500 Greatest Albums of the 1980s ... Ranked! # 397 Midnight Oil - Diesel & Dust

 

Midnight Oil and their earnest lead singer Malcolm Garrett were everywhere in 1987. They were well meaning but Garrett sounded like he was gargling grit to me. Anyway I had The Triffids and Born Sandy Devotional to feed my widescreen dreams.

 

Mojo Collection - The Ultimate Music Companion # 585 Coldplay - Parachutes

 

The video of Chris Martin making his way down  down a beach and mewling the lyrics of Yellow at the camera was a defining three minutes as the millenium turne. It was everywhere and frankly I found it wet and unappealing in the extreme. Debut album Parachutes had moments that were more to my liking. They were highly skilled craftsemn for the road they chose. Stadium Rock. It's not my favourite thing. I generally prefer the support band.  

Best Ever Albums - 2,000 - 1,001 -1,954 Grateful Dead - Europe '72

 

There are some bands I ujst can;t get on with and Grateful Dead are generally one of them. The thought of their endless and often exceptionally stoned live performances are enough to instil actual fear in me. But I gave Europe '72 a listen. Or at leas some of it. It's a set of live performances recorded across various venues in erm.... Europe in erm 1972. I enjoyed the groove they built and sustained.Enjoyed the mood. I didn't listen to the whole thing. You don't really need to in orer to pick up the vibe. I suspect a joint might have enhanced the experience.

Song(s) of the Day # 3,713 Conor Lynch

 This looks like becoming Darren Jones week here on It Starts with a Birthstone.. I may not be entirely exaggerating. The last two Songs of the Days have been Darren suggestions. 

This is the third in a row and the best so far as well as be one of the best albums I've heard all year . So we may well keep going until the man runs out of ideas. He doesn't seem to. Well it makes things very easy for me.

This. Michigan songwriter Conor Lynch's fourth album Slow Country is a record that attains classic status almost within the first five minutes of its run. Sometimes you just need the first song to know you're on a good road. . 

This is a melifluous and relaxing Folk Rock record in the classic tradition. Think Nick Drake most obviously. But then think Midlake, Kevin Morby, Phosphorescent. Any of those people, R.E.M's Find The River. Conor Lynch is not an artist and this is not a record that is shamed by such esteemed company.  

One to listen to with a cat on your lap. or else a blanket. This establishes and maintains a pace and momentum of its own that I suspect you might want to stay with it, Thanks Darren. This is a peach..    

Hit Factories - A Journey Through The Industrial Cities of British Pop # 5 Everything But The Girl

 

To Hull and back. Throbbing Gristle. Mick Ronson & The Spiders From Mars. The Housemartins. Beutiful south. Philip Larkin. Everything But The Girl/.Hull was becoming a City of Culture and choosing Brexit.Looking for toutes out of Post Industrial decline.

500 Greatest Albums of the 1980s ... Ranked! # 398 Julee Cruse - Floating Into The Night

 

The soundtrack to the quite gamechanging Twin Peaks. Still intrigues.To listen to this is always to let yourself go. The dark romance of the screen. And the night. 

Mojo Collection - The Ultimate Music Companion # 586 Badly Drawn Boy - The Hour of Bewilderbeast

 

I've written about this excellent, landmark record recently on another of my process of endless countdowns and count up lists that I conduct on here for want of anything better to do. But life is a process of  journeys if it's anything and it's Friday morning and I was more than happy to relive this particular one just now before heading to the pool. Damon Gough has a particular vision and it's best experienced here.The Hour of Bewilderbeast lasts jyst Nort of an hour and encompasses home, obsession fear, loneliness. The whole gamut of human emotions. And finds its way to love.

Best Ever Albums - 2,000 - 1,001 -1,955 The B 52s - Cosmic Thing

 

Pop bands don't get better than The B 52s. Cosmic Thing was their quite unexpected late Eighies rennaissance. So hurry up. And bring your jukebox money.

Song(s) of the Day # 3,712 Dog Unit

 

Post Rock. Sunny Post Rock. I loves me a bit of Sunny Post Rock. Especially of the Instrumental sort occasionlly. Thanks again to Darren Jones. Fisherman on the High Seas of Alternative Music. His latest recommendation.

