Day 0558 - Meat is Murder

The Smiths "Meat is Murder"

I'll admit to not being hugely familiar with the Smiths' music.  They were solely active in the 80s which was not a time that I was actively seeking out music.  Once I was more into music I was more interested in 60s pop or loud distorted guitars; the Smiths don't fit the bill in either case.  A teacher of mine who also helped out one of the high school bands I was in recommended the Smiths to me and I listened to one or two tracks, but it didn't really peak my interest.

So essentially I came to this fairly 'blank slate', the only song I was familiar with on this album was "How soon is now?" (only featured on certain versions of the album) as the theme tune to the tv show 'Charmed'.

I'd say there are more than a few connections that could be made between the Smiths and U2; both bands with solid rhythm sections, sonically explorative guitarists, and cause-heavy lyricists.

Guitarist Johnny Marr is the real star on this album, his guitar sounds ranging from jangly rockabilly, wicky funk, extreme tremolo guitar overlaid with slide lead parts, delicate acoustic guitar, clean new-wave-style guitar.

Morrisey's vocals seem to largely follow the pattern of being emotive and drenched in reverb.  While he is all about his causes here (pacifism, anti-monarchy, and the obvious vegetarian message of the title track) he does occasionally show a bit of a sense of humour, which I'm not sure is still present in his more recent work.

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.