Day 0964 - Illinois

Sufjan Stevens "Illinois" (2005)

Stevens had started a project which he'd planned to be 50 albums, one for each state of the US.   He started with his home state of Michigan then moved onto Illinois.   The project appears to have petered out, with Stevens himself referring to it as just a publicity stunt.   I wonder if the truth is more that he burnt himself out.

He seems to have researched the album a bit beforehand, reading histories of the state, reading books by authors from that state, engaging with locals online.  This album is over an hour long and as it is he had enough songs left over to release an album of out-takes, "The Avalanche" the year after this.   If he'd carried on in this way, that kind of output would be like a fire hydrant of music.

I don't mind Sufjan, this album could have had a place in my heart if it had been cut the hell down to say 40 or 45 minutes of music.   However, there are lots of enjoyable sounds here, with a pleasing range of instrumentation.  In particular "Chicago" sounded familiar and its mix of horns, strings and layered vocals tickled my music bone.  Overall though, there's just way too much music here and I don't gel with Sufjan's style enough to really fully get on board for an hour and a quarter's-worth of music across 22 tracks.

Day 0963 - Coles Corner

Richard Hawley “Coles Corner” (2005)

Hawley had played in a couple of bands Treebound Story and Longpigs.  Following the breakup of the latter band, Hawley split his time between playing as a touring guitarist for Pulp and as a session musician.  Pulp’s Jarvis Cocker and Steve Mackey heard some of Hawley’s solo demos and encouraged him to do something with them.

He recorded his first album in bits and bobs, often using leftover studio time from other recording gigs.   The album was well received, and Hawley was up and running.

This album, like Hawley’s previous release “Lowedges” references a location in his native Sheffield for the title.  Coles Corner apparently being a spot for courting lovers to meet.  That reference seems appropriate with the collection of gentle, atmospheric tracks, and Hawley holding a bunch of flowers on the cover.

I was turned onto Hawley’s music by a friend in Leeds who played me his song “Tonight the Streets are Ours” and this album follows a similar vibe; 1950s balladry styles with the vocals and guitar drenched in reverb.  Strings back selected tracks and this, combined with the overall sound and Hawley’s deep croon brings Scott Walker’s early material to mind.   There’s more of a country lilt to a couple of songs including “Just Like the Rain” “(Wading Through) the Waters of My Time”, but much of it is lush chamber-pop and torch songs.

I like this album and Hawley’s sound in general, but I couldn’t claim that every song stuck indelibly in my mind.

The album was nominated for the Mercury Prize but lost out to Arctic Monkeys.

Day 0962 - Be

Common “Be” (2005)

Following his success with “Like Water For Chocolate” (see day 913) Common really shook things up with his follow-up “Electric Circus”.  He moved away from his hip-hop sound, incorporating rock and psychedelic aspects.  That move was critically well-received, but the kudos wasn’t reflected in his album sales.

Common parted company with label MCA and was signed to Kanye West’s newly formed GOOD records.  Kanye was a fan of Common’s and the two got together with Common’s producer J Dilla (RIP) to produce “Be”.

The album almost feels like a modern “What’s Going On” (see day 208) and even samples Marvin Gaye on “Love is….”.   There is plenty of soul used in the backing tracks, and Common largely acts as a reporter of life growing up black in the US, particularly on tracks like “Be”, “The Corner” and “Real People”.  

The track “Testify” feels like it’s something similar but takes a turn as a is man set up and framed by his heartless wife.  Probably a theme Marvin Gaye would have got on board with as he seemed to play the victim following his divorce from Anna Gordy, which in turn led to him producing the album “Here My Dear” with the court ordering any royalties be paid to Gordy.

By contrast the track “Faithful” sees Common reflecting thoughtfully on the way he does and should treat women.

I probably preferred this to "Like Water for Chocolate".  Just the general overall sound and the slightly more 'conscious' lyrics appealed to me.

Day 0961 - American Idiot

Green Day "American Idiot" (2004) - got it

The story goes that Green Day had recorded an album which was to continue the expansion of their musical palette that had been going on in their previous album "Warning".  The recordings were stolen and the band decided started from scratch.   Realistically they had backups and could have recreated the music.  It was more likely it just wasn't quite up to scratch, but it makes a for better story to say the theft led to reinvention.

The band took the opportunity to try something different; a punk-rock opera.   There does seem to be a lyrical connection, and the album's two medley pieces "Jesus of Surburbia" and "Homecoming" feed into that conceit.   I've never really paid too much attention to that side of things but the album does have a certain cohesion to it, even as it mashes punk rock (the title track and "Saint Jimmy") with an almost 1950s sound on the verses of "Give Me Novocaine" and stadium-sized sound on songs like "We are the Waiting" or ballad "Wake Me When September Ends".

