cLOUDDEAD - cLOUDDEAD (CD, 1999)

If you want to hear some serious abstract rap lo-fi bullshit, you should really check this out. Tell everyone how much you like it. It'll make you look super cool.

I bought this on the recommendation of a friend (she has great taste in music, and knows my tastes, or so I thought), and immediately regretted it. I don't know why I still have it. This is one of those records that people who will buy anything given over a 7.1 on Pitchfork just fucking love to say they listen to. Self-indulgent and pointless.

And fIREHOSE beat them to the lowercase letter first trick by many a year.

"Apt. A (2)"

Clipse - Hell Hath No Fury (CD, 2006)

I'm not going to lie. I used to watch the video for Clipse's "Grindin'" every time it was on TV in 2002. I didn't really care for their raps, but that empty beat just really worked for me on some level. I thought about buying the record, never did, and eventually moved on.

When this one came out, they were all over the place again. I kept reading about how it was easily the year's best rap record, some sort of masterpiece, etc. I randomly found a used promo copy of it shortly after its release, and since the price was right, I figured I'd give it a shot.

It's just not my thing. I can see why people like it, and while I initially wasn't turned off by it, it just seemed (and still does) like it's one long song. One sparse, slow, drone-ish song, either about how much coke they move or how they got fucked by their label.

Some of the beats are cool, but they border on formulaic about halfway through. And honestly, I just can't get behind songs like "Ride Around Shining." While this is better than a lot of the shit that passes for popular rap these days, it's nothing new. And I'm still trying to figure out why everyone was acting like it was.

"Keys Open Doors"

The Clash - Combat Rock (LP, 1982)

Pretty sure I picked this one up, bargain cassette style, when I was about 14. Perfect timing.

The Clash were one of those bands I constantly read about in rock magazines (for a long time, London Calling was widely considered the most important rock album ever by both Spin and Rolling Stone), so it was an inevitability that I would end up checking them out. I started here, which is a bit of an odd choice considering it's their penultimate album, and the last one with the original lineup.

While "Should I Stay Or Should I Go" and "Rock the Casbah" were immediately appealing to my young ears, it was always the deeper cuts that could be listened to repeatedly. "Overpowered By Funk," as corny as it is, really got a hold of me with its bizarre rap interludes and staunch repetitiveness. And "Atom Tan" is two and a half minutes that I may never get sick of.

I don't have to tell you what a classic record this is. Taken into consideration next to some of the more "pure" Clash records, I can see why some might feel they compromise a bit of their edge on this one. But fuck it, they had earned it. If they wanted to bring some horns in and dick around, more power to 'em.

"Straight To Hell" has recently gained exposure from that hacky M.I.A. song that doesn't even bother to get any more creative than just looping the first 10 seconds over and over, but if we can act like that never happened (and we should), we're left with one of the most beautiful songs to ever be produced by a band that was ever considered "punk." I would have put it at the end of the record, but when you hear "Death Is A Star," you realize there's nowhere else that one could have gone except the very end. Plus, this was still in the age of vinyl, so "Straight To Hell" does the next best thing and closes out side one.

This record helped me through a lot of high school. My first band even did a horrible cover of "Know Your Rights."

"Overpowered By Funk"

Ciccone Youth - The Whitey Album (CD, 1988)

Touted as a collaboration between Sonic Youth and Mike Watt, this is really just Sonic Youth, with one stray cover (of a Madonna song, of course) by Watt. This differs from some of SY's other experimental stuff mostly due to its incongruous use of drum machines and dance-y samples, which is probably also the reason for not using their actual name on the project.

While songs like "MacBeth" and "Children of Satan/Third Fig" wouldn't sound out of place on a standard Sonic Youth b-side comp (or select LPs, even), tracks like "Hi! Everybody" and "Tuff Titty Rap" are not borne of any brand of Sonic Youth known before or since. Hearing Thurston Moore rap is good for 30 seconds, but they were wise to cut it off. Kim Gordon's karaoke cover of Robert Palmer's "Addicted to Love" is, for some reason, one of my favorite songs on here, even if it's solely due to its overriding novelty.

