Best Ever Albums - 2,000 - 1,001 - 1,406 Deftones - Koi No Yokan

 

Oh go to your room !

500 Greatest Albums of the 2000's # 194 The For Carnation - The For Carnation

 

Brooding Post Slint manuevers.Incredibly tatseful. Like waiting for something to happen. When you're not entirely sure anything ever will. 

 

Top 100 Records - SublimMedia # 98 The Louvin Brothers - Satan is Real

 

The classic collecter's item. A real opportunity to invite your pals round and strpke your chins as it spins. As for letting satan in your life. It's probably slightly inadvisable.Now dosy do your partner. Atmosphere aplenty. 

1982 Top 40 23rd May # 16 Soft Cell

 

Everybidy things that their tumes were the best. I'm no different but would say that this Top 40 from my times, just as I was preparing for O Levels and the exit to the wider world is a persuasive case for 1982.'See her eyes they are bright tonight,  See the stars coming out tonight. See the moon looking down tonight. Ss how they light your way tonight. '

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Song(s) of the Day # 4,369 Woo

 

A leisurely wind down to the weekend. Woo, Clive and Mark Ives phenomenal Whichever Way You Are Going, You Are Goung Wrong an extraordinary slice of New Age whimsy and drift that feels like you're falling into a blissful space.

The Ives Brothers have been creating music since the 1970's apparently but if this is your entre to theit music then you may want to seek out more. In the meantime this collage is a drop of pure and constantly surprising beauty 

Best Ever Albums - 2,000 - 1,001 - 1,407 Danger Mouse & Black Thought - Cheat Codes

 

An old skool collaboration in many respects. With the rapping rhythms and tone of early NAS and the vague gangster dread of those times but leavened by cool samples, melodic flourishes, tight beats and the constant ability to surprise. 

I don't really listen to much that might be labelled Hip Hop these days so am in no position to judge whether it's in rude health or not really.Very few records seem to appear that really grab my attention and make me think I must play, them but this one certainly did.

Producer Danger Mouse and rapper Black Thought are neither of them actually new kids on the block. Far from it.  Black Thought made his name as MC of The Roots who have been putting out records since the early Nineties, while Danger Mouse has been a producer of note for a broad range of artisits from Jay Z to Beck and Damon Albarn. No spring chickens then.

But on latest collaboration Cheat Codes they make Hip Hop's broad legacy work for them. This is something of an instant classic. Put it on and it will give you the instant shivers in the way that Illmatic, De La Soul is Dead or Liquid Swords might do.

One of the albums off the year then. One of the best records of this type I've heard for some time. A lyrical free wheeling treasure that improves on every listen.

Lou Reed

 

500 Greatest Albums of the 2000's # 195 Peter Hammill - Thin Air

 

The main Van Der Graaf Genrator guy with a late slice of melodrama which makes you realise why John Lydon rated him so highly. Not easy listening..

Top 100 Records - SublimMedia # 99 Joni Mitchell - Blue

 

'One of the most emotional records ever made.' apparently. It's certainly  pretty damned good one I'd say.It's sometimes difficult to articulate to any degree to a record that you listen to a lot and appreciate and understand the cultural significance of when they don't particular have a visceral tug for you personally. Some of Joni's do. This always puts me in a restful state whuch is more than enough. Different songs and lines stand out on different hearings,.The vulnerability and candidness are astonishing. 

Song(s) of the Day # 4,368 Squarepusher

 

The best way to be drawn unto a new record I find is to hear it first time in a record shop.Yesterday I wandered into Canterbury after a long day teaching. I made my way down St Margarey's Lane and poppped in at Vinylstore Jr to see my pal Nick making last minute preparations for Record Store Day. He had the new Squarepusher album  Kammerkonzert on his turntable. 

It sounded great and now it sounds great again as I'm listening to it in my parent's living room as the evening draws to a close.. Punchy, Jazzy exercises that might surprise those who associate Tim Jenkinson with more obviously 'Street' exercises from way back when . This is a thrilling record

1982 Top 40 23rd May # 17 Associates

 

Associates were hysterical genius. Like overdosing on helium. It was incredible at the time to have songs like this in the charts. Sometimes it takes forty years to begin to realise just how remarkable they actually were.,

Top 100 Records - SublimMedia # 100 Shuggie Otis - Freedom Flight

 

A slightly geeky but highly eloquent Swedish man named Jonas Samuelsson starts a YouTube countdown of his favourite records and I'll hitch a ride which will take us to summer. He's incredibly eclectic and this should be a proper education. What I like about him most is that he doesn't talk about himself but focises his energy entirely upin the record he is focusing on. . Almost no Soul, Metal or Funk apparently but we start with something fairly Soulful and certainly visionary.. He says this is primarily about the envronment it creates.

