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Old 2009.08.06, 04:28 PM   #31
TeslaGuy
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Here are some of my favorite albums. Just the first 20 I thought of.

XTC - Skylarking
Steely Dan - Aja
Brian Eno - Before and After Science
Kraftwerk - Computer World
Peter Gabriel - So
Pink Floyd - Dark Side of the Moon
YMO - Technodelic
Jethro Tull - Aqualung
Talking Heads - Remain in Light
Devo - Are We Not Men?
Cocco -Zansaian
Mahavishnu Orchestra - Birds of Fire
Puffy - Nice
David Byrne and Brian Eno - My Life in the Bush of Ghosts
Pizzicato Five - Bossa Nova 2001
Pat Metheny and Lyle Mays - As Falls Wichita, So Falls Wichita Falls
King Crimson - Discipline
Vangelis - China
David Bowie - Heroes
Bill Nelson - The Love That Whirls

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Old 2009.08.06, 11:58 PM   #32
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at the moment:

Scarlet's Walk - Tori Amos



this album is to credit for imparting me with an understanding and love for a land I had never taken an interest in. As an American we can get so caught up with what it means to be an American, as a social and political creature, and we talk about this land, America, as being only 300 years old, but when you start to talk about the land, and the inherent spirit in this place we all live but take for granted, it is taken into another realm entirely. I've always loved Native American culture and tradition, but this album was something entirely different, it was the history of the land we call America presented in sonic form and told through the story of a fictional character named Scarlet. It is such a difficult work to digest, I admittedly liked it least out of all her works when it was released (which is ironic given that A Sorta Fairytale, the lead-in single, was a radio success and what caught my attention in the first place). However, once I really started to think about the music, the lyrics, the story, and I read the accompanying A Scarlet Story (which explains the story of Scarlet as she travels through all 50 states), it started to unfold for me. So many of the songs on this album are so devastatingly beautiful, it just hard to resist.

top picks: A Sorta Fairytale, Your Cloud, I Can't See New York, Taxi Ride, Pancake, Virginia, Gold Dust.
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Old 2011.03.28, 07:57 PM   #33
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Wink My stupid List

Call it a compulsion. I have compiled and ranked a list of my twenty favorite albums. Many argue the futility in such an exercise. “Why do you need rank things you already like? Just enjoy them equally!” It isn’t so much that X has to be better than or inferior to Y and for some reason I need to know this. Tastes change and feelings towards things like music change and maybe I like to see these changes, these relations, and consider what they mean. If they do mean anything, that is. For my three middle-school years, every week I would compile a “top 10” list of my favorite songs of that week and play the 10 songs in order in my room, making an impromptu show for myself to both direct and enjoy. This was religion. As eluded, only part of the fun was blasting the music from my stereo. I would keep all the weekly lists in a white binder, where the real fun lived. With this data, I would go and tabulate how long certain songs were on the list, how fast they ascended and fell, how long they occupied the top spot. Perhaps simply out of this programming is why I enjoy list-making in general. But I believe it’s deeper than that. I believe by doing this exercise I can to learn more about my tastes, the music, and ultimately myself.


It’s entertaining to write and read scathing opinions of music you hate, but I would truly rather talk about music I like. It’s more difficult, sure, to coherently express the good qualities of something as subjective as music, how it makes you feel, and do it in a way that piques discussion. “I like it cause it’s good,” a common sentiment, doesn’t cut the mustard on any level. Isn’t this why people post on music discussion forums at some core, to talk about things they like? This is what I aim to do. With my freshly tabulated top twenty (that is by no means definitive,) I am going to try my very best to write something entertaining, thoughtful and something hopefully stir up some discussion to cue you to think and talk about your music in a similar manner and join in on the fun! Nothing says fun like deliberation, meditation, and examination right?


Obviously, to cull a list of twenty, I kicked around considerably more than twenty albums. I went ahead and ordered in excess of twenty, for the sake of fun, and for the relationships between some top twenty albums to non twenty albums which were quite interesting. I decided I would also include discussions for a few of the albums that I ranked above my personal top twenty, but only as a supplement to the twenty, our main focus.


Additionally, my approach is to not just to drop a full list and annotate it with some thoughts. I plan to present a, hopefully, well thought out article for each entry in an order governed only by what I deem interesting.



With that said, I hope you enjoy my first post in this series and hope I can see this through!

