Slim Shady LP - Eminem

Classic Album Martini Saturday was a disaster and for that I blame Eminem. And Dylan who suggested putting his breakthrough late nineties album, the Slim Shady LP, into the basket.

It was probably a mistake to cook dinner while we listened to it rather than focus completely on the twenty-track unrelenting album. My two-part dessert was an eight-part disaster and, gee, I was angry. I don't buy into the argument that listening to angry music will lead to you committing violent acts, however, last night I could have smacked someone in the head with a frying pan. For that, I hold the Slim Shady LP partly responsible.

While neither of us are serious Eminem fans, like most of the western world, we enjoy and respect his music and rhymes. While he's just as famous for the controversy he generates, there is no doubt about the genius of his lyrical acrobatics. My Name Is is a great introductory track. Eminem's high pitch voice and piss-take lyrics are hilarious - "I can't work out which Spice Girl I want to impregnate" (for the record, we'd choose Scary) and Dre's beat is easy to bop along to.

Dr Dre's influence kicks in more obviously in Guilty Conscience. Should Eddie rob the store? Should Stan rape the young girl? Should Grady shoot his cheating wife? After a while the conscience, Dre, gives up. The irony of Dre being the reasonable voice in the room is wonderful. Even better is that not only did Eminem get the godfather of gangsta rap to mentor and produce him, he pokes fun at Dre and mocks him for being soft. And this highlights the sophistication of Eminem's message - on this record he's reminding the hip hop community that white kids could also be poor, downtrodden and ignored. Eminem gave white kids someone other than Trent Reznor to empathise with.

While I understand Slim Shady is an alter-ego and the angry misogynistic lyrics shouldn't be taken literally, Eminem still pushes it beyond the bounds of acceptability and listening to some tracks is an uncomfortable experience. 97' Bonnie & Clyde is Eminem rapping to his daughter about killing her mother and disposing of her body. There is a lightness to the beat despite the sinister theme that makes it all the more harder to listen to.

"Da-da made a nice bed for mommy at the bottom of the lake

Here, you wanna help da-da tie a rope around this rock? (yeah!)

We'll tie it to her footsie then we'll roll her off the dock

Ready now, here we go, on the count of three..."

This is probably the first and last time that the Slim Shady LP will get spun in our house. We had to listen to some of his later work to remind ourselves of why we really do like Eminem. And some of it is truly brilliant. I saw 8 Mile in a cinema in the US. When Lose Yourself began towards the end of the film the entire cinema of white and black kids was heaving. Eminem's performance was inspiring and powerful (although we're all still traumatised by that sex scene). (Btw, youtube is full of videos of white kids doing renditions of Lose Yourself, including Taylor Swift and Justin Bieber. Dear oh dear). 

I think Eminem is a pretty impressive artist and I think he is an important artist. I just don't find listening to his albums particularly enjoyable. But I know he doesn't give a fuck and that's fine too. 

Rage Against The Machine - Rage Against The Machine

A quiet Saturday evening in Canberra and we pull RATM's self-titled first album from 1992 out of the basket. Not sure martinis are going to cut it.

Bombtrack is a killer opener. The chromatic bass line with the cheeky trill before Zach puts the mic to his mouth and grunts "uhh". The album kicks off with a punch to your guts and there is absolutely no reprieve for the next forty minutes. Bombtrack, like many of the songs on their album, is about power and standing up to it. Threatening the suits, the soldiers and the capitalists with the chant, "burn burn, yes you're going to burn." If there's one word to describe Rage, it's incendiary.

Killing in the Name has a riff that grabs you by the neck and yanks you out of your seat. This is the anthem of our generation, much more than Smells Like Teen Spirt. The Leongatha disco went off when this song came on in between S Club 7 and 5ive. DJs drop this at dance festivals and people go nuts. And it's only become more popular since its release. Eight years later, when my little brother went through the rite of passage of the Leongatha disco, this was still the final song of the night.

After missing seeing Rage live first time around, we caught them at the Big Day Out in 2009 when they reformed. Holy crap it was hectic. The mosh didn't stop, even 80 metres back. We felt a little bit odd, as professionals in their late twenties, jumping up and down screaming "fuck you I won't do what you tell me". Then we looked around and realised that we were surrounded by professionals in their late twenties, all screaming "fuck you I won't do what you tell me". It was electrifying, tens of thousands of people releasing a beast that had been caged since Rage went into hiatus.

The brilliance of Rage is their combination of funk, hip hop and heavy metal. This album created a new genre, with bands like Korn and Linkin Park trying to replicate their sound (and failing miserably). Rage blurred the line between mosh pits and dance floors and awakened the political consciousness of a generation. Take the Power Back has a sawing riff and an insistent chorus, challenging the audience with every line.

The combination of Tom Morello's guitar and Zach's rapping is one of the all-time great music collaborations, both astonishingly and uniquely talented. Neither has been able to reach such heights with other collaborators. And let's not forget the rhythm section, with Commerford's bass delivering the funk.

Settle for Nothing is more of your classic 90s hard rock song. Aggressive riffs and hostile lyrics. But Bullet in Your Head gets your head bopping ludicrously along again.

Wake Up is a riot in a song, accusing the government, police and media of being complicit in keeping power in the hands of a few and eliminating those who stand up to it. Both MLK jr and Malcolm X "turned the power to the have nots. And then came the shot".

