On the 2010 forum I expressed my renewed love for High Violet which has become my first album of the year and of The National full-stop.
So I wanted to find out if that really was true and listened to all their albums again or for the first time (their first two and two EP's).
I think The National has enough love here on BEA so I don't really want to convert any new souls but wanted however to give my personal rank of their albums:
The Good:
9. The National by The National (2001 and ranked 8th TN album on BEA): their first and not yet completely the band they were going to be but already a nice one with no real standouts
8. The Virginia EP by The National (2008 and ranked 9th on BEA): some good live versions but I only scored the first 7 tracks which are the only tracks I didn't find elsewhere. Again no real standouts.
7. Sad Songs For Dirty Lovers by The National (2003 and ranked 6th on BEA): Murder Me Rachel is the best here.
The very good:
6. Boxer by The National (2007 and best TN album on BEA): My love for this album is not as big as many of the other people here on BEA also because I don't have any real favorites here.
5. Sleep Well Beast by The National (2017 and 5th album on BEA): their most recent and I liked it very much
4. Alligator by The National (2005 and 3rd on BEA): Karen and All The Wine are my favorites
3. Trouble Will Find Me by The National (2013 and 4th on BEA): favorite track; Pink Rabbits
2. Cherry Tree by The National (2004 and 7th on BEA): strangely enough I liked this short EP more than a lot of their regular albums: All The Wine (I know it's also on Alligator) and About Today are the standouts here
The masterpiece:
1.
High Violet by The National
I already expressed my big love of this diamond. Nearly every track is a winner but I especially love England and Runaway.
And to go on with albums of 2002:
- Kill The Moonlight by Spoon (nr 19 on the overall BEA top chart of 2002): just an ok and pleasant album good enough to earn a place in my year chart: nothing more nothing less
- The Mantle by Agalloch (nr 20): I would like to like this album and in a way I do like it but I don't really like it I suppose because of lack of real songs. How's this for a description
- Come Away With Me by Norah Jones (nr 21): this album is way to mellow for me and finally fairly boring
- Lifted Or The Story Is In The Soil, Kee...right Eyes (nr 22): I can't even begin to describe how disappointed I am in this album. It seems to be full of emotions but in lots f ways these emotions seem to be fake and pretentious (only look at album title). I suppose he grew as a songwriter because I very much like I'm Wide Awake but this album is really not my thing.
The next album to listen to is an album I'm certain I heard before (and even had on Itunes) but because I don't really have a record on it I'll listen to it again: Source Tag & Codes by ...And You Will Know...
More albums of 2002:
- Source Tags & Codes by ...And You W...il Of Dead (nr 23 on the overall BEA top chart 2002): I used to own this album but never really liked and lost track of it a bit so I listened to it again and I'm glad I did. It took me some years but what a great album this is with as highlights the title track and How Near How Far.
- Lifted Or The Story Is In The Soil, Kee...right Eyes (nr 22): I don't know there's something really pretentious about this album and I can't say I can go along with it.
- The Creek Drank The Cradle by Iron And Wine (nr 26): this album has its lows especially when it sounds a bit country but in comparison tho the album above and below this one, this one just breathes honesty and hard felt feelings and that certain naieveté just adds up to the quality of it. I liked it.
- All Hail West Texas by The Mountain Goats (nr 29): also this album is very lo-fi but so lo-fi that again it has a certain kind of pretentiousness: look at how lo-fi I can go. I know that many people like this album but I don't.
- Yanqui U.X.O. by Godspeed You! Black Emperor (nr 28 ): I have a love-hate relationship with postrock and this album. They can build up to some fantastic highs and in many cases the road to those highs is long but interesting. The best example is Rockets Fall On Rocket Falls which has a drum pattern which is so repetitive it becomes mesmerising although it goes on for a very long time but the fact that gradually first classical instruments are added and later (much later) some fierce electric guitars) makes it interesting. If all tracks on the album (three are over 20 minutes) were in the same vein I would have included the album in my top chart but finally there are too many weak spots.
