Beyond a couple greatest hits collections, a collaboration with Frank Sinatra, and a trio record, I haven't heard a lot of music by Count Basie. This collection from 1958 consists of a set of tunes written by and arranged by Neal Hefti. I really can't argue with its inclusion in this collection. It's a really enjoyable record. It is still firmly within the swing tradition, but there are a few Ellingtonian moments on the record. The melodies are fantastic, the arrangements are good, and the playing is excellent. I would definitely pick up this record if I come across it as a record shop.
I haven't really heard a lot of the Rush catalog, but this is a record that I have heard previously. Listening to it again, the first half of this record is really good. It's a rock opera sequence that is apparently influenced by Ayn Rand and its honestly kind of gloriously silly. It's catchy and its memorable. The bad guys get the best songs. The second half of the record is a bit more of a chore to get through. The songs are... fine I guess. I might have a better view if I was a bigger fan of the genre, but these largely feel like forgettable moody hard rock with a ballad tossed in. I'll definitely go back to the first half of this record, but probably not the second half.
This is a familiar record for me. It has a couple of Iggy's best known songs, Lust For Life and The Passenger, and its probably the most respected and well known of his solo records. The first side of the lp is uniformly excellent and is a good as anything that Iggy Pop has recorded. A lot of the music was composed by Bowie, but the last track, Tonight, really sounds like a Bowie track. The second side of the record is a lot weaker. Success isn't a bad track, but it feels pretty insubstantial and Turn Blue really drags. The last two tracks are solid though.
The singles from this record were fairly inescapable when I was growing up, but I realized that I really have never sat down and listened to Thriller as an album. I often think about this record as being distinctly different than Off The Wall, but the sound of the first half of the record has more continuity with that sound than I remembered. There is the inclusion of a much more mechanical drum and percussion sound that indicates the shift in time, but the material is still working in some of the same post-disco soundscape seen on Off The Wall. It's really, really good. The weakest track is the collaboration with McCartney, but that still is a pretty good song.
The next half of the record takes a dramatic shift in sound. This feels like the dramatic shift in sound that I was expecting. It's more stripped down than the first side. Beat It apparently was supposed to be the rock song, influenced by The Knack. It's fine. Never been a favorite. It's then followed by Billy Jean, which returns to the disco influences, albeit in a far more stripped down fashion. I've always loved this song. Human Nature is the kind of ballad that I typically really don't like from this era, but it's making the most of the approach. PYT is another upbeat track in this more 80's sound. You could probably toss into a new wave/new romantic mix without jarring the listener much. It's good. Finally, the album ends on a ballad that again isn't my favorite approach, but its good for what its doing.
I always thought of this record as being somewhat inconsistent but good. That is not true. There's nothing bad on this album. It's great. It deserves the praise it gets. Definitely a five star album.
I had heard the two big singles from this record, but that was about all. It's an interesting shift from Joshua Tree, which some how manages to sound expensive because of the ornateness of its production and seems to be dead set on sounding like the most important band in the world. This feels a lot looser. The group is picking up on the synthesis of rock and dance music that was percolating up during the late 1980's and early 1990's, and you hear it here with the post-punk influenced base and guitar with dance oriented drums. The Edge's guitar is louder and the guitar sound is rawer for most of the record, with a couple breaks for ballads. I'm probably not going to rush out to buy, but its honestly a pretty good record.
I think that I will stick to a simple and very subjective evaluation of this record: it's not for me. There is some real talent on this record and clearly a lot of people love it, but I am not one of them.
This isn't the first time that I have listened to this album, and I still really like this combination of bossa nova and jazz. It's definitely a record that I will listen to again.
This band came up around the time that we saw a bit of a post-punk revival and this material largely fits within that revival. Unlike some bands who were more interested in nostalgically exploring sounds from that period, Liars seem like they were more focused on building on the experimentalism of the period. This is a record that is more focused on using sound to create a sense of texture, beat and rhythm that creating melodies. The result is a series of sounds that could be fit within the tradition of motoric rhythms found in 'Krautrock' with noisy textures placed over it, mixing traditional rock instrumentation with electronic sounds. The tracks at time build into fairly hypnotic riffs that arise out of that interaction. The lyrics over that frequently reproduce that repetition and consist of vaguely menacing nonsense phrases with emotional effect. The effect gives the record a kind ritualistic or incantatory quality. It's really fantastic overall, I really love this record.
This is another record and band that I am fairly familiar with. I really think of this record as a kind of capstone to the music the band developed in the 1980's, showing what was possible with the kind of sonic exploration it was engaged in during that decade before moving onto other musical ground. The record reflects the shift from the often quite rough experiments with tuning and guitar dynamics in the early records as those elements were smoothed out and integrated into stronger song writing as the decade went on, particular on EVOL and Sister. This expands on those shifts and all of the songs here are excellent. The guitars weave together hypnotically and the structures of the song expand in ambition. My favorite records from the band are the rougher EVOL and Sister, but I can definitely understand why this is a favorite record for many.
