Franz Ferdinand Franz Ferdinand

Franz Ferdinand Franz Ferdinand

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While the Darts of Pleasure EP proved that Franz Ferdinand had a way with equally sharp lyrics and hooks, and the "Take Me Out" single took their sound to dramatic new heights, their self-titled debut album offers the most expansive version of their music yet. From the first track, "Jacqueline," which begins with a brooding acoustic prelude before jumping into a violently vibrant celebration of hedonism, Franz Ferdinand is darker and more diverse than the band's previous work suggested. "Auf Ausche" has an unsettling aggression underneath its romantic yearning, its cheap synth strings and pianos underscoring its low-rent moodiness and ruined glamour. And even in the album's context, "Take Me Out" remains unmatched for sheer drama; with its relentless stomp and lyrics like "I'm just a cross hair/I'm just a shot away from you," it's deliciously unclear whether it's about meeting a date or a firing squad. The wonderfully dry wit the band employed on Darts of Pleasure's "Shopping for Blood" and "Van Tango" is used more subtly: the oddly radiant "Matinee" captures romantic escapism via dizzying wordplay. "Michael," meanwhile, is a post-post-punk "John, I'm Only Dancing," by equal turns macho and fey; when Alex Kapranos proclaims "This is what I am/I am a man/So come and dance with me, Michael," it's erotic as well as homoerotic. Love and lust make up a far greater portion of Franz Ferdinand than any of the band's other work; previously, Franz Ferdinand's strong suit was witty aggressiveness, and the shift in focus has mixed results. There's something a little too manic and unsettled about Franz Ferdinand to make them completely convincing romantics, but "Come On Home" has swooning, anthemic choruses guaranteed to melt even those who hate swooning, anthemic choruses. Fortunately, the album includes enough of their louder, crazier songs to please fans of their EPs. "Darts of Pleasure" remains one of the best expressions of Franz Ferdinand's shabby glamour, campy humor, and sugar-buzz energy, and "Tell Her Tonight," which debuted on the Darts of Pleasure EP, returns in a full-fledged version that's even more slinky, menacing, and danceable than the demo hinted it might be. And if Franz Ferdinand's aim has always been to get people dancing, then "Cheating on You"'s churned-up art punk and close, Merseybeat-like harmonies suggest some combination of slam dancing and the twist that could sweep dancefloors. Despite its slight unevenness, Franz Ferdinand ends up being rewarding in different ways than the band's previous work was, and it's apparent that they're one of the more exciting groups to come out of the garage rock/post-punk revival.

Travis The Man Who

Travis The Man Who

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After a debut album that presented Travis as mostly cheerful Brit-poppers and had a clear, crisp Steve Lillywhite production, the band changed things up on their second album, The Man Who. The foursome turned to Radiohead and Beck producer Nigel Goodrich to give their sound some depth while also writing a batch of songs that delved deeply into melancholy and sadness. So much so that when the record label first heard the results, they sent the band back into the studio to write some more upbeat tunes. Songwriter Fran Healy responded with "Driftwood," a seriously catchy song that nobody would dare call cheerful. The dourness and gloom of the songs is a perfect fit for the richly spacious production Goodrich brings to the table and Healy's majestically crooned vocals. He has pipes and range enough to fill a stadium or whisper in the listeners' ear just as convincingly. The band proves skilled at crafting big, echoing songs that never lapse into pomposity and can be taken down to low volumes and not lose any intensity. "Driftwood" is one stunning example of their blend of quiet tenderness and expansive reach; its acoustic guitar underpinnings, soaring guitar lines, strings, and Healy's heavenly vocals all combine to drive the song deep into the memory. Even more sticky is the band's early career highlight, "Why Does It Always Rain on Me?" It's a jangling, heartbreaking song with a huge chorus, beautiful strings, subtle production, and truly lovely vocals. These two tracks are hard to match, but much of the album comes close. "The Fear" is rambling, loosely played, dark pop that conjures up vintage Van Morrison, "She's So Strange" is a lilting Beatlesque ballad with nice vocal harmonies, and "Writing to Reach You," with its rollicking tempo and fiery guitar leads, almost rocks in context. Only "Turn" strays a bit too far into overwrought territory and sounds out of place among the other quietly melancholic and blue songs. The band and Goodrich work hard to create a mood and apart from that one song -- and the much heavier "Blue Flashing Lights" that the band added as a secret track -- it remains unbroken and a heavy gloom lingers over the songs, which gives the soft melodies and sympathetic performances some real weight. The Man Who is a career-defining record for Travis, setting a course for their brand of medium drama guitar pop and trumpeting Fran Healy as one of the great voices of early-2000s British pop.

