Album Reviews, 4/2/14 · 3:12am Apr 3rd, 2014
This is a bit of a swipe from Take Walker. He reviews albums on FurAffinity, but then, he's a musician. I'm not. Well... not anymore. I played alto saxophone in marching band and jazz band. But I have hearing loss caused by ear infections in my childhood (not complete loss, but some loss in both ears. So my music appreciation ability is impacted. Add a general lack of rhythm and there you go. But I still love music. Even if I stink at the finer points of it I still enjoy music. It moves me. So I thought I'd do reviews of some of album collection, plus bands if I've heard a lot of their work and I can talk about their style.
Voltaire- The Devil's Bris
I've talked about this before but nothing wrong with giving it a refresher paragraph. Aurelio Voltaire Hernandez is a Cuban-American singer, who didn't go the route of Gloria Estefan et al. He's variously described. Dark Cabaret comes up often; I used to classify it as Gypsy Gothic. If I could give it a broader description, it's like a Gypsy perfoermer was crossed with a flamenco player with the comedic sensibilities of Mel Brooks. This is his freshman album, and it... shows but not in a bad way. Knowing his later work, I can see the difference in this. It's so much simpler, cut down to a few instruments, with very little processing. The songs lack the comedy seen in some later albums, but have the heart, darkness and interesting mix of anger and hope. There's a lot to it. For lovers, "Anniversary" is the gold track; for those who are angry it's between "Ex-lover's Lover" and "Snakes." Bonus points for the sheer randomness (and entertainment value) of the last track, "Shalom."
8/10
Cascada- Everytime We Touch
I referenced this singer in "Bad Girls." I described her as out of style but a guilty pleasure. She is. Cascada is bubblegum pop with a drum machine in the Europop tradition of Aqua. This isn't music you write a thesis on. It's music you listen to for fun and relaxation. It's also good for testing perception. Play one track then another and see if anyone notices. Because she relies heavily on not just a beat generator but one generating the exact same beat the songs tend to have the same rhythm line. Now, having dragged this through the mud, I like it. It does what bubblegum music is made to do, it entertains. "Everytime we touch" and "Bad Boy" stand out for me, mostly because I've seen them used in fan music videos (one for Balto, the other for Penguins of Madagascar.)
5/10 (On a "pure" music scale; that's just a guess what an actual music major might give it. I'm Lit; we read, listening isn't a big thing.)
Cherry Poppin' Daddies- Zoot Suit Riot
I'll admit tis outright: I love Swing. Swing, Big Band, Lounge, Exotica, everything in that vein. Much of it is the influence of my parents. They're big fans of Glen Miller, Benny Goodman and others like them. So I got into that, then started listening to more on my own. So finding modern swing was fantastic. These blokes do it up right. They have exactly the right sensibilities for it, with songs that have ribald references, overt sexuality and great energy. The modern part of it adds sociopolitical commentary and anger. Like metal, but with horns. "Drunk Daddy" and "Master and Slave" take on religious ideas (With "Master and Slave" also turning a jaundiced eye on American culture and corporatism.) But there's a lot of fun in it, especially "Doctor Bones", "Here Comes the snake" and the title track "Zoot Suit Riot." My bias is talking loud and clear but I adore this album.
10/10
Squirrel Nut Zippers- The Best of Squirrel Nut Zippers (As Chronicled By Shorty Brown)
And speaking of swing and older music... here's another great example. But this is less "pure" swing. It's got swing overtones to it but it plays much more like big band mixed with rockabilly and torch songs. It's unique and great fun. If anything it feels "older" than the Daddies; they would have played to Italian gangsters, the Zippers would have played for Jewish and Irish ones. "Anything but love" plays like a classic torch song that could have been breathily huffed into a cabaret crowd by a French woman. "Suits are picking up the bill" and "Dancing on the moon" sound quite 20's-ish. "Bedbugs" has almost a Cajun flavor to it, like it would not be out of place in Nawlins. For pure enjoyment, check out "The ghost of Stephen Foster" and "Hell."
