Four Micks Vs. Seven Swans

Achtung Baby by U2

*I can still remember listening to this on my cassette tape Walkman back in 1991, a little confused and disoriented but thinking that something strange and exciting was happening in my musical world...

*Almost 20 years later, I think this album holds up incredibly well. I don't think it's a stretch to say it is one of, if not THE, greatest album of the 90s. (Although I know many would disagree with me, I also consider this the first album in U2's most adventurous and exciting period of music making, stretching over the course of Zooropa and Pop).

*Eno and Lanois's production is friggin' awesome; this album SOUNDS amazing...

*I love a good beat; this album has A LOT of good beats...

*I still think about "Even Better Than the Real Thing" a lot when I am watching TV & film or playing on the computer. I still get goosebumps when the drums kick in on "Until the End of the World". I still feel devastated when I listen to "Love is Blindness".

*The only semi-dud here is "Who's Gonna Ride Your Wild Horses". And if that's as bad as things get, we're all gonna be just fine, folks.

*As I asked with Odelay, why the hell wasn't this on my list?!?

Uncle Eric's Overall Album Rating: 4.7 (A new high...)

Seven Swans by Sufjan Stevens

*A little background: Mr. Stevens and I got off to a bad start a few years back. I read all these critics raving about this quasi-Christian Detroit-born guy who had written an entire album about the state of Michigan. I was pumped. How could I not love this album? About my home state, my hometown, with all this love from the music press?! I ran out and got my copy of Greetings from Michigan, and...The first listen was pretty disappointing. The second time around didn't get any better. And by the third, this guy was just starting to piss me off. There was nothing here that resonated with me: musically, emotionally, experientially. Ugh.

*Since then, Sufjan has come to symbolize a lot of what I don't like about a certain brand of "indie" music: Too self-consciously clever; too unnecessarily complex; too heavy on concept; too impressed with itself for being clever and complex and heavily conceptual. And then there is the above photo: I will let it speak for itself.

*BUUUUUUT...I am specifically judging Seven Swans here, and I must admit I had not listened to it in its entirety before. And I will say: It was not as bad as I feared it was going to be.

*I was relieved that Sufjan does not play all 348 instruments which he knows how to play on this album, instead keeping the sound largely "stripped down".

* I appreciate the many forthright Christian references on the album, especially as Sufjan does not seem to be commercially pursuing a CCM audience.

*At his best here, Sufjan earns the comparisons to Elliot Smith which he has received. There is a hushed sincerity to his voice which is persuasive (as on "The Dress Looks Nice on You"). However, at other times, his voice seems far too smooth and delicate for my tastes and even for the subject-matter (as on "A Good Man is Hard to Find", a truly disappointing track for me, as I am a huge Flannery O'Connor fan, and this song did not resonate with my experience of her story at all).

* I can see how this album could grow on the listener, especially if you were into this style of alternative folk. But I just don't have the motivation to pursue any more listening to it than I have already done...

Uncle Eric's Overall Album Rating: 3.0

Achtung Baby takes it.