Day 0953 - Franz Ferdinand

Franz Ferdinand “Franz Ferdinand” (2004) – got it

I remember being into these guys from the off.  I saw their video for “Take Me Out” with its cool visuals.  The song seemed to have an interesting melody, then it suddenly started to decelerate (which I thought was awesome) and suddenly a danceable funky groove kicked off and I was totally hooked.

A danceable groove is something that ranked high on FF’s to-do list as they stated one of their goals was to “make music for girls to dance to”.   The music owes a heavy debt to Talking Heads’ mid-era material with its nerdy white-boy funk groove (especially second track “Tell Her Tonight”).  That mix of disco beats, and funky guitar harks back to a similar style popular in the 80s/late 70s and would soon become widely popular with artists such as Bloc Party and Gossip.

The band recorded with producer Tore Johansson, who had helmed the Cardigan’s brilliant “First Band on the Moon” (see day 832) which featured a similar catchy mix of dance beats and funky guitar.

The album is nice and concise coming in under the 40-minute mark.  There are bursts of punky energy on songs like “Darts of Pleasure” and “This Fire”.  “The Dark of the Matinée” (a personal favourite of mine) has almost a theatricality to it that always brings to mind early Split Enz.

Day 0945 - Under Construction

Missy Elliott "Under Construction" (2002)

Missy continued her collaboration with Timbaland, bringing a lot of classic hip-hop sounds into the mix and reminiscing on the 'good old days' a bit with "Back in the Day" featuring Jay Z.   

The album has a few guests and collaborators, but Missy easily rules the roost.   Ludacris guests on "Gossip Folks" but Missy again is the centre of attention, completely changing her vocal style for the track and still busting some great rhymes.

Single "Work it" has a fairly simple arrangement of skeletal beat and synthline with a synthy hook that swings in now and then.  Most its appeal then comes again from Missy's vocals.  She manages to make a dirty-as song where half of it dances around its subject, but you know exactly what she's talking about.   Sound effects and clever use of reverse sounds complete the picture.

Beyonce shows up on "Nothing Out There for Me" one of the albums more melodic moments.   

The spoken word parts at the start and end of the album could easily have come across as a bit cheesy, but again Missy manages to make them work.  The opening speech reflects the World Trade Centre attacks and show that (thinking back a few entries to Bruce Springsteen) this was a hurt being felt by artists across a range of genres.

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 0931 - Melody A.M.

Röyksopp "Melody A.M." (2001)

In my mind I had Röyksopp and Sigur Ros as being pretty much the same kind of music... not sure why, maybe it was my mind grouping Western European early 21st century artists together.

Röyksopp is definitely not in that same kind of ambient territory.  It's in the electronic genre but with a lot more prominent melody.  

The first track "So Easy" sounds a bit like Phoenix Foundation's spacier moments, or like a Blur melody with Danger Mouse production.  Pretty sure I've heard track two "Eple" before, it sounds familiar to me with its high blippy synth melody.   There' s a bit of funk in "Röyksopp's Night Out".   Whereas "In Space" is an almost Jean-Michel Jarre-esque synth vibe.

The music is largely instrumental, with vocals used more as an instrument than a focus.   The main exceptions being the laidback "Sparks" and "Remind me", and the peppier "Poor Lenno".

Day 0904 - Sincere

M.J. Cole "Sincere" (2000)

 

Cole was classically trained in oboe and piano.  He got a job as a tape operator and sound engineer for a drum and bass label which fuelled a love for electronic music.

I was kind of surprised at first.  I'd read something about him being into garage so I'd assumed it was garage-rock as that genre was due to become big in the next few years; instead it was the electronic genre of garage  ...I guess it makes sense.  You have house music, why wouldn't you have garage music?  I'm sure the garden shed music is just around the corner.

To my electronica layman's ears this sounds like interesting enough electronic music with touches of pop and soul, but nothing I feel I'll need to revisit.   The most interesting parts to me are the poppier ones like 70 funk-esque track "Rough Out Here" or single "Crazy Love" with its belting vocal.

There are some hints of Cole's classical training with pianos and strings popping up in places.  

Day 0885 - Slipknot

Slipknot “Slipknot” (1999) – got it

Slipknot as a band are something of an onslaught on all fronts.  For a start, the album cover that shows all 9(!) members of the band in their stage garb (borrowed liberally from Mr Bungle) of matching overalls and a collection of bondage, clown and other masks.  This image combined with the band-members being identified by numbers instead of their names leads to an general dehumanisation of them.

With 1 drummer, 2 percussionists, a bassist, 2 guitarists, a DJ, a sampler and a vocalist, the band present an imposing aural and visual presence.

After a brief track with repeated vocal sample and unsettling oscillating drone sounds, the aural part of the assault kicks off with opening track "(sic)".  It’s a thundering wall of metal guitar and pounding drums.   A friend of mine pointed out that Slipknot’s heaviness comes less from their guitars (though the riffs are plenty heavy) or the vocals (though again, ROAR) and more from the 3-headed drums/percussion monster that really gives the music much of its punishing brutality.

