#26 - R.E.M.

Sonic Convergence

If it were possible to create a super-sound, a mix of '60s melodic iconoclasm, '70s introspective roots and add a dash of fun-loving punk, you'd arrive at something like R.E.M.

Avant-garde, but incredibly popular, the group accelerated from college-friends-playing-local to raking in the largest recording contract of their day, all within a ten year period (early '80s to early '90s).

What is so awe-inspiring is that they turned down more lucrative offers, in the mid-'80s, to sign with a recording label that gave them complete control over their music.  And this was a hugely successful move.  Three cheers for integrity.
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Each band or performer is graded on four things:
  1.  Innovation
  2.  Influence in my life--as a typical American
  3.  Integrity: the band's approach to music (just making a buck or honing a craft?)  
  4.  Immortality--am I, a typical American--still eager to hear their music

9/4/10/6 = 29 out of a perfect 40

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Opinion: The reverb intro. on the 1995 song "Bang and Blame" is an example of sheer genius in the perennial challenge to effectively set a mood.

#27 -- The Identifiers

Huh?

No, you didn't miss out on the biggest-band-you-never-heard-of.  The Identifiers are not one band, but three acts that I identified with at some point in my life, each of which could have been included at #27, but missed a self-imposed deadline.

During the last week in February I resolved to write about Peter Gabriel.  His recordings in the 80s and 90s sounded, in real time, familiar, as if I'd heard them in a prior life.  I liked his big hits like 'Sledgehammer', and felt his 'Big' and 'Biko', for example, were fantastic, the latter a masterpiece in solemn expression.

But, there was Bonnie Raitt.  What a voice.  She was so 'me', too.

And Jackson Browne.  During my college years he set the pace and was decidedly 'me'.

Well, my end-of-February deadline came and went.  It's now March and the window has closed.

By the way, #24 will also be left blank, but this time because the acts are, to put it simply, The Other Ones, acts that I liked but that were outside my own sense of what was especially good music.  They could all qualify for #24, but will instead all be mentioned and the number left blank.

Counting down continues, next time, with #26, after I get some zees.

#28 - Talking Heads

Is Your Music On?

Agree with me on one thing: Even if Talking Heads isn't your kind of music, they weren't derivative.

When I first read about them, circa '77, in my college paper's music section, there was a breathless veneration to the writing: this is it, our generation's answer to classic rock: New Wave.

Well, that assessment wasn't wide of the mark.  While there may have been other genres like reggae emerging at the time, Talking Heads melted together a gentle punk ("More Songs About Buildings and Food"), funky innovation and artful eclecticism, and, in what's the real surprise, kept it all accessible to a popular audience, indeed creating that new wave.

I remember reading Time's Oct. 27th, 1986 cover story: Rock's Renaissance Man, focusing on frontman David Byrne, that encouraged me, for one, to aim for a polymath's life.

And Byrne's first few albums in his solo career: Rei Momo and Uh-Oh were CDs I actually listened to and greatly enjoyed at the time.  A Talking Heads personal favorite: Wild Wild Life, for times when one fells exhilaration.

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Each band or performer is graded on four things:
  1.  Innovation
  2.  Influence in my life--as a typical American
  3.  Integrity: the band's approach to music (just making a buck or honing a craft?)  
  4.  Immortality--am I, a typical American--still eager to hear their music

8/6//8/6 = 28 out of a perfect 40

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Tidbit: the band name: Radiohead, comes from the Talking Heads' song Radio Head released in 1986.  That band's short-lived original name?  On A Friday--not exactly a catchy "REM" or anything.

#29 - The Doors

Back To The Music

Jim Morrison's voice comes bellowing out of old Doors songs like a cannonball sure of its way.  A photo of the man oozes self-confidence, command, charm, and a bittersweet recognition that his is one of the strangest lives ever led.

As alumni of the UCLA School of Theater, Film and Television, Morrison and Doors keyboardist Ray Manzarek had a keen grasp of performance art.  But what was the group's core message?  The name The Doors comes from the Wiliam Blake poem "The Marriage of Heaven and Hell" by way of Aldus Huxley's book, The Doors of Perception; the key passage from Blake being: "If the doors of perception were cleansed, everything would appear to man as it is: infinite."  In other words, this is what music sounds like once all other distractions are swept away.  But talk about distractions: personal relationships, the media, live performances, critical reviews; the only way for The Doors to reach that goal would have been to live like monks, ignoring all else in the world save Music.  Fat chance; they were performers.

My own sense of what was possible given this basic contradiction is that if Morrison had been able to make it into later life, he'd have slowed down, mellowed and abandoned live performance for the one-way control of a recording studio; people hearing you, but not you them.  In fact, that was the scenario playing out just before he died: the band had all but given up live shows, and instead we got gems like L.A. Woman.   

So what to make of their music?  In a famously dismissive article in Newsweek (March 24th, 1991), at the time of the Oliver Stone biopic, conservative columnist George Will asks about "Break On Through (To The Other Side)":  "Through what? To what?  Don't ask. The Doors didn't."   Perhaps Will's is a steamed up shower door from all the hot air.  From the moment I hear those first few notes stepping smartly, "da da, da; da da-da, da da-da-da" (2-1, 3, 4) I'm on board.  And the lyrics?

Take these: "I found an island in your arms; country in your eyes; arms that chain; eyes that lie; break on through to the other side."  I rest my case.  This is simply saying: enough; turn your back on what bothers you, if you can. 

