Mellon Collie And The Infinite Sadness

 

After the magnificent Siamese Dream made them superstars, the Smashing Pumpkins came back a mere two years later with this sprawling double album. Though decried by critics as being too “pretentious” and containing too much filler, I don’t find the band guilty on either count. First of all, the band simply sport grand ambitions and are one of the few bands around today that actually dares to be great; if that makes them pretentious then so be it. Secondly, I only see one weak song (“Tales Of A Scorched Earth”) among the 28 here (almost all of which were written by lead Pumpkin Billy Corgan), making this not only easily the best album of 1995 but a decade defining monument that’s one of my favorite albums of all-time.

Much more of a band effort than its infamously Corgan dominated predecessor, this is a rawer, more spontaneous effort that shows off all of the Pumpkins’ many sides, as they expand their sonic palette and rely less on the soft-to-loud dynamics that had previously been their trademark. Though the angsty (detractors would say “whiny”) lyrics are at times embarrassing, they’re also often memorable, and besides, it is the band’s spectacular sound that most matters, though Corgan’s unique voice, presented here in a less processed form, is still to many an acquired taste. Dreamy, angelic synth/piano pieces (“Mellon Collie And The Infinite Sadness,” “Cupid de Locke”) stand beside sparse pretties (“Take Me Down,” “Stumbleine,” “Farewell and Goodnight”) and soaring ballads with sweeping orchestrations (“Tonight Tonight,” “Galapogos”), while fabulous prog rock epics (“Porcelina Of The Vast Oceans,” “Thru The Eyes Of Ruby”) fit snugly alongside explosive/soaring hard rock (“Jellybelly,” “Here Is No Why,” “Love,” “Muzzle,” “Bodies”), raging heavy metal (“Zero,” “Bullet With Butterfly Wings,” “Ode To No One,” “X.Y.U.”), breezy pop perfection (“1979”), moody, emotional balladry (“Thirty-Three,” “In The Arms Of Sleep,” “By Starlight”), and lightly catchy sing alongs (“We Only Come Out At Night,” “Beautiful”).

The amazing end result encompasses everything that was great about alternative rock in the mid ’90s, as this well-balanced collection of songs can be both inconceivably beautiful and fragile, and deliberately ugly and abrasive, sometimes within the same song! Mellon Collie contains the bands prettiest ballads as well as their heaviest rockers (really, what more could a fan want?), with too many great moments to mention, and this smartly paced, all over the place masterpiece has been in heavy rotation on my stereo ever since its release. A Physical Graffiti for the ‘90s, this magical album was a brilliant band triumph that sold like hotcakes and briefly made the Smashing Pumpkins the biggest band in the world.

Wasting Light

 

When did the Foo Fighters become this classic band? I’m not exactly sure, but they’re as much if not more of a radio presence, both on current and “classic” stations, as hipper bands such as Nirvana. I still think they’re a great singles band who make merely good to very good albums, but this album definitely falls in the “very good” category, and there’s no denying the number of first class individual songs the band has released over the years.

If you’re not a fan, I suggest you check out the excellent Back and Forth documentary that was released in conjunction with the promotion for this album. It documents the recording sessions for the album but also presents a thorough career overview, warts and all, but I know that I gained a further appreciation for the Foo Fighters as a band and the band as individuals after watching it. Anyway, back to this album, which was recorded by old friend Butch Vig (who remember had produced Nirvana’s Nevermind) in Grohl’s garage using analog equipment, as the band wanted to keep it real and capture the raw, unprocessed sound of a band playing live. The strategy worked very well, because the sound is definitely a throwback to their earliest (best) records, and the album is also aided by several guest appearances, including singer-guitarist Bob Mould, bassist Krist Novoselic (ex-Nirvana), singer Fee Waybill (The Tubes), and keyboardist Rami Jaffee (The Wallflowers), plus Pat Smear is back with the band as a permanent member (having already rejoined their touring ranks since 2006).

