Trying to get holiday-ish:
Lindsey Stirling - Warmer In The Winter. This soundtracked my holiday decorating and worked very nicely. Helps the violin is kind of inherently Christmas-y to me as an instrument somehow.
Bad Religion - Christmas Songs. Hilarious as it is to see those two phrases together, this is played about as straight as an album of Punk Rock Christmas carols can be. They've tried to render these songs in their trademark style, and it works because vocal harmonies are one of their trademarks. Some of the more somber-sounding carols they do sound just like something they would have written anyway - "God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen" is a good example.
Various - Hanukkah +. I pretty much have a Pop-Cultural Osmosis understanding of Hanukkah and no personal connection to the holiday. However, this was a fun listen due to having good songs in a variety of styles. I guess the thing with Christmas music is even if you do an original song it had to have a certain "Christmas-y" feel in arrangement/production- there aren't as many hannukah songs, so they can sorta sound like anything I guess. Also notable for Jack Black hamming his way through two Jewish children's songs (one hannukah one, one bonus passover one).
Bob Dylan - Christmas In The Heart. One of my favorite Christmas albums for the So Bad, It's Good factor - Dylan is a great songwriter but doesn't exactly have the kind of voice you'd expect to hear crooning Christmas songs. Still he comes off as so sincere about it that by the end of the album there's a sort of Narm Charm to it.
Edited by MikeK on Dec 23rd 2019 at 10:17:10 AM
I picked a new year and it's 2007:
Avril Lavigne - The Best Damn Thing. I don't see myself listening to this again, as it's decidedly not for me, but for what it is, it's pretty good. Looking at youtube comments on videos from the album, I get the appeal of songs like the title track - if you're not in the target audience it can seem bratty and simplistic, but she was kind of showing teen girls who didn't relate to the other pop stars of the time that you can be yourself and be confident about it. Also, this made me weirdly nostalgic even though I didn't like it at the time, just because it now seems like the late 2000s were the last time you could hear songs with distorted guitars on top 40 radio.
Rivers Cuomo- Alone: The Home Recordings. This is arguably cheating because this is a collection of demos recorded between 1992 and 2005. However, none were officially released until 2007, and I usually try to include Weezer-related stuff in these listening binges. Definitely just for Weezer fans, but there's a lot of great songwriting if you can get past the frequent lo-fi production. I say if you end up loving The Blue Album and Pinkerton you owe it to yourself to check this out, alongside the deluxe versions of those albums that came out a while after this.
MGMT - Oracular Spectacular. Is it possible to have three Black Sheep Hits, all from the same album no less? I'd argue MGMT managed to here - "Time To Pretend", "Kids" and "Electric Feel" all have Synth-Pop or dance music elements, they were the "hits" off this album, and they're surrounded by a bunch of psychedelic rock songs you probably couldn't dance to. I liked the album and still do, but some people probably felt there was some bait and switch going on.
Edited by MikeK on Jan 3rd 2020 at 5:08:01 AM
Honey, I Miss You
By Bobby Goldsboro is a song I heard for the first time on an oldies music channel, and... it really perked my interest due to it's content.
Reading comments on Youtube, many view this song as a simple tune about a man mourning the death of his wife (or girlfriend, the song doesn't really specify the marital status), and many talk about how they relate to it due to they themselves having lost a significant other.
However, some of the lyrics really put me off. The narrator seems to treat his wife without much respect, like makes fun of things that interest her, laughs at her when she almost hurts herself from falling, pretends to act angry when she "wrecked the car", etc. There is also someone on the Song Meanings website echoes my thoughts in one post.
Then there's the question of how did the woman die? Cancer? Internal injuries from the car accident (this was my first idea the first time I heard the song)? Suicide? The song also seems to hint that she may have suffered depression, and perhaps felt like the song's narrator didn't actually love her.
As the person on the Song Meanings site said, this song sounds really polarizing, and am not really sure what to make of it. Either way, I don't see it as a simple tune about mourning a loss as others on Youtube see it as.
