Public Enemy - He Got Game

Myth: Public Enemy lost the plot after Apocalypse 91. Truth: Public Enemy continued to be a focused, militant group of great musicians whose style went out of fashion in that time period. It was hip-hop that was changing, but Public Enemy stayed relatively consistent after its peak. He Got Game lacks some of the fire and innovation of PE's first four albums, to be sure, but Chuck D still spits with the best of them on tracks like "Revelations 33 1/3 Revolutions" and "If Your God a Dog." The production is sparse, but never boring. It just lacks the audacity that separate a really, very good album from a great one.

Rachael Yamagata - Rachael Yamagata (EP)

Rachael Yamagata has a great voice for jazzy pop/rock, which fits this soft and subtle debut snugly. Yamagata takes a gentle, sparse route here, with her raspy singing voice and lyricism taking center stage on some piano-based arrangements. Two songs, "Wore Me Down" and "The Reason Why" would eventually re-appear on her first album, Happenstance. Here, though, they are clear stand-outs, with the former being an especially affecting pop song. The sound tends to lean in the direction of balladry, but it's short and diverse enough to consistently stay interesting.

Duke Ellington - The Carnegie Hall Concerts, Jan 1943

A brilliant live set, featuring the only recorded version of the complete "Black, Brown and Beige" as its centerpiece. The suite as seen here is significantly more epic, grandiose, gorgeous and joyous than the recorded version of 1958 (reviewed here). The other pieces played during the concert are wonderful, too, each a well-chosen selection from Ellington's career, many of which are familiar, but given spirited performance by yet another of Duke's great bands. If there is anything to complain about, it's the sound quality of the CD release, which might be akin to hearing the concert from the Carnegie Hall's restroom.

Live - The Distance to Here

Live are the good kind of mediocre band: they let easy-going melodies and earnestness carry them through the occasional misstep instead of playing loud or fast to try to make up for it. On The Distance to Here, they're a bit concerned with spiritual matters (what else is new?), dropping such wisdom as "Love will lead us" and championing those "who stood up for love in spite of the hate" (notice the parallels?). None of it is particularly deep, but generally the better tracks manage to plough through their shortcomings with their anthems. It all gets to sound rather uniform, with many of the songs referencing "Love" or "The One" as a force of guiding benevolence, but you can at least tap your foot along to it.

Husker Du - Zen Arcade

The concept is beside the point (I think). These are simply great songs spread out over this double album, with tape experiments, feedback and good ol' fashioned punk rock elbow grease providing flavors that other bands would kill to have. I'd list the highlights, but I do love nearly every moment on this record, from the opening 1-2 of "Something I Learned Today" and "Broken Home, Broken Heart" to the closing "Reoccurring Dreams." Here's the strange thing: despite all that's going on, it never seems too noisy to forget melodicism. Dig the backing vocals on "One Step at a Time" among the wreckage of guitars and the piano interludes. It's the rare compulsively listenable double album, not just for its consistent goodness, but also because it's so damn interesting.

Jerry Lee Lewis - Live at the Star Club, Hamburg

This album captures Jerry Lee Lewis at a pivotal point in his career: after the 13 year-old second cousin marrying scandal that knocked him out of rock and roll in the late 50s, but before his reemergence as a country singer in the late 60s (then-still married to second cousin). Jerry Lee plays much like a man at rock bottom: loud, angry and fast. The young band behind him barely keeps up, the audience gets rowdy, and it sounds like a good time. He does the hits (including a hellacious version of "Whole Lotta Shakin' Goin' On," a redundant description when the entire album can be described as "hellacious," ) and also covers a variety of artists. This is, hands down, one of the best live albums of all time.

