There’s a lot of people that love the Melvins. There’s also a lot that hate them. Every grunge and sludge metal group owes a little something to their uncompromising style.  They are often cited as an influence but ended up being too odd in the end to ever get their own breakthrough, though they do make for one of the stranger major label signings in recent memory.

After what feels like a million releases, it seemed time to give them their own Popdose guide.  Over the next six pages, you’ll read about all of their studio albums, some EP’s and a few live albums and maybe, if you hate them, you’ll find something intriguing and pick up a record or two like I did and become an instant fan.

The whole guide is in this post, so be sure to click on the page numbers at the bottom to get to the next set of albums.

EP: Six Songs/Eight Songs/10 Songs/26 Songs

Released: 1986/1991/2003

Label: C/Z Records (6/8/10), Ipecac (26)

The world was introduced to the Melvins (Buzz Osborne – Guitar, Vocals; Dale Crover – Drums; Matt Lukin – Bass) for the first time in 1986 thanks to their approriately named Six Songs 7″ release on Seattle label C/Z Records. If you want to hear them in their rawest state, this is the record to get into. The six tunes were the sound of a band that had no idea what to do in a studio or how to get the best sound. It also didn’t seem like they had much direction either. You certainly can hear the influence this record had on grunge but there’s also a bit of sludge and that DIY punk vibe present. Despite that, the six songs are pretty fantastic and a great taste of what was to come. My only complaint about the disc is that the pace just isn’t right on a few of the tracks, almost too slow for their own good.

The Melvins ended up recording two sessions because they thought the first one wasn’t good enough. And the second one was released first. In 1991, C/Z decided to re-release the disc, this time putting two extra songs, “#2 Pencil” and “Show Off Your Red Hands” on the re-titled Eight Songs vinyl release and two more, “Over From Underground” and “Crayfish” to the re-re-titled, 10 Songs CD version. Before the release was put out, the band decided they thought the first session had a better vibe to it and thus, the songs you hear on the 1991 version are different than the ’86 versions. The ’91 sets are even rawer, a bit distorted, with jolting bass work and may be even a slight bit more exciting in the end.

In 2003, now with Ipecac, the label decided to re-release this again. This time, it was titled 26 Songs despite only having 25 tracks on the disc. It included both sessions, a few outtakes, a compilation track called “Ever Since My Accident” and essentially milked every last ounce of this recording. This version is really unnecessary as both the 10 and six song versions are good enough for the casual fan.

“Grinding Process”

Album: Gluey Porch Treatments

Released: 1987

Label: Alchemy

Gluey Porch Treatments is the first full length album the Melvins released and ends up having much of the same vibe Six Songs did. Although still not fantastic, the production is better this time around without losing any of the raw edge that was exciting from the EP. Whereas I complained about the pace of the tracks above, it seems to have come together better this time around. It’s a little less sludgy and definitely has a greater grunge vibe than the first release. And on this record, what you hear for the first time is the emphasis on both bass and drums in all the recordings. Throughout the Melvins career, the bass and drums have always been noticable. They aren’t simply in the background but an integral part of each of the tunes. Dale Crover’s work on this album is great, as this is really the beginning of him having to keep up with Buzz’s sometimes jolting riffs.

I love “Steve Instant Newman” which is a slight reworking of “Disinvite” from the EP. “Heater Moves and Eyes” also contains some fantastic riffs. “Eye Flys” is the oddball here, a six + minute feedback drenched drone track to lead off the record. Nothing else on the disc sounds like it so it doesn’t really fit, but certainly upon looking back, was a sign of some oddness to come down the road.

Most people probably haven’t heard this in the original form, released on vinyl on Alchemy records. The cassette version on Boner records also included the Six Songs EP and this wasn’t released on CD until it was tacked onto the end of the follow up record in 1989. So while I’d say this is a great record for beginners to start with, you might as well just pick up the next one instead…

“Steve Instant Newman”

Album: Ozma

Released: 1989

Label: Boner

In 1987, Osborne moved the group to San Francisco from Washington. Dale Crover came with but Matt Lukin stayed behind and formed Mudhoney with members of Green River (Green River’s “Leeech” was covered by the Melvins on Gluey Porch Treatments). Buzz now went by the handle King Buzzo and he recruited Shirley Temple’s daughter Lori Black (on disc, known as Lorax) to take over the bass duties. Their first release with Lorax manning the bass was Ozma which now goes down as one of their brightest moments.

The Melvins were always one of these groups that musicians loved and are cited as influences all over the place. But influencing others never turned them into major stars themselves. It’s very easy in 2012 to look back on their career and completely see why they never broke big but it was around this time that they really started generating some noise. Later on in their career when they became more experimental (“odd”) or more melodic (“commercial”) or more rockin’ (“loud”) many people started questioning if the group was really any good to begin with. Even today, the group is very polarizing. Some people can’t get them at all and some people love them. Upon talking to people that know the Melvins and enjoy at least part of their work, one thing is common. When you go back this far, most people can agree that of all their sounds this one was pretty fantastic.

The CD release on Boner records includes Gluey Porch Treatments, which makes it a must have for any fan of the Melvins, grunge or sludge. While Gluey felt more like the grunge side of the group, Ozma felt like like you were trudging through quicksand. Everything is slowed down, the drums are pefectly piercing and as good as Lukin was, Lorax’s bass rattled your bowels. Part of this is certainly due to better production but I think overall it’s simply because all of King Buzzo’s ideas finally completely worked and the band gelled brillantly.

“Oven” is a grimey head pounding minute-and-a-half featuring Buzzo singing over just Crover’s drums for part of the tune. The great, “At A Crawl” from Six Songs was reworked here into a much better version than the original and the 6 1/2 minute down-in-the-muck riffs of “Revulsion/We Reach” may be the finest sludge moment they ever put on disc. They also cover both “Love Thing” by Kiss and oddly enough, “Candy-O” by the Cars (and this wouldn’t be the last time they covered something you wouldn’t expect). This is the easiest of the early works to find, so you should listen to it if you have even any small curiousity about the band.

“Oven”

Album: Bullhead

Released: 1991

Label: Boner

By 1991 there was a new name for minimal metal, called “Drone.” These days, if you know the genre you are familiar with a band like Sunn O))) which extend one note for 37 agonizing minutes. I’ve been in-and-out of the genre. Some moments I find fixating and others I wonder why anyone in the world couldn’t do the same thing.

Anyway, I say this because it was a new-ish term around this time and Bullhead is regularly considered a step in that direction. Back in ’91, maybe. As I listen to it again right now, I get the comparision but it really doesn’t have a whole lot to do with drone in my opinion. I have to think the only real reason that gets mentioned with this record is because the minute-and-a-half tracks are gone, replaced with three, four, five, eight minute tracks. But “Eye Flys” from Gluey Porch Treatments has more elements of drone in it than this.

I’d link this up more with stoner rock or doom metal than drone to be honest. Ozma was slow but for the most part, Bullhead took creeping riffs down to a whole new level. The group Boris, took their name from the first track on this album. They genre hop but are also misclassified as drone more often than not. Between that track and “Ligature” it almost feels like you’re suffocating from the heaviness. Both “Zodiac” and “If I Had An Exorcism” crank it up a notch but it’s really the track, “It’s Shoved” that’s the most intriguing. By this point we all know that Nirvana and Kurt Cobain were big fans of the group and influenced by them, so when I listen to the bassline on this tune, it’s like Nirvana completely lifted it for “Milk It” on In Utero.

“It’s Shoved”

EP: Eggnog

Released: 1991

Label: Boner

A favorite little nugget amongst fans of the group this was a nice little Christmas bonus in 1991. Four new tracks show up on this one leading off with the blistering “Wispy” and “Antitoxidote.” “Hog Leg” is three-and-a-half joyus minutes of cool riffs and squealing feedback (like a hog, see) and “Charmicarmicat” which tunes down for 13 minutes of sludge and drone that has become one of their best longer pieces of music.

“Hog Leg”

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Although N.E. hasn’t released an album in over half a decade, the members have remained in the public eye to an extent. Johnny Gill recently released an excellent new CD called Still Winning, Bobby published his autobiography, the group’s iconic “If It Isn’t Love” video was referenced by Beyonce in her new “Love On Top” clip, and the men (now all in their early forties) are in the process of routing a tour that will hopefully provide as much enjoyment to their fans as they did when I saw them back in 2003. Hard to believe it’s been almost thirty years since “Candy Girl.” Three decades, over 100 Billboard chart entries (collectively and individually) and some serious dental work (sorry, Ralph) later, let’s celebrate the discography of Ronnie, Bobby, Ricky, Mike…plus Ralph and Johnny.

Candy Girl (1983)
New Edition’s debut album (and the only one helmed by the Maurice Starr/Michael Jonzun/Arthur Baker team) takes the kiddie-pop formula invented by Motown for the Jackson Five and resets it for the early hip-hop generation. Enthusiasm is the order of the day here; you can practically visualize the frenetic popping and locking that’s taking place as these songs are playing. Starr and company generally wrote catchier and stronger songs for New Edition than they did for New Edition’s successors, New Kids on the Block, so despite the gross disparity in sales between Candy Girl and, say, Hangin’ Tough, the former album holds up a lot better over time. “Popcorn Love” and “She Gives Me a Bang” are still effervescent after 30 years (if you can take Ralph Tresvant’s shrill pre-pubescent vocals), “Candy Girl” is a stone-cold classic (which amazingly didn’t cross over the pop Top 40 in the U.S.), and “Is This the End” and “Jealous Girl” are still charming slow jams, off-key vocalizing and all.

New Edition (1984)
N.E. bolted from the employ of Maurice Starr (with no money in their pockets, according to at least some of the group members) and took their talents to a major label, jumping on board with MCA Records. This self-titled set turned into a huge success, going multi-platinum and scoring huge across-the-board hits with “Cool it Now” and “Mr. Telephone Man.” Their sound was slowly moving from kiddie to teenage and their voices were changing appropriately (why do I feel like the producers made Tresvant sing outside of his range to exploit the “Candy Girl” sound?). Ray Parker Jr.’s “Mr. Telephone Man” is easily the standout track, but, again, New Edition holds up a lot better than most albums made by a teenage group. “I’m Leaving You Again” (which several group members co-wrote) takes the first tentative stabs at heart breaking (and turned out to be a radio hit anyway), “Lost in Love” is an excellent starry-eyed ballad, and “Kinda Girls We Like” is a credible hip-hop inspired track. This and Candy Girl are pretty much neck-and-neck for the title of Best New Edition album: the teenage years. No Maurice Starr? No problem!

All for Love (1985)
All for Love was the third New Edition album in as many years, and the wear was starting to show. With this album there was definitely the sense of “let’s rewrite as many of the hits as possible from the last album,” so you have “Count Me Out” (which sounds a lot like “Cool it Now”) and “With You All the Way” (which is reminiscent of “Lost in Love”). In addition, by the time of this album’s release, Bobby had already been missing performances and bristling against New Edition’s squeaky-clean image. So even though the group was making inroads towards making more adult-oriented material (“Whispers in Bed”), All for Love as a whole isn’t as solid as the first two albums, despite the fact that it helped New Edition win the first of their American Music Awards for Favorite R&B Group and went platinum. The album’s best song, “A Little Bit of Love (Is All it Takes)” (co-written by Michael Sembello!) is readily available on just about any of the three million N.E. compilations on the market, so there’s really no reason to own this.

Under the Blue Moon (1986)
I’m a fairly big fan of New Edition, together and separately, OK? So when I tell you to avoid this album at all costs, please take me at my word. After their cover of The Penguins’ “Earth Angel” became a hit in the summer of 1986 (thanks to its inclusion in The Karate Kid Part II), someone thought it would be a good idea for the group to record an album of Fifties and Sixties songs. Not only was the album not as successful as previous efforts, but it sucked. Plain and simple. Is there anyone out there who’ll even admit to owning (and liking) this album?

Heart Break (1988)
In the two years following the release of Under the Blue Moon, New Edition went through a series of career-defining changes. Bobby was fired at the beginning of 1986 and by the end of the year, he had a #1 single on the R&B charts with “Girlfriend.” In the wake of Bobby’s initial success, Ralph Tresvant was also considering a solo career. As an insurance measure, Michael Bivins recruited Johnny Gill (who’d already released three moderately-received solo albums). As it turned out, Tresvant didn’t go solo, and he and Gill had to co-exist as lead singers.

Fresh from making Janet Jackson relevant with Control, Jimmy Jam & Terry Lewis were hired to turn N.E. into a credible adult act. The resulting album, Heart Break, was a triumphant set that capitalized on the growing popularity of hip-hop and R&B fusion. Songs like “N.E. Heartbreak” had a youthful edge, “Can You Stand the Rain” and “I’m Comin’ Home” were perfect “mature” ballads for quiet storm radio, “You’re Not My Kind of Girl” showcased their Jackson 5/Temptations vocal group chops, and “Boys to Men” not only provided the group with a mission statement, but gave a group of New Edition protégés their name.

Home Again (1996)
Following each member’s stab at solo success (and mogul-dom), all six current and former members of New Edition reunited for 1996’s Home Again. They were joined by a who’s-who of contemporary producers, from Jam & Lewis (still relevant nearly a decade after Heart Break) to Jermaine Dupri and Puff Daddy. The end result? It sounds like New Edition barely missed a beat in their eight years apart. Of course, the solo successes shifted the group dynamic, so you hear less Ralph, more Bobby, and much more of Michael Bivins and Ron DeVoe rapping.

Jam & Lewis remained the group’s most sympathetic collaborators, producing the album’s best cuts: the pop ballad “I’m Still in Love with You,” the Edie Brickell-sampling “Something About You” and the emotional title track. Gerald LeVert’s “How Do You Like Your Love Served?” is an excellent slow jam, and “Hit Me Off” does a good job of giving each of the six members a turn to shine. Home Again turned out to be a smash, debuting at #1 on the albums chart and selling over two million copies. However, egos reared their ugly head, and within a year, the group was more or less defunct again.

One Love (2004)
While Bobby spent most of the late Nineties and early Aughts getting himself in and out of various legal issues, the other members of New Edition toured individually and separately before signing a deal with P. Diddy’s Bad Boy label. What on paper seemed like a great idea — Puffy made his name trafficking in the hip-hop/R&B fusion that New Edition pioneered, and also took notes from Mike Bivins’ reign as a music mogul — turned out to be a bit of a mediocre affair. Diddy turned N.E. over to Bad Boy’s army of writers and producers and gave them material that sounded like it had been left over from 112 recording sessions. Even more bloated than Home Again, One Love nevertheless had a few noteworthy tracks: first single “Hot 2 Nite” was a welcome 21st century update of the N.E. sound, and the two tracks that brought Jam and Lewis back on board (the airy, midtempo “Newness” and the classy ballad “Rewrite the Memories”) were excellent. The members were in good voice; this time, the material just wasn’t up to par.

SOLO RELEASES

Bobby Brown:

After two years of missed performances, rumors and innuendo, Bobby Brown was booted from New Edition by the rest of the group (hell hath no fury like a group that’s getting their money messed with by an unreliable member) in early 1986. His solo career got off to a mediocre start later that year with King of Stage. Although it’s not a bad album (it contains some fine tracks produced by Cameo’s Larry Blackmon), Bobby’s still trying to navigate the right balance of street and sweet.

By the time Don’t Be Cruel rolled around in the summer of ’88, that balance had definitely been navigated. Cruel was the #1 selling album of ’89, and it turned Bobby from “that dude that used to be in New Edition” into a contender for the crown of King of Pop — however briefly. Assisted by the production of Teddy Riley and the L.A. Reid/Babyface team, hits like “Every Little Step” and the album’s title track perfectly blended modern R&B with hip-hop kick and attitude, while slow jams like “Roni” and “Rock Wit’cha” were fully grown-up slow jams. The self-referential “My Prerogative” shot to the top of the pop and R&B charts, Bobby took home a slew of awards (including a Grammy), and was set to become one of the biggest stars of the Nineties.

I won’t say meeting, then getting involved with and subsequently marrying Whitney Houston killed his career, because it probably didn’t. Bobby, released barely a month after Brown married the Princess of Pop, sold well (2 million plus) and was actually a really good album, despite taking full advantage of the CD era and being 4-5 songs too long (someone should have told Bobby to remove the overwrought duet with some random Winans sister, at least). Although in some ways, Bobby was an obvious retread of Don’t Be Cruel, he was certainly still a star. Then The Bodyguard happened, Whitney’s career went super-duper-nova, and Bobby started getting in trouble with the law. For a couple of years, the only time you saw Bobby Brown was either accompanying Whitney to an awards show (at which she’d inevitably scoop up a mantelful of trophies) or on the news after getting arrested AGAIN. His last gasp was 1997′s you-probably-shouldn’t-have-called-it-that Forever. Bobby’s singing voice had definitely improved, but his material definitely hadn’t, and most of the album seemed like one long exercise to see how many times he could work his name into a song lyric.

From Don’t Be Cruel to Forever in less than a decade? That’s a pretty long way to fall, and Bobby hasn’t released a full album (as a solo artist or as a member of New Edition, which has let him back into the fold several times) since.

Bell Biv DeVoe:

As the story goes, New Edition’s Heart Break tour was over. Johnny Gill had already decided to resume his solo career and Ralph Tresvant had also decided to make a record on his own. It wasn’t until the suggestion was made by Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis that Ricky Bell, Mike Bivins and Ron DeVoe (AKA “those other three guys”) got the idea to make an album on their own. The end result wound up being a bigger success than Gill’s album, Tresvant’s album, and everything recorded by New Edition as a group before or since. Poison gave the fellas the opportunity to shake off the Temptations-inspired choreography and the glittery suits and be regular dudes in their twenties. With an assist from Public Enemy’s Bomb Squad, songs like “BBD (I Thought It Was Me)” and the delightfully horny “Do Me!” pointed the way to a much, MUCH harder-edged sound in R&B and one of the most seamless integrations of hip-hop into a soul-influenced sound. The songs (and the production) wound up being so good that you almost forgot how mediocre Bivins and DeVoe were as emcees (sorry, guys). The album’s slammin’ title track still gets played (and referenced in pop culture) on a regular basis and is one of the most fondly remembered songs of the Nineties. This should have been the start to a long, successful splinter career, but…wait. Where have we heard this before?

What sunk BBD? Well, the rapidly changing face of hip-hop and R&B, for one. The trio waited three years before unleashing their sophomore effort, Hootie Mack. In those three years, artists like TLC (conceived as a female version of BBD), Mary J. Blige, Jodeci, and Bivins’ own discovery Boyz II Men had come to the forefront of the genre. In layman’s terms: you snooze, you lose. The album also had the misfortune of being delayed multiple times (to the point where a single, “Gangsta,” was released, performed moderately well, and then got left off the album) and using already outdated slang for a joint as the title of their album. Dr. Dre’s The Chronic this was most definitely not. The album didn’t suck totally (and it went gold), but the two best songs were both ballads: the yearning “Please Come Back” and the frankly erotic “Something in Your Eyes,” a song on which only one Bell Biv DeVoe member (Ricky) appeared.

The less said about 2001′s BBD, the better. This album was, in a word, embarrassing. In two words: phenomenally embarrassing. Sample song title: “Dance Bitch.” Number of good songs: one (“In My Crib,” which features a vocal assist from…Ralph Tresvant, sounding as smooth as ever). Time from purchase to being sold to the used CD emporium: I honestly don’t remember, but it couldn’t have been more than six months.

Ricky Bell made one solo album a few years ago that flew so far under the radar I didn’t even know it was out for a couple of years. I haven’t listened to it–if anyone has a copy they can send over to me, please do!

Johnny Gill:

Signed to a recording contract before he was 18. Johnny Gill’s lusty baritone had record company executives dancing around with stars in their eyes, convinced they’d found the next Luther Vandross or Teddy Pendergrass. Problem was: Johnny was still a kid. His voice was older than he was. So, although he made two solo albums prior to joining New Edition (and an additional one with his main benefactor, Stacy Lattisaw), more often than not, the material wasn’t there. He hitched his wagon to New Edition at precisely the right time, and contrary to public opinion, he was not brought in to replace Brown. He was actually brought in as insurance, as Tresvant was considering leaving for a solo career. Gill coming in was as smart a move as Tresvant sticking around, and by 1990, the stage was set for JG to make moves on the solo tip once again.

