see this, snatch it up. This is a stunning album that should be heard a lot more than it ever has.
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MercuryTurn your back on the pay-you-back last callProfile St. Louis
This review of Pink Flag was excellent and made me happy. Agreed through and through. One of My all Time favorite albums. The best or second best album to
Come out if that British punk revolution of late seventies. (Only album I put it firmly behind is London Calling. It’s in the running with the Sex Pistols debut and maybe Damned’s Machine Gun Etiquette for number 2.)
Anyway, yeah I love seeing glowing words for Pink Flag. _________________ -Ryan
This review of Pink Flag was excellent and made me happy. Agreed through and through. One of My all Time favorite albums. The best or second best album to
Come out if that British punk revolution of late seventies. (Only album I put it firmly behind is London Calling. It’s in the running with the Sex Pistols debut and maybe Damned’s Machine Gun Etiquette for number 2.)
Anyway, yeah I love seeing glowing words for Pink Flag.
Hey, thanks! Those are my favorite four from that period as well. _________________ I'm leaning on the threshold
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TOM PETTY & THE HEARTBREAKERS
GREATEST HITS
1993-MCA
Produced By TOM PETTY, MIKE CAMPBELL, DENNY CORDELL, JIMMY IOVINE, JEFF LYNNE, RICK RUBIN, NOAH SHARK & DAVID A STEWART
1. American Girl
2. Breakdown
3. Listen To Her Heart
4. I Need To Know
5. Refugee
6. Don’t Do Me Like That
7. Even The Losers
8. Here Comes My Girl
9. The Waiting
10. You Got Lucky
11. Don’t Come Around Here No More
12. I Won’t Back Down
13. Runnin’ Down A Dream
14. Fee Fallin’
15. Learning To Fly
16. Into The Great Wide Open
17. Mary Jane’s Last Dance
18. Something In The Air
Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers released a lot of albums over the years, but they’ve always been stingy about two things. Until the 2006 monster Live Anthology, Petty had put out just one live album, the weak 1986 set Pack Up The Plantation. And as for compilations. It took until 1993 for Greatest Hits to come out. But in doing so, Petty made sure that he had enough great material to make it worth the wait. Greatest Hits covers the period from their self titled debut album from 1976 through 1991’s Into The Great Wide Open, with only one of his albums being excluded from having a track on this (1987’s Let Me Up (I’ve Had Enough)”. There are three tracks included from Petty’s solo album Full Moon Fever, but it fits on this album as almost the entire band used on the recordings was The Heartbreakers. Also of note are the two new songs recorded specifically for the album. “Something In The Air” is a decent but fairly ordinary cover of the Thunderclap Newman hit. But the real prize here is “Mary Jane’s Last Dance”,
one of Petty’s finest songs.
The album moves chronologically, which is convenient and makes for a seamless listen. There is really no filler except for “Something In The Air”, showing what a successful singles writer Petty really was from 1976 through 1993. This is actually the best way to get these hits, as his albums sometimes tend to wander off into dullness. Not all of them, but some of those titles can be tough to get all the way through. Greatest Hits gives you most of the Petty hits you could want, and while there may be a few tracks that you could question as to why they aren’t included (where in the world are “Rebels” and “Southern Accents”?), there aren’t enough of those to sustain an argument. Mostly, from “American Girl” through “Into The Great Wide Open”, this is as well chosen a compilation as you’re likely to find. Some good liner notes would have been nice, along with a better selection of photos, but overall, this is almost perfect. And I know firsthand…if you ever start a Petty tribute band, this is pretty much all you need. This and “Rebels”.
