The five hundred and eleventh album: #511 Bruce Springsteen - Nebraska Nebraska's blues/country rock tracks feel like a throwback to the early blues albums, telling the stories of criminals, describing murders and dealing with the downtrodden. The album has a more modern rock beat, but a lot more of it focuses on the older blues that it feels made at the wrong time. It does do them competently, making for a decent album, but also not something I've been able to fully lean into.
Permanent link to “The five hundred and eleventh album: #511 Bruce Springsteen - Nebraska”2024-05-01 00:00:00
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The five hundred and tenth album: #510 Venom - Black Metal Black Metal just gives you fourty minutes of heavy metal music - nothing more complicated than that. Teacher's Pet is distinguished by the shouting of its title, for example, and some slightly different riffs, but not a lot more than that. There are a lot of satanic references, tying into the known aesthetic of these bands, but it feels so performative that I'm not sure how serious to take it - I'm pretty sure they are but it's just so much of the similar competing guitars that I'm not sure how serious to take it a lot of the time. It's good at what it does, but gets to be a bit of a one trick pony as an album.
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2024-04-01 00:00:00
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The one hundred and fifteenth book: #1187 The Long Dark Teatime of the Soul - Douglas Adams Quite early on, I made a note about how much the early book felt like an adventure game at times - find item, solve clue, move to the next puzzle. It makes sense - protagonist Dirk Gently approaches the world that way, fully convinced it will make sense and link up eventually. At the same time, knowing Douglas Adams did love his adventure games - and wrote some of them - has that make that much more sense. It doesn't hold up, with the second storyline avoiding the tropes entirely, but there was something interesting about that observation. It also shows how Dirk's adventures are more interesting to follow, with him being more of a driving force in this world, but even so a lot of it is a lot of figuring out what's going on, rather than being driven by them as much. It's still the second best Douglas Adams series for me, but the speed at which this gets going means I do prefer the sequel.
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The five hundred and ninth album: #509 Birthday Party - Junkyard Junkyard hits all the beats of a punk album, the sound being similar to many others like it. The content of the lyrics (when intelligible) is somewhat different, as there's a darkness that filters through the entire album. Rather than the anger that normally comes with punk, there's the darkness that metal brings in that the album regularly veers towards. It's a newer sound, but it's such an impactful sound at any point.
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The one hundred and eighty-fifth classical recording: #934 Gyorgy Ligeti - String Quartet no. 2 The five distinct movements in this quartet all invoke quite different moods, from the haunting to the energetic and sometimes even mechanical. It's always a bit frenetic, always keeps you on edge, which is part of what stays so compelling as it keeps drawing you in. It's surprising, but really effective.
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The five hundred and eighth album: #508 Michael Jackson - Thriller I don't think I can find many flaws with this album. The fact that its title track nearly wasn't a single feels so out of place, since even without the music video it works so well. Beat It and Billy Jean following it just add immensely more to the enjoyment of the whole album and is one of the strongest run of three tracks out there.
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The five hundred and seventh album: #507 Orange Juice - Rip It Up Listed as new wave and post punk, Rip It Up fits into the early 80s rock sound, with their Scottish vocals being the immediately notable element. There's something slightly slurred and drawn out pushing the album towards a ska rhythm in places, especially when combined with some of the steel percussion, while in other places the jazz influences are a lot stronger. None of the tracks stick for a long time, but they've got catchy hooks to draw you in - they're a nice feel-good set of songs on this album.
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The one hundred and eighty-fourth classical recording: #259 Frederic Chopin - Piano Concertos The two published concertos of Chopin's are tender and romantic, nothing big or aggressive but staying small throughout instead. It's a lovely piece to listen to, nice in the background, without being too straining.
