Wednesday, July 19, 2006

You Take the Good, You Take the Bad, You Take the Good and Then You Have...?

Thursday, June 01, 2006

So I finally got my hands on the Red Hot Chili Peppers' latest disc Stadium Arcadium. The album dropped May 9th, I grabbed it earlier this week.Within that short span of time I have been mesmerized by the poppy catchiness of the lst single Dani Califonia, and asked by many who know me [cause I am such a music fiend who keeps his ears glued to the street, never getting left behind] whether or not I have heard it yet or gotten my hands on it.
Yeah I got it.Yeah it's been spun. Okay, that last sentence may be half truth/half fallacy. Okay so I've played it, but mainly the first disc. And I may have had it on in the background not really paying attention ot it. [Except when Dani California came on cause that song is the shit. They knew what they were doing when they chose that as a first single] Okay look putting a double album out asks a lot of a listener. Has this album grabbed me yet? Not completely. Does that mean it's a horrible album? Hardly. I am sure I will get to the second album in no time...after I give the first disc a few more spins.
Unlike other noteworthy albums this year such as Jenny Lewis' Rabbit Furcoat, the Yeah Yeah Yeahs Show Your Bones, or The Flaming Lips' At War With the Mystics [all single discs], the sheer awesomeness and craftmanship if you will did not grab me the first time around. Don't get me wrong, songs such as 'Hump De Bump', 'Charlie', and 'Snow (Hey Oh)', along with 'Dani California' actually managed to stop me dead in my web surfing, AIM typing tracks, but that's only four of disc one's ten tracks. 'Stadium Arcadium'? 'Torture Me'? 'Especially in Michigan'? Couldn't give you an apt description of those right now even if I tried. Guess I better put the disc on repeat...again
But I guess that is the plight of all double albums. They're like mind puzzles; sprawling, ambitious challenges that asks the listener to put as much time into them as the artists did themselves when creating it. As is the case with many albums, that first single [along with your own curiousity or history with the artist] pulls you in and from then on it is up to you to be patient with it, take it for a walk, wine and dine with it, get cozy before bed, [all of which are possible thanks to the abundance of MP3 players out there] etc., etc.
I remember walking to my neighborhood record shop in the Spring of 1996, paying twenty bucks for my very on copy of 2Pac's All Eyez On Me on cassette. Yeah that's right. Fresh out of elementary school, slowly getting my feet wet with this whole buying and collecting music thing, I grabbed that shit up and took the chance.[notice my sudden usage of slang when mentioning 2Pac. What the fuck is that about?] Sure I knew all the singles word for word, but for the unknowns it was up to 2Pac to wow me and force me to come back in and revel in the musical and lyrical magic of such non-commercial gems such as 'Only God Can Judge Me' or 'Picture Me Rollin'.
The same can be said for The Smashing Pumpkins' Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness, an album I have yet to buy but copied on cassette and/or burned on disc I am sure at one point in my life. Reading the tracklist now without listening to the album I see an album that is nearly flawless from track one-six on disc one. The slow burning opener that is 'Mellon Collie and The Infinite Sadness'. The majestic burn of the single 'Tonight, Tonight'. And the rollicking 1,2,3 plus one punch of 'Jellybelly', 'Zero', 'Here is No Why', and of course 'Bullet with Butterfly Wings'. There's 14 more tracks [with the gem '1979' on disc two being one of them] left to scan and blast from your speakers, but as is the case with Stadium Arcadium at the moment, more work needs to be done by me to [re]take them all in and enjoy what I am sure is a batch of fine and well crafted tunes. That's all I need. One more spin. Another opportunity to be swept up in their magic, cause obviously I wasn't the first time.
Does that mean it's a horrible album? Hardly. It's just the plight of all double albums from Prince's Sign O'The Times [one of the best double albums of all time] right up to the Foo Fighter's In Your Honor or the Red Hot Chili Peppers' Stadium Arcadium. They're like mind puzzles; sprawling, ambitious challenges that asks the listener to put as much time into them as the artists did themselves when creating it. Rumor has it that the Peppers actually had three albums worth of material. Fortunately that idea was vetoed as I am nearing the end of disc one, ready and willing to be grabbed/enertained/moved/straight up rocked by disc two. Alright fellas, let's do this.

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