#403: Liars - They Were Wrong, So We Drowned (2004)

Emily: A few songs into this album, I turned to Zack (who was sitting next to me on the couch watching TV) and told him that I thought this album sounded like spooky Halloween noises. It reminded me so much of the CD you buy at the costume store to provide some ~ambiance~ for the haunted house in your suburban garage. This album is mostly just weird noises being passed off as experimental music. Although a few of the later tracks did actually have some melody and rhythm to them, those aspects were overshadowed by the sheer weirdness and dissonance of it all. The Halloween vibes may have been seasonally appropriate, but if that's what I wanted I would've just turned on the Monster Mash.
Favorite Tracks: Hold Hands and It Will Happen Anyway; We Fenced Other Gardens with the Bones of Our Own; If You're A Wizard Then Why Do You Wear Glasses?

Zack: You know how I normally bemoan every post punk album for sounding identical and just generally not being very interesting. Well, the good news is that I won’t be doing that on this one. For starters, I thought this album might have promise because it appears towards the end of the post punk list I created, and I generally tend to like bands considered post punk revival (Klaxons, Interpol). But apparently I just completely misclassified it. This album really belonged in the experimental rock category, and it is pretty clear to me know that this is less Kaiser Chiefs and more a swarm of bees driven mad with bloodlust. It was really unpleasant and strange, which made it very different from all of those 80s post punk albums, but not at all in a good way. I thoroughly disliked this album, and I honestly struggle to find any redeeming qualities about it. I would have gladly taken an uninspiring but innocuous 80s album by like Siouxsie and the Banshees.

Favorite Tracks: We Fenced Other Gardens with the Bones of Our Own; There's Always Room on the Broom; Hold Hands and It Will Happen Anyway

#402: Marilyn Manson - Antichrist Superstar (1996)

Zack; I was pretty apprehensive of this album. On the one hand, there are things like the title or the artwork or the names of the songs. On the other, I kind of like the few Marilyn Manson songs I’ve encountered in the wild (namely Beautiful People and Vampire) and I remember watching Bowling for Columbine when I was a kid and seeing Marilyn Manson be probably the most thoughtful and articulate person in that whole documentary (I rewatched that interview before I wrote this and it still kind of holds up, especially the part where he says “I wouldn’t say anything to [the people of the Columbine High School community], I would listen to them because it’s the one thing that no one did.”) Both of those points gave me hope. I found that the album confirmed that my reasons for hope were right. While I was listening to it, I was reminded of this band that I’ve gotten kind of into in the past few years, Deafheaven. In terms of general sound, there really aren’t that many similarities. But what I like about Deafheave is how well produced the rollicking metal riffs and screeching sound. It’s metal, but it sounds really lush. The production on Antichrist Superstar was comparable in that sense. Even if this album growled where Deafheaven tend to scream, there was a richness to the music that was really impressive. I don’t think I’ll ever get really into it, and I probably won’t ever listen to it again (when I crave metal, which is rarely, I usually just rotate between the aforementioned Deafheaven and early Metallica, and I’m content with not branching out much from there). But it’s certainly worth a listen, even for the less thrashy among us.

Favorite Tracks: The Beautiful People; Antichrist Superstar; Tourniquet

Emily: I always associate Marilyn Manson with his cover of Personal Jesus by Depeche Mode. For the longest time, I thought that was his song, not a cover. Even when I hear the original I always assume it's the Marilyn Manson version. Before today, I'm not sure if I had even heard any of Manson's own songs. Personal Jesus is certainly more approachable to an unaccustomed listener (like me) than most of Antichrist Superstar, but I liked this album more than I thought it would. Yes, it has its moments of disorienting anger and distortion, and it's about 20 minutes too long, but there's grandiose performance and melody surrounding it all. And it just works, better than I thought it could.

Favorite Tracks: The Beautiful People; Angel with the Scabbed Wings; Tourniquet 

#401: The Ramones - Ramones (1976)

Zack: Oh man. I used to listen to this album all the time. Then I just kind of stopped listening to it one day, probably because I discovered that London Calling could scratch any itches I had for 70s punk music. Honestly, I think I’ve missed it. It can be kind of rough, but in an unabashed way. There is a surprisingly clear vision for what the album is supposed to be, which is pretty remarkable considering this was the debut by a band that was, in many ways, inventing a new aesthetic. It knows exactly what it wants to be and really hits the mark. You can imagine how bands often considered the contemporaries of the Ramones, namely The Clash and the Sex Pistols, heard this and just said yeah let’s do this now. And while the Sex Pistols made the sound more aggressive and the Clash brought in a more diverse group of influences and merged them into punk, it’s clear that the Ramones left a great foundation for them to work off of. I still prefer London Calling, but my appreciation for this album was definitely rekindled.

