My Alphabetical iPod Diary (Day 7)
“Adore” by Prince (from Sign O’ The Times)
This is just classic slow jam Prince. When different artists decide to do a song that sounds like Prince (Beck’s “Debra,” Ween’s “Freedom Of ’76.” My Morning Jacket’s “Evil Urges”), this is always the track that is most easily aped. My guess for why they do these kinds of tracks is that they can be so totally ridiculous, but totally awesome at the same time. Even on this track, listen to Prince take this Marvin Gaye style groove and start squealing all over it. It’s totally hilarious, but like most things Prince did on Sign O’ The Times, it’s holds up in spite of itself.
“Adrenaline” by Cam’ron (from Purple Haze)
“Adrenaline” is a late album cut on Killa Cam’s outstanding 2004 breakthrough. This one really feels menacing thanks to an opening verse courtesy Psycho Drama and some of that Dr. Dre style West Coast production and a brooding melody line. The tone takes a bit of a left turn when Twista motors into the chorus with his Big Boi-style speed flow. Cam’ron takes it home with his vicious, evil sounding nearly-nonsensical internal rhyming. It’s a major “Nuthin’ But A ‘G’ Thang” throwback, but it contains some snarling rhymes by its three major players.
“Adult Books” by X (from Wild Gift)“Adult Books [Demo}” by X (from Los Angeles)
X, truly one of those rare early-era punk bands that holds up perfectly today, were the masters of combining stark lyrical imagery, seamless and haunting male/female harmonies and throwback, early rock guitar playing (courtesy the great Billy Zoom). “Adult Books,” in either version (the demo version sounds “demo-ier” and opens up a whole lot more on the chorus) contains all three qualities in spades. John Doe and Exene Cervenka were the masters of making their short stories of urban squaler and ruined bohemia sound all the more desperate by the tension created between their blended voices, but it would be all for naught if it weren’t for Zoom more or less playing sunshine to their storm. Zoom strums the slinky guitar plinks through the verses like he’s playing for a teen idol of the early 60s and his solo contains all the loosely, but expertly played, reverb of a classic Dick Dale tune. It’s that contrast that really makes X one of the most important punk bands of all time, existing outside of fashionable nostalgia and regurgitated trend re–setting.
“Advance Cassette” by Spoon (from A Series Of Sneaks)
With the exception of the Girls Can Tell album, “Advance Cassette” was one of my earliest introductions to Spoon and it holds up as one of my favorites to this day. Spoon has a staggeringly consistent track record, from the incredibly strong Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga rolling all the way back to when they were an unglorified Pixies knock-off in the mid-90s. 1998’s A Series Of Sneaks is either their finest Pixies-ish album or the first step towards what we love about them today. This track is good example of why we shouldn’t write off the band’s early, less refined, output: the drumming boasts a stunning amount of force, and the guitars have the slightest bit of dirt on them, giving the song, a ballad of sorts, a more aggressive, unshaven feel. All this while singer Britt Daniel shows that he is already comfortably playing the role of indie rock’s most soulful singer. The future was so bright for Spoon, but their past has a stunning lack of missteps.
“Adventure” by Be Your Own Pet (from Be Your Own Pet)
I just read the news of Be Your Own Pet’s break-up today and it’s a bit of a bummer, but it also makes sense. It’s a bummer in the sense that here was a young, dumb, snotty band that could rip shit up something fierce in a way that could be contrived and still rise above those contrivances. It also makes sense because, well, these kinds of bands (spanning from the Sex Pistols to Mclusky and beyond, or more comparatively, X-Ray Specks to Pretty Girls Make Graves and beyond) are meant to fizzle out in a short amount of time. They’re too combustible. These Nashville punks were a little bit more interesting because they were essentially kids, making music that was deliberately rowdy, raunchy and stoopid, sounding a whole lot like the Yeah Yeah Yeahs (singer Jemima Pearl does a wicked Karen O), but, “like, fuck the Yeah Yeah Yeahs. They’re cool, but we’re cooler.” “Adventure,” for instance, is so deliberately dumb and gangly (sample lyric: “Okay, yeah, it’s cool, ‘cuz we’re, like, adventurers”) that it can’t help but be an anthem for that awkward, airheaded teener who wants to rock and “like, screw whatever music you like, man, even if I like it too, and screw anything that’s slow and quiet, ‘cuz slow and quiet sucks and, like, screw Be Your Own Pet because they broke up and now I don’t like them anymore and I don’t care. Who needs ‘em?” I think a lot of us need them from time to time, actually.
“Adventure” by Television (from Adventure)
A bonus cut from the reissue of Television’s considerably lesser, but still quite good, sophomore album. This title-track-that-never-was actually outdoes a lot of the other songs on Adventure. The song opens with one of those George Thorogood driving anthem (not necessarily a good thing), but as soon as the drums and bass kick in it’s a distinctly Television song. The dropped beat on the chorus is pretty typical stuff, but the spiraling guitar line is a nifty touch and the song becomes a real showcase for Tom Verlaine’s guitar flash. The song takes an incredibly fascinating left turn at the three-minute mark, dropping the little bluesy shuffle and taking things in half time. Verlaine continues to show off his masterful guitar chops while the band slowly picks up pace. At the four-minute mark the song fades out ever so slightly only to return as a big piano rocker, with a melody quite reminiscent of the Faces “Ooh La La.” What a find this song is!
“Adventures Close To Home” by the Slits (from Cut)
Discovering the Slits’ 1979 classic, Cut, was a revelation for me. I knew the band to be one of the early all female punk bands and I of course was familiar with the album’s slightly infamous cover of (naked chicks covered in mud!). I kind of assumed that they were simply praised for being early to the punk scene and being girls, thus being the godmothers of riot grrrl. Once I finally listened to the album, my first thought was “Boy, was I wrong.” It’s hard to describe the Slits as “punk.” It’s more dub and reggae played with a primitive – and conversely, progressive – edge (the three members of the Slits were novices, to say the least, on their instruments when they first started). Still, the Slits’s music sounds positively enthralling these days. “Adventures Close To Home” is a perfect example of that. The instruments and vocals bounce in every direction, sounding vaguely like early Talking Heads fronted by three-headed British female leviathan. The Slits are a shining example that sometimes the vaunted reputations are justified.
“Adventures In Solitude” by the New Pornographers (from Challengers)While Challengers may be enjoying its reputation as everyone’s fourth favorite New Pornos album, it’s undeniable that “Adventures In Solitude” is one of the primary reasons why people would use the phrase “fourth favorite” instead of “least favorite.” “Adventures” succeeds on its vocal interplay, employing some delicate lyrical Marco Polo between Carl Newman and the female singers and a little acoustic guitar that, at least in a live setting, is scramblingly played by drummer and resident showman, Kurt Dahle. The slow, sad intro builds to something that may not be as majestic or as frenetic as the band’s best power pop, but to something that feels big and important and just a tiny bit epic.