98 The Hard Way: The Year in Country Music, Quarter Three

Terri Clark “Now That I've Found You” (#2 US & CAN Country, #72 US Pop)

It may be an overly facile comparison, but given their similar roots and the similar timing of their respective rises to popularity, I've never been able to think of Clark as anything besides the better case version of Shania Twain. At the very least she's a much more open and genuine performer than her counterpart there's not that pesky layer of artifice to her performances that Twain gets bogged down by at the very least. As such, while I'm getting increasingly frustrated at the tone of Shania's ballads this one comes across as much, much defter in its execution and delivery. It's still slightly corny, but it's also grounded in identifiably real human emotions, not just facsimiles thereof, and that counts for a lot. [6]

Clint Black “The Shoes You're Wearing” (#1 US & CAN Country, #118 US Pop)

As with his last song that I tackled here, there's the problem of this being faceless to an almost insulting degree. What's worse, it's steeped in cliché and barely even holds my interest on a musical level – almost a given with the level of production detail in this genre – which you'd think would lead to a haeful screed against it. The thing is that I mostly find myself looking for new levels of indifference as it plays, and after it's done it doesn't stick around...it's probably the most easily forgettable of the mediocre entries I'm faced with here which counts for something. [5]

Collin Raye “I Can Still Feel You” (#1 US Country, #2 CAN Country)

I can't shake the feeling that in an earlier incarnation this was a sappy, string-drenched ballad. It's got the lyrical hallmarks of that style at least, the whole missing a long gone lover trope that all but requires a helping of melodrama of the lest effective variety. So it's in great service to the song itself that Raye picks up the pace of that theoretical version and turns it into a much more sprightly borderline-rocker that still gets the point across but turns what could have been a maudlin ode to lost love into a bit of a sick cosmic joke that keeps being played on the protagonist of the song. The change is for the better, and it also allows for some excellent violin/guitar trade offs during the bridge. It's the rare track in this project that I find myself liking more the more I hear it, which should tell you enough. [8]

Shania Twain & Bryan White “From This Moment On” (#6 US Country, #1 CAN Country, #4 US Pop, #13 CAN Pop)

My roommates are getting married in the fall. I've made two requests of them as far the ceremony goes; number one, no fucking wedding dance down the aisle and number two, they are not allowed to play this song. At all. Because seriously, this doesn't sound like a song that was ever meant for any purpose but to be the soundtrack to any wedding that lacks in imagination. Hell I'm sure there have been couples who traded its verses as their fucking wedding vows. Worst of all, the song is really just egregiously awful, syrupy, facile and coma-inducingly boring. There's nothing there besides a transparent plea for wedding DJs to put it into infinite rotation until something more pandering comes along. Fuck this and fuck everyone involved in its creation. [2]

Garth Brooks “To Make You Feel My Love” (#1 US Country, #7 CAN Country)

Now you know how I feel about excessively maudlin ballads.

OK credit where it's due, the minimal accompaniment does work in the track's favor on a musical level, but it also gives me less to draw my focus away from the banality of the lyrics and their delivery. It all evens out in the end though. [3]

Dixie Chicks “There's Your Trouble” (#1 US Country, #3 CAN Country, #36 US Pop)

I'm trying my best to not over-praise this one, but given its surroundings at this point in time it's hard not to heap on the hosannas for the sheer fact that there's tangible energy to be found herein. That's the thing that makes this stand out the most now. Not the spunky delivery from Natalie Maines, not the naturalistic, rootsy production, not the lack of 8 coats of studio finish, the fact that it actually moves. I just need to keep telling myself that while it feels like 5 star material in context it's a bit of a step down from their previous single – lack of harmonies mostly makes it so – and that it's got a bit of the whole 'too clever' thing going on in the lyrics. All that said, god damn was that what the chart needed at this point in time. [7]

The Wilkinsons “26 Cents” (#3 US Country, #1 CAN Country, #55 US Pop)

So of course we descend right back into the maudlin. That's s bit of an overstatement I guess...sure the song is manipulatively sentimental to roughly the same degree as any ballad I've talked about here, but it's also a much more nuanced and down to earth version of that sort of thing (figures that it's Canadian I guess.) That aside though it's definitely not my cup of anything, from the vocals on down it's a laundry list of the kind of thing that leads to excessive amounts of indifference on my part. [4]

Jo Dee Messina “I'm Alright” (#1 US & CAN Country, #43 US Pop)

The second Vassar-Messina collaboration to break through this year lacks a bit of the driving aggression of “Bye Bye” but their creative alchemy still makes for a great song on the whole. There's something in the way the Messina interprets his words and delivers them that gives even the most hoary of the turns they take – the stop-short-of-saying 'ass' in the second verse particularly – a certain charm that I don't think many of her contemporaries could imbue them with. It's a shame that they don't seem to have any further tracks together in some way, because they seem to get each other's quirks in a way that elevates each of their games quite a bit. [8]

George Strait “True” (#2 US Country, #1 CAN Country)

(The author contemplates copy and pasting parts of both previous Strait reviews he's written to give you an idea of how little there is to say about later period Strait singles. He instead decides to cop out in a different, yet equally familiar way.)

