Record Reviews
📝 2096 reviews| Artist | Title | Review |
|---|---|---|
| Pearl Jam | Rearviewmirror | <p>Joe Strummer once claimed that the Clash had stardom in their hands, then they dropped it on the floor and broke it. Pearl Jam took the opposite tact: they purposely left stardom behind. Nirvana may have ushered in the age of grunge and alternative rock, but Pearl Jam were the biggest band in the land during the first half of the '90s, dominating radio airwaves, MTV, and college dorms alike. Most bands would have embraced such widespread acclaim, but the quintet bristled at this vein, and started to restlessly explore new musical territory, a move that eventually whittled their fan base down to just the hardcore by the beginning of the next decade. That hardcore following was still large, and the band could still have the occasional surprising crossover hit, like the 1999 cover of J. Frank Wilson's teen tragedy classic "Last Kiss" that went to number two on the Billboard charts, but they were no longer the biggest band in the land.</p><p>Spanning two discs, <i>Rearviewmirror</i> (Greatest Hits 1991-2003) chronicles that journey and it does an expert job not only of capturing the moment when Pearl Jam were monstrously popular, but proving that they still turned out good music even when they were fading from the spotlight. Unlike most career-spanning, multi-disc retrospectives, <i>Rearviewmirror</i> does not emphasize latter-day albums in order to achieve a sense of balance that's inherently phony. Of the 33 tracks, only 12 date from the post-<i>Vitalogy</i> era, which means that the bulk of the collection concentrates on their early-'90s heyday, and nearly every radio hit and concert staple is here, outside of the Victoria Williams cover "Crazy Mary" and "Tremor Christ." While their presence would have been nice, they're not terribly missed, partially because such non-LP cuts like "State of Love and Trust," "I Got ID," "Last Kiss," and "Man of the Hour" are collected here, but mainly because the compilation plays so well.</p><p>The songs are divided into the "Up Side" and "Down Side," meaning the first disc has all the rockers and the second disc has all the ballads. At first, this seems like a questionable strategy, since it's usually preferable to have all the hits follow in chronological order, but what makes this work is that the songs on each disc are presented in chronological order, and they sustain their mood quite well (this is partially helped by Brendan O'Brien's new mixes of "Once," "Alive," and "Black," which retain the feeling of the original songs but remove much of the dated glossy sheen in the production). Distilled to their hits and anthems, all of Pearl Jam's best qualities shine through and they sound bigger, better, and frankly more coherent than they do on their full-length albums. And that's why <i>Rearviewmirror</i> is a cut above most '90s hits collections: it not only gives casual fans all the hits, but it captures why the band mattered, while providing a better listen than their proper LPs in the process.</p><p>— <strong>Stephen Thomas Erlewine</strong></p><p>As many others have done this year, the other night I went to see the Pixies' reunion tour. Next week, the Nirvana box set is finally released, as is a new two-disc expanded version of Nine Inch Nails' The Downward Spiral; Low's upcoming Sub Pop record kicks off with a track whose rhythm section and vocal melody sound like a miniature version of Alice in Chains; Q magazine named The Red Hot Chili Peppers the Best Act in the World Today at its 2004 awards show; TV commercials for Green Day's American Idiot reminds us that 10 years ago they released Dookie; and now Pearl Jam are lionized with the two-disc, 33-track, best-of album, Rearviewmirror. I'd be frightened that we're about to undergo a full-blown 90s alternarock revival—an era depressingly and backhandedly praised as much for what it was not (e.g. the hair metal that it "kicked out," or the nu-metal that some of it slowly morphed into) than the music it produced. But then, it never went away, did it?</p><p>In recent years, Billy Corgan's Zwan, a reunited Jane's Addiction, the Scott Weiland-fronted Velvet Revolver, and the Chris Cornell/Rage Against the Machine mashup Audioslave have released records to varying degrees of commercial success. Prior to that, the nascent sounds of grunge remained among the dominant North American hard rock templates throughout the 90s and into this decade, living on in a lineage that extended from its Seattle roots through Bush and Candlebox to Creed and Nickleback.</p><p>Oddly, Pearl Jam have remained a constant since the days when 120 Minutes graduated to Alternative Nation, transitioning from stadium fillers to one of American rock's largest and most beloved cult bands, a Grateful Dead for the great washed. After deftly turning their backs on fame just as much of the public seemed poised to turn on them, Pearl Jam cultivated the unwavering support of a cabal of devotees who followed the band across a string of studio albums that casual observers have likely forgotten—No Code, Yield, Binaural, and Riot Act—and the almost comical release of every live show from their 2000 tour, a move that, depending on your level of cynicism, was either a thank you or an unintentional fuck you to their lemmingesque fanbase. Musically, Pearl Jam slightly spiced up their sound over the course of a decade, adding a few Eastern-tinged delicacies and some garage-rock snackfood to their typical meat-and-potatoes diet. By the time Creed became a permanent fixture on late-90s rock radio, the Florida band sounded as much like Pearl Jam as, well, Pearl Jam themselves.