The next album to listen to is Songs About Jane by Maroon 5: sometimes this task I have started and want to finish is a hard one.
And more 2002 albums:
- Songs About Jane by Maroon 5 (nr 30 on the overall BEA top chart of 2002): this album was as bad as I thought it would be
- Let Go by Avril Lavigne (nr 31): this part of 2002 albums is not the best in the world and this one is not giving me any comfort on that part
- Highly Evolved by The Vines (nr 32): this is not bad but there's nothing here which even started to stir some kind of emotion
- Six Degrees Of Inner Turbulence by Dream Theater (nr 33): if ever there's one Dream Theater album which could interest me it would maybe be this one but it's still not my cup of tea.
- The Disintegration Loops I by William Basinski (nr 34): maybe when really in the right mood I will do the effort of listening to the whole album because now I contented myself by listening to some excerpts just to get the general feel. It certainly interests me as a concept but for the moment I'm not sure I would appreciate it as a piece of art on all levels.
- Castaways And Cutouts by The Decemberists (nr 35): upto now I only liked their The Crane Wife and I didn't really get into this first album of theirs.
- Tell All Your Friends by Taking Back Sunday (nr 36): this band is described by Allmusic as melodic hardcore but it's neither melodic and certainly not hardcore: what a piece of juvenile crap.
Now listening to Scarlet's walk by Tori Amos, an artist I would really want to appreciate more than I do now.
This is my final entry for albums of 2002 I listened to:
- Scarlet's Walk by Tori Amos (nr 39 in the BEA overall top chart of 2002): like I already said in the last post an artist I would like to appreciate more but actually can't and the same goes for this album
- Oceanic by Isis (nr 41): there are some ok parts to be found on this album but they are drowned in a whole ocean of fiddling around
- Heathen Chemistry by Oasis (nr42): this is actually a fine Oasis record without the stadium sound of many of their other albums. Even the hit Stop Crying Your Heart Out is better than I remembered it.
- 18 by Moby (nr 45): I especially like the slower songs here and also the dance tracks are in my opinion better here than on Play. Overall a good album
- I Brought You My Bullets, You Brought M...al Romance (nr 46): this is a terrible album in my opinion
- Century Child by Nightwish (nr 47 and the last album of 2002 with an overall score better than 2500): so over the top that they forgot to write actual songs
And this ends my journey into albums of 2002. I'm now also listening to Brainchild of George Harrison which is hidden somewhere deep in the 2002 rankings and sofar it disappoints a bit except for one jewel: Rising Sun.
Here is my final chart for 2002 with first the overall BEA rank and then the BEA year rank and then my personal year rank before and after this listening session which takes longer and longer because I also listen to other things:
BEA Rank Title By Band BEA YearRank - My Rank before To My Rank after
127 Songs For The Deaf By Queens Of The Stone Age 5 - 1 To 1
48 Yankee Hotel Foxtrot By Wilco 1 - 2 To 2
80 A Rush Of Blood To The Head By Coldplay 2 - 3 To 3
19874 Free So Free By J Mascis + The Fog 481 - 4 To 4
85 Turn On The Bright Lights By Interpol 3 - 5 To 5
18005 Universal Truths And Cycles By Guided By Voices 456 - 6 To 6
28273 At Sixes And Sevens By Jason Loewenstein 652 - 7 To 7
