The Album Review Club - Week #192 (page 1292) - 3ft High & Rising - De La Soul

mrbelfry said:
Live at the Witch Trials by The Fall is an album where all the individual elements sound poo but when added together it creates a compost that is nice and warm in the middle.

Opener "Frigthened" reminded me of Black Sabbath and Inside by Stiltskin but miraculously it was saved by Mark E Smith's vocals and delivery with a little bit of help of the bassline. There are a couple of lines that are fun and delivered with the appropriate inflection. My favourite was "I feel trapped by mutual affection" and this line will be added to the many IDLES lyrics i blurt out randomly ("date night").

Crap Rap 2/Like To Blow starts with my weakness. I will never fail to love a band that shouts themselves out in the intro and they also seemed to succesfully intergrated into the song the noise my car makes when Ive left my head lights on and opened the door. Im assuming potatos in packs are crisps and im here for it. 2 minutes of perfection.

Rebellious Jukebox seems like a fan favourite and has a nice shouty chorus. No Xmas for John Quays seems to be a song about a guy who thinks he is cool because he takes drugs. Without this song theres a good chance the Artic Monkeys dont exist. It is chaotic in all the good ways.

Mother - Sister! is a banger. Is it about suicide? Creepy backing vocals that freak me out everytime. Industrial Estate also slaps in a Jilted John style. There is some of the attitude I felt was missing from The Housemartins album. Has a super 8bit ending. Lovely.

Underground Medecin is also a good time but I'm beginning to suspect the keyboard player is just repeatedly smashing their forehead into the keys. This album was apparently recorded in one day and I wonder if they would have fixed some of this stuff if they had more time.

Two Steps Back has the keyboard player smashing one finger into the keys and some intriguing lyrics. Theres a little bit of me that doesnt want to dig too deep in case Mark E Smith has unfashionable views. Got a kind of futuristic vibe.

No clue what is going on in Live At The Witch Trials but i love every minute. Fantastic name for an album.

Futures and Pasts has a nice groove and again im intrigued by the lyrics. Good drumming on this one.

Music Scene loses the album a point for the misogynistic word. I really hate women being called that word. I find it super demeaning and hate filled. I will clutch my handbag and understand that being offensive is part of the charm i guess. Keyboard player gets bored and imagines they are in the Doors.

It has always been an ambition to explore the world of the Fall but it always seemed complicated. Like trying to learn the alphabet by calculating pi to 100 decimal places. This is my first concentrated foray and it has left me curious. I feel like i need a map or a mentor though. I liked it but im not quite ready to love it. 7-1=6

I've got a busy couple of days coming up so needed to crank the opinions out quick. I may end up liking it more but I think musically it's all pretty familiar and it's unlikely to surprise me in the way the Lau album did. This by the way has a far superior album cover
Click to expand...
9 for the last one but 6 for this?

Are we champions of mediocrity in this thread?
 
Mr Grumpy said:
9 for the last one but 6 for this?

Are we champions of mediocrity in this thread?
Click to expand...
Well it lost a point for language.

I did think I'd score it higher but I didn't want to overscore it in an attempt to appear cooler than I am and that i am hearing things others don't. "You think this is crap? au contraire my misguided child. John Quays sounds like junkies you see. The marvellous word play is a sight to see. Like the Eiffel Tower in fog at midnight. You really must try a croissant. Ive covered it in misery for some extra chewiness".

It's a bit like Enya - you buy it and play it when other people are around to seem cool and avant-garde but then you put on Bryan Adam's greatest hits when they've left because that's what you really like. It's OK to not be disagreeable.

Of course there is a good chance I'm too gauche to get this. I only just found out that John Quays isn't a guy from Salford and is actually that play on words described above and I only discovered that when I read it in a review this morning.

I'll happily smell my own farts all day but I'll draw the line at another's wee
 
FogBlueInSanFran said:
Hmmmm. Grumpy is fine, but don't be unreasonable, especially not to a thread leader. Write your review first and/or rebut his.
Click to expand...
Rod Stewart is resident in the penthouse whilst Richard D James squats in the basement.
Enya is exiled, Radiohead are public enemy #1 and Mark Knoplfer is persona non gratis.

It's a thread that is assaulting my long held norms and standards and has me questioning my audiophile reality.

Everything about this thread is unreasonable lol.

Which is the point of it i suppose.

I'll do my review next week. A lesson learned from last week is not to be hasty in these things but straight off the bat, you just know that LATWT is clearly something a bit special.

Which is a real head fuck because i can't stand punk.
 
mrbelfry said:
Well it lost a point for language.

I did think I'd score it higher but I didn't want to overscore it in an attempt to appear cooler than I am and that i am hearing things others don't. "You think this is crap? au contraire my misguided child. John Quays sounds like junkies you see. The marvellous word play is a sight to see. Like the Eiffel Tower in fog at midnight. You really must try a croissant. Ive covered it in misery for some extra chewiness".