With all the memes about women choosing a bear over a man, Hollywood might wanna get on an 'East of the Sun and West of the Moon' adaptation
![[up]](https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/smiles/arrow_up.png "[up]"){kind=icon}
I hadn't heard this before and listened and browsed the song meanings comments - someone noted that, not only does the song not specify if the narrator and the woman were married, there's not really anything saying their relationship was a romantic one at all; they interpret it as a single father mourning a daughter who died at a young age. The part about pretending to be mad when she crashes the car is maybe less unfortunate if you think of it occurring between a dad and his teenage daughter: as a parent he'd want to discipline her but also would just be glad she's okay.
Edited by MikeK on Feb 26th 2020 at 4:57:31 AM
I've heard a few people interpret the song about being about a deceased daughter as well. The lyric ".... where Honey laughed and Honey played, and love grew up" also seems like it's hinting at a daughter.
With all the memes about women choosing a bear over a man, Hollywood might wanna get on an 'East of the Sun and West of the Moon' adaptation
I just got done listening to 1987 stuff so here's a few things I had thoughts about:
Lemonheads - Hate Your Friends. Mild Early-Installment Weirdness; A 90s Power Pop band whose only consistent member is the singer started out as a Hardcore Punk band with two singers. I say "mild" because 1) they were a fairly melodic, Hüsker Dü-esque hardcore band, so power pop was kind of a logical direction, and 2) they'd later make tongue in cheek nods to their punk roots by doing pretty, acoustic covers of The Misfits and GG Allin. I like the contrast between the two singers - Evan Dando is kinda low and mellow for the genre while Ben Deilly is more raspy and more "punk" sounding. The songs are just kinda average, though "Second Chance" and "Fed Up" are catchier than the rest and it's fun to hear Deilly scream his way through Amazing Freaking Grace.
Eric B and Rakim - Paid In Full. I listened to some other 1987 rap and it made me think maybe this album was a little less ahead of its time than I previously thought- I'm still going to call it probably the best hip hop album of the year.
Siouxsie and the Banshees - Through The Looking Glass. This is the sort of cover album that I like- it's kind of a good balance of things that you'd expect influenced the band and a few left field picks- you don't really associate Goth Rock and Disney, but "Trust In Me" fits their style perfectly.
Side note: 1987 is one of the years Todd In The Shadows covered, so I'm thinking about trying to counter with a "Best Hit Singles Of 1987" list. It might prove tough because according to him some of the most well-remembered songs from the year didn't make the end of the year top 40.
Edited by MikeK on Mar 17th 2020 at 8:24:11 AM
Evan Olson - "So Much Better Than". A friend included this on a playlist called something like "90s songs you haven't heard since the 90s" and I looked it up because it seemed familiar. There was a podcast episode where they helped a listener identify this song (which at the time had almost no online presence), but I hadn't listened to that podcast before and I don't even think I heard it on the radio in the 90s either. Might even just be that it has such a distinct "late nineties one hit wonder" vibe. It's this weird blend of "One Week" and Achtung Baby (maybe even with a little "Send Me On My Way" in there) that somehow works. Goofy but a definite earworm and I can see it being a guilty pleasure- they should have tried to get it placed in a romcom because I can totally picture a Costume-Test Montage being set to it.
Edited by MikeK on Apr 3rd 2020 at 9:18:39 AM
"Juicy" by The Notorious B.I.G. includes the lines "remember Rappin' Duke, daha daha / you never thought hip hop would come this far". I just recently learned he was referring to this - a 6 minute novelty rap song by a John Wayne impersonator that somehow became a hit in the early 80s. I'm not against comedy rap but this is pretty terrible... though the "daha daha" hook is irritatingly catchy. That was kinda B.I.G.'s point though - stuff like "Rappin' Duke" was the product of people thinking of rap as a flash in the pan novelty, but the genre has lasted much longer than that.
