BECK
MUTATIONS
1998 – DGC
Produced By BECK HANSEN & NIGEL GODRICH
1. Cold Brains
2. Nobody’s Fault But My Own
3. Lazy Flies
4. Canceled Check
5. We Live Again
6. Tropicalia
7. Dead Melodies
8. Bottle Of Blues
9. O Maria
10. Sing It Again
11. Static
One of the great things about Beck is that he never makes the same album twice. After the multi-Platinum victory of his 1996 album Odelay, he made a sudden right turn away from the electronic and hip hop based music he was having huge success with and came out sounding completely different. His sixth album, Mutations, found Beck as a sudden folk rock and country artist, showing that he was a true musical chameleon. The album didn’t sell as well as Odelay, and it remains fairly misunderstood in the center of the Beck discography, but that does not mean it isn’t a very good album. Beck had originally intended to release it on a small independent label, but Geffen thought it was good enough to back out of that agreement and release it themselves without Beck’s permission. That led to a lawsuit that no one is sure has ever been settled, and to the eventual end of the relationship between the artist and label.
The songs here are more serious in nature than on Odelay. “Nobody’s Fault But My Own” is the best track, with “Cold Brains” and “Tropicalia” being excellent as well. Even though the album won a Grammy for Best Alternative Music Album, it sold far less than Odelay, and didn’t have any US hits. It’s notable also that the album was produced by Nigel Godrich, who had just produced Radiohead’s great OK Computer album. The record was recorded quickly, as Beck and Godrich were trying to capture a more live sound with less studio trickery. The album shows that Beck can handle singer-songwriter territory with ease, and that his song’s don’t have to rely on samples and over production. Mutations is sometimes lost in the shuffle of Beck albums, but it’s well worth seeking out. Not his best, but still very good.
Link _________________ I'm leaning on the threshold
Of her mystery
And crashing through the walls
Of dying history
BECK
MUTATIONS
1998 – DGC
Produced By BECK HANSEN & NIGEL GODRICH
1. Cold Brains
2. Nobody’s Fault But My Own
3. Lazy Flies
4. Canceled Check
5. We Live Again
6. Tropicalia
7. Dead Melodies
8. Bottle Of Blues
9. O Maria
10. Sing It Again
11. Static
One of the great things about Beck is that he never makes the same album twice. After the multi-Platinum victory of his 1996 album Odelay, he made a sudden right turn away from the electronic and hip hop based music he was having huge success with and came out sounding completely different. His sixth album, Mutations, found Beck as a sudden folk rock and country artist, showing that he was a true musical chameleon. The album didn’t sell as well as Odelay, and it remains fairly misunderstood in the center of the Beck discography, but that does not mean it isn’t a very good album. Beck had originally intended to release it on a small independent label, but Geffen thought it was good enough to back out of that agreement and release it themselves without Beck’s permission. That led to a lawsuit that no one is sure has ever been settled, and to the eventual end of the relationship between the artist and label.
The songs here are more serious in nature than on Odelay. “Nobody’s Fault But My Own” is the best track, with “Cold Brains” and “Tropicalia” being excellent as well. Even though the album won a Grammy for Best Alternative Music Album, it sold far less than Odelay, and didn’t have any US hits. It’s notable also that the album was produced by Nigel Godrich, who had just produced Radiohead’s great OK Computer album. The record was recorded quickly, as Beck and Godrich were trying to capture a more live sound with less studio trickery. The album shows that Beck can handle singer-songwriter territory with ease, and that his song’s don’t have to rely on samples and over production. Mutations is sometimes lost in the shuffle of Beck albums, but it’s well worth seeking out. Not his best, but still very good.
KRAFTWERK
TRANS-EUROPE EXPRESS
1977 – KLING KLANG
Produced By RALF HUTTER & FLORIAN SCHNEIDER
1. Europe Endless
2. The Hall Of Mirrors
3. Showroom Dummies
4. Trans-Europe Express
5. Metal On Metal
6. Fraz Schubert
7. Endless Endless
Kraftwerk deserves a ton of credit for introducing electronic music to the masses in the mid-seventies. This German band started off as a strange krautrock band in 1970, but by the middle of the decade, it was four odd fellows and their keyboards. Their synthesizers, to be accurate. They had a surprise hit song in 1974 with “Autobahn”, a glimpse into the future of synth pop and new wave music of the eighties. Kraftwerk built on that, and in 1977 released Trans-Europe Express, an absolute masterpiece of what was then the future of rock music. It still stands as a stunning and revolutionary work, and one of the most important albums of the 20th century. This was Ian Curtis of Joy Division’s favorite album, and it became a huge influence on bands like New Order, Depeche Mode, Siouxsie & The Banshees and Radiohead.
