Briefly review something you heard recently (or are listening to now)

Romeo + Juliet: Music From The Motion Picture - Volume 2: This was something I found on a cassette at a Goodwill and have been spending the last hour or two transferring to my computer, which gave me a chance to actually listen to it in its entirety. While I had mixed feelings on the Romeo + Juliet movie as a whole, its score is actually pretty damn solid throughout. This soundtrack represents the score (I believe in its entirety, though it's been years since I've seen the movie), whereas Volume 1 was one of those "songs from and inspired by yadda yadda yadda" things. The soundtrack comprises a great mix of styles, in a surprisingly effortless dance between classical compositions, alternative rock and post-rock, and electronic beats and seemingly disco-inspired dance numbers between different tracks.

The one major complaint I have about the album is how they felt the need to layer the movie's dialogue over some of the tracks—while dialogue could've made for nice transitions between the score pieces, they overlap the music on too many occasions. Suffice it to say, I could do without Leonardo Di Caprio screaming in my ears when I'm just trying to appreciate a piece of music. The other minor issue I have is that the way the tracks are broken up seem weird at times, but that's not something anyone is going to be dealing with if they're just listening to the album rather than transferring it like I am.

Overall, I like it.

The Transformers: The Movie soundtrack. When I was in high school, I went on a church group trip and we were paired off with hotel roommates: Mine brought along a big folder of CDs, and one of them was this, and during some downtime he put it on. At the time I didn't get the appeal - It seemed like it was just some obscure hair metal bands, a little bit of score, and one Weird Al song. Listening now, I enjoy it more, I guess because 1) I don't consider myself "too cool" to enjoy hair metal if the hooks and riffs are memorable enough, and 2) I've watched the movie, and the songs are actually pretty well-used in it - they tend to associate songs with characters (well, factions anyway) in a way that works, and I particularly like Stan Bush's "Dare" and "The Touch" being associated with the Autobots and "Weird Al" Yankovic's "Dare To Be Stupid" being associated with the Junkions.

Television - Adventure. So there's a definite reason this is overshadowed by Marquee Moon, but that doesn't mean it's not a good album in itself. And I think the whole idea must have been to try something new rather than trying to either repeat or top that album: It's not a New Sound Album by any means, because the duel guitars and Tom Verlaine's nasally vocals make them hard to mistake for anyone else... But it is generally softer, less dissonant, and just plain poppier than Marquee Moon. Favorite tracks: "Glory", "Days" ^note I can see this one being a big influence on early R.E.M., "Ain't That Nothin'" and "The Dream's Dream". My version has a few bonus tracks, though only one is an actual Cut Song from the album, rather just an alternate version of a song that's already part of the main track-list - it's the Title Track, oddly enough, which I think almost sounds like a Television-ized version of a Creedence Clearwater Revival song. Also of interest is a 10 minute instrumental, jammy version of "Ain't That Nothin'", which showcases the interlocking guitar style more extensively.

edited 5th Mar '16 9:40:35 PM by MikeK

N.W.A - Straight Outta Compton. So, while listening to this in full for the first time, I somehow came to the conclusion that it was "the Never Mind The Bollocks of rap": Two deservedly famous songs surrounded by material that can't help but not quite live up to them ^note I guess in this analogy "Straight Outta Compton" is "Anarchy In The UK" and "Fuck Tha Police" is "God Save The Queen"?, plus a sound that's still harsh enough to be exciting even if the subject matter isn't quite as shocking today as it was the day it came out. The bonus tracks on my copy include extended mixes of "Express Yourself" and the title track ^note "Express Yourself" adds brief cameos for Ice Cube and MC Ren to a song that was originally all Dr. Dre, "Straight Outta Compton" has no such additional lyrics but does add some cool instrumental breaks and Spoken Word in Music, a "Bonus Beats" version of "Express Yourself" ^note Three full minutes of a drum loop from the song, originally intended for DJ use - kind of pointless to listen to, but still useful to use as a digital sample, and the one B-Side from the album that's an actual original song, "A Bitch Iz A Bitch" ^note I have to imagine it was left off the album not because it wasn't good enough, but because it'd be redundant with "I Ain't Tha 1" - both are entirely rapped by Ice Cube and have the same theme of not trusting gold-digging women

