By Chris Moore:
June was a quiet month, and I didn’t initially appreciate some of the great work that is represented below. This is one of the only benefits to posting these reviews so belatedly this year: that my criticism has had months to percolate and develop. I think that is revealed below…
Suck It And See (Arctic Monkeys)
Producer: James Ford
Released: June 6, 2011
Rating: 3.5 / 5 stars
Top Two Tracks: “She’s Thunderstorms” & “Piledriver Waltz”
With so many individually excellent songs – the opening electric barrage of “She’s Thunderstorms” and the gorgeously Suck It And See should be an instant classic. There’s something lacking, though: predominantly, a sense of momentum. Individual songs achieve momentum relative to themselves, but there just isn’t a sense of ever-mounting energy as the tracks continue. Still, the retro-rock/punk groove of tracks like “The Hellcat Spangled Shalalala” is undeniably catchy, and the Arctic Monkeys certainly haven’t lost their range, one which runs from the mean distortion of “Don’t Sit Down ‘Cause I’ve Moved Your Chair” to the placid ballad “Love is a Laserquest.”
Alpocalypse (“Weird Al” Yankovic)
Producer: “Weird Al” Yankovic
Released: June 21, 2011
Rating: 4 / 5 stars
Top Two Tracks: “CNR” & “Skipper Dan”
With Poodle Hat (2003) and Straight Outta Lynwood (2006), Weird Al raised the bar considerably, and it would seem to be a setup for failure to compare all future work by the watermark of discs like these. Still, Alpocalypse rises to the occasion: there’s the dual-layered parody of “Born This Way” and Lady Gaga in the opener “Perform This Way,” style parodies of Weezer (“Skipper Dan”) and the White Stripes (“CNR”) that will stand up to his best work, and of course, a wittily titled polka medley (“Polka Face”). Weird Al even manages to make the catchiness of that celebratory, patriotic Miley Cyrus tune accessible to the rest of us in “Party in the CIA.” With Alpocalypse, Yankovic has also caught up on a few items that, in retrospect, I’m surprised haven’t fallen under his radar previously: “Craigslist,” performed in perfect Doors/Jim Morrison fashion, and the appropriately faux-epic “Stop Forwarding that Crap to Me.”
Is For Karaoke EP (Relient K)
Released: June 28, 2011
Rating: 4 / 5 stars
Top Two Tracks: “Surf Wax America” (originally performed by Weezer) & “Baby” (originally performed by Justin Bieber)
While I usually cannot condone an album of covers, much less an EP, and especially from a band that has only recently put out some of the most mature and masterful original material of their career, Relient K’s Is For Karaoke EP is actually quite good. In seven brief songs, they span the decades, from as recent as last year and stretching all the way back to April 1980 with an impressively spot-on take of Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers’ “Here Comes My Girl,” not forgetting the nineties in between, particularly with their not to Weezer in “Surf Wax America,” an excellent choice of band as well as song. Frontman Matt Thiessen shows off his vocal range on Gnarls Barkley’s “Crazy,” and Relient K renders another annoying track listenable in their cover of Justin Bieber’s “Baby,” a resuscitation of a cover that can only be compared with Fountains of Wayne’s version of Britney Spear’s “Baby… One More Time.” Overall, a masterful little EP, and not bad at all to tide us over until their follow-up to 2009’s outstanding Forget and Not Slow Down, my pick for number one album of that year.
Rave On Buddy Holly (Various Artists)
Producer: Randall Poster & Gelya Robb
Released: June 28, 2011
Rating: 3/5 stars
Top Two Tracks: “(You’re So Square) Baby, I Don’t Care” (Cee Lo Green) & “Changing All Those Changes” (Nick Lowe)
As with all tribute albums, the quality is uneven throughout. And, buyer beware, there are some real clunkers here (Lou Reed’s distortion-drowned “Peggy Sue,” to name only one of several). However, there are also some gems, and some hail from surprising corners. Cee Lo Green’s take on “(You’re So Square) Baby, I Don’t Care” is easily the best track on the record, followed quickly by a plethora of pleasing yet unsurprising covers by an admittedly impressive array of artists, from Paul McCartney to Modest Mouse and Fiona Apple to the Black Keys. There are too many strong tracks here to write Rave On Buddy Holly off, yet there are too many forgettable (at best) flunkers to offer up too much praise too easily.