love

Author Topic: Sam Makes a Favorite Albums List  (Read 6844 times)

Sam the Cinema Snob

  • Objectively Awesome
  • ******
  • Posts: 26795
Re: Sam Makes a Favorite Albums List
« Reply #30 on: July 21, 2013, 01:31:28 PM »
So you might see why this album is so powerful to me.  It is an album version of the book of Ecclesiastes, in a sense.  Powerful.
I just heard a this morning on Ecclesiastes. Pink Floyd's Time was mentioned.  ;D

Sam the Cinema Snob

  • Objectively Awesome
  • ******
  • Posts: 26795
Re: Sam Makes a Favorite Albums List
« Reply #31 on: July 23, 2013, 02:09:56 PM »
Jupiter One – Sunshower (2008) [From Bondo’s Recommendation]

Oh, indie rock, how fickle I am about you. It’s not necessarily that I think it’s bad music, just that it’s not music that usually does much for me. For every indie rock album that clicks for me, there are about 10 that don’t work at all. Sunshower falls a bit in the middle ground for me. It works half of the time.

Starting off, Volcano and Lights Go Out fall into that really generic indie rock sound to me. They’re not bad songs, they just come across as bland to my ears. However, then Flaming Arrow comes along and it’s a nice, melodic song that I quite like as is Made in a Day. The album falls into a bit more of a quieter groove, and I like it.

Then Anna comes along, a super fun, upbeat song that is easily my favorite of the bunch. It’s got a great tempo and for one time in the album, the lyrics really caught my attention. The rest of the time, I felt like the ideas of the songs were a bit too basic or just didn’t do anything for me.

Bondo recommends this based on the proggy vibes and I pick up some of that. I’m not saying prog is the only genre that uses flutes, but hearing them in High Plains Drifer Finds the Oracle at Delphi and Strange Teacher certainly felt like something you’d hear in a prog album. Also, Simple Stones reminds me a bit of some of King Crimson’s quieter songs.

After that, the rest of the albums is just there. It’s not quite as blandly indie to my ears as the opening couple of songs, but the last three didn’t make much of an impression and felt like they lost the energy and tone of the album, at least for me.

Overall, it’s a decent album, people should definitely listen to Anna as it’s a great little tune, but it’s one that exists on the fringe of my personal music tastes so it won’t be making the final list.

Bondo

  • Objectively Awesome
  • ******
  • Posts: 23082
Re: Sam Makes a Favorite Albums List
« Reply #32 on: July 23, 2013, 05:03:11 PM »
I don't disagree with much of that. The first two are somewhat more generic (though since I like generic indie, they work for me), though with decent hooks as these things go. Anna is certainly one of my favorites too. The one song you didn't mention that I like particularly is Find Me A Place.

I would agree that the last 2-3 songs kind of slacks off (though I have a Bonus Track version that includes Sweat Out The Devil which I like a lot too, so that helps pick it up at the end.

oldkid

  • Objectively Awesome
  • ******
  • Posts: 19044
  • Hi there! Feed me worlds!
Re: Sam Makes a Favorite Albums List
« Reply #33 on: July 23, 2013, 11:50:17 PM »
So you might see why this album is so powerful to me.  It is an album version of the book of Ecclesiastes, in a sense.  Powerful.
I just heard a this morning on Ecclesiastes. Pink Floyd's Time was mentioned.  ;D

God is speaking to you about Pink Floyd, clearly. ;)
"It's not art unless it has the potential to be a disaster." Bansky

Sam the Cinema Snob

  • Objectively Awesome
  • ******
  • Posts: 26795
Re: Sam Makes a Favorite Albums List
« Reply #34 on: July 24, 2013, 03:38:51 PM »
King Crimson – In the Court of the Crimson King (1969) [From Favorites]

21st Century Schizoid Man-The heavy brass, the screeching guitars, the  way the song changes speeds and effortlessly brings in and drops instruments collates into a piece that knocked my socks of and just made a lot of what I listened to before I heard this feel lazy. This song might actually be a bit too showy, but I can’t help but smile with the audacity it packs into seven and a half minutes.

After this bombastic opening, the album transition’s into the contemplative song I Talk to the Wind. The song opens and closes with flutes, which sets this as the antithesis of what you’ve just heard. It’s soothing, calm and pensive. The lyrics are also a bit more fluid than the much more jagged and raw lyrics of the previous track. Speaking of the lyrics, this is probably one of my favorite turn of words in any song:

You don't possess me
Don't impress me
Just upset my mind
Can't instruct me or conduct me
Just use up my time

Epitaph-I always find this song a powerhouse of emotion. Musically it’s caught between the world-weary tone of I Talk to the Wind and the urgency of 21st Century Schizoid Man. It’s a chilling lament on death and what we lose when people are no longer with us. As the song aptly puts, in the wake of death, there is confusion. There’s a glimmer of hope, but the expectation that this weight will continue tomorrow, that the fear and horror of death will loom over us until it finally reaches us.