As per usual, this album will likely be best remembered by its often-played anthemic singles, and “Rope,” “These Days,” and “Walk” are all very good efforts if not among their absolute best. What distinguishes this album from their prior album is how consistently strong it is from top to bottom, as “Bride Burning” is a hard-hitting opener with a lighter catchy chorus, and “Dear Rosemary” is moodier but still rocking, with Mould adding his trademark intensity and memorably weird vocals. Elsewhere, “Arlandria” is a grower track with another big chorus, “Back & Forth” manages to have a raw sound and still be poppy, with yet another easily singable chorus, and “I Should Have Known” is an emotional ballad (mostly) whose last minute-plus (where Novoselic really shines) is among their most intense ever.

Even the lesser songs (typically the less hooky ones such as “Miss The Misery”) usually have some cool parts that make them worth listening to, as this veteran band shows that they’re still capable of surprises after all

Down on the Upside

This was released when grunge was losing its popularity, but this “commercial disappointment” still went platinum several times over. Although this album is cleaner and less heavy on the whole than previous efforts, lyrics such as “only happy when you hurt” (from the standout album track “Rhinosaur”) show that the band hasn’t softened up too much. In fact, songs such as the lead single “Pretty Noose,” with it’s swirling guitar lines and monster drum fills, are as intense as anything the band has ever done.

Elsewhere, Zeppelin-esque highlights both minor (“Zero Chance,” “Dusty”) and major (“Burden In My Hand,” the album’s signature song and arguably the band’s best song ever) are heavily reliant on Eastern tinged atmospherics, while “Blow Up The Outside World” starts with a mellow, trippy Beatles-esque melody before exploding into the splendor of its huge chorus. Actually, the first half of the album is mostly excellent, presenting a more accessible Soundgarden that still rocked plenty hard. On the whole, the album doesn’t quite have the diversity of Superunknown, however, and it has much more filler, as the second half gets bogged down by too many unmemorable tracks. I wouldn’t miss “Never Named,” “No Attention,” or “An Unkind,” the albums punkiest songs along with the first side’s far superior “Ty Cobb,”, and though the playing on “Never The Machine Forever” is impressive, the songwriting is only so-so, while “Applebite” is a simple yet strangely alluring (mostly) instrumental that probably could’ve been cut in half. Better is more melodic fare such as “Switch Opens” and “Boot Camp,” while successful multi-sectioned epics such as “Tighter & Tighter” and “Overfloater” also attest to the band’s undiminished ambition and ability. On the downside, this mellower, less edgy album under utilizes their greatest asset by not unleashing Cornell more, but there’s still enough first rate stuff here that had the band left the lesser songs on the cutting room floor, they could’ve had another classic on their hands. As it is, this turned out to be merely a very good goodbye, as Soundgarden broke up soon after this albums release.

Having emerged from the first wave of grunge to stand tall amid other great Seattle heavyweights such as Nirvana, Pearl Jam, and Alice In Chains, I am lucky to say that I’ve seen Soundgarden live twice  (Lollapalozza 2010 and Vegas 2011), and hope to see them more when the release their long awaited 7th studio album in Oct. 2012.

Siamese Dream

 

Gish got people buzzing about the band, and an excellent contribution to the essential Singles soundtrack (“Drown”) furthered an alleged connection to the grunge scene and bands like Nirvana and Pearl Jam.

Next came a severe case of writer’s block for Billy Corgan before he penned the brilliantly uplifting anthem “Today,” a significant hit that put the Pumpkins on their way to stardom. The grungy power chords of “Cherub Rock” starts the album off with a classic rocker that’s an angry putdown of the indie community who had shunned them for not having “paid their dues.” Sorry, but greatness couldn’t wait, and with this big (in every way) second release the band blew away their competition (See ya, Pavement).

Layers upon layers of guitars seamlessly intermesh to form the backbone of louder tracks like the rumbling “Quiet” and brilliantly epic arena rockers such as “Hummer” and “Rocket.” The band also proves adept at switching gear, as their dreamy melodies often erupt into blasts of power chords and shards of feedback. The band’s reliance on these soft-to-loud dynamics (the changes in volume of which can be quite jarring) can seem inevitable at times, but the end result still thrills on songs such as “Today,” “Soma,” and “Mayonnaise” (my favorite song here which also has an absolutely gorgeous guitar intro going for it). Elsewhere, “Disarm” (a major hit), “Luna” (which ends the album on a beautifully optimistic “I’m in love with you” high), and “Spaceboy” (about Corgan’s disabled half brother Jesse) are all highly impressive, lushly orchestrated ballads.