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Best Ever Albums - 2,000 - 1,001 - 1,408 Big Black - Atomizer

 

Big Black were pretty confrontational and aggressive. They require certain level of endurance and determination. I lasted a couple of tracks. Until it sounded like someone drilling in my head.

500 Greatest Albums of the 2000's # 196 Lindstrom - Where You Go I Go Too

Space. The final frontier. You can put this on and cast yourself in a Science fiction film of your choosing and drift into oblivion in the best way imaginable.

 

Song(s) of the Day # 4,367 Dead Finks

 

Influencers? Are you hip to this.. Dead Finks fourth  New Plastic Abyss strident agitation of the most vigorous kind. A coat of many colours. The Scars meet Rats On Rafts. Wumderbar !!! Hysteria is back in vogue. See them in Leipzig, Berlin, Prague and Munich in April and May. New Favourite Band Number Blah, blah, blah.

1982 Top 40 23rd May # 18 Spandau Ballet

 

'Steal a cake to eat the moon!'

Spandau Ballet. Cheeky chappies! The Kemp Brothers actually played for Melchester Rovers for a while in the Eighties in one of the more remarkable twists of the modern football narrative. I wondered whether Instinction was the Spandau single I actually quite liked until I listened to it again yesterday and everything that really irritated me about the band came back.. Like a dose of something ghastly contract in Tunisia..

The funkiness. The hats. The wardrobes in general. The lyrics. The obligatory sax solo in every song  because they had a sax player. The relentless narcissism. The drumming.. The videos. Tony Hadley. Spandau Ballet were truly the pits !!!! 

Leonard Cohen & Marianne Ihlen

 

Best Ever Albums - 2,000 - 1,001 - 1,409 Aerosmith - Pump

 

I'll never know what Aerosmith felt like in the mid Seventies. I was too young and they were too ... American. Listening to Pump now, which I was aware of when it came out and relatively grown up it sounds like an attempt to cash in. Fair enough but I've never like guitar solos which make you screw up your face as an involuntarily gesture. Straight to MTV . That band were always on MTV..

1982 Top 40 23rd May # 19 Iron Maiden

 

I'm sorry but this is patently ridiculous and all of the stuff that I like is really good.!That's why I have written a blog for so long. I won't be persuaded.

500 Greatest Albums of the 2000's # 197 Shellac - 1,000 Hurts

 

And if that particular itch still needs scratching. Here you go. 

Song(s) of the Day # 4,366 Black Beach

 

If in doubt, go down to the underground. Black Beach reignite the conflagration first lit in the early Eighties by the likes of Minor Threat, Mission of Burma, Black Flag, et al in the early eighties on Mail Thief. It's all incredibly authentic.

Asha Bhosle 1933 - 2026

 

Best Ever Albums - 2,000 - 1,001 - 1,408 Genesis - Trespass

 

Gabriel's Genesis increasingly take me to a place where I'm happy to go,

500 Greatest Albums of the 2000's # 198 TV On The Radio - Dear Science

 

I took time out of new music largely between about 2004 and 2014 when I felt I should start paying attention a little bit more given that I started writing this blog. This strikes me as one of the best albums I mussed during that fallow period.

Song(s) of the Day # 4,365 Julianna Barwick & Mary Lattimore

 

A rather wonderful record from earlier on this year that I haven't written about yet. Tragic Magic. Folk Dreaming from Julianna Barwick & Mary Lattimore. It sounds pretty much like the first album you put on when you get to the jukebox heaven . Whatever or wherever that is . 

1982 Top 40 23rd May # 20 Rocky Sharp & The Replays

 

A strange anomaly of my youth. There was all of this Rock & Roll crap in the charts. Not like the originals. Reliving the late Fifties, and indeed the early Sixties would have been great. But dreadful covers or songs that sounded like they were with anachronistic, clothing haircuts and dancing. Knock yourself out Rocky Sharp & The Replays. 

