I will be enhancing your cassettes and CDs with certain facts that you may find beneficial

Continuing my trip up #album-of-the-day...

20.04.07 : The Fame Monster - Lady Gaga (2009)

Ah - Miss Gaga is an odd one and no mistake.  I always think I like her stuff - and then I listen to it and I'm totally "but do I?".  However, 13 albums in to this list we have our first woman (i'm going to prescribe mandatory diversity training for everyone involved) and I can finally claim I've at least partially heard the album before - although it's a bit of a complicated one to explain.  I've listened to her debut album The Fame and some versions of The Fame Monster are a somewhat bizarrely extended version of it - I've read the explanation and I'm still not clear whether it's ripping off her Little Monsters or not (but I have my suspicions!).  And some versions of The Fame Monster are only the new songs from the extended version - but for this review I endured 90 minutes of the UK deluxe edition.  I remembered liking The Fame but thinking that maybe it had a bit too much filler on it - so you can only begin to imagine what I thought of a pointlessly padded out version of that album.  Ah - hold on, I think I might have given you a clue there..

I have no problems with "Bad Romance", "Just Dance", "Poker Face" and "Telephone" but there are a lot of tracks on both "The Fame" and this album that are, shall we say, just a bit shit.  If pushed, I'd call out "Eh Eh" and "Alejandro" as being prime examples of this, but you can take your pick really.  But - and this is where I really start to have problems with the album(s) - is she really doing anything here that Madonna wasn't doing 20+ years earlier?  Although, there's a good argument that she's doing less because, whilst Madge was actually having sex (she was even pregnant in "Papa Don't Preach"!), it's not entirely clear that Gaga was.  There's an awful lot of suggestion and "ooh, look at me being soooo rude" in there and it all gets more than a bit tiresome - you can't help but feel that maybe she should have swapped some of her time spent singing about it for time actually spent doing it.

The channel gave it a go but weren't entirely convinced by the thing - some concerns were expressed as to what the neighbours might think about it being played.  Wikipedia has slightly more to say about the album - it's approximately 0.5 Sgt Peppers, which is the internationally recognised unit of measure for album write ups.  Interestingly, it doesn't include any details about UK chart history - this appears to be because for the UK charts it's considered to be the same album as The Fame, but given that the album jumped from #55 to #7 in the week of its release, it's fair to say it had the desired effect and it even got back to #1 for a bit approximately 4 months later.

"Customers also listened to" Katy Perry, Miley Cyrus, Jessie J and Carlie Rae Jepsen - I'm not sure how much we're going to be seeing any of that lot further up this list although I personally think they all have reasonably good career highlights.  Much like Lady G really - I've got 3 or 4 of her tracks on my general playlist, but there's no danger of me ever revisiting this album in its entirety.

20.04.08 : Drunken Lullabies - Flogging Molly (2002)

I can't claim to be the world's leading expert on Flogging Molly, but I absolutely love "It's Been The Worst Day Since Yesterday" (which I randomly heard on a Stargate SG-1 episode, obviously - and it's not at all concerning that the last Stargate episode premiered 14 years ago now!).  And since I love it, you can probably guess that I've never listened to another track by them.  Ever.  Until now.  If pushed, I'd guess my reason was that further exploration would prove them to be the sub-Pogues band that I feared they were.  So - were my fears confirmed?

Well...

Yeah, pretty much.  And this album hasn't got "It's Been..." on it either.  It's generally OK, but it's perilously close to the plastic Paddy confirmation I feared it would be - although thankfully the lead singer actually is Irish so he can carry it off.  Sorry Molls, but I wouldn't swap any of this for "The Irish Rover", "Sally Maclenanne" or "Thousands Are Sailing" (which is definitely the best under-rated Pogues track).  The channel tells me I'm wrong and it's a great album - and no-one even mentioned The Pogues!  It also tells me I should see them live and I can believe that's quite the experience - but, to be honest, I think I'd be happy to see anyone live at this point in time and am very much hoping the gigs I have lined up for later this year come off.

The WIkipedia entry for the album is a little bit shorter than Gaga's, coming in at a mere 0.016 Sgt Peppers (or 16 milliPeppers, if you prefer) - and most of that relates to Allmusic's positive review of the album.  Apparently, they remarked that the track "Death Valley Queen" is "a dirge of Dylanesque proportions" - and this is considered a good thing.  Hmmm.

"Customers also listened to" Dropkick Murphys, The Real McKenzies and the charmingly named Bollox and The Tossers (two separate bands, but their names have a certain ring when presented together).  I found this generally fine, but pretty forgettable - but would be tempted to go and see them live if the opportunity presented itself (he says, safe in the knowledge it never will!)

20.04.09 : Midnight Marauders - Tribe Called Quest (1993)

And finally - an album I can whole-heartedly claim I've heard.  I didn't go wild about it though - the main thing I took away from it is that they come from St Albans - which is where I live!  But it won't surprise you in the slightest that they're not from quite the same St Albans.  I do think I could get into this album but it feels like it would take some effort and that's just not going to happen, I'm afraid.

So Gaga has the best tracks for me, but she also has far and away the worst tracks as well and 90 minutes of it was just too much.  Of the other two, I'd probably be more likely to revisit Tribe Called Quest so I guess they should take the round - but I'm tempted to give a Best Of Flogging Molly playlist a spin, so they can consider themselves a close second.

20.04.02 - A whole lot of ignorance on display
20.04.14 - And back to ignorance