Cassette Killed The 8-Track Star

I have a deep-seated but somewhat irrational love for cassettes.  Wandering around in thrift stores, I still find myself buying them every once in a while if it's a particularly interesting-looking album.  And if it's 80's metal, a cassette is really the only format the genre should be experienced on.  For example, I recently acquired Poison's Look What The Cat Dragged In.  Now to be clear, I don't like Poison, and I never really did.  But for some reason, I felt at the core of my being that having that album on cassette was the right thing to do.  Somehow it seemed like slotting that cassette in my collection alongside the Tangerine Dream and Dio just makes sense.  It's unfortunate that I do not own a Trans Am with a cassette player since this is the preferred way to listen to any cassette, especially if you sport a mullet with cutoff jean shorts. 

Every child of the 80's owns this whether you know it or not.

So... what is up with this love affair with a format that saw massive popularity for a relatively short period of time in the grand scheme of music formats and then died a cold, hard death at the foot of the juggernaut that is the compact disc (that itself is dying due to the rise of digital downloads)?  Well, I grew up in the 80's, but that doesn't really explain anything.  I didn't really get into music extensively until the early 90's, a time when cassette sales were on the decline.  If you know me though, then you know I am a bargain shopper.  Even at the age of twelve, this mentality was ingrained in me, although more due out of necessity than any sort of force of habit.  My parents were not big money makers, and I had to make due to with a fairly small allowance.  So I learned to make the most with what I had, which meant digging in clearance bins through Extreme and Meatloaf cassingles (cassette singles for those of you that aren't hip to the lingo) to find the occasional treasure such as the awesome "Last Tango in Paris", a Queensryche B-side found on the flip side of "Real World", a song featured in Last Action Hero.  And if a cassette was, on average, $2 or $3 cheaper than the same album on CD?  It was a no-brainer.  I would buy the cassette every time.  

I literally could not find a single picture of the Queensryche cassette single on the internet...
This saddens me far greater than it probably should.

Often when people my age talk about the first album they own, it's more often than not a point of embarrassment (the first cassette my friend ever owned was New Kids on the Block, although he's suspiciously quick to point out that his parents bought it for him without his knowledge).  Tastes change, and often younger people tended to follow the herd mentality and listen to whatever was most popular at the time.  As a result, many people associate cassettes with shame, spouting early album purchases such as MC Hammer and Vanilla Ice.  I'm proud to state that the first three cassettes I've ever owned were not a point of embarrassment at all, and I still own all three of them in their CD incarnations.  The first cassette I ever acquired was The Beastie Boys' License To Ill. It was given to me by one of my cousins, who didn't want it anymore for reasons unknown.  While I don't think this is the Beasties' finest hour, its a great party album and still fun to listen to. 

Yeeeeaaaaaaa!!!!!!!

 The first cassette I ever purchased was Collective Soul's Hints, Allegations and Things Left Unsaid.  Not a masterpiece of 90's alterna-rock by any means but it had several great songs on I still enjoy today.  The question as to whether this really qualifies as my first purchase is a bit iffy in that I bought it at a flea market on Mule Day (yea... small Alabama towns...I dunno...), and upon unwrapping it when I got back to the car, I realized that it was a bootleg copy with no liner notes and the ink printed on the cassette smudged.  I didn't care too much though since it still sounded like Collective Soul.  

Disciplined Breakdown ain't got nothin' on this bad boy.

The first LEGITIMATE cassette I ever bought was Aerosmith's Toys in the Attic.  In the early 90's I started really getting into Aerosmith.  It got to the point that they rose to that prestigious title of "favorite band" even (although after "I Don't Wanna Miss A Thing", my love for them died like a goth kid's black-painted rose placed on the grave of Ian Curtis).  The early 90's brought my first extended exposure to MTV and with it came the barrage of Aerosmith music videos featuring Alicia Silverstone.  While none of those songs were my favorites, it opened the door to deeper cuts like "Eat the Rich" and "F.I.N.E."  The video that started all of it though was Aerosmith's collaboration with Run D.M.C. on a new version of "Walk This Way".  Which finally leads me to why I bought Toys in the Attic.  I didn't even know it was released in the 70's.  I just saw that it had "Walk This Way" on it and had to have it.  I was actually a little disappointed once I listened to the album that the chorus to the Run D.M.C. version was altered, but I got over it.  To this day, while my enjoyment of Aerosmith has faded, Toys in the Attic is still a great album.  "Round and Round" is almost 40 years later still one of the heaviest songs they've ever written (also far superior to the Ratt sound of the same name), and Tom Hamilton still looks like my friend's dad.

