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Post by Bob Reyer on Aug 30, 2014 13:54:50 GMT -5
1. Violator - Depeche Mode 2. Technique - New Order 3. Revolver - The Beatles 4. Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band - The Beatles 5. Post - Bjork "D", An informal "Welcome" to the Forum seems in order! A nicely crafted list, too! I could picture these coming up as a Pandora mix!
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Post by jasondfedorchuk on Sept 14, 2014 18:10:53 GMT -5
Good day, all! Recent(ish) podcast convert; one-day lurker; first-time poster.
You don't make this easy, do you, Bob? Asking us to pick five albums when many of us (and I have to assume you, too) have so many albums from which to choose that five is just a sad fraction of a percentile? It borders on cruelty. Well, maybe not *borders*. Cruelty-adjacent. Somewhere on cruelty's block.
Anyway, before I get to that, I'm not sure anyone ever answered your Queen comment/question from page 1 (I was reading this thread well past any sane bedtime). If they haven't, here you go: "A Night at the Opera", "A Day at the Races", and "Room Service" are all films by the amazing Marx Brothers, and are all recommended viewing for anyone unfamiliar.
Much like Steve, I'm going to have to pick my five albums based on an "in the moment gut feeling", as I'd otherwise be on here all day. Some of said moment is informed by the fact that it is September, and a lot of music for me has a seasonal feel to it: some albums are "Autumn" albums (see below); others, Spring ("Nevermind" is my annual "first day I can drive with the windows down again" album, for example). Cloudy days, sunny days...I have many albums that I associate with conditions. Probably not uncommon.
5) Gordon - Barenaked Ladies - the full-length debut from a stellar band, they came out swinging like they had to show everyone what they were capable of, with songs in a variety of styles, ranging from the ridiculous ("King of Bedside Manor") to the sublime ("Brian Wilson", a song they've debatably never topped). I could go on at length about how amazingly talented BNL are, how great their live shows tend to be, and how Steven Page's departure took them from a Phenomenal band to merely Great. Some other time, perhaps.
4) Live & in Living Color - the Tower of Power - For many, the true mark of a band is their live performances (at least, before the era of lip-synching really took off), and a good live album can feature versions of songs that make their studio-album counterparts unquestionably inferior. This album definitely fits that category. The band, in their element, is on fire. The only issue is, there are a mere five songs on the album (presumably due to the space limitations of records). If you see it on vinyl, it has a four-song A side, and a one-song B side: a 23 minute version of "Knock Yourself Out", which I'm still not tired of listening to many years later.
3) Master of Puppets - Metallica - Possibly the greatest metal album, ever (subjective). I'm often hard-pressed to choose between this one and "Ride the Lightning" for a favourite, but again, due to the time of year, songs like "The Thing That Should Not Be" and "Sanitarium" will somehow lend themselves in my mind to warm, dry days and changing leaves. And you can't forget that title track.
2) Fully Completely - the Tragically Hip - I've often referred to this as "the Most Canadian Album Ever", which could explain why the Hip have never seemed to make it as big in the U.S. as we feel they should. Which would also seem to be the way many of us like it: they're ours, and you can't have them. Again, this was a toss-up between this and its predecessor, the equally amazing "Road Apples", and this time I mean literally. Tails won. The lyrics are poetry, the music, amazing. This is also one of the truly great Road Trip albums (at least if you're doing a leg in the Canadian prairies), and I think, with two bands mentioned here, I've fulfilled my mandatory Can-con (Canadian Content) obligation.
1) Lateralus - Tool - like Steve's number one album, this is my number-one band, and I vacillated between this and Aenema an awful lot, even while posting. Nobody makes music like Tool. Or videos, which are always as amazing to look at as their music is to listen to. What they do is *ART*, and nothing is phoned in. I've gushed enough about the other bands I've mentioned here, so I'll just say that this is one of the rare full-album experiences I can think of in the modern era, and that the present, prolonged wait for new material is almost painful (and I think Steve would agree).
Good lord, but I do go on. Honourable mentions could go on for a hundred albums, so I'll try to keep it to a much smaller number:
Slipknot - Slipknot Vulgar Display of Power - Pantera Kind of Blue - Miles Davis Where Have All the Merrymakers Gone? - Harvey Danger Up - Great Big Sea All That You Can't Leave Behind - U2 Fresh Fruit for Rotting Vegetables - Dead Kennedys Digitally Organic - Pocket Dwellers Roseland, NYC Live - Portishead
And who knows how many more? Ooof.
