I have a rule in my house: no Christmas music until after Thanksgiving.

I know it’s not something worth grumbling about, especially at this most joyous time of year, but hearing Christmas music in early November (or, lord forbid, late October) just feels… wrong. Before Thanksgiving, you’ll find me at home, avoiding our centers of commerce, unable to fathom hearing “Frosty the Snowman” before there’s any chance of real snow on the ground.

If I must go out – to get food, or some other necessity of life – I bring my decidedly un-Christmas-y iPod with me, to block out the sound of premature carols. In fact, until the day after Thanksgiving, I even stay away from people named Carol. Just to be safe.

But after Thanksgiving? I binge on the stuff. I love Christmas music. And for about 30 days every year, I listen to as much of it as I can. I dig out the old favorites – Sufjan Stevens’ Songs for Christmas gets a lot of play in Casa Salles around this time each year, as do Harry Connick’s three (!) holiday records. And of course, Vince Guaraldi. And this year, I’ve been spinning that new Made in Aurora album, which is full of holly jolly goodness. (More on that next week.)

I also buy a few new ones each December. (Actually, that’s not quite accurate – I buy them when they come out, but I don’t listen to them until December.) This year, the pickings were slimmer than usual. I only have three to dig into, although I will say I haven’t bought into the hype and picked up Michael Buble’s Christmas record yet. I have no doubt it’s a good time, I just haven’t gotten around to it yet. But I do have these three, and they fall into three categories: good, godawful, and glorious.

Let’s start with She and Him. I’ve avoided detailed reviews of this collaboration between M. Ward and actress Zooey Deschanel because it felt a little too much like a precious novelty. But with three installments out now, including the new A Very She and Him Christmas, it’s probably time. It’s not that I don’t like this. It’s cute and fun and fluffy. My biggest problem with it is one that isn’t going away anytime soon, though: Zooey Deschanel has a barely passable voice, and occasionally her wavery tone really bothers me. She’s about as good as the average karaoke singer at your office Christmas party.

But she’s adorkable, whatever that means, so I guess we persevere. And if you can get beyond the vocal weaknesses, A Very She and Him Christmas is a bunch of fun. It’s remarkably traditional, but that’s in keeping with the two previous volumes by this pair. I expect this entire record exists because someone thought it would be cute to have Ward and Deschanel sing “Baby, It’s Cold Outside,” which they do pretty well. Aside from that, it’s acoustic guitar and your usual assortment of holiday tunes: “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas,” “I’ll Be Home for Christmas,” “Sleigh Ride,” etc.

Ward and Deschanel pull out two Beach Boys Christmas tunes, which is a treat – they do sturdy versions of both “Christmas Day” and “Little Saint Nick.” Better than that, they pull off a delightful take on NRBQ’s “Christmas Wish.” Deschanel is quite good in a supporting role on that song, behind Ward’s rough-and-tumble voice.

When she takes the lead on standards like “Blue Christmas,” the results are mediocre, but She and Him are not out to change the world, or redefine Christmas music here. This record sounds like one of those holiday gifts recording studios used to offer – they provide the music, and people off the street get to come in and sing over the top, then give CDs of their performances to family and friends. It’s cute, if sometimes shaky, but if you think of it as a warm and good-hearted holiday present, it’s enjoyable stuff.

On the list of unbelievable things that shouldn’t exist, Zooey Deschanel’s singing career has nothing on Scott Weiland’s Christmas album. Yes, that Scott Weiland, of Stone Temple Pilots and Velvet Revolver fame. Yes, Scott Weiland has a Christmas album, called The Most Wonderful Time of the Year. Yes, he appears on the cover in a tie and a Sinatra-style hat, looking like he has no idea what his agent has gotten him into. No, I am not making any of this up.

Weiland’s inexplicable holiday effort contains the same smattering of traditional songs, performed mainly with strings and pianos and subtle jazz guitars, as if Tony Bennett were going to provide the vocals. But instead, we get Weiland’s stoned-sounding, pinched voice. If you think the guy who sang “Sex Type Thing” might be an odd fit for “I’ll Be Home for Christmas,” let me tell you, you have no idea. Part of me hopes that this is an Andy Kaufman-esque joke, but part of me is praying he’s really serious about this, and keeps making orchestral ballad albums.

OK, so this is pretty awful, and almost entirely laughable. It’s worth hearing once, just so you can prove to yourself that it really exists. I mentioned “I’ll Be Home for Christmas” earlier – Weiland sings this one like a Muppet with a head cold. It simply must be heard. “White Christmas” is similar – the vocals are insanely bad. He fares better on a sort-of-Hawaiian spin on “Silent Night,” complete with cheesy Casio drums, but the music is so awful it beggars belief. It’s clear Weiland didn’t take much of this seriously, but that raises the question: why the hell did he do this?

Every time you think Weiland will pull this off, as on the jazzy rip through “What Child is This,” he delivers another hilarious stumble, like his terrible Perry Como impression on “Winter Wonderland.” The lone original, “Happy Christmas and Many More,” doesn’t exactly expand the pantheon. And I can’t even describe the horror of the closing track, a reggae spin on “O Holy Night” that will make lovers of the traditional carol weep and moan.

While I don’t understand just how something like The Most Wonderful Time of the Year becomes a reality, I guess I admire Weiland for not caring at all what people will think of it. For instance, I’m sure he doesn’t care that I laughed out loud from first note to last, and lamented my lost twelve dollars. He’s got those twelve bucks now, and I hope he enjoys them. Merry bloody Christmas, Scott.

But it’s not all rancid sugarplums this year. In fact, I’ve got what promises to be a bona fide holiday classic around my house in years to come, and I’m beyond glad that I discovered it. The album is Silent Night, and it’s the third effort by Nashville harp player Timbre.

I first heard Timbre Cierpke at last year’s Cornerstone festival. She has a lovely voice, a deft touch with the harp, and the arrangement skill of someone much older than her 27 years. She makes patient, impossibly beautiful music with the help of her family and a cast of dozens. On her last album, she covered Radiohead’s “Like Spinning Plates,” and managed to make a real song out of it. She’s very impressive, and her holiday record is, frankly, stunning.

If you’re not sold by the time you finish “O Come, O Come, Emmanuel,” I don’t know what to tell you. Timbre’s voice draws the best out of this haunting carol, and she accompanies it with sparse harp and bells at the beginning, slowly folding in strings and horns and choral voices. It’s one of my favorite versions of one of my favorite Christmas songs, and the record never comes down from there. The instrumental “Carol of the Bells” is delightful, rich and full and powerful, and “The Robin Red Breast,” a Timbre original, fits right in with the traditional pieces here.

Timbre gives us three versions of “Silent Night” – a full studio reading (which is breathtaking), a snippet of her three-year-old self reveling in the song, and a closing recording of the audience at one of her shows reverently singing it. That last one is the perfect way to finish off this album, a warm and generous embrace on the way out the door. Before that, though, get lost in the positively lovely “O Little Town of Bethlehem,” pump your fist to the tricky and energetic “Joy to the World,” and let the sheer beauty of “What Child is This” wash over you.

One listen through to Silent Night, and I’m in the holiday spirit, fully and completely. I love this record, and it in turn makes me love the Christmas season. Hear and buy it here. And merry Christmas, every one.

