Transformer - Lou Reed

Here's an image you didn't ask for or want: we put on our skinny black jeans and sexy danced in the lounge room to Vicious, the opening track of Lou Reed's seminal album Transformer from 1972.

This is a wacky album. It's theatrical, but grungy. Like some kind of musical about homeless crackpots on the streets of a dead American city. Suppose that what's you get when you put Lou Reed and David Bowie together. Transformer has glorious, momentous songs. But the overwhelming impression is of Reed creating show tunes - about the theatre of the lives he has witnessed. Reed is an observer. This album has more of a pop sensibility than the Velvet Underground. The songs are not as loose, not the creative ambitious mess that some of the Velvet's best work was. Perhaps Bowie had a role in the neat song construction. 

The only wedding you should hear Perfect Day at is a junky's. Perfect Day is a majestic waltz. A dichotomous song - orchestral and overwrought but about simple, impoverished, troubled love. It is sinister, beautiful and malicious. It may be a song about love but it's not a love song. It's about raw, bad-for-each-other love. A relationship that brings out the worst in you.

Walk on the Wild Side. What a song. From the very beginning it has depth to its sound created by the electric bass and double bass playing the same riff at the same time. "But she never lost her head, even when she was giving head." Such a good line that we can  forgive Reed for rhyming head with head.

Satellite of Love sounds like a saccharine pop song, but it drips with derision for hollow human achievement. Forget progress - the smallness of human life and love on earth is more than enough. The coda with Reed's tinny vocals, the simple percussion and Bowie's soaring falsetto (layered about fifty times over itself into a massive choir of Bowies - what a wonderful thought!) is one of the most exciting, triumphant moments of pop music. Satellite of Love was written for the Velvet Underground. Thank god he recorded it again with Bowie.

Transformer is an incredible album. Lou Reed has inspired countless boys to form bands. His influence is immense. Transformer made him a superstar. (Which is why it is so devastating to see this. A great song completely and utterly decimated. Lou Reed, Bono, Bowie, the woman from M People, Tom Jones, and others carpet bomb a village. It could almost be a funny as a satire except it is a BBC promotion from 1997. Shame.) If you watch that clip, don't leave it as the final taste in your mouth. Do a shot of whiskey and listen to Walk on the Wild Side one more time.

Mos Def & Talib Kweli Are Black Star

Some of our gorgeous family are visiting for Easter so this Classic Album Martini Saturday was inspired and dedicated to them. We indulged in vetoing selections from the basket until a hip hop album was selected. Nebraska and Nashville Skyline couldn't cut it but Mos Def and Talib Kweli are Black Star would do just perfectly. Eliza and Dyl were beside themselves.

Black Star was a seminal moment in hip-hop. Released in 1998 after the deaths of Biggie and Tupac, it offered an alternative to the self-indulgent aggression, violence and hedonism of west coast rap that dominated hip hop in the mid-1990s. Black Star was the re-birth of soulful, positive rap music. Honest, informed hip hop with something to say. Tracks like Brown Skin Lady talked about women being equal - a woman as a woman, not a bitch or a ho. 

Mos Def and Talib Kweli. Both were young and both had flows that could go for days and days. Raw, yet polished. Rapid fire delivery but easy rhymes. 

Many hip hop albums are collections of average songs built around a few hook-laden keystone singles. But together, Mos Def and Talib Kweli delivered a complete album with consistent themes and songs that ease into each other. Creatively on the same page, complementing each other with equally solid verses through the entire album.

Hi-Tek's beats give the album a mood. Smooth, but edgy. The beats lay the foundation for the song without trying to dominate it with tricks. The 'Style Wars' sample reminds you of the birth of hip hop and the original energy of teenagers creating art with no boundaries, before hip hop became hip pop. 

That's not to say that the album doesn't have any hooks. Definition and Re: Definitions have the killer chant - One two three/Mos Def and Talib Kweli/We came to rock it on to the tip top/Best alliance in hip hop, Y-O/

This is known as 'conscious rap'. It's an interesting term to delineate hip hop with rhymes about social issues and personal struggles from hip hop that's just about money and girls. The lyrics are positive, looking to inspire and involve the audience. It's not about gangs but it is about the street. This album pulled in the opposite direction to where most mainstream rap was going at the time (and still is). Part of why hip hop has always had artists to do that is maybe because up-and-coming artists are less beholden to record companies. In the beginning, record companies were not interested in hip hop, so emcees and DJs formed their own labels and released their own music. It was the first mainstream DIY genre. 

Mos Def and Talib offered wisdom, clarity and peace. Perfect for an Easter Saturday with family. 

OK Computer - Radiohead

Another contemporary classic pulled from the basket. Radiohead's third album. This might be the most confessional of all the Classic Album Martini Saturdays. Therefore there is B and there is L.

As soon as the album begins we're both immediately transported to adolescence. It's warm, familiar and moody. Together we are reviewing old memories alone.

Radiohead is the band of our generation. Ok Computer was an event in 1997. Everyone talked about it. Everyone had their favourite songs and we debated them, argued about them. "Ambition makes you look pretty ugly". Kurt wrote lyrics like that.

