Meteorites by Echo & The Bunnymen
This album is a long way from their best albums (both recent and old). I don't dislike most of the tracks here but somehow they don't have the same magic as most of the other albums. I suppose this is only the second time I listen to it fully and I liked it more the first time but now it goes from the 17th to the 27th rank.
For everybody a better year than 2020 and these are the two albums of 2015 I listened to:
First an album I already owned:
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Sometimes I Sit And Think, And Sometimes I Just Sit by Courtney Barnett
It was a long time I listened to this album and somewhere in my mind I thought it sounded like her collaboration with Kurt Vile but it doesn't at all: this one is diverse and fairly hard and her quality as a songwriter is best illustrated by the both sprawling and mellow Kim's Caravan. The album goes from the 24th to the 15th rank.
And an album on my wishlist:
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No Song, No Spell, No Madrigal by The Apartments
Another band I don't really know and so sorry I don't because this is a gem of an album. This is in fact an album the singer wrote after the death of his son and the grief is palpable in all tracks (the lyrics but also the fact that his voice seems bound to break any minute) but in some way it also sounds very hopeful. And of course this makes me want to discover their earlier albums. This album immediately enters at the 13th rank.
Going, Going... by The Wedding Present
I had already made my ranking of TWP albums but there was still this newest one I had listened to once so I did a second one. And in fact, the second time around it doesn't impress me as much as the first time as this one can't really compare with their other ones. So it goes from the 18th to the 36th rank.
An album on my wishlist:
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Paging Mr. Proust by The Jayhawks
Again a fairly good album by this band especially of the fine harmonics. It enters at the 42nd rank.
This is the last year of round 4 and these are the two albums I listened to:
An album I already own:
An album on my wishlist:
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Trein Vuur Dageraad by Spinvis
I already tried to promote this Dutch artist a few times and I'm glad to do it again. There's nobody who sounds like Spinvis and his albums are really worth exploring and although I suppose it helps if you understand the lyrics, I think you can be overwhelmed by the beauty of this all if you don't. Not every track on this long album is very good but if you start by the title track, Artis, Tienduizend Zwaluwen and De Kleine Symphonie and you don't like them then you know Spinvis is not for you. By relistening to the album it rises from the 46th to the 43rd rank.
An album on my wishlist:
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Hot Thoughts by Spoon
I like the whole of Gimme Fiction and since then I'm on the lookout for another one of their albums I equally like. In all other albums there's a few songs which are good but I haven't found that second complete album yet and I haven't found it with this album either. In fact I only liked WhisperI'lllistentohearit because it has a certain drive and that was it. So no album for my 2017 year chart.
So back to the beginning and for this fifth round I will again select 2 albums but for the ones I already own I will pick the lowest ranked in my current year list which I haven't listened to recently and for the ones on my wishlist I'll try to pick the ones that are the least unfamiliar to me. And because Ryan/Mercury is doing a thing on singer/songwriters I will try to pick a few from his list.
And I'll start with 1967 and for the album I already own I pick one which is already fairly high just because I already recently listened to most other albums from that year:
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Strange Days by The Doors
And what an album this is and because of the fact that it was a long time ago I listened to this gem I have upgraded many of the tracks to a higher level so its rank goes from 9 to 7.
An album on my wishlist which doesn't sound very familiar:
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The Amboy Dukes by The Amboy Dukes
until I discovered that this was the first band of Ted Nugent. But here he sounds very psychedelic although there are already signs of his future hardrock sound. I must say I especially like the covers and the own songs are not very special but still good enough to gain a place in my 1967 top chart at rank 12.
The Kinks Are The Village Green Preservation Society by The Kinks
This was the lowest ranking album from my collection for this year and part of me still says that The Kinks were very good at hits (and on many albums there are also hidden gems but that in general there is a lot of clutter on long albums like these. And don't get me wrong, there are no bad songs here, it's only that not all of them shine. But that doesn't mean that after listening back to many of these tracks, I upped their score which means that it has moved from the 18th to the 14th rank of the year.