Sun 0))) - Monoliths & Dimensions

Sun 0)))'s penchant for ambient metal (I am very thankful this genre exists) is like the best Hitchcock movies. There are four songs here, none shorter than 9 minutes, the longest over 17 minutes. It's a rewarding album that demands repeated, close listening because of its detailed textures (there's Tuvian thraot singing on here! On top of controlled reverb! With occasional bursts of choirs!). My first couple listens, it sounded like endless droning, but once the details start to stick out, the album doesn't let go until it's over.

Grinderman - Grinderman

A conversation between me and a friend, who spotted the album somewhere in the vicinity of my stereo:
"What's kind of music is this?"
"That's Grinderman"
"A screaming monkey holding its nuts?"
"Ya"

Duke Ellington (feat. Mahalia Jackson) - Black, Brown and Beige

This excerpted version of the original, performed during his 1943 Carnegie Hall concert, restrains the ambitions of the original by dividing the formerly three-part, 50-minute suite into six parts totaling around 35 minutes. The work is still gorgeous, as Ellington, to my knowledge, never had a bad band. Jackson's singing on "Come Sunday" and "Psalm 23" are affecting. It lacks some of the power and some ambition from the original performance, but it is a fine addition to a catalog full of masterpieces.

Ghostface Killah - Supreme Clientele

I swear I will get around to listening to his "bad" albums eventually, once my internet at home gets working again (if you are reading this, I am either posting from a Panera, a mall, or my internet got fixed), but this is hands-down his best work. Filled completely with limber wordplay and rhymes as fast as a ninja star, densely worded and endlessly listenable, this is the first solo album that declared just how amazing Ghostface can be. There's humor, nostalgia (Child's Play), gritty street stories ("Saturday Nite") and "Wu Banga 101," yet another great group track (though only about half the group) on a Ghostface solo. How good is it? I intended on sleeping at one point last night and wound up listening to about 2/3 of it before actually needing to go to bed and putting it back on in the morning. And that wasn't my first time listening to it, either.

De La Soul - 3 Feet High and Rising

Maybe the most joyful album in hip-hop. The soul samples create a relaxed vibe that is completely friendly and playful. It runs completely opposite the misogyny and violence of the gangsta rap that completely swamped this release and became more popular than 3 Feet High and Rising's "daisy age" aesthetic. I've always found that the vocals are a bit buried (is it just me?), but it's a minor complaint when the music is so buoyant. Like the Beastie Boys' Paul's Boutique, it ranks as one of the most unique and towering achievements in hip-hop.

Ice Cube - Amerikkka's Most Wanted

Hey, remember when Ice Cube was a bad motherfucker? I don't fault him for going Eddie Murphey, but he's got more than a handful of gangsta classics to his name that are more fascinating than the Are We There Yet? series. They're violent and misogynistic, but Cube's got a way with words. The violence is offset by a perverse sense of humor throughout, as on "It's a Man's World," "The Nigga Ya Love to Hate" and "A Gangsta's Fairytale." As summer blockbuster viewers say to turn your brain off when watching Transformers, one has to put aside political correct instincts aside when listening to early Ice Cube. We don't make rational decisions when we're angry, and Ice Cube circa 1990 is one angry motherfucker. (The Kill at Will EP is a worthy followup tacked on as a bonus to the CD reissue).

Tyrannosaurus Rex - Prophets, Seers & Sages - The Angels of the Ages

How does one rate this music? Part of the charm of the first four Tyrannosaurus Rex albums is that there's something otherworldly about them. No folk music sounds like this, yet they're strangely catchy and melodic (if simple). This is their second album, and it doesn't do much different from their first. Some light percussive playing, lots of strummed acoustic guitar and Marc Bolan's signature wailing/changing. Definitely, absolutely not for everybody, but if you're into this "sort of thing," there's no going wrong with Tyrannosaurus Rex's early albums.

Jay-Z - The Blueprint

Don't Kanye's productions just sound better when he's not rapping over them? There's not much I can say about this one that hasn't been said before. The tracks powered by soul samples give the album a relaxed vibe, which makes Jay-Z's raps seem less like boasting and more like he's just stating fact. It's a victory lap, but it's focused as though there was something left to prove.

