Quality Decline Records

I’ve been thinking about the recently departed R.E.M. lately, and listening to New Adventures In Hi-Fi in particular. It’s not their best work, and my younger self didn’t even have time for “E-Bow The Letter.” For me, it bore the mark of following Monster, a record I once despised. But I like New Adventures, quite a bit actually.

It’s not a record that’s played a part in the R.E.M. obits. It was well-received at the time, though not the commercial success the past three albums had been (all quadruple platinum). It’s been overshadowed because it’s the best album of R.E.M.’s protracted decline—a good album, but certainly a slip in quality from the amazing 1982-1992 period.

In puzzling over New Adventures, I think I’ve identified a new species of album: the Quality Decline Record. I offer this concept to the world of rock writing, to join the taxonomy of Difficult Second Albums, Stripped Down/Back To Basics Records, Sophomore Slumps and so on. What defines a Quality Decline Record?

• Obviously, the QDR comes amid a decline in an artists' output. It's better than what follows, but it's not what the group's reputation is staked on.
• In other words, the album is less critically respected than a group's earlier work, or has been reappraised to this status. It might be fingered out--unfairly--but it's not as cred-sapping as other decline-era works.
• The decline must be protracted. Albums like Speakerboxx/The Love Below or Brighten The Corners aren't followed by long enough declines.
• The QDR is overshadowed by earlier, more respected albums, and by more commercially successful ones. It's probably not well known to non-fans.
• It stands out from other, worse decline-period albums.
• The QDR doesn't spark a rally, or second golden era.
• A QDR gains extra points for manifesting the qualities that become the band's downfall.

These are general principles, many QDRs may deviate.

For example, I'd peg The Rolling Stones' Black And Blue as a QDR. It follows the 68-72 classic period, is the third consecutive record to fall below that standard, and sees the Stones lazily remaining in their comfort zone (except to chase a trend on the lead single). Yet it's complicated by 1978's Some Girls, a better record, on which the band's reputation is partly staked. Still, Black And Blue isn't critically beloved, is unknown to non-fans, is worse than the groups best, and manifests the qualities that would be the Stones' downfall (allow me to throw Ron Wood into the mix here). It's an overlooked, pretty awesome record. A Quality Decline Record has to be quality, after all.

New Adventures In Hi-Fi is a classic QDR. So are Sly and the Family Stone's Fresh and Michael Jackson's Bad, which in those cases inaugurates each artists' decline. Other QDRs might be more contentious. Does Public Enemy have a QDR? Does Jay-Z? What about Springsteen, New Order or Black Sabbath? I would personally point to Physical Grafitti as a Quality Decline Record, but I think I'm in the minority there. Any number of late eighties and early nineties Prince albums might be considered QDRs.

Artists who had short careers aren't really eligible for this honor. And artists who have had intermittent or near-constant successes frustrate this concept--Neil Young or PJ Harvey, say. Still, I think it's a mildly helpful way of considering certain albums and bodies of work. The albums themselves are also good listens--quality records, without the baggage of classic status. They often feel like discoveries. Favorite QDRs?

Taking Souvenirs: R.E.M.'s 10 Best Albums

R.E.M. recently called it quits. I can't think of another band who had a decade as incredible as R.E.M.'s first, save for the Beatles (whose decade was only eight years). R.E.M. are one of my favorites, one of the greats. Listening to these records again has been my way of saying goodbye.

1. Murmur (1983)

Peter Buck’s shiny, ringing Rickenbacker paints in faded yellows, buoyed by the most melodic and modest of rhythm sections. The singer doesn't mumble, just pieces together syllables. Murmur exudes aura, and the band's gift was letting us live in it.

2. Life’s Rich Pageant (1986)

A louder, angrier, more engaged and more decipherable band. At least at first—as Pageant unfolds, it wades into sublime waters. Only a handful of records from the 80’s Amerindie scene rival Murmur, but this is one of them.

3. Reckoning (1984)

Murmur's sidelong attack, trained on exuberant and melancholy Americana. A record that traffics in undercurrents--Finster's art captures it well, with titles to match.

4. Chronic Town (1981)

Toss in the Hib-Tone single here. R.E.M. arrived with these urgent, glancingly melodic oddities. They kick off their debut 7” and first EP with their very first pop moves.

5. Out Of Time (1991)

Guitar-pop that doesn’t sound huge, although the band was getting there. R.E.M. went several directions, surveying baroque harmonies, jangle-goof and devastating mandolin.