Edited by MikeK on Apr 25th 2020 at 9:13:28 AM
Brian Eno - The Drop. I know before a couple of The Residents outed themselves, there were some wild rumors about them being a side project of famous musicians- was Eno ever mentioned as a potential Resident? I just ask because some of these songs have a late 90s Residents feel - maybe Eno and The Residents just happened to have some of the same equipment. I also am sometimes reminded of Myst and other 90s PC games - my point being the music can be pretty interesting but the production is pretty of its time.
Semisonic - All About Chemistry. So I recently went through some older Todd In The Shadows One Hit Wonderland videos and he convinced me to check out this band. They were pretty good, and I can't see why this, the follow up album to the one with "Closing Time" on it, flopped - really catchy pop rock that could have easily crossed over in the 2001 music scene. Maybe it's just that two of the singles were full of blatant innuendo? The title track is about sexual awakening, while "Get A Grip" is about A Date With Rosie Palms and had a racy video - I personally like the songs and think they're coming from a place of sincere sex positivity rather than Sex Sells, but maybe people who would have otherwise liked the music were turned off by the content. Both songs seem like the kind of thing that would be licensed for teen sex comedies though, and "All About Chemistry" was in fact used in 40 Days And 40 Nights
Edited by MikeK on May 2nd 2020 at 8:45:19 AM
cool, that makes sense - I can imagine the Residents admiring Eno and vice versa.
Recently went and binged all the Creedence Clearwater Revival albums I hadn't heard already:
Creedence Clearwater Revival. The debut. The trademark swampy sound is already there but this is mostly covers and I feel like the songwriting isn't quite as good as it would be when it comes to the originals. Some cool hidden gems though.
Pendulum: The one with all the outside musicians. Multiple songs feature horn sections, and the way they're arranged really made me realize CCR were influenced by 60s soul (makes sense, they covered Heard It Through the Grapevine earlier in their career). I also really like the Booker T-eque organ jam that closes out Born To Move. The only misstep is Rude Awakening #2, a weird psychedelic instrumental that just doesn't play to their strengths.
Mardi Gras. The one from Trainwreckords. It's not totally unlistenable but I can tell why it was considered a disaster- for complicated, inter-band conflict reasons, 75% of the album is written and sung by Stu Clifford and Doug Cook; they aren't the most polished vocalists and their songwriting is okay at best, but I feel like this material could have come off as charming if they'd gotten one song each on another, stronger album. Someday Never Comes is a great Tearjerker about growing up, but it's also on the Greatest Hits Album Chronicle, so you can safely skip this one unless you're curious about what the other two guys in CCR are capable of doing on their own.
The Evil Tambourines - Library Nation. Once in a while Spotify will reccomend me some album I've never heard of and I'll check it out. This duo were apparently known as the first hip hop act signed by Sub Pop, a record label primarily known for indie rock (and early grunge). They're kind of interesting - there's this playful experimental vibe throughout, and a unique contrast between the two members, one of whom has a smooth, old school-ish flow while the other tends towards this quirky not-quite-rapping, not-quite-spoken-word delivery and sorta sounds like a stoner poet. If Beck and Q Tip decided to make an album in one afternoon it'd probably turn out similar to this. I reccomend the track "Saturn", which has this really summery, nostalgic vibe to it.
Edited by MikeK on Jun 28th 2020 at 3:33:26 AM
Demi Lovato featuring Travis Barker - I Love Me (Emo Version). I've got a couple Demi songs on a frequently listened to playlist based around positive, Pep-Talk Song type tracks, so spotify has been reccomending me some of her other music. I don't know that I'd call this "emo", but it does successfully turn a synth pop/ r and b song into late 2000s pop/rock. Apparently going by youtube comments this is what her early stuff was like? I might just check out some of the early albums then.
