The Album Review Club - Week #195 (page 1310) - A New World Record - ELO

threespires said:
Well coincidentally from 2.30pm onwards most of the thread will be getting an opportunity to see how well their brains neuroplasticity can adapt to alien forms of music. Not you though!
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Turner, type of textured slate?
 
Coatigan said:
Yes and no. Depends on the person I guess. I happen to get excited by various versions of my favourite songs. And covers. Whether I like them or not, depends on the delivery but it is something I value. And covers too, I am all for covers by others and different takes on songs. I do also very much like things that test or break the norm. Many of the albums I like or have nominated have been for that very reason. What blew me away was that they sounded new or different, at the time. Some have aged better than others, some were never as good as better well known albums, but they meant something to me because they moved me in ways other albums couldn't.

And I think we all have a bit of both, and it varies when things click, depending on timing, mood etc. As we can see by people's comments and nominations, including your own.

Edit. Fully agree on the genre tropes and inevitable fate of spontaneous originality. Said as much myself previously.
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Covers and alternative versions will still retain some of the original material that gives you the chemical stuff in the brain.

And maybe I should have been more precise in my claim. Originality is overrated by most - we complain about the lack of it but then listen to the same old stuff anyway :)

Sure sometimes you're immediately blown away by something new and fresh but those moments are much rarer experiences than just putting something on your know or is in the same genre.

Even music that enjoys improvisation like jazz will still do so within certain parameters that are well known and established

So in summary I think we kind of agree I'm just stating the claim stronger than you'd like
 
mrbelfry said:
Covers and alternative versions will still retain some of the original material that gives you the chemical stuff in the brain.

And maybe I should have been more precise in my claim. Originality is overrated by most - we complain about the lack of it but then listen to the same old stuff anyway :)

Sure sometimes you're immediately blown away by something new and fresh but those moments are much rarer experiences than just putting something on your know or is in the same genre.

Even music that enjoys improvisation like jazz will still do so within certain parameters that are well known and established

So in summary I think we kind of agree I'm just stating the claim stronger than you'd like
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Again, yes and no.

I'm not disagreeing with you btw. Just offering the other part of that which is as relevant. Been back and forth between both, myself.

I do however genuinely miss the feeling of 'being blown away by an album'. I really do. Crawler was the only album in the last maybe decade to truly give me that feeling. I've Liked plenty of albums, some more than others from the past that had a similar effect. But that doesnt compare to the excitement of feeling that rush of something with a but of unfamiliarity. And maybe even an unease of being taken out of your comfort zone.

And yes I get (to re-use that bit by Ben Gibbard) that with age and more music listened to the spectrum will narrow. But it just feels like I used to get that feeling a lot more in the decades past than this last one.

Who knows, maybe some day that whole country/americana malarkey will just click and that will give me thrills I couldn't have imagined.
 
RobMCFC said:
Because if it's not outlandish (and therefore probably unlistenable) people will just say, it sounds like LZ or the Rolling Stones or Nirvana etc.
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Why does outlandish and unlistenable have to be the same thing.

If blues (the popular half of any genre that interweaves it on here) as an example had never existed before and you suddenly found an album with it, would you find it unlistenable? Outlandish, maybe, but unlistenable?
 
@Coatigan for some reason i cant quote your post but it was a crass joke played for a cheap laugh and not an international survey on the relationship preferences of neuro science people thingy.

in the pure hypothetical example of the person I made up she would like a girlfriend but unfortunately due to crippling social anxiety and a homophobic grandparent, on her mothers side, she has been unable to work up the courage to pursue this aspect of her life. As a consequence though she's thrown herself fully into her work and was about to discover the structures in our brain from which consciousness arises. So well done to her and finally when she's completed this world changing work she can get round to making me a sandwich
 
Coatigan said:
Why does outlandish and unlistenable have to be the same thing.

If blues (the popular half of any genre that interweaves it on here) as an example had never existed before and you suddenly found an album with it, would you find it unlistenable? Outlandish, maybe, but unlistenable?
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Does the minor pentatonic scale still exist? The tonality of the music maybe outlandish but the underlying structures may still be familiar
 
mrbelfry said:
@Coatigan for some reason i cant quote your post but it was a crass joke played for a cheap laugh and not an international survey on the relationship preferences of neuro science people thingy.

in the pure hypothetical example of the person I made up she would like a girlfriend but unfortunately due to crippling social anxiety and a homophobic grandparent, on her mothers side, she has been unable to work up the courage to pursue this aspect of her life. As a consequence though she's thrown herself fully into her work and was about to discover the structures in our brain from which consciousness arises. So well done to her and finally when she's completed this world changing work she can get round to making me a sandwich
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Yes and just to be clear, mine was a crass continuation of the punchline for a cheap laugh.

