1001 Albums Update: 622 and Counting

Right, time to finally knock this one out so I can start making some more progress getting through this list.

• Paul Simon - Paul Simon:  More good stuff from Simon, "Me And Julio Down By The Schoolyard" in particular is irresistible. Plus it's even got a song called "Duncan" on! Can't tell you how thrilled I am to share my name with a song by one of America's greatest songwriters.

• Stan Getz & Joao Gilberto - Getz Gilberto: I'm surprisingly finding myself to be pretty blasé about these samba style jazz albums, perhaps they're a bit too laid back for my tastes. I found it hard to pay attention to this album I'm afraid.

• Dusty Springfield - A Girl Called Dusty: Here marked the arrival of one of the best voices of the sixties, as the likes of "Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow?" and the Burt Bacharach penned "Anyone Who Had A Heart" and "Wishin' And Hopin' " strode the perfect balance between the Motown soul sound and perfect pop.

• Eagles - Eagles: Lots of great West Coast-style rock on offer here, "Take It Easy" and "Witchy Women" helping define the band's sound that would later really take off commercially with Hotel California.

• Tim Buckley - Greetings From LA, Happy Sad: These two albums seemed to showcase a different, brassier aspect of Buckley's voice than Goodbye And Hello. While Happy Sad was very melodic and romantic, I was very surprised to find Greetings From LA to be so full of funk and R&B influence. I never expected Tim had the likes of "Get On Top" in him.

• The Temptations - All Directions, Cloud Nine:  Two all-out classics here, as The Temptations started to experiment beyond the traditional three minute Motown single formula. All Directions in particular is a triumph, and features probably one of the greatest songs ever recorded in "Papa Was A Rolling Stone".

• Stevie Wonder - Fulfillingness' First Finale, Songs In The Key Of Life, Talking Book

Lots of classic stuff from Stevie here. Hands down the best of the lot here is Songs In The Key Of Life, a brilliant double album that's just a joy to listen to with the likes of the big-band jazz of "Sir Duke". Its influence is such that many have liberally lifted and sampled from songs featured here: "I Wish" was butchered into "Wild Wild West" by Will Smith, while the likes of "As" and "Pastime Paradise" were more successfully used by R Kelly and Coolio respectively.

• The Smiths - The Queen Is Dead, Strangeways Here We Come

It's been hard to avoid noticing Morrissey's autobiography came out last week. Personally I think the best thing that's come out of it so far is Peter Serafinowitz singing the opening page to the tune of "William, It Was Really Nothing"

The other thing I found interesting was apparently the part of the book covering the court case where Smiths drummer Mike Joyce (ace name) won a quarter of the group's earnings is about four times as long as the part covering Moz's time actually in The Smiths. If true, that's a real shame - it's as if he's letting the bitterness of the dispute over his work in the band overshadow what he achieved as a part of that band. Between the two of them, The Queen Is Dead (incidentally named the best album of all time by the NME this week) and Strangeways... had songs that would establish Morrissey as one of the best wordsmiths of his time (and anytime). "The Boy With The Thorn In His Side", "There Is A Light That Never Goes Out" and "Girlfriend In A Coma" are all songs that thankfully will outlive any bitterness Moz has in his life.

• Penguin Orchestra Café - Music From The Penguin Orchestra Café: This I more like the kind of instrumental music that can hold my attention, as unique a listen as you'd hope for given a title like that.

• Curtis Mayfield - There's No Place Like America: Similar to Superfly in its bleak subject matter, yet lacking some of that record's polish as Mayfield attempted to avoid the influence of disco music. I much prefer something like What's Going On? personally.

• Fatboy Slim - You've Come A Long Way, Baby: Oh boy does this contain lots of childhood memories - "Right Here, Right Now", "The Rockerfeller Skank", "Gangster Tripping" and the incomparable "Praise You" are all present and correct and all are essential listening.

• Primal Scream - Screamadelica

 Primal Scream have always been a hard group to pin down stylistically. On this, their most celebrated album, they not only ride the "Madchester" wave of the time with the likes of "Higher Than The Sun" but go through psychedelia (appropriately) with "Come Together" and the simply glorious, gospel tinged trippy dream of "Movin' On Up". It's vibrant sleeve is also a great, juvenile icon of the time.

