It’s a Wonderful Life of Albums: Pinkerton
Weezer frontman Rivers Coumo is not a rock star, despite making some of the best rock music of my lifetime. His existence and overwhelming success is antithetical to the rock and roll lead singer aesthetic of bravado and charisma, and we should all celebrate it. My first concert was Kaiser Chiefs, Weezer and Foo Fighters in 2005, and while they were considered co-headliners, Foo Fighters was the rock show. If you compared Rivers to Dave Grohl that night, it would boggle the mind that they are in the same business. It’s exactly that lack of stage presence that makes Rivers honest, relatable, and authentic because he just couldn’t be bothered to fake it. The beautiful vulnerability expressed on 1996’s Pinkerton is a window into his world, and provides the clever comfort of knowing someone else is out there striking out with girls and feeling disillusioned.
Early reception to Pinkerton was not warm, although it would eventually go on to sell over a million copies in the decades that followed. As the follow up to the wildly successful debut of Weezer (The Blue Album), expectations of another fun pop friendly record were dashed. There wasn’t a, “Buddy Holly” on this album, but that’s not to say it didn’t have some stellar tracks. Artists sing about lost or unrequited love all the time, as they have through millennia, but few get as personal as Rivers gets for 34 minutes on Pinkerton.
The first single, “El Scorcho” finds Rivers pleading through the chorus about how similar he is to the love interest in question, and how they would be great together. Where it really turns up the emo to eleven with the bridge, “How stupid is it? For all I know you want me too, and maybe you just don’t know what to do, and maybe you’re scared to say: ‘I’m falling for you.’” It’s the conversation he’s had in his head for a week making its way into the song without a hint of editing to shield himself from the hurt. As a teenager I was thinking damn, that paralyzing fear that a beautiful woman will put you in exists for him too.
As he mentions at the beginning of, “El Scorcho” Rivers is into half Japanese girls. So how could he not have a song with lyrics that could span the Pacific, “Why are you so far away from me? I need help, and you’re way across the sea, I could never touch you, I think it would be wrong, I’ve got your letter, you’ve got my song.” “Across the Sea” is truly an intercontinental ballistic serenade, however it wasn’t just oceans but orientation that robbed Rivers of love as well. “Pink Triangle” describes him barking up the wrong tree with a lyrical treasure, “When I think I’ve found a good old fashioned girl, then she put me in my place, everyone’s a little queer, can’t she be a little straight?”
The Blue Album this is not. You won’t find pop hits similar to “Island in the Sun” or “Beverly Hills” on this album, but they played five songs from Pinkerton on their blue album 30th anniversary tour and all were highlights with that crowd. It’s also worth noting that this record is like the King James Bible to the emo genre, and while that’s not my cup of tea, you can see the origin story here. It makes you think, it makes you feel. I’m sure people who label themselves ‘alpha male’ everywhere belittle it, which these days is like a cattle prod for a listen.
It’s a Wonderful Life of Albums: Wasting Light
The Foo Fighters career of Dave Grohl has reach: across time, across mediums, across borders. When an artist reaches the zenith of their profession, some lose the drive that got them there and stagnate, others get lost in fame, Dave decided to tweak the bands’ sound and record an analog album in his garage. 2011’s Wasting Light was recorded entirely on tape, allowing for no digital editing or correction of the takes. The band also leans into a more raw sound, without neglecting to include a few melodic rock and roll gems along the way.
Lead single, “Rope” demonstrates what you can do in a band with three great guitarists. There is no shortage of six string on this banger. The chorus is classic Foo Fighters, distortion, big drums and Dave Grohl bellowing “Give me some rope I’m coming loose, I’m pulling for you now. Give me some hope I’m coming out my head, into the clear, when you go, I come loose.” Come for the riffs, stay for the lyrics, the second track puts this album into another gear to hit its apex and we’re along for the ride.
There are songs on later Foo Fighters albums that remind me of what they sounded like earlier in the discography and, “These Days” is one. “One of these days you will forget to hope and learn to fear” is uttered so prophetically, like many of the other lyrics in the song structure. There is a maturity to the song, and a weight of experience, almost like if 2002’s “Times Like These” grew up and got some seasoning. This evolution has happened several times for a band that has spanned four different decades, and if we’re lucky Dave will keep making music like this.
Determined not to let the record die with a whimper, Dave saves the best for last. As far as album enders go, “Walk” checks all the boxes. It’s a reflective glimpse at a life that has gone on long enough to have trials, tribulations, and something to say, “I think I lost my way, getting good at starting over, every time that I return.” Despite going through these challenges and heartbreaks, the bridge of, “Forever, whenever, I never wanna die” repeats to signal a future and to cue a fireworks display that is the end of the song.