GoatLord - Reflections Of The Solstice. Okay, from former Disney pop stars to obscure death/sludge metal. I first read about this album on Mark Prindle's page - he gave it a 2 out of 10 but still made it sound interesting somehow. It is very amateurish sounding even if they were inspired by the more Three Chords and the Truth varieties of metal. Notable for one of the silliest drum sounds I've heard in the genre - it's readily apparent they did basic drum parts on an acoustic kit, then went back and added some more percussion on a synthesizer, seemingly after everything else was finished. It's pretty artificial sounding, like someone took a children's electronic toy drum and started playing along with a death metal album. Also, riffs are frequently simplistic, and whenever they shift tempos someone ends up struggling to catch up. On the best tracks though, all this ends up adding to the queasy, disorienting feel. Prindle cites "Acid Orgy" as a standout track - it's also a good example of those out of place synthesized drum parts I was speaking of.
Ministry - With Sympathy. I'm thinking about trying to listen to the full Ministry discography chronologically - if not I'll just listen to a bunch of the albums I'm less familiar with. This is the Old Shame / Early-Installment Weirdness album that presents them as a glossy Synth-Pop / New Wave Music duo, with Al Jourgensen trying to sing like a Fake Brit for some reason. Thing is, it's a decent synth pop album - there's really not a lot to distinguish it from other acts in the genre but they were actually good at coming up with catchy melodies. Heck, maybe the secret weapon behind their best later songs is that, however noisy and aggressive they can get, it's still based around "hooks"?
Edited by MikeK on Jul 20th 2020 at 8:45:50 AM
The Ministry binge has begun in earnest:
The Twitch/12 Inch Singles era is one of the more interesting ones to me - the way they combine synthpop with the harshness and experimentation of industrial is pretty cool. I might go looking in recommendations for artists with a similar style.
The Land Of Rape And Honey. is great, and a good pair of headphones made me appreciate it more - I remember listening on cd ages ago and finding it a bit "tinny", so I may have just had a poorly mastered copy. It still sounds like a studio project by one or two guys instead of a proper band, but that just makes it more unique. I love weird moments like the whooshing sounds at the start of "I Prefer", which end up making the song sound like a pissed off Dustbuster, but in a cool way.
Mind is probably my favorite out of all these - they really perfected the mix of industrial/metal on tracks like "Thieves", but there's still room for more experimental mood pieces like "Faith Collapsing". I've even come to like "Test", which felt a little out of place to me the first time - the industrial rap metal sound is interesting and the lyrics are more positive than typical Ministry but still rebellious enough to fit the tone of the music (e.g. "society probably wants me to give up", "don't be commercial or sell out"). Definitely reccomended if you like any of the better known Industrial Metal bands out there.
Moar Ministry, 90s edition:
Psalm 69. One of my first albums of theirs - in retrospect it's a heavier, but not necessarily better, Mind Is A Terrible Thing To Taste sequel. There are definitely some highlights though: "Jesus Built My Hot Rod" is one of their signature songs, and it remains a great, weird combination of Industrial Metal and insane hillbilly scatting (courtesy of Gibby Haynes. "Hero" stands out for having a riff that's more "punky" than metallic - someone on the Ministry facebook group favorably compared it to Lard, the industrial-punk Ministry side project featuring Jello Biafra, and I can imagine Jello singing in place of Al. "Scarecrow" is eerily slow and feels like a preview of Filth Pig, and by contrast "TV II" is insanely fast, like a Hardcore Punk 33 1/3 RPM record being played at 45 speed.
Filth Pig. This was in fact my first of theirs - at the time I'd never heard anything so slow and heavy. Now I kind of know it's a bit indebted to Godflesh, maybe with a bit of Melvins thrown in, but it still holds up. Fun anecdote: I was at an open mic singing along with a cover of Bob Dylan's "Lay Lady Lay" when someone told me I was yelling too much after. I realized it was probably because I've listened to the Ministry version way more.
The Dark Side Of The Spoon. Their last album of the 90's is probably their weakest of the 90s, but it's not bad by any means. It mostly seems like they were trying to take the bleak, slow vibe of Filth Pig and take it to a more experimental, druggy place. Sometimes it works, more often it's just sort of drags. Look up the Filth Pig era B-Side "Paisley" to see how this kind of thing could have been awesome - that song is like part industrial, part shoegaze.
