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

26th December - Warren Zevon's Stand in the Fire

Artist – Album: Warren Zevon – Stand in the Fire

Released: 26^th December 1980

Sounds Like: Mad, Bad and Dangerous 

Oops, technical error there guys! Hopefully any of you keen readers out there who saw my half-finished piece before weren't too put out...

Boxing Day. Regardless of what day it actually lands on, Boxing Day has to be the most Sunday-ish day of the year. You could go and battle the hordes to pick up some slightly reduced junk in the January Sales, but that ain’t me. Alternatively, some have sought to soothe their hangovers with a day sitting zombified in front of the television, looking at (as opposed to watching) a full day of sports. Unfortunately, I tend to find that on Boxing Day I’m still with all the family and so to slink off and watch the football would be considered poor form. Nope, it’s a day of sitting around, sporadically tidying up, and drinking cups of tea. Fortunately, 33 years ago Warren Zevon released a live album which is electrifying enough to take some of that boredom away.

For a guy with only legitimately well-known single - the hilarious, 'Sweet Home Alabama'-alike 'Werewolves in London' - Zevon has more than a set lists worth of excellent rockers. 'Stand in the Fire', 'Excitable Boy' and 'Lawyers, Guns and Money' are grade-A anthems, with Zevon sounding like Springsteen's edgier brother. The roof-raising finale 'Bo Diddley's A Gunslinger/Bo Diddley' is a masterstroke; a totally convincing take over of what a more straight laced artist might have thought was an untouchable classic.

I think I may have found a new Boxing Day tradition.

Albumaday... rating: 8/10

1.       Stand in the Fire – 3:26

2.       Jeannie Needs a Shooter – 4:00

3.       Excitable Boy – 3:52

4.       Mohammed’s Radio – 4:45

5.       Werewolves of London – 4:48

6.       Lawyers, Guns and Money – 3:49

7.       The Sin – 3:06

8.       Poor Poor Pitiful Me – 4:08

9.       I’ll Sleep When I’m Dead – 4:28

10.   Bo Diddley’s A Gunslinger/Bo Diddley – 4:15

Listen to ‘Excitable Boy’: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7eUsSXXc8wU

Also released on the 26^th December:

2006: Omarion – 21

13th December - Patti Smith's Horses

Artist – Album: Patti Smith - Horses

Released: 13^th December 1975

Sounds Like: Uniqueness

Of all of the universally agreed great albums, Horses is the most difficult to define. It’s regularly posited as punk, but punk isn’t supposed to have happened until ’77, and it most certainly never included jazzy ten minute long epics such as ‘Birdland’ or ‘Land’. Worse still, the likes of ‘Kimberly’ sound almost like brilliant post-punk, which is a real find for any fans of time travel but little use for those of us trying to describe the record. ‘Gloria’ could be straightforward Sixties garage rock, but in Smith’s hands it becomes something else, something more primal and awesome, whilst ‘Break It Up’, featuring Tom Verlaine could easily be a lost Television classic. The calypso-ish ‘Redondo Beach’, the tough rocker ‘Free Money’ and the poetic ‘Elegie’ couldn’t sound more different from each other, never mind anything else of the era.

I think the point of Horses, and Patti Smith full stop, is that it doesn’t sound like anything else really. A true one of a kind.

Albumaday... rating: 9/10

1.       Gloria – 5:57

2.       Redondo Beach – 3:26

3.       Birdland – 9:15

4.       Free Money – 3:52

5.       Kimberly – 4:27

6.       Break It Up – 4:04

7.       Land – 9:25

8.       Elegie – 2:57

 

Listen to ‘Free Money’: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JSHf1svbQrA

11th December - John Lennon's John Lennon/Plastic Ono Band

Artist – Album: John Lennon – John Lennon/Plastic Ono Band

Released: 11^th December 1970

Sounds Like: Nowhere boy

Once upon a time, John Lennon wrote songs called ‘I Want to Hold Your Hand’ and ‘I Feel Fine’. By the end of 1972, he was writing songs called ‘Isolation’, ‘Love’, ‘God’ and ‘My Mummy’s Dead’ – I think it’s fair to say the man had moved on to bigger things.

