ArchieLeach
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I talk too much, I worry me to death
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Post by ArchieLeach on Nov 15, 2017 22:48:35 GMT -5
Paul Simon - Graceland (1986)Final Thoughts
Fuck Paul Simon. Fuck Graceland. Fuck penny whistles. Fuck Vampire Weekend. Fuck cultural appropriation. Fuck colonialism. Fuck 1986. Fuck Chevy Chase. Fuck saxophones. Fuck life. So, I will go against all trends and say I think this album is merely okay. YES-ssssss. Paul Simon looms fairly large in my life. The S&G Greatest Hits (with half the tracks being live) was in regular rotation at my house back when "regular rotation" was 10 albums over 3 or 4 years. It's when I realized that while all the other folk may like sing-songy stuff like "I Am a Rock," I'm more of a moody "America" kind of guy - that's right, I liked it way back when I was 12, before I learned that Hal Blaine was instructed to mimic Ringo's "Day In the Life" drumming for the track, when other boys liked "Smoking in the Boys Room." My elementary school friend explained to me what "making love" meant from "Cecelia" - it was a gesture involving on finger on one hand, while the other hand.....anyway.... There Goes Rhymin' Simon was the first LP I ever bought with my own money, partly because I was intrigued by the sheet music a friend of mine had ("One Man's Ceiling is Another Man's Floor") and because of Simon's great appearance on an SNL Thanksgiving episode - he played "Something So Right" on a nylon-string guitar just like the one I had while playing with George Harrison. Our family looked for houses to "50 Ways," and I mourned the death of John Lennon once again to "The Late Great Johnny Ace." I really liked the depressing Hearts and Bones because I "Think Too Much" (parts 1 AND 2, dammit), and I even listened to One Trick Pony, (the movie scene with Lou Reed must be seen by everyone on these here boards)... BUT... ...the Paul Simon album to own is his self-titled one. It's intimate, it had plenty o' sexual innuendo, funny rhymes, and "Congratulations" has Larry Knechtel playing an extended solo on a song which I hear as a terse retort to "Bridge Over You Know," a fabulous song, I'm sure, but I like my music a bit scuffed. I love Paul Simon to pieces. Graceland? Uh, maybe his fourth best? And really, Simon's gig is he swipes other people's music stylings while making lyrics with improbable words like Gatorade, consecrated, Kodachrome, danke schoen, gabardine, whatever, it don't mean much, but even while he's a drip, the guy makes things happen, and shame on Los Lobos for growing up betwixt Mexico and East LA and not knowing a hustler when they're giving away a chord progression. I like Los Lobos plenty, but c'mon boys. Graceland is fine, and I like both the title song and "Diamonds," f y'all. But it's not his best. But let's mention a great, great album. Modern Vampires in the City is a great album, and I write that as a guy who thinks any album that came after 1978 is a parody, pastiche, or tribute to what came before 1978. MVitC has melodies, drums, lyrics about atheism, terrorism, and wild girls, and Henry Hudson, who died in Hudson Bay. This album is better than Graceland, and maybe it's too derivative, borrowing a turn of phrase from Bread's "Aubrey" for "Step," but it connects with me. And "Hannah Hunt" is a worthy rewrite of "America," in case you folks didn't notice it. And Dan, really, fuck life? Maybe you really are poly. Drunk guy done typing.
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Post by Nudeviking on Nov 22, 2017 0:30:51 GMT -5
The Fall - Perverted By Language (1983)Time for The Fall. The Fall are a band that I've heard but never was really into. They always get name-checked as a VERY IMPORTANT BAND, but from what I've heard of them I don't really understand why. Maybe this album will help and make me understand. Pre-Existing Prejudices
The Fall have released like 93 gajillion albums. I've heard songs by The Fall at various points in my life, but have no idea if any of the songs on this album are among the songs I've heard. Maybe I've heard this album in its entirety maybe I've heard zero of these songs. Who knows? Songs
"Eat Y'self Fitter" This riff's okay, but it's repetitive and the song's too damn long. Word soup lyrics. The singer doesn't know what a computer is. I checked out about halfway through. I'd probably like this song more if it was half as long. "Neighbourhood of Infinity" The guitar riffs and drums are good but the poetry slam lyrics are not. It's just talking. Sometimes talking is dubbed over the talking. This would be a better song as an instrumental or with someone else singing. "Garden" More dumb talky shit. The music's really good, but this groaning spoken word shit is awful. I don't think I've encountered a band before where there's a bigger divide between how much I enjoy the instrumentation and how much I enjoy the singing. Holy fuck is this song still going on? 8:42?! Jesus! "Hotel Blöedel" Some lady is singing this time around. She's actually singing. Fuck here comes the poetry slam. This is also the worst music on the album. The guitars sound like non-amplified electric guitars being strummed. "Smile" What a goddamn awesome menacing drum beat and guitar part this song has. Even the vocals are here. I can deal with frenzied screaming more than open mic night poetry bullshit apparently. "I Feel Voxish" This is pretty decent if a little repetitive. I like the horrible keyboard playing that appears throughout the song. "Tempo House" Bass! Sounds like a live recording. It's an okay song, but like most of the songs on this album could stand to be about half as long as it is. "Hexen Definitive/Strife Knot" Two songs I guess? I don't know where one stopped and the second started. I like these songs well enough. They're kind of mellow, but decent background music. A fine album closer. Bonus Tracks!I'm listening to some sort of reissue version of this album complete with requisite bonus tracks. These are these tracks. "The Man Whose Head Expanded" Sped up "Da Da Da" drum machine noise. Bass all up in this mug. Manic vocals spouting random beat poetry bullshit. Casio keyboards. Space lasers. This is such an outtake. "Ludd Gang" Shit this song rules. The bass riff is so good. The singer can kind of sing. This might be my favorite song on this album. "Kicker Conspiracy" This is kind of boring and then poorly played harmonicas show up. "Pilsner Trail" Yup. A bonus song on a reissue of an album. This is pretty awful. Bad riffs. Bad vocals. Completely inessential. Final Thoughts
I still don't understand why The Fall are as well regarded as they are. There's some good stuff here, but there's a lot of dreck too. Nothing they're doing is really that different from the stuff superior bands like Mission of Burma or Wire were doing. That being said, I would probably like this album a lot more if it was devoid of Mark E. Smith whose vocals were tolerable at best, but more often than not irksome. Best Song: "Ludd Gang" or "Smile" if I'm limited to songs that appeared on the original release. Worst Song: "Garden" Next time on Nudeviking vs. The 80s we go back to an old...um favorite's probably a little strong, an old thing we thought was kind of okay? The Cocteau Twins make their second appearance on Pitchfork's list with their album Blue Bell Knoll. Get ready for more ethereal singing that for real witches probably love!
