Reflecting Pool: Green Day - Kerplunk!

One of best selling Indie records would pave the way for superstardom



Green Day - Kerplunk! - 1992 (iTunes - Amazon)

You know what you notice on Kerplunk? Mike Dirnt. Yeah, I forgot about him completely on the band's first album. But, he's right there, all prominent and shit on 2000 Light Years Away, the opening track.
One for the Razorbacks follows and I'm trying to keep in mind that I haven't heard Dookie yet in 1992. It hasn't been written or recorded yet. It's hard, you know, to not compare this record to the monster that would follow, but, from the first two tracks it might as well be the same one. And then, wham, there's the original version of Welcome to Paradise and what I realize is that the band is the same, it's that they were in need of a producer to flesh out the sound and an engineer to help broaden the pallette. Because the song is almost exactly the same.
The songs here are more melodic, as in Christie Road and Light Years, these are kids who have been playing since they were little kids. Tre Cool was drumming for The Lookouts since he was 12. Armstrong and Dirnt have been playing together since they were at least 15. Here they are all about 22. And they sound like accomplished musicians.
Private Ave is more a harbinger to the collection of songs on Insomniac than what was around the corner. And the ridiculous twang punk, more reminiscent of a Bloodhound Gang song, is funnier than that band has ever been and is a memory before it wears out its welcome. With this and "All by Myself" I can't help but wonder what a Tre Cool album might sound like. I imagine it would be goofy and fun but a trifle. Perhaps he's best left to the brilliance of skin pounding.
I can't help but feel there is a certain freshness to this sound even though it's 20 years old, for all intents and purposes and this album, released in 1992, came just 9 years after...Thriller. I don't even know what that means.
For a record made for 2 grand, it's pretty good.
As a bonus, the Kerplunk! CD comes with the Sweet Children ep. Sweet Children was Green Day's original name.
The eponymous track, "Sweet Children", is a punk trifle that in no way points toward what their future might be.
There is also a cover of My Generation. It isn't all that exciting or great. But it does show where, if you pulled the covers back, Billie Joe's head was at. He may be punk, but only in the same way that Townshend was. No wonder they just covered "A Quick One While He's Away". I gotta pick that up....

Grade B
A Side: Welcome to Paradise, 2000 Light Years Away
BlindSide: Christie Road, Private Ave, One of my Lies
DownSide: No One Knows (While I want to love the attempt at something grand, it just falls flat.)

Reflecting Pool: Green Day - 1039 Smoothed Out Slappy Hours

Right in the middle of the Reflecting Pool, we jump in the wayback machine to cast a glance at the earliest GD had to offer.



Green Day - 1039 Smoothed Out Slappy Hours - 1990 (iTunes - Amazon)

So this is early Green Day. Before Tre Cool. When John Kiffmeyer (who wrote the terrific Husker Du-ish "I Was There") was the drummer.
The first thing you notice, after 7 Green Day albums from Dookie to Foxboro HotTubs, is that, well, these guys were really a great band from the start.
It's weird to think of this as an 18 year old record. It predates, barely, Nevermind. But, no one was writing about the boys from Berkeley. Who have been a band for 20 years!
A lot of the tracks could be rewritten, rearranged and sound like they fell off Dookie. But let's not forget what this is: This is a small band, barely in their 20s, trying to kick down doors with a calling card. This is a first record. An amateur outing and it's much better than a lot of the crap you pick up at small gigs for bands just starting out.

The first 10 tracks are the album 39/Smooth. It's a stronger attempt at relevance than I have heard on many other small punk bands' albums of the time. And when I was reviewing for Home Theater I was deluged by tons of bands like Kiss the Clown, et al. Nothing was as strong as this. The "ballad", Rest, with it's multi-tracked harmonies, notwithstanding. I see what they were trying, but it doesn't really work. It would, with a better producer. That much is obvious.

The next four tracks are from the Slappy EP. From 1990. wow. Really.
Paper Lanterns features some of the strongest vocals from Bille Joe so far. He isn't just a feature of a punk band. He's carrying the melody and he's secure with it. "Why Do You Want Him" is actually the first song Armstrong wrote, when he was 14. It sounds like a boy was listening to a LOT of Husker Du. But, that's fine, I mean, he's fucking 14, right? In 86 punks SHOULD have been listening to a lot of Du. Candy Apple Grey, Zen Arcade, Warehouse around the corner....maybe that should be a Reflecting Pool.....I digress.
According to the Wiki, the song is written about his stepfather. Putting into motion the father issues that would pervade much of Billie Joe's work (moms and Brads are away....). The Operation Ivy cover, "Knowledge" feels a little out of place. It would probably fit better years later on Warning.

The bottom four tracks in this set are from the ep "1000 Hours" recorded 20 years ago. Good for them. They were on to something and didn't give up. In fact, I prefer the production on this ep to the rest of the album. I can hear the band moving into their own and they've only just begun. Dry Ice is much better than it deserves to be. And while, "Only of You" may be by the numbers, it features a guitar solo, that, if it is Billie Joe, makes me wish he had done more

What's crazy is how prominent the drum fills are, I thought that was an obsession brought in with Tre Cool. I was mistaken. It has been an integral part of the Green Day since the beginning.

Grade B+ (I'm always a little forgiving with debuts. But when the players are 16 and this good, yeah, they deserve it)
A Side: I Was There, At the Library, Paper Lanterns, 1000 Hours
BlindSide: Road to Acceptance, Dry Ice
DownSide: Green Day (A pot song that is superfluous at best. But it did give them that name....), Rest, Knowledge

Reflecting Pool: Foxboro Hot Tubs - Stop Drop and Roll!!!

Hey, is that Green Day....?



Green Day as Foxboro Hot Tubs - Stop Drop And Roll! - 2008 (iTunes - Amazon)

The old axiom goes: bands spend their whole loves writing and performing their first album and then they have on year to write another one. That's why the sophomore slump is almost always dead on. With Green Day, there doesn't seem to ever be this problem. The problem is, it seems, what to do with all the extra songs that Billie Joe writes that don't end up on Green Day albums or on B-Sides? The guy just seems to be a writing machine.
Sure, GD's output has been limited to 8 studio albums in 19 years, but there has also been Shenanigans, the b-side collection, The Network, Green Day as angular New Wave retro band and The Foxboro Hot Tubs. At that rate, they have been pretty much releasing an album's worth of music every 2 years.
I took Foxboro Hot Tubs to be a smart move on GD's part. After all, how do you top the biggest record of your career (American Idiot) which was a smash success AND a political manifesto. Surely your fans, the rock community, the world, would be looking at your next release with baited breath.
In stead of slapping that target on themselves too soon, the boys released Stop, Drop & Roll as Foxboro Hot Tubs (which is Green Day under pseudonyms with the addition of the two players who joined them for The Network).
This album is a decidedly better offering than the new wave Money Money 2020. From the artwork on the cover and the retro title, you know what to expect.
Garage Rock.
The Zombies, the Kinks, The Yardbirds, The Who. These are the forefathers of Stop Drop and Roll.
So, if you like that kind of music and you like Billie Joe Armstrong's songwriting, you will enjoy this record. It goes without saying, right?
You would be right.
This is a tasty little confection, from the congas on Broadway, to the Jam-like Mother Mary and the organ festooned Zombies-esque track, Ruby Room. There isn't a false note on the record. They are at once true to the form and true to themselves.
You will hear elements of a dozen or so other songs in these, but these aren't ripoffs as much as they are homages and launching pads.
An excellent record.

Grade A
A Side: Mother Mary, Ruby Room, Stop Drop and Roll, Dark Side of Night, Pieces of Truth
BlindSide: She's a Saint Not a Celebrity, Alligator (which owes so much to "You Really Got Me" they should pay royalties), 27th Ave Shuffle,
DownSide: Truly, there isn't a bad track on this spinner.

Listening Post: Meco - The Wizard of Oz

A guest Listening Post by SamuraiFrog, revolving around Meco Monardo, the guy who disco-ized movie scores.



