Black Sabbath Review / Dead Kennedys Preview (Album 28)

So for being the first 'metal' album of all time, it doesn't surprise that it pales in metalic-ness versus new albums that share the same genre. One thing that stood out to me, was the harmonica in the second song, 'The Wizard.' That was awesome. To me it felt like any 80s or 70s rock album, except the lyrics - which seem to be the defining 'metal' point - were much darker than most other of the time. Certainly there are other dark points to the album. The cover and some of the guitar riffs. I really like the album. I would certainly listen to it again. Especially some of the songs with harmonica and excellent solos.

Favorite Songs:
     The Wizard
     Sleeping Village
   

Album: Fresh Fruit For Rotting Vegetables

Artist: Dead Kennedys

Release Year: 1980

"Dead Kennedys initially took inspiration from the original wave of UK punks such as the Sex Pistols, but became disenchanted with their anarchic posturing, so they created their own take on the movement." - Seth Jacobson

01 - Kill The Poor

02 - Forward To Death

03 - When Ya Get Drafted

04 - Let's Lynch The Landlord

05 - Drug Me

06 - Your Emotions

07 - Chemical Warfare

08 - California Uber Alles

09 - I Kill Children

10 - Stealing People's Mail

11 - Funland At The Beach

12 - Ill In The Head

13 - Holiday In Cambodia

14 - Viva Las Vegas

Streaming: Radio3.net

iTunes: Dead Kennedys

Spotify: Fresh Fruit For Rotting Vegetables

Punk music. When I hear new punk music I can only think about how all the songs sound the same. Listen to Rise Against or New Wave or Strung Out for some new school examples. Anyways, I can tell you already that I know Holiday In Cambodia. Maybe Viva Las Vegas, if it's the song I think it is. Enjoy.

~mfm

Jimmy Smith Review / Black Sabbath Preview (Album 27)

This is probably actually my least favorite part of the blog. Saying what I did or did not like about something. It's very hard to articulate what you are trying to say sometimes. Especially if you are trying to say it in a unique way. Anyways. Jimmy Smith. This is, without a doubt, the smoothest album I have ever listened too. When people say jazz, this is the kind of music that I think of. Downbeat, there are a couple of people keeping the beat and rhythm, while they take turns improvising. Jazz. It's very calming and fun and upbeat at the same time. If it were a movie soundtrack, it would be the part in the movie where we are down in a club in the 40s, just watching the club, and we see in the background Humphrey Bogart walk down the stairs as he enters and orders a drink as he looks around checkin' out the ladies. Then chaos ensues during a fist fight or a shootout and we need a different sound for that. The book sums this album up perfectly: 'Relentlessly groovy.'

Favorite Songs:
     Back At The Chicken Shack
     Honestly I like them all, but Back At The Chicken Shack stands out to me the most.

Album: Black Sabbath

Artist: Black Sabbath

Release Year:1970

"On the list for its enormous influence rather than its scintillating musical qualities, Black Sabbath's debut album is weighty in reputation as it is in sonic depth. With its opening, eponymous song routinely hailed as the unholy-trinity anthem ("Black Sabbath" on Black Sabbath by Black Sabbath) that kickstarted heavy metal, the dark, dark sleeve art and the sludgy production seeping all over the basic, bludgeoning songs, the record still sounds supremely evil today." - Joel McIver

01 - Black Sabbath

02 - The Wizard

03 - Behind The Wall Of Sleep

04 - N.I.B.

05 - Evil Woman

06 - Sleeping Village

07 - Warning

08 - Wicked World

*This is the European release set of songs. 

Streaming: Radio3.net

iTunes: Black Sabbath

Spotify: Black Sabbath

My dad has this album in vinyl. So pops if you read this, give it a spin for me.

~mfm

Fats Review / Jimmy Smith Preview (Album 26)

Fats Domino was not was I was assuming. It was pretty good. It was this combination of Frank Sinatra with more soul and less sad. But that's cool. I can dig it. All of the songs were really short. Which doesn't bother me, in fact it shouldn't even be a problem. I think that we expect songs to be between 3:30 and 4:00. If it's any longer our 'short attention spans' fail us and we lose the song or change the radio station. If it's too long we don't want to listen to because it doesn't say what it has to say soon enough. Or something like that. Anyways, I liked Fats. I thought he would sound less mature than he did. He sounded older than the picture that they show of him in the book:

Just a cheery looking baby-fat-having gentleman. But he sounded way more exciting than that. it was good.

