I Wanna Rock
Posted: May 27, 2025 Filed under: Bobapalooza, Culture, Uncategorized | Tags: Bobapalooza, Bobapalooza 2025, culture, entertainment, music, pop culture, rock Leave a commentLet’s face it: our country is at war with itself. Red against blue. Liberal against conservative. Rich against poor. Cat against dog. We need something that can pull us together, something we can all rally around. We need… the power of music.
*Ahem.* I said, “We need the power of music.”
(I swear, there’s never an inspirational John Williams score around when you need one. Okay, we’re doing this the hard way.)
Almost a decade ago, I was tired of listening to the same old music, so I decided to ask my friends for suggestions. Of course I couldn’t be so pedestrian as to just say “what do you recommend?” I had to have some fun with it. Instead I asked, “If there was a music festival coming to town, and you found out a specific act was there, what one act would make you buy a ticket no matter what?” I promised I would listen to any suggestion, and the fifteen best would be in my fantasy music festival.
Well of course I started getting suggestions like The Beatles and Pink Floyd among some more modest, less famous acts. That didn’t seem entirely fair to me, because OF COURSE you’re gonna have The Beatles at your music festival, right? So I decided to create the Stage of Legends, five acts so amazing they transcended the form and deserved to be, well, Legends. And thus was born Bobapalooza, The Greatest Show That Never Was, with five acts on the Stage of Legends and 15 Main Stage bands.
It was so popular (and honestly so much fun) that by popular demand I brought it back several times. But like all good things, it had its season, and I’ve only even attempted to do a Bobapalooza once in over a decade.
I think it’s time to change that.
BOBAPALOOZA 2025: ONE NATION UNDER BOB
Has a nice ring to it, doesn’t it? Now it’s time to do your part and contribute.
Here’s the rules:
MAIN STAGE
1. You have to pick a band you would sit through the entire set. Not “I love this song!” I want “I love this band!”
2. Yes, you can post as many as you like, but really, how many bands are THAT good?
3. If you intend to post more than one, please don’t spam the feed (more than 10 bands a day from one person is a bit much. I do have a life. And see 1 & 2.)
4. If you post it I will listen to it, so please, be gentle.
5. Please note that this is a Main Stage entry.
6. Any band that made it to the show in a previous year (main stage or Stage of Legends) will not be considered for the main stage this year. See the lists below.
STAGE OF LEGENDS
1. All of the rules for Main Stage apply, only even more. I mean, think about 1 & 2 especially. These guys are supposed to be LEGENDS.
2. Testify! Tell me (and the world!) why you think this band deserves to be named a Legend. For an idea of the sort of thing I have in mind look at the write up from Bobapalooza 2011 or Bobapalooza 2012.
3. Any band that made it to the Stage of Legends in a previous year will not be considered this year, however, Main Stage acts may still be nominated.
And remember, just as Master Yoda told us, “Do, or do not; there is no try.” Once a band has been nominated for the Stage of Legends, they are no longer in the running for the main stage. The whole point of the Stage of Legends is to give a fair shot to lesser known bands. If you think your favorite band has what it takes to compete with the big boys, put ‘em in, but don’t hedge your bets. Go big or stay home.
To answer a question I get all the time, YES, you can nominate a Main Stage alum for the Stage of Legends. They just can’t come back to the Main Stage.
Submissions can be made via comment or DM at @bobbonsall.bsky.social. Send me a link to your favorite song by the band you want to nominate as well as letting me know if this is a Main Stage or Stage of Legends submission. If you don’t say I will assume Main Stage to give them the best chance, unless they are not eligible for the Main Stage. (If they aren’t eligible for Bobapalooza at all, I will taunt you a second time.)
Starting July 1 I will decide who the winners are, and I will post my fifteen favorite bands for the main stage and the five act Stage of Legends. I will also give credit to the first person who suggested them, so get in early for your shot at fame!
If you still have questions, please feel free to comment on this blog post or DM me at @bobbonsall.bsky.social. Insightful questions will receive careful, well-thought-out answers. Off-hand questions will get off-hand answers. Questions that prove you didn’t bother to read everything I already wrote will be met with shame and ridicule, not necessarily in that order.
