Miles Davis - Side A Wednesday Miles - Bitches Brew/The Theme (1970)
So the four sides of Miles Davis At Fillmore double album were originally 25 minute condensed edits of each consecutive night's set named after each day of his June 17-20 1970 residency at New York's Fillmore East. Later in the 90s the cd version divided up the days into seperate tracks which were either passages of tunes, tunes or medleys of tunes. Miles also used to go from one song to another continuously at this stage without breaking up the momentum of the music. So it's hard to tell how much of this was real to the live audience and how much is a virtual performance edited by the splicing maestro Teo Macero. In the end it doesn't really matter does it unless maybe your apple or spottily is throwing in ads at crucial points of the record but hey go and buy the actual album if that's the case.
So this section of Wednesday Miles is the last half of side A and it's basically a shortened version of Bitches Brew and strangely a thirty second snippet of a 1956 golden oldie. The Theme being a track from a 1956 session that ended up being released on Prestige's Miles (1956) LP. Anyway it's all played inna fine style by this 1970 line-up of Miles' band.
Miles Davis - Bitches Brew (1970)
As far as these live versions go Black Beauty's unhinged version might be even more better. It's a totally destroyed feedback and wah-wah drenched end of your tether abyss of a tune. I don't even get where the feedback or wah-wah are coming from as there's no guitarist here so it's either Chick's keyboard, Miles' trumpet or Dave Holland's bass. Holland and Davis were both renowned at this stage for utilising wah-wah so perhaps they are both the wah-wah culprits! Twins of wah-wah doom!
Miles Davis - Bitches Brew (1969)
Still it's hard to go past the original epic brew of Bitches Brew. The siren-ing trumpets echoing across the apocalyptic night sky are still the most most pertinent soundtrack to our times. I'm pretty sure Miles is still way ahead of everyone...
Al Di had a good little run of albums in the 70s but had an even better run of album covers. This is how a 21 year old Al Di chose to present himself to the world. I mean how many of us have lived this dream? If I put my other spectacles on and brushed my hair down I would basically be this LP cover. It's a vibe. It's a life vibe. It's an aspirational life vibe we all need to be striving for. Thank-you Al Di Meola for making us want to be better people in our lives!
Al Di Meola - The Wizard (1976)
The relentless opening track from Al's debut LP is ferocious fire on the frets. I believe these are blazing hot licks! Apart from the scintillatingly intense fretwork from the incomparable Al Di, The Wizard is a drummage and percussion extravaganza! That's Steve Gadd on drums and Mingo Lewis doing the percussion. Thank you lads for extravaganza-ing the rhythms.
A jazz-rock-fusion bomb. Opening with the epic four and a half minute space-y horror movie synth goodness then it's a funky cosmic voodoo trip worthy of 70s Miles, which makes plenty sense as Lenny White's drummage featured on Bitches Brew. Superfly bass and flute with insane synth guitar breaks follow.
Lenny White - Mating Drive (1975)
The children of Bitches Brew supply more tasty cyber-superfly fusion. This time it gets brutal, intense and dark.
Peak jazz rock fusion for existential urban night driving with the possibility of violence.
Mating Drive is nearly fifty years old and yet it still sounds like the future to me. Imagine if overrated tosh like The Smile was fifty years ahead of its time instead of over fifty years behind it?
Santana - Carnaval/Let The Children Play/Jugando (1977)
Haven't I been a fool? Why hasn't this been in my life before now? I vaguely recall hearing this fifteen or twenty years ago and thinking I must investigate that further. And I just didn't and yet I've got all sorts of latin and jazz and cumbia and samba rock and boogaloo and fusion and chicano rock albums and compilations. I mean I love nothing better than a latin rhythm so this was a no brainer but for some reason...well I guess I was always led to believe Santana were not only daggy but terrible and I never had a Santana fanatic friend to seriously sit me down and tell me the score. I'm hoping there is more like this mental medley in the catalogue.