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Dellarigg
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Post by Dellarigg on Nov 22, 2017 3:48:54 GMT -5
ArchieLeach Find your elementary school friend and tell him that St Cecilia is the patron saint of music, so 'making love' in this case means grappling with the muse and writing a song, before the muse switches affections to Bob Dylan or someone. I'm pretty sure. Also, I'll go to bat for Still Crazy After All These Years as his best.
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ArchieLeach
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Post by ArchieLeach on Nov 22, 2017 12:37:26 GMT -5
ArchieLeach Find your elementary school friend and tell him that St Cecilia is the patron saint of music, so 'making love' in this case means grappling with the muse and writing a song, before the muse switches affections to Bob Dylan or someone. I'm pretty sure. Also, I'll go to bat for Still Crazy After All These Years as his best. Re: St. Cecilia: Wow, you done schooled me... and I'm lovin' it!
Re: Still Crazy: The first side of that is amazing. I'm a bit less fond of the second side, although "Silent Eyes" always makes me think of a big favorite movie, Shampoo.
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repulsionist
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Post by repulsionist on Nov 22, 2017 19:39:38 GMT -5
Nudeviking , I don't pretend to enjoy the bulk of The Fall's output. I do like Mark E. Smith's slurred harangues in small chunks, especially if I have some context for his ire; however, a full album grates after 3 or fewer songs. I had a dub of Perverted by Language in my teens (ca. 1988). I hardly listened to it, though it did come out from time to time in later years if someone wanted some kind of drinking challenge at university. I would venture to say that Sleaford Mods are an update to Smith's screeching observations that function to the effect of agit-prop as entertainment re. state of affairs in England. Have a listen to "Tied Up in Nottz". That may allow you to see what came after and gain some kind of appreciation. Pavement is also slated as owing to Smith's rants, but if you don't care for them that isn't much of an endorsement.
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Post by Nudeviking on Nov 22, 2017 19:44:30 GMT -5
Nudeviking , I don't pretend to enjoy the bulk of The Fall's output. I do like Mark E. Smith's slurred harangues in small chunks, especially if I have some context for his ire; however, a full album grates after 3 or fewer songs. I had a dub of Perverted by Language in my teens (ca. 1988). I hardly listened to it, though it did come out from time to time in later years if someone wanted some kind of drinking challenge at university. I would venture to say that Sleaford Mods are an update to Smith's screeching observations that function to the effect of agit-prop as entertainment re. state of affairs in England. Have a listen to "Tied Up in Nottz". That may allow you to see what came after and gain some kind of appreciation. Pavement is also slated as owing to Smith's rants, but if you don't care for them that isn't much of an endorsement. A lot of this kind of reminded me stylistically of The Yummy Fur, who I do like, so I think the problem was Mark E. Smith's voice than anything else so I'll add the Sleaford Mods to my list of other things to check out at the conclusion of this project.
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Rainbow Rosa
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Post by Rainbow Rosa on Nov 22, 2017 19:49:46 GMT -5
Just a heads-up since you're only four reviews away from it: if your praise of Lincoln is not sufficiently effusive I will literally murder you.
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Post by Nudeviking on Nov 23, 2017 0:57:15 GMT -5
Just a heads-up since you're only four reviews away from it: if your praise of Lincoln is not sufficiently effusive I will literally murder you. Now I'm worried because I think I'm better at articulating why I hate things than why I like them. TMBG are a fine musical group I have liked since I was a small child and Lincoln is an outstanding album of songs. "Ana Ng" is an outstanding song and though the album contains nearly 30 songs, they're all pretty short and stylistically diverse so I don't get bored. I might just copy and paste this as my review once I get done with Husker Du and some kind of hour long krautrock/early electronica thing that's clearly on the list because it makes Pitchfork seem cooler than it actually is.
