Abbey Road - The Beatles

It had to happen at some point. There are twenty-five goddamn Beatles' albums in the basket. And so as last week's post was my love letter to Tom Waits (and if you haven't bought his new album, Bad As Me, shame on you), it's B's turn to carry on like a pork chop about Lennon and McCartney this week. I accept the songs are good but god I hate The Beatles.

Taking the laptop from L, I point out that The Beatles only released 13 albums (four are in the basket). Considering all were written in a seven-year period, I consider this to be the richest period of artistic creation in the history of humanity.

Writing about Abbey Road is like reviewing the Bible. Fortunately, we have the cojones to do so. (Incidentally, our review of the Bible would consist of five words - "could do with an edit").

Come Together is one of those Beatles songs which is so omniscient you forget how brilliant it is. It doesn't sound like any other Beatles song - it's all drums and percussions and funk. It wears its jeans so tight it needs to do the fly up with pliers and would be (re: is) cool in any era.

There's not much to say about Something, except that it's perfect. It has never been bested. Period. Until you hear Here Comes the Sun. It's a Harrison one-two knockout punch that leaves you lying on the canvas, bruised and breathless.

This album is the most polished of all Beatles releases. The songs in themselves are pure, breathtaking genius. But the production polishes them up until they are flawless diamonds. It verges on over-production, but never crosses the line, with harmonies and string sent in just at the right moment to rocket the songs into the stratosphere.

I reckon if someone challenged God to write a pop song, he would write Oh Darling. The piano riff is textbook 50s-Jerry-Lee Lewis-Little Richard rock and roll, but the plaintive plea of the chorus is sung with such raw passion it sounds like it's tearing McCartney's vocal chords to shreds.

As all readers would know, after Because, side two is seamless, with each song segueing into the next. This is not easily done, particularly considering Lennon and McCartney had stopped writing together. McCartney and George Martin took the fragments of unfinished songs and melded them into an incredible medley. Some of these songs fully formed would have been the pinnacle of another songwriter's career, but for The Beatles, they are the leftovers spooned onto a plate and microwaved to make a meal.

The album is McCartney's from this point on. You Never Give Me Your Money starts with a quintessential McCartney minor key, brooding, melody describing his boredom with daily life and then jumps into a rocking anthem about the thrill of escape when "one sweet dream came true today".

My favourite song on the album is She Came in Through the Bathroom Window. The bassline is funky and the verses are exhilarating. McCartney is wonderfully skilful at capturing suburban mundanity with lines like "Sunday's on the phone to Monday, Tuesday's on the phone to me."

The climax is all four Beatles singing "boy, you're going to carry that weight a long time"; it sounds like the encore to the best concert you never went to. Brilliantly, it reverts back to You Never Give Me You Your Money and then segues into The End, which sounds like a victory lap, with the band throwing flowers into the crowd.

There's really no way to describe Abbey Road and do it justice. Put it on and let it take your breath away. And with Queen Elizabeth in town, enjoy the final line of "I want to tell her that I love her a lot, but I gotta get a belly full of wine, Her Majesty's a pretty nice girl and someday I'm gonna make her mine."

Even L admits that she doesn't mind the album by the end, although she does note that my hyperbole-filled post has failed to mention Octopus's Garden....

Closing Time - Tom Waits

I've been waiting patiently for this album to be pulled out of the basket. Tom Waits' first album from 1973, Closing Time, is my favourite. It was before he shredded his vocal chords so it's very accessible, however, it still has the tragic, romantic and lonesome themes of the rest of his canon.

Even though Waits was in his early twenties when this was released, you'd believe he was an old man sitting drunk at the bar. Similar to Bruce Springsteen, Waits sings stories of people - their fears, hopes and dreams.

Sadly, B doesn't find Waits' voice on his later albums - described as being "soaked in a vat of bourbon, left hanging in the smokehouse for a few months, and then taken outside and run over with a car" - as seductive as I do so this album is played more than his other work at our house. It is also one of 'our' albums, which together with the aforementioned Springsteen reference should provide you with adequate forewarning, dear reader, of the painful mush to come in this post.

Early in our 'courting days' B & I took a 'sick day' and just hung out. Martha Wainwright was being interviewed on triple j about her favourite songs and she played I Hope That I Don't Fall in Love With You. We both listened gobsmacked by the beauty of the song; the clarity of Waits' voice and the vivid picture it painted in our minds. We were both pretending not to be in love with one another but knowing damn well where it was headed.

