Audio Files

By GINA VIVINETTO, GERRY DOYLE and QUINCEY VIERLING

© St. Petersburg Times, published May 27, 2001

WHAT DECADE IS IT ANYWAY?

What does it say about the current state of pop music when three of this season's most anticipated albums are from bands that made their initial splash 20 years ago?

R.E.M., REVEAL, (WARNER BROS.) Okay, so a bunch of us lost it for Michael Stipe when he got gaunt, shaved his head and started wearing the eyeliner. We loved Stipe for being the bashful, reluctant rock star of Murmur days, back when he mumbled and didn't hang out with Courtney Love.

Something happened. Stipe snapped. We knew it, those of us who were around in the early jingle-jangle days. Later, Bill Berry, our most beloved mono-browed drummer, split. The band followed his departure with that horrid Up album. These days, Peter Buck is getting drunk and belligerent on airplanes. Peter Buck? Our Peter? That nice, sweet, Southern boy? Tsk, tsk. It's not the same R.E.M.

Luckily, Reveal, the band's 400-millionth album in a 20-year career, is an elegant turn on the heel back to the band's old charm. Sure, sure, the guys are still tiddly-dinking with electronic gurgly sounds. But if you block those out, the melodies are good, Buck is again dusting off the Rickenbacker, and Stipe's lyrics are profound and playful.

Probably the hookiest number is the hit Imitation of Life, but there's other yummy fare: opener The Lifting is a gorgeous metaphor for the band's revelation -- or is that redemption? Beat a Drum is sexy and lazy, like a bathtub filled for two. The sunny Beachball would make Brian Wilson spread on some suntan lotion. Grade: B+.

-- GINA VIVINETTO, Times pop music critic

THE GO-GO'S, GOD BLESS THE GO-GO'S (BEYOND) The Go-Go's never played meaningful music and that's why we loved them. Like the Ramones, the Go-Go's wrote simple songs filled with big hooks, idiotic sing-along choruses and a punky, irreverent panache. Who could ever forget how rad We Got The Beat sounded during the opening credits of Fast Times at Ridgemont High? Makes you yearn for the glory days of skinny ties and miniskirts.

Yearn no more. The Go-Go's, all now in their 40s -- two of them have kids! -- have reunited 17 years after their last studio album for God Bless the Go-Go's. It's like time has stood still. Except, we know from one of the baddest Behind the Music episodes ever, that the girls have done their share of living.

God Bless is a fun album, filled with songs about boys -- well, men now, I suppose -- and wrecked love and sitting around in your car, stewing about it. Singer Belinda Carlisle sounds like her old punky, California sun-kissed self, and not the spruced up, bland, Top 40 solo act she had become post-Go-Go's.

Put the top down, pop God Bless into the car stereo and glide. Bring a friend along and just try not to sing those choruses. Grade: B.

-- G.V.

The Go-Go's perform today at Starfest 2001 in Vinoy Park, St. Petersburg.

DEPECHE MODE, EXCITER (MUTE/REPRISE) Just when you thought they'd bounce back from all that gloom and doom with a brighter outlook, Depeche Mode's first album since 1997 is one of its darkest. Spare, emotional and gripping, Exciter finds Depeche Mode licking wounds following lead singer Dave Gahan's headline-grabbing descent into drug addiction and a suicide attempt.

But, if you listen closely, Martin Gore, the band's principal songwriter -- and the man who made wearing a leather miniskirt and a Harpo Marx hairdo chic in the early 1980s -- has penned some cheery tunes. Dream On, despite eerie lyrics about spindly fingers and death, is beautiful. And what about song titles such as Shine, Freelove and I Feel Loved? Hmph! Don't let the barren backdrop fool you, Exciter bristles with its own peculiar joy. Grade: B.

-- G.V.

AND NOW, BACK TO OUR REGULAR PROGRAMMING:

Give a spin to these discs from acts currently in their prime.

STABBING WESTWARD, STABBING WESTWARD (KOCH) Stabbing Westward's new self-titled album is all about bad news. The good news is, it's an entertaining effort at unhappiness.

The Chicago-based outfit hammers together songs about the horrors of love, life and music with power chords and melancholy metal echoes. Its past few albums sounded a little like Trent Reznor after a fistful of downers. Now, the sound is a little more organic: The second track on the new album sounds exactly like the Deftones' Knife Prty. Not that it's a bad thing. This album sounds great, if not exactly uplifting.

Despite its determination to be uniformly gloomy, the band delivers a high-energy disc full of driving, head-nodding music. This Stabbing Westward project looks doomed to succeed. Grade: B

-- GERRY DOYLE, Times staff writer

SHEA SEGER,THE MAY STREET PROJECT (BMG) Mixing programmed beats with live instrumentation, fatalistic lyrics and her own throaty croon, Shea Seger's debut albumThe May Street Project comes off with only a few glitches. At her best, Seger sounds like Portishead's folkie younger sister, one who can soar to Joni Mitchell-like vocal heights in the track Walk on Rainbows and also shimmer ethereally over beats and samples in the mix of I Love You Too Much.

There is also a smattering of true grit Nashville country music on the album, most evident on the duet with Ron Sexsmith Always, which comes as no surprise from a Texas native steeped in country music such as Seger. But for all her influences, it's the authenticity that shines through on this sensitive, soulful and eclectic, yet cohesive, disc. Grade: B

-- QUINCEY VIERLING, Times correspondent

THE CHURCHILLS, YOU ARE HERE (ABRUPT/UNIVERSAL) Indie rock mixed-gender band the Churchills wants to want to rock. But it can't decide, and as a result You Are Here both hits and misses.

Headstrong unleashes Kim Henry's vocal fury and Ron Haney's roaring guitar line, but the following track, Everything Gets What They Deserve, is a watered down semi-ballad with an identity problem.

The sunny, simple Cars stands out as the strongest track, though it wears an Elliott Smith/The Eels influence proudly on its sleeve. Lyrically the Churchills are fairly pedestrian, but sometimes this simplicity can be charming, such as in Disposable, though the band should be spanked for transcribing "a lot" as one word in the liner notes. For shame! Grade: C.

-- Q.V.

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