Month: February 2020

#43: Bruce Springsteen, ‘Nebraska’ (1982)vs. TLC, ‘CrazySexyCool’ (1994)

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These albums are polar opposites. Nebraska is a stripped down depressing barn stomp and Crazy Sexy Cool is highly produced sweaty sex romp (exception being the righteous mega-hit “Waterfalls”). As much as CSC is a stone cold funkified-hip-hop jam, Nebraska is not that at all. It’s completely and perfectly bleak.

What both albums have is soul in spades. They got soul for days! Bruce’s titular first track, “Nebraska” is as if a grizzled country boy sliced his belly open and spilled his guts out on the table for all to see. Even an upbeat blues bar anthem  like “Open All Night” has a heartbreaking edge to it. On the paranoid drone shocker “State Trooper”, Bruce’s screaming yelps of “Woooo!!” are an unsettling wake up call of raw emotional energy. The rest of the songs are a collage of desperately brilliant Americana that is more compelling with each listen.

Crazy Sexy Cool is a different kind of soul. One that makes you wanna drop your hips and pucker your lips. I love the first track, a quick spit of verse by the late Phife Dawg introducing the ladies and setting the stage for the party to come.  Phife passes the mic to the ladies and they take us to their libido lagoon filled with deep circuitous roots running through dark organic wet earth giving rise to thick buttressed tree trunks.

This battle is a bit like comparing a low budget indie movie to a highly produced epic.  At the Oscars last year, Moonlight won out over the highly polished La La Land.  I am going to give the win to Nebraska over Crazy Sexy Cool for the same reason. Despite the deep base and glossy grooves, Nebraska is a deeper look into the human condition and just has more substance.

JS

WINNER: Bruce Springsteen, Nebraska (1 point)

BATTLE TALLY

80s: 5

90s: 3

EARNED POINTS
80s: 5
90s: 3

Next week’s battle  –  #42: The Robert Cray Band, Strong Persuader (1986) vs. PJ Harvey, Rid of Me (1993)

#44: Bob Dylan, ‘Oh Mercy’ (1989) vs. Fugees, ‘The Score’ (1996)

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All hail the master! The legend. The wizard of words. The  melody maestro. The trickster with a social conscious. No, I’m not talking about Bob Dylan (this time). I am talking about The Fugees’ Lauryn Hill. What a performance she and those two other guys put into their second and final album, The Score. Marvel at how she moves seamlessly and gorgeously between singing and rapping. What a voice! One minute, she croons achingly about how he’s killing her softly with his song, the next minute she’s tearing you a new one with her rapping:

So weep as your sweet dreams break up like Eurythmics
Rap rejects my tape deck, ejects projectile
Whether Jew or gentile, I rank top percentile
Many styles, more powerful than gamma rays
My grammar pays, like Carlos Santana plays “Black Magic Woman”
So while you fuming, I’m consuming mango juice under Polaris
You just embarrassed cause it’s your last tango in Paris

Seriously, how many references and rhymes can one person pack into a few lines? This album has humour, rage, political consciousness and beauty. I was aware of it at the time, of course, but paid scant attention to it. I’ve had it on repeat for the past week and I am thoroughly impressed. I’m actually surprised it’s not higher on the 90s list.

I say all this with an aching in my heart. Dylan is my guy, my favourite recording artist of all time (or maybe Neil Young). And Oh Mercy is a damn fine album; his improbable and incredibly welcome comeback album after a decade of mediocrity (the 80s were not kind to the greatest songwriter of all time), thanks to some beautifully moody tunes, and lush production and beautiful guitar from legendary producer Daniel Lanois. I bought it when it was new and I was also in the early days of vintage Dylan discovery, and it will always have a special place in my heart.

Alas, Oh Mercy is a minor Dylan masterpiece (he would have at least three bigger ones still to come), and it can’t compete with The Score, an influential and near-perfect album that also happened to be a massive hit that proved hip hop could be uncompromising and still appeal to the masses.

JG

WINNER: The Fugees, The Score (1 point)

BATTLE TALLY

80s: 4

90s: 3

EARNED POINTS
80s: 4
90s: 3

Next week’s battle  –  #43: Bruce Springsteen, Nebraska (1982) vs. TLC, CrazySexyCool (1994)

#45: Sonic Youth, ‘Daydream Nation’ (1988) vs. Alanis Morissette, ‘Jagged Little Pill’ (1995)

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Sonic Youth has always been a band that I wanted to love more than I actually did.   Alanis Morissette has always been an artist that I didn’t want to admit I like as much as I actually do. The obvious choice might be to go with Alanis (spoiler: I do) simply on commercial success.  Her break out record has got more mammoth hits than any other record I can think of. Jagged Little Pill is full of very listenable well written pretty-grunge gems that I must admit found new light in me. A light that my younger, more musically-snobby self had blacked out. It was just way cooler to like bands like Sonic Youth.