Favorite Songs:
     Honey Chile
     La-La
     The Fat Man's Hop

Album: Back At The Chicken Shack

Artist: Jimmy Smith

Release Year:: 1960

"Back At The Chicken Shack is arguably Smith's greatest album, relentlessly grooving, harmonically sophisticated, and earthy as the Delta mud... Smith transformed the organ's lamentable image with his soulful synthesis of bebop, blues, and gospel, creating a powerfully grooving new sound. He spawned a new style of music - soul jazz - and a host of disciples who took up the Hammond B3 [compact organ] and formed combos." - Andrew Gilbert

01 - Back At The Chicken Shack

02 - When I Grow Too Old To Dream

03 - Minor Chant

04 - Messy Bessie

05 - On The Sunny Side Of The Street*

*Apparently, this song was not part of the original album, but released with the album as part of the CD later.

Streaming: Radio3.net

iTunes: Jimmy Smith

Spotify: Back At The Chicken Shack

Only 5 songs long, I expect to have the next one up rather soon.

~mfm

Bebel Gilberto Review / Fats Domino Preview (Album 25)

(Bebel preview here) What an interesting album. It was more jazz-samba then I was expecting, but it was still good. It sounds like the kind of music that you would hear in a movie during a rainy love-making scene. In Mexico, obviously. She has a very pretty calm voice, and it goes very well with the slight drums and guitar and such. I like it, but its something that I would only listen to while I was trying to nap or seduce someone... I think that it may be early in a scene in the movie Mr. & Mrs. Smith (musically similar to this, but not the same: Mr. & Mrs. Smith Mondo Bongo Dance ).

Favorite Songs:
     Samba Da Bancao
     So Nice (Summer Samba)
     Close Your Eyes

Album: This Is Fats

Artist: Fats Domino

Release Year: 1956

"While selling some 65 millino records in the decade [50s], Domino was arguably the man most responsible for bridging the gam between R&B and rock, although Little Richard might despute that claim. What is beyond debate is the influence of the singer's 1950s work, which has run and spread through popular music and influenced everyone from Pat Boone to The Beatles. This Is Fats, the singer's third full-length album on Impereal, was released at the height of Domino's career and remains the most powerful portrait of his artistry thanks to such boogie-woogie beasts as "Blue Monday" and "Honey Chile" and such mournful masterpieces as "So Long" and "Poor Poor Me." - Jim Harrington

01 - Blueberry Hill

02 - Honey Chile

03 - What's The Reason (I'm Not Pleasing You)

04 - Blue Monday

05 - So Long

06 - La-La

07 - Troubles Of My Own

08 - You Done Me Wrong

09 - Reelin' And Rockin'

10 - The Fat Man's Hop

11 - Poor, Poor Me

12 - Trust In Me

Streaming: Radio3.net

iTunes: Fats Domino

I couldn't find him on Spotify, but I found this instead: Playlist

Looking at some more 50s grove. I'm excited to hear Fats. He is a name that I have always heard but never listened too.

~mfm

The La's Review / Bebel Gilberto Preview (Album 24)

(La's preview here) The La's (still no word on if it's the 'las' or the 'el-ays') was straight up 90s. I recognized the song "There She Goes" almost right away. Which is neither bad nor good. I guess if you are writing music then that's a good thing, definitely. It was so interesting reading about that band - which I did a tad of - and hearing how the main singer is a total perfectionist and how they never did anything after that. I didn't look up him specifically, but my gut tells me that he probably didn't go too far after that one album. I also watched the music video for "There She Goes" which isn't something that I do often, but the members are in their 20s, 30s at the very latest. Which strikes me as odd that they would get out of the game so fast. Or perhaps they didn't. Anyways. This is an album where that song will definitely get some playback, but that's the problem with a one hit wonder band. They had some other very good songs, and they remind me of Blind Melon, another 90s band who we may yet hear of.

