Sad news this week. Former Wilco member Jay Bennett died unexpectedly in his sleep on Sunday, of unknown causes. He was only 45.

With Bennett in the band, Wilco made two very good albums (Being There and Summerteeth), and one unassailably amazing one (Yankee Hotel Foxtrot, which I named the best album of 2002). He also contributed to the two volumes of Mermaid Avenue, which found Wilco teaming up with British troubadour Billy Bragg. Bennett wrote or co-wrote all the best songs, and played a hundred different instruments.

The sad decline of Wilco since his acrimonious departure (chronicled in the breathtaking film I Am Trying to Break Your Heart) is a testament to just how good he was, and just how important he was to the band’s magic. Yankee Hotel Foxtrot is a once-in-a-lifetime kind of album, a work of alchemy, and even if he’d never done anything else in his life, Bennett would have left quite a legacy. Of course, he did much more, including several swell solo albums – he was working on his latest, which he wanted to title Kicking at the Perfumed Air, when he died.

Rest in peace, Jay.

* * * * *

Given how often I have recommended one television show or another in this space, it may surprise you to learn that I don’t actually watch very much of it.

It’s not the medium that bothers me, it’s the use of it. I’m a fan of long-form, serial storytelling, and television offers an opportunity to do that kind of broad-canvas stuff over years, beaming it directly into living rooms across the world. And yet, most producers and networks use this medium to either offer up comfort food – sitcoms, procedural dramas in which nothing ever changes – or ever-more-distasteful reality shows. The lost potential I see all the time just makes me sort of sad.

That’s why I’m overjoyed, elated, and stunned whenever something truly imaginative makes it through the filter. Particularly if that something uses the serial nature of television to its fullest. It’s so rare that it’s worth celebrating.

My point is this. I have just watched “The Incident,” the riveting fifth-season finale of Lost, for the sixth time. Every single time, I find something new to marvel over, some new moment of clarity that puts the events of the past five seasons into sharper focus. I think I am ready to call it: Lost is one of the finest pieces of television art ever made. And as it rounds third and heads for home, I can only hope the guiding lights behind this masterpiece know exactly how to wrap things up.

More detailed thoughts on “The Incident” would require spoilers, and after a lot of thought, I don’t think I’m going to do that. The revelations were so game-changing, so perfectly revealed, that I’d be doing a disservice to anyone who hasn’t watched this show for themselves. But I’ve been working my way back through the fifth season (in my copious spare time), and seeing things in new lights. I’m watching certain scenes, certain characters, in entirely different ways.

Lost, as a whole, has been all about widening perspectives. We began with a group of people stranded on an island, and have gradually pulled back one curtain after another, to end up with a saga of global proportions. And now, in their final season-ending cliffhanger, producers Damon Lindelof and Carlton Cuse have redefined their show again – it’s now much bigger, much stranger than I ever suspected.

But above all, it has remained about the characters and their choices. The theme of the show, crystallized in “The Incident,” is an age-old one: fate vs. free will. Can we choose our own destinies, or have they been determined for us? This season framed that question in some startling ways, involving time travel and even more behind-the-scenes manipulation than we’ve ever seen on this show. And in its final episodes, it rushed headlong into a jaw-dropping plotline about erasing the past and rewriting the future. As heady as it all was, the cast and producers kept things grounded – Lost is about people, at its core. Even its gods are, in the end, people.

There are 17 episodes of Lost left, and then it’s all done – it will be the first major network show with a long-range, planned ending. I’ve never seen a show with Lost’s capacity to surprise me – I’ve been with it since the beginning, and I have no idea where this train is headed. But the ride has been amazing, and I can’t wait for next year to see how it all ends up.

The first four seasons are available on DVD, with the fifth set to come out in December. If you’re going to watch, you have to start from the beginning. Trust me, though – it’s worth every minute you’ll spend with it. Every head-spinning, nail-biting, brain-melting minute. This is television at its finest.

* * * * *

I feel like I’ve been breaking up with Tori Amos since 1998.

Argue if you like, but dedicated (okay, obsessive) music fans do have actual relationships with the art they consume. I’d never say I know Amos personally, but there are few artists whose work I hold more dearly than hers. And I wish I knew how to quit her, because this relationship hasn’t been working for at least 10 years, and yet I keep coming back, hoping the pieces we both bring will still fit.

If I could travel in time, like the cast members on Lost this season, I think I would go back to 2002 and stop Amos from making Scarlet’s Walk. That’s where it started to become apparent that Amos had become someone different, someone I was less interested in. But truthfully, the roots of this decay go back quite a bit further than that.

Everything started out so well. Amos’ first three albums remain unimpeachable to me, and I don’t think this is just a case of association. It’s true, the songs on Little Earthquakes remind me of specific moments in high school, just as the ones on Under the Pink remind me of college. Her third album, Boys for Pele, was the first record I reviewed for Face Magazine, back in 1996. I have a lot of memories wrapped up in these songs, but I swear, that’s not why I love them.

I love them because Amos makes me feel her joy, pain, wonder and sadness more acutely than just about anyone else. It’s been 17 years since I first heard “Winter,” for example, and that moment before the third chorus, when Amos sharply inhales into the silence, still gives me chills. “Me and a Gun” still makes time stop whenever I hear it. I still raise my arms skyward, like a giddy idiot, when she brings the long and winding “Yes, Anastasia” in for its heart-stopping ending. “Professional Widow” still hurts, as does “Precious Things.” These are not songs, they are emotional conduits.

Even with all of that, my brain is still working when listening to Amos. Her early songs are remarkably complex and well-constructed – if the deep feelings behind them ever lose their edge (which I don’t anticipate they ever will, for me), the actual maps of these melodies will be worth treasuring all on their own. I know I have written more about the first three Tori Amos records through the years than anyone would ever want to read, but they are worth all that praise and more.

