Emily's Albums A to Z

Listened: Monday August 2

Up until about age 25, I was intimidated by Led Zeppelin. The intense male sexuality of their music and style was just too much for me. Also, I felt like liking them was too cliche. Eventually I discovered that they are amazingly good. Now I really enjoy the testosterone blast of their music and the heavy sound that tells you immediately that you are hearing Zeppelin.

Houses of the Holy is one of the albums I came to later, as I usually insist upon proceeding through a band’s catalog in order. They are really hitting their stride here – the album is a steady ride on a wave all the way through, fittingly ending at The Ocean. This is an album that makes me feel like actually headbanging, and while I deeply love and groove to many albums, not many make me want to risk head and neck damage like this one does.

Listened: Monday August 2

Hour of Bewilderbeast is another brilliant first album. I’m not surprised it won the Mercury Prize; it’s like a piece of art in music. It never fails to lift my spirits.

BDB’s live performances are something else though – when I saw him at the Fillmore during this period he played one of the longest Fillmore sets I have ever attended. Which seems like it could have been great, but for 6 songs running he said it was his “last song” and that was frustrating. I wanted to burn my remaining energy on the “last song” and having the rug pulled out from under me every time got exhausting. Additionally, he smoked so much (chain-smoking throughout the whole extended set) I got seriously worried for his health.

Anyway, albums: yes, live shows: maybe, if you are feeling like running  a marathon through a cloud of smoke.

Listened: Monday August 2

The Beta Band really hit their stride with Hot Shots II. Upon reviewing it for the project, I enjoyed it a ton more than their self-titled album. I didn’t feel it was as dated, for sure.

The singing is great and the sampling is catchy and very trip-hoppy. I found myself really gettin’ down several times while listening. This should be on my “concentrate while gettin’ down” playlist for sure.

Listened: Friday July 30

I downloaded Hospice from Amazon for the crazy crazy special low price of $1.99, since I had heard it was good from a couple of sources.

I don’t know what I was expecting, but what I heard wasn’t it. I would say they sounds like Radiohead at their most spooky, crossed with The Flaming Lips and Arcade Fire. All the indie boys and girls out there will love it.

I don’t think I’ve fallen in love with it, but definitely in like. And for the price, it was pretty easy to like.

Listened: Friday July 30

Hopes and Fears is a really pretty and catchy album that I enjoy, but despite that I fell out of love with Keane pretty quickly. For starters – the lyrics are inscrutable. I don’t mind the odd inscrutable song in general, but none of their songs seem to mean much of anything.

Secondly, when I saw them live, their singer, Tom, has the cheesiest performance style – his gestures and facial expressions look too unnatural and practiced. I’d much rather they look spontaneous and less perfect and “pretty”.

Thirdly, they went into the burned out rock star phase really quickly – the singer was in rehab after the first album.

All of this ended up being too cliche for me. Their second album is coming up later in the project, but after that album, they’ve fallen off my radar.

Listened: Thursday July 29

Hope is Important is Idlewild’s first full length album, and like Captain it’s still pretty shouty and loud, though there are softer REM-y songs (I’m Happy To Be Here Tonight, I’m A Message) that show shades of later Idlewild. Days when I’m feeling like I need some shouting (unfortunately often these days) I should put this on.

Listened: Wednesday July 28

Yeah, their band name is pretty lame, but Holy Fuck are funky and frenetic and could reasonably make you utter their name with the appropriate emphasis.

They rocked the Mojave tent at Coachella 2008. Their jammy, traditional band+electronic music-lyrics fit in really well, since anyone can just show up in the tent and start shaking their booty to it, even if you haven’t heard it before. This album cover is also really cool – nice filtering and graphics.

Listened: Wednesday July 28

Hold Time just makes me happy; it’s a celebration of classic music and duets. The guitar in the Outro is very dreamy and pretty.

M Ward is one of those artists I’m sure I’d like if I could just get around to buying more of their records! This album was a $5 Amazon download special, so that always helps with motivation!

Listened: Wednesday July 28

Hold Me To This is Chris O’Riley’s second adaptation of Radiohead‘s music for piano. His versions of There There, Like Spinning Plates, and Paranoid Android are particularly impressive. Some might be challenged listening to the songs in their original form; I’m sure taking those challenging songs and translating them through the piano was really hard! If you like Radiohead, this is a true fan’s project, not a quickie for dollars.

Chris has gone on to do piano adaptation of Elliott Smith and Nick Drake songs as well; I’ll need to check those out.

Listened: Wednesday July 28

His ‘n’ Hers is when Pulp evolved into their current musical and vocal style. I only bought this album after I fell in love with Different Class, though; I wasn’t cool enough to be interested before then.

I vaguely recall Do You Remember the First Time being played on the radio back in the early high school years. I thought it was catchy, but didn’t give it much thought.

I like how the drawing of the band on the album cover looks kinda anime-y. Jarvis especially.