The song that seized me pretty early on was "Boulevard of Broken Dreams"  with it's tremolo-drenched alt-rock balladry. I hate the radio would often play a version where they shave off the instrumental outro, as though it was unworthy because it didn't have a human voice on it (probably just considered too long for the radio) it's one of my favourite parts of the song.   

The album was also seemingly one of the few mainstream releases making any effort to criticise the US invasion of Iraq (the sequel).  Definitely throwing a title like "American Idiot" at a highly patriotic nation like the US was a reasonably punk-rock thing to do.

American Idiot ended up being a shot in the arm for Green Day, setting their direction for the next few years, leading to a live album, a documentary, and even a stage musical. 

Day 0960 - Funeral

Arcade Fire “Funeral” (2004)

Arcade Fire seem to have had 'fiery' beginnings, with most of the band other than founder Win Butler and Régine Chassagne quitting and/or being replaced in the journey from formation to this, their debut album.

I remember seeing Aracde Fire on the televised footage of either Reading or Leeds fest when I was living in the UK.  A friend opined that they seemed like enthusiastic amateurs.  Playing pretty basic music, but with so much gusto and so many people on stage that it kind of carried things along.  Possibly a harsh assessment given that this album topped a lot of end of decade top ten lists (just behind Radiohead’s “Kid A”).

Myself, I don’t know that it’s worthy of those plaudits.  I feel as though it’s a competent enough indie-rock album with a few extra embellishments from strings, accordion and additional percussion touches; but it’s not necessarily better than a lot of the other albums on this list so far.

The gusto/bombast mentioned above is definitely on show with a song like “Wake Up” which seems to have been designed for a big audience sing-along.  Huge but simple group vocals that are pretty much a chant.

Songs like “Neighbourhood #4 (7 Kettles)” and “Crown of Love” offer up subtler moments, whereas a song like “In the backseat” starts small and builds.

I wasn’t really an Arcade Fire fan going into this, and that hasn’t really changed.  It’s not bad music, but it’s also not something I feel compelled to revisit or investigate further.

Day 0959 - Want Two

Rufus Wainwright “Want Two” (2004)

I have always enjoyed grandiosity and cinematic ‘scope’ in music, but Rufus Wainwright was almost too much for me in this respect!   I heard his album “Release the Stars” playing in a music store back when I was living in the UK and was instantly hooked.  If memory serves I picked up a copy that same day.  

While I loved Rufus’ mix of orchestra and choir with his melodic songcraft, I found that the album was actually so musically overwhelming that I couldn’t listen to "Release the Stars" more than once a week.  In the intervening years of course, I’ve gotten onto so many other albums/artists that it gets even less time.

From the opening track of “Want Two” (companion piece to Wainwright’s previous release “Want One”) I thought it might be more of the same, as Wainwright’s high, powerful voice vibrates over swirling string arrangements.  The next two tracks though pare things back nicely, with melodic tracks featuring interesting, yet relatively restrained arrangements.   “Peach Trees” in particular features lovely harmonised backing vocals that complement the song without overpowering it.

“The Art Teacher” tells a gentle tale of unrequited love for one’s educator.   “Gay Messiah” mixes country music (not always a genre known for its forward-thinking ideas on homosexuality) with a sort of gospel vibe.   The album ends on the lengthy but not overly ostentatious “Old Whore’s Diet”.

I’m hard-pushed to say how I’d rate this against “Release the Stars” but I could certainly see revisiting this more than once a week.

Day 0958 - A Grand Don’t Come For Free

The Streets “A Grand Don’t Come For Free” (2004)

To my mind The Streets are punk.  What I mean by that is that punk rock took music, stripped the “you need to be a trained musician” requirement, replaced it with an “anyone can do it” ethos and brought it down to the street level.   Likewise, plenty of Brits were hip-hop fans, being wowed by the vocal prowess of rappers but not necessarily feeling a connection with stories of street murders, gangstas etc.   

 

Mike Skinner’s musical project the Streets gave his listeners stories of trying to return a DVD in “It Was Supposed to be so Easy”, gambling (badly) “Not Addicted”, looking for a romantic connection at the bar “Could Well be in”, or of finding someone attractive but being put off by the fact that they are well aware of their looks “Fit But You Know it”.  

As well as the ‘real’ subject matter, Skinner's delivery is not really mile-a-minute spitting, nor does he have the smoothest flow.   He almost sounds like a quietly amused bloke who's wandered onto the stage at a karaoke bar.   I mean what other rapper could get away with a cracker of a line like "This night's not even begun, yes, yes, oh yay".  There's a narrative running through the songs which I vaguely picked up on.  

Still not always my cup of tea, I tend to prefer slightly more obscure or 'wordplay' sorts of lyrics rather than this wave of "I like it because they're talking about things we all know about" artists.   I do like some of his stuff though, and I can hear why others would too.