Stage of Legends Alumni:
The Beatles
Rush
Led Zepplin
Iron Maiden
Pink Floyd
Bob Marley
David Bowie
Michael Jackson
The Cure
N.W.A.
Nirvana
The Doors
Sting
Nine Inch Nails
Johnny Cash
Jefferson Airplane
AC/DC
Weezer
Black Sabbath
Simon & Garfunkel
Depeche Mode
Alice in Chains
Madonna
The Grateful Dead
Tori Amos
Main Stage Alumni:
Flogging Molly
The Yeah Yeah Yeahs
The Decemberists
Mumford and Sons
Owen Pallett
Regina Spektor
Moyseis Marques
R.E.M.
Grinderman
Foo Fighters
Mika
Our Lady Peace
Jessie J
A Sunny Day in Glasgow
The Beastie Boys
Gorillaz
Silversun Pickups
Amadou and Mariam
Rancid
Lindsey Sterling
The Band Perry
The Airborne Toxic Event
Manchester Orchestra
Grimes
Deadmau5
Fun
Glen Hansard
Muse
Foxy Shazam
Adele
Matsiyahu
Awol Nation
Volbeat
Divine Fits
Axis of Awesome
Garbage
KMFDM
The Heavy
Aesop Rock
Animal Collective
Preston Reed
Dream Theater
Death
K’Naan
The Thermals
Boney M
The Cult
George Thorogood
Kae Sun
Metric
Disturbed
Al Green
Sitali
Me First and the Gimme Gimmes
The Black Keys
Soundgarden
Petite Noir
James
DJ Kool
Dominique Pruitt
Artic Monkeys
Billy Talent
The Explorers Club
Pop Evil
Orville Peck
Rhianna
Aaron West and the Roaring Twenties
MGMT
Rival Suns
Public Enemy
Moby Grape
P!nk
Eminem
Portugal. The Man
Bob’s Jukebox: Recovering the Satellites
Posted: December 1, 2023 Filed under: Bob's Jukebox, Culture | Tags: 90's, 90's music, 90s, 90s music, A Long December, August and Everything After, Bob's Jukebox, Counting Crows, culture, entertainment, music, pop culture, Recovering the Satellites, reviews Leave a commentI’ve been away for a while due to holidays and technical issues, so I thought I’d do something a little different this time. Nah, just kidding. Back to the early Nineties we go!
More serious and reflective than the earnest and, dare I say, innocent sound of their debut album August and Everything After, Recovering the Satellites is an unusually effective and affecting sophomore outing for Counting Crows. From what little I understand of the music industry, this tends to be because record executives like to “strike while the iron is hot” as it were, which is to say they don’t want to spend more money promoting a band they already spent money promoting while they already have songs on the radio. So, the push is on to get another album out practically as soon as the first one is done (sometimes even before the first one is done). This tends to result in a significantly less… well, less album, for lack of a better way to say it. Whatever it was that made the first album spectacular (or even tolerable) tends to be missing, because it was often the work of years, and the record execs want it in months, and inspiration and artistry can’t be turned on and off like a faucet.
Fortunately for us, Counting Crows waited three years (and apparently did a fair bit of touring) before releasing their second album. The tone is a bit more somber and introspective, which pretty well fit the mood of the time judging by the top albums of the year (and no, I don’t care that Celine Dion is on that list. If anything, that just proves that people felt like the end times were only a few years away, and they were trying to suck up to the Antichrist*). Either way, it made for a solid evolution for the band, moving them forward without being so different that fans were unable to identify with their sound anymore (Metallica, I’m looking in your direction). And speaking as a fan, I have to say I very much enjoy the entire album. So, let’s break it down.