Meco - The Wizard of Oz - 1978 (not available)

Albums like this sounded so much more interesting before the digital age. I have this record on mp3s, so the whole album plays continuously straight through. Now, Meco intended this album, like Encounters of Every Kind, to be a non-stop piece of music, but knew eventually the record was going to have to get flipped over. So he faded out at the end of side A and then built up again at the start of side B. It's understandable, obviously, but listening to it on my iTunes it's nearly fatal to the momentum. It's a sudden lull in the middle of the experience, and one it takes a while to recover from.

Meco assembled the same team for this third fantasy disco album, and this one improves immeasurably on the first two. It helps that he's using the score to the 1939 MGM version of The Wizard of Oz, so the base he's working from is solid. It starts right off with a big, bold, horn-heavy dance version of "Over the Rainbow," and just leads out from there. The first side is a pleasure to listen to. It only lasts about 14 minutes or so, and takes Dorothy from Kansas to "We're Off to See the Wizard," and features sound effects and a chorus singing a lot of the Munchkin parts. The entire A side, taken as one composition, is probably the strongest thing Meco's done in his first three albums (even including "Star Wars"). The whole piece just doesn't stop; even when it slows down (as in "The Cyclone," which features a dreamy section with a synthesizer playing a plaintive recapitulation of "Over the Rainbow"), the arrangements are so tight and the theme so focused and the beat so steady that it never once becomes boring or overwhelming.

The second side, then, takes a while to get started, and the whole thing just isn't quite as good. It starts off with "Poppies" and "The Spell," so it's kind of slower, anyway, and the woman singing/exclaiming for the Wicked Witch of the West gets kind of irritating. The second side is only good in fits and starts. "The Haunted Forest" is nicely funky, though. "If I Were King of the Forest" has little to do with the music from The Wizard of Oz, but has a majestic theme I wanted to hear more of (this section is only 57 seconds long). The real pleasure of side B is the final track, "The Reprise," which starts with a brief bar of "There's No Place Like Home" and then features what amounts to an orchestral overture of the music. It's really nice as an exit piece. Kind of jaunty, too.

Grade A-
A Side: I'd say the entire first side taken as one piece, which it really is (the single version, "Themes from The Wizard of Oz," isn't the same thing)
BlindSide: "The Reprise"
DownSides: "The Poppies," "The Spell"

Reflecting Pool: Green Day - American Idiot

After Liz died I couldn't listen to this record, let alone any other Green Day, since it was her favorite band. Time heals a lot. Let's see if it's as good as I recall...



Green Day - American Idiot - 2004 (iTunes - Amazon)

"...while the moms and Brads are away."
I think, with that lyric, Billie Joe shows just how strong a songwriter he is. Evoking contempt for and a callous, shallow acceptance of, divorce that pervades generation X's lives, he steps up his game, the band's and we are all the beneficiaries of it.
American Idiot is the Screed Political Punk Rock Opera as fully realized art form. It's angry as hell and there's a story in there somewhere and it resonates as a bully retort against a government gone awry.
It's also hummable as hell.
Now, I'm a big fan of suites. My band used to make fun of me because I would try to write songs that would link together and make them learn them that way. I loved the way songs would flow together on brilliant albums like XTC's Skylarking or Queen 2. Even if they weren't supposed to be interlocking, it made for a listening experience that much grander. It's a meaty listen when it's done right and it's done SO right on Idiot.
Legend has it that the band had recorded Cigarettes & Valentines only to come to the studio one day and discover the masters stolen. And rather than rerecord that album they decided to start from scratch. Whatever they were working on would be prelude to this. Someone find the thief and shake his hand.
Much ballyhoo is made of the 9+ minute epic "Jesus of Suburbia", a song which could also, like the second side of Abbey Road, be a series of unfinished song ideas that have a common thread linking them. On top of creating a piece of music that is a success on all it's pistons like this one, they managed to get this almost-10-minute frankenstein airplay!
But, for my money, it's the OTHER suite, Homecoming that is the unsung hero of the album. Not as poppy, more aggressive andschizophrenic. Almost an equal is size, it never gets it's due. It's a brilliant series of songlets, a denouement to an album of despair and desperation.
There are so many other great moments on Idiot. "We are the Waiting", with it's assured elegiac chorus of "Are we? We are the waiting (unknown)", the voices desperate for leadership followed immediately by the speed punk show of "St. Jimmy" who is the "Patron Saint of the denial, with an angel face and a taste for suicidal."
It's no wonder this is being made into a stage show up in Berkeley. I, for one, will stand in line when it comes to LA.
The characters are some of the most excitingly drawn I've ever heard. They give the Rat and Mary runs for their money. From The Jesus of Suburbia, the son of divorce raised on "Soda Pop and Ritalin" to St. Jimmy, the "punk Rock Freedom Fighter" as Wikipedia describes him (who, might actually be a personality of JoS, the American Idiot) to Whatsername, the rebel chick "extraordinary girl". She is the kind of punk I would have fallen in love with in college. You know the type...army jacket, mini-skirt, jack boots. Ah, college....

[Special mention should be made for the exceptional "American Edit" mashup by the DJ "Dean Grey". You can get it here and I recommend it. Because it's one of the best concept mashups of the decade. Or just google "American Edit"]

While Armstrong has claimed that "Wake Me When September Ends" is actually about his father who died in September in '82, I would hard pressed to believe that he didn't expect the song to be taken as a post-9/11 cry for salvation. Even if he didn't it works too well here and I will take it that way.

Everything comes together on American Idiot; the angry punks of Dookie, the rock-appreciators of Insomniac & Nimrod, the ambitions of Warning, the years of listening to Boomer music (The Beatles, The Who, Queen are all in here), the wide-awake, open eyed clear understanding of the shithole those aforementioned Boomers were leaving in their wake, it's all here. Billie Joe is 32, a father, a punk, a husband, a citizen & taxpayer and he really doesn't like the world he is inheriting.
THIS is the album that defines the Bush administration. Or at least it should be.
I guess I like it after all.

Grade A+
A Side: Jesus of Suburbia, American Idiot, Holiday, Wake me When September Ends
BlindSide: Homecoming, Are We The Waiting, Letterbomb
DownSide: Nothing. If you don't like this album then Rock has nothing for you. Go listen to Belle & Sebastian and get outta the way.

Listening Post: Meco - Encounters of Every Kind

A guest Listening Post by SamuraiFrog, revolving around Meco Monardo, the guy who disco-ized movie scores.



Meco - Encounters of Every Kind - 1977 (not available)

Quick to capitalize on his success with Star Wars and Other Galactic Funk, Meco assembled the same crew for a concept album based partially on the theme of a trip through time and partially on wanting another hit single based on a John Williams theme.

Encounters of Every Kind takes the listener via time machine to various points in history, starting 1 million years in the past and ending in 1979 with a disco version of the theme from Close Encounters of the Third Kind. It's obviously meant to be listened to as a non-stop track of nine compositions linked together by a brief "time travel" theme and with sound effects used to create atmosphere. It's a bold concept, but it starts to wear out its welcome halfway through.

The first side is the strongest, with a looming prehistoric theme. The tracks "Roman Nights" and "Lady Marion" are standouts; "Roman Nights" is short and to the point (1:41), with a strong major theme, and "Lady Marion" is very pretty. But the tracks that follow alternate between stilted and turgid; you just hold on and wait for them to be over--especially "Hot in the Saddle," a cliched Western piece that insists on being nearly five minutes long. (Good spacing on the sound effects, though.)

The second side opens with the second-worst track on the album, "Crazy Rhythm," which starts with a clattering of sound effects and then replicates the sound of a tinny old Victrola. It eventually becomes a full-blown stereo track, but by then it's already been grating and grating and grating. Much better is track "Topsy," which is supposed to evoke the feel of an early fifties jukebox, but which sounds to me like aliens having a dance party. I can totally see these great animated aliens line dancing to this or something, with little fedoras on. Okay, it's better than I just made it sound. It's cool.