edited 26th Mar '16 1:59:11 PM by MikeK

Panic! at the Disco - A Fever You Can't Sweat Out. So I guess I'm developing this weird relationship with 2000's emo (My Chemical Romance, AFI, etc)... It's not really nostalgia because when a lot of this kind of stuff got popular, it was embraced more by the generation after mine and I already thought I was "too cool" for it - It has something to do with finding a surprising amount of these albums on CD at my local library, then attending a local club's "Emo Night" out of curiosity, but other than that I can't say why some of this stuff is suddenly appealing to me. Anyway, the first album I heard of this band was Pretty.Odd, which I tried out due to my fascination with new sound albums, and that one's more to my taste, but I like a few songs off this album too. What's sort of interesting is that in retrospect the Baroque Pop influences of Pretty.Odd didn't entirely come out of nowhere: "There's A Good Reason These Tables Are Numbered Honey, You Just Haven't Thought Of It Yet" features horns, banjos, and generally sounds like a music hall song being played at punk speed, and "Build God Then We'll Talk" features accordion, glockenspiel and cellos, they're just used in the service of what's otherwise a guitar-based emo song.

I think you just convinced me that I should check out that album. (For the record, I've only really listened to Pretty. Odd. as well.)

My main problem with pop-emo from that period is that the songwriting itself tends to be kind of off-putting, much in the way that a lot of early '00s pop-punk has off-putting songwriting. Ironically, the vocals on the former at least embrace the melodrama rather than settling for petulance, which only makes the often poor lyrics just so much worse.

That said, there is stuff in that emotional/sonic wheelhouse that I have a certain affection for. I mean, even ignoring my love for old-school emo (which is extremely different but directly related), a lot of modern post-hardcore and even metalcore is fairly endearing. And as you note, a lot of the more ambitious pop-emo bands weren't afraid to go all out with the goofy orchestrations. Really, the remove from something like the Andrew Jackson Jihad is smaller than it seems.

Celtic Frost - Cold Lake

Given this album's reputation, you'd think Celtic Frost went full-on Poison and/or White Lion with this effort. The truth is, while this is certainly Frost's worst effort (especially considering the two albums before it), the music's actually not bad; it's much closer to something like Iron Maiden or Megadeth than anything coming out of the glam scene at the time, and would have had absolutely no chance at making it big on the radio. I have to give particular praise to songs like "Downtown Hanoi" and "Roses Without Thorns", they're almost downright thrashy.

tl;dr: their worst effort, sure, but it's still not bad.

Weezer - Weezer (The White Album)

I'm really enjoying this so far, I think I like it more than EWBAITE. There isn't a single song on here that I don't like, though Endless Bummer hasn't really grown on me yet. I'm especially excited to see them live on friday, they haven't played The Netherlands since 2001.

Ai o Choudai by AOA ft. Takanori Nishikawa.

The song is very catchy, the instrumentation is kind of drawing me in and unusually powerful for songs of its kind, but it suffers from what's arguably heavily imbalanced vocal mixing. Then again, this is 7 girls to 1 guy, the girls are the very point of the song and the only properly mixed male and female vocals that I have heard is Wimp by BACK-ON feat. Lil' Fang from FAKY and No More by Exile Atsushi and Ai, which are not quite perfect.

edited 15th May '16 5:43:25 AM by murazrai

REM- Murmur

This is REM's debut album released in 1983. This is, quite possibly, one of the best albums I've ever listened to. Even though it was released back in the early 80s, its sound has aged pretty well compared to other albums released during that period. The songs are crafted well and have a tendency to stick in your head for a long time. Michael Stipe's vocals compliment the sound and while you may not understand what he's saying, I feel like this adds more to the charm of the album. I will admit that there are some songs I don't care for, but the rest of the album is great. I recommend it for anyone interested in 80s Alternative Rock.

