[Music] Introduce a Personal Favourite Album of Yours

[spring hall convert]

This thread is for those records that you love but you don't think have reached a large level of acceptence (so no Dark Side of The Moon, Thriller, Blonde on Blonde etc....) Any genre, any era. Sell it to the good folks of NSC. I'll start.

Women - Public Strain

Released: 2010
Label: Jagjaguwar
For Fans of: My Bloody Valentine, This Heat, Sonic Youth, Velvet Underground
Reccomended Tracks: Eyesore, Heat Distraction, Drag Open



Women's second LP was the first great record of this current decade. Essentially a distillation of everything that is wonderous about alternative rock. Sonic Youth's love of unusal tuning, My Bloody Valentine's beautiful distortion and the Velvets knack of being able to write gorgeous pop songs in amongst the sonic maelstrom. I was lucky enough to catch them touring this record before the band was torn apart by infighting. Any hopes of a meaningful reunion were quashed by the tragic and untimely passing of guitarist Chris Reimer in 2012.

Women live on through a variety of means, the surviving band members are in Viet Cong, Friendo and Androgynous Minds, their producer Chad Van Gaalen's solo work comes across like a more chart friendly version of "their" sound, whilst there are also a whole host of young bands from their home of Alberta, Canada looking to emulate them, most promisingly Faux Fur.

 

[Machiavelli]

Anything by Elliott Smith, especially his eponymous album, which is rather lo-fi, so for fans for fuller and lusher production, try XO instead.

 

[DarrenFreemansPerm]

Hmmm, tough one. For me it's a toss up between Adam F -Kaos, Bubba Sparxxx - dark days bright nights or the self titled JJ72 debut album.
I'll plump for Adam F.
http://youtu.be/SoES5mH5Cyc

 

[Goldstone1976]

Hmmm. How about Blind Lemon Jefferson: Black Snake Moan? Try the song with the same title...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n51Z2J888rA&index=5&list=PLyQ71hlTt0j4MUpQ8Ha2b82jK5FHuijiS

 

[Sweeney Todd]

High Land Hard Rain, by Aztec Camera…

 

[dougdeep]

Urban Hymns.

 

[hans kraay fan club]

A recently discovered favourite of mine, which I am absolutely loving at the moment.



All Systems Go! released in 1998 by a San Diego band called Honeyrider. Described in the record label (Damaged Goods) blurb, as having a 'sound like a cross between the Beach Boys and the Jesus and Mary Chain', this is an album full of proper summer tunes. One for the car, with the windows down.

I stumbled across the two tracks below on a meander through YouTube's indie treasures, and bought the album (and their next) from Amazon for £1.28.

It's terrific.


Track One - 'Endless Summer'


Track Three - 'Summer's Almost Gone'

Note the lines:

Well, summer in the UK's great
But I miss summer USA
Brighton's loads of fun
But California's got the sun

 

[daveinprague]

First reggae album I ever bought, and still played a hell of a lot...

 

[OzMike]

Short Stories - Harry Chapin.

 

[Buzzer]

This thread is for those records that you love but you don't think have reached a large level of acceptence

Urban Hymns.

17th best-selling album in UK history, over 10 million copies sold worldwide. Ranked 10th best British album of all time by Q magazine readers and narrowly lost out to Oasis as best British album of the last 30 years at the Brits 2010. I wonder what they need to do before you're happy that the Verve get the audience you think they deserve.

 

[hans kraay fan club]

This thread is for those records that you love but you don't think have reached a large level of acceptence (so no Dark Side of The Moon, Thriller, Blonde on Blonde etc....) Any genre, any era. Sell it to the good folks of NSC. I'll start.

Urban Hymns.

 

[Buzzer]

I nominate Apollo 440 - 'Electroglide in Blue'. It's a stunning album with no fillers and crosses so many genres from dance to cinematic.

 

[Northstander]

 

[BBassic]

Artist: Pure Reason Revolution
Album: The Dark Third
Stand-out track: The Bright Ambassadors of Morning (skip to around 2:20 in the vid below if you want to get into the song proper)

Now defunct prog band released this debut album at a very delicate stage in my life. Loads of personal problems and stuff like that I won't bore you all with. As cliché as this will sound The Dark Third helped me get through a dark time; it just resonated with me and sounded as though they'd written this album just for me, like I was their only listener. I was lucky enough to see them before they disbanded as well. Just a great album.

Note - There's a couple of versions of the album out there with a couple of changes in the track listings. They're all worth a listen.

