Music Review: #172 - Summer 2016

 Staying in similar territory to last week, where I wrote about January 2015, but my life felt quite different by Summer '16.  By this point I was established in my job and overall pretty happy with how things were going.  Will my music taste reflect that?  Let's see...

1. Frankie Goes To Hollywood - Born To Run 🎀
Hearing this song kick in gives me an instant rush of pleasure.  It's Springsteen's classic sped up and sounding even more triumphant than the original.  It's a little tongue-in-cheek, being sung by an obviously gay frontman, but the way that the instrumentation gallops along like a machine makes me want to take off on the adventure that the song promises.  It's bold and powerful, and in my eyes, the superior version of Born To Run.  In 2016 I fell in love with the first Frankie Goes To Hollywood album and this song still thrills me - a strong start.

2. The Last Shadow Puppets - Miracle Aligner 💜
I've said it before but Alex Turner doing his Euro-crooner thing just makes me melt.  This sounds like it should soundtrack a movie set on the Riviera; it's lush and palatial and sun-soaked, the smell of suntan lotion and expensive perfume mixed with sea air.  I love the hushed vocal and retro guitar sounds.  Do I understand what the lyrics are about?  No, I've never taken the time to think about it - I don't think I need to. 

3. The 1975 - Sex (Acoustic) 🔵
The 1975 were my favourite band of 2016 and I was still in my 'honeymoon phase' in the summer.  This version of the song sounds so, so different to the one on the album with its capoed arpeggios and Matty singing the lyrics in that barely-comprehensible indie boy accent with an added layer of melancholy.  With the addition of a synthesised string part played long chords to underpin the whole thing, it turns a big emo song into a reflective ballad.  Sex was the first The 1975 song I loved and the acoustic version puts a different spin on it that's no less beautiful. 

4. Cocteau Twins - Cherry-Coloured Funk 💜
We are now entering a dream world.  Where Matty was barely-compehensible, Elizabeth Fraser is entirely incomprehensible in the way that she sings - it might be English but it's impossible to tell, and it's like being in another universe.  That shoegazey guitar part is hypnotic, like being taken by the gentle waves on a calm sea.  Cocteau Twins are one of the greatest bands ever to come out of Scotland; their beauty is unsurpassed.

5. One Direction - Temporary Fix 🔵
Boybands aren't usually my thing and I was never a 'Directioner' but Spotify offered me this and it's quite edgy and sexual, especially if their audience is supposed to be young girls.  It has the sort of rock drums and suggestive vocals that wouldn't sound out of place on an album of the era by someone like All Time Low.  It sounds like a Harry Styles number, the sort of thing that would fit in on his first album, so I was surprised to find that Niall wrote it with some other pop songwriters and that it wasn't an outtake from an indie band that they sold to 1D.

6. Jefferson Airplane - Somebody To Love 🔵
A 60s psychedelic classic.  I think Grace Slick is so cool - I read her autobiography last year and she described how she and her boyfriend started a band with another couple just because she wasn't sure what she wanted to do with her life, saw some friends doing well with their band, and thought it looked like a fun job.  I always find it interesting when people talk about choosing music as a career rather than claiming it was some sort of 'calling'.  I'm glad she picked this career because she has such a commanding, powerful voice.  This is my favourite song of theirs; it makes me want to dance and perfectly encapsulates what I imagine it was like to be young during the Summer Of Love.

7. The 1975 - Milk 🔵
Milk is a hidden track turned fan favourite, a rowdy little emo-pop song about drugs which I love to hear live.  They always play it really fast and it's a short song with just two verses and choruses so it's a perfect burst of energy midway through the set.  The combination of simple riff, quiet verses and wild chorus are magic.

8. Cocteau Twins - Pearly Dewdrops' Drops 💜
Some more Cocteau magic.  This song sounds like the sun coming out to chase away an April shower.  The component parts of waltz rhythm, toy piano twinkles, washes of guitar and dreamy vocals combine to create something soothing and uplifting.  It's lovely. 🥰

9. Purity Ring - Begin Again 🔵
This has that 2010s echoey EDM production which I don't love, but I fell for this song because her voice is so, so pretty.  The chorus, and in particular the way she sings 'oh darling', hooked me in.  I think the style is starting to sound really dated; it's got that dubstep build up and drop with keys and heavy beat, but with an indie pop song welded on top.  It's too delicate, vocally, for the club, but too traditional in its EDM elements to be a cool indie record.  I rate it highly for the singer and not the backing. 

10. Nicole Dollanganger - Nebraska 🔵
I've written a couple of times already about Nicole's lyrical style and themes and this song is typical of that.  She plays a simple two-chord guitar part which matches the sweetness of her voice, and pairs that with a lyric about a boy who kills his girlfriend's parents before taking her off on a killing spree which ends only with his execution.  I always assumed it was fictional - a Bonnie & Clyde for the mass-shooter generation - but upon looking it up I've discovered it's the true story of Charles Starkweather and Caril Ann Fugate in 1958.  Nicole closes the song with "and sometimes I feel we're heading down the same road" which is a chilling ending; no longer just a ballad about the past but now a cautionary tale to entertain her own lover.

11. Blood Diamonds ft. Grimes - Phone Sex 🔵
Opening with synth steel drums (one of my favourite instruments), this would be a fairly conventional dance song if it weren't for the inclusion of Grimes.  She sings in her usual fragile femme voice and adds some unusual sounds into the mix to keep this interesting.  The end result is something more ethereal than the dance music which was in the charts and therefore it hasn't dated as much and still sounds fresh.

12. The 1975 - The City (Acoustic) 🔵
This is called an acoustic version but it's entirely synth-based - it's just a sparse and slowed-down arrangement of the song.  Matty is singing in his melancholy boy voice again as opposed to the knowing smile that The City is usually performed with.  It's atmospheric and a different take on the song which is pretty but doesn't rival the album version.

