New Look and Number 63

I felt it was time for a little change, so I've gone to a brighter template! I'm not exactly a computer genius so I find these things very exciting. Anyway, the brighter template makes the words a little easier to read and makes things a little more colorful. One band that would approve of brighter colors is Number 63:

White Stripes - Elephant (2003)

The sound of this band's buzz was heard for years before they finally broke big in 2003. The White Stripes are an unlikely band, a "brother & sister" act that are comprised of a guitarist / singer and a drummer. And that's it. No long list of sidemen or studio hacks playing bass or keyboards, no wall of sequenced synthesizers to make up for missing musicians, just bluesy alterna rock played in a raw minimalist format.

I haven't heard what's supposed to be their best album, White Blood Cells (2001), but Elephant delivers pounding garage rock with palpable force. Guitarist Jack White clearly leads the band with his cutting, feedback driven guitar riffs and strong sense of melody. Drummer Meg White has been made fun of for her drumming style, but you must remember a drummer can be as important in what they don't play than what they do. Between Jack White's meaty riffs and screechy vocals a more technical drummer would just get in the way.

The big hit song, "Seven Nation Army" is probably going to be on the list of the best rock songs of this decade. The pulsing beat, plaintive vocal and downbeat groove hits hard and the equally memorable video of the duo repeatedly coming out of the background to the foreground has been repeatedly mimicked in commercials since. The other hit, "Hardest Button To Button" fares just as well with a powerful stop/start guitar riff and some great drumwork (yeah, I said Meg White's drumming is great!) . The video of the duo repeatedly moving across the screen in stop motion increments has been copied (just recently this video was paid tribute to in The Simpsons) as well.

Elephant has a great mix of edgy garage rock, brutal blues riffing and odd ball Velvet Underground style left turns. Zippy, fast rockers like "Black Math" and "Girl You Have No Faith In Medicine" are balanced by slower numbers punctuated with bluesy outbursts like "I Just Don't Know What To Do With Myself" and "I Want To Be The Boy To Warm Your Mother's Heart". Two other stand out songs are the classic rock blues of "Ball And Biscuit" and the self motivational "Little Acorns".

The recent work of Jack White suggests there may not be a future for the Stripes, but Elephant will always stand out as a great garage rock album.

TNA Wrestling and Number 64

About six years ago, I became a big wrestling fan. Wrestling was about excitement, overhype and overkill in every way imaginable. It was great fun. Sadly, a few years back wrestling made a conscious effort to become boring. When I say wrestling, I mean WWE, the only major wrestling promotion left standing after the ratings wars between WWE, WCW and ECW ended. When I first started watching wrestling, it was a big stunt show with people running in all directions knocking into each other. They would jump off the ringpost, the stage, giant ladders and crash through tables or into dumpsters. In between, larger than life characters would run their mouth about how they were the best of everything. The Rock, Stone Cold Steve Austin and the Hardy Boys were the face of this style.

A few years back, WWE thought people did not want to see this type of action anymore and went to a more traditional, boring style of wrestling. This new/old style consisted of 20 minute matches where the wrestlers would grapple for 15 minutes. In the middle of the match would be a longggg sleeper hold which would take about 5 minutes and always ended with the hold being broken. On top of that, WWE thought it would be great to split their roster into two camps, RAW and Smackdown. They thought they were giving greater exposure to their talent, but they were really weakening their ability to put wrestlers over by showing them on one program instead of two.

At the end of the day, what was left? The only wrestler since the RAW and Smackdown split they have successfully put over fully is John Cena. Cena's a likeable guy who can do everything a wrestler needs to do well...except actually wrestle. His ability to talk and mouth off is first rate, but he only knows five moves and does them in the same order every match. With other wrestling promotions no longer able to stand up to Vince McMahon's WWE, it seemed this junk was all wrestling fans were stuck with.

Until WWE left Spike TV, then Spike signed up the only other wrestling promotion that could try to compete-TNA. TNA is led by wrestler turned wrestler/promoter Jeff Jarrett. In his prime, Jarrett wrestled for just about anybody that had a ring and a bell. TNA's initial approach was to pickup on what the WWE refused to deliver, fast paced mayhem and acrobatic moves. To take it a step further, Jarrett saw what used to work in WWE before the change and made bargin basement copies. Like Mick Foley / Mankind? Now there's Abyss, an enigmatic crazy guy with a mask. Like The Rock? Well, if the Rock got kind of fat, you can call him Samoa Joe. Like Sting? Actually, they got the real thing and Sting is with TNA.

Now that TNA's on Spike, old WCW wrestlers and every WWE wrestler that has become disenchanted with that company's direction have been coming over. In addition to Sting, two big WCW names Scott Steiner and Kevin Nash jumped over. Disgruntled former ECW wrestlers who saw their hardhitting wrestling styles softened and their careers slowed in the process made the jump, such as Rhyno and the Dudley Boyz. WWE midcarders like Christian and underused divas like Gail Kim and Christy Hemme moved as well. And in their biggest coup, TNA was able to bring over former olympic gold medalist / WWE world champion Kurt Angle over because he was tired of being mistreated and misused.

