Music: What Are You Listening To?

Topic

If music be the food of love, let’s eat it.

Replies

garjones wrote:

To be fair I think the majority paid for use but my main point is there’s a lot of cross cultural influence there in all directions and I think that’s massively positive.

True… Then there is just being a copycat or following a trend. It has been said that Rihanna did electronic dance music in 2012 with Calvin Harris with the song “We found love” then others like Usher, Kelly Rowland, and even Florence and the Machine did a remix of “Sweet Nothing”. Then there was experimentation with what is known as “trap” music and others followed using it in their songs. Rap interludes in pop songs, etc… It goes on and on. Once an experimentation works for one artist (as in the song gets played heavily on r&b and urban stations etc.) the other artists follow suit with a similar style, whether their record label or producer says to do it etc.

Even back in the 60’s: The Beach Boys did “Pet Sounds” and the Beatle were working on “Sgt. Pepper” at roughly the same time, then for a while after those two albums, other bands like the Rolling Stones also came out with their non-traditional experimental sound album

njerry wrote:

Oops…sorry. I was looking for the Music Thread, but I ended up in the Meme Credits/Carlos Fraile thread instead. Carry on…

Couldn’t you hear that everyone has been singing their last few posts? Maybe you need to turn the volume up.

You could write a song about that.

Just for Jerry, here’s some music.

This is the band I’m seeing in concert on Friday:

 

 

 

DavidM wrote:

It does mean that I wouldn’t bother seeing them live, though — I want to see real humans, not projections synced to a tape. That’s not live music.

Yeah I can appreciate that.

I did like what they did with Gorillaz as a ‘virtual’ band but that had a lot of Jamie Hewlett’s great cartooning to create those personalities. A straight up digital copy I wouldn’t find enticing for a concert. While I admired the technical achievement the holographic Tupac they did a few years ago left me cold. While Tupac isn’t one of my favourite artists I wouldn’t really have any interest in seeing that treatment for say Bowie or Prince who are.

For the videos though I quite like it (and most is archive footage rather than the mo-cap) because the songs sound so much like “What if Abba did not split up in 1982?”. There’s no attempt to modernise or change the sound, it’s more of the same.

garjones wrote:

Yeah I can appreciate that. I did like what they did with Gorillaz as a ‘virtual’ band but that had a lot of Jamie Hewlett’s great cartooning to create those personalities.

Plus, with Gorillaz wasn’t it a case of the band members actually being there and playing live, unseen, behind the video projection of the cartoons?

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Uncle Retrospective

[DavidM]

Cats in Space have a song called Hologram Man, which I think was originally referring to Elvis but when I saw them couple of weeks ago they dedicated it to ABBA.

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fZUPJfmM0gs

 

The audio there might be too poor to make out the lyrics:

Let’s welcome back the legend
But you can’t shake his hand
And we can see right through him
To his original backing band

Why are we digging up our heroes?
Are there no more superstars?
How I long for the days of Top of the Pops

He’s a m-m-m-m-money machine
Making more now he’s kicked the can
The tills are ringing
Everybody’s singing with the hologram man

He won’t get tired of playing
We’re selling out of merchandise
The golden goose keeps laying
And everybody gets a slice
And now they’re adding up the zeros
From their pseudo-superstar
How I long for the days of Top of the Pops

We keep the mega-dollar making machine
In a flight case in the van
The tills are singing
Everybody’s winning with the hologram man

• This reply was modified 3 years, 3 months ago by DavidM.

[garjones]

Hmm, video not embedding. I know there’s a trick to it but I forget what it is…

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fZUPJfmM0gs

• This reply was modified 3 years, 3 months ago by garjones.

You have to select ‘text’ instead of ‘visual’ on the right hand side. It would fix in an edit like that though so let me try your URL and another random one to check it works.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fZUPJfmM0gs

Looks like your URL is duff.

Dave wrote:

Plus, with Gorillaz wasn’t it a case of the band members actually being there and playing live, unseen, behind the video projection of the cartoons?

