After three albums of blistering rock laced with elements of folk, punk, noise and metal, Dinosaur Jr. was at that crossroads. Guitarist J Mascis more or less picked the first path, while bass player Lou Barlow took the second, leaving the band (though not of his own volition — Mascis told Barlow Dinosaur Jr. was breaking up, then re-formed it without him) to pursue his Sebadoh side project full time.

The band’s first album without Barlow, “Green Mind”, was also their first major label release. The production is certainly cleaner, but it would be hard to describe the sound as mainstream rock. Tracks like “The Wagon” and “How’d You Pin That One on Me” are as rough and ragged as any of their earlier work, though Mascis is not afraid to pull out the acoustic guitars for some of the mellower songs.

There’s no anthem to equal “Freak Scene” (the title track comes close) but Mascis successfully navigates the space between the symphonic noise of Sonic Youth and the melancholy folk-rock of early R.E.M. with side trips to Hüsker Dü and the Minutemen along the way.  It may not have sounded like ’70s classic rock, but it had the scope and ambition of that era.

So did Dinosaur Jr. sell out? Hardly. Instead they managed to open up their sound to fit a larger arena. Maybe not a stadium -ized arena, but certainly big enough for the main stage of Lollapalooza in 1993. Appropriately enough, Sebadoh played the second stage that year.

Text by Nicholas Coleman

This perception changed when Giorgio Moroder and Donna Summer released the landmark electro-disco single “I Feel Love.” This wasn’t music for the head, but for the body. As the ’70s became the ’80s and disco lost its luster, newer genres like electro, synth-pop, house and techno followed Moroder’s lead and used synthesizers, sequencers, samplers and drum machines as their primary instruments to create dance club anthems.

Even Kraftwerk was not immune to this trend, describing their 1978 album “The Man-Machine” as “electronic body music.” Other artists like D.A.F. and Cabaret Voltaire continued in this vein, but no group embodied electronic body music (EBM) as thoroughly or successfully as the Belgian knob-twiddlers known as Front 242.

Front 242 released a series of dark electronic albums and singles in the ’80s that were as danceable as they were listenable, from their debut single “Principles” in 1981 through their biggest hit, “Headhunter,” in 1988. Their success landed them a major label contract with Epic, and in 1991 they release their major label debut, “Tyranny (For You).”

In many ways, this album was a turning point for Front 242 and for the EBM genre. In particular, the standout track “Gripped by Fear” had an emotional resonance that was atypical for the genre and would inform later EBM artists like VNV Nation, Apoptygma Berserk and Covenant in the late ’90s and early Aughts. “Tyranny (For You)” was also the most cohesive and sonically adventurous album Front 242 had released to date, though it would not prove to be as popular with fans who were expecting the next “Headhunter.” Still, like Kraftwerk before them, Front 242 opened a door that led to future delights for the head as well as the body.

— Nicholas Coleman

Low buzz in the courtroom as judge bangs gavel

JUDGE: Order in the court! Prosecution may proceed.

PROSECUTOR: Your honor, ladies and gentlemen of the jury, it is my intent to prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that the defendant, known to the public as Killing Joke is guilty of dangerously influencing the course of popular music.

DEFENSE ATTORNEY: Objection, your honor. Most people have probably never heard of my clients. Indeed, they have never released an album or single on a major label. How can they possibly be as influential as the prosecution claims?

JUDGE: Objection overruled. Defense is out of order. Let the prosecutor state her case.

PROSECUTOR: Thank you your honor.  If it pleases the court I wish to call Krist Novoselic of Nirvana as a witness.

(Novoselic swears in)

PROSECUTOR: Mr. Novoselic, is it not true that the bass line for Nirvana’s “Come as You Are” was essentially cribbed from the Killing Joke song “Eighties,” released some seven years before “Nevermind”?

NOVOSELIC: Well, it’s a slower song and it’s not exactly the same riff …

PROSECUTOR: Please just answer the question, Mr. Novoselic.

