So last week (or so), I wrote about a couple albums that are what I consider to be all hit with no misses, a.k.a. albums that are amazing cover to cover. I started with my two favorite albums of all time, Born to Run and Blood on the Tracks. If you missed that, you can read it HERE.
Since there are a number of other albums on that list, I’m just gonna keep it going in this blog. Remember, the rules are that every song on the album has to be good, i.e. no skips, that I will list my favorite song and my least favorite and that I will mostly talk about the album’s influence on me and when it came into my life versus the actual music itself. All these albums have been extensively reviewed and disseminated so the only thing I can add to the conversation is my personal experience, which is what I am doing. These are also being presented in no particular order, apart from the fact that I listed my top two favorite albums of all-time on the last list. But whatever, these ones going forward are just the ones I feel like writing about at the time. Not sure how many I’ll do but I definitely have a few more on the list.
Anyways, enough blather, on to the albums!
My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy - Kanye West
Favorite song: All of the Lights
Least favorite song: Blame Game
So, this is one is currently a top 5 album of all-time for me. It vacillates based on my mood but it currently sits in the #5 spot. Mostly, that’s just because I’m just recovering from a Neil Young obsession that vaulted Tonight’s the Night into the #4 spot, which it isn’t likely to hold forever. The two from last week, Born to Run and Blood on the Tracks, #1 and #2 respectively, are locked in forever. The #3 spot usually fluctuates between Springsteen’s Darkness on the Edge of Town and Dylan’s Blonde on Blonde based on who I’m listening to more at the moment (currently: Darkness on the Edge of Town). But the #4 and #5 spots have changed hands a lot over the years. Everything from this album to Johnny Cash’s Live at San Quentin to Damien Rice’s O to Modest Mouse’s The Lonesome Crowded West to A Tribe Called Quest’s The Low End Theory and countless others have occupied the #4 and #5 spots (some of which will show up on this list at some point). I’m probably due for a serious study to get those final three spots right. Anyways, onto the Kanye love.
This album happened to hit me a very strange time in my life. I had just left New York City. I had just broken up with my girlfriend of almost five years. I had just started a new band. I still didn’t have many friends because I was new in town and, well, Portland, OR fucking sucks ass. Oh yeah, and I was depressed as fuck because, well, Portland, OR fucking sucks ass. So, I found my way into a small group of similarly unhealthy people, though all for different reasons, who also liked to party way too much. For a while, we did everything together, and usually to excess, including playing this fucking album on repeat.
I don’t think I’ve ever been more excited for an album release than I was for My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy. I remember Kanye had released four singles, Monster, POWER, All of the Lights and Runaway, I believe, in the weeks leading up to MBDTF’s final release date. We would hang out at the rehearsal space after band practice, invite over the girls and pretty much just play those four songs on full volume over and over for hours. Those late night booze-filled and chemically-enhanced dance parties were definitely a highlight amongst what I would mostly consider lowlights during that period of my life. The chaos and excess that was my life during that time was perfectly reflected in this album. From the huge arrangements in a song like All of the Lights to the brashness of POWER to the beautiful simplicity of Runaway, this album covered so much ground and it seemed like it had a moment for any emotion I was having at the time. It felt like My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy had been written by someone and for someone going that type of lifestyle.
In a small way, I felt like I related to Kanye during this time, albeit in a much more scaled down fashion. I couldn’t afford cocaine and hooker yacht parties, but we managed to create our own poor people version of that. I was living a Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy and, in a way, this album helped me see that more clearly. It had started out kinda fun but quickly grew into a never-ending fever dream, where half the events were washed away by booze and other things and the rest seemed like I had dreamt it. I even ended up smashing my phone so I couldn’t go back and see things I didn’t want to remember. I am also missing out on some of the actual good times, but that’s the trade, I guess. It’s almost as if that time of my life didn’t really exist. I just remember these vignettes from some old book or movie I haven’t seen a while, so all the details have sort of run together. I don’t know if that’s a good thing or a bad thing but it is what it is…
One of the fascinating things about Kanye’s artistic journey, which I’ve experienced in real time over the years as I’ve been a huge Kanye fan ever since his appearance on Chappelle’s Show with Common, is how he not only gets better with each album but seems to find an entirely new set of skills to play around with. He starts out with his “I’ll sample some gospel songs and add some thick drums” phase then plays around with pop themes and synths and then just fucking explodes with the production on this one. Kanye seems to be such a master of hearing things that no on else can, finding the perfect avenue to channel those as of yet unheard sounds through and then somehow making us feel like “how has no one done this before?” because it sounds so good. I mean, listen to All of the Lights and try to imagine anyone else putting that shit together. I can’t.
