Exile On Coldharbour Lane

OK, so there's something about weird about the listing for this in Tidal. That seems to be a Tidal problem rather than anything to do with this project, but on tapping into "Exile On Coldharbour Lane" from the Alabama 3 artist page, you're presented with a 5-volume album totaling over four hours of music. Now, that would top the "asshole" list for ridiculously long suggestions easily, even if the music were brilliant. Anyway, looking at the Wikipedia page and the tracklist contained within, "volume 5" of the collection appears to match the track listing of the original album, so maybe Alabama 3 have gone and retrospectively added shizzle into it, or Tidal have (once again) mistakenly stuck things together that shouldn't be stuck together. Who knows? Anyway - getting into the actual album. It's canny. Some tracks take me right back to the 1990s. Pretty sure that "Peace in the Valley" was on the soundtrack to A Life Less Ordinary, a film with a far better soundtrack than it deserved to have. I guess a lot of people were riding high on the inspired musical choices from the Trainspotting soundtrack, a film Danny Boyle directed a couple of years previous, and maybe thought they'd get a similar boost from it. Fortunately, despite being (if I recall correctly) the finishing track from the film, the actual soundtrack CD didn't include the truly dismal Oasis, despite "Round Are Way" being one of the more tolerable tracks from them. Anyway - this album truly picks up with Mao Tse Tung Said, which is a fantastic track. Superb. Love it. To take speeches by one of the most heinous murderers out there - a killer of over 900 people, 276 of them children - is something I'm not sure how to feel about. That the quote is of Mao, whose policies, actions and inactions lead directly to the deaths of probably around 50 MILLION people - lends even more greyness to the appreciation of the track. Ultimately, Alabama 3 did some interesting stuff with music which wasn't being done in the mid-late 90s, and it goes from toe-tapping to genuine reflection on the horrors of man. Definitely worth a consideration. Oh, and I have literally never seen The Sopranos.

Hey it's the band that did the Sopranos theme song! I dunno what else to expect and you know what? It's really good. A tad long, but they had a vision and clearly executed it. Love the very hard blues samples. My personal rating: 4/5 My rating relative to the list: 4/5 Should this have been included on the original list? Yes.

This is a great example of not judging an album by its cover. Not being familiar with this band, I assumed by the cover this was going to be some hardcore, unlistenable crap, with maybe some shitty country music thrown in? I don't know, but I definitely was not expecting what I got, which was excellent. And even the Sopranos theme song thrown in, which I had no idea what band was behind that. Very nice. 4 stars.

Fantastic and unique sound. I really enjoyed listening to this. Not only for the Sopranos song, but the rest of the album has great character. Really glad to add this to my life-playlist. 4/5

This was kinda cool. No idea what to make of it. Found out where the Sopranos title song came from though. 3/5.

Exile on Coldharbour Lane is an interesting album. It is more or less half filled with bluesy songs combined with electronic baselines and drums that are great ("Converted", "Woke Up This Morning" and "Hypo Full of Love (The 12-Step Plan)"). It also contains ballads that are very, very, very weak and blasé ("Speed of the Sound of Loneliness", "The Old Purple Tin (9% of Pure Heaven)"). The third category are songs that differ not that much from "Cotton Eye Joe" ("U Don't Dans 2 Tekno Anymore", "Mao Tse Tung Said") and are utterly annoying.

I bought this album back when it came out sound-unheard through my Columbia Record Club account. Yes, back in the day I would routinely buy CDs based solely on the description. I can’t remember how this was described or why I went for it, but I loved it then and still love it now. It was good to reconnect with this bluesy-country-acid-house group.

I was expecting some Southern, Country-fried twangy stuff. This completely caught me off guard. Good stuff!

Blues, acid house, country, trip hop. Me ha gustado la innovación. Venga, un 4.

Estilo rock sureño, algo de blues y algo de pop. Con estilo un poco de décadas más hacia atrás, aun no siendo de los 90. Agradable, aunque sin destacar de una manera especial.

I couldn't really get into this band's schtick, the whole satirical-religious southern fried honkytonk by way of, you know, pan-British Londoner house-music rave-up types. The music was fine, the constant "is that supposed to be an American/Southern accent?" thing in the vocals was distracting and off putting. One trick pony.

Rating: 6/10 Best songs: Mao Tse Tung said

2.5/5. It's the album that has the Sopranos theme... That should say enough about this music. Not for me, but I can see how some would enjoy this.

Harmonica 90s rock

Okay. This was a very cool addition to the list.

I'm a huge fan of The Sopranos. Like, HUGE. I have watched the whole series three times, and I expect to watch it at least a fourth time before my final demise. So of course, I knew who Alabama 3 are. Beyond the choice of "Woke Up This Morning (Chosen Mix)" for the title sequence of The Sopranos, showrunner David Chase had very fine tastes that helped him soundtrack his masterpiece, and I encourage everyone here to check out the official soundtracks and unofficial playlists dedicated to the series. What's striking about those soundtracks is how Chase's selections used the music of artists who were pretty obvious for the story's New Jersey / Tri-State Area settings and its 40-ish / 50-ish-year-old mafioso characters (with music by legendary artists such as Bruce Springsteen, Bob Dylan, The Rolling Stones, Muddy Waters, Frank Sinatra or... Journey!), to then mix that somewhat predictable backdrop with far more obscure acts, at least for American ears of that generation: indeed you can also find leftfield musicians going from Aphex Twin to Tindersticks in that soundtrack, and that mix of genres is what makes it a perfect one for the postmodernist aesthetics of the series. Chase also had an ear attuned to English music that went from the sixties to the noughts, which is probably how he stumbled upon Alabama 3's peculiar mix of blues, gospel and electronic shenanigans. Listening to the whole album, I gotta say that I wish the LP changed gears a little more so as to explore turf going further away from that specific formula as famously exemplified by "Woke Up This Morning" (or opener "Converted"). A lot of the "acid" technoid synth flourishes in those electro-blues tracks sound exactly the same for instance, and the vocals (both lead and background ones) often follow the same gospel-meets-singspeak template -- to the point where one can grow worn out by it towards the end of the album. But I would lie if I said this record was bad overall, even with a couple of duds here and there. There are even two endearing C&W cuts towards the end of the tracklist ("The Old Purple Tin" and closer "Peace In The Valley"). It's just that in the grand scheme of things, *Exile On Coldharbour Lane* can't be considered "essential" in my own proverbial '1001 albums' book. Hope the anonymous user who suggested this album doesn't hold too much of a grudge and ends up ordering a hit on me. But if ever the temptation comes, my best advice to this user, written in Soprano-meme terms, would be "Alright, but you gotta get over it." 😉 2/5 for the purposes of this list of essential albums. 7/10 for more general purposes: 5 + 2 Number of albums from the original list I find relevant enough to be mandatory listens: 465 Albums from the original list I *might* include in mine later on: 288 Albums from the original list I won't include in mine: 336 ----- Number of albums from the users list I find relevant enough to be mandatory listens: 47 Albums from the users list I *might* select for mine later on: 58 Albums from the users list I won't select for mine: 111 (including this one) --- Hey, Émile. J'ai enfin trouvé le temps de répondre ! Regarde sous la review de *Young, Loud And Snotty* des Dead Boys !

Kinda wild the combination of country + acid house where a Foghorn Leghorn-esque DJ lectures you a la a Sunday youth service never took off.

A great experiment: can a British band sound like a dirty southern US band akin to Lynyrd Skynyrd? The answer: nope! Almost, but nope!