Imani Coppola: Chupacabra (1997)

(Columbia)

RECOMMENDED

You can probably find this in a bargain bin near you for $1 or $2 and it's one of those rare cases of such in the CD era when you'll be amazed at the bargain. Imani Coppola is a difficult-to-pin-down R&B-tinged singer-songwriter whose work now sounds somewhere between Ani DiFranco and Macy Gray, pushed and prodded on a major label payroll in the late '90s but retaining at least a convincing illusion of rigorous individuality. She released this album, had a minor hit with the wondrous and valuable "Legend of a Cowgirl," and was unceremoniously dropped from Sony and scarcely heard from again. Which is a pity -- Chupacabra suggests she was far ahead of her time.

Coppola's schtik is more Merrill Garbus or Janelle Monae than Rihanna -- in addition to her compelling, versatile vocals, she is the person you're hearing on the fiddle during the hit, and she is credited with guitars, string arrangements, and keyboards throughout the record. The explicitly feminist "Legend of a Cowgirl" is still a stirring, funny firecracker -- undoubtedly a better, braver song than the one it heavily samples, Donovan's "Sunshine Superman" -- with wicked, rapid-fire raps, slippery beats, and a triumphant chorus. No wonder Coppola was critical of Lilith Fair founder Sarah McLachlan; her music actually offers female nonconformity, as opposed to the adult contemporary chameleon acts of the McLachlan - Cole - Colvin set.

If you dig "Legend," and you should, you will almost certainly enjoy the rest of the album, which forecasts the playful, literate, and incredibly versatile soul of The Love Below and The ArchAndroid. That's versatility as a writer, vocalist, and a stylist. Opener "I'm a Tree" is as energetic and wily as the single, but inexplicably never caught on with radio; it's the only thing here that really sounds like "Legend of a Cowgirl." Despite some overly slick production, Coppola investigates a head-spinning number of ideas on the rest of the album. There's watery folk-rock on "Naked City," tribal menace on "Piece" (her finest, most breathtaking vocal performance, somewhat akin to Kate Bush), trip hop bossa nova on "It's All About Me, Me, and Me," traditional alternative rap on "Soon (I Like It)," and true surreal disorientation on the hidden track "My Day," which is as wild and weird as mainstream music gets.

Of course, Coppola's mainstream status lasted barely a fortnight before MTV and her label lost interest; in 1997, the national heart had room for only one unorthodox soul singer (Erykah Badu), and that sadly has not changed. Serious creativity like Coppola's is still blacklisted, and she's roamed the underground ever since. But in an era when audiences for offbeat bands and characters has grown exponentially since 1997, she's ripe for rediscovery and renewal. Something of a prophetic maverick, she continues to record and perform, and deserves to be more widely appreciated. I hope the music business finds room for her again.

Iceage: New Brigade (2011)

(What's Your Rupture?)

RECOMMENDED

Read my review at Metro Times Blogs. (scroll down a bit)

Thing I Was Too Polite to Say (But Did Manage to Imply) in the Official Review Above: The way I feel about this is the way I wish I felt (at least) about Fucked Up's album.

Adam Green: Jacket Full of Danger (2006)

(Rough Trade)

RECOMMENDED

Oh, stop it, it's not that witty -- not in a league with former fellow Moldy Peach Kimya Dawson, who can run lyrical circles around Green's tired, droning joke-songs. But Green's music is funny, and sleazy, and smart, and at very very scattered times even charming; we miss the warmth Dawson gave, but he certainly brings the scrappiness in a higher-fi guise, and ridiculous Elvis-in-Vegas moments like "Party Line," "Nat King Cole," and "Hollywood Bowl" have little precedent in the indieverse. "Party Line" in particular has such massive utility, sounding so divinely correct coming out of oversized speakers at a shitty dive bar, it can turn the average depressive night out into some casually nihilistic Sweet Smell of Success reenactment. Green may be a cynical asshole, but he can belt a tune convincingly, if not all that technically well. Still, I felt something more from "NYC Is Like a Graveyard" all those years ago, and somewhere beneath all this snotty humor and scorn, somewhere beneath Green's recasting of classicist musical backdrops as a feverish bout of self and world-loathing, is a trace of that wound. I wouldn't mind if he were more in touch with it. But I wouldn't mind if most dudes were more in touch with the undercurrents they bury in their macho tomfoolery. We all know boys get lost in their indulgences; what he really needs is an equally playful girlfriend. Again.

Red Hot Chili Peppers: I'm with You (2011)

(Warner Bros.)