13. Édith Piaf - Milord 🔵
I've written about Milord already so I won't go into depth again, but it really stands out here.  Following on from the synthesisers and slow acoustindie, the intro to Milord sounds light-hearted and quaint.  I think Piaf works better for me in the context of a playlist than as part of an album - she really shines in contrast to the modern shiny pop.  Milord is a real romp of a song that is brought down by its inclusion on a 12" of ballads. 

14. Cults - Go Outside 🔵
Hearing this song during a pandemic makes me really sulky.  The xylophone part which opens this song and then runs through it is a really cute motif, almost like a jingle.  The song has a 70s rhythm mixed with modern vocal production and I think it's pretty but a bit sad - I think the lyric is about trying to convince a depressed partner to get up and join you outside, and eventually giving up?  Either way, it makes for nice advertising music.

15. Serge Gainsbourg & Brigitte Bardot - Bonnie & Clyde 🔵
That weird animalistic/yodelling noise at the end of every line is very annoying, but it's something to cling to when you don't speak French so can't use the lyrics to work your way through the song.  I don't know what the couple are saying but have always presumed they're playing the couple and telling their story (running the lyrics through a translator has proved that theory to be correct).  It's a nice ballad, they sound a little bored which adds to the mood of doomed lovers.  The other weird thing for me is hearing them repeat the couple's names, which are American, in a French language song.  I do think it's cool to hear icons portraying icons though.

16. FKA Twigs - In Time 🔵
If I was to pick my favourite modern-day singer it might be FKA Twigs.  I think her voice is perfect, the way she sings in her very English accent with such fragility which is combined with heavy-handed beats and world music influences - it's a fascinating sound with so much going on.  I love that she grew up adoring punk stars like Poly Styrene and Anabella Lwin but didn't go in that direction, she just took what she needed from them attitude-wise and built something modern.  Musically it does sound like the mid-10s which is receding in the rear-view mirror now, but her voice is timeless. 

17. Amy Winehouse - Tears Dry On Their Own 🟢
Like Twigs, Amy is another timeless talent.  This sounds classic due to the retro production and old-school jazz sound of her voice.  Tears Dry On Their Own is a decent Amy Winehouse song but it's not one of my favourites; it's very loose so I find it hard to hold on to this one and really live in it.  

18. Édith Piaf - Padam, Padam 🟢
Again, I covered this when I wrote about The World Of Piaf.  This plays an interesting contrast with Amy Winehouse as they're both mid-century sounds but where Amy is loose and jazzy, Édith is controlled and powerful. 

19. Pet Shop Boys - West End Girls 🔵
A very different mood, from a vintage orchestra with passionate vocals to cold synthpop and disinterested spoken lyrics.  I love the sound of West End Girls, it's somehow both detached and soulful.  "Sometimes you're better off dead, there's a gun in your hand and it's pointing at your head" is one hell of an opening line.  The synth choral and brass instrumental part is very dated now and another verse would have been preferable to this break.  I'm taken in by the way Neil Tennant almost raps this song - I'm not saying it's hip hop but it has political spoken words set to a repetitive beat with sampling throughout...

20. Milk Teeth - Swear Jar 🔵
A rare pop punk number for 2016, with a slow vocals-and-chords intro opening up to the full band for the second verse.  It's the third of the trio of songs on this disc about young people running off and getting into trouble but there's no murder in this one, just second thoughts; it reminds me of the TV show The End Of The F**king World.  It has that last-song-on-the-album contemplative feeling to it and I wish there was one more verse as I'd like to have heard more of it.

21. The Crystals - He Hit Me (It Felt Like A Kiss) 🔵
The bass intro to this song is instantly recognisable.  I am in two minds over whether to refer to this as a 'love song', it's obviously incredibly sad and a lot of people say that it shouldn't exist at all as it glorifies domestic violence but I think it's healthy to have this sort of perspective out there.  Subject matter aside, it's a decent sounding 60s girl group song performed by a group of professionals, it just isn't as uplifting as Then He Kissed Me.

22. Death Spells - Why Is Love So Disastrous? 🟢
What an unsettling intro this has - a sort of horror movie spoken word sample.  By 2016 I was moving away from hardcore music but the sound of these frantic drums makes me long for a packed venue with a wall of death and everyone throwing themselves around.  It ends with a fade-out which sounds wrong, like it's a sample and not the full song (I think it might be faded out before the DJ starts talking).  It's not the best of its genre but not bad. 

Looking back at this list, I'm not sure why I was so obsessed with songs about escapism and violence at this point in time... I think it's coincidental as I don't remember purposefully looking for that sort of thing, although I suppose I was seeing Robbers by The 1975 and its allusions to Bonnie & Clyde and True Romance and all of that.  Unlike Winter 2015, when I was listening to mostly chart pop, this is a mixture of alternative music and old stuff.  The music which was going for a modern sound now sounds very much like a product of its time, whereas the songs taking influence from past movements have survived better.  Not a bad mix overall - nothing that I'd be averse to hearing again - but most of it fits the "good songs that I'm happy to hear but not favourites" category.  

Music Review: #147 - January 2015

 This week, a monthly mix CD from when I still made monthly mix CDs.  I wrote about the latter part of 2015 in a recent entry and, without giving too much away, I think the musical selections here will be quite different.  I turned 22 in January 2015 and was in the middle of my post-Uni unemployment phase.  The highlight of the month was a trip to Glasgow to see Die Antwoord and that's about all I remember from this point in history.

