Five That Got You Through...

Tell me the five cds you've listened to and enjoyed in the past five years. (I would do ten but that's a bit too lengthy to do and still be "fun.")

I'll go first:

(In no particular order)

• The New Radicals. Maybe You've Been Brainwashed, Too.
  

This CD is pretty close to being ten years old now, but I just got into it a couple of years back. Ok, if you've been alive for the past ten years you've heard "You Get What You Give." Gregg Alexander is unfairly touted as a one-hit wonder (which is not technically true, since he's written and produced hits for Michelle Branch, Enrique [sic] Iglesias, etc.), but if you've heard this album you know he could score at will. Pure pop genius: it's a shame this guy isn't cranking out his own records anymore. Think Todd Rundgreen + Hall and Oates + Mick Jagger. The lyrics seem intentionally vapid. The upbeat songs are mood-alteringly upbeat, and his ballads have the crisp wounded power of a scorned teenager. If you like bubblegum-style blue-eyed/Philly soul, you simply cannot do better than this. Only two or three weak songs--all the rest are hit out of the park.

• Morrissey. Greatest Hits.
  

Ok, I f*cking hate "greatest hits" albums and don't look kindly on the sort of scum who buy them, but the Rhino records retrospective is, begrudgingly-admittedly, the best place to start with Morrissey. To badly paraphrase a beat-to-hell cliche, "there's two sorts of people in the world: people who dig Morrissey and people who don't." Well, I am a Morrissey freak! He is to me what Elvis is to others. If you've ever been down on yourself and been able to step outside of your ego and see how ridiculous you are being and then were able to step back inside your own skin and revel at the beauty of your own melancholy and let that lush grandiose feeling of despair wash over you, well, Morrissey does that with lyrics and music. There's a good bit of clever humor to his phrasings, too, if you listen to the words--it's not just the soundtrack to pathological depression (such as a Cure album would be). After a while he repeats his own themes, so I wouldn't recommend buying every album. The ones I would get (in order of quality): Bona Drag, Vauxhall and I, and Your Arsenal. Of his albums with The Smiths (which most people actually prefer to his solo work): The Queen is Dead, Louder Than Bombs, and The Smiths. Give 'em a try at least, and if you don't like it I may still like you--I may even still love you--but you're not one of my tribe. 

• The Twilight Singers. The Twilight Singers Play Blackberry Belle
  

Ahh yeah! This is the album I've been itching to tell you about--one of my favorites of all time, and one of the albums I've kept liking for the longest--lots and lots of staying power. Let me just say you will not like this album the first two times you hear it, or rather you won't think it's anything special. Then you'll decide you like track three, "Teenage Wristband," the catchiest single that never was. It drives you and is easy and fun to sing along to. If you're driving when you hear it, you will speed. You may find yourself rolling down the windows so you can feel the breeze of the open road. Like the chorus says, you will want to go for a ride and you're gonna stay up all night. You're an invincible sixteen year old again. And as a cool postmodern touch, it has Apolonia Kotero who dueted with Prince on "Take Me With You" about going for a ride.

You then will figure out that "The Killer" is pretty chill, with its helicopter blade beat (like the PTSD Martin Sheen experienced in Apocalypse Now), its end-of-the-world romanticism ("and that's why I need ya/to catch on fire /I want ya to burn me 'til I feel it / I know you know which way to go /I want you to show me/so I can steal it..."), and even though it's not a song about your life or anything you ever experienced, or anything that makes linear sense, for that matter, you will be swept up by the impression it creates--imagery, not narrative. Impressionism. You're being seduced by Byronic soul man Greg Dulli. Don't feel bad--he's good, he's been at it for a while and you, you never stood a chance, so just give in.

As good as the album is, the stage show is so much better. Unlikely covers abound--the last time I saw 'em, they covered Massive Attack and Arcade Fire. Dulli, the former leader of a storied soul metal group from Ohio called The Afghan Whigs is into his forties now. If he resembles anything, it's this: take a Baldwin brother, one of the better looking ones, like maybe Alec. Splice him with Barry White with a bit of Elvis mixed in. That's the singer. He's not a small man, but he shimmies and makes love to his audience and somehow comes off as quite the lothario. He burns incense on stage before the show starts and lights a candleabra for you. Really.

And the mood is right, because everything's nocturnal. The first track, Martin Eden, only sounds like filler at first. It's actually an invocation: "Black out the windows/it's party time," sings Dulli while tickling the ivories before the thunder crash comes in. It's a southern hurricane. Everything's quiet 'til all hell breaks loose, with a slow build in between. 

"Estes Noches" begins with a dial tone and keeps that beat the whole song. No, it's not tedious, but it is another grower.

There are many other great tracks and I could go on and on (can you tell?), but let me just tell you you want this album. A strong album the whole way through. No real electronic flourishes, no extremely virtuoso playing, just simple arrangements that evoke mood and ambience. I can't remember exactly who said it, but one reviewer likened a Twilight Singers show to a "voodoo sex party." I don't think I can top that as a description. Bottom line: if you like your music dark, sexy, noctural, and moody, this is it. And a lot of the time you can find it in the used bin for about eight dollars! For very few know what a true gem this is. Shh...keep it a secret.

Ryan Adams Heartbreaker, Gold, Love is Hell Pts. 1 and 2, and Cold Roses
It's no secret that this guy is a major jerk. He's a drug-addled self-indulgent egomaniac (and yes, I have witnessed it firsthand on at least one occasion). Derivative? Maybe. (Listen to his latest album, Cardinology, and you can create a drinking game out of identifying how many times he bites Bono's style.) But he's also a friggin' genius. I hate Nashville country (Tim McGraw, Garth Brooks, Shania Twain, etc.) and classic country is a little too simple for me, but I dig this guy at his best: "Come Pick Me Up," "Oh My Sweet Carolina," "Call Me On Your Way Back Home," and "Sweet Lil Gal" (from Heartbreaker); "Firecracker," La Cienega Just Smiled," "When the Stars Go Blue," and "Harder Now That It's Over" (from Gold); ALL of Love is Hell, and pretty much all of Cold Roses. He takes the best elements of whiskey-drench southern rock (a genre that usually gives me the heebie jeebies) and injects some real heart and introspection into it. Bastard that he is, you will not convince me Ryan Adams doesn't have a soul. He's a bit Prince-like (in the sense that he thinks everything he records should be released as an album), so be selective. But I'll personally buy everything he puts out, if only because his successes more than make up for his occasional failures. His latest album is solid, but if you want the really good stuff, check out the albums listed above.

Merge Records--Yeah, I know. This is a cheat because it's a label and not a band. But the amount of listening pleasure given to me by this label based out of Carrborro, NC earns them a spot. Do you like pop music? I do, and this label delivers, from the pared-down nonsense pop of Spoon to the Scottish girl group shoegaze glory of Camera Obscura. The Clientele is the best modern band that delivers dreamy sixties Britpop that never was. Destroyer is David Bowie meets Wolverine. Lambchop lives up to their tag as "Nashville's most f'ed up country band. The Shout Out Louds successfully meld the vocal stylings of Robert Smith to somewhat cheerful eighties-sounding music. M. Ward is the singer-songwriter d'jour, and I haven't even mentioned mainstays like Superchunk, Portastatic. Magnetic Fields, Neutral Milk Hotel, the Rosebuds, East River Pipe, etc. Buy a sampler or stream albums from their website mergerecords.com. Chances are no matter what your musical tastes happen to be, you'll find something that pleases you.