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Post by Nudeviking on Feb 26, 2018 21:34:33 GMT -5
Television Personalities - ...And Don't the Kids Just Love It (1981)Another album by a band I know nothing about, but I've been doing this for awhile now, so if I'd have to guess I'd say they're probably British, probably released one or two albums that were out of print for most of the 80s, played jangly guitar pop music that "influenced R.E.M. and/or the Pixies." I wonder how many of these are true. “Diary of a Young Man” UG! Fucking spoken word bullshit and it’s poorly recorded to boot. I have no idea what this fucker is mumbling about. The choruses are a bunch of “la la las.” Yeah, it's a shame that the list is so focused on obscure British bands who influenced R.E.M. and/or the Pixies, and didn't include entries from other genres by bands whose choruses were a bunch of 'la la las'. I prefer Limozeen...but they're in space to garden variety Limozeen.
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Post by Nudeviking on Apr 23, 2018 20:48:05 GMT -5
Good news everyone! After a brief sabbatical during which I reviewed the complete discography of Guns N' Roses I am feeling much better about Pitchfork and the 1980s and jangle pop that may or may not have influenced R.E.M. and have thus decided to return to this project. That being said I think I am going to have to revise the scope of it. I have decided to skip the vast majority of the remaining list and just review the top 20 albums, but if there are others beyond those 19 albums (I already reviewed Sister during one of the record club album of the month things) that you think I should review, get your nominations in now so I can plan accordingly. MORE GOODER ALBUMS OF THE 1980S AS SELECTED BY PITCHFORK RETROACTIVE TASTEMAKERS YE YE!!!!
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Post by Roy Batty's Pet Dove on Apr 23, 2018 21:11:46 GMT -5
Good news everyone! After a brief sabbatical during which I reviewed the complete discography of Guns N' Roses I am feeling much better about Pitchfork and the 1980s and jangle pop that may or may not have influenced R.E.M. and have thus decided to return to this project. That being said I think I am going to have to revise the scope of it. I have decided to skip the vast majority of the remaining list and just review the top 20 albums, but if there are others beyond those 19 albums (I already reviewed Sister during one of the record club album of the month things) that you think I should review, get your nominations in now so I can plan accordingly. MORE GOODER ALBUMS OF THE 1980S AS SELECTED BY PITCHFORK RETROACTIVE TASTEMAKERS YE YE!!!! Most of the best albums that you're skipping are ones that someone else already has or will soon cover, or is an album that's been a T.I.F. Record Club selection fairly recently. That being said, looking at what's left, I think My Life In the Bush of Ghosts, The Perfect Prescription, Straight Outta' Compton, and Discipline might be worth considering.
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Rainbow Rosa
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Post by Rainbow Rosa on Apr 23, 2018 21:28:34 GMT -5
It may be worth extending your range slightly to the top 25, if only for Damaged and Psychocandy. I have a soft spot for Mission of Burma but they're not essential.
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Post by Nudeviking on Apr 23, 2018 22:11:58 GMT -5
It may be worth extending your range slightly to the top 25, if only for Damaged and Psychocandy. I have a soft spot for Mission of Burma but they're not essential. I might honestly do both Mission of Burma albums of this list just because I love them.
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Post by Prole Hole on Apr 25, 2018 6:33:02 GMT -5
Good news everyone! After a brief sabbatical during which I reviewed the complete discography of Guns N' Roses I am feeling much better about Pitchfork and the 1980s and jangle pop that may or may not have influenced R.E.M. and have thus decided to return to this project. That being said I think I am going to have to revise the scope of it. I have decided to skip the vast majority of the remaining list and just review the top 20 albums, but if there are others beyond those 19 albums (I already reviewed Sister during one of the record club album of the month things) that you think I should review, get your nominations in now so I can plan accordingly. MORE GOODER ALBUMS OF THE 1980S AS SELECTED BY PITCHFORK RETROACTIVE TASTEMAKERS YE YE!!!! I really, really want to tell you to cover Kraftwerk's Computer World, because I'm obsessed with Kraftwerk, but knowing your musical taste I'm doubtful that you would actually like it, so I won't. (If you want to plug gaps in the list for R.E.M. feel free to link to my album reviews, by the way.)
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repulsionist
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Post by repulsionist on Apr 25, 2018 17:43:19 GMT -5
Stuff this forum hasn't explicitly done yet, and thereby my requests. Spacemen 3 - The Perfect Prescription XTC - English Settlement Big Black - Songs About Fucking Dinosaur Jr. - You're Living All Over Me Hüsker Dü - Zen Arcade Run D.M.C. - Raising Hell ganews covered Sign O'the Times, Computer World's been done by Anniversary Record Club and Prole Hole, as has the R.E.M. entries preceding Top 20. Do what you want, I'm just gonna drop in and rant. You know me.
