Albums You've Been Listening To Lately

[zuludelta]

Click here for the original thread.

The holidays are always stressful for me, but they've been extra stressful this year for a few particular reasons I won't go into here. Anyways, my defense mechanism has always been to burrow into my music collection and wrap myself in a cocoon of sound when things aren't exactly rosy. Ended up finding a couple of obscure albums from the past in the process of my audio fort-building:

Chill - Egomaniacal: To be honest, I've always found the generically named Chill's brand of music as a tad amateurish and juvenile, even by popular hip-hop standards. That didn't keep me from going to a bunch of her shows back in the late 1990s, though. I had a huge crush on her back then (hey, I was in my teens, okay, and it wasn't like I was the only one who had a boner for her... the FHM issue with her pictorial was probably the most read publication in my old dorm and was probably responsible for jump-starting puberty for a generation of young music fans), and really, she could have been reading her grocery list on-stage and I'd still have gone and watched her. Recently saw her MySpace Artist's page, though, and I have to say, she hasn't aged too well in the 10 years or so since I last saw her perform live (she's gone from sexy hip-hop nymphette to looking like one of those slightly older ladies trying to look "with it" at the bar... you know the ones who look like they smoke too much and put on too much make-up and wear clothes a size too small to look comfortable... like an Asian version of The Black Eyed Peas' Fergie).

1997's Egomaniacal is Chill's sophomore album. It's not bad and is pretty unremarkable as far as most pop hip-hop goes, but it's far and away better than her self-titled rookie effort... as big an admirer I was back in the day, even I can't sit through that disc (I simply content myself with looking at the CD jacket's pictures, which really, are the best reasons to buy the CD anyway  ).

She also has the dubious distinction of being one of the few persons who actually has the physical proportions of a Whilce Portacio drawing... Portacio was such a big fan he actually drew her in in an issue of his late 1990s self-published comic series, Stone:


He also had her record the comic's theme song (a limited release CD that was distributed at a few comic book conventions in Portacio's native Philippines). The song lyrics actually do a better job of laying out the comic's premise than the actual comic book:
http://www.imeem.com/people/5xfGfgo/music/UgfRp00x/chill_stone/

Cibo Matto - Viva! La Woman: For a time in the mid-1990s, Cibo Matto (which translates from Italian to "Crazy Food") were the poster-girls of experimental music. The New York-based duo of Miho Hatori and Yuka Honda were getting a huge push from the underground music scene and their offbeat mix of hip-hop, noise-core, art-rock & punk was also garnering some mainstream attention (although I think most of the mainstream media attention pretty much could be summed up as the "Awww, how cute, little Japanese girls trying to rap" reaction).

Viva! La Woman is a highly uneven record that can prove a challenging listen for many, but there are a number of gems among the album's rough-hewn tracks. I find myself wondering if they consciously sought to pay homage to all-female Osaka-based punk group Shonen Knife with this album, as they reference food items consistently throughout the record, similar to SK's early work. Song titles like "Beef Jerky," "Know Your Chicken," "White Pepper Ice Cream," and "Artichoke" certainly evoke Shonen Knife's early nonsensical and humourous food-centric lyrics. Anyways, an interesting album, if you can find it.
Media Links:
Know Your Chicken
Beef Jerky
Sugar Water 

[daglob]

Well, it's not exactly and album, but I've been listening to The Shadow.

Back before Conde Nast hit all the Street and Smith fan sites with cease and desist orders, a friend of mine found a site with a bunch of Shadow radio shows. Maybe not all there ever were, but maybe all that still exist. It's like 15-16 seasons of a half-hour TV show (and I'm about halfway through), all fitting on two CDs. Radio dramas are a little like Books on Tape, but not exactly. It is an art form that you seldom see anymore, and it may take a little time to get used to it. Everyone talks to themselves, describes things that the person next to them can see, and states the obvious. Still, once you get into hit, it is worth the effort.

Unless you are a die-hard Shadow fan, I don't suggest you listen to more than a couple at a time. Since I'm listening at work, it is better than listening to the blowers roaring as they take the fumes away and dump them outside.

Two observations:

There is  a scene that is repeated fairly often, with different characters, different wording, different settings, but all come down to this: one of the bad guys says "It's The Shadow! Quick! Lock the door so he can't get out." At which point The Shadow laughs.

If the e is a giggling maniac anywhere in the vicinity, he will capture Margo and decide to do EEEVIL things to her. The woman attracts giggling maniacs like James T. Kirk attracts babes.

