Day 25: "June 05 HMV Sampler CD" - Various Artists (2005)

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Now, the subtitle of this blog is listed as "A trip through every terrible CD I ever bought", and so you could argue that this might be exempt from the list, as I almost certainly received it for free when purchasing another album (which I am positive was Roisin Murphy's "Ruby Blue", which is coming up later in the Pile).  But that is the kind of soft thinking which has contributed to the downfall of society - if it's in the pile, it gets a blog post, even if this is going to be more of a "I have no idea who 85% of these bands are, let's time capsule back to 2005" kind of deal.


No, it's not on Spotify.  Yes, I did make a playlist so you can listen to it as intended here

You'll not be shocked to learn that I don't have any real personal memories associated with "HMV Sampler CD June 05".  Instead, let's take a trip back in time and listen to this CD.  I was going to do a mini-review of each song, but frankly that sounds boring and lame, so instead I'll listen to it and just spew out some random thoughts after I've sat through the whole thing.  Before we begin though, let's establish some baselines.  Out of the 19 artists included on this album, I'm familiar with two of them (Common, Roison Murphy) and have at least heard of another four (The Magic Numbers, Timo Maas, Sleater-Kinney, and The Cribs).  The rest are complete blank slates and I'm going into them blind.  Who knows what treasures await!

  • The Departure sound like a less interesting, less fun version of popular Sheffield beat combo "The Yell", and wikipedia shows they were only marginally more successful, releasing one album, fighting with their record label and then breaking up. 
  • Art Brut - Formed A Band really made me chuckle.  The lyrics are great.  It might not be a song that I'd listen to a lot, but I'm really glad I've heard it at least once now.  Give this one a try.
  • Juliette and the Licks are Juliette Lewis's band, which I hadn't really registered until I saw the album cover with her face on when the song was playing on Spotify.  I knew she was a singer and had a band, and she sings a live song in my favourite Cyberpunk movie "Strange Days", and this is entirely fine as well.  I had a real crush on Juliette Lewis growing up, which I think started when I saw her as Audra Griswold in "National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation".  Yes, I know that sounds weird.
  • It's probably time to talk about how despite understanding that Sleater-Kinney, Bikini Kill, Lush and the Riot Grrrl movement was important both politically and musically, I can't stand Corin Tucker's vocal style and it still totally puts me off listening to their stuff.  Maybe it's a taste I should work to acquire, but just getting through Rollercoaster gave me a headache.
  • I'm going to talk more about Rap and Hip-Hop in a couple of days time, but it's interesting that both the rap tracks on here, Common's "Chi-City" and Bizarre's "I'm So Cool" are lyrical takedowns of the Gangsta Rap lifestyle and image.  
  • I couldn't get over how much The Magic Numbers "Which Way To Happy" sounds like Ben Fold's Five's "Hospital Song", to the point where I had to listen to them back to back to make sure I wasn't going crazy.  

Generally, this was an interesting exercise at least, and I think these CDs were a great idea at the time - buy a CD, get a bunch of free singles to listen to. And as an advertising gimmick to get you to come back and buy other stuff, it's pretty cunning and relatively benign.  I distinctly remember having several of these CDs, so why this is the only one in my CD rack still I couldn't tell you.  

Sufficed to say, it's probably not coming out the CD case again any time soon.  Fear not, normal service will be resumed tomorrow...



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