A Sunshine Pop Band. A lovely category and some lovely music. You might as well listen to this. Nice take on The Beatles song.
Saturday, June 22, 2024
500 Greatest Albums of the 1980s ... Ranked! # 336 Frankie Goes To Hollywood - Welcome To The Pleasuredome
Frankie Goes To Hollywood passed me by rather as an eighteen year old. Their singles were something. But I didn't buy the records and still can't get very excited at this remove. The Power Of Love is nice.
Best Ever Albums - 2,000 - 1,001 -1,893 Morrissey - Your Arsenal
Ah Morrissey. The eternal unhappy camper. Your Arsenal has much to reccommend it. Hey, it's got Glamorous Glue on it. Released in 1992 on RCA it found Morrissey at his most embattled. He's always worth listening to when he's feeling like that. Here he starts a fight with himself in an empty room. Mick Ronson features. So do a bunch of younger Rockabillies.
It Starts With a Birthstone - 200 Albums for 2024 # 187 RIP Dunes - RIP Dunes
Just before your date with Dune 2 at your local multiplex, you might like to make an appearance and experience Dune the funeral. With RIP Dunes. Geddit!!!
Now I've got that shocking pun out of my system.Back to RIP Dunes and the fabulous, erm RIP Dunes a dappled Indie guitar record of the loveliest hue.
Matthew Iwanusa grew up in New York. He follows the New York Knicks and sports a beard. His music is melodic, gentle Indie fare. Not a million miles from Papercuts.
There's synth here in the mix, of a Seventies stripe. It all passes by in the blink of an eye. You wouldn't really know this was a New York guitar record. You would I imagine recognise and acknowledge its filmic and rather lovely qualities. Total Amazeballs !
Song(s) of the Day # 3,775 Been Stellar
Diwn South for a family wedding celebration. Home Counties experience. But the blog goes on. I'm sitting in the kitchen with headphones on. Listening to Beeen Stellar and their latest record Scream From New York, NY.
It's quite a bracing experience frankly. Familiar. But not a bad way to start a special day.
Friday, June 21, 2024
500 Greatest Albums of the 1980s ... Ranked! # 337 Minor Threat - Complete Discography
Angrier than thou purists. Hip types pretend to have been really into them when they were in diapers. Some terrific, barnstorming stuff here for refuseniks.
Best Ever Albums - 2,000 - 1,001 -1,894 Enya - Watermark
For the most part Enya was pre-Raphaelite twaddle for the Home Counties masses. Ludicrous, orchestrated tosh for bereft suburban housewives to weep into their elevenses to. I do have a very happy memory of Orinoco Flow. I have a heart too you know. Plenty don't credit it.
It Starts With a Birthstone - 200 Albums for 2024 # 188 Ty Segall - Three Bells
Do you want to go back in time? Go through a portal and find yourself back in ....1972. Lying on an unmade flat with bongs, joss sticks and the general detritus you would associate with an unkempt suburban teenage bedroomin the Midwest from that year. If you fancy that experience then fret not. The record has arrived to tick all of the 1972 boxes you might possibly have.
The record concerned is West Coast acid troubadour Ty Segall's new record Three Bells. As you might expect. It's FAR OUT MAN! Segall has form for this kind of stuff. I've listened to quite a few of his records down the years and this time portal thing to 1972 seems to be his guiding principle pretty much every time he visits a studio to 'lay down some tracks' as they tend to put it in Rock & Roll parlance.
I like Segall as I like his closest musical cousins Oh Sees and have enjoyed a number of his records down the years. Just as I've enjoyed theirs. Fine as their records are though, I'm not an obsessive fan of either. I've seen them both over the years in the local gig warehouse The Boiler Shop and got tired of both acts mid way through their sets.
While both are exceptionally proficient they both seemed like massively talented acts involved in what I found to be a kind of Retrophilia. An exercise that was ever so slightly devoid of actual soul and heart even though the groove patterns laid down were incredibly impressive. I decided that I thought records were both band's natural element. Perhaps I didn't experience either in their best venue.
Song(s) of the Day # 3,774 Russian Baths
New York band in the line of Television , Sonic Youth and Blonde Redhead, so their Spotify biography tells us. That will do me.