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Post by Bob Reyer on Sept 15, 2014 6:43:34 GMT -5
Jason, *DING-DING-DING* You've just said the secret word 'Marx Brothers', so the duck has appeared, but it looks as if someone plucked him on the way down...he must have flown over Las Vegas on the way here...so sorry, he doesn't have any cash for you this time.Love your list of LPs, and I'm particularly struck by the inclusion of Tower of Power! I loved their tunes "What is Hip?" and "So Very Hard to Go". If you're a fan of that style, you might want to check out the Junior Walker album "Road Runner" from my Top Five, as ToP were definitely influenced by Junior's style of gut-bucket R&B
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Post by tobychimp on Sept 15, 2014 8:57:17 GMT -5
Always difficult to pick favourite artists/songs/albums...I do like a variety of music but my list here will probably not reflect that!
I will stick to one album per band, in no particular order:
Arctic Monkeys - Favourite Worst Nightmare Arctic are probably my favourite band right now and I still remember watching their music video for I Bet You Look Good On The Dancefloor on Kerrang back in the day. I've felt like each album of theirs has brought a real change in their sound, which I enjoy, but (for now) FWN is still my favourite album of theirs. Their most recent album, AM, is fantastic and I almost chose that but I still prefer the raw sound they had in the second album.
Blink 182 - Blink 182 Just in case you doubted I was a 90s kid for a second, I grew up listening to Blink. As I grew up and matured, so did their music and songwriting. Their 2003 self titled album was the perfect angsty soundtrack to my teens.
Eminem - The Eminem Show I remember buying this CD when I was on holiday in Florida with my family, I played it in my CD player constantly for the rest of the vacation. His recent(ish) Marshall Mathers LP2 brought a return of form to his music but its the lyrics to the songs from The Eminem Show that remain forever in my head.
Foo Fighters - Wasting Light I could have chosen any Foos album to be quite honest, all of them are absolutely brilliant. I think it's impossible for them to write a bad album?
Metallica - Master of Puppets Again, tough to choose an album since they have so many that are great. I even think St.Anger and Death Magnetic are pretty damn good too. But Master of Puppets was an album I listened to a lot when I used to actually play my guitar frequently and many an hour was spent trying to master (pun definitely intended) some of the riffs and solos.
Honourable mentions: Alex Turner - Submarine EP Akon - Freedom Anthrax - Persistence of Time Kanye West - Graduation Linkin Park - Reanimation Metric - Live It Out Rush - 2112 Them Crooked Vultures - Them Crooked Vultures
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Post by courtneyk on Sept 15, 2014 10:04:46 GMT -5
Always difficult to pick favourite artists/songs/albums...I do like a variety of music but my list here will probably not reflect that! I will stick to one album per band, in no particular order: Arctic Monkeys - Favourite Worst Nightmare
Arctic are probably my favourite band right now and I still remember watching their music video for I Bet You Look Good On The Dancefloor on Kerrang back in the day. I've felt like each album of theirs has brought a real change in their sound, which I enjoy, but (for now) FWN is still my favourite album of theirs. Their most recent album, AM, is fantastic and I almost chose that but I still prefer the raw sound they had in the second album. Blink 182 - Blink 182
Just in case you doubted I was a 90s kid for a second, I grew up listening to Blink. As I grew up and matured, so did their music and songwriting. Their 2003 self titled album was the perfect angsty soundtrack to my teens. Eminem - The Eminem Show
I remember buying this CD when I was on holiday in Florida with my family, I played it in my CD player constantly for the rest of the vacation. His recent(ish) Marshall Mathers LP2 brought a return of form to his music but its the lyrics to the songs from The Eminem Show that remain forever in my head. Foo Fighters - Wasting Light
I could have chosen any Foos album to be quite honest, all of them are absolutely brilliant. I think it's impossible for them to write a bad album? Metallica - Master of Puppets
Again, tough to choose an album since they have so many that are great. I even think St.Anger and Death Magnetic are pretty damn good too. But Master of Puppets was an album I listened to a lot when I used to actually play my guitar frequently and many an hour was spent trying to master (pun definitely intended) some of the riffs and solos. Honourable mentions: Alex Turner - Submarine EP Akon - Freedom Anthrax - Persistence of Time Kanye West - Graduation Linkin Park - Reanimation Metric - Live It Out Rush - 2112 Them Crooked Vultures - Them Crooked Vultures
I love Favourite Worst Nightmare! "Fluorescent Adolescent" and "Teddy Picker" are probably my favorite songs off that album but I could argue for most of them at one time or another. And I love love love Alex Turner's soundtrack for Submarine. It fits the movie so wonderfully but is beautiful to listen to on its own. Anyway, happy to see another Arctic Monkeys fan around! I am going to miss them here live for the first time ever this month, but I just can't stand the venue they're playing in and can't justify the ticket price and parking hassle for poor sound quality and sitting three miles away. I hope they'll go back to a better venue for the next album tour. Also, I deeply need Alex Turner and Miles Kane to do another The Last Shadow Puppets album.
