The Doghouse v.II

Bulldog · 01-20-2011, 06:56 AM

Just so I can stave off getting off my arse and doing something constructive a little longer...

Artist: Slayer
Tuneage: Seasons In the Abyss

Gather round kids - it's time for some self-indulgent back story!

I've been hoarding music for about half my life as I type this, perhaps even a little longer, and I can say that I'm in the third phase of it. That phase, ladies and gents, boys and girls, is noticing that there are craploads of free albums you can get hold of if you know where to find them, and taking advantage of that before the long arm of the law finds a way stopping you from doing so. The phase I went through before that came about just after I got my first job, when I just blew as much of my hard-earned as poss on buying CDs as opposed to waiting for Christmas, birthdays, pocket money or whatever to get them. I doubt I'll get into a fourth phase anytime soon, unless someone pioneers a kind of technology that can drip-feed you music or whatever.

And the first phase came before I was old enough to get a job. That phase was using Kazaa to get individual songs I liked the sound of - p2p networks in other words. Still makes me smile that perfectly web-savvy people around my age still use p2p networks believing that they're the sole way to get hold of new music for free.

This was one of the many songs I downloaded way back when, having seen (I believe) on MTV2. I listen to pretty much no metal of any kind these days, but this song is just so badass you can't not like it really. Certainly one of the best openings to a song ever. Although admittedly my attention does wonder from about 2:15 onwards, this song still rules all the same.

Artist: Johnny Cash
Tuneage: When the Man Comes Around

And behind curtain number 2 is a song I'm sure a lot of you have heard before. If not, watch the Dawn Of the Dead remake fer crissakes

For me, this song goes to show that if you want a song to be dark, fairly creepy and pretty badass, you don't necessarily need to resort to a load of tape-loops, synths, heavy guitars, orchestration and all that. This 'ere tune ticks all the right boxes like that for me, and all it is is Cash basically singing the Book Of Revelations with just his guitar and a very distant-sounding organ. It's just pure awesome, and reason enough to get yourself into Cash's American series.

I'll tell you what else is awesome, and that's the first 4 Silent Hill games, hence the video. Enjoy!

Here's something that'll test your patience as a musiclover;

David Sylvian, Arve Henriksen & Jan Bang - Thermal

Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, I give you Arve Henriksen!

Henriksen was actually one of the first names I thought of to review back when I (re)started this thread. For some reason I never got round to reviewing the album of his that I have, so I should probably fix that sometime soon. Who is he you ask? He's a Norweigan trumpeter who has a very distinct, flute-like sound to his playing as his kinda claim to fame. He's one of the leading lights of Scandinavian nu-jazz, and an example of a very rich yet so overlooked area of modern music.

And, as you can see, he's worked with David Sylvian many times before, particularly on his more ambient-leaning pieces like the above. I won't lie, it all depends how much patience you have for ambient music - it'll either be boring, pretentious drivel or one of the most amazing things you've ever heard. I think it's obvious which category I fall into

NumberNineDream · 01-20-2011, 04:16 PM

Still loving every bit of your journal.

I am surprised of your idea of "Musicals". Many are exactly the way you described, unfortunately, but I do think there are some pretty awesome ones
(My top 4 Musicals: Singing in the Rain - Rocky Horror Picture Show - Victor/Victoria - Mary Poppins).

Anyway.... Great write-ups all the way (even during your massive hangovers).
Cheers.

P.S: Natalie Imbruglia IS awesome!

Bulldog · 01-22-2011, 04:16 AM

Cheers

It's good to know I'm not just talking to a wall here after all!

And, to be honest I was exaggerating slightly when I said that's the case for every musical out there. Musical theatre still gets on my pecs in the main, but there are some good ones, like those that you mentioned. The Blues Brothers is one of my favourite films of all time, and for some reason I've always had a lot of time for Guys and Dolls, which is strange as it's those early-ish Hollywood musicals which irritate me the most.

Can't beat a bit of Gilbert and Sullivan either, who I guess you could technically say wrote musicals in the modern sense. Back when my Dad actually had two pennies to rub together, he'd take the family to the opera house as often as he could to go and watch some of their operettas. Call me Captain Obvious, but HMS Pinafore was always my favourite - I just love how it opened, like so;

Ah, nostalgia!

I'm gonna work on a couple more albums to talk crap about before the month's out by the way, so keep one eye on this thread eh.

Bulldog · 01-28-2011, 02:13 PM

In hindsight, I apologise for the length of thisw post. Good luck getting through it

Manic Street Preachers
This Is My Truth, Tell Me Yours
1998

genre: soft-rock, pop-rock
1. The Everlasting - 6:08
2. If You Tolerate This, Your Children Will Be Next - 4:50
3. You Stole the Sun From My Heart - 4:20
4. Ready For Drowning - 4:32
5. Tsunami - 3:51
6. My Little Empire - 4:09
7. I'm Not Working - 5:51
8. You're Tender and You're Tired - 4:37
9. Born a Girl - 4:12
10. Be Natural - 5:12
11. Black Dog On My Shoulder - 4:48
12. Nobody Loved You - 4:44
13. S.Y.M.M. - 5:57

I used to be a huge fan of these guys, and by used to I mean I was around the time Lifeblood came out. I loved that album, how abrasive it was in its own way and the like, and as such the Manics were definitely among the bands I respected the most when I first started buying a whole lotta CDs, and thus listening to a lot more music than your average Joe would. At that point (around 2003, 2004 or something similar), I was of course a huge Lifeblood acolyte, bought and played my copy of their controversial best of compilation Forever Delayed to death, and...well, ranked in descending order of preference are the albums I had at the time;