His self-titled Motown debut spawned huge hits with the quiet-storm staple “My, My, My” and the dancefloor classic “Rub You The Right Way.” More importantly, it served as a clash of the R&B producer titans — it was the first time that Jimmy Jam, Terry Lewis, L.A. Reid and Babyface had all worked on the same album. That should tell you how much of an investment was made in making Gill a megastar. That 1990 solo album was a state-of-the-art collection that deftly straddled the line between appealing to young adults while not scaring off their parents, the way BBD (and to an extent, Brown) did.

Gill’s had a reasonably consistent solo career since, releasing solid albums every couple of years until the first part of this decade. In between solo albums (and returning to New Edition), he was also a part of the R&B supergroup LSG, along with Keith Sweat and the late Gerald LeVert. Their 1997 debut was a huge seller, although attempts to pull off flossy Puffy and Jermaine Dupri-assisted hip-hop/R&B didn’t work so well. A follow-up a few years later debuted in the Top 10, but sank like a stone soon afterwards.

Gill’s latest album, Still Winning, is a pretty solid set of midtempo-to-slow R&B ballads. It’s significantly less embarrassing than you’d expect from someone who’s been out of the record-releasing game for so long. Of course, that voice is still a wonder to behold, and it’s so nice to hear him again that you can forgive the occasional wanderings into Auto-Tune territory. The album peaked at #12 on the Billboard Top 200 a couple of months ago, giving Gill his highest chart rank (as a solo artist) in 20 years.

Ralph Tresvant:

Strange how New Edition’s lead singer was the last to get off the ground on the solo tip, and how Tresvant’s sound broke from the New Edition mold least. Jam & Lewis helmed much of his debut solo effort, which spawned the hits “Sensitivity,” “Stone Cold Gentleman” and “Do What I Gotta Do.” Add a couple of “ooh”s into the mix and it could easily have been a New Edition album. Ralph Tresvant still holds up reasonably well. In a way, “Sensitivity” was the polar opposite of “Poison” from a lyrical sentiment standpoint. While largely Ralph’s and Ralph’s alone, the album features appearances from Bobby Brown (rapping on “Stone Cold Gentleman”), future R&B star K-Ci Hailey (singing backup), and Michael Jackson (who co-wrote one song).

Like BBD and Gill, Tresvant took three years to finish his second album, and the end result was the borderline-putrid It’s Goin’ Down. This album found Tresvant doing a total 180 from “Sensitivity” and putting on his pimp hat with songs like “Sex-O” and “The Booty Affair” (yes, those really are the songs’ titles). The album sank like a stone, and Tresvant didn’t release another solo album for over a decade. Rizz-Wa-Faire was a decent if unspectacular effort that, if nothing else, highlighted how much of a debt guys like Chris Brown and Justin Timberlake owe vocally to Tresvant, who still sounds like a 16 year old even as he approaches his mid-forties.

This remix of “Sensitivity” is SICK.

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To fairly and accurately tell the story of American popular music in the 20th century, you cannot overstate the impact or importance of the Beach Boys. If there was one band that could stand toe-to-toe with the Beatles for pop supremacy in the 1960s, it was the Beach Boys. To some, they even eclipsed the Fab Four for a time.

Formed in 1961 by a group of California teenagers (brothers Brian Wilson on bass and lead vocals, Carl Wilson on lead guitar and lead vocals, and Dennis Wilson on drums and vocals; cousin Mike Love on lead vocals, and high school friend Al Jardine on rhythm guitar and vocals), the Beach Boys first hit the Top 40 in June 1962 with “Surfin’ Safari” and were mainstays in the charts through most of the ’60s.

Despite the many tragedies and legal battles that have befallen the Beach Boys over the last 50 years, their legacy is forever linked with sun, surf, and good times. At their peak they boasted the unbeatable combination of Brian’s insanely catchy (and increasingly sophisticated) songwriting and the group’s breathtaking vocal harmonies.

As the creative force behind the band’s greatest achievements, Brian felt the increasing pressure of fronting America’s most popular band and competing with the Beatles. During the 1966/67 recording sessions for what might have been the group’s crowning artistic achievement — SMiLE — Brian finally succumbed to that pressure and began a gradual withdrawal from, well, everything. The band soldiered on without his oversight and did manage to produce very good material into the 1970s.

From there, well, it’s been a bit of a slog. While the band has been a consistently popular concert draw for the last three-plus decades, their recorded material has been mediocre at best. Worse yet, the surviving members of the original band (Brian, Mike, and Alan) seem to be perpetually locked in one legal battle or another.

Still, even that cannot diminish the Beach Boys’ legacy as one of the most important bands in American music. And so to coincide with the group’s 50th anniversary and the November 1 release of the long-promised, oft-delayed box set The SMiLE Sessions, now is as good a time as any to review that legacy.

Surfin’ Safari (1962)
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Nine of the dozen tracks on this album bear Brian Wilson’s name, which is proof positive that even geniuses can have humble beginnings. The Beach Boys were less than a year removed from their first paying gig when Surfin’ Safari was released in October ’62, and it shows. The group runs through the entire collection in just under 25 minutes, and is clearly finding their way within the confines of a very specific formula; namely southern California surf rock.

The vocal harmonies that became the band’s calling card were largely intact, but nobody demonstrates any particular instrumental prowess here (although Brian pulls off a pretty nice walking bass line in the decidedly un-PC “Ten Little Indians”).

“Surfin’ Safari” was the most successful single from this album and for good reason. It’s far and away the best song of the bunch, and although the performance is less than stellar it clearly establishes the template the Beach Boys employed to massive success for the next several years. In addition to convincing Capitol Records to allow the band to record a full album, “Surfin’ Safari” peaked at #14 on the Hot 100 — the first of a staggering 36 U.S. Top 40 songs for the Beach Boys.

Other than that, the only songs of note are “409,” the first of many lyrical forays into hot rod culture, and the respectable instrumental “Moon Dawg.” The band’s cover of “Summertime Blues” is decent enough, but hardly measures up to the classic Eddie Cochran original or the epic Who take from Live at Leeds. Elsewhere, Surfin’ Safari is dogged by unremarkable surf rock filler (“Chug-A-Lug,” “Heads You Win – Tails I Lose”) and goofy throwaways (“County Fair,” “Cuckoo Clock”).

Surfin’ USA (1963)
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OK, now this is more like it. Although the production credit for Surfin’ USA went once again to Capitol A&R suit Nick Venet, can there be any doubt that this is the first real flowering of Brian Wilson’s production, songwriting and arranging talent?

Even overlooking the fact that “Surfin’ USA” is a ripoff of Chuck Berry’s “Sweet Little Sixteen,” there’s no denying the power of those lush, double-tracked vocal harmonies. Carl Wilson even gets in on the action with a damn fine guitar solo.

Not every track on Surfin’ USA is a classic, but unlike Surfin’ Safari there are no embarrassing moments either. The band sticks largely to the musical formula of their debut but does so with much more confidence and aplomb. Witness “Let’s Go Trippin’,” a song that would’ve been butchered just one year prior. The entire group sounds much more assured as musicians, particularly Carl on lead guitar. Brian also unveils that angelic lead falsetto of his for the first time on “Farmer’s Daughter.”

You all should be familiar with the other chestnut from this collection, “Shut Down,” so I want to highlight my favorite track from this record — “Lonely Sea.” It’s the first of Brian’s slow, melancholy compositions and it’s a gem. I can’t think of a single songwriter working in pop who was ever able to wring such beauty from sadness like Brian (although I could do without the dated spoken word interlude).

Surfer Girl & Little Deuce Coupe (1963)

And now, for the first but not last time in the Beach Boys’ recording career, we hit a bit of a rough patch. And for that I lay the blame at Capitol’s door. No doubt buoyed by the success of Surfin’ USA, the label put pressure on the Boys to produce, produce, produce. And they did just that, pumping out two more studio records in 1963 — Surfer Girl in September and the quasi-concept album Little Deuce Coupe just one month later. And speaking as a diehard fan, there really isn’t a whole lot to recommend either of these records outside the hits that have been included on countless compilations.

Of the two, Surfer Girl gets the nod due to a higher ratio of hits to misses.  The title track, “Catch a Wave” (featuring Mike Love’s sister, Maureen, on harp), “Little Deuce Coupe,” and “In My Room” are bona fide classics, while “Your Summer Dream” is worth hearing for its sophisticated chord structure and for the fact that Brian sings without any backing vocals.

Little Deuce Coupe, on the other hand, is just lame. Four of its twelve songs (“Little Deuce Coupe,” “409,” “Shut Down,” and “Our Car Club”) are recycled from prior albums in order to maintain the whole hot rod lyrical theme. Of the new material, “Ballad of Ole’ Betsy” is pretty but hard to take seriously. It is a love song written to a car, after all. “A Young Man Is Gone” features the most intricate vocal harmonies the band had produced to date, but I take a point off for originality because it’s nothing more than a new set of lyrics on top of Brian’s vocal arrangement of “Their Hearts Were Full of Spring” as performed by the Four Freshmen.

Both albums showcase Brian’s increasing skill as a producer and arranger, even if he was unable to maintain a consistent quality in the songwriting department (then again, who could under those conditions?). That didn’t stop either release from cracking the Top 10 and shifting a ton of units, though, so the torrid release schedule continued into 1964.

Shut Down, Volume 2 (1964)
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No, I didn’t forget Shut Down, Volume 1. That was not a Beach Boys album, but rather a 1963 Capitol Records compilation album featuring songs about — you guessed it — hot rods. Shut Down, Volume 2 suffers from the same inconsistent songwriting that marred the previous two albums, although it benefits from richer production and three of the band’s greatest songs.

Leading off the first side is the killer one-two combo of “Fun, Fun, Fun” and “Don’t Worry Baby.” The former, based on a true story, was recorded over Murry Wilson’s objections (he felt the lyrics to be too immoral). Murry lost the argument of course, and within a few months was out as the group’s manager. “Fun, Fun, Fun” shot to #5 in February ’64. “Don’t Worry Baby,” a clear homage to the Ronettes’ “Be My Baby,” succeeds on every level. The third great track from the album is “The Warmth of the Sun,” a gorgeous, heartbreaking ballad somewhat in the mold of “Lonely Sea.” Legend has it that Brian and Mike wrote the song just hours after John F. Kennedy’s assassination on November 22, 1963. Whether or not that’s true, it’s a phenomenal number and easily one of my ten favorite Beach Boys songs.

Really there isn’t much else about Shut Down, Volume 2 worth hearing except for historical value. I know that if I had purchased this record in March of ’64 and heard songs like the comedy sketch “”Cassius” Love vs. “Sonny” Wilson” or the Dennis Wilson drum showcase (yikes) “Denny’s Drums” I’d be pretty damn pissed. The sweet, melodic “Keep an Eye on the Summer” helps soften the blow, but not by much.

Despite a string of spotty albums the Beach Boys were still immensely popular in the United States in early 1964. But on February 9 the Beatles appeared on The Ed Sullivan Show for the first time, and Beatlemania took hold of America. With the Fab Four now competing with the Beach Boys for the affection of American music fans, Brian intensified his efforts in the studio and began the process of taking the group to a whole new level.

All Summer Long (1964)
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While not uniformly strong from start to finish, All Summer Long is a cut above any album the Beach Boys had released since Surfin’ USA. Brian upped his production game by employing session musicians for most of the songs — calling in the boys for vocals only in most cases — and as a result the performances are crisper and smoother. Even relative filler like “Hushabye” sounds more substantial.

The lyrics started to change for the better as well. “Little Honda” is the lone hot rod tune, and while there are plenty of references to sun and sand even those are tinged with longing and melancholy (the stunning “Girls on the Beach” and “All Summer Long,” the track that got me hooked on the band). The only explicit references to surfing are on the relatively edgy “Don’t Back Down,” which closes the album. Of the lesser-known numbers the group’s cover of the doo-wop classic “Hushabye” is worth hearing for the brilliantly arranged vocals. Ignore the bland instrumental “Carl’s Big Chance” and the goofy throwaways “Our Favorite Recording Sessions” and “Drive-In.”

In October ’64 Capitol released the first Beach Boys live album, Beach Boys Concert. As an historical document it has value since it documents the final days of the original quintet as a touring band. It also contains a bunch of cover songs never before released on a Beach Boys album — “The Little Old Lady From Pasadena,” “Long, Tall Texan,” “Monster Mash,” “Graduation Day,” “The Wanderer,” and “Papa-Oom-Mow-Mow.” Of these, only the last three rise above filler status. Beyond that, Beach Boys Concert is pleasant but quite unessential.

An incredible sixth Beach Boys album in two years hit shelves in November ’64, when The Beach Boys’ Christmas Album was released. It’s an enjoyable effort that contains its share of tracks that have since become Yuletide standards (most notably “Little Saint Nick”), but doesn’t really add much to the Beach Boys narrative. If you like Christmas music then by all means pick it up. Or rather, get Ultimate Christmas, which combines their ’64 holiday album with an unreleased 1977 follow-up.

As 1964 drew to a close, a major shift came to the Beach Boys. Brian Wilson, exhausted by the group’s relentless touring and recording schedule, suffered a nervous breakdown on December 23. Something had to give, and so Brian withdrew from touring the next month to focus his attention on writing and producing the band’s albums. He was initially replaced by Glen Campbell (he of “Rhinestone Cowboy” and “Wichita Lineman” fame), and later by writer/producer Bruce Johnston.

Today! (1965)
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The first fruit of Brian’s new-found studio focus is Today!, an album that is one track (the disposable gabfest “Bull Session with the ‘Big Daddy’”) away from wall-to-wall greatness. “Do You Wanna Dance?”, featuring one of Dennis Wilson’s best vocal leads from the group’s peak, rockets out of the gate with tons of energy. Listen to the way the song explodes during the chorus.

The remainder of the first half of Today!, while not quite as fierce, is chock full of rich instrumental arrangements and killer vocal harmonies. The standouts here are the peppy “Good to My Baby” and the wistful “When I Grow Up (To Be a Man),” the latter of which must have surely resonated with the Boys’ core fan base of teenagers on the cusp of adulthood. The most curious track on the first part of the record is “Help Me, Ronda,” which is not the same version that topped the U.S. charts in April (and rechristened “Help Me, Rhonda.”).

As great as the first half of Today! is, it’s Side B that really packs a wallop. “Please Let Me Wonder” has a chorus that can make a grown man cry (not that I ever have, mind you) and is a clear indicator of where Brian was taking his material. The remainder of the album continues in the same moody, contemplative vein, such as in “Kiss Me, Baby” and “She Knows Me Too Well,” songs that probably provided the soundtrack to many a lonely Saturday night.

Pay special attention to the dense, quasi-symphonic arrangements Wilson employed on this album. It’s a style he’d soon perfect, and to staggering effect.

Summer Days (And Summer Nights!!) (1965)
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Two steps forward, one step back I guess. Summer Days (And Summer Nights!!) suffers only by comparison to Today!, but is still a fine record. Leery of the direction Brian seemed to be taking the Beach Boys, Capitol Records and Mike Love reportedly insisted on a return to the more lighthearted, peppy fare that characterized earlier Boys material. Brian obliged them… sort of.

Take for example the opening number, “The Girl From New York City.” Lyrically it’s vintage Beach Boys, but in terms of songwriting and production this is a damn sophisticated piece of pop music. Same goes for “Salt Lake City,” another song that would’ve benefited from different or no lyrics at all. Unfortunately the same can’t be said for “Amusement Parks U.S.A.” or “I’m Bugged at My Ol’ Man,” which are for diehards only.

The rest of Summer Days (And Summer Nights!!) is split between good material (a rather pointless but well-executed reworking of the Crystals hit “Then He Kissed Me,” retitled “The I Kissed Her”) and great material. Included in this group are mega-hits “California Girls” and “Help Me, Rhonda,” as well as lesser-known but equally worthy songs such as “Let Him Run Wild,” “Girl Don’t Tell Me,” and the excellent symphonic instrumental, “Summer Means New Love.”

Beach Boys’ Party! (1965)
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So what we have here is a pure stopgap release ordered by Capitol (and again with the exclamation points!). The premise is that the group is being recorded at a “party,” although all the chatter and background noise was actually dubbed in later. It’s an interesting collection if for no other reason than to hear the band (no session musicians this time) performing an acoustic set. It’s probably the purest album, musically speaking, the group had released up this point.

If there was any doubt about the impact the Beatles were having on the Beach Boys, note the presence of three Fab Four songs here (“I Should Have Known Better,” “Tell My Why,” and “You’ve Got to Hide Your Love Away”), the third of which gets a spirited reading from Dennis Wilson. Unfortunately it is slightly marred by ridiculous crowd overdubs during the chorus.

Finally, check out the Boys’ rendition of Bob Dylan’s “The Times They Are A-Changin’.” It’s absolutely surreal to hear one of the great protest songs of the era sung by the Beach Boys at a fake party. The weirdness is heightened as the group segues into the final song on Party!, “Barbara Ann,” featuring co-lead vocals by Dean Torrence of Jan and Dean. It’s a strange ending to one of the more curious items in the Beach Boys’ discography.

Pet Sounds (1966)
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Pet Sounds is the album I dreaded writing about when I started this piece. Not because I don’t love it — I absolutely do — but because there really isn’t anything left to say about it. It’s one of the most stunning musical achievements of the 1960s and cemented Brian Wilson’s legacy as a genius. He was not yet 24 years old when it was released on May 16, 1966.

The oft-cited inspiration for Pet Sounds was the Beatles’ Rubber Soul, released in December 1965. Although some work had already been completed on Pet Sounds by then, Wilson was so blown away by what the Beatles accomplished — namely, releasing an album that stood as a complete artistic statement with zero filler — he made it his mission to top them on the next Beach Boys record. He teamed up with lyricist Tony Asher and began overseeing the bulk of the recording in the early months of 1966, while the band was on tour in Asia.

When the Boys returned they discovered that the album was largely completed, and all that was required were their vocals. They were less than thrilled with what they heard — dense, moody, symphonic pop full of lyrics about heartbreak, loss, and the uncertainty of young adulthood. No more sun, no more surf, and certainly no more hot rods. Only Brian’s unwavering enthusiasm for this new direction convinced the group to go along with him, but Pet Sounds is in retrospect the first clear signal that Brian was no longer willing to limit his creative vision to what the rest of the band wanted.

I’d say Brian made the right call, wouldn’t you? Who can argue with the timeless beauty of songs like “Wouldn’t It Be Nice” or “God Only Knows,” the latter of which Paul McCartney admits brings him to tears? While the album is revered by fans and critics alike today, it was not a commercial smash in the U.S. British music fans took to it immediately, however, and the Beach Boys became superstars across the Pond.

It’s difficult to imagine that Pet Sounds could have been even better, but it was almost so. “Good Vibrations,” originally released as a single in October 1966, was supposed to be part of the album but Brian dropped it from the track listing in order to allow for more time to work on it.

Interlude: “Good Vibrations” and SMiLE (1966 — 1967)

“Good Vibrations,” as it turns out, was recorded in fits and starts throughout most of 1966. It took 22 recording sessions, in four different studios, and around 94 hours to produce what publicist Derek Taylor called a “pocket symphony.” Oh and it cost $50,000, easily the most expensive single ever to date. But Brian’s manic, obsessive attention to detail paid off with one of the crown jewels of popular music. It hit #1 on both sides of the Atlantic and sold more than two million copies.

Brian, emboldened by the success of his new approach to music-making, attempted to apply the same patchwork technique to an entire album. This turned out to be his undoing. The recording of SMiLE got underway in August 1966 with a release targeted for Christmastime. Nearly a half-million album covers were produced. But Brian’s ambitions were starting to get the best of him, and he was cracking under the pressure.