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Post by Nudeviking on May 2, 2018 1:09:39 GMT -5
This Heat - Deceit (1981)Time to get all Lost or New Girl up in this mug and do a time jump. I'm now in the top twenty most important albums of the 1980s as determined by Pitchfork Media. Weren't all those R.E.M. inspiring jangle pop albums super good and important? Now, let us never speak of them again. Anyway today we're looking at the 20th most important album of the decade of the 1980s, an album titled Deceit by a band known as This Heat. I have never heard of this band or this album. A quick internet search informs me that they are British, and were not particularly well known at the time, but became something of a cult favorite in the years that have followed, seems like precisely the sort of thing Pitchfork tastemakers would put on their list while leaving off every goddamn Madonna album to make themselves seem ahead of the curve. Pre-Existing Prejudices
I've never heard of this band before or this album. The cover's got a bunch of Cold War imagery on it, and they've got a song named after a Japanese term for the diseases victims of the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki were afflicted with so I'm guessing this is going to be some good old fashioned early 80s fear of nuclear annihilation post-punk or jangle pop or whatever. Songs
"Sleep" A too deep-voice guy mumbles "Sleep, sleep, sleep. Go to sleep," over minimalist synth noise and a ramshackle drumbeat. A less deep-voiced guy starts singing some other stuff. This is like some extremely fucked up lullaby. I do not care much for this. "Paper Hats" Moaning vocals. Generic post-punk guitar riffs. Dude is straight up caterwauling now. We're back to the moaning vocals. Random skittering and drum machine noise before guitar noodling that goes nowhere. This is too damn long. "Triumph" Dying synths farting. AW FUCK YEAH KAZOOS! More rock albums need kazoos on them. The rest of this song is just random noise. Maybe these aren't actually kazoos. Maybe they're proper woodwind instruments. I can't actually tell. I can't tell what most of the instruments used on this album actually are. More moaning vocals. "S.P.Q.R." Pretty generic post-punk with more moany vocals. Dude's yelling about all roads leading back to Rome. This is not all that awful. "Cenotaph" This intro rules hard. Here are a bunch of moaning British fucks groaning about history repeating itself to ruin a perfectly good instrumental track. These seems like something some hip-hop dude should have sampled at some point. This is probably the best song on this album. "Shrink Wrap" Tape manipulation and tribal drumming. More dudes moaning shit. It's only like a minute and a half long. "Radio Prague" Sounds like someone fucking around with a receiver and picking up actual Czech radio broadcasts. Some random cellos pop up at the end to do cello menacing. This is useless but kind of serves as an intro to the next track I guess. "Makeshift Swahili" The verses are all barked and growling but on the choruses someone actually sings and isn't awful. We get more tape fuckery that make it sound like a live recording of someone playing in an unfinished basement. "Independence" Vaguely "Oriental" sounding with flutes and weird percussion. Are these fuckers just reading the Declaration of Independence in the same moany voice they've used for every other song? Holy fuck they are. I wonder if this counts as being punk because they're a British band. Is it the same as the Nazi fetishism of British punk bands in the 70s? Did jacking lyrics from the biggest middle finger to British rule in the history of British rule ruffle a bunch of feathers? Did people even know that This Heat existed? Inquiring minds want to know. "A New Kind of Water" The opening of this is very unnerving. There are some cool guitar parts here. This is probably one of the more accessible songs on this album. "被爆症" Aimless strumming on an untuned guitar. Melodica. Random skittering noises. Radio frequencies. Church bells. I guess this is what a post-apocalyptic wasteland sounds like. Final Thoughts
Some of the music here was decent enough but I really did not care for the singing, which more often than not sounded like poorly done Gregorian chanting. I could hear stuff here that would go on to influence other bands that Pitchfork would cream their jeans over (but the average man on the street has never heard of either) so I can kind of see why they'd put this on their list, but over all this is not an album I'll probably ever listen to again. If I need some 1980s fear of getting nuked pop culture I'll go watch The Day After or Threads. Oh who am I kidding, I'd watch Red Dawn... Best Song: "Cenotaph" Worst Song: "Radio Prague" Pitchfork's Top 100 Albums of the 1980s: #20Next time on Nudeviking vs. The 1980s we go back to the first year of the 1980s, 1979, to take a look at PiL's Metal Box, which Pitchfork listed as Second Edition to get around the fact that the album was released in the 70s by including the 1980 reissue which varied from the original in packaging and I guess the track listing, but again, good job Pitchfork for not having any metal on your best albums of the 80s list but having enough room to include an album from 1979 and in the top twenty no less!
