The Optical Files #106: Public Enemy - It Takes a Nation of Millions To Hold Us Back (1988)

Fear of a Black Planet may have been the ultimate refinement of the PE sound--cacophonous layered samples over fiercely funky drum loops by the Bomb Squad; Chuck D's Black nationalist sloganeering & oblique rhyme patterns; Flavor Flav's freewheeling hypeman screech--but It Takes a Nation of Millions to Hold Us Back was the LP that flung open the doors, probably the 1st full-length conscious rap album, & one of the most important hiphop records of all time.

The Bomb Squad treats us to musique concrete-style sample collages on tracks like "Night of the Living Baseheads," "She Watch Channel Zero" with its hard-rock guitars, & the aptly titled "Bring the Noise," which switches drum loops midway through & one of whose prominent samples is a wall of literal noise. Then there are not so dense offerings like "Don't Believe the Hype," whose casual bounce & trebly warble anticipates stuff like Muggs's work with Cypress Hill. Another relatively sparse beat is "Black Steel in the Hour of Chaos": over little more than drums, rattling sub bass & eerie, insistent piano chords (borrowed from Isaac Hayes) Chuck flexes his seldom-used storytelling muscles to bring us a tale of draft-dodging civil disobedience & its consequences. In a larger sense, he's describing the struggle of those guilty of the unwritten crime of being Black in an America whose institutions constitute "an anti-n****r machine" (mass incarceration as "a form of slavery"), & the mutual violence that tautologically results from defying conformity ("I'm a rebel so I rebel"). Chuck's lyrical style is wholly unique & difficult to describe. He sort of swing dances around the point he's making, brushing into it sideways & flipping it around, not so much to leave space for interpretation as to paint his verses with a particular consciousness: part intellectual dream logic, part hep-cat patter, 100% Blackity Black.

The album ends on another knockout: "Party for Your Right to Fight," which plays with the dual meaning of the word "party" to issue a tribute both to the Black Panthers & to rap music as a whole. PE brashly--& necessarily--interrogates the privileged apoliticism of their white Def Jam labelmates the Beastie Boys, whose hit single "(You Gotta) Fight For Your Right (To Party!)" the song dismantles & rearranges. With a collection of samples from Black, politicized funksters like James Brown, Bob Marley & Sly Stone, the song is an elegant argument for the political necessity of dance music, & the very essence of hiphop.

It Takes a Nation... is brimming with brilliant ideas like that. While I may prefer the followup as a front-to-back listen, I can never deny this record's iconic status, & I can't help but wonder how mind-expanding it was to hear when it was new.

The Optical Files #105: The Product - One Hunid (2006)

The people at Koch knew what they were doing when they made Scarface's name almost as big on the cover as the name of the group. Face himself is right there in front, staring down the camera in a white tee with a blinding glow, while the other group members flank him in matching black outfits with arms crossed, looking more like his entourage than his bandmates. People (including, if my memory serves, myself) who bought this thinking it was a new Scarface solo record weren't necessarily disappointed, though. Face appears on all but 3 songs, & produces several tracks, which is plenty for listeners accustomed to feature-packed "solo" albums like My Homies parts 1 & 2, the latter of which came out the same year as this. Face was trying to do his part as a steward of the culture and put on some underground emcees he saw potential in: Young Malice from Mississippi & Willie Hen from California. Deceptive marketing aside, Scarface knew how to work as part of a group thanks to his Geto Boys & Facemob experience, & this record is well-balanced & respectful of each emcee's strengths.

Face's administrative tenure at Def Jam South had already ended, so The Product debuted on the less impressive Koch label. There was plenty of money for strong production though: between the 2 of them, Face & Rap-A-Lot stalwart Tone Capone handle the bulk of the album, & the latter turns in the most commanding beats. My favorite Capone track is "Hustle," with a prominent clean-tone electric guitar echoing the dramatic MIDI orchestra figures. The soulful album closer "Life's Been Good" with its tinkling pianos & gentle sleigh bells offers a reprieve from the tough street sounds that dominate most of the album. There are a few other standouts production-wise: boom-baptist Alchemist's MPC work on "G Type" make it sound the most like a Face solo song (although he doesn't give himself one on this record), but P. King's pizzicato strings & orchestra stabs on the uptempo single "I'm A" sound a little too close to something the white-hot (at the time) G-Unit would have done.

Scarface is always compelling to listen to, in part because of his exquisite, booming mic presence. In comparison, the other 2 emcees sound sleepy, using a too-cool casual delivery that just comes off weak next to Face. It doesn't help that the vocals are turned down relative to the beats across the album, but that's not the source of the problem. Willie Hen especially sounds like he's trying not to wake the neighbors, which is a shame because his solo song, "In the Hood," sits on yet another stellar Tone Capone beat, driven by a hollow slap bass & what is probably the catchiest hook on the record.

On the whole, this is an album with modest aspirations that succeeds in fulfilling them. Scarface wanted to create an opportunity for some younger emcees to get some shine, & used his platform to do so. It's a satisfying listen, doesn't overstay its welcome, & on the whole it embodies something that everybody pays lip service to but I wish more veteran artists would take seriously: create space for the young'uns to carry this shit forward--& if you can, try not to let the marketing department center you too much.