Once a holiday release became impossible, Capitol was still hopeful for January 1967. But Brian was on a downward slide — uncertainty and doubt turned to paranoia and depression, and he became increasingly isolated from friends and supporters. His new lyrical collaborator, Van Dyke Parks, came under attack from Mike Love over his cryptic, artistic lyrics. The rest of the group also demonstrated little in the way of support or enthusiasm for the album. At the end of February, with not even the long-promised “Heroes and Villains” single finished, Brian halted work on the majority of SMiLE.

It was at this point that Brian started to slowly withdraw from the Beach Boys and, later, from just about everything else. In his absence, the rest of the band was left to pick up the pieces and shoulder the creative load. But first, the band had to release something. Anything.

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Babyface got his start as a solo artist with 1987′s Lovers, and that’s where we’re picking up his Popdose Guide, but if you want to know more, these albums are really just the starting point for a discography that spills over into everything from the Deele — the band where he scored his first hits with drummer and future business partner L.A. Reid — to a list of artists that includes After 7, TLC, Toni Braxton, Pebbles, and more. For now, just sit down next to this crackling fire, let us pour you a glass of wine, and get comfortable with the Popdose Guide to Babyface.

Lovers (1987)
Someone somewhere picked Babyface to be the breakout star of The Deele, and this solo album was recorded and released before the band split up. Actually, it was recorded and released a year before the band scored pop success with the Top 10 hit “Two Occasions.” The elements that eventually made Babyface “Babyface” were already there — primarily, solid lyrics that catered (some might say kissed the ass of) a female fan base. With songs like “Chivalry,” he opened the door artists like Ralph Tresvant would walk through just a couple years later. “I Love You Babe” was a Top Ten R&B hit, but this album is largely forgotten when ‘Face’s discography is discussed. Still, Lovers is worth checking out — there’s a very nice cover of The Stylistics’ “You Make Me Feel Brand New,” an adult update of the children’s tune “Mary Mack,” and the title track, which just might be the most sensitive song about deflowering a young lady that’s ever been recorded. –Mike Heyliger

Tender Lover (1989)
Damn. Listen, if you don’t remember ’89-’90, this is going to be a little difficult to explain, but trust me — Babyface was everywhere during this period. During the New Jack Swing explosion, he and L.A. Reid were responsible for what seemed like every other hit song — and ‘Face, who had a recording career to go with his busy songwriting and production portfolio, was particularly inescapable. Tender Lover was the album that more or less kicked off the Babyface Era; to listen to it is to hear the essence of Top 40 between, say, the spring of ’89 and early ’91. The eminently danceable, machine-driven beats, the busily arranged piles of synths, the constant cries of “whoo!” — it’s all here. And while Tender Lover isn’t a perfect record — it’s overly ballad-heavy, the material is about as uneven as you’d expect from a guy who was spread as thin as Babyface, and the cheap-looking cover screams “Olan Mills” — it contains a handful of ‘Face classics, including “My Kinda Girl,” “It’s No Crime,” and the timeless booty-calling classic “Whip Appeal.” (The Tender Lover reissue includes a 12-inch version of “Whip.” Damn.) –Jeff Giles

A Closer Look (1991)
Everyone else was releasing remix records, so why not Babyface? Actually, as these things go, A Closer Look really isn’t bad — it bundles together some of the best bits from Lovers and Tender Lover, gives them a fresh coat of paint, and adds a Deele classic (“Two Occasions,” presented here in a laughable “live version”) and a pair of hit duets with other artists (“Love Saw It,” with Karyn White, and “Love Makes Things Happen,” with the onetime R&B star/Mrs. Babyface known as Pebbles). As you’d expect, nothing here is truly essential, which probably has a lot to do with why A Closer Look is out of print — that, and the fact that Epic’s later Babyface reissues tacked on their own remixes, rendering this set irrelevant. Still, for kids who didn’t want to spring for both Babyface records in 1991 — or who wanted to hear an extended version of “My Kinda Girl” — it made for a worthwhile purchase. –JG

For the Cool in You (1993)
Having secured success as an artist with Tender Lover, ‘Face dulled whatever rough edges he had with the follow-up, which was nearly four years in the making. Any sense of funk disappeared from Babyface’s repertoire, leaving a solid, if occasionally bland, collection of midtempo and slow jams. Even though a handful of songs are almost completely indistinguishable from one another, others hold up fairly well. The jazzy title track is a winner, as is the pleading ballad “Never Keeping Secrets.” The change-of-pace acoustic ballad “When Can I See You” (on which Babyface is a vocal dead ringer for Tracy Chapman) became his highest charting single to date, placing in the top five on the pop charts and pushing For the Cool in You to sales of three million. It’s also worth noting that the seeds were sown for his 2008 collection of soft rock covers with this album’s (dreadful) cover of the Billy Preston-composed/Joe Cocker-performed “You Are So Beautiful.” –MH

The Day (1996)
In the midst of his run as the most popular songwriter/producer in pop music, Babyface decided to call in some favors. The Day features a who’s who of modern pop and R&B circa 1996: Eric Clapton, Stevie Wonder, members of Boyz II Men, Mariah Carey and Kenny G all appear, and he even reunites the most popular incarnation of Shalamar for a version of their hit “This Is for the Lover in You” (which also crams in a rap appearance by LL Cool J). This occasionally results in the main artist getting lost in his own album — Babyface doesn’t have a strong enough personality as an artist to cut through all of the other people stepping into his path. There’s also the sense that, by this point, Babyface was virtually on autopilot. After almost a decade of penning hits for himself and others, he sounds bored on most of this album. Aside from the wistful “Simple Days” and the elegant “Seven Seas,” the best moments on The Day belong to others — Wonder’s impassioned vocal on the anti-domestic violence anthem “How Come, How Long,” Mariah’s pretty vocal arrangement on “Every Time I Close My Eyes,” and Howard Hewett’s arrival three-quarters of the way through “This is for the Lover in You.” While The Day was a sales success, it was the last album on ‘Face’s Epic Records contract, and he soon took off and joined his former Deele partner L.A. Reid on Arista. –MH

MTV Unplugged in NYC (1997)
Generally speaking, the “unplugged” fad was mainly a white phenomenon — partly as a matter of course, because a lot of the hip-hop and R&B acts of the era were studio constructs that would have dissolved in an acoustic setting, but partly because MTV still had more of a vested interest in guitar bands. All of which is a roundabout way of saying that it seems churlish to complain about a record like Babyface’s MTV Unplugged in NYC, because at least it wasn’t Clapton or Rod Stewart. On the other hand, Babyface in 1997 wasn’t too far removed from either of those guys — in fact, Unplugged in NYC leads off with a seven-and-a-half-minute version of ‘Face’s hit collaboration with Clapton, “Change the World,” and moseys slowly downhill from there. He frustratingly ignores most of his early hits, and lards the set list with things no one ever wanted to hear, like Shanice covering “Breathe Again.” The absolute nadir is the “unplugged” version of “The Day (That You Gave Me a Son),” eight minutes of Babyface at his most simperingly mawkish. One to avoid. –JG

Face2Face (2001)
After a five-year break between studio albums, Babyface decided to get back onto the horse, and he brought some new stallions with him. While the addition of The Neptunes as collaborators might have seemed wildly incongruous, it wasn’t a bad move — ‘Face (sporting a new, Kravitz-esque hairdo) actually sounded rejuvenated on some of these tracks. First single “There She Goes” finds ‘Face adopting a sort of Curtis Mayfield/Michael Jackson fusion (with the help of the ubiquitous Pharrell Williams on vocals), and it kinda works. He was also smart enough to not totally throw the baby out with the bathwater: “What If” sounds like a classic Babyface ballad of old, just with a harder percussion track. That said, it’s still pretty wrong to hear Babyface, previously the epitome of class, singing a song like “Baby Mama” assisted by Snoop Dogg. Truthfully, Face2Face could’ve given ‘Face the career resuscitation he was looking for with the label change and new collaborators…had it not been released on September 11^th, 2001. –MH

Grown & Sexy (2005)
Fifteen years after he helped define the sound of modern R&B, Babyface threw up his hands and resorted to openly chasing trends. It’s hard to blame him — Grown & Sexy sat in label limbo for a year, as good a signal as any that his time as a relevant artist was up — but it’s still pretty depressing to start listening to a Babyface album and hear Auto-Tune right out of the gate. In spite of that — and its awful, awful title — Grown isn’t ‘Face’s worst album by a long shot. He keeps things light and limber for tracks like “Mad Sexy Cool,” and “Can’t Stop Now” represents the crispest blend of digital beats and analog warmth on a Babyface record since the early ’90s. Getting older is hell for an R&B artist, but Grown & Sexy is a surprisingly artful example of how to do it well — it cops to current sounds without utterly abandoning Babyface’s core strengths. At 13 tracks, it’s too long, but at least it sounds like he’s trying — something we can’t take for granted in the post-The Day era. Sadly, it was his second consecutive studio set to sell fewer than 300,000 units. Worse, none of the album’s three singles cracked the R&B Top 40. –JG

Playlist (2007)
Signing to the newly reactivated Mercury Records (again, following his partner L.A. Reid), ‘Face did yet another 180 and decided to record an album of soft rock classics from the Seventies and Eighties. If you read this sentence in 1991, you’d probably laugh yourself into hysterics. As Babyface got further along in his career, though, hearing him cover the likes of Dan Fogelberg and James Taylor didn’t seem like such a stretch. The issue with Playlist is the same issue I generally have with covers albums — there’s not much that can be done to draw attention away from the originals, which results in an album that’s essentially Babyface Sings Karaoke. He turns in faithful versions of all these songs, and a rendition of Dave Loggins’ “Please Come to Boston” (with assistance from Brandy) is particularly enjoyable, but why even bother with this album if you have the originals? The two original songs are a mixed bag — “The Soldier Song” proves that Babyface has no place near an even vaguely political lyric, but “Not Going Nowhere” is a well-written song that any father who has kids and has been through a divorce or separation can relate to. –MH

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Who’s That Girl? (1987)

After making her mark on the pop music world, Madonna set her sights on becoming a movie star. Her performance in Desperately Seeking Susan (1985) had garnered her some positive critical response and helped to spark a further interest in acting. However, her next film, Shanghai Surprise (1986), in which she co-starred with then-husband Sean Penn, was a critical and commercial failure. But that didn’t stop Madge from trying again and in 1987, she starred in the romantic comedy Who’s That Girl? with Griffin Dunne.

Originally titled Slammer, Who’s That Girl? is about a woman named Nikki Finn (Madonna) who, after being released from prison for murdering her boyfriend, a crime she insists she did not commit, decides she must clear her name before returning to her hometown of Philadelphia. Lawyer Loudon Trott (Dunne) is assigned the task of ensuring that Nikki gets to the bus station on time as part of a community outreach project his wealthy, soon-to-be father-in-law runs. However, Nikki’s determination to prove that she did not commit murder takes over and the two soon find themselves traipsing all over New York City encountering a host of undesirable characters and getting into a variety of sticky situations.

After the failure of Shanghai Surprise, it took some convincing for Warner Bros. to take another chance on Madonna as an actress. They eventually green lighted the project, but Who’s That Girl? wound up being another flop, though many reviews applauded Dunne’s performance and Madonna’s comic timing. The film’s soundtrack, however — as well as the tour sharing its name that Madonna embarked upon to promote it — were huge successes.

Of the nine songs on the Who’s That Girl? soundtrack, only four are by Madonna; despite this, the album is considered to be one of her releases. Of those four songs, three were released as singles: “Who’s That Girl,” “Causing a Commotion” and “The Look of Love,” the latter of which was Europe-only release. “Who’s That Girl,” a mid-tempo track that draws upon Spanish influences, much like “La Isla Bonita,” went on to reach number one on the Billboard Hot 100, becoming her sixth single to do so during that decade. “Causing a Commotion,” a classic Madonna dance track inspired by her rocky relationship with Penn, peaked at number two, though it is arguably the better song. “The Look of Love,” a haunting ballad very reminiscent of “Live to Tell,” did well on the European charts, reaching the top ten in the UK. The fourth Madonna song, “Can’t Stop,” is an upbeat, ‘60s girl group-inspired number.

The non-Madonna tracks are contributed by artists who, at the time, were on the same label as Madonna, including Club Nouveau, Scritti Politti, Coati Mundi (who also co-stars in the film as a gangster) and Duncan Faure. Michael Davidson’s “Turn It Up” was released as a promotional single and made it to number 15 on the dance charts. Most of the songs are fun dance-pop tracks, but nothing to write home about.

You Can Dance (1987)

Madonna’s first compilation album, You Can Dance is curious in that it eschews her biggest hits (up to that point) and puts the focus on songs that missed the Top 10 and, in some cases, weren’t even released as singles. It strings together one original track, “Spotlight,” and six remixes for what is essentially a non-stop party album. At the time, remixes were not yet de rigueur in the music industry, but Madonna’s material was a natural fit for this novel trend, and provided golden opportunities for that new cultural hybrid, the DJ-cum-producer, represented on You Can Dance by John “Jellybean” Benitez, retooling his own work on “Holiday,” and Shep Pettibone, who transforms “Into the Groove” from a fun dance tune into a minor pop masterpiece. Once again, Madonna was not looking for the next big thing in the music world; she was creating it.

I’m Breathless (1990)

This bizarre album is comprised of songs “from and inspired by the film Dick Tracy,” in which Madonna co-starred as gangster’s moll Breathless Mahoney. Half a soundtrack and half a concept record, its sound is “1930′s big band” meets “way too many keyboards.” However, we’ll always be thankful for its existence, as it includes (almost as an afterthought) the game-changing single “Vogue.” For more on our analysis of the record, check out what we wrote about it in last year’s “Popdose Flashback” series.

The Immaculate Collection (1990)

And in the ninth year of her recording career, the holy mother of dance-pop released her first greatest-hits album. For casual fans, it’s a sweet package, including fifteen of her most popular and mainstream tracks. We know what you’re thinking: there’s such a thing as a non-mainstream Madonna track? Perhaps not, but when someone has so many hit records, even songs that were highly successful (examples: “Dress You Up,” “True Blue,” “Who’s That Girl”) sometimes don’t make the cut (at least on the US version; an additional, accompanying EP was released in the UK, where Madonna had three times scored Top 10 hits with singles that did nothing in America). In the days before iTunes, when the only way most people could put their favorite songs by their favorite singer together was with a double tape deck, even folks who already owned most or all of Madonna’s albums had a reason to buy the Collection. The set was mixed afresh by Shep Pettibone, and concluded with two new singles. “Justify My Love,” co-written by Lenny Kravitz and accompanied by a racy video even MTV wouldn’t play, went to number one; along with “Rescue Me” (which also went Top 10), it provided fans with a preview of Madonna’s new musical and thematic direction: cold, atmospheric, preoccupied with S&M and other forms of sexual power play. The Immaculate Collection marked yet another major transition in Madonna’s career, making it impossible even for the most anti-pop constituencies to ignore her. It remains her best-selling release ever, with worldwide sales of over 30 million copies.

Something to Remember (1995)

Madonna’s next compilation album was a collection of her greatest ballads and was strategically released to continue the softening of her image that began with Bedtime Stories; it was also a primer of sorts to get her fans ready for her performance in Evita. It includes a mix of album and soundtrack songs, as well as three new tracks: a cover of Marvin Gaye’s “I Want You,” which features trip-hop outfit Massive Attack; and two tracks co-written with David Foster — “You’ll See,” considered by many as the sequel to “Take a Bow” (especially since its video continues the storyline of the bullfighter romance begun in the “Take a Bow” video) and “One More Chance,” which is, frankly, one of the most boring songs she’s ever released. The rest of the tracklisting includes hit ballads from her previous albums, such as “Live to Tell,” “Rain,” “Take a Bow,” “Oh Father,” and a remixed version of “Love Don’t Live Here Anymore.” It also includes several songs that had only previously been released on film soundtracks: “Crazy for You” (from Vision Quest; though a remixed version had been released on The Immaculate Collection, this is the original mix that appeared on the film soundtrack), “This Used to Be My Playground” (from A League of Their Own) and  ”I’ll Remember” (from With Honors). This was the last album Madonna would release on Sire Records.

Evita (1996)

Madonna’s voice had been developing and maturing all through her career, but the effect of her vocal training for the challenging music of Evita is evident in her performances of “Don’t Cry for Me Argentina” and “You Must Love Me” (penned specifically for the film version). Just listen to that vibrato! It’s all very respectable; however, if you’ve ever heard a legitimate musical theater star (like, say, Patti LuPone) tackling the role of Eva Perón, it’s hard to really love Madonna’s version, at least from a musical standpoint. Andrew Lloyd Webber’s songs have been transposed to lower keys to accommodate the pop star’s more modest range, and, in at least one case, a number belonging to another character has been reassigned to Eva. (For the record, co-star Antonio Banderas isn’t exactly a songbird either, even though he would go on to appear on Broadway some years later.) None of this is particularly shocking or offensive; indeed, it’s par for the course in movie adaptations of musicals. However, the best way to experience Madonna’s Evita is probably by watching the film, not listening to the album. (Luckily for Madonna, most people have no idea who Patti LuPone is, so unburdened by that knowledge, they sent the soundtrack to number two on the US albums chart.)

GHV2 (2001)

Released on the 11th anniversary of her last greatest hits album, GHV2 picks up where The Immaculate Collection left off and represents her output from Erotica through Music. Unlike her previous compilation albums, GHV2 does not feature any new material and several of the songs on the album are slightly shorter or edited versions of the original album tracks. In addition to the commercial release, which coincided with that of the Drowned World Tour live DVD, a promo-only remix version of GHV2 was also released, titled GHV2 Remixed: The Best of 1991-2001. Maverick also put out a promotional megamix, the most common version heard on the radio being “GHV2 Megamix (Thunderpuss Original Version).” Interestingly, the megamix was a hit on the Billboard Hot Dance Club Play chart, reaching #5. There is also a megamix video that features images of Madonna and clips from videos of songs represented on GHV2.

Remixed & Revisited (2003) To celebrate 20 years in the music industry, and commemorate the release of her first album, Madonna had originally planned to release a boxed set (surely it would have been massive). However, those plans were scrapped and instead, Remixed & Revisited was released. I think all Madonna fans can agree that we got the very, very short end of the stick in that deal. Remixed & Revisited consisted of remixes of four songs from American Life — “Nothing Fails,” “Nobody Knows Me,” “Love Profusion” and “American Life” – which were somewhat better than the album versions, but not terribly good remixes on the whole. It also contained a mash-up of “Into the Groove” and “Hollywood,” created by The Passengerz and featuring Missy Elliott, called (duh) “Into the Hollywood Groove,” a song probably best known to anyone alive that year as one used in ads for the Gap. It also contained the craptastic live version of “Like a Virgin” performed at the VMAs that year with Britney Spears and Christina Aguilera. The one shining light on this otherwise unnecessary EP is the unreleased Bedtime Stories-era track, “Your Honesty.” Released separately, and as a bonus with American Life in France, Remixed & Revisited had the potential to be awesome, had it contained the right material. However, as is, it is probably the dumbest thing Madonna has ever released.

Celebration (2009)

For her last hurrah with Warner Brothers, which had been her home since her career began, Madonna put out yet another greatest hits album. Featuring hits that spanned her entire career, rather than just portions of it, Celebration is the most comprehensive compilation she’s released to date. Unlike her last greatest hits album, GHV2, Celebration also contains new material: “Celebration,” “Revolver,” which features Lil Wayne and, on the iTunes Deluxe version, “It’s So Cool.” “Celebration,” which was co-written by Paul Oakenfold, was released as the first single, but only made it to 71 on the Billboard Hot 100. Two versions of a music video were filmed to support the song, one of which featured several fans, as well as Madonna’s teenage daughter, Lourdes, dressed in a version of the bridal getup Madonna wore for her infamous MTV VMA performance way back in ’84. “Revolver” was released as the second single and it reached number four on the Billboard Dance chart. In addition to the album, a DVD called Celebration: The Video Collection was also released.

