I drive about 2 hours a day to get to work, which is fine most days as it allows me to listen to music. I want to try to start posting more regularly and I'm thinking that posting my weekly commuting playlist might be a way to get my thoughts down in a more timely manner and also allow for some random ramblings! So I'm going to give it a go.
Monday, February 22nd
I started off the week by spinning Collective Soul's 2015 effort "See What You Started By Continuing". I've always enjoyed Collective Soul and I knew they put out a new record late last year. I spun it a few times on Google Play and felt that I should pick it up, but I didn't until I was on vacation in Florida a few weeks ago and found the deluxe edition at Walmart, which includes a 10-track Greatest Hits. As an aside, I think Collective Soul is the only artist that I've purchased multiple albums from while being on vacation. I picked up their self-titled 1995 effort while on a cruise when we were in port in St. Thomas at a Tower Records. Congrats Collective Soul!
The 'greatest hits' are re-recorded hits but you wouldn't know it by listening to them as they sound exactly like the originals. The track list for the hits is a little weird, with 5 tracks coming from later era "Youth" and "Afterwords" records and the other 5 coming from the more well-known '90's records. It's not terrible but the title 'greatest hits' is a little misleading. Anyway, the actual album is likely their best and most consistent since 1999's "Dosage". These are not ground-breaking songs by any means but all are catchy and they seem to rock harder than anything the band has done in a while. Standout tracks include AYTA, Exposed, Confession and Contagious. This was their first album in 6 years, so hopefully they can keep the momentum going and not turn into Third Eye Blind (who ironically also released their last album prior to "Dopamine" in 2009, right around the time Collective Soul released their 2nd self-titled ("Rabbit") record).
I then moved onto Matthew Good's 2013 compilation "Old Fighters". I have a lot of time for Matt Good and picked this album up from amazon for like $7 CAD. I have all the songs on this album already, as well as his first best of compilation "In A Coma" but this comp contained some of the newer songs, some live recordings and apparently the tracks were hand-picked by Matt Good himself. If you've been with me so far, you know I'm a bit of a completist (understatement of the year). Matthew Good is incredibly consistent, which these tracks demonstrate. Never mind that 10 of the 14 songs are culled from "Beautiful Midnight" and "Avalanche", the 3 newer era songs included (Born Losers, Last Parade and Zero Orchestra) are gems, as are the albums that house these songs. I was mostly excited by the inclusion of the song Suburbia, from "Beautiful Midnight". When I bought that record in 1999, this was a standout track for me.
My fave Matthew Good song is either Tripoli or Anti-Pop, both from the underrated "Audio of Being" album. I think I read somewhere that this isn't Matt Good's favourite release, likely because it was recorded when the band was breaking up, but I'm hoping it gets a vinyl re-issue like some of his other records recently have. Neither of these songs are on "Old Fighters", but if you get the deluxe edition of "In A Coma" (highly recommended), an acoustic version of Tripoli is included and it's almost worth the price of admission. Plus you get a DVD of the music videos up to 2003 (I think) with Matt Good commentary.
Tuesday, February 23rd
That brought me to Tuesday and I think I let the Sirius channel Lithium ('90's grunge and alternative) go for a while after the Matt Good album ended. On the way home, I drove by HMV at Laird and Eglinton and noticed that there were sale signs all over the place, so I decided to take a look. The signs indicated a lease expiring sale. Basically, this store is going under - a month after I discovered this location (which was on the way home!). So I went in and ended up grabbing two Deftone's CDs ("White Pony" and "Diamond Eyes") and Scott Weiland and the Wildabouts "Blaster". The latter was on my radar even before Weiland passed away, I just hadn't gotten around to purchasing it.
I threw on "White Pony" as admittedly, the only thing I really knew about the Deftones was the song Change (In The House of Flies) (included on "White Pony" as track 10). My friend Mark is high on these guys and I trust his musical judgement! This is an excellent album. Some songs I would classify as thrashers, heavy on riffs and screaming, but others are very restrained and melodic. There is a song called Passenger, which is a duet with Maynard from Tool. This and Change, are the best songs on the record for me. So this album was definitely worth $9.
Wednesday, February 25th
The Scott Weiland record started off Wednesday and it's a solid rock record (even meat and potatoes-esque), which is enjoyable to listen to from beginning to end. Being a big STP fan, Weiland's death hit me kind of hard. So, there's obviously been a lot written about this subject in the last little bit and no doubt there will be a lot more written about it. I just want to throw my hat in the ring as Weiland's music has been a part of my life for over 20 years and this is what the real purpose of the Commuting column will be - a springboard for wordy asides!
I wrote in one of my last blogs what an important album "Purple" was/is for me. I like "Core" don't get me wrong, but I think STP really made a big stride forward with their second record and this is when I really started sitting up and noticing. They started discovering their own "sound". Interstate Love Song, Big Empty, Still Remains, Vasoline, Unglued, Lounge Fly...I could list all 12 tunes as every song is great and only Meat Plow and maybe Silvergun Superman really sounds like anything else on "Core". STP was definitely a sum of all their parts, you don't want to diminish the talents of the DeLeo brothers and drummer Eric Kretz, but Weiland was the voice and primary lyricist. On "Purple", the lyrics deal a lot with "lies", struggling to maintain a sense of self through fame and addiction. I couldn't fully relate to the words in a personal sense but I could definitely relate to Weiland's delivery and passion on this record. The playing is muscular and STP was becoming one of my favourite bands. Just ask my parents...and the STP bumper sticker I stuck on their mini van.