In retrospect, things started to go wrong with 1998’s From the Choirgirl Hotel. Simplistic songs, production that masked Amos’ emotional gift, and an overall slapdash effect that landed with a leaden thud. There are songs I love on here, but not enough, and there are a few – “Playboy Mommy,” “Hotel” – that I never want to hear again. Also in retrospect, I cut the electronica-drowned To Venus and Back and the so-so covers experiment Strange Little Girls way too much slack. Neither are particularly good.

But they are works of genius compared to Scarlet’s Walk. Eighteen songs, and I like three of them. The Beekeeper was even worse – 19 songs, and I don’t like any of them. I welcomed 2007’s American Doll Posse with open arms, since Amos sounded refreshed and reinvigorated on most of it, but it’s faded with time. I still like about half of it, but at 23 songs and 79 minutes, it’s a slog. Tori’s recent output has been very generous, in terms of sheer quantity, but she’s stopped making music that opens a vein. Most of her stuff since 2002 has been merely pleasant, instead of moving and affecting.

And now here is album number 10, another 70-plus-minute monster with the worst title in her catalog: Abnormally Attracted to Sin. It’s her debut for Universal Republic, after three albums on Epic, and if you’re hoping the change has awoken her muse, prepare for disappointment.

Just to be clear up front: I don’t hate Abnormally Attracted to Sin. If you’re keeping score at home, I like about eight of these 17 songs well enough, and the whole thing has a sonic depth to it that I find appealing. It’s not Beekeeper bad. Not even close. But I don’t like it very much, and all of my admiration for Amos’ voice, piano playing and piercing lyrics can’t distract me from the fact that I am bored out of my skin for most of this record’s running time.

While the album is not terrible, it does serve as a good example of just what’s been wrong with Amos’ recent output. Here are a few things:

1. This album is too long. I know, it’s churlish to complain about getting so much music from someone I admire. And it’s actually only a couple of minutes longer than Green Day’s new album. But the problem is focus, and all of Amos’ recent discs have lost that focus about halfway through their gargantuan running times. Some artists can do 74-minute albums, and do them well. Amos has proven again and again that she can’t. Honestly, this wouldn’t be a problem if everything else clicked, but it doesn’t, and Amos should have seen that and pared it down.

2. Many of these songs are beneath her. I guess the longer this downward slide goes on, the weaker this argument gets, but Amos songs used to be instantly memorable, and most of these are immediately forgettable. “Not Dying Today” is a b-side if I’ve ever heard one, and “Police Me” and “That Guy” should have stayed on the cutting room floor. “Fire to Your Plain” sounds like an unearthed Y Kant Tori Read number. Even the songs I feel I should enjoy, like “Maybe California,” simply don’t go anywhere – not just by Tori’s standards, but by anyone’s. I’m not saying every song has to be genius, but I want some sense that Amos is pushing herself, and these songs just don’t give me that.

Worse, her lyrics are typically excellent here. She’s in familiar territory, of course, criticizing the patriarchy and organized religion, but she finds some interesting parallels between faith and sex, and weaves them together so well that you’re often not sure which one she’s talking about. My favorites are the sweeter ones this time, like “Maybe California,” which finds Amos talking a suicidal friend down off the ledge. But the music just doesn’t match up, and that is, if you’ll forgive me, a sin.

3. The production doesn’t play to her strengths. This has been an issue for some time, ever since she bought her Bland-o-Matic in 2002. Much of Abnormally Attracted to Sin makes use of synthesizers and drum loops, which she’s done before, but rarely to this extent. Sometimes it works: “Flavor” is nice, mixing piano fragments with a trip-hop beat, and opener “Give” is suitably spooky, Amos doing her best Portishead. Often, though, the production just sucks the life out of things, and Amos is once again too restrained – even something like “Strong Black Vine,” which ought to rock convincingly in a “Kashmir” kind of way, just sort of lies there.

Amos’ two strongest weapons are her stunning voice, and her piano playing. Her earlier albums made those the focus, and rightly so – here, Amos’ voice is folded, spindled and mutilated too often, and her piano work is either buried or absent. There are moments when the spotlight shines on the right parts of the stage, most notably “Mary Jane,” which is all piano and voice. The experiments do sometimes work, but more often you’ll get something like the title track, a repetitive synth crawl that goes on forever, or like “500 Miles,” which just kind of sounds like wallpaper.

4. This album is soulless. This one sort of encompasses the other three, but it goes further, and is the crux of my criticisms over the past decade. I simply don’t feel anything listening to this. Maybe I’m missing it, and Amos actually invested every fiber of her being into these songs, but I don’t think so. This album is missing even the fire and sense of fun that permeated American Doll Posse. Even the songs I like aren’t getting anything more than a reserved smile from me this time, and I barely remember them when they’ve finished playing. I want to cry, to cheer, to hurt and heal and hurt again, and I simply don’t.

Maybe that’s not fair. Maybe a handful of decent songs with interesting production should be enough. From some artists, it would be. But not from Tori Amos. There are songs on Abnormally Attracted to Sin that some singer/songwriters would kill for. But Tori Amos is not just some singer/songwriter. This is one of the best things she’s done since Choirgirl, and it still leaves me cold. If my expectations are set too high, it’s because Amos set them there. It’s to the point, though, that I don’t even feel disappointed anymore. I just feel nothing.