Now you know how I feel about George Strait songs. [5]

Faith Hill and Tim McGraw “Just to Hear You Say That You Love Me” (#3 US Country, #4 CAN Country)

OUR LOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOVE IS AN AWESOME LOVE! IT MAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAKES YOURS LOOK LIKE SHIT! Fuck both of you. [3]

Vince Gill “If You Ever Have Forever in Mind” (#5 US Country, #1 CAN Country)

Old school charm and class. How the hell did this become a hit in 1998? Those things seem so antithetical to the modus operandi of country hitmakers from this era. This sounds like it was ripped straight from the 50s musically – not drenched in studio fuckery, anchored by old school piano – and Gill's voice melds so smoothly with those surroundings that it makes his already great pipes seem that much more timeless. Consider it the remedy to the schlock -merchant balladry that's become so omnipresent in this format since around this time. [7]

Brooks and Dunn “How Long Gone” (#1 US & CAN Country)

Unlike a lot of the older guard that were still active at this point in time, Brooks and Dunn seem to have started to change with the times rather than stick to their tried and true sound. This isn't the sort of departure that their more recent stuff was, but it's certainly updated from the more traditionalist leanings of their best material. The weird thing is that it works quite well at this point; they've still got enough of their old style in there to be recognizable but the foot they've pointed towards more modern touches doesn't drag them too far off course. Really though, any excuse to throw out a few tasteful guiitar solos is appreciated by yours truly, and Brooks lets a few of them fly here that make the song that much better. [7]

John Michael Montgomery “Cover You in Kisses” (#3 US Country, #2 CAN Country)

Fitting that the guy who I mostly remember for originating my theory that any song faceless enough can translate across genre lines with little effort on anyone's part (remember All-4-One? Their biggest hits were originally recorded by this guy) has one of his last hits with the same sort of faceless, cheesily romantic schmaltz that's only a dropped steel guitar track away from making waves on your local AC station. [4]

98 The Hard Way: The Year in Country Music, Quarter Two

Trisha Yearwood "Perfect Love" (#1 US & CAN Country)
Yeah, this is a country song. It's doing nothing more than a country song does. Doesn't bother with personality, just decent melody...it's a country song. [4]

Dixie Chicks "I Can Love You Better" (#7 US Country, #3 CAN Country, #77 US Pop)
At this point in time, Dixie Chicks were an anomaly. It wasn't their brashness, the thing that would sink their ship a half-decade later, that made them stand out so much as the fact that they were an actual group. Look at the songs I've been reviewing so far; outside of duets we're looking at a lean, lean time for country groups in terms of hits. So of course, the minute those pitch perfect harmonies started up it was a bit of stand out. The fact that it continued to get better as it went on cemented it's place as a favorite here. It may be your stock 'fuck her, I'm more awesome' song, but between the girls' harmonies, Natalie Maines' soulful yet bratty voice - it's annoying in theory but she makes it work - and the least worked over production of any song so far it manages to find that sweet spot for me. Shame it wasn't as big as their next couple because it's easily their superior in pretty much every way. [8]

Jo Dee Messina "Bye, Bye" (#1 US & CAN Country, #43 US Pop)
Phil Vassar strikes again, but unlike "Little Red Rodeo" he's not the best thing about this one. No, that would be the overall level of bad-ass that it compresses into its 3 minutes. Sure, Vassar's lyrics are a part of that - the first part of the chorus is distinctly his style and also perfectly realized in practice - but there's also the arrangement, which is much rawer and more driving than the norm, even for this kind of song. The guitars bite as much as they twang, the drums kick where they usually just push...it's the closest to a full on rock song that the country hits of this year get. Of course there's also Messina, possibly the Miranda Lambert of the late 90s, giving the song an extra kick of attitude just where it needs it. It's the perfect collision of all these elements, essentially, and the rest of the year's hits have a remarkably high bar to clear before they can better this one. [9]

Jason McCoy "A Little Bit of You" (#3 CAN Country)
The reason that the timeliness of the sound in the last few Canadian hits I talked about was so surprising is that usually we're a few years behind in terms of development. Thus I was really expecting the Canadian contingent here to sound more like this; basically co-opting the sound  of country music from the late 80s/early 90s - lotsa Dwight Yoakam influence, basically - and parading it around like it was still relevant in the post-Shania/Garth/Tim landscape. I appreciate that, even if it's still about as produced as everything else here it at least has the decency to apply that style to an early make of the genre. It also helps that it would have stood out as a great addition to the era it clearly belongs in, mostly due to McCoy's roguish, raw vocals and the vague zydeco vibe that the track has. [7]

Shania Twain "You're Still the One" (#1 US & CAN Country, #2 US Pop, #7 CAN Pop)
Crime against music territory here. One count of perverting the fine art of the introductory monologue in such a way that the deep voiced guy from Boyz II Men probably died inside just hearing it. One count of excessive ukuleles to denote  cutesiness/whimsy. One count of unnecessarily forceful backing vocals that don't even seem to have a coherent harmony scheme. One count of recording a song about how special her love is, which is just never a thing you should do ever. If I keep thinking I'm sure to come up with more, but let's just leave it at that before I start getting too spitey.[2]

Garth Brooks "Two Piña Coladas" (#1 US & CAN Country)
Now you know how I feel about shitty Jimmy Buffet wannabe songs. [2]