2025, the year we all have to explain our jokes!
 
Coatigan said:
By not transferring your pot through the multiple jobs over the years?
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Would that it was only that level of misjudgement but let's not turn this thread into therapy, or at least not that type!

Coatigan said:
I was going to.. but almost too easy!
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Not quite where you might have gone but on my current project I am working with Neuropsychologists !

edit: and no before you ask, I'm not the 'subject'
 
mrbelfry said:
Does the minor pentatonic scale still exist? The tonality of the music maybe outlandish but the underlying structures may still be familiar
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Without going off on a tangent, with variations all within our western 12 note scales vs what else exists, I should maybe point out that the albums I am referring to (which I thought was implied, but it is 2025 after all) none actually really invented anything 'new' or literally broke the ground. They all built on what existed and used that. Just in a way that 'felt' exciting, unique and different.

Maybe unique rather than original is a more appropriate word.
 
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threespires said:
Would that it was only that level of misjudgement but let's not turn this thread into therapy, or at least not that type!



Not quite where you might have gone but on my current project I am working with Neuropsychologists !

edit: and no before you ask, I'm not the 'subject'
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I do genuinely admire and somewhat ever so slightly envy your array of experiences and professions that has come across anecdotally in these thereads. Bet you'd have some great stories. At dinner parties, with Friends generation background music.
 
Coatigan said:
Turner, type of textured slate?
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Now working with slate is a job I would love to have had but I have no relevant skills at all. It's not just what it looks like (but I do think it does that clever thing that only some stuff in nature does of being both aesthetically simple and clean yet richly varied and organic) but it's what it represents too geologically.
 
Coatigan said:
Without going off on a tangent, with variations all within our western 12 note scales vs what else exists, I should maybe point out that the albums I am referring to (which I thought was implied, but it is 2025 after all) none actually really invented anything 'new' or literally broke the ground. They all built on what existed and used that. Just in a way that 'felt' exciting, unique and different.

Maybe unique rather than original is a more appropriate word.
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I was at a school choir concert a couple of weeks ago (my kid is in one I don't do it for fun - just clarifying because it's 2025). There was the normal show tunes and pop hits stuff but one of the choirs was from some Islamic organisation (couldn't catch where they were from because MC mumbled). I found it interesting how different their music was melodically but as it was also sung in Arabic it made it much harder to follow because I didn't recognise the beginning and ends of words so couldn't hear even any phrasing they were doing.
 
threespires said:
Now working with slate is a job I would love to have had but I have no relevant skills at all. It's not just what it looks like (but I do think it does that clever thing that only some stuff in nature does of being both aesthetically simple and clean yet richly varied and organic) but it's what it represents too geologically.
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Oh wow, I might have (ish) done something you haven't! What a day.

Now stop avoiding my cloaked early guess and tell me if I'm in the ballpark!
 
mrbelfry said:
I was at a school choir concert a couple of weeks ago (my kid is in one I don't do it for fun - just clarifying because it's 2025). There was the normal show tunes and pop hits stuff but one of the choirs was from some Islamic organisation (couldn't catch where they were from because MC mumbled). I found it interesting how different their music was melodically but as it was also sung in Arabic it made it much harder to follow because I didn't recognise the beginning and ends of words so couldn't hear even any phrasing they were doing.
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Well if threespires is going where I think/feel he might be going this week, this whole morning will have made for a very worthwhile preamble.

And if not, interesting discussion regardless.
 
Rival Sons - Before The Fire

We had similar discussion with previous selection by The Struts - whereby their flamboyant sound emulated the likes of Queen and a mix of other big sounding Glam rock artists - I argued in their defense that it is tough to sound original now days for any rock band as everything's been and done before, here we're in similar territory with Rival Sons - It's all very light Led Zep, Deep Purple and a mix of other Bluesy Rock, It does lack a certain authenticity which I find for a lot of bands around this early 00's - time there is some enjoyable moments, I nodded along to the catchy lyrics and riffs in 'Memphis Sun' and 'Tell Me Something' , 'Angel' and 'Pocketful Of Stones' also good, the rest just ok, for all the talented vocals and riffs I just found it a bit bland and nothing much here to set them apart from other bands. Good pick!

5/10
 
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Coatigan said:
Well if threespires is going where I think/feel he might be going this week, this whole morning will have made for a very worthwhile preamble.

And if not, interesting discussion regardless.
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Tweaking my write up to reference this as we speak!

Edit: you should probably be given a 30 minute handicap on the clue guessing.
 
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