"But pop and rock belongs at the end of the 20th century, in a structured, ordered world that has now fallen apart." Paul Morley (via Retromania) Whilst I believe this is true for rock I'm not convinced that this is the case for pop. Pop has had a pretty good run since say Britney's Baby,One More Time. Rock though that's another story entirely. Just the notion of a rock band seems antiquated doesn't it? It seems absolutely absurd that anyone would be hauling this old carcass around in 2014. Moribund ideas are still being thrown at us as if it's supposed to be authentic man. Surely we're all over and done with rock in the new millennium. Ah...but herein lies a paradox. Our thinking might be ahead of our actions ie. our listening habits. I made a list some time ago of my top 50 albums of the 00s. There are 19 or so rock records. Grinderman, Eddy Current Suppression Ring, Rowland S Howard, The Drones, Yawning Man, Dungen, The Flaming Lips, Ooga Boogas, Boredoms, Deerhoof all of whom you would say were ROCK. Then there's the in between like Sun Araw, Fabulous Diamonds, Broadcast, Ducktails, Gary War, Lamborghini Crystal, Gang Gang Dance and Ariel Pink's Haunted Graffiti. I mean are that lot rock? In very broad terms you would have to say they were, wouldn't you? So actually rock hasn't fully finished for me in the new millennium despite thinking it's a rotting corpse. It has definitely dropped off in the 10s though with only Swans, Dave Graney & The Mistly, Ooga Boogas and Beaches appearing in my end of year lists. But hang on, then there's Human Teenager, Rangers, Metronomy and Peaking Lights! Are they rock bands? Sure they're not of the White Stripes variety but they have some roots in rock don't they?...or shhh.... maybe Post-Rock. I even thought I was done with psychedelia after Dungen's 2004 classic Ta Det Lugnt but what are The Focus Group's Elektrik Karousel and Belbury Poly's The Belbury Tales if not late in the epoch psych classics? Sure Belbury Poly aren't sitting in tour buses snorting coke off groupies breasts, at least I don't think they are (I kinda wish they were now). I can't think of one rock LP of 2014 that I'd rate although I haven't listened to Scott Walker & Sun O)))'s record yet (I'm psyching myself up for that).
Jeezy feat. Future - No Tears
A Top Tune From 2014
So rock's sun is finally setting but that doesn't mean, like Paul Morley, that I'm about to get into ye olde classical music. Current rap, ratchet, trap, bop, r&b/rap interzones, electronic music, experimental and pop still hold sway with me in 2014. As well as old stuff from soundtracks, library music, reissues/compilations (Soundway, Trunk, FindersKeepers et al.),Belgian, Dutch, British and German 90s hardcore (the dance music variety), 90s Memphis Rap to Bowie etc. I think the furthest I've gone back in time, music wise, is like the 30s and 40s with the blues and early electronics. I like the ye olde electronic music but I think that's my cut off point as far as classical music goes. I don't feel the need to go back centuries in time for my music needs. As a youngster I recall thinking by the time I was 40 I'd be a jazz connoisseur and right into my classical music phase but I don't think it's gonna happen. That's for other people. The Person I didn't become. In fact I think my tastes are becoming less sophisticated as the years go on. Rock'n'Roll was about instant gratification and mayhem and that's the way I still like it. *Ha....I do own a copy of Switched On Bach which I rather like.
After reading David StubbsFuture Days I was left with a feeling of "Is that it then?" Perhaps it wasn't a book for me, I mean I knew all the records mentioned and the bands. I'd read most of what was in the bibliography. I didn't find out much new. This is not to say it's not a worthwhile book but maybe it's for new comers. Why didn't he write it in the 90s when Krautrock was Tres Hot? Perhaps he saw a gap had opened up in the market due to the never to be reprinted Krautrocksampler by Julian Cope. What it did make me wish for was a comprehensive book on German Post-Punk aka Neue Deutsche Welle like what Simon Reynolds did for British and American Post-Punk in his great Rip It Up And Start Again book. Stubbs covered a little bit of the NDW scene in a slight chapter towards the end of Future Days. Come to think of it there may be a German book on this topic from maybe 15 years ago (I have a vague recollection of this, maybe) but obviously it hasn't been translated into English, unless I missed it.
It got me thinking of some other books on music that are yet to be written. A definitive book on Australian Post-Punk would be a prime example of this. I'd also love to see a book on the mid 90s Memphis Rap scene. Information on that topic seems thin on the ground and somewhat confusing. There was an incredible amount of excellent music made in Memphis at this time, so shedding some light on it would be great. Is there even a book on 80s underground New Zealand music? Surely there'd be a market for that. I mean there's been like 3 books on the No Wave scene. A book covering Japanese music post Julian Cope's Japrocksampler would be great ie. Noise, Merzbow, the P.S.F milieu, Otomo Yoshihide, The Boredoms and whatever else happened. I could go on - Italian Soundtracks and composers, Belgian electronic dance music, a guide to Library Music or like a top 100, Gabber, Sweden's 1960s experimentalists Parson Sound and their following web of groups into the 70s etc. I always thought Simon Reynolds could expand his chapter from Rip It Up & Start again on San Fransisco's proto-post-punk scene and turn it into a whole book
Remember they used to do books on current cultural activities? Someone could probably do something on the topic of Atlanta Rap or the current state of music in general. Anyway just a thought......
