The Album Review Club - *** Christmas Break Playlist (next album 7/1/26) ***

Black&White&BlueMoon Town said:
Yes, my parents had an 8-track player and by virtue of wanting to hear my music in the house, I bought a few early on by necessity. That and vinyl at the same time, but if you didn't have good equipment on the needle, doing damage to your LPs or 45s was going to be an issue and wasn't going to be something to last for enjoyment.

en.wikipedia.org

8-track cartridge - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org en.wikipedia.org

It was the thing in the late 70s with me mostly, but by the early 80's, recording music on cassettes was all the rage.

The biggest complaint on the 8-track was one never could easily line up the side 1 and side 2s of a vinyl LP into the 4 sides required on that media. I recall AC/DC's Back in Black had the title song faded out and then faded back in on that 8-track. When I heard that sacrilege, I knew it was time to convert to cassettes, and just swap and share with friends (or record albums, etc.) onto that format.
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The sideboard gramophone was the weapon of choice in the homes of early 70s Britain!


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Until they were usurped by the much cooler 'music centre' :-)

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threespires said:
The sideboard gramophone was the weapon of choice in the homes of early 70s Britain!


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Until they were usurped by the much cooler 'music centre' :-)

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Nice technology, liking that cassette player on the left side to both record off the LP or radio.

We actually had this exact 8 track model in our kitchen growing up (I laughed too as a kid):

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My side-by-side dual cassette high speed recorder and player in university was nice to swap and share while in campus housing when being introduced to all kinds of new bands I'd not yet heard of.
 
crublue1 said:
I still have the lid off my uncle Harold's music centre. I use it to drain oil into when servicing cars + bikes.
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Thinking about it they are about the right shape and size for a decent capacity drain pain! Must be a tough old bit of plastic.
 
Black&White&BlueMoon Town said:
Nice technology, liking that cassette player on the left side to both record off the LP or radio.

We actually had this exact 8 track model in our kitchen growing up (I laughed too as a kid):

View attachment 128562

My side-by-side dual cassette high speed recorder and player in university was nice to swap and share while in campus housing when being introduced to all kinds of new bands I'd not yet heard of.
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I assume somewhere there's a seminal 60's design textbook in which there's a chapter on futurism that simply says 'stick it in a f*****g globe".
 
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I have listened to very little Portishead in the past but do recognise a number of tracks on this Album. I have listened to it three times and hear the similarities others do, Sade on one track, Elbow on the second track (so this is where you got some of your ideas from Guy (and he always blamed Genesis) Ha.). I don't feel ready to mark it yet but the needle has definitely moved to the right (positive). The instrumentation is interesting and her voice has a pure melancholy which I'm always a sucker for. I can take or leave some of the sampling although it does make for a richer soundscape. I haven't yet got the emotional connection that some have mentioned. Maybe a bottle of red will do the trick.

As others have noted, it was a pretty good year for albums. I had a brief flirtation with Britpop, REM released Monster which I still have a liking for having seen them play it live, I was also listening to Nirvana, Hootie and the Blowfish, Manic Street Preachers, Nirvana and Pink Floyd new releases all of which were fine albums. I think Filed Under: Easy Listening was also released that year. A very fine album that I grew to appreciate hugely. Not as good as Copper Blue but good nonetheless.

Wish I had listened to Dummy more though. I can see me continue to play it long after this round finishes.
 
Dummy.
As an album i found it very samey vocally and musically.
Very one paced with a lot of annoying drum beats and record scratching?.
Mysterons and Sour Times get the lp off to a great start.
After that I struggled with most due to lack of variety vocally and musically until the last track Glory Box,another great track.Loved the guitar in this track.
Vocally fine but doesn't really test herself bar Glory box.
As I posted earlier struggled with this as an lp but 3 great tracks and 8 nothing special inbetween I will give this a 6 due to the high quality of the 3 tracks I liked.
Feel sorry for for not getting into it more due to the great write up.
 