The first track, “Catapult”, feels like it could have been on August, but it would have been one of the more somber songs on the album (it’s a bit more somber in tone than “A Murder of One”, if not subject matter). “Angels of the Silences” may well be my favorite song on the album; a powerful and poignant song with driving guitars and a surprisingly deep message if you take the time to listen. “Daylight Fading” is a fine song, well-constructed and performed with a bit of a western twang to it. “I’m Not Sleeping” could also have been off of August, but again it lacks the innocence of that album; it has an edge to it that the former album lacked, which is not a slight to either album but simply an acknowledgement of reality; in fact, the song even states it:
Spend my nights in self defense
Cry about my innocence
But I ain’t all that innocent anymore, more, more, more
“Goodnight Elisabeth” is a beautiful song by itself, but it also reminds me of someone I knew decades ago, which gives it a special personal meaning to me. “Monkey” is a cute song, fun basic pop. Otherwise, it’s another one that reminds me of someone I used to know which also gives it special personal meaning. (And no, I’m not going to talk about either of them, so don’t bother asking.)
“Children in Bloom” is fine, although to be honest I find it a bit self-indulgent. That’s not to say I don’t listen to it, but it really depends on my mood. If I’m in the mood to listen to anything and everything Counting Crows, absolutely. If I’m just listening to the songs I particularly care for, I tend to skip right past it. “Another Horsedreamer’s Blues” is far more to my taste and seems to me to be what “Children in Bloom” is trying to be, even if it never quite gets there. It has a restrained urgency to it, a desperate yearning and subdued anger that at the same time feels somehow on the edge of hopeful.
“Have You Seen Me Lately?” is fine. It’s bouncy background music, mostly standard pop, but it does have an edge of harshness and even a bit of bitterness born from experience that works for it. It’s like the bit of lemon that cuts through the sweetness of a cola. “Miller’s Angels” is pretty, if somber.
The title track, “Recovering the Satellites”, is kinda middlin’ and kinda maudlin. Another one that I don’t mind listening to, but I wouldn’t seek it out specifically. “Mercury” is a pop song with a funky southwestern twist. It’s a good track, worth listening to.
And at last, we come to “A Long December”. Look, I love this song. It’s a great song. Sweet, sad, poignant. If you somehow haven’t heard it, rectify that situation right the fuck now. Yes, that was aggressive, but seriously, I think it’s a great song, and everyone should hear it once. Once.
See, I have a couple of friends who post “A Long December” toward the end of the year on Facebook (for obvious reasons), and I have to say, with all the kindness, love, and respect I can – let it go. Please, find your inner Elsa and Let. It. Go. This is a tradition that, much like my own gone and in no way lamented tradition of listening to Pink Floyd’s “Time” every year on my birthday, has far outlasted any value it may have once had. Just to be clear, this album was released in 1996. That’s almost thirty years of “A Long December”. It’s been long enough. And this is coming from a guy whose sister told him he was stuck in the Nineties, and I wear her scorn as a badge of honor.
“Walkaways” honestly feels like the perfect way to finish the album. Simple, bittersweet, ambivalent, like the album itself.
What’s my takeaway? If you are a Counting Crows fan, you should already have this album. If you don’t, why not? If you’re new to Counting Crows, I suggest starting with August and Everything After. I think it would just be a little too hard to walk back to after starting here, although probably far from impossible. There’s enough good music here, and certainly enough great music here, to make the whole album a solid buy and a solid listen all the way through at least once, although on subsequent listens you’ll probably be sticking to your favorite tracks (although please do me a favor and don’t post them to social media.)
*I’m not saying Celine Dion is the Antichrist. I’m also not not saying it.
Bob’s Jukebox: The Crow Soundtrack
Posted: October 27, 2023 Filed under: Bob's Jukebox, Culture, movies, Movies | Tags: Bob's Jukebox, culture, entertainment, movie soundtrack, movies, music, pop culture, reviews, soundtrack, The Crow, The Crow movie soundtrack, The Crow soundtrack Leave a commentHi everybody! Been a busy month, but I didn’t want to let Gothtober go by without an album review. As anybody who knew me in my early teens to late twenties can tell you, I have a plethora of self-indulgent choices, ranging from the obvious to the obscure (don’t worry Cure fans, I’ll be getting to Disintegration eventually). Fortunately for me, I was watching Awkward Ashleigh review The Crow, and I remembered how much I enjoyed the soundtrack which I also haven’t listened to in well over a decade, so here we are. (And not for nothing, but you should totally check out Awkward Ashleigh’s channel on YouTube. She’s adorkable.)