Here's a mix I only just discovered on the youtubes. I've road tested it and it goes well on me bike. DJ Djero's got a whole other bunch of mixes that look like they're worthy of checkin out as well. This one features Dr Macabre, Rave Creator, Pilldriver etc. Stuff from Power Plant, Cold Rush, Kotzaak Unltd. etc.
I'm not even sure I like this but it really captures that downer euphoria vibe so well (it hit me in the stomach) ala post Burial, Drake, DJ Mustard etc. This track/video is almost too much, too real, too sad/euphoric etc. The sadness in this video isn't hidden like it is other tracks, it's up in your grill. Mark Fisher would call it it (perhaps a crass version thereof) party hauntology. I really get the sense of the emptiness but also the necessity to keep going despite the pointlessness of it all. Isn't that nihilism?
Not mentioned in Fututre Days: Krautrock And The Building Of Modern Germany by David Stubbs (well in the index at least I'm only up to page 327) is Eroc's classic Eroc 1. What happened there Dave? No lost Krautrock classics eh?.......
Funnily enough a band Eroc (Joachim Heinz Ehrig) played drums for during the 70s Grobschnitt get some coverage in the book for all the wrong reasons. Stubbs gave Limbus (another obscure act signed to Brain) a listen but failed to check this treasure out. Recorded between 1970 & 75 and released on Brain records in 1975.
Something is really irking me about the cover of Future Days by David Stubbs. It's the faux fadedness of the background colours. Should this book go with my mock 50s radio, my new retro toaster and my brand new football shirt that looks like I've been wearing it since the early 80s? Faux fadedness is something I've come to detest particularly in fashion, art and furnishings. In the case of Future Days it feels like a crass statement of "Yes these were once Future Days but... ha... now everything is old even the ideas and music contained within this book." The thing with this music, modernist architecture and some other Avant Gardes of yesteryear is that some of them still have a shiny futuristic relevance. I haven't seen a David Bowie book come out looking old already, so it does seem peculiar and something I'm surprised Mr Stubbs let slip by him. I would have had the cover as modern as possible in the spirit of the music being covered in this tome. They got the graphics and cover art sort of right. Musicians in 70s Germany weren't dreaming of shabby chic as the future though were they?
*Note to future editors of future editions: Fix up the future bloody cover.
Happy to see this at DatPiff late last night. I don't really get the economics of music now though. She's givin this away so how's she gonna get the green she's talkin about? Or is this just a taster to an upcoming cd/download that costs money? Also I can't believe the sexist shit lady rappers have to still put up with ie. see comment "sorority girls will love it." Over at The Guardian this year one of their own writers was sexist, bitter and nasty about Iggy Azalea. Some of you patronising boys sound a bit threatened that 'oh no' a woman has got more talent than you.
Anyway back to the tape I dunno if there's anything as good as the original bangin Girl single from late last year/earlier this year, which turns up in remixed form here. Actually I bought that on itunes so I guess she's got some money to buy her groceries.. She adds some singing and a rap to Schoolboy Q's 2014 classic Studio as well on Valifornia. On 6 In The MorningFelix takes a line from Snoop Dogg'sGin & Juice in which she places herself as a character inside that song. She states "got my girls in the living room gettin it on and we ain't leaving till 6 in the morning." She even gets Snoop to guest on the tune. She's put herself in another song and re purposed it with a somewhat reclamation/feminist message. Snoop must be the most often re quoted rapper in rap. I assume it was he who said "I got my mind on my money and my money on my mind." originally (correct me if I'm wrong). I mean I still hear that phrase or some kind of rephrasing of that line almost daily in hip hop trax. Actually now that I think about it there was a white lady rapper, Lil Debbie or something like that, who also used that 6 in the morning lyric a year or 2 back.
Now, I paid money for both Skrillex's Bangarang and Rustie's Glass Swords back in 2011 because they were both awesome. I listened to Skrillex's new one, can't even remember the name of it now, a coupla times and thought it was shite. So there was no trip down to the record shop for that one. I was worried on the first 2 listens of Rustie's Green Language. I thought maybe it was a vibe migration thing, you know his time was up and we'd all moved on. And what are these bloody rappers doin on it? A few more listens in and I'm thinkin maybe I am gonna make it down to the shop for this one. I really wanna hear Raptor and He Hate Me in their full digital aural splendour. I'm lookin forward to that. I'm even starting to like the tunes with the raps. Can't imagine though giving that Skrillex album another go though. You win some, you lose some.
