Coldplay

Marvin Gaye, “Can I Get A Witness”

It’s sometimes a little hard to reconcile the early Marvin Gaye with what he would eventually become. This is from 1963, and yeah, sure, it’s an excellent tune. But it’s just so far away from where he would end up. Popular music evolved so fast in this decade, it’s still hard to wrap my mind around it.

The Young Fresh Fellows, “View From Above”

The first Fellows record, The Fabulous Sounds of the Pacific Northwest, was kind of tied together with these little spoken word travelogue snippets, as a theme. The Fellows are light hearted enough that the gimmick comes off as charming, and the music is all just kind of loose, happy rock. While there’s plenty to like, they also didn’t really totally have control of their songwriting yet, so the record is kind of just for fans.

Camper Van Beethoven, “One of These Days”

I think my tolerance (or even enjoyment) of the violin has been more or less a straight line upwards. I used to think that the violin was an obnoxious affectation in Camper Van Beethoven, irritating and not rockin’. Now, of course, I think it’s probably the best part of the proceedings.

The Kinks, “Animal Farm”

Even more broadly, my tolerance (and enjoyment) of folk inspired stuff has also increased over time. So something like this from the Kinks also hits me better. Am I mellowing as I get older? Well, I also listen to more extreme metal, so who knows?

Ghost Bath, “Golden Number”

There’s a continuum in music that relies heavily tremelo picking going from black metal at one end to shoegaze at the other end. The placement of any band on this spectrum kind of comes down to the vocals, the use of dissonance, the melodies (if any), and the production. And bands can move around on the spectrum (Alcest, for instance). Ghost Bath isn’t pure black metal, so they’ve moved along that spectrum some. “Blackgaze” is sometimes used for these sorts of bands, and I can’t decide if that’s a good name or not.

Little dodgier today.

Starlight Mints, “Irene”

You know what? I remember this band being very, very Pavement-ish. Like, if you had asked me what they sounded like, I would have said something like “imagine Pavement, but shittier” or something equally facile. But, let’s face it, this isn’t Pavement-y at all! I mean, this is giving off some Robert Palmer kinda vibes here. Maybe I should listen to this album again? Maybe I should stop being a dipshit?

Starts slow, but some interesting stuff today.

Coldplay, “Swallowed In The Sea”

Like I said last time, I’ll defend the first couple albums, but this album (X&Y), NOOOOPE. Too boring.

The Flaming Lips, “Okay, I’ll Admit That I Really Don’t Understand”

Well, I’m not sure what to do with this album. This is from Zaireeka, the transitional album between *Clouds Taste Metallic and The Soft Bulletin. So, what’s the problem? Well, at the time, the Flaming Lips were doing a lot of experimenting with how music is played back. They were doing “car stereo orchestras”, where they got a ton of cars together and gave each of them a specific tape, to be played in unison to produce a single piece. They decided, hey, that’s cool, and went for an at-home version of that with Zaireeka.

I try and mention it periodically: there’s an index of these posts. Just in case you want to go poking around in there. We also have music for today!

Rocket From the Crypt, “Strangehold”

I know I brought up the horns before, but it really is a shame that the sax is regarded as hopelessly cheesy in a rock context. We should reclaim the sax! Rocket From the Crypt did their part, anyway.