The Optical Files #137: Bob Dylan - Highway 61 Revisited (1965)

My mom was a lover of music & literature, but never had much patience for anything she perceived as pretentiously artsy. I remember once during the height of my teenage Bob Dylan phase putting this CD on in the car during a road trip with her & my dad. She moaned something about how she thought she was done having to listen to this pompous crap after the '60s were over, but now her son was forcing it upon her. If he really had anything that important to say, my mom argued, he'd say it in plain language so it couldn't be misinterpreted. I said something about the nature of the delivery being part of the message & turned up the volume on "Tombstone Blues."

Today I feel enlightened enough to say that my mom & I were both right. Some of these songs are intentionally opaque, acting as shibboleths to weed out the un-hip (which is pretty much the entire point of "Ballad of a Thin Man"). On the other hand, some of it is clearly pure gibberish. The aforementioned "Tombstone Blues," with its 2-step raveup & hoarse, jagged lead guitar stabs, is more than a passing nod to absurdism. The avalanche of words & images has a numbing effect, as Dylan wishes he could write something to "cease the pain of your useless & pointless knowledge." But this is just a wish, indicating that Dylan hasn't achieved that end. Sorry mom, the song does make some sense. Like multiple songs on Bringing It All Back Home, Dylan is interested in relationships, both familial & social. The chorus of "Tombstone Blues" tells the locations of both Mama & Daddy, & among the characters sketched in the song are city fathers, commanders in chief, kings, slaves, & brothers--people who are defined by their relationships to others. This tendency shows back up in both "Ballad of a Thin Man" & the title track: parades of characters whose names & titles tell you all you need to know about who they are.

Actually, perhaps more than any Bob Dylan album, this one is obsessed with social status. Both "Like a Rolling Stone" & "Queen Jane Approximately" are about fallen socialites, & seem to delight in seeing haughty women taken down a peg. This is a glimpse at the dark side of Dylan's writing about women--it's not the worst it got, but I can't help but notice that every time he writes about a character like this, it's always a woman. When I realize that it's the only Dylan album that I can think of (except Pat Garrett & Billy the Kid) to contain no love songs at all, I feel like I can extrapolate a conclusion.

Musically, organist Al Kooper might be the hero of this album. From his iconic melody on "Like a Rolling Stone" to his silent-horror-film vamping on "Ballad of a Thin Man," he livens up every track he's on. I've always enjoyed the dramatic "Thin Man": with its moody apocalyptic blues shuffle & vocal laced with barely-contained venom, I feel like Nick Cave lifted his entire shtick from this 1 song. (However I will admit that ever since hearing the uptempo version on Before the Flood I've found the album version to be quite a crawl) I also like the siren whistle on the title track & the doo-wop guitar licks on "Queen Jane Approximately." This isn't the most musically impressive Dylan album (less than half the songs are what I'd call "tuneful") but the little details make it a satisfying listen.

There's not much unique I can say about Highway 61 Revisited beyond my own history with it. I got a lot of play out of this one back in the day--I never liked it quite as much as Blonde On Blonde, but it's certainly the most iconic of Dylan's "electric trilogy." Sorry mama, I don't make the rules.

The Optical Files #136: Various Artists - Definitive Jux Presents: The Juk(i)ebox - Version 1.0 (2003)

In 2003, during my disastrous 1st semester of undergrad at Loyola University New Orleans, I purchased Aesop Rock's new album Bazooka Tooth from the Mushroom record store/headshop near campus, a place I've mentioned before. Bundled with the album was a promo CD called The Juk(i)ebox, & I wasn't quite sure what to make of it. On the disc were the words "Enhanced CD," & it had icons labeled Songs, News, Weblinks & Video. I'd seen this kind of thing before. It was a gimmick back when "multimedia" was a buzzword: after listening to the CD, you'd put it into your computer & get a bunch of other content. Except the CD-ROM portion did not work. I put it into my disc drive & got nothing but the Audio CD. (I just tried it again, still nothing.)

Well, 19 years later the Aesop Rock CD is long gone (I never had the patience for it--I think I might have sold it) but somehow I hung onto The Juk(i)ebox. It's quite possible that this listen I just carried out was my 1st time all the way through. When I brought it back to the dorm room, I think I probably popped it in, listened to the megamix, heard songs I recognized, & stopped it, wanting something new. The CD consists of a big 30-minute megamix titled "The Best of Def Jux," featuring mostly songs by El-P & Mr. Lif, followed by a bunch of 1-2 minute snippets of upcoming songs on the label. This compilation-cum-remix-cum-sampler Frankenstein is an odd marketing tactic, but I guess everybody was trying new things back then.

I've always enjoyed megamixes & for a long time I've wanted to do one on an album, but I've never gotten around to it. DJ Still Will does some dope turntablism on this mix, & manages to sequence it with a natural flow that never becomes boring despite plenty of self-indulgent DJ stuff (7 minutes elapse before the first vocals are heard). While I'm not as familiar with El-P's first solo album as I am with Company Flow, I recognized a lot of the verses, & of course I always have a lot of time for Mr. Lif. I feel a bit weird about Def Jux today because it's a relatively early example of the white boy hiphop purist attitude that I can't stand these days. Lots of caucasian dudes in fitted Yankee caps complaining about how "real hiphop" has been lost in a sea of pop garbage. The Def Jux roster was always a little artsier than that, but the early years of the label feel like the moment that underground rap got colonized. You can tell by the purportedly woke stances of the rappers here while we simultaneously hear accusations of femininity directed at men in a way intended to be insulting.

The 2nd half of the CD with the snippets is less interesting. I don't have much interest in hearing truncated versions of early Murs material & Aesop Rock at the peak of his pretension. On the other hand, I am grateful for the 2 tracks by Party Fun Action Committee, one of which ("Beer") makes merciless fun of frat boys while the other ("Be My Lady") takes aim at pop rappers like Ja Rule & Nelly & the record executives who inflate them. I'd heard of PFAC before, but I never listened to them, & I like this stuff despite not really enjoying any of the "comedy rap" I've ever heard.

The Juk(i)ebox is one of those oddities you accumulate over a lifetime of CD buying. They kick around for a while collecting dust, forgotten in notebooks or drawers or towers, every once in a while you take one out & look at it, maybe play it, then get rid of it or forget about it again. Somehow this one managed to stick around. I wouldn't say revisiting it (or maybe just visiting it) changed my world or anything, but I don't regret digging in that particular neglected corner. Now I'm probably gonna seek out that Party Fun Action Committee album. 

The Optical Files #135: Haystak - Crackavelli (2007)

I remember telephoning my local Tower Records on release day to ask if they had Crackavelli. They didn't, so I called another Tower Records a bit further away to ask the same question. The woman who answered the phone (who if I had to guess based on her voice I would guess was Black) couldn't contain her laughter at the album title. "Oh yeah," she said, composing herself. "I think I saw that one come in. It's a rap CD, right?" After a brief hold, she confirmed that they had the album, so I hopped in the car & went to buy it.

Aside from being illustrative of my old-head-ness ("We used to have to call the record store! On the telephone!") this story demonstrates 2 things. First, the absurdity of a rapper selling himself as the white 2Pac--the Tower Records employee was not the only Black person who had a hard time taking Haystak seriously. There's no such thing as a white version of 2Pac. Blackness was deeply embedded in his artistry & his image. Blackness was what made 2Pac 2Pac. The 2nd thing this story demonstrates, though, is the fact that there was something in Haystak's music that spoke to me enough that I went to such lengths to get this album when it dropped. I still have some unpacking to do in order to understand exactly why I spent about a 4-year period enamored with Haystak. Did I too feel like a "victimized white boy?" I'm embarrassed now to say it, but it's possible. I don't really remember. I was also smoking a whole lot of weed back then. Today I see Haystak as an undeniably skilled lyricist kneecapped by boring production, with a knack for heartfelt songs about emotional topics like his deprived upbringing yet desperately wanting to be seen as a tough street guy, & obsessed with being a white rapper despite having little understanding of the broader implications of whiteness in hiphop.