How good is that? Bringin back memories of listening to Glass Swords on train platforms and being unable to control myself in its blissfulness. It also made me think of other stuff from that time that I loved - Emeralds and their side projects etc. Might even pull out Bangarang.
Well I've been noticing in the last few months some strange musical collaborations happening but this one has gotta take the cake - Scott Walker & Sunn O))). I mean I love me Scott Walker and we all know he's a little strange and a little cheeky but what? I think it's as strange as the pairing of Lou Reed& Metallica, no definitely stranger. I must admit I haven't listened to that and some people rated it quite highly? I mean I'm big on Lou and have been known to enjoy Metallica amongst friends ie. I never bought a Metallica LP in my life but my friends did and I didn't hate them. It's a bit like Sunn O))). I enjoy what I've heard on the radio but never bothered to investigate them any further (It's been in the back of my mind to check em out....but....). Maybe not quite as strange but Royksopp & Robyn? Now I can't think of the other ones that I've seen and thought what? Maybe though its a better collaboration if you are stylistically further from one another. Nick Cave & Kylie Minogue was superficially a bit weird but if you think about it they are both pop singers, entertainers, song and dance people. Now Kylie & Stockhausen would have been weird but probably not as weird as Cave & Stockhausen, at least Kylie would be considered electronic rather than rock. Now this all reminds me of French musique concrete composer Pierre Henry collaborating with British proggers Spooky Tooth, a bit weird?. Kate Bush & Peter Gabriel normal. Nirvana & William S Boroughs a bit strange but not really. Coldplay & U2, now that'd be fucked up! Only one band would have to turn up. Would you have The Edge from Coldplay or U2's Edge? What about Taylor Swift & Burzum? Pharell & Earth? Evan Dando & Diamanda Galas? That one kinda sounds like it might be alright, it's hard to know. Nickleback & The Wiggles? The Mrs offers Allanis Morrisette & Coldplay. You could play this game all day really and somebody probably already has on Twitter. Then there's the whole alive/dead thing. Nicki Minaj & Ian Curtis anyone up for that? What about Kermit The Frog & Townes Van Zandt? Elvis & Bieber?
This popped up on me ye olde iphone during a trip back from the doctor today and it sounded so good. I'm not sure I should have actually been riding a bike, now, come to think of it. I made it home in one piece I guess.
Antipodean reissue of the year without doubt! The long out of print Derry Legend from 1989. The best band to come out of New Zealand in my book. This was originally released on Flying Nun!? Although they seem to get written out of Flying Nun's history and most histories of NZ music actually. More on this later ie. a full write up, when I've fully convalesced. Check out these previous posts for Axemen genius.
Don't know much about this dude but this is some of 2014s best rap/ratchet. Apparently there's another volume.
King Kev's 2014 By Any Means is not as immediate as his Stranger Than Fiction from last year but I'm startin to really dig this a lot. What a fuckin talent! That voice! What a badass!
Lovin this. What a team Bloody Jay & Young Thug. Bloody Jay has a new solo one out as well, I can't keep up.
My favourite LP to listen to while me and my dog sit by the fire with our feet up. Hey I'm an adult! .......well sometimes.
Not Really Diggin
10s Hardcore continuum soundz. Hey I really enjoy Kid Lib but the rest I dunno?
???
A new Rustie album how excitement! Now, I'm not so sure. It's early doors yet though.
"That description of ratchet doesn't really capture the stylistic essence of things like "Rack City" and all that followed it, though does it - "simple rhythms, kicks and claps, squelchy synth bass" - i'm not sure i can do any better, though! Deceptively simple, i think would be the first nuance i'd add. Mustard's tracks are like Dre's classic beats, in way -- not doing anything very flashy or obviously avant, but real groovy. harder than it looks, i'll bet. With Mustard, the signature features are the snare rolls with the paradiddle-like military feel, the HEY!HEY!HEY!HEY! Marine-regiment doing-drill chants, and, more recently, those re purposed and slowed-down 90s house licks and vamps."
This was left on the comments page of Ratchet & Trap Explained by the one and only SimonReynolds. Now that's an explanation of Mustard & his ratchet. Onya Simon! To tell you the truth I thought Anonymous may have been him or some other such luminary.
I don't know if he can top 2013's number 1 sonic document, his Ketchup mixtape, with his follow up 10 Summers. Judging by the little radio skits that contain nothing but past Mustard hits toward the end of this album. Where someone keeeps flicking the dial on the radio only to find old Mustard hits, I think he's already feeling his past as a bit of an albotross. Perhaps he's looking for a way forward or just something as classic as My Nigga, Rack City, I'm Different, Show Me, Paranoid, 2 On, Lady Killa, Midnight Run et al.
Part 2 coming up of my appraisal of 10 Summers. Once I've had more than a few listens. Stay tuned for the next episode of DJ Mustard's 10 Summers.
