31st December - Live's Mental Jewelry

Artist – Album: Live – Mental Jewelry

Released: 31^st December 1991

Sounds Like: Pearl Jamming

 
On Mental Jewelry, Live sound like a blend of lively R.E.M. and soft Pearl Jam. In fact, the Pearl Jam comparison carries further as Ed Kowalczyk manages a passable Eddie Vedder impression, spouting woolly philosophies in his low croon. Yeah, I like that Pearl Jam reference actually. Live on Mental Jewelry are a Pearl Jam-lite.

And that, my friends, is that. 365 days gone and 365 blogs done (with a smattering of specials thrown in for good measure). No more will I have to hammer out a 400-word post at five to midnight semi-drunk. No more will I have to listen to the most obscure niche genres known to man (anti-folk, dark ambient or horrorcore anyone?). No more dodgy headphones, no more pouring over Wikipedia pages and no more Elbow.

When I set out on this Stupid Boy Project back in January I mentioned a few different reasons for taking it up, with one of them being that I wanted to explore my labyrinthine itunes library without just turning to the same few tracks repeatedly. I think that I can safely say mission accomplished, as I’ve discovered countless artists, albums and songs that have I’ve really enjoyed. I hope that you, dear reader, have had almost as much fun following me.

And now, let’s drink and party and bring in the new year! Roll on 2014!

Albumaday... rating: 6/10

1.       Pain Lies on the Riverside – 5:11

2.       Operation Spirit (The Tyranny of Tradition) – 3:18

3.       The Beauty of Gray

4.       Brothers Unaware – 4:45

5.       Tired of Me – 3:26

6.       Mirror Song – 3:38

7.       Waterboy – 3:07

8.       Take My Anthem – 4:37

9.       You Are the World – 4:23

10.   Good Pain – 5:39

11.   Mother Earth is a Vicious Crowd – 4:10

12.   10,000 Years (Peace Is Now) – 5:08

 

Listen to ‘Pain Lies on the Riverside’: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UP5XavjhhQc

27th December - The Pretenders' Pretenders

Artist – Album: The Pretenders – The Pretenders

Released: 27^th December 1979

Sounds Like: Someone’s not impressed

So today was the day of a marathon journey back to Manchester after Christmas, a mere 286 miles on the map but 7 hour drive in horrible wet and windy conditions today. With just getting home being the main task for today, I didn’t have time to fully review this album. Luckily, I had it on my ipod, and a lovely little sister in the passenger who was happy to review it for me. Here’s her take on the album:

Track one: nernernernerner office clerk. Mum and Stuart Pickford. Makes me want to dance like in The Breakfast Club when they’re all high. Prefer her singing (not a clue what she’s on about mind you) to the electric jibber jabber of track two. Track 4, festive Caribbean (bit like in A Muppets Christmas Carol with the rats in Hawaiian shirts). Doesn’t sound like there’s much of a structure, a bit of a jam sesh… ‘Stop Your Sobbing’, I think I’d sob if she were being so mean! I like her more commercial sounding ones. Don’t reckon I’d like to have a barney with the lady! Nice guitar bit in the track after ‘Stop Your Sobbing’. Youtube misheard lyrics. I do think there’ll be no one like her in whatever room she’s in. I’m liking the album more as it goes along… “Stars in the sky” one makes me want to don a hippy skirt and floaty dance a bit like in The Lovely Bones when she’s enjoying her trippy heaven.

Albumaday... rating: 4.7/10 (per my sister!)

1.       Precious – 3:36

2.       The Phone Call – 2:29

3.       Up the Neck – 4:27

4.       Tattooed Love Boys – 2:59

5.       Space Invader – 3:26

6.       The Wait – 3:35

7.       Stop Your Sobbing – 2:38

8.       Kid – 3:06

9.       Private Life – 6:25

10.   Brass in Pocket – 3:04

11.   Lovers of Today – 5:51

12.   Mystery Achievement – 5:23

Listen to ‘Kid’: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kyCbkI9EgEA

Also released on the 27^th December:

1967: Bob Dylan – John Wesley Harding

Also released on the 27^th December:

1967: Leonard Cohen – Songs of Leonard Cohen

4th December - Charlotte Gainsbourg's IRM

Artist – Album: Charlotte Gainsbourg - IRM

Released: 4^th December 2009

Sounds Like: Death defying music

Charlotte Gainsbourg – daughter of the orgasming ‘Je t’aime… moi non plus’ couple Serge Gainsbourg and Jane Birkin – is lucky to be alive, let alone recording fragile yet optimistic electropop with indie hero Beck. In September 2007, Gainsbourg was rushed to a Paris hospital where she underwent surgery for a cerebral haemorrhage, the result of a minor waterskiing accident several weeks earlier. IRM (named for the French acronym for a MRI scan) is the result, an examination of her experience of the near death experience, the subsequent fear that lead to her repeatedly requesting MRI scans even when given the all clear, but also a newfound love of life.

