Day 0883 - 69 Love Songs

The Magnetic Fields “69 Love Songs” (1999)

My first thought on reading about this one was “why would anyone do this?!” both to themselves and to the listener.   

 

The title is not a misnomer or an exaggeration, there are actually 69 songs.   

Three discs.  

Nearly 3 hours of music to work through.  It is a veritable musical marathon.
 

It’s that marathon aspect which is offputting rather than the actual music, which is not unenjoyable for the most part, it covers a range of genres and styles.  To my ears the ‘base sound’ is an indie pop-rock akin to the Violent Femmes, but the music goes from 60s hippy folk to 80s synth pop, stopping in along with way to visit jazz, reggae, morose Leonard Cohen style ballads (well rendered with singer Stephin Merritt’s deep baritone), country, and 70s pop rock. 

A lot of the songs clock in well under 2 minutes, which is something of a relief given the number of tracks, but can also make the listening experience a bit dizzying and harder to latch onto.

Day 0882 - Make Yourself

Incubus “Make Yourself” (1999) – got it

Though I feel their last few releases have been on a slight downward turn, I am a big fan of Incubus’ first slew of albums.

Make Yourself sees them at the height of their “Nu-Metal” phase, though it seems unfair to lump them in with either that genre or “Rap-Metal” which were both starting to run rampant at the time.  They share the turntables, the “phat” bass sound and the quiet verse/loud chorus format favoured by those genres, but they inject a lot more variety, musicality and experimentation into the mix.

At the time they were one of those 'greater than the sum of its parts' bands.   Drummer Jose Pasillas III has a great groove with occasional flash (as and where required), bassist Dirk Lance brings the aforementioned 'phatness' and some funk undertones to the rock sound.   DJ Chris Kilmore doesn't just chuck in a few 'wicky wicky' scratches, or he does some of that, but also creates a whirling dervishes of noise in places and supplies ambient audio-beds elsewhere, such as on the chorus of whale-song that opens "The Warmth".   Vocalist Brandon Boyd has a great voice and some interesting lyrics and he can really stack some power in his delivery.   Guitarist Michael Einziger to my mind though is the biggest star. His range of guitar tones pushed through various effects pedals can sound almost aquatic, or clean and dancing, or fuzzed out and bombastic.

The opening track "Privilege" is a rousing rocker with a funk groove to it.  The funk vibe reappears throughout, most notably in the instrumental backing for the DJ 'battle' track "Battlestar Scraaltchlactica".   There are pleasing alt-rock ballads in "I Miss You" and the acoustic MTV favourite "Drive".    Track "Consequence" features a guitar break in the middle that is pretty much just a note run through nearly every effects pedal at once.   Then there's the djembe intro to groovy rocker "Clean".

That they manage to do all of this, constantly switching between sounds and still keep the album down to just above the punchy 45-minute mark just adds pleasure to the listening experience.

Day 0881 - Apple Venus vol.1

XTC "Apple Venus vol.1" (1999) - got it

It had been 7 years since the previous XTC album.  The band had been arguing with their record label Virgin and essentially went on strike until they were allowed the freedom to do things their way.   Eventually the band left the label and were able to move forward with their music.  

Songwriters Andy Partridge and Colin Moulding had amassed over 40 songs and at first had planned to release a double album, but changed this to release two volumes.   The second Apple Venus volume "Wasp Star" would consist of more straight ahead rock/guitar songs.    Volume one though is a masterpiece of baroque pop mostly consisting of orchestral instruments and acoustic guitars.   Due to budgetary restrictions the album's orchestral parts were all recorded in one day.

From the opening pizzicato strings and dripping sounds of "River of Orchids" that build to a swirl of strings and layered vocals, the album is a gorgeous journey with hints of Beatles, Bacharach and Beach Boys while still being totally XTC.   

 

There are a couple of more light-hearted tracks ("Frivolous Tonight" and "Fruit Nut") courtesy of Moulding, but the bulk of the album is Partridge's with a McCartney-eqsue upbeat acoustic track "I'd like that".  A bitter reflection on the end of his marriage with "Your Dictionary".   Album-closer "The Last Balloon" is an appropriately elegant melodic journey with its slow keys and strings with choirs building to booming percussive accents and sailing the album away on a mournful lilting trumpet solo.

XTC are one of those musical oversights for me.   I liked and bought this album when I first skimmed through the 1001 albums book and have since bought two other of their albums... but given they have 14, I could probably delve deeper.