Next week, what I promised for this week: a bunch of people I know, including Noah Gabriel and the artists of Made in Aurora. Leave a comment on my blog at tm3am.blogspot.com. Follow my infrequent twitterings at www.twitter.com/tm3am.

See you in line Tuesday morning.

I’m sneezing and sniffling and holding my throbbing head at the moment, so I’m hoping to keep this one quick. A few thoughts on some end-of-the-year records, and then I’m headed back to bed. Luckily, we’re in the waning days of 2011, when most of the new releases are live albums or repackagings. But there are still some gems in these last few months, and I’ve got a few on tap this time.

Cough. Sneeze. OK, let’s go.

* * * * *

I had a chance to support David Mead, and I didn’t take it.

I’m ashamed, no doubt. Mead is the kind of singer-songwriter the world could use more of. For more than a decade, he’s been so consistently good that the general public has completely ignored him. Granted, it’s hard to get a handle on him – he has seven albums now, and none of them sound alike, from the acoustic country-folk of Indiana, to the more studied chamber-pop of Tangerine, to 2008’s lovely, low-key Almost and Always. You really don’t know what Mead’s going to try next, but at this point, it’s a safe bet that it will be fantastic.

Mead funded his seventh album, Dudes, through Kickstarter, raising production money from fans willing to pitch in. And I should have been one of those fans. I don’t know what happened. This is exactly the kind of thing I normally do. There’s no reason I can think of that I wouldn’t have sent David Mead $20 to help make this thing. And now that I’ve heard it, I really don’t get why I didn’t. Dudes may not be Mead’s best album, but it’s his most fun, and for a guy with a pretty serious catalog, that counts for a lot.

If you’ve never heard Mead before, the first thing you’ll notice is his astonishing, elastic voice. Dudes begins with a shimmering showcase for that voice – “I Can’t Wait” is folksy, with a shuffling hi-hat beat and some lovely pedal steel, and a chorus that sets the optimistic tone: “I can’t wait to get up, get up, get out of bed…” It’s one of the few moments of quiet beauty here – much of Dudes has an energy, an immediacy that Mead rarely traffics in. “King of the Crosswords” is a tremendous pop song, with a “Yakety Sax” baritone that takes it to this whole other place. “Guy On Guy” is about a man exploring homosexuality, set to a drunken carnival beat, like a particularly boozy Rolling Stones b-side.

And yeah, there are some moments here, like “Bocce Ball,” that sacrifice craft for fun. (Although I love the vocal arrangement on that brief tune.) “Happy Birthday Marty Ryan” is a stomper, all snarling guitars and pounding pianos, but it sounds like it was written half an hour before the record button was pressed. Mead scores more highly with pieces like the title track, an acoustic paean to enduring friendship. And though the title led me to expect another throwaway, “The Smile of Rachael Ray” is Dudes’ best tune, sweet and heartbreaking.

David Mead has always been a more considered songwriter, but there’s a likeable looseness to Dudes – hearing That Voice drop f-bombs and shimmy through the deliriously vulgar “No One Roxx This Town No More” is all kinds of hilarious. Some of these songs aren’t worthy of a songwriter of his caliber, and I should be disappointed in them, but I’m not. This record sounds like it was a blast to make, and there are enough pretty, well-put-together tunes like “Don’t Forget” and “Curled Up in the Corner” to keep me on board. Dudes is the most fun Mead has ever had on disc, and even though I missed the chance to support its creation, I’m happy to recommend it. Go here.

* * * * *

I’m about to talk about the new Kate Bush album, but I just want to take a minute and revel in that phrase: the new Kate Bush album.

From 1978 to 1993, Kate Bush released an astonishing run of seven records, every one of them an idiosyncratic, thoroughly individual piece of work. And then she disappeared, for an endless 12 years. It was somewhere in those 12 years that I actually heard Bush’s music for the first time – I initially considered her a Tori Amos ripoff, before shamefacedly realizing my mistake. It was a little depressing, though. How often in your life do you discover a musician like Kate Bush? And then to hear that she’d drifted away in the early ‘90s, and hadn’t been heard from since?

That’s why 2005’s dazzling double album Aerial was such a treat. But now, it’s starting to look like the start of a renaissance. Bush’s new album, 50 Words for Snow, is her second of 2011. That’s right, Kate Bush released two full-length studio records this year. Granted, the first, Director’s Cut, consisted of reworkings of earlier material, but the point remains. Bush is one of the most original, uncompromising, fantastic artists in the world, and she’s back to giving us new material regularly again. This is cause for celebration.

Or, in this case, perhaps quiet reflection would be more appropriate. Bush has perfectly timed 50 Words for Snow for the oncoming winter – it’s uncommonly patient, unfolding slowly over seven long songs and 65 minutes, and most of it is performed on piano, voice, pitter-patter drums and little else. It’s also uncommonly beautiful, if you’re up for it. The first three tracks in particular drift along so quietly, change so subtly, that you’ll either be swept up in them, or you’ll find them too easy to ignore.

I love them. In a very real way, these songs are duets between Bush and drummer Steve Gadd, whose work is perfectly attuned to the wintry mood. “Snowflake” is sparse, like the first hints of flurries coming down, Bush leaving whole empty skies of space between her fragmented piano figures. Bush’s son Albert sings this one, his high choirboy voice fitting the tune’s innocence perfectly. “Lake Tahoe,” the story of a ghost looking for her long-lost dog, fills things out a little more, but not much – Bush wraps her voice around those of Stefan Roberts and Michael Wood, achieving something of a Christmas carol sound.

There’s a moment about halfway through the 13-minute “Misty” when the strings come in, pulling everything together in a bright, melodic sweep. It’s over pretty quickly, but if you’ve been listening all along, you know that the previous 28 minutes have all been leading to that moment. No other Kate Bush album rewards patient and thorough listening quite like this one does – in many ways, it’s all one long song, suitable for driving through snow at night.

Which is why “Wild Man” is initially such a surprise. Nestled at track four, after more than half an hour of delicate piano, we get an old-school, synth-driven Kate Bush tune. “Wild Man” is about a team of explorers who find evidence of Bigfoot, and brush it away, determined to protect the creature. Andy Fairweather-Low joins in on vocals, while Bush half-speaks the verses over thumping bass and a skipping beat from Gadd. At first, it seems like a strange fit for this record, but it kicks off a trilogy of fuller pieces, the album’s cresting wave.

“Snowed In at Wheeler Street” is a dark, haunting duet with Elton John, and perhaps the first thing ol’ Reg has done in about 20 years that doesn’t make me want to stab my own eardrums out. Bush’s piano returns, over a shivering synth line, as she and Elton play two lovers finding each other again after a long separation. The title track is the album’s oddest – the lyrics are a literal list of 50 words for snow, read by Stephen Fry, as Bush cheers him on in the background. (“Come on, man, you’ve got 44 to go!”) It’s oddly magnificent, inspiring stuff. The list includes real words from other languages alongside terms like “erase-o-dust.” (Oh, and “peDtaH ‘ej chIS qo’,” apparently, is Klingon for snow.) It’s a song no one else on earth would create.

50 Words for Snow concludes with “Among Angels,” a return to the wintry piano of the first three tracks. In fact, it’s the only instrument, aside from some subtle strings, and Bush’s glorious voice drifts over it gracefully. It’s a perfect ending to this album, like quietly turning off the lights and watching the snow fall. I was hoping this record would be good. I didn’t expect it would captivate me as much as it has. This is a record unlike any she has made, and yet still one that only Kate Bush would make. I’m so very, very glad she’s back.