They actually did it a variety of ways. Mostly on tour in the way you say but some TV appearances are all digital to pre-recorded backing and I’ve seen clips of a few shows where they just appear as they are and don’t use the animation at all.

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Dave

garjones wrote:

Looks like your URL is duff.

Interesting. You’re right, it’s duff, that last o should be a zero. But if you click my URL it does go to the right song. How it was too broken to embed but not so broken that it couldn’t find the page is beyond me.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fZUPJfmM0gs

Look, it’s done it again. I pasted in the link from the address bar, and it’s changed the 0 to an o, failed to embed, still works as a link!

I’m not going crazy, I swear. It’s really acting weird.

DavidM wrote:

changed the 0 to an o,

Doh!

Steven Van Zandt still regrets leaving Springsteen and The E Street Band: ‘My life ended’

garjones wrote:

You have to select ‘text’ instead of ‘visual’ on the right hand side. It would fix in an edit like that though so let me try your URL and another random one to check it works.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fZUPJfmM0gs

Incidentally, now I have heard this song which everyone knows, I can confirm that I have heard it 1000 times before. Or possibly heard 1000 songs which sound identical to this, I’m honestly not sure.

DavidM wrote:

I can confirm that I have heard it 1000 times before. Or possibly heard 1000 songs which sound identical to this, I’m honestly not sure.

That pretty much summarizes pop music in the 21st century.

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Todd

DavidM wrote:

Incidentally, now I have heard this song which everyone knows, I can confirm that I have heard it 1000 times before.

Well it is incredibly similar to The Really Wild Show music.

More seriously that was essentially the kind of thing I was talking about. Some songs, even if you don’t follow pop music in any way, hit a level of popularity where they’ll be played at the shopping centre or in ads or on TV shows. You may not even know who sings them or what they are called but you recognise them.

The thing about the Drake song Andrew pointed out is both I’d never heard it before in any context and after hearing it thought it was incredibly bland. So I doubt it’ll appear on the next list because I think, tastes aside, the very least a song should have to be on that list is to be memorable.

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Andrew

garjones wrote:

So I doubt it’ll appear on the next list because I think, tastes aside, the very least a song should have to be on that list is to be memorable.

The weird thing is it’s from 2011, so already ten years old – but still made the 2021 list. Like, it is good that it’s more diverse in terms of genre and country of origin, but you always want to avoid adding certain things just to tick boxes.
“Where the 2004 version of the list was dominated by early rock and soul, the new edition contains more hip-hop, modern country, indie rock, Latin pop, reggae, and R&B. More than half the songs here — 254 in all — weren’t present on the old list, including a third of the Top 100. The result is a more expansive, inclusive vision of pop, music that keeps rewriting its history with every beat.”
Then there’s the zeitgeist stuff – “The highest entry for a newly added song is “Dreams” by Fleetwood Mac at number 9″ – it’s always been a good song, but it’s there now because of that viral video of the longboard skater and everything that came from it.

David Lee Roth: ‘I’m throwing in the shoes. I’m retiring’

https://www.reviewjournal.com/entertainment/entertainment-columns/kats/david-lee-roth-im-throwing-in-the-shoes-im-retiring-2451302/

JRCarter wrote:

David Lee Roth: ‘I’m throwing in the shoes. I’m retiring’

https://www.reviewjournal.com/entertainment/entertainment-columns/kats/david-lee-roth-im-throwing-in-the-shoes-im-retiring-2451302/

Last album 2012, last tour 2015. I thought he had already retired

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njerry, Todd

Andrew wrote:

“Where the 2004 version of the list was dominated by early rock and soul, the new edition contains more hip-hop, modern country, indie rock, Latin pop, reggae, and R&B. More than half the songs here — 254 in all — weren’t present on the old list, including a third of the Top 100. The result is a more expansive, inclusive vision of pop, music that keeps rewriting its history with every beat.”