This album is pure 90s post-punk nirvana, with goth-industrial, alternative, and grunge all up in the mix, with only a single song at the end of the album being the lone dissenter. It’s so on-point in the artists and songs that were selected that, from the distance of a few decades, it almost feels like satire; it’s just that perfect at depicting a specific time in a particular sub-culture. There’s no fat on the bone here, no deviation from the clear focal point of the album (that one song not withstanding; it borders on being goth with its pretentious self-absorption). That is both a blessing and a curse; while I got exactly what I came for, by the time the album was over I couldn’t help yearning for some Neil Diamond or Captain and Tennille as a palette cleanser.
To be fair, there are a lot of bangers on this album. “Burn” by The Cure, “Golgotha Tenement Blues” by Machines of Loving Grace, “Big Empty” by Stone Temple Pilots, “Darkness” by Rage Against the Machine, “Color Me Once” by Violent Femmes, and “Milktoast” by Helmet. So, most of the first half of the album. There are a couple of minor exceptions though.
I enjoy “Dead Souls” by Nine Inch Nails, even if it is one of Trent Reznor’s more commercial entries. (For those of you who disagree, I refer you to basically anything off of The Downward Spiral. Seriously, even compared to “Closer” this is tame.) This may be because it’s a cover of a Joy Division song, although quite frankly just about anything off of Pretty Hate Machine would have worked for this movie. I guess they figured it was overdone by that point, and with Spiral releasing the same year as The Crow, Trent wanted to keep all the fresh stuff to himself.
“Ghostrider” by Rollins Band is… I mean, it’s Henry Rollins. Do you like Henry Rollins basically screaming into the microphone over top of screaming guitars and banging drums? If you’ve never tried it, I promise, it’s better than I make it sound. But it is a distinct sound, and either you’re gonna like it or you’re not. Personally, I kinda like it, but I’ve never been a Rollins fanboy, so it’s only just okay for me.
Then we get into the second half of the album, or as I like to call it, “we frontloaded the album so you would buy it without looking at the entire track list”. That’s not to say there’s no good songs here, far from it, but it definitely isn’t as strong.
“The Badge” by Pantera is another one that’s fine but not great. I’m just not much of a thrash metal fan, and there’s nothing about this song that’s going to change my mind on that count.
“Slip Slide Melting” by For Love Not Lisa is good but not quite great. I’d rate it somewhere between the big hitters that started the album and “Dead Souls”, more satisfying than the latter, not quite in the range of the former. “After the Flesh” by My Life with the Thrill Kill Kult is about the same, although with the caveat that I don’t see this one being for everybody (I just happen to be a Thrill Kill Kult fan).
“Snakedriver” by The Jesus and Mary Chain is about on par with “Dead Souls”, although I can see someone who is more of a fan of that specific alternative sound enjoying it more (again, this is my own personal bias creeping in; I’m not big on The Jesus and Mary Chain).
“Time Baby III” by Medicine is nice and mellow, leading into the aforementioned last song on the album, “It Can’t Rain All the Time” by Jane Siberry, which for all of my poking fun at it is still quite beautiful.
Would I recommend buying this album? That depends entirely on whether you like this specific sound. This album is very much of its time, and there are some songs on here you would have trouble finding anywhere else if at all. Then again, streaming services are a thing now, so there’s that. But there is something to be said to hearing them all together, experiencing the moment, as it were. If you don’t know if you like this sound, or this genre, this is an excellent sampler. If you do like it, this is also an excellent sampler. So yeah, I would definitely recommend it.
Bob’s Jukebox – Off to See the Lizard
Posted: September 29, 2023 Filed under: Bob's Jukebox, Culture | Tags: Bob's Jukebox, country music, culture, entertainment, Jimmy Buffett, Margaritaville, music, Off to See the Lizard, pop culture, pop music, reviews, Tales from Margaritaville Leave a commentThis one’s a little late for a tribute, but I’m on Margaritaville time, so I’m sure Jimmy won’t mind. I decided to do Off to See the Lizard as my first Jimmy Buffett album because it holds a special place in my heart. It wasn’t the first album of his I ever heard (I’ll get to that one eventually), nor is it my favorite (I’ll get to that one as well), but it does have the special distinction of being tied to the first concert I ever attended.
