SINEAD O’CONNOR
I DO NOT WANT WHAT I HAVEN’T GOT
1990-CHRYSALIS
Produced By NELLEE HOOPER, SINEAD O’CONNOR, CHRIS BIRKETT & SEAN DEVITT
1. Feel So Different
2. I Am Stretched On Your Grave
3. Three Babies
4. The Emporer’s New Clothes
5. Black Boys On Mopeds
6. Nothing Campares 2U
7. Jump In The River
8. You Cause As Much Sorrow
9. The Last Day Of Our Acquaintance
10. I Do Not Want What I Haven’t Got
Yes, I am fully aware that Sinead O’Connor did a few “shocking” things when she was young. What people seem to forget is that she is also an incredibly gifted singer. And, for a two album stretch during the late 80’s into the 90’s, she had amazingly good taste, and made some really superb music. Her debut album, 1987’s The Lion And The Cobra, was her best work, but her second effort, I Do Not Want What I Haven’t Got, is not far behind. This album also contains the song that made her a megastar, a reworking of Prince’s “Nothing Compares 2 U”, but it (and she) deserves to be remembered for more than just that. It’s a great song, and O’Connor makes it her own, but it really is just the tip of the iceberg. It can be easy to not remember that, with all of the craziness that came with her, she has one hell of a voice, and she carries the passion in what she sings as much as anyone possibly could.
Not absolutely everything here works, but what does work is amazing. “I Am Stretched On Your Grave”, “The Emporer’s New Clothes”, and “Three Babies” make for exciting listening, and the acapella title track is right there with the best she’s ever done. This is a very personal and raw album, yet it’s also a very beautiful listen. Look past what she became shortly after (and for that matter, you can forget much of what she later recorded). Remember Sinead O’Connor for the stark, emotionally powerful and brilliant music she was able to make before she became so hated. The video for “Nothing Compares 2 U” says it all about Sinead O’Connor. The emotions have always been on her sleeve. This can be a bad thing. But, from 1987 through 1990, it was a very good thing. Don’t pass on her first two albums. You will be greatly rewarded.
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Of dying history
DWIGHT YOAKAM
GONE
1995-REPRISE
Produced By PETE ANDERSON
1. Sorry You Asked?
2. Near You
3. Don’t Be Sad
4. Gone (That’ll Be Me)
5. Nothing
6. Never Hold You
7. This Much I Know
8. Baby Why Not
9. One More Night
10. Heart Of Stone
Dwight Yoakam became a country star in the most unusual way…he did it in Los Angeles, sharing stages with the likes of The Blasters and X. These influences have always left him on the outside looking in as far as Nashville goes…which, over the years, has become a good thing. Yoakam as an artist has always made great songs and sometimes puzzling and uneven albums. Gone, his seventh album, is one of his better efforts, if not his best. It’s the first Yoakam album to not contain a top ten hit, which caused people to proclaim that his career was now on the decline. Not true. Gone didn’t have the big hits of its predecessors, but it had actually more good songs than just about any other Yoakam album before or since. Yoakam stays true to country here, but adds different sounds to his songs by utilizing psychedelic guitars, strings and mariachi horns, all while staying fast and true to his roots. The results are a really fun album to listen to.
There are two really strong highlights here. “Nothing” is a strange song, extremely sad, in which Yoakam portrays just the right amount of loneliness into. It’s worth having the album for alone. The other standout is the gorgeous “Heart Of Stone”. Graced by an eerie string intro and a rolling piano, the song sounds as if it came straight out of a 1950’s time machine. And Yoakam makes it work beautifully. You also have some nice work here on “Gone (That’ll Be Me)”, and “Sorry You Asked?”, both of which were minor hits. Dwight Yoakam is a country artist who can change your perspective on the genre if the one you have is soured by the recent output of Nashville. Gone is one of his finest albums, with not nearly as much waste thrown in between and with higher highs than usual. Not perfect (there is no perfect Yoakam album), but as close to it as you are going to get.
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THE ALLMAN BROTHERS BAND
BROTHERS AND SISTERS
1973 – CAPRICORN
Produced By JOHNNY SANDLIN & THE ALLMAN BROTHERS BAND
1. Wasted Words
2. Ramblin’ Man
3. Come And Go Blues
4. Jelly Jelly
5. Southbound
6. Jessica
7. Pony Boy
As hard as it was for The Allman Brothers Band to complete their album, Eat A Peach, amid the death of lead guitarist Duane Allman, they had the unfortunate task of having to do it again with Brothers And Sisters. This time, it was bassist Berry Oakley who died while the record was being made, in the same kind of accident and only three blocks away from where Allman had died. The rest of the band showed their grit and resiliency by completing their fourth studio album. But this is not a sad collection of songs: Brothers And Sisters sounds more like a celebration than anything else. It absolutely suffers from the losses of Allman and Oakley, but despite this, it’s still a very good effort. Guitarist Dickey Betts takes on more of a leadership role, writing most of the songs, and keyboardist Chuck Leavell fills the spot vacated by Allman. Oakley appears on only two songs, replaced by Lamar Williams. Co-leader Gregg Allman plays a lesser role on the album.
