Ok, so as mentioned I'm going to intersperse the album reviews with some single tracks, and here are the ones that were first to get into the queue:
Title: Nuclear War
Artiste: Sun Ra
Genre: Jazz
Taken from: Nuclear War, 1982
Familiarity: I heard a Sun Ra track once. It was awful!
Suggested by: Plainview (who should know better)
Expectations: I doubt I'll like this.
So, this is a track from the album Plainview substituted his own for because he thought I would hate it eh? Makes perfect sense, then, to throw me a track off it. Guess he wants to know if he was right. Well, as I mentioned above I did listen to one Sun Ra track a while back and did not like it one bit. Still, one track does not an artiste make, so who knows what I'll think of this? Okay, well there's a really nice jazzy piano to start off, those gentle jazz drums and then the vocal is kind of in a soul vein, with the chorus going “Yeah!” in the background. Not bad so far. Yeah but it's one of those songs that does not need to be seven minutes long. It's incredibly repetitive, and by the four-minute mark I'm ready to stop listening. I will though, as I promised with the album, listen all the way through. Maybe it'll get better. Maybe not. No it didn't.
Conclusion: It wasn't nearly as bad as I had been expecting, but very much overstretched and while it wouldn't stop me listening to him again I would prefer to hear something that wasn't stretched and drawn out more painfully than William Wallace at the end...
So, Love or Hate? On balance, I can't say I hated it and there were good parts in it so it's a
Love.
Chances of looking into the album: 10%
Title: Paranoid Android
Artiste: Radiohead
Genre: Indie Rock
Taken from: Ok Computer, 1997
Familiarity: Have so far heard two Radiohead albums; loved one, hated the other
Suggested by: Plainview
Expectations: Not really sure, could go either way.
Nice little acoustic opening, kind of laidback with a soft vocal. Gets a little more kind of progressive in the second minute. Interesting blindside there: I thought when he sang “When I am king” it was going to continue with “you will be queen” but instead he promised “you will be first against the wall!” Not a love song, then!
Nice bass at 2:07 and synthy goodness too I think.
Was just about to say that for a supposedly angry/bitter song it was very gentle when suddenly around 2:50 guitars punched in and it got a whole lot meaner. Oh, and now at 3:36 it slows right down again, getting into a kind of almost gospel chorus, low and gentle. I'm really enjoying this. Now at 5:50 it's back to the guitars and some really weird phased riffs I think as it all picks up again. Then it suddenly stops.
Conclusion: Now
that's how to do a six-minute-plus song and not overstretch it! That had everything; well constructed, well sung, well written, kept the attention, plenty of changes. Pretty excellent all around.
So, Love or Hate? Well it's obviously going to be a
Love, isn't it?
Chances of looking into the album: 80%