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Post by tobychimp on Sept 15, 2014 10:25:39 GMT -5
I love Favourite Worst Nightmare! "Fluorescent Adolescent" and "Teddy Picker" are probably my favorite songs off that album but I could argue for most of them at one time or another. And I love love love Alex Turner's soundtrack for Submarine. It fits the movie so wonderfully but is beautiful to listen to on its own. Anyway, happy to see another Arctic Monkeys fan around! I am going to miss them here live for the first time ever this month, but I just can't stand the venue they're playing in and can't justify the ticket price and parking hassle for poor sound quality and sitting three miles away. I hope they'll go back to a better venue for the next album tour. Also, I deeply need Alex Turner and Miles Kane to do another The Last Shadow Puppets album. Ahh another AM fan! Good to see! Yeah I think all the tracks on FWM are great but I would say my favourites are 'Only Ones Who Know' and '505' I've always appreciated their slower tracks even though they aren't exactly known for them, plus 'Only Ones Who Know' really hit home with me when I first heard it. Yeah the Submarine soundtrack is brilliant very well put together and some beautiful acoustic work. I'm not too much of a gig person but once I saw Arctic at Earls Court last October I knew I had to see them live again. So a couple of mates and I decided to make a holiday out of it and went to Lisbon in July and saw them at the Optimus Alive festival! It was awesome! The Last Shadow Puppets certainly need to make a return soon!
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Post by jedikewe on Sept 15, 2014 14:57:56 GMT -5
#5: Metallica the Black Album: The dawning of my headbanger phase. #4 Appetite for Destruction. More banging glory. #3: Led Zeppelin IV: Who didn't love Stairway to Heaven #2 Crime of the Century: The first LP I ever owned. #1 Kilroy Was Here: 13 year old boy and songs about robots. Also the first real concert I ever went to.
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Post by Bob Reyer on Oct 21, 2014 5:33:49 GMT -5
#5: Metallica the Black Album: The dawning of my headbanger phase. #4 Appetite for Destruction. More banging glory. #3: Led Zeppelin IV: Who didn't love Stairway to Heaven #2 Crime of the Century: The first LP I ever owned. #1 Kilroy Was Here: 13 year old boy and songs about robots. Also the first real concert I ever went to. Jedi, Sorry that I'm so late getting back over here! Your list has some staple items that I'm sure if people checked their collections, they'd find that they owned them, even if they don't remember buying them! Nicely done!
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Post by Bob Reyer on Oct 21, 2014 5:50:42 GMT -5
Leaping off from "Steve's Jukebox" so as not to derail it (Hi, Lenny!), here's a cover by Junior Walker of the Foreigner song "Urgent". The original was one of the biggest tunes of 1981 in terms of airplay, as it crossed onto play-lists in Rock, Pop and R&B radio, the latter occurring mostly due to the raucous sax solo provided by Junior Walker! I was at the Lone Star Cafe in NYC seeing Mr. Walker the night that Mick Jones came in to ask him to provide that exclamation point to their song, and it wasn't long after that Junior began playing it in his own set.
(An interesting aside; when Junior went in to record the solo, he was asked to play a really gut-bucket, screeching solo, and he informed the lads that it "wasn't his bag anymore", but he'd give it a shot. The solo on the record was spliced together from a few different takes, but some months later, the band was stunned when Junior joined them on stage and blew the solo note-for-note and brought down the house!)
From his 1983 album "Blow the House Down", here's Junior Walker with his version of "Urgent", and pay particular attention to his sax work from about the 2:30 mark! (The song appears in "Desperately Seeking Susan", hence the images):
(BONUS TRACK: Speaking to the emotionalism and that "catch" I mentioned earlier, here's Junior from the 1971 LP "Moody Junior", and the song "Way Back Home", originally an instrumental written by The Crusaders' Wilton Felder, but now with lyrics by Johnny Bristol and Gladys Knight)
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Post by lennyreid on Oct 21, 2014 8:50:05 GMT -5
Leaping off from "Steve's Jukebox" so as not to derail it (Hi, Lenny!), here's a cover by Junior Walker of the Foreigner song "Urgent". The original was one of the biggest tunes of 1981 in terms of airplay, as it crossed onto play-lists in Rock, Pop and R&B radio, the latter occurring mostly due to the raucous sax solo provided by Junior Walker! I was at the Lone Star Cafe in NYC seeing Mr. Walker the night that Mick Jones came in to ask him to provide that exclamation point to their song, and it wasn't long after that Junior began playing it in his own set. (An interesting aside; when Junior went in to record the solo, he was asked to play a really gut-bucket, screeching solo, and he informed the lads that it "wasn't his bag anymore", but he'd give it a shot. The solo on the record was spliced together from a few different takes, but some months later, the band was stunned when Junior joined them on stage and blew the solo note-for-note and brought down the house!) From his 1983 album "Blow the House Down", here's Junior Walker with his version of "Urgent", and pay particular attention to his sax work from about the 2:30 mark! (The song appears in "Desperately Seeking Susan", hence the images): (BONUS TRACK: Speaking to the emotionalism and that "catch" I mentioned earlier, here's Junior from the 1971 LP "Moody Junior", and the song "Way Back Home", originally an instrumental written by The Crusaders' Wilton Felder, but now with lyrics by Johnny Bristol and Gladys Knight) Thanks, Bob I'm going to have to find some Junior Walker. Any recommendations for a newbie? I'm still keeping an eye out for an affordable version of that Four Tops album you threw my way a few months back. It's a rare one!