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repulsionist
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Post by repulsionist on May 2, 2018 16:33:56 GMT -5
You've started with this list's eminent example of "record I have in my collection because it clearly displays I am COOL". I didn't have this band's work in my youth, but I did have plenty of other rubbish like it to stake a claim in the vast tundra of COOL. I'm listening through the YouTube version at the moment. For some reason I got really excited by This Heat's preceding eponymous album a few years back. Carry on.
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Post by Nudeviking on May 2, 2018 23:22:42 GMT -5
You've started with this list's eminent example of "record I have in my collection because it clearly displays I am COOL". I didn't have this band's work in my youth, but I did have plenty of other rubbish like it to stake a claim in the vast tundra of COOL. I'm listening through the YouTube version at the moment. For some reason I got really excited by This Heat's preceding eponymous album a few years back. Carry on. In reading about them prior to listening to this album, their debut actually seemed cooler than this. I haven't listened to it, and probably never will, but it print it seemed conceptually pretty cool.
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Post by Nudeviking on May 16, 2018 1:27:07 GMT -5
#19: Public Image Ltd. - Second Edition (1979)The fact that this album is on this list makes me roll my eyes even harder at the fact that there's zero metal on Pitchfork's list of the best albums of the 80s. No, it's not because I think this is a shit album, unworthy of praise, quite the contrary, it's a great album, one of the best of its decade: the 1970s. Released in 1979, as Metal Box, in a cost prohibitive metal film canister, the album was reissued in 1980 with normal album sleeve and the title, Second Edition, which I guess is how Pitchfork was able to justify putting it on a list of the best albums of the 1980s. It seems kind of sketchy to me, but whatever, it's on the list so I'm listening to it. Pre-Existing Prejudices
I purchased this at some point in the late 90s on CD after owning Never Mind the Bollocks... I think John Lydon is generally a dickbag, but he occasionally makes interesting music. I have not listened to his entire discography, but I'm of the mind that of the things of his I have heard, this is head and shoulders above the rest (mostly because of the company he kept on this one). Songs
"Albatross" Funky bass and skronky metallic sounding guitar noise start us off. It's been awhile since I've listened to this and had forgotten how different John Lydon and "Johnny Rotten" sound. This seems more like a practice space jam than a finished song. It kind of goes on too long and the lyrics seems really off the cuff. That being said, there's some good stuff here, but I'd probably like it more if it were tightened up. "Memories" The guitars are playing vaguely Spanish melodies. There's so much flanging going on on the guitars. There's some disco inspired drum stuff. This is pretty good. "Swan Lake" Disco beats and funky bass licks abound while the guitarist alternates between playing discordant guitar noise and a mangled version of the main melody of Tchaikovsky's "Swan Lake." The lyrics are about someone dying. Weird synths at the end. "Poptones" This is really ramshackle. Bass like a snake, surprisingly pretty guitars and haphazard drumming. Nothing here really harmonizes with anything else happening in the song but somehow it all fits together into a really unnerving song that I guess is about kidnapping and murder or something. It's a lot better than it has any right being. "Careering" Sci-fi synths up in this mug. Drums that sound like someone hammering on a metal trash can. This is so goddamn good. Why isn't this a sound that more bands decided to ape in the years that followed? "Socalist" This is an instrumental with straightforward almost punk bass riff, drumming with phasing cymbals, and cheapass synth noise. It's a fine song, but kind of a step down from the last five songs. "Graveyard" The is another instrumental. The drums sound fake. Bass is really bassing it up. The guitars are pretty random alternating between cowboy shit and discordant noise. Not that great. "The Suit" Lydon talk sing-talks about a "society boy" who plays tennis and football and sips champagne while rudimentary drumming and a funky bass riff basses it up. "Bad Baby" More funky bass and disco drums and wonky synth noise. Lydon whisper sings about leaving a baby in a carpark and other random stuff. Seems more like a first take jam than a proper song. "No Birds" And we're back to ownage! This guitar riff rules. The tom heavy drumming is great as is the bass. I like the random bullshit piano plinking that pops up as well. It's weird and awesome how this song is simultaneously pretty and ugly as fuck. "Chant" Drum clubbering. Stabs of guitar noise. The most Johnny Rotten-esque vocals on this album, unless he's also doing the random chanting that is going on throughout the song (which is decidedly not Johnny Rotten-esque). We get some weird circus synths at the end to close things out. "Radio Four" Fake string section and synth swells. A dexterous bassline. This is surprisingly mellow. Final Thoughts
From "Albatross" to "Careering" this album is goddamn amazing. That's not to say that the stuff that follows is bad, because it's really not. "No Birds" is as good as those first five tracks and the remaining songs are "not bad" at worst. This version of PiL is the best and it's kind of a shame that John Lydon is such a miserable douchelord that the band that played on this album ceased being a thing soon after this album was released. Some of the PiL albums that followed this were good, but none of them come close how much this album rules. Best Song: "Careering" Worst Song: "Graveyard" Next time on Nudeviking vs. The 1980's we take a listen to an album about as stylistically different from this one as you could get when we examine De La Soul's 3 Feet High and Rising.
