Similar to Rjd2'sThe Third Hand, Roots & Echoes has been frequently on the turntable in autumn 2007. And I literally mean "turntable" this time, as there was no way of avoiding The Coral whenever I went out to listen and dance to great records. All of The Coral's albums have their great moments and when I heard the band at clubs or bars, it was not even that likely I would get to hear a song from their latest record. But I have chosen this one as my favourite because it is the one I have listened to most frequently. Plus Who's Gonna Find Me definitely is one of the songs of the year for me, and it is on this album. But then again, I only discovered Dreaming Of You (from The Coral) this year, and it should have been inside my heart and head from 2002 on. But maybe I would not have been ready for this sixties-influenced, bright and shining pop/rock music back then, I think I was listening to quite different stuff then. That is why I'd rather have the latest record as my favourite in this list, but all the others are great, too. Anyway, Rjd2 and The Coral is what I have been listening to heavily over the past few months, and to be honest, maybe this is one of the reason they ended up so high in the ranking. For the records that you listened to in the first half of the year may not be in your short-time memory when you are compiling the list, and the ones that you found out about by the very end of the year may be to fresh to really mean something to you. You will soon see how I tried to overcome this problem in my number one.
I have written about this one here. It is still hard to believe I read about this record in a hiphop magazine first. But yeah, Rdj2 used to be a hiphop sampling dj once. With this record, he has created something more atmospheric, more dreamy, more melodic. This has been the soundtrack for my autumn this year. I used to listen to this one all of september when I was riding my bike. It is a bit of a twisted record, I find it very hard to add "labels" to it. But unlike last time I wrote about this record, there is now something I can give you to hear. Please have a look and listen at Work It Out, which represents the feel of the album very well, I think. It may sound repetitive when you've only listened to it once, but If you give it a few more tries you will realise there is a lot going on in the song.
Rjd2, by the way, is not the guy with the crutches, but, among others, the guy in the blue/white checked shirt following him at the beginning.
04 THE CLASH: THE CLASH(1977), LONDON CALLING (1979)
2007 brought me lots of new musical styles to listen to, and punk rock certainly is a very influential one. I always knew about The Clash, but never paid attention to their music until I went to Britain. When I was there, The documentary about Joe Strummer, The Future Is Unwritten, was in the cinemas. I only saw the film after I got back to Berlin, but the big fuzz that was made about it was something I couldn't escape from. One day I heard Rock The Casbah on the local uni radio station. It's a song I had known before but didn't know which band it was from. I also hadn't heard it for a long time, so it was kind of like discovering it for the first time - this wild, energetic, yet bright and jingly song. I then started to listen to lots of stuff from The Clash, that's why I cannot really choose one particular album to put here in the list. There are lots of Clash-classics, and most of them are on these two records: Janie Jones, White Riot, Career Opportunities, Garageland on The Clash and London Calling and Guns of Brixton on London Calling. I also got some dvds abouth The Clash from the local library in Manchester. The band was everywhere this year, I even ended up in their local pub in Camden one evening when I was in London - and it was not at all intentional, nor something I knew when I got there. I only found out a lot later. Just like I found out how great this band is very late.
On we go in the new year with old music. This record contains songs from the 60s, all covered by the band The Detroit Cobras. I like that all songs are really powerful, even the slow, sad ones. I read about this record in a music magazine, and the description sounded so tempting I just had to listen to it! I didnt like everything on it at first, only my first favourite song: Only To Other People. I liked it so much that I have the whole album some more spins. It took a bit of time, but now I like it very much. It also quite well represents what kkind of music I particularly listened to this year: energetic, good , loud, and rather often with interesting female singers.
I rarely listened to the record in a whole, I must admit. Rank 7 is more about certain songs that mean so much to me. This entry is mostly about Care Of Cell 44, about Leave Me Be, Time Of The Season, This Will Be Our Year - songs that are so important for me this year, that the whole record had to make it onto the list. Yet this is all about The Zombies as well, because these songs stand for their sound in general, their music, which I find incredibly good this year. When I discovered Leave Me Be, it was another of these instances when I fell in love with a voice. I was in a state of mind when I could literally feel the sadness this song emerged from. Later I heard Time Of The Season, which is so different from Leave Me Be - a bright song about happyness and love. After that, it took a while until I got the record. I got the new 30th anniversary edition as a present. It's a nice records, because everything a Zombies-newbee needs to have from the band is on there. And I love most of the record very much, songs like This Will Be Our Year (which it was!), Brief Candles and Maybe After He's Gone. They are all fantastic, but none of them can quite shake me as much as this one song does: Care Of Cell 44. It's a long story behind this one. It's about me...
