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Post by Nudeviking on Sept 21, 2018 9:19:04 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. New Order do have a very specific sound which might be why some of the longer songs on this album, while not bad, started to wear on me after the four minute mark. With regards to My Life in the Bush of Ghosts, I liked the albums David Bowie did with Brian Eno a lot and he's kind of blindspot for me beyond those records so I'll give it a go even if David Byrne I can take or leave. How chirpy do his vocals get on this particular record? I have a pretty low tolerance for yippy D. Byrne. As for Prince, I feel like on this revised list he got the all important, "This guy is dead so now we have to reevaluate his importance!" bump. Purple Rain is probably one of the better albums of the decade and while I myself wouldn't give it the top spot I could understand why someone would be inclined to do so. Dirty Mind being at #33 (out of 200), however, seems a trifle high to me and was probably more accurately assessed on the original list where it was in the low 90s or high 80s (out of 100).
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Post by Prole Hole on Sept 21, 2018 9:40:54 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. New Order do have a very specific sound which might be why some of the longer songs on this album, while not bad, started to wear on me after the four minute mark. With regards to My Life in the Bush of Ghosts, I liked the albums David Bowie did with Brian Eno a lot and he's kind of blindspot for me beyond those records so I'll give it a go even if David Byrne I can take or leave. How chirpy do his vocals get on this particular record? I have a pretty low tolerance for yippy D. Byrne. As for Prince, I feel like on this revised list he got the all important, "This guy is dead so now we have to reevaluate his importance!" bump. Purple Rain is probably one of the better albums of the decade and while I myself wouldn't give it the top spot I could understand why someone would be inclined to do so. Dirty Mind being at #33 (out of 200), however, seems a trifle high to me and was probably more accurately assessed on the original list where it was in the low 90s or high 80s (out of 100). There are many, many things one can describe My Life In The Bush Of Ghosts as, but "yippie" is not one of them. Nor chirpy. It's a weird-ass album. Agreed on the very specific sound - one of the reasons I rate Pet Shop Boys ahead of New Order is their ability to periodically shake up their sound while still remaining mostly (if not exclusively) true to their electronic roots. Neil Tennant's a better lyricist as well, though that's a matter of personal taste of course. Full confession on the Prince thing - sorry he's dead and all, but I've never been much of a fan. I find the overblown nature of Purple Rain pretty unbearable (the song itself is outright terrible) and, as I've mentioned before, the idea of taking him seriously as a sex symbol is just funny to me. I may be jaded because of the inescapable nature of Purple Rain in the 80's - overexposure will kill appreciation for anything - but I think he's just not the artist for me, I admire him greatly but for the most part I just don't especially like him. I'm in agreement with ganews that 1999 is stronger, though, and I'm pretty sure Sign O'The Times is as well.
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Post by Deleted on Sept 21, 2018 10:15:03 GMT -5
I'd have fun if you covered a couple of the relatively under-heralded hip-hop albums that Pitchfork deigned to honor this time around:
Slick Rick - The Great Adventures of Slick Rick Kool G Rap & DJ Polo - Road to the Riches
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Post by repulsionist on Sept 23, 2018 20:57:48 GMT -5
Out of boundary, suggested hearings submitted to the docket in the court of cultural improvement and rehabilitation:
Malcolm McLaren – Duck Rock (Situationist cad gets ahead of the curve to dictate style and appear as influence despite hip-hop having existed prior.)
Mercyful Fate – Don’t Break the Oath (KISS changes make-up to look more like Alice and gets more musically capable. Paul and Ace increase octave ranges.)
Tom Tom Club – Tom Tom Club (Talking Heads' rhythm section lose the yipper and the other guitar gripper to make a hip-hop sample disc.)
LiliPut – LiliPut (Yeah, you already know about this. I know, but just putting here again so people can surely understand what a groovy goofy goober I am.)
Godflesh – Streetcleaner (Nothing says avant-garde metal like a cover culled from Ken Russell's Altered States crafted by an ex-member of Napalm Death with songs about Peter Sutcliffe.)