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repulsionist
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Post by repulsionist on May 16, 2018 20:25:26 GMT -5
Nudeviking, I posit that this album gets included because of its availability. The US-centric Pitchfork derived a list that is an artefact of nostalgia. In the US, Second Edition was the only easy way to get this thing many only read or heard about in various music magazines and word-of-mouth in the 80s and 90s. I had this Second Edition as a dub in my teens but hated it, and listened to Flowers of Romance more than Second Edition back then - which is what stupidly obtuse, purposely weird teens do; however, it also apparently had merit to the ears of one Phil Collins. I preferred and still prefer Album/Cassette/CD as my favorite PiL. I chose to purchase the 1990 Metal Box re-issue tchotchke some, oh jay-sus, 20 years ago. These days, I do very much enjoy this record as you do.
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Post by Prole Hole on May 17, 2018 4:53:13 GMT -5
Having read Lydon's autobiography (both of them) it's absolutely certain that the near-heroic levels of drugs consumption within the band was the primary reason that this version of PiL fell apart. That they were able to even get this album out seems to have been nothing short of a miracle, and Lydon states that he simply couldn't stand to be around junkies who were willfully destroying themselves while he was trying to put his heart and soul into the music project that was PiL. There's no question Lydon can be, indeed, a dickbag but that doesn't seem to be the principal reason this incarnation of the band ended.
Metal Box (I'm not calling it Second Edition, bugger that) is indeed a fantastic album, though I do also prefer Album overall. I agree with Nudie's observation that this album does kind of fall away after an absolutely stellar beginning - never bad, but never quite as good again. Albatross and Careening are simply phenomenal, but Poptones is jaw-droppingly good. Brilliant album overall though, no doubt about that.
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Post by Nudeviking on May 17, 2018 19:55:45 GMT -5
Having read Lydon's autobiography (both of them) it's absolutely certain that the near-heroic levels of drugs consumption within the band was the primary reason that this version of PiL fell apart. That they were able to even get this album out seems to have been nothing short of a miracle, and Lydon states that he simply couldn't stand to be around junkies who were willfully destroying themselves while he was trying to put his heart and soul into the music project that was PiL. There's no question Lydon can be, indeed, a dickbag but that doesn't seem to be the principal reason this incarnation of the band ended. Metal Box (I'm not calling it Second Edition, bugger that) is indeed a fantastic album, though I do also prefer Album overall. I agree with Nudie's observation that this album does kind of fall away after an absolutely stellar beginning - never bad, but never quite as good again. Albatross and Careening are simply phenomenal, but Poptones is jaw-droppingly good. Brilliant album overall though, no doubt about that. My apologies to Mr. Lydon for assuming that it was his cantankerous nature that lead to the end of this iteration of PiL rather than his strong negative feelings towards those who over imbibe in illicit drugs. Do you know if either Kieth Levene or Jah Wobble ever returned to the PiL-fold in later years? Both dudes are still alive which leads me to believe that they've probably cleaned up their acts, though Lydon's dickishness makes him seem like a person who's not inclined to forgive and forget. As for "Poptones" it's grown a lot on me over the past few days (this album has continued to be on my player since writing). I thought it was pretty good while writing the review, but on repeated listenings I might go so far as to say it's the best song on the album. I still think "Careering" has better vocals, but as an overall song "Poptones" might be better.