The Bishops stand for all the great rhythm'n'blues and beat music I discovered this year. This is a fresh young band from London who just represent this great hard 60's sound and style so very well. A records that pushes you and makes you jump up and dance! I love their energy, and I am also very much into their sophisticated stylishness. Okay, I am repeating myself. I like the band for how they combine dramatic lyrics that actually say something sad(The Only Place That I Can Look Is Down or Will You Ever Come Back To Me) with very danceable beat music. The Bishops are just one of the many many many recommendations that, ironically, came from all the way home to make my time in Manchester. I was told to go to their gig. I had the chance to see them both in Manchester and, later, in Berlin. But both times, it was not destined to happen. May I get a another chance? This probably depends on what's going to happen next with the band. Let's hope they keep it up!
This years' list is gonna give a lot of reference to the time I spent in Britain. Being in the country of music for five months, and spending almost all the time in the city of music (I am talking about Manchester) does of course have some nice effects. I had great experiences there and some of them had loosely or tightly to do with Little Man Tate.
The first time I heard about them was last year, in autumn 2006. Back then I went to a Peter, Björn & John gig in Berlin where they were touring with Little Man Tate. But I had no clue who they were and so we missed the show. But things that are destined to happen simply happen! In Manchester I had lots of opportunities to gain as much from the musical atmosphere there as possible. This included going to clubs and record stores (Manchester's Oldham Street has a larger number of record stores than any other street or area in Britain), namely The Roadhouse (venue) and Picadilly Records (store). And one day on myspace I got a bulletin saying the Little Man Tate were doing a few free gigs in Britain to promote the release of their new single. The gig was in the Eastern holidays, and they were giving out tickets in Picadilly Records on a specific date. By then, I had become very interested in the band because of their great rock music and their smart titles like Man I Hate Your Band. So I rushed to shop right in the morning to make sure I got two tickets - as a special surprise for someone special who was gonna spend the holidays with me. The gig was great. And I mean not only the band, who were rather tired (you could tell by the voice of the singer that they had been touring the continent) but still put on a great show. For me it was also fantastic to observe the audience - lots of Brits, weird guys who were into stage diving and partying hard. And they adored the band. The atmosphere was very much alive.
The record, About What You Know, also brings back lots of memories of things that I experienced, which could only have happened in Britain. I went to a big house party, were two hundred people squeezed themselves into a living room to see Foals play for free, and everything I hear House Party At Boothys I can't help but thinking of that. In most party of the album, the lyrics just refer to specific things I have seen that are part of the British culture. I am failing to properly describe this here, let's just say that it's great Britrock, and with this records I feel like I listened to it from a British point-of-view, not as someone who hears it and has to wonder what it is like to know all this. Cause this time I know!
This one is so fresh (for me) it could be a regular blog entry. I Listened to it very few times so far. Already it is bringing back lots of the good feelings hiphop used to give me some years ago. Danger Dooms voice is very charismatic, a bit mysterious and it gives me so much pleasure listening to what he has got to say. And he has got something to say. And finally, someone in the rap scene who has got the nerve to have some humour. When I had my hiphop phase, 6 or 7 years ago, I admired the mcs for being able to articulate so many many interesting thoughts in one song, and sometimes telling great stories. Then I felt new school had nothing important to say anymore, apart from a few valuable artists like The Roots or Common. The best hiphop, for me, is what groups like The Pharcyde or A Tribe Called Quest used to do in the early nineties. And The Mouse and The Mask very much sounds like that. Hello rap music, In casef there's more we're-ina-a-good-mood-and-can-also-have-aluagh-about-ourselves like that, I wanna be friends again!
The end of december is the time when people go crazy for making lists. lists they wish for christmas, lists of things to do next year and, of course, lists of great stuff of this year. I am no different and just like last year, again I am going to make a list of ten records I discovered in 2007. They have not all been relased this year, but this is the year I discovered them and these ten records quite well sum up what has been going on this year.