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Post by Nudeviking on Nov 26, 2017 20:34:38 GMT -5
Cocteau Twins - Blue Bell Knoll (1988)With Blue Bell Knoll, Cocteau Twins become the first band to log two albums on Pitchfork's list of the Greatest/Most Important/Best Looking Albums of the 1980s. What did they do to earn this honor? Today we're going to listen to Blue Bell Knoll and try to answer that question! Pre-Existing Prejudices
I have listened to one other album by Cocteau Twins as part of this project. I didn't really have strong feelings on it one way or another. There was some okay stuff on it but found it to be a bit boring overall and a tad too "New Agey." In the discussions that followed after reviewing that album it was revealed to me that Cocteau Twins ended up going more in that direction in the albums that followed Treasure, so I do not have high hopes for this. Songs
"Blue Bell Knoll" Casio harpsichords and ethereal wailing in an indeterminate language. This sure is a Cocteau Twins Song. I kind of like the back half of the song once the guitars and big rock drums come in and the faefolk vocals end. "Athol-Brose" Drum machines and guitar strumfuckery with a woodland sprite singing Renaissance Faire songs. The bridge is pretty good but there's a part where the singer does quasi-Red Hot Chili Peppers white guy rapping only it's just bullshit mouthsounds and not actual words. I'm not really about this song. "Carolyn’s Fingers" The singing’s really trilly and high pitched. It’s getting into fingernails on a chalkboard territory here, which is apropos given the song title. The instrumental stuff isn’t bad though. "For Phoebe Still a Baby" Slow, boring, and high pitched. Guitars that sound like harpsichords or maybe harpsichords that sounds like guitars. Who knows? I wonder if this was an actual attempt to write a song for a girl named Phoebe who was, at the time, still a baby. I guess as a lullaby it's not awful, but as a song for an adult doing adult things to it's not so great. Also if Phoebe (still a baby in 1988) is a real person, she's now nearly 30 years old. "The Itchy Glowbo Blow" This sounds a lot like the other songs on this able as well as those songs on the other Cocteau Twins album I listened to. It’s all wailing in the language of the pixies while guitars and synthesizers do their best to sound like crystals, but it's not bad. The slide guitar and guitar solo that show up towards the end are actually pretty good. "Cico Buff" More of the same. It’s not bad but I wish they’d do something different. It’s all skillfully done but it’s just so uniform sounding. "Suckling the Mender" There's really nothing to get excited about here. It's a song. It's competently done, but I feel nothing about it. It's just so middle of the road. I can't imagine anyone being like, "'Suckling the Mender' is my favorite song of all the times in the history of times!" nor can I envision anyone being driven into a frenzy of murderous rage by its existence. "Spooning Good Singing Gum" That’s quite the song title you got there Cocteau Twins. They slow things down a bit here but it’s otherwise the same. Lots of “Ahwoaaah woo heeee heee heee,” vocals, pristine guitars and drums that are probably a drum machine. "A Kissed Out Red Floatboat" Isn't "floatboat" kind of redundant? Like are there boats that don't float? I guess some gravy boats are probably too bottom heavy to float but other than that? I don't know. What I do know is this song has weird late 80s dance synths along side the standard issue Cocteau Twins guitar strumfuckery and wailing. This time I think at least some of the lyrics are in an actual language that human beings speak ("I'm standing here," is very clearly the opening line before it gets into wailing "uhhh eeeeeeee!" territory). I guess this song's not that bad. "Ella Megalast Burls Forever" Megalast is a pretty good name for a person to have but this song sounds like every other song on this album. I’m kind of glad that there aren't any other Cocteau Twins albums on this list. Final Thoughts
Cocteau Twins really stuck to their guns on the two albums of theirs I’ve heard. I can picture them getting together and saying, “We are going to write a version of this one song over and over again and people will like it!” The song they've elected to write isn't a bad song, but it’s not really the sort of thing I personally have any strong desire to listen to and moreover, after two albums of it I’m in no big hurry to listen to anything else Cocteau Twins have done. That being said I kind of begrudgingly respect them for creating a monolithic sound and sticking to it for however long they did. I mean even The Rolling Stones fucked around with disco. Best Song: "The Itchy Glowbo Blow" Worst Song: "Ella Megalast Burls Forever" (though that is the greatest song title in the history of the world and like "Wolf Blitzer" is kind of a waste of that name) Next time on Nudeviking vs. The 1980s, Pitchfork gets off the UK's jock and heads back to the US and A for a little band called Husker Du (with umlauts). Tune in next time to see me write badly about a musical album by a band I like when I review, New Day Rising.