NOVOSELIC: Um … yeah … I guess you could say that.  But I think Dave Grohl made up for that by playing drums for them on their self-titled album in 2003 …

PROSECUTOR: Next witness! I call James Murphy of LCD Soundsystem to the stand.

(Murphy swears in)

PROSECUTOR: Is it not true that the riff behind LCD Soundsystem’s breakthrough club anthem “Losing My Edge” was essentially the same as the riff from the Killing Joke song “Change” released 22 years prior?

MURPHY: You can’t copyright a riff, can you?  I’d call it more of an homage than outright theft …

PROSECUTOR: I think we’ve heard enough from the witnesses. Not only was Killing Joke an essential part of the post-punk movement of the late ’70s and early ’80s, they clearly had a strong influence on the alternative rock of the late ’80s and early ’90s as well as the dance-punk scene in the early 2000s.  And the list goes on: Metallica, Big Black, Ministry, The Sugarcubes, Course of Empire, P.O.D., The Kills …

JUDGE: How does the defense respond to these charges?

DEFENSE ATTORNEY: The prosecution has made some fair arguments, but I maintain that the influence of my clients has never been widely acknowledged by the general public, the music press or the critics. Take their 1990 album, “Extremities, Dirt, and Various Repressed Emotions.” It’s a hot slab of fierce uncompromising post-punk blending Geordie Walker’s incisive guitar, Paul Raven’s booming bass, Martin Atkins’ explosive percussion and Jaz Coleman’s unsettling yet mesmerizing vocals. Yet I would be willing to postulate that no one in this court room has even heard it!

JUDGE: The court will adjourn for 64 minutes and 31 seconds so we can listen to the defendants perform this album in its entirety.

JAZ COLEMAN: AAAAAAAAAAAAAHHH! MONEY! MONEY IS NOT OUR GOD!

(fade out)

— Nicholas Coleman

Far from sounding dated, works like Human League’s “Dare,” Yaz’s “Upstairs at Eric’s,” New Order’s “Brotherhood” and Depeche Mode’s “Some Great Reward” are quite relevant in light of today’s electronically inclined artists, from Lady Gaga to Cut Copy.

Bright as those lights may have been, no group took synth-pop to such great heights as Pet Shop Boys. Better known for singles like “West End Girls” and “What Have I Done to Deserve This,” the Boys were no slouches when it came to full length albums. Their début, “Please,” is packed with joyful dance club anthems that follow-up “Actually” improved upon.

With 1990’s “Behaviour,” Neil Tennant and Chris Lowe continued in the vein of their earlier releases, but added a touch more depth. The album starts out strong with what may be their finest song, “Being Boring,” in which Tennant reflects on a life well-lived, not without loss but certainly without regrets.

The other two singles, “So Hard” and “Jealousy,” are also quite strong, the latter almost regal with its synthetic horns near the end. But the lesser-known tracks are what make the album so successful.

Just to pick a few, “My October Symphony” may be the only synth-pop song about the fall of the Soviet Union, “How Can You Expect to be Taken Seriously?” chides self-important rock stars to a New Jack Swing beat and “This Must Be the Place I Waited Years to Leave” is a not so fond look back at adolescence sung to a dark and driving accompaniment reminiscent of Cabaret Voltaire.

At their best, Pet Shop Boys crafted immaculate pop music and paired it with thoughtful and clever lyrics.  If synth-pop as a genre has been given a bad name, one would be hard pressed to find anything Neil and Chris have done to deserve it.

— Nicholas Coleman

That creative tension would eventually unravel the group (which also featured Joey Santiago on guitar and David Lovering on drums), producing the uneven and dissonant “Trompe le Monde” in 1991, and the group’s dissolution in 1993. In 1990 it was still working in their favor as evidenced by their third full length “Bossanova.” While not as celebrated as 1988’s “Surfer Rosa” or 1989’s “Doolittle,” “Bossanova” has some of the best and most well-known songs Pixies ever recorded.