If the album has a flaw it’s in a little too much doodling down time (after all, progressive rock is a primary influence), but though the willful experimentation on songs such as “Silverfuck” seemingly overstays its welcome, the band becomes well worth indulging when the screeching guitars search for transcendence. Apparently the album caused much friction among the band members, as it was later revealed that band leader Billy Corgan insisted on playing the majority of the guitar parts himself, untrusting that his cohorts could capture the many textured splendor of the sounds roaming inside his head.

So call Corgan an arrogant control freak if you must (he thankfully let Jimmy Chamberlin put in an incredible drumming performance, which has to be heard to be believed; check out the dynamic “Geek U.S.A” for starters), but don’t deny that with Siamese Dream he crafted a landmark early ‘90s masterpiece.

Black Gives Way to Blue

Initially when I heard about this album my thoughts were negative, as I felt that the Alice In Chains moniker should’ve died with Layne. Let’s face it, if Cantrell’s solo career had taken off this reunion likely would’ve never happened, but then I got to thinking that Alice In Chains were primarily his band (essential though Layne was to their overall sound), and it’s not their fault that Layne died on them. What’s shocking to me is how good this album is; though it doesn’t scale the mindbogglingly great heights of Dirt or Jar Of Flies (both of which this album recalls at times), this is another really good album that’s comparable to the rest of their back catalog.

Somewhat controversially, rather than continue as a three piece the band replaced Staley with one William DuVall, who shares lead vocals with Jerry and who also plays guitar and happens to be black, thereby increasing the surprise factor (but not in a bad way). And while he’s no Layne Staley (one of the best vocalists ever), he’s plenty good enough and their harmonies are still uniquely haunting (in fact when DuVall sings harmony at times he does sound eerily like Layne), while the band’s overall sound is still wonderfully atmospheric and heavy as hell. Although Layne is not around anymore, his ghost haunts this entire record; whereas earlier albums were the narrative to Layne’s drug-fueled self-destruction, this album can be seen as what happens after that self-destruction takes his life and how it affects those around him. In a way it’s both an epilogue and a fresh new beginning, albeit one that was 14 years in the making. This is made clear on the leadoff track, “All Secrets Known,” a fitting album opener with great creeping riffs, those harmonies which still rule, and lyrics about this being a new beginning because “there’s no going back.” After that comes the smash single “Check Your Brain,” whose mind melting, disorienting riff is an absolute killer, plus its dual harmomized vocals and catchy chorus also mark it as classic AIC. “Last Of My Kind” deals with the band’s current state as the only grunge band from their era, besides Soundgarden and Pearl Jam, to still be standing.

Maybe it’s a bit generic and overly reminiscent of “Damn That River,” but more good twisting riffs and a deliciously dark aura more than compensates. The next song, “Your Decision,” is the emotional centerpiece of the album. Musically recalling “Nutshell,” lyrically this song is obviously about Layne’s drug addiction and death. Filled with sadness, pain, regret, and even a sense of betrayal, the song also features more affecting harmonies and some soulful, searing guitar work from Cantrell, whose playing is in fine form throughout. Rather than get into a track-by-track analysis, I’ll note the rest of the songs that I consider highlights. “When The Sun Rose” is more acoustic and somewhat exotic due to its creative percussive flourishes, with more nice guitar work, while “Lesson Learned” flat out rocks and has a good chorus. “Private Hell” is mellower and has more haunting harmonies, but it also has massively powerful surges at times and is lyrically affecting, while the title track ballad, featuring Elton John on piano, again directly addresses Layne’s death, but this time it’s a soothing and kind remembrance, which fittingly ends the album on a hopeful note.

As for the rest of the songs, “A Looking In View,” “Acid Bubble,” and “Take Her Out” aren’t bad either, they’re just less impressive than the rest and bring the album down a bit on the whole, as it seems a bit samey sounding at times over its hour plus duration. Then again, releasing a shorter album would’ve seemed cheap after such a long absence, and the album holds up well as an entire entity and gets better with repeated plays. They may have spawned a lot of inferior imitators, but with or without Layne few can replicate the emotional resonance and impact that this band achieves when they’re on their A game, which happens far more often than I expected.