Martha of course, played Martha next. Alone in our imaginations, we speculated about forty years down the track when our relationship - which hadn't really started - hadn't actually worked out, as an old Tom Frost wonders what might have been with Martha. In order to avoid this fate, B would argue I stuck my claws in at this very point and haven't let up...

Martha is the best song on the album. But before you can feel sorry for the fool, there is plenty of male bravado. Old Shoes (& Pictures Postcards) is the cocky goodbye to a lover - "farewell to the girl with the sun in her eyes, I'm gonna kiss you and then I'll be gone". It's followed up by Midnight Lullaby which epitomises the mood of this album. You need to listen to it in a smokey club, with velvet drapes, nursing your joys or your sorrows over a whiskey at 2am.

The album veers from blues to swing. Virginia Avenue is Tom serenading the tired hooker who frequents the bar. The swing is particularly joyous on Ice Cream Man. Sung with a wink, it's a song that sparkles of show tunes.

Tom Waits music has remained interesting, challenging and brilliant since this debut. Waits is probably the most popular singer to be labelled a cult artist. A bit like Charles Bukowski whose poetry remains immensely popular too. Unlike most things 'cult' he is still releasing albums worth buying almost forty years later.

If you need to be introduced to Waits (and find his gravelly voice grating), then grab a copy of Closing Time. There are a few different women on this album and no doubt Waits loves them all and doesn't mean to break their hearts. But he does. And god he makes bloody beautiful music about it. And to finish off your evening, treat yourself by having a listening to Springsteen covering the best song ever written, Tom Waits' Jersey Girl.

Is This It - The Strokes

Is This It, the Strokes first, and best, album from 2001. The title track perfectly captures the disappointed nonchalance mood of the album. Who can be bothered including a question mark.

The second track, The Modern Age, was a floor-filler at indie kid parties. It's like the slacker protagonist of the first song finishes work at his shop assistant job, heads out with his friends and after a few drinks, finally feels alive for the first time that day. Crack a beer and turn this up loud and you'll understand.

The hyperbole that accompanied the release of this album was preposterous. It was like it was the first good rock and roll album to be released in five years. NME wet its pants and hailed the Strokes as the 'saviours' of rock and roll (considering Foo Fighters and U2 were dominating with MOR rock at the time, maybe it was fair...). All the hype turned me off at the time and it took a few months of constantly hearing it at parties, barbecues and bars before I finally gave in and bought it. It might not have been the only good rock and roll album released in five years, but it was undoubtedly the best.

The brilliance of the album is that while all the songs sound kind of the same - as if the Strokes only had one effect on their guitars and mic - each of them is still fresh, brilliant and exciting. Today as much as ten years ago (cue panic attack upon realisation that ten years have passed since we first heard this album). We all knew that it was faux-garage rock (because there was no room in the Strokes' parents garages amongst the Mercedes), but the simplicity of the songs and the production gives the album a rawness which feels like authenticity and sincerity.

The worst thing about the hype is that the Strokes became their image. They were the coolest band in the world, and they thought to be cool they had to nonchalant. I saw them at the Big Day Out and they sucked. It wasn't that they were bad, it was that they were so affected. They came onto stage, played theirs songs without moving or speaking, their faces completely expressionless. To play a song as exciting as like Last Nite without moving or expressing any emotion was a crime against the song. Sacrificing their music for their image is part of the reason their subsequent albums have been half-baked and mediocre. Some great songs, no doubt. But if there's only two good songs on the album, don't bother releasing it.

But back to their pinnacle - hot damn Last Nite is a good song. It's cruel though, because it makes you want to dance and there's no way to dance with dignity to that song. Put it on, let your limbs go and you'll know what we mean.

There's such a coherent mood to this album, rocking out while singing "baby, I feel so down, but I don't know why." The cavalier attitude towards the disappointment of modern life is wonderful and uplifting.

New York City Cops is our favourite song. It's degenerate and incendiary, with one of the most seditious sing-a-long choruses ever written. It was initially left off the American release of the album - after September 11, singing that New York City cops ain't so smart was not acceptable. September 11 had some strange impacts on music - the Strokes broke the big time with an album that didn't include its best song; Shihad changed its name to Pacifier and lost most of its fans; while Bruce Springsteen was inspired to make his best album in almost twenty years.

Trying Your Luck is the only weak moment on the album. Skip. Take It Or Leave It is a great closer though. Take it or leave it. No one cares.

The weather's warming up, so invite your friends over for a barbecue, make a Dry Manhattan (2 parts Bourbon; 1 part dry vermouth; dash of bitters; stir over ice; strain and serve with olives) and don't be afraid to put on an album that's ten years old because it's still the perfect rock and roll soundtrack.

