February is Music Writer Exercise Month #MWE • Page 12

The Con is decent. The songs that hit really hit ("The Con", "Soil, Soil", "Nineteen"), and I appreciate the atmosphere that they create in the background. Reminds me of The Cure and Kate Bush at times. Some songs wear on me the same way that "Walking With a Ghost" did, but that's probably personal bias over the quality of the songs.

 

Dizzy would be an all-time top 50 album for me if you scrapped the Robby stuff and just had, like, 1-2 more Johnny songs.

 

I mean, in the vinyl era, you don't even need any more Johnny songs. Those 9 tracks have a case as the greatest album of all time.

 

Onto Jane Doe. Quite a shift, haha.

 

I wish my vinyl copy just had the Johnny songs. I would be happy with that.

 

9 songs and 35 minutes was an LP for decades

Boston is 8 songs and 37.

 

Jane Doe is fine, I'm on "Heaven in Her Arms". I don't see myself returning to it and don't have anything interesting to say about it so far.

EDIT:
That song and everything that came after is definitely better than the first half, imo

 

Day four for me is The Undertones self-titled debut album from 1979.

I watched a great film the other day called Good Vibrations, about a little punk record label in Northern Ireland, which put out the Undertones first singles. The moment where Teenage Kicks plays on the radio is one of my absolute favourite incorporation of pop music in film;

As for the album itself, Teenage Kicks is the absolute clear highlight, with the rest feeling like solid and decent enough version of the Clash's self-titled era punk / pop punk tunes. It does have a bit of a power pop sheen to it, a bit like the Ramones, or taking influence from 50s rock n roll, perhaps. Unlike someone like Stiff Little Fingers, from the same region and time, who were furious and political, this is much more joyful and simple, in a good way.

Teenage Kicks is such a perfect little accidental lighting in a bottle magic song that only a naive band making their debut manage to do, capturing something that works so perfectly it feels like a complete fluke. The rest of the album is in it's shadow, but there's still some fun to be had here.

 

jane doe isn’t their best but it’s pretty remarkable and super iconic for good reasons for the genre

i doubt we’d have metal as it is now without it

 

I don't think any album opening gets me pumped up quicker than the opening guitar on Concubine on Jane Doe.

 

Jane Doe is just pure intensity and chaos for me. They have better albums as far as actual songwriting goes, but when you just need something to kick you up the arse, I don’t think there’s any other album like it.

 

Nina Simone is great. First full release by her that I've listened to

 

Sings the Blues should be next on your radar. Probably one of the 10 best albums of the 60s

 

I have Sen Morimoto up today. Hoping to get to it this afternoon. I’ve heard nothing but good things so it’s one of the albums I’m more excited about from my list

 

Today, I was...kind of bored? Maybe I picked the wrong PJ Harvey album.

 

Billy Joel is...exactly what I expected haha. I’ve also heard 80% of this as singles. It’s good

 

I'm about to dig into John Prine's Sweet Revenge and I am STOKED.

 

Yeah, The Stranger is one of those albums like Rumours or Tapestry where even if you haven't given it a deliberate listen, you've probably already heard the vast majority of it.

 

Yeah that definitely wouldn't have been the place I'd recommend to start with her. 'Stories' is of the more uninteresting side of her, in my opinion.

Try any of the first three. To Bring You My Love is my personal favourite but Dry and Rid Of Me are excellent. Rid Of Me is incredibly abrasive and I guarantee you it would grab you more than today's pick.

 

For the life of me, I've never been able to get into PJ Harvey. I'll try again sooner or later.

 

OK feel free to kick me out of here because I don't use twitter and I'm not really gonna write anything..... but it looks like this thread is a good discussion thread more than anything, and this might work.... I've been working through years slowly, backwards in time, and am currently at 1973. These are the albums I am listening to this month that I have never heard in full before:

1. Bruce Springsteen - Greetings From Asbury Park, N.J.
2. Bruce Springsteen - The Wild, The Innocent & The E Street Shuffle
3. David Bowie - Aladdin Sane
4. David Bowie - Pin Ups
5. Elton John - Don't Shoot Me I'm Only The Piano Player
6. Aerosmith - Aerosmith
7. Al Green - Call Me
8. Carpenters - Now & Then
9. Diana Ross & Marvin Gaye - Diana & Marvin
10. Eagles - Desperado
11. Funkadelic - Cosmic Slop
12. Iggy And The Stooges - Raw Power
13. Jackson Browne - For Everyman
14. Lynyrd Skynyrd - Pronounced Leh-Nerd-Skin-Nerd
15. Marvin Gaye - Let's Get It On
16. Paul Simon - There Goes Rhymin' Simon
17. Roxy Music - For Your Pleasure
18. Sly & The Family Stone - Fresh
19. The Who - Quadrophenia

plus albums I've heard before from Billy Joel, Buckingham Nicks, Elton John, George Harrison, John Lennon, Led Zeppelin, Paul McCartney & Wings, Pink Floyd, Queen, Ringo Starr, Stevie Wonder and The Wailers.

In short, 1973 was a pretty fucking stacked year

 

Yeah, I went for it because I liked the songs I'd heard from it a lot. Turns out they were just the only songs that really resonated with me!

Sonically, it was totally wheelhouse for me. But I just kept wanting more from the vocal melodies. I felt like a lot of the songs could have gone somewhere interesting and then kind of just meandered about these dull two-note non-hooks.

 

my thoughts so far:

1. Bruce Springsteen - Greetings From Asbury Park, N.J.

Really dug this on first listen, there's something special about this album that I feel like he loses when he gets more popular, I don't think I like it more than Born to Run or anything, but there's a certain charm and some really great songs. For You and Blinded By The Light, obviously stunners.

3. David Bowie - Aladdin Sane

Unfortunately, found this album mostly bland and at times straight up bad. The piano solo in the title track might be the single worst musical moment I have heard in any Bowie album.

5. Elton John - Don't Shoot Me I'm Only The Piano Player

Loving this one, which is no surprise as it's only 9 months ahead of Goodbybe Yellow Brick Road, but the whole album is solid the whole way through. Sometime in the mid to late 70s Elton kinda turns into more of a singles artist and the full albums don't hold my interest, but this is definitely his peak era.

 

Just heard about this, Might do this. Anyone wanna recommend me an album? I'll give most things a go, just no jazz or country aha.

Happy with classic albums, scene classics or new releases I may have missed.

Some artists I was considering trying but unsure where to start:

Foo Fighters (know all the singles but not albums)
The Starting Line (know two songs)
Sufjan Stevens
David Bowie (again, know the singles)