Good, enjoyed #2 Friction, #3 Marquee Moon, and #8 See No Evil especially.
Very modern sounding riffs and catchy melodies.
Already one of my favorite albums by my favorite artists. Glad to see it on the list. Moody songwriting and vocals. 80s synths and drum machines and post punk style guitar lead lines although a very diverse album stylistically. I recommend listening either the lyrics open if possible as they can be hard to make out but are very good.
Highlights:
sax on #2 The Working Hour.
Polyrhythm in the guitar/drums on #3 everybody wants to rule the world.
Bass lines near the 4 minute mark in #4 Mothers Talk.
Love the lounge vibe with dramatic piano chords in #5 I Believe.
#6 Broken complexity with introducing layers first bass, then guitar riff, synths. A taste of the main riff from #7 Head over Heels/broken adds dissonance if you listen for it.
Dreamy intro to #7 with interesting use of major chords. Great falsetto. The bassine from Broken comes back at the end of #7 making #6 and #7 a little suite. My favorite track is #8 with its repeating motif and orchestral sound. It's a melancholy end to this dramatic album. The performances, arrangements, complex rhythms, diversity of styles and how they take the time to string them together to make them siund like they are supposed to go together makes this one of my favorite albums of all time. Only 41 minutes long but absolutely packed with Music.
Favorites:
Kelly Watch the Stars - I have heard this one before although I do not know where. I can tell Air has influenced one of my favorite synthwave groups, FM Attack, because of their use of vocoder.
You make it easy. Love the lounge vibe and orchestral instrumentation.
Ce Matin Là - sounds like a throwback to 50s/60s film score. Turns out it was featured in a French Film.
Dislike the talk box on Sexy Boy.
Loving the last 30 seconds or so of Stand!.
Trumpet solo on point in I Want to Take You Higher.
Good music but style does not particularly speak to me due to the repetitive lyrics. In general, Funk does little for me.
Really good. Love the variety of instruments and styles. Really fun little folk melody in Andmoreagain.
Amazing sound, blues rock meets harsh electronic sounds. Organic sounds on the second half of the album acoustic guitar and piano in contrast plays nicely. Complex harmony although sometimes sparse. Edgy lyrics gave me cringitis.
Mixed. Often find the repetition grating. Gangster Trippin is inspired, however. I particularly like the style change and implied key change connected with the vocal sample. Most of this album is on the edge of irritating for me amd most songs cross that line at some point where I want to hit the skip button. The unconventional structure of each song makes me want to stick with it anyway, though, because the changes are often rewarding.
Smooth jazz and Funk with orchestra hits. Lush strings and punchy brass. Instrumental solo sections in jazz tradition. Great bass line in streetlife. Very easy to listen to. I'm not sure what it is that makes this disco - maybe the combination of string runs and Funk grooves. Overall this album feels more funk and smooth jazz (although lightweight) than disco for the most part. My Lady moves through some fun non-diatonic dreamlike chords in the recurring section with the vocalization. I can see Kamasi Washington may have been inspired by those sonorities for some of his compositions i.e. changing of the guard.
Ultimately a bit light-weight but would make excellent background music. It started strong but petered out by the end.
Very corny for the most part but the the final two tracks, The Message and The Adventures of Grandmaster Flash on the Wheel of Steel redeemed some stars. Will listen to these tracks again but probably nothing else from this album.
Scattershot thoughts on synchronicity:
Wide range of styles represented here, liked the avante garde sax solos in o my God. I like the blues rock influence in general but Mother really piqued my interest - almost sounds like a delta blues parody song. Hillarious and alarming lyrics and delivery over an extra dissonant blues progression. You rarely hear left field stuff like this now because the record labels don't allow it.
Wrapped Around Your Finger is my favorite song and has the strongest refrain on the album.
Love the wild chords in the rhythm guitar in murder by numbers. Excellent groove on this song in general.
Overall, i can appreciate the artistry and skill in this album but I don't "get" this album. Each song has elements that are great, especially when it comes to the compositions, harmonies, and vocal performances but for some reason it didnt connect with me. Normally I love experimental new wave but this album fails to gel its many genres into a cohesive sound so I'm left with whiplash by the end. Maybe I will "get" it with repeated listens but subjectively it's a low 2.5 to my ears.
