The TV Tropes Album Exchange Club

Billy Talent. Huh, interesting.

@Sati: if people are willing to make a track by track commentary, that's great, but I'm not going to require it. Sometimes I prefer to hear what people think of the album as a whole, too.

Also, is it okay if I move your choice to the next rotation? We're almost done with this one.

I have heard this band on the radio before, and am therefore obligated to dislike them.

To be serious, though - it's a punk rock album. Just straightforward punk rock pretty much. I don't personally care for it very much but it's still good punk rock. A case of my personal preference rather than there actually being anything wrong with the music. So yeah.

Bit of a blast from the past though, it's the kind of thing my sister used to like back in high school, heh heh. Good Charlotte, Jimmy Eat World, that sort of thing.

Ultimately I think this is going to be a repeat of what happened when I listened to Captain Beefheart's Trout Mask Replica - I enjoyed it, but I never listened to it again. XD

edited 26th Oct '10 9:00:32 PM by Zudak

You know, I was like that once (if it's on the radio, it sucks). I'm so glad I grew out of that.

Er, I was just joking about that bit... O__o

I'm listening to the album right now, in an hour or so I will give my track by track analysis (including a summary about the album as a whole), and then we can move on to the next one.

Billy Talent - Billy Talent

Punk rock is not really my cup of tea, but I gave this album two listens and here is my track by track on it:

Track 1 - It's an upbeat punk song, with a nice instrumental vibe to it. I really liked this track and had some hopes up for the rest of the album.

Track 2 - Switching the tempo back a bit was I think a not so good choice. The vocals are not suited to that style, and this track overally comes off as a bland experiment to create something gripping - although the chorus switches back to punk. I have mixed feelings about the track in general.

Track 3 - The lyrics and the vocals are a bit painful in this one, but overall a decent track. I did not really mind the changes in tempo in this one.

Track 4 - I can't stand the vocals in this one, the singer hits some notes which send the hairs on my back standing up... No. This is overall a poor track, it doesn't even has potential as a punk song.

Track 5 - Again the singer tries to provide this mellow ballad-like singing, and fails at it. You need a better voice to pull something like this off, and if you don't have that better voice, than don't do this, just do something like Track 1, which doesn't have that many problems musically. This does. Instrumentally, it has some nice guitars, but that's it. I don't like this one.

Track 6 - The singer doesn't really try to sing in this one, so that' a plus (really ), and this track overall is a decent experience. Not too memorable, but not that awful either. I would say that I don't like this track because I don't like punk.

Track 7 - Nice beat and rhytm, the vocals are somehow improved by the guitars in the background (that's exactly what I was saying before: if you don't have the voice, then make up for it instrumentally, and try to trick your audience into believing that you have - excellent concept, and it works). Sadly, the occasional screaming is painful and overall drags this track down. But it is still a nice song.

Track 8 - Stats out awful (they should not give the singer dominance!), continues even worse. At the middle, it has some nice guitars, but it's too little to save the track. It has screaming, screechy chorus and a forgettable instrumental part. Not good.

Track 9 - Considering the genre, it's a good song. It has all the characteristics of a punk song, and I don't really like punk, so I don't like this. No serious problems with this one musically, at least not much I can detect.

Track 10 - Starts out instrumentally excellently, the guitars are rockin' awesome in this one. Sadly, the singer joins, and begins screaming. I don't like it. The instrumental part keeps its consistency though, so much so that the vocal is almost not enough to ruin the track. But in the long run, sadly it is. An excellent song dragged down to mediocre grounds. Pity.

Track 11 - Another great guitar opening, and background, but the singer again ruins the whole thing. Notice a pattern yet? The chorus is downright awful in this one, especially compared to the rest of the song...

Track 12 - This doesn't even start good, so the singer can't really make it worse. Other than that, for a punk song it's ok in general, but as I said before, I don't like punk.

Overall, this album has really nice guitars and instrumental parts, and I like Track 1 very much, but many songs are ruined by the awful vocals on it. I know that punk singers shouldn't be that good vocally as singers in other genres, but I just can't stand bad singing, not even in punk songs.

I will give more listens to the album, before I decide which tracks to keep from it though.

I like Billy Talent's singer...

YMMV.

Did not like Billy Talent.

Maybe I'm just not a fan of punk, because all the punk albums I really like are punk plus something else, not straight punk.

I'm going to have to wait for this Internal Service Error to go away before listening to the album. There's a chance I'll like it maybe, since I have no problem with punk.

The url in the link is messed up, I think? When I strip out the "&index=" from the end, it works fine, but cues up over 20 songs.