Faith Hill "This Kiss" (#1 US & CAN Country, #7 US Pop, #24 CAN Pop)
"This Kiss" is stupid without being stupid, if you understand what I'm driving at. It's devoid of substance, so light and frothy that it's poised to to disappear at any moment, but it's not stupid. It's also ecstatic enough that even the moments that hedge closer to actual stupidity escape that classification. The result is a song that is exactly the right kind of stupid and the perfect kind of stupid to give Faith her big pop crossover. It probably helps that unlike a lot of her more lovey-dovey material at this point this is more about the rush of infatuation than rubbing how great her and Tim McGraw's love is in your face. That's a love song trope that I can tolerate at least. [5]

Steve Wariner "Holes in the Floor of Heaven" (#2 US & CAN Country)
I respect this song a lot more than I enjoy it. I mean, it's very clearly a personal song for Wariner - one of the country old guard from my days of actively paying attention to this stuff - and in the landscape of country radio, where the songs are all about impersonality so that the listener can project themselves onto them more easily, that counts for a lot. But that aside, this is just a bit too maudlin for my liking. It's the whole cry-while-smiling thing that I just never have much use for, though this is a better version of it than most. [5]

Randy Travis "Out of My Bones" (#2 US Country, #1 CAN Country, #65 US Pop)
Speaking of the old guard, I can't think of any artist from that era that I'd be more surprised to see to see with a hit in the climate of 1998 country, yet here we are. The best thing is that in getting that late career hit he didn't seem to sacrifice any of his usual style; this stands proudly alongside any number of his older hits without sticking out like a sore thumb. Plus that introductory violin/guitar figure is striking in its beauty even before you've been clued in to the fact that this is Randy Travis doing what he's done best for a long while now. [7]

Tracy Byrd "I'm from the Country" (#3 US Country, #1 CAN Country, #63 US Pop)
There are plenty of things I hate in country music, but I don't think any other song type irritates me more than the 'country folk are REAL, y'all' song. The fact that you could easily slot this into a fucking Rodney Atkins album and not disrupt its feeling is a testament to the level of schlock we're talking about here. [3]

George Strait "I Just Want to Dance with You" (#1 US & CAN Country, #61 US Pop)
I'm trying to limit my cop out reviews to Garth Brooks here, but like Brooks there's only so much you can say about later period George Strait that goes beyond saying that it's exactly what you expect. This is lighter and more island-tinged - not Buffet-y in a way that raises my ire but there's a bit of him in here for better or worse - with some nice violin/guitar work in the bridge, but in the end it doesn't go beyond being exactly what you'd expect at this point. Like I said, you're not gonna be surprised by anything Strait does at this point because it's impossible for him to deviate that far from what he does. [5]

Tim McGraw "One of These Days" (#2 US Country, #1 CAN Country, #74 US Pop)
I'm beginning to think that the Everywhere era was McGraw's least compelling in a lot of ways. So far all of the singles have an air of 'whatever, people will eat it up no matter how much I invest in it' to them, and while he'd have been right it doesn't mean that the material isn't pretty awful. Once again, this should have been a gimme of a song for him, but there's nothing to his performance that suggests anything beyond going through the motions and cashing a check. Luckily his next few albums had more vigor in them, because to see an not-inconsiderable amount of charm and personality wasted on such mediocre performances is mildly depressing. [4]

Reba McEntire with Brooks & Dunn "If You See Him/If You See Her" (#1 US & CAN Country)
Would it be overstating things too much to call this collaboration ideal? I'm lukewarm on the song itself, but in theory  I can't think of a more logical pairing than McEntire and B&D; both McEntire and Dunn have an ease with dialing in just the right amount of drama to their performance, and B&D's over-riding sense of harmonizing should carry over well to collaborations like this. And it does work much better in these hands than it probably would in any other duo's, but that doesn't quite bring it to the level I expected given the people involved. That said, the last verse is vocal interplay nirvana for the purpose of this arena. [6]

98 The Hard Way: The Year in Country Music, Quarter One

The thing that I realized as I was listening through to the first batch of country #1 hits from 1998 is that in terms of genre charts, the country chart has a certain base level consistency that I don't see elsewhere. Now when I say 'consistency,' I mean it in a mildly pejorative sense. While the consistent nature of the chart has some positive bearing on its overall quality - my first pass at rating the initial batch yielded a plethora of [6]s with very few deviants, which I'll bet the rock charts would kill for when their time comes - it also makes for a very, VERY samey group of songs in the end. There's so much standard issue Nashville paraphernalia on each of the year's biggest hits that makes them hard to tell apart on a cursory level, which essentially means that if I like one song I wind up liking them all.

That's where I'm glad I have a bit of an outside standardizing force to judge things against. Knowing that Ty Herndon's "It Must Be Love" was a solid [8] in terms of the less insular confines of the one hit wonders section meant that, in the early goings, I found myself mostly thinking about each song matched up to that. As skewed as that methodology is, it means that in the end I'm at least placing the songs in a more generalized context in a round about way. Even then, though, there was a certain base level quality at least in terms of the craftsmanship that goes into the songs. Yes, I'm saying that the mass-produced sound of the Nashville machine is a good thing in the end, because even songs that are objectively lesser still sound fantastic on an aesthetic level.

