Todd Rundgren—Liars

Todd Rundgren—Liars

Liars—Never one to compromise, Todd Rundgren always had an inherent proclivity to detours. What set him apart from kindred spirits Frank Zappa and Neil Young was an enduring fondness for radio pop, rendering him a more self-effacing David Bowie than the former two. But again, Rundgren is his own man, and he was also more on the low-concept side of things: he liked to form bands—he liked the abstract of colluding with a band—he put sound before story (or anything, really), and any attempts at thematic cohesion were done for effect, such as the extemporaneous fourth side of Something/Anything? (1972) or the avant-estrangement of A Wizard, a True Star (1973). Given this, Liars appears to be dressed more like a Roger Waters brainchild:

"All of these songs are about a paucity of truth. At first they may seem to be about other things, but that is just a reflection of how much dishonesty we have accepted in our daily lives [...] The fact is, we are terrified of the truth." —Liner notes of Liars

Elucidating meaningfully for a rare moment, Rundgren heralds just his second bona fide concept album after Healing (1981). There was the strange mixed media project No World Order (1993), the amusing bossa nova makeover With a Twist... (1997), and the experimental voice-manipulation of A Cappella (1985), but Liars is most similar to the 1989's Nearly Human. An admirer of genuine passion in art, Rundgren recorded Human with a number of authentic figures in soul music, namely Bobby Womack, and came up with a product that, essentially, is truthful. Whether he intended this faithful music to be a statement or just simple artistic expression is up for debate—probably the latter, if bets are on the table—but Liars pulls no punches: it's a statement.

Aside from the aforementioned passage, Liars is sparsely furnished; the jacket shows Rundgren dressed as the Easter Bunny, who is a notorious lie of sorts; the photo itself a counterfeit candid. The song titles are mostly one word, non-descriptive, very Pearl Jam, with all of it combining to make clear the listener must spin the disc to get any real sense of the music. Liars sounds distant and roomy as the effective overture "Truth" pulses along: "I gotta find the truth/If I lose my mind, well I don't care." "Sweet" is about freeing oneself from societal pressure and being true to oneself set to a glassy, synthetic groove. "Happy Anniversary" is one of the best, most original cuts on the album; Rundgren uses a soft verse/hard chorus approach to explain the lies children are told about the opposite sex and how it forever affects the way they view relationships. More pointed is "Soul Brother," where Rundgren testifies against the rap game and what he sees as a lack of soul compared to the music that influenced him.

"Stood Up" has lyrics more winding and cryptic than the rest; it is more notable for its musical excellence, inflected with almost a Middle Eastern-type folk sound and impressive natural phrasing of its words. "Mammon," of course, is the attack on the profit-seeking side of religion, specifically American Christianity (or perhaps a similar institution), echoing Nietzsche almost verbatim. Then come the twin time-tales "Future," the promise of a better tomorrow that never comes, and "Past," about failing to accept what has changed in one's relationships—they are not as concise as "Pastime Paradise," but like the rest of the songs they are effective mood pieces. "Past" leads into "Wondering," featuring Liars' best hooks, but also some of the least substantial lyrics. "Flaw" is similarly gripping, a song that grows on the listener, layered with ideas about not being able to compromise in a relationship that is mostly perfect; the singer cannot continue with his love interest because their fatal flaw is, of course, untruthfulness.

Rundgren continues to examine the confounding nature of the spiritual, in this case the eponymous "Afterlife," observing that the great beyond seems to have ever-increasing standards of admission and also the idea of whether life after death can really be better than that which is corporeal; "Living" uses this same subject as a metaphor, but turned inward, as he puts the onus on himself as the singer to question whether he's "living a lie" with his unspecified companion. The penultimate "God Said" is the true confessional that eluded Rundgren for much of his career, as he asks why the enlightenment that apparently comes to others has evaded him; daringly, he speaks as God Himself, urging his followers to "get over [themselves]," taunting those who seek to win God's favor, or perhaps accusing himself of the same misguided actions. Liars is then put to rest with the awesome marquee "Liar," a five-minute drum-and-synth attack that is nothing if not potent catharsis.

