U2 - "All That You Can't Leave Behind" (2000)

A quintessential example of a 'comeback' album by a veteran band. On All That You Can't Leave Behind, U2 abandons their electronic experiments of the 90s and returns to the uplifting melodic balladry of albums like The Joshua Tree. And although I always prefer to be a contrarian, the result is undoubtedly their best since 1991's Achtung Baby. In fact, after the first five songs, I wondered if this might be (for me, anyways) U2's long-awaited masterpiece. 

The first four songs I was already familiar with from listening to alternative rock radio in 8th grade as my local DJs couldn't get enough of the fact that U2 had finally returned to their traditional sound. Although I enjoyed them fine at the time, I can now say confidently that these singles are indeed the shit. Though they lack the 'edge' of their 80s work and feel somewhat calculated, it all works. "Beautiful Day" is the best U2-by-numbers song I could conceive of, and "Stuck in a Moment You Can't Get Out Of" and "Walk On" successfully showcase a sweeter side of the band. "Elevation" is probably the precursor of their dreaded iPod jingle "Vertigo" but has the benefit of actually being good. Throw in track #5 "Kite" (another anthemic ballad) and you have a first side that is 95% as good as the first side of Joshua Tree, for although it's not as powerful, this is as melodic as they've ever been.

Unfortunately, having moved past the innovative, fresh stage of their career, it was probably too much to expect that they might have finally found the cure for their notorious front-loading of albums. And in fact, this may be the most extreme example of bad album sequencing in the U2 catalog yet. Almost imperceptibly, the album slides into being pleasant rather than stirring, and then boring rather than pleasant. So I can't quite rank this one on the same level as their more famous albums. But it is definitely a keeper, and the first five songs come highly recommended.

U2 - "Pop" (1997)

Well, it's been a month since I wrote my last review on this blog. So much for putting 'one record a day' in the URL! But due to popular demand, I have decided to end my hiatus by reviewing U2's Pop, an album which I do not own on vinyl and thus can't exactly blue bin. Oh well. Since my blue bin is full anyways, I decided to invent a new conceit for this blog, which is to review the albums I listen to on my iPod on the way to and from work. But don't worry, I plan to continue to review vinyls too!

As for Pop, it continues the U2 trend of the 90s in dabbling with techno and electronica. Although I would strongly hesitate to call this good, I do have to give some credit to the group for not making total asses of themselves with albums like this one and Zooropa. My feeling, and I doubt I am alone in this, is that the strengths of U2 were always the righteous power of Bono and the Edge's thick, textured guitar playing. During their electronic period, these elements were basically gone or severely reduced. Still, whether it was their litany of hip producers of the time, or the Edge proving himself to be a versatile multi-instrumentalist, Pop features a lot of interesting guitar loops and samples and arrangements that frequently shift between moods and textures in a way that seemed beyond the band's grasp in the 80s.

So it's not the electronic music influences that make this a mediocre album, but rather, the fact that the busy arrangements ultimately can't mask what is Bono's weakest set of songs. Apart from the soaring, Joshua Tree throwback ballad "Staring at the Sun," there is little emotional power to be found here, and like even the best U2 albums, the melodies are mostly AWOL. The better songs are interesting mostly for their arrangements (like "MOFO" with its pumped-up bass line), and even some songs that do appear to have a lot going for them ("Discotheque") fail to gel into something cohesive. Still, it's all mostly mediocre to decent, apart from the truly wretched "Miami" (think Bono near-rapping over an industrial dance beat), so I can't get too angry about Pop. But if I could blue bin it, I would.

Culture Club - "Colour by Numbers" (1983)

The definition of guilty pleasure (just look at that album cover!) but I can't deny that Colour by Numbers is a masterpiece of bubblegum pop (as long as we agree that a masterpiece of bubblegum pop probably still can't go beyond a 4 stars out of 5 rating). When I first listened to this record, I did find Boy George's whiny, 'soulful' vocals to be grating and didn't really give it a proper listen. But then "Karma Chameleon" was stuck in my head for long enough that I eventually decided it was worth giving it another chance. And indeed, pretty much every song here is memorable and catchy (in a good way), which satisfies the first (and maybe only) requirement of a great bubblegum record. Shockingly, they summon up some real soul as well on tracks like "Church of the Poison Mind" with great backing vocals from Helen Terry. Anyways, if you've heard "Karma Chameleon" and found it obnoxious, stay away. If you've heard "Karma Chameleon" and found yourself secretly enjoying it, then don't be afraid to pick up Colour by Numbers.

