the rewind button

The Rewind Button: The White Album

by Reb Stevenson on May 20, 2012

The Rewind Button is a group blogging project instigated by Rachel Tynan. As part of her New Years’ Resolutions for 2012, she set out to listen to Rolling Stone’s top 50 albums of all time. I thought it would be fun if a group of bloggers listened to the same albums at the same time, then posted their reactions. Starting today, we’re going through the Top 40 and will be continuing with a new album every Thursday. Want to join in? We’d love to have you. Email me if you have a blog, or just offer up your two cents in my comments area below.

This week: The White Album (1968)

The cover of The White Album, as pure and clean as a freshly bleached bedsheet, is pure irony. Because behind the simple facade lies total chaos, both emotional and aural. It’s like the covers for Sgt. Pepper and The White Album were accidentally switched.

The dysfunction that would ultimately destroy The Beatles asserted itself during the recording sessions for this album – at one point Ringo quit, leaving Paul with the drumsticks. John and Paul regularly recorded in separate rooms. The cohesion of the band was slipping away. And of course, Yoko started hanging out.

But I have to say, after a few monotonous albums (Exile on Main Street and What’s Going On), The White Album read as an exciting grab-bag. Granted, some of it was unbearable (Revolution 9 = someone with ADD flipping through radio stations, none of which are in tune) but much of it was sheer brilliance, spanning a full range of emotions and taking twists and turns you weren’t expecting. From the cartoonish quality of Rocky Raccoon to the softness of Blackbird, it was a musical odyssey.

I got the feeling that, by this stage, The Beatles had truly arrived at the “Don’t Give a F–k” stage, wherein they were exploring their art as honestly as possible. There was no pandering to the audience, no desperation to be at the top of the charts. They’d been there done that. Now they were searching for something new, which is why they found themselves in an ashram at the time this album was germinating.

The White Album sealed it for me: The Beatles really are the best band of all time, partially due to sheer talent, but also because they never settled into complacency – they were driven to change, to evolve. Even if it meant evolving into Wings.

{ 5 comments }

The Rewind Button: Exile on Main St.

by Reb Stevenson on April 27, 2012

The Rewind Button is a group blogging project instigated by Rachel Tynan. As part of her New Years’ Resolutions for 2012, she set out to listen to Rolling Stone’s top 50 albums of all time. I thought it would be fun if a group of bloggers listened to the same albums at the same time, then posted their reactions. Starting today, we’re going through the Top 40 and will be continuing with a new album every Thursday. Want to join in? We’d love to have you. Email me if you have a blog, or just offer up your two cents in my comments area below.

This week: Exile on Main St. (1972)

Last week, fellow blogger Rachel Doerksen wrote something funny about Marvin Gaye’s album.

She wrote:

I was ready for a full set of “whoa Rachel, why has it taken you this long to listen to this album?” Instead I got “whoa Rachel did you really just skip a song titled save the children?”

That’s how I feel about many of the albums on the list…that I’m waiting to be blown away by “the album that got away.” I imagine it would feel that way to see Ghostbusters for the first time in 2012. “Zuul, Keymaster, GOZER – where have you been all my life!?”

Alas…Exile on Main St shall stay in exile, at least for me.

The blues is not my co-pilot. I’ve never liked it, and I can’t imagine I ever will. I find it monotonous, masculine and masturbatory. The only Exile on Main St song I enjoyed to any degree was Sweet Virginia, because it sounded like you were eavesdropping on a casual house party and the singalong felt authentic. The oppressive heat rippling in through the open kitchen door was almost palpable. And that’s pretty awesome, considering they recorded it in France.

As for the rest of the album – I can’t even be bothered to carefully dissect it like some kind of jeans-with-blazer-wearing rock n’ roll academic because it’s just that aurally annoying.

The mix. THE MIX. It’s positively obnoxious, with horns and piano and a basic roadhouse drum beat regularly drowning out Mick Jagger’s vocals. I feel like I could stride into any given bar with blinking neon signs, motorbikes parked outside and an overripe blonde slut grooving alone on the dance floor and the band inside would be indistinguishable from this mess. And yet this is the 7th greatest album of all time, according to Rolling Stone?