The Holy Bible > Everything Must Go > Lifeblood >>> Generation Terrorists > Gold Against the Soul >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> Know Your Enemy

So, here I am using the phrase 'used to' more than an enraged Star Wars fanboy who's just seen the prequels for the first time. Why? Something quite simple yet earth-shatteringly significant happend - in 2007, Send Away the Tigers came out and, perhaps pivotally, that god-awful song about your love alone not being enough got unleashed with it. Besides the title track, I just hated that album beyond belief. All the steps forward that the Manics made with Lifeblood were completely retraced and replaced with a patronising album of rock anthems and ballads. I had (and still have) officially lost almost all respect I once had for the Bradfield/Wire/Moore trio, to the point that barring the odd, nostalgic re-run of the top 3 on that list I provided above, I'm pretty much totally indifferent to them. I haven't even bothered getting the two albums they've released since but, judging by the songs I've heard on the radio or youtube, Journal For Plague Lovers sounds like an improvement on Send Away the Tigers, but still hardly worth the effort. Postcards From a Young Man on the other hand sounds like total and utter shit, and is noteworthy in that it achieved the unimaginable feat of being a Manics album I hate more than Send Away the Tigers. To say that I couldn't care less about their next album-in-the-making, 70 Songs Of Hatred and Failure, would be an understatement of possibly libellous proportions.

Anyway, enough talk about the discography. This is, after all, meant to be an album review. As the eagle-eyed among you may have noticed about the above list, one album is missing from it. This one! This is not only because ranking it there would render the rest of this little note quite, quite pointless, but also because I never had the album during the years between Lifeblood and Send Away the Tigers. The reason is simple and a wee bit bland, that being that I just didn't get round to buying it all those years ago. Basically, if you're my age and older, you'll remember a time before building up a music collection basically became a form of trainspotting when you bought an album because it had some kind of emotional weight invested in it for you, and because you had genuine expectations from it other than to add to your artist count on LastFM. Beyond the scabby, malware-ridden p2p networks, there was practically no other way to get hold of this stuff other than to buy it, really. Not that I'm complaining or anything - the way the world of music-collecting is now, it saves me money that I can now spend on booze, hard drugs, hookers and high-stake games of poker. Anyway, what was I on about?...oh yeah, my point is that back in those days if I went about hunting down a discography (as I often did), I'd think the band were something properly special. Often, as in this case, I'd get distracted by something like that Distillers song I'd seen on MTV2 that morning and buy their album instead of plugging the last gap in the Manics' discography here, and I'd just forget about it altogether.

I could probably type up something more entertaining if I tore Send Away the Tigers a new arsehole, got hold of Postcards Of a Young Man as one more reason not to get their next album, or fawning over the Holy Bible or Everything Must Go. Truthfully though, I haven't had this album for so long and, consequently, haven't listened to it an awful lot, so I think now's as good a time as any to give this album a real go. Also, this album has something of a reputation that gets ahead of it. Basically, it's a bit of a curate's egg, inasmuch as it divides listeners right down the middle - you either love it or hate it. One thing's for sure, though, and that's that this signals the point in the Manics' discography where they went off at the pop end. Ok, it's true that the preceding Everything Must Go was the most commercial album they'd released to date, but it also had plenty of the loudness, rock-outs and fire in the belly that their earlier albums before Richey Edwards' disappearance had done. Here is where anything resembling the brasher, punkier Manics sound of yesteryear was completely stripped away in favour of something much softer, more melodic and all-round commercial.

Basically, I remember being about 10 years old when this album came out. I was at a friend's house one day, and I saw that said friend's Mum had a copy of this album. That's the kind of demographic this album was lapped up by (and how! This album sold by the crapload back in the day). Not only have I heard this album being called one of the Manics' worst, and the beginning of the end according to the Richey fans, but I've also seen it hailed as their best by the odd dissenting voice. I'm sure there's some nutjob out there who thinks the Crazy Frog has everything that Bob Dylan didn't, but any album that people call one of their favourites of all time has to be worth at least a bit of my attention.

So how does it hold up? Well, first of all, let me just say that I love this album's title. It just has such a romantic kind of energy to it, and it certainly did what a good album title should do when I first came across it, and that was to make me wonder what the music beneath it must be like. That's the thing with the Manics, isn't it? No matter what they do, they can always come up with great titles for their songs and albums. Maybe it's just me

Anyway, while we're on the subject of judging this book by its cover, I'll also say that the sleeve art photo is just pure shite. They look like fucking Westlife, or some other rubbish aimed at people's parents or ill-educated kids (when it comes to music).

The music itself though? I've put off talking about it for as long as possible, so I may as well say that I didn't expect much from this album as I came to it, and not much is exactly what I got. Like the grand majority of pop albums, it suffers from having singles which are far, far superior to the rest of the album. The opening trio of songs is all you really need from this album. The Everlasting is an absolutely gorgeous, string-laden ballad, and a show of how great the rest of this album should have been. If You Tolerate This really strikes a chord with me and, apart from being the Manics' biggest hit, is just another really great song. You Stole the Sun From My Heart on the other hand, while the chorus is a tad lame, is by large a wonderfully-memorable, finely-tuned and intricate pop song. Apart from those three, not to mention the above average Tsunami and You're Tender and You're Tired, this album is just so goddamn boring. It's awash in synthesizers and strings, but just does everything that the aforementioned first three songs did right and gets them all completely and totally wrong.

