Quick Hits, Vol. 191 (Flatbush Zombies, John Prine, King Tuff, A Perfect Circle)

Flatbush Zombies - Vacation in Hell.  This one has been in my queue for a long time now, and I've run through it many times by now, without anything ever really sticking.  In current rap fashion, the album is long as hell, with 19 tracks and an hour and sixteen minutes of music.  It just feels like it goes on forever.  And while I generally like the vibe and the flow and all of that, nothing in here really makes me look up from my work to notice something special, except for one tune that finally combines a good beat with a good flow and a catchy chorus - "Headstone."

Its actually pretty amazing. Stop and listen to the lyrics and see how many references you can count to other rappers?  Its like a roll call of everyone from NWA to DMX to DMC to B.I.G.  That is actually very cool.  Not only to call out all of those different artists, but to make them rhyme and sound good over a tight beat.  Its too bad the rest of the album is forgettable, because that song is sweet.

John Prine - The Tree of Forgiveness.  Prine has never gotten his just due as a stud songwriter.  Like Townes Van Zandt before him, none of his music has ever been pop enough to gather anything more than insider/industry love for him.  He came to town a few months ago for an ACL taping and I wanted desperately to get the tickets to go, but missed out.  The night before the taping, I took some friends to the Paul Simon show at the Erwin Center, and they told me that they were going to the taping the next night, but had no clue who John Prine was.  Ugh.
You may think you've never heard his music, but you likely have, just not by Prine himself.  Bonnie Raitt's "Angel from Montgomery" is his.  John Denver or Pat Green's "Paradise" are his (both are very good).  A bunch of people's versions of "Souvenirs" are him too.  "Hello in There" is covered by lots of people too.  Nanci Griffith's "Speed of the Sound of Loneliness" is amazing.  George Strait did "I Just Want to Dance With You."  He also got half of the writing credits for "You Never Call Me By My Name," which was a college staple for me.  Anyway, he kind of rules.  I've made a Pandora station seeded with him, Van Zandt, and Guy Clark, and its fabulous.
This album sticks with the same kind of style - his voice has never been his strong suit - but even as he ages he's been able to write good lyrics.  I think the coolest thing about his lyrics are their low-keyness, and wry sense of humor.  Old tracks like "Your Flag Decal Won't Get You Into Heaven Anymore" or "That's the Way The World Goes Round" are echoed here on tracks like "When I Get To Heaven."  "Summer's End" is the top song from the album, with 1.1 million streams.

Man, he looks old.  I love that plucked little tune - super simple and like so many others he's done before, but it works.  Stupid videos want to make me cry.  Anyway, nice little album.  His old stuff is better, more insightful, better stories, but this one is still good.

King Tuff - The Other.  Psych rock weirdness on this one.  I've listened to it for a while over the year, and still can't quite decide whether I like it.  Sometimes it will pop back up in my queue and I'll be like "who is that, I like it!" and then other times it will come up and I'm ready to skip the song.  I like the G-Funk synthesizer riff on "Neverending Sunshine."  The top track on the album is "Psycho Star," with 1.4 million streams.

Woah, bro.  Trippy vid.  These tunes are pretty good.  I don't know that I need to keep the album around, but they're enjoyably distracting.

A Perfect Circle - Eat the Elephant.  More plodding cock rock that mainly just makes me sad that Tool isn't still making music anymore.  A Perfect Circle has had a few good songs over time, but none of them live on this album.  Dark and gloomy, dull and plodding, this one just bores.  Or is awful, like "Hourglass," which sounds like this band trying to cover a 21 Pilots song.  And the cover art, of a scary guy who appears to have been interrupted in the midst of eating a nuclear American octopus, is unpleasant.  I'll give you a tune, but really, none of this is worth you spending time on.  "The Doomed," which still, somehow, has 15.4 million streams.

I feel like I'm the one who is doomed, to listen to this dime store preaching over dollar store riffs while staring at their stupid faces for 4 minutes.