These walls are disappearing and I don't seem to care
Continuing my trip up #album-of-the-day...
20.06.10 : Ill Communication - Beastie Boys (1994)
My fourth Beastie Boy album review and, whilst I didn't mind Pauls Boutique and some bits of Licensed To Ill, I think it's fair to say I'm not their hugest fan, so can't claim I was approaching this with any kind of enthusiasm.
But, oh god, this is just terrible. Please MAKE IT STOP. Oh, it turns out I can do that. So I did. Having said that, I liked "Sabrosa" - mainly because at no point did a single Beastie Boy say anything on it. So it's possibly my favourite Beastie Boy track ever (and yes, I'm totally exaggerating for effect). But it's fair to say I'm not a Beastie Boy fan and this album contains very little of the bits that I do like about then. And there's an hour of it to endure as well - just no. It's a cool album cover though - apparently it's a photo from the 60s and they sent the photographer a copy of the album when asking for his permission to use it and he came back with "Well, I didn't understand a word of it - but sure"!
The channel had a lot of praise for this album - from two people. Everyone else maintained a tactful silence - or was too busy enjoying the album to comment. I'll leave it to you to choose which is the more likely option (but would point out it's a terrible album). Wikipedia has a reasonable amount of text on the album, mostly telling me I'm wrong with everyone declaring this an absolute essential album which reached #1 in the US. Oh well, I'm happy being wrong - as long as you don't make me listen to it again. It also reminded me that "Sabotage" was the one with the cool Spike Jonze cop video, which was fun to revisit (and it looked like it was a lot of fun to make as well).
"Customers also listened to" House Of Pain, Cypress Hill, Rage Against The Machine and, errr, Blur. Slightly odd, but hey ho. However, whilst those artists and Beastie Boys do have some redeeming features, I think this album is up there as one of them I've enjoyed the least so far on this list - I completely don't understand the appeal, I'm afraid.
20.06.10 : Renaissance Men - The Wildhearts (2019)
I thought I knew The Wildhearts and was expecting something like Mumford & Sons - so I think we can safely say it turns out I did not know The Wildhearts. I'm not sure quite how I'd describe it - it's "rawk" I guess, but all a bit too much of a big cheesy noise for my tastes, I'm afraid. I can see it's well done if you like that sort of thing - but I don't. However, at least there was only 38 minutes of it. You'd also have to say that from the look of the band on the album cover, they've done some hard living between them.
The channel had the following to say about it in total - "enjoying it so far". It's not quite "the crowd went wild" now, is it? Wikipedia has a bit more to say on the matter, but not a lot - the album was well received both critically and commercially, being their second highest charting album (#11 in the UK chart) in a very long career going all the way back to 1989. The group's entry is quite amusing because it lists all the different line-ups over the years (all 25 of them) and it certainly sounds as though they've had their issues at times, but they're still hanging in there.
"Customers also listened to" Therapy, Terrorvision and Three Colours Red - groups I'm vaguely aware of but have avoided for the good reason that I really don't like them. However, whilst this album very much isn't my thing, I can see why people like it - unlike a certain other album I might have listened to recently.
20.06.11 : Etherwood - Etherwood (2013)
I'd never heard of the artist - or album, unsurprisingly - so was going in blind, but I already knew it was going to be my favourite album of the round, even without listening to it. And I didn't mind it actually, although I'm not entirely sure how I'd describe it - "chilled drum and bass" maybe (I expect that's a Wikipedia genre - although it just settles for the much more boring "drum and bass"). A whole album's worth was possibly a bit dull, but it certainly wasn't a hateful experience and taking a track or two at a time was perfectly pleasant. And it's a cool album cover as well.
The channel went wild for it - one person said "I might have picked this next" and that was it - the channel has not been chatty in this round! Wikipedia has even less to say about the album, but it does tell me he's from the UK - for some reason, I just assumed he was from the US. It also tells me the album got to #91 in the UK album charts, but that's pretty much it on the information front.
"Customers also listened to" a load of people I've never heard of - it seems like I don't know very many drum and bass artists, doesn't it? This is fine though and preferable to "normal" drum and bass for me, although I still think it's unlikely I'll ever revisit it.
And yes, it's an easy win for Etherwood - he would have had to go some to lose it.
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