And that's The Doors for you.  If Morrison had lived, he probably would have shed the unsavory, going into rehab or what not, and found that without the up front distractions of fandom, media, police, promotion and the compromised instincts these involve, the life of a poet and musician would have been, indeed, breaking on through (to the other side).

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Each band or performer is graded on four things:
  1.  Innovation
  2.  Influence in my life--as a typical American
  3.  Integrity: the band's approach to music (just making a buck or honing a craft?)  
  4.  Immortality--am I, a typical American--still eager to hear their music

9/9//5/5 = 28 out of a perfect 40

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That famous line in L.A. Woman, "Mr. Mojo Risin'"?  The artful explanation, perhaps doled out to a titter-tutter press, was that, unscrambled, the letters spell out someone's name.  And if you start with a 'j' and end with an 'n' you'll dig it soon enough.

#30 -- Stevie Wonder

Internal Geometry

If ever there were an artist who one could claim was the #1 pop singer of his era, it would be Stevie Wonder.

I vividly remember a scene from my late teenage years, sitting in a restaurant with friends, eating lunch.  One by one we chose a song on the juke box to listen to.  And each choice said a little bit about us.  The biggest knock-out, explosive response was when someone cued up "You Are The Sunshine of My Life".  Not only does it capture the delicious, freed exuberance of youth, but everyone catches onto the doorknob and enters.

Sheer genius is involved in writing and singing such pop.  Not only is the song excellent, but it threads the needle of popularity, finding the perfect sweet spot that speaks to the greatest number of listeners.

Take another example: "Higher Ground".  The bouncy funk was revolutionary in its appeal across musical tastes.  But why did it have such broad magnetism?  The Internal geometry.  This is what makes some songwriters giants; and incidentally, what becomes the giveaway for 'throwaway' genres that are living off hype and little else (punchy rhythm and bass, snappy lyrics and you've got Rap; add a pleasing architecture and you've got greatness).

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Each band or performer is graded on four things:
  1.  Innovation
  2.  Influence in my life--as a typical American
  3.  Integrity: the band's approach to music (just making a buck or honing a craft?)  
  4.  Immortality--am I, a typical American--still eager to hear their music

8/7//6/6 = 27 out of a perfect 40

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C'est Vrai: Wonder played all the instruments you hear on "Higher Ground", not to mention writing the words.

#31 -- Sting

The artist Sting, besides generating countless popular hits in the '80s and '90's, has done for Rock & Roll what few other musicians have accomplished: merged the popular with the classical to give Rock unbounded respect.

Most successful musicians are content to stick to a groove, churning out additional, derivative hits, or music aimed in that direction, often collaborating with other artists once they've an established brand to bank on.  But few have traveled as far afield as Sting.  First Jazz, then singing in foreign languages, archaic traditional, North African, Indian, hip-hop, and finally a musical play.

And this is all on top of a life devoted to activism, in which charity concerts to raise funds for worthy causes are manyfold. 

Several weeks ago I was watching the PBS show 'Finding Your Roots", which traces celebrity genealogies, and saw Sting participate.  His roots, it turns out, were generally Nordic, and quite 'umble.  His reaction was as genuinely pleased amd as gracious as if he'd been found the long lost 17th Earl of Pompton.  It's a safe bet that few superstars would react that way.

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Each band or performer is graded on four things:
  1.  Innovation
  2.  Influence in my life--as a typical American
  3.  Integrity: the band's approach to music (just making a buck or honing a craft?)  
  4.  Immortality--am I, a typical American--still eager to hear their music

9/4/9/5 = 27 out of a perfect 40

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Fun Fact: Sting's is the voice singing "I want my MTV" in the over-the-top, mocking, 1985 Dire Straits song, "Money For Nothing".

#32 -- Tom Petty and The Heartbreakers

Can't Beat Humor

Blessed are the 'long-time-a-coming' acts who wait for motivation to set in; they may appear lazy, but verily, you can't force a thrill.

A friend inquires (comment #14) whether I'm still working on this blog.  Well, I'd planned for a long pause (until sometime next year), but, like Petty, I'll nonchalantly wander into the spotlight and all but reluctantly lay out my next inspiration.

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The vibe I get from Tom Petty and The Hearbreakers can be summed up by the title of their 1979 album: Damn The Torpedos, ...why second-guess a good thing?

A glance at the group's other album titles gives one a feel for how in-the-zone their sense of wonder and humor are: "Into The Great Wide Open", "You're Going To Get It", "Let Me Up (I've Had Enough)".  Why haven't more artists mocked the act of album titling so excellently and so thoroughly?  You just can't beat the humor in "You're Going To Get It".

Okay, time for fessing up: my favorite Petty song is the earnest "Here Comes My Girl" with its modulations in intensity (speaking voice, all the way up to a cranked and triumphant epiphany).  But, it's also hard to top his collaboration with Stevie Nicks from '81 and of course, "The Waiting", also from that year, is an unstoppable contendah.

It's perhaps a testament to Petty's high regard among his fellow musicians that the Traveling Wilburys (that all but anonymous supergroup made up of Bob Dylan, George Harrison, Roy Orbison, Steve Lynne and Petty) sounded more like a Petty record than it did any of the other characters.

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Each band or performer is graded on four things:
  1.  Innovation
  2.  Influence in my life--as a typical American
  3.  Integrity: the band's approach to music (just making a buck or honing a craft?)  
  4.  Immortality--am I, a typical American--still eager to hear their music

7/7/5/7 = 26 out of a perfect 40

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Next up, a current Rock & Roll Hall of Fame nominee.