In All Things Must Pass, the bittersweet post-mortem of Tower Records, they eventually come to the part of the story when the wheels really started to fall off.
The part where the banks come in and decide they know what’s best — that they know more than those who spent their lives building the chain.
Like every other takeover of a sinking ship, a few of the wrong things got tossed overboard. Things that are deemed superfluous, but mean a lot to a lot of people.
In aviation, that usually means outsourcing the ground handling or ticket counters. In the case of Tower Records, it was the scrapping of their in-house Pulse magazine. A magazine my music nerd friends and I used to ride our bikes across town to get copies of. A magazine whose every word we’d pore over.
Why am I writing an elegy for a long-gone magazine?
Because one of the best parts of Pulse was its Desert Island Discs feature. In each issue, they’d ask people to imagine being marooned, and what they’d want the soundtrack to be. We’d read every word in the magazine, but only after skipping to this first. Every list either confirmed that someone had the best taste ever or that they were a heretic. In those days, there was no middle ground.
And maybe that’s the allure of these sorts of exercises. The rush of confirmation or incredulity is tough to resist. To paraphrase Rick James: judgment is a helluva drug.
But so too is making these lists. The decision…The indecision… Did I make the right picks? Is this really what I’d want? What would the people back home think? Did I bring something that’ll make me sing loud enough to get the attention of a passing trawler? How does a record player work in a place with no power?
Tell me, what do you think?
KA—
On to the music…
A couple of my choices are on here, but I also love the idea that my next pick could be right around the corner. I know it sounds a bit silly, but to me that’s exciting.
Today we’re taking a quick look at Tortoise’s Standards LP as it faces off against Perfuse 73’s Vocal Studies + Uprock Narratives.
By the end of this week, I’ll officially be in my 50s (okay, 51, but still), and as we go through these records, I keep telling myself to view them through the lens of 26-year-old Kevin. In other words, do they hold up today? Would they have landed with me back then? And the answer is invariably… it depends. Some sound better than ever. Some have been a goddamn delight. Some weren’t my bag then, but are now. For others, it’s vice versa. And so it goes.
Both of today’s records are new to me. I know the name Tortoise, but they’ve always been just outside the periphery of my listening universe. None of my fellow travelers were into them either—at least as far as I know—so I don’t think I would’ve heard them secondhand.
Doing a little reading, I found an interview with two of the band members on Drowned in Sound, where they talked about how they road-tested some of these tracks before they were done (rad!), and how it made “them rock out more. Made ’em get more solid, then we went back and reworked the ideas and maybe re-recorded the songs or whatever.”
Okay, cool. All of that is ticking boxes I want ticked.
Then we get to the reworked part. Maybe it’s post-rock? Math rock? Serious Music People™ would call this “adventurous” or boundary-defying. To my ear, it all just comes across as noodling. Feels like they decided to break (genre) boundaries and try their hand at every genre going. And I mean… okay.
“Eros” just gave me a headache. I’m sure at one point someone sat listening to it, solemnly nodding their head, but it’s just a jumble of bleeps, bloops, and—well, I’m not sure what the other sounds are.
“Six Pack” — we finally see something kinda sorta resembling the outline of a structure, but this scaffolding is brittle, and the risk of the song careening off the side is always right there, which makes it a less enjoyable listen than it should be. Maybe at this point, I’m just gun-shy.
“Eden 2” has got a nice beat and some flow, but all the sonic side quests constantly threaten to overtake it. Are we ever going to get a chance to catch a nice groove and ride the wave, or is this the point?
“Monica” — okay! Now this I can get into.
“Blackjack” sounds like something from a Bond movie—not derogatory. Hot damn! Maybe there’s hope yet!
The record ends with “Speakeasy.” It’s not terrible, but it took too many detours to get here. Standards was a standard-issue indie record from an era full of them. This would’ve easily been lost in the shuffle back in the day, and even repeatedly forcing myself back to 2001, I can’t see myself playing it more than once. Doing it today was plenty.
