As the follow-up to the much acclaimed Mind Bomb LP, The The's sixth studio effort, Dusk, found Matt Johnson (and his varying crew of marauders) carving one of his most accomplished products to date. Dusk leaves behind the infected dance beats that served as the framework for many of his previous albums and replaces them with steamy acoustic-based rhythms that shimmer with red-orange warmth, while the guitar work of Johnny Marr adds a touch of otherworldliness, without which the record would have been left to stand alone on its strange blend of honky tonk gospel pop. Johnson's songs seem to be mostly uplifting tromps through standard subjects ranging from love to happiness to helpfulness -- while presented with over-the-top emotional grandeur ("Love Is Stronger Than Death," "Helpline Operator," and MTV "hit" "Dogs of Lust"). As quality reigns through these songs, the tempo can become overbearing and, to solve that issue, Johnson shifts gears on the B-side to include some partially downtrodden numbers ("Bluer Than Midnight," "Lung Shadows"). In the end, he points out (with an under-the-radar approach) that the songs and the major concept of the album are not so much rooted in the joy of love, but in the approaching darkness of loneliness and seclusion just around the corner. [The Sony reissue offers 24-bit digitally remastered sound.]
Definitely Maybe begins with a statement of aspiration, as Liam Gallagher sneers that "tonight, I'm a rock & roll star" -- the words of a bedsit dreamer hoping he'd break out of those four walls and find something greater. Maybe all he could muster is a fleeting moment of stardom as he sings in front of a fleet of amps pushing out power chords, or perhaps he'd really become a rock & roll star; all that matters is he makes the leap. This dream echoes throughout Oasis' debut, a record which takes the dreams of its listeners every bit as seriously as those of its creators. Both the artist and audience desire something greater than their surroundings, and that yearning gives Definitely Maybe a restlessness that resonates. Certainly, Oasis aren't looking to redefine rock & roll here; they'd rather inhabit it. They scour through the remnants of the past three decades to come up with a quintessentially British rock & roll record, one that swaggers with the defiance of the Rolling Stones, roars with the sneer of the Sex Pistols, thieves from the past like the Happy Mondays, and ties it all together with a melodicism as natural as Paul McCartney, even if Definitely Maybe never quite sounds like the Beatles. All the Fab Four comparisons trumpeted by the brothers Gallagher were a feint, a way to get their group considered as part of the major leagues. Soon enough, these affirmations became a self-fulfilling prophecy -- act the way you'd like to be and soon you'll be the way you act, as it were -- but that bravado hardly diminishes the accomplishment of Definitely Maybe. It is a furious, inspiring record, a rallying cry for the downtrodden to rise above and seize their day but, most of all, it's a blast of potent, incendiary rock & roll. Soon after its release, Noel Gallagher would be hailed as the finest songwriter of his generation, an odd designation for a guy drawn to moon/June rhymes, but his brilliance lies in his bold strokes. He never shied away from the obvious, and his confidence in his reappropriation of cliches lends these bromides a new power, as do his strong, sinewy melodies -- so powerful, it doesn't matter if they were snatched from elsewhere (as they were on "Shakermaker" or the B-side "Fade Away"). The other secret is of course Noel's brother, Liam, the greatest rock & roll vocalist of his generation, a force of nature who never seems to consider either the past or the present but rather exists in an ever-present now. He sometimes sighs but usually sneers, shaking off any doubt and acting like the rock & roll star Noel so wanted to be. This tension would soon rip the group apart but here on Oasis' debut, this chemistry is an addictive energy, so Definitely Maybe winds up a rare thing: it has the foundation of a classic album wrapped in the energy of a band who can't conceive a future beyond the sunset.
