Talk About Our Generation: Review of Johnny Marr's "The Messenger"

Johnny Marr

Earlier this year, I watched Johnny Marr perform a couple of songs on Jimmy Fallon.  He performed "Generate! Generate!" from his new solo album, and then he did a exquisite rendition of The Smith's "Please, Please, Please Let Me Get What I Want" that made me realize something that I had never considered.  But I will get to that in a moment.

How do I describe what The Smiths meant to me?  I had a friend, Melisa back when I was 16.  There are two people from my youth in the '80s who introduced me to more music than anyone else, and Melisa was one of them.  She always knew who the up and coming musicians were.  She always dressed in black, and my mother used to call her "The Black Widow".  At the end of 1985, she lent me a couple of records on vinyl.  One was The Stranglers.  The other was the eponymous album by The Smiths.  No one else even knew who The Smiths were.  Within a year and a half, "The Queen Is Dead" exploded onto the alternative scene (a term we didn't even know back then.)  "The Queen Is Dead" became our banner - jangle pop guitars delivered by Johnny Marr, and vocals dripping with semi-sarcastic lyrics by the suave Morrissey.  There is no way to describe what this music meant to me as an angst-ridden youth.  It perfectly reflected how I felt and how I viewed life.  And then almost as quickly as they came into my life, they were gone.  They broke up.

MTV's 120 Minutes was filled with Morrissey's solo efforts.  But honestly, none of it ever spoke to me.  I know that there are people that hang on Moz's every word, every drip of sweat from his now-bloated face.  But I have always found his solo stuff pretentious and stuffy.  Morrissey has become an icon, not an artist.

I never heard much about what Johnny Marr was doing until he linked up with one of my favorite bands, Modest Mouse, in 2006.  Now, this was a band that I already liked.  But the album he recorded with them, "We Were Dead Before the Ship Even Sank", was explosive.  It's hard to explain how much better Marr made Modest Mouse than they were before.  I was sad when he left.

So back to Marr's performance on Jimmy Fallon.  His version of "Please, Please, Please Let Me Get What I Want" was even better than the original, if that is possible.  How do you make the perfect song even better than it was before?  It was then that I realized something - that the true creative genius was Johnny Marr  Yes, Morrissey added a lot.  But it is any wonder that the band collapsed after Marr left in 1987?  He was the spark that made everything work.

And this point is proven again in Johnny Marr's solo album, "The Messenger".

Anyone expecting another Smiths album - leave that notion at the proverbial door.  Sure, there are a few elements, a few moments where it reminds me of The Smiths.  But that is where it ends.  This album gyrates furiously.  It is definitely a guitar-driven rock album, and Marr shows that age and time have not slowed him down at all.  These songs will seize you, stare you in the face, and not let go until you are convinced of their relevance.

The album starts great with "The Right Thing Right" with a pounding beat and heavy bass groove.  The guitar scratches out a danceable cadence.  My wife even points out that Marr has a great voice.  He makes the transition from saw man to front man with ease.  He was born for this.  "I Want the Heartbeat" and "Sun & Moon" go right into a full-frontal attack that would make Deep Purple proud.  My favorite songs are the catchy "European Me", "Generate! Generate!", and the subdued "Say Demesne".  "New Town Velocity" is also one of my preferred songs, maybe because it has a The Church vibe.

I am well pleased with Johnny Marr's solo effort.  He has proven his point.  He is a guitar god.  He is a song-writing genius.  He has everything that made The Smiths great.  Even still, patch your shit up with Morrissey and bring back one last tour with Moz and the gang.  Thanks.

Lazy Summer Music: Review of The Head and the Heart

The Head & the Heart

During the new wave of folk music during the '80s, it was about R.E.M., Suzanne Vega, Indigo Girls, 10,000 Maniacs, and Innocence Mission.  I was very much on board with it.  There has been a resurgence of folk music in recent years - Fleet Foxes, Iron & Wine, Bon Iver, and Mumford & Sons.  Seattle's The Head & the Heart is part of that movement.

