The trouble with epitaphs on tombstones is that one can never fully ensure that his outgoing message will be etched faithfully. I could offer no earthly protests, naturally, if that fateful chisel should fall into the hands of someone who wants me remembered as, “A guy who bitched about Phish too much.” It should be stated that I'd very much prefer the following as a parting message exchanged from my burial mark to the lifeforms of the future—until a worthy upgrade occurs to me, at least—and it goes like this: “With fuck-yous to further ados...”
That's an obscene way of stating that my interest in suspenseful wondering and silly distractions has been exhausted, and that—more so than merely the end—I'd like nothing more than to get to the answer.
5.Beastie Boys—Check Your Head (1992): “So What'cha Want?” functions as more than just the most recognizable track from Check Your Head. It also serves as a brash challenge to doubters whack enough to question the versatility of the 3 most bad-ass Trekkies on the planet. You want thumping beats and bass pulsing beneath slick and self-assured rhymes? (“Jimmy James,” “The Maestro”.) Instrumentals that exude funky grooves and prove that white boys know how to honor the likes of George Clinton and Curtis Mayfield? (“POW,” “In 3's”.) Let's switch gears. How about rowdy and infectious skate-punk? (“Time for Livin'” and “Gratitude”.) Mystical and exotic-sounding slow-jams? (“Lighten Up,” “Namesté”.) Are you in the mood for delightfully schizophrenic samples that seem incompatible until DJ Hurricane gets his mitts on the records? (“Stand Together,” “Professor Booty”.) Haters and sucka MCs, seriously, So What'cha Want? Adrock, Mike D., and MCA can deliver just about anything to shut you up.
The Beasties aren't quite my favorite group, but they just might be the most eclectic, and without equivocation, I consider them the absolute coolest. Now, there's a designation that gets more and more senseless and evasive with age: Coolness. To assume that an objective definition can be applied to such a term is a sign of immaturity. In my opinion that is due for a humbling someday, then: cool people are talented and confident but grounded, compassionate without traces of hypersensitivity (compassion's extreme counterpart), goofy and irreverent but socially conscious and unafraid of activism in the name of peace and equality. The Beasties' dynamic range is the chief reason why they're “as cool as a cucumber in a bowl of hot sauce.” It has indeed been proven that the trio love to see the party people just movin'--regardless of whether such harmony occurs at a sold-out Madison Square Garden, or a dank basement in Brooklyn, or at a concert to protest the Chinese government's senseless brutality against the people of Tibet.
And sure, appearing as un-lockable players in NBA Jam is a fine way to boost one's level of coolness, too. While it's true that such a 16-bit cameo failed to stylize Al Gore so soundly, come on—don't shit yourselves: that stilted sayer of inconvenient truths is never going to “rock a block party 'til your hair turns gray.”
4.The Clash—London Calling (1979): My main issue with punk-rock is that I think its spirit—while feisty and independent—can prohibit musicians from fulfilling their peak potential. Two-minute outbursts of three-chord aggression can provide great catharsis for teenagers in the early stages of learning a fun craft, but after high school, it is wise to stretch out a bit more and seek creative challenges that punk-rock does not always present. Such ambitions are sometimes misconstrued as traitorous and soft by punk-elitists who favor exile in Never-Never Land.
The Clash paid no mind to that prospect of backlash from their peers. If the paramount purpose of punk-rock is to express oneself without caring about the commonly unkind judgments of others, then it follows that its truest followers should have no qualms with expanding beyond the genre's boundaries. No other band understood this catch-22 as soundly as the Clash did.
The band's aim was not to subvert the style they helped to found, however. Many tracks from London Calling bare a resemblance to the brash and straightforward vigor of their debut album. The title track is a mid-tempo march from the toxic shadow of “a nuclear error.” Both apocalyptic and galvanizing, the opener's simple structure yields a doomsday anthem worth treasuring. “Brand New Cadillac” puts a profane and sloppy spin on a rockabilly hit from the '50s. “Hateful” finds levity in the plight of a frantic drug-addict but pauses to mourn in its concise breakdowns.