The Optical Files #104: Radiohead - The Bends (1995)

I don't know if there will ever be an album I know better than The Bends thanks to the time I skipped school in 11th grade with my friend Kyle & the only tape I had in my car was this album so we just drove around all day playing it on loop. That's the kind of thing that burns a piece of music into your brain & you don't really get experiences like that anymore unless you deliberately create them, & even then they're not the same as when they arise organically. The Bends was my 1st Radiohead album, contains my 1st favorite Radiohead song ("Just"), & as is often the case with these things, I got burnt out on it in my early 20s & haven't really sat down with the whole thing in a long time. But of course that didn't matter, because the body stores music in the throat, fingers, toes, abdomen, & from the moment Thom's up-front, brickwalled vocals blew out of "Planet Telex" I found myself singing along, moving with those lavishly strummed chords like no time had passed, like reconnecting with an old friend & picking up where you left off.

Of course, feeling like no time has passed doesn't make it so, & it doesn't mean that nothing has changed. Some people view The Bends as Radiohead's 1st great album, & some view it as a transitional album that pointed toward the greatness of OK Computer. I used to be in the former camp, but today I find myself in the latter. Despite the sneering anticommercialism of "My Iron Lung," Radiohead were still interested in making radio hits, as attested to by the gentle Britpop of "High and Dry." Shades of Pablo Honey-isms are still evident in songs like "Sulk" & the epic "Black Star"--the latter of which is elevated by Colin Greenwood's animated bass playing. Another song that Colin enlivens is "Bones," but here we find a more sophisticated melody than anything on Pablo Honey &, crucially, an embrace of atonality. Jonny dials in a positively sickening lead guitar tone & the band brings their famous 3-guitar attack, which reached its pinnacle on this album in songs like "Just" (featuring Jonny's best guitar solo despite/because its opening 4 bars are just a squealing exploration of feedback tone) & "The Bends." I've always loved that title track as probably the clearest midpoint between this album's predecessor & its followup, the epic singalong chorus balanced by odd little touches like the piano that literally shows up for 2 bars & disappears again.

After I spun the album several times, "My Iron Lung" supplanted "Just" as my favorite track on it, & it sounds so forward-thinking that I was interested to learn it predated the album by 6 months, 1st appearing on its namesake EP with a bunch of B-sides that are well worth anybody's time. The song's massive, chaotic chorus anticipated the atonal crunch of "Paranoid Android," & its lyrics dialed in the prickly art-rock attitude Radiohead would continue to affect for the next decade or so.

Sometimes I feel like apologizing to albums like this: if I don't play you as much, it's not because I don't like you. It's because I know you so well that all I have to do is close my eyes to hear you. 

The Optical Files #103: Geto Boys - Da Good da Bad & da Ugly (1998)

Everybody who's talked to me about rap for more than a few minutes knows how much I love the Geto Boys, so it's probably telling that the last time I really gave this album much thought was back in 2015 when I was trying to convince people that Kendrick bit this album's cover for To Pimp a Butterfly. (TPAB is a much better executed take on the same concept, but I guess I'm alone on this island because I've still never heard anyone else suggest that.) There's a pretty obvious reason I've tended to ignore this album: Face is Face & Willie is Willie & both are great in their own right, but for me that peculiar Geto Boys magic always emanated from Bushwick Bill, & I don't think it's an accident that the only GB album not to feature him is their most lackluster. Bill always pushed the Boys to be a bit more confessional, a bit more colorful, a bit stranger. But the big 3's reunion on 1996's The Resurrection was shortlived, just like the other reunions in 2005 & 2015.

In fairness, though, I'm not sure Bill's participation could have done much to liven up the dullest batch of beats the Geto Boys ever worked with. At 1st glance you see that Scarface & Mike Dean combined produced more than half of the album & you assume you're in good hands. Well, I don't know what happened but most of Mike's beats sound like tired retreads of his customary southern funk style. The exception is "Free," which finds Face & Will in meditative mode & stands out thanks to its unison piano & bass runs & its soulful chorus vocals. It's the kind of song that you imagine there would have been more of if Bill had contributed to this album. Similarly, there's only 1 standout among the raft of yawn-inducing Scarface beats (the worst of which is definitely the stiff robotic drum machine & repetitive organ & synth bass stabs of "Do Yo Time"). "Gangsta (Put Me Down)" captures the classic summertime Scarface sound with prominent high-pitched bass guitar noodling. The song finds Face & Willie in sexual escapade storytelling mode, & while it might sound a bit too close to The Diary's "Goin' Down," its sunny energy is welcome in an album that can otherwise feel monotonous.

Most of the other producers don't fare well either, with the album's nadir coming courtesy of 3-time loser Mr. Lee on "Thugg N***az," with an awkward beat that sounds like it was programmed in complete isolation from the rest of the instrumental. In actual fact, the 2 best beats on the album come from producers who only contributed a single song: Tone Capone with "They Bitches," a funky strut that fixes the syncopation problems of the aforementioned misfire; & Swift with the mournful piano chords & violins of "Eye 4 An Eye." Both of those songs find the emcees in sociopolitical mode, especially the fiery revolutionary rhetoric of the latter, which features a spoken word outro by Willie D that breaks down the totality of Black/white race relations in a lean 2 minutes.

Occasionally, Da Good, da Bad & da Ugly sounds like a Willie D solo album with a lot of Scarface features. Face doesn't even appear on the first song, "Dawn 2 Dusk." This isn't exactly unusual, since every Geto Boys album gives each member at least 1 solo song, but making 1 of them the opener is at the very least an odd decision. You can also hear Willie trying hard to flow like 2Pac on the album in general & that song in particular, making it ironic when the Outlawz show up for 2 features later in the album to bemoan "Why everybody sound like Pac nowadays?" Both Willie's affectations & the presence of the Outlawz--not to mention the G-funk-isms that show up in Mike Dean's beats--are typical of a moment when everybody wanted to rub up against the mystique created by Pac's megafame & murder, but it doesn't really belong on a Geto Boys album.

