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 0367 - Songs in the Key of Life

Stevie Wonder "Songs in the Key of Life" (1976) - got it

Stevie had parted company with synthesizer wizards Robert Margouleff and Malcolm Cecil who had left him with a stockpile of some 250 songs (of which only a handful have since been released).  Rather than fall back on those tracks, Stevie set about recording new songs.  Now, this is where the role of a producer can show its merit.  When RM and MC were on board with Stevie they'd give him the tools to explore his ideas, but they would also make sure he finished songs and got albums out into the world, instead of constantly starting new things and not seeing them through.

"Songs.." took 2 years of Stevie constantly telling Motown that he was ready to deliver the album (at one point they even put up huge billboards advertising its release... a year or so before it finally got delivered). He recorded a further 200 songs with various guests, involved including Herbie Hancock, George Benson, and one or two of Stevie's exes on vocals. I feel as though after his death there will be a giant stockpile of songs that could be released if he hasn't destroyed them or they don't get stymied in a legal quagmire (at the time of writing, that's what seems to have happened to most of Prince's unreleased stuff.)

When the album finally came out, a few songs followed soon after release on an EP.  It suggests to me that Stevie, left to his own devices, just couldn't bring himself to 'close the loop' on the album.  In that respect, he'd probably fare quite well in the current music world where he could just drip out tracks via bandcamp or iTunes or something.

There are tons of brilliant tracks here ('Sir Duke', 'I Wish', 'Pastime Paradise', 'As') and of course there are.  This is 1970s Stevie: he was untouchable at this point.  That said, the album does suffer from the same 'track exhaustion' found in a lot of double albums.  I couldn't pick any 'bad' tracks per se, it just feels like a lot of work listening to the whole thing and could have been better presented or experienced as 2 or 3 separate albums.

Day 0351 - Station to Station

David Bowie "Station to Station" (1976) - got it

 
Originally planned to be titled "the White Duke" in a continuation of Bowie's character pieces such as Ziggy Stardust and Aladdin Sane.  However, in the midst of Bowie's personal (relationship breakup, battle with drugs) and musical uncertainty, he cast aside all of that to just deliver a "soul record, devoid of soul".

I’m not really one for choosing favourites, but this would sit fairly high in my ranking of Bowie albums. In some ways it’s neither fish nor fowl, having touches of his glam pop sound, his recent dalliance with danceable soul, and even hints of future directions, all with its own internal musical logic. Bowie breaks further away from the 3 minute pop/rock song formula in places to explore longer-form songs.

The title track, starts musically with the glam swagger of some of Bowie’s Aladdin Sane or Ziggy Stardust tracks (or Marc Bolan, of whom he was a fan) but the vocal melody has a much looser ‘jazz’ feel, weaving in and out of the grinding riffs.

“Golden Years” picks up on the funk/soul flavour of his previous ‘Young Americans’ album. It’s a brilliant song, a successful single… and yet not (IMO) even the best thing on here.

“TVC15” hints a little at the coming Berlin trilogy while still sounding a bit brit-poppy... a foot each in the past and the future.

"Word on a wing" has lyricism to its melody and Bowie’s delivery that is hard to quantify. The whole thing rounds off with 'Wild is the Wind' a vulnerable sounding Bowie vocal over a song that almost sounds like it could be an old Nancy Sinatra pop track.

Day 0006 - Ellington at Newport

Duke Ellington "Ellington at Newport"

The Duke had suffered the fate of most big jazz bandleaders in the second half of the 20th century a major drop in popularity despite the fact that he continued to tour solidly.

Despite swing's fall from grace, Duke's band's set at Newport ending up being a raging success.  The record company (as record companies are wont to do) rushed to capitalise on it and release this album... only to find that recordings of the show were pretty damaged.  Columbia dealt with this by getting Ellington into the studio to re-record the set.  The album was then patched together using the studio recordings, surviving pieces of the live recordings, and assorted canned applause.

Apparently there has since been a recording pieced together of the original show and it is something special... to be fair though, this version is great too; just a tight band playing some hot music!