6. Automatic For The People (1992)
An elegiac procession of tunes, stately even. Stipe commits to each line with fervor, with a range that's surprisingly varied. This is the music you hear when you're lost in thought.

7. Fables Of The Reconstruction (1985)

You have to tear off the kudzu to unearth the brilliant songwriting on Fables, but it’s there. Darker and folksier, still a series of bread-crumbs.

8. Green (1988)

An uneasy mix of straight pop and dirgey folk-rock, of which the band were newly fond. No noticeable concessions to the major label—another fun, frightening colleciton.

9. Document (1987)

Featuring the worst production on a classic R.E.M. record, which neuters Bill Berry's drums. Thankfully, the band's sound had never been this strident before, playing with an ancient bite.

10. New Adventures In Hi-Fi (1996)

Expansive and rarely melodic, these sixty-six minutes of arena alternative sketch a new landscape for the band. R.E.M.’s record for the American West.

Trip To The Store

Temporarily in possession of a car last Tuesday, and without much to do, I drove myself to Minneapolis' Cheapo Records. There's a Cheapo four blocks from my apartment in St. Paul, but the Minneapolis branch is bigger, cooler, and, crucially, has a basement "Viynltopia." I blew an afternoon and a few dollars there, here's what I found:

•Isaac Hayes, The Isaac Hayes Movement--Ike's at the height of his powers on this album of four lengthy covers. As a songwriter, he's part proto-hop-hip visionary, part master arranger and interpreter. He picks apart his source material, shuffling around and recombining an original's lyrics, melodies, and rhythms with his own words and arrangements. He often sees enough in a song to stretch it to three or four times its original running length. Accordingly, the bittersweet album opener "I Stand Accused" gains a five-minute spoken word intro in which Ike, speaking to his best friend's fiancee, says everything but what he really means--that he's in love with her. As the song transitions from the intro to the bulk of the tune, the sparse drums, piano, and guitar gradually gain strings, horns, and a gospel choir in a build that would make Jason Pierce jealous. Jerry Butler's lyrics, as sung by Hayes, are an affecting and desperate plea for love, all the more potent for following the Hayes-penned monologue.

The rest of the album is hardly a let-down. Side one's other track, "One Big Unhappy Family," can't quite compete with the twelve-minute "Accused," but Hayes' baritone sounds wounded there as well, and carries the song. As an interpretive vocalist, his only true contemporary was Rod Stewart (who the same year would release his great, mostly-covers album Gasoline Alley). Side two begins with the Bacharach/David tune "I Just Don't Know What To Do With Myself." I hear it as the lament of "I Stand Accused"'s protagonist, after he wins and then loses the girl. The song's been drastically reconfigured, at least in comparison to the (also excellent) White Stripes cover I know, with an oddly lovely passage that features the gospel choir singing "Don't know what to do" in progressively higher registers.

The album closes with a 11:45 cover of The Beatles' "Something." While the guitar sounds eerily like George Harrison's, the song's sufficiently different to discourage comparison: let's just say they're both gorgeous. John Blair's contributions on violin nearly steal the song. 5/5

•Low, "Santa's Coming Over b/w The Coming Of Jah"--Low's eerie UK-only Christmas single from last year. The packaging's cool--you can barely make out Low's name on the all-white cover--and the song's a grower. Creepy, quiet verses erupt into loud, nervous choruses. Deeply unsettling, even for Low. The b-side, a cover, is an attempt to merge Low's sound with reggae, a genre Alan's been name-checking for a while. It doesn't quite succeed, and that Al and Mimi invited their grade-school children to sing on the track doesn't help. 4/5

•R.E.M., "Radio Song b/w Love Is All Around"--The song's got it's haters, but I've always enjoyed the upbeat, KRS-One-featuring "Radio Song." I bought this for the b-side, however, and I dig it. Mike Mills' vocals and Peter Buck's guitar render this delicate song even more fragile. Not as good as The Troggs version, still cool. 4/5

•Charlotte Hatherley, "Summer b/w Commodore, S.M.U.T."--Hatherley's "White" is one of the best songs of 2009, and I enjoyed what I heard of 2007's The Deep Blue. "Summer" is culled from her first solo album. Power-pop sadly bereft of the fluid guitar work she's capable of, the A-side is enjoyable enough. The two b-sides are forgettable. 3/5

•David Vandervelde, "Jacket b/w Murder in Michigan"--Vandervelde has a serious Marc Bolan fixation, but since when was that a crime? I bought this because it was cheap and had loved another T. Rex-biting tune of Vandervelde's, the towering, youthful "Nothin' No." "Jacket" works the same angle, to awesome, glam-tastic effect. The b-side is more "Ride A White Swan" than "Jeepster", and less fun. 4/5

Feel The Paean

I've been listening to 1993's No Alternative compilation recently. It's hit and miss, and outtakes and live versions make up a third of the comp, but mostly it's pretty sweet: The Smashing Pumpkins' "Glynis" reminds you how actually really talented Billy Corgan used to be, bands I wasn't familiar with like The Verlaines and Barbara Manning and the San Francisco Seals turn in good work, American Music Club further convince me I really need to start listening to them and Nirvana's "Verse Chorus Verse" is Nirvana's "Verse Chorus Verse".

