Day 0988 - My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy

Kanye West "My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy" (2010)

Kanye shut himself away following a few high profile bits of bad publicity, including his decision to crash the stage during the Video Music Awards to interrupt Taylor Swift as she went to accept an award for best music video.   West cited overwork and stress on his erratic behaviour, though it has since become clear that he has some reasonably serious, legitimate mental health issues.

This album is almost an insight into what is going on in his head, a huge busy mix of sounds tinged with paranoia, narcissism and brilliance.   I've always taken a passing interest in Kanye's music, yet weirdly (given its renown) I've never checked this one out.   It is actually a brilliant album.  Varied, unconventional, and fairly honest.

The first few tracks move between a vaguely churchy/gospel feel, which kind of signposted where Kanye was going to go next, and the synth-and-beat sound his previous album "808s and Heartbreak".    "Devil in a New Dress" displays a bit of old-school Kanye with the pitch-shifted soul vocal backing track, but from there there are big pulsing beats that brings the later West track "Black Skinhead" to mind.   Pitch-dropped vocals provide a vaguely nightmarish, unhinged sound.

The album is a solid block of music, with far less of the skits and interludes that usually populate hip-hop albums (including previous West outings).   Kanye had assembled teams of producers and performers and more or less lived in the studio, having 3 different studios going at once so he could work on whichever track he felt inspired to attack that day.  He also ran his ideas past his collaborators on a regular basis to refine and change the tracks.   Q-Tip described the approach as 'music by committee', but that Kanye was able to use parts of everyone's input while still doing his own thing.

Day 0962 - Be

Common “Be” (2005)

Following his success with “Like Water For Chocolate” (see day 913) Common really shook things up with his follow-up “Electric Circus”.  He moved away from his hip-hop sound, incorporating rock and psychedelic aspects.  That move was critically well-received, but the kudos wasn’t reflected in his album sales.

Common parted company with label MCA and was signed to Kanye West’s newly formed GOOD records.  Kanye was a fan of Common’s and the two got together with Common’s producer J Dilla (RIP) to produce “Be”.

The album almost feels like a modern “What’s Going On” (see day 208) and even samples Marvin Gaye on “Love is….”.   There is plenty of soul used in the backing tracks, and Common largely acts as a reporter of life growing up black in the US, particularly on tracks like “Be”, “The Corner” and “Real People”.  

The track “Testify” feels like it’s something similar but takes a turn as a is man set up and framed by his heartless wife.  Probably a theme Marvin Gaye would have got on board with as he seemed to play the victim following his divorce from Anna Gordy, which in turn led to him producing the album “Here My Dear” with the court ordering any royalties be paid to Gordy.

By contrast the track “Faithful” sees Common reflecting thoughtfully on the way he does and should treat women.

I probably preferred this to "Like Water for Chocolate".  Just the general overall sound and the slightly more 'conscious' lyrics appealed to me.

Day 0954 - College Dropout

Kanye West “College Dropout” (2004)

Remember those days when Kanye wasn’t a Kardashian side-piece and a walking conversation-starter around the danger of not managing mental health issues.  When we hadn’t even had the “whoa that was a bit crazy” moment of him interrupting Taylor Swift at the VMAs.

Before all of that, and before Kanye even known as a rapper, he was a producer who was building a reputation for himself.  He specialised in a sound where he manipulated old soul samples and arranged beats behind them.  

West struggled to be taken seriously as a rapper and had a potential major label deal shot down before it could even happen.   He was eventually signed to Roc-a-Fella Records and set about recording his debut.

The production sounds good.  From the beats and gospel choir of “Jesus Walks” to the seamless blending of an RnB/soul vocal with West’s raps in "All Falls Down".  I can understand the reticence about signing West for his lyrics though.  He grew up the son of an English professor who, for a time relocated to China to teach there, taking Kanye with her. She helped pay for his first recording efforts.  Not the standard gangsta/street résumé often associated with the genre.  

To my mind, that life could still have thrown up some interesting stories/lyrics but instead Kanye often seems to rap about expensive possessions, lash out at those he perceives as having wronged him, and even falling back on the old standard ‘braggadocio’ track (“Breathe in, Breathe out”).

If anything, I found the most interesting, endearing and honest track to be the album-closer “Last Call” where Kanye spends 12+ minutes geeking out about his process, his history, recounting (sometimes in excruciating detail) his path to getting signed and making his record and generally just talking in a direct and honest way.   It's almost like an unannotated twitter feed.

Day 0930 - The Blueprint

Jay Z "The Blueprint" (2001)

It could almost be seen as overcoming adversity, Jay Z had court cases pending against him (though when has that harmed a rappers rep?), he had several high profile beefs underway (though, again....) and his album was released on September 11th 2001, leading to some of his earlier shows needing to be rescheduled.

That aside, this album helped launch the career of producers Kanye West (for better or worse) and was critically lauded.

