24th November - The Pharcyde's Bizarre Ride II The Pharcyde

Artist – Album: The Pharcyde – Bizarre Ride II the Pharcyde

Released: 24^th November 1992

Sounds Like: A bizarre ride into bizarro world

Are you aware of the bizarro world concept? No? I'll let the guys from Seinfeld explain it to you:

Jerry: Yeah, like Bizarro Superman—Superman's exact opposite, who lives in the backwards Bizarro world. Up is down; down is up. He says "Hello" when he leaves, "Goodbye" when he arrives.
Elaine: Shouldn't he say "bad bye"? Isn't that the opposite of goodbye?
Jerry: No, it's still goodbye.
Elaine: Does he live underwater?
Jerry: No.
Elaine: Is he black?
Jerry: Look, just forget the whole thing. All right?

So... bizarro world is kind of like opposite-land. Got it?

In bizarro 1992, hip hop was dominated by jazzy, lovably goofball rap - rather than that questionable and objectionable guns 'n' hoes obsessed gangsta rap - and those kings of clowns The Pharcyde reigned supreme. Top cuts such as stoner anthem 'Pack the Pipe', the insult trading 'Ya Mama' and the heartbroken 'Passin' Me By' were five star chart toppers that far outsold Whitney Houston's hammy 'I Will Always Love You', and people just couldn't get enough of their peculiar brand of gaudy playground antics.

Back in the real world, the Pharcyde were just a little to quirky to find the commercial success their efforts deserved. Still, you, me and bizarro superman know better right?


Albumaday... rating: 8/10

1.       4 Better or 4 Worse – 0:36

2.       Oh Shit – 4:29

3.       It’s Jiggaboo Time – 1:26

4.       4 Better or 4 Worse – 5:03

5.       I’m That Type of Nigga – 5:16

6.       If I Were President – 1:01

7.       Soul Flower – 4:23

8.       On the DL – 4:27

9.       Pack the Pipe – 0:21

10.   Officer – 4:00

11.   Ya Mama – 4:20

12.   Passin’ Me By – 5:03

13.   Otha Fish – 5:21

14.   Quinton’s on the Way – 2:09

15.   Pack the Pipe – 5:03

16.   Return of the B-Boy – 3:33

Listen to ‘Ya Mama': http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ImhN6-9KLTY

Also released on the 24^th November:

2008: Kanye West – 808s and Heartbreak

23rd November - Cat Stevens' Tea for the Tillerman

Artist – Album: Cat Stevens – Tea for the Tillerman

Released: 23^rd November 1970

Sounds Like: More owl than Cat-like (sorry…)

Cat Stevens was 22 when he released Tea for the Tillerman. Judging by the pearls of wisdom he scatters across the album, he felt like he was 122. “You are young, that’s your fault, there’s so much you have to live through” he trills on ‘Father and Son’. “I was once like you are now, and I know that it’s not easy”.

That’s not to say that Tea for the Tillerman sounds jaded. Far from it – Stevens is full of energy and he supports his life-lessons with stonking good folk-pop. ‘Where Do the Children Play?’, ‘Hard Headed Woman’ and ‘Wild World’ make up an opening trio of the most singalongy pop songs ever. You could take issue with the sincerity of Stevens and he doesn’t always seem so sage-like when his lyrics are treated to a closer inspection, but if you’re gonna get hung up on things like that I may as well just point you towards ‘On the Road to Find Out’: “Kick out the devil's sin, pick up, pick up a good book now”.

The record also enjoys the double life of being zealously raided for the soundtrack to the fantastic black comedy Harold and Maude. To any of you that are fans of one but don’t know the other, I demand that you right that wrong straight away. Go. Now. Shoo!

Albumaday... rating: 8/10

1.       Where Do the Children Play? – 3:52

2.       Hard Headed Woman – 3:47

3.       Wild World – 3:20

4.       Sad Lisa – 3:45

5.       Miles from Nowhere – 3:37

6.       But I Might Die Tonight – 1:53

7.       Longer Boats – 3:12

8.       Into White – 3:24

9.       On the Road to Find Out – 5:08

10.   Father and Son – 3:41

11.   Tea for the Tillerman – 1:01

Listen to ‘On the Road to Find Out’: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rQ--odAAA1A

22nd November - The Kinks' The Kinks Are the Village Green Preservation Society

Artist – Album: The Kinks – The Kinks Are the Village Green Preservation Society

Released: 22^nd November 1968

Sounds Like: Rose tinted class

This morning’s meeting ranks pretty highly in my all time list of weird places to have a meeting (no, I don't really keep such a list). At first I didn’t believe my Sat Nav and I drove all around outer Preston until my colleague text me and confirmed that it’s true: our client’s offices are based on the same grounds as Camelot Theme Park! …For those of you who are not aware of Camelot (which may well be most of you), Camelot used to be the theme park of choice for discerning 10-year olds that had grown too old for Gulliver’s World Theme Park but whose parents couldn’t afford a trip to Alton Towers Theme Park. Looking at it in the brilliant November sun of this morning, though, its star seems to have plummeted, and it’s somehow somewhat smaller and grubbier than I remember. My colleague just could not be convinced that it was the Camelot, so different did it look now that we’re all grown up.As Ray Davies declares in ‘People Take Pictures of Each Other’, “oh how I love things as they used to be”.