It's very creditable that James, Nicky and Sean really want to move on from the Richey years and the sound connected with them, but it's like they're just making that move way before they were really ready to here. This album could've done with either being released as an EP, or just being combined with the better moments from Know Your Enemy to make an infinitely better album. As such, if you've been thinking about getting hold of this, you should probably give it a go for yourself, as it does leave a wildly different make on people who listen to it. As for me, I'm somewhere near the middle...

Aaaaaaand as David Sylvian Month draws to a close, I give you this;

Orpheus

This here's one more highlight of the (deservedly) highly regarded Secrets Of the Beehive, which itself is where I started with Sylvian and quite clearly where you should too

Seriously though, if you're wondering where to start, start there. Even if it is way too short an album, it's definitely the most accessible in the man's back catalogue. There's also the curious figure of this song, which itself boasts one of my favourite ever bridges from about 2:10-2:45, to the extent that that melodic figure would have made a brilliant song had it been stretched out over the right length itself.

Everything that's good about David Sylvian can be heard in this song. Basically, if you can't hack this, then he's just not for you.

Bulldog · 02-01-2011, 01:01 PM

^ Well, if you managed to get through all that, good on ya!

So, a new day, a new month, and it's a month I'll be dedicating to another favourite David, thus rendering this February as being...

David Bowie Month

...simply because, no matter how long I find myself shut in my room, staring at this monitor and hanging around every so often on message boards, I can never run out of things to say about this guy. Put simply, along with Nick Cave and Elvis Costello, I would never have been inspired to take my life on the course it's now on. Regardless of the haters, his body of work is so important to me.

And let's kick this month off then...

Never Get Old

On one or several of those many occasions when my Bowie fanboyism spills over onto my posts on other forums here, I think I've said before that Bowie's last album to date, 2003's Reailty, is far from my favourite of his. Barring a couple of truly great songs, the rest of the album's always veered perilously between decent enough and average for me. Along with another track from it called She'll Drive the Big Car, the above song is the definite highlight of what I think is a fairly poor album.

I just love the funky vibe to this track, the melody, a pretty damn cool chorus etc - going into it too far would be a bit much, but I'll just say that this is simply and all-round great pop-rocker. It touches a level of quality for me that most of the rest of the album around wishes it could.

Unfortunately, contrary to the title of the song, it seems that Davey B here has, finally, got old if you will. Outside of his starring role in Chris Nolan's the Prestige, he's done nothing of note for almost 7 years now, and it certainly looks like that'll be the case permanently. Still, I've got my eyes open for the increasingly unlikely news of a new album that'd quite simply make my year if it ever came around.

Anyway, some more songs I like;

Artist: Superman Lovers
Tuneage: Starlight

Here lies a song I remember well from my pre-havinganythinglikeatasteinmusicatall days, which I'm sure I could bore you with an anecdote about me riding the taxi home from school, playing Pokemon Blue on the Gameboy Colour and the works to put it into a bit of personal context, but I'm sure that'll do just fine

I will say though that for six years I took that taxi across Surrey to get to school as the driver would never fail to leave to the radio on, thus inadvertently becoming quite a musical influence on my good self.

The Superman Lovers here were one of those who had their one-hit wonder when the final embers of dance musics domination of the UK charts were finally starting to extinguish about a decade or so ago. This is, of course, one of the much, much better songs to have emerged from that era that got virtually endless radio play, the royalties of which are probably still just about supporting the coke habits of this song's writers and performers. I just love that constant, repetitive percussive beat that could only belong to one kind of pop music, and the whole funky vibe there is to this thing. It's a song I still love to this day then.

Artist: Akira Yamaoka
Tuneage: Room Of Angel

And here I am, continuing along the strand of Silent Hill fanboyism that started a handful of posts back. The reason I do this is not simply because the first few games of that franchise still stand as my favourite survival horror games ever, or the superb Sinner's Reward comic book mini-series, but also because of Akira Yamaoka's soundtracks. He has this way of being able to create something that sounds as noisy, industrial and all round creepy as possible (reminding me a lot of Scott Walker's latter-day releases). He also has this knack for creating more conventional and complete-sounding songs - some with vocals, some not - that just ooze a kind of soul and emotion that's at once warm yet haunting as all hell.

This song belongs to the latter category. Just listen to it and be merry I suppose

Silent Hill 4 was far from the best game of the series, but I've got a sneaky feeling that this is the best song Yamaoka ever composed for the said series. Enjoy!

Bulldog · 02-09-2011, 10:08 AM

So then, if anyone's been particularly waiting for another album post here, sorry to disappoint! While I haven't exactly been busy, I've had my mind on other things really. In fact, I haven't really listened to a lot of music outside the comfort zone of my old favourite since last week, and these two songs I'm gonna flag up here will testify...

Artist: The Desert Rose Band
Tuneage: No-one Else

Let me just say that, broadly speaking, I love country music. It boasts what seems to me like such a laid-back, chilled kinda vibe that's completely unqiue to a great country song and seeing as laid-back is my middle name, I find myself listening to a lot of this stuff. Just so you don't confuse me with someone who can be in the same room as a Billy Ray Cyrus, Toby Keith or Eddy Raven song, I'll just say that it's all the offshoots of outlaw country like Townes Van Zandt and Krist Kristofferson, not to mention the country rock of the Flying Burrito Brothers that I find myself listening to the most.

