Week 6: The Future

16. LEONARD COHEN - The Future
Columbia, 1992

In which the illustrious Mr. Cohen all-too-readily inhabits the role of demonic soothsayer. This dark pop gem opens with the spooky title track, where ol' Leonard details some grim soon-to-be reality (or probably it's already happened) where "Things are gonna slide/ Slide in all directions;" or, more directly, "I've seen the future, brother/ It is murder." That ominous tone colors the entirety of the album, and one wonders for a fleeting instant what a happy album from Leonard Cohen might sound like, but then the thought reveals itself as idiotic and irrelevant: what would it sound like if Terry Riley wrote a pop song? Leonard Cohen is master of all things dark and depressing and gah, sometimes it's almost too much to take, like when he implores a lover to "Be For Real" in the song of the same name, 'cause he's "Been hurt so many times," and he sure "Don't want/ To be hurt by love again." All this beautiful borderline-kitsch is delivered with the glorious assistance of Cohen's ubiquitous female background singers, earnest beyond belief, somehow indispensable. Only on "Democracy" do we catch a glimmer of hope, but it's hard to tell if it isn't tinged with a little masked cynicism; then again, most things sound that way coming out of this man's mouth. Anyway, "Democracy is coming/ To the U.S.A." and it is what it is. Set to deep, foreboding synths and in a minor key, it would sound terrifying, but in its jaunty form it becomes almost hopeful. And this is precisely why Leonard Cohen was and is the best in his field; he is capable, with a flip of the tune or the tongue, of making the good sound horrific and the horrific sound downright beautiful. Don't be afraid of The Future, because, after all, it's already here.

WATCH: Leonard Cohen - "The Future" (Live)

Week 6: Clouds Taste Metallic

15. THE FLAMING LIPS - Clouds Taste Metallic
Warner Bros., 1995

It often isn't until a band releases their most overtly theatrical, symphonic, in-your-face album that the Pitchforks of the world begin paying close attention; in the case of Oklahoma stalwarts The Flaming Lips, it was 1999's The Soft Bulletin that catapulted them into the limelight. That album - with its larger-than-life production and gaudy lyrics that waxed metaphysical but actually came across a bit, well, silly - meant the start of endless editorial praise and countless offers to headline prominent summer festivals 'round the globe. Critics claimed that the album came out of nowhere, that these strange, psychedelic rednecks had finally arrived after a decade of aimless musical meandering. One listen to 1995's Clouds Taste Metallic, however, and one gets the sense that the band may very well have been doing its best work before NME caught serious wind - this is an Important record just as much, if not more so, than any one that followed. It is, after all, certainly a more grounded and listenable record than the Lips' later-period output: while Bulletin was admittedly enjoyable in its grandiosity, the middle-of-the-road atrocities that were Yoshimi Battles The Pink Robots and At War With The Mystics practially beg for the band's earlier (and seemingly lost) zany creativity. That sense of innovation is what guides Clouds Taste Metallic, from the expansive, shifting opener "The Abandoned Hospital Ship," to the rubberband melodies of "Psychiatric Explorations of the Fetus with Needles." The silly-but-consciously-so "This Here Giraffe" is childlike and wonderful, and so on. The Flaming Lips displayed here are the Flaming Lips who were not yet convinced they were or even could be the Biggest Thing in the World; they are bombastic and loose without betraying their egos. Rock and roll has a long and storied history of its most skillful and ambitious performers reaching farther and farther beyond to achieve a sort of immortality through song, which itself becomes more magniloquent and bloated (see: The Beatles, duh, perhaps the greatest example of this phenomenon). It's a horribly self-defeating M.O., yet we have seen it occur time after time amongst those most ardent of musicians. But thank God for the gigantic egos amongst this crowd, for it is their journey itself which accidentally yields the greatest rewards. If every tortured genius were to abandon this absurd pursuit of perfection, we would have a million more Nickelbacks and not a single Clouds Taste Metallic.