Ps. The bass and drums are very fun to listen to in this album.
Dave Gahan has a great voice & great performance throughout. Was not hooked by the songwriting here although I liked the minimalism of the creepy little 15.
Essential prog rock album. First half is a suite about a distopean future where individualism is banned. Music fades away as a result. The protagonist finds an a guitar and tries to influence his society with it. The powers that be banish him and he kills himself, refusing to live in a world without music.
Tears is especially good on side 2
If you can stomach Geddy Lee's voice, this is a great intro to Rush.
Cringe and gross. I see him being compared to Neil diamond but he's somehow worse which I did not think was possible.
Next.
Really enjoyable. Beats are minimally produced which allows the vocals to shine. Minimal beat boxing mixed into the beats give an organic feel. Rap mixed with 90s style R&B with thick vocal harmonies. Overall, fun and very easy on the ears. Will listen again.
That talk box is sneaking back in in friendly skies. Get out, talkbox 😡
Why :(
One star for till there was you which was not written by the Beatles.
Drivel.
Southern blues Soul, true R&B with big band style brass. Incredible voice and a good variety of songs/styles. Impressed with the diversity of styles as each song was very different from the last. The instrumental parts were great throughout but i particularly liked them in Since you've been gone.
Great in small doses for me. Classic blues rock, it's upbeat and hard not to tap your foot along to this album. Vocals and repetitivity could be grating but doesn't overstay its welcome.
Random thoughts
Immediately love the sound here: drums are minimal and there seems to be a droning element in each song, guitar organ, piano etc that makes the whole album feel psychedelic. I can see how this went to inspire music going forward even the likes of Brian Wilson on pet sounds and even more recently Coldplays song Yes is clearly inspired from Venus in Furs.
The songs themselves are fairly conventional in blues, pop, and folk styles but the arrangements make them unique. With strings, glockenspiel, lots of distorted guitars they provide a surreal backdrop to otherwise conventional songs. A good example of this is All Tomorrow's Parties which sounds like a 16th century folk song but has a droning paradiddle-like rhythm through the whole song. My favorite songs were those fronted by Nico. This album would be worlds better if Lou Reeds was not trying to sound exactly like Dylan. It's so distracting and grating it detracts from an otherwise unique and creative work. Also, European Son is goofy nonsense.
3.75/5
This caught me by surprise. The singer is rarely on pitch and the drum machine is overbearing. Somehow it is post c&w and post punk at the same time. Yet there is a ton of charm here and I love it for its sheer creativity and effort.
Out of the gate, great energy and style. I just wish the lead vocals would convey the same energy and emotion. Such a grating voice makes this a tedious listen. Plus for songwriting, instrumentation, and performances - I really want to like this but the vocals are keeping me from rating this higher.
It already sounds like goofy villian music, why not lean into that and emote?
Standouts: Nature Boy, Spell
Conversational baritone singing - very nice and easy to listen to. Vairety of rhythms are fun. Enjoyed this one greatly.
Nice folk/country jams with a rock style. Not a fan of the singer but overall easy listen.
Good
Really bothered thag Cold world singing is not in key with track until the end when the beat changes.
I like the dark tone but this doesn't need to be an hour long there is not enough variety to keep it interesting.
Surprised these boys are from Boston - they sound totally British new wave and I definitely hear British inflection in the vocals. Simple songs but effective - good pop. I love the synths in this album good mix of digital and analog including the legendary Roland jupiter-8.
Good. 3.5
Take On Me reached meme status. Such a good song but hard to listen to with an objective ear anymore because I'm just tired of it. I'm not a fan of the electric keyboard or drum sounds so I was prepared not to like this album or at least not love it but I ended up enjoying it quite a bit.
Title track is really good. Great vocal range and voice. Songwriting is dramatic, creative with instrumentation, orchestral at times with strings, brass, and even woodwinds on Living a boys adventure tale. Not a fan of the static drum machine although the programming is good, this album could benefit from a real drummer at least on some tracks or in addition to the drum machine.
