The four hundred and second album: #402 The Jam - All Mod Cons

The mod revival of this album comes with a sound I'd never quite thought about - if only because it feels like it's gotten mixed in with other genres in the intervening years. It's a punk inspired sound, but more written than that genre implies and poppy in its accessibility. The songs aren't more complex, but have more to them than the loud punk sounds we've had before, and it has more of this simplicity that harkens back to earlier times. While there's some praise in that description, I also think it's one that I feel we've outgrown. I wish it could have a bit more to offer - it does well at what it does, but it's not enough for me.

The four hundred and first album: #401 Elvis Costello - This Year's Model

This Year's Model's music is straightforward and very accessible - some very accessible new wave, with Elvis Costello's distinctive sound suiting it incredibly well. There is a large variety of styles - the rockier songs mixed in with what feels like pure pop - which really helps the tracks to stand out on their own. It also helps that the lyrics stand out well on their own, focused enough and adding their own layers to each song.

The one hundred and fourty-fourth classical recording: #582 Arnold Schoenberg - Erwartung

Erwartung is a one act, short opera for an orchestra and a single soprano. Notably, it never repeats itself, which really added to the complexity of the piece. It doesn't build themes it comes back to, but its economy of storytelling means it doesn't have to, instead it can rely on continuing to tell its story - it can have its complexity because of its brevity, which is a nice compromise. It's a short, sad piece that was lovely to listen to.

The four hundredth album: #400 The Only Ones - The Only Ones

While nominally a punk album - and featuring some tracks that go in that direction - The Only Ones feels just as often like a pop rock album, featuring love songs rather than political creeds. It's far from uncommon in punk - some bands were obviously more establishment than others - but it feels like the band is just as much a post punk band that uses it in some of their songs, but avoids it as often. Musically, it leads to a mix of songs of different proficiency, with the poppier tracks being more interesting to listen to. Lyrically, they don't do much for me, but there are some interesting attempts to do something different in the album - even if it doesn't always hold up as a whole.

The three hundred and ninety-ninth album: #399 Pere Ubu - Dub Housing

Thanks to the Christmas break, the gap between the two Pere Ubu albums on the list is bigger than the two weeks we otherwise would have had - more as a quirk of the list's order than anything else. With a decent diet of post punk recently - see the recent songs post for a lot of it - Dub Housing fails to stand out. it's not by the book, but the experiments that are there don't work, there's nothing that makes them sound any better. It doesn't sound like it does anything new, it just sounds like a mess of noise. It might not all be entirely like that, but I can't say I find much more in here.

The five hundred fourty-first song: Love Will Tear Us Apart - Joy Division

Having mostly heard the refrain of this song recontextualized in a Sufjan Stevens Christmas song, the haunting, hollow sound of the vocals in its original context hits so much more. There's a sadness and lack of energy that seems to foreshadow so much, more of an acceptance than you might expect form post-punk music. The unenthusiastic repetition builds on this, a dark and depressing mood that gets you the right feelings.

The five hundred fourty-second song: Wardance - Killing Joke

On the other hand, the distortion of the loduer Wardance doesn't grip me as much, the sound feeling off putting and not leaning as much on any sort of recognition of the lyrics despite what they're claiming they're saying. For me, I think this has pushed too far in the metal direction, without taking on any other aspect that I'd find listenable.

The five hundred fourty-third song: Ace of Spades - Motorhead

Ace of Spades does it that bit better. Yeah, the driving guitar is there, but with a bit less distortion and a repetition that really gets you to hook in. It's got punk, it's got metal, but there's enough to hook you in even if you're not as fond of all of that.

The five hundred fourty-fourth song: Start! - The Jam

It might be the comparison from what it follows, but The Jam's throwback to sixties pop rock has it get a bit lost. The harmonies are nice, the hook is there, but it feels a bit toothless. We're going to get pop to develop it further, but it feels like it's still teetering on the edge of starting that, still not leaning into it as much as I would have liked.