True to me FBB-loving form (well, the Gram era anyway), I'm a huge fan of what I like to think of as country rock's own version of the Travelling Wilburys - the Desert Rose Band. Consisting of legends such as Herb Pedersen, John Jorgenson, Tom Brumley and, of course, that king among men himself Chris Hillman, the band released some five albums, of which only one's really anything spectacular. The self-titled debut is an excellent album, and is followed by a mixed bag of a followup which goes by the name of Running. From there, it's predominantly album after album of mediocre, formulaic songs, broken up by the odd killer track.

This song here is that kinda track. From the band's fourth album True Love (largely as ill-conceived and unimaginative as that its title), this is one of only three, at a push four great songs to be found. Whereas the Desert Rose Band's debut was an album I must have listened to hundreds of times when I'd first got hold of it end-to-end, I only ever get back to True Love for those three songs, including this. Sure, it's a syrupy, corny little lovesong, but it's the cheesiness of the whole thing that really strikes a chord with me. Plus, there's a really sweet melody to it which Chris Hillman's voice really does a lot of good. The guitar solos are just awesome too.

Artist: Elvis Costello
Tuneage: Still

Ah, Elvis Costello! I can claim to be as musically diverse, knowledgeable, sexy and all-round amazing as I am, but even I have one artist whose listens outweigh even the likes of Bowie and Sylvian since...well...ever. I could explain what I love about him, but I've already spent a few years, a whole thread and a lot of ProPlusses doing so here, so I won't bother getting into it

Anyway, this song...well, I'll just talk about this album first. It's worth mentioning that North (the album this song's from) is quite possibly the one album in my music library I find myself rethinking my opinion of the most. Sometimes I think it's boring as all hell, others I think I never really give it enough of a chance, and then just revert back to the whole boring as all hell line of thinking again. I think it's because it's a side of Costello I'll probably never get used to, that being the romantic, at once regretful and happy lover that these lyrics paint the picture of.

Whatever my opinion of the album around it, this song's always gonna be one of my favourite lovesongs ever. As un-sophisticated and red-raw as this lyric is, as such I don't think I've ever come across another song which describes that blissfully happy feeling of waking up next to someone you really love as perfectly as this song does. I absolutely love the minimalist orchestration that sees the song to its end as well.

Life On Mars? [live, Paris '99]

Life On Mars...

I could just leave this little note at that, but I'll go on a tad longer. Funnily enough, highly regarded as it is, Life On Mars is another piece of music I find myself reappraising quite a lot. Sometimes I think it's epic arrangement really does it all the good it deserves, others I think it's studio version is just far too overcooked, what with those guitar solos and everything. I kinda drift from one way of looking at this song to another (primarily the former to be honest) but one thing about this song's for sure with me - this piano-only live version is far and away the best version of it that I've heard. The bootleg that this performance is from is absolutely wonderful too, even if it was a gig to support one of my least favourite Bowie albums.

Anyway, I'll get another album review in here as soon as poss. Stay tuned!

Bulldog · 03-17-2011, 08:17 PM

Just so anyone who's interested knows (which, at this point, is looking like barely a handful of people), I'm getting a bit bored of doing written reviews by now, so I'm gonna be shaking up the format for this like nobody's business within the next few months. Keep an eye on this thread eh.

starrynight · 03-18-2011, 05:44 AM

It's a sadder more despairing version of Life on Mars. I felt this from the start (and interesting it is) but he particularly emphasises this in the vocal when the chorus comes in the second time, maybe a bit too much though.

For me Costello's best album is his first.

Bulldog · 03-18-2011, 01:47 PM

It's quite a version isn't it. I guess another possible negative about the live version of Life On Mars there is that the pianist Mike Garson is really whacking those keys like he's chopping wood, unlike the more blissful, subtle touches of Rick Wakeman on the Hunky Dory studio cut. I can't say I prefer either version myself, although Mick Ronson's guitar on the studio version does get on my pecs from time to time.

As for Costello, his first album's always gonna be the one you can just whack on any time and really get swept off your feet by the simplicity of the whole thing. I've said it a few times (if memory serves me right) around these boards that I prefer when Costello'd found his feet and started to take in more influences than, y'know, Buddy Holly to his sound. As such, in my eyes he's an example of a musician with a fantastic taste in music (even if he does like fucking Greenday and Panic At the Disco, but who doesn't like the odd dud eh) really using it well to make some truly great music.

Anyway, rant over

Quote:

Originally Posted by Bulldog

Just so anyone who's interested knows (which, at this point, is looking like barely a handful of people), I'm getting a bit bored of doing written reviews by now, so I'm gonna be shaking up the format for this like nobody's business within the next few months. Keep an eye on this thread eh.

^ Apologies for the obligatory whine there btw. I was pretty drunk when I logged in last night

The rest of the post still applies though. Basically, as soon as I've got the moolah together for the necessary equipment, I'm gonna try and put some video reviews in here and see how they go down.

starrynight · 03-18-2011, 04:17 PM

What I'm saying about that Life on Mars is I wish he held back his vocal a bit more when he goes through the chorus a second time, maybe he goes a bit too over the top for me there. It certainly sounds more tragic than ecstatic in the chorus like on the studio recording, that's ok but towards the end it might seem too melodramatic for me.

What I like about Costello's first album is it feels quite consistent in quality. Obviously he did other good songs elsewhere too.