Regarding Yellowman, I like that he's on the list, but I prefer the nearly untypeable and easily cut-and-pasted: Zungguzungguguzungguzeng!
Au Pairs – Playing With a Different Sex (I'm not cool enough to have owned this, but I did have it on order from Amazon 15 years ago. It never came. Neither did my A Certain Ratio compilation disc. I was a deprived hipster with access only to what I could buy, and sometimes even that didn't pan out - the AGONY!)
Scientist – Scientist Rids the World of the Evil Curse of the Vampires (Seems like they replaced all the jangle and Mekons with dub records. Not a bad swap.)
Pauline Oliveros/Stuart Dempster/Panaiotis – Deep Listening (Drone before drone.)
Morbid Angel – Altars of Madness (Shout out to devil from #floridamen hailing near Tampa, FL.)
Richard and Linda Thompson – Shoot Out the Lights (Fighting spouses make the best heartbreakingly inspired music together knowing they'll be apart.)
EPMD – Strictly Business (Pitchfork kicked out a bunch of Fall and extraneous Sonic Youth to make room for Golden Age hip-hop. Good on'em.)
The curators of this list decided to remove Young Marble Giants. There simply is no twee without this record, only a shattered trunk of Prefab Sprout and badly etched Scritti Politti. A Teardrop Explodes in The Chills of the night. For shame! [to be heard in the voice of Grampa Simpson.]
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Post by Nudeviking on Sept 30, 2018 22:17:17 GMT -5
Out of boundary, suggested hearings submitted to the docket in the court of cultural improvement and rehabilitation: Malcolm McLaren – Duck Rock (Situationist cad gets ahead of the curve to dictate style and appear as influence despite hip-hop having existed prior.) Mercyful Fate – Don’t Break the Oath (KISS changes make-up to look more like Alice and gets more musically capable. Paul and Ace increase octave ranges.) Tom Tom Club – Tom Tom Club (Talking Heads' rhythm section lose the yipper and the other guitar gripper to make a hip-hop sample disc.) LiliPut – LiliPut (Yeah, you already know about this. I know, but just putting here again so people can surely understand what a groovy goofy goober I am.) Godflesh – Streetcleaner (Nothing says avant-garde metal like a cover culled from Ken Russell's The Devils crafted by an ex-member of Napalm Death with songs about Peter Sutcliffe.) Regarding Yellowman, I like that he's on the list, but I prefer the nearly untypeable and easily cut-and-pasted: Zungguzungguguzungguzeng!
Au Pairs – Playing With a Different Sex (I'm not cool enough to have owned this, but I did have it on order from Amazon 15 years ago. It never came. Neither did my A Certain Ratio compilation disc. I was a deprived hipster with access only to what I could buy, and sometimes even that didn't pan out - the AGONY!) Scientist – Scientist Rids the World of the Evil Curse of the Vampires (Seems like they replaced all the jangle and Mekons with dub records. Not a bad swap.) Pauline Oliveros/Stuart Dempster/Panaiotis – Deep Listening (Drone before drone.) Morbid Angel – Altars of Madness (Shout out to devil from #floridamen hailing near Tampa, FL.) Richard and Linda Thompson – Shoot Out the Lights (Fighting spouses make the best heartbreakingly inspired music together knowing they'll be apart.) EPMD – Strictly Business (Pitchfork kicked out a bunch of Fall and extraneous Sonic Youth to make room for Golden Age hip-hop. Good on'em.) The curators of this list decided to remove Young Marble Giants. There simply is no twee without this record, only a shattered trunk of Prefab Sprout and badly etched Scritti Politti. A Teardrop Explodes in The Chills of the night. For shame! [to be heard in the voice of Grampa Simpson.] I think Young Marble Giants is still there. Does Godflesh have the same dude from Napalm Death that also went on to start the band Jesu? Because I love me some Jesu the band.