Somebody asked me the other day who are the five greatest music artists ever. I could only come up with one which was Miles.
James Brown - Cold Sweat (1967)
Then the next day when the question came back to me in my head the only other one I could say for certain was James Brown.
Cold Sweat really is a funky-fied version of So What innit. Does everyone know this?
Anyway I think the story goes that they were jammin' on So What and it morphed into what would become known as Cold Sweat, inventing funk in the process. Whether that's the exact moment funk was born I dunno but if I had a DeLorean with a flux capacitor and could attend just one jam session from the twentieth century that would probably be it.
Charles Mingus - Mode D-Trio and Group Dancers/Mode E- Single solos and Group Dance/ModeF-Group and Solo Dance (1963)
I don't have a Marantz semi-audiophile set up like I did twenty seven years ago so a lot of the nice jazzy jazz (cool, hard-bop and post bop) I've been listening to just isn't cutting it, particularly the bass. I need to get a real hi-fi again! Something raucous with grunt like Charlie Mingus on The Saint And The Sinner Lady (1963) is much better because it's unapologetically in your face in the most delicious way. God it even sounds alright on me computer. I forgot that this LP is genius.
I remember seeing a Charles Mingus documentary at the film festival around maybe 1999 or 2000 but I recall almost nothing about him or his music. All I recollect was that he was a part Chinese, part Swedish and part African American and he was pretty grumpy. So all I really know is the barmy music I had on a handful of tapes of his classic late 50s and 60s albums. However I don't think I ever knew that this record was like his Bitches Brew ie. his engineer Bob Simpson, under the direction of Charlie, was using the studio as an instrument and pioneering splicing in jazz six years before that Miles Davis/Teo Macero watershed moment. Apparently more than fifty edits were used. This involved cutting and sectioning the magnetic tape with razor blades and putting it back together with sticky tape and somehow making it sound seamless.
Charles Mingus - Track C Group Dances (1963)
As mentioned in a previous post Charlie hated the term jazz as did a lot of his fellow musicians. The record company decided to market this LP as "ethnic folk dance music", it's definitely my favourite ethnic folk dance album. The Black Saint And The Sinner Lady contains the spirit of ye olde New Orleans with the most infectious serpentine bluesy jazz infused with touches of Spanish guitar, improv, folk, classical and musique concrète. The whole commotion is like a defiant convulsion. It's an ecstatic blast of clashing tones teetering on the edge of chaos and collapse. A dazzling noise with a gloriously disorienting atmosphere only comparable to My Bloody Valentine.
Charles Mingus - Track B Duete Solo Dances (1963)
Roll up. Roll up! Every track's a winner! For premium performance of your best interpretive jazz ballet. You too can be a star!
Charles Mingus - Track A Solo Dancer (1963)
Amongst The Black Saint And The Sinner Lady's euphoric cacophony there is a turbulent undercurrent. A sort of the harrowing beauty.
A surprising amount of Lee Morgan albums from the 60s were shelved. This seems absolutely absurd to me particularly when they feature the big jazz stars of the day Wayne Shorter, Herbie Hancock, Ron Carter, Hank Mobley, McCoy Tyner, Cedar Walton and Art Blakey amongst others. Even more absurd was that there were beautifully recorded Wayne Shorter compositions just languishing in the Blue Note vaults. Miles Davis couldn't get enough Wayne Shorter tunes at the time. Shorter tracks like E.S.P. and Nefertiti were being used as titles for Miles Davis records for God's sake.
Anyway unlike other Lee Morgan albums Tom Cat and Infinity, they didn't wait until the 80s to release this recording. 1964's Search For A New Land only gathered dust on the shelves until 1966. Despite being recorded two months after the smash crossover hit LP The Sidewinder,Blue Note immediately shelved this record and requested Morgan go back into the studio to create another boogaloo jam in an attempt to capture the mass market again.