Well, I was going to say that this was good stuff, but after listening a bit longer, I found that it was more there were a few tracks that I liked and the general feeling is pretty meh. The first couple of tracks on the playlist were the kind of music I could get behind, though. Nothing special, but I could see it on my playlist. Try Honesty was not my thing but bearable. River Down was just bad. So was Cut the Curtains. Prisoners of Today has good instrumentals, but the singing doesn't quite work with them. The shout sections are pretty good, though.

edited 27th Oct '10 11:07:06 PM by arks

I'm curious about what is your problem with Cut the Curtains? It's IMO the best on the album, that's why I'm interested in an explanation.

First off, it's sparse, consisting of drums and a single guitar line for much of the song. Now sparse can be done very well, but it needs something to support it, and the melodies and ideas presented aren't enough to make the track interesting. It becomes repetitive after just a small amount of time as well. If you understand the ideas after hearing them once, any other repetitions become tedious unless something substantial changes. (It doesn't take much to make a substantial change, just the right thing needs to change, and lyrics are rarely that thing, at least with me). The melody sits almost entirely within a fifth, which doesn't give me much variety there either.

tl;dr The hook doesn't hook me, and I can't find much else of interest in the rest of the song.

edited 28th Oct '10 3:50:48 AM by arks

Thanks for the detailed explanation!

As for repetitiveness, what do you think about this track? I think this is the song which represents the "perfect buildup", since the whole track builds up slowly with gradual, subtle changes. It's truly a "science" of some sort

I recommend you to give it a listen, even if you don't like the genre (electronica/alternative).

About Cut the Courtains, I basically agree with you objectively, but subjectively since I liked the hook and the chorus, I still say it works for me

When the "guitars" came in at 0:56, it was a bit jarring. Other than that, it works.

By the way, I'm watching Alice Comedies while trying to find albums to suggest in the future. The cartoons are so surreal any music works with them. (Seriously, they're fucked up, especially if you allow yourself to start thinking).

edited 28th Oct '10 4:41:24 AM by arks

I'm not familiar with Alice Comedies. And I have many-many albums in my head I will recommend in future rounds

When will the next album be chosen?

Thursday night or Friday morning.

Still listening to Billy Talent, so if you're going to pick the new album tonight, a little more time please.

Late reply is late, but I'm finally listening to Girl Talk: Feed the Animals. I find myself agreeing with Zudak. I don't care much for the rearrangements; I don't care much for the songs being sampled; and for the songs I do like, I'd rather just listen to the original versions.

I have no problem with sample-based music in general.

Track one: Pretty good. Main riff is ear-pleasing, lyrics are tolerable, but the vocalist is very no. Let's see what changes.

Track two: Oh hey, the vocalist is less annoying. Other than that, my sentiments remain much the same.

Track three: Uh, okay, this is getting just a tad homogenous.

Okay, no, it's a little harder, but the lyrics are sort of incoherent here. He thinks his father is a liar...? I dunno.

Track four: The use of metaphor in the lyrics is kinda hamfisted but otherwise pretty good. The chorus kinda reminds me of 'One Armed Scissor', same rhythm and basic melody.

Track five: I really like the chorus, the backup vocalist shouting "Lies!" makes a nice effect for some reason. Pretty meh other wise.

This album's been alternating between "good" and "meh" a lot. C'mon guys, impress me.

Track six: Oh god, the inevitable ridiculously bitter and somewhat creepy breakup song. Maybe if I close my ears it'll go away...

Track seven: I think whoever wrote this song may have just regurgitated their angst onto a piece of paper for this songs, took a stock guitar chug riff and called it a day. Not good.

Track eight: I don't even know.

Track nine: Huh, I actually kind of like the guitar line on this song. It doesn't vary much in pitch but it's interesting rhythmically. And holy crap there was an actual solo haha wow.

Track ten: Best song so far. The instrumental and the vocals mesh together really nice here, and it actually sounds somewhat distinctive now! The lyrics are also nice here.

The last shout section was the highest point of the album.

Track eleven: The instrumental is nice, but the lyrics are sorta forgettable. They should've switched ten and eleven around, this song is a rather lackluster finish to the album.

Overall: Meh. The instrumental are samey (but catchy), the lyrics are standard "Oh what a world we live in" fare (in fact, I liked "Prisoners of Today" so much because it was more proactive than the others), and there were no real stand-out tracks to speak of. 2/5.

Well, since Wicked has expressed his opinion, I guess it's time for a new album. The next album will be chosen on Sunday Night or Monday morning. Two albums left.

Random Number Generator says "3," which is Venetian Snares - Huge Chrome Cylinder Box Unfolding. This was suggested by Guitar Bizarre, who is no longer with us, and he neglected to provide us a link. If someone else can, that would be great. I'm going to sleep on it now and see what the situation is when I wake up.

This post was thumped by the Shillelagh of Whackingness

I'm already a bit familiar with Venetian Snares. His stuff is a bit hit-or-miss for me, but I do like Cylinder Box and share Guitar's opinion that it's his best album. His brand of spastic glitchy electronica doubtless won't appeal to everyone here, though.