Starting of with a bang (literally, an amp backfiring starts the first track) and the shredding surf punk of “Cecilia Ann,” the first half of the album is almost entirely heavy hitters. “Velouria” has been covered magnificently by coffee shop jazz combo The Bad Plus, “All Over The World” is the blueprint for Modest Mouse’s first two albums and “Allison” is a pop gem lasting a quick minute and 17 seconds.

Even in this company, “Dig For Fire” is still the stand out track of the album combining Frank Black’s storytelling lyrics with the quiet verse/loud chorus formula that Nirvana and a host of others followed to Modern Rock radio success in the ensuing decade.

Unfortunately the remainder of the second half doesn’t quite reach the heights set in the first half, though the mid-tempo rocker “Stormy Weather” is quite catchy and “Havalina” is a lilting ode to the southwestern peccary.

— Nicholas Coleman

This year’s Japan Nite showcase, happening Friday at Elysium, kicks off with the Osaka band JinnyOops!, a girl group that describes itself as “genreless” and as having “produced Real Loud Rock’n Roll sound filled with emotion of Sorrow, Painful, Silence, Move, Shine, Darkness, Living & Dead between the feeling of Lazy and Violence.”

In other words: Awesome. Their song “Toki” is a mix of snarling garage rock and incongruously bright horns. Listen here.

It sure took him a while, though: Beulah broke up in 2004, and Kurosky, now a Portland, Ore., resident, just released “The Desert of Shallow Effects” earlier this month after what he calls a “lengthy and confusing” creative process interrupted by two shoulder surgeries and hospitalization for kidney problems.

He overcame those travails to release an intricate record, lush and layered with strings, horns, even Mellotron, but all in service of smart writing and incisive pop hooks.

With a new record, an enterprising indie-popster might as well head for SXSW, which is just what Kurosky’s doing: he performs Thursday at Emo’s Main Room. Listen here to his new song “Apple for an Apple.”

Not only does Ratas del Vaticano have an excellent name, the Mexican punk band has a gripping, old-school punk sound: fast, raw and appealingly lo-fi. The band last year released a full-length album, “Mocosas Pateticos.”

The group hails from Monterrey, and the Mexico connection is significant: If punk is about rebelling against authority, there’s no more historically influential authority in Mexico than the Catholic church. And did we mention the quartet’s old-school punk sound?

Ratas del Vaticano performs Friday at Club 1808 and Saturday (well, technically Sunday) at the same place. Listen here to their song “Que Vivan Los Buenos Amigos Y El Rock and Roll.”

LISTEN
Olvidos mp3

Best known for the hit single “Groove Is in the Heart,” featuring Bootsy Collins on bass and a guest rap from Q-Tip of A Tribe Called Quest, the album is solid from start to finish (quite literally, as the two strongest and housiest songs, “Good Beat” and “Deep Ending,” are the first and last tracks of the original vinyl release.)

Unlike a lot of house music from the late 80’s and early 90’s, “World Clique” doesn’t stick to the minimal formula of techno beats and disco divas. Elements of hip-hop, R&B, trance, and funk find their way into the mix as well.

Deee-Lite weren’t the first artists to bring house music to mainstream audiences — Madonna’s “Vogue” beat them to the punch by a few months — and they wouldn’t be the last. The trail they blazed would be further explored and expanded upon by Daft Punk, Basement Jaxx and Groove Armada later in the decade. While somewhat conservative in comparison to those later releases, “World Clique” was the foundation without which the house revival could not have been built.

— Nicholas Coleman

Zooey Deschanel and M. Ward have outdone themselves on “Volume Two” (due March 23 on Merge): the vintage-style pop songs are catchier and more daring, the production is lusher and Deschanel sings with tons more confidence. It is, in short, a keeper, and though they’re on the road right now, they won’t be forever: Ward has a promising solo career, and Deschanel is an actress or something, so catch them while you can.

She & Him performs March 18 at Cedar Street Courtyard, March 19 at Lustre Pearl and March 20 at Auditorium Shores.

Listen here to their new single, “In the Sun” (as soon as Merge fixes the link.)

(Photo by Taea Thale)