There are 7 albums in this one. I’m making up for wasted time by polishing off the remaining “B”s. I’m intent on and still interested in completing this mission, but I need to buck my ideas up a bit, because I don’t want to still be slogging through it in 5 years time when nobody (including me) gives a shit anymore.
Anyway. First up is Elvis Costello’s “Brutal Youth”. I have an aversion to “That Voice”. Sorry, EC fans but I cannot get past this hurdle so I’m biased against this right from the start. The album started badly for me in that the first song was overly wordy, which is another recurring EC fault in my opinion. As it progressed I noted that there are many fine songs on this album which I would love to hear covered by artists whose voices I enjoy. He can definitely write ’em, for sure. There are a few but not too many obvious EC fillers and also a few others that fit in the “less words please” category. A redeeming feature is the scarcity of “that vibrato” that he sometimes annoyingly employs. Not for me, sorry.
“Bubble and Scrape” by Sebadoh got off to a very bad start with me but won me over slowly by it’s sheer weirdness and eclecticism. It must be said, that although I might well enjoy some selections from this coming up on Random Play, I can’t see myself ever playing this album out of choice. The original 17-track Sub Pop release is probably enough for any reasonable person. The Domino re-release with 15 extra tracks is just overkill in my opinion.
“Buenos Noches From a Lonely Room” by Dwight Yoakam is just perfect. A succinct 36 minute 11-track masterpiece of proper Honky-Tonk Country music with some Tex-Mex touches courtesy of Flaco Jimenez. Deemed “too Country” for Nashville he scooted over to California and continued making authentic fiddle-scraping, pedalsteel-wailing, guitar-twanging songs of love, loss, longing and pride. Music to slow dance to as you cry into your beer, just the way I like my Country music. I was previously only aware of Mr Yoakam as a well-respected name. Further investigation is now absolutely essential, thanks to this.
Next album was “Buffalo Springfield Again” by Buffalo Springfield. Quite a bit of this I was already familiar with from the “Retrospective” compilation, which I bought many years ago and subsequently lost somewhere along the way but seem to have re-acquired since in mp3 form somehow. It was interesting to hear the tracks that didn’t feature on the “Retrospective” album. Nothing really stands out among the unfamiliar tracks, it must be said, although there are no turkeys. The “Retrospective” selections will do for me, I reckon. Onwards.
I listened to “Bug” by Dinosaur Jr. Jazz music has the sub-genre of Hard Bop. I would nominate Dinosaur Jr. on this hearing as being a “Hard Grunge” band. It’s loud raucous stuff with crunchy, sometimes-wailing guitars and thundering drums. Just 38 minutes to render 10 songs, so it can’t be called self-indulgent. Vocals are rather weak but that’s not a total deal-breaker. I can’t realistically see myself actually buying this album or paying to specifically see this band, but if they were on a bill with someone I’d gone to see, I wouldn’t necessarily retire to the bar while they were playing.
“Bummed” – Happy Mondays. I didn’t like the opening “Country Song” at all, but the rest is interesting enough at worst, sometimes magnificent. Not a patch on “Pills ‘n’ Thrills and Bellyaches” though, which also features in this tome I’m working my way through, I see. The original “Bummed” album is a sensible 37:30 long, but the remastered re-release has been expanded to a ridiculous 2hours 1minute. I suppose if you’re a fool for those 12″ remixes and extended versions that’s just dandy, but really…
“Butterfly” by Mariah Carey is the final album in this batch. See how I suffer on this mission I have selflessly undertaken. Let me lay my cards on the table by stating that, in my opinion, Mariah’s success in singing in her totally overblown style has spawned a thousand imitators among female vocalists who might otherwise have done more pleasing things with their voices, and to me this is unforgivable. I noted on this album, as on the other recordings of hers that I have heard, she is incapable of finishing a line of lyric on a single note. At least 3, sometimes seemingly in the 30s notes are sung. Misery is the general tone of this album, she having not long before parted from her hubby and svengali Tommy Mottola. Most of the material is unmemorable pap, in my opinion, although I liked a couple of the slow ballads where she exercised a little restraint (though not quite enough) in her melismatising. The album review in the book, by one Bruno MacDonald, claims she curbed her excessive warbling somewhat on this album. Can’t say I noticed that much. Having said all this, she is a very attractive woman and I would, as long as she promised not to sing to me in her customary style afterwards.
Moose the Mooche says
I once had a correspondence with Bruno McDonald, who ran a Pink Floyd fanzine in the days before the Web. Nice chap. (We were talking about hip hop, not Floyd, who at the time made me feel queasy)
Vulpes Vulpes says
Suggest you try Guitars, Cadillacs next from Dwight. Great stuff.
Twang says
If you are a Dwight fan VV, have you cocked a foxy ear at the solo album by DY’s producer Pete Anderson – here’s the eponymous title track. A swampy rootsy country rock coarse textured brew which Nashville would run hundreds of miles from…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LFL9HzNM_gA