I’ll never forget the people scream singing Mr. Brightside on repeat at 3am while camping at the Renaissance Faire. Going over to yell at them to shut up and finding all of them completely naked will forever be burned in my brain when I think about this song.
I was thinking this sounded like Reggae Elvis Costello, and after finding out that he produced this album I feel vindicated in my earlier judgement. I am not an Elvis Costello fan at all, and this album isn't doing it for me.
I feel like I'm back in 2003 with my sister blasting this as she was going though her edgy middle/high school phase. Fun fact, the album Bella from Twilight is thought to be listening to is this album. She listens to it over and over again in an angst filled rage as she is trying to not think about Edward, who is avoiding her. She deconstructs it until she finally falls asleep. I think that encapsulates exactly what type of nu-metal this is - so accessible that it appears as an "edgy" moment in a vampire romance book. That is to say, I think tween/teens can really identify with this music because everything about it screams melodramatic and has big feelings that only puberty can really bring out. When everything that happens both positive and especially negative feels like the biggest thing that will ever happen to you.
I think that this album is one that you kind of have to be in that age group to really see and feel the merits of when you first listen to it, otherwise I think it's hard to put yourself into that mindset. I wasn't much of a nu-metal fan, though there were a few times I angrily put on a couple of songs when I was going through a bad day. 3/5 because I can really see why this became popular, but it's just not my personal taste. I would say .5 of that is personal nostalgia of listening to it with my sister, and those moments where the worst thing that could happen to you was you had a breakout that wouldn't clear up and your crush was into someone else. Now I have bills.
I don’t really get why this is on here, but is good background music.
This album is effortless cool. One of my favorite albums before this project. I am so glad its on this list. The mixing is great, the lyrics are top notch, the vocals are clean, and this is nearly a perfect album for me.
Really interesting album. The Duchess I can absolutely see as a barrier to listeners - it would make Schoenberg proud. I think if you can get past that, and his singing voice (which I hate to dog on for anyone) then I think this album is really a surrealist lullaby. I believe the concept behind it is based off of dreaming, and I think if you take it as the phases of sleep you can really see what he is going for.
To me Heaps of Sheeps is the trying to fall asleep song - still upbeat and coherent that drifts on and off towards the weirder parts of trying to fall asleep. The Duchess reminds me of those kind of falling asleep but still being half awake and dreaming about what you're hearing. Like falling asleep to TV and bam, you start having dreams based around the dialogue snippets your unconscious mind is hearing that your still semi conscious mind is trying to make sense of. Then you finally fall asleep and have the pleasant Maryan type dream that gets you in the groove for the rest of the night. At least that's how I read the first 3 songs.
I am a sucker for Subterranean Homesick Blues and the Bob in Blues Minor really tipped this album to a 5 I think. I don't know if this is right time right place, or my rather recent tolerance for experimental music. Either way, I had decided to give each album at least 2 listens, once in the car on my commute and one active listening, and I found it good for both.
Also, now adding one song an album to a playlist for this project, and that honor goes to Blues in Bob Minor.
This album rocks. Really really love it! I know a few Van Halen songs but haven't listened to a full album but I get It. I get the hype, I feel the energy. I love that a lot of these were live takes - it shows that they had played together a ton before recording this. You can close your eyes and imagine you're at a live show. But the sound quality is great! The guitar is clear, and the vocals don't get lost in it all. What a great album.
5/5
Song added to playlist: Feel Your Love Tonight. Hard to choose just one for the playlist, but I really think this is the catchiest besides Runnin' With the Devil, which was a close second.
Oh man, my first Radiohead album and it's pretty mid. I have admittedly only listened to Radiohead in passing, and never a full album all the way through. This wasn't bad and had some really good moments, but was all kind of one note and not super interesting album to me. Maybe it's just the hype surrounding this band (see the fans proclaiming they're better than the Beatles, which may be true but ask the general public here in America to name a Radiohead song that isn't Creep and I'd be surprised if you get another song) but I just don't quite get it. That being said, this is apparently one of the lower regarded albums in their catalogue, so maybe I'll have my mind blown.
It is an album I'll listen to again due to the political nature and current events that are eerily similar to what led to this album. Curious if I'll change my mind on this album due to that, but I am trying to rate these within the week I listen to them.
3/5. Song added to playlist - 2+2=5. What a banger of an opening song, though the rest of the album was just okay to me.