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Post by Nudeviking on Oct 1, 2018 0:02:58 GMT -5
Kraftwerk - Computer World (1981)Kraftwerk are one of those "very important bands," that I don't know if I've ever actually heard outside of documentaries about "very important bands." Bands like this are kind of the reason I started on this stupid quest over a year ago, so let's check them out. Pre-Existing PrejudicesKraftwerk get lumped in with bands like Neu! and Can who I have heard and like well enough. Unless krautrock as a genre is insanely diverse, I have a general idea of what to expect from this album but don't think I've ever heard a Kraftwerk song in full. Songs"Computer World" The music in the beginning sounds like something out of an R-rated 1980s detective movie. The lyrics do not sway me from this opinion since they more or less consist of a German man (sometimes with effects that make him sound like a robot) saying, "Interpol and Deutsche Bank, FBI and Scotland Yard. Business, Numbers, Money, People." The groove's pretty solid but I'm not on board with this dude's talk-singing. "Pocket Calculator" The music sounds like a Nintendo game. It rules pretty hard. The vocals don't really add anything to the song and I think it would be better off as an instrumental. "Numbers" The counting in German at the beginning sounds sinister as fuck but then the music kicks in and is all fart synths and pounding drum machines what sounds like a jumping sound effect from an Atari game while robots count in a variety of languages. "Computer World 2" "Numbers" flows directly into this. It's the same melody as the original recipe "Computer World" with dancier drum machine rhythms and robots counting instead of a German man talking about the FBI. While a lot of times I feel that reprises like these are kind of a cop out, it works here and I kind of prefer it to either "Computer World" or "Numbers." "Computer Love" This is a pretty little song that is a pretty solid argument against electronic music being soulless. The melody is hella familiar but I don't know why. Maybe it showed up in a commercial or some 90s band randomly covered this on a compilation album or as a b-side to a single or something. Who knows? Whatever the case this is a pretty solid song. "Home Computer" This seems like the origin point for techno music, or at least an origin point. It's all bass thud and dance beats and minor chords. It's the sort of thing that would play at a dance club in a movie from 1982 about the future year of 2011. The ending however is all glitchy and weird and not that great. "It's More Fun To Compute" Holy fuck is the opening to this great! So many 90s industrial bands ripped this song off wholesale for their entire shtick. Bonus Track"Dentaku" This is just "Pocket Calculator" with talk-singing in Japanese instead of English. It is very inessential unless you like bad talk-singing in Japanese. I'm glad this exists here though since it gives me an easy out when declaring the worst song on the album. Final ThoughtsThis was a great album. I wasn't keen on the vocals but they ended up being such a small part of the music included on this album that they're barely worth mentioning. I am definitely going to check out more Kraftwerk in the near future. Best Song: "Pocket Calculator" Worst Song: "Dentaku" Next time on Nudeviking vs. The 1980s vs. Pitchfork we get sexual with a small elfin man. It's one of the two Prince albums that cracked the top 20 because he recently died and now is more important than he was 16 years ago. Since neither of these two albums are the Batman Soundtrack, I really don't care, but maybe I will after listening to them. I'm pretty sure the next one is Sign o' the Times, but maybe it's Purple Rain, I can't remember. Check the list or listen to them both just to be on the safe side.
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Post by dwarfoscar on Oct 1, 2018 4:26:15 GMT -5
Is Kraftwerk a krautrock band? Wikipedia says yes but I never considered them that way. Lumping that band together with Faust or Can makes krautrock, as you say, an "insanely diverse" genre, which renders the word meaningless.
Or maybe I never knew what krautrock meant.
