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Music

6: The Initial Friend (Rilo Kiley)

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Album: The Initial Friend
Artist: Rilo Kiley
Year: 1999

1. The Frug
2. Papillon
3. Always
4. 85
5. Glendora
6. Teenage Love Song
7. Sword
8. Asshole
9. Gravity

B: Steve
B: Troubadors
B: Annoying Noise of Death

I’m not exactly sure what happened, but Rilo Kiley decided this EP was never quite perfect so they released three different pressings, all with a slightly different song set. Some songs were on all three pressings, some on two, and some just on one. The nine songs listed here are from the second pressing, with the three extra being from the other two.

The Frug is actually what turned me onto the band, ten years after it was released. The next song I heard was Papillon, and I was hooked. They’re still my favorite two songs from the band (indeed, Papillon is a top ten song for me), both very silly but sung with earnestness.  “Oh my god, Blake!” is a fantastically sung line by Jenny.

Amazingly, their debut album just keeps bringing the awesome. Their second album, Take-Offs and Landings, had an updated version of the song Always that is way overproduced. This version is the one you want to listen to. 85 is played with adagio speed but has a consistent rhythm that makes it feel faster than it is.  And then Glendora is a great sing-along about submissiveness and self-hatred.

Teenage Love Song is decent, and then it heats back right up again with the next two songs. They must have been in a classic-movie binge when writing this album as Laurence of Arabia  makes an appearance in Sword (with Papillon being the other mention).  Asshole is sung by the whole group for the most part, and while I don’t really care for Blake’s singing, he does harmonize very well with Jenny.

I thought Gravity was decent at first, but the more I listen to it, the more it grates on me. Like I Never, it’s very repetitive, but Jenny’s voice has this warble I can’t take. As for the rest of the songs, I usually include Steve and Troubadors when I listen to the album.  Steve is one of Blake’s best songs, just him fantasizing about killing his mom’s boyfriend. And Troubadors makes for a much better album ending than Gravity, as it has a simple, fading sound much like It Just Is.  Annoying Noise of Death is just a long gimmick of a hidden track that doesn’t need more than one listen ever.

While More Adventurous is probably a better introduction to the band as it’s better produced, better polished, and is more pop-friendly, The Initial Friend is Rilo Kiley’s masterpiece.

See everyone next week for the final five albums!

Music

7: Warning (Green Day)

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Album: Warning
Artist: Green Day
Year: 2000

1. Warning
2. Blood, Sex and Booze
3. Church on Sunday
4. Fashion Victim
5. Castaway
6. Misery
7. Deadbeat Holiday
8. Hold On
9. Jackass
10. Waiting
11. Minority
12. Macy’s Day Parade

I pretty much hated Green Day from the get go. I thought Basket Case was one of the worst songs I’d ever heard, and felt punk was just random noise with raunchy, uninspired lyrics. Thankfully, my palette improved as I aged.  Though it’s far my favorite Green Day song, Good Riddance allowed me to give them (and Basket Case) a second chance. So when Minority was released, I gave it a honest listen. Green Day was my best friend’s favorite band, and at this point I finally allowed him to share the rest of their music with me. And while I didn’t love all of it (in fact, Dookie is probably my least favorite album), I went absolutely ga-ga over Warning.

The first three songs here are loud, emotional, and have fantastic drum work by Tré Cool. Blood, Sex and Booze is one of my favorite songs, and I think the only song in my Top 500 about sadomasochism.  The album continues with original songs, having enough pop hooks to make it relevant for me while keeping the punk lyrics.  Deadbeat Holiday and Waiting are a bit generic, and Castaway has a repetitive chorus, so I don’t always look forward to those songs, but that’s really just nitpicking.

American Idiot gets all of the press (and a Broadway musical!), but it’s far inferior to Warning.

Music

8: Brand New Man (Brooks & Dunn)

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Album: Brand New Man
Artist: Brooks & Dunn
Year: 1991

1. Brand New Man (D)
2. My Next Broken Heart (D)
3. Cool Drink of Water (B)
4. Cheating on the Blues (B)
5. Neon Moon (D)
6. Lost and Found (B)
7. I’ve Got a Lot to Learn (D)
8. Boot Scootin’ Boogie (D)
9. I’m No Good (B)
10. Still in Love with You (B)

I’ve pretty much run out of things to say about Brooks & Dunn.  So I’ll just say their debut album is sensational, the first song I ever danced to was Neon Moon, and I have a client with paranoid schizophrenia who loves playing Lost and Found for me on his guitar.