The other thing I love about this album is the amazing back-to-back-to-back trio of POWER, All of the Lights and Monster. Can those three beat out the all-time back-to-back-to-back trilogy of Thriller, Beat It and Billie Jean? Probably not, but maybe in time it can close the gap. But it might be the first serious run anyone has made at that magical threesome in a long time. If you can think of better back-to-back-to-back than MJ’s, let me know in the comments. I can’t think of one.
And not even boring ass John Legend can ruin this album, though that is why I docked Blame Game despite Chris Rock’s amazing cameo at the end. It’s still not a bad song, I just wish someone who actually had an interesting voice would’ve sang on it.
That’s what I got on My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy. What next? Here you go…
The Lonesome Crowded West - Modest Mouse
Favorite song: Trailer Trash
Least favorite song: Long Distance Drunk
This one might be the hardest one so far to pick a least favorite. There’s no semi-lazy blues song like on Blood on the Tracks, no John Legend trying to shit Kanye’s nearly perfect album or no obvious candidate like on Born to Run. I had to go back and listen to this on vinyl start to finish to determine which song truly made me feel the least, as they all make me feel something. In the end, Long Distance Drunk edged out, or I guess, was edged out by, Trucker’s Atlas, which was only in the running because of how fucking long that jam at the end that doesn’t fucking go anywhere for like five fucking minutes. But the first five minutes of that song are so good, I gave the nod to Long Distance Drunk.
My favorite song was easy. I’ve played Trailer Trash in almost every single band I’ve been in since high school. Long after I’m done playing in bands I’ll still be fucking playing that song. I’ll probably die playing song some day, who the fuck knows…
I’m pretty sure I was a freshman in high school when I started listening to Modest Mouse, though it could have been my 8th grade year, but who remembers at this point. I’ve been told drugs and alcohol take a toll on your memory, and they’re right. But, this album was probably the first proper indie album I fell in love with. Before this, it was Bob Dylan, Jimi Hendrix, Metallica, the Foo Fighters, Nirvana, Rage Against the Machine, Bush, the Smashing Pumpkins, etc. basically all platinum album type bands. I guess Oasis’ put out some “indie” records for Creation but even that was supported by a major so I don’t think it counts. Plus, they had already sold like 25 million records by that point so calling anything they did “indie” seems disingenuous.
But back then, I got most of my music from the radio or MTV (holy fuck, remember when MTV played music videos??? That feels like one of those “say how old you are without saying it” type things. I also grew up in Wisconsin where everything is like ten years behind the rest of the country. Just wait until 2030, what a shit year they’re in for. Don’t spoil it for them though…) so this was the first band not really in the mainstream. Yes, they had already been signed to a major and released the Moon and Antarctica but they didn’t really have any singles and definitely didn’t pop the way the label had hoped. When someone first told uttered the words “Modest Mouse” I thought it might be a joke. But, nope it was a band that made one of my all-time favorite records.
So, since most of my musical intake was mainstream Rock ‘n’ Roll, hearing this for the first time was a mind fuck. I’d never heard songs structured like this, songs that don’t always have a chorus, songs that jumped from one seemingly incongruous element to the next, songs with a guy screaming nonsensical lyrics like “this plane is definitely crashing” that somehow made me feel something, songs about suburban sprawl in Issaquah that made me somehow want to move to Issaquah. OK, that last one is definitely weird but it did almost happen. I did move to Seattle, but elected to stay in the city because at the time I didn’t own a car and it was a long ass bus ride out to Issaquah and back, trust me.
