Opening track is obviously a classic. Jagger's eccentric vocal performances are present here as well on this record. Most of the tracks go for a country/blues sound and style. Most tracks are led by acoustic guitar with the standout exception being Stray Cat Blues. All tracks are very catchy, very consistent record quality wise.. Predominantly love songs, No Expectations provides a bleak vision of a man who has lost his fortune seemingly in the aftermath of a breakup, and seeks nothing more than to leave town. Street Fighting Man provides commentary on the pressures of a man with a more rural, tough upbringing and mindset to conform to a more calm, formal city surrounding. The original (rejected) cover art is hilarious as well.
sunky reference
pretty good consistent disco record
I love Stan Getz for The Girl from Ipanema. This one has it's share of good tunes, but like the Getz/Gilberto record, I feel that the style and arrangement of the music gets to sound samey. The minimalism of these records are a strength and a weakness.
Already heard a few years ago, one of my absolute favorites. Coltrane, to me, is the best of his genre. I've always loved his style of these huge clashy piano chords behind his raspy saxophone melodies.
One has to love the busy, chaotic nature of this record. And all the liberties the record takes to adorn the fronts and ends of songs with those stand up bass and drum solos. The author of the 1001 book says that this record "pulls off the rare trick of being utterly uncompromising yet completely accessible." And yes, it is one of the most famous jazz albums of all time, and is still abrasive as opposed to Coltrane's contemporaries. This record represents a turning point wherein Coltrane would get nastier, louder and more chaotic upon later projects, and we love him for that.
Very unabashed about it's runtime and jam like nature. Gotta love it.
Heard some very select/hit tracks but hadn't heard the project in full up until this point.
A very evocative reflection on growing up in black urban underdeveloped areas whilst trying to keep in mind your ambitions and axioms. Later in the record he covers his young adulthood wherein he struggles with drinking, his friend's brother's memory, discarding the weight of feeling he has to sing the story of all those he comes across as well as his self and his future. Of all that comes ahead on the track Real, between weighing what he should value and how he is to love himself and "making a track his parents can step to," he also comes to love his city of Compton, California - which he dedicates the last track to.
Remarkable that he graduated with a 4.0 gpa and at the same time all he said here is applicable.
It's good. Heavy use of EDM repetition. Having Noel Gallagher on your record is a flex.
Writing this with my first and only prior experience with Zappa being Hot Rats, which I listened to previously for this list.
This one definitely does not resemble the jazz inspiration that clearly infiltrates that record, though it also has it's share of jangly guitar solos as well, albeit not as long. This one moreso acts as a parody of the more echoey, lo-fi records of the fab four and the stones. On the lyrical front it's obvious that Zappa and the gang are goofing around a bit on this one, but even then, the composition ends up being more intricate and significant sounding than those acts mentioned above.
This record also holds the distinction of perhaps being the weirdest in it's genre for a solid year until the release of Pink Floyd's The Piper at the Gates of Dawn.
You gotta be there for something noisy and abrasive. If you are, then this is quite the record. 1967, if you can believe it.
Although I think I might like the second record a little better.
I have not seen this film. Rating a record that was meant originally as a soundtrack is a tricky thing. Obviously I expect some of the tracks to be of sporadic lengths, something moreso made to fill the space in a film rather than to be listened to by itself.
This record is a funk/soul record, and is quite pleasant if not obvious that it was made in the interest of accompanying a blacksploitation movie.
Nice flute passages and sentimental piano accompany muted guitar strumming and prominent horn sections.
La Grange is a classic. It's impressive how far that riff goes for the song. Beer Drinkers & Hell Raisers is fun. Sheik leans into the mexican theme lyrically and is cool enough music wise as well. The rest is good if your just huge into 12 bar blues, blues rock I suppose.
Hadn't heard of the guy up until this point.
Very boomer-ish, sort of barstool classic rock/pop going on here. Never knew Coconut came through this record.
Maybe I'd like some tracks better if I was in a different mood right now but either way I don't think it's quite my thing.
Quite enjoyable. Been meaning to listen to Fragile for a minute now.
As a fan of the Cranberries' first record, I should be a fan of Morissette's vocal performance here. Alas her zany, out there inflections along with some lyrics that are actually quite perverted near the start of the record are a bit much.
The tracks on the back half are generally sparkly and somewhat spacy. I did come away liking most the songs on the record. "Ironic" and "Head Over Feet" were in rotation often at my old workplace, and they are classics all the same.
You don't see a lot of black folk in terms of modern age folk music. This one also has an afrobeat vibe to it that i like. Kinda new wavey too.
I respect her husband's work very much, it means the world to me, but I generally do not care for Hole, based off my experiences with the tracks Teenage Whore and Violet.
For the most part it seems this record foregoes the grunge sound in order to try and keep up with the more poppy alt rock sound of the late 90s. The first couple tracks or so I found enjoyable and certainly could see them either playing in a friend's car or at the end credits of a movie from the era. That said, this still isn't really my favorite. I don't think it's anything special and I still don't really care for Courtney as a vocalist.
To start off with, Silver is one of the strongest opening tracks for an album I've ever heard.
It's hard to fathom how to follow up a track like that. In the past, I've felt as though the rest of the album was comprised of good tracks but did not live up to the opening, and was disillusioned with what I considered at the time a track list that didn't live up to the quality nor the grand orchestral scale of it. It's also a big ask considering the exceptional cover art which continues the water aesthetic which graced the cover of their 1981 record Heaven Up Here, and the later compilation record Songs to Learn and Sing.
To be honest, I don't know what I was smoking back then. Maybe it was just that I wanted something that would put me in a complete and total stupor from my shitty life at the time, I don't know. I understood that the album couldn't have all sounded like Silver or else it would become too much, but still found myself bored with those other songs. I'm here now and I realize that, the orchestration certainly doesn't go away by any means. The tracks are a little more lowkey, yes, but that's all for the record's benefit. They use it sparsely in a very carefully crafted, masterful way. Nocturnal Me is a very good follow up track that has an interesting vocal melody and still does have very prominent orchestral backing. From there, it becomes very strategically placed; Crystal Days is a short track, but it and The Yo Yo Man are perhaps among the most fun tracks on the record.
Thorn of Crowns has a very active drumbeat along with this Arabian guitar lick to start out with. From there it has a guitar tone, tempo and vocal flow that almost resembles Pearl Jam's Porch, except here the lyrics are only a few words, and go from being about cucumbers and other produce to Native Americans and their fleeting heritage. It moreso aims to be evocative than actually say much. It slows down with some very wavy guitar chords, revs back up and then slows back down with very interesting, sparse instrumentation and a xylophone melody before coming back and finishing strong.
The Killing Moon is a staple 80s alt hit and was perhaps most ironically picked as one of the first songs for the soundtrack of Donnie Darko.
Tracks 5-8 feature I'm pretty sure no orchestra and focus more on guitar melodies, which are great. Seven Seas is one of my favorites on the record, so catchy. The harpsicord/bagpipe esc keyboard intro on My Kingdom is very memorable, and is a great track to boot.
The title track cues back in more of the orchestra and ends the record on a slower, more crooning, vocally focused note. It raps it up about perfectly.
Such a thoughtful, well strung record that evokes a fantastical, chipper vibe and is damn catchy. It sits in an odd place being somewhat underground but still very marketable and appealing to just about anyone all the same.
Five stars. Can't argue against that much.
