Downfall Of The Neon Youth by ํ๋๋ ธ์ [Parannoul] / Asian Glow / Sonhos Tomam Conta
For some reason, I wasn't really feeling this one. I've listened to Parannoul's earlier release for the 3rd time the other day, and I wasn't feeling that one either, even though I liked it on the earlier tries. IDK may be my mood these days. Downfall... is definitely not as good as To See the Next Part of the Dream though, it's pretty consistent like EyeKanFly said, which is cool for a split, but the highlights weren't that good imo. Will return to this in the near future, for now it's 7/10
(2)
Ok no free jazz for you in the near future ๐ Let's try Africa/Brass, a slightly underrated Coltrane album imo.
(3)
2021
JPEGMAFIA - LP!
Grouper - Shade
Lil Ugly Mane - Volcanic Bird Enemy and the Voiced Concern
ะ ะพะถั [Rozh] - ะะตัะฝะพะต
Lorde - Solar Power
Vijay Iyer / Linda May Han Oh / Tyshawn Sorey - Uneasy
Wolves in the Throne Room - Primordial Arcana
Marissa Nadler - The Path of the Clouds
Silk Sonic - An Evening With Silk Sonic
Courtney Barnett - Things Take Time, Take Time _________________ Overall chart Fake overall chart
This is a really good choice for me coming straight after the Ornette Coleman album. Right from the start it had my interest and this lead into the sort of exciting chaos that I like with a solid rhythm I could groove with keeping me grounded as the noisy flights of fancy were taking place. A multi-sectioned song with a nice calming middle section, and allowing other instruments to shine at times, including a really cool drum solo. Great song! This was followed by a fascinating and fun version of Greensleeves. Another strong performance to finish and this ended up a great little listen. 8/10, and #46 in my top 100.
Silk Sonic is the must listen from these. Probably end up high on quite a few end of tear best-of lists.
Top 19 Music Albums of 1961 by EyeKanFly (5 picks left)
1. Miles Davis At Carnegie Hall by Miles Davis
2. Thelonious Monk With John Coltrane by Thelonious Monk With John Coltrane
3. West Side Story (The Original Sound Track Recording) by Various Artists
5. 8 Bitar by Jan Johansson
9. Two Steps From The Blues by Bobby Bland
11. Out Of The Cool by Gil Evans Orchestra
12. Showcase by Patsy Cline
14. Sunday At The Village Vanguard by Bill Evans Trio
15. Lonely And Blue by Roy Orbison
16. Mahler: Das Lied Von Der Erde by Otto Klemperer / Wiener Symphoniker / Elsa Cavelti / Anton Dermota
An Evening With Silk Sonic by Silk Sonic
I was a fan of both singles off of this one I'd heard (Leave the Door Open and Skate), so I had reasonably high expectations. Which weren't quite met, but I still enjoyed this a good deal. What bothered me the most was listening to half an hour of 70s soul worship with little original, more modern ideas. At least to my ears, it's quite possible that seasoned soul listeners can pick up a lot more details specific to the genre than I can. Despite that, there wasn't a mediocre song, all fun and groovy throughout. I'll probably not play this a lot as an album, but some of the songs are surely gonna be in regular 2021 rotation. Smokin' Out the Window is a single I've missed and it's also one of the best song on the whole album, and After Last Night is the low point imo. A cool song with a fantastic cast (Thundercat and Bootsy Collins alongside .Paak and Bruno Mars) and a great guitar solo near the end, also the most unique song on the album, yet it felt the least exciting to me. Maybe because it was followed by Smokin' Out the Window, which was much better. Blast Off is an incredible way to close an album, could be the best song on the whole thing. Anyway, glad Purple picked this one, it's a good album. 7.5/10
(2)
Out of the Cool is excellent, you might dig it
(3)
2021
JPEGMAFIA - LP!
Grouper - Shade
Lil Ugly Mane - Volcanic Bird Enemy and the Voiced Concern
ะ ะพะถั [Rozh] - ะะตัะฝะพะต
Lorde - Solar Power
Vijay Iyer / Linda May Han Oh / Tyshawn Sorey - Uneasy
Wolves in the Throne Room - Primordial Arcana
Marissa Nadler - The Path of the Clouds
Courtney Barnett - Things Take Time, Take Time
Blanck Mass - In Ferneaux _________________ Overall chart Fake overall chart
Lysol by Melvins
Feels like a mix of drone metal and stoner metal I guess, and to be honest I wasn't super into this. Don't know if it's necessarily a bad thing but the raw, unfiltered, lo-fi-ish sound of this album sorta turned me off. I've listened to other albums like it that I've enjoyed but for some reason this didn't really do it for me. I think I enjoy when the production is more technically proficient rather than the rawer sound.
