Roo.
Member
Posts: 17,852
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Post by Roo. on Oct 6, 2020 21:27:06 GMT 1
She's very hit or miss for me, except for this album which was beginning to end great.
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Post by raliverpool on Oct 7, 2020 19:37:00 GMT 1
235 Sharon Van Etten - Remind Me Tomorrow (2019)
I've been aware of the New Jersey based indie/alternative singer/songwriter for the best part of a decade. But it was her 4th album "Are We There" released in May 2014 which was a really good album containing such Nick Cave meets Leonard Cohen meets PJ Harvey gems such as ""Our Love" & ""Every Time The Sun Comes Up". But then she disappeared into parenthood, did a bit of acting ....
.... and returned in 2018 with this album's aptly titled "Comeback Kid"; the album stand out track "Seventeen" and this 5th album Jan 2019 release produced by John Congleton, which is her best to date. Other tracks I highly recommend are "Jupiter 4"; "You Shadow" & "No One's Easy To Love".
On this album, there is still an air of darkness/noir to it, but there is a joy of contentment aided by an open electronic groove. Plus she seems to have adopted some of Siouxsie Sioux's dervish swoops and wails to her vocal repertoire, which is no bad thing.
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Post by Jordan on Oct 7, 2020 19:50:39 GMT 1
I do love Remind Me, but Are We There is the SVE album I always go back to. ‘I Know’ literally never fails to give me goosebumps. And the whole I Don’t Want To Let You Down EP is equally on par for me.
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Post by raliverpool on Oct 8, 2020 18:38:06 GMT 1
234 The Police - Synchronicity (1983)
The 5th & final album by the new wave reggae tinged trio of drummer Stewart Copeland; guitarist Andy Summers; & bassist & singer Sting saw the band go out with the world's second best selling album of 1983.
Co-produced with engineer Hugh Padgham, this was a sonically bold sounding album, as each track sounded disparate from the other like a mini-soundtrack; and yet some how hung together as a whole due to the superb musicianship on show .... even if the lesser moments on the album were the definition of style over substance.
It contained the monster global #1 "Every Breath You Take"; as well as the other hit singles "Wrapped Around Your Finger"; their last great rocker "Synchronicity II"; & the emotionally powerful "King Of Pain".
To this day I wonder whether it was deliberate that the opener "Synchronicity I" sounded the most like their previous material; and the final track "Murder By Numbers" sounded the most like Sting's future so career.
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Post by greendemon on Oct 8, 2020 23:58:44 GMT 1
'Synchronicity' is a great album; I also adore 'Ghost In The Machine' which might just be my favourite at the moment though both are superb.
'Mother' usually gets skipped though...
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Post by raliverpool on Oct 9, 2020 20:09:03 GMT 1
233 T Rex - Electric Warrior (1971)
Charismatic "London Boy" Marc Bolan's outfit's sixth since their debut as Tyrannosaurus Rex in 1968, and their second under the name T. Rex. The album marked a turning point in the band's sound, moving away from the "Larry The Lamb's hippy dippy lyrics" folk-oriented music (which made DJ John Peel such an early champion) towards pioneering a flamboyant, pop-friendly take on electric rock & roll known today as Glam Rock.
Produced by Tony Visconti (he will feature again, you can guarantee that), then throw in the factoids: Roy Thomas Baker was the engineer (his work will feature again), the tape operator was a young Martin Rushent (yes, he too we will hear from again), and even the iconic album cover was done by George Underwood (without double checking I know he has at least two more album covers to come), it became the UK's best selling album of 1971 despite only being released in the last week of September.
If you account for its CD 15 track issue of the original 11 track vinyl album it features the UK #1 smash hits "Hot Love" & "Get It On"; as well as the stuck a month at #2 behind Benny Hill over Xmas 1971 hit "Jeepster". The add the haunting album cuts "Cosmic Dancer" & "Life's A Gas"; The hypnotic opener "Mambo Sun" and you are halfway to having a truly classic album.
