Where time becomes a loop...

So, another list has presented itself as a review opportunity - the #album-of-the-day channel at work, where people select an album for the rest of the channel to listen to and comment on as they feel appropriate.  I've joined the channel approximately 14 months after it was set up, so there's quite a backlog to work my way through - and where better to start than at the beginning?

20.03.21 : Malibu - Anderson .Paak (2016)

Not an album I've heard before - I'm aware of the man, but to be honest I don't have a lot of time for people with pointless punctuation in their names.  I can accept apostrophes and hyphens, but you need a good reason to have anything other than that (and I've checked and he has no such reason).  I knew this was a reasonably critically well-received album but suspected it would fall into my Frank Ocean/Kendrick Lamar cultural black hole, where I admire the output but can't bring myself to enjoy it and don't really see what they're trying to achieve.  And yeah, I'm quite happy to accept this is my problem rather than theirs.

And yes, that's exactly what happened - there's nothing wrong with it, a lot of it is done very well and he sounds a little less serious than Frank or Kendrick, which is to be admired.  But I can't imagine any set of circumstances which would result in me ever listening to it again - sorry, Mr .Paak!  Reviewing the channel the general opinion seems to range from "yes!" to "not my cup of tea, but not dreadful" with general agreement that it was a bit rude - and the rude bits completely passed me by, but that's probably more to do with some of the hateful hip-hop I've had to listen to recently, so I just filter it out automatically now.

Wikipedia has surprisingly little to say about the album - normally it jumps on such albums and rewards them with reams of pointless prose.  It does use this particularly odd phrase though - "The album is described as the beginning of his potential commercial breakthrough" - which just makes me wonder whether he's still in the "potential commercial breakthrough" phase?  Most of the entry is on the critical success of the album - it made a lot of year end "best of" lists - unusually for Wikipedia it somewhat glosses over the commercial success, but given that it peaked at #79 in the US charts that suggests it didn't exactly set the world on fire.

"Customers also listened to" (a throwback to my previous reviews - taken from Amazon Music) Childish, Chance and Kendrick - all of whom fall into my cultural blackhole.  And Thundercat - I should warn you now that if anyone makes me listen to another one of his albums, it isn't going to end well.  So, overall - fine, but next!

21.03.23 : Orbital 2 - Orbital (1993)

I like a bit of Orbital (and have even seen them live a couple of times) - I wasn't sure whether I'd heard this album or not, but was expecting to like it anyway.  The very annoying opening track told me I'd not heard this particular album though - and the start of the second track with its vinyl scratchy sounds is also annoying, but after that it settled down into a perfectly acceptable combination of bleeps and beats.

"Now, just hold on a minute here" I hear you cry - "you don't see the point to Mr .Paak but Orbital is perfectly fine?".  Look, I'm not saying it makes any sense - OK?  But I like it anyways - "Lush 3-1", "Impact (The Earth Is Burning)" and (particularly) "Halcyon And On And On" are the top tracks for me, but they're all good once we get past the first two minutes of the album and then ignore the last track (although some of them probably don't quite need to be the length they are).  Not a lot of comment in the channel on this one - one "nice" and one "faded into the background", which I can quite understand but it simply means you're not playing it loud enough.  It's also funny how many people had already left the channel two days in - what exactly were they expecting?!?

Wikipedia doesn't have a lot to say about the album other than noting it includes samples of Michael Dorn, Withnail, "a French film dubbed into English", a Sydney zebra crossing and a didgeridoo.  The album was critically well received and is one of the 1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die - which is a review challenge I suspect I can avoid.  And the cute random fact (because I do like a cute random fact where one is made available) is that "Planet Of The Shapes" was renamed "Planet Of The Tapes" on the cassette version.

"Customers also listened to" The Chemical Brothers, The Orb, BT (who I've never heard of) and Underworld (who are probably my favourite bleepy noisemakers along with Orbital).  I was pleased to fill in a gap in my Orbital knowledge - although I could definitely have lived without the first and last tracks.  There's not a lot here to distract me from their "best of" though, being the particularly fine collection that it is.

21.03.24 : Biomech - Ocean Machine (1997)

Never heard of the artist or the album, so I went in blind.  And thirty seconds in, I wasn't expecting to like it at all.  It grew on me a bit over the course of the album (or maybe it would be more accurate to say I never got to the point of hating it as much as I was expecting to) but it's not really my cup of tea - a bit too bombastic and far too long in my opinion.  I spent a lot of time trying to work out who it reminded me of but never worked it out - maybe it'll come to me the next time I listen to it.  Oh no, sorry - that's never going to happen.  I can imagine he's very impressive live - but it seems unlikely I'm ever going to experience that either.  Comments in the channel are generally positive, so I'm in a minority (not for the last time, I suspect) - I'd agree that "sits on a nice line between heavy and melodic" has a certain ring of truth about it but "Yeah I can appreciate it...I just can't quite enjoy it" rings truest for me.

Wikipedia tells an interesting story about the album's recording with the master tapes being locked in a studio with Townsend denied access because he refused to pay his bill (because Antonio Banderas was ruining his vibe), so he had to sneak in at 3am and make a copy of them.  He was apparently dismayed that the album was largely dismissed upon release (despite selling 12,000 copies in its first week in Japan) but the fact that he got to play some 20th anniversary concerts suggest that it has developed some loyal fans (not least amongst my esteemed colleagues).

"Customers also listened to" everything Devin Townsend has ever done it appears - and a load of other people I've never heard of.  Overall, it was an interesting musical education but not for me, I'm afraid.

Historically, I've always declared a winning album on these posts and, if there's one thing I've learned, it's that people LOVE it when I pick the wrong album (this one caused riots).  I don't think anyone is going to be too surprised when I declare Orbital the winner here though.

20.03.25 - Three artists I've never heard of