RockRoast

Over the next few days, I’m going to present several albums that don’t get the kind of recognition I think they deserve. These five records are all fantastic, and throughout the week I’ll be paying them their well-earned respect. They won’t be offered in any strict order, but I tried to arrange them starting with the best known and ending with the most obscure.

Panorama (1980) 
The Cars

Panorama was actually pretty successful in its day, reaching number 5 on Billboard and eventually going platinum. But modern critics seem to view it as a blemish on an otherwise illustrious career. Many current fans of the Cars are casual listeners who simply enjoy the stuff they hear on classic rock radio.

But Panorama has a dark, experimental mood to it that is missing from most other Cars releases. From the groovy yet eerie intro on the title track to the desperate shrieks at the end of “Getting Through,” to the deceptively upbeat synth riff on “Up and Down,” the album is solid the whole way through. Because of the brooding, moodier texture to it, Panorama feels more genuine, possibly because Ric Ocasek’s unconventional, often dispassionate lyrics are finally matched by their musical backdrop. And that musical synergy offers a unique side of pop rock that I haven’t seen successfully recreated anywhere else.

The Cars’ eponymous debut and their 1984 release, Heartbeat City, are usually cited as the band’s high points. But The Cars is too influenced by the album-oriented hard rock of the seventies and Heartbeat City is too influenced by the synth-drenched new wave of the eighties. The best the Cars have to offer is Panorama, halfway between the beginning and the end of their sonic evolution. It’s both punk rock and synth rock, but it’s a perfect stylistic fusion of the two. It’s forty minutes of genius.

I should have thought of this a long time ago. At the end of the year I’ll be drawing up a Best-of-2008 list just like everybody else, but I’d like to try and predict what that list will be. This is a little difficult because there’s plenty of time left in the year for albums that aren’t even rumored yet to be rumored, written, recorded, and released before the year ends. But with a little research and a handy crystal ball, I’ve postulated that, come the end of the year, my list might look a little bit like this:

PROJECTED TOP TEN ALBUMS OF 2008
1. Ayreon - 01001101
Available at Amazon.com
2. Opeth - Watershed
Available from Roadrunner Records on May 30.
Official Site
3. Marco Sfogli - There’s Hope
Available from Lion Music on February 15.
Official Site
4. Green Day - ???
2007 Interview with Billie Joe Armstrong
5. 3 Doors Down - 3 Doors Down
Available from Universal Republic Records on May 6.
Official Site
6. Coldplay - ???
Expected in June. Produced by Brian Eno.
7. True Symphonic Rockestra - Concerto in True Minor
To be released on March 28th…label details a bit sketchy.
Official site with several free tracks for download
8. Weezer - ???
Release date unknown
9. The Mars Volta - The Bedlam in Goliath
Available at Amazon.com
10. Michelle Branch - ???
Expected in summer
Official Site

Other possibilities that seem unlikely to make it out by the end of 2008:
Superior - New World Order
Breaking Benjamin’s fourth album
Nickelback’s sixth album
Muse’s fifth album
James LaBrie’s second album

Any of those last few maybes could be a contender for the top few spots, but I don’t have enough faith in them to assume they’ll be out by the time 2009 rolls around. Without them, it could still be a pretty good year for music. But with them, it could be a great year.

We’ll see how things work out.

And now, to finish what I started, after mentioning yesterday the bands whose music declined the most from one album to the next, I’m going to suggest three bands whose music improved the most between just two releases.

3. DREAM THEATER

Lackluster Album: “Falling Into Infinity” (1997)
Fantastic Follow-up: “Metropolis Part 2: Scenes From a Memory” (1999)

What Happened: Everything. “Falling Into Infinity” was the product of a tired band. They’d been hassled by their label to make their sound more mainstream. The consequent poppification of the album, combined with the band’s frustration, made the music somewhat angrier and uninspired. Luckily, their label seemed to learn its lesson and gave Dream Theater unbridled creative power for their next release. In 1999, with a new keyboardist, more freedom, and more hopeful prospects for the future, the band came up with “Scenes From a Memory,” an album that I consider to be one of the greatest of all time.

2. THE CARS

Lackluster Album: “Shake It Up” (1981)
Fantastic Follow-up: “Heartbeat City” (1984)

What Happened: Disregarding fan opinion. 1980’s “Panorama” was frequently criticized for being too dark and moody. So a year later, The Cars presented their audience with “Shake It Up,” which was obviously more upbeat, both musically and lyrically. While not everything on “Shake It Up” was necessarily rainbows and daffodils, the more positive approach did not match their sound, and much of the album feels flat and forced, indicative of why it became easily the worst of their eventual six records. “Heartbeat City” was a return to legitimacy for The Cars. And not only did its forward-looking, synth-drenched sound feel like a more genuine musical representation of the band, but it also rocketed them to the peak of their popularity.

1. MUSE

Lackluster Album: “Showbiz” (1999)
Fantastic Follow-up: “Origin of Symmetry” (2001)

What Happened: They just got it together. “Showbiz” is full of plentiful trademark Muse sounds, but they only seem to appear briefly and separately. As a result, while having a few momentary instances of brilliance, “Showbiz” sounds like a dispassionate garage band that just happened to score a record deal due to an oversight in the A&R department. But two years later, Muse put all the good pieces of their previous work together and discovered that they actually had something there. While “Origin of Symmetry” may not be their best release, the disparity between “Showbiz” and “Origin of Symmetry” is so vast that, if they were played simultaneously, they might just open a portal to another dimension.