With the success of this album T-Rextacy came to be the biggest thing since the Beatles. But I think it is fair to say the fame, the adulation, the money, the cocaine & cognac went to Marc Bolan's head. The follow up album 1972's The Slider is in truth a more cohesive album than this, but its peaks are lower than this album, hence it has finished on my lengthy "close but no cigar" shortlist. Following the release of "20th Century Boy" in 1973, which reached number three in the UK, T. Rex's appeal began to wane, though the band continued releasing one album per year, to ever decreasing results bar the odd exception ("I Love To Boogie" says hi).
However, by 1977 Marc Bolan had become a father, had kicked cocaine, had (mostly) kicked the booze; and had got into fitness and running in a big way. In early 1977 the album Dandy in the Underworld was released to critical acclaim (I think it is his best since The Slider) Bolan had slimmed down and regained his elfin looks, and the songs too had a stripped-down, streamlined sound. A spring UK tour with punk band The Damned on support garnered positive reviews. As Bolan was enjoying a new surge in popularity reinventing himself into a Uncle-like figure not least from being a TV music show presenter (where he gloriously sent himself up, whilst being host to a string of upcoming punk & new wave bands; as well as making up with his Frenemy David Bowie (giving him his guitar as a gift, more on that much, much later), whilst his former producer Tony Visconti (whom (walked out on Bolan during 1973's Tanx album sessions due to his rudeness & unprofessional behaviour in the studio) was going to produce his next album); and had a weekly radio show on Radio London mostly promoting new music.
But then two week's before his 30th birthday, and a fatal car crash due to a flat tyre due to a loose wheel nut changed everything....
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Post by Whitneyfan on Oct 10, 2020 12:16:46 GMT 1
'Electric Warrior' would probably be in my top 20, it's an absolutely amazing album. I would love to have been alive when Glam Rock was taking off!
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Post by raliverpool on Oct 10, 2020 20:43:02 GMT 1
232 TLC - CrazySexyCool (1994)
The second & biggest selling album by the Atlanta, Georgia R&B/hip-hop trio of Tionne "T-Boz" Watkins, Lisa "Left Eye" Lopes, & Rozonda "Chilli" Thomas.
Like their debut album 1992's Ooooooohhh... On the TLC Tip the female trio reunited with producers/songwriters Dallas Austin, Kenneth "Babyface" Edmonds and Jermaine Dupri as well as new collaborators Organized Noize and Chucky Thompson. It also featured guest vocals from the then unknown Busta Rhymes; Cee-Lo Green; & the relative new Andre Benjamin (Outkast). But their lyrics and vocals reflected their empowered, yet confused status as young 20-somethings.
This album full of modern, yet accessible R&B, funk, hip-hop & slow jams featured the global smash hits & USA #1's "Creep" & "Waterfalls"; as well as the sizeable USA hits "Diggin' On You" & "Red Light Special".
As we know it would take 5 years for the trio to release their follow up third album 1999's "FanMail" containing 2 more USA #1 hits "No Scrubs"; & "Unpretty". (It is easily an eight out of ten effort). Not least as they fell foul of the fall out of the acrimonious split & divorce between LA Reid (owner of their record label LaFace records); and their manager Perri "Pebbles" Reid... Then took time out for solo efforts, but were working on new material for a 4th album planned for 2003 release when during a break on April 25, 2002, the group's most tempestuous member Lisa "Left-Eye" Lopes died in a car crash while filming a documentary in Honduras, and things would never be the same again .....
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Post by blondini on Oct 11, 2020 14:17:30 GMT 1
Everything you said about Lily is correct. Only got into Sharon through that album due to the electronic vibe.
TLC are good, Rex and Police, too.