I think this album did have some positives though. The single-composition piece was very cool, and I think that's the main reason why I'm considering this stoner metal, because it reminds me of Dopesmoker by Sleep (though that's really just an hour-long single song without as much variety). This was a journey through different musical themes almost more akin to Dream Theater than Sleep, and I think it was fairly successful in its concept and execution, I just didn't dig it so much unfortunately. 2.5-3/5.
2)
The ones I've listened to I wasn't super impressed with, so let's go with:
3)
Mercury's top albums of the 1990s
16. The Complete Blind Willie Johnson [compilation]
18. NOLA by Down
23. Rear View Mirror by Townes Van Zandt
24. Anthems to the Welkin at Dusk by Emperor
29. Souls at Zero by Neurosis
38. Long Hair in Three Stages by U.S. Maple
43. Somewhere Between Heaven and Hell by Social Distortion
45. Resurrection of the Bayou Maharajah by James Booker
47. And She Closed Her Eyes by Stina Nordenstam
48. City by Strapping Young Lad _________________ 51 Washington, D.C. albums!
MercuryTurn your back on the pay-you-back last callProfile St. Louis
Okay, yes I know i'm cheating and taking up way wayyyy too much space... but I will not say so much about these 3 that it hurts trying to scroll past this lol.
Basically I already wrote something up about Pete Rock and CL's debut EP. I wasn't feeling it. So i gave it some time and distance and, before pushing play on their first 2 iconic albums, i listened again. I will say I liked it a lot more. The flows and the atmosphere is still a bit too old school and sunny and patched together for my personal top taste, but man this is a very cool intro statement from this duo. 29 minutes of impressively dense stitched together beats and some cool bars mixed with some that idk, didn't do much for me.
NEXT, I re-listened to Mecca and The Soul Brother... and I can't put my finger on why, maybe it was a later remaster or maybe it's because they had more money behind them, but this sounded so soooo much more crisp and engaging than their already quite cool debut EP. The album sound-wise took what was cool and, I imagine but i'm no expert on hip hop history, groundbreaking sound of the EP and took it up a couple notches. The Bars and the flows are slightly better and at times actually quite incredible. The whole thing, despite being over 70 minutes, kind of flew by. While I still wouldn't say this is a style or aesthetic that engages me as much as other styles and sub-genres of hip hop, I was consistently engaged by the seamlessly put together, sample heavy and lush beats and tracks and those deep deeeeep basslines and everything production-wise. Smooth was better here as well, somewhat modernized within just a year.
FINALLY, the Main Ingredient is one that I had a feeling I was building toward. I recently gave it half a listen and remember thinking "This may be 90s chart worthy" but didn't add it. Finally coming to this after hearing their 91 and 92 releases it made it much more sharply clear that this is the most modern and lush and beautiful and cool and smooth of the 3 and easily my fave. The bars are even more engaging and badass here. The beats, from what I understand, are paired down in terms of samples and that aesthetic of taking other samples and stitching together a beat due to it being 1994 and more and more lawsuits started to be filed. The age of the sample-heavy album was ending in mainstream or more popular hip hop, and the beats generally and certainly here started being electronic and more self-produced or even self-performed from what I understand. That all makes for Pete Rock completely reinventing himself and doing better than ever creating these sonorous, tangible, thumping bassline-lead grooves with more natural sounding drums and some just awesome sounds and textures. Yeah this is solid and I may be adding this to my 1990s chart soon-ish. It's borderline.
Grades-wise, I give All Souled Out a 7.3/10
I give Mecca and The Soul Brother a 7.9/10
and I give The Main Ingredient a 8.3/10
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@EyeKanFly, understood regarding your thoughts on Melvins' Lysol. Housini is maybe more your taste, just as heavy but with, like, distinct songs and less drone and stoner and more sludge... different. idk.
I choose next for you what I honestly have come back to the most of these albums... I for some reason check and double check "Is this album really THAT great??" over and over the last couple years and I think I may be underrating it here and I may move it up. Here...I hope you don't hate this Southern/sludge/stoner Metal masterpiece mixed with elements of southern rock and groove metal and all sorts of stuff. ( i think you won't hate it, I am listening now and the riffssss... chef's kiss...)
I was soo close to picking your first (from this list) Black Metal album. Maybe next time or maybe later. Emperor is also great. 3rd choice but a distant third receiving some consideration was the classic Industrial Metal of City by SYL.
------------------------
3.
Okay, I have decided what to do as a "gimmick" for my list, and that is simply no gimmick, no challenge and no forcing myself to listen to anything I'm not already majorly interested in and kind of in the bag for lol - so I simply have this big list of albums I want to hear and I roughly ranked em and then now I will at random grab 10 that seem like either really cool and up my alley or ones that I feel like an idiot for never listening to em. Here we go!