Back in the day—and I mean back in the day compared to ’01—people used to sell demos out of trunks. Maybe they still do this? Aspiring rappers would hawk their wares. Aspiring DJs would sell what we called “jeep beats,” which were essentially mixtapes of various beats and scratches—both to show what they could do, but more immediately, something for those aspiring rappers to spit their lyrics over. Think a rougher version of Endtroducing.
I have no idea what Prefuse 73 was doing in ’01—this is literally the first time I’m hearing of him or hearing this record—but I can’t get past the idea that this is something of an homage to that era and those artists. It feels like a collage, with bits and pieces from every corner of the game pasted onto the board. To be clear, there are plenty of tangents and noodles here, but whereas they felt distracting on Standards, here they feel like they’re right where they’re supposed to be.
There are some detours on Vocal Studies + Uprock Narratives, but mostly it’s solid beats that make it easy to find something to hold on to. “Eve of Destruction” has ambient-adjacent sounds, but they’re brief. Maybe too brief? Am I showing my age here? Doubly so on “7th Message.” It’s meditative, but also a solid groove.
So yeah, messy in spots, sure, but this is the kind of record where when it locks in, it really locks in—and that’s more than enough to keep me coming back.
Bottom Line: Gonna be Perfuse 73 for me…
Any thoughts on either of these records? Agree/disagree with my take? Sound off in the comments!
Happy Memorial Day to everyone here in the US, and happy Monday to our international friends! Whether, you’re home today or just kicking off your work week, I hope you’ve had a chance to rest easy and spin some great records. If you’re in the latter camp, maybe this’ll make the commute just a bit more enjoyable?
I shared this anecdote in the chat over the weekend, but wanted to share it again with the group as a whole.
A few weeks ago, Gabbie, who writes the fantastic New Music For Old heads, asked readers to name the last band or record they found without the internet. It’s one of those fun questions that seems easy at first, but before you know it, you have a page full of crossed-out options and are wracking your brain. For better or worse, these days we find stuff online.
Obviously, it’s fun to find cool records through cool people (cough cough), but it seems wild to me that what was once a pretty straightforward question is now anything but.
And if you’ll allow me to share, I now have a pretty rad answer…sort of. I received a music submission via email from a local act. That in itself is not unusual (and yeah, email counts as internet), but then my kid asked me if the artist had been in touch. This is absolutely not normal. Turns out he had a makeup exam last week, and one of the musicians was the proctor. Once everything was completed and turned in, they were talking, and his music label came up, which led my son to mention this place, and everything came full circle. Not entirely analog, but still pretty cool (to me, anyway), so I’m counting it.
That duo is here (dargan hester), as is one of my fave shoegaze bands, Cheatahs. I found them via terrestrial radio (thank you, WSUM!), and they’ve never really left my rotation since. Squeeze showed up via the early days of MTV.
It’s not the record featured here, but one of my greatest analog finds was when a friend passed me a copy of Talking Heads’ Stop Making Sense while on a field trip. It’s not hyperbolic to say that moment changed the trajectory of my music diet forever.
What’s the last record you discovered without going online? Share your story!
KA—
P.S. Speaking of radio, when you’re done here, make sure to check out the final lap of Inhailer Radio’s Indie 500!
Side A is tracks 1-19 (ends with “Narco Polo”). Side B is tracks 20-39.
Today we’re taking a look at Guided by Voices 2001 LP Isolation Drills.
The glad girls only wanna get you high.
I couldn’t tell you the first time I heard GBV. There was no revelation, no epiphany the way there might’ve been with other bands. It just seems like they’ve always sorta been there, and if i’m honest, that’s kinda how I like it.
In one of my year-end issues, I joked that if we go more than six months without a GBV release, something must be horribly wrong.
I was only half kidding.
The band’s prolific output- or Robert Pollard’s- is no secret. An entire media empire could be built by simply dissecting each record in order.
Indeed, if you want a podcast that goes through most of the band’s catalog—it ended in 2020, so it’s missing, like, 13-14 records— you can start here.
The GBV discography is lengthy, but there’s no shortage of twists and turns along the way. That’s good for variety- and if you are planning a GBV media empire, it will mean no lack of flamethrower takes about each song/release.
In 2001, the phrase hot take didn’t exist yet, but music opinion(s) sure did. And views regarding Isolation Drills were generally positive. If anything, it’s a consistent record.