Crackavelli is a double CD & marks the point when Haystak's music started to lose its freshness. It doesn't help that he embarked on a recording frenzy around this time, releasing 7 full-length albums over a 2-year period. This prolific streak had the effect of watering down an oeuvre that could already be repetitive & samey. Starting with this double album, it seems like he began to believe his own hype & so we get several songs' worth of outrageous claims about what a ruthless crime boss he is, with titles like "Bounce Through Ya Block," "Make You Fly," "Boss Status," & "Fall Through the Club." Things soften up on the 2nd disc, with more of his trademark poignant numbers about topics like his dead homies ("Sail On") depression & creative outlets ("Drive," "My Lyrics"), & the paranoia & soul-deadening effects of street life ("Nothing is Wrong"). But this is the album where they start to sound a little too forced & overdramatic, like the swooping strings & layered choirs of "Sail On," where Haystak brings out his Cartman from South Park sounding singing voice again--for most of the album he uses a lower, growling register.

I've been avoiding saying too much about production this far because there isn't much to say. The beats are all made in-house by Street Flavor Productions, which at this point consisted of Sonny Paradise, Jon Conner & a few others. As I've written about many times before, the 2000s was the era of MIDI in hiphop production, & it makes sense especially when you're on a budget: you don't have to pay for either sample clearance or session musicians. There is plenty of good MIDI production in the world, but this isn't it. These beats aren't exactly bad, but they are almost universally soulless, artificial, lifeless & boring. Occasionally an interesting instrument pops up like the flute in "Fall Through the Club," but mostly it's the expected orchestral horns, movie-score strings & synth bass. Listen to 5 random songs out of 30 & you've heard everything this album has to offer production-wise.

There are some bright spots: a self-assured Bun B feature livens up the timpani-heavy ode to grimy rap music known as "Track 7," & "Let's Ride" is a sober piano-led reflection on the unglamorous side of street beef taken to its logical conclusion. But the best song is the disc 1 closer "Freak Show," where Stak breaks down the mainstream's gaze as it pertains to street hustlers & rappers. He indicts "respectable" society by pointing out that by deriving entertainment from the sometimes desperate actions of underprivileged people, they have a vested interest in allowing those conditions to perpetuate.

Then the whole thing ends on the giant turd known as "Pale Face." A collaboration with the Las Vegas duo of the same name (one of the many groups that Stak either put together or joined around this time, like multiple incarnations of CWB), I see this song as the tipping point when Haystak's obsession with being white trash stopped focusing on the "trash" part & started focusing on the "white" part. There is absolutely no justification for professing "pride" in one's whiteness, & with their skinheads & neck tattoos, the Paleface guys look a bit too much like an Aryan prison gang. It doesn't help that the song has a big f-slur right in the middle of the hook that Stak repeats multiple times.

I'll admit to replaying several songs from this album. "Track 7," "Freak Show," "My Lyrics," "Let's Ride," & a few others are as interesting as anything else Haystak ever did. As a whole, the record fares better than Car Fulla White Boys but was a disappointment following the more concise From Start to Finish. Stretch about 6 songs' worth of ideas over 30 tracks & you end up with the kind of album that does its best to extinguish its own bright spots.

The Optical Files #134: White Zombie - Astro-Creep: 2000 (1995)

Autumn just hit 2 days ago & right on cue, the temperature in my town just dropped 20 degrees. Around this time of year I always spin tons of White/Rob Zombie, along with lots of Misfits, Danzig, Joy Division, 45 Grave, The Damned, Bauhaus, Sisters of Mercy--you know, the usual suspects. So it was convenient when the random number generator offered me the '90s mainstream masters of psychedelic trash groove's 2nd major label record--their best-selling album & what would prove to be their last as a band. Among metalheads, White Zombie's credibility or lack thereof rests in the gap between this album & its predecessor, La Sexorcisto. To some, the band (whose "metalness" is always debated) tuning down their guitars & experimenting with more sludgy ("Greasy Paint and Monkey Brains") & even borderline death metal (the churning "Creature of the Wheel") riffs, created their heaviest & most metal release ever. Others see it as a selling-out inflection point, with the increased focus on industrial elements like drum machines ("Real Solution #9") & synthesized bass ("More Human Than Human") sounding like a rehearsal for Rob's more dancefloor-oriented solo material. Personally I see both points of view, & I think of Astro-Creep: 2000 like a carb-loading football linebacker who's simultaneously more & less metal than his organic, clove-smoking little brother.

Now I'm going to undermine that whole paragraph by declaring that the 2 albums are actually not that different. There has been 1 personnel change, with John Tempesta riding the drum throne vacated by Ivan De Prume, but you'd be hard-pressed to spot a difference between their no-frills, hard-hitting styles. If you tune the guitars back up to E standard, you'll find the songwriting to be spiritually similar to La Sexorcisto: same niteglow spookshow atmosphere, same cult movie samples on almost every track, same stoned word-salad lyrics, & the same avoidance of guitar solos. Actually there are even fewer solos this time around, with the only one worth mentioning popping up on "Grease Paint and Monkey Brains," an 8-bar blues workout that doesn't leave much of an impression. The guitars are multitracked to hell this time around (the album was recorded to 72 tracks!) & Jay Yuenger's trademark glissando leads show up as hooks on "Real Solution #9" & the smash single "More Human Than Human," but I'll repeat my assertion that this band could have benefited from adding a lead guitarist.

In keeping with the downtuned, slightly more aggressive nature of the songs, Rob has modulated his vocals downward. You can hear him moving from the trebly bellow of the last album toward the bark that would dominate his solo career, though there are songs like "Grease Paint" & "Blood, Milk and Sky" where he tries a harsh, sinister whisper with great success. Overall there are more effects on the vocals this time too: sometimes he sounds like he's shouting at you over a telephone, from behind a dungeon wall or through 6 feet of earth.

The final song, "Blood, Milk and Sky," could be seen as a tantalizing hint toward what the band might have done if they hadn't broken up. Its tone is more serious than the carnival dark-ride scares of the other songs, & it employs orchestral strings as well as wordless female vocals. The song is heavy, but I interpret it more as a nod to grunge than metal. I hear the influence of Alice in Chains in its harmonies & atmosphere. Would they have incorporated more of these styles on a hypothetical 3rd major-label effort? It's hard to say. After the band's breakup, Sean Yseult went into psychobilly, Jay Yuenger turned to engineering, & we all know what direction Rob went in. We're left with a binary star of radio-polished groove metal albums, caught in each other's orbit, really only comparable to themselves. I just used the term "groove metal," but really, do White Zombie sound very much like Pantera? Or Prong? Helmet? These albums exist in their own neon blood-splattered freakshow universe. If I had to choose, I usually prefer the more organic, straightforward La Sexorcisto, but when I'm in the mood for 1 or both of them, very little else scratches that itch. Happy spooky season!

The Optical Files #133: The Notorious B.I.G. - Life After Death (1997)

It's not Life After Death's fault that Ready to Die is one of the closest things we have to a perfect rap album. When I press play on Biggie's debut album I am instantly transported to his world, & like a roller coaster with automated restraints, I can't leave until the ride is over. To extend the amusement park analogy, Life After Death is Disney World to the debut's Disneyland: bigger, newer, flashier, but sacrificing some of the humble, immersive fun by spreading itself over a larger amount of real estate.