Favorite Tracks: Blitzkrieg Bop; Today Your Love, Tomorrow the World; Now I Wanna Sniff Some Glue

Emily: I was introduced to the Ramones many years ago in a perhaps unusual way. Rather than a cool friend or cousin playing a few tracks for me, I first came to love Blitzkrieg Bop when it was featured on the Jimmy Neutron movie soundtrack. I have no idea why my brother and I decided we needed to have that CD for endless future car rides, but it's a surprisingly good, albeit random, collection of pop music. Alongside Aaron Carter, Britney Spears, and a Lil Romeo/Nick Cannon cover of Parents Just Don't Understand, the soundtrack also features some classic punk and pop jams - most notably We Got the Beat by the Go-Gos and Blitzkreig Bop by the Ramones. While the Ramones probably would not want to see their music in the company of these other artists, let alone on a soundtrack for a Nickelodeon kids movie, it kinda makes sense to have it there. Blitzkreig Bop, much like the rest of the Ramones' eponymous debut, is a simple yet hard-driving wallop of power-punk. It's the rough-edged predecessor of the punky '80s pop of the Go-Gos and their peers, as well as the scores of pop-punk bands that emerged in the '90s and '00s. But the Ramones did it first, and they still did it best. While the coolness factor may not be quite the same after years of marketing and soundtrack features, this album stands the test of time with punks and non-punks alike.

Favorite Tracks: Blitzkrieg Bop; I Wanna Be Your Boyfriend; Let's Dance

The (Less than) Annual Album Awards: 400 Albums Edition

Can’t stop, won’t stop. It’s a funny line from a ChappelleShow skit. It’s a book on our shelves that desperately wants to be read. And it’s the underlying mantra for us here at 1001 Album Reviews. We’ve labored and toiled over the course of more than 5-and-a-half years. And yet, we can’t stop. We won’t stop.

Except today, when we are totally stopping to celebrate meeting the 40% mark on this endeavor! Another hundred albums have come and gone, and it is time to memorialize them the only way we know how/have tried: *Oprah voice* FAKE AWAAAAAAAARDS!!!

So, without further ado, let’s revisit some of the albums and artists that have left their mark over the last nearly 2 years since our last fake award. And then, let us begin anew our efforts to complete this slog. For glory!!!

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Zack: What’s in a name? For us, a shit ton. A very important criterion for which albums we choose to listen to is how cool is the name. So I wanted to take a moment to recognize those bands and albums with implausibly cool names. With that said, the nominees for the Mustapha Mond Award for Best Name are…

The Boo Radleys - Giant Steps
Super Furry Animals - Fuzzy Logic
Tom Waits - Nighthawks at the Diner
Violent Femmes - Violent Femmes
The Wu-Tang Clan - Enter the Wu-Tang (36 Chambers)

And the winner is…Tom Waits, Nighthawks at the Diner! While there is little special about the man’s name, I love this album title. There’s something about it that is just very vivid and poetic. Boo Radleys have a great band name, but the album title is lacking. Violent Femmes is also a great band name, but they don’t get double points for going with an eponymous album title. I like the link between the band and album titles for Super Furry Animals, but neither really capture the essence of the band. Wu-Tang Clan almost snatched this. It is a great name and the album title is better than going purely eponymous. I honestly love it. But I just love Nighthawks at the Diner (as a title) a little bit more.

Emily: Sometimes, the best thing about an album is its danceability. There is always room for music that you can groove to at a club, in the car, or even in your living room when no one else is home. It doesn't have to be the most interesting or groundbreaking album - all you need are some good beats and a few lyrics that are fun to shout along with. The nominees for the Shake Your Groove Thing Award are...

ABBA - Arrival

Basement Jaxx - Remedy

Curtis Mayfield - Super Fly

Justice - Cross

Sister Sledge - We Are Family

And the winner is...Sister Sledge, We Are Family! While Justice and Basement Jaxx are great for the club, I'm just not the club-going type. But throw on We Are Family in the car or at a wedding, and everyone from your grandma to your baby cousin will be dancing and singing along. Disco is made for dancing, and Sister Sledge have mastered the groove.

