Referring to oneself on record, however, is a different story. It’s not an affair to be taken lightly, and those who do stumble into it without being fully aware of the repercussions often find themselves stuck at the bottom of a hole they’ve dug themselves. This isn’t just gloating or poor sportsmanship, which makes for equal amounts of fans and despisers. It’s not hubris, which offers a tragic (but often quick) end to the hero of many Greek dramas. Self-reference almost never works out well, and the benefits (a track or record that flows smoothly within the greater context of a career) are almost always outweighed by the risks (becoming the butt of a joke, overestimating your own self-worth at your own expense, making your own career seem much less monumental than it really is). You’ll find that most figures in music don’t even bother with it; a rather smart exercise in risk management and long-term self-preservation.

You can think of a music career as an expensive bottle of wine. When the cask is tapped and the bottle is filled, you’ve got, at best, a scant idea of how it might taste. But the best wines, like the best music careers, get better with age. The catch is, even the best vinters and sommeliers can’t tell you the best time to cash in your bets and tip your bottoms up. Self-reference on an album (or as an album) is like pulling the cork on the one and only bottle you’ve got from that vintage. Do it too early and you’ve got a glass of wine that is, however tasty and inebriating, not as good as it could have been.

Most artists pull the self-reference card with a “Greatest Hits” compilation, usually years after their cultural significance has faded, or in some lucky cases, when pop culture aftershocks allow them to briefly resurface as relevant (i.e., Talking Heads). Bands that release their greatest hits mid-career are throwing in the towel; like Radiohead, whose 2008 “best of” compilation more or less marked when I stopped paying attention.

Even bands like the Beatles were susceptible to the pitfalls, as evidenced on White Album track “Glass Onion”, wherein Lennon makes reference to several previous tracks in the Fab Four oeuvre in an attempt to troll lyrics-obsessed press and fans. Even at this, the height of their creative streak, the track sends mixed signals, sounding simultaneously goofy and spiteful. On the album prior, they attempted to directly quote themselves musically in outro section the unofficial Summer of Love anthem “All You Need is Love”, which coincidentally is #2 on my list of “Beatles Songs I Hate”. (#1 is “Yellow Submarine”, not because of self-reference but just because it’s a terrible tune.)

Of course, now all eyes turn to David Bowie, who has broken a decade-long silence by releasing a new album at an age when most folks would be happy to retire to the Bahamas and sip on rum drinks topped by festive miniature umbrellas. Then again, Bowie’s more or less already done the “retirement” thing — twice actually: the first after having fled the cocaine-lined streets of 1970′s Los Angeles for Berlin, and the second after suffering a heart attack in 2004.

That first relocation gave birth to the now-legendary “Berlin trilogy” of albums (Low, Heroes and Lodger) and the subsequent album, Scary Monsters, had Bowie attempting self-reference in the lead single, “Ashes to Ashes”, singing, “We know Major Tom’s a junkie / strung out on heaven’s high / hitting an all-time low.” In the context of any other career, the reference could have been too soon, but with the chameleonic nature of Bowie’s career and the drastic change in sound he’d undergone immediately prior, the reference to early hit “Space Oddity” worked rather well, garnering good press and setting the stage for the poppy hits that would follow in the ’80s.

Now, after having been out of the spotlight completely since 2006, Bowie is at it again with the self-reference, and in even more blunt means that lyrically. The first thing you’ll notice about The Next Day is the album art. David Bowie, being the performer and showman that he is, never strays from the formula of “stylized artist photo + album title = cover art,” but the art for his newest album might as well add a footnote: “Be sure to piss on/herald the past.” The cover features the famous Roquairol pose photo from the cover of Heroes, only with that album’s name crossed out. In its place, a gaudy white square is super-imposed with “The Next Day” typed in a way that takes all the utilitarian glamour out of sans serif fonts. It seriously looks like someone designed it in MS Paint with a bad hangover.

That said, it’s perfect. Really.

By taking the pomp and circumstance out of self-reference, the discussion opens up to self-deprecation and humor — Bowie’s albums usually only have these concepts in the darkest, blackest senses of the words. But then the music, pulls another double back by sounding like a mix between the artist’s back catalog and his more contemporary material. “If You Can See Me” sounds like a lost cut from 1995′s Outside, complete with pitch manipulation; the title track pulls out a rhythm that would have sounded at home on Scary Monsters; “How Does the Grass Grow?” seems to combine the backing vocals of “TVC-15″ with the buzzing guitars of Heroes.

