Pat Benatar: Crimes of Passion

Pat Benatar: Crimes of Passion

1980

Chrysalis Records

Format I Own it on: Vinyl

Track Listing: 1. Treat Me Right  2. You Better Run  3. Never Wanna Leave You  4. Hit Me With Your Best Shot  5. Hell Is for Children  6. Little Paradise  7. I'm Gonna Follow You  8. Wuthering Heights  9. Prisoner of Love  10. Out-A-Touch  

When I pulled out this record and looked at the label, I was like, "Oh yea...Chrysalis Records..." I'd kind of forgotten about that Record Label...It seemed to be ubiquitous when I was a kid, but, for the life of me,  I couldn't think of a single record that came out on Chrysalis since, oh...1986...So I looked it up yesterday to see exactly when they folded...It turns out it was 2005!?!?! What!?!?!

Anyway, "Crimes of Passion" is Pat Benatar's second album...She had kind of an arena rock sound around this time, with some new-wave/power-pop touches, the big hit here was the punchy "Hit Me With Your Best Shot."That song was absolutely everywhere when I was a kid...The radio was big in our household and everytime you turned it on in the early 80's this song was playing...And I continued to hear it growing up, because for some reason every punk band in Michigan covered it in the 90's...I swear to God,  whenever I went to a punk rock show, whoever the local Michigan band that was opening would always play it...Whether I was watching shows in Flint or Detroit...I'm not sure if it was some elaborate joke I wasn't in on, or if the appreciation for Pat's 1980 hit really ran that deep...I haven't lived in Michigan since 2001, so I'm not sure if the bands are still doing it (or even if there are still any punk bands left in Michigan...) but I was thinking of reviving the tradition...Although I don't really live in Michigan anymore, so I guess it would be an empty gesture...sigh...



And if you're into "Hit Me With Your Best Shot" then you'll have no problem with this record...Every single huge & glossy  song  feels like it could have been on the radio ("Out-A-Touch" and "Prisoner of Love" would sound great on there). The only thing that feels like an album track is her cover of  Kate Bush's "Wuthering Heights" which actually works. She has the good sense to add some big rock guitars which makes the song much easier for me to swallow...Other than that the album is so radio-ready that it feels wrong to sit and listen to in my home...I should be stuck in traffic, shouting obscenities at other drivers while "You Better Run" plays in between 7 a.m. boner jokes...

I recently dug up an old copy of People Magazine from the year 1980...The big cover story was the recent murder of former Beatle John Lennon...

This magazine is absolutely filled with ads for cigarettes and booze...And a lot of the ads feature various celebrities...

 

Here's the ever-plastered Orson Welles selling Paul Masson. I can still hear his dried voice intoning, "We will sell no wine before its time...." 

 And here's John Goodman selling Arrow Schnapps...and not the John Goodman I went to school with, but the John Goodman from TV!

  And here's Magnum PI selling something called "Chaz." I don't think you drink it, though...It kind of looks like a cologne bottle...But I'm not sure,...Cologne bottles and booze bottles look pretty similar to me...Which explains the time I accidentally downed a fifth of "Hai Karate." 

Here's a virtual sex-bot grooving out to some Fuji Cassette tapes...Could it be she's listening to "Crimes of Passion"? Totally possible. I'm filing this picture under the "Cool Trapper-Keeper Art" genre...

Now, what do you serve your guests when they come to your pad on Friday Night to listen to Pat Benatar's "Crimes of Passion?"

...To me this totally feels like a  "Six-Pack-of-Tab" type of album...

 So fire up your 2600 and toss in the new "Space Invader's" cartridge (which was also released in 1980)

 ...and play "You Better Run..."

