Ariel Pink's Haunted Graffiti: Before Today

Ariel Pink's Haunted Graffiti: Before Today

2010

4AD Records

Format I Own it On: Vinyl


Track Listing: 1. Hot Body Rub  2. Bright Lit Blue Skies  3. L'estat (Acc. to the Widow's Maid)  4. Fright Night (Nevermore)  5. Round and Round  6. Beverly Kills  7. Butt-House Blondies  8. Little Wig  9. Can't Hear My Eyes  10. Reminiscences  11. Menopause Man  12.Revolution's a Lie

********I kept having people tell me they were leaving comments but the comments never posted...I just figured out that I had the comments turned off, so if you comment now it should post...Sorry about that... **************

I heard a lot about of good things about this album and it sounded like something that might be up my alley. I found a vinyl copy of this at the local Zia Records in Tempe, AZ for  a good price and decided to check it out.

 (I love this place...)

I probably jumped in expecting too much. See, I'm a Guided by Voices fanatic. I love everything about them. The music, the prolific output, the spotty track record, the basement recording quality; it's all part of the experience for me. Ariel Pink is often (unfairly, I think) compared to Mr. Pollard, because all those above-mentioned qualities are often attributed to Ariel Pink too. This was hyped as being his most accessible release, so I figured it would be the best place to start.

I played this record about 25 times since it came out, and I'm of the opinion that it's about 25% incredible, 50% alright and 25% unbelievably irritating. In my eyes, this is a worse batting average than most Robert Pollard albums...But  again, that's  really an unfair since I don't think these two artists are comparable at all.... Pollard uses classic rock (the Who and the Beatles), prog  (early Genesis comes to mind often, listening to his material) , and punk (especially early Wire) as his starting points, but he really hits his stride when he twists these sounds into new, distinctly different mutations. Arial Pink to me, sounds like his takeoff point is late 70's- early 80's soft rock, and the closer the replication, the more enjoyable he becomes.

The album opens with a cover version of Eddie Murphy's "James Brown's Celebrity Hot Tub..."

 ...that leads us to "Bright Lit Blue Skies" that's apparently a cover of some song I've never heard, but it nails this old AM radio vibe so successfully it's almost awe-inspiring. Gauzy, spaced-out, hooky. By this point in the album, I was totally sold, despite the awful opener  (which was mercifully brief).  This totally made up for it...Then I was on to the next track "L'estat (Acc. to the Widow's Maid)." God, this song was dopey but I was able to handle it until the irritating recurring "Cheer Up!" section...I was about to take the record off...Seriously...

Then "Fright Night" came on I become 100% neutral. Somehow not good or bad...just a cavernous blandness.

 Huh.

 But it was enough to convince me to wait it out...and then "Round & Round" came on and everything about this album suddenly just clicked for me! This song is fantastic! I love it!  It kind of reminds me of Hall & Oates, or the Bee Gees. It takes a long time to finally get to the chorus (about 2 minutes) but good Lord Almighty! That chorus is totally hit-worthy! Well, probably not a hit now, but circa 1982, I could totally imagine it being all over the radio.

 The Same goes for "Beverley Kills" and "Can't Hear my Eyes." "Can't Hear My Eyes" is  a dead-ringer for "Eye in the Sky"-era Alan Parson's Project. Just a stunning piece of easy-going yacht-rock... "Little Wig" is a lot of fun too...

Unfortunately, I also had to sit through "Butt House Blondies" which is maybe the most singularly irritating song in my entire album collection. And I have a Toto record!



The rest of it is kinda so-so, doesn't bug me, doesn't thrill me either...

So yea, that's how I fared with this, I'd maybe borrow it from a friend or something... I haven't sold it or traded it or given it away yet, because there really is some spectacular stuff that I love revisiting time after time.  On the other hand,  I almost have to mentally prepare myself to be kind of annoyed before I put it on. Why don't I just simply skip the tracks I don't care about?

That's a pretty good question. One I ask myself all the time...I guess the answer is..I just don't. I mean, an artist went through all the time and trouble to sequence an album, so if I choose to listen to it, I'm going to honor that decision. It's for the same reason I just don't fast-forward Godzilla movies to the end, even though I'm really only watching the movie to see the last half hour where Godzilla shows up and does some serious damage to Tokyo....

I guess I see the imperfections as part of the journey...maybe it's some sort of mental defect...Why should I sit and waste precious moments of my life on some track that bugs the shit out of me?  Well, sometimes those things you can't stand can later become somewhat endearing... It's happened quite a few times that I eventually fall in love with a song that I didn't care for initially...
 
So yea...the answer is...I don't know...

But I don't want to put you guys through this...Let's skip ahead to "Round & Round." (which might only seem great to me because I had to sit through " L'estat (Acc. to the Widow's Maid)" to get to it...sigh...)