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Best Ever Albums - 2,000 - 1,001 - 1,409 Battles - Mirrored

 

Battles. are the kind of band that I started making an effort with when I first arrived back in England in 2008 and settled in Newcastle and thought I at least needed to make an effort with to attempt to organise myself and catch up with to some degree.

 It was sometimes.. err 'a battle' This is frantic, frenetic but not unpleasant clutter and change. Up and down the scales. Happy percussive turbulence.

500 Greatest Albums of the 2000's # 199 Solomon Burke - Don't Give Up On Me

 

Soul 'Legends' became an endangered species in the new millennium for hipsters to hang their hat and pretensions of authenticity on. That doesn't take anything away from the attention to detail and loving care evident in late career, records like this.

1982 Top 40 23rd May # 21 Genesis

 

Genesis were struggling for relevance. A few years make a lot of difference at that age. They were surrounded by young beautiful things, .Gabriel was long gone and this sounds tired tired, ZZZZZZZ !

Song(s) of the Day # 4,364 Pictish Trail

 

The sun is up, But today it rises in a Canterbury sky for me at least. A friend is on Mount Everest. Another is dealing with he death of his father, Another is in Baghdad, Bombs and rockets are exploding a mile away frim where he us waking up. Pictish Trail's new album Life Slime is spinning on headphones as I sit at my deskin he box room of my parents house.

It's rather magical. Spacey. Dancey, Rising up from earth's orbit and into space. We live in the moment and time where we are and myst make the most if it, This will more than do me for today.

Best Ever Albums - 2,000 - 1,001 - 1,410 Queens of the Stone Age - Queens of the Stone Age

 

1998 ! It feels like a long time ago. Everything feels like a long time ago ! Queens of the Stone Age sounds like Grunge for people who like Punk but also have a few Metal records in their collectuin. And they make that sound like not such a bad thing. Listening to this also feels like a portal to a Seventies childhood.

500 Greatest Albums of the 2000's # 200 Nagasi Ni Te - Feel

 

    Japanese Psych Folk, Narcoleptic. Full of Wonder ! A good friend's father died a couple of days ago. A sad day? A normal day in the history of the world. Which keeps on spinning. Something we oftentimes don't realise and acknowledge fully. This a good way to spend an hour,

1982 Top 40 23rd May # 22 Simple Minds

                                                             

                                                             'Belief is a beauty thing.'

Simple Minds were a big thing for me in 1982. I'm essentially a dreamer. And Simple Minds. Associates and Echo & The Bunnymen were essentially the forerunners for R.E.M's magnificent dreaming. 

Song(s) of the Day # 4,363 Bella Litsa

'Is she really going out with him?'

Bella's Litsa's Dramaticism a new album from Brooklyn, New York. The latest example of the new sadness, Lana Del Ray, Weyes Blood. Britney Speaks. Remember her? Nowadays more refined classicism is in vogue. Carpenters meets Laura Nyro in Central Park. And the consequence is, refined classicism of the most tasteful kind..

I expect it was always thus. Youth has always been drawn to melodrama. Going back to Cassandra of Troy and The Lady of Shallot . There's a track here called Never Ending Movie. You said it Bella. Sergeant Troy and Fanny Robin go to different churches on their wedding day and heartbreak ensues,  Dramaticism is just the latest tasteful psychodrama up the pike. It doesn't sound new exactly, far from it frankly. Bur every hair is in place, 

Best Ever Albums - 2,000 - 1,001 - 1,411 Green Day - Nimrod

 

                It's Green Day. You know what you're getting. Dickies meet Ramones. Twenty years on. 

500 Greatest Albums of the 2000's # 201 Sparks - Hello Young Lovers

 

'All I do now is stick around...'

Sparks cope with growing older and not want to appear to do so, Clearly a Sparks record..I felt myself coming up for air. 

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1982 Top 40 23rd May # 23 Bananarama with Fun Boy Three

 

A scenario of youth. If it happens later in life it's considered staking I imagine The Velvelettes. It soundsed fresh with Banarama who were new on the block in 1982. It was a cool juxtaposition to have lads doing the backing vocals. Does memory play tricks? I tend to think mune does. This seems to stay in the charts for the longest imaginable time. . 

Song(s) of the Day # 4,362 Robber Robber

 

Every day it seems brings fresh drama . I feel I'm at the best time and this is really living. the world is in flames and it feels great to be alive and await what each new dawn brings. I'm travelling South but first must find listening fate to take me from one class to the next. Today Robber, Robber's Two Wheel's Move the Soul.