B: Airbag opens with a kicking riff. Even though you know Thom was being ironic when he says "in an interstellar burst, I am back to save the universe..." it was still the most glorious hubris to a 17 year old. Played it loud in my headphones while walking to the bus and it felt momentous and prophetic. Still does.

L: Paranoid Android - six minutes of kick-you-in-the-guts drama, followed by the psychedelic space of Subterranean Homesick Alien. And then there is the filmclip. Those "unborn chicken voices in my head" were awakened watching this film clip on Rage at 2am.

L: Listening to Exit Music (For A Film) as a teenager, I fantasised about running away with a boy. But not in the saccharine, runaway to a tropical paradise, sort of escape. But rather a dramatic, dangerous, life-threatening escape. And in my fantasy, I was still shattered when it all went to hell at the end of the song.

Karma Police. There's nothing we can write about this song - just put it on and listen to it. Loud. "For a minute there, I lost myself". And if you haven't had enough of scary road flimclips then watch the UNKLE film clip for Rabbit in Your Headlights. Or wait until we guest program Rage.

L: I'd forgotten Fitter Happier. I admit to skipping it in most listens. However, it is a break. It allows you to catch up with your emotions on the album. It was a clever song. And I was clever listening to it. I was an Arts student. "Fond but not in love". No man was permanently taking my heart. I was too knowing, too clever. But I still yearned for my Exit Music (For a Film) - for someone to sweep me away.

B: Jangling chaos of Electioneering. Dance motherfucker. But the only way to dance to Electioneering is like an indie chick. I was always fascinated by indie chicks at the BritPop clubs I used to go to - no rhythm, limbs flailing. I used to go to hip hop clubs as well but girls there cared how they looked when they danced - indie chicks didn't. Or maybe they did. And maybe the whole gimmick was to look like a puppet master had control of their limbs.

What makes it a great album are the 'album tracks' - the ones you can't remember the names of. Lucky. Let Down. As stand-alone tracks they're not memorable (but of course, they'd be stand-outs on any other album). But in a whole piece of art, these are just as critical. You might not remember the fallen soldiers in the background of Delacroix's Liberty Leading the People, but take them away and the painting doesn't work. (Rest assured, this is as close to Coldplay as this blog gets.)

B: Climbing Up The Walls is my favourite song on the album (I used to play it on the clarinet - no shit). "It's always best when the light is out, it's always better on the outside." It felt like Thom was endorsing me, saying "it's ok you don't know how to talk to girls - neither do I". Listening to this song tonight with the girl of my dreams, who is now my wife, feels wrong. Because this song mattered to me when I was a moody adolescent and certain that the girl of my dreams, whoever she was, would shun me. 

This album tops polls of the greatest albums ever. But who cares about the complexity of the songwriting and the intricacy of the production? What matters is that it rips out your guts and leaves you a bloodied mess on the floor. This album is an event.

Aha Shake Heartbreak - Kings of Leon

Inaugural Classic Album Martini Saturday. We've popped handwritten slips of paper (about thirty of our favourite albums) into a handwoven Aboriginal basket. A wedding present that we'd never quite figured out what to do with. It is clear it has been awaiting this sufficiently honourable duty. L pulls out the Kings of Leon Aha Shake Heartbreak. Their second album from 2004. A contemporary classic to start with. Relief it's not hip hop because it doesn't feel like that sort of day.

Press play at about 6.30pm. One of the last Canberra Saturday evenings we'll be able to sit outside without wearing several layers. Fix martinis (for those interested - for two - 120ml gin, about 20ml dry vermouth, a tsp of brine to dirty it a little, stir in ice and strain into two glasses. Two olives threaded on toothpicks for each glass).

Track 1: Slow Night, So Long. It's the energy that slaps you straight away. Especially compared to their 2010 album, Come Around Sundown (which despite poor reviews isn't bad, just not v exciting). Also that the rhythm guitar doesn't sit in the background. All four instruments are out the front, clamouring for our attention.

Liner notes say "Caleb: pipes; Nathan: skins; Jared: slaps; Matthew: licks". Boys being a bit silly. Having a bit of fun. And that's Aha Shake Heartbreak. Boys chasing girls. Dirty girls. Who put out. L says "I don't know whether these lyrics offend or inspire me". Bit of both. Because Taper Jean Girl is about skanky motel sex but a thousand listens later it still makes us both dance. Still regret we didn't have this as our bridal waltz.

A gin-soaked olive is not the best part of a martini, but eating it towards the end of a drink still feels like some kind of climax. Soft may not be the best song on the album but goddamn, it's fun. And it's about not being able to get it up because you're too pissed. Surprising there's not one hundred rock'n'roll songs about that. When Kings of Leon toured this album at the Big Day Out a few years ago, we found ourselves surrounded by kids waiting for the next set from Living End. As we screamed out "I'd pop myself in your body, I'd come into your party, but I'm soft", the kids looked bemused. Living End don't do songs about erectile dysfunction.

The genius of the album is it has a narrative arc about going out, getting drunk and getting loud. It closes with Rememo, which feels like stumbling to your back door, fumbling to stick the key in the lock, falling onto your bed fully clothed, and passing out in a warm, dizzy haze.

And as a postscript we replay Taper Jean Girl and dance under the pergola, in view of anyone walking past. But on this album the Kings didn't give a shit and neither do we.