One of the things I like about doing this blog, other than hearing new music, is learning back stories and histories of the bands/artists. These guys have a very interesting event that happened to them. After the bands first couple albums they became quite popular in England, and by their third "The Holy Bible" they had really mad a name for themselves. On Feb 1 1995, the day two of the band members were to head to the U.S. to promote the album, Richey Edwards disappeared. In the two weeks prior to his disappearance he withdrew 200 pounds a day from his bank account. On Feb 1st he checked out of his hotel and drove to his apartment in Wales. In the two weeks that followed he was reported being spotted at various locations including a passport office. By the 17th his car was found abandoned with evidence someone had been living in it. It was found close to a bridge that was a popular suicide spot, and it is assumed that he jumped from the bridge and his body was never found. Since that time there have been reported sightings of Edwards in different locations around the world but nothing has been confirmed and he hasn't been seen since. Weird stuff!
As for this album, the first since his disappearance, the remaining band members described it as an emotional release for them in relation to Edwards disappearance, with many of the lyrics being written by Edwards before he disappeared. I hadn't heard any of the tracks before so I didn't know what to expect but it was pretty good.
Listed as an English rock band I would put them more in the punk category. Most of the had that over the top loud/edgy sound to them with more screaming than not. For me the album was just o.k. I've heard better, I've heard worse.
BTW didn't know this song was by Supergrass - "alright"
Tomorrow's Album #754 The Manic Street Preachers - Everything Must Go
I recognized the name Shankar from my mom telling about listening to Ravi Shankar as a teenager. Turns out Ananda is Ravi's less popular cousin, who also played the sitar, a traditional East Indian instrument.
It wasn't my cup of tea, but I was Impressed that he would cover The Rolling Stones tune Jumping Jack Flash, with the sitar.
Billy Bragg is an English activist who uses his songs to try and influence change in the issues in which he believes. A lot of his songs are politically charged and deal with things going on in the world at the time of recording. The Music side of it was o.k. lyrics o.k. singing not so great. I'm not exactly sure what it was that he had a beef with for this album since it was recorded in 1986, but he definitely was passionate about it.
"There is Power in a Union"
Tomorrow's Album #157 Ananda Shankar - Self-titled
I don't know what makes a band the most famous/popular ever. Is it record sales, number of albums, hit singles, sold out concerts, longevity, or how well their fans travel? I'm sure that if you were to evaluate each different criteria you would get a different answer for each. So I don't know which band would be the most popular ever. I do know that The Grateful Dead would be up there in a lot of those categories and definitely could be viewed as one of the most popular ever.
Never having listened to any of their music my complaint is the same as when I listened to Steely Dan and The Crusaders. Jazz/rock songs end up being just long jam sessions were the songs just end up running together, especially when it a live album like this one is. It's just not for me.
I'm not going to add a video, just refer you to previous posts for Steely Dan or The Crusaders, it all sounds the same anyways
Tomorrow's Album #517 Billy Bragg - Talking With the Taxman About Poetry
When I was young and I would visit my grandparents, there was three t.v shows that we were for sure watching when they were on. The Lawrence Welk Show, Hee Haw and The Grand Ole Opry. When we would go any where with my grandpa Jim, he would listen to old school country. This album reminded me of those times. It was full of banjo, slide guitar, mandolin and fiddle. Not my favorite type of music but if I had to listen to country I prefer this over today's country.
"Making Plans"
Tomorrow's Album #181 The Greatful Dead - Live/Dead
David Bowie is rock royalty, He has to be one of the most famous, most recognizable, and revered singers of our time. I would suspect that most everyone has heard of him and heard some of his songs. I have a lot of his hits in my music library but no full albums, mostly cause I have never had the desire to listen to anything more than the hits.
Overall the 1st half of the album was good, but I could have done without the second half. After track 4 it was pretty much odd instrumentals until track 10. Nothing that I cared to listen to but I'm sure hardcore Bowie fans get it.
