Bush [2004] Best Of 94-99

[01] Everything Zen
[02] Little Things
[03] Comedown
[04] Glycerine
[05] Machinehead
[06] Swallowed
[07] Greedy Fly
[08] Warm Machine
[09] The Chemicals Between Us
[10] Letting The Cables Sleep
[11] Everything Zen (The Lhasa Fever Mix)
[12] Mouth (The Stingray Mix)
[13] Swallowed (Goldietoasted Bothsides Please Mix)



amg: Bush's gravelly sound was a staple of alternative rock radio in the space directly after Nirvana's popular breakthrough. And in a way, the U.K. combo became even more popular — Gavin Rossdale's songs were arena-sized versions of Kurt Cobain's angst, mixed to FM perfection and matched to his good-looking mug on MTV. The critics weren't having it, but Bush still became grunge rock stars. "Little Things," "Everything Zen," and "Machine Head" were appropriately raw, but they were also full of bludgeoning hooks and weedling guitar solos. Like all of Rossdale's songs, they also spun off foggy non sequiturs seemingly cynical enough for the cutoff fatigues set, but that in retrospect are rather stilted. ("Minnie Mouse has grown up a cow/Dave's on sale again...We're so bored you're to blame," from "Zen.") Trauma's The Best of '94 - '99 captures these moments for posterity. The hugely successful ballad "Glycerine" is here with its brittle cellos and strained chorus shrieking, as are the less memorable singles from 1996's Razorblade Suitcase, "Swallowed" and the creepy widescreen version of the Pixies' "Greedy Fly." The set closes with the first three tracks from Bush's flawed remix album Deconstructed. "Everything Zen"'s samey big beat pulse can be dated directly to 1997-1998 and records from Crystal Method and Prodigy — it's easy to hear how Deconstructed pleased neither rock fans nor electronic heads when it was released. Goldie does a better job with "Swallowed," splicing in a gloomy jungle bassline and skittering rhythmic patterns and isolating the lead guitar peels. Like hearing the studio versions of Sixteen Stone's singles ten years on, these late-'90s remixes are their own time warp. [The collection's second disc featured the audio of Bush's performance at Woodstock '99.]
(amg 6/10)

Blackmore's Night [2003] Ghost Of A Rose

[01] Way To Mandalay
[02] 3 Black Crows
[03] Diamonds And Rust
[04] Cartouche
[05] Queen For A Day (Part 1)
[06] Queen For A Day (Part 2)
[07] Ivory Tower
[08] Nur Eine Minute
[09] Ghost Of A Rose
[10] Mr. Peagram's Morris And Sword
[11] Loreley
[12] Where Are We Going From Here
[13] Rainbow Blues
[14] All For One
[15] Dandelion Wine



amg: It appears that Ritchie Blackmore, legendary Brit guitar god, axe king of the glorious Deep Purple and Rainbow, is persisting in his attempt to reinvent himself as some kind of Medieval folkie. The fifth outing by Blackmore's Night is another tepid yet overwrought bag of originals, and a wretched cover of Joan Baez's classic "Diamonds and Rust." The issue here is not whether Mr. Blackmore and vocalist Candice Night have the chops. They clearly do. That they insist on using the recording studio to virtually sterilize all that made the music they hold so dear so vital and dangerous is the real problem. These songs, with their glossed-over edges and Ms. Night's completely rounded vocals, leave all of the dark passions they seek to reveal embedded in the songs themselves, like lovers in a cage, stranded. One listen to the early Steeleye Span recordings, or the Watersons "Frost and Fire,"" reveals in spades just how threadbare and empty of life this record is.
(amg 4/10)

Buzzcocks [2003] Buzzcocks

[01] Jerk
[02] Keep On
[03] Wake Up Call
[04] Friends
[05] Driving You Insane
[06] Morning After
[07] Sick City Sometimes
[08] Stars
[09] Certain Move
[10] Lester Sands
[11] Up for the Crack
[12] Useless



