** This is the second in a five part series of music reviews, counting down from the #5 to the #1 albums of the decade, 2000-2009.  On January 2nd, 2010, the #1 album will be revealed, along with the complete Weekend Review picks for the Top Thirty Albums of the Decade. **

By Chris Moore:

RATING: 5/5 stars

Elliott Smith’s Figure 8 is undeniably one of the most hauntingly beautiful studio albums ever recorded.

This album — his fifth and final before his death — came at the peak of his career, blending his early acoustic fingerpicking styles with the orchestration that characterized his later work.  When it was first released, some reviewers criticized it as lacking the “subtlety” of his previous work.

Excrement.

Figure 8 has all the subtle brushstrokes of his tremendous early work — Roman Candle, Either/Or — with a much better grasp of the big picture.  Even XO, released two years previously as his major label debut, never quite attained the cohesion of Figure 8.  The concept of the album title alone is compelling, possibly taken from a Schoolhouse Rock! song (which he recorded during the sessions).  In a Boston Herald interview, Smith explained the concept by saying, “I liked the idea of a self-contained, endless pursuit of perfection.  But I have a problem with perfection…”  Conjuring the image of a skater, he continued, “So the object is not to stop or arrive anywhere; it’s just to make this thing as beautiful as they can.”

If this doesn’t encapsulate Smith’s worldview, then what does?

For better or worse, Figure 8 — not to mention all of his previous work — is often, perhaps unavoidably viewed through the lens of his death in 2003, generally considered to have been a suicide even though homicide could not be ruled out.  Knowing the circumstances of his death, it is difficult not to bestow additional layers of meaning on tracks like “Everything Means Nothing to Me” and “L.A.”

Whatever your take on his life and death may be, the music on Figure 8 speaks for itself.  Ranging from stripped down acoustic crooning to full-band electric romping, not to mention some honky tonk piano thrown in for good measure, the instrumental and vocal textures are well-layered, somehow achieving complexity without distracting from the songs themselves.

Elliott Smith's "Figure 8" (2000)

“Son of Sam” is, of course, the perfect album opener.  As my girlfriend has pointed out, you really have to remind yourself of the topic of this track to avoid being taken in by how catchy and pretty it is.  And how many songs about serial killers are simply this good?

Not many, I would hope.

Smith immediately takes it down a notch for track two, declaring his emotional distance in “Somebody That I Used To Know,” which is all acoustic and double-tracked vocals.  Classic Elliott Smith.

No sooner does that song fade then “Junk Bond Trader” kicks up on piano, spewing out disdain in a manner that only Smith ever could.  The next two tracks — “Everything Reminds Me Of Her” and “Everything Means Nothing to Me” — continue along the same theme, but in a more openly vulnerable voice.  The latter sounds every bit as stripped down as the former until about a minute in, when the characteristically double-tracked vocals are joined by heavily reverbed drums, building up to a spine-tingling crescendo.

The album continues in this manner, spare instrumentation at times and all-out rock n’ roll at others.  While Smith is an excellent piano player, guitar is clearly his instrument.  His use of timing with guitar riffs, electric solos, clean and distorted sounds at various times, and even palm mutes is unsurpassed.

Somehow, Figure 8 achieves an eclectic, indie sound that is both very modern and very nostalgic, particularly of mid to late Beatles work.  It seems no coincidence that Smith purchased authentic Beatles recording equipment throughout his career and even recorded several tracks for this release at the famed Abbey Road Studios in London.

It is difficult to imagine any other singers being more emotive, any other songwriters being so diverse in their styles and interests, or any other performers being so talented, much less all at the same time.  For these reasons, Figure 8 is one of the absolute essential albums of the decade, 2000-2009. It may have barely cracked the upper half of the Billboard Hot 200, but anyone who rejects the radio and the Grammys as the best source for new music knows that this is an unreliable judge of musical character.  Rolling Stone‘s panel of judges came a bit closer by voting this album as the #42 album of the decade, but this is drastically underselling it.  After all, I love Love & Theft, I think Magic is rocking, and White Blood Cells is great, but how these albums can place higher than a true masterpiece like Figure 8, I’ll never know.

And don’t even get me started on U2, Coldplay, Radiohead, and Green Day…

Truly, if you have ever felt rejected, needed to distance yourself from a negative influence, tried to mentally process the pressures of society, or simply been human, Figure 8 is an essential album.

Interpol’s Interpol (2010) – NO

Interpol (Interpol, 2010)

(September 7, 2010)

Review:

Interpol sounds like U2 and Dave Matthews organized a melancholy orgy in Radiohead’s basement.

Top Two Tracks:

“Summer Well”

Foo Fighters’ Foo Fighters (1995) – MAYBE

The Foo Fighters' self-titled debut (1995)

(July 4, 1995)

Review: 

Top Two Tracks:  

“This is a Call” & “I’ll Stick Around”

By Chris Moore:

RATING: 4 / 5 stars

The Hold Steady: Keeping riff-driven rock songs relevant since 2004.