=============
#20 and #21: The King of Limbs and Shouso Strip
#16: The Aeroplane Flies High
#17 and #11: Crooked Rain, Crooked Rain and Transmissions from the Satellite Heart
#19 and #18: Doolittle and First Band on the Moon
#14: Pinkerton
#15 and #13: Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots and Sappukei
#12: Funeral
#8: Yankee Hotel Foxtrot
#10 and #4: Trailer Park and Central Reservation
#7: Nevermind
#6: Karuki Zamen Kuri no Hana
#5: Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness
#9: Bitte Orca
#3: (What's the Story?) Morning Glory
#1: The Beatles
#2: In the Aeroplane Over the Sea
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Old 2011.03.28, 08:04 PM   #34
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Talking My stupid List (What makes an album?)

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#20 and #21: The King of Limbs and Shouso Strip

My ordering criteria are as unorthodox as they are personal. This is a personal list, I have a special connection, history, and feelings towards these records and that factors greatly. But it’s not the sole variable. Something has to be said of overall composition and focus; quality. A person may like The Backstreet Boys a whole lot, but saying “I Want it that Way” is better than something like Lady Gaga’s “Bad Romance” on those grounds is pretty heinous (and what’s the likelihood anyone would want to read this guy’s opinions?) So this list is grounded on the soupy foundation of personal preference and artistic quality. Attributes balanced and adjusted on a case-by-case basis by me and my whims as an accurate portrayal of the concept we call opinion.

The schism between the numbers 20 and 21 is apparent inherently in this situation, but I had no idea how deep until it came to deciding what was in the top twenty and what was out. The gap between 20 and 21 not only encompassed the difference between artistic quality and personal preference, but the ideas of accessibility, artistic goal, and art itself.

The choice was between Shiina Ringo’s sophomore effort, Shouso Strip, and Radiohead’s newest, The King of Limbs. The juxtaposition was delicious. At the time, the former sounded most like the latter, which was apparently a big influence. Arriving at these two albums was quite the conundrum.

Historically, if you asked me to select between Shouso Strip and Shiina Ringo’s debut Muzai Moratorium, I would have picked the debut (their first album was always better, no?) Too in my selection process Muzai Moratorium (earning its honorable mention here) was floating near a late-teen placement until I forced myself to actually think about the album. It’s a stellar album and a strong debut. It is easily her most accessible work and has strong hooks. I’ve always viewed it and Shouso Strip as sister albums, separated by mere months and sharing common origins. But perhaps I foolishly never bothered to consider what was truly separating these works. Muzai is the squeals of an optimistic girl chomping at the bit to make a record and succeed, if rebellious by Japanese societal standards. Shouso Strip is the stroke of a woman determined to steer her career, and perhaps the musical scene, somewhere deliberate and challenging.

Shouso Strip is definitely a denser record on cursory glance. Noise, beeps, and samples abound. These are not empty adornments to disguise shallow songs; her songs grew more complex and meaningful than her arrangements. No longer does she muse about her idols, where she’s grown up, and how she makes music. She had learned a lot in those mere months. She looks past herself and addresses femininity, and objects to just what the hell it means. We get an album of varied music with differing sensibilities all earnestly handled and possessed by Shiina the auteur. Few other albums will you find such differing representative singles as Shouso Strip. What it lacks in accessibility, it gains in monster hooks to ensnare you so you hear what she has to say.

I too would have chosen The Bends as my Radiohead album of choice in previous years. Accessible and familiar are what essentially defines that album as the band veered farther and farther from there since. On the other end of the spectrum is Kid A. While The Bends is an awesome collection of songs, and Kid A is remarkable experimental commercial feat. I always felt both lacked something I could take away with. The King of Limbs was a true surprise to me as I gauged it across albums I’m far more familiar with, and possibly better understand. Album after album I eliminated and the King remained. How could it be that as “Street Spirit” faded out, I kept coming back to “The Separator”? It must be the new album smell!
I truly think what separates it from other Radiohead albums in my eyes is the journey. The journey from “Bloom” to the album’s close is what sticks to me. For an album that incorporates so many studio tricks and digital effects, how it evokes such imagery of nature and being lost in strange woods is fascinating…and eery. The limited track selection is a huge asset I this regard. Unity. Each track has elements of standard pop songs mixed with experimental ambience to keep you off kilter every step of the way and by the end of it, my feelings are less “I got through it!” (like Kid A) and more “I want to go again!”


In spite of some scary arty farty words used to describe the album, The King of Limbs is probably the easiest to digest Radiohead since The Bends and Ok Computer.

So what does this mean? Instead of two albums I’m very comfortable and familiar with, I found myself choosing between two albums I’ve only just begun to appreciate fully. And what’s more, I was certain there’s no album I hadn’t already placed that I would choose above them. How did I decide The King of Limbs make the cut over Shouso Strip?

