Top 10+ Music, Movies, and Visual Art of the Week (2023) - Music Diaries

AfterHours

Gender: Male
Location: originally from scaruffi.com ;-)

TiggaTrigga wrote:

Interesting that you willingly listened to a Nickelback album. Did you expect that it was going to be terrible before listening to it?

Based on their hits, yes, pretty much. Though I was open to it being better, and didn't expect it to be THAT continuously dull.
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AfterHours

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Location: originally from scaruffi.com ;-)

Top 10+ Music, Movies, and Visual Art of the Week (2021)

For an explanation of this log, read this: https://www.besteveralbums.com/phpBB2/v...094#571094

For my criteria page, go here: http://www.besteveralbums.com/phpBB2/vi...hp?t=15503

To visit my Main lists, go here:
Greatest Classical Music Works: https://www.besteveralbums.com/phpBB2/v...hp?t=15098
Greatest Albums (Rock & Jazz): https://www.besteveralbums.com/phpBB2/v...hp?t=15276
Greatest Films: https://www.besteveralbums.com/phpBB2/v...hp?t=15558
Greatest Paintings: https://www.besteveralbums.com/phpBB2/v...hp?t=15560
Greatest Works of Art: https://www.besteveralbums.com/phpBB2/v...hp?t=16117

Bold = Newly added
Bold + Italics = Was already listed but recently upgraded/downgraded

Top 10+ Music, Movies, and Visual Art of the Week(s): 6-14-2021 - 7-4-2021
Rock Bottom - Robert Wyatt (1974) ...I've said something like it before, but it is a miracle of humanity and completely beyond comprehension that this work was actually conceived of. And then executed and then left as is. Once its emotional impact and profundity thoroughly hits you, it just seems so fucking impossible to believe, yet here it is...
Thelma - Joachim Trier (2017)
La Haine - Mathieu Kassovitz (1996)
Neu! - Neu! (1971)
Straw Dogs - Sam Peckinpah (1971)
Last Year at Marienbad - Alain Resnais (1961)
A Clockwork Orange - Stanley Kubrick (1971)
The Velvet Underground and Nico - The Velvet Underground (1966)
Strange Days - The Doors (1967)
Irreversible - Gaspar Noe (2002)
Alien - Ridley Scott (1979)
City of God - Fernando Meirelles (2002)
Secrets and Lies - Mike Leigh (1996)
Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid - Sam Peckinpah (1973)
Don't Look Now - Nicolas Roeg (1973)
They Shoot Horses, Don't They? - Sydney Pollack (1969)
Amnesiac - Radiohead (2000)
Sideways - Alexander Payne (2004)
Scarface - Brian DePalma (1983)
Edward Scissorhands - Tim Burton (1990)
The Queen is Dead - The Smiths (1986)
In The Falling Dark - Bruce Cockburn (1976)
Insignificance - Nicolas Roeg (1985)
Midnight Cowboy - John Schlesinger (1969)
Uncut Gems - Benny & Josh Safdie (2019) ...Revisit; probably still 7.1/10 ... It seemed to hold up well on my first revisit since seeing it about a year ago upon Facetious' recommendation. It is a riveting, tense film where one is constantly on edge for the protagonist (even cringe-inducing, embarrassed for him) who continuously and obsessively risks his life and future on the next potential gambling win (using winnings that arent truly his, that he owes to others, to gamble for a bigger prize ... to pay off those he owes and escape the circular trap he is in). It is especially effective at putting the viewer inside Sandler's shoes, his POV, both the excitement of the next potential win and the sheer anxiety and desperation of escaping his debts. Visually and editing, it basically combines Cassavetes' hyper-realism and in the piercing, penetrative way it pits the viewer into its main subject's skin and ordeal, and also Friedkin's French Connection with the tenseness of its action and frantic situations against a gritty, urban environment. It also seems to be a descendant to the gambling and cumulative desperation of Dassin's Night and the City, though a more hyper-realisitic one whereas that film combines hyper-realism with expressionist noir more akin to Welles' Touch of Evil. The performances are generally excellent, again in Cassavetes' hyper-realistic style, especially Sandler, his mistress, and his wife in her limited screen time (its a credit to the performances and direction that we manage to empathize with Sandler and see his wife as an antagonist, despite all his irresponsibility and short comings, and particularly when she denounces him -- and the way she does it -- when he asks for another chance.)
Joker - Todd Phillips (2019)
Doolittle - Pixies (1989)
Naked - Mike Leigh (1993)
Led Zeppelin - Led Zeppelin (1969)
Absolutely Live - The Doors (1970)
Hex - Bark Psychosis (1994)
Night and the City - Jules Dassin (1950)
Throwing Copper - Live (1993)
Closer - Joy Division (1980)
OK Computer - Radiohead (1997)
Blacklisted - Neko Case (2002)
LA Woman - The Doors (1971)
Laughing Stock - Talk Talk (1991)
Fun House - Stooges (1970)
The Velvet Underground - The Velvet Underground (1969)
Countdown To Ecstasy - Steely Dan (1973)
I-Feel-Like-I'm-Fixin'-To-Die - Country Joe and the Fish (1967)
Raging Bull - Martin Scorsese (1980)
Wild at Heart - David Lynch (1990)
In A Lonely Place - Nicholas Ray (1950)
Black Narcissus - Michael Powell (1947)
The Phantom Carriage - Victor Sjostrom (1921)
His Girl Friday - Howard Hawks (1940)
Pure Heroine - Lorde (2013)
Abbey Road - The Beatles (1969)
Battleship Potemkin - Sergei Eisenstein (1925)
Faust - F.W. Murnau (1926)
Joshua Tree - U2 (1987)
The Colour of Spring - Talk Talk (1986)
Let It Bleed - The Rolling Stones (1969)
The Smiths - The Smiths (1984)
Raw Power - Stooges (1973)
To Pimp a Butterfly - Kendrick Lamar (2015) ...A little bit less consistent and not as emotionally or conceptually impactful as I remember. Strongly considering a downgrade to 6.6-6.8, though its been a 7/10 for years (and 7.3+ at one point) so I'll give it another shot or two first...
Cold House - Hood (2001)
Earth - Alexander Dovzhenko (1930)
The Soft Bulletin - Flaming Lips (1999)
Deserter's Songs - Mercury Rev (1998)

