0.31.2 - I'm leavin' on a jet plane (Week 32 Wrapup kinda)
This Week: Lightning Round, Holiday Plans
It's been a busy few weeks, in part because of the impending arrival of our annual holiday, this year a two week trip to Australia. I'm bad at getting excited for holidays because I generally spend so much time mentally processing the things that need to be done before we go away that I can't really relax until I am through airport security and it starts to feel real. What this has meant though is I have been listening to albums at a far faster pace than I've been able to find time to sit down and write about them, so I'm working at a significant deficit at the moment. In an effort to go on holiday with as close to my desk clear as possible, my plan is to get all the outstanding albums documented in this wrap up. In order to make it so it doesn't take forty hours to write, I am limiting myself to 50 words per album, in the hopes that cuts the core of what I want to say about each of them.
First up, eight albums loosely linked around a theme of air travel
Expecting To Fly contains the only Bluetones songs I know but of course they reformed and have a seven album back catalogue. Slight Return is a Britpop classic, the rest of the album is OK; I did also know Bluetonic and enjoyed bopping along to it. 46/50
Surrealistic Pillow by Jefferson Airplane contains the song White Rabbit which you've definitely heard if you have seen any TV show or movie where someone takes drugs. If you wanted to know what happens when a band drops acid and writes an album, its this. 45/50
Moon Safari and Air in general were propelled to success when Sexy Boy got used in a deodorant ad (see also Bentley Rhythm Ace) but this is cool French electronica before Daft Punk took the mantle. Kelly Watch The Stars has been stuck in my head all week. 48/50
Cosmic Thing is shamefully the only B-52's album I know at all, but it's a killer; for me it's a companion album to Out Of Time by REM; both Georgia bands doing unusual things. If you only know Love Shack and Rock Lobster, the whole album is great. 48/50
For my money Band On The Run is the best post-Beatles album from any of the former members; A firm household favourite that I've carried forward to my adult life, I like it way more than Ram even though that gets higher critical acclaim. 44/50
All That You Can't Leave Behind I included on here because for some reason I associate it with Airports (plus U2 are named after a plane). Late period U2 are the definition of OK to me, but Catherine loves it, especially Stuck In A Moment You Can't Get Out Of. 50/50*
Get Born works as a double whammy as it's a plane thing and they are Australian; let's be honest, this album is Are You Gonna Be My Girl And 12 Other Songs and that's fine because its a modern rock classic, but there's little else of interest to see here. 50/50
There Is Nothing Left To Lose - after my last Foo Fighters album, I was turned on to this video about how Foo Fighters supported a group which promoted an AIDS based conspiracy theory which led to the deaths of real people so that is my review. 46/50
Alright, we are on a roll.
For reasons passing understanding even to myself, while driving into work and back last week I listened to this Dad Rock quartet of albums; mainly inspired by the storm that blew through the nation I think; Armchair Theatre has a version of Stormy Weather on it, one of the albums is called Storm Front. I dunno, I was clutching at straws a bit.
I promised to be nice to Jeff Lynne after I slammed him in the Travelling Wilbury's write up. I have a weird affection for Armchair Theatre by the ELO frontman; it's filled with standards like The September Song and heavy handed climate metaphors, but I love Blown Away with my whole heart. 52/50
Billy Joel might be something of a meme but the first album I heard was The Nylon Curtain which my dad had on vinyl and has a bunch of songs interrogating Americana that Bruce Springsteen would approve of. Goodnight Saigon is a Vietnam epic from the least likely source. 49/50
My dad would play Chris Rea's Road To Hell when we were driving the eight hour drive from Warsaw to Berlin every six months or so. It's not remotely challenging or interesting, but its got some nice guitar playing on it, and title track is worth the cost of admission. 50/50
People thought We Didn't Start The Fire was a clever song concept before Fall Out Boy ruined it**. If you discount that song, however, there's some redeeming features on Storm Front, including The Downeaster 'Alexa' which would accidentally create, years later, my favourite podcast moment of all time***. 48/50
Four more crossed off, what's next?
