That is all. Not sure what the sub’s politics rules are so I’ll leave it at that for now
Having to drive in from out of town and leave my dog at home so I’ll probably have to skip the openers. Anybody know what time they’ll be on? Time on the tickets is 6:30 but I assume that’s the first opening band
I wouldn’t say I’m a very good guitarist but having a band to play in and decent equipment helps encourage me to keep at it. Sure, I could probably do with a little less, but everything I have serves a purpose and I’m happy to answer any questions. Here’s a rough price breakdown, all numbers include shipping/tax:
Boss Katana 100 Mk2 - $250
Squier Affinity HSS Strat - $200
Boss GA-FC - $90
Dunlop GCB95 Crybaby Wah - $50
Aklot pedal board with power supply - $60
Pedals on board (Lekato Tuner, MOOER Pitch Shift/Detuner, Donner Dumbal Drive, JOYO Splinter RAT Distortion) - $100 altogether
Grand total - <$800 gigging rig
It feels relatively complete for now, but the next items on my list are noise gate, new pickups, and locking tuners.
Other than better cable management, how else can I improve?
Thanks in advance!
I was a Bungle fan long before I was a Swans fan but now that I love them both, all I could think about was Filth when I heard this song again.
None of their other stuff necessarily sounds like this but if you enjoy experimental, avant garde, genre hopping music, it’s worth a shot to listen to this album or California.
Rules:
Used each artist only once (i.e. can’t use Tool for a 3 album run and a 5 album run)
Only consecutive studio album releases
Honorable mentions that just barely missed the cut:
Brian Eno-Here Come the Warm Jets thru Another Green World
Talking Heads 77
Mr. Bungle self titled
King Crimson-Larks’ Tongues thru Discipline
Swans-White Light thru Soundtracks for the Blind
The Beatles-Revolver and Sgt Pepper’s
RATM-self titled and Evil Empire
I should preface this by warning you that what follows is nothing more than my own delusion and personal belief projected on the band.
I’m a newish fan and have been falling deeply in love with the music, but didn’t quite know exactly why until recently when trying to get one of my friends into it too. The lengths of the albums can be kind of daunting, and he asked me which one has the least filler. That’s how this whole rant began.
Among the longer albums, The Glowing Man has little to no filler imo despite being a whopping 118 minutes. It doesn’t have to be as long as it is to get the point across, so in that sense you could say there’s filler, but every song is worthwhile and imo even the drawn out parts do a great job of drawing you in and entrancing you. The first or one of the first times I listened to it, my wife and I were on a long drive. She was driving, I was high asf off a weed pen fully reclined in the passenger seat. 2 hours came and gone before I knew it, but laying there in the state I was in with my eyes closed, just absorbing the full sonic sanctum of the album was a wild experience, almost like an acid trip.
There are parts that some would consider scary or disturbing, but for me the discomfort always either went away or added to the experience because I knew that whatever was happening in the song would soon change. It may be unpleasant, it may be disturbing, but it’s building slowly towards something.
When “something” finally arrives, you know it’ll be epic. Until then, you either pay close attention to all the ever changing minute details of the music and notice the different layers adding in as it builds, or you completely zone out and forget that there’s anything playing at all. I’m sure the THC and setting contributed a great deal to that experience and it was essential for me fully understanding the album, but even now when I revisit it has a similar effect on me and all I can think about is how insane it sounds.
I couldn’t honestly tell you a central theme for most of their albums, but I think their entire body of work as a whole kind of embodies and represents two things, the first of which is suffering. Discomfort, rage, sadness, anguish, mourning, physical pain, fear. So much of their music embodies these aspects to me, and for that reason it is so cathartic. Like Blood Promise from Swans Are Dead. Listening to it makes me feel like there’s a heaviness on my chest that is just banging and beating on me, trying to pierce through to my heart and let out the things that I’m suppressing and the feelings I’m trying to find within myself. By the end of it, I feel like my soul was ground up, spit out, and came out cleansed on the other side.