[zuludelta]

I loves me some radio dramas. I grew up listening to Fighting Saluyot ("Fighting Jute Leaf"), a Philippine radio drama about a struggling pro boxer (there's something innately hilarious about how the actors state the obvious during a boxing match).

Currently, I try catching "The Whistler" reruns which they broadcast out of the local Vancouver classic rock radio station but I've missed it the past month (and it was pre-empted a few times before that, so I'm not sure if it's still even on).

[thalaw2]

I can't get into the music scene (Why is that?  Everyone talks about "my music" but it just doesn't click for me....I like some music but I ain't crazy about it.)  but I loves me some radio drama!  I even made a radio drama for Christmas.  Had my students do some voices and sound effects for  "Twas the Night Before Christmas"....it was a smash!  I could listen to radio dramas all day and all night.  theater of the mind is where it's at!  All those other cats just have to get a clue!   

[Kommando]

Various stuff from Infected Mushroom - going through a psitrance phase again.

[Figure Fan]

In Rainbows by Radiohead

Hot Fuss by The Killers

Faces Down by Sondre Lerche

[zuludelta]

Bon Iver - For Emma, Forever Ago: As I near old-fart status (relatively speaking), I find myself becoming more and more ready to dismiss "indie" pop music... live long enough and listen to enough records and you'll realize that much of "indie" pop music is simply repackaging and re-branding of standard popular music fixtures and trends. Every now and then, though, a record or single from "the scene" catches my attention, my jaded stance notwithstanding. Bon Iver's For Emma, Forever Ago is one such record.

Bon Iver is actually the one-man production team of singer-songwriter Justin Vernon. The popular story regarding the album's genesis is that Vernon spent a winter holed up in a cabin in the Wisconsin woods, to recuperate from a series of personal crises (a break-up with a long-time girlfried, the dissolution of his band, and a liver infection) and ended up recording what would become his first solo album in the process. Now, I've no idea if there's any truth to the story, but I will say that what sets the album apart from its "indie" brethren is a palpable sense of sincerity. Despite all the overdubs needed to create the album (Vernon, of course, recorded all the parts by himself), there's a seamless "live" sound to the tracks. I guess in terms of innovation or technical prowess, there's not much to set apart Vernon's work from the literally dozens of singer-songwriters who've decided that they're the next Jeff Buckley or Elliott Smith, and I don't know if it's the recent crappy weather we've been having, but the record just clicked for me on an emotional level for some reason.

If I have any misgivings about the record, it's probably that Vernon reveals his musical influences too readily. A couple of the tracks on the record could have been lost Jeff Buckley recordings, with their extensive use of doubled falsetto vocal melodies. There are also traces of Tom Waits, Bob Dylan, and solo Duane Allman in his singing style. Then again, he couldn't have taken after a bunch of better guys from the pre-emo set.

A solid record through and through, and definitely one of the better indie pop albums released in the past year. Highlight of the record are the tracks "The Wolves (Act I and II)," "Flume," "Lump Sum," "Skinny Love," and "re: Stacks"     

Sounds Like: Jeff Buckley, Elliott Smith

Media Links
The Wolves (Act I and II)
Flume
Lump Sum
Skinny Love
re: Stacks

[Verfall]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a7B1hEDlz-s&feature=channel_page

My sister actually found this band, though I knew of the lead singers former work in Stratovarius. Got the album this song is from, quite enjoyable.

[zuludelta]

Listening to a lot of SomaFM.com's Beatblender channel (which plays a lot of deep house and downtempo/midtempo electronica).

Also rediscovered Billy Joel's Phil Ramone-produced albums, 52nd Street, The Stranger and Glass Houses, three albums that were mainstays of my early childhood. Personally, I think Joel created his best work with Ramone working as his collaborator. Practically every one of his most critically-acclaimed singles came from those three records. I think Ramone helped rein in Joel's tendency to turn every song into a Lennon & McCartney-by-way-of-New-York amalgam (although "Scenes From An Italian Restaurant" from The Stranger is probably the closest Joel ever got to making his own version of the Beatles' "A Day In The Life") and as far as collaborators bringing out the best in pop music talent, I think his effect on Joel is almost as significant as Bernie Taupin's influence on early Elton John. I mean really, outside of, say, 1988's "We Didn't Start The Fire" and pop novelty throwaways like "For The Longest Time" and "Tell Her About It," every one of Joel's most-remembered hits had Ramone's fingerprints all over them.   

