Listen to an album you've never heard by an artist you never listen to and then tell us about it!

Burl Ives ftw

Does Sandy Denny count as one of those?

Absolutely, categorically NO!

Brit folk is a different animal and I love Sandy Denny

I don't know any of those American folk artists, never been interested in them, it's all a bit too Pete Seeger.

Most of the folk music I don't like is from the "folk revival" school, where there was this fairly deliberate and didactic effort to stitch together an "American folk music" with political undertones. Most of that music is unfortunately boring and dreary.

In honor of unperson...

Dio - Holy Diver (2022 Remaster)

First track has pretty good riffs! And ridiculous vox! ("You've got the Pow-AH! You are the Fiy-AH!"). The driving pace and lack of dynamics are wearying on my ears...

Track 2 (the title track) is cooler... more Sabbath-like(?) The vocals are also easier to take; more in the realm of what I think of as standard hard-rock vocals of the era, whatever that is (note: I don't know exactly when this album was first released, I didn't look it up before listening). The drum fills are kinda funny... hard not to picture Spinal Tap in my mind's eye. Nice solo! "Ride the tiger / You can see his sweat, but you know he's clean" is a good couplet.

Track 3 ("Gypsy") is kinda G'NR like? The vox remind me more of AC/DC this time around. I like the slightly heavier "bottom" on this number (big bottom, my gal's got 'em)... The solo is somewhat dirtier, I dig that too.

"Caught in the Middle" – best groove yet! It actually swings. I like the verse melody, too... anthemic, with a clean vocal. I dig the whole approach (guess it's "poppier" than the others?). I turned up the volume on this song.

"Don't Talk to Strangers" – LOL at the opening whisper. This mid-tempo power ballad is clearly a sensitive warning to us a––oh shit, it's kicking into gear! Yeah, throw the horns up!

"Straight Through the Heart" – another big bottom. I like the "space" in the arrangement when everything drops out but the drums. Nice riffage in the chorus.

The rest was ok, I kind of lost interest...

when post punk, hardcore and college rock evolved towards what came to be known as "indie rock," it was an activity that scions of fancy upper crust families could by the mid 80s pursue, and I don't think that occurred in any american musical idiom beforehand, although somebody please gimme some examples other than Tina Weymouth if I am in error. Any american popular music, or semi-popular music, or experimental or underground shit of any consequence was produced by working class people before the 1980s, and it's still overwhelmingly so that musical artists/musicians outside of indie rock are composed of people without fancy family money since then.

Unperson is on point when he suggests that many indie rock big shots have the benefit of a safety net: many of the rigid ethics born of indie labels of the 80s and which many of those guys continue to hew to are afforded by the fact that they don't have to make decisions or compromise or make sacrifices that a metal guy or a hip-hop guy or a pop artist may feel like they have to.

He is also on point re: the laggardly drumming on Pavement records: Steve West far moreso than Gary Young, who isn't nearly Bill Bruford-esque as he should be. I don't think the haphazard, not trying hard quality of Pavement and many other indie acts of the time are born from that same "I don't have to try because I'm rich" quality; more out of "80s rock was so careerist, and I/we want to avoid that."

Scott if you’re looking for a 20th c sheet music masterpiece, look no further than Ives Concord Sonata. I rate it as highly as any film or novel or sculpture you could name, it’s the best thing.

My favourite performance of it is actually on YouTube, one sec:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cDNPpsUaVYo

I don't think the haphazard, not trying hard quality of Pavement and many other indie acts of the time are born from that same "I don't have to try because I'm rich" quality; more out of "80s rock was so careerist, and I/we want to avoid that."

yep this

"Does Sandy Denny count as one of those? Cuz Sandy Denny rules and no one should sleep on her"

oh no no she is goddess. we should all have tattoos of her close to our hearts.

otm

i like the country versions though. i love listening to tennessee ernie ford and johnny horton doing folk songs. they were great! and trad.

