Would you even pick me out in the crowd? 'Cause I can't recognize myself now...

Continuing my trip up The Guardian's Best Albums of 2020 list...

#7 : Women In Music Part III - HAIM


On their third album and first masterpiece, Haim sound like a band who took their eyes off the prize and found it at their feet. It should be underlined that the sororal US trio’s first two albums, Days Are Gone (2013) and Something to Tell You (2017) are very good: slick without smoothing too much over. But WIMPIII is much looser. The breeziness feels like a warm draft off the Pacific, the warmer, messier swirl of sound in the mix truer to life. They sound natural playing hip-hop breakbeats, neo-soul and even reggae, while also bringing country moods to their metropolitan pop, and the extra space throws more light on the lyrics and refined melodies: sustained strengths that make WIMPIII a truly classic record.

I'm aware of and like HAIM (I saw them live on a sunny Glasto day and they perfectly suited the weather) and, although I was disappointed I'd missed parts 1 and 2, I was looking forward to listening to this (please don't write in - I do know they don't exist).

And I really liked it - it's a proper, grown-up record with songs you can sing along to and everything!  There's also a reasonable mix of genres in there, without being too adventurous and scaring people off - although I'm not entirely convinced by WIkipedia's description of "folk-pop, hip hop, reggae, lo fi, heartland rock, dance, country rock, UK garage, electropop, free jazz, funk, 1990s R&B, as well as 1970s and 1980s pop."  (if you come to this expecting UK garage, you're going to be very disappointed!).  Fleetwood Mac would be a strong reference point for me - with some Sheryl Crowe thrown in for good measure.

And "Yeah, it's good" is pretty much all I have to say about it - and Wikipedia doesn't really have much more to say about it either (although it obviously takes much longer to say it).  "Customers also listened to" a load of artists who feature on this Guardian list, which suggests a) others are doing the same as I am and b) there's no obvious HAIM contemporaries out there. I really liked this album and it wouldn't surprise me if this was many people's top album of the year - it's much more "normal person friendly" than a lot of other albums on the list.

#8 - Another one that was a lot more enjoyable than expecting
#6 - A definite grower

Comments

  1. Mr Nestors26 December 2020 at 21:31

    Try Warpaint.

    ReplyDelete
  2. scaryjase27 December 2020 at 07:36

    My first comment - thank you!!

    Oh yes - I very much like their sound. Right up my street...

    ReplyDelete

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