CMJ Compilations Redux

In the course of searching for an old recording on an unlabeled cassette tape in my bin of roughly 600 tapes, I came across and just finished listening to a homespun tape I made in '95 of the best stuff off of the first CMJ Music Monthly compilation cd that I ever bought. Fantastic stuff, even (or, especially?) after a decade's passed. There's something for everyone on these CMJ discs; this one from 95 has Korn, Stereolab, Radiohead, Dee Snyder's band Widowmaker (great song, "Long Gone" is), Massive Attack feat. the creamy-voiced babe from Everything but the Girl, and a host of others, like "Shudder to Think" (a guilty pleasure).

One of the most interesting things I've noticed in 30 years of record buying is that all the stuff I used to think was losing the thick, creamy sound of all the records I was weaned on (try "Barracuda" by Heart as the epitome of what I mean, mixwise - those drums!!!) inevitably sounds fabulous 10 years later. Jeez, I mean even Faster Pussycat "Where There's A Whip There's A Way" sounds bombastically phat by today's standards, and it clearly sounded hollow and overly-swathed in SPX-digital reverbs in its day.

I bought a lot of those CMJ's throughout the mid 90's, up til around 98/99; I'm tempted to buy one now just to see whether I like anything on it, now or in 10 years.

I also had cause to include some studio cuts off Genesis "3 Sides Live" on the other side of the tape, and that's a treat, too. It's only fitting that those guys found a way to share their out-takes from "Abacab" with the world, since that was pretty much the middle of their songwriting apex; and a broad bell-curve that was, wasn't it? I mean, when you can't find room on an album for songs like "You Might Recall" or "Paperlate", your writing is "on pure", as they say. I loved the sound of that "Abacab" album, too. The drums had air and roominess without being small, and the omnipresent TR-808 is among my favorite things on record. The programming of the 808 in "Lonely Man on the Corner" is especially endearing and really makes the song -- until the middle eight, that is, when the song turns around and kicks you in the pants. And then there's the 808 handclaps in "No Reply". If you like your 808's, you've gotta hand mega-props to Phil Collins for bringing the noise early and keeping that thing close at hand. I mean, he's a drummer, after all -- aren't drummers supposed to hate drum machines? What about all those doofus bumper stickers around Hollywood that implore onlookers, "DRUM MACHINES HAVE NO SOUL". O.k., then; takes one to know one, or something? I mean, where's the love?

I've been a drummer forever and got my first kit when I was 3, but around '84/85 I bought my first drum machine, a Yamaha RX 11 (yeesh) and never looked back... I've owned and used the crap out of several Alesis, Yamaha and other machines; I even had a 909 for awhile back when they were new, but I never liked the sound of it. It looked pretty, though. And I'm perfectly aware that most, but not all, intelligent world-wise drummers embrace machines and electronics as the tools they are, and not the enemy some imagine them to be. But that ain't my stone to roll, so I'll leave it for someone else's shoulder.