Every Misstep Tells a Story, Don't It?

Album: Hoodoo Gurus, Magnum Cum Louder, 1989

Best Track: "Baby Can Dance (Pts. II-IV)"

Lasting Memory: Disappointment upon the first play in 1989 or 1990. Disappointment that the wheels had come off for a good to potentially great band.

But then I listened to this cassette a couple of times this past Thursday. and then I listened to it again a couple of times this morning.

I realized my disappointment had been misplaced and that my nearly 20-years-ago decision to consign Magnum Cum Louder to hardly ever played category of my tapes collection was unfair to both the Hoodoo Gurus and to myself.

I've spent most of my past two posts complaining about the weakness of the Hoodoo Gurus' filler material and about the very fact that any bands felt compelled to put filler material on their albums. I'll probably reair those laments multiple time over the course of this blog, even though I know it's pointless to do so.

What giving Magnum a fair hearing taught me is that for a good band, what plays as filler on one album can prove to have been a learning experience on a later album. All but two of the songs on Magnum sound just like or just like much better versions of songs on earlier Hoodoo Gurus' albums.

I won't belabor the point, but I'll link to the examples of "Another World," "Hallucination," and "Death in the Afternoon," which are all vast improvements on earlier attempts at such material.

The first moral I need to draw from this is that talented musicians know more about their own music than I do and that I should trust them a little more to be going somewhere worthwhile with an experiment or departure from form that I don't immediately appreciate.

I will continue to ignore that moral, but at least I know that I should know it. That'll buy me three minutes off my sentence in Purgutory listening to the Wilco discography. (I know I should appreciate their work, but I just can't stand Wilco.)

The second moral I need to take to heart is that experimentation can sometimes pay off in huge ways. The two songs on Magnum that sound like nothing the band had previously recorded are also far and away the best songs on Magnum. "Where's That Hit?" really should have been one instead of just a jokey complaint.

And "Baby Can Dance (Pts. II-IV)" is just great. (How's that for insightful critique. Maybe it's enough to write that Wilco would never record such a song.)

Up Next: Hothouse Flowers, People, 1988