The Repo Zone: 1999 - Music Diaries - Forums : Best Ever Albums

Repo
BeA Sunflower

Location: Forest Park

Thanks for the lovely posts, Jimmy & pa!!! Absolutely love having this thread be more interactive. Very Happy

I think it speaks volumes about that Virginia Astley album. Really weird how I'd never heard of it either. Got it from an Allmusic similar album page (can't even remember for what album) & was immediately blown away and just knew I'd found something special. Makes the hunt so worth it doesn't it?!

I'll totally check out those recs & let you guys know what I think.

Peace.

Repo
BeA Sunflower

Location: Forest Park

12. Truck Stop Diner Jukebox

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Self Portrait by Bob Dylan

These ain’t songs for the Village. There are songs for the backroads of Kentucky. The ultimate 70s AM radio station curated by Dylan himself. This was not some tossed off project. This was not a Fuck You. This was a tribute to the music that Dylan loved that maybe didn’t get so much critical acclaim. It’s essentially like listening to the best damn juke box at some dive bar in eastern Kentucky circa 1974. Songs made for taking it easy while cruising down the highway or belting back some beers. Dylan LOVED these songs. And I do too.

Grade: A. I consider this an essential Dylan album showing yet another side to the enigmatic bard. This is 70s AM radio at its best with great variety which he nails more often than not. Some people would prefer to whittle this down to a single album, but I love it just the way it is. Warts and all. Radio stations back then were messy affairs after all. You just never knew what you were going to get. Far more often than not he nails them. And some of my favorite Dylan songs such as “All the Tired Horses”, “Take Me As I am” and “It Hurts Me too” are on here. Dylan had a love for all kinds of music and that is completely on display here. More so than perhaps any of his other albums. And he plays these songs with conviction and heart. Well except when covering his own “Like a Rolling Stone”. lol. But he more than makes up for it with his rendition of “She Belongs to Me” which showed me that their was a sonic link between Dyan and the Velvet Underground which I had never picked up on before. Long live 70s AM radio!

Essential
1. Virginia Astley - From Gardens Where We Feel Secure
2. Donovan - Wear Your Love Like Heaven
3. Bonnie "Prince" Billie - The Letting Go
4. Gene Clark - No Other
5. Grizzly Bear - Yellow House
6. Bob Dylan - Self-Portrait
7. Real Estate - Days
8. Beach House - Thank Your Lucky Stars
9. Harold Budd - Pavillion of Dreams
10. Real Estate - Real Estate

Mercury
Turn your back on the pay-you-back last call

Gender: Male
Location: St. Louis

Ah yes! I believe I found what you were speaking of.

Excellent review of Self Portrait, Tilly. Underappreciated album (even by me.) I feel I need to jump in with both feet again.

Have you had a chance to check out the Bootleg Series vol 10? It's excellent and it flushes out the vibes and style that you find from Dylan here and on albums like New Morning.

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The Bootleg Series Vol. 10: Another Sel... Bob Dylan
_________________
-Ryan

ONLY 4% of people can understand this chart! Come try!

My Fave Metal - you won't believe #5!!!

Repo
BeA Sunflower

Location: Forest Park

Mercury wrote:

Ah yes! I believe I found what you were speaking of.

Excellent review of Self Portrait, Tilly. Underappreciated album (even by me.) I feel I need to jump in with both feet again.

Have you had a chance to check out the Bootleg Series vol 10? It's excellent and it flushes out the vibes and style that you find from Dylan here and on albums like New Morning.

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The Bootleg Series Vol. 10: Another Sel... Bob Dylan

No, I haven't. And luckily I just spotted in on Spotify so I will check it out soon. Thanks!

Repo
BeA Sunflower

Location: Forest Park

13. Beating back The Doldrums

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Bloom by Beach House

I’m not going to fight it. I’m totally addicted to the sparkling, candy colored songs of Beach House. Beach House go full-on arena-sized for this album. Launching the grandeur of the Cocteau Twins straight to the upper rafters. I completely give in as its waves of Cure and Loveless-era MBV guitars wash over me. I’m no longer Tilly. I'm just a rag doll. Letting myself drift effortlessly wherever the waves take me. These are the songs I play to beat back the doldrums when they’re nipping at my heels. To kick them off and instead reach to the heavens and sing and shout that I can still make it despite it all.

Grade: A. This is Beach House at their poppiest. And pop is a surprisingly good fit for them. I still prefer their sound when it’s little rougher around the edges and the guitar cuts a little bit more deeply such as on Thank Your Lucky Stars. But, it’s still essential Beach House and definitely one of the best dream pop albums of the last decade.