1. Die Antwoord - Fok Julle Naaiers 🔵
This group were my obsession at this time; I found their weirdness so intriguing.  I don't choose to listen to them any more and there are a lot of their songs that I would skip past immediately but this is is one of their better songs.  It's a traditional rap song for them - Yolandi sings the chorus and Ninja raps the verses, which I still know all the words to.  What makes it unusual is their South African accents and language (the title roughly translates to 'fuck you all').  I still think this is quite good. 

2. Heathers The Musical - Dead Girl Walking 💜
As I said previously when reviewing Big Fun, Heathers is one of my favourite movies of all time.  I was excited when it was turned into a musical, of which this song is the highlight.  The lyrics are so funny - this is Veronica Sawyer's big number, performed at the point where she has a fall-out with Heather Chandler and goes to visit the mysterious bad boy JD.  It's interesting as it gives Veronica some agency as she enters into this dangerous and doomed relationship; arguably, the only time she's in control and my main problem with the song is how weak and submissive JD sounds which is out of character for him.  Barrett Wilbert Weed puts in a hell of a performance as Veronica and helps this to become a perfect singing-in-the-shower showtune.  Best lyrics: "Sorry, but I really had to wake you... see, I've decided I must ride you 'til I break you" and "you know the drill, I'm hot and pissed and on the pill"

3. Kids In Glass Houses - Peace 🔵

The Welsh band split up a few months prior to me putting this together and this song comes from their final album.  It's a great rock song with a big singalong chorus.  They were talented songwriters and Aled Phillips was an outstanding singer.  Peace includes one chorus that has gang vocals and handclaps which is really effective, and there's even a cheesy boyband-style key change at the end.  It's very uplifting and I still get pleasure from hearing it.

4. Die Antwoord - Cookie Thumper! 🔵
The second track of theirs and this one is a Yolandi solo number.  Her high voice and South African/English hybrid dialect is a novelty that worked well for them for about three albums and then got stale but this was probably my favourite song of theirs at this point.  The electronic backing track sounds like an alarm going off in a top secret government lab from a movie, and paired with her risqué image and lyrics the whole thing sounds dangerous.  The chorus and breakdown are super catchy even though I only understand about half of the lyrics.  Objectively this song is tacky and bad taste but I think a little of that is good for you. 

5. The Prodigy - No Good (Start The Dance) 💜
I had a slight interest in 90s dance music at this point and No Good (Start The Dance) was possibly my favourite of the heavier dance songs.  This is The Prodigy before they became a dance/rock crossover group so I didn't know this song at all before.  It's really intense with its fast drums and industrial sound palette.  The vocal is just the same 2 lines looped throughout and her voice, which is a sped up sample, matches the urgency of the music.  The song sounds the way that strobe lights make me feel in a club; the two combined must be an experience.  This is probably my favourite tune of theirs, I just love the persistence of it - it doesn't let up at all during its six minutes, to the point where it's almost tiring to listen to all the way through. 

6. Kids In Glass Houses - Drive 🔵
Drive is the other highlight of the final KIGH album.  It has a darker atmosphere - this and Peace are like yin and yang.  It's just as anthemic as Peace but it's sexier and I can't help but associate it with the film of the same name; my visual is all night-time and neon signs.  It's driven by the rhythm which is unrelenting. 

7. The Shangri-Las - Leader Of The Pack 🎀
A CLASSIC.  The iconic Q&A intro, a vocal dripping with teenage dramatic despair, the motorcycle sound effects!  It's so well constructed, a whole dramatic story told in a little pop song.  The tale of the girl, forced to break up with her misunderstood rebel boyfriend, who is killed when he crashes his bike grieving their relationship, takes place over three short verses and a couple of spoken word intervals and the whole trio play their roles to perfection.  From an era where pop songs were seen as disposable and ephemeral, and following the trend for 'tasteless' 'splatter platters', this is actually a work of art.

8. 2 Unlimited - Let The Beat Control Your Body 🔵
I referred to The Prodigy as heavier dance music and this is the other kind - the cheesy, poppy Eurodance.  They're not that different though; both have the trademark pounding beat and repetitive lyrics, although 2 Unlimited go for verses and choruses rather than the same line on loop.  It's helped along, or let down by (depending on your perspective), the Euroness of the vocal.  You can tell by the lyrics and his accent in particular that English is not 2 Unlimited's first language.  It's a fun, catchy-as-hell dance tune but arguably would be better without his cliché rapped verses. 

9. Culture Beat - Anything 🟢
A very atmospheric intro that doesn't sound like a dancefloor filler, before becoming more cheesy rap-verse ESL Eurodance.  The mp3 I downloaded for this mix is really quiet which totally ruins the mood.  This is no Mr Vain but it's OK with a decent chorus and hook to dance to.  My enjoyment is definitely hampered by the audio quality which isn't Culture Beat's fault but after the last song, it lacks punch.

10. Descendents - Suburban Home 💜
It's punk time!  I feel like a bit of a poser for only knowing this one song of theirs, knowing how influential they were, but I'm afraid this is the extent of my relationship with them.  Suburban Home is a biting, sarcastic bit of satire about settling down to a middle class suburban life.  It's very much alt kid 101 stuff, but it's done really well.  The icing on the cake is the lobotomised voice with which he states "I want to be stereotyped... I want to be classified" at the start and end. 

11. Rebekah Del Rio - Llorando (Crying) 🔵

This is the Spanish-language acapella cover of Roy Orbison's Crying that is performed in the theatre scene of Mulholland Drive.  The big, empty room echo on the recording just adds to the haunting quality of the song.  It's really beautiful and emotive - I don't speak Spanish so Del Rio's intonation is all I have to tell the story of the song and I feel like I understand it completely.  I must rewatch Mulholland Drive soon.