The deciding factor, then, comes in the form of the performance of the artist in question. Like I said way back in my top 150 singles of the 00s series, when it comes to country music, performance is absolutely key. The more factory-issue the genre, the more it depends on the artist to imbue the songs with any semblance of personality. The ones that do this best are by default the ones that I gravitate towards. Serviceable may result in a higher rating here than it does in other fields, but that also makes those outliers particularly noteworthy.

So, without further ado...

QUARTER ONE (Week of January 3rd - Week of March 28th)
Note: I'd generally provide YouTube links for these, but since only about half of them seem to have even lyric videos up at this point - and those that have videos up are often in very low quality - that's not gonna be an option 100% of the time.

Garth Brooks "Longneck Bottle" (#1 US & CAN Country)
Speaking of serviceable...well, Garth might as well be the poster boy for that particular term as we'll apply it here. If we're using "It Must Be Love" as the standardizing agent for this stuff in the larger picture of 1998's pop music, we might as well call Garth the internal standard - putting that Chem degree to use here guys - since, with a few exceptions, when he does a song of a particular style, it'll fall prety much dead center of my estimations of that particular form. Thus, when I rate this you'll know that my opinion of the upbeat drinkin' song is slightly higher than my opinion of certian other styles we'll get to as we go on. [6]

Martina McBride "A Broken Wing" (#1 US Country, #17 CAN Country, #61 US Pop)
Overwrought ballads are the norm for country music. I accept that while not being necessarily thrilled by it...but there are limits to what I'll grit my teeth and sit through. Normally I love Martina McBride - hell, if I were to go back and do this for '94 I wouldn't be surprised if "Independence Day" would get a solid [9] out of me - but while this does give her ample opportunity to show off her pipes. outside of that it's just a plain, underwhelming overwrought ballad. Then they feel the need to add in a fucking gospel choir. Because the song wasn't over the top enough. [3]

Shania Twain "Don't Be Stupid" (#6 US Country, #1 CAN Country, #40 US Pop)
I'll give Shania her fair share of shit for the overwrought ballad thing later on, so I might as well give her a measure of praise here while she's kind of earning it. Well, she's not earning it by herself I guess, since most of my goodwill towards this number comess from the nimble fiddling choir that props it up. Shania's doing her usual thing, which is to say making calculated  attempts at imbuing the track with this whole "personality" thing that she used to possess at one point but can't quite form anymore - seriously, 'Relax...Max!'? That's the sound of someone trying so hard that comes around to sounding like she's not even trying.
Oh, and I'd be remiss to not mention the godawful remix that this got. It's so bad that it makes me like the original that much more by sheer virtue of it not deserving that kind of treatment. [5]

Tim McGraw "Just to See You Smile" (#1 US & CAN Country)
This is a gimme of a song. It could have been given to pretty much any contemporary of McGraw's and they'd have hit it out of the park. Hell, even when Will Oldham covered it a a piss-take on his More Revelry EP it shone through as a great piece of songwriting. So why do I feel that McGraw sells it a bit short? I could commend him for sitting back and letting the song shine through, but it winds up feeling a bit lacking because he doesn't do more with it. There's that moment in the second verse where he allows a bit of a laugh into his voice as he delivers the 'and given the chance I'd lie again' punchline, but other than that he seems to be on autopilot, which is rarely becoming of him. It also doesn't help that the arrangement here goes a bit overboard with showing just how many instruments can be added to a country song. I mean, that's probably the case on a lot of these songs but it stands out here for some reason. [6]

Chris Cummings "The Kind of Heart That Breaks" (#50 US Country, #1 CAN Country)
So pervasive is that textbook Nashville sound that even the Canadian detours I'll be taking at various points here feel like they were cranked out of the same machine as any other song in this project. I mean, look at this song in the abstract; pleasant, unobtrusive vocals, heavy steel guitar and dobro overlay, lots of production, lyrical twist that thinks its more clever than it actually is...it's all textbook Nashville 1998 despite it's much more northern pedigree. So it's only fitting that it's most notable feature is Cummings' delivery, which stands out as uniquely Canadian in a way. I think I mostly like that aspect because it underplays the aforementioned twist rather than underlining it the way I'd expect most others of this time to. Plus the odd hitch in his voice on the 'easy does it for goodness' sake' parts is the sort of personality-driven touch that I appreciate so much in this type of song. [7]

Brooks and Dunn "He's Got You" (#2 US Country, #3 CAN Country)
Consider this an overwrought ballad done right. All the pieces are there for me to absolutely hate this song, yet in practice it doens't come across as over the top or irritating. Credit the relatively light touch in the production, and - say it with me - the vocal performance which may be a lot less subtle than the ideal, but certainly doesn't go to the lengths that so many others would to make it artificially sad. Really this is right in B&D's wheelhouse, Dunn can sell the shit out of a broken-hearted screed and Brooks knows how to properly deploy a good harmony in these situations. They don't hit it out of the park, but given where it could have gone they pull it off admirably. [7]