I don't generally like Instrumental Rock Music. I'm a bit impatient. I'm usually waiting for the vocals to kick in.To colour things in . To give me narrative or emotional direction. In the case of Dog Unit's At Home I'll make an exception. There is enough nuance and thought in their playing to give the listener all the direction he or she might need.

At Home has great track titles Concrete Barges on The Banks of The Thames. When Do We Start Fighting. John X Kennedy. So far, so intriguing. And the tracks are even more intriguing. 

Who needs Ian Curtis. Stuart Staples. Laetitia Sadler. Or whoever. Great as all of these people are. But Dog Unit give you free rein. To think what you want to. To encourage you to dream. I like bands that do that.

In short I thoroughly enjoyed At Home and I sign up for Dog Unit's fanclub and look forward to them coming to my hometown.  They're my new favourite Post Rock Instrumental band. Everybody needs one. Just as much as they need a Shady Lane.

Hit Factories - A Journey Through The Industrial Cities of British Pop # 5 The Human League

 

Karl Witney gets off the Megabus from Leeds to The Steel City and wanders off in search of the sound of Sheffield. Inevitably he ponders The Human League, Heaven 17 and Cabaret Voltaire. Pulp. Less so Def Leppard. The spell cast by A Clockwork Orange which is echoed in Sheffield's grim urbn landscape.

500 Greatest Albums of the 1980s ... Ranked! # 399 Kitchens of Distinction - Love Is Hell

 

A 1989 album on 4AD from Kitchens of Distinction a London threepiece that Melody Maker championed fror a while. Love is Hell is a fragile curiosity worthy of forty minutes of your time. Pained, introverted vocals and a jangling, delicate sound. 

Mojo Collection - The Ultimate Music Companion # 585 Air - The Virgin Suicides

 

     A lovely film about a painful subject. A sountrack that dreams from people who know how to dream ,

Best Ever Albums - 2,000 - 1,001 -1,956 Fennesz - Endless Summer

 

Song(s) of the Day # 3,711 House Warmer

 

Not for the first, and I imagine not for the last on here, I'm grateful for Darren Jones, my first mate on here, for coming up with a whole list of recommendations for my listening at a moment when I was running dry of inspiration.,

Song of the Day is a inportant feature of this blog to me and I like to devote it for the most part to new releases. Given the way that the internet has broken open things for the avid listener, there is no end of listening choices for the avid and engaged listener now. It's just a matter of keeping an eye open for the delicacies an training the prow of your boat in on them.

This morning Virgo by Band Warmer out of  Kingsport, Tennessee.They tell us there that 'We make Music.' They do indeed. It's worthy of notice. Impossibly young according to Darren. Immpossibly smart according to a listen of Virgo. 

I'm running across any number of intriguing Bedroom Indie records coming out of smalltown America this year. The heartlands and High Schools still dream,

This is a delightful, introverted, essentially romantic album album. Guitars and sighing. Heartfelt vocals and playing. Charming record. Thanks Darren. Onwards. To breakfast and the working day.. 

Songs About People # 1,387 Kirsten Dunst

 

'                                       She was the still point of the turning world.

' Is there anything better than Kirsten Dunst. I doubt it somehow. 

500 Greatest Albums of the 1980s ... Ranked! # 400 Wipers - Over The Edge

 

Wipers third; 'everything feels concise, carved conciously into a kind of febrile venomous punk: no excess, no flab.' A terrific, ominous record. They spole to Kurt among others.You can hear Kurt and the vortex he was drawn to here. 

