Psychobabble: For Groovy Ghouls & Retro Rockers.
A lot has happened since the 5-disc, career-spanning box set Good Vibrations: Thirty Years of The Beach Boys was released in 1993, and much of it was unthinkable at the time. Carl Wilson was diagnosed with cancer in 1997, and we lost him the following year. Brian Wilson worked past his aversion to touring and performing, and even more incredibly, gave us both a solo version and approved a Beach Boys box set of his unfinished masterpiece SMiLE. He has reunited with the often-feuding surviving members of his group for a fiftieth anniversary album and tour. This year marking the five-decade anniversary of The Beach Boys’ unchallenged dominance of pop music (at least in America where the British Invasion was still a year away), it’s a good time to update Good Vibrations, and Capitol/UMe has released a 6-disc set called Made in California that brings the story to the present.
So, The Breeders released two of the best record of the ‘90s, then ignominiously faded away as the two principal members—Kim and Kelley Deal—dealt with various addictions and personal problems. By the ‘00s they were pretty much a distant memory, vaguely recalled by most as ex-Pixie Kim Deal’s side project and the group responsible for the weird but enthralling hit single “Cannonball”. When The Breeders reformed to a small amount of hoopla and put out the fairly forgettable Title TK in 2002, they seemed more like relics of the ‘90s than ever. A six year gap followed; then Mountain Battles. Jaw drops, eyes bug out, hands begin drumming ecstatically on thighs. Sneaking out with barely a whisper of media interest, The Breeders’ fourth album in nearly two decades may be their best, covering as wide a range of influences and moods as Last Splash while dispensing of the instrumental filler and striking a more consistent overall tone. This is a mature album made by a wonderfully immature group. “Overglazed” sounds like a great lost Who single written after Townshend suffered a severe blow to the skull. “Bang On” and the sublime “Walk It Off” are jaunty, bouncy fun, as is the Tasties cover, “It’s the Love”. All of these could have been big college radio hits if such a thing still existed. “German Studies” could vie with any of the weirder tracks on Last Splash while outdoing most of them for groovy danceability. There are moments of haunting atmospherics (“Night of Joy”, “We’re Gonna Rise”) and Zeppelin-esque heavy rock (“No Way”) and country folk with harmonies like melted butter (“Here No More”), all proving that The Breeders are well worthy of rediscovery.
Throwing Muses were one of my favorite band born in the ‘80s. Fractured and furious, their music was demanding, but Kristin Hersh still had a way with a pop hook that held all of the mania together (as did little step-sis Tanya Donnelly, the “George” to Kristin’s “John and Paul”). Hersh’s solo records drop much of the shrieking and cacophonous electric guitars of the Muses in favor of raspy whispers and sparse acoustic backing, but that grit and fury are still very much present. Sunny Border Blue is full of spitting anger (she sounds particularly hungry for the jugular on “Spain”), but the melodies and instrumentation—unplugged guitars, keyboards, and percussion with the occasional trumpet—are beautiful. Hersh’s lyrics, reportedly inspired by marital woes, come off like pages torn from the more vitriolic passages of her diary, and her rendition of Cat Stevens’s “Trouble” (from Harold and Maude) may be the most inspired cover version of the past twenty years.
Critics often dismiss Juliana Hatfield because of her girlish voice and penchant for sugary pop, but the former Blake Baby has just been strengthening and strengthening as a songwriter for the past 20 years. Her earlier solo albums (Hey Babe, Become What You Are) are refreshing fusions of grubby indie-rock and girl-group bubblegum that were sometimes marred by preciousness and juvenile self-analysis. Since these are the albums for which she is best known, many do not realize how much she has since matured. Her lyrics, while no less self-examining than they’d always been, are less cloying, her taste in backing musicians is keener, and her melodies are just as delectable as ever. It’s a shame that she was essentially forgotten by all but her most devoted fans at the turn of the century, because she simultaneously released two albums that revealed how worthwhile and varied her music remained. Total System Failure is a blow-out of hard Led Zeppelin-style riffs and Jesus Lizard noise that manages to be as catchy as any of Hatfield’s pure pop. Beautiful Creature is quiet, pensive, largely acoustic, and the best argument for Hatfield’s place in the canon of great singer-songwriters. “Choose Drugs” and “When You Loved Me” are heartbreaking love songs. “Hotels” is an infectiously atmospheric meditation on road-weariness. “Daniel” and “Don’t Rush Me” are more upbeat and poppy, but their lyrics continue the melancholic themes of the rest of the record. The one misstep is a pretty big one; as its awful title suggests, “Cool Rock Boy” falls back on the teen-cutesiness of Hatfield’s most unbearable early work, but the rest of the album is consistently fine, as are the ones that followed it.
There has never been a shortage of bands that draw gluttonous reserves of inspiration from The Rolling Stones, but it seems as though most of those bands either reference the early Blues-&-Berry Stones or the Sleazy-‘70s Stones. The Dutchess and the Duke are one of the few that favor the mid-‘60s Stones, when they were immersed in raw folk, baroque guitars, and jangly pop. “Reservoir Park” is a ringer for “Mother’s Little Helper”, “The Prisoner” swipes its riff from “Paint It Black”, the climbing guitar line of “Mary” is reminiscent of “Sittin’ on a Fence”, and “Strangers” gets off on the same C&W jive as “Connection”. They also possess an evocatively morbid lyrical bent that brings to mind some of the Stones most withering cuts, like “I Am Waiting”, “19th Nervous Breakdown”, and “Yesterday’s Papers”. Right now you’re probably thinking, “So, why would I bother with these kids when I could just dust off my copy of Aftermath and hear the real deal?” Well, smart ass, you should check out The Dutchess and the Duke because