There are songs I like, and I don’t want to give them short shrift. I have already mentioned “Give” and “Flavor,” the trip-hop experiments that work. I also like “Curtain Call,” reservedly, for its soaring chorus. But the best material is at the end – the last five songs are all varying shades of very good, starting with the piano-vocal show tune “Mary Jane.” “Starling” is a mostly effective rewrite of “Spark,” off of Choirgirl, while “Fast Horse” has an interesting rhythm. “Ophelia” almost brings back the old glory, with a lovely piano part and strong vocal, and closer “Lady in Blue” is kind of a late-night jazz club affair for the first four of its seven minutes, before launching into a pretty neat drums-and-piano coda.

But “mostly effective” and “pretty neat” are not adjectives I should be using to describe new Tori Amos music. I fear it’s the best I can muster, unfortunately – Abnormally Attracted to Sin is merely okay. It’s halfway decent. It’s two stars, two and a half if I’m feeling generous. I will not treasure it, but I can live with it.

And this is how I see the relationship going, until one of us dies. Amos will keep making these 70-minute records, I will keep buying them, and I will come away from each one shrugging my shoulders. And yet, I won’t be able to stop. I am abnormally attracted to her work, and I will never pass up the chance to hear new Tori, no matter how many dispiriting albums she makes. It’s unhealthy, I know, but I don’t know what to do about it.

All I can hope for – and I hope for this with everything I have, every time – is that Amos finally makes something that moves me again, something that connects what I want with what she has to offer. Until then, I will keep paying my money, and keep coming back for more. Because there was something there, once, and I keep on believing it can be there again.

Next week, probably Eminem, but maybe something else. I’m cagey like that. If reading my babble isn’t enough for you, I contributed to Derek Wright’s podcast again this week. I’d been battling a cold when we recorded it, but I still valiantly defended Tinted Windows, and took aim at a few other records, and Derek was his usual insightful, knowledgeable self. Check it out.

See you in line Tuesday morning.

Have you noticed that the summer blockbusters come earlier and earlier each year?

We’re not even to Memorial Day yet, and we’ve had three – Wolverine, Star Trek and Angels & Demons. Used to be, you could go from September to the end of May without seeing a single movie in which expensive shit blows up, but now, the crowd-pleasers come early and often. These movies aren’t necessarily bad – Star Trek, in fact, is a lot of fun – but they do follow the same formula: action-packed scripts, filmed with visual flair and marketed as if they were cultural events.

It makes sense, then, that the year’s first musical blockbuster has just hit stores. Green Day’s 21st Century Breakdown is almost a guaranteed success: it’s a sequel of sorts (to 2004’s American Idiot), and those always do well, plus it’s a massive, ambitious affair. The whole thing just feels important – not self-important, necessarily, but significant. Plus, this record is going to do very, very well at the box office, as it were.

But is it worth talking about? Most summer blockbusters ride in on a tsunami of hype, bust their blocks for two weeks, and then go away, leaving almost no sign of their passing. Is anyone still talking about last year’s big summer movies? Indiana Jones? The Hulk? Hancock? Even The Dark Knight has all but gone away, in a cultural sense.

The analogy is apt, because Green Day has structured Breakdown like a movie, or at least a play. It’s a 70-minute concept album divided into three acts, with characters and something of a plot. It’s the second time they have done this – Idiot was similarly ambitious, tracking half a dozen different characters as they made their way through George Bush’s America. But this time, the scope is even more cinematic – much of the music on Breakdown sounds made for the big screen.

It’s worth pausing here to remember that this is the same band who once wrote three-chord punk songs about becoming bored with masturbation. If anyone expected this kind of a third act surprise from Green Day, they weren’t talking. This trio faithfully aped Stiff Little Fingers on its first few releases, and hit big with an album actually titled Dookie, and a song that kicked off with the line, “Do you have the time to listen to me whine?”

Put simply, ambition was never their thing. Their follow-up, Insomniac, was so one-note that I couldn’t even name four songs off of it now, and while they did stretch out on 1997’s Nimrod and 2000’s Warning, they came off like a band without a direction. (And if I never hear “Good Riddance (Time of Your Life)” again, I will die happy.)

Which is why American Idiot was such a surprise. Here was a fully revitalized Green Day, embracing the very thing their punk idols were created to destroy: the prog-rock concept album. Here were nine-minute songs, with subsections denoted by Roman numerals. Here was huge, intense production that took their guitar-bass-drums aesthetic to new heights. Just when they should have started sucking in earnest, they embraced their inner Pete Townshends and delivered their masterpiece.

Except, you know, I didn’t really like American Idiot all that much. The trappings of art-rock were there, but the musical evolution was almost nonexistent. The lengthier suites were just half a dozen two-minute, two-chord punk songs jammed together with no connective tissue, and as much as I liked songs like “Holiday” and “Boulevard of Broken Dreams,” they weren’t any Great Leap Forward.

Much to my surprise, though, I do like 21st Century Breakdown quite a lot.

This is what American Idiot should have been. It retains the essence of Green Day while maturing before our ears, and the ambition that floated on the surface of Idiot is suffused into this one’s bones. I decried Idiot for sticking to Green Day’s established template, but there’s so many different kinds of music on Breakdown that I lost count after a while. And unlike its predecessor, which sagged in the middle and collapsed at the end, this one’s solid all the way through.

Tellingly, the story Breakdown relates is simpler than Idiot’s convoluted tale. Where that one gave us St. Jimmy and Jesus of Suburbia in an attempt to craft a Defining Statement of an Era, this one just follows two kids in love.

Their names are Christian and Gloria. He is a hotheaded punk with a violent streak, she is a hopeful soul with dreams of harmony. The album is a series of impressions, with a faltering, dying world as a backdrop, and it becomes about holding on to the things you love while everything is crumbling around you. Cliched? Sure. Effective? You bet. Green Day clearly set out to make an iconic reflection of our times, and I think they have.

