Live at the Rat [Rat, 1977]Boston's answer to Live at CBGB's continues the traditionalism of a folkie bastion whose hit rock acts--Geils, Aerosmith, Eponym--have been positively proud of their unoriginality. From Susan and Thundertrain, ready to go heavy if somebody'll buy them the amps, to the British-invasion tributes of Sass, the Boize, and (the sassiest boize in the bunch) the Real Kids, this wave isn't new. And nobody's gonna catch it. Faves: Willie Alexander's "Pop Tune," Third Rail's "Bad Ass Bruce," and two two-minute ravers by DMZ that ought to be covered by the Radiators from Space. C+
VA I Love Radio Rock Original Soundtrack 2CD 2009rar
Spitballs [Beserkley, 1978]I assume the title is a takeoff on Nuggets, and I approve of the concept--14 musicians playing all at once while trading lead vocals on beloved oldies both famed and anonymous. I find most of the remakes amusing and one or two amazing. But inevitably, the music is ragged. Anyway, I've never been impressed with cover versions by Earth Quake or the Rubinoos before, and I miss the pure dumb inspiration of the originals. B-
Hicks From the Sticks [Antilles, 1981]I don't think I'm familiar with any of the tunes on this 16-cut compilation, originally released Brit in 1980 by Rockburgh Records. But I might as well be. Here on one convenient A side is everything that has made the Anglophile dance-rock scene so deadly--the synth grooves, the minimelodies, the robot vocals, the confusion of late industrial anomie with the zeitgeist. In short, the new art-rock and the new disco in one conflation, with the boring rhythms of today replacing the boring solos of yesteryear. I mean, when a pop admixture provides the rock and roll, I go home. C+
Desperate Teenage Lovedolls [Gasatanka, 1984]Wish I could report that these thirteen posthardcore toons for amateur Super-8 rock and roll flick constitute a stronger soundtrack than anything the youth marketers over in the pricier part of Hollywood have commissioned. Unfortunately, it sounds like another Rodney Bingenheimer anthology. C+
Reggae Greats: Strictly for Lovers [Mango, 1984]Unlike the useful but scattered and redundant toasts on D.J.'s, these eleven lovers' rock tracks, only one pre-1982, play as an album while expanding the genre. The must-hears are Winston Reedy's seductively seductive "Dim the Lights" and sixteen-year-old Junior Tucker's sweetly devastated "Some Guys Have All the Luck." Prereggae stalwarts Ken Boothe and Jimmy Riley prove more timeless than usual. And Aswad and Struggle have the good sense to identify romantic spirituality with the "Roots Rockin'" and "Rocky Music" they're so militant about. B+
The Indestructible Beat of Soweto [Shanachie, 1986]At once more hectically urban-upbeat and more respectfully tribal-melodic than its jazzy and folky predecessors, marabi and kwela, the mbaqanga this compilation celebrates is an awesome cultural achievement. It confronts rural-urban contradictions far more painful and politically fraught than any Memphis or Chicago migration, and thwarts apartheid's determination to deny blacks not just a reasonable living but a meaningful identity. Like all South African music it emphasizes voices, notably that of the seminal "goat-voiced" "groaner" Mahlathini, who in 1983 took his deep, penetrating sung roar, which seems to filter sound that begins in his diaphragm through a special resonator in his larynx, back to the studio with the original Mahotella Queens and the reconstituted Makgona Tsohle Band. But with Marks Mankwane's sourcebook of guitar riffs hooking each number and Joseph Makwela's unshakable bass leading the groove rather than stirring it up reggae-style, it's also about a beat forthright enough to grab Americans yet more elaborate than the r&b it evokes. The defiantly resilient and unsentimental exuberance of these musicians has to be fully absorbed before it can be believed, much less understood. They couldn't be more into it if they were inventing rock and roll. And as a final benison, there's a hymn from Ladysmith Black Mambazo. A+
Good to Go [Island, 1986]Live albums are one way to finesse go go's refusal to organize itself into discrete, hooky, recordable compositions. Anthologies are the other, and despite soundtrack illustrations of the synthy adaptability of the D.C. groove from Sly & Robbie and Wally Badarou, this one may even steal a beat on Go Go Crankin'. But do you love "Good to Go," "We Need Money," "Drop the Bomb," and "Movin' and Groovin'" enough to buy 'em twice, no matter how hot the remake? For James Brown completists and other rhythm connoisseurs. B+
Risqué Rhythm: Nasty 50's R&B [Rhino, 1991]The blue blues compiled on Columbia's Raunchy Business and reprised on Bluesville's Bawdy Blues are novelty material. Voicing r&b's revolt of the body against the cerebral demands of bebop, this stuff is sexy. Even the novelties--the original "My Ding-a-Ling," say--are carnal, and though the oft-collected "Work With Me Annie" and "Sixty-Minute Man" may be mild as poetry, they're plenty physical as music. The Sultans' "It Ain't the Meat" and Connie Allen's "Rocket 69" are plenty physical as poetry. And Wynonie Harris and Dinah Washington will make you want to fuck. The gift that keeps on giving for any music-lover whose genitalia you cherish. A