It's also pretty amazing how Joel presaged many of the pop musical trends that would emerge in the 1980s (although it can be argued that he was responsible for those trends starting). And with kids these days mining the 1980s for their musical ideas, it's pretty much a given that Joel and Ramone's work continues to be an influence today (although I think it's a shame that more and more young musicians these days are pretty unaware of just how extensive their contributions to popular music are).

Media Links
All For Leyna
Big Shot
Scenes From An Italian Restaurant

[zuludelta]

The Bird and The Bee - Ray Guns Are Not Just The Future: The Bird and The Bee, the LA-based duo of singer-songwriter-bassist Inara George and session keyboardist and sometime music producer Greg Kurstin, have been together for a few years now, having released five EPs and scoring a minor dance hit and several TV and film usages, so it comes as somewhat of a surprise that Ray Guns Are Not Just The Future is actually their first full-length album. The album features several previously released songs and some new numbers. I hesitate to call their work "pop" but only because "pop" has become such a dirty word these days, synonymous with insipid and uninspired Top 40 dreck. But really, The Bird and The Bee create some pretty good pop music: catchy but not grating, cheerful but not naive, light but not disposable. Album stand-outs include the hilarious "Polite Dance Song" and "Diamond Dave" (yep, it's an ode to the former-- or it current? -- Van Halen vocalist) and "Love Letter to Japan" (which I think can successfully crossover from pop into the dance charts with the right remix).

Highly Recommended.

Sounds Like: The Cardigans-meet-Rilo Kiley

Media Links:
Polite Dance Song (easily one of the funniest new music videos out there right now)
Love Letter To Japan
Diamond Dave

[lugaru]

Nine Inch Nails(Ghosts 1-4, The Slip)   A lot of his recent work is simple and haunting, which is the way I prefer my Modern NIN. Also The Slip has some nice catchy tunes in an 80's dark pop sort of way.

Septic Flesh - Communion big and fancy black metal with blasting beats and an orchestra.

Lila Down - Shake Away/La Culebra not her best album to date but I LOVE the song called skeleton.

Metallica - Death Magnetic I lost interst during their last few albums because they sounded pretty effortless. This album is the opposite, it is a monument to metal overachieving.

Immortal Technique - The Third World really good underproduced beats and some hardcore rap with concious yet aggressive lyrics. On the other hand he can be pretty full of himself with fantasies of taking down the goverment with an AK 47 in one hand and some communist manifesto/koran hybrid in the other. Still as somebody from the 3rd world I do appreciate his two or three tracks that deal with that.

[afterburn]

Just recently bought Animal Collective's latest album 'Merriweather Post Pavilion' and if you avoided their earlier albums because it wasn't your thing, this is the album to get to fall in love with them.  It's beautiful harmonies mixed with great pop hooks.  I've followed them for a while, and each subsequent album is better than the last.  Check it out!

Check out the song 'My Girls' a great example of what Animal Collective is so great at.  Take a listen.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zol2MJf6XNE

[zuludelta]

Willie Nelson - Stardust: 1978's Stardust represents a crossroads in Willie Nelson's career, marking the delineation between his early days as a progressive country-and-western singer/songwriter (the odd gospel record notwithstanding) and his later, somewhat less remarkable career as a country-tinged elder crooner, pop culture figure, and pot joke punchline.

By 1978, Nelson had gained enough pop culture cachet that his releasing a record rooted as much in popular music (in Stardust's case, it was jazz/big band era music) as it was in the C&W scene was not only feasible, given Kenny Rogers' own massive crossover succes into the mainstream charts, it was almost inevitable. Stardust, I'm sure, must have ruffled the feathers of some country-and-western purists (although I suppose those traditionalists wouldn't have been too approving of the long-haired and earringed Nelson in the first place), with its relatively unconventional collection of songs which featured, among some other decidedly "un-country" songs, a cover of Irving Berlin's "Blue Skies" (from the 1926 Rodgers and Hart musical Betsy), Hoagy Carmichael's 1927 jazz hit "Stardust," and 1930s jazz standard "All Of Me." 

It's a particularly solid album though, and it's one of my favourite Willie Nelson records, right up there with arguably his best LPs (the "divorce-themed" concept album Phases and Stages and of course, Red-Headed Stranger).

Recommended listening for people who say they don't like country music but otherwise enjoy jazz and/or American standards, or anybody wanting to listen to and enjoy country music un-ironically.

Media Links:
Blue Skies
Stardust
Georgia On My Mind

[zuludelta]

Still on a little folk/country jag:

James Taylor - Sweet Baby James: One of the first records I ever listened to full-through. James Taylor, along with Joni Mitchell and Bob Dylan, shaped contemporary folk-pop music as we know it, and are responsible for the teeming legions of scraggly-bearded, sandal-wearing, self-styled and self-conscious, singer-songwriters that populate the coffee shops of North America.

