Quick Hits, Vol. 96 (Paul Simon, TGoD Mafia, X, The Stooges)

Being that it is election day, please make sure that you have voted.  I just want this garbage to be over.  All that really matters is the music.  And from looking at the candidates' taste in tunes, I think I'm going to have to write in Marco Rubio or Martin O'Malley.

Paul Simon - Stranger to Stranger.  Good old Paul Simon.  Still got a gorgeous voice.  While I still hold Graceland and Rhythm up as the best things in his solo catalog, this one is good stuff.  He's got some wry observations and winking jokes in here that are instantly classic.  The killer track on here, both for the storytelling, plus the jazzy groove, plus the jokes, is "Wristband."

Such a clever slice of funny, poetic story, that then turns into a more general comment on the society of exclusivity.  And its funky.  On the live version, you can hear the crowd start to crack up when they hear how the story is going, and then get stone silent for the final verse.  Cool stuff.  Also new (at least to me) in these tunes is that he drops an MF bomb (on "Cool Papa Bell").  Did not expect that one to roll out of the speakers.  He immediately calls it an ugly word, but still.  He also drops a BS bomb, although that didn't resonate as hard.  I think it is the heavy tuba presence on the song that makes him want to drop cuss words like a gangsta.  He also does old tunes on this album in the form of "Duncan," a live track on the end of the album, that has a bluegrass sound that is damn pretty storytelling.  You should go listen to this album and enjoy it.  The guy is still a master.

TGod Mafia - Rude Awakening.  Truly bad rap music here.  Don't go listen to this.  I gave it a shot because this is Juicy J and Wiz Khalifa, but this album sucks on toast.  Just save yourself from the pain and sadness of experiencing this mess.  Not even going to link to a song.  Just move along. Nothing to see here.

X - Los Angeles.  I've mentioned this before, but will keep mentioning for the next few posts, but I'm making my way through a bunch of old punk albums based on Rolling Stone mentioning them as the best punk albums ever.  I've never really listened to X before (that I can recall), I know they weren't part of my high school foray into punk because of Fugazi.  According to their bio, while they weren't the first band to do punk in L.A., they were the first to be taken seriously and put L.A. on the map as a punk band.  This was their debut album, and was apparently produced by the ex-keyboardist for the Doors.  I can hear some Doors influence, obviously on the cover of "Soul Kitchen," but also a dose of Doorsian keyboards on "Nausea" and even more in both keyboards and guitars on "The Unheard Music," which brings to mind the backbeat of "Roadhouse Blues" or "Texas Radio and the Big Beat." But the interesting thing to me is how much rockabilly type sound is in here along with the obvious Ramones love.  This album came out in 1980, but the band was entirely broken up and gone by 1988. The most popular track from the album is the title track, "Los Angeles," with just over 2 million streams.  Nothing else in their catalog even tops 500k.

You know why else you might know these dudes?  Because they did the cover of "Wild Thing" that was used for Major League.

Yeaaahh!  So now you know.  This album is fine, but it is nothing so revelatory to me, at this day and time, that I'll want to keep it around and add it to my list of albums to keep listening to.

The Stooges - Funhouse.  I get this one a little bit more.  And I think I know why.  Iggy Pop is pretty awesome in his own way, but his sneer isn't all that different from other punk dudes. I think here it is the bass that differentiates this from others.  Just before this, while listening to the Ramones, I tried cranking the bass all the way up on my speakers to see if it made a difference in the sound.  Nope.  I don't know what Dee Dee was doing on that album, but you can't hear it.  On the other hand, the bottom end in these songs is meaty, full, and a good reason to listen to this stuff. The best representation of this is the decidedly non-punk, 7 minute long blues psych dirge "Dirt," which is freaking heavy and awesome.  The most popular track from this album is called "T.V. Eye."

Pretty cool, I guess.  Not nearly as cool as "Dirt."  And then "1970" comes along, with the sounds of my 6 year old picking up a saxophone for the first time and blowing it as hard as she can while she jams down every key at her disposal, and I don't want to hear this stuff anymore.  Blech, same with "L.A. Blues." Nevermind, I'm not on board with most of this.