Typical girls don't think too clearly

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

#261 : Check Your Head - Beastie Boys (1992)

On Check Your Head’s “Professor Booty,” Mike D raps the Beasties’ mantra: “Life ain’t nothing but a good groove.” The trio returned to their rock-band roots for their third LP, playing its funky, punky, spunky beats themselves. They channel John Bonham’s booming drums on “So What ‘Cha Want,” Black Sabbath’s guitar growl on “Gratitude,” and Bad Brains’ hardcore spirit on their surprising Sly Stone send-up “Time for Livin’.” They also explore lounge-lizard jams and psychedelic jazziness, introducing backward-ball-cap alt-rock kids to new worlds of sound.

I always feel like I should like them Beasties (and the critics certainly tell me I should).  But, when it comes to it, I always think they sound like a Beastie Boys parody band - I'm not sure it's all that hard to throw it together

Yo, we're Beastie Boys and this is our game
But to Jason our songs all sound the same
But we're Beastie Boys, whatcha gonna do?
We'll look him in the eye and say "Fuck you"

That seems like a decent enough effort for inclusion on their next album to me.  I was happy to give a whole album a go to see if I would experience a Damascene conversion - but no such thing happened, I'm afraid.  They sound like they're having a laff, which is a thing I heartily approve of - but it doesn't convince me it's a great album.

WIkipedia has remarkably little to say about the album - and reading the "Critical Reception" section, I'm not entirely sure how it went down at the time.  Confusingly, it suggests it got to #10 in the US album chart, but #37 in the US R&B/Hip Hop album chart - I'm not sure I'll ever understand how the US charts work.  The group's page is significantly longer, but isn't a particularly impressive composition and more a collection of random facts, although this sentence did somewhat jump out at me - "A controversial concert in Columbus, Georgia in 1987 led to the passage of a lewdness ordinance in that city", so obviously I had to do some further research on this.  And apparently, a lot of the parents who attended weren't massively impressed by the band's 20 foot inflatable penis, so a local bylaw was passed which basically means that loads of bands now just don't bother going to Columbus - so I guess everyone's happy now.

"Customers also listened to" Public Enemy, Run DMC and House Of Pain - yeah, I guess I can see that.  But sorry, I still don't really see the point to them - which makes me a bit sad, as though I'm missing out on the fun.

 #260 : Cut - The Slits (1979)

Avant-garde you can dance to — that’s the Slits’ Cut in a nutshell. The British group’s raucous debut took the best of late-Seventies post-punk’s favorite genre influences (dub, girl groups, abstract jazz), tossed them all into a blender, and somehow ended up with joyously anarchic songs like “Shoplifting,” with its awesome catchphrase, “We pay fuck-all!” Kurt Cobain would call “Typical Girls” one of the best songs ever recorded, and we can’t help but agree.

I was aware of The Slits - but more from Viv or Ari either expressing their opinion or being held up as modern feminist icons (or expressing their opinion as modern feminist icons), as opposed to possessing any particular musical knowledge about them.  From the above description, I wasn't expecting to enjoy it - particularly because Kurt liked it, and Kurt doesn't have a great track record in picking things I'd like so far.  But the good news is that I really quite liked it - the songs are catchy and performed well, with the whole thing imbued with attitude with a capital A!  I had heard their cover of "I Heard It Through The Grapevine" but wasn't aware it was them - and, wonders will never cease, I will have to agree with Mr Cobain that "Typical Girls" is indeed a fine song.  I think I might need to go for a lie-down now after that unexpected turn of events.  I'd also be amazed if Bjork hadn't listened to this in her formative years - the vocal delivery is very similar in places.

WIkipedia has criminally little to say about the album - "It was released.  And later, it was re-released", although I did learn than Budgie played drums on the album before going on to greater things with Siouxsie, another modern feminist icon - god, they're everywhere these days! (won't people think of the poor men and their lack of role models?).  It does feel like the album cover deserves a passing mention - it's an "interesting" choice certainly (and allegedly resulted in Palmolive departing the band).  The entry for the band isn't much longer - for any facts at all, we have to look the entry for the individuals, with my favourite being that Ari Up's godfather is John Anderson and her stepfather is John Lydon.  Can you imagine having to try and rebel against Johnny Rotten in your teenage years?!?

"Customers also listened to" X-Ray Spex and The Raincoats, one of which fared much better with me than the other earlier on in this list, but neither of which was a surprise to see here.  But actually, I think The Slits do even better for me - I really liked this and feel, despite Wikipedia's lack of any such claims, that it would have a very influential album for a load of people who went on to make music (I have, of course, no actual facts to back up this view).

#259 : Pearl - Janis Joplin (1971)

On Pearl, Janis Joplin finally made a solo album worthy of her mighty blues-mama voice. She had her first Number One album, Cheap Thrills, as lead singer of Big Brother and the Holding Company, and made an uneven solo debut. Pearl was more intimate, more assured, unleashing her Texas-bred wail on the country-style soul tune “Get It While You Can” and the Number One hit “Me and Bobby McGee.” Sadly, Joplin didn’t live to enjoy her fame. She died of a drug overdose in 1970, before the album was completed.

Janis is one of those artists I've heard lots about, but very little of.  It feels to me like her membership of the 27 club keeps her name alive more than her musical legacy, so I was looking forward to listening to this to be proved wrong - and I enjoyed it in parts, but found it somewhat uneven (so god knows what her "uneven solo debut" sounds like).  I really liked "Me And Bobby McGee" (and don't think I'd heard it before, which feels like a bad omission on my part, but I got there in the end), "Get It While You Can" and "Mercedes Benz" (which I did know - from the Mercedes advert, obviously!) There were songs that just kinda slid by unnoticed to me, but when she shows off her voice the album comes alive and she comes across as a larger-than-life character.  I imagine she was fantastic company in real life and it's a shame she wasn't around for longer to continue being so.

Wikipedia gives the album remarkably short shrift, which surprised me - although it does note the 4 million sales in the US, which also surprised me.  Her Wikipedia entry is somewhat lengthier and is well worth a read - boy, did that woman have an issue with heroin.  The section on her appearance at Woodstock is particularly eye-opening - apparently when she went on stage at 2am after having been on the booze and the heroin all day, she wasn't exactly at her best but still very much worth a watch.  It would also seem rude not to include the following quote from a review the local press after a concert she had in Colombus (but in Ohio this time, not the Beastie-Boys-bothered Georgia town) - "Frequently suggestive with a series of limited but obvious moves, Miss Joplin wears hip-hugging silk bellbottoms and alternates between a wail and a teeth-rattling scream".

"Customers also listened to" a lot of names from that time that you'll have heard of - too many to list!  All in all, I liked this but am somewhat bemused by the incredible success of both it and her - I feel it's probably a case that if you lived through it then it would mean a lot to you.  When I get some time, I might check out a few of her live performances to see if I can convert myself to a believer.

Definitely not Beastie Boys for the win - they've been roundly beaten by the ladies for me, I'm afraid.  My suspicion is that if multiple listens were involved, Janis has the greater of the albums - but I'm giving it to The Slits for the instant impression they made on me.

#264-262 : Some bands who have sold a few albums over the years
#258-256 : Sisters are doing it for themselves!