That doesn’t mean Breakdown is insightful. For the most part, it isn’t. But it is serious-minded, and its grand-scale music works in its favor. The first act (Heroes and Cons) is the weakest, but still remarkably strong – the album opens with the minute-long a cappella overture “Song of the Century” before slamming into the multi-part title track. In five minutes, we pass through a U2-ish piano-guitar opening, a three-chord singalong, a Who-esque breakdown, a nearly Celtic middle section reminiscent of the Dropkick Murphys, and a finale that reminds me of Mott the Hoople. It’s a tour-de-force call to arms.

Things even out from there – the punky stomp of “Know Your Enemy” sets the tone for two songs with false beginnings. You’re going to think “Before the Lobotomy” is this album’s sickly acoustic ballad, until the splendid guitar riff cranks up. (Spoiler: there is no sickly acoustic ballad on this album. Hurrah!) “Last Night on Earth” is actually the slow one, but this tune goes full John Lennon (or at least Julian Lennon), all pretty pianos and wondrous melodies.

It’s the second act, Charlatans and Heroes, that really catches fire. “East Jesus Nowhere” may be the best rock song in this band’s catalog, its lyrics a diatribe against organized religion: “Bless me Lord, for I have sinned, it’s been a lifetime since I last confessed, I threw my crutches in the river of a shadow of doubt, and I’ll be dressed up in my Sunday best.” But hang on, because next we get Mariachi rockabilly (“Peacemaker”), Weezer-esque pop (“Last of the American Girls”), Klezmer-punk (“Viva La Gloria”) and an absolutely awesome slice of ELO balladry (“Restless Heart Syndrome”).

The third act (Horseshoes and Handgrenades) may be less diverse, but it is the most consistent, and most important. It is here that Billie Joe Armstrong ties his disparate threads together – where American Idiot fell apart in its final moments, 21st Century Breakdown coalesces, and the weaving together of themes makes all the difference. “21 Guns” is, musically, the closest Green Day come to re-writing “Boulevard” here, but lyrically, it brings into focus the album’s central question – what is worth fighting for? “Lay down your arms, give up the fight,” Armstrong sings, his characters tired of taking on the world.

The two-part “American Eulogy” starts with a reprise of “Song of the Century,” then explodes, as Christian and Gloria bid the modern world goodbye in a thunderous four and a half minutes. It all ends in an explosion, and then the piano part that kicked off the title track shimmies back in for the final song, “See the Light.” A simple singalong, this tune ends things on a hopeful note, our two characters clinging on to each other and looking for reasons to keep going. “I just want to see the light, I need to know what’s worth the fight,” Armstrong sings, over the thing his band does best after all – a three-chord rock stomp. You almost want more of a finale, but since it’s not really the end for our characters, it feels right.

Breakdown is an extremely quick 70 minutes, practically exploding with creative fire and energy. It will also be remembered as the moment when this band completed its transformation from college goofballs to full-fledged icons. American Idiot found Green Day clinging to their past, and dressing up in Pete Townshend’s clothes, but Breakdown finds those clothes a perfect, lived-in fit.

Is it an important album? I find it hard to classify 21st Century Breakdown as a pop cultural watershed moment, but I think people will be talking about it long after the summer of 2009. While this album is not as immediate (and may not be as overwhelmingly popular) as American Idiot, it represents the giant step forward its predecessor merely promised. Far from a Breakdown, this album fully solidifies Green Day’s place as a band finally (finally!) worth paying attention to.

* * * * *

From a summer blockbuster perspective, I should be excited about the next couple of weeks in music. But I’m not.

This week, we got Tori Amos’ Abnormally Attracted to Sin, an album title I can barely even type without retching. It’s not good. I will talk about it next week, but let’s just say right now that American Doll Posse was a fluke. Also, we got Eminem’s comeback album, Relapse, which is… interesting. More on that once I’ve fully absorbed it. And we got former Grandaddy frontman Jason Lytle’s first solo album, which sounds an awful lot like Grandaddy. That’s not a bad thing, but it is a predictable one.

Next week, Grizzly Bear’s Veckatimest hits. The internet’s in a tizzy about this one, but what I’ve heard hasn’t been too inspiring. And Marilyn Manson returns from wherever he’s been with The High End of Low. The week after that, it’s Elvis Costello doing bluegrass, the Eels getting back to fuzzy rock, Franz Ferdinand doing dub versions of the songs from their new album, and “supergroup” Chickenfoot rocking like it’s 1989. Lots of stuff, none of it very exciting. I’m most looking forward to the new Dave Matthews Band, actually.

I’m also still processing the fifth-season finale of Lost. Thoughts on that next week, I believe, coupled with a look at Tori’s still-declining career. Is there anything coming out soon that’s thrilling you guys out there? If so, I’d love to hear about it. Meanwhile, I’m off to listen to Green Day again.

See you in line Tuesday morning.

I’m constantly on the lookout for signs of the apocalypse, and I think this might be one of them. Yes, it’s the Oak Ridge Boys covering “Seven Nation Army.” Complete with “bom bom bom” vocal bass line. You can almost hear the four horsemen saddling up.

But this brings up an interesting point. Why is the thought of a song like this being desecrated so horrifying? I’m not even a big White Stripes fan, and I found myself somewhat nervous before pressing play. The actual rendition is kind of cool, in a “what the holy hell” kind of way, but I know White Stripes fans who would take a hostage if they heard this.

