Listening Mode : Right Where it Belongs

In this song, like Fitzgerald before him, Reznor comes to grip with the hollowness of public life and the collapse of one’s ego. Both men stare at their own reflection and find something is askew. In his “Crack-Up” papers, Fitzgerald realized he had become a dry, empty shell, a fac simile of being, the ghost of a ghost. The writer who had achieved stardom faced a void of purpose, “the hollowness inside of your heart”, an empty house only haunted with the remembrance of things gone west. A shift is taking place, leaving the man to ponder the directions in which his personality is splitting up.

Crippled with uncertainty, finding no time for rigid, by-the-book protest slogans, this is a song of existential questions. “What if all the world you think you know is an elaborate dream?“ In the mirror, the man sees his future self: “if you look at your reflection, is that all you want to be?” Indeed, today’s Reznor is a bodybuilding, wealthy musician who churns out neatly produced songs like a well-programmed robot assembles cars, a laborious rock star, creating music on autopilot. Stuffed like the Hollow Men, comfortably numb, digging up the same hole over and over. “Is that all you want to be?”, his former self seems to ask. “What if you could look right through the cracks?” The man in the mirror entertains the masses with professional, slick, clean-cut shows and packs up muscle as if layers of flesh may fill up the void once depicted in this song. “I used to have a purpose, but then again, it might have been a dream”, laments Reznor elsewhere on the album.

Of course, one is hard pressed to find fault, both musically and technically, to his post-“With Teeth” output. His last commercial work to date, “Year Zero”, is a tour de force of clever programming, catchy choruses and rich artwork. Its marketing campaign was also pretty elaborate, with USB songs lost on purpose in hotel rooms, so that they might resurface on their own. Yet there is something unsettling about the whole album. Something missing, some sense of urgency and danger, that music is the expression of a deep-seated urge to tear the universe apart. On the other hand, “Right where it Belongs”, like his pre-“With Teeth” work, is the diary of a dark night of the soul, profoundly humane, flawed and fragile.

Fitzgerald again: “Every man has a breaking point”. This is the point of realization, where there is a choice you have to make. “You can live in this illusion - You can choose to believe”. Well, like TS Eliot once said, “After such knowledge, what forgiveness?” You either face complacency or moral despair. Fitzgerald chose the former, going back to Hollywood, a dull, mediocre version of his youthful flamboyant self. On “Right where it Belongs”, the use of applause samples reminds us of Pink Floyd’s “Welcome to the Machine”, another song about the empty pursuit of fame and fortune. Indeed, Reznor make it very clear that the hollowness of his neat little world is at stake. This is an outstanding piece of music, which speaks from the heart, the self-diagnosis of a painful transition, the record of a loss that the writer is unable to fully understand.

Don't Listen Mode : Scott Walker : "The Drift"

All right, this is a text I had written last year but didn't post because the editorial line here is to only talk about stuff that I like, instead of chiming in negatively on music or films that I don't care about in the first place.

But I've just read it again and well, for a change, I'd thought I'd rant a little bit too.

What do you do when you’ve ran out of ideas?
 

Well, if you can’t write, you might as well write about the fact that you can’t write. If you’re Fitzgerald you might even draw a masterpiece from your personal void.

Otherwise, as Burroughs put it, you just have to start faking it.

Scott Walker can’t write songs anymore.
 

He can’t stay silent either. Which I can understand.

Do you really exist in the modern world without output? No you don’t.

Walker’s story began as a crooner of Broadway pop. Then he found out he could actually pen outstanding melodies, which resulted primarily in landmark solo albums.
 

Then there was writer’s block. All along the 70’s, Walker couldn’t find anything new so he spent the time covering country-western tunes. That was actually quite fun and I do listen a lot to his somewhat cheesy "Stretch" and "We Had it All" albums.
 

In 1978, he found four more songs within himself, and what songs : the fast-paced, post-nuke disco of "Shutout", the jazz-noise acapella oddity "Fat Mama Kick", and most importantly, the timeless "Nite Flights", later to be covered by long time fan Bowie, and "The Electrician", breathtaking, epic, definitive.

In 1984, the “Climate of Hunter” album was good too. Not as good, mind you. The melodies were less inspired, the whole work had a monolithic feel to it, like if Walker had had one good song idea and made variations of it.
 