It's a bit like Enya - you buy it and play it when other people are around to seem cool and avant-garde but then you put on Bryan Adam's greatest hits when they've left because that's what you really like. It's OK to not be disagreeable.

Of course there is a good chance I'm too gauche to get this. I only just found out that John Quays isn't a guy from Salford and is actually that play on words described above and I only discovered that when I read it in a review this morning.

I'll happily smell my own farts all day but I'll draw the line at another's wee
Click to expand...
"Gauche".

An interesting word to use in reference to this album especially in your context because this is (on my first listen anyhow) exactly what this album is supposed to be.

That's the point of Punk isn't it?

Crude poetry by angry young men for societies outcasts?

Oh, and you've got the Adams/Enya analogy back to front :)
 
Mr Grumpy said:
Rod Stewart is resident in the penthouse whilst Richard D James squats in the basement.
Enya is exiled, Radiohead are public enemy #1 and Mark Knoplfer is persona non gratis.

It's a thread that is assaulting my long held norms and standards and has me questioning my audiophile reality.

Everything about this thread is unreasonable lol.

Which is the point of it i suppose.

I'll do my review next week. A lesson learned from last week is not to be hasty in these things but straight off the bat, you just know that LATWT is clearly something a bit special.

Which is a real head fuck because i can't stand punk.
Click to expand...
My approach to this thread is that of a league 2 midfielder playing an FA Cup tie against City. Go in early and go in hard.

I am genuinely interested in your viewpoint as after last weeks review I would have thought you'd hate this also. It's not a super pleasant listen like Rumours is to use your example. I'm intrigued by what is appealing to you
 
mrbelfry said:
My approach to this thread is that of a league 2 midfielder playing an FA Cup tie against City. Go in early and go in hard.

I am genuinely interested in your viewpoint as after last weeks review I would have thought you'd hate this also. It's not a super pleasant listen like Rumours is to use your example. I'm intrigued by what is appealing to you
Click to expand...
Ditto for your recent reviews as well.
This has to be a little contextual surely? You don't listen to these albums doing 80 on the M6 in a white van do you?......

I love this about music. It's so personal and unexplainable. One mans meat is another mans trash.

I don't understand my initial reaction to LATWT either :).

It's caught my right by surprise.

I think it has something to do with echoes. It seems to be an album that resonates in the present as well as the past.

Reminds me a bit of those heat map things you get on reddit where keywords are shown in a size relative matrix.

This album has the whiff of being a big node in one of of those matrix '

Of course i could get to next week and decide that it's actually crap and i drank too much coffee yesterday.....
 
FogBlueInSanFran said:
Did I?

I know it may not be popular here but I LIKE Foo Fighters. Might have to nominate a record of theirs in fact. I own the first six I think. But the best one (by a long way) is the The Colour and The Shape IMO, followed by the first one; the remainder are uneven and have gotten increasingly uneven. The last few have been not even uneven -- they are not good. In concert they should just do their best early songs half the show and then play covers the second half -- they are good at that.
Click to expand...
Ha, it was bait mate. I like a couple of the albums. But yea there is a little bit of truth in it. Like being compared to Oasis.
 
Coatigan said:
Ha, it was bait mate. I like a couple of the albums. But yea there is a little bit of truth in it. Like being compared to Oasis.
Click to expand...
In my eyes, being a reference point is a compliment to the the band being used as a comparison.
 
Mr Grumpy said:
"Gauche".

An interesting word to use in reference to this album especially in your context because this is (on my first listen anyhow) exactly what this album is supposed to be.

That's the point of Punk isn't it?

Crude poetry by angry young men for societies outcasts?

Oh, and you've got the Adams/Enya analogy back to front :)
Click to expand...
You'll soon learn that my posts are often misinformed and making the wrong point or just word salad making no point or making a point about an argument only I'm making. Or just pointless. Let me try and make sense of it using a list based system so my faulty logic can be exposed.

1) This objectively is an unpleasant sounding album. The sounds it makes, the words it uses, and the atmosphere it creates is intentionally a challenge.
2) When faced with a challenge there are two options. Dismiss it or work hard to find merit in it.
3) you'll find merit in it if it resonates with you. At this point angry young man connects with angry young music you don't understand grandad is a big musical trope and not really note worthy. You're right it's doing what it is meant to do so score it a 7 but remove a point revealing something of your own sensibility in the process. 6 because it has a hurty word.
4) The secret third option is only available to the intellectual class that by necessity has to demonstrate superior intellect and taste in order to create the boundaries that beget the group. Everyone thinks beautiful things are beautiful so the truly elite have to convince themselves and others that there is something beautiful in the ugly thing. They call it art.
5) I was attempting to insulate myself from this tendency because this is The Fall and I'm aware of the reputation of Mark E Smith. Sometimes the thing is just the thing. I do actually though think there is something interesting in the way Mark E Smith writes and delivers - I'm just not sure what it is and therefore I'm suspicious of it. My post really was making fun of the hipster critic that i invented in my head and who i fear i am. It's gauche at this point to suspect that the Fall are bad players shouting badly communicated ideas - established thinking is that there is more to them than that. In Frightened he says "I go to the top of the street. I go to the bottom of the street" - is this a good way of saying he went for a walk?

