Blue Moon Playlist Review Club - Season 2, Episode 15 - Reinvention & Renewal - threespires (pg 327)

[Blue Tooth]

@Blue Tooth , would you like to go next monday (a week tomorrow), and kick us off with a theme and 5 songs?

Anyone else want to volunteer as either back-up or going the fortnight after. @lastmanback or anyone else contributing you are welcome to as well, obviously just shout when you have something in mind.

Apologies. I am going to have to decline at the moment. I am rarely in the forum at present due to my seasonal work increase. I haven't even read the last two threads. Maybe later in the year.

 

[Black&White&BlueMoon Town]

BM – Reinvention & Renewal
Thanks to @threespires for putting this playlist concept together. I was concerned a bit this would be too similar to the “Associated” playlist, but in all but one I didn’t sense the same overlap.

Of the initial 5 songs, “I Love Being Here With You” by Queen Latifah and “When All’s Well” by Everything But The Girl were the standout and different tracks for me. If I’m being honest, at one point when playing the tracks back, I recalled the Pretenders were in the first 5 and mistakenly thought they did this song at the beginning until I realized it was EBTG. Busted…

I also enjoyed Beethoven’s track as it was beautiful, but I didn’t feel the reinvention part as much as it sounded pretty classical to me!

The Big Winner
Thea Gilmore trilogy. Just an amazing progression from A to Z in these 3 tracks. As noted prior, I sampled her entire 2023 self titled album and it was tremendous. Having the backstory on her progression of music was powerful stuff, and I’m glad she’s doing well on the other side. Bravo, again!

My top 5 other new tracks (not yet heard in some or no particular order):

1. “48 Roses” – Mariachi El Bronx, if not for Thea, this would have been the big winner!
2. “You Wear It Second Hand” - Idlewild, right up my indie/alt rock alley, now following
3. “Tell Me How” – Paramore, it would appear to be a band I should really like at some iteration
4. “I Make My Own Sunshine" – Steven Tyler, until I heard the vocals, I never would have taken this track as one of his
5. "Star or Stone" – Chris Robinson Brotherhood, very nice extended jam departure from the Black Crowes

Best of a song I knew
“Subdivisions” – Rush, just a magical tune I think I appreciated more and more now than I did back then. RIP Neil Peart, and your lyrics were simply amazing here: “Nowhere is the dreamer or the misfit so alone”. I kept hoping “The Analog Kid” would follow this track as I know all too well, but it was back to the playlist!

Top 5 tracks I knew but enjoyed listening to again (in some or no particular order):

1. "Longest Day" – Soulsavers, the déjà vu BimboBob stolen special!
2. "Can't Let Go" - Robert Plant/Alison Krauss, Plant always likes his blues origins
3. "Sleeping By Myself" – Eddie Vedder, quite the departure as a solo artist on ukulele, and just a tremendous vocal track
4. "Owner of a Lonely Heart" – Trevor Horn, Rick Astley, the origin of this song is fantastically interesting. Originally written by solo Rabin on the toilet, Horn first heard this song when Rabin was on another toilet break as part of Cinema (prior to Anderson joining, changing lyrics, adding vocals). Amazing history of a song that had many permutations, including this version!
5. “Four Out Of Five” - Arctic Monkeys, I’m a fan of theirs, and this is their biggest Bowie-influenced glam album, but somehow not one of my favo(u)rites

 

[threespires]

BM – Reinvention & Renewal
Thanks to @threespires for putting this playlist concept together. I was concerned a bit this would be too similar to the “Associated” playlist, but in all but one I didn’t sense the same overlap.

Of the initial 5 songs, “I Love Being Here With You” by Queen Latifah and “When All’s Well” by Everything But The Girl were the standout and different tracks for me. If I’m being honest, at one point when playing the tracks back, I recalled the Pretenders were in the first 5 and mistakenly thought they did this song at the beginning until I realized it was EBTG. Busted…

I also enjoyed Beethoven’s track as it was beautiful, but I didn’t feel the reinvention part as much as it sounded pretty classical to me!

I probably didn't do a very good job of explaining/encouraging that songs with a theme of reinvention (rather than the act) were also legit; hence my inclusion of Pack It Up and the Beethoven (evoking the renewal Spring brings). I think pretty much everyone focused on the artists reinvention angle. Incidentally on the Pretenders/EBTG point the EBTG album that track came from, there is a slower tempo version of the Pretenders song Kid, a version I really like.

The main thing that struck me from this playlist is how much enjoyable stuff I was familiar with as a result of the threads on here. The Eddie Vedder solo, Lau, Soulsavers, Mariachi El Bronx, Frank Black solo were I think all from albums I became aware of a result of nominations and discussion on here. Definitely enriching my listening, These amongst others were part of a large number I was familiar with but enjoyed listening to again. Of the knowns, probably Plant/Krauss by a nose in a very tight field.

As for the 'unknown' winners, three quite different ones appealed to me.

