30th December - Rough Trade's For Those Who Think Young

Artist – Album: Rough Trade – For Those Who Think Young

Released: 30^th December 1981

Sounds Like: Sexy shoulder pads

Sometimes it's completely fine to judge a book by it's cover. Rough Trade's For Those Who Think Young is just as dated as those silhouetted shoulder pads on the front. That being said, there's plenty of love for Eighties New Wave music here in the 21st century, and if you can deal with some ancient synthesizers then the likes of the title track, lead single 'All Touch' and the funky 'Prisoner of My Skin' are worth further investigation. 

And now it’s time to get your smart suits and ball gowns on, parade down the red carpet and sit next to lots of people you know you should know; for tonight is the first and last annual Analbumaday… awards gala. Yay! Yay!

With no budget whatsoever to work with, I’m pleased to announce that we won’t be able to afford those mind-numbingly boring introducers to each category, or even Ricky Gervais compering (insulting everybody on the planet), so let’s just get straight on with handing those awards out. Here goes:

The golden oldie award for oldest album

Elvis Presley - Elvis Presley (23/03/1956)

The I-wasn't-born-yesterday award for most recent album

Jens Lekman - I Know What Love Isn't (03/09/2012)

The always-the-bridesmaid award for most appearances on "also released today"

They Might Be Giants (9 times)

The Mr Consistency award for highest average rating (more than one album)

Arcade Fire (The Suburbs and Funeral - both 10/10)

The haven’t-I-seen-you-here-before award for most appearances on the blog, sponsored by Elbow™

Bob Dylan
Bruce Springsteen
R.E.M.
The Beatles
The Rolling Stones (5 each)

The wooden raspberry award for worst album

Dixie Chicks - Wide Open Spaces
Children of Bodom - Hate Crew Deathroll (both 4/10)

And drum roll please…

Analbumaday's greatest ever album

R.E.M. - Automatic for the People (11/10)

That’s all folks!

Albumaday... rating: /10

1.       All Touch – 3:32

2.       Attitude – 4:03

3.       For Those Who Think Young – 4:04

4.       Bodies in Collision – 2:50

5.       Prisoner of My Skin – 3:12

6.       The Sacred & the Profane – 4:34

7.       Baptism of Fire – 3:23

8.       Fakin’ It – 3:35

9.       Blood Lust – 3:49

 
Listen to ‘All Touch’: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-BOZYM8kw6I

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

2nd November - The Police's Outlandos d'Amour

Artist – Album: The Police – Outlandos D’Amour

Released: 2^nd November 1978

Sounds Like: a Stinging review

What to make of The Police, eh? True, they were consistent deliverers of perky pop-rock and they did pick up a highly impressive five UK no. 1 singles. ‘Every Breath You Take’ is quite rightly considered amongst the greatest songs of all time, although that’s only correct if you view it as a delightfully sinister ode to stalking and not some ill-conceived love song.

On the other hand, it’s all just a little bit naff isn’t it? Their ill-conceived forays into reggae are like those early nineties dalliances with dance music: sounding old waaaaay sooner than it should do, and uniformly rubbish. Initially labelled punks, the band was in truth about as edgy as a balloon. They were about as edgy as I am. And then there’s Sting, rock’s most pretentious frontman this side of Bono (how did people cope in the 80’s??). A poll in US magazine Blender pegged him as the worst lyricist ever, which may be a little harsh but was no doubt aided by the mindless likes of ‘De Do Do Do, De Da Da Da’.

It all started for Sting and Co. with Outlandos D’Amour, which in name alone manages to convey everything that is pompous and wrong about the band. With a song featuring a spoken monologue about a blow up doll (‘Be My Girl – Sally’, it’s true!) and a horrible, experimental, semi-instrumental closing track (‘Masoko Tanga’), it has the potential to be a nightmare. But the main thing about The Police, right, is that if you look beyond the “reggae” and the posturing, there is actually something about them that is both entertaining and endearing, like watching an overly-enthusiastic drunk person dance. ‘So Lonely ‘ is enjoyably raucous, ‘Can’t Stand Losing You’  is great fun if you take the lyrics with a pinch of salt, ‘Truth Hits Everybody’ and ‘Next to You’ have great singalongy choruses and ‘Roxanne’ is hands down the greatest drinking song all time. Roxanne (DRINK!)!