• Mott The Hoople - Mott

One could be harsh and say Mott The Hoople were more famous for who they knew rather than what they did in music - David Bowie famously lent them their biggest hit "All The Young Dudes" (interestingly they could have had "Suffragette City" if they wished). But this album shows they could stand out of the shadow of their famous friends. "All The Way To Memphis" and "Honaloochie Boogie" in particular are great slices of post T Rex rock.

• John Martyn - Solid Air, One World: Listening to Guy Garvey's radio show for several years has helped me appreciate the work of John Martyn a lot more. Right up there with friend & contemporary Nick Drake as one of the standouts of British folk, I love his "after hours" voice.

• Nick Drake - Bryter Layter: Speaking of Drake, here he is with a record that almost matches his excellent Five Leaves Left LP, "Northern Sky" being the standout.

• Tears For Fears - Songs From The Big Chair: Bit overly long for my liking, despite featuring the great "Shout" and "Everybody Wants To Rule The World".

• The Rolling Stones - Beggars Banquet

This album kicked off a real golden period for the Stones musically. Despite featuring well known classics "Sympathy For The Devil" and "Street Fighting Man", the highlight for me was "No Expectations", featuring some brilliant guitar play from Brian Jones, who would sadly pass away the next year after drowning in his pool a mere month after being let go by the band due to his drug issues.

• Todd Rundgren - A Wizard, A True Star: I think Something/Anything raised my expectations of what Rundgren is capable of a bit too much, as I didn't find this album delivered everything it promised.

• Tom Waits - Swordfishtrombones: I could do without the call backs to Captain Beefheart, but once again I'm unexpectedly enjoying Waits' work, his voice captivating me much more than I thought it would.

• Santana - Abraxas: Black Magic Woman ooh yeeeah.

• The Jesus And Mary Chain - Psychocandy: Sad to say after Darklands left me pleasantly surprised, Psychocandy was more like what I expected out of a J&MC album. My ears hurt.

Also impressing me this time around were;

• Bert Jansch - Bert Jansch
• Nitty Gritty Dirt Band - Will The Circle Be Unbroken
• Stephen Stills - Manassas
• Alice Cooper - School's Out
• Traffic - Traffic
• Joni Mitchell - Hejira, The Hissing Of Summer Lawns
• Roxy Music - For Your Pleasure
• T-Rex - Electric Warrior
• Pixies - Bossanova
• Sonic Youth - Evol, Dirty

While I was slightly disappointed by;

• New York Dolls - New York Dolls
• Air - The Virgin Suicides OST
• Kraftwerk - Trans Europe Express

Sexism & Music - Plus 1001 Albums Update: 580 & Counting

Well, it's been a while since I touched this blog. Other things in life took over for a while. Lots has happened since I last posted, and I'm actually well into the 600s with my 1001 albums challenge. I'll update you a bit about that below, and I'll do another proper post about some of the albums I heard over summer I can remember more about.

Before that though, I'd like to touch on a subject I've been contemplating writing about for a good long while: is it just me, or does it feel like misogyny and sexism in music is more rampant than ever?

This topic was brought to my attention once more after reading an excellent article on the Guardian website by Lauren Mayberry, vocalist in Glaswegian synth-poppers Chvrches. In the post, Lauren covers the kind of comments that get directed towards her on social media from "admirers" - from the plain naïve (the person propositioning her for dinner because "I think we'd make superior love together") to the more graphic ("I'd fuck the accent right out of her and she'd love it") and of course our good old friend rape culture ("This isn't rape culture. You'll know rape culture when I'm raping you, bitch"). Mayberry also points out neither of her male bandmates receive this kind of attention.

Granted the objectification of women isn't exactly new, but with the anonymity certain parts of the internet gives us consequently leading to the rise of trolling, some people feel the need now more than ever to share their stone-age opinions of women with the world. I honestly don't know how someone can feel they've found their calling in life informing female music personalities of how they'd "give them one", but it's clear that there are people like this who exist.

What dismays me even more, however, is when music itself actually appears to encourage these attitudes. Yes I am of course referring to THAT song and THAT video that lead to THAT MTV VMA performance: "Blurred Lines" by Robin Thicke.

I have several reasons for hating said song. Not only did it make Robin Thicke, the older, crapper Justin Timberlake, a thing again and completely rip off Marvin Gaye, but it seemed to go out of its way to become the most sexist piece of media in history. If music were fashion, this song and its video would be one of those horribly inappropriate Topman slogan shirts.

