20 Albums That Changed My Life, Part 3

This is a continuation of my series on 20 life-changing albums. If you missed the first two, here they are:

Part 1

Part 2

Now, on to the good stuff:

5) Subliminal Plastic Motives - Self

I discovered this record literally by accident. There was one hit that was being played on the then-fledgling alternative rock stations, the song "So Low." At the time, I liked the song because it sounded a bit like Nine Inch Nails. I came to realize later that Self (which, like Nine Inch Nails, was actually one person, Matt Mahaffey) was actually poking fun at the morose and depressing lyrics that were dominating alt rock at the time.
When I finally found the record, it was so much more than I had bargained for. Here was a true original, an artist who was able to effortlessly and effectively blend elements from a wide variety of musical genres into his own unique, quirky style. There are elements of grunge, hip-hop, jazz, and more, with a healthy dose of weird noises and samples. Bridges tend to consist either of blasts of noise and samples over music or a foray into an entirely different musical style, and there is not a guitar solo to be found. Above it all, Mahaffey's voice weaves catchy pop melodies. It seems like it wouldn't work, but it does. Here are some of the highlights:

• "Sophomore Jinx" - a humorous song about the curse of the sophomore album, blending hip-hop, grunge and powerpop, if you can believe that!
  
• "So Low" - What begins with industrial mayhem suddenly breaks into a Beatle-esque bridge, and pulls it off nicely.
  
• "Marathon Shirt" - What starts out sounding almost like a prog rock song with some Sting influences breaks suddenly into a cocktail lounge jazz bridge.
  
• "Big Important Nothing" - A song about the marriage of Michael Jackson and Lisa Marie Presley. The verses are sung over a Thelonious Monk-inspired piano loop with a loping shuffle beat, and the chorus is plucked right out of the vocal jazz stylebook. The song also has the trademark Mahaffey blast of noise in the instrumental bridge.
  

"Subliminal" sounds a bit dated now, mostly due to the guitar sounds as well as a few of the lyrical themes. Still, it's one of those rare records that I can listen to without skipping over songs. The next full-length Self album, "Breakfast With Girls," is arguably even better, taking the genre-bending even further with higher production values. The 3rd and final Self full-length was "Gizmodgery," made entirely with toy instruments.
It's obvious to me and most of his fans that Mahaffey is a musical genius, and it almost seems like his lack of commercial success is intentional. He enjoys subverting and/or overturning pop conventions, both lyrically and musically. He is still working actively as a producer, did a recent collaboration with Jeff Turzo of God Lives Underwater called "Wired All Wrong," and does a bit of soundtrack work as well. I don't think we have seen the last of him.

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20 Albums That Changed My Life, Part 2

Here is the next in my series of 20 life-changing albums. I have a lot to say about this one, so I'm limiting the post to one album:

4) The Downward Spiral - Nine Inch Nails
I could probably make a case for Trent Reznor's debut as Nine Inch Nails, "Pretty Hate Machine" (hereafter referred to as PHM.) To some extent, that was a life-changing one for me. However, in retrospect, I believe PHM and the followup EP "Broken" opened the doors for "The Downward Spiral."
I believe some context is in order. PHM came out in 1989, but I didn't become aware of it until a 1991 Spin magazine article about Trent Reznor, following his triumphant summer in the Lollapalooza tour. I wasn't the only one late to the game, either. The tour and the resulting press brought many new listeners to his debut album. This record was a revelation to me, a guitarist who loved the sound of a power chord, but also had a fascination with synthesizers that began with bands like Kraftwerk and Devo. Here was the best of both worlds for me. I'm not sure I even noticed at first that there were no guitar solos, which is surprising for me!

