Vinyl Vednesday 3/16/2011

[Vinyl Vednesday is a weekly feature about three favorite vinyl finds. It’s not meant to be a dick-measuring contest, but usually turns out that way. This week’s entry features three Irish bands in celebration of St. Patrick’s Day. I’m half-Irish and all-ignorant of my cultural identity. Have a Smithwick’s and e-mail pelonej1@gmail.com with your own big finds!]

Records: Flogging Molly’s Drunken Lullabies (2002) on clear green, My Bloody Valentine’s Things Left Behind (2001) on black, and U2’s Boy (1980) on black.

Place of Purchase: Flogging Molly came from Hot Topic (Remember when they sold good vinyl?). MBV from Repo Records. I believe U2 came from Disc World in Conshohocken (R.I.P.), but it could have been Legends from the Plymouth Meeting Mall (also R.I.P…. sigh, I’m getting old).

Thoughts: Flogging Molly gets slagged for rehasing The Pogues Celtic folk + punk formula, but honestly, I always kind of preferred Molly. They just rock a little harder on record, and frontman Dave King has a knack for lyrics that alternate between tear-in-your-beer sadness and all-out glee. And hey, Steve Albini recorded them! That guy did In Utero, so that’s cool. Drunken Lullabies has some of Flogging Molly’s most popular tunes, including “Drunken Lullabies,” “What’s Left of the Flag,” and “Rebels of the Sacred Heart.” Really, I could just type the tracklisting and some people would assume it was a greatest hits package. I plan to blast the complete Flogging Molly discography tomorrow for maximum fun.

Things Left Behind captures My Bloody Valentine before they really became My Bloody Valentine. While regarded by some as the greatest shoegaze band and creators of one on the best albums of the ’90s, MBV started off as a fuzzed out horror-punk band (hence the ’80s horror movie reference in their name). They were never The Misfits, though, so MBV had something of a twee bent to them. You can hear them trying to play like The Jesus & Mary Chain, but they’re not quite there. For a more contemporary reference, they sound like the first Pains of Being Pure at Heart album. A lot. MBV got way better from here, but I like visiting their roots on occasion. Things Left Behind collects some of their earliest EPs, such as Geek! and The New Record by My Bloody Valentine.

With every passing year, it gets harder for me to defend U2. But the band’s records up through 1991’s Achtung Baby are mighty fine [Although Zooropa and All That You Can’t Leave Behind are good too]. My second favorite album of theirs, besides War, is Boy. U2 started out as a Clash-inspired punk band, but by the time they got to Island Records, they skewed more towards post-punk. That phase ended after War, but here they mix jittery angles and passionate yells to great effect. “I Will Follow” is a catchy single, while “An Cat Dubh” reveals the more ethereal places U2 could go when they weren’t obsessed with being the Biggest Band in the World^TM.

Vinyl Vednesday 3/17/10

[Vinyl Vednesday is a weekly feature about three favorite vinyl finds. It’s not meant to be a dick-measuring contest, but it kinda is. This week’s entry features three Irish bands in celebration of St. Patrick’s Day. I’m half-Irish and all-ignorant of my cultural identity. Have a Smithwick’s and e-mail pelonej1@gmail.com with your own big finds!]

Records: My Bloody Valentine’s Loveless (1991) on black, The Pogues’ Rum Sodomy & the Lash (1985) on black, and U2’s War (1983) on black.

Place of Purchase: Loveless came from Repo Records while Rum was a Siren find. War was the result of some crate-digging at the dearly departed Disc World in Conshohocken.

Thoughts: I tend to overrate Loveless when I talk about it, which some big dumb jerks don’t appreciate (SCREW YOU FOREVER WITH A BRICK, NATE ADAMS*), but it’s hard to talk about the album without hyperbole. It belongs to that rare lexicon of records that is often imitated, never improved upon. I love plenty of bands that capture elements of My Bloody Valentine’s sound – M83, Jesu, Pains of Being Pure at Heart – but ultimately it’s MBV’s Loveless that I turn to most frequently. It sounds great cranked up or turned down low, as wave after wave of synesthesia hits me. There is nothing like it. Loveless is an experimental record that somehow forges guitar noise into a dream pop setting. Some folks sneer at the band’s dependence on effects pedals over dexterity, but the truth is no one else has been able to balance so fine a blend of catchy chaos. Most groups end up either too formless or too mild.

The Pogues’ sound is a lot easier to copy. In fact, there’s a whole subgenre of punk dedicated to recreating their style. While I prefer Flogging Molly, I must pay Shane MacGowan and company their due for updating Irish folk for the punk rock set. I must also confess I was ignorant of the band’s catalog until after college, when I picked up Rum Sodomy & the Lash. I didn’t buy it because it was one of the band’s better reviewed albums, or because Elvis Costello produced it. Rather, I bought it because of Side Two, Track One: “Dirty Old Town.” I’ve loved this song since Ted Leo covered it back in 2003. I’ve seduced my girlfriend many a time by singing the lyrics softly to her in bars and bedrooms (thus creating the impression that I am much more cultured than I really am). For me, covering this standard is the ultimate test of one’s Irish roots. The Pogues came through, though, and their originals were up to snuff as well. It’s funny; on record at least, I don’t think the band strays that far from folk music. They just play it a little bit more enthusiastically, is all.