In a way, the story is better than the album itself. There are some clever tricks, such as utilising the sound of an MRI as an instrument on the title track, and when she’s in her element of breathy indie-folky-pop on ‘Heaven Can Wait’ (with Beck) and ‘Me and Jane Doe’ she really shines. However, it wasn’t Gainsbourg who wrote the songs but Beck, and with that in mind the album loses a little bit of its authenticity. Moreover, although the meaning behind the cathartic rock of ‘Greenwich Mean Time’ or the deathly soul of ‘Vanities’ isn’t hard to interpret, they do feel a little forced when Gainsbourg’s not being cast as the delicate but life-affirming chanteuse.

It is a good album and the fact that Gainsbourg is making an album at all is remarkable enough.

Albumaday... rating: 7/10

1.       Master’s Hands – 2:49

2.       IRM – 2:35

3.       Le Chat du Café des Artistes – 4:03

4.       In the End – 2:00

5.       Heaven Can Wait – 2:41

6.       Me and Jane Doe – 3:21

7.       Vanities – 3:38

8.       Time of the Assassins – 2:46

9.       Trick Pony – 2:53

10.   Greenwich Mean Time – 2:25

11.   Dandelion – 3:18

12.   Voyage – 4:05

13.   La Collectionneuse – 5:15

Listen to ‘Heaven Can Wait’: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CrWN0-MuK38

25th November - Rivers Cuomo's Alone II: The Home Recordings of Rivers Cuomo

Artist – Album: Rivers Cuomo – Alone II: The Home Recordings of Rivers Cuomo

Released: 25^th November 2008

Sounds Like: The cutting room floor

 
Bit of a tricky one this – should I really be covering Alone II, a compilation of various unreleased material from sourced from songs recorded with Weezer, earlier bands, and self-recorded demos? It’s not technically a real album but an anthology, and I certainly wouldn’t ever stoop to include a Best Of on my blog. But then, the point is that none of these tunes have been released before and they have been selected and sourced by the artist himself, so it is kind of like a real album. Hmmm… Tricky… Fortunately, I can cite precedent: in July I covered They Might Be Giants’ Long Tall Weekend because I couldn’t find anything else, and so, with reference to the TMBGLTW case, it is decreed that I am allowed to cover Alone II.
 
Which is a relief, because again there wasn’t much else. And it is actually Quite Good.
 
While there isn’t anything that screams out as a lost Weezer classic – if there ever was such a thing, it stands to reason that that would have surfaced on Alone I – Rivers Cuomo remains one of history’s greatest ever power-poppers and there’s no shortage of diamonds in the rough, next to the 30-second instrumentals and Beach Boys covers. Amongst the favourites are the bouncy ‘I’ll Think About You’, the manic ‘My Brain is Working Overtime’ and  ‘The Purification of Water’, which pleasantly deviates away from the power chord driven formula on the back of a apocalyptic Hammond organ.
 
It’s hardly essential, but Weezer and indie rock fans in general could do a lot worse than giving this a spin.
 
Albumaday... rating: 6/10
 

1.       Victory on the Hill – 0:50

2.       I Want to Take You Home Tonight – 3:56

3.       The Purification of Water – 3:56

4.       I Was Scared – 2:54

5.       Harvard Blues – 0:31

6.       My Brain is Working Overtime – 3:27

7.       I Don’t Want to Let You Go – 3:46

8.       Oh Jonas – 0:26

9.       Please Remember – 0:37

10.   Come to My Pod – 1:31

11.   Don’t Worry Baby – 2:58

12.   The Prettiest Girl in the Whole Wide World – 2:44

13.   Can’t Stop Partying – 2:18

14.   Paper Face – 3:20

15.   Walt Disney – 2:50

16.   I Admire You So Much – 0:46

17.   My Day is Coming – 4:23

18.   Cold and Damp – 3:35

19.   I’ll Think About You – 3:01

 
Listen to ‘I’ll Think About You’: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y-ahhiRs010

7th November - R.E.M.'s Green

Artist – Album: R.E.M – Green

Released: 7^th November 1988

Sounds Like: Who sell out?

Music history is littered with bands that had amassed an avid underground following, only to supposedly alienate their faithful once they were picked up by a major label and had a chance at mainstream popularity. In fact, just the act of signing for a record company that has such luxuries as access to decent studios, useful contacts and/or paid staff is a heinous crime in some circles; all the more so if the unfortunate band inadvertently score a hit.