Adrian Belew: Twang Bar King

Adrian Belew: Twang Bar King

1983

	Island Records

Format I Own it on: Vinyl

Track Listing: 1. I'm Down  2. I Wonder  3. Life Without a Cage  4. Sexy Rhino  5. Twang Bar King  6. Another Time  7. The Rail Song  8. Paint the Road  9. She Is Not Dead  10. Fish Head  11.The Ideal Woman  12. Ballet for a Blue Whale

This is the second solo album by King Crimson guitarist/vocalist Adrian Belew., and holy shit, does he sound exactly like David Byrne of the Talking Heads (as opposed to David Byrne of the US Postal Service.)

I mean, it kind of makes sense, he was heavily involved in the Talking Heads (contributing guitar to the Talking Head's 1980 classic "Remain in Light" and he was also their live guitarist during this time period...Hell, he even received an offer to replace David Byrne when some of the other band-mates were sick of him...), and while it is sometimes distracting, really, you learn to overlook it a little, if only because you're listening to the real star of the show: Adrian's warped guitar, which usually sounds like it's melting or being played backwards...

Outside of that, it's a fun and eclectic album...Adrian tries out all kinds of things...He starts out the record  with a near-perfect replica of "I'm Down" by the Beatles, only going wonky during an avant garde guitar solo...and after that he's all over the map...bizarre instrumentals, pop songs, street interviews,  rockabilly, world music recorded backwards, you name it...

I really enjoy "The Rail Song."It makes me want to tie up all my possessions in a handkerchief and tie them to the end of a stick and hop a train...

Yea, it makes me want to be a bindlestiff! It captures that romantic and adventurous spirit beautifully...

"When we climbed up the great Appalachians,
Her engines would be raging like hell,
Then we'd come back down to the rising towns,
Where the cattle stare In the frozen air..."

 All in all, I think everybody's record collection needs something like this; When you're tired of hearing verses, choruses, and the standard chord progressions, and just want to hear a guy
pursue whatever crazy idea interests him...I found this in the $3.00 bin at the local FYE in Tempe, AZ and if you run into a copy at the same price, I'd say it's worth checking out...Hell, I'd go as high as $5.00!

Now it's time to check out Adrian's video for "I'm Down." It's a good 80's video because it has juggling in it...All great 80's videos have juggling...

Beck: Modern Guilt

 Beck: Modern Guilt

2008

DGC Records

Format I Own it On: Compact Disc

Track Listing: 1. Orphans  2. Gamma Ray  3. Chemtrails  4. Modern Guilt  5. Youthless  6. Walls  7. Replica  8. Soul of a Man  9. Profanity Prayers  10. Volcano


Beck's 2008 collaboration with famed producer Dangermouse...



This album sports a bleak, paranoid 21st century feel...The track listing and running time is lean compared to his last couple of albums  (10 songs in 33 minutes) and Beck ditches the rapping completely. Instead he spends the album crooning over a bone-dry backing of clattering percussion and sparse bass grooves...

 

This is probably my least favorite of Beck's albums, but his output has been pretty consistent, so that's not saying much...It actually has a killer side one... Everything in the first half works like crazy; "Gamma Ray" is one of his coolest tracks, and he actually pulls off "ominous" thanks to the song's creepy spy riff and glitched-out vocals...Come to think of it "Chemtrails" is kind of spooky too...I'm not sure what Beck is singing about, some sort of conspiracy theory apparently, but it's a beautiful, disorienting slice of woozy psychedelia... 

 But as I find myself deep into the second half of this record I can feel my attention wander from time to time...which marks the first time I've ever dazed out while listening to a Beck record...Usually his records are so jam-packed with interesting ideas and melodies that it takes a couple listens just to take it all in...Luckily, the catchy Velvet Underground stomp of "Profanity Prayers" is there to liven things up...

This album is Beck's last record to date, but there's been recent news that he'll be releasing an acoustic album soon, and as always, I'll be the first in line at the record store to check it out....Who would have thought that Beck would end up being one of the most important and influential musicians to come out of the '90's...I can recall hearing "Loser" for the first time back in 1994, and absolutely hating it...It seemed like some sort of novelty tune aimed at the "slacker" set... But people would always tell me, "Man, forget 'Loser', You've got to check out the rest of the album..." But I continued to avoid "Mellow Gold" like the plague...