The success of The Fall resides solely in what we make of Mark E Smith. Poet, prophet or ponce? On this I'm undecided at this moment. Is he a genius or is he just really bad at communicating? I can't tell. What I do know is that I work with 3 people who talk like Smith writes lyrics. That's about 40% of the people I work with. One is a little OCD, one goes to the cemetery to talk to Tony Wilson (who she never met when he was alive), and one used to rob post offices when they were younger. They all talk to you as if you know what they are talking about but their thoughts are misordered, chaotic and incomprehensible. They involve you in pointless drama and turn every day things into life changing moments (I had a dream about the number three and then I saw a magpie. Then i looked down and i was wearing red trainers. I really think i should move to Algeria. Spoiler: they never move to Algeria). You need a notebook and charts to keep all the fragments in order. They aren't geniuses they just make no sense. They are also overly kind and love to feed me even though i clearly don't need more food.

I'm talking myself into a 4 but I know what's coming next week so I need everyone to keep an open mind.
 
Fantastic.
Your workplace sounds a hoot.

What's on the menu for next week then huh? Intresting....
 
Just finished listen #2 and I'm far from finished with this album.
It's so damn interesting.

And so fucking mancunian.
 
mrbelfry said:
Well it lost a point for language.

I did think I'd score it higher but I didn't want to overscore it in an attempt to appear cooler than I am and that i am hearing things others don't. "You think this is crap? au contraire my misguided child. John Quays sounds like junkies you see. The marvellous word play is a sight to see. Like the Eiffel Tower in fog at midnight. You really must try a croissant. Ive covered it in misery for some extra chewiness".

It's a bit like Enya - you buy it and play it when other people are around to seem cool and avant-garde but then you put on Bryan Adam's greatest hits when they've left because that's what you really like. It's OK to not be disagreeable.

Of course there is a good chance I'm too gauche to get this. I only just found out that John Quays isn't a guy from Salford and is actually that play on words described above and I only discovered that when I read it in a review this morning.

I'll happily smell my own farts all day but I'll draw the line at another's wee
Click to expand...
Bryan Adams was a bit of a guilty pleasure. "Cuts Like A Knife" is a good record.
 
FogBlueInSanFran said:
Bryan Adams was a bit of a guilty pleasure. "Cuts Like A Knife" is a good record.
Click to expand...
Cuts Like A Knife, Reckless and Into The Fire were all brilliant.

Saw him 3 times on the ITTF tour - all amazing shows.

I'm sure he's still good live but he went downhill after that amazing treble of albums.
 
Mr Grumpy said:
Which is a real head fuck because i can't stand punk.
Click to expand...
Aren't you a Manc? My experience here for umpteen years on a variety of music threads on BM is that Manc bands always wear big lifts in their shoes regardless of genre. I'm one to talk given given I fell in love with the city because of its music (and then its people, and then its football club). But there are plenty of people on BM who think Stone Roses is one of the greatest bands of all time even though their output consists of little more than one (admittedly terrific IMO) record. If they were from Coventry I doubt we'd see such Mancunian adulation. Now this is no criticism: I find such fierce devotion quite heartwarming, but maybe lacking a touch of objectivity. That's probably especially because other than New Jerseyites and Springsteen/Bon Jovi/They Might Be Giants, you see comparatively little of that locals-only connectivity over here IMO. Even San Francisco's own Grateful Dead is considered a national treasure by their devotees, not a San Francisco one.
 
I'll write my review later but had to share -- driving in the car yesterday and "No Xmas for John Quays" comes on and a sudden, massive rush of memory back to college when my roommate, who was normally pretty above-the-fray, played the Totale's Turns version LOUD on his speaker and put it in the window as a response to some Choate Rosemary Hall preppies in our dorm playing Huey Lewis or something out THEIR window.
 
mrbelfry said:
One is a little OCD, one goes to the cemetery to talk to Tony Wilson (who she never met when he was alive).
Click to expand...

If it's not too personal a question what does she talk to him about? I don't know why but I like that it was his coffin rather than his gravestone that had the last FAC number. It's very likely that Wilson and I will share a funeral hymn but that's by the by. As I'm on this subject...

Coatigan said:
Ha I was just thinking, bet Threespires has worked in Baltimore, doing one of the 9 million jobs he seems to have had.
Click to expand...

I can't remember if I've mentioned the time I worked in a coffin factory?
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Unread Posts

Don't have an account? Register now and see fewer ads!

SIGN UP
Back
Top