The Apples in Stereo - Fun Trick Noisemaker - 1995

One of the defining albums of the mid-'90s indie scene, the Apples in Stereo's full-length debut is one of those records that marks a sea change in musical attitudes, akin to Mudhoney's "Touch Me I'm Sick" or Pavement's early singles. Besides being the breakthrough release of the Elephant 6 collective, which alone is responsible for many of the better albums of the decade, Fun Trick Noisemaker is the album that defines the post-grunge indie pop shift from sullen negativity into a kind of cockeyed, giddy optimism, and is also among the handful of albums that turned Brian Wilson, Arthur Lee, and Burt Bacharach into cool names to drop at the record store. The album opens with a plundered bit of sonic ephemera from an old stereo-effects demonstration record that plunges directly into the manic throb of "Tidal Wave," where Hilarie Sidney's thudding drums sound like "I Want Candy" on speed and Robert Schneider's goofy mixed-metaphor lyrics and boyish vocals blend with sci-fi vintage synth whooshes and a killer fuzz-guitar riff out of the Fillmore West's heyday. From that breathless start, the album skips blithely from high point to high point, like the sugar-sweet bubblegum melody and "la la la" harmonies of "Glowworm" and the hyperspeed rush of the Buzzcocks-meet-the Banana Splits "Dots 1-2-3." Childlike songs like Sidney's lone vocal showcase, "Winter Must Be Cold," add a charmingly naïve sensibility to what could otherwise be a collection of ideas plundered from impossibly hip record collections. Several years' worth of albums covering the same territory might have dulled the album's freshness just a touch, and the group's technical competence would grow with each successive album, but Fun Trick Noisemaker is a minor masterpiece.-AMG



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Brendan Benson - The Alternative to Love - 2005

Each decade has a handful of power pop icons to call its own, each working from the template that the Beatles and the Who constructed in the '60s, adhering to that melodic, guitar-driven sound but subtly updating it to fit the musical and emotional aesthetic of the time. In the '90s, the tradition was kept alive by Teenage Fanclub and Matthew Sweet, who married Big Star and Badfinger to '80s college rock -- there was also Jellyfish, who acted as if the '80s never existed -- and in the 2000s, it's been the New Pornographers, an indie-centric act who fills the Fanclub's spot, and Detroit-based singer/songwriter Brendan Benson, who is this decade's Matthew Sweet. Not that the Sweet-Benson analogy is 100 percent accurate. For one thing, Benson doesn't favor the messy guitars and confessionals that marked Sweet's '90s masterworks Girlfriend, Altered Beast, and 100% Fun, preferring tightly constructed songs and precisely detailed arrangements that emphasize his sweet melodies. Also, where Sweet's music tied neatly into the zeitgeist of the Alternative Nation of the early '90s, Benson's music is deliberately classicist and proudly out of time, belonging neither to the sounds nor the fashion of the 2000s. That is, unless the defining characteristic of this decade truly is smart, sharp revivalism, from the Strokes through LCD Soundsystem, but even if that's the case, Benson is the heir to a tradition that has never had much commercial (or critical) potency since Badfinger and the Raspberries developed it in the early '70s -- too-shy, sensitive pop tunesmiths who are also skilled record-makers but whose sense of pop remains rooted in the golden era of the '60s, so it chiefly appeals to other pop geeks raised on similar sensibilities. Benson, like the New Pornographers and their leader, A.C. Newman, primarily plays to this small, insular cult that cherishes sugary melodies and knowing, referential productions above all else, but he, like the Pornographers, breaks out of this small world thanks to a combination of skill, fortunate timing, and good luck. As he was working on his third album, Alternative to Love, his friendship with White Stripes mastermind Jack White intensified, leading to a collaboration (unreleased as of this writing), which raised Benson's profile considerably around the time of the album's spring release in 2005. That increased profile meant that Alternative to Love received more attention than either his largely ignored 1996 debut, One Mississippi, or his 2002 cult classic Lapalco, suggesting that the album was a creative breakthrough when it really just delivered more of the same smart, hooky classicist pop that distinguished his first album. Not that this was something entirely unexpected -- power poppers pretty much remake the same album each time -- and somebody like Benson who prides himself as a craftsman keeps rewriting until he perfects his ideas, which is what he gets close to doing on Alternative to Love. While there is nothing unexpected here -- the closest it comes is with the modernist touches in the mixes by Tchad Blake, which are very much in the style of Jon Brion but not nearly as arty -- its very familiarity is its strength, both to those already enamored of Benson's music or to those guitar pop fans hearing him for the first time. The first listen of Alternative to Love is like experiencing an old favorite with fresh ears -- the feel is familiar, but the details are all new, from the hooks and harmonies to the subtle details in the production, like the theramin that flows throughout the opener, "Spit It Out." Alternative to Love isn't a bracing record, but rather a friendly, comfortable one, an album that's immediately likeable and gets better with each spin, as all great power pop albums do. And make no mistake, this is close to a great power pop record, due to Benson's strong writing and impeccable sense of craft, which are the primarily appeals for power pop fanatics in the first place. Perhaps it doesn't have the kinetic energy or sense of adventure that mark the genre's true classics from No Dice till Girlfriend, but Alternative to Love also exists in an era that's enamored with the past and doesn't take many risks, and on those terms, it's the perfect power pop album for its decade. -AMG