Shouso Strip has some mega tracks, but The King of Limbs is a sum of the parts affair. The King of Limbs feels like a story, whereas Shouso Strip feels like a manifesto (and they probably both are!) Shiina Ringo is still looking for her peace at the end of Shouso Strip whereas Radiohead has found and given us closure, even if their lyrics tell us otherwise. From my perspective, it’s easy as hell to ask a question, to challenge authority. It is much more compelling when you can actually make sense of things and draw a conclusion. Radiohead’s album gives me this feeling, and it’s catchy to boot. Even if it lacks the heft and gigantic hits that Shouso Strip offers, The King of Limbs yields such an immersive world to explore.

So what does this mean? Maybe as I’ve gotten older, an album is a bit less about what good songs are on there and how the overall tone of the album. The songs still should be good. But even if “Kyogensho” is a better song than “Bloom,” then that’s not necessarily a score for Shouso Strip if Bloom is a better introduction for its album. A favorite album for me is no longer what has the bitchingest singles nor is it one I’ve spent more time with. I guess that’s growing up. So much has been addressed in only the selection for the final spot! Hopefully, there is something to be taken out of this article, and hasn’t just devolved into a re-review of these albums. Good albums are always worth revisiting.

Thanks for reading!
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Old 2011.03.30, 12:00 AM   #35
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Personally I thought King of Limbs was great. But I'm over it now. Till I get my vinyls :-p

Last edited by deadgrandma : 2011.03.30 at 12:18 AM. Reason: dunno what happened
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Old 2011.03.30, 12:11 AM   #36
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1. Yapoos- Daitenshi no you ni
2. Shiina Ringo- Haters gonna hate A.K.A. Sanmon Gossip
3. Faith No More- King for a Day, Fool for a Lifetime
4. Tim Buckley- Starsailor
5. Bjork- Vespertine
6. Tool- Lateralus
7. Opeth- Still Life
9. Pixies- Surfer Rosa
10. PJ Harvey- Stories From the City, Stories From the Sea
11. Shiina Ringo- Kalk Zamen Kuro no Hana (who doesnt have this on their list)
12. Smashing Pumpkins- Siamese Dream
13. Jun Togawa- Tamahime Sama
14. Tori Amos- Scarlet's Walk
15. Pernice Brothers- Discover a Lovelier You
16. The Shins- Chutes Too Narrow
17. Belle and Sebastian- Fold Your Arms Child, You Walk Like A Peasant
18. Radiohead- Amnesiac
19. Metallica- ...And Justice For All
20. Tokyo Jihen- Adult

That's prob not the order but yeah
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Old 2011.04.11, 09:02 PM   #37
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Arrow My stupid List (More is more)

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#16: The Aeroplane Flies High

Cheating? The last time I compiled a list like, this I included the Smashing Pumpkins single box set. Though I don’t believe I shared the list with anyone, I felt so saucy to include it. And why not? In this day and age everyone just lumps the five discs that make up The Aeroplane Flies High as a single album in their mp3 player. Back when I was first spending time with the collection, I burned it all onto a 2 disc set. Who didn’t? I’m further backed up by the set charting at #42 on the Billboard album list and it being the spiritual successor to the band’s previous B-side collection, Pisces Iscariot. As far as I’m concerned, it’s an album, if an unorthodox one.

Billy Corgan is a quantitative guy. Reportedly, he often cites how many copies his records have sold, how much money they’ve generated. He likes metrics. After breaking through with Siamese Dream, never the meek Billy Corgan wanted to secure his rock star status. He told the rock world he wasn’t just going to follow up with another good record – he had TWO good records worth of material to release. Not just that, but then supplement that with a companion piece consisting of 22 remaining songs that didn’t make the 28 track album. He pushed out an amazing amount of songs in a relatively short time. This time, the metric used was sheer quantity of content. That is what you call confidence.

The real statement in Aeroplane is made with “Pastichio Medley” a twenty-three minute pastiche consisting of seventy-three riffs, song fragments, and snippets of EVEN MORE material from this period. It doesn’t matter that the medley is basically unlistenable; he needed to show how many more he could have made in addition to the fifty produced! Where anyone else would be pleased as punch to have the success his band had with “Today,” Billy Corgan was on a mission for more. More was more.

While Aeroplane doesn’t have typical construction, it uses its format well. Each disc captures a different mode of the band: down-trodden pop, hard rock, acoustic folk, and sentimental notes. Listening to the discs sequentially feels like everything is built up to that final disc. While it uses media very differently, the overall composition feels very deliberate and traditional.