Latest record Mirror has all of the intensity and engagement you could hope for given this lineage. It's a spooky, old school but relevant exercise..
Some things don't change with the passage of time. Human beings will always appreciate atmosphere and tension. Wonderfully achieved. Thanks once more Darran.
Thursday, June 20, 2024
I See You Live On Love Street - Music From Laurel Canyon 1965 - 1975 # 15 Mamas & The Papas
I love Mamas & The Papas. Their story is so sad. The definitive tale of how the Sixties dream went sour. Four talented, attaractive people. Yes, of course Mama Cass was attractive. Very attractive. Four people who slept together Did dyugs. Tried to dream but fell out and foun their lives going south. They left behind some wonderful records which told the story of those times as well as anybody did. This is a good song to listen to in this respect.
500 Greatest Albums of the 1980s ... Ranked! # 336 Phil Collins - Face Value
'I never thought time could pass more slowly...'
Oh no. Not Phil Collins. Oh no. Not Face Value. You coudn't find an album that waas more ubiquitous in the Eighties and interested me less. It seemed to scream Surrender ! Give up life. Give up hope. Go out to the suburbs. Catch your morning train. Don't forget your brolly. Crossword on the train. Maybe have a fling with your secretary. Be dull. You know you want to. No thanks Phil ! Good drummer. But his music post a few decent songs on ate Seventies and early Eighties Genesis albums is the very definition of blandness and giving in.
Best Ever Albums - 2,000 - 1,001 -1,895 Ought - More Than Other Day
I like a bit of Ought. Toront refuseniks who disbande a few years back. In many ways they were ahead of the curve. Post Punkers before everyone was Post Punk. They made a proper unholy row.
It Starts With a Birthstone - 200 Albums for 2024 # 189 Marika Hackman - Big Sigh
I'm in something of a dilemma this year, I'm on a cusp of a big change but haven't fully entered into the reality of that change as of yet fully to allow me to realise its complete implications. It will certainly involve tightening my belt and watching my outgoings and expenditure like the proverbial hawk.
This will impact considerably on what I spend on music in 2024. I'll definutely buy less records than I did last year or in most previous years for that matter. One thing I have in my life is enough records to listen to. A flat full of them, Cardboard boxes and shelves crammed with records from 40 years of collecting that need to be listened to more often. So that's the plan on that front. Spotify and the radio will keep me abreast on contemporary stuff.
I'm not planning to cut back on gig going though while I'm in Newcastle. I'm also anticipating I might not always be here this year and am open to that.. But while I am I plan to go to what I fancy in Toon like last year. Get in some visceral living experience. It seems like a worthwhile invesrment. Not visceral perhaps as my doctors have advised me against visceral exerience and focusing on my blood pressure and getting it down. But experience is important.
I've pencilled in the Marika Hackman gig coming up on The Cluny in Mid March. The walk will do me good and I'm partial to her new album Big Sigh and suspect it will grow on me in the next couple of months.. It's a spacier, less Rockist record than her previous efforts, introspective and thoughtful.The first two listens certainly bode well. If I were asked to review the record in one word the word would be 'haunting'. That bodes well too.
There's a definite artistic dimension to the record. The cover image. Of a shopping trolley, abandoned on an arctic landscape. It's an indication of content focus. In her own words; 'this album took a long time to make. It was not easy and by the time I got to the end of it I was quiet. Now the dust has settled. Stepping into a new world, moving forward, chipping away. Breath in. Breathe out. Big sigh.'
Song(s) of the Day # 3,773 Landless
Some Girls Are Bigger than Others. In a similar vein, some songs of the day are better than others. I have mixed feelings about this.
Landless are from Ireland. They sing hey nonny no Post Lankum contemporary Folk fair in four part harmonies. It's not as multifaceted and resonant as Lankum for sure. It lacks that bands undertow.
Landless tend to dwell on less troubling subject matter. New album Luireach coud tease the Oirish blood out of you which you never imagined existed. It's a fair to good record. Oi'll give it seven. That is not a typo.
Wednesday, June 19, 2024
I See You Live On Love Street - Music From Laurel Canyon 1965 - 1975 # 14 Barry McGuire
Best known for Eve of Destruction of course. This is rather cool though. Whimsy.
