Amph What was the last album you purchased/heard?

Despite my distaste for St. Anger, I wouldn't say Lulu is better because they're very different from each other. One thing I think a lot of people misunderstand going into Lulu is that they think it's a Metallica album. It isn't. It's a Lou Reed album with Metallica providing instrumentals on all of the songs. This isn't Metallica trying to recapture their greatness from Ride the Lightning and Master of Puppets, nor is it a continuation of what they started with Death Magnetic (that's coming later). This is, essentially, an experiment, and I'm in the minority of folks who like the way it turned out.

I will say, for what it's worth, that I enjoy Lulu more than St. Anger.

 

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Dark Side of the Moon Immersion

sweet set. awesome guitars on the live stuff. haven't watched the videos yet though

 

It wasn't a Christmas one...

 

Rounded out my collection of early Steely Dan with Can't Buy a Thrill, Katy Lied, and Pretzel Logic. Threw in Two Against Nature and Morph the Cat for good measure. Looking forward to digging into them.

 

Last one I bought was Kate Bush's 50 Words For Snow. I really love it and it's great that she's become rather prolific in the past 5 years. But like Aerial, I have to be in a certain mood to listen to it since it's so mellow and requires a great deal of listener attention (it's not suitable as background music).

 

10,000 Days (2006) - Tool




You believed in movements none could see.
You believed in me.

Tool has two settings: Loud as Hell and Weird as Hell. Occasionally, they double up on the amps and do both at once. Those are the ones you kind of wait for. On 10,000 Days, it’s the Weird moments that make the album.

They get plenty loud, like on the album opener Vicarious, second single The Pot and the late album, eleven minute epic, Rosetta Stoned. These songs are easy to admire. I mean, it’s not every band that sets out to use every time signature known to man on one album. And it is, I think, for these kinds of songs, the rapidly shifting, violently loud, instrumentally flashy, screamingly angry numbers that most people who love Tool love Tool. I know these songs are the reasons a friend of mine loves Tool, a friend of mine who once said to me in complete seriousness when I was trying to talk about how the emotional center of this album is Wings for Marie/10,000 Days, “Aenima is not of this world.”

The point I was trying to make to him, which he didn’t care to hear and maybe you don’t either, but since I’m writing this, not speaking it, you can’t interrupt me, can you, and so you have to hear it anyway, was a simple one, namely that 10,000 Days found an odd sort of luminous quality in its slow, ambient tracks and failed to really transcend anything in its up-beat, raging tracks. That sentence, by the way, reminds me that Tool actually does have a third setting: Long as Hell.

The centerpiece of this album is a two track song titled Wings, the first part called Wings for Marie, the second part called 10,000 Days. The intensity of the personal lyrics, dealing with Keenan’s feelings about his mother and the 27 year paralysis she endured between a stroke and her eventual death, is visceral and immediate. The music is droning, haunted and beautiful in its very starkness. The seventeen minutes taken up with these two tracks are the pinnacle of the album, in my opinion and, coming as they do, rather early, the album never totally recovers, which is too bad. Right in Two wouldn’t sound nearly so big and dumb if we weren’t still emotionally reeling from Wings. Before I am strung up in effigy (or perhaps in reality!), I should say that technical literacy does not prevent a song from sounding dumb. Right in Two is a very literate and intellectual song; it also happens to sound incredibly dumb. Thank you, that is all.

The album’s moments of strangeness are somehow transfigured by the strength of Wings. The bizarre Lost Keys, which is an eerie soundscape played under the conversation between a doctor and a nurse about a mysterious patient, becomes somehow a broken and horrible liturgy from the hospital, a ritualistic moment of banality meeting terror in a simple conversation. Viginti Tres is a quiet track of ripples in white noise while Lipan Conjuring seems to capture a snippet of a Native American ceremony. These tracks, such blank canvases, can be projected onto and I suppose that what projects onto them is the deep emotion of Wings, which one can’t really shake for the duration of the album. The louder rock tracks are unable to bear any projection and generally stand in contrast to the emotions of Wings and so they somehow fail to work. The Pot, for instance, which sounds pretty darn great as a single, just feels jarring after the quiet grief of 10,000 Days, which it follows directly.

I don’t know that this is entirely a negative review of the album as it stands. It could be that this emotional dissonance is exactly what the band wanted. And then it could be that if you removed the rockers you’d just be bored with the quieter album or that the rockers without the quieter songs would produce an annoyingly untextured album. Maybe the only way these two diverse styles could exist was in such a dissonant way. That’s as may be and I have some sympathy for creative dissonance and a tendency to give the benefit of the doubt when things work as well as they do for long stretches of this album. All I know is that while you skip Lipan Conjuring and queue up Rosetta Stone, I’m putting Lost Keys on repeat and burning a copy without The Pot on it.

