There's a very pleasant side to you - a side I much prefer
Continuing my trip up #album-of-the-day...
20.06.23 : KIWANUKA - Michael Kiwanuka (2019)
I listened to this when it won the Mercury Prize and found it admirable but unengaging - so I was interested to see if my opinion changed. And overall - no, not really. The songs were better than I remembered, they're all well constructed with some interesting rhythms and he has a lovely soulful voice - but it just doesn't click with me. I feel like it should - I quite like some of Stevie Wonder or Bill Wither's stuff and this isn't a million miles away, so maybe check it out if you're into that sort of thing and you'll get the thing I'm missing. His voice actually sounds quite Hendrixy at times, but it wouldn't be entirely accurate to claim his albums as a relevant touchpoint.
The channel liked this one and recommended all his albums (and I seem to recall I actually did engage with his first album). Wikipedia has a reasonable amount on the album, but most of it is about how much the critics loved it (it feels like an album that was designed to appeal to critics to me). I was very pleased to see it got to #2 in the UK album charts, which gave me the opportunity to see what kept it off the top - From Out Of Nowhere by "Jeff Lynne's ELO" which is an artist title which screams of legal issues if ever I heard one. I was also somewhat surprised to see Wikipedia describing the album as being in the genres "folk" and "indie rock" - I can't say either would have been my first option to describe it.
"Customers also listened to" a very strange mix - Brittany Howard, Laura Marling, Sault and Rose Royce. Hard to see a great deal of overlap anywhere there. This is obviously a fine album though - I don't understand why I don't like it more than I do, but there are lots of things I don't understand and I just have to live with them...
20.06.24 : By The Way - Red Hot Chili Peppers (2002)
I have heard this album back in the day and thought it was OK, but no Californication (and I bet they hate it when people say that). Would my opinion have changed over the years? Overall, I think it was probably better than I remembered it - and not really all that different from the C word, although maybe a bit more mellow and a bit more varied. I think it wouldn't have hurt to weed some of the less essential tracks out and cut it down to 45-50 minutes (from 68 minutes), but that's just me doing my usual moaning about album lengths. I certainly can't fault the best tracks though - "By The Way" and "Can't Stop" stand out for me.
The channel generally liked this, but preferred Californication (how dare they say such a thing?!?). It did draw two people in to the channel though - the first new joiners for a bit. Wikipedia has quite a lot to say on the album (320 milliPeppers) and it's a mixed bag to say the least - going into some depths in some areas before heading off on a complete tangent (most of the section about the tour talks about how Flea was planning on quitting to teach music - but didn't). The album did OK, I guess - selling 8 million globally, getting to #1 in a lot of countries, but only #2 in the US (Nellyville by Nelly, since you ask - and I'll be surprised if anyone picks that on this list!). One thing that I didn't know was that the 3 nights they did in Hyde Park playing to 80,000 people each night "became the highest-grossing concert at a single venue in history, accumulating an estimated $17 million gross revenue" - I know some people who spent a LOT of money attending more than one of those evenings (not as much as some other people spent seeing Kate Bush at 2014 obviously - now they were REALLY expensive tickets!)
"Customers also listened to" Weezer, The White Stripes, Franz Ferdinand and Foo Fighters - again a slightly odd mix (but maybe not quite as odd as for the previous album). Overall, I liked this album though (more than I was expecting to) - but it's just not Californication, is it?
20.06.25 : Whatever People Say I Am, That's What I'm Not - Arctic Monkeys (2006)
Was this really 15 years ago? This album always reminds me of a friend of mine whose (now ex) husband told her "that Arctic Monkeys track always reminds me of you". "I bet that you look good on the dancefloor?" "No - mardy bum". Hard to imagine that relationship didn't last, eh?
The Arctic Monkeys are quite an interesting band in that there's quite a bit of variation across their albums, but they all feel like they have the same roots, and I guess you can't get any rootsier than their debut album. Personally, this is my favourite of their albums - it burst onto the scene with such energy and cracking songs that it was hard not to be swept along by their infectious joy. The singles work best for me, but it barrels along at such a pace that if you don't like a song there's going to be another one along in a couple of minutes to save the day. There are some cracking track titles as well - "Perhaps Vampires Is A Bit Strong But..." being my favourite.
The channel liked this and it gave them many pleasant memories of sweaty gigs in student unions - can you believe we never really had gigs (sweaty or otherwise) on campus at Bath? And there weren't exactly loads in the city either - most groups just went to Bristol. The things people don't put in uni prospectuses, eh?!? Wikipedia has another reasonably chunky write-up (203 milliPeppers) with lots of it concentrating on song meaning, which generally means the fans have been busy! It also reminds me exactly how popular it was at the time - "By the end of the week, the album had sold 363,735 copies—more than the rest of the top 20 combined and making it the overall fastest selling debut album in British history" (and it's still the fast selling debut here by a band). It went on to sell close to 2 million in the UK and 500,000 in the US, which isn't a bad effort at all considering they can't have understood what half the lyrics were on about.
"Customers also listened to" Franz Ferdinand (again), The Kooks, MGMT and Kaiser Chiefs - all fine names from back in the day who have produced some top tracks between them (and some utter dross). But this album is as good as anything from back them and I think it's stood the test of time well - it was a pleasure to revisit it.
So, three albums I'd actually heard - this is the first time this has happened on the #album-of-the-day trip! However, although I think they're all well done, it's a simple decision for me - Arctic Monkeys all the way!
Also, this is round is a special one because I'm now "only" a year behind in my reviews - in slightly less than four months, I'll have caught up to where I joined the channel. At which point, it will then only take me ANOTHER couple of months to catch up with the present day - and then it will be Christmas!
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