A: Non-Serious Hi-Fi Enthusiasts Need Not Apply

Today's album is yet another gem from that alphabetically ambitious British group A. Hi-Fi Serious is the 3rd album from A. If I had to pick a favorite A album (Let me just tell you how moronic I sound in my head right now. I feel like Charlie Bucket's math teacher. You can't call yourselves "A"! There has to be more to it than that! Let's pretend your name is A Flock of She-Goats or A Major Florist or something) this would be it. Of course that isn't saying a tonne. I have a better chance of being elected Space Pope than I do of running across a copy of How Ace Are Buildings and Monkey Kong, as we have already discussed, was good but not great.

Hi-Fi Serious, though better than Monkey Kong in practically every way, is still in the good but not great category itself. I would put it on the high end of good (of course this is a sliding scale and I reserve the right to insert levels past great such as "awesome" and "totally gnarly" when I need terms for Weezer albums and other such nectar of the gods) I have listened to the album in its entirety twice since I reviewed Monkey Kong and although it has its moments, Hi-Fi Serious is merely good. If I weren't doing this alphabetically, Hi-Fi Serious would not have been one of the first two albums I reviewed.

All that being said, let's talk positively about this album for a minute. From the opening blasts of "Nothing" to the closing strums and strings of "Champions of Endings" one thing is apparent above all else: these songs are better and more catchy than those on Monkey Kong. "Nothing" and "Starbucks" are clearly the best songs on the album, but every song on Hi-Fi Serious brings something to the table. I listened to the entire album without pondering better ways to spend my time. I know I'm speaking almost entirely in backhanded compliments, but I'm just trying to say that I enjoyed the album without having it sneak into my top albums of all-time list (a list I have never and probably will never compile in any sort of concrete form).

The only real gripes I have against Hi-Fi Serious are that the lyrics tend to be a bit simplistic and a few of the songs seem a bit longer than they need to be. I don't know why I should ever criticize anyone for simplistic lyrics given my history of bad poetry (in my defense I had a short-lived beatnik phase in high school and even I could tell I had no talent for verse) but somehow the lyrics on this album don't quite cut it for me. Take a look at the chorus of the hit single "Nothing": "Gimme some love/ gimme some skin/ if we aint got that then we ain't got much and we ain't got nothin'/ nothin'" Let me state for the record that "Nothing" has gotten me really pumped almost every single time I've ever listened to it, but if I bend even a slight critical ear to the lyrics the whole thing seems pretty silly.

I really have to wonder why I strain at the gnats A is throwing at me while allowing entire camels to pass unnoticed (like I do for my beloved Neil Diamond) but this blog isn't about me throwing out accurate measurements of how good or bad an album or a song is. It's about me listening to all my music and writing some semi-coherent rant about every bit of it. I can't lose sight of the dream this early in the game by questioning my own taste. So let's call a spade a spade and say that Hi-Fi Serious is a decent enough album for people who expect their music to be loud, crunchy and not too cerebral.

Go here to stream the album at lastfm.

A: How to Get to the Top of the Alphabet and Annoy People

You may have expected that the first album of the day would be by a band whose name starts with the letter "a." What you may not have expected is that the band would not have any other letters in its name. That's right, our first album is from the ridiculously named yet alphabetically superior band: A.

I first became aware of A because of a video game related music video they had on one of those networks that used to be all about the music but then decided to not be about the music and destroyed music in the process (you know the ones). Their song "Monkey Kong" was plenty catchy and sounded like the sort of thing I would like to look into, but try googling a band whose name is A. See how many hits you get (I got 18,560,000,000. Top that).

I picked up Monkey Kong, my very first A album, in a $3 clearance bin a few years after seeing the music video. I figured for $3 it couldn't be too disappointing. I don't think I really listened to it at all aside from spinning the title track a couple times. So today was the first time I listened to the entire album from start to finish.

As I finished the album, the only fitting metaphor I could think of for this album was a guy who tries way too hard in pickup basketball. You've all seen the sort of guy who guards people in pickup like it's the final minutes of a crucial NBA playoff game. He sets hard picks, he drives hard to the hoop, he grunts and groans on every play. There's also a significant chance this guy wears head and/or wrist bands and John Stockton short shorts. Anyway, from the opening surge of Monkey Kong to the final riff you can tell that this is a band who puts all their energies into rocking as hard as possible. You like to see a band try hard, but there are 17 songs on Monkey Kong and some of them are clearly more worthy of the band's efforts than others.

The album seemed to me to be top heavy. I enjoyed the first 5 songs a lot more than I did the last 5. Of course part of this may have something to do with the fact that the entire album has a certain glossy sheen and by the last 5 songs you feel like you need to turn it off before your ears end up laminated.

Anyway, there are some good songs and redeeming qualities to Monkey Kong, but it doesn't make for a very good listen if you're going to park yourself and listen to the whole thing top to bottom.

Go here to stream the album at lastfm.