Brothers And Sisters marks the commercial peak for the band, and is also the last of their really good work…afterwards, the band would slip into average records and fall from the public eye. This album has some great highs: “Ramblin’ Man” is Betts at his finest, and marks a turn for the band towards country music. It also features the playing of Oakley. “Southbound” and the instrumental “Jessica” are also highlights, as is the surprising acoustic closer “Pony Boy”. Drug use, mourning and personnel changes over the years have diluted the power of the Allmans. This is their last shining moment, with the ghosts of Duane and Berry still in the room, and it’s a fine record. This is the absolute best of what they were able to do following the death of Duane Allman, and it’s very much worth having.
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1. How Much Longer?
2. Inside Out
3. Leech
4. Showerhead
5. Open Road Song
6. Jesus Nitelite
7. Superhero Girl
8. Tongue Tied
9. Saturday Night
10. There’s A Face
11. Smalltown Trap
Eve 6 became a sudden big thing in 1998 on the heels of the single “Inside Out”, a song with a flurry of strange images that sounded almost literary but were actually more on the juvenile side. The image of “my tender heart in a blender” may be one of the most disturbing in popular music, and when coupled with the question “Or am I origami/Folded up and just pretend”, well, this is what you get with Eve 6. This pop punk band from Southern California features a strong, tight sound, but also has the unrealized potential of frontman/lyricist Max Collins. Instrumentally, Eve 6 is as good as any of their contemporaries. But a dive into their lyrics can be pretty off putting. Collins seems to have a lot of issues, and while he’s good at explaining what those issues are, he seems to have no clue as to how to resolve any of them.
Outside of “Inside Out”, there isn’t really a lot to recommend here. Musically, this sounds like a lot of fun, but the subject matter squashes that pretty quickly. And there wasn’t a whole lot of growth from this point, either. Eve 6 made a couple more middling albums before calling it quits in 2004, and they’ve made one more since coming back. Unfortunately, Collins still hasn’t figured things out, and Eve 6 still sounds like a band that almost could have maybe been great. We’ll never know, because Collins as a writer never grew much. This debut album disappoints, and it’s really all of the Eve 6 you will ever need or really want to hear. This is not quite what Green Day or Bad Religion had in mind when they embarked on their journeys…there are definitely bands that make this kind of music that you will find to be much more satisfying.
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1. Breathe
2. Drawing Circles
3. Dreamboat
4. Don’t Grow So
5. Do What I Like
6. Pennies For My Love
7. Untitled
8. Hitch A Ride
9. The Future Rides Us All
10. Tired Ghost Of Love
11. One 1000
12. Cause
13. Day Bye Day
14. Don’t Burn Baby
15. Black Eyed Dog
Super 400 hails from Troy, NY, and has been an on again, off again minor act since 1996. They’re not doing very much now…they’ve played a whopping three local shows in the last two years, and they have only released four studio albums in almost 20 years. A power trio, they play a brand of hard rock that’s more on the jamming side, and the band encourages taping of live shows in true jam band fashion. This album, their debut and their only major label album, showcases this sound in full bloom, and also shows the band’s weakness. Namely, lead singer Kenny Hohman. An excellent guitarist, Hohman brings an obvious desire to copy the vocal stylings of The Black Crowes’ Chris Robinson to the mix, resulting in a sound that can be off-putting and disappointing. Which is a shame, because this is an otherwise promising debut.
“Dreamboat” is the obvious highlight here, a song that could have been a hit for the band. The album’s closer (the last two tracks listed here are bonus tracks added later on) is “Day Bye Day”, an eleven minute workout that shows off the bands instrumental prowess quite nicely. They were dropped by Island Records shortly after this was released, and it would be another six years before they made their second album, the self-released Blast The Message. This is a reissue of their ’98 debut (with the added bonus tracks), and it’s a good start for the band. With better vocals, this would be rated higher, but as it stands, this little known band’s debut is what it is: a decent start to a career that has never really taken off, partly because of their lack of exposure, and partly because they seem to take their career as a part time job.
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HALDEN WOFFORD & THE HI-BEAMS
MIDNIGHT RODEO
2006-NO LABEL
Produced By JOHN MACY
1. Don’t Care If I Do
2. Betty Boop
3. Cajun T’Air
4. Blues Fallin’ Down
5. Road To Old Mexico
6. My Baby Hates Honky Tonks
7. Love Police
8. Jealousy
9. Hippie In My House
10. Flatfooted
11. Midnight Rodeo
12. Floyd Hill Whiteout
If you find yourself in the Denver/Ft. Collins area, love alt-country music, and you’re looking foor a hell of a good time, you should look up Halden Wofford & The Hi-Beams. Wofford is no ordinary country singer…he’s a stylist, and has an obvious deep appreciation for the old time artistry of country music. He also has the voice of the second coming of Slim Whitman…and if you can appreciate that, then Halden is for you. Their live shows are loaded with swing, Bob Dylan covers, and a band that can have a whole lot of fun while taking their craft seriously at the same time. Midnight Rodeo is their second album, and it contains a lot of their live favorites in a studio setting (their site says the album was done in four days…if that’s true, then these guys really ARE pros!), and gives a really strong indication as to what you’ll get at a Hi-Beams show. Mainly, a whole lot of fun.