</p><p>Rearviewmirror divides the band's career into an "up side" and a "down side"—the former are the earnest rockers, the latter are the earnest ballads—although the monikers would also have been appropriate had they arranged the record chronologically. The "down side" to Pearl Jam's career allowed many people to romanticize the group's shift away from the spotlight as one purely of choice, and the band has since been characterized by honesty, good intentions, and yeoman's work, the sort of qualities that often make for turgid, sometimes rote, faceless music.</p><p>In truth, Pearl Jam were always planted squarely in the middle of the road. While Nirvana was characterized by punk's sound as much as its ethos, Soundgarden had one foot in contemporary metal, Smashing Pumpkins mixed 80s goth and new wave in with their glam, and Green Day, NIN, and the RHCP were clearly creatures of the post-punk era, Pearl Jam was always a classic rock band, the one alt-nation superstar that completely ignored both punk and its aftermath. Pearl Jam were all solos and riffs and lighters-aloft, arena-rock sentiment; like so many 60s rockers, they looked to the Asian sub-continent for their first flirtations with "growth" and "maturity"; they even cuddled up to the "right" rock 'n' roll architects (Pete Townshend, Bob Dylan, Neil Young). To claim Pearl Jam as the greatest rock band of our time—as many listeners and critics do—is virtually a negation of the past 30 years of guitar-based music, a relieved sigh that the values of the 70s aren't completely lost.</p><p>And... that works for a lot of people. Pearl Jam struck chords within listeners like few of their contemporaries. Those diehards probably looked at the Rearviewmirror tracklist and chuckled, wondering why it didn't include this rarity or that B-side (it does have a few key ones, e.g. "Yellow Ledbetter") or a handful of what the album rock stations used to call "deep cuts." This comp isn't for them, though; it's for the rest of us, and a lot of listeners will likely glance at it, wonder where the hell "Crazy Mary" is, and consider it a handy career-spanner—all the Pearl Jam they'll ever need. If they buy it, those listeners will likely be surprised that—despite some non-descript titles ("Corduroy", "Go", "Immortality", the title track)—they remember most of these tracks, and despite slipping well below the radar, the band has, in many ways, improved over the years.</p><p>The record seemingly begins the same way as their debut, Ten, but this version of "Once" (like "Alive" and "Black") has been slightly re-mixed by Brendan O'Brien. Hardly radical and barely noticeable, the new versions buff the shine from the originals, actually improving three of the band's better, more melodic early tracks. On the album's first disc, the band's years of popularity—through third album Vitalogy—are only highlighted by the Singles track "State of Love and Trust" and the forceful "Not For You".</p><p>A lot of the other big guns are better left unremembered: The five-against-one mutterings of "Animal"; "Evenflow", "Rearviewmirror", and "Go" plod along, monuments to the appropriateness of the tag "grunge"; "Spin the Black Circle" is their first step toward the clumsy romanticism of bygone days; and "Jeremy" remains as painful as ever. Perhaps that last track is only truly powerful when coupled with images of Vedder's emotive pantomimes, hard-scrawled title cards that say things like "the serpent was subtil [sic]" and "90210", or a shirtless boy both wrapped in the American flag and standing in front of a wall of flames and crouching in the woods in front of an overblown photo of a teeth-baring fox...</p><p>On the up side, the garage-esque "Do the Evolution" is either over-the-top fun or completely ridiculous, depending on whether or not you believe Pearl Jam actually possess a sense of humor (in this case, I think it's the former), and "I Got Shit" (formerly "I Got ID"), "Save You", and "Hail, Hail" have a few more shades than the gray of the band's grunge era.</p><p>On the way down, things are also scattered. Like they do on the early rockers, Vedder's vocal diversions, tics, and lack of enunciation occasionally move from exaggerated emoting into self-parody (see, in particular, "Given to Fly"). His voice is still the band's hallmark sound—a mealy-mouthed, gravely style that influenced a decade of really, really shitty music—and it's still fun to impersonate; unfortunately, on pain-wracked attempts to convey more universal emotions (the glib "Elderly Woman Behind a Counter in a Small Town", the lyrical disaster "Wishlist", "Better Man", the awkward cover of "Last Kiss"), it's not very fun to listen to.