Zombeels

Pinkerton is just as good...maybe even better.

__________________
What It Is

Astronomer

Agreed, definitely. These are really great reviews I've enjoyed reading them, keep them up.

__________________

Brad Stengel

My first of only a few repeat-bands on this list. I was debating whether or not to keep it to 30 seperate bands, one album each, but in my eyes, what the list would gain in eclectisity (word?) it would lose in quality. Also, there was more than one Pavement album that I really wanted to mention, and if I'm going to make an exeption for them, I'm going to have to make one for everyone. So here you have it, the second, and final, Husker Du album on this list, and my favorite Husker Du album. Although I bought this in 2006, I had a cassete of 'New Day Rising' since I was in ninth grade, although the only song I ever listened to was "The Girl Who Lives on Heaven Hill". In retrospect I can see why, this is Husker Du's perfect fusion of their hardcore roots with their indie aesthetic, giving the song a sound that would be mimicked by dozens of more succesful, yet less talented 90's bands.

"New Day Rising" is like if "Zen Arcade" were reduced to one album, and it was all their more straightforward punk songs. This album is very 'to-the-point', opening with "New Day Rising", something that sounds like a hardcore song, yet would be welcome on any of Husker Du's alternative albums. From there you go into "The Girl Who Lives on Heaven Hill", "I Apologize", "Books About UFO's" and the albums masterpeice, "Celebrated Summer".

Not only is "Celebrated Summer" an absolute classic song, one that I revere for its great melody, and lyrics about summer like, "Getting drunk out on a beach/or playing in a band" that I can relate so many summers to, but this seems to predict every early 90's band's sound as well. We have acoustic guitar quiet openers, distortion coming in halfway through the verse, and the chorus is a joyously loud outburst of energy. The Pixies did not invent 'quiet-LOUD-quiet', in fact on the posters they used to hang up when they were looking for a bassist, they stated their main two influences as Husker Du, and Peter Paul and Mary. Listening to 'New Day Rising', it's fairly obvious that it's an extremely rough, lost Pixies album, with more of a punk influence.

'New Day Rising' has the same sound as 'Zen Arcade', but where they make it really count, is immediacy. The only truly skippable tracks are the last two noise songs, and every once in a while I'll let them close out the album, they're not bad, it's just the rest of the album completely eclipses them. This is Husker Du at their prime, and one of the best 'alternative' albums of the 80's.
91/100

__________________
These is the musics I own:
http://rateyourmusic.com/collection/BradStengel/oo

Bulldog

Been meaning to get some more Husker Du for years (I've only got Zen Arcade, which I really should dig out again sometime soon) Very much looking forward to hearing this one when I can - great review (again)

Brad Stengel

Although "Murmur" by R.E.M. is consistently reffered to as the beginning of alternative rock moving on from post-punk, I think this album does a much better job. This album is more than just jangle-pop, and although I can't really make a completely worthwhile opinion since I havent heard all of "Murmur", this is a better album. The Violent Femmes have that Holden Caulfield-esque relatability that I call the Richman factor, since the first album that I feel excecutes this perfectly is the Modern Lovers first album. Other bands I would classify as possesing the Richman factor are Neutral Milk Hotel and Daniel Johnston, and it's defined by simple naive lyrics that are sort of anti-teenage-when Beat Happening sings about holding hands after sex, when The Modern Lovers sing about wanting a girl they care about rather than a one night stand, and on this album when The Femmes sing about trying to get just one kiss in "Add It Up", an album highlight.

Lyrically, this is naive, vulnerable, and completely relateable to me, the 12th grade loner in 2006. On top of all that, the songs are all solid, and this is a great example of an album with no filler. It opens with "Blister in The Sun" the great 80's alternative sing-along, and if you like the sound on this song-the off kilter singing, the drum set being played with brushes, the acoustic instuments that are being played as though they were being plugged in at the SUperdome, than theres not much I could fathom having fault with throughout the album.

Another great thing about this album, is that the breakthrough originality is in the sound-other than that, these are simple, well made pop songs, which of course has all been done before. But because the sound is so unique, and the lyrics so personal, it's easy to fall in love with. Take "Please Do Not Go" with it's reggae beat and typical Femmes lyrics. It could have been written years before as a generic reggae song, but The Femmes add so much personality and orinality with their sound that the songs attains a sort of brilliance that is greater than the sum of its parts.

This is the first 80's album that I really fell in love with, and proved to me that that decade often shunned for bands like Duran Duran and Motley Crue, had so much to offer underneath its glossy vapid surface. I thought of it as striking oil in a desert, this album being the first of many oil fields I would stumble upon in 2006, not to mention the ones I continue to find over two years later.
92/100

__________________
These is the musics I own:
http://rateyourmusic.com/collection/BradStengel/oo

jackhammer

^^^

One album that I would love to check out.

__________________

Akira

Ha, d'you know, I was only looking at that album the other day thinking the same thing.

Too many albums, too little time.

__________________

Brad Stengel

I think if I had made this list in 2006 rather than now, this album would have been #2 or #3, because I LOVED this album when I first heard it. And the reason why it's higher now isn't because it's gotten stale over the years-it's still just as fantastic as when I first popped it into my CD player-it's just that alot of albums that I wasn't listening to that year that were less immediate didn't get played as often, and only now have a realized how wonderful they are.