With six singles and four Grammys to show, let’s just say Dave is doing more with his garage space than any of us. It was also a cool gimmick that the cd came with a small piece of recording tape that contained usually a single snare or guitar note, people enjoyed figuring out which song it came from. It will also forever be one of the Foo Fighters albums that features the late Taylor Hawkins manning Dave’s throne on the drum kit. Add to that, the band did a tour of several fans’ garages to promote the spirit of the album. More people that reach the summit should take a cue from Dave Grohl on what to do once there.
It’s a Wonderful Life of Albums: Room on Fire
Most sports fans are familiar with the term, “sophomore slump” to describe a player who excelled in their rookie season only to have numbers dip in the second. The Strokes were one of the most hyped bands of my lifetime after their iconic debut album Is This It? The electric guitar was back, rock music wasn’t dead, New York City is alive again amongst other hyperbole. The 2003 follow up Room on Fire keeps the formula of guitar utopia combined with Julian Casablanca’s reverse reverb vocals and just enough sleaze to make you feel alive.
It is difficult to describe, “Reptilia” without using the word guitargasm, because that’s what it is. Axe men Nick Valensi and Albert Hammond Jr provide perhaps the quintessential example of band’s sound, and the song was featured on both the Rock Band and Guitar Hero video game franchises. With over 600 million streams on Spotify, it is among their most popular and the pace of it is that of blissful loss of control, “I said, ‘Please don’t slow me down, if I’m going too fast. You’re in a strange part of our town.’”
The first single for the album, “12:51” will enter your ears and render your mind awash with youthful balm. The guitar hook is a lovably catchy bit of joy that mimics the vocals about the prospects of going out on Friday night after a lonely streak. The song is two and a half minutes of bliss, “We’d go and get forties, then we’ll go to some party, oh really, your folks are away now? Alright, I’m coming, I’ll be right there.” The song belongs on a playlist for a bad day, as it is sure to cheer up even the most jaded among us.
A documentary was made about the 2000s New York City music scene led by The Strokes, borrowing the title from one of this albums’ best tracks, “Meet Me in the Bathroom.” When you were a rock band with the edge The Strokes had, you almost needed a song about a bathroom hookup with a line this good, “We were just two friends in lust, and baby, that just don’t mean much. You trained me not to love, after you showed me what it was.” The lucid reflectiveness of that lyric will ring out for decades, long after the amplifiers are still.
If this album represents a sophomore slump, then my ears must be broken. Other highlights on the record include the opener, “What Ever Happened?” as well as single, “The End Has No End” but you can’t really can’t go wrong with any of them. If you loved the first effort from the band you are almost certain to enjoy this one. While it may not have the clout of the debut album, I come back to this one whenever I’m in a mood for upbeat guitar music by a great band. Sometimes there is no substitute for the youthful exuberance of the early albums of The Strokes, no matter your age.
It’s a Wonderful Life of Albums: Futures
The opening narration of the movie The Big Lebowski ends with noting that The Dude was “The man for his time and place.” In a similar vein, Jimmy Eat World’s 2004 album Futures was the album for my time and place back then, and I was comfortably not alone. It was a more mature sounding album for the band following the popular success of Bleed American, and a coming of age record playing in the background of first cars, first dates, and youthful mistakes. We came up with the pop success of the, “The Middle”, and “Sweetness”, we grew up with “Work” and “23.”
Before smart phones and the prevalence of social media, we would communicate through various instant messaging programs such as ICQ, MSN, or AIM on home computers at night. I don’t remember an album used more for morose, cryptic and overly emotional teenage away messages than the lyrics of this one. It wouldn’t be out of the ordinary to see a lyric status one week about the love of the person’s life, only to have a break up lyric from the same album the following week. Such is the fickle and formative life of the high school teenage wasteland, a misery best described on, “The World You Love”, “We’re only just as happy, as everyone else seems to think we are.”
Jimmy Eat World is far from averse to writing love songs, they’ve been doing that since they formed in 1993. As far as what was in the mainstream at the time, you could do a lot worse than “Work.” It really could be love at any age, but it hits you right in the youth, “All the best DJs are saving, their slowest song for last, when the dance is through it’s me and you, c’mon would it really be so bad?” The band have distanced themselves from the ‘emo’ label for their entire career, but that doesn’t mean they can’t kidnap your emotions and put them on a rollercoaster. “Can we take a ride? Get out of this place while we still have time.”
I saw Jimmy Eat World on an anniversary tour for this album back in 2014 with great company and the highlight was album capstone, “23.” It is arguable, but for me, “23” is the best song the band have ever made. It brings out all the best characteristics of the band to their fullest extent, the emphasis on guitar, relatable and passionate lyrics, and Jim Adkins’ affable voice. “You’ll sit alone forever, if you wait for the right time, what are you hoping for? I’m here, I’m now, I’m ready, holding on tight, don’t give away the end, one thing that stays mine.”
