Over a decade after it went off the air, the reputation of the short-lived sketch comedy show The State has grown to legendary status. The eleven members of the troupe have enjoyed varying measures of success as actors, writers and directors with notable projects like Reno 911, Stella, Wet Hot American Summer and the massively successful Night At the Museum films. It’s wonderful to see these fine comedians doing well, but none of these projects is as singular, outlandish or laugh-out-loud funny as The State.
In the tradition of Monty Python and Kids in the Hall, The State were a group that hit the ground running with a unique and fully-realized comic voice. Absurdity, self-awareness, inspired situations and hilarious characters were in no short-supply. During its run, quotes from the show were gleefully bandied about amongst eager friends as often as gems from The Simpsons or Seinfeld.
Dvd’s hadn’t come out when the show went off the air, and since their introduction fans have been begging for the show’s release. It’s been far too long a wait, but The State is finally available, ready to be enjoyed by nostalgic fans and curious newcomers. I emphatically reccomend purchasing this or at least checking it out. The State is dead, long live The State.
Believing, as we do, that you can’t judge a book by its cover, what follows is a list of albums we consider great despite some garish cover art. Feel free to weigh in with your contributions to the list or any disagreements you may have. Ciao.
Neil Young – Zuma
When Zuma came out, Neil Young was coming out of his infamous ditch period, a dark and creatively fertile stretch of albums. Zuma, a more upbeat country tinged album is considered one of his greatest, but unlike the striking and more artistically considered album art of the previous albums, Neil seriously miscalculated with this one. What are we looking at here? A mediocre black and white sketch of what appears to be a pelican-eagle hybrid riding the back of flying naked women over desert terrain. And there’s a pyramid. Maybe there’s some brilliant connection between the music and the image, but it’s an eyesore. Only the idiosyncratic Young would compromise such an upbeat album’s broad appeal with a cover that says, “Put me in a bargain bin.”
Beatles – Magical Mystery Tour
In 1967, it seemed The Beatles could do no wrong. Sgt Pepper had solidified their status as popular music’s most ambitious and capable innovators. What would they do next? Of course, their subsequent music was immaculate. The Magical Mystery Tour EP, which would would later be expanded to a complete album with the addition of contemporaneous A and B sides, is as good as anything they did. However, the EP was released in support of the disastrous Magical Mystery Tour television movie, a masturbatory hour of improvised scenes and half-baked ideas. The EP’s cover, in its original and revised form, has more in common with the film than the music. As difficult as it is for me to write such blasphemy, for a moment, The Beatles seemed completely out-of-touch
Black Sabbath – Sabotage
The last great Sabbath album to feature Ozzy (sorry Technical Ecstasy fans), Sabotage saw Sabbath indulging a number of disparate whims effectively. The album featured two of Sabbath’s greatest rockers, (Symptom of the Universe and Hole in the Sky), ambitious studio trickery, and atypical, keyboard-driven songs. Unfortunately, for all the thought and planning that went into the music itself, the cover is garbage. The band strikes a lazy pose, echoed on the portrait behind them in a black, foggy room. It looks worse than it sounds on paper. What was the photographer saying to them? “You! On the left! Try to look more stilted. Red pants, can I get a little belly peeking out of that leather jacket? Beautiful. Something’s still not right. Can we get Ozzy in a dress?”
Kinks – Lola vs Powerman and the Moneygoround
Driven by the success of “Lola”, one of the Kinks biggest hits, Lola vs Powerman and the Moneygoround was something of a comeback for The Kinks after a handful of brilliant but under-appreciated albums. Eclectic and eccentric, the album was unapologetically honest and cutting, targeting the music industry as well as people of deplorable character in general. The cover is abysmal, featuring the bizarre and unappealing image of two faces spliced together. By all accounts, Ray Davies was really hoping for a hit with this album. Why he’d jeopardize his chances with such a poorly conceived cover, we’ll never know.
