Missourian Meanderings on March's Mostly Mediocre Music

A.C. Newman – File this one under “crit-porn” with Fleet Foxes, Cat Power and Sufjan Stevens, as it seems to make reviewers harder than Quantum Physics. Darned if I can figure out why. A pretty unremarkable disc musically, stylistically and lyrically, yet certainly will be in NPR’s Top 10 at the end of the year. What’s frustrating is that I sense his band could cook if the reins were let loose, but the whole damn thing is just so restrained. 2 stars

U2 – I love U2, always have. But they’re now in the Stones’ “Steel Wheels” portion of their career, where they get rave reviews for shit on a shingle and live off their ability to deliver the goods in concert. “Go Crazy if I Don’t Go Crazy Tonight” is a great one, and “Boots” has grown on me. The rest of this is by and large forgettable. The individual pieces (Edge and Bono both sound great) are all there, but the songs are the worse batch since “Zooropa”. U2 has to answer to higher standards than other bands, and this doesn’t meet those standards. 2.5 stars

Good Rats – Funny how time screws with the memory. The title alone brought back fond recollections of a gloriously misspent youth on Long Island. WLIR, WBAB, drunken nights at Jones Beach, etc. The Good Rats were a staple of those years. I hadn’t heard these guys in 25+ years, so it came as a surprise that a fair amount of this disc stunk. With the exception of the title track and “Back to My Music”, most of this is just bad prog-rock lite. Chalk it up to youthful indiscretion. 2.5 nostalgic stars

Spoon – This is definitely a lot punkier and punchier than their more recent material. High energy to be sure, but their songwriting hadn’t quite matured yet. Exception and consequently the highlight is “Advance Cassette” which points towards the more soulful road the band takes when at its best. A good disc, but in an effort to get a rise from Mongillo, I’ll note that it is not as good as their last two. 3 stars

Bottle Rockets – Good little St. Louis band that started in the shadows of Uncle Tupelo. Although not the trailblazers UT were, they move seamlessly from rock to pop to country and write very solid tunes. There is a fair dose of smart-ass in their lyrics as well, which further endears them to me. Hope this went over better than Jamey Johnson….



Discussion Question

1) All the Best Cowboys Have Chinese Eyes – Pete Townshend
2) All Things Must Pass – George Harrison
3) Traveling Wilburys Vol.1 – Jeff Lynne & some other guys
4) Live at the Palladium - Keith Richards & the X-Pensive Winos
5) Don’t Worry About Me - Joey Ramone

II

What prompted this question was the year-end lists and the fact that our group came up with 60 different CDs we identified as being the best of 2008. Exactly one of these (Coldplay) was among the top 20 selling cds of the year. I began to ponder the snobbery issue, and wonder how much that plays into what we enjoy. The name of our group alone speaks volumes…

I would in fact view it as a negative event, and would be surprised if anyone in the group didn’t. On the one hand, there is probably more music that we don’t like than music we do like, so theoretically we would enjoy more music than we do now. However, I suspect all of us take great joy in having musical tastes that are out of the mainstream. The snob and “superiority” aspect of our listening is no doubt part of its appeal.