#433: Leftfield - Leftism (1995)

Zack: Lately, I’ve been working on coding presidential campaign announcement speeches based on issue content. The endeavor has led me to a number of very interesting findings. For one, Herman Cain implies that we would be better off if the president were illiterate in his 2012 speech (something Rand Paul would vehemently disagree with, since he spends a good chunk of time talking about his proposed “Read the Bill” law that would require legislators to actually read legislation before they sign it) and that Ron Paul is strongly against the government regulating the pasteurization of milk. But besides for the occasional gems, the task is mostly incredibly boring. Most candidates say the same tired prose about American values over and over again. But the work still requires me too much of my attention. Other research I’ve done may have involved more rote data entry, and so I could listen to a podcast or an album or watch a basketball game while doing it. But here, any attempts at multitasking inevitably lead to me getting distracted. Except, that is, for this album apparently. Leftism is a house/dance album, so it perfectly blended into the background and didn’t distract me at all. There was enough change from track to track that I subconsciously could recognize when one song ended and another began, which let me subtly monitor that passage of time and give it a semi-informed review. And overall, I thought it was meh. But it was an unobtrusive meh, and I really appreciated it for that at least.
Favorite Tracks: Original; Open Up; Melt


Emily: Generally, my office is a headphone-free zone. There's no official rule, but there's only four of us, we're usually very busy with detail-oriented work, and my boss is decidedly old-school. Therefore, I'm usually working at my desk without any music, podcasts, or other audial ambiance. Today, though, is an exception. We're in a particularly slow time, and my boss is out all day, so I decided to get some album-listening in while doing a bit of research for my next case. Leftism turned out to be well-suited to desk listening. It's an electronic "dance" album, though I'm not sure how much actual dancing can be done to ambient melodies and house beats. However, it struck just the right balance between background ambiance and holding my attention, allowing for just enough focus on both the music and my research. Other albums wouldn't necessarily work quite as well for this task, but I'll keep my eye out for other desk-friendly music as the list goes forward. Perhaps people will even listen to more music at my next place of employment.
Favorite Tracks: Afro-Left; Space Shanty; Original

#432: The Beatles - Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band (1967)

Zack: I think more than enough ink (digital and otherwise) had been spilled on this album, so I’m going to try and keep this semi-brief. I’m on record as thinking The Beatles are overrated, my case rests on the assertion that most of their catalogue is them making pretty good pop songs, and just because you were consistently good at something doesn’t, in itself, make it extraordinary. Sgt. Pepper’s, therefore, is not a piece of evidence I would call attention to. On this album (much as they do on Revolver as well) they try and experiment and push some boundaries. For me, they stand out here, and that answers my main criticism. That said, I still don’t particularly love this album. It’s good, and there are some songs I really like. Now that I think about it, I don’t think I’d ever sat down and listened to it from start to finish, although every single song was familiar. Kind of in the same way that if you’ve ever listened to a classic rock station, you’ve heard the entirety of Dark Side of the Moon. But I didn’t think the album gained much from being a cohesive project rather than a collection of songs. Plus, many of the songs, while different enough to be interesting, I ultimately didn’t think were that exciting. Basically, this album made me pay attention more than I did when we listened to With the Beatles, but I wasn’t quite as captivated as I was for Revolver. That’s enough for me to say that it’s worth checking out, but not enough for me to endorse it as an all-time great album.

Favorite Tracks: Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds; Good Morning Good Morning; With a Little Help from My Friends

Emily: The mythos and imagery surrounding Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band almost overshadows the music. The album cover, the band uniforms, the mustaches - all have been enshrined in the collective cultural memory as evidence of the world changing during the Summer of Love in 1967. By then, The Beatles had stopped performing live, abandoned the clean-cut image beloved by their teenage fans, and turned inward towards spirituality, experimentation, and (shortly thereafter) fighting amongst themselves. Sgt. Pepper is often regarded as a turning point in The Beatles' career, and the music reflects that just as well as everything else. Some of the music dips its toes into experimentation, while still remaining carefully crafted pop and rock songs. It's a moment of musical transition, but an iconic one. Nearly every song is recognizable to the most casual of music fans, and each one stands the test of time. Do I think Sgt. Pepper is the best Beatles album? Probably not. But it certainly lives up to the mythology that surrounds it.