The title track written by Lee Morgan is a spectacular piece of kaleidoscopic spatial jazz featuring Wayne Shorter, Herbie Hancock and unusually for Morgan guitarist, Grant Green, along with the ace rhythm section of Reggie Workman and Billy Higgins doing divine cymbal work. It's all about wide open spaces and ebbs and flows and rare tones and unfamiliar vibrations and new horizons and tense tranquility and mysterious euphoria.
Not so much the jazzy jazz as the post-bop transforming into spiritual jazz and free-bop. Make no mistake this is peak visionary jazz.
The four (pre-electric) second quintet records E.S.P., Miles Smiles, Sorcerer and Nefertiti have been severely underrated by the CardrossManiac. Thirty years ago they were deemed only of interest as precursors to Miles in electric mode, not bad albums but still pretty dusty and fusty. I did not realise they were full blown artistic achievements worthy of prestigious status all of their own.
In a way this is Wayne Shorter's band more than anyone else's but perhaps that's a misnomer as it's also definitely Tony Williams' band and it's also a Miles... Actually it really is a band, not a solo project. Jazz outfits usually always used a stars name though. We all know Can were the ultimate psychic rock band but this quintet reached extreme telepathic levels that are peerless.
Masqualero starts out with clunks of drums and bass and keys, almost immediately Miles and Shorter begin riffing in unison, trumpet and sax going in and out of phase for a minute. Then the next six minutes are a free-bop extravaganza. Miles does his thing for a bit as do the other sans Shorter. Then Miles drops out as Shorter enters adding some of the most beautiful sounding saxophone textures and lines he ever recorded. While wonderful lowdown lulls and whirlpools of exquisite moody space are created by Herbie Hancock, Ron Carter andTony Williams. With a minute to go Miles and Shorter come back, in off kilter unison, before a final flourish from the other three.
While Masqualero is composed by Wayne Shorter you know that's only a blueprint and free playing is the goal. Playing (including listening) that's flexible, improvisational and cosmic yet not formless but not conventional either. Lucky for them responsiveness was collectively instinctual with each member of this quintet.
A real boogaloo scorcher. Well it's classic Columbian descarga innit. Literally a crazy jam.
It's easy to see how jazz was waning in public opinion particularly when you hear jazz influenced tracks like this that are so much more immediate, infectious and ultimately more accessible. This is one of the reasons why the electric Miles revolution was necessary.
The teen trumpet sensation who played on Coltrane's Blue Train and many Art Blakey And The Jazz Messengers peak records including the previous post's Moanin' was a veteran in his mid 20s, making a comeback after a dalliance with the "China white" by the time he recorded this scorcher. A latin inflected hard bop boogaloo bomb!
Moanin' - Art Blakey And The Jazz Messengers (1958)
More jazzy jazz of the ultimate jazzy jazz variety. Trumpet from Lee Morgan! Benny Golson tops on tenor sax. Composition and fa fa funky rhythm and blues jazzy piano from Bobby Timmons. Rhythm section none too shabby either with Jymie Merritt accompanying Blakey's tres jazzy drummage. I mean it is jazzy jazzy but you can't escape the fact that it's got a bluesy rock'n'roll soul too.
Peak jazzy jazz!
Perhaps hard bop is the archetypal jazzy jazz for me because I don't go back and listen to old school bepop or swing or big band or whatever else is lurking back there. I remember having tapes of Charlie Parker, Thelonious Monk and other bepoppers when I was small and it just seemed too ancient because I already knew Bitches Brew, Spiritual Unity, Interstellar Space and 60s/70s James Brown.
Art Blakey And The Jazz Messengers - Children Of The Night (1961)
A Wayne Shorter composition featuring his great sax and the tremendous trombone of Curtis Fuller then the topper-most trumpet of Freddie Hubbard. Terrific tinkling of the ivories from Cedar Walton while Art & Jymie ensure the tempo and swinging dance-ability of the tune.