On the 1995 “Tilt” album, nine songs share four different melodies. Compared to the previous album, there are less chord progressions, more ambient tracks.

It should have been evident to anybody who could hear : the man was running out of songs. We were witnessing a lake getting drier and drier.

Now if you can’t write a chord progression, you can always pretend that it’s daring to have only one chord over the whole song.

If you can’t write a melody either, you can pretend that your plan all along was to do atonal avant-garde songs.

If you're running on empty, if you're artistically dead, if all creativity has deserted you, if you're dry as a bone, hollow as the sky, well, my man, that's when you just have to start faking it.

“The Drift” is a fraud.

It makes me very angry to read positive reviews about it. It makes me pointlessly angry. I really shouldn't care. But positive reviews about “The Drift” evoke the inane blabber that modern art critics pour over paintings of white on white, or the pseudo-intellectual phraseology that literary critics would impose on awfully written, stupidly un-plot novels.It’s not arty, it’s not avant-garde, it’s just a fraud.
 

It’s not avant-garde, because it would have been avant-garde in 1960. It’s too late. You had your chance. Get over it.

From 1978 on, Walker has tried harder and harder to hide his inability to write a melody by pretending he was avant-garde, like an untalented, braindead painter who splashes feces on a white canvas and calls it modern art.
 

There’s no music on “The Drift”, but a clichéd collage of noise, that I would have found lazy and embarrassing in the early 90's, but today, well, it just makes me sad seeing how low some of most esteemed artists wallow in their last years.

That Old-Fashioned Thing Called "Song"

So, there's a new REM album : "Collapse into Now". I happen to be a huge REM fan, ever since 1991's "Out of Time" and my favorite album ever is the elegant, sophisticated, brilliantly written "Up" from 1999.

There are two reasons why I love that band. First they write some of the best songs ever. Second they've got one of the best singers ever.

That said, I was quite disappointed by their last offering, which I think is a rather uninspired, hastily put together, clumsily mixed rock album. That's probably why I wasn't expecting too much of this one. But I was wrong.

This is a good album.

Some would say that it's a fallback to their classic sound. Well, that's only true if you specifically refer to the "Out of Time"/"Automatic to the People" acoustic-tinged production (and parts of "Green"). It's wrong if you consider the indie rock sound of their first five albums. It'd be more accurate to say that it's a return to the sound of unarguably their most commercially successful period. Also, it's fair to say that none of the lovely new-wave-ish electro touches of "Up" and "Reveal" are to be found here, and that, contrary to these two specific albums, this one doesn't mark any clear departure from what it's usually identified as the trademark REM sound.

And oh, by the way, all of the above doesn't fucking matter.

That is, it matters if you're concerned about style over substance. Otherwise, it's just a distraction from the fact that these are really good songs.

You know, "song", that combination of chords, melody and words that's supposed to move you regardless of whatever instrument you're playing it or if it's recorded as new wave polka or free jazz metal.

I know, I know... that talk about substance over style, it's a little quaint in the age of Lady Gaga, right after the Björk era and before the next shallow media act, but there you go.. What matters in an album is the songs. They're good or they aren't. Then only you may wonder about the production.

Now from some artists you expect a different style every time, like Bowie. Because that's what they're good at, reinventing their style. Some artists you don't really give a damn. Who the hell cares if Neil Young dig the same mine album after album? I don't. He sure tried a bold move, sonically speaking, with his last "Le Noise" album, and boy is it misconceived and overblown by critics. And in any case, what really bothers me about Neil Young's most recent output is that the songs aren't as inspired as in the past, ever since, let's say, 2000 "Silver and Gold". I don't care if "Silver and Gold" could have been recorded the exact same way in 1970. Why should I? Every song on this album is a masterpiece of songwriting.

But back to REM.

Here is a solid folk-rock album, with a beautiful tangle of acoustic and electric guitars, with the occasional horns and accordion. It's tastefully produced and a lot more intricate and sophisticated than a casual listen will reveal.

The songs are really nice. The acoustic ballads especially wouldn't feel out of place on "Automatic" or "New Adventures", may it be the glowing, Dylanesque "Oh my Heart", the ultra-melodic "Überlin" or the direct and poignant "Walk it Back". And it goes on : "Me, Marlon Brando...", "It Happened Today", "Blue" (with Patti Smith!), all of this just grows on me listen after listen.