Opened with Mysterons which for some reason made me think of Midsomer Murders, although I dont think (as someone else mentioned) that it is a theremin on the track. A great openere followed by an equally good Sour Time. I think both tracks draw you in but draw you in to something very much the same.
Interesting watching the video, once again helpfully provided by @BlueHammer85, where it seemed Barrow didnt like the way many people received or percieved the album as being background or ambient.
Had it on again today as I was making some food and didnt quite find myself bopping round the kitchen. Late night laid back relaxation, cool and classy.
Certainly one I shall listen to abit more and also nice to learn how much it means to @threespires
A quality choice and an 8 from the Derry jury
 
bennyboy said:
Dummy.
As an album i found it very samey vocally and musically.
Very one paced with a lot of annoying drum beats and record scratching?.
Mysterons and Sour Times get the lp off to a great start.
After that I struggled with most due to lack of variety vocally and musically until the last track Glory Box,another great track.Loved the guitar in this track.
Vocally fine but doesn't really test herself bar Glory box.
As I posted earlier struggled with this as an lp but 3 great tracks and 8 nothing special inbetween I will give this a 6 due to the high quality of the 3 tracks I liked.
Feel sorry for for not getting into it more due to the great write up.
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Don't feel sorry, after all we're scoring the albums not the write ups!
 
FogBlueInSanFran said:
I’ve really gone down the rabbit hole here but I suspect there are very few in this thread that could possibly appreciate let alone enjoy Sugar. I’ve thought about nominating FUEL (or Copper Blue) a number of times but know it would end up in the bottom of the ranking with complaints about how loud it is. Gift is quite probably my favo(u)rite opening song on any record ever, and if it isn’t that, it’s the title track of New Day Rising. Of course I wouldn’t even consider Husker Du because we all know how that would turn out here. Bob Mould remains one of rock music’s greatest ever guitarists and songwriters — he’s the king of alt/punk hooks — but because he fed his genius through Marshall stacks so potent he got tinnitus at age 25 or whatever, plenty of lilt-lovers find him too “angry” or something. Anyhow, I agree 94 was a great year for music but more for Goaters list (he stole a lot of good ones I’m sure you’d have included).

Meantime I’ve tried many times to get into Portishead given the rapturous words many have spilt on Dummy over the years and I will dutifully try again but honestly folks I am hungering for a record with some zip and energy and humo(u)r and at this rate I’m about ready to shove some Chappell Roan down all of your gullets when it’s my turn and call it a day.
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Think we’ve had a track from Copper Blue on the playlist thread which I quite liked.
As this week’s nomination wasn’t driving music, I’ve had this on in the car and i must say it’s great.
 
Dummy – Portishead

I quite like the overall sound, which manages to mix elements of jazz into what are essentially laid-back soundscapes with vocals. However, like Beck at his worst, Portishead (or the producers?) seem intent on disturbing the flow with the odd sound effect here and there. Thankfully, they are not too distracting for the most part, but I don’t think those record scratches on “Wandering Star”, “Pedestal” and “Biscuit” for example, add anything positive. “Wandering Star” also has a sound that suggests Sweep (as in Sooty and Sweep), is struggling to breathe.

The best tracks are those that sound organic: “It’s A Fire”, “Roads” and “Glory Box”. “Roads” is built up nicely in layers, from the piano at the start to the wah-wah sound of the guitar.

And then we get into what everybody claims when it’s not a genre they listen to or understand: a lot of it sounds the same and you’d be happy taking a few tracks for a playlist and not listening to the whole album again. Whilst there’s nothing that I outright don’t like, as each track appears and passes by, it all has the ring of one long, strange hypnotic song, which is maybe the point of the album?

Overall, a fairly pleasant listening experience, but nothing that will have me rushing to put it on again. 6/10
 
I really liked this weeks selection from my first listen. Unfortunately however the third and fourth (yes I know that’s more than necessary!) I almost started to get annoyed with it.
The best way I can describe my annoyance is there are times when it all just feels a bit ‘busy’ with little scratches and effects thrown in. Sometimes I wish it would just flow a little more naturally. The opening couple of tracks Mysteron and Sour Times (which I did recognise) are decent enough, but then it gets a bit samey. I love her voice it’s edgy and floaty at the same time, but after I while I want something different. Different does come at the end with Glory Box which everyone else seems to highlight. It’s an epic track. I love the guitar, and as much as it’s a belting tune, I feel a bit cheated that there’s nothing really similar on the rest of the album.
Overall it’s a decent listen, but apart from a couple of tracks I wouldn’t revisit. 6/10 for me
 
When this was nominated I proclaimed my like of Portishead and this is their best album so think it warrants a 9 out of 10.

Beth Gibbons debut has been mentioned a few times but I would also point people in the direction of Geoff Barrows other band Beak. 5 albums in now including a new one a few months ago. A world away from Dummy but if anyone has the time or inclination well worth a listen
 
www.bbc.co.uk

BBC Two - Rip It Up, Series 1, Blazing a Trail

The biggest names in Scotland's early pop story tell their own unique tales.
www.bbc.co.uk www.bbc.co.uk

Recommended this to threespires initially, but actually worth others here watching it, particularly maybe benny and journo given some of their nominations. 3-part documentary, the third probably the best.
 