12. Dawn Penn - You Don't Love Me 💜
Reggae isn't one of my preferred genres but every now and then I come across a song in that style that I adore, and this is one of them.  The version I downloaded is the 1967 original and not the 1994 re-recording that became a chart hit in the UK (which isn't as good).  The vocal sounds like it's being beamed in from another time and put on top of the music.  I adore her languid delivery in contrast with the staccato guitar part.  I don't know anything else about Dawn Penn or the context of this record aside from it being recorded twice but I think it sounds incredible.  

13. Melanie Martinez - Toxic (Cestladore Remix) 🔵
I'm not a huge fan of Melanie Martinez's "little girl but she's on pills" aesthetic, or even really her cover of Toxic from The Voice, but I find this remix irresistible.  It loops the chorus from her jazzy cover of Britney's song over and over with minimal chillwavey backing music.  That makes it sounds very of its time but there's something about the way her voice is processed with the stuttering that bewitched me.

14. Die Antwoord - Wat Pomp 🟡
I think this is early Die Antwoord and it's not a song of theirs that I would still choose to listen to.  Yolandi and Ninja both have some decent bars on it, and there's also a third guy who I think is called Jack Sparrow? [Correction, it's Jack Parow, which is basically the same.]  Anyway, he isn't bad either.  The worst thing is Ninja's comedy Japanese accent but even without it, I don't feel like I need to hear this song again. 

15. Against Me! - True Trans Soul Rebel (Acoustic) 🔵
First off, I need to say that Laura Jane Grace is a legend and I have so much respect for her as a prominent trans person who puts out records like this.  There's so much pain in this recording with its references to suicide and the misery associated with coming to terms with the difficulties of making your trans identity public.  It's a really beautiful song that sounds like it was cathartic to release.  I knew this acoustic version before I found out there was a full band recording, which is also great, but there's something about the rawness of this performance.

16. Mickey & Sylvia - Love Is Strange 🔵
I hadn't seen Dirty Dancing when I discovered this song so my associations with it have very little to do with Baby and whatever his name is.  I like the way that Mickey & Sylvia sound together and the way they drag out some of the words in the verses.  The guitar part is just as important as the vocals here and contributes to it being a great little song.  Something about the recording sounds really small, like the couple and their guitar player are crammed into the corner of a tiny room to perform.  Of course, the Q&A section is the best bit.

17. Jonathan Richman - I'm Straight 🔵
Jonathan Richman tries to convince us that he's straight (as in, clean, not heterosexual) but he sounds either really sick or totally fucked up in this almost-spoken performance.  It plays like the ill-advised neurotic voicemail left late at night on an ex's answering machine, a stream of consciousness ramble of someone who's been up getting high for too many days in a row.  The repetition of "I'm straight" and "I'm not stoned" only add to the denial.  There's some good bass guitar and trademark gang vocal work from the Modern Lovers too. 

18. Linda Scott - I've Told Every Little Star 🎀
Here's the other stand-out musical number from Mulholland Drive, which I guess I must have watched in January 2015.  I was obsessed with this song for a while - it's sugary sweet and romantic and I can't help but smile when it comes on.  It's simple, just a cute song about having a crush, but I adore it. 

19. Nicole Dollanganger - Creek Blues 🎀
On its surface, this could be another cute love song, given Nicole Dollanganger's high, fragile voice, but anyone who knows her music will know better.  This song was my introduction to her and I didn't like it at first but found myself needing to hear it again.  She puts a couple of simple chords together with the vocal line about the psychotic boyfriend figure who is present in so many of her lyrics.  I love the juxtaposition she plays with - that broken doll voice who sounds so sweet until you realise she's singing about how her boyfriend's hobbies are playing with guns and going into the woods to kill things for fun.  She's carved out a creepy-cute niche for herself which I find fascinating.

20. Mr President - Coco Jamboo 🔵
Something totally different from the last song - we're back to the Eurodance.  I don't have this elsewhere in my collection but it's ultra familiar to me, like it unlocks something from my childhood brain.  It has massive primary school disco/late 90s birthday party energy.  I don't know what the song is about at all, which usually means that the lyrics are not innocent but the adult references are veiled enough to make it acceptable for kids.  Alternatively, and this is the answer my internet searching is drawing me to, it's another case where the writers didn't speak great English so just threw something together.  It's really catchy, total guilty pleasure music but I would definitely get down to this if it was played at an office party.  

21. The Cure - Love Will Tear Us Apart 🟢
One set of spooky post-punk forefathers covering another.  The Cure are legendary and this is one of the greatest songs ever written but this cover falls flat.  It sounds like they're not committed to it at all, probably recorded for a radio thing where they were asked to perform a cover as it sounds like the sort of portable equivalent of drums that bands whip out for this sort of thing.  Nothing that The Cure do is bad but I can't help feeling like this could have been something special if they had put in the effort. 

Looking back this is a solid month, probably because I had nothing to do except sit at my laptop watching films and discovering new tunes.  The inclusions of Nicole Dollanganger and Melanie Martinez in particular point to this being part of my 8tracks period (a music streaming site that's sadly missed since it relies on copyright-free YouTube videos now instead of user uploads), which is where I found a lot of songs and artists I came to love.  There are definitely worse monthly mixes to come. 

Music Review: Kerrang! Best Of 2005

 I was a Kerrang! reader for approximately a decade, starting with the Christmas 2004 double issue (Good Charlotte's Madden twins on the cover) and ending around the time that The Blackout split up, by which time I was no longer following any of the bands who were featured in the magazine.  Those first couple of years were when it made the biggest impact on me, as I was entering my teens and figuring out who I wanted to be, and I remember the style of humour, the posters that adorned my walls, the catalogues for alt clothing companies, and the CDs that came free with the magazine a few times each year. 

