Amph What was the last album you purchased/heard?

The Best of Jefferson Airplane(1993) - Jefferson Airplane

This would be the third Jefferson Airplane album I've listened to in a desperate attempt to figure out why they're considered so darn great. I find them almost completely without merit, musically, lyrically and (scoff) artistically. That said, this does have White Rabbit, which is a ferocious song if not a great one, and Wooden Ships which is more obnoxious than they usually are but is still somehow as close as they seem to have come to a great song.

Past Masters 2(1988) - The Beatles

Amusing and enjoyable roundup of all the singles and such not found on the original albums. It goes without saying that this is great music pretty well across the board and it is interesting to hear alternate versions of some of the classics. One quibble: You Know My Name is surely one of the worst things ever recorded by anyone and a real reproach to all us completists. No one, I guess, can be great all the time.

Back at the Chicken Shack (1960) - Jimmy Smith

Incredibly great jazz album, featuring Smith revolutionizing the organ sound in jazz. The organ is generally one of my least favorite instruments, but this album stands beside Green Onions and Saint-Saen's third Symphony as one of the absolute joys of that instrument. Bopping, energetic and jazz before it was free enough to be unlistenable. The CD reissue closes with a seven minute cover of On the Sunny Side of the Street that is one of the most beautiful things I've ever heard.

1's (2004) - Various Artists

A collection of about twenty-five number one Motown hits. The remastered sound is stupendous; the bass on Where Did Our Love Go by the Supremes will about shatter your car windows, which is as it should be. All the big hits are here: Heat Wave, My Guy, Three Times a Lady, What's Going On, Let's Get It On, Tracks of My Tears, Love Machine, etc. A funky, winning album. At the end they tack on Boyz II Men and Michael Mcdonald, as if they're Motown artists (artists at all?), but by that time you'll be flying so high you won't care.

No Thanks! The 70s Punk Revolution (2003) - Various Artists

A must listen from Rhino Records; 100 songs on four discs and everyone is here (except, due to copyright restrictions of some kind, the Sex Pistols). Patti Smith's cover of Gloria, Blitzkrieg Bop, White Riot, Road Runner, Pablo Picasso, Search and Destroy, Wasted . . . The Dickies, The Vibrators, Richard Hell & the Voidoids, Blondie, The Buzzcocks, Eddie & the Hot Rods, The Pretenders, Joe Jackson . . . words simply fail to describe how incredibly fun this is. I've listened to this box set something like seven or eight times and just typing this makes me want to go listen to the whole thing again. Fast, loud, unpretentious, exuberant, exceptional. Maybe the best box set I've ever come across (Biograph gives it a good run for its money, I guess, but, hey, that's Dylan!). I'd say there are maybe two or three bad songs on this whole set; this is better than an adrenalin shot to the breastbone.

 

Them Crooked Vultures

If you like like Queens of the Stone Age, then this is probably your sort of thing. Josh Homme knows how to make rock music weird, sleazy, and very, very, catchy. I'm loving it at the moment.

 

Rogue did you break into an Amazon warehouse over Christmas? Nice to see someone else who appreciates My Everchanging Moods, though, one of my favorite 80s songs.

 

Lady Gaga, The Fame

 

My last two albums were kind of random. I bought the soundtrack to the movie Once. It has great music mostly by Glen Hansard and Marketa Irglova. I love it and the music was the best part of the movie, but since the movie was about the music it should be.
The second album I bought was Chess in Concert. I'm a bit of a musical geek, plus there's some good music and there were some amazing performers.

Before those two I'm not sure what the last album I bought was, probably the Transformers: Revenge of The Fallen soundtrack.

 

Just to clarify, not all of these albums are actually albums that I've bought; some of them are, while others are albums I get through the library.

Beastie Boys Anthology: The Sounds of Science (1999) - The Beastie Boys

Great, great, great double disc set of hits, b-sides, live recordings, one offs and remixes. You get some sense of the boys as actual artists and at the breadth of their talent when you put a bossanova Twenty Questions and Country Mike's Railroad Blues on the same CD as their other stuff. Fantastic, hopping party album. I loved this way too much really.

Rage Against the Machine (1992) - Rage Against the Machine

Sure footed debut that brings the noise, the hooks, and, appropriately, the screaming, towering, epic rage. Along with Battle of Los Angeles, this album makes a tremendously great listen. Essential, of course.