Music

9: Abbey Road (The Beatles)

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Album: Abbey Road
Artist: The Beatles
Year: 1969

1. Come Together
2. Something
3. Maxwell’s Silver Hammer
4. Oh! Darling
5. Octopus’s Garden
6. I Want You (She’s So Heavy)
7. Here Comes the Sun
8. Because

Medley

9. You Never Give Me Your Money
10. Sun King
11. Mean Mr. Mustard
12. Polythene Pam
13. She Came In Through the Bathroom Window
14. Golden Slumbers
15. Carry That Weight
16. The End
17. Her Majesty

The last album The Beatles recorded, where they were all pretty much pissy with each other, is my favorite, mainly because of the epic sixteen-and-a-half medley at the end.  In fact, I combined the nine songs into a medley for my MP3 player, though I left She Came In Through the Bathroom Window and Golden Slumbers as individual songs as well. The latter is an amazing lullaby while the former showcases McCartney’s passionate voice at his best. Actually, Oh! Darling showcases McCartney’s voice at it’s best. He sang the song relentlessly for a week before recording it so the final track would sound like he was hoarse, much like on Twist and Shout.  It’s definitely a song that can only be sung by a young man. I heard Paul try to sing it a few years ago and my skin nearly crawled off my body to hit the mute button.

Harrison’s Something isn’t quite as ambitious but it’s a subtle, romantic song without being cloying. Come Together is pretty damn popular and I like it alright, but I think Lennon’s best song on the album is I Want You, but then again I’m a sucker for eight-minute songs that are mainly extended jams. In fact, only fourteen different words are spoken during the eight plus minutes.

The album’s major weak spot is from McCartney with Maxwell’s Silver Hammer. It’s a fun song the first few times through, but I’m pretty much done with it by now. It’s silly and belongs on Yellow Submarine, not here.  Starr’s Octopus’s Garden comes close to falling into the same trap, but is low-key enough to not seem completely out of place.

Many feel that Her Majesty should not have been tacked on at the end, what with The End being a poetic and fitting end to The Beatles. Ah, whatever. I like it.

Like with The Barenaked Ladies, there are a plethora of songs from The Beatles that make my Top 500 that didn’t get showcased on this countdown due to being on mediocre albums (or not on albums at all!).  Here they are, a whopping eighteen more:

If I Fell
And I Love Her
I’ve Just Seen A Face
Yesterday
Two of Us
I Am the Walrus
Penny Lane
Baby You’re a Rich Man
Blackbird
Happiness is a Warm Gun
I’m So Tired
Rocky Raccoon
She’s a Woman
Paperback Writer
Eleanor Rigby
I’m Only Sleeping
She Said She Said
Hey Bulldog

In fact, Hey Bulldog is a top fifteen song for me. Yeah, who’d of thunk, it being on Yellow Submarine and all.

Music

10: Come On Come On (Mary-Chapin Carpenter)

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Album: Come On Come On
Artist: Mary-Chapin Carpenter
Year: 1992

1. The Hard Way
2. He Thinks He’ll Keep Her
3. Rhythm of the Blues
4. I Feel Lucky
5. The Bug
6. Not Too Much to Ask (with Joe Diffie)
7. Passionate Kisses
8. Only a Dream
9. I Am a Town
10. Walking Through Fire
11. I Take My Chances
12. Come On Come On

It was really hard not to view this album through a wave of nostalgia. It was the first CD I ever owned and is one of the few I still have. Three songs turned me onto country music.  Boot Scootin’ Boogie by Brooks & Dunn, Runnin’ Behind by Tracy Lawrence, and I Feel Lucky by Mary-Chapin Carpenter.  But this album is more than nostalgia.  It’s truly an exceptional collection of songs. Not that the radio is the best barometer for quality, but Come On Come On had seven singles and all seven were Top 20. Even more amazingly, the best two charting singles were the sixth and seventh.

Carpenter is a smoker and there’s a bit of gravel in her voice that works for me, especially on her ballads. Combine that with mature songwriting (she wrote every song except Passionate Kisses) and you get some really moving songs. He Thinks He’ll Keep Her is a refreshing and honest look at divorce from a women’s perspective.  Rhythm of the Blues is as soulful as one will get from contemporary country. Then we get I Feel Lucky, a very fun fantasy about winning the lottery. What would Mary-Chapin do with 11 million dollars? First things first: buy a pack of Camel’s, a burrito, and a Barq’s. She also entertains fighting off Lyle Lovett and Dwight Yoakam’s sexual advances.  Great stuff.