Signed to the revered Sub Pop Records, "Let's Be Still" is their second release and is a very good way to be introduced to their music, which is soft and languid.  This is a very beautiful album.  They experiment with lavish vocal harmonies of both male and female voices, using a multitude of instruments, the fiddle, piano, harmonica, and string arrangements.  This album is happy like a stroll down a country road with trees bejeweled with blossoms and sweet pollen in the air.

"Homecoming Heroes" starts of this album with a piano so sweet it's like tasting honey right from the comb.  "Another Story" features a banjo and some vocal arrangements right from the '60s.  Would it be too cliche to use the word "Americana" at this point?  My favorites are the "Springtime" and "Summertime" songs that reflect the best parts of those seasons.  There are many simple, acoustic pieces like "Josh McBride", "10,000 Weight in Gold", and "These Days Are Numbered".  One of the best is the title track, "Let's Be Still", which has received some decent airplay.  It is a good example of what this band is capable of spinning, so catchy even my wife clued in while I was listening.

As the summer comes closer, as I spend time on the porch, lazily trying to cool off, I am sure that I will be listening more often to this gem.  It reminds me of older days, of Shellyan Orphan in the '80s, and more recently of The Hush Sound.  But I am sure I will not soon get them out of my head, and they will find a place in my heart.  *cue laughter*

Voice of an Angel: Review of Jeff Buckley

Jeff Buckley (1966 - 1997)

For this review, I am listening to "Playlist: The Very Best of Jeff Buckley", one of the many posthumous releases following the early and tragic demise of Jeff Buckley, who only saw one album released in his lifetime.  I bought this collection for my daughter in college as a way to introduce her to the music of this extremely talented and very missed artist.

I was introduced to the music of Jeff Buckley in late 1994 by my brother Tony.  I was living in Mesa, Arizona, and he brought me a copy of "Grace".  It was unlike anything I had ever heard.  Sure, there were roots there that were recognized and obvious - Led Zepplin, Queen, Leonard Cohen.  I could even hear the influence of his father, Tim Buckley, who also died at a young age, and whom I had been exposed to when This Mortal Coil covered several of his songs.  And yet this music had a mesmerizing power all of its own.  It was raw, written for its own sake, and Jeff's haunting, angelic voice was enough to steal your breath.  "Grace" became one of my all-time favorites.

A few years later, my wife and I were sitting in a pickup in the parking lot of the small theater of dusty St. Johns, Arizona, listening to the radio, waiting for our movie to start.  The news came on and announced that Jeff Buckley had drowned while swimming in the Mississippi River.  I was devastated, and yet the irony had not escaped me.  It was almost like God had lent such starkly beautiful angels like Tim and Jeff Buckley for a short time to leave their mark on the world, and then he took him away quickly.

The next year, Jeff's mother released "Sketches For My Sweetheart the Drunk".  When Buckley passed away, he was waiting for his band to show up to Memphis to start recording the new album.  He left behind only four-track demos of the songs from the new album.  After his death, the band went into the studio and recorded the music, setting them to the vocal tracks that remained of Jeff's original rough drafts.  I always wanted to love that album, but it never grabbed me.  But I read that even Jeff wasn't satisfied it.  To be fair, one must view it as an unfinished work.  I'm sure that he would have tweaked it and wrestled with it until it was perfect.  That's the kind of artist he was.

This collection is a pretty good starter set for Buckley's music.  There was some well-known selections from "Grace" like "Last Goodbye" and "Grace".  (What??  No "Mojo Pin" or "Lilac Wine"??)  There also a couple of songs from "My Sweetheart the Drunk" like "The Sky Is a Landfill" and "Everybody Here Wants You."