500 Greatest Albums of the 1980s ... Ranked! # 337 Philip Glass - Glassworks
I don't generally have the energy and stamina for whole Philip Glass soundtracks. His reputation goes before him. This, from 1982 is immediately calming mind. Meditative.
Best Ever Albums - 2,000 - 1,001 -1,896 The Everly Brothers - The Everly Brothers
The Everly Brothers is one of those gifts that keeps on gving. Two brothers who loved and hated each other but sang sweet harmonies and made some quite wonderful music together. This is as good a place to go as anywhere. The sound of Romance. True Love. Heartbreak.
It Starts With a Birthstone - 200 Albums for 2024 # 190 Cowboy Sadness - Selected Jambient Works Volume One
Cowboy Sadness. I love the idea of Cowboy Sadness. The kind of ennui and moroseness clicked into motion by the vista of the endless plain and the lonesome prairie at the break of dawn. This might sound pretentious and I've never seen the American heartland but I imagine it's a genuine sensation and emotional experience, The vast horizon that you experience when you're watching great American movies like Paris Texas or Brokeback Mountain. The infinite longing.
There are worse records to listen to if you're hoping to experience this mood than the ludicrously entitled Selected Jambient Works Volume One, Stop sniggering at the back and start listening to this, The record is great even if its title isn't.
January is fleshing out just nicely in turn of new tecord releases. I didn't doubt it for a minute. This is a collaborative instrumental effort from the likes of The Antlers, Bing & Ruth and Port St. Willow. They combine well.
The album is just short of an hour so my advice is take your time. Tie up your hossie outside the Last Chance Saloon pull up a barstool and order a pitcher and a long glass. Here's a record that rewards your undivided attention. It's perhaps just a little but too long even for me and perhaps needed a slight change of pace to be truly essential but I still recommend this highly,
Song(s) of the Day # 3,773 Viggo Mortenson
Vigo Mortennsen strikes me as ine if the good guts. He's played the Hollywood game. But now it seems he plays his own because it's more satisfying. He's played so many interesting roles in so many great films down the hill. Now he's making great music too.
His latest film is a soundtrack. To a film which he appears in called The Dead Don't Hurt. Having Viggo in it it should be worth oing to see. It's an offbeat Westwer apparently. Ser in 1860's Nevada. The soundtrack is certainly good.
It's instrumental. Ruminative. A lovely adjective which describes a lovely emotion. I've been listening to this while my laundry spins in the laenderette across the courtyard in the buildings where I live. There's beauty here. don't have many heroes but Vigo it seems is becoming one. Exemplary work.
Tuesday, June 18, 2024
Song of the Day # 579 The Holy Mackerel
A repost. From way back !
After Paul Williams gained some attention as Tiny Tim covered his co-written Fill Your Heart he was approached by record producer Richard Perry and offered the opportunity to record his own record. 1968's The Holy Mackerel resulted. It's a strange and very good record. Doused in the spirit of the time although the actual edge of the counterculture is diluted and sweetened with the aim of having commercial appeal which didn't actual prove to be the case when the record was released. It didn't sell. But it did serve as a calling card for Williams talent as he proceeded towards the seventies, a decade where he found remarkable success as a singer, songwriter, actor and general all-round talent.
Like so much of the music of the time the album replicates an idealised drugs trip for suburbanites and makes the period from 1965 to 1969 in America appear to be one of the greatest imaginable periods in history to have been alive. It doesn't really matter that there barely seems to be an actual group of any substance here, (despite the band numbering former members of Jefferson Airplane and The Turtles), as the record is primarily a vehicle to put Williams quite obvious talents on display. The album is incredibly inventive lyrically, melodically and rhythmically and Williams distinctive voice provides the thread that unites a quite disparate range of tracks, influences and moods.
It's pastiche of course. Not a real record in any sense. It offers escapism. Williams' talent, even at this point was obviously geared for the mainstream and would in time earn him top dollar. He went on to write songs for The Carpenters, Helen Reddy, Barbara Streisand, The Muppets and the themes to The Love Boat and the sountrack to Bugsy Malone as he feathered his nest in the seventies This is something quite different and ultimately he appears to be at a party where he doesn't really belong for very long. But it's all so adeptly done. Williams chucks off one garage-lite nugget after another, each of which might have served a lesser talent sufficiently to base a small career upon.
