Month: August 2020

#17: The Police, ‘Synchronicity’ (1983) vs. Jay Z, ‘Reasonable Doubt’ (1996)

~ VanJam 80s v. 90s Music War - 50 Album Battles to See Which Decade Rules! ~ Leave a comment

 

Synchronicity has one of the best starting tracks of any album. Titular (Version One) is a hard driving pump – your fist in the air – 80s rocker laced with enough musical oddity to keep it interesting and challenging. Then the inconsistent journey begins. It’s a reflection of the band’s fractured relationship and the album suffers a bit from it. From “Synchronicity I”, it goes to the chant of “Walking in Your Footsteps”. A great song but it leaves the listener a bit hanging after getting revved up so hard. This leads into “Oh My God”. A perfectly fine song with a good groove. So we are back on track, right? Then along comes “Mother”. An out there barely-listenable indulgent scream fest. “Miss Gradenko” is a nice and appropriately weird soft landing, after the shock of “Mother”. Then we get into the mammoth hits. My fave of the hits is next (Titular Two) with its rock solid groove mundane big picture lyrics:

“Every meeting with his so called superior, is a humiliating kick in the crotch!”

Then the stalker snooze fest “Every Breath You Take”. “King of Pain” is perhaps one of the best Police songs ever written. And “Wrapped Around Your Finger” is slightly less sleep inducing than its stalker  counterpart. The last two songs are sort of forgettable and then its over. All in all it’s a mix of greatness, weirdness, and flaccid pop. A rave review for a band I actually truly love.  It’s a fractured contribution. You can’t deny it’s a classic album, but the Police have better ones. This one is maybe middle of the pack.

Moving from a fractured group at the end of their run to a master first entry from a hip hop legend soon to be realized. Reasonable Doubt is as solid a hip hop album as you can get. Every song holds up. Jay-Z’s rapping style feels like it’s chiseled from stone. Where most 90s hip hop albums were either hard core gangsta rap or RnB/Jazz, Reasonable Doubt found a Goldilocks zone. It’s an almost perfect album in the way that Nas’ Illmatic is almost perfect. In fact it seems very much modelled after Nas’ masterpiece with its consistency and singular inner city crime fuelled vision. He references Nas on multiple occasions, so I would think he welcomes that comparison.

Many consider Reasonable Doubt to be Jay-Z’s best work and I would find it hard not to agree. Of course I am troubled by the misogyny and homophobia that sprinkles the album, but I have to treat that as a character (having no evidence to the contrary) and not a character trait of Jay-Z’s. If that changes I will revise my review.

JS

WINNER: Jay-Z, “Reasonable Doubt” (4 points)

BATTLE TALLY

80s: 14

90s: 20

EARNED POINTS
80s: 31
90s: 45

Next week’s battle – #16: Prince, ‘1999’ (1982) vs. Metallica, ‘Metallica’ (1991)

#18: Prince, ‘Dirty Mind’ (1980) vs. R.E.M., ‘Automatic for the People’ (1992)

~ VanJam 80s v. 90s Music War - 50 Album Battles to See Which Decade Rules! ~ 2 Comments

In the summer of my 13th year I met a girl at summer camp. She asked me to dance, I kissed her in the woods and when I went home I had my first girlfriend. Four years later, no longer together but silently knowing we should be, we found ourselves reunited at another summer camp; so she and I snuck out of our cabins down to the lake and went nightswimming under a starry sky. Several years after that, in 1992, she and I finally did the inevitable and got back together.

That same year, R.E.M., at the peak of their powers and popularity, brought John Paul Jones into the studio to enhance their jangly indie rock sound with lush orchestral strings and gave the world a moody, profound masterpiece called Automatic for the People.

That girl and I, finally together but living in separate university towns, would talk on the phone all night and listen to Automatic on repeat, puzzling over the enigmatic “The Sidewinder Sleeps Tonite” and welling up over the painfully earnest “Everybody Hurts”. One summer night we saw R.E.M. at Toronto’s Molson Ampitheatre, got high on the grass and marveled at the perfect full moon that floated in the sky while the band played “Man on the Moon”.

A few years later, we danced to the nostalgic piano ballad “Nightswimming” at our wedding despite protestations from family members who would have preferred something more upbeat, like “Up Where We Belong”; and so there we swayed on the dance floor, the centre of attention, whisper-singing into each other’s ears: “Nightswimming deserves a quiet night/I’m not sure all these people understand”.

20 years later we still sometimes dance to “Nightswimming”, remembering that night.

So that’s my take on Automatic for the People. (Here’s a proper and great review of the 25th anniversary edition worth checking out.)

Dirty Mind? Well, I’m sure that many people really like it.

