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Warren Zevon’s “The Envoy” (1982) – The Deep Racks Report

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A Special Edition of the Weekend Review

I think we’ve all heard the term “deep track,” used to refer to songs that do not receive much (or any) commercial radio airplay.  This series is dedicated to brief but focused reports on ALBUMS that do not receive as much commercial or critical attention as they should.

By Chris Moore:

Considerable time has passed since I last dug deep into the racks for a dusty gem, as Cuomo and company might say, to wipe off and take out for a spin.  Inadvertently coming across this record today has proved reason enough to revive the Deep Racks Report.

To suggest that The Envoy is least appreciated of all Warren Zevon albums would be an understatement.  It is the production whose reception resulted in his record label dropping him by the wayside.  It is the release that coincided — not so coincidentally, after he discovered he was unemployed via a music magazine — with a self-destructive run that landed him in rehab.

Some albums that are not as successful as the big-wigs may have hoped are given a second shot in re-release. The Envoy was given that chance…

…twenty-four years after it hit the shelves.

On the eve of its release in 2006, I found it conspicuous that this Zevon record had never been converted to CD previously.  The obvious question was, how bad could it possibly be?

I had my reservations.

Admittedly due in part to my low expectations, I became immediately enamored with these nine tracks.  It is a brief album, to be certain, but in my opinion, there are far too many examples of those releases that suffer from the opposite flaw.  The nine songs that comprise The Envoy are a cohesive set that negotiate the common territory of, well, negotiating the concerns of the singer: love and authority, to name a couple.

While not innovative, these songs are far from pedestrian.  Zevon continues along the same sonic veins that he has established on previous records, adding the uncharacteristically stripped-down, acoustic “Jesus Mentioned” — a preview of what was to come in the latter half of his career — and the unhinged romp “Ain’t That Pretty At All,” which shakes up the formula at the top of side B.

Warren Zevon's "The Envoy" (1982)

Warren Zevon's "The Envoy" (1982)

There are those that might scoff at my self-righteous resurrection of a lost album, mumbling to themselves about how albums are often deserving of their respective fates.  How low must my bar be set that I could admit such a lost and forgotten sample from Zevon’s nearly three decade long recording career?  The answer is: because I’ve heard lots of Zevon lots and lots of times.  I know a good Zevon release from a great one, and I can distinguish between the misguided, the mediocre, and the amazing.

This album leans decidedly towards the latter.

The Envoy has it all.  There is the fantastic, destined-for-the-greatest-hits track “Looking for the Next Best Thing.”  There are the straightforward rockers “The Envoy,” with its clever, then-contemporary political implications, and “The Overdraft,” which voices concerns of a more personal nature.  There are the tongue-in-cheek, tragic (i.e. typically Zevon-esque) tracks “The Hula Hula Boys” and “Charlie’s Medicine.”  And, for good measure, the songwriter reminds us that he’s not entirely jaded with a pair of purposeful, confident, and dare I say even romantic numbers: “Let Nothing Come Between You” and “Never Too Late for Love.”

Equally important to any serious study of The Envoy is the investigation of the songs that didn’t make the cut.  Wisely, Zevon withheld the overly eighties-sounding “The Risk,” a decision that speaks volumes for his clear mindedness regarding album sequencing, even at the worst of times. And it does makes a fun little bonus track, as does his cover of “Wild Thing.”  I would hope there was never any serious consideration paid towards adding this Troggs cover to the lineup, but all that really matters is that it was never included.

Even if these outtakes had been added, there would be no clear reason to excommunicate The Envoy from Warren Zevon’s body of available work.  There would have been less reason to respect it, but the nine tracks that did, in actuality, make the cut amount to a tight, smart album that knows when to crank up to breakneck speed and when to unroll a ballad, where to be sardonic and where to be sincere.

It is with great pleasure that I add The Envoy to my list of “Deep Racks” recommendations.  I hope you enjoy it!  (If you can find it…)

“Raditude” Revisited – The Weekend Review

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For my initial review of Raditude, click HERE.

By Chris Moore:

RATING: add a star or so

While I’m not convinced that I hit all that far from the mark in my first review of Weezer’s Raditude (2009), subsequent listens have led me to view the sequencing of the songs, if not the songs themselves, in a new light.

If my reviews were based solely on the music, lyrics, and album art, then perhaps I would have made the observations that follow a year ago.  And yet, reviews, at least to some degree, take into account the band members, their past work, and various other factors, not least of which is the reviewer’s state of mind at the time of the review.

