Take Two: Rilo Kiley

Rilo Kiley is probably the most high-profile band to have ever signed to Saddle Creek, after Conor Oberst of course. They rode a wave of indie praise through their early albums, but as of late have not garnered as much critical acclaim, and I don't really know why. Indie critics hypocritically hate two things: bands that deviate from their sound too much, and bands that always sound the same. They want bands that don't deviate to experiment with new sounds, and want bands that go down the rabbit hole to just do what they loved in the first place. It's a lose-lose situation. I don't know why, but for some reason I've liked everything I ever heard from Rilo Kiley. They do different things on different albums, but every time it works for me.


Take Offs and Landings

"Science Vs. Romance" - I love how low-key the first couple songs on their debut record sound. It's very sparse, with Jenny Lewis' voice taking up most of the space, and it's a beautiful one. I know a lot of girls who would go gay for Jenny Lewis after seeing her in concert. This song has such a mellow tone to it, but the lyrics lambast the idea that love can be thought out scientifically, thus the title. Romance is a fluid and ever-changing idea that doesn't have plans that always work, and this song gets that point across nicely. The end of the song drives into a great guitar solo and breakdown, moving away from the completely toned-down sound of the record so far.

"August" - I really dig Blake Sennett, but across Rilo Kiley's albums they've started decreasing his songwriting input, which is a shame. This song, like a lot of Rilo Kiley songs, succeeds on its simplicity. It's a simple message, a simple riff, a simple sound, not much vocal stretching, but I like the sound a lot. There are times where all you want is something stripped down to its bare elements, and Rilo Kiley does a good job of crafting songs in that vein, albeit with a few little production touches here and there.


The Execution of All Things

"The Execution of All Things" - I love the high-pitched guitar line that comes in right before the end of the first verse, as well as the stream-of-consciousness lyrics from Jenny Lewis. They got more atmospheric on their second album, with more little digital blurbs going in different places, but they still kept a great guitar boom between the verses.

"With Arms Outstretched" - A great build from acoustic guitar and Jenny Lewis to a more chorus-like vocal track with many voices, even building to group clapping as the song closes. I like the stripped-down feel and softness of the track, and it slips very nicely into the end of the record.


More Adventurous

"Does He Love You?" - Around this album was when Jenny Lewis pretty much took over all songwriting duties, and she got really amazing at storytelling in her songs for this record. This tells the story of a mistress in heartbreaking fashion, and the emotional highs and lows that Lewis hits in her vocals are amazing.

"Accidental Death" - Perhaps the greatest verse in all of Rilo Kiley's songs is the second verse, about a story of a father hunting deer. The instrumentation is wonderfully layered, the drums echo greatly, the guitars hit the right intensity, and those lyrics are the kind that make me wish I could write a song like they do. It's one of the best songs of the decade for me, and my favorite song on the album.


Under the Blacklight

"Breakin' Up" - A lot of people don't like this album, but I still really dig it as a distinctly LA breakup record. Jenny Lewis and Blake Sennett had recently broken up, and just like No Doubt ten years earlier they got a great breakup track out of it. I love the little guitar riff that floats through the song, and for a former child actor and LA resident for a long time, Jenny Lewis does a damn good job of sounding a little bit country in her singing.

"Smoke Detector" - The best lyric on the entire album to me is the second verse when Lewis sings "I took a man back to my room/I was smoking him in bed" then for the rest of the song she only sings "I was smoking in bed." It's like a wink to the audience, only in lyric form. The song is very 60s-simple pop as well, but there are still sleazy LA dark bits around the edges. I love the way that they made a light sounding album full of so much dark little bits sprinkled throughout the songs. Most people say its their worst record, but I really think Under the Blacklight was a great step in a new direction for the band. Unfortunately, with Jenny Lewis rising as a solo artist and the strain of a breakup and increased success, it could be their last.