Desperate frantic, noise. Somewhere between the poles of My Bloody Valentine and Deerhunter. Claustrophobic, Clawing for the daylight. Plenty of .space for melody. Robber, Robber hail from Vermont . Two Wheel's Move the Soul is fine, fresh  product. It makes being in a band sound like the 'best idea' That's enough. Onto the next, . 

Dave, Dee, Dozy Beaky, Mick & Titch

 

The Action

 

The Beatles

 

250 Albums- An Arbitrary Rumble Through My Record Collection # 35 Curved Air - The Second Album

 

In terms of listening fare it seemed increasingly I'm looking for the stuff of dreams wherever I can find them these days. I was just browsing in the record shop across the road from me and I found the second album from Curved Air going for a fiver and now I'm listening to it in my living room and I'm pretty much enraptured.

I don't know much about Curved Air except that they are Prog by disposition, had a big hit in Back Street Luv. Have a singer called Sonja Kristina who starred in the original production of Hair and Steward Copeland served some time on the drum stool before his time in The Police.

I'm clearly uninformed. This is greatly to my liking. First of all it has a wondrous inner sleeve which immediately takes you back almost fifty years to a world you don't know but wish you had. It's a little bit Proggy. But Poppy, with Jazz, Folk and Classical leanings  too and definitely glass half full which is mandatory for me these days. And more Drama than an evening with Ibsen. Certainly worth every penny of the fiver I spent on it

Song(s) of the Day # 4,361 Wendy Eisenberg

 

Welcome to enchantment. This may be the first Song(s) of the Day in this history of almost 4,500 to be written in wet socks. What do you want I hear you ask? A medal? I shall spare you the story. In brief dear reader, I spilled a cup of tea just before teaching an online lesson. Never mind. I'm still in said socks and will switch to the matter at hand . Namely Wendy Eisenberg's current album; also Wendy Eisenberg.

It's rather lovely. A talented artist with a number of records under her belt. This is Folk nominally. In the tradition of John Prine and Nick Drake. But also Willie Nelson and Richard Dawson. We're talking the The golden path people. This is lush, gorgeous stuff.  Time to change my socks.  

Best Ever Albums - 2,000 - 1,001 - 1,412 Yo La Tengo -Painful

 

If I'd have been born in a different time and place I might have been a Yo La Tengo completist. I go for their cool veneer. Their relaxed and collected air. Painful comes from 1993. It walks the streets of New York City with a spring in its step.. Not a bad thing to do. It howls in a rather polite Indie way. Into the day !

500 Greatest Albums of the 2000's # 202 Gossip - Music For Men

 

From Japan to Gossip. Genre hopping . Sharp as a very sharp knife.

1982 Top 40 23rd May # 24 Japan

 

It's important to live in the times. To live in the moment. But it's also great to be taken back. Swept away ! It's great to be swept back by Japan. Swept away by their imaginations and artistry to China and the Long March ! That's something. To be able to do that for people. Achievement.

I think it's sheer foolishness to say they don't make them like they used to. To live in an imagined past. To allow the ghosts of your past to consume you. Eat away at your soul. But I'm glad I grew up when and where I grew up ! 

Associates

 

500 Greatest Albums of the 2000's # 203 Bloc Party - Silent Alarm

 

Silent Alarm always struck me as a pretty great thing. A millennial reapproximation of Joy Division and Gang of Four. Kele Okereke sounds a bit shrill to my ears now. But it's an album that's admirably both shrill and glossy.

 

Best Ever Albums - 2,000 - 1,001 - 1,413 Taylor Swift - Red

 

It's a Taylor Swift album. Not really my lexicon. But it sounds alright,

Song(s) of the Day # 4,360 Dorea

 

Pop Matters had a tagline which caught my attention yesterday  'Dorea's second album is vulnerable and seaworthy' Like a gullible carp casting its gills around a meaty hook I couldn't help myself. Or alternatively as a Blog writer who enjoys sea metaphors myself. 

It's an altogether enchanting record. I'm very taken by albums that make you feel like you're in a dream and O Que Mais Voce Quer Saber De Mim Has that intent and impact. Sometimes Brazilian records in the Tropicalia tradition do this best. It casts a spell that broadens and stengthens its grip with cunning stealth.