Stone Temple Pilots, Thank You (The Best Of Stone Temple Pilots) (2003)

Packed with hit after hit after hit, for me this album is 87-odd minutes of notsalgia. It's full of tracks from my youth that I loved at the time and, as years have gone on, simply forgot existed. Who remembers "Plush" from 1992's debut 'Core'? "Big Bang Baby" from their 1996 effort, and the spectacular "Lady Picture Show" from the same album? And then there's "Insterstate Love Song", which I confess is one STP song that I had not forgotten I adored. There's heaps of other absolute classics, and it's just a superb, easy collection to listen to. The acoustic version of "Plush" at the end is a real treat - generic '90s rock voice or not, Scott Weiland really can sing.

Stone Temple Pilots have been described as making "music that sounded great at the time, and even better now" - I can't disagree with that.

Silverchair, Frogstomp (1995)

For some reason I felt like transporting myself back to 1995 by listening to this album. Emo grunge, done only as a bunch of 15 year olds can. I haven't listened to this since I was about 15 myself. It was surprisingly enjoyable.

if nobody speaks of remarkable things

I can't really bring myself to listen to - let alone write about - music at the moment. Which is why I'm filling my blog with pretty little poems. I've saved these from a friend's "Poem of the Day", because something about them was a bit optimistic, or a bit meaningful in some way.

I love my homes. I love Dunedin, and I love Wellington. And I know there are those who feel the same bond with Christchurch, and who are hurting at the thought of the devastation of the city they love.

This morning this little excerpt struck a chord. 

     -- if nobody speaks of remarkable things [excerpt] --

If you listen, you can hear it.

The city, it sings.

If you stand quietly, at the foot of a garden, in the middle of a street, on the roof of a house.

It’s clearest at night, when the sound cuts more sharply across the surface of things, when the song reaches out to a place inside you.

It’s a wordless song, for the most, but it’s a song all the same, and nobody hearing it could doubt what it sings.

And the song sings the loudest when you pick out each note.

     -- Jon McGregor

On the kindness of strangers

As I was lugging a rather heavy bag down the street this morning, a kindly bus driver gave me a free ride to work. I had my coins out ready to pay, but for some reason that I still can't figure out, he decided to let me ride for free. There's no way he could have known I was shifting my things so that a 'quake stricken family could take refuge in our house - it was just a random act of kindness. A small gesture but it made my day.

I think this poem is beautiful, and a timely reminder of the importance of doing nice things for strangers.


     -- Optimistic Little Poem --

Now and then it happens
that somebody shouts for help
and somebody else jumps in at once
and absolutely gratis

Here in the thick of the grossest capitalism
round the corner comes the shining fire brigade
and extinguishes, or suddenly
there's silver in the beggar's hat.

Mornings the streets are full
of people hurrying here and there without
daggers in their hands, quite equably
after milk or radishes.

As though in a time of deepest peace.

A splendid sight.

     -- Hans Magnus Enzensberger (translation: David Constantine)

The Eastern, Arrows (2009)

What can you say? Our poor, brave little country, is weathering yet another devastation.

This little gem of a band is from Lyttleton, at the epicenter of this tragedy. I saw them live just a month ago. And any listen to the opener to this album, "Engineer's Promise" leaves you feeling haunted, despairing and moved.

Like I turned to Mel Parsons during Pike River, something this morning made it feel totally right to listen to The Eastern. I'm overly sentimental because the poor South Island has been given such a battering recently. Regardless of where in the world I end up, the South is my home - it's just different there. The sky is bigger. The air is fresher. The mountains are more majestic. The sea is more wild. Being in the mainland just feels right. And to me this music reflects that little something special about the South. What is it about small South Island towns that embodies that spirit? It's about real people, a bond to the land and the sea and the mountains, about folks who work in and with the elements, and always have.

The band's bio says it much better than I ever could: "They bring… backpacks full of road songs, battered acoustics and no name electrics, banjo and glockenspiel, mandolin, harmonica, foot stomps and old time singing, straight from the gut, the fist and the heart… They believe in kicks and sadness, heartbreak and hope, 12 bar blues and 12 round rock’n’roll, fistfights and dust, road songs and trains, justice and freedom, holding it up and putting it down, that long lonesome sound, the river rise, the gospel plow, scratches and skips, static and hum, bleeding fingers and beating hearts... boots on the floor, dirt in the cracks, guts, harmony melody and soul, thinking and walking.... [Christchurch is] home but Lyttelton’s where the hearts is, they drink with the sailors... they play ‘cause they have to..... they play because they care, about the songs about the show about the folks they meet and the hands they shake. They play like it matters, like it’s all they know how to do, ‘cause it does and it is."