I've only kept some of the CDs that came cover-mounted on issues of Kerrang! and of those, this is the one that I remember the most fondly.  Specifically, I remember the week it came out - my friends and I sought refuge in the school library at lunchtimes and one day we were gathered around one of the school's new laptops, flicking through the tracks on this compilation.  There are bands on here who I already loved and owned the albums by, some who I vaguely knew through K!TV and the rock show on my local radio station, and others whose names and faces I'd seen in the magazine but not had a chance to hear yet.  Looking at the tracklisting now, there are a few songs on there that I can't recall at all which surprised me as I remembered it being amazing from start to finish but I think my brain has combined it with the other CDs of the year that showcased the best of the 2005 festival season and that year's Kerrang! Awards Nominees.  Lets dive in. 

1. Nine Inch Nails - The Hand That Feeds 💜
I remember this song as a staple of the rock club I frequented every Friday night from January 2005 until it closed a few years later, as well as the Saturday night Radio Borders Rock Show which had the same DJ.  A sexy industrial number, this was the first NIN song that I came across and I loved it then and still do.  This song showed me that rock music could use synthesisers and didn't have to stand in direct opposition to the dance music that was a guilty pleasure for me a year or two earlier.  Being 12 years old at this point, I was firmly in my elitist 'rock music is good and everything else is shit' period so I think Trent Reznor really broadened my mind in these few minutes.  I always planned to get properly into Nine Inch Nails as I love their sound, but that time hasn't come yet; maybe this could be our year.  The Hand That Feeds really puts me back on that sticky dancefloor, dressed all in black and finding a safe space to explore who I was going to be.  It fits in just as nicely with the music I listen to most now as it did with my collection in 2005, a perfect opener to this collection.

2. HIM - Rip Out The Wings Of A Butterfly 🟢
HIM were huge at this point in my life.  When this CD came out, I had a ticket to see HIM the following year and had bought their Best Of which was full of romantic, gothic hard rock.  Ville Valo was treated as a god by Kerrang! magazine.  This has a cultish (and The Cult-ish) romance to it and I remember it being bit on music TV.  It's a decent goth pop song and if it had come out 15 years earlier I think they'd have been mainstream stars instead of music for teenage girl moshers - I was surprised to find out that this was a Top 10 hit single as I remember them being treated as huge stars of the underground.  I didn't have this album but borrowed it from a friend to put on my iPod, however I didn't love it enough to burn my own copy so there's only one other HIM song from this era in my collection and I parted ways with them after that.

3. Team Sleep - Our Ride To The Rectory 🟢
I don't really remember this song as it didn't resonate with me aged 12.  As an adult I'm interested in what Chino Moreno does as he has great taste in music and the Deftones as essentially a heavy shoegaze band.  The chorus of this is familiar to me and it's definitely closer to my current music taste than my 05 taste with its slow pace, soaring vocals and electronic elements.  It builds up in an interesting way and feels a bit like a night drive which is my favourite thing about the song.  I don't think I'd sit and listen to a Team Sleep album but this is alright.  

4. Fall Out Boy - Sophomore Slump Or Comeback Of The Year 🔵
I already liked Fall Out Boy at this point and I think I either already owned the album this comes from (From Under The Cork Tree) or was about to buy it as I have a feeling this song was new to me at this point and might even have been the deciding factor in making the purchase.  It's one of my favourite Fall Out Boy songs, full of MSN screen-name lyrics, most notably "the best part of 'believe' is the 'lie'" but I definitely used 'well-read and poised' as well.  Patrick Stump has a really distinctive voice which, combined with the lyrics, is probably why Fall Out Boy rose above their peers to become the defining emo band of the year.   It's a good, clever little pop punk song that still brings me joy and I still know all the words so it was good to hear this.

5. Blink-182 - The Rock Show 🔵
I've never understood exactly why this song is on the Best Of 05 considering it came out in 2001.  I think the band might have gone on hiatus in 2005 so it might have been included as a tribute, but regardless of the reason, it's a great song.  I knew it already as it's included on another rock compilation I bought in 2003 and I think we had some Blink-182 albums in the house by this time as they were one of my favourite bands in the lead-up to my K!-buying years, so their inclusion was welcome.  The Rock Show is super catchy and fun, an ode to a cool girl that's written without putting anyone else down in the process - truly a classic pop-punk single that deserves to be played when I go out post-covid.  

6. Green Day - St. Jimmy (VH1 Storytellers Version) 🔵
The main event!  Green Day were everything to me at this age; American Idiot came out the year before and I spent a lot of 2005 catching up with their back catalogue.  I'm sure I had a VHS recording of the VH1 Storytellers show where they played the album from start to finish.  St. Jimmy is such an exciting song in the context of the album and even removed from that and placed here, it's still exhilarating.  Also exhilarating is the opportunity to hear a live Green Day recording which is so full of energy even though I'm sure this took place in a TV studio with people sat at tables, rather than the Milton Keynes Bowl.  I never got to see them in this era which I don't think I'll ever get over.  I love this song... and don't you fucking wear it out (dun-dun-dun-dun)!

7. Alkaline Trio - Time To Waste 🔵
I saw Alkaline Trio in November 2005, a decision that was based purely on the strength of the songs included on cover-mounted CDs like this one, and I got into them in a big way.  Time To Waste is so macabre with its piano intro leading to this big expansive punk sound and huge chorus.  I found this song so intriguing at the time; I don't hear it often these days so that feeling comes back to me when I stumble across it now, like I must find out more about them.  I'm excited to cover Alkaline Trio in more depth in future posts so that I can dive back in to those albums that I loved so much at the time.

8. Funeral For A Friend - All The Rage (Demo) 🟢
I didn't get into FFAF until a bit later so this song felt like a bit of a dead spot for me on the album at the time.  A big deal was made out of the fact that they were Welsh which I thought was cool, in fact looking at the CD now, they're the first British act to feature.  All The Rage isn't their best song but it has a decent chorus.  The version here is a demo but it sounds fully formed - I don't think I've ever heard the finished version as I never bought any of their albums, although I did see them a couple of times at festivals in the early 2010s.  