Which I think is the right way to go but as I said there 100s of R&B/Hip-Hop inflected tunes that are way better than that, many of them on the list. Going from the bottom 50 Cent’s ‘In Da Club’ is an obvious example that appears quite quickly.

In the end it’s all hugely subjective I’m just surprised a song so under the radar is put so high but now I’m looking at the list and like all this nonsense it always reminds you of so much good stuff which is why I never hate them. The Oscars are bollocks really but they have also helped me watch so many good movies I would have missed otherwise.

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Andrew

[DavidM]

Belle Chen is one of today’s more interesting composers. I should have been seeing her play 18 months ago, I think her concert might have been the first one I had cancelled due to lockdown. It would have been a bit like this:

Except I doubt that her keyboards would have been balanced on milk cartons in the Royal Festival Hall

• This reply was modified 3 years, 3 months ago by DavidM.

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njerry

This months write up was a lot easier, it helps having a week to listen to everything before I need to star writing.
So this month we have the best Irish album of all time, the second best welsh album, post rock, prog metal and whatever Public Service Broadcasting have become.

 

Music round up September 2021

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DavidM

YouTube removes R. Kelly’s official channels

https://www.engadget.com/youtube-r-kelly-official-channels-removed-151405251.html

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Todd

It’s a Kind of Blue kind of day.

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JRCarter

Smash Mouth Singer Steve Harwell Retires After Disoriented New York Concert

https://variety.com/2021/music/news/smash-mouth-singer-steve-harwell-retires-1235087184/

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Todd

Did the world roll him?

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njerry, Dave, JRCarter

lorcan_nagle wrote:

Did the world roll him?

Hey, now.

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njerry, lorcan_nagle, JRCarter

JRCarter wrote:

Smash Mouth Singer Steve Harwell Retires After Disoriented New York Concert

I was never a big fan (with the exception of their greatest song “Walking on the Sun”), but nevertheless this is sad news for the man.

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Todd, JRCarter

I didn’t know the “Brown Sugar” song was about all that.

Then again, I never heard it in its entirety:

https://www.theguardian.com/music/2021/oct/13/rolling-stones-drop-insensitive-brown-sugar-from-us-tour-setlist

I thought it was about health food.

(Joke (c) Neil of the Young Ones)

Was just in the mood:

Music artists who walked away at the top of their game

https://www.yardbarker.com/entertainment/articles/music_artists_who_walked_away_at_the_top_of_their_game/s1__34503320#slide_1

[Al-x]

Rosetta Tharpe: The first rocker (or one of the earliest)…

For more:

https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=rosetta+tharpe

130 Historic Black Women Guitarists and Bassists You Need To Know

Black Women Who Shaped Rock & Roll

• This reply was modified 3 years, 2 months ago by Al-x.

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JRCarter, garjones, Andrew, DavidM

Luther Vandross Estate Strikes $40 Million Deal With Primary Wave Music (EXCLUSIVE)

https://variety.com/2021/music/news/luther-vandross-40-million-primary-wave-1235097280/

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Todd

[Al-x]

The Beatles…

https://www.msn.com/en-us/music/news/how-did-the-beatles-do-it-paul-mccartney-is-finally-telling-us/ar-AAQ5XUz?ocid=msedgdhp&pc=U531

The song George Harrison wrote the day he quit The Beatles

• This reply was modified 3 years, 2 months ago by Al-x.

I figured this thread was better than the Random thread for this tidbit.

A friend stopped by for a beer. He sold a Nine Inch Nails long sleeve shirt on Ebay for $240 (CDN).
1994, The Downward Spiral, had ‘goddamn this noise inside my head’ multiple times on the front.
Not in horrible condition, but definitely showing it’s age.

Seriously? A drunken lottery winner? I get it, but if there’s a market why not just re-issue?
Some obviously want their youth back.

Does get me thinking of what I’ve passed on and regretted, especially those long sleeves.
Seems expensive at the time, but when you’re a fan and then see someone else wearing it…

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Uncle Retrospective, Todd

Various collectable markets seem to have boomed over the last couple of years. Band shirts seem to be part of that overall trend.