Wildflowers for example sounds every bit as good as Incense & Peppermints, I Had Too Much To Dream Last Night and all those other idealised, artificially concocted drugs records which capitalised on the seismic shifts taking place across American society at that point in time. But it's not alone. There's a handful of small classics here. Williams obviously had every much as much songwriting talent as John Sebastian, John Phillips and Roger McGuinn. He was just headed in a quite different direction towards a different destination.
I See You Live On Love Street - Music From Laurel Canyon 1965 - 1975 # 13 The Holy Mackerel
Where the great Paul Willliams took flight. See my next post for my appreciation of him.
500 Greatest Albums of the 1980s ... Ranked! # 338 Weekend - La Variete
The kind of record that always comes across as a blessed relief. Where Aiison Stratton went after Young Marble Giants came to a close. Youth, the early Eighties. Jazz and acoustic guitars and the sweetest vocals. The sound of summer.
Best Ever Albums - 2,000 - 1,001 -1,897 JPEGMAFIA - All My Heroes Are Cornballs
The kind of record that is quite beyound me before seven in the morning as I make my way towards an early omline class.
The Decemberists - As It Was, So It Will Be Again
Sometimes Portland, Oregon Alternative collective The Decemberists grab me sometimes they don't. Sometimes their folk narratives seem a little contrived and sometimes they don't. I've taken an instant liking to their latest record As It Was, So It Will Be Again.
It jingles and jangles. It's warm and emotive. If The Decemberists take their emotional lead from anyone it's probably R.E.M. Anyone who reads this blog to any degree might have an idea of my fondness for R.E.M. This record feels as if it belongs somehwere on the R.E.M. family tree.
The songs of As It Were do not follow conventional roads. They twist and turn off into their own tracks, reel ocasionally, without ever losing their feet. Ot their way. This is tasteful, middle of the road Alternitavia for cosy couples with 2.4 who would never dream of voting Trump, Johnson or any of this looney egomaniacs looking to tip our dear world off its axis into mania and end days.This is a record that makes you feel that you're home .
It Starts With a Birthstone - 200 Albums for 2024 # 191 Medium Build - Country
'Alaska can kill you. Like there's wolves and bears in the weather.' Nick Carpenter
Anchorage, Alaska, I will never make it to Anchorage, Alsaka. I'm not entirely sure I'm missing out entirely It always sounds the slightest bit bleak to me. The thought of Anchorage, Alaska always makes me think of my friend Andy who I met in the first term at university. I'll always think of Andy on the dancefloor of Santana's in Norwich. Thursday night 60s Disco. Almost forty years ago. You Want To Be A Rock & Roll Star or California Dreaming playing.
Andy was into Michelle Shocked. 'Anchored down in Anchorage.' It always struck me as a place at the end of the world where the streets are full of refugees on the run. From other people, possibly from themselves.
Country Nick Carpenter's record as Medium Build is heavy with this weight, The heaviness of being alive and conscious with the awreness of it. Sparse, troubled songs. A man with a bad moustache and a tattered shirt, smoking a cigarette. It's always great to find a record that I feels worth writing about. A story worth telling. Something worth sharing.This isn't necessarily the happiest story or the happiest record you'll hear. But it's one worth telling.And a record worth hearing.
Song(s) of the Day # 3,772 Rose Hotel
Sometimes it's a good idea to just follow a thread. This is the third Song Of The Day in a row from a list that Darren Jones sent me a few days back. I've come to trust his judgement and tastes. Here's another record worth cupping an ear to..
Rose Hotel is an Atlanta, Georgia based songer songwriter and multi-instrumentalist Jodran Reynolds and a Pawn Surrender is her latest record. It's a warm immersive, emotive album that encourages surrender. I listened to it initially in a state of distraction trying to read something else. Eventually I found it demanded my full attention.
This is familiar territory musically. But sometimes we seek the familiar. Rose Hotel is not a million mles from artists like Pearl Stone, Rosali and Liz Phair. this is a recommendation rather than a criticism. A warm, emotive recotd that presses for a greater sacrifice than a pawn surrender.