Indeed, with this album Alice somehow managed to make a heavy rock album that appeals to rock radio without selling out, that’s true to their past without being a retread, and which pays the proper respects to Layne while proving that there’s a future for this band after all. In a way it’s their Temple Of The Dog tribute to Layne and it finally closes that last chapter in satisfying fashion. Whether future albums by this new incarnation of the band will measure up remains to be seen, but if not that won’t take away from the fact that this album has earned its place in the band’s legacy, and unlike the lead up to this album I won’t be negative about the next Alice In Chains album. In fact, I’m looking forward to it.

Underneath the Colours

You know what a “spontaneous hook” is? A totally subjective, but nevertheless relevant thing worth mentioning – well, okay, I’ve only just decided to call it that way but I do need to have a special term for that kind of thing, especially when I’m dealing with INXS albums all the time. A spontaneous hook is a hook which is only active while you’re actually hearing it, but has no staying power or memorability whatsoever. (Of course, this doesn’t apply to extreme cases when a conscious effort is being made to memorize the song – I mean, heck, after a couple hundred listens even Mariah Carey records will become memorable).

Underneath The Colours is easily the best LP to demonstrate the power of spontaneous hooks I’ve heard so far. Every song on here becomes interesting on second or third listen, and you have no right whatsoever to doubt the compositional talents or the intelligence of the composing team. But nothing actually agrees to stick in your head, not even a tiny bit, and I know I’m not alone on that issue, either, so there just must be something strange about the record. There must be something weird. Maybe it’s the lack of emotion; in fact, now that I’ve said it, I’m pretty sure this is the basic problem of the INXS, just as it used to be the basic problem of XTC in the Seventies. Underneath The Colours is a lot of fun while it’s on – it’s jumpy, bouncy, and modernistic without being too annoying in a bad Eighties way or too dependent on their influences, especially now that they have toned down the ska thing. But it’s also a cold, cold, unmoving record, an exercise in soulless formalism. Or maybe it’s just a kind of soul that I don’t ‘get’. Whatever.

With this, there’s just no emotional substance to the hooks, and since you don’t have a really colourful pattern to accompany the chords, there’s no hope to really memorize them. That’s how it looks to this particular reviewer, anyway. That said, while the album is on, it’s still a gas. You just have to get past the opener, ‘Stay Young’, which tries to get by on the force of the atmosphere alone – a ridiculous attempt, with all those breathy whispered vocals in the background and thin wimpy isolated synthesizer bleeps instead of full sonic landscapes. Even so, there’s a great guitar line almost lost in amidst all the mediocrity, which just goes to show that the INXS didn’t suck at having interesting ideas, they sucked at applying them and putting them into context.

In a certain sense, one could just argue that at this particular point Hutchence’s sense of romance vastly differed from the commonplace one. ‘Horizons’ is lyrically a love ballad, but musically just a minimalistically arranged New Wave “popper”. Maybe there are even people in this world that can be moved by the way Hutchence croaks out ‘I see the horizons of your love’, but I wouldn’t know about that anomaly. Gimme some Al Green instead, please. Or, at least, if we’re talking INXS here, something bouncier and snappier like ‘Big Go Go’. Now that’s a good song while it’s on. Raunchy, energetic, aggressive – ‘watch the world GO GO, it’ll spin ’til it stops… people gonna FLY OFF… when they turn it off’. But nothing remains once it’s over.

Probably the best hookline on the album is the chorus to ‘Fair Weather Ahead’, although the song itself is rather senseless, more like a blind lyrical imitation of Jim Morrison than anything else. Who are the ‘strange new creatures’, are wonder, and what’s their connection to fair weather? And is that hookline really good, or is it just because they repeat the chorus for so many times?