Vintage video games is one my friend pointed out, old console cartridges in decent condition can make you a pretty penny. Even comics, outside of a few key issues it was hard to get more than a couple of dollars for them for a long time but the prices have been rising. I don’t know if it has been spurred on by people stuck at home during the pandemic.

There are some dodgy price-inflation antics going on at the moment with the retro video games market, including some underhand tactics from the certification companies to artificially bump up valuations. So a lot of people are expecting it to be a bubble that bursts at some point. Not unlike comics.

garjones wrote:

Various collectable markets seem to have boomed over the last couple of years. Band shirts seem to be part of that overall trend.

Vintage video games is one my friend pointed out, old console cartridges in decent condition can make you a pretty penny. Even comics, outside of a few key issues it was hard to get more than a couple of dollars for them for a long time but the prices have been rising. I don’t know if it has been spurred on by people stuck at home during the pandemic.

This was mentioned in a comic podcast I heard recently; old action figures, original art, trading cards – they’ve all boomed. Even I’ve reached a point at some time over the past 18 months where I’ve considered splurging on the kind of thing that I would have only dreamed about 25 years ago. For me it is down to being in a nesting phase on account of the pandemic-caused isolation. Middle aged people indulging in hobbies and nostalgia at a new level.

Andrew wrote:

old action figures

In 2005 Mike Mignola had a deal with Mezco to produce action figures featuring some his Hellboy comic characters, including Kreigaffe #10, a talking gorilla. I paid around $20 for them at the time, and they sat in my basement (in their packaging) since then. I just checked eBay, where they have two Kreigaffes for sale: one for $349, the other for an even $400.

Crazy times.

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Todd

It must be another month, cause it’s write up time.

We have some post rock, some odd doom jazz, and a bunch of other stuff.

 

Musical round up October 2021

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DavidM

Guitarists:

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Todd, Uncle Retrospective

[Al-x]

Ok…

I heard about this several times with artists past and present like Prince, Taylor Swift, Ashanti and others.

https://thegrio.com/2021/11/17/irv-gotti-ashanti-angie-martinez-show-master-recordings/?fbclid=IwAR2ZboNBbmJVBYRQ7BXqgBEqkyXxR7vDsIK5rXHyhXg6gaNWMFflRpCwIro

It seems that the artist doesn’t own the masters of their own songs but apparently there is a window of opportunity to get control. Should they lose the chance, then the artist has the option of re recording the songs.

Also, artists have the option to buy all their recordings. Remember when Michael Jackson “outbid” Paul McCartney for all the Beatles songs?

What kind of contract do these artists sign to begin with? They don’t have any rights to their own creation.

Then again, in comics, the writers/creators sign a really sh*tty deal (imho) of about $5k to write new characters or a new setting and years later, it takes off and gets used in the movie adaptation and the film makes $1B…

Who said life was fair to begin with?

• This reply was modified 3 years, 1 month ago by Al-x.

[Al-x]

You might want to see this because I didn’t believe it myself but then, there it is…

Before Nirvana and Pearl Jam, there was Tina Bell and her husband in the early 80’s and their band Bam Bam up in Seattle:

—————————

Now…

I never said that everything cool and trendy in the culture started with people of color, but there has been a whitewashing and an erasing/playing down of who originated what in some things ie. Dirty Dancing, Saturday Night Fever, Rock and Roll, grunge…More than I knew about and even realized at first.

• This reply was modified 3 years, 1 month ago by Al-x.
• This reply was modified 3 years, 1 month ago by Al-x.

The title of this video echoes my sentiment:

This upcoming Beatles documentary by Paul Jackson will be good just to catch footage of them being so young and in the twilight of the group. But I have to say we already know most of the story, that by that time they all had their fill of each other and wanted to go their separate ways.

George wanted more exposure of his songs, etc.
Paul was too bossy, John looked down on George and so on.