1370 One By One By Foo Fighters 27 - 8 To 8
2263 Murray Street By Sonic Youth 43 - 9 To 9
1186 Source Tags & Codes By ...And You Will Know Us By The Trail Of Dead 23 - Partly listened To 10
323 By The Way By Red Hot Chili Peppers 9 - 10 To 11
29114 Hammered By Motörhead 720 - 12 To 12
10983 Title TK By The Breeders 263 - 11 To 13
820 The Rising By Bruce Springsteen 18 - To listen To 14
2237 Heathen Chemistry By Oasis 42 - To listen To 15
50180 Don't Put Your Head In A Bucket By Red Zebra 1180 - 13 To 16
23456 Romantica By Luna (US) 560 - 14 To 17
22659 Cago By Dead Man Ray 565 - 15 To 18
16861 Are You Passionate? By Neil Young 426 - 16 To 19
2297 Steal This Album! By System Of A Down 44 - Already listened To 20
3634 Brainwashed By George Harrison 76 - Not yet listened To 21
51921 This Never Ending Now By The Chameleons 1220 - 17 To 22
1301 The Creek Drank The Cradle By Iron And Wine 26 - To listen To 23
4457 Dreamland By Robert Plant 103 - 18 To 24
11930 Human Conditions By Richard Ashcroft 284 - 19 To 25
1074 Kill The Moonlight By Spoon 19 - To listen To 26
470 In Absentia By Porcupine Tree 11 - To listen To 27
1954 Heathen By David Bowie 36 - 20 To 28
1277 The Last Broadcast By Doves 25 - 21 To 29
50429 It's A Love Cult By Motorpsycho 1187 - 22 To 30
26416 Storytelling By Belle And Sebastian 614 - 23 To 31
2335 18 By Moby 45 - To listen To 32
621 American IV: The Man Comes Around By Johnny Cash 14 - 24 To 33
265 Sea Change By Beck 6 - 25 To 34
7725 When I Was Cruel By Elvis Costello 177 - 26 To 35
89261 The Pipe Dreams Of Instant Prince Whippet By Guided By Voices 1935 - 27 To 36
7215 Spinvis By Spinvis 168 - 28 To 37
2695 Maladroit By Weezer 56 - 29 To 38
1199 Neon Golden By The Notwist 24 - 30 To 39
The next year to cover is 2007, another 5 years further upon down the road
Last edited by dihansse on 03/11/2019 21:21; edited 1 time in total
And this is the list of album of 2007 to listen to with first the BEA overall rank and after that the BEA year rank and my year rank (or to listen) before this listening session:
BEA Rank Title By Band BEA YearRank - My Rank before
13 In Rainbows By Radiohead 1 - 38
92 For Emma, Forever Ago By Bon Iver 2 - Already listened
104 Neon Bible By Arcade Fire 3 - 4
116 Sound Of Silver By LCD Soundsystem 4 - To listen
134 Boxer By The National 5 - 12
218 Favourite Worst Nightmare By Arctic Monkeys 6 - Already listened
248 Oracular Spectacular By MGMT 7 - To listen
335 Person Pitch By Panda Bear 8 - To listen
336 Strawberry Jam By Animal Collective 9 - To listen
397 Untrue By Burial 10 - To listen
410 Fear Of A Blank Planet By Porcupine Tree 11 - To listen
411 Graduation By Kanye West 12 - To listen
460 Hissing Fauna, Are You The Destroyer? By of Montreal 13 - To listen
582 Wincing The Night Away By The Shins 14 - Already listened
677 Kala By M.I.A. (UK) 15 - To listen
718 Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga By Spoon 16 - To listen
776 Into The Wild By Eddie Vedder 17 - To listen
795 Cross By Justice 18 - To listen
806 We Were Dead Before The Ship Even Sank By Modest Mouse 19 - To listen
816 Because Of The Times By Kings Of Leon 20 - 44
832 Sky Blue Sky By Wilco 21 - 23
833 Our Love To Admire By Interpol 22 - 9
878 Icky Thump By The White Stripes 23 - 50
1006 Echoes, Silence, Patience & Grace By Foo Fighters 24 - 18
1075 The Reminder By Feist 25 - To listen
1089 A Weekend in the City By Bloc Party 26 - 47
1201 Cease To Begin By Band Of Horses 27 - To listen