01-20-2011, 04:16 PM	#42 (permalink)
NumberNineDream Blue Bleezin' Blind Drunk Join Date: Jul 2009 Location: The land of the largest wine glass (aka Lebanon) Posts: 2,200	Still loving every bit of your journal. I am surprised of your idea of "Musicals". Many are exactly the way you described, unfortunately, but I do think there are some pretty awesome ones (My top 4 Musicals: Singing in the Rain - Rocky Horror Picture Show - Victor/Victoria - Mary Poppins). Anyway.... Great write-ups all the way (even during your massive hangovers). Cheers. *P.S:* Natalie Imbruglia IS awesome! __________________ Do cats eat bats? Do cats eat bats?Do cats eat bats? Do cats eat bats? Do cats eat bats? Do cats eat bats? Do cats eat bats?Do cats eat bats? Do cats eat bats?Do bats eat cats? Do bats eat cats? Do bats eat cats? Do bats eat cats? Do bats eat cats?Do bats eat cats?Do bats eat cats?Do bats eat cats? Do bats eat cats? Do bats eat cats? Do bats eat cats?Do bats eat cats?Do bats eat cats? Do bats eat cats? Do bats eat cats? Welcome to the Black Lodge

01-28-2011, 02:13 PM	#44 (permalink)
Bulldog why bother? Join Date: Sep 2008 Location: UK Posts: 4,840	In hindsight, I apologise for the length of thisw post. Good luck getting through it Manic Street Preachers This Is My Truth, Tell Me Yours 1998 genre: soft-rock, pop-rock 1. The Everlasting - 6:08 2. If You Tolerate This, Your Children Will Be Next - 4:50 3. You Stole the Sun From My Heart - 4:20 4. Ready For Drowning - 4:32 5. Tsunami - 3:51 6. My Little Empire - 4:09 7. I'm Not Working - 5:51 8. You're Tender and You're Tired - 4:37 9. Born a Girl - 4:12 10. Be Natural - 5:12 11. Black Dog On My Shoulder - 4:48 12. Nobody Loved You - 4:44 13. S.Y.M.M. - 5:57 I used to be a huge fan of these guys, and by used to I mean I was around the time Lifeblood came out. I loved that album, how abrasive it was in its own way and the like, and as such the Manics were definitely among the bands I respected the most when I first started buying a whole lotta CDs, and thus listening to a lot more music than your average Joe would. At that point (around 2003, 2004 or something similar), I was of course a huge Lifeblood acolyte, bought and played my copy of their controversial best of compilation Forever Delayed to death, and...well, ranked in descending order of preference are the albums I had at the time; The Holy Bible > Everything Must Go > Lifeblood >>> Generation Terrorists > Gold Against the Soul >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> Know Your Enemy So, here I am using the phrase 'used to' more than an enraged Star Wars fanboy who's just seen the prequels for the first time. Why? Something quite simple yet earth-shatteringly significant happend - in 2007, Send Away the Tigers came out and, perhaps pivotally, that god-awful song about your love alone not being enough got unleashed with it. Besides the title track, I just hated that album beyond belief. All the steps forward that the Manics made with Lifeblood were completely retraced and replaced with a patronising album of rock anthems and ballads. I had (and still have) officially lost almost all respect I once had for the Bradfield/Wire/Moore trio, to the point that barring the odd, nostalgic re-run of the top 3 on that list I provided above, I'm pretty much totally indifferent to them. I haven't even bothered getting the two albums they've released since but, judging by the songs I've heard on the radio or youtube, Journal For Plague Lovers sounds like an improvement on Send Away the Tigers, but still hardly worth the effort. Postcards From a Young Man on the other hand sounds like total and utter shit, and is noteworthy in that it achieved the unimaginable feat of being a Manics album I hate more than Send Away the Tigers. To say that I couldn't care less about their next album-in-the-making, 70 Songs Of Hatred and Failure, would be an understatement of possibly libellous proportions. Anyway, enough talk about the discography. This is, after all, meant to be an album review. As the eagle-eyed among you may have noticed about the above list, one album is missing from it. This one! This is not only because ranking it there would render the rest of this little note quite, quite pointless, but also because I never had the album during the years between Lifeblood and Send Away the Tigers. The reason is simple and a wee bit bland, that being that I just didn't get round to buying it all those years ago. Basically, if you're my age and older, you'll remember a time before building up a music collection basically became a form of trainspotting when you bought an album because it had some kind of emotional weight invested in it for you, and because you had genuine expectations from it other than to add to your artist count on LastFM. Beyond the scabby, malware-ridden p2p networks, there was practically no other way to get hold of this stuff other than to buy it, really. Not that I'm complaining or anything - the way the world of music-collecting is now, it saves me money that I can now spend on booze, hard drugs, hookers and high-stake games of poker. Anyway, what was I on about?...oh yeah, my point is that back in those days if I went about hunting down a discography (as I often did), I'd think the band were something properly special. Often, as in this case, I'd get distracted by something like that Distillers song I'd seen on MTV2 that morning and buy their album instead of plugging the last gap in the Manics' discography here, and I'd just forget about it altogether. I could probably type up something more entertaining if I tore Send Away the Tigers a new arsehole, got hold of Postcards Of a Young Man as one more reason not to get their next album, or fawning over the Holy Bible or Everything Must Go. Truthfully though, I haven't had this album for so long and, consequently, haven't listened to it an awful lot, so I think now's as good a time as any to give this album a real go. Also, this album has something of a reputation that gets ahead of it. Basically, it's a bit of a curate's egg, inasmuch as it divides listeners right down the middle - you either love it or hate it. One thing's for sure, though, and that's that this signals the point in the Manics' discography where they went off at the pop end. Ok, it's true that the preceding Everything Must Go was the most commercial album they'd released to date, but it also had plenty of the loudness, rock-outs and fire in the belly that their earlier albums before Richey Edwards' disappearance had done. Here is where anything resembling the brasher, punkier Manics sound of yesteryear was completely stripped away in favour of something much softer, more melodic and all-round commercial. Basically, I remember being about 10 years old when this album came out. I was at a friend's house one day, and I saw that said friend's Mum had a copy of this album. That's the kind of demographic this album was lapped up by (and how! This album sold by the crapload back in the day). Not only have I heard this album being called one of the Manics' worst, and the beginning of the end according to the Richey fans, but I've also seen it hailed as their best by the odd dissenting voice. I'm sure there's some nutjob out there who thinks the Crazy Frog has everything that Bob Dylan didn't, but any album that people call one of their favourites of all time has to be worth at least a bit of my attention. So how does it hold up? Well, first of all, let me just say that I love this album's title. It just has such a romantic kind of energy to it, and it certainly did what a good album title should do when I first came across it, and that was to make me wonder what the music beneath it must be like. That's the thing with the Manics, isn't it? No matter what they do, they can always come up with great titles for their songs and albums. Maybe it's just me Anyway, while we're on the subject of judging this book by its cover, I'll also say that the sleeve art photo is just pure shite. They look like fucking Westlife, or some other rubbish aimed at people's parents or ill-educated kids (when it comes to music). The music itself though? I've put off talking about it for as long as possible, so I may as well say that I didn't expect much from this album as I came to it, and not much is exactly what I got. Like the grand majority of pop albums, it suffers from having singles which are far, far superior to the rest of the album. The opening trio of songs is all you really need from this album. The Everlasting is an absolutely gorgeous, string-laden ballad, and a show of how great the rest of this album should have been. If You Tolerate This really strikes a chord with me and, apart from being the Manics' biggest hit, is just another really great song. You Stole the Sun From My Heart on the other hand, while the chorus is a tad lame, is by large a wonderfully-memorable, finely-tuned and intricate pop song. Apart from those three, not to mention the above average Tsunami and You're Tender and You're Tired, this album is just so goddamn boring. It's awash in synthesizers and strings, but just does everything that the aforementioned first three songs did right and gets them all completely and totally wrong. It's very creditable that James, Nicky and Sean really want to move on from the Richey years and the sound connected with them, but it's like they're just making that move way before they were really ready to here. This album could've done with either being released as an EP, or just being combined with the better moments from Know Your Enemy to make an infinitely better album. As such, if you've been thinking about getting hold of this, you should probably give it a go for yourself, as it does leave a wildly different make on people who listen to it. As for me, I'm somewhere near the middle... Aaaaaaand as David Sylvian Month draws to a close, I give you this; Orpheus This here's one more highlight of the (deservedly) highly regarded Secrets Of the Beehive, which itself is where I started with Sylvian and quite clearly where you should too Seriously though, if you're wondering where to start, start there. Even if it is way too short an album, it's definitely the most accessible in the man's back catalogue. There's also the curious figure of this song, which itself boasts one of my favourite ever bridges from about 2:10-2:45, to the extent that that melodic figure would have made a brilliant song had it been stretched out over the right length itself. Everything that's good about David Sylvian can be heard in this song. Basically, if you can't hack this, then he's just not for you. Last edited by Bulldog; 01-28-2011 at 02:54 PM.