So, I present the following reading of Raditude to exist beside my previous review, rather than to replace it.  In many ways, my first review is the superior one, and yet…

Raditude is one of those rare albums I’ve reviewed that deserves to be revisited.

Allow me to suggest the following reading of the album:

“(If You’re Wondering If I Want You To) I Want You To” kicks it all off with an innocence and — more importantly to the texture of the album — a passive tone that contrasts significantly with the several tracks that follow.  On the opening track, Rivers Cuomo tells the object of his affections to “make a move cuz I ain’t got all night.”

The song concludes with an imagining of a time in this cute relationship when they “have nothing left to say.”  As Cuomo sings, “When the conversation stops and we’re facing our defeat, I’ll be standing there, and you’ll be right there next to me. Then I’ll say…”  This is followed by the chorus, suggesting that the singer will face adversity in their relationship by awaiting action from his other half.

This hardly seems like the rhetoric of a match made in heaven.

In the subsequent track, “I’m Your Daddy,” the singer retains the typically quirky, Cuomo-esque persona we’ve come to expect.  Sure, the singer is approaching a beautiful woman, viewed as a conquest tale, but his idea of “what it is I do” is splitting a cheese fondue over dinner and being prepared to “ape a goombah,” whatever that means exactly.

In other words, this is the sort of storyline we’ve come to expect from Weezer, although the motivation isn’t usually quite so stereotypical and superficial.

Weezer's "Raditude" (2009)

“The Girl Got Hot” is a study in leading with your crotch.  The divergence here is clear and nearly complete.  (I say “nearly” because, after all, Cuomo still needs to get up “the nerve” to approach her, and his pick-up line is the not-so-original “Hey baby, what’s up?”)  Still, this song doesn’t entirely alienate itself from Weezer’s previous work.  Cuomo’s sensitivity is there — “I knew this girl back in junior high school,” he sings, suggesting he was on at least somewhat familiar terms with her.

And it’s not as though songs like “No One Else” are studies in feminism.

The wheels really come off in “Can’t Stop Partying,” an unapologetic celebration of debauchery.  It has been suggested that this is a parody — or at least a statement intended towards — modern pop songs, but Cuomo has always been a writer who wears his heart on his sleeve.  This songs lives too much in the moment for it to be read as anything quite so metafictional.  Still, the f-word — the first use of it in any of their songs — is censored in the lyrics booklet.  Take that as you may.

“Put Me Back Together,” my favorite songs on the album after the opener, is a return to the quirky narrator who describes himself saying, “my clothes they don’t match, and my blue jeans need a patch.”  This song could be taken as evidence that the previous tracks should be read in the context of the album as a whole.  As Cuomo sings, “It’s cold outside, would you let me come inside, and make it right?  Here it’s clear that I’m not getting better.  When I fall down you put me back together.”

Quite the contrast from “Can’t Stop Partying” when he sang, “Screw rehab, I love my addiction.”

In the next track, he is not “trippin’ on my own feet” as he was in “Put Me Back Together;” now, he is “Trippin’ Down the Freeway” with the love of his life, overcoming adversity with a “will that won’t fade out” to be together.  Here, the singer is still conflicted, declaring “You withheld the physical love I need” but admitting that “‘Girl, I got to be with you.'”

It all evens out in “Love is the Answer,” as he sings, “You’re gonna find your happiness inside.”  This track provides such a departure from the aesthetics of “Can’t Stop Partying” that the listener may be left wondering if that track ever existed to begin with.

Weezer revisits the party theme again in “Let it All Hang Out,” a song about the singer escaping from the concerns of a fight with his girlfriend and stressful situations at work.  “In the Mall,” another purely fun song, regresses to childhood to continue along the theme of escaping everyday obligations.

“I Don’t Want to Let You Go” concludes a divided album on a decidedly Cuomo-esque note, as he sings of his devotion to a girl as, “I have lost all hope for being normal once again; I will be a slave to you until the bitter end.  Even if it’s a hundred years before you change your mind, I will be here waiting girl until the end of time.”

If you decide to read Raditude as an album of contradictions and internal conflict, as I do, then it is clear which side has won out in the end.

It’s the side that makes me excited for their next album, to be released next month, less than a year later.

Like the title, it is unclear whether the album is meant to be taken seriously or not.  In many ways, the title is a fitting one, as the album is concerned with the decision to either follow one’s heart or to be cool.  Often, it is difficult or even impossible to have both at the same time.

