#287

One explanation for why certain bands gain prominence well beyond what would seem fair or just in a balanced universe is that people love guitars. I personally love guitars, so this is understandable to me. Though I play the bass and think of it as my "main" instrument, I never can understand why people seem to be so fixated on pumping up the bass; what they really mean is they want to feel the pulsing of the beat within their chest cavity in an unhealthy way.

Used to play tuba, and when I wanted to quit tuba in order to better concentrate on playing many other instruments as I like to do, my band director attempted to dissuade me by expounding upon how essential the bass element is to the sound of any given musical effort overall. I was not disputing this, and still do not, but it's not something people really hear except when it's not there. "When you're listening to rock music, don't you turn up the bass, on your speakers or in the car?" he asked me, trying to reach me through the evils of modernism (this was not my problem). "No," I replied. "I concentrate more on the guitars. Or the trumpets, which is what I want to go back to playing." "You're valuable to me as a tuba," he replied flatly, abandoning the relatability angle and thereby becoming much easier to understand. "You're not valuable as a trumpet. But if you really want to go down that road, you have to at least wait till tryouts next year to make the formal switch. We can talk about it at camp."*

Ah, band camp. He gave me the runaround then, too. A good band leader can't take shit from prima donna asshole kids, and whatever his faults, the man was one of the greats. 

The instrumentality of the bass line is not widely regarded, is what I'm saying. I think of something different when I think of bass music than simply root notes and the big drum. Yes, the framework is essential, and without it, it all falls down. And guitars are probably overrated. But guitars are awesome, and one time, a band I was playing with literally forgot me and left me at a liquor store waiting for them, and I had to catch up to them; this is a perfect illustration of how the bassist is regarded. Also, I just can't play the guitar for some reason. This means it retains its mystique, and I place all my inventive guitar energies into my bass instead. Makes me a terrible bassist to play guitar with, I can tell you. 

*

So, guitars. Better to say, specifically, electric guitars. How about a list of my top twenty albums in no particular order evaluated solely on the merits of the guitar work? Or maybe, top ten guitar albums, top twenty guitar tracks. That might be more information for less effort. One thing doing Album Week has taught me is that albums are much more difficult than songs.

Top Ten Albums On The Strength of Their Electric Guitars In No Particular Order Purely My By Own Unspoken Subjective Metrics Off the Top of My Head (Records with Carlos Santana here omitted for reasons of bias and proliferation; same goes for Caspian)

Dreaming of Revenge, Kaki King

Shadows Collide With People, John Frusciante

Hot Rats, Frank Zappa

Electric Mud, Muddy Waters

No Code, Pearl Jam

Stadium Arcadium, Red Hot Chili Peppers

This Is a Long Drive For Someone With Nothing to Think About, Modest Mouse

Ride the Lightning, Metallica

Sink / Swim, Cutting Room Floor

Mommy's Little Monster, Social Distortion

Honorable Mentions

Mexican Teenagers EP, Kaki King

Glow, Kaki King

Renihilation and Aesthetica, by Liturgy

Top Twenty Songs On the Strength Of Their Electric (Or, Sometimes, Combination Electric/Acoustic) Guitars In No Particular Order Purely By My Own Unspoken Subjective Metrics Off the Top of My Head (with an attempt to reach for more artists off more albums rather than, say, ten Caspian songs and ten Santana songs out of their discographies, which I could also do, and ALSO, omitting any songs/albums I have discussed before in Album Week 2019 or 2022)

"Height Down", John Frusciante & River Pheonix, Smile From the Streets You Hold

"Swans (Life After Death)", Islands, Return to the Sea

"Spitting Venom", Modest Mouse, We Were Dead Before the Ship Even Sank

"Throw Away Your Television", Red Hot Chili Peppers, Live at Slane Castle (let us here include all extemporaneous jam intros/outros/interstitials to any given song played that evening)

"Don't Wait For the Sun", American Hi-Fi, American Hi-Fi

"Murmaider II: The Water God", Dethclock, Dethalbum II

"Tempting Time", Animals As Leaders, Animals As Leaders

"L.A. Woman", The Doors, L.A. Woman

"Barnes", Pinback, Autumn of the Seraphs

"Quadrophenia", The Who, Quadrophenia

"Worlds Apart", Bruce Springsteen, The Rising

"There's No Home For You Here", The White Stripes, Elephant

"March To the Witch's Castle", Funkadelic, Cosmic Slop

"At Least That's What You Said", Wilco, A Ghost is Born

"Arms of a Thief", Iron & Wine, Around the Well

"The Mountain", Krallice, Dimensional Bleedthrough

"Ex Cathedra", Wolves in the Throne Room, Black Cascade

"Sister", Sufjan Stevens, Seven Swans

"1969", The Stooges, The Stooges

Last, I'm buckin' the rules and posting a four-way all in the same move, check it:

"I Want It All", "Hammer to Fall", "The Show Must Go On", "One Vision", Queen, (not writing out the albums; it's Queen, the later albums mostly)

Honorable Mentions

They are LEGION, many deserving a spot in what might be the "actual" top twenty, but this is just an exercise in the vein of a speedrun. I cannot stress how non-exhaustive and unauthoritative today's post has been. For the sake of honor, I shall mention 

"Halo Theme Mjolnir Mix", Martin O'Donnel and Michael Salvatori, featuring Steve Vai, Halo 2 Original Soundtrack 

*

So there's some food for thought! Or not. On that note, time to cook lunch. Or maybe order sandwiches. Probably left things too late. I am too hungry to think clearly any longer.

Album! Week! Twenty! Twenty! Two! 

--JL

*On another occasion, regarding the trumpet thing: "You got great tone, but you don't work your scales. You don't work hard enough to make high chairs. It's that simple." And it was. Now when I play my trumpet it's pretty much just scales and long tones, a little bit of extemporaneous whatever, then back in the case. Too late I have learned, but it's never too late to just enjoy playing, so it's not a waste or anything. I'd play my tuba too, if I could find one. Funnily, no one ever criticized that I didn't practice my tuba scales.