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Year in Review, Part 3

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Back again for Q3!

Blink-182, California, released 1 July.  I’ll admit, I’m still a Blink fan partially because Travis is such an insanely great fast-speed drummer.  This new album feels like a return to their happier, punkier days of the late 90s-early 00s, and it’s a lot of fun to listen to.

The Avalanches, Wildflower, released 8 July.  When was that last album of theirs?  2000?  2001?  Far too long.  They’ve lightened up on the sampling (a bit) for obvious financial reasons, and their songs aren’t nearly as weird and goofy as the ones on Since I Left You, but on the other hand, they’ve excelled at creating groovy vibes and insanely catchy tracks like the above.

Lou Rhodes, theyesandeye, released 29 July.  Lamb’s lead singer released a lovely solo album featuring some of her best work outside that band.  Her style of singing works well in a non-electronic atmosphere here, and she also does a hell of a great job covering The XX as well.

Dog Party, ‘Til You’re Mine, released 5 August.  One of my favorite local bands releases their fifth album — the first after drummer Lucy’s high school graduation (!!) and as always, it’s all kinds of fun to listen to.  Short econo punk that would make the Ramones and Fuzzbox proud.

De La Soul, …and the Anonymous Nobody, released 25 August.  So happy to see these guys back at it…one of the best hip-hop groups around.  I’m also impressed by the DIY nature of this album as well: the samples used were recorded using live musicians (their jamming would be recorded and various bits used for the samples), and the entire project was funded via Kickstarter.  Even a lot of the non-music packaging and post-production was done either by them or by friends and acquaintances.

Banks & Steelz, Anything But Words, released 26 August.  Who knew that the dark, driving alt-rock of Interpol would fit so perfectly with the blistering delivery of RZA?  And that these guys met up frequently to play chess?  This match-up delivers one hell of a strong punch from both sides and it’s one of my favorites of the year.

The Wedding Present, Going, Going… released 2 September.  The Weddoes are back!  Another Kickstarter-funded album that was well worth the wait.  Full of their trademark dreamy and crunchy riffs on top of lovely melodies.

Wilco, Schmilco, released 9 September.  Wilco has always been just this side of weird, and their new album proves once again that they can pull it off and still be fun and enjoyable to listen to. Definitely a band off in their own universe, but they’ve become quite comfortable and agile within it.

Bastille, Wild World, released 9 September.  I wasn’t quite sure how they were going to top their fantastic debut album from a few years ago, but they’ve pulled it off by being bigger, stronger, and more experimental with their sounds.  They’ve also injected a bit of humor into the mix this time out, which makes a lot of the songs that much more fun to listen to.

Preoccupations, Preoccupations, released 16 September.  The band formerly known as Viet Cong returns with a new album that sounds straight out of 1985-era goth that you’d expect to hear on Homestead Records, and it’s a fascinating listen.  [Also, the above video perfectly fits with early era 120 Minutes, doesn’t it?]

Against Me!, Shape Shift with Me, released 16 September.  One of their most melodic releases that I can think of, and some of their best work as well.  The songs feel freer and livelier.  Another frequent player during the Day Job as well as writing sessions.

Beach Slang, A Loud Bash of Teenage Feelings, released 23 September.  Another album that sold me on first listen, even before the album was done.  Equal parts Replacements and Dinosaur Jr, there’s a hell of a lot of great pop-punk going on here.  Definitely in my top ten of the year.

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Next up, the final quarter of 2016….and of course, I’ll follow up with the lineup for the end-of-year compilation mix and my Top Albums and Songs of the year!

 

Year in Review, Part 2

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As you can tell, I haven’t quite been sticking to my schedule nearly as well as I’d hoped.  I’d blame it on the procrastination or the Day Job or the election or whatever, but it really has been a bunch of things.  I started writing this one up last night after doing much of our Christmas wrapping, but had to stop short so I could get working on my editing.  I’m hoping in the new year I’ll be a little more on the ball, yeah?

Well hey, here we go with Part 2 of my favorite albums of 2016, and Q2 was filled with a hell of a lot of great albums that I’m still playing heavily months later.  Enjoy!