The second thing I think that serves as a consistent theme across their discography is change. Like I said about The Glowing Man, you know for a fact that whatever happens in any given moment is eventually going to change, maybe a little, maybe drastically. Whatever’s going on, if you don’t like it, just hang in there and eventually it’ll change. The same could be said of the band and its directions in general across albums and eras. Filth sounds very different from the 90s trilogy, and while TGA bridges the gap to SFTB, which bridges the gap to Swans Are Dead and subsequently the reunion era, they still very much have their own identity while maintaining the general embodiment of heaviness, suffering, and doom.
But it’s not just the music that constantly changes, it’s the musicians too, that change for each round of tours or each era that will eventually come to an end and change into a new incarnation of the ensemble referred to as Swans, with new styles, perspectives, influences, and approaches brought in for each defining era of the band. Gira and one or two others are fairly set in stone, but anybody that’s not Gira hasn’t always been there and won’t always be there when the band comes into a new iteration. Yet their contributions will still be just as important and valued by the fans at as those of any other era of the band.
And with the change, whether it be between albums, eras, or even within a single song, comes beauty and ethereal transcendence. You just have to wait it out and endure the suffering, either becoming numb to it or dialing in on it obsessively, paying close attention to every minute detail, and eventually, change will come, as will beauty and transcendence.
I think all of this is meant to mirror life and the general way it goes. I believe that existence is suffering. It is what we’re meant to do. Without it, there is no existence, and only in nonexistence can there be true perfection, or an absolute lack of suffering. Even monks experience pain and personal turmoil. Animals in nature (as well as human beings at the bottom of the food chain) are constantly fighting for their survival. Even plants experience stress and suffering in some capacity.
There may be wars, there may be poverty, there may be droughts, there may be depression, but eventually, the inevitable change will happen, and if you look closely enough through all the anguish and all the layers that build up to a climax, you’ll find something to appreciate. Maybe something beautiful, maybe just something interesting, but at least it’s something that makes you just hold on a little longer.
Of course there’s other artists that change drastically over the span of dozens of albums and decades of music, like David Bowie or King Gizzard, but I don’t know of any others that have it as a central defining thematic pillars of the band.
That’s what Swans means to me.
I’m curious what other Swans fans think, as like I said I’m kind of new and could be wrong about all of this. So what do you all think? Do you agree or disagree with suffering and change being core themes of the band?
In the grand scheme of things I’ve explored a small fraction of Swans’ catalogue but goddamn this section has to be among their greatest moments. It’s so heavy in a way that I didn’t know could be described as heavy. It feels like a weight on my chest, simultaneously caressing me and piercing me to dig out whatever impurities and burdens exist in my heart. It is easily one of the greatest moments in music that I’ve ever heard. Maybe that’s just the weed talking, but very few are capable of what Swans did here imo
Now that the series is over, I thought I’d share my current Top 50 albums (one per artist). They’re roughly in order, and you can assume that each album in a row of 5 is roughly equal to every other album in its row. 6 albums from this series made it into my Top 50, though I can’t say for sure that they would be here if I didn’t limit myself to one album per artist, as some of my favorites have 5-10 albums that would be in my true Top 50-100. Also, these obviously aren’t limited to <1hr, they’re just my top 50 regardless of length.
I’ve also done some thinking and reevaluating of what exactly constitutes an 8, 9 and 10 to me, so I made some final final tweaks (for now) to a few ratings here. It’s very possible that I feel differently tomorrow, but this is what it is for now so we’ll call it my final thoughts.
I’m still very picky with my true perfect 10s, and there’s only 10 of them, but I realized with some thinking that I don’t need to be so strict and nitpicky about my 8s and 9s. Everything in this topster is a 9 or higher because I don’t think I could fit all my 8s into one topster, but I’ll try if anybody’s actually interested.