I was also struck by the dark tone of his lyrics. I had been criticized for many years for my dark, depressing lyrics, and I had finally found someone who was even more depressing!
When Broken came out in 1992, it was a completely different record. At first, I didn't like it, but it quickly grew on me. This was a guitar record, although there were still no guitar solos. The synths were there, but they were buried in a wall of distortion. I came to love this EP so much, I quit listening to PHM for a while. Lyrically, there was even more anger, spurred on by the problems he was experiencing with his record label.
After an agonizing two-year wait, "The Downward Spiral" arrived, and I probably purchased it on the very day it showed up in the stores. Here was the record I had been waiting for! I listened to the entire thing, from the brutal, sledgehammer opening of "Mr. Self Destruct" to the blast of distortion and feedback at the end of "Hurt." For the next several months, I listened over and over again, not just to individual songs, but the entire thing start to finish. This was that kind of record. You couldn't just listen to one song. I would hear "Closer" on the radio, and it just seemed weird that they didn't play "Ruiner," the next song on the album.
This was not just a collection of songs. It wasn't even a concept album or a rock opera, where the lyrics unified what was otherwise a collection of songs. This was almost like a symphony, which was probably why it appealed to me, an educated musician. Much like classical music, the album had extreme dynamic range. "March of the Pigs" is a great example of that, with a soft piano/vocal break in the middle, followed by silence, followed by a blast of noise. I know I was fooled by it the first time! There was also the recurring piano motive, heard most prominently at the end of "Closer," but heard several other times as well.
I was also struck by the production, and spent many hours listening with headphones, trying to pick out individual layers in the massive wall of sound that permeated the entire record. This album, more than any other, sparked a returned interest in the recording process for me. After being a recording major as an undergrad, I lost interest for a number of years. I had a home studio, but it was just there to facilitate the songwriting process for me. "Downward Spiral" reminded me that the studio is a musical instrument, capable of as much expression as any acoustic instrument! Here was a pop artist using the same "Musique Concrete" techniques I had learned when I studied electronic music in college.

As a Nine Inch Nails fan, this record combined the songcraft and production of PHM with the raw energy of Broken. To me, it was the perfect Nine Inch Nails record. There were synths and guitars aplenty, and he even brought Adrian Belew in to play a guitar solo! And the lyrics were more dark and depressing than ever.

"The Downward Spiral" was a turning point for me, both as a listener and as a musician. Of course, given the fact that Trent Reznor and I are close to the same age, and he was struggling with similar addiction issues as I was at the time, this is certainly no surprise. If I were to rank all my life-changing albums in order of importance, it would certainly be number one!

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CD Review: The Tubes "Now"

Now
The Tubes
A&M Records, 1977
CD Reissue: Acadia, 2004

The Tubes third album Now is their most obscure release, having peaked at number 122 on the Billboard Charts. This perhaps explains why it was never released on CD until 2004, and languished out of print on vinyl for many years. However, for the die-hard Tubes fan, the album offers an interesting mid-point between the operatic prog-rock explorations of their debut and the more commercial rock of later albums such as The Completion Backward Principle. The songs are shorter, and the edges a bit smoother than on previous efforts, with acoustic guitar and piano taking a more prominent role.

Allegedly a concept album, it is difficult for the listener to figure out what the concept is. Typical of a Tubes album, Now is so stylistically schizophrenic that it never achieves the cohesiveness one would expect from a concept album. Genres range from the disco of “Smoke (La Vie En Fumer)” to the jazz fusion of “God-Bird-Change” to the proto-new wave of “Cathy’s Clone.” They even cover a Captain Beefheart song (“My Head is My Only House Unless It Rains”), and the entire affair is infused with a Latin Jazz flavor with the contribution of new member and Santana/Return to Forever alumnus Mingo Lewis.

All of the standard Tubes elements are here, however: Fee Waybill’s trademark yodel, Vince Welnick’s fluid piano, Michael Cotton’s quirky synthesizer lines, and Prairie Prince’s complex and in-the-pocket drum fills.

While there is no indication that Acadia undertook an extensive remastering effort with this reissue, the sound quality is superior to the original vinyl version.

This would not be the best place to start for a listener unfamiliar with the Tubes; Their eponymous debut album or The Completion Backward Principle is preferable. However, for the die-hard fan, as well as anyone interested in eclectic 1970’s rock, it will be a welcome addition to the collection.

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