I Can Hear The Heart Beating As One I purchased this earlier in the year on the recommendation of many people who rave about this band (and this particular album). I have to say, I was a little underwhelmed. To me, it's fairly decent slightly psychedelic indie-rock but there's nothing here that sets it apart from the countless other albums of this style. The obvious highlight for me is Autumn Sweater, which is hypnotic and catchy as hell. Unfortunately, there's no flow to the album whatsoever (which many people might see as a strength - it's highly varied). Like many albums around this time, it outstays it's welcome and I find myself getting bored of it towards the end of it's lengthy 68 minute runtime. If I could select the best moments from this album you'd have a really great summery 40 minute album on your hands.
I Can Hear the Heart Beating as One A Along with Built to Spill's Keep It Like a Secret, which recently appeared, one of my favorite albums of the 1990s. Yo La Tengo made several great albums, IMO, and this is a contender for the best. It's definitely their catchiest - seems like they developed an interest in Stereolab with this one - and while "catchy" is not at all necessary for YLT to be successful, it doesn't hurt. A quietly quirky band, they spent the next 25 years mostly making excellent albums just doing what they do; seemingly oblivious to much else going on around them, musically.
Good album...I'm not a huge Yo La Tengo fan, I have 3 albums or so and this is my fave. Moby Octopad is great.
I Can Hear The Heart Beating as One Although this springs to life mid-point, especially with the Jesus & Mary Chain-ish squall of Little Honda, followed by the widescreen, languid, melancholia of Green Arrows - dig those chirping crickets - there's too much torpidity overall. For every little gem, like the wistful Stockholm Syndrome, there are too many boring indie shmindie knock offs. The female vocals have a vibrant resonancy, yet the male vocals often sound half-hearted. Spec Bebop gives it plenty of 'oomph', but its successor, We're An American Band, swirls round in a dreary cul-de-sac of rinse & repeat. As an album, it's pleasingly eclectic at times, yet Yo La Tengo simply can't deliver enough musical knock-out blows across the piece. And it's far too long at 68 minutes. If they'd embarked on some ruthless pruning - down to around 35 minutes - plus a long think about how to inject some much needed poptastic sparkle, the album could have been a keeper. But they didn't; and it isn't. MISS.
best song of the album imho and in my yo la tengo top 10... i like "painful" and "fakebook" a little bit more, but all in all a great album
The album is a bit long but I like it. I think "Stockholm Syndrome" sounds like Neil Young singing a Paul McCartney song.
382. Art Blakey & the Jazz Messengers - Free For All (1965) Producer: Alfred Lion Free for All is a jazz album by Art Blakey & the Jazz Messengers released on Blue Note. Recorded in February 1964, it was released the following year. It was originally titled Free Fall. The Allmusic review by Al Campbell awards the album 4 stars and states, "This edition of the Jazz Messengers had been together since 1961 with a lineup that would be hard to beat: Freddie Hubbard on trumpet... Wayne Shorter on tenor sax, Curtis Fuller on trombone, Cedar Walton on piano, and Reggie Workman on bass. Shorter's title track is one of the finest moments in the Jazz Messengers' history." Composition Freddie Hubbard's composition "The Core" is dedicated to the CORE (Congress of Racial Equality) and expresses "Hubbard's admiration of that organization's persistence and resourcefulness in its work for total, meaningful equality." "They're getting", he explains, "at the core, at the center of the kinds of change that have to take place before this society is really open to everyone. And more than any other group, CORE is getting to youth, and that's where the center of change is." The piece was called that way also because Hubbard thought that the musicians "got at some of the core of jazz – the basic feelings and rhythms that are at the foundation of music." "Pensativa" was composed by Fischer, but was arranged by Hubbard for the occasion: "I was playing a gig in Long Island", he recalls, "and the pianist started playing it. The mood got me, this feeling of a pensive woman. And the melody was so beautiful that, after I'd gotten home, I couldn't get it out of my mind." The album was intended to have featured three more tunes, Shorter's "Eva" and two vocals by Wellington Blakey, Blakey's cousin. These were attempted, but no valid takes were recorded. Additionally, the musicians tried a second take of "Free for All", an attempt that producer Lion had to stop because Blakey's drums broke, according to his log. Indeed, said alternate take, first released on the limited 2014 Japanese SHM-CD, is three minutes shorter. Critical Reception Allmusic 5/5 Rolling Stone Jazz Record Guide 5/5 Penguin Guide to Jazz 4/4 Tracklist
I have defended including jazz albums in lists like this in the past, but I get that comparing this in any meaningful way to any of the recent entries in this list is a challenge. I find hard bop like this much more like the rock 'n soul of its time than either is to anything now. If I had an actual list of 500 or 1,000 albums you can be sure it would be full of Blue Note and Prestige and Impulse, etc.