Bark Psychosis-Hex-8/10
Brand New-The Devil and God are Raging Inside Me-3/10**
Depeche Mode-Violator-9.5+/10**
Yes-Close to the Edge-8/10*
The Congos-Heart of the Congos-7.5/10**
Sade-Love Deluxe-10/10
Glenn Branca-The Ascension-8/10*
Magdalena Bay-Imaginal Disk-9.5+/10**
Cocteau Twins-Heaven or Las Vegas-6.5/10
Unwound-New Plastic Ideas-7/10*
Portished-Dummy-7/10*
D’Angelo-Black Messiah-8/10**
Hum-Downward is Heavenward-7.5/10*
Joanna Newsome-Ys-8/10*
Joy Division-Closer-6.5/10**
Gang of Four-Entertainment!-6/10
Neutral Milk Hotel-In the Aeroplane Over the Sea-7.5/10**
Charles Mingus-The Black Saint and the Sinner Lady-7.5/10
Blood Incantation-Absolute Elsewhere-7.5/10
Beach House-Bloom-7/10
Nina Simone-Wild is the Wind-9/10
Interpol-Turn on the Bright Lights-9+/10**
Carly Rae Jepson-E•MO•TION-4/10
Air-Moon Safari-8/10
Broken Social Scene-You Forgot It In People-9+/10*
I got some really incredible music out of this series and piles of recommendations to sift through still from the albums that didn’t make the cut.
Thanks to everybody who participated!
Feel free to ask questions about the final ratings or let me know what you think of my personal top 50
We have reached the end of our series at last.
REVIEW/RATING:
I’m not going to rate anything in any “objective” manner, as I’m sure it’s all good music, but I’ll rate each album on a scale of 1-10 based on how much personal enjoyment I get out of it.
1-completely unlistenable
2-I don’t completely hate it
3-there are some parts I like, but not a pleasant experience overall
4-not a bad album but not my thing
5-good album that I don’t necessarily like or dislike
6-very good
7-great, but not quite a favorite of mine
8-mind-blowing, among my all time favorites
9-very little holds it back from perfection
10-truly flawless with nothing to nitpick no matter how hard I try
Asterisks next to an album’s rating signify that it changed, and they may change again before the end of the week. You can look back to previous posts to see what it was before.
For the final day, I did things a little differently to make sure we got an absolute banger to end on.
Midnight Marauders by A Tribe Called Quest was the top comment, but I’m already familiar with it. It’s a fantastic album and I like it a lot, there’s nothing wrong with it, but I’m not all that into rap so for me personally it gets a 7/10.
Anyways, I had some extra time on my hands so I picked three albums, listened to about half of each, and decided from there which one to review today:
Who Will Cut Our Hair When We’re Gone by The Unicorns
Richard D James Album by Aphex Twin
You Forgot It In People by Broken Social Scene
I decided to go with YFIIP and I’m glad I did. What a fantastic album. It reminds me of some of my other favorite bands like MMJ and Modest Mouse, but of course it’s very much its own thing. My favorite songs were just about all of them honestly. It’s got great musicianship, great atmosphere, lots of emotion, and I honestly can’t think of anything negative to say about it. I wasn’t just totally blown away by every single song, but I think it deserves at least a 9/10 and may very well become one of my few perfect 10s as I spend more time with it. User whose name I can’t remember, thank you for your persistence in recommending this. You’ve been asking for days and I’m so glad I finally got to it.
Well, that’s all folks. This has been a lot of fun. I got some really incredible music out of this.
Though this is the end of the recommendations, I’ll make one final reflection/discussion post on Monday to talk about things like my top 5 from this series and a topster of some of my other 8s, 9s, and 10s so that you all can see where these albums land in relation to my other favorites.
I made some final tweaks to some of the ratings. If you have any questions, comment them here and I’ll get around to them for the Monday post. Thanks everybody!
Looking for flawless albums less than an hour in length to fill up my drive to work. Here’s the rules:
Any genre is welcome. Top comment will dictate what I listen to on my drive to work the next business day and I will give a short review. If I’m already very familiar with the top comment album, I’ll skip it and go to the next one, but it will be acknowledged in my write up.
As I said, all genres are welcome, but I do have preferences and I’m sure a lot of my favorites will be commented, so to help cater to my taste and prevent overlap with albums I already know and love, here’s my top 10 artists in no order:
TOOL
Pink Floyd
King Crimson
Swans
My Morning Jacket
David Bowie
Ween
Mr. Bungle
Primus
Talk Talk
REVIEW/RATING:
I’m not going to rate anything in any “objective” manner, as I’m sure it’s all good music, but I’ll rate each album on a scale of 1-10 based on how much personal enjoyment I get out of it.