So, is this a Weezer concept album that everyone — including myself — overlooked the first time around?  Probably not.  It’s probably just me reading too far into an initially disappointing album from one of my favorite bands, attempting to reason out why it is better than I initially believed.  All the same, my concern was never with the music: I was solely disappointed by the lyrical content, much in the same way that I have been unable to take the leap from respecting to enjoying Green Day’s American Idiot (2004).

The lyrics haven’t improved in my estimation, but my digestion of them has.

For the sake of all the other disappointed Weezer fans, I had to share.

The Wallflowers’ “Red Letter Days” (2002) – The Weekend Review

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** This is the fifth in a five part series of music reviews, counting down from the #5 to the #1 albums of the decade, 2000-2009. As of today, the #1 album has been revealed, along with the complete Weekend Review picks for the Top Thirty Albums of the Decade! **

By Chris Moore:

RATING: 5/5 stars

Knowing that Wallflowers frontman Jakob Dylan is son of THE Bob Dylan has raised a certain bar for his career in the music industry.  And he operates, for the most part, within the confines of genres that his father helped to define — folk/country rock, rock and roll, and most recently on his solo album, solo acoustic music.

Especially considering how high that certain aforementioned bar is, the respect I have for Jakob Dylan’s style of songwriting and producing is all the more significant.

In every way that matters, Red Letter Days is the Wallflowers’ masterpiece, coming just three months after the band passed the ten-year mark since their first, self-titled release.  And if you’ve heard The Wallflowers, then you know just how far they’d come to be able to release a record as well-developed, instrumentally brilliant, vocally masterful, and conceptually tight as this one.  Lyrically, Red Letter Days is Jakob Dylan at his best, and his vocal performances, both leads and backgrounds, are outstanding — perfectly orchestrated and yet not flat in the least.

This is what drives me furious about the public reception of this band and of this album.  Jakob Dylan has a style very much his own — catchy, quirky, tight and poppy yet raw — and still there’s hardly a reviewer who can pass up the opportunity to compare him to his father or to somehow reference Bob Dylan in some way.

I know, I know; even I haven’t avoided this.

Then there is Red Letter Days, an album that combines all the compositional qualities and sonic characteristics of my favorite classic rock — great guitar effects, a solid acoustic rhythm supporting most tracks, cool bass riffs, and a strong back beat — without coming off as being derivative.  This is not a band trying to sound like they stepped out of the sixties.  They’re not a seventies jam band transplanted into the modern music market.  And there’s nothing eighties about them.  No, this is a band with its roots solidly in everything that made the so-called nineties rock revival excellent.  Two years into the new millennium, they were carrying the best of those aspects into their new album while also incorporating more experimental sounds — i.e. drum machines and other synthesized sounds typically associated with alternative rock.

Forgive me as I ascend the soapbox, but can someone please explain to me why Red Letter Days didn’t so much as appear on any of the numerous “best albums of the decade” lists that I’ve read over the past several weeks?  I cannot, for all my love of and experience with the rock music of the past ten years, sort out a justification for why Red Letter Days isn’t sitting pretty alongside such acclaimed works as Yankee Hotel Foxtrot, Viva La Vida, Elephant, In Rainbows, and Sea Change, all albums that I also appreciate and do, in fact, appear on the Weekend Review’s top fifty list.

Putting the soapbox aside, the Wallflowers are one of the foremost rock bands of the nineties, and despite having suffered a steady decline in popularity, have continued to produce some of the most outstanding rock albums of the 2000’s.

The Wallflowers' "Red Letter Days" (2002)

The Wallflowers' "Red Letter Days" (2002)

From the first few seconds of “When You’re On Top,” it quickly becomes clear that this isn’t your standard Wallflowers release.  This opening track is all about anxiously stretching out for something original in a society that worships the retreads, the formulas.  We’re a society that loves what we know — in television alone, consider the four Law & Order franchises, the multiple CSI‘s and the even more numerous Survivor‘s.  American Idol is the same old formula, but played out season after season.  The narrator of this song, setting the tone for this record, aches for undiscovered ground, all the while remembering that it’s always best “when you’re on top.”  This can be read as referring to some other person being “on top” in his life, or perhaps a more autobiographical reading might suggest this is Dylan singing to us after his band’s decline in popularity after Bringing Down the Horse gave way to (Breach).

“How Good It Can Get” and “Closer to You” are the perfect pair, much more straightforward rock compositions that advance the tone and themes of the first track.  The former appears to exude a confidence, the narrator nearly bragging about what he has to offer, but the latter follows up with a much slower, more introspective approach.