Favorite songs: Radio Free Europe, Pilgrimage, Sitting Still, Shaking Through, Laughing, Moral Kiosk, Perfect Circle, Catapult, West of the Fields, We Walk

Monsters Of Rap, Vol. 2. A cheap impulse buy from a thrift shop - this was apparently one of those mail order CDs you used to see commercials for in the 2000's. This kind of has the typical selection these kind of things have: If an artist is kind of a One-Hit Wonder their best known song appears (e.g. "Rico Suave" by Gerardo, "Tennessee" by Arrested Development), but when the occasional bigger name turns up, it's one of their relatively lesser-known hits (Salt N Pepa are represented by "Do You Really Want Me" instead of, say "Push It" or "Let's Talk About Sex", and even the M.C. Hammer selection is "Pray", not "Can't Touch This"). So not a definitive "old school hip hop" primer whatsoever, but a pretty fun listen and at the time it was probably a good thing to throw on at a party and/or a good way to grab those few stray tracks you needed to DJ a late-80's or early 90's dance night. New guilty pleasure: "Wipe Out" by The Fat Boys featuring The Beach Boys. Worst song on the album: "Tic Tac Toe" by Kyper, which is sort of saying something when an album also includes "Rico Suave".

The Avalanches - Frankie Sinatra.

The first single from what's going to be their first album in 16 years. It's pretty weird, but it's growing on me: It's almost nothing like Since I Left You, but does remind me of the Early-Installment Weirdness of El Producto, and not necessarily just because it prominently includes rapping by special guests Danny Brown and MF Doom ^note though in this context, Danny Brown's high pitched, slurry delivery does sort of make me think of the rapping style on that album.

I'm trying to only listen to music from 1965 for the span of at least two weeks: I explained it elsewhere, but basically a friend of mine proposed a game where you put a span of years when music was being recorded into a hat, pull one out, and listen exclusively to stuff from that year until you think you've exhausted your options. Here's a few recent 1965 selections I've made:

The Yardbirds - For Your Love. Their first proper album was also the one where Eric Clapton left partway through because he felt the direction they were heading in was straying too far away from blues rock. I enjoy this stuff, but I kind of see his point because it's a little odd to start out doing all blues/r and b covers and then end up being one of the first bands to record "Hang On Sloopy" a year later.

The Beach Boys - Summer Days (And Summer Nights!!). The last proper studio album before Pet Sounds is a good listen, albeit with only a couple hints at future greatness: "Let Him Run Wild" and "Summer Means New Love" particularly feel like they could fit in on Pet Sounds, while the rest of the album shows the arrangement and production development, if not always the lyrical maturity of that album.

The Fugs - The Fugs First Album. Weirdly both "of its time" and "ahead of its time" to my ears. That is, it's definitely rooted in beatnik culture, but you can hear future elements of punk, "lo-fi", Alternative Rock, Garage Rock etc, and it's definitely far outside the mainstream so far as the year it was released is concerned. At the time they were sort of considered a "folk" band, but even then it's pretty weird to think of this as being from around the same time, say, Peter Paul And Mary or Simon & Garfunkel would be considered the most recognizable acts in that genre.

7.H Target, 0.00 Apocalypse (Sevared Records, 2014).

And no fucks were given, on that day or any other, and all was well.

Gloriously indulgent.

Radiohead – Coke Babies

Another proof that non-album tracks are not in any way inferior.

My listening schedule suddenly jumped forward from 1965 to 1993:

Jellyfish - Spilt Milk. I first discovered this about 10 or so years ago - I can remember seeing someone on a Weezer message board talking it up, then happening to find it in a used CD store a while later. I love it, but it was probably destined to be a cult album to begin with - it's sort of an ambitious (and surprisingly successful) attempt to blend the styles of Sergeant Pepper, SMiLE and A Night At The Opera, and all of those albums are things that are beloved by rock music buffs but weren't exactly hip to emulate in '93.

Blur - Modern Life Is Rubbish. This, Parklife, and The Great Escape are sort of considered a "trilogy" - I like Parklife the best of the three, but I can tell why this is the one where people started to take them seriously.

Duran Duran - Duran Duran (aka "The Wedding Album"). You can tell they were consciously trying to bring their sound into the 90's here, but it works: There's some sampling, some house-ish rhythms, some Alternative Dance-ish guitar effects, and even Simon Lebon attempting a rap-ish vocal delivery a couple of times, but it's still a Duran Duran album at it's core. The big hits were "Ordinary World" and "Come Undone", and on first listen there's nothing quite as memorable as those songs, but it's an enjoyable listen nevertheless.