But the true strength of this album are the live tracks.  Most notably is his live version of Leonard Cohen's song - "Hallelujah".  I have loved Leonard Cohen since my teen years.  But I have to admit - Jeff Buckley's version is far superior.  Buckley captures the essence of the original yet injects a tremulous yearning that makes it the beloved classic that it is.  There other familiar tunes performed live like "Love, You Should Have Come Over" and "Dream Brother".

In the early days of his career, Jeff Buckley honed his live skills by performing in small clubs in front of small crowds.  He works best creating intricate landscapes of sound with just his guitar and cascades of his shimmering vibrato.  This is best reflected on the live performance of "The Way Young Lovers Do", which is by far my favorite song on the album.

This collection is a great way to introduce people to the music of Jeff Buckley.  I don't really know what my daughter thought.  But it makes me wish he were alive today.  I would love to see what he would have done with himself.

Robot Rock: Review of Daft Punk's "Random Access Memories"

Daft Punk

When I was an exchange student in Europe, one of the things I discovered was that disco never went out of style in France.  When America was cringing at the boogie fever of the past and listening to R.O.C.K. in the U.S.A., the French were admiring their fashion in the mirrors of discotheques while dancing to modern disco hits.  The French totally embraced house music culture - as evidenced by artists like Dmitri of Paris, Justice, David Guetta, Martin Solveig, and Daft Punk.

Daft Punk have had a long and distinguished career, but I was not exposed to them until Kanye West sampled "Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger" - a Kraftwerk-esque anthem - back in 2007.  With their fourth album, "Random Access Memories", they are very much in the public consciousness.  After watching their performance of "Get Lucky" at the 2014 Grammy's with Pharrell Williams and Stevie Wonder, their appearance in their trademark robot costumes set the internet abuzz.  My younger kids really believe that they are robots.  The auto-tuned vocals contribute to this illusion.

For an EDM album, there are few computerized bleeps and blips.  There is no dubstep wobble bass.  There are actual guitars and strings.  This album is definitely rooted in '70s disco-inspired house music.  There is enough waka-waka guitars and groovy orchestral arrangements to fill an entire CHiPs episode.  The cool thing about this band - being lost in the '70s, they recruited several '70s icons to help make this record.  Niles Rodgers from Chic plays guitar on several tracks.  They collaborate with Paul Williams, who wrote "We've Only Just Begun" for The Carpenters.  Williams, who co-wrote and sang on the track "Touch", said that, in working with Daft Punk, he felt like he was working with contemporaries.  There is an 8 minute track called "Giorgio by Moroder" that features Giorgio Moroder, an early electronic music pioneer, telling the story of his life set to a moog keyboard.  And, of course, there are several other guest musicians who are modern artists and yet appreciate the vibe of the disco era like Pharrell Williams, who lends vocals to "Get Lucky" and the better song, "Lose Yourself to Dance".

Many of these other disco pieces will have you shaking your bootay, like "Give Life Back to Music", "Fragments of Time", and "Doin' It Right".  There are some delicate songs that are stripped down, sometimes to just piano and robot voice like "The Game of Love", "Beyond", and one of my favorites, "Within".  There is also some electronic weirdness as on "Motherboard" and "Contact".  But my favorite song, the song that makes the whole album worth it is "Instant Crush".  I listen to this song over and over, from The Police-inspired intro to the angelic falsetto provided by Julian Casablancas of The Strokes to the lead guitar, also by Casablancas.  The song is perfect.

This whole album is delicious, proof that EDM has transcended its expectations and stereotypes to create a viable and serious pop album.  I highly recommend it.

Celestial Punks: A Retro Review of Cocteau Twins' "Head Over Heels"

Cocteau Twins in 1983

In late 1986, I got up early one morning to get ready for high school.  A moody teenager, most of my wardrobe consisted of black, and I would use copious amounts of gel and hairspray to make my hair stand on end.  That morning, while I got ready, I put "The Pink Opaque" on the record player.  This was a collection of Cocteau Twin's work from the early '80s.