As always, it seems that David Bowie knows the score, but then he’s always had a knack for figuring out what to do next (and confusing a whole lot of his listeners in the process). The man has had a long career, spanning the better part of 46 years, and hadn’t stood still for very long up until his recent hiatus. In those years, a barrage of compilations have been issued — some titled as “Greatest Hits” and others sporting a thinly veiled variation — but none of them have been much of a signpost for the end of Bowie’s career or cultural relevance. Now that The Next Day has hit speakers around the world, it almost sounds like Bowie’s version of his greatest hits, funneled through half a century of musical innovation and evolution and avoiding the practice of hand-over-fist nostalgia-for-cash. But even if we are to take this effort as a career retrospective of sorts, it still doesn’t sound, feel or look like a bookend.

Artist: David Bowie
Album: The Next Day
Year: 2013

I have to admit that Before and After Science is the only full Eno album I actually own, and though I have listened to plenty of other solo works by him, it’s mostly an indirect knowledge I have of the man. After doing some research, though, I’ve come to realize that this album is something of a transitional piece, which always makes for interesting results for someone like Eno who was destined for greatness, even in his career’s latter days.

Eno first rose to prominence as the flamboyantly dressed keyboardist for Roxy Music, a band whose penchant for glam style is well-documented, and his roots are shown in the moody cover photo above, which is something you might expect more from a Bowie album. It’s important to see, though, that he ditches the green mascara and feather boa, instead relying on light and photo treatment for drama. In that way, the cover signals Eno’s shift from the frenetic energy of his earlier work to his dabbling in textural ambient music.

The album opens with the funky bassline of “No One Receiving”, which doesn’t sound out of place in Eno’s pre-1977 oeuvre. Like his earlier works, there a lot going on in the background, with synth lines, bass wobbles and various squawks and clicks dotting the track. This particular song is much less schizophrenic than something that might come off 1974′s Here Come the Warm Jets, however — every sound, however quirky, seems to have its place in the composition. The focus on this track is still on Eno himself, as if he is harnessing the energy of the instruments for support. (Perhaps hinting at his future philosophy of using the studio as an instrument itself.)

“Julie With …”, located on the vastly different Side B of the album, is one of the stronger ambient tracks on Before and After Science, if only because of its combination of lilting soundscapes with a vocal hook in the chorus (unlike “Through Hollow Lands”, which is closer to pure ambient, and “By This River”, which is just a quieter song than the rest.) The shift in energy between this and the earlier tracks on the album is stark and unforgiving, despite their commonalities. On this track, it feels as if all the sounds that were previously resigned to the background are being called forward to attention.

I guess it’s not in my power to make this call, but I feel as if Before and After Science could be the key to understanding Brian Eno’s work. It’s got just enough energy mixed in with ambience to at least begin to understand his line of thought over the years, and good textural work naturally has a picture to paint.

Artist: Brian Eno
Album: Before and After Science
Year: 1977
Tracklist & Review (Allmusic)

The difference, I finally figured out, is the order that this consideration comes into play. The Ladies and Gentlemens and the Lovelesses of the world develop their themes and narratives during writing, and the artwork is more-or-less chosen after the tracks are completed. Soundtracks, like the Lost in Translation OST, are usually compiled after the script has been written, rewritten and finalized, and, if I’m not mistaken, in post-production (i.e. after filming), often allowing stills or posters to be used as artwork. That’s not to say one way or the other is better, or even easier. Masterful paintings or superb works of writing can come from commissions and prompts, or they can come from a weekday afternoon spent screwing around on a blank canvas. Both have pros and cons, but they also have the same goal in mind. They are, just like soundtracks and records, just different.

That said, Lost in Translation‘s soundtrack takes the steps to marry sound and visuals just as well as some of the best records out there, starting with the promo still of a forlorn Bill Murray in an ill-fitting robe/sandals ensemble on the front cover, and ending ultimately with the haunting instrumental work by Kevin Shields (of My Bloody Valentine fame). Somewhere in the middle, is a musical journey that covers the bittersweet and culture-clashed excursion taken by the movie’s two protagonists by making strange bedfellows of various artists and genres.