The way Isaac moved from riffs to chords, from screaming to sweetly singing (in his own way), from these beautiful little moments to enormous rock choruses and jams, I just hadn’t heard anything quite like it. I knew of Nirvana and the whole loud-soft-loud thing they stole from the Pixies, but the way Modest Mouse used dynamics was so dramatically different than other bands. Songs would build into these amazing crescendos. Songs would rise and fall like you were riding on a boat with them. Songs were so subtle in the way they used dynamic. It wasn’t the verse is a 4, the prechorus a 6 and the chorus a 10. It was we’ll go from a 2 to 4 then to a 6 then back to 3 then up to a 9 then back to 2 then to 4 then to 6 then to 11. Choruses would be the calm part and the verses would have the energy. Sometimes the same verses would be repeated over and over but with different dynamics so they felt different or had a different meaning. Sometimes the lack of chorus made each part of the song stand out that much more. Each song was its own entity and I loved that. I never knew what to expect song to song. It was an amazing adventure on each listen.
Also, the way the drummer used rhythm was unlike anything I’d heard before. And the bass player wrote these melodic parts that played around with those drum parts and also mingled with the guitars. It’s like everyone was playing “lead” on their instruments at the same time and somehow it worked. The only time I’ve ever really heard that work was with the Jimi Hendrix Experience. They had moments where they were playing “lead” drums, “lead” bass and “lead” guitar all at the same and it was magical, but I had always attributed that to Jimi’s genius. I guess that makes Isaac a genius too. And I’m all for that and I’m sure Isaac would agree.
This album showed freshman Bradley what music could sound like without so many boundaries and I needed that. My life at that time was slowly unraveling. I was slowly learning that most of my “friends” were really just teammates and I was not going to be hanging out with them much longer once I tore my achilles. The other friends I had would also not be my friends for much longer as they were slowly revealing just how hateful and racist they were since our high school had just welcomed its first black kid into its walls. They would drive their pickup trucks (most of my friends were older) with Confederate flags flying from the back. So, I played all my high school shows with this guitar that features a sticker that shows a Confederate flag with the words “You Lost Get Over It” to show them where I stood (I recently went back to Wisconsin to pick up the last of my stuff and was so happy that I had chosen to keep this all those years ago when I had to hastily pack up my stuff and shove it into storage):
So, with no friends left, I turned towards the kids who were really into books, movies, TV and especially music. Not only were they much more interesting, but they actually helped me start to grow as a person. I wasn’t just how many points or tackles or runs I made but I could be judged on the books that I consumed or the records I loved or the movies I watched. Yes, high school kids are always judging the others but I’d rather it be for things that actually represent me as a human being, and my choices in books, movies, TV and music do that.
They introduced me to so many great albums and this one is right up there with any of ‘em. When I heard my buddy Jake drunkenly play Trailer Trash for the first time, I thought I might be dreaming. It was one of the best songs I had ever heard. But it was so simple. Just three fucking chords, over and over again. It didn’t make sense. How could that song be so simple but so fucking good? A year or so later, I found myself in a band with him playing that same fucking song. I think Trailer Trash and Wonderwall were the first ones we ever played together. Wonderwall to get the chicks and to get people singing along at parties, and Trailer Trash for the true music fans, a.k.a. for us a few of our friends while the douchebags kept shouting “do you know Every Rose Has Its Thorn?” which, yes I did, but no, I was not going to play it…unless a pretty girl asked for it, then I could make an exception.
This album marked a time of great change for me. There was change all over the place as I was starting finally figure out who I actually was as a person. I learned that for some reason I had stopped growing early so I would likely be too small for sports soon and all those “friends” would be gone. I learned that I wasn’t a racist so all those “friends” would also be gone. I learned that I loved music more than I had previously thought and that playing it in front of people was a very joyful experience. I learned that Wisconsin was not the place I was destined to end up in, I had to head west. And the Lonesome Crowded West was the soundtrack to all of that. It helped me accept all those lessons learned. It helped show me that I was more Modest Mouse than Poison. And that’s as good a life lesson as any in my book…
Anyways, I’ll be back to talk about more albums as I’ve definitely got a few more on the list. Until next time, keep a good head and always carry a lightbulb…
(dictated but not read)