John Lennon/Plastic Ono Band is big in almost every sense: the topics he covers, the emotions he conveys, the fact that he was the man that once claimed that is his band were bigger Jesus. The only way it isn’t huge is in its arrangement. More often than not, Lennon is accompanied just by a piano or a guitar, as he works his way through a litany of troubles.

If that all sounds like a bit of hard work – and, trust me, this is serious stuff – you have to remember there is still the Lennon in there who wrote the likes of ‘Please Please Me’ and ‘All You Need is Love’, and if there’s a pop hook and a positive message to be mined, it’s unlikely to be ignored completely. ‘Mother’ may be one of the saddest songs in his oeuvre, but it’s built on a beautiful piano melody. ‘Hold On’, ‘Working Class Hero’ and ‘God’ are all therapeutic, powerful and enjoyable in equal turns. Lennon even sounds hopeful on ‘Love’. Only on ‘Well Well Well’ does the album verge close to unlistenable. Never has a top pop star been so open, honest and brutal.

Albumaday... rating: 9/10

1.       Mother – 5:34

2.       Hold On – 1:52

3.       I Found Out – 3:37

4.       Working Class Hero – 3:48

5.       Isolation – 2:51

6.       Remember – 4:33

7.       Love – 3:21

8.       Well Well Well – 5:59

9.       Look at Me – 2:53

10.   God – 4:09

11.   My Mummy’s Dead – 0:49

 
Listen to ‘Mother’: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eDVkkwl6aJo

Also released on the 11^th December:

1968: Blood, Sweat & Tears – Blood, Sweat & Tears

7th December - Paul McCartney & Wings' Band on the Run

Artist – Album: Paul McCartney & Wings – Band on the Run

Released: 7^th December 1973

Sounds Like: As recommended by Alan Partridge

Alan Partridge once famously declared that Wings were “the band the Beatles could have been”. I know, I know, it’s all very funny, but maybe we shouldn’t scoff at Partridge’s assertion quite so quickly – after all, he was a renowned (if fictional) DJ and can count amongst his favourite songs the likes of ‘Sunday Bloody Sunday’, ‘Wichita Lineman’ and the frankly brilliant bass of ‘Music for Chameleons’. Wings weren’t all that bad, as long as you restrict your listening to this album and the prior single ‘Live and Let Die’, whilst steering well clear of that bloody ‘Mull of Kintyre’.

Band on the Run starts explosively, with the delightful title track followed by the stomping ‘Jet’. Admittedly it all goes a little down hill from there, with nice enough stops at junctures such as ‘Bluebird’ but nothing to really quicken the pulse. Nothing really plums the depths either: ‘Mamunia’ feels like McCartney aping Harrison, whilst ‘No Words’   does contain some lamentable pitch shifts. Otherwise, it’s a respectable record from a former Beatle, which time proved to not be an easy thing to pull together.

Were Wings better than the Beatles? Emphatically no. But were they laughably bad? Again no. They were just alright really. And now “I’m leaving you, you cow!”