One of my favorite tracks from the compilation is a minute-and-a-half-long composition by Squarepusher. It’s not hard to see how “Tommib” fits into the mood of the film/artwork, as it wanders and floats about just like the existentially damp characters of Bob and Charlotte. Echoes fills the space of that 81 seconds with a vibe that mirrors the glass- and steel-plated expanse of the city, as well as the twinge of loneliness felt by a lonesome soul in a crowded room. It’s a sound that’s later revisited in Kevin Shields’ aforementioned texture pieces, specifically “Goodbye” and “Are You Awake?“, but “Tommib” is special because its artist Tom Jenkinson, a.k.a. Squarepusher, is known specifically for his work in the hard-driving drum’n'bass genre, rendering the feeling of being out of place into something of a fourth wall-breaking idea.

Most of the tracks in the LiT soundtrack tread a fine line between cheerful and morose, which is a direct reflection of the ennui of the storyline. The majority of the former category are those chosen for the soundtrack (instead of written for it) like Death in Vegas’s sighing “Girls” or My Bloody Valentine’s humming “Sometimes”, given above as a sample track. MBV’s contribution is, like many of the others, a good counterpoint for the wistful texture pieces that dot the movie. This number, specifically, plays during a sleepy cab ride after a great night out and covers the blissful and gentle nature of the scene without sacrificing the slightly overwhelming crunch of the big city.

Other tracks not included on the soundtrack (but used in the film) do the same thing for different purposes, if less subtly: Peaches’ awkwardly confrontational “Fuck the Pain Away” playing at a similarly awkward outing to a strip club; Bob’s endearing but goofy performance of Roxy Music’s “More than This” as veiled communication to Charlotte; the strange renditions of Simon and Garfunkel’s “Scarborough Fair” and the Sex Pistols’ “God Save the Queen“, which are seemingly lost in different kinds of translation themselves.

If you haven’t guessed by now, this is one of my favorite soundtracks. I tried to imagine what I would think of it if I had never seen the movie and came to the conclusion that while I might not be able to experience the full effect of the interplay, that it didn’t matter quite so much. Because the album is a soundtrack, and one that came about in a different way than a standard record, it strikes me that it’s the movie itself that matters more than the soundtrack. That might sound harsh, but with a film like Lost in Translation, it’s apparent that the music mattered just as much to the director as the visuals did. Watching the characters’ expressions and gestures while the music plays is a quintessential part of the experience, like when Phoenix’s “Too Young” blasts at a house party or Happy End’s “Kaze Wo Atsumete” echoes in the background of a quiet moment between Bob and Charlotte.

Aside from the “More than This” karaoke moment, the other two parts that make the movie are the ending scene featuring the Jesus and Mary Chain’s “Just Like Honey” and Charlotte’s Kyoto sequence, soundtracked by Air’s “Alone in Kyoto”. Those three scenes do what all great albums do at their best — marry sound and vision in a seamless and beautiful way.

Album: Lost in Translation OST
Year: 2003
Tracklist & Review (Allmusic)
Film Info (IMDB)

Of course, in 1995, when Pulp’s Different Class was released, I knew nothing of the above, much less who Pulp was. In fact, I wouldn’t even discover the band/album until almost 10 years later. Even then, well into high school, I wasn’t aware of any of the topical undercurrents on the album. (Well, aside from the smarmy swagger of Jarvis Cocker, which reach near-predatory levels here.)

But now, much later, it clicks. With a name like Different Class, a track titled “Common People” and lyrics like, “Mis-shapes, mistakes, misfits / raised on a diet of broken biscuits / We don’t look the same as you / We don’t do the things you do / but we live around here too,” there’s no question that this is an album about class. The artwork, a cheekily doctored wedding photo, confirms the tone of the record. It’s as cocky and garish as a raucous story told at the local pub, which is to say that the people Pulp are hoping to give voice to are the type that don’t come across as winners on paper, but rely on street savvy and unrefined wit to pull through. In a word, underdogs.