Funnily enough I was listening to Faust and Eroc's Eroc 1 today and hello to make my bad days a little brighter here's David Stubbs and his book Future Days: Krautrock And The Building Of Modern Germany. There have been other good books on this topic of course. Particularly gonzo rock guru Julian Cope's KrautrockSampler, which is long out of print. Then there was The Crack In The Cosmic Egg by Steven & Alan Freeman which has also been out of print for some time but is a fabulous resource for the more obscure side of the genre. A scaled down internet version of this encyclopedia by the Freemans is available here in pdf form. Stubbs is of course a legend from the Melody Maker in the 80s. He wrote an excellent book a few years ago Fear OF Music about how modern music isn't given the same respect critically, culturally and monetarily as modern art is. Simon Reynolds really revs up the book with an astonishing quote "Future Days does not capture Krautrock so much as unleash it. At long last the definitive book on the ultimate music." Now that's saying something. As I recall a highlight of the 90s Reynolds & Press book The Sex Revolts was a chapter on Can which blew my mind. The best writing on the German group Can ever or any other group for that matter. Maybe there's better to come. Stubbs seems to show up at times in my life when I'm in bad health. There's a picture of me reading Fear Of Music on a hospital bed from a few years ago. It's like he knows when I need cheering up.
Any reason to play Can is a good reason.
You really need to listen to this LP as a whole.
It's Genius (and I hate that word's over use!).
This could be my favourite track of the year too. This is from Lee Gamble's Kuang EP. It feels like a ghostly cavernous space where the rave action used to be, now there is just reverberation and lost time. I can also sense some hope perhaps, sunlight creeping though the cracks of a past time. Anyway it is beautiful and brilliant. It's up there with anything from his Diversions 94-96record which made my end of 2012 list. It's probably the best thing he's done so far, stunning!
This could be my favourite track of the year. It's like something from a crappy lo-fi experimental art rock band that only put out tapes in like the mid 80s (that's not a bad thing in my book). I dunno if Thug and Jay are just lazy, bored wasted or just fucking funny. Probably all of the above. Florida Water is from Young Thug & Bloody Jay's 2014 gem Black Portland.
Young Thug & Bloody Jay's Florida Water made me wanna listen to this. I dunno if there's a connection or if my brain's just on random. Anyway this is an Ariel Pink classic from Mature Themes, I wish this song would go for an hour. I just can't get enough.
"Trap = derived from southern "gangsta" rap; particularly mid-2000s stuff like gucci mane, young jeezy, t.i. lots of intricate, rattling 808 percussion & snare sounds along with booming kick drums and bass. a lot of the original producers used a lot of big wall-of-sound, gothic sounding synths and there was a noticeable influence from electronic genres like trance and electro, but filtered through a rap production aesthetic. now a huge influence on rap, r&b and electronic music, and the production is often a lot sleeker and less bombastic."
"Ratchet = term for the recent production style that draws on hyphy (e-40, keak da sneak, mistah fab etc), jerk music, crunk and g-funk. lots of simple rhythms, kicks and claps, squelchy synth bass. i think the term was originally used by lil boosie in Louisiana but now usually refers to west coast rap and r&b stuff like dj mustard, yg, ty dolla sign etc."
*This was left by an anonymous commenter. Thanks Anonymous I think you know your shit!
They've intermingled and cross-pollinated though haven't they and not just with each other but most other forms of 90s electronic music and some 90s rap ie. 666 Mafia, right?
Wow, I haven't heard the word heroin or been around it since the 90s. That was probably the last time it was fashionable, but hello it's one of Cassie's drugs of choice along with cocaine. This tunes got a bassline straight out of a 90s Metalheadz tune don't you reckon? Or maybe a No U Turn tech-step track. Maybe heroin's makin a comeback. I mean they're all into codeine so I don't see why not.
It's pretty clear here what Young Thug wants. He'll have a spliff and two cups stuffed with Lean. He be from Atalanta. Is there something in the water down there? I mean apart from cough mixture?
Well this one's pretty self explanatory. Weed & Lean be the drugs of choice here. You can really get inside this track's luxuriant wasted vibe, even without the weed & Lean. But they would help.
Great beatz from my main man DJ Mustard. It's a shame Mane didn't write a good song on top of it. More references to lean and not being able to feel your face. They're still on about gettin some pussy even though they've had so much lean they feel like they're "from outer space". That 'Hmm' bit is so irritating it ruins one of the best beats Mustard ever put down. What a waste.
The best final track of an album then the first track of the follow up LP. I'm tryin to think of others but this is a great double! Of course The Bewlay Brothers ends Hunky Dory and Five Years opens The Rise & Fall Of Ziggy Stardust & The Spiders From Mars. Does it get any better than this for this combo?Anyone got any others?