There may be bands around today who are as bold, political and aggressive as Rage, but none that reach the mainstream in the way that Rage did. Rage indicted the military, the police and the US Government, accusing all of wanton and intentional brutality. And they got played on FM radio and sold millions of records. The expectation to venerate authority extends all the way into popular music these days; it's unimaginable that a popular band could get away with likening US soldiers to the Ku Klux Klan.

This album is exhausting, exhilarating and inspiring. We won't pretend that Rage will return to regular rotation on our stereo - by the end of the album we feel, frankly, a little bit violated. We are part of the machine now after all!

Mezzanine - Massive Attack

Massive Attack, along with their one time band member, Tricky and Portishead, created the genre 'trip-hop". They may not like the term, but you don't get much say over how people see you anyway. To me, nothing says 1990s Britain more than trip-hop. Brit Pop can probably argue for this title as well, however the dark, funky, laconic beats were more unique than anything a brat with a guitar produced over the same period. Let's just remember the genre for these three artists, not for the fourteen hundred "Chill Out" compilation albums they spawned.

Angel is such a kicker of an opening track. When Zoey Bartlet goes missing at the end of the 4th series of the West Wing, Angel is the haunting, frightening song that provides the perfect soundtrack of foreboding. Characters anxiously hurry around but are flat-footed and impotent. Angel is a slow song, but feels urgent. It chases you and it's only a matter of time before something goes wrong. To be honest, I feel like this about the whole album. Angel encapsulates a frightening beauty that is often uncomfortable.

It's a pity then, that I read the liner notes. "Fanx." Really? Radiohead, The Clash, Prada, Mad Professor and Michel Gondry all get fanxed. I try and forget my ridicule and return to the 'moody mood'.

Indeed, Risingmoon continues the angry mood. However, Teardrop, the third, famous track, is a burst of sweet relief with Elizabeth Fraser's angelic voice. Although it has a sad, depressing undercurrent, it is simply a beautiful song. The filmclip takes its place as a late night Rage favourite. It's a pity we all just think of House now.

The Indian folk tones of Inertia Creeps, along with the thumping beat makes me want to dance slowly in the candle light. Instead I pour another glass of shiraz. It's about as close to drugs as I will venture.

Mezzanine's dark, crawling synths, dirty guitars and hip-hop beats are hypnotic. I sing the defiant lyrics of Dissolved Girl. "Feels like something, that I've done before, I could fake it, but I still want more".

Man Next Door and (Exchange) are weaker songs but they are still essential in bringing Mezzanine all together. Group Four is final highlight as the male and female voices combine. It represents the album perfectly. Massive Attack's earlier albums, Blue Lines and Protection were lighter. Mezzanine is bittersweet; a juxtaposition of light beauty and death.

The album was released in 1998 and was apparently available for download a month before the album's official release. I think Metallica were suing people about the internet ruining music soon after. Coming back to Mezzanine over a decade later, it more than stacks up to a reflective, sombre and cold Saturday night.

Yankee Hotel Foxtrot - Wilco

It's B's birthday this week so he gets to choose. Unsurprisingly, he picks his favourite album of all time, Wilco's 2001 album Yankee Hotel Foxtrot.

This album is a masterpiece from the first jangling, drunken mishmash that begins I Am Trying To Break Your Heart. This year is the tenth anniversary of my relationship with this album. And like a woman with whom you've spent ten years, even though I've experienced it a hundred times, familiarity breeds understanding of her idiosyncrasies and sweet spots. There's no such thing as flaws in something you know so well - even the quirks are part of the wonder.

I love I Am Trying To Break Your Heart. It was the song that introduced me to this album. Before this, I was a minor Wilco fan. But one Saturday afternoon, driving home from the shoe shop where I worked, Phil Jamieson was a guest on Richard Kingsmill's 'Freewheelin' program. The program allowed musicians to come in and play some of their favourite songs over the course of an hour. Phil played I Am Trying to Break Your Heart and it sent electricity up my spine. I bought the album the next day and we've been happy together ever since.

There are moments of breathtaking brillance on this album. The simplicity of Radio Cure is misleading. A single tapping drumbeat, repeated lyrics, Jeff Tweedy singing laconically; this song lulls you into hypnosis, building into a climax so subtly that you don't even realise it's coming until it hits you. And then it lasts for just two lines. Most pop artists who came up with a great melody then proceed to slap you in the face of it, writing the rest of the song to fill the gap between the chorus, which they repeat ad nauseum. The genius of Jeff Tweedy is that he understands the value of understatement.

In praising Abbey Road, someone described The Studio as the fifth band member of The Beatles. And so it is with Yankee Hotel Foxtrot. Like the small and seemingly inconsequential brushstrokes in the background of a painting, the feedback, sound effects and random noises all play their part in constructing a complete, intricate whole. Watching the documentary on the making of this album, you realise how painstaking and thought-through every random noise on this album is. In one scene, the band stand behind the console and argue about the tone and length of the feedback at the end of the first track.

This album has been called the Kid A of the alt-country genre. Before you think this is some kind arty album, however, you get to Heavy Metal Drummer and I'm the Man Who Loves You. Quintessential country pop songs that fit seamlessly into the flow of the album. I can't think of an album which is a more complete piece of art.

Pot Kettle Black is a highlight. A rocking song with driving beat; but the vocal melody is so soft-spoken that you don't realise how much your head is bopping along. Poor Places is achingly beautiful, the pinnacle of the romance on this album. It's an expression of self-loathing, disappointment, longing and love.

To paraphrase the final song, I've got reservations about so many things but not about Wilco. If I was being sent to a desert island and could only take ten friends, this album would one of them.