John neglected Cynthia and Julian. He reinvented himself as this political protester and pacifist and Yoko showed him there was more to life than being a Beatle singing Paul’s songs.

It was tragic that he was killed Dec. 8, 1980 but looking back, most of the the fans only cared that there won’t be a Beatles reunion in the future.

Al-x wrote:

This upcoming Beatles documentary by Paul Jackson will be good just to catch footage of them being so young and in the twilight of the group. But I have to say we already know most of the story, that by that time they all had their fill of each other and wanted to go their separate ways.

One of the interesting things I’ve seen mentioned about this new Peter Jackson film is that it apparently shows that for a lot of these sessions there was actually quite a good vibe and quite strong friendship still between the group.

Apparently the longer runtime and looser edit will allow them to show a bit more of a mixed and nuanced picture than the original film did.

I think some of the perspectives on this period in Beatles history have been a little revisionist and a bit tainted by what we knew came afterwards. It will be nice to have a more detailed look at footage from the time to see more of the dynamic.

Also, let’s not forget, after the Let It Be sessions the Beatles got together again to write and record another entirely new album (Abbey Road, which came out before Let It Be but was recorded afterwards), so it wasn’t like the Let It Be sessions were the end of the road for them.

Dave wrote:

(Abbey Road, which came out before Let It Be but was recorded afterwards)

It always bothered me that the Beatles created this terrific final studio album, with all the members at their creative peak (George had two amazing contributions, SOMETHING and HERE COMES THE SUN, Ringo had his first solo writing credit for OCTOPUS’ GARDEN, John and Paul blended well and supported each other throughout), and they closed the door perfectly with THE END; which, being who they were, they followed up with the unlisted song ditty HER MAJESTY. A great album and a fitting coda to their career as they all walked away from the greatest band ever.

And then they ruined it all by releasing Phil Spector’s butcher-job.

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DavidM, Dave

njerry wrote:

And then they ruined it all by releasing Phil Spector’s butcher-job.

And McCartney hated what Spector did to the song “The Long and Winding Road”.

I believe a few years ago, McCartney got the rights to redo the album and he called his version “Let It Be … Naked”

njerry wrote:

Dave wrote:

(Abbey Road, which came out before Let It Be but was recorded afterwards)

It always bothered me that the Beatles created this terrific final studio album, with all the members at their creative peak (George had two amazing contributions, SOMETHING and HERE COMES THE SUN, Ringo had his first solo writing credit for OCTOPUS’ GARDEN, John and Paul blended well and supported each other throughout), and they closed the door perfectly with THE END; which, being who they were, they followed up with the unlisted song ditty HER MAJESTY. A great album and a fitting coda to their career as they all walked away from the greatest band ever.

And then they ruined it all by releasing Phil Spector’s butcher-job.

Yeah I agree. Abbey Road is really the perfect final album. I always consider it their final record (after Let It Be).

I was flipping around YouTube last night and came across a song I hadn’t heard in some time:

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Rocket, DavidM

I remember that song accompanying every other sports event on TV when I was a kid until the mid 80s.

It was probably a decade later when I got into music properly a found out who wrote it.

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Todd

Dave wrote:

Yeah I agree. Abbey Road is really the perfect final album. I always consider it their final record (after Let It Be).

Especially that last segment of Ringo’s drum solo, the guitars, then the break in the tempo with the piano, and then the last lines
And in the end
The love you take
Is equal to the love you make…

Classic ending.

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Andrew, Dave

garjones wrote:

It was probably a decade later when I got into music properly a found out who wrote it.

I remember thinking that “Fanfare for the Common Man” was written by Emerson, Lake and Palmer when they released it in 1977; took a few years for me to find out Aaron Copland had written it over 50 years prior to ELP’s cover version. Duh.

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Todd

njerry wrote:

garjones wrote:

It was probably a decade later when I got into music properly a found out who wrote it.