While I enjoyed some of Jay's rhymes and I could hear the influence of this album on the next decade or so of mainstream hip-hop albums, I don't think it's really converted me into a Jay Z 'fan' as such (apologies if this is hip-hop heresy).

Day 0914 - Welcome to the Afterfuture

Mike Ladd “Welcome to the Afterfuture” (2000)

I had mixed feelings reading about this one in the book.  Another hip-hop album in a section of the list that has a few overlong albums in that genre.  On the other hand, reading of Ladd having lived in France, India and the US, it seemed like that could add some point of difference to his music.

Definitely loved this one!  Opening track "5000 Miles West of the Future" is all skittish beats and bass from outer space.  “Airwave Hysteria” gives a musical nod to Ladd’s Indian connection and features a clever little modernised Elton John reference “Don’t shoot me, I’m just the piano programmer”.

The rest of the album is a whirling dervish of space-aged hip-hop.  Interesting beats meeting layers of strings and samples and big squelchy bass.  “Bladerunners” sounds like it’s sampling some old Bernard Hermann film score.  Basically it’s a lot of good stuff.

The cherry on the top of this is that Ladd is a great lyricist.   I usually don’t pay much attention to lyrics, but he kept dropping great lines that were clever, funny and with references pulled in from all over the map.  As it was I found myself taking it all in and walking around with a grin on my face from listening.

Day 0760 - Crooked Rain, Crooked Rain

Pavement "Crooked Rain, Crooked Rain" (1994)

I think I preferred this one to the previous Pavement album in the list.   I've seen it referred to as a more mainstream sound than the previous album, but I dunno.  It's still quite noisy and has some unconventional compositional directions.

Though the album has some nice hummable melodies, there's still a lot of noise.   A sparse piano part will appear out of a cloud of fuzzed guitar.  A rock song will suddenly give way for an extended, repeated clean guitar section.  There's a jazzy instrumental in 5/4 time "5-4 = Unity" which is a tribute to jazz pianist Dave Brubeck but it also has elements of rock and even rockabilly on show.

The 90s are obviously well underway by now with that idea of it being cool to not care.   Singer Stephen Malkmus is just so unimpressed, and so cynical, and takes the time to make fun of several other 90s rock acts in song "Range Life".

Day 0744 - Very

 Pet Shop Boys "Very" (1993)

 

The Band explained the title by saying that the album is 'very' everything.  "Very up, very sad, very pop very etc."

The music feels like the Boys finally stopped moodily noodling on synthesizers in a drab London flat and headed out to the club.   This ecstatic dramatic change in sound could be due to this being the group's first album in some years, an embracing of the emergent club scene, or possibly  Neil Tennant feeling a newfound sense of freedom as he prepared to reveal his homosexuality to the world at large.

Certainly that latter aspect is addressed in the lyrics of songs like "To speak is a sin" and "can you forgive her".... or more overtly with the club-esque cover of the Village People's "Go West" with its rousing male chorus.

Essentially the Pet Shop Boys managed to delve into different realms of pop, while still managing to sound like themselves.

 

Day 0603 - Opus Dei

Laibach "Opus Dei" (1987)

One of those "what did I just listen to?!" albums.  It's hard to listen to the guttural vocals and Teutonic groove of Laibach and NOT assume that Rammstein were heavily influenced by them.

The band were musical magpies, with a reworked version of Queen's "One Vision" (as "Geburt einer Nation").  Pieces of Bernard Hermann's edgy film scores are mixed in with other pieces of Queen music, industrial rhythms and wild synthesizers on "Trans-national" to produce something that sounds like Kraftwerk on meth!

The Slovenian band courted political controversy by naming themselves with the name historically given to Slovenia's capital Ljubjana by the Germans, alluding to the Nazi occupation during WWII.  In the face of socialism, they poked everyone in the eye by draping themselves in the trappings of nationalism and totalitarianism.   They were the provocative musical arm of a political artistic collective called 'Neue Slowenische Kunst' (New Slovenian Art).

Day 0419 - Dire Straits

Dire Straits "Dire Straits" (1978)

Kind of an out-of-place album amongst the late 70s rush of punk, disco and the burgeoning new-wave scene. Dire straits was a vaguely blues-based 'adult-contemporary' rock band. Even the band's individual members are slightly incongruous in a rock setting. Band lead guitarist, singer and principal songwriter Mark Knopfler was an ex-journalist and schoolteacher; Knopfler's younger brother, guitarist David was a social worker; sociology student John Illsley on bass; and drummer Pick Withers.

The album did not fare well in Dire Straits' native England, but once the single "Sultans of Swing" blew up in the US, the UK sat up and took attention.

I don't have any particularly strong feelings about this album. It is perfectly enjoyable with some nice melodies and good musicianship... that said, it's so MoR that I find it more "inoffensive" than "life-changing".