"Heroes"
Tomorrow's Album #536 Harris/Rondstadt/Parton - Trio
Now I'm not one to get star struck or when celebrities die, I don't really think about it too much, but Prince's death hit me hard. I remember studying for my Pharmacist licensing exam, and getting a text from my sister that just said "Prince is dead". I read it and I couldn't comprehend what she was saying. Of course when I hopped on the Internet it was everywhere. It was really shocking to me that it was true, and for a couple weeks it was hard for me to believe. You see I have been a fan of his music since I was about 13 years old. I have loved pretty much everything he has released, some things more than others. In my mind he is about as close to a modern musical genius as you can get. The Guy could play almost any instrument and had released 39 albums in a 40 year career, not including live albums or greatest hits. On top of that, he has a vast vault of unreleased music that he has recorded, and I'm sure will be released over the course of years, now that he is gone. I'm glad that there is a potential for future "new" music but one thing I loved about Prince was I always knew that a new CD could be released at anytime. It was always innovative, stretching the boundaries of what he and other artists have done previously. That's all gone now.
So today Warner Brothers released a remastered deluxe edition of Purple Rain, the first release of "new" material since Prince's death a little over a year ago.Since I am a huge Prince fan, and since I would be listening to the album today anyways, I figured I would just do my review of Purple Rain now instead of in the future. Imagine my surprise when I discovered that it wasn't included on the list of 1001 albums. The only two albums of his, on the list, are 1999 and Sign O' the Times, two amazing albums, but if you are going to include any of his albums it has to be Purple Rain, the album that rocketed him to stardom. Thus it becomes my 1002nd album to hear before you die.
The album was remastered and planned in 2015, under Prince's direction, to be released for the 30th anniversary of the album, but for one reason or another it never happened. The release consists of 3 Cd's.
CD 1 is the remastered album. The sound quality is improved over the 1984 release and everything sounds a bit crisper and better. You can pick up little subtleties that are missing from the original.
CD 2 is unreleased material. Most are songs that haven't been heard before and a couple are songs that have be unofficially been available on the Internet as poor quality recordings, so it is nice to have the originals all cleaned up and released. I will say that there is a reason that these songs are out takes and didn't make the original album. None are as good as anything on the album, but it is still cool to have some songs never before released.
CD 3 is edits of the songs from the album that were released as singles for radio play and also their B-sides and extended versions. Nothing new here, and most fans would already own everything on the disc.
Overall it is a pretty good set. It is nice to have the improved quality album and about 7 never before released songs, but the release, I think, is really just for dedicated fans that have been listening to his music for years. Anyone that isn't into his music isn't going to care that this has been released.
I tried to get a music video for one of the songs on the album but it is really hard to find any official videos for Prince's music on the Internet. He really restricted what people could post while he was alive and his estate is still doing so. So here is what might be one of the best Super Bowl half time shows ever.
BTW I had the chance to see him in concert one time in Vancouver... Amazing.
R.I.P Prince. I will miss getting a new CD and being blown away by your music
I have been meaning to listen The Smiths,and Morrissey, to get more familiar with their music for a couple reasons. 1. I have a couple of their songs and like what I have heard but haven't bothered to listen to any full albums and 2. Justin, the lead singer of Blue October, favorite band and singer is The Smiths/Morrissey.
This album was pretty dang good. Morrissey's voice is very unique, not really like anyone else. He also has a very different style of lyric writing. With only one listen I'm not really sure how to describe it other than he is very obviously uses his songs to tell stories of events and things in his life and isn't worried about the songs being catchy pop songs, but then kind of end up being catchy. I'm excited to check out more of his music.
I was pleasantly surprised by this album. It had a really good Jazz/R&B/Blues feel to it and her voice was really good. Some songs had some great horn work and piano.
This was pretty much the same as the last album I listened to a couple weeks ago that, in my mind, represents "hippy music". The common theme here is 1. you don't have to be able to sing or even try to sing 2. the music can be weird and whatever you want it to be, not really having any structure and 3. the lyrics don't need to make any sense and are most likely drug induced.
Not good.
