Day 0876 - Follow the Leader

Korn "Follow the Leader" (1998) - got it

 

When I was in high school, Korn were a big deal.  They, along with a number of angry, shouty, down-tuned rock bands that made up the nu-metal scene seemed to be everywhere in the late 90s and early 00s.   

Even though it was supposed to be a movement of outsiders pushing against conformity by mashing up genres and kicking against 'the popular kids', the genre became trite, commercialised and obsessed with its own image.  Korn in particular made a thing of wearing ADIDAS and, when offered a shit-ton of money by Puma to wear their stuff instead, jumped ship.

After two albums of their growly, low-end focussed metal, Korn injected this album with a bit of variety in the shape of more of a lean into  the hip-hop side of their sound.  Guest spots by Ice Cube, the Pharcyde's Tre Hardson and (meh) Limp Bizkit's Fred Durst are featured.   This last collaboration is on the now definitely dated battle track where Jonathan Davis and Durst throw homophobic slurs at each other.

The album opens with a minute's silence made up of 12x 5 second tracks.   When I was at school there was a story going around that it was Korn demanding a minute's silence for themselves as the progenitors of the nu-metal genre, but apparently it's more humble and less cringeworthy than that.  The minute of silence was dedicated to a fan who died of cancer.  He had been able to meet the band as a dying wish.

The album is a tad overlong as are many of the songs, though "Children of the Korn" (with Ice Cube); single "Got the Life" with its disco beat and slap bass; and closer "My Gift to You" with it's slow, epic, bagpipe backed groove are still good, even now.

I enjoyed Korn at the time, haven't really revisited them much in the last few years.  It's not that I don't still like aggressive, loud rock, I just think that their particular brand of it sits best with you when you're adolescent, angry, and not thinking too hard.   

Day 0633 - Buenas Noches From a Lonely Room

Dwight Yoakam "Buenas Noches From a Lonely Room" (1988)

How country can you get?   "Dwight Yoakam" is probably the answer to that one. 

It seems odd to me listening to his music now, that it was initially rejected in Nashville as it sounds like it'd be right up their alley.  He moved instead to Los Angeles and got his career on the move, including producing a couple of no.1's and making more appearances on 'the Late Show' than any other musical guest.

I guess this could be another one of those situations where the style that Dwight was playing has become common since/because of him.   His mix of honky tonk, country and pop into what he classed as 'urban cowboy' music sounds as country-as-country to me, so I find  it odd that it wasn't accepted at the time.  I find country music to be hit-and-miss, but this album is a solid collection of songs.

Day 0591 - Sign o' the Times

Prince "Sign o' the Times " (1987)

 
Prince had been working on a double album with the Revolution "Dream Factory", and a solo album that he'd planned to release under the feminine pseudonym 'Camille'.  He ended up disbanding the Revolution and scrapping the Camille album.  Combining the material from these projects with some new songs he planned a triple album "Crystal Ball".   This was vetoed by the record company who baulked at releasing that much material simultaneously, and Prince was left to cherry-pick tracks for a single album.

You'd think that choosing from such a large pool of songs this would be a 'home run' of an album.  Instead, I feel as though the songs being drawn from 3 disparate projects over a number of years led to a bit of a lack of cohesion across the material.

There are plenty of good moments here, and Prince explores every genre that he'd investigated up till that point (and then some), but as a whole it just doesn't quite hit the spot for me the way that '1999' or 'Purple Rain' did.

Day 0541 - Private Dancer

Tina Turner "Private Dancer" (1984)

Having split with Ike Turner, and having been struggling to get her solo career to really take off, Tina released "Private Dancer".  The album had a number of producers, including one member of the band Heaven 17.  The machine-pop (and occasional rock) laden with synthesizers and drum machines replaces the organic RnB of Tina's music with Ike.

The album was a huge success, though I agree with the assessment that much of the music itself is kind of forgettable.  It's Turner's amazing voice that really sells this music.  I didn't even entirely recognise "What's love got to do with it" until her voice kicked in.  In some ways though, the underwhelming impact of the music does serve to spotlight Turner's vocal power all the more.  

Side note: I never thought I'd hear someone best Al Green at "Let's stick together", but wow, she gives him a run for his money.

Day 0481 - Beauty and the Beat

The Go-Gos "Beauty and the Beat" (1981)

Originally started in LA 1978 as a punk rock band (their singer had even been in the Germs for a while). The band claimed that they could barely play their instruments when they started, but that they seemed propelled towards success, with this, their first album spending 6 weeks in the Billboard chart.

By the time this album came out, much of the band's punkiness had been airbrushed with a gloss of a new-wavey take on the old-school girl group pop sound.  It actually works really well, like, catchy songs but with some guts and a bit of rock to them. Not a million miles from something like Letters to Cleo with their cover of "I want you to want me" in "10 things I hate about you".