The Bug and Not Too Much to Ask are okay filler and Joe Diffie was definitely not needed for the duet. The flip side of the album is where its at. Passionate Kisses is about a basic need of Carpenter’s that Maslow forgot to add to his hierarchy. Only a Dream is an amazing introspective ballad. I Am a Town is pretty good poetry to music. I Take My Chances is a better written version of the “Don’t follow the crowd” trope in country music. The title track is the perfect ending to the album, a powerful lullaby.

Music

11: I Got a Name (Jim Croce)

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Album: I Got a Name
Artist: Jim Croce
Year: 1973

1. I Got a Name
2. Lover’s Cross
3. Five Short Minutes
4. Age
5. Workin’ at the Car Wash Blues
6. I’ll Have to Say I Love You in a Song
7. Salon and Saloon
8. Thursday
9. Top Hat Bar and Grille
10. Recently
11. The Hard Way Every Time

Released three months after his death, I Got a Name helped Croce achieve way more success than he ever did while alive. I Got a Name and I’ll Have to Say I Love You in a Song were both top ten hits and very deserving of such. The song that really does it for me is Lover’s Cross. Not to beat a dead horse, but it’s a song about leaving an abusive relationship and it really hits home for me. My favorite Croce line: “Still I hope that you can find another who can take what I could not. He’ll have to be a super guy or maybe a super god.”  Age is another classic Croce song about living a long-hard life. Again, he was thirty. Ugh.

The rest of the album is very solid. Five Short Minutes is reminiscent of Gary Puckett’s Young Girl and is kind of creepy, despite its intent to be humorous. It sounds nice, but is probably the weakest song here. Workin’ at the Car Wash Blues and Top Hat Bar and Grille are a couple of generic up-tempo country songs but are pleasant enough. The remaining four songs are great, especially the ballad The Hard Way Every Time, a fitting and somber end to this album and his career.

Music

12: In Pieces (Garth Brooks)

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Album: In Pieces
Artist: Garth Brooks
Year: 1993

1. Standing Outside the Fire
2. The Night I Called the Old Man Out
3. American Honky-Tonk Bar Association
4. One Night a Day
5. Kickin’ and Screamin’
6. Ain’t Goin’ Down (‘Til the Sun Comes Up)
7. The Red Strokes
8. Callin’ Baton Rouge
9. The Night Will Only Know
10. The Cowboy Song

Let me start out by saying that this is some of the best cover art I’ve seen for a country music album.

Garth was already the most popular country artist ever before In Pieces and this album turned him into a freaking legend. Ain’t Goin’ Down was liked across genres and in one live show he was suspended from wires, flying through the stadium while a ring of pyrotechnics exploded all around him. There’s a reason he won Entertainer of the Year more than once.

What’s so impressive about this album is the wide range of emotionally resonating subjects he sings about. The Night I Called the Old Man Out is about the singer and his brothers getting pissed at their dad and getting into physical brawls with him.  The Night Will Only Know is about a couple witnessing a murder but not going to the police about it to hide their affair. Standing Outside the Fire is a fairly generic song about standing up for what you believe in, but the music video places it in the context of Down’s Syndrome and it makes the song all the more powerful.

The ballads are universally powerful. One Night a Day is a showcase for Garth’s voice with only a piano in the background. The Red Strokes was very popular and also had a pretty awesome music video. The Cowboy Song is a simple campfire song but a very pretty lullaby.

The only reason this album isn’t in the top five is American Honky-Tonk Bar Association. It exploded up the charts, and it has a pretty catchy tune. But it’s the only song of Garth’s that offends me as it takes multiple shots at welfare recipients. Garth is one of the more liberal country singers ever, so it’s sad that this unnecessary drudge stains his discography.

Music

13: Yourself or Someone Like You (Matchbox 20)

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Album: Yourself or Someone Like You
Artist: Matchbox 20
Year: 1996

1. Real World
2. Long Day
3. 3 A.M.
4. Push
5. Girl Like That
6. Back 2 Good
7. Damn
8. Argue
9. Kody
10. Busted
11. Shame
12. Hang

This album was released on my sixteenth birthday. I was in an abusive relationship when that person bought me this album. Push resonated with me more than any song ever had before. It still means a lot to me, as does this album, as it helped me through the hardest time in my life. In addition to Push, Argue also resonated with me. “We get along so we shouldn’t argue,” rolled through my head a lot.

