This week's A-OK! (Album Of the Week, for the uninitiated) is Canadian pop superstars Sloan's thoroughly solid Navy Blues album. It's like a plank of oak it's so solid. I remember previewing it at Big B's (remember when that place existed and/or was awesome? I sure do. Because I am old.) and, about three seconds into the into the first song ("She Says What She Means") - there's this huge, fat-sounding riff that kicks off the album... well, after a little cough - and I knew I had to own it. Immediately. I ran into "Moe Jaloney" there (who's in another Vegas band whose name sounds sort of like "the Leibchers" and was in another band at the time that we - the Asthmatics - played with now & then but I can't remember the name of his band right now. Something to do with "wolves"? I dunno) and I was all excited and like "you gotta hear this" and, well, it did not have the same effect. (He always was a little "too cool for school," though, so I didn't take it too personal. I probably shouldn't have typed his full name, huh? What with the Google and all. Easily remedied. There. Done. Names changed to protect the blahblahblah) Oh well, no accounting for taste, right?
I'm not sure if it was my first Sloan album (probably was) but I was so smitten that I spent the next few months tracking down their previous releases and have been faithful to them ever since (despite the fact that they seem to have lost the plot somewhere around 2003's Action Pact). Sloan makes 70's AM music for the late 20th/early 21st century. In fact, their music is so remniscent of that sound Sophia Coppola used it in the soundtrack to The Virgin Suicides next to genuine article bands like 10cc, Heart and Todd Rundgren.
Navy Blues is the last of three perfect Sloan albums. The streak started with 1994's Twice Removed continued with 1996's One Chord To Another and finished off with this album. I actually was going to put One Chord in the sidebar but couldn't find a decent jpeg that wasn't tiny, so, there, now you know how the Big Red Robot sausage is made. Still wanna eat it?
Anyway, the album's aces. Rob old ladies for record money if you must. Just get it somehow.
Also, I found out my super-sweet fake band name, Debate Team, is spoken for (or stolen?!). The clouds went grey. The trees themselves wept. Well, there's always Dead Writers, right? Which reminds me... I need to make a Dead Writers poster, don't I? In January. Maybe. We'll see. Right now I'm focused, laser-like, on getting Dance, White People! Dance! in the mail to my fellow Mixtapery denizens and I also have a special little thing planned for readers of this very blog, so keep yr ears to the pavement and yr eyes glued to yr screens.
Until next time. Peace.
6 comments:
Dude, comics AND Sloan?!
You're singing my song.
I'd add "between the bridges" in the perfect sloan album category. maybe that's just me.
It's good. Very good. But "perfect"? I dunno. Maybe. I'll think about it.
it's as good as twice removed, in my humble opinion anyway.
I'd say "Between the Bridges" and "Pretty Together" are both about as flawless as records are likely to get.
Along with the other Sloan records you previously mentioned of course.
I'll give you Between the Bridges (though the whole "one big song" concept sort of wears thin on repeat listens) as a flawless album. I mean, it does have a song based on Altered States ("Sensory Deprivation"), which is pretty rad. And "the Marquee & the Moon" is an amazing song.
Pretty Together is good, but the last half of that album all sort of sounds the same, from about "Who You Talking To" to "Your Dreams Have Come True". Not that they're not good songs individually, but as an entire album, I lose interest about halfway through "I Love a Long Goodbye".
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