Tag: Trip Hop

2001, Music

Hot Shots II (2001) by The Beta Band

Their debut was a surprising delight. I’ve since read that they may have disowned it but I really enjoyed it so I find that a little weird. (It’s been long enough that I don’t remember well enough if it was just too long or if it was too ambitious or too silly. Regardless, despite its …

1991, Music

Blue Lines (1991) by Massive Attack

Is this the first ever trip hop album? My limited research suggests that yes, it absolutely is. There may have been some “Bristol sound” singles that presaged this record but nobody seems to have produced an LP. So, whatever you think of this album, and whatever you think of the term “trip hop,” there’s this …

1996, Music

Viva! La Woman (1996) by Cibo Matto

I’m a subtitles guy, I’ll take subtitles over dubbing every single time. (Well, not quite: I’ll watch dubs for laughs.) Similarly, with music, I have strong opinions about listening to people sing in their own language versus singing in English when they don’t have complete command of that. This view appears to be a minority …

2000, Music

Felt Mountain (2000) by Goldfrapp

The British really did like a certain sound circa the turn of the millennium. It was one I was entirely oblivious to, living in rural Quebec, even though I had what was then an incredible internet connection. I suspect some of my radio station friends were into stuff like this, but I was honestly unaware.

2000, Music

Things to Make and Do (2000) by Moloko

I don’t know Moloko at all, so I don’t know how this album changed their sound from previous record. I read that they were considerably more electronic before this record, but I’m taking that on faith. All I can really talk about what’s here, whish might be described as soulful, funky, dancier  Portishead – like …

1999, Music

The Beta Band (1999)

Sometimes you encounter something you don’t know at all and it just stuns you with something special about itself. In this case, it’s the irreverence and the extremely healthy disrespect for genres (which I’m a sucker for) of something like the lead-off track, “The Beta Band Rap”, which I just can’t get over. It takes …

1999, Music

Implode (1999) by Front Line Assembly

I just finished listening to KMFDM’s Adios, another band that operates on the spectrum between industrial music and electronica. (Though apparently these guys have existed longer, which is funny because I had never heard of them but had heard plenty about KMFDM.) As is often the case when I listen to two vaguely similar records …

1998, Music

Is This Desire? (1998) by PJ Harvey

If you spend too much time reading music magazines – do people still do that? – or you spend too much time on the internet, it’s tempting to see Is This Desire? as the flip side of The Boatman’s Call, or a direct response to it or some combination of the two. The easiest thing …

1998, Music

Angels with Dirty Faces (1998) by Tricky

Note: For reasons I can only guess at, the version of this record I streamed on Google Play was missing the first two tracks but I didn’t notice until my final listen. Oops! (Maybe this is the google equivalent of when you were ripping a CD and the ripping program didn’t communicate with your disc …

1998, Music

Ray of Light (1998) by Madonna

This may or may not be the first Madonna album I’ve ever listened to – not 100% sure – but it is definitely the first one I’ve given my three requisite listens to. Given that fact, it should be no surprise that I can’t fully grasp what a drastic left-turn this record probably was for …

1997, Music

The Velvet Rope (1997) by Janet Jackson

I had a very, very fixed idea of Janet Jackson before listening to that record. It was an idea essentially created by music videos (Janet Jackson is attractive) and the odd accidental radio exposure, but also created by the music industrial complex, which has generally marketed female performers in a particular way for quite a …

1997, Music

Glee (1997) by Bran Van 3000

I love genre-bending. A number of my most favourite bands are bands that can play a wide variety of genres well, and make these genres sound like their own – or, alternatively, convince you they are an entirely different band. So I should like this. I should like this even though it is based in …