The Album Review Club - Week #196 (page 1316) - Aja - Steely Dan

threespires said:
It's a rock album, it's got some really interesting sonics and lyrical content.
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I think the fact that it’s “sonics” rather than playing chords, melody etc. is part of the problem.

As for the lyrical content, when you sing - and I use the word “sing” in the loosest possible context - like he does, you give up all rights to people getting your message. I freely admit that they could be the most wonderful lyrics ever penned, but I don’t hear them and I actively disengage with the dialogue because of the way they’re delivered.

My loss, perhaps, but I choose to take a stand against this kind of music like others do against other types of music.

If that comes across as harsh, I apologise. I think I’m fair-minded. I don’t like The Jam, Depeche Mode, Kate Bush or any other number of artists nominated on here. However there is a world of difference between the fact that these artists produce music that is not to my taste and artists like IDLES whose approach is calculated to be different by abandoning the basic principles of music.

I’ve read all that back and maybe I’m slightly harsh on the music - it doesn’t do anything for me but there are little parts to suggest that they know what they are doing but if there’s a worse vocalist in the history of rock, I’ve yet to hear him.
 
Coatigan said:
I expected it to not be people's cup of tea. I expected it to make a couple uncomfortable. But not necessarily genuine dislike. But it is what it is, and lots of things come into it.

Even with the vocals, the uglyness, the heaviness, the noise etc, I would still imagine people would feel a rumble in their chest as the last third of Car Crash kicks in. Or start moving to some of the songs, or be intrigued by the build of MTT420.

I genuinely can't stay still when New Sensation or Meds come on, I break into a dance. Something that looks like if Elvis and Jim Morrison had a love child that grew up watching that clip of Ace Ventura in a tutu. And when i'm mopping or sweeping the house Stockholm Syndrome and Crawl are great for a shoogle as well.
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Don’t worry , plenty more reviews to come. Some give it more than 1 day.
 
RobMCFC said:
I think the fact that it’s “sonics” rather than playing chords, melody etc. is part of the problem.

As for the lyrical content, when you sing - and I use the word “sing” in the loosest possible context - like he does, you give up all rights to people getting your message. I freely admit that they could be the most wonderful lyrics ever penned, but I don’t hear them and I actively disengage with the dialogue because of the way they’re delivered.

My loss, perhaps, but I choose to take a stand against this kind of music like others do against other types of music.

If that comes across as harsh, I apologise. I think I’m fair-minded. I don’t like The Jam, Depeche Mode, Kate Bush or any other number of artists nominated on here. However there is a world of difference between the fact that these artists produce music that is not to my taste and artists like IDLES whose approach is calculated to be different by abandoning the basic principles of music.

I’ve read all that back and maybe I’m slightly harsh on the music - it doesn’t do anything for me but there are little parts to suggest that they know what they are doing but if there’s a worse vocalist in the history of rock, I’ve yet to hear him.
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Do they not play chords, melodies?

You constrain music between way too narrow confines. You can be irritated by a style or delivery, not like the weight or sound, lyrics, tone, whatever. And I get it, I have been fairly open to that side of it on this one.

But arguing it abandaons principles of music, comes across as lacking either fundamental understanding of music, or language. And we know that's just not true. I get you are trying to be passionate about how much you dislike it, but don't cross into basic ignorance.
 
I don't get the distaste for the accent he sings in. Rock is littered with blokes from the north east or the black country or wherever singing in weird faux American accents but no one bats an eyelid.
 
First listen in the car on way in to work tonight and have to say I am really surprised.
The whole build up had me wondering what on earth this was going to be like...and then...WOW
The whole slow build of MTT420 was excellent, although I was waiting for it to explode.
But then, "Are you ready for the storm", sort of set things up for the rest of the album.
I do get the general dislike of the "mockney" "singing"/vocals but had to counter that by considering my love for Black Francis.
Actually looking forward to giving this another listen.
 
Coatigan said:
Do they not play chords, melodies?

You constrain music between way too narrow confines. You can be irritated by a style or delivery, not like the weight or sound, lyrics, tone, whatever. And I get it, I have been fairly open to that side of it on this one.

But arguing it abandaons principles of music, comes across as lacking either fundamental understanding of music, or language. And we know that's just not true. I get you are trying to be passionate about how much you dislike it, but don't cross into basic ignorance.
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That’s fine, I’ll take it on the chin and if people think that I’m being deliberately ignorant, I can also live happily with that.