And now it’s time for the videos! A comprehensive look at Madonna’s video work would have been, to put it mildly, long. Perhaps another day. However, it seemed insane to discuss her career without getting into the visuals, so we tried to come up with a Top Five. That turned into a Top Seven. Don’t judge: even cutting it down this far was really hard. (And we cheated yet again by adding an “Honorable Mentions” at the end.) We realize that this will probably cause more offense than anything we wrote about the actual music…so have at it! That’s what the comments section is for.

“Borderline” was the first Madonna video seen by a significant number of people, introducing the record-buying public to her crazy, arty white girl persona. It begins with the singer dancing in the streets of New York’s Lower East Side, where Madonna actually lived, and which was not yet the hip, gentrified neighborhood it would ultimately become. She is instantly adorable, cavorting with abandon as neighborhood kids join in. Director Mary Lambert, who would go on to collaborate with Madonna on several videos, manages to create a coherent story in five brief minutes, in which the carefree street girl is torn between a career as a fashion model and her relationship with her hunky Puerto Rican boyfriend. Some folks have interpreted the end of the video as Madonna’s “rejection” of the high life (and the photographer who discovered her) and “return” to her man, but in actuality, the conclusion is much less, well, conclusive. It looks to us as if the budding star manages to have her cake and eat it too, on her own terms — making “Borderline” not merely charming, but prescient.

The video for “Material Girl” continued the theme of having it both ways, portraying Madonna as both a glamorous Hollywood starlet and a down-to-earth chick bored to tears with shallow guys trying to buy her affection. Stage and screen actor Keith Carradine co-stars in the clip (directed, again, by Mary Lambert) as an industry type determined to woo our heroine, who is remaking (?) Marilyn Monroe’s “Diamonds Are a Girl’s Best Friend” musical number from Gentlemen Prefer Blondes. After finally figuring out that Madonna would much rather date a regular guy than a power player (continuing the theme introduced in “Borderline”), Carradine scores by offering her a bouquet of daisies and taking her out in a busted-down truck. The final irony, of course, is that his “ordinariness” is as much a performance as her Monroe homage.

Mary Lambert scored again with “Like a Prayer,” a.k.a. “Madonna and Black Jesus.” Okay, technically the black guy is a saint, not Jesus, but that distinction was no doubt lost on millions of non-Catholics. The video also includes a very Italian-looking Madonna (with dark, curly hair), dancing in a tight, low-cut dress in a field filled with burning crosses. One or two of her previous clips had drawn objections from certain constituencies, but this one really got people pissed. The “controversial” story follows Madonna as she fights to keep a black man from being wrongly charged with a murder; visual and thematic parallels are made between people of color and Christian martyrs, and the taboo of interracial sex is evoked as La Ciccone smooches her African-American co-star. Like most of Madonna’s best videos, “Like a Prayer” adds a layer of commentary to the song, rather than just following the lyrics. Not sure what’s up with that ending, though: after bringing in a giant gospel choir, Lambert closes the show by having all the performers take a curtain call, then dropping an actual curtain. What the…? Perhaps it was a winking attempt to keep people from taking the whole thing too seriously: “Hey folks, it’s just a video!” No dice — “Like a Prayer” lost Madonna a lucrative commercial contract with Pepsi.

The years of 1989 and 1990 were pretty good ones for David Fincher. At the Video Music Awards in 1990, three of the four nominations for best direction went to him. Two of the nominated videos starred Madonna. The first, “Express Yourself,” broke the bank at a staggering cost of $5 million, the most expensive video ever produced at the time. It was worth every penny. Taking its visual cues from the silent film classic Metropolis, it contains several of the most iconic images of Madonna ever created, including the “Sex Slave” chained by the neck to a bed, the “Cat Lady” crawling under a table to lap up a bowl of milk, and, of course, the “Dark Blue Suit with Monocle.” The last, a thirty second performance wherein Madonna repeatedly flashes her bra while striking uber-manly poses and, finally, grabs her own crotch and points directly at the camera, introduced an entire generation of young people to the concept of “genderfuck.” The video expands the message of the song — “Women, claim your power in relationships!” — to something more pointedly erotic, suggesting that the desire of a powerful woman can literally set the world free. Damn, Madonna.

Despite the grandiosity of Fincher’s vision, “Express Yourself” didn’t win the VMA for best direction. “Vogue” did. Another homage to great cinema, this black-and-white video focuses on golden-age Hollywood rather than German expressionism. It eschews story (if “Express Yourself” can be said to have had a story) for atmosphere, mashing up as many references to stars of old as possible, connecting those images to those throughout the history of art, then shaking things up with sudden intrusions of (post-) modernity, such as the ever-so-cheeky Gaultier cone bra (an extreme redesign of the pointy brassieres of the 1950s). “Vogue” was also the first Madonna video to put homosexuality front and center: the dance style from which the record took its inspiration had been a part of urban gay culture for decades before Madonna sang about it, and, appropriately, her backup dancers (virtually all gay men) were prominently featured in the clip. Not that the video includes any overt sexual activity (though that was on its way, in “Justify My Love,” released later the same year); however, it celebrates the fluid, camp aspect of queer identity joyously. If Madonna’s gay fan base had any doubts about whether she was truly worthy of their loyalty, “Vogue” silenced them.

Madonna has always been known for provocative imagery in her videos. Though she had softened her image after the birth of her daughter, she didn’t shy away from stirring up a little controversy here and there. Though the rest of the videos from Ray of Light had relied more on artistic imagery, the Matthew Rolston-directed video for “The Power of Goodbye” is probably the most interesting — and powerful (no pun intended) — in terms of storyline. Strikingly shot in blue tones, it features a stunning, dark-haired Madonna playing chess with her lover, ER hottie Goran Višnjić, reminiscent of the chess scene in The Thomas Crown Affair (1968). The chess game is filled with tension, which is eventually broken when Madonna’s character angrily clears the board. Her lover grabs her and after a moment of intense staring, the two kiss passionately, followed by her shoving him away. Distraught, she goes outside to the beach, kicks off her shoes and then…does she drown herself, a la Joan Crawford in Humoresque (1946), only to be seen a moment later on the beach, happy and content (as a ghost, perhaps)? It’s unclear what exactly happens, though the consensus seems to be that she does, in fact, kill herself. Regardless, it is one of the sexiest, most gorgeous videos Madonna has ever released.

Just when you thought Madonna’s days of video greatness were behind her, here comes a doozy. Like “Justify My Love,” the video for “What It Feels Like for a Girl” was too…something or other for MTV and VH1, which each broadcast it exactly once. Luckily, most people had stopped turning to those stations for videos anyway, and watched it online. Some viewers were turned off by the violence of Madonna’s badass character, who wreaks all manner of mayhem on people and property throughout; others were just clueless as to what the story was supposed to be about. Why’s Madonna putting on body armor? Who’s the old lady she picks up from the nursing home and takes out for milkshakes? Why does she shoot those cops in the face with a water gun? And why, in the final moments, does she steal a car and promptly wrap it around a pole? The negative reactions, ranging from obtuse to flat-out condescending, ironically underscored the very message Madonna was trying to convey in the song (a techno remix was used for the video, directed by Guy Ritchie). At once disturbing and hilarious, “What It Feels Like for a Girl” might make one wish Madonna had been born sixty years earlier than she was and had been a silent film actress: when she winks at the Latino gangbangers in the next car over, or gives some suspicious policemen a “Yes, officer?” look from under her platinum blonde bangs, she almost redeems her bad movie acting…almost. Once more, she challenges our conception of gender roles, except this time, she’s not offering (or declining) to fuck you…she’s threatening to kick your ass.

Honorable Mention Moments: Dancing on a gondola in “Like a Virgin,” confronting dad Danny Aiello in “Papa Don’t Preach,” shaking it at the peep show in “Open Your Heart,” pretending not to be freezing cold in “Cherish,” mourning her mother in “Oh Father,” fellating a soda bottle and annoying Warren Beatty in Truth or Dare, ascending to heaven with Christopher Walken in “Bad Girl,” giving in to serious jungle fever in “Secret,” making love to a matador and a TV set in “Take a Bow,” giving birth to a flock of doves in “Bedtime Story,” shapeshifting in “Frozen,” dancing with the whole world in “Ray of Light,” hanging out with Ali G in “Music,” and rocking feathered hair and a leotard in “Hung Up.”

Related articles

• The Popdose Guide to Madonna: Part 2 (popdose.com)
• The Popdose Guide to Madonna: Part 1 (popdose.com)
• 10 Things You Didn’t Know About Madonna (popcrush.com)
• Madonna Partners With Smirnoff Vodka to Find Dancer For Next Tour (popcrush.com)
• Wandering the Aisles: Going Gaga for Madonna (popdose.com)
• My favourite album: Like a Prayer by Madonna (guardian.co.uk)

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Ray of Light (1998)

In the two years after the release of Bedtime Stories, Madonna entered a new phase of her life. She started dating her personal trainer, Carlos Leon, and began work on the feature film adaptation of the Andrew Lloyd Webber musical Evita, in which she portrayed Argentinian First Lady Eva Perón. In the midst of filming, she found out she was pregnant and in October 1996, she gave birth to her and Leon’s first child, daughter Lourdes.

Madonna took some time off after Lourdes’s birth and during that time became interested in Eastern mysticism, yoga and Kabbalah. Her newfound spirituality and centeredness, along with first-time motherhood, greatly affected the direction she took on her seventh studio album, Ray of Light. Regarded by many critics and fans as one of the best — if not the best — album she’d ever released, Ray of Light revealed a mature, thoughtful Madonna. Leaving behind the image of the Material Girl, she was now a Mystical Mama, even down to the hippy-chic new look she’d adopted.

After writing songs with Babyface and Patrick Leonard, both of whom she’d worked with previously, and Rick Nowels, who had written songs with Celine Dion and Stevie Nicks, Madonna decided that the direction her collaborations were taking with each of them wasn’t what she wanted for her new album. So, she asked electronic musician William Orbit, whose work she greatly admired, to produce the new album. Orbit’s production gave the songs an ambient, electronic sound that Madonna had only dabbled in previously — most notably on “Bedtime Story,” the track from her last album that had been co-written by Björk. Because Orbit preferred to work largely with samples and synths and other technology-based instrumentation, the album was recorded largely without live instruments, which was also new for Madonna.

In addition to experimenting musically, lyrically she also ventured into new territory, writing some of the most personal, self-reflective songs of her career, exploring the topics of motherhood, spirituality and fame, which she’d never really addressed in a serious way previously. She even crafted a song around text adapted from the Yoga Taravali. And vocally, she was stronger than ever, owing to the extensive voice lessons she took in preparation for Evita.

A huge critical and commercial success, Ray of Light debuted at number two on the Billboard 200 albums chart and produced two top-five singles in the U.S. (“Frozen,” and “Ray of Light”). Three additional singles were also released: ”The Power of Goodbye,” ”Nothing Really Matters” and “Drowned World/Substitute for Love,” the latter of which was only released in the UK, where it was a top-10 hit. Ray of Light received six Grammy nominations, winning four. “The Drowned World Tour” to support the album was planned, and was scheduled to kick off in 1999, but was postponed until 2001.

Music (2000)

Not that the fans were disappointed by Ray of Light, but it was, relatively speaking, a pretty heavy experience. Sure, we got it — Madonna had borne a child, broken up with the baby daddy, and turned 40. But what a pleasure it was to hear her sounding so cool and relaxed on Music. (Robin Monica remembers exactly where she was when she heard the title track for the first time: in a gay bar. The rump shaking started immediately.)

No longer satisfied with being just a performer, songwriter, and producer, Madonna added “guitarist” to her list of credits on Music, which took some of the material in an unexpected direction: country. The departure in style worked like gangbusters, taking “Don’t Tell Me,” the album’s second single, to #4 both in the US and in the UK, where Madonna had recently taken up residence. Of course, this was country as re-imagined by the new gods of European electronica, a.k.a. William Orbit (still hanging around after Ray of Light) and Mirwais, Madonna’s principal collaborator on Music; it fit right in with the album’s primary sound, which was slick, futuristic, and ever so danceable. Unlike some of Madonna’s earlier albums, where it’s quite clear which songs are the singles and which are the catchy but undistinguished filler, Music has enough single-worthy tracks that it’s sort of astonishing how few were officially released. (Reportedly, Madonna felt “Amazing” was too similar to her Austin Powers 2 love theme, “Beautiful Stranger,” and thus kept it off the radio. Madonna, you were wrong on that one.)

One of the songs that did achieve single status was “What It Feels Like for a Girl,” a remarkably simple and straightforward ballad about the everyday struggles and humiliations faced by half the world’s population. It failed to live up to the chart performance standard set by “Music” and “Don’t Tell Me,” but sometimes, even for Madonna, hit-making isn’t the point. An international megastar/mogul/cowgirl can still have a vulnerable side. Obviously, that openness means a lot to some of the fans: last year, the Madonna tribute episode of Glee included an all-male cover of “What It Feels Like.”

American Life (2003)

After 20 years in the music business, Madonna had reinvented herself many times over. And with her ninth studio album, American Life,  she decided to become the Anti-Material Girl, denouncing materialism in both her own life and in American culture. She became a “harder-edged” Madonna, both with her new, more severe look and the more rock-influenced sound of her new album.

Working again with Mirwais, with whom she had collaborated on Music, American Life‘s sound maintains the electronic sensibility of that album, but adds more guitars and a rougher, almost violent, texture. There is also quite a bit of digital manipulation of Madonna’s voice, which is unnecessary and distracting. For example, “Nothing Fails” has the potential to be a really powerful ballad, especially with the incredible choir that comes in about 3/4 of the way through the song. But with Madonna’s voice sounding even slightly manipulated, the song becomes less than great — not a total failure, but definitely not as good as it could be. See also “Intervention.”

But the musical direction and vocal manipulation aren’t the only things that make this album not-so-stellar; the lyrics are some of the worst, most uninspired Madonna’s ever written. While it’s commendable that she decided to take a more political, confrontational-yet-introspective approach, the lyrics just don’t cut it. ”American Life” tries way too hard to make a statement and the unintentionally hilarious rap doesn’t help matters (however, the Missy Elliott American Dream remix of the song is a lot of fun). “Mother and Father,” a well-intentioned reflection on Madonna’s childhood, features some of the most amateurish lyrics she’s ever written (“They couldn’t take my loneliness/I couldn’t take their phoniness/My father had to go to work/I used to think he was a jerk.” Really, Madge?). See also “I’m So Stupid” (“But now I know for sure/That I was stupid/Stupider than stupid”).

Not every song on the album is terrible, though.  ”Love Profusion” and “X-Static Process” are lovely acoustic-guitar driven tracks, the former being dancier and the latter being a ballad. “Easy Ride” is almost a sequel to “Gone,” in which Madonna reflects on working hard for her happiness and maintaining her sense of what’s really important. And “Die Another Day,” the theme to the James Bond film of the same name, is a satisfying electro-dance track, probably the most fun song on the entire record.

While American Life is a fairly unsatisfying record, it is commendable for its unapolagetic nature and the fact that it is one of the first of Madonna’s records in which the message she was trying to convey was more important than having an album full of hits. It may be one of the worst Madonna releases, but it is still better than most of the vapid crap being foisted upon listeners of pop music today.

Confessions on a Dance Floor (2005)

Madonna has never had an album “bomb” (au contraire – every single one of her studio albums has reached the Billboard Top 10, with seven hitting number one), but given that almost 25 million copies of True Blue have been sold worldwide, the bar is set absurdly high. Going as far back as Music, one can see something very interesting happening: Madonna is losing popularity in the United States while maintaining her superstar status abroad. For example, three of the four singles from American Life failed to chart on the Hot 100 at all, but “Hollywood” reached the Top 10 in four other countries, including the UK. It should be noted that all four went to number one on the US Club charts. Yes, Madge (as the Brits dubbed her when she moved to London), the kids at the disco still love you best of all.

Confessions on a Dance Floor was both a triumph and a turning point for Madonna. Its lead single, “Hung Up,” broke her back into the US Top 10, becoming her 36th track to do so and tying her in that achievement with Elvis. It also went to number one in an insane 45 countries, a feat that rated inclusion in the Guinness Book of World Records. But after the initial rush of excitement, America turned away from its golden girl once again. While her next three singles reached the Top 10 in Britain, Canada and Italy, and the Top 40 throughout most of Europe, it was no such luck on our shores (with, again, the exception of the Club chart: four singles, four number ones). What the hell was going on here? Was it ageism? (The singer was now forty-seven.) Had Madonna gone too “Euro” for our Yankee tastes? Indeed, she hadn’t worked with an American producer since Bedtime Stories in 1994.

Whatever US record-buyers thought, the artistic achievement of Confessions is a major one, at least from a booty-shaking perspective: it’s as if Madonna sent herself back in time to the late 1970s with 21st-century technology and made a disco record from the future. “Hung Up” is built around a an ABBA sample that will not quit, and sets the tone for the following 50 minutes. The inherent contradiction characteristic of the disco ethos — swooning romanticism undercut by the urgent need for instant gratification of numerous sorts — is alternately embraced (in “Get Together,” a sexy-ass come-on track that should have been a giant hit) and condemned (in “How High,” in which Madonna criticizes her own youthful obsession with fame), but the bottom line is an insistence on getting down with no time-outs: the album is mixed as one long, unbroken DJ set. Even when giving us a peek into Madge’s married life (“Push”) or getting all Kabbalah on us (“Isaac”), it’s got a good beat and you can dance to it. In fact, you should dance to it. Go ahead.

Hard Candy (2008)

Pharrell Williams and Timbaland! Kanye and Justin! Madonna went for broke on Hard Candy, releasing her inner black chick and tapping into the urban dance-pop sound that, so far, has defined popular music in the 21st century. As if anticipating backlash for the move, she wrote the following lyric: “It may feel old to you but to me it feels new.” Evidently, that rationale wasn’t good enough. The album’s first single, “4 Minutes,” gave Madonna her 37th Top 10 track, but “Give It 2 Me” and “Miles Away” sank like two groovy stones. One wonders — could it be? — whether the lead single’s success was based less on Madonna’s contributions than on the presence of co-writer/guest vocalist/Renaissance dude Justin Timberlake, who was barely a toddler when La Ciccone’s recording career began.

Granted, many of the songs on Hard Candy sound a lot like, well, a lot of others Pharrell and Timbaland have written and produced (Nelly Furtado, anyone?), with a dash of New Wave here and a soupçon of ’80′s funk there. But this seems to be what the kids like these days…so why didn’t folks want to hear Madonna’s take on it? (Again, this is all relative: the album sold almost 4 million copies worldwide, which for most singers would be a life-changing achievement — but for our Madge, something of a disappointment.) We’ve got to consider the age question again, as well as the possibility that some people were not feeling Madonna as a homegirl. Perhaps longtime fans just felt conflicted about their idol riding the wave instead of setting the trend. Is this the beginning of the end for her long and fruitful pop music reign? Maybe…but if she even occasionally comes up with something as hot as “Candy Shop,” she should stay in the game, even if she no longer defines it.

In Part 3 of the Popdose Guide to Madonna, Kelly and Robin Monica will fill in the gaps, discussing the singer’s work on soundtracks, her hits and remixes collections, and, of course, the videos.

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Madonna (1983)

A lot of brain-dead stuff has been written about Madonna over the years. Might good old-fashioned sexism be part of the problem? Madonna is particularly susceptible to sexist criticism because, like fellow superstar and gay icon Barbra Streisand, she exerts an unusual amount of control over her work for someone who was only supposed to be a “girl singer.” For example, on Madonna, her 1983 debut album, she wrote five of the eight tracks, including its biggest hit, “Lucky Star.” However, in later years she remarked that it wasn’t the album she hoped it would be, due to, you know, her total inexperience in the record business. It’s cool, Madonna…you did okay.

