Day 0884 - The Man Who

Travis "The Man Who"

Listening to this album kind of confirms for me what I've always thought about Travis.   That some of their songs are good, but overall I'm probably never going to be a rabid fan or buy their albums.

Travis had released their slightly rockier debut "Good Feeling" to reasonable sales but not blistering success.  After a tour with Oasis, the band got together with Radiohead's producer Nigel Godrich... I hate to say it, but you can tell.   The track "As You Are" has a Bends-esque quiet-to-loud guitar build-up, and singer Fran Healy's high voice hits some rasps over the big distorted chorus that instantly brings Thom Yorke to mind.

For the most part, the album is ballad-heavy.   there are a lot of acoustic and clean guitars with Healy's voice going for a more gentle tone.   It seems to be a similar Radiohead-lite vein mined by Coldplay a year or two later.   Melodic and inoffensive but not really earth-moving.   

The single "Why Does it Always Rain on Me" helped to launch the album commercially, and it ended up selling a ridiculous number of copies and making the band (at least briefly) one of the biggest around.

The album features (as was the style at the time) a hidden track at the end of the CD after a long stretch of silence.   It's quite foul mouthed and makes a nice departure from the overly tasteful, and radio-friendly fare of the album.

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.