2)Soundgarden, Louder Than Love: This seems like a slight advance on Ultramega OK in terms of intelligence, but in terms of songwriting quality, I'm afraid it's actually a step back. I always laughed at the stupid hair metal parody "Big Dumb Sex" and still do, but the only rediscoveries here were the speedy "Full On Kevin's Mom" and the awkwardly-similarly-titled "Full On," which has an elegiac quality like Pearl Jam's "Black," but it's an actual album closer. Elsewhere, there's...a lot of darkness, but not very good darkness. Stuff like "Gun" and "Power Trip" seems to be going for Black Sabbath-ish doominess but just ends up boring me, and I thought there were a couple dark songs later on like "I Awake" and "No Wrong No Right" that I'd get into...but I never quite did. What a pisser, especially since, as always, the band sounds technically capable for sure and even brainy. But these songs never stick in my head, and the overriding theme of all these "relistens" posts is that I no longer have patience for albums where songs don't stick in my head.
3)The New Pornographers, Mass Romantic: Full disclosure: I thought this band's first three albums were really good when I heard them back in college, but since then, the only two songs I've ever actually replayed from any of them since were "Letter From An Occupant" and "The Bleeding Heart Show." Now I'm wondering if I actually liked them that much, or if my young mind just thought I did because they were critics' favorites ("I must be missing something here!") and because you couldn't go a week on this board between 2003 and 2008 without a New Pornos discussion (you all remember, right?) Well..."Letter From An Occupant" is still great, I know that much, but it's the only real classic here. I did rediscover a few near-great songs: "Breakin' The Law" is second-best, with that cutesy descending chord sequence thingy and kiddie keyboard tone, "Mass Romantic" and "The Mary Martin Show" jaunt along pleasantly, "The Slow Descent Into Alcoholism" is funny-dark, and somewhere I think there's a song with the same melody as Stereolab's "Stomach Worm," the name of which escapes me right now. So yeah, about half of this album is still good...but honestly, I'm probably just going to go back to maybe digging out "Letter From An Occupant." Oh, also: I've never heard anything from this "supergroup"'s other bands or acts...have you? At least now I know what "Zumpano" is referring to.
4)Sonic Youth, Experimental Jet Set, Trash & No Star: This is the worst Sonic Youth album I've heard (of course, I never bothered with their side projects or novelty/experimental albums or forgotten EPs or anything like that) but curiously, it's not at all for the reasons I would expect a Sonic Youth album to be their worst, especially a Sonic Youth album from 1994. There are no unlistenable feedback freakouts, nor lame concessions to MTV, nor pandering to the grunge/alt-rock audience here, by which I mean there are no bad jokes like "Youth Against Fascism" or sassy embarrassments like "My Friend Goo." You know, the kind of thing the band got blasted for back when they did Dirty. In fact, almost none of these songs, in and of themselves, are painful to listen to: they're just forgettable. I didn't really listen to this album correctly in the day: the CD was scratched or cracked or something (I know I got it from a library) so I think I only made it through the album three times or so, but I did remember the lovely, mellow closer "Sweet Shine" (the closest thing to a classic Daydream Nation epic, natch) and, while I'm not wild about it, the MTV video song "Bull In The Heather." And the rest is...a pile of short, dark, dank, miserably unmemorable slop that doesn't catch my ear in any way at all. Maybe "Bone" does, loping around like that, but that's it. Honestly, I listened nine times and I'm not sure what I could even think to say about most of this stuff. Since you rarely hear about this album any more, I'm assuming that a lot of people have forgotten it just like I'm going to soon--at least sassy MTV-friendly albums like Goo and Dirty managed to piss people off.
5)Queens Of The Stone Age, Era Vulgaris: I'm not sure who this album's target audience really was (outside of their fanbase)--Josh Homme was generally praised for his skill and craft on this album, but read five different reviews of it and you'll get five different answers as to what it's really trying to do. Attack Hollywood? Be gross and crass? Is it "psychedelic"? "Art-rock"? "Proggy"? Funny? Dark funny? An attempt at messing with their audience? Really, the only consistent line in the reviews was that people missed Nick Oliveri at the time. It's a very electric, loud guitar rock album but "metal" seems a misnomer for it, IMO, and always did. Maybe "postmodern hard-psych"? Whatever. It's not as good as perennial favorite Songs For The Deaf, but I did really love "Sick, Sick, Sick" and forgot about how beautiful the mellow, dark "Suture Up Your Future" was. There are fun stompers at the beginning like "Turnin' On The Screw" and "I'm Designer" and a strong rally at the end with "3s & 7s," "Suture," "River In The Road" and "Run, Pig, Run" but kind of a weak midsection--I'm not into "Misfit Love" or the silly "soul" pop tune "Make It Witchu" like most critics were and I think I'd like "Battery Acid" more if it didn't sound like it was cleverly stolen from somewhere.