Madonna is the love child of the New York dance club scene and pure American girly pop. The vocals — endlessly criticized as weak, squeaky, or immature — are exactly what the material needs: it sounds like the girl next door is singing to you about her guy problems. The girl next door has a little bit of an identity crisis, in that one moment she wants nothing more than to party the night away under a disco ball (“Everybody”), or, uh, get laid (“Physical Attraction,” a track that sounds like a leftover from 1978 — in a good way), and the next she’s sweetly imploring her macho boyfriend to trust in her love (“Borderline”), but that’s the dichotomy that made Madonna distinctive. For every song (and video) that cast her as sexually loose or aggressive, there was another that portrayed her as just a charming girl from the neighborhood. “Lucky Star” manages to do both at once: its suggestive beat and Madonna’s vocal bring the sex while the lyrics — “Star light, star bright/First star I see tonight” — evoke a fairy-tale innocence (that is, until that chorus: “Shine your heavenly body tonight”).

Madonna was not an instant hit, but its popularity built gradually between the summer of 1983 and the spring of the following year, aided by videos which allowed Madonna to show off the East Village ragamuffin chic that had made her a well-known character around NYC. (They also revealed that she was white, which took some early fans by surprise.)  Its singles were more successful — where else? — on the Club chart and the dance floor. Madonna did most of her live performance dates to support the album in clubs. It wasn’t until 1985 when she launched a full-scale concert tour, in support of…

Like a Virgin (1984)

At first glance, it appears as if Madonna exerted even less creative control over her second album than over the first: this time around, she shares her songwriting duties (on four of the five tracks credited to her), and most of the record’s biggest hits were penned by others. But appearances can be deceiving. Every song was handpicked by the diva-in-training, as was the album’s producer, Nile Rodgers, who had just performed a successful (if not universally acclaimed) sound makeover for David Bowie on Let’s Dance. Additionally, Like a Virgin marked the beginning of a long and fruitful collaboration with Stephen Bray, whom Madonna had known back home in Michigan and whom she had persuaded to come to New York some years earlier, when she was, of all things, the drummer for the band The Breakfast Club.

It seems impossible that a song called “Like a Virgin” was out there waiting to be recorded by a girl named Madonna, but stranger things have happened in show business. That saucy tune, her first number one and the first of four Top 10 hits from the album, provides early evidence of Madonna as a provocateur and sly cultural commentator. Musically, Like a Virgin seems a bit of hodgepodge, careening from the novelty-record cuteness of “Material Girl” to the, frankly, ill-advised R&B cover “Love Don’t Live Here Anymore” to the faux-girl group sweetness of “Shoo-Bee-Doo.” However, when the record works, it works like gangbusters: Madonna may have wanted to get away from the disco and prove she could be a bona fide pop star, but the tracks that find a beat and don’t let up — the title song, “Angel,” and “Dress You Up” – turn out to be the most enduring and the least dated.

If ever a performer understood the power of “synergy,” it’s Madonna. In addition to her 1985 “Virgin Tour” (another clever play on words), she promoted the album, and herself, by appearing the same year in Desperately Seeking Susan, in which her character wears pretty much the exact same outfits Madonna wore in her videos. She also did a cameo as a club singer in Vision Quest, and “Crazy for You” and “Gambler,” the songs she performs in the film, appeared on its soundtrack. Meanwhile, “Into the Groove,” which is heard in Desperately Seeking but is not on the soundtrack (seriously, people?), was also generating a lot of attention. “Crazy for You” became Madonna’s second number one, while “Into the Groove,” ineligible for Pop chart consideration because it was not released as a 7″ single, was swiftly added to the 1985 reissue of Like a Virgin. This saturation of the airwaves could have backfired, but instead, it silenced all talk of Madonna as a flash in the pan, created the subculture of “Madonna-wannabes,” and, preposterously, landed “Dress You Up” on Tipper Gore’s list of bad, nasty music, alongside “Darling Nikki” and “Eat Me Alive.”

True Blue (1986)

While filming the video for “Material Girl,” Madonna began dating actor Sean Penn and the pair married on her birthday in 1985. Madonna’s unabashed love for her new husband inspired her to start writing songs for her third album, Live to Tell, which would eventually be titled True Blue. Lyrically and musically more mature and focused than her first two albums, True Blue was not only a valentine to Penn, but also Madonna’s declaration of intent to be taken seriously as a singer, songwriter and entertainer and proved, once and for all, that she was force to be reckoned with in the world of pop music.

Possibly her least overtly sexual album, on True Blue Madonna instead chose to focus on love and romance. Listening to this album is like reading a friend’s diary in which she ruminates about boys she has crushes on (“Jimmy Jimmy”), her romances, both good (“True Blue”) and challenging (“Open Your Heart”), past mistakes she’s made (“Papa Don’t Preach”), disappointments she’s had (“Live to Tell”), dealing with work stresses (“Where’s the Party”), and places she loves and wishes she could go back to (“La Isla Bonita”). Perhaps the only entry worth skipping in this diary is the one where she talks about war and poverty and espouses the idea that love can solve all the world’s problems (“Love Makes the World Go Round.”)

True Blue was a huge commercial success for Madonna, soaring to the top of the charts in an unprecedented 28 countries. Five singles were released, three of which — “Live to Tell,” “Papa Don’t Preach” and“Open Your Heart” — hit number one on the Billboard Hot 100 chart. The other two singles, “True Blue” and “La Isla Bonita,” were also top-five hits. To support this album and the soundtrack to her film Who’s That Girl?, Madonna embarked on her first world tour in 1987. The “Who’s That Girl World Tour” was a giant success, earning $25 million and making it the second-highest grossing tour by a female artist that year.

Like a Prayer (1989)

If True Blue was the “I love Sean Penn” album, Like a Prayer was the “I lost Sean Penn” album. The most obvious reference to the breakup of the tempestuous marriage is “Till Death Do Us Part,” while the instant anthem “Express Yourself” asks, “Do you believe in love?” but insists that it can survive only if women begin demanding the respect they deserve (sexually and otherwise). All the turmoil in the singer’s life obviously caused her to get introspective and spiritual. The religious undertones implicit in the work of a woman named Madonna become overtones, as the record begins with the gospel-esque, Jesus-freaky title track and ends with “Act of Contrition.” More popery asserts itself on “Pray for Spanish Eyes,” which continues the Latin-American theme Madonna began to explore in “La Isla Bonita” and “Who’s That Girl” (Quien es esa niña?), and the haunting “Oh Father,” which might be about abuse at the hands of one’s parent or one’s priest. And the latter song, along with “Promise to Try” (a lament for a lost loved one) and “Keep It Together” (a paean to the bonds of family), excavate Madonna’s complicated backstory: losing her mother at five years old, being raised by a strict and religious father, and growing up with seven siblings in a working-class home.

Not sure if all of these themes were really deeply probed by the record-buying public; mostly, they were focused on the fact that Madonna had once again made an album that was equal parts sexy, ballsy, danceable, and, of course, irresistible (“Cherish,” possibly the most idiotic song she has ever recorded, is impossible not to sing along to). Her grip on the reins of her career had never been tighter: she is credited as co-writer and co-producer on every single track — including “Love Song,” a weird duet with Prince that’s reliably funky but obviously didn’t get the best effort of either performer.  Having passed through the career stages of starlet and diva, Like a Prayer vaulted Madonna to an even higher status: pop music icon.

Erotica (1992)

After the success of Like a Prayer, the mostly unsucessful throw-back sound of I’m Breathless, the hugely important “Blond Ambition Tour” that supported those albums, the release of the provocative behind-the-scenes tour documentary Truth or Dare, and the banned-from-MTV video for “Justify My Love,” which appeared on her first greatest hits compilation, Madonna’s fans waited breathlessly to see what she would come up with next. They didn’t have to wait long because in October of 1992, she released her two most controversial, sexually-charged projects: the Sex book and the Erotica album.

Related articles

• Happy Birthday, Madonna! (newsroom.mtv.com)
• Madonna Turns 53 Today: See Her Transformation! (news.instyle.com)
• Wandering the Aisles: Going Gaga for Madonna (popdose.com)

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I was inspired to do this on Dave Steed’s recent “Rock End of the ‘80s,” when “Ana Ng” recently came up, because of the ensuing comments that They Might Be Giants hadn’t recorded anything worth listening to since about 1992.  “Au Contraire, mon frère!” I stated, and decided a Popdose TMBG guide was in order. Flagbearers and virtual inventors of “geek rock” (though one could make a case for Frank Zappa with that I suppose), they were not the first band to mix rock and roll with lyrics about largely non-romance-related topics, but they were one of the first to do that outside the context of prog rock or metal and not have it be universally dark and depressing.

Taking philosophical cues from avant-garde artists such as Zappa and Devo, musical cues from a Beatles / Byrds / Beach Boys / Raspberries harmonic power-pop base but with their own willingness to layer anything and everything on top of it, John Linnell and John Flansburgh, the self-proclaimed “Twin Quasars of Rock and Roll,” are like no other band on earth.  Originally from Lincoln, Massachusetts (hence the title of their second album), the Johns met as teenagers and wrote songs together, but reunited for good in Brooklyn in 1981.

For several years they were a popular house band at a Lower East Side club, with a now-legendary absurd show that I would’ve loved to have seen, and they finally got their break in 1985 when their demo cassette got reviewed in People magazine, of all places.  They also invented the “Dial-a-song” service, quite possibly the earliest form of on-demand music (by phone until 2000, then by internet, and currently in podcast form), originally as a stopgap measure when Linnell’s broken wrist forced them to take a break from performing.

If you want to start somewhere with them, my personal recommendation is to start with their third album Flood but as long as you like it (and I’ve yet to meet anyone who doesn’t), go immediately to Then, the reissue of their first two records along with all the great EP-only tracks from that era and many others.  I’ll keep the albums separate for reviewing purposes though, and then go down the line of full length studio releases, all the way to the present, with their newly-released Join Us album.

They Might Be Giants (1986): Unlike many innovative bands whose first recordings only resemble what they would eventually achieve in embryonic form, TMBG had a vision right from the start, and came out swinging immediately with an album that embodies everything they‘re about.

Although there is a certain amount of dated-sounding noodling, that’s a lot of its charm; the drum machines, accordion, power-pop / folk stylings, seamless genre-shifting, and lyrical wackiness sounded like nothing else at the time, and still don’t.  What kind of rock and roll band sings songs with titles like “Chess Piece Face ,” “Nothing’s Gonna Change My Clothes” and “Rhythm Section Want Ad?”  This was their New York underground sound brought to fruition, and hardly watered down at all. Supremely intelligent without being condescending, and often hilarious, there’s hardly a weak point.

“Don’t Let’s Start” was the college radio hit that put them on the map, but there’s so much more here.  “32 Footsteps” is a song about a man obsessed with the number 32, “Alienation’s For the Rich” is a country send-up that lovingly mocks the style (“and the TV’s in Esperanto / don’t you know that that’s a bitch”), “Youth Culture Killed My Dog” and “Absolutely Bill’s Mood” just have to be heard to be believed.  My favorite is “Put Your Hand Inside the Puppet Head,” somehow both the most ‘80s of the bunch and also the most timeless.

Also highly essential are the bonus tracks from their early EPs, such as “The Famous Polka,” (which they still play live all the time as far as I know) “Mr. Klaw,” “We’re the Replacements” (a Spinal Tappian ode to underground hipster college rock bands) and the Untitled Recording of the elderly Dial-a-Song caller who says “I turned off the intellectuals!  I turned on They May Be Giants!”  Priceless.  They’ve made more complex and mature-sounding albums, for sure, but the whimsical charm of the debut has yet to be topped.

Lincoln (1988): Part two of the classic era, with a higher quotient of honest-to-goodness pop songs, but just as brilliant.

“Ana Ng,” their second college radio, leads the album off; a song about a girl who lives precisely on the other side of the world (so as John Linnell explains, since it’s a Vietnamese name, it’s obviously sung by someone living in Peru), it’s a strong contender for the catchiest pop song of TMBG’s entire career to date.

Lincoln then expands into a more organic-sounding record than the debut, but with just as many experiments. Side 1 is a little more conventional, as least for TMBG, with energetic romps like “Purple Toupee,” “Mr. Me” and “Where Your Eyes Don’t Go” (which features some excellent guitar riffing at the end and perhaps my favorite TMBG lyric of all time: “Every jumbled pile of person has a thinking part that wonders what the part that isn’t thinking isn’t thinking of”).  But side 2 is a wild ride of randomness, featuring the anti-Christmas Carol “Santa’s Beard,” the power-pop gem “They’ll Need A Crane”, the melancholy “Snowball in Hell” (featuring my second-favorite TMBG lyric of all time: “oh, I see, back on that old time is money kick again?  Not back on it – Still on it”) and the short-but-sweet ode to individuality “Shoehorn With Teeth.”

The album concludes with “Kiss Me, Son Of God,” a sing-along ballad about an exploiter of the working class.  Gotta love it.  And like the first LP, there are some great B-sides from this period that are now bonus tracks on the “Then” reissue, such as “Nightgown Of the Sullen Moon” and “Hey Mr. DJ, I Thought You Said We Had A Deal.”

Flood (1990): More folks will probably say that this is the best TMBG album for any initiate to start out with than any other.  No argument here, even though I still slightly prefer Lincoln.  This was the record that broke the Giants big to alternative rock audiences everywhere, and it’s easy to see why.

The first half of the album in particular is chock full of songs that are so easy to sing along to, it’s kind of scary.  I can still remember breaking into spontaneous choruses of “Lucky Ball and Chain,” “Dead,” “We Want A Rock,” “Particle Man,” and of course “Istanbul” in the high school hallway in free periods.  “Istanbul,” arguably their best-known tune, is in fact a cover version of a song originally recorded by the Canadian vocal group The Four Lads that reached #10 on the Billboard charts in 1953, and is the first in a long line of TMBG songs that are either outright covers or make clever references to popular songs of the past.

The alternative hit “Birdhouse In Your Soul” is here too, of course, as is “Your Racist Friend,” one of the great examples of metal, hip-hop and calypso influences all in the same song.  OK, the only example.  The album loses a step or two in its latter half, but only a little bit.  There’s still the quirky “Someone Keeps Moving My Chair,” “Whistling in the Dark,” an irresistible singalong that recalls “Shoehorn With Teeth” but with a marching drum, and the slightly-disturbing instrumental “Minimum Wage.”

Side 1, however, from the opening “Theme From Flood,” through “Birdhouse,” “Lucky Ball and Chain,” “Istanbul” (the first inkling we get of their future interests in songs for kids), “Dead”, “Your Racist Friend,” the Costello-esque “Twisting,” and the folksy “We Want a Rock” is the best continuous 20 minutes of their career and – I’ll go so far as to say – one of the best sides in the whole pop/rock genre ever.  And it’s funny how with “Particle Man,” “Istanbul,” and “Whistling in the Dark” you get the sense that they were closet kids music fans, more than 10 years before their first actual kids CD.

Apollo 18 (1992): So let’s just get this over with now.  No They Might Be Giants album they’ve recorded since 1990 has topped the self-titled debut, Lincoln or Flood and nothing they record in the future ever will.  One could easily stop right here at Flood and imagine that TMBG was this great, lost underground band of the late ‘80s that made three albums and tasted a hint of success before the Johns tragically went their separate ways to do inferior solo projects, and by now they’d be enjoying Nirvana-esque levels of critical acclaim.

In spite of that, they continue to be worth following to this day.  Many of their albums in the last 19 years would be the highlights of other artists’ careers.  But it’s the lyrical brilliance in particular that sets the first three albums apart.  TMBG’s early lyrics, for nearly every song, straddle the line in between meaningfulness and wacky obliqueness like no other rock artist has ever done (Steely Dan is the only comparable act I can think of).  Since 1992, though they continue to write excellent lyrics, that fine line has been harder to reach; a much larger percent of their songs than before are either pretty darn obvious (e.g. “Mammal,” “XTC vs. Adam Ant,” “Man, It’s So Loud”) or are complete head-scratchers (e.g. “Hall Of Heads,” “Exquisite Dead Guy,” “Wearing a Raincoat”).

The combination of a higher quotient of songs that actually seem to about something fairly straightforward and the presence of a full band makes them sound just a wee bit more like everyone else.  But only a wee bit, which means they still don’t really sound like anyone else, most of the time.

There, now that we’ve gotten that out of the way, let’s see what the last 19 years of TMBG have to offer us.

So, Apollo 18.  Now, due to the issues above, as a 20-year-old college radio snob, I was initially unimpressed by this album as a whole when it was first released.  I thought that all the lyrical subtlety had been blown out the window, and with one glorious exception (more on that soon), the anything-goes attitude had been muted.

Having a neighbor down the dormitory hall who couldn’t stop blasting this CD didn’t help.  Neither did “The Guitar,” which I still just can’t get excited about.  But this album has largely redeemed itself in my head since those days, and no one can deny that it’s just plain fun.  I still don’t get “Hall Of Heads,” but its surf-rock intro is totally cool.  I don’t really get “Dinner Bell” either but it’s TMBG wordiness at its best.  The new-wavey “See the Constellation” is a long-time favorite of mine, and the superhero spoof “Spider” is just the right length.  The jazzy “She’s Actual Size” captures the feel of early TMBG perhaps better than anything else.  And “The Statue Got Me High” and “I Palindrome I” were both excellent singles in the classic TMBG power-pop vein.

If for no other reason, though, this album must be owned for “Fingerprints,” the unique pastiche of about 20 different “songs” lasting between 5 and 30 seconds each.  Each little mini-song is making fun of a certain style, or in some cases a certain artist.  All in all, this album is mostly great as long as you don’t hold it to the standards of their earlier work, and it signifies the end of TMBG’s pre-band era.

John Henry (1994): Ever the contrarian, I liked this album immediately when it was new, whereas most people I knew who had loved TMBG up to that point hated it.

Though the big lyrical paradigm shift already happened with Apollo 18 this is where the big musical paradigm shift occurred, as TMBG went to the studio with a full band, largely abandoning the drum machines and accordions of their early years.  I still remember reading the review of this album in my college newspaper and being disgusted that the reviewer was not being open-minded; she criticized John Henry for having too many depressing songs, for changing the sound away from the TMBG she knew and loved, for not putting enough smiles on her face.  As Joni Mitchell once quipped in the mid-‘70s, “No one ever asked Van Gogh to paint another ‘Starry Night.’”

Furthermore, I wondered where this reviewer was during “Alienation’s For the Rich,” “Pencil Rain” and “Dig My Grave” – it’s not like they had never been depressing before.  To be fair, I do think they got a little carried away with the horn section on this album, to the detriment of overall variety of instruments, and a few of the tracks would be more effective at two minutes than at four minutes.  But the more one listens to this, the more one realizes it really is the same TMBG we know and love after all.  The experiments, such as the barbershop-esque “O Do Not Foresake Me,” the lounge-jazzy “Extra Savior Faire,” the historical lesson “Meet James Ensor,” and the neo-psychedelic “A Self Called Nowhere” are as wacky and unique as ever.

What’s new, though, is that the musical chops are let loose – the band lays down super-funky grooves on the underrated single “Snail Shell,” and “No One Knows My Plan,” effortlessly changes speeds on “Sleeping in the Flowers,” tears through “Stomp Box” like there’s no tomorrow, and simply abandons any semblance of structure on “Spy,” which is even better live.  Not every track is a winner, but there’s plenty to love here, and it fits in much better with the overall TMBG picture now than it did at the time.

Factory Showroom (1996): This has never been one of my go-to TMBG albums, but it has grown on me through the years.  Very different from John Henry, it has a much more stripped-down feel, and even more than its predecessor, it finds the Johns trying to be more of a conventional band.

It often feels like they were under pressure to come up with something quickly and churned this out without it really being a finished product.  Only 13 songs (by far the fewest of any TMBG album to that point), with one cover (“New York City”), and one inferior re-recording of “James K. Polk” from the “Istanbul” CD single in 1990, so essentially there were only about half as many new original songs as on any previous album.

There are certainly some good tunes here; “Spiraling Shape” seems to be a just-say-no song done with just enough ambiguity that it could just be about… well… a Spiraling Shape.  The zany and fast-paced “Till My Head Falls Off” and the soulful “Pet Name” are my other two favorites here.  And I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention “I Can Hear You,” perhaps their most experimental song of all time in that it was recorded without electricity on an 1890s wax cylinder.  Some of this album, though, just leaves me either wanting more (“XTC vs Adam Ant,” “S-E-X-X-Y”) or wondering what the joke is (“How Can I Sing Like A Girl,” “Exquisite Dead Guy.”)  It’s not bad, don’t get me wrong, and explores some deeper and more unusual topics on average than many of their albums.