I hold much adoration for Aeroplane. It captures America’s biggest band at the time, arguably, at the top of the world and giving their best swing. The inspiration I find in Aeroplane is that it shows what someone can achieve with complete confidence and just a bit of a chip on one’s shoulder. I think we can all relate to the situation. You do something well and garner praise for it. You gain some self-esteem (and maybe get a bit punch drunk) and then find you top yourself. You’re on a roll! Every one of us can think of a time like that in our lives and marvel, wondering what was in the water then. Aeroplane is a memento of that time. Like Jordan coming back to the NBA to win a three-peat after already achieving three-peat. He had to show the world, not just that he could, but that he was going to. Bill Corgan shared a similar mindset. Clearly there was something in the water of Chicago during the 90’s.
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Old 2011.04.11, 10:56 PM   #38
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Originally Posted by Tokyo Jihad View Post
(My stupid list's introduction here)
#16: The Aeroplane Flies High

Cheating? The last time I compiled a list like, this I included the Smashing Pumpkins single box set. Though I don’t believe I shared the list with anyone, I felt so saucy to include it. And why not? In this day and age everyone just lumps the five discs that make up The Aeroplane Flies High as a single album in their mp3 player. Back when I was first spending time with the collection, I burned it all onto a 2 disc set. Who didn’t? I’m further backed up by the set charting at #42 on the Billboard album list and it being the spiritual successor to the band’s previous B-side collection, Pisces Iscariot. As far as I’m concerned, it’s an album, if an unorthodox one.

Billy Corgan is a quantitative guy. Reportedly, he often cites how many copies his records have sold, how much money they’ve generated. He likes metrics. After breaking through with Siamese Dream, never the meek Billy Corgan wanted to secure his rock star status. He told the rock world he wasn’t just going to follow up with another good record – he had TWO good records worth of material to release. Not just that, but then supplement that with a companion piece consisting of 22 remaining songs that didn’t make the 28 track album. He pushed out an amazing amount of songs in a relatively short time. This time, the metric used was sheer quantity of content. That is what you call confidence.

The real statement in Aeroplane is made with “Pastichio Medley” a twenty-three minute pastiche consisting of seventy-three riffs, song fragments, and snippets of EVEN MORE material from this period. It doesn’t matter that the medley is basically unlistenable; he needed to show how many more he could have made in addition to the fifty produced! Where anyone else would be pleased as punch to have the success his band had with “Today,” Billy Corgan was on a mission for more. More was more.

While Aeroplane doesn’t have typical construction, it uses its format well. Each disc captures a different mode of the band: down-trodden pop, hard rock, acoustic folk, and sentimental notes. Listening to the discs sequentially feels like everything is built up to that final disc. While it uses media very differently, the overall composition feels very deliberate and traditional.

I hold much adoration for Aeroplane. It captures America’s biggest band at the time, arguably, at the top of the world and giving their best swing. The inspiration I find in Aeroplane is that it shows what someone can achieve with complete confidence and just a bit of a chip on one’s shoulder. I think we can all relate to the situation. You do something well and garner praise for it. You gain some self-esteem (and maybe get a bit punch drunk) and then find you top yourself. You’re on a roll! Every one of us can think of a time like that in our lives and marvel, wondering what was in the water then. Aeroplane is a memento of that time. Like Jordan coming back to the NBA to win a three-peat after already achieving three-peat. He had to show the world, not just that he could, but that he was going to. Bill Corgan shared a similar mindset. Clearly there was something in the water of Chicago during the 90’s.
Lol I have this boxset and totally forgot about it. I used to listened to it a lot when I was younger I guess. Adore is still my fave SP album, it's a pity that people often shrug it off. But yeah, then came Zwan which was just wtf when it came to song choices (I think you mentioned that on another thread). So yeah *getting out Airplane Flies High now* Thankyou for the reminder.
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Old 2011.05.11, 09:54 AM   #39
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Shortlist:
Apostrophe(') - Frank Zappa
Advance to the Fall - Galneryus
Silence Followed by a Deafening Roar - Paul Gilbert
Since I Left You - The Avalanches
Shouso Strip - Shiina Ringo (yay, typical answer)
Cellscape - Melt-Banana
Passion and Warfare - Steve Vai
2112 - Rush
Peace Sells... but Who's Buying? - Megadeth
Crime Slunk Scene - Buckethead
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Old 2011.05.11, 06:04 PM   #40
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Arrow My stupid List (Ampersands & Ampersands)

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#17 and #11: Crooked Rain, Crooked Rain and Transmissions from the Satellite Heart


