18th August - Elbow's Cast of Thousands

Artist - Album: Elbow - Cast of Thousands
Released: 18th August 2003
Sounds Like: we've been here before

Bloody Elbow again!

Analbumaday... rating: 6/10

1.Ribcage - 6:27
2.Fallen Angel - 4:07
3.Fugitive Motel - 5:51
4.Snooks (Progress Report) - 4:00
5.Switching Off - 5:05
6.Not a Job -4:23
7.I've Got Your Number - 4:48
8.Buttons and Zips - 3:57
9.Crawling with Idiot - 4:41
10. Grace Under Pressure -4:57
11. Flying Dream 143 -1:48

Listen to 'Grace Under Pressure': www.youtube.com/watch?v=SWCL_cbASR4

17th August - Miles Davis' Kind of Blue

Artist - Album: Miles Davis - Kind of Blue
Released: 17th August 1959
Sounds Like: Birth of the cool

Like Christmas or a birthday, a day like today comes but once a year and promises excitement, good will and cheer to all men. Yes, today is the first day of the Barclays Premier League season.  It should be a corker.

It'd have to go some way to beat the opening day of the 1959-60 season though. Amongst other high scoring games, there was the 4-4 draw between Chelsea and Preston North End, a 4-0 romp for Blackburn Rovers against Fulham, a 3-0 shellacking of Leicester City by West Ham United and 3-2 victories all round for Blackpool, West Bromwich Albion (against Manchester United that one) and Burnley (the eventual champions. Burnley!). Imagine that lot on Match of the Day. At the end of the first round of fixtures Tottenham Hotspur would top the table though, after a comprehensive battering of Newcastle 5-1. That victory would serve as an indicator of the landmark that was to come: the following season they became the first team of the 20th century to win the Fa Cup and League double.

Another landmark of that rich era came courtesy of Miles Davis, who, with the release of Kind of Blue, submitted his entry into the pantheon of the greateat and most influential albums of all time.  Aided by one of the most impressive bands ever assembled - John Coltrane, Cannonball Adderley, Bill Evans, Jimmy Cobb and Paul Chambers - the sextet jammed over a set of five modal sketches, each becoming a study in scale based improvisation and elegant, sophisticated cool.

Without in any way being knowledgeable or especially enthusiastic about jazz, this, along with Davis' own Birth of the Cool and Coltrane's A Love Supreme, is easily the beat jazz album I've ever come across.  What separates Kind of Blue from the rest is that it's actually one of the best albums I've heard of any genre.

Albumaday... rating: 10/10

1. So What - 9:22
2. Freddie Freeloader - 9:46
3. Blue in Green - 5:37
4. All Blues - 11.33
5. Flamenco Sketches - 9:26

Listen to 'All Blues': www.youtube.com/watch?v=JIfdYs8WErM

Also released on the 17th August: 

2007: Seabear - The Ghost That Carried Us Away

Also released on the 17th August:

2009: The XX - The XX

Also released on the 17th August:

2009: Mum - Sing Along to Songs You Don't Know

16th August - Sebadoh's III

Artist – Album: Sebadoh - III

Released:  16^th August 1991

Sounds Like:  Sea change

Today I want you to celebrate with me dear readers; rejoice, for I have moved out of my old flat and in to a new one! Although there were many wonderful memories associated with the old place and we left it as amicably as can be expected from two such lovely people, it is quite a relief to be out of the flat that I have shared with my ex for the last two years (obviously she wasn’t my ex for the whole time, that would just be crazy), and into a new one with one of my best mates.

If I needed any reminder that good things can come from painful separation and new beginnings (I don’t), then Sebadoh’s III serves as a brilliant reminder. In 1989, J Mascis, the freewheeling guitar genius and leader of Dinosaur Jr kicked his bass player Lou Barlow out of the group after he had released a cassette by his side project Sebadoh. Barlow didn’t let it deter him however and he persevered with his other band. Two years later he released today’s album, one of the landmarks of the alternative rock/lo -fi movement of the early nineties and one that is still garnering acclaim twenty-plus years later.

