500 Greatest Albums of the 2000's # 220 The Knife - Silent Shout

 

An update of the Sweet Dreams are Made of this perspective for the New Millennium. With added interiority, A duo from Gothenburg.

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Song(s) of the Day # 4,343 Kim Gordon

 

Kim Gordon's Play Me is a textbook 'how to' guide on growing older on your own terms and thereby staying young. It' came out last week but I'm only just listening to it. A week ahead on Courtney Barnett's latest and a day ahead of the weekend.. I'm rather taken by it.

This is very true to Gordon's musical legacy and lifetime accumulation of Pop, Gender and Political Culture. This is like a Mixtape of critical modern thinking. There's something fir everyone. A fascinating record. Dive in....  

Best Ever Albums - 2,000 - 1,001 - 1,427 Ween - Chocolate & Cheese

 

Certain bands are just an acquired taste that you will never entirely acquire the taste for because you lack the endurance to make the required investment, A lot of this is much to my liking. But generally when It reminds me of other artists,

1979 Top 40 - # 2 Blondie - Dreaming

       Blondie had an Imperial Phase that was impossibly and gloriously prolonged. This has songs and                                              ambition that are rarely seen in the Top Five.  

500 Greatest Albums of the 2000's # 221 Jill Scott - Who Is Jill Scott Vol 1

 

Positive vibes. You can't fault it. Smooth as silk.

Song(s) of the Day # 4,342 The Paper Kites

 

We've been quiet for a couple of days on here but let's pick things up a bit. We're coming up to the weekend . With that in mind, let's go fly some kites. 

Melbourne's Paper Kites rock a familiar cosy, fireside folk sounds on latest record; 'If You Go There I Hope You Find It. It's something you know completely already. But will want to hear again. 

Song(s) of the Day # 4,341 The Notwist

 

Notwist hail from Weilheim near Munich and have been releasing albums since 1990. Their latest album News From Planet Zombie carves out new pathways on their flourishing range. There's something incredible veined and characterful about the record. Labels seem spurious here. This feels like a whole new colour.  

500 Greatest Albums of the 2000's # 222 Regina Spektor - Begin to Hope

 

I was in love with Regina Spektor for a while. She's a very specific talent. There's nobody quite like her.. 

1979 Top 40 - # 3 Gary Numan

 

I remember talking excitedly at school about Are Friends Electric the next dau at school but I don't remember getting particularly excited about Cars. Hey I hadn't actually read Philip K. Dick. Never mind J.G. Ballard. This made waves in Chicago. It's alright I s'pose.

Song(s) of the Day # 4,340 Tinariwen

 

Tinariwen  are back. Hoggar their first album in three is hitting racks near you and it's a treat from the off. I find it difficult to write about music like this without resorting to cliches about desert suns and lips of dunes and stuff rising, The record is coiled and relentlessly atmospheric and thick with flavour and majesty.. Write your own poems.    

1979 Top 40 - # 4 Status Quo

 

Status Quo. They existed largely by their own rules.

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Best Ever Albums - 2,000 - 1,001 - 1,428 Temples - Sun Structures

 

New Psychedelia,, Hipsters pretend its  1967 in 2014. It was always thus. There were plenty of 1967 moments in 1978, 1981 and 1991/ Temples seem content to replicate not update. 

500 Greatest Albums of the 2000's # 223 Kurt Vile - Childish Prodigy

 

Kurt Vile howls at the moon. Iggy Pop meets Neil Young. At the crossroads.

Song(s) of the Day # 4,339 The Monochrome Set

 

Change and peoples approaches and responses  to it is one of the most fascinating subjects. Particularly when applied to Bohemians like The Monochrome Set.. Who surely advocate risk but stick to their essential palate record in record out.

But as the man said if it ain't broke.... (you do the rest). Lotus Charm is a glassful or two of your very favourite things. Absinthe without the hangover. Herman's Hermits are still together. The Prisoner has been comissioned for another season and Sean Connery is forever shaken and not stirred. A marvellous record  

Songs About People # 1,423 George Sand

 

George Sand sounds like a writer I ought to read. While I get around to it, here's another from the Bibi Club album.. 