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Post by Nudeviking on Nov 29, 2017 2:05:48 GMT -5
Hüsker Dü - New Day Rising (1985)This is another album I picked up in the late 90s early aughts when I had minimal living expenses and was pulling in a decent weekly salary. I'd probably heard some songs by them prior to purchasing this, but the real reason I bought this was because Bob Mould's follow up band, Sugar, was something I listened to a lot in middle/high school. Pre-Existing Prejudices
I've owned this album for close to two decades at this point. It's not something I listen to daily, but I've listened to it often enough that I more or less remember the song order and which songs I generally skipped over while listening to it on a boombox in my bedroom at age 17 or 18. Outside of the one or two songs that I would occasionally skip over back in the day I have a generally favorable opinion of this band and this album as I start this review. Songs"New Day Rising" The most titular title song ever composed. Dudes sing and scream "New Day Rising!" over pounding drums and guitar riffs that assail the listener for two and one half minutes. This is a fantastic album opener. "Girl Who Lives on Heaven Hill" This is a solid rock jam. The vocals are awesome and I like the random guitar heroics that show up. "I Apologize" This song seems like it was the template for a bajillion mainstream alternative bands circa 1995. So many Buzz Bin bands ripped this song off wholesale ten years after the fact which probably colors my opinion of it while listening to it in 2017. In 1985 this was probably really cutting edge. Even now after hearing it imitated by countless lesser bands, it's still a really good song. "Folk Lore" As a standalone song this is fine "melodic hardcore" or whatever you want to call what Hüsker Dü were doing, but in the context of this album it's just kind of there. There are similar sounding songs that do what this song does and do it better on this very album. If it showed up during shuffle mode I'd be fine with it but would never be like, "I really feel like listening to the song 'Folk Lore' by Hüsker Dü right now." "If I Told You" Not much to say about this. It's a random Hüsker Dü song that sounds exactly like you'd expect a random Hüsker Dü song to sound. There's some "Woah ohhhh woah oh!" chorus action going on. Grant Hart is good at hitting drums. "Celebrated Summer" A song about going buck-wild in the summer. There's a campfire acoustic guitar interlude in the middle before rocking the fuck out again. I actually heard Anthrax's cover of this song (I know, right?) before I even knew that Hüsker Dü existed and listened to that version a majillion times so the original still seems kind of weird to me. "Perfect Example" I like the guitar here and the fact that it's a bit slower and more mellow than the bulk of the songs appearing on this album. A decent breather before the next song rocks the fuck out again. "Terms of Psychic Warfare" FUCK YES!!! This song is great. I love the vocals. I love the rock n' roll guitar solo. I love the backing vocals. I love the riffs. You'd be hard pressed to find a better jam. "59 Times the Pain" Generic hardcore riffs give way to slowcore mumbling. The chorus is decent enough though and kind of pretty despite how shambolic it is. "Powerline" The bass deal at the end of this is kind of funny. "Books About UFOs" Wild west saloon pianos and punk guitars. This is one of the songs I generally skipped while listening to this album. Listening to it now, I kind of regret skipping it all these years since the back half of the song is a lot better than the cheeseball opening let on. "I Don't Know What You're Talking About" Prettied up hardcore. It's fine I guess. "How To Skin a Cat" Yup. Noise and glockenspiels and spoken word weirdness about skinning cats and feeding rats to cats and cats to rats that sounds like some Bizzaro mathematics word problem. This is rubbish and was the other song I skipped religiously when listening to this album (this song was the one track on this album that had zero plays according to iTunes since whenever added this album). "Whatcha Drinkin'?" Generic hardcore. I've heard a million bands do a million versions of this song that are better than this. "Plans I Make" Chaos and noise. This probably would have been fun to wreck shit to at a concert, but here it kind of goes on too long. Final Thoughts
This is a noisy album, by which I mean there's a lot of background noise on the recording. I grew up with cassettes and local bands' self-recorded 4-track demos and things of that ilk, so tape hiss and lo-fidelity doesn't really bother me much, but it does make it difficult to distinguish things like melody on some of the songs on this album. This isn't always a bad thing. A lot of time the noise adds to the fury of the songs. While I still like this album a lot there are some issues with it. Besides the poor recording quality, which could easily turn people off I personally think I think it's too long. The last three songs could be cut without losing anything crucial and tighten up the album, but by and large this is a pretty great album and well worth checking out. Best Song: "Terms of Psychic Warfare" or "Girl Who Lives on Heaven Hill" Worst Song: "How To Skin a Cat" Next time we continue the umlaut portion of Pitchfork's list of the most handsome albums of the 1980s with some kind of thing I've never heard of. Join me as I attempt to make heads or tails of Manuel Göttsching's 1984 music album of songs, E2-E4.
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repulsionist
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Post by repulsionist on Nov 29, 2017 19:50:11 GMT -5
Nudeviking, I like the Du plenty. Nicely formed essay re. your feelings about this record. I put forth my thoughts re. New Day Rising when this was reviewed some time back at TIF. I prefer Zen Arcade because of its narrative, my personal history with that record, usw. And, looking up the recording history of Zen Arcade - Jesus, recorded the whole thing in 40 hours with most songs being first takes, then mixed in around 40 hours. That's unbelievable. Simply incredible. Good luck with Goettsching, I hope you like introspective music.
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Post by Nudeviking on Nov 29, 2017 20:35:39 GMT -5
Nudeviking , I like the Du plenty. Nicely formed essay re. your feelings about this record. I put forth my thoughts re. New Day Rising when this was reviewed some time back at TIF. I prefer Zen Arcade because of its narrative, my personal history with that record, usw. And, looking up the recording history of Zen Arcade - Jesus, recorded the whole thing in 40 hours with most songs being first takes, then mixed in around 40 hours. That's unbelievable. Simply incredible. Good luck with Goettsching, I hope you like introspective music. Oh man it's introspective... *sigh* As for New Day Rising, my feelings for it were bizarrely mirrored by my feelings about the album, Speakerboxxx/The Love Below by Outkast. In both cases I purchased the album because of one dude (Bob Mould and Andre 3000 respectively) only to find myself drawn more towards the contributions of the other songwriter. And now for a fun fact related to Husker Du that I have nowhere else to put but want to bellow about. In the late 90s Bob Mould was a writer for professional wrestling company, WCW.
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repulsionist
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Post by repulsionist on Nov 30, 2017 2:33:07 GMT -5
If at first you don't care for it, you should do some reading about its recording and history. Pitchfork review from last year reads well-rounded. And, awesome factoid re. Mould, Nudeviking.