Now, in case you’re wondering how the rankings came to be, here’s Rolling Stone’s description of the process:

An eclectic and stellar panel of experts — including the Rolling Stone editors, Fats Domino, Flea and Britney Spears — voted on the following albums, by everyone from Abba to ZZ Top, from Robert Johnson to the White Stripes, in 2003.

I suppose, as someone who grew up in the ’80s and ’90s, I’m a bit miffed that every album we’ve heard so far was released in the ’60s and ’70s. For the record (or the CD, as it were) there are newer offerings in the top 500 – artists like No Doubt, Madonna and Pearl Jam. I know we should respect our elders, but it begs the question: is older automatically better?

Or do you think those ragged antiques Richards and Jagger just got extra points because their band bears the same name as the magazine, hmmm?

Listen along! Next week we’ll be chatting about: London Calling, The Clash

Who else rewound Exile on Main St.?

{ 4 comments }

The Rewind Button: What’s Going On

by Reb Stevenson on April 19, 2012

The Rewind Button is a group blogging project instigated by Rachel Tynan. As part of her New Years’ Resolutions for 2012, she set out to listen to Rolling Stone’s top 50 albums of all time. I thought it would be fun if a group of bloggers listened to the same albums at the same time, then posted their reactions. Starting today, we’re going through the Top 40 and will be continuing with a new album every Thursday. Want to join in? We’d love to have you. Email me if you have a blog, or just offer up your two cents in my comments area below.

This week: What’s Going On (1971)

I am not one to crap on any artist’s work.

While I may wince and shoot a WTF look at my art gallery companion upon viewing a “piece” that looks like a toddler attacked a canvas with mommy’s lipstick, for example, I can’t dismiss it altogether. Perhaps that’s because I do consider myself an artist and I respect the chutzpah and the commitment it takes to produce something original. Who am I to sit on a throne and condemn someone’s creative oeuvre to death?

A superficial listen revealed that I’m not a natural fan of this album. It’s just alright – Marvin’s voice is smooth, the jazz flute is (at the very least) reminiscent of fun times watching Anchorman, there’s a fairly steady groove throughout and, despite the heavy subject matter, the tone is hopeful and positive.

Here’s where the respect part comes in: context.

I’m not saying that I’ll like the lipstick painting better if I read that it was done by a quadriplegic using his or her eyelashes as a paintbrush, but boy oh boy will I ever appreciate it more.

I knew absolutely nada about Marvin Gaye until a couple of hours ago. For whatever reason, every single detail of this man’s life has completely eluded me. Sorry, Marv. I mean, yes, like most people I’ve danced to “Sexual Healing” in the company of the bride’s dangerously horny old aunt at weddings and such, but that’s irrelevant.

Marvin Gaye was shot by his own father?! I had no idea. This automatically adds a layer of tragedy to this album, which actually references his family life.

If, like me, you don’t know what is going on in What’s Going On here’s the deal, straight from Rolling Stone itself, which ranked the tune #4 in its top songs of ALL TIME:

Renaldo Benson of the Four Tops presented Gaye with a song he had written with Motown staffer Al Cleveland. But Gaye made the song his own, overseeing the arrangement and investing the topical references to war and racial strife with private anguish….Gaye invoked his own family in moving prayer: singing to his younger brother Frankie, a Vietnam veteran (“Brother, brother, brother/There’s far too many of you dying”), and appealing for calm closer to home (“Father, father, father/We don’t need to escalate”).

What’s Going On (the album) did two groundbreaking things:

1) It fused Motown with social activism

2) It was the first soul concept album

‘Nuff said. Marvin deserves to be on the list.

Like many of the albums we’re reviewing on The Rewind Button, What’s Going On may not fit into your life now, but it takes you back to specific times, places, feelings and thoughts. And that’s the undeniable magic of music.

Will I intentionally listen to this again? No

Song that gets wa-a-a-y too religious for me : Wholy Holy

I found myself leaping from Marvin Gaye’s Wikipedia page to: Phil Hartman’s Wikipedia page

Listen along! Next week we’ll be chatting about: Exile on Main Street, The Rolling Stones

Who else rewound What’s Going On?