* * * * *

I’ve always had a soft spot for Noel Gallagher.

Maybe it’s just that he comes off as less of an asshole than his brother Liam, or maybe it’s that he wrote the best Oasis songs. Or maybe it’s that I have a thing for the behind-the-scenes guys, the ones who do all the work while the loudmouths out front get all the credit. It would be tough to paint Noel with that brush, granted – he’s a pretty substantial loudmouth in his own right – but he does get shafted in favor of Liam pretty often, when he was clearly the brains of that operation.

And my sympathy for him was only heightened when literally every other member of Oasis picked Liam in the split-up. They’re all calling themselves Beady Eye now, and earlier this year, they released a decent debut album, Different Gear, Still Speeding. I can’t help but smile, however, now that I’ve heard Noel’s solo bow, the much-better Noel Gallagher’s High Flying Birds. He’s still the brainiest Gallagher, the one with the pop smarts, and if it means more records like this one, Liam can have the band and the spotlight.

Where Beady Eye retained most of the snarl of Oasis records, High Flying Birds debuts a more mature, considered sound. First single “The Death of You and Me” sums it up – a Beatlesque bounce, a lovely melody, an acoustic-based arrangement, and a superb hint to “Being for the Benefit of Mr. Kite” in the horn charts. “Dream On” is splendid, its rigid beat supporting an absolutely soaring chorus. “If I Had a Gun” is one of the record’s prettiest songs, flowing from one well-written section to another with ease. And “AKA What a Life” rocks the hardest, with nary an electric guitar chord in sight – it’s all pounding pianos and thudding beats.

High Flying Birds also finally finds a home for the long-gestating Oasis track “Stop the Clocks.” It was very much worth the wait – a sweet acoustic number with a (forgive me) high-flying chorus, it provides a lilting finish to this album. The good news for fans of Oasis is that we now have two full-time, full-fledged recording careers to follow, and they’ve both proven to be worthwhile. I’ll admit to liking Noel’s record better, but I’m glad to have both options. Near the end there, Oasis was getting stale, running aground, and now both Gallaghers sound energized, ready for new beginnings. I’m right there with them.

* * * * *

Cough. Sneeze. Sniff. I’m heading back to sleep. Next week, some people I know: Noah Gabriel and the Mainers in Big Blood.

And speaking of people I know, I’ll talk more about this next week, but check out the Made in Aurora Christmas album I contributed to. Sixteen holiday songs by Aurora-area artists (including me, on piano for one track and on backing vocals for another). It’s $25, but you can also get it bundled with a bunch of other local Christmas CDs. Check it out here.

Leave a comment on my blog at tm3am.blogspot.com. Follow my infrequent twitterings at www.twitter.com/tm3am.

See you in line Tuesday morning.

As you get older, time just slips away from you. Days go by in a blink, whole months just disappear, and it’s no good trying to hold on to them. I remember when I was younger, summer vacations seemed to stretch on forever. Three whole months without school! This year, the summer came and went in no time at all. It snowed here in the Chicago suburbs last week. I looked at the calendar, and I realized we have six weeks left of 2011.

All of which brings us to God Save the Queen, my planned three-column series which is now a two-column series. Think of it like Joe’s Garage. Act One came out in May, and here is Acts Two and Three, a double-record set for the price of a single. I only have six columns left this year, and three of them are spoken for, giving me very little space to get to David Mead, Kate Bush, the Black Keys, the Roots and whatever else comes down the pike.

So here’s the second and third installment of my Queen retrospective, combined into one easy-to-read column. The final batch of five remasters hit stores at the beginning of the month, and I’ve been savoring every second of them. (Well, except for the seconds on A Kind of Magic, but we’ll get there.) It’s been pretty emotional for me to experience these records again, particularly the final ones. Queen was a shameless, adventurous, try-anything-once kind of band, and it was so gratifying to remember that they stayed that way straight to the end, Mercury’s debilitating illness be damned.

So, picking up where we left off.

News of the World (1977)

Also known as “the one with ‘We Will Rock You’ and ‘We Are the Champions’ on it.” News of the World kicks off with its two best-known songs (and arguably Queen’s most famous numbers), and you can hear right away that this album will be different. After the opulent extravagance of A Night at the Opera and A Day at the Races, this album is stripped back, raw, the sound of four guys playing their hearts out in a room.

And it’s a great reminder that Queen was a tremendous rock band. These songs are almost entirely guitar, bass, drums, piano and vocal, and they sound like they were recorded live. “We Will Rock You” is the mission statement – stomping feet, handclaps, vocals and a blistering guitar solo, and that’s it. But when I say stripped back, I don’t mean less dramatic, as anyone who has heard “We Are the Champions” can attest. Songs like the soaring “Spread Your Wings” are every bit as towering as the stuff on Opera/Races. They just lack the guitar orchestras and the insane vocal arrangements.

As a kid, I was never a huge fan of Roger Taylor’s contributions to Queen’s repertoire. This time through, I’m having a much more favorable reaction to Rockin’ Roger. “Fight From the Inside” is a relentless stomper, on which Taylor does his best John Bonham impression, and “Sheer Heart Attack” is the heaviest and fastest tune in the band’s catalog. Mercury, meanwhile, is all over the place here, giving us a taste of funk experiments to come on “Get Down, Make Love” and ending things with the lovely piano ballad “My Melancholy Blues.”

But Brian May takes the prize with the six-minute “It’s Late,” one of Queen’s greatest rock songs. It contains a positively immortal guitar riff, a jam section that knocks me out each time I hear it, and some golden singing from Mercury, one of the finest frontmen ever. I remember being disappointed with this album as a teenager, mainly because it wasn’t as complex and over-the-top as previous albums, but I’m over that now. News of the World is just an incredible rock record.

Jazz (1978)

Teenage me was let down by News of the World for not being as insanely diverse as Queen could be, but he was baffled by Jazz for heading in the opposite direction entirely. I don’t think it’s an exaggeration to say this is the band’s weirdest record, no two songs sounding anything alike. Here’s just the first four songs, by way of example: we open with the Arabian nightmare of “Mustapha,” Mercury unveiling his perfect pronunciation (he was born in Zanzibar); segue into flat-out sex rocker “Fat Bottomed Girls,” glide into the lovely piano piece “Jealousy,” and then tumble right into the loopy prog-fluff “Bicycle Race.”

It’s enough to give you whiplash, and the whole record continues in that vein. The massive production is back – armies of vocals up against oceans of guitars and perfectly-played pianos. “Bicycle Race” is utterly harmless, but the band clearly labored over it. The second disc of this remaster includes an instrumental mix, which reveals just how tricky and difficult it is. It’s a seriously intense piece of music, and it’s not even Mercury’s finest hour here – that’d be “Don’t Stop Me Now,” an irrepressible anthem inexplicably sequenced 12th out of 13 here.

Before that, you get a whole bunch of Queen goodness. Mercury’s “Let Me Entertain You” is awesome, another testament to the tight rock outfit this band was. See also: “Dead on Time,” a killer piece of proto-metal. John Deacon’s ballad “In Only Seven Days” is lovely, May plays the blues in three-part harmony on “Dreamer’s Ball,” and Taylor’s goofy “Fun It” sets the stage for “Another One Bites the Dust.” Jazz is a complex, bizarre record, one that doesn’t seem to have a comfortable home in the catalog. But it’s worthy nonetheless.