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The one hundred and ninety-seventh TV show: #283 Salem's Lot One of the wonderful things about Twin Peaks was the way it combined quite standard soap opera tropes and storylines with th eweirdness that occurs throughout the story, exploring how they intersect with a Lynchian bend (as well as the contributions of others). In Salem's Lot, it feels like Stephen King tries to hit similar beats about two decades earlier, but it doesn't succeed quite as well. While the mysterious house in a insular village is a well known trope that does work, the set up it does in its first half drags a fair bit, with the mystery not becoming tantalizing enough. There are some vampire appearances, but it doesn't have anything actually compelling about it for a long time. It's not until the final hour or so that it feels liek we start to see more, but where the series seems to start with a mystery to solve, it feels like it turns into scary scenes later without as much of a mystery in it. It becomes too close to the Dracula store, but with the added elements detracting, rather than adding to the whole.
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The five hundred and sixth album: #506 Kate Bush - The Dreaming Although this is the first Kate Bush album on this list, this was her fourth studio album. The art rock sound of her work would have been familiar already to a lot of people, with this album heavily leaning into it. It's esoteric, at times dream-like with the overdubbed harmonies and shifts being recognisably Kate Bush. There's some interesting story telling, all wrapped in this ethereal, deeply emotional sound that keeps hinting at something deeper.
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The five hundred and fifth album: #505 Haircut One Hundred - Pelican West Not too long ago, I talked about an album feeling straight up like a Comedy Bang Bang bit, and with Pelican West we get another that comes from the same mold, poppy love songs with titles that seem a bit off. This album, however, brings in a lot of jazz - long solos, a lot of trumpet, and a more sedate feel to the tracks that I assume weren't candidates to become a single. They're the more engaging parts of the album for me - overall it's a nice and easy listen, but they are what brings the depth to the album.
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The one hundred and eighty-third classical recording: #362 Jacques Offenbach - La Belle Helene When listening through Youtube, I always prefer to cover an opera with half an eye on what happens on stage. That pays off with La Belle Helene more than almost anything else, as the comedic opera is over the top enough that the performers' dedication and overacting really adds to the story. The version I had has the proper exaggerated staging to encourage that, enhancing the impact of the various strange, more modern touches. But despite being quite stupid in places, in the best possible way, the vocal performances are great and the sweeping music takes you along. By its nature, it focuses more on the abundant, party atmosphere than delicate, sad songs, and it's to its benefit making it an enjoyable listen.
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The five hundred and fourth album: #504 Donald Fagen - The Nightfly With The Nightfly, Donald Fagen gives us a nice bit of accessible, jazzy rock. It's simple, it's poppy, fun and polished, but I am also not sure it's fully my thing - I enjoyed the album, but never really grew to love it.
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The one hundred and ninety-sixth TV show: #861 Spartacus Having watched a good chunk of the first season of Spartacus, it's a frustrating show. Its start is undoubtably weak, with the titular Spartacus (a slave name, named after the more famous revolt leader as he is set to repeat) being quite unlikeable and hard to root for. There isn't much interiority and the way he's closed off and refuses to engage with anything gets quite frustrating. The show goes for a lot more shock value and excessive amount of blood, but the over the top, mediocre CGI (even for its day) is distracting and laughable. After a few episodes and a change in showrunners, it does pick up and the characters become more interesting, the focus shifts, and we see more about how Spartacus could survive in this world, but it's quite uneven even after that, with some shock twists coming in too early to have an impact, and stopping you getting a more satisfying followup later. With that said, when it works, it works well. John Hannah and Lucy Lawless do well when given the chance to, even if the show doesn't always give them much to work with, and it feels like Andy Whitfield grows into the role as a number of the performers around him do good work as well. It's the effects, and at times the writing, that let it down, but it's enough to make me want to continue to watch it - even if I can't deny having muscled shirtless men feature regularly might have kept me drawn in. Well, whatever it takes to stay entertained, right?
