In Stores Now: The Promise by Bruce Springsteen

Poster design by John Stewart Anderson for Shell Oil, 1935

I'm going to try to keep this brief because I am ashamed that I know next to nothing about Bruce Springsteen, but I wanted to do a brief write-up of The Promise - mostly to say that I'm really, really enjoying it. Ostensibly a 2-disc set of the outtakes from the sessions for 1978's Darkness on the Edge of Town, I have trouble seeing this as a "for fans only" release. For me (a music fan so leery of Springsteen that I only own [but dearly love] Nebraska), this is a double album that exceeds all my expectations of how good Springsteen's music could be. I'm familiar with Born to Run, the album that, frankly, is responsible for me thinking that Springsteen is not for me, and these songs come from the period directly after that album's huge success. So I shouldn't like these songs, right?

But I don't think that it's really the songs on Born to Run that I have an issue with - they're great - it's the production and the arrangements. The songs on The Promise have a fleshed-out but very clean sound (admittedly, with some recent additions and punch-ins that Springsteen added in preparing these songs for this release) - it's the pop traditionalism that makes these songs so accessible. It's almost like Springsteen is channeling the Brill Building writers of the '60s that he revered. In fact, his influences are pretty obvious everywhere on The Promise - they must be, because I'm not good at spotting influences, but I'm hearing Roy Orbison, Phil Spector, Buddy Holly, and Elvis Presley all over these songs.

I'll admit that, at first, some of the lyrics on The Promise rubbed me a little wrong - the songs are so replete with kids in love, convertibles, main drags, and factories that they sounded like parodies of Springsteen's songwriting. But there's no denying that the man can write a memorable song, and these nitpicks fade from my mind when I listen to these songs, whether they be goofy upbeat numbers ("Gotta Get That Feeling", "Ain't Good Enough For You"), cooing ballads ("The Brokenhearted", "Come On (Let's Go Tonight)"), early versions of songs that ended up on Darkness on the Edge of Town ("Racing in the Street", "Candy's Boy"), or unreleased versions of songs that turned into hits for other artists ("Because the Night", "Fire").

Moreover, these songs are distributed among the two discs of The Promise with a sequencing that basically gives you two complete, balanced Springsteen records. It all culminates on the second disc with "The Promise", a sequel to "Thunder Road" that I can safely say (as someone with next to no knowledge of Springsteen's discography) is among the best songs Springsteen has written. I probably don't need to mention that, as of today, Darkness on the Edge of Town andThe River are on my Christmas wish-list.

"The Promise" by Bruce Springsteen

It's New to Me: Script of the Bridge by the Chameleons (1983)

Illustration by Lydia Gibson from Zur Muhlen's Fairy Tales for Workers' Children, 1925

Manchester's the Chameleons (known in the US as Chameleons UK because IP laws are stupid) are generally not well known, considered to be "also-rans" in the "pop" end of the UK post-punk scene that spawned the Cure and Echo & the Bunnymen. But, justifiably, the band has it share of dedicated fans who see the Chameleons as having done something really interesting with those post-punk song structures and guitar textures, and I started checking the band out on the basis of these arguments. I think that the comparisons to Echo & the Bunnymen are actually quite fitting, but I may prefer the Chameleons' style. The band avoided pop conventions most of the time - few of their songs have big choruses or guitar solos - preferring instead to build tension and release with shifting guitar textures and frontman Mark Burgess's emphatic vocal style.

The Chameleons' debut record, Script of the Bridge, was released in 1983 on Statik Records - the band had released one single for CBS Records before getting dropped for refusing to record the more pop-oriented album the label wanted. The refusal to compromise probably single-handedly doomed Script of the Bridge to "lost classic" status, but I think the Chameleons made the right call. The band's songs work best as stretched-out, texture-heavy epics - it's no surprise that the seven-minute "Second Skin" is one of the band's best loved songs. And it's not like the music lacks accessibility, either - songs like "Here Today", "Monkeyland", and "Up the Down Escalator" sound like radio singles without bending to pop conventions because the songwriting is simply that good. And the album works well as a whole, seeming to be a love/hate letter to Manchester and a farewell to innocence at the same time, culminating with the transcendent meeting of those two themes in the album's final track, "View From a Hill".

There is a downside to the Chameleons' dogged commitment to their musical vision, and that is that it can get a little monotonous. The first few times I listened to Script of the Bridge, all the tremolo guitar and stentorian vocals blended together into an undistinguished muddle. But it's an album that rewards attentive listening, and there are very few songs on the album that don't have a distinct sound to my ear now. The album's best tracks stood out from the first listen, though, like "Up the Down Escalator". The catchiest song on the record, it reminds me a lot of my favorite Chameleons song, "Mad Jack" from the 1986's Strange Times. The layered guitar parts cycle through several great hooks, and Burgess's lyrics are as good here as anywhere on the album - how can you not love a line like, "Obnoxious actions, obnoxious results - teachers who refuse to be taught"?

"Up the Down Escalator" by the Chameleons

It's New to Me: Compilation by Look Blue Go Purple (1991)

Illustration from Ilustração Portugueza magazine, December 17, 1917

Look Blue Go Purple is one of the lesser-known but still well-regarded bands of the '80s kiwi-pop scene in New Zealand. Favored by critics, some have questioned why they never gained the notoriety of some of the other kiwi-pop bands. I have a few theories. First of all, an all-girl group is often seen as a novelty and isn't taken as seriously by music fans, even though the women of Look Blue Go Purple matched their male counterparts in songwriting, charm, and amateurish enthusiasm. Second, the band's simple reliance on quick-strummed acoustic guitar and beguilingly simple melodies, embellished occasionally by an organ or flute, make their songs easy to underestimate. Third, the band only released three EPs between 1985 and 1988 (all three being collected on Compilation) - that kind of output doesn't gain you a rabid fan following. And fourth, we may be overlooking the simple fact that this band called themselves LOOK BLUE GO PURPLE. That is not a winning name however you measure such things.

