Nancy Sinatra, “Sugar” (Reprise, 196 )
A somewhat atypical outing for Nancy, hilariously campy takes on vaudeville classics, so blankly pop-cute they’re almost like audio versions of Lichtenstein comic-strip-panel canvasses. And then the country-pop title tune, a perfect little minimalist mystery-dance.
Try 1/ 1, 1/ 4 2/ 5
7/6/18
Nico, “The End” (Island, 1974),
Nico’s last album before waltzing away with Mr. Brownstone for the rest of the 70’s is also one of her most controversial. The darkly gorgeous sheen of “Marble Index” has flaked off of her trademark voice/organ/sound effects gestalt by now, leaving something sullen and vaguely evil. But listen closer and you might find its bleakness beautiful, even perversely invigorating.
Try 4, 8.
1/13/13
NY Loose, “Year of the Rat” (Hollywood, 1996)
This will probably go down as the only album released on Disney’s label to glamorize heroin use, and probably the best. Pure Dolls/Stooges glitter-gutter punk rock with heavy ‘90s sound, whip-lash-vicious performances and hooks that kill like Sid’s last fix.
Try 4, 7, 11
10/4/14
Nots, “We Are Nots” (Goner, 2014)
Debut from four-woman combo playing wiry/twitchy postpunk with garage-punk raw abandon and chorus-hook song-structures. In fact, it’s catchy and atonal all at once, a neat trick, and one partly facilitated by the way it shakes to the beat even as the songs careen into the wall with their stinging guitar tendrils frantically askew.
Try 1, 4, 9
4/7/19
Normal Love, “Survival Tricks” (ugEXPLODE, 2012)
Quirky noise-rock attack, featuring twitched-out rhythms, scattering guitar shards, nasal, almost inhuman hollering from the female vocalist, and cocktail-jazz-like tinkling percussion thrown in just for fun. Genuinely adventurous and inventive stuff, if not for the faint of ear.
Try 2, 4
7/19/12
Ninety-Nine, “Ninety-Nine” (Patsy, 1998 [?])
Solo debut from Laura McFarlane, drummer on Sleater-Kinney’s “Call the Doctor.” This is like a blurrier bedroom-pop take on S-K’s interlocking melodic/dissonant punk structures, and is excellent.
Try 2.
2/28/13
Nile, “Amongst the Catacombs of Nephren-Ka” (Relapse, 1997)
Masterpiece from late in the golden age of death metal; instead of Biblical demonology, the horror/menace here is spooky ancient Egyptians. The sound is a screeching, stuttering blur, nearl akin to some of the wilder electronic sounds of the period.
Try 5, 7
11/10/16
Nikki and the Dove, “Instinct” (Sub/Pop, 2012)
Electro-dance/indie-pop hybrid from Scandinavia that simultaneously recalls a number of disparate acts from that neck of the woods (Oh No Ono, Sugarcubes/Björk, Abba). Nice stuff. The glossiness enhances the psych-trickery, and vice versa.
Try 3, 4
7/12/12
Nikki And The Corvettes, “Nikki And The Corvettes” (Bomp!, 1980)
Despite the fact that this is a cornerstone of a large percentage of the rock-oriented stuff that’s been played on the station the last few years, we have never owned it – until now (and until someone “borrow” it forever) (but not you, right?). Crystalline pop perfection delivered with nonchalant punch, this music transcends/ignores genre tags like “power pop,” “punk,” “garage,” “new wave,” even as it distills them all into middle-American rock and roll that’s still as timelessly fresh as it was the day it was released.
Try 1, 4, 15, 16
1/6/12
NiHao!, “Marvelous” (Tzadik, 2011)
Not often these days do you hear a band that’s both genuinely original and genuinely rock and roll, but here’s one. Their first LP fused early-Boredoms-style high-speed form-demolition with the playground-chant postpunk funk singsongery of Liliput. This builds on that foundation with even more twisted and labyrinthine song-structures and a new use of bursts of video-arcade electro-cacophony, yet winds up even catchier than its predecessor (in its own bizarre-world way).
Try 11, 12, 14, 15
10/14/14