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repulsionist
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Post by repulsionist on Dec 1, 2017 0:24:26 GMT -5
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Post by Nudeviking on Dec 1, 2017 3:05:08 GMT -5
Manuel Göttsching - E2-E4 (1984)I don't often look at any information about the artists or albums I'm listening to in advance when I do these things, preferring to go in unsullied but this time I saw a Wikipedia article. I didn't mean to, but was trying to determine the track list since there were songs with English titles and German titles that ended up being the same songs and decided to look at Wikipedia and it was there that I saw the following: Never before has a single description summary of an album filled with with as much dread as this one does. This is basically everything I hate in music. It's long, it's based on maths or music theory, it's electronic, its minimalistic, and it's subdivided. Please remind me again why I'm doing this? Pre-Existing PrejudicesI have never heard of this dude or this album. Based on the description on Wikipedia I cannot see myself liking this but I'm going to attempt to keep an open mind. SongsIn spite Wikipedia's assertion that this is a single track the album has clearly demarcated songs, nine to be exact. These are those songs... "Ruhige Nervosität" / "Quiet Nervousness" This kind of reminds me of that Ghost I-IV album Nine Inch Nails did a few years back. This is not that bad. This first track's a bit long and repetitive but the thing that's getting repeated is pretty good so I can deal with it. "Gemäßigter Aufbruch" / "Moderate Start" A continuation of the song that proceeded it. There's some additional synth flourishes that appear as this track gets underway, but when one track ends and the next begins already seems very arbitrary. I like the synths that sound like ducks and/or farts that show up about six minutes in. Wait, is that actually a guitar making those farting duck sounds? Either way it's a cool sound. I'm about it. "..Und Mittelspiel" / "And Central Game" It's hard to write about these as individual pieces. It's the same basic melody but there's a slightly different feel to it and now there's a synth string section playing some stuff on top of the other stuff that's been going on since the album started. "Ansatz" / "Promise" The synths are kind of throbbing now. Maybe pulsating is a better description. Oh fuck there's random hippie guitar noodling of the sort you'd hear on your dad's Santana bootlegs only there's still drum machines and pulsating synths going on behind the guitar noodling. "Damen-Eleganza" / "Queen a Pawn" More guitar fuckery. This dude's pretty good on the guitar but I think the album-song was better before the guitar heroics began. There's a really fine line between a cool 1960s Woodstock guitar solo and guitar solo that would play on the Weather Channel while they showed your local forecast and this dude is walking that line here. It seems like maybe he agreed with me though since the synths are coming back to the forefront by the end of this track. "Ehrenvoller Kampf" / "Glorious Fight" Solid groove going on here. Random drum machine shit from the first five or ten minutes of this album-song is back. I'd forgotten about it. It's some good shit. Dude who's been playing rhythm guitar for awhile is back to doing Carlos Santana solos. "Hoheit Weicht (Nicht Ohne Schwung...)" / "H.R.H. Retreats (With a Swing)" This guitar riff's pretty great. It makes me want to take my guitar out of my closet and play it along to random late 70s early 80s electronica. "...Und Souveränität" / "And Sovereignty" Seems like we're cooling things down now. It had gotten pretty wild for awhile there. Random wind sounds effects are popping up in the background. "Remis" / "Draw" Those wind sound effects sound monstrous when they show up now. Shit's fading out. This is a solid ending to an album-song. Final ThoughtsHooray for trying new things outside one's wheelhouse! I really liked this album, but due to the way it's structured probably won't listen to it all that much. It's really an album that one has to listen to straight through from beginning to end and for better or for worse tapes and CDs and mp3s have trained the generations that followed the Baby Boomers to skip around and listen to music in a much more piecemeal fashion. I'll probably check out some more of Göttsching's discography though because if it turned out that he ever decided to marry music that sounds like this album with the pop music idea that a song should be like three minutes and twenty seconds long and contain a distinct song idea I'd be all over it. Best Song: N/A Worst Song: N/A Next time on Nudeviking vs. The Albums of the 1980s Voted Most Likely to Succeed we take a look at a band I've been a fan of since I was like 9 years old. Join me in writing, "I like this song," twenty some-odd times as I review They Might Be Giants' Lincoln.
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Rainbow Rosa
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Post by Rainbow Rosa on Dec 1, 2017 17:57:03 GMT -5
Don't worry, I will have plenty to say about Lincoln. Things to say that aren't "I like this song" over and over again, I mean.
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repulsionist
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Post by repulsionist on Dec 1, 2017 19:40:55 GMT -5
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Post by Deleted on Dec 1, 2017 20:46:46 GMT -5
I'll probably check out some more of Göttsching's discography though because if it turned out that he ever decided to marry music that sounds like this album with the pop music idea that a song should be like three minutes and twenty seconds long and contain a distinct song idea I'd be all over it. Well, don't get your hopes up for song brevity with Gottsching. His stuff tends to be either long jams or ambient suites. Nonetheless, his solo work, Ash Ra Tempel, and Ashra's New Age of Earth are all top-tier stuff in my opinion.
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Post by Roy Batty's Pet Dove on Dec 1, 2017 23:00:53 GMT -5
The Fall - Perverted By Language (1983)Songs
"Eat Y'self Fitter" This riff's okay, but it's repetitive and the song's too damn long. Word soup lyrics. The singer doesn't know what a computer is. I checked out about halfway through. I'd probably like this song more if it was half as long. I listened to this album a couple of days ago, and then, later on that day, I saw some iPad-or-whatever-the-shit commercial that I'd never seen before. In it, some asshole upper-middle class mom looks over at her dumb upper middle class son using his iPad and asks him something like "Doing work on your computer?" and her dumb upper middle class son turns to her and asks "What's a computer?" And I thought, "Wow, turns out Mark E. Smith was doing some real Philip K. Dick-style prescient commentary shit on shitty consumerist bullshit on "Cryptic Lyrics Song #1" on the album P erverted By Language".
