Shining star: Banger. Heard it first in Austin Powers but ended up a fav in my playlists for a while later, basically purely for the brass stings (at the start and throughout) and the guitar riffing through the whole song
Who knows whats holding up the fella on his side in the bottom left. Must be magic. Right side fella is awfully confused or accusatory towards the cameraman, im sure he has a good reason.
Made for killer background music while procrastinating on doing integration by parts. Africano went hard as fuck, you can hear motifs and riffs from the other songs mixed in all throughout it
Can't believe this was a digitally mastered analog recording
Big fan of See the Light being in 7/8. Wasn't expecting the style and time sig change to 4/4. If it sounds off, trust me, listen to enough stuff in odd time signatures for long enough and 7/8 sounds normal
Was very confused when the album "ended" with 45 seconds left. Spoilers.
Christ: 4 songs, 53 minutes
Groovy tho
Overall good background music, but I wouldn't particularly listen to it for its lyrics lol
Apparently Fela's ideas found their way into acts like the Talking Heads, which is cool. A Nigerian musician, producer, multi-instrumentalist and bandleader, he did a lot and was massive in the 70's. Did a lot of political writing in his lyrics, both about the USA and his home country. He was apparently incredibly popular with Nigeria's poor.
After he returned home after touring the US, he took on the name "Anikulapo", meaning "he who carries death in his pouch", which is metal as fuck. Since his lyrics reflected ideals that were against Nigeria's "military junta", they tried to silence him, starting from when he arrived back to Nigeria all the way till his death. They hounded him, jailed him, harrassed him, and nearly killed him in an attempt to silence him. 1,000 Nigerian soldiers attacked his compound in 1977 (the second government-sanctioned attack), where Fela suffered a fractured skull and other broken bones. His mother was thrown from an upstairs window, a fall that would later kill her. The soldiers set fire to the compound and prevented firefighters from helping. His recording studio, all his master tapes, and musical instruments were destroyed.
He started his own political party, the "Movement of the People", and at the turn of the decade he renamed his band from Afrika 70 to Egypt 80 (Very creative). He prospered while Nigeria was under civilian rule, but after military rule returned he was sentenced to ten years imprisonment, starting 1984, on charges of currency smuggling. He was freed in 1985 with help from Amnesty International.
Fela was also known to be just extemely sexist. So far from progressive when it came to relationships with women or any form of patriarchy. I'm not sure how, as his mother was one of Nigeria's early feminists.
He died in 1997 due to complications with AIDS, his death being described as: the silencing of a musical and sociopolitical voice on par with Bob Marley.
Credit to "John Dougan, Rovi" for information
Wacky album cover
Stranger profile picture too
I had a bunch of notes written but they didn't save :)
A really strange blend of styles in one album, very different. I listened to it all once through in the background but had other noises going on. I relistened to it on shuffle and was consistently surprised by the difference between songs.
Actually some very funky tracks, I got into a few of them
Interesting having the "Suites" II and III combined into a "mega album". Does make it feel longer but its a solid heap of tracks. The inclusion of overtures leading into each suite was interesting as well.
Overall I was surprised by my enjoyment of this, I wasn't expecting much to be completely honest.
Come Alive (War of the Roses) was very reminicient of Diablo Swing Orchestra (probably because the entire song is swung)
I swear I've heard Locked Inside's chorus somewhere else, I just don't know where. Has to be in an edit or reel or something.
Same with Faster, no idea.
Cold War was a vibe, 16ths on the hats, very groovy. Lots of bell and ride during the choruses, very fun
"Oh Maker"'s 1 and 3 drum+bass pattern reminded me a lot of Christmas songs for whatever reason (During the higher section at 2:00 especially), but also of electro swing tracks like Proleter's April Showers
Plenty of the songs had interesting, very artsy, motifs and decisions that don't feel very mainstream (Which I'm all for, when its not the entire track). The change of genres throughout the album often caught me offguard
Not a great album, but plenty of great songs
The titular first song Hotel California is a classic: over 1.7 *billion* streams on Spotify alone. That being said, I've never listened to the whole album, and I'm excited to do so
When Life in the Fast Lane's opening riff came on, I let out an audible "Yes...". The song before, New Kid In Town, was a little slower, calmer, but when the "Wolf mother's Black Betty"-esc sorta-country riff came on, man it was good.
After listening to the rest, classic album, bit slow and chill for me at the time. I got pretty bored. Pretty much exclusively held up by Life in the Fast Lane and Hotel California for me. Glad I've heard it though
I had very few feelings at all regarding this album. Listened to it top to bottom in one drive to work.
I enjoyed the staccato bass playing, it was really tight, but other than that I didn't have any opinions to be honest.
It's possibly telling that when the album ended and Spotify autoplayed Jolene, it was the first time I was excited in the album because I thought it was one of its tracks. It wasn't.
It's fine. Dolly is an icon and the bass was cool but that's about all this album has going for it, from my perspective. No issues with it and nothing incredibly boring either.
A bit boring... but it was interesting recognising a bunch of the songs from covers. My favourite track was the Reprise, much more upbeat, rock tone. I don't really have anything else to say about this album. It was fine, and I liked some of the tracks. No issues
Two Dolly Parton albums in three days, damn. Why not, I'm not complaining, she's alright.
This album was much like the last, I enjoyed the rhythmic elements of it and the bass was fun to listen to, lyrics and vocals all blended together, basically unchanging the whole time. It was at least nice hearing multiple voices, those of Linda Ronstadt and Emmylou Harris, together with Parton making up the trio.
Telling Me Lies had some crunchy chords sung by the trio in the choruses, which I really vibed with.
Often the bass playing was pretty cool, if somewhat basic for many of the tracks. I liked the drums for a handful as well, but again, basic.
So much complaining...
Also, she's had *so* much cosmetic work done over the years... holy shit.
Much like the previous album of hers we listened to, I didn't hate any of the songs, and many of them had interesting elements mixed in, even if they didn't make up the whole track.
Holy shit, as of writing this album has over 874.8 million combined streams on Spotify... hopefully it lives up to its supposed preceding reputation. Listening to the 2011 remaster.
Opening track, Cherub Rock --> Vibes. Big fan of the distorted guitars riffing. The bass has distortion on it too, very cool.
Listened to it while driving around getting stuff done, was excited to finally have an album with a bit of energy again
Hippy, but it is the 60's. What can you expect? About what I expected.
I particularly liked "I See You", and the rest were fine. Some were a bit kooky.
Alright album, not entirely my style but bits I liked
No time to comment atm, Smoke On The Water every guitarists first song Yada Yada
Weird as fuck, but lots of interesting musical elements. I would have gone two stars, but I fuck hard with "Once in a Lifetime" and quite seriously every time I hear it it gets stuck in my head. 3 stars, weird, absolute vibe, earworm track saved it
Small Talks synths are a vibe
Absolute's opening sounds like a musical
Some interesting things happening
I notably enjoyed Small Talk as well
Cool stuff, I dig it. Probably not playlist material for me but definitely a vibe
Through two fulltime days I've only been able to listen to the first half, got a few tracks into Disc 4.
Ella Fitzgerald. Absolutely stunning. Very groovy, especially with her band behind her. Very cool album.
Pitch so perfect that her own band members would tune off her voice.
Cool album, very neat
Weird. Kooky.
Already love a ton of these songs, bangers. Drummer is fire, very neat album. Would (and already have) add to my playlists
Wacky