 

[spring hall convert]

'sound like a cross between the Beach Boys and the Jesus and Mary Chain',

I'm sold.

 

[dougdeep]

Wow! You must really enjoy the power. Probably to do with penile dimensions. How the hell am I meant to know how many copies it sold?

 

[tinycowboy]

Low - The Curtain Hits The Cast (1996)

"Anon" – 4:18
"The Plan" – 3:40
"Over the Ocean" – 3:47
"Mom Says" – 5:19
"Coattails" – 6:51
"Standby" – 5:09
"Laugh" – 9:34
"Lust – 4:04
"Stars Gone Out" – 4:26
"Prisoner" – 3:46
"Tomorrow One" – 3:49
"Same" – 2:05
"Do You Know How To Waltz?" – 14:37
"Dark" – 0:53

On this album, Low were a married couple of Mormons, playing a single guitar and a couple of drums, plus a bass guitarist. The fact that they are religious helps to get the most out of this album as there are times when a tension intrudes into the superficially straightforward arrangemwents and the whole thing threatens to come off the rails whenever notions of lust, nothingness and darkness start to appear in the lyrics. Apart from the penultimate song, this is a quiet album. It is also slow. To repeat: will NOT appeal to anyone who does not want a slow, quiet album. Guitar strings are hit, strings vibrate for a long time before they are hit again. The spaces between the sounds are important, which makes you feel that every chord is important, with a minimum of fuss and wastage. There are beautiful vocal harmonies between husband and wife. When they stray from this formula, it feels a bit threatening - for example, the fluid guitar line running through "Laugh" bookended by creepy open stringed chords becomes angrier and angrier as the song progresses until the anger is suppressed and the song fades away in a feeling of intense resentment. Likewise, "Lust" drifts along in a very melancholy way until some strangely boldly-struck chords lead to a sudden ending of the song. "Do You Know How To Waltz?" is a drone, intensifying over 14 minutes until it is sheer white noise underpinning a very sinister three chord progression, totally unlike every single other song. In the context of the album, quite shocking. I love this album, but it's an acquired taste - needs patience, headphones, a dark room and a bottle of beer.

 

[PFJ]

Totally love this album . Released 1998 (I think ) . It is a no holds barred Ramones meet The Stones (early seventies ) meet Hanoi Rocks , with a tiny smidge of Motorhead .They hail from Sweden and the album just does not let you take a breath .
Large chunks of Ramonesesgue buzzsaw guitar , great songs and no ballads.

 

[Machiavelli]

Low - The Curtain Hits The Cast (1996)

"Anon" – 4:18
"The Plan" – 3:40
"Over the Ocean" – 3:47
"Mom Says" – 5:19
"Coattails" – 6:51
"Standby" – 5:09
"Laugh" – 9:34
"Lust – 4:04
"Stars Gone Out" – 4:26
"Prisoner" – 3:46
"Tomorrow One" – 3:49
"Same" – 2:05
"Do You Know How To Waltz?" – 14:37
"Dark" – 0:53

On this album, Low were a married couple of Mormons, playing a single guitar and a couple of drums, plus a bass guitarist. The fact that they are religious helps to get the most out of this album as there are times when a tension intrudes into the superficially straightforward arrangemwents and the whole thing threatens to come off the rails whenever notions of lust, nothingness and darkness start to appear in the lyrics. Apart from the penultimate song, this is a quiet album. It is also slow. To repeat: will NOT appeal to anyone who does not want a slow, quiet album. Guitar strings are hit, strings vibrate for a long time before they are hit again. The spaces between the sounds are important, which makes you feel that every chord is important, with a minimum of fuss and wastage. There are beautiful vocal harmonies between husband and wife. When they stray from this formula, it feels a bit threatening - for example, the fluid guitar line running through "Laugh" bookended by creepy open stringed chords becomes angrier and angrier as the song progresses until the anger is suppressed and the song fades away in a feeling of intense resentment. Likewise, "Lust" drifts along in a very melancholy way until some strangely boldly-struck chords lead to a sudden ending of the song. "Do You Know How To Waltz?" is a drone, intensifying over 14 minutes until it is sheer white noise underpinning a very sinister three chord progression, totally unlike every single other song. In the context of the album, quite shocking. I love this album, but it's an acquired taste - needs patience, headphones, a dark room and a bottle of beer.

'Do You Know How to Waltz?' is marvellous. I think that Secret Name is their best album, not that I've heard it for yonks: one of those albums I foolishly leant out. I also don't know why Mimi doesn't sing more for them.

 

[atfc village]

Apples and Oranges ,Blue ox Babes.