It was the perfect music to me, at that time.  It was ethereal and magical, marked by Robin Guthrie's layered and textured guitar and Elizabeth Frasier's dulcid voice singing nonsense words.  Their music transcended description.  They weren't really rock, and they weren't really pop.  It was kind of hard to figure out what kind of music they were.  They were in a class all by themselves.

After I finished getting ready, I left the house with my books, and I didn't get very far from the house when I realized that I had left the record player on.  I went back into the house to find my older brother, Tony, squatting in front of the speaker, listening to "Musette And Drums" playing.  I froze.  Tony was a devout metalhead and took occasion to make fun of my musical tastes.

"Musette And Drums" - a selection off of Cocteau Twin's second album, "Head Over Heels" - starts out with the drum machine pounding a heavy waltz.  Guthrie's distorted guitars sway back and forth like a dark ballerina dancing to Frasier's plaintive wails.  During the chorus, Frasier pleads desperately, accented by a low keyboard.  The song finishes with an odd guitar solo - Frasier scratching on his guitar to make the howls of a ghost.

Tony sat squatting in front of the speaker while I was suspended, motionless, awaiting his verdict.  After a moment, he looked at me and said, "Not bad.  They need to clean up their sound a bit."

My heart soared with exultation.  I felt like I was finally vindicated in my love for this band.  A couple of years later, Tony would be just as excited about their fifth studio album, "Blue Bell Knoll".

Tony's description of "Musette And Drums" was accurate.  A beautiful wall of sound with messy production  value.

Back in the day, I owned every single Cocteau Twins release - either on cassette or vinyl.  Now, I own almost every release digitally remastered.  However, "Head Over Heels" was always my least favorite Cocteau Twins album.  I always loved their hardcore gothic on 1982's "Garlands", and I loved their Classical Greek weirdness on 1984's "Treasure".  But you could really tell that they were trying to find their sound on 1983's "Head Over Heels".  It wasn't until recently that I realized that I had absolutely no digital copy of "Musette And Drums".  So I decided to download "Head Over Heels".  Now, it has become one of my favorite Cocteau releases.

By 1983, Cocteau Twins had released one album and a few EPs that were most definitely spooky and gothic, dominated by Will Heggie's heavy bass guitar.  Then he left the band, and, for a while, before they accumulated keyboardist Simon Raymonde, it was just Guthrie and Frasier, left to develop their own sound.  They did a lot of experimentation, using a lot of jazz, even with a saxophone.  At the time, I didn't like it.  To me, it just didn't sound like the Cocteau Twins I was used to.

But listening to it today, it has a dreamy quality and a sense of trying to break out of the bonds of traditional pop music.  The album begins with "When Mama Was Moth", probably the most gothic song on the album.  The drums beat out an uneven rhythm like a heart in cardiac arrest, followed by a keyboard plinking out a mystic music box melody.  Frasier's voice billows over it all until the music suddenly seizes leaving only Frasier to scream, "Mother etching" or "Mother retching."  It's hard to to understand exactly what she is saying, and that is the beauty of it.

The next song is a beautiful number called "Five Ten Fiftyfold" dominated by a Heggie-style bass and saxaphone.  Frasier's vocals, while powerful, seem to be a background instrument like an echo crashing on the mountainside.  "Sugar Hiccup" is a well-known Cocteau song, and it is here that Guthrie is learning to use his guitar to create monstrous landscapes of sound.  Other songs of note are "In Our Angelhood", "In the Gold Dust Rush", and "My Love Paramour".  The album finishes out perfectly with "Musette And Drums".

It has been nice to rediscover this album.  The way I have always viewed Cocteau Twins - they spent the better part of a decade trying to find their sound, pushing into new territories, paving the way for other musicians to imitate.  Then it seems that once they had found themselves, we lost them.  I am praying for a miracle, for my celestial punks to return.

Straight Out of Iceland: Review of Mammut's "Karkari"

Iceland's Mammut

WARNING:  This band is from Iceland, and I do not speak Icelandic.  If you'll notice in my last post, I ommitted the umlauts from "Hukser Du".  I don't know Blogger enough to insert foreign language characters, and the band Mammut uses a ton!

