Morrissey
Years Of Operation 1988-present (solo)
Fits Between Pulp and James
"Sister I'm A Poet" by Morrissey
Personal Correspondence By all rights, Morrissey's solo career should've been a footnote to the run of The Smiths, since by the time The Smiths broke up, the prevailing opinion was that Johnny Marr was the real genius in that band, and that Morrissey's preening self-absorption was becoming a distraction (and starting to verge on self-parody on Strangeways Here We Come). The first Morrissey solo album, Viva Hate, was a happy surprise, featuring producer Stephen Street and co-writer/arranger Vini Reilly doing their best to maintain Morrissey's momentum. Songs like "Suedehead," "Hairdresser On Fire" and "Everyday Is Like Sunday" were clearly Smiths-worthy, combining lush late '60s pop with new wave and rockabilly. Then Morrissey followed it up with Bona Drag, a compilation of non-LP singles and Viva Hate rehashes that started something of a trend with Morrissey: repackaging old material over and over, and flooding the market with ungainly novelties like "The Last Of The Famous International Playboys" and "Ouija Board, Ouija Board." When he's focused, Morrissey writes songs that are effortless and evocative, telling offbeat, clearly personal stories about resentful loners. He's even shown himself capable of holding it together for a full album. (Your Arsenal would be my favorite.) But there's an element of buffoonery to him too that makes him very frustrating to follow as a fan. He's too good to dismiss; too uneven to laud.
Enduring presence? I hate to be one of those "if you don't like it that's your problem man" kind of guys, but there's something perversely satisfying about the fact that even now, 20 years after we went solo, Morrissey is still so hated by so many. Many of his peers are still making music for dwindling fan bases, but people don't care enough about them to get annoyed by their very existence. Meanwhile, Morrissey comes along every couple of years with another set of snappy songs about outlaws and outcasts, and finds yet another generation of 16-year-olds who feel like they've finally found someone who understands them, and yet another generation of 22-year-olds who find their former Morrissey fandom so embarrassing that they lash out. The cycle of cool rolls on.Motörhead
Years Of Operation 1975-present
Fits Between Black Sabbath and Queens Of The Stone Age
"Going To Brazil (Live)" by Motörhead
Personal Correspondence In high school, some friend or another loaned me a videotape that contained about a half-dozen episodes of The Young Ones, the British cult comedy series that briefly aired on MTV in the States, alternately befuddling and delighting we Yanks with its slapstick surrealism. That tape was my first exposure to Motörhead, who performed "Ace Of Spades"—one of the greatest heavy rock songs ever recorded—on the first episode of The Young Ones' second series. With no context for comprehending who Motörhead were and how they were perceived by the rock community at large, I pegged them as a particularly badass punk band, and promptly forgot about them, until Lemmy popped up in Penelope Spheeris' documentary The Decline Of Western Civilization Part II: The Metal Years. (Aside: When I was in college, everyone I knew looked down on the second Decline because the bands weren't as "cool" as the bands in the first Decline; but the second is a much more ambitious and thoughtful film, and it's always been the one I prefer. Of course, they're all out of circulation now, so it's a moot debate.) I'm afraid I may have given the wrong impression earlier this year when I wrote about being afraid of certain music when I was a kid. It's true; I was. But that phase passed, and I do make loud, fast, heavy music a regular part of my listening diet. It's just not a big part. (I don't eat barbecued ribs that often either, though I think they're delicious.) Because I don't listen to much in the way of hardcore punk or metal, I'm not all that adventurous with what I do consume. I have my two Motörhead anthologies—one studio, one live—and I return to them as often as I do to anything similar. I think what appeals to me about them is that much like AC/DC, if you strip Motörhead of their noise and speed, they're basically an old-timey rock 'n' roll band, bashing out roadhouse boogie. While possessed by demons.
Enduring presence? You know what else I like about Motörhead? Nearly every song in their repertoire sounds like it's the last one of the night. They go out with a bang, over and over.
My Bloody Valentine
Years Of Operation 1984-present (?)
Fits Between Cocteau Twins and Swervedriver
"When You Wake" by My Bloody Valentine
"When You Sleep" by My Bloody Valentine
Personal Correspondence My Bloody Valentine provides a reasonable counter to the "dark album" phenomenon, since the band's most celebrated album Loveless is at once a superior wallow in dismay and an uplifting journey out. I first discovered MBV via Isn't Anything, which was exactly the kind of album I wanted to hear as a sophomore in college: chaotic yet oddly beautiful, rewarding close attention and unthinking devotion. I bought the Glider EP a year later and heard "Soon," which married the MBV sound to a dance track, promising an exciting new direction. And probably because of the promise of Glider (and my ongoing obsession with Isn't Anything), I was disappointed with Loveless at first. It seemed to move too far toward tuneless murk, not really breaking into anything melodic until "Soon," the final song. But the way the record opened up at the end with "Soon" was so thrilling that I kept taking the Loveless ride to re-experience that moment, and with each new spin, I started hearing melodies and textures that had eluded me the first time. (It says something about the core quality of Loveless that when Japancakes released an instrumental cover of the whole record last year, songs that sounded like formless noise in their original renditions were still recognizable with the distortion shaved off.) These days, I can hear rays of light throughout the record, not just at the end, though I still say that the way Loveless moves from confusion to clarity is what makes it so powerful, and so enduring. As much as I love Isn't Anything, Loveless sounds like that album remixed and amplified by someone who suddenly understands what the earlier work was meant to be. It's like a My Bloody Valentine tribute album, performed by My Bloody Valentine.