Outside of “Autobahn”, the title track here is their second biggest US hit. “Showroom Dummies” is great also, as is the deeply creepy “The Hall Of Mirrors”. The first four tracks have lyrics: the last three do not. The lyrics were inspired by a meeting with David Bowie and Iggy Pop. Their robotic presence can seem cold, but it’s really not as icy as you might think. Originally released with German lyrics as Trans-Europa Express (with black and white cover art showing the band looking like accountants) with German lyrics, the later versions didn’t rule album charts or radio waves, but those who got into them found it most satisfying. This remains Kraftwerk’s overall best album, and it sits right at the center of their 1974 through 1981 peak, when they were the forerunners of electronic pop music. This one is an absolute must have.
Link _________________ I'm leaning on the threshold
Of her mystery
And crashing through the walls
Of dying history
DAN BERN
FIFTY EGGS
1998 – WORK
Produced By ANI DIFRANCO
1. Tiger Woods
2. One Thing Real
3. No Missing Link
4. Oh Sister
5. Cure For AIDS
6. Chick Singers
7. Different Worlds
8. Everybody’s Baby
9. One Dance
10. Jesus Freak
11. Monica
12. Rolling Away
13. Suzanne
Dan Bern is a folk rock singer who has spent his entire thirty year career on the outer fringes of commercial success. He’s a respected songwriter who has always has a tendency to go way over the top politically. He’s a shameless self promoter, having compared himself to everyone from Dylan to Springsteen, and pretty much every important folk singer in between. He claims to be “undefinable by genre and literary”. Truth is, he was once a promising up and coming artist who settled in as an also ran once he had shown he wasn’t going to become much better than average. Fifty Eggs is his second album, the follow up to his self titled debut that features “Jerusalem”, a song about himself being the messiah that was covered by Ani DiFranco. DiFranco thought enough of Bern to produce Fifty Eggs, which turned out to be a disappointment.
“Tiger Woods” starts things off on a weird note by bragging about the size of his balls. It doesn’t get any worse than that, but it really doesn’t get much better, either. His brand of humor falls flat more often than not, burying his better songs (“Monica”, an ode to tennis star Monica Seles, and “Oh Sister”) in a pile of lyrical rubble. Bern sounds good, but his songs, always said to be his strong suit, carry too much baggage of the times and sound forced and now dated. He has since gone on to a career of invisibility, as his relevance was shut down for good after 2003. He’s since made brash political statements, children’s music, and a lot of songs about baseball that not many people really care much about. Still, Fifty Eggs is one of his better efforts, from a time when he still had a world of promise around him.
Link _________________ I'm leaning on the threshold
Of her mystery
And crashing through the walls
Of dying history
CAGE THE ELEPHANT
THANK YOU, HAPPY BIRTHDAY
2011 – JIVE
Produced By JAY JOYCE
1. Always Something
2. Aberdeen
3. Indy Kidz
4. Shake Me Down
5. 2024
6. Sell Yourself
7. Rubber Ball
8. Right Before My Eyes
9. Around My Head
10. Sabertooth Tiger
11. Japanese Buffalo
12. Flow
“We want each of our songs to sound like it’s been written by a different band”. That’s how Cage The Elephant described their second album, Thank You, Happy Birthday. And for the most part…for better or worse, they succeeded in doing just that. This band from Kentucky had a hit with “Ain’t No Rest For The Wicked” from their self-titled debut, and this follow up was highly anticipated. Which is why, despite not selling as many copies, it’s their highest charting release. And you’ve got to hand it to them…this band has managed to never make the same album twice, which keeps them sounding fresh. But not everything works. In the case of this one, it’s a little better than half and half. There are some great tracks here, but there are also some that could have used a bit more work, or been replaced altogether. In a word…inconsistent.
