This is the tenth entry of this particular feature, which is longer than any sort of project I’ve tried to maintain save the random ten (which doesn’t really require all that much effort). With this piece, I’ve talked about 40 records, which barely cracks the contents of the box. If I want to keep going, I’ve got plenty of material to work with. It’s been kind of serendipitous how these records come up in contextual order, since I’m largely drawing handfuls out at random; I could probably write a few thousand words on the subject of indulgent solo project records, for example, and I’m pretty sure someone already has. If the av club hasn’t included it in their long-running Inventory series, they really ought to get around to it.

Without further adieu, here’s my latest stab at playing music critic/pop culture anthropologist:

♦“Weird” Al Yankovic – Off The Deep End: After listening to Alpocalypse over and over for the last week (quick review? generally awesome, but with a few caveats that I’ll attend to below), pulling this record out of the vaults was an interesting comparison. For the last three decades or so, Al’s records have always been a great marker of what’s big at the time of record release. Al’s transcended pop culture because he’s always been so great about identifying and making good-hearted fun of it; the guy’s got a tremendous sense for the zeitgeist (the regular Polka Medleys are consistently a crash-course in popular music of the era). It’s that, and along with one of the tightest, most versatile backing bands in music history, that have kept Al viable longer than pretty much every target he’s ever skewered. That said, Off The Deep End, circa 1992, shows a couple cracks beginning to show in the formula; not that these are Al’s fault. Starting about this time, pop music stopped giving Al as much to work with in terms of parody material. It always bugged me that Smells Like Nirvana was a comment on the subject as much as it was anything else (which is the same trap Perform This Way falls into), even if the craft was pretty great. The other parodies (New Kids on the Block, Gerardo, Milli Vanilli, and MC Hammer) are fine, but aren’t as good as the original Yankovic compositions. This has always been the case, but it started getting more apparent with this record because the pop music of the day just wasn’t as well crafted. I’m not going to complain, as long as we get more tunes like “Trigger Happy” and “You Don’t Love Me Anymore.” Which we do, since the best original tunes, like “Albequerque,” “Wanna B Ur Lovr,” and “Stop Forwarding That Crap To Me” came after this one.

♦Richie Sambora – Stranger In This Town: In the five-year void between New Jersey and Keep The Faith, there were a few blip of Bon Jovi activity to keep the devoted fans interested. The big hit was the Jon Bon Jovi solo record/”Young Guns II” soundtrack, which was pretty good, and keyboardist David Bryan put out a record I never managed to find, but this was the record I was looking forward to, the opportunity for Sambora to step into the spotlight and lead a band after wailing “Wanted!” every night and doing that harmonic blues box thing. As I said previously, I was really into what Sambora was selling, probably more for the cool sideman stage presence and songwriting than the guitar playing, although his style is distinctive, if not flashy, and works in the band setting; “workmanlike” is probably a good description. I once heard somebody describe him as “Neal Schon lite,” which, after listening to the record this week, is about right, since so much of this record has a real Journey vibe to it (it doesn’t hurt that Sambora’s singing voice sounds like a slightly more masculine Steve Perry). Like all “solo” projects, it’s awfully self-indulgent, especially in the early tracks – lots of lyrics about “gypsy”, “blues”, and “voodoo” with all the resonance of someone who’s only heard these things mentioned in songs by more iconic guitarists, and a lot more guitar noodling than on your average Bon Jovi record. Still, after he gets it out of his system, he breaks out tracks like “Rosie” which, while mining the tired “stripper with a heart of gold really loves me!” lyrical trope, is musically about as rocking and definitively Sambora as you can get, including all of the signature guitar licks (it’s not a coincidence that this one was co-written with JBJ, Desmond Child, and Diane Warren), and “River of Love,” which is an appropriately sleazy blues rock tune featuring barely veiled cunnilingus euphemisms and some clever guitar riffs. It was a great record for fans, reasonably accessable for newcomers, and a hell of alot better and less indulgent than “Undiscovered Soul” was (though I reserve the right to change that opinion if and when I pull it out of the box).

♦Nuno Bettencourt – Schizophonic: This one has a lot in common with the previous review, being a solo project from the guitar player of a successful rock band known for its vocal harmony that I was quite a big fan of. Nuno recorded this one during Extreme’s “Punchline” tour before the group disbanded. In a lot of ways, it’s way more ego-stroking than Sambora’s record, what with Nuno playing every instrument, the overblown soundscape, the “edgy” lyrics, and the artful, copyright-skirting mispelling of “Dizkneelande” on track six. That said, there’s surprisingly little guitar noodling from a guy who’s kind of known for it; it’s kind of a treat when the wheedling kicks in now and then. Although it’s got a lot of the same sort of funk influence Extreme was known for, it tries hard to catch the Alternative Rock wave, succeeding a bit, in the sense that much of it sounds a hell of a lot like modern Foo Fighters and Weezer (which, as I’m fond of saying, isn’t really a bad thing). The vocals are often intentionally buried in the mix and heavily processed, adding to the alternative feel, although there’s some (as you might expect) decent acoustic based Beatles-esque stuff there as well. I liked the whole project, though “Fine By Me” (a nice piece of power pop songwriting) and “Note on The Screen Door” stood out as the best of the bunch for me.

♦Joe Walsh –The Best of Joe Walsh: I’m most familiar with Joe Walsh, known to many as the outsized comic relief of 70s rock and roll, in the context of the later Eagles records, where he contributed some excellent slide guitar, and totally owned the show I saw on the “Hell Freezes Over” reunion tour, despite the huge duelling egos of Don Henley and Glenn Frey. However, I always enjoyed the “hits” out of context on the classic rock radio I heard constantly on my college summer jobs, so I eventually ended up with this record and But Seriously Folks to get the triumvirate of “Rocky Mountain Way,” “Funk #49” and “Life’s Been Good” into my collection,. It’s all good stuff, even if it never resonated with me the way some other stuff did, and thanks to this record, I discovered “Help Me Thru The Night,” which I would otherwise have never heard, because it’s only the three previous songs from the Walsh catalog that ever get played on the radio, and adds a bit of depth to the popular clownish image Mr. Walsh normally presents.