That said, Mammut rocks!

They were recommended by a friend of mine who could be considered more knowledgeable about music than me.  The album that I am reviewing, "Karkari", is actually their sophomore release, issued in 2008.  They came out with an additional album in 2013, but "Karkari" was the only release I could find on Amazon.

I don't know much about the music scene in Iceland, but there is a common thread with all of the music I have heard - the Sugarcubes, Bjork, Sigur Ros, Of Monsters And Men...  All of them have a type of fresh-faced innocence.  Their sound is unsullied by the commercialism and concern for marketability that seems prevalent in the States.  They seem more concerned with making art than creating an image.  The result is that the music seems to come more from the heart.  This is especially true with Mammut.

The album starts with a bang.  Heavy, discordant riffs buzzing feverishly, reminiscent of "Kool Thing" by Sonic Youth or "Sur Tes Pas" by Autour de Lucie.  Then Kata's sweet voice flutters over the arrangement.  The way she sings reminds me of Bjork.  I'm sure the Bjork comparisons were inevitable, seeing that they are both from Iceland.  But it's not coincidental.  There is some Bjork influence there is the way she trills and wails.

The next song is "Giempra", and it is catchy as hell.  Even my wife's ears perked as she heard this.  It is a delicious blend of distorted guitars and a very danceable rhythm.  The album also contains an EDM version of "Giempra" that will make you shake your posterior.

The beat relents a bit for a couple of ballads - "Raudilaekur" and "Dyradottir", but the pace picks up again with the headbanging "Svefnsykt" and "Gun", which could be a Tool song.  Other songs of note are "Eg veit hann kemur fljott" and "Drekasongvar".  The album finishes out with "I leyni", which starts out slow and ominous, finishing out with a wall of white noise that would make Thurston Moore proud, even if he can't speak Icelandic.

I highly recommend this album and can't wait until I can explore their other two albums.  Until then, this album will keep me warm as I dream of Iceland.

Revisiting "Workbook": A Retro-Review of Bob Mould

Promotional of Bob Mould for "Workbook"

In the late '80s, Minneapolis-St. Paul punk band, Husker Du, were definitely part of my repertoire.  "Zen Arcade", "Candy Apple Grey", and "Warehouse" were definitely among the influential but underground selections that dominated an eclectic '80s alternative scene.  I have a memory of watching MTV's 120 Minutes with my brothers, and my father came in and stood and watched a Husker Du video for a moment.  After a moment, he announced that he liked the song.  We all looked up at him in surprise.  This was punk rock, after all.

"For a rock band, they look clean-cut," he said.  This was the '80s, after all, where glam was all the rage.

But this represented the work ethic of their music - while they dressed in jeans and t-shirts, they focused instead on making music that was raw, focused, intense, and intelligent.

In 1988, after a struggle with acohol and drug addiction, as well as a bitter break-up, Husker Du front man, Bob Mould, retreated to the woods in Minnesota to pen a solo album.  Released in 1989, the debut album was entitled "Workbook".

I have written before about the summer of 1989.  It was a magical year for me.  I was nineteen, marginally attended college, had a job, had a pony tail, cash in my pocket, and a car.  I would toss my pillow and toothbrush into my car, and when my mother would ask where I was going, I would respond, "I don't know.  I'll see you in a few days."  Road trips to Yuma and Sedona.  There was definitely a bohemian vibe in the air, and I had the tie-dyed shirts to prove it.  The soundtrack for this era was indelible.  As we would rocket down the interstate in my friend Steve's Chevelle, there was an odd mix of music that shook the speakers.  "Shooting Rubber Bands At the Stars" by Edie Brickell & the New Bohemians, "Hunkpapa" by Throwing Muses, "Doolittle" by Pixies, and "Workbook" by Bob Mould.

