For an artist who arguably peaked on his first two albums,
Marshall Crenshaw has remarkably
not pumped out a subsequent steady stream of diminishing returns. That's no easy feat given the caliber of 1982's
Marshall Crenshaw and the following year's
Field Day which are revered by both guitar pop purists and early adopters of the gentleman in question. In fact, from a creative standpoint things never really went "south" so to speak for Crenshaw, rather just on divergent tangents. Nonetheless, some of his albums (roughly a dozen of 'em) fared better than the rest, and there are even ones I've modestly taken exception with (
Life's Too Short anyone?).
If anything else, a good chunk of the man's catalog has been neglected, specifically a slew of albums he cut in the mid-90s through the 2000s that didn't bear a major label imprint. His seventh studio LP,
Miracle of Science, circa 1996, was his maiden indie foray, and is now being released on vinyl for the first time, with a rejiggered song sequence and significantly refurbished sleeve art. And it's not a bad album to revisit at that, as it proved to be one of his loosest and varied affairs. Thing is, virtually every album Marshall Crenshaw brings to market feels like casual day at the office, with
Miracle... being especially representative of this modus operandi. The commencing "What Do You Dream Of," with it's serendipitous flow of acoustics and electrics, is the kind of pop tune that would seem a miracle of musical science in the hands of any other singer/songwriter, but for M/C it emanates as naturally as putting on a pair of slippers. Another absolute stunner, "Starless Summer Sky," harkens back to the aesthetic of his breathtaking early records, brandishing a structure that smacks of the finest
Field Day had to offer. "Laughter" and "A Wondrous Place" amble along on a considerably lackadaisical path, particularly the latter which features strings, marimba and some faint flamenco affectations.
Amidst the inspired originals on Miracle reside a pair of covers. A reading of
Dobie Gray's 1964 oldie "The 'In" Crowd" isn't much of a revelation, but how about a
Grant Hart solo cut? And not just
any old Hart song, but one of the finest the sadly departed Husker gave rise to, "Twenty-Five Forty-One." Truth be told, it wasn't the original incarnation that Crenshaw became acquainted with, rather Robert Forster's version on the
I Had a New York Girlfriend covers collection, but no matter. It's great.
"Seven Miles an Hour" winds
Miracle... out, but not before M/C messes with us by prefacing it with a backwards take of the song in it's entirety, included as a bonus cut. Furthermore the vinyl variant of the album is coupled with a bonus single of two more recently recorded songs (both remakes including
Michael Pagliaro's "What The Hell I Got").
Elusive Disc will take care of you if opt to spin the black circles, while
Amazon is holding down the CD and digital fort. Available as we speak.
For an artist who arguably peaked on his first two albums, Marshall Crenshaw has remarkably not pumped out a subsequent steady stream of diminishing returns. That's no easy feat given the caliber of 1982's Marshall Crenshaw and the following year's Field Day which are revered by both guitar pop purists and early adopters of the gentleman in question. In fact, from a creative standpoint things never really went "south" so to speak for Crenshaw, rather just on divergent tangents. Nonetheless, some of his albums (roughly a dozen of 'em) fared better than the rest, and there are even ones I've modestly taken exception with (Life's Too Short anyone?).
Just four short months ago I posted an Elton Motello single, and was enthused enough about it to spend some quality time with his second long-player, this one. You can refer back to that original entry for some pertinent biographical specifications. Pop Art is a minor new wave masterpiece, exuding just about everything that was creative and incisive about that genre's nascent era, while gracefully sidestepping any of it's patently negative shortcomings that would become ubiquitous over the next couple of years. A fantastically nervy strain courses trough virtually every morsel of this album, that sonically points to the acerbic modus operandi of some of Elton's (actual name Alan Ward) contemporaries likes Devo, Donnie Iris and to a lesser extent Gary Numan. Some surprisingly rollicking and punky outbursts crop up here in the guise of "Pocket Calculator," "In the Heart of the City" (not the Rockpile tune but just as ripping) and "Panic in the Classroom," and if you're looking for par excellence power pop the title piece is both flashy and a hell of a lotta fun. Enjoy.
Hey. You've got power pop in my indie rock! You've got indie rock in my power pop! From 2015.
A handy 17-cut roundup of virtually every song that mattered by these Clash-y Brit post-punks.
In the early '90s British-based Clawfist Records was responsible for a spate of split singles featuring (mostly) indie band covering one another on the same piece of wax. Way back, I featured one of their 1991 specimens, Poster Children/Thin White Rope, and some ten years later I'm sharing another in the Clawfist series. Smashing Orange (not to be confused with you-know-who) were one of my small-of-famers back in the day. A fantastically noisome blur of manicured noise and dream pop ethos who responsible for handfuo of eps and two albums, The Glass Bead Game being the foremost of the pair. On this split 45 they cover The Sunflowers, a combo I'd never really investigated before. Per Discogs the band only released a few singles, and ironically the tune Smashing Orange take to task here, "Something You Said" didn't materialize on any of them. Nonetheless, it's glorious noise-pop overdrive if I've ever such a thing. The Sunflowers return the favor by doing a rendition of one of my go-to Smashing Orange songs, "Collide" nailing it quite capably at that.
It's cherry picking season again. Here's my annual postmortem assemblage of the creme de la creme of what I just offered you a year prior. A taster, or sampler if you will. I'm really not sure if these yearly distillations are really hitting their desired audience (neophytes, stragglers, etc) or if I'm merely preaching to the choir. At any rate, I've plucked 23 of the most succulent feathers from the wild array that was 2019. As was the case in 2018, I've grown increasingly slack in the amount of shared content, and as such offered even less in the past year. Turns out though that a decent chunk of what I managed to get up '19 was of particularly high caliber.
01. White Flag & Kim Shattuck - Dont Give It Away