3 out of 5 stars.

 

Electric Wizard - Black Masses.

Super album.

 

Last Album bought.....People and Things Jack's Mannequin

Last Album heard.....The Killers Hot Fuzz Limited Edition

 

Kidszbop 20 haha I suck. My iPhone is filled with so much kid friendly stuff I don't remember the last time I got regular adult music. Though when the kiddo isn't around I listen to a lot of Pandora.

 

5 different batman movie soundtracks and the first superman movie sound track. Trying to track down some of the pieces of music used in Lego Batman 2. Still haven't found it.

 

A few years ago I discovered this German electro-medieval-industrial band, Heimataerde, and have been getting all their albums. Most recently I got Gottgleich which was released earlier this year. I think this album may be my favorite so far, maybe because it's the only one so far to include electric guitars.

 

Abbey Road (1969) – The Beatles​

He roller coaster, he got early warning
He got muddy water, he one mojo filter
He say, “One and one and one is three.”
Got to be good lookin’ cause he’s so hard to see

Abbey Road, and really the entire Beatles catalogue, has achieved such mythic levels of cultural saturation that there’s really no use whatsoever for anyone to try to actually talk about it anymore. Thus, the article concludes.

Ha ha, no, not really! That would require some sort of artistic and ethical consistency on my part! So, no, let me talk about it. But surely at this point nothing is required but a straight up reaction shot, a personal anecdote rather than a scholarly treatise. Probably few albums have been dissected in such detail. At this late date, I’m not going to shock anyone by ‘revealing’ that, while Let It Be was the last Beatles album released, this one was actually the last recorded. I could tell the anecdote about Lennon’s “Cut it” while listening to the take of I Want You (She’s So Heavy) or about how Harrison wrote Here Comes the Sun in Clapton’s garden or about how Her Majesty ended up being the first hidden track. But why? I mean, this has all been said and said about a million times.

The lyrics have been subjected to as much textual criticism as if they were an ancient religious text, the musical decisions have been scrutinized, the personal dynamics of the band members have been plumbed, the historical and artistic import of the album has been canonized. All that remains now, not much over forty years later, is to simply say again that the music on this album is brilliant and that it still sounds fresh and that the energy level is high and that this is easily the best of the late Beatles albums.

I date late Beatles from Sgt. Pepper on and while it is Sgt. Pepper that is often called the best of this late period, I maintain that Sgt. Pepper is massively overrated, really only interesting in its failures, in the degree to which the experimentation in the studio pushes everything else to the margins. Abbey Road is a far more consistent album than Sgt. Pepper in every important way. It’s also, in its own way, a far more experimental one. But mixed in with the experimentation this time is something approximating real songwriting. But this is an understatement; this is the best songwriting the Beatles have done since Revolver. Come Together is an odd moment when Lennon’s word salad surrealism actually works; Here Comes the Sun remains the finest song Harrison ever wrote, an absolute suffusion of warmth and comfort like no other; You Never Give Me Your Money is, for the first minute at least, as lovely and aching a song as McCartney had written since Yesterday; Octopus’s Garden is, let’s say it, a great song from Ringo and, for my money, yes, it is better than I Am the Walrus and I’m not just saying that to make you mad, though I know it does. This doesn’t even touch on Something, Because, I Want You, Maxwell’s Silver Hammer, etc., all of which are brilliant and, on any other album, would be standouts. Here, they’re relegated to the second tier, so packed with genius is that first tier. Maxwell’s Silver Hammer, particularly, deserves a revisitation; Lennon might have called it granny music, but for once Lennon was being slow on the uptake as it’s actually the most perverse song McCartney ever wrote, Eleanor Rigby being too compassionate to classify as perverse.

But the experimentation is stunning and remains so. I defend The White Album to the death, but Abbey Road is more consistent that that one too. On an initial listen, it does not instantly leap to mind that at least four or five of the songs need to go to the dustbin. There’s nothing like Revolution No. 9 here, though this album too pushes the boundaries of form and structure with its side two medley, which is really two medleys next to each other as near as I could tell. Her Majesty is a nice way into the White Album vs. Abbey Road debate, since the White Album also features some brief snippets of foolishness, like, for instance, Wild Honey Pie and the Stones pastiche Why Don’t We Do It In the Road (another nice perversity from McCartney for the *ahem* road). But Her Majesty is light years ahead of Wild Honey Pie, which is actually the first track I’d take off the White Album, even ahead of Revolution No. 9, which at least has its sheer ****-faced idiocy going for it. Wild Honey Pie has nothing going for it; Her Majesty, despite being under thirty seconds long, is a real song – with no less than two verses and a great hummable medley. It is what most of the songs in the medley are, which is less sketches for songs, which some critics say, and more just songs in miniature. Golden Slumbers, for instance, isn’t a sketch; I don’t think one could perfect it. Carry That Weight has only a sing-shouty chorus to recommend it, but then what else does it need? She Came In Through the Bathroom Window is no sketch; it’s a full song and if the version here doesn’t convince you of that, then Joe Cocker’s version will. Sun King is admittedly not a song, but they harmonize like it is and even after Because, we’re still in the mood for a little of that harmony. Mean Mr. Mustard and Polythene Pam are less interesting, but no one can do everything to absolute perfection, not even miniature.

