In this fast paced, crazy iPoddified world, nobody sits and listens to CDs anymore, or so I'm told. In fact, most people don't even purchase entire albums anymore, but in the olden days some of us would actually listen to a CD from start to finish. Now you can just listen to a thousand tracks on shuffle, select just the tunes you want to hear, or never even buy the crappiest tracks to begin with. However, some albums are actually listenable all the way except for one glaring defect that just had to be skipped over. Here are a few albums that are SO CLOSE to being perfect.
The Beatles, Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, "Within You Without You". Other people might claim that Paul's schmaltzy "When I'm 64" kills this album's momentum, but I disagree. There's just something about the sitar, especially the one on this George Harrison song, that is just grating. It was probably cool at the time (and might still be, if you're high), but now it's merely an annoying, atonal downer.
The Police, Synchronicity, "Mother". This Andy Summers wailing, tuneless dirge brings this album to a complete halt. Here's the irony: I bet he's full of shit and doesn't even have mommy issues; they probably met for tea every week. He just wanted to try to upstage that smug bastard Sting, and he does so in a song that comes at you like a musical game of chicken, daring you to not hit the skip button. The next track, Stewart Copeland's limp "Miss Gradenko", is listenable by comparison.
U2, The Unforgettable Fire, "4th of July". Sure, Brian Eno's ethereal soundscapes are nice, but not from the band that brought you Sunday Bloody Fucking Sunday! This little instrumental interlude, in which The Edge puts his guitar echo effect up to 11, is just dying to be skipped to get to the anthemic "Bad".
The Smiths, Strangeways, Here We Come, "Paint A Vulgar Picture". From their last and weakest studio album, this song is excruciating to sit through because of Morrissey's less than stellar lyrics about posthumously released albums: "Reissue, repackage, repackage! Re-evaluate the songs!" I don't know if he's musing about Elvis, Liberace or predicting his own bands' fate, but ironically they have more "collections" in their catalog than studio releases (a live album, two Best Ofs, two Singles, and a Very Best Of--can an outtake/B-sides boxset be far behind?).
Radiohead, OK Computer, "Fitter Happier". After a stunning first half, the album hits a speed bump with this track featuring a droning computer voice reading a checklist of self-improvement mantras on top of a lilting background piano and creepy synths. A social commentary about the increasingly robotic nature of modern life, this track gets more annoying every time I listen to it and interrupts an otherwise classic album.
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