I initially thought i'd be writing this in December, rather than march, so the weather would be likely to match a concept album about snow and winter. As it happens, it's getting towards the end of March (Due to the hiatus know known as the Great Buckley Coma of 2013) and it's still snowing. Now you don't need me to tell you that Kate Bush is a genius.50 words for snow is a beautiful album. Mostly piano based and including songs written from the perspective of a falling snowflake (opener "Snowflake"), songs about the yeti ("Wild Man") and even a guest appearance from Stephen Fry (on the title track).
It's difficult to choose one single track to represent the album as it's all excellent. It was definitely in my top 3 albums of 2011. I think after much deliberation my favourite track is "Snowed In At Wheeler Street", for the fact that it features Elton John and is still really good. here it is... (thoroughly bizarre video, but the only one on youtube not blocked by EMI)...
Bloody hell, this is going to do my credibility no favours. after being bored stupid by Tim Buckley, the next album in my collection is 90's post grungers Bush with their American chart slaying album "Razorblade Suitcase". Now, I'm a 90's kid. too young to catch grunge on it's first wave (I was 9 years old when Nevermind was released) and without an older brother or sister to guide our way, we picked up on later waves of grunge, bands such as Bush, Silverchair, Foo Fighters and Days Of The New. Kerrang magazine was our bible and in the mid 90's Bush featured regularly on it's cover. "Razorblade Suitcase" was their second album, a dark, Steve Albini produced album often understandably compared to "In Utero" and for a moody teenager hearing this kind of thing for the first time it was just what we were looking for.
The album doesn't stand up so well these days but has it's moments, possibly for nostalgia but also because despite it's total lack of originality, it's clumsy teenage angst and it's cynical co-opting of previously successful grunge formulae, it's still got some pretty good songs on here. it's maybe 20 minutes too long, but when it's good, it's pretty good. Here's the hit single from the album "Swallowed"...
Jeff's dad, Tim Buckley is a tough one. I deliberated about writing this for so long that I lost all momentum. A lot of people are going to read this as sacrilege but I've tried and tried and he just doesn't hold my attention. He's one of those artists that I feel I should like but there's just not much there that grabs me and makes me pay attention. he has a similar voice to his son, but not as good and the songs aren't as interesting. It seems unfair to compare him to Jeff, but if it wasn't for Buckley Jr's music I'd probably never have checked out his old man.
Now, I like folk rock, and I like a lot of his contemporaries but i just can't dig it. Maybe I'm listening to the wrong albums (I've heard good things about "Greetings From LA" so maybe I'll give that a go one day but right now it's not top of my list of priorities.) Many of you may dig this but for now, it's not for me, Mostly here he just comes across as a crap version of Scot Walker. Here's "Song Of The Magician"...
Jeff Buckley is an amazing vocalist, we all know this, he's a massive influence on Thom Yorke, and subsequently probably any singer from the late 90's onwards who uses falsetto vocals. What doesn't tend to get mentioned as often is what a fantastic and distinctive guitarist he is too. His mostly clean Telecaster sounded amazing and for me is equally as good as his voice, the eastern influenced melodies on "Dream Brother", the lightning fast arpeggio's on "Grace" and the crushing riffs on "Eternal Life" are all pretty much perfect. Grace has some amazing moments, but I could have done without the cover of Benjamin Brtten's "Corpus Christi Carol" which seems designed purely to showcase his voice, and the rather dull version of "Lilac Wine". His cover of Leonard Cohen's "Hallelujah" is beautiful, but it's the original, self penned songs that are the best tracks here.
The opening two songs "Mojo Pin" and "Grace" were co written with ex Captain Beefheart guitarist Gary Lucas and their swirling guitar parts are complex and gorgeous at the same time. "Last Goodbye" combines slide guitar and a 90's alt rock bassline tocreate one of the albums most infectious songs but the absolute masterstroke on the album is "Lover You Should Have Come Over"...
Soul Brother number one actualy died on Christmas Day. put a bit of a downer on my Christmas that year, I never got to see him play live. But this album gives you plenty of reasons to associate James Brown with Chrimbo in a positive way. "Santa Claus Go Straight o The Ghetto" is almost as brilliant as its title, "Lets Make Christmas Mean Someting This Year Pt 1 & 2" is a beautiful soul ballad, and there are some excellent funk jams such as "Go Power At Christmas Time" and the utterly mighty "Hey America!"
There's a lot of gospel influenced traditionalsoul tracks on here which are great, but James Brown is alway a his best when he's bringing the funk. here's "Hey America"...
So, It's December, nearly Christmas (if the world doesn't end on Friday anyway...) So It's good that the next two albums to listen to are two of the three Christmas albums I own (By my current calculations I'll probably be listening to the other one, She & Him's Christmas album, somewhere around July...). I'm a big Bright Eyes fan. His/Their music is very influential on my own band and as previously mentioned, Saddle Creek is one of my favouite record labels. A Christmas Album is fairly dark though, Basically Bright Eyes main man Conor Oberst and Azure Ray's Maria Taylor rope in the rest of the musicians on Saddle Creek at the time for a subdued run through a selection of mostly traditional Chrimbo songs. We're talking more "Silent Night" and "Away In A Manger" than Slade and Gary Glitter here.
Its the kind of album that takes a few listens before it clicks, and because it's a Christmas album those few listens can be few and far between. I've had it for about 7 or 8 years and it only really fell into place for me about 2 years ago, and even now I have to be in the right mood for it. Here's the version of "God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen"...
The Brian Jonestown Massacre are very hit and miss. If you've seen the excellent music documentary "DIG!!!" whcih shows how their love/hate relatonship with The Dandy Warhols, You'll be familiar with how they sabotage their own careers at fairly regular intervals. Therir live shows can be transcendental psychedelic rock and rol extravaganzas, or the can fall apart within a few songs with the band splitting up on stage. They're kind of like America's answer to The Fall in a lot of respects. One main driving force ad a revolving cast of other band members who could be sacked or leave the band at any minute. Musically The Brian Jonestown Massacre are a Velvet Underground influenced garage rock mob who one minute come out with sublime psychpop gems such as "When Jokers Attack" and another minute, sound like a sub-Oasis teenage cover band noodling around with cliched pentatonic scales and terrible lyrics. In that sense this particular compilation album is a true representation of the band, rather than cherry picking the good songs for a best of, this is a warts and all, sprawling double CD ranging from the excellent, to the incredibly skippable.
When they're bad, they tend to sound like a parody of every 60's rock cliche you can think of, but when they're good, they're excellent. It's worth sifting through the lesser tracks to get to the good shit. The spot on critique of their friends/rivals The Dandy Warhols on "Not If You Were The Last Dandy On Earth" is a particular high point, but for me, the best thing they ever did was the live version of "Swallowtail" exclusive to this compilation...