1-completely unlistenable
2-I don’t completely hate it
3-there are some parts I like, but not a pleasant experience overall
4-not a bad album but not my thing
5-good album that I don’t necessarily like or dislike
6-very good
7-great, but not quite a favorite of mine
8-mind-blowing, among my all time favorites
9-very little holds it back from perfection
10-truly flawless with nothing to nitpick no matter how hard I try
Asterisks next to an album’s rating signify that it changed, and they may change again before the end of the week. You can look back to previous posts to see what it was before.
Today we have Moon Safari by Air.
At first listen, I was like “damn this is just Stereolab”, but with my second listen, I realized there’s more to it than that. I like how orchestral it is in some places and the bass lines and percussion make it lean into r&b/soul territory. I have almost no complaints about this album. I could take or leave the more electronic tracks like Kelly Watch the Stars. They’re fine, they’re fun, they’re not detrimental to the listening experience, but they were notable low points for me personally.
Stereolab is among my top 100 artists, I have Emperor Tomato Ketchup and Instant Holograms on Metal Film both on vinyl, but I think I maybe like this more than Stereolab because like I said it ventures into r&b/soul territory and is more orchestral. Those are big pluses to me that make this album more unique and break it out of the Kraut rock label that I would’ve slapped on it otherwise. Anyways, I’m giving it an 8/10 because I liked it at least as much as Turn On the Bright Lights.
Today is the last day for recommendations, let’s go out with a bang!
EDIT: since today is the last day and I’d like to end on a high note, I’ll do things a little differently. I’m gonna sample a track or two from 3-4 albums and use that to decide which one to listen to
Looking for flawless albums less than an hour in length to fill up my drive to work. Here’s the rules:
Any genre is welcome. Top comment will dictate what I listen to on my drive to work the next business day and I will give a short review. If I’m already very familiar with the top comment album, I’ll skip it and go to the next one, but it will be acknowledged in my write up.
As I said, all genres are welcome, but I do have preferences and I’m sure a lot of my favorites will be commented, so to help cater to my taste and prevent overlap with albums I already know and love, here’s my top 10 artists in no order:
TOOL
Pink Floyd
King Crimson
Swans
My Morning Jacket
David Bowie
Ween
Mr. Bungle
Primus
Talk Talk
REVIEW/RATING:
I’m not going to rate anything in any “objective” manner, as I’m sure it’s all good music, but I’ll rate each album on a scale of 1-10 based on how much personal enjoyment I get out of it.
1-completely unlistenable
2-I don’t completely hate it
3-there are some parts I like, but not a pleasant experience overall
4-not a bad album but not my thing
5-good album that I don’t necessarily like or dislike
6-very good
7-great, but not quite a favorite of mine
8-mind-blowing, among my all time favorites
9-very little holds it back from perfection
10-truly flawless with nothing to nitpick no matter how hard I try
Asterisks next to an album’s rating signify that it changed, and they may change again before the end of the week. You can look back to previous posts to see what it was before.
Day 22 brought Carly Rae Jepsen’s E•MO•TION.
Some positive things I can say about it are that the production was pretty good and some of it was catchy. However, I didn’t really enjoy it at all. I don’t quite actively dislike it like that Brand New album, but I did find myself wishing it was over not long after it started. It just struck me as being more stereotypical 2010s teenage girl pop than anything else. No song was necessarily bad, but I didn’t find any full song particularly catchy or impressive in any way.
Sure, it’s fine for what it is, but what it is just isn’t my thing. It’s certainly no Thriller or Imaginal Disk and just didn’t have the substance or wow factor that music has to have to hook me. So it gets a 4/10, aka still a good album, but not my thing at all. It kind of makes me want to lower my Brand New score even more to emphasize the difference between something that’s nearly unlistenable to me and something that’s just fine that I don’t care to return to.
Hope I didn’t say anything too blasphemous, but keep in mind it’s just a measure of my personal enjoyment and not an objective appraisal of the album’s quality.
See you all tomorrow for Day 24, we’re nearing the end!
Looking for flawless albums less than an hour in length to fill up my drive to work. Here’s the rules:
Any genre is welcome. Top comment will dictate what I listen to on my drive to work the next business day and I will give a short review. If I’m already very familiar with the top comment album, I’ll skip it and go to the next one, but it will be acknowledged in my write up.