1219 Raising Sand By Robert Plant And Alison Krauss 28 - To listen
1230 Alive 2007 By Daft Punk 29 - To listen
1369 The Flying Club Cup By Beirut 30 - 49
1459 Mirrored By Battles 31 - To listen
1510 Live At Massey Hall 1971 By Neil Young 32 - Live Excluded
1531 An End Has A Start By Editors 33 - 2
1570 Night Falls Over Kortedala By Jens Lekman 34 - To listen
1584 Era Vulgaris By Queens Of The Stone Age 35 - 11
1616 The Cool By Lupe Fiasco 36 - To listen
1631 Riot! By Paramore 37 - To listen
1646 The Shepherd's Dog By Iron And Wine 38 - 39
1765 Year Zero By Nine Inch Nails 39 - To listen
1769 Minutes To Midnight By Linkin Park 40 - To listen
1796 White Chalk By P.J. Harvey 41 - To listen
1816 Puzzle By Biffy Clyro 42 - To listen
1832 Infinity On High By Fall Out Boy 43 - To listen
1842 Emotionalism By The Avett Brothers 44 - To listen
1871 The Good, The Bad & The Queen By The Good, The Bad & The Queen 45 - 52
1914 Armchair Apocrypha By Andrew Bird 46 - To listen
1936 Myths Of The Near Future By Klaxons 47 - To listen
1957 The Con By Tegan And Sara 48 - To listen
2001 People That Can Eat People Are The Luckiest People In The World By Andrew Jackson Jihad 49 - To listen
2011 Mens Needs, Womens Needs, Whatever By The Cribs 50 - To listen
2022 Marry Me By St. Vincent 51 - To listen
2028 And Their Refinement of the Decline By Stars Of The Lid 52 - To listen
2093 Life In Cartoon Motion By Mika 53 - To listen
2101 Cassadaga By Bright Eyes 54 - Already listened
2130 Colors By Between The Buried And Me 55 - Already listened
2287 Blackbird By Alter Bridge 56 - To listen
2300 Mothership By Led Zeppelin 57 - To listen
2345 Avenged Sevenfold By Avenged Sevenfold 58 - To listen
2390 Systematic Chaos By Dream Theater 59 - To listen
2399 The Stage Names By Okkervil River 60 - To listen
2438 Beyond By Dinosaur Jr. 61 - 1
2449 From Here We Go Sublime By The Field 62 - To listen
So the first album to listen to is Sound Of Silver by LCD Sound System.
After a bit of sidesteps (see my comments on Stephen Malkmus albums in Komo's diary) here my first entry of 2007 I listened to, all albums which seem to have something in common: Electronic albums with some kind of indie twist, whether I like it or not.
- Sound Of Silver by LCD Soundsystem (nr 4 on the overall BEA top chart of 2007): there is one great track to be found on this album: the long All My Friends. The rest of the album is a bit like all the other LCD albums I already heard: not bad and full of references to artists (Kraftwerk, krautrock) I like but lacking some real good songs
- Oracular Spectacular by MGMT (nr 7): Time To Pretend is not bad but I'm finally a bit put off by the singing and the overproduced atmosphere on this album.
- Person Pitch by Panda Bear (nr 8 ): as a coincidence the two 2007 Noah Lennox albums follow each other in the 2007 ranking. This is his Panda Bear reincarnation of which I had already listened to his Grim Reaper album I didn't really like. But this one is something else: it's the Beach Boys meets sampling which he does in a nearly way creating an emotional depth from the effect of repetition without precedents, especially on the long but never boring Bros. I think I'll need some more listens to fully appreciate this album but this first time was intense enough to make me want to put this album in my personal top chart of 2007.
- Strawberry Jam by Animal Collective (nr 9): and then comes this album on which Lennox participates and like most albums of this band I can't really connect with it.
