I wrote this one in fits and starts during the last couple of weeks. Little bits at a time, mostly, because I’ve been under a lot of pressure and stress, and I worked in a couple of audiobooks for the really long drives. Still, I hit on some good selections, including a cross-section of the 80s Minneapolis scene, a bit of a let down, and a record whose influence I’ve referenced many times, but hadn’t yet had it’s turn in the spotlight of this series.

♦Sheryl Crow: Tuesday Night Music Club: As I said, I’ve referenced this disc as a point of comparison numerous times in this series; and rightfully so. This one, and arguably Alanis Morrissette’s Jagged Little Pill really did set the tone for a large segment of “female artists” for most of the nineties and at least the early part of the aughts. The record itself, nearly 20(!) years later holds up really well, and doesn’t feel particularly dated; though I suspect this is partly due to the the continued presence of hit singles from it on certain radio formats (especially those you’re likely to hear playing in your average convenience store or doctor’s office waiting room). It opens strong with the resonating “Run Baby Run,” and fills out with nice story-songs like “All I Wanna Do” and “Leaving Las Vegas,” which work just as much (if not more) because of the lyrical images they create than the catchy melodies. The whole record projects a comfortingly DIY image, with slightly dirty, lo-fi production; as if it was recorded in snatches over a long period (which it actually was). There’s some really well-crafted pop song here – “Strong Enough” and “No One Said It Would Be Easy” are favorites, but it also goes beyond being a simple pop record, with more experimental stuff like the jazzy “We Do What We Can” with it’s 12/8 time signature, and the sparse and haunting “I Shall Believe.” This record sold enough that you quite likely have a copy lying around somewhere. If you haven’t given it a spin in a while, go ahead and do so;I think you’ll be pleasantly surprised.

♦Richie Sambora: Undiscovered Soul: This was Sambora’s second solo outing from 1998, which places it well into Bon Jovi’s easy listening era. There are a few uptempo tunes, the lot of them blues-influenced, like “Hard Times Come Easy,” which according to my research, barely broke the mainstream rock top 40. It’s not bad, nor is “Made In America,” the lead track that spends a lot of effort aping latter day Springsteen and Mellencamp. Most of the record was written with Richie Supa, a songwriter/guitarist who is mostly known as a 70s Aerosmith collaborator. Nothing on this record rocks anywhere nearly as hard as 70s Aerosmith. This probably has much to do with producer Don Was, whose guidance here is a lot like the work he did with Bonnie Raitt in the same time period; highly polished and expertly mixed, but lacking much of an edge. What I remember most about this record when I first listened to it upon release was the sheer volume of sappy piano and string drenched love ballads, all transparently about Sambora’s then-wife Heather Locklear. Re-listening, those are still there, and they remain anti-highlights for the listening experience, though they’re overshadowed by “Who I Am,” which is still kind of indulgent at over 7 minutes long, but works for me in a way that it probably didn’t when I first heard it, and has the best guitar solo on the record.

♦Prince and the Revolution: Purple Rain: I was looking for something else totally unrelated on my hard drive the other week and found a digitized copy of this in a directory full of music a former co-worker gave me a few years back (thanks, Chris!). I didn’t even know I had it; the folder was mostly electronica and ambient stuff. I was a little young for this when it came out, but know many of the tunes from radio airplay, as part of the public pool soundtrack (along with “Body Talk” by Kix and “Lucky Star” by Madonna – I think the jukebox only had three selections) and MTV, and have seen the whole movie over several years in disjointed, out-of-order chunks. However, until tonight, I never listened to the record front-to-back. I shall call my recommendation “suitably impressed,” which is probably an understatement. This is a damned good record, clearly meticulously planned, but comes off as though it was just tossed off over a long weekend. It’s pretty nearly perfect. What’s most impressive is how these tunes hang together as a collection which is greater than the sum of it’s parts. For example, “When Doves Cry” is a pretty great song on it’s own, but in series with “Computer Blue,” “Darling Nikki” and “I Would Die 4 U”, it’s almost like a movement in a mini symphony. “Symphonic” is probably a good word to describe the experience; my mind kept leaping to comparisons to Frank Zappa, who did similar things with instrumentation and complex, classically-inspired song structure. And like Zappa, Prince is an amazing guitar player who doesn’t really get credit for it; the little dude can shred. This comparison brings up an interesting irony related to the whole unfortunate PMRC business in the 80s. Tipper Gore, on her crusade to stamp out obscenity in music, cited “Nikki” as a primary example of overt sexuality in popular music; her husband, then Senator Al Gore, while holding hearings on the subject, spent one September afternoon in 1985 gushing over how big a fan he was of that work’s clear antecedent, Frank Zappa, when FZ was called before the committee (and gave this eloquent statement on the issue) to testify on behalf of artists.

♦The Replacements: Let It Be: Despite not even knowing about them while they were active, I’ve become a big fan of the Mats over the last few years. This record is the last indie release before they got picked up by Sire in the mid-80s. It’s kind of an evolutionary record; the early releases were energetic post-punk, very raw, and not particularly well played; still, they’re a lot of fun. On “Let It Be,” they start to branch out a little with tempo, rhythm, and more varied instrumentation; and a bit of Westerberg’s singer-songwriter tendencies start to come out a bit for the first time, and would later come to dominate the band’s sound as they closed out the 80s before hanging it up in ’91. It’s not particularly polished; but it’s that edge that really makes it work; and actually kind of a sonic signature; with vocals buried under tons of reverb and the guitars jangly and over-chorused. There’s lots of really affective, if not exactly virtuoso playing here – the whole of “I Will Dare” and the tempo shift in the breakdown section leading out of “We’re Comin’ Out” are great rock moments, and Westerberg is at his most plaintive and heartbreaking as his voice breaks on “Unsatisfied” and “Answering Machine,” which is built around an excellent solo guitar riff that doesn’t need any help from other instruments holding up a heartbreaking set of lyrics.