The Game (1980)

In a lot of ways, this one’s similar – the songs are all over the map, the production intricate. But The Game is the most compact, easily-digestible Queen album yet. It’s 35 minutes long, contains no outsize epics, and just concentrates on fine pop songs. I remember liking this one as a teen, mainly for Brian May’s contributions – the four-on-the-floor “Dragon Attack” (which I covered once, on synthesizers) and the two second-side ballads, “Sail Away Sweet Sister” and “Save Me.”

It’s John Deacon who provides the big hit this time: “Another One Bites the Dust,” a minimalist experiment in groove. This may actually have been the first Queen song I heard – I remember hanging out at a playground with my babysitters, swinging higher and higher while this played on the radio. (I also remember hearing Weird Al Yankovic’s parody, “Another One Rides the Bus,” and laughing until I couldn’t breathe.) Mercury sings the living hell out of this song, but it hasn’t aged very well, particularly when the band relies on weird synth noises instead of writing a bridge.

Speaking of Mercury, he’s all over the map again here, contributing the opening anthem “Play the Game,” the Elvis homage “Crazy Little Thing Called Love” (which I admit to not understanding at all when I was a teen), and the bizarre, tossed-off “Don’t Try Suicide.” Turns out teenage me was right – it’s May who pulls it out of the tailspin. Both “Sail Away Sweet Sister” (which May sings) and “Save Me” are solid, serious-minded tunes with heart. I love ‘em both.

The Game is the first Queen album that doesn’t work as well as it should, the first one with as many stumbles as out-and-out successes. It also features two first appearances: Mercury’s trademark mustache takes its place on his upper lip, and the synthesizer nudges its way into the Queen sound. The band took the success of “Another One Bites the Dust” as a sign they should keep on experimenting with synths, and boy, did they ever.

Flash Gordon (1980)

I take it back – this is Queen’s weirdest record, a 35-minute, mostly-instrumental score to one of the campiest sci-fi movies ever made. I haven’t seen the film since I was about 10, but I remember watching it again and again – I recorded it off HBO on our top-loading, extremely slow VCR, and wore that tape out. As I may have said earlier, the inherent silliness in something like Flash Gordon (which depicted a football star’s fight against an intergalactic empire, with the help of a winged Brian Blessed) didn’t really register with me.

The soundtrack is chock full of dialogue from the film, and hearing it again brought scenes and images back into my mind with startling clarity. There are only two actual songs here, both of them deliriously campy: “Flash’s Theme” (the one that goes, “Flash! Ah-ah!”) and “The Hero.” The rest is very ‘80s synth noodling, the sort of thing that accompanied episodes of Doctor Who from the same decade. But man, do I remember this synth noodling. Not sure how this works as a standalone Queen album, nor how often I’ll listen to this remaster. But as a soundtrack intimately tied to its film, it’s pretty great.

Hot Space (1982)

Of all of these old Queen records, this was the one I was dreading revisiting. Hot Space is the band’s full-bore dive into ‘80s synth pop, with a touch of disco on the side. It’s the poppiest pop album they made, the one on which Roger Taylor and John Deacon are largely replaced by machines, at least for the first half. Its cover is pure ‘80s as well, all solid colors and silhouettes. Of all of the band’s albums, this one has aged the worst.

But you know what? I like it, a lot. As you might expect from Queen, they didn’t half-ass this move into the dancehall, and it’s their sheer conviction that makes this work. These songs are undeniably goofy, but then, so are “Bicycle Race” and “I’m in Love With My Car,” and they don’t come in for nearly the stick this album does. The first half is much more synthetic than the second, but there are gems here: “Dancer” brings the rock, as much as this album allows, and “Back Chat” is stupidly catchy. Granted, Mercury’s “Body Language” is embarrassing, but it’s followed right up with Taylor’s fantastic “Action This Day.” That tune’s just unstoppable.

Here’s the key to appreciating these songs – listen to the way the band played them live. The second disc of this remaster has live takes of “Staying Power,” “Action This Day” and “Calling All Girls,” and they’re all guitar-heavy rockers. Dated production aside, the songs on Hot Space are largely wonderful, and the second side brings even more goodies: the rollicking “Put Out the Fire,” the gentle and touching “Life is Real (Song for Lennon),” the breezy “Calling All Girls,” and May’s pretty “Las Palabras De Amor.”

But the band saves the best for last – “Under Pressure,” rightly the most famous song from this album, is an inspired collaboration with David Bowie. Some of it sounds made up on the spot, but some of it sounds like the most intricate composition on this record. It works so very well. Hot Space has a bad rep, and I disliked it pretty intensely as a kid, but it holds up a lot better than you’d expect. Some of it, frankly, is marvelous.

The Works (1984)

If Hot Space was the band diving headfirst into pop music, The Works is them coming fully to grips with what a Queen pop record should be. I’ve always considered it their best album of the ‘80s, and revisiting it didn’t change that opinion one iota. This is the sound of four guys staring the ‘80s straight in the face, and making a good old-fashioned Queen album.

That’s not to say they don’t take the decade into account. The album opens with “Radio Ga Ga,” a beautifully-written song performed almost entirely on synthesizers, like a Vangelis track with lyrics. (It’s a song in praise of radio, thought at the time to be on its way out thanks to the rise of MTV, and its video ironically made the track a big hit.) But it also contains two muscular rockers, the kind Queen hadn’t delivered in a while: “Tear It Up” and “Hammer to Fall.” It sports the rockabilly “Man on the Prowl,” and the glorious pop of “Keep Passing the Open Windows.”

And then there is “It’s a Hard Life,” my favorite Queen song of the Me Decade. It’s a classic Queen anthem, with a beautiful piano melody, a stunning solo by May, and Mercury singing like his life depended on it. I could listen to this song on repeat for days and not be bored. The rest of The Works has trouble competing, but not much. Taylor’s “Machines (Back to Humans)” marries guitars and synths admirably, Deacon’s wonderful “I Want to Break Free” brings a lilting Dire Straits beat into the mix, and sparse closer “Is This the World We Created” is almost impossibly pretty.

Yeah, The Works is tremendous. I know several people who dismiss everything Queen did after 1979, but this album is proof that they were still at the top of their game in the ‘80s. I loved it as a kid, and I love it now.

A Kind of Magic (1986)

And then there’s this big ball of cheese. A Kind of Magic doubles as the soundtrack to Highlander, another super-campy sci-fi flick, but even that doesn’t excuse much of the warmed-over, sappy, synth-y music here. Just look at the cover, it should tell you all you need to know. This is the most goopy pop record to bear the Queen name. Songs like “One Year of Love” and “Pain is So Close to Pleasure” and “Friends Will Be Friends” aren’t worthy of that name, frankly.

There are high points. “One Vision” isn’t bad – it’s a guitar-heavy tune straight out of an action movie. (It was written for Iron Eagle, in fact.) “Princes of the Universe” is a prog-rocky epic. And then there is “Who Wants to Live Forever,” the single best reason to buy this album. Amidst all the Velveeta and swords-and-sorcery on display here, it’s a moment of true transcendence – Brian May’s song is moving, soaring, lovely, and the orchestral arrangement brings it to new heights. My friend Mike Ferrier and I used this song (and its instrumental piano take, included on the second disc here) on the soundtrack of our high school space opera Sourcil and Nez, and it always brings back those memories.

