Every CD I own . . .

Moss

ICBM said:

Paul_C said:

CD#236 Miles Davis - Kind Of Blue

I don't have much in the way of jazz on CD, but it's difficult to avoid the gateway drug of jazz albums unless you refuse to ever listen to jazz. I have listened for pleasure a number of times since I bought it, so this isn't being played just because I have to listen to all my CDs, and I'm sure I'll hear it again.

The thing with this album - and probably most of his stuff, although I only have the 3-CD "The Real..." compilation apart from Kind Of Blue - is that you can listen to it over and over again and still hear new cleverness and complexity every time. There is a reason why it's consistently rated as one of the most important jazz albums ever, and maybe even higher than that.

Totally this. I picked this up on a bit of a whim last year when it was a fiver in some vinyl magazine thing; I don't even really listen to jazz. 

There's a reason this is so highly regarded - it's completely immense! An absolutely incredible set of musicians

Paul_C

Apologies to @TTony - I didn't have much work today and my soon to be gone ex-missus was out almost all day so I didn't do much other than glue a loose acoustic guitar neck and listen to music.

Paul_C

Day 54

CD#239 Smashing Pumpkins - Siamese Dream

Fuzz-tastic guitar and crashing drums mixed with quiet moments of delicate beauty.

CD#240 Pink Floyd - Meddle

Mostly enjoyable mellow prog-rock, plus a howling dog.

CD#241 The Who - Who's Next

If this was on vinyl then my liking of 33 1/3 % of it would be appropriate.

CD#242 Cheap Trick - The Greatest Hits

It starts with a (previously unreleased) cover of Magical Mystery Tour, which is an odd choice for a greatest hits album. I bought it for one of my favourite songs, the live version of I Want You To Want Me.

TTony

Paul_C said:

Apologies to @TTony - I didn't have much work today and my soon to be gone ex-missus was out almost all day so I didn't do much other than glue a loose acoustic guitar neck and listen to music.

I've slipped well behind in listening to the stuff you've got that I don't.  I blame having to "work".  

Have to totally agree with @ICBM and @Moss re Kind Of Blue.  It should be on some sort of mandatory listening list for everyone.  A list of albums that you have to listen to every 5 years, and every 5 years you'll appreciate it in a different way as your understanding of music evolves.

Paul_C

Day 55

CD#243 R.E.M. - Up

Not as popular as some of their albums but I really like it.

CD#244 Kula Shaker - Peasants, Pigs and Astronauts

Bought because of Shower Your Love, the rest is ok but my favourite hasn't changed.

CD#245 Mark Hollis - Mark Hollis

Once of Talk Talk, this is his first and probably last solo album.

Paul_C

Day 56

CD#246 Mike Oldfield - Tubular Bells

I heard this once or twice in my youth but obviously wasn't listening very closely as I was quite surprised by the CD when I bought it a few years ago. Far more ragged and strange than I recalled, much more interesting though.

CD#247 Supergrass - I Should Coco

Great tunes, great fun.

CD#248 Suede - Dog Man Star

Often considered their masterpiece, it's third on my list, but what do I know.

CD#249 Tich Vango - As The Crow Flies

Local singer-songwriter, I won this in a raffle.

ICBM

Paul_C said:

CD#246 Mike Oldfield - Tubular Bells

I heard this once or twice in my youth but obviously wasn't listening very closely as I was quite surprised by the CD when I bought it a few years ago. Far more ragged and strange than I recalled, much more interesting though.

It's really brilliant - especially when you realise he wrote it all when he was 17 and recorded it in downtime at a studio using whatever borrowed instrumentation he could get - including the famous tubular bells, which just happened to be there for some other recording.

He later ruined the effect by re-recording it "as it was meant to be" in 2003. It's better technically but doesn't have the spark of the original.

Sporky

TTony said:

Have to totally agree with @ICBM and @Moss re Kind Of Blue.  It should be on some sort of mandatory listening list for everyone.  A list of albums that you have to listen to every 5 years, and every 5 years you'll appreciate it in a different way as your understanding of music evolves.

I bought it a few years back on account of so many people I previously trusted insisting it was great.

I struggled to get through it even once. Awful racket.

ICBM said:

He later ruined the effect by re-recording it "as it was meant to be" in 2003. It's better technically but doesn't have the spark of the original.

It was a bit too polished the second time, IIRC. (brief pause while Sporky consults Wikipedia). Ah - I didn't know he'd done it again. Gah.

Paul_C

Day 57

CD#250 Kris Delmhorst - Five Stories

More acoustic singer-songwriter loveliness with backing vocals from another singer recently listened to, Jennifer Kimball.