As I said, all genres are welcome, but I do have preferences and I’m sure a lot of my favorites will be commented, so to help cater to my taste and prevent overlap with albums I already know and love, here’s my top 10 artists in no order:
TOOL
Pink Floyd
King Crimson
Swans
My Morning Jacket
David Bowie
Ween
Mr. Bungle
Primus
Talk Talk
REVIEW/RATING:
I’m not going to rate anything in any “objective” manner, as I’m sure it’s all good music, but I’ll rate each album on a scale of 1-10 based on how much personal enjoyment I get out of it.
1-completely unlistenable
2-I don’t completely hate it
3-there are some parts I like, but not a pleasant experience overall
4-not a bad album but not my thing
5-good album that I don’t necessarily like or dislike
6-very good
7-great, but not quite a favorite of mine
8-mind-blowing, among my all time favorites
9-very little holds it back from perfection
10-truly flawless with nothing to nitpick no matter how hard I try
Asterisks next to an album’s rating signify that it changed, and they may change again before the end of the week. You can look back to previous posts to see what it was before.
Today we have Turn On the Bright Lights by Interpol.
This is one I’ve been meaning to get around to for a while and I’m glad I finally did. It reminds me a little bit of Sonic Youth and a little bit of The Strokes. There were some tracks I could live without, like PDA, and it would be better with a different vocalist imo, but it’s still an instant favorite that I’ll be listening to a lot. Coming in at an 8/10. Is this last week gonna be the best?
See you all tomorrow for Day 23!
Looking for flawless albums less than an hour in length to fill up my drive to work. Here’s the rules:
Any genre is welcome. Top comment will dictate what I listen to on my drive to work the next business day and I will give a short review. If I’m already very familiar with the top comment album, I’ll skip it and go to the next one, but it will be acknowledged in my write up.
As I said, all genres are welcome, but I do have preferences and I’m sure a lot of my favorites will be commented, so to help cater to my taste and prevent overlap with albums I already know and love, here’s my top 10 artists in no order:
TOOL
Pink Floyd
King Crimson
Swans
My Morning Jacket
David Bowie
Ween
Mr. Bungle
Primus
Talk Talk
REVIEW/RATING:
I’m not going to rate anything in any “objective” manner, as I’m sure it’s all good music, but I’ll rate each album on a scale of 1-10 based on how much personal enjoyment I get out of it.
1-completely unlistenable
2-I don’t completely hate it
3-there are some parts I like, but not a pleasant experience overall
4-not a bad album but not my thing
5-good album that I don’t necessarily like or dislike
6-very good
7-great, but not quite a favorite of mine
8-mind-blowing, among my all time favorites
9-very little holds it back from perfection
10-truly flawless with nothing to nitpick no matter how hard I try
Asterisks next to an album’s rating signify that it changed, and they may change again before the end of the week. You can look back to previous posts to see what it was before.
Kicking off our last week with Nina Simone’s Wild is the Wind.
Legendary vocals and lyrics, incredible musicianship, wildly influential, beautiful, haunting, uplifting, gut wrenching, and everything in between. What more can I say?
I have no qualms whatsoever with this album and I’m tempted to give it a 10, but I can think of a few albums that I like more so we’ll leave it at a 9 for now and let it simmer. It may blossom into a 10 before the end of the week.
Truly an incredible album, thank you for suggesting it. Can’t wait to see what today will bring. See you all tomorrow for Day 22!
Not taking or reviewing any albums today, so if you’re here for that, come back Monday. A lot of these albums have grown on me, so these are my updated scores and thoughts on them.
It’s important to think of my scores as levels of enjoyment on a scale of 1-10 rather than a grade, ie a 6 for me is not equivalent to getting a 60 on a test. It’s a 6 where 1=did not enjoy and 10=the greatest thing I’ve ever heard.