For the fourth track, the Wallflowers shift into an altogether new and different gear.  “Everybody Out of the Water” is some of the hardest rock Dylan and company have recorded.  It really shows their teeth and Dylan seems to delight in the apocalyptic imagery and barely-contained scream rising up in his lead vocal.

This is quickly followed up with another drastic downshift into one of the best, albeit simplest, acoustic songs that this band has to offer.  “Three Ways” is driven by a clever lyrical device that is delivered within a beautiful, mesmerizing melody.

The middle ground of Red Letter Days presents an interesting combination.  Tracks six and eight, “Too Late to Quit” and “Health and Happiness,” are dark, bitter, bile-fueled rock songs that continue with the “all hell breaking loose” vibe of “Everybody Out of the Water.”  Between the two lies “If You Never Got Sick,” which is among the best Wallflowers songs to date.  If I were asked to play one song that represented the Wallflowers at their best, this would be it.  Dylan’s lyrics are beautifully constructed, his vocals are fittingly both longing and confident, and the instrumentation is a perfect blending of strong acoustic guitars, a purposeful electric lead, and driving drumbeats.

It is, in context, a bright spot at the heart of what is otherwise quite dark.

By the time “See You When I Get There” kicks on, the clouds have begun to part.  “Feels Like Summer Again” further demonstrates a positive attitude, playing with the imagery of summer to express all the hope that the warm months represent after a cold, frigid winter and a hesitant spring.

By the time the distorted guitars and crunchy bass of “Everything I Need” wind up, Dylan is a man whose confidence has been entirely restored.  The double tracked lead — Dylan’s lower register delivery in particular — adds to the battle-hardened, yet optimistic attitude that characterizes much of the album.  As he repeats in the chorus, “You can’t save me; you can’t fail me.  I’m back up on my feet, baby.  On the way down is when I found out, I’ve got everything I need.”

The final track of the album is an acoustic-based number in the same spirit as “Three Ways.”  “Here in Pleasantville” takes a deep breath, steps back, and examines the realities of the situation that has spread out before us between “When You’re On Top” and “Everything I Need.”  And there is no more zen-like, realistic song that you’ll find on this album or perhaps anywhere.  This song is certainly wrapped up in a bittersweet haze, but there is something very peaceful about it.

Almost as an afterthought, the bonus track “Empire in My Mind” stretches out and builds up a nearly manic sinking feeling that, “There is no order, there is chaos and there is crime.  There is no one home tonight in the empire in my mind.”  After an album’s worth of confidence building, breaking down of fears and insecurities and restoring independence, this is interesting choice indeed for a closing track.

Without reservations, I strongly recommend the Wallflowers’ Red Letter Days to you as the overall best rock album of the decade, 2000-2009.  Rolling Stone might as well have ignored it altogether for the bland three-star, one-paragraph review they afforded it.  The general consuming public might as well have forgotten the band existed for the relatively poor numbers, as it came in a full 28 spots lower on the Billboard charts than Bringing Down the Horse did and has failed thus far to so much as register on the RIAA books.

Don’t make the same mistake: if you go back and pick up one rock music album from this decade, make it Red Letter Days.

Bob Dylan’s “Another Side of Bob Dylan” (1964) – The Weekend Review

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By Chris Moore:

RATING:  4.5 / 5 stars

Nowhere else in the Bob Dylan catalog will you find a title that is simultaneously so blunt and yet so aptly written.

To be certain, Another Side of Bob Dylan may have been released in the same year as the preceding The Times They Are A-Changin’, an album that earns the distinction of being the most topical, protest-driven record in his resume.  The arrangement here on the fourth is the same as his first three albums: vocals, acoustic guitar, and harmonica.  There is a lyrical poem, “Some Other Kinds of Songs…,” included in this packaging, much like the previous record’s “11 Outlined Epitaphs.”

And yet, in many ways, this album’s material and approach could not be more divergent from what Dylan fans had come to expect.

For one thing, the in-your-face lyricism of his previous protest-genre songs is gone here, replaced by the more abstract, vivid, and provocative lines that begin to demonstrate a different aspect of Dylan’s worldview.  And, although I do love The Times They Are A-Changin’, it feels like he regressed in some ways after Freewheelin’, stating the “truth” on songs like the title track.  Here, on Another Side, he is back to asking questions a la “Blowin’ in the Wind,” perhaps most notably in “Ballad in Plain D” when he sings, “‘Are birds free from the chains of the skyway?'”