amg: On-stage, the reunited Buzzcocks have been a consistently superb live act since Pete Shelley and Steve Diggle began making the rounds again in 1989, but the second edition of the band hasn't had quite the same degree of success in the studio. While Trade Test Transmission and All Set certainly had their moments, neither was up the standards of the group's 1977-1980 glory days, and 1999's Modern was by any standards a severe disappointment. So it's encouraging to report that Buzzcocks, the band's fourth studio set since their reunion, is the strongest album this band has created since returning to active duty. If Shelley and Diggle have moved past teenage angst into the divisive confusion and frequent bitterness of adult life in their lyrics (as well they should have), their songwriting has also developed a hard-edged clarity and flinty intelligence that suits they new material well; and longtime fans will doubtless prefer the two Pete Shelley/Howard DeVoto collaborations here over the brave but muddled electronic experiments of their Buzzkunst album. Musically, this is tough, propulsive music which rocks with a direct and spirited pulse that lacks a dash of the jangle of their pioneering pop-punk singles but boasts a muscular gravity which suits the songs very well indeed. And the production by bassist Tony Barber serves the material well, giving the band a sleek but thick sound which suits both the hooky melodies and the chunky roar of the guitars. If Buzzcocks doesn't reinvent this band, it does give their approach a bit of an overhaul, and the results make for an album which holds onto their strengths while lending a more mature perspective to their work; hard to imagine Green Day or Rancid having anything this interesting up their sleeve 27 years down the line from their first recording.
(amg 8/10)

Boston [2002] Corporate America

[01] I Had A Good Time
[02] Stare Out Your Window
[03] Corporate America
[04] With You
[05] Someone
[06] Turn It Off
[07] Cryin'
[08] Didn't Mean To Fall In Love
[09] You Gave Up On Love
[10] Livin' For You



amg: For all the bad press heaped these days on vintage stadium rock, Boston's Artemis debut resonates with a crisp, fresh energy that's hard to find in the downscale aesthetic of post-punk. As Tom Scholz fans might expect, a metallic sheen gleams across the surface of each track, adding luster to resonant anthems like the politically correct title track as well as more intimate acoustic moments on "With You" and elsewhere. (The same sleek textures coat the album's one live track, a cover of "Livin' for You" that's marred only by the electronic snare drum, which sounds distressingly like the zap of a toy space gun.) Acoustic guitars glisten in fields of dewy reverb, while Scholz's electric leads and fills project a streamlined muscularity. The vocals, delivered by a rotating cast of guests, range from arena stratospherics to whispery folkisms; in the fashion of Phil Spector, Scholz is more concerned with blending them into his timbral landscape than with encouraging interpretive profundities. But that's fine, for Boston has always centered on one man's sonic fantasies, and for better or worse these are undimmed and as assertive as ever, even in the era of Corporate America.
(amg 6/10)

Black Box Recorder [2001] The Worst Of Black Box Recorder

[01] Seasons In The Sun
[02] Watch The Angel Not The Wire
[03] Jackie Sixty
[04] Start As You Mean To Go On
[05] The Facts Of Life Remix
[06] Lord Lucan Is Missing
[07] Wonderful Life
[08] Uptown Top Ranking [Remix]
[09] Brutality
[10] Factory Radio
[11] Soul Boy
[12] Rock 'n' Roll Suicide



amg: Hip hip hooray. Maybe someone up there likes us after all. The Worst of Black Box Recorder is a rare instance where restraint in buying a band's singles has paid off. Compiling all the B-sides from Black Box Recorder's first four singles (two of which were two-parters), a handful of studio extras that were included on the U.S. versions of England Made Me and The Facts of Life — including the stinging "Lord Lucan Is Missing," a take on Rod McKuen's-via-Jacques Brel's "Seasons in the Sun," the Bowie-worthy "Start As You Mean to Go On," and the equally spiky "Brutality" — and also throwing in the band's videos for the A-sides ("The Facts of Life," "Child Psychology," "The Art of Driving," and "England Made Me"), the whole package adds up to an LP that's just as worthy of your hard-earned scratch as the trio's two proper studio albums. Outside of the obvious space/time constraint, it's hard to imagine how most of the songs weren't able to find a way on the original incarnations of England Made Me or The Facts of Life. There isn't a weak moment to be found here, not even on the remixes; both the Chocolate Layers' (Pulp's Steve Mackey and Jarvis Cocker) mix of "The Facts of Life" and BBR's own versioning of "Uptown Top Ranking" don't fail to impress. If that's not enough to rope you in, the disc concludes in perfect fa-fa-fa-fa-fashion with an ultra sultry cover of the Thin White Duke's "Rock 'n' Roll Suicide"; if you close your eyes tight enough, you can envision vocalist Sarah Nixey working her magic onstage for the drunken patrons of the Roadhouse, clad in a funny leather hat.
(amg 7/10)