RECOMMENDED

I don't know how wholehearted that recommendation for this album is because for one thing, it's marked by some level of cultish bias in the sense that I like the way this band sounds to me and you likely don't, and as much as it improves on this seminal and unfairly drubbed California pop band's prior album, the overlong Stadium Arcadium, it is a fat and happy group stagnating. But it is also one of the most purely fun and at times affecting records out this year, so much more enjoyable and consistent than Tomboy or Helplessness Blues or Bon Iver. From the thrusting disco and persuasively joyous melody on "Monarchy of Roses" through the ridiculous piano trills and pop beltalong of "Happiness Loves Company" to the mumbling balladry of "Meet Me at the Corner," it sounds just the way one would hope. There's not a lot to say about it, except that it's a bit of a minor miracle. The Peppers would've been spent by the close of the '90s if not for a creative injection provided by returning guiarist John Frusciante, who helped them through a commercial reemergence with the strong Californication and then guided their artistic zenith, the still-stunning By the Way. It seemed that without Frusciante, a gifted and fascinating musician, the Peppers would just be technically proficient old men with little zeal.

Much to my delight, that isn't the case; RHCP unexpectedly bring it here, and though I'm with You offers nothing as distinct as their three '90s albums at their best, it is second only to By the Way in its careful, emotional sustaining of mood -- and of course, in charm. It's a kick to hear everyone giving their all here. Anthony Kiedis' lyrics may still be sophomoric and tired but he is also one of the most passionate singers mainstream rock's ever offered, rendering his banalities trustworthy if hardly worth pondering. Flea and Chad Smith have continued to adapt their hand-me-down funk rhythm section heroics to increasingly conventional pop-rock, almost soft rock, environments; the mellowing suits them, Rick Rubin's adult contemporary sheen allowing them the freedom to sound like the middle-aged rock & rollers they are. But special mention has to be made for new guitarist Josh Klinghoffer, who blends in seamlessly and gives an injection of vibrant youth that is in large part what makes the record, particularly its second half, so endearing. And as Brent DiCrecenzo (one of the few major rock writers with the balls to take the Peppers seriously) has pointed out, the femininity of Klinghoffer's backing vocals changes the entire dynamic of the band's songs. I hope they're using him liberally in live rearrangements of their older material. The presence is strongest on the slow ones, the adult easy listening of "Did I Let You Know" overflowing with comfort and feeling. I didn't think I would ever say this again, but hey, why not. Long live the Red Hot Chili Peppers.

The Everly Brothers (1958)

(Cadence)

HIGHLY RECOMMENDED

It's no Here's Little Richard or The "Chirping" Crickets, but Phil and Don Everly's debut album may come closest of them all amongst the grand '50s rockers to craft something that we'd now think of as a modern rock LP. Varied but cohesive in mood, carefully paced with peaks scattered, and nearly absent of filler, the album is a strong and consistent listen that goes far beyond the typical structure of hit followed by filler. Of course, the hits do put everything in their shadow, but what's surprising is how few of them are here. Of the Everlys' ten Cadence singles, only the first two A and B-sides were ever included on an LP. That says something, something vaguely prophetic, about the sheer volume of strong material they had at their disposal.

"Bye Bye Love" enters with its earthshaking, heartstopping intro three tracks in, the entire song's hopping, grandiose desperation jutting out from its surroundings on the first half. The first of Boudleaux and Felice Bryant's extraordinary contributions to the Everlys, it remains one of the most striking, spirited songs about heartbreak in the entire rock idiom. The bigger miracle about it, of course, is the same fusion of ideas that carries over to the record as a whole: flavored with country but inescapably something else, clearly and unreservedly influenced and driven by rhythm & blues but not speaking in its vernacular, it's the definition of music that can be defined exclusively as rock & roll. The same goes for the Bryants' followup, "Wake Up Little Susie," a thinly veiled, mortified virginity loss anthem about what the young couple will do when their folks find out.

The Bryants surprisingly provide only one other composition here, the mournfully sung "Brand New Heartache," marked most strongly by its sweetly chiming guitar lines. The couple's interludes here are evenly matched by three of the Everlys' own songs, all three of them more impressive than cultural memory has allowed. "Maybe Tomorrow" displays an emotional maturity and confidence far beyond what one would expect for their second Cadence 45, a stirring ballad lifted by a vocal and melody as shattering as anything on the two hits. "Should We Tell Him," in the meantime, is full-on country with excellent lead guitar work, its radicalism defined by its seating on the same slab of vinyl with non-neutered Ray Charles and Little Richard songs.