The cool factor for Daydream Nation remains. It’s the critical darling of the late-eighties punk scene.  The double album juggernaut is a definitive noise wonderland. There is no doubt that Daydream Nation rocks more than Jagged Little Pill.  Sonic Youth expertly meanders through a valley of distorted riffs and twisted journeys in sound. Its brand of weirdly tuned hard-core punk and sarcastic hatred towards conformity is a very palatable “fuck you!” to the norm.

Jagged Little Pill is the norm. Alanis dialed right into the sound of the times with this one.  I might have been a late to the game on fully ingesting the album, but, the masses weren’t. They gobbled it up right away.  On Jagged Little Pill, Alanis elevates 90s rock song-writing with empathetic relatability. Mixing personal reflections with astute life observations, she crafts catchy universal truth bombs.

Daydream Nation may be way cooler, but Jagged Little Pill is way way more popular. I am going to give this one to the 90s post-grunge-rock queen.  It was just that huge, and it is just that good.

JS

WINNER: Alanis Morissette, Jagged Little Pill (1 point)

BATTLE TALLY

80s: 4

90s: 2

EARNED POINTS
80s: 4
90s: 2

Next week’s battle  –  #44: Bob Dylan, Oh Mercy (1989) vs. Fugees, The Score (1996)

#46: Peter Gabriel, ‘Peter Gabriel’ (1980) vs. Jay-Z, ‘Volume 2…Hard Knock Life’ (1998)

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This is a strange battle.  An interesting battle where similarities are minimal.  Aside from the numerical album identifier, both albums at times offer strange and alluring sonic touches that create interest unique within its own genre. With Gabriel, he mixes up different rhythms and musical styles incorporating African drumming and bag pipes on top of a synthy melange of distraught funkiness.  With Jay-Z, he mixes non-traditional hooks to give depth to the seemingly superficial world of Gansta Rap.

Despite the troubled inference in the title, Jay Z has no distraught funky qualities.  Touting his Roc-A-fella CEO status, this is a man demonstrating that he is in charge of both his world and yours too.  Aggressive and relentless, letting you know where he and those around him stand.  There is only one rhythm here. That tight ‘boom bap’ 90s hip hop perfected by Jay-Z and other outfits like A Tribe Called Quest, Mobb Deep, Wu Tang, and Black Sheep.  What I love about Jay Z’s songs is his sample and riff selections.  To my ear, it starts off sounding wrong but immediately makes sense and always works. Like the title track.  It’s quite an achievement to make a group of orphaned little girls who often break out into saccharine songs sound as hard core as a drive by shooting.  I am not sure anyone else could do that and get away with it. He even acknowledges that he might get criticized for his riff selection, but he couldn’t care less. On the track “Money, Cash, Hoes”, he spits:

I know they gone criticize the hook on this song
Like I give a fuck I’m just a crook on this song

Hard Knock Life was a commercial break-out for Jay-Z.  Once I get past the N-word fueled misogyny laced anger words, I can definitely bounce to stand out songs like “N***a What”, “N***a Who”, and “Can I Get A…”.  A highlight for me is using Talking Heads’ “Once in a Lifetime” on the track “It’s Alright (Streets is Watching)”.  The album is an undeniable party.

There is no party for ol’ Pete here.  If anything, Peter Gabriel (a.k.a. 3 or Melt) is the cozy but achy stay-in-bed hangover after.  Like the album cover, 3 presents two faces.  Sometimes between songs and other times within the same song.  Peter Gabriel is filled with clean musical lines and clear voicing mixed with a weird atonal smearyness that is hypnotic and at the same time unsettling. There is a grand sweeping musicality but it’s also minimal in that Eno-esque style common to the burgeoning New Wave landscape.  Melt was a critical breakout for Peter Gabriel and I can see why.  It’s a gorgeous, ugly, sprawling, melancholic, upbeat, danceable, anthemic, understated, sad, and angry piece of work.  With still more to discover in the morning after, I am more likely to stay in Pete’s complex world a little longer and forgo the next party.

JS

WINNER: Peter Gabriel, Peter Gabriel (1 point)

BATTLE TALLY

80s: 4

90s: 1

EARNED POINTS
80s: 4
90s: 1

Next week’s battle  –  #45: Sonic Youth, Daydream Nation (1988) vs. Alanis Morissette, Jagged Little Pill (1995)