Cheap Trick, Bang, Zoom, Crazy…Hello, released 1 April.  Thought I’d start off this one with an unexpected surprise — I’ve been a longtime Cheap Trick fan [I’m talking “Surrender” era here, so that means I AM OLD] so I was quite pleased to hear that they had a new album out this year.  This isn’t the poppy CT from the late 80s, mind you.  This is the crunchier, rockier CT from the late 70s – early 80s.  One of my favorites of the year.

M83, Junk, released 8 April.  Where 2011’s Hurry Up, We’re Dreaming was the sound of 70s LA glitz and 80s cinematic vistas, Junk seems to take the idea of the one goofy track from that album (you know, that one about turning into frogs) and expands on it.  The end result sounds like a mix between 80s kids shows on PBS and theme songs to Love Boat episodes.  And yet somehow it works without being cloying or embarrassing.  Even if the album cover does look like a Happy Meal box.

Lush, Blind Spot EP, released 15 April.  One of the best shoegazey bands of the 90s returns after twenty years for a tour and a new EP, and it was well worth the wait.  It’s just as lovely and shimmery as their previous records.  Yet another constant play during my writing sessions.

Wire, Nocturnal Koreans, released 22 April.  Essentially a mini-album of leftovers from the sessions for their previous album (2015’s self-titled), but nonetheless there’s not a wasted track here.  They’ve settled quite nicely into their current iteration as an indie-rock band with a sparse yet powerful sound.

RWBY Vol 3 soundtrack, released 3 May.  I found this online animation series quite by accident back in 2014 (I think I saw the Vol 1 soundtrack on eMusic as an endcap suggestion), and I quite enjoy it.  The soundtracks are great as well, very Paramore-ish and a lot of fun to listen to during my writing sessions.

Radiohead, A Moon Shaped Pool, released 8 May.  “Doot doot OH HEY we have a new album out.  Here you go.”  And the fans trip all over themselves downloading and liveblogging it! Heh.  Seriously, though, it’s a great album.  Haunting, gorgeous, tense, and dreamy.  Another writing session soundtrack!

Nothing, Tired of Tomorrow, released 13 May.  I do likes me some crunchy alternative metal, especially if it’s as melodic as Nothing is.  I’d never heard of this band before hearing this album streamed on NPR.com, and within two songs I definitely had that HOLY CRAP I NEED THIS response.  And once this was out, I quickly downloaded it along with the rest of their available albums and singles, because I loved it that much.  One of my top ten albums of the year.

Mark Pritchard, Under the Sun, released 13 May.  On the other end of the spectrum we have some lovely quiet ambient electronic from one of its best producers (and one half of Global Communication, whose 76:13 I still listen to on a regular basis while writing).  The album feels haunted at times — kind of hinting at being alone on a desolate world, come to think of it — but it also has its moments of light humor (“Hi-Red” sounds a bit like Mark playing with the settings on his keyboard more than anything else) to balance it out.

Beth Orton, Kidsticks, released 27 May.  Beth is one of those ‘off in her own universe’ songwriters, but without the weirdness that sometimes derails Tori and Bjork.  Her music has also retained that not-quite-electronic sound that she captured so well back on 1996’s Trailer Park, letting it sound both natural and ambient at the same time.

Garbage, Strange Little Birds, released 10 June.  Probably my favorite album of theirs after their self-titled debut back in 1995.  There’s some great guitar crunch going on here, and Shirley Manson can still belt it out effortlessly.  One of my top ten favorites of the year.

The Shelters, The Shelters, released 10 June.  As my sister said to me, ‘Dig that Rickenbacker sound!’  These guys picked up where Jet left off some time ago with the Swinging London-influenced sound, and I couldn’t be happier.  That this was released on Capitol makes absolute sense; they would have fit in quite nicely next to the Beatles as a great 60s guitar combo.

The Temper Trap, Thick As Thieves, released 10 June.  This band has grown to be one of those ‘I haven’t heard it yet but I’ll definitely download it’ bands of mine, and their newest has not let me down.  The title track is in my top ten favorite songs of the year as well.

