"Sink or Swim" by The Gaslight Anthem

I buy three new albums every month.  I deviate from that number occasionally, but I stay pretty consistent with it.  Figuring out which three to choose each month is a fun exercise usually occuring on the first of the month or the last day of the previous month.  Recently I've started using the MP3 download section of Amazon.com to sample albums as the primary way of determining which ones make the cut.  Amazon gives 30 seconds or so of each song which I've found is ideal for getting a preliminary feel for the music. 

About a year ago, The Gaslight Anthem made their way onto my radar and I sampled their first album, "Sink or Swim."  But it just didn't do much for me.  Maybe a little too loud, a little too raucous.  Several months later, though -- November, to be exact -- I was researching music for that month and decided to give "Sink or Swim" another listen.  And for whatever reason, this time around it really hit me.  What was the difference?  I honestly don't know, but I'm content to live in that agnosis.  One of the things I really love about music -- and I suppose one could say this about any artform -- is that the experience of a given piece is never exactly the same twice.  The overall feel of a song is cast through the prism of our perceptions in the given moment. 

Anyway, "Sink or Swim" ended up being my favorite album on my November playlist, and one of my favorites in recent history. The rawness that turned me off on first audition drew me in and ends up really giving a lot of flavor to this band's debut offering.  Blue-collar and focused on a few characters introduced to the listener in each track, The Gaslight Anthem's lyrical style is clearly influenced by fellow Jersey rocker Bruce Springsteen.  And for those of us of a certain age, the experience might be more than a little reminiscent of the first time you heard Bon Jovi's "Living on a Prayer."  Has the Garden State cornered the market on this sound?  Hmmm, maybe.  Pete Yorn's aural flavor is not far off either.  There you go -- four New Jersey acts with distinct styles but with some commonalities tying them all together.  Someone start a Facebook group!

Every track on "Sink or Swim" is a hit -- and there's a very short list of albums I'd say that about -- but here are a few that really stand out:

• The Navesink Banks:  I guess this one stands out mostly because it's a straightforward, mostly acoustic ballad on an album that otherwise has so many features of punk, arena rock and alternative.  I won't pretend I know for certain what this song is about, but there's a fairly obvious riff on lingering guilt and regret that resonates with the darker side of our memories.
• We Came to Dance:  OK, to be honest, the lyrics in this song are a little cheesy.  It's about a group of guys who arrive at a dance hall and, well, their declaration of purpose is right there in the title.  But the cheese somehow doesn't bother me.  And I really love the line, "If I'm not your kind, then don't tell a soul/I'm not the one who hates being alone, so come on."  Maybe because I've met women who've made me think like that. 
• Red in the Morning:  There's so much energy in this song.  The band does a great job of building the tension in each verse and just when it seems like it's just going to explode into a cacophonous mess of lachrymose screaming, somehow they manage to rein it in and keep it focused. 

This is such a fantastic album.  If you don't own it, go and buy it now.  5 STARS for The Gaslight Anthem's "Sink or Swim."

5 stars: Excellent; a must-have for any music lover
4 stars: A great addition to your collection
3 stars: An effort that brings adequate quality, though not necessarily consistently
2 stars: A few good songs/pieces, but not a good album overall
1 star: Don't bother; at best, buy the singles of a song or two

"Illinois" by Sufjan Stevens

First of all, I'm not even sure "Illinois" is actually the title.  Most people I know call it "Illinoise" or "Come on Feel the Illinoise" since those words appear on the cover.  But in any official listings of the album, including the website for Asthmatic Kitty (Stevens' record label) it's always just "Illinois."  So that's what we'll call it for the purposes of this review.

All Sufjan Stevens fans know this is the second installment of Sufjan's Fifty States Project, in which he aspires to record an album for each state in the Union.  (Stevens' home state of Michigan was naturally the first.)  It was a facetious claim  -- I'm pretty sure he never really was serious about that and Sufjan may have even come out and said so -- but it's a fun idea and I can't help but imagine what the Pennsylvania album might have featured. 

Anyway, on to the music.  This is a beautiful album.  Stevens has become one of my favorite artists, and this is the first album of his I came to know.  I'm going to dedicate this first album review as a tribute of sorts to Melanie Johnston, 1976-2010.  Melanie was my first music friend -- I've known her since we met on a Kentucky Mission Trip in 1994 -- and no single person has influenced my musical tastes as much as Melanie.  She changed the lives of everyone she met, right up until the day she passed on to that Great Concert Venue in the Sky this past September after a valiant battle with breast cancer.  Sufjan Stevens was one of the artists she introduced into my world. 

Best tracks:

• John Wayne Gacy, Jr.: Who knew a song about a serial killer could be so moving?
• Decatur, Or, Round of Applause for Your Stepmother!:  A jaunty little piece that's just too catchy to ignore
• Chicago: Stevens has released a few alternate versions of this song in recent years, but I think this one is probably the best.
• Casimir Pulaski Day: Best song in Stevens' entire canon in my opinion.  This one will always give me pause because it's a song about a young woman dying of cancer.  Melanie told me I had to hear this song and then was diagnosed with breast cancer a few months later.  But even without that personal impact, this is a hell of a song.  Another friend of mine -- Jessie or Abby Badach, I think -- once said, "Sufjan plays the banjo as if it's an entirely different instrument," and that's exactly how I feel.  Another thing I really love about Stevens' work in general is that it offers a complex and candid exploration of spirituality -- not intensely loyal to any religion (though there are clear references to Christianity in several works) but not quite discarding the idea out-of-hand.  In this song, it's the line, "Tuesday night at the Bible study/We lift our hands and pray over your body/But nothing ever happens."  Simple and to the point but overflowing with meaning and the kinds of questions we all face at some time or another in our lives.
• The Predatory Wasp of the Palisades is Out to Get Us!:  There's just something smooth and perfect about the acoustic guitar in this song.

