August flew by quickly, these are some of the things that made it more pleasant:
1. Ippu Do - Radio Fantasy (from Radio Fantasy, 1981)
Strange surf-music-meets-new wave-meets-techno from a Japanese band who looked like New Romantics.
2. Shining - (from V - Halmstad, 2008)
Most of Shining's work is pretty good - Halmstad is great, even if its epic, lush texture is too 'nice' for some black metal fans.
3. The Beastie Boys - Shadrach (from Paul's Boutique, 1989)
The perfect marriage of the Beastie Boys' wordplay and perfect timing and the Dust Brother's carefully layered, funky sampling.
4. The Beatles - I'm Happy Just to Dance With You (from A Hard Day's Night, 1964)
Happy, energetic, inventive and catchy rock-pop, from the height of Beatlemania. They may have been part of a whole movement of British rock & roll, but there aren't many records from 1964 that sound as fresh and ebullient as this. Which is why The Beatles were the biggest band of the era.
5. Pete Shelley - Yesterday's Not Here (from Homosapien,1981)
Buzzcocks frontman Pete Shelley's debut solo album is a patchy one, but it has some excellent, emotive post-punk/pop/synth tunes on it and this perky-but-wistful song is one of the best.
6. Tom Waits - Jitterbug Boy (from Heartattack & Vine, 1980)
Somehow sepia-toned Kerouac-esque drunken nostalgia; lovely.
7. Dissection - Where Dead Angels Lie (EP, 1996)
Even to a semi-Dissection-skeptic this is simply an excellent piece of melodic black metal, by far the best song in the band's discography.
8. Joy Division - Atmosphere (1980)
One of the best, least 'cold' songs from one of the key bands of the post-punk period. Bleak and (of course) atmospheric.
9. Blondie - Dreaming (from Eat to the Beat, 1979)
Eat to the Beat is often seen as the poor relative of Parallel Lines, but: Dreaming, Union City Blue, Atomic - it isn't.
10. The Cure - A Letter to Elise (from Wish, 1992)
Despite its hit status, Wish is a bit of a let-down after the run of albums The Cure released through the 80s. Sometimes (Friday I'm In Love) it's annoying too. But this song is great.
11. Eartha Kitt - Wear Your Love Like Heaven (from Not So Old Fashioned, 1972)
Ultra-creepy cover of an already slightly creepy Donovan classic.
12. The Smiths - Unloveable (1985)
B-side to Bigmouth Strikes Again is even better, almost a parody of The Smiths' perceived depressingness, perfect.
13. The Byrds - Turn! Turn! Turn! (to Everything There Is A Season) (from Turn! Turn! Turn!, 1965)
From the unmistakeable chiming guitar intro onwards this is everything that was great about The Byrds encapsulated in one song.
14. Grant Green - The Final Comedown (from The Final Comedown, 1971)
Classic Blaxploitation soundtrack theme by one of the great jazz guitarists of the era; cool, funky and tough-yet-delicate.
15. Morrissey - Alsatian Cousin (from Viva Hate, 1988)
Morrissey's solo career kicked off with a song as unlike The Smiths as anything he has released since; Vini Reilly's very un-macho guitar heroics are the opposite of Johnny Marr's understated cool, but none the worse for that.
16. Peter, Paul & Mary - Early Mornin' Rain (1965)
Lovely version of the Gordon Lightfoot classic; could hardly be gentler or more wistful.
17. Neil Young - Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere (from Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere, 1969)
Yes, I've playlisted this before, but it's great in every respect and I listen to it a lot so why not?
18. Iron Maiden - Flight of Icarus (from Piece of Mind, 1983)
One of the great metal albums of all time, and one of the great songs from it.
19. Rodriguez - Like Janis (from Cold Fact, 1970)
Wistful, sardonic Dylanesque song with great lyrics and perfect orchestration.
20. Striborg - Light Anomalies in the Phantom Woods (from Ghostwoodlands, 2007)
Spectral, minimal black metal that sounds extremely easy to do but still has an atmosphere you don't find anywhere else.
21. Front 242 - Tragedy for You (from Tyranny >For You<, 1991)
Belgian industrial techno that sounds a bit less intense and oppressive than it did at the time. Still good though.
22. Old Wainds - Death Nord Kult (from Death Nord Kult, 2008)
Invigoratingly icy black metal from Murmansk. Pleasingly whirring and non-progressive.
23. Daniel Johnston - I Remember Painfully (from Yip/Jump Music, 1983)
Just what the title suggests. Too many words to fit into the tune, but he makes it work. Funny and anguished, a rare combination.
24. Steve Reich - Different Trains (1988)
Hypnotic, emotionally charged composition for 'string quartet and tape' in which minimalist master Reich pieces together bits of interviews about various train journeys, generating melody from the patterns of speech and adding almost percussive strings.
