Friday Music Day

FMD: 4/14/17 – Old Albums

38 Comments

I've been listening to a lot of my old albums lately. Meaning the things I listened to in high school and college. My physical collection is largely packed up and put away right now, so as I'm inspired to pick an old album I just pull it up on youtube. That's handy.

Anyway, lots of them have not held up as well as I thought they might (The Love Below was disappointing. Still kind of a fun concept album, but the execution is just far too inconsistent.) Others were even better than I remembered (Chumbawumba's WYSIWYG is fan-freaking-tastic.). Lots were nicely familiar (BNL's albums), and well worth the time.

Anyway, for this week maybe we can talk old albums. What's something you haven't dusted off in ages that you used to listen to regularly?

38 thoughts on “FMD: 4/14/17 – Old Albums”

  1. 1. Horse Lords “Life Without Dead Time” Hidden Cities
    2. BJörk “Army of Me” Post
        a. Northern Cardinal “Song” (Cornell Master Set)
    3. Coil “Red Birds Will Fly out of the East and Destroy Paris in a Night” Musick to Play in the Dark, Vol. 1
    4. Hello Saferide “Arjeplog”* More Modern Short Stories from Hello Saferide
    5. Beastie Boys “Sabotage (Clean)” Solid Gold Hits

    6. Solid Doctor “Spacey Pipe (Remaster)” How About Some More Ether: Collected Works 93-95
    7. Twilight Circus Sound System “Oats” Horsie
    8. Horse Lords “Wildcat Strike” Live on WFMU, Jan 31, 2015
    9. Solid Doctor “Spacey Pipe”* How About Some Ether: Collected Works 93-95
        a. Gray Jay (Northern Subspecies) “'Jay' calls similar to Blue Jay” (Cornell Master Set)
    T. Zola Jesus “Lick the Palm of the Burning Handshake” Conatus

    B. Pan Sonic* “Pan Finale” Gravitoni

    *Notes:
    4. Great use of onomatopoeia in the chorus.
    9. I guess this is a reminder that when I add a new version of an album, I should remove the old one.
    B. RIP Mika Vainio

  2. I hated The Love Below (minus a few tracks) from the start. Almost all the good stuff was on Speakerboxxx.
    By having an iPod and iTunes, I can still listen to even the dusty stuff from time to time, even if by accident. But I'll think a bit more...

    1. I mean, "Hey Ya" and "Roses" are amazing singles, and I like a couple other songs too, but they're just too gimmicky to really work ("Dracula's Wedding").

      1. "Roses" is catchy, but I don't see the point of the song.

        I totally agree with AMR that Speakerboxxx is where it's at. I love "Flip Flop Rock" more than I probably should, but you have to love Star Trek references in hip hop.

          1. Also, I'm in denial that anything after 1990 counts as "old."

            I mean, Smashing Pumpkins' Siamese Dream is as old now as Abbey Road was in '93.

            1. What, you think you can win this argument with math?

              I know, I know, all that stuff is actually old now. I really keep trying to discover new music I like these days, because I always swore I wouldn't be one of those people that talked about how music used to be so good and the music today is just noise, etc. But I feel like the Spotify-cation of the music industry has made it kind of hard for new acts to get medium-big. The really big acts can still get really big, but without a monolithic music industry to sort of shape what people can listen to and keep pushing things forward, it's so easy to lean on music from yesteryear. I mean, how big would the early "grunge" bands of the '90s (Nirvana, Pearl Jam, etc.) have gotten if MTV wasn't out there constantly pushing them? They likely would have found some sort of target audience, but if I wasn't part of that target audience would I have known to find them? I think I did pretty well through 2007, maybe 2008 or so. Maybe it's just that I got married. Probably best not to blame my wife, though.

              2. All of that, more or less.
                2010: had a third kid, bought a new house, started treating my ADD.
                2012: had a fourth kid.