Day 0880 - Kenza

Khaled "Kenza"

Khaled was a proponent of the Rai genre, a kind of Algerian folk music.   He rose in prominence and was given a chance to record in France and build a career there.   Other younger French Rai artists emerged and the book suggests that Khaled took some inspiration from them when creating this album.

As far as I'm concerned, he can leave the influence.  This album works best when it's the more straight-ahead Rai sound.  As soon as he starts getting into more glossy 'modern' production it sounds cheesy and dated.

I was not really a fan of this.  The aforementioned 'modern' sounds and the nearly one and a half hour runtime really drained me.   I can certainly hear some good stuff in here, but not enough to make me ever really want to revisit this or to seek out more of Khaled's albums.

Day 0879 - São Paulo Confessions

Suba “São Paulo Confessions” (1999)

Before I even get into the music, this artist was really interesting to read about.   Suba (Mitar Subotić) was a Serbian musician who studied accordion, and played keyboards in a few bands.  He studied orchestration and composition at a music academy where he became interested in and studied electronic music.

Suba released electronic recordings under the moniker Rex Ilusivii.  His recording “The Dreambird, in the Mooncage” combining traditional Serbian lullabies and electronic arrangements earned him an award from The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO) and got a scholarship to relocate to São Paulo, Brazil.  Suba fell in love with his new home immersed himself in the music scene.

Alongside scoring work for radio and TV, he rose to prominence as a producer, mixing traditional styles of Brazilian music like Bossa Nova with electronic production.  An approach he used on the brilliant “Tanto Tempo” album he worked on with singer Bebel Gilberto.

Suba released “São Paulo Confessions” taking his meshing of the old styles with electronic elements.  The album met with favourable reviews, but Suba himself succumbed to smoke inhalation and died when his studio caught fire and he rushed in to try and save some recordings.

The above should actually give you kind of an idea of what the music is like.   Sounds, rhythms, instruments and vivre common to bossa nova and latin jazz that are used as the palette to create some nice chilled electronica.   Like on opener "Tantos Desejos" that has singer Cibelle delivering a nice bossa vocal over swirling soundscapes with busy percussion in the background.

It's possibly slightly long, but works nicely as a background loop to drift in and out of while doing other things

Day 0878 - Music has the Right to Children

Boards of Canada "Music has the Right to Children" (1998)

Boards of Canada: again I knew the band name but not what the music sounded like.   I'd kind of assumed it'd be indie stuff, but nope it's bleepy, soupy synthesizer tracks.  

The band consists of two brothers from Scotland who were playing music and experimenting with recording techniques from an early age.  They'd released an EP but this was their first full-length.

The book talks about how this album showed that electronic music could show emotion.   I'm not sure about that, certainly it can create atmospheres with some sort of mood to them, but emotion might be overstating it.   I mean come on.... it's not Moonlight Sonata!

There are some warm, analogue synth sounds that feel like they've come straight from the 70s, with a few short tracks that are just extended synth sound-beds.   "Telephasic Workshop" has some cool stuttery vocal sounds over a jittery beat.   "Sixtyten" mixes the aforementioned synth sounds and found sounds to create mood.

Day 0877 - Devil Without a Cause

Kid Rock “Devil Without a Cause” (1998)

 

These days it can be easy to just think of Kid Rock as the grinning grease-stain in ‘stars and stripes’ pants playing golf with Donald Trump and forget that he used to be a musician.

Rock’s association with Trump seems appropriate as his lyrics dwell in misogyny, greed and lashing out at those who he felt had not helped him or had held him back.  On the title track he classily invites his detractors to “shut up or put his balls in their mouths”.

Rock’s lyrics reflect his reinvention from straight hip-hop to his ‘cowboy pimp rockstar’ persona.   Revelling in his sleaze and trashiness as he goes on about ‘bitches’ and ‘hoes’ and a ‘hose’ (a garden hose made of solid gold, don’tcha know).

Lyrics aside though, I do find it hard to fault the album musically.  From the opening chant and stonking riffs of single “Bawitdaba” into the mix of styles on the twangy country “Cowboy” which almost feels like it could be a Beck song.   There’s the Rage Against the Machine-esque but ridiculously titled “Fist of Rage”.   All in all, the music is an interesting mix of hiphop, metal, country and even a touch of funk.  

The main issue then (aside from the lyrics) is that the runtime is in excess of 70 minutes (ditto with a few of the albums in this part of the list).  It’s hard to maintain interest for that length of runtime unless it’s a release from one of your absolute favourite artists.