The dumbest thing of all is how everything on here sounds the same even if the songs are essentially different. There’s slow moody atmospheric stuff like ‘Horizons’ and ‘Just To Learn Again’. Or poppy upbeat stuff like ‘Big Go Go’. Or even a couple of really fast rockers like ‘Night Of Rebellion’. But the production sucks big time, with the same minimalistic grooves over and over again. Very few ska beats, like I said, mostly Police- and XTC-inspired New Wave pop rhythms, with a steady drumbeat and, say, a three- or four-note ringing guitar riff. And synthesizers, of course. All very tasteful, subtle even – but none of the musicians are virtuosos, and none of them can add any soul to the performances. And all of this is in major dire contrast to the nature of Hutchence’s lyrics, which – with a few disrespectful exceptions like ‘Fair Weather Ahead’ – are surprisingly mature and evocative.

Gish

With screaming guitars cutting through the famously propulsive Pumpkins chug, “I am One” and “Siva” start the album off with the band at their most hard edged, “Gish” presented a readymade and highly original hard rock force.  However, “Rhinoceros” presents a softer side to the Pumpkins that is also apparent on most of the other songs here, most of which inevitably erupt as well.

As for the rest of the songs, “Bury Me” brings the rock big time, again with screaming guitars aplenty, the lush “Crush” is a beautifully low-key ballad, the trippily atmospheric, Eastern-tinged “Suffer” would later be brilliantly sampled by Tricky, the soaring “Snail” is the album’s most impressively epic arena rocker (along with “Rhinoceros”), “Tristessa” is stylistically similar to “Bury Me” but isn’t as good, “Window Paine” has its ups and downs but its ups are genuinely exciting, and the charming finale “Daydream” is a lightly dreamy change of pace sung girlishly by bassist D’Arcy in her only lead vocal with the band. In retrospect, Gish was the blueprint for even better things to come, but the album should still thrill the majority of the band’s legions of followers. Led by Billy Corgan, this was a band born for big things that knew exactly what they wanted right from the start (according to Corgan, he wanted to “combine the atmosphere of goth-rock with heavy metal”), aspiring towards everything that all of their indie “peers” despised by refusing to check either ego or ambition at the door.

Granted, Corgan’s geeky, grating vocal whine takes some getting used to, but producer Butch Vig manages to smooth over its rough edges just enough, and his voice certainly is uniquely his own. Though it pales in comparison to its subsequent big brothers, on which Corgan’s songwriting would grow by leaps and bounds, Gish was the necessary first step that made those brilliant albums possible, and it remains an exciting and estimable first effort in its own right.

A Saucerful Of Secrets

Syd contributed one full song, and contributed at least something in the way of instrumentation to the two Rick Wright numbers here, and possibly one of the Roger Waters songs as well. To compensate for a rapidly unpredictable and unreliable Syd Barrett, Pink Floyd hired Dave Gilmour, who’d been in a number of professional groups around the same Cambridge area that Pink Floyd had sprung from. He was a friend of Syd’s actually, a good guitar player with a mimics instinct which was a huge help in overcoming the lack of Syd, especially during live performances at the time. Given Syd’s decline and eventual ejection from Pink Floyd, ‘Saucerful’ perhaps necessarily comes across as an album that doesn’t quite know which direction to take. Rick Wright contributes a couple of songs that are semi-syd, really. Roger Waters picks up and tries to carry on from the likes of ‘Astronomy Domine’ from ‘Piper’ and the title track is an experimental extended group composition along the lines of ‘Interstellar Overdrive’ but for the complete lack of structure. There are countless stories surrounding Syd Barrett of course, but one story that Roger Waters told has always amused me. Syd was playing a new song for the group to learn, titled ‘Have You Got It Yet?’. The group were having difficulty working out the song, Syd kept changing it everytime he replayed the opening sequence, the group genuinely unaware that Syd was having a great laugh at their expense. That’s a light-hearted example, the real problem was Syd live, often just sitting in the middle of the stage playing nothing at all, other times playing a completely different melody to the rest of the group that bore no relation to the song they were meant to be performing. Following ‘A Saucerful Of Secrets’, Syd would play no further active part in Pink Floyd recordings or performances.