I am desperately homesick.

The Art of Capitalising...

(....or: how I learned to stop worrying and love the upper case.)

I have learned quite a lot about myself in the process of writing this blog. There's the obvious things that I've always known like, uh, I really like music. I'm happy enough writing about it, and whatever else occasionally takes my fancy. I'm probably not very good at it, but that's a secondary consideration as far as I care. And I've learnt other, less obvious things: such as, I really, really like consistency - to a fault. I've always liked information to be well-organised and structured (witness my longstanding penchant for tables and spreadsheets) but I have discovered I am a consistency perfectionist, in recreation as well as in work.

The impetus for this blog was to make the most of my music collection and branch back out into listening to stuff I'd forgotten about. More than 20 years after I owned my first cassette tape (New Kids on the Block's 'Step by Step', 1990), I have amassed quite a collection, in all of its questionable glory. But more than that, this was also a small, quick, easy and enjoyable distraction from that which dominates my life...work. If I could spend my "lunch" "hour" (i.e. ten minutes scoffing toast at my desk) tapping out a quick blog entry and therefore taking a break from an otherwise busy and often stressful day, then that was a good thing. The initial decision not to use capitals was, in all honesty, one of laziness. Lower case was always consistent, I never had to worry about accidentally leaving out a capital letter or - horror of horrors - putting one in the Wrong Place. Once I started, however, I realised that it often took longer - the natural tendency when typing is, of course, to capitalise correctly because that's what one does all day, every day. But once I'd started in one format - lower case - I just could not bring myself to change the format mid-way through the alphabet. People hated it, and it wasn't as easy a shortcut as I'd anticipated. I should've just changed. But I couldn't. Consistency. To a fault.

I love language. I'm not ashamed to admit that I like correctly-placed apostrophes, and love the effect of a well-used comma. Good grammar is sexy. But I'm kind of an all or nothing girl - this blog is littered with typoes, poor syntax and grammatical dodginess. It's kind of just something I whack out unthinkingly when I get a few minutes (or when I need a break) - it's not intended to be a masterpiece, and the use of capitals was just one more thing that could get in the way. Moreover, in writing this blog, I don't consider an "audience"- this is something I do for shits and giggles, on the side. If I thought I had an audience, I'd never write anything (hell, for nearly 3 years my best friend and sometime lover was an ethnomusicologist... Any thinking person would find that mildly intimidating when writing a blog about music. I hope he never read this, god knows I certainly couldn't ever win an argument with him. But I digress.) The take-home point is that I write the blog as if no one's reading it, and that way I'm completely honest.

In a roundabout kind of way, I guess the point I'm getting to is my utter surprise that the most feedback I get about this blog is about my choice to use capitals or otherwise. I mean, I am a person who thinks there's a valid debate to be had on Elton John vs David Bowie. (Criteria for said debate would be very important, which brings me full circle to my obsession with carefully structuring information.) I don't like The XX, I'm bored by Beirut, and it took me a long time to "get" Fleet Foxes. On the other hand, I think Fleetwood Mac may be one of the greatest bands to've ever existed. My taste in music is sometimes reminiscent of your Mom back when she thought she was hip. Sometimes I'm so uncool I even bore myself. I'm hardly earth shatteringly controversial, but still - I would have thought there'd be more debatable points in the content of this blog than whether or not I chose to employ capital letters.

This morning I listened to Metallica's Black Album. It was a blast from the past, and I loved it.  

Amy Winehouse, Back to Black (2006) and Frank (2003)

Is it a coincidence that on my first day of freestylin', I went for an artist beginning with A? I'd like to think not,  it might've been my brain's little way of reminding me that it likes structure.... Or maybe it was just because I haven't listened to the Wino for ages.

I only listened to a few tracks from "Back to Black" - 'Rehab', 'Tears Dry on Their Own', and from the Bonus Delux Edition, her superb cover of The Zutons' 'Valerie'. Then I went back to her debut, "Frank". I am more familiar with this album, and I like it better.

