It’s a Wonderful Life of Albums: Audioslave
The supergroup is not a new concept, going back to the days of The Traveling Wilburys, Cream, or Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young. Arguably the best supergroup of my lifetime, after a nod to Them Crooked Vultures, would be Audioslave. Formed in 2001 with Chris Cornell of Soundgarden and Rage Against the Machine members Tom Morello, Tim Commerford and Brad Wilk, this was a band that could blow the roof off of a venue. Their self-titled first album is fantastic rock music made by some of the most talented and innovative musicians of the nineties.
The record begins with Tom Morello lighting a match on one of the best riffs of the decade. Named for an Apache leader who resisted western expansion, “Cochise” just rocks. Naming the song after the resistance is very on brand for the Rage Against the Machine members, but the album doesn’t tread in the same territory as one of those efforts. This is a fairly apolitical music driven project, but I’m glad they snuck the title in there. The band could not have picked a better track to open with, and Cornell’s distinctive voice breathes life into the chorus of the track, “Go on and save yourself, and take it out on me.”
Anyone familiar with Audioslave will be able to point to, “Like a Stone” the second single, as the one that took the album to another level. Topping the billboard rock charts and even breaking into the mainstream airplay of the time. The climax of this perfectly constructed hit comes with the Morello wah pedal solo. Slow and deliberate, it takes us on a sonic journey before giving way to the more subdued and thoughtful bridge, “For all that I’ve blessed, and all that I’ve wronged, in dreams until my death, I will wander on.” This is the sound you get when you put together a super group with this kind of clout, and it’s glorious.
With the opener still ringing in your ears, another riff heavy delight comes at you with, “Show Me How to Live.” This was also a single that broke into the mainstream for the band, they were really on a roll. The lyrics pull from some Christian iconography, turning the title into a demand, “Nail in my hand, from my creator, you gave me a life now show me how to live.” If you’re worried that it’s too heavy, there’s another dive into the Morello guitar effects library for the solo to re-center yourself.
I cannot allow this article about 2002’s Audioslave to finish without mentioning, “I Am the Highway.” “I am not your rolling wheels, I am the highway. I am not your carpet ride, I am the sky.” There is a lot to love on this album, especially if you love talent. Cornell’s voice has long been some people’s favorite instrument, and it sounds as good as ever here. When you combine it with Morello’s pedal board and creativity, the deft brush strokes come in waves to cover the canvas from corner to corner.
It’s a Wonderful Life of Albums: Silent Alarm
I took a chance on Bloc Party after hearing only, “Helicopter” on the soundtrack to one of the FIFA soccer games, the song was strong. I read a couple of positive reviews of the album and on to the music club website I was part of. I may seem like a mark for having that much faith, buying an album from a song that was clearly marketed to me through my favorite sport. Maybe I’m a mark because the Anglophile in me couldn’t resist the delightful accent of lead singer Kele Okereke’s voice. Sometimes albums fall out of the sky and you just happen to be there to catch the vibrations. Mark my words, in 2005 and now, this is a great album.
I fell in love with this album my last year of high school, and the singles from it dotted just about every playlist I made as a college freshman. I didn’t know how formational it was to me until I started falling asleep to it, all that guitar. The aforementioned single “Helicopter” would also go on to appear on one of the Guitar Hero games, it was truly a time to be alive. Its frantic, high energy guitar focused greatness could not be contained, “Stop being, so American, there’s a time and there’s a place.” Clocking in at over 170 beats per minute, it’s like these guitars are racing to a finish line.
“Turning away from the light, becoming adult, turning into myself, I wanted to bite not to destroy, to feel her underneath, turning into the light.” “Banquet” hooks me right away every time with the mix starting out with one guitar in each ear, playing back and forth at each other. A little bit about growing up, a little bit too much guitar, and it always feels a little short, leaving you waiting for the next time it comes on your playlist. They struck a nerve with the way this one feels, and then accentuated it with an angry guitar outro to bring the chaos to a natural conclusion.
There’s an angelic quality to the guitar arpeggio and atmosphere created on the album track, “So Here We Are.” While it is light on lyrics, it creates this space where you can just lay back and enjoy it until it crescendos with the repeated, “I can see again.” As if to pull a 180 on that thought, on, “The Pioneers” we get a nervous and tense lyrical onslaught followed by a despondent chorus, “We promised the world we’d tame it, what were we hoping for?”
If you’ve been keeping up with this weekly series, you know the bias toward guitar focused albums is not something I’ve hidden. This is one that may have slipped through the cracks despite nearly universal critical acclaim and selling over a million copies. The record takes you on a six string journey for nearly an hour, and it’s a ride you will want to take again. I hope you continue turning into the light, whatever that means for you.
It’s a Wonderful Life of Albums: Nevermind
I would be remiss to love rock music as much as I do, and neglect to include 1991’s Nevermind in this series. The album comes up on every nineties list of best albums of the decade. Nevermind is the grunge genre’s magnum opus. There were a host of good grunge bands in the early nineties but there was only one Nirvana. Lead singer and guitarist Kurt Cobain was a Beatles fanatic, and his band travel in the same circle of rock lore as the Beatles in that they weren’t around long enough to put out any bad albums. Around long enough to establish greatness and then gone in an instant, like too many in the business, a suicide way before their time.