Albumaday... rating: 7/10

1.       Band on the Run – 5:10

2.       Jet – 4:06

3.       Bluebird – 3:22

4.       Mrs Vandebilt – 4:38

5.       Let Me Roll It – 4:47

6.       Mamunia – 4:50

7.       No Words – 2:33

8.       Picasso’s Last Words (Drink to Me) – 5:50

9.       Nineteen Hundred and Eighty-Five – 5:27

 
Listen to ‘Jet’: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M8V1nFCP058

3rd December - The Who's My Generation

Artist – Album: The Who – My Generation

Released: 3^rd December 1966

Sounds Like: Suitable for all generations

For those that are more familiar with the bloated excesses of The Who’s 70’s efforts such as rock-opera Tommy and the behemoth Who’s Next, My Generation comes across as incredibly trim. The fact that only one track reaches the four minute mark suggests a collection that is at once both lean and geared up. Indeed, that incredible title track is as wiry and tough as music got in the Sixties, as it stutters and bounces like a bog-eyed, pogoing amphetamine addict. But that only tells half the story, as one of the real treats of listening to their debut is that it leaves little clue as to what genre they would come to rest on – would it be the proto-punk of ‘My Generation’, the soul-tinged “Maximum R&B” of ‘Please, Please, Please’ or the glistening power-pop of ‘The Kids Are Alright’? In the end, the group cemented their legend on anthemic dad rock and windmilled power chords, but at this point in their career it seemed that they could have done anything

Albumaday... rating: 9/10

1.       Out in the Street – 2:31

2.       I Don’t Mind – 2:36

3.       The Good’s Gone – 4:02

4.       La-La-La-Lies – 2:17

5.       Much Too Much – 2:47

6.       My Generation – 3:18

7.       The Kids Are Alright – 3:04

8.       Please, Please, Please – 2:45

9.       It’s Not True – 2:31

10.   I’m a Man – 3:21

11.   A Legal Matter – 2:48

12.   The Ox – 3:50

Listen to ‘The Kids Are Alright’: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=afam2nIae4o

Also released on the 3^rd December:

1965: The Beatles – Rubber Soul

30th November - Michael Jackson's Thriller

Artist – Album: Michael Jackson - Thriller

Released: 30^th November 1982

Sounds Like: 65 million Thriller fans can’t be wrong

 
What can I tell you about Michael Jackson’s Thriller that you don’t already know? Chances are: nothing. The best selling album of all time, it has worldwide sales estimated at between 51 and 65 million. In the UK, it has sold 4.3 million copies, which means that one in every 6 households owns the album. In the US, it’s even more impressive: 29 million copies sold, one in every 4 homes proudly displaying Michael Jackson’s sculptured façade. Seven of its nine tracks were top ten hit singles, with only the gentle ballad ‘The Lady in My Life’ and the fantastic, funky ‘Baby Be Mine’ saved as album tracks. I’ve read some reviews that described it as hits-plus-filler but if 78% of the songs were singles that’s hardly going to be a sticking point. Thriller was a phenomenon, a trailblazer, a once-in-a-lifetime album.
 
It’s also very good, although that can sometimes get lost amidst the numbers. Almost all the tracks are classic MJ: smooth, polished blends of soul, motown and rock. There’s something for everyone, from the monster hits of ‘Thriller’, ‘Beat It’ and the untouchable ‘Billie Jean’, to the lesser-known-though-no-less-awesome ‘Wanna Be Startin’ Somethin’’, ‘Human Nature’ and ‘P.Y.T. (Pretty Young Thing)’. The one anomaly is the god-awful duet with Paul McCartney ‘The Girl is Mine’, a schmaltzy jingle describing a “doggone girl” who is inexplicably attracted to both Wacko and Macca. If you manage to make it through the first 3 and a half minutes of torture you are rewarded with spoken dialogue between the two leading men, bad enough to make suicide seem the only sane way out.
 
Still, otherwise it is very good record. But then you probably already knew that.
 
Albumaday... rating: 9/10
 

1.       Wanna Be Startin’ Somethin’ – 6:03

2.       Baby Be Mine – 4:20

3.       The Girl is Mine – 3:42

4.       Thriller – 5:57

5.       Beat It – 4:18

6.       Billie Jean – 4:54

7.       Human Nature – 4:06

8.       P.Y.T. (Pretty Young Thing) – 3:59

9.       The Lady in My Life – 5:00

 
Listen to ‘Baby Be Mine’: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hG9OzYVSg3c

Also released on the 30^th November:

1970: George Harrison – All Things Must Pass

Also released on the 30^th November:

1979: Pink Floyd – The Wall