Regardless of the whys and wherefores of Look Blue Go Purple being more or less "lost to the ages", Compilation stands as a solid record of the band's vision and capability. Rather than arranging the three EPs in strict chronological order, Compilation mixes tracks from the first two EPs and then ends with the third EP's five tracks in succession. This works well because the first EP is a little monotonous, relying heavily on the song formula I described above. The second and third EPs, on the other hand, each have standout tracks in the natural singles "Cactus Cat" and "I Don't Want You Anyway", with peppy and ingratiating melodies and obvious hooks. Look Blue Go Purple also stretched out into more drone-y territory with songs like "Hiawatha" and "Days of Old" on these EPs and perfected their quick-strum-and-chanting formula with songs like "Year of the Tiger". Crappy name notwithstanding, Look Blue Go Purple left behind a neat, bite-sized package of songs with Compilation that can be enjoyed easily by anyone with a taste for kiwi-pop obscurities.

"Year of the Tiger" by Look Blue Go Purple

"I wanna take a little time to say, 'Thank you, Baby!'"

Painting titled Composition No. 1 by Lionel LeMoine FitzGerald, 1951

Happy Thanksgiving, everyone.

I'm just posting a short "cop-out" post today, thanking everyone who visits this blog. My token of appreciation is this obscure early b-side from soul-music great Betty Wright. Recorded in 1966 (I think) for Solid Soul records as the flip-side to the also-great "Mr. Lucky", "Thank You Baby" features a very cool lead vocal and some nice back-ups as well. It's funny because, at the time this was recorded, Wright was still a teenager singing back-up for Helene Smith. Even on these early singles, Wright was already starting to outshine her former boss - I particularly love her phrasing on the bridge.

"Thank You Baby" by Betty Wright

We Love the Velvet Underground: "Too Little, Too Late" by the Dream Syndicate

Figure from How to Breathe, Speak and Sing by Robert Stephenson, 1914

Ages ago, when I first started hearing about the Dream Syndicate, I was confused. Then I was excited. Then I was disappointed. I was confused because I couldn't keep the Dream Syndicate separated in my mind from two other (very different) '80s bands, Dream Academy and Dream Theater. Once I had that sorted out, I got excited because this "paisley underground" scene sounded interesting - an '80s psych-pop revival was just what I was looking for. I ended up disappointed because the Dream Syndicate's best record, 1982's much-lauded The Days of Wine and Roses, did not match my expectations at all. I had trouble at the time hearing the "pop" element in the Dream Syndicate's songs - to my ears, it was all wanky guitar heroics, extended jams, and melodrama.

To be honest, I've never fully overcome that first impression, and it makes it hard for me to really get into The Days of Wine and Roses. However, I find that I enjoy the album more when I come to it from a "We Love the Underground" angle - Steve Wynn's love of Lou Reed is embedded deep in his guitar playing and vocal delivery, as well as his songwriting. Even when bassist Kendra Smith took the vocal lead on one of Wynn's songs, as on "Too Little, Too Late", the VU influence comes through. I don't know if Smith is intentionally evoking Nico in her phrasing, but the lazy slide guitar and thumping, melodic bass line come straight out of the Velvet Underground's 1969 self-titled record.

"Too Little, Too Late" by the Dream Syndicate

It's New to Me: Scott Wilk + the Walls by Scott Wilk + the Walls

Cover illustration by Ed Emsh from Ward Moore and Avram Davidson's Joyleg, 1962

So I was reading an article about reissue labels, the ones that re-release records that have been out of print for ages, and I came across the name Wounded Bird Records. I don't know how I'd never heard of them before, but the comment in the article said that it was a label with particularly poor quality control, willing to re-release just about anything they could secure the rights to. I immediately went to the Wounded Bird website and ordered the CD with the coolest cover.

That record was the self-titled 1980 release from Chicago band Scott Wilk + the Walls - the album had red, green, and yellow polygons on the cover and pretty much screamed, "I'm from 1980!" The CD showed up at my house and, as soon as I popped it in the player, I was fascinated. The opening track, "Radioactive", sounded just like This Year's Model-era Elvis Costello - the similarity was eerie. Some quick Googling revealed that, in 1980, people had noticed the similarity too and remarked on it. Scott Wilk + the Walls hadn't made a second record. Scott Wilk had gone on to contribute music to some '80s teen movies and then gone into writing music for TV (the show Duckman being one showcase of his writing).

The thing about Scott Wilk + the Walls, though, is that it sounds like Elvis Costello, but it doesn't sound like any Elvis Costello record out there. Apart from a few poppy tracks like "Radioactive" and "Familiarity Breeds Mutation", the record is quite moody-sounding and downbeat. Some of the sound choices are more "mainstream new wave" and synth-oriented, but the songwriting is fairly strong and captures a very particular vibe, as if Costello had recorded a whole album based around the sound of "I Want You" or "Inch By Inch". "Instant This, Instant That" is one of the album's best songs, catching a little of that creepiness and paranoia without being as outright dark as some of the other tracks. It also has a nice piano riff and some cool finger-snaps on the chorus.

"Instant This, Instant That" by Scott Wilk + the Walls

In Stores Now: Play It Strange by the Fresh & Onlys

Illustration from a Sanforized-Shrunk advertisement printed in LIFE magazine, September 18, 1939

I haven't really been keeping up with the recent garage-rock underground revival, for the most part. The fact is that, with the variety of labels and formats involved, I don't really have the energy for it, in spite of the good things I've been hearing about bands like Thee Oh Sees, Sonny & the Sunsets, and the Fresh & Onlys. I made a special effort in the case of Play It Strange, though, after hearing a couple tracks from it that had really nice "earworm" qualities.

