After 17 years of professional music-reviewing, Noel Murray is taking time off from all new music, and is revisiting his record collection in alphabetical order, to take stock of what he's amassed, and consider what he still needs.
"Procession" by New Order
Every so often, some British-born children's entertainment—be it a book, TV show or movie—gets imported to the states and has its terminology or voices changed so that it'll be more accessible to American kids. Whenever that happens, I shudder. I grew up reading A.A. Milne's Pooh books, Helen Criswell's tales of the Bagthorpe clan, and other quintessentially English kidlit; and much of those books' appeal had to do with the little differences that made them seem all the more exotic and magical. (And it's not like it took much adjusting to get used to the "u" in "colour," or to learn that "biscuit" didn't refer to flaky bread served with white gravy.) As I got older, I enjoyed listened to The Who sing about "girl guides" or The Beatles about "macs," and I found that as I parsed the local references in a Monty Python skit or a Mike Leigh film, it made me feel clued-in, aware—an honorary citizen of the United Kingdom.
I've never been across the Atlantic (or the Pacific). I've also never been to New York City or Los Angeles, or Mexico. I'm just not a very well-traveled dude—unless you count the trips I've made via books, movies, and music. As a result, I probably tend to over-romanticize (or overreact to) other cultures. There's always been a strong element of voyeurism to my pop consumption, as I live vicariously through fictional characters or musicians. With The American Way™ in its current disheveled state, it's hard to watch movies set in England or Europe and not fantasize about living in a place with efficient public transportation and abundant social services, even though I know that if I were an actual citizen of one of those places, I'd be complaining about high taxes and long lines (or some other nuisance). As a provincial type, I make no pretense of being anything but a naïf.
That said, here's what I imagine life would be like living in the UK: I wake up in one of those neat little suburban homes, eat a full English breakfast (complete with bacon and beans), and then take the train into London, where I work some low-impact, high-paying job in a creative field. (I'm thinking either magazine proofreader or landscape architect.) I skip lunch but take a long tea (complete with cakes and lots of milk), while I read the current issues of Uncut and Q. After work I buy limited edition singles at a nearby independent record shop, then meet up with my circle of erudite young professional friends at a pub (complete with darts and snooker) before going to see some amazing unsigned band at a club. On my way home, I stop at the chip shop or the curry shop (or both) for take-away and then stay up late and catch the latest episodes of some subversive sketch comedy show or tough-minded policier. My cholesterol would be high, but my stress level low. (Am I in fantasyland, my British friends, or do I have it about right?)
Of course it's not all strawberries and cream. I have some bones to pick with the British too. When I first discovered that the library at the University Of Georgia carried NME and Melody Maker, I was initially excited by the lively prose and strong opinions in both publications' review sections. (And just looking at the ads for upcoming shows had me flabbergasted.) Then I noticed as the weeks rolled on how fickle the British rock press can be, turning maliciously on bands they'd lauded not six months before. I also noticed how the bands themselves picked up on that vibe, and talked in interviews about how they didn't listen to any other music but their own, and were essentially beyond influence. I'd always been astounded by the high volume of good-to-great UK acts that made it onto college radio in the '80s, but by the time 120 Minutes debuted on MTV—in the pre-grunge era—I was getting frustrated by the flood of music from London and Manchester and the lack of attention paid to the American indie movement. I also started to get annoyed at the phenomenon of British bands releasing near-classic debut albums and then stumbling through the second before calling I quits. I love the fact that British radio and TV seems to nurture the offbeat, but there's an awful lot of here-and-gone to British popular culture.
By and large though, I'm unapologetically pro-limey. I don't just love England. I love the idea of being in love with England. From a distance, the cultural environment in Great Britain seems far more conducive to art-for-art's-sake, and adventurousness in pop. The reality, I'm sure, is far more pedestrian. But hang reality. Give me the myth of the glorious empire in repose, with its well-meaning gentlemen having gracefully stepped aside to serve as wizened mentors to the upstart nations now taking center stage. Give me Christmas crackers and trifles and Sunday lunch. Give me children's fiction, extraneous "u"s and all.
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Pieces Of The Puzzle
Neko Case
Years Of Operation 1997-present (solo)
Fits Between Kelly Hogan and Ron Sexsmith
"Deep Red Bells" by Neko Case
Personal Correspondence My deeply ingrained suspicion of alt-country artists keep me separated from Neko Case for the first part of her career. I liked her in The New Pornographers, where she proved her big voice was good for more than belting rootsy throwbacks to Patsy Cline and Kitty Wells, but her solo albums initially struck me as too self-aware and respectful of tradition. Not enough muss to go with the fuss. Even when Case sang about tramps, killers and other no-accounts, the stories seemed liked something she'd read from a book. The "deep-throated torch singer in tattered clothes" routine wasn't winning me. My mind started to change with Blacklisted, and especially with the song "Deep Red Bells," a fully developed composition graced with imagery like "It looks a lot like engine oil / and tastes like being poor and small / and popsicles / in summer," and spiked with a tempo-and-mood-changing break in the middle that gives a short story the depth of a novel. "Deep Red Bells" bewitches then switches, leaving listeners feeling like they've been somewhere they hadn't counting on going. Following Blacklisted, Case made what to my mind is her first great record, The Tigers Have Spoken, a live album consisting of almost entirely new material. With The Sadies backing her, Case found a place between slow twang and electric jolt, and swayed back and forth there, emitting transcendent pop, with a self-generating momentum. My doubting days were done.