Even the arrangements — or perhaps the delivery more than the sounds — have progressed here, noticeable from the first “doooooo” of “All I Really Wanna Do.”  Dylan is clearly relaxing on this record a bit, allowing his most honest voice to shine through at times in ways that would have seemed out of place on the more serious tracks of his previous album.  Songs like “Black Crow Blues” and particularly “Motorpsycho Nightmare” simply wouldn’t have fit on previous records in all their humorous glory, oftentimes verging on the absurd (i.e. in “Motorpsycho Nightmare”: “I had to say something /to strike him very weird, /so I yelled out, /’I like Fidel Castro and his beard.’ /Rita looked offended / But she got out of the way /As he came charging down the stairs /Sayin’, ‘What’s that I heard you say?'”)

Bob Dylan's "Another Side of Bob Dylan" (1964)

Bob Dylan's "Another Side of Bob Dylan" (1964)

If you think that Dylan was an impressive lyricist prior to this album, then Another Side redefines one’s sense of what it means for words to be “impressive.”  Across the eleven tracks, it’s understandable if the listener might feel swept away into a world entirely separate from our own, into an environment where it is possible for the most raw of emotions and convictions to be translated into words.

In “My Back Pages,” Dylan sings that “Lies that life is black and white spoke from my skull.”  This is an admission of the shortsightedness of his youth, perhaps equally as much as it is a commentary on his own mortality, as he refers to his “skull” rather than his mind, soul, or something else more spiritual.

In my career as a teacher, I have always tried to avoid the pitfalls of the so-called “mongrel dogs who teach”…

Where he is not experimenting with word play (as in “All I Really Wanna Do,” “I ain’t lookin’ to compete with you /Beat or cheat or mistreat you /Simplify you, classify you /Deny, defy or crucify you”), he is surpassing the best songs of his catalog (think: “I Don’t Believe You (She Acts Like We Never Have Met)” as an updated departure song since “Don’t Think Twice, It’s All Right,” sung with all the bitterness that the lyrics require.

Even within this broad range of topics and interests, Dylan has come a long way towards blending his thoughts across multiple songs, avoiding any particular tags.  For instance, “It Ain’t Me, Babe” could be viewed as a sad love song, and it could also be read as a statement about his opinions on the folk movement: “You say you’re lookin’ for someone /Who will promise never to part /Someone to close his eyes for you /Someone to close his heart /Someone who will die for you an’ more /But it ain’t me, babe.”  This new side of Bob Dylan is adamant that he must follow his heart and do what he feels is right, rather than acquiesce to the demands and expectations of others.  Closing his eyes or his heart are simply not options.

This sense of increased confidence amidst confessions of his perceived over-confidence is carefully worked out across the record, aided by his unflinching assessments of others (recall “Ballad in Plain D,” when he sings, “I stole her away /From her mother and sister, though close did they stay /Each one of them suffering from the failures of their day.”  Increasingly, Dylan does not rely on grand, poetic statements or metaphors to capture his meaning; rather, he can deconstruct a character’s psychology through deceptively simple lines, like pointing out the “suffering from the failures of their day.”

Additionally, Dylan’s artistry is all the more complete for the inclusion of a track like “To Ramona,” on which he sings, “Everything passes /Everything changes /Just do what you think you should do /And someday maybe /Who knows, baby /I’ll come and be cryin’ to you.”  Pioneering some cross between sagely wisdom and open vulnerability, this track reads in many ways like the logical progression of Freewheelin’ alum “Girl of the North Country,” if it is even possible to improve upon such a beautifully bittersweet track.

Finally, he has not even abandoned politics entirely as one might imagine.  Instead, he approaches this topic — and this shouldn’t come as a surprise — with more subtlety and humor, as when he sings in “I Shall Be Free No. 10,” “Now, I’m liberal, but to a degree /I want ev’rybody to be free /But if you think that I’ll let Barry Goldwater /Move in next door and marry my daughter /You must think I’m crazy! /I wouldn’t let him do it for all the farms in Cuba.”  That last line is particularly funny, and again signals the spark of an entirely fresh and exciting step in Dylan’s evolution as a songwriter.

What is most impressive is that, as young as he was, Dylan was such a gifted and careful wordsmith.  I’m always struck by his choice of words here; he does not label these songs as “the other side” of Bob Dylan.  Rather, this is “another side,” suggesting that there are more than two sides to him.

As the numerous outstanding albums of his career — Blonde on Blonde, Blood on the Tracks, Slow Train Coming, and Time Out of Mind, just to name a few — would go on to suggest, there are myriad sides to this singer/songwriter.  And, if last year’s release of Christmas in the Heart is any indication, there may yet be many more sides to explore.