I am probably hard to please but I can listen objectively and give things I don’t really like scores between 4 and 6 based on bits and pieces of the music that I like - a bit of guitar, synth, organ, acoustic, clarinet here, banjo there, whatever. But there’s nothing in the music that interests me and that’s before we get onto the voice.

It’s nothing to do with his cockney accent (even though he’s Welsh). It’s his fake “look at me, aren’t I different” delivery which serves no purpose. All the things Foggy said about Radiohead, I feel about this band. There’s something calculating about what they do and it’s very cleverly marketed.

I’ve gone to town on this, The Streets and some atonal rubbish that denislawsbackheel nominated, but those three aside, I’ve found bits and pieces of everything else that I liked. If to me it sounds like a very poor attempt at music, I’ll say so.

But I’m not going to fall out with anybody over it. Some will agree with me, some will love it, most will be somewhere in between. When next week’s album rolls around, the same kind of thing will happen but with different alignments of people.

I genuinely look forward to what other people make of it and seeing their reasons because it would certainly be boring if things sounded the same week in week out.
 
RobMCFC said:
That’s fine, I’ll take it on the chin and if people think that I’m being deliberately ignorant, I can also live happily with that.

I am probably hard to please but I can listen objectively and give things I don’t really like scores between 4 and 6 based on bits and pieces of the music that I like - a bit of guitar, synth, organ, acoustic, clarinet here, banjo there, whatever. But there’s nothing in the music that interests me and that’s before we get onto the voice.

It’s nothing to do with his cockney accent (even though he’s Welsh). It’s his fake “look at me, aren’t I different” delivery which serves no purpose. All the things Foggy said about Radiohead, I feel about this band. There’s something calculating about what they do and it’s very cleverly marketed.

I’ve gone to town on this, The Streets and some atonal rubbish that denislawsbackheel nominated, but those three aside, I’ve found bits and pieces of everything else that I liked. If to me it sounds like a very poor attempt at music, I’ll say so.

But I’m not going to fall out with anybody over it. Some will agree with me, some will love it, most will be somewhere in between. When next week’s album rolls around, the same kind of thing will happen but with different alignments of people.

I genuinely look forward to what other people make of it and seeing their reasons because it would certainly be boring if things sounded the same week in week out.
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He was born in Newport, but lived his life in Exeter. And Bristol for university. Don't know what his spoken accent is like, mind you.

There is a difference in thinking something is terrible, which is fair enougn, and claiming it doesn't follow principles of music, that's all I was highlighting.
 
Inspired by the thread discussion I woke up a couple of hours ago and a weird thought popped into my head.... If something has melody, chords, recognisable time signatures etc does that confer on it some innate musical merit that will always warrant at least a few points? Statistically I'm in the top 3 most generous points awarders, so I'm probably subconsciously inclined towards buying into that kind of theory more than most I thought. I've only ever slaughtered one pick and that wasn't wholly for musical reasons.

Don't ask me why but I decided to stress test the theory by randomly picking and streaming a Chris De Burgh album (someone who gets vilified off the back of the one song of his that I know) based on the album covers. As it happened I picked something called Into The Light which turns out to be the album with his famous Lady In Red song. I managed to listen to 6 of the 12 tracks and I can report back this album had a variety of melodies, extensive use of chords and other musical devices but as far as I could discern no innate musical or artistic merit whatsoever that would warrant more than a 1 or 2. Admittedly it might have grown on me had I committed to 3 full listens, a sacrifice I wasn't willing to make.

So I'm not convinced that adherence to established musical norms (which after all are derived from a 250 year period of a specific type of tonal hegemony that we've all been chipping away at since the 1900s) is anywhere near the key criteria that I'm personally attaching weight to when I score the picks on here. In fact I'm pretty sure it's a relatively minor consideration for me.

Moreover having recently got my hands on the dataset for this thread I'm pretty sure I'm far from being the only one to whom that applies.
 
threespires said:
Inspired by the thread discussion I woke up a couple of hours ago and a weird thought popped into my head.... If something has melody, chords, recognisable time signatures etc does that confer on it some innate musical merit that will always warrant at least a few points? Statistically I'm in the top 3 most generous points awarders, so I'm probably subconsciously inclined towards buying into that kind of theory more than most I thought. I've only ever slaughtered one pick and that wasn't wholly for musical reasons.