Edited by MikeK on Jul 30th 2020 at 5:24:57 AM
Ministry in the 2000s - aka the "George W. Bush Is Bad" years. It occurs to me I might just expand these and put them in my neglected liveblogs. Maybe even add the live albums/remix albums I've been skipping. Just a few albums left now (well maybe 5 if I decide to count two quasi-compilations featuring some new cover songs, namely The Cover Up and Undercover).
Animostisomina. This feels like the end of an era for the band - it's the last album Paul Barker would be on, and the last one that sees them experimenting with their sound instead of mainly sticking with thrash metal riffs and fast industrial beats. In particular, there are more tracks where the vocals are sung (rather than shouted) than on any album since With Sympathy. Actually, what some of these songs remind me of most is the 1,000 Homo D Js single Apathy / Better Ways - industrial metal music with bitter but still melodic post-punk-y vocals. Granted some other tracks kind of feel like going through the motions and you can maybe tell it was a Troubled Production (Al has said he and Paul Barker weren't getting along at this point and he was sick from kicking heroin). Still, all the industrial thrash metal of the next few releases can start getting a little samey, so I kind of wish they'd throw in these kinds of tracks occasionally.
Houses Of The Mole'. I really liked this at the time - the energy, anger and cool riffs are back and it kind of feels like an album-length extension of "NWO", their Protest Song about George Bush Sr., complete with a direct sequel in "No W.". Naturally all these direct references to current events don't date that well now, though there are some songs that are just generally about feeling disaffected and politically disenfranchised and those can certainly still feel applicable. I tend to be a little down on this era because the subject matter can feel redundant over the course of three albums, but this is a good album overall.
Rio Grande Blood. I'm gonna say this is the weakest of the "Bush trilogy". The redundancy is setting in a bit, and the riffs are just a little less memorable. I guess one notable change is it seems like they're trying to add a bit more cathartic humor to things, but to me this doesn't really work because Al's sense of humor can tend towards the sophomoric, as evidenced by the song title "Ass Clown". Maybe I just started to sour towards the political focus because of "Lieslieslies", which samples Loose Change and seemingly advances the same conspiracy theory.
The Last Sucker. The last album of the Bush years, and at the time Al was touting it as the last Ministry album ever. It feels stronger than Rio Grande Blood and would have been a decent way to go out, especially with the Epic Rocking of "End Of Days Part 2" as the last track. Again there are songs that focus on general cynicism about those in power instead of specific events/people, and those tend to date the best. The title track is interesting as a slight shift in the band's portrayal of George W. Bush - instead of outright vilifying him, they now seem to have taken the position that he's a pawn of the administration ("I got others tell me what to say /I'm like an actor in a tragic play"). Meanwhile, Dick Cheney gets his own Villain Song in "The Dick Song" note . Finally, I really like their cover of "Roadhouse Blues" in context of the album - many people seem to think of the original as just a party song / Ode to Intoxication and ignore lines like "Save our city" and "the future's uncertain and the end is always near"; the message of the Ministry version seems to be "have your fun now because the end is coming soon".
Edited by MikeK on Apr 16th 2021 at 1:05:28 AM
Brief Non-Ministry asides:
Garfunkel and Oates - Secretions. I recently watched their netflix comedy special and I'm moderately familiar with them from youtube videos. Some of these tracks don't work as well without a comedic set-up, but the ones that do can be really funny. I also like that this has one semi-serious song and one totally serious one - "Such A Loser" starts out seeming like a humorous inversion of a Pep-Talk Song, using cheery, optimistic music to sing about what a failure the listener is... but ultimately has the message that having the ambition and courage to try something you might fail miserably at is a good thing. Meanwhile, "Rainbow Connections" is a totally sincere, maybe even heartwarming take on gay marriage.
Taylor Swift - Folklore. I succumbed to the hype as a fairweather Swifty at best, and it is in fact pretty good. I liked the tracks on Red that seemed more "indie folk" influenced, and this is kind of a whole album of that.
