The five hundred and fourteenth album: #514 Duran Duran - Rio
Rio is a pack of good, poppy songs from the eighties synth pop mold, feeling mostly like love songs or other lighter subjects without anything too deep.The album is nice, it's fun, it's accessible and easy to get into - just a fun listen.
The five hundred and thirteenth album: #513 Iron Maiden - The Number of the Beast
I guess I could have anticipated it, but I wasn't immediately expecting fragments from The Prisoner to introduce some of these tracks. It fits with the anti establishment feel of the album, the provocative lyrics and the aggression of the heavy metal tracks. The second side is especially strong for this, with the title track and Run for the Hills being such a strong two punch track that each tell their own story that they work incredibly well to create this tone. These powerful metal anthems really hit the spot and are pretty well balanced.
The one hundred and eighty-sixth classical recording: #623 Wilhelm Stenhammar - Serenade
Threatening, uncomfortable, but with a smaller feel than the orchestral size might suggest. It's a sweet piece at times, but there is enough tumult in the entire run to keep you on edge.
The five hundred and twelfth album: #512 Associates - Sulk
The gothy synth pop sound of Sulk is quite encompassing and heavy, never really letting up and with that not ending up in a place that I really enjoy. The album never really fulfilled or grabbed me.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.