Amph What Album Did You Just Hear?

Interesting notes on this record actually which may explain the bare bones production:

- Robert Plant was wheel chair bound for the entire album where he performed all of his vocals sitting down. I'm assuming there would have been some agony involved.

- But more interestingly, The Rolling Stones had booked studio time to move into the studio directly after Zeppelin, leaving them to work to an extremely tight working schedule. They recorded and mixed the album just as The Stones were ready to move in to record Black And Blue - another good record.

 

I listened to The Descendants, "Milo Goes to College," thinking of their music for the first time in a long time.

 

More of a concert but no doubt available on disc from a sketchy Italian label, this is fantastic, particularly the version of Haden's Song For Che, which starts around 24:00. The parts starting around 26:20 and around 30:25 are just too too good. I could swear I've seen someone say they like Ornette around here... check this out, person.

 

slidewhistle it's great to see Mrs Slocombe represented on the boards.

 

I presume you are unanimous in that!

 

Both my pussy and myself are definitely unanimous.

 

I've been listening to U Talkin' U2 to Me?, the U2 podcast that Adam Scott (from Parks & Rec) and Scott Aukerman (from Mr. Show & Comedy Bang Bang) have been doing over at Earwolf. Aukerman says this is his favorite U2 album and, while I found the discussion of it interesting, I have to say that it is still an album I just do not care for at all. Bad & A Sort of Homecoming are both great, no question, but even Pride, the most famous song from this album, just doesn't feel right. And then those last three songs are just . . . I just find that stretch of the album to be really awful. But I need to really listen to it again; it's been a few years since I gave it a really proper listen. But, from where I sit right now, I actually even prefer October. Which, yeah, I know, October.

 

Apart from the tracks you mentioned I also really like the title track and Wire. Some of the more ethereal stuff like 4th of July and MLK is a bit of an acquired taste I guess, but I like it.

 

It's a significant album in the band's development. U2 is kind of like Dylan; you kind of have to listen to even the mediocre albums (or even downright bad ones) because the course of the artist over the years is just so fascinating. There kind of had to be a really experimental album of this type before they developed into Joshua Tree. Such a radical shift was, in my opinion, always going to result in a mediocre "first of a new era" album. It just was.

 

Whilst I would disagree that it's a mediocre album it certainly provides a bridge between War and The Joshua Tree.

 

I've been revisiting Leviathan, Mastodon's concept album based on Moby Dick... been listening to it as a whole instead of songs mixed with songs from other albums (or other bands) like I usually do. Good stuff.

 

yeah, that's a good one. i'm still listening to life of pablo a lot. also anderson .paak's "malibu".

 

The Best of Bad Company Live - What You Hear is What You Get

One of my favorite albums ever. Bad company sounds significantly better on this album than the studio versions of most of there songs. Much more... balls, as it were. Paul Rodgers is a boss.

 

Listened to this one while working out --

 

Live at the Birmingham NEC (2007) – Deep Purple

This is a release of a concert Deep Purple did in 1993 in Birmingham. It was released on DVD back in 1994, or parts of it were at least, as Come Hell or High Water; a note: a different concert was used for the CD release entitled Come Hell or High Water which also came out in 1994. I’m not sure of the logic there, of releasing two different concerts under a single title, but whatever. When this was released in 2007, Ian Gillan issued a statement telling people not to buy it as he thought it was one of the band’s worst concerts. I’m not sure what he’s talking about exactly; I thought it was frigging tremendous. It’s everything you want from a band like Deep Purple live: ferocious, frenzied, and incredibly loud. The remastering is nothing short of stupendous; sound quality is amazing. It’s just two discs of really great music. The version of Smoke on the Water here is less than I wish it was since a large portion of it is given over to the audience just singing the song and bellowing the chorus, etc. and I was disappointed with the cover of Paint It Black which only does the actual song for about a minute before spending the remaining seven minutes of the track in a really free-form jam that doesn’t even really utilize the structure of Paint It Black. It’s not a bad jam, but I was really excited to hear a Deep Purple cover of Paint It Black and I didn’t really get that. But otherwise, this album is really a lot of fun. 3 ½ stars.

tl;dr – double disc remaster of 1993 concert features amazing sound quality and a fun, ferocious energy. 3 ½ stars.