You get the measure of the album after three tracks – the opening ‘The Freed Pig’ is a barnstorming slice of indie, with Dinosaur Jr-esque squealing guitars (and J Mascis skewering lyrics); ‘Sickles and Hammers’ is a short blast of corrosive punk; and, ‘Total Peace’ is quiet, brooding acoustic lo-fi rock. The album continues along similarly diverse lines ‘til its end, using that triumvirate of indie, punk and lo-fi as touchstones throughout. ‘Truly Great Thing’ is beautiful and contented, whilst ‘Limb by Limb’ is terrifyingly aggressive.

This morning, as I was reviewing this record (i.e. listening to it loudly), I woke my new housemate (sorry dude!). He came through blearly eyed and scantily clad in his dressing grown, and I prepared myself for a dressing down. Instead, he sat and enjoyed it with me, contributed his own viewpoints (for the record, ‘Kath’ reminded him of Willy Mason, whilst the zaniness of ‘Wonderful, Wonderful’ brought to mind Monty Python) and generally got on with things. You know what, kid? I think we’ll be just fine.

Albumaday... rating: 8/10

1.       The Freed Pig – 3:08

     2.       Sickles and Hammers – 0:50

     3.       Total Peace – 3:02

     4.       Violet Execution – 3:57 

     5.       Scars, Four Eyes – 3:27

     6.       Truly Great Thing – 2:13

     7.       Kath – 1:52

     8.       Perverted World – 1:54

     9.       Wonderful, Wonderful – 3:13

     10.   Limb by Limb – 2:17

     11.   Smoke a Bowl – 3:02

     12.   Black-Haired Gurl – 2:12

     13.   Hoppin’ Up and Down – 3:16

     14.   Supernatural Force – 2:43

     15.   Rockstar – 2:42

     16.   Downmind – 1:31

     17.   Renaissance Man – 2:19

     18.   God Told Me – 1:09

     19.   Holy Picture – 2:53

     20.   Hassle – 3:30

     21.   No Different – 2:20

     22.   Spoiled – 3:03

23.   As the World Dies, the Eyes of God Grow Bigger – 6:49

Listen to ‘The Freed Pig‘: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Um7kFyLmrQI

Also released on the 16^th August:

1994: Organized Konfusion – Stress: The Extinction Agenda

15th August - Michelle Shocked's Short Sharp Shocked

Artist – Album: Michelle Shocked – Short Sharp Shocked

Released:  15^th August 1988

Sounds Like: What the folk?!

 

Short Sharp Shocked by Michelle Shocked probably stands as one of the most misleading albums ever. With a name like that and a cover like that *points upwards*, this can only be a punk album, right? Maybe a bit of Eighties goth? Hard rock? No? …FOLK?! Get out of here!

It seems that Michelle Shocked obtained her wicked moniker whilst she was in her punk rock phase, residing in dilapidated San Francisco buildings and sticking it to the man. By 1988 though, she’d calmed down enough to weave rootsy yarns about her East Texan childhood (although the unnamed album closer served as a potent reminder of not too long ago left behind heaviness.) Shocked’s conversational tone is a real pleasure, and the music, although possessing of a typical Nashville lilt, is nonetheless positive and refreshing. ‘Anchorage’, the letter from a long lost friend, is the perfect encapsulation of the album’s merits – warm, nostalgic and witty. ‘When I Grow Up’ was described by Robert Christgau as unclassifiable – that’s only because it was 15 years ahead of the alt-folk movement.

The album’s title is a clear reference to the behavioural science phrase short, sharp shock – punishment or treatment that’s speed and severity is designed to prevent future misdemeanours. Another, altogether more passive form of treatment is to trawl patiently through one’s childhood memories in order to find the root of the problem. Short Sharp Shocked is, in album form, the sound of an artist pleasantly and surprisingly opting for the psychiatrists chair rather than the electric one.



Albumaday... rating:7/10

1.       When I Grow Up – 3:34

2.       Hello Hopeville – 2:55

3.       Memories of East Texas – 3:35

4.       (Making the Run to) Gladewater – 3:05

5.       Graffiti Limbo – 3:39

6.       If Love Was a Train – 4:07

7.       Anchorage – 3:24

8.       The L&N Don’t Stop Here Anymore – 4:10

9.       V.F.D – 2:49

10.   Black Widow – 2:44

Listen to ‘Anchorage’: On Spotify or something, I can’t find it on Youtube! 

