The Rock Album Survivor Reviews Thread

[Zhanteimi]

Seriously, you two! At it again? Shut it!

[Frownland]

Ugh, you want me to keep talking too? I'm good, man.

[JGuy Grungeman]

I'm in a folk/soft music mood today, so I think I'll tackle some of that for a while.

[JGuy Grungeman]

OK, it's 95% likely I'm baiting myself, but I'm going to make a couple points.
A: in no way have I ever claimed, or believed that I am a genre "expert." I'm just fascinated with the complications of defining them and the ambiguousness it gains from most people's interpretations of them.

B: I don't consider Pink Flag post-punk for these reasons: Post-Punk has no time restriction and is focused on confusion and emotion, usually sadness/depression/loneliness, etc. 99% of Pink Flag gave me raw energy and proud anger, traits of regular punk. I indeed noticed traces of post-punk, and I admit it's one of the defining influences. But not enough for me to call it a full post-punk album.

If you still think this is a dumb opinion, I'll listen to the whole list and then finish with Pink Flag. So that will be my project for the week: the post-punk list.

[The Batlord]

Originally Posted by JGuy Grungeman

OK, it's 95% likely I'm baiting myself, but I'm going to make a couple points.
A: in no way have I ever claimed, or believed that I am a genre "expert." I'm just fascinated with the complications of defining them and the ambiguousness it gains from most people's interpretations of them.

B: I don't consider Pink Flag post-punk for these reasons: Post-Punk has no time restriction and is focused on confusion and emotion, usually sadness/depression/loneliness, etc. 99% of Pink Flag gave me raw energy and proud anger, traits of regular punk. I indeed noticed traces of post-punk, and I admit it's one of the defining influences. But not enough for me to call it a full post-punk album.

If you still think this is a dumb opinion, I'll listen to the whole list and then finish with Pink Flag. So that will be my project for the week: the post-punk list.

Influences? Pink Flag all but birthed post-punk and is one of, if not the first post-punk album. Just because it's not the stereotype you have in your head doesn't mean it's not post-punk. In fact, to define post-punk as you have defeats the purpose of post-punk, and I imagine most post-punks would sneer at you and the very idea of how narrowly you define it.

[JGuy Grungeman]

I believe most people on RYM say it's not a full on post-punk album. It's listed under secondary genres. I'm not saying this to claim RYM and I are right. But what I am saying is that the voters on RYM have a better idea of genres than Discogs, Allmusic, Last.fm, and Wikipedia. I don't always agree with Rateyourmusi, but it seems like a pretty common opinion. So if I can imagine people sneering at me, I'd assume the same amount of people would probably back me up even if they disagreed on how I would define the genre.

[JGuy Grungeman]

As long as we're on the topic of post-punk and influence, I think Unknown Pleasures is a far better example than Pink Flag. The grand design of each layout greatly empowers the tidal wave of emotions that flows through the entire release, taking the punk influence and turning its anger into a kind of despair with a glimmer of hope. Ian Curtis sings like a gothic Marvin Lee Aday, which is ultimately perfect for this album. I'll admit. When I first heard this album, I trhought it was a bit overrated. "pretty good," really. I've never been that big on post-punk or gothic rock myself. But now I can see exactly how it uses its emotion to empower the music and vice versa. Fantastic album. Not voting this one of unless one of the albums I haven't heard yet manages to work its way on top.

I can't tell you how much the ziploc ad killed the vibe.

[JGuy Grungeman]

I actually wanted to start with this when I went over the post-punk albums. I totally brainfarted and started with Joy Division. Can I call it post-punk? I can't really "Call" it anything as it is so beneficially crazy and experimental that it seems unfair to set it under a genre tag. It has a little bit of a lot of things (post-punkl new wave, electronic, dance, funk, pop), and yet it exudes all of these diofferent aspects so well. I suppose that's what makes it a great album. I might keep it on the list for a while just due to how creative it is. I'm not sure how much of a "post-punk" album it is, but I do think it deserves a lot of credit for its creativity and variety.

[JGuy Grungeman]

Gonna be reviewing This Heat for the Experimental round.

[JGuy Grungeman]

This Heat by This Heat



Style: Experimental Rock, Noise
Release: 1979
Length: 41 min.
Round: Experimental Rock

I started this album to prepare for This Heat's Decieit. I'm writing this as I go along, as usual.

Upon the first beep, I understood the album would be unpredictable. I think Testcard was pretty pointless as a track, but it did help set the standard for the album in a small way. The first real track, "Horizontal Hold," is the real intro. It's six minutes of unpredictable changes in time signatures and a buttload of noise-shattering, brain breaking rhythm. And I'm not saying this is bad. In fact, if that's what the album does while remaining catchy throughout, it's unique enough. I'm not really a fan of "Not Waving," however. It felt like a pointless noise for nearly 3 minutes. Than the singing began, and I was less impressed. In fact, it was actually pretty horrible. "Water" had a little bit of grip. But overall it was too short to really go anywhere. For three minutes, irt felt like an intro. So I can imagine the next song would pick it up. "Twilight Furniture" gave me what I hoped for. A little grip, a little emotion. At this point, I realized the irony of the album. Despite going so slow, the songs feel a lot shorter than they are. two minutes in, and I felt that I had barely scraped off the first minute. And by the end, this 5-minu8te track felt like 3. Track 6: "24 Track Loop." With a track title like that, I was afraid I'd be hearing the same tune in loop over and over again. However, that wasn't what the track was like at all. It had an electronic feel akin to Kraftwerk. It's actually one of the best tracks due to its experimentation and its high complexity. It gets more and more exciting throughout.

Before I continue, would you eat this?



Halfway through, I start "Diet of Wormjs." I'm so glad this album feels a lot shorter than it is, because it was mostly just a bunch of dull, headache inducing screeches on a low volume but high pitch. I can see a bunch of dogs surrounding me wondering where the sound comes from. Yeah, the music's like a dog whistle. And then came "Music Like Escaping Gas." I think to myself I'm about to put myself through hell. It begins with the screeching noise from the last track, but put to a low and somewehat intense vibration and used in a creative way. Like, remember that weird high-pitched noise from the Alien trailer? Imagine this noise but doing that. Eventually, it gets a little more inventive and a simple, but effective guitar solo begins. Obviously, this was one of the better tracks. The cough halfway through was pointless, however. It reminded me a little of Kid A. The singing, what with the ghostly backing vocals and the deep lead vocals, were very effective towards the tension. I didn't know gas sounded so good. Next was "Rainforest," which was loud and obnoxious in comparison. The cymbals had drowned out the vast majority of instruments and I couldn't hear a thing. It didn't even slow down until halfway through. "The Fall of Saigon" was a more inventive and original track. It had an excellent structure, clever instrumentals, and a very intense aura. Then the singing began. And I was more impressed. Such a dark song. Finally, the last ttrack, also named "Testcard," started. FOPUR MINUTES OF THAT REDUNDANT BEEPING? Aye.

Well, I've gotta say the songs that were good were really good, and the songs that weren't were unnecessary. Personally, I think this should have been released as a shorter EP, or at least shown more creativity for some songs.

75/100. I've heard more than half of the experimental list. This was the worst. I'll be voting this off along with three others. Don't know what they'll be.