</p><p>Even when Eddie's opening his mouth, the tunes are often excruciatingly drab dirges—"Immortality" and "Nothingman" are the biggest offenders. (Yet ironically, the most overtly dirge-like track—the almost mantra-esque, Eastern-tinged "Who You Are"—is one of the set's most effective.) Elsewhere, the patient "Off He Goes", "Nothing As It Seems", and "Man of the Hour" and the solipsistic "I Am Mine" all carry a more weathered, wise sense of self, and these tracks greatly upstage the more youthful and clumsy neo-emoisms of the band's better known songs—in particular its ballads.</p><p>In some ways, it makes sense that Pearl Jam are improving as they slip further from the gaze of contemporary listeners and into the neolithic caves of mid-70s classic rock. For all the harm it unwittingly did to rock radio—and for as comical as it can be in its most unchecked moments—Vedder's voice is powerful and can even be captivating. The more considered and time-tested tones it now carries fit the band's more subtle shading.</p><p>In full ham-fisted stadium rock mode, Pearl Jam now oddly seem miles away from Nirvana, still the best of their one-time Seattle contemporaries. Instead, they're not-so-distant cousins to the denim brigade, the faceless 70s arena rockers who dutifully punched time clocks and produced no-nonsense, sometimes hook-filled rock. Today, Pearl Jam seems bruised, ever so slightly more adventurous, and, thanks to the devotion of their fans, they're afforded the chance to dress up as rock iconoclasts rather than take a slide toward VH1-ready adult contemporary balladry. It's like punk never happened.</p><p>— <strong>Scott Plagenhoef, Pitchfork</strong></p> |
| Pearl Jam | Pearl Jam 2006 | <p>Nearly 15 years after Ten, Pearl Jam finally returned to the strengths of their debut with 2006's Pearl Jam, a sharply focused set of impassioned hard rock. Gone are the arty detours (some call them affectations) that alternately cluttered and enhanced their albums from 1993's sophomore effort, Vs., all the way to 2002's Riot Act, and what's left behind is nothing but the basics: muscular, mildly meandering rock & roll, enlivened by Eddie Vedder's bracing sincerity. Pearl Jam has never sounded as hard or direct as they do here — even on Ten there was an elasticity to the music, due in large part to Jeff Ament's winding fretless bass, that kept the record from sounding like a direct hit to the gut, which Pearl Jam certainly does. Nowhere does it sound more forceful than it does in its first half, when the tightly controlled rockers "Life Wasted," "World Wide Suicide," "Comatose," "Severed Hand," and "Marker in the Sand" pile up on top of each other, giving the record a genuine feeling of urgency. That insistent quality and sense of purpose doesn't let up even as they slide into the quite beautiful, lightly psychedelic acoustic pop of "Parachutes," which is when the album begins to open up slightly. If the second half of the record does have a greater variety of tempos than the first, it's still heavy on rockers, ranging from the ironic easy swagger of "Unemployable" to the furious "Big Wave," which helps set the stage for the twin closers of "Come Back" and "Inside Job." The former is a slow-burning cousin to "Black" that finds Pearl Jam seamlessly incorporating soul into their sound, while the latter is a deliberately escalating epic that gracefully closes the album on a hopeful note — and coming after an album filled with righteous anger and frustration, it is indeed welcome. But Pearl Jam's anger on this eponymous album is not only largely invigorating, it is the opposite of the tortured introspection of their first records. Here, Vedder turns his attention to the world at large, and while he certainly rages against the state of W's union in 2006, he's hardly myopic or strident; he's alternately evocative and specific, giving this album a resonance that has been lacking in most protest rock of the 2000s. But what makes Pearl Jam such an effective record is that it can be easily enjoyed as sheer music without ever digging into Vedder's lyrics. Song for song, this is their best set since Vitalogy, and the band has never sounded so purposeful on record as they do here, nor have they ever delivered a record as consistent as this. And the thing that makes the record work exceptionally well is that Pearl Jam has embraced everything they do well, whether it's their classicist hard rock or heart-on-sleeve humanitarianism. In doing so, they seem kind of old fashioned, reaffirming that they are now thoroughly outside of the mainstream — spending well over a decade galloping away from any trace of popularity will inevitably make you an outsider — but on their own terms, Pearl Jam hasn't sounded as alive or engaging as they do here since at least Vitalogy, if not longer.</p><p>— <strong>Stephen Thomas Erlewine</strong></p><hr/><p>No, really—this album is the return to form that Pearl Jam fans have been waiting for since Ten. Or Vs.. Or Vitalogy. Or whichever album was the last on which Pearl Jam were a fully accredited rock band. This eponymous effort—the group's eighth studio full-length, and first for J Records—is the most consistent effort the group's released since its second album. No pump organ-flecked spoken-word jags about insects, no meandering Eastern-tinged meditations on life, no songs about Jeff Ament's dog. Just 13 tracks of thoughtful, middle-aged, post-grunge rock'n'roll for the thoughtful, middle-aged, post-grunge fellow in all of us.