Gold: Bruce Hornsby - a bit odd but just really appealed; lots to enjoy on the album it comes from.
Silver: Steve Tyler - might have been a photo-finish for the gold if he hadn't yelped with seconds left :-)
Bronze: Paramore - very different from the little bits of them I've heard and very much a pop ballad but like Mr Hornsby, it just appealed.

 

[Coatigan]

BM – Reinvention & Renewal
Thanks to @threespires for putting this playlist concept together. I was concerned a bit this would be too similar to the “Associated” playlist, but in all but one I didn’t sense the same overlap.

Of the initial 5 songs, “I Love Being Here With You” by Queen Latifah and “When All’s Well” by Everything But The Girl were the standout and different tracks for me. If I’m being honest, at one point when playing the tracks back, I recalled the Pretenders were in the first 5 and mistakenly thought they did this song at the beginning until I realized it was EBTG. Busted…

I also enjoyed Beethoven’s track as it was beautiful, but I didn’t feel the reinvention part as much as it sounded pretty classical to me!

The Big Winner
Thea Gilmore trilogy. Just an amazing progression from A to Z in these 3 tracks. As noted prior, I sampled her entire 2023 self titled album and it was tremendous. Having the backstory on her progression of music was powerful stuff, and I’m glad she’s doing well on the other side. Bravo, again!

My top 5 other new tracks (not yet heard in some or no particular order):

1. “48 Roses” – Mariachi El Bronx, if not for Thea, this would have been the big winner!
2. “You Wear It Second Hand” - Idlewild, right up my indie/alt rock alley, now following
3. “Tell Me How” – Paramore, it would appear to be a band I should really like at some iteration
4. “I Make My Own Sunshine" – Steven Tyler, until I heard the vocals, I never would have taken this track as one of his
5. "Star or Stone" – Chris Robinson Brotherhood, very nice extended jam departure from the Black Crowes

Best of a song I knew
“Subdivisions” – Rush, just a magical tune I think I appreciated more and more now than I did back then. RIP Neil Peart, and your lyrics were simply amazing here: “Nowhere is the dreamer or the misfit so alone”. I kept hoping “The Analog Kid” would follow this track as I know all too well, but it was back to the playlist!

Top 5 tracks I knew but enjoyed listening to again (in some or no particular order):

1. "Longest Day" – Soulsavers, the déjà vu BimboBob stolen special!
2. "Can't Let Go" - Robert Plant/Alison Krauss, Plant always likes his blues origins
3. "Sleeping By Myself" – Eddie Vedder, quite the departure as a solo artist on ukulele, and just a tremendous vocal track
4. "Owner of a Lonely Heart" – Trevor Horn, Rick Astley, the origin of this song is fantastically interesting. Originally written by solo Rabin on the toilet, Horn first heard this song when Rabin was on another toilet break as part of Cinema (prior to Anderson joining, changing lyrics, adding vocals). Amazing history of a song that had many permutations, including this version!
5. “Four Out Of Five” - Arctic Monkeys, I’m a fan of theirs, and this is their biggest Bowie-influenced glam album, but somehow not one of my favo(u)rites

I had you as a shoe-in for liking idlewild. One to stick on yout long term list, I would say.

 

[Black&White&BlueMoon Town]

I had you as a shoe-in for liking idlewild. One to stick on yout long term list, I would say.

Yeah, and of course, knowing me, once I needed some new music to listen to yesterday (I gave ABC another one, but just one) while cleaning the yellow pollen off the back porch, it was straight to Idlewild's Spotify playlist.

I can definitely see their earlier catalog(ue) was right up your hard alt rock (borderline emo? - I kept thinking Jimmy Eat World?) alley, I can see this band is another intersection of where you and I meet musically.

A few highlights that really stuck for me included:

In Remote Part / Scottish Fiction
El Capitan
In Competition for the Worst Time

and I'm still listening....

Interesting songs "American English" and "Younger than America" and talking about time zones in a few of the songs makes me think there's some sort of overseas connection going on (El Capitan too?). I'll probably take a more album focused listen soon and start with your favourite first.

If you had chosen "There's a Place for Everything" off the same album as your track, I'm not sure I'd have gravitated towards them to give them the proper chance they deserve, so kudos on getting the reinvented track right.

I think "You Wear It Secondhand" is also still my favourite song of theirs. The lyrics especially are good on that.

 

[Black&White&BlueMoon Town]

I probably didn't do a very good job of explaining/encouraging that songs with a theme of reinvention (rather than the act) were also legit; hence my inclusion of Pack It Up and the Beethoven (evoking the renewal Spring brings). I think pretty much everyone focused on the artists reinvention angle.

Yes, and my bad for forgetting about the other angle. I had already done MMJ's "Spring" on my Time playlist, so I just stuck with reinvention to the point I missed out on the other ones. I don't think I was alone either.

Incidentally on the Pretenders/EBTG point the EBTG album that track came from, there is a slower tempo version of the Pretenders song Kid, a version I really like.

I love that original Pretenders song, will have to listen to the EBTG version and check them out a bit more like I'm doing with Idlewild. I'm done with ABC for the week and have moved onto XYZ. ;-)