If the lead-off track “Mis-Shapes” (the opening lines of which are excerpted above) is the call-to-arms for the working classes, “Common People” would be the battle hymn, charging ahead and armed with equal parts humiliation and cheap synthesizers. This is the track that has come to define Pulp because of it, and it’s also one of the songs crowds go crazy for during live shows. At the end of the final chorus, as Cocker mockingly repeats the socialite’s plea of “want[ing] to live like common people like you,” it’s pretty clear who the victor is in this battle.

Immediately after the fiddle/synth extravaganza of “Common People” is “I Spy”, which is a track that slithers along like new wave snake. At first, the instrumentation sounds unbelievably corny, as does most things that try to combine synthesizers and string sections, but the melodrama grows on you. Now, after more than a few listens, I can’t imagine it sounding any other way, since it’s pretty much soundtracking the lurid fantasies of a less-than-lovable loser. There are delusions of grandeur left and right, stories of romance and espionage, and even a seething monologue by Cocker that details his cuckolding of another man, which is, of course, one way for a loser to turn the odds in his favor.

To call the album a meditation on class, sex and revenge would be a vast understatement. It’s more of a beer hall shout-along, though the topics are exactly the same. It’s a record that’s more than a little rough around the edges, but benefits from having a band and frontman that can voice a firm vision without taking itself too seriously. Perhaps just like punk, it’s the kind of work that can make you wish you were an underdog even if you aren’t.

Artist: Pulp
Album: Different Class
Year: 1995
Tracklist & Review (Allmusic)

The further forward we travel in time, the more of a statement neon signs seem to make. It could be the cultural climate of the times — our keen sense of nostalgia set against the rapidly developing cult of technology. Maybe it’s the light that comes off of a glowing tube of electrified gas, which is the visual equivalent of a shrieking, attention-starved banshee — known fact: hipster neon was doing the harsh lighting thing decades before LEDs made it cool.

The thing that attracts me most to neon is how tactile it is. Like I said before, it’s a tube of electrified gas, and that concept seems so brutish and old-fashioned to wireless, cloud-sourced, touchscreen-infested millenials like me that it almost seems too steampunk to be true. Also, Blade Runner.

Looking into the reputation neon signs have garnered in the last century or so, it also seems to document the change of the city. Maybe back when it was bringing brighter lights to place that had survived on oil lamps and incandescent bulbs for years, it was an omen of the brightness of the future, but after visions of cosmopolitan utopia withered away, the neon was there to blind city-dwellers with urban loneliness — the kind of loneliness that strikes amidst a population of millions (think “character stumbles drunkenly as neon signs pass by”).

That idea is the one that seems to be coming through on Big Star’s first LP, #1 Record. That band, along with its iconic frontman  Alex Chilton, is known for putting together a new sound from the fine-tuned songwriting of the 1960s and a precursory sort of nihilism that would be seen in full force in the thick of Generation X. The combination of optimism and pessimism jumps around all over the record, with crunchy guitars extolling the joys of adolescence mixed in with acoustic ballads that whimper and plead with total defeat.

To this day, 40 years after its initial release, it’s still a great record to soundtrack the city — both on blissful spring afternoons when the streets are filled with life, and on grimy winter nights when the buildings seem to absorb the dirty haze of orange streetlights.

“Feel”

“Watch The Sunrise”

Artist: Big Star
Album: #1 Record
Year: 1972
Tracklist & Review (Allmusic)

This is a genre full of cutesy oxymorons. I don’t think there is any other cultural subsect out there that confuses me more. I’m not out to praise or condemn anything (yet), but I think it’s worth mentioning the idea that an album like Camera Obscura’s Underachievers Please Try Harder is a relatively solid effort, from the clean and polished (but not over-produced) sound, to the attractively-muted colors on the cover photo, to the simple and sweet melodies on each track. An album like Underachievers has a “total package” vibe to it, meaning the artwork, production and music are more in sync than on your typical record.

Here’s the thing, though: it doesn’t feel complete. Or at the very least, it feels superficial. Therein lies my qualm with Twee. What is it exactly that you’re trying to say, Camera Obscura/Belle & Sebastian/student protestor from Paris in the 1960s who has traveled through time to make music in the early 2000s?

