Like the Dead before them, Phish has been systematically releasing concerts from the band's vaults, typically in groups of 4-6 shows every six months. This time around, they've released all four of the band's famed Halloween shows, when they'd cover a classic album from start to finish. They'd previously covered the Beatles' White Album, the Who's Quadrophenia, and the Talking Heads' Remain in Light. (They also performed Pink Floyd's Dark Side of the Moon a week after this particular show.) This time around, in '98, they picked the Velvet Underground's Loaded. It's actually a pretty good choice: It's VU's weakest, least relevant album, so as a purist there's less to criticize. (Don't fuck with "Sister Ray," but, hey, you wanna cover "Lonesome Cowboy Bill," how much harm can you do?) It also gives the band several good opportunities to stretch out and jam (opportunities largely missing from White Album and Quad.) The cover album performance isn't quite as interesting and compelling as Remain in Light, probably their best Halloween show, but it's still pretty damn good, most notably on classic rock mainstays "Sweet Jane" and "Rock & Roll", both of which get the full-on jam treatment here. Bookending Loaded are two sets of music which, if not perfect, are pretty representative of Phish's range. The first set is a solid run through a standard Phish set, fun and tight. The final set includes a 25-minute ambient jam which I find the perfect cure for insomnia. And I say this with all due respect. It's not easy making music which serves well as both trippy headphone fare and relaxing ambient music; besides Brian Eno, there aren't too many artists who walk that line very well. Yet Phish pulls it off here. So, bottom line, there are other, better Live Phish releases available, but this one is a great intro to the band for the sort of person who generally shares my taste yet avoids Phish like the plague.

Though Girlfriend was his first major work, Sweet had been kicking around the scene for nearly a decade. He'd be the first to admit that his early work was far from great. His first two solo albums were kinda cheesy, dragged down by new-wavey keyboards and lack of vision. To Understand, while not exactly redeeming the early work, at least puts together the highlights in a context that makes them pretty entertaining. The collection opens with a handful of tunes from his early band, The Buzz of Delight -- it's fairly dated mid-'80's college radio power pop, but does usher in a bit of nostalgia for those of us who have fond memories of the times. Added to the mix are the best tracks from his first two solo albums, none of which is as good as Girlfriend, but they don't entirely suck. The disc also includes a few Girlfriend demos, most of which have circulated before on boots and b-sides, but it's nice to have 'em in a shiny new package. So, bottom line, this is far from the best of Matthew Sweet, but for serious fans it's a nice li'l collection.

Anyway, they've worked it out, and here you go. Musically speaking, My Generation remains a great album. Sure, one can question Daltrey's James Brown imitation, but, those few holdover tracks from the band's pre-1965 repertoire aside, My Generation shows the band boldly moving into power pop territory. The title track and "The Kids are Alright" are every bit as magical today as they were then, and many others ("It's Not True," "Legal Matter," "La-La-La Lies") are nearly as good. As far as British Invasion debuts goes, this one is head and shoulders above the early work of the Kinks, the Stones, and even the Beatles. As for the sound -- obviously it blows away the original cd issue, which truly sucked. Some of this is downright revelatory -- classic rock radio overplay has sucked the joy out of their first single, "I Can't Explain," but hearing it here literally brought tears to my eyes. It sounds that good. Other tracks are more problematic -- by using the original master tapes, they've omitted some of the overdubs which actually filled in holes in the songs, so some lyrics are missing, and the title track loses a guitar track (though they've included an alternate, mono version which is complete). Most of the bonus tracks are kinda weak, but, hey, you can't knock their inclusion. It's not the Who's best album (that honor goes to Quadrophenia, or maybe Who's Next, or maybe Sell Out), but it's pretty great and nice to finally have a decent version of it.

So here we are with the Green Pajamas, a superb Seattle-based psychedelic pop band that's been quietly releasing self-produced cassettes and indie-label cd's for over a decade. I read some recent press favorably comparing them to some of my favorite Elephant 6 retro-pop bands, so I blew a few bucks on one of their albums. Loved it. Bought a half dozen more. Happy happy me. 2002's This Is Where We Disappear, their most recent album (not counting Narcotic Kisses, a collection of b-sides and obscurities that showed up a few months later) is... well, not bad, but among my least favorite of their albums. As with most of their albums, they alternate between buzzing guitar-driven psychedelia reminiscent of late 80's Britpop shoegazers (think Stone Roses or Ride), jangly guitar paisley underground songs (think Rain Parade) and quiet pop songs (think Elliott Smith). Personally, I think their best album to date (by far) is 1999's All Clues Lead to Meagan's Bed; it's certainly their most consistent (as even their best albums have a few dull spots), with a half-dozen killer pop tracks that you won't get out of your head for weeks; their follow-up, 2000's Seven Fathoms Down And Falling, was a close second, largely because it includes "She's Still Bewitching Me," one of the most unforgettable tunes I've ever heard (and the sort of song most bands don't get to come up with more than once). Hell, why choose: Go buy all their albums. They're terrific.