The undisputable highlight, however, is Pavement's "Unseen Power Of The Picket Fence." In an ealier attempt to write about NA from a slightly different angle, I noted that the track

might be the single best song the band ever did, a paean to R.E.M.'s Reckoning so good it bests nearly everything on that album. You haven't lived until you've heard S.M. shout "'Time After Time' was my least favorite song. 'Time After Time' was my least favorite song!"

And I stand behind that. I've listened to a lot of M.B.V., but I don't think I've ever heard guitars woozier than the ones that open "Unseen Power Of The Picket Fence," all metallic clang and hazy swoosh. Malkmus' vocal performance is pretty restrained, really stoned-sounding, and he never really betrays his love of Reckoning in his straight-faced yelps (we know of course that SM adored R.E.M. and especially Reckoning, from the lyrics but also from the fact that his band would cover "Camera" in 1994, albeit somewhat poorly). The song trudges forward, its rhythm section barely discernible as Malkmus narrates the R.E.M. story confusingly, mentioning Chronic Town but omitting Murmur and listing about half the songs on the record. In the next part--you could hardly call them verses and the song's structure eludes me--Malkmus describes the band in a way that does his (and Stipe's) lyrical elusiveness justice while succinctly capturing at least three-fourths of R.E.M.:

The singer, he had long hair
And the drummer he knew restraint
And the bass man he had all the right moves
And the guitar player was no saint

From there, the song evokes William Tecumseh Sherman and launches into a coda featuring what would appear to be Civil War Soldiers shouting to one another about wagons and artillery. At this point the metallic sounds pulsate dissonantly, a weird but convincing evocation of Sothern Gothic. It's its own beast; nothing even Pavement did has ever sounded like "Unseen Power Of The Picket Fence."

I've been thinking about the track recently, partly because I think about it a lot, partly because it was the first Pavement song I ever heard, but mostly because I've been listening to another love letter to an album in song form, The-Dream's "Kelly's 12 Play."

I should say that I think Love Vs. Money, the album which features "Kelly's 12 Play" as its last track, is easily one of the best albums I've heard in 2009. I haven't been obsessing over new releases lately, but the only discs I've heard this calendar year that I've liked as much are Morrissey's pissed yet stately Years Of Refusal and Amadou and Mariam's incredible Welcome To Mali (nerds may quibble that Mali was released in the Old World last year).

The song is a sultry R&B jam about how Dream and his lady enjoy doing the nasty to R. Kelly's much-loved sophomore album 12 Play (the disc features such classily-titled jams as "Freak Dat Booty," "I Like The Crotch On You" and "Sex Me Pts. 1 & 2"). The lyrics are nothing special--the rote loverman persona The-Dream adopts is the most boring thing about his album--but the production buzzes and whirrs magnificently. It sounds sexy and sterile, a thoroughly chopped and screwed affair probably too weird to release as a single. But it's great, and I'm happy to know that the kids are still paying respect to the old masters.

[stream] The-Dream "Kelly's 12 Play"
(I can't find a video or stream of "Unseen Power"; both No Alternative and the much-expanded L.A.'s Desert Origins reissue of Crooked Rain, Crooked Rain contain the track)
***
Earlier in the post, I mention that I already tried to write about No Alternative. I was trying to compare the superior NA to 2009's inferior Dark Was The Night. It came of as rambling, but I would still like to make the following point about the latter compilation, lifted from those ramblings:

Pitchfork, among others, has taken pains to stress that the album represents a survey of indie in 2009. I've been offended because the compilation highlights indie's often boring but very popular folk-pop strain. It also hurts that the tracklisting leaves out nearly ever artist I enjoy and respect in the underground. Still, it's weird that nothing even vaguely resembling punk rock, the music that birthed and has often sustained the underground, makes an appearance. That Beach House (covering Queen!), were relegated to the digital-only version of the album is another slap in the face.