Bruce Guthro "Walk This Road" (#1 CAN Country)
There's really no excuse for this to sound as faceless as it does. Given that right around this time Guthro was also part of long-running Celtic rockers Runrig it doesn't seem like much of a stretch to expect some sort of cross-contamination between that project and his solo work, but aside from a nice touch of accordion during the chorus there's nothing that sets this apart from the rest of the country landscape of this time. It's one of those songs that I'd label as being aggressively mediocre, seemingly making every effort to void itself of individuality so as to better meld in, and while it did get Guthro a hit up here it feels a bit unearned. [5]

Lila McCann "I Wanna Fall in Love" (#3 US Country, #1 CAN Country)
There's something about the way that the vocals on this one are mixed, especially during the chorus where the background vox seem to be mixed higher up than the ostensible lead vocals. Or it could be the fact that McCann is a bit of a cipher so the character that those backing vocals contains easily overpowers her. Yeah, once again we're in total faceless territory. It's easy to see why this was a hit in general, but there's never anything that indicates why it was a hit for McCann in particular. [5]

Anita Cochran and Steve Wariner "What If I Said" (#1 US & CAN Country, #59 US Pop)
OK, the vocal interplay on the chorus is the deciding factor here. Outside of that it's a standard issue duet, perfect for a Valentine's Day bump in the charts. That chorus though...that's the sort of touch I look for in this type of song, something that may be overly obvious to some extent but stands out by virtue of not sounding like anyhting else in this sphere at the time. [6]

George Strait "Round About Way" (#1 US & CAN Country)
Consistency is the watchword for Strait the same way that that serviceable is for Garth Brooks. Similarly, you know exactly what you're getting with every new Strait single, so you know exactly what this sounds like when I tell you that it's an upbeat ode to heartbreak. You know this even before I tell you that it quotes his own "Unwound" lyrically. And you know how good it is, because really he doesn't know how to be either better or worse at this point. [6]

Garth Brooks "She's Gonna Make It" (#2 US Country, #1 CAN Country)
Like I said, my ratings for Garth Brooks singles will, by and large, show you the hierarchy of the various types of songs that become hits on country radio. You now know how I feel about ballads. [4]

Clint Black "Nothin' But the Taillights" (#1 US & CAN Country)
The downside of the whole consistency thing I'm noticing here is that as I get deeper into the writeups, I find that I'm running out of things to say about the most average of the ranks here. And thus, we get to this particular song, which the only thing I can think to say about it is that it's perfectly serviceable, moderately clever - actually clever, not more clever than it thinks it is like 90% of songs of this ilk - upbeat country shit. Really outside of the chorus there's very little that stands out here, but that's OK since the chorus is all that really matters. [6]

Collin Raye "Little Red Rodeo" (#3 US Country, #1 CAN Country)
And then came the advent of Phil Vassar. Given how much emphasis I wind up placing on the performers it may seem odd that i'm all of a sudden turning my focus on to the songwriter at work here, but as much as Raye's performance works in the song's favour it's Vassar's songwriting that gives this a lot of its charm. He's also one of the few people in the Nashville songwriting game that has anything resembling his own personal touch to his material, so it's easier to give him praise than anyone else in this game. It's also no coincidence that three of the best songs I'm gonna be talking about here are all Vassar-penned. While this might be the lesser of those three, it's certianly the highlight of the hit parade so far. Or maybe it's just that the writing and delivery of the third verse's 'I'm a man, I'm in love and I'm desperate' that cinches my love for it. [8]

98 The Hard Way: EPs - The final list.

So it's a day later than what I had anticipated it taking, but it's done. Each of the EPs I'd given at least a 3.5 star rating (7.6/10 in terms of rating I'll be using on here) has been reviewed and ranked - hell, even a couple of late comers have made their way in here. So of course that means that it's time for a summary post - the top 20 EPs of 1998 and some reflection on how this month went (usually there'd be a mix CD to go with it, but that'll have to wait until my main computer is better)

So, without further adieu....

The Top 20 EPs of 1998, According to Me at Least

20: Third Eye Foundation / v/vm - Split #1 (FatCat) 

19: The Gloria Record - The Gloria Record (Crank!)
18: Boredoms - Super Roots 7 (Warner Music Japan)
17: The Day of Man as Man - The Day of Man as Man (Ricecontrol)
16: Super Furry Animals: Ice Hockey Hair (Creation)
15: Art of Fighting - The Very Strange Year (Half a Cow)
14: Ganger - With Tongues Twisting Words (Domino)
13: Coil - Spring Equinox: Moon's Milk or Under an Unquiet Skull (Eskaton)
12: Bästard~Tiersen - Bästard~Tiersen (Ici d'ailleurs)
11: Modest Mouse - Neverending Math Equation (Sub Pop)
10: The Legendary Pink Dots - The Pre-Millennial Single (Soleilmoon)
09: Clinic - Monkey on Your Back (Aladdin's Cave of Golf)
08: Fridge - Kinoshita Terasaka (Go! Beat)
07: Modest Mouse and 764-HERO - Whenever You See Fit (Up/Suicide Squeeze)
06: Lifter Puller - The Entertainment and Arts (Threatening Letters)
05: Fridge - Orko (Output)
04: Penfold - Amateurs and Professionals (MilliGram)
03: Coil - Autumn Equinox: Amethyst Deceivers (Eskaton)
02: The Dillinger Escape Plan - Under the Running Board (Relapse)
01: Belle and Sebastian - This Is Just a Modern Rock Song (Jeepster)