One thing that hasn't changed, thankfully, is Biggie's absolute mastery of the art of emceeing. He enunciates clearly without sounding fussily precise, he injects his steady baritone with just enough sly humor to make everything sound good-natured, & most importantly, he never sacrifices his flow for the sake of a rhyme scheme. Some "lyrical" rappers are so fixated on thrilling you with verbal acumen that they will tie their flow up in all kinds of knots. Biggie throws in an array of multisyllables, internal rhymes, metaphors, allusions, & catchphrases, but his 1st priority is staying in pocket. Ironically, this makes him sound more "lyrical" than a lot of those white-knuckle wordsmiths who bend over backwards to impress you.

Another thing that hasn't changed, this time sadly, is Biggie's subject matter, for which I feel like I have earned the right to use the word "immature." The obsessive fixation on gleeful descriptions of violence & vulgar disrespect for women reminds me of nothing so much as an adolescent trying his best to be edgy. And, yeah, the kid was 24. From my perspective today, he's at his best when those elements are contained within a storytelling frame, like the tribute to the fallen on "Miss U" or the mafioso story over sweeping cinematic strings of album opener "Somebody's Gotta Die." The rainfall sound effects of the latter song cue us to approach the album like a movie, & Biggie had a gift for storytelling details that made him one of the most visual rappers ever. The cinematic element can soften the impact of some of the more antisocial lyrics by making it clear that Big is embodying a character, but that doesn't make the multiple homophobic slurs he & Jadakiss drop on "Last Day" any easier to swallow. I don't know why this stuff bothers me more on this album than it does on the previous one--maybe I wish that in the intervening 3 years he had been able to do some more growing up. It's not like I demand that every album has to be a massive leap forward, but it's undeniable that the only thing Life After Death does that Ready to Die didn't is fill 2 discs.

There's nothing wrong with any of the production on Life After Death, but like lots of other things, it suffers compared to the consistency of its predecessor. Ready to Die's kingfish, Easy Mo Bee, only makes 2 beats here, "I Love the Dough" & "Going Back to Cali," which are both glitzy numbers far removed from the rugged, bass-heavy style he flexed on the last album. DJ Premier drops in to offer 2 beats, which as usual are 2 of the album's best: the ascending horn chop of "Kick In the Door" & the warped cuts of "Ten Crack Commandments." Another highlight is the sunny acoustic guitar-based "I Got a Story to Tell" by Buckwild, which contrasts the crude scenario its lyrics depict. I also have to admit, though I think usually Puffy was better off outsourcing Big's production, The Hitmen laced "Hypnotize" up proper. It's easy to remember the so-called "shiny suit" Bad Boy era as having equally shiny, plastic production ("Mo Money Mo Problems" is definitely an offender here) but "Hypnotize" is about as minimalist as you can get, offering little more than a syncopated bass groove & an echoing Herb Alpert sample for Big to get extra-busy over. It's the kind of beat that works just as well on the street corner as on the dance floor & pop charts.

In a world where Life After Death was the only Biggie record, I wonder how I would perceive it--& how the public would perceive him in general. I think the album would certainly be easier to love, & its flaws easier to ignore. It's really a pointless hypothetical though, because with its sophomore ambition & its self-mythologizing, Life After Death is the kind of album that could only come after an earthmoving debut. Consequently, it's hard for me to see it as anything but a bloated, diffuse, only intermittently successful attempt to recapture the magic of Ready to Die, albeit by one of the greatest pure rappers in history. Despite its parade of classic tracks, I almost never have occasion to play the whole thing front to back.

The Optical Files #132: Bob Dylan - New Morning (1970)

There have been a few different versions of "conventional wisdom" about New Morning down through the years. When it was 1st released, people rushed to proclaim it a return to form after the disastrous Self Portrait. Later, a lot of those same people decided that Dylan fans were so desperate for a return to form that they overhyped something slight & mediocre simply because it wasn't Self Portrait. Personally, I always enjoyed this album for, not despite, its mundane modesty. The textless cream-colored cover with unadorned black & white photo speaks volumes to me about the simple pleasures found within.

When he can get out of his own way & resist the temptation to treat women like porcelain dolls, Bob Dylan has always been able to write a beautiful love song. On this album he pulls off 2 that are absolute classics. "If Not For You" was covered to great acclaim by both George Harrison & Olivia Newton-John, & I'd be lying if I didn't admit to preferring Harrison's version to Dylan's, but it's a great song in any version. Taken together with "The Man In Me," it reveals his approach on this album: the minimalism of Nashville Skyline continues but without its pop sheen. He's dedicated to being plainspoken & gentle here: lines like "Without your love I'd be nowhere at all, I'd be lost if not for you" & "Oh, what a wonderful feeling just to know that you are near" are heartfelt, not particularly showy but not artless either. The whole album's mood is domestic & pastoral, with songs like "Time Passes Slowly," "Sign on the Window" & the title track extolling the virtues of country living, home & hearth. I know that Dylan was feeling a lot of pressure from all that "voice of a generation" bullshit & just wanted to be left alone with his family. This album is the purest expression of that.

Another thing people make a big deal out of is the return of his nasal singing voice after a few albums' crooning sojourn. I'd say this is more of a new era than a return, as it foresees the open-throated roar of Blood on the Tracks & Before the Flood. He hasn't fully let go of the smooth (see the soulful affectations of "Time Passes Slowly")--honestly I'd say this is halfway between his Nashville & Blood voices. As another bit of backpedaling from his poppier last few records, the production is rough & in your face, with less subtlety than we've been used to. Everything is on the same level, & it's noticeable because of how piano-dominated this album is. In some ways I think of it as Dylan's "piano album": "Day of the Locusts," "Time Passes Slowly," "Went to See the Gypsy," "Winterlude," "If Dogs Run Free," "Sign on the Window," "The Man In Me," "Father of Night" . . . shit I typed out that whole list before realizing that it would be easier to just say which songs aren't piano led. It's cool, Bob was always better on the piano than he was on the guitar or harmonica. (Even though Al Kooper is responsible for all that tasty jazz comping on "If Dogs Run Free.")

Speaking of "If Dogs Run Free," Dylan, the songwriter that everybody insists on calling a poet, here dips his toe into the world of spoken-word songs with that one & "Three Angels." The fact is that Dylan was always a great writer of melodies but not always a great singer of them, & I've been interested in how he navigated his melodic & less-melodic impulses. This album is relatively tuneful, so including 2 spoken-word tracks makes for a nice compromise. Meanwhile, the closing solo piano & choir microsong "Father of Night" points the way forward about a decade to Dylan's born-again period, while at the same time being better than anything on any of this Christian albums.

Even if you took away the heavy hitters "If Not For You" & "The Man In Me," New Morning would still be a good album, brief & a pleasant listen. With them included, I think it deserves to be mentioned, if not in the top tier of Dylan albums, definitely in the runners-up circle. I'll throw it on when I feel like some Dylan but don't want anything particularly heavy or challenging. We need records like that.

Now there are 5 Dylan albums left in this series & I really hope the random number generator takes mercy on me & gives me a break for a while because I'm starting to get sick of writing about Bob Dylan.

The Optical Files #131: Bob Dylan & The Band - Before the Flood (1974)

I've always had mixed feelings about live albums. There have been a few of them in this series, but I've never been somebody who seeks out live albums & compares performances between shows. Before the Flood has a reputation as one of the best live albums ever, but I have to confess that the magic other people hear doesn't always work on me. I find it difficult to imagine myself there, attending Dylan & The Band's joint arena tour back in '74. As I pointed out in the writeup on the Neil Young live album linked above, when I listen to that one I can smell the beer & feel the sticky floor at the Fillmore. Not so for Before the Flood. Perhaps a concert film would help with that immersion, but none is available. What I'm left with is a pretty energetic bunch of songs that, with a few exceptions, I'd usually rather listen to in their studio recordings.