The two tracks closing the album, "Meco's Theme/3W.57" and "Theme from Close Encounters," are purposely the most disco-oriented tracks on the album. "Meco's Theme" is super disco; apparently it appears in the movie Thank God It's Friday. Now, I like disco, so I enjoyed "Meco's Theme." You can dance to it, it's got a great beat and is dense with instrumentation without being inaccessible. It's good stuff. "Theme from Close Encounters," though, drowns in a sound effects sequence which stops the whole thing dead in its tracks. I've got the rest of his discography to go through, but so far lightning has only struck once for Meco on John Williams.

Overall, though, the album's central concept and the flow of the music are a fun little sweep. You can listen to it all the way through once or twice; I'm not sorry I listened to it, but I'm mostly just going to stick to a couple of tracks in the future.

Grade B-
A Side: "Topsy," "Meco's Theme/3W.57"
BlindSides: "Roman Nights," "Lady Marion"
DownSides: "Icebound," "Hot in the Saddle," "Crazy Rhythm"

Listening Post: Meco - Star Wars and Other Galactic Funk

A guest Listening Post by SamuraiFrog, revolving around Meco Monardo, the guy who disco-ized movie scores.



Meco - Star Wars and Other Galactic Funk - 1977 (Buy)

Meco's career in theme disco starts with his most famous work, a disco take on John Williams' theme from Star Wars. As an album, it makes a great single.

There are only two tracks on the album (and it really does sound better on vinyl), the first of which is a priceless relic of the much-maligned disco era. People are pretty familiar with the three and a half minute single version, but the "album" version of "Star Wars" runs nearly 16 minutes long, but it doesn't waste any of that time on repetition. Meco basically takes you through the entire story of the movie, starting with the Main Title, going through instantly recognizable themes from the score, and ending with that iconic Throne Room music. But it's not just a medley; he's linked all the pieces dramatically and creatively, with a lot of interesting, enjoyable instrumentation and pretty well-replicated sound effects (to evoke laser blasts, R2-D2, lightsabers, etc.)

Apparently, Meco was impressed with the movie when it came out (he claims to have seen it 5 times in the first two days), but thought the score wasn't commercial. What was commercial was setting the themes to a dance beat and cashing in on the disco craze. And why not, eh? The resulting music is pretty powerful. And surprisingly more funk than disco, I think.

Seriously, you need to hear the main Force theme played on electric guitars.

The B-side of the album is "Other Galactic Funk," which is five high school kids Meco spotted in Central Park playing drums. It made me lose the will to live. What starts off as funk just becomes an endless series of drum exercises with occasional horn intrusions, and it insists on going on for 12 and a half minutes. You can live a longer, happier life if you never listen to it; it's obviously just filler for the B-side. All of the creative work went to the real treasure.

The CD comes with a couple of extra tracks: a 7" version of the single (the radio version, which I've decided is just too darn short), and a 12" version that is indistinguishable from the "album" version.

Grade C+ (A- if you never, ever flip the record over)
A Side: "Star Wars"
BlindSide: none
DownSide: "Other Galactic Funk." Just skip it.

Listening Post: Judas Priest - Nostradamus

The end is nigh. And it's sooooo boring......



Judas Priest - Nostradamus - 2008 (iTunes - Amazon)

I'm not sure what to make of this. The first track of Nostradamus, "Dawn of Creation", opens with strings, pianos, moody wind effects and then a keyboard track that reminds of the soundtrack for Halloween. But that's really just a 2.5 minute overture. When "Prophecy" starts you know you are in some kind of Heavy Metal...something.
"I am Nostradamus, do you believe?" Oh, this is turgid.
Why? I have to ask, why? Who needed a 2 hour rock opera concept album about Nostradamus???? From what I've read, this stuff's been covered already. And even if it hadn't, why now? Why so...pedestrian? And Why? So? Much?????
Ugh.
To be fair, some of the tracks aren't that bad. The lyrics to "Revelations" may be mediocre and on the nose, but the operatic, almost cinematic quality of the production sort of lifts it, while shoving, for some reason, Rob Halford's vocal as deep into the mix as possible and still render it recognizable.
With it's slight interludes that call to mind a pedestrian and pedantic church service of sadness and gloom, Priest really think their making great art here. And I admire them for the attempt.
Thing is, the last thing these guys were known for was wordsmithing and lyrics. It's gotta suck to be Halford in that respect. His voice is admirable and his writing talent has always been suspect. The sound, the fury, the dual guitar attack of Tipton and Downing, the voice and sheer will is what made Priest, is what carved their names into the marble of this musical movement. And, so to hear them attempt such heights and fail so defiantly is sad, comical and, sometimes, as on, say, "War", inspiring a bit. If it does sound a LOT like a Lord of the Rings soundtrack instead of a Metal album.
Except where the lyrics are in Italian and it's a full on Wagnerian Opera. Only in Italian. As on "Pestilence & Plague" What the hell am I listening to, again?
The entire first half seems to be devoted to Nossy's predictions. Now, I don't know about you, but when I predict something it's more along the lines of, "Hmm...I think the Mets are going to tank this year." But in the hands of Halford & Co. it's more like, "Besmirch me not, my lord! The grand Metropolitans of York of Newness shall be vanquished in a spasm of strangulation the likes of which ne'er seen lo these many moon! Oh, fie!"
Or something.
It's fully 45 minutes before anything remotely resembling Priest as we know them shows up in the last song of the firs Act (!!!), a track called Persecution. So, I guess, Nostro has been determined to be some kind of heretic and is going to be locked up. I guess. I don't know. I just see the end in sight...... (For the record, I don't know if this is something to be proud of, in awe of, or what, but the entire first act, all of it, is stitched together as one. long. track. Suck on that, Queen.
End Act One

Act Two (oh, jeez......)
Act Two opens with Nossy exiled.
Great. Got it.
Oh, wait, you need 7 minutes to get that point across, JP? Okay. I'll be back.
Oh, you DON'T really need 7 minutes, it only took you three. The other 4 are needless and sub-par instrumentation. Got it. How badly do you guys want to score the next Underworld Movie??
Only 40 minutes to go. The next 7 will be spent on a song titled, Alone. So, it's gonna take 7 minutes to convey how Nostradamus felt when he was exiled. All right.
While this is playing I'll say this: In the early 80's there was a mini-series on German Television called Berlin Alexanderplatz. It's a 14 part series by Fassbinder. We never saw it, my friends or I. But, whenever we experienced something that was inteminably boring and long we would create a new portmanteau for it. A dull lecture was "Berlin Alexanderlecture". A boring book could be "Berlin Alexandertome". A boring movie would be "Berlin Alexanderplatz". Gotcha!
So, now I can just call a boring book "Nostradabook".
I've decided that this entry should be the longest since I am making myself sit through a near-two irony free, humorless, quasi-concept album.
For you.
FOR YOU! So YOU don't have to do it.
Sure, you might think, one day, "hmmm...I wonder how that last Priest Album was. I mean, Angel of Retribution was pretty good. And I like good metal. I wonder...."
I do this for You! So you can know. So, you can enjoy every moment of your life and not lose an hour and a half that you will never get back!
Shit. Please, fucking end!
30 minutes to go.
Oh, this isn't bad. This Visions track. At least it's...I dunno...a song?
Then there's this elegiac hope message 20 minutes before the end and I'm thinking, "Why am I not drinking? Why am I sitting here when I could be laying in bed, next to my wife, sleeping?"
Ugh. 20 minutes to go. Feels like forever.
What?
It takes us til the penultimate song to get to some real rockin' metal? Nostradamus, the song, is a big thrash metal song that is at once ridiculous and, at the same time, should have just been one track on some other record that didn't include 1.5 hours of turgid, quasi epic balladry.
The album ends, as it probably must, with mankind moving forward but with the gift of Nostradamus's prophecies to guide us. (Props for ending in the proper french, Nossy's native tongue. The guys did their homework)

Okay.