Bob Mould now

"Workbook" had all the throaty passion and energy that Bob Mould projected while in Husker Du, but tempered with folk influences, acoustic guitars and strings.  It is said that this album greatly influenced the whole alternative scene of the following decade.  This album was beloved to me.

The problem is - I hadn't heard this album since 1989.  In fact, I had never owned it.  It was Steve's copy that used to regale us on our carefree journeys.  So I decided to download a copy.  Upon listening to it, I was taken aback at first.  It sounded really dated.  Unlike a Sonic Youth album that sounds mostly timeless, this one seemed very stuck in the era that spawned it.  But the more I listened to it, I started remembering and feeling what this album meant to me back then.

The album starts out with a simple acoustic melody called "Sunspots" and then passes into a jam called "Wishing Well", driven by the strumming of an acoustic guitar and a wistful cello.  Then Bob Mould's unique voice wails over the rhythm.  (He sounds like Ozzy.  There, I said it.  I hate saying it, but it's true.)

The main single was a happy tune called "See A Little Light", which really is the anthem for the time period.  My favorite songs are the tortured and confessional "Poison Years" and "Sinners & Their Repentances".  These two songs make the whole album worth it.  But sadly, the years have not been kind on the rest of the album.  It doesn't really grab me.  Honestly, I should not have bothered on downloading the rest of the album and only purchased the songs I have mentioned - with the exception of "Heartbreak a Stranger" and "Brasilia Crossed With Trenton".

In the years since, I have not listened much to Sugar, Bob Mould's other project, or to any of his other solo projects.  But I will always be grateful for the songs on "Workbook", and their influence upon my young adulthood.

Retro-Review: Lowlife's "Permanent Sleep" Is Awake Again

Lowlife

Have you ever liked a band for decades that you didn't even know existed?  I did.

Like everyone, I have had some of my favorite music introduced by someone else.  A friend of mine from the suburbs of Chicago gave me a mix CD back in 1986 that introduced me to music from the prestigious 4AD label that included selections from Cocteau Twins, Dead Can Dance, Clan of Xymox, This Mortal Coil, Felt, and a couple of songs "Permanent Sleep" and "Mother Tongue" that were labeled as by an artist named Will Heggie.  I fell in love with this music and started trying to find out as much as I could about them.

As I have said many times in the past, Cocteau Twins have been one of my favorite bands of all time.  I have loved every phase that they have gone through - from the eerie gothic tones of their first album to the pompuous faux-Greek bacchnalia of "Treasure" to the fluffy effervescence of "Victorialand" to the ambient electronica of their latter days.  The first album, "Garlands", still always has a special place in my heart.  It is a dark album with furious bass strumming and scratchy guitars offset by Elizabeth Frasier's nonsensical caterwauls.

During the course of my investigations, I learned that the bassist on "Garlands" was one Will Heggie, a founding member of Cocteau Twins who left after the first album to, as my friend told me, to pursue a solo career.  I really loved those songs by Will Heggie, but I was never able to find them on record, which wasn't too surprising.  Most of the stuff I listened to back then was either indie or import.  In the golden age before the internet, if you didn't live in a cultural mecca like Chicago or New York, such music was hard to find, and one had to save their pennies for excursions to record stores that specialized in imports.

But even after the advent of online music, I couldn't find anything by Will Heggie, or scarecly even a mention of him beyond his connection to Cocteau Twins.  Lo and behold, just recently, I did a research and learned that Will Heggie did not launch into a solo career like I was led to believe.  Instead, he joined an existing band of fellow Scotsmen and formed the band Lowlife (produced and managed by Brian Guthrie, brother to Cocteau Twin's iconoclastic guitarist, Robin Guthrie).  Lowlife had a long and distinguished career before disbanding in 1997, and I had never even heard about them.  So suddenly, I am able to download the music that was so dear to me.  (I had lost the cassette decades earlier.)

