Oh man it's been a while.
Back to some music for today. Also back to some recommendations from my friends in high school.
Back to some music for today. Also back to some recommendations from my friends in high school.
Animal Collective's Merriweather Post Pavillion
As far as indie stuff went this was a lot easier to get into for me when I was a dumb stoner in high school. Though the crushing length of these songs would kill me.
Favorite Song on Merriweather Post Pavillion: Daily Routine
As a high school kid this kinda flew over my head. Then one day I sat down to read into the lyrics and I found that I enjoyed this album a lot. It's as indie-rock as they came in the mid-2000's so this was spared from being paired up with some sort of gizmo in a commercial.
Favorite Song on Funeral: Wake Up
Kasabian's Empire
Another band my friend moved on from immediately. The songs on this are often short and don't overstay their welcome. It's a neat and concise album. I'd recommend it for sure.
Favorite Song on Empire: Sun Rise Light Flies
A Tribe Called Quest's The Low End Theory
Another classic in hip hop. Enough said.
Favorite Song on The Low End Theory: Check The Rhyme
Keane's Perfect Symmetry & Under The Iron Sea
Keane's a British band that my indie-rock listening/Pitchfork reading friend liked but then dropped like a rock not long after. Somehow I ended up with two of their albums. There's some good stuff in here but I wouldn't exactly call anything on these two as being... distinct.
Favorite Song on Perfect Symmetry: Better Than This
Favorite Song on Under The Iron Sea: Crystal Ball
Franz Ferdinand's You Could Have It So Much Better
Back in the day "Take Me Out" and "Do You Wanna" were two of my favorite songs. Then I realized that the rest of this band's discography is painfully mediocre.
Favorite Song on You Could Have It So Much Better: You're The Reason I'm Leaving
Kanye West's The College Dropout, Graduation & My Dark Twisted Beautiful Fantasy
Three of Kanye West's greatest albums ever. Regardless what you think of Kanye as a person (trust me, I know), dude's never really made what I'd consider to be a bad album. All of these are pretty amazing albums that really broke through and set the wheels in motion for more neurotic, introspective narratives in hip hop. Which I'll happily take.
Favorite Song on The College Dropout: Jesus Walks
Favorite Song on Graduation: Stronger (DAFT PUNK SAMPLE!)
Favorite Song on MDTBF: All of the Lights (Feat. every recording artist ever)
KOHH's Monochrome & 梔子
Thanks to the internet KOHH blew up in a big way, even among American hip hop heads, back in 2017. He was initially described as the Japanese Chief Keef but over time he's shown that he's a lot more (in that there's no American rapper like him). He's released five albums and they're all pretty good.
Favorite Song on Monochrome: No Sleep (couldn't find a YouTube video)
Favorite Song on 梔子: 飛行機
The Chemical Brothers' We Are The Night
Hell yes. Now this album is extremely my shit. Very upbeat, lots of fun electronica abound.
Favorite Song on We Are The Night: Das Spiegel
Grizzly Bear's Veckatimest
Back in high school I thought this album was boring. Fast forward to today and I think it's slow and just not for me. Is that better? I don't know. What I do know is that I'm done giving this album chances.
Favorite Song on Veckatimest: None.
New Order's Get Ready & International
Get Ready is New Order's first album released in the 21st century while International is a compilation. So yeah we're not exactly dealing with the albums that made them such big deals in the 80's and 90's, but there's some nice stuff here too.
Favorite Song on Get Ready: 60 Miles An Hour
Favorite Song on International: Regret (note, it's hard to pick just one but damn is the groove on this fucking tight)
The Enemy's We'll Live And Die In These Towns
The Enemy were a UK rock band that made some really enjoyable melancholy songs on this album.
Favorite Song on We'll Live And Die In These Towns: Technodanceaphobic
Sufjan Stevens' Come On Feel The Illinoise! & The Age Of Adz
I'm torn on how to feel about Stevens' music. I like a lot of it. I also don't care for the rest. I guess that's natural, but for whatever reason the gap between his good stuff and stuff I don't find as good is really wide in my mind. I don't know, I think I'm just not the type of listener who can handle albums with long songs.