An album on my wishlist:
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Take A Picture by Margo Guryan
As I promised in Ryan's diary, I will listen to a number of singer song writer albums gradually and this album neatly fits the types of albums I wanted to listen to in this round: I had never heard of Margo Guryan and it is a bit of a pity because I liked it. At first view the songs are very common and so is her voice but somehow there is something at both the songs and the voice and the instrumentation which makes them somewhat special. So certainly a good addition for my year chart and it enters at the 13th rank of the year.
MercuryTurn your back on the pay-you-back last callProfile St. Louis
Nice write ups for both Guryan and The Kinks. I agree about Gyuryan. Great recommendation from The1ChiefRocka there.
As for that kinks album, I love it a lot. But Can see where you're coming from. I'm assuming you've heard Something Else by The Kinks and Arthur? Those are also really solid albums that I love only slightly less than Village Green and Lola. _________________ -Ryan
Get Ready by Rare Earth
This is in fact one long track preceded by some fairly standard blues tracks. But that Get Ready is just a hell of a very long jam track. Maybe it's a bit too long to be interesting all over but it sure is a real standard and not to be missed if you've never heard it or only heard the short version. And it moves from the 35th to the 25th rank of the year.
One on my wishlist:
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Looks Like Rain by Mickey Newbury
Keeping with my vow for this round I chose the artist I was least familiar with and also it's a singer-songwriter which could be in Ryan's list (although in many cases it's classified as C&W). The whistles, sounds of rain and the sometimes overblown choirs can't hide that this is a eery, dreary and haunting album which deserves to be listened to. Especially the first tracks really grabbed me and I really liked them. The comparison is often made with Townes Van Zandt but to me Don McLean is a better one. And the album goes to the 11th rank of 1969.
MercuryTurn your back on the pay-you-back last callProfile St. Louis
Get Ready by Rare Earth
This is in fact one long track preceded by some fairly standard blues tracks. But that Get Ready is just a hell of a very long jam track. Maybe it's a bit too long to be interesting all over but it sure is a real standard and not to be missed if you've never heard it or only heard the short version. And it moves from the 35th to the 25th rank of the year.
One on my wishlist:
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Looks Like Rain by Mickey Newbury
Keeping with my vow for this round I chose the artist I was least familiar with and also it's a singer-songwriter which could be in Ryan's list (although in many cases it's classified as C&W). The whistles, sounds of rain and the sometimes overblown choirs can't hide that this is a eery, dreary and haunting album which deserves to be listened to. Especially the first tracks really grabbed me and I really liked them. The comparison is often made with Townes Van Zandt but to me Don McLean is a better one. And the album goes to the 11th rank of 1969.
*BIG HUGE SMILE EMOJI*
and yep this is one of those albums I adore. Its on my overall and quite high on the singer/songwriter chart. I adore it and consider Newbury to be in that upper-upper-tier of great songwriters. Need to listen to Don McLean based off what you said. (that's one of my really glaring blindspots for me).
anyway, thanks for listening and I'm glad you liked it. _________________ -Ryan
The Kinks Are The Village Green Preservation Society by The Kinks
This was the lowest ranking album from my collection for this year and part of me still says that The Kinks were very good at hits (and on many albums there are also hidden gems but that in general there is a lot of clutter on long albums like these. And don't get me wrong, there are no bad songs here, it's only that not all of them shine. But that doesn't mean that after listening back to many of these tracks, I upped their score which means that it has moved from the 18th to the 14th rank of the year.
An album on my wishlist:
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Take A Picture by Margo Guryan
As I promised in Ryan's diary, I will listen to a number of singer song writer albums gradually and this album neatly fits the types of albums I wanted to listen to in this round: I had never heard of Margo Guryan and it is a bit of a pity because I liked it. At first view the songs are very common and so is her voice but somehow there is something at both the songs and the voice and the instrumentation which makes them somewhat special. So certainly a good addition for my year chart and it enters at the 13th rank of the year.
That Kink's record is well loved but well over rated for me. Arthur and Something Else are much better, even some of their others are. Owned it since the early 90s and never massively warmed to it. Agree with a lot of that but even though they were one of the best ever singles acts, they still made some classic albums.
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dihansse
Mercury
Graeme2
