Toad the Wet Sprocket, "Coil"

For a long time, "Coil" was Toad the Wet Sprocket's swan song. None of its singles charted, and the band broke up the year after its release in 1997. I remember being disappointed with the album - Toad's first new studio album since their landmark "Dulcinea."

It seemed less immediate, less cohesive, and more inchoate than the previous album. Listening again, more than 15 years after its release and just as the band has announced it's completed recording of a new album, I still stand by my initial assessment, but with a few reservations.

Part of the problem is that a few of the best songs here were never released as singles. "Throw It All Away" is an instant-classic song of rebirth and renewal, and the song's advices are as assured as the confidence you can hear in songwriter Glen Phillips' voice:

Cause there ain't nothing you can buy
And there is nothing you can save
To fill the whole inside your heart
So throw it all away

"Throw It All Away" is the kind of song that gets rediscovered and re-recorded for a new audience or a new generation, and I would kill to hear it interpreted by a singer such as Gary Allan.

And although the song "Desire" is not typical of what had been established as Toad the Wet Sprocket's "sound," I would patiently remind Columbia Records that a little band from Georgia called Collective Soul had hit after hit with songs just like this one.

A punchy power pop song about a relentless wish to be something you have never been, "Desire" remains a forgotten gem in Toad's catalog.

I don't mean to imply that the singles that were released from "Coil" are in any way weak affairs; "Come Down" is the sort of energetic rock anthem that will have you singing at the top of your lungs as your foot depresses the accelerator more and more, and while the propulsive "Whatever I Fear" is a suitable album opener, it isn probably too similar to the band's previous work to grab anyone's attention.

"Crazy Life" - the album's third single - had appeared on the soundtrack to the film "Empire Records" two years earlier. Toad rightly included a retooled version of the song here and released it as a single. Although the song was sung by the band's lead guitarist Todd Nichols, there's no reason it shouldn't have gotten more attention then or now.

Which leaves a handful of songs that are, alternatively, either decent album tracks or filler.

Yes, filler on a Toad the Wet Sprocket album. Songs like "Little Man Big Man" sound trite and tired, and "Little Buddha" struggles (and fails) to rise above its bad lyrics, despite a string arrangement by the legendary Van Dyke Parks.

However, for every "Amnesia" riddled with vague meaning, there are songs like "Rings" and "Dam Would Break."

Dean Dinning's bass guitar stands front and center on "Dam Would Break," providing a loping yet solid bedrock for the inner drama of the song's lyrics:

What is this ice that gathers round my heart
To stop the flood of warmth before it even starts
It would make me blind to what I thought would always be
The only constant in the world for me
And every hours of every day
I need to fight from pulling away
And if my mind could only lose the chain
The dam would break

And Nichols' burbling guitar provides an urgent, resonating counterpoint to Phillips' terse lyrical imagery on the R.E.M.-inflected "Rings."

Listening today, I would say that "Coil" is a tastefully arranged collection of tunes, of a style that seems to have faded from mass appeal amid the dual onslaught of post-Madonna bravado and hip hop braggadocio. It stands as a collection of smart, melodic rock songs that still manages to rise above 1990s clichés, despite the Dave McKean sleeve art. Although "Coil" remains an uneven album, its strengths do outweigh its weaknesses, and the album will reward those who give it careful, repeated listens.

John Lennon & Yoko Ono, "Double Fantasy"

It's hard to listen to this album without being reminded of John's murder just weeks after its release. His death casts a pall over what was intended to be a redemptive and heartfelt joint statement of passion and love.

On this, the second album on which John shares credit with Yoko, the couple present a series of songs that, for the most part, tell the story of their marriage, and it wasn't always good times. Their 18-month separation in the early 1970s - which John later labeled his "lost weekend" - ended with the birth of John and Yoko's son Sean in 1975, and with John putting his music career on hold to stay home with his wife and their newborn child.

Recorded five years later, "Double Fantasy" heralded a return to the studio for John, and the first opportunity for the singer to address the highs and lows of the past several years in song. Never one to shy away from self-examination in song, John's excellent and somewhat confessional "I'm Losing You" chronicles the pain of a man struggling to regain his lover's trust. It is Yoko, however, who most starkly bares her emotions over the pain of their separation, in songs like "Kiss Kiss Kiss":

Kiss kiss kiss kiss me love
I'm bleeding inside
It's a long, long story to tell
And I can only show you my hell

In "Give Me Something," she pleads with her partner to pay attention to her, and not turn away. She reminds him that her heart is his, if only he will have it. And in "I'm Moving On," she is overcome with a bitterness in the face of her lover's falseness.

You didn't have to tell a white lie
You knew you scored me for life
Don't stick your fingers in my pie
You know I'll see through your jive

But just as the tone of John and Yoko's marriage took an upbeat turn after the end of the "lost weekend," so does "Double Fantasy" at this point. John dedicates a tender, loving lullaby to Sean entitled "Beautiful Boy (Darling Boy)." While the oft-quoted line "Life is what happens to you while you're busy making other plans" comes across as ironic in hindsight, nothing can diminish the expression of genuine love the father creates for his son. In a parallel on an album of parallels, Yoko devotes her song "Beautiful Boys" to both John and Sean.

The remaining tracks on "Double Fantasy" reflect mature statements on love and home life through the prism of marriage and stability, and while the sound of the album overall is firmly ensconced in the "adult contemporary" category, replete with tasteful musical arrangements and perhaps too many accompanists, it's nowhere near as tame an album as that description might imply. Although she keeps her trademark vocal histrionics to a minimum here, Yoko's contributions are still more on the avant garde end of the pop music spectrum.

Unquestionably, the singles released from "Double Fantasy" are top-flight tunes and deserving of their place in John's musical legacy. "(Just Like) Starting Over" finds him happy in life and love, as he encourages his lover to join him on a romantic getaway, and on the enduring "Watching the Wheels," John responds to critics who questioned his decision to retire to spend time with his family. Even "Woman" overcomes its needless third-verse key change and emerges as one of the barest expressions of devotion ever put to music.

Hearing "Double Fantasy" now, more than 30 years after John's death, is a positive and at times cathartic experience, but ultimately bittersweet. In light of the fact that I have now outlived one of my greatest idols, to listen to his final living musical statement - itself an accomplishment despite initial negative reviews from contemporary critics -  is humbling, yes; but ultimately uplifting.