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Post by Prole Hole on May 25, 2018 3:33:00 GMT -5
I'm remembering a little hazily here, but as I understand it there's no love lost on either side - I don't think Wobble really wants to work with Lydon again and I don't think Lydon wants to work with Wobble again. I can't remember if it was in his autobiography or not, but I did read somewhere that Lydon was also of an opinion that those early couple of PiL albums were basically lightning in a bottle, so not something that could be recreated just by getting the same people in a room together, but also that he's moved on from that kind of work and doesn't like looking backwards in his PiL career. We'll politely draw a veil over the looking-backwards that was the Sex Pistols reunion here, but yeah, when it comes to PiL he regards that as his primary creative outlet and that must always move forward.
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Post by Nudeviking on Jun 21, 2018 2:11:02 GMT -5
#18: De La Soul - 3 Feet High and RisingIn the late 80s and early 90s I had a brief stint as an elementary school aged hip-hop aficionado. This more or less came about because I liked MC Hammer and would watch Yo! MTV Raps hoping that they would play the video for "Addams Family Groove" or whatever the MC Hammer single du jour was. So dedicated to Yo! MTV Raps was I at age ten or eleven that I actually owned a bunch of Yo! MTV Raps trading cards. Yo! MTV Raps
It was undoubtedly Doctor Dre (the one pictured above rather than the one you're thinking of) and Ed Lover who introduced me to De La Soul, but I couldn't tell you exactly what song it was that made me decide to part with my hard earned allowance money and purchase 3 Feet High and Rising at some point in the early 90s. What I do know is I owned this album on cassette, purchased most likely at the Caldor near my house. Pre-Existing Prejudices
Often with the music of my youth I have to claim that I haven't listened to it recently, so whatever hot takes I have about the album are sometimes decades old and thus subject to change, but in this instance that is not the case. While I never replaced that original cassette I bought in 1990 or 1991, several years ago De La Soul put their entire discography up for a day or some to be downloaded for free. I snagged the entire thing and have listened to it when the mood hits since then. My overall feeling with this particular album is that even though there's a lot of good stuff here, there's also a lot of filler and listening to it in one sitting is kind of a chore. Since I doubt that that opinion has changed in the last year or two, I have elected to listen to this album in a more piecemeal fashion. Songs
"Intro" Some random skit deal where the De La Soul lads act is if they're on a game show or something. If what I've read is true, De La Soul is kind of responsible for skits on hip-hop albums being a thing, so thanks for that guys... "The Magic Number" Samples from Schoolhouse Rock. Solid. "Change in Speak" It's all horns and syncopated drums up in this mug. Feel good vibes abound. "Cool Breeze On The Rocks" Random DJ stuff that lasts like 45 seconds or so before we check back in with the game show skit stuff. There's samples of Michael Jackson, LL Cool J, Run DMC, Public Enemy and many more that I don't recognize off the top of my head. "Can U Keep a Secret" Random dudes in De La Soul like "buddy" and need haircuts. They require cough drops. Some dude named Dante is apparently a scrub. "Jenifa Taught Me (Derwin's Revenge)" So much record scratching. A song about fuckin'. We get an interlude where they're like "Now wait a minute! Little Derwin's got something to show us that Jeni could never do," and then someone plays "Chopsticks" for some reason. The flow of the rapping is kind of awkward with weird pauses and an odd rhyme scheme that English professors who teach poetry would probably be all about, but for me it kind of makes me uncomfortable. "Ghetto Thang" This is a pretty great song even if the subject matter is kind of depressing. While the lion's share of the songs here are firmly in the positivity rap camp, this one sounds all grim and the dudes rap about how shitty shit is in the ghetto. "Transmitting Live From Mars" French language instruction about time with random record scratching and slow organ and violin samples that a trip to Google tell me was a sample of a Turtles song and that's why I recognized it. Also that same same apparently resulted in a 1.7 million dollar lawsuit and a bunch of De La Soul's output being hard to find in the 21st century. For all that amazing backstory, it's a nothing song that doesn't really add anything to the album. "Eye Know" The sample of whistling that sounds like it's from "Sittin' on the Dock of the Bay" not withstanding, this is a really good song. It's really upbeat and the flow is so smooth with lyrics that seem to be the De La Soul lads attempting to pick up ladies. "Take It Off" De La Soul tell us to take off a variety of clothing items and hairstyles off. It's like a minute and a half long of them yelling stuff like "TAKE IT OFF! Take those Converse off! TAKE IT OFF! Take that Kangol off!" I