Day 0890 - The Soft Bulletin

Flaming Lips "The Soft Bulletin" (1999)

The Lips had been mining experimental veins of musical exploration,  which could be seen to culminate with the "Zaireeka" album consisting of 4 discs designed to be played simultaneously on 4 different players.   Where to go from there?  Obviously the answer was to make a transcendent baroque pop album.

The Lips did it in their own way though, so interesting sonic manipulation is evident throughout more traditional instrumentation and lush arrangements.

The highlight for me is the mostly instrumental, wordless track "the Observer".    

 

"Feeling Yourself Disintergrate" starts with a repeated, ping-pong vocal somewhere between beatbox and scat that is then enveloped by treated keyboards, reverby vocals and a general warm blanket of music.  Despite its seemingly bleak title, the track in fact dwells on love, life and the universe in a dreamy, tripped out way.  That approach seems to be the bent of many of singer Wayne Coyne's lyrics: filling with hope instead of the cynicism and nihilism of some of his musical peers.

This trippy pop approach and psychedelic yet uplifting lyrics would go on to be further developed on follow-up "Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots".

Day 0659 - Club Classics Vol. One

Soul II Soul "Club Classics Vol. One" (1989)

The group started off playing house parties and street parties.   It's apt then that the album is set out like a DJ's club mix with some long drawn-out beat loops and some catchy hooks.   There are touches of jazz, funk, disco and the titular soul, all brewed into a dancey stew.  Probably not my cup of tea overall, but it's listenable.

They released this album before the line-up started to change, with member Jazzie B eventually being the only original member left.

Day 0519 - Soul Mining

The The "Soul Mining" (1983)

The The was set up by Matt Johnson and went on to feature a rotating cast of musicians with Johnson as the only constant, essentially making it more of a collaborative solo project (if that makes sense).

This music has the some of the drama and glitz of the new-romantic movement to it.  There are some squiggly little synth sounds, a little 'world music' percussion, but you can also hear the hints of Johnston's musical upbringing, growing up around his dad's East London pub in his vaguely misanthropic snarl and hints of 60s rock in places, maybe even a touch of the Velvet Underground adding a little New York to the mix.

Day 0353 - Boston

Boston "Boston" (1976)

I started listening to this thinking "I wonder if I know any songs by Boston? I mean, the name is kind of omnipresent, so they seem like they'd be one of those well known radio-friendly bands."

The first track is "More than a feeling"...  ..."Oh, THAT'S a Boston song?!"

This album is pretty much pop-rock perfection.  There are a couple of little dallinces into blues and tripped out jamming, but it's mostly just upbeat hooky guitars and big vocal harmonies. Every second song seems to sound familiar.

Apparently the music was leader Tom Scholz's take on Cream and Led Zeppelin. His music was much less raw and rocking than theirs but, I guess, acted as a precursor to a lot of the big melodic rock bands of the 80s.