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The one hundred and fiftieth book: #820 Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency - Douglas Adams Sometimes, it does feel like I'm criticizing a still great work as I'm writing this. Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency has all the hallmarks of a great Douglas Adams novel, but it feels like it teases a bit too often leaving you a bit short. The titular Dirk Gently - the interesting force of chaos you want to interact with - doesn't show up until halfway through the novel and doesn't get to shine until later. Instead, there is a lot of set up of the book. It's fun set up, following all the hallmarks of Adams' writing, but it almost stays too rooted in reality. The balance also means that it feels like the resolution gets quite rushed, going from a decent speed to rushing through a lot of concepts in a short amount of time. It's a satisfying read, but I wish it got to its titular character a bit earlier - a shift I hope we can see in the sequel more quickly.
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The five hundred and third album: #503 Madness - The Rise & Fall Oddly enough, this is the first time I've covered Madness - later than I would be expecting, but at a point where it's quite interesting to do so. The Rise & Fall is a prototypical ska album, an accessible example of the genre that's nicely accessible and quite fun to listen to.. With that, it also covers a lot more of just everyday life - it feels like it focuses a lot on fairly standard, mundane events, and commenting on English life that way. Seeing that they went political for the first time with this album makes sense - some of the intention is there, but you can see how it would progress further from there. It makes for a more thoughtful album than it might seem, without trying to be too fancy or complicated.
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The one hundred and eighty-second classical recording: #287 Robert Schumann - Kreisleriana As apparently comes from his inspiration, Schumann's Kreisleriana plays with contrasts. Its movements alternate between lively, exuberant sections and sombre and thoughtful sections. There's a good balance and some skill in how they move from one to the other, maintaining a similar delicateness through these shifts.
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The one hundred and eighth comic: #756 Tokyo Zombie Tokyo Zombie is my first list comic in a while - although I've been trying to keep up with others on the go. Even so, it's hard not to look at the other zombie comics and stories I'm familiar with, with the Walking Dead and otherwise. Aside from the graphic nature of the comic - with far more nudity in addition to a lot of violence - it is quite minimalistic in its storytelling as it is in its art, limiting it to only what it needs. The ending chapters give the full twist - while a martial arts set up gets referenced from the start, a large chunk of the end is a martial arts tournament between humans and zombies that is convincing and creates a storyline that I haven't seen other works pull off quite as well - The Walking Dead tried over a decade later, but didn't quite do it. It's surprisingly small, but it works here.
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2024-03-01 00:00:00
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The five hundred and second album: #502 Simple Minds - New Gold Dream (81-82-83-84) New Gold Dream is a simple album in a way. It's an electro pop album, drifting from track to track, and it feels like the vocals are secondary to anything else that's going on as you listen to it. There's nothing complex to it, just something nice to listen to.
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The one hundred and fourty-ninth book: #88 Oliver Twist - Charles Dickens For a large chunk of the time I spent reading Oliver Twist, I was wondering where I would go with it. I knew the story best from the musical, which I had a bit part in in a school production about 27 years ago, and while there are some beats that are the same, the book does so much more. Charles Dickens isn't known for his brevity and focusing mostly on the first third or so of the novel made sense to create a coherent story. The second half does well exploring the characters further, but it feels the interesting satire is more present at the start, while it trails off a bit to the end, and a number of important characters get introduced so late that it feels like it's a bit too much on the fly. Even so, the deep dive works well and the book stays interesting and really readable throughout.
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The five hundred and first album: #501 Dexys Midnight Runners - Too-Rye-Ay Too-Rye-Ay's fusion of soul and folk rock is different from Dexys Midnight Runners' earlier album, still having some ska influence but generally feeling like a calmer set of songs. The addition of the string section, combined with the soul-like choruses add a different feel to it, which at the same time creates a more jovial vibe to the music - hearing Come On Eileen as the first single makes a lot of sense with the direction, even if it's probably still the most celebratory song on the album. It's still an album of good vibes throughout, which makes it pretty nice to listen to.