guess this is kind of cutting edge when you look at how much of hip-hop is about wealth and praising various brands. "A Little Bit of Soap" Someone smells and needs to shower. Another minute long interlude that adds nothing to the album. We check back in with the game show contestants from the opening skit to close it out. "Tread Water" De La Soul rap about a crocodile, a squirrel, a fish, and a monkey. These animals give the De La Soul lads advice on how to live life. "Potholes In My Lawn" Jaw harp and yodeling. I have no idea what this song is about. It was apparently the first rap song played on Mars so it's got that going for it. "Say No Go" There are about nine bajillion samples going on here. They rap about zombies on crack and other such things. Crack is whack! "Do As De La Does" Random call and response thing. Bad Brooklyn accents. Back at the game show contestant number three does not know the answer. "If you like to drink some soda...LET ME HEAR YA SAY COCA COLA!" "COCA COLA!!!" "Plug Tunin' (Last Chance to Comprehend)" I kind of like that De La Soul has their own lingo for a lot of stuff. Like you probably had to be them or one of their friends to know exactly what the hell they were talking about some of the time. Especially circa 1989 when there was no Rap Genius or whatever. "De La Orgee" Random sex noises with a beat behind them. A waste of time. "Buddy" Q-Tip from A Tribe Called Quest shows up here to rap about fuckin' with De La Soul. More random sex noises to close things out. "Description" Q-Tip shows back up to introduce himself. As do some random ladies and the De La Soul dudes. Another one minute long piece of filler. "My, Myself and I" Solid Funkadelic sample serves as the base of this song. Sounds like Plug One and Two are annoyed that people called them hippies. I'd be annoyed if someone called me a hippie too so I get it. I guess overall it's about being yourself and not trying to confirm what others want you to be. Contestant number four doesn't know what's up with the question back at the game show thing. "This is a Recording 4 Living in a Fulltime Era (L.I.F.E.)" I'm amazed by how non-standard a lot of the rhyme schemes are on this album. It's all like poetic and shit. "I Can Do Anything (Delacratic)" Over a beatbox De La Soul tells us about various actions that are "delacratic." Thirty seconds of nothing. "D.A.I.S.Y. Age" I guess "D.A.I.S.Y." stands for "da inner sound, y'all." They rap about being from Amityville and stuff. It's pretty good I guess, but not as great as some of the other songs on this album. The track ends and where check back in with the game show. None of the contestants have answers, but if we played along at home we can write them on a paper and send them to Tommy Boy Records. "Plug Tunin' (Original 12" Version)" I kind of like this version better than the album version. The lyrics and rhyme schemes seem a bit more complex. Final ThoughtsI still think this album is a bit too long, but a lot of that is due to the presence of random filler tracks. The actual songs on the album are all more or less great and even with the minute long "here are a bunch of samples that are going to get us sued" track this album is a goddamn stone cold classic. I'm kind of bummed out that mainstream hip-hop didn't really latch on to these guys or A Tribe Called Quest really because I like this a lot more than a lot of the stuff we did get on TV and the radio in the years that followed. LET ME HEAR YA SAY COCA COLA!!! Best Song: "Ghetto Thang" Worst Song: "De La Orgee" or "Tread Water" if we're excluding the 30 second "songs" that were clearly just studio goofs. Next time we head west for some punks(?) mocking Sammy Hagar while also covering Van Halen (in a non-ironic fashion). It's Minutemen's magnum opus, Double Nickels on the Dime, whenever I next do this thing.
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Post by [Citrus] on Sept 7, 2018 12:24:59 GMT -5
Now they're redoing the list to have twice as many albums and possibly albums that weren't jangly pop they assumed influenced REM.
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Post by Il sole sotto la terra on Sept 7, 2018 20:55:13 GMT -5
Now they're redoing the list to have twice as many albums and possibly albums that weren't jangly pop they assumed influenced REM. If the new list doesn't include at least one Megadeth album it's fuckin bullshit.
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Post by Prole Hole on Sept 10, 2018 9:27:55 GMT -5
I have some potentially upsetting news for you...
(I realise I'm biassed here, but two Sade albums were placed ahead of Murmur. Nice though it is to see a woman of colour getting recognised somewhere, "Smooth Operator" is no "Radio Free Europe"...).
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Rainbow Rosa
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Post by Rainbow Rosa on Sept 10, 2018 22:19:04 GMT -5
I have some potentially upsetting news for you... (I realise I'm biassed here, but two Sade albums were placed ahead of Murmur. Nice though it is to see a woman of colour getting recognised somewhere, "Smooth Operator" is no "Radio Free Europe"...). Can I get a "yasss queen" ??