Picking my 10 fave albums of 2007 was not difficult at all. But I am still working on the ranking. Whatever, in the next few days till new year I am going to look back on my year 2007 and write a bit about the most fantastic albums that accompanied me through it.
I may possibly be the last person on earth to fall in love with Amy Winehouse's music. It had been suggested a few times before by friends, who all said that "that's quite the music you'll like". So I gave her stuff a try. And I hated her guts. I called her voice the "voice of a duck being minced through a meatgrinder." That's a really bad thing to say. I am honestly sorry, Amy. I love your music. I adore your voice. I love your beats, and melodies. I appreciate the fact that you dress and style just like you want to. I admire your frank and open lyrics. I've been listening to them a lot recently. There was no avoiding Amy after I started working for a company which provided its staff with music at work. And while I was doing my chores her songs just slowly crept into my brain until I was able to distungish them from each other (there are three I heard, You Know I'm No Good, Back To Black and My Tears Dry On Their Own). I learned to recognise the beats and within the first few seconds of a track I could tell there was an Amy Winehouse song coming up. I was a bit afraid of listening to the Back To Black record at home because I thought "what if I get used to it to quickly and then I can't stand hearing it at work anymore?". But I was just way too curious to not find out what the other stuff sounds like. And I love everything.
Amy Winehouse's songs are modern classics. The love with which they are made, the uniqueness of the power she puts into them.. I hear Amy Winehouse is not too well these days. I hope she will make it and stay a fascinating personality. But no matter with how many more records she'll eventually come up with, I predict that Back To Black will be a classic, something to appear on the top of all-time hit lists in fourty years, a record people will discover and listen to in a long while. Because It's timeless. So I guess I am not too late, I'm still right on time!
It's been two weeks since I announced a post about The Coral. In these two weeks I've been listening to them extensively and a whole range of phantasies and thoughts have come up to be shared with you. The first time I actively listened to them was a few weeks ago, it was their album Magic & Medicine, their second one, released in 2003. I found it good enough to become excited when I got their first one, The Coral, as a present. I really liked Magic & Medicine, but had only listened to it twice or so. That's why the debut album was a bit of a disappointment for me then, I was rather interested in discovering Magic & Medicine a bit further than being introduced to something that sounded different. However, everything about The Coral became interesting for me again very recently with their current single Who's Gonna Find Me, an absolutely smashing piece of music. This is the song I have briefly written about in the last post, the video is embedded there as well, but to keep this post complete, here it is again:
This song just got what I'm looking for at the moment - a northern soul beat, great guitars and an extraordinarily good pop melody. Plus it represents one of the singers great gifts: He really can sing! It's not the voice that much this time that makes me crazy. Okay, the voice is distinct and clear (two things I really like), but there's so much more. The strength, the skills! No note is missed and you can hear this guy loving what he does.
With Who's Gonna Find Me blowing my mind away like that I just had to get the record - their fifth, entitled Roots & Echoes. The other songs got less tempo than this single, but still they manage to create a certain magic. I'm gonna write about one particular song here, which to me kinde represents the whole record and what I feel could be the idea behind it. The song is called She's Got A Reason, and can be listened to on The Coral's myspace.
The lyrics are, as far as I understand the song, about a woman in demand, a woman searching for something. She is restless and wanders around:
"...she soaked to the bone the roads she walks on well it won't lead her home"
But there is more to it:
"the princess and kings all the beautiful things and more
she won't wait she'll never look back through the fog the mirrors have cracked ... watch her go and she sings dum dum da da da daaaa"
I can't help but thinking of fairy tales here. Is she like a modern Snow White, a princess who lost all her love, the mirror's cracked and now she is walking through the woods. But if it is so, I think this version of Snow White got a clue about what's going on. She's not really lost, she knows that the road she follows does not lead her back home, but to somewhere else, a place were it can only be better, because anything would be better than being home, "a place where she cries", just like in the fairy tale.