We now get ourselves into a very strange and muddled period in TMBG history.  You’ll see what I mean.

Long Tall Weekend (1998): The first ever internet-only release by a major rock band, but since most of the world did not yet have high speed internet or portable mp3 players in 1998, it was a little premature to do this.  Even music geeks like me were not aware of this album’s existence until at least 2000.  You can still download it from TMBG’s website today, but like Factory Showroom, I wouldn’t put this high on the list of ‘essential’ TMBG releases.

As if to correct for their prematureness, many of the songs here later showed up on Mink Car in 2001, the rarities collection They Got Lost in 2002, or the kids album No also in 2002 (though in most cases, I like the Long Tall Weekend versions better).  There’s kind of a homogenous sheen among most of these tracks that I can’t put my finger on, which makes it less of a drop-everything listen than most of TMBG’s albums.  But it’s not without its redeeming points.

“Reprehensible” is a cool jazzy number with signature philosophizing, “She Thinks She’s Edith Head” is a fun and danceable punk rock concoction, and “Older”… well, I won’t ruin the joke.  The two best-known TMBG songs from the late ‘90s, however, did not make it on here: “Doctor Worm” was only released as a new studio track on the live Severe Tire Damage album, and “Boss of Me” was just a single, as the theme to the TV show “Malcolm in the Middle.”  Both are now available on TMBG’s Dial a Song compliation.

Mink Car (2001): Oh, what could’ve been… the first proper CD release in five years and with their freshest-sounding and most varied material since the early ‘90s, this had all the makings of the great comeback album, but had the misfortune to have been released on… you guessed it, September 11^th, 2001.

The scene in the must-see TMBG documentary Gigantic: A Tale Of Two Johns has John and John performing the song “New York City” in Tower Records in Manhattan for the midnight CD release party, and it bring chills to anyone’s spine, looking at the innocent, partying crowd, poised to make Mink Car a success, having no idea what was to transpire a mere nine hours later.  Because of that, Mink Car remains an album that mostly only fans know about, but for my money is their best recording since 1990.

Like their early albums, it plays like a multi-genre jukebox where anything and everything is fair game, but it doesn’t just rehash what they did before; on the contrary, there are bold new directions at every turn; the techno spoof “Man, It’s So Loud In Here”, the Irish pub anthem “Drink,” the ‘60s space-loungey title track, the glam-rock send-up “I’ve Got a Fang,” the awesome ode to Boston “Wicked Little Critta” (OK, so I’m a little biased about that one) the list goes on and on.  Two of the better tunes from Long Tall Weekend show up here too (“Older” and “She Thinks She’s Edith Head”), as well as “Working Undercover For the Man,” released originally on an EP in 1999.  In all three of those cases, I like the original versions better, but simple playlisting can remedy that situation.  If you want to hear just one post-1990 TMBG album, this is the one to get.

They Got Lost (2002): This completes the late ‘90s / early ‘00s picture with various odds and ends, and is really mostly a “for completists only” release.  It’s a weird song selection, in that it pulls some tracks that aren’t actually rare per se, having been on various previous releases, (a couple that were previously “hidden” but many that weren’t), but is the only place you can find many of the other tracks.

The best songs here that you can’t find anywhere else are “Rest Awhile,” which has a classic early TMBG feel, and the hilarious “Disappointing Show,” probably written in response to a negative review of a concert.  What was disappointing though, is that the title track is the same version that’s on Long Tall Weekend.  It’s a very cute self-referential story song about the two members of TMBG losing their way on a road trip, but the best version is the faster-paced one on the live Severe Tire Damage CD, and it would’ve been nice to hear a studio version at the faster tempo.

No (2002): The first, and still the best TMBG kids album, and different from the other ones to date in that it doesn’t have an overarching educational theme, it’s just a kids album in general.  But the lyrics are in most cases enjoyable on two levels, and it doesn’t have that glossy kids’ music production; it feels for the most part like music that could exist on any one of their “adult” albums.

And that’s what makes it so good; it doesn’t condescend like so much media made for kids these days.  The punk-rock-ish title song is arranged to embody what the repeated “no”s that kids hear sound like to them.  “Where Do They Make Balloons” has a melody you just can’t shake and sounds like a long lost Fifth Dimension single.  “Four Of Two” tells the story of a man daydreaming just before a date, and could easily fit on any of TMBGs other albums.  (As an aside, my favorite NPR show “Wait Wait Don’t Tell Me” has glommed on to the musical refrain in this song and uses it repeatedly as a segue in between sections of the show).  “Robot Parade,” originally on Long Tall Weekend, gets slowed down and more kid-friendly but is just as cool in this form.  Also rescued from Weekend is “The Edison Museum,” which works well as a ghost story (with the priceless punchline that it’s in New Jersey).

The framework of a kids record allows the Johns to get even zanier than usual, too, with a truly bizarre counting song (“Violin”) a nearly-as-bizarre personification of a common household item (“I Am Not Your Broom”), and the story of a man with extra-sensitive taste buds, done in ‘70s soundtrack style (“John Lee Supertaster”).   You don’t have to be a kid to love this album; it’s one of their best in general.  Certainly their funniest.  And you can bet it’ll be on heavier rotation when my daughter is in preschool than anything with Elmo involved.

The Spine (2004): As the follow-up “grownup album” to Mink Car, what threw me for a loop at first was how safe this album felt, as if TMBG wanted to compete with all the other white-boy alterna-pop bands out there.  Tracks like “Thunderbird,” “Damn Good Times,” “Broke In Two,” and “Prevenge” all seemed, so, well… normal.  Only the hilarious vocorder send-up “Bastard Wants To Hit Me,” and the retro-jazzy “Au Contraire” and “Stalk Of Wheat” seemed to retain the traditional spirit of what TMBG was all about (and the humor on even those songs seemed more forced than typical).

But, for better or for worse, the Johns are evolving, and if they want to out-Weezer Weezer, we should give them a shot at it.  Little by little, this album has grown on me.  “Broke in Two” with its early ‘80s synth-pop leanings, has become one of my favorite recent tracks in spite of its normailty, and “Experimental Film” is one of the better of their catchy power-pop album-openers.  “Memo To Human Resources” is another brilliant little tune that didn’t quite click initially.

I still don’t think their dance-oriented experiments like “It’s Kickin’ In” really work, but that might just be my personal distaste for that kind of music.  Don’t run out and grab this before Mink Car, but if you like TMBG in general, you’ll put this one on from time to time.  Oddly, the album is rather short, the concurrent Spine Surfs Alone EP had seven pretty good “mini-songs” that fall into the wackier category, and mixing the two together would’ve made an album that retained the feel of the classic 20-song TMBG release and still clocking in under an hour.  It’s almost as if they’re editing out their eccentric side for hardcore fans (the only ones who will buy the EPs).

Venue Songs (2005): Released originally as a story DVD and then later a download on the group’s website with very little fanfare (I didn’t even know about it until several years later), this was the result of a challenge posed to John and John to write a song inspired by every venue on their tour.  File this in the “for hardcore TMBG fans only” category, but it’s quite amusing.

Most of the ‘songs’ are little ditties barely over a minute, but not bad for having to write them on the day of each show.  This experiment does showcase the versatility and humor of TMBG as well as one could hope.  My favorites are the odes to Glasgow’s “The Garage” (where they spell the letters out a la the Bay City Rollers’ “Saturday Night”), Charleston’s “Music Farm” (where they fantasize about what a traditional farm would be like if its main crop were… you know, music), Los Angeles’ “House of Blues” (where the masquerade as arrogant British rockers who think every American band is out to steal their ideas) and especially Dallas’s “The Trees” which evokes (and slightly mocks) Yes so brilliantly that any Yes fan will want to listen it about 10 times in a row so it can be stretched from 45 seconds into 7 minutes.  Most of this is a live album, but since these songs don’t appear on any of their studio releases, I felt it warranted inclusion here.

Here Come the ABCs (2005), Here Come the 123s (2008): The first two in a series of three (so far) educational CDs (with optional DVDs), and all three retain the eclecticism that characterizes TMBG’s music.

Sure, they’re singing about letters and numbers, but they keep things interesting for grownups with tracks like “Alphabet Lost and Found” (which could’ve been a new wave hit from 1982 with different lyrics), the folkish “C is for Conifers,” “Who Put the Alphabet in Alphabetical Order?” (priceless!), and the disco-like “High Five.” The 123s CD has a higher quotient (no pun intended) or signature TMBG-esque songs, like “Triops Has Three Eyes,” “Nonagon,” “Hot Dog” and “I Can Add.”

A few of the songs make more sense when seen on the DVD.  I don’t yet know from first hand experience whether kids actually learn anything from these albums, but at the very least, they’re way more fun to sing along to than, say, Barney, and given how much kids like to repeat listening to their favorite music over and over, I highly recommend you get this on the stereo early before they find out about some less attractive alternatives.

The Else (2007): This is perhaps their most rockin’ album, but like The Spine, it’s a short album that feels kind of safe musically.  Also like The Spine, a concurrent release (Cast Your Pod to the Wind, which I’ll review below) takes a lot more risks and some or all of it could’ve been mixed in to capture the more varied feel that distinguishes TMBG from their peers (don’t get me wrong, I don’t necessarily want TMBG to keep replicating the sound of their early work, just the feel).

Some tracks, like “Upside Down Frown” and “The Cap’m,” feel like they’re trying a little too hard to be funny, and some others like “Feign Amnesia” and “I’m Impressed” have that same “normal” feeling you get from much of “The Spine.”  So it’s easy to complain a little.  But safe for TMBG is still pretty strange for anyone else, and there’s plenty of fun to be had here.

The jealousy-ridden garage-rocker “Take Out The Trash” could’ve been a hit had it been recorded by someone younger and hipper (Smashmouth?).  “The Mesopotamians,” a sly update of “We’re the Replacements,” is an irresistible theme song for a non-existent rock band no one’s ever heard of.  “Bee Of The Bird Of The Moth” is the latest entry in the They Might Be Giants sci-fi story sub-genre.  And “With the Dark” is the one place where they pull out the stops and try a new style of music, this time a mini-rock opera.  It’s certainly a good album, but it feels like something isn’t quite right.  So now let’s get to…

Cast Your Pod to the Wind (2007): Released as a “bonus disc” with “The Else” for a limited time, but fortunately still available as an mp3 download on TMBG’s website, this has a lot of what’s missing from The Else.  Most of the tracks are less than two minutes.

It was meant to be just a compilation of songs that had been on recent podcasts, which have taken the place of the “Dial-a-Song” service they ran for many years, but there’s a larger portion of true keepers than on They Got Lost.  Really, there are at least 7 or 8 tracks that are just as good as most of The Else, and as I say above, could’ve been mixed into that album and given it the eclecticism in which it is somewhat lacking.

“Sketchy Galore,” “Kendra McCormick,” “Scott Bower” and “Yeah, The Deranged Millionaire” recall the classic story songs of unusual characters (e.g. “Chess Piece Face,” “Mr. Me”) without being simply retreads.  Moments of pure insanity like “Brain Problem Situation,” “Mexican Drill,” “Homunculus” (featuring some White Stripes-ian guitar licks) and “Vestibule” would add some much-needed spice.  And “Why Did You Grow A Beard,” “I’m Your Boyfriend Now” and “Employee Of The Month” are simply too hilarious to relegate to collectors’-bonus-disc land.

The Alternate Else (hypothetically 2007):  Given the above, I thought I’d offer my take on what The Else COULD have been.  22 tracks, but still only 53 minutes (11 tracks from the original The Else and 11 from Cast Your Pod – yes, I left out “Upside Down Frown” and “Withered Hope,” I’m not really a big fan of either).

I’m Impressed
Take Out The Trash
Why Did You Grow A Beard
Homunculus
I’m Your Boyfriend Now
Climbing The Walls
Sketchy Galore
With The Dark
Brain Problem Situation
Scott Bower
Careful What You Pack
The Shadow Government (this would lead off “side two” on any LP pressings)
Yeah, The Deranged Millionaire
The Cap’m
Bee Of The Bird Of The Moth
Employee Of The Month
Contrecoup
Feign Amnesia
Kendra McCormick
The Mexican Drill
Vestibule
The Mesopotamians

Here Comes Science (2009): Back to a kids album. This differs from the ABCs and 123s CDs in that it’s aimed at a slightly older audience (roughly ages 8-12), and could even be a nice refresher for us adults.

It’s a natural extension of some earlier science songs – “Why Does The Sun Shine” was originally recorded in 1959 on a kids “Space Songs” LP, covered by TMBG on an EP in 1993, has been a concert staple for years, and is included here both in sped-up form (similar to how they play it live) and in an alternate version that updates the facts from the sun being a mass of gas to a miasma of plasma.

“My Brother the Ape,” a clever story about trying to deny one’s chimp heritage, wouldn’t be out of place on Apollo 18.  “Science Is Real” seems pretty innocuous at first, but could double as a little jab towards the people who are still claiming global warming is a hoax.  Along similar lines, “Electric Car” brilliantly combines ‘80s synth verses with a ‘70s soul singalong chorus and could be the pop song that propels the Chevy Volt to the masses in an alternate reality.

This is a very fun listen, even more than the prior Here Comes CDs, and leaves me wondering what’s next. Here Comes History? Here Comes Economics? Here Comes Politics? (Hoo boy, they’d have fun with that one…)

Join Us (2011): And finally, we’re here, today.

Now, I’ve only listened to it once, so I don’t want to fall into the trap of embracing the new too easily, but early impressions are very good.  Much to the delight of longtime fans, this new release hearkens back to the early days in many ways, or at least the Apollo 18 / John Henry / Factory Showroom days.

There’s more of a positive, less cynical feel in songs like “You Probably Get That A Lot” (kind of a three minute apologetic pick up line) and “Let Your Hair Hang Down,” a shameless attempt to recreate the ‘60s southern California style.  And the more off-beat tracks like “Cloisonne” do a better job of being just meaningful enough to evoke some thought, in contrast to the more forced-sounding humor of some recent material.

The album really delves into some weirdness near the end, with the Johns singing simultaneous stories each in one channel on “Spoiler Alert,” some time travel antics on “2082,” and some cool finger-snapping call and response numbers like “Protagonist” and “Three Might Be Duende.”  But yet they’re not above doing a pure pop song like “I Never Knew Love” or a direct-warning-about-woman-who-can-only-be-trouble song like “Judy Is Your Vietnam.”  Join Us seems to be a microcosm of the entire They Might Be Giants catalog, and contains some of their strongest songwriting in years.  Check it out.

Final reader poll: I’ve always wanted to find opinions about who TMBG is specifically trying to imitate in various parts of “Fingerprints,” and this seems like the perfect forum in which to do so.  So anyone commenting, please feel free to contribute any ideas you may have!  I’ll start with one: I always thought that “I walk along darkened corridors” HAD to be an ode to Morrissey / The Smiths.

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This story of Journey is about three men: Herbie Herbert, the visionary former manager of the band, Steve Perry, the enigmatic lead singer who helped take the band to great heights, and Neal Schon, the guitar virtuoso Herbert built the band around and who carries the Journey legacy into the 21st Century.

Herbert and Schon met in the early 70′s when the former was the road manager for the original Santana lineup, which included 15-year-old prodigy, Schon, and keyboardist, vocalist, Gregg Rolie. Fed up with the new direction Carlos Santana was taking his band, Herbert decided to form a new one around Schon and act as manager. Having bonded with Rolie, the lead singer of Santana who sang all of the band’s signature tunes, Herbert convinced him to come on board.  With these two in place, Herbert recruited Ross Valory on bass (formerly of the Steve Miller Band); David Bowie vet, Ansley Dunbar, on drums, and George Tickner on guitar.  Calling themselves Journey, they began touring the Bay area before landing a record deal with Columbia Records.

Journey (1975)

The self-titled first debut from Journey appeared in 1975 to little fanfare.  The music on it is what you’d expect from a couple of guys who used to play in Santana: long, repetitive songs that build into extended jams.  The lead off track, “Of A Lifetime,” “Kohoutek” and “In My Lonely Feeling/Conversations” are prime examples of the type of fusion music Journey created at that time. The latter is an example of Schon showing off his blues skills.  On the mellower, more melodic “In the Morning Day,” Journey attempts to tap into something more heartfelt.  Of course, you needed slow numbers to bring the fans down after whipping them into frenzy with ten minute solos.  Journey’s first album introduces people to a band of astounding musicians capable of jumping from Latin influenced rock to blues to fusion.  Unfortunately, the music is not all that astounding.

Look Into the Future (1976)

After a year spent touring opening for other bands, Tickner quit.  On Journey’s second album, Look Into the Future,  you hear the remaining members of the band beginning to gel as a unit.  Several of the tracks, like “You’re On Your Own” and “I’m Gonna Leave You,” sound like they could have been on the first album (possibly because they were written at the same time), yet the band expands itself musically and in general, the songwriting is stronger.  “Anyway” is a spacey track, something akin to early 70’s prog rock; their cover of George Harrison’s “It’s All Too Much” (a concert staple) is faithful to the original; and “She Makes Me Feel (Alright)” is an enjoyable rocker that must have really got even the ones who were too stoned to get back on their feet.  The most interesting song is the title track. Beginning with a quiet Schon guitar melody, Rolie sings with conviction and doesn’t let his organ playing overpower the song.  Sure, at 8:08 it gradually builds into another whaling jam, but the sense of melody and restraint foreshadows the type of music Journey would eventually record.

Next (1977)

Next continues with the same sound of the first two albums.  Although the songs were shortened in an attempt to make them more AOR friendly, this is the weakest of their early albums and sounds the most dated.  “Spaceman”, “People”, and “Here We Are” all have that late 70’s California vibe that would make for easy listening on a Sunday afternoon.   The synth heavy blues song, “I Would Find You” completes the laid back feel of side one.  Their years on the road made it easy for Journey to transition from slow songs to rocking ones, and their playing on Side two is tight and boisterous.  Selections like “Hustler”, “Nickel & Dime”, and the concert staple for years to come, “Next,” must have been great live in their day.  Unfortunately, on record these tunes are unmemorable and the overall production is very muddled.  It’s easy to understand why Next didn’t sell.  While bands like Styx and Foreigner were selling records and embracing a more modern sound, Journey seemed trapped in the past.

After the first three albums failed to ignite enthusiasm from radio or the buying public, Columbia gave Journey an ultimatum: Get a lead singer and come up with some radio friendly songs, or find a new label. Initially, singer Robert Fleischman was hired to be the band’s new front man.  He co-wrote some songs with Journey and briefly toured with them. However, Herbert kept getting a nagging feeling that Fleischman wasn’t going to be the man to help carry Journey to the next level. When the demo of an unsigned band came across his desk, he immediately heard what he was looking for in the voice of that band’s lead singer. Herbert secretly brought that singer to audition with the band while he had Fleischman otherwise occupied. Soon thereafter, despite the reservations of Schon and Rolie, Steve Perry became the new lead singer for Journey.

Infinity (1978)

On Infinity, Perry’s impact is felt from the get go.  The opening track is a little ditty called “Lights” and the blueprint for the new direction of Journey is laid out in the foundation of that song: Perry’s soaring tenor, perfect backup harmonies, the rhythm section keeping a steady reliable backbone and Schon tearing through a stirring guitar solo.  The compositions are significantly shorter and the jam-laden style of their early efforts have been reined in.  Perry would prove to be a strong counterpart to Schon, the riff master, and they immediately began writing songs together.  Their first collaboration was the simple, beautiful ballad, “Patiently,” tacked on at the end of side one.  Infinity included the band’s first hit single, “Wheel in the Sky,” as well as the Rolie one two punch “Feeling That Way” and “Anytime” (the second single from the record), which garnered serious airplay on AOR stations.  Although Journey had transformed into the type of band that could compete with the big names, Infinity does contain a couple tracks to please to loyal fans. They include “La Do Da” and “Winds of March,” in which Rolie and Schon open up and display the talent for which they had gained a cult following.  The success of Infinity should also be attributed to the decision to bring Roy Thomas Baker (who had worked with Queen) to produce the album.  With plenty of overlays of guitars, vocals and effects, it was the most produced the band would sound for years to come. 