Not long after the release of A Northern Soul, the Verve imploded due to friction between vocalist Richard Ashcroft and guitarist Nick McCabe. It looked like the band had ended before reaching its full potential, which is part of the reason why their third album, Urban Hymns -- recorded after the pair patched things up in late 1996 -- is so remarkable. Much of the record consists of songs Ashcroft had intended for a solo project or a new group, yet Urban Hymns unmistakably sounds like the work of a full band, with its sweeping, grandiose soundscapes and sense of purpose. The Verve have toned down their trancy, psychedelic excursions, yet haven't abandoned them -- if anything, they sound more muscular than before, whether it's the trippy "Catching the Butterfly" or the pounding "Come On." These powerful, guitar-drenched rockers provide the context for Ashcroft's affecting, string-laden ballads, which give Urban Hymns its hurt. The majestic "Bitter Sweet Symphony" and the heartbreaking, country-tinged "The Drugs Don't Work" are an astonishing pair, two anthemic ballads that make the personal universal, thereby sounding like instant classics. They just are the tip of the iceberg -- "Sonnet" is a lovely, surprisingly understated ballad, "The Rolling People" has a measured, electric power, and many others match their quality. Although it may run a bit too long for some tastes, Urban Hymns is a rich album that revitalizes rock traditions without ever seeming less than contemporary. It is the album the Verve have been striving to make since their formation, and it turns out to be worth all the wait.
Instead of settling down in front of the mixing board for another dance album (a lá Technique or Republic), New Order returned in 2001 with a sound and style they hadn't played with for over a decade. Unsurprisingly bored by the stale British club scene circa 2001, the band opened Get Ready with a statement of purpose, a trailer single ("Crystal") featuring a host of longtime New Order staples: a sublime melody, an inscrutable set of lyrics, a deft, ragged guitar line kicking in for the chorus, and Peter Hook's yearning bass guitar taking a near-solo role. Though there are several allowances for the electronic-dance form New Order helped develop, Get Ready is a very straight-ahead album, their first work in 15 years that's focused on songwriting and performance rather than grafted dance techniques. (Of course, the band proved themselves far more than studio hands at several points, stretching back over twenty years to Joy Division's landmark Unknown Pleasures, as well as later New Order LPs like 1985's Low-life and 1986's Brotherhood.)
Listeners familiar with the blueprint of early New Order work will find much to love on Get Ready, from the tough rockers "60 Miles an Hour" and "Primitive Notion" to pastoral downtempo material like "Turn My Way," "Vicious Streak," and the melodica-driven closer "Run Wild." This naked songcraft, however, does reveal a few of the band's deficiencies. Bernard Summer's lyrics drift toward the inane: "I'll be there for you when you want me to/I'll stand by your side like I always do/In the dead of night it'll be alright/cuz I'll be there for you when you want me to." And the band can't help but identify with a younger generation of music-makers, inviting Primal Scream's Bobby Gillespie over for "Rock the Shack" and turning in a dense, chaotic production that's all but de rigeur for Gillespie but very strained for New Order. (The other main collaborative track, with stranded Smashing Pumpkins frontman Billy Corgan, is surprisingly unembarassing.) Even for fans who don't need any convincing, Get Ready is a true "grower," an album that reveal its delicious secrets -- sublime songcraft, introverted delivery, collaborative musicianship -- slowly and only after several listens.
One of the most compulsively listenable college rock albums of the '80s, the Pixies' 1988 full-length debut Surfer Rosa fulfilled the promise of Come on Pilgrim and, thanks to Steve Albini's production, added a muscular edge that made their harshest moments seem even more menacing and perverse. On songs like "Something Against You," Black Francis' cryptic shrieks and non sequiturs are backed by David Lovering and Kim Deal's punchy rhythms, which are so visceral that they'd overwhelm any guitarist except Joey Santiago, who takes the spotlight on the epic "Vamos." Albini's high-contrast dynamics suit Surfer Rosa well, especially on the explosive opener "Bone Machine" and the kinky, T. Rex-inspired "Cactus." But, like the black-and-white photo of a flamenco dancer on its cover, Surfer Rosa is the Pixies' most polarized work. For each blazing piece of punk, there are softer, poppier moments such as "Where Is My Mind?," Francis' strangely poignant song inspired by scuba diving in the Caribbean, and the Kim Deal-penned "Gigantic," which almost outshines the rest of the album. But even Surfer Rosa's less iconic songs reflect how important the album was in the group's development. The "song about a superhero named Tony" ("Tony's Theme") was the most lighthearted song the Pixies had recorded, pointing the way to their more overtly playful, whimsical work on Doolittle. Francis' warped sense of humor is evident in lyrics like "Bone Machine"'s "He bought me a soda and tried to molest me in the parking lot/Yep yep yep!" In a year that included landmark albums from contemporaries like Throwing Muses, Sonic Youth, and My Bloody Valentine, the Pixies managed to turn in one of 1988's most striking, distinctive records. Surfer Rosa may not be the group's most accessible work, but it is one of their most compelling.