Favorite Tracks: With a Little Help from My Friends; Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds; Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band

#431: The Isley Brothers - 3 +3 (1973)

Emily: The early '70s were such a good time for soul and funk music, the kind of music that for decades now has made people get up dance the second it comes on. Cover bands fill stages and play these songs for audiences that may not remember the names of the artists but certainly remember the grooves, and many of the originals are still around and kickin' ass too. Surprisingly (at least to me), a version of The Isley Brothers is still out there performing. Potential declines in performance quality notwithstanding, that's definitely a good thing. I'm not familiar with most of The Isley Brothers' expansive discography, but 3 + 3 was an excellent example of classic funk and soul. Some of the songs are immediately recognizable as staples in commercials, movies, and samples. But they're definitely worth listening to on their own, and I'm sure they're even better live (particularly at an outdoor concert on a summer Friday night). And I know these songs will continue to get people out of their chairs to dance for years to come, no matter who is performing them.
Favorite Tracks: That Lady; Sunshine (Go Away Today); Summer Breeze

Zack: The Isley Brothers are a perennial favorite source of samples for the hip-hop community, and that was my main form of exposure to them before today. There was something super entertaining about hearing notes of I by Kendrick in That Lady, or the similarities between The Highways of My Life and Daily Routine by Joey Bada$$, or Summer Breeze and UGK’s Tell Me Something Good. (I’m sure there are a bunch that I’m missing, but those were the ones that jumped out to me.) I can see why they would be such an inspiration. 3 + 3 is an amazing album. I absolutely loved it, and I expect it will be in my top 5 for this batch of 100 when we get there 6 years from now. It was that good. There isn’t anything particularly profound about it as a standalone project, but it is just a collection of 9 absolutely phenomenal songs. What else could you ask for?

Favorite Tracks: That Lady (Part 1 & 2), Highways of My Life; Summer Breeze

#430: The Magnetic Fields - 69 Love Songs (1999)

Zack: I have previously established my opinions on double albums, namely that an artist should never, ever make one. So I’m going to assume any readers can guess my thoughts on a triple album. Hint: This isn’t a situation where a negative multiplied by a negative makes a positive. It is pure subtraction. Over the course of this entire 3-hour behemoth, I gave 10 songs 5 stars. In terms of raw numbers, that’s incredible. But then you realize that that is 14.5% of the total album. 69 Love Songs leaps around stylistically, sometimes following up a country-esque love ballad with a synthy pop song. And I am totally fine with that. If you’re trying to create an album about love songs, you can’t ignore the fact that people have used different genres to perform such songs since basically music was invented. I liked songs from all sorts of genres on this record. The problem was that I had to sift through so much other stuff to get to the songs I liked. It was daunting. I broke the listening up between two sessions, and I left both feeling equally exhausted. Love songs shouldn’t be so tiring.

Favorite Tracks: How to Say Goodbye; Come Back from San Francisco; No One Will Ever Love You

Emily: Listening to this album was a marathon. I broke it up over three sessions over the course of two weekends (with several little breaks in the middle), and I still feel exhausted. 69 Love Songs feels like an entire discography, but it's just one overloaded album. There are certainly some lovely songs on here, but they get overshadowed by everything else.  At a certain point it's just self-indulgent to pack an album to the gills with minute-long novelty tracks to get to your requisite 69 songs. A better approach would have been to cut it down to 12 Really Good Love Songs, and leave the 69-based snickering in the studio.