Yes folks, I was a big ol’ Parrothead when I was younger (as My Not So Humble Sister can attest to, much though she might wish otherwise), and when I was just about to turn 15 Jimmy released this album and came through my neck of the woods on tour. My dad took me to see him at Merriweather Post Pavilion, and it was one of the greatest experiences of my life. If nothing else, I will always be grateful to Jimmy for giving me the memory of sharing my first concert with my Dad.
So what about the album itself? Well, I’ve already admitted it’s not my favorite Jimmy Buffett album, but I should probably qualify that. Mr. Buffett is one of those rare artists that I put into the category of “self-compare”. What I mean by that is that they have transcended their genre or are just in general too good to compare to other artists; it wouldn’t really be fair to those other artists. The best you can do is to compare them to their own work. That being said, do I like the album? Of course I do! But if I were to pick one Jimmy Buffett album to listen to, it wouldn’t be the first, or even third, I would reach for.
In some ways I feel like this is a good “introductory” Jimmy Buffett album. It has more of a contemporary pop sound than some of his other albums I have heard, which lean more into a country/reggae sound. I feel like that pop sensibility might make it more approachable for the casual listener who isn’t familiar with Jimmy’s work. Unfortunately for me, I feel like it dilutes his unique sound. Not overmuch, but it does take away somewhat from what I find enticing about his earlier albums. I also find some of the lyrics to be a little too “attempt to be clever” and “forced to fit” rather than actually clever or a good rhyme scheme and scansion. This probably has a lot to do with the album being paired with Jimmy’s first book of stories, Tales from Margaritaville, which I received for Christmas that year. If I’m being honest, I think I would recommend the book of fiction over the album, but not by much. Both are good, but not great, although I loved them both when I first experienced them.
Most of the songs I really enjoyed: Take Another Road, Gravity Storm, Boomerang Love (one of my favorites on the album, which is not surprising, since it is one of the ones most reminiscent of his earlier work), I Wish Lunch Could Last Forever (he makes it sound so perfectly decadent), The Pascagoula Run, and Changing Channels (the other one of my favorites on the album, which is also not surprising, since it is the other of the ones most reminiscent of his earlier work).
A few of the songs on the album I think are perfectly acceptable, I just don’t find them outstanding: Carnival World, Why the Things We Do, and Strange Bird.
And then there’s a few songs that I just skip past, because I feel like they exemplify all the flaws I talked about earlier: That’s My Story and I’m Sticking to It, Off to See the Lizard, and Mermaid in the Night.
When you consider the majority of the album is songs I enjoy, and even of the ones I’m not a huge fan of half of them I still listen to, that’s a solid album. Like I said before, if you haven’t heard much (or any) Jimmy Buffett (although how you’ve managed to completely escape him before now must be a miracle), this is a good album to start with.
The First Annual Not So Humble Film Festival
Posted: September 20, 2023 Filed under: Culture, Movies | Tags: 80s, American Exceptionalism, culture, entertainment, film, film festival, movies, pop culture 1 CommentToday is the anniversary of the first Cannes Film Festival (which I did not know going in to this, so thank you Bing), but that just makes this all the more appropriate.
The other day I was reminiscing about some of the films of my youth, and I realized they all had one thing in common: an unabashed, almost pornographic devotion to the glorification of American exceptionalism. Now, I’m not talking about your garden variety American exceptionalism like you might find in your typical John Wayne film or something somber and serious like The Right Stuff. I’m talking the kind of over-the-top, in your face, “America! (Fuck yeah!)” kind of American exceptionalism that was so aptly parodied by Team America: World Police. I had an idea, a delicious, awful idea, and I called on my friend Dr. Pat for help. (I should note Dr. Pat has an exceptional memory for pop culture that exceeds even my own, which made him perfect for this.)