The Roger Waters song ‘Let There Be More Light’ opens this album, and whilst it’s absolutely not as thrilling or impressive as ‘Astronomy Domine’ for example, the repeating bass line does become hypnotic, the keyboards over the top of the songs introduction slightly free-form, and the vocals and lyrics suitably psychedelic. It’s a good song, and leads into another good song, the Rick Wright penned ‘Remember A Day’. The drum pattern here is fun and enjoyable, the vocals and lyrics, the entire song in fact reminding you of Barrett, although never scaling the same heights as the finest songs from ‘Piper’. I do love ‘Remember A Day’ though, love the feel of the song and the sound of the Piano and the effects. Roger writes another song around a simple bass riff, ‘Set The Controls For The Heart Of The Sun’, and so far, so good. A strong follow-up to ‘Piper’ if only they’d be able to maintain this quality throughout a ten track album, or so. But, ‘Corporal Clegg’ although containing some biting guitar has hideously cringe-inducing lyrics. Roger tries to ape the style of Syd here, with mixed results at best. The Kazoo sections are entertaining though. The title track is very free-form avant-garde, perhaps a response at one of the very few critiscms levelled at the ‘Piper At The Gates Of Dawn’ record, that it didn’t accurately represent the live Pink Floyd experience. What can work well in a live setting though doesn’t always necessarily work as well on record, and this title track although displaying admiral attempts at sound manipulation and experimentation, is absolutely no kind of song or composition. The closing section of the track is the best part, the mellow Church Organ sound that comes through, with harmonies, is quite beautiful. ‘See-Saw’ contains the lyric “marigolds are very much in love” – another obvious Syd styled song from the pen of Rick Wright. Syd actually encouraged both Roger and Rick to write songs in the first place, and the songs of Rick Wright especially would have complimented Syd’s songs very well, with Roger contributing to the group compositions and adding a couple of spacey things like ‘Set The Controls To The Heart Of The Sun’. ‘See-Saw’ is a beautiful song, although let down by the vocals, or the mixing – quite hard to put a finger on, but these Rick Wright vocals are really not very strong, working much better when in harmony with the rest of the group.

The final song here was a Syd Barrett inspired piece of either genius of lunacy, depending on which way you look at it. The lyric is a masterful self-diagnosis by Syd into his own escalating mental illness and declining state of health. The music is courtesy of a Salvation Army band who were invited into the studio by Syd and told to play whatever they felt like. Syd plays acoustic guitar, strums and sings very simply, whilst brass instruments, effects and insanity swirl around this lonely and lost figure. The track fades outs to leave just Syd alone, with acoustic, and it’s beautiful, yet haunting and desolate. ‘Jugband Blues’ is the most striking track on the entire album. Two of the three Roger Waters compositions certainly have merit and are much improved from his efforts on ‘Piper’. The title track is more worthy and admirable than it is enjoyable and ‘Corporal Clegg’ just isn’t very good at all. So, ‘A Saucerful Of Secrets’? It remains a strangely fascinating listen, even with several flaws. It’s absolutely no kind of ‘Piper At The Gates Of Dawn’, but it was well enough received at the time to give Pink Floyd encouragement and something to build on, post Syd.

Piper at the Gates of Dawn

When people tell you that Syd Barrett was nuts, that’s not an understatement. He was the original leader of Pink Floyd, and he liked to do LSD. He was also intensely creative, writing most of these songs, and he was the primary force behind this group in their early years. Roger Waters, Nick Mason and Rick Wright already displayed superb musicianship, but at this point they were merely the followers of this grand guru of mind-blowing psychedelic music. Unfortunately, Barrett’s sanity was hanging by a thread (something that any amateur psychologist would note reading his lyrics), and the band would be forced to kick him out shortly after the release of the album. Luckily for us all, however, he hung on long enough to record Piper at the Gates of Dawn, a premiere psychedelic album. If any album is going to ‘blow you away,’ it’s gonna be this one.

If you’ve ever wondered what it must be like traveling through outer space while tripped up on acid, you needn’t look further than “Interstellar Overdrive,” the nine-minute spaced-out jam session that the band reportedly made up on the spot. Doing acid is dangerous and I wouldn’t recommend it, but I would highly recommend listening to this song! It’s a stream-of-consciousness that takes you down a wild ride. It opens with a menacing and memorable riff that repeats a few times… But after that, we’re treated to a wild array of organ noodles, strangely textured guitars, beeping noises, dissonant chords, and complicated drum patterns. At times, you get the feeling that they were really not even concerned with what they were playing … just that it came out as weird and spaced-out as possible. And what can I say? This draws me in right from the very beginning, and it never loses my attention. Believe me, this is a feat difficult to achieve.