Week 5: Time (The Revelator)

14. GILLIAN WELCH - Time (The Revelator)
Acony, 2001

Up to this point, Gillian Welch was primarily known for her debut, Revival, an able exercise in traditional bluegrass ably produced by T-Bone Burnett - it was good, see, but a little too safe, a little underwhelming in its steadfast adherence to what it thought it should be. A second LP, Hell Among the Yearlings, followed in similar fashion, but it wasn't until 2001 when Welch would solidify her position as a true innovator with Time (The Revelator). Shimmering and expansive yet quiet and introverted, this is the type of record you might listen to ten times before you can even begin to be able to really take it all in. The opening track, "Revelator," is six-and-a-half minutes long and feels every bit of it. Not, y'see, because it drags, but because it is lithe and slow to reveal itself; beautifully paced, the guitars curl over one another sensually while Welch and longtime musical partner David Rawlings' notoriously, impossibly perfect harmonies melt like butter into 'blivion. "My First Lover" cannily tells the tale of a troubled, sepia-toned teenage relationship ("I do not remember any fights or fits/ Just a shaky morning after callin' it quits"), while the dexterous harmonies and major-sevenths of "Dear Someone" conjure up images of some empty Oahu beach at dusk. True to its name, Time (The Revelator) is infinitely concerned with the passage of time and especially the curse of the past. The tragic, untimely deaths of both Elvis Presley and Abraham Lincoln are chronicled here in song; the former more directly in "Elvis Presley Blues," the latter in the two-part saga "April the 14th Part I" and "Ruination Day Part II." Elsewhere, Welch laments the crushing uncertainty of the future in songs like "Everything is Free," a moving (and, one gathers, autobiographical) ode to the poor working musician, and in the beautiful, slow-burning closer, "I Dream a Highway," where the trials and errors of all time - past, present and future - are compressed into one gentle but harrowing 15-minute song. It's a perfect ending to a fine record, one which seems more familiar, yet somehow more frightening, with each rewarding listen.

WATCH: Gillian Welch - "Revelator" video

Week 5: Daydream Nation

13. SONIC YOUTH - Daydream Nation
Enigma, 1988/DGC, 1993

What separates this album from Thurston, Kim and co.'s prior attempts to blend noize and pop (Evol, the irreproachable Sister, etc.) is that on Daydream Nation, even the noise jams are kinda catchy. Of those albums to come, Goo and Dirty are all shine and no grime, those other few '90s ones really aren't worth mentioning save for a few standout tracks, and beyond that dudes ('n' dudette) mellowed way out - and, despite releasing a couple old-folk-type gems into the aughts, Daydream Nation really stands as this band's last purely successful foray into that brand of damaged art-pop they so notoriously ushered into existence (except they didn't actually, but at least they were really good at it). The leadoff track, "Teen Age Riot," was the very first Yoof song I ever heard, and what an introduction; as an album's (nay, a band's) thesis statement, it don't get much more concise. Lee's songs are among his best-ever (see perennial live favorite "Eric's Trip" and call me in the morning), and Kim's are not only palatable but good - "Kissability" remains one of my favorite SY songs of all time. And for an album with such a perfect opener, the closer is no slouch either: the mind-melting "Trilogy" burns barns and brains alike. Not much to be said about this one that hain't already been seared into your indie rock noggin, so I'll just leave it at that. But seriously, can you believe how good this record still sounds? Ain't no joke.

WATCH: Sonic Youth - "Silver Rocket", live on Night Music, 1989

Week 4: Journey in Satchidananda

12. ALICE COLTRANE - Journey in Satchidananda
Impulse!, 1970

Alice Coltrane certainly wasn't the first jazz musician to reject the philosophical and religious status quo of America and the wider Western world in favor of a more esoteric (to most of us, that is) Eastern-based worldview, nor the last. Whether or not this conversion was just the thing to do amongst jazz players in the late '60s and early '70s, Alice saw it as the only thing to do - the music on Journey in Satchidananda tells, if not the whole story, at least a very important part. For this gnarled, quiet beast of a record, Coltrane recruited Tulsi to play the tamboura, which drones beautifully on and on behind nearly all of the album, providing a unifying theme which serves as not only that but also as about as strong a musical statement I've ever seen. Alice herself alternates between her harp and the piano, playing both with a sort of delicate chaos - like Monk, maybe, but more concerned with the whole picture than each individual note. Pharaoh Sanders squawks and squeals throughout, and it's as effulgent as you'd think. This is a record much better experienced than explained, however, and of course it would be in all our best interests to really just listen.

