Beastie Boys - Paul's Boutique

So many amazing records, so little time!

I think I told the story already of me following someone who had picked up this record. Thank god he put it down because this record is the most unique, most amazing collection of sounds that I know about.

There are over 100 samples buried in here. Everything you can think of, and more! From the Jaws theme to Johnny Cash to Kool & the Gang. For that reason alone this record is one of a kind - it can't really ever be equalled because after it came out, the US courts ruled that samples had to be pre-cleared (i.e., you now would have to negotiate royalties for each of the 105 samples on this record before you could release it) , so making this record today would be impossible!

That's enough for this record to be worth having but it's not the most amazing thing about Paul's Boutique. What's most amazing is that this record initially flopped. It was too much, it was ahead of its time. To me, it's a sneak peek by the Beastie Boys of things to come from them for the next 20 years. Intergalactic came out in the late 90s and felt brand new at the time, and yet you can hear it here, you can hear the backbone of it just waiting to be fleshed out! Truly unbelievable. This is art, this is as good as it gets. The crazy thing is that the Beastie Boys could have taken it easy after their first album and they would have still been at the top. But they weren't satisfied, they took things to a whole new level, and they put down something timeless. It's a damn shame we may not get any more from them, they truly changed things, and to me it starts here, this is where they first showed what they truly were - geniuses.

RIP MCA.

Greenday - American Idiot

This is the most recent addition to my collection. It's such a great album. Greenday released a lot of catchy songs in the late 1990s and early 2000s. I think I had Dookie on CD and I know I had the one with "Time of Your Life", and I listened to them often enough. But this CD stayed in my 5-disc changer for months and months. It was more than catchy, it was packed with great songs, one after another.

And they all hold up really, really well. I'm not sure if Greenday was trying to make their own "London Calling" here but I like to think so. Certainly, the Clash have to be one of their influences and both albums showcase such versatility. They both take the punk-pop sound and add so many elements to it, they keep you guessing. With the Clash, there are songs like "Train in Vain" where I had heard the song a hundred times but didn't even know it was a Clash song until listening to the album. American Idiot is similar, maybe not exactly the same as these are all Greenday songs at their core, but close because you hear the notes of "Holiday" or "Boulevard of Broken Dreams" and just have to admire how well-crafted these songs are, how accessible and catchy and yet deep and complex at the same time.

It means something that my favourite song (/snippet) on here is almost at the start ("Dearly Beloved") but after hearing it, I want to hear what's next. And before I know it, the album's over. It's great, great music and I'm so, so glad it's now part of the collection.

Mumford & Sons - Sigh No More

This is one of my first records and it might be my favourite. It's another example of how my wife knows me better than I know myself.

I moved to Ottawa on a whim. It turned out to be the best move I ever made, because I met Jamie on Parliament Hill about a month after I got here! But I had left everything behind. I had some savings but no job. While searching for something in my field, I took a temp job at an LCBO warehouse, basically driving around assembling shipments to liquor stores. And listening to music while wearing earplugs. Little Lion Man was on the playlist, I heard that song every shift, or it seemed that way at least, but I can't say I really listened.

So when I unwrapped this album on Christmas morning I kind of knew what to expect, but not really. Because every song on this album is pure. It flows, it speaks, and I wonder whether the band can ever top it. I guess even if they don't they could have still have 10 more great albums (no disrespect intended to Babel, that's a great one as well). If this was a cassette tape I would have worn it out already.

Not only does it take me back to the early days of my relationship, it takes me back to more recent times too. Jamie and I were lucky enough to see the band in concert this past summer. They played an amazing set, they are unbelievably talented, engaged and fun, and they absolutely killed it at Osheaga.  And listening to these songs makes me thing of being next to Jay in that crowd, in the moment, wanting to savour it all.  It's one of the best shows I've ever seen, and I love that all of that is reproduced on this little piece of black plastic.  And I love that Jay knew this one belonged in my collection even before I did.

The Beatles - Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band

So I had to switch it up a bit. As I mentioned, Let it Be was half the inspiration for starting to write about my records, but this album was kind of the start of it all.

When I was young, I had terrible taste in music. I don't mind admitting it. I did have a few records, and later some tapes. Corey Hart figured prominently. As I got older, more and more of my friends openly mocked my music selections, and thank god for that! One of my best friends told me I should listen to "the good stuff" and told me to  get this tape in particular. So, being 12, I asked my dad for money and for a ride to the record store (a Sam the Record Man outlet that tragically and suspiciously would burn down a few years later, leaving an empty lot in downtown Barrie that remains without a building). My dad, naturally, asked me what I wanted to buy, and laughed when I said "Sergeant Pepper" because it was in his record collection that was stored right next to my Corey Hart albums (yes, albums). So to make a long story slightly shorter, I was able to jump right into this album and OH MY GOD. It redefined what was possible, and showed me what music could sound like, what every band shoots for and only a few come close to attaining. Genius.