01-20-2011, 06:56 AM	#41 (permalink)
Bulldog why bother? Join Date: Sep 2008 Location: UK Posts: 4,840	Just so I can stave off getting off my arse and doing something constructive a little longer... Artist: Slayer Tuneage: Seasons In the Abyss Gather round kids - it's time for some self-indulgent back story! I've been hoarding music for about half my life as I type this, perhaps even a little longer, and I can say that I'm in the third phase of it. That phase, ladies and gents, boys and girls, is noticing that there are craploads of free albums you can get hold of if you know where to find them, and taking advantage of that before the long arm of the law finds a way stopping you from doing so. The phase I went through before that came about just after I got my first job, when I just blew as much of my hard-earned as poss on buying CDs as opposed to waiting for Christmas, birthdays, pocket money or whatever to get them. I doubt I'll get into a fourth phase anytime soon, unless someone pioneers a kind of technology that can drip-feed you music or whatever. And the first phase came before I was old enough to get a job. That phase was using Kazaa to get individual songs I liked the sound of - p2p networks in other words. Still makes me smile that perfectly web-savvy people around my age still use p2p networks believing that they're the sole way to get hold of new music for free. This was one of the many songs I downloaded way back when, having seen (I believe) on MTV2. I listen to pretty much no metal of any kind these days, but this song is just so badass you can't not like it really. Certainly one of the best openings to a song ever. Although admittedly my attention does wonder from about 2:15 onwards, this song still rules all the same. Artist: Johnny Cash Tuneage: When the Man Comes Around And behind curtain number 2 is a song I'm sure a lot of you have heard before. If not, watch the Dawn Of the Dead remake fer crissakes For me, this song goes to show that if you want a song to be dark, fairly creepy and pretty badass, you don't necessarily need to resort to a load of tape-loops, synths, heavy guitars, orchestration and all that. This 'ere tune ticks all the right boxes like that for me, and all it is is Cash basically singing the Book Of Revelations with just his guitar and a very distant-sounding organ. It's just pure awesome, and reason enough to get yourself into Cash's American series. I'll tell you what else is awesome, and that's the first 4 Silent Hill games, hence the video. Enjoy! Here's something that'll test your patience as a musiclover; David Sylvian, Arve Henriksen & Jan Bang - Thermal Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, I give you Arve Henriksen! Henriksen was actually one of the first names I thought of to review back when I (re)started this thread. For some reason I never got round to reviewing the album of his that I have, so I should probably fix that sometime soon. Who is he you ask? He's a Norweigan trumpeter who has a very distinct, flute-like sound to his playing as his kinda claim to fame. He's one of the leading lights of Scandinavian nu-jazz, and an example of a very rich yet so overlooked area of modern music. And, as you can see, he's worked with David Sylvian many times before, particularly on his more ambient-leaning pieces like the above. I won't lie, it all depends how much patience you have for ambient music - it'll either be boring, pretentious drivel or one of the most amazing things you've ever heard. I think it's obvious which category I fall into