Monday, June 17, 2024
Labelled With Love - A History of the World in Your Record Collection - # 24 Food Records
Launched in 1984 by the Teardrp[ Explodes keyboard player David Balfe. Balfe soon started to work with Andy Ross who had just left HMRC. The likes of Blur, Idlewild, Jesus Jones and Diesel Park West soon signed up.
I See You Live On Love Street - Music From Laurel Canyon 1965 - 1975 # 12 Ruthan Friedman
This is a great compilation for discovering artists from this period that you were never previously aware of. Ruthann Friedman sounds like Grace Slick's equally mouthy cousin. She hung out with Jefferson Airplane, Janis and Country Joe. Best known for writing Windy, made famous by The Association. Plenty more worth exploring
500 Greatest Albums of the 1980s ... Ranked! # 339 Warren Zevon - Sentimental Hygiene
Warren Hygiene gets glossy Mid-Eighties production but his unique raspy, cyniciam and voice are still fully intactd. A one off, though you can definitely see the connection with The Boss here. . A record for chainsmokers. Zevon, to his cost, was one himself.
It Starts With a Birthstone - 200 Albums for 2024 # 192 Faye Webster - Underdressed at the Symphony
I have taken slightly to Faye Webster's recent records while being less endeared by her record covers which occasionally strike me as images from mental health episodes.Particularly the cover of 2019's Atlanta Millionaire's Club which seemed to show the author smearing her face with a chocolate smothered waffle. It wasn't pretty. And wasn't intended to be.
I'm wholly supportive of authors battling with their struggles publicly but haven't personally found a Webster record to attach myself to. Until her latest Underdressed at the Symphony.
The first track Thinking Of You sets out the stall nicely. Webster seems to focus her energies on an amour, imaginary or real.
We all need someone to focus our thoughts on and Webster pushes on from here with tangible purpose. This is by no means a record that has found its way home quite yet but she's doing what she can and this is a record that seeks and finds peace in solace and reflection.
A gentle album of songs which build themselves on the kind of soulful vibe which reminded me at times of the enchanting Al Green and Ann Peebles Hi Record albums of the early Seventies. There's much loveliness amd moments of quiet joy here.
Best Ever Albums - 2,000 - 1,001 -1,898 Green Day - 21st Century Breakdown
Green Day seem toappear every few days on ine or other of these countdowns every few days and I struggle to find anything new to say about them. Their Punk fiffteen years after the actual event never appealed much to me though I appreciated their zeal and energy.
This, from 2009 when they could hardly have been considered 'zeitgeist' even by the kindest cultural commentator could hardly have had a more 'Green Day' title. Green Day songs are not surprising but I imagine they're comforting to those who attache themselves to their narrative in their formative years.
Song(s) of the Day # 3,771 Workers Comp
Darren Jones does it again. A man with a remarkable hitting average and capacity for sniffing out great new releases that have missed my own radar. I knew almost immediately that I was onto a winner here.
American refuseniks are one of my favourite causes You could write an excellent book about them, going back to when The Sonics first strutted onstage in Tacoma, Washington way back in the early Sixties and flipped the bird at mom, dad, the audience and the high school principal.
Since then, write your own list. Stooges, the Nuggets Garage Punks, MC5 and on towards Punk. Pere Ubu, Television, Jad Fair. Obvious suspects like Black Flag and Husker Du. But also more quirky candidates like Camper Van Beethoven, The Colorblind James Experience , Pavement, Lambchop. Silver Jews and onwards to this. My favourite record of today and one of the best I've heard all year, in any category.
A record predicated on primitive Chuck Berry, Bo Diddley and Velvet Underground riffs and the kind of attitude that fuelled Stiff Records in the Mid Seventies. Each track here is a different kind of joy. A different colour of the rainbow.
Coming out on ever / never records a quirky leftfield New York label that prides itself on 'putting out music for adults.' In their own words 'Workers Comp are doing their best to kick against the pricks.' In the wordsof Alan Freeman 'Not Arf !' All power to their elbows. This is as good as it gets.