Pop Quiz: My friend's dad or Tom Hamilton?
Answer: Both, they're secretly the same person

Unlike vinyl which has some positive attributes to the collector such as the more "pure" analog sound as well as the much larger album art for display and admiration purposes, cassettes do not seem to have much of a following anymore beyond the occasional ironic mixtape and the underground noise and punk scenes (somebody with way too much irony has even been pushing a Cassette Day to record stores).  Cassettes did have their day in the sun though, and I will always have fond memories of the format that introduced me to a wider world of music.  

Andy Williams' Eight Classic Albums: It's Bland-tacular!

Before I jump into the deep morass of sedate crooning that is Andy Williams, let me attempt to educate you a little on European copyright law.  In the United States, copyright law on music released between 1923 & 1978 restricts publication of said copyright to the owner for 95 years.  In the United Kingdom, this is not the case.  Essentially, music falls into copyright 50 years after publication, meaning that currently anything from 1963 and previous is public domain.  As a result, many record labels have sprung up to leap at this opportunity to release many golden gems from 60's and previous that are heretofore unattainable except by the original copyright holder in the US.  They then import these releases into the US very cheaply.

Now here's the rub.  Often the quality of these releases is shoddy, containing poorly compressed non-master tracks (sometimes including hiss of a needle as they were ripped from the LP) with limited to no liner notes.  Now a few of these companies like JSP Records actually do a bang-up job of re-mastering and including well-written liner notes while still offering a reasonably affordable package.

Then you have Real Gone as an extreme in the other direction.  Real Gone releases primarily 4-disc sets of generally 6 to 8 full albums (depending on album length) by a particular artist.  The liner notes are typically sparse to non-existent, but surprisingly the quality of the releases is typically pretty decent.  More often than not they seem to be CD rips, although I have heard a few albums here and there that seems to have been lifted from the original LP.  Occasionally you have compression problems, but it crops up randomly and infrequently enough to not be too much of a bother.  The real clincher for me on these is that they can be found for as cheap as $8 a set which is a steal given the quality is relatively good.  The other benefit is they have released so many of these sets in the last two years that they have released many sets by more obscure artists that would not have normally merited a 4-disc box set.

Which leads me FINALLY to my review of the Andy Williams: Eight Classic Albums set.  First of all, in case you are wondering, this DOES NOT include Moon River.  What it does collect is Andy Williams' first eight studio albums (Moon River came three albums later for those of you curious for some reason), all released on Cadence Records before he made the jump to Columbia.  This includes his output from 1957 to 1961.  Nowadays it boggles the mind to imagine artists releasing as many as four or five albums a year, but it was pretty commonplace back in the fifties and sixties.  This was partially due to the amount of songs performed by artists that were written by others.  They didn't need a several month gap between recordings to compile new material.  Often they would just pull up the book of established standards or recent pop hits of the time period and cover them.  Both of these examples are in evidence a-plenty in this box set.

Leading off with Andy's first album is Andy Williams Sings Steve Allen.  For those keeping score, we are talking about Steve Allen, the comedian and host of The Late Show.  In addition to his more profitable pursuits, he also recorded several jazz albums, primarily offering songwriting and piano accompaniment to more accomplished musicians.  These were typically a combination of bebop and torch songs, which Andy Williams on this album performs to some degree of success.  Having primarily known Williams for his post-Moon River easy listening career, it was something of a treat to hear him evoking a lighter and rawer tone on this release.  For the most part the accompaniment is sparse, offering a combination of slower ballads and bouncy bebop numbers.  This is Andy at his liveliest and one of the better albums in the set.

Following it up is Williams' self-titled album (actually a compilation of singles), originally given the odd title "He's All Male and Catnip to Quail," Says Archie.  The title comes from Archie Bleyer, the head of Cadence Records, and his insistence at the time of titling albums with some sort of descriptive commentary based on most likely his own personal opinion of the album (other examples include The Everly Brothers' "They're Off and Rolling," says Archie and The Chordettes' "They're Riding High," says Archie.  I don't know what Andy did to deserve this title, but it definitely takes the cake in weirdness.  The album itself is a bit of an outsider in his catalog as well, offering more country- and rock-based instrumentation often in lieu of his typical piano and string accompaniment.  The album feels a little schizophrenic at times because of this and may not be terribly pleasing to more traditional Williams fans, but I felt it was one of the more interesting albums in the set and was able to hold my attention from beginning to end.