Infinity also begins Journey’s long time association with artists Anton Kelly and Stanley Mouse, both recognized for their work with the Grateful Dead.  This artistic duo would create covers for the next five albums, introducing the two key symbols of the Journey mythology: the scarab and the mobius “infinity” symbol.  The artwork was beautiful, mysterious, and looked great on concert t-shirts and posters. This working relationship would last until the mid 80′s album, Raised on Radio.

Evolution (1979)

After experiencing their first commercial success, Journey returned to the studio with Baker and recorded Evolution, but not before shuffling the polyrhythmic Dunbar in favor of former Montrose drummer, Steve Smith.  With a jazz background and a measure of restraint, Smith proved to be a key addition to the band.  Evolution comes off as less of an RTB production and something closer to what would become the signature Journey sound.  The album opens with the Schon/Perry instrumental, “Majestic” and quickly segues into the underappreciated second single from the record, “Too Late”, a Perry composition he wrote to a friend slowly succumbing to drug addiction.  It was track three that made Journey a household name in 1979.  The simplistic “Lovin’ Touchin’ Squeezin,” with its sing-along chorus, became the band’s first major hit both in sales and on the radio.  The popularity of that song alone helped Evolution go platinum.  Side one is completed with a couple of rockers, “City of the Angels” and “When You’re Alone (It Ain’t Easy),” before wrapping things up with the slow rocker, “Sweet and Simple,” which uses beautiful vocal harmonies and Schon’s guitar soloing to the fade out.  Side two has some generic, albeit, enjoyable rockers, but also contains Rolie’s “Just the Same Way,” which followed a similar song structure of “Anytime” from Infinity.  Towards the end of the album, “Daydream” foreshadows the mellow, softer side of Perry (who co-wrote all but one song on the record) that would come to dominate his writing in later years.  Overall, Evolution is a step forward for Journey and remains one of their best albums.

Departure (1980)

Journey turns a corner with 1980’s Departure.  Working this time with Geoff Workman (the engineer behind their two Baker albums) and the band’s live sound engineer, Kevin Elson, Departure is one of Journey’s hardest rocking LP’s, and also one of their most diverse.  Everyone knows “Anyway You Want It,” the song that kicks off the album.  I wager to say that right now, somewhere in America, a radio station is playing this song.  Several other songs rock the album hard, including concert staples “Where Were You” and “Line of Fire”.  Yet, the band explores other genres throughout Departure.  “Walks Like A Lady,” perhaps their most underrated single, is a nice blues number.  On it, Schon holds back his typical pyrotechnics and reveals that with restraint he can be one of the most soulful guitarists alive.  The entire band simple shines.  Schon also has an elegant guitar instrumental (“Departure”) that precedes the quiet “Good Morning Girl”, in which Perry sings with a string section.  It doesn’t sound as cheesy as you may think.  Finally, there is the optimistic “Precious Time,” a song that highlights nearly each member of the band.  Built around a nifty guitar riff and some killer harmonica playing by Rolie, it’s not the prototypical Journey song.  There isn’t even a guitar solo.  Like the rest of Departure, the song displays a band hitting their mark and on the verge of something big.

Captured (1981)

I include Journey’s 1981 double live LP, Captured, simply because it has one of the coolest album covers ever.  The Mouse/Kelly team outdid themselves (until the next record).  The songs on Captured are arranged sequentially to simulate the Journey concert experience.  Side one opens with “Too Late” and Side four wraps things up with the string of hits that would have been the encores of any show from the early 80′s.  There were two new songs on the record, in addition to the obligatory solo spots for Schon, Rolie, Valory and, of course, Smith- it wouldn’t be a live show without a drum solo and his solo on “La Do Da” is pretty awesome.  The first of the new tracks is “Dixie Highway,” a bluesy rock song about, you guessed it, the Dixie Highway, that stretch of road that connects the Midwest with the Southern United States. The song is long and wears out its welcome after about two minutes (although, in concert, with about three beers and the second hand smoke from that dude sitting in front of you, it may not have seemed that way).  The other new song, a studio recording, is “The Party’s Over (Hopelessly In Love).” This moderate hit from 1981 doesn’t feature Rolie, as he had already left the group.

After completing the Departure tour, Rolie decided he’d had enough of touring (and quite possibly, Perry’s ego).  He handpicked his replacement knowing that Schon wanted to add another guitar to the group.  The Babys had opened for Journey on their tour and Rolie watched from the wings most nights, noting that their keyboardist/guitarist seemed like a good fit.  He passed the idea to Schon and Herbert and Jonathan Cain became the newest member of Journey.  His contributions to the band would not only influence the direction of their music, but also help catapult them to the top of the music charts and make them the most popular band in the world.

Escape (1981)

In 1981, Escape was a monster. Everyone owned a copy . If you didn’t have your own scratched up LP, your older sibling did, or you knew someone who could copy it on to a cassette for you. Journey dominated radio, concert arenas (and eventually stadiums), and thanks to another killer Mouse album cover, merchandise up the whazoo. Perry and Cain share co-writing credits on every song, with Schon contributing to eight of the eleven songs. Cain’s poppier songwriting sensibilities helped Journey cross the threshold of rock super stardom and the hits poured off of the vinyl.  “Don’t Stop Believin’,” “Who’s Crying Now” and the quintessential power ballad, “Open Arms,” are the best remembered, while the hard rocking “Stone In Love” became an AOR radio staple. “Still They Ride,” the fourth official single, is almost forgotten about.  The band grooves along to Perry until Schon blasts off for one of his most emotional solos on record.  But it’s not just the hits.  Producers Mike Stone and Kevin Elson really capture what the band sounded like live and there isn’t a real miss on the record.  The title track and “Lay It Down” are hard-edged anthems that open side two, followed by the goof, “Wanted Dead Or Alive.”  The highlight of the second side is the epic, “Mother, Father,” which rises above pretentiousness and remains one of Journey’s crowning musical achievements.  Everything clicked on Escape:  The band, the songwriting, the production, and, yes, the marketing.  The music endures, making Escape Journey’s best album.

The runaway success of Escape not only made Journey the most popular band in the world, but also one of the most reviled.  Critics came out of the woodwork to criticize the music as superficial and corporate, as in, having been manufactured by executives to sell records. They also bitched that Journey recorded radio commercials for Budweiser and sold their likenesses to two video games. Somehow it was overlooked that Journey paid their dues on the road, building a fan base for ten years before finally achieving their massive success. Funny how when a critic’s darling like Bruce Springsteen follows a similar career path the artist is praised for being hard working and earning their success. And I don’t recall too many people complaining when The Who’s  “final” tour in 1982 was sponsored by Schlitz Beer. This isn’t a knock on Springsteen or The Who, it’s a knock against the critics who thumb their noses at the general public.

Journey had reached the top of the summit. Sadly, whenever one reaches that peak, the only was to go is down, and the band began to slowly fall apart.

Frontiers (1983)

Public anticipation was high for Journey’s next album. Whatever they released was sure to be a blockbuster.  Sadly, even though Frontiers had four more hits for the band, overall it’s cold and cynical, with little joy.  One need only look at the ridiculous photo of the band parachuting toward us to see the state of affairs in Journey.  Schon and Cain look pissed, Smith is bemused and Valory appears stoned. Meanwhile, Perry smiles smugly. Behind the scenes he had slowly gained more control of the band. As for the music, Frontiers falls into that category of the record label cramming all of the singles on side one, and letting side two provide the b-side material.  Instead of going into the hits, let’s discuss the other songs.  Side two opens with “Edge of the Blade”, a retread of “Escape” that deals with a broken relationship (most of the songs on Frontiers are bitter, like that).  The song also mimics “Separate Ways,” with a drum break in the middle and Schon having an extended solo as the song fades out. “Troubled Child,” another song with dark subject matter, follows.  This one is unusual in that it’s written in 6/8 time, attributable to Smith’s influence of constantly trying to branch out the group’s sound.  “Back Talk” is a Bo Diddley type song that may have sounded cool in 1983, but now comes off as really forced and misogynistic.  The title track is an odd piece of music co-written by Smith featuring another syncopated drum part.  It’s apparently Perry’s commentary about how technology is affecting the human experience.  Finally, the album closes out with the optimistic “Rubicon.” I’ve always been surprised that considering how cynical every song on Frontiers comes off, “Rubicon” wasn’t released as a single.  It’s a straight-ahead rocker as radio friendly as “Separate Ways.”

Although not the phenomenon of its predecessor, Frontiers was still an unmitigated success. After the album’s release, Journey immediately began touring, reaping millions from the sales of concert tickets and tour merchandise. By the end of the tour the band was playing sold out stadiums, with fans watching all of the action on enormous video screens, another one of Herbert’s innovative ideas. Journey became the first band to use them on tour. Between 1983 and 1986 there would be no new Journey album. Schon recorded with Sammy Hagar on an LP that supposedly influenced Eddie Van Halen, Smith formed a jazz/fusion band, Vital Information, Cain did some producing, and Valory battled addiction and mounting losses from bad investments. As for Perry, he released his first solo album, Street Talk, which generated three top 40 hits, including the smash, “Oh Sherrie.” The success of that album gave him considerable leverage over Herbert and the band. When Journey regrouped to start their next album, Perry convinced Schon and Cain to fire Valory. Against Herbert’s wishes, the bass player was given his walking papers. Soon thereafter, Smith quit, bored with having to replicate the click tracks from Perry’s demo tapes. With just Perry, Schon and Cain calling themselves Journey, they finished their next album using studio vets like Larry Londin on drums and Randy Jackson on bass. The future American Idol judge would also become a touring member of Journey.

Raised on Radio (1986)

Raised on Radio is a slick, overproduced piece of gooey pop that is pretty much Street Talk: The Sequel, but with a better guitarist. While the album opens nicely with the single, “Girl Can’t Help It,” everything goes downhill from there. “Positive Touch” wants to be 60’s soul (saxophone included), but comes off like second rate Pointer Sisters.  “Eyes of A Woman” tries to mysterious, but it drags on and on.  And “Happy to Give”, a number that Perry and Cain labored over for months, is so overwrought and horrible, you’ll never forgive yourself for listening to it.  The attempts to sound like classic Journey sound forced at best.  “Be Good To Yourself,” a top 10 hit, is upbeat and positive, but feels disconnected. This may be because Schon wasn’t even at the recording sessions, choosing to lay down his guitar licks when called upon.  The title track is a throwaway hodge podge (cursed with Cain’s clichéd keyboard sound).  Finally, the obligatory power ballad, “Why Can’t This Night Go On Forever,” is “Faithfully” redux, with Smith’s drums thundering like cannons, but no emotion.  The saving graces of Raised on Radio are two tracks that allowed Schon to display his versatility.  “I’ll Be Alright Without You,” is a light, jazz/blues influenced song that became a moderate hit.  Schon really puts warmth into the solo and the small in-betweens making the song better than it deserved to be.   “Once You Love Somebody,” which could have fit on any R&B station of that period, contains some of the guitarist’s most inspired, pop work.

Journey toured behind Raised on Radio until the middle of 1987.  At that point, Perry decided he was done with the band and walked away from one of the most successful acts of the 80′s.  Although no official statement was made, Journey disbanded.

Greatest Hits (1988)

Herbert assembled Journey’s Greatest Hits in 1988, culling fifteen songs from all of the Perry fronted albums (a reissue tacked on a 16th). The album includes two tracks previously available only on soundtracks: the hit single “Only The Young,” from the 1985 Matthew Modine wrestling film, Vision Quest, and “Ask The Lonely,” pretty much the only redeeming thing of the terrible John Travolta/Olivia Newton John movie, Two of a Kind. Both songs were outtakes from the Frontiers sessions, inexplicably cut at the last minute.  In the world of single album greatest hits compilations, this one is pretty flawless. Die hard fans may have qualms about what is missing, but to the general public there isn’t a miss on the record. Journey’s Greatest Hits has become one of the most successful albums of all time, earning diamond status in record sales. To this day, it remains a bestseller.

Former members of Journey worked together in various outfits throughout the late 80’s and early 90’s. Schon and Cain joined Bad English, a super group that included John Waite and Randy Phillips, Cain’s old band mates from The Babys, plus a relatively unknown drummer named Deen Castronovo.  Bad English released two albums and had a couple of hit songs, including the smash power ballad, “When I See You Smile.” Rolie, Valory and Smith reunited with Herbert to form The Storm, a melodic rock band that scored a hit with “I’ve Got A Lot To Learn About Love.” Out front for the band were singer Kevin Chalfant and guitarist Josh Ramos. Chalfant’s vocals were so similar to Perry’s (and the guitar sounded so much like Schon) that if you didn’t know any better, it could have been Journey.

Time 3 (1992)

Journey dove into the burgeoning CD Box craze with Time 3. This three disc compilation is an excellent introduction to the band from the Bay Area, with tracks from every album (to that point) and about one CD’s worth of new or hard to find material. The music is sequenced in chronological order. However, that crafty Herbert decided to only include live versions of some of the band’s classic songs (taken from Captured). So if you wanted original versions of “Lights” or “Any Way you Want It,” you had to buy the original albums or the Greatest Hits. Among the outtakes is “For You,” a track sung by Robert Fleischman, a cover of Sam Cooke’s “Good Times,” and a nifty little song entitled “Natural Thing,” which wound up as the b-side to “Don’t Stop Believin’.” Also included are the songs “La Raza Del Sol,” a Spanish influenced number that features Valory’s running bass lines, “Only Solutions,” a throw away written for the original Tron soundtrack, as well as two outtakes from the Raised on Radio period that never had vocals recorded.  Both “With A Tear” and “Into Your Arms” bear a strong resemblance to the Wave style of music Schon released as a solo artist.  One of the standout songs is definitely “Little Girl,” originally found on an obscure Japanese soundtrack Journey recorded. The movie was 1980′s Dream After Dream and it consisted of mostly improvised instrumentals the band composed while watching the film.  This song, one of just two with vocals recorded for that soundtrack, is one of Journey’s strongest.  Building slowly, with a nice string arrangement, Perry and the rest of his band mates play with a lot of passion and has some of the band’s best melodies.  The sound quality on Time 3 was nothing to write home about; none of the music was remastered.  However, if you were like me and loved Journey music, you requested this box set for Christmas that year and listened to it religiously thinking that this was the last new music you would ever hear from Journey.

And you would have been wrong.

Late in 1993, singer Chalfant jammed with Cain and Schon at a roast for Herbert.  This get together went so well that plans were made for Chalfant to record with a band that would include Schon, Smith, Valory, Cain and Rolie.  Perry, who finally released his second solo record in 1994, must have caught wind of these rumors and shocked his former band mates by calling to say that he wanted to reform Journey to see if the magic was still there.  Schon and company agreed to regroup. However, Perry had conditions: He only wanted the Escape lineup, and he wanted someone else to manage the band. Herbert decided he didn’t need the headache of Steve Perry anymore. For the sake of the Journey legacy, a band that he had created from scratch, Herbert stepped down as the band manager. Irving Azoff, uber manager of such bands like The Eagles and Van Halen, became the new manager and in 1995 Journey went into the studio as a complete band for the first time in over 10 years.

Trial By Fire (1996)

The reunion album starts off promising with “Message of Love.”  Even though it’s basically “Separate Ways” written sideways, the song still captures the spirit and sound of the early 80’s Journey.  The next track, “One More,” is even better.  Despite some pretentious Perry voice over, the song rocks hard.  It’s as if Schon, Perry and co. decided to make a statement that Journey could hold their own in the harder edged rock world of the mid-90’s.  Be sure to listen for Smith’s stellar double pedal work and Valory’s invigorated bass playing throughout the song (in particularly during Schon’s kick ass solo). Schon, Valory and Smith really sound tight, like they’re having fun. “When You Love A Woman” completes the opening triptych with grace and elegance.  Arguably Journey’s most mature ballad, it’s a fine piece of songwriting that deservedly received a Grammy nomination. Whereas those first three tracks sound like true collaborations between the five band members, eleven of the remaining thirteen songs come off as recycled, half-baked cast offs from previous, lesser efforts.  “If He Should Break Your Heart,” “Forever In Blue” and “Still She Cries” reek of Perry’s lame solo records, while “Castle’s Burning” could have come from the last Bad English album.  Meanwhile, “Colors of the Sprit,” with its African rhythms and pan flutes, is an attempt at sounding diverse that fails miserably. Trial by Fire nearly lifts itself out of mediocrity through Schon’s brilliance on the light jazz stylings he lends to “Easy To Fall.”  The remaining rock song, “Can’t Tame The Lion,” hears the band come together again, finally free from the restraints of whoever was dictating the direction of the music, whether it was Perry or A & R guru, John Kalodner, the exec who oversaw the reunion album for Columbia. The remaining strong song is the title track, “Trial By Fire,” which echoes some of the better Journey ballads from back in the day. It almost makes you forget the rubbish that preceded it.  Despite the number of sub-par selections, though, there was still enough good material to intermix with the classics if Journey had gone on tour to support the album.

Trial by Fire was a top 10 hit. Even after a decade’s absence, people still wanted to hear new Journey music. Tour plans were in the works when Perry suddenly had to bail. Depending on what camp you fall into (pro-Perry or against), Steve Perry either injured his hip while hiking, or never intended on touring in the first place.  Whatever the truth is (only the band members know, and they’re legally bound to keep their mouths shut), Schon decided he had finally had enough.  This was his band.  It’s been formed around him.  And now that the flame was reignited, he wasn’t ready to let it go out again, especially since there was a HUGE market for classic rock acts on the concert circuit.  Much to the dismay of Perry and record executives, Schon hired former Tall Stories singer, Steve Augeri, as the new lead singer.  His vocal resemblance to Perry suited the songs well, and he’s a heck of a nice guy to be around.  Simultaneously, Smith opted out.  Schon didn’t hesitate to bring in his old Bad English buddy, Deen Castronovo to handle the drums for the reborn Journey.  Touring throughout 1998 and 1999, Journey was able to land a one record deal with their old label to put out new music.

Arrival (2000)

Arrival is an amalgam of melodic rock from all over the 80’s.  You get pieces of Journey, a little Night Ranger, Foreigner and even some Honeymoon Suite.  Working again with producer Kevin Shirley (who also produced Trial by Fire), and still under the eye of Kalodner, the album features at least three solid Journey tracks.  They are: the rocker “Higher Place” (co-written by Jack Blades of Night Ranger); “All The Way,” an excellent power ballad that could have slipped into any Bruckheimer action film; and a song that more closely resembles the Infinity era Journey called, “Livin’ To Do” (replete with an organ solo).  The remainder of the CD suffers from cold production and generic songwriting making this more of a novelty CD than something you’d play alongside the classic stuff.  “Signs Of Life” could be a Survivor song; “All The Things” has the bravura of bad Whitesnake; and the wimpy ballad “Loved By You” is something akin to Michael Bolton.  But it’s not just the songwriting.  Augeri’s vocals are passionless on many of the tracks and you can feel the tension between the band and Kalodner on the surface of the music.  He wanted more ballads and Schon wanted to rock.  Because of this, Arrival suffers greatly.

Although critics scoffed at the idea of another Journey record, Arrival was heavily bootlegged when the Japanese release (available months before the U.S. version) leaked to Napster.  Instead of using the brouhaha surrounding the pirating of the record as an opportunity to get the music heard, Columbia sat on Arrival as the band recorded some alternate tracks.  It didn’t matter, though, because Columbia doomed the fate of the album before it officially hit American shores.