Sunday, June 16, 2024
Labelled With Love - A History of the World in Your Record Collection - # 23 Fontana
Fontana means fountain in Italian. In the Sixties the label was a hit single machine; The Pretty Things, The Troggs, Scott Walker. It was relaunched in the 1980's becoming a home for Pere Ubu, The Teardrop Explodes The Lilac Time. And later Gorks Zygotic Mynci, Ocean Colour Scene and James.
I See You Live On Love Street - Music From Laurel Canyon 1965 - 1975 # 11 The Peanut Butter Conspiracy
The Peanut Butter Conspiracy was one of the great band names. Encapsulating what was wonderful about this amazing moment in human history. The fact that there was a sense that anything was possible and it was all being packaged and sold by smart ad men while it was happening.
500 Greatest Albums of the 1980s ... Ranked! # 340 Big Black - Songs About Fucking
Steve Albini died recently. Of course it was a big deal for many people. He produced any number of incredible records and made an enormous contribution to Counter Culture during his lifetime.
I saw and enjoyed Shellac live. I never listened to their records or Big Black ones for that matter. Until now. It's a bit too attidudinal and self absorbed for my tastes. Some of it crosses the line of what I think is acceptable.Most obviously in its attitude to women. They make a fine noise on here which distracts from this issue.
Best Ever Albums - 2,000 - 1,001 -1,899 Scott Walker - The Drift
Now, after Walt Disco do their annoying 'We're the new Scott Walker' thing' Here is Scott himself from 2006. Much of this will probably frighten the horses. You can file this under 'deeply pretentious' and you'd have a case. Some of it is pretty remarkable and hynotic at the same time.
It Starts With a Birthstone - 200 Albums for 2024 # 193 Gumshoes - Cacophony
Well here we are. January is only a week old and already we're at the first album of 2024 that I've heard that I'd say is really worth a listen. So we start the rundown of great albums for 2024 here. With Gumshoes Cacophony.
It's an album with a fine cover. An animated cartoon like image of an overweight and slighly pompous looking conductor, dressed to the nines, losing his balance, and as he topples, sticking his baton into the pained face of an orchestra member .
The record lives up to its sleeve. Fine, unruly individuality. Ben Fold Five meets Microdisney meets Gumshoes. No concession for corporate regimentation.,
Sometimes it's best to allow Spotify biography to allow self-description: ' Chronically ill singer-songwriter writes peppy melodies and whimsical tales featuring a cast of eccentrics, losers and fools...'
Song(s) of the Day # 3,770 Walt Disco
This I'm afraid is an awful song(s) of the day. Generally on It Starts I try to post things that I like. I prefer to direct my energy in positive pursuits. But In Walt Disco's case I'll make an exception.
Walt Disco are Glaswegians. And ones with a rather high opinion of themselves clearly. On latest record The Warping they try to convince themselves and gullible listeners that they are David Bowie. Brian Eno aand Scott Walker reborn.They're not persuasive. Instead they're painful pseudo types.
They are hopeless chancers I'm afraid. After a few tracks of this I retreated to Pulp's His & Her's in fear of my sanity.
Saturday, June 15, 2024
Labelled With Love - A History of the World in Your Record Collection - # 22 Fast Product
'Punks in Glasgow and Edinburgh had to be brave, and most were. They were in the minoruty and liked it that way. In the cinematic fog of memory, the laste 1970s in Scotland were a picture of grime dirt and tenement flats. The colour of your dreams were the dull blue and sick nustard of the trains that drove you to Glasgow, or if there was monet, to Edinburgh for the day out.'
John Grant - The Art Of The Lie
I listened to John Grant's latest album The Art Of The Lie three times yesterday. I'm listening to it again now. I'll listen to it later again today. Its great. I do like John Grant.
He's an honest man. A very Gay Man, And one that doesn't care about laying his emotions right on the line at all points. Perhaps the rest of us could learn something from him. Become a little bit more emotionlly honest about what's going on inside us.
The Art Of The Lie is his sixth straight studio record since 2010's Queen Of Denmark made such a splash back in 2010. They've all been on Bella Union records,
In some ways Grant is quite consistent. He's consistently passionate and emotional. Overwrought. Melodic. Melodramatic. He is what he is. We should be grateful really.