I remember thinking that “Fanfare for the Common Man” was written by Emerson, Lake and Palmer when they released it in 1977; took a few years for me to find out Aaron Copland had written it over 50 years prior to ELP’s cover version. Duh.

Weirdly, I always knew it was written by Copland and didn’t have the foggiest idea who Emerson, Lake and Palmer were.

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njerry, Todd

Metal legends Machine Head to play the Lemon Tree and Ironworks

Got tickets for this and while it’s almost a whole year away I’m looking forward to it already. Mad they are playing such a wee venue (for context the Aberdeen venue holds 500-600 whereas Wembley seems to have a concert capacity of 90 000).

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Sean Robinson, DavidM

‘Nice’ Mike Rea, formerly of this parish, pointed me to this song by young Geordie singer Sam Fender the other day, it’s an excellent pop single and he gets loads of extra points from me for singing in his own accent.

The strange thing though that hit me when listening to a guy over 20 years younger than me was a sense of nostalgia. Then it sunk in how everything in this song and video could have been the same when I was 17 in 1990, even the satellite TV dishes on the houses (Sky TV launched in 1989). The music is rather reminiscent of something like Dexy’s Midnight Runners a decade earlier, that kind of soul tinged working class sound. Everything the kids are wearing you could have bought something similar in TopShop/Man in 1990.

If you made the same leap in time back to 1959 that would all be impossible.

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Andrew, DavidM, njerry, Todd

New month, new write up. Slim picking this month but we have some great alt rock, dance floor fillers and an anime soundtrack classic.

 

Monthly round up November 2021

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Bruce

Might find this interesting:

This is the original version of Hound Dog by Big Mama Thornton pic.twitter.com/Ke560o2YZs

— Kentah Gwanjez (@GWANJEZ) December 15, 2021

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Todd, Rocket, DavidM, JRCarter

Heard it before and prefer it to Elvis’ version.

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Rocket, Al-x

Never heard it before, also prefer it to Elvis’ version.

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Rocket, Al-x

RIP Kangol Kid:

A bit of an “oh shit” moment realising a 20 year anniversary edition of an album is approaching its own 10 year anniversary.

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Todd, DavidM, lorcan_nagle, Dave

I bought the 25th anniversary edition of Deep Purple In Rock in 1995…

 

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Sean Robinson, njerry

DavidM wrote:

I bought the 25th anniversary edition of Deep Purple In Rock in 1995…

 

That means this year is the first anniversary of the 25th anniversary of you buying the 25th anniversary album.

Happy anniversary.

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Rocket, Sean Robinson, Todd, njerry, DavidM, Uncle Retrospective

 

 

It’s time for my end of year write up. It contains both types of metal, Post and Prog :D

But seriously folks, there was some fantastic music this year.

 

Albums of the year 2021

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garjones, Bruce, njerry, DavidM

Uncle Retrospective wrote:

 

 

It’s time for my end of year write up. It contains both types of metal, Post and Prog :D

But seriously folks, there was some fantastic music this year.

 

Albums of the year 2021

I always enjoy your monthly and yearly sum ups. Added a couple to my listen list after reading this.

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Uncle Retrospective

Bruce wrote:

I always enjoy your monthly and yearly sum ups. Added a couple to my listen list after reading this.

Thanks so much. :D

 

It means so much to me that people read them.

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Bruce, lorcan_nagle

Remembering the Archies, a Fake Band Ahead of its Time

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njerry

I finally found time to listen to the new ABBA album. It’s a nice album, but I wouldn’t say a great album. None of the songs would be in my top 10 ABBA songs, and I can’t imagine them being so even after they’ve had time to grow on me (and an ABBA song shouldn’t have to grow on you, it should hit you instantly).

So overall, nice addition to their catalogue and worth getting if you’re already a fan, but not indispensable.

 

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Andrew, Todd, njerry, Bruce

DavidM wrote:

I finally found time to listen to the new ABBA album

ROLLING STONE magazine’s Rob Sheffield awarded it 4 stars out of 5, with special praise for the song “Don’t Shut Me Down”.