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The one hundred and eighty-first classical recording: #598 Gustav Mahler - Symphony no. 10 Mahler's tenth symphony runs longer than I'm used to - the slow, sad first movement running as long as some other full works we've covered. Reading about the history, it feels like the ups and downs of the works reflect the emotional turmoil he felt - the slow adagio followed by a manic scherzo. It's a moving piece, not the fanciest, but it still feels like it's a lot more raw in places, ending on a contemplative note.
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The five hundredth album: #500 The Cure - Pornography Let's be honest, you know what you're getting when you listen to an album by The Cure. It is a dark, moody album, slow and draining. It's not a slog to get through, but it feels like something in there slows you down on such a basic level that it can't help but get to you. It's a well made album, the music is good, it's just exhausting to listen to.
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The four hundred and ninety-ninth album: #499 Elvis Costello & The Attractions - Imperial Bedroom Elvis Costello hits similar beats as before in Imperial Bedroom - quite smart, thought out new wave music featuring some good, memorable tracks and a lot of interesting variety. They're not samey - his range is large enough to bring a real mix to the album - but it feels like it continues on the same, strong track, without any of it wearing thin. Again, it's his songwriting that all of that is build on, and this whole album shows it off really well.
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The one hundred and ninety-fifth TV show: #872 New Girl It's been a while before I could back to this, having put this on hold around when we started this list. It's been good to come back to, though. The series sticks to its loose premise - quirky girl Jess (Zooey Deschanel) moves into an apartment that has three guys living there. There are some relationship back and forth, but mostly it has wacky, exaggerated adventures in a way that a lot of comedies of the 2010s have been, done so well. It feels like a lot are, as you get, expansions on their existing characters, leaning into the goofier side, but it has enough leeway to not push it too far. It's great comfortable, but fun viewing, even five seasons in.
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The one hundred and eightieth classical recording: #833 Benjamin Britten - Serenade for Tenor, Horn and Strings There's something unsettling about this serenade. Pears' voice, who did was written for, isn't quite as steady, which adds some emotion and instability to the piece but also stays a bit off putting. The strings are taunting and harrowing and the horn's low, deep sounds add to that. The work is sad and distant in a way that's hard to fully come to grips with. It's beautiful, but so haunting at the same time.
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The one hundred and ninety-fourth TV show: #75 Z-Cars I mean, Z-Cars was never a show I was going to watch for long, but it really didn't connect on any viewing. I understand that this show would have been more real at the time - the police characters are flawed, the stories don't always go right, there's no lesson to be learnt - but it doesn't quite hit the modern pacing even as it is edited to be quick for its time. Instead, the characters are unlikeable and the action unconvincing, to the point where it's off putting rather than engaging. While you may feel it gives an example of TV as it's developing, there's little to recommend it as a show to actually watch.
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2024-02-01 00:00:00
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The four hundred and ninety-eighth album: #498 Grandmaster Flash & The Furious Five - The Message When listening to The Message, there's something slightly off about it. There's a mix of R&B and funk in there with its harmonies, but it also has some early rap tracks that don't feel like they fit quite the same pattern. In the current times, it feels like it doesn't quite commit, but with Prince and Michael Jackson being contemporaries, they actually make a lot of sense in context as the music styles overlap. I guess I'll see it evolve in the coming albums, but just as rock grew out of earlier genres, we've got a new hip hop style emerging here.
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The four hundred and ninety-seventh album: #497 Prince - 1999 So much of 1999 makes for a catchy album - it's hard to get away from all the songs that stick with you. There are some long funk fadeouts - still too much for my taste - but when it hits the groove and the song really gets going, the album is amazing. Even its double length mostly doesn't matter because so much of it is infectious enough to keep you going along. At the same time, parts of it feel forward looking, experimenting with electronic music in a way that hasn't intersected with R&B before. I'm not sure how many of those will move forward, but it does feel like an album made with a license to experiment and figure stuff out, with something polished still being released at the end.