</p><p>But it gets pretty boring pretty damn quick. Think what you will of the group, but there's no denying their growth. Despite having the wide eyes of Alternative Nation turned toward them—selling 17 million copies of their first two records—Pearl Jam decided to take the road less traveled, and that seemed to make all the difference in maintaining the band's creative viability. Of course, this choice is where they broke with the lion's share of their fan base—millions who bought into Pearl Jam's original MO weren't willing to put up with creative wanderlust.</p><p>On Pearl Jam, that's what you get from start to finish (barring one accordion cameo in the minute long reprise of "Life Wasted"). While there's no shirt-rending Jesus Christ poses to be had here, this is as close to the righteous bombast of their heyday as they're likely to ever get again, for better or worse. One thing that has returned, unfortunately: An emphasis on Eddie Vedder's voice, an acquired taste's acquired taste. That his mushmouthed mewling and moaning became the template for a slew of copycat chest-thumpers is the stuff that keeps vocal coaches up at night.</p><p>The "weird" Pearl Jam albums found Vedder's singing improving ever so slightly, to the point that he was actually singing without any odd affectations—the uh-huhs, the oooh-yeahs, the arghs. On this album, though, he's back to the multi-line mulching, growling for all he's worth through its more aggressive tracks. He often sounds best on the low-tempo songs, where the mood better complements his voice's strength—Eddie's a crooner, not a wailer. But here, he even wails through the slower songs, killing "Parachutes" with his over-emoting and vamping unsuccessfully over the bluesy saunter of "Come Back".</p><p>Granted, Pearl Jam haven't lost the perspective they've gained through age—good luck trying to get their young selves to pen a Springsteenian working-class portrait like "Unemployable". Instead of trying to rage against the machine, they're appealing to its intellectual nature. Unfortunately, this nuance is steamrolled by the group's need for fan-friendly riffage. After years of trying to live up to one of their early statements—"there ain't gonna be any middle anymore"—it's disappointing to find them steering the ship back toward the center.</p><p>— <strong>David Raposa, Pitchfork</strong></p> |
| Pearl Jam | Imagine In Cornice | |
| Pearl Jam | Backspacer | <p>Pearl Jam made peace with their hard rock past on their eponymous eighth album, but its 2009 sequel, Backspacer, is where the group really gets back to basics, bringing in old cohort Brendan O'Brien to produce for the first time since 1998's Yield. To a certain extent, the band has reached the point in its career where every move, every cranked amp, every short tough song is heralded as a return to form -- call it the Stones syndrome -- and so it is with Backspacer, whose meaty riffs have no less vigor than those of Pearl Jam; they're just channeled into a brighter, cheerier package. Despite this lighter spirit, Pearl Jam remain the antithesis of lighthearted good-time rock & roll -- they're convinced rock & roll is a calling, not a diversion -- but there's a tonal shift from the clenched anger that's marked their music of the new millennium, a transition from the global toward the personal. Ironically, by looking within the music opens up, as the group isn't fighting against the dying light but embracing how this most classicist of alt-rock bands is an anachronism in 2009. Of course, Pearl Jam were an anachronism even back in 1992, worshiping the Who instead of the Stooges, but this odd out-of-phase devotion to the ideals of post-hippie, pre-punk rock is better suited to bandmembers in their forties than in their twenties; fashion has passed them by several times over, leaving Pearl Jam just to be who they are, comfortable in their weathering skin. Pearl Jam battled their success for so long, intent on whittling their audience down to the devout, that it often felt like a chore to keep pace with the band because no matter the merit of the records, they always felt like heavy lifting, but that's no longer the case: here, as on the self-titled 2006 album, it sounds as if they enjoy being in a band, intoxicated by the noise they make. This means, all things considered, Backspacer is a party record for Pearl Jam -- a party that might consist of nothing but philosophical debates till the wee hours, but a party nonetheless -- and if 18 years is a long, long wait for a band to finally throw a party, it's also true that, prior to Backspacer, Pearl Jam wouldn't or couldn't have made music this unfettered, unapologetically assured, casual, and, yes, fun. [A Deluxe Edition was also released.]</p><p>— <strong>Stephen Thomas Erlewine</strong></p><hr/><p>If you're between the ages of, say, 25 and 35, chances are you either significantly overrate or underrate Pearl Jam. Either you carry a certain nostalgist's sentiment for one of your early rock touchstones (I fall into this camp), or you view them as the root of all that was overwrought and evil about mid-to-late-90s guitar music. Sure, everyone knows PJ sold eleven trillion albums between 1991 and '94, but still I imagine it's difficult for relative young'uns to reconcile how strong an opinion so many people in a specific demographic have about a group that hasn't been commercially or critically relevant for over a decade.