01-22-2011, 04:16 AM	#43 (permalink)
Bulldog why bother? Join Date: Sep 2008 Location: UK Posts: 4,840	Cheers It's good to know I'm not just talking to a wall here after all! And, to be honest I was exaggerating slightly when I said that's the case for every musical out there. Musical theatre still gets on my pecs in the main, but there are some good ones, like those that you mentioned. The Blues Brothers is one of my favourite films of all time, and for some reason I've always had a lot of time for Guys and Dolls, which is strange as it's those early-ish Hollywood musicals which irritate me the most. Can't beat a bit of Gilbert and Sullivan either, who I guess you could technically say wrote musicals in the modern sense. Back when my Dad actually had two pennies to rub together, he'd take the family to the opera house as often as he could to go and watch some of their operettas. Call me Captain Obvious, but HMS Pinafore was always my favourite - I just love how it opened, like so; Ah, nostalgia! I'm gonna work on a couple more albums to talk crap about before the month's out by the way, so keep one eye on this thread eh.

02-01-2011, 01:01 PM	#45 (permalink)
Bulldog why bother? Join Date: Sep 2008 Location: UK Posts: 4,840	^ Well, if you managed to get through all that, good on ya! So, a new day, a new month, and it's a month I'll be dedicating to another favourite David, thus rendering this February as being... David Bowie Month ...simply because, no matter how long I find myself shut in my room, staring at this monitor and hanging around every so often on message boards, I can never run out of things to say about this guy. Put simply, along with Nick Cave and Elvis Costello, I would never have been inspired to take my life on the course it's now on. Regardless of the haters, his body of work is so important to me. And let's kick this month off then... Never Get Old On one or several of those many occasions when my Bowie fanboyism spills over onto my posts on other forums here, I think I've said before that Bowie's last album to date, 2003's Reailty, is far from my favourite of his. Barring a couple of truly great songs, the rest of the album's always veered perilously between decent enough and average for me. Along with another track from it called She'll Drive the Big Car, the above song is the definite highlight of what I think is a fairly poor album. I just love the funky vibe to this track, the melody, a pretty damn cool chorus etc - going into it too far would be a bit much, but I'll just say that this is simply and all-round great pop-rocker. It touches a level of quality for me that most of the rest of the album around wishes it could. Unfortunately, contrary to the title of the song, it seems that Davey B here has, finally, got old if you will. Outside of his starring role in Chris Nolan's the Prestige, he's done nothing of note for almost 7 years now, and it certainly looks like that'll be the case permanently. Still, I've got my eyes open for the increasingly unlikely news of a new album that'd quite simply make my year if it ever came around. Anyway, some more songs I like; Artist: Superman Lovers Tuneage: Starlight Here lies a song I remember well from my pre-havinganythinglikeatasteinmusicatall days, which I'm sure I could bore you with an anecdote about me riding the taxi home from school, playing Pokemon Blue on the Gameboy Colour and the works to put it into a bit of personal context, but I'm sure that'll do just fine I will say though that for six years I took that taxi across Surrey to get to school as the driver would never fail to leave to the radio on, thus inadvertently becoming quite a musical influence on my good self. The Superman Lovers here were one of those who had their one-hit wonder when the final embers of dance musics domination of the UK charts were finally starting to extinguish about a decade or so ago. This is, of course, one of the much, much better songs to have emerged from that era that got virtually endless radio play, the royalties of which are probably still just about supporting the coke habits of this song's writers and performers. I just love that constant, repetitive percussive beat that could only belong to one kind of pop music, and the whole funky vibe there is to this thing. It's a song I still love to this day then. Artist: Akira Yamaoka Tuneage: Room Of Angel And here I am, continuing along the strand of Silent Hill fanboyism that started a handful of posts back. The reason I do this is not simply because the first few games of that franchise still stand as my favourite survival horror games ever, or the superb Sinner's Reward comic book mini-series, but also because of Akira Yamaoka's soundtracks. He has this way of being able to create something that sounds as noisy, industrial and all round creepy as possible (reminding me a lot of Scott Walker's latter-day releases). He also has this knack for creating more conventional and complete-sounding songs - some with vocals, some not - that just ooze a kind of soul and emotion that's at once warm yet haunting as all hell. This song belongs to the latter category. Just listen to it and be merry I suppose Silent Hill 4 was far from the best game of the series, but I've got a sneaky feeling that this is the best song Yamaoka ever composed for the said series. Enjoy!

