The four hundred and nineteenth album: #419 Dire Straits - Dire Straits
Listening to this album, it's a fairly straight forward rock album, its blues influences feeling old fashioned for this point in time. It's competent at what it does - not aiming for the raucous heights of the Stones, but it has that Dylan-like blues feel with a larger musical structure around it. It also feels quaint, referencing a musical style that doesn't do much for me.
The one hundred and fourty-ninth classical recording: #321 Robert Schumann - Concertstuck for Four Horns
A rare horn-focused piece, Schumann's Concertstuck for Four Horns is still quite subdued for a piece featuring brass instruments. It has that joy, the horns adding more energy than other pieces would do, and it makes for a genuinely delightful piece, something that cheers you up. As much as this may not have been intended to fit in with other works, I do feel that I can see how in the context of a larger concert, this could be a great way to get the energy back up between more languid pieces.
The four hundred and eighteenth album: #418 Devo - Q: Are We Not Men? A: We Are Devo!
Listening to this album today, it makes me think that while there's some good potential in Devo's music, it's not quite there yet. There's something in the lyrics, but it needs some polish, and it feels like the album never quite works out what it wants to be or what it wants you to feel. It's frustrating, and I wonder whether this album is on the list as their best or most unique, or because the first is the default pick, as I am more curious to see where they ended up (d)evolving to.
The four hundred and seventeenth album: #417 The Cars - The Cars
With their eponymous album, The Cars bring us a strong new wave album, a strong vocal led album with some straightforward love songs and some more interesting twists on the formula. In fact, I'm not sure whether the experimental work, like I'm In Touch With the World, is necessarily always worth it compared to the more standard pop rock tracks featured on the album.
The four hundred and sixteenth album: #416 Willie Colon & Ruben Blades - Siembra
Siembra is a celebrated salsa album. I can't judge, as it's not my scene, but this is a fine album - nothing amazing as far as I can hear, but it works well enough. There's not enough in this for me to really get me to love the album, but it sounds like it's good at its own genre.
The four hundred and fifteenth album: #415 Van Halen - Van Halen
The recognisable meat of Van Halen's debut album is at its start, with tracks like Runnin' With the Devil being as well known as anything you can find. It shows the strengths of the album - a strong metal/hard rock base, aided by some well written music and supported by harmonies that feel rare in the genre - it's more trained than what we see, and especially compared to what we got out of the punk era. The album stays listenable and there's still a lot to enjoy in here.
The one hundred and fourty-eighth classical recording: #842 Dmitri Shostakovich - Piano Trio no. 2
Sad and dramatic, written by someone who wasn't in a good frame of mind, the sadness and chaos of Shostakovich's feelings at the time comes through in the nature of the music, which builds to a crescendo of anger, strings fighting strings while the piano plays darkly in the background. It's raw, almost frightening in its energy, and a positive challenge in this way.
The four hundred and fourteenth album: #414 Buzzcocks - Another Music in a Different Kitchen
I don't know why, but somehow I was expecting something darker from my first Buzzcocks album. Their first studio album features several upbeat punk tracks, with the aggressive guitars and beat that come with punk not sinking away into the anger. A lot of this comes from Pete Shelley's vocals, who sounds happier, really, and more positive, creating a better atmosphere this way. It's an album that flies by, keeping me more entertained than I thought I would be.
The four hundred and thirteenth album: #413 Talking Heads - More Songs About Buildings and Food
Something that I think will keep getting me when listening to Talking Heads albums is how it sounds that bit different - still a rock song, but the vocals are different, the music more haunting at times, and the whole album feels like it has its own musical identity that doesn't stray away from a genre, but doesn't sound entirely normal either. It's too constrained to feel fully experimental, but it still continues to be interesting enough
The one hundred and second book: #79 Life of a Good-For-Nothing - Joseph Von Eichendorff
To be hoenst, Life of a Good-For-Nothing did little for me. Maybe it's because I don't really like the "slacker lucks into success" stories a lot, but it really felt like this story relied too much on coincidences, tired twists that I think I've seen before in previous entries on the list. Our title character was likeable at times, clearly written to be that way, but also felt too dim and unaware at times to really convince me. I ended up rushing through a bit... it just didn't reach any real depths that I cared for.
The one hundred and fourty-seventh classical recording: #896 Joaquin Rodrigo - Fantasia Para un Gentilhombre
While we usually listen to older pieces, we get the 'proper' orchestra instruments - violins, wind instruments, perhaps a piano or organ. A guitar, though old in its own right, doesn't feature in that list, and it's a treat to hear it here, being supported by the rest of the orchestra. THe second movement, the longest of the four, dominates with its maudling tone, but it's surrounded by more upbeat pieces that do help lift the piece, giving it the variety and energy it needs. It shows off the guitar soloists well, while giving the rest of the orchestra as much time to build around that.