Monday, November 29, 2004

Reinvention Albums Loyal Pipeline Reader Steve C. made a comment on the recent U2 post, putting forth the idea that Achtung Baby was the greatest example of a rock band reinventing itself in one album.  I chewed on that for a little bit.  It didn't strike me as intuitively true, though I wasn't able to come up with an immediate example of something better.  I went through my collection, which is certainly far from complete, and came up with a few nominees.  The nominees for greatest rock reinvention album are: The Beach Boys-Pet Sounds: Certainly, a stunning achievement and a quantum leap forward for the band, by that time essentially reduced to Brian Wilson and all the people in his head, making it roughly the size of KC and the Sunshine Band.  But does a quantum leap forward consitute a reinvention?  It's a blurry line with this album.  Gone are the singles and beach themes of previous works.  In are songs about lost childhood and More Serious Stuff.  On the surface the band sounds close to their previous incarnations.  The soaring, unreal vocal harmonies are there.  Everything happening beneath that is completely transformed for the better, though.  But is it a reinvention?  I'm not sure.  Now, the Smile album, had it been completed originally, might have been a reinvention.  "Good Vibrations" blew the other Beach Boys' minds so much they didn't know what to say when they heard Brian Wilson's demo.  They thought he had gone nuts, which, of course, he had.  But he was right on the cusp of something wonderful and unique, and it never came out.  Not even on the rereleased Smile, from what I understand, captures the promise of what Wilson could have achieved.  BTW, I know I've plugged the Brian Wilson autobiography "Wouldn't It Be Nice?" before, but if you're a fan in any way, check it out.  That guy's been to hell and back about 10 different ways. Beastie Boys-Paul's Boutique: All you have to do is listen to Liscensed to Ill first.  Then check out Paul's Boutique.  It's rap, but that's about the only thing that carries over.  A transcendant album, a true reinvention, but you'd probably have to be a BBoys fan to appreciate the magnitude of the accomplishment. Beastie Boys-Check Your Head: That's right.  All you have to do is listen to Paul's Boutique, then check out Check Your Head.  No longer rap, not punk rock, not sure what it is, but it is immediately recognizable as the Beastie Boys and unlike any other album you've ever heard.  I would say this is probably more of a reinvention than Paul's Boutique, which was still ostensibly rap.  This is a bunch of rappers becoming a band, and a damn good one at that. Beatles-Sgt. Pepper: A reinvention?  I think it's arguable at a minimum.  This album defines psychedelia and takes it places nobody else ever thought of.  Even going back to Revolver (less than a year before), the only real indication of what is to come is Lennon's "Tomorrow Never Knows", and that really isn't psychedelia so much as creative use of feedback, backwards recording and lyrics suggesting people "turn off their minds, relax, and float downstream."  OK, maybe a little psychedelia there.  But still, Sgt. Pepper is a monumental achievement that is markedly different from anything the Beatles had ever done.  It didn't just reinvent the Beatles, it reinvented a culture.  In your face, U2! Radiohead gets a nod from me as a band that has completely reinvented itself, but their progression has been steady and spread out over five or six albums.  There's no way you can hear Pablo Honey or even The Bends and have a clue of what was to come on subsequent albums.  Each one gets more disparate and harder to access, but once you do the rewards are great. Talking Heads-Remain In Light: More of a departure album than a reinvention that would define the rest of their career, this album is rife with dense afro beats and techno sensibilities.  (I'm sorry.  I didn't just write the phrase "techno sensibilities", did I?)  This album is far and away not like any other Heads album before or since.  And for my money, I don't think it's all that great.  Good, not great, and certainly not the first Talking Heads album I listen to. Ween has made a career of reinventing itself, because Ween was never any one specific thing to begin with.  They've done a guitar album (God Ween Satan), a holed-up-in-a-house-for-six-months-with-mononucleosis-and-lots-of-drugs album (The Pod), a techno album (Pure Guava), a Philly Soul album (Chocolate and Cheese), a country album (12 Country Greats), and then a bunch more albums that went various directions all at once.  If you've ever listened to Ween and didn't enjoy it, my suggestion to you is that you weren't on enough or the right kind of drugs.  But if you were...pure genius. OK, that's my list.  I still feel like there's a better example out there, but I can't come up with it.  AC/DC switching to Brian Johnson after Bon Scott died?  They sounded almost the same, somehow.  Van Halen after Sammy Hagar joined the band?  Ooh, a total reinvention, yes, but one that absolutely sucked.  How about Exile, who had the '70s funk disco hit "I Wanna Kiss You All Over", then became a country band.  Sure, but who cares?  What about when Jefferson Airplane became Jefferson Starship, then just Starship?  They went from a decent psychedelic band featuring the insane Grace Slick to a bad '80s band featuring the insane Grace Slick.  No?  What about when Styx put out Mr. Roboto after Paradise City?  They reinvented themselves into a band with absolutely no future!  What about KISS's Lick It Up?  That's a total reinvention, in that they lost their only interesting gimmick and their badass guitarist.  Bottom line, U2 changed their game while they were on top of their game, and they did it at the exact right moment when music was changing.  If they put out Joshua Tree II, it flops in 1991.  It wasn't grunge.  And rather than try to be grunge, U2 went the other way and put down the dance tracks.  And now, here they are again, still relevant, still getting me excited about what they're doing.  I'd have never thought that would happen after I heard Achtung Baby, but maybe Achtung Baby had to happen for this new stuff to happen.   11:58:02 PM    Say what?[]