I think there is a concept of the sacred in music. It’s been said that you should never meet your idols, to avoid that moment of disillusionment when you realize they’re just people. But isn’t that what we’re talking about? They’re just people, they’re only songs. Right? Believe me, I feel the same way about some records and some artists – they are beyond reproach in my eyes. But should they be? It’s taken me a long time to be able to listen to Sgt. Pepper and hear the flaws. Do the ill-considered moments ruin the album? Or do they make it more human, more relatable?

I remember the first time I met Derri Daugherty of the Choir, one of my favorite bands. Until I actually shook hands with the man, it never really entered my head that this fragile, grand, beautiful music I loved was made by actual people. I used to cringe at human moments in Choir live recordings (the studio versions are unfailingly perfect) – Daugherty missing notes, flubbing guitar sections, that kind of thing. Now I cherish them. I find I’m looking for human imperfection in my music more and more. It reminds me that there are living, breathing people behind those instruments.

I guess what I’m trying to say is, it’s often a good thing to watch your idols topple. Quite a lot of music is based on mystique, on the idea that the artist should be wrapped up in a theatrical enigma. But to me, the best music comes from people willing to put themselves out there and forge real connections, willing to wipe away all pretense and say, “This is me, and these are my songs.” It’s the difference between building a pedestal, and building a bridge.

Take Bob Dylan, for example. I can’t think of anyone more consistently lionized over such a long career. It’s to the point with some acolytes that if you even whisper that Self Portrait may have been a little shabby, they stab you with their eye daggers. And those things hurt. But Dylan himself has always been the guy who lets those pesky imperfections shine through. With his singing voice, he’d kind of have to be, but he’s never made any attempt to sweeten up what he does, and lately, he’s even tossed aside that self-important streak that sometimes infected his work.

Dylan’s latest album is called Together Through Life, and if you can find anything self-important about it, you’ve looked harder than I have. To my ears, this is a good old fashioned blues jam. Ten short-ish songs, all performed with a loose, six-guys-in-a-room vibe – it’s like this thing was written and recorded over a weekend. Dylan produced it himself, under his usual Jack Frost moniker, and he invited a special guest – David Hidalgo, of Los Lobos, who adds New Orleans flavor to every track with his accordion.

As for Dylan himself, his ruined voice has taken on Howlin’ Wolf proportions, and his ease with death-blues lyrics has rarely been more apparent. Opener “Beyond Here Lies Nothin’” sets the tone, its loping beat supporting a simple rhyme about love that staves off the darkness. “Don’t know what I’d do without it, without this love that we call ours, beyond here lies nothin’, nothin’ but the moon and stars…” “Life is Hard” could have been overly sentimental, if not for that wizened growl at its center.

The classic here is “My Wife’s Home Town,” and while I’m glad the title didn’t ruin the joke, I’m going to do it here: the full phrase is “Hell’s my wife’s home town.” It’s here that Dylan lets the sinister edge in his voice out – this is a killer little blues gem, coughed out with genuine menace. “One of these days I’ll end up on the run, I’m pretty sure she’ll make me kill someone, I’m going inside, roll the shutters down, I just wanna say that Hell’s my wife’s home town…”

But that’s the exception. Most of these songs are so simple, and so breezy, that the record just zips by. I find it hard to believe anyone would be scouring the lyrics to “Forgetful Heart” or “Shake Shake Mama” for the secrets to the universe. But they do offer glimpses at Dylan the man – “The door has closed forevermore, if indeed there ever was a door,” he gasps in the former. He sounds like death, and he’s ruminating on it, but it’s not getting in the way of his good time on most of this record.

I guess the point for me is that Dylan is refusing to feed his own myth on Together Through Life. This is just a blues jam, from start to finish – if this hadn’t come out with the words Bob and Dylan on the cover, no one would care. This is a fun little record – not as momentous as Time Out of Mind, or even Modern Times. It’s just Bob and his band having a good time, with no indication that anyone thought of this as The New Bob Dylan Album. It’s refreshing.

While Dylan takes the prize for most idolized, I don’t think there’s a modern artist who has done more to spin his own self-myth than Conor Oberst. He’s not even 30 yet, and he’s done everything but proclaim himself America’s most important new songwriter. His seven albums and numerous EPs as Bright Eyes are almost impenetrable cocoons of precious artsiness, every shambling note given weight it can barely hold.

But as he’s grown up, Oberst has started to burst out of that cocoon. His last Bright Eyes album, 2007’s Cassadaga, was his best – it was still pretentious, but the songs deserved it. And then he went down to Mexico, formed a new band, and started a solo career. (Well, you know, kept making solo records, but started putting his name on the cover.) Ironically, these records are the least self-serious, most fun slabs of tuneage Oberst has ever turned out. Where he was once wrapped in layers of mystique, Oberst now sounds open-hearted and content.

I mean, check this out: his second solo record, Outer South, is actually credited to Conor Oberst and the Mystic Valley Band, his six-man collective. And they’re not just there to back up their boss – Outer South has 16 songs, and a full seven of them were written and sung by other band members. On these tunes, Oberst plays guitar, or piano, or tambourine, and he sings backup, sounding overjoyed to be supporting his bandmates. And these are not second-rate songs – they’re just as good as Oberst’s numbers.

But then, Oberst’s own songs are miles away from the eight-minute angst-fests he used to turn out. This album is a blast, a rock and roll stomp, an American roots extravaganza with melody to spare. On Bright Eyes albums, a song called “Slowly (Oh So Slowly)” would probably be an acoustic snooze-fest, and Oberst would undoubtedly push his voice into an “emotional” scream near the five-minute mark. Here, it sounds like a Jeff Tweedy song that didn’t make Being There, and it opens the album on a strong note.