This one does what we've come to expect John Grant records to do. Vascillitae between The Carpenters, ABBA, Early 80s Synth Chart action. Hi Energy Disco. Wagner's Ring Cycle. Bless him
I See You Live On Love Street - Music From Laurel Canyon 1965 - 1975 # 10 Clear Light
A little remembered Los Angeles band who released one album on Elektra and supported the Doors before heading their separate ways.
500 Greatest Albums of the 1980s ... Ranked! # 341 The Durutti Column - LC
I find Durutti Column records easier to appreciate than actually listen to. They remind me of a friend of mine when I was playing him something he wasn't really interested in but knew was pretty good anyhow. 'That's decorative' was his response.
Best Ever Albums - 2,000 - 1,001 -1,900 Alabama Shakes - Boys & Girls
I'm slightly conflicted about Alabama Shakes and their singer and nominal leader Brittany Howard. While I can salute their talent and vigour, I fund their delivery slightly cloying and wearing in it's relentless 'authenticity.'. Boys & Girls felt at times like you were in an overly and slightly relentless conversation with a zealous young person who wasn't particularly interested in your opinion and didn't even notice when you said how much you had loved Janis and Creedence back in the day.
It Starts With a Birthstone - 200 Albums for 2024 # 194 Halo Maud - Celebrate
A young woman smiling in bliss under a silk veil. A record that combines childlike wonder with all the things that make French offbeat Pop such a delight. All these years down the line from France Galle, Francoise Harcy and Jaques Dutronc.
Halo Maud's Celebrate. A record that made me want to book a ticket on the Eurostar forthwith and get to Paris for its Springtime as the Easter break appriaches. It's a record that embraces naivety and abandon most immediately.
There's something distinctly elfin like about Halo's disposition. An evident debt to Bjork at her most unrestrained. Audry Hepburn in Funny Face. Amelie in Amelie also came to mind. Stereolab and Broadcast. Those eternal touchstones.
A lovely record anyhow. Always best to maintain an essntial innocence of youthful frisson. Qualities and attitudes that never pale. Celebrate indeed.
Song(s) of the Day # 3,769 Carly Cosgrave
;Rising from the fircely independent DiY Philadelphia underground' apparently. This was a brash and fresh start to my weekend.
Carly Cosgrave is a band and not a person it seems, and latest record The Cleanest Houses are Empty is the place where 'indie rock cool meets emo authenticuty.'
Go figure. It's a restless, urgent Punky record. The guys in Replacements and Misfits would recognise and provide testimonuals to its authentic hormanal rush.
Some things never change. Being young is one of them.My own youth is long behind me but I have muscle memory. I found once The Cleanest Houses are Empty started I had to letit finish. Excellent stuff.
Friday, June 14, 2024
Labelled With Love - A History of the World in Your Record Collection - # 21 Factory Records
Factory Records. The iconic label that emerged from a nightmarish urban landscape at the end of the Seventies, An icredible cast. Tony Wilson. Alan Erasmus. Martin Hammett. Rib Gretton. Ian Curtis. Then into the Eighties.
Songs About People # 1,396 William Fitzwilliam
From the great new Decemberista album. About which more later. The Earl of Southampton during the reign of Henry VIII. Read more here.
I See You Live On Love Street - Music From Laurel Canyon 1965 - 1975 # 9 The Doors
Waiting For The Sun is generally the weak Doors studio album by comparison with their others which all have plenty to reccomend them. There are still some stand out tracks. Love Street particularly. The Doors were always charming when they steered away from dread and sex and focused on genuine love. Happiness. Though there's always unease. Sure Morrison was often a boor but he could write, And sing, And the band could play.
500 Greatest Albums of the 1980s ... Ranked! # 342 The Pale Fountains - Pacific Street
A record that was lost in the rush when it was released but has grown in terms of appreciation and general standing since. It doesn't compare with the truly great examples of Literary Leftfield Guitar Pop from the same peiod. High Land Hard Rain, the first few R.E.M.an Smiths albums. The Go Betweens. The Triffids. Steve McQueen, Rattlesnakes.
The trumpets sound anoydne and faulty attempts at Sixties majesty. Unless is a near masterpiece but is slightly shrill and verges on hysteria rather than grace. The record sounds not fully thought through and overstraining. But there are no end of indications that the Heads are forces tobe reckoned. This would be fully realised over the coming decades.