250 Albums- An Arbitrary Rumble Through My Record Collection # 42 Ride - Going Blank Again

 

History needs rewriting . They're at it in terms of the history book it seems so why nit music history. The first two Ride albums and that glorious set of EPs. Talk about living a glorious youth. The guitars sound messianic, the whole sense of the record feels like the Christian Crusade. A sense that we're riding into battle with the sun on our shoulders. Of course I'm being fanciful. That's what blogs are for. 

1979 Top 40 - # 5 Bellamy Brothers

This was typical of the kind of slop that Terry Wogan played very morning on his breakfast show ensuring it camped in the Top Ten for months though nobody you knew seemed to like it in any way.

 

500 Greatest Albums of the 2000's # 224 The Cinematic Orchestra - Every Day

 

The OST thing. A major post millennial fork in the road. Nu Jazz for those requiring a peg.Lusg for those wanting an adjective. 

Best Ever Albums - 2,000 - 1,001 - 1,429 King Krule - The Ooze

 

I think I can relate to this. Labels get added to it which I don't necessarily understand I just think . That reminds me of Trip Hop and has an edge I approve.. 

Song(s) of the Day # 4,338 Seamus Fogerty

 

We all of us hunt for signs. And find them in the most unexpected places. And they help us orient ourself.. Stay on the prescribed path. Avoid steering into ditches. Driving into trees ! 

It's coming up to St. Patrick's Day. A special anniversary for me. 22 years ago I met an important person to me. On St Patrick's Day. In an Irish Pub in Katowice . It was the start of a really special story. We met up again last September in Dublin for her 48th Birthday and in advance of my 60th. Discovered a special city together. Drained a few pints of Kilkenneys. Chatted about where we'd gone and where we hoped we were going. It was a fabulous, memorable experience..  

Now I'm thinking of Ireland again. Listening to  Seamus Fogerty's Ships while my bath runs. It's pure Ireland in the magical sense. Modern Irish Folk. Veined with religious, literary and historical reference points. But also a sense of the mythical land. And there are plenty of modern references. Ut maintains a sense if 2026 It's a deep dive. A special record. 

We're all ships. Cast adruft in different seas. Heading towards the same eventual destination in different ports. That's the one thing we all know is inevitable but we try to detain ourselves from that realisation. But determined to make merry as best we can in the meantime. Here's a fine record which may detain you and persuade you to return.  

250 Albums- An Arbitrary Rumble Through My Record Collection # 43 Judy Henske - Judy Henske

 

Life is not about work. We may kid ourselves that it is but I'd maintain it isn't really. We can only hope that we get to do something meaningful and worthwhile and that we do it well in return for our dollar. But life us about the spaces between. The spaces where we get to live and try to become ourselves,

This is a record that does nothing if not exist within the spaces in between. Judy Henske was a tall blousy singer who lives into her songs with joy and contagious gusto. This a transportative record.

Best Ever Albums - 2,000 - 1,001 - 1,430 The Damned - Damned, Damned, Damned

 

The Damned always appealed to me in sharp bursts but I didn't really go for the albums. There's plenty here. But I never invested in the album.

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500 Greatest Albums of the 2000's # 225 Various Artists - Lost In Translation

 

A film not quite any other. The soundtrack makes every effort to replicate a waking dream. 

1979 Top 40 - # 6 The Buggles

 

Video Killed The Radio Star it felt was always Number One. When it wasn't Number One it was Top Five or Top Ten, or in the Top Twenty. It just hung around wherever you went it seemed , There was no escape it seemed from Video Killed The Radio Star. 

I didn't like it. I've never liked it. I don't like it. There I've said it. Some might claim that it is State of the Art . It has immaculate production values, a fantastic concept and a clinical sense of realised achievement in the annals of the three minute Pop Song . Such people are sadly mistaken. Please take it away from me ! 