I think maybe it's the same thing I like about the other less "Sonic Youth-y" bits on this album. It's great to see a band that spends so much time on their records being serious cut loose a bit, even if it is in the realm of thick, thick irony. "March of the Ciccone Robots" is a great combination of both; a noisy guitar wail with some sampled elements tapped in and out.

While I don't really care for Watt's cover of "Burnin' Up" (I guess it's kinda fun), the cover of "Get Into the Groove" (here appended with a "(y)") is straight up sweet. Throwing in actual samples of Madonna's version is gutsy, but hearing her voice next to Thurston's is just too good.

One major beef: the second track is a full minute of silence. They just have to throw those little jabs in there, don't they?

"Addicted to Love"

The Charlatans UK - Some Friendly (LP, 1990)

I was an impressionable youth. All it took was a cool band photo and some encouraging words from Spin magazine, and I was sold.

So it went with the Charlatans UK, a band that served as my formal introduction to Brit rock and, more importantly, the "Madchester" sound. I tried around this same time to embrace Inspiral Carpets, Primal Scream, and especially The Stone Roses, but it was always this record that really did it for me. I liked the Happy Mondays, too, and though they may have been geographically related to these bands, their sound was very different.

The Charlatans were the dictionary definition of a "buzz band" at the time, a group who had barely been together for a year, scored a hit single, and quickly churned out an album. If they rushed through any of this, I certainly couldn't have heard it in the early 90's. I loved (and still do) every song on this record. I think their liberal use of organ appealed to me because of my Doors-heavy upbringing, but the thing that really sucked me into this record was the melodies. Tim Burgess never struck me as the best singer, but his vocal lines were so defined and so deliberate, it was almost like he was intentionally restraining himself, holding back lest he become too enthused. (Liam from Oasis would later do this, much more blatantly and far less successfully.) It was strikingly nonchalant and endlessly cool.

As with any great record, the songs here that clearly represent "the singles" are the weakest of the bunch, or at least the ones that grow tiresome the quickest. Tracks like the almost seven minute "Opportunity" or the uncharacteristically bass-heavy "Flower" have much more staying power. They also smartly pack the middle full of two of the best songs on the record: the one-two punch of "Polar Bear" and "Believe You Me" at tracks seven and eight keeps the flow from ever coming close to stalling out.

I bought an EP they released after this, loved it, lost it, and by the time they released their proper follow-up in '92, I was deeply immersed in the NW rock scene and, though I stared at the bananas on the cover of Between 10th and 11th many times in many different record stores, I knew there was no chance it could live up to this one. It's a tall order: I've been rocking this one for 17 or 18 years and I can still enjoy it, beginning to end.

"Then"

Cex - Being Ridden (CD, 2003)

At some point (I think it was on the record between this one and Oops), Cex decided to start rapping. It's a huge change from the previous two albums I wrote about here, clearly. Not only has he gone from full-on instrumentals to tracks that are filled to the brim with vocals, but he had to change the music to allow ample space for the words.

The shift in direction is actually a likable one. I can't bring myself to love this record, but I do like it. His rhymes are odd and ambitious, and this really has very little to do with traditional hip hop. The production is intricate without being too busy, and though this should come off as pretentious (he's got that air about him), it really delivers a feel that is more fun than anything else.

Tracks like "Earth-Shaking Event" are the closest he comes to working some obvious nods to old school rap into the proceedings, but it's smart enough in its jocularity that he doesn't need to legitimize it. The breaks are filled with plenty of electronic elements to remind us who we're listening to.

If you can get on board with his "your girl loves my style" style, then you're good to go.

"Stamina"

Cex - Oops, I Did It Again! (CD, 2002)

I could pretty much classify this one as the same as the previous Cex album. Blippy with mutated drums that actually intrigue me a bit because I have no idea how he got those sounds.

Other than that, not a lot to say about it. I'm really out of my comfort zone with music like this, and as I said before, it serves as a slightly high-powered instrumental soundtrack to getting me through mindless work I do on my website.

It's good for the headphones, but I grow weary of it after an hour. But I do like this oddity:

"(You're) Off the Food Chain"