This is my idea of the theme of the song, and I apply it to all the other songs on the record. The topics, I think, are quite similar to this one. "Snow White", or the girl in She's Got A Reason, leaves home because she is rejected by someone. So is the character in the songs Remember Me. In Put The Sun Back we can hear about a relationship that is about to fall apart - it's a last cry for help, to avoid rejection. Rebecca You is not at all this hopeful anymore. Jacqueline went away already, and the song Cobwebs is about reflecting what went wrong with oneself. However, there are lots of strong moments in the lyrics, like in Fireflies, when he sings
"you won't see me cry".
Fireflies also has one of the nicest lines I've heard since Martin Newell's Julie Profumo, I mean as a reflection of my attitude on life. When Martin Newell sings
"take you with me if you're going that way"
you got
"wherever I'm going that's where I belong"
in this one. Just like Snow White is leaving to find a new and better home. And she lived happily ever after.
There's loads more to The Coral, but I can't possibly pack it all into one post. Part II coming up soon! You'll be reading about how I found my love for their first record The Coral and how I ended up hearing Dreaming Of You three times in a row three times a day.
It was about time for me to like a record so much I feel it is worth being recommend. My new favourite album is RJD2'sThe Third Hand.
Well, as far as I know RJD2 has released quite few records so far, and I know him has a hip hop sampling dj. However, the new record quite blew me away because it combines a number of styles. What drove me to listen to it was a review I read that stated something like "RJD2 seems to be more relying on psychedelic and the beatles here than on hip hop beats." And damn right this is! The first song and, as far as I know, new single you never had it so good is based on piano chords. The second one, have mercy, is extremly funky. I find the lyrics quite amusing, as they remind me of German train workers being on strike recently:
Oh my goodness I've been waiting for a train all morning Lord Allmighty I got a downtown shot to get to Oh please I got no car to bring me ... Lord have mercy have mercy have mercy on these old fools Lord have mercy have mercy have mercy 'cos I won't do
Probbaly not what RJD2 wanted to say, but nevermind. Same goes for laws of the gods, which sounds like a angry girl's revenge on her ex-boyfriend:
Oh lazy man you broke the laws of the gods ... don't come home for a week
Enough interpretations...I discovered this record just three days ago, and already came up with some weird conclusions. One suddenly hit me this morning when I listened to the record in the queue at the post office: The thing is, one of my favorite songs so far is sweet piece. The chorus just appeals to me very much, and now I think I know why: May I be so presumptuous to claim it's like the electro hymn George Michael has not been writing recently? "Not him again again" I hear you scream, but listen for yourself. It's electronic, a soft electronica, it's about unaknowledged love or misconceptions on love, and his voice sounds so, well, like George Michael.
Likewise noteworthy: rules has perfect bonds to good old triphop and someday is played with an acoustic guitar. Not quite your average hiphop dj, ey?
We are now coming to the sadder part of this blog. What ever happened to radioblogclub? Is it just me or is it gone, making room for a page full of advertisement? What happened to all the radioblogclub links I put on this blog?
Not all the songs I mentioned are available there, but do try and listen to RJD2 on his myspace.
You are about to listen to something plainly beautiful. Nicole Willis and the Soul Investigators' album Keep Reachin' Up. The incredients are quite extraordinary, though:
This is Northern Soul, somehow. But it is from "the other north": Finland.
This was not released in 1966. It was produced in 2006.
Apparently the band won every soul award there is last year. Not only for the great music, but surely also because everybody was so excited about the fact that there is a bunch of young people making a record full of kitchen soul. It was about time.
it was about time i posted my number one record of 2006. midlake have been written about in this blog twice already: here, and here. i cannot do anything else but recommend them. this record was the soundtrack to my summer, fall and winter. listen to them on myspace. and go out and buy the record. enough said, words cannot descrive this, anyway.
plus: lots of videos by user worldsfair on youtube.
This may sound utterly stupid to some people, but after going through some "official" 2006-top-album lists I realized that there is only one record that came out this year that I was spinning more than a few times, and that is "St. Elsewhere" by Gnarls Barkley. Oh, I love that one. Playful, sloppy beats mixed with lyrics that are great and sound like they have been written five minutes before the actual recording started. Since my sister already covered that one I won't write any more about it.
(I actually had some other records in mind but had to realize they all came out 2005).