“Smells Like Teen Spirit” is simply an all time great song, and it kicks off this record with overwhelming force. If I’m honest it’s between this and, “Wonderwall” for song of the decade, a yin-yang argument I would gladly have any time. I love playing this song, everybody with a distortion pedal loves playing this song on guitar, but it’s the drums that are the glue. It is worth watching any live version of this song where Dave Grohl is absolutely abusing the drum kit to perfection. Say whatever you want about Foo Fighters, Dave is at home on the drums for this album and it’s where he feasts with godlike ability.
I was one of those people with Nirvana who, “Knows not what it means” to skip any of the songs on this album, but particularly the first three. Teen spirit comes to its conclusion and then you are immediately greeted with some more massive power chords with, “In Bloom.” The dynamic of quiet verse with a loud distorted chorus was perfected by Nirvana early in the decade, and imitated by many. There isn’t a lot there lyrically, but it works and the trio sound great here.
Following those two tracks would be a nightmare unless you are Kurt Cobain, who had, “Come as You Are” up his sleeve. The great guitar line repeats throughout, and includes the immaculate alt-rock apathy line, “Take your time, hurry up, choice is yours don’t be late.” It can be debated whether the song is about heroin, but it doesn’t matter, it’s just a great song. So much so that it was added to the welcome sign in Kurt’s hometown, it reads, “Aberdeen, Washington Come As You Are.” It’s so sad to think about the music we didn’t get from him, but this is what I call a proper memorial.
Before he retired, my father was a guidance counselor, and thinking about Nirvana and Kurt Cobain always reminds me of how he first came to know their impact. The day after news circulated that Cobain had passed, a student came into his office beside themselves in grief. He was busy raising my brother and I, so forgive him for not being up on grunge back then, but their musical impact on people was clear. The reach of their music was far and wide, harnessing the melodic and the chaotic with equal brilliance.
It’s a Wonderful Life of Albums: Definitely Maybe
People love one hit wonders, but they always leave you wanting more. People don’t like it as much when a band debuts with a thermonuclear explosion like Oasis did with Definitely Maybe, and the cynical would say it’s all downhill from there. Whatever you want to say about it the follow up, (What’s the Story) Morning Glory and its massive hits, you can’t say it was a step down in quality. Oasis led by songwriter Noel Gallagher were shot out of a cannon in 1994, from there it wasn’t downhill, but no looking back.
Freshly acquired from the Sony BMG music club when I was a Junior in high school, my neck snapped toward my cd player where I would find the track number 3, and that’s the first time I remember hearing, “Live Forever.” It would become, and remains, my favorite song. It has everything you could want in a Noel Gallagher classic, from the lyrics, “Maybe you’re the same as me, we see things they’ll never see, you and I are gonna live forever” to the used before, but never this well, chord progression and finally two simple but respectable guitar solos, timeless.
Written and recorded in a single night in Liverpool, “Supersonic” is the single we all wish we wrote. Noel once described that he wrote the song in about a half hour, they ordered Chinese take out and by the time everyone had eaten it, the recording was finished. “I need to be myself, I can’t be no one else” is the only ethos you need to take from this album if you don’t find three others sprinkled among the eleven tracks. On one of their live releases, Liam is heard heckling Noel to, “Write a coupla’ more of theses babies.” I’m sure he would if it were that easy. When you’re the brother who got all the talent, sometimes you write a hit in 30 minutes that Liam could only dream of, and the rest of the time you have to put up with him singing it.
If you catch me on the right day, I will tell you that, “Slide Away” is the best Oasis song, and the best song Noel Gallagher has ever written. If you catch me in a sour mood I will tell you it’s in the top five, and you should get your head examined if you don’t think Noel Gallagher is the best songwriter of my lifetime. Written during one of the numerous Definitely Maybe recording sessions, its origin story is the stuff of legend. Noel reached out to his friend and guitarist of The Smiths, Johnny Marr with a request for more guitars for the record. One of the guitars Marr sent was on old Les Paul that Noel took to his room for the night where he claimed, “The song wrote itself.” It is said to be written about Noel’s soulmate, a relationship that ended when they had to go on tour. You can hear what he lost, “Slide away, and give it all you’ve got, my today, fell in from the top, I dream of you and all the things you say, I wonder where you are now.”
I didn’t have a chance to get to how great the stolen riff is on, “Cigarettes and Alcohol“ or the fact that it kicks off with the huevos of, “Rock’n’Roll Star” or the magical jam session that is, “Columbia.” Noel is the only autograph I ever kept, the reason I learned guitar, the best show I’ve ever been to with my dad. Buy me a drink and I’ll sing you a song, it will probably be Oasis. Probably from this album, possibly you’ll like it. No, Definitely…Maybe.
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