While waiting for my booster jab. @uncleretrospective – very much my jam! https://youtu.be/lx6QcEYjTKc
Tor – Foxglove

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Uncle Retrospective, njerry

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Rocket, garjones, njerry, Uncle Retrospective, Al-x, Todd, DavidM

Didn’t notice the change you made at first, but then…

I agree.

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DavidM, Dave, Uncle Retrospective

Yeah, Whinestake is a great British band!!

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Sean Robinson, DavidM

njerry wrote:

Yeah, Whinestake is a great British band!!

Started by an ex-member of Depp Purple, you know.

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njerry

What about Black Sabbtah and New Orden?

The US has waaaay more amazing bands, no contest, but I’d have to say that the UK bands had more influence overall (in the more modern sound of course).

DavidM wrote:

njerry wrote:

Yeah, Whinestake is a great British band!!

Started by an ex-member of Depp Purple, you know.

JRCarter wrote:

What about Black Sabbtah and New Orden?

Not to mention the Artic Monkeys.

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Uncle Retrospective, njerry, DavidM

My first 12 months of the blog!

Thanks for reading folks, there wasn’t a whole lot released in December, but their were some gems.

 

Music Round Up December 2021

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Bruce, DavidM

No new music released in the first week of January, so I’ve been listening to some of last year’s (and older music). The week’s playlist:

Sirens – Odin Dragonfly (2021)
Disillusioned – Marjana Semkina (2021)
Voyage – ABBA (2021)
Bitches Brew – Miles Davis (1970)
Tarkus – Emerson, Lake & Palmer (1970)
Bruckner Symphony No. 1 – Barenboim/Berliner Philharmoniker (1996)
Bride of Wintertide – Rowan:Morrison (2021)
The Absolute Universe: Forevermore – Transatlantic (2021)
Belighted – Iamthemorning (2014)

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Todd

And I’m finally done with 2021. My EPs of the year. Industrial to alt rock to dance to experimental pop. And other stuff.

 

EPs of the year 2021

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Bruce, DavidM

OK so Gar posted in the random comics thread about a strip involving Adam Ant and a question about Prince. I went to Wikipedia to see which came first. Prince did. But in doing so I found that Malcolm Maclaren took Ant’s band mates away from him and formed Bow Wow Wow. Did anyone know that Annabelle Lwin, the lead singer of Bow Wow Wow was only 13 when she started and she was only 15 when she did I want Candy? I remember really liking that video but feel a bit creeped out now knowing she was only 15 at that time.

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lorcan_nagle, njerry, Todd

Yes the Lwin stuff was pretty controversial at the time from what I’ve read, she appeared nude on the I Want Candy record cover (albeit with the naughty bits obscured from the viewer) when she was only 14 and the police were called. There’d be a prosecution for certain nowadays but times were different then I guess is all you can say.

While Prince was recording before Adam and the Ants (his first album he wrote, performed and produced when he was 17) he didn’t have a big hit in the UK until ‘1999’ in 1982 and that strip was in 1981 when Adam was a megastar in the UK with several number 1 singles.

So I was only kidding that they missed out on the Prince licence – it’s just a coincidence he probably looks more like Purple Rain era Prince that came a couple of years later.

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Rocket, Todd, lorcan_nagle

Heavy Metal Knitting Championship

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Todd, DavidM

Tried posting a link but it didn’t show?

 

 

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Todd

DavidM wrote:

I finally found time to listen to the new ABBA album. It’s a nice album, but I wouldn’t say a great album. None of the songs would be in my top 10 ABBA songs, and I can’t imagine them being so even after they’ve had time to grow on me (and an ABBA song shouldn’t have to grow on you, it should hit you instantly).

So overall, nice addition to their catalogue and worth getting if you’re already a fan, but not indispensable.

 

Well, that post aged well. ABBA’s Voyage is a great album, easily in my top 10 albums of the year. I guess it did grow on me…

I mean, it’s not the best ABBA album, but even an average ABBA album is better than most of the pop music of the last 40 years.