These Jazz Messengers sure had a great run from the mid 50s to the mid 60s. They basically ran the jazzy jazz for that ten year period while other jazz sub genres existed adjacently. If you just followed all the members and their solo outings and collaborations along with all the Blakey And The Jazz Messengers records for that period you would be down an impeccable jazz rabbit hole. That's a big chunk of peak history for the jazzy jazz and the subsequent offshoot sub styles of the time.
...Oh now I remember why I ended up in the jazzy jazz milieu, Steely Dan. Walter Becker and Donny Fagen loved the engineering aesthetics of Rudy Van Gelder. He recorded thousands of sessions in his New Jersey studio for labels such as Prestige, Blue Note and Impulse. The above two tunes are engineered by Van Gelder.
Steely Dan - Aja (1977)
Wayne Shorter made a cameo sax appearance on this, the title track to Steely Dan's Aja from 1977. A sprawling post-bop extravaganza like no other in rock.
This, not so much the jazzy jazz as the jazz fusion/jazz-rock. It's post-rock though really innit.
Also notable for the exquisite improv drummage from Steve Gadd...
It's been 25 years since I last listened to a bit of Charlie Mingus. I rarely get into jazzy jazz. When you start at fake jazz, avant-garde jazz and jazz fusion it's a bit hard to go back. When you want the mental free jazz or the funky jazz funk or the spiritual jazz or the symphonic soundtrack jazz or the fake fake jazz it's hard to do the jazzy jazz. Anyway this is the jazziest jazz I've dug in a long time. I mean it's funky and swinging and down n dirty bluesy jazz but it's also jazzy jazz. You could pop on a beret, smoke a jazz cigarette and click your fingers like a revolting hepcat beat poet turd to this. I think this is as close to Flintstones jazz that I'll ever get. Funnily enough Mingus encompassed so much more than jazz into his musical vocabulary and detested the term jazz.
The Incredible band here are:
CHARLES MINGUS, bass, leader & composer JACKIE McLEAN, alto sax
So if you skip to 9:40 here on the infamous Trinidad Cassette (1982) we have the version we all know and love of Stevie. This tune was written around 1980/81 and was apparently about Stevie Nicks maybe (?). This topmost tune from Brian has never been properly recorded by The Beach Boys or Brian Wilson solo.
I mean it sounds like it could be a demo for That Lucky Old Sun or Sunflower or Pet Sounds for that matter. So I guess it's just timeless classic Brian Wilson. It's incredible to me that he can have such a classic song just lying around gathering dust being neglected.
Stevie - The Beach Boys (1982)
I'm guessing here but I assume somebody has recently just cleaned up The Trinidad Cassette version of the tune but I can't help but think maybe getting rid of some of that noise and reverb it has now lost some of its magic dust. So The Trinidad Cassette is also unfortunately known as The Cocaine Sessions and sometimes also known as The Hamburger Sessions. Dennis Wilson allegedly used to offer burgers and/or cocaine to Brian to motivate him to create music.
Stevie - Saint Etienne (2000)
Of course Bob Stanley would do the most obscure cover possible of a Brian Wilson song for the tribute LP Caroline Now!: The Songs Of Brian Wilson & The Beach Boys (2000). Also included in the song is a touch of My Diane a tune from the much maligned Beach Boys record M.I.U. Album (1978). I'd love to find an interview of Sarah, Bob or Pete discussing this recording because it's kinda genius.
It's so joyous reading the comments sections to Steely Dan tunes because they all realise who the best band ever was. And the comment that exemplifies it all is this: One of the best things about Steely Dan is EVERYTHING!
I'm still a neophyte when it comes to Steely Dan, only converting twelve or thirtyeen years ago. So I still haven't gone back to re-investigate if The Royal Scam is actually any good or got fully on board with Gaucho yet. It's hard to pick between the other five LPs. At this point in time there does seem to be extra special magic permeating on Aja and Countdown To Ecstasy.