+ = this is the most recently added choice
1. Monuments to Thieves by His Hero is Gone/1996 (This is a classic crust punk album. I have had this ear marked for ages. I add it here now.)
+2. Children of God by Swans/1987 (Recently did big deep dive into the 1980s in order to fully update chart. Saw this and was very very enticed. Time to give Swans another shot to win my heart.)
3. ใใใฆใ (Pneuma) by ้่ๅธๅญ+ไธๅฎ ็ด+ๅฑฑๆฌ้ไน +ๆธก่พบ็ญ (Ichiko Aoba, Jun Miyake, Tatsuhisa Yamamoto, Hitoshi Watanabe)/2017 (As a pretty recently converted Aoba die hard and fanatic, this album having not been heard is a crime. So whether this is chosen soon or not, I will be listening in next couple days. Still, here it is for possible choosing.
4. Mark Hollis by Mark Hollis/1998 (This is a shameful admission: I have never sat down - nor even stood up! - and listened to this album in one sitting - nor in one standing! I know I know how is this even admissible for someone that has Spirit of Eden high on his all time faves list? Idk. I have bit-and-pieced this album 1 or 2 times over the decade or so of awareness of it. I intend to rectify this soon. RIP Mark Hollis.)
5. Por este rio acima by Fausto/1982 (The album cover of this for some reason holds sway over my heart and I have been mean ing to check out this album for a long time... maybe I did back when I was doing some 1982 deep diving. But I can't remember. I don't think I ever did though. So this Portuguese folk/singer songwriter album it is.)
6. Moon Pix by Cat Power/1998 (I neeeeed more Cat Power in my life and for some reason I never rated this on RYM or here and I don't recall what this one is like and this is one of her more loved LPs. So this one is an option)
7. An Evil Heat by Oxbow/2002 (In the other similarly named game thread recently LedZep had me listen to another Oxbow album and I thought it was good bordering on GREAT. This seems to be their most famous album and I hear its experimental, droney, sludgy and weird - that sounds right for me atm.)
8. Pawn Hearts by Van der Graaf Generator/1971 (some classic prog I have been meaning to check out for ages!)
9. Left Hand Path by Entombed/1990 (Bring on this absolutely classic and legendary Swedish death metal classic! I couple months ago I absolutely saw the light on Entombed's peers, Dismember, and their 1991 masterpiece Like an Ever Flowing Stream. At that time I meant to now delve into the works of Entombed... but I never did. I listened to the first few tracks of this album newly and thought it was cool but no Dismember and went back to them. Now I would like to give this one the time and TLC it deserves. I heard it awhile ago but I was not a DM fan at the time and I didn't love it just liked it.)
10. At Action Park by Shellac/1994 (A classic 90s post hardcore release that I have been meaning to play for a decade or close to. When I was updating my 90s chart yesterday I saw this and instantly remembered how much I've wanted to give this a spin. So here it is as an option.) _________________ -Ryan
Uneasy by Vijay Iyer / Linda May Han Oh / Tyshawn Sorey
Some pretty fun post bop, at times ECM style, at times avantgarde, at times more conventional. 2 records in a row that sound like they came out in 1972. This one could've been even earlier lol. Not a bad thing though, I did mostly enjoy Uneasy. 3 great players as well, piano/bass/drums is not my preferred jazz trio, but it did work here most of the time. However, it has too much of... everything. Solos that go on forever without a clear resolution or a peak, songs that are like 7-8 minutes on average, sometimes lacking that melodic earworm or a motif which should connect the piece as a whole. Brilliant musicians, there's no doubt, but not always to my taste. That's why moments such as the outro on Touba and the intro to the follow up, Drummer's Song, sounded much better - beautiful, playful and minimalistic piano melodies which hit you right in the feels after the complex, dense wankery of piano/bass improv parts. Overall it's definitely too long and didn't hold my attention for the whole runtime, almost no song is without a fault. I guess you could say that every song does the same thing over and over with varying success. But despite all that, it's a really cool jazz album with world class players. Augury was a favourite, short, more low key, atmospheric, melodic yet still complex piece of piano wizardry. Completely broke the pattern of the album which was welcome, Iyer's like a spider weaving its web on this one. In fact that whole middle section (Touba, Drummer's Song, Augury, Configurations) was good. 7/10
(2)
Left Hand Path for you Merc
(3)
2021
JPEGMAFIA - LP!