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Post by raliverpool on Oct 11, 2020 19:18:52 GMT 1
231 Paul Simon - Hearts & Bones (1983)
Most of these songs on the 6th solo album by the New York singer/songwriter were taken from an aborted first new Simon & Garfunkel album since "Bridge Over Troubled Water".
But after Simon & Garfunkel found they could not get along with each other, Simon removed Art Garfunkel's vocals/re-recorded his own lead vocals on this album. Perhaps not surprisingly this album was a commercial & critical failure largely due to the fact it was not but could have been an S&G album so suffered a similar backlash that another Paul (McCartney) suffered over a decade earlier from his old band's break up.
In truth up to this point Paul Simon had not made a bad album of sophistipop up until this point (& the album after this (1986's Graceland" is of course his most well known, but wont be in my top 250). But when I got his Negotiations & Love Songs best of CD many years ago, my favourite tracks from it were "Hearts & Bones"; "Train in the Distance"; & especially "Rene and Georgette Magritte with Their Dog After the War". But the best track on the actual album was the final track full of historical references & emotional pathos "The Late Great Johnny Ace":
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Post by raliverpool on Oct 12, 2020 20:13:49 GMT 1
230 Scissor Sisters - Scissor Sisters (2004)
The debut album by the New York glam rock/nu-disco/electro-clash hybrid outfit consisting of Jake Shears and Ana Matronic as vocalists, Babydaddy as multi-instrumentalist, Del Marquis as lead guitar/bassist, and Paddy Bloom as drummer.
They came to prominence following the release of their Grammy-nominated and chart-topping Bee Gees like disco version of Pink Floyd's "Comfortably Numb". The album which followed was a camptastic musical coat of many colours swirling from classic early-mid 1970s Elton John numbers "Take Your Mama" through to 21st century electroclash Donna Summer meets Jimmy Sommerville on the disco floor "Filthy/Gorgeous": the classic 1970s power balladry of "Mary"; and the quirky Bowie meets Steely Dan of "Laura".
But my favourite track on the album is the 1970's Pink Floyd pastiche final track (bar the extra tracks on time delay if you fail to stop change your CD when it goes silent) of "Return To Oz" referencing the early internet rumour that the "Dark Side Of Moon" album was sequenced to coincide with key scene in the 1939 film Wizard Of Oz.
Like most bands who take three years to home their material, then get signed to a record label, their debut album was by far their best. With their three subsequent albums showing an album by album decrease in quality and record sales. (Although their second album's lead single "I Don't Feel Like Dancing" is the best thing they've ever done IMHO). But their final album's final single 2012's "Let's Have A Kiki" remains the musical equivalent of letting off a stink bomb whilst leaving a crowded venue.
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Post by raliverpool on Oct 13, 2020 19:16:22 GMT 1
229 Scott Walker - Scott 4 (1969)
The enigmatic former Walker Brother fifth solo album (a collection of songs he had performed for his BBC television series had been his fourth). It was originally released in late 1969 under his birth name, Scott Engel, and failed to chart (albeit at a time when the album chart was reduced to a Top 15 due to strike action) was a noir concoction of baroque pop bordering on the avant garde (but nothing like the stuff he released from the 1980s onwards until his death).
Scott 4 was the first Walker album to consist solely of self-penned songs. The preceding Scott, Scott 2 and Scott 3 albums had each featured a mixture of originals and covers, including several translations of Jacques Brel songs. Musically whilst it had a similar formula to the first three Scott albums this largely replaced orchestration with a more ornate, rhythmic skeletal sound. Sounding like a perfect soundtrack to Nordic noir TV detective shows.
After this album's commercial failure, and critical indifference he entered a period of depression with a drink problem to match his period of self-confessed artistic decline, during which he spent five years making covers albums "by rote, just to get out of contract"; before reforming the Walker Brothers in 1975 to record three albums and score a huge international hit with "No Regrets".
Then from the 1985's Climate Of A Hunter till his death in 2019, he released a handful of avant garde albums with a gestation period on a par with Kate Bush & Peter Gabriel.