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The Kaiser Chiefs - Employment - 2005

Inspired by that moment sometime in the late '70s when punk gave birth to new wave (and looked back to the heyday of '60s mod for inspiration), the Kaiser Chiefs' debut, Employment, expands on the sharp, sussed sound of their singles in surprising ways. A look at London life and its discontents, Employment is a remarkably ambitious debut album that aspires, right down to its cheeky liner notes and graphics, to be the Parklife or All Mod Cons of the 2000s. While it doesn't quite reach those heights, it does have its fair share of memorable songs. Chief among them is the one-two punch of "Everyday I Love You Less and Less," a tightly wound "get lost" song that seamlessly mixes the band's punky guitar-bass-drums attack with synths and drum machines, and their signature single, "I Predict a Riot," another prime example of the band's barbed, pissed-off pop. "Saturday Night" is another standout; with its brassy stomp and lyrics like "watching the boys on their motorbikes/I want to be like those guys," it's a Quadrophenia-like understanding of what it is to be lonely in a crowd. On songs like moody-yet-stylish "Modern Way" and the cheeky, contradictory "Na Na Na Naa," the Kaiser Chiefs sound so effortlessly "on" that it's something of a surprise when Employment begins to lose momentum. Despite its pretty '60s pop melody, "You Can Have It All" drags a bit, while the vaudeville-tinged "Time Honoured Tradition" and "Born to Be a Dancer" are too precious and theatrical for their own good. Although it's not among their best songs musically, and its Beach Boys piss-take title is a little annoying, "Caroline, Yes" is one of the Kaiser Chiefs' more interesting bits of songwriting: on the surface, the narrator is upset because the other guy took Caroline away from him, but what really gets him is that the other guy is "everything I want to be in my life." Likewise, Employment ends with "Team Mate," a tantalizingly short character sketch that is also the band's best ballad. The Kaiser Chiefs' ambition is a double-edged sword: it's admirable that they wanted to branch out in so many directions on their first full-length, but it might have been a better -- or safer, at least -- move to stick to the amazing rockers that made their name in the first place. Employment is an uneven but still very promising debut that suggests that one day the Kaiser Chiefs will pull off something even more ambitious. - AMG




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The Rhinos - Year of the Rhinos - 2003

Year of the Rhinos is a pop underground release from Swedish natives the Rhinos. From the first guitar pickings, one can tell that the Rhinos have listened to all of their Byrds records many times. "Stop the Time" has guitar tones that jangle along, while multi-layered vocals harmonize. As the Rhinos push on, the reference to the Byrds goes only so far as the picking and tones of the guitars are concerned. At the Rhinos' best moments, they take some cues from Teenage Fanclub's uniquely modern take on the '60s, making you want to bust out all of your Teenage Fanclub records. "On Bus No. 9" is a bouncy pop tune that touches on an area that the Rhinos could focus and fine-tune. Unfortunately, Year of the Rhinos' midtempo picking gets to be a bit much for the length of the record, but hints at a direction that the Rhinos could tighten up and make their own in future releases. -AMG



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History

The term graffiti referred to the inscriptions, figure drawings, etc., found on the walls of ancient sepulchers or ruins, as in the Catacombs of Rome or at Pompeii. Usage of the word has evolved to include any graphics applied to surfaces in a manner that constitutes vandalism.
The earliest forms of graffiti date back to 30,000 BCE in the form of prehistoric cave paintings and pictographs using tools such as animal bones and pigments. These illustrations were often placed in ceremonial and sacred locations inside of the caves. The images drawn on the walls showed scenes of animal wildlife and hunting expeditions in most circumstances. This form of graffiti is subject to disagreement considering it is likely that members of prehistoric society endorsed the creation of these illustrations.
The only known source of the Safaitic language, a form of proto-Arabic, is from graffiti: inscriptions scratched on to the surface of rocks and boulders in the predominantly basalt desert of southern Syria, eastern Jordan and northern Saudi Arabia. Safaitic dates from the 1st century BCE to the 4th century CE.
The first known example of "modern style" graffiti survives in the ancient Greek city of Ephesus (in modern-day Turkey). Local guides say it is an advertisement for prostitution.Located near a mosaic and stone walkway, the graffiti shows a handprint that vaguely resembles a heart, along with a footprint and a number. This is believed to indicate that a brothel was nearby, with the handprint symbolizing payment.
Ancient Pompeii graffito caricature of a politician.
The ancient Romans carved graffiti on walls and monuments, examples of which also survive in Egypt. Graffiti in the classical world had different connotations than it carries in today’s society concerning content. Ancient graffiti displayed phrases of love declarations, political rhetoric, and simple words of thought compared to toady's popular messages of social and political ideals. The eruption of Vesuvius preserved graffiti in Pompeii, including Latin curses, magic spells, declarations of love, alphabets, political slogans and famous literary quotes, providing insight into ancient Roman street life. One inscription gives the address of a woman named Novellia Primigenia of Nuceria, a prostitute, apparently of great beauty, whose services were much in demand. Another shows a phallus accompanied by the text, 'mansueta tene': "Handle with care".
Disappointed love also found its way onto walls in antiquity:

Quisquis amat. veniat. Veneri volo frangere costas
fustibus et lumbos debilitare deae.
Si potest illa mihi tenerum pertundere pectus
quit ego non possim caput illae frangere fuste?

Whoever loves, go to hell. I want to break Venus's ribs
with a club and deform her hips.
If she can break my tender heart
why can't I hit her over the head?

-CIL IV, 1284.
The satirical Alexamenos graffito is believed to be the earliest known representation of Jesus.
Historic forms of graffiti have helped gain understanding into the lifestyles and languages of past cultures. Errors in spelling and grammar in this graffiti offer insight into the degree of literacy in Roman times and provide clues on the pronunciation of spoken Latin. Examples are CIL IV, 7838: Vettium Firmum / aed quactiliar rog. Here, "qu" is pronounced "co." The 83 pieces of graffiti found at CIL IV, 4706-85 are evidence of the ability to read and write at levels of society where literacy might not be expected. The graffiti appear on a peristyle which was being remodeled at the time of the eruption of Vesuvius by the architect Crescens. The graffiti was left by both the foreman and his workers. The brothel at CIL VII, 12, 18-20 contains over 120 pieces of graffiti, some of which were the work of the prostitutes and their clients. The gladiatorial academy at CIL IV, 4397 was scrawled with graffiti left by the gladiator Celadus Crescens (Suspirium puellarum Celadus thraex: "Celadus the Thracian makes the girls sigh.")
Another piece from Pompeii, written on a tavern wall about the owner of the establishment and his questionable wine:

Landlord, may your lies malign
Bring destruction on your head!
You yourself drink unmixed wine,
Water sell your guests instead.

It was not only the Greeks and Romans that produced graffiti: the Mayan site of Tikal in Guatemala also contains ancient examples. Viking graffiti survive in Rome and at Newgrange Mound in Ireland, and a Varangian scratched his name (Halvdan) in runes on a banister in the Hagia Sophia at Constantinople.These early forms of graffiti have contributed to the understanding of lifestyles and languages of past cultures.
Graffiti, known as Tacherons, were frequently scratched on Romanesque Scandanavaian church walls.
When Renaissance artists such as Pinturicchio, Raphael, Michelangelo, Ghirlandaio or Filippino Lippi descended into the ruins of Nero's Domus Aurea, they carved or painted their names and returned with the grottesche style of decoration. There are also examples of graffiti occurring in American history, such as Signature Rock, a national landmark along the Oregon Trail.
Later, French soldiers carved their names on monuments during the Napoleonic campaign of Egypt in the 1790s. Lord Byron's survives on one of the columns of the Temple of Poseidon at Cape Sounion in Attica, Greece.

The Squares - #1 Cassette - 1985

Right after REM knocked the rock-n-roll Establishment on the head with Murmur, the sQuares left the corn fields of Indiana and headed north. For some unknown reason (cheap rent and beer?) the boys landed in Milwaukee. It was 1985 and since they hardly knew a soul in town they spent most of their time writing songs and practicing. In the Autumn of that year they spent a weekend in the studio and produced the critically aclaimed Number 1 Cassette. -The Squares

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The Rockwells - Little Symphonies for Kids - 2002

The Rockwells were formed in 1999 by singer/guitarist Jonathan Kelly, who was living in Knoxville, TN, and his brother, singer/bassist Fred Kelly, who was in Memphis, TN. In 2000, Fred Kelly moved to Knoxville, and the brothers were joined in the group by another set of brothers, Tommy Bateman (guitar, organ) and Trace Bateman (drums). Signed to Migrant Records, the Rockwells released their first album, Little Symphonies for Kids, on April 30, 2002. Two EPs followed: EP (2003) and The Brown E.P. (April 15, 2004), the latter released on the same day as the Rockwells' second album, Star*smile*strong. Later in 2004, another EP, Tear It Down, appeared, and it attracted radio play on NPR. The Rockwells spent two years working on their next album, Place & Time, which was released on December 2, 2008. -AMG



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Here is the missing track 02 Lonesome No More