But that’s the one moment of real power on a record that wastes an awful lot of time and talent on half-baked fluff. This is Queen’s worst album, and even so, it has some redeeming qualities. But not many.

The Miracle (1989)

I remember there was some speculation that Queen had hung it up before The Miracle came out. I’m really grateful that turned out to be baseless, not only because A Kind of Magic makes for a lousy swan song, but because The Miracle is so good. Recorded in the wake of both Brian May’s highly public marital separation, and Freddie Mercury’s highly private AIDS diagnosis, The Miracle is the first record that credits all lyrics and music to Queen as a unit. I don’t know whether to nod to that, or to an uncommonly strong burst of inspiration, but the songs here are tight and strong and unfailingly enjoyable.

The title track, especially, is pure Queen goodness. It starts off as a peaceful synth-y ballad, but dissolves into a prog-rock midsection, a blistering little jam, and a grand, Marillon-esque coda. “I Want It All” is a convincing rocker with some great flourishes by May, and a double-time jam smack in the middle. “The Invisible Man” should be too goofy to work, but it does, in a way that the similar tunes on Hot Space didn’t. “Breakthru” is a pure pop song, and even though the three tracks that follow it aren’t as good, they’re still interesting.

But it’s the final track, “Was It All Worth It,” that knocks this one home. No one knew it at the time, but this song is Mercury taking stock of his life and career, knowing both will soon be at an end. It’s not maudlin in the slightest – would you expect anything else from Freddie Mercury? It’s huge and triumphant, a rock and roll powerhouse with some truly camp orchestration. The song just sounds important. Reliving it now, hearing Mercury sing “it was a worthwhile experience” is pretty powerful. It’s an astonishing closer to a really good Queen album.

Innuendo (1991)

And so we come to this, the last album Mercury made with the band. He was evidently wasting away while recording it, dying by degrees, but you’d never know it. His voice is strong and grand on this whole thing, and the band sounds reinvigorated – this is the best Queen album since The Works, easy, and maybe even since the ‘70s. They were working on borrowed time, and they knew it, and that lends an urgency to the proceedings that just can’t be faked.

Of course, we didn’t have any idea at the time. Mercury kept his illness quiet, only announcing it one day before he died, in November 1991. Mercury, for all his showmanship, was an intensely private person – his funeral was closed to the public, with only 35 or so of his closest friends there. He kept the mask up until the very end. Innuendo was written and recorded with full knowledge that Mercury’s life would soon be over, but it’s just as crazy and campy and adventurous as anything the band ever did. Very little of it is reflective, and none of it acknowledges its own finality.

Even so, there are two songs that seem to stand as Mercury’s final statements on his life and death. Both were written by other band members, but they were specifically designed for Mercury to sing. Taylor’s “These Are the Days of Our Lives” is one of the prettiest things in the band’s latter-day repertoire. Reminiscent of Mike and the Mechanics, the song is graceful and grateful, looking back with no regrets, and forward with no fear.

And then there’s “The Show Must Go On,” May’s interpretation of Mercury’s struggle to keep the mask in place, continue performing and not let on how ill he truly was. This song’s a dramatic masterpiece, late-period Queen at their absolute peak. May was initially slated to sing it, due to Mercury’s failing health, but Freddie came in and nailed it in one take. And holy god, just listen to him. He’s incredible, unstoppable. “I’ll face it with a grin, I’m never giving in…”

The rest of Innuendo is, while not quite at those lofty heights, just plain excellent. The title track is a multi-part epic, stretching to 6:33, and featuring some guitar heroics from Steve Howe of Yes. “Headlong” and “The Hitman” rock like nobody’s business, “I Can’t Live With You” is a marvelous pop gem, “Don’t Try So Hard” is a gorgeous bit of ambience (with some astounding falsetto vocals from Mercury), and “All God’s People” is a semi-sequel to “Somebody to Love,” with the band massing vocals into a giant choir. I even like “Delilah,” the synth-heavy tribute to Mercury’s cat.

Innuendo is a fine, fine way for Queen to go out. It’s just as weird and wacky as anything they’ve done, but more urgent, more vital. And as final sentiments go, you can’t do better than “The Show Must Go On.” I listened to this album nearly every day for months in 1991, and it still stands up. I love it very much.

Made in Heaven (1995)

Which means I’m still not sure about this one. Billed as the final album with Freddie Mercury, it was in fact assembled from stray vocal tracks and unfinished bits he left behind. Some of the songs had been previously recorded as b-sides, and the band added new instrumentation over the original lead vocal tracks. Some were taken from Mercury’s solo album Mr. Bad Guy and Queen-ized, keeping Freddie’s original vocals. And one, “You Don’t Fool Me,” was literally pieced together from random snatches of vocals recorded in the last weeks of Mercury’s life, and given shape by producer David Richards.

Given all that, the fact that it’s a cohesive and overall very good album is kind of miraculous. I can’t fault the band’s intentions – they wanted us to hear every last thing Freddie sang, as a way of keeping him close and letting him go. Several of these tracks were co-written and sung by Mercury before his death, including “A Winter’s Tale,” his last solo composition, and “Mother Love,” his final vocal performance. I’d want to hear those, certainly, and I can understand wanting to construct an album around them. But the process makes me uneasy.

Actually listening to the record alleviates that considerably, however. It’s just so good to hear Freddie’s voice again, and the band obviously crafted these tracks with love. Made in Heaven doesn’t feel quite like a Queen album, since it’s so serious and introspective – there isn’t a single detour into campy goofiness, the hallmark of each of the 14 albums that precede it. But it’s a good pop record, with some wonderful performances by Mercury. “A Winter’s Tale” is particularly moving, a song that could easily be about peaceful death.

Made in Heaven is kind of unnecessary, and I have some reservations about the way it was put together. But most of them melt away while it’s playing, and I revel in one final visit with Freddie Mercury. Not sure it’s an album he would have liked very much, but it’s one I do. I was in college, my senior year, when this came out, and though I thought I was over Mercury’s death, listening to this record brought it all back. In a lot of ways, it still does.

Rest in peace, Freddie.

So that’s the lot, not counting that godawful The Cosmos Rocks thing that we’re not mentioning ever again. As before, I’ve barely even touched on the bonus tracks on the second discs here, so let’s do that now. In addition to the usual demos, remixes and single versions, there are nine b-sides and lost tracks I’d never heard. None of them were revelatory, but all were enjoyable. I’ve already mentioned the live takes on Hot Space, but aside from those, my very favorite thing here might surprise you: a no-synths, full-band version of “Football Fight” from Flash Gordon. Seriously, it rocks.

This concludes my little tour through Queen’s back catalog. They will always be one of my favorite bands, and hearing all of these records again just confirmed it for me. They were one of a kind – there’s never been a band quite like them, and there likely never will be again. If you’ve never bought a Queen album, I hope this little excursion has convinced you to pick a few of them up. Thirty-seven-year-old me agrees with 14-year-old me: you won’t regret it.

Next week, David Mead, Kate Bush, Noel Gallagher and/or Meshell Ndegeocello. Leave a comment on my blog at tm3am.blogspot.com. Follow my infrequent twitterings at www.twitter.com/tm3am.