Top 10+ Albums/Movies for the Week(s) - Rated 2.8/10 to 6.7/10
Dark Side of the Moon - Pink Floyd (1973)
The Bends - Radiohead (1995)
Othello - Orson Welles (1951)
Odessey and Oracle - The Zombies (1968)
Kid A - Radiohead (2000)
A Moon Shaped Pool - Radiohead (2016)
Trans-Europe Express - Kraftwerk (1977)

(Note: Ratings updates in RED are not based on a revisit of the work DURING the listed week(s), but more a result of tweaks made in an overall sense, such as: a general change in the computation of the ratings scale itself, and/or comparisons to genre and/or the artist's career or alike careers. Such factors can have a sort of "domino effect" on the ratings in general, or that of a particular artist or type of artist, or that of a particular genre, etc)

FAMILIAR ROCK/JAZZ ALBUMS - RE-RATED:
OK Computer - Radiohead (1997) 7.1/10 to 7.0/10
Pure Heroine - Lorde (2013) 7.0/10 to 6.9/10
Joshua Tree - U2 (1987) 7.0/10 to 6.9/10
Let It Bleed - The Rolling Stones (1969) 7.0/10 to 6.9/10
Document - REM (1987) Not Rated to 6.9/10
Melissa Etheridge - Melissa Etheridge (1988) 6.8/10 to 6.9/10
In Utero - Nirvana (1994) 6.8/10 to 6.9/10
The Colour of Spring - Talk Talk (1986) 6.9/10 to 6.8/10
Kid A - Radiohead (2000) 6.9/10 to 6.7/10
A Moon Shaped Pool - Radiohead (2016) Not Rated to 5.9/10