The centerpiece of the album is Wofford’s concert favorite, the hilarious “Hippy In My House”. But this album is about more than just a funny novelty tune. Equally as impressive is their performance of the rollicking “Betty Boop”, showing that these guys can handle a masterful hook as well as anyone. “My Baby Hates Honky Tonks” and “Floyd Hill Whiteout” are also standouts, and the rest is not only fun to listen to, but it’s also well crafted from a band that has obviously done its homework on country swing and carried it forward to the now. Midnight Rodeo comes across as a lot more country than the band does in their live shows, but that’s a good thing. If the Hi-Beams are not your favorite Colorado band, one listen to Midnight Rodeo and one live show will definitely change your mind about that. One of the best local band albums I’ve ever heard.
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MARY GAUTHIER
GENESIS (THE EARLY YEARS)
2008-SELF RELEASED
Produced By GURF MORLIX & CRIT HARMON
1. Long Way To Fall
2. Our Lady Of The Shooting Stars
3. Evangeline
4. Camelot Motel
5. Sugar Cane
6. I Drink
7. Karla Faye
8. Drag Queens In Limousines
9. Different Kind Of Gone
10. Goodbye
11. Christmas In Paradise
12. GD HIV
13. Ways Of The World
14. I Ain’t Got No Home
15. I Don’t Know Nothing About Love
The story of Mary Gauthier (pronounced “Go-Shay”) is as remarkable as her music. Suffice to say that she went through more than most of us ever do before she even thought about becoming a musician. In fact, she didn’t even start writing songs until she was 35 years old. But this remarkable woman has more than made up for lost time. Her voice and her songs are buried deep in Louisiana, and her music is very much country…just not the kind that makes one a big star. Mary Gauthier is a supreme songwriter, and she’s an artist who deserves to be heard. I saw her at a folk festival a few years back and became hooked…because the songs are here. This is a special kind of talent, not well known because of the style of music she creates, her age, and the lack of courage on the part of the music industry to make this woman the star she should be.
Genesis is a compilation of the best of her first three albums, Dixie Kitchen, Drag Queens In Limousines, and Filth And Fire. Everything here is of exceptional quality, from the standouts “I Drink” (and you’ll believe that she did) and the touching “GD HIV” to the beautiful “Our Lady Of The Shooting Stars” and the vision of yelling “Merry Christmas, y’all!” at cars in “Christmas In Paradise”. This is all great stuff: some solo acoustic, some with a full band, all delivered with her deep Louisiana drawl. She’s gone on to make more great music, but this is a perfect starting point for the uninitiated. Catch her live if you can…she’s truly great. And if you do, buy an album or two from her. You’ll be most happy and appreciative that you did. This is great American music from a top notch songwriter.
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A TRIBE CALLED QUEST
THE LOW END THEORY
1991 – JIVE
Produced By A TRIBE CALLED QUEST & SKEFF ANSELM
1. Excursions
2. Buggin’ Out
3. Rap Promoter
4. Butter
5. Verses From The Abstract
6. Show Business
7. Vibes And Stuff
8. The Infamous Date Rape
9. Check The Rhime
10. Everything Is Fair
11. Jazz (We’ve Got)
12. Skypager
13. What?
14. Scenario
The Low End Theory has been called the Sgt. Pepper’s of hip hop, and that may actually be the most accurate description of A Tribe Called Quest’s second album. Forget that the multitude of early 90’s references (pagers, Bell Biv Devoe, fades) sound painfully dated…this is one of the great hip hop masterpieces, and will always remain so. The key to this album, and the importance of it all, is jazz. DJ Ali Shaheed Muhammad expands on his use of jazz samples from their debut album to include pieces that are, at times, so subtle that they are almost invisible. This marriage of hip hop and jazz turns out to be completely natural, and it works amazingly well. Minimalism is something that hip hop has embraced, but with only a few exceptions, it has not done it well. Those few exceptions exist mostly on The Low End Theory, an album that both artists and producers should revisit much more often.
The highlights here are “Check The Rhime”, “Scenario” (with Busta Rhymes), and “Jazz (We’ve Got)”, but there are plenty of stellar moments. “Butter” flows like the title. “Excursions” features a nice sample from Art Blakey & The Jazz Messengers. Everything here flows like it’s supposed to, and there’s no fluff pieces (skits), and unlike pretty much every hip hop album ever made, there is not an ounce of filler. A Tribe Called Quest had one more great album in them (the mainstream Midnight Marauders) before settling for average releases…but there will always be The Low End Theory, a beautiful and vastly important album that changed the genre of hip hop forever, in very good ways. It’s not just an important album, it’s an exceptionally good album that deserves a spot in any collection.
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baystateoftheartNeil Young as a butternut squashProfile Massachusetts
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