Taking a break...

Will be taking a break from blogging for awhile... Just tired of keeping track of things this way.

Bob Dylan - Another Side of Bob Dylan

This is my favorite acoustic Dylan album. Focusing less explicitly on politics compared to its predecessor, he's at a new songwriting peak here. Songs like "To Ramona" and "My Back Pages" are slow ballads rich with lyrical detail."All I Really Want to Do" is a playful ditty that reverses romantic pop songs, and "Motorpsycho Nightmare" is a hilarious, surreal talking blues song. Much like the early Beatles albums, Dylan's early period sometimes gets relatively (stress: relatively) overlooked compared to the years after he went electric, but he had the presence and gravitas as a songwriter and especially as a vocalist to pull off an album alone. if there's one criticism I have, it's that "Chimes of Freedom" always sounded a bit like a re-write of "The Times They Are A-Changin'." But overall, this is one of the definitive Dylan albums, right down to many of the songs eventually turning up in cover versions by The Byrds.

Meat Loaf - Bat Out of Hell

An overblown, amazing classic. Meat Loaf has a voice big enough to carry these songs convincingly, whether they're power ballads ("Two Out of Three Ain't Bad") or rocking odes to teenage sexuality ("Paradise By the Dashboard Light"). Everything here works precisely because it's so big and dumb. Take the title track, for instance. At the six minute mark, there's a false fade-out that leaves me thinking "I could go for more of this song" - but AH! There's another three whole minutes of rocking out. And like I said, it's all grandiose moments in the teenage identity - those moments when the big dumb this shit is the most important stuff in the world.

Angie Aparo - Out of the Everywhere

Angie Aparo, Atlanta-based singer-songwriter, has a deeply compelling voice. It soars at the high notes instead pf pinching. His songwriting isn't memorable lyrically, but the album is deeply affecting for his vocals, which stand out. The settings are basically unadorned, acoustic guitar and singer-style. He doesn't quite have the gift for hooks that eventually would get him noticed by Faith Hill, but this is probably the best distillation of his talents in his discography.

Jon Brion - Meaningless

Jon Brion has made his name on his distinct orchestrated pop productions (Kanye West, Fiona Apple, Rhett Miller, the score for Punch Drunk Love), so it's no surprise that he isn't the most compelling singer in the world. Meaningless presents a gorgeous low-budget version of his sound. It's all very laid-back, with his thin voice sounding a bit haunting. It closes with an unexpected cover of Cheap Trick's "Voices," which upon listening to the album again, re contextualizes the preceding songs. After all, this is pop, but it's also rock. It's not heavy, but it's a beautiful and spacey kind of carnival music worthy of the experimentation of the psychedelic era.

The Hold Steady - A Positive Rage

As previously mentioned, The Hold Steady are a great band. Having seen them live, they're a great live band, but this is not a great live album. It's not bad, but their loose playing comes off better in person rather than on CD. It sounds like a fun show, and it draws headily from Boys and Girls in America, previewing "Lord I'm Discouraged" and "Ask Her for Adderall" from the then-unreleased Stay Positive and featuring two non-LP tracks: "You Gotta Dance (With Who You Came With)" and "Girls Like Status." The old songs come off relatively well, but they lack the focus of the studio versions.

Paul McCartney - Driving Rain

This might be awful to say, but some of the best music from McCartney's (solo) career has come after the death of Linda McCartney in 1998. It has given his music more of an emotional center, which can sometimes be missing from the projects with Wings. The first two songs seem to address these emotions head on: "Lonely Road" and "From a Lover to a Friend." Each are simple returns to roots, with the former being a straight-ahead rocker and the latter being a lovely ballad. Both feel like songs that could have been written in the beginning of his solo career. Given that McCartney's greatest strength is his melodies, the greatest effect the album has is that it reclaims his strengths. Those first two tracks are knockouts, while "Driving Rain" sounds like something that would've happened if the Beatles had been together to this day. The closing track, though, "Rinse in the Raindrops," echoes the kind of long, multi-part songs that McCartney's favored in the most ambitious parts of his career and might be the best thing here. The worst is "Freedom," a hastily written 9/11 tribute song. So simple, grating and bone-headed, it spoils the greatness of everything before it.