I bought this LP when it first came out at the start of 2013, quickly shelved it and thought I'd probably never listen to it ever again. I thought this is the most boring Nick Cave shit ever. 'No Mick Harvey, bring Blixa back, where's Ed Kuepper? Wasn't he meant to playing on this?' Were my thoughts. A couple of weeks ago I pulled it out for the first time since February 2013 after seeing a cool poster on the interweb for his current tour. I thought maybe I missed something. I mean it was high in end of 2013 lists and quite rated (I do have a mistrust of post millennial rock criticism and don't read reviews).
The first thing I noticed when I put the cd in the computer was that bloody itunes had blanked out the pubic hair of the lady on the front cover (Nick Cave's Wife?). I still found it a little boring. Something dragged me back though. Several listens in and I was diggin it like no Bad Seeds record since the 80s. This is the Grinderman comedown and it's no rock record. That's what I had to come to terms with, Push The Sky Away having little to to with raucous Cave. Lyrically Cave's in fine form. His words are just as fucked up and lewd as anything from the 2 classic Grinderman LPs. Kudos must go to producer Nick Launay for keeping the record subtle and nuanced. No other band could have made this album. The Bad Seeds minimalism and restraint is so affective here.
It's track 3 that got me in. Water's Edge is musically co-written by Thomas Wilder and it has an edge like something from say Your Funeral, My Trial... A minute in and you're expecting Blixa Bargeld to chime in with his idiosyncratic guitar and vocals. I could have sworn that was a Barry Adamson bassline but looking on the liner notes he only plays on 2 tracks toward the end. Maybe Marty was channelling Adamson's ominous spirit. Water's Edge has a seductive menace and creepiness reminiscent of 80s Bad Seeds. Particularly when Cave whispers in your ear "But you grow old and you grow cold/But You grow old and you grow cold/You grow old." Then Nick's singing shit like "Their legs wired to the world/Like bibles open/To be speared." This tunes a bloody classic.
This is followed by Jubilee Street one of Push The Sky Away's centrepieces. This is a slow burning sprawl of a song that swells and swells to its loud conclusion. Jubilee Street is one of those seedy streets that every city capital has. Cave sings classic lines like "The Problem was she had a little black book/And my name was written on every page/ Well a girl's gotta make ends meet even down on Jubilee Street/I was out of place & time/And over the hill/And out of my mind." Were these words sung by Grinderman they'd have been sung with joyous nihilism but in The Bad Seeds hands the sense of guilt and remorse close in. It must be a couple of years on in the tune when he sings "These days I go down town in my tie & tails.' .Then comes the lyric oftheLP: "I've got a foetus on a leash."There are allusions to being transformed whilst the song swells into redemptive euphoria.
Mermaids is a lascivious tune from a voyeur's point of view. Yeah remember when Nick Cave was pervy ie Watching Alice from 1988's Tender Prey. That's where this track sits with a little humour. Mermaids contains great lecherous lines like "I was the match/That would fire up her snatch." Later he's "Fired from her crotch/Now I sit around and watch." Finishing Jubilee Street is creepy. I'm not fully sure what he's on about here perhaps a dream. The Bad Seeds create a dark and disturbing vibe here that shows Cave doesn't always need to whack you over the head to get his point across. The restraint and plaintive singing from Martha Skye Murphy (?) after Cave has sung words like "Last night your shadow scampers up the wall/It flied/It leaped like a black spider between your legs and cried." creates an indecent feel. It's some kind of nightmarish vision with tremendous haunted xylophone from Jim Scalvunos that plays in unison with the keys.
Higgs Boson Blues harks back to The Bad Seeds vision of American blues which First Born Is Dead from 1985 was steeped in but this time it includes the whole world as America. Visions of driving black roads, flame trees, crossroads, Robert Johnson, Lucifer, Memphis, heat, rooms with views, flop houses, preaching in new languages, bell hops, cleaning ladies, yellow patent leather shoes, being hot, Hannah Montana, monkeys with gifts, missionaries with small pox and flu, driving his car down to Geneva, rainy days and finishing with Miley Cyrus floating in a swimming pool in Taluca lake. This is Nick Cave at a career best songwriting peak. It's Steve Kilby-esque in its psychedelic fabulousness. The title track is last and it fits with the 2010s vibe of downer euphoria, conflicted feelings, luxuriant emptiness etc. Is it a lament or a paean to salad days or none of the above? One thing I do know is Push The Sky Away is one of the most beautiful songs The Bad Seeds have ever recorded.
Strange days indeed. From hate to love in 17 months. I didn't expect to be writing about this record right now let alone making grand statements like this is one of the finest Nick Cave and The Bad Seeds albums ever recorded. No Doubt. Huh.
