Day 0995 - Good Kid, M.A.A.D. City

Kendrick Lamar "Good Kid, M.A.A.D. City" (2012)

I guess this is one of those ones where the people putting the 1001 albums together had to choose some promising newer items and hope they'd pan out.    Well, many albums, much critical acclaim, a successful soundtrack and even a damned Pulitzer later and they seem to have called it correctly on Kendrick.

Kendrick started off producing mixtapes and doing a few gigs under the name K-Dot.   As things started to pick up, he dropped the K-Dot name and released an EP and his debut.   His star was in ascendancy from early on and he was signed to Interscope Records and Dr Dre's Aftermath Entertainment.

Kendrick grew up around gangs without being involved in them.   That seems to come out in his lyrics here, reporting on the dangers and stress of the streets without revelling in it or bragging about it.   Especially a track like "The Art of Peer Pressure" where he reflects on the need to try and do the drugs and act like a tough guy when he's 'with the homies'.

For "Good Kid, M.A.A.D City" Kendrick said he wanted to return to his Compton roots.   The album is mostly stripped down, focussing largely on snappy beats and low-n-slow basslines.   Something like "Backseat Freestyle" almost sounds dubby at the start and there are some similarities to Dizzee Rascal's grime sound.  Elsewhere a track like "Sing About Me, I'm Dying of Thirst" has a nice jazzy guitar backing and more lyrics expressing the unease and sense of danger on the streets.

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 0264 - Roxy Music

Roxy Music "Roxy Music" (1972) - got it

 
Roxy Music are almost textbook case of the "strong personalities making interesting music until some of those personalities departs and the other/s take over" thing.

The clash of 50s-style rock n roll mixed with glam, a little punk, a smattering of horns, and Brian Eno's space-aged synth noises is an exciting musical smack in the face!  Eno left early on (I think after the first or second album) and by the time they released "Avalon" half the band had left and Bryan Ferry ruled the roost.  Avalon didn't really match the early material (though having said that 'More than this' is a brilliant tune).

Back to the debut though: it is a bold, brash musical statement which is the opposite of that "Oh I don't want to stand out, I just want to 'serve the song'" idea that mediocres so much music.  The first track even makes space for each member to show off with a bar or two of solo.  The music twists and turns, with Ferry still learning his craft as a singer and lyricist, seeming to have a unique, more defined vocal delivery than in later albums (the reverse of what normally happens).

Oddly my relationship with this band/album started somewhat indirectly when I read about them as an influence on one of my favourite NZ bands Split Enz (who, like RM started in an art rock sort of vein and moved to a slightly poppier sound later on), and when I saw a cover of the song 'Virginia Plain' on the British sketch show "Big Train" (an early break for Simon Pegg, Catherine Tate and Mark Heap) I was hooked in.