That’s not meant as a backhanded compliment. GBV can be varied, but sometimes squishing every style onto one record is regressive. With this release, we had a solid long player that did well to keep Pollard from bouncing around too much like a sonic superball.
Helping rein that in was this record’s lineup-specifically ex-Breeders drummer Jim MacPherson. The rhythm section often finds a way to get lost on these records, but this time is different.
To be clear, this is still a guitar-driven poppy record, the treble is set to 11, and the vocals are tailor-made to sing along with in the car. Or in a park…and a bunch of did just that in Milwakuee’s Humboldt Park a couple of summers ago.
Photo by author
When was their breakthrough? What’s their best record? These are the sorts of shibboleths record nerds live for. There’s not nearly enough bandwidth on the world wide web to tackle this, but I’d say by ’01 they were already very much on their way and Isolation Drills is one of their best
For my money, Glad Girls is damn near the poppiest track Pollard ever came up with, but you could make a plausible argument for Fair Touching, Chasing Heather Crazy, and Brides Have Hit Glass. And that’s just this record
The glad girls are alright. And that’s my hot take.
Bottom Line: This is up against They Might Be Giants’ Mink Car. TMBG have their own set of rabid fans, and Chase Roper has an entire newsletter dedicated to their work. If you’re at all interested and/or curious about their sounds, Kiss Me, Son of Blog should be your next stop.
Any thoughts on either of these records? Agree/disagree with my take? Sound off in the comments!
Today we’re taking a look at Janet Jackson’s ‘All For you’ as it takes on Jimmy eat World’s ‘Bleed American.’
In 2000, Janet Jackson found herself on the wrong side of a divorce filing from Rene Elizondo. He was suing Janet for $25 million in spousal support despite there being a prenuptial agreement. (Janet ended up settling out of court in ‘03. Rumor is she paid him $10 million.) Nice work if you can get it!
At any rate, nothing says “turning over a new leaf” like making a new album.
“I call my latest release All for You. The You is my fans who’ve stayed with me and watched me grow; the You is the mysterious force of love that’s the source of creativity; and the You is also me. All for You is a suite of songs that helped me move from one emotional level to another. I’m the kind of artist who has no choice but to write what I feel.
Velvet Rope took me inside my fears and frustrations. All for You has brought me outside, happy on a natural high, convinced that I really can express joy in the face of pain. My moods are changing. If you listen to the CD, you’ll hear what I’m going through. There’s anger, hurt, regret, even that familiar vein of severe self-criticism that I can’t quite shake. (I still can’t stand seeing any of my movies or concert tapes; I still cringe when I watch myself act or dance.) Yet there’s also confidence.
I hope this doesn’t sound egotistical, but this time I stood alone and crafted my art according to my heart. I feel free, and there’s nothing more wonderful than freedom.”
The TL;DR here is that Miss Jackson is horny.
I mean, All for You has her singing, “You got a nice package all right / Guess I’m gonna have to ride it tonight.” God damn.
And that’s just the start. The entire record gives off a “newly divorced and making up for lost time” energy, and the heat only goes up from there.
“Love Scene (Ooh Baby)” has a wait, what?! moment (spoiler: she’s saying exactly what you think she’s saying). And on “Would You Mind,” we get: “I just wanna touch you, tease you, lick you, please you…”
Look, I’m a guy, and let’s be real: horny Janet is entertaining… but only for a minute. It would be better if she were surrounded by something — anything — more interesting. There are a couple of great moments on here. “Son of a Gun,” with its lifting of Carly Simon’s “You’re So Vain,” is fun. Ditto “Someone to Call My Lover,” with its sampling of America’s “Ventura Highway.” It’s a close race between that and the title track for the record’s highlight.
“Truth” is a raw ballad that’s at the wistful end of the breakup spectrum — the yucky part you have to go through to get to the fun one. I guess what I’m trying to say is that All for You is at its best when she’s not hot and bothered and chooses instead to lean into breaking new (for her) ground.