Then "Tiny Music" dropped when I was in university, preceded by the single Big Bang Baby, which I was all over. Again, this was a different sound than "Core" and "Purple". Listening to it now, after fully discovering Bowie and glam rock, you can feel those fingerprints all over this offering, but STP makes it their own. So I picked the album up the day it came out and remembered being somewhat disappointed that it started off with a rather short instrumental. And then the one-two punch of Pop's Love Suicide and Tumble In The Rough. These were raw tunes and Weiland's voice sounded weathered and beaten. The lyrics were direct in addressing the addiction that he was struggling with. So at first, I wasn't fully down with this album but that quickly changed the more I listened to it. Unfortunately the band couldn't fully tour this record due to Weiland's issues and it would be another 3 years before they dropped another STP record. I fully believe that if things had gone according to plan, STP would have continued to evolve further away from the "Core" sound and who knows where they could have gone?
They went to "No. 4", which was more of a return to the harder rocking sound of "Core". Listening to it now again, this is okay by me. The tunes are solid, but the ballads on this album stand out - Glide, Sour Girl, Atlanta. People who saw STP in concert during this era also say this was their best tour. They are one of the artists I regret never seeing live (also Beastie Boys, now David Bowie and Rage Against the Machine). And then came "Shangra-Li-Da-Da", which I bought before the street date from the guys at Edward's Record World in Toronto (such a damn great store that place was, I lost a lot of money there). I'd been hearing Days Of The Week on the radio and I liked it well enough. But this record didn't really grab me upon first listen and only now have I revisited it. Like STP's other albums, it's solid and pretty different from the record before it, which shows how versatile Weiland and the band were. 2010's reunion album was okay in my books but I don't revisit it often. I did have tickets to their Toronto show in 2010, which I sold for some unknown reason. Which was a mistake in hindsight.
Weiland's first solo album, "12 Bar Blues" is daring but tuneful. I like a lot of this album and it was very risky to put this out after the success of the first three STP records. But he was battling demons and the band got together with another vocalist to form Talk Show (decent record). I don't think "12 Bar Blues" was a best seller by any means but working with Daniel Lanois, songs like Where's The Man, Divider and About Nothing are keepers that I still like to spin (maybe next week when commuting!). I did pick-up his second solo album "Happy in Galoshes" but I must admit I haven't listened to this one a lot. I do like Missing Cleveland and his cover of Bowie's Fame and might have to spin this one again soon.
Velvet Revolver I enjoyed well enough and I did see them in concert. Fall to Pieces is a great power ballad, only outdone by Loving the Alien on their debut. "Libertad" was a solid follow-up, but didn't get as much love (not sure why, as it has solid songs on it). But that brings us back to "Blaster", probably the most straight-forward record of Weiland's career; Youth Quake and Hotel Rio are standout tracks for me thus far. It's a fitting end to a very solid career that didn't get the critical kudos it deserved.
I did round out Wednesday by playing the Deftones' "Diamond Eyes" (solid tunes, requires a 2nd listen as it isn't as immediate as "White Pony", stunning album cover as well!) and a mix CD I made in November 2015. Ryan Adams' T-Swift Bad Blood cover leads it off and most of the rest of it is made up of songs from some of my fave albums of 2015 (see last blog).
Thursday, February 25th
So the whole faux Collective Soul "Greatest Hits" made me think I could likely make my own Collective Soul comp that would be kick-ass, so Wednesday night I did this. It contains 20 tracks, a mix from all their albums. So I spun that today after my November 2015 mix ended and it is enjoyable. Often I find myself making my own band compilations as often what I consider the band's best songs differ from their actual greatest hits. I've made about 3 Jimmy Eat World mixes, one after each of their last 3 albums (though they mostly contain songs from "Clarity", "Bleed American", "Futures" and the "Stay On My Side Tonight" EP, with a couple of new songs thrown in). It's probably time to get a new Third Eye Blind comp going, though their own comp "A Collection" is pretty comprehensive (besides not including Anything on it, which is clearly a mistake).
Friday, February 26th
I had to go to New York for business on Friday, but still had to drive to the airport! I spun my homemade Sloan best of compilation on the drive there and back . I like Sloan but found their actual greatest hits "A Sides Win" comp a bit thin. "Twice Removed", "One Chord To Another" and "Navy Blues" are all great albums where I like a lot of the songs. Even "The Double Cross" released a few years ago had some solid tunes on it. I made this compilation I think in 2013 or 2014, before their latest album "The Commonwealth" was released. It contains songs from every album except "Parallel Play", which I never bought or heard (I didn't like the first single Believe In Me, so didn't bother to check out the album). Sloan is a very consistent band as my 23 track mix demonstrates.
Okay, I'm going to shut it down for now, until next time.