Pearl Jam – Ten
Here it is, folks. The worst cover on this list. Ten was one of the biggest albums of the grunge movement, and Pearl Jam has proven to be the most enduring of those bands, continuing to enjoy popularity and success well into their second decade. While most of the grunge elite were breaking up and falling apart, Pearl Jam was just getting started. So what the hell were they thinking with this cover? It features the band high-fiving under pink light in front of a massive sculpture of their name. It screams early nineties, but believe me folks, it was even shitty back then. The worst part has to be the group high-five. A high-five? Preposterous.
Son Volt – American Central Dust
Son Volt singer-songwriter Jay Farrar casts his gaze around the good old U.S. of A. and isn’t happy with what he sees. The economy has tanked, greed runs rampant and dreams come crashing to the ground. Even if all that’s true, does it really help to sound this mopey?
Farrar’s dour perspective courses through most of these dozen songs, the gloom broken only sporadically by the band’s musical interplay. Too often, his melodies are Spartan vehicles for his lyrical prose, which is ambitiously artful but would be served just as well — perhaps better — as spoken-word exercises. (read the full review)
Those Darlins – Those Darlins
Tennessee’s best kept little secret no longer remains hidden as Those Darlins have released their debut self titled album on their very own label Oh Wow Dang! Records. Kelly Darlin, Nikki Darlin, and Jessie Darlin who make up Those Darlins do their own thing their own way. The result is a band that spills out some great tunes combining pop with rock, punk, and country.
Hailing from Murfreesboro, TN the musically inclined trio of women have already made their way around the US playing shows small and large. With their constant touring with acts such as Dan Auerbach, The Features, and even playing a stage at this year’s Bonnaroo, they finally have released their debut album for all to hear. (read the full review)
Oneida – Rated O
Rated O is the second installment in Oneida’s long-promised Thank Your Parents, a trilogy in three unequal parts. The first chapter, Preteen Weaponry, comprised a single song that was really an unswerving freeway jams. A year ago, this correspondent found it underwhelming, but it grows on you in the same way certain Can albums (Soon Over Babaluma, Flow Motion) do, with passages that initially seem bland or underdone revealing subtle riches if you just play ‘em often enough. So ask me a year from now and I may say something quite different about Rated O. But today, it looks like an indulgent, overstuffed and intermittently brilliant mess. (read the full review)
The Jayhawkes – Music From The North Country
Hopefully Music from The North Country, an ambitious new career retrospective on the Jayhawks will change that. Overseen by Gary Louris, this 2 CD/1 DVD set was obviously assembled with loving care. You’d also be surprised at how many of these songs you might recognize, even if you don’t necessarily know the Jayhawks by name.
Disc one plays like the proverbial greatest hits set by a band that never really had any. It opens with “Two Angels” and “Aint No End,” two tracks from Blue Earth, the Jayhawks lone 1989 album for indie label Twin Tone. “Aint No End” in particular still sounds like the opening shot by a band destined for future greatness. Olson and Louris trade off on some of the sweetest harmonies this side of the Flying Burrito Brothers as the guitars crackle with all the warmth of a bristling campfire. (read the full review)
Higher Ground and Pure Pop Records are giving away free tickets to see Les Claypool THIS WEEKEND, Sunday the 12th of July. All you need to be eligible is email us at purepopper@gmail.com and write “I Want Tickets to See Les Claypool” In the subject. Winners will be drawn on Saturday!
Winners will have their names put on the VIP list at the door, and invited backstage for a meet and greet with the man himself!