Okay! So, Jimmy Eat World. You ever get a ride to a party from someone who then gets into a knockdown, drag-out fight with their partner, and you’re stuck there because… no ride? Yeah. And then maybe, for whatever reason, “The Middle” happens to have some sort of significance to the two of them, so it gets played at full blast while they verbally tear each other to shreds, leaving the song permanently attached to that memory? No? Just me? Oh, okay then.
So, 25+ years later, and I’m finally hearing the rest of the record, and it’s not terrible! This is the sort of standard-issue rock-y power pop a lot of emo bands moved toward back then. Dug “If You Don’t, Don’t”; I thought that had some oomph to it, and I’ll likely listen to it more after this. The rest sounds like what was pouring out of Anthropologie speakers at the time, or at parties in SE Portland.
Bottom Line: Horny Janet > bog standard emo/power pop. Bracket pick and vote are both going to Damita Jo.
Any thoughts on either of these records? Agree/disagree with my take? Sound off in the comments!
Today we’re taking a look at Gorillaz’ self-titled debut as it faces off against Clearlake’s Lido.
Note: As many of you saw, I recently wrote about a Best Record of 2001 challenge and noted that I’d be writing some of these up.
The plan is to do quick hits on each first-round matchup and post them directly to the page. Some will be longer, some won’t, and some might just be a handful of sentences. There’ll probably be a few typos. We’ll also have a few guest posts along the way, so make sure to stay tuned for those!
Check ’em out and let me know your thoughts! Chin wags & hot takes welcome! Sharing and restacks always appreciated.
KA—
In an era where AI blurs the line between what’s real and what isn’t, a band of cartoon avatars feels almost quaint. But in 2001, this was all wild-frontier kind of stuff, even if we knew the voices behind the characters. Damon Albarn had seen massive success in Blur, while Del Tha Funky Homosapien had given the world one of the most lethal earworms in the form of “Dobalina.” As part of Cibo Matto, Miho Hatori was also a bit of a cult figure. So yeah, plenty of firepower and street cred in equal measure.
Things kick off with the steady groove of “Re-Hash,” and quickly establish that this is not a Blur record, or a Del or Cibo Matto record, for that matter, but it is a collective effort. And of course, we have to talk about “Clint Eastwood,” the track that put them on the map. The blending of Albarn’s vocals with Del’s and the beat, which, if memory serves, came from the demo mode of a Casio keyboard, made for a fantastic on-ramp for most of us.
“19-2000” is also an all-timer, but for my money, the real star here is “Rock the House” (another Del feature). It’s a dance-floor filler. There’s also plenty of dub and other spacey vibes in every corner of the record, which leads to its biggest fault: for all the highs, there’s an equal amount of not-so-high stuff. This is a 15-track record that could have very easily been a 9- or 10-track masterpiece. With that much talent in one space, it was bound to happen.
Still, the good far outweighs the bad. We know the heights the band will reach later with tracks like “On Melancholy Hill” and “Dare.” But none of that happens without the noodling and adventuring taking place here. It’s a little rough around the edges, but ultimately this is a solid debut from a collective finding its footing.
With Lido, Clearlake seems to have found theirs, which ironically sounds not a little like Blur and later-era Beatles. And with Sunday Evening, maybe a little like Portishead? Maybe that’s just me. Maybe I’m overthinking it. No matter. This was supposed to represent the next wave of Britpop, but people want Parklife or the snotty fury of Oasis. They come close with “Something to Look Forward to” (this writer’s favorite on the record), but mostly this is atmospheric, woozy music with Jason Pegg’s vocals over the top. It’s an aesthetic that only comes from living somewhere that sees a lot of rain. It’s appealing enough, but not something I can see myself returning to.
Bottom Line: Gorillaz are seeded 7th here, and going up against #122 seems unfair. Part of me wants to vote for Clearlake just to see what happens, but as maudlin as the record can get, I’m not sure they’d appreciate a pity vote. Bracket pick and vote are both going to 2-D, Murdoc, Noodle, and Russel.
Any thoughts on either of these records? Agree/disagree with my take? Sound off in the comments!
Note: May 18th is a big day both in music history and for anyone who lived in the PNW in 1980. I first ran this piece when there were about 6 of us here (and 3 of them lived with me), and it’s become an annual tradition.