CD#251 David Bowie - Heathen

An interesting mix of originals and covers, including I Took a Trip (On a Gemini Spaceship), originally by The Legendary Stardust Cowboy (Paralyzed would have been more amusing to hear, but you can't have everything).

CD#252 Sam Brown - Box

More loveliness from a beautiful voice.

CD#253 Neutral Milk Hotel - On Avery Island

Lo-fi fuzztastic indie folk-pop, apparently. This is the debut album, the next one (on the way) is supposed to be the masterpiece.

CD#254 Roy Harper - Stormcock

Prog-folk! No idea why I don't have more than just this album.

CD#255 The Jam - The Gift
 
Released not that long before they split up, with songs like Precious and Trans-Global Express being cited as the cause of the split (I'm not a fan either). Despite this the good songs are as good as anything they did and not a bad way to sign off.

CD#256 Led Zeppelin - Led Zeppelin II

Mighty stuff with a decidedly live feel to it.

Paul_C

Day 58

CD#257 Joni Mitchell - Hejira

A chilled start to the day.

CD#258 Little Monkeys - Live at the Marquee

Clive Murray (from Day 24) playing guitar with Little Monkeys at, if the title is to be believed, The Marquee.

CD#259 Marcus Miller - Silver Rain

Marcus Miller slapping and popping away as he does. I saw him at The Jazz Cafe a few years ago and my abiding memory, apart from the heat, was a harmonica player who appeared to have written the wrong keys down on his setlist. There was a keyboard solo toward the end of the night which started with a repeated single note (in the right key) for about 8 bars that I cheered for its tunefulness relative to the harmonica.

CD#260 R.E.M. - Reveal

Impossible to hear Imitation Of Life without remembering the clever video that accompanied it.

HAL9000

Moss said:

ICBM said:

Paul_C said:

CD#236 Miles Davis - Kind Of Blue

I don't have much in the way of jazz on CD, but it's difficult to avoid the gateway drug of jazz albums unless you refuse to ever listen to jazz. I have listened for pleasure a number of times since I bought it, so this isn't being played just because I have to listen to all my CDs, and I'm sure I'll hear it again.

The thing with this album - and probably most of his stuff, although I only have the 3-CD "The Real..." compilation apart from Kind Of Blue - is that you can listen to it over and over again and still hear new cleverness and complexity every time. There is a reason why it's consistently rated as one of the most important jazz albums ever, and maybe even higher than that.

Totally this. I picked this up on a bit of a whim last year when it was a fiver in some vinyl magazine thing; I don't even really listen to jazz. 

There's a reason this is so highly regarded - it's completely immense! An absolutely incredible set of musicians

Agreed. Also not really a jazz fan, but bought Kind of Blue and A Love Supreme on a whim as they both get mentioned a lot as essential listening. Both totally immense.

Paul_C

Day 59

CD#261 The Costello Show featuring the Attractions and Confederates - King Of America

The first without (apart from one song) The Attractions - it's none the worse for that, despite my preference for most of his work with them.

CD#262 Thelonious Monk - Monk's Moods

69 tracks on 4 CDs covering his career from 1947 to 1955.

CD#263 The Vapors - Turning Japanese (The Best Of The Vapors)

This includes all of the excellent first album (which I have on vinyl) and some of the second album (which I don't), plus my favourite Vapors B-side - the live version of Here Comes The Judge.

CD#264 Jeff Wayne's War Of The Worlds

Wonderful, magical, remarkable - as a youth I used to put my vinyl version of this on my stereo in my bedroom and turn the light off so I could concentrate on listening. A superb cast (and band) performing a brilliant piece of work

Paul_C

Day 60

CD#265 Pink Floyd - Animals

I was reminded while listening to this of a song by The Leyton Buzzards called No Dry Ice Or Flying Pigs, which I'm currently listening to on YouTube - great fun!

CD#266 Fairport Convention - Fairport Convention

Their first album, and quite different from their other work. Sandy Denny joins after this and they write a lot more of their own songs, moving away from US folk rock to something a little more British.

CD#267 Black - Wonderful Life

Tinged with sadness due to his recent demise, this kicks off with the title track - which is a lovely song and one that means it'll be a long time before he's forgotten. R.I.P. Colin Vearncombe.

CD#268 Iggy Pop - Lust For Life

My all-time favourite Iggy album, one I used to listen to a lot as I used to put it on my bedroom stereo cranked up full and drum along to it.

CD#269 Show Of Hands - Roots: The Best Of Show Of Hands

I saw them once playing to about 50 people behind a pub in Lympstone, Devon - huge fun.