Just as the record was set to be released, Columbia approved a VH1 Behind the Music episode on Journey.  It was a HUGE success.  Unfortunately, the whole show is basically a pro-Perry special, detailing his tormented youth and the pain after losing his mother during the recording of Raised on Radio (as if none of the other band members had suffered during that time). Perry also stated, “I never felt like I was a member of the band.”  Cut to slack jawed reactions by every single member of Journey, including Herbert.  Whether you believed him or not, the success of the Behind the Music special implied that people still believed that Steve Perry was the guiding force of Journey.  Columbia saw this as a losing battle as long as Steve Augeri was singing for Journey.  While Arrival struggled, the label released a heavily promoted second Journey compilation (part of their Essential series) and dropped the band from the label. Free from the restraints of a corporate parent, the new Journey carried on.

Red 13 (2002)

Well aware that the music industry had changed and that Journey’s money would now be made primarily on the road, the decision was made to put out this four song EP to sell at concerts and through the Journey website.  It was a bad decision.  Red 13 sounds exactly like what it is: a series of demos recorded in Cain’s home studio. While every song sounds like a band trying to modernize itself, each track is generic dribble.  The closest thing to achieving anything memorable is the opening cut, “State of Grace,” which made its way into the concert set lists.  Otherwise, avoid Red 13 altogether and move directly on to…

Generations (2005)

Fans raved that Generations was Journey’s best album since Escape.  Hardly. The CD immediately gets points off for plagiarizing its cover from Captured, and the tracks are a mixed bag. For one thing, the album is too long (a common problem in the modern era).  At thirteen tracks, two or three  songs should have been cut to make for a stronger album, in particular the sappy ballads “Butterfly (She Flies Alone)” and “Believe,” two Augeri penned songs, and “Every Generation,” a rock anthem that Cain sings that is just plain awful. Still, the band is in fine form on “Faith In The Heartland” and “The Place In Your Heart,” which easily could have fit on any classic rock station.  There is a sense of fun on Generations, as each band member gets a chance to sing lead on a song. Schon rips his voice and guitar into a rerecording of the song “Self Defense,” Valory has a great old time giving the song “Gone Crazy” a real ZZ Top boogie, and Castronovo does a fine job vocally on his two songs, including another one that would have been a hit in an earlier decade, “Never Too Late.”  The band’s drummer and Augeri really formed a complimentary singing duo, especially true on the touching 9/11 tribute, “Beyond The Clouds.” On it, Augeri and Castronovo harmonize while Schon plays wonderful melodies. With Generations Augeri finally appeared comfortable as the lead singer of this band. Sadly, it was his last album with the band.

2005 marked the 30^th anniversary of Journey. To celebrate, they received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. Every member, past or present (even Fleischman) was invited to the ceremony. Steve Perry drew audible gasps when he arrived and gave a speech. His appearance alongside Neal Schon and Jonathan Cain fueled the ongoing rumors that the reclusive singer was going to rejoin the band. The fact that Augeri’s voice was showing wear and tear after eight years of constant touring didn’t help matters.

In 2006, while Journey toured with Def Leppard, there were whispers in the chat rooms that Augeri’s live performances were being augmented with recordings being piped through the speakers. Coupled with the fact that Castronovo began splitting the lead singing duties, it looked like Augeri’s days were numbered. He decided to leave the band during the tour to heal his voice. Veteran rock singer, Jeff Scott Soto, stepped in for the rest of the tour and when it was over, Augeri amicably left Journey. Initially, Soto was announced as the new lead singer. This lasted about a minute before Journey realized that Soto wasn’t what they wanted.

What’s a band leader to do when he has no lead singer? It’s the 21^st Century, right? So why not go to the Internet and see what you can find? Schon began watching singers on YouTube and discovered amateur video of a Filipino band called The Zoo. The diminutive singer fronting the band had a spot on voice match to Perry, not just the range, but the texture that made Perry one of the best rock singers in the 80’s. After some soul searching, Schon decided to take a risk. He called the Philippines and invited Arnel Pineda to audition for the band in San Francisco. In a classic Horatio Alger story, Pineda found himself the newest member of one of the most popular bands in the world.

Revelation (2008)

Revelation is a strong record in the traditional Journey mold: a combination of fast rockers mixed with several ballads. What you notice immediately is how easily Pineda slips into the role of the front man; he’s a natural. The soulfulness of his voice brings to mind Journey in their heyday and besides a few noticeable inflections in his voice (such as on “Never Walk Away”) you’d swear that it’s 1982 all over again. Of the rock songs, “Wildest Dream” and the excellent “Where Did I Lose Your Love” stand out. “After All These Years,” your standard power ballad, was released as a single and it shows Pineda’s emotional range. However, the bluesy “Like a Sunshower” is a better song and features some great guitar playing by Schon. Like all of the recent Journey albums, Revelation could use some trimming. The band really didn’t need to rerecord the Generations song, “Faith in the Heartland,” and “What I Needed” is a pretty weak slow song. Nevertheless, if Journey was out to prove that Pineda was not a gimmick and that they could still produce good music, they succeeded. The physical album (sold exclusively through Wal-Mart) was a package deal that included a CD of rerecorded Journey classics featuring Pineda on vocals, as well as a concert DVD. Both of these “bonus” discs, coupled with the band sounding as polished as ever, made clear that Journey was back and that they didn’t need Steve Perry.

Eclipse (2011)

Nearly thirty years after bringing a second guitarist into the Journey fold, Neal Schon finally got to record the hard rocking album he’s been hoping to make. Eclipse has a purposeful edge to it, and the international superstars appear totally focused on this, their fourteenth studio album. The song cycle on Eclipse has themes of spirituality and love, with a healthy dose of optimism. The opening songs, “City of Hope,” “Edge of the Moment” and “Chain of Love,” present a three headed monster attack of loud guitars, pounding drums and driving bass. Jonathan Cain’s keyboards are pushed to the background, virtually unheard.  “Tantra” is the standout ballad, although it’s a little theatrical (perhaps the band was inspired by the Broadway smash,  Rock of Ages). “Anything is Possible” is a gem of a midtempo rocker that has the warmth and mood of a great summer song. If only radio took chances on aging melodic rockers, you’d hear this one playing out of cars at the beaches and parks. “She’s a Mystery” is an interesting number as if begins like a new age slow song but quickly transforms into a head banger. To this day, Schon likes to morph a song into a frenzied jam, just like the Infinity and Evolution era. The claims have been tossed around for years, but Eclipse is definitely Journey’s best album since the early 80’s. Instead of trying to write “Journey music” the songwriters decided to just write good music. In doing so, they’ve come up with their best album in decades.

Like a Phoenix, or the Terminator, Journey continues to rise from the dead. This is now clearly Neal Schon’s band and together, with Jonathan Cain, they have been able to keep Journey moving forward. What makes Journey still popular is the passion they put into their best music. Like any great artist, this connects with their fans and helps to create new ones. Yeah, there’s the merchandise and the tours, but in the end, it’s the songs that the fans remember and it’s the songs that make them want to whip out their Bic lighters or cell phones.  Journey was labeled as corporate rock, but their music has touched the lives of many, many people.  That’s not something that can be manufactured in the boardroom.

Author’s Note: Special thanks to Dw. Dunphy for the beautiful banners he created for this post. A majority of this guide was written in 2006 as the “Idiot’s Guide to Journey” for the great Jefitoblog. Although the published content was lost when Jeff’s site crashed, I discovered an early draft on my computer. I did go back and revisit all of the albums and I also edited much of the original content (lucky for you). My opinions pretty much held from 2006.

You might also enjoy:

Basement Songs: Journey, “Only the Young”

Death by Power Ballad: Journey, “Open Arms”

Dw. Dunphy On… Journey

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In 1994 a high school friend of Goddess and Asthana’s offered to put out a single for the band if they agreed to promote it. The resulting seven-inch, Friday Night, caught the attention of Minty Fresh, and soon the trio from Somerville, Massachusetts, were hard at work on their first album for the Chicago indie label. (Another seven-inch, Passion Play, preceded the album; it was also released as an EP and features three songs that can best be described as “experimental.”) The members of Papas Fritas recorded two more full-lengths before going their separate ways at the end of 2000.

Last week Goddess, Asthana, and Gendel reunited for their first (mini) tour in almost 11 years, starting with homecoming concerts in Boston and Gloucester, Massachusetts, prior to a festival appearance in Brussels, Belgium, on May 22. And earlier this week the band traveled to France for club gigs in Paris and Marseilles as a warm-up for shows this Saturday and Sunday at the Primavera Sound Festival in Barcelona, Spain. It’s safe to assume that the bulk of their set list will be derived from the following four discs.

PAPAS FRITAS (1995)
[Amazon / iTunes]

In order to get the sound he wanted for Papas Fritas’s low-budget debut, Goddess allegedly confined himself to the band’s basement studio for four and a half months, a tortuous process he alludes to in the album’s closer, “Afterall”: “Something special in the end / Said the dotted line to the fountain pen / Just stay on course, stay in tune and wait in line / In the basement lost track of time.” As a half apology to the band’s new label, he adds, “I know / It’s late / Sometimes shit has to wait.” And although Minty Fresh record execs may have disagreed at the time, the self-titled effort was absolutely worth the wait — the band’s addictive melodies and warm harmonies sound almost effortless. (Try not to sing along on the chorus of “Holiday” or snap your fingers to the beat of “Lame to Be.” You will lose.) As was the case with Ben Folds Five’s own self-titled debut, which arrived in stores a few months ahead of Papas Fritas’s, the sense of joyful discovery is infectious. Between tracks you can practically hear the band saying, “Ooh, I’ve always wanted to try this!” or “Remember [insert name of TV theme song/Broadway show tune]? What if we play it like that?”

Goddess has stated in various interviews that his goal was for the trio to sound like the Replacements in concert, throwing caution to the wind each and every night, and Fleetwood Mac in the studio, lovingly obsessing over the smallest of sonic details. His high standards are evident on tracks like “Passion Play,” which makes excellent use of a string section and stereo separation, and “TV Movies,” a gorgeous dream-pop number that floats on top of Asthana’s creamy vocals and Goddess’s finger-picked guitar, recalling “Trouble,” the atmospheric 1981 solo hit for the Mac’s resident studio rat, Lindsey Buckingham.

The rasp in Goddess’s voice, presumably a direct result of his 24-7 work on the album, adds an edge to Papas Fritas‘s best songs, especially “Smash This World” and “Lame to Be,” but the delicate falsetto he employs on “My Own Girlfriend” is his shining moment, destined to break the heart of any lonesome teenager, past, present, and future. Papas Fritas’s songs sigh with the best of them, but on their debut they also remind you of the simple, slap-happy pleasures of expertly crafted pop music. (Wheat and the Lemonheads are two other Boston-area bands of the past quarter-century whose songs have caused a similar reaction in me. Must be something in that city’s dirty water …)

HELIOSELF (1997)
[Amazon / iTunes]

After touring behind their debut in Europe and the States with the Flaming Lips and the Cardigans, respectively, Papas Fritas retreated to the fishing town of Gloucester to record Helioself, a loose concept album along the lines of Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band. “I had my whole life to write that [first] record,” Goddess told Tidal Wave Magazine in 2000. But like countless up-and-coming bands before them, Papas Fritas were expected to write and record the follow-up in just a matter of months. Not surprisingly, they wrote what they knew.

Inspired by their recent travels — or deflated by them, depending on how you look at it — as well as their chosen working environment’s close proximity to the sea, the trio wrote “Rolling in the Sand,” the wage-slave fantasy “Live by the Water,” and a sea shanty entitled “Words to Sing,” in which they confess, “I can’t remember where we came from / And I can’t fathom turning back / I’m so tired of all this rocking / And I have trouble reading maps.” (Written two years before Napster introduced the world to illegal MP3 file-sharing, the song’s most prescient lines are “We’ve been away too long / The pirates stole our songs.”) Keith Gendel sings lead on “Weight,” which also expresses anxiety over commitments far from home (“I just can’t wait to be free / This big old weight hanging over me”), and “Small Rooms,” a track that both celebrates the then-fresh phenomenon of Internet chat rooms and anticipates the brave new isolated world of “social” media and digital everything: “Children of the Revolution / Yeah I know your world is dying / Kids today don’t like it anyway / Shaking to a new solution.”

But in case you’re starting to wonder where all the good times have gone, Helioself isn’t some laundry list of insecurities and travel complaints. For one thing, the aforementioned tracks generally hide their true feelings under bright melodies in order to avoid becoming a buzzkill. For another, Helioself sidesteps a potential sophomore slump by adding irresistible nods to the 1960s Motown sound — the Supremes homage “Sing About Me,” featuring a giddy lead vocal by Asthana — and ’70s Memphis R&B — the heavy-hearted Al Green-style ballad “Just to See You” — while the group’s occasional interlocking vocals show off Goddess’s avowed appreciation for Sly & the Family Stone. Plus, the nonsensical “Hey Hey You Say” answers the nagging question “What if Britt Daniel from Spoon and Big Bird from Sesame Street had a baby?” and Asthana shines yet again on “Say Goodbye,” providing a less-is-more approach to her lead vocals that makes you wish she could give mandatory tutorials to every single melismatic American Idol hopeful (New Musical Express‘s Jim Alexander once wrote that she sounds like “Juliana Hatfield’s funnier, cuter little sister”).

Helioself continues Papas Fritas’s winning streak and is much more of a group effort than their debut, but they seem a tad uncomfortable with the idea of building upon a proven formula instead of entering uncharted waters: on the album’s closing track, “Starting to Be It,” they acknowledge that “We’re not there yet” after Goddess states he’s “Losing my hearing from listening to last year / Scanning the dial for someone to stay here.” No longer college kids, Papas Fritas are left contemplating the next step in the evolution of their sound and their partnership.

BUILDINGS AND GROUNDS (2000)
[Amazon / iTunes]

The band spent the bulk of ’97 on the road promoting Helioself, but upon returning home to Massachusetts they learned that they owed a boatload of back taxes to the IRS, forcing each member to return to the working world until their debts were paid off. This led to a three-year gap between albums, but it also gave the band plenty of time to question whether or not they wanted to pursue music as a full-time career. Inevitably, their individual and collective quarter-life crises found their way into LP number three, Buildings and Grounds.

“I remember thinking that our music is not for people at one in the morning,” Goddess recently told The Boston Phoenix. “We should be playing at malls or teen centers.” Be that as it may, Buildings and Grounds sees Papas Fritas switching to decaf for the most part while stretching songs comfortably past the general three-minutes-or-less limit they established on their first two albums. In fact the combined influences of French lounge pop (Serge Gainsbourg and Jane Birkin, Françoise Hardy) and R&B-inflected American soft rock of the ’70s and ’80s (Fleetwood Mac, Boz Scaggs, even a hint or two of Steve Perry’s “Foolish Heart”), a genre the French band Phoenix were also effectively mining in 2000 on their first album, United, are used to create a seductive mid-album suite of songs — “Far From an Answer,” “I Believe in Fate,” and “It’s Over Now” — that, with all due respect to Mr. Goddess, can be played quite comfortably at one or even one-thirty.

If you’re a masochist, “Way You Walk” can be played even later in the evening once any lingering feelings of jealousy and obsession have settled in for the night. Perhaps the most lyrically direct song in Papas Fritas’s catalog, it’s also one of the band’s all-time greats, a tense, wickedly groovy number that plays out as a confrontation between a paranoid boyfriend (“He was in my dreams / What else could it mean”) and an ambiguously calm yet direct girlfriend (“If I go I won’t be lonely, if I stay now you don’t own me”). Partly inspired by Dr. Dre’s beats, according to Goddess, “Way You Walk” also has a decidedly European swagger, so it’s no surprise that Soft Cell’s Marc Almond and French singer So recorded a cover in 2006, and it’s easy to imagine Ivy, the dream-pop trio that features French singer Dominique Durand on lead vocals, putting their own stamp on it in concert (in 2002 they recorded “Say Goodbye” for their covers album, Guestroom).

Buildings and Grounds is more of a grower than either Papas Fritas or Helioself, but it also has the most cohesive overall sound — or structure, if you will, with a nod to the title — of the band’s three albums. Asthana in particular emerges as a force to be reckoned with behind the mike on tracks like “Far From an Answer” and “It’s Over Now,” even if her voice strains a bit on the high end on “Beside You” and “I’ll Be Gone.” By the end of the ’90s Papas Fritas were no longer content to simply indulge their natural talent for pop hooks, but Buildings and Grounds still has enough “bouncers” to appease the old fans: “Vertical Lives” marks Gendel’s high point as a songwriter, and Goddess contributes “What Am I Supposed to Do?” and “Questions,” which asks, tellingly, “What can you do when it feels like no one listens? / Where can you turn when you’re turning on yourself?”

In the liner notes of Pop Has Freed Us (see below) Jay Ruttenberg writes, “Many numbers seemed to mourn a fading adolescence or romance. Appropriately, both notions could apply to a vanishing band.” Sure enough, after completing the promotional tour for Buildings and Grounds Papas Fritas quietly closed up shop.

POP HAS FREED US (2003)
[Amazon / iTunes]

Following the band’s amicable breakup, Asthana enrolled in Boston University to earn a master’s degree in public health, while Gendel, following in his father’s footsteps, headed west to study at the Southern California Institute of Architecture. Goddess, however, continued to make music, cowriting “Amsterdam” in 2003 for Guster, whose founding members, like those of Papas Fritas, attended Tufts University; collaborating with Bleu on two tracks for Alpacas Orgling (2006), an album from the Boston power-pop singer’s side project, L.E.O.; contributing a song to the popular Nickelodeon show Yo Gabba Gabba!; and producing and playing in Boston bands such as the Rudds, the Silver Lining, and Jenny Dee & the Deelinquents.

A few months after “Way You Walk” was licensed for a Dentyne Ice commercial, Minty Fresh (apropos, n’est-ce pas?) released a Papas Fritas compilation that put the song in the lead-off spot, the better to capitalize on its newfound status as a prospective earworm. The chewing-gum royalties helped Asthana and Gendel pay off their financial-aid loans and ensured that Goddess wouldn’t have to work any more nine-to-fives.

Pop Has Freed Us contains eight tracks from the band’s studio albums, but the majority of its cuts are rarities — hence its inclusion in this guide — including covers of Tom Verlaine’s “Flash Lightning” and Fleetwood Mac’s “Book of Love,” the Big Star-esque “Love Just Don’t Quit,” and “Do the Move” and “Let’s Go Down to the Town Oasis,” outtakes from Buildings and Grounds that lesser bands would’ve killed to have as lead singles. It all adds up to a “best of” that’s well worth the price.

On a personal note, it’s the first Papas Fritas CD I ever bought, though I’d already been clued in to the greatness of “Way You Walk” after hearing it on the University of Georgia’s student-run radio station in the spring of ’03 while driving past Athens. There was no way I was going to turn the dial or let the signal fade until the DJ announced who sang that song. The following week I moved to Chicago, where I met a girl, fell for said girl, leaned a little too hard on girl as my primary source of friendship, and then was slowly rejected by girl over the course of the summer. The songs on Pop Has Freed Us became a soundtrack for my exaggerated pain, but they also helped me to stand upright once again. “Why wait for rain when the sun’s in the sky?” the band asks in “Let’s Go Down to the Town Oasis.” Why indeed.

In “Explain,” the penultimate track on Papas Fritas’s first album, they sing, “I know, it’s only rock and roll.” But at the right moment a song can mean the entire world to a listener, a comforting voice that whispers, reassuringly, “You’re not alone.” At that moment the song stops being “only rock and roll,” a disposable piece of entertainment. “We’re trying to, as completely as we can, define a picture for the listener,” Goddess told Tucson Weekly in 1997. “But it’s supposed to sound so natural that you don’t even think about it. It just feels right when you hear it, so you say, ‘I’ve heard this before, I understand it instantly.’” After hearing Pop Has Freed Us, I felt I understood, if only slightly, the people who made it, three friends whose love of ear candy that isn’t “good for you” led them to create their own and share it with whomever wanted to listen. It’s good to have them back.

POPDOSE HAS FREED THESE DOWNLOADS …
(The pirates will allow you to steal the following Papas Fritas songs for one week only.)

Lame to Be (from Papas Fritas)
Just to See You (from Helioself)
Far From an Answer (from Buildings and Grounds)
Do the Move (from Pop Has Freed Us)

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