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Post by Prole Hole on Sept 11, 2018 4:24:44 GMT -5
I have some potentially upsetting news for you... (I realise I'm biassed here, but two Sade albums were placed ahead of Murmur. Nice though it is to see a woman of colour getting recognised somewhere, "Smooth Operator" is no "Radio Free Europe"...). Can I get a "yasss queen" ??You can!
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Post by Nudeviking on Sept 11, 2018 5:44:01 GMT -5
Now they're redoing the list to have twice as many albums and possibly albums that weren't jangly pop they assumed influenced REM. FUCK!
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Post by Nudeviking on Sept 18, 2018 20:17:50 GMT -5
I'm going to start back up with this deal. I'm going to attack the top twenty items of the new list...or top 19 since I already wrote about Boogie Down Productions. Come play along with me in a couple days as I write about how good New Order's Power, Corruption & Lies is, because I apparently never wrote about that here or anywhere else on this here website.
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Post by Prole Hole on Sept 19, 2018 4:38:27 GMT -5
WOOOO!
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Post by Nudeviking on Sept 20, 2018 20:28:33 GMT -5
New Order - Power, Corruption & Lies (1983)Well, Pitchfork apparently realized how shit their earlier list of the 100 Most Likely To Succeed Albums of the 1980s was because they redid the entire thing, reevaluating the original list and bumping the grand total of albums listed from 100 to 200. I don't have time to start the entire thing over again, so I figure I'll just cover the new top twenty...or top nineteen since #20 was Boogie Down Productions' Criminal Minded, which I already wrote about. Today we're taking a look at Power, Corruption & Lies by New Order. I purchased this album at some point in the late 90s because I liked the cover that late 90s shitrock band, Orgy, did of "Blue Monday." Yup, Orgy was my entry point to New Order... Pre-Existing PrejudicesI've owned this album since 1998 or 1999 and have listened to it a ton in the twenty someodd years that I've had it in my CD collection. I like most of the songs here but think that a couple of them are a little bit too long and would be better served by having a parenthetical "Radio Edit" after the song title. SongsI have the US version of this album on account of being an American and living in America in my youth. My copy therefore adds "Blue Monday," and "The Beach," to the album, neither of which appeared on the original British release. So that's why those songs are getting talked about below even if they don't show up on your copy of the record. "Age of Consent" This is a really good opener. I like the guitar tone a lot. Outside of the manic hi-hats this is a lot less dancey than a lot of the other New Order songs that got radio play. "We All Stand" Bass riffs that sound like they're molasses. This is a real slinky, sleazy slow jam. "The Village" This is downright cheery with upbeat synths as Sumner sings about love. "5 8 6" This starts off with glitchy fart synths and or fart bass. I think it takes way too long to get going, but once it does it's basically "Blue Order Part II" with disco beats and synth melodies while Bernard Sumner chirps about hearing danger. This is one of the songs that I think would be better served by a radio edit since seven plus minutes is far too long for what's going on here. "Blue Monday" I literally purchased this album because of this song and have probably listened to it a bajillion and three times, but it's still awesome. I legitimately love the canned snare drum fill that pops up in this one and the random robot vocal effects. "Your Silent Face" This is all electronic orchestras and melodicas. "You've caught me at a bad time so why don't you piss off?" is one of the greatest lyrics in all of music history. "Ultraviolence" Back to the synth bass and disco beats. Relentless toms. There's some nice interplay between the guitar and bass in this one. "Ecstasy" "Danger Zone" synths up in this mug. Some kind of synthesized vocals as well. Some of the music here's okay but it's probably the most mediocre thing on the record (excluding one of the Only in America bonus tracks). "Leave Me Alone" Holy fuck this song is fantastic! I don't really know how to express with words how absolutely perfect this song is. The guitar and bass are on point. The lyrics are great. I might have purchased this album because of "Blue Monday," but this quickly became my favorite New Order song. This might have been on every mopey "a girl just broke up with me," mix/playlist I ever made after 1999, but still think this song is amazing and well worth the price of admission. "The Beach" "Blue Monday Part III" I guess. It's basically "Blue Monday" sans vocals save for a few random snippets of synthesized vocals that show up in the middle. I don't like this song being on this album because it's an inessential song that makes "Leave Me Alone" (a natural album closer) less impactful. Final ThoughtsThis is a great album and definitely one that everyone should probably have in their record collection or Spotify playlist or however music works in 2018. I am still of the mind that a couple of the songs are probably a little bit too long, but overall this is some real top-shelf stuff. Best Song: "Leave Me Alone" Worst Song: "The Beach" Pitchfork's Top 100 Albums of the 1980s (2002): #28Pitchfork's Top 200 Albums of the 1980s (2018): #19Next Time...We get krautrocky as we listen to Kraftwerk's Computer World. I've got an extended holiday here so I'll either get bored and review like ten albums in the span of two days or I'll be busy and not get anything up until the end of next week! WOOO!
