Clap on your tambourine - gaze at the sun
Continuing my trip up #album-of-the-day...
20.07.22 : Westworld Season 1 - Ramin Djawadi (2016)
I watched this season and thought the music was well done but, for the life of me, I couldn't imagine sitting down and listening to a whole album of it. So imagine my joy when I saw there was 108 minutes of it! And yeah, it's well done but it was definitely a bit of a slog (and I'd be lying if I said I listened to every track to the end). The cover versions work best for me because they're interesting renditions, but I thought they worked better within the context of the show where you suddenly realised you knew the track - seeing the track titles pop up somewhat spoiled the surprise. It sounds like he had a lot of fun doing it and I'm sure there's a lot to admire in there, but it's not for me, I'm afraid. Your man does like his Radiohead as well, doesn't he - but it does give us a nice pop quiz question - what film was "Exit Music (For A Film)" written for?
The channel gave it 5 thumbs up and argued as to whether the covers were a good thing or a bad thing, but pretty much unanimously agreed that Season 2 of Westworld was hard work and I was pleased to see that a lot of people did the same as me and just gave up on it. Wikipedia doesn't have an awful lot to say about the album other than explaining to me exactly which ones were covers that I hadn't recognised (Soundgarden and Nine Inch Nails aren't exactly my areas of expertise).
"Customers also listened to" classical music types and people who look like they do a lot of film/TV soundtracks. No danger of me checking any of them out, I'm afraid - and whilst I didn't mind some of these tracks, there's no chance of me ever putting this one again either.
20.07.23 : 5 - Sault (2019)
Sault would generally be one of those groups that completely pass me by, except for the fact that they had two albums (snappily called Untitled and Untitled) on The Guardian's Best Albums of 2020 list - both of which I quite enjoyed but found tricky to describe, so I was expecting more of the same. And yeah, it's tricksy vocals and rhythms combining to make a pleasant enough sound - I think I preferred their offerings from last year, but there's nothing wrong with this. And I've still got no idea how I'd describe it - Wikipedia goes for "rhythm and blues" which feels like a very generic cop-out to me. I do like the album cover though - I'm happy to have a go at describing it as "cool".
The channel gave it 5 thumbs up and one "not for me" comment. Wikipedia doesn't have a lot to say about the album but does note that Alexis Petridis gave the album 5 stars in The Guardian (it's a very "Guardian" album from a very "Guardian" group) and did a better job at describing it than I did by saying it was "walking an idiosyncratic path that zig-zags between ESG-esque post-punk funk, early 80s boogie and something approaching neo-soul, without ever really fitting into any of those categories". Although, having read that back, it sounds to me like he's pretty much saying "it's like these things, but it isn't" which doesn't seem massively more helpful than my admission of ignorance.
"Customers also listened to" - look, I scrolled a long way down the list because I thought I must have heard of one of them, but I had no luck. But, despite not being able to describe what they sound like, I don't mind Sault (although I think I prefer Untitled to this. And probably Untitled as well).
20.07.24 : Einsjäger und Siebenjäger - Popol Vuh (1974)
Some people just can't avoid making mainstream choices to please the crowds - and then there's Mr Giles. A krautrock album from the mid 70s - as you might imagine, my anticipation meter was OFF THE SCALE! However, if anything, having listened to it I thought it was somewhat underwhelming - a bit of noodling over some reasonably low key percussion. Until we get to the title track anyway, where the 19+ minutes gives them a bit more time to open things up and get the super noodles out. I can assure you there's no chance of me ever listening to this again, but it wasn't as awful as I was expecting (and part of me is disappointed that I didn't get a chance to be ruder about it).
The channel gave this 4 thumbs up, but was tactfully silent otherwise, apart from one person who upped and left as a result. Wikipedia tells me the album is named after a German translation of two of the characters in the original Popol Vuh, which, as I'm sure you'll know, is "a text recounting the mythology and history of the K'iche' people, one of the Maya peoples". It also tells me that Florian Fricke (who I had actually heard of) plays the spinet on this album - and I'm not sure we'll be seeing too many other albums on this (or any other) list featuring one of them.
"Customers also listened to" some people with very odd album covers - I suspect that probably won't surprise you. Overall, I was surprised at how inoffensive this was - I'm expecting more from Mr Giles in future rounds!
An easy win for Sault for me, although I do think Popul Vuh could have come close if they'd actually put a bit of effort in - all it would have taken was a bit more spinet.
And it was Romeo+Juliet...
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