We get treated to a number of jumpy, almost psychedelic pop songs in the mould of their "Green" album : "Mine Smells like Honey", "That Someone is You"...

Sure, there's some repetition here and there. "Überlin" is reminiscent of "She just wants to be" from the "Reveal" album, and "Blue" is obviously a (lesser) rewrite of the classic "Country Feedback" (one of my favorite songs) on the "Out of Time" album.

Also, I've got to say that overall the album is short, with at least three totally redundant and tepid rock songs : "Discoverer", "All the Best" and "Alligator". That last song especially stands out as the most superfluous song of the album. It sounds like a rehearsal jam over a clichéd guitar riff with Stipe howling out a single-note melody over and over. Totally pointless.

And the lyrics... well, I'm not so sure about them either. Some are classic obscure Stipe, others are just plain embarrassing, most notably the awful "Drive" parody in "Every Day is Yours to Win" (gee, just that song title makes me want to throw up).

But hey, let's not focus on the negative. Sure, there's a feeling ever since "Around the Sun" that the band is past its prime, but that's something that happens to everyone, so it's somewhat irrelevant to dwell on that at this point.

It's a nice electro-acoustic work with great songwriting, superbly performed and sung, and I think it'll stand up the test of time nicely, whereas the bolder (for REM) "Accelerate" is already forgotten (by me).

Listening Mode : Pink Moon

“Pink Moon” is often regarded as Nick Drake’s best album. There’s a lot of truth to that, although we may be biased by the fact that it is the artist’s final work. There are, of course, polished gems like “Things behind the sun”, “Place to be”, “Parasite”, with sophisticated chord progressions and complex lyrics. But it’s arguable whether tracks like “Horn”, “Free Ride” or “Know” show Drake at his best, composition-wise. “Five Leaves Left”, in that regard, is more cohesive.

On the other hand, “Pink Moon” is Drake’s truly timeless album : a guitar and a voice, captured with intimate, detailed precision. “Five Leaves Left” and especially “Bryter Layter” sound dated in comparison, with their typical late-60’s English folk arrangements.

“Know”, “Pink Moon” and such embryonic songs can’t help but capture imagination. Their brevity alone is striking, like stark musical aphorisms. “Know” only features a primitive, hypnotic and, well, somewhat uninspired guitar riff, far-cry from the elaborate arrangements of his previous output. But then Drake wails : “Know that I love you - Know I don’t care - Know that I see you - Know I’m not there”. That’s all he has to say. I’m fine with that. This really set the tone of the album, which sounds less like flowery poetry and more like a factual observation of one’s state of distress.

“Parasite” is exemplary. “Take a look you may see me on the ground - For I am the parasite of this town”. That kind of statement may look commonplace after New Wave, Grunge and so on… But this is 1972, remember… such confessional lyrics are somewhat unusual to the era, and especially unusual for Drake, who would generally use a much more circumvoluted and abstract vocabulary. But now the man is down and he tells us so in no uncertain terms. That is what you do when you’re at the bottom and you don’t give a damn about what the world will think of that display of honesty.

The words even verge on nihilism: “Hearing the trials of the people there - Who’s to care if they lose”. The whole song is a cry of alienation, reflected elsewhere on the album by his plea for a shelter : “And I was green, greener than the hill - Where flowers grew and sun shone still - Now I’m darker than the deepest sea - Just hand me down, give me a place to be”. That is the portrait of the artist as a metaphysical outsider. When you don’t fit in, there is no place to be, as in “to exist”.

The choice of words is also remarkable. The pastoral imagery of the first couple of sentences brings us back to his early, “English-countryside-poetry” work, a nod to the delicate, civilized and peaceful wanderings of “Five Leaves Left”. The nostalgia here is striking since Drake is only alluding to three years in the past. He was green at the time, but 1972 is darker than the deepest sea. There’s only guitar on most of “Pink Moon”, giving the same sense of isolation and dread than Springsteen’s tenebrous “Nebraska” album.