The Fresh & Onlys play poppy, reverby-heavy garage rock with a real psych-pop bent and some interesting influences. The one that struck me the most the first time I listened to Play It Strange was the spaghetti-Western sound in many of the guitar leads, especially in the first third of the album where the Morricone-esque hook of "Waterfall" is a real highlight. The other highlight of the album's first half is "Tropical Island Suite", and ambitious almost-eight-minute song that really breaks from the retro-garage style in its structure and sound. This was the song that convinced me to buy the album, and it remains one of my favorite tracks, taking an above-average garage-pop sketch and morphing it into an extended chant/jam. It really evokes the darkness-enshrouded campfire scene from the album's cover, and it shows that the Fresh & Onlys have some interesting/ambitious ideas about what can be done with a basic psych-garage sound.

I have to admit, though, after the album's three strong opening tracks and the album-peak "Tropical Island Suite", Play It Strange takes a dip in songwriting quality. The five songs that follow "Tropical Island Suite" are all three-minute retro-garage numbers of slightly varying flavors, but nothing really sticks. Songs with names like "Be My Hooker" and "Plague of Frogs" deserve better, although I'll admit that these songs do start to differentiate themselves more after a few listens. And the album ends nicely with the acoustic jangle of "Red Light, Green Light" and the languid "I'm a Thief". Verdict: Play It Strange is a psych-garage album with a good sound and has a couple very high highs, but it's got a little too much mediocre filler material.

"Waterfall" by the Fresh & Onlys

I Saw a Movie: Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows - Part I (2010)

Illustration by Harold Robert Millar from Edith Nesbit's The Enchanted Castle, 1907

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows was always going to be the toughest book in the series to adapt to film. J.K. Rowling was in the advanced stages of World-Builder's Disease when she wrote it - it's a common but sadly uncurable affliction that comes from toiling tirelessly under the weight of years of character development and exploration of a single imagined setting. The novel Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows is at once an exercise in abundance and spareness, delving into the history of Harry Potter's world and mythology while allowing the characters to stagnate in an oppressively static situation as they hide from the forces of evil. It's a book that is immensely rewarding for the dedicated Harry Potter fan, but the note-perfect adolescent character study and magical archeology at its heart are decidedly un-cinematic.

It doesn't help that, by necessity, the book had to be split into two halves in being adapted for the screen by writer Steve Kloves (who, I think, has single-handedly made this franchise a success instead of the steaming pile of garbage it easily could have been). Kloves makes the best of the material, as always, but it's definitely an uphill battle. The Deathly Hallows has a weird pacing, omitting the series' key location (Hogwarts) entirely as it moves from dramatic and adventurous set-piece sequences to long stretches of Harry, Hermione, and Ron twitching and glaring at each other in a tent in the woods.

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows - Part I gets its three big sequences out of the way within the first hour (the chase, the wedding, and the infiltration of the Ministry), leaving an hour and a half of character study for the remainder of the movie. I think the intent was to set up the confrontation with Bellatrix Lestrange as a big finale (followed by an ominous Empire-Strikes-Back-style denouement), but it doesn't make for much of an ending. It would have been nice if they could have abridged some of the more meditative sequences so that they could end the movie with the story's next big set-piece (the heist of Gringotts), but it wasn't feasible. The editing is already too close to continual jump-cuts in order to squeeze everything in, and the book simply wasn't built to be split easily in two.

Having said all that, though, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows - Part I is like the novel in that it is a satisfying immersion in the Harry Potter world for the true fan. The visuals are as good as anything in the series, with several issues staying fully formed in my mind hours after the movie ended - the empty Dursley flat with its tacky wallpaper, the quasi-Soviet styling of the new Ministry of Magic, the dirigible plums floating up serenely from the destroyed Lovegood home - I could go on and on. The special effects are also very good and seamless in most sequences, adding to the visual appeal. The principal performances are all quite good as well - Rupert Grint still lags behind his peers in the line-delivery department, flubbing a few key exchanges, but Daniel Radcliffe and Emma Watson are as good as you could hope for. Watson in particular is the acting highlight here, doing most of the emotional heavy lifting in the "squabbling in a tent" sequences. The supporting cast shines as always, and the music is on par with past chapters, but the whole movie is basically a teaser for the big show in the real finale. Has January ever seemed so far away?

"Electric Child of Witchcraft Rising" by the New Pornographers

Probabilistic Jukebox: "Flex" by the Moles

Panel from Camera Comics issue #5, April 1945

I shouldn't have bought On the Street by the Moles - I can see that now. The two-CD collection seemed like a good way to get to know Richard Davies' awesome but short-lived Australian pop band. But it went against my long-standing policy of getting the album instead of the compilation whenever possible - I should have just bought the expanded re-release of the Moles best album Untune the Sky. I guess I thought that On the Street would be worthwhile because of its second disc, a collection of rarities called Rare & Weird. The problem is that the Moles apparently didn't have many good rarities - of the nine songs on that bonus disc, at least half are throwaways, and a couple are of such questionable recording quality that they should have been omitted altogether.

I'll admit, though, that I like a couple of the tracks on Rare & Weird, including "Flex", a cover song originally from the debut album of New Zealand's Jean-Paul Sartre Experience. The Moles' take on "Flex" is a departure from their usual retro-psych-pop approach and hews fairly closely to the JPS Experience style, but it works. I was surprised to find that it was recorded live for Sydney radio station 2RES. It doesn't match the quality of the Moles' best work on Untune the Sky, but I really like the lazy organ line and the shouty chorus.

