Day 0939 - The Coral

The Coral "The Coral" (2002)

What the what?!

Another situation where I was familiar with the name but for some reason assumed this band was one of the indie rock groups making the scene at the time; far from it! This album mixes a punky raucousness with melodic sensibility.  Musical control with wild abandon.  The whole thing is smothered in vocal harmonies which is something that (if you're keeping track) I love.

"Goodbye" has jazzy fusiony vamps.  "Shadows Fall" has a Specials-esque bit of moody two-tone with folky vocals that suddenly launch into a burst of hot jazz and plays out with a cool ping-pong vocal thing.  "I Remember When" moves between slow morose alt-rock and bursts into an explosive almost punky rock for the chorus and rounds out on a sort of klezmer section.

It's a definite "all sounds considered" approach that wraps in rock, folk, jazz, balladry, reggae, sea shanty, indie rock.  Music for the sake of music, and I love it!

Day 0719 - Automatic for the People

R.E.M. "Automatic for the People" (1992) - got it

The band did not tour their previous release “Out of Time”, opting instead to head straight back into writing new songs.

I actually find that quite admirable.  Often, bands get sucked into the treadmill of write-record-tour then, when their schedule says so, they have start being creative again to start that cycle again… whereas they might not be in a creative place at the time.  Better to nut out a string of albums in quick succession while you’re feeling inspired.

Anyhoo, the band wanted to write an album of rockier songs to contrast their previous album, but when guitarist Bill Berry, bassist Mike Mills, and drummer Peter Buck got together, they just weren’t coming up with many songs in that vein.  The band were continuing their method of switching instruments to get themselves out of their comfort zone and write in different ways and ended up often not working with drums in the mix at all.

The  result was that the music they produced was quite pared back, with the drum parts being minimal, or in some instances, non-existent.   Berry stuck to clean guitar sounds, acoustic guitars and mandolins.  String arrangements from Led Zeppelin’s John Paul Jones would eventually garnish 4 of the album’s tracks.

Singer Michael Stipe responded to the new subdued material with lyrics of sadness and loss, with some lighter moments provided by track “Sidewinder Sleeps Tonight”.   Listening to the album as a whole, you really do appreciate what a great collection of songs it is, with even well-worn singles like “Everybody Hurts” and “Man on the Moon” feeling fresh within the context of the album-as-whole.

With regards to “Man on the Moon”, it had been written fairly early on but had remained an instrumental for the duration of recording.  Stipe felt he couldn’t get his head around it lyrically and thought it should stay instrumental.  It was only when his bandmates begged him to finish the song that he went out for a walk around the neighbourhood with the music in his headphones and came back with lyrics.

As with “Out of Time”, the band decided not to tour the album.  Making its success (presumably helped by radio/video-play and the band’s existing fans) all the more impressive.

Day 0703 - The White Room

The KLF "The White Room" (1991)

The KLF released music under the names the Justified Ancients of Mu Mu, JAMs, and (to release a childhood favourite of mine "Doctorin' the TARDIS") the Timelords.  The group also published a book "The Manual (how to have a number one the easy way)". 

The group pulled off some rather extreme performance pieces, including dumping a dead sheep at their after-show party, and then disbanded.  They formed the K Foundation with the mission of subverting and creating.

Prior to the breakup though, they produced this album.  Originally designed as a soundtrack for a film of the same name, the film was cancelled so the group moved towards producing a standalone album instead.   The music goes between the worlds of pop and the trance/rave scene.  For an album from the constantly evolving (musically and technologically) electronic scene, this one has aged incredibly well and I could imagine them possibly having influenced the Prodigy among others.

Day 0636 - The Real Thing

Faith No More "The Real Thing" (1989) - got it

Anyone who knows me well, knows that I am a big fan of Mike Patton and of Faith No More, so I have listened to this album more times than I can remember... but as usual, for completism I listened to it again today.

It is slightly disappointing to me that this is the only FNM or Patton album in the 1001 albums, especially considering the breadth of Patton's oeuvre, and the fact that FNM's somewhat weirder "Angel Dust" album has been cited as an influence by many bands, named as album of the year by a few magazines, and was even cited as "the most influential album of all time" by Kerang magazine.   That's not to take anything away from TRT, I'm just saying that it makes me wonder what other great albums from other artists might have been omitted from the list because they weren't quite as commercially successful.

FNM had parted company with vocalist Chuck Mosley after 2 albums, due to his volatile personality, limited vocal ability and his various addictions.  They recruited fresh-faced 20 year old Mike Patton from the eclectic band Mr Bungle.  Patton came with a multi-octave vocal range, and a demented, yet somewhat literary approach to his lyric-writing.

The first two albums with Mosely had been a mix of funky post-punk, new wavey synths, metal riffs, rap, punky vocals, and pop hooks (largely thanks to keyboardist Roddy Bottum).  "The Real Thing" seemed to be a case of the band looking to redefine themselves after Mosely's departure by narrowing their focus.  The album still has its pop hooks in songs such as "Falling to Pieces" or "Underwater Love", but the album had much more of a funk/metal focus, via the collision of Bill Gould's percussive funky bass, Mike Bordin's tribal beats, and Jim Martin's chugging metal guitar riffs.