381. Three-6 Mafia - Mystic Stylez (1995) Producer: DJ Paul, Juicy J Mystic Stylez is the debut studio album by American hip hop group Three 6 Mafia. Produced completely by founding members DJ Paul and Juicy J, the LP was published via Prophet, an independent record label. In 2001, the album was re-released by Hypnotize Minds as "More Mystic Stylez: The First Album", with this version features a new spoken intro from DJ Paul, as well as 3 new songs: "Classic Intro", "War With Us" (a song by the Tear da Club Up Thugs) & "We Got Da Dope", however omits "Da Beginning", "Live by Yo Rep" and "Back Against Da Wall". Musical style and lyrics Described as horrorcore, the overall soundscape of the album Mystic Stylez is considerably more foreboding than succeeding releases. Mystic Stylez features lyrical topics such as extremely graphic violence, murder, drugs, sexual practice, the occult, Satan and Theistic Satanism. These subjects are mostly underscored by dark, menacing beats. Juicy J noted that the title for the album was inspired by the notion that all the performing artists on the recording all had "their own style. According to author Roni Sarig, "Mystic Stylez clearly sounds like the expression of rappers who haven't so much made a deal with the Devil as spent some time partying with him". Exposure, recognition and legacy Regarded as "one of the essential southern hip-hop albums", Mystic Stylez has been described as a defining example of horrorcore. The album led the way for a whole subset of Memphis rap and would influence other artists for decades to come. Despite not getting popularity and instead being an underground album, Mystic Stylez has been praised by critics and was put at number 74 on Complex's list "The 90 Best Rap Albums of the '90s". Mystic Stylez is cited as one of the forerunners of crunk and trap. The group's debut into exposure had a rocky beginning mostly because local Memphis radio, at first, refused to play Three 6 Mafia's music. However, when staff heard "Da Summa", they eventually decided to play it, making it the group's first radio-aired song. Critical Reception Allmusic 3.5/5 Tracklist
Art Blakey and the Jazz Messengers - Free for All "Free For All" is well-named as everyone gets their chance to light it up, and they most certainly do. And how could they not? Freddie Hubbard on trumpet, Curtis Fuller on 'bone, and Wayne Shorter on sax, along with Cedar Walton on piano and workhorse Reggie Workman on bass... oh, yeah, plus Blakey himself, full of energy and full of his power and glory. The opening title cut is an absolute tour de force, energetically riveting in every possible way. The head is an eminently hummable, yet truly powerful melody. The doubling (and tripling) of horns on melodies lifts and carries the listener like a turbocharged magic carpet. Then the solos! Whoa, Nellie! Hubbard is one of my all time favorite musicians, and I always love to get Fuller into the mix with his pure and very dexterous Trombone, but Damn!, Shorter tears it up on this one! Easily one of the greatest solos ever here. For his part, Blakey is even more Blakey than usual, playing with ferocious intensity, right on the edge of exploding in just about every measure. This is eleven minutes that will get you more hyped than a case of Red Bull! After such an opener, it'd be impossible for any group to keep up the same level of intensity, nor do I think most listeners could stand it if they did! But the ensemble comes close, continuing to be moderately ferocious while swinging a little more. In this, they strike the perfect balance between maintaining the mood of the album but not becoming tiresome; between allowing the listener to breathe a bit and not letting the rest become anticlimactic after that absolutely mammoth first cut. The second cut, "Hammer Head," also earns acclaim, but it's the third cut, the Hubbard penned "The Core," that gets my next vote. The closer, "Pensativa," offers a nice, easy swinging Latin beat to help ease the listener out of the