"Who are the Brain Police"
Tomorrow's Album #102 Laura Nyro - Eli and the Thirteenth Confessions
I don't like The Beatles, so I tried very hard to keep an opened mind when listening to Abbey Road. It wasn't as bad as I thought it was going to be, in fact it was much better than I thought it was going to be. I understand the history of The Beatles, and can appreciate their important to the history of Rock & Roll. With out The Beatles I'm not sure where music is today, but I know we are somewhere different.
I'm not sure how you could determine which album was The Beatles best album, or most successful or most influential, but I would have to say that Abbey Road is probably up near the top of all those lists. I know listening to it has made me reconsider my opinion of The Beatles.
"Come Together"
"Something"
Tomorrow's Album #53 Frank Zappa & the Mothers of Invention - Freak Out!
I have found it interesting that even when I haven't heard of a band, other than by name, when I have listened to them most times they remind me of a band that I have heard and a lot of times have in my music library. That was the case with Massive Attack. I know nothing about them but they remind me of a cross between two bands, US3 and a band I really like, Recoil. Turns out Massive Attack is a duo that makes "trip-hop". Trip-hop is a mix of hip-hop and electronica, which now makes perfect sense of why they remind me of US3 which makes jazz/rap and Recoil which makes electronica music.
Overall I enjoyed the album but wasn't blown away by it. I think I'll stick to listening to Recoil.
This was an unexpected early 80's alt music find. This album was really pretty good if you like early 80's music, which I do. It reminded me a little bit of bands like The Smiths, The Cure, early New order, Echo & the Bunnymen etc. Kilimanjaro was their first release in 1980 and was well received prompting the band to record a second in 1981. Again the fans and critics, liked it so the band went into the studio to record a third in 1982, however the band had already been experiencing in fighting and differing ideas on musical styles, and they broke up before completing the album.
I'm not a big fan of 70's classic rock, however I am a big fan of metal, so I was excited to check out one of the first, I think, metal albums that has popped up on the list, and it did not disappoint. Granted this was not the same as the metal I grew up on like, Metallica, Motley Crue, and others, but this style of metal definitely paved the way for what was to come. Fronted by one of rock's greatest talents, Ozzy Osbourne, it delivers some fine rock, and his voice is just so unique, it really pulls everything all together.
Surprisingly I thought one of the best tracks was the ballad "Changes"
Tomorrow's Album #431 Teardrop Explodes - Kilimanjaro
In my mind I have this belief that people, especially famous people/musicians, hold Stevie Wonder up on this pedestle high above almost every other musician. I would hope that it is because he makes amazing music, not because he is blind and makes pretty good music. He does have a pretty good list of songs that have been hits, and he has been covered by other people more than once or twice. However this album was just o.k. It definitely started off kind of rocky, but I'll admit by the second half of it it had some decent songs, not amazing like I expected, but pretty good.
I'm not sure what to think of this album. Her voice is really good but the music style is just not for me. Slow R&B love songs just are too boring to me.
"Sweet Love"
Tomorrow's Album #295 Stevie Wonder - Fulfillingness' First Finale
Back in the day I kinda liked Green Day. I owned a couple of their albums and would listen to them occasionally. Then they got hugely popular and I kind of stopped listening to them. Not because they got popular, not because I felt like they had sold out, I didn't really care, I just didn't like their music enough to continue listening to them. Well I would have to say that they they probably are the biggest punk band to ever make something for themselves. I mean, they have one of their albums turned into a Broadway musical, no other band has that, let alone a punk band. American Idiot just happens to be that album and I had never listened to it straight through before now. It was pretty good, the songs were definitely catchy and it is a solid album.
This is a pretty good 90's alt-rock album. Prior to this I believed that I had only ever heard one Blur song, Song 2, but come to realize that the first song on the album, Girls & Boys, was also pretty popular, I just didn't realize it was Blur. If fact Thom Yorke, of Radiohead fame, and who has written some pretty amazing songs in his own right, confessed that he wished he had written the song and that Blur were "bastards" for writing it first. Girls & Boys
This was a pretty good mellow alt-rock album. Never heard of the band before, who are a male/female duo from Baltimore, but they were surprisingly good. I really liked the opening track "Zebra", which reminds me of a more recent song that has been on a radio, but I can't place it... yet.
