Oriphiel

But do you agree that Free > Zep?

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rubber soul

Don't feel bad, Mic. Someone told me to burn in Hell because I didn't like Feist

Anyway, we all have different tastes. Next time Occult tells you he hates something you love just tell him Charles Mingus wears army boots or something.

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Trollheart

Do a Judie Tzuke one. At least you know I'll support you. Unless it's Ritmo.

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Trollheart: Signature-free since April 2018

MicShazam

And watch everyone else smear that sweet lady with dirt and ignorance? Never! Tzuke is too good for the album club.

Frownland

Jazz for people who aren't interesting enough to like jazz. Or maybe jazz for people who discovered their love for jazz in the lounge of a hotel full of Weinstenites pretending to be classy. I find absolutely none of this compelling. This was clearly meticulously put together, but the end result is a sterile and soulless product. There are a lot of cinematic elements at play that somehow double down on the adult contemporary cliches that litter the record. When I listen to this, I don't hear passion. What I hear is a group of people who don't care about music with a lot of music training putting out an album that they've been told is right. If this was released shortly after Revolver, I could chalk up how bloated it is to hopping on the strings bandwagon, but since this was released in 2014, I get to call this album unnecessarily pompous. The piano serves as the grounding for a lot of the record but in a formulaic and boring way. This is the musical equivalent of The Da Vinci Code: a well-produced, star-studded sleeping pill that takes itself too seriously to spend time on being interesting.

Things that I did like:
The dreamy interlude on Map to the Treasure about 3 minutes in
Rickie Lee Jones' voice (even if the song was ass)
The two and a half second nod to Webern at the end of Stoned Soul Picnic
Some of the piano runs on Gibsom Street
The fact that someone most likely wrote the lyrics to Save the Country without an inkling of irony

It's cool if you like this album man, but I'm genuinely shocked that you're surprised that we're reacting so poorly to such a trite record. This doesn't even function well as background music. 1/10

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Studies show that when a given norm is changed in the face of the unchanging, the remaining contradictions will parallel the truth.

Neapolitan

A few of us are fans of songs by Laura Nyro. I can't speak for everyone here, but rubber soul made it apparent he likes her too. So you can look at it that our interest intersects with Laura Nyro. However we come from two different directions. You coming from the tribute album and a few of us from the singles by bands like The 5th Dimension who performed her songs. Alison Krauss is a favorite of mine, and I guess you enjoyed her rendition, though I'm not certain. Anyway, there are some things in common.

I doubt if anyone here likes 10% of the artist I like.

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MicShazam

I like Laura Nyro's music, even though I only have two albums yet. I started getting into it early last year, along with a lot of other singer-songwriter material. And yes, I enjoy all songs on Billy Child's album, no matter the singer, although I have my favorites. I personally thing New York Tenderberries with Renée Fleming on vocal is amazing.
A lot of these singers, I don't really know much about, but this album prompted me to start and look into their own albums.
I've never heard anything by 5th Dimension, but this would be a good time to check them out - and not just their Laura Nyro cover.


It would be interesting if one could somehow figure out how much of a cross section there is between each member on MB.

There are some general ways in which I find MB's reaction to music I like alienating, though. Not least the way in which it seems barely anyone on here enjoys a trained singer, but mocks them instead, seeming to prefer varying degrees of moaning, shouting and half-talked off-key rambling in place of "real" singing. I can get on board with all approaches, but I love full on, skilled, expressive singing. No faster way to see a singer mocked in here than it being someone who actually, really capital-S "Sings".

Oriphiel

You know, Nina Hagen was trained as an opera singer

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rubber soul

I'm not necessarily a huge fan of the Fifth Dimension but most of the best songs happened to have been written by Laura Nyro. Here are a couple examples

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Frownland

I am definitely picky about singers, but I enjoy quite a bit of "real" (lol) singing. The music just has to be good too. Plus I find a lot of the vocals on this record to be forced. Not their voices, actually, their emotions. A lot of it just strikes me as people trying to be sultry by imitating cliches instead of genuinely being sultry. Also it's worth noting that I grew up in a musical household where everyone sang, so maybe I'm just more familiar with and in turn tired of such cliches.

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Studies show that when a given norm is changed in the face of the unchanging, the remaining contradictions will parallel the truth.