“Shake Me Down” is the best of the lot, a nifty bit of 2010’s psychedelia. “Aberdeen” and “Around My House” are terrific as well, proving that Cage The Elephant had the goods to stay relevant. “Always Something” is fine as well. But there are also more than just a few also rans, songs that sound like filler and don’t get any better with repeated listens. This leaves Thank You, Happy Birthday as a lesser album in their discography, well behind their debut, the follow up from 2013 (Melophobia), and even 2015’s Tell Me I’m Pretty. Consider this one a sort of a sophomore slump, if you will. That’s okay. There’s enough of value here to make it worth a listen, keeping one finger securely on the skip button. Cage The Elephant continues on, with six albums in the books and a seventh on the way in 2026. A band always worth keeping an eye on.
Link _________________ I'm leaning on the threshold
Of her mystery
And crashing through the walls
Of dying history
YES
90125
1983 – ATCO
Produced By TREVOR HORN & YES
1. Owner Of A Lonely Heart
2. Hold On
3. It Can Happen
4. Changes
5. Cinema
6. Leave It
7. Our Song
8. City Of Love
9. Hearts
The dizzying history of Yes includes more spinoffs than you have fingers, a pair of reunions, and more than fifty total albums. The original run of Yes, which began in 1969 and included ten studio albums, ended at the dawn of the eighties with a fractured lineup that included Trevor Horn and Geoff Downes of The Buggles. The band split up after the album Drama, and it appeared that Yes was done. But a new band called Cinema was formed from the ashes, and when Jon Anderson was brought back to sing vocals for the new album, they changed their name to Yes, and the new chapter was born. 90125 (the name is simply the album’s catalog number) introduced the prog rock legends as a synth driven pop rock band. And while they flipped out many of their long time fans, Yes experienced a rebirth as a hitmaking eighties MTV band. Who woulda thought?
And so, 90125, their eleventh album, became their most successful. “Owner Of A Lonely Heart” was inescapable as a hit in late 1983. “It Can Happen” and “Leave It” followed, and the album was fleshed out with “Changes” and the instrumental “Cinema”. It’s a band with great experience playing music that seems to come easy for them, and it’s a pretty good disc. But missing are the thought provoking extended instrumental excursions, the creative themes and dense layering that your father’s Yes was so good at. In truth, the real saving grace of 90125 is the voice of Anderson, who still sounds cool as hell here. It’s a nice comeback after a short absence, but the truth is, this is not much more than a pop record by a band capable of much more than this. Yes soldiers on with only Steve Howe as a classic member (he did not play on this album). Not bad, not great.
Link _________________ I'm leaning on the threshold
Of her mystery
And crashing through the walls
Of dying history
THE FIXX
REACH THE BEACH
1983 – MCA
Produced By RUPERT HINE
1. One Thing Leads To Another
2. The Sign Of Fire
3. Running
4. Saved By Zero
5. Opinions
6. Reach The Beach
7. Changing
8. Liner
9. Privilege
10. Outside
They’re kind of easy to forget, but seriously…what would pop music have been in the first half of the eighties without The Fixx? This British band was seemingly always on the radio, the charts, and on MTV between 1982 and 1984 with hits that were smart and never sappy. And yet, they never seemed to really stand out, and when their hits began to dry up in the second half of the decade, no one seemed to notice. Reach The Beach, their second album, came in the middle of their streak of popularity, and still stands as their best and most successful album. It’s anchored by two of the strongest hits of the decade. “Saved By Zero” and the endlessly catchy “One Thing Leads To Another” are driven by cool guitar riffs in a world ruled by synthesizers, and the two danceable hits held their own just fine. It appeared, for the moment, that The Fixx was here to stay.
The rest of Reach The Beach is better than you might think. “The Sign Of Fire” failed as a single, but deserved a better fate, while the second half, never played on the radio, will surprise you. Star producer Rupert Hine brings out the best in the band, and the album as a whole is quite satisfying. It’s a shame that The Fixx (who are still together) aren’t better remembered these days. They had five solid hits in that three year window, adding in the excellent “Red Skies” and “Stand Or Fall” from their debut, and “Are We Ourselves?” from 1984’s Phantoms. They did become ordinary as time went by, but their first three albums are all worth seeking out, particularly Reach The Beach. For a while, The Fixx were one of the better bands of the eighties. This one is well worth dusting off and revisiting for sure. Better than you probably remember.
Link _________________ I'm leaning on the threshold
Of her mystery
And crashing through the walls
Of dying history
You cannot post new topics in this forum You cannot reply to topics in this forum You cannot edit your posts in this forum You cannot delete your posts in this forum You cannot vote in polls in this forum
Romanelli