It was a strange time to be the Geto Boys, with the lack of Bill in the mix creating a vacuum that opened the door for several stylistic influences that probably shouldn't have been entertained. Luckily, Bill was able to return to the fold for 1 last album, ensuring that the Geto Boys' recorded history went out on a high note.

The Optical Files #102: Ice Cube - Laugh Now, Cry Later (2006)

Before it was the title of a Drake song, Laugh Now Cry Later was a welcome comeback album for Ice Cube. Fresh off a string of Hollywood successes (including the family film Are We There Yet?) & a 6 year break since his last (lackluster) hiphop album, it was an open question whether Cube could still be credible as a rapper. Behind the scenes, Cube ended his relationship with Priority & released this album fully independently on his Lench Mob label. Did extricating himself from the major-label ecosystem allow Cube the freedom to make exactly the album he wanted without having to please anybody, or did it prove that his rap career had become little more than a vanity side project?

I'm not ashamed to say I loved this shit out of this album back when it dropped, so on the relisten it was surprising to hear so much filler. But see, back in the day we had this thing called the skip button. I'm sure "The Game Lord" & "Holla @ Cha Boy" didn't get nearly as many spins in my whip as "Why We Thugs" or "The N***a Trap." Cube spent his indie label money wisely, buying 3 beats from Lil Jon & 2 from Scott Storch, 2 of the hottest producers of the moment. One of the Storch beats is the album's most successful single, "Why We Thugs," which strikes a perfect balance with its epic unison strings between pop appeal & Cube's political consciousness: "Call me an animal up in the system/But who's the animal that built this prison?" The Lil Jon beats are less successful overall, with only the Snoop Dogg feature "Go To Church" manifesting his infectious crunk energy--I'm sure he dipped into the leftover pack for "Holla @ Cha Boy." Aside from a mediocre Swizz Beatz track (isn't that redundant?) the rest of the beats are relatively low-rent, like the MIDI horns of "Child Support" by Hallway Productionz. Within these constraints, though, we get some bangers like the searing blues guitars of "Click Clack - Get Back!" by Emile; Bud'da with the sitar & rainstick of "Smoke Some Weed" & the interesting major-key progression of "Chrome & Paint"; Laylaw & D-Mac's sample-led OG soul vibes on "Growin' Up" & "Spittin' Pollaseeds."

Lyrical highlights for me always included "Smoke Some Weed," which is less about getting stoned per se & more about how absurd & hypocritical the culture of prohibition is. The whole 1st verse is a diverse list of notables (musicians, athletes, actors, politicians) known for smoking weed. The title track is a cheeky cautionary tale about financial responsibility that never loses its wry humor as it indicts a culture of instant gratification. Then we have the boom-bappiest track on the album, the DJ Green Lantern-assisted "The N***a Trap." You have to admire Cube for still finding fresh ways to call out American racism & inequality 18 years after "Fuck tha Police."

Everybody can tell I'm a big Ice Cube fan. I particularly have a soft spot for his 21st-century output--in large part because of the time in my life it brings me back to. Objectively speaking, while albums like this one will never be as bracing & revolutionary as his early '90s heyday, Cube still had plenty of gas in the tank, & that's more than you can say for a lot of rappers at 2 decades deep.

The Optical Files #101: Young Jeezy - Let's Get It: Thug Motivation 101 (2005)

The south continued its ascendancy in the mid-2000s to become the most popular & influential region in hiphop. The twin commercial juggernauts of T.I. & Young Jeezy popularized the ATL trap sound, & by the time this album--Jeezy's major-label debut--came around, it was well-established: ominous synths & orchestra swells, tight 808s with handclaps & hi-hats alternating between 8th-note & 16th-note patterns, thanks to iconic beatmakers like Shawty Redd (who handles 7 of the album's 19 tracks), Drumma Boy, & the great Mannie Fresh. After 2 indie street albums & a mixtape, Jeezy's vocal style was fully formed as well: adlibs mixed at the same volume as the mains, lots of punch-ins, straightforward midtempo flows. This album was the 2x-platinum sensation that laid the groundwork for 1000 imitators, spelled the end of the crunk era, & whose reverberations are still being felt today.

"Yeeeeeah"; "that's riight"; "let's get it!" "ayyyyyy!" When discussing Jeezy you don't even need to quote a lyric, just an adlib. I can't think of an earlier rapper who became as famous (if not more famous) for his adlibs as for his bars. DMX? Close but not quite. Lil Jon? Sure, but not really a rapper. Pusha T? Yeeugh. If not the very first rapper whose adlibs threatened to eclipse his lyrics, Jeezy was certainly close to it, & contributed to today's rap culture where it's impossible to succeed without a lit adlib game. But don't sleep on Jeezy's pen: his howling mic presence, luxury drug dealer persona, money & coke brags, & simple wordplay might seem basic, but he brings it across with such supreme confidence that you can't help but get swept up in it all. He's also one of the only rappers I can think of who gets away with rhyming the same phrase with itself as often as he does. Just a single example from "Talk To Em": "I wish we could trade places/Swear to god dog, I wish we could trade places." It shouldn't work, but it does; somehow the repetition comes off not as a lack of imagination but a technique for lost-for-words emotional emphasis. In context, addressing his imprisoned loved one, the repetition says more than extra words probably could.

In retrospect, the ATL trap sound was so fresh & exciting at the time that most of us didn't notice how repetitive this album feels over its generous 77 minutes. There's not a lot of variety among the beats: almost all of them feature similar tempos, textures & moods--the sinister street synths I mentioned above. When a beat does stand out, it's due to a little refinement of the formula like the portamento synth melody over the chorus of Midnight Black's "Let's Get It/Sky's the Limit," or the harmonically shifting triumphant MIDI horn section fanfare of "Trap Star"--a far cry from the snap sound that made Mr. Collipark a radio sensation. 