Part of the reason for this, aside from general failure of imagination on my part, is that the production here is, perhaps ironically, a little too good. A lot of money was spent on these professional recordings & you can tell, especially when you compare it to that Neil Young album. The sound here is spacious, with each instrument cleanly audible & never getting in each other's way. If it weren't for a few mic-popping plosives in the acoustic set, you can almost believe this is a studio recording. Listeners to the album probably get better sound than the concert attendees did.

When you go to see Bob Dylan in concert, you never know which Dylan you're going to get. He might be gregarious, or he might ignore the audience. He might play all the hits or he might stick to deep cuts. 2 things are guaranteed, though: he'll change the arrangements of at least a few tunes, & he will sing in his "Bob Dylan live" voice. The live voice makes very few concessions to tunefulness. When he sings melodically, he mostly sticks it, but the status quo is an up & down cadence with a stretched-out descending melisma belting the last word of each line. It's apparent from the opening track, "Most Likely You Go Your Way (And I'll Go Mine)," & in these performances tends toward comical exaggeration. He sings in his chesty, post-New Morning bellow, & it's odd to hear "Lay Lady Lay" sung in that style.

As for changing arrangements, "Rainy Day Women #12 & 35" is probably the biggest surprise. He messes with the chords, the melody, & the lyrics, & comes up with something just as fun as the original. Granted, that song is pretty easy to make work as long as you bring some bluesy swagger to it, & he wasn't touring with trombones so he had to do something. The Band also reinterprets "It Ain't Me, Babe" into something triumphant with backing vocals & the descending upshots, rather than the confessional boundary-setting of the original recording.

It's difficult to write too much more about this because the songs are either tunes I've already written about in this series, or songs on albums that are still to come. (It's hard to resist offering my take on "Just Like a Woman" here, but just wait until I get to Blonde on Blonde...whew!) You'll notice I haven't said much about The Band, & that's because I've never really been a fan, although I certainly admire & respect them. They evolved from Dylan's backing band The Hawks, & their background with him makes the arrangements & playing here nice & tight. I especially enjoy the tasteful organ & guitar solo trading on "All Along the Watchtower" that impresses without stepping on Jimi's toes. The songs of theirs that appear on the album are fine, except for "The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down," which I have a major beef with. People like to defend the song saying that it was written by a Canadian, but in my mind that makes it worse. It wasn't Robbie's story to tell, & if he respected that he wouldn't have ended up with such a hamfisted piece of wrong-side-of-history Confederate apologism.

Despite everything else, there is 1 absolutely indispensable recording from this album, & that's the last song (& what sounds like an encore), "Blowin' in the Wind." One of the most iconic songs from Dylan's acoustic period is played in an open-armed, marching full-band arrangement that sounds like the footsteps of a deity emerging from a dust cloud to remind the people about what matters. I won't go so far as to say that cut alone was worth the hefty double-CD price I paid, but it's certainly a magical performance. Although I mostly prefer the studio recordings, these versions are nice to listen to for a change of pace. The album captures Dylan in a really exuberant live performance mode, I can't say there's anything really subpar here.

Except "The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down." Seriously fuck that song.

The Optical Files #130: Belle & Sebastian - Dear Catastrophe Waitress (2003)

Dear Catastrophe Waitress is the only Belle & Sebastian album I ever bought on CD, but they were a pretty important band for me as a teenager, ever since my friend Brenna introduced me to them in 10th grade. I bought this CD at a record store in Washington, DC the spring after my disastrous 1st semester of college. My familiarity with the band's '90s albums gave me a bit of a shock when I popped it in the player. Gone was the wistful, cutesy, bare-bones sound of their early records, replaced with a boisterous attitude & polished, radio-ready production. In particular, Stuart Murdoch's vocals (lonesome & thin in prior incarnations) are now given the full, vivid multitrack treatment.

To Stuart & co.'s credit, the time was exactly right for a shakeup. The band's original formula was getting tired by Fold Your Hands Child, You Walk Like a Peasant, & the Storytelling record was more interesting for the Todd Solondz collaboration than anything they did musically. This album came charging out the gate with "Step Into My Office, Baby," signaling their intention to throw ambitious, multi-part compositions at us complete with tempo, key & time changes, as well as novel instrumentation. While the band had always incorporated orchestral instruments, Dear Catastrophe Waitress was where they went full chamber pop, with only 2 songs not featuring a string section, horn section, or both: the Celtic folk-inflected acoustic number "Piazza, New York Catcher," & "Lord Anthony," which sounds like an outtake from the If You're Feeling Sinister sessions. After that track ends, the slow, luxuriant piano intro of "If You Find Yourself" makes us think we're in for another "Boy Done Wrong Again," before the band kicks into a peppy pop-psychedelia number along the lines of the Lovin' Spoonful.

"Step Into My Office, Baby" is brimming with the confidence & enthusiasm of the best 1960s pop, which is clearly the stylistic territory the album explores. (It's also a great example of the band's knack for making momentous-sounding songs out of lowbrow topics like masturbation or sleeping with your boss.) More swinging '60s sounds await in the Bhangra-style strings of the title track or the Motown affectations of the otherwise relatively straightforward "If She Wants Me." Closer to home, we get the very British sounding pop of the irresistibly danceable "I'm A Cuckoo" & the trombone & vibraphone hook of "You Don't Send Me."

If Dear Catastrophe Waitress has a weakness in the songwriting department, it's that it doesn't quite match the magic of its exuberant opener, making the whole midsection feel like a moderate letdown. Luckily, they come back with the complex bluesy psychedelia of 6-minute closer "Stay Loose," dominated by organ stabs, guitar licks, & those lovely choral vocals in a song with about 4 different hooks that are all diabolically catchy.

Despite having a lot of love for this album, I stopped following Belle & Sebastian thereafter, & I'm not entirely sure why. 3 years went by before their next album, by which time I wasn't really in the headspace for indie pop. Although I appreciated the change in direction heralded by Dear Catastrophe Waitress, I was aware that nothing they did thenceforward would hit me the same way their lo-fi rainy-day anthems did when I was in high school. After a fresh listen to this one, though, I think I'll go check out what they've been up to lately.

The Optical Files #129: Bob Dylan - Another Side of Bob Dylan (1964)

Sometimes the random process I use to select these CDs works against me--I wrote about Bringing It All Back Home just a week ago, & it would have been more natural for this one to come 1st, since it's clear how Another Side of Bob Dylan laid the groundwork for its successor. As I pointed out in the other piece, songs like "Chimes of Freedom" & "My Back Pages" set the table for "Gates of Eden";  & "Motorpsycho Nitemare" is the blueprint, both melodic & topical, for "Bob Dylan's 115th Dream." More generally, this is the album where his writing starts to become less direct, more surreal, less overtly "topical." Musically, you can hear him straining to leave his simple acoustic accompaniment behind, whether it's the piano of "Black Crow Blues" or the busy lead-ish guitar figures of "Spanish Harlem Incident." I used to think of Bringing It All Back Home as a transitional album, but after fresh listens I consider it a much-refined version of Another Side. Although there are a few gems in here, unengaging centerpiece songs on each side of the record, & an overall unfinished feel, conspire to bring this album down.