DJ Shadow, The Mountain Will Fall, released 24 June.  The always amazing DJ Shadow brings forth an album that features less samples and a lot more hard sounds, giving his already experimental vibe a grittier edge.  I’ve been putting this one on during my writing sessions when I need an angrier vibe.  [The above track is NSFW lyrically, but they sure do fit the video, given the present political atmosphere.]

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Coming soon, Part 3, in which we check out some excellent late summer tunage!

Do I really listen to that much music?

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The new 4TB external doing its thing on top of my dusty PC

So yesterday I started to move my mp3 collection to my new external hard drive.  Originally I thought, hey, why not just do a block copy-and-paste all at once? and tried copying bands A through M.  After about twenty minutes the status said ‘5% done; time remaining, 11 hours.’  That lasted until Depeche Mode, when the PC went to sleep last night.  That was easily rectified of course, and I’m now going via small blocks of letters (it just finished N through P a few seconds ago).

So why am I doing this?  Well, I think my externals are just getting worn out.  Currently the collection is on two smaller 1TB externals and I’m starting to have issues with the PC reading one of them.  It’ll work, but if the PC happens to go into sleep mode for any reason, the connection will get all wonky.  No fear, though!  Every mp3 is also copied to a third 2TB external whose sole purpose is to simply be backup storage.  Nothing has been lost!

But seriously, though…why 4 terabytes?  Isn’t that a bit excessive?  Well, no.  It’s a very comfortable amount of space for a collection that’s slowly been expanding for almost forty years.  It gives me space for what I have already and an equal amount of space for any future purchases, rips, or downloads.  [Especially now that I rip my cds at the max bitrate of 320 kbps.  I’m not too snobbish about bitrate, but the higher it is, the better, clearer and louder the sound quality.  And I usually stick with mp3 format instead of FLAC or anything else, simply because it’s space saving and I don’t hear too much of a difference.]

But that still begs the question: do I really listen to that much music?

Well, I don’t listen to every single song in my collection on a daily basis, no.  That would be impossible.  It’s more of a library than just a collection, anyway.  I use it not just for entertainment but for background while I’m writing.  I use it for reference with my music-related writing.  And I share it with a few people on my Plex server so they get to listen and enjoy my tunage as well.  A. likes to listen to stuff occasionally via that route while she’s working.  Not everything gets heavy rotation play, but my library is big enough where I can shift that rotation and keep it fresh.

But yeah. I really do listen to that much music.  If I don’t have a streaming radio station going, I’m probably listening to a certain batch of albums.  Currently I’m going through a bunch of the 2016 albums in preparation for my eventual Best Of list next month.

Some people love vintage cars.  Some love special edition books.  Some love collectible figurines.

Me?  I love music.

Fandom: Approaching an inspiration

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The ‘William It Was Really Nothing’ single, released 24 Aug 1984. British pop perfection.

One of the most common things I hear from many British bands in interviews is how surprised they often are when they’re told of their success in America.  I mean, as a writer, I get it; once your art is out there, you only see the response of those who actually connect with you, but you have no idea of the bigger picture.  Quite often, the musicians will respond with a bit of embarrassed surprise that they had no idea how inspiring or influential they are or were.  They’ve only seen it from their point of view as a working, touring musician.  They see the audience and maybe the sales numbers, but that’s about it.

I’m going to be seeing a conversation with Johnny Marr (guitarist extraordinaire of the Smiths and solo, natch) at the Jewish Community Center here in town tonight, and of course I’m trying to think of a good question to ask if there’s a Q & A at the end of the talk.  My first thought, of course, was ‘How does it feel to have written one of the most recognized, beloved, and imitated riffs of the 80s?’ but that seems a bit silly.  On the other side of the spectrum I could go full-on Matt Pinfield and ask about The Smiths being an insanely influential band on US college radio in the 80s.  Or I could just ask him how he tunes his guitars because I can’t figure out how the hell he plays half his licks.

I paid a little extra for my ticket so I get his new autobiography, Set the Boy Free, as well.  And perhaps I may get it signed if he’s going to be doing so.

