albums part 2
I was relistening to all my sorta-favourite albums recently and I've had some THOUGHTS about them. I may not enjoy all of them as much as I used to, but all of the seven are definitely very important to me and serve as big milestones in my musical development. Here's what each album taught me (in order of their induction to the list):
-Office of Strategic Influence: Music doesn't just have to be centered in one place. You can pull influences from everywhere and make something interesting.
-Smile: Pop music isn't a bad thing. You can achieve more with a well-composed pop song than you can with a million guitar solos.
-Neu: Noise can be the most fun thing in the world.
-In the Aeroplane Over the Sea: A truly affecting story can come from anywhere, and it doesn't need to take up two hours to be important.
-Let It Be: Sometimes all you need to make something great is a bit of sincerity.
-Einstein on the Beach: Some albums take more effort than others, but finding something beautiful at the bottom of them feels even better.
-Crazy Rhythms: Just because your sound doesn't seem incredibly important, doesn't mean it isn't.
Another thing: three of these albums have what I'm going to call (for lack of a better term) the Paul Solomon Second-to-Last Track Freakout. It's this album structure I absolutely love, where, coming up to the ending, the composer decides to just forget everything about restraint and make the most insane song they can. In the Aeroplane Over the Sea comes off the forward-moving "Ghost" and seems like it's heading into some epic crescendo, then instead explodes into an ecstatic bagpipe solo. Smile, needing something to fill the gap between the meditative "Wind Chimes" and the peaceful "In Blue Hawaii," opts instead for the bizarre carnival funhouse/thrash metal (!) instrumental "Mrs. O'Leary's Cow." Einstein on the Beach comes to its ending not by way of the quiet "Bed," but with the face-melting insanity of "Spaceship." It's not limited to these ones either: if I had to extend my list to 10 (and of course I do), it would look like this:
8. The Mae Shi - HLLLYH (2008)
9. Sparks - Lil' Beethoven (2002)
10. Joel Plaskett Emergency - Ashtray Rock (2007)
All three of these do the same thing (sorta). Lil' Beethoven is pretty weird the whole way through, but its second to last track, the bizarre lounge/metal/spoken word "Ugly Guys With Beautiful Girls," is still six or seven levels of crazy above the rest. Ashtray Rock, on the other hand, is 100% normal, but it still manages to deliver something relatively strange near its end in the heartbreaking "The Instrumental." HLLLYH is absolutely unhinged the whole way through and even it manages an even more insane song, the 11-minute megamix "Kingdom Come." The Mae Shi opted to go with further insanity, however, and put it right in the middle.
hay guys these are the albums what I like listenin to
-Office of Strategic Influence: Music doesn't just have to be centered in one place. You can pull influences from everywhere and make something interesting.
-Smile: Pop music isn't a bad thing. You can achieve more with a well-composed pop song than you can with a million guitar solos.
-Neu: Noise can be the most fun thing in the world.
-In the Aeroplane Over the Sea: A truly affecting story can come from anywhere, and it doesn't need to take up two hours to be important.
-Let It Be: Sometimes all you need to make something great is a bit of sincerity.
-Einstein on the Beach: Some albums take more effort than others, but finding something beautiful at the bottom of them feels even better.
-Crazy Rhythms: Just because your sound doesn't seem incredibly important, doesn't mean it isn't.
Another thing: three of these albums have what I'm going to call (for lack of a better term) the Paul Solomon Second-to-Last Track Freakout. It's this album structure I absolutely love, where, coming up to the ending, the composer decides to just forget everything about restraint and make the most insane song they can. In the Aeroplane Over the Sea comes off the forward-moving "Ghost" and seems like it's heading into some epic crescendo, then instead explodes into an ecstatic bagpipe solo. Smile, needing something to fill the gap between the meditative "Wind Chimes" and the peaceful "In Blue Hawaii," opts instead for the bizarre carnival funhouse/thrash metal (!) instrumental "Mrs. O'Leary's Cow." Einstein on the Beach comes to its ending not by way of the quiet "Bed," but with the face-melting insanity of "Spaceship." It's not limited to these ones either: if I had to extend my list to 10 (and of course I do), it would look like this:
8. The Mae Shi - HLLLYH (2008)
9. Sparks - Lil' Beethoven (2002)
10. Joel Plaskett Emergency - Ashtray Rock (2007)
All three of these do the same thing (sorta). Lil' Beethoven is pretty weird the whole way through, but its second to last track, the bizarre lounge/metal/spoken word "Ugly Guys With Beautiful Girls," is still six or seven levels of crazy above the rest. Ashtray Rock, on the other hand, is 100% normal, but it still manages to deliver something relatively strange near its end in the heartbreaking "The Instrumental." HLLLYH is absolutely unhinged the whole way through and even it manages an even more insane song, the 11-minute megamix "Kingdom Come." The Mae Shi opted to go with further insanity, however, and put it right in the middle.
hay guys these are the albums what I like listenin to