Listened: Tuesday June 22
Emigrante is another CD from my coworker Jim that I had never listened to before. I think I preferred El Kilo to Emigrante, but it’s still very interesting to combine rap with more traditional Cuban music. More listens are in order!
Listened: Tuesday June 22
I remember the moment I heard the first notes of the first song on Elephant (Seven Nation Army) how shocked I was – the White Stripes, known for having no bass in their songs, were starting their new album with a bass line? Later I learned it was a guitar tuned way down, but still I took it to mean, “Hey, don’t put us in a box, we will surprise you.” I appreciated such bold artistic statements, since it seems few “hip” bands, especially big successful ones, do that nowadays.
Listened: Monday June 21
I love how the cover of Electric Ladyland is so obviously a sexual reference. I am guessing Jimi has been caught by the camera in the middle of playing his guitar. But it looks like he could also be in the middle of a sexual act. I didn’t realize until now that the photo was taken by Linda McCartney. Nice!
Clearly Jimi was even farther along in his musical evolution and experimentation with this album. More than prior albums, the vocals on Electric Ladyland can sound very motowny – high pitched crooning like the Temptations. But then a song like Voodoo Chile is still clearly blues-oriented.
Jimi is another one of those guys who could completely both transform and improve a Bob Dylan song – he owns All Along the Watchtower, as he previously owned Hey Joe and Wild Thing, two songs he also didn’t write, but greatly improved upon.
I also love the way Jimi makes his guitar sing with him on Gypsy Eyes and the intro to Burning of the Midnight Lamp is one of my favorite song intros ever, which then proceeds to develop into a painting in sound, complete with the music flowing from left to right channel and back again. 1983 (A Merman I Should Turn to Be) also is very much a painting in sound. Beautiful, fitting, and depressing that this was the last studio album he released!
Listened: Monday June 21
I hadn’t listened to Elastica since high school and the first thing that hit me was how much this album likely influenced both MIA and Lily Allen. I can easily hear where both of them got elements of their style from Elastica. What also strikes me is how much this sounds like the music Blur was releasing at the time as well.
But both of these comparisons are explained by the “scene incest” involved at the time – MIA and Justine from Elastica were roommates and Justine and Damon from Blur were a couple around this time – after she stopped going out with Brett from Suede. One thing that woman did that bugged me was to undermine her own respect in the industry by going out with famous musicians. I think she was plenty talented on her own, but gave people too many easy opportunities to say she was where she was because she was sleeping with frontmen.
Back in the day, I remember the criticism of this album was that Elastica totally ripped off OG 70s punk band Wire. Apparently there was even a plagiarism case they lost because Connection resembled Three Girl Rhumba too much.
Until writing, I had still never heard Wire, so I went to YouTube to check it out. I agree Three Girl Rhumba and Connection are quite similar in regards to guitar, but there is an extra note thrown in. I am not up on my definition of plagiarism to know if that’s enough. Other than that song though, I don’t see a lot of similarity. It reminds me of how everyone always said Bush ripped off Nirvana. I could never hear that either.
Emily's Albums A to Z 