1-completely unlistenable
2-I don’t completely hate it
3-there are some parts I like, but not a pleasant experience overall
4-not a bad album but not my thing
5-good album that I don’t necessarily like or dislike
6-very good
7-great
8-mind-blowing, among my all time favorites
9-very little holds it back from perfection
10-truly flawless with nothing to nitpick no matter how hard I try
So let’s get into it. I’ll abbreviate/use acronyms for the sake of brevity:
TDAGARIM-I still did not really like this album at all on subsequent listens. The music is fine and there’s moments that I really enjoy, but the singer’s voice ruined the vast majority of it and there was not a single song that I would ever choose to listen to again. I felt like I was listening to Midwest emo fuckboy Christian rock. I think a 3.5 is honestly generous given how I feel about it, but the music is at least decent so that’s what it gets.
Violator-I came to realize that this album is near perfect. Catchy, experimental, enjoyable throughout, no bad songs, but not every song just totally blew me away and I can think of a few albums I like more, so it gets a 9/10.
HOTC-My only complaint was with the sound quality and white noise, thinking that I wouldn’t care to seek it out or listen to it again, but I did and I liked it more. Not quite a favorite, but still a great album. 7/10.
The Ascension-already loved it, now I love it a little more. Moved up to favorite status at an 8/10.
Imaginal Disk-I’m not afraid to put my pride aside and admit I was being a hater giving this one a 4.5. I felt underwhelmed after all the hype it’s gotten and that the vocals were too infantile and it was just an overrated pop record. It really is brilliant though. Like Violator, catchy and experimental with great musicianship. Lots of ear worms, but also quite a few songs I could take or leave. Not quite in my top 50 albums of all time, so I’ll give it an 8/10.
New Plastic Ideas-already liked it, I like it a little more. 7/10.
Dummy-I ended up adding about half the songs to my playlist, but I still feel that it’s underwhelming and somewhat predictable after a few songs as a full album experience. Moved it up from 6 to 7/10.
Closer-I still have a hard time with the vocals but the instrumentals are good enough to keep me coming back. 6/10.
ITAOTS-I like it more every time I listen to it now that I know more about the lyrical content. I don’t care to listen to any one song in a playlist, but I like listening to the whole album altogether. 7/10.
See you all Monday for Day 21! This will be the final week and final 5 albums
Looking for flawless albums less than an hour in length to fill up my drive to work. Here’s the rules:
Any genre is welcome. Top comment will dictate what I listen to on my drive to work the next business day and I will give a short review. If I’m already very familiar with the top comment album, I’ll skip it and go to the next one, but it will be acknowledged in my write up.
As I said, all genres are welcome, but I do have preferences and I’m sure a lot of my favorites will be commented, so to help cater to my taste and prevent overlap with albums I already know and love, here’s my top 10 artists in no order:
TOOL
Pink Floyd
King Crimson
Swans
My Morning Jacket
David Bowie
Ween
Mr. Bungle
Primus
Talk Talk
REVIEW/RATING:
I’m not going to rate anything in any “objective” manner, as I’m sure it’s all good music, but I’ll rate each album on a scale of 1-10 based on how much personal enjoyment I get out of it.
1-completely unlistenable
2-I don’t completely hate it
3-there are some parts I like, but not a pleasant experience overall
4-not a bad album but not my thing
5-good album that I don’t necessarily like or dislike
6-very good
7-great, but not quite a favorite of mine
8-mind-blowing, among my all time favorites
9-very little holds it back from perfection
10-truly flawless with nothing to nitpick no matter how hard I try
I already typed out this whole thing and then Reddit deleted it and I don’t have time to fully redo it, so unfortunately you’re getting a shortened, revised, less nuanced summary of what I had to say.
For Absolute Elsewhere I was blown away by it but wished that it had more clean vocals and less blast beats, just barely holding it back from being an instant favorite, so I gave it a 7.5. It’ll probably grow on me some more though.
For Bloom, I liked every single song, but it didn’t blow my mind, and similar to the Cocteau Twins and Portished albums, I felt like I pretty much knew what to expect after 3 or 4 songs. I think it’s best as individual songs rather than as a full album, so I’m giving it a 7. I know it’s technically 61 minutes, but fuck it close enough. I’ve been meaning to get around to it for a while anyway.
Quite a few albums up here have grown on me a lot more and for others, the hype has died down. I’ll be updating scores this weekend and probably posting on Saturday or Sunday. And remember, these ratings are measures of my personal enjoyment of the sonic experience, not an objective appraisal of the album’s quality.
