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It wasn’t a concept album, although it just as well could’ve been. 11 songs about the dark, seedy underbelly of Los Angeles and its inhabitants make up this eponymous album by Warren Zevon, his first release for a major label (although he released his first album, 1969’s Wanted Dead Or Alive prior to this). Not only does the album recall California lyrically, but the sidemen and guest vocalists read like a who’s who of the music scene in that area: Jackson Browne, Lindsey Buckingham, Don Henley and Glenn Frey, Bonnie Raitt and Carl Wilson just to name a few.

The album starts off with “Frank And Jesse James”, a song about the various exploits the two brothers ran into and setting up the scene for the rest of the album. “Poor Poor Pitiful Me” notes on Zevon’s wild lifestyle with a keen sense of irony. “The French Inhaler” tells the tale of a woman down on her luck while waiting for that one big break in Hollywood. “Mohammed’s Radio” talks about the impact music can have when there’s nothing else to turn to, with lyrics that eerily hit home even today (”You work all day/you still can’t pay/the price of gasoline and meat/alas, their lives are incomplete”).

The album closes with “Desperados Under The Eaves”, a stark look at the hopelessness that pervaded throughout the rest of the album. Here, Zevon delivers his immortal refrain: “And if California slides into the ocean/like the mystics and statistics say it will/then I predict this motel will be standing/until I pay my bill”. But while multiple harmonies sing “Look away down Gower Avenue…”, one feels that there may be a glimmer of hope, no matter how small, still left to discover in this forlorn urban landscape.

Although not well received upon release (it barely scratched the Top 200), Warren Zevon has since become known as one of Zevon’s finest outings as a songwriter. All the songs here are tightly written with nary a clunker or throwaway, containing copious amounts of Zevon’s trademark wit and humor. It remains catchy without being “radio-friendly”, and set the stage for his career as one of the best songwriters of his day. This album should not be missed.

1. Frank And Jesse James (4:33)
2. Mama Couldn’t Be Persuaded (2:53)
3. Backs Turned Looking Down The Path (2:27)
4. Hasten Down The Wind (2:58)
5. Poor Poor Pitiful Me (3:04)
6. The French Inhaler (3:44)
7. Mohammed’s Radio (3:40)
8. I’ll Sleep When I’m Dead (2:56)
9. Carmelita (3:32)
10. Join Me In L.A. (3:13)
11. Desperados Under The Eaves (4:45)

Released by: Asylum
Release date: 1976
Total running time: 37:45

As most fans of the Alan Parsons Project know, Project co-founder, songwriter and later vocalist Eric Woolfson split from Parsons after the two collaborated one last time on 1990’s Freudiana, an album Parsons produced as a Project concept album but which Woolfson treated as the concept album for a stage musical, the direction he ultimately decided to pursue full-time. Woolfson went on to create several musicals that went down well in Europe, often mining his own Project material for many of the songs. So many fans were surprised to see this 2003 release, boasting an entirely new album of material written by Woolfson which promised to revisit the subject of the very first Project album: Edgar Allan Poe.

But was Woolfson doing a straight-ahead rock album, or auditioning material for a future musical here? Freudiana proved that one can do both at the same time, but now that we’re about halfway through the Project remaster series, with its early-draft bonus tracks, it’s pretty safe to say that Freudiana - and indeed several Project albums - turned out so well because of the checks and balances that existed in the Woolfson-Parsons partnership, with Parsons reeling in some of Woolfson’s music-hall excesses from time to time. Woolfson on his own, however, doesn’t have that somewhat steadying influence, and the result is this somewhat schizophrenic album.

Parts of Poe are trying hard to be a great rock concept album; in classic Project style, the album starts with an instrumental and then segues into “Wings Of Eagles”, an orchestral rock anthem that thunders along under the sheer power of vocalist Steve Balsamo’s vocals. Balsamo does the vocal duties on much of the album, and his range is mindblowing - he can go from operatic to a throat-thrashing raw rock style that just about reminds me of frequent-flyer Project vocalist Lenny Zakatek. The next song, “Train To Freedom”, is a fantastic piece of music that I’m not sure ever would’ve flown with Parsons in the studio, borrowing from the style of black southern gospel music. Balsamo returns for the ballad “Somewhere In The Audience”.

Next up is a musical rendition of “The Bells”, performed by a mixed choir called the Metro Voices, and it’s really one of the weak points of the album. I will admit to a bias here - I’m quite familiar with Poe’s written works, and “The Bells” simply isn’t among my favorites. Translating it into a stagey musical format doesn’t improve that - it just sounds a bit silly. After “The Bells”, the three-part mini-rock-opera “The Pit And The Pendulum” is a refreshing course correction, with Balsamo back at center stage in what may well be the most Project-esque song on the entire album.