I listened to Decide by DJO while trying to work out a particularly difficult work math thing, and it provided an ideal background; not quite Chill Anime Beats level background music, but definitely a low intensity cool vibe that I got along with very nicely in the moment. 48/50
Triple Seven by Wishy doesn't feel quite like it knows what it wants to be; in parts its hazy, summery guitar pop, in parts modern Dashboard Confessional-esque emo - all of it quite pleasant in isolation, but felt like it was competing with itself in parts. 45/50
Something of The Strokes, something of Arctic Monkeys is the formula The Districts A Flourish and A Spoil builds on, and they do it well. I found myself going back to tracks a second and third time, which is usually a good sign. Solid recommendation. 45/50
I really loved Lovecore by Orchards; I listened to it twice through, and then put it on in the car when I went to collect Catherine from the train station. There don't seem to be bands who have that kind of Echobelly / Sleeper indie sensibility any more, and Orchards really ticked that box for me. 55/50
We're calling this Hayley Williams album 'Ego' since it doesn't have a title****. I love Paramore but this was not that, it was something greater and far more compelling; I don't really know how to describe it as a collection apart from it's one of my favourite things I've listened to all year. 53/50
Man, maybe I should have been doing this for the last 8 months, I would have been so much more productive and bloviated less. Anyway, one last cluster of albums to cover before we put a lid on this article.
Butter Miracle, The Complete Sweets! has maybe the least appealing album title I've encountered so far, but the content is another nine sweeping guitar/harmonica/organ compositions helmed by Adam Duritz's distinctive voice. If you like them, this album is pretty decent. 42/50
Man, there was a time when everyone seemed to start listening to The Levellers at the same time in the 90's apart from me. I girl I knew copied Zeitgeist onto cassette for me, and it makes me think of her when I listen to it, but that isn't very often. 51/50
I don't like to call albums bad, but Silver by Moist is very adolescent, conventional rock. I heard Into Everything on a late night show about rock and metal and when I was 17 I thought it was life changing. 30 years later, I am here to tell you that nothing about this album is life changing. 57/57*****
I thought Live were Australian because I saw Lightning Crashes used as a punchline in an Australian TV comedy I like******, but it turns out it was a gag without cultural implications. I know podcasts where Throwing Copper is a sacred text, but I got very sleepy listening to it. 50/50
The first Elbow album is one of my favourites of all time; by the time their fourth album, The Seldom Seen Kid, had won its Mercury Music Prize, they'd moved away from the more experimental musical elements and into stadium anthems, but they do that well here. 47/50
AM is the best Arctic Monkey's album and its not close; the exact apex of where brash musicality and constant evolution hits the platonic ideal of a sleazy and self-reflective meditation on messy relationships. The first three tracks in particular might one of the best album openings ever. 48/50
Well, that worked better than I expected it to. Sure, there were no three paragraph rambles about people I've known and you absolutely do not care about, but sometimes you have to sacrifice these things in the name of expediency. With this, the blog will go quiet now until September, but rest assured I have thirty different albums by Australian artists to listen to over the course of the next two weeks, so look forward to another lightning round when I get back to try and get all 30 of those under my belt, plus a delayed 700th album write up of one of my all time favourite albums.
Until September!
*Long and wordy album and song titles can really put a crunch on your 50 word limit let me tell you.
** Sarcasm. The Fall Out Boy version is terrible though, and I like Fall Out Boy!
*** Please listen from 19m into the linked episode. It's the sheer impish joy in Justin's voice as he does the outro which makes me smile every time I listen to it.
**** That's not my name for it, before you think I am being bitchy. It's named after a range of hair products she released at the same time I think? Anyway, Ego is the accepted collective noun for this group of songs, which I also put into a playlist of the same name to save you some time if you wanted to listen to them also. As a collection of songs, I really love it. Hard recommend.
*****Of course the worst album I listened to this week is the one I can't keep below the 50 word limit. Sue me.
****** Everyone should watch Deadloch whereever they can find it streaming, it's a ripper.