The music video, where all the women are topless while the men involved stay fully clothed because, you know, that's just how the music industry works, is bad enough. But the two big refrains in the chorus are absolutely horrendous. "You're a good girl" - the implication being "you'll do what you're told " (or else). "I know you want it" - exactly what all those #LADS say when the girl BLATANTLY doesn't want it but #LAD is too proud to admit that's the case. Real stoneage stuff.

The success of "Blurred Lines" led to two more incidents that left a sour taste in my mouth. The first was when ACTUAL Justin Timberlake decided to make similar use of gratuitous nudity in his video for "Tunnel Vision", in some sort of nod to how Thicke essentially owes his whole career to ripping off Trousersnake's sound or something. Granted, JT's effort is perhaps trying to be more "James Bond film opening credits" that Thicke's, and at least the women don't actually share a room with Justin & Timberland so they're not crawling all over them and being gawped at like they would have been in Thicke's video.
But it was still a miss-step in my book and made Justin seem behind the curve when in actuality, his music is vastly superior to Thicke's. Alas, the damage was done, and in the UK at least "Tunnel Vision" didn't even scrape the top 40 (a damn shame, it was the best track off his first "20/20 Experience" album) and then when follow up single "Take Back The Night" (which stalled around the 30 mark in the charts) had the misfortune of sharing its name with an anti-rape charity, said anti-rape charity became furious when it turned out the song's lyrics weren't "SEXUAL VIOLENCE IS WRONG" said on repeat.

The second incident, I'm sure I don't have to go into detail. In fact, why don't we let the pictures tell the story for us

What irked me about this performance was how some segments of the media were quick to point out how inappropriate it was for Miley to be doing this to a 36 year old husband and father ("Won't somebody PLEASE think of the children!?!") yet completely forgot about the fact that Thicke effectively endorsed this kind of behaviour by making the "Blurred Lines" video.
I just hope that as a consequence of this there aren't women who watch these kinds of things and think "Ah, so barely wearing any clothes isn't enough to get peoples attention anymore - now you have to barely wear any clothes AND flaunt yourself in front of a man!", because that's the way things seem to be going. I mean Lady Gaga basically only wore a pair of scallops all show and nobody gave a fuck!

Sadly this will no doubt encourage the trolls such as those that made Lauren from Chvches the object of their desires, as their tiny Neanderthal minds can't comprehend that not every attractive woman wants to be the Miley Cyrus to your Robin Thicke.

The moral of the story is, next time you see someone talking about women in stoneage language simply quote Taylor here and tell them this:

1001 Albums Challenge Update

So the reason I'm just listing what I heard is partly because it's been too long since I heard all of these and partly because not a lot in this run really stood out - besides Muddy Waters, Outkasts, The Boo Radleys and, despite any preconceived prejudices I had against them, Bjork and Ryan Adams. I promise I'll talk more about the next lot I listened to

• The Louvin Brothers - Tragic Songs Of Life
• Marty Robbins - Gunfighter Ballads And Trail Songs
• Jimmy Smith - Back At The Chicken Shack
• Muddy Waters - Live At Newport 1960, Hard Again
• Bill Evans - Sunday At The Village Vanguard
• Morrissey - Vauxhall And I, Your Arsenal, Viva Hate!
• Stan Getz & Charlie Byrd - Jazz Samba
• Scott Walker - Scott 4
• Fairport Convention - Liege And Lief, Unhalfbricking
• Nina Simone - Wild Is The Wind
• Paul Simon - Heart And Bones
• Ray Price - Night Life
• Sufjan Stevens - Illinoise
• Charles Mingus - The Black Saint And The Sinner Lady
• The Mars Volta - Deloused In The Comatorium
• Missy Elliott - Under Construction
• Ms Dynamite - A Little Deeper
• Jurassic 5 - Power In Numbers
• Ryan Adams - Gold
• Soloman Burke - Rock N Soul
• Bjork - Vespertine, Debut
• Lambchop - Nixon
• Outkast - Stankonia
• Ute Lemper - Punishing Kiss
• Sebadoh - Bubble And Scrape
• The Boo Radleys - Giant Steps
• Red Snapper - Our Aim Is To Satisfy
• Erykah Badu - Mama's Gun

On that note, I bid you adieu and will see you all soon.