"Flex" by the Moles

In Stores Now: Write About Love by Belle & Sebastian

Cover illustration by E.W. Kemble from Joel Chandler Harris's On the Plantation, 1892

I'll admit that I gave Write About Love the proverbial short shrift - I bought it at the same time as Sufjan Stevens' The Age of Adz, but I hated the Sufjan Stevens record, and I conflated the negative buzz the two albums were getting at the time. I ended up giving Write About Love to my special lady friend to listen to in the car - she reported back that it wasn't that good. So it was almost a month after it came out that I ended up giving the Belle & Sebastian record a first listen - seriously diminished expectations may be involved, but I found myself enjoying it from the start.

Write About Love is not too surprising an album, combining the '60s soul-pop sounds of Stuart Murdoch's God Help the Girl with the goofy anything-goes approach of The Life Pursuit. The songwriting is a little spotty, with the good songs being pretty great while the not-good songs are simply unremarkable. The album starts off really well with four solid songs - "I Didn't See It Coming" is easily my favorite track on the record, with nice vocal interplay and a danceable rhythm (it probably doesn't hurt that this song is the one I remember best from the new ones they played live in Vegas last month). "Calculating Bimbo" is another side-one highlight, a ballad of the kind Stuart Murdoch favored around the time of The Boy With the Arab Strap - "The Ghost of Rockschool" and "Read the Blessed Pages" deliver similar ballad-y goodness in the album's second half. They form the beginning of the album's strong ending sequence. Unfortunately, Write About Love has a saggy middle that needs to be mentioned.

The weak middle third of the record begins with "Little Lou, Ugly Jack, Prophet John", a song that derails Write About Love's momentum with a bland melody and arrangement, as well as a jarring guest vocal from Norah Jones. It hearkens back to Monica Queen's singing on "Lazy Line Painter Jane" - the basic appeal of Belle & Sebastian vocals for me is the straightforward and under-confident delivery, emphasizing the storytelling aspects of the songs. Jones coos and purrs her vocal beautifully here, but it can't help but be a distraction. "Little Lou" ss the one song on the record where I lose track of the lyric every time.

Write About Love's title track and Stevie Jackson's "I'm Not Living in the Real World" have more enthusiasm than actual melodic appeal, but at least Carey Mulligan is a better fit for the band vocal-wise on the former track and Jackson's lead vocal is less pitchy than past performances on the latter. Questionable tacky synth sounds are another problem that pops up periodically on the album, but I can't grip too much because I honestly do enjoy listening to this album every time I put it on. As I said, though, a lot of that may have to do with remembering Stuart Murdoch capering across the stage in Vegas during the intro to "I Didn't See It Coming".

"I Didn't See It Coming" by Belle & Sebastian

It's New to Me: The Bible of Bop by Kimberley Rew (1981)

Illustration by Evelyn Brown from Coraddi magazine, March 1940

Most people that recognize the name Kimberley Rew are fans of the Soft Boys, the seminal surrealist-rock band Rew was in with Robyn Hitchcock in the late '70s. But almost everyone everywhere is familiar with one Kimberley Rew composition, the huge hit "Walking on Sunshine", which he wrote for his post-Invisible-Boys pop combo Katrina & the Waves. There's a sharp divide between those two segments of Rew's career, and The Bible of Bop is an odd little album/compilation that straddles the gap. Assembled from three singles that Rew recorded between the Soft Boys' final days and the early work of Katrina & the Waves, The Bible of Bop is a concise and cohesive collection of skewed power-pop songs, and it's just been re-released with some worthwhile bonus tracks.

The Bible of Bop is called an album, but it was really assembled from three very obscure previously released Kimberley Rew singles. Chronologically, the first piece of the puzzle is the "Stomping All Over the World" single from 1980, recorded as a Soft Boys side-project under Rew's name. Featuring Hitchcock and the other Soft Boys, the single's three tracks don't sound that different from what the band was doing at the time, but it's interesting to hear Rew's own songwriting style coming together. These tracks sound a little rougher than the others on The Bible of Bop (especially the two b-sides), but "Stomping All Over the World" and "Nothing's Going to Change" are top-notch anglo-power-pop.

In 1981, after the Soft Boys' split up, Rew released two more singles, "My Baby Does Her Hairdo Long" and "Nightmare". The former was recorded with the US power-poppers dB's and Mitch Easter, who were visiting London. These tracks are fun because of the obvious dB's influence - "My Baby Does Her Hairdo Long" is one of the best song on the compilation, with a stuttering verse melody and a swirling, wordless chorus. The "Nightmare" single was actually released under the name "The Waves", and is one of the first things Rew recorded with his new band. The three bonus tracks added to the new Bible of Bop reissue also date from this period, and the songs benefit from Rew's more confident songwriting chops and Katrina Leskanich's complementary harmony vocals.

The Bible of Bop is a hodge-podge of a-sides and b-sides and clocks in at under thirty minutes, but it makes an unexpectedly excellent album. I think it's fair to say that it's one of the most underrated power-pop albums of the early '80s - well worth tracking down if you're into that sound.

"My Baby Does Her Hairdo Long" by Kimberley Rew

In Stores Now: The Volebeats by the Volebeats

Cover illustration from The Rover and Adventure comic book #123, June 1, 1963

I thought of myself as a dyed-in-the-wool fan of alt-country music for a while. I think it started when I bought Uncle Tupelo's Anodyne in high school and it blew my mind, but I actually never strayed too far from the Wilco/Jayhawks/Oldham axis of the genre. At this point, it's been two years since I got excited about a new alt-country release, but The Volebeats - an out-of-the-blue contender for my favorite album of 2010 - is turning back time for me (a la Cher) and making it all seem new again.