Woolfson then steers things back toward a stage musical direction with “The Murders In The Rue Morgue”, which seems to be trying hard to emulate Freudiana’s “It’s Funny You Should Say That”, complete with silly character voices; I’ve listened to this album about half a dozen times as of this writing, and I’ll confess to having skipped this track on all but two of those listens. Balsamo returns for another ballad, “Tiny Star”, followed by another choral number, “Goodbye To All That” (which isn’t all that, bogged down again by Woolfson’s stagey sensibilities).

The final song on the album is a bit of a shocker, opening with Orson Welles’ narration recorded for the original 1976 Alan Parsons Project debut album Tales Of Mystery & Imagination (but not used as part of the album until the revised 1987 CD edition), and becoming a rather intense power ballad showcasing Balsamo’s impressive vocal range. The song itself ponders the nature of immortality, and whether or not Poe unwittingly achieved it through his work.

More Tales would be a fantastic album, except for the 25% of it that succumbs to Woolfson’s stage musical excesses. While he pulls off a couple of things here that I don’t think we would’ve been treated to if Parsons had been involved in this album (namely “Train To Freedom”), More Tales isn’t on a par with, say, Freudiana. Freudiana’s stagier pieces at least worked within the context of the album, while their counterparts on More Tales completely interrupt any musical flow that the album might have. On the plus side, we get Steve Balsamo’s simply amazing performances and some fairly decent songs out of the deal. It’s no Alan Parsons Project album, sure, and while it’s probably not fair to expect anything even approaching one, it’s also inevitable that the comparison will be made.

1. Angel Of The Odd (2:36)
2. Wings Of Eagles (4:45)
3. Train To Freedom (4:40)
4. Somewhere In The Audience (4:47)
5. The Bells (5:32)
6. The Pit And The Pendulum - Part I (2:31)
7. The Pit And The Pendulum - Part II (2:02)
8. The Pit And The Pendulum - Part III (2:02)
9. The Murders In The Rue Morgue (4:35)
10. Tiny Star (2:44)
11. Goodbye To All That (5:15)
12. Immortal (5:30)

Released by: Sony
Release date: 2003
Total running time: 46:59

Inspiration is a tricky thing. It can show up in all possible ways and when you very least expect it. Jeff Mangum, the lead singer of Neutral Milk Hotel, wrote and composed most of In The Aeroplane Over The Sea after being inspired by reading The Diary Of Anne Frank, coupled with dreams he had about the girl and a Jewish family. Although the album isn’t explicitly about Frank, her presence lingers, either through the lyrics (”Anna’s ghost all around/hear her voice as it’s rolling and ringing through me”) or song titles (”Holland, 1945″). Like his inspiration, Mangum’s musical world is dreamlike, but also by turns jarring, soft, boisterous and confusing.

The album starts off with the song “The King Of Carrot Flowers Pt. One”, in which the narrator describes having an intimate relationship with an unnamed person (”The King Of Carrot Flowers” (?) ) while living under a dysfunctional family (”And your mom would drink until she was no longer speaking/and dad would dream of all the different ways to die/each one a little more than he could dare to try”). By contrast, the next track, “The King Of Carrot Flowers Pt. Two” has Jeff Mangum yelling loudly, “Jesus Christ, I love you!” If you were looking for any clear interpretations, you won’t find them in this album.

In the title track, acoustic guitars are backed by horns and a musical saw, giving it that “barely waking” feel. “Holland, 1945″, arguably the album’s catchiest track and also the album’s “single” (if you can call it that), starts with Mangum counting in the song before fuzzed out guitars explode with a driving drum beat while Mangum’s obscure lyricism continues: “The only girl I’ve ever loved/was born with roses in her eyes…Now she’s a little boy in Spain/playing pianos filled with flames”. “Untitled” has been described by some as “psychedelic bagpipes” and that’s not too far off from the truth.

I’ve heard reports that upon first listening to this album, some people have broken down and cried. Although I cannot admit to such happenings, it doesn’t surprise me at all. I have never more raw emotion packed into a single album before In The Aeroplane Over The Sea, and I’ll doubt if I’ll hear it again. After the release of In The Aeroplane… Mangum broke up Neutral Milk Hotel and disappeared from the public eye. Released ten years ago, it still sounds as fresh and bold as the day it was written. This album will stay with you.