We don’t have many musical traditions in my family. On Thanksgiving, my wife & kids have to endure “Alice’s Restaurant” at least once (or rather, my attempts to sing it). Sometime in the next few weeks after that, Otis Redding’s version of “Merry Christmas Baby” gets a spin, and that’s about it for the year…with one exception.
Growing up, we hardly had any traditions- musical or not. In fact, about the only time I can remember us doing anything even remotely collective had to do with this song. This started in 1980, in the lead-up to Mt. St. Helens’ eruption, when the song was played as a bit of gallows humor. Anytime it played, we’d all just sort of start singing along. No other song before or since can make that claim.
If you can’t control something, you might as well sing about it, right?
P.S. Since this first ran, my mom moved. I’m not sure the Sanka can came with her, but I’d like to think it’s still in a box waiting to be unpacked.
KA—
Living under a looming threat and widespread mask use was a new phenomenon for most of us. But for those of a certain age living in the Pacific Northwest, it evoked memories of 1980.
Living in the shadows of the Cascade Mountains, it’s easy to forget that it’s a volcanic range. Easy, that is, until Mother Nature reminds you.
And so it was in late 1979/early 1980 with Mt. St. Helens.
At first, the eruptions were nominal enough; some steam here, a small landslide there. Later as they grew in scale, ash began to rain down on downwind communities, and painter masks became de rigueur fashion.
This culminated with a cataclysmic eruption on May 18th, 1980, which permanently changed people’s lives — and left the landscape unrecognizable.
On that day, just five words let the world know it was about to be changed forever. Volcanologist David Johnston had been camped on the mountain’s flank to monitor the increasingly dangerous situation.
The morning of May 18th, in a radio call to the USGS office, he announced the eruption to the world, his last words being, “Vancouver! Vancouver! This is it!
Buffett had a different mountain in mind when he wrote “Volcano.” He was talking about the Soufriere Hills volcano on the Caribbean Island of Montserrat.
But radio stations in places like Portland, Oregon, and Spokane, Washington, put it in their rotation as a part of a gallows humor approach to the impending disaster everyone knew was coming but didn’t know when — the calypso style offering a sunny contrast to the (literally) gray pall cast over the area.
Four decades on, the song remains a staple at Buffett performances—and in my house on every May 18th.
If you have friends who grew up in Oregon or Washington, don’t be surprised if pictures of Johnston are on their timelines today.
And for many of those same people, a coffee can full of volcanic ash remains on a shelf in their garage as a souvenir — a reminder of when life got sketchy, and nothing was left to do but sing about it.
Besides Jimmy and Joy Division, this week’s list has new tracks from Dan Pritchard, The Mountain Goats, and Kurt Vile. We’ve also got the usual sonic comfort food/deep cuts from GBV, XTC, and more.
Side A is tracks 1-15 (ends with Wilco). Side B is tracks 16-31.
Today we’re taking a look at Aaliyah’s self-titled record, aka “The Red Album.”
Note: As many of you saw, I recently wrote about a Best Record of 2001 challengeand noted that I’d be writing some of these up.
The plan is to do quick hits on each first-round matchup and post them directly to the page. Some will be longer, some won’t, and some might just be a handful of sentences. There’ll probably be a few typos. We’ll also have a few guest posts along the way, so make sure to stay tuned for those!
Check ’em out and let me know your thoughts! Chin wags & hot takes welcome! Sharing and restacks always appreciated.
KA—
On August 25, 2001, a small plane crashed just after takeoff in the Bahamas, killing all 9 aboard. This event would likely have been lost to time had one Aaliyah Dana Haughton not been on the manifest.
In aviation, there are multiple layers of safety (the Swiss cheese approach). The idea being that if there is a hole somewhere, there’s another layer to stop things from getting through. Acting as one of those layers is a large part of my day job. It almost always works- there’s a reason we get to complain about things like bad food and long check-in lines and not planes falling out of the sky. There’s never just one single point of failure. But when the holes line up, disaster is usually inevitable. And in late August in Marsh Harbour, they did just that. I don’t want to go too inside baseball here, but almost everything that could go wrong here did. It’s maddening, tbh. If there’s a silver lining, it’s that this incident now serves as a great example of what not to do when it comes to flight safety and demonstrating preventive practices.