Other Observations

The whole process of revisiting and reviewing these releases has made me realize a few things, namely that my gut reactions are far more generous than I'd anticipated. I started this off with the following subsets

-29 releases at the 3.5 star level
-32 releases at the 4 star level
-9 releases at the 4.5 star level
-7 releases at the 5 star level

After this month those releases now fall as such:

-4 releases at the 2.5 star level
-7 releases at the 3 star level
-24 releases at the 3.5 star level
-27 releases at the 4 star level
-9 releases at the 4.5 star level
-6 releases at the 5 star level

All in all, of the 77 releases I started with 24 wound up falling by at least a half star vs 4 that wound up going up that much. So if the pattern holds when I get to albums, I'll have one underestimated release for every 6 that I was overly kind to on first pass, not counting the ones that stayed within their initial rating but wound up much lower in that subset than I'd have assumed on first pass. That's a bit of a damning figure, but it's also the reason that I decided to go about this process in such a painstaking manner - my gut is unreliable. Depending when I listened to an album, what mood I was in, whether I heard it on headphones or on speakers, whether I was fully engrossed in other things at the time and only got a rough idea of the release's make up, all kinds of other variables, my perception was skewed. More often than not it was skewed in the album's favor.

This affects the way I'm going to approach the albums when I get to that - in a week or so, depending on the state of my PC . Basically, I'm not going to do the sort of in depth review process I did here. That game plan worked for EPs because, by virtue of their length, I could easily tackle multiple listens to anywhere from 2 to 8 in a day complete with reviews for each one. Albums are more problematic in that regard, really if I expected to properly relisten to and review each of the albums I've rated 3.5 stars and above..well, we'd be here for a long time. So here's the game plan for albums, revised and ribbed for your pleasure:

3.5 Star Albums - I'll give each of these one extra listen. If the stand out as deserving of a more in depth revisit, I'll review them. If not they'll just get a brief blurb.

4 Star Albums - Each of these will get two extra listens. Once again, if the inspiration fairy hits me over the head I'll do reviews but it won't be for every single one (though probably more frequent than for the 3.5 star releases).

4.5 and 5 Star Albums - These will all get the in depth treatment, even if I find myself dropping them down to the lower tiers. Probably wind up eating, breathing and sleeping the particular albums for a couple of days each.

That seems a bit more manageable, especially since the 3.5 and 4 star albums make up about 90% of this section and enforcing a strict limit on how often I revisit them will certainly help make
sure I can finish this up by year's end.

UP NEXT: 1998 in Country and Rock singles. Expect the first post in this series sometime tonight or early tomorrow

5 Star Corner: Belle and Sebastian - This Is Just a Modern Rock Song (Jeepster)

Oh Belle and Sebastian, I could never stay mad at you...

Sure in the years since this was released you've fallen on hard times. Neither Fold your Hands Child, You Walk Like a Peasant nor Storytelling were as warmly received as the untouchable streak you enjoyed from 96-98, and even the albums hailed as being your return to form have left me, well, frustrated. Even angry at times. Hell, my review of Dear Catastrophe Waitress is one of my more venemous screeds...but I can't stay mad at you even after that crushing disappointment. You know why?

This EP is why. Hell, the title track alone forgives so much water treading, so much overly cutesy pandering, so much overbearing 'cleverness.' It's remarkable that despite how involved and production-indebted it is that "This Is Just a Modern Rock Song" sounds like it was hammered out in one take, just a lark that the band took one day in the studio that wound up resulting in their best overall song. Everything about it feels completely effortless and spontaneous; the entry of the various extra instruments during each of the climaxes has no calculation to it at all in my ears, it just feels like a split-second decision by that player to jump in. Even Murdoch's lyrics, which often seemed overworked and stilted even at their best feel much looser than normal. They're still quotable and clever - not 'clever' like a lot of his later material - but thy somehow seem more genuine this time. It probably helps that he gives the song's best passage over to Stevie Jackson, whose much less effete performance works just as many wonders as Murdoch's resurgent harmony does in the penultimate stanza.

Yet for all that it could just as easily be seenas a heavily calculated 'Belle and Sebastian do Post-Rock!' move. If not that, then at least the sort of one-off genre exercise that EPs are generally made to contain, keep separated from the album that they might stick out from like a sore thumb. The thing is that even if it does feel like the band trying on a different set of clothes to see how they fit, it's still the same basic body underneath. And truthfully, the post-rockier flourishes are what make the song stand out in all the best ways, amplifying the things about B&S that I loved most from this era and giving them room to build and shine. Even the best material from their albums can't compare to the scope that "Modern Rock Song" allows for, and the band use it to their full advantage while still making sure that you never forget who they are. That's why it makes me willing to forgive their recent transgressions; it shows all of the best aspects of the band in one place, and makes me remember exactly why I love them.