Ray’s glasses in The Kinks Are the Village Green Preservation Society are the rosiest and tintiest ever, and over the course of 15 songs he strives to celebrate Ye Olde England and lament its gradual passing. The near title track stands up for all manner of traditional and sentimental artefacts, from china cups to virginity. ‘Do You Remember Walter?’ reminisces over a lost friend and wonders where he is now. ‘Picture Book’ plays like an old photo album, pouring over dog eared photos of old relatives. And that’s just the first three tracks.

All this nostalgia could get old (excuse the pun) if it wasn’t supported by some of the catchiest, most diverse tunes in the whole Kinks repertoire. From the music hall embarrassment of ‘All of My Friends Were There’ to the Spanish sounding ‘Monica’, each song is a gem. Like that old theme park, no doubt the past wasn’t quite as peachy and wholesome as Ray Davies likes to remember, but when the pictures he paints are so brilliant who am I to complain?

Albumaday... rating: 10/10

1.       The Village Green Preservation Society – 2:45

2.       Do You Remember Walter? – 2:23

3.       Picture Book – 2:34

4.       Johnny Thunder – 2:28

5.       Last of the Steam-powered Trains – 4:03

6.       Big Sky – 2:49

7.       Sitting by the Riverside – 2:21

8.       Animal Farm – 2:57

9.       Village Green – 2:08

10.   Starstruck – 2:18

11.   Phenomenal Cat – 2:34

12.   All of My Friends Were There – 2:23

13.   Wicked Annabella – 2:40

14.   Monica – 2:13

15.   People Take Pictures of Each Other – 2:10

Listen to ‘Do You Remember Walter?’: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cA5bcZeGqwE

Also released on the 22^nd November:

1968: The Beatles – The Beatles

Also released on the 22^nd November:

2006: Sally Shapiro – Disco Romance

Also released on the 22^nd November:

2010: Kanye West – My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy

21st November - The New Pornographers' Mass Romantic

Artist – Album: The New Pornographers – Mass Romantic

Released: 21^st November 2000

Sounds Like: A lot of cooks make a lovely broth

Music is a medium where the phrase “too many cooks spoil the broth” tends to hold true. I’ve seen The Great British Menu on the telly, and so I know that literally having a lot of chefs in the same kitchen does not necessarily mean rubbish food. Although they rarely make broth. And broth seems like the sort of food where you would hardly notice that it had spoiled – it’s not exactly fine dining is it?? Anyway… bringing in a load of top musicians has more often than not spelt disaster for a project, leading to bloated, directionless, overworked mulch. Supergroups are invariably disappointments (The Travelling Wilbury’s not withstanding), and regular groups with a surfeit of members have a tendency to implode before too long. The New Pornographers, however, stars Neko Case and Dan Bejar (of Destroyer) – both of whom have already had albumaday… blogs – as well as members of Vancouver based indie collective Zampano, and they have somehow managed to reign in all that talent to regularly produce gleaming records of brilliant indie-rock.

Having said that, at the time of Mass Romantic Case and Bejar were still just young hopefuls with silly names and so this album catches them as fresh and vital as they ever were. The record fizzes from one cut of sparkling souped-up pop-rock to another, only taking the odd, beautiful breather occasionally. The impossibly catchy ‘Letter from an Occupant’ was quite rightly picked out for special mention (making #88 on Pitchfork’s top 500 tracks of the decade), but it’s well supported by the likes of ‘The Body Says No’ and ‘Breakin’ the Law’.

Laden with more hooks than a fisherman’s boat, in an alternate universe this would have been a smash hit record and the parent to a plethora of top ten singles. As it is, it stands merely as a gripping album to a select few outside of its native Canada, and a testament to the fact that – sometimes – more is more.