Mojo Collection - The Ultimate Music Companion # 584 Shelby Lynne - I Am Shelby Lynne

 

Born in Virginia, raised in Alabama, and a voice to match, Shelby Lynne has a voice thick with lived experience. A fine Country Soul Pop record in the tradition of Dusty and Bobbie

Hit Factories - A Journey Through The Industrial Cities of British Pop # 4 Gang of Four

 

On to Leeds. A book that accumulates resonance with every chapter. Here we get a discussion of Consumer Fetsihism and an exploratuin of the streets of Leeds.A city built for shopping. Comaparison with the boulevards of Paris. The inevitable Pop subject matter is The Gang Of Four, one of the finest bands that the city and indeed Punk and Post Punk produced.Middle Class Marxist students. Among the finest kind of students there are. Two of them from Sevenoaks. Karl Whitney also broadens his discussion to include The Brudenell Social Club, Scritti Politti, Soft Cell, Victorianism and more. The chapter made me want to visit Leeds and explore for myself.

Best Ever Albums - 2,000 - 1,001 -1,957 Caribou - Our Love

 

Always a great listen. I have a vinyl copy bit my record player is out of action so I was obliged to resort to the Internet and headphones this morning. I was fine of course. Lost in Music.

Song(s) of the Day # 3,710 Agent Bla

 

Gothenberg Indie sextet Agent Bla (Aget Blue), are an immediate sensitive, lush proposition that paint their pictures using the broadest brushstrokes.Stab! which appears to be their second album, and their first since 2017 doesn't hold back from  being windswept and highly emotive, wearing its heart on the sleeve from the off.

This seemed to fit into a romantic Scandinavian tradition. I found myself thinking,'who does that remind me of?' Utimately this doesnt matter because I really enjoyed my morning ride. This is heartfelt, passionate stuff..  

Hit Factories - A Journey Through The Industrial Cities of British Pop # 3 The Animals

 

To Newcastle. A fascinating, ever changing city. Still. The place where I live..Karl Whitney focuses his attention on Nik Cohn, originally from Derry. He relocated to Newcastle at the age of 15 in 1961 with his parents and fashioned himself into perhaps the first Modern Rock Journalist. Newwcastle was a otugh Industrial city then, a reuytation that has persisted unfairly as times have changed. For Cohn pop provided 'an escape from rationality'. This is a fantastic chapter which I would direct anybody interested in finding out more about the Newcastle music scene towards and particularly its explosion in the Sixties. Fasinating portraits of the clubs, The Animals and Bryan Ferry.

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500 Greatest Albums of the 1980s ... Ranked! # 401 Rosanne Cash - Seven Year Ache

 

Johnny's daughter greets the early Eighties. What you think of this probably depends what you think of Country & Western crossing over to MTV mainstream Pop. It's a sprightly and nuanced record.Thumbs up from me. 

 

Mojo Collection - The Ultimate Music Companion # 583 Iggy Pop - Avenue B

 

The thought of listening to late period Iggy Pop albums with songs called things such as 'Nazi Girlfriend' was more than I could face this morning I confess. So I turned to New Values instead.

Best Ever Albums - 2,000 - 1,001 -1,958 The Kinks - Kinks

 

Almost a comic Spinal Tap version of  a 'Beat Group Combo' at this stage. They're not the Kinks we know and love just yet until their songwriting and Englishness flourishes. This is nevertheless a thrilling and incredibly 'Punk' way to start. . 

Song(s) of the Day # 3,709 Bad Bad Hats

 

Bad Bad Hats. Bad, bad name. Good, good band. Solid eponymous album. A duo essentially out of Miinneapolis, Minnesota. 

I confess I thoyght of Sheryl Crow. More than once. This kind of thought bothers me less as I get older. This is a sunny album with daisies on the front cover. There are worse ways to spend half an hour. 

Mojo Collection - The Ultimate Music Companion # 582 Cut Chemist & DJ Shadow - Brainfreeze

 

Hit Factories - A Journey Through The Industrial Cities of British Pop # 2 The Beatles

 

A trip to Beatles leads almost inevitable to a pigrimage around the streets and landmarks of Lennon and mcCartney's contrasting visions and childhoods.

500 Greatest Albums of the 1980s ... Ranked! # 402 The Replacements - Tim

 

The Replacements, regardless of how much you love them were always slightly variable in turns of their output. For many this is their go to record. For me it will always be Let It Be because it contains so many of their completely indelible stateents. You could just go with both.

