Paul Westerberg - World Class Fad (more going solo)

In quantity, Westerberg's solo output has now eclipsed the Mats catalog. There's some pretty excellent quality in there too. I love the biting lyrics in this song. It's the perfect F-you...

Dee Dee Ramone, Peter Murphy: Solo

Of Dee Dee....Cocaine, it's a hell of a drug.




Peter Murphy....it's not awful, but it's so boring.....and I'm not sure that his look here was EVER cool. Well, I guess maybe on Sprockets

Lauryn Hill - Everything Is Everything (going solo cont.)

The Score was playing everywhere on my college campus during my freshman year. It seemed like the Fugees had the potential to make a few more great records and then all of the sudden it was over. The relationship between Lauryn Hill and Wyclef Jean soured and the group became another victim of the Fleetwood Mac syndrome.

The good news is that Lauryn Hill went on to make one of the best hip hop albums ever. The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill has the beats, the lyrics, the melodies... everything. She was only 23 years old when it came out, but she had already found fame, lost her group and had a baby with a married man. She seems both experienced and naive at different turns. Even on this song, she goes from sounding like a 1st semester philosophy student in the chorus to sounding like she could teach you a thing or two during the the rap break. Unfortunately she fell off the map after this, returning only for an MTV Unplugged performance where she was barely coherent and seemed to be having a breakdown.

Carla Bozulich--solo day 2

Carla Bozulich was a writer for Maximumrocknroll who sang with the industrial band Ethyl Meatplow in the early 1990s. Despite their ridiculous name, Ethyl Meatplow was really really good, but they broke up after one album. Bozulich started a new band, The Geraldine Fibbers, who combined a sort of Texas flavored roots rock with punk and avant-Eurotrash (they cover Can's Yoo Doo Right on their second album). Anyway, I like them a lot.

Going solo

It's always interesting to me to see what happens when a great band breaks up and members attempt to go solo. You really see who the talents are. For example, Sebastian Bach sucked as a solo artist, because Skid Row depended on the bass player for his songwriting skills. Thus, "Slave to the Grind."

Then again, why do obviously talented individual members always make bad solo albums? Mick Jagger and Keith Richards always made crap solo work. (Of course, the Rolling Stones make crap albums now too).

Dee Dee Ramone wrote all the best Ramones songs, yet his solo work is almost as embarrassing as Bob Mould's techno albums. (And do I even need to mention Chris Cornell's latest shitbrick with Timbaland?)

Of Genesis, the only good solo artists was Peter Gabriel. Of Guns 'N Roses, Izzy Stradlin.

My case study today is Bauhaus. Love them, but Peter Murphy's solo work is terrible. The rest of the band formed Love and Rockets after the breakup, and they were so-so. But I recently discovered Daniel Ash's solo album, and this single. While it's not life changing, I kind of dig it. (His other solo stuff isn't so great, though. Sounds kind of like Love and Rockets, but not quite as fun.)

This is my daydream

Work has been so insane of late that I've disappeared from the blog. I'm raising my head and opening my bleary eyes, just long enough to slur, I gotta get out of this homework! If only Mike Muir and Suicidal Tendencies were here to do this:

The Thermals - Returning to the Fold

The Thermals will be in Chapel Hill (Local 506) on May 14th! This seems like a good Friday song to me. Happy Hour's only 8 hours away...