The end result is that TNA, a smaller and hungrier company, is now packing more entertaining action in one hour a week than WWE can with six hours a week. On TNA, the action is fast and furious. The scripted storylines are lamer than WWE's, but they don't spend as much time talking about it which makes it OK. Best of all, TNA has held on to some of their original wrestlers to maintain an X division, where wrestlers pull acrobatic moves left and right . No lousy five minute chokeholds on this show. Just people flying and getting chairs to the face. That's how wrestling should be.

And what should be at Number 64 is:

Journey - Raised On Radio (1986)

Journey's Raised On Radio will always be a meaningful album to me, even though I can't say it was the album I was hoping it would be. A lot happened in my life in 1986, I graduated high school and then moved away from home to start college. This album will always be tied to that period in my life and Journey is my favorite band, so why is this at Number 64?

Well, although Raised On Radio is a good album it ultimately wasn't really a Journey album. Journey had made their name as the top arena rock band with anthemic melodic rock and soft, teary ballads. During the making of Radio, creative conflicts arose which resulted in the rhythm section getting fired and lead singer Steve Perry writing separately from guitarist Neal Schon and keyboardist Jon Cain. On top of this, Perry was riding on a professional high of a successful solo album and a personal low of caring for his terminally ill mother. Perry took absolute control of the project, minimizing the contributions of Schon and Cain.

On the way to a family vacation I heard on the radio the first new Journey song I had heard in three years. "Be Good To Yourself" was a classic Journey rock song with an uplifting chorus, shiny keyboard parts and Neal Schon's sizzling guitar solo at the end. It seemed all of the bad press was wrong, this was going to be Journey the way they had been before.

Then the album finally came out. I bought it the first day it was released, I bugged the record store clerk so much he tried to lie to me and say I was there the wrong day. I ran home and put it on the turntable. I was really pumped and the first song was..."Girl Can't Help It". While "Girl Can't Help It" is a fine song, it's a sort of midtempo song with a heavy dose of Oohing harmony vocals. It was confusing, I didn't know what to make of it. Didn't I buy a Journey album? The second song, "Positive Touch", was even more bewildering. "Touch" hopped along to an R&B beat and featured a saxophone solo. To this day, I consider this one of the worst Journey songs ever. The third song, "Suzanne", I thought was great except they stole the beat from A-Ha's "Take On Me".

Much of the rest of the album went the same way. It became clear to me that this wasn't a Journey album but really Steve Perry's second solo album with members of Journey guesting. With the exception of "Be Good To Yourself" and the excellent power ballad "Why Can't This Night Go On Forever", there wasn't anything recognizibly Journey on the album. Everything else downplayed the arena rock and replaced it with R&B and lightweight funk.

Still, by the standards of a Steve Perry solo album it was pretty good. "I'll Be Alright Without You", a sort of sequel to Perry's "Foolish Heart", is one of my favorite songs. I saw Journey play live twice on the Raised On Radio tour, both shows were outstanding. My friends and I stayed up a full 24 hours to see them perform their first live concert in three years. I sat through crappy bands like Device and Andy Taylor (of Duran Duran) and saw some mediocre sets delivered by Honeymoon Suite and the Outfield ("Your Love" is a great song until you hear an eleven minute version of it with eight minutes of crowd sing-a-long).

The concert also gave me respect for Randy "American Idol" Jackson, who played bass on this album and tour. His bass playing is considerably stronger than Ross Valory, who he had replaced. This album was Journey at the end of their peak run and while it could have been better, it still ranks as one of my all time favorites. As Randy Jackson would say, Journey "y'know, did their thing dawg." Luckily for Journey, that's better than most people's best effort.

Battlestar Galactica and Number 65

Before I start the regular part of this post, I first want to rant about a recent rash of overacting in music videos. It started with Hinder, which has a video where the singer starts off by trying to flail about while singing. He's trying to evoke Joe Cocker, but his lame attempts at "soulfulness" look like a seizure instead. By the end of the video, he's so overcome with "emotion" that he starts tearing at his hair and pulling at his tie like it's a noose. The song"Lips Of An Angel" may be the best Aerosmith ballad in ten years, but this video is just embarrasing. Tonight, I saw the video for Jessica Simpson's new song. As if the video didn't already reek of desperation (she sings about "belonging to herself" while she tries every psuedo sexy pose known to the human race) her overacting borders on the insane. Simpson doesn't just tear at her hair, she cuts it short on camera. Then she tears at what's left, while straining her facial poses and over enunciating with the focused power of someone taking a big crap. There is a point where she gets caught up in the drama and her mouth dropped so wide open I thought she was one of those Aliens where the little mouth then shoots out of the big mouth and rips your throat out. Scary!