Jordan's Sister (1999) - Kendall Payne

Hard to believe I've been living with this album in my head and in my possession for over a decade now. Great alternative girl rock with punchy hooks and great passionate vocals on the uptempo stuff, and beautiful, heartbreaking melodies and quiet beautiful acoustic guitar work on the slow stuff. The latter songs, like On My Bones and Fatherless at Fourteen, are incredible stuff.

The Finest Moments (1989) - Sandi Patty

Gospel diva hits all the high notes with all the sweeping orchestras you could ever want. Could edge into cheesy and surely does at times, but just as often is heartfelt and legitimately moving. And her voice? Well, her voice is nothing but astounding.

Christmas . . . A Time for Peace (1994) - Dino

Greek pianist plays the old standards and some new compositions; his version of Merry Christmas Darling is achingly beautiful and the climax of the album, an original composition called A Time for Peace mixed with snippets of Let There Be Peace on Earth is six minutes of gorgeousness.

 

The Avatar Soundtrack. I'm not sure what it is about it, but i find that main theme of the movie (that is repeated ad nauseum) to be pretty catchy.

I keep trying to pick up the Ting Tings first album, but i cannot find it ANYWHERE.

 

Time for a roundup of my latest metallic acquisitions. In no particular order...

Attende (2009) - Mistur

Lately Norway's been having a sort of black metal renaissance where all the kids who grew up listening to the old guard have finally gotten old enough and competent enough to start releasing their own material. Ergo, we have Mistur, a brand-spanking new meloblack/viking metal act who formed all of five years ago. Attende is their first proper album (their discography includes a single that has a few remixed samples from their demo), and I was floored. They've got a mature, strong sound and there's a definite energy here. It doesn't blaze bold new trails, but then, I don't expect that out of anyone in this scene save Emperor and Darkthrone. It's fun, it's a solid listen, and I expect great things from them in the future.

Maranatha (2009) - Funeral Mist

Wow. Wow. Wow. The vocalist from Marduk and some other blokes get together and absolutely shatter my notions about the topics black metal can encompass. From the very first sound sample of a raving evangelical preacher, Maranatha pummels you with the violent hypocrisy that the band sees as inherent in Christianity. The eleven minute epic "Blessed Curse" is simultaneously disturbing and profound, and the same extends to the rest of this album. I guess they're a bit polarizing, with a large tendency towards love it or hate it. File me squarely under love it. And speaking of Marduk...

Wormwood (2009) - Marduk

During the late 90s and early 00s, Marduk was a bit like the man you kept running back to even after he hurt you time and again. Unlike that jerk, however, Marduk finally cleaned up their act, and Wormwood is the latest in a recent string of stellar, enjoyable releases from one of Sweden's oldest black metal acts. Wormwood doesn't break any new territory sonically, but it's so far removed from the embarrassing Panzer Division stagnation that I can't help but enjoy it anyway. Decibel Magazine actually ranked it as one of their favorite releases of 09. Worth looking into for old and new fans.

Anthems to the Welkin at Dusk (1997) - Emperor

Emperor, how do I love thee? Let me count the ways: Inno a Santana, Prometheus, Ix, and Anthems to the Welkin at Dusk. The godfathers of symphonic black metal, Emperor were my first exposure to the second/Norwegian wave, and they're the best of the whole bunch. Darkthrone? Please. Burzum? Too many weird ambient experiments. Mayhem? Close. Emperor? Like unto the gods. My paltry reviews cannot hope to do this one justice. Buy this album. Buy it now.

 

Christmas Offerings (2006) - Third Day

I remember when Third Day used to rock, man! Not this soft rock studio elevator music crap. There is a great, countrified live cut of Away in a Manger, but mostly this album really stinks. Too bad; they did a great southern rock cut of O Come O Come Emmanuel a few years ago for a comp album that was just bluesy and brilliant.

Caetano Veloso (1971) - Caetano Veloso

Brazilian icon in exile in London. Very good, though not as good as his self-titled album from 1986.

Happy Christmas, Vol. 2 (1999) - Various Artists

BEC Records Christmas compilation; the weakest of the first three they put out, in my opinion. Has moments though; The Deluxetone Rockets take Santa Claus is Back in Town down in the gutter and have a roll with it; Hangnail tears through O Little Town of Bethlehem like it was a Ramones song, even finishing in less than a minute and a half; MxPx does a great pop punk original called Christmas Day. But the Lost Dogs doing The Chipmunk Song; shoot me now.

Christmas (1989) - Michael W. Smith

Quiet, peaceful, orchestral, somber Christmas album. All is Well is my favorite Christmas song of all time, a beautiful choral piece. Nice up tempo keyboard hook on Gloria, the albums one poppier song.