See you in line Tuesday morning.

I’m going to try to keep this one to a manageable length, but it’s about SMiLE, so you can imagine how tough that’s going to be for me.

It’s fair to say that SMiLE is one of my all-time favorite albums, but it’s more accurate to say that it’s one of my favorite things created by anyone ever. Originally mounted as a Beach Boys record in 1966 and 1967, Brian Wilson’s masterpiece was abandoned and shoved under the rug, only to be triumphantly revived and completed in 2004. Even without that context, the finished SMiLE is one of the most joyous records I’ve ever heard. With that context, it’s so wonderful it moves me to tears.

When Wilson’s completed version of the album came out in September 2004, I had just lost a girl and a job in the same two-week period, and was facing the daunting prospect of selling my furniture, packing up my stuff and moving to a far-off state. It was one of the lower points of my life, and I needed something to make each day worth getting up out of bed for. SMiLE was it. It kept me going through the darker moments – it was (and is) quite impossible for me to feel down when this record is playing. I treasured it then, and still treasure it now.

It’s still difficult for me to comprehend Brian Wilson’s fear of this music. For decades he wouldn’t talk about it, would merely refer to it as “inappropriate,” would go to great lengths to keep it hidden. A couple of the SMiLE songs (“Heroes and Villains,” “Cabin Essence,” “Surf’s Up”) were re-worked and released on subsequent Beach Boys albums, and of course there is “Good Vibrations,” the only song from the sessions that was truly finished. Bootlegs of the sessions made the rounds, but until Wilson and Van Dyke Parks sat down in 2003 to put the whole thing together, very little of the SMiLE stuff had seen the light of day.

Until now. I expected that finishing SMiLE, finally, would be like lifting a lead weight from Brian’s shoulders, and I was more right than I could have guessed. He’s gone on to his most productive period since the ‘60s, crafting solo albums at a prodigious pace. (One of those albums, That Lucky Old Sun, is good enough to stand with some of his best work.) And now Wilson has consented to the official release of the SMiLE sessions. Just the idea that people might one day hear this stuff once sent him into the throes of despair. But here it is, in all its glory – a tantalizing glimpse at the original SMiLE, and how it might have sounded.

The SMiLE Sessions is available in multiple configurations, from a two-CD package to an all-out monster, with five CDs, two LPs and two seven-inch singles. I opted for the smaller set, but I’m kicking myself now – these sessions are so fascinating that I could easily dig through another three full discs of them without growing bored. Had this album been completed and released in 1967 as planned, it would have set the world on fire. It’s like nothing else that was being done at the time. Wilson has made no bones about the fact that he felt like he was in a competition with the Beatles, and with SMiLE, he would have won. In scope, complexity, and flat-out brilliance, it’s far and away one of the most amazing things ever put to tape.

This box is being promoted as the official release of the Beach Boys’ SMiLE, and well, it simply isn’t true. There is no album to officially release – SMiLE was not completed until 2004. What we do have here is an approximation, stitched together from various takes of various songs, and following the 2004 SMiLE’s road map. Some songs are incomplete, others have lyrics missing, and none of the little touches that link the SMiLE songs together are present. It’s no wonder it’s been a mystery for so long. It’s just not finished.

But the approximation is beautiful. The biggest weakness of the finished SMiLE is Brian Wilson’s voice, ravaged by time and misuse. That voice, in 1966 and 1967, was unbeatable. He could sing anything, and the vocal prowess of the Beach Boys was just unmatched. The original “Our Prayer,” which opens the record, is a little faster, a little more youthful than the one that starts the finished SMiLE, but the voices are still otherworldly and gorgeous. It’s a treat to hear the young Brian sing “Wonderful,” one of his best songs, so beautifully.

The abrupt ending of that piece, preserved here, confused Wilson devotees for decades – it turns out, it was meant to segue right into “Song for Children.” Most of the second suite is in pieces here – both “Song for Children” and “Child is the Father of the Man” are missing lyrics (since they were written in 2003 and 2004), and the overall conceptual weight of the thing is absent. I can’t imagine Wilson had anything else in mind, though, than what he ended up with – the finished version of this suite is perfection.

And of course, there is “Surf’s Up,” Wilson’s finest hour. I’ve said this before, but the ascending chorus (“columnated ruins domino”) may be my favorite moment in all of pop music, and man, Brian could sing it. There’s a piano demo included on disc two, just Brian and keys, and he does it there, flawlessly. “Surf’s Up” is a perfect song, and the original take of it is impossibly moving. It’s here with only part of its “child, child” coda, which was fleshed out for the completed SMiLE. Even so, it’s an absolutely incredible piece of work.

Hearing that astonishingly goony third and final suite always makes me laugh and sing along, and it’s neat to discover that so much of the lunacy of the finished version was there in the original takes. All the sawing and hammering noises in “Workshop,” the rhythmic chewing in “Vegetables,” the slide whistles in “Fire.” I find I really miss the pirate rap in “On a Holiday,” here in an instrumental version. The clarinets and mallet percussion are wonderful, though, and the segue into the haunting “Wind Chimes” is here in full. I also miss the lyrics that changed “Love to Say Da Da” into “In Blue Hawaii” on the finished record – I find myself singing along with the instrumental take here, adding the new words.

One of the biggest joys of the finished SMiLE was hearing how “Good Vibrations” took its place as the closing track. The segue, which revisits “Our Prayer,” is brilliant, and it’s here, intact. I don’t know if Wilson thought of ending the album with its most famous song in 1966, but in my mind, it was always meant to be there. And the reconstructed SMiLE here certainly bears that out. Even 45 years later, “Good Vibrations” is remarkable, a masterpiece of studio engineering and pop composition. The 2004 version was a piece of cake to record. This one reportedly took months, spanning 17 sessions at four different studios. For 1966, it’s a miracle.

Those sessions and more are documented on the box set, and there’s a joy in hearing them that I can’t describe. Here is young, vibrant Brian Wilson, in total control of his studio, instructing his crack team of session musicians on the right feel, the right vibe for even the smallest part of his vision. Brian is a taskmaster, interrupting takes when they don’t strike him the right way, but he’s also kind and supportive. There’s a great exchange with bassist Carol Kaye in which Wilson tells her not to worry about getting the part exactly right. She responds, “But I do worry, Brian,” and he says, “You mustn’t,” in kind tones.

Above all, the impression this set gives is that the SMiLE sessions were just a tremendous amount of fun. I’ve heard rumors of misery and darkness and feuds between brothers, and perhaps it’s the product of judicious editing, but I don’t hear any of that here. My 2-CD set includes a couple of funny improvised skits, in which Wilson pretends to have fallen inside a piano, and then the head of a microphone. And man, it just sounds like it would have been so much fun to be there to experience this.

The set also includes “You’re Welcome,” the b-side of “Heroes and Villains,” and the only song here I hadn’t heard. It’s a brief, vocal-driven thing, and of a piece with the SMiLE stuff. There’s also a backing vocal montage that’s breathtaking. Seriously, those Beach Boys could sing. I love hearing the “doing doing” bits of “Cabin Essence” unadorned. For a process junkie like me, these little bits are invaluable, and fascinating. Which is why I may spring for the big set sooner rather than later.