Emerson, Lake & Palmer - "Emerson, Lake & Palmer" (1970)

A keeper, but as I learned the hard way with Yes's Relayer, I wouldn't recommend playing this kind of music at parties. Like any self-respecting music critic who likes ELP (or are there any music critics who like ELP apart from amateur web reviewers?), I do feel conflicted about enjoying their music. And indeed, for about half of the first side of the record, I felt confident that I would be able to break from the shackles of my forefathers and deem this a blue bin album. But I felt the same way when listening to ELP's Tarkus, but eventually came to a grudging acceptance of the record. And lo, the same thing happened here!

For those who have never listened to ELP before, the issue is as following. This is prog-rock at its most proggy, with the music centered around piercing early 70s synthesizer solos. I don't particularly care for Emerson's synthesizer tone, seeing how it's aged about as well as Paul McCartney's voice, and though his playing is technically impressive, it is ridiculously overwrought. But the solos are not played with no greater end in mind. There is a diversity of moods, melodic hooks, and most importantly, the sense that these are actual compositions. Plus there are some piano solos every now and then! And most importantly, this album closes with "Lucky Man," a song which I have no compulsions about liking, and in a weird way, reminds me of Ween's The Mollusk (without the humor, of course). If you ever decide to give ELP a chance, start here.

Boz Scaggs - "Down Two Then Left" (1977)

I listened to Boz Scaggs' most acclaimed album (Silk Degrees) and felt lukewarm about it, so I expected to dislike Down Two Then Left. And I was right! This is not a terrible record, and I admit that the slick L.A. production works well with Scaggs' soul/funk/rock sound. There are some popping bass lines and nearly every track has a decent groove. But apart from "Lido Shuffle," Scaggs is incapable of writing any songs that I find catchy or memorable. Bin blue!

Original Soundtrack - "Arthur" (1981)

Probably the second-greatest album of all time entitled Arthur, but where the greatest album called Arthur would make my top 100 rock albums (the one by the Kinks), I plan to abandon this one in the imminent blue bin purge of 2012 (the bin is finally full!). Although I haven't seen the movie, I did see enough previews for the re-make starring Russell Brand to have very low expectations for this particular soundtrack.

I suppose my expectations were exceeded in that the overall quality of the vocal melodies (and string melodies on the all-instrumental second side) is pretty good. Burt Bacharach still had some talent in 1981, and perhaps, in a completely different context, these solid melodies could have resulted in some actual good songs. Alas, someone in the movie business decided that the ideal performers for these songs would be forgettable 80s acts like Christopher Cross and Ambrosia. The result is the arrangements are about as sappy and generic as possible, from the drooping adult contemporary of Stephen Bishop and Cross to the sub-Toto arena rock of Ambrosia. On the second side, some of the same themes are repeated with instrumental versions, which is preferable, but then again, also generic to the extreme, just with Hollywood classical replacing Hollywood pop-rock. Blue bin!

B.B. King - "Guess Who" (1972)

Slated for blue binning after a thumbs down review from my favorite online album critic (George Starostin), B.B. King's Guess Who became the subject of unexpected controversy in my household when my girlfriend told me that she had randomly played it and loved it and I immediately responded back with a link to Starostin's negative review. Not fair, perhaps, but I really do agree with Starostin a rather large percentage of the time and indeed, my fondness of his reviews no doubt has a lot to do with the fact that we share similar musical philosophies and tastes. 

And the most important musical philosophy we share is to actually listen to the record instead of judging it ahead of time (sounds obvious, but I have long suspected that allmusic.com and Rolling Stone do not always follow this principle). So much as I'd like to steal my friend Jonathan's witty pun about B.B. King standing for 'Blue Bin King' (okay, I already did steal it), I will be keeping this record, not that I wouldn't be anyways even if I hated it. My feeling, for what it's worth, is that G. Star. has a point regarding the fact that there is not a whole lot of guitar played on the record with the arrangements instead dominated by strings and horns. That's not to say that strings and horns are inherently a worse choice, but they are much less distinctive than when King brings out his trusted Lucille. But King is a good enough singer to make up for it, and when he does play guitar, he soars. Still, I will defend Starostin, as I could certainly see that in the midst of reviewing 44 B.B. King albums, this one probably wouldn't stand out.