Bob’s Jukebox: A Momentary Lapse of Reason

Posted: July 15, 2023 | Author: | Filed under: Bob's Jukebox, Culture | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

This week on Bob’s Jukebox, I’ll be discussing the Pink Floyd album A Momentary Lapse of Reason. This is another one I’ve spoken about previously, just over ten years ago, so I don’t blame anyone for not remembering (and this is a bit of a different and more expansive take). At some point I will be discussing (most) every Pink Floyd album, although I don’t want to focus on any one artist for an extended period of time, even if they are the greatest artist of all time. Don’t take it from me; it was voted on all the way back in 2014 for Bobapalooza: Clash of the Titans. And no, I didn’t rig the voting. Who do I look like, the IOC?

So why start with this one, you may ask? It’s quite simple, really. This was the first Pink Floyd album I ever heard, and it started my lifelong fandom.

Go ahead, gasp in shock and dismay. Yes, as a matter of fact I was born under a rock and then raised by wolves. In a barn. On Mars. Are we done here?

I distinctly remember seeing the video for “Learning to Fly” on MTV (and if that doesn’t make me sound old, nothing will) and the sound captured me completely. I had to find more of this incredible new band. The entire album was intoxicating, and when I found out they had so many (allegedly better) albums out there, I started slowly working my way through their back catalogue. We’ll get to those albums eventually, but one thing at a time. (Don’t worry, I’ll be doing the entirety of The Wall as a single post.)

Pink Floyd is another one of those artists that you just can’t compare to other artists, because they’re just that good; you can only compare them to themselves. Is Momentary Lapse the best Pink Floyd album in existence? No, but it is my baseline for what a good Pink Floyd album should be (“you must be at least this quality to be considered good”). We’ll discuss my favorites as we get to them, and this isn’t one of my top three, but it is one of my top five… or six, depending on how you count them. We’ll get to that too.

Right from the start, the use of ambient sound leading into an instrumental on “Signs of Life” just works for me. This album probably has my favorite use of instrumentals paired with ambient sound outside of Animals, and yes, I realize that’s a bold statement considering that both Wish You Were Here and Dark Side of the Moon exist. I said probably, and I love each of them for their own reasons. “Learning to Fly” as previously mentioned is sublime.

“Dogs of War” is the turd in the punch bowl. It is the rare Pink Floyd song I just don’t much care for. It’s derivative and boring. I usually skip past it. But I promised myself I would listen to the entire album, and listen I did. My opinion has not changed.

Fortunately, we then get into the meat of the album, where the music and the lyrics combine together into something truly magical. Again, not the best Pink Floyd ever produced, but still well worth the price of admission. Even decades later, lyrics like “Was it love, or was it the idea of being in love? / Was it the hand of fate, that seemed to fit just like a glove?” hit like a hammer. Even when the lyrics don’t quite rise to that level (“Yet Another Movie”, I’m looking in your direction), Gilmour’s guitar work is still delightful.

Overall, this was the perfect introduction to Pink Floyd. It’s middle of the road (for Floyd), not their best album by a long shot but far from their worst either (and I can’t wait to see the flack I get when we get to that one).

Bob’s Jukebox: Glass Houses

Posted: July 8, 2023 | Author: | Filed under: Bob's Jukebox, Culture | Tags: , , , , , | Leave a comment

A while back, a good friend of mine (Dr. Pat) used to spend every Friday night doing what he called a “Full Album Flashback”. He would listen to an entire album (and when was the last time you even SAW an entire album?), and he would post his thoughts on the Book of Faces. I was intrigued by the idea and thought I would like to brazenly steal it for myself borrow it and give credit where credit is due. So, thank you Dr. Pat for the inspiration for Bob’s Jukebox.

What is that exactly? Well, I have an old collection of CDs sitting around, roughly 300 or so, that I haven’t really listened to in a decade or longer, and I thought now’s as good a time as any. I also know for a fact I bought at least some *cough*most*cough* of them for only a few songs at best. So actually taking the time to listen to the entire album will be a new experience for me. Good? Bad? Indifferent? We’ll find out together!

I decided the perfect album to kick this off with was the first “real” album I can ever remember listening to, Glass Houses by Billy Joel. I suppose there’s a certain synchronicity that the first album I started Bob’s Jukebox with is also, completely unintentionally, the first album I used to start The Soundtrack of My Life. Hopefully in the future I’ll manage to be a little less predictable, but I somehow doubt it.

Before I get into my specific thoughts on this album, I think it is worth mentioning that I consider Billy Joel to be on a special tier of artists who can’t be fairly compared to other artists. When I say a particular Billy Joel album is “good” or “bad”, I am speaking in relation to other Billy Joel albums. I don’t honestly think there are any truly, objectively bad Billy Joel albums (although some do come close to being mediocre, and we’ll discuss those when we get to them).

Glass Houses is the seventh studio album from Billy Joel, which honestly surprised me when I looked it up. I’ll be discussing his other albums (at least some of them) in future posts but suffice to say I was more impressed with at least one of his earlier releases, significantly more in fact. I’ll let you guess in the comments which one that is (all of you except Dr. Pat, because he already knows for a fact which one it is). The lyrical ability he displays on this album is more clever than poignant or deep, with memorable hits such as “You May Be Right” and “It’s Still Rock and Roll to Me” showing an ability to turn a clever phrase without significant depth, and “C’etait Toi (You Were the One)” honestly just feels like a failed attempt at looking sophisticated (really, an entire verse in French? Even worse, the same verse? I thought my teenage poetry was pompous, but damn.)

His great strength lies in storytelling, and the more relatable the story, the better the song. “All for Layna” and “I Don’t Want to Be Alone” are perfect examples of this, as is “Sleeping with the Television On” (which also does an excellent job of placing the album within a specific few decades within the US; listen to the song and if you know, you know.)

At this point he still is a young, perhaps not angry but definitely cynical man. How much you can relate to that may influence how much you enjoy his music. Also, it is to some extent of its place and time. There is no doubt that Billy Joel has a certain style, particularly early in his career, and while that style did evolve over time, on Glass Houses it is in full force and clearly on display. If you like that style, you’ll like this album. If you don’t, you won’t. It really is that simple. For myself, this still remains one of my top five Billy Joel albums, and arguably one of my top three. I freely admit nostalgia plays a certain role in that, but there honestly are no bad songs on the album (even “C’etait Toi”, for all that I love to give him shit for it), and only a couple of truly forgettable songs. The fact that a couple of my very favorite Billy Joel songs are on this album, along with some of his biggest hits (and no, they are not one and the same in this case; again, different albums yield different results) sets it high on my personal ranking.

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