And that, ladies and gentlemen, is Judas Priest.

Grade D+
A Side: Revelations, Nostradamus,
BlindSide: War, Persecution
DownSide: Sands of Time, Death

Listening Post: Judas Priest - Angel of Retribution

21st Century Priest.



Judas Priest - Angel of Retribution - 2005 (iTunes - Amazon)

Well, this is more like it. From the opening harbinger of doom track Judas Rising, right through the next track Deal with the Devil, we know that we are back in familiar territory. I'm not sure who said, "Hey, remember when we wrote SONGS? Let's do that. Only they'll come in at under 5 minutes and they will sound like...I dunno...Priest?"
By the time we hit Revolution it's clear that, at the very least, the band is playing to its strengths, giving the people what they want and accepting the mantle of Metal Gods once again. Dalliances into RapCore and thrash be damned, Priest is Metal!
There's supposed to be some connection between the Angel on Sad Wings of Destiny and this record. Something about this being a second half to that record. Maybe. I don't know. Sounds like an attempt to cash in and prove that the "old Priest is back!".
There's even a metal ballad, Angel, followed by by the thrash metal, Hellrider, which could fit on most any post-apocalyptic soundtrack.
There are three things immediately noticeable on Angel of Retribution:
1. There are actual songs that keep the wrong excesses in check while playing up the right ones.
2. The band doesn't sound like they are a 10 tentacled beast with no direction.
and 3. Halford is back. I never went into the fact that Ripper Owens was the replacement for Rob on the last two Priest albums, I didn't think it was necessary to rehash what everyone knows. The difference is palpable. Ripper was a hired gun. Halford has a name and cache he brings to the game. He can turn down bad ideas.
Ripper couldn't. He was at the behest of the rest of the band's bad decisions.
Part of what makes this record work for me is that, minus the 14 minute opus about the Loch Ness Monster, this is a reasonably timed record: 41 minutes. Just enough to leave you sated and wanting for more.
If Rick Rubin was called in to produce Priest, I imagine that this is exactly the kind of record he would have come up with. Satisfying the fans of old, sounding fresh and relevant, never once pretending to be anything different than what they are:
Gods of Metal.

Grade B+
A Side: Revolution,, Judas Rising, Deal with the Devil
BlindSide: Hellrider
DownSide: Lochness. For so many reasons. first, it's 14 minutes long. Second, it SCREAMS Spinal Tap. Third, Here are the lyrics:
GREY MIST DRIFTS UPON THE WATER
THE MIRRORED SURFACE MOVES
AWAKENED OF THIS PRESCENCE
DISPELLING LEGENDS PROOF

A BEASTLY HEAD OF ONYX
WITH EYES SET COALS OF FIRE
IT'S LEATHERED HIDE
GLIDES GLISTENING
ASCENDS THE HEATHERED BRIAR

THIS LEGEND LIVES
THROUGH CENTURIES
EVOKING HISTORY'S MEMORIES
PREVAILING IN ETERNITIES ON AND ON AND ON

Chorus:
LOCHNESS CONFESS YOUR TERROR OF THE DEEP
LOCHNESS DISTRESS
MALINGERS WHAT YOU KEEP
LOCHNESS PROTECTS MONSTROSITY
LOCHNESS CONFESS TO ME

SOMEHOW IT HEEDS THE PIPER
FROM BATTLEMENTS THAT CALL
FROM SIDE TO SIDE IT PONDERS
IMPASSIONED IN THE SKULL

THIS HIGHLAND LAIR OF MYSTERY
RETAINS A LOST WORLD'S EMPATHY
RESILIANT TO DISCOVERY ON AND ON AND ON

THIS LEGEND LIVES
THROUGH CENTURIES
EVOKING HISTORY'S MEMORIES
PREVAILING IN ETERNITY
YOUR SECRET LIES SAFE WITH ME

THIS CREATURES PERIL FROM DECEASE
IMPLORES TO MANKIND FOR RELEASE
A LEGACY TO REST IN PEACE AND ON AND ON AND ON

I rest my case.

Listening Post: Judas Priest - Demolition

Rap? Judas Priest and....rap?????



Judas Priest - Demolition - 2001 (iTunes - Amazon)

Okay, yes. There is a nu-metal rapcore song on this album. It is the last. It's called Metal Messiah and it serves to remind me of a terrible time when it seemed that Limp Bizkit would never go away. When this was considered MUSIC.
Sadly, it's also one of the only tracks with a chorus that's catchy. It also proves just how generic this band that is calling itself Judas Priest has become.
Demolition is the kitchen sink album. Since the attempt at relevance on Jugulator was such a dismal failure the band obviously felt it was necessary to try EVERYTHING. So, there's a little Jugulator, a little rapcore, a little hair metal and a LOT of bad tracks.
This is not Priest. This is "generic metal band". The musicianship is fine. There are few "songs" to speak of. And the lyrics are a notch above elementary school.
And I'm serious about that.
This is also a dangerously LOOOOOONG record, clocking in at over an hour with no reason. After a while every song sounds exactly like the others.
This is a painful album to listen to, especially when doing a canon run like I am.

Grade D
A Side: Metal Machine, Subterfuge.
BlindSide: Lost & Found (The closest to glam metal this record gets. And not a bad track at that.)
DownSide: Cyberface & Metal Messiah (The Rap Song!)

Reflecting Pool: The Network - Money Money 2020

Oh, Green Day. You pranksters.



The Network - Money Money 2020 - 2003 (iTunes - Amazon)

The Network were a side project of Green Day's plus a few friends in the early 00's. Apparently there was a "feud" between the two bands, which generated interest in The Network. Remember that? Me neither.

In the early 80s I had an album called Red Snerts, the sounds of Gulcher Records. (That's a link with a rapidshare download. If you know, you want it.) It was a compilation of midwest new wave bands. I got it for like a buck. I bought shit like that when I was 16. The Network sounds like just about every band on that album.
Or like you took a Devo cover band, made them learn Green Day's music, then forced them, after sleep deprivation, to write an album of their own. And it would be good!
This is piffle, a trifle, just for fun. And it is.
The boys have studied very hard at the feet of the minimalist hi-tech (for the 80s era) purveyors of New Wave and come up with a 30 minute retro party curio.
One of the most fun tracks is Spike, a spoken word one sided telephone call between a kid named Spike who is trying to score some drugs. But it's also way out of place on here because it sounds too much like just a small tweak in production and ditching of the keyboards would have turned it into a great Green Day tune.
But Spastic Society is like a leftover from Are We Not Men.
There is a great synth record called Group:Xex from a New Jersey band called, appropriately, Xex. I might review it here sometime, it was a favorite of mine. I bring it up because, although it sounds very little like any of the songs, the ominous synth-laden X-Ray Hamburger reminds me of Xex. And, it is therefore, one of my favorite songs on the record.
And there's a Misfits cover, "Teenagers from Mars". How cool is that?

Worth every second.


Grade B-
A Side: Joe Robot, Reto, X-Ray Hamburger
BlindSide: Spike, Spastic Society
DownSide: Love and Money, Right Hand a Rama

Listening Post: Judas Priest - Jugulator

Oh. No. Nonononono.




Judas Priest - Jugulator - 1997 (Not Available)

What the fuck were they thinking?

Okay. Let's get this out of the way. This is the record with "Ripper" Owens, you know, the guy that the movie Rock Star was ("NOT") based on? Halford is gone. And somehow he took all songwriting abilities with him.

There are no songs here. There are just a series of aggro-neu-metal riffing and slamming with an angry, screaming guy declaring that you are meat, or something.

This non stop attempt to be current fails on so many levels that its sad. Painful. Owens sounds like he's been directed to sound as much like Halford meets Hetfield as possible and sing some of the stupidest lyrics ever committed to plastic.

This is a terrible record. Not available on itunes OR Amazon. Even the import link is Out of Stock.

Consider yourself lucky.