Most of the folk music I don't like is from the "folk revival" school, where there was this fairly deliberate and didactic effort to stitch together an "American folk music" with political undertones. Most of that music is unfortunately boring and dreary.

Phil Ochs rules though

I don't think the haphazard, not trying hard quality of Pavement and many other indie acts of the time are born from that same "I don't have to try because I'm rich" quality; more out of "80s rock was so careerist, and I/we want to avoid that."

I often (not always) interpreted it as an ironic pose, sometimes (but by no means always) covering up for a lack of talent or creativity.

hell i'll listen to a frankie laine folk ballad album too. i love him. i think he made some. or connie francis!

i like the country versions though. i love listening to tennessee ernie ford and johnny horton doing folk songs. they were great! and trad

Yes, the songs are great, the execution not so much. What about Jean Ritchie? Never heard her and I get her mixed up with Jean Redpath, who is a different thing I suppose.

jean ritchie was good. her voice was cool.

but, in general, folk done by country people just kinda slays that seeger/baez school. just listen to a Stoneman family album and you are fine.

"Scott if you’re looking for a 20th c sheet music masterpiece, look no further than Ives Concord Sonata."

i was going to bring some ives home with me tonight! i dig him. he's from my neck of the woods. along with slacker thurston moore and folk icons youth of today.

What I can tell you about Pavement is that I went to see them when they first came to the UK (1992?), having read about how indebted they were to Faust and thus expecting something at least a little challenging, only to be confronted by what looked like a bunch of floppy-fringed rich kids churning out the most plodding and smug and unadventurous shite I'd ever had the misfortune to hear. I didn't like it.

Anyway I know they're widely worshipped but I've held that night against them ever since. They also had a 'wacky' co-drummer. I don't like wacky drummers either. This was the era when the last vestiges of the jangly Byrds influence was being excised from indie rock in favour of Lou Reed-isms, which had been there before obviously but it all started to drag and plod and I felt weary just hearing it.

Maybe I should give them a re-listen?

tbf they could be really shit live back then. when they reformed I skipped the first round of reunion gigs and took a lot of persuading to see them 2 years ago. I saw them 3 times in the 90s and they were pretty terrible 2 out of 3 of them - and the 3rd time was just before they split and seemed to be having a miserable time even if musically they were a bit more together

i never saw them. i just like the records.

the worst hyped band i ever saw was the strokes. before the first album came out. they sounded like a madchester band not like television. i had no idea what people were raving about.

They're rich kids!! (j/k)

One of the many bands I Never Got.

more like The Jokes, rite

so much indie rock that gets pushed these days is an NPR slurry, i miss Camper Van Beethoven types, or maybe something like HOT SNAKES.

i liked the Strokes' first album well enough but it got old vv fast and i'd be cool never hearing it again.

I never understood the Strokes at all, the music felt like it had all the blood drained out of it

Any american popular music, or semi-popular music, or experimental or underground shit of any consequence was produced by working class people before the 1980s

this is a ridiculous statement. Miles Davis, for ex.

The Modern Age EP sounded great when it came out, then when Is This It came out I instantly lost interest, it all sounded flat and tinny and bloodless, yup. EP still good though.

xp or Mayo Thompson, one of the most "consequential" experimental/underground rock figures of the '60s (...I think he had a fairly well-off upbringing, for whatever it matters).

Beyond that, I don't even follow the argument... what happened in the '80s where suddenly only "rich kids" (whoever those are, no one is named) had the luxury of being experimental, and suddenly it became bad? What was Black Flag's "fallback plan"? The whole point of the indie circuit was that you could work your butt off and tour and release albums that sounded like what you wanted them to sound like, not trying to be Bon Jovi or somebody, and there was a label/club infrastructure for that.

This concert ad just popped up on my FB. I’ve never heard *of* him let alone heard one of his 25 (!) albums, so I’m taking it as an omen and will choose one tonight, when I’m in the proper frame of mind. He’s apparently smooth jazz.

