Day 0920 - Since I Left You

The Avalanches "Since I Left You" (2000)

Cut n paste album par excellence.   I first came to this album via the gloriously weird single "Frontier Psychiatry" and I honestly can't remember how got to hear it.   I feel like I downloaded it during the Kazaa or Limewire days, but how would I have known to do that in the first place?   Dark magic indeed.

The group had spent hours amassing thousands of samples from a large collection of vinyl and spent a year or two putting this album together.  Trading tapes to build on each others ideas.

The sound is a mix of modern dance pop with a sort of technicolour kitschy 50s vibe, where sections of dialogue mix with catchy beats, mix with random sound effects, mix with dramatic strings.   It's not dissimilar in approach to DJ Shadow's "Entroducing" but with much more of a pop bent (the title track) and a good dose of quirkiness ("Two hearts in 3/4").  

As I mentioned before "Frontier Psychiatry" is the one that turned me onto them.   It's a gloriously dreamlike whirl of dialogue and musical samples melded into one of the weirder tracks to grace the airwaves.

Day 0528 - War

U2 "War" (1983)

U2's last album with Steve Lillywhite before they hooked up Eno and Brian Lanois and became one of the biggest acts of the 80s.

Lilywhite's more stripped-down production sound really worked for where the band were at this point.  Their sound was a sort of post-punky vaguely new-wave but somehow that sound without synthesizers.

Larry's drums sound like he's booting the hell out of his kick.  Adam's melodic but simple bass makes a platform for the Edge to start really finding his guitar tone (with a few less effects than he'd eventually use).  All of that with the raw soul of Bono's voice (before he got too up his own arse) across it.

This album features one of my favourite U2 songs "Sunday Bloody Sunday".  Other highlights include "New Year's Day", "Seconds" (one of only two songs to feature the Edge on lead vocals) and the hymn-like "40", which would go on to be U2's go-to show closer for some time.

Day 0345 - A Night at the Opera

Queen "A Night at the Opera" (1975) - got it

Although I did listen to the album again for the 1001 albums (twice in fact) I'm mostly just going to plagiarise another review I wrote when I was re-listening to all of the Queen albums a few years back. ~apologies, this will be a long one~

Queen started with a fairly cohesive 'band' sound over their first couple of albums, but the work of the individual songwriters (mostly) became easier and easier to pick.

On night at the opera they're kind of in a middle ground, you can pick the different songwriters but this is still such a cohesive 'album', right from the opening piano flourishes through to the big finale of "Bohemian Rhapsody" and "God save the Queen".

"Death on two legs" is such a great opener, Freddie belting it out with real venom before the wall of voices comes crashing in to back him up.  Mercury then performs a compositional 180 with the light and cheery 'Lazing on a Sunday afternoon'.

Roger Taylor's "I'm in love with my car" is such a musically strong slice of rock (some great lead guitar) that I'm actually able to ignore the fact that he used the lines:

"Told my girl I just had to forget her, Rather buy me a new carburettor

So she made tracks sayin' ths is the end now 

Cars don't talk back they're just four wheeled friends now"

The rock calms down into John Deacon's much lauded 'You're my best friend'.  It's not my favourite of his ("spread your wings" holds that spot) but I have succumbed to its charms over the years.

Brian May's '39' is an odd mix of old and new.  It kind of has an olde timey folk feel, yet lyrically it is a sci-fi story.  Roger Taylor's eerie falsetto in the middle section is particularly stunning. "Sweet lady" is one that I never really used to like, but listening to it now, I'm not sure why as the verses sound kind of like David Bowie rock tracks or maybe the rolling stones, while the chorus riff... it's like part funk, part metal ...like extra heavy Hendrix (makes sense as Roger, Brian and Freddie were all big fans of Jimi, with Freddie in particular following him around on tour in the UK)!

Side a is rounded out with another jaunty little music-hall number , complete with a kazoo horn section and Freddie and Roger doing a tap dance routine by wearing thimbles and drumming on the recording console!

Side B kicks off with 'The Prophet's song' (the longest song Queen released while Freddie was alive) which has always been a favourite of mine.  I would be surprised if some 90s alt-rock bands like Soundgarden and Alice in Chains haven't heard this song, the riffs and vocal harmonies are very ahead of their time.  The vocal/delay section in the middle is still mind-blowing... almost literally, I was listening to the album while walking home from the gym and I just fell over, I was getting so disorientated trying to follow the different parts as they flicked from one ear to the other.
"Love of my life"... I really kind of prefer the live version of this song, just acoustic guitar with the power of Freddie's voice and the quality of the songwriting brought to the fore, but this song is beautiful in any form.

"Good company"; I'm guessing it was Brian aiming for a George Formby sound, but to me it kind of comes off sounding more Paul McCartney and not necessarily in a good way. "Bohemian Rhapsody"... this song is still amazing no matter how many times I've heard it, seen the video, sung it at karaoke, or watched it in Wayne's world. The album's outro of 'God save the Queen' is a brilliant cheeky little touch and really does make it feel like you've reached the end of a journey or sorts with the album.