However, his rich baritone vox, and especially his 4 Scott titled albums released between 1967 & 1969 ensured his legacy influencing a sizeable number of artists .... many of whom appear further into my countdown...
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Post by raliverpool on Oct 14, 2020 19:35:14 GMT 1
228 Cathy Dennis - Am I The Kind Of Girl? (1996)
(WARNING: There are some corny near song titles in this write up)
The third album by the carrot topped singer/songwriter from Norwich saw her abandon her dance pop sound in an attempt to Reach for the Stars of BritPop sounding songs with a traditional singer/songwriter template. For this album she co-wrote inviting the following to Come Into Her World: engineer/producer Mark Saunders (whom had already co-written with John Lydon; Bomb The Bass; Tricky; & Cyndi Lauper); Guy Chambers (ex-World Party/The Lemon Trees/pre-Robbie Williams; etc); Stephen Duffy (The Lilac Time); Francis Dunnery (It Bites); Andy Partridge (XTC); & most impressively Ray Davies (The Kinks).
Alas this album was Toxic to the record buying public stalling at UK #78, best summed up with her final UK #43 single from the album (co-written by Guy Chambers) "When Dreams Fall To Dust". So she was dropped by Polydor records as her Dreams Never Came True.
Thankfully her manager Simon Fuller had faith in her abilities believing Anything Is Possible and her Runaway to behind the scenes as an in demand songwriter was a huge a success as she wrote 8 UK #1 hits & won 5 Ivor Novello Awards.
Whilst some bloke from Stoke who had acrimoniously left a popular British boyband got this album, and fell in love with it and it's sound, hooks and melodies. Indeed at the time he could have said he "Can't Get You Out Of My Head". So when asked by his manager whom he wanted to work with on a debut solo album, he asked if he could work with some of the people responsible for this album...
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Post by Whitneyfan on Oct 14, 2020 20:43:45 GMT 1
Oh I wasn't expecting any Cathy Dennis. I had her first 2 albums and they were good, but for some reason I never got round to getting this one. I did like her cover of 'Waterloo Sunset' though - even though the original is up there with the best songs ever!
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Post by raliverpool on Oct 15, 2020 18:29:30 GMT 1
227 The Smashing Pumpkins - Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness (1995)
Produced by frontman Billy Corgan with Flood and Alan Moulder, this sprawling 28 track 2 CD & 2 hour long third album caught the Chicago band at their creative peak expanding musically to taking trips from grunge, to alternative rock, to metal, and to orchestral baroque art rock. Indeed, Corgan described the album at the time to the music press as "The Wall for Generation X". In my opinion it is much better than the overrated Pink Floyd album.
It features the (radio/video) singles "Bullet With Butterfly Wings"; "1979"; "Tonight Tonight"; "Zero"; & "Thirty-Three".
This double album topped the charts in the USA, Canada, Australia, as well as peaking at UK #4. Whilst the group's fortunes would decline as a result of drugs, and Billy Corgan's increasing Napoleon complex towards bandmates and their contributions.
Ultimately, like most double albums, with a bit of quality control and pruning this could have been an even greater album, but to me it is still the second greatest Grunge studio album.
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TheThorne
Member
*Hillside, slip and slide, feel the pain, it's no surprise!*
Posts: 27,499
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Post by TheThorne on Oct 15, 2020 19:34:07 GMT 1
It's really good but too much filler, its not even the 2nd best Smashing Pumpkins album for me although it has some brilliant singles
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Post by raliverpool on Oct 17, 2020 17:06:45 GMT 1
It's really good but too much filler, its not even the 2nd best Smashing Pumpkins album for me although it has some brilliant singles I presume Siamese Dream is one of them as that is a rather fine album. But a second SP album better than Mellon ..... I presume you either prefer Gish or Adore, as their other albums have been mediocre to poor IMHO.
Anyway ... talking double albums with too much filler.....