Essential
1. Virginia Astley - From Gardens Where We Feel Secure
2. Donovan - Wear Your Love Like Heaven
3. Bonnie "Prince" Billie - The Letting Go
4. Gene Clark - No Other
5. Grizzly Bear - Yellow House
6. Beach House - Thank Your Lucky Stars
7. Real Estate - Days
8. Bob Dylan - Self-Portrait
9. Harold Budd - Pavillion of Dreams
10. Beach House - Bloom
11. Real Estate - Real Estate

AfterHours

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

Tilly wrote:

10. Maybe it's the Marimbas

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The Pavilion Of Dreams by Harold Budd

It took me a long time to warm up to this one. Maybe it was the soft jazz of the opening track. Maybe it was the operatic vocals on the second track. Maybe it was the marimbas. But in general it felt a tad too precious. Like they were trying to create the most new-agey sounding album of the 70s, and I was going to chalk it up as second tier ambient in the Eno vein. Which surprised me since I absolutely love the DARK ambient of Harold Budd’s work in the 80s on Abandoned Cities and The Pearl. So I kept listening. Kept waiting for something to click. And it did. Maybe my heart chakra or some other new age vestige in my body opened up but I began to embrace its warm spirituality and the smooth jazz of Marion Brown’s saxophone. At any rate, I now find it a lovely and even transcendent album at times that really helps me find peace on the some of the sleepless nights I’ve had over the past week. It’s a great record to meditate to, and I’m actually looking forward to using this as a bridge stone to other spiritual and uplifting works.

Grade: A-. A work that may actually change my view of overtly new agey and spiritual music - that’s saying something. Please send recs of other great spiritual works my way! It’s still not totally my thing, and I much prefer Budd’s later works The Pearl and Abandoned Cities, but I’ve definitely turned a 180 on this album which is pretty impressive.

Thanks, Afterhours for the uplifting rec!!!

Essential
1. Virginia Astley - From Gardens Where We Feel Secure
2. Donovan - Wear Your Love Like Heaven
3. Bonnie "Prince" Billie - The Letting Go
4. Gene Clark - No Other
5. Grizzly Bear - Yellow House
6. Beach House - Thank Your Lucky Stars

Highly Recommended
A. Real Estate - Real Estate
B. Harold Budd - Pavillion of Dreams
C. Woo - It's Cosy Inside

Again, I would love to get some more spiritually (but mellow) uplifting recs before I backslide into my nihilistic ways. lol

Great to see this, you are welcome on the rec! I find Pavilion of Dreams to be among the most nocturnal, heavenly, mystical and vertiginous albums of all time. Like being caught in floating dream, its very free, spacious and spiritual, with one of the most hauntingly beautiful and moving vocal performances of the 70s. Its soundscapes have an infinite, otherworldy stasis/slow-motion to them, akin to watching a stunning horizon gradually overwhelm the sky. Marion Brown's saxophone has an endless, haunted nostalgia to it (reminiscent of Coltrane on Kind of Blue), and the album as a whole becomes quite profound.

The Jazz albums that are most reminiscent are (in ratings order, not order of similarity)...

Art & Aviation - Jane Ira Bloom (1992) (50/50)
Ptah, the El Daoud - Alice Coltrane (1970) (a bit busier, but spiritually similar)
Extensions - McCoy Tyner (1970) (a bit busier, but spritually similar)
The Koln Concert - Keith Jarrett (1975) (not technically the same, but similar in how it executes its music and the overall feeling)
A Genuine Tong Funeral - Carla Bley/Gary Burton (1967) (has a similar contemplative, dream-like haunting feel in several parts, but also expressions of suspense, danger, satirical folly, tragi-comedy, and in the end, quite explosive)
Chasing Paint - Jane Ira Bloom (2003) (50/50)
6 - Supersilent (2003)
In A Silent Way - Miles Davis (1969)
Implosions - Stephan Micus (1977)
Kind of Blue - Miles Davis (1959) (Various parts, but is very similar with the 3rd track and especially with its last track)
As Wichita Falls, So Falls Wichita - Pat Metheny & Lyle Mays (1981) (Similar sense of pace, nostalgia)
Psalm - Paul Motian (1982)

...There's more but that's a start!
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Repo
BeA Sunflower

Location: Forest Park

AfterHours wrote:

Great to see this, you are welcome on the rec! I find Pavilion of Dreams to be among the most nocturnal, heavenly, mystical and vertiginous albums of all time. Like being caught in floating dream, its very free, spacious and spiritual, with one of the most hauntingly beautiful and moving vocal performances of the 70s. Its soundscapes have an infinite, otherworldy stasis/slow-motion to them, akin to watching a stunning horizon gradually overwhelm the sky. Marion Brown's saxophone has an endless, haunted nostalgia to it (reminiscent of Coltrane on Kind of Blue), and the album as a whole becomes quite profound.

The Jazz albums that are most reminiscent are (in ratings order, not order of similarity)...

