I had no idea that this album was on the list, and I am so happy it is. I was introduced to Sisters of Mercy by my friend Bruce way back in the 80's, and I LOVE this album. Bruce and I don't have extremely similar musical tastes but on this band we can agree. It is perfectly awesome 80's goth, and it fit perfectly with other bands that I was listening to at the time. The band only produced 3 albums, and to be honest, "First and Last and Always" is my favorite but all three albums are really good.
"This Corrosion"
Tomorrow's Album #34 Charles Mingus - The Black Saint and the Sinner Lady
The last Steely Dan album, Aja, was not very good. This one was much better. The songs were shorter and more focus. It felt less like one long jam session. It still wasn't really my kind of music but definitely easier to listen to this one.
"Rikki Don't Loose that Number"
Tomorrow's Album #609 The Sisters of Mercy - Floodland
Sade had probably their biggest hit with Smooth Operator off this album. I hate the song when it came out and I hated it when I listened to it today. In fact I hate the whole album.
Cornershop is an Indie band from England. The album was a critical success when it came out but I found it to be kind of strange and a little bit all over the place. Most of the songs are short little instrumentals that are almost like segues between songs, but there are more segues than there are full length songs. The album was o.k. but nothing that I'd listen to a second time.
A punk band from England these guys had 18 top 40 hits on six albums in their short 5 year career. That is pretty amazing actually. A lot of bands have really long careers and don't have that many hits. This album is their second to last and it is considered the best of their career. I liked it well enough. It is some straight forward punk worth a listen.
"Start!"
Tomorrow's Album #629 NWA - Straight Outta Compton
So one Brian Eno album has come up previously and it was an instrumental album that I didn't really care for. This album is more of the same. The songs are titled 1/1, 1/2, 2/1 and 2/2 I assume in reference to to when music was primarily released on vinyl or cassette and the songs would be song one side one (1/1) etc. The album was created by making sections of music that loop over themselves and repeat and he recorded it to be played as back ground music to diffuse the tense atmosphere in airport terminals, hence the name.
"1/1"
Tomorrow's Album #32 Ray Charles - Modern Sounds in Country and Western Music
This album was very interesting. Roni Size is a DJ who, for this album, formed the group Reprazent, and drum and bass collective. As you can guess the drums were pretty drum heavy, which isn't necessarily a bad thing. My only complaint of the album was that it did get very repetitive sounding. It wasn't something I would ever choose to listen to but I can see the appeal of it when it came out.
"Brown Paper Bag"
Tomorrow's Album #397 Brian Eno - Ambient 1: Music for Airports
There is some interesting history to Marianne Faithful and her career. This album was her 7th album released and it came after she had had decent success and unfortunately got mixed up in Heroin and spent sometime living homeless on the streets of London. A departure from her earlier style of folk music this album was more rock or new wave. I didn't think it was an amazing album but it wasn't terrible either.
"The Ballad of Lucy Jordan"
Tomorrow's Album #853 Roni Size & Reprazent - New Forms
Unfortunately every song on the album has explicit lyrics so I decided not to listen to it. I figured if I'm going to skip rap albums for explicit lyrics then I better be consistent.
Tomorrow's Album #439 Marianne Faithful - Broken English
In 1993 Nirvana had released their 3rd album and were considered one of the biggest bands in the world. What nobody knew at the time was that a few months later Kurt Cobain would commit suicide and the band would be finished. Reeling from his friends death Dave Grohl, then drummer for Nirvana, decided to grieve by creating music. He created a new band called the Foo Fighters and wrote, played all the instruments, and sang on all of the songs on what would be come the band's self-titled first release. Once the album was released it started to get a lot of attention but no one knew who the Foo Fighters were, and for that matter they weren't anyone. It was just Dave Grohl. Due to the popularity of the album a tour was planned and Dave recruited some musicians, who would become the band.
As far as the album goes, in my opinion, it is one of the best debuts for a band. The songs are great and Dave Grohl manages to find his own sound. I unfortunately didn't know about the Foo Fighters from their beginning. I didn't really start to listen to them until 2005 when they released In Your Honor, but from that time on they have become and are one of my favorite rock bands. Definitely worth listening to their albums if you like straight ahead Rock and Roll.
Back to Black is Amy Winehouse's second, and final, album. Tragically she died of alcohol poisoning in 2011 at the age of 27. Before her death she was definitely a rising star in the music world having won a Grammy for this album. I didn't expect to like the album all that much but it was better than I expected. You can hear that there is some 50's music style infused into the songs, making it pretty unique for a current album. Vocally she isn't the best singer I've ever heard but good enough that she could have had a long career if not for her substance abuse issues, which she was obviously aware of since she starts the album out with the song "Rehab" and ends it with "Addicted".