The exceptions to the album's sonic homogeny are the aforementioned "Talk To Em" with its gospel choirs, guitars & Frankie Beverly sample; & "Go Crazy," a more MPC boom-bap sound with a Curtis Mayfield sample & one of Jigga's iconic features of the era. You have to admire Jeezy for inviting Hov onto a beat like this, where he always floats, knowing he would be outrapped. But I doubt he had much emcee ego about that--as he says on "Get Ya Mind Right": "Miss me with that rap shit/Rappin' ass n***a, you better do numbers/I ain't gotta rap, I'mma do numbers."

On the subject of "Go Crazy," maybe this outs me as only a casual Jeezy fan, but this is one of those mainstream efforts where the singles are the best songs. Mannie Fresh's insanely catchy "And Then What," Akon's "Soul Survivor" with its syncopated hook, & "My Hood" are compulsive singalongs that play amazing in the club--at least they did back in my clubgoing days. 

(Side note: I always thought "My Hood" was a David Banner beat, but apparently it's produced by Lil' C & just samples "Rubber Band Man." In hindsight, it makes sense that Banner wouldn't plagiarize himself that closely. Either way, I dare you not to sing along to "Ford Taurus pull up, everybody run.")

Jeezy & his whole universe might not be quite in the center of my rap wheelhouse, but I have all the respect in the world for what he does & how he does it. This album--especially the singles--got plenty of play from me back in the day. Jeezy might not be a flawless album maker, but his single game has always been second to none.

(Lagniappe: I didn't own The Recession on CD so I won't write about it in this series, but just know that "My President" is unambiguously the best song from 2008.)

The Optical Files #100: Buzzcocks - Singles Going Steady (Compilation) (1979)

I think I heard "Orgasm Addict" from some friends in 10th grade & sought out this CD immediately. I'm surprised it still plays because of how often I spun it in the 2nd half of high school. There are some exceptions to my (elitist? probably) policy against greatest hits compilations, & Singles Going Steady is probably the pinnacle. It was the only Buzzcocks record released in the US at the time, despite the band having 2 LPs out already in Britain, & it's still remembered as their calling card. In fact, it's more properly thought of as a collection of singles (duh, the clue's right there in the title, with a cheeky play on words referencing the band's propensity for puppy-love lyrics), since the custom in the UK at the time was to treat singles as their own releases, not teasers for LPs, so as to make the 7"s more special & to avoid asking consumers to pay twice for the same songs. So for a long time, short of owning the singles, this record was the only way to get iconic songs like "Orgasm Addict" & "What Do I Get?" making it an essential artifact & bypassing the redundancy that mars a lot of compilations.

The album is also sequenced in a unique way, mirroring the structure of a 7" single itself. Rather than following an A-side with its B-side, the album features all the A-sides on side 1, & corresponding B-sides on side 2. Admittedly, when you play this through on a CD you don't get the experience of flipping the record over to hear all the B-sides, but it's still a neat idea. You might think this would make the album feel frontloaded, but it doesn't. The 'Cocks were such strong songwriters that the B-sides aren't less interesting, just less poppy. Especially toward the end, they were experimenting with post-punk territory with midtempo reverbed bass-led songs like "Something's Gone Wrong Again" & "Why Can't I Touch It?" the latter of which sounds like The Fall meets XTC! Then there are the dissonant skronkings of "Just Lust" & the aptly titled "Noise Annoys," which manages to be just a bit more than a novelty track.

But as intriguing as they are, most listeners aren't here for the experimental inklings of side 2--they're here for the hits, & nobody (with the possible exception of my pet favorites The Undertones) was writing pop-punk songs this consistently good. I dare you not to dance around the room to "What Do I Get" like Thora Birch in Ghost World, or back Pete up on "ohh-ohh" vocals when "Love You More" or "Promises" comes on. "Ever Fallen In Love?" with its minor/major tension is probably the best song they ever wrote. (If you haven't heard Le Butcherettes cover it, do yourself a favor.)

I could go track by track & talk about the Beatlesque bridge on "Promises," the Clash-isms of "Harmony In My Head," the deceptively complex bass playing (by Garth Smith) on "Whatever Happened To?," or the band's weird habit of ending song titles with question marks, but fuck it. If you know this album, you know how infectious its energy is. If you don't, seek it out & then read this again.

The Optical Files #99: DJ Muggs & GZA - Grandmasters (2005)

This came out in October 2005 & I remember being so excited that I ordered the CD from Amazon & had it mailed to me in Spain when I was studying abroad, rather than wait until December when I returned. GZA's fascination with chess culminates in a (loose) concept album about the game, with what seemed at the time to be an unlikely collaborator.

In retrospect, perhaps the most surprising thing is how Wu-Tang the album sounds, despite GZA reaching outside the Wu camp, presumably for a fresh spin. The short pizzicato loops, gloomy keys & soulful vocal chops that populate beats like "Those That's Bout It," "Destruction of a Guard," "Exploitation of Mistakes" & "General Principles" could easily be RZA's handiwork. Muggs isn't just biting here, though; he injects his trademark swing into most of the tracks, & the closing 2 songs sound more characteristic, with the heavily flanged drums of "Illusory Protection" & the rock guitars of "Smothered Mate." Somewhere in between is the martial aggression of "Advance Pawns" & "Unprotected Pieces," which recall Jedi Mind Tricks' Stoupe (a careful student of RZA's style).

