Massive Attack is more towards the Hip Hop side of Trip Hop and for me that’s a bit of an issue since Hip Hop has never been my thing and the whole appeal of Trip Hop for me is the lack of rapping.
Category: Music
Music Has the Right to Children (1998) by Boards of Canada
I don’t listen to a ton of electronic music but I do listen to some, especially more recently, with my podcast about album anniversaries, with lost of major electronic music album anniversaries arising. So I do find it hard at times to put electronic music in context, though I think I’m getting better at it.
When Forever Comes Crashing (1998) by Converge
This is some excellent metalcore, with just about everything you would want from the genre.
www.pitchshifter.com (1998)
I do not know anywhere near enough about ’90s industrial or the British electronica scene to have any real idea of the context this record was made in but I can tell you it sounds insanely ’90s. Imagine a more political, perhaps slightly less articulate Nine Inch Nails, mixed with The Prodigy and maybe you …
Porno for Pyros (1993)
I don’t love Jane’s Addiction. One reason for that is that I had just heard way too much about how great they were before I ever heard more than a couple of songs. The other reason is Farrell’s voice, I don’t love it.
The Full-Custom Gospel Sounds of The Reverend Horton Heat (1993)
I understand the appeal of this music: it’s loud, raucous, fun, manic, and it’s well-played. The Full-Custom Gospel Sounds (no gospel included…) manages to bridge the past and future together, like other psychobilly, combining punk with more traditional rock and roll. There’s definitely more of an alternative rock vibe here than the punk vibe with ’80s …
Today’s Active Lifestyles (1993) by Polvo
Imagine if Sonic Youth played Pavement-style indie rock (albeit longer songs), but more of a post-hardcore version of Pavement without their idiosyncrasies, you may get some vague idea of what Polvo sounds like. RYM lists them as a Math Rock band and frankly that mystifies me, even in the context of the early 1990s, but …
Undertow (1993) by Tool
I have come at Tool backwards from the very beginning of when I started listening to them: The first time I ever listened to a full album was 10,000 Days. When I discovered I liked them I got Lateralus. Then once I finally discovered I liked Lateralus, I got Aenima. This is relevant (for my …
Cadillac Records (2008, Darnell Martin)
From the opening scenes of this docudrama about history of Chess Records, things feel a little off. The attempt to balance the stories of Leonard Chess and Muddy Waters feels a little wonky and the pacing definitely seems off. A man just walks up to Muddy in a field and says he’s Alan Lomax and …
Life’s Too Good (1988) by The Sugarcubes
For Bjork fans coming to this after listing to her solo career, this album feels like a bit of glimpse into Bjork in utero: her voice is already fully formed and distinct but much of the other stuff that make Bjork Bjork seems missing or replaced by a rock band which sometimes has a male …
History of a Time to Come (1988) by Sabbat
I am, on some level, a sucker for thrash. Yes, this was released in 1988. Yes, it is heavily influenced by the major American thrash bands. No, there isn’t the kind of genre-creating and genre-defining additions to trash that other late ’80s bands were able to create, on this particular record. I don’t care. Its’ …
Tracy Chapman (1988)
Chapman’s self-titled album is the introduction of a strong new, one might even say necessary, voice. She offers what was likely a very unique perspective in late 1980s, that of a folk-singing African American woman. Excuse my ignorance but I’m not sure there was much precedent for her, even by 1988. (When I say folk, …
Hootenanny (1983) by The Replacements
This is a bizarre, jokey mess of a record, as much of a transition record (in hindsight) as any record I’ve heard by an American band.
Today (1988) by Galaxie 500
I don’t really know the history of dream pop, but from what little I know of it I’m willing to guess this is a fairly seminal record.
Green Thoughts (1988) by The Smithereens
This is one of those records that basically just fails to move me. I understand that it’s all very competent and I do not dislike the aesthetic, really, but something here is missing for me.
Viva Hate (1988) by Morrissey
One of my reasons for my antipathy towards Morrissey (and the Smiths) is the music, and I must say the music here is much artier and weirder than I was expecting. (I think we can thank Vini Reilly for that. He’s a musically interesting guy in ways that Street and Morrissey normally are not.)
The Hurting (1983) by Tears for Fears
Like most people my age and younger, I first heard “Mad World” through a cover in a video game commercial. The song made a big impression, so much so that the first time I heard the original I was like “I don’t like this.”
Adventure (1978) by Television
It’s hard when you’ve only ever listened to one album by a band for so long, you think that that album is the band. Worse, it’s the band’s “classic” and the one everyone knows.
Grease Original Motion Picture Soundtrack (1978)
When I was young, I absolutely hated nostalgia. I saw it as the enemy of creativity. Time, and particularly age, has softened that approach; I now understand nostalgia and even sometimes like it despite myself. But the thing is, when I do like nostalgia, it’s nostalgia for something I experienced. So I can understand why …
Parcel of Rogues (1973) by Steeleye Span
This is the first Steeleye Span record I’ve ever heard, after hearing about them for years and years. As with any band like that, my impressions were fixed without ever having listened to this, so on first listen I didn’t know what to do with it.
Diamond Girl (1973) by Seals and Crofts
I am fascinated, on some level, by bands that want to combine “soft rock” and pop with roots music because fundamentally they are two very different things. The whole point of roots music was to return to the pre-rock professionalism, which necessarily embraces the rough edges. But the essence of soft rock, and much if …
Call Me (1973) by Al Green
The more I listen to Al Green the most I appreciate the records that deviate from the formula a little bit, or the ones that have stronger songs. That’s because Al Green put out a hell of a lot of albums in the 1970s and they do sort of blend together after a while; he …
Catch a Fire [Jamaican Version] (1973) by Bob Marley and the Wailers
I generally rag on Marley for his lyrics. I find most reggae lyricist to be not that great, but I find Marley in particular to have been over-hyped. Once you listen to Peter Tosh (who only wrote two of the songs here) it’s hard to take Marley this seriously as a lyricist. So I thought. …
Dance to the Music (1968) by Sly and the Family Stone
It’s easy to understand why this band captured everyone’s attention; though the music is undeniably funky for the era, and soulful, there’s also enough of other elements that it’s accessible to people who would not have listened to James Brown or Stax or what have you.It’s significantly less psychedelic than I assumed it was, but …
Bookends (1968) by Simon and Garfunkel
Simon and Garfunkel were one of the groups I listened to more than most when I was in my childhood/tween oldies phase. I want to blame that for why I have such a hard time with them as an adult but I think it’s mostly because I find Paul Simon to be perhaps the most …
Another Music in a Different Kitchen (1978) by Buzzcocks
Full disclosure: I don’t like the Buzzcocks. Until hearing this debut, I’d only ever heard A Different Kind of Tension and that record likely biased me towards this one and its importance.
Easter (1978) by Patti Smith Group
I struggle with Patti Smith; she’s one of those artists I think I should like, not just because of received opinion but because the things she does are things I supposedly like. But for some reason I have this barrier. I think it comes from how I first heard her.
Betty Davis (1973)
Now this is my kind of funk music.
A Wizard A True Star (1973) by Todd Rundgren
If you’re like me, you wished that Something/Anything?could have been, well, weirder. Or, if not weirder, at least more varied. I personally find that the record doesn’t quite live up to its reputation for weirdness and variety. Well, be careful what you wish for.
Safe at Home (1968) by International Submarine Band
This record invented country rock. As such, it’s one of the milestone records of the 1960s. (Country infected popular music in the 1970s and the country rock phenomenon of the late 1960s and early 1970s and Safe at Home is a big reason why.) But with the benefit of hindsight I am tempted to criticize the …