I'm not crazy about all of the shorter, mostly instrumental pieces that dot the map of this album, but I don't mind them either, and of course, they're meant to provide some nice transition between the major pieces in this set, which they do adequately.  Overall, this album is one of my all-time favorites.  5 STARS for Sufjan Stevens' "Illinois."

5 stars: Excellent; a must-have for any music lover
4 stars: A great addition to your collection
3 stars: An effort that brings adequate quality, though not necessarily consistently
2 stars: A few good songs/pieces, but not a good album overall
1 star: Don't bother; at best, buy the singles of a song or two

"Everyday" by Dave Matthews Band

I was late jumping on the Dave Matthews Band-wagon.  I didn't really check them out until 1997 when I bought "Crash" about a year after graduating from Allegheny College, but then I was instantly hooked.  I'm a guitar player with a mostly acoustic style, and here was a band who really rocked out with a mostly acoustic style.  After devouring "Crash" I quickled moved on to "Under the Table and Dreaming."  I bought "Before These Crowded Streets" the week it was released  -- in Spring 1998 if I remember correctly -- and got "Remember Two Things" as a Christmas present later that year.  I loved each one of those albums and the band was easily my favorite actively recording artist (favorite defunct artist:  Led Zeppelin).  I wondered how long DMB could sustain this string of hits. 

That was pretty much it, as it turns out. 

I know a few people who like "Everyday," but not many, and I have yet to meet someone who loves it.  DMB suddenly abandoned their grassroots acoustic sound for a slicker, louder tenor.  Reportedly the recording sessions included the first-ever moment in which Dave Matthews picked up an electric guitar with serious intentions.  I don't have any problem with bands who try to re-invent themselves after early success, and I might even argue that artists with long careers absolutely need to do so at some point (see: The Beatles; Led Zeppelin; Elvis Presley).  Unfortunately, in some cases it just doesn't work, and that's what happened here.  Where earlier DMB efforts showed up at your doorstep like a neighbor you liked even more once you got to know her, on "Everyday" each over-produced track tries to drive a Mack truck through your front door. 

I read an interview of Dave Matthews around the time of the album's release and I remember him talking about going through a difficult time in his personal life and how that affected his writing.  However, though the band recorded some darker stuff in the studio (during what fans came to call "The Lillywhite Sessions," after producer Steve Lillywhite), in the end they scrapped those songs because Dave never wanted to be the kind of artist who recorded music that touched on the more desperate arcs of our lives' stories.  Perhaps that accounts for the emptiness in this album's lyrical turns.  Did Dave force himself to write happy songs, sacrificing authenticity of emotion in order to maintain a reputation for joyfulness?  It seems a harsh assessment but it's hard to deny when you listen to the album.

Two notable tracks:

• Everyday: The one song in which the more upbeat style seems to work is the title track. It's a decent song that incorporates Gospel overtones into the band's more classic sound.  Not one of the best songs in the DMB repertoire -- not by a long shot -- rather, merely adequate.
• Angel: I'm not sure if this song was purposely meant to elicit comparisons to the Jimi Hendrix song of the same name, but if it's not a deliberate tribute, one has to think there was at least a subconscious inspiration.  Again, adequate but not much more.

It hurts me to say this, since I'd loved every DMB release up to this point, but there's not another song on this album worth your time, let alone your money.  2 STARS for Dave Matthews Band's "Everyday."

5 stars: Excellent; a must-have for any music lover
4 stars: A great addition to your collection
3 stars: An effort that brings adequate quality, though not necessarily consistently
2 stars: A few good songs/pieces, but not a good album overall
1 star: Don't bother; at best, buy the singles of a song or two

Music Like Bacon

"Music, like bacon, makes everything better." -- Me

It's one of the more enduring truisms of life, is it not?  In fact, I'm surprised this blog title was even available.  My purpose in creating this blog was to offer my reviews of music in my library.  Because let's face it:  The world can only be a better place if I'm helping it know what music to listen to. 

I'm not necessarily going to give in-depth analysis of the artistic value of each song; if you really want that, subscribe to Rolling Stone.  What I want to do is tell you how the music hits me -- good, bad or in-between.  In the process, I'll probably reflect a little on my life because music isn't meant to be a static phenomenon to be placed on a shelf or admired in a vacuum; it's meant to interact with the ups and downs of our daily lives -- the high highs, the low lows, and yeah, even the mundane shuffling of our feet from one task to the next as we travel down the path to our reward in heaven.  Along the way, I'll probably take myself WAY too seriously, but hey, you're getting this for free so don't complain.

I'm going to pull, from my own collection, which includes music from several eras, but mostly the 1970s to present day.  So, the objects of my treatments may not be the newest releases, but unless your musical taste is exactly like mine, it could be new to you.  I'll probably offer more reviews on albums I like rather than dislike, since you don't necessarily need my help to find crappy music (just turn on the nearest radio) but I'll go after a few turkeys as well, just to keep things interesting.

I'm going to mostly offer reviews of entire albums, because I believe in committing to an album, not just cherry-picking the popular songs we hear on the radio.  Without giving a whole album the chance to invade our lives, there's too much potential to miss a great song just because some record company executive didn't think it would appeal to the lowest common denominator of the cattle known as radio listeners.  That said, I might throw in a few comments on some singles if I feel so inclined.

One more note:  I would love to hear your takes on this music too, so I strongly encourage posting of comments.  Tell me if you agree or disagree and why.  I want to hear it!