Dylan might have felt like he was outgrowing the solo guitar & harmonica format of his first 4 albums, but he certainly takes advantage of it here to play loose with tempo, phrasing & chord progressions. Recordings like "Chimes of Freedom," "My Back Pages," "Ballad in Plain D" & others sound like 1st takes with their warts & all approaches to arrangement. With "My Back Pages" in particular, I'm not sure that any 2 verses are played with the same chord progression. There's a certain creative restlessness evident in these performances, like he couldn't wait to dash these songs off & get to the next thing. Sometimes this type of approach captures excitement or authenticity--here it just comes off kind of slapdash.

As a kid, I loved the "funny" songs on here, like "Motorpsycho Nitemare" & "I Shall Be Free No. 10." Both are satires of mainstream America's response to the counterculture, while not being particularly flattering to the latter. Today, I still find the former song sharp & witty (it's basically a shaggy dog story that mixes the "farmer's daughter" joke setup with the plot of the film Psycho & a splash of '60s generation gap), but "I Shall Be Free No. 10" is mostly a directionless throwaway. I'm sad to say the same for "Spanish Harlem Incident," a song where I really enjoy the melody & guitar work, but the lyrics do little more than exotify a "gypsy" woman (even making reference to his own "pale face") & make an awkward stab at capturing the whirling thrill of infatuation & early romance, a topic he would later write about masterfully.

Speaking of the weird way Dylan writes about women: "Ballad in Plain D," everyone! The 1 song that Dylan himself admits he shouldn't have written, it demonstrates all of Dylan's worst habits when it comes to depicting women: that peculiar intersection of idealizing, infantilizing, & dismissing. The song is also too long, too self-serious, & shakily performed. I feel the same way about the album's other long song, "Chimes of Freedom." I kinda get what he's going for & appreciate the awestruck poetry of the storm, but I can't listen to that song without zoning out & losing the thread of Dylan's ponderous verses. "My Back Pages" is better--I've always loved the oxymoronic chorus--& I understand his chafing at people's expectations of him as the voice of a generation, & it's entirely his right to decide that writing straightforward protest songs satisfies neither his artistic ambitions nor his soul, but when he apologizes for denouncing bigots & "Fearing not that I’d become my enemy in the instant that I preach," it sounds a bit too much like the mavens of respectability politics who claim there's no difference between fascists & antifascists. 

On the closing songs of both sides, though, Dylan gets everything right. "To Ramona" is a gentle love song that's really more about compassion--the sometimes unglamorous part of romance that doesn't get as many songs written about it. In a soft voice over his waltzing guitar, he starts out trying to give advice, but soon concludes that "deep in my heart I know there's no help I can bring." His job isn't to fix her, it's simply to be there, simply to listen, because he knows that one day he'll need her to do the same for him. Another song about maturity in relationships, though less positive, is "It Ain't Me Babe." In it, Dylan ends a relationship not because of anything sour, but because he lovingly but firmly refuses to be something he is not. It's a song about setting boundaries, about not allowing your lover's problems to subsume you, & it's the kind of mature breakup song that, again, we need more of.

Romantic love is the topic for 7 of this album's 11 songs, a high percentage relative to the average Dylan record. A few songs do a spectacular job at picking apart romance's peculiarities, a few are mediocre, & there are 2 total whiffs--which are not good stats by the standards of this era of Dylan. Handful of classics aside, Another Side is the least essential of Bob Dylan's 1st 9 releases.

The Optical Files #128: Heavy D & the Boyz - Peaceful Journey (1991)

Big Tyme might have been his commercial break, but Peaceful Journey finds Heavy D dialing in his sound, doubling down on the elements that worked & refining what didn't. The craft is at a consistently high level, & while the subject matter might be limited, Hev shows development as a lyricist where it counts--particularly his expanded sociopolitical consciousness.

DJ Eddie F. still contributes some nice turntablism but is no longer the default producer. Pete Rock emerges from his shadow to dominate the sound on this album, producing a plurality of its beats. Teddy Riley is back, once again producing a single track that also happens to be the album's lead single, "Is It Good To You." Marley Marl has an expanded role here, producing 3 tracks that have the most commercial polish of anything except the dancefloor opener "Now That We Found Love." Howie Tee laces 1 track, "I Can Make You Go Oooh," with a swanky horn break in the middle accompanying what is probably the best of Hev's sex rhymes. But the beatmaking heavyweight Pete Rock is really coming into his own here: the funky Booker T. & the MG's organ loop that drives "Don't Curse"; the escalating sax snatches & guitar strums of "Cuz He'z Alwayz Around"; the friendly Prince Paul-esque whistle that livens up the chorus of "Let It Rain" are all touches of a creative producer sharpening his craft & having a lot of fun doing so.

After you realize the opening 3 tracks are all about sex, you might worry that Hev is leaning a bit too hard into his Overweight Lover persona. Thankfully the middle of the album switches up the subject matter, starting with an ode to Black womanhood in "Sister, Sister," whose lyrics are thankfully more sophisticated than the genial respectability politics of the last album's "A Better Land." Sentiments like "I've grown up watching you struggle/While others work singles, you work doubles" or his observation about Black mothers worrying about their sons "on the street that society left us" are sharper & more cutting than anything Hev had written before. The same goes for the title track, that opens with a verse honoring Trouble T-Roy before zooming out to some harrowing descriptions of child abuse & trafficking. Compared to these 2 songs, the scolding "Letter To the Future," with its shortsighted condemnation of "black on black crime," feels like a letdown, but by then the point has been made.

Don't let the dancing & pop videos fool you: Heavy D was a rapper's rapper. Breath control, enunciation, vocal presence, flow versatility--his emceeing is technically flawless. Lyrically, he was one of the masters of the rhyme dismount. Too many rappers just stop their verses when their 16 bars run out & don't give too much thought to how they end. Hev's verses always have a satisfying feel of completion; often his last bar will contain a version of the chorus phrase or will otherwise lead into it. Examples are all over the album, but "Is It Good To You" has a few great ones.

Then of course there's "Don't Curse," a response to censorship efforts like the work of the PMRC in the early '90s. For the huge posse cut Hev recruits a who's who of NYC lyricism at the time: Kool G Rap, Big Daddy Kane, Grand Puba, CL Smooth & Q-Tip (not to mention producer Pete Rock trying his hand at rapping for only the 2nd time on record). More than just an emcee clinic, it's an implicit critique of a culture more invested in the letter of the law than its spirit, especially when that enables condemning Black people--the "Free Slick Rick" chant at the end of the song drives that point home.

The Jamaican-born Heavy D always included a reggae track on every album, & this one leaves behind the crooning of "Mood For Love" in favor of a Barrington Levy-style toasting on "Body and Mind," The song has everything: quicktongue call & response, dubstyle deejaying from Daddy Freddy, & even a Sister Nancy sample! Despite being a bit overstuffed, the song is a fine showcase for Hev's reggae chops & a late-album highlight.

Hev might not have reached his peak yet (for me that would be 1993's Blue Funk), & I have to admit the urge to listen to Heavy D doesn't strike me very often, but there's no denying the craftsmanship on display here. At 66 minutes, it's long by 1991 standards, & maybe a track or 2 could disappear & I wouldn't miss them, but overall it's a smooth, pleasant listen that manages not to fall into the pop-rap trap of lightweight irrelevancy.

The Optical Files #127: Bob Dylan - Blood on the Tracks (1975)

Today is my 37th birthday, & the random number generator obligingly gave me a CD that is not only one of the most important albums of my life, but is also one that I share with Tod, this blog's owner. I don't think I would be the same person if I had never heard Blood on the Tracks. Consequently, it's a bit hard for me to write about coherently, so you might have to settle for incoherence, dear reader. It's my birthday present to myself.