I don’t know if it’s the case, but Outer South sounds like the Mystic Valley Band laid it down live. The guitars are thick and strong, the muscular interplay is tight, and even the acoustic numbers (like “Spoiled”) rock. Above all, there’s no hint of Conor Oberst the Precious Artiste – the only song that comes close is “White Shoes,” performed with just acoustic guitar and voice. But even that one is restrained, and very pretty. Oberst does shout his way through “Roosevelt Room,” but that song kicks so much bluesy ass, I don’t care.

It’s telling that Oberst opened himself up to light-hearted collaboration here, and ended up with his best album. He even lets guitarist Taylor Hollingsworth get the last word – his galloping “Snake Hill” closes the record. By demolishing his own self-created image, Oberst has expanded his horizons, and you can tell just by listening how much fun he had making this thing. Best of all, he didn’t just churn out simplistic rock songs – these are some of Oberst’s strongest tunes, played with joyous force, and his bandmates have matched his creative fire.

Both Dylan and Oberst have seen the wisdom of toppling their own statues, and coming to you with arms outstretched. They’ve both come up with fiery records that depict them in moments of pure creative ecstasy, enjoying every minute of the loose-limbed racket they’re making. Neither album may fit particularly well with some fans’ ideas of who these men are, but that’s the fun of it. They both know that killing the idol is the first step towards knowing the artist.

* * * * *

But I must admit, neither Dylan nor Oberst have ever meant that much to me. If Bob Dylan decided to whip up an album of Poison covers, all in a ska style, I’d only be curious, not furious. Same with Oberst. I was born too early for one, and too late for the other.

The artists who really matter to me are the ones I heard as a teenager, the ones who formed who I am today. And those are the idols I find really hard to kill. Tori Amos. Freddie Mercury. Robert Smith. I find I want the mystique, the enigma, the show more often than not. I don’t know why this is, but I want dark, depressing Robert Smith, with the black eye makeup and everything. I don’t even care if he’s really depressed, that’s the Cure I want.

It’s a tough lesson to learn. Case in point: another of those formative artists for me was Jane’s Addiction. I was listening to a lot of Los Angeles metal at the time Nothing’s Shocking came out, and it still baffles me that Jane’s came up in the same scene as L.A. Guns. I simply had no reference point for what Jane’s Addiction was doing, but I loved it. I mean, “Mountain Song”? Where did they even get that? It’s part Led Zeppelin, part hippie carnival, and all killer, a totally crushing piece of music. Even now, the opening “Coming down the mountaaaaain!” makes me grin uncontrollably.

But it was the band’s second studio album, 1990’s Ritual de lo Habitual, that cemented it for me. Here was ambition on a scale my 16-year-old mind just hadn’t encountered – massive, heavy, extraordinary, emotional music, performed by brilliant aliens. Ritual was my first major encounter with censorship as well – nowadays the papier mache cover is tame, and can be found anywhere, but in 1990, it was deemed inappropriate, and lead banshee Perry Farrell whipped up a suitable replacement: a stark white cover with the First Amendment printed on it.

Ritual still ranks highly with me. In a Face Magazine feature in 1999, I called it the second-best album of the ‘90s (behind OK Computer, naturally), and while I may not agree with that anymore, I still get chills when “Three Days” starts up, or when “Then She Did” hits that explosive climax head-on. It’s just an awesome record, and I’ve found through the years that it’s kind of like a great magic trick for me – I don’t want to peer behind the curtain and see how it was done.

Which makes the A Cabinet of Curiosities box set somewhat problematic for me. These three CDs (and one DVD) are all about peering behind the curtain, and they bring Jane’s Addiction down to earth with a thud. Rarely has there been such a disconnect between sumptuous packaging and barrel-scraping contents – it looks essential, and it’s anything but. It is, however, revelatory, as long as you don’t mind that the revelation keeps turning out to be, “How did these drug-addled fuckups make this amazing music?”

First, the audio. You get 20 demos, representing almost every song in the Jane’s catalog. “Jane Says” sounds about the same. The rest sound thinner, more like four guys in a room bashing out funk-metal jams. I don’t know what Dave Jerden did to the studio version of “Mountain Song,” but this demo is missing its stomp-you-into-atoms power. Guitarist Dave Navarro will occasionally hit wrong notes, and Farrell will reach for a melody that isn’t there, and I’m reminded again and again that these were people, working on this not-yet-transcendent music.

The demos continue onto disc two, and then you get a bunch of b-sides and rarities. I’m particularly glad to have the Jane’s version of “Ripple,” which appeared on a long-out-of-print Grateful Dead tribute album in 1991. (The whole tribute is fantastic, actually.) I’m less excited to have live slams through Led Zep’s “Whole Lotta Love,” and their Dylan/Bauhaus mash-up “Bobhaus.” These misfires find them sounding like any other band they might have shared the stage with at that time. I want to scream, “You’re Jane’s Addiction! Don’t do this crap!”

Ah, but the third disc is a complete concert from 1990, the Ritual tour, and damn, it’s monolithic. Just hearing Eric Avery and Stephen Perkins slam through the funk-tastic “No One’s Leaving,” or the jittery mini-epic “Stop,” erases the bad taste the first two discs left. And “Three Days” live is just unstoppable. I know we already have this version on Kettle Whistle, but there’s something about the cumulative effect of this 10-minute monster within this set list. It’s an incredible song, made even more incredible.

The DVD straddles the same line. “Soul Kiss,” an absurdly boring fan video from 1990, leads it off, and shows our heroes in drunken, drugged-out states throughout. At one point, Farrell sets off a bottle rocket in his bedroom, while his adoring girlfriend looks on, just because. This is followed by six crappy music videos – the hideous “Had a Dad” clip is the most egregious. But then, the whole shebang is capped off with live footage, and it’s awesome. Seeing the band perform “Then She Did” and “Three Days” made me wonder how they got it together on stage when they were such fuck-ups in real life.