Up next is Andy Williams Sings Rodgers and Hammerstein, and this is the point at which Williams begins to lose me.  With tracks from Oklahoma!, South Pacific, Carousel and The King & I (all musicals I did not care for), Andy was going whole hog with a cash grab.  At the time of this album's release, tracks from all these musicals from multiple different artists were dominating the Billboard charts, and I suppose Andy wanted a piece of that action.  The majority of this album settles into William's usual groove of churning out predictable, straight laced versions of well-established hits and is all for the worse because of it.

Speaking of cash grabs, the next album on the chopping block is Two-Time Winners.  In a similar vein to his ode to Rodgers and Hammerstein, Two-Time Winners  features all songs that were previously hits for someone else twice or performed in two different ways (i.e. "Blue Hawaii" being a hit for Bing Crosby and also having an instrumental version performed by Billy Vaughn & Orchestra).  Once again, I must express disdain for these lukewarm versions of well-known classics.  I wish to point out particular disappointment with Williams' rendition of "Blueberry Hill".  I have a great fondness and sense of nostalgia for the excellent Fats Domino version and am borderline offended by the stilted performance Williams phones in on this one.  This album worked out for Williams in the end though as he had a great amount of success with "Hawaiian Wedding Song", so much so that the next album he recorded was comprised entirely of Hawaiian songs, giving an excuse to feature "Hawaiian Wedding Song" again...

...Which flows nicely into our next album, To You Sweetheart, Aloha.  Honestly, if you changed the instrumentation slightly (replace ukulele with violin, etc.), this could be just another easy listening Andy Williams album.  For an album comprised entirely of Hawaiian songs, it seems totally devoid of cultural significance.  Given that this album probably only exists because Williams had a hit with "Hawaiian Wedding Song" does nothing to boost its credentials (It probably also didn't hurt that America was in the embrace of Hawaii-mania with the admission of the 50th state into the union the year of this release).

Lonely Street is the sixth album in this collection and a little bit of a departure from the previous string of albums in that thematically this is a much darker affair than Williams is typically used to.  His delivery seems a little deeper and more impassioned as well (at least as impassioned as Williams gets).  The album was conceived as a way to ape Sinatra's recent success with In The Wee Small Hours  and Sings for Only the Lonely, which were all about doom 'n' gloom.  I have to call out that I felt Williams' covers of "Unchained Melody" and "I'm So Lonesome I Could Cry" are far inferior to the more well-known Righteous Brothers and Hank Williams versions.  While I won't say this album is a fully qualified success (it drags a little too much for that and includes the unfortunate renditions mentioned), it is still an improvement over the last three albums and a sign that all hope is not lost with this set.

Perhaps as a way of digging himself out of the dumps, Andy's next album is a collection of popular uplifting spirituals called The Village of St. Bernadette.  In general, while this album isn't my cup of tea, I have to admit that the fuller sound granted by the backing orchestra and choir is appealingly exuberant and suits Williams' voice well.  He even has a slight call back to his earlier jazzy releases with a toe-tapping version of "He's Got the Whole World in His Hands" that bounces where it should but not so much as to get the non-secular target audience in a tizzy.

Ending on a positive note, the final album in this collection, Under Paris Skies,  finds Andy flying out to Paris and recording with an orchestra conducted by the great Quincy Jones.  The pedigree on this album is immediately noticeable with full, and most importantly authentic-sounding, instrumentation backing an album of Chanson (and Chanson-like) standards.  According to comments by Williams himself, the band was a little more relaxed and unaccustomed to a tight schedule as he, but the end result was worth it.  I have to agree with sentiment as I enjoyed this album more than any other since his debut of Steve Allen songs.