I received this CD as a Christmas gift the year I turned 15. For me this album is the smell of honeysuckle & fig tree; it's the untucked dress shirts I thought made me look both grownup & carefree; it's endless late night drives with a stupid disregard for traffic laws, cigarette in 1 hand & joint in the other, turning the radio louder always louder; it's sitting in the park watching pigeons circle the spires of the Pabellon Mudéjar because there was absolutely nothing else I needed or wanted to be doing. It's easy curiosity about the world & eagerness to try all of its flavors; it's tiny heartbreaks turned earthquakes through the microscope of inexperience. It's the 1st night away from home. It's a 25-way intersection with 25 green lights.

It's not just nostalgia that makes me think these thoughts. Blood on the Tracks is deeply invested in the past, with picking through the wreckage of relationships trying to piece together what went wrong, & particularly the choices we made that got us where we are. Every song here is imbued with melancholy, even the superficially upbeat "You're Gonna Make Me Lonesome When You Go"--which can't help foreseeing the painful end of the romance even in the midst of its thrill--or "Lily, Rosemary and the Jack of Hearts," which uses the Old West setting Dylan was fond of to tell a simple story of a bank robbery whose richness lies in hinted-at backstories & the spaces between its scenes. The sum total of all the choices these characters made got them where they end up: dead, on the run, condemned, at a crossroads--& all the most any can do is try something different moving forward. "She was looking to do just 1 good deed before she died."

From the delicate interplay of the stereo-separated twin guitars of the intro, notes of resignation & acceptance ring throughout "You're a Big Girl Now." Despite the folk-rock presentation, it has the swinging phrasing & melody of an R&B song, & it culminates in some of the most emotionally naked lines Dylan ever sang: "I'm going out of my mind with a pain that stops & starts/like a corkscrew to my heart/ever since we've been apart," punctuated by what might be an R&B singer's vamping but emerges from Dylan's throat as a primal howl of anguish. More anguish hides in plain sight in "If You See Her, Say Hello," a sister song to his earlier "Girl From the North Country," except here the circumstances of the breakup are left less to the imagination. The singer's emotional state depends on his ability to suppress his grief: "I've never gotten used to it, I've just learned to turn it off." Lyrics like these were moving to me back when I thought I knew heartbreak--now that I really do, well...corkscrew to the heart indeed.

There’s blood on the tracks, but no body. Whatever happened in this place, someone survived it & continued on down the line. This Dylan--humbled, wounded but still moving forward--is acutely aware that life is a series of decisions. He was 34 when he made this album, a few years younger than I am now. Was he starting to wonder, like I do, whether the bulk of his major life choices were already behind him? Do we only get a certain number? Is there a way to revise them or earn more? Will we ever know?

Is Blood on the Tracks the best Bob Dylan album? My brain says there are at least 2 or 3 others I can make compelling cases for; but my heart says of fucking course it is.

The Optical Files #126: Bob Dylan - Bringing It All Back Home (1965)

I'll admit, sometimes I forget about this album. Not because of the songs; between "Love Minus Zero/No Limit," "Mr. Tambourine Man" & "It's Alright, Ma (I'm Only Bleeding)," it has 2 of my absolute favorite Dylan tunes on it. (I used to love "Subterranean Homesick Blues," but it's way too played out for me now.) Despite that, I sometimes forget about it as an album, if you know what I mean. It kinda gets lost in between Another Side of Bob Dylan, the conclusion to his early acoustic period, & Highway 61 Revisited, his first fully electric album which came out only 5 months later. It is literally the halfway point between the 2, with 1 electric side & 1 acoustic side, & Dylan maturing into the more surreal, less literal lyrical style he explored on (& which I've always interpreted to be the meaning of the title of) Another Side. But this latest listen reminded me that, more than a collection of great songs, Bringing It All Back Home is a solid album in its own right.

The narrative that this record was where Dylan "went electric" isn't really true, since his very 1st released single was a plugged-in blues number called "Mixed Up Confusion" way back in 1962, but he certainly starts this one off like he means it with the rollicking "Subterranean Homesick Blues." For the next few songs he alternates raucous electric blues like "Maggie's Farm" & "Outlaw Blues" with gentle pieces like "She Belongs To Me" & "Love Minus Zero/No Limit," graced with touches of lilting lead guitar but ultimately no more rowdy than the full-band pieces on his so-called acoustic albums like "Corrina, Corrina." The 2 softer pieces on this side are focused on declarations of romantic love, & you get the sense of Dylan's yearning to conjure images to convey the depth of his love, but it keeps eluding him. "Love Minus Zero" is one of his best love songs ever, as he tries to capture the peace that his beloved brings to his otherwise tumultuous world. Its closing line, "My love, she's like some raven at my window with a broken wing," is so gorgeous that I'll even forgive Dylan's tendency to infantilize flawed women.

Meanwhile, "Maggie's Farm" & "On the Road Again" focus on different kinds of relationships. There is a peculiar obsession with family members in both of these songs, filtered through Dylan's surreal sensibilities to act as microcosms of various social dynamics that vex & frustrate him. "Bob Dylan's 115th Dream" starts with another cheeky nod to his "going electric," a fake-out start where Dylan & his engineer explode into delirious laughter when the band fails to come in. The song shares a melody with Another Side's "Motorpsycho Nitemare," & contains similar lyrics about being out of step with, & alienated & a little threatened by, middle America & what it has become.

More disillusionment with the modern United States is found on the album's 2nd half, the acoustic side, even though lead guitar figures still accompany the gorgeous "Mr. Tambourine Man," one of the loveliest melodies that Dylan ever wrote on an album that's somewhat short on melodies. (I'd only describe 5 of the 11 tracks as being particularly tuneful.) Another one is "Gates of Eden," which recalls both "Chimes of Freedom" & "My Back Pages" from the previous album, with a catalog of strange, expressive scenarios over strident, midtempo strumming. But side 2's knockout punch, of course, is "It's Alright, Ma (I'm Only Bleeding)," which is fascinating lyrically, all the way from its overall message to its rhyme scheme. I normally don't like talking about Dylan songs like poetry (though the language can be poetic, there's no denying that songs like "Mr. Tambourine Man" are pop songs through & through), but it makes it easier to discuss "It's Alright, Ma." Each verse is divided into 4 stanzas with a rhyme scheme that breaks down like this:

AAAAAB

CCCCCB

DDDDDB

EE (a phrase that ends in "Ma") B

The A, C & D rhymes come fast & furious, like Dylan is rushing to squeeze them all into the bar lines, while the B rhymes are ponderous & have a sense of finality. Underneath them, Dylan picks restless guitar chords that despite their complexity feel droning, like the old "Masters of War" where he incessantly strummed variations on a single minor chord. The apocalyptic imagery & air of despondency in the song (the first stanza ends with "there is no sense in trying") are so thick that the gentler, but no less resigned, closer "It's All Over Now, Baby Blue" feels like a ray of desaturated sunshine.

Even though not all the songs resonate with me (I've never really known what to do with "Outlaw Blues"), Bringing It All Back Home is more than just a repository for several Dylan classics. It is brilliantly sequenced, despite the 2 halves gimmick, & moves through emotional highs & lows in a way that ends up being more than the sum of its parts. The fact that he released this & Highway 61 Revisited within 5 months of each other is kind of mindblowing.
Bringing It All Back Home, I'm sorry for sleeping on you. But that's all over now, baby. 