The thrill of hearing how one of my favorite albums ever was conceived and constructed is amazing. I’m grateful to have every part of SMiLE’s history, from the original sessions documented here to the finished work released in 2004. It’s all one long journey, one massive testament to the brilliance of Brian Wilson.

And sometimes, I think Brian needs to go back and listen to this stuff, to remind himself that he is, in fact, Brian Wilson. I fear sometimes he forgets his own place in history, his own prodigious talent, which is what leads him to agree to things like his new album, Brian Wilson in the Key of Disney. Yep, it’s 11 songs from Disney films, given the Wilson treatment – surf-rock beats, dazzling arrangements, and those incredible vocal parts. Like last year’s George Gershwin project, I enjoyed this more than I thought I would, but it’s still not really worthy of him.

Things I like: the banjo-and-mallets take on “The Bare Necessities” is nice, the zany mash-up of “Heigh-Ho,” “Whistle While You Work” and “Yo Ho (A Pirate’s Life for Me)” is pure Brian Wilson, and the arrangement of “Colors of the Wind” brings out hidden… well, colors in the song. But as it turns out, not even Brian Wilson can make gold out of Elton John’s dross – both “Can You Feel the Love Tonight” and “Just Can’t Wait to be King” fall flat. And I prefer Randy Newman’s takes on his own songs, “You’ve Got a Friend in Me” and “We Belong Together.”

It all ends with a very nice “When You Wish Upon a Star,” and the whole thing is produced wonderfully, as is Brian’s trademark. (I mentioned the vocals, right? Because they’re fantastic.) But in the final analysis, all this wizardry is in the service of a bunch of Disney songs. I’ll buy whatever Brian does until one of us dies, but the man likely doesn’t have a lot of time left, and I’d like to hear him concentrate on original material.

Still, even if Brian Wilson decides to do these themed tribute records forever, or even chooses to retire from music entirely, his legacy is set. He’s one of the greatest songwriters and producers in history, and nothing he does now can change that fact. If he wants to have fun in his old age, and make records that make him smile, then who am I to begrudge him?

One of my favorite parts of the SMiLE Sessions set is the new essay Brian wrote about those days, and that music. It’s so warm, so full of peace and hope. I’m so glad he’s finally found both. If anyone deserves a happy ending, it’s Brian Wilson.

Next week, most likely I’ll catch up with the Queen reissues, and then there’s David Mead, Kate Bush and Noel Gallagher to get to. And then, of course, it’ll be top 10 list time again.

Leave a comment on my blog at tm3am.blogspot.com. Follow my infrequent twitterings at www.twitter.com/tm3am.

See you in line Tuesday morning.

I hear a lot of records. So naturally, I hear a lot of bad records.

Most of them aren’t really bad, of course, just boring. Some of them rise to the level of awful, and those are the special ones – the ones on which nothing seemed to go quite right, usually involving a lack of talent running smack into an abundance of pretension and foolhardy ambition. I kind of cherish those bad records, and enjoy playing them again just to marvel at the wrong-headedness on display.

But then there’s that third, remarkably rare category. It takes an extraordinary amount of effort, an almost Herculean number of bewildering decisions, to make a record so bad, so painful, that I never want to hear it again. I admit to being in awe of these clusterfucks, and of the astonishingly addled thinking behind them, and I of course want to own them, because I can hardly believe they really exist – that real, thinking people not only conceived of them, but carried them out, like intentionally spreading a plague. But I never want to hear them again.

Which, of course, brings me to Lulu.

In case you’ve been living under a blessedly sound-proofed rock, you know the details of Lulu. A collaboration between Lou Reed and Metallica, it is based on a series of sexually frank plays by German writer Frank Wedekind. It spans 90 minutes over two discs, and Reed sings most of it from the point of view of a female dancer turned prostitute who, in the end, willingly becomes a victim of Jack the Ripper. Yes, this is a real thing that you can go into a store and buy, should you so choose. But don’t. Seriously, don’t.

Let me make it plain at the outset – there is nothing I can say here, no combination of words I can use that would adequately describe the mind-numbing, teeth-clenching, please-kill-me experience of listening to Lulu all the way through. Most of the time, I simply couldn’t believe what I was hearing. I can’t think of anything that would have prepared me for it. The idea of Lou Reed and Metallica together is not a particularly strange one, but the fact that they got together and made this is, quite frankly, almost impossible to fathom. I sometimes like to pretend I can put myself in the artist’s place, and imagine what they were thinking when they created something. This? I have no idea. None.

So, all right. You’ve probably heard “The View,” the wretched first single. Endless, rote thudding from Metallica, while Reed babbles like a dementia patient, and James Hetfield adamantly insists that he is the table. There’s just nothing good about it, nothing that would make you want to hear it again. Now, imagine this – “The View” is easily, without doubt, the best song on Lulu’s first disc. The remaining 35 minutes are so bad that I yearned for the relative genius of that song.

What makes them so bad? Well, there are two sort-of rock songs – opener “Brandenburg Gate” and “Iced Honey” – that are both brain-freezingly boring. “Brandenburg” uses a Lynyrd Skynyrd chord progression, acoustically at first and then at full power, Hetfield screaming out “small town girl” as if he were suffering a stroke right then and there. Reed’s first line is “I would cut my legs and tits off,” and it just spirals down from there. And “Iced Honey” is two chords hammered idiotically for four minutes while Lou babbles.

And then there are the three “art” pieces. Holy hell. I can’t even explain these to you. “Mistress Dread” is like the worst sixth-grade metal band in your neighborhood bashing it out ineptly for seven unchanging minutes while their drunken grandfather rambles about sadomasochism. (“I beg you to degrade me, is there waste that I could eat, I am a secret lover, I am your little girl, please spit into my mouth…”) “Cheat On Me” asks its one question (“Why do I cheat on me”) again and again and again and again and again for 11 ass-aching minutes, while the band goes absolutely nowhere. Eleven minutes! You’ll want to kill yourself.

As a longtime Metallica fan, I was perfectly willing to blame Lou Reed for all of this, but I can’t. Hearing Hetfield bellow out “Why do I cheat on meeeee-yuh?” over this impossibly shitty riffing is like watching a loved one slowly waste away in front of you. This is at least 50 percent Metallica’s fault, and in some ways they’re living up to their brief – creating ugly music that repels those who don’t understand it. But it’s never been this ugly and this difficult to understand. Reed? I have never had any use for Reed, and this just cements my disgust. His vocals are unlistenably bad, his lyrics unconscionably vile.

Take “Frustration,” the eight-minute opening track of the second disc. While Metallica does their best impression of a garage band that can’t play, Reed spits out this shit: “I feel a pain creep up my leg, blood runs from my nose, I puke my guts out at your feet, you’re more man than I, to be dead and have no feeling, to be dry and spermless like a girl.” He repeats that last one more than once: “Marry me, marry me, marry me, I want you as my wife, spermless like a girl!” At some point in this endless monstrosity, I think Lou just decided to start shouting whatever came to his mind.

At this point in the album, you’re really going to be ready for shorter songs, and for a quick end to the torture. Luckily, then, the last three tracks clock in at 8:01, 11:10 and 19:28, respectively. “Little Dog” sounds like it was made up on the spot, acoustic meandering in one speaker and formless electric noise in the other while Lou just talks about dogs licking things and smelling shit in the wind. “Dragon” is similarly unlistenable for about three minutes, just noise and babble, and then slams into a repetitive, stock riff for the next 480 interminable seconds. Lou talks about “the taste of your vulva” and “piercing your nipples until I bite them off.”