The Kinks - Misfits

The Kinks/Misfits
Misfits came out in 1978. Previous to this, the most recent Kinks album I have is Muswell Hillbillies, from 1971. Six years can be a lifetime in popular music, so I did not know what to expect from this album when I put it on. In short: it's a surprisingly energetic arena rock album from an older band with roots in the sounds of the British Invasion. Some surprises include the reggae-inflected "Black Messiah," and years of churning out concept albums hasn't robbed them of their humor. Seventeen years later, Pulp would open Different Class with the song "Misshapes," which bears more than a striking resemblance to Misfits's title song.

Ian Hunter - Shrunken Heads

I only own Mott the Hoople albums from their peak, so it was interesting to hear Hunter, their former frontman, almost 40 years after the band's classic period. He sticks mostly to blues-inflected power pop that wouldn't be out of place on a Mott album, reflecting on politics while being smart enough not to be blatantly specific ("Shrunken Heads") and being an aging rock star with humor (the jaunty "I Am What I Hated when I Was Young"). The ballads are well-written and catchy. I imagine this is what it would sound like if Rod Stewart tried to recapture his glory days today. Not a classic, but a definite unexpected gem.

Ghostface Killah - Fishscale

This is easily one of my favorite solo Wu-Tang joints. I was listening to Ironman, Ghostface's debut, yesterday, and the difference is palpable. Then, Raekwon and Capadonna are on nearly every track, providing verses here and there. And while Ghostface himself is good there, he is in excellent form here, spitting fire on every track like he can yell haters into submission. Throw some MF Doom productions and last great Wu-Tang Clan group tracks to include ODB into the mix, and you've got Ghostface's second stone-cold classic for the decade (the other being Supreme Clientele, of course).

Aerosmith - Classics Live II

As a teen, I loved Aerosmith, and as an Aerosmith-loving teen, I loved this album. Listening to it now, though, you kind of get to realizing that Aerosmith as a band has a limited live repertoire. Do we all realize that "Walk This Way" is on all but one of their five live albums? Okay, okay, it's their biggest hit. But "Back in the Saddle," "Draw the Line," "Same Old Song and Dance" and a handful of others get trotted out every time. Anyway, this album manages to be the best halfway point between the drug-addled sloppiness of Live Bootleg! and the stale professionalism of Rockin' the Joint. Of the eight tracks, only "Movin' Out" and "Let the Music Do the Talking" wouldn't qualify for "greatest hits" status, but the performances capture Aerosmith in their hungry mid-80s comeback mode.

Beyonce - B'Day

Beyonce's released some of the best R&B singles this decade, but her albums have always been uneven. Her first solo album, Dangerously in Love, suffers from being too long. B'Day shorter, mercifully, aside from a couple bonus tracks. Beyonce's weakest trait is generally her slower songs. Generally, with more upbeat tracks she can plow through them by force of personality (or just plain force), but B'Day only has a couple ballads. "Irreplaceable" is among her best songs, which automatically makes this an improvement from Dangerously in Love. It still ends on a bum song (unless you count an extended mix of "Get Bodied"), but the 9 songs before it overshadow it.

Unfortunately, someone thought more is more, since the album was eventually supplemented with several meh bonus tracks (including an underwhelming duet with Shakira) and a disc of songs in Spanish. After listening that version on LaLa, I would give it a B. This review is based on the original album, which I was able to find for about $3.

Dolly Parton, Linda Ronstadt, Emmylou Harris - Trio

Grade: A

It would be stupid to even comment on how good the singing is on this album. Three of the best female country singers of the post-WWII era team up to sing some gorgeous, stripped-down folky country songs. The songs are well-written, with "Wildflowers," "To Know Him Is to Love Him" and "Rosewood Casket" being highlights. I never listened to Ronstadt before this, but my interest is now piqued.