Ostensibly, much of the tone and content of songs by the two bands I’ve mentioned so far have to do with variations on the theme of bittersweet memories, often heartbreak-related, which is a vague-but-powerful medicine. “Suspended From Class” executes the idea while opening the album, and it manages to draw instantaneous and universal comparison to B&S from listeners/critics/fans/enemies/etc. due to the driving acoustic guitar, lyrical cadence and trumpet flourishes. In other words, Camera Obscura doesn’t exactly set up their individuality with this opening track, opting instead for solidarity to a sound they love. Their role on the track is what confuses me — are they fans paying homage or colleagues attempting to develop the sound? Maybe they’re something like oral historians, passing on the Twee sound like an old myth that was passed down to them. But then at what point does their love for this genre become a borrowed nostalgia, ultimately vapid?

In my head, the questions continue past the running time of the track, at which point I realize that it’s a solid enough track for me to enjoy without pondering its mysteries. Of course, I have to shake the feeling that there’s something there I can’t get to the bottom of.

“Teenager” is the lead single from Underachievers, and it fulfills the role by being a sweet little ditty with rich reverb and a glockenspiel. The standout lyric, “You’re not a teenager / So don’t act like one,” is something you’d expect to hear when talking to someone in those strange times between ages 20 to 23, where you, if you were anything like me, stumbled into adulthood without really feeling like you had the tools to function in society as an adult. There are pangs of victimhood about the lyrics, bolstered by a somewhat deadpan vocal delivery that hinges on melancholy. At this point it sounds utterly formulaic, both when written and when heard, but something about the track is still enjoyable no matter how many times the equation appears, much like Bill Murray roles in Wes Anderson films.

In fact, Wes Anderson just might be the missing link between Belle & Sebastian and Camera Obscura. The sonic comparison has been consistent between the two acts, but it’s the album art that provides a difference. B&S have kept true to black-and-white photos colored by a single shade — a trend that started in the mid-1990s and continues today — while Camera Obscura has a penchant for using quirky, vintage-looking photos. The periods in which the bands started getting airplay are divided by the Rushmore/Royal Tenenbaums 1-2 punch, which could be seen as giving an image to the sound that Twee was cultivating all along: Max Fischer berets and stoic closeups. (Even the teddy bear has thick-framed glasses for goodness sake.)

My conclusion, for now at least, is that an album like Underachievers works the same way as some of Wes Anderson’s most iconic films, mixing together the best and worst ideals of adolescence in a relatable way, throwing it a good bit of mid-century fetishism, and putting it on a pretty platter in front of adults whose youth is fading faster than they’re comfortable with.

It’s quite a double-edged sword, isn’t it? The quality of the album is fantastic and the interplay between youth and adulthood is as uplifting/depressing as any Anderson-via-Bill-Murray on-screen epiphany from the last 20 years. The imagery is sumptuous and inviting, even while its cultural significance is being copied and co-opted in every Anthropologie catalog. The album, like most good Twee albums and most Wes Anderson films, dispenses bittersweet truths like tic-tacs, to the point at which each encounter is heavy in its lightness, or intimate in its universality, or extraordinary in its plainness.

And where does that leave me as I try to grasp what it means when the genre looks like a contradiction on paper but sounds like a dream? Answer: With a postmodern headache.

Artist: Camera Obscura
Album: Underachievers Please Try Harder
Year: 2003
Tracklist & Review (Allmusic)

Japan’s Keigo Oyamada, a.k.a. Cornelius, is often touted as a modern pop savant, and it’s for good reason. There are few things as gleefully disorienting as a Cornelius album, and Fantasma, his 1998 U.S. debut, is just the kind of sonic tapestry that can keep its listeners as simultaneously confused and enthused as a horde of drunken animals.

This, the fruit (ha!) of Cornelius’ mind, appears on record just as it does on the cover, as if it was the smoke rising from Oyamada’s cigarette, forming a cartoonish haze around his head. For all its simplicity, the artwork says a lot about the album: the sunny orange tint; the stencil-y style that shrouds Oyamada’s face; the presence of something *ahem* smoked. Each track has its own distinct sound and structure, and listening to the work from front to back gives the impression that the ways each transition flows or disrupts is just as important as the songs themselves. The result is less like a collection of tracks and more like some sort of audible collage — the work of the smoking orange man on the cover.

