The TV Tropes Album Exchange Club

Well I've heard Here Comes The Warm Jets by Eno before, and I really liked it and it's glam rockosity (that is a word). Not sure if I like Ambient music....but let's give it a shot.

Sky Saw: Really like dat bass. Not sure about the violas and vocals...I can definitely understand why this is called "art rock", this might be a bit of a bumpy ride for me.

Over Fire Island: Well whatever complains I may have about this album when this is over, at least I can say this. The bass is so nice. So niiice.

St Elmo's Fire: Oh noo the artsiness! The artsiness!!! It's gonna be one of THOSE albums isn't it. All avant garde and stuff....hmm. After my initials fears from the starting point, this became better than I was expecting but. I still worry for the future. Is this gonna have a load of noise rock tunes...

In Dark Times: I miss the glam rock of his first album.

The Big Ship: Meh.

I'll come Running: Pffft ok this is my fav track so far. It's got a fun honky tonk piano in it and stupid lyrics. Also it has a more conventional song structure to it and i don't care how much of a music novice it makes me look like but I LIKE THAT IN SONGS. I guess it looks like I'm not really a fan of art rock that doesn't involve David Bowie.

Another Green World: Oh this is nice. This is pretty decent. Shame by the time i've written these words it's almost over.

okay bored of typing the same things over and over

My reaction to this album is one of disinterest and meh. There aren't really any songs that I paticularly like, and some that I do find rather hard to listen to without getting distracted by something else. I much much prefer his debut album and his work with David Bowie over this, and i

can't really think of anything to say. Just. Meh. Didn't like it.

Not many people realize, 50 Cent is half man, half cossack. - Ross Noble

Yeah, I can see where "I'll Come Running" would end up being someone's favorite track if they weren't much for ambient or "art rock". I think I actually hated that song the first time 'round, but now I've grown to like it - the piano part makes it awfully catchy, and the album sort of needs something poppy and a little goofy in the middle to break things up.

edited 29th Apr '12 10:55:05 PM by MikeK

Earth is the only planet inhabitable by Nicolas Cage.

I'm back and I've listened to the album three times and this is what I thought:

"Sky Saw" is pretty cool. That repeating melody (Is it synth? Guitar? I can't tell.) is bizarre and catchy at the same time. Is that a violin freaking out at the end? Unfortunately the singing is kind of lame.

"Over Fire Island" is jazzy and cool. I wish it could have been longer.

I was pretty disappointed the first time I ever heard "St. Elmo's Fire". It was years ago; the way the song had been hyped, I was expecting it be cure for cancer in song form. Listening to it now, without those ridiculous expectations, I really like the song, and understand why those guys were hyping it so much. That really is a good guitar solo.

"In Dark Trees" and "The Big Ship".... So was Eno the secret godfather of Post-Rock or something?

"I'll Come Running": I'd say the guitar solo saves this one. I really don't care much for the vocal melody... and the chorus is a freakin Ear Worm which just makes it worse.

"Another Green World" sounds more like a fragment than a song in itself.

I'd like these instrumental tracks if more of them were as good as "Sombre Reptiles".

Yeah, the last third of the album just kind of runs together. I've listened to the album three times, and all I can remember of the end is a blur of quiet songs. The third time I listened, I was surprised that "Golden Hours" and "Everything Merges with the Night" actually had singing.

In short: Starts off really good, but loses steam half or two-thirds through.

I didn't write any of that.

Should we move on? There was a week long gap between the last two responses, and it doesn't seem like anyone has anything else to say...

Not many people realize, 50 Cent is half man, half cossack. - Ross Noble

The next album of the round is Orbital - The Middle of Nowhere. PM me for the link, if you want it.

You can't even write racist abuse in excrement on somebody's car without the politically correct brigade jumping down your throat!

Oh boy oh boy.

I'ma spoiler my overall thoughts on this album so anyone who'd prefer to go into this blind can do so. The Middle of Nowhere is Orbital's fifth album (excluding their soundtrack work). It's easy to overlook because it's sandwiched right between In Sides (generally considered their best album ever) and The Altogether (considered by critics to be their worst album ever). I love this this album just as much as the aforementioned In Sides, and it strikes me as a more accessible starting point, seeing as it's shorter and less ambient.

Also, I've been rather negative towards most of the clubby electronic albums we've listened to in prior rounds. So by making you lot listen to this clubby electronic album, I suppose I'm trying to prove that I don't dislike the genre on principle, and possibly demonstrating why I disliked all those other ones.

