Emily's Albums A to Z

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.

Listened: Tuesday June 29

Excuses for Travellers is another gift from Woody. Mojave 3 play very beautiful music and the vocals are so lush and pretty. Their name reminds me of the Mojave tent at Coachella, so that’s a good association.

They’re quite American sounding, even though they’re British. This album is country-tinged (lots of piano, banjo, and lap steel) and dreamy-mellow. I would compare it to Nick Drake in energy level and tone.

Listened: Tuesday June 29

Like The Eraser, when I heard Everything That Happens for the first time it sounded very relevant and modern. It’s a rock-gospel album for the digital age. I also love the Sims-esque artwork. It fits in well with the theme of “life in the time of digital”.

Odd then when David Byrne sings “This groove is out of fashion, These beats are 20 years old” on Strange Overtones. Famously, some of Brian Eno’s music for this album is actually that old, but at this point, when everyone is revisiting 80s and even 90s culture already, in the scheme of things does a “20 years ago” even exist?

Listened: Monday June 28

Everything is Possible was a music hipster purchase – in the 90s, rediscovering Os Mutantes was all the rage in cool music circles, so of course I had to check it out.

Even though most of the songs are in Portuguese, the context is still clear – they were a bunch of Brazilian hippies on drugs making great music in the 60s (otherwise known as the Tropicália movement in Brazil).

They enjoy playing around with a lot of new sounds of the day (odd vocal filters, backwards instruments) but they are also very clearly influenced by more traditional sounds of their environment like samba music and jazz. If you’ve worn out all your British and American psychedelic albums, pick this up.

Listened: Monday June 28

What more can I say about Underworld that I haven’t already said? Everything, Everything is a pretty good document of an Underworld show, though you can’t quite get it all in just a CD. They are one of the few bands I still get really excited about when they come to town. Mostly because it’s a really core group of fans – they aren’t exploding in popularity, but they aren’t washed up or old hat either – that makes for a relatively hype-free, fun time. There are not too many bands around like that these days.

Listened: Wednesday June 23

Woody gave me Evening Star, which was given to him by his brother Glen. He noted that Glen used to listen to this as he went to bed and it sometimes gave him nightmares. I guess I can see that. It’s very minimalist and reminds me of yoga music. If I put it on at work it’s like I don’t even have music on – I don’t really notice it.

I’d like to explore other Eno albums. I’ve heard many times over the years that Music for Airports is good. I hope it’s a bit more engaging than this album.

Listened: Wednesday June 23

Like his countryman Nick Drake, advertisers love Donovan. I’ve heard several of his songs on TV commercials. I think their love for Donovan makes a lot more sense to me than Nick Drake. His early Dylan-like songs are very beautiful and simple and thus can be very commercially appealing. Similarly, quite a few people have covered his songs brilliantly; Joan Baez and her sister Mimi Farina do an amazing version of Catch the Wind.

I have a love-hate relationship with many of his songs though. He borders upon hippie-dippie-ness with songs like Sunshine Superman, Atlantis, and Mellow Yellow. The first Donovan song I ever heard (Sunshine Superman) was from a performance in one of the Secret Policeman’s Balls. I liked the song, but I didn’t really get a sense of the depth of what I know about Donovan now.

My second experience with Donovan was the use of Hurdy Gurdy Man in Zodiac as the Zodiac killer performs his first murder. That song still creeps me out (in a good way) to this day – being creeped out apparently impressed me much more than my prior Donovan experience. At about the same time, Catch the Wind was being used on a TV commercial and Woody told me who sang it. Woody has good taste in music, so I figured if he liked Donovan, I should give him another chance.

Based on this “Best of” alone, I’d say that Donovan is really underrated as a songwriter and musician. Especially for the early folky stuff – I need to invest in a couple of early albums. Again, though, he also does risky things like using a flute in a rock song (There Is A Mountain) and depending upon what day it is I think it’s brilliant or it reminds me too much of elevator versions of rock songs (which often use flute for the melody). The most annoying of which I ever heard was an elevator music version of a Bob Marley song in Lunardi’s supermarket, which is a particular hellhole for jazzy versions of rock songs that you don’t even recognize until they burrow into your brain as you are buying milk and you think, “What the shit? How did it come to this point that I am hearing a jazzed out Stir It Up in a supermarket where old Italian people shop?? Is the world ending??” But I digress.

Donovan does get props for a sincere shout-out to Allah though (Wear Your Love Like Heaven). Which maybe was not as big a deal back in the day, but still unconventional for sure.

Listened: Wednesday June 23

I can’t believe The Eraser came out in 2006. That seems much longer ago than I realized. When I heard this album for the first time I was struck by how incredibly cutting edge and modern it sounded, and I still feel the same today. When Thom recently toured with his supergroup Atoms for Peace and played this whole album live, it sounded as fresh as it did four years ago.

I love the electronic basis for all the songs. Despite how computerized they clearly are, there is a definitely warmth to them, which is hard to pull off. Plus when Atoms for Peace did all the songs live, they recreated and reinterpreted a large percentage of the songs with “traditional” instruments, not computers, which was a bit mind-blowing.

I see the songs on this album as a precursor to In Rainbows – a Radiohead album I have heard referred to as “sexy”. Which is kind of odd in the context of Radiohead, but I totally got what was meant by that. Songs like Atoms for Peace on this album are very intimate and, yes, sexy.

And who doesn’t love this classically Thom Yorke statement from The Eraser – “The more you try to erase me the more that I appear”? Thom is the master of the understated “Screw you.”