Non-Album Tracks
"The Frug" - Some of the best Rilo Kiley songs are beautiful for their simplicity. This is one of the best for that reason alone, but the utter catchiness of the melody does a lot to help.

"Teenage Love Song" - Most of the time its annoying when non-teens sing about teenage life, but the attitude Jenny Lewis has as she sings forlornly on this track makes me believe she can fit back into a teen mindset. The song is simple, heartbreaking, humorous, and somehow very calm.

Take Two: Weezer

There are a lot of people who don't like Rivers Cuomo and his band Weezer. Some don't like his style altogether, others don't like the directions he's taken the band in the years since their resurgance with The Green Album. I don't really care, because I am a huge Weezer fan. Always have been, always will be. There are a few bands that I will follow in whatever musical direction they wander, and Wezer is one of those bands. Here's my take on their albums:



Weezer (Blue Album)

"Say It Ain't So" - It's a wonderfully vivid story told through the lyrics, and the chorus roars through as Rivers rises to a scream. The most powerful point may be when he suddenly crescendos during the second verse, ending on "be cool." The guitar intro is great as well.

"Only In Dreams" - My personal favorite Weezer song of all time. Its an epic track that builds through its immense bridge slowly but surely, rising to a climactic finale. It starts off blissfully, and its transformation into a slow burner is fantastic.



Pinkerton

"Across The Sea" - Rivers plagarized a letter from a Japanese girl so badly in this song that he actually gave her a minor songwriting credit. It's the apex of sexual frustration that inhabits the album, without a doubt their best in my mind. The lewd fantasies of the narrator give way to youthful lonliness, and the emotional and generation shift in the tone of the lyrics is a reason why I believe Cuomo is such a gifted songwriter.

"The Good Life" - After the frustration that haunts the entire first half of the record, this track begins side two by shoving off the complacency and vowing to get back to partying and getting out there. I love the transitions on this record, and the sequencing is excellent, especially with these two songs right after one another, then "El Scorcho" and "Pink Triangle" in succession. It plays through like a great sexually frustrated narrative.



Weezer (Green Album)

"Photograph" - Returning with a new record after 5 years, The Green Album was full of short, punchy, almost teaser songs for the new incarnation of the band. "Photograph" is my favorite of the short, sweet, simple songs on this record.

"Island In The Sun" - Yeah its cheesy, and now its overplayed and used in commertials, but its still a wonderfully relaxing and happy song, great to listen to in the summertime. I'd gladly put a couple more songs from Pinkerton in place of these two, as I find the album to be too short to really offer great songs, but these are some of the best on the record.



Maladroit

"Keep Fishin'" - Any music video that features the Muppets is okay in my book. I love the riff, the chorus, the lyrics, the rocking, everything about this song is what I like about Weezer...except for maybe a little turned down relaxed vibe.

"Burndt Jamb" - Speaking of a great relaxed vibe, this is the buried gem on Maladroit, perfect for sitting back and chilling, with a little guitar solo chucked in for kicks. I like the balance between virtuosic solos and chilled-out verses on this album a lot.



Make Believe

"Perfect Situation" - Almost ten years down the road, and Rivers is still as frustrated as he was on Pinkerton. Much like with Dashboard Confessional, it may be odd to hear the romantic frustrations of a thirty-something, but Rivers makes it work most of the time. The chorus might be a bit weak, but the verses are another great dose of his romance storytelling.

"This Is Such A Pity" - A welcome change of pace and stylistic exploration for the band, I really like the 80s feel and straight-ahead, no stopping sensability of the track. It's another reconciliation track with romance breaking down, but it wouldn't be a Weezer song if there wasn't at least a little of that.



Weezer (Red Album)

"Troublemaker" - Originally intended to be the first single from the record (until the record label-dissing "Pork and Beans" came along in the final sessions for the album with Jacknife Lee), I really like the simplicity of the song. It's no nonsense, simple progression, and really catchy.