Futures is a journey for me because it was the album of a time and place back then, but it could be a great listen for anyone at any time. If, “Kill” is tied to a lost ancient love, I apologize for bringing the album up. If, “Night Drive” makes you remember fogging up the windows of your first back seat, I know you remember her name. If you went on to see the band seven times, you’d be me, and this album had a lot to do with it. Jimmy Eat World’s music activates flashbulb memories and emotions like nobody else in my record collection, and I know I’m not alone.
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: Californication
There is no official ambassador honor for the state of California, but perhaps they should give the title to the Red Hot Chili Peppers. There are no more prolific propagandists of dreams of a California lifestyle than them, stitched into the fabric of the culture. It’s debatable if this is their best album, they are a great band, but Californication hit hard for me in 1999 and I wasn’t alone. The record spawned six singles, and went on to sell over fifteen million copies worldwide, for a more modern take, three of the band’s top five most streamed songs on Spotify.
Californication marked the return of guitarist John Frusciante to the band, and his presence is felt throughout. His beautiful almost weeping clean guitar forms the framework of, “Scar Tissue” a single that can hook you within the first 15 seconds of the song starting. It features a mellow and lovable chorus, “With the birds I’ll share this lonely viewin’” and the hilarious verse, “Soft spoken with a broken jaw, step outside but not to brawl, autumn’s sweet we call it fall.” The bigger hits on this album are so easy to love.
The next track hits pretty hard in succession, “Otherside” features great storytelling about the pitfalls of confronting addiction. It’s dark in places, musically strong, and features this great opening verse, “I heard your voice through a photograph, I thought it up and brought up the past, once you know you can never go back, I gotta take it on the otherside.” The song is reflective and accessible enough that it doesn’t force the subject matter on a casual listener too heavily, it was a single after all.
The title track simply leaves nothing to be desired, five and a half minutes of Red Hot Chili Peppers bliss. If you catch the music video, it features the latest in what video games looked like at the turn of the millennium. The lyrics speak to the overwhelming cultural force that California is to our society and the world, and the possibilities that are only there beyond the superficial. “Space may be the final frontier, but it’s made in a Hollywood basement. And Cobain can you hear the spheres singing songs off station to station?” All of this comes to a head with Frusciante’s almost too perfect guitar solo, it silences whatever noise is going on in my head every time I hear it, at least for a moment.
I also want to give compliments to Lawrence Azerrad, know for his Pink Floyd album covers for the art, this cd begged to be picked up off the shelf even if you didn’t know the band. I remember the joy of buying this CD at the Ft. Wayne Best Buy back in jr. high, and that, ladies and gentleman, is an old sounding sentence. It can be argued as to whether this is the best Chili Peppers album, there are at least two others you could make a case for. In the end, this is the one that has, “Californication” on it, so all other arguments are probably moot.
It’s a Wonderful Life of Albums: Only by the Night
In the fall of 2008 there was an injection of youthful energy in the world of music, a new semester was in the works for me and a new Kings of Leon album was the music of the moment. It was one of the few times I can remember a rock band being the center of attention in the culture of my youth, all the better that it was for good reason. Only by the Night is a great album with two massive hit songs that propelled it in quick succession to the front of our minds.
Album opener, “Closer” puts us on pins and needles from the outset with the recurring delay guitar rippling like a foreshadowing of the heavy journey ahead. “Skies are blinking at me, I see a storm bubbling up from the sea, and it’s coming closer.” The song sets the foundation for the rest of this monster album with its six singles, but also immediately indicates it won’t be the smoothest ride. It won’t be sunshine and rainbows, but you should have no interest in getting off the ride. The eerily optimistic hungers you get from it will be satisfied.
If you’re looking for the banger of 2008, “Sex On Fire” is your hit, pun intended. This has the guitar string bend heard round the world, with all the distortion necessary to accentuate one of the steamier choruses of the year. “You, your sex is on fire, ah, ah, consumed, with what’s just transpired,” immediately followed by that massive guitar driving the point home. Radio play never killed this one for me, and when it came on at a party it was a cue to head for the keg line, as the were about to be a lot of empty cups.
Just a month later the equally compelling second single was released with a less sexy, more communal tone, “Use Somebody.” Lead singer Caleb Followill pangs for a companion from a dark place, “Someone like you and all you know and how you speak, countless lovers under cover of the street, you know that I could use somebody…Someone like you.“ The chorus of “oh-ohs” forms the pop friendly bones of the song and it is heavenly to hear a crowd echo this by the thousands, even someone like you.