Vauxhall & I (1994) - Morrissey

Great, great, great album from one of the great voices of pop music. Morrissey slays every song on this album, crooning about the end of the world and a mother that really just sort of dislikes her young son like he was singing Sinatra standards. Great stuff.

 

Ah, yes. Their version of O Come O Come Emmanuel is really well done. Like you said, they've dropped the southern rock aspect, and it's for the worse.

 

I haven't really heard anything they've done since Wire, which only had a couple of decent songs on it; I also really disliked Offerings II, so I kind of let them drop.

But I remember when they used to be essential; their self-titled debut, Conspiracy No. 5 (more grunge than southern, but still great), Time and the first Offerings (my favorite of theirs) are all just brilliant albums. Somehow, I missed hearing Come Together. Anyway, those four albums I mention above, those were albums I would defend as great even alongside any secular album; they transcended their religious genre, I think. But I guess they've kind of blanded out. Too bad. I was really looking forward to a rootsy, gritty Christmas album, in the tradition of their O Come. But it's just soft rock. Sad. Have you heard much of their newer stuff?

 

I have been listening to some rap as of late...

Straight Outta Compton - N.W.A
The Master - Rakim
Enter the 36 Chambers - Wu Tang Clan
Ready to Die - Notorious BIG
The Sun Rises in the East - Jeru the Damaja

Along with your typical grunge... Pearl Jam, Nirvana, Alice in Chains

 

The latest from Black-eyed peas.

 

No, I haven't really listened to their stuff from Come Together onwards. Their new music all sounds the same to be. It's all formulaic stuff that just about anyone could put out. I did see them in concert about 4 years ago (coincidentally - they were touring with TobyMac at the time, a terrible combination), and they were okay, but not great.

 

Any specific Pearl Jam? Lately I've been listening to their album Riot Act.

On to business, I call today's entries "Oh, Hey, These Bands Are Still Good."

Rupi's Dance (2003) - Ian Anderson

I officially take back anything bad I ever said about late-80s and 90s Jethro Tull. I mean it. Ian's still got it, in spades, and this album sounds like the classic Tull I know and love, with none of that sometimes awkward too-hard rock sound they devolved into in those years. It sounds like we went back in time to the Stand Up and Benefit years, and while I know that's not every Tull fan's cup of tea, they were my first two albums from the folk prog act, and I wholeheartedly welcome albums that sound like them. Good stuff.

Traced in Air (2008) - Cynic

I was afraid to pick up this album. Like most unashamed death metal fans, the much earlier Focus is a staple of my listening rotation, and is, arguably, one of the outright classics of the 90s, much less the death metal genre. Given the massive 15 year time span since that release, the group's dissolution from then until 2007, and the relative speed with which Traced in Air was put out, I wasn't sure they could match their earlier heights. I was wrong, they can and they did. From start to finish, Traced in Air is a jazz fusion/prog death masterwork, and I literally am unable to turn it off mid-listen. It's that good.

It's a shame the new Burzum album isn't out yet, because it'd be interesting see if Varg "Crazy" Vikernes can hold up like these two acts did.

 

i've only bought a couple cd's in my entire life.
and they weren't particularly good ones
digimon the movie soundtrack in the year 2000.
and tony hawks american wasteland the album in 2004.
and a couple of ones at a garage sale. batman the soundtrack 1989 by prince
boston's first album on cd
and welcome to my nightmare alice cooper on cassete as well as lion king soundtrack on cassete
and dokken under lock and key and the rocky soundtrack on vinyl.

 

Forget and Not Slow Down by Relient K. My third favorite album from my favorite band. This CD definitely has a different sound compared to their other albums but it still sounds great. Some fans of the older RK stuff might get turned off by some of the folk-rock sounding songs on here and the trademark punk sound is practically gone. But I find it refreshing that Relient K is going for something bold and different on this new album. My favorite track is Therapy.

 

That's a very good cd. I think that the title track and Therapy are my two favorites from Forget and Not Slow Down.

 

I also like the bonus song from the amazon.com purchase: Terminals. It's sort of a cross between Relient K and Owl City.

 

WOW Christmas (2002) - Various Artists

Double disc compilation of CCM and Gospel artists doing Christmas songs. Good stuff, mostly. Cece Winans does a sweet soul Away in a Manger, Caedmon's Call contributes a brilliant, folky version of It Came Upon a Midnight Clear, tobyMac drops hip hop ballad This Christmas (not the Donny Hathaway one) and Audio Adrenaline revs up Little Drummer Boy into hard rock. Mostly traditional arrangements, mostly sincere performances, too slick and clean in places, but then, hey, it's pop and it's mostly good.