JG

WINNER: REM, Automatic for the People (4 points)

BATTLE TALLY

80s: 14

90s: 19

EARNED POINTS
80s: 31
90s: 41

Next week’s battle – #17: The Police, ‘Synchronicity’ (1983) vs. Jay Z, ‘Reasonable Doubt’ (1996)

 

#19: Lou Reed, ‘New York’ (1989) vs. Red Hot Chili Peppers, ‘Blood Sugar Sex Magik’ (1991)

~ VanJam 80s v. 90s Music War - 50 Album Battles to See Which Decade Rules! ~ Leave a comment

 

New York is a wonder. With each listen the songs become more and more vivid. I absolutely love this album. Lou Reed’s decision for simple music under complex lyrics is admirable, but in a strange way the songs seem unfinished. I keep expecting some change in the middle, or even at the end, of the song. Perhaps a bridge or some coda or reprise or key change. If New York is a house, the songs are like peeking into a window, not getting the full view of what is inside. But as you keep staring in you see more and more detail and nuance.  As with all love letters, there is something deeper being communicated beyond the lyrical snapshots and paintings of scenes and people. With my lack of Lou depth I may be unaware that this is the beauty of his song writing. Sparse. Spare, and speaking to something greater. New York is a series of feeling-filled paintings, elevating the rock form to high art status.

Blood Sugar Sex Magik is a funk rock revelation. For the teenage set in the 90s this album hit all the right buttons, with its collection of stone cold summer jams and monster party hits like “Give it Away”, “Under the Bridge”, and “Suck My Kiss”. With most of their albums, the Red Hot Chili Peppers walk a tightrope of solid funk-rock, but at any moment can slip and fall into a soft netting (like balls in a swimsuit) of douche bag rock (in fact I think they might have inadvertently invented the genre). However on BSSM they stay firmly in the air. It is, by far, the best album they ever made. Their albums before this were infantile and the ones after just stood in the shadows of this funky monolith.

So the conclusion is that, with New York, I feel like I am looking at the iceberg. Knowing that below the water, there is so much more. With Blood Sugar Sex Magic they are at Funkrock Mountain’s peek. There is nothing deeper under the water.

JS

WINNER: Lou Reed, New York (4 points)

BATTLE TALLY

80s: 14

90s: 18

EARNED POINTS
80s: 31
90s: 37

Next week’s battle – #18: Prince, ‘Dirty Mind’ (1980) vs. R.E.M., ‘Automatic for the People’ (1992)

#20: Pretenders, ‘Pretenders’ (1980) vs. Liz Phair, ‘Exile in Guyville’ (1993)

~ VanJam 80s v. 90s Music War - 50 Album Battles to See Which Decade Rules! ~ Leave a comment

 

We’re in the top 20!

Now we’re talking! After the let-down of my last battle (The Smiths vs. Jeff Buckley), I’m thrilled to get back to two albums that are genuinely awesome. In other words, where a couple of mopey dudes failed, two kick-ass women spectacularly succeed.

Liz Phair’s debut album (why are so many of the masterpieces on these lists debuts?) is a beautiful mess, which I think is the point. It’s got a bit of everything, sound-wise, including a dog, but it’s mostly just straight-up rock n’ roll. You get sludgy guitar, piano, low-fi drums and shockingly candid and vulgar lyrics delivered in a matter-of-fact monotone that is way more compelling than it ought to be. One second she’s telling you she’ll fuck you till your dick is blue (“Flower”), the next she is waking up from a one-night stand pining for a boyfriend who’ll write her love letters (“Fuck and Run”). 

It was touted as a song for song response to Rolling Stones’ Exile on Main Street, but more precisely it’s a commentary about what it’s like to be a girl in the man’s world of rock n’ roll (she breaks it all down herself in this excellent Rolling Stone piece). Every song is catchy, fun and fascinating. I love it.

Chryssie Hynde stormed the gates of guyville 13 years earlier with the Pretenders debut (another debut!) album of new wave rock. It’s astoundingly strong and confident for a band’s first time out. The band is crazy tight and rockin’ and, when it needs to be, pretty (my favourite is the Kinks cover “Stop you Sobbing”, which sounds like vintage ’60s “Wall of Sound” girl music).

Unlike Phair, Hynde didn’t make it about being a girl in a man’s world, but nor did she in any way hide who she was either. I’m struck by how prominent her vocals are – especially on the album’s opener, “Precious”. She drives her words straight into your ear-holes.

Thematically, there are comparisons to be made. “Up the Neck” is Hynde’s take on waking up from a one-night-stand; just a little more cryptic about how she feels about it than Phair’s “Fuck and Run”. (And let me just say I love the way Hynde sings “Baby! Oh Sweetheart.”) And “Brass in Pocket” is not unlike Phair’s “Flower”, but a whole lot more subtle about how she’s going to have her way with you. I guess Phair, working in the 90s, could be waaaay more candid about the details. I think it’s a case of trailblazers like Hynde (and Pattie Smith) opening the door for the next generation of trailblazers like Phair (and PJ Harvey).

So who wins this battle? Frankly I hate to choose.

This is neither the first time nor the last time I’m going to do this in the VanJam Music War – I’m choosing the album I think is better rather than the one I personally like more. Perfection over beautiful mess. Hynde over Phair, by a hair…

JG

WINNER: Pretenders, Pretenders (4 points)

BATTLE TALLY

80s: 13

90s: 18

EARNED POINTS
80s: 27
90s: 37

Next week’s battle – #19: Lou Reed, ‘New York’ (1989) vs. Red Hot Chili Peppers, ‘Blood Sugar Sex Magik’ (1991)