Only for the Headstrong: The Ultimate Rave Compilation [FFRR, 1992]Live and on the compilations that have become a soundtrack-strength proposition in the U.K., most techno is too squiggly for nondancers if not noncyborgs--the generation that's evolved to where switched-on Bach qualifies as a golden oldie has yet to reveal itself to SoundScan. But with its lower registers, human voices, and sound-effect hooks, you could almost say this one rocks. When undulating femme chorus meets percussive computer hook on the Utah Saints' "What Can You Do for Me" and DSK's "What Would We Do," it's sci-fi pop you can believe in. No way are nondancers tired of the house riff yet. Of course you know it. A-
Dancehall Stylee: The Best of Reggae Dancehall Music Vol. 4 [Profile, 1993]As if to prove Jamaica isn't totally overrun by electric percussion and macho bwoys grunting about guns and punany, this comp centers on two winsome pieces of lover's rock, one male and one female. It also makes room for numerous melody instruments, most of them saxophones repeating phrases you'll want to hear again (and will). For all I know, hardcore dancehall users will find it, to employ an expression current in my country, soft. But old reggae heads who can't be bothered distinguishing between Buju Banton and Wu-Tang Clan can start here. A-
Anthology of American Folk Music [Smithsonian/Folkways, 1997]Harry Smith's act of history--three two-record sets originally released by Folkways in 1952, now digitally remastered into a gorgeously appointed six-CD box--aces two very '90s concepts: the canon that accrues as rock gathers commentary, and the compilations that multiply as labels recycle catalogue. In its time, it wrested the idea of the folk from ideologues and ethnomusicologists by imagining a commercial music of everyday pleasure and alienation--which might as well have been conceived to merge with a rock and roll that didn't yet exist. What enabled Smith to bring off this coup was his preternatural ability to hear unknown songs that were irresistible to his own people--the bohemians and collectors who have been inflecting pop ever since. Somebody you know is worth the 60 bucks it'll run you. So are you. A+
Beats & Rhymes: Hip Hop of the '90s, Part I [Rhino, 1997]Between 1990, when old school went emeritus, and 1992, when gangsta stuck daisy age's pistil up its stamen, came a nondescript downtime that Rhino maps without recourse to rap crossovers, which meant less than nothing to the loyalists who were just then insisting that what they loved was called "hip hop." But though all three volumes are pretty subtle for nonloyalists, only here are the high points obvious--hits from key Jungle Brothers and A Tribe Called Quest albums, BDP's "Love's Gonna Get'cha"--and the selections from minor figures like Special Ed, Def Jef, and K-Solo open to challenge from the likes of me (I nominate "Taxin'," "Fa Sho Shot," and "Tales From the Crack Side"). Even so I love the YZ, Poor Righteous Teachers, and D.O.C. tracks, not to mention the BDP radio edit with sound effects where the bleeps should be. I also love Cold Chillin' 's "Erase Racism." B+
The Music in My Head [Sterns, 1998]Although piercing vocals, contentious percussion, and kora guitar are constant, all that really unifies this feverish, coruscating soundtrack to the Mark Hudson novel is Senegal, with one atypically Islamic Franco track standing in for soukous's pan-African inescapability. Yet with half its tracks recorded 1970-1980 and the other half 1992-1995, so that they segue from 1977 to 1994, 1993 to 1980, it cleaves faithfully only to itself--crossover dreams notwithstanding, only a reggaeish Omar Pene unemployment anthem hints anything round, comfy, Euro. Franco elegy and Wassoulou hunting poem and not-for-export mbalax all project congruent rhythmic angles, and watch out you don't trip yourself as musicians jockey for position, vying with their bandmates while continuing to serve the band as they jam rock sonorities into salsa-inflected Senegalese grooves. Desert mystics conquer the fleshpots. Overloaded camions careen down a potholed road. Frantic macho coheres and clashes, stops and goes, crashes and coheres again. A+
Totally Hits [Arista, 1999]Of course it cheats--every compilation cheats. Inferior Sugar Ray, Monica, and Madonna, ringer from the hapless Five, awful hit from the imitable Sarah McLachlan. But given its BMG-WEA limitations, this is premier radio fodder. It rescues Cher and LFO from their meaningless albums as it repackages ace Whitney Houston and Deborah Cox remixes, and from "No Scrubs" to "Bawitdaba" it establishes a flow that sets off "Smooth" and "Ray of Light" and the formerly execrable "(God Must Have Spent) A Little More Time on You" as the touchstones they are. The mood is hiply happy and humane--the exceptions, a would-be suicide and some heavy yearning, mean only to prove that this is the real world, troubling at times but always manageable. The stylistic signature is keyb/electric guitar as acoustic guitar, rippling its quiet riffs over the intricate rhythms of a body at peace with itself. As composition, I find it as convincing, if not as elegant or organic, as Steve Reich's Music for 18 Musicians or Franco & Rochereau's Omona Wapi. Note, however, that the only energy rushes come from Cher's Eurodisco and the show-topping Kid Rock, who's also the only true rapper here. It's a relief to know Arista needs him to put its lovely lies over the top. A- 2ff7e9595c
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