Emily's Albums A to Z

Listened: Wednesday June 30

Marianne Faithfull is an acquired taste, and I’m not even sure I have acquired it fully. Before the project I don’t believe I had listened to Faithfull all the way through; it was just too hardcore. Marianne’s voice is not what could be called pretty in any sense of the word. Amongst female singers, a voice so clearly expressing hard living ways is unusual (though not for men – modern Bob Dylan and Tom Waits come to mind and I’m sure there are others).

I do love the song The Ballad of Lucy Jordan – it’s such an evocative story sung very convincingly and the ragged voice adds to the effect. Marianne’s interpretation of Working Class Hero is also quite affecting, especially odd considering she is of noble birth.

The most jarring is the final track As Tears Go By – a song from a time before Marianne’s voice was ravaged by drugs and poor health. You can’t believe it’s the same person, the voice is so clear and innocent sounding. It’s a beautiful song, but I think I prefer the ugly realism of the rest.

Listened: Wednesday June 30

The Facts of Life provide more uber-ironic songs from Sarah Nixey and Co. One of the themes in this album seems to be driving and cars as sexual metaphors, which is always fun, though I think unusual for a British band versus an American one. Driving metaphors are usually the property of Americans.

I don’t think this album is as good as England Made Me, but is still enjoyable.

Listened: Wednesday June 30

Sondre Lerche is a young Norwegian singer-songwriter. His music is very listenable, but since English is his second language, sometimes I can’t tell if his lyrics are actually poetic or just a mishmash of words he decided to put together. But I guess that is a line that is sometimes hard to define even for people who speak English as a first language.

Since I’m about a fifth of the way through the alphabet, I thought I would throw out some musings on the project so far.

The World Cup period is hindering the number of albums I listen to in one day, since I usually listen to the 11:30 game while I’m working, which takes a big chunk of listening time out of the day. When the World Cup finishes that means I can listen to a heavier load, but I’m not looking forward to that much writing. I might purposely scale back to keep it manageable on the writing (and reading, for that matter) side.

The volume levels of CDs vary to a great degree, especially those transferred unremastered to CD at the beginning of the CD era (Dylan, The Doors, Pink Floyd). Speaking of which, when are they going to remaster all the Dylan albums? That seems way overdue. And I mean regular CDs, not that SACD crap.

Every time I think of an album I’ll be excited to comment about when I get to it, I realize it starts with an R or an S and therefore it will be a long time until I can comment! Hopefully I will still have good things to say by the time I get there.

Probably after I’ve finished the project I will go back and review albums I have on vinyl only, plus some albums starting with A that I missed ripping until the project was at the letter B (Ágætis Byrjun and After Bathing at Baxter’s specifically bummed me out to have missed).

Anecdotally, more people are keeping up with reading my entries than I expected, but I’d love to see more commentary and discussion amongst my readers. And please pass it on to anyone you think would enjoy reading music writing.

Overall, I am really enjoying the project, and it has made me get back in touch with good writing habits. Though I’m pretty sure I could do a lot better with crispness and clarity much of the time. I’m having a lot of fun doing something I enjoy, despite the workload. It’s been a while.

Listened: Wednesday June 30

There are tons of famous songs on Exodus – Jamming, Waiting In Vain, Turn Your Lights Down Low, Three Little Birds, One Love – it represents a big chunk of the Greatest Hits of Bob Marley.

The part I like the best though, is the bonus live show from London, 1977. It’s great to hear the love from the audience during the height of Marley mania and the response of the musicians to that love. The song that this is most obvious on is War, the powerful lyrics being directly taken from the text of a Haile Selassie speech.

I really wish they would release more deluxe editions – the last one was released 6 years ago, with no new deluxes since.

Listened: Tuesday June 29

I acquired Exile in Guyville back in high school when it was a hip thing to listen to. It was another of those albums I really needed life experience to understand, though. I didn’t “get it” at all back then and the frankness of a lot of the subject matter made me uncomfortable.

When I listened to it again recently I was blown away how good it is, both musically and lyrically. I love how Liz doesn’t really know how to sing “properly”. I think it totally adds to the charm. It’s now an album I frequently play.

The album art is classic along the same lines as Electric Ladyland – it looks like a very cool artsy photograph on its own, but then I tried to figure out what’s going on there – is she singing? Is it a sexual position? Based on the content of the album, I’m sure that confusion is intentional. Further adding to the confusion, it’s almost religious in composition – the covered head has Virgin Mary-like connotations.

I have seen Liz live, by chance. It was back in 2003 when she was trying to go for a more mainstream sound. She opened for the Flaming Lips at the Warfield and was plagued by horrible sound issues. The crowd was pretty upset for her, and we listened patiently to her new songs, which really were nowhere near the same league as her old ones, though at that point it has been so long since I listened to Exile I barely remembered the old songs. I’m glad I didn’t let that phase me and gave this album a second chance.