25. Uriah Heep - Bird of Prey (from Salisbury, 1971)
Salisbury is far less cohesive than its predecessor Very 'Eavy, Very 'Umble, but also more ambitious. Bird of Prey, the opening track, is probably the most straightforward hard rock song on the album & has excellent/ludicrous (depending on your taste) vocals by David Byron.
26. John Cale - A Child's Christmas in Wales (from Paris 1919, 1973)
Strange that such un-bluesy, atmospheric music could be made by (mainly) Little Feat, but the band's work on Paris 1919 underlines just what great musicians they (especially Lowell George) were. A delicate yet forceful song with Dylan Thomas-influenced lyrics.
27. F.U.S.E. - Into the Space (from Dimension Intrusion, 1993)
Pristine bleepy electronica from arguably Richie Hawtin's best period.
28. Archers of Loaf - South Carolina (from The Speed of Cattle, 1996)
"Grunge" to an almost retarded degree, this is nevertheless an excellent blast of mopey lumberjack-shirted rock.
29. The Rollers -Roxy Lady (from Ricochet, 1980)
By 1980 the ex-Bay City Rollers had musically morphed beyond all recognition, and Ricochet is a weird mix of hard(ish) rock, new wave and pop influences. This particular song is poppy, post-punk-glammy and catchy.
30. Daniel Sullivan - Reflections I (2011)
Lovely minimalist piano piece - simple and beautiful.
31. Eliwagar - Ice & Fire (from Memories of the Warrior Will, 2008)
Oddly percussive 'norse romantic folk music' made by a nature/myth/history-obsessed Viking age type of girl called Runahilde who plays all the instruments and writes and sings the strangely droning, archaic sounding songs. Her music now is more modern and rock/pop influenced but this album is uniquely remote and stark sounding.
Please see my updated and (hopefully) improved article about Uriah Heep's ...Very 'Eavy ...very 'Umble here!
Introduction: NOT boring....
In the world of album cover art, the best thing would of course be to have a great and/or iconic sleeve design for your record cover.
Mothers: iconic
The art/design itself doesn't have to be great though; if the artist(s) look striking enough (Beatles, Simon & Garfunkel, Morrissey, Madonna, Adele even) then a decent plain photograph is a more than acceptable solution to the album cover issue.
Beatles: striking
Failing either of those, a truly bad sleeve may be the best option for attention-grabbing purposes. Obnoxious and Neil Young are truly dreadful, but even the contrived-ness of the Acid Reign sleeve doesn't make it any less memorable.
*blergh*
BORING
Arguably worse than a truly bad sleeve design is a truly bland one. ALL talent show contestants' album covers have them, most bands and artists of any standing have at least one in their discography.
Example:
Black Sabbath have covered the whole spectrum:
EXCELLENT
Black Sabbath (Vertigo, 1969) see also Sabbath Bloody Sabbath (1973), Never Say Die! (1978)
* Iconic creepy image perfectly encapsulates the tone of the music within
* Photographic/modern and yet artistic & timeless
*low-key, moody but powerful use of colour
* Excellent 60s-ish logo, never fully adopted by the band but often imitated
EXECRABLE
Born Again (Vertigo, 1983) see also Paranoid (1971)
* laughably un-scary image
* suggests artist had seen album title + band name but not heard record
* looked instantly dated
* garishly nasty use of colour
BLAND BEYOND BELIEF
Seventh Star (Vertigo, 1986) see also The Eternal Idol (1987)
* "fine", unremarkable picture of Tony Iommi
* uninspired fonts & safe colour scheme
* cheap-looking framing of central image
* how could the designer be bothered to hand this artwork in or the label be bothered to use it?
Notable examples of bland artwork abound, especially in the 80s, when pretty much every major established star of the era (McCartney, Elton John, Phil Collins, Tina Turner, Rod Stewart, Dire Straits) dealt exclusively in the kind of bland packaging most suited to their 'product', but some less obvious examples are equally unfortunate...
Anti-Pasti - Caution in the Wind (Rondelet, 1982)
Not bad artwork, but the urban grittiness of the picture itself is undermined by the strangely random pale colour washes over some areas and the jarringly out-of-place band logo. Patchy album too, so sort of fitting in a way.
Pilot - Second Flight (EMI, 1975)
The Edinburgh band's clever, classy post-glam pop never got an album cover to match the quality of the music and the lazy artwork for their second album (featuring their biggest hit January alongside lots more quality guitar-pop) is probably the BLAH-est of them all....
The Pooh Sticks - Trade Mark of Quality (Fierce Records, 1991)
Okay, so ramshackle Welsh indie isn't likely to spawn Roger Dean-esque works of art over triple-gatefold sleeves. But you'd still expect a twee, homemade, perhaps childish charm (like the Archies-inspired art on their Great White Wonder), rather than this impossibly boring-in-every-respect sleeve.