Then I remember hanging out at one of Scott's legendary bonfires and someone put on the "Mellow Gold" cassette...I was skeptical at first, but as I listened on, there was no denying I was dead-ass wrong...It was an incredible album and the guy really was a true talent...And he's proven time and time again that it wasn't a fluke...With that said, let's check out "Profanity Prayers" by Beck...Enjoy...

 

Beck: The Information

Beck: The Information

2006

Interscope Records

Format I Own it on: Compact Disc

Track Listing: 1. Elevator Music  2.Think I'm in Love  3. Cellphone's Dead  4. Strange Apparition  5. Soldier Jane  6. Nausea  7.  New Round  8. Dark Star  9. We Dance Alone  10. No Complaints  11. 1000 BPM  12. Motorcade  13. The Information 14. Movie Theme  15. The Horrible Fanfare/Landslide/Exoskeleton

Oddly enough, I almost forgot this album existed...I finished listening to "Guero" yesterday and today when I went to the CD rack to pick out what I thought was "Modern Guilt," I inspected the cover and thought to myself, "Wait...What is this?!" I took a quick glance at the back cover and the song titles "Think I'm In Love" and "Nausea" jumped right out at me...However if you would have asked me a week ago which album those songs appeared on I probably would have said "Guero." How did I forget about this album?



Well, after listening to it again, I can kind of understand why...It's oddly underwhelming at first...Yet on closer inspection, it's one of his most listenable albums...Beck sounds utterly lost on it, numbly rapping about cellphones and digital food malls over intricate grooves that exist somewhere between early 80's funk and krautrock...

The only notable departure from this bleepity sound-scape is "Strange Apparition" which is a dead-ringer for Mick Taylor-era Rolling Stones...Other than that the entire  album has this uniformly dazed sound. however, some good hooks do emerge, like the cool pop song "Think I'm In Love" and that "We're all pushing up the tincan mountaintop..." chorus on "Motorcade" is pretty hard to shake...



The album ends with a three-song suite that sums up the experience of the album perfectly; disjointed, slightly overlong and satisfyingly funky...Two guys talk in dispassionate circles about what the ultimate record would sound like...

"Like, depending, like change depending on what mood you're in. Like the best...or depending on like when you assume from a different age, they'll mean something different"

"I don't like it when they change. It frightens me..."

 Very 2006...Remember, the world was a confusing place back in 2006...

We found out Pluto wasn't even a planet!

We also discovered Lonelygirl15 wasn't real...I bet those aren't even real scissors...I bet they're pinking shears!



Hell, even "A Million Little Pieces" was fake...Man, I wish my hand was covered with candy sprinkles...My hand has more of a salty crust...




The cover of "The Information" is pretty bland when you first buy it,...It sort of looks like boring old graph paper...But it comes with this cool sheet of stickers that you can create your own customer cover for it...

This is what I did with mine...

(front)

(back)

It also comes with a sweet dvd (that a lot of people seem to dislike) where Beck makes no-budget videos for every song on the album utilizing cheap wigs, godawful video effects and funny costumes...It never fails to crack me up...

 So let's check out one of those videos...Here's "Think I'm In Love" by Beck...

Beck: Guero

Beck: Guero

2005

Interscope Records

Format I Own it on: Compact Disc

Track Listing: 1. E-Pro  2. Qué Onda Guero  3. Girl  4. Missing  5. Black Tambourine  6. Earthquake Weather  7. Hell Yes  8. Broken Drum  9. Scarecrow  10. Go It Alone  11. Farewell Ride  12. Rental Car  13. Emergency Exit

This record was actually surprising at the time because it was so unsurprising...Prior to this album, you never knew quite what you were getting when you picked up the new Beck album...Would it be retro-funk like "Midnite Vultures"?  A suite of sad acoustic songs like "Sea Change"?   Or another pop culture junkyard in the sample-heavy mold of "Odelay"?  It turns out the answer was "yes."