I wanted to put together a list of films that fit the category of “American Exceptionalism Porn”. The criteria were that the film in question had to not only celebrate American greatness but had to do so in such a way as to be either over the top, in your face, utterly shameless, or patently ridiculous. We talked about it for quite a while, and I have to say I’m quite gratified with the results. While the list is dominated by action movies (and the rest of the films have at least some action in them), that’s not exactly a surprise, is it? If the theme of the festival was “Best Anime EVAR” you’d expect to see a lot of Miyazaki movies. They span 15 years, which is a bit further than I was expecting. I am not at all surprised that the bulk of the films are from the 1980s, although whether that has more to do with the nature of the times (height of the Cold War, post-Vietnam energy, etc.) or simply the fact that Dr. Pat and I are both children of the 80s and those are the movies we best remember is an open question.
Regardless, if you are interested (or just morbidly curious), here are the entries in the first annual Not So Humble Film Festival, “American Exceptionalism Porn”:
Uncommon Valor (1983)
Missing in Action (1984)
Red Dawn (1984)
Rocky IV (1985)
Rambo: First Blood Part II (1985)
Top Gun (1986)
Iron Eagle (1986)
Heartbreak Ridge (1986)
The Rescue (1988)
Navy Seals (1990)
Toy Soldiers (1991)
True Lies (1994)
Executive Decision (1996)
Independence Day (1996)
GI Jane (1997)
Air Force One (1997)
Armageddon (1998)
Bob’s Jukebox: Sports
Posted: September 1, 2023 Filed under: Bob's Jukebox, Culture | Tags: 80s music, culture, Eighties music, entertainment, Huey Lewis, Huey Lewis and the News, pop culture, reviews Leave a commentIt may not be the soundtrack of the 80s, but you’d be forgiven for thinking that it is. Releasing toward the middle of the 80s in of 1983, Sports charted for 160 weeks (that’s three years), hit #1 on the Billboard 200 June 30, 1984, and ranked #2 for that year (and when the album that beats you is Thriller, you still get to hold your head up high).* Personally, I may not be a psychotic killer, but I have to agree with Patrick Bateman when it comes to Hey Lewis and the News: “When Sports came out in ’83, I think they really came into their own, commercially and artistically. The whole album has a clear, crisp sound, and a new sheen of consummate professionalism that really gives the songs a big boost. He’s been compared to Elvis Costello, but I think Huey has a far more bitter, cynical sense of humor.” (American Psycho, 2000)
So, statistics and dark, satirical references aside, what do I think of the album? I think it’s hard to do much better than this outside of a greatest hits album. Seriously, there are four Top-10 singles on this album, and at least two other songs that I knew as soon as I heard them – and there are only nine songs on the album. Come to think of it, I’ve had “greatest hits” albums that didn’t have that good of a “known to unknown” ratio.
Let’s get the easy and obvious ones out of the way, especially for anyone under the age of forty: the first four tracks (or what we called “Side one” back in the days of things like LPs and tapes) are definitely the best of this album when taken as a set (I’ll get to the very obvious exception to that in a minute). “The Heart of Rock & Roll” is a banger, just good old-fashioned rock ‘n’ roll. “Heart and Soul” goes a little harder, but still stays comfortable in the realm of rock. “Bad is Bad” goes bluesy in all the best ways, and “I Want a New Drug” goes back to those great rock sounds, although I have to admit there’s something very “80s” about this song to me. Maybe it’s just something about the idea of comparing the object of your desire to a drug rush.