Joy: A Christmas Collection (2000) - Avalon

Dance pop quartet breaks it down fareal, yo! The Angels Medley hits something like a real sugar high in its last four minutes, they jazz up Winter Wonderland like you've never heard before and they do a great solemn cover of David Meece's iconic We Are the Reason. Loads of fun. Unpretentious and energetic.

Happy Christmas (1998) - Various Artists

BEC compilation album. High points: O.C. Supertones doing a ska version of Joy to the World, Five Iron Frenzy doing Rich Mullins at about five hundred miles an hour, a hip hoppy, soul version of We Three Kings, a Nashville drenched steel guitar laden Holly Jolly Christmas, Sarah Masen's utterly sincere and ethereal modern folk song Heaven't Got a Baby, Seven Day Jesus doing about the best version of O Holy Night I've ever heard. Low points: Flight 180's annoying thrash version of Mele Kelikemaka, Puller's dire and pretentious Savior of the Fools (nearly EIGHT minutes!!), Joy Electric being utterly twee and toothache inducingly precious as always. A fun album, with a lot of great stuff on it.

Happy Christmas, Vol. 3 (2000) - Various Artists

Third in the series and the quietest and maybe the best. High points: Denison Witmer's gorgeous acoustic Christmas Song, Aaron Sprinkle's S&G jones on Randy Stonehill's Christmas Song for All Year, Hangnail turning Do You Hear What I Hear? into a punk song at a hundred miles an hour, Kendall Payne's dark, brooding, jazz inflected read of O Come O Come Emmanuel. Low points: Relient K's big, dumb Santa Claus is Thumbing to Town and, once again say it with me, Joy Electric. God, I hate them. Or him. Or it.

Christmas in Black and White (2002) - Nicole C. Mullen

Surely the greatest black female gospel vocalist of this decade; her first album was a big splash and this one has loads of fun too. Sing Angels Sing is a urban rave up par excellence, Lamb of God is a soaring ballad in the style of her previous hit, Redeemer, God's Own Son is a gorgeous original, Merry Christmas Baby is about as good as the Carpenter's Merry Christmas Darling, so that tells you something. High energy, funky, jazzy, poppy. And Christmas Tree I can't even frigging explain to you; you just got to hear that sucker.

 

WOW Christmas (2005) - Various Artists

Follow up to the 2002 album I talked about above. Not nearly as good. Steven Curtis Chapman does a piano based, lava slow O Little Town of Bethlehem and FFH does a seventies pop, sort of almost disco, version of Do You Hear What I Hear. On two CDs, both over seventy minutes, that's about it. Oh, yes, Bethany Dillon's slow jazz read of God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen is surely the definitive version.

Let It Snow, Baby . . . Let It Reindeer (2007) - Relient K

Pop punksters get all witty, with sometimes great results (as with a thrashing Hallelujah Chorus in under a minute) and with sometimes not so great (a cringe inducingly, 'funny' version of Good King Wenceslas). High energy, but really, at its best when they slow it down, as with the witty and heartbroken I Hate Christmas Parties, Chronicles of Narnia riff In Like a Lion, and a beautiful piano based medley of Away in a Manger and Silent Night. Fun and often heartfelt.

Christmas Songs (2008) - Fernando Ortega

One of the most longingly beautiful voices in pop music sits at his piano and mostly just croons. A few instrumental tracks and some tracks with light instrumental sweetening, but he's at his best when it's just his voice and his gorgeously mellow piano. His version of sixteenth century hymn Let All Mortal Flesh Keep Silence is haunting, minor keyed and as cold as a winter's night; his beautiful original Jesus King of Angels is as stunningly peaceful a benediction as I've heard. I pray that song before bed many nights; it is utter calmness and serenity.

A Timeless Christmas (2006) - Israel & New Breed

Hard edged urban funk melded with a gospel choir. Israel ain't the best singer in the world, but this might be the best funk band since Sly & the Family Stone and Parliament both retired. Their ten minute Christmas Worship Medley is glorious black gospel at its finest. And the highlight of the album is the Nutcracker Interlude, where they take the classic melodies of the Nutcracker, mash them together and funk them right up with organ, bass, electric guitar and a thumping drum beat. Like Booker T & the MGs, man. Cool out, I can dig it. And catch that sax solo on Silent Nocturne, an instrumental riff on Silent Night.