I won't kid myself, though. The not-so-punk portions of London Calling account for most of its mastery. New wave balladry is covered on “Lost in the Supermarket,” a lament of the steady replacement of people with consumers that does its part to exalt the partnership of Joe Strummer and Mick Jones to the upper echelon of songwriting duos. With celebratory toots from The Irish Horns, “Rudie Can't Fail” is a ska romp that redeems an irresponsible but idealistic crumb-bum who “drinks booze for breakfast” and “can't live in service.” “Train in Vain” is quite content in its sonic welding of David Bowie and the Beatles. The album's closer packs power-pop abounding with melody and love gone sour.
London Calling and the Clash are easily my favorite punk-band and album, resp., precisely because neither fear to tread outside of the style's rigid parameters. Punk never kept the Clash under its grimy thumb; it was the other way around.
3.The Beatles—the white album (1968): A fun exercise in inciting fidgets in a Beatles fanatic is to ask them to name their favorite album by the group. Inevitably, a handful of candidates will emerge from their quavering lips. They will contemplate and stammer, overcome by awe mixed with consternation. I'm not much different, but at least I have come to a decision—debatable though it may be. It's the one that simply boasts the most great songs: the white album.
True enough, the white album is of the double variety, includes a total of 30 tracks—which is hardly economical—and features (at least) two bona fide Fab Four abominations, namely “Revolution #9” and “Good Night.” In regard to the bigger picture, however, such concessions prove that the Beatles were at times victims of their own excellence. 28 tracks that range from solid to exceptional--delivered without much delay between Sgt. Pepper and Abbey Road—leaves nothing to quibble about, and furthermore, the album's first-half alone rivals every other record in their staggering catalog.
By 1968, turmoil within the band was starting to surface. John had officially been Yoko'd, and his partnership with Paul was functioning more and more in name only as the two were inclined to sojourn on separate holidays to different recording booths. By no stretch of the imagination did listeners suffer from the erosion of the tag-team that gave way to competitive oneupmanship. On the acoustic ode “Blackbird,” Paul serenely tends to a wounded animal, mends its broken wings, and sets it free with a friendly challenge to make the most out of its rejuvenated life. Not to be outdone, John bemoans two lovers in limbo on a sleepless and tortuous night on “I'm So Tired.” Paul gathers us around a desert campfire for a Western ballad about “Rocky Raccoon,” a tragic figure demised by hubris. John counters that fictitious plight of an individual with “Revolution 1,” a slow-groove overview of the strife of the world-at-large that replies to widespread chaos with the promise, “Don't you know it's gonna be all right?”
The white album can't be reduced to a John and Paul showdown, though, as George contributes the soulful and forlorn personification found in “While My Guitar Gently Weeps” (with a little help from his friend Eric Clapton). Even Ringo—yes, RINGO—delivers his finest offering as a rare front-man on “Don't Pass Me By,” a wobbly yet melodic jaunt packed with the penitence and faith that blokes must so routinely express to their mistreated and sensitive birds.
Another gross reduction of the white album is to claim that it's a compilation of four solo projects. Pure bullocks. “Back in the USSR” is an airborne travel anthem that nods to Beach Boyish harmonies and adoration of babes worldwide. Its thumping piano twinkles and six-stringed shock-waves rock with timeless fervor. The ethereal rising action of “Dear Prudence” boasts psychedelic stings and resolute beats. Aside from somehow inspiring malice in a creepy cult-leader, “Helter Skelter” is as a four-piece onslaught that marks the closest the Beatles ever got to Black Sabbath.
On the cusp of “The End,” where their epitaph read “Let It Be,” the Beatles' most telling track on the white album is perhaps found in the jovial piano-romp of “Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da,” when fussy fanatics are assured that even though All Things Must Pass, “Life goes on, brah.”
2. Radiohead—OK Computer (1997): Thom Yorke is a malcontent. OK Computer opens with the ominous guitar wails of “Airbag,” an entrancing narrative about a car-crash survivor who feels both revived and nonplussed by his brush with death. Elsewhere, not even the heroic salvation Yorke's girlfriend grants him on “Lucky” can make him fitter or happier, but no front-man since Kurt Cobain has been more productive in his transformation of gloom and neurosis into catharsis.