In the end, they’re still a mystery – the music Jane’s created remains vital to this day, and yet, without each other to spark off of, the four members haven’t been able to match it since. Even Strays, the third Jane’s album (with Flea instead of Eric Avery), is sub-par in comparison. Three-fourths of the equation just didn’t cut it. In this case, knowing the artist better doesn’t help me understand the music. It’s magic, it’s alchemy, it’s something beyond its component parts. Farrell and Navarro have both made solo albums, and when they have said to me, “This is me, and these are my songs,” I have found both wanting. And yet, if the Oak Ridge Boys tried to cover “Ain’t No Right,” I would probably be inexplicably sad.

And maybe that’s how it starts. Maybe this idol worship thing begins in the formative years, and just can’t be shaken. People older than me can’t fathom what I hear in Jane’s Addiction, the same way I don’t understand what people younger than me hear in Bright Eyes. Maybe there are some enigmas that have written themselves onto my pages as they are, some pedestals that will never be toppled. No matter how much Farrell and company try to connect with me, I will likely resist, preferring the myth to the men.

Is there a lesson here? Perhaps it is this: everyone else’s idols are easier to kill than your own.

* * * * *

Next week, Green Day’s mammoth rock opera 21st Century Breakdown.

See you in line Tuesday morning.

I just got back from California, where I celebrated the marriage of one of my oldest friends.

I met Mike Lachance about 18 years ago, in high school. Apparently, it’s an odd thing for high school friends to remain close throughout adulthood, but we have, and there’s something amazing about knowing someone for half your life. Amazingly, he’s been dating his new wife Kate for most of that time – they’ve been together for 14 years. That’s right, 14 years. At this point, getting married is really a formality – these two will be together forever, ring or no ring.

But if you’re going to do it, do it right, I always say, and man, they did it right. The wedding and reception were held at Calamigos Ranch in Malibu, an unspeakably beautiful place. The ceremony itself was the first non-religious wedding I’ve been to, and it was wonderful. It was also very funny, and absolutely adorable. Kate had worked out a silent signal for the bridesmaids to hand her tissues for her eyes, which cracked everyone up. And Mike kept forgetting his lines. The irony of that is, he writes screenplays for a living.

For their first dance, Mike and Kate chose “The Luckiest,” by Ben Folds, and you could tell watching them that they both feel they are, in fact, the luckiest. It was one of those moments when I knew a song I loved would now and forever be associated with an event in my life, and I was so glad. “I love you more than I have ever found a way to say to you…” Not a dry eye, I’m telling you.

The best man was Ray Tiberio, another of my closest friends, whom I also met in high school. His toast centered on friendship, on the bonds people build over nearly two decades, and I couldn’t agree with him more. I’m honored and overjoyed to have these people in my life, and to get to be there on the happiest days of their lives. As Mike and Kate can tell you, time deepens relationships, and solidifies them, and I feel so blessed to have the friends I’ve had for so long. Congratulations, Mike and Kate. Love to you both.

* * * * *

It’s fascinating to me that the term “EP” has stuck around.

Like “b-side,” it’s a relic of an older, more analog time. Gather round, kids, and I’ll tell you the story. See, music used to come on slabs of vinyl called “records.” I kid, I kid. I know we still have these today, and they’re still surprisingly popular, but there was a time when vinyl records weren’t just one of the alternatives. All music – yes, all of it – came out on these black discs with grooves in them.

You had the album, a regular-sized record that contained a full complement of songs. But you also had the single, a smaller disc with (usually) two songs on it, the a-side and the b-side. Sometimes, though, a single would be released with more than just one b-side. You’d get four or five of them, and this was called an “extended play single.” Or, for short, an EP. These days, EP has come to mean a little album, something with only a few tunes, and it’s usually a debut project or a stopgap between “real” records.

I’m always at something of a loss when it comes to reviewing EPs. You just can’t use the same standards, because you’ll never get from five songs what you get from 12. By the same token, the shorter trips need to be that much more compelling – a dead spot in a 15-minute CD is worse than in one four times as long. There should be some reason these five or six songs have been released together, and not saved for a full album project. And you can’t judge them like proper albums. They are what they are.

Take The Open Door EP, the new release from Death Cab for Cutie. The band was right up front about this 17-minute offering: it’s made up of leftovers from the sessions for Narrow Stairs, their excellent album from last year. Given that, don’t expect that you will be as thrilled or as moved by this as you were by Stairs, or by its predecessor, Plans. But if you thought this band was getting just a bit big for its britches lately, The Open Door may be right up your alley. (Count the cliches! It’s like a drinking game.)

I considered Stairs more of a short story collection, after the engaging novel that was Plans. This new EP bears that out – it’s four more disconnected stories of lost love and relationships in disrepair. Musically, these songs are like the more average parts of Stairs, all driving-yet-wistful guitar pop with sweet little melodies, and they were clearly dropped in favor of more challenging material. But these are nice little songs, worth having on their own.

My favorite is “My Mirror Speaks,” with its twin guitar and vocal melodies. Ben Gibbard has a splendid pop-rock voice, and he proves it here, singing a difficult verse and then reaching for a flawless falsetto in the chorus. He turns a mean phrase too: “My mirror speaks with irreverence, like a soldier I can’t command, as it sees the frightened child in the body of a full grown man…”

“A Diamond and a Tether” is a sad love letter from a guy who can’t commit, and Gibbard describes him as “a boy who won’t jump when he falls in love, he just stands with his toes on the edge…” And “I Was Once a Loyal Lover” is the spryest song here, yet another tale of a man frightened of commitment. (Perhaps freedom from relationships is the open door of the title?) “You can’t even believe, there’s so many bridges engulfed in flames behind me,” Gibbard sings, shooting his voice skyward again.