Since the album covers a good amount of styles and samples between tracks, instead of picking the best ones, it seems more appropriate to have a listen to the more eclectic works present. This track, somewhat eccentrically titled “The Micro Disneycal World Tour”, is the second track on the record and seems to sum up the state of Oyamada’s mind as he was arranging the album. It is a strange title, but I couldn’t think of one that represents the sound better — sort of like an homage to the soundtracks of old Disneyland parades and a riff on the sound/imagery play that Disney’s Fantasia did so well. It might also uncover a link between the album name (Fantasma) and the modern-day live show at Disney attractions (Fantasmic!).

The track chugs along with the cadence of the best parade you’ve ever seen, with band leader Cornelius summoning all sorts of twisted symphonies and joyous onomatopoeia. The sound, a harmonious balance between cheerful and off-kilter, carries through the track as well as the entire album, but does well to delineate tracks, as you can hear with how drastically this one cuts off. The next track, “New Music Machine“, has tons of feel-good harmonies and jangly guitars, fitting in well with “Micro Disneycal”, but it starts off with a screech of guitar feedback that throws off any headbobbing long enough to let you know it’s time for a different song.

One of the other tracks that gives a glimpse into the album as a whole is the second to last on the tracklist, a fittingly titled “Thank You for the Music”. Starting with a raucous collection of samples and sound effects, the track eventually “eases” into a chorus of Corneliuses and a plucky banjo/harmonica hoedown. In essence, this number is the curtain call to the album, presenting an overt farewell and an auditory review of various soundclips heard throughout the album. On one hand, you could listen to it like a horrifying and overwhelming shroomy flashback, and on the other, it’s like the gag reel at the end of a film — the kind that shares a split screen with the credits.

Of course, there’s one last track on the album, and while “Thank You” is ostensibly giving credit to the sources Oyamada draws from, the final tune and title track sounds like an attempt at something purely original — a 55-second, choral passage that serves as punctuation to a whirlwind of a record. The last sound we hear is a low hum from Cornelius himself, sustained to point where he has to take a huge breath afterwards and an immediate sigh of contentment.

Artist: Cornelius
Album: Fantasma
Year: 1998
Tracklist & Review (Allmusic)

Aphex Twin’s debut album Selected Ambient Works 85-92 might sound fairly vanilla to us now — and in truth it’s not Richard D. James’ most adventurous effort — but there’s no denying that it has a unique combination of rhythm and ambience that is utterly seductive. Though James’ follow up to this album, the appropriately titled Selected Ambient Works, Volume II, is more of an “Ambient” album proper, it’s this earlier work where the mixing of elements is more pronounced and more easily digestible. It’s not hard to imagine even the most storied Brian Eno acolyte taken aback by James’ sound and thinking, “So that’s where this is headed.”

The genre of ambient music is a funny one, since its staples are usually mood-setting types of works that rely heavily on unfocused imagery. It’s a style that is tries to paint an abstract picture by tapping directly into some sort of emotional nerve center. Every volume swell is a landscape and every whoosh is a sunset, but none of it seems to have any crescendo or drama — it just sits in the background. Ambient tracks are often like long, open-ended questions, and it’s just this type of musical Socratic self-dialogue that lead people to dismiss the genre as pedantic or pretentious.

SAW2 could easily be seen as one of those albums; that despite the gorgeous multi-sensory soundscapes present on the record, there’s nothing stable or instantly gratifying to grab onto across two 70-minute-long discs. Each of the double album’s 24 tracks don’t even have names — their official titles are images in the liner notes that correspond with pie charts on the discs. The cover art for SAW2 reinforces the thought: a pattern of rust and alien symbols, easily glossed over and perhaps (to some) not worth dwelling upon.

SAW 85-92 is the more straightforward record when viewed as an entire entity of sounds, visuals and cultural impact. The music is just as heavily beat-driven as the output of the London scene of the time, though James mixes in plenty of reverb-heavy mood. The artwork features the symbol that would become synonymous with the Aphex Twin moniker — a stylized lambda, an ancient symbol with curiously futuristic flourishes — large, centered and black-and-white, but with no clues as to its meaning or purpose. Sure, this album is still a big question, but at least it’s an inquiry you can dance to.