1970's Sweet Baby James is the definitive James Taylor album. It's probably the only James Taylor album worth having for the non-fan. It's also an essential listen for anyone looking to brush up on their pop songwriting. Taylor, at least on this first outing, is adept at crafting songs that are deceptively simple and catchy on the surface, but hold a lot of depth for the more discerning ear. The track list reads like an abbreviated "Greatest Hits" compilation, featuring modern pop and folk classics like "Fire & Rain," "Lo & Behold," "Country Road," and "Blossom." Strangely enough, my favorite track on the album, "Steamroller Blues," is neither a pop or a folk standby (although the album version is relatively tame, and a poor approximation of the much crunchier and groovier live rendition).

Media Links
Sweet Baby James (live)
Country Road (live)
Fire & Rain (live)

[Ajax]

Jim's Big Ego's new album free* which you can listen to for free off their website.

I highly recommend this album, though I'm a big fan of the band so I might be biased.

Right now listening to Lykke Kei off Rhapsody before my free listens off Rhapsody expire when it becomes march in an hour.

Also been going through a Cardigans binge and The Hush Sounds.

[zuludelta]

Jim's Big Ego's new album free* which you can listen to for free off their website.

I highly recommend this album, though I'm a big fan of the band so I might be biased.

Thanks for the link Ajax. Neat band, although I have to say, a number of their songs sound like they were teleported straight from 1997 (not a bad thing, mind you, I just find it interesting how much their sound reminds me of the late 1990s).

[Spring Heeled Jack]

I avoided listening to Ben Folds's Way To Normal for a long time. I heard it once or twice when it came out, but it was mixed with heavy compression, so it's not very enjoyable for me. He's since released a new mix of the album, Stems & Seeds, which is accompanied by a slate of b-sides and rarities, along with Garageband files so folks at home can mix their own version of the album.

I still don't care much for it, but Ben's released enough awesome material already. I'll keep listening and see if it proves to be a grower. (I have neither a Mac nor Garageband, so half of Stems & Seeds is a total loss.)

[Ajax]

Jim's Big Ego's new album free* which you can listen to for free off their website.

I highly recommend this album, though I'm a big fan of the band so I might be biased.

Thanks for the link Ajax. Neat band, although I have to say, a number of their songs sound like they were teleported straight from 1997 (not a bad thing, mind you, I just find it interesting how much their sound reminds me of the late 1990s).

They've been around since the mid to late 90's and the lead singer, Jim Infantino, did some solo work in the early 90's. I just love the song writing. It ranges from serious to absurd, which is always nice. It would probably come as no surprise that I'm also a big CAKE fan.

[detourne_me]

i've recently started listening to The Hood Internet, a mash-up group that mixes indie rock with rap. latest song is Beirut Vs. Ghostface Killah,  it's pretty good.  all tracks are free online too

[thanoson]

i've recently started listening to The Hood Internet, a mash-up group that mixes indie rock with rap. latest song is Beirut Vs. Ghostface Killah,  it's pretty good.  all tracks are free online too

Hey, if you like them, check out Smash Up Derby. They also do the live mash up thing as well. Very cool to see live.

[detourne_me]

Yes Talking heads and Franz Ferdinand! genius!

[zuludelta]

Four Tet - Rounds: I'm not that big a fan of the IDM genre. Oh, I have the odd Telefon Tel Aviv record and I will tune into some IDM internet music stations every now and then but a lot of Intelligent Dance Music (quite a pretentious name for a music genre, I might add), I find, seems to be anything but. A lot of what I hear seems to be especially soulless mid-tempo ambient music, and I think a better term for the genre could be UDM (Undanceable Dance Music). England's Four Tet (whose real name is Kieran Hebden) doesn't suffer from the same dour and generic sound as his genre-mates. Hebden mixes organic instrumentation with his turntablism, using live guitars, drums, and in one instance, even Japanese kotos, giving it more depth and a particularly soulful quality.

Highly Recommended.

Sounds Like: DJ Shadow in a more introspective mood

Media Links:
She Moves She
My Angel Rocks Back & Forth
Slow Jam

[Spam]

I've been listening to a lot of Death Cab for Cutie... especially "Transatlanticism." The whole album is just a great joy to listen to. But I think the two songs I've been listening to the most off the album are "Passenger Seat and "A Lack of Color". Enjoy!