CD#270 Various - Now That's What I Call Northampton Vol 1

A collection of tunes from Northampton's finest. 

CD#271 Moses - Golden Flatts

Last to be played and their last album. It's just as good as the first, and a pretty good way to sign off. 

Paul_C

Day 61

CD#272 Steely Dan - Pretzel Logic

The most upbeat, chirpy Steely Dan album so far.

CD#273 Pink Floyd - The Wall

This is the time I really became aware of Pink Floyd, with the release of Another Brick In The Wall Pt. 2. I'd heard Dark Side Of The Moon at a friend's house but before I'd really started to get into music, so it hadn't really registered with me.

CD#274 Monsieur Pantin - Ma Rosalie

Anglo-French, mostly (16/19) instrumental folk shenanigans, featuring pipes. woodwind, guitar and mandocello.

TTony

Paul_C said:

CD#273 Pink Floyd - The Wall

This is the time I really became aware of Pink Floyd, with the release of Another Brick In The Wall Pt. 2. I'd heard Dark Side Of The Moon at a friend's house but before I'd really started to get into music, so it hadn't really registered with me.

I never really "got" The Wall.

I was more into punk in the 70s, so the preceding Floyd stuff pretty much passed the disinterested-me by at a safe distance.  When The Wall was released, I gave it a listen or two, but it didn't click.  I've since gone back to Animals/DSOTM/etc and realise what I'd missed originally, but The Wall still leaves me fairly cold.

Paul_C said:

a song by The Leyton Buzzards called No Dry Ice Or Flying Pigs,

I remember "Saturday night beneath the plastic palm trees" ... 

richardhomer

TTony;1071502" said:

I never really "got" The Wall.

I was more into punk in the 70s, so the preceding Floyd stuff pretty much passed the disinterested-me by at a safe distance.  When The Wall was released, I gave it a listen or two, but it didn't click.  I've since gone back to Animals/DSOTM/etc and realise what I'd missed originally, but The Wall still leaves me fairly cold. 

Same here.

Gilmour once described it as 'a bit of a winge' and I agree.

Strikes me as PF's equivalent of 'The White Album' - it would have probably made a great single album - but just too lacking in focus to take in one sitting.

I realise this probably makes me a bad person....

ICBM

I like The Wall, but I find it a bit too intense to listen to unless I'm really in the right mood, and it's one where you can't really listen to the individual songs properly out of context - including Comfortably Numb. The same is true of The Final Cut.

The surprising thing is that as the years go by I think The Final Cut might actually be my favourite Pink Floyd album - apart from the last two tracks, which I don't like - it's also often described as a whinge (not only by Gilmour) but it really isn't if you listen to it properly… it's a very powerful piece of writing. But then I think Gilmour never really seemed to understand what Waters was driven by.

Philly_Q

The Wall is quite special to me.  It came out in 1979, the year I began really getting into rock music, and it was one of the first few albums I bought and listened to with that teenage intensity that seems to fade away as you get older.  

Tommy Vance played the whole thing the night before it was released, I went out and got it the next day and listened to it dozens of times.  I hadn't heard much Pink Floyd before that so I wasn't comparing it to what had gone before, it was just this remarkable self-contained thing and it was wonderful.  It's been a while since I heard it but it's pretty much imprinted in my brain anyway.

I'm still annoyed that I lost the self-adhesive "Pink Floyd The Wall" plastic sticker off the cover.

Paul_C

I've only had time for one today, though that was a double album (I didn't watch Eurovision, I watched Shutter Island, which was just as weird)

CD#275 Gram Parsons - GP/Grievous Angel

His two solo releases, the second one posthumous. There are flavours of all sorts of other bands, some contemporaries (Big Star) and some who came later (The Jayhawks) in a mix of straight country, country rock, alt country etc.

Paul_C

Day 63

CD#276 Placebo - Placebo

Not heard this for ages, I thought there were only two tracks worth listening to and that Nancy Boy was a lot faster, I was wrong on both counts.

CD#277 XTC - Go 2

Their second and the last one with Barry Andrews, before Dave Gregory joined and the sound moved away from thin and quirky to something richer and quirky.

CD#278 Queens Of The Stone Age - Songs For The Deaf

Another one not listened to for a while. My favourite version of No One Knows is a live acoustic performance found on YouTube, particularly Nick Oliveri's bass tone.

CD#279 Marillion - Fugazi

More prog shenanigans from Fish and the boys.

CD#280 Terrorvision - How To Make Friends And Influence People

Bought because of the single Oblivion which is a great song and far and away the best thing on this album.

CD#281 Travis - The Man Who

Another mystery, as I love this album but it's the only Travis album I own.