"The Greatest Man That Ever Lived (Variations On A Shaker Hymn)" - A great epic track that changes styles about every 30 seconds, adding a choir here, a power ballad guitar there, and everything between. It goes on for a long time, but I enjoy hearing the quick changes and the myriad of styles the band molds to each time they switch. A lot of people have grown tired of how Cuomo does his songwriting, but he does take it seriously, and I think there are legitimately great songs on every Weezer album. You just have to give the stylistic change a chance, and it'll grow on you.



Non-Album Tracks
"Jamie" - From the Deluxe Edition of The Blue Album, another one of Rivers' perfect lyrical portraits. It's got romance, a tinge of humor in the heartbreak, and a great sound.

"I Just Threw Out The Love Of My Dreams" - The only surviving song from the aborted Songs From the Black Hole album/musical to have full female vocals. It shows off how that concept would've sounded when fully realized, and I have to say, it would've been awesome. People have compiled demos and unreleased tracks to form the unfinished album, and Songs From the Black Hole sits in Top 10 lists of best unreleased or unfinished albums all the time. The female vocals are from Rachel Haden of the band that dog, and now the reformed version of Weezer ex-bassist Matt Sharp's The Rentals. It's a shame the album never got finished, but this one suriving, essentially finished look makes me lament the loss of the fully realized album.


So there's another one of my favorite groups whittled down to just a few tracks per album. I'd love for them to return to the form of their first two albums, but they've gotten too old to express that kind of feel in an album. I just hope they find a groove as they grow older to make something that everyone can appreciate as much as their first forays.

Take Two: Echo & the Bunnymen

Among my absolute favorite 80s bands is Echo & the Bunnymen. Ever since hearing "The Killing Moon" in the opening credits of Donnie Darko I've loved their music, and their 80s albums all have different feels to them. Their drummer Pete De Freitas died in a motorcycle accident in 1989, and on either side of that death they've released five proper albums (frontman Ian McCulloch left the band in 1988 and they released an album with a different singer which doesn't really count since they reuinited in 1997). In the interest of preserving my 1980s image of the band, I'm only going to pick songs from their five albums of the 80s. Maybe we'll catch up on the uneven records of the 90s and 2000s some other time.


Crocodiles
"Crocodiles" - I don't know why, but the title tracks of most of these albums are right around my favorites for each record. Maybe they actually titled their albums after one of the strongest songs, or perhaps it was just intriguing names each time. Either way, this song rocks out. It's a good calling card for their early style, straight forward rock with a little punk in there. They just went for breakneck speed here with McCulloch's gravely voice keeping up with the pace.

"Villiers Terrace" - Definitely a harbinger of sound experimenting to come. It's the most memorable song on the record to me, especially with all the drug imagery. McCulloch's lyrics got a little too weird towards the end of the 80s, but here he's very focused, very visual, very cryptic about the place he sings about.


Heaven Up Here
"Show of Strength" - Everything about this song fits together perfectly to me. The bass and drums are in tune with each other's movements, the guitar floats around and punches when it needs to, and McCulloch's vocals careen from a hoarse whisper to a bellow in an instant over the course of the song. The ending breakdown is fantastic as well.

"Heaven Up Here" - Probably my favorite track they ever did. The emptiness the sound disappears into on the track is awesome. The bass line thunders for the entire song, and McCulloch's wailing is in full swing here. Pete De Freitas' drums are going wild for the entire song as well. RollingStone rated this album their highest in their ranking of the Top 500 albums, and I think that's actually accurate. It's not their most popular album, but I really do think it's their most well-rounded and best.


Porcupine
"Back of Love" - A fantastic opening riff makes this another visceral Echo classic. This album was the hardest to record for the band, and the tensions that began here followed them for the rest of their career. This is probably my least favorite Echo record, but they still keep it together on a lot of these songs. McCulloch's screaming and the repeating guitar work really well in contrast, and the strings in the bridge give it an interesting change.

