Friday Music Day

Friday Music Day – It Was My Lover.

53 Comments

I was listening to Currents by Tame Impala the other day, as I tend to do with some frequency (it was my favorite album last year, after all). "The Less I Know the Better" finished, and then... it came on.

"Past Life" would probably be annoying enough, what with its ham-fisted spoken word and merely "okay" chorus, but then there are those super pitch shifted vocals and the absolute stinker "It was my lover" line (at least that one's good for a laugh). The song is terrible.

It got me thinking - there are plenty of albums that I enjoy that have a song or two that I dislike, but not many albums that I truly love that have a one star song. I can't think of any others off the top of my head.

So, what say you? Do you have an album that you absolutely adore, but with a song that you absolutely loathe?

53 thoughts on “Friday Music Day – It Was My Lover.”

  1. 1. Althea and Donna “Uptown Top Ranking”* Uptown Top Ranking
    2. Bad Bad Hats “Super America” It Hurts EP
    3. Sylvan Esso “Dress” Sylvan Esso
    4. Fever Ray “If I Had a Heart” Fever Ray
    5. Vampire Weekend “I Stand Corrected” Vampire Weekend

        a. Fish Crow “Alarm Calls”* (Cornell Master Set)
        b. Scarlet Tanager “'Chip-burr' Calls and Soft Song” (Cornell Master Set)
        c. American Black Duck* “'Quack' Calls” (Cornell Essential Set)
    6. Container “Cushion” LP
    7. Autechre “Gantz Graf”* Gantz Graf EP
        d. Carolina Wren* “'Chee-ter' Calls” (Cornell Master Set)
    8. Horace Andy “Skylarking” Skylarking
        e. Tufted Titmouse* “Song” (Cornell Master Set)
        f. American Bittern “Male 'Pump-er-lunk' Song”* (Cornell Essential Set)
    9. Sukima Switch “Golden Time Lover”* Golden Time Lover
    T. Johnny Cash “The Beast in Me” American Recordings
    E. Orbital “The Box (Single Version)” Work 1989-2002

    *Notes:
    1. The #1 Song the week I was born! (In the UK.)
        a. Holy crap, I think someone's murdering this crow! (Pun not intended.) I don't think I've listened to this clip before. A species I'm hoping to add to my life list next Sunday (nine days out) when I arrive in South Carolina.
        c. Another bird I was hoping to add to my life list on this SC trip, but I already got my lifer last weekend at the Rum River Dam in downtown Anoka. Some people had seen the state-first record of a Mottled Duck there on Presidents' Day, but it had flown.
    6. Awesome music video. I bought this EP, which had a companion DVD before I had a DVD player.
        d., e. Two more very likely additions to my life list from this trip.
        f. The heron family (which include egrets and bitterns) has got to be one of the worst-vocalizing among the birds (though not as pathetic as the New World Vultures). The American Bittern is a welcome exception. I've seen one, but yet to hear one. For most people, I think it goes the other way. The sound lends to some of its common vernacular names, like "Slough-pumper", "Dunk-a-doo", and "Stake-driver". Not "Shite-poke" though.
    9. Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood Season 3 Opening. I like that the song has a few English lyrics scattered throughout, and highlighted. "Golden Time", "Poker Face", "Illusion", "Pressure Game", "Border Line", "Clap Your Hands", "Fighting Style", "Fairy Tale". When the show did the phonetic Japanese subtitles (instead of translation: it alternates on Netflix) for the opening, they replaced the English with the way the English is pronounced in Japanese.

  2. 1. Come Together – The Beatles
    2. She Came Along to Me – Billy Bragg/Wilco
    3. City of New Orleans – Willie Nelson
    4. Highwayman – The Highwaymen [Johnny Cash, Willie Nelson, Kris Kristofferson, Waylon Jennings]*
    5. Stand Together – Beastie Boys

    6. Turn Away – Beck
    7. Proof – Ramona Falls
    8. Babe – Styx
    9. Too Afraid to Love – The Black Keys
    10. China Grove – The Doobie Brothers

    B1. Underground – Eminem

    *included their names … just in case you didn’t know who my favorite supergroup of all time was comprised of

  3. To your question of the [FM]Day ... basically every skit in any hip-hop/rap album that I otherwise love(d)
    Off the top of my head, from the Gnarls Barkley album, St. Elsewhere, I really dislike the song, "Just a Thought" whereas I can listen to the rest of that album on repeat.