There is a reason that different music genres like, rock, country, jazz, blues, r&b, rap alternative etc have been around for decades and bands keep making music in these styles and disco only lasted a few years. Nobody wants to listen to it any more, unless it is the background music for a porno. Boom Chicka Wow Wow :)
Same complaint as the last jazz/rock band that I listened to, Steely Dan, that plays instrumentals that are essentially jam sessions. They start to run together and sound like one long song. Boring.
No songs worth posting a video of.
Tomorrow's Album #407 Sister Sledge - We are Family
I thought that this was another rap album that I wouldn't be able to listen to, so imagine my surprise when Apple Music had an edited version. It basically has all the same song themes that every other gangster rap album, just minus the swear words which are kinds of obscured but not removed, and kind of made the songs difficult to listen to to be honest. Overall I learned 2 things: 1. if you are going to listen to rap music just listen to it, edited versions are stupid and 2. I kind of Like Snoop Dogg as a rapper. I dig his voice.
So this album sounds a lot like newer Love and Rockets, especially their self-titled album, this album being released in '85 and Love and Rockets in '89. So technically Love and Rockets sounds like these guys. The songs are really "noisey" and full of buzz and guitar distortion. I really like Love and Rockets, so this was a good find.
These guys are kind of a generic 70's rock band, That reminded me of the Rolling Stones, but they just didn't seem to have themselves figured out. I got the impression that they didn't really know what musical style they were going for on the album. One of the tracks, "Evil Hearted Ada", is an attempt at an Elvis impression. There was a couple songs that were decent and worth a listen, including what I think is the best song on the album "Whiskey Woman"
"Whiskey Woman"
Tomorrow's Album #508 The Jesus & Mary Chain - Psychocandy
I thought there was a good chance that I would like this album. One of my favorite bands, The Cure, has ties to this band. Robert Smith, lead singer of The Cure, would sometimes tour with Siouxsie and play guitar for the band. They also had a side project called The Glove, that they released an album of material under. Unfortunately I didn't like The Glove album and I didn't really like this one either. The singer is too "screamy", if that's a word, and it just didn't work for me.
"Carcass"
Tomorrow's Album #211 The Flamin' Groovies - Teenage Head
Joni Mitchell is hugely famous. She also happens to be Canadian, born in Fort Macleod Alberta in fact. She primarily does folk style music with other elements mixed in like jazz and rock. She is another singer, like Suzanna Vega, who tends to write poems and then puts them to music, but in my opinion is much better than Vega. In fact Rolling Stone magazine called Mitchell one of the greatest song writers ever. Pretty high praise. She has influences on many other artists, including one of my favorites, Prince. He had mentioned her as one of his favorites singers and even references one of her songs "Help Me"
in one of his songs "The Ballad of Dorothy Parker".
Overall I thought the album was pretty good. I'm not a huge fan of folk music, but this was well done and worth a listen.
"The Jungle Line"
Tomorrow's Album #381 Siouxsie and The Banshees - The Scream
"Let me take you on a trip, around the world and back, and you won't have to move, you just sit still."
- World In My Eyes
That's exactly what this album does, it takes you on a trip. I have said it before I'm sure, but 80's music is the best music, (and before anyone roasts me I know that Violator was released in 1990, but Depeche Mode is an 80's band, and recording started in the 80's). So many amazing albums came from that time period. I have also said about other albums that are on the list, that I have already heard, that I have "listened to them more times that I can count". I may have exaggerating about those others but not about Violator. I know I have listened to this album hundreds of times, and in my mind, it may be the most perfect album ever recorded. Everything about it is perfection, The music, the lyrics, the themes, all of it. The band created something that I'm not sure can ever be surpassed by another band, and I LOVE a lot of other bands and a lot of other albums. I rave about Blue October and tell everyone that their music is on another level, but I'm sorry, they will never make an album as good as this one. The only fault I can find is that the album is only 9 songs, weighing in at 47 minutes. Which is o.k, you just put it on repeat and listen to it again.