Radiohead's critically worshiped third album offers a few glimpses of levity, too. In “The Tourist,” the group satirizes frenetic travelers too busy snapping photos to truly absorb the scenery as a means to express a common theme of OKC: our forfeiting of visceral sensations to technology. (Ha, ha...ha?!?!) Amidst laser beam chirps and serene keyboard tones, Yorke muses about how misguided and uptight humanity must seem to intelligent life on other planets. (“High up above, aliens hover/ Making home-movies for the folks back home/ Of all these weird creatures who lock up their spirits/ Drill holes and themselves, and live for their secrets.”)
It is, however, the album's disaffection that resonates the strongest. Whether it be the paranoia of persecution waged by the “Karma Police” or the suspicion of politicians who “say the right things when Electioneering” in their quest for power rather than progress, the Oxford scholars realize plenty of reasons to feel “Let Down.”
Let down, indeed, but nonetheless hanging around—as evidenced by another decade-plus of acclaimed music. With no offense intended to subsequent tracks like “Idioteque” or “There There,” I have an unwavering hunch that “Paranoid Android” still stands as the band's most stunning song. Spanning nearly six-and-a-half minutes, OKC's lead single seems to emerge from thick mist like the foreshadowing in a nightmare, lashes out with gallows-humor, and then culminates with a blitz of triple-guitar mayhem.
“Ambition makes you look pretty ugly,” Yorke declares at one point—and perhaps that's true—but the sad adages he unearths are still preferable to the “handshake with carbon monoxide” that he contemplates in “No Surprises.” Rather than diverting listeners from conflict and strife, Radiohead aim to recreate the spooky yet unerring notes owed to life's grim inevitabilities.
Recap: Because one cap simply isn't enough. 20. Jets to Brazil—Orange Rhyming Dictionary...19. Nirvana—Nevermind...18. Elliott Smith—From a Basement on the Hill...17. Cake—Comfort Eagle...16. David Bowie—Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars...15. The Jimi Hendrix Experience—Are You Experienced? 14. The White Stripes—Elephant...13. Weezer—the blue album...12. The Strokes—Is This It...11. Led Zeppelin—Houses of the Holy...10. The Rolling Stones—Exile on Main St. ...9. Bright Eyes—I'm Wide Awake, It's Morning...8. Modest Mouse—The Lonesome Crowded West...7. Spoon—Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga... 6. Pink Floyd—Dark Side of the Moon...5. Beastie Boys—Check Your Head...4. The Clash—London Calling...3. The Beatles—the white album...2. (Sigh.) You just read it. Jesus, how short are your attention spans?!
1.Beck—Odelay (1996): With a precise blend of samples and a hodgepodge of sounds courtesy of a multi-instrumentalist with a mono-syllabic moniker, Beck presents an odyssey of styles on Odelay, a masterpiece of party-friendly poignancy.
“Where It's At” showcases the far-reaching yet minimalist powers of one astronautical cowboy with two turntables and a microphone at his disposal. “Hotwax” discovers a compatible landscape of country-western storytelling, sweetly flowing rhymes, and otherworldly scribbles and cuts of records. On “Jack-ass,” Mr. Hansen does away with ironic witticisms and pop-culture savvy to express his most sincere existential ballad to date. (“I've been drifting along in the same stale shoes/ Loose ends tying a noose in the back of my mind/ If you thought that you were making your way/ To where the puzzles and pagans lay/ Put it together, it's a strange invitation.” Word. For penning such an apt and dreary summation of my life, what can I say other than...thanks??) With a groove that borrows from the Beatles “Taxman,” “The New Pollution” brings to (my) mind the neon luster of casinos and strip-clubs viewed in the rearview mirror of a smoke-filled, pink Cadillac en route to desert-exile beyond the fringe of Vegas. Powered by alt-rock angst, and a raucous riff that serves as Beck's definitive ode to head-banging, “Devil's Haircut” is a cryptic yet vivid denouncement of “the evil of vanity” (as the man himself puts it).
For his treatment of the recording studio as a playground and his superlative wordplay—his ability to snatch choice phrases from grab-bags and enlightened minds alike-- Beck is my favorite musician and this is my favorite of his albums. He has to offer a prolific catalog of zany Zen that I truly hope has nothing to do with the book of Scientology.
We're finished?!
Yup. We're finished. Remember the intro about epitaphs?! Well, here's the epitaph to “Favorite Albums”: “Titanic fare-thee-wells, my eyes are turning pink/ Don't call us when the new age gets old enough to drink.”*
* This is a quote from my favorite Scientologist.
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