But it doesn't stop there, thankfully. One great song, even one as great as the title track, isn't enough to make this EP the sort of full blown classic that makes up for every sin the band committed to tape in the year since. The truth is that unlike the string of EPs they had released the year before, there isn't a duffer in the whole set here. "Slow Graffiti" is everything I love about the title track transposed onto a smaller scale, and while it's no match for the epic sprawl of "Modern Rock Song" it's still a highlight in the band's catalog. "The Gate" might feature Isobel Campbell's best performance in the band's history over top of a similarly spontaneous feeling number. Even "I Know Where the Summer Goes," which is about as close to the 'overly cute' side of the band's personality as the EP gets, is buoyed by a great set of lyrics and a breezy, charming performance. They may not merit the full two-paragraph treatment I afforded the title track, but they're all examples of the band at their peak in various guises. More importantly, they all maintain a similar mood, making for a much more cohesive statement than...well, any other B&S release.

So yes, Belle and Sebastian, I forgive you. You did this, and that makes up for everything you've squandered since. That's how good it is. [10/10]

5 Star Corner: The DIllinger Escape Plan - Under the Running Board (Relapse)

Seven-and-a-half minutes.

Four hundred and fifty-three seconds.

In the half hour I dedicate to listening to a given EP when I'm sitting down to review it, I can listen to Under the Running Board four times.

If I did my usual thing and wrote the review as I listened to it one final time, I doubt the review would make it to 200 words (I'm a slow typer, so fucking sue me)

Seven-and-a-half minutes, and yet this is the standard bearer for an entire subgenre.

Is it wrong to heap that sort of a plaudit onto a release so small? Well, keep in mind that the subgenre we're talking about here is one where quick-change acts are the raison d'être, or at least the dominant feature. So a seven-and-a-half minute stretch in mathcore circles is more than enough time to get all manor of ideas across. Hell, even in the sub-two minute ball of fury that kicks off Under the Running Board there are at least a half dozen distinct movements, and that's the shortest of the release's three tracks. So in terms of ideas, there's more than enough time here to assert your dominance over your peers, to provide a sort of benchmark for your followers, to create a release that even you can't ever match up to as you go on. A release like Under the Running Board would be an appetizer for most other artists, for The Dillinger Escape Plan it's a challenge.

The gauntlet is pretty handily laid down by the opening track, the aforementioned "The Mullet Burden," which lays out everything that this EP will be doing in less than two minutes. As I said, there's a wealth of distinct movements herein, but the key is that they all work together to create a compelling whole. It would be one thing to lay out the various pieces that make up the track and play them as is - this is the sort of thing that I think Coalesce did at this point, one of the reasons they never really worked for me - but another to find ways to integrate them into each other, to make them work as a song and not just as unrelated pieces. There's also the fact that even though the various movements barely last more than 20 seconds apiece on average, they all make an impression. Whether it's the interlocking scales that end the song or the weirdly arrhythmic solo that's underpinned by chords that wouldn't sound out of place on a jazz album, each tiny piece of the whole leaves a mark.

That's even more true on "Sandbox Magician," where my single favorite part of the song is the unprecedented clean guitar break that interrupts the burgeoning rhythm riff at the start. It comes almost out of nowhere, it's never even hinted at again, but it winds up being the song's defining moment for me. Maybe it's just that it distills the thing that I love most about this EP, the sense that anything can happen, and will happen, if only for a few seconds. There's similar interruptions at other points in the song too, but that first one stands out most, probably because it's never explained or revisited. It could also be a function of the more straightforward nature of the song. Sure, there's still an array of distinct pieces in play, but they're much more uniform in their tone. Of all the tracks on there it's the closest to straight up metalcore, heavily rhythmic and breakdown-y though not without its flourishes.

Similarly straightforward, but better overall, is "Abe the Cop." In the scope of this EP, "Abe" is epic and sprawling, a whopping three minutes long, which does something that the other tracks can't do: it lets the movements breathe. There's also a greater sense of escalation, building up to a slightly more intense, oddly timed breakdown from a less grandiose set of early movements. It's also the EP's best showcase for vocalist Dimitri Minakakis, whose intense, foreboding vocals carry the song much more so than the tightly interlocking instrumental underneath. More than that though, it's the biggest hint that the band's compositional style has more to it than being well executed riff salad. The way that the song loops back around to the initial theme after it climaxes shows a lot more thought that those who write this off as complexity for its own sake would believe.

So yeah, in less time than it takes to properly barbecue a burger, Dillinger Escape Plan made the entire nascent mathcore genre their bitch. I don't think any other release in this particular arena has come close to the sustained level of quality that this EP offers - even Calculating Infinity has a couple of moments that just don't quite work - and even if its a slighter offering timewise it more than makes up for that with just how much it gets done within that period, and how well it makes excess of information work as individual songs. It's still hard to believe just how much this accomplishes in so little time, but any time that I convince myself that I'm over-praising it, one listen sets me straight. [9.7/10]

98 The Hard Way: EPs, Final Days

Art of Fighting: The Very Strange Year (Half a Cow)

It always mystifies me that in the realm of slowcore we never had many bands that followed in the footsteps of Bedhead more rigidly. That could just be my personal bias though, I always thought that the Kadane brthers' take on the genre, where the 'slow' part of the genre moniker didn't get in the way of the heaviness they could bring, almost like a miserablist take on sludge metal. So to hear a band like Art of Fighting pretty much amplify both of the best qualities of Whatfunlifewas - the epic streak and the dynamic tension - to their breaking point, it always makes me smile a bit. The fact that they manage to pull it off even better through that amplification is just the icing on the cake.