I love the Hartnoll brothers' songwriting. They don't just throw beats and hooks at their audience; they develop melodies and harmonies in a strangely organic fashion. (Some tracks, like "Spare Parts Express", have segments that sound wildly different from each other when taken out of context, but every transition between point A and point Z sounds perfectly natural when you listen to the song as a whole.) The song lengths tie in with this: with every song here over five minutes long, the arrangements have lots of breathing room; conversely, this dynamicism is what keeps the 15-minute "Nothing Left" from getting boring.

I didn't write any of that.

I always get Orbital and The Orb mixed up, as they're both British electronic acts with somewhat similar names that started out in the 90's who I really only know one song each by ("The Box" and "Fluffy Little Clouds"). Oh, also throw Orbit in there even though they were an American Alternative Rock band. Anyway, I quite enjoyed this album - there's kind of a beautiful but slightly eerie vibe to it all ("Way Out" kinda makes me think of 50's sci-fi movie scores), and I also like how well-composed and structured these songs are. Oh, and hey, turns out this was one of those albums Allison Goldfrapp did guest vocals for before starting her own project.

edited 13th May '12 6:59:26 PM by MikeK

Earth is the only planet inhabitable by Nicolas Cage.

Further compounding the confusion between The Orb and Orbital, both of them have released remixes labeled "Orbital Remix".

By the way, which version of "The Box" were you familiar with?

Alison Goldfrapp also provided vocals for Orbital's prior albums Snivilisation and In Sides, although these were 100% scatting.

edited 13th May '12 7:33:55 PM by MetaFour

I didn't write any of that.

Seems like it was the 4 minute "radio edit" version - this local "alternative rock" station near me used to play it, which is a little weird, although that was right around the time techno was crossing over to rock radio due to Fatboy Slim, The Prodigy, and the like.

Earth is the only planet inhabitable by Nicolas Cage.

Yet again, my album is the thread killer...

I didn't write any of that.

Everyone's album has been a thread killer lately.

Video Game Census. Please contribute.

oh hey it's that guy

The lack of headphones is inhibiting my listening habits a bit, since I can't exactly be listening to acid house and baroque pop with my family listening...

You can't even write racist abuse in excrement on somebody's car without the politically correct brigade jumping down your throat!

Okay, Orbital. I've listened to an Orbital album before. I can't remember which one but it started with "where time becomes a loop" on a loop or some shit. I didn't really like it. Hopefully I enjoy this one more.

And since no matter what I do, I come to hate my previous way of reviewing an album. I'll just keep my comment until the end this time...

... 64 minutes later: Yep. That was pretty good. I liked it. But nothing really stood out about it. It was light and fun and I enjoyed it. It was a really appropriate album for such a sunny day. I probably won't ever listen to it again though. Overall a good album that I don't have too much to really say about. It might be the favourite so far.

edited 18th May '12 12:20:09 PM by Somtt

Ah, that would be Orbital II aka The Brown Album. The loop you mentioned was Phil and Paul Hartnoll trolling their listeners. Their first, also self-titled, album began with the Worf quote about time becoming looped; so they started their second album off with the same quote and looped it—all to make fans who'd bought the second album initially think they had accidentally bought a mispressed copy of the first album.

I like the sound of Orbital II, but Orbital's songwriting back then wasn't nearly as good as what they would eventually do on In Sides and The Middle of Nowhere. (Except for "Halcyon + On + On". That song is ace.)

edited 18th May '12 1:49:05 PM by MetaFour

I didn't write any of that.

@Mike K wait they arent the same thing?

huh

So yeah I forgot about this accidentally. oops. Let's continue with a listen shall we.

Way Out —> This is already sounding more like my kind of electronic music, in that is uses obvious samples. That combined with the more upbeat production style and man i'm digging it. It has space agey moogy sounds! This is much better! YES IM HAPPY. Of course there are random female wordless vocals, it's electronic music. This is good fun music. Good fuun. The absolute clicheness of the vocals is kinda making it not so good, but apart from that it's nice. Nice tune.

Space Parts Express: Started off pretty annoying, but as the extra parts start coming in and and the main riff starts to vary all over the place, it gets much better. I can dig it. This is fun. fuun. Nice and bouncy. Sorta reminds me of Super Meat Boy music in the 2nd half. That's a good thing. There are some annoying sections again, some synths which are just Nasty but its still nice.

Know Where To Run. Meh.