My 1993 "to listen" list is pretty heavy on Alternative Rock and Hip-Hop, so I made a conscious effort to pick out some more "pop" stuff to listen to these past few days:

Ace of Base - The Sign (aka Happy Nation). I owned the cassingle of "The Sign" in 1993, and there was a point where I got bored with the a-side, and started listening to the somewhat darker sounding B-Side, "Young And Proud". It turns out those two songs kind of sum up the sound of the whole album - it's split about half and half between Euro Pop with a reggae-ish beat and stuff that, while definitely still in the Euro Pop genre, is dark and "futuristic" sounding enough that the fact that an early version of the band was named Tech-Noir makes sense.

Janet Jackson - Janet.. I really like the densely layered dance tracks on this one ("If" and "This Time" in particular being standouts). The ballads I'm a bit less enamored of, because they tend to well-constructed but a bit too in the adult contemporary vein for my liking (especially "Again"). Elsewhere there's some cool genre throwbacks to 60's soul ("What'll I Do", aided by Stax house guitarist Steve Cropper) and Girl Group music ("Whoops Now").

Sheryl Crow - Tuesday Night Music Club. So, I loved "On The Outside" from the The X-Files tie-in album Songs In The Key Of X and wondered whether anything else in her early career would have that sort of dark, hazy feel to it: On this album only "We Do What We Can" comes close, but from some of the other tracks here I can sort of see why she was slotted onto a compilation that was otherwise heavy on Alternative Rock: Compared to the biggest hits ("All I Wanna Do" and "Strong Enough"), there's sort of a rough-around-the-edges quality to the rest of the album... Plus there's a couple of semi-arty genre experiments, like the Bob Dylan-inspired Word Salad Lyrics rapping of "The Na Na Song" ^note which is better than I just made it sound - it's total Album Filler material, but it's fun and one of the biggest signs that the album was built around informal jam sessions

Other than still being stuck on 1993, I decided on an additional theme for today, which is compilations/soundtracks:

Judgment Night soundtrack. I've never seen the movie, but generally know that people seem to care about the Cult Soundtrack much more than the actual film. The theme was to have Alternative Rock and Heavy Metal bands work with rap groups. To my ears the most successful pairings are Teenage Fan Club and De La Soul ("Falling"), Cypress Hill and Sonic Youth ("I Love You Mary Jane"), and Sir Mix-A-Lot and Mudhoney ("Freak Momma"). If there's a weakness overall, it's that a few tracks just sound like the rock band tossed off an instrumental in one session, then sent it off to the rap group to do whatever they wanted with it, which leads to some fairy generic Rap Metal results... Though even then, "Another Body Murdered" (Faith No More and Boo-Ya T.R.I.B.E.) is one of the clearest cases of this, but still manages to be distinctive because of Roddy Bottum's keyboards and Mike Patton's backing vocals/unintelligible screaming.

No Alternative. Of these albums, this is the one that you're most likely going to see in a thrift store, and that probably has a lot to do with the fact that it had a previously unreleased Nirvana song ("Verse Chorus Verse", aka "Sappy"). The Nirvana track in question is on the With The Lights Out box set, Pavement's "Unseen Power Of The Picket Fence" is on the Crooked Rain Crooked Rain reissue, and I suspect most of the other exclusive songs by the best-known artists are bonus track fodder for album reissues too, making this not really a must-own anymore. On the other hand, there are some quality tracks by somewhat lesser known bands (Buffalo Tom, American Music Club, Urge Overkill) that make it worth hearing if you're big into 90's alternative/indie and want to find some more artists to dig into.

Sweet Relief. I tend to heavily associate this with the above compilation just because they're benefit albums released within the same year with three separate artists in common (Matthew Sweet, Buffalo Tom and Soul Asylum). This is more cohesive by virtue of being a tribute album of a specific songwriter - everyone puts their own spin on Victoria Williams' material, but she's a distinctive, quirky songwriter with certain themes running through her work, so it all sort of feels of a piece, even when her normal Folk Rock style gets deconstructed into Post-Hardcore by Shudder To Think.

I actually have that No Alternative compilation, picked it up for 50 cents in my local record store a couple years back and been meaning to listen to it for some time now.

It's certainly a far more successful attempt at what it does than Jellyfish's first album (Bellybutton), which has some good songs on it but doesn't quite have the production, instrumentation, or catchy hooks necessary to elevate it like Spilt Milk does. I'd recommend it, though, as it is of historical interest especially if you're into power pop.