14th August - The Who's Who's Next

Artist – Album: The Who – Who’s Next

Released:  14^th August 1971

Sounds Like: Who’s on first

The first images that come to mind when I think of The Who are of the mop-topped, frustrated young rockers of ‘My Generation’ and the cartoon oldies that brought down the Springfield Wall with one windmilled guitar stroke of  ‘Won’t Get Fooled Again’ on The Simpsons. It’s hardly the most satisfying impression of a group considered as one of the greatest of all time. Delve a little deeper and I’m reminded that they had a hand in inspiring both the punks and the mod revivalists, whilst they (perhaps a little less happily) brought us the “rock opera” and made one of the first notable concept albums in Tommy. Pete Townshend coined the term “power pop” for goodness sake. The band is synonymous with power chords, the Marshall Stack and smashed guitars. But perhaps the most satisfying measure of a band’s lasting legacy is to listen to their albums, and Who’s Next is one of their best.

Inspired by Townshend’s newly discovered taste for a synth, the quartet produced their strongest set of songs yet, bookended by two barnstormers: the rousing ‘Baba O’Riley’ (a.k.a. ‘Teenage Wasteland’) and the inflammatory epic ‘Won’t Get Fooled Again’. Those two alone helped to cement the Who’s reputation as one of the greatest stadium rockers in history, as their bombastic sounds were made for the largest arenas. They keep rocking with the likes of ‘Bargain’ and ‘My Wife’ but they could also take it gently, delivering searching ballads on the likes of ‘The Song Is Over’ and ‘Behind Blue Eyes’. Roger Daltry has rarely barked away more theatrically and effectively, whilst behind him Keith Moon bangs the drums as forcefully as ever and John Entwistle dances along frenzied bass lines with impossible nimbleness (my high school band covered the final track and so I was given the unenviable task of trying to emulate him).

It’s a wonderfully invigorating album, one that’s sure to get you pumped and one that emphatically demolishes any unwarranted visions of The Who I might have previously retained as easily as it did that animated Springfield wall.

Albumaday... rating: 9/10

1.       Baba O’Riley – 5:08

2.       Bargain – 5:34

3.       Love Ain’t for Keeping – 2:10

4.       My Wife – 3:41

5.       The Song Is Over – 6:14

6.       Getting in Tune – 4:50

7.       Going Mobile – 3:42

8.       Behind Blue Eyes – 3:42

9.       Won’t Get Fooled Again – 8:32

Listen to ‘My Wife’: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yW3ULv86zzE

Also released on the 14^th August:

2006: Peter, Bjorn & John – Writer’s Block

13th August - Eels' Beautiful Freak

Artist – Album: Eels – Beautiful Freak

Released:  13^th August 1996

Sounds Like: Witty and charming oddballs

Reknowned music critic Robert Christgau hasn’t half dropped some clangers during his lengthy career. He infamously pissed off both Lou Reed and Sonic Youth enough for them to blast him in song (the latter with a tune known as ‘I Killed Christgau with My Big Fucking Dick’), whilst his dislike of heavy metal is legend. A selection of his most questionable reviews include the unhappy face granted to Weezer’s brilliant self titled debut, a patently ridiculous “A” for the Black Eyed Peas album The E.N.D and a “B-“ for Radiohead’s OK Computer, widely held to be one of the greatest albums of all time (from his review: “Radiohead wouldn't know a tragic hero if they were cramming for their A levels, and their idea of soul is Bono, who they imitate further at the risk of looking even more ridiculous than they already do.”) Universally adored albums such as Guided by Voices’ Alien Lanes, U2’s Achtung Baby and Metallica’s Metallica (the Black album) have all received the lowest “bomb” rating. Such mistakes are understandable; after all, Christgau’s been doing this for years, and nobody’s perfect. But his routine dismissal of the Eels is borderline a vendetta. Four albums reviewed, three bombed, including this glorious debut.