Anyway, moving on. There’s nothing bad about the next five songs (“Side two”), it’s just not as strong as the first four songs, with one caveat. “Walking On a Thin Line” is a good song, and one of the ones I mentioned I recognized right away. I do like it, just not as much as my favorite five. And speaking of my favorite five, the big caveat I mentioned is “If This Is It”, which vies for my favorite song on the album. The music is solid, and the lyrics are a bittersweet gut punch all the way through. Normally I don’t include lyrics (you can look them up yourself), but this is just a sample of how this one hits:
You’ve been thinkin’ and I been drinkin’
We both know that it’s Just not right
Now you’re pretendin’ that it’s not endin’
You’ll say anything to avoid a fight
Girl don’t lie and tell me that you need me
Girl don’t cry and tell me nothin’s wrong
I’ll be all right one way or another
So let me go, or make we want to stay
If this is it please let me know
If this ain’t love you’d better let me go
If this is it I want to know
If this ain’t love, baby, just say so
“You Crack Me Up” is ok. Not great, but in no way objectionable. The same can be said for their cover of “Honky Tonk Blues”. It almost seems as if, having put that one last amazing song out there, they just ease their way on out the rest of the album, which frankly is okay. They certainly earned it by that point.
So clearly, I strongly suggest picking this one up. It’s still a great album, and there’s no bad songs on there. While it doesn’t have every great Huey Lewis and the News track, it has enough of them that you won’t be disappointed.
*Release date and chart information courtesy of Wikipedia
Bob’s Jukebox: Doolittle
Posted: August 18, 2023 Filed under: Bob's Jukebox, Culture | Tags: alt-rock, Bob's Jukebox, culture, Doolittle, entertainment, Pixies, pop culture, reviews, Surfer Rosa Leave a commentThe Pixies are a highly influential band, having influenced Smashing Pumpkins, PJ Harvey, Pearl Jam, Soundgarden, the Strokes, Modest Mouse, and more (https://www.wbur.org/news/2018/09/28/pixies-boston-rock-surfer-rosa-come-on-pilgrim), and some of my favorite songs are Pixies covers or remixes. I guess it’s kind of odd then that I can’t honestly say I like an entire Pixies album. If anything, I actually hate an entire Pixies album. But that’s not tonight’s topic (thankfully). Tonight, we’re here for Doolittle.
The sound is raw, wild, and strange. It’s also kind of full of itself and halfway up its own ass. I guess you take the good with the bad on this one. The Pixies play with sound on a collapsing wavefront of conventionality, and more often than not they’re out on the far side. Where I remember them from the most is hearing Doolittle being played, in its entirety, fairly regularly at the Dharma Coffeehouse back in the early to mid-90s.
The thing you have to understand about Dharma was that it wasn’t like you think of a coffeehouse today, since most people think of a Starbuck’s clone or something similar, and even if it has a little more personality than that you’re still probably picturing a bunch of people sitting around staring at their tablets or phones, connected to the free Wi-Fi and taking up space all day. So let me start by pointing you back the last sentence in the previous paragraph: “back in the early to mid-90s.” I remember people carrying pagers at Dharma. And not a lot of them, either. What I do remember is a lot of people showing up late in the evening and early night and staying all night long, sitting around drinking coffee, playing cards, and listening to music. Because the only networks that existed back then were LANs, and the only thing wireless was a cordless phone you might have in your house.
Something else Dharma had in plentiful supply was extremely colorful patrons (and staff) who tended to engender strong reactions (positive or negative varied from individual to individual). Which is something it has in common with this album. I don’t really have neutral or “meh” reactions to the songs on this album. Some of these songs I love, and I was really looking forward to reviewing this album because it’s been a while since I have heard them. I expected it would be like hanging out with old friends who I haven’t seen in a while. But I forgot that the assholes show up as well, and I can’t stand them. I usually just skip over those songs, but I am committed to listening to entire albums to get the “full experience”, and honestly, the full experience of the Pixies is that I don’t intend to listen to the Pixies again for a very, very long time.
The album starts off pretty good with “Debaser”, reminding me that this is going to be a weird ride but opening me up to a different experience than I normally get. “Tame” immediately comes behind it to let me know this isn’t going to be 100% an album I’m going to enjoy. That’s when they decide to screw with my head by throwing the four best songs on the album almost right in a row with only one mostly terrible song in the middle of them (“Wave of Mutilation”, one of the best Pixies songs in existence, “I Bleed”, “Here Comes Your Man”, the aforementioned somewhat execrable “Dead”, and then “Monkey Gone to Heaven”). “Mr. Grieves” holds the dubious distinction of being the only song on the album I have no strong feelings about either way. I suppose that’s rather appropriate, as it is right at the transition point between the “mostly good” half of the album and the “almost entirely trash” half of the album. “La La Love You” is the only good song on the back half of the album, although “Hey” is decent. Seriously, on “No 13 Baby” I thought I was listening to Adam Sandler trying to do alt rock. It was just bad.
