November 21, 2009

120. Motorhead: Ace of Spades

Here comes the metal!

Is there more straight up metal than Motorhead? My kids have been expressing more interest in rock music and my son is proving to be a particular connoisseur of metal (rejecting even Sympathy for the Devil as "not rock and roll," apparently for the jungle beats). I have been putting AC/DC out there as the emblematic metal band, but now I'm having second thoughts.

Bonus points here for couldn't-give-a-fuck-less lyrics ("you win some you lose some, it's all the same to me" and "You know I'm born to lose, and gambling's for fools, but that's the way I like it baby").

And let's not forget that Lemmy is the greatest name for a metal band lead singer ever.

RATING: 67.

119. Flipper: Sex Bomb

Song starts off in the fuzzy bass end of the spectrum with a slowish rhythm laid down, then comes the oddly enchanting whistle and shortly thereafter a saxophone making it a true cacaphony before the screaming vocals kick in. You get the sense very early on that the song isn't really going to be going anywhere, no chorus, just a jazz-ish variation on a theme, with more instruments/noises than you can really recognize being added in, many making only cameos.

PF500 says "Fools at the time took them as a bad joke." Not a good sign.

7 1/2 minute song? Not a good sign.

One, repeated lyric ("Sex Bomb Baby, Yeah!"). Not a good sign.

Someone should have cut them off at 3 minutes, tightened up the production and explained to them that they weren't jazz musicians.

I wouldn't not fuck to this song, however.

RATING: 53.

118. The Wipers: Youth of America

10 1/2 minutes? Yikes. It's basically a 3 1/2 minute song with a jam tacked on at the end. You get some spoken word kicking in at the 5 1/2 minute mark (yes, I'm basically just proving to the faithful that I listened to the whole thing). Then we get into a Bela Lugosi's Dead-style whoosh and whoop and feedback period, with the song kicking in at 8 1/2 minutes again. I really expected it to go somewhere at this point, but it just kind of does the chorus again and devolves for the next 2 minutes.

Wikipedia has some interesting stuff about how Greg Sage, the lead singer, was obsessed with cutting records as a kid (actually making them) and had equipment and used to study record grooves under a microscope. This song sounds exactly like it was made by someone who never lost sight of what the music he was making would look like

The riff here is excellent. Spooky stuff (but not to my son Xavier, who says "not spooky"), with a lot to it, a little winddown at the end of the bar. It carries the song, but not for anywhere close to 10 minutes.

RATING: 62.

117. Black Flag: Rise Above


I always associated hardcore with the high school outcasts forming their own thing. (too often, it seems that the outcasts "thing" devolved into its own caste and social system, but I'm not 15 so I don't need to worry about that shit any longer).

Black Flag seems like something new altogether to me; I never really felt like it was hardcore. TV Party was just too obvious. The singer works out at a gym? Isn't that what the "insiders" do? What's up with these shouty, little-too-slow choruses? Lyrics that they seem to be overarticulating. Frat boys in sheep's clothing, it seemed to me (not that there's anything wrong with frat boys).

This is, in my opinion, their best work, and a good microcosm of everything good and bad about them. Positive too simple lyrics (the final chorus using the word "chance" multiple times being the best example). The solid alternating, driving guitar. The shouty chorus. This is Black Flag.

RATING: 64.

November 1, 2009

116. Dead Kennedys: Holidays in Cambodia



Jello Biafra's voice is such an acquired taste, around 25 years after first hearing it, I'm still acquiring it. I'm not quite there yet. This song is straight out of the nihilistic/political punk, which always felt more aligned with the music to me than any straight Reagan bashing.

Here the target is more on the left, with Jello inviting lefties to go ahead and hang out in Cambodia if they love it all so much:

So you been to school; For a year or two
And you know you've seen it all; In daddy's car
Thinkin' you'll go far; Back east your type don't crawl

Play ethnicky jazz; To parade your snazz
On your five grand stereo; Braggin' that you know
How the niggers feel cold; And the slums got so much soul


I do believe this is PF500's second "use of the n-word by a white group" sighting, although I feel safe that this will be the last.

So with shaky vocals but an interesting set of lyrics, that leaves the music. The music is long-form (i.e., mediocre) punk, with lots of minor chord variations and a few too many echo effects.

RATING: 52 (59 due to the repeated chant of "Pol Pot" in the last 20 seconds of the song)