Zack: You would think that a list of 1001 albums that demand listening would only have good stuff within in. You would be very wrong. Every once in a while, an album betrays us. They force us to listen as they are unmistakably and irredeamably bad. They hit us where we’re most sensitive with this suckiness. The nominees for the Steven Adams’s Testicles Award are…

ABBA - Arrival
Barry Adamson - Moss Side Story
The Beau Brummels - Triangle
Culture Club - Colour By Numbers
Throbbing Gristle - D.o.A.: Third and Final Report

And the winner is…Throbbing Gristle, D.o.A.: Third and Final Report!!! Throbbing Gristle may be the album we listened to most recently, but I still feel confident saying that it was also the worst. Beau Brummels’s mediocrity drove me crazy. Barry Adamson was just lacking cohesiveness and was kind of dull. And ABBA and Culture Club share a common sin: They were just too fucking poppy. Throbbing Gristle, however, was just terrible from start to finish. I don’t have any clue why anyone would ever like this album. I just don’t.

Emily: Sometimes, among all of the classic albums that we get to listen to on this list, something totally terrible sneaks on. Not just mediocre, not just confusing, but music that can actually cause physical pain when you listen to it. Unpleasant albums have come up in every section of our journey through the list, but only a select few are deemed totally unlistenable. The nominees for the I'd Rather Take the Bar Again than Listen to This Album are...

Adam and the Ants - Kings of the Wild Frontier

Barry Adamson – Moss Side Story

Nitty Gritty Dirt Band - Will the Circle be Unbroken

Scott Walker - Scott 2

Throbbing Gristle - D.o.A.: Third and Final Report

And the winner is...Nitty Gritty Dirt Band, Will the Circle be Unbroken! Although there were many strong contenders for worst album here, Nitty Gritty clocks in at almost two hours of twangtastic country music. I listened to it over the course of several days last summer, and each time I prayed for it to be over as quickly as possible. The sheer length combined with the unpleasantness makes this the album I'd choose the bar exam over, time and time again.

Zack: And now, to celebrate those precious albums that make it all worthwhile. Plenty of albums that we come across are good, and some are even great. But there are previous few gems that make you stop and say “Wow.” These are those albums. They’re the ones that change the way you think of music. They’re the ones that seem to wash over you in their excellence. They’re the ones you definitely don’t put on Dropbox for other people to bask in since that would be illegal file sharing. And among these gems, one shines brightest. This gem, from the listed nominees, is the Steven Adams’s Moustache Award Winner. The nominees…

BB King - Live at the Regal
Bruce Springsteen - Darkness on the Edge of Town
Fundadelic - Maggot Brain
Otis Redding - Otis Blues/Otis Redding Sings Soul
Wu-Tang Clan - Enter the Wu-Tang (36 Chambers)

And the winner is….the Wu-Tang Clan, Enter the Wu-Tang (36 Chambers)!!! It’s one of my favorite rap albums, and for damn good reasons. It completely changed the course of rap music, all for the better. I wrote a long review for it, so I won’t sing its praises too much. But I will say that it beat out some tough competition. BB King and Otis Redding created masterpieces of their genres in Live at the Regal and Otis Redding Sings Soul. Bruce did some amazing things lyrically on Darkness at the Edge of Town, and the genius in those words is matched by what Funkadelic did musically on Maggot Brain. All of these albums, and a number of others that couldn’t make the cut, were strong contenders. But, I mean, it’s 36 Chambers. Enough said.

Emily: As easy as it was to find albums that I hated from this batch, it was really hard to find ones that I loved. Maybe it's because it's been almost two years since we last had an awards post, or maybe it's because this middle section just wasn't all that inspiring. However, a few albums broke through the dust to become my favorites. The Diamond in the Rough Best Album nominees are...

B.B. King - Live at the Regal

Count Basie - The Atomic Mr. Basie

Joni Mitchell - The Hissing of Summer Lawns

Morrissey - Your Arsenal

Primal Scream - Vanishing Point

The winner is...B.B. King, Live at the Regal! Over the last couple of years, I've listened to more and more jazz and blues music. It's probably because I mostly listen to music while I work, and instrumentals do the trick of keeping me focused while not distracting me. But I have had the opportunity to hear some live jazz in the last few months, and I've realized that jazz is best heard live. The musicians can improvise and try new things, feeding off the audience and coming up with new classics right before their eyes and ears. B.B. King's live album epitomizes the energy of a live show, helmed by one of the masters of the craft. That's why it's an enduring classic, and my favorite album of this group.

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Well, thanks for putting up with another long post. We’ll be back to reviewing albums shortly, and we’ll try to get around to doing another one of these before the sun expires. But no promises.

#400: Tangerine Dream - Phaedra (1974)

Zack: Tangerine Dream has released over 100 albums, so one was bound to make this list just by sheer chance. The one that did, Phaedra, is among the group’s first albums. I didn’t particularly like the album, but reading the Wikipedia page has given me some sort of appreciation for it. After I finished listening, I happened to note that the year on the album was maybe a decade or so earlier than I thought it would have been. And it turns out that this was not a typo in my iTunes but rather a symbol of how ahead of their time Tangerine Dream were. They were among the first to start playing around with synthetic instruments, and really seemed to be trying to push them as far as they can go. None of the cosmic nature of the sounds that are described on Wikipedia came through for me. But I can see how absolutely seminal this album is for so many electronic genres that have come since.