STREAM: Alice Coltrane - "Journey in Satchidananda"

Week 4: Meat Puppets II

11. MEAT PUPPETS - Meat Puppets II
SST, 1984

The Meat Puppets are from Arizona, and they sound like it. I don't know if you've ever spent any time there, but the desert can be one oppressive summabitch. The overwhelming lack of those things which give life - trees, plants, water - could make even the sanest man lose his marbles on the wrong kind of day. The Puppets, on II, sound a whole lot like that man, and perhaps they were: given the addiction issues and other personal struggles that followed their rise to success, a reasonable observer might surmise that these types of things are very easily precipitated by that angry, red Arizona desert and its harsh, unpitying dry heat (I've got no hard evidence to support this possibly absurd statement, but let's just go with it for these purposes). Meat Puppets II found the band experimenting for the first time with swirling psychedelia, as well as noodly, Western-style instrumentation; alongside their more familiar SST hardcore roots, it makes for one hell of a weirdo record, albeit a damn fine one for sure. Much has been made of this album's influence on alt-rock bands to come - Kurt Cobain famously invited Curt and Cris Kirkwood to perform alongside Nirvana for their 1994 Unplugged concert (the three songs played there are all featured on II). Likewise, the Puppets would go on to further explore the expansive, psychedelic side of their music, but what makes II such a bona fide classic is that it seems so conflicted as to what it is: too punk to be country, too twangy to be punk - too goddamn good, truly, to be forgotten.

Week 4: Pockets

10. KARATE - Pockets
Southern, 2004

Prior to this outing, Boston-based Karate had released a handful of OK-but-none-too-inspired (or inspiring) records which ranged from pedestrian emo blather to pseudo-jazz rock meandering, and a few in between which blended the two to decidedly mixed results. The songs on Pockets contain all the familiar Karate accoutrements with none of the fringe elements - the noodly jazz guitarin' going on here (and it is, indeed, plentiful) comes across not as excessive or unnecessary but fits all glovelike with the appropriately emotional songwriting, which itself, in turn, is not maudlin but rather truly poignant and smart. It's not easy to put a finger on what changed with this album, but dang it, these are some of them good kinda songs, ones that manage a startling duality between being introverted but anthemic, emotionally affecting on some gut level but musically inventive as all get-out. What's so initially striking about Karate's records is the absence of any and all studio frills - it's all one guitar (and one guitar only - when the lead starts, the rhythm ends), bass, drums and clean-ass vocals here. One gets the impression that this band doesn't do overdubs; after all, they're all Berklee trained and total music nerds, which usually makes for terrible songwriting, but somehow in their case they actually found the line between Chicago-style 'perfection' and Cap'n Jazz-like chaos (Jeezus, even as I write that it sounds horrible, but trust me, it ain't), and they straddle it well. Pockets almost isn't fit to be writ about, 'cause it defies most musical logic, but I'll stand by this record, most definitely.

I ate us!

I realize it's way too early in this blog's life to do this, but I'm going on tour for three weeks with the band and I figure the smart thing to do is to declare TW3 to be On Hold until I get back. But fear not, dear readers, for I shall return, bolder and more verbose. If you're on the west coast, come see a show. If you'll be in Austin for SXSW, let's eat some tacos and drink some beer. Let's live!

See you in April for Week 4.

