LIST: The Rules of Buying Music

The holiday shopping season is here and if you’re like me you end up spending a little on family and friends and a little on yourself too.  Charity starts at home after all.  Before you hit the record shops and box stores check out the guidelines below.  Most of these should go without saying, and if you take any of them seriously (except #11) you need more help than I can offer. Still...

1. Don’t buy an album for that one song.
That’s what illegal file sharing is for.  If you really must have "Who Let the Dogs Out?" for Pete's sake steal it or buy it on iTunes  - buying the whole album will only encourage them to make more.

2. Avoid “classic” or “hard” rock produced after 1990.
ie. Van Halen post “OU812," Aerosmith post “Pump," etc.  These guys went from being Monsters of Rock to dinosaurs the minute you graduated from high school.  (I am being extreeeemely lenient with dates due to my own fondness for the genre.  Purists would set a cut-off date in the mid-eighties.)  See also, Rule #7.

3. Avoid celebrity cross-overs.
If a square is always a rectangle but a rectangle is not always a square then Shaquille O'Neil can still play basketball and Bruce Willis can still make movies without either of them recording another album, right?  Unfortunately this doesn't help J-Lo either way.

4. Avoid the Sophomore Slump.
Second albums often disappoint.  Average acts usually get one shot and the momentum of early success, especially on MTV or Top 40 radio, is seldom enough to carry a second album.  It’s an easily rationalized but hard to explain phenomenon.  Give second efforts time to mature before rushing out to be the first one to get the second disc by a band that will likely never make a third.

5. Avoid (a) live recordings, (b) B-sides and (c) Greatest Hits compilations.
These are catalog fillers hoping to cash in on new record sales without the expense of producing a new record.

(a) Seeing a band play live over and over can expose nuanced performances and enrich one's understanding of the music.  Hearing the exact same live performance over and over at home can do just the opposite.  Live recordings showcase bad acoustics and drunk fans as often as they highlight the ineffable vibe of being there.  This includes “unplugged” style acoustic performance discs.

(b) B-sides usually didn’t make the album cut for a reason so unless you’re a big fan you won’t find your money’s worth.

(c) Greatest Hits albums are tricky.  There are perfectly representative Greatest Hits discs available for artists like James Taylor, The Eagles and The Doors.  However, some hits comps lure you in with one or two all-time favorites surrounded by crap you've never heard and probably won't like - often new songs too shabby to merit an album of their own.  Others include edited or live versions instead of the original recording.

6. Avoid so-called Super Groups, spin-offs or unlikely pairings / duets.
Adding Neil Young to Crosby, Stills & Nash is one thing - putting Ted Nugent together with members of Styx and Night Ranger is wholly another.  From the Traveling Wilburys to Ugly Casanova, the pieces never quite add up.  And while all duet pairings aren’t as surreal as Bing Crosby and David Bowie singing “Little Drummer Boy” (Bing Crosby’s 42nd Annual Christmas Special, 1977) most are a little awkward.  (This rule may be bent to accommodate the incestuous track-hopping that goes on among hip-hop artists.)

7. Avoid aging icons.
Rock'n'roll used to be a kid's game, but fossils like Mick Jagger and Bob Dylan seem to have stretched the genre's age limit indefinitely.  While exceptions can be made for cultural fixtures the cult of youth is still running the show, and let’s face it, that’s not such a bad thing.  It keeps things fresh and forces the, ahem, more established acts to stay on their game or risk playing to ballrooms full of fat bald old men.  Neil Young and Sonic Youth serve as shining examples of how to beat this rule by staying relevant and challenging without sacrificing quality.  Apparently it’s harder to do than it sounds, so watch out.

8. Avoid the flavor of the month.
Nowhere is our fickle, whiplash attention span on better display than in the music we promote and listen to.  Stop twitching and let that new slab from The Killers cool before you rush out to buy it.  You’ll know soon enough if there are more than two songs worth listening to.  Otherwise you’ll end up with a closet full of next year’s Hoobastank sound-alikes, and no one wants that.

9. Avoid collecting in reverse / stagnant collecting
So it's 2004, you’re 14 years old and you just heard the new REM.  Amazingly you think it’s the best thing that happened to you since you got your braces off so you go out to gather their back catalog.  Imagine your surprise, horror even, at hearing “Murmur” or “Reckoning.”  Bands change, sometimes for the better (Radiohead), sometimes for the worse (Guns-n-Roses) and sometimes just for the different (REM).  Keep listening but don’t feel like you need the whole opus, old or new, to enjoy or even get to know the artist.

10. If it’s been in the bargain bin for a month or more it should probably stay there.
Price tags aren’t always telling.  $1.99 may mean “worst album ever” or “best album that’s so beat up it only plays on one cd player in the known universe and it’s probably not yours ever.”  The way to shop the bins is to check in regularly and keep mental notes on repeat offenders and discs serving life without parole.  Most pop albums have a short shelf life and will get turned around sooner or later, but beware of anything still floating around past its decade of origin.

11. Buy what you like.
If Barry Manilow or Bon Jovi are what blow up your skirt then tell me to go to hell.  Take the T-tops off your I-ROC Z and push your Optimus speakers to the limit!  Enduring ridicule builds character.

REVIEW: Wilco "A Ghost Is Born"

Rating: 8

Lexington, KY
1991
Dave and I were driving down Broadway away from campus.  He was prematurely bald, and, at six-five, neatly folded behind the wheel of his Honda.  I was a freshman so I admired him for being one year older than me, plus he was funny.  He asked if I had heard of Uncle Tupelo.  They’re a punk-rock bluegrass band he said.  They’re loud and really good he said.  Some people might mistake them for country, but they’re not.  Not really he said.  He plugged in “Still Feel Gone” and we went wherever we were going.