Songwriting is very good here, they obviously know what they are doing with lots of non-diatonic chords. Definitely made me double take a like at the vocal transition to the chorus in living a boys adventure tale. The vocal octave jump in this song in the last chorus is fantastic.
Really fun intro on the sun always shines on t.v. which starts dreamy with pads and sustained vocals, then becomes dissonant with a borrowed chord and then drops into a guitar and synth-bass driven groove. The chorus is in a major key but falls right back into that minor groove in such a natural way.
Aha knows how to let a phrase breathe - I noticed this in I dream myself alive with the massive layered harmonies in the hook that is a call/response with the instrumentals. The hooks are simple and I think that's one reason they are so memorable on this album. Even the hook in Take On Me which spans 2.5 octaves is just ascending notes, 3 at a time.
Very strange key changes in here I stand and face the rain that reminds me of we are the robots by kraftwerk.
Overall, well crafted songs but is hampered by thin digital synths and midi drums. Some songs are fairly forgettable which is not good on a short album. Mixed bag but the highs here well make up for the lows.
Really not a fan of Aerosmith's take on blues/R&B inspired hard rock. They are very talented and write good songs, good energy, and give good performances. I just don't vibe with them for the most part. I do think their unique style would grow on me though.
Fun but like all punk, gets old fast. Loved "I Don't Wanna Walk Around with You"
Important record and neat to hear as it influences music to this day but will probably not listen to the whole thing again.
Scattered thoughts.
Elton John's falsetto made this nearly unbearable at times
Otherwise, excellent songwriting with lots of dramatic chords like secondary dominants. I don't find the album ever reaches the heights that the first song achieves, however.
I was never bored listening to this. Not a personal favorite but high scores for the complex songwriting.
I really wanted to like this. Why is it so dull?
Really nice. Will listen again.
Very good. Complex and layered pop.
Way too self-serious. Singer sounds bored so I am too. Insufferable.
Never got Bitter Sweet Symphony either. One of the most overrated songs I've heard.
Space and Time was pretty good - singer is finally emoting.
Creepy and bored me although musically competent. Tough to rate as I feel it deserves to be higher but enjoyed very little of this.
Bonkers! I respect what is happening here. Will probably not be in my regular rotation but it was refreshingly different for a change.
The instrumentals are very good. It's the vocals that bring this down into goofy 90s nonsense.
Love this. It is hard to listen to knowing what happened though.
The first Yes album with Steve Howe on guitars. Legendary.
Really British :( but it's good.
One of Kate Bush's more challenging albums. There aren't a lot of pop hooks to latch onto so dont go in expecting the sensual world or hounds of love. This is active listening material - not something to put on in the background. What may appear chaotic at first listen is a brilliantly orchestrated album of sharp, rhythmic layers of drums, piano, synths, guitars, and multiple vocal tracks. Kate Bush is one of the greatest vocalists of our time and this album deserves multiple listens.
Chali 2na is fantastic. Loved this.
Dismissing this as just sad music seems too reductive. Morrissey is a goofy weirdo but there is value here. Good songs and performances even if they don't have catchy pop hooks.
😐
All the worst of British pop in one album. I became angrier with each subsequent song. These boys decided the worst album of the 70s hadn't been released yet so they dropped it themselves in 1993. Is this a satire album? If so, why is it so inane? Is that the joke? Absurd.
Neat. Didn't find any of this particularly compelling but it was pleasant background music.
I thought the drums were especially good.
Youthful innocence and optimism is found here which seems rare these days with increasing cynicism and irony. Good songs and vocal harmonies.
The key changes in Crescent noon is perfect.
Halfway through the first song I expected to hate this. To my surprise, as i listened, it grew on me by the third track. The Indian music samples, melodies, and rhythms are well incorporated and this is genuinely engaging. However, her singing is horrible and so are the vocal effects which sound so dated and cannot cover up her lack of pitch.
I can understand anyone who finds this irritating because it teeters on that edge for me as well.
Terrible album design/art.
2.5/5
I didn't care for this. It's probably good but I was mostly bored. Sorry that's all I have.