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Post by Nudeviking on Dec 3, 2017 19:55:28 GMT -5
I'll probably check out some more of Göttsching's discography though because if it turned out that he ever decided to marry music that sounds like this album with the pop music idea that a song should be like three minutes and twenty seconds long and contain a distinct song idea I'd be all over it. Well, don't get your hopes up for song brevity with Gottsching. His stuff tends to be either long jams or ambient suites. Nonetheless, his solo work, Ash Ra Tempel, and Ashra's New Age of Earth are all top-tier stuff in my opinion. I'll check it out since I liked what he did here, but like this it probably won't be the sort of thing I put on my phone to listen to on shuffle while at the gym.
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Post by Nudeviking on Dec 5, 2017 19:30:23 GMT -5
They Might Be Giants - Lincoln (1988)Like many people who were impressionable youths in the late 80s and early 90s I first became aware of They Might Be Giants via Tiny Toon Adventures when their songs, "Particle Man," and "Istanbul," showed up. I soon after ended up with a copy of Flood on cassette and later had their debut and this album as well. Much like The B-52s and Weird Al (two other artists I liked as a nine or ten year old) I followed They Might Be Giants off and on in the years that followed, but still have a more or less favorable opinion of them today. So let's listen to their 1988 album, Lincoln, and see if that favorable opinion is warranted. Pre-Existing Prejudices
I've probably listened to this album hundreds of times in my life, but to be honest it's been years since I've last listened to it straight through from beginning to end. Songs
"Ana Ng" What a grand little pop song this is! I might go so far as to say this is the finest song TMBG ever produced. I don't think anything else on this album matches the awesomeness of this song though there are a couple that kind of come close I suppose. "Cowtown" This is a weird song. It's clarinets and heavy metal guitars doing a country-western sea shanty about cows living under the sea. "Lie Still, Little Bottle" Jazz. There's a swing beat and snapping and a walking bass line. "Purple Toupee" Aw ye ye! Stream of consciousness lyrics. Maybe about how shitty Baby Boomers are? I have no idea. I do enjoy that They Might Be Giants don't seem to use real bass on the bulk of these songs. "Cage & Aquarium" Kind of sounds like Morphine, baritone saxes and all. I kind of like it but it's only like a minute long. "Where Your Eyes Don't Go" References to Kurtis Blow. Good synth noises. Solid guitar solo. This is really good. Probably the second or third best song on the album. "Piece of Dirt" Accordions and white guy doing R&B vocals. Saxophones farting. I didn't think this was particularly good the first couple times I listened to it in order to write this review, but it kind of grew on me the more I heard it. "Mr. Me" A drum machine and sequencer based polka song with sea shanty pirate crew vocals during the chorus. This is kind of goofy. I would skip this if it came up on shuffle. "Pencil Rain" A battle song about pencils I guess? It kind of reminds me of Vangelis' "Chariots of Fire Theme." This is also really of goofy but it's got decent guitar heroics and Ennio Morricone Fistful of Dollars trumpets in the back half. "The World's Address" Sex in the City or whatever that show's called basically jacked this song's instrumental for their opening theme song. It's a fine panache of a Latin jazz song. "I've Got a Match" A happy sounding song either about how shitty love is or lighting farts on fire. I'm not entirely sure which one since the lyrics are kind of all over the place but accordions abound either way. "Santa's Beard" One on the Johns gets cuckolded by his friend while that friend is dressed as Santa Claus. I'm all about this song. It's got rock organs, fake slap bass, a fantastic melody, and a message that all of us can relate to. "You'll Miss Me" I don't even know. Smooth jazz and bellowing I guess. Screeching saxophones and skinny dudes doing fat guy voices. This is stupid. "They'll Need a Crane" Huzzah for happy sounding songs about heartbreak! "Shoehorn with Teeth" I bet they thought the lyrics here were really, really clever. I did not care for this song at all. If I were to say one good thing about it it would be that it was a short song. "Stand on Your Own Head" Decent banjo part here. "Snowball in Hell" I'm pro-glockenspiel so this is a pretty decent jam. "If it weren't for disappointment I wouldn't have any appointments," is a great lyric. The self-help album samples in the middle kind of detract from the song though. "Kiss Me, Son of God" The string arrangement is pretty boss. Final Thoughts
While I overall still think this album is pretty good it's very much an album that I think one needs to hear at age 10 to truly appreciate. There are a fair number of songs here that are too zany for zaniness' sake for someone who regularly does adult things to really appreciate. While I might have been fine with multiple sea shanties when I was in elementary school, at age (redacted) I kind of rolled my eyes at some of the goofy song panaches by the end of the album, but some of that is just me being a miserable old fuck. This overabundance of songs done in completely random musical styles does lead to a slightly more serious problem, mainly that it causes this album to feel like just a random collection of songs rather than a proper album. There's no real cohesion here and one's experience in listening to this album wouldn't be any different if they were to put the songs in a complete random order then it would if they listened to it straight through from beginning to end. That being said, I am glad for They Might Be Giants and this album existing. Even though there are parts of it that are not particularly good the highs are among some of the best pop songs ever written. Moreover they would go on to influence either directly or indirectly a heap of bands I would like later in my life (Self, The Unicorns, Atom and His Package, Beck, etc.) so for that I owe them a debt of gratitude. In conclusion They Might Be Giants are a land of contrasts. Thank you. Best Song: "Ana Ng" Worst Song: "Shoehorn with Teeth" Next time on Nudeviking vs. The 1980's Best Albums As Compiled By Joyless Nerds That Never Had Sex In High School we get sad and British with The Smiths. Let's find out if Morrisey was always problematic or if he just turned into a piece of shit in his old age. Strageways, Here We Come indeed!