              3. Oh, I agree. I'm in the same boat, more or less.

                Getting married didn't really diminish my new music acquisition. Having a kid? Very, very much different situation.

        2. "Roses" is catchy, but I don't see the point of the song.
          Yeah. The other song I actually liked was ... maybe "Dracula's Wedding"? I know I like a lot of things Kelis does.

  3. I forgot to mention in the main part River Of Dreams, which was still excellent, but needed some editing. Far too many of the songs were a minute or more longer than they should have been.

  4. I make it a point to listen to every single one of my ~9000 songs on my iPod at least once every year so I can't really relate to dusting off an album. I will however check out an old album on Spotify to see if I should add it to my collection. Tupelo Honey was one such album I happily added this winter.

    Since we are going to hear a ton about it this coming June in celebration of its 50th Anniversary, I will say that Sgt. Peppers doesn't hold up. Also, unrelated by neither does Pearl Jam's Ten.

    2. I enjoy Sgt. Peppers, but I think it's pretty uneven. And certainly didn't outdo Pet Sounds.

    3. Yeah, Sgt. Pepper's is a mish-mash of great and meh, but I appreciate what they were trying to do.

      One time I did what KQ does and just listened to every song I had in alphabetical order. It was way more satisfying than hitting random.

      1. I get it for it's place and time SPLHCB deserves its accolades. It really expanded what a band could do with popular music (for good and ill). Unfortunately 50 years later there are 4 songs that still resonate and matter.

        1. Honestly, 4 songs that resonate after 50 years seems like a pretty good hit rate. I think I probably have an overall more favorable impression of that album than you do, though.

          1. That's a fair statement. But then given it's exulted position among "greatest album ever" discussions, four songs isn't enough (IMHO).

            1. Ah, I wasn't really aware of such status. Probably not my favorite Beatles album. Given how tastes vary between listeners, it seems a bit impossible to actually can any album the greatest ever, though I think the arguments tend to be pretty fun anyway.

      3. Sgt. Pepper's is a mish-mash of great and meh
        If you really want to hear the Beatles throw things against the wall to see what sticks and still release what didn't, there's always the White Album.

    4. Ten doesn't hold up? Hmmm. I think it does. I can't listen to any of these songs in a random shuffle or mix. When I hear Evenflow, it must be followed by Alive and then Why Go. I don't know, maybe I am so partial to it because it is a dark and brooding album, and came out shortly after I lost my mother. I was 23 and lost and this album spoke to me.

  5. I was just listening to the Yeah Yeah Yeah's debut EP yesterday, it had been a while. I still love it.

  6. What apparently qualifies as old is quite quaint to me.

    I wish the sound quality on the old H. A. and the Tiuanja Brass was better.

    Saw the clips of Yes at this year's R&R HOF induction ; the love performance kicked butt, but good God Rick Wakeman could not resist the huge audience to continue to be the comedian. And Alan White has sure aged since I saw him last.

  7. I don't think​ I've listened to OK Computer all the way through in at least a decade.

    2. I haven't listened to OK Computer all the way through for at least a week. I really don't do the play list thing much. Occasionally, I will build a station on I Heart Radio, but for the most part, I typically listen to albums beginning to end off my CD's in the truck.

  8. OK: I got one that's completely fallen out of rotation.
    Dr. Dre The Chronic. Compared with other albums of the time that I still listen to, The Predator, Cypress Hill, Bizarre Ride II the Pharcyde, Return of the Boom-Bap, which I still love. That amateur "Death Row" sound doesn't help. If only DJ Muggs, Premier, or J-Dilla had produced part of it...

    Ahh, there's the vein of neglect...
    Arrested Development 3 Years, 5 Months,....
    2Pac Strictly 4 My N.I.G.G.A.Z.

  9. This is the song of the year for me. I'm guest DJ on Monday but I'll be going in a different direction than alt country so I wanted to post this here.

Comments are closed.