Over the course of crafting a 25-album catalog and architecting nearly 40 Billboard No. 1 singles as a multi-instrumentalist, songwriter and producer, Brian Culbertson has charted a groundbreaking course in music.

Lou Reed's dad ran an accounting firm

haha and half of The Misfits went back to work at their dad's company to pay off the band debts

Black Flag had no backup plan aside from Ginn who was comfortable upper-middle-class

Roy Acuff's grandfather was a senator

"The whole point of the indie circuit was that you could work your butt off and tour and release albums that sounded like what you wanted them to sound like, not trying to be Bon Jovi or somebody, and there was a label/club infrastructure for that."

not to mention that hardly any of these people thought they would be doing it forever! or as a career! sometimes it happened. but mostly it didn't.

a lot of college dropouts just saying fuggit i'll go on tour and have some fun in the 80s. little did they know the 21st century reunion industrial complex would have them getting their flabby 50-year-old butts off the couch and off to summer euro shed tours for friggin' ever.

as if death metal bands in the 80s thought if they worked hard enough they could make a living as metal gods and they wouldn't have to go back to the potash mines. nobody thought that far ahead. they were just happy to be shredding in front of people.

why is this now another ilm chat opinions thread, more reportage please, oh boy someone doesn’t get the strokes

The Modern Age EP sounded great when it came out, then when Is This It came out I instantly lost interest, it all sounded flat and tinny and bloodless, yup. EP still good though.

Jane Siberry - The Walking

Wow, the first thing you hear on the album is this reedy, untrained voice, just naked and out there: “There’s a red leaf that falls from a purple tree, it falls, it floats down”. I’m bracing myself for an hour of manic pixie dream-girl pop. My closest reference points here is Kate Bush and i recently gave away my only Kate Bush record.
Okay, a minute into the song there are finally some other instruments, and it sounds like mid-career Talk Talk is her backing band, and whoa the song is suddenly taking all kinds of unexpected turns and not standing still in any one place for long. And now at 3 minutes in there are these whimsical horn lines. Make that *synth* horns (this is 1987 after all). She keeps you on your toes, i’ll give her that. I was worried that a 9 minute opening song would be a slog, but it’s really like 36 15-second songs all segued together. I bet Eleanor Friedberger slept with this album under her pillow in junior high. This feels like “art” in the sense that I don’t think anyone could teach you how to write songs like this — you’d need to have unfettered access to your subconscious or be able to lucid dream.

The second song, “Red High Heels” seems like it has a more traditional song structure so far, it’s got a semblance of a regular chorus, but the verses(?) have a melodic line that is entirely unpredictable. And there are passages where the rhythm and time signature shifts around and unbalances you.

“Goodbye” sounds like it’s going to be a spacey ballad, but i don’t trust it to stay put. This could be the most Kate-Bush-like song, and also the most 80’s.

“Ingrid (and the Footman)” feels like it was her concession to the A&R guy pressuring her for something he could get on the radio. Bigger production, lots more studio polish, some backing vocals. I haven’t been paying close attention to the lyrics, but i’m suddenly realizing this may be an album that’s all about the lyrics. Except that now the lyrics on this polished song have turned into her literally singing “yada yada yada…” The melody still leaps and swoops like it's outsider art.

“Lena Is a White Table” - yeah i definitely should have been paying attention to the lyrics, the titles alone tell you that. As i’m listening I keep involuntarily picturing all the modern dance routines that must have been choreographed to this album over the years.

“The Walking (And Constantly)” starts off like a Bonnie Tyler power ballad but quickly gets ethereal. When her voice lifts into the higher register, it never fails to kick the song up a notch. The drums on this album are the secret weapon to prevent you from getting too comfortable - i bet this was fun to see performed live. Beautiful melody on this one. I wonder if she wasn’t worried that album title was too close to “The Dreaming” (surely critics were already comparing her to Kate Bush)

“The Lobby” is the slowest song yet… this one sounds like one of those minor transition songs from a musical (i.e. the part where you normally glance at the program to count how many songs are left before intermission). The horn fanfare adds a little variety, but this one is draggy. It feels twice as long as its 6-minute run time.