There’s still something of that youthful style, and interestingly so, Drake has chosen to close the album with a fairly optimistic and serene “From the morning” that could easily feature on “Five Leaves Left”. Pure esthetical choice, heartfelt feeling of completion despite the bleakness at the work’s core? Who knows…

What we do seem to know is that, having completed the album, Drake just left the tapes at the record company’s desk, wrapped in an anonymous envelope. Only after several days did the company realize that the new Nick Drake album was here. Cioran once said that an obscure writer with no readers feels at his publishing house like an aging whore with no clients at the brothel.

These songs were recorded almost 40 years ago. The man and his suffering, which meant all the universe to him, all is lost. Every now and then I read something what would have happened if he hadn’t die so young, and speculations on the cause of his apparent suicide. Well, ultimately, it doesn’t matter whether you live 20 years or 80 years. Life is a process of exhaustion. Or as Shestov put it, life, to sustain itself, must destroy itself. The small victories you held dear when you were a kid are null today. Whatever prize you think you’re winning by making it through 80, you’re taking it to the grave. Hence, regarding voluntary death, motive especially doesn’t matter. Suicide arises from the belief that life is a purposeless void, thus it makes no difference whether the trigger is personal catastrophe or a flat tire. Nick Drake died because he couldn’t live anymore, and I guess that’s it.

"I saw it written and I saw it say
Pink moon is on its way
And none of you stand so tall
Pink moon gonna get you all
It's a pink moon
It's a pink, pink, pink, pink, pink moon"

Listening Mode : Mr Bad Guy

Now here’s an unfortunate choice of cover!

But anyway, speaking of Queen materiel I had never properly considered, I recently got to listen to Mercury’s somewhat forgotten 1985 solo effort.

The reason why I had never really tried before is that I do own a copy of the « Freddie Mercury Album », and – wrongly, as it turned out – assumed that it did contain the same versions of « Living on my own » and such songs, plus irrelevant filler.

Well, I was wrong on both counts.

First, the 1985 album actually boasts very different mixes for songs that eventually appeared on the 1992 compilation.

While the 1992 compilation features rather embarrassing club mixes for « Let’s turn it on » and « Living on my own », the early-to-mid-eighties-pop fan can only approve of the way the original songs were produced : no cheesy 1992 techno beat, but steady 1980 synth bass lines, inventive instrumentation (the modern jazz solo on « Living… », some badly twangy guitars…) and Mercury’s soul-filled vocals.

The same is true about « Your kind of lover », much more primitive and 1950’s rock n’roll-esque than its clubbish 1992 remix.

The title track hasn't changed that much, except for that sophisticated orchestral outro reminiscent of Pink Floyd’s « The Trial ».

As for the songs that didn’t made it on the 1992 compilation, some obscure gems are also to be found.

« Made in Heaven », obviously, was heard afterwards on the ultimate Queen album, reworked in full electric extravaganza. The original version is more down-to-earth and quite beautiful.

But the songs that truly made my day are the two Lennon-esque, bittersweet ballads, « There Must Be More To Life Than This » (charmingly naïve, and aptly conceived for Michael Jackson) and especially « Love me like there’s no tomorrow », a cleverly written and arranged ballad with breathtaking vocals.

All in all, this 1985 came as a good surprise, and I do regret not having paid more attention before.

Needless to say, the album is hardly reissued these days, and that’s a waste, because this would be a far more interesting thing to do than to put out compilation after compilation.

Listening Mode : Made in Heaven

Here’s another album I didn’t get to buy until lately… now Queen might be my favorite band ever, but when this ultimate offering came out back in 1995, I found it rather disappointing. That’s why for years it has been the single Queen album I don’t own. But hey, time went by and I thought I’d give it another try.

I’ve got to admit, there’s still a lot to cringe about.

Some of it can be excused. Yes, the material is uneven, with a bunch of subpar songs sporting very weak lyrics (“My life has been saved”, “I was born to love you”, “Heaven for everyone”), but the songwriting process was understandably shaky, with Mercury showing up in the studio whenever he felt good enough, asking for whatever could be sung upon. In such precarious circumstances, it’s hardly any wonder that some of the album is basically uninspired filler, while other songs like “I was born to love you” are perhaps unduly rescued from Mercury’s solo album.