Grouper - Shade
Lil Ugly Mane - Volcanic Bird Enemy and the Voiced Concern
ะ ะพะถั [Rozh] - ะะตัะฝะพะต
Lorde - Solar Power
Wolves in the Throne Room - Primordial Arcana
Marissa Nadler - The Path of the Clouds
Courtney Barnett - Things Take Time, Take Time
Blanck Mass - In Ferneaux
Portico Quartet - Monument _________________ Overall chart Fake overall chart
At least for this debut, Bloc Party are basically the British version of early Interpol. I love Turn On The Bright Lights and Antics, so this is significant praise. Silent Alarm starts off with two titanic bangers (which raised my expectations), but unfortunately the intensity then dials back for most of the remainder of the album, with the exception of a couple other really punchy tracks. The more midtempo songs are still quite nice, but they pale in comparison to Bloc Party's uptempo attack. Overall, good vocals and instrumentals paired with solid songwriting make this record a winner. Starting it at a high 3.5/5, with potential to grow in the future.
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2. Haven't heard any of those yet, but I'm looking forward to this most:
247. Layla And Other Assorted Love Songs - Derek & The Dominos
256. Machine Head - Deep Purple
263. Hotel California - Eagles
273. Crime Of The Century - Supertramp
280. Thick As A Brick - Jethro Tull
319. Aqualung - Jethro Tull
337. The Black Parade - My Chemical Romance
350. Van Halen - Van Halen
358. 2112 - Rush
366. Breakfast In America - Supertramp _________________ Join us in the canon game :) / Add me on RYM
Haven't been keeping up with the Gizz in their latest album cycle, so of course they dropped what's probably my favorite album of theirs in awhile. ๐
How does this not have a Krautrock or Berliner Schule genre tag on RYM? That first track (and a lot of the others; "Interior People) definitely sounds 'motorik'.
Really digging this sound and direction of their music. Love how the album really opens up after "Blue Morpho", but everything is still connected to some central and underlying themes and musical motifs. Sound is bright and positive for the most part, and I feel like this will be replayed more than some of their other albums for me.
Baystate, Van Halen's debut truly was a watershed moment in American Hard Rock music.
G_d's Pee at State's End- GY!BE
Donda- Kanye West
Daddy's Home- St Vincent
Happier Than Ever- Billie Eilish (now y'all just trippin')
A Beginner's Mind- Sufjan Stevens & whocares
Roadrunner- Brockhampton
Sinner Get Ready- Lingua Ignota
Pressure Machine- The Killers (now we're just getting into meme territory)
An Overview On Phenomenal Nature- Cassandra Jenkins
I Don't Live Here Anymore- The War On Drugs
An Evening With Silk Sonic- Silk Sonic
Purplepashranker, rater, & music list makerProfile Western Australia
Not much to say about this album. The first song was the highlight, and quite exciting, but the second track was a bit of a mournful piece, which while well done, did bring the mood down a bit. After that the mellowness stayed and the rest of the album was more a pleasant background listen that I didn't get that invested in. 7/10
Give Sinner Get Ready a try. I didn't really get into it much myself but it's an interesting listen.
Top 19 Music Albums of 1961 by EyeKanFly (4 picks left)
1. Miles Davis At Carnegie Hall by Miles Davis
2. Thelonious Monk With John Coltrane by Thelonious Monk With John Coltrane
3. West Side Story (The Original Sound Track Recording) by Various Artists
5. 8 Bitar by Jan Johansson
9. Two Steps From The Blues by Bobby Bland
12. Showcase by Patsy Cline
14. Sunday At The Village Vanguard by Bill Evans Trio
15. Lonely And Blue by Roy Orbison
16. Mahler: Das Lied Von Der Erde by Otto Klemperer / Wiener Symphoniker / Elsa Cavelti / Anton Dermota
17. Falla: El Sombrero De Tres Picos (The Three-Cornered Hat) by Ernest Ansermet / L'Orchestre De La Suisse Romande
baystateoftheartNeil Young as a butternut squashProfile Massachusetts
This type of performatively hypermasculine hard rock is decidedly not my thing. But while I outright dislike certain versions of it (the best-known albums by AC/DC and Guns N' Roses, for instance), Van Halen's debut is not among that group. Eddie's guitar theatrics are entertaining and the songs are catchy. The lyrics, while undoubtedly the weak link, are at least mostly passable. Having never knowingly heard anything by Van Halen before today, I wasn't sure what to expect. What I got was a pretty good listen. 3/5.
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2. I love this record. It has a lot of great songs, including the genesis of Drake & Rihanna's worldwide hit.
30s: 1. Negro Sinful Songs - Lead Belly
40s: 2. An Album Of Outstanding Arrangements - Glenn Miller
50s: 12. Chuck Berry Is On Top - Chuck Berry
60s: 60. The Who Sell Out - The Who
70s: 58. Layla And Other Assorted Love Songs - Derek & The Dominos
80s: 46. โฆAnd Justice For All - Metallica
90s: 72. The Boatmanโs Call - Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds
00s: 54. The Black Parade - My Chemical Romance
10s: 66. Sunbather - Deafheaven
20s: 21. A Heroโs Death - Fontaines D.C. _________________ Join us in the canon game :) / Add me on RYM
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