Beck reunites with the Dust Brothers (whom he had previously worked with on "Odelay") and produces a record that feels a lot like a retrospective of Beck's career up to this point...In most cases you can break this record down track by track and decide which Beck album it should be on....("Missing" should be on "Mutations." "Que Onda Guero" could have been on "Odelay." "Hell Yes" would have fit nicely on "Midnite Vultures" and so on...) but that's diminishing the album's achievement...

After "Sea Change" it would have felt a little weird to "get crazy with the cheez-whiz"  again, so Beck mellows his go-to wackiness a bit and gives us the mature version of his previous styles...It feels more rooted in the real world than before...

"I push I pull, 
 the days go slow. 
 into a void we filled with death and noise..."

Those lyrics won't exactly liven up your next party, but for some reason they sound just fine next to   "Hell Yes!''s feel-good robotic funk...Why? Because  "Hell Yes!" is played more straight than "Get Real Paid,"  for example...



And the final track "Emergency Exit" is probably my favorite Beck song, period. 

"Now hold your hand onto the plow
Work your body till the sun goes down
What's left of death is more than fear
Let dust be dust and the good lord near..." 

You can practically see Beck wiping the sweat from his brow as a plows a field somewhere...Dusty gospel-folk meets high tech electronica...

 

It kind of felt that ever since "Odelay" Beck has been avoiding making a proper follow up to that album, and it kind of worked...He excelled in genres and moods that seemed unlikely when he first came onto the scence in the 90's...But it feels like he's really facing his legacy head-on here, imbues it with everything he's learned since and ties it all together with a great big bow...And we got the super poppy "Girl" out of it too, so everybody wins....

This album was later released in a remixed version called "Guerolito"...

 
I've never heard it...I think I've mentioned before I'm not much of a fan of remix albums...I remember owning the cassette of "Mixed Up" by the Cure but that's the only one I can think of offhand....



For some reason the thought of just taking completed songs and adding a phat beat to them and re-releasing them makes me vaguely ill...Not that I'm saying "Guerolito" should be put in that category...I've never heard it, and I'm sure Beck put a lot more thought and care into it than say, "J to tha L-O! The Remixes."





Y'know...I don't really feel like talking about Beck and remixes today...I'm just going to post a few more random photos from an old photo album I found...

 

Here's Rotgut doing a badass leap off a trampoline whist rocking out...A lot of bands like to rock out in their parent's garages, but we would do it while a car was actively being worked on...We felt it gave the albums a properly greasy aura...

 

"Ho! Ho! Ho!"

At one point we were using this photo for an album cover but we ended up not doing it, as I don't think the subject of the photo was too thrilled about it...But I love this picture so much! The flaming speaker brings an inner peace to me that no words can properly convey...

Here's a picture of a scowling Josh Sam, Jason( lurking in the shadows) and that's me in the front with a gasmask, looking like I should be on "Breaking Bad" or something...

Okay, enough photos for today, if anyone seriously objects to any of the above pictures, just let me know and I'll take them down...Except for that flaming speaker photo...That one is non-negotiable...

Alright, let's check out "Emergency Exit" by Beck...

Beck: MIdnite Vultures

Beck: Midnite Vultures

1999

DGC Reocrds

Format I Own it On: Compact Disc

Track Listing:  1. Sexx Laws  2. Nicotine & Gravy  3. Mixed Bizness  4. Get Real Paid  5. Hollywood Freaks  6. Peaches & Cream  7. Broken Train  8. Milk & Honey  9. Beautiful Way  10. Pressure Zone  11. Debra


I think everybody needs to check out this record again...It seems to be remembered now as a failure...A misstep on the way to "Sea Change." But I don't see it....It was 1999, the world was about to end, so Beck does a 180 from the somber, serious "Mutations" and  invites us into a late night world of sleazy hot tubs, flashy champagne bottles and automatic bzooty...