Albumaday... rating: 6/10

1.       Next to You – 2:50

2.       So Lonely – 4:49

3.       Roxanne – 3:12

4.       Hole in My Life – 4:52

5.       Peanuts – 3:58

6.       Can’t Stand Losing You – 2:58

7.       Truth Hits Everybody – 2:53

8.       Born in the 50’s – 3:40

9.       Be My Girl – Sally – 3:22

10.   Masoko Tanga – 5:40

Listen to ‘So Lonely’: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MX6MvV8cbh8

8th October - Talking Heads' Remain in Light

Artist – Album: Talking Heads – Remain in Light

Released: 8^th October 1980

Sounds Like: Well, how did I get here?

Talking Heads were once known as a punk band. Admittedly, they were associated with the much more melodic and aptitude-based New York punk scene, rather than the gob in your face, can’t-play-their-own-instruments UK punk scene, but it’s startling nonetheless. In three short years since 1977 (a.k.a the dawn of punk) Talking Heads had morphed into a wildly inventive art rock collective, and their creativity reached an apex with 1980’s Remain in Light. The three chord simplicity of the Ramones’ debut it is not.

The Heads had found themselves obsessed with Afrobeat – particularly the stylings of the king of Afrobeat, Fela Kuti – and endeavoured to replicate the sound of their polyrhythms, fed through a Brian Eno produced filter. Guitars that don’t always sound like guitars are layered over the top of each other, and frequently season the album with random quirks. Husband and wife rhythm section Chris Frantz and Tina Weymouth are typically prominent, supplementing their elastic playing with the frenetic beats synonymous with both Africa and their new home in the Caribbean. On top of it all, David Byrne spins wildly, churning out disparate disconnected images and struggling in vain to keep it all together.

It’s hard to pick individual moments from the dense, almost uniform body of the album, with one exception: the stunning ‘Once in a Lifetime’, with Byrne stealing the show as a preacher/marionette. The song, and album that went with it, is a fascinatingly singular effort from a band breaking far beyond the confines of the restrictive punk scene and with all members right at the top of their game. Once in a lifetime stuff indeed.

Albumaday... rating: 9/10

1.       Born Under Punches (The Heat Goes On) – 5:49

2.       Crosseyed and Painless – 4:48

3.       The Great Curve – 6:28

4.       Once in a Lifetime – 4:23

5.       Houses in Motion – 4:33

6.       Seen and Not Seen – 3:25

7.       Listening Wind – 4:43

8.       The Overload – 6:02

Listen to ‘Once in a Lifetime’: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=98AJUj-qxHI

Also released on 8^th October:

1980: Prince – Dirty Mind

Also released on 8^th October:

1971: John Lennon - Imagine

Also released on 8^th October:

2001: Royksopp – Melody A.M.

25th September - Gary Numan's The Pleasure Principle

Artist – Album: Gary Numan – The Pleasure Principle

Released:  25^th September 1979

Sounds Like: [Vince holds up a cassette tape] This is the best of the sixties. [holds up another cassette] And this is the best of the seventies. [lifts a huge stack of cassettes] And this is Gary Numan.

Gary Numan enjoyed himself in the early Noughties, as groups as diverse as Sugababes and Basement Jaxx had hits sampling his tunes (the stonking smash ‘Where’s Your Head At’ was a masterful rip of ‘M.E.’), he guest appeared on Fear Factory’s cover of ‘Cars’ and glam-indie comedian Noel Fielding frequently extolled his virtues on The Mighty Boosh. It was the most popular he’d been for twenty years, when – first as the leader of the Tubeway Army and then as a solo artist – he had scored three consecutive UK no. 1 albums. The Pleasure Principle was the best of the lot, and it’s hardly surprising that it re-entered the public’s consciousness in the 21^st century: his technology obsession and glacial cool was made for this future where the geeks have inherited the world.

The album is consistently brilliant, from the instrumental opener ‘Airlane’ to the stilted, clinical new wave of ‘Observer’. The two charting singles are probably the pinnacles of his achievement, and both also display his aptitude for constructing varying moods from his simple formula of rocky synths with guitar-like effects: whereas ‘Complex’ is a chilled out piece similar to that of Boards of Canada, ‘Cars’ is an adrenaline fuelled behemoth that betrays the influence he had on the likes of Nine Inch Nails and Marilyn Manson.

