I heard the original for the first time today. Really good. I take it the album is a must?
The album being "Portland" by Gary Ogan & Bill Lamb. Just listened to it. I'm not really into that West Coast singer songwriter thing so I found it a bit cloying tbh, more Bread than Tim Buckley tbh (though I actually like Bread!) Gets better as it goes on.
― Is Lou Reed a Good Singer? (Tom D.), Saturday, 30 May 2020 12:54 (three years ago) link
Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.
― System, Sunday, 31 May 2020 00:01 (three years ago) link
Not a bad turn out considering my poor methodology.
Where is Hideous Lump's vote for Meniscus? Perhaps he or she voted for something else.
― Heavy Messages (jed_), Sunday, 31 May 2020 00:15 (three years ago) link
It's good that Inch Blue got two votes!
― Heavy Messages (jed_), Sunday, 31 May 2020 00:18 (three years ago) link
I'm always surprised by I Want To Live's "I'm rather selfish/and I mean to be unkind" - I think I spent a long time thinking it was "I'm rather selfish/I don't mean to be unkind" which is obviously much less interesting. It's a surprising thing to say in a song.
― Heavy Messages (jed_), Sunday, 31 May 2020 00:23 (three years ago) link
"Strength of Strings" is an incredible song but I'm not wild about their cover
― k*r*n koltrane (Simon H.), Sunday, 31 May 2020 00:58 (three years ago) link
Or he's a dick and didn't get around to voting.
Probably would have been "Strength of Strings" after all.
― Hideous Lump, Sunday, 31 May 2020 01:21 (three years ago) link
"‘Strength of Strings’ is an incredible song but I'm not wild about their cover"
I feel that way about a lot of this album (and Blood). Rather a disappointment after It'll End in Tears where the covers are equal to or even better than their originals.
― Melomane, Sunday, 31 May 2020 01:36 (three years ago) link
for the love of god please let us refrain from revisiting The Hope Blister
― an incoherent crustacean (MatthewK), Sunday, 31 May 2020 03:08 (three years ago) link
I've never heard those records. The name itself gives me the heebeejeebees.
― Heavy Messages (jed_), Sunday, 31 May 2020 03:10 (three years ago) link
"The Horizon Bleeds and Sucks Its Thumb" - SAME
― Heavy Messages (jed_), Sunday, 31 May 2020 03:13 (three years ago) link
The Hope Blister wasn't bad, but no it was no This Mortal Coil.
― avellano medio inglés (f. hazel), Sunday, 31 May 2020 03:26 (three years ago) link
For me it was the moment I realised I was done with 4AD-as-an-aesthetic, which I'd been into for 10 years or so. Apparently Ivo as well!
― an incoherent crustacean (MatthewK), Sunday, 31 May 2020 03:51 (three years ago) link
Hope Blister suffered somewhat from not really being an ensemble in the way TMC was, it was a 4AD house band playing an album of covers. But it was treated as the second coming of TMC. But as you say, at that point Ivo seems to have been over it!
― avellano medio inglés (f. hazel), Sunday, 31 May 2020 03:59 (three years ago) link
Glad to hear the Hope Blister disappointment wasn't just me. I kept banging my head against that wall. "Why don't I like this?"
― Cow_Art, Sunday, 31 May 2020 12:48 (three years ago) link
In the late 1990s, Ivo's struggle with depression still wasn't publicly known, but on 4AD fora people seemed to detect that things were not well with him purely from The Hope Blister album.
― Melomane, Sunday, 31 May 2020 13:18 (three years ago) link
Disappointed I missed this and agree that it makes for very good quarantine listening. I’ve always had mixed feelings about this album as despite continuing to be extraordinarily well-chosen, the covers here vary pretty widely in quality and a few (okay, mostly Drugs) are outright stinkers. A couple that should be great (Strength of Strings, I’m lookin’ at you) are only so-so and Appleton’s histrionics periodically threaten to drag the whole thing down. And most of the instrumentals are sort of superfluous though I do like Meniscus as well. That said, the good stuff here is exceptional. Come Here My Love sounds absolutely nothing like the Veedon Fleece track and is incredible and unnerving. Tarantula surpasses the Colourbox original, and Appleton’s kind of stilted verse notwithstanding can’t undermine how beautiful the Rutkowski sisters sound on the pre-chorus and chorus. But it’s their rendition of I Want To Live, which completely kills me and remains utterly spellbinding a quarter century or so after I first heard it. Again, it’s another track that sounds almost completely disconnected from the original yet the sisters just totally own the thing. What a performance.
― Naive Teen Idol, Sunday, 1 November 2020 01:31 (three years ago) link
very otm
― assert (MatthewK), Sunday, 1 November 2020 02:13 (three years ago) link
I love "strength Of Strings" but don't know the original.
― Robert Adam Gilmour, Sunday, 1 November 2020 04:05 (three years ago) link
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dfx4vefHdKs
― assert (MatthewK), Sunday, 1 November 2020 04:47 (three years ago) link
Okay, that's way more wonderful than I expected, thankyou!
I haven't heard Gene Clark and still never got any Byrds albums.
― Robert Adam Gilmour, Sunday, 1 November 2020 19:13 (three years ago) link
I did a mix inspired by Filigree & Shadow for a local radio station but it's available to listen back to here: https://soundcloud.com/araho/colins-very-4ad-mix
― Cocteau Twinks (jed_), Sunday, 7 February 2021 17:52 (three years ago) link
Enjoying the mix jed, thank you.
― Psychocandy Apple Grey (Pyschocandles), Sunday, 7 February 2021 19:32 (three years ago) link
cheers!
― Cocteau Twinks (jed_), Sunday, 7 February 2021 19:37 (three years ago) link