I still have yet to listen to any of the other albums in Lowlife's catalog, but I did download their debut album, "Permanent Sleep".  It is unique to become so captivated by an album that, released in 1986, is 28 years old!  And it stands up fairly well.  It has some markers of the early '80s goth scene of the UK, a bit like Siouxsie & the Banshees or Bauhas, but it has some of the precursors of the shoegaze movement which wouldn't emerge for another few years with bands like Lush or My Bloody Valentine.  In all honesty, this music is shoegaze before any such term existed.

That is me in the middle in 1986.  The cassette on the table is my first exposure to Cocteau Twins and Lowlife.

Yes, Will Heggie definitely took some of the Cocteau Twins sound with him to Lowlife, but, to be fair, he helped create that sound.  It is a well known that Cocteau Twins influenced many bands from the Sundays, Sigur Ros, Bel Canto, Phantogram, to even Coldplay.  But Lowlife can't be numbered as one of those bands, because they emerged right from Cocteau Twins.

As I listen to this music three decades later, it is easy to see the common thread that went through all of these bands - including Lowlife.  The melody is driven by the heavy double bass with the guitars, abstract and minimalist, used only to create atmosphere and a static texture, all held together by a low voice, crashing against all of the other sounds.  This comes right from Joy Division, the band that practically set the whole tone for underground music of the '80s.  I didn't see it then, but I see it now.

Songs of note are "Cowards Way", the title track, "Sometime Something", "Gallery of Shame", and my favorite, "From Side to Side".

If you are interested in innovative '80s music that never hit the mainstream, this this is a good album to check out.  I am surprised that, despite my limited exposure to it that it took me so long to locate.  This is truly a treasure trove.

Latest Vampire Weekend is More Hump Day Than Weekend

Vampire Weekend

Sorry, I took a hiatus, and I have lots of music to review in order to catch up.  My first review is the third album from Vampire Weekend, the collegiate New York band that has been the darling of the indie scene for the last seven years.  And yep, I have kept up with them since they first broke the scene.  My wives made a gift of their eponymous debut for my 38th birthday.  And what a gift.  This catchy album became a favorite with the whole family.  It was highly original and infectious, every single song a groove to get your finger tapping and your head nodding - part Harry Belafonte, equal parts Paul Simon with a smattering of nerdy punk/ ska.  "Mansard Roof", "A-Punk", "I Stand Corrected", a delightful song about a vampire named "Walcott", the reggae rhythm of "The Kids Don't Stand a Chance", the funky beats of "Cape Cod Kwassa Kwassa" and "Campus", and my absolute favorite, "Oxford Comma".  The whole album is iconic to me and will always remind me of this happy time in my life, the kind of happiness that never comes back again.

Speaking of something that never comes back again, the same magic was not quite there on their sophomore album, "Contra".  There are a few great songs on this album, and even a couple of good ones.  But generally, it did not grab me like the first masterpiece.  It seems like once a pop artist establishes a sort of kitsch, it is hard to break out of it.

And so it is with is with their third effort, "Modern Vampires of the City".

This year's Grammy's were a major disappointment - a stupor of commercial glitter.  There were only two bands worth mentioning, and that was The National and Vampire Weekend, both up for the Alternative Album category.  Honestly, I was rooting for The National, because I feel like they have more artistic integrity.  But it was Vampire Weekend that took home the golden statuette.

Don't get me wrong.  It's a pretty good album.  But that is the unfortunate result of having a masterpiece as your first album - you will always be doomed to live in the shadow of your own creation.  The first album was like a feverish jam session in the dorm of some ivy league school for half-naked co-eds.  This album is more like a bloated Paul Simon concert in Central Park.

As a whole, you could play this music in the background, and it is a pretty good listen.  But there are only a couple of songs that seize you.  One being "Step", the only song that I think captures the synergy of their debut.  Other songs of note are the discordant "Hudson", and "Young Lion", which sounds like it was lifted from Bon Iver.

But after a listen, I need to clean my palate with the earlier work of this otherwise brilliant band.  I truly hope that they recapture their muse.