The Optical Files #125: R.A. the Rugged Man - Die, Rugged Man, Die (2004)

Back in 2004 I was excited to cop the 1st full-length album (at least, 1st to be officially released) from Suffolk County's underground legend, horror & exploitation film connoisseur & critic, & boxing fanatic R.A. the Rugged Man. At the time, his give-no-fucks attitude felt like a breath of fresh air amid the bling-saturated early 2000s. My attitude on it is a little moderated now--I certainly can't stand by everything, & we'll get to that--but Die, Rugged Man, Die is still an endlessly compelling listen & still the best album that R.A. has made. 

One thing nobody can ever deny about R.A. is what a phenomenal rapper he is. With his thick Long Island accent, deep voice that doesn't boom so much as rumble up from the sewer like the grunting of CHUDs, & a mushmouthed bellow that recalls his claim "I was born in special ed classes," he's always been one of the most distinctive emcees out there. He lists his "musical influences" in the liner notes & the 1st 2 names are Kool G Rap & Big Daddy Kane, but he really didn't have to because those are the names that will come to anybody's mind when listening. Like Kool G, he uses a deliberately sloppy delivery with a hardcore lisp that conveys barely-contained contempt for the listener or the object of his scorn. Like Kane, he stays mostly plainspoken (on this album, at least), but every once in a while spins off into a syllabic rhyme run of stunning intensity, that keeps going past bar lines & neat divisible-by-4 phrases, pushing against the very structure of rap itself, like this beauty from "Chains":

Hospitable, hittable, cooler than Digable, criminal

Miracle, lyrical, take every syllable literal

It'll riddle, profitable, visible, irritable

Little brittle pitiful fists will do little but tickle, you typical

While he's certainly showing off here, every word has meaning, & he's clearly not just stringing rhyme words together for the fuck of it. He's not one to rhyme for the sake of riddling, & for every flight of fancy like the one quoted above, he's got plenty of unadorned bars that seek to do nothing but convey meaning: "I never seen the penitentiary/I been shook since I seen the Haiti Kid in Penitentiary 3," he declares in the aptly-titled "Midnight Thud."

What felt so fresh to me back in 2004 was the punk rock attitude R.A. displays here. His on-mic persona revels in being broke, fat, dirty & obscene, which is miles away from your average rapper's concern with projecting wealth & attractiveness. Most rappers I knew of at the time talked a lot about being poor, but only to contrast it with the material success they'd achieved. R.A. was different: "I don't wanna get rich, trust me, I'd rather be poor." He states his position most clearly in the closing lines of album opener "Lessons" (which ironically became a minor hit on college radio): 

I ain't down to sign autographs & shake your hands
I don't want trendy-ass followers for fans
I don't wanna sell records, I don't wanna be big
[...]I don't want fans who don't know who G Rap is.

From years of listening to underground rap, I was used to anti-mainstream messages. Hell, even the most mainstream rappers aspire to be seen as anti-mainstream. What felt new about Die, Rugged Man, Die was that it was not only anti-mainstream, it was explicitly anti-commercial, but totally not pretentious about it. R.A. doesn't make songs explicitly about class struggle, but the themes sneak in around the edges of tracks like "On the Block," which is a lot more than the surface-level nostalgia song about the golden age of hiphop that it appears to be. Amid the litany of shout-outs, he positions himself as a throwback to when it was truly a culture for those on the margins. "Rap is corporate now, it's all about endorsements/& the rich kids love it, so fuck them poor kids now," he spits, before wistfully recalling, "I remember when the mainstream hated rap music."

Of course, this anti-commercialism is more than just philosophical. R.A. has been very open about his mental illness; low self-esteem & fear of success go hand-in-hand with depression. The song "A Star Is Born," recounting the multi-label bidding war he was at the center of in the early '90s which resulted in his signing to Jive Records & getting dropped before he could release his debut, Night of the Bloody Apes, sounds like classic self-sabotage. Luckily, he's in a better place now, which I'll get to in a minute.

In keeping with his proud-to-be-broke stance, R.A. assures us that he's "never bought a beat for more than 3 Gs" &, well, we can tell. The production is certainly not this album's high point, even though an early incarnation of the White Mandingos (featuring Daryl Jennifer from Bad Brains & journalist Sacha Jenkins) worked on the rock guitar-driven "How Low." Ayatollah's Horace Andy "Skylarking" sample propelling the Wu-Tang feature "Chains" is pretty awesome, as are J-Zone's wacky xylophones on "Brawl." It's a little odd to say since R.A has a history of working with legendary producers like Havoc & Alchemist, but although the beats are fine, this isn't an album you put on just to vibe with the instrumentals.

A lot of R.A.'s lowlife delinquent persona works on a kind of outdated conception of shock value, a South Park-esque "equal opportunity offender" attitude that results in him doing a whole lot of punching down here, especially when it comes to women. He also seems to be slightly obsessed with being white, though not at a Haystak level. I just don't find that stuff as acceptable as I did when I was 19, but even if we say for the sake of argument that it's a me problem, there is nothing that justifies R.A. flagrantly using the n-word on the hidden track "Shoulda Never" that appears after about a minute of silence following the outro. It's the classic "I have lots of Black friends so everybody knows I'm not racist" canard. I'm glad he seems to have learned his lesson but honestly, old-school R.A. the Rugged Man seemed pretty ignorant on the subject of race.

In recent years, it seems like R.A. is doing very well for himself. He appears to be in a good place financially & mental health-wise. He's taking better care of himself. Good for him. He is aware of his status as elder statesman, & has done his part to elevate young artists like A-F-R-O. He seems less given to self-sabotage & more willing to embrace the success that his music has brought. With this, though, have come other changes. His rap style has changed: he now enunciates a lot cleaner, his lyrics have become a lot more showy, & he does a lot more speed rapping than he used to. I can't help but notice that this has been a parallel evolution to the artist that R.A. & everybody else gets sick of him being compared to: Eminem. Both are hyper-aware of their legacy, constantly out to prove how nice they are at the expense of everything else, & rap with huge chips on their shoulder. Lots of technique & not as much id. Consequently, both artists' output has suffered. While Legends Never Die & All My Heroes Are Dead are technically "better" (i.e. more polished, more proficient) than Die, Rugged Man, Die & Night of the Bloody Apes, but I can't help it if old fat sloppy crustified R.A. resonates with me more. I guess it's sad that his music seemed more compelling when he was in a self-destructive place in his life, but what's even sadder is that's not uncommon among rappers in general.

TL;DR

The Optical Files #124: Gang Starr - The Ownerz (2003)

I have to take a moment to wax nostalgic about the record store where I bought this CD, on release day, during the summer after I graduated high school. It was located in the Gum Springs shopping center, on Rte. 1 in Hybla Valley, close to my house in Mount Vernon VA. I do not remember what it was called, but I remember that it was independent & Black-owned & I went there every Tuesday after school to check out the new releases, because they had the good shit. I think most music heads who grew up when record stores were still a thing have warm memories of the ones they used to frequent, & this place was very important in the development of my tastes during that critical period of late adolescence. Like most indie record stores, it is long, long gone, but every time I'm up that way & happen to drive by there, I always pull into the parking lot to pay my respects.

By 2003, single-producer rap albums were almost as passé as emcee-DJ duos like Gang Starr. Since the group's last album, Guru had released 2 solo LPs: 1 entry in his Jazzmatazz series with a variety of beatmakers; & 1 that had 19 tracks made by 19 different producers. This was the fashion of the times, so a lot of people were surprised when Gang Starr delivered what would prove to be their final album to be released as a living duo. As opposed to the 71 minutes of Guru's last album, The Ownerz was a mean, less than an hour long, dose of pure Gang Starr magic, with an added layer of grime that suited the duo as they aged into undisputed OG status.