“The Bird In the Gravel” has some Laurie Anderson influence. There are spoken word interludes. The live show of this album must have been amazing - it feels like it was conceived to be performed on a stage, with a full cast.

Good suggestion, fgti — this is clearly the kind of album that benefits from close listening, probably actively resists passive listening.

(And also, now I know that Jane Siberry is not in fact the singer of the 90's hit "I Kissed A Girl")

My nomination, btw, is for someone to review Força Bruta by Jorge Ben.

wow, you make me want to listen to jane siberry! i kinda always thought of her as the proto-tori and i probably have unfairly avoided her records after seeing the speckless sky in every dollar bin in every record store for the past 30 years. but way to entice!

For anyone interested, Brian Culbertson is not jazz at all but new age, more like a glossier George Winston. I listened to “The Trilogy – Part 2: Blue = Melancholy.” Relentlessly pretty (and glacially paced) piano with programmed percussion and occasional washes of guitar and whooshes of wordless vocal. I had no idea stuff like this was still popular in 2024. He apparently has some “funky” releases as well, but I’m not going there.

Thanks for listening enochroot! I def recommend coming to The Walking after the two albums previous… it feels somewhat like an inversion of what came before; she had a minor hit in Canada and it’s not as weird as O Superman but it’s… close! as minor hit singles go

Gordon Raphael (producer of Is This It) is perhaps the most brilliant producer who never got the recognition he deserves. Is This It has all the sonics of a metal record but it’s mixed with resolute hard panning and tonnes of mono, it expands and contracts with metric precision. Nothing splashes across the stereo field, it’s so calculated and every element perfectly placed, all the noise is tamed by digital automation. There’s no record like it and you might not like it but it’s a technical marvel. Every other rock album sounds messy in comparison, it’s using the most aggressive sounds imaginable but they’re tidied up in a computer so brilliantly, god I love that album. The preceding EP doesn’t haven’t the same magic.

Lol this is so backwards. The EP was tinny, they perfected the sound on the album.

also prefer the EP versions. maybe like the album slightly more than you but not a lot, can't imagine choosing to listen to it. have a friend who is still a huge Strokes fan so I hear their songs when we are back at our friend's flat after the pub anyway

Taylor Swift - 1989

"Welcome To New York"

A VERY first track first track. Tourism board material. Not great? I dunno. She must have been really excited to be in New York. I can dig it. It’s also not about a guy! Which is noteworthy.

"Blank Space"

Fatalism. She knows it’s over before it starts. People say she’s insane. This song is pretty awesome. I have to admit. It’s like the perfect culmination of every trick in Shania Twain’s very large book of tricks. A nightmare dressed like a daydream! I’m totally stealing that. “AND YOU LOVE THE GAME!” That echo? I love that echo. If you can project vulnerability and still sound triumphant you will be rich and people will be jumping on their beds singing into hairbrushes across the globe. In my opinion.

"Style"

I have known “Blank Space”. I was friends with “Blank Space”. “Style” is no “Blank Space”. It’s okay though. It brings James Dean into the 21st century. That little mumblepuss had no idea! Did he? Maybe he did. He had someone take iconic black & white pictures of him 24 hours a day. Kinda like Ian Curtis.

"Out Of The Woods"

Lots of echo! I guess that’s her thing. Hey, it worked for New Kids On The Block. Breathy echo. The couch. Polaroids. Screaming color. The woods. December. Furniture. Paper airplanes. 20 stitches. Hospital rooms. Monsters. Trees. There is a lot going on here. You can’t fault the construction though. It’s sturdy. It’s a song made out of wood. So, it makes sense.

