I'm pretty sure "No Church In The Wild" is the only Kanye West song I've ever liked at all too, and I had no idea who it was when I first heard it - I think it was in a Denzil Washington movie, and I just thought "hmm, must check the closing credits and track that one down". I could live without the rapping parts to be honest, but as seems the case with quite a lot of hip-hop, if you ignore the misogyny and bling etc, there's often some very nice production and creative stuff going on in the music itself.
JJ Burnel didn't really put out a lot of solo material, I think, and unfortunately the few Stranglers tracks where I remember him taking lead vocal duty weren't always great. I think "Ozymandias" is very much an outlier - it was a B-side for a single from this album, which to be honest I think I had once but got rid of, before the days of archiving everything to my HD:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Euroman_Cometh - I'm pretty sure it didn't blow me away at all, but you may want to hunt it down. He produced (and collaborated on) the album "Sepukku" with Taxi Girl album in the early 80s, which has a similar feel I guess, synthy and a bit experimental, a bit dark and bit gritty: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taxi_Girl - I don't seem to find it on my HD right now, but as I remember it's well worth a listen. I think I put one of their tracks on a mix a few years ago....(rummage, rummage...August '08, apparently.) And this is the only solo album proper of his that I have, which is enjoyable, but a lot more laid-back and melodic http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Un_Jour_Parfait. I suppose other than that, I'd recommend some parts of the Stranglers back catalogue for *vaguely* similar sensibilities, particularly the albums "The Raven", "La Folie", and ""Feline", though I can't vouch for exactly how much vocal or musical input Burnel had in them. Damn good albums though, and worth a listen if you're not too familiar with The Stranglers.
Yeah, I remember being taken by some friends to the Jack L gig when part of the album "Wax" was being recorded, probably circa 1994/5, so that album always has good associations for me, and introduced me to a lot of Jacqes Brel stuff I'd never heard before, to be honest. His voice is pretty amazing, but after splitting from The Black Romantics he went a bit more mainstream and I think some of his later stuff seemed quite bland by comparison, but his 1999 album "Metropolis Blue" has some damn good tracks on it too. "Tremendous" is probably not his best song from that era, but again it was a bit of a nostalgia-fest coming across it recently.
I've had my periods where I got Banshee fatigue, too, but I've been re-ripping pretty much the whole back catalogue over the last while, as a lot of the Siouxsie MP3s on my PC were crappy 128kbps, and I've noticed that even on songs I never loved before I've appreciated them anew in terms of production and instrumentation. Albums like "Hyaena", "Tinderbox," and "Peepshow" all have some hidden gems that I never really noticed before, and even albums that I simply had very little time for before, like "Superstition", have all crept their way back into rotation, just by virtue of me listening to them again in better quality. Also, I had 2 or 3 other Siouxsie tracks earmarked for this mix that were faster and more "immediate", but I had "Scarecrow" stuck in my head and enjoyed trying to fit a slower-burning song into the mix.
By the way, I think this qualifies as my fastest response to a Monthly Mix comment yet, so I hope to keep that up. And I think I spaced on replying to one or two of your other ones, sorry about that, can't promise to get back to them though - I'm really forcing myself to catch up and then the plan is to revamp my whole system...because of the "overflow" I currently have a folder dedicated to "potential tracks for monthly mixes" with about 4 or 5 GB of music in it, so trying to whittle that is just craziness, I need a better approach. 0_o
August '08. Wow. We've been doing these for a long time.
I had forgotten about Taxi Girl until Darc's death in February, which sent me back to Seppuku. ("Avenue of Crime" will make it onto one of my mixes before long.) I had no idea Burnel was involved with that. Interesting!
I'll look for Metropolis Blue.
I'll also have to investigate the Stranglers. I honestly didn't know that they had an era/sound prior to the produced, sugary, 80s sound of "Skin Deep." Which I've always thought was a decent enough song, but it never sparked my interest. Wikipedia has just filled me in on their history, which is much more complicated than I'd assumed.
The verses of "No Church" are fine by me, thanks in part to my tendency to tune out lyrics-- it's the autotuned parts of the chorus that test my patience. Will this mania for autotuning never end?