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Post by Prole Hole on Oct 1, 2018 5:31:20 GMT -5
Ohhh! Ohhh! Please sir, I have this one! Kraftwerk started out as a krautrock band, and their origins certainly lie within that genre, but calling anything album they released later than Autobahn krautrock is like describing Sgt Pepper as "merseybeat". They so quickly transcended out of their genre ghetto that it just doesn't make sense to refer to them as part of it, even if they came from it. As for this album: Hooooooly fuck I love it. It's hardly a secret that I love Kraftwerk but Computer World tops off a run of five essentially flawless albums (Autobahn, Radio-Acticity, Trans-Europe Express, The Man Machine and this) and I could not possibly love them more. The sweeping, melancholic tinges of Computer Love do, as Nudie rightly says, effortlessly disprove the idea that either electronic music in general or Kraftwerk in particular are sterile, cold or emotionless. It's a track dripping in loss and loneliness and it has an incredibly affecting melody (it might sound familiar because *spits* Coldplay lifted it for Talk and remove its fragile beauty to turn it into a big, clumsy stadium rock riff). But on the other side of the equation there's Pocket Calculator, a jaunty, silly fun slice of electronica that just bounces along while being incredibly infectious. It's also no in any way emotionless - it's playful and, well, funny. Nudie's right to identify It's More Fun To Compute as both an amazing song, and something that was just endlessly ripped off influential - an amazing song, though I love the run into it from Home Computer too (though Home Computer may be the least essential track on the album proper). Kraftwerk's unimpeachable status does end with this album - their next two albums are a clear, conspicuous step down. But this - oh my word, this. Perfect.
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Post by ganews on Oct 1, 2018 6:47:14 GMT -5
Kraftwerk - Computer World (1981) For further reviews, we did this album for Anniversary Record Club.
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Post by Nudeviking on Oct 1, 2018 7:06:08 GMT -5
Ohhh! Ohhh! Please sir, I have this one! Kraftwerk started out as a krautrock band, and their origins certainly lie within that genre, but calling anything album they released later than Autobahn krautrock is like describing Sgt Pepper as "merseybeat". They so quickly transcended out of their genre ghetto that it just doesn't make sense to refer to them as part of it, even if they came from it. As for this album: Hooooooly fuck I love it. It's hardly a secret that I love Kraftwerk but Computer World tops off a run of five essentially flawless albums (Autobahn, Radio-Acticity, Trans-Europe Express, The Man Machine and this) and I could not possibly love them more. The sweeping, melancholic tinges of Computer Love do, as Nudie rightly says, effortlessly disprove the idea that either electronic music in general or Kraftwerk in particular are sterile, cold or emotionless. It's a track dripping in loss and loneliness and it has an incredibly affecting melody (it might sound familiar because *spits* Coldplay lifted it for Talk and remove its fragile beauty to turn it into a big, clumsy stadium rock riff). But on the other side of the equation there's Pocket Calculator, a jaunty, silly fun slice of electronica that just bounces along while being incredibly infectious. It's also no in any way emotionless - it's playful and, well, funny. Nudie's right to identify It's More Fun To Compute as both an amazing song, and something that was just endlessly ripped off influential - an amazing song, though I love the run into it from Home Computer too (though Home Computer may be the least essential track on the album proper). Kraftwerk's unimpeachable status does end with this album - their next two albums are a clear, conspicuous step down. But this - oh my word, this. Perfect. Coldplay might have been where I heard that hook then. Mrs. Viking has a certain fondness for Mr. Paltrow & Co. and will on occasion play their tunes while I’m about. I must have become familiar with it via Coldplaymosis. As for Kraftwerk do you have a recommendation of where to next turn my attention if I want more of these loveable German droids?
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Post by Prole Hole on Oct 1, 2018 9:41:22 GMT -5
If you have a look on my Gateway To Geekery linked above there's a playlist there, which I think is as good a place as any if you feel like throwing one together on Spotify or whatever. Beyond that, give the album Trans-Europe Express a go. It's got a bit of everything - classical romanticism in Europe Endless, weird-ass shit on The Hall Of Mirrors, classic Kraftwerkian robot-stuff on Showroom Dummies, and then there's that title track. You really can't go wrong. After that, probably The Man-Machine. It's got at least one song you'll recognise (The Model), but it's also got Neon Lights, one of the most perfect of all songs. It's quite a cold album in places, but Neon Lights is just straight-up beautiful.
Both albums also have a bit more variety of style than Computer World - Computer World feels like the conclusion or third and final act of the TEE / TMM / CW trilogy, and I have a feeling you might appreciate the variety in style a bit more than Computer World's relative sameyness.