Grade F
A Side:-----
BlindSide:
DownSide: Everything. This is a mess.

Listening Post: Judas Priest - Painkiller

Waitaminnit.



Judas Priest - Painkiller - 1990 (iTunes - Amazon)

I don't know what happened. I don't know how it came to be. I imagine that the new drummer, Scott Travis unleashed something but...

This album is great.
I mean it's scary great.
Halford is in full voice and the Tipton/Downing double guitar attack is augmented by the speed drumming of Travis.
Don't think hair metal. Think Ride the Lightning. Think Megadeth. Then watch these old hands leapfrog right over all that to create this masterpiece of metal.
This is more than just a headbanging collection of songs. This is a band that has set out to reinvent themselves AS themselves. They sweep aside just about every pretender to their thrown and prove themselves as relevant as Metallica in 1990.

There is a great trilogy of Priest records now. Hell Bent For Leather - Screaming for Vengeance - Painkiller.

It's that simple.

Grade A
A Side: Between the Hammer and the Anvil, Painkiller, Metal Meltdown.
BlindSide: Everything else.
DownSide: ------

Reflecting Pool: Green Day - Shenanigans

Hey! It's Green Day's B-Sides! I don't know why that excited me so much.



Green Day - Shenanigans - 2002 (iTunes - Amazon)

Let's just go through this track by track, shall we?

1. Suffocate. B-Side for Good Riddance
Classic Dookie type GD. (A)
2. Desensitized. B-Side for Good Riddance
Well, the beating at the beginning should scare the shit out of you. And the song, another pop/punk classic delivers. (B+)
3. You Lied. B-Side for Good Riddance
Lazier than the others. The first track that really doesn't belong on an album. (C)
4. Outsider B-Side for Warning
I wish this had just a little more teeth. Armstrong's vocals are more Joey Ramone than ever. It's really a Ramones tune at heart. (B)
5. Don't Wanna Fall In Love - B-Side for Geek Stink Breath
Terrific punk skiffle. (A)
6. Espionage - B-Side for Hitchin' A Ride
Green Day's take on The Peter Gunn Theme. Instrumental 60s era surf-rock, TV Spy theme. (B+)
7. I Want to Be On TV - B-Side for Geek Stink Breath
Black Flag would be proud. Cover of a Fang tune (A)
8. Scumbag - B-Side for Warning
A rare Mike Dirnt track. Good enough to be included on the first three records. Wouldn't really have fit on Warning. (B+)
9. Tired of Waiting for You - B-Side of Basket Case
The Kinks' Classic! This proves where GD's roots really were. 60s Pop. Much to their chagrin, I'm sure. (A)
10. Sick of Me - B-Side for Hitchin' a Ride
Like it fell off Insomniac. In a lot of ways a rewrite of Walking Contradiction. (B)
11. Rotting - B-Side for Good Riddance
Surf Punk that calls to mind, believe it or not, The Beach Boys. To me, at least. (B+)
12. Do Da Da - B-Side for Brain Stew
That Classic GD Sound. I would have played this track more than the A Side. It's more fun to Air Guitar while driving. (A)
13. On the Wagon - B-Side for Basket Case
Terrific Cow-punk. If Hank Williams was a GenX punk, he would've written this. Or covered it. (B+)
14. Ha Ha You're Dead - Previously Unreleased
Another Mike Dirnt Track! Tight, Taut, simple punk. (A)

All in All. A blast. Do you need Shenanigans? Probably not. But the band would never really sound like this again.

Grade B+
A Side: (Of a bunch of B-sides) Ha Ha You're Dead, Suffocate
BlindSide: Desensitized, Espionage
DownSide: You Lied

Listening Post: Judas Priest - Ram It Down

It's 1988. Metal is everywhere. And the fathers of the movement are rendering themselves anonymous in their quest for domination and relevance.



Judas Priest - Ram It Down - 1986 (iTunes - Amazon)


Now, I'm just confused.
Ram It Down is supposed to be the second half of Turbo. Everything I've read says that they were trying to release Turbo as a double album.
But Turbo sucks. It's interminable.
Ram It Down at least sounds like Priest. 80s Priest. By which I mean generic Priest. But, it's light years better than the synthesizer horror show that was Turbo.
Proof that Priest has run out of ideas? There is a track called "Heavy Metal". Need I say more? This would be like The Cars writing a song called, "New Wave." Or Boston recording a tune called "Classic Rock!"
Or...
You get the idea.
The first half of the album isn't horrible. It doesn't aspire to be anything more than an arena filling, banger-satisfying, play-it-LOUD album. And in that respect it succeeds.
The second half starts off with the epic Blood Red Skies. Harmless and not very inventive, it's classic mid-80s Priest. I could see myself blasting this on an open desert road. On my way to kill someone's grandmother. Or dog. And I mean that in a good way.
However.
Don't. Under ANY circumstances. Listen to their cover of Johnny B. Good. If you do then you're on your own. I can't help you. You've been warned.
While the name "Ram it Down" makes sense, I can't help but wonder if they wanted to name it after the sludge metal closing track, "Monsters of Rock". I have a soft spot in my heart for a band that writes a song with no irony. Especially a song that has already been rendered a parody of itself by Spinal Tap.

Ram It Down is not nearly as bad as you've heard. When it's good (Blood Red Skies, Hard as Iron, Ram It Down) it's really good. When it's not it's mediocre. It's not Turbo. Thank god.

Grade C
A Side: Ram It Down, Hard as Iron, Blood Red Skies
BlindSide: Love Zone,
DownSide: Heavy Metal, Johnny B. Goode.

Listening Post: Judas Priest - Turbo

Uh-oh.



Judas Priest - Turbo - 1986 (iTunes -Amazon)



Turbo Lover? Oh, dear.
Someone has run almost completely out of ideas or hung out with Freddie Mercury far too often.
Synthesizers? Who is this? Night Ranger? Loverboy?
It must have really sucked to be a Judas Priest fan in 1986. Can you imagine trying to defend this crap? While your younger brother or sister is cranking Poison's Look What the Cat Dragged In you can't say anything because their songs are more fun than anything on this dreadful outing.
And now you're "Locked In" and, well, let's let Priest explain:

I can't stand the way you move it
You drive me crazy with that walk
You get me so excited
I tremble and I shake
When you make the moves you make

This band wrote Screaming for Vengeance? Electric Eye? Killing Machine?

Like I said, Oh, dear.

What should have been a screed against the PMRC, "Parental Guidance" ends up sounding like EVERY. OTHER. GLAM. METAL. BAND. It could have been recorded by Bulletboys, for god's sake.

This is just terrible. And sad.

Grade F
A Side: I will not list Turbo Lover here. I don't care that it was the single.
BlindSide: Rock You All Around the World
DownSide: Private Property, Hot for Love.

Reflecting Pool: Green Day - Warning

Consider this a different kind of Listening Post and more like a Reflections Column. With Reflecting Pool I will be going back through the catalog of bands that I love and have been following for years. I will try to be as impartial as possible, but I admit that I am biased. This is a little more loosey than the LPs.

"Everybody loves a joke, but no one likes a fool."