"All You Had To Do Was Stay"

More bouncing on the bed triumphalism. She’s sad but I don’t buy it because she’s building these shiny, sturdy Teutonic anthems celebrating her own strength like it ain’t no thing. Not a great one.

"Shake It Off"

I dunno. What do I even say? It’s faster than I remember. This song, Katy Perry, and Meghan Trainor were the soundtrack to my morning drive to my kids’ school when they were young. The same songs on the horrible robo-station EVERY morning for YEARS. It was crazy. They never stopped playing them. The Spice Girls break in this song hasn’t aged well but whatever. This song is built like a friggin’ tank. You could drop this song on Russia and Putin would be in shackles by morning. It’s Late Capitalism and Peak Oil and the Marshall Plan all rolled into a bright blonde ball. Still not as good as “Blank Space” though.

"I Wish You Would"

She says the word “hear” like a baby does. This is a dance routine at the mall. She can do catchy in her sleep.

"Bad Blood"

This song is brutal. Deep cuts. Wounds. Scars. Knives. Bullet holes. Damn. She wrote this with Kendrick Lamar!!?? I had no idea. This is the only song as good as “Blank Space”. It’s as perfect as pop gets!

"Wildest Dreams"

Made for television. Glossy teen television drama. Euphoria. Something like that.

"How You Get The Girl"

I’ve been thinking about the words girl and boy. I remember watching Friends and How I Met Your Mother with my kids when they were pretty young and it struck me how these adults always used the pop music terms boy and girl and never said man or woman. Like they were kids forever. Which is what a lot of pop music is obviously. Being a kid forever. And now I think it’s kinda normal for younger people to use those words? Am I wrong? I didn’t grow up in that world. When you were an adult you were doomed to adulthood. Which could be a little depressing. You can be a kid forever with Taylor. She was 25 when she made this album? She could be 12 on a song like this. She could be Debbie Gibson. Who was 16 when she hit it big. Debbie is probably close to my age. She’s not a girl anymore.

"This Love"

I forgot I was actually listening to this song when it was playing. It will space you out. You will not remember it. You will give Taylor all your money. You will vote for Joe Biden. Zzzzzzz………….

"I Know Places"

Did she invent the way she says the word “find”? Because so many female popsters do it and I don’t know if Taylor was first. Foiiind. It’s a hard way to say a really easy word. It’s almost like the way that Bjork would say something.

"Clean"

I swear I thought she said “like a Weinsteined dress” and I went ewww did she meet Harvey!!?? But she didn’t say that. This is really really good songwriting. You could teach a class on this song. For real! I mean it. Writers should hear it. Alcoholic writers. Damn. That is a top-notch ballad. A+. I don’t think I’ve ever heard it. I really only knew “Bad Blood” and “Shake It Off”. This is not a song sung by a 12 year old. Or a 25 year old going on 16. A woman wrote this song! Haha! Sorry. I can’t help it. I like adults. I mean, I like kid pop too. It’s all good.

"Wonderland"

I can’t even keep up with all the fucking hooks on this fucking record. Holy crap. That “ay ay ay” almost feels like a nod to Cranberries. No doubt Taylor is a Cranberries fan, right?

"You Are In Love"

Burnt toast. That’s what I get from this song. Is this song needed after FOURTEEN slabs of hook heaven? Maybe not. She just couldn’t help herself.

"New Romantics"

This is dope. I was hoping for some good dance beats. This is really the first great dance rhythm. There must be some good remixes of this. Has there ever been someone so addicted to being heartbroken? Just ecstatic about feeling bad! It’s a little nuts. But, hey, I used to dance with tears in my eyes to Ultravox. So, there ya go. Nice one, Taylor.

The pull quote:

If you can project vulnerability and still sound triumphant you will be rich and people will be jumping on their beds singing into hairbrushes across the globe.

amazing, scott *applause*