In the end, looking back on the 5+ hours of Andy Williams I just subjected myself to, i ask myself, "Was it worth it?"  I think overall, yes.  While Williams is not without his fair share of out-for-a-buck toss-offs and barely-there easy listening pap, this collection offered a wider breath of music than I was previously aware from Mr. Williams.  And while I don't see myself returning to this particular well over and over again, the collection is not without merit and some of these songs could end up making their way into my regular rotation.  Plus, at $8 for this whole set, the price is right.

Songs Ruined By Movies

In the history of film, it is not uncommon for soundtrack producers to snatch up a great song to use in a pivotal scene in a film.  More often than not, the song has already established a degree of awesomeness that supersedes the mediocre of the film it accompanies.  Or in some cases, compliments the film to such a point that it elevates them both (see pretty much any Quentin Tarantino soundtrack).  But then every once in a while a movie comes along that has such an overpowering reputation, that it forever tarnishes the sparkle of the song it is affiliated with.  So without further ado....

"Unchained Melody" by The Righteous Brothers

This used to be a great ballad sang passionately by The Righteous Brothers.  Then a Ghost came along with its erotic pottery and ruined the song forever (despite Andy Williams' attempts 25 years previous).  Patrick Swayze was no stranger to music-based soundtracks with Dirty Dancing (nothing to ruin that wasn't already terrible there) and Road House (which only made Jeff Healey more awesome), but he did no favors to "Unchained Melody" with its inclusion in this gloomy weeper.  Unfortunately for The Righteous Brothers, Ghost was a huge box office success whose central tragic romance will forever associate "Unchained Melody" with Patrick Swayze's translucent embrace of Demi Moore.

"New Slang" by The Shins

Unlike some people, I don't hate Garden State.  I thought it was a pretty decent mopey, Indie-ish flick with a really good soundtrack.  The problem I have with the way it handled "New Slang" is the way the song is introduced in the movie.  Zach Braff is in a waiting room at a hospital getting his mope on when Magic Pixie Girl Natalie Portman rudely interrupts his stupor demanding he listen to a song stating "it'll change your life".  Now, I don't know about you, but while I love music and find it to be an important part of my life, I can safely say I have never heard a single song that was so amazing that it changed the very core of my being, altering forever the trajectory of my life.  "New Slang" is a great song, but there is no way it could possibly live up to that expectation.  As a result, it will forever be associated with everything that is wrong in a cloying, saccharine Indie Comedy Drama.

Several songs from the late 60's/early 70's

The Big Chill featured quite a few songs from the late 60's/early 70's, which makes sense given its focus on the ruminations of the Baby Boomer generation looking back from middle age.  Many of these songs are Motown classics like Marvin Gaye's "I Heard It Through The Grapevine" and more than one track from The Temptations.  The Big Chill was a big success at the box office, and it's soundtracks sold very well, forever cementing the association between the two.  Because of this film, many of these songs are now closely affiliated with the Baby Boomer mentality that they were the greatest generation.  As a result, younger generations have started to grow a general distaste with much of this music.  This sentiment was expressed well in the film High Fidelity.  When proposing a list of Top 5 Songs About Death, The Rolling Stones' "You Can't Always Get What You Want" comes up and is immediately shot down due to "it's involvement with The Big Chill".  The song choice is then switched to Gordon Lightfoot's "Wreck of Edmund Fitzgerald", and everyone was satisfied.  Why couldn't The Big Chill leave good music alone?

"Oh Pretty Woman" by Roy Orbison

It's one of the great tragedies in history that whenever someone mentions the name Roy Orbison, a hooker with a heart of gold is the first thing that comes to mind.  Not only has the song "Oh Pretty Woman" been ruined by the almost-titular film, but that song defined Pretty Woman so thoroughly and was such a big hit (the song briefly re-entered the Billboard charts after this film premiered) that the very name Roy Orbison has been tainted with Julia Roberts' gaping maw.  Screw her, screw Richard Gere and screw Garry Marshall.  While "Oh Pretty Woman" is a great song, I'll take "Ooby Dooby" any day.

 "Hallelujah" by Leonard Cohen among others

"Hallelujah" may be both the most welll-constructed and most reviled song on this list due to its insistence in rearing its head in various pop culture ephemera in recent years.  More often that not, Leonard Cohen's version is not the one represented (save for the film Watchmen where it was used in service of a very uncomfortable flashback sequence).  Jeff Buckley's soaring, passionate and, in Jeff Buckley fashion, overwrought version has been the most used and abused, cropping up seemingly everywhere from Shrek to American Idol.  I'm personally partial to John Cale's rendition which Scrubs used in an episode for a typically rollercoaster-of-emotion sequence involving three patients dying at the same time, a bummer of an episode ending even without the haunting melody to accompany it.  "Hallelujah" is a fantastic, beautifully written song by one of the greatest songwriters of the last 50 years, and I honestly never want to hear it again.  

