Ultimate Album List, No. 22

The Jesus Lizard - Liar

Release date: 1992

When I got it: Christmas 2001

Record label: Touch and Go

Styles: American underground, noise-rock, alternative metal, indie rock, alternative pop/rock

Top tracks: Boilermaker, Gladiator, Puss

This was the third Jesus Lizard album that I bought, so they were well on their way to being my favorite band at the time. While I was already very familiar with their style, it didn't make this album any less intense.

"Boilermaker" is still one of the best songs I've ever heard and serves as the perfect opener . It also happens to be named after my favorite drink, so that's a plus as well. After "Boilermaker" the band doesn't relent at all by moving into "Gladiator," which has one of the five best finishes to a song I've ever heard. "Puss" was actually also released on a split single with Nirvana, which is how I originally heard about The Jesus Lizard.

I really don't have much else to write about Liar. It's just fucking terrific, unless you actually like to "understand the lyrics" or anything dumb like that. There's a reason why Steve Albini thought The Jesus Lizard in their prime was the best rock band in the world.

All Music review of Liar:

http://www.allmusic.com/cg/amg.dll?p=amg&sql=10:0cftxq85ldhe

The Jesus Lizard Wikipedia page:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Jesus_Lizard

Listen to The Jesus Lizard:

http://www.last.fm/music/The+Jesus+Lizard

Music video for "Puss":

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PX7FCfsPqR0

Ultimate Album List, No. 23

Lync - These Are Not Fall Colors

Release date: 1994

When I got it: Fall 2007

Record label: K

Styles: Indie rock, emo

Top tracks: B, Cue Cards, Turtle

Every once in awhile you have a band that comes out of nowhere, records something brilliant, and then disappears again, seemingly forever. Lync is one of those bands. These Are Not Fall Colors is the only true album that the band from Olympia, Wash. recorded, but they certainly made the most of it.

Now, I imagine that some people who know me well are going to see "emo" in the styles and be surprised, because I have a tendancy of making fun of emo. The difference is, what most people think of as emo today, is not what emo was supposed to be in the beginning. Emo is now synonymous with shitty, whiney pop punk, and yes, if that's what emo truly is now, then it sucks.

But These Are Not Fall Colors is emotional without being whiney. I'm not even able to figure out most of the lyrics (surprise!), but the emotion lies in the passion with which the lyrics are sung and the instruments are played. On this album, Lync sounds like a cross between Rights of Spring, Modest Mouse and The Jesus Lizard, and that's not an easy cross to make.

"B" is quite possibly my favorite opening track ever (Hmmm ... I wonder how many more times I'll say that in this countdown). Still, every time I hear that opening guitar part and then the bass joins in, I start to get excited for the song. But the payoff in "B" comes at the end with one of my favorite closings. That last minute of the song doesn't have any passionate screaming vocals or extended bursts of noise, but the way that the guitar, bass, drums and Sam Jayne's vocals work together simply may have achieved perfection.

"Cue Cards" is another highlight song on the album and has quite possibly the most effective two-word chorus ever: "Cue cards! Cue cards!" (Sweet bass line) "Cue cards! Cue cards!"
It's a shame that the number of words in that chorus managed to outnumber their amount of true albums or Lync could've have been remembered by more as one of the great bands to come out of the Pacific Northwest.

All Music review of These Are Not Fall Colors:

http://www.allmusic.com/cg/amg.dll?p=amg&sql=10:3ifwxqwhldae

Lync Wikipedia page:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lync

Listen to Lync:

http://www.last.fm/music/Lync

Ultimate Album List, No. 24

The Velvet Underground - The Velvet Underground & Nico

Release date: 1967
When I got it: July 2001

Record label: Verve

Styles: Rock & roll, proto-punk, experimental rock, folk-rock

Top tracks: I'm Waiting for the Man, Venus in Furs, All Tomorrow's Parties, Heroin

There's really so much I could write about The Velvet Underground & Nico. It's certainly the most influential album on this list. Although, influential doesn't always mean good. But in this case, it does.

While most bands in the 60s were trying to become the next Beatles or Rolling Stones, The Velvet Underground was trying to become the next ... well ... not really the next anything. They were out to make their own name. They were underground rock when underground rock didn't even exist. On this album, they blatently created songs that would never be played on the radio -- songs about drug dealers, S&M, and heroin. And they didn't try to be subtle, singing lines like "Heeeerrrrroooiiiiiin ... be the death of meeeeee."

When I bought this album nearly eight years ago, it really represented a shift in music taste for me. I had just gotten into Sonic Youth and the Pixies a little bit, but I was still somewhat interested in mainstream radio. For some reason, that seemed to stop sometime around when I bought this album. Probably not a coincidence.

"Heroin" is easily the best song on the album, and really is one of the best rock songs ever written. I've listened to the song hundreds of times, and you know what? It doesn't become any less powerful. It was also pretty much my introduction to noise, in a music sense at least. One time, I had the song playing while I shared a room with Sam, and he said to me "I would say that CD is skipping, but I know it's just The Velvet Underground."

This is the only Velvet Underground album with Nico, a female European singer. It took me awhile to really get into her voice (it's kind of deep), but she really does a great performance on "All Tomorrow's Parties." As for the vocals on the rest of the songs, Lou Reed always manages to sound like the coolest guy around.

