Should a word have two meanings?

Continuing my trip up Rolling Stone's list of the 500 Greatest Albums Of All Time...

#267 : Double Nickels On The Dime - Minutemen (1984)

“Our band could be your life,” sing the Minutemen on “History Lesson – Part 2,” and never did a lyric better articulate punk’s everyman aesthetic. Guitarist D. Boon and bassist Mike Watt push each other to fast, funny, and agitated heights; they sing about everything from Vietnam to Michael Jackson, and cover CCR and Steely Dan, expanding their magnum opus double LP out to 46 songs. Sadly, Boon would die a year later in a van accident.  

I'd never heard of Minutemen and having read the description above, I wasn't expecting to like this.  But, whilst I couldn't say I fully liked it, it was lively and infectious with endearing moments of humour and quirk - they sounds like they were having a good time making this album.  Musically, it's somewhat tricky to describe since they recorded a shitload of songs and then each band member got a side of the double album to put the stuff they liked on - with a spare one for other stuff.  Hence, the sides are called D, Mike, George and Chaff (obviously) with 46 tracks across them all - and I'd have to say it didn't drag at all for me (the fact that only one track is over 3 minutes long obviously helps here!).  There are also some brilliantly named tracks - "Anxious Mo-Fo", "Political Song For Michael Jackson To Sing", "The Roar Of The Masses Could Be Farts", "The World According To Nouns" amongst them.  

Wikipedia tells me that the title refers to travelling at 55mph ("double nickels") on Interstate 10 ("The Dime") - go on, admit it, you wouldn't have guessed that!  Wikipedia also tells me that this album was influential and (for once) I'm happy to go along with that - the sound is simple but effective and I can imagine it resulting in a load of people deciding they'd give it a go and see what kind of a noise they can make.  One commentator described it as "either the pinnacle or downfall of the pure hardcore scene" which is a phrase I like, even if I can't quite decide what it means.  The band's Wikipedia page is somewhat brief - the first four sections are "Formation", "Early Days", "D Boons Death" and "After Disbanding" which doesn't really leave them many places to go.  D's death at 27 was particularly horrific - he wasn't feeling well, so was lying down in the back of the van when the rear axle broke, the van went off the road, the back doors opened and he was thrown out, which broke his neck.  As Robert Christgau (who I rarely agree with) put it "after seven fairly amazing years he was just getting started. Shit, shit, shit."

"Customers also listened to" Husker Du and Sonic Youth, both of whom I've previously struggled with on this list but I've had to say this was an unexpected, well "delight" would be too strong a word, so let's go for "not-hate".  Will I listen to it again?  Unlikely, but it was a joyous and interesting education.

#266 : Help! - The Beatles (1965)

The moptops’ second movie was a Swinging London goof, but the soundtrack included the classics “You’ve Got to Hide Your Love Away” and “Ticket to Ride,” as well as the lovely “I’ve Just Seen a Face.” And, of course, Paul McCartney’s “Yesterday,” recorded without the help of any other Beatles, became the most widely covered song in pop-music history. The sense of confidence and possibility paved the way for the Beatles’ next stop: Rubber Soul.

Only our second visit with The Fab Four (Let It Be at #342 was declared messy, but acceptable) - given this was before they starting having their own opinions, I was expecting this to be less messy and basically a collection of songs that sounded like "Help!" plus "Yesterday" standing out from the crowd.  And I can't say I was far off with my assessment - they're generally fine songs, but I'm not entirely sure I'd count it as a great album.  Part of the problem with these things is that the songs are so familiar that the album almost sounds like a greatest hits album (and we know my thoughts on such things!).  "Yesterday" is a fine song though - I don't think anyone can really argue with that.

Wikipedia does all the "well received" nonsense it usually does, but there's little else of interest in there except for a fine pub quiz question - "What four letter word are The Beatles spelling in semaphore on the album cover of Help!".  Yes, obviously it's NUJV (or NJVU on the US Capitol release) - apparently when they tried HELP, it just didn't look good so NUJV was picked for having the best arrangement of arms.  Don't say you don't learn vital stuff reading this nonsense!  OK - let's take a dip into their Wikipedia page and come up with something equally earth-shattering - ah, here you go.  Apparently, they got deported from Germany in 1960 for attempted arson - after trying to set light to a condom.  Outrageous behaviour - but I'm not sure their careers massively suffered as a result.  And here's a particularly bizarre sentence from around the time of Help! for you to ponder "In early 1965, following a dinner with Lennon, Harrison and their wives, Harrison's dentist, John Riley, secretly added LSD to their coffee" - there's an argument that dentist has a lot to answer for.  Trying to read the whole page is a struggle - it's just so long - so we'll come back to it later.

"Customers also listened to" The Monkees and The Turtles, which seems like a particularly strange menagerie to me.  Overall, I liked this album but I'm not convinced it's a great album - it's an OK album with some great songs on it, although Wikipedia tells me there's evidence of their musical evolution on it, so maybe if I was more familiar with their complete oeuvre (and I suspect I'm going to be given this opportunity) I would be more convinced.

#265 : Wowee Zowee - Pavement (1995)

The Nineties indie-rock princes took everyone by surprise by mellowing out for their third album. Wowee Zowee is a kaleidoscopic mix of ideas, the sound of noise-guitar dudes kicking back for some summer fun. Pavement switch gears with every song, from the ballad “We Dance” to the pop-punk spritzer “AT&T” to cryptic blurts like “Fight This Generation.” As Stephen Malkmus explained, “We did neuter many of the silly things about rock, but we still embraced a lot of them, too, because we’re party kids and we like a Bo Diddley beat.”

Pavement were another of those groups that had passed me by and I suspected they were either going to fall into the "quite like" or "very much not like" category, so I was intrigued to listen to this.  And guess which category they fell into?  Yes, that one.  I very much did not like this one - it just drones on and on and on.  It was "only" 55 minutes long, but it felt like 55 years.  Not for me, I'm afraid.

Wikipedia doesn't have a lot to say about the album - it was apparently not too well received at the time but has been critically re-evaluated since.  Well, it won't be critically re-evaluated by me, I can tell you.  The band's Wikipedia entry reminds me that I actually was aware of them - we've met them before on this list.  My memory was jogged because they sacked their drummer for handing out cabbage at gigs and it feels unlikely this would have happened to two groups - and looking back to here, I quite liked that one and was intrigued to check out some of their other stuff, but was concerned because apparently that was the tuneful album.  And I can only concur with that statement after having listened to this one.

"Customers also listened to" - yeah them, but whoever they are, they're going to stay in my "no idea" file.  No, no, no for the album - and it's a TERRIBLE album cover as well.

This round should probably go to The Beatles but, you know what, I'm going to give it to Minutemen.  That's partly down to my contrary nature and partly down to D's untimely death but mostly I just think that album will have inspired more people to give their dreams a go than Help! did.  And the semaphore thing annoyed me as well.

#270-268 : Three people who have five letter names.  And nothing else in common.
#264-262 : Some bands who have sold a few albums over the years