It is "I Wonder If I Care as Much," though, that makes the sheer incongruity of the Everly Brothers' entrance into the marketplace seem most pronounced. Not merely a folk song but an unrestrained (and beautifully written) Appalachian ballad, and far beyond the fashionably rustic hits of the time, this is raw, unkempt Carter Family stuff (with a bit of Leadbelly), graceful and audacious within the context of supposed teenage music. The duo's Kentucky hearts and their rock & roll persuasions are powerful because they are both irreducible. When they hit the chorus and sing "wonder if I keer as much," it is to lose one's breath at the capability of early rock & roll to transfer so much that is disparate into a seamless whole.

The six covers that occupy the other half of The Everly Brothers give a closer idea of the group's evolutionary track. "Hey Doll Baby" is a bright enough performance that is firmly in the conventional folk camp, and Gene Vincent's "Be Bop a Lula" comes off rote and generic in their rendering, so we disregard those and end up with two songs each by Little Richard and Ray Charles. The former's songs seem to make the Everlys slightly nervous, a tension they ultimately would learn to use to their advantage (especially on "Lucille," not included here), but as of "Rip It Up," they're still changing "and ball tonight" to "have a ball tonight" and thus losing much of the song's crucial debauchery. "Keep a Knockin'" points the way forward in an appropriately pensive revision that works well in context with "Wake Up Little Susie." Charles' songs, though, are the unlikely perfect match for the Brothers' sensibilities -- opener "This Little Girl of Mine" is convincingly exuberant, and by "Leave My Woman Alone" they have learned to give a song a full enough stylistic transition that a Ray Charles classic sounds like one of their own tunes.

This debut LP made merely a fraction of the impact that the Everlys' Cadence singles did, but there's a sense in which the lack of fanfare afforded these songs allows them to feel new again. In recent years, this record has found a large audience and become a minor classic, a just conclusion for it -- the fan of the Brothers' more famous sides who hears this gains the wonderful position of feeling stopped in time and hearing what amount to new songs from this storied first decade of these two masters, and of rock & roll at its peak.

[SEE ALSO:]
Cadence Classics: Their 20 Greatest Hits (1957-60)
Walk Right Back (Warner Years) (1960-69)

Male Bonding: Endless Now (2011)

(Sub Pop)

RECOMMENDED

Read my review at Metro Times.

[SEE ALSO:]
Nothing Hurts (2010)

The Saints: (I'm) Stranded (1977)

(Sire)

HIGHLY RECOMMENDED

It seems that when the Saints are remembered at all in punk culture outside of Australia these days, it's merely as fire-breathing originators (arguably) of the archetypal Punk Cover Version of luminous classics like "River Deep Mountain High" and "Lipstick on Your Collar," both included as bonus tracks on modern CD issues of their debut album. To remember the Brisbane outfit as a novelty act, as punk marginalia, does them a great injustice indeed, but with equal disrespect typically afforded fellow pioneers the Damned, it's hardly surprising. The broad narrative of punk rock, it seems, can only find room for three bands: the Ramones, the Sex Pistols, and the Clash.

The Saints weren't as brilliant or as politically conscious as the Clash, granted, or as convincingly angry as the Pistols; and their appallingly early origin -- they formed and were playing essentially the type of music that would forever be defined as punk rock in 1974 -- doesn't dissipate credit that rightly belongs to the Ramones for singlehandedly inventing their craft. Much as the revolutionary flavor of the Ramones reveals a lot about the time in which they came to be, a time in which straight-ahead rock & roll was an abnormality, the Saints' virtual cofounding of the official punk rubric is quaint in the sense that their work hardly displays the threadbare purism or outlandishness that would quickly become associated with the genre. Indeed, what is special about the Saints -- and what survives about them -- is that they are not a confrontation, not even really a challenge. They are a powerful Stones-like rock band swept invisibly under the punk rug -- their songs full of muscle, rhythm guitar propulsion, and natural, emotive rock attitude.

This isn't to say that they're an ordinary band, just that it's become less and less useful to describe them in terms of their punk rock significance, the same way it doesn't hurt the Only Ones to declare them more power pop than punk outfit. And whereas the Ramones and the Clash sounded at times like displaced bands of the late '50s, the Saints seem propelled from a less distant period, mid-'60s England just when it was OK to be serious but before the folkies and druggies took over.