The Volebeats are one of those great bands that barely even exists. They've been occasionally assembling, recording, and disbanding since 1989 according to the whims of frontman Jeff Oakes and guitarist/man-of-a-thousand-Detroit-bands Matthew Smith. They've recorded with a variety of Michigan musicians over the years, but I have to admit that I'd never heard of them (that I can remember) until I impulsively ordered their self-titled album recently. A nineteen-track alt-country tour de force, The Volebeats has all the attributes that I love from circa-1998 alt-country rock: Hank Williams traditionalism, British Invasion pop tunefulness, and plenty of Byrds-Buffalo-Springfield-Burrito-Brothers jangle and harmony.

With bare-bones arrangements built around strummed acoustic guitar and Matthew Smith's clean guitar leads, The Volebeats relies heavily on songwriting and harmonies to keep the listener entranced, and they pull it off surprisingly well over the album's hour-plus length...with one exception. The album's opening track, Oakes' "With You", is a real snoozer and almost had me convinced that I'd made a terrible mistake, but after that the album jumps from highlight to highlight. I'd argue that Smith's contributions here outshine those of Oakes by a slight margin, but the song's that are collaborations between the two are among the best.

Oakes and Smith each deliver one song of "twang-less" power-pop perfection - the former's "Me and You" is the album's obvious single, and the latter's "Things People Say" is the best power-pop song of 2010 by my reckoning. But the rest of the album skews heavily to jangly country-rock, from the Everly-Brothers-esque "Kathleen No" and "We Don't Like to Forget" to the melancholy greatness of tracks like "Dreams Come True" and "I'm Not Gonna Change My Mind". Covers of Ray Davies' "This Is Where I Belong" and Gene Simmons' (?!?) "See You Tonight" seem like potential padding in The Volebeats' marathon tracklist, but this album honestly doesn't seem long to me. And the key indicator is that I am playing it over and over again while other new releases are gathering dust. I recommend "1,000 Miles of Confusion" to get a sense of what's so great about this album - it has those harmonies and that clean guitar jangle, as well as a great lyric from Smith and an excellent chorus hook.

"1,000 Miles of Confusion" by the Volebeats

Title Fight: "I Don't Mind"

Watercolour from La Divine Comedie (Translated by Julien Brizeux) by Salvador Dali, 1959

Buzzcocks versus Badfinger - this is a pretty interesting match-up actually, and the two songs represent very different song types that appeal to me. Badfinger's "I Don't Mind" probably has my favorite intro of any Badfinger song. After a couple bars of quiet, faded-in drum and guitar, a two-part harmony comes in with a lovely verse melody. I'm guessing that it is Tom Evans and Joey Molland singing here - they share the writing credit on the song. The song loses a little of its beauty with the jarring first line of the chorus - the suddenly husky vocals are a little clumsy, but the song redeems itself with some spacey phasing effects on the vocals on the second verse and a nice piano break.

The Buzzcocks' "I Don't Mind" is a very different animal. A Pete Shelley composition, the 1978 single was the band's third (and the first from their debut album Another Music in a Different Kitchen). It's an exercise in aggressive and tuneful melodic concision - a hooky but abbreviated verse flows directly into an abbreviated chorus. By the 45-second mark, the band is at the bridge. The format of "I Don't Mind" is punk but the song's instincts are all pop, especially in the use of a variety of different wordless backing vocals to punctuate the song's different sections. This is as direct a forebear of the Guided By Voices school of songwriting as you are likely to find from this period, so I can't help but love it.

However, I have to give the victory to Badfinger here for two reasons: 1) My mood today is more "blissed-out, beautiful harmonies" than "punk-pop joy/angst", and 2) I set Badfinger up to lose a Title Fight a couple months ago (putting their "Love Me Do" against the Beatles's), and I've felt like I owed them some redemption.

Winner: BADFINGER

"I Don't Mind" by Badfinger

"I Don't Mind" by the Buzzcocks

Probabilistic Jukebox: "Sail Babylon Springs" by the Mountain Goats

Photo titled "New cars for 1955" by John Dominis from LIFE magazine, 1955

If a song comes up on the old Probabilistic Jukebox that seems like a poor fit, it's tempting to call for a "do-over". Take today's song, for instance - it's a song by the Mountain Goats, and I just wrote about a Mountain Goats side project earlier this week. However, I think it's productive to write about "Sail Babylon Springs", almost as an addendum (as it were) to my write-up of the Extra Lens's Undercard.

One complaint I've heard from old-school Mountain Goats fans about John Darnielle's recent releases like the new Extra Lens record is that they have an MOR/adult-contempo sound, too much a departure from John Darnielle's much-cherished boombox-recorded early albums. There have been plenty of such complaints going around since before the first "high-fi" Mountain Goats record, 2002's Tallahassee, but I remember the griping hitting some kind of fever pitch when the Babylon Springs EP came out in 2006. Released as a tour-only EP and recorded in Glasgow with Tony Doogan, the EP does have an oddly pristine sound, and the songs have an easy-listening vibe to them that foreshadowed the more subdued tone of recent Mountain Goats LPs.

In fact, the electric guitar and piano parts on this song sound so much like the Extra Lens's Franklin Bruno that I wish I could find my CD of the EP to check the liner notes to see if he's responsible. Trouser Press went so far as to call the song "Sail Babylon Springs" a Bob Seger pastiche, which is not as far-fetched or as insulting as it sounds as first. There's something "smooth" about this song, but I like it - it provides a nice counterpoint for the natural stridency of Darnielle's singing style, and it goes nicely with the lyric about the blissfulness of swimming in cool water.