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The one hundred and seventy-ninth classical recording: #776 Ralph Vaughan WIlliams - Symphony no. 4 This symphony's large, loud opening belies the smaller sound that follows. It never recedes completely, but goes back to be more stylized and more straight laced, at times quiet and menacing rather than being in your face like the start. It still alternates, with a very frantic third movement building to the triumphant finale that matches the start of the piece. It's big and bold, but that's what works.
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The four hundred and ninety-sixth album: #496 ABC - The Lexicon of Love It's difficult to fairly judge a band when it's so clearly the inspiration for a Drew Tarver Comedy Bang Bang character... The Lexicon of Love hits all the known beats of the synth pop love songs, the bit of break up, the highs of love, the harmonies and the tortured metaphors. It's well put together, but to be honest, it's a lot and not always convincingly so.
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The four hundred and ninety-fifth album: #495 ABBA - The Visitors The book contains two ABBA albums on its lists. The Visitors, however, feels quite a stand out work, with the music less disco poppy and more mature and at times a bit darker. It still has their sound, but it feels like they're experimenting a lot more than before. Considering what was happening in the group, When All Is Said And Done is a really powerful standout. Two For the Price of One is the only negative standout - aside from the vocals, it just doesn't feel like it matches the tone of the album anywhere else. Still, this is probably Abba's album that connects with me most, fitting my sensibilities most. It's raw and emotional at times, with so much breaking through the production that hits so much better.
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The one hundred and seventy-eighth classical recording: #411 Pablo de Sarasate - Zigeunerweisen As one of the shorter pieces, Zigeunerweisen makes its impact quite early on. The soloist's violin mostly tells a sad story, with a muted orchestra supporting but never drawing focus - it makes for a nice, gentle support.
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The four hundred and ninety-fourth album: #494 Rush - Moving Pictures I really enjoyed this album and, in a way that's not that typical of my usual feelings, especially appreciated the extended instrumental tracks. They were so well crafted and specific that they made for a lovely journey that felt like it didn't need the vocals a lot of the time.
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The four hundred and ninety-third album: #493 Tom Tom Club - Tom Tom Club As a band that originated from the Talking Heads, we get a somewhat different sound from the Tom Tom Club. As much as it has its experimental moments, it also has a more traditional sound, with some of the harmonies and simpler songs really feeling like a throwback to the fifties and sixties. Under the Boardwalk, for example, really is structured like a classic track if not for the various distortions and synthesizer sounds that appear around the edges of the songs. It's very commercial, sure, and not as innovative, but it's at times subversive in how it does that. It doesn't feel like something that is its own major standout track, but it's so much fun to listen to.
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The one hundred and seventy-seventh classical recording: #429 Alexander Borodin - String Quartet no. 2 Don't have much to say about this one - it's a lovely piece of music, performed well. It's not too complicated, just one that's easy to keep track of and listen to.
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The one hundred and fourty-eighth book: #87 The Nose - Nikolai Gogol The Nose was a quick read - a short story that took me about half an hour to read through, which felt right for the tone of the story. In short, a barber finds a nose in a loaf of bread, which turns out to be a commissioner's, and the missing body part lives a life of its own for some time. It's a commentary on class and vanity and how society reacts to it, with there never been an explanation. It's a fun read, though, even if some of the satire doesn't fit our current experience.
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The four hundred and ninety-second album: #492 Bobby Womack - The Poet The Poet is a more modern soul album, which means it manages to avoid the pitfalls that annoyed me in earlier tracks - with disco on the way out, the long dance breaks are gone and instead there is a longer real rhythm section in each of the tracks that's still quite enjoyable, and just a lot more variety in a track. I really felt myself bopping along to the music several times as I was listening.
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The one hundred and fourty-seventh book: #86 Father Goriot - Honore de Balzac The tragedy of Father Goriot builds through the novel, only becoming clear at the end. The titular Father Goriot is seen throughout the book as an odd father figure, somewhat destitute and made fun of by those around him, even as some of our protagonists take more to him. Only slowly do we find out about his daughters, who he spent his wealth on to give them good marriages, but who desert him when the money runs out. It's sad, a comment on the social mobility of the time, and quite a sad read. It's not always the easiest read, but the observations of Honore de Balzac ring true here in a wait that still feels quite accessible.