I didn't like The Knife (actually had a small discussion with TBA about it, somehow I can't get into those cold electronics done by the people up north, just doesnt appeal to me), I am utterly bored with todays (Indy)-Rock music (I rather listen to some 60s/70s beat/rock/psych/prog, for me thats the real deal), I still can't get a finger on that (probably non-existing) phenomena called "Disco-Punk" and HipHop remained either the disgusting sexistic bullshit or the boring, uncreative intro-sampling "take a hit, make a hit"-shit it has been for a while now.
But basically in 2006 I just unplugged from modern music even more. I guess I did miss some great stuff because no-one told me about or I simply refused to listen (TBA is still trying all the time, hehe), but I was occupied with other music. I spent my year listening to more of the 60s and 70s, jazz, soundtracks, disco, got alot of those old eastern-european records I love so much (jazz, funk, pop, you name it) and really started to get more into classic and contemporary classic music (like with synths and stuff, from the (you guessed it) 70s).
I really don't know if it's true what someone told me a few days ago in a bar, that art in general literally came to a standstill in the past years, lets see what the new 2007 brings. But one of the reasons why I love 60s/70s music in general so much is simply the fact that back then all those musicians gathered together in a studio and started playing together whereas today with computers and stuff nearly all music, even the classic "band-on-stage" rock music gets recorded with each member of the band playing their parts alone in the studio, often recorded in "takes" and then cut and looped and modified to "fit". The magic of musicians interacting and playing together and with each other just isn't happening anymore. I don't know any recent tracks that made me listen closely to the way the bass-player in the background suddenly starts freaking out during the bridge (stiletto main theme), the way the drummer keeps varying his breaks all trough the song (warren schatz - "I need your smile") and I don't the goosebumps I get when in some 70s Bert Kaempfert song suddenly a string quartet starts playing some incredibly emotional chords. Maybe I am getting old. Sigh.
the get carter soundtrack, written by the film composer roy budd, was given to me by my brother in 2005 already. i enjoyed it from the start, but grew to love it even more in 2006. this is 70's jazz music, becoming very groovy at times. the record is a mix of calm, quiet tracks which sometimes have a psychedelic twist to them, and loud danceable funk songs, often with female vocals. it's hard finding videos for this one, but i'll drop in some wherever i can.
for a roy budd bio, i had to check allmusic.com, because i didnt know anything about him. well, apparently he was somewhat of a musical prodigy, teaching himself how to play the piano by ear before the age of six and started to work as a full-time professional musician when he was 16. most of the records he did were scores. allmusic says that get carter was his most-appreciated one.
the opening sequence of the movie with the opening theme gives a good idea of how roy budd's music sounds:
in case you find the music a bit too lame, keep in mind that the whole score was written to fulfil the purpose of accompanying the pictures. in the end of the video, you can hear a very short bit of looking for someone, another track of this album.
as i said before, the record can be divided into what could be "regular" tracks and what are called "themes". the main title theme, get carter, appears quite a few times throughout the cd. the intro itself is a version of it, too.
you can listen to the main version here:
i guess that this is one of the things i really like about this record: it's not a bundle of individual songs that you listen to in a row. instead, you got themes popping up again now and then like reccurring ideas, or different strings of a movie plot. also worth mentioning is that the theme songs are by no means shorter than the other ones, which makes get carter quite a long-lasting experience.
and here's how the "classical" songs work:
one of my favourite songs is getting nowhere in a hurry. you can listen to it on myspace. in fact, all four tracks on the profile page are from the get carter soundtrack.
my definite number one track hallucinations i couldnt find anywhere, though. there is an okay remix version made for this youtube video:
it gets quite close to the original idea of the song, but unfortunately it is based on the instrumental. the vocal track underlines the structure of the song, makes it even more dreamy and weary. imaging these lines sung over the music slowly, very carefully:
"hallucinations strange sensations hallucinations mind creation why do i, why do i try to fly to the sky
hallucinations send me drifting ... what i feel isn't real am i lost? double-crossed
earth, sea, sun, sky the world beneath my feet slipping by"
the animal five is not really a full album, rather an ep, with six songs on it. not bad to have such a short record, after all this meant i could listen to it even more often! to start your very first release with a song line like "you keep on begging for more" is a very posh thing to do. may i be reminded of oasis' debut phrase "tonight i'm a rock'n'roll star". but naming it spareparts instead of rock'n'roll star gives the whole thing an ironic twist (given that my assumption on an oasis-animal five connection is there at all, which obviously isn't very likely). how humble to ask for "only spareparts". this first song has what defines the animal five for me: melodies, a crazy singer, and the energy to really play with the guitars.