    1. The skits on The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill are the worst, as most are appended on tracks with actual songs on them. And they're slow and pointless and keep hammering the point over and over.
      At least on, say, Stankonia, they're separate tracks so it's easy to remove them from modern digital playlists.

      Before hip-hop album skits, there was the random "experimental" song.
      The Beatles' "Revolution No. 9"
      Simon and Garfunkle's "Voices of Old People"

      I've got to go look for some personal examples, though.

      1. I actually sort of love most of the Stankonia skits. They're probably the only hip hop skits from the last twenty years that I enjoy at all.

      2. They're attached to the actual songs on Enter the Wu-Tang, too, which is why I hate them so much. Though I don't think they're included on the edited version, which you've discussed before is part of why you prefer it?

        The worst skit I've ever heard is "Heart Street Directions" on Fishscale by Ghostface Killah. Yeeeeeeugh, it's terrible.

        1. The Enter the Wu-Tang skits are horrible. I keep thinking I'm going to just edit them out since I literally never want to listen to them.

              1. somehow, this thread has not made me any more interested in learning about the rap and hiphop genres.

        2. Yeah, they're not on the clean version. I prefer the songs as edited, as they've got extra percussion (sword clangs etc. replacing cuss words), and the awesomeness of the chorus on "Shame on a NUH", where a near-grunt (predicting Master P?) replaces a bisyllabic derogatory n-word. I will admit, I'm not really carefully listening to the lyrics. May as well be Japanese with some English in the choruses and samples. Also, the album's quite tight: 9 songs, 36 minutes vs. 12 tracks and 58 minutes.

          No skits on it just is gravy.

          Here's the comparison:
          1. Bring Da Ruckus (4:10)
          2. Shame On A Nigga Nuh (2:57)
          3. Clan In Da Front (4:33 2:56)
          4. Wu-Tang: 7th Chamber (6:05)
          5. Can It Be All So Simple (4:46 4:21)
          6. Protect Ya Neck (Intermission) (6:48 4:37)
          7. Da Mystery Of Chessboxin' (4:48 0)
          8. Wu-Tang Clan Ain't Nuthing Ta F' Wit (3:36)
          9. C.R.E.A.M. (4:12 07)
          10. Method Man (5:50 4:11)
          11. Tearz/Conclusion (4:17 51)
          12. Wu-Tang: 7th Chamber - Part II (5:08)
          13. Conclusion (1:02)

          "Method Man" and "Protect Ya Neck" are swapped in the play order.

            1. I wouldn't know. My experience with the Street Version was limited, and I decided I liked mine just fine and wasn't missing anything.
              I think I have the Clean Version of that bloated 2-disc second full-Wu album, but I never got into it.

      3. easy to remove them from modern digital playlists.

        protip: in itunes, if you edit the song ("get info"?), there's a function to change the start/end time of a song. then if you wanna really kill it, right-click the song, go to "create mp3 version" or whatever, and boom: new mp3 (or whichever format you have it set to) without whatever part you wanted cut. really good for, say, separating long, pointless, unnecessary pauses between albums and "hidden" tracks.

        1. I had completely forgotten about that feature. I don't use iTunes, but I'll bet MediaMonkey has something similar. I can't believe I forgot about that...

        2. I do that, but still, it's a pain having to do that one by one.
          I actually did that Wednesday night so I could put Ministry in my SC Vacation playlist.
          I turned the 3:42 "Short, Pusillanimous*, So-They-Can-Fit-More-Commercials-On-The-Radio Edit" of "Jesus Built My Hotrod" ("*contemptibly timid") into the
          3:24 "AMR's Extra-Pusillanimous, So-the-Kids-Won't-Bring-Up-Theological-Questions Edit" by just cutting off the intro and outro monologues:
          "Soon I discovered this rock thing was true. Jerry Lee Lewis was the Devil. Jesus was an architect previous to his career as a prophet." and "Jesus built my car. It's a love affair. Mainly Jesus and my hot rod. (Yeah, F--- it!)".