"Sail Babylon Springs" by the Mountain Goats

In Stores Now: Innerspeaker by Tame Impala

Illustration from Kiplinger's Personal Finance magazine, April 1971

I know that I'm not being particularly relevant or current in writing about a not-so-new release six full months after it got a "Best New Music" rave from Pitchfork, but it's taken me a while to get my hands on a copy of Innerspeaker. Tame Impala, being an Australian psych-rock band, sensibly released the album in their native country/continent first, and the import version was pretty expensive here in the US. Then a cheaper US release that was talked about for June never materialized, so I ended up ordering the cheapest CD version I could find online. I'm glad I did, though, because this album really lives up to its initial (and continuing) buzz.

Comparing Innerspeaker to the work of Swedish retro/psychedelic rockers Dungen is appropriate but not particularly helpful - if you're a Dungen fan, you probably already have Innerspeaker. But if you aren't familiar with Dungen, then here's a way to make the comparison useful and flattering - imagine the best psych-rock band that's out there today, and then imagine if you replaced that band's Swedish-speaking lead singer with a Magical-Mystery-Tour-era John Lennon. Tame Impala find a good balance between epic guitar adventures, effects-heavy psychedelia, and immediate pop hooks. They sound like a really tight combo with an excellent rhythm section, which is why I was very surprised to read this in the liner notes: "All vocals and instruments by Kevin Parker except..." - apparently, Tame Impala's frontman Kevin Parker more or less recorded this album by himself. That's pretty impressive.

At 11 tracks, Innerspeaker is just the right length to hit all the buttons it needs to, with a requisite extended epic track ("Runway, Houses, Cities, Clouds"), a decent instrumental to let the guitars take center stage for a minute ("Jeremy's Storm"), and nine really accessible, poppy psych-rock tracks with great phased-into-oblivion vocal melodies. "Lucidity" is not the clear standout track on the album (the album is too consistent to have one), but it shows one of the approaches Tame Impala is good at - skipping the intro part entirely, the song immediately introduces a lazily-delivered verse and a clanging, reverb-heavy guitar line. After a fuzzy guitar break, the blissed-out chorus comes and washes over you in waves. Wash, rinse, repeat.

"Lucidity" by Tame Impala

It's New to Me: Tiger Bay by Saint Etienne (1994)

Illustration from the Pine Burr annual of Mississippi Woman's College, 1926

I love a good reissue program, and, in the last year or so, we've seen a great set of reissues from UK pop combo Saint Etienne. I've already written about 1993's So Tough, and I've also bought (but forgot to review for some reason) 1997's Continental. That brings us to the most recent reissue, 1994's Tiger Bay (yes, they are releasing these reissues in some non-chronological order). Tiger Bay is arguably the most high-concept of Saint Etienne's first run of albums, ditching the dialogue snippets and sunny dance-pop of To Tough in favor of a darker combination of traditional English folk and techno. They were listening to a lot of Pentangle and Underground Resistance at the time (and possibly doing a lot of ecstasy).

The hit-to-miss ratio of Tiger Bay is about the same for me as on other Saint Etienne records I've bought - half-a-dozen great singles and ballads, a couple slightly-overlong instrumentals, and a couple moody tracks for texture. Like the others, though, the great sequencing on Tiger Bay makes the record better than that ratio would imply. The clean guitar lines of "Former Lover", "Marble Lions", and "Pale Movie" form the foundation for the acoustic theme of the album, while the motorik beats of "Like a Motorway" and "Urban Clearway" emphasize the album's electronic sounds. The album's centerpiece "Western Wind/Tankerville/Western Wind" is where it all comes together in an epic three part track sandwiching a dark techno number between verses of a 16th-century ballad (earlier editions of the album split this track up, but this reissue sensibly combines the whole 7-minute suite into a single track).

The second disc of the new Tiger Bay reissue shows how productive this period was for Saint Etienne, including six first-rate b-sides and unreleased tracks from the period like "I Buy American Records" and "Hate Your Drug", as well as nice demo versions of album's tracks. You could almost call it a just-as-good alternate version of the record, but it ends with two Christmas songs, a jarring reminder that you're listening to an odds-and-ends collection. One of my favorite tracks on the bonus disc is "The Wedding of Stacy Dorning", a tribute to the actress who played the young lead on the early-'70s The Adventures of Black Beauty. With its peppy drum-machine rhythm and harmonica break, it's a nice combination of the Tiger Bay folk-techno and the band's sunnier early singles.

"The Wedding of Stacy Dorning" by Saint Etienne

In Stores Now: Undercard by the Extra Lens

Cover illustration of Richard Hoffman's The Girl in Poison Cottage by Barye Phillips, 1953

It must be tough sometimes to be one of the most consistently great songwriters in the game today - John Darnielle of the Mountain Goats would probably get more plaudits and rave reviews if he went away for a little while and then came back, but that's just not how he rolls. He just keeps putting out albums of good songs, and it gets to the point where they all blur together. His new one, Undercard, has a new talking point attached to it, at least, as it comes from his new "band" the Extra Lens. Eight years ago, Darnielle and friend Franklin Bruno recorded an album for Absolutely Kosher Records under the name "the Extra Glenns", and the plan/commitment was to release one or two more such albums. Darnielle's relationship with Absolutely Kosher broke down at some point, though (tragically, as the label is responsible for many people being exposed to Darnielle's work, me included), so Darnielle switched the name up a little to release a sequel record through Merge Records.