I have deliberately avoided the books, magazines, videos and interweb gossip on the group. Sticking with my limited knowledge that Steely Dan were two sardonic upstarts from New York supplanted in LA spreading their acerbic perspective via deliciously idiosyncratic upbeat jazz inflected rock music of the genius variety.
Having said that though, I had read a couple of books by Barney Hoskyns which featured Steely Dan in cameo roles so I do know there was some darkness lurking within their shenanigans when it came to excessive 70s lifestyles. Being commentators on the rock'n'roll/hollywood scene didn't make them immune to its pitfalls.
Walter Becker died a few years back so I'm disappointed that I didn't get it together to organise a trip to the big smoke to see them last time they were in Australia. What a loser I am. I feel like Becker would actually be proud of me for this failing though. I mean would this not be the perfect subject matter for a Steely Dan hit: A forty-something ex-lead singer of band deadbeat with a failed marriage and mental issues is losing his shit in a horrible dusty country town and can't even get it together to buy a plane ticket to go see his favourite band's final tour.
Anyway Countdown To Ecstasy is one of the great singalong (in the wrong octave and out of tune yell-along really) albums for me. The irresistible melodies are just so expansive and exquisite plus you never know quite where Fagen's always surprising vocal phrasing is gonna go, which keeps you on your toes. And that's still occurring after hundreds of listens to this one LP.
Beyond that, what makes Steely Dan still so glittering and seductive in a timeless manner is a mystery. I'm sure if a music teacher explained their methods behind the notes and the performance thereof I'd still be none the wiser and it still wouldn't explain the why?. Suffice to say Donald Fagen and Walter Becker's prestigious charisma had the alchemy of synergy bubbling over within their songwriting partnership, it was just a matter of how perfect they could get their incredible vision out of their heads and onto tape [Yep I do realise Steely Dan don't need my endorsement and that I don't need to be adding to the voluminous discourse on the subject or doing a half-baked summary of why audiences of different generations have been so captivated throughout the 50 years since their inception in one paragraph but er, there it was anyway. Sorry, not sorry]
Sophistication is one thing musically but that would be nothing without the mass appeal of their thrillingly catchy hooks. This is pop music after all.
(A perfectly crafted slice of 6os garage rock. Many tried and many failed but the stars aligned for teen-Texans The Gentleman with this song, its performance and recording. If aliens landed and asked "What is this garage you speak of?" I would have no hesitation in pointing them in the direction of It's A Cryin' Shame for a definitive example of the genre. All the elements are present and accounted for but unlike those who failed they are all in the right place and were enthusiastically activated for peak aesthetic success.)
Sometimes you just go to have your 60s garage at its most primitive and raw. This neanderthal sneer is delivered with next level hostility then at 1:22 it gets even more malicious with the ugliest, most primal blown out lead break ever. A spiteful scuzz-fest of the highest order.
A fun and fascinating tune that's got the lot. Starts out the gate with organ and fuzz followed by very vigorous drummage. Then we get great deadpan vocals in the style that would later be much utilised by new wave artists. Next we get beautifully fluid psych lead breaks meeting insane spooky chanting. A classic psych curiosity.
Peak 66 right here folks. Pretty sure this is perfection. Coz You Don't Love Me is in that sweet intersection of snarly and stompy blended with swirly toe tapping jangles and supreme melodic lead and backing vocals. The way it effortlessly flows along with that irresistible beat... so good.
I can never put my finger on what this reminds me of... something that came later in the art rock or new wave... maybe Pere Ubu or Boys Next Door circa Door Door or something like that. I guess it's not that dissimilar to 1967's greatest band Love either. A tense and ominous feeling like no other is conjured here. A creepy vibe of bewilderment and urban malaise.