frenzy; a joyous little cool down. Pink Floyd - The Piper at the Gates of Dawn Like many, I came to Floyd at a later date and had no idea there was this earlier Floyd. A completely different Floyd, but still quite relevant, and part of that once in a lifetime musical explosion that was 1967. Built to Spill - Keep It Like a Secret I tired quickly of the indie scene and this album comes from my musical lost decade, so I never heard this back in the day. Listening to it now, I quite like it. More interesting both musically and lyrically then most of the genre, this appears to be a real winner. Sly and the Family Stone - There's a Riot Goin' On Sly takes his funk down a dark alley.... and wins! Opeth - Ghost Reveries I usually put Opeth in a similar bucket with Mastodon as a group I think I ought to like more than I do. After all, I'm something of a prog metal fiend. But the lyrics and frequency of cookie monster vocals tend to overshadow the more impressive musical elements on this album. Emperor - Anthems to the Welkin at Dusk Just seeing the typeface gives you a pretty good idea what you're in for here. But wait... this is more interesting than the usual genre cliches. I'm kinda' in. Minutemen - Double Nickels on a Dime 43 songs? Definite recipe for burnout in a genre known for overly simple music (although the drumming here is interesting at times) Yo La Tengo - I Can Hear the Heart Beating as One About half the songs might do something moderately interesting. Most of those are brought down by weak vocals. Danger Mouse & Black Thought - Cheat Codes Interesting moments in a sea of mediocrity. Three-6 Mafia - Mystic Stylez The whole horrorcore angle is kinda' cool, but other than that, the "music" is quite vacuous. Lyrically, the preponderance of f-bombs, s-bombs, b-words and n- words is low level communication at best, completely inartful. The updated top 40: Rush - Hemispheres Jethro Tull - Aqualung Art Blakey and the Jazz Messengers - Free for All The Who - Quadrophenia Santana - Abraxas Cannonball Adderley - Somethin' Else King Crimson - Night Watch Iron Maiden - Somewhere in Time Horace Silver - Song for My Father Herbie Hancock - Sextant Duke Ellington - Far East Suite Van Der Graaf Generator - Pawn Hearts John Coltrane - Meditations Krzysztof Komeda - Astigmatic Soft Machine - Third Caravan – In the Land of Grey and Pink Electric Masada - At the Mountains of Madness Gil Scott-Heron - Pieces of a Man Robert Wyatt - Rock Bottom Sun Ra - Sleeping Beauty Aretha Franklin - Lady Soul Doors - L.A. Woman Pink Floyd - The Piper at the Gates of Dawn Deep Purple - In Rock Rainbow - Rising Exuma - Exuma Fela Kuti - Sorrow Tears and Blood Rory Gallagher - Irish Tour '74 Vince Gauraldi - A Charlie Brown Christmas John Fahey – Fare Forward Voyagers Natural Snow Buildings - The Dance of the Moon and the Sun Les Rallizes Dénudés – ’77 Live Ichiko Aoba - Windswept Adan Nina Simone - Wild as the Wind Jorge Ben - África Brasil Built to Spill - Keep It Like a Secret Sly and the Family Stone - There's a Riot Goin' On Charly Garcia – Clics Modernos Ringo Sheena – Shōso Strip Isis – Panopticon Falling Out: Shibusashirazu – Shibuboshi Astor Piazolla - Tango: Zero Hour Wipers - Youth of America Ulver – Bergtatt: Et Eeventyr
Mystic Stylez If there is a Guiness Book category of dropping as many mf bombs as possible in the first minute of an album, then these guys surely have the world record. Throw in a few n bombs for good measure and I'm out. Pathetic!
Mystic Stylez B- While I'm happy to see the Satanist stuff from a diversity perspective (why let disaffected white suburban kids and Scandinavians have all the fun?) and I like this album's underdog story, and appreciate the influence it seems to have had, there's still got to be some songs, and while this has some (one would hope, at 77 minutes) doesn't have enough. In places, the unsettling low-fi atmosphere and unique production choices combines to result in something I think is unexpectedly good, but it doesn't happen often enough.