As their fourth studio album and follow up to 2007’s excellent, Because of the Times, Kings of Leon were already ascendant, Only by the Night put them into the stratosphere. This was the album where they broke into the United States, after years and albums of success in the United Kingdom. This Tennessee band of three brothers and a cousin rocked their way around the world before coming back to conquer America. I don’t love everything that comes out of Nashville, but when I listen to this album I can’t help but ask someone to pass the southern barbecue.
It’s a Wonderful Life of Albums: Is This It?
Rock and Roll debauchery has always held its appeal to me, when the cool band of the moment does something outrageous. Noel Gallagher once said, “Until you’ve actually thrown a television set out of a window, you don’t even know the sense of joy it brings.” The Strokes, led by stylish frontman Julian Casablancas were that cool, on edge band for me in the early 2000s. I have no accounting for hotel structural damage that they caused back then, but I always thought they might unleash that destruction at any moment.
The debut album Is This It was already on the hype train when it came out in 2001 on the heels of the success of their EP The Modern Age, which was released in the United Kingdom the same year. The first single from the album was, “Hard to Explain” rose to number 1 on the UK indie charts. This was our first introduction to the guitar heavy sound of The Strokes with the reverse reverb on Casablancas’ vocals, a defining sound of the early oughts.
In the vein of rock and roll mythology, good artists copy, great artists steal. With that in mind there was a definite and later blessed theft involved with the making of the single, “Last Nite.” The rhythm guitar intro is almost a direct lift from Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers’,“American Girl” something the band would later admit to in an interview that Petty himself referenced. Like a true crusader for the love of rock and roll, Petty never sued or was in any way negative about them lifting the intro, he laughed it off like the legend he is.
The easiest listening song on the album is probably the third single, “Someday” with its jangling guitars and somewhat hopeful lyrics, “You say you want to stay by my side, darling your head’s not right, ah, see, alone we stand, together we fall apart, yeah, I think I’ll be alright.” The music video was fun, featuring the band in a bar telling stories, sharing cigarettes and drinks, it would be rock and roll caricature if it didn’t look so natural and cool.
The Strokes were going to be the band that saved rock and roll in 2001, and their debut album Is This It? was going to be the blueprint. That kind of hype was something no band could ever live up to, but at least we got this masterpiece. If nothing else it shows the enduring power of rock and roll to have a record like this come out decades after the prime era of the genre. The energy of the record is also undeniable, and it clocks in at around 37 minutes, just enough time to make a memory tonight that will be hard to explain.
It’s a Wonderful Life of Albums: El Camino
It’s fitting that the first album I really fell in love with after moving to Columbus after college was from Ohio homegrown legends The Black Keys. 2011’s El Camino was Akron duo Dan Aurbach and Patrick Carney’s 7th studio album together, the follow up to their multiple Grammy winning commercial breakthrough Brothers. It peaked at number two on the Billboard album chart in the United States and prompted my first opportunity to see them live.
Most of The Black Keys discography lived on my iPod for the four years I spent in college from 2006-2010, so I was not new to their greatness by this point. This was another example of an album that just fell to me at a perfect time in my life in addition to being loaded with great songs. It kicks off with, “Lonely Boy” which won them three more Grammys that year including best rock album. With its delectable chorus and lyrics of a man at wits end, “Well your mama kept you, but your daddy left you, and I should have done you just same.” The lead guitar piece drives it so well and you can hear almost immediately why this was a hit.
The best song on the album comes a few tracks later with the organ infused, “Gold on the Ceiling.” Following the wonderful guitar intro we are introduced to an organ from decades gone by and a crowd of rhythmic hand claps. “They wanna get my gold on the ceiling, I ain’t blind, just a matter of time, before you steal it, it’s alright, ain’t no blood in my eye.” This is the kind of song that fills an arena, and it was at capacity on that day as I scribbled notes of a show review to be passed on to a co-worker’s website.
Before the album’s through, the duo lament an indecisive lover on the compelling “Nova Baby”, “All this love of mine, all my precious time, you waste it ‘cause you don’t know what you want.” There are several other non-singles that live up to Black Keys polish such as, “Run Right Back” and “Stop Stop.” All of The Black Keys albums are, “just push play” intuitive to me, but this album’s cup runneth over and should be likable to just about anyone with ears. If I went deaf I would learn braille so I could read the lyrics to their next scornful love song.
My boss at the time let me cut out early to scalp tickets for their show at the Schottenstein Center in support of the album and they did not disappoint. Certainly I’m biased, but I challenge anyone to name a better rock band from Ohio. I would certainly be thrilled if they would choose a Black Keys song for the Buckeyes to kick off to. I say this because Jack White of “Seven Nation Army” fame is from Michigan and that usually seems to be an important detail down here. Buckeye football aside, El Camino should be listened to at high volume.
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