Lazer Guided Melody – Tangents From Listening To Too Many Records
Tangents From Listening To Too Many Records
Eighteen months or so ago a music blog not too far from this parish began digging through each year from 1980 onwards. Some attempt to tweeze out a list of horribly important albums (the particulars of which live here). Only, for reasons unfathomable and unexplained (I got drunk. I fell into a ditch. I accidentally … Continue reading Vinyl, And A Large Bottle Of Gin – The Most Significant Albums Of 2008
From time to time an album comes along that has the unnerving propensity to blow holes in things. There you are, at the counter in the record store dressed in all your finery, only instead of the standard cash for vinyl exchange (or one of those new-fangled compact disc things if you’re being all ultra-modern), … Continue reading Notes On ‘Sound Of Silver’ – LGM’s ‘Must-Have’ Album Of 2007
Two. Oh. Oh. Seven – and then the subjectivity kicks in. Three albums released in this year. Perhaps a couple more, should you wish to split hairs, but nobody’s going to applaud you for any pedantry. Besides, my recollection is far more tangible than yours. Those LPs you’re going to claim had an ’07 date … Continue reading Wanna Be In My Gang? The Most Significant Albums Of 2007
I often find writing about music to be a strange and fussy preoccupation. The swash of subjectivity, refracted through blasé attempts to underline the mechanics of attraction. And should you subscribe to any notion that the records we listen to help to define us as people, disentangling the particulars of sound from this listener-gripped detail … Continue reading Yes! We Have Sound: The Most Significant Albums Of 2005
Oh 2004, you cold, hard seductress. Heightened emotions, and the musical pilings to go with them. These were strange days, backlit by a flicker-bug glow of aural enticement. Except that it feels counter-intuitive to be writing about Funeral – the début album by The Arcade Fire – in a 2004 context. Because it wasn’t released … Continue reading It’s The Records That Make Us Who We Are: The Most Significant Albums Of 2004
When writing about music, there’s a tendency to summon the same stock phrases. Words such as nuance, reverberation, immediacy, bite. It’s the framework through which our sonic adventures function, I guess; snatches of inner monologue that basically translate as “ooh, that’s a gorgeous bass hook”. This use of template phraseology – apart from being demonstrative … Continue reading Feedback! Dissonance! Adjective! The Most Significant Albums Of 2003, Part Three
In 2003, some people released some records. The reasons for such admittedly unorthodox behaviour remain vague and elusive; perhaps it was ritualistic – an offering to their heathen gods – although I’m rather taken with the theory that it was simply a phase, like that year we all got drunk and fell into the river. … Continue reading Jump-Starting Our Serotonin: The Most Significant Albums Of 2003, Part One
In part one of this, the vague consensus flapping about was that the record gods had their attentions elsewhere in 2001. That you could replace significant in the above title with the word difficult, and still retain the general tone. Albums as challenging constructs, vogues fleeting and inconsequential, or disparate and lacking in nutritional value. ‘The Night … Continue reading From Swamp Guitar To Synth-Pop Savvy: The Most Significant Albums Of 2001, Part Two
Complementary notions. Certain records work when played back-to-back. Nothing intentional – they just seem to fit. I usually like to follow Mer De Noms, the fuzzy, début album from “rock super-group” A Perfect Circle, with Queens Of The Stone Age and their rather quite fine Rated R LP. Commercial heavy rock (for want of a … Continue reading People Should Be Continuing To Make Noise: The Most Significant Albums Of 2000, Part Two
Let’s all meet up in the year 2000. Felt terribly futuristic at the time, what with us all whooshing around on jetpacks, and turning up at the opera tastefully attired in tin foil underwear. The records of this year weren’t bad, either. Take Elastica, for instance – who released one horrifically pedestrian LP back when … Continue reading Yes, We Have Jetpacks: The Most Significant Albums Of 2000, Part One
1999. A playlist shaped and sculpted by statements of familiarity. Albums by Arab Strap (Elephant Shoe). By The Auteurs (How I Learned To Love The Bootboys) and Belle And Sebastian (Tigermilk); acts this blog is forever banging on about. In my day job, I’m a spokesperson for The Dawn Of The Replicants Appreciation Society (Wrong … Continue reading From Sleazy To The Stratosphere: The Most Significant Albums Of 1999
The two biggest selling albums on this year’s list are both examples of commercial, adult-orientated “rock” music that operate under intriguingly slanted parameters – albeit the “rock” epithet is used in its widest configuration, and any fascination is derived from contrasting sources. The intelligence behind Radiohead’s The Bends is how it manages to exist as a mass-market … Continue reading A Stereo Full Of Wasps And Wow: The Most Significant Albums Of 1995, Part Two
Should any Significant Albums series be looking at the 1970’s, Bowie’s constantly-shifting silhouette would be tagged across the walls of that decade as if the ubiquitous spray-painted logo of a particularly hip and pernicious underground movement. As it is, anything post-1980’s Scary Monsters has to be questioned against a whole range of musical and thematic criteria – from fandom’s … Continue reading Gigawatts And Fuzzy Logic: The Most Significant Albums Of 1995, Part One
As mentioned in part one of this, there’s a number of albums timestamped ’93 where the cultural weight involved demands closer attention than the occasional flippant sentences often exhibited here. Something along the lines of if you only own one record by Drimble Wedge And The Vegetations (or whoever), make it this one. It means … Continue reading The Urgency Of Audio – And Then The Thrill: The Most Significant Albums Of 1993, Part Two
1993, and we’re fast approaching the point in the show where the type of music generally written about here – broad canvas alternative, indie disco, guitar-orientated pop; call it what you will – began to infiltrate the mainstream with far greater enthusiasm (especially from a British perspective). And with that infiltration arrived an edge of … Continue reading Snakebite And Black: The Most Significant Albums Of 1993, Part One.
Lazer Guided Melody - Tangents From Listening To Too Many Records 