Lili Haydn's Place Between Places

Something you may not know about me, but explains the ridiculous amount of music I own, is that I often buy albums at thrift stores purely on impulse without prior knowledge of the artist based on factors such as record label, album art or song titles.  Of course, price also factors in, hence thrift stores.  In fact, most thrift stores sell CDs and vinyl so cheap that I have a very low threshold for what appeals to my buyer sensibilities. Which brings me to Lili Haydn.

The album art had a rich and entrancing color palette, and the album was released on Nettwerk, who have been known to distribute such widely diverse artists from Skinny Puppy to Sarah McLachlan.  So it piqued my interested enough to pull it from the rack and scrutinize it a little more.  Track listing?  "Oh snap!", I thought. "She covers Funkadelic's 'Maggot Brain'.  This is probably either awesome or horrible.  Either way, it's a win!" I knew then I had no choice but to fork over a dollar to the bored Salvation Army employee and walk back to my car in the safe knowledge that my day had been productive.

So after a full listen of the album, it's both a little more and a little less than I was expecting.  Lili Haydn approaches music as a sort of baroque (not really... but you know what I mean) folk pop violinist.  The album at it's best offers a densely lush experience that reinforces the classical underpinnings of Haydn's training , best exemplified on such tracks as "Can't Win Everything" but sometimes fades into the background, strong but ultimately unremarkable. "Maggot Brain", which is indeed a near transcendent if brief interpretation, is a little different than most of the album, offering a subdued but passionate rendition not unlike the original.

Do I regret my purchase?  Most certainly not!  While it may not fall into constant rotation in my playlist, it is albums like this that justify my thrift store visits.

Bringing It All Back Home

Looking back at my most "recent" posts on here (over 2 1/2 years ago!), it becomes obvious why I stopped blogging.  I had drifted so far away from the original intent of this blog, I was filling time with video game reviews and copy 'n' paste hack jobs of old posts about movies.  I had the shocking realization that I hadn't even blogged about music since 2008!  Music has been such a big part of my life for as long as I can remember that it borders on blasphemy to uncover this artifact of truth.  In fact, according to my rateyourmusic.com profile, I own close to 14,000 albums in various formats.  It seems almost criminal to not write about at least a small chunk of that.  So here I am, deciding to return to my blogger roots and write about music once again.

For my first blog of the new year, I thought in lieu of anything creative, I would just blog about whatever I happen to be listening to today.  Ease myself back into it, if you will...

School of Rock Soundtrack
It seems appropriate that I would start my date with the soundtrack to a movie that revels in the unbridled passion that drives a person to love making music.  While some thought the typically esoteric and philosophical Richard Linklater's Jack Black bufoonery vehicle was a cash grab, I felt the movie offered more than that with the soundtrack playing a much larger part in its success than many films, and rightly so given the subject matter.  School of Rock: Music from and Inspired by the Motion Picture is, in typical soundtrack fashion, a hodge podge of classic rock tracks and bands that sound like, but aren't, classic rock (That's right fellas, Ramones =classic rock... and mind=blown).  One thing that impressed me is Linklater actually secured the rights to a Led Zeppelin song.  Not only that, but it isn't "Stairway to Heaven",although I imagine the ridiculously cost prohibitive rights played a part in song choice.  To be quite honest, I'm very pleased to see "Immigrant Song" represented since it both rocks harder and is much less overplayed than "Stairway".

In my opinion, the only real weak spots on the album are by the fake band No Vacancy, who's songs sound bland in comparison when played alongside such classic acts as The Who, T-Rex and Cream.  In fact, the School of Rock band's rendition of "It's a Long Way to the Top" is better than any of the No Vacancy tracks.  While the album won't be winning any awards for unique and inventive song choice (although choosing "Ballrooms of Mars" over the much more common T-Rex song "Bang a Gong" was great to see), overall it's a pretty solid soundtrack for the rock fan or the burgeoning youth who should be.