Wilco – (The Album)
Personally I can’t remember ever feeling the same about any Wilco album a couple of months after the first experience. For instance 2007′s Sky Blue Sky seemed so short of my own expectations that I felt annoyed I’d have to wait another two years for the next one. But it was seeing those songs live and building a relationship with the them over repeated plays that has turned it into my favourite Wilco album to date. Only time will tell how Wilco will reveal itself . What’s clearly evident is that seamless and effortless leaps between genre and style mask the fact that the wealth of variety and diversion in this one album puts the vast majority of their contemporaries in the shade. Sure, there’s a recognisable motif that connects everything here, but it’s not a ‘sonic’ or genre-based theme. Instead the thread is that of a band seemingly increasing in confidence to produce something hugely rich, deeply luxurious and ultimately enormously generous. (Read the full review)
Levon Helm – Electric Dirt
His last record, 2007’s Grammy-nabbing Dirt Farmer, is as raw and engaging a country folk record as any in recent memory. Electric Dirt, his latest, faces South, too. Helm kicks it off with a cover of the Grateful Dead’s “Tennessee Jed,” which sounds more like a real country standard than Jerry Garcia and Robert Hunter’s original. And his take on Carter Stanley’s “White Dave” is a mournful masterpiece that sounds like the songs on the slightly superior Dirt Farmer. “Growin’ Trade” is an aggie lament about a good farmer who is forced to start growing America’s biggest cash crop, despite its illegality. Helm teases with an intro that would trick a straight person into thinking it’s a version of the Band’s “The Weight.” The catchy hook, blue-collar vibe, and reverence for marijuana make it sound like the best Neil Young song he’s never sung. (Read the full review)
Moby – Wait for Me
Wait For Me is actually Moby’s best album since Play, with touches of his truly brilliant Animal Rights.
Apparently, the approach was inspired by a talk Lynch gave at BAFTA in the UK. Moby paraphrased a suggestion of Lynch’s thusly: “too often an artists or musicians or writers creative output is judged by how well it accommodates the marketplace, and how much market share it commands and how much money it generates.”
So Moby focused on making a record for himself, with no concern over how it might be received commercially. And if that’s something that he needed to make a conscious attempt to achieve, it’s really no wonder that his last few albums haven’t been very special from our standpoint. (Read the full review)
Away We Go OST
For a film that focuses on the intricacies of life: marriage, pregnancy, childhood, employment, social networking; its most appropriate that someone as simple and pragmatic as Murdoch should lend his talents to this film. His debut release Time Without Consequence won the praise of many a critic and sat atop numerous Top 10 lists. Oft-quoted for bearing an unshakable comparison to Nick Drake and Jose Gonzales, he is fortunate to possess a warm, woody tenor that’s appealing yet mildly tiring. Much like cedar or oak, his vocal tone at times appears dry and dull and were it not for some clever fingerpicking, the songs would most certainly flop.
This is exactly the problem with the first half of this soundtrack. Even though the jangly roots-rock of George Harrison’s “What is Life,” appears three songs in, the record is still dragged down by Murdoch’s lack of pace. Seriously, Alexi, would it kill you to do something uptempo? That being said, The Stranglers’ kickin’ “Golden Brown,” Bob Dylan’s pleading “Meet Me in the Morning,” and the crackling “Oh! Sweet Nuthin” from the Velvet Underground,” are the album’s highest peaks. (Read the full review)
Independence Day Weekend is one of the biggest for the Hollywood Box Office. In that spirit, we’ve decided to dedicate this week’s list to songs written for movies. Sure, we could have done a list of patriotic songs, but we’re pop-culture obsessives. Bear in mind, there are many great songs strongly identified with certain films, but they only qualified for this list if they written specifically for the movie they appear in. No “Head Over Heals” in Donnie Darko, for example.
Transformers The Movie
The Touch – Stan Bush
Well before Michael Bay’s live-action celluloid nightmares, the robots in disguise made their first cinematic foray in support of the original animated tv series. Released in 1986, Transformers: The Movie became a sort of minor classic. Whereas the show had been relatively low-stakes, the film heightened the drama by killing off major characters, portraying genocide and, in certain editions, featuring swear words. This may have been enough to make the film endure, but Stan Bush’s “The Touch” ensured members of a certain generation would never forget . Wailing guitars, churchy synths and a Loggins-esque vocal delivery characterize this anthem. What is “the touch”? It’s an indelible quality that creates greatness. Featured twice in the film, it was resurrected in 1997′s Boogie Nights as one of Dirk Diggler’s ill-fated would-be singles.