Art & Aviation - Jane Ira Bloom (1992) (50/50)
Ptah, the El Daoud - Alice Coltrane (1970) (a bit busier, but spiritually similar)
Extensions - McCoy Tyner (1970) (a bit busier, but spritually similar)
The Koln Concert - Keith Jarrett (1975) (not technically the same, but similar in how it executes its music and the overall feeling)
A Genuine Tong Funeral - Carla Bley/Gary Burton (1967) (has a similar contemplative, dream-like haunting feel in several parts, but also expressions of suspense, danger, satirical folly, tragi-comedy, and in the end, quite explosive)
Chasing Paint - Jane Ira Bloom (2003) (50/50)
6 - Supersilent (2003)
In A Silent Way - Miles Davis (1969)
Implosions - Stephan Micus (1977)
Kind of Blue - Miles Davis (1959) (Various parts, but is very similar with the 3rd track and especially with its last track)
As Wichita Falls, So Falls Wichita - Pat Metheny & Lyle Mays (1981) (Similar sense of pace, nostalgia)
Psalm - Paul Motian (1982)

...There's more but that's a start!

Love hearing your point of view on Pavilion!

And thanks for all the jazz recs. I think I will start with Kind Of Blue. I'm a total jazz novice so I've been intrigued by the debate about in the forums recently. Seems like the perfect starting point. Very Happy

Repo
BeA Sunflower

Location: Forest Park

14. Late Night on a Commuter Train

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One Quarter Descent by The Fun Years

This is everything KLF’s Chill Out aspired to be when it grew up. It’s another ambient sound scape to a late night journey. This time you’re on a commuter train. You meditatively look out the window passively taking in the urban wasteland that supports life but that no one gives too much particular attention to. It’s warehouses. It’s sewers & canals. It’s power stations. You’re just comfortably at peace listening to the random sounds of the train play on the tracks as this urban landscape slips past. It’s meditative, nocturnal and completely gives you the impression of movement. Where you’re going is not important. You’re not in a rush. You’re complete just looking out that window. Looking out that window at nothing.

Grade: A. One of the finest, absorbing and contemplative ambient albums I’ve heard. It’s natural, organic & slightly industrial in sound. But the best thing is the sense of movement it gives you. That you are being transported somewhere, but you don’t really care where. In a way, it reminds me of Seefeel’s Quique in that sense. This jumps ahead (for now) of even Virginia Astley’s album of naturalistic beauty perhaps because I’m bit more of an urban dweller at my core.

Essential
1. The Fun Years - One Quarter Descent
2. Virginia Astley - From Gardens Where We Feel Secure
3. Donovan - Wear Your Love Like Heaven
4. Bonnie "Prince" Billie - The Letting Go
5. Gene Clark - No Other
6. Grizzly Bear - Yellow House
7. Beach House - Thank Your Lucky Stars
8. Real Estate - Days
9. Bob Dylan - Self-Portrait
10. Harold Budd - Pavillion of Dreams
11. Beach House - Bloom
12. Real Estate - Real Estate

Thanks for the rec, Skinny!

Repo
BeA Sunflower

Location: Forest Park

15. Let it Bleed

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Townes Van Zandt by Townes Van Zandt

These songs spill blood. They shed tears. Simple, unadorned. Often just vocals and a picking guitar, these songs dig deep into your soul. And bring out the loneliness and pain. The loneliness and heartbreak you thought you had buried. From that girl. From this life. There’s a romance to the loneliness of these songs. Of the love that had to end. Had to die.

Grade: A+. One of the greatest singer-songwriter albums of all time. The lyrics are second to none. But it’s the feeling of the songs that make it something special. Songs that make you reach for that whiskey jar to dull the pain and make you forget that special love you once had. Few albums bare your soul like this one, and it vaults all the way to number one.

Essential
1.Townes Van Zandt - Townes Van Zandt
2. The Fun Years - One Quarter Descent
3. Virginia Astley - From Gardens Where We Feel Secure
4. Donovan - Wear Your Love Like Heaven
5. Bonnie "Prince" Billie - The Letting Go
6. Gene Clark - No Other
7. Grizzly Bear - Yellow House
8. Beach House - Thank Your Lucky Stars
9. Real Estate - Days
9. Bob Dylan - Self-Portrait
10. Harold Budd - Pavillion of Dreams
11. Beach House - Bloom
12. Real Estate - Real Estate

More albums like this please!!!

Mercury
Turn your back on the pay-you-back last call

Gender: Male
Location: St. Louis

Beautiful stuff, Tilly. You inspired me to spin TVZ this AM. It hit that sweet spot, scratched that itch musically. I adore Townes. He was maybe the first artist I discovered who really opened me up to the deeper layers of music. When I first heard "Highway Kind" when I was 16 it was an almost spiritual moment for me. Corny, yes. But true. I had never heard anything like it. Can't say I've heard anything quite like it since. He cuts to the core loneliness like no one else. But also has the ability to be totally funny and playful.

Also this album is maybe his best studio album. Right up there for me with "High Low and In Between" and "Our Mother the Mountain".
_________________
-Ryan

ONLY 4% of people can understand this chart! Come try!

My Fave Metal - you won't believe #5!!!