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Post by repulsionist on Oct 1, 2018 16:33:11 GMT -5
Musta been some "Crazy Rhythms" that caused me to miss the Young Marble Giants at 108. Your Kraftwerk review is expectedly cavalier. Ride on. Ride on, good sir.
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Post by Nudeviking on Oct 2, 2018 0:13:58 GMT -5
Prince - Sign o' the Times (1987)I’m not going front and act like I’m a huge Prince fan or anything. I own the Batman soundtrack (on cassette no less) because I was a nine year old boy who loved Batman when it came out and I am familiar with Prince’s radio/MTV hits but other than that I never really felt the need to delve deep into his discography. I thought his album Dirty Mind was decent enough when I gave it a listen to when reviewing it for the original list of very important albums of the 1980s that Pitchfork put out, but not even that motivated me to look further into the back catalogue of Prince Rogers Nelson. Pre-Existing Prejudices
I have undoubtedly heard all the radio singles off this album at some point in my life but only “U Got the Look,” is immediately recognizable by name. I have no strong feelings about that particular song since in my mind it’s a pretty straightforward mid-80s pop-rock song, but perhaps my recollection is flawed. Let’s find out! Songs“Sign o’ the Times” Farting synth basses and fake drums. This is a serious song about serious issues. There are teens that want to be in gangs called The Disciples, smoke crack, and carry machine guns. Prince's cousin smoked pot earlier in 1987 and is now on heroin. Hella bad shit apparently happened in the months leading up to the release of this album. The end of the song has ludicrous fake drum clubbering. This is a very mediocre song. "Play in the Sunshine" This sure is a Prince song from the mid-1980s. I kind of like the noise guitar solo, but to be honest Prince probably has about a half dozen songs that sound exactly like this only better done. "Housequake" Prince has pitchshifted vocals to make him sound even more high pitched than normal. This is a mediocre P-Funk panache. "The Ballad of Dorothy Parker" So much artifice with the instruments going on. Prince is crooning and implying that he routinely takes bubble baths while wearing pants. "It" Prince wants to fuck all the time. Random stings of synthesized orchestral noise and plodding drum machines. Prince freaks the fuck out in the back half of the song, perhaps due to a lack of doing it all the time. "Starfish and Coffee" Piano and harps or some shit. Prince sings a bunch of random words about girls he may or may not have actually known at some point in his life. This is not particular good but it's very short so it's got that going for it and it also has Prince singing about "a side order of ham." "Slow Love" This is like a song that would have been played at a goddamn spring formal in the 1950s were it not for the line, "tonight's the night for making slow love." There's a horn section and strings and lyrics about "the man in the moon" and a "gentle breeze." There are far too many sexophone fuck-riffs in this song for my liking. "Hot Thing" Fuck yeah this electronic noise is so good. If you replaced Prince squealing about a 21 year old "hot thing" dancing so good with Trent Reznor growling about misery and kept the most of the instrumental track (the horns would have to go) it would have worked as Nine Inch Nails song. Here it probably goes on a bit too long for what it is, but it's pretty good. "Forever In My Life" A slow jam with a boring, repetitive drum machine beat and synth bass riff. This is only three and one half minutes long but seems much, much longer. Some acoustic guitar strum fuckery shows up with like 20 seconds left in the song, but it's too little, too late. "U Got The Look" This is the only song I remembered from this album. Sheena Easton wails on vocals here. Prince plays around with pitch shifting on his vocals again here. There's a pretty badass meedly meedly guitar solo. This is better than I remembered it being. "If I Was Your Girlfriend" Funk bass all up in this piece after some pointless samples. More pitchshifted vocals from Prince. This is kind of cheesy. Prince wants to pick out a dude's clothes for him. "Strange Relationship" I like the electro-funk noise that shows up during the fade out, but was otherwise pretty bored by this. "I Could Never Take the Place of Your Man" This is a pretty awesome pop-rock tune with hand claps, triumphant Casio keyboardage, cowbells, and arena rock guitar solos. The song's over at the halfway point and then we get like three minutes of blues guitar noodling. I'd be all about a radio edit