380. Kraftwerk - Computer World (1981) Producer: Ralf Hütter, Florian Schneider Computer World (German: Computerwelt) is the eighth studio album by German electronic band Kraftwerk, released on 10 May 1981. The album deals with the themes of the rise of computers within society. In keeping with the album's concept, Kraftwerk showcased their music on an ambitious world tour. The compositions are credited to Ralf Hütter, Florian Schneider, and Karl Bartos. As was the case with the two previous albums, Computer World was released in both German- and English-language editions. "We live in a computer world, so we made a song about it", added mastermind Ralf Hütter. Computer World (Album) has been described as a futuristic conceptual work that predicts the presence of computer technology in every day life. Featuring themes such as home computers and digital communication, the album has been seen as both a celebration of computer technology as well as a warning about its potential to exert power on society with social control and digital surveillance. Despite its theme, the production of the album was completely analogue and did not involve any computer technology. Critical Response Computer World was ranked the second best album of 1981 by NME. In 2012, Slant Magazine placed Computer World at No. 25 on its list of the 100 best albums of the 1980s. In 2018, Computer World was listed by Pitchfork as the 18th best album of the 1980s. Pitchfork listed the track "Computer Love" as the 53rd best song of the 1980s. Rolling Stone named Computer World the 10th greatest EDM album of all time in 2012. Legacy Computer World maintains a distinct influence over subsequent releases across a multitude of genres; this influence is particularly noticeable in early and contemporary hip-hop and rap. In 1982, American DJ and rapper Afrika Bambaataa wrote the song "Planet Rock" and recorded chords inspired from Trans-Europe Express. The song's lyrics also included the Japanese number counting "Ichi Ni San Shi" from Kraftwerk's "Numbers". Cybotron's 1983 release "Clear," from the album Enter, contains multiple auditory elements of Computer World: the musical refrain closely resembles parts of "Home Computer" and "It's More Fun to Compute;" additionally, the track contains musical allusions to other Kraftwerk tracks. Señor Coconut y su Conjunto, an electronic project of German musician Uwe Schmidt which initially covered Kraftwerk's songs, published a merengue-styled version of "It's More Fun to Compute" in their first LP El Baile Alemán, wrongly labeled as "Homecomputer" on the sleeve. Coldplay used the main riff from "Computer Love" in their song "Talk" from their 2005 album X&Y. La Roux used the main riff from "Computer Love" in their song "I'm Not Your Toy" from their debut album. Ricardo Villalobos' track "Lugom-IX" from the 2006 album Salvador uses prominently the riff from "Computer World". Fergie's track "Fergalicious," from her 2006 debut album The Dutchess, borrows heavily from two tracks on Computer World: the opening synth line from "It's More Fun to Compute," as well as the rhythmic component of J.J. Fad's "Supersonic," as the latter track's beat is based upon the Computer World track "Numbers." Arabian Prince, the co-producer of "Supersonic," has been vocal about his admiration of Kraftwerk. "Home Computer" is used as background music in the Young Sheldon episode "A Computer, a Plastic Pony, and a Case of Beer". LCD Soundsystem sampled "Home Computer" throughout the track, Disco Infiltrator. DJ Hooligan (Da Hool) sampled The Mix version of "Home Computer" for the Underground and Cursed remix of the song "Scatman's World" by Scatman John. Beck sampled sounds from it and played "Home Computer" live. Neil Young was also influenced, including this work for his Trans (album). Ulf Ekberg of Ace of Base, when asked what brought him to music, if he had to boil it down to one reason, responded with: "In one word: Kraftwerk. Once Kraftwerk released their 1981 album Computerwelt it all became clear to me: they showed the world that you can combine music with technology and be successful with it — and that was exactly what I wanted to do." Critical Reception Allmusic 4.5/5 Drowned in Sound 10/10 Encyclopedia of Popular Music 4/5 The Guardian 4/4 Mojo 4/5 Q 5/5 Rolling Stone Album Guide 3/5 Select 4/5 Uncut 5/5 Village Voice B Tracklist
Computer World I assume this is not the only Kraftwerk entry in the list, because while this is a great album, some of their earlier albums are much better imo. Still, what I find remarkable about this album that on the one hand it sounds hopelessly dated, while on the other it has aged really well. Released at a time when computers were still very uncommon and mainly worked as terminals connected to a mainframe, this sounded positively futuristic. But more than 40 years later, it has become an endearing portrait of a very different time, from the cute mainframe terminal on the cover to the bleeps and bloops we associate with primitive computers. As such, it has a certain nostalgia factor for those of us who have witnessed first hand the unfolding of the computer world we live in now. The song "Computer Love" is the standout track (or rather "Computer Liebe", as I always listen to the German versions of the Kraftwerk albums, as I find that German is a language that somehow fits Kraftwerk's music much better than English).
Computer World Burbling synths; rinky-dink melodies; disco-ish beats; some 'sci-fi' whooshes; arch-robotic vocals. What does it all add up to? A pleasant enough listen, but nothing more. Kraftwerk's music hasn't aged well, IMO. It often sounds quite MOR - even some of the earlier stuff - and Computer World, essentially, just rinses & repeats their previous Man-Machine album. Miss.
Computer World I agree with the two above reviews, it has moments of brilliance but it is let down by weaker tracks that sound very dated indeed. I much prefer to listen to Trans-Europe Express, Autobahn or Radioactivity, although truthfully I think all of their albums have some moments I dislike on them. I can see how this might have sounded incredible back in the day, however when compared to The Man Machine, that album has aged far more favourably and sounded far more 'futuristic'.