Green Day - Warning - 2000 (iTunes - Amazon)



Opening with the acoustic, unplugged anthem, "Warning", this album sorts of suggests either a band at a crossroads or stifled by their roots.
Then, what's this? Another mid-tempo, melodic, bass driven, hook laden song! "Blood, Sex & Booze" is the thematic cousing to Dookie's "Pulling Teeth". A theme I'm all too familiar with. Only this time the narrator's not afraid of his captor. No, he longs for the punishment. It fulfills him.
Then we're on to Church on Sunday. A ramp up, rave up relationship song of compromise. And it's excellent.
I'm going with stifled by their roots. There's only so much power/punk one can do. If you have the songwriting chops the songs can fit in any idiom. Hell, they could be country, disco or coffee shop singer songwriter, right?
So why not stretch the boundaries? There's still enough bombast, as in the forementioned, "Church".
In the past, a great band would switch things up. The Beatles just wrote good songs. Queen played everything from Gospel to punk to disco. You have to. To keep things fresh.
This is what Green Day does here. Their punk roots have turned their back on them. I think by this time they had been banned from the very club they started in, right? While Bille Joe has railed against the hippies of the 60's and the boomer generation he is, at the same time, a victim of his own roots. All sorts of styles bubble through these songs and, while they are not "punk" they still all sound like Green Day.
Only this sort of confidence and punk "no fear" aesthetic could allow them to put out the brilliant "Misery", which owes more than just a passing glance to Kurt Weill and might well be one of the best songs the band has ever recorded. By virtue of it's "Fuck you, we're doing the oompas, anyway! You don''t like it? Here's a mariachi band, too!"
Then, just when you wonder what the hell you are listening to..."Deadbeat Holiday". Classic Green Day.
They wear their influences on their sleeves, too. Who can't hear "Stand by Me" in "Macy's Day Parade"? Or Petula Clark's "Downtown" in "Waiting"?
Billie Joe is wresting those great songwriters of the past and jamming them through his own taffy machine and coming up with fresh takes and new ideas.

I don't like to quote other reviewers but I will for this recap. AllMusic's Stephen Erlewine gets it right when he says:

Warning may not be an innovative record per se, but it's tremendously satisfying; it finds the band at a peak of songcraft and performance, doing it all without a trace of self-consciousness. It's the first great pure pop album of the new millennium.

Amen.

Is it better than Dookie? It's not the same. Not by a long shot. This is a different band even though the players are the same. Warning makes me happy and giddy with every song. It's the kind of album you love to rediscover.

Grade A
A Side: Misery, Waiting, Macy's Day Parade, Minority (In it's heart it's just an Irish shanty jig, right?)
BlindSide: Fashion Victim, Jackass,
DownSide: Hold On

Listening Post: Judas Priest - Defenders of the Faith

And the metal Gods roll along.....



Judas Priest - Defenders of the Faith - 1984 (iTunes - Amazon)

I really feel like I should put about as much effort into this review as the band did into this record.

Mediocre.

There.

Okay, I'll put in a little more, after all, they showed up to the studio, right?

Talk about finding your formula and mining it for whatever it's worth. There is no ambition on this album. It's a bunch of musicians who know their job, know what they are supposed to do, do it with very little imagination and that's pretty much it.
Unlike it's predecessors, Screaming for Vengeance & Hell Bent for Leather, on this album Halford & Co. know that they are shamans, pied piers to the headbanging unwashed and they also know that those that make up their base will buy what they have, show up at concerts, get drunk in the parking lot, air guitar their asses off and blow the band.
Not a bad way to make a living and at the time, were I Priest fan I would have eaten it up. But it's 22 years later and my job here is to determine the value of this stuff for me, for you, for the world.
You don't need to hear this album.
You've heard it.
This sound, the Ratt/Def Leppard/Whitesnake/ad nauseam super big kick drum, extra echo sound, is, well, not dated as much as it's boring. I think it was kind of boring in 84, but now? I don't care.
This is by the numbers Priest.

It should be noted that the Nerf Herder tune, "Defending the Faith" which is ABOUT headbanging mullethead guitar hero rock star wannabes, is better than any track in this collection.

Grade C
A Side: nothing I can really recommend. Maybe Freewheel Burning
BlindSide: Rock Hard Ride Free,
DownSide: Eat Me Alive, Some Heads are Gonna Roll, Night Comes Down

Reflecting Pool: Green Day - Nimrod

Consider this a different kind of Listening Post and more like a Reflections Column. With Reflecting Pool I will be going back through the catalog of bands that I love and have been following for years. I will try to be as impartial as possible, but I admit that I am biased. This is a little more loosey than the LPs.




Green Day - Nimrod - 1997 (iTunes - Amazon

I've never heard this album. Something must have happened between Insomniac and....wait a minnit! Yep. I had a lot of....personal shit going on. Divorce, sick kid, custody....hmm. In fact, upon reflection, I didn't even get Insomniac until around the time that this came out. So I was pretty behind in my Green Day.
And then I heard so many bad things about this record that I just eschewed it completely.
I don't really think I was missing anything.
It's not bad, per se. Billie Joe Armstrong is such a good pop/rock song writer that it's a fait accompli that the album will be listenable. And it is. It's still aggro-punk in places. But, right at the middle of the album, there is this instrumental track, Last Ride In, which many punks may have taken for a little bit o' irony. It's a surf tune in the Ventures vein. But i think it's more of a harbinger of things to come.
This is the longest GD record so far and it's packed with the familiar strains, the great chord progressions, the catchy as hell choruses, the fury and speed. 18 songs and only two clock in at over 3 1/2 minutes. The aforementioned instru-ventures track and the ballad that would cement the rejection of the punk world that turned it's back on the band after they went multi-plat with Dookie and give them their biggest single crossover hit; Good Riddance (Time of Your Life). A song lucky enough to carry on the grand tradition of angry songs mistaken for having uplifting messages. One by U2, Born in the USA, By Springsteen are examples.
Songs like Platypus and Take it Back are SO punk that I am surprised that that community turned their backs on Green Day as traitors to the cause so vehemently. Their loss. But these songs, while harkening back to GD's roots, are bad.
I do love that Reject was written as a response to an exchange that Armstrong had with the mother of a kid who was a fan. (From Wikipedia: "Reject" came from an incident where a boy received Green Day's previous album, Insomniac for his eighth birthday from his grandma. The boy started singing Green Day's songs (with explicit lyrics), and his mother got angry and wrote a complaint letter to Armstrong; Armstrong wrote an actual letter back to her, and this song was based on his response.
At the time this came out, I would have been bored with Dookie and Insomniac and I would have welcomed more songs by the band. This is a good pace holder. But you don't need anything but the singles. Well, King for a Day is fun.

Grade C+
A Side: Good Riddance (Time of Your Life), Hitchin' A Ride, Nice Guys Finish Last
BlindSide: Jinx, Haushinka, King for a Day
Downside: (I'm gonna catch hell for this but....) Platypus & Worry Rock.

Listening Post: Judas Priest - Screaming for Vengeance

Priest ushers in the true age of metal. And millions of cans of final net will be sold before the decade is out.



Judas Priest - Screaming for Vengeance - 1982 (iTunes - Amazon)

I would like to go back in time 25 years and kick the pretentious asshole that is my younger, teenage self, in the ass.
Why, you ask?
Because, the only reason, or the main reason that I poopoo-ed this album is because the title of the song, "You've Got Another Thing Comin'" is an eggcorn. Oh, there wasn't a name for it. I only recently learned what it is, but it's right and it fits.
it's "You've got another THINK coming!" And that would also, lyrically, follow the logic of the song.
Oh, feh.
By being such a grammar priss I missed out on the most essential metal album of the 80s. Everything that came before was prelude to "Vengeance". All bands that came later were but pretenders to the throne or worshipped at this altar.
From the opening instrumental track, The Hellion, straight through to the very last note on Devil's Child, this is one taught, tense, paranoid, explosive, headbanging, devil-horn masterstroke.
What does it say that the biggest hit in their career, while catchy as fuck, is perhaps the weakest track on the album? It says that you should fire up the Rhapsody, Napster, or whatever you use to stream, or torrent, or better yet, just buy the damned thing.
As soon as I publish this I am logging on to Rock Band on my Wii and buying the album for game play. At least Electric Eye. Which is Breaking the Law times 1000 only more assured and terrifying.
The wall of monster sound on this record would be copied over and over all through the decade until it would almost be a cliche. But this is ground zero.
Damn. 17 year old Allen was an IDIOT.

Grade A+
A Side: Electric Eye, You've Got Another Thing Comin'
BlindSide: Riding on the Wind, Screaming for Vengeance
DownSide: There are no bad tracks on this record.