GZA uses his unique narrative style on several storytelling tracks on this album. Unlike his Wu-comrades Ghost or Rae, whose stories always pack an immersive visceral punch, GZA uses omniscient narration & seems to float above the events he's recounting, with a dispassionate eye for granular detail. The style works best in the forensic procedural "Exploitation of Mistakes," which plays like a CSI episode, & the equally chilly "Destruction of a Guard." It doesn't work out so well on "Queen's Gambit," another in his series of wordplay-heavy lyrical exercises where he tries to cram in as many references to a specific subject (here, the NFL) while superficially talking about something else. (See "Labels," "Publicity," "Animal Planet," "0% Finance.") The problem is, "Queen's Gambit" turns into a sex story, & GZA doesn't have the hot-blooded enthusiasm to pull it off. When telling the story of a steamy foursome, "bored" isn't the energy you want to bring across.

Another storytelling song that does work is "All In Together Now," a tribute to the recently deceased Ol' Dirty Bastard. The love & respect he had for his fallen comrade is evident, & the way he explains their come-up & Dirty's personality adds to the myth--& reality--that he was much smarter, savvier & more self-aware than people gave him credit for. After all, there's a reason GZA made an album called Beneath the Surface. 

In hindsight, Muggs proved to be the perfect collaborator for GZA, as he was able to hold down the Wu sound while adding enough new elements to keep from sounding stale or samey. At 44 minutes, the album doesn't overstay its welcome, & even when the lyrics are less than interesting, there's a vibey instrumental to make each track worthwhile. Liquid Swords is still the crown jewel in the GZA solo discography, but I believe I've played this CD more than Beneath the Surface or Pro Tools.

Now speaking of which, why the hell has it been 15 years since the last GZA album??

The Optical Files #98: Ice-T - Power (1988)

After Rhyme Pays--which made a splash in the underground but is really an embryonic work--Ice-T really hit his stride with Power. It still showcases a somewhat immature style, however, & the problems here would be mostly reproduced on the followup, before Ice worked out the kinks on his masterpiece, the sprawling O.G. Original Gangster (which I owned on tape, not CD, so I won't cover it in this series).

Like I said when I wrote about his followup The Iceberg, the concepts behind Ice-T's early albums don't get lauded enough. The opening title track considers the implications of different kinds of power--social status, physical violence, sex--before concluding that "money controls the world & that's it." This thread continues in the late-album "High Rollers," where Ice zeroes in on the idea of money=power & discusses the different ways it manifests (bringing politicians' legal hustles into the conversation), before ending on a warning to would-be crooks that the ends don't justify the means. As others have pointed out, Ice's music distinguishes itself from a lot of the nihilistic gangsta rap it inspired by not just focusing on problems, but offering solutions as well. The cautionary moral of "High Rollers" also appears in songs like "Drama" (which starts as a braggadocious storytelling rhyme about committing crimes & develops through escalating levels of "drama" until we end up in the electric chair), the classic Curtis Mayfield-sampling anti-drug PSA "I'm Your Pusher" (where Ice recommends getting high on music instead), & the spoken-word piece "Soul on Ice," where the emcee channels his namesake Iceberg Slim to tell a story of the futility of street fame.

Lyrically speaking, this album is more focused & tighter than the followup (for instance, "The Syndicate" is just as dull as The Iceberg's posse cut, but it only lasts 3 & a half minutes instead of an excruciating 9), but it's less interesting musically. Afrika Islam's beats are mostly NY-influenced uptempo drum machines & sparse synths. We don't get any dark, forward-looking west coast crawls like the followup's "Peel Their Caps Back." The only indication of Ice's hard-rock fixation is a guitar on the Heart-sampling "Personal," whereas the next album would expand on this significantly. There are a few standout beats though, like "Radio Suckers" with its ascending keyboard line in the verse & propulsive Public Enemy sample that acts as the chorus. I also love the lurching synth bass melody that serves as the hook of "Drama." Many of the songs on this album feature what I call the "Ice-T single word chorus," where he intones the title word or phrase in his deep serious voice & it echoes over the instrumental. It's maybe best exemplified in the non-album single "Colors" from the same year, but present here in "Power," "Drama," "The Syndicate," "Personal," & "High Rollers."

The highs on Power may not be as high as those on The Iceberg, but the lows aren't quite as low, & the album is more consistent overall. Each of the first 4 Ice-T records all offer something unique, like "Soul on Ice" here with the spoken-word style he never revisited. O.G. might be my favorite, but you can't really go wrong with any of them.

The Optical Files #97: John Prine - Bruised Orange (1978)

After the rocking excesses of Sweet Revenge, Prine smoothed it out again for the rootsy followup Common Sense, which charted better than anything since his debut but flopped with the critics & ended his relationship with Atlantic. After a 3-year break, Prine re-emerged on a new (& smaller) label with Bruised Orange, a softspoken, contemplative set of songs with bare-bones production by his longtime friend Steve Goodman, a correction from Steve Cropper's polished production on Common Sense. What resulted (from what was reportedly a frustrating gestation process) was the most consistent of John's 3-album stint at Asylum.

Bruised Orange finds Prine in as serious as mood as he's ever been, missing both the spunk of Sweet Revenge & the good humor of Common Sense. What replaces them is a sense of quiet regretfulness, which comes through even in goodnatured songs like "Fish and Whistle" ("we'll make a big wish that we never have to do this again"). The eponymous track, subtitled "Chain of Sorrow," tells the true story of John witnessing the aftermath of a train accident that killed an altar boy, who made the mistake of "walking with his back turned to the train that was coming so slow." He goes on to liken this to the experience of a shattered romantic relationship that he knew was doomed from the start ("my head shouted down to my heart, 'you better look out below'). The thing about a bruised orange is that it doesn't heal. You just have to learn those lessons & try to keep it from bruising even more.