 

Listened to the Nightfly by Fagen a couple of times -- so good.

 

Yeezus (2013) – Kanye West



How much do I not give a ****?
Let me show you now ‘fore you give it up.
How much do I not give a ****?
Let me show you now ‘fore you give it up.

So, given that West’s Life of Pablo just came out, I guess it’s probably time to put a period on his last album. I’ve been listening to it off and on for over a year now, I guess, and I still struggle to really put my feelings about this record into words. I suppose I should start at the most basic level. This is one of those albums that reminds me of why I put up with West’s bad behavior and stupidity; it’s because he’s working in a way, on a level, whatever, that no one else works on. Yeezus is . . . nothing short of jaw-dropping in its greatness. It’s like nothing he’s ever done before, an extreme melding of angry, bitter rap and grim, unrelenting industrial sounds. Yeezus is a tough album; one critic referred to it as an unyielding hunk of cartilage and I know exactly what he meant. It’s a nightmarish album, merciful only in its short running time (right at forty minutes). Kanye’s lyrics and performances here are brilliant in their intensity. The production is stripped down, grinding, a nightmare inspired by Trent Reznor and Throbbing Gristle and not Kanye’s usual soul inspirations. But how great is this album? This great: Kanye samples perhaps the ne plus ultra text of black American music, Billie Holliday’s Strange Fruit, and it doesn’t feel either glib or shallow. The track itself, Blood on the Leaves, isn’t broken by the mythic weight of that sample; it feels absolutely, perfectly right, a stark, haunted sample for a stark, haunted album. The pounding stop-start of Black Skinhead, the vitriolic lyrics of New Slaves, the brutal screaming gasps of I Am a God . . . this is an album that really shook me up in all kinds of ways. Again, I feel like I’m rambling but I still feel like there’s depth to this album that I haven’t even come close to plumbing. It feels fresher and better every time I listen to it. The album does end with a brilliant grace note. It’s not unlike When the Ship Comes In on one of Dylan’s starkest albums, The Times They Are a-Changin’. Bound 2 could easily feel like a misstep, like something that just doesn’t fit tonally with the rest of the album. But like with Dylan, that’s the beauty of it. Ending the album with the one soul sample based tune, a surprisingly low-key love song (of a kind), somehow intensifies the dark emptiness of the rest of the album while, at the same time, offering just a bit of hope to see us out. Somehow it doesn’t ruin the album; somehow it makes it stronger. But that’s really no surprise. Kanye West remains one of the most brilliant musical artists working today; no, more, he’s one of the greats of all time without question. Yeezus makes that clear, even if nothing else he’s ever done already had. It’s an uncompromising, dangerous artistic statement, unafraid to be angry, offensive and brutal. Make fun of him for his antics, roll your eyes when he talks, whatever. But when the album drops, listen and listen well. This is what genius sounds like. 4 stars.

tl;dr – harsh, uncompromising album is West’s darkest, and possibly his best, yet; a masterpiece for all time, a grim mash-up of vitriolic rapping and grinding industrial sounds. 4 stars.

More Music Reviews!

 

First, I'm relieved you didn't review whoever that person with the Harry Potter name is, to pretend like someone knew they were supposedly a musician or something.

Question. I have listened to this song before but I am not sure it is actually about anything. Is it?

 

Nothing specific. More just a general feeling of happiness, I think, which is pretty rare in Dylan's body of work. Just, you know . . . the moment when everything gets better. That would be my interpretation, at least.

 

The only shame, I think, is that the last two tracks are the weakest.

 

Super Pet shop boys

 

just got to kanye's pablo as it was released on spotify. on the initial listen it had definite moments that I loved, the opening track is great for instance, and famous stands out. elements of it do mirror the previous two albums in ways, sometimes perhaps a little too much, to the point that at times it kinda seems almost b sideish from the dark fantasy/yeezus era. it immediately hasn't grabbed me as much as the last two albums, which I both loved pretty much straight away. but that's not to say it isn't good, and I have a feeling it may grow on me.