In truth, few “sell outs” actually did anything of the sort. With the honourable exception of Robert Johnson, who famously sold his soul to the devil back in the 1930’s, things tend not to be that different when a lucrative contract comes the way of the simple artist – after all, why sign a band if you need to change everything about them? X-Factor and Britain’s Got Talent have proven that there’s already plenty of ready-made pop act play-doh out there, tremendously ready to go and make an absolute arse out of themselves on the whims of a record exec.

So, R.E.M.’s Green, their first album after signing with Warner Bros. Records, is not a sell out. It does contain a few pop songs – ‘Pop Song 89’ is a bit of a no-brainer – but so did their previous albums and, besides, the likes  of ‘Get Up’ and ‘Stand’ were recorded with tongue positioned squarely in cheek. Their first single, in fact, was ‘Orange Crush’, written about the entirely uncommercial subject of the use of chemical defoliants in the Vietnam War. Elsewhere, things sound R.E.M-esque, with the likes of ‘You Are the Everything’ and ‘World Leader Pretend’ being real highlights of a consistently strong set.

If R.E.M. ever did sell out, then it was surely on their next album ‘Out of Time’, which featured the unabashed bubblegum pop of ‘Shiny Happy People’ and a rap-rock crossover with KRS-One called ‘Radio Song’. Despite those dodgy bits, that album is still seen as a classic. Green is nearly as good, and without a sniff of selling out to be snuffed.

Albumaday... rating: 7/10

1.       Pop Song 89 – 3:04

2.       Get Up – 2:39

3.       You Are the Everything – 3:41

4.       Stand – 3:10

5.       World Leader Pretend – 4:17

6.       The Wrong Child – 3:36

7.       Orange Crush – 3:51

8.       Turn You Inside-Out – 4:16

9.       Hairshirt – 3:55

10.   I Remember California – 4:59

11.   11 – 3:10

Listen to ‘You Are the Everything’: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6e-LF21yFWM

3rd November - Beck's Mutations

Artist – Album: Beck – Mutations

Released: 3^rd November 1998

Sounds Like: The genre spanner

Howard Moon: I do many things. I span the genres - they call me the genre spanner.

Vince Noir: Yeah, they call you the spanner...

Getting started on Beck’s back catalogue can be something of a daunting task for any music fan – over his 20 year career he’s racked up 11 albums and 40 singles, hopping from style to style on each one like Howard Moon’s genre spanner. Take a wrong turn as you explore his music unguided and you could unwittingly find yourself in bossa nova territory, or stranded in some electro-indie-hip hop no-man’s-land, unprotected against stray DJ scratches and obscure samples. No one wants that.

Luckily I’ve come up with a cheat, which should help you to avoid potential pratfalls. Begin with Odelay, Beck’s seminal 1996 recording. Even here the eclectic varieties come at you thick and fast, but they’re so well-crafted and brilliant that you should be immune to them. However, you can – and this is my  point – use the songs as springboards into whichever Beck-osphere is best suited to your particular tastes. For example, if you like ‘Where It’s At’ and ‘High 5 (Rock the Catskills)’ best, then Midnite Vultures might be the album you turn to next. If the chameleon-esque approach of ‘Devil’s Haircut’ and ‘The New Pollution’ sit easy with you, then you’re safe to make the move to Mellow Gold and Guero. If, like me, ‘Ramshackle’ and ‘Jack-Ass’ are your favourites, then the lush sound of Sea Change and the acoustic Mutations are great albums.

Beck himself revels in the laid back psychedelic bluesy folk surroundings of Mutations. There’s less need to be the shape-shifting showman and we’re treated to a more open and reflective individual on the likes of mandarin-led ‘Nobody’s Fault but My Own’. Being Beck there’s still a degree of diversity, diving from The Kinks-inspired ‘Lazy Flies’ to the Brazilian ‘Tropicalia’ to the bar room band ‘Bottle of Blues’, but the changes here seem minor and seamless compared to other albums. The mellow gold of Mutations is one of the best Beck mutations.

Albumaday... rating: 8/10

1.       Cold Brains – 3:41

2.       Nobody’s Fault but My Own – 5:02

3.       Lazy Flies – 3:44

4.       Canceled Check – 3:14

5.       We Live Again – 3:05

6.       Tropicalia – 3:20

7.       Dead Melodies – 2:36

8.       Bottle of Blues – 4:56

9.       O Maria – 3:59

10.   Sing It Again – 4:19

11.   Static – 5:18

12.   Diamond Bollocks – 6:02

Listen to ‘Cold Brains’: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gl-337I6RH0

Also released on the 3^rd November:
1978: The Jam – All Mod Cons

Also released on the 3^rd November:
1992: Rage Against the Machine - Rage Against the Machine