Day 0766 - Vauxhall and I

Morrissey "Vauxhall and I" (1994)

Morrissey's fourth album... this is another of those points where I have scratch my head at the selections on the list.   I don't really hear anything musically in this album that hasn't already been covered in Morrissey's other entries in the list so far.  There are far more musically interesting albums out there from other artists that could have been selected in place of this.

The album is pretty much Morrissey doing his thing.   It's a bit mellower than "Your Arsenal" and the lyrics seem to very much be driven by the deaths of people around Morrissey at the time, including legendary guitarist Mick Ronson (who'd produced Morrissey's previous album), his manager, and a director of some of his music videos.   With a song called "Hold onto your friends", and the line 'tell all of my friends/I don't have too many' in the song "Now my heart is full" it seemed that Mos was ruminating on mortality in general and the shrinking of one's social circle with age.   Worthy subjects, but still not really enough that the album needed to be in this list.

Day 0765 - Brutal Youth

Elvis Costello "Brutal Youth" (1994)

The book mentions Costello having recorded albums of surf and classical music.... so in a way it's a pity that they haven't really looked at those, instead selecting this one which returns to his early sound of melodic, yet biting rock music.

Having said that, the album does seem to wrap in different sounds that Costello had been playing around with, from jazz and soul flavours, piano balladry, and Beatles/Wilson-esque vocal harmonies which helped to keep things interesting.

As with all his other albums here, I enjoyed this and would happily listen to it again.

Day 0764 - Ill Communication

Beastie Boys "Ill Communication" (1994)

The second day of illness in a row.  Clearly 1994 was an ill year indeed!

 

The Beasties had been paring back their use of sampling, opting instead to play instruments themselves for their tracks.    That, combined with Adam Yauch's interest in Buddhism, their early hardcore punk roots, and their hip hop sound makes for an incredibly diverse album.

There are rocking hardcore tracks, monkish chants, moments of 70s funk, jazz instrumentals and of course the guys busting their raps all over it.   A couple of their better known tracks are found on this album including "Sabotage".  The band had worked out the music for it but had no lyrics.   Later, Ad-Rock was 'ambushed' by paparazzi while attending a private memorial service for River Phoenix.   He unleashed his anger in rap that ended up being the lyrical basis for 'Sabotage'.

Day 0763 - Illmatic

Nas "Illmatic" (1994)

Son of a jazz musician, Nas started playing trumpet and writing rhymes.  His father Olu Dara actually features on this album playing trumpet.

Nas met producer/rapper the Large Professor and through him recorded some material in studio downtime between other artists' sessions.   None of these recordings, however, were released at the time.   Nas then secured a recording contract with Columbia records and released his first single, a track on the soundtrack to the Oliver Stone-produced film "Zebrahead".   

By the time they came to work on Nas' debut "Illmatic", he had created enough buzz to attract a few producers wanting to work with him.  Producers for Illmatic included Large Professor, Q-Tip and DJ Premier.  The music is a good mix of jazz elements and more stripped down hip hop beats.   

Nas reports on ghetto life, but with grim reality rather than glamourising it.  The album was awarded a rare '5 mics' rating by American hip hop magazine 'The Source', a rating considered so high and so rare that the magazine had to make a point of defending it publicly.

Day 0762 - Haunted Dancehall

Sabres of Paradise "Haunted Dancehall" (1994)

Producer and remixer Andrew Weatherall formed Sabres with engineers Jagz Kooner and Gary Burns.  The group made acid house and dub-based music and set up their own "Sabresonic" warehouse raves.

This is a sonically interesting album of largely (maybe completely, I'm forgetting) instrumental electronica.   There are some grimey dubby baselines, moody synth-lines, interesting beats, what sound like industrial/machine noises and even a brass band at one point.  

This album would work really well as a score/soundtrack: interesting, but not overwhelming.   Hypnotic, but not repetitive in any kind of boring way.

Day 0761 - Dummy

Portishead "Dummy" (1994) - got it

The words that spring to mind with this one are moody, cinematic and a mix of old and new.

"Cinematic", not necessarily meaning grandiose, it's just that the music creates atmospheres and visuals in my mind.  This sense of the cinematic is emphasised by Beth Gibbons changing her singing voice to suit each track, almost like a vocal 'actor'.

"Old and new" because they're mixing old jazz, soul and torch-song sounds with modern production.   Organs, strings and moody trumpet with hip hop beats and scratches.  

Opening track "Mysteron" is appropriately titled as it sounds like an old sci-fi b-movie score with a beat.  "Glory Box" speaks of sultry noir, and was used as the backing track for MTV's Superrock show, hosted by the glamorous Julia Valet.

Though Portishead didn't invent triphop, this album's sound came to be what many would associate the with the genre.

Sadly, the band's output (though superlative) has been fairly small.  Two albums, then a fantastic live album with the NY orchestra.  After that there was a 10 year wait before their third and (to date) final album.  

Day 0760 - Crooked Rain, Crooked Rain

Pavement "Crooked Rain, Crooked Rain" (1994)

I think I preferred this one to the previous Pavement album in the list.   I've seen it referred to as a more mainstream sound than the previous album, but I dunno.  It's still quite noisy and has some unconventional compositional directions.

Though the album has some nice hummable melodies, there's still a lot of noise.   A sparse piano part will appear out of a cloud of fuzzed guitar.  A rock song will suddenly give way for an extended, repeated clean guitar section.  There's a jazzy instrumental in 5/4 time "5-4 = Unity" which is a tribute to jazz pianist Dave Brubeck but it also has elements of rock and even rockabilly on show.

The 90s are obviously well underway by now with that idea of it being cool to not care.   Singer Stephen Malkmus is just so unimpressed, and so cynical, and takes the time to make fun of several other 90s rock acts in song "Range Life".