- Untrue by Burial (nr 10): while listening to this album I read a lot of the many articles on this album not in the least the long Pitchfork one https://pitchfork.com/features/article/...ry-so-far/. And I get where it comes from and its eerie atmosphere is definitely very haunting but it doesn't really affect me emotionally.
And then comes one of those albums I really look forward listening to: Fear of Blank Planet by Porcupine Tree.
Until now there is one artist missing in my top charts: Jacques Brel.
The reason for that is that his important legacy is mainly represented by hits which are compiled on his many greatest hits albums.
Nevertheless, he has released several regular albums but it’s sometimes difficult to find one’s way in the different versions and releases so the first thing I will do is to try to get a grip on his original releases.
Jacques Brel is also one of the most covered artists in the world so I will also try to point you to the best ones. For example David Bowie has covered some of his songs and cited him as a big influence but especially two full cover albums need to be mentioned already:
Jacques by Marc Almond
and
Sings Jacques Brel by Scott Walker
Brel has such a long and fruitful career that I will split this overview up in a few different periods:
First period: the start of his career:
First on the grand artiste même. Although many people think otherwise, both French fries and Jacques Brel aren’t originally coming from France but from Belgium.
Jacques Brel was born in Schaarbeek/Brussels in 1929 as the son a cardboard factory owner. Although he grew up in a French speaking bourgeois environment his ancestors mainly came from humble Flanders which explains his love/hate relation with that part of Belgium on which I will certainly come back later. He started singing in an early stage but only became successful when he moved to Paris and already performed in 1954, ie at the start of his career in the famous Olympia. After the release of his first album Jacques Brel et Ses Chansons he started touring more extensively.
1. 1954
Jacques Brel Et Ses Chansons by Jacques Brel
While on this first album of 1954 he is of course not yet at the top of what he would come to be, there are still some memorable songs to be found here:
La Haine: many of the tracks have a bit of a festive atmosphere around them but while in most instances on this first album this results in a weak outcome, it works fantastically on this track especially since he sings in a very wry language how love can turn into hate (one of his classic themes)
Le Diable (Ca Va): a bit of a theatrical song about which was quickly also part of the setlist of Juliette Greco but is mostly known by the good cover by Marc Almond aptly called The Devil (Okay) who turns into something even more dramatic (with a bit of a Kurt Weil infusion)
Il Nous Faut Regarder: one of his many soft poetic chansons
C’est Comme Ca: a gay song about girls like in many of his songs sung in his own quick way
Sur La Place: a simple song in which he already knows how to turn a scene of a girl on a market square turn into a dramatic story of a song.
In the meantime Brel was mainly touring and releasing fairly forgettable singles but when Philips, his record company, notice that Quand On N’a Que L’Amour was rising on the French charts very fast, they wanted to release an album around that hit as quickly as possible.
And indeed this title track of his second album is truly great and one of his best songs ever and Brel succeeds here to create the most dramatic atmosphere just because of the many ways in which he twists and turns his voice (although the lush violins help as well to enhance this atmosphere). In short this is one of his must hear songs.
This song has mainly been covered by French artists like Maurane, Johnny Haliday, Patricia Kaas, Dalida and covers from other countries (If We Only Have Love) were mainly delivered by fairly cheesy Las Vegas artists like Celine Dion, Barry Manilow, Johnny Mathis and Nana Mouskouri. But in my opinion nothing beats the Sam Cooke version I Belong to Your Heart:
Unfortunately the rest of the album contains plenty of fillers both songwise and lyrically (mainly fairly plain songs about girls) and the only other track which is also ok is J’en Appelle.
3. 1958
Nº 3 by Jacques Brel
And also his third album is not one in which he reached his artistic top. Most tracks are very orchestrated (even with a church organ on La Lumière Jaillira) but fairly forgettable. But there some fairly good ones to be discovered:
Au Printemps Je Ne Sais Pas is a song in which his future genious in simple effective songs seeps through but he doesn’t know yet how to really exploit it
Litanies Pour Un Retour: a little gem of a song delivered in a near solemn way and also one of the only tracks on the album which was covered, again by Marc Almond and named Litany For A Return but he turned it into an over the top version as only Marc Almond can):
The Height of his career (1959-1962) in the next three posts (I have to split them up to limit the number of Youtube films in one post).