A proper party album built on the solid musical foundation of Prince-style sex jams and the rubbery funk of George Clinton,  and he tosses in plenty of Kraftwerk and blues to keep things interesting...Really only crossing the line into out-and-out parody on the ironic luxury rap of "Hollywood Freaks."

A lot of highlights here: This record starts the party right with "Sexx Laws" where R&B brass meets bluegrass banjo and the neon headrush of "Mixed Bizzness" which is just a whirlwind of all things funky...

The record seems to shift gears a bit in its second half...The gonzo sexuality and  robot-funk is set aside for a moment and the run of songs from the bluesy "Broken Train" to the country ballad :"Beautiful Way" could fit comfortably on "Odelay."

 The album closes with the glorious slow-jam "Debra" which would be right at home on side two of "Purple Rain."  Lover-man R&B where Beck woos some girl named Jenny ("Debra" is apparently her sister) with lines like:

"Lady, step inside my Hyundai,
 I'm gonna take you up to Glendale..."

 (This song always reminds me of hanging out at the Bambi Bar in Tucson, where this song always seemed to be playing on the jukebox...I miss the Bambi Bar...)

I hear up and coming bands doing music like this all the time and garnering tons of critical acclaim...This album actually seems to foretell "of Montreal" style indie-dance and the later Electroclash genre... But people didn't really seem to want this from Beck at the time..."Sea Change" got the acclaim but to be totally honest, I probably find this album more interesting and enjoyable...I couldn't stop playing it that winter of '99, and I'm finding it hard to take it out of my CD player as we speak...

Oh, yea, BTW...I just discovered today that my copy of "Sea Change" is too scratched up to play, so I'll be skipping that album in the meantime, but I'll get back to it later..





I was thinking of doing a "catch-up" week, where I cover albums starting with A-B that I've picked up since the blog started (some Angry Samoans and Alkaline Trio albums I've picked up recently...I also went through an archeological dig through my closet  that unearthed a few Anthrax CD's...)...Maybe I'll do that next week...Sounds kinda fun..

But to finish out our celebration of 1999's "Midnite Vultures" I dug through my comic box and scanned in some old ads from that year...

Ohhh yea...After achieving the record for highest RBI-per-hit tally in baseball history., Mark McGwire was a big deal in 1999, ...His face was everywhere that year; on Magazine covers, television ads, boxes of Wheaties...He even snagged an endorsement for...bedwetting? Alright...I'll go with it...I never used to understand bedwetting until a few years ago when one night I had a dream (I know...Hearing about other people's dreams is always mind-numbingly boring, but you might want to listen to this one, since it's a kind of cautionary tale...) where I had to take a piss real bad...In my dream I searched frantically for a restroom, and finally found one...But when I opened the door I was surprised to find that the urinal wasn' mounted on teh wall like one would normally expect...No, this urinal was horizontal on the floor...It looked kind of like this...

So anyway, I struggled with the logistics of how to piss in a urinal that was on the floor, until finally I came up with the brilliant solution, "I know! I'll just lie on my stomach and pee!" So I lied on the floor in what I can only describe as the position you get into when you start to do a push-up and said to myself,"Alright! Here I go!"

 Man, what a dirty trick for my mind to play on me!  Thankfully my body was kind enough to alert me to wake up in the nick of time! But it hit me at that moment, "Wow! That's how someone can piss a bed!"

I kind of wish it was Christmas now...Mainly, so I can eat Christmas-flavored Fruity Pebbles and  drink hot buttered rum with my 1999 Christmas Furby...

                                                     

                                                            "Kah boo koo doh!"