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repulsionist
TI Forumite
actively disinterested
Posts: 3,556
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Post by repulsionist on Sept 20, 2018 22:25:30 GMT -5
Hey, I have no acutely remembered history with New Order. Yeah, I watched the video to "Blue Monday". I danced in the clubs to that jam in the mid-to-late 80s. Picking out other songs from this record that I know I danced to and listened to, well, I can't. I collected this from my local library about 10 years back when diversifying my bonds with culture. Speaking of diversification, hey, I really like the new Best of. Stuff on there I should probably check out, like King Sunny Ade or Laurie Spiegel. There will be another in some years from now when a newer generation puts their thoughts and remembered memories via whatever form of communication most easily absorbed by whatever device fronts access to information. I sure hope they find some precursor to mumble rap. I know it's out there.
My lawn, it's a mess. Move through it at your own risk. You're likely to get some cuts and scratches.
You probably know about Laurie Anderson, but boy do I like Big Science. I heard "O Superman" on the radio a few months back. Gave me a transcendental moment. The Arthur Russell album at Number 25 is a part of the ESG, Liquid Liquid, No Wave New York stuff you dug last year.
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Post by Nudeviking on Sept 20, 2018 23:07:36 GMT -5
Hey, I have no acutely remembered history with New Order. Yeah, I watched the video to "Blue Monday". I danced in the clubs to that jam in the mid-to-late 80s. Picking out other songs from this record that I know I danced to and listened to, well, I can't. I collected this from my local library about 10 years back when diversifying my bonds with culture. Speaking of diversification, hey, I really like the new Best of. Stuff on there I should probably check out, like King Sunny Ade or Laurie Spiegel. There will be another in some years from now when a newer generation puts their thoughts and remembered memories via whatever form of communication most easily absorbed by whatever device fronts access to information. I sure hope they find some precursor to mumble rap. I know it's out there. My lawn, it's a mess. Move through it at your own risk. You're likely to get some cuts and scratches. You probably know about Laurie Anderson, but boy do I like Big Science. I heard "O Superman" on the radio a few months back. Gave me a transcendental moment. The Arthur Russell album at Number 25 is a part of the ESG, Liquid Liquid, No Wave New York stuff you dug last year. I'm thinking about going back and cherrypicking some of the stuff on the new list I've yet to listen to once I finish the top 20 of the new list, since there seems to be a lot more variety than there was on the original garbage version of their list so if you, or anyone else has recommendations from 200-21 that they think I should check out I'd be more than willing to give them a listen. The same goes for the old list. If there's anything there that I skipped over and has since been excised from the Music from 1980 to 1989 that Pitchfork Likes List that I should listen to, let me know.
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Rainbow Rosa
TI Forumite
not gay, just colorful
Posts: 3,604
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Post by Rainbow Rosa on Sept 20, 2018 23:32:47 GMT -5
I agree this new list is better than the old one because it has Raw Like Sushi on it (and above Sandinista! wow). Agreeing with repulsionist that the Laurie Anderson album that just missed the top 20 is great.
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Post by Prole Hole on Sept 21, 2018 8:09:46 GMT -5
Yeah, a terrific little album indeed. Not my favourite 80's synthpop album (I guess at least one contender for which will be your next review) but still a very strong piece of work all the same. New Order are on of those bands that I like but have rarely dived into much beyond their greatest hits - this album being an unusual exception. They're strong writers but do find New Order can be a bit... well, I don't want to say "samey" but I'm also struggling to think of another adjective all the same. But there's no doubting the perfection of something like Blue Monday and very happy to see some Leave Me Alone love too.
I'd really love to hear your take on My Life In The Bush Of Ghosts but I can imagine it's very probably not your thing, so don't feel any obligation.
I still feel the idea of Purple Rain being the best album of the 80's laughable, but there we go. It's not even the best Prince album of the 80's.
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Post by ganews on Sept 21, 2018 8:51:19 GMT -5
I still feel the idea of Purple Rain being the best album of the 80's laughable, but there we go. It's not even the best Prince album of the 80's. I dunno... 1999 is probably the best Prince candidate to put over Purple Rain. The latter is definitely top 3.
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