02-09-2011, 10:08 AM	#46 (permalink)
Bulldog why bother? Join Date: Sep 2008 Location: UK Posts: 4,840	So then, if anyone's been particularly waiting for another album post here, sorry to disappoint! While I haven't exactly been busy, I've had my mind on other things really. In fact, I haven't really listened to a lot of music outside the comfort zone of my old favourite since last week, and these two songs I'm gonna flag up here will testify... Artist: The Desert Rose Band Tuneage: No-one Else Let me just say that, broadly speaking, I love country music. It boasts what seems to me like such a laid-back, chilled kinda vibe that's completely unqiue to a great country song and seeing as laid-back is my middle name, I find myself listening to a lot of this stuff. Just so you don't confuse me with someone who can be in the same room as a Billy Ray Cyrus, Toby Keith or Eddy Raven song, I'll just say that it's all the offshoots of outlaw country like Townes Van Zandt and Krist Kristofferson, not to mention the country rock of the Flying Burrito Brothers that I find myself listening to the most. True to me FBB-loving form (well, the Gram era anyway), I'm a huge fan of what I like to think of as country rock's own version of the Travelling Wilburys - the Desert Rose Band. Consisting of legends such as Herb Pedersen, John Jorgenson, Tom Brumley and, of course, that king among men himself Chris Hillman, the band released some five albums, of which only one's really anything spectacular. The self-titled debut is an excellent album, and is followed by a mixed bag of a followup which goes by the name of Running. From there, it's predominantly album after album of mediocre, formulaic songs, broken up by the odd killer track. This song here is that kinda track. From the band's fourth album True Love (largely as ill-conceived and unimaginative as that its title), this is one of only three, at a push four great songs to be found. Whereas the Desert Rose Band's debut was an album I must have listened to hundreds of times when I'd first got hold of it end-to-end, I only ever get back to True Love for those three songs, including this. Sure, it's a syrupy, corny little lovesong, but it's the cheesiness of the whole thing that really strikes a chord with me. Plus, there's a really sweet melody to it which Chris Hillman's voice really does a lot of good. The guitar solos are just awesome too. Artist: Elvis Costello Tuneage: Still Ah, Elvis Costello! I can claim to be as musically diverse, knowledgeable, sexy and all-round amazing as I am, but even I have one artist whose listens outweigh even the likes of Bowie and Sylvian since...well...ever. I could explain what I love about him, but I've already spent a few years, a whole thread and a lot of ProPlusses doing so here, so I won't bother getting into it Anyway, this song...well, I'll just talk about this album first. It's worth mentioning that North (the album this song's from) is quite possibly the one album in my music library I find myself rethinking my opinion of the most. Sometimes I think it's boring as all hell, others I think I never really give it enough of a chance, and then just revert back to the whole boring as all hell line of thinking again. I think it's because it's a side of Costello I'll probably never get used to, that being the romantic, at once regretful and happy lover that these lyrics paint the picture of. Whatever my opinion of the album around it, this song's always gonna be one of my favourite lovesongs ever. As un-sophisticated and red-raw as this lyric is, as such I don't think I've ever come across another song which describes that blissfully happy feeling of waking up next to someone you really love as perfectly as this song does. I absolutely love the minimalist orchestration that sees the song to its end as well. Life On Mars? [live, Paris '99] Life On Mars... I could just leave this little note at that, but I'll go on a tad longer. Funnily enough, highly regarded as it is, Life On Mars is another piece of music I find myself reappraising quite a lot. Sometimes I think it's epic arrangement really does it all the good it deserves, others I think it's studio version is just far too overcooked, what with those guitar solos and everything. I kinda drift from one way of looking at this song to another (primarily the former to be honest) but one thing about this song's for sure with me - this piano-only live version is far and away the best version of it that I've heard. The bootleg that this performance is from is absolutely wonderful too, even if it was a gig to support one of my least favourite Bowie albums. Anyway, I'll get another album review in here as soon as poss. Stay tuned!

03-17-2011, 08:17 PM	#47 (permalink)
Bulldog why bother? Join Date: Sep 2008 Location: UK Posts: 4,840	Just so anyone who's interested knows (which, at this point, is looking like barely a handful of people), I'm getting a bit bored of doing written reviews by now, so I'm gonna be shaking up the format for this like nobody's business within the next few months. Keep an eye on this thread eh.

03-18-2011, 05:44 AM	#48 (permalink)
starrynight Music Addict Join Date: Mar 2011 Posts: 937	It's a sadder more despairing version of Life on Mars. I felt this from the start (and interesting it is) but he particularly emphasises this in the vocal when the chorus comes in the second time, maybe a bit too much though. For me Costello's best album is his first.

03-18-2011, 04:17 PM	#50 (permalink)
starrynight Music Addict Join Date: Mar 2011 Posts: 937	What I'm saying about that Life on Mars is I wish he held back his vocal a bit more when he goes through the chorus a second time, maybe he goes a bit too over the top for me there. It certainly sounds more tragic than ecstatic in the chorus like on the studio recording, that's ok but towards the end it might seem too melodramatic for me. What I like about Costello's first album is it feels quite consistent in quality. Obviously he did other good songs elsewhere too.