Queen - Greatest Hits (EMI, 1980)
Strange that such an image-conscious band should approve such a drab cover, but I suppose a guaranteed huge seller didn't need much attention. The 'trapped in the Phantom Zone' layout is both *B*O*R*I*N*G* and dated too...
Otis Redding - History Of Otis Redding (Atlantic, 1968)
Nothing captures the emotional power of Otis Redding's brand of soul music more than a wistful B&W picture of the singer on horseback with an autumnal green border. Nice, in a way but ???.
Nazareth - Play 'n; the Game (Mountain 1976)
Nazareth are a highly underrated band, responsible for some of the best hard rock (and hard rock sleeves - see Hair of the Dog and No Mean City - of the 70s. But you wouldn't know it from the sleeve (or title) of their '76 opus.
David Bowie - Stage (RCA, 1978)
Although Bowie was in the middle of one of his best periods in '77-8, RCA seemingly tried to make this so-so live album sound as bland and unspontaneous as possible. The cover (pointlessly a gatefold) compounds the sense of 'completists only'.
Kiss - Hot in the Shade (Mercury, 1989)
Even Kiss' worst album covers (lots to choose from) usually have a kind of cheesy flamboyance; but not so the tepid Hot in the Shade, also perhaps their most yawn-inducing album of the 80s
Lou Reed - Rock and Roll Heart (Arista, 1976)
Lou Reed is responsible for some of the best (Transformer) and worst (Lou Reed Live) album covers of the 70s. But he was rarely boring. The title, cover and about half of this album are an unwelcome exception. He got much better at being boring in the 80s; witness Legendary Hearts, Mistrial, Live in Italy etc etc etc....
The Stranglers - Feline (Epic, 1983)
"MEH"
Pink Floyd - The Final Cut (Harvest, 1983)
Pink Floyd managed to build a formidably interesting series of album covers through the 60s & 70s - even the covers of The Wall and Dark Side of the Moon, although (to me at least) a bit dull, are iconic & memorable. The Final Cut achieves the same level of dullness without being iconic.
Genesis - Duke (Charisma, 1980)
I am not a Genesis fan, but I do think their 70s work is interesting and (usually) housed in excellent sleeves. At the turn of the 80s though, the Phil Collins-led incarnation of the band announced a new era of commercial blandness with this highly apt artwork.
...and in a class of their own....
Talking Heads
A special case, despite being one of the great bands of the 70s/80s, Talking Heads albums rarely came in anything other than dull, uninspired sleeves. Those below are just the blandest....
The concept of a guilty pleasure is a bit silly when applied to such things as films and music, but it's a handy phrase for liking things that you know aren't 'good'. For example, the films of Godfrey Ho;
Mr Ho is not the Orson Welles of Taiwan (to say the least) but I haven't seen a single one of his films that wasn't infinitely better than thousands of more professionally made, slickly directed and better acted films. For example...
The Dragon, The Hero (dir. Godfrey Ho, Taiwan, 1979)
Starring: John Liu, Dragon Lee, Tino Wong, Phillip Kao Fe
If forced to give this movie a mark out of five I would award it 3.5 or even 4, but why for Christ's sake? It's obviously rubbish isn't it? Let's see...
Synopsis: Two fighters with an inherited grudge (John Liu & Tino Wong) join forces with each other and a musclebound martial artist (Dragon Lee) to defeat a sadistic psychopath (Philip Kao Fe) who needs only to see a fighting style once in order to master it.
Very brief, objective review:
Godfrey Ho's usual bizarrely inept direction and lack of pacing, plus illogical plot twists, unbelievable characters and very poor dubbing are redeemed only by well-staged fights, especially the climactic one. 2/5
Rambling subjective review:
Godfrey Ho's work of the late 70s/early 80s is perhaps the pinnacle of trash kung fu cinema; camp, colourful, ridiculous and bizarre. Although his inventiveness became dulled by the endless stream of ninja movies (usually including a Z-list western actor), his earlier work was rarely less than entertaining, and often intentionally funny as well as incidentally so.
In The Dragon, The Hero, Ho brings together some of the most idiosyncratic kung fu performers of the era:
The aristocratic/snooty-looking Tino Wong, here cast in a rare heroic role, in which he is immensely likable.
The moody, funny-looking John Liu, one of the great kickers of the era
The athletic, Bruce Lee-looking Dragon Lee, often wasted in lookalike roles
The intense, fanatical-looking Phillip Kao Fe, perhaps (along with Hwang Jang Lee & Lu Feng) the best kung fu villain of the era.
In addition, there is a great and amusing cameo by the unmistakable Bolo Yeung.