More Sex, Drugs & Ratchet. I think Beatking's music is the most fully realised confluence of 90s rave culture and 10s rap so far and it's such an addictive sound. This one from last year's got rave horns, talk of mixing Es with codeine and echoes of 4 Hero's (Mr Kirk's Nightmare and Where's The Boy?) cautionary tales. Beatking says "These Molly's are gonna kill you in 5 years. But it's not 5 years right now so mix that shit with codeine." Not quite the same but 5 years is a long way off so party on right?
A really great weird list over at FACT on their top 100 LPs of the 70s. It's just one LP per artist. I love how they really don't stick to the rock-crit consensus. I couldn't have predicted that they'd put half of these in their list. I own about 63 of these records. There's no Bob, Neil, Bruce, Pink Floyd, The Clash or even Led Zep! That should rile up a few rock bores. Some of my faves on the more esoteric side of things from the list include A.R. & MachinesEcho, Guru Guru's UFO, Libra's Schock, Annette Peacock's I'm The One, Bruce Haack's Electric Lucifer, Rot by Conrad Schnittzler, Flower Travelling Band's Satori, Fern Kinney's Groove Me, First Utterance from Comus etc. Hawkwind make an appearance but no Ash Ra Tempel or Amon Duul 2. Funkadelic but no Parliament or Bootsy. Heaven forbid no Big Star what will the indie kids say? Black Sabbath's Master Of Reality over Vol. 4 and Paranoid. That would have been a hard choice. As would the Bowie decision with at least 11 classics to choose from. No T-Rex! No AC/DC! They went wild with their Lou Reed pick Live-Take No Prisoners. Nico in, John Cale out. No Iggy, that's outrageous! The 70s I guess was a peak time for fine albums so really they could have made a top 200. Can's Ege Bamyasi over Tago Mago, Future Days and Soon Over Babaluma. There's plenty of Krautrock, Jazz, Avant Garde, Punk/post-punk and the just plain weird. Not much Glam (That was more of a 7" trip) or Prog, No Country at all (it must have exhausted its hipness).
Of the punk & Post-Punk we've got Wire, The Sex Pistols, The Buzzcock, Stiff Little Fingers, Suicide, No New York, Patti Smith, Cabaret Voltaire, Crass, Pere Ubu, The Slits, New York Dolls, Nurse With Wound, Throbbing Gristle, Modern Lovers, The Residents (another hard choice, so many classics), Richard Hell, Devo and Talking Heads who all make the cut. Joy Division's Unknown Pleasures is mysteriously overlooked. The Saints(I'm)Stranded is the highest placed punk record, right on FACT!. No Radio Birdman or X(Legendary Australian band not the inferior American one) though, or X-Ray Spex, Dictators, Germs, Gang Of Four (is Entertainment not one the best album of the 70s?), Magazine, Television or The Ramones?! Metal Box by PIL is oddly missing. There ain't no Tubeway Army, Pop Group, Durutti Column, Thomas Leer & Robert Rental, Swell Maps, Minny Pops or Gary Numan solo. Der Plan's Geri Reig would have been my left field pick with its gloriously demented electronic toy town post-punk German stylee.
Soundtracks are thin on the ground. You could make an excellent list of 100 70s soundtracks I reckon. I think there are only 3 OSTs in the list. I'd have probably had Life On Earth, Eraserhead, Clockwork Orange, The Exorcist, Death Line, Quintet, Wickerman, Enter The Dragon, Shaft, Cannibal Holocaust, The Taking Of Pelham 123, Phantasm, Vanishing Point etc. etc.
On the soul and funk tip Curtis Mayfield makes the grade with his excellent Curtis/Live but Isaac Hayes doesn't. Stevie Wonder in, Michael Jackson's Off The Wall out!? Sly Stone, Gil Scott Heron, Last Poets, Shuggie Otis and Millie Jackson are here. The Meters, James Brown, Bill Withers, Al Green, Betty Davis, Marvin Gaye, Bobby Womack, Teddy Pendgrass, The O'Jays, The Isley Brothers et al. are not. My esoteric Pick would have been Lightnin Rod's Hustlers Convention from 1973 which is a proto gangsta rap concept album that is some funky superfly shit man. On the disco tip no Risque from Chic or Donna Summer's Once Upon A Time. But we do get Cerrone's Cerrone 3: Supernature and the aforementioned Fern Kinney.