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MATTHEW SWEET
ALTERED BEAST
1993-ZOO ENTERTAINMENT
Produced By RICHARD DASHUT & MATTHEW SWEET
1. Dinosaur Act
2. Devil With The Green Eyes
3. The Ugly Truth
4. Time Capsule
5. Someone To Pull The Trigger
6. Knowing People
7. Life Without You
8. Intro
9. Ugly Truth Rock
10. Do It Again
11. In Too Deep
12. Reaching Out
13. Falling
14. What Do You Know?
15. Evergreen
The career of Matthew Sweet is a pretty frustrating story. A gifted multi instrumentalist, and an even more gifted songwriter, Sweet also had two great guitarists behind him in Robert Quine and Television’s Richard Lloyd. His pedigree has always allowed him to have an impressive list of guest musicians on his albums, and he has always had the industry believing that his next album is going to be that one great work that everyone knows he has in him. Trouble is, it never happened. The closest Sweet ever got to making that great, career defining album was 1991’s Girlfriend, but he has never matched it or bettered it. Altered Beast was the follow up to Girlfriend, so a lot was expected here. Maybe that’s why the album, which has a slew of great material and guest spots from the likes of Nicky Hopkins and Mick Fleetwood, suffers from being actually over recorded. This is Hopkins trying to progress and grow as a studio musician. That’s the party that fails, and not surprisingly, Sweet fell back into a comfort zone that he’s never budged from since. So that one great Matthew Sweet album? Isn’t going to happen.
Altered Beast, despite its overproduced and overplayed qualities, still does have flashes of what Sweet was projected to be. “Someone To Pull The Trigger” is one of his best songs. Tracks like “Dinosaur Act” and “Knowing People” are good enough to make you wonder why this guy was never a huge, huge star. But for all of the great songwriting here, there’s the fact that this isn’t Yes or Genesis…this is power pop. It’s not that complicated. More importantly, it doesn’t have to be MADE that complicated. If Altered Beast had been made with a simpler approach, with less layers and fewer guitar flashes, it may have been that album. Because it has the material. It’s what Sweet does with it that ultimately suffers. Still, you can hear the future of bands like Goo Goo Dolls and Gin Blossoms here, and you can hear how good Sweet can actually be in spots. And while Altered Beast will grow on you, it never reaches beyond a certain point, never becoming great. But those flashes of brilliance still make it worthwhile.
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I'm maybe a bigger fan of Matthew Sweet than you are (I think I was about the only person who liked his latest album) but this one is still on my wishlist so I'm curious what I'll think of it compared to Girlfriend.
I'm maybe a bigger fan of Matthew Sweet than you are (I think I was about the only person who liked his latest album) but this one is still on my wishlist so I'm curious what I'll think of it compared to Girlfriend.
I think I've always wanted Sweet to be better than he's been. Maybe I'm expecting too much? _________________ I'm leaning on the threshold
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TONIC
LEMON PARADE
1996-A&M
Produced By JACK JOSEPH PUIG
1. Open Up Your Eyes
2. Casual Affair
3. If You Could Only See
4. Soldier’s Daughter
5. Lemon Parade
6. Mountain
7. Thick
8. Wicked Soldier
9. Mr. Golden Deal
10. Bigot Sunshine
11. Celtic Agression
12. My Old Man
For a while in 1996, the music of Tonic was inescapable. Thanks to the memorable vocal hook of “If You Could Only See”, Their debut album, Lemon Parade, has sold well over a million copies, and has kept the band in business ever since. Unfortunately, this is an album and a band that really doesn’t have much more to offer than that. Led by Emerson Hart (who grew up living next door to Bruce Springsteen’s drummer Max Weinberg) and Jeff Russo from New Jersey, the band formed in Los Angeles in 1993 at the height of Nirvana and Pearl Jam. By the time of Lemon Parade, grunge was pretty much already a thing of the past, leaving the band to find their way in a changing musical landscape. Thanks to a small handful of quality songs like “Open Up Your Eyes”, and especially “If You Could Only See”, Tonic became big stars. Too bad that they strayed from the formula that made their better songs work: strong melodies, decent lyrics, and a less is more approach to the instrumental arrangements. Becausr the more they added on, the worse things got.
The album relies a lot on heavy distortion, which doesn’t suit most of the material. In particular, “Casual Affair” is simply a mess. “Mountain”, an acoustic track, is not surprisingly one of the better songs here, along with “Wicked Solder”. But outside of these two songs, along with “If You Could Only See” and the other hit “Open Up Your Eyes”, there’s nothing else worth savoring. You can tell, at times, that there may be a decent song buried underneath songs like “Celtic Aggression” or “Soldier’s Daughter”, but mostly the album is a mess of distortion and noise. Tonic obviously wanted to rock, but they simply weren’t that kind of band…they would have been much better suited as a more acoustic act. Tonic obviously didn’t have a lot of material in them…they’ve released only 3 more albums over the bast 18 years. Lemon Parade is the best of them, and it’s not much. You can probably find “If You Could Only See” on a 90’s compilation…the rest isn’t worth spending too much time on.
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