NEWLY ASSIMILATED ROCK/JAZZ ALBUMS - RATED:
Cold House - Hood (2001) 6.8/10

FAMILIAR CLASSICAL WORKS - RE-RATED:

NEWLY ASSIMILATED CLASSICAL WORKS - RATED:

FAMILIAR CLASSICAL RECORDED PERFORMANCES - RE-RATED:

NEWLY ASSIMILATED CLASSICAL RECORDED PERFORMANCES - RATED:

FAMILIAR SONGS/TRACKS/MOVEMENTS - RE-RATED:

NEWLY ASSIMILATED SONGS/TRACKS/MOVEMENTS - RATED:

FAMILIAR FILMS - RE-RATED:
Last Year at Marienbad - Alain Resnais (1961) 7.5/10 to 7.8/10
La Haine - Mathieu Kassovitz (1996) 7.5/10 to 7.6/10
A Clockwork Orange - Stanley Kubrick (1971) 7.4/10 to 7.5/10
City of God - Fernando Meirelles (2002) Not Rated to 7.4/10
Straw Dogs - Sam Peckinpah (1971) Not Rated to 7.3/10
Don't Look Now - Nicolas Roeg (1973) 7.2/10 to 7.3/10
Irreversible - Gaspar Noe (2002) 7.1/10 to 7.3/10
Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid - Sam Peckinpah (1973) Not Rated to 7.3/10
Secrets and Lies - Mike Leigh (1996) Not Rated to 7.3/10
They Shoot Horses, Don't They? - Sydney Pollack (1969) Not Rated to 7.3/10
Insignificance - Nicolas Roeg (1985) 7.4/10 to 7.2/10
Night and the City - Jules Dassin (1950) 7.4/10 to 7.2/10
Scarface - Brian DePalma (1983) 7.0/10 to 7.1/10
Raging Bull - Martin Scorsese (1980) 7.4/10 to 7.1/10
Wild at Heart - David Lynch (1990) 7.4/10 to 7.1/10
Naked - Mike Leigh (1993) 7.4/10 to 7.1/10
Battleship Potemkin - Sergei Eisenstein (1925) 7.6/10 to 7.1/10
In A Lonely Place - Nicholas Ray (1950) 7.4/10 to 7.1/10
Black Narcissus - Michael Powell (1947) 7.3/10 to 7.1/10
The Phantom Carriage - Victor Sjostrom (1921) 7.3/10 to 7.0/10
His Girl Friday - Howard Hawks (1940) 7.4/10 to 7.0/10
Sideways - Alexander Payne (2004) 6.9/10 to 7.0/10
Faust - F.W. Murnau (1926) 7.5/10 to 6.9/10
Othello - Orson Welles (1951) 7.4/10 to 6.7/10 ... Besides the fact it has been downgraded in each of my last 5-6 viewings (from a brief peak of 8.9/10 some years ago!) this downgrade still surprised me (even though maybe I should've expected to be close to Scaruffi's rating). It is still stunning visually but, although Welles is by far the most resourceful directorial genius ever, his heroics are not quite enough to salvage the film into the masterpiece or minor masterpiece it could have been. It is somewhat marred by its patched together nature, shot inconsistently over 4 years at different locales and somehow made into a fairly coherent film by Welles (in a sense it is the greatest under-7 work ever in that it is astonishing it is any good at all if one knows what Welles had to go through to make it). Anyway, the breathtaking and bewildering visuals and editing seem to reflect Othello's reality falling apart and the deviousness of Iago's reality overtaking him, a labyrinth of fluctuating points of view and spatial confusion. But it seems it may be too confused to truly take hold (not too confused due to Welles' directorial faults, but due to how patchwork it was). So it is simultaneously amazing and mildly frustrating to watch. Some viewings I have been overtaken by its positives and more recently its faults seem a little too prevalent to lend it a higher rating, which it, however, remains in potential running to regain. But for now, 6.7 or so seems accurate due to my last two viewings.
Earth - Alexander Dovzhenko (1930) 7.3/10 to 6.8/10; 6.8/10 to 6.6/10