Song(s) of the Day # 4,337 The Orielles

 

Halifax' finest Orielles are back with a fourth album Only You Left which finds them again heading off to distant shores once more. They don't like the conventional. If this leads to slightly inconclusive junctures occasionally you cant but commend their modus vivendi. 

Best Ever Albums - 2,000 - 1,001 - 1,431 Dirty Three - Ocean Songs

 

Melbourne's Dirty Three come from a distinct, charged place.

1979 Top 40 - # 7 Michael Jackson

 

Pure motion. 

500 Greatest Albums of the 2000's # 226 Super Furry Animals - Phantom Power

 

And as if by magic. Next in line after a record where Gruff Rhys guests. It's Super Furry Animals. Their records are always a land of enchantment and respite.

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Song(s) of the Day # 4,336 Andrew Wasylyk

 

Irreparable Parables by Andrew Wasylyk. A Scottish composer and arranger. A record sleeve emblazoned in birdlife. A record moored in collaboration and poetry and dream . I sat back at my desk and listened through to the whole record watching the street outside.

 Wasylyk works with Stuart Murdoch. Gruff Rhys. The usual Indie Royalty. This is a record which recognises and celebrates an alternative universe. A world where magic still exists.  On the cool Clay Pipe label no less,

250 Albums- An Arbitrary Rumble Through My Record Collection # 44 The Shadows of Knight - Gloria

 

Records like this exert a strange hold on me and have an invigorating effect on me while they're on the turntable. It begs a lot of questions. Why is the album sleeve so pink.. What became of the chap on the left. Leaning on the painting of the lady painting the mandolin, and why is he gazing shiftily at the camera. What exactly are the band referring to when they talk about their mojo ? Is it working yet? Probably not .

With a band like The Shadows of Knight their mojo is never working. They have to complain about something. They are all 18  to  20. The age of Punk Complaint . Or at least they were when they made the record in 1966. They are Chicago High School graduates oddly. At least they were. But School's Out forever here.  They are Out of Sight !''

500 Greatest Albums of the 2000's # 227 Cornelius - Sensuous

 

Avant Pop 

250 Albums- An Arbitrary Rumble Through My Record Collection # 45 Kate Bush - The Whole Story

 

I'm spring cleaning. It's time....Kate Bush takes me back to the Seventies and feels like having the doors thrown wide to the meadows of the past, the present and the future all at once. I discovered that a friend from school had died today . It shocked me because he was a brave friend who I knew had experienced terrible difficulties but maintained the joy along with manifesting the pain and what news like this awakens in you is a realisation that you are alive and have a responsibility to live.

 Listening to Kate Bush helps. She's a life force , Like Bowie, Like The Beatles. Like R.E.M. for me specifically. Like the sun coming out. You just know that something good is going to happen. With Kate Bush at core there's essence. The joy of being alive.  

1979 Top 40 - # 8 Rainbow

 

I never got too deeply drawn into heaviness.. But Since You've Been Gone struck a chord. It seemed to be in the Tip Twenty forever. And that seemed to be a good thing. It spoke of adult experience which was the important thing at that age. I had no idea of the specific history of Rainbow. Who Blackmore and Glover were. The smoke on that water. But Graham Bonnet's lungs were clearly remarkable 

Song(s) of the Day # 4,335 Bibi Club

 

Another day. Another Euro. Bibi Club are a Canadian Pop Duo operating in French to a large degree though not exclusively. Latest album Amaro has a fractured intensity that lit up my Mercredi..

Apparently they explore the Liminal Spaces between the here and beyond. It's a response to the passing if lived ones. Letting the days go by. Another recommendation from Starbuck, Darren Jones Meilleure Ami pour It Starts With a Birthstone. Merci Beaucoup Starbuck. Encroyable.

1979 Top 40 - # 9 Dollar

 

Would you like some sugar with your sugar.. Some would say this is a great Pop Record, Such people would also make great Pop Records. Hey I read the NME. I think Magazine and China Crisis wrote great Pop Records.