Francois K Masterpiece Created By Francois K

Francois K Masterpiece Created By Francois K

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François Kevorkian is one of dance music’s pioneering giants, DJing from the mid-70s at legendary New York clubs such as the Paradise Garage and Better Days, before joining the iconic Prelude label as A&R/remixer. After working with everyone from U2 to Kraftwerk in the 80s before riding the 90s dance explosion and starting his Wave imprint, this decade sees Kevorkian still looking for the perfect beat but, far from ploughing the retro field, smitten with current electronic developments while running a club devoted to forms of dub: a perfect choice to launch Ministry’s new series showcasing dance music’s true masters. Kevorkian’s 57-track selection is not only immaculate but sculpted like a work of art, building moods ranging from roof-raisingly euphoric to deeply hypnotic. Disc One is deep tech-house with floor-destroying moments like the climactic Martian Assault mix of Digitalism’s Jupiter Room. Disc Two mixes Van Helden and Voorn with Motor City heavyweights including Robert Hood, Model 500 and the awesome Drexciya to incendiary effect. Disc Three heads into deep space weaving classics by Deee-lite and The Orb with François’ ethereal Road Of Life and the haunting electro-disco of Buzzcock Pete Shelley’s Witness The Change, climaxing with rolling African percussion to finish 2008’s first incredible journey.

Andrew Weatherall Masterpiece Created By Andrew Weatherall

Andrew Weatherall 1963-2020 R.I.P.

Andrew Weatherall Masterpiece Created By Andrew Weatherall

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To simply label Andrew Weatherall a DJ would be to sell him short, considering the amount of work he's done as a producer, remixer, and recording artist over the years, but nevertheless, it's true that the art and aesthetic of the DJ is at the core of everything that he does. Accordingly, it's Weatherall's mixes that probably offer the most accurate and intimate portrait of what makes him tick. With that in mind, the three-CD Masterpiece would seem to be not only the mother of all Weatherall mixes, but the most intensely focused peek into the British beatmeister's own heart of hearts. Anyone who has even a passing familiarity with Weatherall's work can guess that over the course of such a lengthy mix, there's no shortage of eclecticism to found from tune to tune. By this point, it almost seems like a cliché to tout the wide range of styles to be found within Masterpiece's three discs -- yes, Weatherall does end up tapping into everything from Nick Cave's garage rock group Grinderman and neo-psychedelicists Wooden Shjips to Danish dance-pop maven Kasper Bjorke and ‘80s pop outfit A.R. Kane; still, the important thing is not so much Weatherall's sources but what he makes of them. The fact that he manages to transmogrify all these disparate elements into something so sonically seamless as the Masterpiece megamix is what's really impressive. If you're not paying close attention, it's often tough to even identify where one piece exits and another one enters the mix. Weatherall apparently set himself a goal of keeping everything midtempo as well, so it all adds up to a rather hypnotic experience, an epic mix that moves through many moods without blowing its vibe.