So records I love end up having one of two characteristics – either a groove or a sound I really liked repeated with small variations, consistently, or a lot of tonal variety song-to-song which you keeps me off balance and interested in what comes next. “Dummy” doesn’t have either of these – the groove is late night lounge singer, albeit a mournful one with a fair degree of soul, backed by rhythms so slow and subtle they sound like they’re being played by a band five towns away from the recording studio and therefore delayed by a few seconds. That said, I appreciate the innovation – it’s a unique combination, this trip hop of theirs, and new as it was at the time when I first heard it eons ago, it never really moved me – it was just another take on ambient. I’m not a fan of beautiful voices anyhow as a rule – I think of vocalists as accompaniment to music and not vice versa, and no good lounge singer is ever going to be upstaged by the band. That’s the case here, but the novelty of the beats and scratches is at least intellectually interesting, even if the music/record doesn’t speak to me. Among the tunes, they largely pass me by save for the one I know well (Sour Times) and Wandering Star, my favo(u)rite, where the background overcomes the singer for a while. Glory Box is kind of like this too but I've always found it a little underwhelming. One wouldn't even know the band had a full-time guitarist til that track actually if you didn't know (and I didn't - I looked it up). A few of you brought up Sade, and I might also bring up Ivy, but in both cases the music connects much better with me despite a quite talented female singer. So this is another sit-and-listen record, and while I’m pretty sure Beth Gibbons' feelings are real, I’m also pretty sure they’re one-note. I wouldn’t mind digging deeper to figure it out, but we’d still be left with music that is intriguing mentally but flat-footed and, let’s face it, a bit dull . . . or, more likely, so subtle that I can’t tell the difference. 5/10, mostly for uniqueness.
 
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Saddleworth2 said:
I have listened to very little Portishead in the past but do recognise a number of tracks on this Album. I have listened to it three times and hear the similarities others do, Sade on one track, Elbow on the second track (so this is where you got some of your ideas from Guy (and he always blamed Genesis) Ha.). I don't feel ready to mark it yet but the needle has definitely moved to the right (positive). The instrumentation is interesting and her voice has a pure melancholy which I'm always a sucker for. I can take or leave some of the sampling although it does make for a richer soundscape. I haven't yet got the emotional connection that some have mentioned. Maybe a bottle of red will do the trick.

As others have noted, it was a pretty good year for albums. I had a brief flirtation with Britpop, REM released Monster which I still have a liking for having seen them play it live, I was also listening to Nirvana, Hootie and the Blowfish, Manic Street Preachers, Nirvana and Pink Floyd new releases all of which were fine albums. I think Filed Under: Easy Listening was also released that year. A very fine album that I grew to appreciate hugely. Not as good as Copper Blue but good nonetheless.

Wish I had listened to Dummy more though. I can see me continue to play it long after this round finishes.
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I've said before that if I take the songs I love from Copper Blue and those I love from FUEL and mash them together, it's a top 10 lifetime record for me. The left-them-off ones are still pretty good, but the best ones are straight up top-of-the-heap in terms of melding punk and pop effectively perfectly. And the lyrics are nasty, ironic, open-hearted and clever.

Bob Mould is a fucking genius. I picked "If I Can't Change Your Mind" on that "perfect song" thread we had a while back. When he sings "If I can't change your mind / Then no one will" . . . is he just sad? Or is that a threat to kill the lover that jilted him? Such a great tune.
 
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Coatigan said:
www.bbc.co.uk

BBC Two - Rip It Up, Series 1, Blazing a Trail

The biggest names in Scotland's early pop story tell their own unique tales.
www.bbc.co.uk www.bbc.co.uk

Recommended this to threespires initially, but actually worth others here watching it, particularly maybe benny and journo given some of their nominations. 3-part documentary, the third probably the best.
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Will try and find the time to give this a watch. 10 days left on iplayer
 
journolud said:
Will try and find the time to give this a watch. 10 days left on iplayer
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They go through decades, with the final episode being the late 80s and 90s, which is more relatable. Mogwai, Arab Strap, Teenage Fan Club etc all feature.
 
FogBlueInSanFran said:
I’m not a fan of beautiful voices anyhow as a rule – I think of vocalists as accompaniment to music and not vice versa
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Nicely put. Not specifically relating to this album, but that's exactly how I feel about music. This should be number #2 or #3 in my "Ten Commandments of Music" ...... and yet some voices are so irritating that they put you off the music (probably rule #4).
 
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