8/10
Fleetwood Mac- Greatest Hits
Not much to say about Fleetwood Mac. If you love it, you know what to expect. If you hate it you won't even look at it. It's just a collection that had some songs that I wanted. I have the self-titled first album, but what I really wanted was "Little Lies." "Rhiannon", "Landslide" and "Little Lies" are the top three in order.
7/10
Voltaire- Almost Human
The sophomore album. More processing, more instruments, more comedy. There's decent humor in some of these tracks, "Alchemy Mondays" and "The Headless Waltz" are purely comedic, while something like "The Last Word" starts dark and grim and grows into a comedy. It's extremely enjoyable, though. It also has two foreign language songs, one in Japanese and one in Spanish.
8/10
Lady Gaga- The Fame Monster/The Fame double album
I'm unashamedly in love with Lady Gaga's music. And that's coming from someone who generally doesn't go crazy for modern music. I heard a few of her songs and had to run out to get this. Listening to it... I've described it as club music. I guess that's what it is. With all the electronic tricks, oberdubs, tweaks and so on this was designed to be played from an audio file on a DJ deck, as opposed to being sung live with a backing band. Lady Gaga is a competent singer and her ideas are good but the songs themselves are ruthlessly hypermodern, designed for dance clubs, blaring and DJ manipulation.
7/10
They Might Be Giants- A User's Guide to They Might Be Giants
I may be slightly older than most around here. So it may be just me but I became a TMBG fan after "Istanbul" and "Particle Man" were on Tiny Toon Adventures. They are just great. So fun and creative, with lyrics that can be erudite, mysterious or just purely entertaining. What other group can teach you about a president? Or an obscure painter? Or accidentally make a Don Giovanni reference? I could spend a whole blog on the lyrics in TMBG songs. This collection introduced me to songs I never knew and now can't live without, like "Put your hand inside the puppet head", "The statue got me high", "I Palindrome I" and "Purple Toupee."
8/10
Bruce Springsteen- Greetings from Asbury Park, NJ
Did my parents influence me to classic rock too? Naturally. This is some good music here. It's got a kind of Bob-Dylan-esque feel with the mysterious, densely packed lyrics that demand interpretation. What does it all mean? That's a good question and in need of some Word of God. But for all the frustration that gives me (I hate ambiguity) it's still damn good. Almost all of this is a winner. My personal favorite: "For you" even though it's the most ambiguous song on the album.
8/10
They Might be Giants! Heh, I remember when I was six or so, when mp3 players hadn't quite taken off yet, and I had a little cassette tape with about six of their songs on it. I played that little thing to death in my shitty radio (Remember when radios came with cassette players?) and drove my mom crazy. My dad, of course, found it hilarious. I got said tape from him, incidentally.
I'll read the rest later but I have to say "Fuck you Glenn Miller! Fuck you and your train! Get out of my head!"
I'm not a musician, just an asshole with opinions on the internet. :B
Also, I've listened to every one of these albums save the last, not that I could tell you anything about what I thought about them.
1978420
TMBG are just so ear-wormy that you can't help but play them over and over again.
1978808
Since I don't buy albums anymore I have lots of time to listen to what I have. And I always figured you were a musician. You speak with such authority and for some reason I thought you had actually written some pony music.
1978595
So... a fan or was it overplayed for you?
1979076
Technically speaking, I have. I just haven't ever published anything (beyond a really poorly-recorded cover of Hush Now, Quiet Now that I took down some years back).
1979140
I see. Still, you speak with such authority on music I assumed you were formally studying it.
1981478
Quite the opposite, actually. Good to know I can fake it! :D
1979077
It seeps into your brain like the Duck Tales theme, and there it stays until you are driven MAD!!!
It's an alright song, but it just won't let go. My mom's a huge Lawrence Welk fan so between that and PBS 'we need money' programs, it can get in there and settle for the long haul.
I can't comment on much else other than Voltaire good, Lady Gaga decent to good, and don't really know the rest all that well.
1982594
Curses! Now the Duck Tales theme is in my head. But at least it reminds me of an awesome show. I love that kind of pulpy adventure. It's like Tale Spin.
1983700
Also good.