In a recent Word Podcast, David and Mark discuss that recent Rolling Stone best 500 Albums list, in which Marvin Gaye’s What’s Going On is Number One. DH refers to it as a “hammock album” – one great track to start (the title track), one to end (Inner City Blues), but a bit saggy in the middle. I must say I kind of agree, although I do love those two tracks.
But I can’t off the top of my head think of another hammock album…over to youse…
http://wordpodcast.co.uk/2020/09/29/podcast-350-do-we-still-need-these-greatest-album-lists/
… a hammock album should have a hook at each end, right?
And there I was, thinking this was a thread about smooth, sunny sounds that would be a soundtrack for a snooze!!
DH does enjoy his labels. I like saggy. It’s often the best bit, the place where you have the time and the room to stretch out. It’s like a long simmer. Too many hooks spoil the broth.
He thinks “Right On” is a saggy bit in the middle. Respectfully, he can fuck off. Peace and love.
Heppers enthusiasm for blues, funk and soul is pretty shallow.
I refuse to believe he’s played it more than a couple of times. What he means is that he likes the singles he already knows from the radio, which is a bit pathetic.
Sgt Pepper?
You are John Lennon and I claim my ten bob note. Sanitise it first please.
A variation on the hammock concept could be a storming opening track – other songs – and then a reprise of the opening track at the end.
I therefore bring your attention to Trans Europe Express by Kraftwerk – which opens with Europe Endless and er, ends with Endless Endless.
As with all hammocks, the decline is steepest at the head end – and so we plunge into a Teutonic abyss with Hall of Mirrors and Showroom Dummies. Once we get to the middle, we plateau at the bum area and then a pleasingly consistent gentle gradient upwards with TEE/Metal on Metal/Franz Schubert/Abzug.
Just like a hammock then.
Who’s Next is another example
Opening with Baba O’Riley and closing with Won’t Get Fooled Again, the bits in the middle never really stood a chance.
Very fine saggy though.
I think you’d have to allow for Bargain, which comes straight after Baba O’Riley, and Behind Blue Eyes, which immediately precedes Won’t Get Fooled Again.
Granted, the remainder is less distinguished, but the best bits lift the whole. Also, what they could have included could have eliminated the saggy middle: Pure And Easy, Let’s See Action, Naked Eye etc.
Tsvimbodze Moto by The Bhundu Boys is not a hammock album. I was in a hammock on afternoon in the summer of 1995, somebody put that album on and a few minutes later I was jigging about so much that I fell out.
Were you alone in the hammock?
What do you bloody think?
…so they all rolled over and one fell out.
Why the knot in the pyjamas? Always puzzled me.
I was thinking this about the new Phoebe Bridgers album Punisher.
At the start which is great.
At the end…which is stupendous and there’s some nice but not particularly amazing songs between.
Getting out of a hammock needs careful thought. Trying to dismount from the side risks an undignified calamity. You become a helpless Jack Douglas character flubbering around like a twitching fish on the deck of a Grimsby trawler. You were hoping to relax…but now look at you.
So you’re lying on the hammock and you’re ready to get off. First thing to do is part your legs as far as they will go – and then allow both feet to be flat on the ground. Stand up in one fluid movement without grunting. You are now A number One, top of the heap., king of the hill.
Falling out of one is not quite as undignified as leaping “into” one and missing.
Getting into a hammock with dignity involves the reversal of my dismount technique.
If the hammock is too high off the ground, you’re on your own.