The brainchild of one Mark E Everett, the Eels specialise in creating bleakly comical indie rock tunes, and the best known tracks here – ‘Novocaine for the Soul’, ‘Susan’s House’, ‘My Beloved Monster’ and ‘Your Lucky Day in Hell’ (which features the splendid lyrics “waking up with an ugly face: Winston Churchill in drag) – are brilliant. The rest of the album consists mostly of stately, beautiful piano led ballads such as the title track ‘Beautiful Freak’ and ‘Spunky’, although the tempo picks up on the likes of ‘Rags to Rags’.

Quite what Robert Christgau didn’t like about this album, I couldn’t say – “bomb” rated albums apparently aren’t worthy of further comment – but, I’m telling you, he had a shocker.

Albumaday... rating: 8/10

1.       Novocaine for the Soul – 3:08

2.       Susan’s House – 3:43

3.       Rags to Rags – 3:53

4.       Beautiful Freak – 3:34

5.       Not Ready Yet – 4:46

6.       My Beloved Monster – 2:13

7.       Flower – 3:38

8.       Guest List – 3:13

9.       Mental – 4:01

10.   Spunky – 3:11

11.   Your Lucky Day in Hell – 4:28

12.   Manchild – 4:05

Listen to ‘Spunky’: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mHVvBx-SQAY

Also released on the 13^th August:

1990: Pixies - Bossanova

12th August - Paul Simon's Graceland

Artist – Album: Paul Simon - Graceland

Released:  12^th August 1986

Sounds Like: Music for the world, by the world

There are some albums that, for all their failings, controversies and cheese, you just can’t help but love. Paul Simon’s Graceland is the Holy Grail for me, perfect in its imperfections, the most enjoyable and fresh album of the musical hinterland that is the Eighties.

I’m not inclined to go in to the hullabaloo that surrounds the album as: a) being only six years old when the apartheid in South Africa was finally lifted, I don’t have the requisite understanding of the intricacies and finer details and wouldn’t want to pretend that I fully understand both sides of the argument, b) that could make a bloody boring blog and c) because I don’t want to take anything away from the music. All that you really need to know is that when Simon enlisted the help of African musicians (including Ladysmith Black Mambazo and Youssou N’Dour, alongside well known Western artists such as The Everly Brothers and Linda Ronstadt) he brought to the attention of the world at large the beautiful, pure sounds of the Dark Continent. In turn, they gave him a new lease of life and granted his always exemplary lyrics with a vividly colourful background on which to rest. The gorgeous acapella of ‘Homeless’, the wonderfully evocative ‘Diamonds on the Soles of Her Shoes’, the playful ‘I Know What I Know’, the locomotive title track and the portrayal of an ever shrinking world in ‘The Boy in the Bubble’ are all stone cold classics, and they are songs that it is impossible to imagine could have existed without the help of his scouted companions.

The biggest hit was ‘You Can Call Me Al’, an exuberant pop rock anthem (with a killer Chevy Chase fronted video) that featured only smatterings of the African influence, save the bass-led instrumental breakdown (slappa da bass) and the Ladysmith backing vocals. But the song sets the scene for his journey to South Africa, as Simon wittily questions the direction his life was taking (“Why am I soft in the middle? The rest of my life is so hard”) before he finds himself on a “street in a strange world, maybe it’s the Third World”. His denouement of “angels in the architecture, spinning in infinity, he says Amen, Hallelujah” suggest an epiphany; that Simon has realised that this is where he’s supposed to be. After listening to this resulting gem of an album, it’s hard to argue that he was wrong.

Albumaday... rating: 10/10

1.       The Boy in the Bubble – 3:59

2.       Graceland – 4:48

3.       I Know What I Know – 3:13

4.       Gumboots – 2:44

5.       Diamonds on the Soles of Her Shoes – 5:45

6.       You Can Call Me Al – 4:39

7.       Under African Skies – 3:37

8.       Homeless – 3:48

9.       Crazy Love, Vol. II – 4:18

10.   That Was Your Mother – 2:52

11.   All Around the World or the Myth of Fingerprints – 3:15

Listen to ‘You Can Call Me Al’: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uq-gYOrU8bA

Also released on the 12^th August:

1991: Metallica – Metallica