For me the philosophical center of the record is "Crooked Piece of Time," which resurrects some of the piss & vinegar of Sweet Revenge with a rocking organ & John singing in a throatier voice than the folksy croon he uses for most of the album. The song is both an indictment of modern alienation & an acknowledgement that there's really no easy time to be a human living on this planet. I don't think it was by accident that the last time I saw Prine in concert--in November 2019, 5 months before his death--he opened the show with "Crooked Piece of Time." He was so grateful that he was still selling out theaters in his 70s, grateful for the opportunity to bring people together, but that didn't change the fact that, somehow, the piece of time we live in just keeps getting crookeder.

The Optical Files #96: Gwen Stefani - Love. Angel. Music. Baby. (2004)

This is one of those albums it's impossible for me to be fully objective about, because of the time in my life when it came around. I was ready to take the stick out of my ass & embrace pop music (& let's be honest, pop music made by a woman), I was traveling a lot & spending a lot of time in my headphones, & I was smoking a lot of weed. These things together make this a magical album for me, & I still play it frequently when I want a quick nostalgia burst. But with the benefit of the intervening years (& sobriety), am I able to be even a little bit objective? Does Love. Angel. Music. Baby. hold up? How big a grain of salt should you take my assessment with?

When I say that very few people have done more with less musically than Gwen Stefani, I don't mean it as an insult. Objectively, her voice is rather bland & she possesses a very limited range. Her talent as a personality, fashionista, trendsetter, & collaborator eclipses her talent as a musician, which is cool, since she has a brilliance for choosing collaborators who buoy her star power. So on her 1st solo album we get contributions from heavy hitters like Linda Perry, the Neptunes, Dr. Dre, Andre 3000, & her No Doubt compatriot Tony Kanal. Personally I consider Perry this record's MVP, as 2 of her 3 contributions are among the album's best songs. These include the opener, "What You Waiting For?" & I don't think it's an accident that Gwen chose to begin the album with the most rock-inflected song of the bunch. It was also the only single released before the album dropped, probably to allay the fears of No Doubt fans who worried there wouldn't be any guitars on the album. Any trickiness in the sequencing is made up for in the sincerity of the lyric, though, as it bluntly points out the unfairness of the short window of opportunity for female pop stars: "Your moment will run out 'cause of your sex chromosome [...] Look at your watch now/You're still a super hot female."

Perry also contributes "The Real Thing," a gentle love ballad with a lyric that manages to be sweet without being cheesy: "I think I know you inside out/& we're together most days/But I still love to have you around." The quality of that song points to an essential tension in this album: ironically, the songs that hold up best are the most "retro," i.e. those rooted in '80s & '90s pop & club music. Songs like "The Real Thing," as well as "Cool" & "Serious"--which inspiration from the likes of Madonna, Berlin, Human League, Spandau Ballet, Cyndi Lauper, & Alphaville--sound fresh & exciting. On the other hand, the elements of 2000s-era pop-rap & R&B that drive songs like "Rich Girl," "Hollaback Girl" & "Luxurious" haven't aged well, in large part because they weren't that authentic in the first place. Gwen made the mistake of leaning more heavily on those those rap influences on her followup album, almost half of which was produced by the Neptunes in an attempt to ride the success of "Hollaback Girl."

(Speaking of "Hollaback Girl," sure it's an easy song to cringe at these days, but that calm picked guitar figure in the pre-chorus, which is later joined by flagrant synth horns, is so different & so pure Neptunes that you have to love it. Also love the fact that the whole song is a subliminal Courtney Love diss, especially ironic since Linda Perry made a heroic effort to revive Courtney's career that same year she was giving Gwen some of her best songs.)

The whole album doesn't break down cleanly along the '80s pop/'00s rap divide, as there are outliers like "Crash," an obvious Salt 'n Pepa tribute that features a variety of washy synth lines, none of which are as catchy as "Push It." Andre 3000's 2 contributions, the incongruously serious "Long Way to Go" & "Bubble Pop Electric," are as strange & colorful as the rest of his production from that time period--especially the latter, whose frantic kick drum triplets & pitched popcorn sounds capture the restlessness of surging teenage hormones, & the wordless countermelody sung by Gwen's backing vocals adds to the building tension. Perry's 3rd writing credit, "Danger Zone," is the closest thing the album has to filler, with a more contemporary dance sound & a melody line lifted from "Cool."

That brings us to "Harajuku Girls," which threads the needle between the album's 2 predominant sounds, & could have been the best direction to blaze forth in, if it weren't for the embarrassing Orientalist othering. I'm pretty sure Harajuku girls knew how wicked their style was & didn't need Gwen to "introduce it to the world," especially not with appropriative "eastern" sounding synths & the mocking line "the 'ranguage' of your clothing is something to encounter." The song & general aesthetic received some deserved pushback at the time, & Gwen must have felt it because she subsequently abandoned this direction.

So yeah, I don't think I have a rose-tinted lens on this album. I'm pretty aware of what's wrong with it. But I'll still listen & enjoy those 48 minutes of nostalgia. We all need albums like this, that we defend with our whole hearts even though our heads might know better.