Boz Scaggs [2001] Dig

[01] Payday
[02] Sarah
[03] Miss Riddle
[04] I Just Go
[05] Get On The Natch
[06] Desire
[07] Call That Love
[08] King Of El Paso
[09] You're Not
[10] Vanishing Point
[11] Thanks To You



amg: Boz Scaggs returns to the arena in the thoroughly modern Dig, four years after his much-acclaimed return to traditional R&B on Come on Home. This takes no small bit of courage for an artist like Scaggs, who has reveled in obscurity for most of the '80s and '90s. Come on Home won the man all sorts of critical platitudes for making unfashionable roots music in a highly unlikely time. It showed, of course, in that the record sold barely respectably. Dig is, if anything, a hyper-modern take on R&B. Scaggs and co-producers David Paich (who co-wrote virtually all the material here) and guitarist Danny Kortchmar have embraced modern production, recording, and mixing techniques in the same way Scaggs did on Silk Degrees (whose part two this is definitely not). The result is simply a very fine adult contemporary take on rhythm & blues that showcases Scaggs in the finest voice he's given us in decades, a solid batch of tunes, and very few irritating elements. Scaggs' use of hip-hop methodologies in tracks like "Desire," with Michael Rodriguez's programming, is subtle enough to add atmosphere to an already beautiful song. The tune is a ballad so smooth and streetwise, so late-night in feel and sentiment, the timberline drum program just underlines the spooky guitars and Scaggs' sweet crooning; in fact, his voice here sounds better than it ever has. There are other modernisms that Scaggs employs here that would have been better left on the cutting room floor, such as his insistence on rapping on "Just Go," where he sounds like a Wal-Mart cross between Frank Zappa on "Dina Moe Hum" and Tom Waits from Bone Machine. But there are only a couple of moments like that; his blues roots manifest themselves well on "King of El Paso" and his embrace of Latin-tinged pop suits him well on "Call That Love." While it's a slick record in typical Scaggs fashion, it's a slim cast of characters who pull it all off — mainly Scaggs, Paich, and Kortchmar (who is as fine a guitarist as ever), with guests like Ray Parker, Jr., pedal steel god Steve Lukather, and jazz trumpeter Roy Hargrove Jr. lending their hands in various spots. For a guy everybody said was in the hallmark of memory, Boz Scaggs is making remarkably refreshing and compelling music. Dig is mature enough to resonate well with his aging audience, and it's slick and polished enough to catch the ear of pop radio programmers. With precious few rough spots, Dig is a pop triumph by a sleight-of-sound master.
(amg 8/10)

Bob Geldof [2001] Sex, Age & Death

[01] One For Me
[02] 6,000,000$ Loser
[03] Pale White Girls
[04] The New Routine
[05] Mudslide
[06] Mind In Pocket
[07] My Birthday Suit
[08] Scream In Vain
[09] Inside Your Head
[10] 10:15



amg: There's no evidence here that political beatification has mellowed Bob Geldof. If anything, his message has grown more apocalyptic, even as his music broadens to a degree unprecedented in his own catalog. The title gives a pretty clear picture of what this is all about. Whether viciously dismembering some withered media icon on "One for Me" or desiccating a relationship addiction that borders on necrophilia in "Pale White Girls," Geldof maintains the highest pop standards of lyrical expression and musical setting. A punk energy, broken down at times to techno/tribal components or filtered through shimmering electronica, permeates each performance. The rhythm track to "Scream in Vain" deserves special mention, with its segues from a pumping house-style synth bass drum through various atmospheric moments and, for a moment, some Clash-like fist pumping. Geldof refers to other works — a Dylan paraphrase, a sampled fragment from "Get Off of My Cloud" — not to distract from any weaknesses in his vision, but to fit into its strengths. All this finesse serves a righteous, primal anger. Dramatic contrasts in dynamics, and a vocal that veers from beatnik poetry to a searing shout that somehow recalls both Prince and John Lennon, convey a bleak picture in "Mudslide," built on a metaphor of bugs being burned in an electric trap. This song, like everything else on this album, is about rage and resistance against those who succumb too easily to life's suffocations. Perhaps the essence of the album lies in the almost incoherent fury of "Inside Your Head," in which he throws subtlety against the wall and screams, "What the f**k's going on inside your head?" With its blunt scatology set against what sounds like a roomful of oblivious chowhounds in a café, Geldof goes eyeball to eyeball with his real enemy: all among us who nestle ourselves into the bosom of mendacity. Sex, Age & Death bashes at the door and demands attention; only fear keeps us from letting it in.
(amg 8/10)