“Astronomy Domine” is also one of the great space-rock tracks, and this one has a vocal melody and really bizarre lyrics! The rhythm guitars and the drums play at a menacing pace while Barrett’s sleepy and tone-deaf lead vocals take us on a strange journey through the cosmos. Some of the instruments, notably that descending, high-pitched guitar that wails every once in awhile, is a little bit out-of-tune.

If you thought those two songs were weird, wait until you’ve heard the children’s songs which is when Barrett’s at his all-time creepiest. It’s like he’s trying to mess with our inner child.“Bike” is reminiscent of a carnival ride tune, and Barrett is the evil ringleader of our minds. He sings a catchy melody with crazy lyrics about a mouse, a gingerbread man, and whatever else he could think of… You’ll note that his lyrics usually don’t make much sense, but there’s typically a barely logical but followable thread that runs through them. Probably the sanest song in terms of linear lyrics is “The Gnome,” which is simply about a gnome that goes out exploring one day.

As far as “pop songs” go, the one that can’t be beat is “Lucifer Sam.” The melody is catchy as nobody’s business, and the instrumentals are both exciting and trippy. The drums and that descending rhythm guitar provide an excellent backbone while Nick Mason does some weird organ noodling in the background. I’m also quite fond of “Flaming,” with its strange catchy melody and the effective echo put to the vocals. Many of the comments I read about this album express tons of admiration for their technical achievements in the studio. I have to say I’m fairly ignorant about studio techniques and so I can’t comment on much. But I can say that part of the reason Piper at the Gates of Dawn is a masterpiece is due to the production. And I’m sure other bands of the time were taking notes.

Just to prove how insane Syd Barrett actually was, look “Take Thy Stethoscope and Walk.” I say that because it wasn’t a Barrett composition but rather Roger Waters, his very first one. He does his mightiest to imitate Barrett’s sheer nuttiness, but all he can manage is a three-note melody that rhymes random words together. Yeah, I can tell those are random! No such luck! Also lacking enjoyability is the dreary “Chapter 24” with lyrics taken right out of a Chinese proverbs book. Not that the lyrics really matter much, but the melody is dull and so is the instrumentation. Disappointing.

The album might have its low-spots, but who cares? This is a nutty, nutty, nutty album that pioneered the menacing space-rock vein of psychedelic music. Not only is it historically important, but it’ll take you on an acid trip through outer space. Short of paying NASA a million dollars and sneaking LSD with you onto the ship, this is the closest thing you’ll ever get to that.

INXS

I like the very concept of INXS the way they began. Just a bunch of normal, music-loving dudes wanting to write and play songs of their own. Young, strong, intelligent, not afraid of grizzling tons of hard work in seedy Australian bars. Not caring much for experimentation of any sorts, although keeping their eyes open to new influences so as not to sound like yer average mid-Seventies barrom rockers, or, God forbid, Foreigner. It’s a nice, clean, healthy, and even potentially fun concept.

And to be fair, on their debut album they manage to nearly pull it off, no doubt due to having most of the songs polished and rehearsed before they ever had a chance to arrive at a recording studio. Besides, this isn’t just some new starry-eyed (or drunken-eyed, whichever you prefer) ragamuffian outfit blindly copying New Wave stereotypes and glossing them with radio-friendly varnish. From the very beginning, there is a purpose and a conviction to Michael Hutchence’s voice that makes you want to pay attention – even if those purposes and convictions might either dwindle or get modified with time. He’s got a pretty unique voice for his time… meaning there’s absolutely nothing about it that would make it special, and that’s exactly what makes it special. In an age populated by brawny scruffy Joe Strummers, effeminate whiny Stings, hiccupy paranoid David Byrnes, and jerky eccentric Andy Partridges, Hutchence certainly stands apart from the crowd.