That said, the album is not without some glaring flaws. First and foremost, however much Ben may have run the show even in the Ben Folds Five days, the absence of his old band is obvious. They were a bang-up rhythm section, propping up Ben's piano and keeping him from slipping into Billy Joel/Elton John wimp-rock territory; the weak backing here definitely drags a few songs down. Indeed, Folds oddly kicks off the very first song, the otherwise terrific "Annie Waits," with a lame drum machine beat which makes it sound more like a home demo than a finished track. And while the snide, too-clever-for-his-own good lyrics that made his earlier work occasionally grate are largely gone, the guitar-driven title track -- a humorous jab at the heinous metal/rap hybrid suburban white bands that dominate fm radio these days -- is a sophomoric throwback. Sure, those bands suck, and Folds' lyrics are dead-on, but, really, why bother?

As you'd imagine, Stephen Malkmus sounds an awful lot like Pavement -- after all, setting aside a handful of Kannberg songs scattered through the Pavement canon, and some instrumental and vocal flourishes by the rest of the band, Pavement essentially was Malkmus (particularly on the last few albums). It's not too far off to consider Pavement's last album, Terror Twilight, to have been the real first Malkmus solo album, much like the final Replacements album (All Shook Down) was really the first Paul Westerberg solo album. In many respects, this album is far better than Terror Twilight, an album which, while including a few moments of that twisted Pavement alt-pop glory ("Spit on a Stranger," "Carrot Rope," "Major League"), was way too dull for my taste. While Malkmus' gifts as a lyricist continued to grow right up to Pavement's end, the chaotic melodicism that made the band so fresh in the beginning was in serious decline. So it's a pleasant surprise that Malkmus has decided that, yes, catchy hooks matter after all. And Stephen Malkmus, while still playing to Malkmus' strengths as the crafter of idiosyncratic lyrics, is a perkier, poppier album than I would have expected. Tunes like "The Hook" and "Jennifer and the Ess-Dog" have that instantly-hummable quality of early Pavement, coupled with the verbal jabs that make Malkmus a stand-out in indie circles. The former is an allegorical I've-Grown-Up-And-Gone-Solo tune reminiscent of Peter Gabriel's first post-Genesis single "Solsbury Hill"; the latter is an almost-melodramatic retelling of a May-December romance between a rich teenage girl and her boyfriend who plays in a 60's cover band. And despite Malkmus' rep as a snide purveyor of slacker irony, the songs are earnest and benefit from the personal warmth he started bringing to his lyrics around the time of Brighten the Corners. It's not a perfect album, and even at its catchiest lacks the fuck-it-all abandon of early Pavement, but it shows that, unlike Westerberg, Malkmus went solo with a few good ideas still kicking around.

While Kannberg never had Malkmus' knacks with lyrics, and his range as a vocalist is, shall we say, dramatically limited, he did manage to pen some nifty Pavement songs, and his various b-sides (particularly in the later days) often outshone Malkmus' from a pop standpoint. Preston School of Industry, his new project, is both more consistent and less interesting than I had hoped. There are a couple stand-out tracks of off-kilter pop, but much of this blends together as chiming, occasionally catchy, but frequently dull modern rock. Not a bad album, but really unlikely to appeal to those who didn't get off on his Pavement contributions.

Just kidding. Nope, more of the same. Wish I could say I loved this album, it's a return to form, etc., but, alas, it just isn't so. Ok, it's actually a bit better than it's predecessor, Up, perhaps on par with the one before that, New Adventures in High Fidelity. But it's still post-mersh R.E.M., the one that's consistently disappointing fans from the early days longing for that chiming guitar sound, and probably even latter-day fans from the Automatic for the People days longing for that adult-contemporary melodious balladry. Don't get me wrong; artists have to keep trying new things, and nobody would be happy if they kept churning out the same old thing. But I'm just not thrilled with that whole moody keyboard-driven thing they've been up to since Bill Berry left the band. Yes, the single ("Imitation of Life") is one of their catchiest tracks in years, but nothing else on the album sounds remotely like it. Hey, it doesn't suck -- even modern-day R.E.M. kicks the shit out of anything else on the FM dial these days -- and a few songs ("All The Way to Reno") are halfway decent; but I just can't see myself listening to this much in the future. It's just gonna gather dust alongside everything since Monster while I reach for my old copy of Fables of the Reconstruction...