Reflecting Pool: Green Day - Insomniac

Consider this a different kind of Listening Post and more like a Reflections Column. With Reflecting Pool I will be going back through the catalog of bands that I love and have been following for years. I will try to be as impartial as possible, but I admit that I am biased. This is a little more loosey than the LPs.




Green Day - Insomniac - 1995 (iTunes - Amazon)

Who turned up the guitars?
Seriously? What's with the gargantuan guitar sound? Dirnt is buried so far in the mix he's barely audible. And Armstrong's fighting against his own playing just to be heard.
Which is a shame, because there is a LOT to love on this record. The first half dozen songs clock in at under 2.5 minutes. The punk aesthetic isin full bloom. Say what you have to say, say it with force, get the fuck out. And they do just that. Before you have a chance to latch onto a theme or chorus they're off to the next salvo. It's about 4 songs in, on Geek Stink Breath, that any sing-a-longability can be found. If you can get past those fucking guitars. Why are they so LOUD?????
And it's frustrating, you know? Because the songs are fantastic. They better be because they are mired in the wash of GUITARS. Pound for pound I would put these tracks up against Dookie's and they would measure up. In some cases they are better. if you can hear them. (Is that horse dead yet?)
The record is relentless and I mean that in a good way. It has that, as I said, Punk Quality. Like teens/young 20somethings afraid they won't ever find someone else to love them so they marry the first girl that gives them a blowjob. Or like they are so worried that they aren't supposed to be in the club that they play as fast as they can before you figure out that they aren't worth their hype. The CD acts the same way. Before you can get bored and turn it off there's another track blistering through the speakers. Like when Panic Attack rumbles through with it's nervosa bassline, you have already forgotten the previous track, 86 and keep the record spinning, which it's doing just to avoid being discarded like some piece of used jet trash with no self esteem.
Brain Stew is another example of what this record sounds like. There is no air in that opening guitar section. Just the chords. Loud, brash and powerful. This is punk as metal. And it works. It works hard and it builds upon itself and offers a brain melting guitar solo while evoking some real lennonesque songwriting.
Oh, by now I've accepted the guitars and I'm perfectly happy with it. My only complaint is that I can't get my ipod to go any louder. Why doesn't this go to "11"?
My favorite song on this album is Walking Contradiction. Just a great track.

Grade A
A Side: Geek Stink Breath, Brain Stew
BlindSide: No Pride, Bab's Uvula Who?, Stuart & the Ave., Westbound Sign
DownSide: Panic Attack (It's more theme than substance)

Listening Post: Judas Priest - Point of Entry

Priest picks up where they left off...



Judas Priest - Point of Entry - 1981 (iTunes - Amazon)

With Point of Entry, Judas Priest takes everything they learned about how to make more radio friendly music on British Steel and meld that with the no-holds-barred sensibility of Hell Bent. The result?

The first three tracks on Point are prototypes for every hair metal band that was just around the corner. They screech, they blister, and are catchy as hell.
Then the album turns left with the glammy, power poppy Turning Circles. A turn I like, actually. I know this goes against the common accepted truths and wisdoms but I like Point of Entry more than British Steel. And I'm gonna fess up something here: I LOVE that big, arena filling wide, expansive sound. I love bombast and theater. So, having learned how to give the people what they crave on British Steel, all the band is really doing here is cranking up the Priest-juice.
A giant, dual-guitar fuelled track like Desert Plains is MADE for a listener like me. I want my ears to hurt after I listen to a big metal album. I didn't get that with Steel. I GET that with PoE.
It sounds like the band is having fun making this music. They get it. They know what is expected. But they are being forced to find new ways of doing it. On a track like You Say Yes, they channel Zeppelin ina way they haven't tried to since Rocka Rolla. And with much more success.
I know I'm being played. I'm part of the game. As long as they're giving me what I want, I'm in. And, on PoE, they do that. In spades.

Grade B+
A Side: Heading Out to the Highway, Don't Go, Hot Rockin'
BlindSide: Turning Circles, Solar Circles
DownSide: All the Way (just meandering as opposed to bad), (unlike) Troubleshooter (which is bad all over the place)

listening Post: Judas Priest - British Steel

Judas Priest solidifies the formula and speaks to legions of mulletheads the world over....



Judas Priest - British Steel - 1980 (iTunes - Amazon)

I know, I know, this is the classic Priest album. This is the one that broke them wide. They hit #4 on the brit charts and cracked the top 40 here.
But, I don't really like it. Let me explain.
Hell Bent for Leather is a revelation. When you hear it, you will know what I'm talking about. British Steel is, well, formulaic.
The big guitar leads are there. The soaring vocals. The death and destruction lyrics. But it feels like they've discovered what will sell, made it more poppy and sold it to us.
The singles are fine but nothing groundbreaking. Breaking the Law? It's like a metal take on a punk tune.
You know what Living After Midnight is? A really good KISS song. Even the lead licks sound more like Frehley than Tipton.
Its as thought the band looked at Hell Bent and decided to just make that album but more generic. There's even an big chorus anthem, United, like the previous record's Take on the World.
It's a big letdown.
If you've heard Hell Bent for Leather, you don't need to hear British Steel. Blasphemy, I know. But I calls em as I hears em.

Grade B-
A Side: Living After Midnight, Breaking the Law
BlindSide: United
DownSide: Grinder. You don't have to be old to be wise.

Reflecting Pool: Green Day - Dookie

Consider this a different kind of Listening Post and more like a Reflections Column. With Reflecting Pool I will be going back through the catalog of bands that I love and have been following for years. I will try to be as impartial as possible, but I admit that I am biased. This is a little more loosey than the LPs.

With the new album released I realized that I hadn't heard any of Green Day's older material in years. There was a reason. It was my daughter's favorite band. From the time Dookie came out she was a 2 year old inveterate rocker. American Idiot was a family fave and we sang all the songs together.
Then Liz died and it was too hard to listen to Bille Joe and the Boys anymore. I tried to dip my toe with the Dean Grey, American Edit mashup and that was almost bearable.
The new album hit the digisphere last week. I bought it. It's great. Then I thought: You know what? It's okay. I think Liz would like that I still listen to Green Day.
We're not listening to 39 smoothed out blah blah or Kerplunk becuase this is a reflection more than an LP and I'm currently in the middle of a Judas Priest Listening Post. This is a matinee. An afternoon at the beach. This is 15 years with Green Day



Green Day - Dookie - 1994 (iTunes - Amazon)

Where were you in 1994?
I was sitting in the office of a ramshackle farmhouse in Lancaster, California. Amidst pot-bellied pigs, goats and horses. My connection to the world was through Prodigy. And my music came from the Columbia House record club.
I had to get the album not for me, but for my daughter who, at 15 months was obsessed with the song "Basket Case". Every time it would come on Alternative Nation, Liz would come running from wherever she was and start dancing like a maniac. So, we ordered the record and she and I would listen to it on my boombox. Only Liz would crank the shit out that thing. I mean, loud.
And when Billie Joe Armstrong sing, "Scream at me until my ears bleed", Liz would point to her ears and laugh.
Listening again to Dookie, 15 years later, I am struck by something that I missed. It's brilliant how, on the second album, Armstrong shows his songwriting prowess by embodying the mind of a serial killer with a bomb attacked to his back. Pure genius.
And then there's Chump. Chump with the 1+minute long outro that falls away leaving only a massive and recognizable bassline that is the basis for Longview.
These guys were playing in the classic rock, concept album, rock opera idiom long before they hit it big. They were "punk" because, well, punk is easier.
No leads in punk.
Lots of tude in punk.
Say what you want in punk.
You can be pissed in punk.
And everyone will accept you regardless of your sexuality because you're an outside and they are all outsiders. (Billie Joe as stated that he's bisexual, only I believe that he also said he never has been with a man....)
The guitarist can't play leads. I don't think there is a lead line until well into the album, three songs before its all over.
The drummer is heir to the Ginger Baker/Roger Taylor/John Bonham throne.
The bassist is rhythm in name only. THIS is where the leads are. In Mike Dirnt's hands.
These guys were a rock band from the start.
And this album is perfect. There is not a wasted note.