The album goes into propulsive pop-metal territory with opener "From out of nowhere", and straight-ahead metal with "Surprise! You're dead" and "The morning after".    Most of the other songs mix things up a bit more, with the title track features an almost dub-reggae drum beat interspersed with rock explosions, and "Zombie Eaters" starts with a series of very pretty acoustic guitar parts.  "Woodpecker from Mars" is a 'middle-eastern-meets-metal' instrumental track that shows that FNM could have easily been a force to be reckoned with without Patton or Mosely (or Courtney Love, who was their vocalist at some early shows).

"Epic" was the big hit from the album, with its combination of metal, funk and rap unfortunately inspiring the nu-metal craze that would follow.   The album ends with a further venture into metal territory in the shape of a cover of Black Sabbath's "War Pigs" and then the musical left turn of sleazy loungey jazz-pop track "Edge of the World".

This is probably my least favourite album that FNM did with Patton, but it's still one hell of an album.

Day 0618 - Green

R.E.M. "Green" (1988) - got it

The band's first major label release after parting company with I.R.S. Records.   According to interviews, the band felt that I.R.S. was putting pressure on them to sell well, while not really putting a lot of marketing or wide distribution efforts behind them.  Following the move to a major label (who guaranteed them creative freedom), the band became defensive in interviews in response to accusations of 'selling out'.

When left to their own devices, the band threw themselves more into major-key pop-rock tunes, but at the same time, Peter Buck starts spraying mandolin all over the place, laying down that sort of 'alt-folk' sound that would become prevalent on a few of their 90s releases.  The band experimented with trying to write "un-REM-ish" songs and switching instruments to change things up a bit.

There are touches of country, and the odd moodier track.  "I remember California" sounds like some effective middle-ground between gothy post-punk and grunge.

Day 0604 - Scum

Napalm Death "Scum" (1987) - got it

Napalm Death, one of the progenitors of grindcore and producers of maybe the shortest song in the history of recoded music - "You suffer" clocks in at barely more than 1 second.

The band took punishing blast-beats, growling, barely-intelligible Cookie-Monster style vocals combined with some intense guitar riffs to produce an album that is nothing short of an aural onslaught.

The two halves of the album are also produced by almost completely different bands, with only drummer (and sometimes vocalist) Mick Harris playing on the entire album.  Guitarist Justin Broadrick had left partway through recording to help create industrial metal band Godflesh. 

Day 0590 - Document

R.E.M. "Document" (1987)

Kind of a transitional album for R.E.M.   It was their last album for IRS records before moving onto a major label and their first with Scott Litt producing.

Musically, they were already starting to evolve into their more commercial 90s sound... to the extent that I was sure that catchy track "The One I Love" was on one of those later albums, rather than on one of the IRS releases.  I think part of the change is that Michael Stipe had really found his feet as a singer and frontman, so had set aside his mumbled obscure vocal delivery and moved to a more clear and outgoing style.

Musically, the album has a nice range of styles, from the jangly folk rock of "It's the End of the World..." (with the event of Covid 19, this one has actually had a resurgence), the slow dirge intensity of "Oddfellows Local 151" and the catchy, borderline-anthemic nature of "Finest Worksong".

0518 - Murmur

R.E.M. "Murmur" (1983)

Quite a different beast to the R.E.M. who would eventually break on the scene with their earnest emotional ballads and occasional rockers.  This is much more folky shoegazer stuff, with twangy Rickenbacker guitar behind Stipe's mumbled poetry and much less of Mike Mill's backing vocals.

There are moments of the future band shining through, but I can certainly understand why people who got into the band at this stage of their career might have been disappointed with their later direction (though I'm a fan of their mid-era albums myself).

Day 0485 - My Life in the Bush of Ghosts

David Byrne and Brian Eno "My Life in the Bush of Ghosts" (1981)

Having enjoyed the individual works of Eno and Byrne; I was keen to hear this one.  The album, described by Eno as "psychedelic Africa" was delayed in its release due clearance issues with the various copyrighted materials sampled.  As a result, the Talking Heads'  "Remain in Light" album (also produced by Eno), though recorded later, was released before this collaboration.

Whereas that Talking Heads album was built on a foundation of jam sessions among the various musicians, this is much more a studio construct, formed around samples and based heavily on Holger Czukay's "movies" album.  An interesting album to be sure, but I'd say I really prefer Byrne in more of a traditional song-based vein, whether it's with the Heads, with St Vincent or as a solo artist.

Day 0470 - Hypnotised

The Undertones "Hypnotised" (1980)

I wasn't really too fussed on the previous Undertones album on this list; it was kind of fairly nondescript punk with a little extra melody thrown in.

This one is more of the same but with the punk dialled down a little and the pop/melody turned up slightly, and yet it seems so much better (to my ears). Maybe they reached the punk/melody 'bliss point' or were on a bit of a roll songwriting-wise... who knows?

Again it's not one that I'm really planning on revisiting, but it's more enjoyable and a lot of the songs just seem 'familiar'. I kind of feel like they could potentially have been an early influence on Blur (of whom I am a fan), going by the similarities in sound.

Day 0274 - Larks' Tongues in Aspic

King Crimson "Larks' Tongues in Aspic" (1973)

What the hell did I just listen to? ...so much musical excess!

The opening (title) track is a journey from tinkling finger cymbals through various musical movements including some fantastic bass work.  Bass seems to be a featured instrument in many of the prog-rock albums I've listened to so far on the list.

This first track gives way to more mellow songs.  There's the delicate and beautiful "Book of Saturday", with it's graceful violin and backwards guitar duet; the proggy ballad of 'Exiles'; the rock riffs of 'Easy Money'; and again the proggy excesses of 'The Talking Drum' and the second part of the title track.

Brilliant album.