In any case, this is one of the best punk albums ever made. I absolutely adore 70's punk, but unforunately, it's more of a singles genre than one that put out great albums. Out of the hundreds of seventies punk bands I've listened to, theres maybe only 10-12 solid albums that I've heard, this being one of them. You have the obvious great songs here- the singles, "Blank Generation" and "Love Comes In Spurts", and if this was any other punk band, there might be one MAYBE two other good songs. Howver, of the ten songs on this album, only the last one do I have a distaste for, and it's more over the length, "The Plan" clocks in at over eight minutes, than the quality. No, you have "New Pleasure" one of my favorite Voidoids tunes, "Down at The Rock and Roll Club", and an awesome cover of "Walking on the Water" by CCR.

The Voidoids sound is basically a combination of Richard Hell's previous two bands, The Heartbreakers and Television. His songs have the basic rock and roll structure of the Heartbreakers, but the post-punk guitar workings of Television, thanks to Robert Quine, one of the best guitarists of the era. The guitar playing on this album really makes this album, along with the energy, which is one of the most important factors for me when listening to an album. To me, the Voidoids have much more energy than the Heartbreakers, while also having a much more unique sound, which is why I will always rate Richard Hell above Johnny Thunders.

Theres another reason why Richard Hell is better than Thunders-he's an absolutely brilliant songwriter. Take for example the song "Blank Generation", where Richard affectionately retells the story of his birth,


This is nt your average punk song, no, this is far wittier and more cerebral than 99% of what was out there in 1977. Don't forget Richard Hell was in Television, and good friends with Tom Verlaine, and that before punk rock came along, they wanted to be poets. This is one of the reasons why I fucking hate when people hear The Clash and The Sex Pistols, and dismiss punk rock altogether. Albums like this, that have almost nothing in common with the thick headed, 'I hate everything', three chord ramones/pistols rip off punk. This is not that. Listen to this album and tell me punk rock has nothing to offer, I dare you.
93/100

__________________
These is the musics I own:
http://rateyourmusic.com/collection/BradStengel/oo

4ZZZ

And don't that sum up life.

Brad Stengel

I dare you to find a larger, more eclectic collection of music released that is not a compilation or box set, that holds up as well as this does. Somehow Stephen Merrit put out 69 songs on one release, the majority of which are solid, and even the ones that are not, never ruin the album(s). I use the interchangeable plural there because you can think of this as one huge release, or three volumes, which is the way I purchased it. In any case, all three volumes are solid enough to place the entire work as my 16th best music purchase of 2006.

When you have 69 tracks, three albums worth of material, theres plenty of room to reach out into other genres, and that's exactly what Merritt does here. You have the piano ballad, "I Don't Believe In The Sun", the Johnny Cash tribute, "Chicken With It's Head Cut Off", an electro-pop gem "I don't Want to Get Over You", the crooner, "My Sentimental Melody", and the wonderful epic, "Sweet Lovin' Man". And that's just on the first CD, admittedly the best of the three, but that's not to say there arent plenty of other gems on the other two parts.

Theres three things that make this such a solid release to me, one is how different all of the songs are, all the genre hopping, which I already mentioned. Another is how solid all these songs are melodically. I have The Magnetic Fields' first two albums, "i", and "Distortion", and although I like those albums, they're spotty at best. Theres generally 2 or 3 AWESOME songs, 3 or 4 decent ones, and the rest filler. On the entirety of 69 Love Songs, theres maybe only 10-15 songs I don't care for, the bulk of which are under 1:30 anyway, so they never disrupt the amazing flow of this album, a flow driven by well written melodies, and-ah! The third thing I love about this album, the lyrics.

Stephen Merritt is one of my favorite lyricists. For me, the best kind of lyrics, are simple, yet tightly constructed, and very witty. That sums up the whole of this album, it's all very witty, cutesy, simple, yet you can tell the man behind them is very intelligent. Take the lyrics of "The Night You Can't Remember", about a dancer taking advantage of and marrying a drunken sailor, with the chorus, "The night you can't remember...the night I can't forget!" or the bridge in, "I Think I Need A New Heart", in which Merritt laments his incapacity for love, "Because I always say 'I love you' when I mean 'turn out the light'/and I say 'let's run away' when I mean 'just stay the night'". These aren't just love songs, in alot of them, the narrator is a bitter, heartless douchebag. This is another reason why the album is so listenable, it's not just some mushy singer-songwriter album-theres a wealth of emotions, instruments, attitudes, singers (theres three different singers on this album, including a female, and Merritt himself), themes-Merritt has 69 tracks on this release, but he uses all the space to it's fullest extent, and covers just about every facet and genre of pop music created in the 40 years before the release of this masterpeice. And the fact that he does all of that in a mere three hours worth of music is a true testament to the genius of this album. No, theres nothing new here, but these 69 songs not only instill a passion for the past of pop music, but hope that in the future, that in another 40 years perhaps a performer as witty and talented as Merritt can create another perfect summary of pop music, using 69 Love Songs as a touchstone.
95/100

__________________
These is the musics I own:
http://rateyourmusic.com/collection/BradStengel/oo