Impressive near-instant reply! I look forward to hearing what new system you come up with. I'll be mixing mine up a little bit with my next post, which I hope to put up by Monday. But I think I've mostly settled down into a sustainable pattern, and will return to it.
JJ Burnel didn't really put out a lot of solo material, I think, and unfortunately the few Stranglers tracks where I remember him taking lead vocal duty weren't always great.
I think "Ozymandias" is very much an outlier - it was a B-side for a single from this album, which to be honest I think I had once but got rid of, before the days of archiving everything to my HD:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Euroman_Cometh - I'm pretty sure it didn't blow me away at all, but you may want to hunt it down.
He produced (and collaborated on) the album "Sepukku" with Taxi Girl album in the early 80s, which has a similar feel I guess, synthy and a bit experimental, a bit dark and bit gritty: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taxi_Girl - I don't seem to find it on my HD right now, but as I remember it's well worth a listen. I think I put one of their tracks on a mix a few years ago....(rummage, rummage...August '08, apparently.)
And this is the only solo album proper of his that I have, which is enjoyable, but a lot more laid-back and melodic http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Un_Jour_Parfait.
I suppose other than that, I'd recommend some parts of the Stranglers back catalogue for *vaguely* similar sensibilities, particularly the albums "The Raven", "La Folie", and ""Feline", though I can't vouch for exactly how much vocal or musical input Burnel had in them. Damn good albums though, and worth a listen if you're not too familiar with The Stranglers.
Yeah, I remember being taken by some friends to the Jack L gig when part of the album "Wax" was being recorded, probably circa 1994/5, so that album always has good associations for me, and introduced me to a lot of Jacqes Brel stuff I'd never heard before, to be honest. His voice is pretty amazing, but after splitting from The Black Romantics he went a bit more mainstream and I think some of his later stuff seemed quite bland by comparison, but his 1999 album "Metropolis Blue" has some damn good tracks on it too. "Tremendous" is probably not his best song from that era, but again it was a bit of a nostalgia-fest coming across it recently.
I've had my periods where I got Banshee fatigue, too, but I've been re-ripping pretty much the whole back catalogue over the last while, as a lot of the Siouxsie MP3s on my PC were crappy 128kbps, and I've noticed that even on songs I never loved before I've appreciated them anew in terms of production and instrumentation.
Albums like "Hyaena", "Tinderbox," and "Peepshow" all have some hidden gems that I never really noticed before, and even albums that I simply had very little time for before, like "Superstition", have all crept their way back into rotation, just by virtue of me listening to them again in better quality. Also, I had 2 or 3 other Siouxsie tracks earmarked for this mix that were faster and more "immediate", but I had "Scarecrow" stuck in my head and enjoyed trying to fit a slower-burning song into the mix.
By the way, I think this qualifies as my fastest response to a Monthly Mix comment yet, so I hope to keep that up.
And I think I spaced on replying to one or two of your other ones, sorry about that, can't promise to get back to them though - I'm really forcing myself to catch up and then the plan is to revamp my whole system...because of the "overflow" I currently have a folder dedicated to "potential tracks for monthly mixes" with about 4 or 5 GB of music in it, so trying to whittle that is just craziness, I need a better approach. 0_o
Reply
I had forgotten about Taxi Girl until Darc's death in February, which sent me back to Seppuku. ("Avenue of Crime" will make it onto one of my mixes before long.) I had no idea Burnel was involved with that. Interesting!
I'll look for Metropolis Blue.
I'll also have to investigate the Stranglers. I honestly didn't know that they had an era/sound prior to the produced, sugary, 80s sound of "Skin Deep." Which I've always thought was a decent enough song, but it never sparked my interest. Wikipedia has just filled me in on their history, which is much more complicated than I'd assumed.
The verses of "No Church" are fine by me, thanks in part to my tendency to tune out lyrics-- it's the autotuned parts of the chorus that test my patience. Will this mania for autotuning never end?
Impressive near-instant reply! I look forward to hearing what new system you come up with. I'll be mixing mine up a little bit with my next post, which I hope to put up by Monday. But I think I've mostly settled down into a sustainable pattern, and will return to it.
Reply
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