Day 0871 - Celebrity Skin

Hole "Celebrity Skin" (1998)

After finishing touring their "Live Through This" album, Hole took time out to pursue various individual projects (most notably Courtney Love's excellent performance in the film "the People Vs Larry Flint" with Woody Harrelson).  They regrouped and started working on new music but were having trouble finding their groove.

They decamped to LA and enlisted the help of Smashing Pumpkins' Billy Corgan as an executive producer.  Corgan ended up co-writing the music for a number of the songs.  Meanwhile, Love decided to base her lyrics around the theme of California, both the ideal and the reality (a vein mined by Mr Bungle and the Red Hot Chili Peppers around the same time).  Even then the sessions were not without their problems, with producer Michael Beinhorn bullying drummer Patty Schemel and convincing Love to go with a session drummer instead, leading to Schemel quitting the band.

The music, collaborators and theme saw them move further away from their initial noisy, punky beginnings to a kind of washed out, hungover version of sunny California pop.  They still have some raging moments such as on the title track and "Playing Your Song".   Corgan's gift for melodic, catchy rock is noticeable on the title track and single "Malibu", but guitarist Eric Erlandson acquits himself nicely with melodic-yet-raw tracks like "Northern Star" and "Heaven Tonight".

Love makes the whole thing her own, ably supported by new bass player Melissa Auf der Maur's strong backing vocals.

Day 0656 - Doolittle

Pixies "Doolittle" (1989)

The Pixies switched up producers with a noticeable change in sound.  Where "Surfer Rosa" producer Steve Albini favoured dirty, punky production with unconventional techniques; "Doolittle" producer Gil Norton favoured more of a conventional studio sheen.   Given that the Pixies were a band who mixed pleasant melody with abrasive noise, they were clearly amenable to either approach.  

Norton's production sees clean, prominent bass-lines and drums with a noisy squall of guitar over the top.  Black Francis' vocals alternately scream, or sink into melodic harmony with bassist Kim Deal's voice.   The album is a great cohesive mix of styles that lays further groundwork for the wave of Grunge (Cobain was a vocal fan of the Pixies) and the noisier areas of 90s indie-rock and indie-pop alike.

Day 0562 - Picture Book

Simply Red "Picture Book" (1985)

Mick Hucknall had started out in a punk band called the Frantic Elevators, but decided that he wanted to play a genre that would give his voice more room to showcase itself.  He assembled a number of session players to form Simply Red.

This album skits around a few genres, including rock and jazz, but mostly sits in the soul zone, where Hucknall makes full use of his (admittedly strong) voice.  Not a huge fan of the band.  There's some okay stuff here, but much of it sits firmly in the middle-of-the-road.

Eventually the band would go on to become a revolving cast of players with Hucknall as the only constant.

Day 0480 - Penthouse and Pavement

Heaven 17 "Penthouse and Pavement" (1981)

I remember listening to this one ages ago (in fact I quickly searched out a review I wrote in 2015 - all I said was that it was a good little pop album with some funky sounds and lighter synth bits). Didn't really remember the music off the top of my head... though I was listening to it during night-shifts back then so that might factor into it.

It remains a good pop album with some funky sounds and lighter synth parts.  A fun album, even though it's lead single "(we don't need this) fascist groove thing", championed by John Peel was banned by the BBC for implying that Ronald Reagan was a fascist.  Some things never change, the BBC have made some terrible censorship decisions in the past.

The band was formed by ex-members of the original line-up of the Human League (before they went extremely mainstream and had huge success with songs like "don't you want me"). That band had a reshuffle and the members who would form Heaven 17 created the company called the British Electric Foundation (BEF) under which the band was based... that idea of band/album as corporate product is illustrated (quite literally) on the album cover with it's corporate promotional vibe.

Day 0435 - Fear of Music

Talking Heads "Fear of Music" (1979)

Hmm, another Talking Heads album that I don't own. This one is really interesting, Eno's influence seems to be creeping in even more than on 'More songs about buildings and food' with additional sonic trickery.

David Byrne took the nervous energy and anxiety that popped up in places on the first two albums and just smeared it all over the songs here. Even the serene 'Heaven' (rendered as an ethereal ballad by Icehouse) has a slightly cynical and bleak feel to it.

Eno tweaks the sounds made by the band as well as increasing the nervous energy by throwing plenty of extra little unsettling bleeps and bloops into the mix.