 

Woah! That old crappy CGI morphing effect was so popular in the 90's it even had its own book series, which was later turned into a television series!

Kind of like a 90's version of "Manimal."

Okay, I think we've all had just about enough 1999...Let's bust out "Mixed Bizness" by Beck...Enjoy...

Beck: Mutations

Beck:Mutations

1998

Geffen Records

Format I Own it On: Compact Disc

Track Listing:  1. Cold Brains  2. Nobody's Fault But My Own  3. Lazy Flies  4. Canceled Check  5. We Live Again  6. Tropicalia  7. Dead Melodies  8. Bottle of Blues  9. O Maria  10. Sing It Again  11. Static  12. Diamond Bollocks

It was excellent getting to listen to all the Beatles albums in a row, but now I'm moving onto Beck's 1998 album "Mutations." A rich varied, psychedelic record that's not entirely unlike...well...The Beatles...

Hot on the heels of the surprise success of "Mellow Gold" and the monster record "Odelay", (both of which I apparently don't own for some reason...) this record was released with little fanfare...But I think that strategy probably helped it, since it's not really a "big hit" kind of record....It's more quiet and experimental than that, there's no wacky hip hop,  or samples, but simply a downcast blend of baroque pop, bossa nova, and country-blues; the only time we get straight-up rock is on the hidden track "Diamond Bollocks."

Remember it was the 90's...Hidden tracks were mandatory. What the hell started this 90's craze? The earliest example of a secret song, I can find,  is "Her Majesty" on the Beatles "Abbey Road"....But, thinking back, I think the whole "Hidden track after X minutes of silence" technique might have started with "Endless, Nameless" on Nirvana's "Nevermind." That was a pretty big deal at the time...I can clearly recall listening to the radio one morning and hearing an announcement on the radio that an extra song had been found on "Nevermind." That was like the Moon Landing of my generation...



Soon the hidden track was everywhere, and then bands started to get even more and more wacky and over-the-top with the idea...Culminating in the infamous "pre-gap" hidden track, where you have to hit the rewind button as soon as you put the CD to hear a super-hidden song...Off the top of my head I remember hearing pregap hidden tracks on Less Than Jake's "Losing Streak" and 311's "Transistor." Who knows...maybe there's  a hidden track at the end of this blog entry...See if you can find it (I bet you can!) .



Wait, I forgot what I was talking about...

Oh yea..."Mutation" by Beck...Anyway, it's a subtle and complex album that took a few listens to sink in for me, but now I'm confident in saying this is his best album....I can remember people who were suddenly surprised at the tenderness of "Sea Change" but when I heard it I kind of shrugged my shoulders because I had already heard him do it better on "Nobody's Fault But My Own."The only difference really, is that the lyrics on "Sea Change" are a bit more straightforward. Beck still uses his  scrambled lyrical style here, and it's quite effective....On the previous albums his lyrics came across as a particularly fun game of slacker mad-libs, and although he uses the same style here,  he's successfully adjusted the tone...

"The trawlers drift by
they're chewing dried meat,
House of disrepute,
the dust of opiates
and syphilis patients
on brochure vacations..."

...and as a result they take on the character of a half-remembered nightmare...

Here are some other half-remembered nightmares from 1998:

  Patch Adams...

Swing Revival (Here's a fun game...Can anyone name a single good band with a stand-up bass since 1959? I understand the answer to this riddle is 100% subjective, but  nonetheless, your answer is wrong...)



Savage Garden


Sorry to trudge up memories best left suppressed, but I think if we work through it we can eventually overcome 1998 together...here's some happy memories from 1998....

 The 1998 Red Wings



In the Aeroplane Over the Sea

Pikachu!

Okay...I'm feeling better now...Let's check out "Static" by Beck...

                                                   (Sit in silence for 10 minutes...)












 Alright here it is..."Diamond Bollocks" by Beck...(Pretend to be real startled when it comes on!)