Weezer Blue Album Deluxe Edition

Weezer Blue Album Deluxe Edition

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Like any other rock band or pop act of the first half of the '90s, Weezer had to produce material to fill out the B-sides of British, European, Asian, and Australian singles (the American singles market having long ago been killed by the record industry). This means that the band had a mess of stray tracks that never have appeared on one of its albums, which made Weezer an excellent choice for an entry in Universal's excellent deluxe edition series, which offers lavish double-disc reissues of classic albums. The deluxe edition of Weezer has a lengthy second disc, dubbed "Dusty Gems and Raw Nuggets," that gathers all of the B-sides from the debut, along with the band's contribution to the DGC Rarities disc, five previously unreleased tracks, and the original album mix of "Say It Ain't So" (which was replaced by the single mix on the album in subsequent pressings). For hardcore fans, this is a blessing since it gathers a bunch of rarities in one place, but this isn't just of interest to the diehards, since the quality of the material is very high. Thanks to the prolific songwriter Rivers Cuomo, Weezer was one of the handful of '90s alt-rock bands that produced consistently engaging non-LP material. It could be argued that the live B-sides are merely good but not revelatory, and that the barbershop-quartet excursion on "My Evaline" is simply a curiosity, yet all the rest of the non-LP songs live up to the high standards of the original album and could have fit comfortably on the record. Of these, the previously released "Mykel and Carli," "Susanne," and "Jamie" are all loud, tuneful punk-pop tributes to friends and colleagues of the band, and they're excellent examples of Cuomo's skill for writing catchy, clever pop miniatures. But what's more noteworthy is the first release of a clutch of previously unreleased early songs, all a little rough, but all very good: the stop-start epic "Paperface," the manic "Lullaby for Wayne," and the slow crawl of "I Swear It's True." These, combined with early versions of "Undone - The Sweater Song" and "Only in Dreams" that are notably different to the final versions, make for a great batch of unreleased material. While there's little question that this second disc does play like a rarities collection -- patches of live and acoustic alternate versions and demo-quality sound will do that -- but it's a well-sequenced, highly enjoyable rarities collection that manages to enhance the original album. That, along with the fine liner notes (highlighted by bonus-track annotation by Karl Koch), makes this an excellent, even necessary deluxe edition.

Beck Mellow Gold

Beck Mellow Gold

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From its kaleidoscopic array of junk-culture musical styles to its assured, surrealistic wordplay, Beck's debut album, Mellow Gold, is a stunner. Throughout the record, Beck plays as if there are no divisions between musical genres, freely blending rock, rap, folk, psychedelia, and country. Although his inspired sense of humor occasionally plays like he's a smirking, irony-addled hipster, his music is never kitschy, and his wordplay is constantly inspired. Since Mellow Gold was pieced together from home-recorded tapes, it lacks a coherent production, functioning more as a stylistic sampler: there are the stoner raps of "Loser" and "Beercan," the urban folk of "Pay No Mind (Snoozer)," the mock-industrial onslaught of "Mutherfuker," the garagey "Fuckin' With My Head (Mountain Dew Rock)," the trancy acoustic "Blackhole," and the gently sardonic folk-rock of "Nitemare Hippy Girl." It's a dizzying demonstration of musical skills, yet it's all tied together by a simple yet clever sense of songcraft and a truly original lyrical viewpoint, one that's basic yet as colorful as free verse. By blending boundaries so thoroughly and intoxicatingly, Mellow Gold established a new vein of alternative rock, one that was fueled by ideas instead of attitude.

Massive Attack Blue Lines

Massive Attack Blue Lines

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The first masterpiece of what was only termed trip-hop much later, Blue Lines filtered American hip-hop through the lens of British club culture, a stylish, nocturnal sense of scene that encompassed music from rare groove to dub to dance. The album balances dark, diva-led club jams along the lines of Soul II Soul with some of the best British rap (vocals and production) heard up to that point, occasionally on the same track. The opener "Safe from Harm" is the best example, with diva vocalist Shara Nelson trading off lines with the group's own monotone (yet effective) rapping. Even more than hip-hop or dance, however, dub is the big touchstone on Blue Lines. Most of the productions aren't quite as earthy as you'd expect, but the influence is palpable in the atmospherics of the songs, like the faraway electric piano on "One Love" (with beautiful vocals from the near-legendary Horace Andy). One track, "Five Man Army," makes the dub inspiration explicit, with a clattering percussion line, moderate reverb on the guitar and drums, and Andy's exquisite falsetto flitting over the chorus. Blue Lines isn't all darkness, either -- "Be Thankful for What You've Got" is quite close to the smooth soul tune conjured by its title, and "Unfinished Sympathy" -- the group's first classic production -- is a tremendously moving fusion of up-tempo hip-hop and dancefloor jam with slow-moving, syrupy strings. Flaunting both their range and their tremendously evocative productions, Massive Attack recorded one of the best dance albums of all time.