Best Ever Albums - 2,000 - 1,001 -1,959 The Beatles - Blue Album

 

Listening through to the Blue Album was not a chore this morning. I still go through intermittent Beatles phases where I make my way through Rubber Soul, Revolver and Abbey Road. There are some songs I don't care to hear again. Sgt Pepper and I Get By With a Little Help From My Friends come to mind. But there is much else that sounds fresh as daisies every time. Hearing A Day in the Life and All You Need Is Love particularly this time round. They'll never age. 

TBH It's The Beatles. You may prefer The Stones. The Kinks. Soul. Punk. Post Punk. But they're The Beatles. Who are you? I don't mean to be rude. There's nothing more to say really. You may not care for McCartney. Ot Lennon. Say he wasn't a very nice person. For all you might say about Lennon he was always fairly upfront about having issues. Theirs'is one of the almost unfathomable achievements of Twentieth Century Music. I never mind the reminder. 

Song(s) of the Day # 3,708 Sam Lee

 

I'm losing my edge. I missed one.  Folk stalwart Sam Lee's Bernard Butler produced fourth album songdreamer which featured as Mojo's Album of the Month a couple of issues back. 

In fact I've missed this time twice. Sam played the Newcastle Sage about a month back. I planned to go but lost track of the time. Who knows where the time goes. As someone sang once. 

Anyway, songdreamer's a small classic in the great mode.Lee is a fifty three year old wuth a rustic folky voice. In the words of Mojo the record ' melds yoga pants era  Bill Callahan pondering, the twittering rhapsodies of Kate Bush's  Aerial and Incredible String Band cosmic wonder.' 

It does indeed. It's full of reverence for wild places and what they can teach us. It's a record with appreciation for space and time. Folk was not something I really considered listening to when I was young. Now it seems increasingly centre stage in Rock & Roll circles. And Why not? It's about time frankly. Roll over Post Punkers. And tell Ian Curtis the news.

Songs Heard on the Radio # 442 Jessica Pratt

 

Nice to have Gideon guesting for Cerys again on Sunday mornings.

Mojo Collection - The Ultimate Music Companion # 581 Paul Westerberg - Suicaine Gratification

 

I don't know this record. Or didn't until this morning. I listened to it in preference to Match of the Day. Westerberg is a songwriter. And a poet. One of those fuelled by alcohol and dependency to it. Written in his basement in Minneapolis. The glass largely seems half empty. You're never quite sure with this guy. A wonderful set of songs.  

Hit Factories - A Journey Through The Industrial Cities of British Pop # 1 The Hollies

 A journey on the part of the author. The kind of book I like. He takes us to the great Post Industrial cities of Britain using the music each city produced as the common denominator. Starting with Manchester. The birthplace of the Industrail Revolution.What does a city sound like? 

Karl Whitney takes a serious, research formed apprach. In contrast with the likes of Stuart Maconie, who is knowledgeabe but whose central aim is to entertain. Whitney wants to inform just as much. It would be logical to post Joy Division, New Order, Smiths or Buzzcocks ger. I'll go with Graham Goulding instead. One of the great Manachester songsmiths, 

500 Greatest Albums of the 1980s ... Ranked! # 403 Violent Femmes - Violent Femmes

 

I try not to get too engaged with the order of these lists. I'm getting older and am trying to adjust to the fact that these things are just opinions that reflect editorial decision making and commmitee consensus.

It still surprises me that this extraotdinary and pivotal album from my youth ranks in the low four hundreds of this particular exercise. I listened to it at five this morning wondering initially whether it was just too brash and adenoidal for such an early hour. I was gripped. There's no record like it.

Best Ever Albums - 2,000 - 1,001 -1,960 Sun Ra - Lanquidity

 

  The highest ranking Sun Ra record on here. It's Sun Ra. From 1978. It's an hour and a half long. I decided to listen to the whole thing. Sun Ra and his followers and fellow musicuans occupy a special place. They are not from this planet. That is an important basuc principle to set off from. Once you've accepted that basuc premise you'll be fine.

Song(s) of the Day # 3,707 English Teacher

 

A much hyped Leeds band that have risen quickly through the ranks and are playing the sizeable Boiler Shop venue, close to me soon in support of their debut album This Could Be Texas.