SEVERAL OTHER RECENT RATINGS UPDATES: 8 ½; Metropolis; Marketa Lazarova; A Face in the Crowd; The Sacrifice; Ordet; Grand Illusion; Rashomon; Hiroshima, Mon Amour; The Third Man; Come and See; The Godfather; The Manchurian Candidate; The Night of the Hunter; Splendor in the Grass; The Great Dictator ... TOO TEDIOUS TO FULLY UPDATE EACH ONE HERE - MOST OF THEM ARE MINOR ADJUSTMENTS OF A 10TH OF A POINT OR TWO - ROUGHLY HALF OF THEM ARE CATCHING UP ON THE RESULTS OF VARIOUS REVISITS FROM 5-8 MONTHS AGO; ROUGHLY HALF ARE THE "DOMINO EFFECT" OF THESE OR OTHER UPDATES BETWEEN THEN AND NOW

NEWLY ASSIMILATED FILMS - RATED:
Thelma - Joachim Trier (2017) 7.6/10
Joker - Todd Phillips (2019) 7.0/10

FAMILIAR PAINTINGS/VISUAL ART - RE-RATED:

NEWLY ASSIMILATED PAINTINGS/VISUAL ART - RATED:

TOP 50 WORKS OF ART OF THE YEAR (2021)
Sistine Chapel (Ceiling & The Last Judgment) - Michelangelo Buonarroti (1512; 1541)
Have One On Me - Joanna Newsom (2010)
Escalator Over The Hill - Carla Bley (1971)
Even the Sounds Shine - Myra Melford (1994)
Original Sin - Pandora's Box (1989)
Dreamtime Return - Steve Roach (1988)
Rock Bottom - Robert Wyatt (1974)
The Garden of Earthly Delights - Hieronymus Bosch (circa 1495-1505)
Spiderland - Slint (1991)
Improvisie - Paul Bley (1971)
Afternoon of a Georgia Faun - Marion Brown (1970)
Let the Evil of His Own Lips Cover Him - Lingua Ignota (2017)
The Downward Spiral - Nine Inch Nails (1994)
Stalker - Andrei Tarkovsky (1979)
The Last Supper - Leonardo Da Vinci (1497)
Symphony No. 9 in D Minor "Choral" - Ludwig van Beethoven (1824)
Symphony No. 9 in D Major - Gustav Mahler (1910)
Symphony No. 5 in C Minor - Ludwig van Beethoven (1808)
Spirit of Eden - Talk Talk (1988)
Nostalghia - Andrei Tarkovsky (1983)
Bangerz - Miley Cyrus (2013)
Blue - Joni Mitchell (1971)
America - John Fahey (1971)
It Takes A Nation of Millions To Hold Us Back - Public Enemy (1988)
Lorca - Tim Buckley (1969)
Down Colorful Hill - Red House Painters (1992)
Blonde On Blonde - Bob Dylan (1966)
Symphony No. 3 in E-flat Major "Eroica" - Ludwig van Beethoven (1804)
Symphony No. 8 in B Minor "Unfinished" - Franz Schubert (1822)
Yerself Is Steam - Mercury Rev (1991)
Da Capo - Love (1966)
Loveless - My Bloody Valentine (1991)
Radio Gnome Invisible Part 1: Flying Teapot - Gong (1973)
Perfect From Now On - Built To Spill (1997)
The Modern Dance - Pere Ubu (1978)
The Doors - The Doors (1966)
Dummy - Portishead (1994)
Strange Days - The Doors (1967)
The River - Bruce Springsteen (1980)
Peasants' War Panorama - Werner Tubke (1987)
Piano Sonata No. 32 in C Minor - Ludwig van Beethoven (1822)
Cosmic Interception - Von Lmo (1994)
Fun House - The Stooges (1970)
The Magic City - Sun Ra (1965)
On the Way Down From Moon Palace - Lisa Germano (1991)
A Love Supreme - John Coltrane (1964)
Zen Arcade - Husker Du (1984)
Uncanny Valley - Stabscotch (2017)
6 - Supersilent (2003)
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Last edited by AfterHours on 07/06/2021 22:06; edited 22 times in total

TiggaTrigga

Since it seems like you re-listened to OK Computer and Kid A recently, thoughts on Paranoid Android and The National Anthem? I never really understood why people like The National Anthem more than the other songs on Kid A.