The Dawn of Grace (2008) - Sixpence None the Richer

Loved these guys back in the day. Sugar pop group finally reforms and creates, at long last, a Christmas album. Doesn't disappoint, either. Matt Slocum's long, sweet guitar notes and Leigh Nash's ethereal, wavering voice were made for Christmas and the production lays them in a bed of pure, glorious beauty. They swing just a hair on Christmas Island and Dan Haseltine of Jars of Clay does a great guest vocal on their shimmering version of Silent Night. Ever since A Million Parachutes on Divine Discontent, I've known they had this in them. These songs are definitely in my rotation.

 

Bought the Smashing Pumkins-Siames Dream for the 4th time. I had it stolen summer of junior yr in 97. All the other times the disc got scrathed up way to fast for some reason.

 

^Well worth buying again, though. Classic album.

 

I received Let It Snow...Baby Let It Reindeer for Christmas this past year. It's really quite enjoyable, I would agree.

It's not an album, but I was at Starbucks today and picked up one of their Single of the Week iTunes giveaways. It's the Miles Davis Quintet's Four, from Workin'. I'm really enjoying it so far.

 

Live Full House (1972) - The J. Geils Band

From what I gather, The J. Geils Band is regarded as somewhat poseur among real blues/blues-rock afficionados. Well, whatever; this is an hour of full on, hard-edged, screaming, driving, pulsing, exploding, raucous, extreme, balls to the walls rock'n'roll & blues. It starts with a cover of Motown classic First I Look at the Purse that builds to a crescendo that, in any other context, would be the way a band might CLOSE its show. And it just gets faster and crazier from there. This. This is music.

Suicide (1977) - Suicide

Punk and electronica meet in a back alley and, amazingly, electronica beats the living crap out of punk. Utterly weird, bizarre, discomfitting music; it took me at least three tries before I could make it all the way through the ten minute opus, Frankie Teardrop, a horrendous, horrific tale of a young factory worker that shoots his wife, two year old baby and then himself and then finds himself burning in hell, all set to a gruesome, filthy electronic beat and sort of half screamed, half warbled by the lead singer. At other times, they're nearly pop-punk, as on the winning Ghost Rider; but most of the time, they're dedicated to reaming you out and punching you in the head with a hammer. The second disc of the reissue I listened to contained some pointless remixes and then a twenty-five minute track that was, in its entirity, a live set Suicide played at CBGB opening for, of all people, Elvis Costello. It ends, predictably, in something like a total riot, people getting a little upset at being pummelled by electronic percussion and screamed at by a lunatic when they came to hear music. And when you can make the punk crowd hate your music, you're really doing something. I don't know if this is great, but it's certainly something everyone should hear.

The Christmas Song (1963) - Nat King Cole

Taking that CBGB riot out of my CD player and sticking in the golden tones of Nat King Cole; I swear, I define eclectic and I'm proud of it. Like Suicide, Nat King Cole perhaps pushed too far; Suicide is a little too openly antagonistic and grim, just like Nat King Cole is just a little too syrupy and sweet. He's got a great voice though and when his producers turn down the soaring choirs and the sweeping strings and just let him sing a song with the piano and bass, like on the original version of the title song or his absolutely gorgeous version of Silent Night, the results are definitely magical and something like pure comfort. And after Suicide, I'm not going to say music shouldn't be comforting; sometimes it needs to be.

Fallen (2003) - Evanescence

I missed these guys first time round and I'm not too upset about that. Sometimes, they get so portentious the music becomes laughable, but it is beautiful the way they mix those strings in with their rumbling basses and crunching guitars. Lee's actually an extremely great vocalist and the two best tracks are the ones that leave her alone; My Immortal, the huge hit, is indeed striking, but for my money, it's another minimal track, the underrated and never talked about Hello, that is both the darkest song on the album and Lee's best vocal performance. A likable enough album to listen to once or twice.

Forrest Gump (1994) - Various Artists

Don't I hate this movie? Yes, I do. The soundtrack . . . well, it's better. The first disc has Duane Eddy's Rebel Rouser, The Rooftop Singers' Hang Your Head Over, Sloop John B., Fortunate Son, and in fact, save for the wrong headed inclusion of the only Dylan song I absolutely hate, Rainy Day Women blah blah blah, is a fabulous mixtape of oldies. The second CD isn't so great, mainly because it gets more psychedelic and Scott McKenzie's San Francisco (Don't Forget to Wear Flowers In Your Hair) hasn't aged as well as some things; neither, if you wonder, have the Youngbloods, Jefferson Airplane, Raindrops Keep Fallin' On My Head or The Doobie Brothers. Blech. Not a total washout; it does have S