Albumaday... rating: 8/10

1.       Mass Romantic – 4:11

2.       The Fake Headlines – 2:45

3.       The Slow Descent into Alcoholism – 3:56

4.       Mystery Hours – 3:11

5.       Jackie – 2:46

6.       Letter from an Occupant – 3:46

7.       To Wild Homes – 3:33

8.       The Body Says No – 3:56

9.       Execution Day – 2:59

10.   Centre for Holy Wars – 3:06

11.   The Mary Martin Show – 3:19

12.   Breakin’ the Law – 3:27

Listen to ‘The Body Says No’: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4C4P-mACPAI

Also released on the 21^st November:

2006: Swan Lake – Beast Moans

20th November - Sly and the Family Stone's There's a Riot Goin' On

Artist – Album: Sly & The Family Stone – There’s a Riot Goin’ On

Released: 20^th November 1971

Sounds Like: The death of the Sixties

In 1967, Sly and the Family Stone partied, jamming to ‘Dance to the Music’. In 1968, Sly condemned racism on ‘Everyday People’, blissfully proclaiming “I love everyday people”. In 1969, they were having ‘Hot Fun in the Summertime’ and they wanted to ‘Take You Higher’. But then the milk soured; the drugs got harder; and the positive love-in of the Sixties gave way to the cynical, paranoid Seventies.

Like Daniel Plainview in the final acts of 2007’s There Will Be Blood, Sly may have set out with the best intentions but somehow all that he achieved changed him completely and he became depressed and mean. There’s a Riot Goin’ On is at once mesmerising and unpleasant; its twelve songs the equivalent of Sly beating you with a bowling pin and yelling “DRINK YOUR MILKSHAKE!”

It’ is undoubtedly a tough listen, but, like There Will Be Blood, it rewards, especially on repeated listens. The singles ‘Family Affair’ and ‘Runnin’ Away’ barely passed as pop songs but they are proto-funk landmarks, and, whilst its difficult to pick out further songs for special mention, they all work together to create a dark, heavy, negative masterpiece.  

And now I want to watch There Will Be Blood again…

Albumaday... rating: 9/10

1.       Luv n’ Haight – 4:01

2.       Just Like a Baby – 5:12

3.       Poet – 3:01

4.       Family Affair – 3:06

5.       Africa Talks to You ‘The Asphalt Jungle’ – 8:45

6.       There’s a Riot Goin’ On – 0:00

7.       Brave & Strong – 3:28

8.       (You Caught Me) Smilin’ – 2:53

9.       Time – 3:03

10.   Spaced Cowboy – 3:57

11.   Runnin’ Away – 2:51

12.   Thank You for Talkin’ to Me Africa – 7:14

Listen to ‘Runnin’ Away’: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HQmCBOc8ICw

19th November - DJ Shadow's Endtroducing...

Artist – Album: DJ Shadow – Endtroducing…

Released: 19^th November 1995

Sounds Like: Patchwork

Well, I may have managed to stave it off for 323 days and blogs but – DUN, DUN, DUNNN! – the dreaded writer’s block has struck with a vengeance. I’ve been racking my brain all day and I can’t think of a bloody word to write DJ Shadow’s masterpiece. But then it hit me, why not take inspiration from the album itself, officially the first album in history to be made up entirely of samples. Result, it’s simultaneously the perfect tribute and a massive cheat!:

Trip-hop's crowning achievement, it's innovative, but it builds on a solid historical foundation, giving it a rich, multi-faceted sound. It's not only a major breakthrough for hip-hop and electronica, but for pop music. Shadow's brief is to develop a totally sample-based idiom, weaving a cinematically broad spectrum so deftly layered that the sampling-is-stealing argument falls flat.

Endtroducing… practically folds you into its symphonic fantasia, the coming-of-age story of a 24-year-old bunk-bed dreamer. A surreal film soundtrack on which jazz, classical, and jungle fragments are artfully blended with turntable tricks and dialogue snippets. It’s  not only one of the most daring and original albums of recent times, but also one of the loveliest – music and chaos and satire and self-mockery and music all at once.

The album flips hip hop inside out all over again like a reversible glove, and again, and again, and each time it's sudden and new. I am, I confess, totally confounded by it. I hear a lot of good records, but very few impossible ones... You need this record. You are incomplete without it.

Albumaday... rating: 9/10

1.       Best Foot Forward – 0:49

2.       Building Steam with a Grain of Salt – 6:40

3.       The Number Song – 4:40

4.       Changeling – 7:17

5.       Transmission 1 – 0:35

6.       What Does Your Soul Look Like (Part 4) – 5:08

7.       Untitled – 0:24

8.       Stem/Long Stem – 7:48

9.       Transmission 2 – 1:29

10.   Mutual Slump – 4:02

11.   Organ Donor – 1:57

12.   Why Hip Hop Sucks in ’96 – 0:43

13.   Midnight in a Perfect World – 4:57

14.   Napalm Brain/Scatter Brain – 9:23

15.   What Does Your Soul Look Like (Part 1 – Blue Sky Revisit) – 6:17

16.   Transmission 3 – 1:11

Listen to ‘Midnight in a Perfect World’: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=InFbBlpDTfQ

Also released on the 19^th November:

1991: U2 – Achtung Baby