Pearl - Janis Joplin

This is the album we both wanted for tonight. There have been too many morose men and not enough crazy women in our Martini Saturdays.  We made smokey martinis with Hendricks, Coal Ila scotch and a twist of lemon. Then we sat outside and smoked a cigar. Janis Joplin's Pearl takes us a million miles away from home.

It's impossible to passively listen to Janis; she demands you participate. For us, this participation involves frantically swaying around with our eyes closed like hippy lunatics. Not knowing a lot of the lyrics doesn't stop us too from doing our best interpretation of Janis wailing. We sing along in a shrill falsetto to Cry Baby, even though it completely ruins the song. We don't think Janis would have minded, even if the dogs of the neighbourhood do.

Full Title Boogie are a brilliant rhythm and blues band; energetic, boppy and emotive. But it's Janis' vocals that kick the songs on Pearl into the stratosphere. She wails and moans, screams and cries and veers from joy to anger to love to laughter. She was the first true rock chick and I don't think you can name another woman that goes close to her. They're all a bit too calculating in their rock chic.

This album is polished despite not being finished. Buried Alive in the Blues is a rocking, balls out, rhythm and blues track. It assumes a degree of pathos when we read that the reason it is instrumental is because Janis died before she could record the vocals. 

Me and Bobby McGee feels different to the rest of the album. It's pure, tremendous country, inciting women the world over to sing karaoke. It was written by Kris Kristofferson who is not in the basket. Perhaps he should be.

It sounds like Janis is having a grand old time with her first and only cut of Mercedes Benz. The giggle at the end of the song is my favourite part of the album. My mum introduced me to Janis with this song and I have belted it out with her countless times. Janis should be prescribed to strengthen any mother-daughter relationship going through teen angst.

The last two songs, Trust Me and Get It While You Can are impassioned pleas to seek love and comfort. Janis' voice is raw by this point, as if she banged out all the vocals in one sitting.  She completely throws herself at every song, the energy of the performance exhilarating. If we could time travel to any point in history, we'd choose one of her gigs. Perhaps the ones where she isn't too intoxicated.

Pearl is a revelation on every listen. Soft or loud. At a party or on a quiet Saturday afternoon. Feeling good is easy when you listen to this album. It is such a pity that Janis joined so many other artists who self-destruct so tragically young.

The Good Son - Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds

Released in 1990, The Good Son is the sixth album of Australia's favourite rock god, Nick Cave and his Bad Seeds.

The opening track, Foi Na Cruz (translated It Was On The Cross) is based on a Brazilian hymn. It is evocative, sounding like a hundred drunk and lonely sailors singing with their arms around each other, finding comfort only in the promise of salvation offered by Jesus. This album is where the Bad Seeds became a full theatrical production, evolving from a rhythm section into an orchestra. Interestingly, it's one of the smaller incarnations of the band, with only four members in addition to Cave. The orchestral arrangements lend themselves to a much bigger band, as found on the subsequent albums.

L came to Nick Cave quite late, embarrassingly only paying attention to him when he sang with Kylie Minogue (shame.). She finally got it in 2001 with No More Shall We Part. Her theory is that her teenage angst soundtrack needed more of a dance beat or distorted guitar. Tea Party, Tool, Limp Bizkit... (for what use is a blog if you can't confess your shame to the world?).

The father-son duet of The Weeping Song is extraordinary. The question and answer lyrics are compelling, sad and elegant; for example, "Father, why are all the children weeping? They are merely crying son. O, are they merely crying father? Yes, the true weeping is yet to come."

The Ship Song is one of the most perfect, romantic songs of all time. It's a harbinger of the beautiful ballads Cave would perfect in albums like The Boatman's Call. None, however, have ever matched The Ship Song.

The Witness Song is pure anarchic gospel. It evokes an image of an antichrist church, filled with a choir clad in black robes and a congregation of demonic, crazed followers. What amazed me about Cave when I first heard his music was the theatre of this songs. Songs like The Witness Song are three act musicals with a narrative arc, character development and a shocking twist to end.

To describe Cave as a songwriter is an injustice. Cave is a dramatist, who constructs a dark, disturbing and enthralling world. Each of his albums tells its own story. The Good Son is about longing, disappointment and shame. The title character epitomises the paradox Cave illustrates on this album - humans following their desires can destroy themselves, their family and any chance of fulfilment in the process.

This is not the last time we'll pull a Cave album out of the basket. We look forward to lengthy debates about which is his best.