Favorite Songs:
     Timeless Melody
     There She Goes
     Doledrum
     Failure

Album: Tanto Tempo

Artist: Bebel Gilberto

Release Year: 2000

"But it is Babel's voice - a chewy, purring, Marlboro-burnished voice that sings English in a pleasingly goofy Brazilian accent - that makes Tanto Tempo so compelling. Tanto Tempo went on to become the biggest-selling Brazilian album outside of Brazil. And although Suba's [the producer] innovations would be elaborated and superseded and outflanked by assorted sources - by Sao Paulo's drum 'n' bass jocks, by the experimental electronica boffins on Trauma Records, and by the "favela chic" of Rio's "baile funk" oddballs - Tanto Tempo remains a landmark in electronic music." - John Lewis

01 - Samba da Bencao

02 - August Day Song

03 - Tanto Tempo

04 - Sem Contencao

05 - Mais Feliz

06 - Albuem

07 - So Nice (Summer Samba)

08 - Lonely

09 - Bananeira

10 - Samba e Amor

11 - Close Your Eyes

Streaming: Radio3.net

iTunes: Tanto Tempo

Spotify: Bebel Gilberto

Hmm...Brazilian music you say? With Drum 'n' Bass and electronic roots? I'm enticed, to say the least. 

~mfm

The Cramps Review / The La's Preview (Album 23)

(Cramps preview here) So. The Cramps...is exactly what my ears had after listening to this. No, not really. I don't think that your ears can cramp. That's a little harsh too, but seriously. I was not terribly impressed with it. That's the thing, I'm not terribly impressed with many of the albums in this book. Which makes me sad. Only a couple of albums have really stuck out to me or are things I would listen to again. This was kinda weird, it reminded me of noise rock. Just sounds, and mediocre sounds. It's ok. I probably won't ever listen to it again. I did like on of the remakes that they did. But nothing really stuck out. You need the kind of songs that people will want to do remakes of. But then again, this was supposed to be a pretty experimental album. So... experiment a success? They were active up until about 2009 (according to Wikipedia), which I find interesting because I have never heard of them. They also changed members over 20 times. So I'll let that speak for itself. Maybe we will see them again.

Favorite Songs:
     Fever (Cover)
     TV Set
     I Was A Teenage Werewolf

Album: The La's

Artist: The La's

Release Year: 1990

"So with a mass of critical acclaim and strong sales in their favor, why did The La's release only one album and then fade away? Well, by most accounts, lead singer and songwriter Lee Mavers always was a surly perfectionist, and maybe a touch unstable with it. The band took four years to make The La's and burned through at least as many producers before the label finally lost patience and insisted they release the version piloted by Steve Lillywhite. Soon after, when Lee Mavers was asked to describe the album to NME he replied, "I hate it, it's the worst. A pile of shit. There is not one good thing I can find to say about it." Definitely the minority opinion, there, Lee." - Rob Morton

01 - Son Of A Gun

02 - I Can't Sleep

03 - Timeless Melody

04 - Liberty Ship

05 - There She Goes

06 - Doledrum

07 - Feelin'

08 - Way Out

09 - IOU

10 - Freedom Song

11 - Failure

12 - Looking Glass

Streaming: Radio3.net

iTunes: The La's

Spotify: The La's

My god there are a lot of albums in this book.

~mfm

Spirit Review / The Cramps Preview (Album 22)

(Spirit preview here) So I was kinda impressed with Spirit, in a general sense. They weren't overly impressive, but it was kinda cool to hear about this band that did pretty well during the 70's that I had never heard of before. Maybe that's why it was special. It was rocky, with a sort of 70's calmness to it. Maybe there were drugs involved. I wouldn't doubt that at all, but that doesn't change anything. I doubt that this will hear any play on my iPod, but I do really like the cover art, if it was a bit bigger. Throwback to basic photo manipulation.

Favorite Songs:
     Animal Zoo
     Street Worm

Album: Songs The Lord Taught Us

Artist: The Cramps

Release Year: 1980

"Songs The Lord Taught Us celebrates the trashiest elements of twentieth-century Americana. The Cramps' debut chewed up rockabilly riffs, punk rebellion, and B-movie imagery, andspat it out a gloriously primeval gob of rock'n'roll noise... Songs The Lord Taught Us should have been a smash. Critics raved, but problems in the band nixed any chance of success. During a 1980 tour in the United States, guitarist Bryan Gregory drove off with a van full of their equipment - sold to fund his growing drug addiction - and was never seen by the band again." Theunis Bates

01 - T.V. Set

02 - Rock On The Moon

03 - Garbageman

04 - I Was A Teenage Werewolf

05 - Sunglasses After Dark

06 - The Mad Daddy

07 - Mystery Plane

08 - Zombie Dance

09 - What's Behind The Mask?

10 - Strychnine

11 - I'm Cramped

12 - Tear It Up

13 - Fever

Streaming: Radio3.net

iTunes: Songs The Lord Taught Us

Spotify: The Cramps

Sounds very strange. Sounds very 80s. Hopefully it's awesome.

~mfm