Vinyl Vednesday 4/6/2011

[Vinyl Vednesday is a weekly feature about three favorite vinyl finds. It’s not meant to be a dick measuring contest, but it usually turns out that way. E-mail pelonej1@gmail.com with your own big finds!]

Records: Pretty Girls Make Graves’ All Medicated Geniuses seven-inch (2003) on black, Wilco’s Being There (1996) on black, and Stevie Wonder’s Music of My Mind (1972) on, again, black.

Place of Purchase: PGMG and Wilco came from Repo Records in Philadelphia. Music came from Smash Records in Washington, D.C.

Thoughts: I’ve been thinking about Pretty Girls Make Graves off and on lately. For a while, they were my favorite emo-turned-art-punk act. It didn’t matter if I was spinning their late period Discount rip Good Health or their dark, more post-punk-oriented follow-up New Romance. Either way, I was obsessed. All Medicated Geniuses was one of the first vinyls I picked up when I first got a record player. It’s probably most noticeable for a solid cover of Bow Wow Wow’s “C-30 C-60 C-90 Go!” but the originals are top-notch too. It’s a shame the Girls broke up, but I suppose it was inevitable after they started bleeding members and dropped the ho-hum swam song Elan Vital.

I bought Wilco’s Being There on a whim while I was waiting for my girlfriend to finish class. I’d been out of college for almost a year at that point and was doing nothing with degree. I had busted my ass to make honors and slogged through two journalism internships and came out with little in ways of fortunes. I felt like I had little value at the time; I think of 23 as my “lost year.” I tell you this because I heard “Misunderstood,” the opening track on Being There, while driving around Bucks County in this dejected mindset. The song is about being stuck in the same boring town with nothing better to do than grab a drink and forget. I put so much emotional investment into that one alt-country confessional that the lyrics became so much more. I get why people prefer Wilco’s later work, but Being There will always be my favorite album because of that one song. Heck, I don’t even think it needed to be a double album – that first record, with “Far, Far Away,” “Monday,” and “Forget the Flowers,” is all I need, although “The Lonely 1” comes close.

I feel like I’m being a bummer in this installment, so let’s talk about Stevie Wonder. I LOVE STEVIE WONDER. Prince led me to Wonder, and his ’70s run of records rivals Prince’s output in the ’80s. Shit, sometimes when I put on a Wonder record, I hear ideas that are still being ripped off to this day. The guy just oozed hits that perfectly mixed funk, blues, and soul. While some of his later work took on political intonations (Hotter Than July) and weighty concepts (Journey Through the Secret Life of Plants), Music of My Mind is a straight up party record through and through. Granted, there’s still some socio-political commentary at work, but I still can’t believe how effortlessly cool and alive these songs sound.

YEAH EVERYTHING IS GONNA BE OK.

Wilco - 'Wilco (the album)'

This year, I fell for Wilco (the band). Hard. It started with 1996’s double disc Being There, a chance purchase that hooked me right away with opener “Misunderstood.” Ignoring the fact that it’s alt-country and not out-and-out rock ‘n’ roll, it spoke to me like Bruce Springsteen’s Born to Run minus the gang violence. I too was “short on long term goals” and “so misunderstood” and such. Yankee Hotel Foxtrot followed, and it was even better. Frontman Jeff Tweedy hit me with another strong opener, “I Am Trying to Break Your Heart,” and he did so seemingly effortlessly. Summerteeth finally confirmed it; I was a fan.

So I suppose there are pros and cons to hearing Wilco (the album) mere months after falling in love with the band’s best songs. Had I been around earlier, maybe I wouldn’t be as disappointed by its laidback quality. Some bands benefit from time numbing the sweet taste of their successes (God damn you, Cursive). Maybe I’m taking Wilco’s discography for granted. But at the same time, I feel that, with “Heavy Metal Drummer” and “Ashes of American Flags” and a bevy of Billy Bragg covers fresh in my mind, I might be the one to call the slightest of bullshits on the bevy of praise Wilco (the album) has garnered so far.

Wilco (the album) is an OK record. It’s not bad. It’s not brilliant. It is just OK, like a lot of the albums great bands tend to put out later in their careers. The record combines bits of humor and the macabre, but for the most part, it’s just a reliably solid alt-country disc.

“Wilco (the song”) opens with self-aware Wikipedia humor. “Are you under the impression / this isn’t your life?” asks Tweedy. “Do you dabble in depression / Is someone twisting a knife in your back?” he presses, as if he doesn’t know my answer. “Wilco / Wilco / Wilco will love you baby,” he reminds me over chiming bells and pounding drums. It’s no “Misunderstood,” but it’s still a welcome set of “aural arms open wide / A sonic shoulder for you to cry on.”

“Deeper Down” dials down the energy a little, with gentle steel guitar. Everything is easy/breezy until the record’s middle or so, when “Bull Black Nova” and “You and I” hit. Summerteeth’s “She’s a jar” casually dropped domestic abuse references, but “Nova” goes even darker, detailing a murderer’s paranoid perspective – “They’re coming up the shoulders / What have they found? / I wonder if they know / I’m in a bull black Chevy Nova / silhouetted by the setting sun.” Coming mere minutes after the goofs of “Wilco (the song),” it’s shockingly frank, with its list of all the places the victim’s blood can be found. Claustrophobic piano and guitar lines make it all the more foreboding. In contrast is “You and I,” a love song featuring guest vocalist Feist. The tune pledges fidelity and hope in spite of miscommunication and mistrust. A tender track, it retroactively makes “Bull Black Nova” all the more disturbing, as if it were its prequel.

After that tender number, though, the record drifts into a haze. All of a sudden, you’re at the twinkling outro of “Everlasting Everything” and the album is over. Images of Tom Petty and George Harrison float by (especially during “You Never Know,” which bites from “My Sweet Lord”). While Wilco’s records aren’t perfect, they’ve never so steadily slipped into such a relaxed, bland state. Which is perhaps why I feel so let down. Wilco (the album) is pleasant, but I’ve spent the first half of 2009 being completely blown away by Wilco (the backcatalog).