On the other hand, what’s with the production? “Innuendo”, among other things, was remarkable for its somewhat timeless production, at a time when the late 80’s commercial sound still ruled king on most mainstream records. The production on “Made in Heaven” was awkward in 1995 and sounds all the more dated now, one good example being the cheap electric piano on “Too much love will kill you” or the FM rock arrangement for “I was born to love you”.

That said the album does have its highlights.
Songs I didn’t care about 16 years ago, they seem to speak to me now that, well, 16 years have passed…

Take for instance the evocative beauty of “A winter’s tale”. At the time I thought it was rather corny and dull. Today, for all its cheesy arrangement, it sounds contemplative and elegiac, Mercury’s dreamlike, surreal depiction of the mountain scenery outside his last residence in Switzerland.
I can also find merit in “Let me live”. Yes, it’s a standard rock tune, but it’s possibly the only song where Mercury, May and Taylor all sing solo parts.
I did warm up to “You don’t fool me”… a disco song harking back to the oddball days of “Hot Space”, but with a touch of hypnotic melancholy.

“Too much love will kill you”, on the other hand, was always a favorite of mine. It has become a signature song for May, but this version features outstanding vocals from Mercury (who oddly enough found it somewhat too weak to end up on “The Miracle” album).

The one song that always stood up, of course, is “Mother love”.
This was a gem in 1995 and it remains one of the band’s unknown masterpieces.
Brian wrote the music, Freddie the lyrics, and both recorded it a couple of weeks before the singer’s death.

The finished song is unlike any other in the band’s repertoire, featuring the most direct and confessional lyrics they ever put to tape. It can be argued that they share a sense of closure with “The show must go on”, but the latter is written in a poetic, metaphorical way. “Mother love”, by contrast, is simple, brutal and strikingly vivid in its depiction of helplessness.

“I don't want to sleep with you
I don't need the passion too
I don't want a stormy affair
To make me feel my life is heading somewhere”

This coming from the man who spent most of the eighties fooling around from party to party in the utmost promiscuity.

“I'm a man of the world and they say I'm strong
But my heart is heavy and my hope is gone”

The music is subdued, minimalistic. May’s usual Red Special guitar is mostly absent. Thus the trademark Queen electric sound is out of the picture, leaving chorused arpeggios drifting on a steady, muffled rhythm.
The man of the world is looking for a dignified shelter.

“Out in the city, in the cold world outside
I don't want pity, just safe place to hide”

The electric guitars suddenly erupt and soon draw away.
Mercury says : “I long for peace before I die”, before feeling too ill to sing any more. That’s why the last verse is sung by May, literally giving his voice to his friend’s dying words.

“My body's aching, but I can't sleep
My dreams are all the company I keep
Got such a feeling as the sun goes down
I'm coming home to my sweet Mother love”
Then the song abruptly ends in an abstract collage where fragments of live audience chanting and Mercury’s familiar a cappella singing can be heard.
At first, the idea had stricken me as odd, but I get it now.
This is the personal tale of a man who has reached the heights of worldly fortune and glory and finds himself naked and vulnerable before his own mortality.

Listening Mode : Bryter Layter

In the mail yesterday, Nick Drake's second album, 1971.

Now here’s a fine album…

Why haven’t bought it before, I’m not sure. I am an avid Nick Drake fan, having been playing his debut “Five leaves left” and closing statement “Pink Moon” over and over for years, but I never managed to get a copy of the second one, “Bryter Layter”.

Well, there are reasons for that omission : while a great album in its own right, I believe “Bryter Layter” to be slightly inferior to its siblings.

It’s very short, for one thing : 10 tracks, and 3 of them are rather forgettable instrumental oddities that tend to verge on the easy listening (notably “Bryter Layter”, “Sunday” and their ghastly flute soloing).

The remaining 7 songs are beautiful, but suffer occasionally from awkward arrangements. The subtle drumming, the female choir are all right, but cheesy electric guitars and saxophones sound a bit off.

But anyway, it’s a nice album, Drake’s most poppy and mainstream effort, and yet, another failure that sent the aloof musician into the blackest pit of depression.

Nick Drake had predicted his own future on the first album : “So men of fame can never find a way - Till time has flown far from their dying day”.