There's no records from Sweden ie. International Harvester, Harvester or Trad Gras Och Stenar (I'd probably have included an LP by each of those groups even though they're all pretty much the same group). Maybe my other Swedish pick would have been Algarnas Tradgard's Framtiden ar ett Svavande Skepp, Forankrat I Forntiden. That's a nice slice of folky space prog jams. From France you get Serge Gainsbourg, Magma, Ghedalia Tazartez and Heldon. Some other French weirdness would have been good too like Pole's classic meandering electronic psych trip Inside The Dream from 1975. Brazil still seems to be on the hipster map with several entries, however Milton Nascimento & Lo Borges sprawling opus Clube Da Esquina misses out as does Jorge Ben,Edu Lobo etc. On the Yank/Brit folkish tip you get Linda Perhacs, Judee Sill, Bridget St John and Robbie Basho but no Nick Drake, Vashti Bunyan, Dr Strangley Strange, Tim Buckley (losing his hipster cache?) or my fave of the lot John Martyn. It would have been a toss up though for a Martyn LP between Bless The Weather, Solid Air, Inside Out or One World. Only one LP from Japan shows up so there's no Les Rallizes Denudes, MasahikoSatoh, People, Far East Family Band or Brast Burn. Nothing from Turkey at all! I'd have perhaps put in Baris Manco's funky Anadolu psych classic 2023 or LPs from Mogallar, Bunalim, 3 Hur-el or Eric Koray's masterpiece Electronic Turkular. On the Avant Garde front you get Bernhard Palmigiani, Charlemagne Palestine, Gavin Bryars, Basil Kirchin, Harold Budd, Robert Ashley etc. I reckon Taj Mahal TravellersAugust 1974 would have got my overlooked vote for its eerie deep psych drone goodness. Even maybe something from the legendary Ron Geesin who put out several classics of 70s cult electronics on the KPM label. Where's Delia?
I could go on forever, perhaps I should have made my own list. Klause Schulze's Moondawn gets a guernsey but it could just have easily been 7 of his other 70s classics. Tangerine Dream's Ziet would have got my vote over Phaedra.On The Corner from Miles Davis seems a conservative choice to me. I'd have gone for something like Get Up With It, Dark Magus, Big Fun, Agharta, In Concert or Live/Evil. Cult bands like The Screamers, The Electric Eels and Simply Saucer, I don't think had official LPs released in the 70s, which could explain their absence.On the more rock front The Rolling Stones, Blue Oyster Cult, The Allman Brothers, King Krimson, Dr Feelgood, Thin Lizzy, Steely Dan, Buffalo, Budgie and The Pink Fairies don't get a look in. I guess those bands are for other lists. FACT do things their way and the worlds a better place for it.
Here's ten LPs that haven't been mentioned yet in this or the FACT article that are essential 70s recordings in my book: Edge Of Time - Dom No Other - Gene Clark For Your Pleasure - Roxy Music Ball Power - Coloured Balls Tres Hombres - ZZ Top Split - Groundhogs If Only I Could Remember My Name - David Crosby Alien Soundtracks - Chrome Delta Momma Blues - Townes Van Zandt Dub From The Roots - King Tubby
Wow this has made me realise once again how rich and deep the music goes in the 70s. I'm lookin forward to going through all my Miles Davis and Klaus Schulze records oh and then there's some I've never heard from the FACT list. I might finally check out Henry Cow, Millie Jackson, Cymanade, Judee Sill or Gary Wilson. I never could get into Stiff Little Fingers, Joni Bloody Mitchell,Genesis or pre-SwordfishtrombonesTom Waits though. But hey any list with Throbbing Gristle's 20 Jazz Funk Greats at number 1 is fine by me.
Lovin this! It's got a really sad lost future vibe running through it. Like what happened? Is that all there is? What now? Who's got the vision? Is this retro-future better than other versions of futures put forth by other artists in other genres of popular culture/music? Why does no one care? Not even us. Featuring the new millennium's only guitar legend Mikey Young.
.....and this from like 2 years ago now. Featuring the main man Brendan Huntley (from Eddy Current) hopefully still in fingerless gloves. My theme tune of the last 2 weeks, except I did mind gettin caught in the rain. Every time I get on my bike it bloody rains.
Classic from 2008 with Mikey & Brendan together in Eddy Current Suppression Ring. Dunno if this is their video or a custom made fan job. There's was something so peculiarly Australian about Eddy Current that was so fabulous, you couldn't ignore it. Then there was Brendan who is so damn charismatic. They didn't seem fake either like say The Arctic Monkeys or The White Stripes. Primary Colours feels like it was released a lifetime ago but it's only 6 years old. That can't be right? I saw this album Primary Colours (from which the above track is from) along with Ooga Boogas Romance & Adventure get reveiwed on daytime tv by Dicko (ex-Australian Idol Judge) and David Reyne (ex drummer of shite 80s girl pop group The Chantoozies and brother of Australian Crawl's James). Reyne had a go at the drummer of Eddy Current and said with disdain that they reminded him of TheSaints as if the Saints were the worst band to come out of Australia and not the greatest. This made me think Reyne was a turd, even though he was in the classic 80s tv series Sweet & Sour (which was about underground inner city hipster post-punk/new pop bands). Primary Colours even made it into the end of year Pazz & JopPoll in The Village Voice of all places. They placed somewhere in the top 70 which was pretty good but Guns & Roses'Chinese Democracy placed ahead of them!? Make of that what you will.
Created a bit of discussion over at Mess&Noise with my thoughts on the new Total Control album. Someone called me Space Dickhead which I liked, might even change my name to that. Big ups to Anok, checkers, MelonHCST, Seahunt, __v & amazinglyblended.