To be fair, I’ve only heard one album — 2010′s Heaven is Whenever — but the Hold Steady certainly make a strong case for deserving that aforementioned title on the merits of this most recent release alone. More to the point, the question foremost on my mind as I ran through my second, third, and on through to my tenth listens to this album (in a four day span) was: how has this band managed to release four albums that I’ve never heard of?

Oh, right… Rock music doesn’t “sell” like it used to. I forgot for a moment there.

Honestly, I was nonplussed for much of my first listen. I had put the album on low while talking in the car; what I did hear sounded like the middle-of-the-road derivative drivel that passes for contemporary popular “rock” music.

I’m not name-dropping here, but you can imagine…

When I finally had the mind to crank the volume up, I very clearly heard a band that is not attempting to be something they aren’t. Sure, there are inflections of the Counting Crows and Tom Petty as well as Weezer and the occasional hats-off nod to hip hop dispersed throughout this record, yet although I feel like I should be able to draw more concrete observations in the vein of “The Hold Steady sound like _______”…

Well, I haven’t gotten that far.

And why would I want to? Reviewers — myself included — have a way of breaking down albums and songs to such a degree that, once dismantled, they simply can’t be put back together and enjoyed.

The Hold Steady's "Heaven is Whenever" (2010)

The defining feature of Heaven is Whenever is the tension between the obvious and the subtle, the directly stated and the implied. Namely, these are not the simple, superficial songs that they may appear to be to the casual listener. And it is truly refreshing to read through the lyrics booklet without losing respect for the music.

Kiran Soderqvist of Sputnik Music nails their tone when he writes that frontman Craig Finn “has a way with words and much of their music hints at something much more calculated than bar-light jamming.”

On this record, the lyrics accomplish much of the hinting.

If you’re listening for a Bob Dylan, or even a Jakob Dylan, then you’re liable to be disappointed. But if you’re drawn to the sorts of lines and phrases that will leave you imagining what they might refer to (“There was that whole weird thing with the horses” or “There were a couple pretty crass propositions…” in “The Weekenders”), if you like your allusions served often and served bluntly (“Don’t it suck about the succubi?” in “A Slight Discomfort”), if you’re fond of your metaphors (“I’m from a place with lots of lakes. But sometimes they get soft in the center. And the center is a dangerous place…” in “Soft in the Center”), and if you fancy wordplay (“Jock Jills go for jumping Jacks” in “Our Whole Lives”), then you won’t be disappointed.

Topically, the album is thought-provoking if you’ll let it be, though it’s vague enough — and paced quickly enough — that you’ll never have to think to enjoy these songs.

Upon further consideration, there is more beneath the surface. To begin with, heaven may be the most oft-used word on this record, employed as a metaphor for a beautiful, peaceful relationship in “We Can Get Together,” the lyrics of which provided the album title. Earlier, heaven is what the situation in “The Smidge” feels like, and “Heaven Tonight” makes leaving a party feel “really right” in “Rock Problems.” Later, heaven is the topic for discussions about “hypotheticals” in the superb lead-off single “Hurricane J.”

Not surprisingly, religious iconology oozes forth throughout, as Finn sings about praying on numerous occasions, saints are mentioned repeatedly (specifically, as well as figuratively, as in “Hurricane J” when Jesse’s parents “…didn’t name her for a saint. They named her for a storm”), the Catholic confessional is alluded to in “Our Whole Lives,” and the 1980 Jim Carroll band record Catholic Boy is referenced. Clearly, Heaven is Whenever turns to this thematic underpinning, both seriously and dismissively, and whether intended or not, the album provides a wealth of provocative hooks for the listener.

This is not to say that the Hold Steady’s latest release is a spiritual record or some sort of religious statement. There are many other similarly provocative statements here, such as the advice in “Soft in the Center” that “You can’t get every girl. You’ll get the ones you love the best. You won’t get every girl. You’ll love the ones you get the best. Kid, you can’t kiss every girl…” Every young man confronts this conflict in his programming, that eternal struggle between man as the primitive hunter/gatherer driven by instinct/attraction, and man as the productive member of a society that values monogamy and stability.

There are lighter connections to be made here, as well. For instance, speaking as a life-long dork and sometimes-nerd, I had a visceral reaction to the refrain in “Our Whole Lives” that finds Finn proclaiming, “We’re good guys, but we can’t be good every night. We’re good guys, but we can’t be good our whole lives.”

If you really listen, Heaven is Whenever has much to offer up both lyrically and musically. If you’d rather not, then you’ll still find this album a fun rock record.

And, as a result, I’m left wondering why I didn’t start listening four albums ago.