of this song that chopped off the aimless noodling. "The Cross" Prince is either singing about Jesus or a dude busting a nut...maybe both? He's in coffee shop troubadour mode for the first third of the song just singing while being accompanied by a single guitar. Drums and more guitars get added to the mix as the song progresses. By the halfway point this is a pretty straight ahead rock jam. Sitar and tabla show up towards the end. This is a pretty boss song. "It's Gonna Be a Beautiful Night" I really dislike the "live song" on a non-concert album concept so I'm not keen on this. Prince and Company do the chant the Wicked Witch's guards did in The Wizard of Oz with the crowd while ladies (or maybe Prince doing a lady voice) squeak and horns bleat. The rapping that shows up is awful. A studio version of this song might not have been terrible but this is too long with a lot of vamping for the live crowd that kind of messed up the flow of the album. "Adore" Slow jam redux. This is such a fuck jam. Whoever Prince wants to fuck here has permission to burn his clothes and possibly smash up his car (he's not sure whether or not he's willing to go that far). Prince gets really warbly here. I don't think this is a particularly inspired song and it kind of sucks as a closer. Final ThoughtsA lot of this album sounds very dated. The production and all the synth bass farting and drum machines present here are very much of their time and have not aged particularly well. As seems to be the case with Prince there are some undeniable jams here but goddamn is this padded with filler and overlong as an album! I'd have been perfectly happy with an album half as long as this, but maybe that's just me. I feel like Pitchfork inflated their rating for this because the dude died and that their original ranking was probably more in line with this album's actual merits when compared to the entirety of albums released between 1980 and 1989 across the globe. Best Song: "Hot Thing" Worst Song: "It's Gonna Be a Beautiful Night" Next time on Nudeviking vs. the 1980s it's supposed to be Madonna's 1984 self-titled debut, but unless it happens to be on YouTube in full we're going to have to skip it because I own that album on vinyl and thus it's not on my phone as mp3s. Presently my apartment is being renovated and all my records and stereo equipment are in storage, inaccessible to me, so if someone hasn't put Madonna's biggest album up on YouTube we're going to do former Madonna tourmates, The Beastie Boys' album Paul's Boutique instead. AW YE YE!
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repulsionist
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Post by repulsionist on Oct 2, 2018 17:12:26 GMT -5
And, sweet Lord Baby Jesus, did you ride all over Prince. My comment herein protests your opinion of this record.
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Post by Nudeviking on Oct 8, 2018 1:03:58 GMT -5
Madonna - Madonna (1983)One of my biggest gripes with Pitchfork's original list of Best 80's albums had been the complete and utter lack of Madonna. I'm not a huge Madonna fan or anything of the sort, but it seemed very disingenuous to ignore the massive impact she had on pop music during that decade. For better or for worse, without a Madonna we probably wouldn't have had a Janet Jackson or Debbie Gibson or Tiffany, and without them we would have never had "Miss Jackson if you're nasty," Debbie Gibson and the Circle Jerks covering The Soft Boys, or that Robin Sparkles episode of How I Met Your Mother. Fortunately in the years that have passed between the publication of the original list and this revised version Pitchfork has seemingly decided not to completely ignore popular music in order to solely champion mediocre British jangle pop that may or may not have influenced R.E.M. and have seen fit to add some pop classics to their revised list of 1980s albums that are the best. Today we're taking a look at one such album, specifically Madonna's self-titled 1983 debut. Pre-Existing Prejudices