A primo slice of Michigan garage into psych. Sweet Cherry were another one and done group. They did this 7" single on Stop Records which I'm assuming was their label as this was the only ever release on the imprint. A splendid noise.
*Note: This didn't turn up on 60s garage compilations until the 1990s.
It's a bit hard to think about anything else with regard to music after seeing Paul McCartney on Saturday night in Melbourne. Performance and energy-wise the fact that he isn't a 40 year old bloke but indeed an 81 year old is quite astonishing. He was in fine voice and agile on his instruments throughout, putting on a memorable show.
I saw Paul McCartney do Helter Skelter and it was the best.
Anyway here's a tune of his that I love. I never studied music beyond year seven in high school but I have been told by the Mrs that all my favourite 60s tunes have minor chords/keys/whatever in them so I'm guessing Things We Said Today does too. Paul didn't play this on Satdee but I think it used to be in his set a few years back and it was integral to The Beatles 1964 setlist .
It's the mood here that resonates. It's gloomy, haunting and perhaps slightly sinister. The moodiness in the music is reiterated in the subject matter of the lyrics. In this autobiographical tune about his relationship with Jane Asher, Paul describes lovers being torn apart by distance and also perhaps realising this could well be the peak of their love as Paul feels he will one day be nostalgic for this present moment of which he sings. Probably because he felt this was a doomed love affair which as it turned out, it was.
The Beatles - Wild Honey Pie (1968)
Another Paul favourite of mine. He didn't play this either surprisingly. Not only did he invent heavy metal but also batshit crazy avant rock ie. this is a blueprint for The Residents. I am ever so grateful for this contribution to rock and its left field future.
The Beatles - She Came In Through The Bathroom Window (1969)
So this was a major highlight of the live show. We did not know this was coming at all. We knew other Abbey Road bits were usually part of the set like Something, You Never Give Me Your Money and the last three bits of the Abbey Road Medley: Golden Slumbers, Carry That Weight and The End. However She Came In Through The Bathroom Window was a recent addition to the set which was a delightful surprise even though it was extracted from the other Paul written bits of the medley and placed among miscellaneous Beatles classics in the set. It was actually a bit weird hearing it out of context from the other tunes in the medley. I mean if I was Paul I'd just do the John parts too ie. Sun King, Mean Mr Mustard and Polythene Pam so the medley wasn't split up. We all love it. We all want it. So just do the entire thing mate. Anyway I feel lucky to have heard Paul play all of his parts of the Abbey Road medley to me personally. Thank Paul! Legend.
The Beatles - Abbey Road Side 2 Medley (1969)
The still astounding final suite from Abbey Road is a staggering swan song for a group at the peak of their powers.
Have you heard about The Beatles?
Don't try and tell me Abbey Road isn't the best masterpiece!
My initial thoughts on Mystery the LP it came from: How is this not a city pop album from 80s Japan? The lovely plaintive vocals remind me a bit of Sarah from St Etienne. How have I not heard or even heard of this before? Perhaps they never made it to the pages of Australian Smash Hits.
I feel like this is the kind of record Bob Stanley has probably written about in the past. Nightwind is one of the outstanding tracks from Mystery. This post-disco pop is impeccably put together. Wait for the very excellent 4.04 moment when it swells up and breaks down to the wind and synth moment. Atmospheric synth bliss ensues for two minutes before the chorus returns. Nice. There seems to be a video game theme tune within this song as well which is a neat bonus. The timeless vibe here was possibly even nostalgic at the time of release.
*Turns out the mastermind behind RAH Band, Richard Hewson, had his hand in arranging and producing hundreds of pop releases since the mid-60s. From The Beatles, Bee Gees, Nick Drake and Diana Ross to Pilot, Fleetwood Mac, Supertramp, Cliff, Shakin' Stevens and Toyah.