Ben Harper [2001] Live From Mars

[01] Glory & Consequence
[02] Excuse Me Mr.
[03] Alone
[04] Sexual Healing
[05] Woman In You
[06] Ground On Down
[07] Steal My Kisses
[08] Burn One Down
[09] Mama's Got A Girlfriend
[10] Welcome To The Cruel World
[11] Forgiven
[12] Faded - Whole Lotta Love
[13] Waiting On An Angel
[14] Roses From My Friends
[15] Power Of The Gospel
[16] Pleasure And Pain
[17] Please Bleed
[18] The Drugs Don't Work
[19] In The Lord's Arms
[20] Not Fire, Not Ice
[21] Beloved One
[22] #3
[23] Walk Away
[24] Another Lonely Day
[25] Like A King - I'll Rise



amg: Ben Harper is a road dog. He and his band, the Innocent Criminals, travel around the world playing nearly 200 shows a year; therefore, it was only a matter of time before this guitar virtuoso made a live album. Live From Mars, an enigmatic two-disc set of 25 songs, celebrates the rise of Harper, his incredible live presence between 1998 and 2000, and the appreciation between him and his audience. His fragile acoustics have been thrown into a massive guitar storm on disc one, a thunderous combination of his signature folky blues-funk rock & roll. He's soulful and approachable on "Excuse Me Mr." and "Burn One Down," but he reaches for something tangible on Marvin Gaye's "Sexual Healing." The vibe is calm and cool while Harper's vocals scale between a sweet falsetto and a rugged twang. "Faded" exudes Harper's electric twitching, and its perfection swaggers into a riveting cover of Led Zeppelin's "Whole Lotta Love" for a near ten-minute car crash of pure rollicking. He switches from his electric to an acoustic for disc two, making his informality even more enticing. "Waiting on an Angel" is delicate, similar to the likes of Jeff Buckley, but it's the beauty of the Verve's "The Drugs Don't Work" that truly captures the standard of excellence that Harper depicts as a performer. Acoustically, he's honored and such praise is deserved. He's practically flawless. He's a modest artist, and such humility is found among his songs. He's achieved respectability with his fans that only so many artists are able to attain. Live From Mars is a proper release and certainly an inviting look into Harper and the showmanship he projects while spending time on the road.
(amg 6/10)

Bush [2001] Golden State

[01] Solutions
[02] Headful Of Ghosts
[03] The People That We Love
[04] Superman
[05] Fugitive
[06] Hurricane
[07] Inflatable
[08] Reasons
[09] Land Of The Living
[10] My Engine Is With You
[11] Out Of This World
[12] Float



amg: Like many bands of their era, Bush was sucked into the idea that rock bands are only relevant if they incorporate electronica ideas — a move that sank their third album, The Science of Things, and effectively derailed their career at a crucial time when post-grunge bands were falling by the wayside in an alarming fashion. This caused Bush to stumble, not just artistically but commercially, and they faded from the mainstream spotlight for a few years before mounting a comeback in the fall of 2001 with Golden State. The simple cover art, looking for all the world like advance art, signals that this a return to basics, which it is — this is a return to the sound of Sixteen Stone, complete with big, grandiose production propelled by ballsy grunge riffs and real hooks in the guitars and vocals. They never sound as somber or as self-conscious as they did on the Steve Albini-produced Razorblade Suitcase, nor do they sound as out of their element as they did on Science — they sound comfortable and powerful, rocking hard, turning out songs that are not only catchy, but that hold together and cohere over the course of an album. Though there aren't singles as grabbing as the songs that propelled Sixteen Stone to multi-platinum status, this is as consistent an album as any Bush has ever made, keeping a steady pace throughout its 12 songs and delivering on almost every track. It doesn't sound hip or current in 2001 by any means — it sounds charmingly retro, as a matter of fact, sorta stuck in 1994 — but it's better than most records in its vein, and that counts for something even if it doesn't burn up the charts like its predecessors.
(amg 6/10)