Flash Gordon
Flash’s Theme – Queen
It’s common for movies these days to feature scores by rock bands and popular musicians. In 1980, it was something of a novelty. Queen’s score for Flash Gordon is a great example of how the marriage can work. Who better to provide musical accompaniment to the bombastic, over-the-top theatricality of Flash Gordon than rock’s most bombastic, over-the-top and theatrical act? Look no further than Flash’s Theme, one of the few tracks on the album to feature vocals. It is both the perfect piece to set the ironic tone of the film as well as a classic Queen track. The film was unsuccessful, retaining a small cult following, but the song lives on in Queen collections and as a ubiquitous pop-culture reference.
The Triplets of Belleville
Belleville Rendez-vouz – Beatrice Bonifassi
The Triplets of Bellville feels like a timeless classic the moment you first see it. It is a singular and striking piece of animation. It has the surreal quality of a dream. Its dialogue free-narrative gives the story a universal quality. Its elderly protagonist predates the elderly protogaonist of Miyazaki’s Howl’s Moving Castle by a year Pixar’s Up by six. Most of all, the music is absolutely, balls-to-the-wall amazing. An amalgamation of popular styles from the 1920′s, Benoit Charest’s music for this film evokes more than any amount of dialogue ever could. The film’s theme, Belleville Rendez-vous is uplifting, infectious and inspiring. I could levy a complaint or two against the film, but the music is perfect.
The Jungle Book
I Wanna be Like You (The Monkey Song) – Louis Prima
These days Disney offers vacuous, over-focus-tested entertainment designed to strike your emotional palette the same way a MacDonald’s Big Mac is intended to strike your oral palate. Once upon a time, they were the premier innovators of animation and family entertainment. They did things on old technology that would be difficult to accomplish today, post-digital revolution. They also hired some of the best song-writers of their time. For our list, we had to go with “I Wanna Be Like You (The Monkey Song)” from The Jungle Book as the penultimate Disney song. Sung by the incomparable Louis Prima, the song has a backbeat that won’t quit, tasty harmonies and a superlative melody. When Baloo tries to rescue Mowgli during this musical number, his plan derails as the song overtakes him and he helplessly joins in the performance. You know what? I buy it.
Top Gun
Danger Zone – Kenny Loggins
Top Gun is a very silly movie. One could imagine it began with a studio excec or producer muttering, “fighter jets”, scrawling it on a cocktail napkin and coming up with the plot on-the-fly at a pitch meeting. It is one of many 80′s cinematic curios, seemingly made in all sincerity with much in the way of hilariously unintended subtext and overtones. The soundtrack for the film spawned several successful singles. “Danger Zone” somehow rises above the rest, with its literal lyrics (You’ll never know what you can do/until you get it up as high as you can go), Giorgio Moroder production and Kenny Loggins’ classic vocal performance. If you can say you didn’t love it at the time, you are either a liar, or one of the members of Berlin.
Fang Island like to describe their sound as “everyone high-fiving everyone.” After a long week of damp and dismal days here in Burlington, we could all use a double high-five to the ear drums.
This group’s second release, Sky Gardens EP, delivers an epic pump-up soundtrack like none other. The effortlessly complex string arrangements and organized group vocals give the EP an adventurous and uplifting sound. Sky Gardens isn’t just a high-five, it’s a high five from the king of a magical land after saving his daughter from certain peril at the hands of an evil sorcerer. Not only that, but you were probably transported to this world after doing a kindly favor for some bum on the street that turned out to be a wizard in disguise. He gives you some crumby VHS tape and tells you watching it will change your life. When you get home from school, you pop the tape in out of curiosity and suddenly you’ve got a badass sword in your hand and you aren’t in Kansas anymore. I am certain the adventure will continue with the release of their self-titled album this August.
I had the opportunity to see these guys play last winter at 242 Main. I was pleasantly surprised when the band stayed rather motionless, and projected scenes of cartoon wizards shooting fireballs at each other on a sheet in the background. Although the turn out was small due to snow, Fang Island gave an intensely energetic and tight set. I just can’t help but get stoked on this band.
Plus, they make Kindergartener’s go CRAZY.
