Emily's Albums A to Z

Listened: Monday June 14

Digital Ash in a Digital Urn was the first Bright Eyes albums I acquired, which is odd because it’s much more electronic-instrument-based than any of his other albums. Now, knowing what “regular Bright Eyes” sounds like, I still really like the electronic instrumentation too.

Bright Eyes is one of those guys who you can only deal with when you’re young. His lyrics capture a young person’s angst quite well, but the whiny singing hasn’t aged well for me. Though maybe some years ago someone said the same thing about Bob Dylan!

Listened: Monday June 14

Ah Different Class, the album that started it all for me. Maybe it’s because I still regularly listen to this, but I don’t think it sounds badly dated, despite being 15 years old, probably because they are already so sixties-sounding with their instrumentation. I don’t recall getting heavily into this album until college, though it might have been late high school. In college I did have this poster in my room, which is one of my favorite posters ever in the history of the universe.

They used to play Underwear on Live 105 back in 1995 or so, before I was a big fan, and I remember thinking it was a totally bizarre song (which it is – “How the hell did you get here? Semi-naked in somebody else’s room”). I’m kind of surprised they even got played on the radio, since Pulp was never very big at all in this country (they never toured here). But I think that was during the Britpop era, when if you ran in the British music circles you could get played.

This album is Pulp at the height of their disco-singalongs. Common People, Disco 2000, Sorted for E’s and Wizz. I also love that they are so very British. Jarvis Cocker doesn’t try to hide his accent one bit. You know you are listening to a British person; it can’t be denied.

I think Jarvis was already preparing for This is Hardcore with Common People – almost every song is about sex. I have concluded that Jarvis is one of the few straight men in rock who can sing straightforwardly about sex and make it sound like a really good idea. Even ill-advised, possibly life-sabotaging sex.

Listened: Monday June 14

Dhool Ka Phool/Dharmputra is the only real Bollywood soundtrack CD I own. The first song on this album, Tere Pyar Ka Aastra Chahta Hoon, was a song they used to play a lot on the Bollywood video show Namaste America. I have fond memories of watching it in college on Saturday mornings in the dorm lounge with my friend Antara. It wasn’t very long ago, but that was before you could find videos on the internet very easily, so I haven’t seen it since. Antara explained to me what’s going on – they’re having some girls versus boys school debate in song form. I haven’t seen the film, but I would guess the two singers end up together at the end of the story!

Watching the video now, it’s not as cute as I remember it being, but it’s still pretty good. I think part of the charm was that it was different and more subtle than all the other more modern videos played on the show, which usually involved glamorous people frolicking in famous locales.

The other songs on these soundtracks are pretty good too, if you can deal with high-pitched singing. I get them stuck in my head even without comprehending a single word. The songwriters and arrangers of the time were obviously very good at what they did and I’m guessing they were under-appreciated for their talents.

Listened: Friday June 11

I consider Destroy to be a very modern-sounding dance/electronic album that samples the 80s. As opposed to so many these days trying to completely ape the 80s. It’s a British version of Röyksopp’s Melody A.M crossed with Daft Punk.

Mylo seems to like to have the vocals in his songs repeating lists (and I like lists so probably that is why he appeals to me) – Muscle Car has women huskily talk-singing a list of classic American muscle car models and Destroy Rock & Roll features what sounds like a fundamentalist preacher repeating a list of Top 40 groups he objects to.

Based on that list, it’s fun to try to guess the year the sample is from. My guess is 1984. I had to look up who Morris Day and the Time, Apollonia 6, and Fashion were. I figured Apollonia had something to do with Prince and apparently so do Morris Day and the Time. I had heard of Patty Smyth, but I didn’t know about Scandal, so I had to look that up too. The speaker also really messes up the pronunciation of Cyndi Lauper (“Cyndi Looper”) and David Bowie (not even pronounced the weird British way “Bowww-ie”, but “Boooie” like the knife) which makes it just that much more square and therefore amusing.

From this I conclude that I love songs that make me do research. If you pay attention to details, pop culture trash does really help you learn trivia facts – a Bob Dylan song taught me who shot Jesse James (Robert Ford), which has come up at pub quiz before.

Listened: Friday June 11

Deluxe is like a high school time capsule to me. I don’t think I had listened to it since then, and the popular songs aren’t even played on the radio anymore, so it was locked away in my memory like not too many other albums.

Therefore, this was the most arresting “Wow, I am not a kid anymore” album yet in the project. I realized how far back I had to go in my mind to remember experiences and emotions associated with this album. I saw BTE at Live 105’s BFD 2 – it’s been so long that they don’t even number the BFDs anymore!

I was happy to realize that while it’s a little “of the 90s” sounding, it’s not too dated. It’s also a great album! This was the polar opposite of my reaction to Core – I thought “Wow, maybe I did have decent taste!” Also interesting to note – according to wikipedia, apparently they still exist as a band, at least as of 2009. I hadn’t heard any news of them in years and years. Power to them!

Listened: Friday June 11

I have to thank my coworker Kristine for turning me on to Delhi 2 Dublin. They’re Canadians who mix Irish and Indian music. The rhythm section is mostly the Indian part and the Irish part is mostly fiddling, but that’s not strictly the rules. There’s also some rapping, but not a ton. It’s high energy, positive party music.

According to Kristine, who saw them at a Bhangra dance night in San Francisco, they put on a great show. I hope to catch them the next time they come to town.

Listened: Thursday June 10

Oddly enough, I hit a bit of writer’s block when trying to think of what to say about Definitely Maybe. I remember it being a big deal when it came out, but the much more critical Oasis album in my past is their next album, (What’s the Story) Morning Glory. Indeed, to this day, that’s the Oasis album I go back to regularly.

But Definitely Maybe was helpful during that first year of high school when I was really getting over the Top 40 music of my middle school life and deciding that rock music was more challenging and pleasing to me. The songs from this album were all over Live 105, mixed in with Green Day, Offspring, Weezer… it’s mostly part of a general soundtrack of change.

This is also from before the time I knew the Beatles, so I was ignorant of how much of their stuff Oasis ripped off. Maybe Oasis was a part of getting me ready to go Beatles crazy like I did the following year.

Listened: Thursday June 10

Since it’s the first alphabetically, Deconstructed was the first Bush album I have heard in many years. It’s a remix album, which is kind of a bizarre idea if you know Bush’s music.

Even though I was quite the fan back in high school, I don’t think I listened to it much even when I originally bought it – the remixes are very pedestrian and not at all innovative with the original material. I look forward to hearing the real songs later in the project to see how I feel about them. This album wasn’t much help.

Listened: Thursday June 10

A couple of years ago Dear Science was the album that all the cool people were in love with. I had been hearing good things about TVOTR for years, so I decided to take a chance on this. And it’s a good album, don’t get me wrong, but it didn’t bowl me over. To be fair, I haven’t listened to it much. Another one to add to the “listen more” pile.

Listened: Thursday June 10

Belle and Sebastian continue their love of 60s music and sexual confusion with Dear Catastrophe Waitress. Topics include a lighthearted look at workplace sexual harassment, cans of coke used as weapons in domestic violence, Mike Piazza’s sexual orientation (which is impressive, as I don’t imagine Scottish people tend to follow many American sports rumors), and a teenage boy wearing a dress with a melted Toblerone secreted underneath it. Don’t ask.

Stuart Murdoch’s voice just gets better and better as the years go by – he sings very prettily here. Many fans seem to think the band is weaker without Isobel Campbell, but I don’t tend to miss her.