Now that my rants over, I can now talk about Battlestar Galactica. I've decided to start watching this show and I've got to say, it's pretty good. I was a little reluctant to see it as I was a big fan of the original series growing up and even watched Galactica 1980 (never doubt the power of Kent McCord! Never!!). I loved the original series with the Star Wars lite special effects, cast of cool dudes (Richard Hatch and Dirk "Face" Benedict) and hot girls (Jane Seymour and some blonde girl), and those Viper jets where the pilots wear Egyptian helmets. Plus, when I saw the original Battlestar Galactica in the movie theater the basestar explosion at the end shook the building. It was a wonderfully cheesy sci fi show until it ran out of ideas and money. When you started to see the exact same flight pattern scenes of the different ships over and over, it just got old.

Now, Battlestar's back but it really has nothing to do with the '70's show. Sure, the outline of the story is the same with the mechanical Cylons destroying most of the human race except for a rag-tag fleet led by a Battlestar searching for Earth. But, this Galactica is a grimmer, bloodier version. Taking the best elements of Sci-Fi from just about every show ever made, it evokes the real world commentary dressed up in space suits approach of the original Star Trek with some bits of Outer Limits thrown in. This show takes itself very seriously, using the situation to make social and political commentaries on Iraq (the humans try to settle on a planet only to be overrun by the Cylons and have a new government forced upon them. The humans resort to terrorist attacks and suicide bombers to fight for freedom) and America (the humanist president is ran out of office by blind, self centered idealist). It's heady stuff, but only by disguising it's comments in space can a television program get away with tackling these subjects. There are times when I wish this show would lighten up a little, but overall it's entertaining and lives up to its hype.

Speaking of hype and cheese, here's number 65:

Night Ranger - Midnight Madness (1984)

Now we're getting to the good stuff, most of the selections on the countdown are from the 80's at this point. I became a fan of Night Ranger from their first hit, "Don't Tell Me You Love Me", when I heard it on Casey Kasem's Top 40 show. The song was a fast rocking tune with a catchy chorus and blazing twin guitars. It's still one of my favorite songs to this day. I quickly ordered their cassette from Columbia House Records and wore side one out (didn't care as much for side two).

Night Ranger built a buzz on their hit and a rambunctous live show where drummer/co lead singer Kelly Keagy sat sideways at the end of the stage while guitarists Jeff Watson and Brad Gillis ran around bassist/co lead singer Jack Blades. Keyboardist Alan Fitzgerald sat on the other end of the stage with Entwhilian calmness. When Night Ranger released their second album, Midnight Madness, it quickly became the album everyone in high school had to have.

The first single, "Rock In America", was very similar to "Don't Tell Me You Love Me" with its fast beat, catchy chorus and twin guitar solos. Midnight Madness was one of the first records I had bought and I played "Chippin' Away" to death when I bought it. When they released their second single, "Sister Christian", everything changed for this band on what was for me the most confusing ballad I ever heard.

In the 80's before there was internet, the listener had to rely more on personal interpretation of song lyrics unless the music video literaly translated everything. Although I thought the song sounded nice I really didn't get this song. The piano intro was nice, the chorus was pleasantly bracing and the soaring guitar solo was fantastic. But the lyrics about "motoring" and telling Sister Christian that her time has come was impenetrable to me. Why was a nun motoring and determining her price for flight? Where was she flying to and why write a song about it? Why should I care?

Well, the song proved to be a triumphant hit single and the defining Night Ranger song taking them to platinum record sales. The song has had an afterlife in movies (most notably Boogie Nights) and 80's collections for years now. And the internet has cleared up for me that this song is about the drummer's sister graduating high school (now the video makes sense). But that's now, for two decades I really didn't get into this song for the above reasons. Confuse me, will you Night Ranger!

The third single was recently selected as one of the most Awesomely Bad Love Songs of all time, "When You Close Your Eyes". Another case of misunderstood lyrics, I thought this song was romantic about a guy asking a girl if she misses him. VH1 clarified the song is about a guy thinking about the first time he got laid in the back of a car and wonders if the girl misses him years later. Talk about ego! Still sounds great, though.

Just goes to show somethings don't improve with age, but nonetheless Midnight Madness is an all time classic in my book. The killer duelling guitars of whammy bar specialist Brad Gillis and finger tapper Jeff Watson livened up even the weakest songs. Jack Blades and Kelly Keagy were interchanageable as vocalists, but both sang with fire. I saw Night Ranger in concert twice and were never disappointed by their energetic live show. This album will always bring back the few pleasant memories I have of high school, a time of playing football in the park with friends and then blasting Night Ranger while arguing over who was their biggest fan first.