Favorite Song on Come On Feel The Illinoise!: Jacksonville
Favorite Song on The Age of Adz: Get Real Get Right
Lands' Olympos
Hey a Japanese rock band. Well sort've. This is Lands, a temporary band that was made exclusively to promote the Japanese film "Bandage" which features a fictional band. The vocalist is former Japanese idol Jin Akanishi (formerly of the boy band KAT-TUN), and pretty much all of the songs are produced by Takeshi Kobayashi (a producer/lyricist/composer/everything) who was tasked with making songs for the movie. It's pretty experimental and I kind of like it. I certainly liked it more than most of Akanishi's work with KAT-TUN and a lot more than his solo work after KAT-TUN.
Favorite Song on Olympos: Bandage (the groove is a killer)
The Flaming Lips' The Soft Bulletin
My first introduction to The Flaming Lips was off of the song they had on the SpongeBob SquarePants Movie soundtrack. Don't laugh, that soundtrack had some legitimately good acts on it and some songs that have stuck around (mostly as memes). My friend heard me list the Flaming Lips as one of the bands on this CD and said "you need to listen to their albums" and told me to start with this. The lazy bum that I am never bothered to venture forward.
Favorite Song on The Soft Bulletin: The Gash
Blur's Think Tank & Best Of
Sometimes I think Blur's just a lesser version of Gorillaz.
Favorite Song on Think Tank: On The Way To The Club
Favorite Song on Best Of: Song 2
Aklo's The Arrival
Aklo is a half-Japanese/half-Mexican rapper whose stuff is pretty tight. Night crisp flows and usually accompanied by nice beats.
Favorite Song on The Arrival: RGTO (Feat. SALU, H. TEFLON, K DUB & SHINE)
Okay I think that FINALLY wraps up the albums I got from my main high school era music buddies. They gave me a mountain of good music that took me forever to get through (I'm still trying to get through all that indie rock!). So with that...
Everyone Else
It's not like the rest of my friends/classmates didn't like music. It's just that they weren't hitting up record stores like I was every other day. But they gave me some interesting recommendations too.
Kaiser Chiefs' Yours Truly Angry Mob
RUBY RUBY RUBY RUBY
DO YA DO YA DO YA DO YA
Favorite Song on Yours Truly, Angry Mob: Ruby (duh)
Dope's American Apathy
This is an album that left me stunned. And I don't mean that in a "they're so artsy that I don't know how to react" way. More like how I'm flummoxed at how I can say I've heard a nu-metal cover of "F*** the Police" now.
Favorite Song on American Apathy: Fuck The Police
Drunken Tiger's gHood Muzik: The 8th Wonder
Drunken Tiger is Korean hip hop group that often credited as pioneers in the Korean hip hop scene and are responsible for really bringing genre into the Korean market. This album didn't spare any expenses as it has a lot of notable names including the God MC himself, Rakim, as well as Japanese rapper ZEEBRA somehow. It's a two disc set and pretty fun, even though I can't understand the language at all.
Favorite Song on Feel Good Side: Jet Pack (Korean Version)
Favorite Song on Feel Hood Side: Monster (English Version)
And that was about it.
I've really come to regret taking my indie rock listening friend for granted. Dude was trying to lay a solid foundation for my essential "what white people in Portland listen to" playlist, and I didn't appreciate much (if any) of it at the time. The fact that a lot of this still isn't jiving with me kinda says that either some of this is really not for me, or that I just need to give it a few more dedicated listens. Gonna do that with a few of these albums for sure.
As always thanks for stopping by and take care :).
Ugh. I had about 8 lines worth of comments written and then I accidentally clicked a link without opening a new window and when I came back... the comments were gone. So here's a snapshot of the comments I wrote earlier:
ReplyDeleteA. Huge fan of A Tribe Called Quest... and Check the Rhyme was the song that introduced me to the group.
B. Never heard of Keane (or if I have, I don't remember), but I like the sound.
C. Kanye is weird (or at least that's how he comes off in the media), but I've enjoyed his music over the years. Back in the Andrew Luck Era, I saw the Stanford Band perform All of the Lights. They were amazing. Wish I had the sense to record it.
D. Never heard of KOHH either. But I've always enjoyed listening to hip hop in foreign languages. Add Aklo to this comment.
E. Regret is a great song. I'm pretty sure Republic is the last New Order CD I ever purchased. Probably haven't played it in over twenty years.
Lol, sorry to hear about the commenting issues Fuji, but thanks for your input all of the same.
DeleteI agree that Kanye (or the Kanye we get presented in the media) is weird, but damn can he make some tunes. Though I do kind of think his stuff has gone a little down in quality the past few releases.