There is so much genuine anger pulsating through these songs. It’s obvious that Rob Thomas was in a dark place while recording this. Long Day and 3 A.M. struck a chord with my teenage angst. He wrote 3 A.M. as a teenager as a coping mechanism while his mother was struggling with cancer.  Girl Like That is repetitive but continues the emotional impact from Push quite nicely.

I’m not a huge fan of the singles Real World or Back 2 Good.  Damn is pretty banal, and Busted is really painful to listen to. All reasons the album falls out of my top ten despite what it means to me.

Kody, Shame, and Hang are all considerably more low key, but also considerably depressing. I think Thomas blew his wad with this album. While his music skills improved as he went along, his writing became more pop-friendly and less inspired.  But I have little doubt that Yourself or Someone Like You will still resonate with me in thirty years.

 

Music

14: Creedence Clearwater Revival (Creedence Clearwater Revival)

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Album: Creedence Clearwater Revival
Artist: Creedence Clearwater Revival
Year: 1968

1. I Put a Spell on You
2. The Working Man
3. Suzie Q
4. Ninety-Nine and a Half (Won’t Do)
5. Get Down Woman
6. Porterville
7. Gloomy
8. Walk on the Water

CCR’s debut album is often under-looked when their short career is evaluated, no doubt because it lacked easily digestable hits. The only two songs that charted were Screamin’ Jay Hawkins’ I Put a Spell on You (which they certainly improved but wasn’t that great of a song to begin with) and Suzie Q, which was cut in half for the radio as the last half is some of CCR’s worst guitar work in addition to adding nothing to the song. The rest of the album is bloody fantastic and needs to be listened to by any CCR fan that hasn’t had a chance to.

The Working Man is a simple ode that has a catchy rhythm and showcases Fogerty’s impressive ability to hit the high note. Ninety-Nine and a Half and Get Down Woman are decent rockers. And then things really heat up. Porterville was recorded in the Golliwog days and was easily their best song under the band’s previous name. It’s one of CCRs most energetic songs, up there with Travelin’ Band. Gloomy doesn’t sound like much at first, but the guitar riff at the end is unworldly.

Walk on the Water is a perfect ending, a visceral and haunting tune that ends a short story about a run-in with Death with three minutes of crying guitar that leaves a chill in the bones.

Music

15: Poison (Bel Biv Devoe)

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Album: Poison
Artist: Bel Biv Devoe
Year: 1990

1. Dope!
2. B.B.D. (I Thought It Was Me)?
3. Let Me Know Something
4. Do Me!
5. Ronnie, Bobby, Ricky, Mike, Ralph and Johnny (Word to the Mutha)!
6. Poison
7. Ain’t Nut’in’ Changed
8. When Will I See You Smile Again?
9. I Do Need You
10. Poison [Extended Club Version]

In case you can’t read it, the album cover advertised that BBD’s “music is mentally hip-hop, smoothed out on the R&B tip with a pop feel appeal to it.” They forgot, “and also with lots of punctuation!”   Seriously, that list of song titles is not pretty.

Thankfully, here at Death By Troggles we don’t judge music by its cover. I never listened to much New Edition, and I’m lukewarm about the solo careers of Ralph Tresvant, Bobby Brown, and Johnny Gill. BBD impressed the hell out of me when I was ten and this album still does twenty-two years later. They cover only three topics in nine songs: sex, relationships, and reminding everyone that their name is BBD.  Many songs cover all three, and they do it with infectious energy, stylish rhymes, above-average harmonies, and pretty good enunciation.

Poison is their most popular song and I don’t feel it’s aged a bit, other than perhaps some slang like “knockin’ boots.” Ricky Bell’s voice is outstanding, which he shows off most on Dope!  B.B.D. is a hilarious song. “She’s sticking closer to you than the bread on the meat of my sandwich,” is so ridiculous but they pull it off. I remember singing Do Me! really loud as an 11-year old, even when my mom was home, and she’d just roll her eyes. Even to this day when someone says, “It’s six o’clock” I immediately think “on this Swatch Watch!”  The group’s strength is definitely with their up-tempo numbers. They finish things off with two decent ballads. They don’t do them near as well as their protege, Boyz II Men, but they more than make up for it with everything else.

The whole gang from New Edition shows up on Word to the Mutha, probably the worst song on the album, as it’s pretty self-aggrandizing. The extended club mix of Poison also does nothing for me and is unnecessary, especially just four songs after the original version. But I don’t count it against the album when ranking it.