Last time I did this was a few years back when I saw Peter Hook (bassist of Joy Division and New Order) at the same place.  I ended up not asking any dorky questions, but I did get to tell him his playing style was deeply influential in my own over the years.  [He followed that up with a big smile and asked if I was currently in a band!  Come to find out he’s just as big a music geek as I am and loves meeting other musicians of all levels.]

Looking forward to tonight!

Classic Rock: Zebra

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I was a huge fan of Zebra when I was in junior high.  I remember hearing “Who’s Behind the Door?” on WAAF — and seeing the video on MTV — and being totally blown away by the music.  I loved the sound of synthesizers back then, especially if they used the strings setting.  [I’d later get into Giuffria a year or so later for the same reason.]  I even got to see them live, when they opened up for Loverboy at the Worcester Centrum — my very first big arena concert.

I bought the cassette of the self-titled debut album right about the same time, and I nearly wore it out within a year.

Decades later, and I’m listening to it on mp3, and it suddenly dawns on me — this album sounds almost exactly like a Porcupine Tree album.

Think about it:  both lead singers are guitar virtuosos who write beautiful and complex melodies.  Sure, one sings in falsetto half the time, but never mind.  Plus the keyboards play a strong and vital part in the music, giving it a darker ambience.  There are a few shorter pop songs here and there, but there are also some lengthy prog-jam pieces in there as well.  It’s no wonder that I became such a huge PT fan in the late 90s.

I still pull out this album every now and again and give it a listen.  I’ll listen to album two, No Tellin’ Lies, every now and again as well, but this first album will always be a particular favorite of mine.

Coming Soon: When We Was Fab — Blogging the Beatles Solo Years

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Others have commented: it’s going to be the Beatles’ solo years next!  This one’s gonna be a long series, so I’m pretty sure I’ll be featuring it on specific days…maybe offering it every other Wednesday or something.  We shall see.  This may take some time for me to build up a backlog, as there are quite a few releases to plow through — and I’m not going to include the multiple reissues that have taken place over the years.  One last note: I’ve already decided this is going to be chronological, just like the previous series, so this means we’ll be visiting all four solo discographies at the same time.  I will also be featuring multiple releases per post, or else I’ll be posting until 2019!

Until then, I’ll be providing the usual music posts on Tuesdays and Thursdays.

Thanks for joining in!

Which band should I blog about next?

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The always excellent Johnny Marr, who I’ll be seeing in October!

I’ve been tempted to do another “blogging a band” series like I did with the Beatles a while back.  The original one was a lot of fun, as I was not only able to give the songs and albums a good solid listen, I was able to better understand their place in musical history — both their own, and within the larger scene.  And as a bonus, I was also able to learn a lot of new songs on my guitar!

I probably don’t know any band nearly as well as I know the Beatles, but I do own a lot of complete (or nearly complete) discographies of plenty of bands, or they’re easily available for streaming somewhere if I don’t.  I’ll be relearning their oeuvre right alongside you!

So, what do you think?  Here’s a shortlist so far of favorite 80s/90s bands I could possibly do:

–U2
–The Smiths
–The Cure
–Wire
–Blur
–Depeche Mode (continuing the by-the-decade theme)

I was also thinking of maybe continuing the Beatles theme by going through their solo output, either separately or all together chronologically.

Any votes/suggestions?

Is That Freedom Rock, Man?

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Somehow I fell down another retro rabbit hole and have been listening to the Sirius XM Classic Rock Party station over the last few days.  I’m fifteen again and listening to WAAF and WAQY in my messy bedroom, cranking up the 80s stylings of Twisted Sister, Billy Idol and Whitesnake alongside the classic 60s/70s hits of the Stones, Yes, and BROOOCE.

This was the music I grew up with.  I was too young to understand punk and post-punk back in the early 80s (at least not until that fateful evening in early 1986), and as much as I enjoyed the pop of American Top 40 and American Bandstand, it was the music of rock stations that stuck with me most. I was a nerdy, spotty kid that was completely obsessed with music and radio and would be just as happy sitting alone in front of my boombox as I would be outside roaming the neighborhood on my BMX with my buddies.  This was Diver Down and Pyromania playing on my sister’s boombox while we played touch football in the backyard.  This was me completely blown away by 90125 and Synchronicity and So.  This was my growing obsessions with other bands aside from the Beatles.  This was our state capital’s own honored rockers in the forms of Aerosmith, the J Geils Band and Boston.  This was where I learned to appreciate bands before my time like Jimi Hendrix and Cream and The Rolling Stones.