The Optical Files #95: Jimi Hendrix - South Saturn Delta (Compilation) (1997)

Back in the day I used to listen to this compilation a lot less often than First Rays of the New Rising Sun (I believe I got both CDs for Christmas 2000), but today I recognize South Saturn Delta as the superior disc. It solves the redundancy problem of First Rays, all of whose tracks were already issued on the 1st 3 posthumous Hendrix albums: about half the songs on South Saturn Delta were previously unreleased. When it comes to compilations, I much prefer rarities albums to best-ofs. The problem with rarities albums is that they can be rough affairs full of minor detritus like outtakes, remixes, jams, & demos. Perhaps it's a tribute to Jimi's artistry that even his castoffs are intriguing & listenable, but at any rate, only a few of this disc's inclusions seem to be there just to fill out the tracklist.

Among the demos, we get the solo acoustic "Midnight Lightning" (as close as Jimi ever got to a pure Delta blues, though he can't seem to help incorporating his psychedelic leanings into the picking); an early version of "Angel," here titled "Sweet Angel," played over a primitive drum machine; a bassless instrumental demo of "Little Wing," which sounds more like what would become "Angel"; & the title track, Jimi's first attempt to incorporate a horn section into his sound. Hearing Jimi trade solo bars with the saxophone is a tantalizing tease of what might have been.

This disc's versions of "Little Wing" & "South Saturn Delta," both previously unreleased, are also examples of the frequency of instrumentals on this album. In addition to those, we get the funky "Midnight"; "Tax Free," with its tempo changes & absolutely huge reverbed drum production; & a longer version of "Pali Gap" than what appeared on Rainbow Bridge. The latter is 5 minutes of pure indulgent lead guitar wizardry, with Jimi traveling through a series of tone, mood & technique shifts over the course of multiple overdubs.

Including "Tax Free" & "Midnight" from War Heroes makes sense because this compilation is emphasizing instrumentals, but I think "Bleeding Heart"'s inclusion is unnecessary. The muffled Chas Chandler mix of "All Along the Watchtower" is superfluous too--all it really does is make us grateful for Jimi's album mix that dials down the 12-string in order to unbury the lead guitar. I understand why "The Stars that Play With Laughing Sam's Dice," a silly little piece of noisy psychedelia, is included here, but I don't particularly like it. Those 3 quibbles aside, though, South Saturn Delta is a Hendrix connoisseur's curio cabinet, & does a much better job of justifying its existence than this sort of affair usually does.

The Optical Files #94: John Prine - Sweet Revenge (1973)

Like with Hüsker Dü, asking me to pick a favorite John Prine album is a foolish question whose answer could change from day to day, but I could make a decent case for this one. It has undisputed classics like "Please Don't Bury Me," "Dear Abby" & "Grandpa Was a Carpenter," plus personal favorites like "Christmas in Prison," "Blue Umbrella," & "Mexican Home." At the same time, the writing & performance has a tone that was unusual for Prine, making it kind of an outlier in his catalog. John Prine was the poet of front porch soliloquies, of kitchen tables before the breakfast crumbs were wiped away. His lyrics are plain & unfussy, punctuated by lightning bolts of visionary intensity where you least expect. Among his homespun wisdom, the prevailing tone was always one of compassion--except here on Sweet Revenge, he sounds hardened. It's there in the album title, in the cover (compare his rock star denim-clad sunglassed cigarette attitude to the "aw shucks" hayseed portrait on his debut), in the vocal delivery more often full of piss & vinegar on songs like the title track, "Onomatopoeia" & "Nine Pound Hammer." 

That's not to say there isn't compassion though: "Christmas in Prison" is one of the most heartbreaking songs he ever wrote, taking the perspective of a convict who has to spend, well, Christmas in prison without his beloved. Its lyrics are perfect Prine, romantic without being corny, unique without being pretentious: "She reminds me a chess game with someone I admire/Or a picnic in the rain after a prairie fire." Then there's "Blue Umbrella," which I don't think is a very popular song--I've never heard anyone talk about it, & I don't think John played it live very often, if at all. Sure, maybe it's a little close to that James Taylor MOR radio sound, but that doesn't make the lead guitars any less lovely or the lyrics any less poignant. Like Steve Earle's "Goodbye's All We've Got Left," this one's for everybody who ever got dumped, knew it was coming, but was still so blindsided that they couldn't process it right away.

The production is perfect: Arif Mardin leaves plenty of sonic space for every instrument to shine; even in thickly-textured songs like "Often Is a Word I Seldom Use" with its brash horn arrangement & squabbling harmonica, Mike Leach's bass is still audible. Leach is lowkey a star of this album, from his octaves to his scale runs to his walking basslines, always locked in & always up front, interweaving with Prine & Young's guitars, sometimes even playing off the vocal like in "Christmas in Prison," up to the moment it ushers in the delicate brushed drums that carry the final verse & chorus to its conclusion.

The album's emotional climax is "Mexican Home," where the singer's sneering attitude over the record's course is revealed as a socialized masculine response to deep pain--the loss of a father, the alienation from a mother, the confusion at a world spinning too fast. The Motown girl group "doo doo-doo" backup vocals give it an uplifted, almost epic feel, meanwhile the lyrics speak of distance, regret & the anticipation of a coming storm. "The air's as still as the throttle on a funeral train" might be the most breathtaking line Prine ever wrote, & he just casually tosses it in after a dumb pun about windows feeling no pain. To me, Prine's Mexican home, like Guy Clark's LA freeway, is symbolic of the wrong turns you take in life, the spots you find yourself in because one thing led to another & before you knew it you wound up here, & you find yourself hoping you can make it back.

I'm surprised it took us 94 entries in this series before we got a John Prine album. I have lots more to say about him as an artist, but I'll save those for subsequent CDs. For now I'll just conclude by saying that he's been gone for over 2 years & I'm still missing him like it was yesterday. Rest in peace to an irreplaceable all-time great.