Black Box Recorder [2000] The Facts Of Life

[01] The Art Of Driving
[02] Weekend
[03] The English Motorway System
[04] May Queen
[05] Sex Life
[06] French Rock 'n' Roll
[07] The Facts Of Life
[08] Straight Life
[09] Gift Horse
[10] The Deverell Twins
[11] Goodnight Kiss



amg: Make no mistake: Black Box Recorder are malevolent scoundrels. Their debut album — England Made Me — was a distressing, vacant eye staring over the unspoken horror of everyday England, so one wondered where they could go from there. With The Facts Of Life, they moved that voyeuristic, cynical stare away from suicide and car crashes and focused it on small-town dating and disenchanted sex lives. Strangely enough, the horror feels the same. Songs like the utterly menacing hook of "The Art of Driving" will chill even the most neutral of listeners while the John Barry-influenced "Weekend" strolls along with such desolate grace that it's just subtly elegant. Vocalist Sarah Nixey sings with impassioned distance that serves up the disparagement nicely. Lines such as, "Don't even look at me 'till we're alone," "Careful not to touch, we've drunk enough/Just another weekend falling," or "Read the message on the bottle/Go and drink yourself to death" probably won't become national anthems anytime soon. All the better for it, then. As in BBR's debut, the same barren instrumentation and distanced vocals are still here, but this time around there seems to be a pop sensibility that evokes far more seditious strengths than ever before. This produces a delightfully sinister contradiction. "Straight Life," for instance, has Nixey chiming, "It's a beautiful morning," and only BBR could make such a statement sound truly sardonic. The closing "Goodnight Kiss" is also brimming with beauty, yet — at heart — still a song with pained regret. All this doesn't even begin to get near the marvel that is the title track either. "The Facts of Life" is found nestled in the album's core and it still glares at you like a Stanley Kubrick-directed All Saints production. Simple, gorgeous, chart-friendly, and just plain evil. It is undoubtedly one of the most subversive singles ever written. Indeed, clocking in at just under 40 minutes, The Facts Of Life is a precise, meticulous, deeply disturbing experience. The album is proof that there's still life in pop music. Subversion has rarely sounded this startling.
(amg 9/10)

Billy Joel [2000] 2000 Years - The Millennium Concert

[01] Beethoven's Ninth Symphony
[02] Big Shot
[03] Movin' Out (Anthony's Song)
[04] Summer Highland Falls
[05] Ballad Of Billy The Kid
[06] Don't Ask Me Why
[07] New York State Of Mind
[08] I've Loved These Days
[09] My Life
[10] Allentown
[11] Prelude - Angry Young Man
[12] Only The Good Die Young
[13] I Go To Extremes
[14] Goodnight Saigon
[15] We Didn't Start The Fire
[16] Big Man On Mulberry Street
[17] 2000 Years
[18] Auld Lang Syne
[19] River Of Dreams
[20] Scenes From An Italian Restaurant
[21] Dance To The Music
[22] Honky Tonk Women
[23] It's Still Rock And Roll To Me
[24] You May Be Right
[25] This Night
[26] This Is The Time



amg: Among the major artists celebrating the end of the 20th century with a New Year's Eve blowout was Billy Joel, who set up shop at Madison Square Garden and played a marathon show lasting nearly three hours. It was quite a feat for a man who claimed that he had retired from pop music, but the last New Year's Eve gig of the 20th century offers an artist a chance to sum up either the past century or their career. Joel decided to do both, throwing in a few classic rock covers at the end of a show that offered a whirlwind spin through his lengthy back catalog. Several songs from the concert are absent on 2000 Years: The Millennium Concert, the audio record of the event, but that's because it's impossible to squeeze three hours onto two discs. That means such staples as "Piano Man" are absent, but they're not particularly missed, since such early classics as "Summer Highland Falls," "The Ballad of Billy the Kid," and "I've Loved These Days" take their place. These moments are what make the record worthwhile for serious Joel fans, since that's where he sounds relaxed and emotionally vested. The rest of the album is pure spectacle, as it builds to a midnight crescendo of "Auld Lang Syne," which gives way to oldies covers and hits. There are certain lapses in pacing that slow the momentum, and Joel's voice does stretch mighty thin at some points. These are the sort of things that are easy to ignore in concert, when the experience is all-important, but on record, it does diminish the overall effect, even for hardcore Joel fans. It's often enjoyable, but the end result is a bit underwhelming, which means that 2000 Years is more like a souvenir of a passed moment than it was intended to be.
(amg 5/10)