If the band's approach has a problem, it'd be that the onslaught is a little too constant.  Though there's a drum-n-bass break at the start of third track, a little more melody in single "Wait and Bleed" and one or two other little variations, for the most part it's the same sound across the album's runtime.


.... and of course don't forget the secret hidden track, because it's still the 90s.

Day 0810 - Better Living Through Chemistry

Fatboy Slim "Better Living Through Chemistry" (1996)

Norman Cook was the bass player for an indie rock band called the Housemartins.  Following the breakup of that band he formed the electronic group Beats International, Cook already had a few years of clubbing and DJing under his belt by then.

Cook then adopted the moniker Fatboy Slim to begin his solo career proper.    

This first Fatboy Slim album features tracks already recorded and released by Cook at different times throughout his career, but, despite this and the mix and match of sounds, it's a fairly cohesive collection of fun and funky big-beat tracks.   It already has that Fatboy Slim feeling of mixing a little bit of old with a bit of new to create something fun enough to dance to, but universal enough it its appeal that non-dance fans can get in on it too.   

Pretty sure I recognised "Going out of my head" from different tv shows and/or commercials.   I'm guessing that that commercialism may have earned Cook some criticism.   Accusations of 'selling out' and all that.  Who cares though, when the music is good.

Day 0751 - Orbital II

Orbital "Orbital II" (AKA "Orbital" AKA "The Brown Album") (1993)

I almost thought the version that I'd found to stream online was some kind of joke.  It just seemed to be a  looped recording of Worf from Star Trek TNG eventually repeating the same 5 words over and over again.  Turns out that is legitimately the first track of the album.   The whole album is bookended by two spoken word tracks.

The rest of the album is loop-based music.  Repetitive, yet quite layered and melodic electronica.  I can sometimes find the repetition in electronic music to be uninteresting, but here it works to create a musical trance that ensnares you and carries you along.

Day 0737 - New Wave

The Auteurs “New Wave” (1993)

The Auteurs were started by then couple Luke Haines and Alice Redman with former classmate Glenn Collins.  They put together a demo and were quickly signed to Hut Records.  “New Wave” was their first full-length release.

The entry in the book talks about them being progenitors of ‘Britpop’… but then, as frequently happens with genres or musical movements, several albums in the book have been given this honour.   I do find it interesting that so many of these musical movements can spring up like this, with multiple different bands all relatively independently arriving at similar musical destinations.

While I was living in the UK there seemed to be this trend towards artists who ruminated on everyday things (the Streets, Arctic Monkeys) whereas I’ve always preferred more obscure lyrics that maybe use a bit of clever or creative wordplay.   This band seems to have a more cinematic/theatrical vibe, such as on opening track "Show Girl" with the crashing, flashy intro suddenly vanishing into a quietly subdued verse.  The arrangements are bit more interesting than straight-ahead ‘rawk n roll’ and I could certainly hear similarities between this band and artists like Blur or Suede (Supergrass at a stretch).

While I won’t say they’re my new favourite band, I do think they are an artist that requires further investigation.  

Day 0423 - C'est Chic

Chic "C'est Chic" (1978)

 
A big hit from the short-lived height of disco, before the widespread "disco sucks" movement kicked in.

It's a mix of disco, and what I'd term "soft funk". Not a bad album, and pretty influential, as the light-funk guitar style would be borrowed wholesale by many post-punk rock and pop bands.  Arguably even the 00 indie-rock bands were taking notes from this directly or indirectly. Grooves from the album were sampled by the emerging rap movement too.

Day 0371 - The Stranger

Billy Joel "The Stranger" (1977)

 
Billy had apparently played in piano bars during his high school years to help support his single mother (good boy) which must have been a help in both refining his chops, and increasing his confidence as a performer.

This isn't his first album, and he had had a hit with "Piano Man" previously, but this album was considered by many to be his commercial breakthrough. It makes me feel like I should check out more of his albums too because, yes the singles ("Movin' out (Anthony's song)", "Just the way you are", "Only the good die young", "She's always a woman") are great, but there are some tasty deeper cuts here. The title track opens with a moody noir piano piece with Morricone-esque whistle over the top that segues into an upbeat pop-rock track and then back into the piano and whistle at the end, as though the whole song has emerged from and then vanished back into the fog in some Humphrey Bogart film.

"Scenes from an Italian restaurant" sounds almost like Billy Joel meets Paul McCartney with the growly vocal and bouncy baroque-tinged pop.

"Vienna" is delicate and lovely, "Get it right first time" has an almost fusiony world-music feel to it informing a bright and brassy pop song.

The album wraps up with the gospel tinged rager "everybody has a dream", that gives way to a reprise of the title track's intro/outro section. An enjoyable listen all round.