Edited by MikeK on Jul 31st 2020 at 2:27:15 AM
In my last post I talked about listening to a Taylor Swift album in the middle of binging Ministry... Now I'm binging Taylor Swift, so I guess I should go listen to some Ministry or other industrial metal soon. Anyway, I'm already up to Red, which was the album that originally made me think I might be a fan, and it's still good, but I'm not here to talk about that.
Ghost Of Vroom - Rona Polona. Ghost Of Vroom is a new project from Mike Doughty, and official channels have been touting it as a Spiritual Successor to early Soul Coughing. This track does remind me of some of the more "chill" SC tracks like "The Idiot Kings", and apparently the personnel includes musicians who joined him on a tour where he did the whole Ruby Vroom album. The difference is that Soul Coughing never really did topical songs - yeah that isn't just a Word Purée Title, it is in fact about the coronavirus outbreak. That said, it still has an emphasis on silly wordplay (e.g. "savor faire / pikachu pillowcase mask lookin' debonair"). And if the topical references (hopefully) date soon, it's just going to seem like a Word Salad Lyrics song, which Doughty kind of has a tradition of anyway.
Currently listening to Joan Jett's Bad Reputation album. Most of the songs here are covers, but the original songs all seem to have kind of a 50s vibe mixed with punk, kind of like a female Ramones.
Edited by J79 on Sep 14th 2020 at 11:48:45 AM
Angelfish - Suffocate Me. Angelfish were an early 1990s Scottish Alternative Rock band, and this was the song/video that got Shirley Manson noticed by the rest of Garbage, who ended up recruiting her as their singer. This is a pretty good song and I can tell why they thought her singing might fit well with the songs they were working on- it's a little bit grunge but also a little bit goth, and add some more electronic music and you've got the formula for a lot of Garbage tracks
Mr. Bungle - The Raging Wrath Of The Easter Bunny Demo. The first Mr. Bungle album in 21 years... and it's (mostly) a remake of a scarcely heard demo tape from when they were a teenage Thrash Metal band note . Yeah, there's apparently a bit of a Broken Base over them doing this as opposed to new material in some form of their usual complex, Genre Roulette mold. This is a fun listen if you happen to like 80's thrash metal and take it as it is though - I tend to think of it as a "what if" album. If they got signed much earlier in their career and had the budget for a good studio recording, this is what their official debut would have been like; I can see them still having a cult following if somehow this were the recording that reached the public in 1986 - it's just that they'd be associated with other bands of the late 80's that kinda mixed thrash metal, hardcore punk, and over the top humor like this (e.g. S.O.D., early Gwar) instead of being considered in a league of their own.
Edited by MikeK on Oct 30th 2020 at 6:14:25 AM
Mike Patton - Adult Themes For Voice. The new Mr. Bungle album kinda reopened a Mike Patton wormhole for me - tracking this down was particularly inspired by a funny moment in an interview with Eric Andre: This album came up because when Andre met Patton previously, it was one of the first things Eric mentioned - Mike started to apologize for it, only for Eric to state it was one of his favorite albums as a teen, and he and his friends would get in trouble in school imitating it. To put it succinctly, John Zorn told Mike Patton he should record an acapella solo album for his label, so he put this together during downtime on a Faith No More tour, using a 4 track recorder and recording in various hotel rooms across the US. If you're a fan, it's worth hearing once just to see some of the incredibly unnerving sounds he can make with just his voice - my chief thoughts were 1) it's no wonder he's voiced inhuman characters in films and games (mutant vampires in I Am Legend, an Eldritch Abomination in The Darkness), and 2) if there were people next door to him in those hotel rooms, what the hell did they think was going on in there?
