James Taylor - "Sweet Baby James" (1969)

Rating: 6

Verdict: Keeper

I have long professed to hate James Taylor, but I am well conditioned to the idea that nearly every musical artist looks bad if you let them keep recording long enough. In the case of Taylor, a fairly mediocre singer/songwriter in the scheme of things, but one who has released a long series of albums, it should be no surprise that most of them are bad, at least if my blue bin is any indication. My point is that despite having tried several Taylor albums and having liked none of them, it's not completely fair to judge an artist by their dregs rather than their prime. Because of this, I was willing to give Sweet Baby James a listen as it is commonly regarded as the best JT album. If I didn't like this one, then I could probably safely conclude that Taylor never made a good album.

Well, this record is proof that he did make a good album, and against my better judgment, I am somewhat impressed by this record. I still don't care for his bland voice ('easygoing' being the word that people that like him use), but this is the only James Taylor album I've heard where he wasn't content to simply strum on his guitar and sing the first melody that came to mind for the lyrics he wrote. Yes, there are actual points of musical interest here. He was never a revolutionary in this regard, being firmly grounded in folk, country and blues (mostly folk), but it's quite refreshing to hear him play acoustic guitar parts that are actually interesting to hear on their own rather than simply acting as accompaniment. He switches style and tempo enough that there's diversity as well and best of all, genuine care put into developing his melodies. Witness the jazzy, off-hand end of "Fire and Rain" - the later Taylor would have deemed the chorus good enough and probably omitted the descending hook in the verses too ("I just can't remember who to send it to").

Now I didn't love this album, and part of my reflexive disdain for Taylor stems from those who try to elevate him to the position of an all-time great. For example, this album ranked 103rd on Rolling Stone's Top 500 albums of all time. It might make my top 500 by default as of this writing (I doubt the number of albums I have heard is significantly larger than that) but I seriously doubt it would come anywhere near it if I had heard all the albums that Rolling Stone presumably considered. Instead, Sweet Baby James completes my understanding of Taylor's ultimate importance - at least, to my own imaginary musical pantheon. At one time, he was capable of making nice music so he can't be completely dismissed. But if this is the best he could offer, then it's not surprising that I don't like much else by him. 

Rating: 7/10

The Smashing Pumpkins - "MACHINA/The Machines of God"

Rating: 6

You may know it as the notorious album that precipitated the Smashing Pumpkins' breakup. But is MACHINA/The Machines of God as terrible as its title would indicate? Perhaps I have my head so far up Billy Corgan's bald ass that I can't tell what good music is anymore, but I say no. But mediocre, most definitely!

For although Corgan's songwriting declined as we entered our third millennium, it hadn't completely gone to shit either. However, this album is filled with bad artistic decisions. Let's take a quick run-through of the decision-making of Mr. Corgan:

Wrote a set of spiritual, soaring mid-tempo ballads? Make sure that every song is produced with a deafening, buzzing wall of sound that makes Phil Spector want to kill again.

Need a lead single? Re-write "Zero" from Mellon Collie, give it a meaningless title ("The Everlasting Gaze") and make sure to include an a cappella section where you sing the line "But underneath the wheels lie the skulls of every cog" with a hard G so that everyone wonders if they just heard you scream 'skulls of every cock'.*

Find yourself with 25-30 minutes of top-notch material and no more? Make the album 73 minutes long and then release a companion album called MACHINA II with 90 minutes of OUTTAKES from the recording sessions.

Shit, I've almost convinced myself that I shouldn't give this album three stars which is what I'm going to do at the end of this review. But despite the flaws, I do think there is 25-30 minutes of top-notch material here, which is enough for a borderline positive rating. The stretch from "Stand Inside Your Love" through "This Time" is good enough that I can almost forgive the stretch of bad songs from the needlessly 10-minute "Glass and the Ghost Children" (solid at 3 minutes, bad at 10), through the tedious "Blue Skings Bring Tears." I wouldn't say there's a great album buried here, but there is a good album at 10 or 11 songs, especially with sparser production. And what pushes me over into positive territory is that "Stand Inside Your Love" is a truly great single, the one vestige of classic Pumpkins.

So if you're a Pumpkins fan, you should still listen to this album. If you aren't, don't. And no, there is no fucking way I am ever going to listen to MACHINA II.

Rating: *** out of *****

* There is one other example of this that I can think of in the annals of rock: Manfred Mann's "Blinded by the Light" where the singer clearly sings "Wrapped up like a douche" when the line is "Wrapped up like a deuce." I'm not sure I can say why, but both songs make my skin crawl.

Three Dog Night - "American Pastime" (1976)

I was hoping this album might be one where I could finally put my feelings about Three Dog Night on paper one way or the other. This band has been with me since my childhood, thanks to their cover of "Joy to the World" and its infamous (for me, anyways) refrain of "Jeremiah was a bullfrog!" I have long suspected that they were a mediocre group, but I am always reluctant to pronounce final judgment on a band unless I have heard at least one of their albums. 

Well, now I've heard American Pastime and I can confidently say that it is pretty terrible. Consisting of all cover songs, this record finds Three Dog Night exploring a variety of styles, such as rock, funk, and disco, and sounding bad in all of them. The vocal performances are decent, but the hooks are lacking and the instrumentation weak. Bland mid-70s soft rock at its blandest, and I don't have a lot interesting to say about it.

But to be fair, my obligatory allmusic.com and rateyourmusic.com research has uncovered that this particular album is considered by even fans of the band to be one of their weakest, as it came late in their career, and after one of the three main members had already left the group. So I still can't pronounce a final judgment on Three Dog Night as a whole. But I can on this album, and my judgment is that it is going to the blue bin.

The Steve Miller Band - "Abracadabra" (1982)

I was perhaps too quick to say that I was considering filing Steve Winwood between Steve Miller and Steve Perry. I almost forgot that I despise the Steve Miller band. Fortunately, a listen to the first side of Abracadabra brought me back to the joys of hating a piece of music and all the superiority implied. Maybe if I had been born in 1978 instead of 1988, I would instinctively gravitate towards Miller's watered-down rock sound with the force that only childhood nostalgia can lend. Alas, it wasn't so, and as such, my only reaction to the title track is one of horror.

All that said, if there is some objective arbiter of taste out there, I am sure that he or she would agree that I like worse albums than this one. It's poppy, overtly commercial, and dated, but so was that album I reviewed last night. I just happen to think that Miller is one obnoxiously smug motherfucker. I admit the chugging guitar rhythm of "Abracadabra" drew me in for a few moments, but once I heard its sneering chorus, all the loathing that I have felt for his other hit songs like "The Joker" came flooding back. The postures of hipness and slick production are just too much for me to deal with for this genre of music, and so to the blue bin I consign Abracadabra.