Dusting off an ancient feature today for nostalgia’s sake. Enjoy! Discuss! Rejoice!

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Bob Dylan – When He Returns

Bob Dylan’s “born-again” era is the most forgotten, least-treaded or too generalized of his entire catalog. It’s the inkstain on his mythos. No one really wants to talk about it, and Dylan himself is often vague of the period. But one thing’s certain: 1979′s Slow Train Coming is some of his most inspired, frighteningly honest material since his heyday as a young singer-songwriter living in the West Village. Most of the album is wrought with conviction and praise is framed beautifully by the guitar of Dire Straights axman Mark Knopfler by the album’s final track is a propulsive, powerful ballad that is nothing more than Dylan and piano accompaniment. “How long can you falsify and deny what is real?,’ he questions, before rounding the killer couplet: “How long can you hate yourself for the weakness you conceal?”

Frank Turner – I Still Believe

Frank Turner is Billy Bragg for post-millenial hardcore kids. His songs straddle a fine line of folk music with punk rock energy. So much of his work is hook-heavy, songs seem to eclipse their albums, much like Bragg’s work. That’s frustrating a lot of the time, but not in this case. “I Still Believe” is the lead track from Turner’s stopgap “Rock & RollEP. Characteristic lilting vocals, call and response choruses, and shout outs to “Jerry Lee and Johnny and all the greats” make it a fun four minutes. There’s no real message here, and that’s okay. It’s a good example of why EP’s exist.

tUnE-yArDs – Gangsta

What’s great about Merrill Garbus is the deliberate incongruence of her songs. Rarely anything she does sounds natural. It’s cut up, shuffled and reconstituted with the strength of a glue stick, and that’s what makes it so exhilarating. There’s no better example than this song, layered vocals, caddywompus horns and a prowling beat keeping it together. At first listen, her latest album W H O K I L L sounds like several loose ends, but with repeated listens, the songs weave a pretty brilliant tapestry.

Fleetwood Mac – Little Lies

I love this song exactly for what it is: A killer pop single. Sonically, nothing seems to connect it to the same five people that made classics like Rumours and Tusk. Stevie Nicks often is the face for this band, but Fleetwood Mac have always seemed to be far more democratic when it comes to lead vocals on their singles. For this particular song, Christine McVie is up front, Nicks in the back, and Lindsey Buckingham is relegated to an echo. The hook is monstrous, and anyone growing up listening to pop radio in the late 80′s and early 90′s has that chorus imprinted on their consciousness. Girl Talk even appropriated it for “Overtime” from Night Ripper. To put it into Cheap Trick terms, it’s “The Flame” to their “Surrender”.

My favorite album of all time, ever, that will likely never change, that will be in constant rotation until I die, is Fleetwood Mac’s 1977 release Rumours.

Why? Because it’s effing awesome.

Well, there is also a bit more to it than that. This album creates an environment for me. It’s a very specific type of feeling I get when I listen to Rumours (which I do on an almost daily basis) and it’s one of perfect blending. Much of the album reminds me of pouring really cold half and half into a scalding cup of coffee and watching the two swirl together in a beige tandem.

The voices of Nicks, Buckingham, and McVie are like the coffee and half and half, as is the multitude of instruments used on Rumours. It’s fresh, nearly perfect, but always a little gritty at the same time.

And, despite being a ridiculous seller (nearly 20 MILLION copies), never does Rumours sound like a direct attempt to generate sales. It’s all genuine, the emotions the band conveys feels real, especially on tracks like “The Chain.”
“The Chain” may be my favorite track on Rumours. As it opens with a simple, melodic guitar part that swells with a blue Delta flavor. I imagine the scene beginning with two flamenco dancers who circle each other until …
“If you don’t love me now, you will never love me again.”

That’s one hell of an ultimatum.

It’s a perfect segway into “we must never break the chain.” The way that Nicks’ and Buckingham’s voices stagger makes it sound like wicked bickering between two people. It’s great. Then McVie’s wonderfully maternal and earnest voice floats over the top, almost like a guardian angel’s attempt to look out for the participants in this odd version of a quarrel.

The entire album sounds like a romantic breakup, or rather a relationship’s entire course of action. Each individual song can stand on its own as a single or a decent representation of Fleetwood Mac’s particular pop-rock sound, but to notice the actual connection between the songs and the environment it creates, one must listen to the album in it’s entirety.

Tracks like “I Don’t Wanna Know,” or “You Can Go Your Own Way,” are pretty cut and dry breakup songs.

Although Rumours isn’t really a breach as far Fleetwood Mac’s sound goes, since they still rely on vocal harmonies and jangly guitars and piano to add a touch of folk to their music, the personal issues surrounding the band at the time certainly allowed for them to get creative regarding the context in which they wanted to present the material. Bassist John McVie and vocalist Christie McVie separated, as did Stevie Nicks and Lindsey Buckingham. I can’t imagine what it was like to record this album when you’re Stevie Nicks and you KNOW that a particular song is all about you. And to think, I think it’s awkward to see someone you dated at the neighborhood coffee place. It’s got to be so much worse to have to create and perform songs that are blatantly about your personal life and the affairs that take place in them.

I just got a pair of noise canceling headphones, and I now have a lot more appreciation for the instrumentation of music. When listening on the crappy Apple earbuds, the album is wonderful. When listening on my new headphones, it sounds like a brand new album to me.