How much of the Wino's troubles are commercially-helpful theatrics is hard to know - let's be honest, wasters are kind of interesting, they get free headlines, and none of that can really be bad for sales. Nonetheless, something in me kind of wants to back her; she's a bit of an underdog, can't quite seem to hold it together, and yet is a talented and unique vocalist. I like this album because it's still quite understated, possibly because it was released before Wino had such a high public profile (for mostly the wrong reasons.) Interestingly, with the release of "Back to Black", "Frank" made it back onto the UK Charts, where it stayed for most of 2007 - in fact it was the 37th biggest selling album of 2007, despite being released 4 years earlier.

Like Wino herself, I like this album because it's not quite perfect, but it's an honest effort. Jazz-y, blues-y, soul and R&B influenced, the lyrics tell 21st century stories (witness 'F*** Me Pumps', 'I Heard Love is Blind'), and I think The Guardian summed Wino's voice up perfectly by calling it "at once innocent and sleazy."

I can't claim to be a Winehouse aficionado, but I like this album. Ad for some reason, like many tragic characters, I kind of just want to keep cheering for her.

Z - ziggy stardust and the spiders from mars, david bowie (1972)

'the rise and fall of ziggy stardust and the spiders from mars' is for some reason - i am unclear exactly what that reason may be - listed just as 'ziggy stardust and the spiders from mars' in my ipod, so i didn't feel at all like i was cheating by listening to it to finish the alphabet.

i love that an album recorded well before i was even thought about is still a masterpiece today. 'suffragette city' is one of my all-time favourite songs - in my opinion a totally underrated little track, rock and roll exemplified, and despite appearing on this album from 1972, wasn't released as a single until 1976.

a concept album, ziggy is the ultimate rockstar anti-hero -- my kinda guy, and a good way to finish the alphabet.



alphabet finished.... so what now, huh?

Y - you could have it so much better, franz ferdinand (2005)

...and so my penchant for glaswegian music rears its beautifully-accented head once again. i readily admit that this is kind of cheating because the idea of the blog was to branch out from my favourite albums... and this is one of my favourite albums of all time, right up there on my desert island list (i will, one day, get around to blogging said list.)

rewind back two years to summer 08/09, and you would have found me roadtripping with friends around the east coast, maximising the glorious new zealand summer and soaking up as many bands as we could... given the summer i've just had, it seems nothing much changes. during that beautiful summer two years ago, we listened to this album religiously, and indeed saw franz ferdinand live - a total delicious treat. they were a beautifully tight performance, utter professionals, and played a dream set including plenty from this album. they remain one of the best live acts i've seen.

summertime rolls: summer 08/09

we all know second albums carry intense pressure, especially after such a monumental first album as 2004's self-titled effort. in my opinion, though, "you could have it so much better" is by far the best of franz ferdinand's albums - i own all three current releases and see (with much glee) that a fourth is due to be released this year. just as their tight professionalism took them to a new level as a live act, of all of the brit-pop / indie-rock bands floating round, to me their hard work and obvious intelligence takes franz to a new level as recorded artists as well. i particularly love the cheeky political reference to tony blair and gordon brown's relationship in 'you're the reason i'm leaving' ("i've no idea / that in four years / i'd be hanging from a beam / behind the door of number ten / singin' well, fare thee well / i am leaving, yes i leave it all to you...") -- not just a break up song, kids. 

this is pop-rock, but it's intelligent pop-rock, and more importantly it's interesting enough that even after hundreds if not thousands of listens, i have never once got bored with this album. it takes the excellent franz sound that we all came to know and love, and develops and matures it. (2009's subsequent release "tonight: franz ferdinand" took the development further, and i'll be intrigued to see whether they push on or strip their sound back with this year's album. the 2009 album left it open to go either way in my opinion, but personally i'm hoping for something a little more deconstructed this year.) this is a perfect follow up album: the production quality is higher, it's lyrically richer, and there's a diversity and intelligence to the songs that really grabs me.

it's lively and interesting, it's loud, it's smart, and it's perfect for a sunny morning. utterly brilliant.