And I feel like setting myself on fire. It physically hurts.

The epic-length closer, “Junior Dad,” aims to be a balm. It’s calmer, more peaceful, and ends with about 10 minutes of droning orchestration, which is nice because Lou isn’t talking on top of it. But the song is terrible, repetitive garbage. Granted, at the end of this record, it feels like “A Day in the Life.” But it’s worthless. Midway through, Lou begins sorta-singing about “the greatest disappointment,” and I couldn’t help thinking he was talking about the song itself.

Lulu is, in virtually every way it could possibly be, a complete disaster. It’s Chernobyl, and its radioactive tendrils will follow its makers for as long as they live. Reed will be fine – he’s supposed to do stuff like this every once in a while, to remind people that he’s a poisonous snake. But Metallica, they just don’t come back from this. It’s a millstone around their necks. They could release Master of Puppets II and, to their loyal fans who have been kicked around mercilessly for nearly two decades, they will still be the band that made Lulu. This is it for them. What a terrible way to go out.

As for me, well, I’ve been a Metallica fan since the ‘80s. I stuck with them through Load and Reload and St. Anger, hoping for better, and rejoiced when Death Magnetic delivered. So this feels like a gut punch. I don’t even know this band. It’s that bad. It is a clusterfuck of monumental proportions, one of the worst things I have ever had the misfortune to listen to. Here’s the most honest and harsh thing I can say about it: I never, ever, ever want to listen to Lulu again.

* * * * *

When I was a lad, I would have loved to see metal’s Big Four tour together. Metallica, Megadeth, Anthrax and Slayer, on the same bill? Oh, to dream the impossible dream. And now they’re actually doing it, touring as a quadruple bill, and I’m way too old to go and enjoy it. And as we’ve just established, Metallica has decided to walk off a cliff while carrying an anvil. (Ooh, no pun intended there, I swear.) So yeah, no Big Four show for me.

But damn if the rest of the foursome wouldn’t be worth seeing. Take Megadeth, for example. After years of increasingly awful records, they hit a stride with 2004’s The System Has Failed, and they’ve been getting better ever since. Dave Mustaine has figured out what kind of music he ought to be making, and he’s making it. It’s a rebirth I never thought I’d see, and now, with the new Megadeth album Th1rt3en, that resurrection is complete.

Th1rt3en, despite its stupid spelling, is the best Megadeth album since Countdown to Extinction. I’m going to pause for a second while you read that sentence again. Yes, I’m serious. For one thing, it’s the first to feature bassist Dave “Junior” Ellefson in 10 years, and the difference he makes is incalculable. Mustaine sounds revitalized, and his songwriting is back to its peak. Megadeth was always a technical, thrashy band, but with a real melodic edge to what they do, and Th1rt3en contains some of the best such songs in a long time.

Three of these tunes (“New World Order,” “Black Swan” and “Millennium of the Blind”) are older, but making their proper album debut here. Mustaine has clearly taken inspiration from these songs, and crafted an album around them to match. Single “Public Enemy No. 1” is classic Megadeth. “We the People” finds Mustaine spitting out his political anger over a mid-tempo powerhouse riff. And speaking of riffs, check out the monster one on “Never Dead.” Mustaine hasn’t sounded so much like his old self in more than a decade.

Also welcoming an old member back into the fold is Anthrax, whose Worship Music is their first record with singer Joey Belladonna in 21 years. Anthrax, to my mind, had no lost ground to gain back – they’ve been kicking ass consistently since at least 1985, and their five albums with John Bush are just as good as anything else in their catalog. But man, Worship Music is good. If they needed a comeback, this is it.

Anthrax was always the more straight-ahead thrash band of the bunch, and album opener “Earth on Hell” reaffirms that stance. It’s jackhammer chugging and double-time beats and Belladonna yelling his little heart out, and it makes me smile. Belladonna sounds surprisingly great here – I’ve always thought of his voice as somewhat thin, which is why John Bush was such a strong replacement. But he sounds superb throughout Worship Music, like he spent the intervening years working on his sheer power.

Better than that, though, the songs are impressively strong. “The Devil You Know” could have fit on Among the Living, and “Fight ‘Em ‘Til You Can’t” is a perfect Anthrax single, a show of force that’s almost withering. Scott Ian trades off lead vocals with Belladonna, Ian taking the shouted, thrashy sections while Belladonna handles the soaring chorus. Plus, it’s about fighting zombies, and you don’t get more Anthrax than that.

The quality stays high all the way through. Six-minute stomper “In the End” opens with church bells, then erupts into a crawling riff for the ages. It evolves over its extended running time into a true epic, with some Iron Maiden touches. “The Giant” finds Belladonna trading vocal lines with himself over an absolutely crushing beat. “The Constant” is exactly what you’re hoping for, Lost fans – a metal epic about Desmond Hume, with a chorus that won’t quit. Worship Music is a new classic Anthrax record, a welcome return for their most beloved singer, and another fine chapter in this band’s history.

So we’ve got Megadeth and Anthrax coming back strong, and if you work in Slayer’s impressive 2009 effort World Painted Blood, three of the Big Four are firing on all cylinders. Which leaves us with a Metallica problem. But that’s easily solved – ditch them, and get a much better, more modern metal band to take their place. If I may be so bold as to suggest someone, I would go with Mastodon.

This Atlanta quartet has been awesome for more than 10 years, and has some truly classic metal platters in their discography. Their last three, in fact, have shown phenomenal improvement while still remaining heavy as hell. 2009’s Crack the Skye brought some progressive rock influences in, particularly on the 11-minute “The Czar,” but still struck with blunt force. Live, they’re a steamroller, taking all comers. They’ve been called the greatest metal band of their generation, and it’s hard to argue.

Oh, and they have a terrific new album called The Hunter. It’s simpler and more melodic than previous Mastodon records, but still heavy. Only glimmers of the prog-rock remain – there’s no epic track, and in fact only two songs break five minutes. Some of the textures here are a real departure for the band as well, but they still bring that break-you-in-half power to most of these tracks. Oh, and hey, here are some of the amazing titles: “Blasteroid,” “Stargasm,” “Octopus Has No Friends,” “Curl of the Burl,” “Bedazzled Fingernails.” They’re clearly headed new places on here.

“Stargasm” is especially odd, with its Bowie soundscapes and soaring melody. The title track is similarly unfamiliar, remaining a semi-psychedelic mid-tempo thing for its entire running time. But then they hit a stunner like “All the Heavy Lifting,” or “Spectrelight,” and it’s clear they’re still Mastodon. The Hunter is a transitional work, without doubt, and Mastodon is becoming more accessible, but they’re doing it without giving up the raw power they’ve always brought to the table.

And speaking of James Hetfield (“I am the table!”), if Metallica can’t bring their A-game any longer, it’s about time to bring aboard a band that can. The Big Four will always be the Big Four, and I’m not kidding anybody. But how great would a Megadeth-Anthrax-Slayer-Mastodon show be? Who among us with an affinity for metal wouldn’t pay to go see that?

That’s what I thought.

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Next week, it’s SMiLE time again. Leave a comment on my blog at tm3am.blogspot.com. Follow my infrequent twitterings at www.twitter.com/tm3am.

See you in line Tuesday morning.