</p><p>Backspacer, the group's ninth studio album, seems to suggest in its tossed-off 37 minutes that Pearl Jam have no greater concern and regard for what they do than the rest of the world can muster. Virtually the whole record settles into the same formula the band's been dutifully churning out since the dawn of the millennium—lively but almost utterly hookless riff-driven hard rock. Lather, rinse, repeat. And when I say "riff-driven" I really mean "almost entirely riff-dependent," because musically the riffs themselves are typically the only things worth your attention.</p><p>PJ's long-dormant punk and hardcore proclivities (ugh, "Lukin") have been rising to the surface with greater regularity in recent years, and I'll admit in short bursts this bulldozing approach can be somewhat satisfying. The opening four songs kick-start and then keep up a certain pleasing level of propulsiveness, with the goofily fast-and-loose "Gonna See My Friend" (hey, is that an actual bassline I hear?) and Thin Lizzy-ish double entendres of "Johnny Guitar" being particularly listenable. Sooner or later, however, you remember these guys wouldn't know a melody if it bit them in the ass. What's worse, this chugging blitzkrieg negates the power of the band's greatest weapon, Eddie Vedder's voice, which can display its craggy richness and masculine grace only when the band isn't trying to break land-speed records. (I know some folks hate Ed's singing, but it mostly seems like they're reacting to the fact that his voice launched a thousand Nickelbacks, which is like hating "The Simpsons" because of "Family Guy" or "American Dad".)</p><p>The gentle "Just Breathe" might seem like the perfect opportunity for Vedder to finally dust off those resonant pipes, but instead he sings the tune with a distractingly country-ish catch in his voice, plus the tune is numbingly syrupy and the lyrics, after a promisingly pointed start ("I'm a lucky man to count on both hands the ones I love") devolve into tedium. The same hit-or-miss sensitivity marks "The End"—Vedder inexplicably finds it necessary to remind us he's "just a human being" on one song and "just another human being" on the other—but at least "The End" manages to land on the right side of affecting thanks to its painfully honest depiction of romantic dissolution ("This is not me/ You see/ Believe/ I'm better than this/ Don't leave"). Still, we have to rely on "Amongst the Waves" to deliver anything remotely resembling the soaring anthemics that used to be a PJ trademark (what I wouldn't give for a "Light Years" even). The back half of the album sure isn't inclined to help, largely abandoning even the modest steamrolling enjoyment of the record's initial jolt in favor of thoroughly forgettable mid-tempo dreck, save for "Supersonic", which nonetheless sounds like a band trying to be the Ramones minus the fun.</p><p>It's an extremely odd thing to say about a band that for three or four years was the biggest rock megalith on the planet, but nowadays Pearl Jam are the very definition of anonymously workmanlike, seemingly plugging along with their heads down from one colorlessly unimaginative album to the next. Once upon a time this was a group that was on top of the world and yet still took all kinds of bizarre chances, recording shit like lengthy tape experiments and songs about bugs—often ridiculously self-indulgent, sure, yet always surprising. Now, paradoxically, with the spotlights long since extinguished, Pearl Jam seem content to do things by the book.</p><p>— <strong>Joshua Love, Pitchfork</strong></p> |
| Bob & Carol Pegg | He Came From The Mountains | |
| Murray Perahia | Golberg Variations | <DIV align=left><B>THE GOLDBERG VARIATIONS AND MURRAY PERAHIA<BR></B><BR>Bach described the Goldberg Variations, his seemingly innocent tune followed by thirty variations, merely as a keyboard "practice-piece," composed for his talented protégé Johann Gottlieb Goldberg to play on the harpsichord. But this scholarly exercise demands the kind of virtuoso skills to strike fear in the heart of any keyboard performer. Dexterity, speed, lightness of touch, dazzling independent fingerwork and, ultimately, deeply felt musicianship are essential ingredients of a reading. In addition, the passion and drama in Bach's music must be readily tangible.<BR><BR>The Goldberg Variations remained for many years a greatly admired but often avoided masterpiece. Over-respectful scholarship and careful musicianship had made it into one of those Great Works that few players were anxious to perform in public and only dedicated listeners really wanted to hear. Then, in 1955, an interpretation by the then-virtually-unknown pianist Glenn Gould forced musicians and listeners, fans and critics alike, to reassess Bach's monumental achievement. And now, nearly half a century later, Murray Perahia, unquestionably one of the greatest pianists of his generation, gives his own reading of this cornerstone work.<BR><BR>As the producer of some of Murray Perahia's early recordings, more than twenty years ago, it is hard to describe how heartwarming it is to hear the joy, pathos, audacity, drama, triumph, thoughtful reflection, and breathtaking virtuosity he brings to his deeply musical interpretation of this great work, helping to remind us why music is the most moving of all the arts.