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Post by Bob Reyer on Oct 21, 2014 17:30:42 GMT -5
Lenny, The best way to get a good sample of the high-lights of Junior's output is with Junior Walker: The Definitive Collection from Motown, which has all the biggest hits from both the Pop and R&B charts. Looking through Amazon, there's a lot of his catalog that's gone out of print, but if you can find it, the must-have Jr. Walker & the All-Stars LP is "Road Runner", that features the title track, Junior's Top 20 (and definitive!) version of "How Sweet It Is", plus the amazing instrumental work-out "Mutiny" that features Mr. Walker wailing atop the Motown house band The Funk Brothers, and featuring a killer bass line by the immortal James Jamerson--make sure you play this through real speakers and crank up the bass!!
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Post by lennyreid on Oct 22, 2014 4:29:20 GMT -5
Lenny, The best way to get a good sample of the high-lights of Junior's output is with Junior Walker: The Definitive Collection from Motown, which has all the biggest hits from both the Pop and R&B charts. Looking through Amazon, there's a lot of his catalog that's gone out of print, but if you can find it, the must-have Jr. Walker & the All-Stars LP is "Road Runner", that features the title track, Junior's Top 20 (and definitive!) version of "How Sweet It Is", plus the amazing instrumental work-out "Mutiny" that features Mr. Walker wailing atop the Motown house band The Funk Brothers, and featuring a killer bass line by the immortal James Jamerson--make sure you play this through real speakers and crank up the bass!! Thanks for that, Bob I already have the Definitive on order after an early morning Walker-fest. Reading up on the guy brought me back to a favourite of mine, Louis Jordan. I enclose two versions (a la Bob) of my favourite track Choo Choo Ch'Boogie. The original recording and the "Rock & Roll version" which was the first one that my wife introduced me to and got me hooked. I love the wilder vibe and the gang vocals on the Rock & Roll version. Original Rock & Roll Version
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Post by Bob Reyer on Oct 22, 2014 6:21:28 GMT -5
Lenny,
Although I love the original, I agree that the Rock'n'Roll version has the edge!
Louis Jordan and his Tympani Five were a big influence on Junior Walker, as was the saxophone playing of Illinois Jacquet, whose solo on Lionel Hampton's 1942 recording of "Flying Home" really set the stage for the "Jump R&B" of the Forties (and players such as Louis Jordan, Paul Williams, Wild Bill Moore, Jay McNeely, Hal Singer, etc.) that lead directly to Rock'n'Roll. Although many cite "Rocket 88" by Jackie Brenston (with Ike Turner!) from 1951 as the first Rock'n'Roll record, I'll throw my money behind "Flying Home" as the song that got things started:
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Post by lennyreid on Oct 22, 2014 8:04:00 GMT -5
That is a DEEP cut, Mr Bob Thank you for that. I'd previously had Rocket 88 in the barrel for any conversations surrounding the birth of Rock'n'Roll. I'll be adding this to the chamber. Also glad I can bring out the "Well, Bob Reyer and I agree that..." prefix to any Choo Choo Ch'Boogie chats
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Post by Bob Reyer on Oct 23, 2014 22:02:27 GMT -5
That is a DEEP cut, Mr Bob Thank you for that. I'd previously had Rocket 88 in the barrel for any conversations surrounding the birth of Rock'n'Roll. I'll be adding this to the chamber. Also glad I can bring out the "Well, Bob Reyer and I agree that..." prefix to any Choo Choo Ch'Boogie chats Lenny, If my imprimatur can end an argument, I guess I've finally made it! ps) Here's another tune in the pre-"Rocket 88" sweepstakes, 1948's "We're Gonna Rock, We're Gonna Roll" by Wild Bill Moore on tenor and vocals and featuring Paul Williams on baritone sax!
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