Moonchild-Once again, the album subdues itself even more. Moonchild is probably not a song you can just listen to in your car or in a room with other people because of how soft it is. You need some quiet, or a good pair of headphones. The first couple of minutes are a beautiful little song that evolves into this playful extended instrumental piece. When it goes out to space for 10 minutes, I know some people find it overlong. But with the right sound setup, I find it soothing to float away with the notes. I know some versions cut down how long this section is, because it probably is too long.

The Court of the Crimson King-Probably the weakest piece on the album, but still a fantastic one. In contrast to the other tracks, this one tries to convey more of a place and a story and also meld all the various sounds of the album together into a finale. I think it’s fantastic, but the lyrics with the narrative slant just don’t have the resonance of the other songs for me.

This album was a game-changer for me when I listened to it, the gateway drug into the pretentious, overblown world of progressive rock. More than anything else, this album makes me appreciate the sheer ambition of the genre. While other genres seem to fully form and just hang around until they fragmented every which way as the decades rolled by, here were people legitimately trying to evolve what rock is and what it could do. It doesn’t always work, I think a lot of people who aren’t me see it as a failure, but I’ll still push for the greatness of this album regardless of what you think of the genre.

1SO

  • FAB
  • Objectively Awesome
  • ******
  • Posts: 36129
  • Marathon Man
Re: Sam Makes a Favorite Albums List
« Reply #35 on: August 21, 2013, 03:21:31 PM »
How long do you think till the next review.

Sam the Cinema Snob

  • Objectively Awesome
  • ******
  • Posts: 26795
Re: Sam Makes a Favorite Albums List
« Reply #36 on: August 21, 2013, 03:24:34 PM »
I was hoping to get something else out yesterday, but stuff keeps coming up. I'll try to get something out by the end of the week.

Sam the Cinema Snob

  • Objectively Awesome
  • ******
  • Posts: 26795
Re: Sam Makes a Favorite Albums List
« Reply #37 on: August 22, 2013, 03:25:30 PM »
XTC – Nonsuch (1992) [From ¡Keith!’s Recommendation]

The first thing that grabbed me about this album was Andy Partridge’s voice. He has one of those voices that feels like it soaks in notes, lingers over them instead of just hitting and running through them. Part of it is certainly the pace of the album, but his voice certainly helps enhance that flow. I think Humble Daisy is a good example of that.

Peter Pumkinhead is a fun opening track that reminds me a bit of how Genesis would sing about fairy tale stories. The sound is certainly different here, though. I love the chill bass line on My Bird Performs. I think it epitomizes the overall feel of the album as something that certainly has some heft to it, but is a more relaxed experience. It’s the kind of album I could see someone listening to at the end of a long day.

There are a lot of smart lyrics in this album. The opening bit of The Smartest Monkeys is delightfully biting commentary on human “progress:”

Well, man created the cardboard box to sleep in it
And man converted the newspaper to a blanket
Well, you have to admit that he's come a long way
Since swinging about in the trees

And Omnibus has these fun little bits in their verses that made me laugh:

Ain't nothing in the world like a white skinned girl
Make your Union Jack and make your flag unfurl…
…Ain't nothing in the world like a black skinned girl
Make your Shakespeare hard and make your oyster pearl

Yea, you get the picture.

Rook is the track I liked the most. I love the bitterness of Andy’s voice in this track and when coupled with the pensive lyrics, it’s probably the most moving track on the album. Also, I love the piano in this track.

This was a good recommendation. In a certain mood, I might return to it and there are certainly a few tracks on here that I thought were excellent.

¡Keith!

  • Objectively Awesome
  • ******
  • Posts: 26774
  • Bitch, I been around since LimeWire.
Re: Sam Makes a Favorite Albums List
« Reply #38 on: August 24, 2013, 12:30:11 AM »
Awesome! Glad you liked it. They have quite a few sets that get raves (Skylarking, Drums & Wires, Black Sea) but Nonsuch is definitely tops for me.

Sam the Cinema Snob

  • Objectively Awesome
  • ******
  • Posts: 26795
Re: Sam Makes a Favorite Albums List
« Reply #39 on: March 28, 2014, 10:36:22 PM »
It's been months. Will this thread return? Only God knows.

Or maybe a college dropout. ;)

 

love