<BR><BR><B>Paul Myers</B> <BR><BR><B><BR>SOME THOUGHTS ON THE GOLDBERG VARIATIONS</B></DIV><BR>Playing the wonderfully varied, colorful and emotionally differentiated pieces that make up the Goldberg Variations is one of the most challenging experiences a pianist can face. Through all the joys or disappointments, the enthusiasms or frustrations that one goes through in learning the music, an overriding question always presents itself: How does so much invention, so much fantasy and imagination come from such a simple-seeming 32-bar aria based on a "Fundamental Bass"? After all, what is this Fundamental Bass, as Bach called it, but a series of chords, and not very complicated ones at that? Part of this question can never be answered because in a way it would be like defining genius, and what's more, a particular genius, Bach. Part of it, though, every pianist must answer for himself or herself, and this is my attempt to explain some of the things that were important to me.<BR><BR>First, I think, one must take a closer look at the chords of the "Fundamental Bass" because the inspiration for the entire piece is found in the accumulation and release of tension by the harmonies of these very chords. And certainly harmony was of crucial importance to Bach. In 1737, after Johann Adolph Scheibe had written a criticism of Bach's vocal music, claiming the compositions were deprived of their "natural element by a turgid and confused style," Bach circulated a reply written by his friend Johann Abraham Birnbaum, defending the complexity of many voices when they serve to bolster or clarify the harmony. As Birnbaum wrote: "Music consists of harmony, and harmony becomes far more complete if all the voices collaborate to form it." Seen from this point of view, these chords are the result of all the voices participating in and unfolding their tensions.<BR><BR>Below is a reduction showing the harmonic plan of the entire Aria (figure 1).<BR><BR><CENTER><IMG height=135 alt="figure 1" src="http://www.sonyclassical.com/music/89243/gfx/notes-1.gif" width=475 border=0></CENTER><BR><BR>Though, quite naturally, the bass line leads and directs the general movement of the Aria, the top voice, or soprano, as the most exposed member, is an important contributor and not just incidental. The movement of the bass from G to D is answered by the soprano, traversing a fifth from d to g, a process delayed for a considerable time by its going to its own neighboring or auxiliary tone e2. The tension caused by these different forces creates the harmonies that we hear.<BR><BR>The structural chords of the Fundamental Bass are delineated in greater detail below (figure 2), with the numbers under the bass notes suggesting the movement of the other voices.<BR><BR><CENTER><IMG height=299 alt="figure 2" src="http://www.sonyclassical.com/music/89243/gfx/notes-2.gif" width=515 border=0></CENTER><BR><BR>As can be seen, the first 8 bars only define the tonic key (G Major), but in the next eight bars the music explores what seems to be the key of the dominant (D Major). After the double bar, the tension is driven a step further (quite literally, a step above D to E Minor). Here three voices take the place of the usual four, and the effect is more sorrowful than anything experienced thus far in the Aria. Finally, and most touching of all, in the last eight bars, the harmony returns to the tonic.<BR><BR><IMG height=57 alt="figure 3" hspace=12 src="http://www.sonyclassical.com/music/89243/gfx/notes-3.gif" width=151 align=right vspace=4 border=0>Through the activity of the top voice in measures 25 to 27 (figure 3), we can see how the melody moves from e2 down to d2 and on to c2. At that point, measure 23, the motion is speeded up (everything is in semi-quavers to the very end), and the melody rises ever upward, delaying yet again its need to descend to g1 and transfiguring its return to the tonic. In a kind of extra-musical analysis, it is as if the melody were reaching for heaven before coming to rest on earth.<BR><BR>One reason I have dealt at length with the Aria is because it serves as the structural blueprint for the entire Goldberg Variations. Not only does the foregoing plan hold true for each of the Variations, despite their complex counterpoint and intricate canons, but the movement of the Aria is reflected in the progression of all the 32 pieces that make up the Goldberg Variations -- from the Aria through its 30 variations to its restatement.<BR><BR>Much has been made in the past of the importance of the number 3 in the Variations (for instance, a canon occurs every three variations). While that is true, I feel that the number 8 is more significant in terms of the dramatic contents. Thus, the division of the Aria into 8-bar sections with an overall caesura at the double-bar (after measure sixteen) is reflected in the structure of the whole piece. Counting the Aria as number one, the first break occurs after the eighth piece played, Variation 7, which is marked "tempo di giga" (Bach's own designation in the Handexemplar), a dance that always ends suites. The equivalent medial break in the Aria at measure 16 is mirrored in the Variations by a medial break after Variation 15, the sixteenth piece played. Indeed, Variation 16 signals a new beginning with a French Ouverture and accompanying fughetta.