I totally missed this when it got a revival and a reissue. It wasn't on my radar in the 90s or early 00s so I'm guessing it got dug up and rediscovered after I was no longer paying attention. Once Comus, Trees, Fresh Maggots, Dr Strangely Strange, Cam Am Des Puig, Mark Fry etc. had entered my life I thought that was the lot for the unknown 70s psych-folk from Britain. But nah there always seems to be more and ten or eleventy years ago voilà this turned up.
Tony, Caro and John are more on the accessible fun pop side of psych-folk-rock with their well honed whimsical bedroom crafted pop and delightful girl/boy vocals. These middle class hippies sure have some kind of special knack for creating warm and catchy tunes.
Having said that Sargasso Sea is the most out there track from their one and only LP All On The First Day.
Tony, Caro and John - Eclipse Of The Moon (1972)
This one is so goddam infectious with the enchanting girl/boy harmonies of Tony & Caro, the handclaps, the tripped out guitar fx, Incredible String Band meets Beatles melodies, jew's harp and mucho reverb. An understated masterpiece, Eclipse Of The Moon surely coulda been a number one hit. This is two track recording at its finest. Nice!
So I ended up here at the music video for this Neptunes production from twenty two years ago performed by forgotten million dollar signing pop R&B star Nivea because I'd just watched a disturbing mini documentary about this charismatic sensation and her stalled career.
Then I started thinking I wonder if all these wonderful Neptunes tracks, that were so beloved at the time from the late 90s and early 00s, still stand up. Are they revered, going to be revered or will they just be tossed in the ephemeral pop culture heap that I imagine every pop, rap and r&b tune released this year will be?
It had me wondering whether this music was the last moment where pop was created with an inbuilt afterlife or did they just miss that boat so as to never enjoy a resurgence of interest ever again. My previous theories and cut-off points of cultural relevance for particular dance genres and hip hop have somewhat shifted so I'm not really sure. Music just by being released in the 21st century does tend to give material a certain unintentional disdained stain. Once upon a time I would have really cared about these ideas and had ready to go arguments but now...
I still stand by my rock theory that no rock group who formed post-1993 are able to be seriously considered for the historic rock era.
Run Away still sounds pretty damn nifty. Not just a wicked hypnotic Neptunes beat but great performances from Pusha T and Nivea.
The Liks - Best U Can (2001)
The beats here coupled with Pharrell's contribution had me flashing back In Search Of... era NERD and surprisingly that was a good thing. As in I wanted to get out my old cobwebby cd that if I recall correctly was really the last cd I owned to get a hammering as it was loved so much by everyone for its party anthem vibes.
Dunno if I recall any other Liks tunes but they might have been worth checking out if this is anything to go by. Apparently members of nu-metal groups Deftones and Linkin Park do cameos in this video.
N.O.R.E. - Grimy (2001)
Now this Neptunes track is fucking insane. Psychedelic, minimal, hard, crisp. intense, seemingly simple and deliciously catchy. I mean the entire beat is the hook innit. This is still irresistible!
Fabolos - Young'n (Holla Back) (2001)
Don't recall this one at all. Pharrell contributes Sympathy For The Devil "WOO HOOS" I wonder if he had to pay Mick Jagger for that? Or were they just generic howls? Then at the 2.50 mark Timbaland enters although he's not credited.
Usher - I Don't Know (2001)
This is still an infectious banger. A precursor to Yeah really.
Ray J feat. Lil Kim - Wait A Minute (2001)
Perhaps we can never forgive Ray J for helping foist the fucking Kardashians upon us by fucking Kim on videotape but his other historic moment is undeniably ace. This is peak Neptunes tuneage pre-Pharrell's face fatigue era. This beat is so good they loved it so much they basically recycled it for Lapdance, one of their own In Search Of... hits. Hindsight's a funny thing, it tells us Wait A Minute was wasted on this tool. Then again who's not a tool in the music industry? So who gives a fuck.
