Serious music fans have a quasi-spiritual connection to our favorite albums. You know what I mean. There are those records you enjoy, records you have nostalgia for, records you know front to back, even records you love--but beyond that, there's yet another tier: those records that are part of you. In case you didn't figure it out from my quasi-cover of "Run Straight Down," or the time I stole the main riff of "Gridlock" for a metal song, Warren Zevon's Transverse City is one of the most important albums of my life. At first glance it might seem like an unlikely candidate for that position: I don't have a particular affinity for its genre ('80s radio rock I guess?); the production is overwhelmingly dated; & while I admire Zevon's other work, he doesn't have another album that hits me in this same way. There are some great songs on Excitable Boy & Sentimental Hygiene, but sometimes his snark is a bit too snarky for me, & he occasionally exudes a certain flavor of toxic masculinity that deifies the rakish, stubborn male genius who hurts people but has a heart of gold.
There's none of that to be found on Transverse City, though. What we get instead are 10 deeply-felt songs about near-future social collapse. Similar to Japan's Quiet Life, I happened to discover this album at the same time I was getting deeply into cyberpunk literature, & I uphold it as one of the finest musical developments of those themes. That Warren Zevon loved books is obvious from his literary approach to songwriting. His work always had a special appeal for novelists. He seemed to fit in better with writers than rock stars, & his close friends included Hunter S. Thompson, Carl Hiaasen & Stephen King. Transverse City was the result of his devouring & processing the dystopian science fiction of authors like Philip K. Dick, William Gibson, & Bruce Sterling. But unlike the savage technoir nightmares of industrial groups like Front Line Assembly, Zevon chose to focus on the human elements at play. Like Richard Linklater when he made A Scanner Darkly, Zevon seemed to understand that the cyberpunk future wouldn't turn us all into sleek tech-ninjas with neural-linked sports cars battling murderbots in neon-washed alleys--it would look a lot like our current world, just shittier, with a bit more government surveillance & a bit less human connection.
Like the best cyberpunk authors, Zevon clearly saw the consequences of technology separating us from our humanity ("Networking"), out of control consumerism ("Down in the Mall"), environmental degradation ("Run Straight Down"), government overreach ("The Long Arm of the Law"), urban bloat ("Gridlock"), & geopolitcal fuckery ("Turbulence"). While the themes of the album are bleak, the music isn't necessarily all doom & gloom. Who says there can't be some fun times in the dystopia? It's in the more lighthearted musical moments that Zevon's deadly sarcasm really emerges, like the rockabilly/jangle pop grooves of "Down in the Mall" & "Turbulence." The narrator of the former lives a life where capitalist consumption is the only source of joy, both for him & his partner ("We'll go shopping babe, it's something we can stand") so for him, it really is a happy song. The song's dramatic irony transcends mere scorn. There's a certain innocence to the kind of complacency when you don't even know what you're settling for, or what you're sacrificing.
That's what gives these songs their souls, & where Zevon's writerly instincts shine: the characters he creates. With just a few well-considered lines, he paints a convincing portrait of a world populated by high-tech mercenaries, disillusioned diplomats, distracted consumers, plugged-in businessmen, & just regular guys waiting for the world to end. The exuberant harmonica & triumphant, ascending chorus of "Splendid Isolation" mask what the song is really about--somebody who wants to just be left alone to let the apocalypse happen, because people are scary & people represent pain & it would be simpler to just block the world out & let what happens happen--& it hits harder this way than if it were a moody sad piece. (Trust & believe, this track got a lot of play in my house during the spring of 2020.)
Zevon ties it all together with 2 glimpses into the lives of people trying to find love among the ruins: "They Moved the Moon" & "Nobody's In Love This Year." These are the songs that took the longest to grab me--as a younger man, I would sometimes skip them. With the benefit of some years & the perspective of having loved, lost & loved again, these 2 songs (which end each side of the vinyl version) may even hit hardest for me today. The eerie, electronic "They Moved the Moon" with its hollow, ominous bass drum is about the agony of being dumped in a world that's already moving so fast, that's already so topsy-turvy, that you barely recognize it as the planet you used to live on. The gentle, wordplay-heavy "Nobody's In Love This Year" uses the language of high finance to paint a picture of a world where love is just another commodity & investors are skittish. It seems like too much of a gamble for the risk-averse: "I don't wanna be mister vulnerable/I don't wanna be the one who gets left behind."
Zevon, who always chose starry sets of collaborators, here enlists the aid of lead guitarists like Jerry Garcia, who adds his trippy runs to the title track's jagged death poetry; David Gilmour, who gives an epic touch to "Run Straight Down"; & Neil Young, who feeds the sun-baked grit & scuzz of the freeway through his amp on "Gridlock." There's also an appearance from the great Chick Corea, whose frantic piano skitters embody the paranoia of "Long Arm of the Law." With that kind of talent on display, I can understand Zevon's choice to give everything a bright, polished production, but in my opinion that is the album's 1 & only flaw. The super '80s production feels dated, with its big sound & splashy drums making it feel like cheesy arena rock. But maybe that's the point: just like the shiny surfaces of the dystopia, the ultra-commercial sheen of this production makes you think you're getting something friendly, & by the time you realize what's lurking beneath, it's already too late.
I've bought this album twice--once on CD & once on vinyl, & the only reason I haven't bought it more is because nobody's gotten around to doing a reissue yet. I'm sure it's only a matter of time until some boutique label brings out a new vinyl remaster with extended notes & an extra disc of rarities & I'll be screaming at them to take my money. On this listen, the CD completely glitched out on the final track because I'd played it to death, but that's cool because I have the original Virgin vinyl I can always play until something new comes along. Shit...consumerism wins again. Damn you Warren.
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