9. Trivium - A Gunshot To The Head Of Trepidation 🟠
And now on to the metal portion of the disc.  Kerrang! loved Trivium in 2005 and so did the metal boys at my school who I half-knew from Friday nights - I remember overhearing them asking to borrow the album from each other.  That meant that I felt like I had to like this more than I actually did.  There are a couple of Trivium songs that I remember liking more than this one which I'm not really into.  It's heavy, shouty and has that type of metal guitar solo that I hate, both in terms of the tone and the length - it takes ages.  That's followed by a chant bit which I guess would have been massive at Download Festival that year.  The song isn't the worst but I do feel like I would skip it under normal circumstances which is why I've rated it this way. 

10. Bullet For My Valentine - The Poison 🟡
This is another band I felt that I was supposed to like, and actually did like some of their stuff.  Their lyrics were perfectly suited to my angsty teen emo phase so their early singles hit me at the right time.  The Poison isn't one of the songs by them that I'd reach for but at least it has a catchy chorus.  The main riff that appears both at the intro and after the solo is pretty good as well.  I don't really like this sort of thing but I can see some merit in it.  BFMV are the second and final British group on the CD and they're also Welsh so I guess this was a bad year for English rock bands. 

11. Rammstein - Benzin 🔵
My introduction to Rammstein; I bought their album on the strength of this song and unfortunately the rest of it wasn't as good so I no longer own it.  The song is in German but from what I can gather it's just a list of chemicals (benzin = petrol).  Like Nine Inch Nails it's industrial but this is a bit heavier.  It's another dancefloor filler though, big 'dance music for goths' mood.  I remember us all loving it when our school had a German Exchange and lots of people brought their partners to the club who dutifully put this on.  This is the only Rammstein song I ever got into but you know what, even though it's a bit ridiculous, I would still listen to it now.

12. Every Time I Die - Kill The Music 🟢
The snarling dog intro crashing into brutal hardcore sounds really great.  Gerard Way sings the chorus to this song which also sounds amazing contrasted with the music - My Chemical Romance had their first big year in 05 so their presence is missed on the album; it's nice to hear Gerard's voice even if it's on another band's song.  My other highlight is the end part which plays with slowing down and then launching another attack.  Kill The Music is heavy but I like it, partly because of that chorus but also because it has more in common with the likes of Glassjaw than Trivium.  

13. Arch Enemy - My Apocalypse 🟠
Our token woman of the compilation is Angela Gossow, singer with Arch Enemy.  The heaviest song of all, she was well-known for her death metal growl.  However, this is easily my least favourite track - I think melodic death metal sounds really horrible.  It's impressive that Gossow made it to the top of such a male-dominated genre but I do think they were treated as a novelty act at the time.  The song felt like it lasted forever with lots of places where it could have ended but just kept. on. going.  I would happily never hear another melo-death song again. 

14. Avenged Sevenfold - Bat Country 🟡
Another favourite band of K!.  They open with the quote at the start of Fear And Loathing In Las Vegas: "he who makes a beast out of himself gets rid of the pain of being a man", and from then on it sounds like being on a Hunter S Thompson rollercoaster.  The band were always photographed looking like a dangerous biker gang but they also sometimes wore eyeshadow which was a little confusing; I guess they were adding the excess of Motley Crue, Thompson and the Hells Angels together into one thing.  M Shadows' voice is really nasal and whiny and the guitars somehow sound the same, creating a really unpleasant sound.  There's a lot going on here between the guitar solos and the excessive cowbell and the catchy vocal hooks that get a bit lost in amongst it all.  Listening to Bat Country is genuinely a bit tiring.  It's the musical equivalent of the big break film where the director crams all of their niche interests into one script (see: Under The Silver Lake, The Love Witch, Gregg Araki's Teenage Apocalypse Trilogy).  Unfortunately, while I love that in a film, it combines into a big mess in a song.  I thought I really liked this song so it was a surprise to listen to it again and find that it's not as fun as I remember.

15. Coheed & Cambria - Welcome Home 🟢
Finally we come to the closing track and it's an epic.  Right from the start it feels like we're going into a big fantasy adventure - if this was a film, it would be something akin to Lord Of The Rings.  Maybe I say that because Kerrang! made a big deal out of the fact that their music was an accompaniment to a sci-fi comic that the singer wrote, or maybe it's just because it's the most prog-rock sounding song of the collection.  Claudio Sanchez's voice is so unexpected after seeing them in the magazine; he was a big guy with huge hair but he sings in a high register.  I shouldn't like this song - it's pompous, fantasy prog-metal - but I am actually quite taken in by it.  Sanchez is a genuinely talented vocalist and the song is well-constructed with twists and turns like you'd expect from a soundtrack.  There are big guitar solos which I don't love as much, especially at the end where the whole thing becomes a big guitar solo before an epic choir takes us to a single-edit fade out.  I probably couldn't cope with a whole album of this stuff but I'm okay with these few minutes.

Kerrang! Best Of 2005 is a pretty good encapsulation of the music I liked and thought that I ought to like in 2005.  There are a couple of glaring omissions in that there's no My Chemical Romance or System Of A Down, who were two of the biggest Kerrang! bands of that year, and there's only one woman (I remember being into European symphonic metal with operatic female singers to an embarrassing extent at this time).  They got the best song out of the way first and my ratings show exactly what you'd expect of me - I like the pop punk and the bands who grew up listening to Depeche Mode.  I'm glad I don't have to pretend to like Trivium and Avenged Sevenfold any more, but a lot of these songs remind me of specific people, places and moments from 2005 so I can enjoy the memories if not the music.  I'm off to see if Green Day's VH1 Storytellers episode has been uploaded to YouTube. 