There is, honestly, one stone-cold punk classic here, even if it sounds as at home amongst the Jam, Nick Lowe, and the New York Dolls as with its closer brethren. "(I'm) Stranded" is a quite gleeful, grand anthem when you think about it, very reminiscent of Lowe's "Heart of the City" and drawing a straight line from garage or frat rock of the mid-'60s, which indeed gave rise to the "punk rock" term to begin with. The hook is to die for in the perfect "Wooly Bully" "Louie Louie" fashion but with, naturally, just a touch of wit and presence those songs lacked.

At first, it seems like the album of the same name can offer nothing to match the instant infection of that single. "One Way Street" and "Wild About You" are relatively low-key rock, the former firmly in Stones/Who territory, the latter toying with more guitar faux-heroics than most punks would allow and brushing with hard rock and metal.

But after that, the big Mick and Keith move comes, and the result completely turns everything around on this album, this band, this decade. "Sometimes you get that old lost feeling," it goes, "sometimes it hits you when you're feeling down." Yeah. "Messin' with the Kid" is a ballad of enough skill, on-point feeling, and shadily reflective, triumphant hooks -- completely, gorgeously drenched in guitar -- that it could rightfully make a claim as being punk's first masterpiece if it constituted punk in any real way. Not to discount anything those other bands did; fuck, the Clash is still one of the finest groups of men ever to do anything together in my opinion. But "Messin'" is nothing short of a classic rock ballad, perfectly wrought and executed as well as anyone ever has from the '50s on. It's not an exaggeration to state that it could be on Let It Bleed. And don't tell the punks, but the thing runs six goddamn minutes, all of them tremendous. It has the feel of an immediate touchstone, written by lightning and miraculously discovered somewhere in Queensland.

Once you've heard that, it becomes extremely difficult not to pay careful attention to what the Saints are doing. Writer and singer Chris Bailey is a maverick, unafraid of expression and exuding utter confidence for the full scope of the rest of the LP. Guitarist Ed Kuepper wouldn't be an ill fit for a stadium group. The band's rhythm section (bassist Kym Bradshaw at this point, and drummer Ivor Hay) is too adept and excitable to ever join the ranks of any one-chord wonders, and the songs give them plenty to do. "Erotic Neurotic," which delightfully quotes "I Wanna Be Your Man" (and accidentally, Dylan's "I Wanna Be Your Lover"), returns to punk and amazingly manages not to feel like a letdown after the stare-at-the-sun of "Messin' with the Kid." The second half opens with more classicist Ed Kuepper riffage, loud and fast but more garage rock than punk rock, on the irresistible "No Time," and the irreverent Elvis Presley cover "Kissin' Cousins," probably the best in their novelty repertoire. Yet again, though, the midtempo is where the Saints truly reign.

"Story of Love," which sounds uncannily like a certain song about teen spirit recorded fourteen years in the future, is a varied, oddly structured Beggars Banquet-like stomper featuring the kind of levity for which Bailey deserves greater fame, and a brilliantly timed Kuepper solo that gives reason to think of the Saints as more in line with Big Star than the Damned. This is two steps away from radio pop, ingeniously so, but the world was different then. Even a surface punker like "Demolition Girl" has trickier riffage and more playful, ambiguous humanity than Malcolm MacLaren would've ever allowed, and another New York Dolls chorus. It's hard to find a band threatening when they're so likable, in the end, but that's the thing; they don't need to be a threat, they're just good.

(I'm) Stranded ends much as it began -- with a loud, fast, vaguely dissatisfied banger, "Night in Venice," the oddity being that it rails off into a guitar and feedback tangent and extends to 5:41, forecasting Television and Yo La Tengo -- but the implications it leaves today in its mere half hour are enticing. It makes sense that a band spawned in 1974 would give a sort of missing link between the Velvet Underground, whose garage persuasions calculatedly masked a high (contextual) skill level and adherence to songs, and the Ramones, who learned what they were doing as they went. But what's so intriguing about the Saints is that they don't seem to have had anything to prove; they have no issue with displaying their chops (a big no-no in the punkiverse) and see no suspicious element to just banging out their songs as best they can, whether they're simple or ornately emotional or even instrumentally complex. They aren't interested in being part of a movement, in making impressions or force-feeding primitivist ideals. Does that make them less rebellious than their peers... or less conformist?

Fuck the intellectual breakdown, though; if you want to hear a great rock band playing great rock songs you've probably not heard before, get this shit now. It's worth blasting. A punk collection might seem complete without "Messin' with the Kid," but it sure would be missing a lot of soul.