DVD and How the West Was Won (Atlantic) Like Nirvana andRage Against the Machine, these golden gods begat a sorry parade of copycats. But forget that -- what’s amazing about this archival bounty is how the band rocks even harder than you remember. The double-disc DVD is mainly 1970’s Royal Albert Hall concert footage, wiry boys in hipster street clothes (except for Jimmy Page, who sports an argyle sweater-vest) playing their massive mutant blues to one another as if the audience weren’t even there. How the West Was Won is three discs culled from two 1972 SoCal concerts. It’s Zep at their peak, still loose enough to turn “Whole Lotta Love” into a 23-minute oldies medley, not yet bored with their first four LPs. Even “Stairway to Heaven,” God help us, feels fresh-picked.
2. BJORK
Live Box (One Little Indian) On this five-disc joy
machine, the script gets flipped and stays that way: "Human Behaviour"
and "Venus as a Boy" accompanied only by harpsichord, "One Day"
arranged for gamelan ensemble, tabla, and tuba. Not everything here is
so radical, but almost all the performances infuse Bjork's music with
fresh ideas, and that bit about "emotional landscapes" from "Joga"
still bristles our neck hairs every time.
3. TALKING HEADS
Once in a Lifetime (Sire) The two-CD Sand in the Vaseline
from 1992 was just too short; this four-disc best-of nails it and will
hopefully remind today's skinny, white New York funk-rock bands that
songs matter. It includes weird alternate takes of "Cities" and
"Drugs," plus a version of "Artists Only" with some Al Green-style
horns that were lost en route to the band's cover of "Take Me to the
River." Disc four collects all the videos -- a major part of the story.
4. NEIL YOUNG
On the Beach and American Stars 'N Bars (Reprise) On the Beach (1974) is depressed Young: hating most everyone, watching the '60s dream wash out to sea, grimly blissful nonetheless. Stars 'N Bars
(1977) is boozy alt country; it's got two of his most gorgeous ballads
("Star of Bethlehem" and "Will to Love"), the gale-force "Like a
Hurricane," and a ditty lauding DIY farming ("Homegrown"). The man's
words were always prescient.
5. NEW ORDER
Retro (Rhino/Warner Bros.) They didn't have the juiciest roles in 24 Hour Party People,
but they cut the best singles and inspired the best DJ remixes, and the
proof is all here. The somber, early post-?Joy Division stuff and the
live disc are less essential but tasty enough, and the package by
longtime design collaborator Peter Saville is clean, elegant, weirdo
modernism -- much like the music.
6. THE ALLMAN BROTHERS BAND
At Fillmore East (Deluxe Edition) (Mercury) An
expanded classic, gathering pieces of a two-night stand previously
scattered across five separate releases. Duane Allman was dead before
the 1971 double-LP was a year old, but his alternately bloozy and
hard-tripping bottleneck-slide leads are for the ages. The 56-minute
tag team of "Whipping Post" and "Mountain Jam" is a redneck-rainbow
love-in.
7. MILES DAVIS
The Complete Jack Johnson Sessions (Sony Legacy) Five
sprawling discs that find the jazz trumpeter under the influence of
Jimi Hendrix's noise, of Sly Stone's funk, of the era's bad-trip
craziness. Far raunchier than the better-known 1969 fusion blueprint Bitches Brew,
these 1970 sessions yielded skronking jams that would surface on Davis'
records for years to come, not to mention grooves deep enough to
warrant an MC.
8. APHEX TWIN
26 Mixes for Cash (Warp) Richard D. James is possibly
the crankiest man in electronica, but he has released some
brain-melting music, much of it available only as remixes on obscure
12-inch singles. Geffen Records refused to license "Richard's
Hairpiece," James' freaky tweaking of Beck's "Devil's Haircut." But you
do get two "remixes" of Nine Inch Nails tracks that James claims he
never heard, a vivisection of David Bowie's "Heroes," and other
overhauls that suggest electronica's best hedge against irrelevance may
be a rock-remix revival.
9. TELEVISION
Marquee Moon (Rhino/Elektra) To clear up confusion
sown by people who claim the Strokes sound like this gang of '70s punk
romantics, listen to "Venus" or "Friction" or "See No Evil" or "Marquee
Moon" -- not to mention the epic, long-lost single "Little Johnny Jewel
(Parts 1 & 2)" -- and get back to us when Nick Valensi and Albert
Hammond Jr. start playing guitar like this.
10. THE MOLES
On the Street/Rare & Weird (WishingTree) An early-'90s alt-rock blip from Sydney, Australia, the Moles released a great lost album (Untune the Sky)
before frontman Richard Davies went solo and pastoral. This best-of
captures his band when they were art punks drunk on pop and
psychedelia. "What's the New Mary Jane" deserves a Spiritualized cover,
while the newspaper cutup "With Body Wifes Seven Days" helpfully notes:
"Cats prepare for World War Three / Death love orgy LSD!"
