My favorite part is the cover of the Seals & Croft song, a sentence I thought I’d never write. Pretty great! I mean, The Isley Brothers are amazing but this was a bit of a funk slog for me. The guitar tone - and endless guitar solo - on That Lady is a dealbreaker. I was interested in some production stuff. The vocal sound on the James Taylor cover was amazing. I will say listening to this while driving through the experimental forest really changes the mood of things out there.
I am a fan of the XX and only got in to them via their 2017 album, which I love. I honestly never even went back and listened to their first album. It's pretty great, actually. I like it. Songs are maybe mediocre-ish, but what a cool vibe.
Can't believe how many songs on this record I never actually listened to. Actually quite a bit of filler. But the stands outs are so good. And a slam dunk of an album cover.
This is a constant in the house. Spiritual gold. We play it a lot in the fall and winter when the fire is going. Funny thing is we have it on vinyl, and it's one of those copies that you have to play at 45rpm instead of 33 (for higher fidelity), and whenever I put on another album, I always forget to take the player off 45 rpm and the next record sounds like the Chipmunks for a good 30 seconds or so before any of us figure it out.
Oh man. Green is the first REM record I heard. I remember stealing the tape from my brother's room. I still love it. It's somewhere in between their early more raw stuff and the later sophisticated art rock - Green has a bit more pure pop to it, which is actually what I like least about the REM in general, and Stand is the first song of their that I loved, and it's just so poppy that I sort of thought of this as one of their not so good albums for awhile... But relistening, it's actually better than I thought! I forgot about Orange Crush! Man that's a good song.
British reggae is a rough one. Just thinking of Eric Clapton's cover of "I Shot the Sheriff" brings great pain to me. I liked the mental work I needed to do to put myself in the right frame of mind to stay open to this. I have a pair of strange white-ish shoes that Abby calls my "Call Me Al" shoes, because they look like the ones Chevy Chase wears in the music video for that song, and I put those on to listen to this and it helped. Sort of saw myself as if I was poolside with my dad in Switzerland at a weird party in 1984. Ended up being sort of good, all said and done.
I'm back! I know about half the songs on this album from paying them in bands or hearing others play them, but basically have never actually listened to this whole original thing. Man they wrote some sad and weirdly sad songs. A lot of clothes being sold by ex lovers. Love it. What a great band. Hippie Boy is a straight up terrible song, but otherwise, yeah.
I think I listened to this one too much in the years 1999-2004. It's so great. But I still need some years away before I can listen with clear eyes (ears?) again. It's like when I ate too many ham and pickle sandwiches and just can't eat them any more. Love it, but it's back on the shelf for Big Star for me.
Well. hahahahaha I won't even try to really go there on this one. (For those who don't know, I just wrote a book about this album for Bloomsbury's 33 1/3 series, which will come out next year.)
I WILL share one of my favorite quotes from the book, though, which is from the bass player, Brian Ritchie. Basically, we were talking about the weird professional burden of making a successful album as a young man and then having to play those same songs every night for the rest of your life.
I asked him if it was annoying.
He got quiet for a few seconds.
Then he said, “When I go to a Rolling Stones concert, and they play Satisfaction..." - and he leaned forward, as if to emphasize what he was getting ready to say next - “I like it.”
The lyrics get more and more embarrassing every year, and the stink of middle school hangs over a lot of this, but there is so much of this that is amazing instrumentally and recording-wise. Drum sounds are legitimately incredible. A big part of my world. Also the playing. Insane and profound grooves. All very organic and alive.
I would have loved to have been at this show.
Incredible how most of the songs are 2 minutes if not shorter.
I love the feel of the band being so clearly incredible good but also that their performance is so wildly imperfect. It's the perfect combo. So alive.
All time classic. Her voice is incredible. Easy to take it for granted now. And you know, I'm not always in the mood for Gershwin, but this is a pairing of two master craftspeople. She makes the songs her own.
Wow. Well. I guess I listened to this when I was a serious preteen jazz music student, which casts a strange shadow over it, but I guess my first take is that... it isn't as unlistenable as I expected. Some of it is sort of great. I think I need to put my white shoes back on to listen to this and probably smoke a bunch of weed while I'm at it to really feel it. Did anyone notice that it sounds quite a bit like a variety of early Sesame Street and PBS programming? Album came out the same week I was born in 1977. I like imagining the doctors rocking this in the break room after I appeared.
Also: "Teen Town" is a hilarious name for a song.
