Day 0936 - A Little Deeper

Miss Dynamite "A Little Deeper" (2002)

The book makes comparisons between Miss Dynamite and Lauryn Hill, suggesting MD helped fill the gap left by Hill's absence from the music scene.   While it's not necessarily always a compliment to label an artist using another's name, being compared to a hugely successful and influential artist like Hill isn't the worst praise to receive.

In places Dynamite has a comparable voice to Hill and this album consists of a similar mix of soul, reggae, hip-hop and RnB.  She cuts her own path though, whether it's the almost loungey (via trip-hop beats) vibe of single "Dy-Na-Mi-Tee", the soul groove of "Brother" or the acapella cry against oppression "Watch over them".   "Krazy Krush" chucks an almost electronic sound into the mix.

I came in not expecting much from the album.  I was familar with "Dy-Na-Mi-Tee" and it didn't necessarily leave me with a favourable impression, but as it was I really enjoyed this one with its simple beats, minimal instrumental arrangements and focus on Dynamite's vocals.

 

Guess I should have looked... a little deeper

  

I'll see myself out.

 

Day 0779 - Ready to Die

The Notorious B.I.G. "Ready to Die" (1994)

 
Biggie was signed to Uptown Records by Sean 'Puffy' Coombes (who was working as an A&R guy) and started recording his album.   When Coombes/Puffy/Daddy/Diddy was fired by Uptown, Biggie was left in limbo.  Pufferino set up his own 'Bad Boy Records' label and a year later work resumed on Biggie's debut.    Big had spent part of the interim dealing drugs, which I guess adds to the 'street' credibility and authenticity of his lyrics.

The production has a touch of G-funk, with extra funk.  The occasional female backing-singers are reminiscent of Diddy's own Daddy-era recordings.   The beats can get a bit samey throughout, but Biggie's rhymes carry things along nicely.   Do have to say though, that at around 70 minutes, the album is probably a bit too B.I.G. for me.

Day 0766 - Vauxhall and I

Morrissey "Vauxhall and I" (1994)

Morrissey's fourth album... this is another of those points where I have scratch my head at the selections on the list.   I don't really hear anything musically in this album that hasn't already been covered in Morrissey's other entries in the list so far.  There are far more musically interesting albums out there from other artists that could have been selected in place of this.

The album is pretty much Morrissey doing his thing.   It's a bit mellower than "Your Arsenal" and the lyrics seem to very much be driven by the deaths of people around Morrissey at the time, including legendary guitarist Mick Ronson (who'd produced Morrissey's previous album), his manager, and a director of some of his music videos.   With a song called "Hold onto your friends", and the line 'tell all of my friends/I don't have too many' in the song "Now my heart is full" it seemed that Mos was ruminating on mortality in general and the shrinking of one's social circle with age.   Worthy subjects, but still not really enough that the album needed to be in this list.

Day 0636 - The Real Thing

Faith No More "The Real Thing" (1989) - got it

Anyone who knows me well, knows that I am a big fan of Mike Patton and of Faith No More, so I have listened to this album more times than I can remember... but as usual, for completism I listened to it again today.

It is slightly disappointing to me that this is the only FNM or Patton album in the 1001 albums, especially considering the breadth of Patton's oeuvre, and the fact that FNM's somewhat weirder "Angel Dust" album has been cited as an influence by many bands, named as album of the year by a few magazines, and was even cited as "the most influential album of all time" by Kerang magazine.   That's not to take anything away from TRT, I'm just saying that it makes me wonder what other great albums from other artists might have been omitted from the list because they weren't quite as commercially successful.

FNM had parted company with vocalist Chuck Mosley after 2 albums, due to his volatile personality, limited vocal ability and his various addictions.  They recruited fresh-faced 20 year old Mike Patton from the eclectic band Mr Bungle.  Patton came with a multi-octave vocal range, and a demented, yet somewhat literary approach to his lyric-writing.

The first two albums with Mosely had been a mix of funky post-punk, new wavey synths, metal riffs, rap, punky vocals, and pop hooks (largely thanks to keyboardist Roddy Bottum).  "The Real Thing" seemed to be a case of the band looking to redefine themselves after Mosely's departure by narrowing their focus.  The album still has its pop hooks in songs such as "Falling to Pieces" or "Underwater Love", but the album had much more of a funk/metal focus, via the collision of Bill Gould's percussive funky bass, Mike Bordin's tribal beats, and Jim Martin's chugging metal guitar riffs.

The album goes into propulsive pop-metal territory with opener "From out of nowhere", and straight-ahead metal with "Surprise! You're dead" and "The morning after".    Most of the other songs mix things up a bit more, with the title track features an almost dub-reggae drum beat interspersed with rock explosions, and "Zombie Eaters" starts with a series of very pretty acoustic guitar parts.  "Woodpecker from Mars" is a 'middle-eastern-meets-metal' instrumental track that shows that FNM could have easily been a force to be reckoned with without Patton or Mosely (or Courtney Love, who was their vocalist at some early shows).

"Epic" was the big hit from the album, with its combination of metal, funk and rap unfortunately inspiring the nu-metal craze that would follow.   The album ends with a further venture into metal territory in the shape of a cover of Black Sabbath's "War Pigs" and then the musical left turn of sleazy loungey jazz-pop track "Edge of the World".

This is probably my least favourite album that FNM did with Patton, but it's still one hell of an album.

Day 0570 - The Last of the True Believers

Nanci Griffith "The Last of the True Believers" (1986)

I was not familiar with Nanci before this list.  She doles out a style of alt-country and folk that largely still sounds contemporary, due to artists such as Wilco and Beck continuing to tap into the same vein. 

A couple of these songs were covered (with slightly more commercial success) by singer Kathy Mattea, but these original versions are great, as is the whole album.  If you're into interesting country, this is as good a place as any to start.

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.