Genesis

 

Best Ever Albums - 2,000 - 1,001 - 1,432 Genesis - Genesis

 

Genesis called their albums all kind of wonderful things and made all kinds of incredibly inventive, groundbreaking music. Then for their twelfth album in 1983 they played it largely safe. Called the record Genesis. Made a lot of money, Well done Genesis.

500 Greatest Albums of the 2000's # 228 Stereolab - Sound Dust

 

When I come across certain artists on my inevitably descending lists by which I justify these daily voyages; The Fall, Nick Cave & his cohorts, Zappa. I just think 'Oh No!' What do I say. When I spot others, Stereolab for example. My response is quite the opposite. 

This is a joy. Stereolab albums are invariably a joy. A process of discovery, imagination and constant departure, The mapping out of a train if thought which invites discourse, fertilisation, harvest and procreation. They're truly modern artists. 

250 Albums- An Arbitrary Rumble Through My Record Collection # 46 The Avalanches - Since I Met You

 

The album that's been on permanent rotation all day. It's my mother's ninety first birthday and I'm also doing a massive spring clean having taught my online classes . This record takes me back . To Katowice, Poland where I first bought it on CD just after it came out.

It's an innovative and celebrated record if course. Given that it's entirely composed of samples/ Oveer 3,500 in all. All f which naturally had to be credited, But there's no need to worry yourself with the painful processes behind that anymore than it pays to think of the creative details of Mirph or Wallace & Grimit when watching them.

It's poetry in motion frankly. A record that can easily be listened to on loop because it's not like Astral Weeks or Rubber Soul in that it's best surrendered to rather than broken down into individual moments.   .  

Song(s) of the Day # 4,334 Alice Costelloe

 

Move on with the year? Well that's certainly the plan. Onto March and Spring and the lengthening days and the Easter season. Today we have precisely that  Move On With The Year the debut album from Alice Costelloe and a veritable peach. Thanks once more to Darren Jones for directing me here.

Reading through the accompanying blurb there seems to be a certain heft and marketing expectation behind the release of the record . It struck me as a very 2026 sounding record. Innocence, awe. Wide eyed millennial wonder. It reminded me of Aldous Harding who will be along before long with her new album on May 8th. In the meantime this will more than do.  

Best Ever Albums - 2,000 - 1,001 - 1,433 Opeth - Ghost Reveries

 

Gargling rocks !

500 Greatest Albums of the 2000's # 229 Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers - The Live Anthology

 

Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers Live ! Loads of it.

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1979 Top 40 - # 10 Electric Light Orchestra

 

The bane of my life. My name is Bruce. Listen to the refrain. Felt like it was in the charts for months and even when it left the charts it continued for months,. All the dumb and irritating berks at school trailing across from the other end of the playground, 'Don't bring me down Bruuuuuce !!!!'

Song(s) of the Day # 4,334 The Delines

 

'Did I tell you my dad had a heart attack .... my mama took the money and put his ashes in the garbage can...'

I'm finding I'm reading less but it doesn't really matter as I'm listening to more music as it provides the same service is your discernible. Take The Delines new album The Set Up. It's the great American Novel in potted form; Carver, Steinbeck, Scott Fitzgerald laid out before you like a tablecloth at the breakfast table. Whisky & Rye. The struggle, the strife.

There are so many lines and moments that stop you in your tracks. The pain and the purity. A fine record to start the week. We may not get to see as much if the world as we'd like to. But records like this make us feel as if we have, 

1979 Top 40 - # 11 Kate Bush - On Stage EP

 

Kate Bush swam against the popular stream in 1979. She was like a salmon heading upstream in the New Wave years. Swimming up that hill. This came out to publicise her  early tour which apparently was something rather extraordinary. Everything about the woman is rather extraordinary/ 

Songs About People # 1,422 Dennis Brown

 

                                                            Heartbreaking

Best Ever Albums - 2,000 - 1,001 - 1,434 The Mountain Goats - The Sunset Tree

 

The sun's descending in Sunday's sky, A nice time to listen to The Sunset Tree. The Mountain Goats always have a lot of soul and heart, So much of life is here as on any good record. It's a record to learn and sing. This essentially has all the nuance and heart and soul of a great American novel or road movie. I wish I could do it justice here because I loved the record as it played. Unfortunately my blog rarely owes me that luxury..