There was a fascinating burst of skewed creativity in the post-punk era, and many of the artists from then – from the Talking Heads to XTC, the B-52’s to the Fall – have had a lasting influence on the music that has followed. Gary Numan deserves his place in this pantheon. …And he’s also got a pilot’s license! Imagine that!

Albumaday... rating: 8/10

1.       Airlane – 3:18

2.       Metal – 3:32

3.       Complex – 3:12

4.       Films – 4:09

5.       M.E. – 5:37

6.       Tracks – 2:51

7.       Observer – 2:53

8.       Conversation – 7:36

9.       Cars – 3:58

10.   Engineers – 4:01

Listen to ‘M.E.’:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wea8ZQ0II4g

Also released on 25^th September:

1988: They Might Be Giants - Lincoln

Also released on 25^th September:

2001: Ryan Adams - Gold

28th August - Devo's Q: Are We Not Men? A: We Are Devo!

Artist – Album: Devo – Q: Are We Not Men? A: We Are Devo!

Released:  28^th August 1978

Sounds Like: New wave for robots

I first came across Mark Mothersbaugh, the front man of Devo, when I was but a rugrat. Mothersbaugh, you see, was the composer of the theme tune to nineties cartoon Rugrats, a melody so simple and infectious that everybody in my high school music class would play it incessantly on the keyboard, like ‘Chopsticks’ for the 21^st Century. Like Max Fischer in Rushmore, I did pretty well all round in high school (Ok, ok, I never saved Latin or wrote a hit play), and Mothersbaugh supported me all the way: he provided the soundtrack to a host of Wes Anderson films, including the Royal Tenenbaums, The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou and, indeed, Rushmore. Finally, in university, I discovered Devo, and three of their best songs – the emphatic novelty hit ‘Whip It’, the genius deconstruction of the Rolling Stones’ classic ‘(I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction’ and the relentless, primitive ‘Mongoloid’.

Are We Not Men… does not contain their biggest hit, but those latter two tracks are here in all their mechanical wonder. Alongside them, is a selection of the jerkiest, catchiest songs new wave ever saw. Devo sound like a mix between Talking Heads and Kraftwerk, with Mothersbaugh yelping, stuttering and caterwauling like David Byrne having a panic attack, behind a mathematically designed danceable backing track. As well as the aforementioned duo (on ‘Satisfaction’, by the way, they come across as even more frustrated and desperate than in Jagger’s legendary performance), the bursting opener ‘Uncontrollable Urge’, the Johnny B. Goode referencing ‘Come Back Jonee’ and the delightful ‘Sloppy (I Saw My Baby Gettin’) are gems. The centrepiece is ‘Jocko Homo’ , a track borne from their philosophy of the “devolution of man” and contains the persistent, insane call and response “Are we not men? We are Devo”, which probably stands as the litmus test as to whether you think these are art rock messiahs or just very naughty boys.

Albumaday... rating: 8/10

1.       Uncontrollable Urge – 3:09
2.       (I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction – 2:40
3.       Praying Hands – 2:47
4.       Space Junk – 2:14
5.       Mongoloid – 3:44
6.       Jocko Homo – 3:40
7.       Too Much Paranoias – 1:57
8.       Gut Feeling / (Slap Your Mammy) – 4:54
9.       Come Back Jonee – 3:47
10.   Sloppy (I Saw My Baby Gettin’) – 2:40
11.   Shrivel-Up – 3:05

Listen to ‘Uncontrollable Urge’: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a8UcpmUQkNU

Also released on 28^th August:

1973: Marvin Gaye – Let’s Get It On

24th July - The Go-Go's' Beauty and the Beat

Artist – Album: The Go-Go’s – Beauty and the Beat

Released:  24^th July 1981

Sounds Like: Girl power (pop)

Sometimes I love this blog. I didn’t really know The Go-Go’s before today, but now I think that they’re just brilliant. 