 

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Andrew, njerry

DavidM wrote:

even an average ABBA album is better than most of the pop music of the last 40 years.

Maybe not 40 years, but definitely the last 30 years. Sad but true.

OMYGOD!! I’ve become David Meadows!!

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Andrew, Rocket, Todd, DavidM

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Andrew, njerry, Todd

I’ve spent a month re-listening to the best albums of last year, and I’m finally ready to rank them. Here’s my top 10 (and a bit) list for 2021.

1. Sirens – Odin Dragonfly
2. Turning to Crime – Deep Purple
3. The Absolute Universe: Forevermore – Transatlantic
4. Disillusioned (EP) – Marjana Semkina
5. The Absolute Universe: The Breath of Life – Transatlantic
6. Beyond the Past – Mono
7. Harvest – Ciccada
8. The Peasants’ Revolt – Nightsong
9. Voyage – ABBA
10. Witches’ Lullabye – Daemonia Nymphe
11. Cairn – Fergus McCreadie
12. Graveyard Star – Mostly Autumn
13. Playing House – Meer
14. The Shed Sessions Volume One – Chantel McGregor
15. The Darkest Skies Are The Brightest – Anneke van Giersbergen

Sirens – Odin Dragonfly

In 2007, Heather Findlay and Angela Gordon spent their spare hours on tour with Mostly Autumn writing Offerings, which turned out to be one of the best albums of that—or any—year. Then, apart from scattered live performances, Odin Dragonfly fell silent for the next fourteen years.

In all those years of hopeful anticipation, I’ve built up the idea of a second album so much that there’s no way the reality could match my expectations. I was almost afraid to play it when it finally dropped through the letter box.

But it lived up to and surpassed every expectation. Each of the 12 songs on here is a thing of beauty, musically, lyrically, and vocally.

The formula hasn’t changed: an acoustic album, the music dominated by Angela’s piano, supplemented by her flute and Heather’s guitar. And two of my favourite voices in the whole world. Two decades of working together in various bands has produced a perfect vocal partnership, their voices different in character but blending perfectly. Either one can take the lead vocal (usually the one who has written the song) and the other will find the perfect harmony to it. This is simply a perfect album, and well worth waiting for.

Turning to Crime – Deep Purple

Over 21 albums, Deep Purple’s approach to writing new music has been to sit in a room and jam until a song emerges. Locked down on different continents, they had to find another method for album #22, so they decided to record some songs that had already been written. Yes, it’s a covers album, splitting the fan base into those who think they’ve demeaned themselves, and those who thinks the idea is genius. But the only thing that really matters is, but does it sound like a Deep Purple album? And the answer is a definite yes.

They picked the 12 tracks based on songs they personally like, from artists as diverse as Cream, Ray Charles, and Lonnie Donegan, and while they remain recognisably faithful to the originals they also give a springboard for the band to show off their individual and collective ability. Steve Morse dazzles with a string of lightning-fast solos, Don Airey can play any style the song demands, from honky-tonk piano to screaming organ, Ian Paice gets a chance to show that he’s a jazz drummer at heart, Roger Glover gets a rare lead vocal, and Ian Gillan doesn’t try to push outside his current comfort zone and consequently sounds better than he has for years.

It’s the best rock band in the world playing at the top of their game and proving that after 22 albums they are still the best rock band in the world. Just superb.

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Sean Robinson, Bruce

This month’s round up.

That was a slow month that really deliveed by the end. Break out your good time pants so you can do the good times dance.

 

Music round up Jaunary

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Bruce

[Al-x]

In the interview, she touched on a great point that no one makes albums anymore. It is about some single with a nice hook that goes viral (these days on social media) and then that gets disposed like Kleenex and it is on to the next viral hook.

Clearly, gone are the days of the thematic album like Sgt. Pepper, Pet Sounds, and so on.

• This reply was modified 2 years, 11 months ago by Al-x.

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Rocket, njerry