yeah, i'm tad behind on this, aren't i?so, the breeders and the pixies tribute happened to pop up on the same day (i returned to my randomness method of pulling cd's).
title tk - the breeders
this was the breeders supposed big comeback. and it was, in a sense. the first two breeders albums - when tanya donnelly was in the band and the pixies still existed - were brilliant. noisy, poppy but not TOO poppy. and just... great. then came last splash (i might have the divine hammer single somewhere, but never owned that album) and the annoyingly ubiquitous "cannonball." (catchy bassline + cute video + pot references = hit song!). then, of course, came the inevitable collaps when fame is too much. drugs, personal issues between the deal sisters... it was ridiculously tabloidy, really. there were some other bands and projects, with that vague "hiatus" word bandied about. then, finally, with different band members, came title tk. not catchy, not really, still noisy, very much a steve albini produced record (but, you know, not like when he produced Bush). "off you" nicely echos the velvet underground. it was definitely not meant to be a "hit" album, more a "get some of the aggression and anger from the past few years" album. i remember when i bought it - i ordered it at my work, which sometimes sells cd's, though my store at the time had a very small selection, and was primarily just the "book" part of their name - someone asking me if it had songs like cannonball on it, and me laughing derisively. i'm a jerk.
(7/10)
where is my mind: a tribute to the pixies
so a good tribute album takes bands with a decent amount of debt to the band being paid tribute and has them take the songs people know and love, and then has them not improve on the songs, but pay tribute in their own way. the band maintains their own identity (ie. doesn't just clone the songs verbatim) while also honoring the band in question. here's how where is my mind ranks:
bands who owe a debt: check. yeah, it's a little hard to see where the pixies really influenced some of the late 90's ska/punk scene (reel big fish, teen heroes, siren six) BUT the rest of the bands all really show an obvious influence - weezer, superdrag, nada surf = definitely. but even the host of "emo" bands that make up the majority of the disc pretty obviously owe a debt to frank black and co.
bands maintaining identity: eh. nobody really makes much NEW out of any of the songs, with 4 exceptions. eve 6 makes allison boring and into an eve six song - a mercifully short eve 6 song, since i always found their music kind of draggy. weezer make velouria a weezer song, but still maintain its absolute pixiesness. this was weezer's big comeback - the first recorded material since pinkerton (and the reason i bought the CD), and it went off brilliantly. reel big fish then turn gigantic into a duran duran-esque synth pop song (i have always liked when they covered things, even though they were a definite perpetrator of the mid 90's trend of covering the 80s) and siren six turn holiday song into a nice little reggae tune. everyone else then pretty much just plays pixies songs. maybe a little louder and heavier, but still, nothing really new. i like most of the bands in question just fine, and the songs they choose fit, and it makes perfect sense to have these bands covering the pixies, but... i dunno...
(7/10)
self navigation - crushed stars
where did this cd come from? probably the college radio station, though i have no real memory of grabbing it from there.
there's something very hazey about the cd - maybe something to do with the singer who sounds a little like the guy from stellastar*. musically, it's sort of post rock, sort of space rock, a little bit of jazz. and there's a song about liza minelli (err?). the song titles are possibly the best "descriptive of how the song sounds" titles i have ever seen: liza in silver, letters to munich, ever since autumn, asleep on a bus near lowell, outside the stars are falling, moontears...
one slightly our of place addition is "exit wound" - sounding quite a bit like early REM, or actually more exactly like the band For Squirrels at the moments they sounded like early REM. (actually, some of the rest of the album also evokes early REM, in particular "Camera").
(8/10)
it's a shame about ray - the lemonheads
fact: this is the last truly great lemonheads album. come on feel the... was a drug addled, hippydrippy, mess. car button cloth, which i actually liked some of, was a mess. i guess evan dando has done some other stuff since then, but nothing interesting. but ray is the lemonheads at their most consistent and complete album. early lemonheads - up through lovey, the album that came before this, still straddled their mix of gram parsons and punk, with a bit of dinosaur jr thrown in. Ray is just a nice little collection of 2-3 minute pop songs, backing vocals from julianna hatfield, and a cover of "mrs robinson" which i kind of like more than the original... it's one of those rare gems of an album that's brilliant from start to finish (though, okay, i'm not a big fan of "my drug buddy" but i'll let that one slide). it's sort of too bad that this was the album that made evan dando a pin up celebrity, easily mocked (the zine, evan dando must die, came not long after this), and ultimately a washed out celebrity (drug busts, hanging out with courtney love a little too much, etc.)
(9/10)
It Means Everything - Save Ferris
didn this cd really come out 10... 11 years ago? man, i feel old... honestly, i think the last time i head save ferris anywhere was in some rerun of some late 90's TV show where they used it as a fun, bouncy montage song (the song was "the world is new", i'm pretty sure, and was possibly also chosen because i think it was one of those makeover type montages). and i guess that was kind of typical of what ska had become in the late 90's - montage and movie preview music.
anyway, so when it comes down to it, this cd is pretty inconsequential. light, fluffy, bouncy pop-ska, with some swing thrown in for good measure (because, well, everyone was a swing band in 1997/98). it would be pretty easy to call them generic: obligatory 80's cover, a song about food (spam)... the swingier songs fare a little better, if only because the singer, monique powell has a strong voice, (though i think it was too easily compared to any Gwen Stefani... which was kind of bullshit, if anything she sounds more like one of the Dancehall Crashers, and even that's a stretch). the horn section is probably what's best about the album, though i'm maybe a little partial as a trumpet player. it's not a bad cd, not by a long shot. it's kind of what pop music should be. i saw them live a couple of times and met them once. it was sort of a shame that the follow up album, modified (which i may or may not still own... i don't remember...) was kind of not particularly good.
6/10 (though the nostalgia part of it, because it really reminded me of high school, might knock it up to a 7).
more to come...
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