As the album opener, “Xtal” starts off like any other tracks coming from the London in the the acid house era with a prominent hi-hat and drifting feel-good synths. The difference is largely in timbre, as the track is definitely more subdued than the jacked up squelch of early ’90s raves. The beat is still there in the form of a reassuring pulse, but this pulse is one of calm confidence and resolve, instead of a chest-thumping tie-dye tribal dance. James’ sound here is verging on IDM or Intelligent Dance Music, which was still finding its footing in 1992 and would spread worldwide in later years. By rolling back the flourishes and focusing more on the reverberated synth sighs, James’ ambient nature comes out in monochrome minimalism.

At just over a minute long, “I” embodies something that I value very much in an album: a short piece that fits well into the record as a whole. When these works are truly valuing quality over quantity, the result is a fleeting sonic blip that sounds beautiful and handcrafted. Some other notable examples are “Touched” on My Bloody Valentine’s Loveless, “Nightvision” on Daft Punk’s Discovery, and “Frank’s Wild Years” on Tom Waits’ Swordfishtrombones. This phenomenon is even more poignant when the track is sandwiched between aural monoliths, much like the kind you would find on an ambient record. This particular instance is no more graspable than Aphex Twin’s other output — it sounds very much like you’re listening to a post-Eucharist reflection hymn a mile underwater — but it’s also no less graphic, if you actually realize what’s happening at the time. The track does get buried, and I admit to having forgotten all about its existence in the midst of SAW‘s throbbing rhythms, but when you pay extra close attention, the sound of “I” floats in the air like a smoke trail, wafting back and forth in a slight breeze. It lets the environment of the listener provide the embellishments, while it itself remains as a punctuation mark in the album.

Artist: Aphex Twin
Album: Selected Ambient Works 85-92
Year: 1992
Tracklist & Review (Allmusic)

This is a terrible terrible album.

Rod Stewart’s 1981 effort, titled Tonight I’m Yours, is an album that has been certified as platinum in the U.S., sounds like a bastardized collection of the state of the industry, which makes sense in a way. The tracklist’s sound jumps around dramatically, with Stewart drawing from personnel versed in various styles and genres and no less than three covers — British blue-eyed soul number “How Long?”, Dylan staple “Just Like A Woman”, and rockabilly stomper “Tear It Up”. The whole album is a crossover carpet bomb, aiming to appease as wide of an audience as possible, and the strategy works to some extent (over 1 million sold), though its tragic flaw is that the production is over-the-top in a way that Rod Stewart’s signature rasp only makes worse.

The only saving grace here, aside from the bouncy single “Young Turks,” is the artwork, which is just as moody and serious as you would expect from the early 80s, without sacrificing the tongue-not-quite-in-cheek stylization that defines the era. Judging by the tint of the sunlight, I’d guess they were going for an LA look, gazing out at the coast just before the sun hits the sea. Looking also at the palm tree shadow that Rod and his moussed up mullet are casting, he might as well be LA in 1981.

That aforementioned highlight, “Young Turks”, does well to reinforce the imagery on the cover, though it does it in a more carefree way. The shoulder pads, the southern California sun, the random dancing on cars — it’s all here. I have to wonder if people actually believed this was how Angelenos spent their summers, defying our parents and giving birth to ten pound baby boys, because I didn’t grow up thinking every Chicago neighborhood had a resident nerd or that there were about a dozen black people in New York City from 1994 to 2004.

Musically speaking, “Young Turks” is one of my favorites from Stewart, despite missing the rich folky sunshine of “Maggie May” or the wind-tousled chest hair of the trashy disco single “Da Ya Think I’m Sexy?” To his credit, “Young Turks” survives independent of the gimmicky new wave synths, standing strong on an inspired melody and a killer chorus with spine-tingling chord changes.

Which is confusing, because…

… this exists. That one gem is buried beneath polished turds like this attempt at a Dylan cover. It looks like a Rolling Stones video without the energy and it sounds like the Gin Blossoms on a very, very bad day. And for those who wondered what it sounds like when Rod Stewart appropriates Dylan’s atonal whine with two vocal tracks of gravelly rasp, here you go. Look on my works, ye mighty, and  despair…

So yes, this album is awful. Soft rock has rarely seen lower lows. Perhaps I’ve got the benefit of hindsight, examining how the songwriting is shallow; how the production hurts the record’s value; how the album art is campy without the irony, wit or outlandishness.

You know what, scratch that — it’s just terrible across all spans and scopes.