Todd Rundgren's contemporaries, such as the individualistic Scott Walker, are often described as having a period where they lost themselves; while this does not describe Rundgren, there was a long stretch of time where his experimentation often obscured his basic musicianship. Liars is the point where he achieved the best balance between these aspects. The sprawling, tantric collection is his best in two decades. It seems overlong at a glance, and in fact Rundgren went beyond his usual scope with more than seventy minutes of music, but the songs are layered, the philosophy is complex, and his craft is as admirable as it's ever been.

Fall Out Boy—American Beauty/American Psycho

Fall Out Boy—American Beauty/American Psycho

American Beauty/American Psycho—They say history repeats itself, and with the advent of Fall Out Boy's sixth album, that adage has been proven veritable. Where Save Rock and Roll was the distorted mirror image of Folie à Deux, coming out on the other side of fame, American Beauty/American Psycho is a return to the brand of Infinity on High. A welcome change here is certainly the lack of histrionics, though the bombast persists with mixed results.

American Beauty/American Psycho is the classic tale of a band trying out its new bells and whistles. It stands alongside Rush's Permanent Waves, KISS' Destroyer, and Green Day's American Idiot as an instance of established rockers opening up their sonic landscape; unfortunately, the results of these experiments don't always equal a good recording—as always, the core songwriting must be strong, which it is more often than not in the case of Fall Out Boy. Albums on the cusp of a new beginning are sometimes given dubious qualifiers like "transitional," but for Fall Out Boy, there should be plenty of oil in the machine; they had already shaken off the dust with Save Rock and Roll two years earlier following a relatively active hiatus for all its members.

"Irresistable" kicks off the album with an unfortunate horn riff, but ultimately gets to the point with haste, unfurling into a respectable if over-cushioned opener. Title cut "American Beauty/American Psycho" is more typical of their usual sing-a-long pop-punk—the least successful single, though certainly not the worst, but it does bring attention to Pete Wentz's increasingly trite lyrics. "Centuries" is the most celebrated single, and is more Patrick Stump than any other band member: cries, chants, and claps that tend to grate, over-produced, but not bad lyrically. "The Kids Aren't Alright" is better, with excellent harmony and less layers of superfluous arena-rock noise—not that arena-rock in and of itself is bad, but Fall Out Boy have long fallen victim to the idea that trying to recreate the sound in the studio is favorable rather than letting the actual live performances speak for themselves. "Uma Thurman" is the album's one successful meshing of the band's big sound with pop-culture jambalaya, as the sample of The Munsters' theme song is just plain excellent as its basis.

"Jet Pack Blues" is forgettable, sounding like the shriveled Siamese twin of "Centuries." "Novacaine" ends up being one of the best songs on the album because of the all-too-welcome distortion; it's a lo-fi crawler that, because of its essential nature, complements the dynamics that are ever-present in Fall Out Boy's music. "Fourth of July" should have stayed the soppy singular phrase as which it likely began life. "Favorite Record," on the other hand, is a fairly effective meta-retro love song that assures the band isn't disdainful of its roots; "Immortals" is the lyrical highlight: a self-aware double entendre combining the sarcastic relationship song of From Under the Cork Tree and prior with a observation on fame. "Twin Skeleton's (Hotel in NYC)" sounds more like contemporary survivors and one-time collaborator Panic! at the Disco. It's something of an anticlimactic closer, but it's respectable.

Beauty/Psycho has some of the right ingredients, but when they put it in the oven, the edges burned a little. It takes the hip-hop approach of having no less than six producers, but the group seems to have forgotten they play rock, which prides itself on its instruments first and effects second. Their vision doesn't afford the experimentation, but when they build on what once made them great, the results are promising. The album is altogether no better or worse than Save Rock and Roll, but given the times, Fall Out Boy need to either try something different or simply write better songs, or they risk falling into the bargain bin.

Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds—Live Seeds

Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds—Live Seeds

Live Seeds—It makes sense, in a perverted way, that a band with a reputation for fantastic live shows would not have many live albums. If the energy put off by the band is tough to encapsulate, perhaps it does it better justice to simply leave it alone. Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds, and even predecessor the Birthday Party, released no live albums until 1994's Live Seeds. Of course, decision-making in these parts is often done by the label, who for whatever reason may have decided the Bad Seeds were not valuable in their live incarnation. Live Seeds doesn't radiate the quality of necessity like other live records—say, Nirvana's Unplugged in New York, which was unique for its vastly different arrangements and colorful selection of covers. Live Seeds is neither of those, but at the time, the Bad Seeds were making detours from their usual ferocious sound; The Good Son (1990) featured less rocking and more vibraphone, and Neil Young producer David Briggs gave Henry's Dream (1992) a questionably slick finish to even biters like "Jack the Ripper."

While Tender Prey often sounded more like a blueprint than an artistic statement, Live Seeds gives its songs a more developed, rounded coloration. Signature song "The Mercy Seat" has turned from a processional to an outburst in what may be its definitive recording, while Cave spits new ferocity on stalwart "Deanna." "New Morning," which once sounded like a drunken tribute, now positively sings with a sparser package, exhibiting just how sweet Cave's voice can be between screams. Dead ringer "The Ship Song" receives the same benefits, sounding less apprehensive without the bombast. Cave's and Blixa Bargeld's duet "The Weeping Song" sounds more natural; "The Good Son" instills the bloodthirstiness lacked by the album of the same name.

"John Finn's Wife," "Jack the Ripper," and even the weaker "Brother, My Cup Is Empty" are more explosive than they were on Henry's Dream, while "Papa Won't Leave You, Henry" and of course "Tupelo" prove they were meant for the stage. Amusingly, the iconic "From Her to Eternity" ends up being one of the least essential inclusions, neither complementing its studio incarnations nor supplanting them. Cover "Plain Gold Ring" is given a more dynamic working, falling a bit flat not because it doesn't gel with the Bad Seeds' style so much as it or probably any other version will never come close to Nina Simone's.

Live Seeds is aggravating at times because it feels as though these renditions should have characterized their original albums. However, for the listener, this is something of a welcome dilemma, offering a great snapshot of the Bad Seeds as they were at their '90s peak. Nick Cave compilations, given the insular nature of his proper albums, are ideologically questionable, but Live Seeds is a worthy catch-all and could even be a solid introduction to the band.

David Bowie—Low

David Bowie—Low

Low—David Bowie's persona can truly be called dissociative. The man has shown himself over time to be more or less of stable disposition, but his wide-ranging discography begs the question: Who is the real David Bowie? His lyrics, at times more personal than others, are professed to "jolly [the music] along" more often than not, so the listener must develop his or her ear—yet, ironically, Bowie never seemed one for instrumentals. Enter Brian Eno, emerging ambient musician, who in his own career was taking detours from guitar-dense art pop with the partially-instrumental Another Green World and wholly-wordless Discreet Music.

Bowie's collaboration with Eno has a distinct sense of complimentariness; the two employ similar styles of singing, and both come from a glam-rock background—Bowie with a plethora of glitter-laden rock and Eno being a former member of Roxy Music. When one listens to Bowie's Station to Station (1976) and Eno's Another Green World, there is the impression that the two artists were converging on similar points in their work. Rather than a joint billing, however, Eno takes a back seat to Bowie on Low, and it is Bowie's work, with the two sharing writing credits on only one song.

The art-rock of the mid-70s was approached by a similar process to jazz music. The scene had a collective of established musicians that had music to record, and other big names would often collude under the songwriter's name. Bowie here is the bandleader, just as Iggy Pop was when he and Bowie worked together on The Idiot, and the lack of ego is a refreshing feature; Bowie was ostensibly suffering from something akin to ego-loss, his latest character having been "The Thin White Duke," a nod to his excessive use of cocaine. He moved to Berlin for the very reason of quitting the drug which nearly destroyed him, and would record Low and its follow-up "Heroes" there (though in truth, the basic performances on Low were done mostly in France).