Music Review: The Stone Roses

 This week I've picked one of those albums that's considered to be iconic and classic by indie radio stations and men who wish it was still 1995.  It's the self-titled debut and one good album released by The Stone Roses.  This is my dad's vinyl copy - Discogs leads me to believe it's the first pressing - and I think it must have been one of the last LPs he bought before switching to CDs.  As a pretentious indie girl I was thrilled to discover it in his collection. 

A1. I Wanna Be Adored 🔵
We fade in slowly with that well-known bass line ushering us in to the album.  I like this song a lot, it's really chill with its repetitive lyrics and simple chords.  It sounds like a sunny day and I remember the video coming on the big screens at a festival between bands, which felt like the perfect setting.  This is a solid opening statement - what better way to explain your intentions than to name your first song 'I Wanna Be Adored'? 

2. She Bangs The Drums 🔵

Another great bass part to start a good jangly pop song.  It's surprisingly un-laddish when you consider their place in our culture, and actually quite twee.  Again, it's sparse of lyrics but what is there is good, especially "kiss me where the sun don't shine, the past is yours but the future's mine".  It continues to sound like the sort of album you'd listen to in nice weather.

3. Waterfall 🔵
I love the riff that runs through this song - I can imagine it being played at a big outdoor gig to an excited crowd.  The vibe is still chilled out and summery.  The verses are repetitive but the song sounds really pretty.  I do object to the long instrumental break at the end though; this is the first of those on the album but not the last.

4. Don't Stop 🟢

This is just Waterfall played backwards.  It's really weird as an inclusion on the album, I'm not really sure why it's here.  I guess it's a fun experiment but it comes off as being filler material.  It has new lyrics added on top but they've been made to sound as if they're played backwards too and it's coincidental that they still sound like words.  It would have been a good b-side to Waterfall so that they could have put Fools Gold onto the album. 

5. Bye Bye Badman 🟡
The most obvious-sounding tribute to psychedelic-era Beatles on the record, this song isn't really anything special.  Ian Brown puts in so little effort that the vocals are barely comprehensible which I suppose is fair, given that he really cannot sing.  It makes sense that this isn't an indie disco staple like tracks 1-3 are. 

B1. Elizabeth My Dear 🟢
I'm not sure if you can call this a song as it's just a verse that they've lifted from Scarborough Fair and written new lyrics for.  It lasts for less than a minute and there's nothing bad about it, it's just another weird thing to put on the album.

2. (Song For My) Sugar Spun Sister 🟡

For some reason I cannot grasp this song - I've listened to the album a few times and this particular song twice today and I still don't remember what it sounds like.  A combination of Manchester accent and complete lack of singing ability means that the lyrics are pretty difficult to pick up on.  There's twee lyrics again, like "sugar spun sister, candy floss girl" but aside from that it's totally forgettable.

3. Made Of Stone 🔵
And we're back in single territory.  The production on this album is very flat but theoretically this has a big chorus moment.  I like this song, it's catchy at least and the chorus has actually stayed with me.  The guitar solo is soulful and just the right length. 

4. Shoot You Down 🔵
A drum fade-in, then bass, then a nice guitar sound and finally subdued vocals.  It's very 60s, but it's like they're all in different bands: Reni plays jazz drums, Mani adds a Motown bassline, John Squire's guitar part has an easy listening dreaminess to it, and Ian Brown is doing, well, whatever he does.  The band dropping out to have a vocal-only chorus line would sound really good with a competent singer but Brown just mumbles a line tunelessly and that almost ruins the whole thing.  The song teeters on the brink of train-wreck but somehow just manages to sound pleasant.  

5. This Is The One 🟢
The drop out from band to just bass in the intro is exciting.  This song plays with loud and quiet and I really like that, after the muddiness of some of the earlier songs.  The choruses are so quiet that you have to really focus to hear them but luckily they repeat it all louder for ages at the end so the hard of hearing don't miss out.  The band sound like they're having a good time playing this but the repeated "this is the one, this is the one" does get tiresome.  I'm not sure about the little bit of backwards action at the end either.

6. I Am The Resurrection 🟢
These drums mean business - we're gearing up for a big finish.  The vocals are more prominent in this song which might have been a production decision based on the fact that the band actually bothered to write some proper verses.  The structure is odd as they bait us with 3 verses before hitting us with the big chorus; it's cruel but it is a treat to finally get there so it pays off.  After that, though, is the almighty noodling - a loooong instrumental jam where the musicians show off all the skills that they could have brought to the last 10 songs, but mostly didn't.  The false ending midway through this jam is the second cruel trick played during this song.  
It's hard to rate I Am The Resurrection as it's two songs.  I really like the pop song first half, in fact it's one of the best songs on the album, but the jam session is among the most tedious parts so it drags the score down to 'average songs that I like' rather than 'good songs'.  

It surprises me how un-masculine this album sounds, knowing the Brexity beer garden lad fanbase that the band have.  The well-known tracks have become indie standards for a reason - they're the best that were around in the scene in 1989 and paved the way for Britpop or at least Noelrock (ugh).  As a whole though, this album is kind of patchy with some weird decisions in it.  Fools Gold came out 6 months later and knowing that they had the ability to make that indie/dance crossover record, it's interesting that there's none of that here and at this point they're a C86 band establishing their identity.  Do I think this deserves its status as one of the best albums of all time?  Not really.  

Music Review: Simon & Garfunkel's Greatest Hits

 Sometime before I was born, my dad went on holiday to Indonesia and came home with a large collection of cassette tapes.  Some of them are very obvious bootlegs with bizarre tracklistings; for example, there's one Beatles best-of with some unusual choices.  Simon & Garfunkel's Greatest Hits looks pretty legitimate, aside from the off-centre text on the cover and the lack of labelling on the tape itself - it has the CBS logo but nothing to indicate what album it is, and no A/B side label.  As a result, I put the cassette into my mum's old Walkman and ended up listening to the B Side of the cassette first.  