You can check out my love here for Mikey and his cohorts Ooga Boogas, here as well!
I'm not sure what the Mess&Noise meant by linking that Tinasheremix, by Drake, in the forum though (If it was sarcasm it didn't come across. They're a bunch of writers though surely they understand that sarcasm doesn't work in written text) As much as Drake might come off as a winging rich arsehole in his music (which I'm not even sure I really like) he does have some sense of the now and not just the resigned retro now. His tune Marvin's Room/Buried Alive is undeniably a milestone in rap culture whether you like it or not. My point on that post was how pointless are remixes (well 99.9% of them)? Having said that I love the original version of 2 On by Tinashe, that's a 2014 killa.
Random thoughts: What the fuck is the difference between trap and ratchet? Do I need to know? Should I care? C'mon all you micro-genre nerds what's lowdown?
This is pretty much a Drake version of 2 On and it's pretty good but not really bettering the original. After the first minute of Tinashe's original he takes it over and makes it his own for the rest of the tune.
Then there's this which is pretty odd but this stays Tinashe's track. Although the whole vibe of the tune is moved to somewhere else not as compelling. The rap ain't anywhere near as good as the original Schoolboy Q cameo though. What was Vado thinking? How on earth was he gonna top one of the great rap cameos of all time? He shouldn't have even bothered. I imagine Schoolboy Q being not too threatened by its lameness. I love that string loop thing though, nice. Remixes: What were they for again?
Here's another killah tune from Beatking's mixtape Gangsta Stripper Music 2. Echoes of Darkside Hardcore, Gabba, Marc Arcadipane and more. This could be the tune of 2014!
Similar influences here as well as a bit of 90s Dutch, Belgian and the omnipresent 666 Mafia.
This one is incredible too. Haunted, disorientated and faded!
Well the backing track is like Kraftwerk, then there's a Moonshake(the group)-like sample followed later by a Pole-esque unskank at the end. It's an incredible production whether the producers are hip to these references or not.
More haunted soundz similar to Burial ala Drake, Schoolboy Q etc. The sound of sweet emptiness.
I'd already decided to review this LP before I'd heard it. I liked their previous record Henge Beat from 2011. I guess they are a side project band but I can't tell these days what the main bands are for these people and what the side projects are. So I guess you have to take them all on their own merits. Hey I'm a fan of Eddy Current Suppression Ring, Ooga Boogas and UV Race some of whose members are in Total Control. I wasn't however expecting to be so disappointed by this record. Sure Total Control show they have fabulous taste in punk/post-punk/synth music but is that enough at this stage of the game/epoch.
It all kicks off with Glass a Suicide/Numan/Foxx pastiche. Then Expensive Dog which is just like a Wire song. Flesh War is better like a new romantic Eddy Current tune. A chorus you're not expecting turns up and you're in pop heaven for a moment and the previous two tracks are forgotten. The guitars and synth intermingle perfectly. In fact you can't help thinking why didn't they go over the top with the production on this one to give it a chance at being a top 10 hit in the pop charts! Systematic Fuck is next, in my notes it says systematically fucking boring, huh? Liberal Party starts off promising with synths, drum machines, maybe a sax and an insidious guitar line. Then you're thinking well this could have been made in 1981 by The Makers Of The Dead Travel Fast. Nothing modern, now or futuristic is happening here or anywhere else on the record. There is no attempt to use the attitude/manifesto's that caused their influences to create such visionary work. Total Control are content to reproduce the sounds of trailblazers but not attempt anything revolutionary/innovative themselves, not even really attempt to extend on their heroes ideas. Are they/we just resigned to repeating the past future over and over. Nietzsche has been mentioned as an influence on this record but that feels like a cop out and a little too convenient doncha think?.
Two Less Jacks is a bit like er.....Gang Of Four. Black Spring is a bit more organic. It's a trippy psych gem (If you're in need of another one of those that's up to you I guess). I'm trying not to say Black Cab or Spaceman 3 but I just did. The Ferryman follows and it's synth noodling for 2 minutes & 42 seconds that's not unpleasant. Hunter is weird electronic goodness that I wish Typical System had more of. The keyboards & guitar seem barely controlled. The vocals have a desperation and the sweet girl backing vocals add an unexpected juxtaposition. Safety Net is more Numan/Foxx/Human League in indieland schtick with Mikey Young's unmistakable guitar which gives the tune an odd vibe. But then I just can't help wishing it would turn into an Eddy Current Suppression Ring song with Brendan takin over the microphone with his fingerless gloves and the rest of the Eddy Current boys kickin out the jams in their unique style. Instead Safety Net just plods into inconsequence to end the record. Probably not really what the world needs now. Flesh War & Hunter are the standout tunes and I really wanted to love the rest of the record as much as those tracks but....
