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.
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.
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.
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.
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.