I picked up “March 16-20, 1992” a few months after it came out, then quickly gathered the other two discs.  My roommate, a devoted country music fan, was into it so he offered me the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band and some Dukes era Steve Earle. Yer Tupelo Whatever is good, he said, but THIS is country music.  I was glad he left Garth Brooks and Tim McGraw out of the conversation

1995
I was driving alone one afternoon feeling both free and responsible.  I had a decent summer job and was on my way to pick up a friend at a place I wasn’t sure how to find.  I would be 22 soon, an adult by some accounts and a college graduate to boot, so I felt qualified to drive around until I found it.  The brand new Wilco “AM” was playing in the car and I was determined to learn the words to “Box Full of Letters” by the end of the day.  It was the first time I anticipated the release of an album and picked up my copy the day it became available.  I was not disappointed.

I knew all about Uncle Tupelo’s break-up.  I even thought I had heard the rift begin on “Anodyne.”  I had read about the new projects too.  Both seemed like stupid names but I had decided to hear them out.  I would see Wilco and the Jayhawks at the Kentucky Theater in Lexington and I would pick up copies of Golden Smog discs as they appeared.  I would catch Son Volt on the H.O.R.D.E. tour’s small stage.  Yup, I was a bona fide, ground-floor level fan of the new alternative country music scene.

San Francisco, CA
1996
My room on Hyde Street seemed too big with the lights on so I rarely used them.  I didn’t know my roommates.  I set my second-hand stereo on a wooden vegetable crate.  I suppose it goes without saying that my mattress was on the floor.  On foggy Sunday afternoons I could walk to the corner for Korean bbq and a six-pack of Budweiser, bring it home, don headphones and wrap myself in  “Being There.”  I could leave my studio at the Art Institute late, wear myself out walking up Clay Street and fall asleep to “What’s the World Got in Store.”

I would meet a girl named Amy who had never heard of Jeff Tweedy but she loved the Pixies and drove an old Volvo just like my first car only brick red instead of pickle green.  Soon we’d be sitting in her room on Sunday afternoons listening to Hank Williams.

1999
Things had been going pretty well. I moved in with Amy. Her friends were becoming my friends. Everything seemed new and yet familiar, and very bright. It was a different life than the one I imagined, but it was a life of my own choosing and it suited me.

We liked to drive down to her family’s cabin in Santa Cruz on weekends. We’d sit on the porch with the doors open and “Summerteeth” playing inside. Soon we’d move out of the city to save money and get a fresh start. We’d get married the next summer. In lieu of cutting a cake Amy opened a piñata with a broom handle while Johnny Cash’s “Ring of Fire” played over the PA.

Davis, CA
2002
Three years can bring a lot of change.  Amy and I were expecting a child.  We bought a station wagon in anticipation of the happy day.  We knew we couldn’t afford all the extras but made sure to spring for the premium sound package.  “Yankee Hotel Foxtrot” was the disc I took to test the speakers, and it was what we listened to on the ride home, car-loan approved and a little ashamed of how nice it felt to drive a brand new car.

I had seen the album criticized as dad-rock, but as a dad-to-be and someone doing his best to embrace the introspective moments and predictable comfort suburban life has to offer I couldn’t see that particular label as the evil it was meant to be.  Besides, there was nothing predictable about “Ashes of American Flags.”

2004
Dylan greeted me from behind the counter with a sly smile, saying “Gee, I wonder what you’re here for?” and produced a sealed copy of “A Ghost is Born” like he was laying down a winning hand. I’m pretty sure he was wearing a blue Uncle Tupelo t-shirt. I was flattered and a little embarrassed. I’d been coming into Armadillo Records almost weekly for five years so I shouldn’t have been surprised.

I had downloaded the "Australian EP" and picked up the Loose Fur record while anticipating "Ghost" and whatever changes it might soundtrack in my life. I’d kept up with line-up shifts and tracklist changes on-line and heard a few of the new songs on Soundstage with Sonic Youth. They played "Hummingbird" on Letterman, just days after Tweedy finished rehab. He bobbed at the waste and sounded like Paul Westerberg.

It would be easy to feel disappointed upon discovering something languid and reminiscent in the new songs, especially since I had already come to enjoy the version of “Handshake Drugs” on the EP, which does out shuffle and shine the same number on the LP. Then again, there can be genuine happiness in finding something familiar and a little soft, something that doesn’t feel the need to overly impress or experiment. In art these same qualities are often deemed lazy, as if any effort which fails to challenge an artist’s range or audience’s understanding is inherently devoid of value. Filler. Noise. But sometimes, if things are going all right or, more often, if things aren’t going that well after all, it can be good to revisit old themes and stick to whatever groove suits you just then. If Tweedy and company feel cozy with Jim O’Rourke and the stoned fuzziness he brought to the Loose Fur project then maybe they should roll with it. Maybe now isn’t the time to step yet again into uncharted territory. Is non-experimentation always resting on your laurels or could it be enjoying the moment, celebrating it quietly once having recognized it for what it is. What is “it”, you ask? Is it a feeling? A sense? A brief encounter? A ghost - ?

Okay, I started this knowing full well it would be a total cop out of a review, non-committal and probably uninteresting.  The fact is, I guessed this album wouldn’t measure up to the exponentially mounting expectations established by the almost universally acknowledged critical leaps made on  "Summerteeth” and “Yankee Hotel Foxtrot.”  Our daughter is a year old and we’ve all settled into a pretty nice rhythm together.  Some things are new, some things are just like before, and some things are, well, just things.  After almost 15 years with the core members of Wilco playing in my car or bedroom or front porch it’s hard for me to imagine a new album not figuring into my life somehow.  Sometimes there’s just not as much going on as others.  Today that is a welcome treat.