Favorite Tracks: Mysterious Semblance At The Strand Of Nightmares; Phaedra; Movements Of A Visionary

Emily: This album didn't really inspire anything in me. Granted, I was studying family law for the bar while I listened to it, but I think even if I had 100% laser focus on the music I still wouldn't have gotten much out of it. I tend to feel that way about a lot of electronic albums we listen to. When they're pleasant and ambient, the music tends to fade into the background, like waves crashing at the beach or the buzz of the city outside my window. It's nice to hear, but doesn't elicit much else from me. Phaedra fit right into that scheme of electronic music. I'll take it any day over something that's loud and screeching, but 400 albums definitely went out with a whimper.

Favorite Tracks: Phaedra; Mysterious Semblance At The Strand Of Nightmares; Movements Of A Visionary

#399: Supertramp - Crime of the Century (1974)

Emily: I'm sure if I rooted through the milk crate in my parents' basement that holds my mom's old records, I would find a Supertramp record. Most likely it would be Breakfast in America, the band's biggest record in America with hits like The Logical Song and Take the Long Way Home. When these songs pop up on classic rock radio in the car my mom will blast them and sing along. That's essentially all I knew about Supertramp until today. What I didn't know was that Breakfast in America was actually the band's sixth album, and that Crime of the Century was both their third album and their first real breakthrough. It went Gold in the U.S., selling over 500,000 copies (something that rarely happens today, but was a regular occurrence in the '70s). And without listening to their other stuff, it seemed to me that this is where Supertramp started to figure out the sound that would bring them great success a few years later. It's a little prog rock, a little artsy, and a little pop. It's the kind of sound that would only work at that moment in time, but it totally makes sense. Taking a quick look back at the list, we won't get to hear any more Supertramp to see how they continued to hone and evolve this sound. However, maybe next time I'm home I'll search for that record.
Favorite Tracks: School; Bloody Well Right; Asylum

Zack: With a name like Supertramp, I kind of expected some semi-campy hard rock. Honestly, I’d say my expectations were about in line with what I expected out of Bad Company. Loyal lookers with long…memories (damn, really thought I could keep that going) may remember that I was somewhat pleasantly surprised by how decent Bad Company (the album) was. Crime of the Century took it up a couple of notches. This album wasn’t only decent, it was downright good. There was some Pink Floyd-ish vibes going on, mingling with the Led Zeppelin that was my favorite part of Bad Company. It was pretty dynamic and just a pleasant listen. I could easily see myself revisiting it down the road, and enjoying it each time.

Favorite Tracks: Crime of the Century; School; Hide in Your Shell

#398: George Michael - Faith (1987)

Zack: Faith is George Michael’s first solo album after leaving Wham!, and it pretty much defined what everybody will think of him from the day it was released until the end of time. The song Faith was so big that even I, with my general dislike of anything from the 80s, could not possibly hope to escape it growing up. I never liked that song, and so I didn’t expect to like this album. And parts of it I really didn’t like. But there were other parts that really won me over. The main one was Kissing a Fool, which was sung so perfectly that I was kind of shocked that this gem had followed the shittiness that is Monkey (I know that the song went #1 on Billboard as a single but it still sucks; fight me if you care so much about it.) When Michael slowed down and allowed more soul influences to bleed through, I was really impressed. When he let the 80s flow through him with corny upbeat pop bullshit, I was left pretty dour. Except for the 9-minute song explicitly about fucking, that is.

Favorite Tracks: Kissing a Fool; Look at Your Hands; I Want Your Sex

Emily: Many of the pop albums that we listen to affirm my belief that pop is a genre of singles, not albums. A great pop song can transcend genre and generations, but more often than not those great songs are featured on albums padded with filler that barely deserves to share a track listing with them. Of course, there are exceptions to this (Michael Jackson particularly comes to mind, but Thriller ended up being essentially all singles anyway). George Michael's Faith, unfortunately, lives up to the great-single-bad-album rule. Faith is upbeat and impossibly catchy, reminiscent of Michael's earlier band Wham, and the radio appeal of Father Figure and I Want Your Sex is clear. The rest of the album, however, feels like unnecessary filler. With the exception of the unexpected throwback soul of Kissing a Fool, the non-single parts of Faith don't even come close to the pop success of the title track.

Favorite Tracks: Faith; I Want Your Sex; Kissing a Fool