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TheThorne
Member
*Hillside, slip and slide, feel the pain, it's no surprise!*
Posts: 27,499
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Post by TheThorne on Oct 17, 2020 17:27:02 GMT 1
It's really good but too much filler, its not even the 2nd best Smashing Pumpkins album for me although it has some brilliant singles I presume Siamese Dream is one of them as that is a rather fine album. But a second SP album better than Mellon ..... I presume you either prefer Gish or Adore, as their other albums have been mediocre to poor IMHO.
Anyway ... talking double albums with too much filler.....
There is not much between 'Gish' and 'Mellon Collie' to be fair
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Post by raliverpool on Oct 17, 2020 17:30:29 GMT 1
226 The Beatles - The Beatles (White Album) (1968)The ninth studio album and only double album by the English rock band the Beatles, released on 22 November 1968. Its plain white sleeve has no graphics or text other than the band's name embossed. So intended as a direct contrast to the vivid cover artwork of the band's previous proper studio LP Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band. The Beatles is recognised for its fragmentary style and diverse range of genres, including folk, British blues, ska, music hall and the avant-garde.
To many fans, and music critics it remains The Beatles greatest album. Indeed both John Lennon in 1980, and George Harrison in the 1990s stated it was their favourite album by The Fab Four.
The problem I have with this 30 track & 93 minutes length album is whilst the highs "Back In The USSR"; "Dear Prudence"; "While My Guitar Gently Weeps"; "Blackbird"; "Birthday"; "Julia"; "Helter Skelter"; etc are brilliant. There is a load of filler: "Wild Honey Pie"; "Martha My Dear"; "Rocky Raccoon"; "Yer Blues"; "Honey Pie"; "Savoy Truffle". Plus the self indulgence avant garde of "Revolution 9", which drags my opinion of the album down.
Furthermore, I think they should have gone with Paul McCartney's aesthetic/idea of releasing the albums as two separate entities. One made up of the 16 tracks with all four band members performing; and a separate (semi) acoustic/unplugged album where quite often only one band member was present (at the time McCartney was getting into Tyrannosaurus Rex & The Incredible String Band). As acoustic numbers such as Paul's "Junk"; "John's "Child Of Nature"; & George's "Circles" & "Sour Milk Sea" failed to make the final cut, and could have been added.
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Post by raliverpool on Oct 18, 2020 12:27:41 GMT 1
225 Donna Summer - Bad Girls (1979)
The April 1979 seventh studio album by American singer and songwriter Donna Summer was a double (vinyl) album. However its 15 tracks & 71 minute duration meant it fitted onto a single CD.
This saw the Queen of Disco at the peak of her powers release her defining commercial & artistic statement. As the sheer variety and musical scope (disco, rock, R&B, jazz, synth-pop, kraut rock, country) covered on this album is an excellent example of what double albums should be. All bar one of the tracks are produced by her longtime cohorts Giorgio Moroder and Pete Bellotte; and arranged by Harold Faltermeyer.
It starts off with the USA #1 dance rocker "Hot Stuff"; then the next track is the USA #1 dance funk R&B classic "Bad Girls"; and the rest of the album contains the singles the jazzy R&B sounding "Walk Away"; the USA #2 disco soul "Dim All the Lights"; the kraut pop of "Our Love"; & the new wave electronica of "Sunset People".
Sadly, the racist & homophobic Disco Sucks/Disco Demolition movement was imminent with the fall out seeing the likes of the Bee Gees; Chic; & Donna Summer's chart dominance disappear near overnight. As LaDonna Gaines was to have one further USA chart topper "No More Tears (Enough Is Enough)"; and would trouble the USA top 20 just 5 more times, after her run of 8 consecutive USA top 5 singles had ended. She would die of lung cancer in 2012 despite never having smoked, having been snubbed by the white & male dominated Rock N Roll Hall of Fame in her lifetime. (She was inducted posthumously in 2013).
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