I purchased this on vinyl during that brief period when CDs were the dominant musical medium but before Ebay took off and made everyone think every piece of shit in their basement was worth a bajillion dollars. It was a time when records were a thing you could get at yard sales for loose change. It's not a record I listen to a ton, but I've definitely heard all the songs here multiple times and have heard the singles nine hundred million billion times in my life. It's a fine pop record. Songs"Lucky Star" This is funky as hell. I like the twinkling, celestial sounding synth flourishes and the artificial hand claps. Overall this is a quality song and a pretty good choice for an album opener since it sets the tone for what follows. I could also see people not being all about Madonna's voice on here (or on the rest of this album for that matter) since it's a bit more artificially girly than subsequent albums with critics at the time saying she sounded like "Minnie Mouse on helium." I personally think her voice is fine, but it is a thing I could see turning some people off. "Borderline" Like "Lucky Star," this was all over the radio and TV when I was a child. It's a bit more mellow than the songs that sandwich it, but it's a solid song. We're two for two with songs fading out to end. "Burning Up" Goddamn do I love this song! The hand claps, the keyboard melody during the chorus, the random 80s rock guitar wails. All of it is great. The cover Mike Watt did on that one Sonic Youth album was pretty solid too albeit less dancey. "I Know It" One of the few songs on this record that was never a single. It's not a bad song really, but there's a clear reason why it never got put on the radio. My guess? The random G.E. Smith & The Saturday Night Live Band saxophone wailing. "Holiday" This is another absolute banger of a song. The piano that comes in at the end is pretty awesome. "Think of Me" Horror movie synth strings. Solid synth wailing. More G.E. Smith & The Saturday Night Live Band saxophoning from out of nowhere. This is another song that's pretty good here but would probably be looked upon more favorably on an album of lesser quality. "Physical Attraction" Solid funk guitar line under the heaps of farting disco synths. It's decent enough but a bit too long for me. "Everybody" Madonna coos sex words while synthesizers beep and bloop. This melody is so ridiculous. She then starts singing about DJs and dancing. I'm kind of about this though I don't remember it being this long. Final ThoughtsMadonna's self-titled debut is a pretty good album if a bit singular in terms of its sonic pallet. If you like synth heavy dance pop with female vocalists there's a lot here to enjoy, but if that one specific style of music is not your cup of tea you probably won't care much for this one. Chances are though if you were alive in the 1980s you've probably already heard like 70% of this album via osmosis and made up your mind about it long ago. Best Song: "Burning Up" Worst Song: "I Know It" Next time we're taking a look at one of Madonna's early tourmates, The Beastie Boys, specifically their critically acclaimed album, Paul's Boutique. I'm pretty sure we as a website collective reviewed this album at some point in the last four years. I may have even written something about it but if I did it was probably sarcastic and/or "The only good song is 'Looking Down the Barrel of a Gun,' and Anthrax did it better on that Beavis and Butthead Soundtrack."
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Post by repulsionist on Oct 8, 2018 16:25:52 GMT -5
Nicely written, and reverential. My word! Your feelings about this record match my own. It is why I nominated her first record for July's Anniversary Record Club.
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Post by Nudeviking on Oct 19, 2018 0:11:24 GMT -5
Beastie Boys - Paul's Boutique (1989)
Like most children of the 80s, my first exposure to the Beastie Boys was "(You Gotta) Fight for Your Right (To Party!)" A friend's older brother (he probably had a badass teenage crustache) made me a copy of it that I hid from my parents because it felt like something I wasn't supposed to be listening to at age nine. I didn't check back in with the Beastie Boys until "So What'cha Want" started getting played on my local alterna-rock radio station circa 1992 so I missed out on Paul's Boutique when it was a new release, but that's the album we're going to take a listen to today so let's get down to it! Pre-Existing PrejudicesAs is often the case with these albums, this is one that I purchased some time in the late 90s when I had a lot of disposable income. I liked it well enough back in day but if I'm being honest none of the Beastie Boys are particularly good rappers and thought that a lot of this album sounded kind of dated the last time I listened to it in full. "Looking Down the Barrel of a Gun," still owns though. Songs"To All the Girls" This is a very mediocre "song," if you can even call it a song. "To all the Oriental girls," is a lyric that gets dropped here that probably wouldn't fly in 2018. "Shake Your Rump" This has long been one of my favorite songs on this album mostly because I really like the sample that bellows, "Shake yo rump-AH!" "Johnny Ryall" This is a song about a bum (the titular Johnny Ryall) with a platinum voice who only has gold records. He used to