Decades later and here I am, hitting middle age and living on the opposite coast, listening to the still-epic “Born to Run”, still impressed by the guitar solo freakout of the back half of “Freebird”, still feel that “Layla” is a decent song but is about 3 minutes too long.  Living in a city where Janis and Jerry lived, where Steve Miller recorded the sound of the foghorn going past the Marina for the opening of his Sailor album, where the classic Frampton Comes Alive! was recorded just three miles away at a long-departed ballroom in Japantown.  Where Journey the Doobies and the Dead and the Airplane lived and recorded and became local heroes.

The playlist has its moments of amusing embarrassment.  All that LA glam metal of the 80s is still goofy, doofy, simplistic fun, just like I remember it.  All the prog rock of the 70s is still full of nerdy math and fantastical imagery.  All the arena rock bands are still full of that bombast.  Some of it’s kind of corny now, but you can’t help but have fun listening to it.  The playlist is also going to be a lot of the same heavy-rotation classics that you can’t escape, even after all these years.  It may even have its share of “oh, that song!” moments.

Sure, most of it’s a good three or four decades old now, but it’s still a hell of a lot of fun to listen to.

Depeche Mode in the 90s – Songs of Faith and Devotion

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The next release from Depeche Mode in the 90s was a much darker affair…

But first, I’d like to make a little side trip to late 1991 and Wim Wenders’ fantastic epic, Until the End of the World.  One of my top ten favorite films, it’s a road movie about a woman whose presence changes the fate of nearly everyone around her, while she herself is trying to figure out her own.  It takes place at on New Years’ Eve, as 1999 changes over to 2000 — not just the end of the year, but the century and the millennium as well.   For the soundtrack, Wenders reached out to numerous bands and musicians and asked them to write a song in the style they believe they’d have eight years from then.

DM’s donation was a religiously-tinged blues ballad called “Death’s Door” that hints at the prodigal son returning (much like William Hurt’s character in the film).  It’s a great soundtrack worth picking up, and if you can find a copy of the film (it’s available for streaming on Amazon), it’s well worth checking out.

After that, the band remained quiet for some time until February 1993, when the new single “I Feel You” was released.  Upon first listen, it sounded like the band had retained their fuller, stronger sounds and melodies, but had continued with their darker themes and moods.  Like many previous pre-album singles (like “Strangelove” and “Personal Jesus”, it sounded vastly different than anyone had expected, right down to the opening screech of feedback.

Also gone was Dave Gahan’s perky goofball image; he was now grungy and longhaired with a dangerous sex swagger.  [It was revealed sometime later that this partly due to his worsening drug addiction.]  In fact, within the first minute of the video, we no longer see the band on banks of keyboards; only Andy Fletcher was behind the keys.  Alan Wilder was now drumming, and Martin Gore was playing a Cash-like twang that would become the motif of the entire track.

 

Songs of Faith and Devotion arrived not six months later but almost exactly one month after that first single.  There’s a rough tension throughout the album, not unlike listening to The Beatles’ white album (a description given to it by Alan Wilder himself)…the music is full of powerful anger, and Gahan’s singing has taken on an irritated growl (inspired by the LA alternative bands he’d been hanging with by that time).  There are more organic samples here — live drums and guitars laid down and sequenced — and hardly a clanging pipe or popping firework anywhere at all.  And tensions within the band had grown to such a degree that Wilder would quit the band at the end of the supporting tour.

It’s a very apt title, as religious themes pop up all over the place.  It’s not an album about praise, though…it’s about the limits of faith and devotion, both in life and in spirituality.  The critical response to the album was highly positive, however, and though its singles are rarely chosen for airplay nowadays, it’s an incredibly solid and deeply emotional album worth checking out.

Second single “Walking in My Shoes” is the track that would get the most airplay, as it’s the most melodic and most typical of the band’s sound.  That’s not to say it was written to sell units, however, far from it.  It’s a bleak song using the ‘walk a mile in my shoes’ metaphor as only Gore and DM can do it: don’t you dare judge me until you feel what I’ve gone through.