Maybe that's why this “Bryter Layter”, for all its cheeriness, has a tragic flavor in retrospect. Where “Five leaves left” was melancholy and subdued, “Bryter Layter” sounds happy and hopeful. The third chapter, “Pink Moon” would reflect bitterness and despair.

Drake would then retreat deeper and deeper into isolation, lamenting his obscurity, seemingly unable to write. Coming back to the studio in 1974, rehashing older works, he can’t focus enough to sing and play his intricate guitar parts at the same time. He confides to a friend : « I can't think of words. I feel no emotion about anything. I don't want to laugh or cry. I'm numb… dead inside ». Not long afterwards, the singer dies of a drug overdose. Suicide ? Accident ? Freudian slip ? Who knows… the fact of the matter is, Nick was a misfit.

If there was only one reason to acquire this gem, it’s the other-worldly beauty of "Fly", surely one of my ten favorite songs ever.

Listening Mode : Stina Nordenstam, "This Is"

Stina Nordenstam is not only Swedish, she’s also my favorite female artist ever, and please, please, don’t bug me with your Lady Me-Me, Joanna Nothing, ImoHeap of Shit or, Jeebus forsakes, Björk… we’re talking serious here.

So, who’s Mrs Nordenstam, you ask… Mrs Nordenstam doesn’t do TV, she doesn’t do gigs, she doesn’t video blog and I’m pretty sure she doesn’t twitter.

Every now and then, she releases an album, then disappears again.

What separates Mrs Nordenstam from the vacant lot I’ve just mentioned is that Mrs Nordenstam is, at heart, a songwriter. You know, songwriting, that thing you’re supposed to do BEFORE you start monkeying around with the studio gear. And she writes some of the best songs, music and lyric-wise, I’ve ever heard.

I first encountered her music while idly browsing a record bin some 16 years ago, running across the intriguing cover of her second album. I was intrigued by the pensive, childlike figure of this singer I had never heard about, and even more so, was enthralled by the music, an odd combination of melancholy pop, jazzy moods and this peculiar, high voice.

She then went on to release more lo-fi, electric gems (“Dynamite”, “People are Strange”), and combined all influences in her outstanding 2004 “This Is” album.

The opening track, “Everyone else in the world” is the perfect introduction to Stina Nordenstam’s style : the subdued yet sophisticated arrangement, the intimate, upfront, whispering vocals, the beautiful lyrics and that very European, film d’auteur feeling.

There’s something magical about the way Stina Nordenstam dynamically orchestrates her songs. Take “Circus” : it starts with a muffled, treated guitar, and a lone, fragile voice, then suddenly builds up to a eerie chorus, flourishing like a fountain of ice : “I will be what’s left of longing on this earth…”.

The economy of means is remarkable, everything falling into place in a most delicate way. The diffuse melancholy of such “Stations”, “So Lee”, “Sharon and Hope”, and the poignant piano tune “Clothe yourself well for the wind”, is enough beauty to feel mandated to own that record, but then you’ll also find odd poppy diamonds like “Keen Yellow Planet” (in duet with Brett Anderson), “Lori Glory” (Beatlesque upbeat ditty) or “Welcome to Happiness” and its stark mix of filtered guitar and drum machine.

Stina Nordenstam’s last album, “The World is Saved” was released in 2004, and is quite a great one as well, but my all-time favorite, and one you should definitely check out, is this 2001 masterpiece.

Return of the Reviews

I've been pretty lax on reviews these last few months, and unduly so because there's still hardware and software in my armory I haven't talked about in some detail (Crumar Bit-01, Gforce M-Tron, Electribe EMX...).

That's why I'm busy writing a little piece on the handsomely retro Korg Poly-800, which I hope to finish tomorrow.

I'll also continue the Listening Mode section with a post on one of my favorite (well my favorite?) artists ever, Miss Stina Nordenstam.

All that and more in the next days.

Listening Mode : Dennis Wilson, "Pacific Ocean Blue"

This is one occasion where the cover pic grabbed my attention on the shelf and got me to listen to the record. I never was too much into the Beach Boys, so I didn’t realize at first that Dennis Wilson was part of that Wilson family. It was the vintage-looking photograph of that sullen bearded man that caught my attention. Since then, I managed to listen to the whole Beach Boys canon, and found out that Dennis Wilson’s career had a George Harrison curve to it, from being a simple performer to providing the band with isolated gems that would prove to match the main composers’ efforts. Like Harrison, Dennis Wilson went on to release a superb first solo album, and here we are in 1977, with the musically rich and profoundly humane “Pacific Ocean Blue”.