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The four hundred and ninety-first album: #491 Bauhaus - Mask While I certainly don't mind dark tracks or more depressing music, gothic rock is one where it pushes it too far for me. Mask is very theatrical in its darkness and sound and it's too much for me. A track like Hollow Hills strikes the balance into being creepy, but the title track Mask takes it so far, for example, that it's almost farcical. It feels like it goes for a specific audience, at least for a modern audience, and just isn't as engaging of a sound now
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The one hundred and seventy-sixth classical recording: #435 Johannes Brahms - Symphony no. 3 As much as I talk about the more aggressive, wilder pieces in here, it's also nice to have a piece like this symphony, one where it's less about the bombast, but it feels more stately. It's quick, it's formal, but it's still big without going extremely loud with these sounds. The lack of loud brass instruments creates a more striking sound, one that gets you listening more intently and keeps it more in depth. It still retains its majesty.
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The one hundred and ninety-third TV show: #681 Lost Apparently I forgot to post a write up after watching this a while ago! In short, the mysteries weren't compelling, the outcome not satisfying and ruining in advance what was there, and we just didn't care about most of it. Event TV at the time, but that impact is gone watching it now
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The four hundred and ninetieth album: #490 The Gun Club - Fire of Love There's something that never quite worked with me on Fire of Love - it's decent punk rock, with a heavy blues influence, but it didn't really reach the point of having an impact. It's not loud, it's not big, it just feels like it never quite went anywhere engaging. Not bad per se, there's just not as much to it as I would have hoped.
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The one hundred and ninety-second TV show: #412 Red Dwarf Because I had to get to the best seasons before writing this up (or so I was told), I watched the first five seasons and started the sixth season of Red Dwarf before starting my write up. It's been worth the wait - the first season focused a bit too much around the antagonistic relationship between Lister and Rimmer, while being more of a workplace comedy in an odd, deserted setting. As the show progresses, our protagonists are more capable, they work together better and instead the series focusing on proper SF comedy. It's not hard to draw the comparison to Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy - if only because the same design lineage is clear with the BBC design department doing similarly good model work - but also because it starts to apply the sci fi conventions and takes it to its comedic extreme, while telling some interesting stories with them you couldn't quite do otherwise. Once it starts properly, around season three or so, it really seeks out its options and becomes a must watch a lot of the time. I've been waiting a long time to watch this, and it has been worth it.
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The four hundred and eighty-ninth album: #489 The Human League - Dare It's always odd when an album's most known track closes the album - Don't You Want Me is track ten out of ten, but it feels bigger. Not that the remainder of the album doesn't meet the same poppy vibes, but it does sound that much darker - the lyrics can be incredibly nihilistic and some of the tracks go for a slow, dark sound that becomes quite threatening. It still doesn't feel like it's a divergence - the sounds mesh well together - but there's more to their tracks here than I expected based on what I knew of the band beforehand.
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The four hundred and eighty-eighth album: #488 The Psychedelic Furs - Talk, Talk, Talk Between yesterday and today, it feels like we've reached a point in the list where we get some good examples of their genres, rather than giving you something outstanding. Talk, Talk, Talk is the standard post punk sound, some new wave influences on top of that, but I never get any real satisfaction or specific moments mixed in the track - a bit too much by the number to be exciting.
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The four hundred and eighty-seventh album: #487 X - Wild Gift Wild Gift feels like a very by-the-books punk album. There's a fair bit of jazz and ska in there - leaning towards some flavour of new wave - but it mostly makes it feel a bit toothless and the album doesn't really have the impact you'd expect from an album like this - the album ends feeling quite bland, which feels bad for what the band is trying to achieve.