Of course every Beatles album is an essential listen. This is, first of all, simply because each album is attempting to do something so radically different from all the others. Second of all, even amidst the flaws and problems of some of them, there are buried some of the greatest songs you’ll ever hear. Even Sgt. Pepper has A Day In the Life, something like the ne plus ultra of Lennon/McCartney as a real unit, and . . . well, Lovely Rita? I dunno, maybe just A Day In the Life . . . I’m not sure, really. Never mind, we’ll talk about Sgt. Pepper later. Well, there’s the Sgt. Pepper reprise, which is totally awesome. Later! Later!

Abbey Road though is certainly one of their best. It stacks up against their very best early albums, like Hard Day’s Night, Help and Revolver. All the experimentation seems to have a point this time. This is not to say the album itself has a point, which is probably a good thing since that’s one thing Sgt. Pepper did have, not that I care. But Abbey Road is a masterpiece, certainly one of the most perfect pop-rock albums ever crafted as well as one of the most important. One wishes for vibrancy like this today, but one seldom gets it. Still, I’ve done what I came to do, which was write a rambling tribute to the Beatles’ best late album without talking about all the stuff everyone always talks about. Like the cover. Did you notice I didn’t mention the cover? Oh. Damn.

5 out of 5 stars.

 

Last album I purchased - Bloom by Beach House
Last album I listened to in full - Hurry Up, We're Dreaming by M83

 

That sounds amazing, Anne.

 

Last heard was Johnny Clegg and Savuka best of.

 

I actually never buy albums, I buy songs. I can't listen to a whole album.

The last song I bought was Memory Motel by The Rolling Stones. I disliked it at first, then I kind of started to like it--it's disarming, as if it doesn't realize how awful it is.

 

A few weeks ago I got Mark Knopfler's new double CD, Privateering as an import via Amazon. Apparently he doesn't have a current US record label, and the alternative was to order from his web site and wait 5-6 weeks for shipping. Anyhow, I've only listened to it twice, and haven't really been able to focus deeply. It seems pretty similar to his standard solo fare, so I like the sound, but nothing has really grabbed me right off the bat. The main reason I haven't delved into this album more....

is that I've been spending a very large portion of my listening time with Tempest, the latest release from Bob Dylan. It's an album that has been wildly praised and hyped in advance of and since its release. I'm not going to throw five stars on it right away - this is an album that needs to be digested over some time - but it ranks up there with his best efforts of the last thirty years. I'm a big fan of modern Bob, and here again he continues to amaze. He's such a fantastic singer that most of the time (no pun intended) he is able to overcome his weathered voice and often harness it for gain. Early favorites include "Scarlet Town", "Duquesne Whistle", "Soon After Midnight", the title track (a fourteen-minute epic about the Titanic sinking that mentions just about everything but the iceberg), and "Roll On John", sort of an add-on bonus track remembering John Lennon. And of course, like most of Zimmy's work, lyrics are layered and open to much interpretation.

 

I've been listening to Kanye West's My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy which isn't a usual genre for me but I like it a lot.

 

I have to disagree really. After all the raving reviews, I was quite disappointed with Tempest. The album just sort of plods on, without seeming urgent or grabbing anyone's attention. I felt the same about Together Through Love; sometimes I didn't even notice one song had stopped and another had begun. It feels like it has been made on autopilot--Dylan's autopilot still an aerial magician of course, but compared to, say, Love & Theft or Time Out of Mind or even Oh Mercy (three of my favorites), I think it's a rather weak, and muddy, outing. I liked the same songs you did, however, only probably less so.

 

The Killers -- Battle Born: Have to admit it's a let down. Gets off to a good start with "Flesh and Bone" and "Runaways", but generally falls flat after that. It's rather similar to Sam's Town in terms of sound and also thematically, but Sam's Town had far more quality in songs like "For Reasons Unknown", "Read My Mind" and "Why Do I Keep Counting". And it could definitely use a fun song or two in the vein of Day & Age's "Spaceman".

 

I bought Train's California 37.