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Rainbow Rosa
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Post by Rainbow Rosa on Dec 6, 2017 1:14:21 GMT -5
They Might Be Giants - Lincoln (1988)Like many people who were impressionable youths in the late 80s and early 90s I first became aware of They Might Be Giants via Tiny Toon Adventures when their songs, "Particle Man," and "Istanbul," showed up. I soon after ended up with a copy of Flood on cassette and later had their debut and this album as well. Much like The B-52s and Weird Al (two other artists I liked as a nine or ten year old) I followed They Might Be Giants off and on in the years that followed, but still have a more or less favorable opinion of them today. So let's listen to their 1988 album, Lincoln, and see if that favorable opinion is warranted. Oh yes. Yeeeeees. Lincoln is not my favorite TMBG album. It's probably their, uh... third best. In my estimation, the best TMBG album is Factory Showroom because it packs the biggest emotional wallop on top of the great songwriting, and the second best is Apollo 18 because it's the peak of their throw-shit-at-the-wall-and-see-what-sticks approach; Lincoln is a little less emotionally resonant than the former and a little less musically consistent than the latter. Regardless, though: taken as a coherent whole, this is easily the most sophisticated personal/political statement in the entire TMBG oeuvre, and maybe even in the entire indie rock pantheon. HEAR ME OUT HERE. You are correct to assume that "Purple Toupee" is a takedown of the Boomers-- because Lincoln is, from start to finish, a panoramic time-lapse of the Baby Boomers' slow slide from egalitarian ideals to cynical disillusionment to Reagan-era artifice and self-absorption. It is the tale of how balding yuppies usurped long-haired hippies as the dominant cultural force of America. "Purple toupee is here to stay / after the hair has gone away." This isn't just a lyrical undercurrent to the album-- it is a deliberate, mathematical chain of events. As it happens, au contraire, au contraire, mon frére! Note the following lyrics: "All alone at the '64 Worlds Fair / eighty dolls yelling small girl after all" - "Ana Ng" (track 1) "I shouted out, free the Expo '67 / til they stomped on my head / and they told me I was fat" - "Purple Toupee" (track 4) The events of these songs are three years apart, and the songs themselves are three tracks apart. I don't think this is a coincidence. I think that this is the secret to understanding Lincoln-- the eighteen tracks on this album span the eighteen years from 1964 to 1981, one year per track and in consecutive order. Viewed this way, a lot of the weirder tracks start to make sense. In isolation, "Cage and Aquarium" is a lightweight bounce-a-thon riffing on Hair as a weird intellectual exercise. ("This is the spawning of the cage and aquarium" is a pretty obvious spoof, although I bet that went over your head as a ten-year-old-- in that respect, TMBG were a perfect fit for Tiny Toon Adventures.) But '68 was the beginning of the end for the counterculture: the tenor of the youth culture was co-opted ("they're digging through all your files / stealing back your best ideas"), reduced to fodder for big-budget Broadway musicals (hence the "Hair" spoof). And that's not even mentioning the nonstop tumult-- "yawn as your plane goes down in flames." (Hey, what are the odds TMBG are 9/11 truthers?) I'm sure you can read every song on the album in this fashion. Personally, I like to imagine that "You'll Miss Me" (which coincides with the American bicentennial) is sung by the ghost of Abe Lincoln, demeaning the modern GOP. Am I overcomplicating this deeply silly album? Maybe a little. But hey, it's not that farfetched an idea.
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Post by Nudeviking on Dec 6, 2017 1:22:33 GMT -5
They Might Be Giants - Lincoln (1988)Like many people who were impressionable youths in the late 80s and early 90s I first became aware of They Might Be Giants via Tiny Toon Adventures when their songs, "Particle Man," and "Istanbul," showed up. I soon after ended up with a copy of Flood on cassette and later had their debut and this album as well. Much like The B-52s and Weird Al (two other artists I liked as a nine or ten year old) I followed They Might Be Giants off and on in the years that followed, but still have a more or less favorable opinion of them today. So let's listen to their 1988 album, Lincoln, and see if that favorable opinion is warranted. Oh yes. Yeeeeees. Lincoln is not my favorite TMBG album. It's probably their, uh... third best. In my estimation, the best TMBG album is Factory Showroom because it packs the biggest emotional wallop on top of the great songwriting, and the second best is Apollo 18 because it's the peak of their throw-shit-at-the-wall-and-see-what-sticks approach; Lincoln is a little less emotionally resonant than the former and a little less musically consistent than the latter. Regardless, though: taken as a coherent whole, this is easily the most sophisticated personal/political statement in the entire TMBG oeuvre, and maybe even in the entire indie rock pantheon. HEAR ME OUT HERE. You are correct to assume that "Purple Toupee" is a takedown of the Boomers-- because Lincoln is, from start to finish, a panoramic time-lapse of the Baby Boomers' slow slide from egalitarian ideals to cynical disillusionment to Reagan-era artifice and self-absorption. It is the tale of how balding yuppies usurped long-haired hippies as the dominant cultural force of America. "Purple toupee is here to stay / after the hair has gone away." This isn't just a lyrical undercurrent to the album-- it is a deliberate, mathematical chain of events. As it happens, au contraire, au contraire, mon frére! Note the following lyrics: "All alone at the '64 Worlds Fair / eighty dolls yelling small girl after all" - "Ana Ng" (track 1) "I shouted out, free the Expo '67 / til they stomped on my head / and they told me I was fat" - "Purple Toupee" (track 4) The events of these songs are three years apart, and the songs themselves are three tracks apart. I don't think this is a coincidence. I think that this is the secret to understanding Lincoln-- the eighteen tracks on this album span the eighteen years from 1964 to 1981, one year per track and in consecutive order. Viewed this way, a lot of the weirder tracks start to make sense. In isolation, "Cage and Aquarium" is a lightweight bounce-a-thon riffing on Hair as a weird intellectual exercise. ("This is the spawning of the cage and aquarium" is a pretty obvious spoof, although I bet that went over your head as a ten-year-old-- in that respect, TMBG were a perfect fit for Tiny Toon Adventures.) But '68 was the beginning of the end for the counterculture: the tenor of the youth culture was co-opted ("they're digging through all your files / stealing back your best ideas"), reduced to fodder for big-budget Broadway musicals (hence the "Hair" spoof). And that's not even mentioning the nonstop tumult-- "yawn as your plane goes down in flames." (Hey, what are the odds TMBG are 9/11 truthers?) I'm sure you can read every song on the album in this fashion. Personally, I like to imagine that "You'll Miss Me" (which coincides with the American bicentennial) is sung by the ghost of Abe Lincoln, demeaning the modern GOP. Am I overcomplicating this deeply silly album? Maybe a little. But hey, it's not that farfetched an idea. How does "Santa's Beard" fit into this?