There’s always going to be somethings you are never going to quite understand. No matter how much research, you might not ever be able to relate. In early 1994, I was just seven years old. The world was big. On Saturday Night Live and what I’ve gleaned from the news was that a figure skater got clubbed in the knee and wouldn’t be able to ice skate. I thought it was pretty funny honestly, not that I had any stake in such topics. I remember being at my grandma’s house late one night. I changed the tv channel from the news to MTV. Maybe I’d see that new Nirvana video again! (Nirvana whom I was already a fan of by this point.) They may or may not have shown “Heart-shaped Box” that night, but the two videos I vividly remember seeing were “She Don’t Use Jelly” by The Flaming Lips and “No Rain” by Blind Melon. I was unaware of the song names, but the melodies stuck with me for years before I realized how relevant they were. The imagery stuck with me of course, a guy with bright orange hair (how cool!) singing about Vaseline and toast for some reason and another longer hair guy with no shirt singing about a girl in a bumblebee suit. What made this evening a real breakthrough for me, other than being mildly prophetic, was that this was the first time I made the connection that these songs, these images, were what a lot of people older than me liked and related to.

Around this time, Beavis and Butthead was the big thing and I’m sure I was watching around then. On Nickelodeon was another show I’d understand a lot better when I was older as well, The Adventures of Pete & Pete. Why I’m referencing these shows along with Pavement’s sophomore album, Crooked Rain, Crooked Rain and The Flaming Lips’ mainstream breakthrough Transmissions from the Satellite Heart is that these shows served as my window in to the culture that fostered these albums: the early 90’s slacker culture. I was oblivious to what “mainstream” was as a concept then, I had a good grasp that there were people doing the opposite of what was normal and these shows and these bands were part of that.

Pavement is not a band I have mentioned much in this article yet, though it is supposed to be half about them! Maybe it’s understood. Pavement is the grand daddy of slacker rock. “Oh no, its another one of these...These guys need to try harder” is what Beavis & Butthead lobbed at the band, steeped in irony. In comparison with Pavement’s debut Slanted & Enchanted, the band DID try harder, at least when it comes to classic song structures. When it comes to comparing Slanted and Enchanted and Crooked Rain, it is a hair splitting affair that I’m not going to go into. Someone once said the only difference in which one you like better is which one you happened to hear first. I’ll leave it at that.

In a way, Pavement is also commenting on the music scene. They do it directly in “Cut your Hair” and “Range Life” but even in the production on the album. They didn’t retread the lo-fi sound from their debut. Kurt Cobain may have resisted (at least reportedly) sounding too accessible, but I’m sure Steven Malkmus saw it as an opporitunity to show Pavement wasn’t a one-trick pony. They could be a band that sounded as good as the bands they grew up listening to and still sound like the band that put out Slanted & Enchanted. In a way the album is a sign post of 90’s music itself. Noise rock in “Hit the Plane Down,” textural shoe gazing in “Newark Wilder,” sentimental pop rock with “Gold Soundz,” the angst in “Stop Breathing” and the alt-boom quickly approaching at the time of “Unfair.” I’ve tried hard to not seem too “Pitchfork” when talking about Pavement, but how do I hear the flannel and smell the early 90’s automobiles when I listen to Gold Soundz??

“I know a guy who sucks!” mocked Beavis about the Flaming Lips. Transmissions from the Satellite Heart is less of a newspaper of the day like Crooked Rain, but more of a diary -- a snapshot of those revelling in slacker-dom. No song sounds more so than the album’s closer, “Slow Nerve Action.” The songs evoke images of broke kids, out of school, working at the Quick Stop, doing the stupidest stuff on earth. Hell, it’s like they were singing about me 18 years in the future! Like Malkmus, Wayne Coyne always had his melodies. Maybe Coyne had to work more at it, but this is the first album where the song writing really shines. Or maybe because it’s the first time they had more than one real musician in the band. This is also where they drop their “You don’t have to be good, you just have to be loud” mantra. When they let up on their volume knobs, they allow the true charm of the album shine through. I like to think of this as their “Okie” album with songs like “Chewin the Apple of your Eye,” “Plastic Jesus,” “Superhumans” and “When yer Twenty Two.”

These albums both feature “songey” songs, but played through each band’s warped slacker, counter-culture temperament. One scoffs at conformity and the other...just likes things strange for the fun of it. I enjoy and admire the slacker era. Maybe it wasn’t even a very big movement! I was just a kid at the time and observed a few cool dudes who were into it and as I grew that mystique grew. I feel like these two albums were actually owned by my non-existant older brother and they somehow snuck in to my collection. I enjoy them simply as albums, but they also represent a mode, a fashion, I only ever viewed from the outside. Never totally understanding, but always admiring.
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