BTW there have been a number of musicians that have died at the age of 27 for some reason. They even call it the 27 club https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/27_Club
FKA Twigs is an female singer from England. Her stage name comes from a nickname that she received when starting out of Twigs. When another band named The Twigs complained about the use of it she added the FKA which is said to stand for Formerly Know As. Her music style I'd say has a lot of electronic elements to it with some R&B and Hip-Hop thrown in. I thought that the album was pretty good, and she can definitely sing. It reminded me of the band Chvrches, which I like a lot and in my opinion is better.
"Two Weeks"
Tomorrow's Album #1009 Amy Winehouse - Back to Black
For a punk band Magazine is pretty good. The songs were a bit longer than your typical punk album and listening to it I get the impression that while they are listed as a punk band they were bordering New Wave/Alt-Rock style. Even with the the weakest part of the album being the singing I still enjoyed it.
Formed in 1966, Nitty Gritty Dirt Band was fairly new on the scene when it recorded this album in 1971. Because the band didn't look like the typical country band of the time, the idea behind the album was to try and do collaborations with some of the country and blue-grass stars of the 40's. 50's and 60's. Stars that the band members had grown up watching and listening to. The resulting album was recorded in only 2 or 3 takes on most of the songs resulting in a very raw sound. Overall it was pretty good. I don't like country but like I have said before if I have to listen to it I'd rather it be traditional old school country.
"I Saw the Light"
Tomorrow's Album #41 Bob Dylan - The Freewheelin Bob Dylan
Sigur Ros is a rock band from Iceland, so I expected that the album was going to be in Icelandic, which, apparently most of the album was. I was surprised to learn however that some of the songs, and all of the songs on future albums are in a gibberish language that the band created called Vonlenska, or Hopelandic in English. The language consists of syllables strung together to go with the music. No meaning to anything, kind of like scat singing in jazz. To me, not knowing Icelandic, I didn't know any better and it didn't sound out of place. However, in my opinion, the music on the album was the best part. It is pretty cool that the lead singer plays his guitar with a bow.
"Agaetis Byrjun"
Tomorrow's Album #256 Nitty Gritty Dirt Band - Will The Circle Be Unbroken
This is the third of five total Tom Waits albums that I will listen to. I remember the last one, Bone machine, because it was just so weird. Well this was much more "normal" but not any better. His voice just ruins it for me every time.
An indie rock band from Ohio, Guided by Voices have released 25 albums during a 30 year career. on top of that a lot of their albums have 15+ songs. This one has 28 in just over 48 minutes. I thought the album was pretty good actually. The songs were pretty catchy, although nothing on the album that I'd say is phenomenal or would really, in my mind, place it on the list of 1001.
"My Valuable Hunting Knife"
Tomorrow's Album #477 Tom Waits - Heartattack and Vine
This was a HUGE improvement from the first album of theirs that I listened to, and oddly enough came out three years before the other. I looked back on the review and I didn't even get through part of the album before I shut it off. Well, this was much more enjoyable. The singer still isn't very good but the music improved immensely. It was rock but with very traditional Irish themes and instruments. The lyrics were great, and just a lot of fun to listen to. Well worth the time.
This is the last Joni Mitchell album to listen to, and I can't say that I'm sad about that. While Joni's music is not terrible it just isn't my style. This album was pretty much more of the same from the other albums and I don't really feel like there is any thing new that I can say about it. I can say that while there was at least one song on each of the other albums that I recognized I hadn't heard any of these songs before.
"Coyote"
Tomorrow's Album #562 The Pogues - Rum, Sodomy and the Lash
I really like System of a Down, SOAD. They are one of my favorite Metal bands. What I like about them is that they aren't one of your conventional Metal bands. Their music features a lot of keyboards which really changes the sound of it and their lyrics are very much political and take on the issues going on in the U.S. at the time. Another great, and very unique, feature of their music is lead singer Serj Tankian almost a operatic style voice, which the band uses to play off of the other singer Daron Malakian. Having the two singers just makes the songs so interesting and enjoyable to listen to. This is a great album, and unfortunately the only one on the list.
Wilco's second album, I didn't like it as much as Yankee Hotel Foxtrot. I feel like the band was still trying to figure out who they are what type of music they want to create. As a result the album sounds disjointed and all over the place. By the time they recorded "Yankee" it seems like they had got themselves figured out.
"Outta Mind (outta Sight)"
Tomorrow's Album #880 System of a Down - System of a Down
Hugh is a South African born trumpeter who has recorded a number of jazz albums. It was typical in the sense that there were no lyrics and the songs averaged 6+ minutes each. Compared to other jazz albums I've listened to it was about the same. Enjoyable to listen to one time but that's enough for me.
I had no idea that this album was on the list, and I am so happy it is. I was introduced to Sisters of Mercy by my friend Bruce way back in the 80's, and I LOVE this album. Bruce and I don't have extremely similar musical tastes but on this band we can agree. It is perfectly awesome 80's goth, and it fit perfectly with other bands that I was listening to at the time. The band only produced 3 albums, and to be honest, "First and Last and Always" is my favorite but all three albums are really good.