Computer World B+ Not going to put it in the "all-time-classic" category like many of the professional reviewers, but I nevertheless think it's very good. The title song and Computer Love are definitely the highlights, but the whole thing does have this cool futuristic-yet-retro vibe that, as mentioned above, you might only "get" if you lived through the era.
379. Robbie Basho - Visions of the Country (1978) Producer: William Ackerman Visions of the Country is the tenth studio album by composer and guitarist Robbie Basho, released in 1978 by Windham Hill Records. It was restored and remastered by Joe Churchich, Kyle Fosburgh, and John Dark and re-issued by Grass-Tops Recording and Gnome Life Records on September 25, 2013. Combining his usual American primitive guitar style with influences from Hindustani classical music and Native American music, the album is notable for Basho's idiosyncratic vibrato vocals and the mystical romanticism of its predominantly pastoral themes. Ignored upon release, the album is now widely regarded as one of the most important works of the American primitive guitar genre. Reception The 2013 reissue of Visions of the Country has generated renewed interest in Basho's work. Bill Meyer of Chicago Reader called it "a distillation of everything great about Basho's mature work. His acoustic fingerpicking is thrillingly propulsive, full of quicksilver changes in direction, but he never gets lost in it." He found his "ululating, hyperemotional singing" as "the perfect vehicle for his shamelessly ardent pledges of love to nature" and noted his "beatific vision of America whose fever-dream romanticism fit so poorly with the rest of the label's catalog that it went out of print in a flash and stayed that way for more than three decades." Grayson Haver Currin of Pitchfork characterized Basho's singing as inaccessible, writing that it "generally wasn’t what you’d call pretty or subtle. During “Night Way” [...] he obscures the wonderful ribbons of his six-string guitar with singing generously described as zealous. He wails a ceremonial Navajo chant, his voice locking into and falling from falsetto, its vibrato smearing the track with warble. [...] These aren’t songs you'd really put on during a party or in a mix for a love interest." He concludes: "His music is, at first, rather off-putting, but ultimately, he imagined modes for the guitar and composition that we’re still reconciling. Marnie Stern sometimes maneuvers against her instrument in the same way, and James Blackshaw explores the same nebulous majesty. But Robbie Basho’s music mostly remains a pan-everything oddball, and Visions of the Country is, at last, once again living proof." The general inaccessibility of the music was again echoed by Spectrum Culture's Mike Randall, who wrote that "his use of obscure modes and his chant-like voice (almost a cross between Antony and Israel Kamakawiwo’ole) tends to skirt any sort of beaten path." "The adventure these songs bring, however," he writes, "makes it worthy of a left-of-center trip". "Leveraging the raga style of Hindu music, Basho successfully used his guitar to visualize the wilderness, sketching the running of water, the ferocity of a charging animal, the reach and power of a mountain." Comparisons to Hindustani classical music were also made by Rob Caldwell of Popmatters, who called it the "quintessential Robbie Basho album, containing dazzling instrumental guitar flights as well as songs featuring his operatic singing and whistling (yes, whistling)." Of the latter, he characterized the whistling on “Leaf in the Wind” as "haunting". "Basho turns a suite about the American West into a courtly romance;" wrote John Mulvey for Uncut, "imagine John Renbourn drawing on Native American myth rather than old English legend, perhaps." He found echoes of Tim Buckley in his voice, "especially" on "Blue Crystal Fire". "Of all the guitarists associated with the Takoma School, it’s hard to think of one who imbued folk music with quite as much mystical portent as Robbie Basho." Aquarium Drunkard included the album on their unranked list "2013 Year In Review", calling the "long out of print opus [...] an absolute joy. Basho’s gorgeous playing (on both guitar and piano) is presented here in the crystalline sound quality it deserves at last. Visions is a majestic, magical thing, a record that conjures up a shimmering, pastoral landscape of the imagination. It doesn’t get much better than this."[9] As of November 2022 the album is the highest rated album of the "American Primitivism" genre of all time on the website Rate Your Music. Critical Reception The Great Folk Discography 4/10 Pitchfork 8.7/10 Popmatters 8/10 Spectrum Culture 3.75/5 Sputnikmusic 5/5 Tracklist
Nice to see Robbie Basho here. I'd never heard of him 50 years ago when I brought a date to one of his concerts. We are still married.
Visions of the Country Has its moments, but Basho's vibrato vocals ruin it for me and musically this veers too close to what would become New Age.