Generally, I'm suspicious of the kind of hype a band like this draw. I haven't been impressed by the likes of Black Midi, and Black Country New Road that have emerged to waves of adulation and rave reviews in recent years..

 There's also the dreaded sobriquet 'Post Punk' which is applied to any young British band that step up onstage with guitars, drum and bass and a trendy haircut these days. It's laziness frankly. Both from the press and also often on part of the bands themselves. It's high time to move on.

But hold on a moment because This Could Be Texas is a deft and sinuous record.It talks eloquently and with genuine craft and warmth about a world where there is an intolerance to difference. The world we live in frankly and does so by being engaged, different and not  resorting to  anger. I was moved and engaged,

It doesn't sound like the bands of my youth. There are no traces of The Fall, Gang of Four or Joy Division.  This is a record you need to listen to again and get to know on its own terms . 

With a singular frontwoman in Lily Fountaine and a deft guitarist in Lewis Whiting they seem immediately as ones to watch. I can't quite work out why this is riding the wave it clearly is right now but it's credit to the band and the audience that are attaching themselves to it that it is. This seems a record to return to and get to know in the coming months and one that will reward this effort.

Thank You (Fallettinme Be Mice Elf Again). - Sly Stone - A Memoir # 11 Sly & The Family Stone

 

The book tails off. I lost interest. The srory of Sly & The Family is 1965 to 1975 essentially. The rest is not essential. Worth a read mind. I wish the glory years had been investigate in greater depth. Time to post this on to my mate Joe and move on to the next.

500 Greatest Albums of the 1980s ... Ranked! # 404 Madness - 7

 

Madness were a Singles Band. No shame in that. It was an incredibly competitive era and they parked themselves in the Top Ten for four years or more.Some feat. And the records were consistently fantastic. Treasure troves.

Mojo Collection - The Ultimate Music Companion # 580 Mos Def - Black On Both Sides

 

This felt like a significant Hip Hip release at the time. I wonder whether it remains so, more than 25 years after its release. Mos Def was and remains something of a Rap Rennaissance man. With broader horizons that the usual guns and hoes fare. This remains  and extraordinary record brimming with consciousness.

Best Ever Albums - 2,000 - 1,001 -1,961 Foo Fighters - One By One

 

For me Foo Fighters are really all about the fabulous eponymous first album. The one where Dave Grohl channelled his enormous and overpowering grief at the loss of Kurt and produced a fabulous set of emotive and posutive alt rick / pop songs that I still love to go back to.

For some reason I did buy this one when oy came out in 2002. I was in Katowice, Poland so it probably came from Empik. The store in town for CDs and Music magazines. Where I got Mojo . I listened to quite a bit and it still sounds good. If you need to have monster behemoth's it helps to have good guys like Dave Grohl at the helm. 

 

Song(s) of the Day # 3,706 Mythical Motors

 

Once again a Sporify bio that can't be bear in telling you where a fabulous band and wonderful record are coming from. ' Drawing influences from bans such as Guided By Voices, The Clean, Wire, Superchunk, Bevis Frond and the expansive Elephant 6 Collective, the band weaves a wide net of surrealistic lyrical narrative.'

That's where I come from. So I'll be having that. Upside Down World by Mythical Motors is actually a record that lives up to the highest billing. It's a record that skips along like an eight year old in shorts across a sunlit meadow on the first day of Spring.

Out of Chattanooga Tennessee, it couldn't get any better. A child's drawing on the cover. A crayon rendered of a fried egg sun, a spaceship or comet racing across blue heavens. A record that makes you glad to be alive. Fourteen songs. Less than half an hour. It's a rush...

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The Reds Pinks & Purples - Unwishing Well

 

Glen Donaldson, the bearded, wooly hatted middle aged man behing the The Reds Pinks & Purples wheel  is developing some brand. A memory lane experience particularly for those who earned their stripes in the mid to late Eighties and fastened their fortunes to C-86 Indie values.

