Day 0790 - Only Built 4 Cuban Linx

Raewkon  "Only Built 4 Cuban Linx" (1995)

Another Wu Tang solo album.   As with the other first few solo Wu albums "Cuban Linx" was produced by RZA, ensuring that the music is interesting and loaded with film samples and kung fu.

The lyrics, delivered by Raekwon and fellow Wu Tang alumnus Ghostface Killah I'm less fond of.   Some of the tracks flow nicely like "Guillotine (Swords)", but there are a few racial slurs and (seems to be a theme with a lot of rap albums of this era) it's quite long, with a runtime of 70-odd minutes.   I guess it's because while I like a bit of hip hop, it's not my number one genre.  Definitely there are albums of that length in other genres (see day 791) that I enjoy.

I would say though, the combination of a great backing track, the rhymes and female backing vocals on "Glaciers of Ice" caught my attention more than many of the other tracks.

Day 0630 - Viva Hate

Morrissey "Viva Hate" (1988)

Released a mere 6 months after the Smiths' swansong "Strangeways Here We Come", Morrissey hit the ground running assisted by Smiths (and eventually Cranberries, Blur and Kaiser Chiefs) producer Stephen Street.

Street, and guitarist/keyboardist Vini Reilly would later argue over which of them wrote the bulk of the songs on the album, but whatever the case, one of them helped Morrissey get over the potentially awkward hurdle of the first solo album.

To my mind, the tracks are a bit of a mixed bunch and stand or fall based on the backing track.  Morrissey himself mostly seems to do a similar vocal thing over each track.   There's are some sonic experiments (particularly in the first couple of tracks) mixed with more traditional arrangements, one or two even sounding a bit like the Smiths.

A couple of favourites are "Ordinary Boys" (from which the band of the same name got their moniker) and "Margaret on the Guillotine" in which Morrissey wistfully imagines Margaret Thatcher being killed... and as a result, in real life, got him questioned by the Special Branch (according to Morrissey's autobiography).