Just a few weeks prior, Aaliyah’s self-titled third album dropped. It was a turning point: a record poised to expand her reach beyond R&B’s borders. We didn’t know it yet, but it would also turn out to be the last we’d hear from her, the album now frozen in time as her final statement.
Working closely with Timbaland, Missy Elliott, and Static Major, Aaliyah leans into a hybrid of hip-hop, electropop, and soul. On this record, she’s cast off the New Jack Swing shackles of her previous two records (and R. Kelly, too, for that matter). “We Need a Resolution” wastes no time setting the tone—its stuttering rhythms and negative space give her voice room to glide. Elsewhere, “Rock the Boat” (they were returning from the video shoot when the crash occurred) slows things down into a lush, quiet storm anthem. It’s an all-timer, IMO. These two tracks are the album’s high points—both unmistakably “Aaliyah” and suggest an even greater artistic leap looming on the horizon. In a lot of ways, this reminds me of Janet Jackson’s “Control” album, right down to the red background on the cover.
Elsewhere, the record can feel uneven. There are stretches where the songwriting doesn’t quite match the sophisticated production (you can only pen songs about f**king so many different ways), and a few tracks blur together.
That said, it still makes for a compelling listen. Tracks like “I Can Be” experiment with distorted guitars and fragmented vocal loops, while “It’s Whatever” drifts into airy, soul. The record’s willingness to push at genre boundaries is undeniable—even when the results don’t fully land. I appreciate that she never feels like she has to oversell anything. She’s here, she’s singing, and that’s the deal.
Her death, just weeks after the album’s release, inevitably colors how it’s heard. Aaliyah captures an artist at an early peak, but I couldn’t help but think “what if?” while listening. In another universe, this would have been her breakout album- a statement record, if you will. Instead, it marks the end of life and a career cut down way too soon.
Bottom Line: This is up against Hope Sandoval. Both have incredible voices, and on paper, Sandoval would be my pick on the strength of her duet with The Jesus and Mary Chain alone. but the Red Album makes a compelling case. My bracket pick went to the late Ms. Haughton. My vote? Well, I’m not sure yet…
Any thoughts on either of these records? Agree/disagree with my takes? Which one of these would you vote for? Sound off in the comments!
The 2-lane highway from Portland’s western suburbs to the Oregon Coast was exactly 72 miles.
It usually took about an hour and a half. It was a little faster if traffic was light and we were in a fast car. Or a little longer if we were in my friend Matt’s VW bus. It never bothered us, though.
It’s hard to be in a hurry when the sun’s out and you’re with your friends.
No one ever felt the need to check their watch while moseying through the Coast Range listening to Bob Marley.
At this point, Marley’s “Legend” compilation record is the default reggae record. Even if you can’t name a single other title or artist, you invariably at least know this one. Released posthumously, it’s the best-selling reggae record of all time, racking up millions of copies sold as of this writing. At least a dozen of those sales were from us.
Is there any other record so closely associated with it’s genre?
Most of us wound up going deeper into Marley’s discography, but like so many others, “Legend” was our on-ramp to his music. There we’d be, singing, “Every little thing’s gonna be all right,” while the bus wheezed and gasped, struggling to carry us over the hills. We sang “get up stand up” and would wind up doing just that through the years. The Bush family derisively referred to Portland as “Little Beirut.” We wore it as a badge of honor.
But over on the left side of the map, those concerns were a million miles away- our only worries being gas money and hitting spots like Indian Beach.
Today, we remember Marley on the 45th anniversary of his passing.
Four decades plus is a long time to have been gone from this life, yet Marley’s music & vision resonate now more than ever.
If we want every little thing to be all right, we need to get up and stand up.
This week’s list has factory fresh tracks from BODEGA, Nightbus, Onesie, and Taxi Girls, and well as the usual sonic comfort food and deep cuts.
Side A is tracks 1-14 (ends with “The Barbeque Party”). Side B is tracks 15-27.
Kevin Sent 