 

500 Greatest Albums of the 2000's # 288 The Hives - Your New Favourite Band

 

This is 29 minutes long. A sensible length for a Swedish Stooge Revivalist Punk Rock Post Millennial record overseen by Alan McGee. It's pretty wonderful. WHY ME ! Indeed. 

 

250 Albums- An Arbitrary Rumble Through My Record Collection # 47 John Lennon - Shaved Fish

 

I didn't really know who John Lennon was when he was shot in 1980. Paul McCartney was The Beatles I thought. I was a late developer. I've pieced things together over the next 45 years . Now I listen to Shaved Fish and I'm struck by the bravery mostly..

These are bold statements. The things people don't like about Lennon, he doesn't like about himself and he's quite upfront but his failings. You think he's overrated. He's john Lennon. It's brutal perhaps. But he's John Lennin. Who are you? 

Song(s) of the Day # 4,333 Morrissey

                           'I want to move away from those who stare at screens all day.'

I come back from church bearing daffodils, What better moment to listen to the new Morrissey album Make Up Is a Lie. So I fix myself a cup of tea. Take a seat at my desk . And off we go.

He's certainly in fine voice the incorrigible old ham. The album has been written off as self pitying , Come on folks this is Morrissey. What were you expecting ? Altruism? It's only the second track and he's off to Paris to the garret of the poet apparently. 

He seems to have a bee in his bonnet about his right to spout nonsense and be outraged. About the fire at Notre Dame now which he implies is an inflammation that was not accident. Shock ! Horror! I think he might be implying that it might just be something slightly more sinister. 

Is he Still Ill. It seems the jury may still be out !  Where is your punctured bicycle on 'that hillside desolate' prey Stephen Patrick ! Kindly stick to what you know 

He's actually in rude form vocally  but looking for outrage as ever and his is not a flag that I'd choose to align myself behind anymore. Hand In Glove maybe but not this bunch of old cobblers.. What Morrissey lacks is  clearly what he's lacked since 1986. Johnny Marr.

There's an uninspired cover of Roxy's Amazona coming round the bend next . Discerning listeners are referred to the original. This is pallid at best. I skip the guitar histrionics and move on to Headache which promptly gives me one... apart from the line 'with this headache I thee wed!' which makes me laugh. But,. Next !!!

Boulevard takes its time. Morrissey can still pen a good line and knows it. He throws up in an icy bathroom just off said boulevard. Oh please. No, that's no good either !

What Morrissey does, he does better than anyone else. But let's face it he's done it much better than he does it here. 'We have the stars!' Mozza wails. You're welcome to them pal ! We want The Smiths !!!

Four songs left and I'm not flinching. But my hopes aren't high. Kerching, Kerching is negligible stuff about saving the hedgehog. A little boy who only thinks about joy. Oh. It's another vegetarian thing. Is it Meat Is Murder. No I'm afraid it isn't !!!

Lester Bangs. My ears prick up. I love Lester Bangs. But the lyrics aren't up to much. And the tune's a dirge. 'So sad for the universe!' You said it Mozza..

Many Icebergs Below. Morrissey's Down The Ten Bells with his quill. Are we done yet. We must be done. Morrissey is sinking merlots and awaiting Rousseau. This is truly rolling out the barrel so you can scrape it with a runcible spoon !

Make Up Is A Lie brings down the curtain with The Monsters of Pig Alley. It's reasonably poignant. Morrissey has at least saved the best until last. It's the most likeable thing here. Almost elegaic.

But in short this is a pretty dreadful album trading on the man's name and former glories. Morrissey is never a man to be entirely written off. Hard as he tries himself.. He's trying incredibly hard here. I think I should put these daffodils in water.