"Heads Will Roll" - Great acoustic opening, with a tinge of the eastern influence that hangs over the entire album. This album did feel a little bit too much like Echo trying to do the Beatles' eastern bits with English rock, but they rock harder to make up for it.


Ocean Rain
"The Killing Moon" - Ian McCulloch claims that this is a candidate for the greatest song ever written. I think it has enough to merit entrance to the conversation for the greats, with the fantastic imagery of the lyrics and the lush, fully realized instrumentation. Everything is timed perfectly in this song, and it comes out as though it took absolutely no effort. The sequence in Donnie Darko that used this song originally was to be scored by "Never Tear Us Apart" by INXS, and I think that changing the song in the Director's Cut of the film weakened it a little bit. The acoustic opening and the first verse fit perfectly with that shot of Jake Gyllenhaal biking down a hill.

"My Kingdom" - Far and away my favorite Echo & the Bunnymen song. It's my favorite riff and my favorite lyrics of any song they've ever done. The record itself is only 9 songs long, but the final 4 tracks are just about the best things they've ever done. This is their most popular record, and "The Killing Moon" shot them to some degree of popularity, and deservedly so. McCulloch got a little bigheaded after this album, but for just a short time, they were riding high on a wave of critical and popular success.


Echo & the Bunnymen
"Bedbugs & Ballyhoo" - Echo mastered the slow build on songs like this. They're pretty much on autopilot for most of the song doing what they do best, but damn if it doesn't sound good. Don't try to make sense of the lyrics, they're nonsensical, but the blending sounds, especially when the saloon-style piano enters in the middle, are amazing.

"Blue Blue Ocean" - My favorite departure the band took in terms of their musical style. On this album they got much more into epic 80s synth-style sound, and this one was one of the few that worked for me. They've still got and underlying guitar there that's doing some pretty straight riffing, which is nice. The band was too far apart to survive after the recording sessions for this album, and McCulloch left the band after its release, leaving the band with the terrible idea of replacing their front man for one album before calling it quits for the rest of the 80s.


Honorable Mention Non-Album Tracks:
"Bring on the Dancing Horses" -This is pretty much the most covered song the Bunnymen ever made, and I personally really enjoy it a ton. McCulloch may have been hard to work with, and the rest of the band might have not gotten along really well, but they could write a single.

"Do It Clean" - This song can be found on the remastered version of their debut Crocodiles. You know how Bloc Party releases one-off singles in between records that are sometimes really awesome? Yeah, Echo & the Bunnymen did that twenty years ago with songs like this. Sure it's probably not the first time a band did this, but it's damn cool to hear awesome singles that have no album context to pay attention to sometimes.


There you have it, one of my favorite bands tracked in two songs per album. If you've never listen to them, maybe now's the time to try them out.

Take Two: Radiohead

A while ago I was wondering what it would be like to boil down the albums of an entire career into just a few songs. Beyond that, what it would be like to only be able to choose a few songs off each album, making a different kind of "greatest hits" collection. Most of the time you like some albums in a discography more than others and would choose more tracks from there, but that's not the case with these posts.

I'm going to go back into some of my favorite artists who have released four or more albums, and pick two favorite tracks from each album to list. I'm not looking for "greatest" song or big hits, I'm just picking the songs I like the most off of each record. It's especially hard to do because you end up with songs that would be on the list if you weren't limiting yourself to only two songs per album.


Pablo Honey
"Creep" - Just because they hated the touring after their one mainstream hit doesn't mean it isn't a great song. Hell, it's an iconic guitar entrance at the chorus.

"Anyone Can Play Guitar" - Their debut is certainly their weakest album (there aren't too many worthwhile modern bands you can say that about...), but I still find myself coming back to this song when I'm in a Radiohead groove.


The Bends
"Fake Plastic Trees" - I'm a sucker for Thom Yorke beginning a song with just his voice and acoustic guitar.

