Day 0864 - Apocalypse Dudes

Turbonegro "Apocalypse Dudes" (1998)

Turbonegro had started off with noise-rock, moved through their own 'death-punk' sound and here adopt a style that is straight out of the 70s rock, punk and glam play-books.   By all accounts their line-up was as changeable as their choice of genre.

"Selfdestructo Bust" sounds like a slightly updated take on the Stooges.  "Prince of the Rodeo" throws in some congas to glam up the mix, and album closer "Good Head" leads out with enough excessive guitar soloing to make Slash blush.

The song titles nod to the Norwegian group's tongue-in-cheek approach too, with pearlers like "Rock Against Ass", "Don't Say Motherfucker, Motherfucker" and "Rendezvous with Anus".

I probably won't rush to revisit it, but it was fun enough.

Day 0787 - Garbage

Garbage "Garbage" (1995)

 Garbage was formed by 3 producers who were doing remix work for artists like U2, NIN and others and wanted to turn that arrangement experience to a band context.  They initially started with drummer Butch Vig on vocals, but then decided that a female voice would be a better fit for their music.    They saw a music video for the band Anglefish and, after a couple of auditions, got that band's singer Shirley Manson on board.

The band combined a mix of loops, samples, live jam sessions and ad-libs to create their tracks.  Accordingly, the band's sound is a mix of alt-rock and electronic elements with Manson's voice ranging from dreamy murmur in "Milk" to cutting snarl in "Only Happy When it Rains" and everything between.

Garbage (a name taken from a somewhat unkind assessment of their early music) would follow this album up with the slightly more electronic "Version 2.0" and the gloriously poppy "Beautiful Garbage" showing that they were not just a one-trick pony.

Day 0750 - Debut

 Björk "Debut" (1993) 

 

Björk is another musical 'lifer'.   She studied piano, released her first (self-titled) album at the age of 11, played in fusion bands, punk bands and achieved a degree of fame fronting the band Sugarcubes.  Even around those bands though she was recording with various other musicians in a variety of styles.

Björk moved to London to really get her solo career going.  She teamed up with producer Nellee Hooper (Massive Attack, Soul II Soul) and, grooving on the club culture, produced this album of largely dance/triphop-based tracks.  You couldn't really pigeonhole it to that one area though, with jazzy horn sections, sweet pop and weird 'Björky' idiosyncrasies.   

All across the album,  Björk's voice is on full display.  Ranging from whispered child-like melody to full-throated ecstatic yell-singing.   Bjork is a true original, to the extent that I've found myself referring to some artists as "like a French Björk" (Camille) or "like a less 'out there' Björk" (Emiliana Torrini).   She is pretty much her own genre.

The album was well received, and as a cherry on top, it was the beginning of Björk's visual creative partnership with Michel Gondry, whose quirky music videos were the perfect match for Björk's music.

Day 0727 - Little Earthquakes

Tori Amos "Little Earthquakes" (1992) - got it

Tori had been making music from a young age and circulated some demos with help from her father.  These demos eventually resulted in her being signed to release the synth-pop album "Y Cant Tori Read" under a band of the same name.

That band broke up and Tori submitted further demos that would eventually become "Little Earthquakes".

This album to my ears is the bridge from Kate Bush to Regina Spektor.  Moving between beauty and high theatre of "China" to the harsh simplicity of the acapella "Me and a gun" (recounting a sexual assault that Tori experienced).

The album is very piano heavy but with occasional bursts of loud guitar, or tasteful strings, as in personal favourite, the cabaret-esque "Leather".

Another one where my wife owns a copy so I unwittingly technically own it to (lucky me 😎)

Day 0674 - Pills 'n' Thrills and Bellyaches

Happy Mondays "Pills 'n' Thrills and Bellyaches" (1990)

I wasn't a huge fan of "Bummed" the previous Happy Mondays album on this list, but this one appealed to my sensibilities much more.   The production is clearer than 'Bummed's muddy sound, and the mix of raucous, almost punky rock, with dance beats and hints of 60s influences presents a sound that largely doesn't feel like it has aged too much at all.

The album and band helped link rockers to ravers and probably influenced some of the 'Cool Britannia set with its interesting mix of sounds a production ideas.

Day 0619 - Bummed

Happy Mondays "Bummed" (1988)

Maybe I just wasn't in the mood for it, but bummed didn't do anything for me.  It didn't bum me out or anything, but it just passed by in a bit of a mess of sound.  I probably like the album cover more than I like the music inside it.

Apparently the band were taking a shit-ton of ecstasy during the recording process.  Producer Martin Hannett draped the resultant recordings in reverb and echo aiding to the 'audio soup' feel of it all.

Day 0601 - Darklands

The Jesus and Mary Chain "Darklands" (1987)

With "Darklands" J&MC move from a fuzzed-out 'shoegazer' sound, to something that almost sounds like "upbeat Joy Division".  Their drummer had left to become the lead singer of Primal Scream, so the band opted to replace him with a drum machine.  As a result of this, and I guess their general songwriting style, their songs have zero groove.  It's not necessarily a bad thing, it just means that their songs drift along like a dreamy wave heading serenely for shore, rather than like choppy surf.

I feel as though their previous album "Psychocandy" was the one that the band is better known for.  But I prefer the rolling, pulsing drone pop of "Darklands" over the fuzzy cloud of "Psychocandy".  I listened to this one 2 or 3 times and would happily spin it again.

Day 0565 - Blood and Chocolate

Elvis Costello & the Attractions "Blood and Chocolate" (1986) - got it

Costello took a break from his usual band 'the Attractions' to make an album with producer T-Bone Burnett... which I'll have to check out, because I love his work on True Detective, O Brother Where Art Thou, and the Rhiannon Gidden's solo album.  Here he brings the Attractions back on board for a wild, relatively straightforward album.
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Elvis took the idea of "recording as live" to new levels.  Instead of everyone wearing headphones to hear the playback so that all the instruments are recorded cleanly and in isolation; he just had stage foldback monitors with the volume set to standard live show levels.  As a result, everything has a pretty rough in-your-face rawness to it; a sound that nicely emphasises the angry and direct lyrics.  There are morose ballads, the epic blues odyssey of "I want you", the almost beat-poetry style of "Tokyo Storm Warning".

Costello credits himself as 'Napoleon Dynamite' in the album liner notes, though Jared Hess states that he did not get the name of his film from this reference.

Day 0382 - Talking Heads: 77

Talking Heads "Talking Heads: 77" (1977... rather obviously, I guess)

 
The Heads were formed by David Byrne and Chris Frantz, with Frantz's girlfriend Tina Weymouth joining on bass and played their first gig opening for the Ramones.  After the band were signed, Byrne (showing that talent doesn't always come with charm) then demanded that Weymouth audition to keep her role in the band.   Guitarist and keyboardist Jerry Harrison (formerly of the Modern Lvoers) joined shortly before they recorded their debut album, with Jon Bon Jovi's cousin Tony Bongiovi, handling production duties.

I really enjoy the Talking Heads and have a few of their albums, yet I've never really got around to properly checking out this one.  There are some great tracks here ("Happy day", "Don't worry about the government", "First week/last week...carefree", and of course "Psycho Killer"), it's a good album, and a clear influence on later bands with their mix of intellectualism and danceability, skittish postpunk and neurotic funk.

If I'm honest, I probably prefer their later albums' variety to the more uniform approach on this one, but it's still good.