Best Ever Albums - 2,000 - 1,001 -1,901 Silk Sonic - An Evening With Silk Sonic
Mellow, conscious Soul, Funk and Light Hip Hop. Laidback.
It Starts With a Birthstone - 200 Albums for 2024 # 195 Wine Lips - Super Mega Ultra
Toronto's Wine Lips strike me as an uncomplicated bunch.You know pretty much all you need to know from thirty seconds of their latest album Super Mega Ultra. You're told right from the off that you're on a ride.
The ride proceeds for the next half hour. Twelve songs of full throttle Punk abandon. Black Lips perhaps the mmost pertinent reference point, You feel like you're there with them. Sweaty basement venue. Baseball caps worn at an angle. Stagediving. Vocals that sound ike the lead singer had just had a sharp intake of breath from a helium tank.
The whole funfair experience that Dictators, Ramones, Pere Ubu and DEVO and the like kick started in '75. It never gets tired, or old frankly. The pace never lags. Beat on the brat...
Song(s) of the Day # 3,768 Rasco
'Sun sea and surf rock converge with dreamy hypnagogic pop on 'Dmaot' the enchanting sophomore album by the guitar wielding vocal harmonising trio Rasco.'
Increasingly I find, steering this blog, that it's sometimes best to let band written Spotify biogs do the hard graft for you. Rasco hail from Jerusalem, hardly the most tranquil spot in the world right now, but you wouldn't know it from a cursory exposure to Dmaot. Frankly this is a record that sounds as if it was made in The Garden of Eden.
Truly lovely harmonising of the sort which first became prominent from '65 to '67. Inspired chord changes and an appreciation of soft focus interrogations of the loving qualities of Leftfield Pop Music. Another excellent find pushed by way by Darren Jones. Cheers Darren. Enchantment.
Thursday, June 13, 2024
Labelled With Love - A History of the World in Your Record Collection - # 20 EMI
EMI !!! One of the most important and significant record companies of all. A book could be written about it. I'll post a record instead. .
I See You Live On Love Street - Music From Laurel Canyon 1965 - 1975 # 8 Stoney Poneys
One of the golden voices. The place where Linda Ronstadt started from.
Mojo Collection - The Ultimate Music Companion # 632 Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds - Nocturama
Oh Nick. Saint Nick. What can I say about him that I haven't said already. He's an artist I can respect from a distance. Without finding myself actually wanting to submit to listening to..I find he tries too hard rather generally. At least for my tastes. I prefer to pick and choose his Golden Moments. Rather than endure whole records which I generally find a chore rather than a joy. Certainly the case with this one.
500 Greatest Albums of the 1980s ... Ranked! # 343 Bad Brains - Bad Brains
A ntrable, utterly uncompromising American Punk Noise assailt from the early Eighties. I appreciate its reputation. This regretably didn't make me want to bow my head to it at six this morning. A couple of songs in I returned to Heart of the Artichoke, my Song of the Day record which I'd been enjoying so much. Wimp Out !
Best Ever Albums - 2,000 - 1,001 -1,902 This Heat - This Heat
A cool name to drop. Possibly a band that's more namedropped than actually listened to. 'Fiery, chaotic and full of emotion.' null. their debut album resonates dread and paranoia. It made me feel immediately like I'd been sent on a work placement detail I'd been obliged to fulfil from my local employment office.To the local abbatoir or open furnace. At risk of having my benefits supply cut off if I didn't attend it. One for the brave and deeply determined. Typical song title. The Fall Of Saigon. Earnest young artists at work.Once you get started on this it's oddly addictive.
Un the words of Charles Hayward of the band: “Just before This Heat started, I realised: it’s all folk music. All of it. Abba is folk music, Charles Ives conducted by Bernstein is folk music. So what we made was south London folk music. Deptford, Camberwell, Brixton, lots of places had either been bombed flat in the war, or had their resources sucked dry. They became overcrowded and dirty and grimy. A road like Camberwell Grove feels wider now, because the bricks are cleaner and some of the trees have been removed. But back then, it felt very claustrophobic, it felt very sooty, at points it was racist – in a clear way, not the violence of nice that we’ve got now.”
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