Enduring presence? The Tigers Have Spoken may have been Case's first great record, but it's not been her last. For me, 2006's Fox Confessor Brings The Flood is a classic on the order of Joni Mitchell's Court And Spark: one of those rare perfect albums that's also a step forward in terms of musical and lyrical complexity. The "like something she'd read from a book" criticism I leveled at Case's earlier work above still pertains, but on Fox Confessor she's reading poetry, not pulp. It seems that Case is taking a long time to follow up Fox, and that may be for the best. Still, the historian in me can't help but note that in the two years following Court And Spark, Mitchell released The Hissing Of Summer Lawns and Hejira, two more all-timers. Better not take too long to get back to work quick, Neko.
Neutral Milk Hotel
Years Of Operation 1991-2001
Fits Between The Decemberists and Sebadoh
"Ghost" by Neutral Milk Hotel
Personal Correspondence As I've mentioned before, I lived in Athens during the lull between the advent of R.E.M. and the rise of The Elephant 6 Recording Company. I believe it was literally a year after I left that the likes of Of Montreal and The Olivia Tremor Control (both of whom will be covered in this week's "Stray Tracks") started gigging around town and releasing their first records. So I got the story of the E6 ascension second-hand, and when I finally got to hear the music, I had a similar experience to what I felt in the early grunge era. The Elephant 6 concoction of garage rock, psychedelia, DIY indie and fantasy-prog initially played better on paper than on CD. Even Neutral Milk Hotel's debut album On Avery Island sounded too sloppy by half, with good ideas and catchy songs bleeding into noise and silliness. It's fair to say that I didn't have the highest expectations for Neutral Milk Hotel's 1998 opus In The Aeroplane Over The Sea, though in retrospect, all the slogging I'd done through the nascent E6 records prepared me well for riding the Aeroplane. It only took one spin to realize that this album was something special: a dark-hued set of songs performed ecstatically, with every fuzzed-out passage or loss of key serving a necessary purpose. I saw NMH live on the brief tour that followed the release of Aeroplane, and bandleader Jeff Mangum was clearly living each one of those songs as he sang them, to such an intense extent that I wasn't all that surprised by his subsequent disappearing act. Wielding that kind of power night after night would scare anyone; and trying to summon it again for another album must be absolutely terrifying.
Enduring presence? Much like My Bloody Valentine's Loveless or Captain Beefheart's Trout Mask Replica, Neutral Milk Hotel's In The Aeroplane Over The Sea is one of those great albums that's hard to recommend to people without a whole lot of caveats. The record is loud, unruly, bizarre, nasal, and it demands a listener's full attention. But if you're up for all that, it's an album that can enrich your life on a daily basis, like a book of psalms.
New Order
Years Of Operation 1980-93, 1998-2007
Fits Between Orchestral Manoeuvres In The Dark and Unrest
"Run" by New Order
Personal Correspondence When my brother went off to college in upstate New York, we were both still listening to classic rock and radio-friendly New Wavers (or what the press dubbed the "New British Invasion"). When he came back on breaks, my brother brought tapes filled with the British bands that weren't on pop radio yet: The Cure, The Smiths, Echo & The Bunnymen and New Order. Perhaps because of the collegiate connotation, I immediately heard those bands as a cut above what I'd been listening to. They seemed smarter, deeper, braver. The first time I got a look at one of New Order's actual records, with their oblique graphics and minimal information, I felt like I was holding a piece of modern art in my hands. Listening to Power, Corruption And Lies all the way through was even more of a revelation. The integration of slashing guitar, bubbling bass and live drums into tightly synchronized and partly synthesized dance music—accompanied by the incongruous voice of Bernard Sumner, sounding like some twerp who'd wandered into the studio after the band had left for the day—felt fresh then, and still snaps me to alertness nearly every time one of New Order's songs comes up on my iPod. By the time I got into New Order, Low Life was already out, with its moodier electronic sound and god-awful vocals. But I was able to buy Brotherhood and Technique—two far brighter records—right as they were released. Technique in particular was on heavy rotation in my first apartment, since it was one of the few albums that me and my three roommates and I could agree on. We all drove to Atlanta to see New Order at Six Flags Over Georgia on the Technique tour, but it wasn't such a great show. Blocked off from the audience behind banks of synthesizers, the band mistook our disconnection from them as indifference, and after playing an hour-long set during which no one on stage moved, they left for 10 minutes, then came back and told us that they had originally decided not to do an encore for we ungrateful Atlantans, but, "Then we did a few lines of coke and changed their minds." After that incident, my love affair with New Order waned, and I haven't really liked any of the three albums or one-off singles since. (Exception: Republic's "Regret," which may be New Order's finest pop song.) But as with me and Joy Division, I get a craving for New Order nearly every year, and go on weeklong binges, listening to nothing else. It was all I could do to move on to other music this week and not spend seven days spinning all New Order's '80s records from front to back, over and over. (Yes, even Movement.)
Enduring presence? Those who continue to revere Joy Division as the quintessential purveyors of angst-ridden post-punk storm-and-drone often think of New Order as their sellout bastard child. And yes, New Order started out mournful and lightened up quick, giving smart '80s teens and coke-sniffing New York yuppies a common point of reference. But the club-ready beats and hooks of New Order always supported a strong expression of emotional unsteadiness. New Order's songs are as frustrated, confused and despairing as Ian Curtis at his most suicidal, yet also more mature, more complex, and in many ways more rewarding—if only because there's more of it.
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