Kao Fe's larger-than-life villain (who uses a huge hourglass to time how quickly he defeats and kills his victims) would completely overshadow the movie if not for the fact that everything else in the movie is equally outlandish and cartoonlike. In fact, even some of the movies' martial arts are as silly as everything else; Tino Wong & John Liu's 'strike rock fist' style being a particularly unwieldy, if photogenic method of combat.
The UK dubbing adds an extra dimension of fun to the film, a mixture of dopey and melodramatic voices, seemingly done by a cast of 3 or 4 British actors in attempted American accents. Dragon Lee's voice is the same kind of strange John Wayne impression that Bruce Lee was often saddled with in his UK releases.
Basically; weird characters, rambling, picaresque story, bizarre plot twists, nice locations, presumably in rural Taiwan, plus top class fight scenes = top entertainment. 5/5
OVERALL RATING: 3.5/5
A random selection of seven 7" records pulled off of an over-stuffed shelf.
1. 'Fatal' Microbes - Violence Grows (Small Wonder, 1979)
songs:
a) Violence Grows
Bi) Beautiful Pictures
Bii) Cry Baby
Not so much 'post-punk' as clinging on desperately to punk, this band of what appear to be school kids make spirited, amateurish 'punk rock' much loved by John Peel. Violence Grows itself is long, slow-ish and annoying, with Honey Bane's flat Siouxsie-ish singing making the whole a bit of a drag. Beautiful Pictures, though is an uptempo punk classic and Cry Baby enjoyable punky nonsense. Despite the many punk classics, it's little records like this that make the punk explosion so rewarding to explore.
2. Dark Lord - ...By The Force of Sacred Magic Rites... (Blasphemous Underground, 2008)
songs
ai) Into The Lightless Realm
aii) Tommota Est Et Tontremuit Terra
aiii) Appearance Of The Spirit
bi) Prince Of The Land Of Tears
bii) I Summon Thee
biii) Opening Of The Seventh Gate
The songs on this satisfyingly fat 6 track EP were in fact the Adelaide band's first demo, recorded in 1993. Somewhat overlooked black/death metal, brutal and pummelling with surprisingly technical lead guitar, totally worth seeking out if you like the more deathly end of the BM spectrum. Darklord, somewhat flamboyantly for the genre, used custom-made double necked guitars designed by the band and made by Brian West at Fretco, Adelaide (http://www.fretco.com.au/quality-instruments-parts-accessories/). They sound good. This is pretty basic and relentless but is in some ways preferable to their also-very-good album Symphony Satanikka.
3. Swervedriver - Sandblasted (Creation, 1991)
songs
a) sandblasted
b) out
Contemporary with, but slightly different to, the shoegaze bands of the early 90s, this windswept, slightly Americanised indie rock made my slightly crusty-looking types has aged pretty well. Very of its time, but since that was a time when the indie scene genuinely offered an alternative to mainstream chart music that isn't so bad really.
4. The Young Rascals - Groovin' (Atlantic, 1967)
Classic laidback latin-soul with a great vocal from Felix Cavaliere. The Rascals (as they became are one of the few white soul groups of the era whose work doesn't pale into insignificance compared to actual soul music. The slightly more raucous B-side is pretty good too.
5. Killing Joke - Wardance (Malicious Damage Records, 1980)
songs
a)Wardance
b) Pssyche
Although Killing Joke were forging a new post-punk sound on their first album, their second single (which predated the album by some months) initially sounds almost Stranglers-ish, until the atmospheric chanted chorus. This version is faster, more aggressive and slightly less good than the version on Killing Joke, but still fairly excellent. B-side Pssyche is kind of similar really; relentless, aggressive but not untuneful.
6. Sindy - Sindy Meets the Dolly-beats (Pedigree Dolls, 1966)
songs:
a) story
b) Sindy
A 'concept' single about Sindy (the doll, UK equivalent to Barbie) and how she came to watch her favourite beat group "Cliff Warwick & the Dollybeats". Sindy saves an (apparently) old scouser and misses some show she wants to see but the scouser turns out to be none other than the Dollybeats' lead guitarist (according to the narrator) Cliff Warwick. The sleevenote, however, lists "Terry Coombes" as lead guitarist as well as the band's costume supervisor. ("Someday Terry would like to become an architect")
Sindy gets to watch The Dollybeats rehearse and thinks/says 'dolly wow!' quite a lot. The Dollybeats are pretty cool; they do a song called Sindy that rocks a fair bit although neither Cliff or Terry play any leads!
7. Pixies - Here Comes Your Man (4AD, 1989)
songs:
a) Here Comes Your Man
b) Into The White
Bagboy is all well and good but in their prime Pixies were making records that were both catchy and commercial and subversive. Here Comes Your Man is probably their most melodic song (apparently written by Black Francis when he was 14 but shelved for years) but with an ominous undertone. The B-side (sung by bassist Kim Deal )is not their best (that would probably be Weird at my School or Manta Ray) but it is pretty noisy and good.
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