The five hundred fourty-fifth song: Once in a Lifetime - Talking Heads

There's a built-in looseness in the structure of the song, the keyboard jingle offset from the rhythm in a way that encourages it to stay a bit off balance. The lyrics may still feel get simple,but there's a complexity that you can't quite grasp at any time and instead keep you wondering when you can grab it.

The five hundred fourty-sixth song: Vienna - Ultravox

Starting off small, Midge Ure's vocals suppressed to the point of barely being comprehensible, the piano providing variation in a song that's otherwise quite structured, until it swells into a more orchestral piece with violins and a more triumphant vocal (even as it repeats the same line). It's an odd song, good in its hook, but not something that I felt I really got.

The five hundred fourty-seventh song: Caballo Viejo - Simon Diaz

It feels like we get one of these per batch, a song that isn't in English and may not have made it out of their countries, but made it big in, in this case, the Spanish speaking world. It's a folk song, but one that incorporates some excitement in its bridge, like a Dylan song with a bit more spirit and the occasional shouts and whip cracking. It's good at what it does, sure, but I feel I miss too much context to really get what comes out of the song.

The five hundred fourty-eighth song: I Got You - Split Enz

As with Start!, we have a poppier song here, but here a pop rock styled piece that has the prog rock bits, a bit of other rock influences, falling under the wider new wave moniker. It means a mostly quite happy, accessible song, often exploding as a louder track out of a more subdued verse. It's a pretty accessible song, doing quite a lot while still feeling like it could be live without relying on its production too much.

The one hundred and fourty-third classical recording: #210 Gioachino Rossini - L'italiana in Algeri

The start of the year left me with an emptier calendar than usual, giving me time to listen to a long opera today. Thanks to the Livermore Valley Opera, I was able to watch a subtitled performance that did a good job showing the different performances as well, lending to a good build in the performance. This is about the music, though, and Rossini's score, too, feels remarkably light for a long opera. It might be the Algerian influences it's trying to achieve, but there's a levity in the music that isn't necessarily reflected in the subject matter, but leads to an opera that feels it flows fast and at its best stays out of the performer's way.

The story feels like it supports it in some way. While it has a love story, the writing clearly has as much fun with the deception angle, playing parts as a comedy, with Isabella first meeting Mustafa going there a lot.

The three hundred and ninety-eighth album: #398 Elis Regina - Vento de Maio

It's actually quite nice to have a different type of music to end the year's write ups on (not quite reaching the 400 album marker). It's an album of Brazilian pop music, but that description is mostly because the album covers a number of genres with a pop music bent, giving bossa nova, jazz and funk tracks, and more beyond. It's a variety that works well, with a production that supports each of them individually. Elis Regina's lovely voice supports all of them - a clear sound that feels like that of a Brazilian vocalist, if it makes sense to say so, and the tracks are clearly built around her. I don't think I would have given this album a look normally, but its variety is worth a listen.

The three hundred and ninety-seventh album: #397 Blondie - Parallel Lines

It takes until the second track for Blondie to make their statement here - One Way or Another is such a specifically aggressive sound that it stands out and shakes you up straight away. It's a blast of power that doesn't last, but it shows the lyrical focus and specific song writing that carries through even as the songs themselves aren't always as strong - it's still a good, powerful pop rock album to listen to.

The three hundred and ninety-sixth album: #396 Kraftwerk - The Man Machine

Let's look away from the album's place in history - Kraftwerk's futuristic stylings also predating a lot of simpler later electro pop acts - or how odd it must have seemed at the time. Just listening to the album, there's a lot to unpack on how I feel. There are some really interesting compositions in here, layering more like the works we listen to in the classical recordings than more regular pop songs. There are a lot of moments where it grabs your attention, but also enough repetition of the same elements that it lulls you in - often grabbing you with a change to suddenly remind you what you're listening to. It's never quite ambient, but it doesn't overwhelm you at any point either. And it addresses just enough to have a theme without requiring you to listen to it that much - The Model being the most lyric heavy, and standing out because of that. It is great in what it does - not excluding anything else, but with its own beauty.