Where Station to Station was glossed like its soulful predecessor Young Americans (1976), Low is organic and often jagged. Its primal sound suggests a reconstruction of all things: Bowie's identity, lifestyle, and even his entire basic approach to making music. It can be postulated that Low represents Bowie in his most basic form, with little added flair and the lack of a flamboyant character gracing the LP's front cover, which instead simply shows a still photograph from The Man Who Fell to Earth. "Speed of Life," Bowie's probably-unwitting answer to Eno's "Sky Saw," is sparse, under-produced on first listen—a 30th-century jam, all aspects to be upheld throughout the record. "Breaking Glass" is led by the anfractuous guitar of Carlos Alomar and the halted drumming of Dennis Davis, processed by producer Tony Visconti, who did not see fit to divulge his technique; the result is something like a noise-canceling effect. Bowie's shadowy verse is self-referential: the artwork of Station to Station includes a photo of Bowie drawing the Sephirot on carpet.

"What in the World" is an inverted pop song, substituting freewheeling notions of love and harmony with glitchy lyrics and a warbling Iggy Pop. "Sound and Vision" rounds out the trio of songs with common themes of isolation, specifically staying in one's room. The drum track pops and fizzles, the guitar and Bowie's saxophone, once jazzy, now tumescent, snake around at their leisure as Bowie sings brightly about songwriting itself: his then-new trend of self-referentiality. It is, put simply, a work of recording genius. "Always Crashing in the Same Car" is characteristic of the apocalyptic feeling that affects the whole record, and actually, the song is a real story about Bowie ramming a drug dealer's car, then returning to his hotel to drive in circles.¹ "Be My Wife" is the odd one out from the set, a straightforward song that only remembers its context as it spins into oblivion led by the plodding piano. Bowie concludes the side with "A New Career in a New Town," another instrumental that evokes the setting sun from its distant harmonica and a carnival of sorts from its climbing piano, night-sky synth and soft kick of the bass drum; his title is self-explanatory.

The reputation of Low's second side often eclipses the actual music. The turn of the century has brought an era in music-listening in which compilations are often pushed as the essential purchase and rarely include instrumentals, if ever, provided that does not describe their entire body of work. Low's four side-two pieces often become lost in the noise of more catchy vocal songs, and are usually spoken about collectively, or in a manner that vitiates them. The Bowie-curated All Saints, sadly, is symptomatic of these phenomena, and obscures the relevance of the work, demoting them to curiosities. What is missed in the case of Low is the cohesive sound and the idea that Bowie intended the four compositions to be reflections of his experiences in Western and Central Europe. "Warszawa," for example, is meant to depict the still-rebuilding Warsaw, Poland: haunting, miasmic synthesizer pierced only by Bowie's overdubbed chanting.

"Art Decade," a picture of West Berlin—the Berlin Wall still standing at this time—is less dramatic, but still broken, unsure, almost dangerous. "Weeping Wall" instead focuses on the barrier itself, probably suggesting with its title that the wall itself cried out; in point of fact, some sections of graffiti on the Berlin Wall were long rows of grotesque faces. The song is more rhythm-oriented than the others, with Bowie playing the vibraphone and xylophone mixed in front of his wailing and guitar. "Subterraneans" was generated from a minor piece of music from Bowie's aborted The Man Who Fell to Earth soundtrack and is about "the people who got caught in East Berlin after the separation—hence the faint jazz saxophones representing the memory of what it was."² It is a fitting summation of the whole album's tone, including side one: another world, a dark future that has regressed to the primeval, instinctive, somber, and ominous.

Art sometimes loses relevance with time. The Berlin Wall has been eradicated and David Bowie is no longer the person he was or playing the role he did when he recorded Low. Despite this, its themes tease a deeper connection with human psyche, after all the static has been blown away with time, even if they are sometimes amorphous. Stripping down his sound allowed Bowie to rebuild his path in music, and though its words are sparse, Low exhibits Bowie at his most raw and pure. It remains not only his best album, but likely rock's greatest piece of art, and needless to say, a masterstroke.

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12 Hugo Wilcken: 33⅓: Low

The Residents—The Big Bubble

The Residents—The Big Bubble

The Big Bubble—It's always disheartening to have a source of entertainment turn into one of agony. The Residents' first-ever tour was supposed to add to the world of the Moles and Chubs from Mark of the Mole (1980) and The Tunes of Two Cities (1981), and people loved it, but many aspects of it turned out to be impractical.¹ Few reliable accounts exist on the details of the Mole Show's demise, but most seem to report that the Residents returned to the studio with their tails between their legs, bitterly, and perhaps with less personnel than they started—much as the characters of their production probably did following the war explained in Mark of the Mole. Incidentally, with the release of The Big Bubble, that is now the only hole in Mole history.