this one, sharks, was released as a single. i really like it, but the cream of the crop is the next one, sonic sea. you can listen to it on the animal five's myspace page. i can't really explain why, but it just moves me. is it because of the viking-esque male choir? or how the singer martin von inghardt squeezes so many lyrics in so little notes. or the fact that i interpret it as a song about music? what do you think? look for the answer here
i am waiting for the day when i'll hear pixiedust included in a dj set. it should get every indie kid on the dancefloor, when lyrically it's already hinting at next day's hangover. i've praised i love myself for hating you as "song title 2006" before, and now it officially gets the award. and i couldn't conclude this review any better than with the song title of the last track: live fast die old. listen to it, it's over, listen to it again, it never gets old.
btw: i was told the animal five got their name because the rolling stones mentioned them as one of their favourite bands, back then in the 60s or so. and well, the stones are not in this years' list, so guess which band i think is better..
'oooh, cocorosie...' seems to be the normal reaction from everyone who has heard their music. cocorosie wrap you in their music, they put you in a dreamy state and make you feel dizzy and stoned without drugs. when i listened to them, i wondered how someone could come up with music as fragile as this and yet be so strong and humourous. i wondered why there had been a time in my life when i disliked female voices and it's own sensuous touch. cocorosie's songs are like carefully constructed swings that look instable, but when you ride them you can reach heights you never reached before. their fragileness and the open-hearted lyrics actually prevent vulnerability. the vulnerability i would have expected from girls making music like this. to the songs: by your side is a perfect example of what i like about cocorosie. you've got this sporadic, yet unignorable beat, a beautiful melody and lots of extra sounds. squeaks, clangs, chirps with a voice like glass. yet the lyrics are far away from being naive schoolgirls' dreams, are rather extremely ironic:
"i'll be the best girl you'd ever meet and for a diamond ring i'll do these kinds of things i'll scrub your floor never be a bore i'd tuck you in i do not snore i'd wear your black eyes bake you apple pies i won't ask whys and i try not to cry i'll always be by your side even when you're down and out i'll always be by your side even when you're down and out and its nearly midnight and all i want with my life is to be a housewife"
not convinced yet? how about these lyrics from jesus loves me:
"jesus loves me but not my wife not my nigger friends or their nigger lives but jesus loves me dat for sure 'cause the bible tell me so"
(nevermind the video, i don't think it is an official one)
unbelievable that this record was released in 1981. it sounds so fresh. hiphop beats, a female rapper, sing-along melodies. this is a good mood record, a well-made one. a friend and i honestly thought about forming a pop-group when we listened to this record. if we made music, it should sounds like this, we decided. the record hits you already with the intro of the first song, wordy rappinghood, a rant about communication. 'ramta tamtam ramtamtam...' ignore the video, the audience's clapping and the host's stupid words (!) and enjoy how the singer emphasises the lyrics:
genius of love conveys the impression of being really badly produced. the whole songs sounds low-fi and not well mixed. yet it is very inventive, there is so much going on in this song.
wordy rappinghood and genius of love may be the two catchiest songs, but the rest of the album is similar. tom tom club is the kind of stuff that you need before you go out or when you party at home. sounds like i had a lot of parties this year. ;)
i got into jens lekman because pocketful of money was on a mixtape i got. I didn't instantly recognise this song's beauty, but one day at work it totally hit me. I had to press play again and lekman's gorgeous voice filled the shop with warmth. Then the girl who had made the mixtape for me and i discussed him. So here come the (very random) facts: jens lekman, living in göteborg, sweden, 25 years of age, loves music and travelling, gives away his music for free on his website, keeps a blog about music that outshines this one here. jens lekman and i had a short flirt this summer, but recently i put his record on again, and i think it is one of those that you don't listen to regularly, but will come back to every once in a while for a very long time. Read more here where i wrote about him before.