If freedom is the theme, it’s punctuated by the last track, a solo demo of “Talking Bird,” performed by Gibbard on a ukulele. On Stairs, this was one of the most normal songs, saved by its glorious lyrics – the talking bird of the title is kept in an open cage, but caged in other ways. The sadness in the song is truly captured in this version. Like the rest of The Open Door, it’s not essential, but it is a good listen, and the EP as a whole won’t make you feel like you wasted 17 minutes.

Speaking of wasting my time, I didn’t even bother to review the latest Joy Electric album, My Grandfather the Cubist, because it failed on so many levels. Ronnie Martin’s pet project – he records sparking pop songs using nothing but analog synthesizers – has been on a roll lately, with a strong series of albums, but he ground that to a halt with Cubist. The songs were all mid-tempo crawls, the melodies were slight, and the vocals poor. I was unhappy, but I knew I wouldn’t stay that way for long – Martin’s too good of an artist to let one slip-up stop him.

The new Joy Electric EP is entitled Curiosities and Such, which might lead you to expect b-sides and rarities. But no! These six tracks are all new, and taken as a 19-minute whole, the EP blows Cubist out of the water. There are three new songs, two new instrumentals, and a wordless take on the title track, and the result is a varied and engaging listen.

The big winner here is “Which Witch,” a classic Joy E number. It’s as minimal as Cubist, but Martin remembered to write hooks this time – the little mid-chorus synth figure is just sweet. The other two songs are terrific as well, with special mention to “Let Us Speak No More, Let Us Speak Light,” with its throbbing bass line and zippy vocal melody. Speaking of the vocals, Martin has found his voice again – he’s always better when he double- and triple-tracks. He’s not a bad singer, but his thin voice needs some reinforcement now and again.

That leaves three minutes of wordless ambient stuff, all of it beautiful, particularly “Cluster of Bare Trees.” The EP is capped off with “Misuses, Atrocities,” the aforementioned instrumental version of “Curiosities and Such,” and for a process junkie like me, hearing the structures Martin builds around his melodies is enlightening. Of the six, though, this one has the least replay value, and the disc would have been fine without it.

Let’s hope this EP signals a rekindled creative fire for Ronnie Martin, because I hope to keep collecting Joy E discs for another few decades at least. Martin is one of the most idiosyncratic musicians I know, but once he sucks you into his little world, you won’t want to leave. Curiosities and Such, despite its title, is a pretty good starting point, if you want to dip your toe into these waters. Pick it up here.

* * * * *

And now, an EP version of Stuff I Missed.

I can’t imagine what Glen Phillips could do to lose me as a fan, but he might be on the verge of losing me as a customer. The former Toad the Wet Sprocket singer has a host of new projects up at his website, from bands with interesting names like Works Progress Administration and Remote Tree Children. But they’re all download-only at the moment, and I like stuff I can hold in my hand. I’m still not quite on board with paying for music without context.

Like many artists, Phillips has struck out on his own, without a label, so it’s kind of miraculous that he releases any physical product at all. I rejoiced, then, to find that he’d put out a six-song EP last year called Secrets of the New Explorers. I missed this for a simple reason – I have a million different artists to keep track of, and I rely on news aggregate sites to do much of the heavy lifting for me. An independent songwriter like Phillips just ain’t gonna get the headlines, and I plain forgot to check his site for much of last year.

That kind of sums up my thoughts on his music, too. I love Phillips’ songs while they’re playing, but don’t remember to think about him when they’re not. Which is a shame, because he’s a gifted writer with a strong voice, and he tries new things all the time – witness his unironic cover of Huey Lewis’ “I Want a New Drug” on his last full-length, 2006’s Mr. Lemons. And Secrets of the New Explorers is yet another experiment – six songs about space travel, with textures unlike any Phillips has used before.

Phillips has a reputation as an earthy performer, so a song cycle about space capsules in orbit is unexpected, to say the least. But he makes it work, incorporating some “Space Oddity” influences on “Return to Me,” and some very cool keyboard and percussion on “They’ll Find Me.” These are songs about science fiction, sure, but they’re also about isolation and loneliness, and their emotional heart beats true.

“Space Elevator” is the only one I’d call a rock song – the rest are dreamy acoustic folk-pop, the kind Phillips does so well. Perhaps the biggest surprise is “The Spirit of Shackleton,” all about the titular rocket ship on the CD’s sleeve: “I’m not coming back from here, I’ve been too far, I’m cold but I’m not scared in the Spirit of Shackleton…” The song’s super-cool electronic drums and keyboard doodles were performed by Phillips, and they sound so good decorating his simple little song that I hope he keeps traveling down this path. The EP ends with the brief and haunting “A Dream,” just voice and guitar, and it’s lovely.

I do hope Phillips releases more music in a physical format – without the artwork that accompanies this EP, some of the imagery in the lyrics just wouldn’t make a lot of sense. It’s all about context for me, and as much as I like what I’ve heard from Phillips’ new projects, I want to hold them in my hand. Discovering Secrets of the New Explorers months after it was released was like finding a present still under the Christmas tree days later, and I’m glad I can add this to my Glen Phillips collection. I’m sorry I missed it on the first go-round, but I’ll remember to check in with Phillips more often now so it doesn’t happen again.

Next week, I was going to talk about some fascinatingly gimmicky new releases, but one of them was delayed, so that will have to wait. Instead, expect reviews of Conor Oberst, Great Northern and that Jane’s Addiction box set. Congrats again to Mike and Kate, and enjoy that honeymoon.

See you in line Tuesday morning.