AfterHours

Gender: Male
Location: originally from scaruffi.com ;-)

TiggaTrigga wrote:

Since it seems like you re-listened to OK Computer and Kid A recently, thoughts on Paranoid Android and The National Anthem? I never really understood why people like The National Anthem more than the other songs on Kid A.

National Anthem is perhaps the least affected by the processed sound of Kid A (that holds some interest in its "alien" qualities, but tends to mitigate or dissolve the full impact of the instrumentation in several songs). It basically fuses Talk Talk's Ascension Day with the jazz assault, charge, crescendos of Bitches Brew or Charles Mingus (and might also owe something to The Beatles' Tomorrow Never Knows, in its beat and the "distorted" vocals/effects/arrangement). It begins with a driving beat, backed by eerie atmospheric effects, then Yorke's distorted and alienated vocals, before horns enter and join the percussion, before all this collides and coalesces into a manic climax that builds twice, with an eerie then pained, almost crying/shrieking break (that becomes increasingly distressed) in between. After this fully builds it collapses in an almost follied and distorted instrumentation before giving way to a lost finale of orchestration way in the background.

I would probably place National Anthem or How To Disappear Completely as Kid A's best tracks. Other than those, most of the songs are solidly executed derivatives of other artists (such as Kraftwerk for Kid A, Eno for Treefingers), or feature a main compelling idea or climactic epiphany but are otherwise under-developed and needed more juxtaposition or progression of ideas to be more significant, even though their main ideas are (such as the sudden and desperate break in Idioteque, the cosmic "afterlife" break in Motion Picture Soundtrack); these songs at first can seem even stunning but scrutiny proves them to be somewhat shallow.

Amnesiac, contrary to popular opinion, was more assured, more singular/original, a greater compositional efficiency of ideas/development, and perhaps the only thing holding it back from 7.3+ is that (although efficient) some of the songs should have been extended and allowed to grow further. And the album may be a little too variegated and not quite cohesive enough -- at least in form -- to bring to fruition a fuller flowering of its aims. This is the one area Kid A has it beat, which lends that album a certain polish and relative cohesion and tonal consistency, plus its simpler songs and more obvious glories, which probably helps explain its far greater acclaim critically and publicly. On the other hand, Amnesiac is pretty sustained in terms of its tone. Each song could be a variation on a stifling, encroaching nightmare of loneliness and isolation, and is overall probably Yorke's greatest vocal performance in alignment with arrangement: the hostile and alien arrangements plus alienated/lonely/hopeless/demonic vocals, are rather moving in a majority of the songs, whereas other albums are more hit and miss in that he at times misses the right balance and his loneliness/introversion can be so "kept to himself" that the effect doesnt come through as palpably as he probably feels inside. Probably the main reason Kid A was put together first or as it was is simply because its songs all share virtually the same processing and tonal qualities, whereas the songs from Amnesiac don't. I'm not sure if it's fair to call them "merely Kid A's B-sides" (unless that's actually true?). Either way -- B-sides or not -- in this case, they're better executed, more original, more affecting.

Kid A is a good album and it's easy to see why it's so loved, but you would really have to have missed Eno's Another Green World, Before and After Science, Talk Talk's Colour of Spring-through-Laughing Stock, Bowie's Eno/Berlin phase, Pink Floyd's latter period, to think it was as revolutionary or experimental as has been claimed. For a very modern follow up and comparison, I would strongly recommend Knife's Shaking the Habitual for an album that is a pretty marked improvement on the same sort of ideas (superior compositions, arrangements, more experimental and daring and ambitious, etc), and one might say bridges the gap between Kid A/Amnesiac-Radiohead and Can's Tago Mago.