Scarlett O’Hara Was Hot and Charming, But Also A Completely Spoiled Bitch, and Rhett Butler Was Right To Walk Out Of Her Life   I watched Gone With the Wind for the first time recently.  I understand that many volumes have been written about the things I am going to write about, but I haven’t read any of them, so I’m not going to let that stop me.   I can see why such a hubbub has been made about the movie being one of the all-time greats, especially when considered in the context of when it was made, 1939.  I can’t think of another movie from that era that has such a sweeping landscape and sprawling storyline.  And of course it was filmed in color, no small matter back then.    I want to put forth an idea which may be controversial: 70% of the people who defend this movie as “The Greatest Movie Ever” are likely to be women.  And many of those probably aren’t black women.   Why do I say that?  Well, the racial demographic is pretty easy to understand once you see the movie.  The first time the phrase “darkie” was used, I wasn’t sure I heard it right.  Turns out I did.  Now, I don’t really have a problem with that, as the movie is a story of a bygone era and culture.  That institutionalized racism was a part of that culture doesn’t mean the culture’s story isn’t worth telling, but I can sure understand why a lot of people wouldn’t want to watch a story about a bunch of plantation royalty lamenting the loss of their easy life built on the backbone of slave labor.   What about women generally?  Why do they love this movie?   The protagonist, Scarlett O’Hara, is a completely self-absorbed manipulative bitch.  Don’t get me wrong; she’s compelling to watch in a train wreck sort of way.  And Vivian Leigh is flaming hot.  But who really watches that movie and sympathizes in any way with Scarlett, other than completely self-absorbed manipulative bitches?   Well, my wife, for one.  After we watched the movie, I asked Jane if she thought Scarlett would ever get Rhett again.  I knew the real answer: No fucking way Rhett goes back to her!  Why would he?  She’s burned him too many times, and he’s not exactly hurting for money or female companionship.  He doesn’t need her, and he's tired of her selfish ways.  He doesn’t give a damn!  Even to the very end, as Rhett’s walking out the door, what does Scarlett say to him?    “But what will become of me?  Who will take care of me?”    Or something very close to that.  It’s still all about her.  Rhett’s never been about Rhett.  We see what Rhett values throughout the movie: Honor.  It’s why he likes Belle, the town whore, and Scarlett’s cousin, played by Olivia de Haviland.  They have honor.  OK, plus Belle probably blew Rhett a few times.  But she did it with honor.   When I asked Jane if she thought Scarlett would get Rhett back, do you know what she said?  “Oh, maybe”.  Granted, that might not sound very committed, but it was the way she said it, very hopeful-like.  She wanted Scarlett to get Rhett.    But why?  I don’t get it.  Jane would hate Scarlett O’Hara if she knew her in real life.  Maybe she likes Scarlett because she made that dress out of the curtains, something that appeals to Jane’s DIY sensibilities.  I can’t figure out any other reason why Jane would root for Scarlett to come out ahead in the end.  Rhett was the real hero in the movie, a certified badass who stood up for principle, but also gave love a chance until he was honest enough with himself to get out and save his own dignity, of which Scarlett had none.  This is clear to everyone, isn’t it?   Watching the movie, I felt like I was seeing a sort of pre-cognitive blueprint for American Romance.  Was Rhett Butler the perfect manifestation of the suave, macho hero, or was he the inspiration for it?  I wonder.    As a sidenote, I happened upon a Vivien Leigh website and read her life story.  It’s pretty interesting stuff; I didn’t realize she had been married to Laurence Olivier.  She suffered from manic-depressive disorders as well as tuberculosis, which finally caused her death in 1967.  Because her mental illness wasn’t well understood at the time, she gained a reputation for being difficult to work with.  Then again, you try going to work after getting shock treatments sometime and see how easy you are to get along with.  She won two Oscars, for Gone With the Wind and A Streetcar Named Desire (another great movie I haven't seen), and was an accomplished stage actress.    I shouldn’t be too hard on people who identify with Scarlett.  Truth is, after watching the film it is easy for me to imagine being a young or old man in 1939, seeing Vivian Leigh on the screen and developing a massive crush, self-absorbed manipulative bitch or not.    I suppose I can see how Rhett Butler had the same problem, too.   11:18:15 PM    Say what?[]

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