Now where was I?
Oh yes…
“The Blueprint” by Jay-Z. For the first couple of tracks I was wondering “When’s it going to start?”. Somewhere in the next one it did start, eventually. The tempo of the entire album seems to be a sort of slow shuffle. Some nice musical ideas throughout, but basically it’s this geezer going on and on about how f***ing great he is despite the hardships and troubles of his life. A too-long (well over an hour) borefest in my opinion. I nodded off for a while about 2/3 of the way in and don’t think I missed very much.
“Blunderbuss” by Jack White shows his versatility in that just about every song is different from the others. All original compositions apart from one cover, too. The playing is exemplary, the material not quite there I feel, and I’m not sure I like his voice much when he’s singing in the higher registers. A good but not great one. I don’t feel a need to own this.
“Bone Machine” by Tom Waits. I was surprised to discover I didn’t have this and was unfamiliar with nearly all of it. Some pretty extreme examples of what has become ol’ Tom’s shtick, interspersed among some quite charming songs. I’ve got a bit fed up of this phase of his career now. No further investigation required.
“Bongo Rock” by The Incredible Bongo Band is the perfect antidote to pretension and portentousness in the rock idiom. Totally daft music played with panache and precision. Source of a million samples, apparently. Good fun, especially when taken with alcohol. Recommended, though the extended CD edition labours the point somewhat. The original album was just over 33 minutes and that’s about right in my opinion.
“Born To Be With You” by Dion is an interesting case. Produced mostly by Phil Spector in Wall Of Sound mode in 1974, the sessions were protracted and fraught, apparently and the result disowned at the time by Dion, who claimed Spector made it “Sound like funeral music”, not released for a good while and universally panned by the critics when it finally saw the light of day. It became a bit of a cult classic in the ’80s and has some very good songs and rather glorious musical moments. Spector’s production is more Wall Of Mud, however. Sounding similar to that of his tracks on Lennon’s “Rock ‘n’ Roll” album. Not available on Spotify, I had to find the individual tracks on YouTube to give it a listen. Interesting but not really essential, in my opinion.
“Bossanova” by Pixies. I’ve never “got” Pixies particularly, and this album didn’t pique my interest enough to change that status. The opening instrumental sounded promising but the second track, “Rock Music”, was just a mess with no real semblance of a tune. The other songs are melodic enough and there’s some rather nice surf guitar twanging in places. Overall it just didn’t grab me, though.
Other batches to follow.
glad to see this feature back. You’re obviously wrong about Pixies (though it’s not their best), but I’m looking forward to more of your journey.
Apparently Ace is about to rerelease that Dion record. I was curious, but may give it a pass based on your Wall of Mud comment. Especially as, with dotage encroaching, I find that a lot of Spector which once seemed glorious excess now just sounds like excess.
Rather than “The Blueprint”, I recommend listening to Jay-Z’s “American Gangster” which is a far better album IMHO. On the cool scale it’s at least the equal of its movie namesake…
And I love “Bone Machine” – not quite good as his first few Island albums, but it’s got some fantastic tracks on it like “Murder in the Red Barn” and “Jesus Gonna Be Here” – which are up there with some of Mr Waits’ best work. Each to their own I suppose!