X - uh, i just couldn't do it...

the only album i have on my ipod beginning with 'x' is coldplay's "x&y". i don't know why i am publicly admitting this, because i actively dislike coldplay's bland, generic rock. i don't know why, they're fairly inoffensive, but their music just doesn't grab me. i'm not sure if it's redeeming or not that i only have one track of the album on the 'pod - the eternally sappy 'fix you'. while i find it all a little banal, i am going to grow a pair and admit that i think the song has a time and place. the time: when wallowing in the most indulgent form of self-pity. the place: preferably somewhere where you won't be affecting others with your questionable taste and wallowing.

this morning was not that time, my bedroom was not that place. there was no way i was going to listen to that song. so i threw the experiment to the wind and decided it was perfectly acceptable, just this once, to skip past 'x'.

i'll be back on form for 'y' tomorrow.... almost there...

W - whatever and ever amen, ben folds five, (1997)

released with the original band "ben folds five", this album is some of the earlier work of an artist i have long adored. i love ben folds because he's so eclectic, sarcastic, and blunt. it feels like almost everything he does is a piss-take in some way, and one doesn't tend to equate that with beautiful, jazzy piano. he's a classic contradiction - a lot of his lyrics are sombre to the point of melancholy, but overlaid with quirky, animated beats.

 

i'm not myself recently. for the last month or so i've been uninspired, lethargic, and a bit sad. it's fair to say that general apathy and major boredom have kinda been calling on me recently, so this album was an apt choice this morning. personally i don't think it's his best work, but in some ways that's exactly what i like about it. there are some quite obvious vocal and production flaws in this album, but that seems remarkably in keeping with the general tone of an album whose title is drawn from a track called 'battle of who could care less'. i guess it's kind of metaphoric that it's not perfect, but it's real, and it's happy to just be what it is.

 

it's an unusual compilation, really. even those unfamiliar with ben folds will still surely know the ubiquitous 'brick', a stripped-back, emotional, almost poetic song about abortion. thrashed by teenage girls everywhere in the 90s, it is nonetheless a superbly written song that musically mirrors the emotional journey of the lyrics, a gentle start building to a climactic bridge, and fading out again. i find it intriguing - and doubtless no accident - that this quite raw and gentle song is immediately followed by 'song for the dumped', a furious song with furious thumping piano, and furious lyrics aimed squarely at a woman. it's a harsh song in every respect, and the contrast with the track preceding it is exquisite. 

 

the album explores a range of styles, sometimes not altogether cohesively, ranging from straight jazz, quirky rock, through to swing and other influences. it's refreshing to listen to a rock band not driven by a guitar, and what i love about ben folds is you get the impression he just kinda sat down and wrote what he was thinking. not all of his lyrics fit, but you sure get the feeling that they're derived from real life experience. it's real, it doesn't really care what you think of it, there's almost always an ironic twist, and above all else, it's totally original.

 

in picking ben folds, the risk i ran this morning was that his sometimes sarcasticly bleak outlook on life might push me further into this weird mood. of course the counter to that was that his cheeky humour and fantastic, upbeat songs might just pick me up. i'm pleased to report that after half an hour of ben folds i was slicking on my brightest red lipstick and skipping my way to work.

V - the very best of fleetwood mac, fleetwood mac (2002)

my love of fleetwood mac is well documented. i've been known to claim that i actually want to be stevie nicks. (she's right up there with debbie harry on my list of wicked-hot-female-rock-icons-i-grew-up-with.) not so much the whole coke-addled messed up bit. more the whole creating beautiful songs thing. i dare you to listen to 'gypsy' and not kind of want to be her a little as well.

this album is just shamelessly full of classics - the late great pub anthems from 1977's "rumours" ('don't stop', 'go your own way', 'you make loving fun'), 'rhiannon' from 1976's self-titled album, and 'little lies', 'seven wonders' and 'everywhere' from 1987's "tango in the night" - a close contender after "rumours" for their best album, in my opinion.... maybe i'm just an irrepresible 80s kid though.

it was, in fact, a monday morning when i listened to this album. along with 'gypsy', 'monday morning' is my favourite track on this album. i couldn't find a decent video, but this appears to be a live recording (apparently from '77) overlaid with various live images.



somewhat obviously, i haven't been updating much recently. this can be put down to general laziness more than anything. but i am pleased to admit that i found myself fighting the urge to use capitals when writing this entry. i've also found that my forced experiment has worked, and i'm definitely exploring the ol' ipod much more than i was when i started. so i think that's a sign it's time to move away from structure, and just write about what i want, when i want.

to my one, dear reader: i will persist to the end of the alphabet. this probably brings you no joy at all.