In true Irish fashion, two-thirds of this post is about bands people love to hate. In My Bloody Valentine’s case, that hate stems from hipsters who think they’re too cool for school. In U2’s case, well… shit. I’m going to say Paul Tsikitas and my dad are the only other people I know who like U2, and we all agree that Bono is kind of, every so slightly, maybe just a little wee bit of a douche bag. But hey, he’s done a ton to fight AIDS and world hunger. War has been my favorite U2 album since I purchased it in high school. Opener “Sunday Bloody Sunday” gets my adrenaline pumping thanks to intense vocals and Larry Mullen’s military drum beat. “Like a Song…” touches on the divide in Ireland. Bono once famously said “Fuck the revolution,” and “Like a Song…” distills rage over the pointlessness of the Protestant/Catholic conflict – aren’t they all Christian? War is passionate throughout, bitter and hopeful in alternate breaths, which is probably why it dominated my entry on U2 for Playlist.

Happy St. Patrick’s Day, drunk white people!

*I’m sorry, Nate. It’s the Orangina talking. I loves you, baby girl.

Playlist: U2

[Playlist is an attempt to distill my favorite artists to 80-minute compilations. If someone asked me to burn them a mix of the bands featured here, I would give them this collection.]

I harbor two great, Irish guilts: Catholicism and U2. One is hopelessly outdated, incapable of dealing with the new challenges and advances of the 21st century. Sure, I applaud its humanitarian efforts, but most of its greatest contributions happened so long ago. All I hear now is epic failure.

Oh, and the other is Catholicism.

U2 released its 12 album this week, No Line on the Horizon, and I've been trying to think of a way to write about the band without actually having to listen to the got-damn record. If you've heard the cluttered mess of a lead single "Get On Your Boots" (linked above), then you know the album is going to suck, without question or apology. If you're a steadfast U2 fan, though, you're faced with a more intricate situation: How do you defend it? The band has squandered pretty much all of the good will it earned with the more modest, quiet success that was 2000's All That You Can't Leave Behind by going back the "experimental" techno-pop of, uh, Pop.

I want you to think of the most famous U2 songs. At what point does Pop pop into your head? Can you name any songs off of Pop, besides maybe "Discotheque?" Pop was a huge failure for U2, burdened with too much half-baked irony and dance beats. I have no idea why bassist Adam Clayton and drummer Larry Mullen Jr. would put up with The Edge's stupid electronic experiments on No Line on the Horizon, when they almost left the band in the mid-'90s for the exact same reason.

To help promote the new album, Comcast's OnDemand service is currently offering all of U2's music videos (Yes, even "Discotheque"). Since I was still stupidly interested in writing about the band this week, I opted to watch all the vids and discuss that experience. This was a bad idea. Sometimes it was awesome ("I Will Follow" has great dancing, Larry fucks a mermaid in "Electrical Storm," and "All I Want is You" is perfect on every level), and sometimes it was awesomely bad ("Lemon," the be-leathered "Elevation"), but mostly it was just badly bad ("All Because of You," the 103 different versions of "One"). I quit halfway.

I went into that experiment trying to figure out why people hate U2's music. My girlfriend is extremely vocal about U2's suckitude, and for a while I thought maybe it was because, being a little older than me, she's more a '90s kid than I am. And the '90s are when U2 really did not rock (Do I have to trot out "Discotheque" again?). Now I realize it's something else: U2 simply wrote a lot of shitty songs, many of which ended up as singles.

Right now, I'm sitting my family room, wearing jeans and a brown Beach Boys t-shirt with the Endless Summer album cover. The Beach Boys, or what I wear on my days off from work, isn't too relevant, but what the The Beach Boys' music represents is. As you may or may not remember, The Beach Boys and The Beatles had a creative rivalry for a brief period in the '60s. It ended when The Beatles responded The Boys' Pet Sounds, itself a reaction The Beatles' Rubber Soul, with Revolver and Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band. BB mastermind Brian Wilson collapsed under the pressure of trying to complete his answer, Smile (which eventually came out in 2004). The Beatles continued to drop classic, perfect records for a few more years before dissolving, while most people considered The Beach Boys to be, a-heh, washed up. Only here's the thing: The Beach Boys kept writing great songs. Check out Surf's Up or Sunflower sometime. Those records boast the same kind of earnest, pure, sunny pop music found on Pet Sounds or Surfin' U.S.A. The Beach Boys were still great; they just weren't a singles band anymore.

And that's what I think U2 might be as well. Now, my favorite U2 song is still a hit ("Sunday Bloody Sunday"). But, my new theory is that maybe people hate U2's music because all of their songs are either A) massively overplayed or B) not played enough. It was in that vein that I crafted this playlist. It was the most difficult one to form yet, as U2 has quite a few songs. I tried avoid singles if possible, which is why I cut The Joshua Tree out pretty much altogether, but I ended up breaking that rule a lot (Look, "Beautiful Day" is a good song, clam-flammit). If my special lady friend ever lets me, I will sit her down and play this mix. It leans pretty heavily on War, but that's because it's one of the best freaking rock records of all dang time.



She's Gonna Live in America
1. "A Sort of Homecoming," The Unforgettable Fire
2. "Sunday Bloody Sunday," War
3. "I Will Follow," Boy
4. "Gloria," October
5. "Beautiful Day," All That You Can't Leave Behind
6. "An Cat Dubh," Boy
7. "Zoo Station," Achtung Baby
8. "Who's Gonna Ride Your Wild Horses," Achtung Baby
9. "Grace," All That You Can't Leave Behind
10. "Sweetest Thing," The Best of 1980-1990
11. "All I Want is You," Rattle and Hum
12. "In a Little While," All That You Can't Leave Behind [FACT: Joey Ramone was listening to this song when he died.]
13. "Stories for Boys," Boy
14. "Like a Song...," War [Here's a War block for ya.]
15. "The Refugee," War
16. "Surrender," War
17. ""40"," War
18. "Mlk," The Unforgettable Fire