Third single “Condemnation,” however, was a completely leftfield hit on both sides of the Atlantic.  While “Death’s Door” hinted at a hymnal, this one is purely gospel choir, and it’s a deeply moving and lovely track.

Fourth and final single “In Your Room” featured the band venturing even further from their digital sound as well as their previous image: the video features numerous visual cues from their previous videos made with Anton Corbijn, twisted just that little bit to hint at a wish to be freed of them.  Even the mix used here (the Zephyr Mix) is almost all analogue, showing DM as an almost purely rock band now instead of a synth band.

Even the album tracks like the gospel-by-way-of-Led-Zeppelin “Get Right with Me” and the turbulent irritation of “Rush” feature a band going all out in spirit and emotion.  Taken as a whole, the album definitely mirrors the real-life tensions the band had been dealing with during the writing and recording, as well as the expectations laid upon them to recreate something as phenomenal as Violator.  It would nearly break them.  Wilder would depart at the end of the album’s tour, and once the tour was over that December, they would go their separate ways.  Dave Gahan would attempt suicide in late 1995 and nearly die from a drug overdose in spring 1996.  Gahan survived and persevered, recovering from his heroin addiction and turning his life around.

By early 1997, they were back with a new, even stronger and more cohesive album, Ultra.

 

 

 

Forth Quarter Music

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You’ve heard me talk about this before: the best music releases of the year are quite often released within the fourth quarter — specifically, between late August and late November.  This is so prevalent that you can set your watch to it.  We’ll have a few strong spring releases, usually bands that already have a long-lasting cred; summer will be full of chart-worthy pop; late summer will be kind of skint, but may also contain some unexpected gems.  But from September to just after Thanksgiving?  You’re gonna see a crapton of releases.

Why?  Simple:  Christmas shopping!

It works on multiple levels.  The spring releases are usually slow-burners and tried-and-true names that guarantee a sale.  The summer releases are the impulse buys to celebrate vacation time.  The end of summer is usually quiet because the kids are too busy purchasing things for school or college.  But by the time September rolls around, there’s money in hand once more.  And secondly: as much as we hate to admit it, a lot of us really do start our Christmas shopping hella early.  And the music business knows this, so they’ll keep the guaranteed high-sale titles for when the shopping is at its highest.

So what do we have on tap in the rock universe, anyway?  What’s coming out that’s going to take my hard-earned money?

September 2:
–The Wedding Present, Going, Going…

September 9:
–Bastille, Wild World
—The Beatles, Live at the Hollywood Bowl reissue
—The Head and the Heart, Signs of Light
–Local Natives, Sunlit Youth
–MIA, AIM
–Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds, Skeleton Tree
–Wilco, Schmilco

September 16:
–Against Me!, Shape Shift with Me
—Steven Wilson, Transience

September 23:
–Warpaint, Heads Up

September 30:
–Banks, The Altar
–Big Jesus, Oneiric
–Pixies, Head Carrier
—Regina Spektor, Remember Us to Life
–Yello, Toy

October 7:
–Kaiser Chiefs, Stay Together
—Green Day, Revolution Radio
–Melissa Etheridge, MEmphis Rock and Soul
–Phantogram, Three
—Placebo, A Place for Us to Dream

October 14:
–The Orb, Chill Out, World

October 21:
–Beck,  (title TBA)
–Korn, The Serenity of Suffering

Ocboter 28:
–Empire of the Sun, Two Vines
—Madness, Can’t Catch Us Now

…and that’s just what’s been announced over the past few months that I’m interested in hearing.  By late September we’ll start seeing more titles from all kinds of groups and across all the genres.  We’ll start seeing more box sets and major reissues (An expansive box from Pink Floyd, and Fleetwood Mac’s Mirage, for instance).  Mixes and greatest hits packages will start popping up.  And somewhere in there, probably mid-October and early November, we’ll start seeing new and repackaged Christmas albums as well.

It’s the most wonderful time of the year indeed, especially if you’re a music nerd like I am.