I'll make it simple & plain: for my money, DJ Premier is the best pure beatmaker of all time. Sure, there are other cats who rival him in the arena of well-rounded producerdom, but when it comes to sample-based boom-bap, nobody can touch his catalog or his seemingly intuitive skill. Play me a Preemo beat I've never heard before, & I can tell you who produced it within 5 seconds. In addition to his iconic vocal scratch choruses, Preemo always brings you drum loops with heavy swing, short MPC chops, & syncopated basslines that move with the loping swagger of the cockiest street player. This sounds like a simple formula that could get old fast, but part of his genius is the variety he is able to achieve with those limited ingredients. "Nice Girl, Wrong Place" is a good example: the saturated bass & skanky guitar samples are triggered in time with the kick drum rhythm. The chops are short & stabby, often abruptly switching to a different cut in the middle of a measure (he never disables the interrupt function on his MPC), giving the composition lots of room to breathe. That's another part of Preemo's genius: despite the layers of samples, it never becomes chaotic or noisy like a lot of NYC boom-bap producers do. The bounce is always chill. The abovementioned song is a standout, but so is every other damn beat on this album, so it's hard to pick highlights. The brilliance of the production shines even through the horrendously brickwalled master, which is loud enough to produce noticeable vocal clipping on songs like "Capture (Militia Pt. 3)." 2003 was not a good time for album mastering.

Gang Starr's other half, Guru, doesn't get nearly the flowers Preem does, but he's equally deserving of them. In the late '80s, his laid-back Rakim-esque delivery concealed finely honed rhyme writing. He was a master of 2 & 3-syllable rhymes with internal repetition, something the likes of Lord Finesse took inspiration from, & thereby influenced Big L. Guru always spoke with the detached semi-objectivity of a street-level observer. Although you knew he was a participant in the things he talked about, there was something so cool about him, like he was floating above the scenario, an attribute that was a major influence on emcees like Nas. Unfortunately, Guru was pretty free with the homophobic slurs. There are 6 on this album, 4 of which are out of Guru's mouth, on "Deadly Habitz," "Playtawin," & 2 on "Who Got Gunz." Another one comes courtesy of Billy Danze on the latter song, & also whoever yells the intro to "Peace of Mine," which is a shame because it features a nicely sinister beat with a moody bassy piano phrase reminiscent of Havoc's "Shook Ones Pt. 2." In listening back to a lot of rap albums from this era for this project, I haven't found as much flagrant homophobia as I was expecting--you'll get 1 or 2 slurs per album, usually casual & not about a specific person--but it's a bit more pervasive here than usual. It's not Vinnie Paz levels or anything, but Guru should have known better.

Guru's hood consciousness shows up in the dead prez-flavored "Riot Akt," where he describes the powder keg conditions of urban America with apocalyptic undertones, over a suitably ominous beat constructed from descending horn samples, & begging the listener to "Realize what it is to be oppressed & afflicted/Subjected to sick shit, knowing others live different." Another late-album highlight is the ethereal harps & electric pianos of "In This Life," complete with a great Snoop Dogg feature, even though he doesn't drop as much consciousness as you'd think. The best feature on the album, though, comes from the great Freddie Foxxx. I never owned any of his CDs so I won't get many chances to write about him in this series, but let it be known that Freddie has one of my favorite deliveries ever--almost comically testosterone-fueled but utterly convincing. His verse on "Capture (Militia Pt. 3)" might be his best verse ever: "Y'all know who wrote the bible in rap, for keeping it real/Y'all know who buck fifty your face, I'm keeping it Seal." Bumpy has the voice, the lyrics, the flow, & the uncompromising attitude. I'm tired of people leaving him out of the conversation.

Despite some questionable content, The Ownerz showcases 2 master craftsmen at pretty much the peak of their powers. So few legendary rap groups (or any other kind of group for that matter) get to go out on such a high note. I enjoyed the posthumous One of the Best Yet record that came out a few years ago, but as far as I'm concerned The Ownerz will always be Gang Starr's swansong.

The Optical Files #123: Bob Dylan - Pat Garrett & Billy the Kid (1973)

This was only my 2nd time ever listening to this CD. I know this because I remember the 1st time fairly well--even if I don't remember where I was, I remember what I was doing: wandering the streets of a Spanish city (probably Sevilla, but it might have been Granada, Córdoba or even Barcelona) listening on my Discman & wondering what the hell kind of album I had just bought. Aside from the small print on the cover that says "Bob Dylan Soundtrack," this is presented as a regular studio album by Dylan. I knew that it came somewhere between New Morning & Blood on the Tracks, both of which I loved. But this is not a Dylan album. This is a movie soundtrack written & performed by Bob Dylan, with a grand total of 2 actual songs on it, 1 of which is repeated in 3 different incarnations. A bit puzzled & a bit disappointed, after it ended I took the CD out of my Discman & never listened to it again.

In retrospect, as a stranger wandering through a strange town like a mythical cowboy hero was a great way to first experience this album, & I wish I had been a little less beholden to my expectations & a little more open to what the CD had to offer. I should say that I've never been much of a movie score listener: I love film music in the context of films, but as a listening experience I have trouble concentrating. Music that is written specifically to accompany visuals tends to have a hard time standing on its own. A lot of people like it for mood-setting background music or for its hypnotic repetitive qualities, both of which are roles the plucky acoustic guitar textures on this disc serve well. I should also add that I haven't seen the film. Sam Peckinpah has a great reputation among cinephiles, but I've only ever watched The Wild Bunch & Straw Dogs, neither of which I liked very much.

I know Dylan wrote & recorded a lot more songs for these sessions (1 of which was a fragment called "Rock Me Mama" that ended up being completed 30 years later by Old Crow Medicine Show & released as "Wagon Wheel"). I would almost like 2 different albums: one with all the songs, & another pure instrumental soundtrack album. Contrary to how I felt about it 20 years ago, today I think the songs with vocals seem out of place among the instrumental mood pieces.

Of course, one of those songs with vocals is "Knockin' On Heaven's Door," which I'm sure is one of Dylan's most iconic (& most covered) songs. I don't have anything to say about it here that hasn't already been said, except that this was the first time I've deliberately played this song in many years (as opposed to hearing it on the radio or whatever) & it was a lot shorter than I remembered. Anyway, Pat Garrett & Billy the Kid the album is probably remembered by most people as "the album with 'Knockin' On Heaven's Door' plus a bunch of other stuff," but the other song with lyrics, "Billy," is interesting too. This was an era when movies would have musical montages where pop singers would sing directly to the characters ("Billy they don't like you to be so free.") It's a decent song, & Dylan has abandoned his Nashville Skyline croon in favor of the throaty howl he started to transition to on New Morning. Unfortunately, we have to hear this song in 3 different versions, the last of which he sings in a gravelly growl that I suspect might be an attempt to sound like Kris Kristofferson, who stars in the film.

When it comes to the instrumental stuff, the musicianship is at a very high level, particularly Booker T.'s bass playing. The opening track sets the tone, with its acoustic guitar melodies & insistent tambourine. The next few tracks are all variations on that theme: 3-chord strummy guitar foundations for dusty picked melodies. This repetitiveness (both within the songs & between them) can certainly become hypnotic, but it can also become boring. Thankfully it switches up a bit on "Bunkhouse Theme," the best & most harmonically complex of the instrumental tracks, which is a guitar duet between Dylan picking restless arpeggios & Carol Hunter exploring with her 12-string.

No, I won't be playing this album again for a while. It's still kinda weird & unsatisfying & not really my thing. But today I can at least appreciate it for what it is. Next time I'm floating around a strange European city, wandering beneath Roman archways & over stone bridges & through narrow alleys lined with stout doors of raw oak, I hope I'll have remembered to bring it.