The Full album for your enjoyment:
One of the best parts of the album was that it spawned some awesome music videos for the singles:
"Personal Jesus"
"Enjoy The Silence"
"Policy of Truth"
"World in My Eyes"
I decided to listen to the bonus track version of the album because it includes all of the B-Sides of the singles, all of which could have been on the album, and are better than most music of the time or released today.
"Dangerous"
"Memphisto"
"Sibeling" - I love this song
"Kaleid"
"Happiest Girl"
"Sea of Sin"
I knew this post was going to be long, so I'll just close with one last thing.
If I had to be stranded on an island with only one album to listen to - this is it. Bonus track version of course :)
Tomorrow's Album #307 Joni Mitchell - The Hissing of Summer Lawns
I had to double-check to be sure but I thought I remembered listening to one of the band's albums before. Sure enough I did back in August of 2011. I re-read what I wrote and this album is pretty much more of the same. This album was their first and was released in 1980. The music was actually not too bad. Kind of a Ska vibe to it, and I actually kind of liked their use of horns on most of the songs. What killed it for me, which was the same as the other album back in 2011, is the lead singer. he is just plain terrible. He can not sing.
So on that note I'm going to include the one song on the album with out singing. Enjoy the music
I was a little surprised that this album was on the list. U2 is an amazing band and I love pretty much every album they have put out, minus maybe the last one that they did, and maybe Pop. Don't get me wrong this is a good album with a lot of really good songs, and none better than "Stuck in a Moment You Can't Get Out of", its just that if you are going to put a couple U2 albums on the list you have to include The Joshua Tree, Achtung Baby, Rattle and Hum, Zooropa, and maybe War and Boy. So you can see the dilemma, how many U2 albums can be on the list of 1001?
"Stuck in a Moment You Can't Get out of"
Tomorrow's Album #422 Dexy's Midnight Runners - Searching for the Young Soul Rebels
Hippy music - no thanks. This album was an audio train wreck. I couldn't look, or should I say listen, away. I had to keep listening to see how bad it could get and it got bad, really bad. The lyrics for the songs are just terrible. Here are some examples...
"Koeeoaddi There"
Singing ladybird, ladybird what is your wish
Your wish is not granted unless it's a fish
Your wish is not granted unless it's a dish
A fish on a dish is that what you wish
"Witches Hat"
If I was a witches hat,
Sitting on her head like a paraffin stove,
I'd fly away and be a bat,
'Cross the air, I would rove
"Waltz of the New Moon"
The new moon is rising the eyelid of god is approaching
The humane train the skating raining travelling voice of certainty
The new moon is shining the harmonious hand is now holding lord krishna's ring
The eagle's wing the voice of mother everything
Ask the snail beneath the stone, ask the stone beneath the wall
Are there any stars at all
Like an eagle in the sky tell me if air is strong
"The Water Song"
Water water see the water flow
Glancing dancing see the water flow
Oh wizard of changes water water water
Dark or silvery mother of life
Water water holy mystery heavens daughter
I could go on.
"The Minotaur's Song" if you can hold out to the 1:30 mark you can experience all the band mooing
Tomorrow's Album #833 U2 - All That you Can't Leave Behind
One of the things I like about doing this blog, other than hearing new music, is learning back stories and histories of the bands/artists. These guys have a very interesting event that happened to them. After the bands first couple albums they became quite popular in England, and by their third "The Holy Bible" they had really mad a name for themselves. On Feb 1 1995, the day two of the band members were to head to the U.S. to promote the album, Richey Edwards disappeared. In the two weeks prior to his disappearance he withdrew 200 pounds a day from his bank account. On Feb 1st he checked out of his hotel and drove to his apartment in Wales. In the two weeks that followed he was reported being spotted at various locations including a passport office. By the 17th his car was found abandoned with evidence someone had been living in it. It was found close to a bridge that was a popular suicide spot, and it is assumed that he jumped from the bridge and his body was never found. Since that time there have been reported sightings of Edwards in different locations around the world but nothing has been confirmed and he hasn't been seen since. Weird stuff!