Maybe the most surprising and yet natural thing for me was that I had heard so many of these songs before without even trying. The title track, A Little Help From My Friends, Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds, Getting Better, A Day In The Life, all were already familiar. Not that I had known any as Beatles songs, I didn't know anything as a Beatles song except for possibly Twist and Shout, and only because my 5th grade class had, as a reading option, a combination biography on Elvis and the Beatles that, for the Beatles' part, ended as they got off the plane just before their first North American tour. Certainly, an incomplete history to say the least!

Anyway, I made a tape from my dad's record and listened and listened and listened. Well actually, I only listened a few times. I can't pretend to have gotten it all but I came back to it, and only sometimes was the purpose of that revisit to impress a girl with my sophistication (a largely successful tactic, by the way). And then I left it behind when I got enough CDs to feel justified in putting my old tapes in a shoebox.

It stayed that way for too long. I'm not sure what the connection is between vinyl and experiencing, really sitting back and absorbing, music but there is an undeniable fit there. As soon as I got the record player, my wife asked me which albums I might like next, and the Beatles were an automatic request. A request that was more than satisfied shortly thereafter when on our anniversary I was presented with the compete Beatles box set - every album and every single!

So here I am, with all of this amazing music, still sorting through it all, often distracted from putting on something "new" from the set by some pretty amazing non-Beatles music (which I'll get to). But I'd still be distracted even if I just had the box set, as I keep listening to some of those albums over and over and over (Abbey Road, I'm looking at you, and I'll get to that too). And I have a feeling I'm not alone in that. Albums like this one never get old, and I bet if when I listen to it again, there will be something new in there somewhere. There always is.

Nirvana - Nevermind

From the start this record takes me back.  It was one of the first CDs I ever bought, and I remember listening to it endlessly on my little portable Panasonic player (soon to be replaced by an anti-skip version that actually seemed to skip more).

Today, the whole first side was just one familiar note after another. It sounds good, really good, and it sounds new. It has a timeless quality somehow, which I guess is the hallmark of something great? In that way at least, it strikes me as a huge contrast to much of my old CD collection (which ballooned in university to include way too much flavour of the week terribleness). And then I think, this was in that old collection (since discarded) so why didn't I listen to this more in the later years? Did I change or just forget how good these songs sound?

It's hard to say how I'd feel about this album if I heard it for the first time today. Hard to disconnect from the nostalgia and be objective, and maybe there's no need for that anyway. I like it, I really like it, and I hope there's something out there today for a 14 year old kid to fall into. And then I think that maybe Nevermind is still playing that role. I remember listening to my dad's Beatles albums at that age and, while not totally getting it all, feeling the greatness. While it may be sacrilegious to compare the two bands even to that degree, this has to at least deserve a listen, right? Not because Cobain killed himself, not because this album brought grunge to the mainstream, but because it's really good music.

Collecting records and collecting thoughts

My wife surprised me this Christmas.  Before I opened my big set of presents, she told me she had taken a gamble and gotten me something I had never asked for.  When I opened the presents I found a turntable, speakers, and at least five or six records (maybe more, she's always spoiling me).

I was speechless.  It's scary and wonderful how well she knows me, probably better than I know myself.  For as long as I can remember, I have loved listening to music.  Some good, some terrible, but all a part of my life, a soundtrack of sorts where putting on a specific song can take me back to a specific time or place or experience.  And I had gotten away from that but she brought me right back there.  Vinyl captures all of that on a whole other level.  It is so tangible - the smell, the feel, and of course the liner notes - and such a great opportunity to explore the classics I never had a chance to really listen to, as well as the classics (and not-so-classics) that I grew up with and are so entwined in my memories.

Since getting the record player, I've been lucky enough to add to my collection here and there.  That's a journey in itself, exploring record shops and seeing what's in stock at any given time.  Always a lot I've never heard of, but often just behind that is something I didn't know I couldn't do without until just then.  So of course I have to grab it!  And if someone else gets to that record first (which happened with Paul's Boutique), is there any shame in watching him like a hawk to see if he puts it back down (which he actually did after a few agonizing minutes)?  Maybe there is, since I feel I've said too much, but to me that hit or miss nature of a record store makes it even more satisfying when I find something great.

Anyway, while listening to a few great records tonight (Let it Be then Nevermind), I had the urge to write something, to put some thoughts down about great music and the thoughts it inspires.  It seems to be a natural fit, and I'm very interested to see where this goes.