In a nutshell, Franklin Bruno is our differentiator here. Before I address whether his participation makes much of a difference on Undercard, I should say that I am a big Franklin Bruno fan - I especially love the Nothing Painted Blue records, and it's pretty cool that he is also a published Elvis Costello expert and a professor of philosophy who's taught at UCLA and Bard. His lyric-writing has always been a cousin to Darnielle's literary-vignette style, but his three lyrical contributions to Undercard are easily on par with Darnielle's - because Darnielle handles all the lead vocals, you could easily mistake them for his own compositions. "How I Left the Ministry" and "Some Other Way" embrace Darnielle's fatalism especially well, and make twin highlights in the album's middle section.

Bruno's big contributions, though, are in his guitar work and other sonic embellishments on Undercard. Bruno's harmonies elevate the songs wherever they pop up here, the bells and lead guitar on the intro of "How I Left the Ministry" provide an unexpected and nice baroque-pop sound, and Bruno's piano work is always great. However, there are some very un-Mountain-Goats sounds on this record that could be seen as the album's big weakness (apart from the numbingly consistent high quality of the songs). Some of the showier guitar lines on songs like "Rockin' Rockin' Twilight of the Gods" don't really fit the songwriting too well, and some of the synths don't really work either (see the otherwise excellent "Dogs of Clinic 17").

A couple low-key numbers in the second half of Undercard drag the momentum down too much - the cover of Randy Newman's "In Germany Before the War" is particularly underwhelming, considering how good the Leonard Cohen cover on their first album was. Overall, though, Darnielle and Bruno deliver a great set of short stories of gallows humor (and sometimes gallows without the humor.) I particularly like "Only Existing Footage", a song that I have to believe is based on the making of the movie Death Bed: The Bed That Eats (as well as Patton Oswalt's comedy routine on the making thereof [profanity warning on that link BTW]).

"Only Existing Footage" by the Extra Lens

We Love the Velvet Underground: "Peng! 33" by Stereolab

Illustration titled "Kyo Maruyama Okaruyaki by unknown artist, c. 1875

I thought I was done with "We Love the Velvet Underground", but I realized today that I missed one of my favorite VU-influenced bands. Over the last decade-plus, Stereolab has been Europe's premiere space-age Marxist-lounge-pop band, so it's easy to forget that they started out in the early '90s as a rougher, more guitar-oriented Marxist-lounge-pop band. From '90 to '96, Stereolab records had a very definite Velvet Underground sound, particularly in the tone and style of the rhythm guitar - it's no surprise that the Velvets sound became less pronounced as they became a less guitar-oriented band.

The best examples of this guitar sound are found on early Stereolab tracks like "Motoroller Scalatron", "You Little Shits", or "Revox" (anything from the first two Switched On comps would work), but I really felt like posting the title track from Stereolab's first album, Peng. It's been a favorite of mine since the first time I heard it (embarrassing confession: the first version of "Peng! 33" I heard was a cover by Iron & Wine - that version is worth tracking down if you like the song).

"Peng! 33" by Stereolab

Probabilistic Jukebox: "Hammer I Miss You" by Jay Reatard

Lithograph titled "Les Mangeurs de Glace" by Louis Leopold Boilly, 1825

"Hammer I Miss You" was the first song by Jay "Reatard" Lindsey that really caught my attention. It was shortly after an incident at a Toronto gig, where Lindsey had punched an audience-member in the face - that sort of thing doesn't usually impress me, but I ended up watching this concert video on Pitchfork, and "Hammer I Miss You" was the song that stood out.

Having it pop up on the Jukebox today got me thinking about what a good year 2010 could have been for Lindsey if he hadn't passed away in January. He would have released a new record on Matador in the spring or summer - I have a feeling it would have been an amazing album. He would have performed at the big Matador 21 show in Vegas. He would have been involved in collaborations with other interesting musicians.

Instead, we're left listening to the best of what Lindsey left behind. When I first heard the actual "Hammer I Miss You" single, I was surprised at how much slower it was than the live version that had impressed me. But I don't think that that's the reason why it sounds like a slowed-down punk song to me - I think that was the intention in its writing. And the contrast between the up-front vocals on the verse and the hazy chorus is a really interesting choice - Lindsey was a guy with a rare combination of tireless punk enthusiasm, an instinct for pop hooks, and an ear for weird/different sounds. 2010 would have been a good year for him.

"Hammer I Miss You" by Jay Reatard

It's New to Me: ...xyz by Moose (1992)

Detail of cover illustration from Popular Science magazine, July 1950

You don't hear much about the London band Moose, but when I do hear them mentioned it's usually as part of a list of lesser-known shoegaze bands of the early '90s. I heard good things about their debut album ...xyz from a few different people, so I picked it up a little while ago. It's not really a shoegaze album at all, though. Apparently, Moose started out by releasing several EPs that had all the shoegaze sounds: big effects-laden guitars, prominent booming drums, pulsing basslines, and sing-song nursery-rhyme melodies. But, by the time they got around to releasing a full-length record, Moose had moved on to a more accessible pop sound.

The first indicator you get that ...xyz is not a shoegaze record is in the pristine jangle-pop production provided by power-pop guru Mitch Easter. The songs on ...xyz also have a largely acoustic bent, with some prominent country-music sounds in the mix. The songs are quite accessible and poppy, but they might seem a little flat if not for the shoegaze influences that still lurk in the songs' corners. Weird guitar sounds and droney strumming underpin these almost-too-vanilla compositions in a way that makes them more engaging. The single "Little Bird (Are You Happy in Your Cage?)" is a clear standout on the album, but I also like the band's cover of "Everybody's Talking", as well as "Soon Is Never Soon Enough", which features the distractingly distinctive backing vocals of a pre-Cranberries Dolores O'Riordan.