Paranoid Android could be their best song. Watts-ian "shuffle" (Sympathy for a Devil, etc) plus contemplative/thumb twiddling, and suspense-building guitar, harmonics and effects, plus Yorke's heavily alienated, meek, agonized, cataleptic voice (cross between Billy Corgan, the theatrical artifice and androgyny of David Bowie's glam-rock phase, of Bono circa Joshua Tree, of Mark Hollis of Talk Talk, and of the drowsy/hypnotic existential introversion and chanting of DSOTM-era Pink Floyd...). Builds for two verses before turning phrase and changing pace and breaking into an angry retort and outcry by York as sinister, violent guitars strike simultaneously as the song splits into a frantic, epileptic fit (a la Jimmy Page, ex: Communication Breakdown, but with "spacey" effects a la Pink Floyd's Piper). This clears away into a spiritual invocation (almost like a cross between the climax to Robert Wyatt's Sea Song and Pink Floyd's Eclipse) before coalescing into a chorus of Yorke's cries juxtaposed by his own sinister voice. And then breaks into a culminating epileptic fit again (more or less repeating the Zeppelin or Black Sabbath-esque spastic attacks).

Note: Several hastily replied typos corrected + some of the descriptions edited a bit, since original post. Still could use some work if I wanted to write something more "professional" (and wasn't typing on the go from my phone!) but should read a bit better now...
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Last edited by AfterHours on 06/25/2021 05:55; edited 3 times in total

TiggaTrigga

Honestly, Amnesiac feels more like "b-sides" of OK Computer than they do of Kid A. The songs to me are like those of OK Computer -- alternative rock-oriented and playfully using some electronic effects here and there; Kid A just seems more electronic in comparison. And OK Computer doesn't really feel very cohesive. No Surprises feels very different from the rest of the album, for example.

DelBocaVista

Along with The Knife, another good "followup" to this era of Radiohead is "Cold House" by Hood (2001), a Scaruffi 7. It's sort of a poppier/folkier version of Bark Psychosis or a hip hop version of Kid A/Amnesiac (per Scaruffi: "The whole album is an unlikely hybrid of ambient dub and glitch music, Talk Talk and Autechre , noir pop and Canterbury jazz-rock, AR Kane and Robert Wyatt"). Other than the hip hop beats, it's not too much different from what they sounded like already by 1998.

AfterHours

Gender: Male
Location: originally from scaruffi.com ;-)

TiggaTrigga wrote:

Honestly, Amnesiac feels more like "b-sides" of OK Computer than they do of Kid A. The songs to me are like those of OK Computer -- alternative rock-oriented and playfully using some electronic effects here and there; Kid A just seems more electronic in comparison. And OK Computer doesn't really feel very cohesive. No Surprises feels very different from the rest of the album, for example.

I can see it from that point of view too. It seems somewhere in between Ok Comp and Kid A and not so much from the same sessions (as Kid A) as one might think before hearing each.
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AfterHours

Gender: Male
Location: originally from scaruffi.com ;-)

DelBocaVista wrote:

Along with The Knife, another good "followup" to this era of Radiohead is "Cold House" by Hood (2001), a Scaruffi 7. It's sort of a poppier/folkier version of Bark Psychosis or a hip hop version of Kid A/Amnesiac (per Scaruffi: "The whole album is an unlikely hybrid of ambient dub and glitch music, Talk Talk and Autechre , noir pop and Canterbury jazz-rock, AR Kane and Robert Wyatt"). Other than the hip hop beats, it's not too much different from what they sounded like already by 1998.

Thanks for the rec! Hadnt heard it. I checked it out today and it's pretty damn good -- seems like 6.8 to me so far (only 1 listen though) -- and I think your comparison with Bark Psych might be more accurate than Scaruffi's Talk Talk (though either one is workable, cut from the same cloth).
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homelessking

Damn even Jon Hassell passed away. So many people leaving us in recent years.

AfterHours

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Location: originally from scaruffi.com ;-)

homelessking wrote:

Damn even Jon Hassell passed away. So many people leaving us in recent years.

Damn -- one of the most singular artists of the 20th century.
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