Michael Mongillo – Music Group Commentary, December 20, 2005

BLIND FAITH – “SELF-TITLED” = 5 STARS
This one has the nostalgia value of being one of the many albums that my dad listened to over and over again on his turntable. Like my dad’s other favorites (Bob Dylan, Neil Young, and Cream among them), I am forced to admit that I owe much of my musical taste to my father’s musical taste. So revisiting “Blind Faith” for the first time since I was a kid was more fun than I thought it would be, because it made me rethink how and why I gravitate towards certain music. My taste is certainly more diverse than my dad’s ever was, but at the end of the day, I like nothing better than guitar-driven rock. And back then, the cover of the barely-pubescent girl shamelessly showing her boobies was pretty cool stuff for a kid to stare at while listening to culturally conscious hippies make noise. All that aside, this super-group’s one-shot remains thoroughly listenable. It also maintained a level of both social and music relevance that, for me, lived up to its legendary status.

GORILLAZ – “DEMON DAYS” = 4 STARS
DEMON DAYS is just a fun, rockin’ CD that will stay in my music rotation for a long, long time. Great songs meet stellar production/engineering, enhanced by a super-cool, multi-media image ... What’s not to like? The strongest cuts, “Feel Good Inc.” (with the “white boy friendly” De La Soul) and “Daze” kept me from grading this CD higher, since those tunes illustrated the level of greatness that many of the tracks, unfortunately, just missed.

IRON MAIDEN – “BEST OF” = 5 STARS
Again, inescapable nostalgia probably overrides critical taste with this one. My favorite band for the years spanning 1982 (Number of the Beast), all the way to 1983 (Piece of Mind), Iron Maiden was what my suburban misfit friends and I listened to for hours and hours while trying to master all their hot guitar and bass licks in our collective basement band rooms. Not something I listen to now, yet I can still appreciate Iron Maiden for all the same reasons I thought they were “kick-ass” then. Taste aside and as silly as their lyrics are at times, it cannot be denied that this is indeed great heavy metal, maybe even the best of its era.

MY MORNING JACKET – “Z” = 4.5 STARS
All of My Morning Jacket’s earlier work is good, great even, but every release before this one require repeated listenings to be fully appreciated, in the same vein that, say, Guided by Voices, Archers of Loaf, or Pavement CDs often require multiple listenings before their full scope and brilliance win you over. But because of (or perhaps in spite of) its instant accessibility, Z is arguably My Morning Jacket’s best work to date.

NEW YORK DOLLS – “SELF-TITLED” = 5 STARS for Relevance - 4 STAR for Listenability = 1 STAR
Like much of the punk music and groups that the New York Dolls supposedly spawned, this stuff just doesn’t stand the test of time. It was pretty much a reactionary parody of itself when it was recorded so how can it be gauged now, beyond an appreciation of its place in music history. Perhaps this is an oversimplification of what may have started and what became punk rock, but without getting into a dissertation on the intricacies and ironies of the punk movement (pretty much the social and aesthetic reactionary equivalent of the artistic movement, dadaism, of the of the early 1900s) and the resulting aggressiveness of shouting along to (mostly) low-ability musicianship, I’ll just opine that listening to most punk rock (then or now) proves that the concepts behind the inconsistent philosophies and practices of punk are usually more enjoyable to examine and debate than to actually listen to.

TOPIC

“You have been placed in charge of a radio station and have to come up with 5 one hour music shows. What shows would you create?”

1) The Request Hour
Actually playing stuff that people call in during the show and not simply adding those requests to a playlist database. Imagine that, radio striving to please its listeners.
2) The Deeper Cuts Hour
Playing only songs from major artists that have never been a single.3) The You’ve Probably Never Heard of Them But Should Have Hour
Playing only music from artists that are not currently on a major label or on a label that is distributed via a major label (like Matador).
4) The Whole Album Hour
A show devoted to playing an artist’s entire “album” (or albums from more than one artist, depending on length). Old or new releases could be featured each week.
5) The Mix Hour
The DJ would play mix suggestions for special and/or not-so-special occasions, featuring a new theme for each show. Examples: “Christmas Mix,” “Breakup Mix,” “Best of the Year Mix,” “4th of July Mix,” “Bachelor Party Mix,” “My In-Laws Are Visiting Mix,” anything really. Major Holidays could be annual shows but the music mix suggestion each year must be mostly new selections.