Don't ask me why but I decided to stress test the theory by randomly picking and streaming a Chris De Burgh album (someone who gets vilified off the back of the one song of his that I know) based on the album covers. As it happened I picked something called Into The Light which turns out to be the album with his famous Lady In Red song. I managed to listen to 6 of the 12 tracks and I can report back this album had a variety of melodies, extensive use of chords and other musical devices but as far as I could discern no innate musical or artistic merit whatsoever that would warrant more than a 1 or 2. Admittedly it might have grown on me had I committed to 3 full listens, a sacrifice I wasn't willing to make.

So I'm not convinced that adherence to established musical norms (which after all are derived from a 250 year period of a specific type of tonal hegemony that we've all been chipping away at since the 1900s) is anywhere near the key criteria that I'm personally attaching weight to when I score the picks on here. In fact I'm pretty sure it's a relatively minor consideration for me.

Moreover having recently got my hands on the dataset for this thread I'm pretty sure I'm far from being the only one to whom that applies.
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Had the misfortune of seeing CdB live many years ago - I still wake up with night terrors!
 
GornikDaze said:
Had the misfortune of seeing CdB live many years ago - I still wake up with night terrors!
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I hope she (or he) was worth it? It would take some sort of regression therapy to coax out some of the crap younger me went to see in the interest of ingratiating myself. Scroobius Pip would not approve.
 
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Don't be put off by the title and the woke harmonics but here's a longish video that's semi relevant to some of this discussion.

Objectively Joe Talbot does not have a pleasant voice but I think it fits his band. I certainly enjoy his performance more than what the guy in the Struts was doing even though he has a much better voice.

 
mrbelfry said:
Don't be put off by the title and the woke harmonics but here's a longish video that's semi relevant to some of this discussion.

Objectively Joe Talbot does not have a pleasant voice but I think it fits his band. I certainly enjoy his performance more than what the guy in the Struts was doing even though he has a much better voice.

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His voice, and singing, is actually very good. As seen in their very early stuff, and some of the last album. He chooses to go all blurt out yelps like he is at York away. I get what irritates about that. I can't really hand on heart say it is my thing as such, either. I also get why it works, and I take it as part of a whole. And I like the whole.
 
mrbelfry said:
Now imagine you've written a song about your child being still born, your mother's alcoholism and stroke, and why all immigrants are great.
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That wasn't really what the song claimed, per se. More that they were no different from the rest.
 
RobMCFC said:
All the things Foggy said about Radiohead, I feel about this band. There’s something calculating about what they do and it’s very cleverly marketed.
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Interestingly, those discussions in that bonus week were decisive in tipping me over to nominate this album.

I had wanted to, for ages, because I love it. But avoided it because I knew many here wouldn't. Those chats then meant there was plenty there to get into even if not liked. Which is partly why I was eagerly anticipating hearing @FogBlueInSanFran 's take here, having already laid the groundwork.

Fyi, he really did lose his daughter June. And his mother did have a stroke, and he did have a car crash etc. It is not 'marketing'.

I believe they use it, or at least have, for the best part of their existsnce as a band, as their own form of therapy through expression.

It happens to sell though, as you note. Doubt anywhere near as much as Radiohead, but enough to get noticed.

Partly, because the music is good (it is btw, polarising or not, the quality is undeniable and that is why it is rated). Partly as you said before, because it is 'different'. Although, you will know from some of the stuff I put on the playlist threads, different is not something I lack or crave, and is the least of my considerations here.

But mostly, I think it has found an audience because it resonates with a lot of people. Particularly dare I say it, middle aged and over men.

NOT in the sense they relate to their experiences as such. But more that they relate to the process. The 'healing' process that is, accepthing things, talking openly about them, displaying their vulnerability and wearing their heart on their sleeves.

That is what I think people aim for when they get past the singing style or noise of it. And the younger audiences are in it for the style, the intensity and the raw power of it, perhaps. It is clever in that way, you are right there. How deliberately intentional or consequently resultant that is, possibly too early to say.

Edit, will add, there are big parallels for me between them and Frightened Rabbit. Not musically as such, other than in the fact they both turned their back on convention and used music as a vehicle in their own way that suited them.

But in the relatability and resonating, they both hit the same nerves, strike the same chords (mentally and emotionally). The big difference is, FR tap into quite broad experiences in a looser way where audiences genuinely connect with their own experiences. Whereas Idles do the opposite, their themes are very specific and individual. Yet they connect in a similar way, through second or third hand understanding or appreciation of the effort.
 
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