Philly's Most Wanted - Cross The Border (2001)
The latin influenced riddim here is utterly contagious. There is no way you are not bumpin', noddin' and toe tappin' to this genius monster jam despite what you may think of the reprehensible lyrical content. Cross The Border is insistent instantaneous infectious pop. However do you want to rewind? Or are you happy to never hear it again?
Jadakiss feat. Pharrell - Knock Yourself Out (2001)
The sexual "ooh aahs" here are so stupid it would be absurd to think this was meant to actually be sexy but the beat is irrefutably stellar. Peak performance from Jadakiss too. No need for thinking here. Hip-hop to tear the club up doesn't get any better!
Britney Spears - I'm A Slave 4 U (2001)
This may have helped usher in the retarded hyper-sexual pop era. Then again that had been a project started many years prior. I mean my dad thought the back cover to Madonna's Like A Virgin LP was outrageous soft porn not fit for teenagers eyeballs. Who knew that by the 2010s primary school kids would be able to stream the most depraved pornographic videos imaginable and adults would barely even batter an eyelid.
I'm A Slave 4 U is peak Brittney combined with peak Neptunes. She's wearing sexy knickers on the outside of her raunchy rock star leather pants like she's a sexual superhero.
...So the jury's still out for me with regard to The Neptune's legacy. I mean these beats were legendary, cool and innovative at the time and are still fresh and fun now. I can't really gage the perception of significance placed upon them today though. They obviously have their place in the history of rap, r&b and pop because they happened.
The Neptunes were so ubiquitous they absolutely owned the radio and music video shows in 2001/02 particularly. Once their inventive heyday was done by the late 00s was there any value left in these old beats? I mean once the next generation of beat science masters arrived to take the crown what purpose did these beats serve? The over exposure and saturation of The Neptunes aesthetic in the early 00s left people fatigued of such a sound and a massively popular resurgence in interest in these sonic artefacts hasn't really come to pass.
Still that was a very good half hour of tuneage, even if it wasn't as nostalgic as expected. There was a vague sense of of meaninglessness permeating these tunes. That's pop music for ya, however pop music nostalgia probably isn't meant to be the tunes from when you were at the end of your twenties. I can understand that it's much deeper feels when songs are from childhood, teenage years or even your early twenties. Plus for me those eras all happened to be in the historic music era of the 20th century.
*This is just a nine track selection of The Neptunes output for 2001. These tunes are probably not even 15% of what they produced in this incredibly prolific year.
Laraaji - Meditations 1 & 2 (slowed and stretched)
As if Laraaji wasn't awesome enough! Who knew you could make his recordings even better?
So this guy on youtube has, using the Paulstretch app, stretched the last two tracks from 1980's Ambient 3: Day Of Radiance to levels of absolute serenity. Twenty six minutes of music has now been stretched and expanded to three hours here. This stretching has the effect of smoothing the sound events and noticeable musical note playing into just a remaining ethereal drone. Most people familiar with the original track probably wouldn't even recognise this as Meditations. I can't really detect the zither at all, it's all just a lovely glowing eternal resonance.
This shit is just pure peak funk. The rhythm track here is off the fucking chain. The whole band is on fire though. Proper deep in the funk block party goodness.
It doesn't get better than this.
Lunar Funk - Space Monster (1972)
The Counts did a coupla 7" singles under the pseudonym Lunar Funk. This is smokin' supreme funk of the deepest variety. There is no way you are not gonna get down to this peak party rhythm.
Then sometimes you find yourself listening to black ambient cassettes from the 90s at five in the morning. This is a whole lotta fun with all sorts of demented and murky vibes. It's folk. it's ambient, It's dark, it's slowcore, It's black metal, it's lo-fi, it's atmospheric, it's psychedelic, it's post-rock, it's even pop and it's good times.
Is it the French Cookie Monster in a forest wrestling a dark-psych-folk El Kabong?
The last three and a half minutes is a sublime post-rock hypnogogic slowcore jam or something. It's definitely something!