Enduring presence? Well, that's really the question, isn't it? On the one hand, it's remarkable how the reputation (if not exactly the influence) of Loveless has persisted, given what a commercial washout it was at the time. On the other hand, Shields inability to come up with another record doesn't taint the achievement exactly, but it does make it hard to contextualize. Is Shields a genius, or did he just get lucky? The fact that Isn't Anything is such a strong album too is a mark in his favor. But when I saw the band live on the Loveless tour, opening for Dinosaur Jr., they sure didn't strike me as world-beaters. They were just an ordinary alt-rock band, playing too loud and too long. How they ever recorded an album like Loveless is hard to explain.
My Morning Jacket
Years Of Operation 1998-present
Fits Between The Court & Spark and Band Of Horses
"Steam Engine" by My Morning Jacket
Personal Correspondence There aren't too many great band names left, so give Jim James credit for coming up with a perfect one. "My Morning Jacket" conjures images of a crisp fall day that warms up as the sun moves over the mountains—which pretty well describes the music, too. Initially, I counted MMJ more as a promising band with a great name than one of the premier rock acts of their generation, but they started coming into their own with It Still Moves, about which I wrote: "Kentucky-bound singer-songwriter-guitarist Jim James is yet another indie-rock guitar hero attracted to big sounds with country tinges, letting his twang drift outward and upward until it fills the atmosphere. Accordingly, James' band My Morning Jacket has drawn comparisons to the epic country-rock thump of Neil Young, but the quintet sounds more like secondhand Young, perhaps borrowed from Mark Kozelek's hypnotic, somber Red House Painters. The difference, at least on the third My Morning Jacket LP It Still Moves, is that James captures the tone and texture of Young and Kozelek without adopting their personalities. It Still Moves is more lilting than its influences; the album has the joyous Americana of The Band as a defining characteristic, evident in the generous piano and brass coda of 'Dancefloor,' and in the brightly folky 'Golden,' which equates the open road with great sex (making its point sonically by mating strings with slide guitar). My Morning Jacket creates cavernous spaces for James to fill, and the guitarist (alongside stringmate Johnny Quaid) approaches each opening a little differently, from the quixotic arpeggios of 'One Big Holiday' to the Dylanesque rumble of 'Easy Morning Rebel' to the sorrowful pluck and slide of 'Steam Engine.' Like a lot of bands who favor warm drone, My Morning Jacket doesn't do enough with rhythm; drummer Patrick Hallahan doesn't swing as much as he should, and the times where bassist Two-Tone Tommy breaks from a lockstep beat to follow his own melody show him to be an underused asset. But the monumental feeling works well on loping weepers like the slow-building 'Rollin' Back,' and on heavy, resounding rock anthems like 'Run Thru,' which sounds like something pieced together from the vaults of Led Zeppelin, Pink Floyd and Jefferson Airplane (with a tribal interlude that would suit Jane's Addiction). It Still Moves courts the easygoing, the wistful and the devastating all at once, and the band's strange, wonderful gift is that it understands how those three moods are all shades of the same blue."
Enduring presence? I liked the next album Z even more, saying, "It's both rare and marvelous to hear a good band make its first really great album. This hasn't been an era for disciplined, focused LPs, which makes listening to My Morning Jacket's Z—with its ten fantastic tracks packed tightly into 47 minutes—so bracing that it's hard to trust. Maybe Z's all surface, and will tear easily with repeated use. And isn't it kind of choppy? My Morning Jacket usually follows a smoothed-out boom-and-twang sound, but Z's all over the map stylistically, and the songs don't seem to fit together too neatly. Or maybe they do. Better play it again. It's not hard. The record's undeniably the work of My Morning Jacket—all grandeur and pounding heart—but Z's take-a-shot spirit is bound up in the nutty, insanely catchy 'Off The Record,' which stacks up a stolen surf riff, a reggae rhythm, lurching vocals, and an extended, spacey coda. At first it sounds too wild and beastly to be any good, but the hook is as infectious as freedom, and around the third time through the song, doubts dissolve. If it takes some time to adjust to, it's only because it's hard to recognize a classic right away." As you might imagine, I can't wait to hear their next album. Then I can't wait to hear their inevitable "dark" album.
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