Those days are long gone, but you wouldn't know it if you keep your eyes on the latest alternative releases and particualrly the San Francisco Indie scene where Donaldson holds court. If you're going to San Francisco. Be sure to wear some flowers in your hair. And chelsea boots, and shake a tambourine while you're at it 

 

The Pastels, Razorcuts and early Primal Scream are alive and well it seems. And they're playing in an indie bar in Frisco. No more Kim Novak. No more Karl Malden. No more Moby Grape. Things have moved thirty years and more back in time. Nostalgia is the new progress.

Meanwhile Reds Pinks & Purples have become a production line. A conveyor belt. Every six months or so another album drops off the line. Pretty similar to the one that came before and the one that's coming up. Wistful melodies, Smiths song titles, jangling guitars, wistful vocals.Perfect for types who think change is overrated. The latest is called Unwishing Well. And it's about dreaming your life away. There are worse things to do. 

12 Albums You've Probably Never Heard of, But Really Should (Part 1) # 12 Kwabs - Love + War

 

The end of this short run.With one of those Modern Soul records that don't do much for me personally. Soaring vocals, pounding drums. This kind of thing does stuff for others but not much for me. After a few minutes I put on Let's Get It On instead.Drifted off. 

500 Greatest Albums of the 1980s ... Ranked! # 405 Husker Du - Candy Apple Grey

 

A powerhouse band. A body of work that could be described as a blast. Hart and Mould. And Norton. The finest moustache in counter culture Rock & Roll. This record finds them becoming slightly more accessible. It came out on WEA. But there was no sell out. They remained themselves.

Mojo Collection - The Ultimate Music Companion # 579 The Beta Band - The Beta Band EPs

 

A revelation. There have rarely been anything quite like the 3 first Beta Band EPs. They feed on the inpiration of early Beck more than anything. But largely it's their own thing and they made a wonderful contrast with a lot of the meat and potaties Rock being served up elsewhere at the time.

Songs About People # 1,386 Captain Cook

More from Unknown Mortal Orchestra. This comes from the latest album V. Captain James Cook is a divisive figure. He explored and charted thousands of miles of unexplored territory. In the words of Wikipedia 'He displayed a combination of seamanship, superior surveying and cartographic skills, physical courage and am abilir ro lead men in adverse conditions.' He remains contriversial for his treatment and violent encounters with indigenous peoples. 

 

Best Ever Albums - 2,000 - 1,001 -1,962 Unknown Mortal Orchestra - II

 

Kiwi Ruban Nielsin and a project I'm not familiar with. This goes back to 2013.It's freaky stuff. This makes a genuine and refreshing resolution to explore new Independent teritory. Sometimes it almost defies description. Great record that constantly surprises and strikes off in new directions. 

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Song(s) of the Day # 3,705 Winter McQuinn

                             

               

                                                       'A shady lane. Everybody wants one.'

Do you want a shady lane? Everybody wants one.The shadiest and most alluring lane I can direct you towards right now is Move To The Trees the latest album by Winter McQunn.  

Winter McQuinn ? No me neither. But it's just the kind of nom de guerre you want for a record like this. With a sleeve like the one it has. With an animated image of Mr McQuinn in an autumn sweater. Crouched  under a blanket. A cat on keyboards and a guitar with hands.

Just what the doctor ordered. Another stellar artist from Melbourne, Australia. Another wonderful album to soundtrack your Friday breakfast.

McQuinn has a track record. Formerly in Sunfruits and Jade Imagine. He keeps things simple. These are songs awash with birdsing and dappled  sunlight.

The record itself. Midway between a slightly happier Elliott and some early Seventies troubadour. Take your pick Move To The Trees sprouts peaches. A lovely record.

Songs About People # 1,385 Mata Hari

 

Marta Del Grandi will play in in Newcastle in a couple of weeks. I suspect I'll need to be there.

12 Albums You've Probably Never Heard of, But Really Should (Part 1) # 11 The Invisible - Patience

 

About grief and loss. Not a million miles from XX. Support from Jessie Ware and Anna Calvi. A little insipid and slinky dancefloor for my tastses but should have some takers.Grows with the play.