        3. Bonnie "Prince" Billy's "Sings Greatest Palace Music" version of "I Am a Cinematographer" (an all-generations family favorite) has like 3 minutes of silence at the end (and no bonus track or anything following). I cut that one very quickly.

      4. Simon and Garfunkle's "Voices of Old People"

        heh. i meant to comment on this last time you mentioned it. i was into bookends for a time. i still have that opening old fogey's initial braying burned into my brain as i lunged for the skip button. way to contribute, garfunkel...

    2. I think I'm going to just be happy to remain completely ignorant of what the hell a "skit" might be on an album.

      1. It's not just hip-hop though:
        Jimi Hendrix's Axis: Bold as Love starts with "EXP", which is set up as a radio interview about extra-terrestrials. The expert (voiced by Jimi) starts making convulsing sounds and guitar effects come in. (Earliest skit ever?)
        Tool has a few on Ænima, though IIRC, they're kindof in the gray area between skit and song.

        1. Come to think of it, I have two albums that have a lot of skits: nightfall in middle earth by blind guardian and hell destroyer by cage. Those are concept albums, though, so the skits work.

  4. "Chill Out Tent" on Boys And Girls In America. Might be my least favorite HS song, on possibly my favorite HS album.

    1. That is the only other example I could think of. The lady's voice doesn't fit the song at all. I always enjoy the verses, and then the chorus kicks in, and the rest of the song gets skipped.

  5. I absolutely loathe Rainy Day Woman #12 and #35 and can't believe it mars such a classic album such as Blonde on Blonde.

  6. I was listening to Lydia Loveless's Indestructible Machine the other day and debating whether to skip "How Many Women." I love every single other song on the album, but that one . . . not so much.

      1. It's probably not on the level of "Past Life," but on an otherwise excellent album, I find it to be whiny and just kind of . . . uninsightful.

  7. I really loathe Maxwell's Silver Hammer.

    Also, on Rilo Kiley's Initial Friend I really dislike "Gravity". Not as much as Maxwell, though.

  10. I'm having a hard time thinking of much right off the top of my head. The easiest one I can think of is "Sweet Child of Mine". I hate that song so much, and its even worse because I really like Sweet Child o' Vine from Fulton Street Brewery.

    The other one I can think of right away is "Total Eclipse" on Number of the Beast. It was added on the 1998 remastered version of the album and, while not an awful song, it's still a big pile of meh that makes you wait an extra 4-1/2 minutes to get to a front runner for best song of all time, "Hallowed be thy Name".

    1. "Sweet Child of Mine" WTF???

      Unnamed (not Sweet Child o' Vine ... maybe, "Sweet Child o' My Vine"), provided it survives the loving embrace of the USPS, watch for a package Mon or Tues.

      1. I hate it with the fire of a thousand burning suns. I don't know if I can explain why, though.

        The good news is that it should be plenty warm enough that the cold won't explode those bottles. The better news is that it should motivate me to get those bottles I mentioned out to you like I promised.

  11. Not the direction your were thinking, but just about every soundtrack nowadays has a vocal track on it just so the movie has a potential Oscar nomination for Best Song category. It usually runs during (part of the) end credits, and most of the time they are totally out of place with the rest of the soundtrack.

    1. I know what you're talking about. I have the scores to Snake Eyes (Ryuichi Sakamoto) and Plunkett & Macleane (Craig Armstrong) and both have that. At least they're right at the end.

      1. In a similar vein, jazz records will also throw a vocalist into a track in order to try qualify for a Best R&B Song Grammy nomination. It's like Cuddyer pitching an inning and then being in the running for the Cy Young. Well, not really...

        1. I'm not really a huge jazz fan but when I listen, I am in the mood for instrumental music. The token vocal track bugs me.

            1. I don't remember. There are well over 100 categories. I'm pretty sure there's one for Instrumental Rock Album*. Instrumental Jazz Album makes more sense.
              *Note: May contain vocals.

  12. I am a big fan of Mark Knopfler and Emmylou Harris' "All the Roadrunning" album, but I have to skip "Red Staggerwing" every time. It's just too corny for me and doesn't seem to fit the album that well.

    And for the most part, I think I'm more forgiving than the majority when it comes to some frequent complaints above, but I do agree that the world would generally be a better place if rap/hip-hop skit tracks didn't exist.

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