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The one hundred and seventy-fifth classical recording: #907 Karlheinz Stockhausen - Gruppen While one of the headline mentions about this piece may sound big - it requires three orchestras, each effectively playing their own piece but interacting with each other - it doesn't feel like that's what dominates when you start listening to Gruppen. If anything, it feels the opposite, where the sparse and disjointed groups of notes (from the name of the piece) often come in on their own, standing alone. I suspect listening to it at home doesn't help with that small feeling - normally the three orchestras would be set up so listening to this piece becomes as much a spatial experience as it is auditory, but it's hard to replicate that (and no, there are no upcoming performances I could attend that would cover this...). It's a fascinating piece in that sense, with an ambition that doesn't quite follow its goal but that remains captivating nonetheless.
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The four hundred and eighty-sixth album: #486 Black Flag - Damaged Damaged is an uncompromising punk album. It's loud, it's angry and it doesn't let up through its 35 minute runtime. It might not always be lyrically exciting and it doesn't sound too different between tracks, but it just gives that pure punk feeling.
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The four hundred and eighty-fifth album: #485 Brian Eno & David Byrne - My Life in the Bush of Ghosts Sometimes some experiments work out really well and the combination of Brian Eno and David Byrne working using these forms is where this goes well - the ambient nature of the background of the tracks, combined with the samples as both vague lyrics and more musical content is really nice. It's accessible when it feels this style would normally be a turn off and I found myself listening to the extras of the later releases of the album more than I normally would do.
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The one hundred and seventy-fourth classical recording: #724 Sergei Rachmaninov - Piano Concerto no. 4 There's a franticness in a lot of this concerto, a drive that really adds to the impact of the piece. For the first theme, that builds up to this exuberant finish that really brings it back but continues the high energy of the theme with an infectious enthusiasm.
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The four hundred and eighty-fourth album: #484 Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark - Architecture and Morality With the music trends of the eighties moving towards pop, I was wondering where it would go past what I really enjoy. Architecture and Morality reaches that point - not off putting, but I don't care much for the abstract synthesizer track that dominates this album.
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The four hundred and eighty-third album: #483 Soft Cell - Non-Stop Erotic Cabaret There is something intensely sensual about Non-Stop Erotic Cabaret that goes past the shock title. The tracks are about romance and sex, but it has the sultry female vocals that amplify that, lead vocals that go in and everything set up to emphasize those moments. It's progressive, aggressive, smooth and good to listen to, and it even feels like it culminates in a more romantic song as it slowly shifts over the course of the album.
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The one hundred and seventy-third classical recording: #798 Herbert Howells - Hymnus Paradisi While I was a bit apprehensive about the title, this work is a lot newer than we might expect based on when most of the hymns occur in the book. The work is hymnal, sure, but it feels so much more delicate than most, the smaller choir and more focused music creating a closer connection to the work. It feels more emotional - the sense of loss in the earlier movements, culminating, it feels, in a more jubilant celebration in the Sanctus movement - there's still some solemnity, but there is some celebration in there as well. It feels like there's a journey in here that works well with the themes - both of loss and paradise.
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The four hundred and eighty-second album: #482 Motorhead - No Sleep 'Til Hammersmith Listening to No Sleep 'Til Hammersmith, I was struck by the difference the live performance makes. The music still sounds good and it's not the song quality that matters, but there's something about the sound taken from a recording in the middle of the tour that changes the songs - a bit of weariness, the repetition in the known bits, but mostly how it's that bit more raw, with less polish. It makes for a more compelling listen - not in that you feel you're in the room, but the emotions come through more, and some of the hoarse introductions to the songs add a bit more.
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The four hundred and eighty-first album: #481 The Go-Gos - Beauty and the Beat While the Go-Gos punk roots occasionally shine through in a few of the tracks on this album, for the most part it's unapologetically new wave, often as dancy pop tracks that stay really accessible. The tracks stay listenable, easy to absorb and full of energy.
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