1. The King Of Carrot Flowers Pt. One (2:00)
2. The King Of Carrot Flowers Pts. Two & Three (3:06)
3. In The Aeroplane Over The Sea (3:22)
4. Two-Headed Boy (4:26)
5. The Fool (1:53)
6. Holland, 1945 (3:12)
7. Communist Daughter (1:57)
8. Oh Comely (8:18)
9. Ghost (4:08)
10. (2:16)
11. Two-Headed Boy Pt. Two (5:13)

Released by: Merge
Release date: 1998
Total running time: 39:51

Culled from the open recording days held at Peter Gabriel’s RealWorld Studios in the early to mid 1990s, Big Blue Ball isn’t really necessarily a Peter Gabriel album. Considering how frustrated some of his fans are with the lengthy wait between albums (and I’ll admit that I probably belong in that impatient category), Big Blue Ball may, as such, come off as a disappointment to some listeners. Gabriel doesn’t even perform on every track, even as an instrumentalist - in fact, over 50% of the album is Gabriel-free. So what’s in it for you, the listener? Why bother with Big Blue Ball?

Because even if he doesn’t play on a given track, there’s sort of an unspoken, unwritten stamp of approval that goes with the fact that Gabriel let these folks into the studio, period. Now, I will admit to a certain bias here: the material on which Gabriel does play/sing is the best stuff on Big Blue Ball by a long shot. But this doesn’t make the seven out of eleven songs where he doesn’t appear instant skip material. Gabriel’s penchant for encouraging ethnic fusion artists and trying to break various styles of world music out into wide exposure means that there’s actually more cohesion among the tracks than you might think.

And some of the artists heard here are legends in their own parts of the world. One can hear, in the hypnotically relaxing “Altus Silva”, the genesis of a sound that some of its musicians would later make their own under the name of Afro-Celt Sound System. I was pleasantly surprised to see former World Party one-man-band Karl Wallinger all over this album. Long, long ago, I remember reading in Rolling Stone that Tim Finn - circa his “ALT” collaboration with Liam O’Maonlai and Andy White - had participated in some sessions with Gabriel, and when Tim’s name didn’t surface anywhere on Up, I guessed that whatever he had worked on had been buried. But one of those recordings is the first track on here, and it’s a winner. Other standouts - with out without Gabriel - include, at long last, a definitive (and somewhat tweaked) release of the single “Burn You Up, Burn You Down” (which dates back to Up’s release and really should have not only been on that album, but should’ve also been its lead single), as well as a song called “Exit Through You” whose percussion toward the end completely fascinates me. “Forest” and “Habibe” are engrossing world music tracks. In fact, the only track I consistently skip is “Jijy” - there’s nothing wrong with the song, but I have to be in a certain mood for rap, let alone rap in another language. But it’s still pretty catchy.

So while some fans expecting a full-on Gabriel album might be disappointed, there’s plenty of music to enjoy on Big Blue Ball. I get cranky about the huge gaps between albums in Gabriel’s repertoire, but this whole thing - with or without his direct influence - feels authentically Peter Gabriel enough that I’m happy with this until the next one comes along (and if that’s not enough, he also has a couple of songs on the Wall-E soundtrack album that aren’t on Big Blue Ball.) It’s a solid collection that’ll tide fans of Gabriel and world music in general over for a while - if you give it time to grow on you.

1. Whole Thing (5:29)
   featuring Francis Bebey, Alex Faku, Tim Finn, Peter Gabriel, Karl Walllinger, Andy White
2. Habibe (7:14)
   featuring Natacha Atlas, Hossam Ramzy, Neil Sparkes
3. Shadow (4:29)
   featuring Juan Cañizares, Papa Wemba
4. Altus Silva (6:09)
   featuring Joseph Arthur, Ronan Browne, Deep Forest, James McNally, Iarla O’Lionáird, Vernon Reid
5. Exit Through You (5:54)
   featuring Joseph Arthur, Peter Gabriel, Karl Wallinger
6. Everything Comes From You (4:44)
   featuring Richard Evans, Joji Hirota, Sevara Nazarkhan, Sinead O’Connor, Guo Yue
7. Burn You Up, Burn You Down (4:32)
   featuring Billy Cobham, Peter Gabriel, The Holmes Brothers, Wendy Melvoin, Arona N’Diaye, Jah Wobble
8. Forest (6:18)
   featuring Levon Minassian, Arona N Diaye, Vernon Reid, Hukwe Zawose
9. Rivers (5:46)
   featuring Vernon Reid, Marta Sebestyen, Karl Wallinger
10. Jijy (4:01)
    Arona N’Diaye, Rossy, Jah Wobble
11. Big Blue Ball (4:52)
    Peter Gabriel, Manu Katché, Karl Wallinger

Released by: RealWorld
Release date: 2008
Total running time: 59:28