He slowly started to have success in non French speaking countries and even released an album in the States but these are his next three albums which can be counted as the best of his career:
This album is generally acknowledged as the highlight of his career and is a major leap compared to the first three albums I discussed yesterday.
There are several absolute classics to be found on this album but also a number of the less know other tracks here are amongst his best tracks so I’ll discuss them nearly all:
Valse A Mille Temps: this was an absolute first at the time because he starts this song very slowly to gradually increase the speed to finally end up in a breakneck delivery of always the same mantra in a slightly changing way which matches the increasing speed (he goes from a waltz in one time to a waltz in two times to a waltz in three times and then to four, to twenty to 100 to finally end in a waltz in a thousand times (mille temps). Not many artists risked to cover this song but of course Marc Almond had a go in Carousel:
But his own versions remain the best: especially the following clip is endearing in the sense that the images didn’t seem able to follow the speed of his delivery.
Seul is just what the title suggests; a very poetic rendition how one can feel lonely in a crowd and which like the former song he is also playing with numbers. And what do you think: here is another cover by Marc Almond: Alone
Je T’aime is in itself a fairly dull song except for the end where he opens all his vocal registers
And then Ne Me Quitte Pas: it opens with a small piano and then his soft voice gives way to one of the most beautiful melodies and most beautiful love songs ever of a man begging not to be left.
" Laisse Moi Devenir L’Ombre de ton Ombre (Let me become the shadow of you shadow)
L’Ombre De Ta Main (the shadow of your hand)
L’Ombre de ton chien (the shadow of your dog)"
And his voice mounts and then descends again and so does the piano and then the violins. If this isn’t enough you just have to watch this video:
You can call this overdone (the man is sweating from the beginning because he has just performed a whole concert) but the intensity of his delivery is unprecedented. I don’t know a more moving video clip (the only one that also makes le cry is Hurt by Johnny Cash) than this one: if you have seen this one and it doesn’t move don’t try to get into Jacques Brel any more: it is wasted on you.
This song has been covered many times but none can match the original version. The best attempt in my opinion is the version of Nina Simone (however bad her French is)
Scott Walker did a If You Go Away on his cover album and so did also Marc Almond but I’m not a fan of either of these versions
La Mort is a song which seems to show no pity in his feeling that death is near and he delivers this song in a fairly dry way. This completely unlike a number of covers from other artists of which the Ziggy version (My Death) with the tear at the end of this clip as the most fantastic emotional very loaded example:
It is in any case more moving than the again over the top and overdramatic versions by Marc Almond and Scott Walker although this last one is very good as well:
La Tendresse is named by Allmusic one of the typical Brel anti-love songs and I think they’re right
La Colombe (The Dove) is an anti-war song about French soldiers leaving for the war in Algeria and aptly covered by Joan Baez (although a bit over-produced):
Overall not a bad album and all tracks are good but not all are fantastic.
Marieke: one of this songs where he sings partially in Flemish here to express his love for a Flemish girl between Bruges and Ghent in the flat lands. A really great song sang in a ballroom style.
The best known cover of this song is the one by Judy Collins but her French and Flemish are so bad that I can’t get over my heart to promote this one as thé version to listen to so I’ll give you this weird version by a Flemish folk band instead
Le Moribond: I guess this must be one of the best known Brel songs in the Anglo-Saxon world because of the well known cover Seasons In The Sun by Terry Jacks but as a Nirvana fan I can’t stop myself from broadcasting this fantastically bad version by Nirvana (a bit like Sid Vicious raped My Way, that other French song which was more known in an English version): Kurt Cobain is nowhere to be seen (I suppose he’s playing the drums).
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