Week 3: After The Gold Rush

9. NEIL YOUNG - After The Gold Rush
Reprise, 1970

Here we have perhaps the most unabashedly beautiful record Neil Young ever recorded, but more importantly, it features some of his best-evs songwriting. The key Crazy Horse players are in attendance - Whitten, Talbot, Molina - but this is certainly no rock-fest; rather, the songs are gentle, slow-burning, almost MOR at points but that's not to say they're at all boring - Neil's always had a knack for phrase-turning, and his lyricism here is focused and direct while maintaining a sense of pure poetry. That's also not to say there's no rock and roll on this record - one need look no further than the Lynyrd Skynyrd-despised anthem "Southern Man," with its hints of Crazy Horse to come and its incendiary lyrics about burning crosses, cotton-picking and the like. It's a powerful song in more ways than one, and boy howdy if only Neil were this relevant today (his upcoming project is a concept album about electric cars, I mean, really?), maybe we'd have a similarly significant canticle (or three) for these strange modern times. No use complaining, though, 'cause Neil gave us a few decades of unapproachably solid work, and really, that's way more than we have any right to expect from anyone.

STREAM: Neil Young - "Southern Man"

Week 3: Deceit

8. THIS HEAT - Deceit
Rough Trade, 1981

This Heat have said that this record is primarily about the possibility of nuclear war and the accompanying sense of fear and tension felt by human beings the world over; rarely has any band been able to channel the zeitgeist so directly, and with such musical ingenuity at that. Charles Hayward and co. begin this weirdo beardo album with the hypnotic "Sleep," which implores the listener to "Sleep, sleep, sleep/Go to sleep," as a caring mother might to a nervous child, except in this case we're all terrified little fucks and old enough to know sleep won't help at all, and This Heat knows this too but maybe we can all pretend together that it might. Later in this beautifully oblique record, on "S.P.Q.R.," This Heat sounds a bit like U2 if Bono were taking acid instead of God-pills, and the results are resplendent. On "Cenotaph" we're told "History repeats itself," and there's a lot of talk about wars past and dead civilians over a mesmerizing dance beat and some atonal guitar chords before a chorus of sorts which brings it all together for a legitimately pretty few bars, then back again. Which ain't a terrible metaphor for this beast of an album: perhaps after all there is true beauty to be found in the terrible, and pure horror in the good.

STREAM: This Heat - Various Tracks

Week 3: Let's Get It: Thug Motivation 101

7. YOUNG JEEZY - Let's Get It: Thug Motivation 101
Def Jam, 2005

This record starts out spooky as all hell. Ominous synths bounce around the track for several tension-laden moments while a faint "'Eyyyyyy" repeats itself every few seconds, like some ghosty whispering in your sleeping ear but then UH-OH here's the beat! Jeezy busts down the door with a killer opening couplet ("I used to hit the kitchen lights/Cockroaches everywhere/Hit the kitchen lights/Now it's marble floors everywhere") and it's all over, you're dead now and you're a ghost too, time to go a-hauntin'! Some have expressed ire over Jeezy's seemingly compulsive tendency to rhyme words with themselves, but more oft than not it makes for some truly great wordplay - the type of which might look silly on paper but, delivered in Jay Jenkins' larger-than-death growl makes for a kinetic, goose-pimply experience. The credit for this album's greatness (and yes, it is a great album, save for a couple bummers like the radio-pandering, Akon-produced "Soul Survivor"), as with most good hip-hop records, belongs as much to its producers as to its star; in this case, Shawty Redd provides the beats for 7 of the 19 tracks heard here, and his eerie zombie synths and booming low end prove an unspeakably perfect pairing for Jeezy's end-of-days coke-rap posturing (take a listen to "Hypnotize," the terrifying, narcotized opening track from Jeezy's next album, to hear perhaps the greatest-ever teaming of these two). It's a party record, sure, and Thug Motivation 101 sounds fantastic bumping out of a pair of subs, but it's also a character study, a chronicle of one of rap's most larger-than-life figures ("Donald Trump in a white tee/And white Ones") and his joys and struggles, both fulsome and all too real.