<BR><BR>When we reach Variation 24, a calming, pastoral canon at the octave, it is as if the piece were entering its final phase. After all, we should not be expecting more canons since intervals after the octave will be the same (i.e., the ninth equals the second, the tenth equals the third, and so on). Still, Bach surprises us with more canonic pieces -- the canon at the ninth and the Quodlibet -- but they will be part of the larger drama that ensues. Variation 24 along with Variation 25 are like the 25th and 26th measures of the Aria, the turning point. Indeed, with Variation 25, the temperature changes completely. The semitoned intensity of this darkly chromatic piece, the minor key, the desperate and anguished mood-- all these help to create what seems to be a programmatic depiction of the Crucifixion or, at the very least, of the deathly atmosphere it evokes.<BR><BR>After this and until the Quodlibet, all the pieces seem to have a headlong drive, much like the motion in semiquavers we noticed at the equivalent point in the Aria. The programmatic analysis here would be of the Resurrection: Variation 26, ascends like a soul in flight; Variation 27, an unaccompanied canon on the ninth, caught up in this same movement, is like two voices talking animatedly, perhaps even in mocking tones; Variation 28, with its very high register and shimmering trills is all transcendence; Variation 29 brings these trills back down to earth and to glory.<BR><BR>Finally, in Variation 30, the Quodlibet, with its earthy folk songs and animated rustic feel, comes the climax, and the accumulated motion of these last variations is at last released. The Quodlibet is a climax in many ways, in that while not a strict canon itself, it sums up the idea of canonic imitation in the most compositionally virtuosic manner. The Variations come to their final resolution with the restatement of the Aria. These noble, radiant lines bring the music to rest. Indeed its simplicity belies the complexity in this most moving of musical apotheoses.<BR><BR><B>Murray Perahia</B> |
| Wayne Perkins | Mendo Hotel | |
| Tom Petty | Long After Dark | |
| Courtney Pine | The Vision's Tale | |
| Pink Floyd | The Wall | <p>The Wall was Roger Waters' crowning accomplishment in Pink Floyd. It documented the rise and fall of a rock star (named Pink Floyd), based on Waters' own experiences and the tendencies he'd observed in people around him. By then, the bassist had firm control of the group's direction, working mostly alongside David Gilmour and bringing in producer Bob Ezrin as an outside collaborator. Drummer Nick Mason was barely involved, while keyboardist Rick Wright seemed to be completely out of the picture. Still, The Wall was a mighty, sprawling affair, featuring 26 songs with vocals: nearly as many as all previous Floyd albums combined. The story revolves around the fictional Pink Floyd's isolation behind a psychological wall. The wall grows as various parts of his life spin out of control, and he grows incapable of dealing with his neuroses. The album opens by welcoming the unwitting listener to Floyd's show ("In the Flesh?"), then turns back to childhood memories of his father's death in World War II ("Another Brick in the Wall, Pt. 1"), his mother's over protectiveness ("Mother"), and his fascination with and fear of sex ("Young Lust"). By the time "Goodbye Cruel World" closes the first disc, the wall is built and Pink is trapped in the midst of a mental breakdown. On disc two, the gentle acoustic phrasings of "Is There Anybody Out There?" and the lilting orchestrations of "Nobody Home" reinforce Floyd's feeling of isolation. When his record company uses drugs to coax him to perform ("Comfortably Numb"), his onstage persona is transformed into a homophobic, race-baiting fascist ("In the Flesh"). In "The Trial," he mentally prosecutes himself, and the wall comes tumbling down. This ambitious concept album was an across-the-board smash, topping the Billboard album chart for 15 weeks in 1980. The single "Another Brick in the Wall, Pt. 2" was the country's best-seller for four weeks. The Wall spawned an elaborate stage show (so elaborate, in fact, that the band was able to bring it to only a few cities) and a full-length film. It also marked the last time Waters and Gilmour would work together as equal partners.</p><p>— <strong>Rovi Staff</strong></p> |