The Residents have allegedly claimed that the missing link between Mark of the Mole and The Big Bubble will be released (The Tunes of Two Cities was a companion piece with recordings that date prior to Mark), but more than thirty years later, it has yet to surface. It is possible that this period in the timeline was deemed non-essential. The Mole-Chub war would conceivably leave the two societies in disarray, and much of the following years would be spent regrouping, so there is a question as to whether there would be material to use for an album. The time elapsed between the two stories is expounded thusly:

"The survivors of the two cultures lived side-by-side in uneasy peace. The war had not resulted in any clear winner, but time had promoted those who had the appropriate appetite for power, and the Chubs were famous for their various appetites. Many Moles and Chubs had blended socially so mixed marriages were common. Their offspring were referred to as 'Cross.' In response to this a 'Zinkenite' movement by traditional Moles, or 'Mohelmot,' had surfaced to encourage the establishment of a new Mohelmot nation." —Liner notes of The Big Bubble (1985)

The exposition goes on to say that the Big Bubble is the name of a band and that The Big Bubble is their debut album. Most LPs of Bubble show a cover-within-a-cover graphic that backs this idea with four individuals that represent the band members. Ramsey, the lead singer (front-center), is portrayed by a Residents stage-hand, though the performance on the actual recordings was done by the Residents' usual vocalist. The man on the far right is a German fan of the Residents, and the identities of the other two are not known. The story goes that Ramsey and Frank, the principal songwriters, got together with Paul and Alex as a garage band and raised enough money to release the single "The Big Bubble," but because they had no name the song's title was appended to their identity.

A "second-generation Cross" named Kula Bocca spoke at a Zinkenite rally and asked the Big Bubble to play after his speech, as he "knew that [...] they needed the energy, passion, and, above all, naivete of youth." They played a new composition called "Cry for the Fire," which featured the Mole language that had been outlawed after the war. Bocca further conspired to have Ramsey arrested on these grounds as a political move, and "Cry for the Fire" became the Zinkenite anthem. He then contacted Frankie DuVall (spelled "Frinky" on the inner sleeve) of Black Shroud Records (the black shroud being the article of clothing the Moles wear as seen in depictions), who supported the Zinkenites even though he was a Chub; The Big Bubble became the first record to feature the traditional Mole lyrics.

What this all means for the listener is that The Big Bubble is not like its predecessors. It is recorded as if it was a real LP—song-oriented, with no overarching story other than that which exists in the abstract. If Mark of the Mole was something like a cast recording, and The Tunes of Two Cities was a cultural document made up of historical recordings, then The Big Bubble is the contemporary rock album, and with it the Residents have compiled a triumvirate of various ways one can experience music. Bubble is also the beginning of the Residents' new sound; between it and Tunes there was not an exorbitant amount of original music by the band as they recovered from the failure of their tour. The songs are inundated with dark, cutting synths and semitones, which would continue with God in Three Persons (1988), though that album and any that follow are not part of the Mole saga.

Bubble suffers from tedium. It is roughly the same length as Tunes, but that album had the advantage of dynamics and a wider range of sounds. When looking at the overall Mole concept, it's understandable that the Residents recorded an album faithful to the characters they created. The Big Bubble is a debut LP, so the repetitive nature is apropos, as is the lack of anything resembling a hook; the lyrics are either nonsensical, tough to comprehend, or sung in the Mole language for which no translation is provided, which again can be explained via an intuitive leap: the Big Bubble is likely made of Cross members, who probably weren't given higher standards of education, so their music and lyrics are more primal and simplistic.

Unfortunately, The Big Bubble cannot be recommended on its own merits. The music is not exactly bad, and some stand out, but it is not varied enough to warrant repeated listening. However, for anyone who loved Mark of the Mole and the rest of the Mole media, Bubble is an essential adventure. Its story provides a plethora of talking points for the enthusiast, with its fatal drawback being that for the first time, that story overtook the music.

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