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Rainbow Rosa
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Post by Rainbow Rosa on Dec 6, 2017 1:33:04 GMT -5
Ummmmm... I can't give you a historical explanation for it, but it does fit nicely between "I've Got A Match" and "They'll Need A Crane" as part of the bad marriage trilogy of tunes on this album, I guess.
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Post by Nudeviking on Dec 6, 2017 1:43:22 GMT -5
Ummmmm... I can't give you a historical explanation for it, but it does fit nicely between "I've Got A Match" and "They'll Need A Crane" as part of the bad marriage trilogy of tunes on this album, I guess. Goddamn friends in Santa Claus costumes breakin' up marriages in the 70s!
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repulsionist
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Post by repulsionist on Dec 6, 2017 19:49:31 GMT -5
TMBG, I saw them at Einstein A-Go-Go (Jacksonville Beach, FL) before this album or during its tour in 1988. Cursory research reveals 24 June 1988 to have been their stop in that burg. Hot, summer fun almost 30 years ago! I had this album and its predecessor. I don't have them now. I liked the gamboling melodies and "pounce"itude these tunes have. I don't listen to it today. I tried to do so just now, but couldn't finish it - which may say more about my constitution than it does this record. Rain your hatred of preference upon me, Rainbow Rosa .
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Post by songstarliner on Dec 6, 2017 21:07:58 GMT -5
They Might Be Giants are the undisputed kings of clever-clever nerd rock, and I'll love them forever. I've seen them four or five times, and every show was brilliant and funny and LOUD: they rock. They make you want to jump around; they're full of goofy cheerful energy. Sure, they're dorks, but man do I love dorks.
Stray Observations about Lincoln.
*The Pencil Rain has a hidden Morse code message in the instrumental bridge.
*Ana Ng was one of the first videos I saw on Mtv that made me sit up and pay attention. I agree with NV: best song on the album and one of their best songs, period.
*Worst Earworms: Shoehorn With Teeth, Cowtown, The Pencil Rain
*Where Your Eyes Don't Go is terrifying nightmare song: 'Where your eyes don't go a filthy scarecrow waves its broomstick arms And does a parody of each unconscious thing you do When you turn around to look it's gone behind you On its face it's wearing your confused expression Where your eyes don't go.'
*Top three songs here: 1) Ana Ng 2) They'll Need a Crane 3) Where Your Eyes Don't Go. The rest .... all sorts of good and weird and almost-there, the fractured bits of brilliance that became their brand.
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repulsionist
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Post by repulsionist on Dec 7, 2017 17:55:24 GMT -5
Hey, this isn't my flyer from Christmas 1988/New Year's 1989, but what appears below gives some insight as to how the list came about - or at least I think so. Be it hearsay or direct experience, most of the bands listed were touring extensively during Pitchfork's writers' formative period, or perhaps their siblings' most formative period. Just in the first quarter of 1989, 3 of the 100 bands show up in an Azerradian cataract at this little venue in Jacksonville Beach. I imply that nearer bigger urban centres there would have been even more of the bands on the list during this period, though I have no hard evidence to support that position. Rhetorical posturing: By the way, how did Yo La Tengo avoid inclusion? Are they in the 90s list? End posturing, continue vain grandstanding. Also note River Phoenix and his sister performing in between Janes Addiction and Ben Vaughn. I also did that month's poetry reading, I believe - because: teen age. As I mentioned in your disdainful review of Nothing's Shocking, I got to the show listed below. I also went with a high school friend to the Dinosaur Jr. show after he won a pair of tickets from the alterna-music cable access show. That show really hurt our ears, even with earplugs. Unfortunately, this dear friend decided to pre-game the show and spent a long time filling the toilets with his puke. Thanks, Boone's Farm! Still, it was an incredible experience. They played a mix of Bug, You're Living All Over Me, and I want to say they did their Cure cover then. Maybe it was their Peter Frampton one? I don't remember anymore. This too will pass. P.S. Don't sleep on Poi Dog Pondering. Get a taste of the jam band phenomenon in its nascent stages.
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Post by Prole Hole on Dec 8, 2017 9:28:30 GMT -5
I'll write more later, because I absolutely adore this album, but I just want to say that Ana Ng is one of the finest pop songs ever written.
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Post by Nudeviking on Dec 8, 2017 9:52:15 GMT -5
I'll write more later, because I absolutely adore this album, but I just want to say that Ana Ng is one of the finest pop songs ever written. ”Ana Ng” is one of the songs I’d put on a hypothetical desert island mix tape.
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