Favorite Tracks: I Don't Want to Get Over You; No One Will Ever Love You; I Can't Touch You Anymore

#429: Spiritualized - Lazer Guided Melodies (1992)

Zack: I noticed that I’ve been pretty ambivalent to the last handful of albums, mostly noting that they were fine at best. When I saw that the next album I had up to listen to was listed as psychedelic rock and was an hour long, I just assumed that this streak would continue. Luckily, I was wrong. I really liked Lazer Guided Melodies. It had this serene quality to it that made it perfect for the mood I was in when I listened to it (doing mindless busy work in the process of building a database for my dissertation, but early on in the day before my brain is fried from staring at a screen for like 14 straight hours). The music just seemed to float around me. It swaddled me like a warm blanket. I wonder if the album would have been as pleasant if I had listened to it while in a different mood or while doing something else. I probably wouldn’t have given it much thought then. But, fortunately, it was absolutely perfect for me in that moment and I’m very glad I got to enjoy it.

Favorite Tracks: You Know It’s True; Shine a Light; Run

Emily: An experimental album that misspells "laser" in its title didn't seem to bode well for my laid-back Saturday morning listening. I expected something along the lines of bombastic screeching - all the better to accompany a faux-spiritual laser light show. Luckily, Lazer Guided Melodies leans much more on the melodies than the lasers. The album had a peaceful, lullaby-like quality, which at its worst was a bit a boring but at its best was a lovely accompaniment to some cold brew coffee and the New York Times on a quiet weekend morning.

Favorite Tracks: You Know It's True; I Want You; Angel Sigh

#428: Fairport Convention - Liege & Lief (1969)

Zack: While I was listening to the album, I kept wondering why precisely it was being included. It seemed to me to be a perfectly fine representative of the folk rock genre, but beyond that I wasn’t really sure what made it so special. Folk isn’t really a genre known for innovation I guess, and the artists that succeed aren’t necessarily the ones who try bold new things like in other genres. But Liege and Lief really just sounded like a generic version of a couple of artists we’ve heard before, like The Byrds and Cat Stevens. And it didn’t seem to have much in the way of storytelling going on, which I’ve felt really can lift things up quite a bit. Overall, I was pretty underwhelmed by Liege and Lief. It was fine, but that was about it.

Favorite Tracks: Matty Groves; Tam Lin; The Deserter

Emily: This is yet another example of the British bias on this list. There is a plethora of influential late-'60s folk rock out there, but I don't really think Fairport Convention deserves top-tier recognition when the main action in the genre was going on in the U.S. I think it's really interesting that this album pulls from traditional British and Celtic folk songs (according to Wikipedia) and rearranges them for the then-modern audience. But I don't know enough about these traditional songs (or anything really) to really understand if and how they had been changed by Fairport Convention. Absent any real context, I think this album is best relegated to an afternoon set on a side stage at the folk festival - definitely not top billing.

Favorite Tracks: Matty Groves; The Deserter; Tam Lin

#427: Koffi Olomide - Haut De Gamme (1992)

Zack: This is, I believe, the first time I’ve really come across Congolese music. We’ve listened to a few artists from South Africa (Ladysmith Black Mambazo, Miriam Makeba) and I’ve encountered some from neighboring Mali (Ali Farka Toure, Tinariwen) and Niger (Fela Kuti, Bombino), but the Congo had remained sonically unexplored by me at least. After listening to Haut de Gamme, I can’t say that I was terribly impressed. Koffi Olomide chiefly operates in a genre of music called soukous, which is a type of dance music. Right away, I should have known I was in trouble. I haven’t typically gotten too into most types of dance music, since I listen to these albums usually on the couch while doing work or something. Not exactly an environment conducive to dancing. It just seems like Haut de Gamme is not an album made for me to enjoy. But, hey, if you do like dance music, especially variations on the rumba, this may be worth checking out.

Favorite Tracks: Désespoir; Obrigado; Koweit, Rive Gauche

Emily: World music is always an opportunity to explore a genre of music that I haven't encountered before and likely won't encounter again. Koffi Olomide's Haut De Gamme introduces us to soukous, a Congolese genre of dance music that was derived from the rumba. The name even comes from the French word for "to shake." And shake is what you will do when listening to this album. Maybe some elaborate dance moves will break out when Koffi Olomide comes on at a Congolese party, but some mild butt-shaking and shoulder-grooving from the comfort of your couch will fit as well. Either way, it's music that compels you to move.

Favorite Tracks: Elixir; Papa Bonheur; Qui Cherche Trouve