The Rolling Stones - Mother's Little Helper

Let me start off by saying that I never bought into the whole Beatles vs. Stones debate. They're both amazing. Get over it.I'm going to go out on a limb and say that if you don't know The Rolling Stones, give up on listening to music forever. You're wasting your time. 

"Flowers" was released in 1967 and is technically a compilation album. Most of the songs are from different albums that were released in the few years leading up to it's release. A majority of them appeared as either singles or B-sides, or weren't included in the American releases of "Aftermath" and "Between The Buttons". "Flowers" would eventually reach third on the Billboard Pop charts and be certified gold after more than 500,000 copies sold.

The album opens with what is now considered to be a golden standard for The Rolling Stones. "Ruby Tuesday" (which was also featured on Between The Buttons) kick starts the album with what seems to me like a slower version of the song. It might be that they play it faster live and that's what I'm used too. Either way it's an awesome song. Following Ruby Tuesday is "Have You Seen Your Mother, Baby, Standing In The Shadow" and "Let's Spend The Night Together".

"Let's Spend The Night Together" has become an infamous song because of the trouble the band got into because of the lyrics. When the British invasion happened in the late sixties, The Rolling Stones were supposed to appear on The Ed Sullivan Show to preform. When the band arrived at the set, they were told that either "the song goes, or you go". The group came to a compromise by changing the lyrics from "lets spend the night together" to "lets spend some time together". After the performance, the band was banned from ever performing on the show again. Looking back now, that seems kind of ridiculous.

After "Lady Jane" and "Out of Time" comes a previously unreleased track. The Rolling Stones cover the Smokey Robinson song "My Girl". I don't usually like cover songs more than the original version but this is an exception. To be honest, I always thought that The Rolling Stones wrote and performed the original version. It's just that much better. After "Backstreet Girl" and "Please Go Home", my favourite song on the album is up.

"Mother's Little Helper" is easily my favourite song on the album. Even if it is much darker in comparison to the all the other songs on the album, it still has the most pop sound on the record. The song mentions a "little yellow pill". It turns out that they were referring to a type of barbiturates. Mainly Nembutal which was used as a recreational drug in the sixties. Upon looking into it online, I found out that today, heavy doses are used to kill inmates that have been given the death penalty in the U.S.

So, there's that.

The album is closed out by a trio of solid Stones tracks. "Take It or Leave It", "Ride On, Baby" and "Sittin' on a Fence" are all wonderful songs, but on an album that contains so many established singles they kind of make it seem like the album is trailing off. That being said, they probably could have been sold as singles to promote the "Flowers" album because two of them were previously unreleased.

So overall I would probably end up giving the album an 80/100 ranking. It's definitely a strong album but because there's aren't many new songs, it doesn't get any higher. Still, I would say it's a must have if you like The Rolling Stones.

Buy it here:

http://itunes.apple.com/us/album/flowers-remastered/id76532969

or here:

http://www.amazon.ca/Flowers-The-Rolling-Stones/dp/B00006AW2N

or here:

http://rollingstones.shop.bravadousa.com/Product.aspx?cp=150_15245&pc=RSDD16

KMD - Figure of Speech

KMD (Kausing Much Damage) was a hip hop trio from Long Beach, New York. The group's core consisted of DJ Subroc and emcee Zev Love X. The third member Onyx the Birthstone Kid quit the group during the recording of their second album in 1993. The group only made two albums in the early 1990's. Shortly before their second album was released, Subroc was killed in a car accident and the group was dropped by their label. "Mr. Hood" was their debut album and was released in 1991.

A lot of the rhyming on this record reminds me of something like an early version of De La Soul. The album manages to keep a positive bouncy tone while tackling sensitive subjects like racism. What they use to keep a semi-storyline throughout the album is a set of samples from a language-learning tape. The man in the recording is referred to as Mr. Hood and pops up in almost every song. Having proper English spoken by the recording juxtaposed by the slang by the group can lead to some pretty amusing conversations. The interlude where Mr. Hood meets Onyx and they insult each other through escalation is legitimately funny.