Think of it this way: this EP is over 40 minutes long. No song is less than 5 minutes long. The songs utilize that length to their advantage - "Wild Beast" in particular uses all of its 7 and a half minutes perfectly, building to a crushing, exciting conclusion after 5 minutes of tension build up. This is a band that knows what they're doing from the first moment, expertly deploying light touches of piano, subtle strings, epic crescendos, dueling vocals and melodic bass at just the right moments. Even the lesser pieces on this EP have a certain spark to them that indicates that given time the band might even make these types of songs work - I'm thinking mostly about "The Unappreciate" which comes closest to being textbook slowcore but still makes great use of the band's more unique features in the background. Even the theoretically overlong "Twenty-One and Eighty" manages to hold my attention during the stretches of sameness because there's so many subtle, interesting things that are going on in the background. And the scariest thing is that this is what they pulled off on their debut recording, bar a couple of demos. They got it almost completely right their first time out, which has me more than excited to see where they headed to next. [8.7/10]

Idlewild: Captain (Deceptive)

There's a definite pattern here. Idlewild operate in three modes: short, jagged punk bursts akin to their early singles, anthemic, mid paced rockers and dark, brooding post-punk. Each set of three songs on Captain lays out one example of each type, almost as though the band were going for a Side A/Side B feel despite this only ever being released on CD from what I can discern. This of course leads me to two observations:

1. "Side A" is far better than "Side B"

Just matching up the representative slice of each of the bands modes it's easy to see that the EP is heavily frontloaded. "Self Healer" edges out "Last Night I Missed All the Fireworks" thanks to a much more developed set of riffs and lyrics in the sub-two minute range. "Annihilate Now!" is a big step up on "Satan Polaroid," arguably coming off as a dry run for Hope Is Important's crowning glory "When I Argue I See Shapes" in all the best ways. And "Captain" handily destroys the overlong, messy "You Just Have to Be Who You Are" without much question at all. It's not an issue of the second half being bad - you'll notice that "You Just..." aside I didn't indicate that the matchups were incredibly lopsided - so much as the first half containing some of Idlewild's best material, full stop, even a full decade plus later.

2. The mild identity crisis is actually a selling point rather than a detriment.

Usually when I hear a band with more than one clearly defined style at this point in their career, I wind up saying to myself 'I really hope they keep going with style A over style B/C/D etc.' Strangely, even though the hierarchy is pretty clearly in the mid-paced anthemic rockers' favor in the end I don't find myself wishing that they eschew any of the tones offered here for more of another. Each of the band's modes is equally well defined and well played, such that I find myself wishing for more of everything from every subsequent Idlewild release. This is odd, especially for someone like me who values flow in his albums, but somehow the band makes me glad that they aren't stuck in one particular mode all the time, even though it makes the EP sound haphazardly arranged. I'd usually consider that a cardinal sin on any release, so making it into a slight advantage gets the band a lot of points in my book. [8.5/10]

The Promise Ring: Boys and Girls (Jade Tree)

 It's tough to go into much detail here, really. Both songs are great - all three if you're looking at the CD version - in the same way that other good Promise Ring songs are great. The big deciding factor is that they're isolated. The band's albums have always been very hit or miss with me. For every song that stands out and says 'Yes, we're a worthy addition to the indie emo canon' there's another that just sits there listlessly and another that's actively trying to sit though. Here though, you've got no fat to wish to trim off. "Best Looking Boys" is sprightly, poppy and addictive in ways that these guys didn't get that right previously (and only got consistently right when they morphed into Maritime). "Tell Everyone We're Dead" might be even better, it's definitely their best mid-paced number outside of "A Picture Postcard" if only because there's actual build to it. I guess that's the thing with both of these songs: they go somewhere when a lot of previous PR songs were content to stay in place, and while some bands can find the glory in water treading promise Ring could not. It could also have something to do with new bassist Scott Schoenbeck, who carries over more than a little bit the fluid, jazzy style that marks his other band from this period, Pele. Whatever the case, it's my go to Promise Ring release and barring a radical revision of my thoughts on their full lengths I don't see that changing anytime soon. [8.5/10]

Dødheimsgard: Satanic Art (Moonfog)

I'm willing to bet that the reaction most people will have to this EP will go something like this:

"Oneiroscope: OK, mood setting, can't fault that.

"Traces of Reality": Holy shit, intense progressive/My Dying Bride/black metal! More please!

The rest: You know, I liked In the Nightside Eclipse too...

So why doesn't this get cast aside like any number of albums I've heard with one stellar track surrounded by filler? Well, the fact of it is that that one track makes up almost half of the EP's running time, so even if the other material was incredibly dire - which it isn't - this would still hit the top half of my rating scale. There's also the fact that while the other two songs on here - discounting the intro/outro portions - could easily be written off as emblematic of the band's songwriting process, just stopping halfway to the point that "Traces of Reality" reaches instead of continuing onward.It also helps that in the real of one song wonders, "Traces of Reality" is exceptional in terms of quality. Sure it makes the rest of the EP look half-assed  by comparison, but the end results are worth it. [7.6/10]