One of the best things about the Cherry Red 2009 reissue of ...xyz is that it appends the Sonny & Sam EP to the end of the record. This seven-track EP contains the best of the early shoegaze EPs that Moose put out, and they provide a nice counterpoint to the proper album, showing just how much the band decided to change their sound early on. Some of these EP tracks are great, but I actually find Moose's post-shoegaze stuff just as interesting. A song like "Don't Bring Me Down" is a good example of the band's interesting approach - a droning strummed guitar provides the foundation, but a sprightly acoustic/country arrangement sits on top of it, reminiscent of a lightweight mid-period Jesus & Mary Chain. Like a lot of Moose songs, it doesn't really have an in-your-face pop hook, so it's more "pleasant" than "exciting". Still nice, though.

"Don't Bring Me Down" by Moose

In Stores Now: The Age of Adz by Sufjan Stevens

Illustration from the catalog "Presenting Eaton's Wallpaper's for 1940", 1940

I'll admit that it was the "50 States" project that initially drew me to Sufjan Stevens - I like big, goofy pop-music projects, and Stevens' Michigan and Illinois albums were the beginning of something so big and unfinishable that I couldn't help but cheer the guy on. It didn't hurt that Stevens had an interesting approach to music and lyrics, mixing folky sounds with big orchestration while combining historical/geographical lessons with his personal (often Christianity-inflected) perspective. The stories in his songs made a real lasting impression - the first time I heard "Romulus", I was impressed by the openness and intimacy of his approach. A lot has changed, though, since Stevens set the "50 States" project aside five years ago, and a surprising amount of what I admire about Stevens as a songwriter has gone out the window with his latest release, The Age of Adz.

The Age of Adz was heavily influenced by two things: Stevens' interest in schizophrenic outsider artist Royal Robertson, and Stevens' experiences with an illness that caused chronic pain. So it's not totally a surprise that he has created an album that is about as pleasant as the combination of schizophrenia and chronic pain should be. The album starts out with a fake-out of sorts with the folky "Futile Devices", a song that has the melodicism, impactful lyric, and judicious economy of composition that Stevens' emphasized in his best work. From there, though, all those things are cast aside in favor of excess, confusion, and lack of focus. Apart from a few brief interludes, the remaining tracks of The Age of Adz all outstay their welcome and become obnoxious. I can only praise some songs by saying that they are less tiresome than others.

"I Walked" and "Vesuvius" fare best - each of these only really needs a minute or so excised from their respective outros, and they actually have a decent balance of synthesized and organic sounds that is not headache-inducing. Lyrically, they are pretty empty, but Stevens seems to have abandoned his narrative writing style entirely on this record, so manage your expectations accordingly. Songs like "Too Much" and "I Want to Be Well" have a decent hook and a couple good musical ideas, but they are drowned in an overwhelming cacophony by the time they hit their midpoints. And epic tracks like the insane parade-stomping title track and the 25-minute closer "Impossible Soul" demonstrate that Stevens has no shortage of bad musical ideas at this point. If Stevens wants us to feel his pain, it's working - when I get to the end of the marathon that is The Age of Adz, I feel like I need a few hours to lie down and recuperate.

"I Walked" by Sufjan Stevens

It's New to Me: Fulfillingness' First Finale by Stevie Wonder (1974)

Cover illustration of the pamphlet "Have You a Heart?" by the Friends of Soviet Russia, 1922

Stevie Wonder's mid-'70s "classic period" is one of the great accomplishments of pop music, but it's been a blind spot of mine for a long time. Until recently, "Superstition" was probably the only Wonder song from this period that I could hum for you. I'm trying to rectify this situation - step one was to buy the two Stevie Wonder records that seemed like they'd fit my tastes best, Songs in the Key of Life and Fulfillingness' First Finale. I thought that the former record would be my immediate favorite, being a sprawling double album that features two of Wonder's best singles ("As" and "Sire Duke"), but it's left me cold after a couple listens, where Fulfillingness' First Finale is one that I enjoy playing over and over.

Fulfillingness' First Finale doesn't seem like a natural fit for me - it's got two big pop singles on it, "Boogie On Reggae Woman" (which is much better than any song with that title has any right to be) and "You Haven't Done Nothin'" (a timely polemic against President Nixon), but it's really a "ballads" album. It's got a sweet love ballad ("Too Shy to Say"), a creepy ballad ("Creepin'"), an upbeat ballad ("Smile Please"), and a couple less distinctive ballads ("It Ain't No Use" and "Please Don't Go") that fill out the album nicely. But, for all its balladry, Fulfillingness doesn't really come across as a down-tempo album. Wonder's songwriting is so strong here that the songs differentiate themselves and stay interesting without having to bring the energy level up too high.

The two "epic" songs on Fulfillingness' First Finale may be the most divisive among fans. The first is "Heaven is 10 Zillion Light Years Away" - I think that some people may be bothered by the weirdly upfront Christian theme, but it doesn't affect my enjoyment of the bouncy melody. The other longish song on the album is "They Won't Go When I Go", a meditative piece that is the only one on the album recorded entirely by Wonder. I've heard complaints that it kills the album's momentum, but I think that it fits quite well in the album's second half and, again, the songwriting is so strong that it doesn't grow tiresome. I was drawn to the immediate familiarity of its melody at first, but I must now shamefully admit that it's because I had a cassette of the George Michael cover version when I was a kid.

The depth of Fulfillingness' First Finale is such that I could share any one of several favorites here, but I'd like to shine the spotlight on the less-talked-about "Bird of Beauty" here. It's the album's "lounge" ballad, built around a light samba sound and a distinctive quica percussion line. I'm not sure what Wonder is singing in the Portuguese section of the song, but the chorus is pretty clearly an anti-drug thing, possibly also referencing Wonder's car accident from the previous year, in which he suffered a head injury that left him in a coma and robbed him of his sense of smell. I like the cooing background vocals a lot on this track.

"Bird of Beauty" by Stevie Wonder