Grade A+
A Side: In descending Order:
Basket Case
Pulling Teeth
She
Burnout
She
In the End
Welcome to Paradise
Long View
Emenius Sleepus
Chump
When I Come Around
F.O.D.
Sassafrass Roots
All By Myself (Hidden Track)

DownSide: Are you kidding?

listening Post: Judas Priest - Hell Bent for Leather

"Breaking the Law", "Another Thing Coming", that's just about the depth of my Judas Priest knowledge. Well, I know about the alleged backwards masking. I know that Halford is the leader of the metal/leather image. And gay. I now that the terrible move Rock Star was based on them. Sort of. And I know that a Halford imitator, named Ripper Owens took over when Rob left.
So. In summary. I know more ABOUT the band then their music. Let's change that.




Judas Priest - Hell Bent for Leather - 1979 (Buy it)

Bingo.
You ever want an album to never end? But at the same time you can't wait for it to be over so you can tell everyone how great it is?
From the opening blasts of Delivering the Goods you KNOW that this is a different album than Priest has made, at the same time, it fulfills the promise of the last 4 records and boldly takes its place on the mount of metal.
THIS is what you want. This is what I've been waiting for for, what, over 3.5 hours of listening now?
This is relentless Power Rock.
It's tight, taut, determined and testosterony as hell. There is no room on this album for filagree and experimentation. These songs waste no time, each has a destiny and a destination and it's determined to grab you by the throat and drop you in your fucking place.
Just when you have caught your breath on a track like Hell Bent...the elegiac metal chorus and tribal drums of Take on the World kicks in and doesn't let up. It's about here that I realized that there hasn't been any morass or depression on this record. Take on the World is an Anthem. I want to stand in a room with 15000 other bangers and chant along.
Continuing the tradition of weird genius covers, Priest takes on an OOOOLD Fleetwood Mac prog rock tune, cranks up the Leather and kicks it's ass. If you just listen Green Manalishi, you will get this record. And, like a great drug, you will want more. And More. And more.
It should be noted that the ballad, "Before the Dawn" is the first time I can actually say that Priest has written a song that I could hear someone sing. It's actually pretty. And has a melody.
Not to be outdone, the sludge-metal of Evil Fantasies will probably have you thinking about Tap. But, Tap was still a few years away. This was still fresh. And core. The kind of giant sound that reaches into your skull and rips out your brain stem.
Hell Bent delivers.
(If you see this cover on the racks on an album called "Killing Machine" get it. That's the original pressing. CBS Stateside was afraid of the name. So, the band changed it. But, be warned, Manalishi is NOT on that release. Fuck it. Just go to the link.)

Grade A+
A Side: Hell Bent for Leather, Green Manalishi with the Two Pronged Crown)
BlindSide: Delivering the Goods, Rock Forever, Take on the World, Running Wild, Before the Dawn
DownSide: Are you kidding?

Listening Post: Judas Priest - Stained Class

"Breaking the Law", "Another Thing Coming", that's just about the depth of my Judas Priest knowledge. Well, I know about the alleged backwards masking. I know that Halford is the leader of the metal/leather image. And gay. I now that the terrible move Rock Star was based on them. Sort of. And I know that a Halford imitator, named Ripper Owens took over when Rob left.
So. In summary. I know more ABOUT the band then their music. Let's change that.




Judas Priest - Stained Class - 1978 (Buy It)

Are you looking for speed metal's ground zero? Because, unless I am mistaken, Stained Class is it. The themes, mostly about death or the harbingers of doom, are almost second place to the sheer fire that is the music. All that mid-70s mysticism and prog has given way to straight ahead blistering metal. If you don't find yourself playing Heavy Metal Parking Lot or air guitaring on Invader, I can't do nothing for ya, man.
Funny that, as blistering as this album is, the song that caused all that ruckus with the lawsuit was a cover of a Spooky Tooth song, Better by You, Better than Me.
Alas. Legacies are a hard thing to live down. This record is better than the mess caused in it's name.

Grade A
A Side: Better by You Better than Me, Exciter, Invader
BlindSide: Stained Class, Beyond the Realms of Death
DownSide: Saints in Hell

Listening Post: Judas Priest - Sin After Sin

"Breaking the Law", "Another Thing Coming", that's just about the depth of my Judas Priest knowledge. Well, I know about the alleged backwards masking. I know that Halford is the leader of the metal/leather image. And gay. I now that the terrible move Rock Star was based on them. Sort of. And I know that a Halford imitator, named Ripper Owens took over when Rob left.
So. In summary. I know more ABOUT the band then their music. Let's change that.




Judas Priest - Sin After Sin - 1977 (Buy it)

On their first major label release after parting ways with Gull, Judas Priest uses all the tools at their disposal to launch a full on assault on the headphones of disaffected teenagers the world over.
The bombastic guitars, heavy timpani, massive vocals of the opening track "Sinner" certainly take the lessons learned on Sad Wings of Destiny and builds on it.
Immediately following that with "Diamonds and Rust" is a masterstroke. A Joan Baez song! The first thing I noticed was the melody and how perfect the song sits in Halford's throat. It's a risk and it pays off in spades.
From there, the album settles into a rhythm: screeching metal, power ballad (that doesn't really work but ends side 1 in a traditonally 70s mellow way), and rawk.
Side 2 picks up with the anthemic Let Us Prey/Call for the Priest which is a brilliant speed metal, goth rock piece.
It's all pretty standard Priest Metal after that.

Grade B+
A Side: Sinner, Diamonds and Rust
BlindSide:Let Us Prey/Call for the Priest
DownSide: Last Rose of Summer

Listening Post: Judas Priest - Sad Wings of Destiny

"Breaking the Law", "Another Thing Coming", that's just about the depth of my Judas Priest knowledge. Well, I know about the alleged backwards masking. I know that Halford is the leader of the metal/leather image. And gay. I now that the terrible move Rock Star was based on them. Sort of. And I know that a Halford imitator, named Ripper Owens took over when Rob left.
So. In summary. I know more ABOUT the band then their music. Let's change that.



Judas Priest - Sad Wings of Destiny - 1976 (Buy it)

Well. This is different.
What we're gonna do is review this the way it was originally released in vinyl because, weirdly, all reissues on CD by Gull Records has put all the songs on Side B at the head of the record. And the second half is the first half of the album which makes no sense since there is a song on the A side called "Prelude" and one would THINK that would be a clue as to the order.
Oh, well, fuck Gull records.
This album is everything the predecessor was not. It's ambitious, aggressive and energetic. And you can tell from the end of the first full track, Tyrant, that these boys are loaded for bear. (Black Mountain may worship at the feet of all thing 70s metal but their "Tyrant" has nothing on this one.)
Downing and Tipton's dual power guitar assault is as forward thinking as one can imagine.
The ominous apocalyptic metal-mythology Priest would be associated with has it's forebearance in songs like Genocide and Victim of Change. But, Epitaph suggests that someone was listening to a LOT of Queen. Because it owes ALL of it's harmonies and overdubbing (and erstwhile piano) to Freddie and the boys.
Halford's tenor and timbre is like a 3rd lead guitar as cutting knife.If I have any complaint it's that Rob can sing. That's obvious. What they don't seem able to do is write melodies. They try. On Dream Deceiver, for instance. (One of the few real melodiies to be found) Hellfire and guitars and rawk are the stars here, anyway. Although Halford shows what he's capable of.
Priest was, to me, more about the crisp and sharp razor's edge, less about the sludge that their kin, Sabbath had laid claim to. Maybe that makes them more Power Rock than METAL in the long run, but I don't care. Nor should anyone else.
The band is flexing it's muscles here. I look forward to the rest of this decade's offerings.

Grade A
A Side: The Ripper, Deceiver
BlindSide: Tyrant, Genocide, Epitaph, Island of Domination
DownSide: Dream Deceiver