Flying Lotus/Eskmo

I'm doing a little better than Glenn, I think, so for the nonce I'll decline. It's a lot better to be a 68-year-old in this dreadful journalistic environment than to be whatever Glenn is these days--and I remember him when he was just a goodprog-inclined kid.

One of my favorite musical moments of last year was putting on Beatle Beginnings: Quarrymen One and hearing the first song, "Bad Penny Blues," and finding where McCartney first heard the opening of "Lady Madonna."  It created that rarity, making McCartney endearing by thinking about the joy he got from that recording and wanting to use it so many years later. 

How could anyone deny that guitar backbeat in Oh Darlin'?  It's like Steve Cropper has risen from the grave and is coming for your children.  If he were dead, I mean.  The other morning they dropped "Gently Weeps" on KEXP's typically indie-heavy New York morning show, and it just destroyed all takers.  It's lucky I held on to the wheel.  That thing just builds to a monster of "weep."  Those stately chords marching onward, with EC ducking & weaving.  I'm no rockist, but Jesus, if Arcade Fire & The Beatles wear the same grade (give or take), there's a serious curve going on.  But what are ya gonna do?  Things are what they are.  My advice to indie musicians:  think hard about whether "I'm not into roots music, maaaaan," really means  "I can't be bothered to learn more than these few chords."  Creativity takes many forms and can be expressed in many ways.  But man, it's so much easier to create when you've done some time exploring your instrument.  Now I sort of understand when reviewers complain about creative writing schools & their impact on modern lit.  So much indie, you feel like giving it a grade.  Well done, well done!  Just not necessarily listening to it again.

Sorry for the rant.  For those with the ability to play 24-bit sound, that little apple with the removable usb drive is the way to go, reissue-wise.  I really can't imagine the Beatles sounding much better.

Anyway, Long Island, Stones guy, been reading xgau since at least the Creem with Spider-Man on the cover.  Spider-Man has been my gateway to so many things, now that I think of it.  But maybe earlier, because we got Newsday delivered.  Love xgau's ears, find his writing maddening sometimes (we won't talk about the PE piece, but, to generalize, his frequent positing that those who don't see things his way are "fools").  I like almost everything he likes, and I can't say that about any other critic.  But I'm also partial to, let's say, the Dionysian school of rock criticism (Bangs, Eddy, etc.).  Two sides of my brain maybe.  Keeps things interesting, because I'm always in a dialog with myself about music.  Let's hope I don't start hearing voices too.  Well, like prog for instance.  Dirty word around here I know.  Difference is, indie music just *signifies* prog, like, hey man, we listen to prog!  I agree, that's bad.  But it's not bad 'cause it's prog, it's bad because it is *bad* prog.  In my world view, I believe there can be good prog.  Those prog guys, well here I go again, they could *play*.  You might not like 'em on Tales of Topographic Oceans so much, but they sound just fine on Hunky Dory.

Okay, now I'm really rambling.  Over and out...

Ah, yes, just your favorite of 1967.  What a year.

The only "bad" Beatles albums, I think, are Let It Be and Beatles For Sale, but I only feel those so much less because Beatles standards are so ferociously high.  Both are, in reality, very good albums.

I don't think there's anything like a bad Beatles record.  I'm a normally wired 40-something educated white American: they're my favorite band by most meaningful measures.  I can't analyze any Beatles album with less than slack-jawed admiration. 

 

But I do differ in my levels of emotional reaction and affinity, and I feel some extra distance from both Abbey Road and the White Album.  The Beatles' early-mid-late evolution sounds to me like a progression through different stages of self-consciousness, and by the late period (post-Pepper is what I mean, but it's really a continuum) they seem to have a complex relationship to fame, genius, and each other that isn't always as much fun, for me, as their exuberant early albums or commanding middle ones. 

 

One thing that continually amazes me is how they never repeated themselves after the first four albums, which strike me like parts of a whole.  (I grew up with the U.K. versions and never looked sideways.)  Not even Rubber Soul / Revolver or Pepper / Magical Mystery Tour, two sequences that I used to think of as pairs, sound like they could have emerged from the same moment.  So if I don't feel the White Album as much as others, I appreciate it for moving forward.

Abbey Road is my second favorite Beatles album after Rubber Soul.  All classics on the first side (seeing "Octopus's Garden" performed on the Muppets as a child helps!), and then the suite on the second side is very wonderful.  For me, it's the epitome of all of the strengths of the late Beatles.

Bob: It's enough for me that you like the Best Coast album. I'll let you slide on the Frankie Rose. It's a sound/production record, as opposed to Best Coast, which is more a sound/word record. It's about cresting sound as rising and falling emotions, or it's a  Velvet Underground as surf rock record, or it's a Phil Spector as Mo Tucker record. (It's awfully interesting to see a drummer as talented as Rose so dedicated to the Mo Tucker style.) But then, I'd happily listen to a whole album based on the Velvet Undergound's "The Ocean." (Not that this is, but you get my point.)

Yanojo, I agree no such thing. As I've told you many many many times, ranking requires relistening and grading requires relistening. Relistening is work--nice work and I can get it (sometimes, and at decreasing pay rates). But work. Stop asking these dumb, trivial questions. Grades and ranks are a means to an end, not an end in themselves.

Also: Try hearing "Oh! Darling" as a song from McCartney to Lennon. Works! Just like the "You and I have memories / Longer than the road that stretches out ahead" line in "Two of Us."