Live albums, by and large, are a dime a dozen -- inconsequential souvenirs designed to placate fans awaiting new studio material, they rarely if ever shed new light on the artist in question; rarer still is their ability to approximate the energy and excitement of the concert setting itself. Spiritualized's transcendent Royal Albert Hall October 10 1997 is the proverbial exception that proves the rule, a revelatory two-disc collection which captures the group at the peak of their powers, somehow translating the hypnotic power and epic majesty of their live set onto vinyl. Rejecting the inane between-song stage patter common to most live performers, Jason Pierce instead weaves his music together into an unbroken tapestry of sound, casting a spell which ebbs and flows with narcotic beauty and intensity; even the most familiar selections (like "Shine a Light," "Take Your Time," and "Medication," all frequent inclusions on other Spiritualized live EPs and bootlegs) pulsate with new life, their melodies as likely to set off on a meditative drift as they are to erupt in blasts of white noise. Granted, Royal Albert Hall isn't a substitute for the experience of actually catching the group in the flesh -- what is? -- but like so few other concert LPs, it actually rises above its conceptual limitations, forever capturing a singular moment in time and space when Spiritualized was unquestionably the greatest rock & roll band in the world.
Appropriately preceded by the mind-melting crunch of the "Revolution" single, Playing With Fire proved to be the end of Spacemen 3 as a functioning band, but in truly spectacular fashion. Exploring both the depths of serene, agog beauty and sheer tape-shredding chaos, Playing With Fire pushed the extremes of The Perfect Prescription to an even further edge. It's little surprise that Pierce and Sonic couldn't find themselves properly working together after it, but even less that hordes of bands to follow would rank Playing With Fire as the equal (or better) of psychedelia's '60s and '70s forebears. Sonic himself is quoted in one reissue's liner notes as feeling the album "was the refining point of a lot of my theories on minimalism being maximalism" -- as apt a description as any. One of his songs, "How Does It Feel?," sums it up by using a series of notes echoing off into the distance, again and again. With future Spiritualized bassist Will Carruthers in place of Baines, the trio (and uncredited drummer) created glazed, liquid songs with subtle arrangements and sheer reveling in aural joys. Flange is everywhere, as is echo, full dynamic stereo mixes and more, a feast of sound. When aiming toward a gentler, hushed sound, most notably on Pierce's compositions, the incorporation of gospel power filtered through the band's own perspective results in wonders, as heard on "Come Down Softly to My Soul" and the album closing "Lord Can You Hear Me?" As for the louder end of things, besides the awesome "Revolution" itself, a slow burn blast that just keeps getting more and more obsessive and frenetic as it goes, Sonic calling for a release of energy in a mere five seconds, the other complete freak-out is "Suicide." An instrumental tribute to the New York synth pioneers, Spacemen 3 keep the minimalism and up the feedback with astonishing results. Initial re-pressings of the album in the mid-'90s included tracks from the Revolution and Threebie singles. [An elaborate reissue in 1999 included a full, extra disc of demos and rarities, including covers of the Perfect Disaster's "Girl on Fire" and the Troggs' "Anyway That You Want Me" -- eventually Spiritualized's first single.]