Cypress Hill - Black Sunday. Largely a retread of their debut album (in fact, one track is a re-recorded song from the first album), but there's little drop-off in quality. They aren't just associated with pot culture for the lyrics, but because the music just sounds stoned - Aside from B-Real's (self-described) "high and annoying" vocal delivery, the main thing that makes them stand out is the lazy yet menacing feel of DJ Muggs' beats.

Onyx - Bacdafucup. You could maybe point to this as the roots behind the hoarse, gruff delivery favored by the likes of DMX and Ja Rule... The difference is that they're just flat-out screaming their lyrics most of the time. When the lyrics, production, and vocal style come together, you really do get this impression of these four completely insane men who are ready to to deliver a group beat-down at the slightest provocation. When they don't, it becomes a little silly, but no less entertaining for it. My favorite example of the latter sort of thing is "Bitchassbootleguz", a 27 second song/interlude where they express their ire at music bootleggers. Sample (read: only) lyric: Ya bitch-ass bootlegger motherfucker sellin' my tape! / ya get shot!".

Various Artists - Velvet Goldmine Soundtrack. I've never actually seen this movie, so I'm coming at it as a fan of Glam Rock and Alternative Rock (the soundtrack is primarily a mix of 70's glam, alternative rock musicians doing glam covers, and alternative rock musicians doing new original songs that are meant to be in the 70's glam style). One sort of interesting thing is that they got together one supergroup of British musicians (billed as The Venus In Furs) to do early Roxy Music covers (plus one by Brian Eno solo) and another of American musicians to do The Stooges covers (only one of which made the album). I never expected Thom Yorke to be able to do such a good impression of Bryan Ferry.

The Temptations - The Ultimate Collection. There are Greatest Hits Albums where all the songs are so "of a piece" with each other that they practically feel like regular albums, and ones that show a group gradually changing their sound. This is the latter - the first 12 tracks are straight-up Motown-sound love songs and breakup songs, but from there the music starts getting funkier and the lyrics sometimes more socially conscious... and then the last two tracks ^note not counting a bonus acapella snippet of Signature Song "My Girl", showing off their way with harmonies are from the mid-80's and the early 90's, respectively, and definitely show it: The 80's track, "Treat Her Like A Lady", is an upbeat danceable love song that reminds me of New Edition, while the 90's track, "The Error Of Our Ways", is kind of an "adult contemporary r & b" ballad about social issues that could be compared to Boys II Men. In my opinion the eighties track works far better, but it's still kind of laudable that they changed their production and arrangements for the times and still sounded like themselves.

edited 6th Jan '17 9:27:46 AM by MikeK

Parallel Lines - every song on this album is a sweet New Wave cut. But I don't like Fade; Blondie isn't good at slow-paced songs. Overall score: 8.5/10.

Disraeli Gears - Good album. Classic Psychedelic Rock (it did come out in 1967, after all).

edited 6th Feb '17 7:22:56 PM by DreamCord

I did the "pick a year out of a hat" thing again and got 1992. For the time being I'm going to only post here about stuff I'm listening to for the first time here:

Green Day - Kerplunk. Their last "indie" release (before moving from Lookout! to Reprise for Dookie), and at this point they were just as good at writing catchy pop-punk as they were on that album, but it sounds a lot like it was made on a much smaller budget, which it probably was. Production-wise the main thing that irks me is that the guitars are way too distant and tinny sounding (although that does make the bass guitar stand out more, if you're a fan of Mike Dirnt's bass-lines). It's also sort of interesting that "Words I Might Have Ate" reminds me a lot of the kind of stuff they'd be doing on Warning due to being uptempo but based around acoustic guitar (although, unfortunately due to aforementioned production, you can barely hear the acoustic guitar part).

Cannibal Corpse - Tomb Of The Mutilated. So I'm kind of new to the whole death metal thing. More often or not I appreciate it on a purely visceral level more than I actually understand what they're doing musically, although every song here has at least one small section that makes me think "Oh hey, this is a guitar riff".

Moby - Moby. Moby views this as a compilation, considers Everything Is Wrong his real first album, and at the time was upset that the label put it out without his permission. It's really good, well-arranged techno/rave music, but I can see his point because it doesn't always flow well as an album - in particular putting too many uptempo tracks right next to each other on the track-list makes the material sound less diverse than it really is.

edited 11th Feb '17 4:28:31 PM by MikeK