STREAM: Young Jeezy - "Standing Ovation"

Week 2: And Then Nothing Turned Itself Inside Out

6. YO LA TENGO - And Then Nothing Turned Itself Inside Out
Matador, 2000

Yo La Tengo have never really been all that exciting - sure, there was a certain scrappy indie rock intensity that colored their early material, although in some cases the songcraft suffered; it stands to reason, then, that a toned-down, mellowed-out version of the band might induce narcolepsy in even those most wired of speed freaks. But who'd'a thunk it'd be so gosh dang captivating? "Everyday" opens this painfully-long-winded-titled rekkid (a Sun Ra reference - NERDS!) with a stoned detachment, keyboards droning behind a shuffling beat and Mrs. Georgia Hubley's best bored-out-of-her-mind, junkie-zombie vocals. None of this sounds exciting, and it ain't, but whaddaya know: it's gorgeous! And a little spooky. And although it's not the dissonant jangle of "Sugarcube," the next track, "Our Way to Fall," is an equally affecting love song (minus the passive aggression), and a damn right pretty one at that. I reckon you might say Yo La Tengo officially Got Old on this record. Course this isn't to say it's all sad sappy slow songs - "Cherry Chapstick" is a rocker that brings to mind the YLT of yore, complete with Thurston-style guitar massacring and a six-minute run-time that never slows its roll. They've done more rock'n'roll-flavored stuff since (and good stuff at that!), but nothing this pure; nothing this complete. Every piece of this album's proverbial puzzle falls right into place.

STREAM: Yo La Tengo - "Our Way to Fall"

Week 2: Nuclear War

5. SUN RA ARKESTRA - Nuclear War
Y Records, 1982; Atavistic, 2001

"It's a motherfucker/Don't you know/If they push that button/Your ass got to go." Thus goes the mantra, repeated over and over again into oblivion by Ra and a chorus of paranoid backup singers on the funky title track (and opener) from Sun Ra's lost little gem of a record, recorded in 1982 and put out as a 12" single on Italian label Y Records but not given a legit release until 2001 and well THANK GOD IN HEAVEN for whomever decided to give this one a go, because it's a brain-burner. The aforementioned opening track, with its scary pseudo-soothsayin' warnings of death and destruction, ambles along with a nice little dance shuffle and some sparse piano chords before giving way to a drunken dirge called "Retrospect," which is over before you know it and in comes a Duke Ellington standard, "Drop Me Off in Harlem," played faithfully and without pretense and you're all Huh? June Tyson arrives with some flat-out lovely vocals for the next track, "Sometimes I'm Happy," and everything makes complete sense. From then on it's smooth sailing; or, at the very least it's as smooth as you're gonna get from the Arkestra. Their unholy big band/hard bop/avant-funk concoction has come to a boil and simmers nicely on Nuclear War; jazz purists may scoff at Ra's more esoteric tendencies (others among us love 'em), but when ol' June shows up again on the end track and implores us all to "Smile/Through your tears and sorrow/Smile/And maybe tomorrow/You'll see the sun come shining through," even the saddest among us might allow a grin or two.

Week 2: Didn't It Rain

4. SONGS: OHIA – Didn’t It Rain
Secretly Canadian, 2002

I could write at length about why any album by Jason Molina is probably better than anyone else’s best album but I’ll try to shove my fanboy instincts in the closet just this once. This record’s magic is undeniable and immediate; from the clean, sparse opening chords of the title track to the very last closing echoes of “Blue Chicago Moon,” this is one tuff goddamn ghost of an album. “When I die/Put my bones in an empty street/To remind me how it used to be,” croons Molina in “Blue Factory Flame,” (the most On The Beachian of the songs here but also the most haunting) and holy Christ, it’s soul-wrenching. J-Mo’s done his share of brilliant songwriting, but most of his albums are riddled with at least one or two (usually well-intentioned) missteps. Not here, boss. Sure, Didn’t It Rain is imperfect, but that’s what makes it human; unlike those hucksters that fill records with auto-tune and studio effects to hide the fact they couldn’t write or sing their way out of a paper sack, Molina knows the only way to properly chronicle the foibles ‘n joy of being a human being is to do it RAW. He’s on a different tip now with the Magnolia stuff, but he’s never been better than he is here, and that’s the damn truth.

