Chisel "Set You Free"
Ted Leo's riding pretty high these days, and deservedly so, but this record from his old band was absolutely ignored on it's release in '97. It was their last record, and it sounds like it. The theme seems to be heavy on the confusion of not knowing what to do or knowing where you belong. From the first song, "On Warmer Music"(with it's chilling foreshadowing"Get ready for the invasion/self satisfied smug rock nation" lyric) to the last, "The Last Good Time" the message seems to be, "What the fuck am I going to do now!" For Ted it was almost sign to a major label, break up the band instead and then become indie-rock royalty. Good for him. I modeled my cd "this is my pop", after this one.
MC5 "High Time"
Another final album. "Kick Out The Jams" is a lot more popular, but this is really where the Five hit their stride. Louder than "Back in The U.S.A", less chaotic than "Kick out...", "High Time" is what I thought the MC5 would sound like before I had heard them. The songs are almost across the board a minute too long and some of the lyrics are terrible, but it consistantly hits you where good rock and roll is suppost to. The band split up songwriting duties and Fred Smith shines brightest with the anti war "Over and Over" and the still astonishing "Skunk (sonically speaking)".
Jurassic 5 "Power in Numbers"
Often refered to as "Backpack" hop-hop, either because their bling-free are because they have a lot of fans in the Bonnaroo crowd. No matter, the amazing beats and verbal acrobatics have had wide appeal amungst the people I've played this for. All of J5 MCs are excellent, but the show stealer is the self described "verbal Herman Munster" Chali 2na. If you've heard them, even once, you know who I'm talking about. I pass over a lot of my all-time favorite artists on my i-pod shuffle, but when something from this album comes up, I'm always in the mood to hear it.
More later....
2 comments:
Interesting ...
jurassic5, mc5...
what? no maroon5?
!!!!!!
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