The four hundred and seventy-sixth album: #476 Steve Winwood - Arc of a Diver
From the start, this album felt a bit toothless - innocent soft rock that doesn't have much to elevate it further. It's pleasant to listen to but at no point did I find myself loving anything on the album.
The four hundred and seventy-fifth album: #475 The Specials - More Specials
There are a lot of different things going on in this album, with strong ska tracks alternating with poppy rock tracks and the whole thing becoming a mishmash of directions that reflects the friction in the band. There are a lot of strong, engaging fun tracks to listen to, even as someone who isn't a fan of the ska sound, but it really comes down to the individual tracks - the northern soul tracks like Sock It To 'Em J.B. in particular stand out. It's the second side that starts to peter out, as its focus on easy listening pop tracks leads to a point where there's less value in the songs - it loses its hooks and with that, my interest in them.
The one hundred and seventieth classical recording: #983 Louis Andressen - De Materie
The fact that this is an opera from the 1980s probably indicates we've got a different type of work here. Invoking De Stijl directly proves it. And when the first part has a solo formed of metal boxes being hit, it all comes together around a post modern piece that rarely comes up. The use of Dutch poems and texts, not creating a narrative, combined with some specific staging, adds to the stragenness of the piece. It's all bizarre and disconcerting, without becoming entirely off putting.
The one hundred and fourty-fifth book: #337 The Thin Man - Dashiel Hammett
The Thin Man got to the top of the list in quite a roundabout way. It started with our love of Beyond Belief, one of the segments of the Thrilling Adventure Hour show and podcast, which we sought out after enjoying listening to Paul F. Tompkins on other podcasts. That led to us prioritizing watching the Thin Man movie, which the podcast segment was based on. That hit us in the right place, so I really felt like reading the book as well to really see the origins.
It's the conversations that really stand out reading the book. Dashiel Hammett writes them to flow well, with the character's initial unwillingness standing out in the way they play with each other. It shows the casual love of our main characters, who tease each other but mostly want to hang out and, well, drink a lot - the speakeasy culture is very well alive at this point. The mystery is intriguing enough and builds well - the result felt quite strong even with some of the doubts it left me - but it's how it affects the characters that's the most interesting, and when that drops away at the end a bit to explain things, the book loses it a bit as well. It's a shame this was his last full novel, but I know I've got some earlier strong works of his on the list that I'm looking forward to and some short stories to look for.
The four hundred and seventy-fourth album: #474 The Teardrop Explodes - Kilimanjaro
Kilimanjaro is a standard rock album from the era - new wave influenced, developing the psychedelic rock sound further into something poppy that is quite appealing and sounds quite inoffensive. It was nice to listen to, but at the same it wasn't a lot more.
The four hundred and seventy-third album: #473 UB40 - Signing Off
The only album by UB40 on the list - remarkable as they're one of the larger, long running reggae groups in the world - is a subdued affair. While following the genre, the music feels more polished and pulled together than other albums we've heard before, while the lyrics are more explicitly politically, clearer than they were before. It get to a point where, 10 tracks into the 13 track album, it loses some of its distinctiveness, but at a normal album length this would have worked well - it just pushed it a little bit too much.
The one hundred and sixty-ninth classical recording: #254 Franz Schubert - Schwanengesang
The title of this collection of poems, 'Swan Song' is appropriate for the sadder tone of the pieces. While not too slow, there's a lamenting tone to a number of them, with the upbeat poems actually feeling out of place in between - not entirely unwelcome, but there's something reassuring about the slow pace, more of a mastery of the sound than the more upbeat sound gives you. The delicate nature of some of the songs stands out, but it works well as a two hundred year old album regardless.
The four hundred and seventy-second album: #472 Tom Waits - Heartattack and Vine
Tom Waits - a gravelly voice singing white guy blues with a rock base. The album is exactly what you'd expect based on that description and it works well at it, with a strength of voice that remains quite convincing.
The four hundred and seventy-first album: #471 The Jam - Sound Affects
At 35 minutes, Sound Affects is a short album, especially as it splits it over 11 tracks. It gives a bunch of short tracks, each a punch of energy with different tones that's unforgiving in just dragging you through - you don't realise a tracks ends before the next begins.
The one hundred and sixty-eighth classical recording: #504 Sergei Rachmaninov - Symphony no. 1
As always, hard to go into abstract pieces, but this is a nice piece to listen to, bombastic in places but not too much so. It doesn't go as subtle as most, but the symphony makes for a big, angry piece to listen to.