The Roches - We Three Kings. I'm ostensibly on a 1990 theme now, but took a break for Christmas music for a few days and decided to see if any interesting Christmas albums came out in 1990. I've previously heard this band's debut album and thought they might have an interesting take on Christmas standards. There's a pattern on this album where the more religious songs are done in a standard but pretty way, which shows off their harmonies, and the more secular ones show off their quirks, whether it's putting "Deck The Halls" in an odd time signature or singing two separate songs ("Frosty The Snowman" and "Winter Wonderland") in heavy Brooklyn accents seemingly just for the heck of it. It's mostly enjoyable as a whole, but I only see the more unusual cuts making future Christmas playlists
Edited by MikeK on Dec 25th 2020 at 7:32:32 AM
Like reflections in the glass!
QZKago Requiem by t+pazolite (uncut version here, official source to boot)
Let be frank, I have no experience playing any Rhythm Game out side of DDR, Project DIVA and Cytus (bar some Round 1 trips) and most of knowledge of rhythm games came from youtube videos featuring them (usually BEMANI related). But I am aware that they are required to have Awesome Music and t+pazolite is one of a few artists that I think consistently delivers (though admittedly my taste in music is somewhat broad so make of that what you will).
The short version for Maimai acts as a sequel of sorts to an older song in the series, Garukita Doll Play, but the associated PV acts as Arc Welding between that track and another song Oshama Scramble. all by t+pazolite of course. With that said I do think that this is the best song out of those I had listed too from either Maimai (though I also like VeRTiX) and the artist.
The interesting thing is that the uncut version is released as part of his "Heartache Debug" album, in which the cover
◊ and another song in it (YAKENI in the Rain) seems like both a sequel and antithesis to one of t+pazolite's prior albums, Refactoring Travel
◊, the uncut version samples both Refactoring Travel and YAKENI in the Rain instead of maimai's result screen (and possibly GDP) like in the short version. YAKENI in the Rain's PV and the sampling of it in QZKago Requiem are enough to have me wondering if Heartache Debug has something of a theme that related to Refactoring Travel, but I digress.
I apologize for the somewhat long review, but I wanted to share my thoughts on this.
Edited by MorningStar1337 on Jan 21st 2021 at 7:34:31 AM
I have this thing that I do that I think of as "spotify pruning" - the app will only let you save so many songs at once, so once it tells me my collection is full I start listening to albums I saved for later and never got to. These are some things that I listened to recently while pruning:
The Fall (Band) - New Facts Emerge. Their last studio album before Mark E. Smith passed. It doesn't really do anything the past few Fall albums didn't, and my chief reaction was "yup that's The Fall alright", but there's some good riffs and Mark is in usual energetic and cranky form (if increasingly unintellible). Some notable idiosyncratic arrangements: "Victoria Station Massacre" suddenly starts playing backwards for the last minute, "Nine Out Of Ten" is Mark backed by distorted guitar for 3 and a half minutes, followed by just guitar for another five minutes... It's not a dramatic build up or anything, it's just the same thing you just heard but as an instrumental. My guess is that the guitarist made a demo tape for Mark to sing over and included two takes of the same piece so Mark could pick which he liked better - Mark sang over the first take, left the second take alone, and just put it on the record as is.
Chinese Man - Racing With The Sun. Actually, they're several white guys from France. They remind me a little bit of Thievery Corporation and a little bit of The Avalanches. The thing is that I want to like Thievery Corporation for their mix of trip hop, dub and world music, but find them a bit too background-y to hold my interest. Chinese Man put more of a playful, Avalanches-ish spin on the same influences and are thus more entertaining to me.
Del The Funky Homosapien - No Need For Alarm. If you listen to Gorillaz, you'd probably recognize him for performing the verses of "Clint Eastwood" (or maybe you heard "If You Must" on Tony Hawk Pro Skater 3). I like the jazzy production style and Del's flow, but I find it a bit one dimensional lyrically. I liked that, on the other albums I've heard, he'd rap about anything from public transportation to the importance of good hygiene - here the central theme is "I'm good at rapping and you're not"... though he at least finds some clever ways to say it.
Edited by MikeK on May 3rd 2024 at 9:32:40 AM