This album represents a wonderful point in time for hip hop music. It had evolved past simply telling stories of going to the mall, and added more political resonance and message. That being said, you have to take the entire track into context to try and understand what they're trying to convey. If you take it line by line it wont make much sense, if at all. I wouldn't call it the polar opposite of an NWA album, but NWA doesn't have Ernie from Sesame Street humming a beat for one of their songs.

Normally I would pick a few of the standouts on the album. However, it would be hard to do that on this album because they stay so consistently amusing. I decided to upload "Figure of Speech" because I set the album to shuffle and it was the first track that played. Besides the fact that it seems to be the only song that doesn't include the Mr. Hood character, it's a fairly accurate representation of the rest of the record.

It's hard for me to give a rating to this album. The conundrum comes from the fact that when it comes to politically charged rap music, gangster rap pulls it off better. So rating a more "wholesome" version needs to take into consideration the difference between the two. Considering what would be the groups competition KMD would have had to deal with when the album came out, I have to give the record a rating somewhere around a 75/100. It's a solid album that will make you laugh in between wonderfully catchy songs.

Buy it here:

http://itunes.apple.com/ca/album/mr.-hood/id376268300

or here:

http://www.amazon.com/Mr-Hood-KMD/dp/B000I2KRC6

TV On The Radio - Caffeinated Consciousness

TV On The Radio is a band based in Brooklyn, New York and formed back in 2001. Although the band has had a host of contributors on each of their albums, the main line up consists of Tunde Adebimpe (vocals), David Andrew Sitek (guitar, keyboards), Kyp Malone (vocal, guitar), Jaleel Bunton (drums, vocals) and Gerard Smith (bass, keyboard). Unfortunately after the release of their fifth studio album "Nine Types of Light", Gerard Smith passed away after succumbing to lung cancer.

Wikipedia defines the group as a "art rock" band. A label that I despise to core. I consider music an art to begin with, so art rock translates to me as music-music. I would just refer to the band as different. Taking only this album into account, they are certainly not a traditional rock group. You don't usually expect to hear a horn section involved in almost every song. I guess the closest description you could come up with is a rock band with a dash of funk. The result is amazing either way.

Overall the album seems to be a lot more mellow than previous entries. Considering that the band was on a hiatus before this album was released, I have to think it had something to do with Gerard Smith's illness. It has to be hard to stay peppy and happy when one of your best friends is dying. The first track called "Second Song" has some minor references to death and acceptance in the lyrics.

"Now my body says it's over

Shaking hands tear my face away."

"When there's music all around me and I haven't got a single word to say."

That being said, the album isn't depressing by any means. The songs have a wonderful tendency to stay bouncy and fun while dealing with serious subjects. Something that is very unique to the band is their ability to keep their sound fresh and fun not only from album to album, but from song to song as well. If you take one of their past singles such as "Wolf Like Me" and compare it to one of the singles off of Nine Types of Light, you would get two very different songs. You would also still be able to recognise both songs as uniquely being from TV On The Radio.

Nine Types of Light is what you want to see from an evolving band. They can make great progress and follow a path that makes sense to the sound they release, without going off the rails. Some of the standout tracks on the album for me are "Second Song", "Future Shock", "Killer Crane", "Will Do" and "Caffeinated Consciousness." I decided to upload Caffeinated Consciousness because it was my ring tone for almost 6 months before I got tired of hearing it every day. It's also the most upbeat energetic song on the album. Really, it's just wonderful.

I would probably end up giving the album an 83/100 rating. Even though its a more mellow laid back listening experience, it still makes you want to get up and do some weird kind of slow dance. I don't really know how to sell that any better. So trust me, it's a good thing. The fact that hey made the entire album one massive music video is pretty awesome as well. Watch it here.

Then buy the album here:

http://itunes.apple.com/ca/album/nine-types-light-deluxe-version/id429772209

or here,

http://www.amazon.com/Nine-Types-Light-TV-Radio/dp/B004NHRGQW

or finally, here.

http://www.tvontheradio.com/discography/default.aspx