B1. Homeward Bound 🟢
I didn't expect this to be a live album.  It turns out that it isn't - there are four live tracks on it (including this one) and the rest are studio versions, which made me think that this album was not legitimate and had been cobbled together by a bootlegger.  Thanks to Wikipedia though, I know that this is correct and that there is supposed to be a mix of live and studio recordings here.  I'm familiar with Homeward Bound from the Glee cover but I don't know the original song at all.  It's a nice, wistful folk song which I think is their niche.  The pair harmonise well together; they clearly spent a lot of time practising and cared about how their voices meshed.

2. Bridge Over Troubled Water 🟢
This is one of those classic songs that has become a secular hymn over the last 50 years.  It's a very pretty song and I find it tremendously comforting.  The introduction of the bass guitar and vocal harmony in the third verse lifts the song and is really beautiful.  Bridge Over Troubled Water isn't really my style, but it definitely deserves its status as one of the world's most beloved songs. 

3. America 🟢
Compared to the last song this feels much smaller and less anthemic, but it builds up as it progresses.  There's something about the combination of acoustic guitars, soft vocals and intimate, observational lyrics that I find very soothing, even when the chorus features the crash of cymbals.  It was at this point that I realised the album wasn't entirely live - there's a clear cross-fade between the applause at the end of Homeward Bound and the introductory piano of Bridge Over Troubled Water, and I thought it was odd that there was no applause at the end of that song but I now realise that it wasn't a rude audience, just some great editing. 

4. Kathy's Song 🟢
Kathy is mentioned in the previous song so it's nice to have this next.  It's really strange picturing Simon and Garfunkel playing this song in front of a crowd big enough to match the volume of the applause this gets, as it sounds so intimate, like they're in a cramped bedroom rather than a big concert hall.  Their music feels like it would be the perfect soundtrack to a rain afternoon at home. 

5. El Condor Pasa (If I Could) 🟢
This feels very different to the others.  The flutes, drum beat and overall rhythm don't sound as American as their other songs; perhaps Native American but the Spanish title throws me off a bit.  It sounds like music from people who dwell in the mountains, which makes sense given Wikipedia's explanation that it's a cover of an Andean folk song.  It's still very pretty and conjures the same mood as the previous songs despite its sonic differences.

6. Bookends 🟢
I don't like to keep using the same words but 'wistful' feels like the perfect adjective to describe Simon & Garfunkel.  Their sound feels like a college campus in the Autumn with orange leaves falling in the park, people sitting around organising peaceful protests and libraries filled with old books.  The song itself is very short for a 'greatest hit'. 

7. Cecilia 🔵
Cecilia is a real stand-out on the album in that it's upbeat and fast rather than meandering and soothing.  They're still using acoustic guitars but there's a catchy, almost reggae sounding chorus.  Knowing that Paul Simon would go on to make Graceland feels logical after Cecilia as it feels like here, the pair are looking out from their small Autumn campus into the rest of the world to see if there's anything they like. 

A1. Mrs Robinson 🔵
I've liked this song ever since I heard Busted's cover of it when I was young.  This original version is a lot less rocking than that but hearing the intro still puts a big smile on my face.  The pair's guitar parts intertwining with the bass and bongos creates a really pleasant sound.  I love the little Beatles reference and mention of Joe DiMaggio - the song works as a comment on the culture of the era.

2. For Emily, Wherever I May Find Her 🟢
The first live track on this side.  It's really dreamy and romantic, and again, wistful.  Their love songs always seem to be in the past tense rather than an expression of emotion to a current lover.

3. The Boxer 🟢
Is that brass that comes in on verse 2?  It's hard to tell on cassette what exactly it is that I'm hearing but it's very effective.  The use of stereo sound is really great on this song - I'm listening on headphones since the tape deck on my hi-fi is broken and I think they're doing it more justice than my dodgy hi-fi speakers ever could.  There are so many interesting things going on in my left and right ears that I've not been able to pay attention to the lyrics.  The song is over 5 minutes long which is a lot compared to the rest of the tape - the end part itself is longer than some of the other songs so I got a bit bored of that.

4. The 59th Street Bridge Song (Feelin' Groovy) 🔵
This is a very sweet little song!  It's hippy beatnik folk music and very cute.  The audience sounded really thrilled when they started playing it, as if it was an unexpected surprise for them. 

5. The Sound Of Silence 🔵
Another iconic song of theirs.  It's the most melancholy of their greatest hits, and another that builds up momentum verse-on-verse.  I feel like their music is very 'New York' with references to subway cars and neon gods.  Their vocals aren't always in perfect time with the music in this song and I love that.

6. I Am A Rock 🔵
Vocals in one ear, guitar in the other - another effective use of stereo.  This is almost a rock song with a country rhythm, it's much less delicate than the others with a lower vocal register.  Despite that, it doesn't lose intimacy and still feels very personal.

7. Scarborough Fair/Canticle 🟢
The folkiest song on the album, coming from a traditional piece.  The vocal harmonies and counterpoint make it haunting to listen to.  It's another song where they employ the technique of adding more parts with every verse to stunning effect - additional vocals, guitar parts... and then they drop away again to close.  It sounds lovely.

Simon & Garfunkel make the kind of music that I can only really imagine playing at home on my own; I can't picture them sounding right on my commute and I wouldn't want to sing along with them in the shower.  That said, I find their songs very soothing and comforting so I would definitely say that I like them and will probably add some more of their songs to my Spotify playlists.

One last thing about the legitimacy of the tape - I'm not sure where they got the cover photo but it should be this much more well-known image...