The Optical Files #93: The Last Poets - The Last Poets (1970)

I haven't sat down with this full CD in many years, but I used to listen to it quite a bit. I sought it out in my late teens when I was looking for the earliest progenitors of hiphop. Indeed, the trio of Abiodun Oyewole, Jalaluddin Mansur Nuriddin & Umar bin Hassan are certainly making something here that sounds like rap music: rhythmic delivery of words over drums, with the other members chanting along in a way reminiscent of the unison stage routines of the earliest rap groups. They mix Black revolutionary rhetoric with finely-wrought portraits of abject urbanism, adding just enough humor to keep from sounding preachy. The poets excel at clever wordplay: check out Umar's "actors" verse of "N****rs Are Scared of Revolution," or Oyewole's double entendres on "New York, New York": "An opportunity that knocks up sisters & knocks them in the head"; "New York is a state of mind that doesn't mind fucking up a brother." (Not sure whether or not that last line inspired Nas, but I have a feeling.) They don't use rhyme, except Nuriddin on "Surprises," & even then the lines don't have a metered feel. I won't fix my mouth to debate any of the elders who consider these guys godfathers of rap, but for me it's more useful to think of a tree of Black poetry that both this & rap music are branches of.

The Last Poets don't do much preaching to the choir here. Of course there are references to the evils of white supremacy, but I think they knew the extreme unlikelihood of racist white people listening to their record, & the Black folks who would be consuming it did not need to be educated about racism. Instead, they spend most of their time on disturbing portraits of urban blights like drug addiction ("Jones Coming Down") & juvenile delinquency ("Two Little Boys"), as well as attacking Black complacency ("Wake Up N****rs," "N****rs Are Scared of Revolution"). There are lovely messages of hope as well, like "Black Wish" & "When the Revolution Comes."

Of course, several things about the album do betray blind spots. Black women are praised & appreciated, but only as providers of sex ("Black Thighs," "Gashman"). The major contributions of women to Black revolutionary causes are never addressed. Also there are several uses of the f-slur & other homophobic language--exclusively in reference to white people, effectively erasing the Black queer intersection. But 90% of this album is as bracing, confrontational & effective as it was 50+ years ago, & I have no doubt that it will be forever.

The Optical Files #92: Bob Dylan - "Love and Theft" (2001)

"Love and Theft" (yes, those quotation marks are part of the album title) is one of the most important Dylan albums to me. Of course, I heard the classics first, but this was the first Dylan album I anticipated, sought out when it was released, & digested along with the rest of the world in real time. (Well, not immediately when it was released, since it dropped on 9/11/2001 & like most of America my thoughts were occupied by other things.) Consequently, it may be the Dylan album I've spent the most time with, so please take it with a grain of salt when I say that not only is this the best Dylan album since the 1980s, but unless he shakes up something major (which he has been known to do), it might be his last great album.

The bulk of the album is heavily influenced by early 20th-century Americana like lounge music, Dixieland, barrelhouse, etc. (See the jazzy organ & gentle brushwork of "Bye and Bye" or the louche picking of "Floater," "Moonlight" & "Po' Boy.") Most of the rest of the songs work in deep blues grooves, whether it's the accented 2-step of "Summer Days," the electrified Chicago style of "Lonesome Day," the amped-up blues rock of "Honest With Me" or the half-time/double-time shifts of "Cry a While." But for me the soul of the album is found in the simple folk-rock of "Mississippi," which was apparently written for Sheryl Crow, & I have a private theory that Dylan decided to record it himself after she did such a subpar job with it. With its twinkling mandolin hook & dramatic, ascending pre-chorus progression, it displays Dylan's peak talents as a writer of love songs (an oft-overlooked element of his artistry). The song manages to be hopeful yet practical, epic yet personal, grounded yet still able to believe in magic. With the plainspoken intrigue of late Dylan, this song's narrator is a frustrated lover who thinks he has finally figured out how to let go of what doesn't matter & hold on to what does. "Stick with me anyhow/Things should start to get interesting right about now." Count him down, but never count him out.

Another highlight for me is "High Water" which acts simultaneously as an ode to Charley Patton, a dissection of the American south in all its problematic beauty, & a dire assessment of the current state of world affairs. The circular banjo picking & wordless chants sound ominous even if you have no idea what he's talking about, but the lyrical mood of the album as a whole can be described as apocalyptic. He's frustrated with the hypocrisy of modern life & most people's seeming unwillingness to confront it. "I don't see what everybody in the world is up against." He's also in a fiery mood & isn't to be fucked with this time around: "I'm not quite as cool & forgiving as I sound"; "I'm preaching peace & harmony, the blessings of tranquility, but I know when the time is right to strike"; "set fire to the place as a parting gift."

At the same time, though, Dylan's cracking a lot of jokes on this album--something mostly absent from the reflective Time Out of Mind, minus the odd Erica Jong reference. Most of these jokes are unapologetically corny: "Man said 'Freddy,' I said 'Freddy who?' He said 'Freddy or not here I come." Then there's "Politician's got on his jogging shoes/Must be running for office," which is a major groaner, but luckily he follows it up with the gobsmacking line "sucking the blood out of the genius of generosity," which is one of the most concise, cutting indictments of American political life I've ever had the pleasure of hearing.

Like I said, I played the shit out of this CD between 2001 & 2006, so don't take my word as gospel, but there isn't a single song I skip on here. Even the one I'm least enamored with (opener "Tweedle Dee & Tweedle Dum" never did a lot for me), is still a decent mood setter & doesn't overstay its welcome. Much of the mood & style here would continue in Modern Times & Together Through Life, with a bit of diminishing returns along the way, until Bob decided to switch the whole thing up & make a Christmas album. Like I said, don't count the boy out.