The Album Review Club - Week #138 - (page 1790) - 1956 - Soul-Junk

I am ignoring spires' post above till I've completed the 3 listens, as I want my genuine feelings on it independently.

It is however a bold choice. And I have to say there is boldness on the album too, which is slowly coming through.
 
journolud said:
I've mentioned Squeeze on this thread more than once I think as masters of documenting the everyday, they did it with much more musical mastery than is evidenced here though.
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I haven't listened to this yet but I absolutely agree about Squeeze; "Up The Junction" is I think a brilliant song (among a number they did) and a great example of this.
 
Coatigan said:
I am ignoring spires' post above till I've completed the 3 listens, as I want my genuine feelings on it independently.

It is however a bold choice. And I have to say there is boldness on the album too, which is slowly coming through.
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In deference to your comment I'm going to put my responses to various points under spoilers.
 
out of interest... you all knew 'Fit But You Know It' and 'Dry Your Eyes right' ? as in surely not the first time you heard them tracks here ?
 
BlueHammer85 said:
out of interest... you all knew 'Fit But You Know It' and 'Dry Your Eyes right' ? as in surely not the first time you heard them tracks here ?
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Indeed. Songs that on the face of it are laddy-lad bants, but probably had a not insignificant impact on youth and a bit of a balance shift of a culture of a time amongst the sexes.
 
journolud said:
Brilliant comments in your previous post @threespires and while they might not elevate the scoring on this for me I totally get it, one listen in and the lyrics are effective not because they strive to be poetry but because they represent something ordinary. I've mentioned Squeeze on this thread more than once I think as masters of documenting the everyday, they did it with much more musical mastery than is evidenced here though.

To contradict myself, while I'm OK with the lyrics touching on the banal it is the easy rhymes that lose points for me. I remember thinking the same about Betjeman when we were made to listen in school and our English teacher was in raptures about him.

Anyway, a couple more listens before I score this. Musically it needs to grow on me but it's starting from a low base so far.
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Completely agree about Difford and Tilbrook, two of our greatest and most underrated songwriters. I also agree they did it with much more musical mastery too, however IMO Mike Skinner did something breathtakingly ballsy which they have never done. Which brings me to your comment about the (nursery) rhyming....

Why I Love This Album #2 – The Level of Risk Involved in Making Yourself Sound Crap

If you listen to OPM, Skinners first album it shows his trademark approach to rapping but you also hear someone with good fluency in the conventional sense and an interesting grasp of rhythm and manipulation of words.

But when I first heard AGDCFF though I thought it was funny I also had a bit of a WTF is going moment too. Some of the rhymes are comically awful, 'nay' and 'way' in Could Well Be In being one of a number of egregious examples.

So I thought, either he's regressed and he's not a much better wordsmith than me or he's doing it on purpose. At which point I realised I'm not listening to the words of of Mike Skinner, the rising star of UK hip-hop/garage, I'm listening to 'young mike' the inept and inarticulate young geezer and that he has in fact written and performed 'in character' and that character is far from a great rapper.

To get this to work, he's had to perform an incredibly tricky high wire act where he can't just deliver exclusively as 'young mike' as it would be unlistenable, he needs to inject quality at various points. So you get this mixture where amongst "young mike's" at times inarticulate gibbering you also get snippets of much greater fluency. This is often camouflaged, so for example - the little staccato passage of "that blue topshop top you've got" is delivered brilliantly by Skinner but it mentions topshop so you buy that it is still 'little mike' speaking.

It doesn't always work and makes for some uneasy elements but I think it's a very gutsy choice. Taking a step back into the world of Mike Skinner it's incredibly risky. Here’s a guy who’s had critical acclaim with his first album and probably earnt a decent bit of cash for the first time in his young life. He’s now got attention and the spotlight, the easiest and sanest thing in the world would be to follow up with OPM 2.

But instead, he goes fully conceptual and not only creates a character but effectively writes the record in character. So instead of cool OPM Mike Skinner who is riding the crest of a UK garage wave with his smart rhymes etc what actually gets committed to record is the awkward and inconsistent and often half-arsed thoughts of 'young mike' with his clunky rhymes and partially formed thoughts, who nonetheless somehow kind of pulls it off as a result of his humour and groundedness.

It’s a ballsy thing to do for any artist at any time in their career but for someone creating their much-anticipated sophomore album it’s breathtakingly daring. I think it works because ultimately 'young mike' the character who writes and narrates his own story has been consciously created and has his strings pulled by a pretty talented guy in Skinner. It’s a bit like Les Dawson on the piano, you have to know what you are doing in order to get ‘bad’ to work so well.
 
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threespires said:
In deference to your comment I'm going to put my responses to various points under spoilers.
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Which is in no way now going to make me want to read them even more!

Yeah I think once I make it through two full listens I might join in regardless,ans the discussion here could get interesting, and I might miss out on that. Which with this one is probably more significant than whatever score we give it.
 
GornikDaze said:
I’m not aware if heard any of the album before. Have they been subliminal messages on tv ads or anything like that?
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Both on this album. I would really struggle to believe anyone (UK based at least) that says they haven't at some point either serenaded a mate or been serenaded by a mate to 'dry your eyes'. Even perhaps beyond a relationship loss. Or to a lesser extent not used or heard a line from fit but don't you know it. Even without having listened to the songs themselves. One of those that filtered right into general culture and colloquial language.
 
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