So tough recommendation time. I would say if you like alt rock, try to listen to as many of these songs as you can before you buy the album. They’re really all over the place, and just because you like any three, four, or five of them doesn’t tell you you’re going to like the whole album. But if you can get it for a good price and you’re feeling adventurous, it’s worth a shot.
Bob’s Jukebox: Heart
Posted: August 11, 2023 Filed under: Bob's Jukebox, Culture | Tags: Ann Wilson, Bob's Jukebox, culture, entertainment, Heart, MTV, Nancy Wilson, pop culture, reviews Leave a commentSo last week I mentioned how MNSHS taught me growing up not to buy an album until I was sure I liked at least three songs on the album, because that way I would get a better price than if I bought the singles. Completely by coincidence this week I managed to pick an album that exemplifies why she told me to do that (although TBH, it’s probably not much of a coincidence; I’ve been following that rule for most of my life, so a lot of my collection is like that). This week we have a flashback all the way to near the beginning of the MTV era, the self-titled major mainstream comeback for Heart.
Kinda gotta admit I was thinking at first that I was looking at this one through nostalgia tinted glasses. The first track, “If Looks Could Kill”, did not appeal to me at all. The same happened with most of the songs on the album that I was unfamiliar with, the lone exception being “Nobody Home”, which I didn’t love but I at least thought was pleasant. I figured maybe I just enjoyed the old hits because they were exactly that, old songs I have heard plenty of times that reminded me of my youth (and to be honest, Nancy Wilson looked amazing in those videos at a time when I was just discovering that girls were… well… amazing).
But despite my huge crush on Nancy (which I have 100% gotten over I swear #Nancycallme), I had a hard time believing that I only liked those songs because of nostalgia, so I listened to the album again (it’s not a particularly long album, clocking in at just under 40 minutes). I started to realize two things: first, the singles that were released off the album just felt more polished, for lack of a better word. They had more je ne sais quoi, but apparently the music producers at Capitol Records do, because they picked the right songs to release as singles (although apparently they also released “If Looks Could Kill” as a single, but hey, if two out of three ain’t bad then four out of five is pretty darn good.) Second, I really liked 40% of the songs on this album, I kind of liked another 10%, and I was ambivalent about another 40% (for those of you doing the math, we’ll get to that last 10% in a bit). That’s average to good for pretty much any album, so it’s probably nothing to do with nostalgia, just a matter of personal taste.
A lot of what was driving that personal taste was the fact that this album is driven more by raw talent than the sum of its parts. The lyrics aren’t particularly strong on any of the songs, and the music isn’t overly intricate or interesting except in its execution. Which is to say, Ann is a great singer with a beautiful voice, and Nancy is a great guitarist who knows how to be entertaining. That comes through in the popular singles from this album (“What About Love”, “These Dreams”, “Never”, and “Nothin’ at All”) and not so much if at all on the other songs. This was particularly apparent (and egregious) toward the end of the album.
The album ends on the thoroughly disappointing “Shell Shock”, which I would never have sat all the way through if I hadn’t promised myself I would listen to the entire album. Quite frankly, the only thing of value in the song are Nancy’s all-too-brief guitar solos, and they in no way justify the existence of this song, no matter how good they are. Ann’s vocals are at least decent to excellent on every other song on the album, so I have no idea what happened here. I guess she decided she could phone it in at least once. Considering there is only one song on the album with as many credited writers (that being “The Wolf”), it’s also no surprise the lyrics are even more disappointing than the rest of the album.
All things equal, unless you are a huge Heart fan, I would recommend either just buying the singles these days, or else getting a copy of a greatest hits album that has the four big singles off this album. There’s just nothing special here to recommend it.
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My Not So Humble Opinion 