be in a rockabilly group but now he's drinking Thunderbird and shit. The vocal delivery and guitar samples during the chorus annoy me. I don't care for this song very much. "Egg Man" The Beastie Boys hurl eggs at people over the music from the murder scene from Psycho. The lyrics to this song make me thing that "(You Gotta) Fight for Your Right (To Party!)" might not be as tongue in cheek as the later wokeass Beastie Boys claimed it to be. "High Plains Drifter" Crime rap. The Beastie Boys rap about a cross-country crime spree that involves running over mailboxes and going to OTB with stolen money to bet on horses. Is OTB a thing that exists outside of New York? It seems like a very New York thing to me. "The Sound of Science" The first half is all slo-mo and shit. The lyric, "I'm kicking the new kuh-knowledge," is pretty good, but this rapping in molasses vibe sucks. The Beasties go completely apeshit in the back half though and do fast rapping and it totally rules. "3-Minute Rule" The Beastie Boys were apparently busy making records while I was sucking my mother's dick. This is mediocre song. "Hey Ladies" There's cowbell and the Beastie Boys yell "Hey Ladies!" a lot. This is goofy as fuck which makes it kind of endearing rather than cringey. This got played a lot on the mainstream alterna-rock station I listened to in the 90s and is quite possibly the reason I ended up buying this album in the first place. "5-Piece Chicken Dinner" 20 seconds of random bluegrass nonsense. I have no idea why it's here. "Looking Down the Barrel of a Gun" I love this song so much. The Mountain "Mississippi Queen" samples, the vocal delivery, the line, "I'm gonna die harder like my man Bruce Willis," all own so hard. I actually heard Anthrax covering this before I heard the original but their cover's pretty faithful so it's not weird listening to the Beastie Boys' version. "Racism is schism on the serious tip!" "Car Thief" I like how they sampled the drum fill from "Hurdy Gurdy Man" after one of them declares that they are "a dusted old bummy hurdy gurdy man." That was some good intertextuality or whatever the musical equivalent of intertextuality is. "What Comes Around" I don't like this. It seems misogynistic. "Shadrach" Solid Sly & The Family Stone sample here though I feel like I need an annotated lyric sheet to understand half of the references they are making here. "Ask for Janice" An ad for the real Paul's Boutique in Brooklyn. This is completely pointless and probably made zero sense to people who did not live in New York City in 1989. "B-Boy Bouillabaisse" This is a medley of short songs, or song chunks. Some of them are good, some are not. Overall it's too long for me though and some of the transitions between the various songs are rough. The segment known as "A Year and A Day" is the best segment of this song. The song ends with a reprise of "To All The Girls," to bring things full circle. Final ThoughtsThis is a "Very Important Album" that does little for me personally. I feel like this album is held in high regard in the modern era more for its use of samples and the production than the Beastie's rap prowess, which in my view isn't all that great. I'm not going to deny that the use of samples, was pretty innovative, particularly for when it was released, but the rapping? Sure the Beastie Boys drop a lot of references to pop culture and shit in their lyrics (generally is the form of "my X is like Y" rhymes in which Y is a reference to some pop cultural phenomenon particularly one that is specific to New York City), but ultimately a lot of what they are rapping is problematic, and pretty gross in the modern era but they also rap about J.D. Salinger though so white music critics will overlook the fact that they straight up refer to women as a "whores," from time to time. Anyway, there are a couple good songs, and this album gets credited for being one of the albums that turning sampling into an artform, while also giving white suburban kids an easy entry point into 80s hip-hop so I guess it's important as a historical artifact, but it doesn't really do much for me. I, for my part, prefer the Beastie Boys after they got woke and started randomly mixing 90s alterna-rock with their 80s hip-hop, but that's just me. Best Song: "Looking Down the Barrel of a Gun" or The "A Year and A Day" part of "B-Boy Bouillabaisse" Worst Song: "What Comes Around" Next time we explore an album that I've probably listened to more than possibly any other album on this list, Doolittle by the Pixies. How many different ways can I write, "This song is great?" Find out next time on Nudeviking vs. Pitchfork vs. The 1980s!
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