This is going to be a short review for me. Not my style. Really hard for me to get through with the singing though I hate to complain about that kind of thing. This reminds me of a really drunk bar band singing their hearts out, which is much better in person and also really, really drunk. It doesn't make a good album for me. And I love the fiddle and vibe with some country!
Song added to playlist: Flitcraft. This was the most listenable to me out of the bunch and one that was mostly in tune.
Well, I enjoyed this one. Some of them were songs that I've heard a million times - I come for a bluegrass background and if you haven't heard Knoxville Girl or In the Pines a million times, are you really bluegrass enough?
I get that it sounds old-timey - very much a product of it's time. But that's what I enjoy! I love the tradition of folk music. Fun fact - it is believed that the popular form of the murder ballad came from something called broadside ballads. These broadside ballads were essentially one page newspapers that contained memorable ballads about current events or folktales. In the late 1800s (though there are plenty examples before this time) , they started printing a lot of true crime related ballads. This gave way to the modern murder ballad - a murder would happen, and they would write a ballad surround the who, what, and why and those selling the broadside ballads on the street would sing verses in order to sell their newspapers/broadsides.
An example from this album is Knoxville Girl. It comes to Appalachia from Ireland, from a tune knows as the Wexford Girl, which in turn came from an English Folk song, The Oxford Girl (the Shirley Collins version is great!). I don't quite remember the origin date if any, but I can tell you that every traditional murder ballad has three elements - the event, the victim, and the killer getting his just desserts - oh and the subtext that women should be moral and not do anything out of line with what is traditional, otherwise they'll be drowned at the river.
As you can tell, I like the traditional music. I like the history and how these tunes can span centuries. I like digging into all of them and seeing if they originate and can link back to the Child Ballads, or what Roud index number this song is. I think all this is neat.
So the music - the mandolin is played really well and I can hear what was kept and improved upon through the years after this album came out. As a mandolin player, really great example of the instrument and it's role. As an really bad guitar player, this was simple no frills guitar - but effective in it's role. And some context to the singing - the high lonesome tenor is the traditional way of singing these tunes in the Appalachian tradition, and the harmony is not a complex one. I don't think this album was supposed to be "innovative" - rather a straightforward collection of songs and music. I think we get lost as music lovers hoping for something to blow our minds every song or album. Sometimes, songs are just songs and people are just singing them. Also the super religious songs at the end I honestly don't care for as much so I totally get that. Hard to be nonreligious in the bluegrass world sometimes!
All that to say, the Louvin Brothers are formative to the bluegrass movement, and as someone who already loves this music, I gotta give it 5 stars. But I get why a lot of people don't gel with it. I'm just a folk nerd. Oh and if anyone actually reads all this, kudos and I hope you learned something kind of cool.
Song added to playlist: In the Pines. Man I love this version! And I love the Nirvana version - another example of these traditional songs crossing decades.
What can I say about this album? It does seem to be made for me in a way - I don't mind improv and long winded solos, and I love blues, but man, this one was hard for me. I listened to this while stuck in traffic. Echoing other's opinions, once I arrived to work, I thought "wow this album must be over soon, but the songs are decent at least for that 45 minute drive. Where is Layla?" and opened my spotify to realize I was only 30 minutes in and there was still over an hour left before I even got to the title song. All that to say, this is long winded and repetitive enough that I cannot give it another listen unless I want to fall asleep at work.
Not to say it's bad music - It's fine, some great guitar work! Then I look up who is in this band (don't judge me, I might have been raised on late 60s and early 70s, but that isn't to say my parents were Clapton fans until Tears in Heaven) and I see it's Eric Clapton. I'm young(ish) and American and even I know Clapton has a.... reputation to say the least. I'm glad I found this out after listening to the album because it at least gave me a clean slate at listening to the music.
And now that I've been as long winded as this album was, I gotta say, this is solid blues music. I enjoyed probably the first 3 minutes of every song - the longer it went, the more the solos blended together. Coming from a bluegrass background, I don't mind solos, and the more creative the better, but these were not entirely creative past that 3 minute mark. I think the longer guitar solos go on, the more they sound like nooding. I could not pull a melody to hum after listening to this album - well besides Layla, so this wasn't memorable to me either.
Was it a good album? yeah, it was listenable. Was it world shattering? No, but Layla is admittedly great. Would I listen to it again? Yeah it's decent background noise if I can find a secondhand copy for like $1 (for those artists of dubious moral character, I try to only listen to on spotify once and otherwise get secondhand if I liked the music enough).
3/5.
Song added to playlist: Layla. Come on, its the best song on the album.