As for the music, it’s yer basic pop-rock, just with an exaggerated ska influence. Ska, not reggae, meaning there’s very little ground for improvisation or “stretching out” of any sort – no, these boys are working fulltime in the three-minute pop song department. Don’t think I’m complaining about the musicianship, though. The band rolls along as tightly jelled as possible (well, after all, there’s, like, three brothers in it, so what else could you expect?). Guitars and keyboards do sound occasionally dated – particularly keyboards, with the thin wimpy Farfisa tones immediately giving away the Cars’ influence – but that’s “dated” in a decent way of speaking.

Lyrically, Hutchence and the boys are usually vague and ambivalent, occasionally embracing the most basic boy meets girl themes, but more often going off on various social-related tangents, none of which really make me jump up and shout “there goes a new branch of popular philosophy!”. In fact, on some of the songs they almost seem to be catering to the Midnight Oil crowds, except they could never even try to reach the heights of “politicalisation” achieved by the former. But then again, who needs two socially conscious human-rights promoting bands on Australian territory? So Hutchence is playing a much more individualistic emploi than Peter Garrett; certainly there’s a lot more “I” in his lyrics than “we“. Of course, Peter Garrett never committed suicide either, so remember that too much “I” in your lyrics can be dangerous, little boys and girls.

The exact same approach applies to my favourite song on here. Maybe you could measure these guys’ songwriting talents with a table spoon, but not based on the evidence of this song. The introductory sax riff (just as minimalistic as the guitar riff in ‘On A Bus’) is unforgettable, the main melody is menacing hard rock, and thenthe chorus goes ska, and it’s all over in a two-and-a-half-minute flash and the lyrics are again confused and ambiguous and you’re sort of “eh? what was that all about?” but the sax riff, man, I wish I could have written that one. Sometimes I quietly dream the very instrument must have been invited for that sort of things, except every time I do that, Miles Davis comes up and whops me on the head with the thing.

People who claim to be in love with INXS because of the deepest depths of the soul of Michael Hutchence usually like to single out ‘Learn To Smile’ as a major highlight. My guess is it’s because it’s the closest thing to a ballad on an album which otherwise lacks the tender balladry aspect altogether – in true New Wave fashion, of course. Well, I wouldn’t go as far as to red-circle it, but it is quite assuredly a notable song as well. But they have extended it by means of a generic keyboard solo and… well, formally speaking, five minutes is too long, especially on an album whose best stretches are generally short, compact and straight up to the point.

If anything, sometimes they’re too straight up to the point. If you thought ‘Ob-La-Di Ob-La-Da’ was the weak link on the White Album, you’ll probably be annoyed a-plenty with all the ska choruses. Especially those that act like they do not belong in the song at all but want to steal the spotlight anyway. ‘Jumping’, for instance, begins like this stealthily creeping jungle predator, with ominous sax growls and threatening distorted guitar rhythms and brawny, intimidating vocals, and then all of a sudden you get the same kind of chucka-chucka-chucka-chucka and a ‘jumping jumping all night long jumping jumping it’s up to you’ chorus which might be useful if you’re playing hide-and-seek but otherwise might feel totally out of place. ‘Roller Skating’ begins all hot and funky (yes, this is the song featuring immortal lines like ‘I see a girl/She’s roller skating/I don’t know her/But she makes me feel like roller skating’ – for a long long time, the only thing I remembered about this band), but then it’s ska time all over again.

On the other hand, if you thought ‘Ob-La-Di Ob-La-Da’ was the White Album‘s high point, all these ska choruses will be perfectly nice and catchy. The only really really stupid ska ditty on here, I think, is the aptly titled ‘Body Language’, a song released two years before the Queen composition but every bit as obnoxious in a class of its own. Fortunately, it’s only two minutes. And it’s still catchy in a way, just sort of dumb, even by this record’s standards.

Not that this record’s standards are that low. Nobody knows it exists because who the heck cares about non-hit Australian-only albums when you can restrict yourself to caring about commercially successful worldwide smashes. The boundless wisdom of the All-Music Guide only awarded it two stars out of five, and that’s a pretty unencouraging incentive to let it go back into print. But I gotsta tell you, my limited experience says it’s one of this band’s best releases, and a fine 1980 pop album in its own rights.