DOWNLOAD: Songs: Ohia - "Two Blue Lights"

A quick note

Now that we're all revved up and ready to go, I'm implementing what will hopefully be a regular schedule on TW3. I'm looking at a Monday-Friday time frame for the "Weekly" part, with each of the "Three" coming on Monday, Wednesday and Friday specifically. Feel free to leave thoughts or suggestions in the comments to this post.

Week 1: The Glands

3. THE GLANDS – The Glands
Capricorn, 2000

Those in search of the perfect pop record can keep looking, ‘cause it don’t exist. But they can at least stop and smell the flowers on The Glands, which comes dangerously close to claiming that title. Unlike so many records of its type, there’s no sag in this album’s midsection (no sweat, happens to the best of us); instead, after a would-be total downer like “Mayflower” comes the upbeat, la-la-la-ing “Lovetown,” which is then followed up by Best Song on the Album candidate number one “Straight Down,” with its delightfully inane lyrics (“See a lady with a poodle/It’s the color of tomato/In a bad way”) that somehow make sense even though they don’t. Sure, “Swim” cribs a little too hard from “Martha My Dear,” and in their hometown of Athens, GA, the (now defunct) band’s biggest fans are, weirdly but perhaps not so much so, the same frat boys who pack out shows by hacks like the Whigs or the Modern Skirts, but we’re willing to look past all that, because this album’s one of the best to come out of that wonderful little town, ever. In The Aeroplane... and Dusk At Cubist Castle aren't without their charms, but for my dollar, The Glands outlasts 'em both.

STREAM: The Glands - "Swim"

Week 1: The Lonesome Crowded West

2. MODEST MOUSE – The Lonesome Crowded West
Up Records, 1997

Critics have proclaimed 2000’s The Moon and Antarctica to be the band’s finest hour, but too often that album loses footing amidst gratuitous studio trickery and singer Isaac Brock’s pseudo-existential ramblings. The Lonesome Crowded West is a lean record; not in length (over 70 minutes), but in the fact that there ain’t no goddamn fat on these bones. Brock and co. (this is before that guy from the Smiths joined the band, mind you) hit all the right notes, and some of the wrong ones, but even those are right one way or another. Many have called this a perfect driving album, and they’re right, but the driving evoked here is not the standard road-trip-with-buddies fare. No, this is the soundtrack to a mad escape, from point A to point who-the-fuck-knows-where, a frenzied run from the law maybe, or from someone or something who wants you d-e-a-d dead and you don’t know why, or maybe and probably after all the only thing you’re running from is your own damn self.

DOWNLOAD: Modest Mouse - "Doin' the Cockroach"

Week 1: Standards

1. TORTOISE - Standards
Thrill Jockey, 2001

The way this fucker explodes right out of the gate, spastic drums all over the place paired with that slithering python of a guitar line, but then there's a pause and BAM, it's razor-sharp; delicately chaotic, it unravels further and further with each listen, like great records do. Frankly, though (or perhaps because) these guys obviously know their way around their instruments, some of what they've done has been a little boring - emotionally stilted, innocuous instrumental post-rock begging for some kinda edge (it's foremost the production, beautifully overdriven, which absolves Standards of any hint of stodginess) - but this is the record we always hoped they would make, that someone would, at least, and that they probably will not come close to making again. A flippantly destructive end-transmission and a careful, loving homage to bygone days (and probably, a dire warning of some kind of terrible future). And it grooves! Boy, does it groove.

STREAM: Tortoise - "Seneca"

The Weekly Three

THE GOAL: Three great albums every week, with semi-in-depth analysis of/half-baked ruminations on the bunch.