I don't know you people: aww yeahh, it started off rather slow, but then it got funkeeyyy. and then it all seems to slow down and start to breakdown, and thn keyyyyboarrrds aww yeaaaah. This song has a lot of variety to it, which is nice. It doesn't stay on one section for too long before mixing it up, which is what the last song was missing.

Otono: Not too fond of this one. Still nice and upbeat though.

Nothing Left 1: ...Strangely atmospheric at the start. Not as fond of this as I was some of the others, but it's okay. Pleasing to listen to. also it moved onto part 2 at some point without me noticing so im not writing a seperate review for that.

Haha, Style sounds like a MIDI version of a Pet Shop Boys song. It got better as it progressed, but sort of an anticlimax compared to some other tunes.

that was nice fun. Can't say i'll ever listen to it again, but good fun nontheless. Maybe my fav album so far in this round. I'd say the first half was much better than the 2nd half, but it was listnable throughout. I enjoyed the variety of them, how it didn't repeat too much without changing something. Very nice.

Not many people realize, 50 Cent is half man, half cossack. - Ross Noble

This album did not really manage to impress me much. It's certainly creative, and it plays around well with a few things - "I Don't Know You People" in particular had a good combination of various noises that I wouldn't have thought worked so well together - but it's somewhat lackluster overall. That one song was the highlight of it, but I only even got there through sheer determination. In any other situation, the first two tracks would have made me lose interest.

Another more specific criticism would be of Otono (insert squiggle above n), wherein the high-pitched noise that is present throughout the song nearly gave me a headache.

When the mixing works, it works well here and produces a nice sound that is pleasant and upbeat to listen to, but when they get it wrong, it comes off as a cacophony more than a song.

I've found that I prefer techno songs with meaningless lyrics, considering how painful the results can be when techno musicians attempt real lyrics.

The main instrument they used on that track was a stylophone.

You think it's anticlimactic, but I like it when the penultimate song on an album is some crazy epic thing, while the final song is something more subdued so the listener's brain isn't left gasping for breath when the album ends.

I didn't write any of that.

Oh dang, a Stylophone? Ahaha, those are those things Rolf Harris used to use all the time. That's wonderful. That cheered me right up.

Not many people realize, 50 Cent is half man, half cossack. - Ross Noble

I think that week of silence means it's time to move on.

To some up btw: fun album. probably my fav of the round so far. I give it a thumbs up.

So. shall we move on?

Not many people realize, 50 Cent is half man, half cossack. - Ross Noble

I concur

...What do we do? Should someone else choose the next album or something?...

Not many people realize, 50 Cent is half man, half cossack. - Ross Noble

I'll get to choosing a new one when I have download links readily available.

You can't even write racist abuse in excrement on somebody's car without the politically correct brigade jumping down your throat!

Ohhhh I forgot about this! I did listen to the album but I didn't type up anything about it. It's decent, but I think dated. Maybe this will swing around to being influential instead of just dated in a few years but right now is probably a bad time to be interacting with this kind of electronic music.

That said, for what it was, it was good, nice sense of momentum and kept it rolling and fun throughout the album. "Know Where to Run" was the highlight of the album for me. Not terribly impressed but at the same time I wouldn't mind diving into some more electronic music because that's a big blind spot in my musical listening.

http://www.last.fm/user/TRILLHOUSE_

Dated, how so?

I dunno, I'm kind of an idealist in that I think good music never goes out of style, and in any case I've been out of touch with the musical mainstream ever since third-wave ska fell out of popularity.

Back in Orbital's and techno's heyday I hated almost all electronic music; I only got into them within the last two years. Meanwhile, the electronic music that does seem to have some mainstream popularity right now (dubstep, Justice, and Deadmau5, as far as I can tell) I'm largely "meh" about.

*highfive* It's my fave track, too. But by the same token, I'm glad it's the only song on the album in that style; I don't think I would enjoy a full hour of that. I'd also probably like the song better if the intro were cut in half or so.

I didn't write any of that.

(sorry for the late reply, this topic is kind of dead and I don't bother to check up on it often!)

I meant "dated" in the sense that you wouldn't hear that kind of electronic music being in vogue today, plus the production seemed very late-90s to me in a way I can't quite put my finger on.

But I didn't let that affect my appreciation of the sounds and melodies they were creating, of course. It just seemed like a break from the electronic music I'm used to listening to (which is either from the 70s or very modern).

http://www.last.fm/user/TRILLHOUSE_