| Pink Floyd | The Final Cut | <P>The Final Cut extends the autobiography of The Wall, concentrating on Roger Waters' pain when his father died in World War II. Waters spins this off into a treatise on the futility of war, concentrating on the Falkland Islands, setting his blistering condemnations and scathing anger to impossibly subdued music that demands full attention. This is more like a novel than a record, requiring total concentration since shifts in dynamics, orchestration, and instrumentation are used as effect. This means that while this has the texture of classic Pink Floyd, somewhere between the brooding sections of The Wall and the monolithic menace of Animals, there are no songs or hooks to make these radio favorites. The even bent of the arrangements, where the music is used as texture, not music, means that The Final Cut purposely alienates all but the dedicated listener. Several of those listeners maintain that this is among Pink Floyd's finest efforts, and it certainly is an achievement of some kind — there's not only no other Floyd album quite like it, it has no close comparisons to anybody else's work (apart from Waters' own The Pros and Cons of Hitch Hiking, yet that had a stronger musical core). That doesn't make this easier to embrace, of course, and it's damn near impenetrable in many respects, but with its anger, emphasis on lyrics, and sonic textures, it's clear that it's the album that Waters intended it to be. And it's equally clear that Pink Floyd couldn't have continued in this direction — Waters had no interest in a group setting anymore, as this record, which is hardly a Floyd album in many respects, illustrates. Distinctive, to be sure, but not easy to love and, depending on your view, not even that easy to admire. [The Final Cut was reissued in a remastered edition in 2004. This edition added "When the Tigers Broke Free" — originally heard in the soundtrack to The Wall, but its moody, war-obsessed soundscape is better suited for The Final Cut — as the fourth track, inserted between "One of the Few" and "The Hero's Return," where it fits nicely into the album's narrative.]</P><P>— <B>Stephen Thomas Erlewine</B></P> |
| Pink Floyd | Delicate Sound Of Thunder | <p>In one respect, it's hard to fault David Gilmour for retooling Pink Floyd as a neo-oldies act with Momentary Lapse of Reason, since Roger Waters took the band over the brink with his obsessive, nonmusical The Final Cut. Fans were eager for an album that sounded like classic Floyd, which is what Momentary Lapse was. But what they really thirsted for was a live spectacle from Floyd, where they could hear the old tunes and see all the old stunts. That's what they got on the 1987/1988 Pink Floyd world tour, which is documented on the double-disc set The Delicate Sound of Thunder. Gilmour's reunited Floyd was intent on recreating the sound and feel of classic Floyd, so it shouldn't come as a surprise that the oldies feel like the classic records, only with Gilmour taking each vocal. He and Floyd deliver well, but this is a recreation that makes less sense on record than it did on-stage, where the nostalgia was justified. Here, it feels passable but never compelling. This is professional, competent, and, often, even enjoyable music, yet, like many souvenirs, it never once feels necessary.</p><p>— <strong>Stephen Thomas Erlewine</strong></p> |
| Pink Floyd | Pulse | <p>Pink Floyd claim they had no intention of recording another live album when they began the Division Bell tour, but performing The Dark Side of the Moon in its entirety convinced the group to release another double-live set, called Pulse. There's no question that the group is comprised of talented musicians, including the number of studio professionals that augmented the trio on tour. Whether they're inspired musicians is up to debate. A large part of Pink Floyd's live show is based on the always impressive visuals; on the Division Bell tour, they closed each show with an unprecedented laser extravaganza. In order for the visuals and the music to coincide, the group needed to play the sets as tightly as possible, with little improvisation. Consequently, an audio version of this concert, separated from the visuals, is disappointing. Pink Floyd play the greatest hits and the new songs professionally, yet the versions differ only slightly from the original recordings, making Pulse a tepid experience.</p><p>— <strong>Stephen Thomas Erlewine</strong></p> |
| Trevor Pinnock | The Brandeberg Concertos | |
| Plainsong | Plainsong | |
| Alberto Ponce | Sourire De La Guitare | |
| Elvis Presley | Hitstory | |
| John Prine | John Prine | <p>A revelation upon its release, this album is now a collection of standards: "Illegal Smile," "Hello in There," "Sam Stone," "Donald and Lydia," and, of course, "Angel from Montgomery." Prine's music, a mixture of folk, rock, and country, is deceptively simple, like his pointed lyrics, and his easy vocal style adds a humorous edge that makes otherwise funny jokes downright hilarious.</p><p>—<strong>William Ruhlmann</strong></p> |
| John Prine | John Prine | <p>A revelation upon its release, this album is now a collection of standards: "Illegal Smile," "Hello in There," "Sam Stone," "Donald and Lydia," and, of course, "Angel from Montgomery." Prine's music, a mixture of folk, rock, and country, is deceptively simple, like his pointed lyrics, and his easy vocal style adds a humorous edge that makes otherwise funny jokes downright hilarious.</p><p>— <strong>William Ruhlmann</strong></p> |
| John Prine | Diamonds In The Rough | <p>John Prine's second album was a cut below his first, only because the debut was a classic and the followup was merely terrific. "Sour Grapes" showed Prine's cracked sense of humor and "Souvenirs" his sentiment. Even if it was the second rank of his writing, Diamonds in the Rough demonstrated that Prine had an enduring talent that wasn't exhausted by one great album.</p><p>—<strong>William Ruhlmann</strong></p> |
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