For some reason (i.e. because I only knew ‘Heaven is a Place On Earth), I always thought that Belinda Carlisle was just like Barbara Streisand – huge in the eighties but since revealed to be a purveyor of cloyingly poppy schmaltz. Jane Wiedlin, on the other hand, was the author of one of my guiltiest pleasures: the power pop ‘Rush Hour’, which I must apologise to numerous long-suffering neighbours for singing to as loud as possible when intoxicated. Together, and teamed with three other female rockers, I had assumed they were just another girl group, like those around when I grew up: The Spice Girls, Atomic Kitten and the Corrs (OK, so there was a guy in that one, but he was definitely there to be heard and not seen).

Nope, The Go-Go’s are much, much better than that. The album starts with the vital single ‘Our Lips Are Sealed’, full of infectious melodies and poppy harmonies. ‘How Much More’ is classic New Wave, giddy and shuffling and thinly veiling its heartbroken lyrical content. ‘We Got the Beat’ was the other single, containing dirty, grinding verses and a sugary sweet chorus, that sounded somewhere between The B-52’s kitschness and The Tom Tom Club’s modernity.

It’s not just one of the best albums by an all female group. It’s not just one of the best albums of the new wave, post-punk era. It’s up there with the best of all time, full stop.

Albumaday... rating: 8/10

1.       Our Lips Are Sealed – 2:45

2.       How Much More – 3:06

3.       Tonite – 3:35

4.       Lust to Love – 4:04

5.       This Town – 3:20

6.       We Got the Beat – 2:36

7.       Fading Fast – 3:41

8.       Automatic – 3:07

9.       You Can’t Walk in Your Sleep (If You Can’t Sleep) – 2:54

10.   Skidmarks on My Heart – 3:06

11.   Can’t Stop the World – 3:20

Listen to ‘How Much More’: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cvIj6bGPTRs

22nd July - Elvis Costello's My Aim Is True

Artist – Album: Elvis Costello – My Aim Is True

Released:  22^nd July 1977

Sounds Like: Elvis is king

With my debit card in the ticket machine at Oxford Road on Saturday afternoon, approximately five minutes before my train was due to leave for Liverpool, I drew an inopportune but unshakeable blank. I hadn’t the foggiest what my pin number was, and after three clueless attempts at guessing it, my card was securely locked. Ironically, a large portion of the blame for my monumental brain freeze can be ascribed to the scorching heat, but, without a doubt, another contributing factor was Elvis Costello’s My Aim Is True – a record I had playing through my headphones at the time and had crooned its way to my full and undivided attention. 

The album, Costello’s first, is a masterclass in pub rockery. It’s no exaggeration to say that Costello is one of the finest singer-songwriters this country has ever produced, and his idiosyncratic penmanship and cynical quippery is well evident even at this early stage. ‘Welcome to the Working Week’ gets us started perfectly: in less than a minute and a half, Elvis hammers through an insanely catchy punk rock melody, memorable chorus and sneeringly brilliant lyrics. From the exquisite ballad ‘Alison’ to the jilted pop of ‘(The Angels Wanna Wear My) Red Shoes’ (featuring the immortal line “I said ‘I’m so happy I could die’, she said ‘drop dead’ and ran off with another guy”), the album is peppered with literate punk and new wave highlights.

‘Less Than Zero’ stands as the best track on the album, but it could have been even better – the US version also included the dark, reggae-tinged ‘Watching the Detectives’. Had that have been included, this would have been a nail on ten out of ten. As it is, it’s still a well-earned nine.

Albumaday... rating: 9/10

1.       Welcome to the Working Week – 1:22

2.       Miracle Man – 3:31

3.       No Dancing – 2:39

4.       Blame It on Cain – 2:49

5.       Alison – 2:54

6.       Sneaky Feelings – 2:09

7.       (The Angels Wanna Wear My) Red Shoes – 2:47

8.       Less Than Zero – 3:15

9.       Mystery Dance – 1:38

10.   Pay It Back – 2:33

11.   I’m Not Angry – 2:57

12.   Waiting for the End of the World – 3:22

Listen to ‘Less Than Zero’: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MHQK3yo9CBA

Also released on the 22^nd July:

1974: Stevie Wonder – Fulfillingness’ First Finale

Also released on the 22^nd July:

2008: Dr. Dog - Fate