All Music review of The Velvet Underground and Nico:

http://www.allmusic.com/cg/amg.dll?p=amg&sql=10:dpfqxql5ldhe

The Velvet Underground Wikipedia page:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Velvet_Underground

Listen to The Velvet Underground:

http://www.last.fm/music/The+Velvet+Underground

The Velvet Underground page on the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame site:

http://www.rockhall.com/inductee/the-velvet-underground

The band performing an acoustic version of "Femme Fatale" live:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FjjDmX9Tkss&feature=related

An acoustic version of "Heroin" live:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G8VIXnTL6O0&feature=related

Ultimate Album List, No. 25

Dazzling Killmen - Face of Collapse

Release date: 1994
When I got it: late 2006
Record label: Skin Graft
Styles (according to allmusic.com): Alternative pop/rock, indie rock, noise-rock, experimental rock, math rock
Top tracks: Staring Contest, Blown (Face Down), Windshear

I was talking to my good friend Bill a few weeks ago about music, and I somehow managed to refer to the band Dillinger Escape Plan as "just a poor man's Dazzling Killmen." That of course put Bill into a fit of laughter, even more so because he knew I was being dead serious.

Anyway, Face of Collapse is sort of a surprise on the Top 25. Honestly, if I had made this list about two months ago, I never even would've considered this album because it was pretty much forgotten by me until then. I bought this during the early part of my senior year in college when I became intrigued by reading it had been named the best heavy record of the 90s by Alternative Press at some point. I had also heard the band compared to The Jesus Lizard and even a little bit of Slint, so I figured I had to give them a shot. Even though it was hard for me to believe a good hard rock band could come from St. Louis. I immediately fell in love with "Staring Contest," the album's opener, but nothing else really clicked with me. I listened a few times and kind of just forgot about it until a few months ago.

Face of Collapse wasn't even on my iPod until recently, and once it was on there, I started to get into some of the other songs. As of now, it's easily the album I'm listening to the most right now.
I really see this album as a wild card on this list. If I revisit this in two or three years I could easily see myself thinking "Wow, this should've been Top 10, easy!" or "What?! Laaaaame. I'm deleting this entry. What was I thinking?"

I would say Face of Collapse is probably the hardest-hitting album on this list, so this isn't quite for the faint of heart. I mean, it took me two and a half years to get into it! Dazzling Killmen didn't have a very prolific output (two albums, I think), but they didn't fuck around. The guitar player, bassist, and drummer were all jazz students and the singer was ... well, angry.

I think the reason it took me so long to get into this is because you never really know where the songs are going (typical jazz students). And of course a lot of the timing is fucked up of purpose, to make it just good enough not to be catchy in any way. However, once you've listened to Face of Collapse a few times, it really starts to hit you how awesome the drumming and bass playing is, and that's really what drives the music.

"Staring Contest" is still my favorite song on the album, but every song is fantastic. In fact, the first 40 seconds of "Windshear" is one of the most amazing, intense things I've ever heard. It sounds like the lead up to some sort of explosion, so of course they mellow out at the end of the song instead. I don't think it would be possible to keep up that intensity anyway.

The album probably climaxes at the end of the 14-minute "In the Face of Collapse," with about a minute of grinding guitar and noise. And for those who know me well, that's right up my alley.

All Music review of Face of Collapse: http://www.allmusic.com/cg/amg.dll?p=amg&sql=10:ajfoxqwgldse

Dazzling Killmen Wikipedia page: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dazzling_Killmen

Listen to Dazzling Killmen: http://www.last.fm/music/Dazzling+Killmen

Band page on record label's Web site: http://www.skingraftrecords.com/bandhtmlpages/dazzkillmen.html

The Jared P. Stout Ultimate Album List

This blog is going to start off with a bang. During the past few weeks I've been coming up with a list of my Top 25 favorite albums of all time, and during the next few weeks, I'm going to be releasing the list one album at a time.

This is something I've thought about doing for a long time, but it's not exactly an easy thing to do as most people could understand. I actually didn't have all that much trouble coming up with about the first 16 albums or so. I actually used the help of brackets for the remaining spots.

I think I'm finally ready to finalize the list, which has been changed a few times in the last week, even after I thought it was already finalized, but I'm pretty sure I have it now.

Sometime in the next few days I'm going to start with the No. 25 album and try to do a post every one or two days. Every once in awhile during the countdown, I'm going to add a few special honorable mention albums. These aren't necesssarily No. 26-30 or anything, they're just albums that are particularly special to me but weren't good enough to make the list.

Before I begin to release the list, here are a few fun facts:

• The No. 1 album was actually pretty easy for me.
• No. 25, on the other hand, was incredibly difficult. I actually changed it about four times, and if I waited one more week, I think it could change again.
• Only three bands made the list more than once and none made it more than twice.
• In a slight surprise, neither the Pixies nor Fugazi made the list at all. It's possible that Fugazi would have about four albums between 26 and 50 if it were a longer list.

I'll be posting the links on Facebook, so please be sure to check out the list.

It's about time!

I'm kind of surprised it took me this long to create a music blog -- especially because I've never been known to procrastinate, right? Anyway, I'm going to use this blog as a place to recommend new music, make crazy music lists and talk about ridiculous indie genres (notice the blog title!). I actually already have a special feature planned to kick off this blog which I will talk more about soon.

I know many of my friends don't share the same music interests as me, but I hope that it interests enough people that I will stay motivated. Anyway, I hope you all enjoy Post-slowmathnoisecore.