(January 2019) I have completed episode 198 of my “opus project.” This edition: GANG OF FOUR. The first two albums are great post-punk material. But then they adopt 80s synths and I lose interest, and my interest finds no reason to return on the several unremarkable albums after that.
Favorite album: Entertainment!
Favorite song: Ether
Compared to expectations: ↓
(January 2019) I have completed episode 197 of my “opus project.” This edition: THE BEAU BRUMMELS. Before there was the San Francisco Sound, there was The Beau Brummels. This relatively unknown Bay Area outfit not only earned the distinction as perhaps the first American band to mimic the music of the British Invasion, they also introduced folk rock before the Byrds popularized it.
Favorite album: Triangle
Favorite song: Laugh Laugh
Compared to expectations: same
(December 2018) I have completed episode 193 of my “opus project.” This edition: THE MONKEES. Laugh if you must, but they put out some enduringly good music. While the Pre-Fab Four’s famous songs were written by others, their best albums came once they gained more creative control, earning a place among the pantheon of essential acts of the late ’60s golden age. The first two reunion albums are trash, but their 2016 album is quite good* and, for a Christmas album, so is 2018’s Christmas Party.
Favorite album: The Birds, The Bees & the Monkees
Favorite song: Pleasant Valley Sunday
Favorite song written by a Monkee: While I Cry
Best reunion album: Good Times! (2016)
Special sauce Mike Nesmith
Compared to expectations: same
* good, in large part because it was produced by Adam Schlesinger, with tracks from Fountains of Wayne bandmates Brian Young and Jody Porter
(November 2018) I have completed episode 190 of my “opus project.” This edition: FRANZ FERDINAND. The angular rock of their first album spent a lot of time in my CD player in the mid-aughts. Stuff after that, where they trended toward this neo-disco thing, not so much.
Favourite album: Frank Ferdinand
Favourite song: Take Me Out
Best song that’s also a spot-on homage to a Kinks song: Eleanor Put Your Boots On
Compared to expectations: same
(November 2018) I have completed episode 189 of my “opus project.” This edition: ELVIS COSTELLO. I’ve always enjoyed his popular songs, but I never collected his albums. Arguably the most gifted living songwriter not named McCartney, Dylan or Simon, he is also incredibly prolific (a new release every 16 months over four decades) and diverse (rock, lounge, jazz, country, classical). He best work is in rock, and I find his crooner/lounge pop recordings to be almost unlistenable: ill-suited to his voice and soured by his tendency to melodic wandering.
Favourite album: Armed Forces
Favourite song: Veronica
Compared to expectations: ↓
Worst album: Kojak Variety
Favourite late-period album: Momofuku
Best collaboration: Wise Up Ghost (with The Roots)
(October 2018) I have completed episode 188 of my “opus project.” This edition: THE B-52s. I bought their first album soon after it came out — one of only two* non-classic rock discs on my shelf . I loved the retro kitsch. But the retro kitsch ran thin fast. Beyond “Roam,” Love Shack,” and “Good Stuff,” most everything after “Rock Lobster” is vacuous.
Favorite album: The B-52s
Favorite song: Planet Claire
Compared to expectations: ↓
(October 2018) I have completed episode 187 of my “opus project.” This edition: THE RUNAWAYS. The first all-female hard rock band, they paved the way for many others (think L7 and The Donnas). KISS may have sold out arenas but their contemporaries The Runaways were no less hard-charging and loud. They also gave us Joan Jett and Lita Ford.
Favorite album: Gueens of Noise
Favorite song: Cherry Bomb
Compared to expectations: ↑
(October 2018) I have completed episode 185 of my “opus project.” This edition: THE HIVES. Inject this punk-inflected garage rock directly into my veeeeiiiins! Regrettably, I did not come upon The Hives until recently, because It Me. If you don’t know them, make them Your New Favourite Band.
Favourite album: Veni Vidi Vicious
Favourite song: Die, All Right!
Compared to expectations: same
(October 2018) I have completed episode 184 of my “opus project.” This edition: MOTÖRHEAD. Rock n’ roll to make your eardrums bleed: the way it should be. Lemmy never diverges from the core concept: loud and fast and whisky-fueled, but even over four decades it never got stale. Beauty in its purity. I came late to Motörhead, which was a mistake.*
Favourite album: Overkill
Favourite song: Ace of Spades
Worst album: March ör Die
Best later album: Bastards
Compared to expectations: ↑
* imagine the enhancement of my musical trajectory if, in 1979, I had bought Overkill instead of Van Halen II
(September 2018) I have completed episode 181 of my “opus project.” This edition: THE STROKES. Angular rock. Their first album “Is This It” spent a lot of time in my CD player in the early aughts. Subsequent albums are of diminishing interest.
Favorite album: Is This It
Favorite song: The Modern Age
Compared to expectations: ↓
Opus Project 