I say all that to say you don’t need to keep commenting about how low I rated Imaginal Disk, it’s getting updated this weekend.
For the score update post this weekend, I won’t be taking any recommendations unless it just happens to blow up way more than this one, so go ahead and comment your albums for Monday now.
Great suggestions guys, looking forward to discussing the revised scores this weekend. See you all then!
Looking for flawless albums less than an hour in length to fill up my drive to work. Here’s the rules:
Any genre is welcome. Top comment will dictate what I listen to on my drive to work the next business day and I will give a short review. If I’m already very familiar with the top comment album, I’ll skip it and go to the next one, but it will be acknowledged in my write up.
As I said, all genres are welcome, but I do have preferences and I’m sure a lot of my favorites will be commented, so to help cater to my taste and prevent overlap with albums I already know and love, here’s my top 10 artists in no order:
TOOL
Pink Floyd
King Crimson
Swans
My Morning Jacket
David Bowie
Ween
Mr. Bungle
Primus
Talk Talk
REVIEW/RATING:
I’m not going to rate anything in any “objective” manner, as I’m sure it’s all good music, but I’ll rate each album on a scale of 1-10 based on how much personal enjoyment I get out of it.
Several people seemed confused by my “low” ratings when I give something less than an 8. I haven’t changed my rating scale, but I did clarify and specify a little more so that people have a better idea of what a 5 or a 6 is to me. Here’s the updated scale:
1-completely unlistenable
2-I don’t completely hate it
3-there are some parts I like, but not a pleasant experience overall
4-not a bad album but not my thing
5-good album that I don’t necessarily like or dislike
6-very good
7-great, but not quite a favorite of mine
8-mind-blowing, among my all time favorites
9-very little holds it back from perfection
10-truly flawless with nothing to nitpick no matter how hard I try
Now, today’s album is Charles Mingus’ The Black Saint and the Sinner Lady.
This isn’t exactly my preferred flavor of jazz, as I tend to lean more towards more melodic, funky, or ambient, like bebop, Return to Forever, or Nala Sinephro, but this is still a masterpiece of an album with excellent musicianship on display that does a great job at building and relieving tension and never becoming boring.
That being said, because there is so much dissonance and because that’s just not what I want when I’m listening to jazz, I’m giving it a 7.5. It’s a great album that I’ll be returning to regularly, but I just can’t say it’ll become a favorite of mine anytime soon.
In other news, quite a few albums up here have grown on me a lot more and for others, the hype has died down. I’ll be updating scores this weekend and probably posting on Saturday or Sunday. And remember, these ratings are measures of my personal enjoyment of the sonic experience, not an objective appraisal of the album’s quality.
I say all that to say you don’t need to keep commenting about how low I rated Imaginal Disk, it’s getting updated this weekend.
Tomorrow, for the sake of neatness and symmetry, I’ll do 2 albums to get back on track so that we can end on a Friday. Most likely I’ll take the top comment and runner up or one that I’ve been meaning to get around to.
Thanks guys and I’ll see you all tomorrow for Day 19/20!
It’s not the tire pressure that light just came on and it was already sounding like that
Looking for flawless albums less than an hour in length to fill up my drive to work. Here’s the rules:
Any genre is welcome. Top comment will dictate what I listen to on my drive to work the next business day and I will give a short review. If I’m already very familiar with the top comment album, I’ll skip it and go to the next one, but it will be acknowledged in my write up.
As I said, all genres are welcome, but I do have preferences and I’m sure a lot of my favorites will be commented, so to help cater to my taste and prevent overlap with albums I already know and love, here’s my top 10 artists in no order:
TOOL
Pink Floyd
King Crimson
Swans
My Morning Jacket
David Bowie
Ween
Mr. Bungle
Primus
Talk Talk
REVIEW/RATING:
I’m not going to rate anything in any “objective” manner, as I’m sure it’s all good music, but I’ll rate each album on a scale of 1-10 based on how much personal enjoyment I get out of it.