Neneh Cherry Raw Like Sushi

Neneh Cherry Raw Like Sushi

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Neneh Cherry's actions throughout the early to mid-'80s indicated boundless creative energy and an instinct to mix it up. She wasn't yet out of her teens by the time she had performed and/or recorded with stepfather Don Cherry and younger mavericks Rip Rig + Panic, the Slits, and Vivien Goldman, and had spun early rap records on pirate radio. A little later, in 1987, she seized the mike on a version of Morgan/McVey's "Looking Good Diving." The next year, the track was revamped into Cherry's first solo power move, aided by Bomb the Bass' vibrating and colorful mix of sampled, scratched, played, and programmed sounds dropped with astonishing precision. At once a personal manifesto and celebration and critique of city-street peacocking -- a hip-hop quotable is in every rhyme and interjection -- "Buffalo Stance" entered the U.K. chart in December 1988 and went supernova on a worldwide scale early the following year. The full scope of Cherry's vision was shown almost smack in the middle of 1989 with Raw Like Sushi. With songwriting partner and fellow arranger/producer Cameron "Booga Bear" McVey at her side, Cherry in sly, knowing fashion conducts a combined gender studies and sociology course doubling as a cosmopolitan pop triumph. Switching with masterful ease between assured singing and rapping -- no features necessary -- Cherry covers matters ranging from the consequences of lust to the devaluation of children. More often, she examines from multiple perspectives the ways in which men and women exploit one another, softening each blow with either a degree of benevolence or whatcha-gonna-do-about-it humor. Among the other accomplices are Will Malone, Nellee Hooper, and Jonny Dollar, as well as Mushroom and 3D of Massive Attack, a crew who altogether fill the hip-hop-minded LP with elements of go-go, Latin freestyle, and new jack swing, and foreshadow what was later termed trip-hop. Not easily classifiable as a whole, Raw Like Sushi is one of the most soulful and "hip-hop" albums considered neither R&B nor rap.

Frankie Goes To Hollywood Welcome To The Pleasure Dome

Frankie Goes To Hollywood Welcome To The Pleasure Dome

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Strip away all the hype, controversy, and attendant craziness surrounding Frankie -- most of which never reached American shores, though the equally bombastic "Relax" and "Two Tribes" both charted well -- and Welcome to the Pleasuredome holds up as an outrageously over-the-top, bizarre, but fun release. Less well known but worthwhile cuts include by-definition-camp "Krisco Kisses" and "The Only Star in Heaven," while U.K. smash "The Power of Love" is a gloriously insincere but still great hyper-ballad with strings from Anne Dudley. In truth, the album's more a testament to Trevor Horn's production skills than anything else. To help out, he roped in a slew of Ian Dury's backing musicians to provide the music, along with a guest appearance from his fellow Yes veteran Steve Howe on acoustic guitar that probably had prog rock fanatics collapsing in apoplexy. The end result was catchy, consciously modern -- almost to a fault -- arena-level synth rock of the early '80s that holds up just fine today, as much an endlessly listenable product of its times as the Chinn/Chapman string of glam rock hits from the early '70s. Certainly the endless series of pronouncements from a Ronald Reagan impersonator throughout automatically date the album while lending it a giddy extra layer of appeal. Even the series of covers on the album at once make no sense and plenty of it all at once. While Edwin Starr's "War" didn't need redoing, Bruce Springsteen's "Born to Run" becomes a ridiculously over-the-top explosion that even outrocks the Boss. As the only member of the band actually doing anything the whole time (Paul Rutherford pipes up on backing vocals here and there), Holly Johnson needs to make a mark and does so with appropriately leering passion. He didn't quite turn out to be the new Freddie Mercury, but he makes a much better claim than most, combining a punk sneer with an ear for hyper-dramatic yelps.