"My Iron Lung" - One of my favorite opening riffs of any song, ever. People say that this album is what Radiohead would sound like if they didn't go down the creative rabbit hole of Ok Computer, but I'd disagree a little bit. This is a huge step forward from Pablo Honey and was probably just as much of a departure as any of their other albums. They hated the late recognition "Creep" got them and just completely turned away from that attitude.


Ok Computer
"Paranoid Android" - The epic, operatic centerpiece of the album to me. The legend goes that the band stayed up an entire night orchestrating all the instrumentation for the song, and then Thom Yorke heard it and laid down the vocals in one take. The lyrics in the breakdown (especially "kicking, screaming, Gucci little piggy") are some of the best I've ever heard.

"Exit Music (For A Film)" - Originally composed for the Romeo + Juliet soundtrack in the mid 90s (I can hear the play's influence a little bit in the verses), it shows off one of my favorite aspects of Radiohead in the shift from just acoustic guitar and airy noises to a bellowing bass shift that thunders through the track.


Kid A
"Kid A" - I keep picking some soft songs off these records, but damn if Radiohead doesn't do both extremes fantastically and blend them together too. This is probably my 2nd favorite record, and I love the masked vocals so much. Deciphering the words coming out of Yorke's mouth surrounded by the lush sonic landscape is simply beautiful.

"The National Anthem" - How can this cacophany immediately follow the title track on Kid A. What balls, Radiohead! My favorite softer song is followed immediately by their most destructive rocking, but then the horn section comes in. It's like rock mixed with experimental jazz, and then everything cuts out to let Yorke say his piece.


Amnesiac
"Like Spinning Plates" - There's no hiding that this is my least favorite Radiohead album after Pablo Honey, and there are songs off Ok Computer and Hail to the Thief that would bump these two songs off, but they're still great tracks. This track debuts the opening effect that went on to open another great track on Hail to The Thief ("The Gloaming"), and to my mind it kind of represents the sound of spinning plates pretty well. It's a hyper-realistic experience to listen to Radiohead, espeically in a dark setting and a contemplative mood. These are records that make me want to bring back the days of just putting on some music and sitting down with friends, or alone, to listen through it.

"I Might Be Wrong" - This is definitely one of the tracks that separates Amnesiac as something more than a b-sides album to the Kid A sessions. Its got a great backing beat and guitar riff, and the style just feels all its own. That's one thing that always amazes me about the band: their ability to write songs and keep them gestating over multiple sessions, but still have a stylistically cohesive album that sounds as though it was all written at the same time.


Hail to the Thief
"2+2=5" - This is still probably my favorite Radiohead song of all time. I love the guitar being plugged in at the start, the incidental dialogue, the opening riff, the frenetic, gasping-for-breath ending, the otherworldly post-apocalyptic 1984 feeling it instills right from the get-go. This song convinced me to buy into Radiohead as a band, and for that it remains my favorite.

"There There" - Again I choose contrasting songs, this with a much more mellow track, but there's still a feeling of claustraphobia, trapped anger, some emotion waiting just beneath the surface. This whole album feels very alive to me, like its a time capsule for that time in 2003. It's one of those records I can throw on and feel transported to the past.


In Rainbows
"All I Need" - The bass and piano make this song for me. This entire song feels effortless to me, but it's so well crafted and executed. It may have taken four years between albums for the band, but man was In Rainbows worth the wait.

"Reckoner" - I haven't really mentioned Johnny Greenwood a lot and have been mostly praising Thom Yorke, but good lord do I love the little guitar bits here. The things that impress me most about the guitars in Radiohead's work is how subtle it can be, and the many uses they've found for a guitar. They don't use the traditional rock instruments in the same way that all other bands do; they're able to use a guitar to fill gaps instead of set the tone.


So there you have it, my inagural Take Two post. I'll be putting up another one of these later in the week for another artist, I've just got to choose from among the four album plus contenders.