1=unlistenable, not my thing at all
2-4=not my thing but I can appreciate it for what it is
5-7=pretty good, but not mindblowing. Will probably return to at least a few songs on a regular basis
8-10=incredible, one of my new favorites
Day 16’s album was the infamous In the Aeroplane Over the Sea by Neutral Milk Hotel.
I’ve tried this album several times before and it never really clicked with me, it always left me feeling underwhelmed and bored. But the more I listen to it, the more I like it. It’s got a good flow to it and I’m learning to feel the emotion in it and appreciate the general vibe of it. It’s got some really great moments and I particularly like the title track and Two Headed Boy into The Fool. There’s some great lyrics and songwriting and I can see how it’s a literary masterpiece, but musically and sonically I don’t think it’s mindblowing.
I can see myself returning to it as a complete album again, because I enjoy the experience and immersing myself in it, but I don’t think any of it will be going into my playlist. So I’m not really sure what to do with it rating wise. Even though it’s “nothing special sonically”, there’s something to be said for it being a worthwhile experience as a complete album and the emotion that it makes me feel even with minimal contextual and lyrical knowledge. So I think I’ll give it a 6.5, which is much higher than I was expecting to give it, and to me is still a very good score that denotes quality.
In other news, it seems like a lot of people are confused by my rating scale so I’m considering reworking it. Let me know in the comments if that’s something I should do tomorrow. I guess a 6.5 means something else to me than it does most other people.
See you all tomorrow!
Looking for flawless albums less than an hour in length to fill up my drive to work. Here’s the rules:
Any genre is welcome. Top comment will dictate what I listen to on my drive to work the next business day and I will give a short review. If I’m already very familiar with the top comment album, I’ll skip it and go to the next one, but it will be acknowledged in my write up.
As I said, all genres are welcome, but I do have preferences and I’m sure a lot of my favorites will be commented, so to help cater to my taste and prevent overlap with albums I already know and love, here’s my top 10 artists in no order:
TOOL
Pink Floyd
King Crimson
Swans
My Morning Jacket
David Bowie
Ween
Mr. Bungle
Primus
Talk Talk
REVIEW/RATING:
I’m not going to rate anything in any “objective” manner, as I’m sure it’s all good music, but I’ll rate each album on a scale of 1-10 based on how much personal enjoyment I get out of it.
1=unlistenable, not my thing at all
2-4=not my thing but I can appreciate it for what it is
5-7=pretty good, but not mindblowing. Will probably return to at least a few songs on a regular basis
8-10=incredible, one of my new favorites
Day 15 would’ve been Future Days by Can, but it’s already a favorite of mine and I’d give it a 9/10.
Instead, I listened to Entertainment! by Gang of Four. This one was simple but fun. I felt like it left a lot to be desired in terms of sonic variation and the consistent style, especially in the vocal melodies, made it hard for me to say that any one track stood out over another as they all kind of sounded the same to me, but I did still enjoy them all. I think it’s just best enjoyed individually rather than as a whole album in one sitting. But I’ll give it a 6/10. I can’t say for sure I’ll be seeking it out very much since none of the songs were particularly memorable to me, but if they ever come on shuffle I’ll be happy to listen.
In other news, I want to remind everyone that my ratings and reviews here are for the most part gut reactions only based on one or two listens with very little attention paid to lyrics because I’m driving. Through the course of this series, I’ll be revisiting and updating scores for most of them.
But a 5/10 isn’t a bad score, it’s a neutral one, a 6 or higher is a positive score, and unless I give something a 0 or 1, I’m not at all saying it’s bad music, just doesn’t align with my preferences.
In particular I’m saying all this about Dummy and Imaginal Disk because I feel that I may have treated them too harshly and it seems some of you agree, but like I said they’re still good. Let me know if there’s any other albums you all feel I treated too harshly.
Thanks everybody and I’ll see you for Day 17!
So far all I have is a tuner, pitch shifter (makes practice easier), dumbal drive, and JOYO splinter distortion.
My main goal is to have a footswitch for phaser, flanger, and chorus, with EQ, delay, and comp always on, plus a wah pedal. I don’t know much about this stuff so being easily navigable/user friendly is also really important. With that in mind, which of these setups is my best bet?
EDIT: my amp is a Boss Katana Mk2 100w. I should’ve mentioned that already