The opening track, “River Song”, is a good example of Wilson’s very personal style, starting out with a most classic piano riff in major mode, the sort of riff you might expect from any other 1977 middle-of-the-road hit single, followed by a gospel choir. But then, as Dennis’s raspy, powerful voice begins to wail about cities and pollution, the music slowly evolves into a raging, dark, almost apocalyptic clash of ultra-low voices and massive rhythmic strokes. It all moves down to a simple, quiet piano part, then back to a coda of pure electric joy.

The rest of the album is equally great, and shows what a sophisticated writer and arranger Wilson had become by then. After “River Song” come a batch of intense and brooding celebrations of rock and roll and Jesus (I don’t know the connection, but Wilson seems to do), evoking boiling hot LA friday nights and fruitless dreams of fame. The music slows down and envelops itself in cascades of synth strings and warm guitars, for a series of bittersweet, summer-tinged ballads, which shows Wilson at its rawest and most sincere, whether meditating about the dissolution of love (“Thoughts of You”) or its timeless flow (“Time”, “You and I”). One more catching ode to Mother Nature (“Pacific Ocean Blues”), a humble, moving funeral tune (“Farewell my Friend”), a sweet and refreshing love song (“Rainbows”) and there we are, at the “End of the Show”.Well, it’s been a wonderful one indeed, and just like Elliott Smith and so many others, too bad it ended so quickly. Dennis Wilson lived a life as intense as its songs, drank too much and fought too hard, and drowned in the ocean he loved so much one December day of 1983, leaving an unfinished album (“Bambu”, featured on the last reissue) and this enduring masterpiece.

Listening Mode : John Cale, "Paris 1919"

Note of intention : I don't care for professional music critics , and today everyone is an online critic anyway. That's why this blog is mainly about making music, instead of talking about someone else's work. I don't feel the urge to join the zillion of bloggers busy sharing their scorn or appreciation about whatever new album from whatever hip (or unhip) artist is on the shelf. BUT, at the same time, I felt that it'd be a good idea to point at some interesting records from the past that deserves to be known a lot more than they actually are. So... I won't waste my time and yours bashing Mika or James Blunt (although it's really tempting), but instead, will (briefly) hint at some nice records that you may have missed, and perhaps inspire you to go take a listen.

John Cale, « Paris 1919 », 1973.

Child's Christmas in Wales
Hanky Panky Nohow
The Endless Plain of Fortune
Andalucia
Macbeth
Paris 1919
Graham Greene
Half Past France
Antarctica Starts Here

Like probably most people, I came across John Cale through the Velvet Underground, and, again like most Velvet enthusiasts, soon found out that the temperamental Welsh had a most fascinating solo career. This 1973 gem is probably his best known record, and yet (like the rest of Cale’s career) remains much too obscure.

The title and the artwork say it all, this is a European record, set at a particular time and place, namely the Plains of Endless Fortune that were Europe after the apocalypse. Musically, the record perfectly captures the melancholy quiet of post-war Europe, from the opening “Child’s Christmas in Wales” to the placid, but somehow vaguely menacing “Antarctica starts here”. At first glance, the mood is light and sunny, but it’s only the deceptive quiet after civilization has been put to a painful halt. A misanthropist Cale leads us “down on darkened meetings on the Champs Elysées”, taking snapshots of colonial empires crumbling to pieces and deadly boring tea parties in England, musing aboard a train going nowhere : “From here on it's got to be/ A simple case of them or me/ If they're alive then I am dead”.

The instrumentation lean to the classical, as exemplified by the title song’s chamber symphony, and Cale provides some of his most beautiful acoustic ballads with the suitably glowing “Andalucia” and “Hanky Panky Nohow” (and its memorable line : “Nothing frightens me more/ Than religion at my door”). With the Velvet, Cale was the experimental guy, the Larsen master, the prince of noise, and would later go to extreme fits of violence on stage, but “Paris 1919” stands as a monument of subtlety and class, a musically complex yet organic sounding, lyrically oblique, a timeless piece of work.