Entries Tagged 'Albums' ↓

I picked this up after someone on NPR named it one of the best albums of 2008.  Girl Talk consists of a single person, Gregg Gillis, a mashup DJ.  Feed the Animals is a 14 track album that’s made up entirely of a wide variety of samples, from 1960s classic rock to modern pop and rap songs.

I normally don’t hear the albums that NPR names “best of” mainly because I’m in the car when I hear the story and promptly forget about the details by time I get home.  However, between the sound clips they played and the reviewer fawning over it, I thought I would give it a shot.

On first listen it’s very engaging.  I started off picking out the samples I could identify and everything sounded good mixed together.  As I listened to it some more I could see how the different samples come together.  I’ve had this about a month now and I still like it.

The thing is that I can’t really compare it to other more traditional music I buy.  Was this one of the best albums of 2008?  I really can’t say.  It’s certainly one of the most interesting ones, but can you hold this up to Death Magnetic or Tell Tale Signs and say that one is better than the other?  They just seem too different to compare.

According to the Wikipedia entry this was originally supposed to be one constant stream which makes more sense than the format it ended up coming out in.  There’s something strange about how the album is broken out into songs.  They’re not songs in the traditional sense in that there’s some kind of thread running through them.  The songs end up being arbitrary breaks in the samples.

The thing I keep wondering about is how I’ll feel about this down the road, one year or five years from now.  Will it just seem like a gimmicky thing or will this album (or one like it) become a classic?  I’m leaning toward the former, but I’ve been wrong a lot in my life so who knows.

Feed the Animals is available as a name-your-price download here.  If you pay more than $10 you’re supposed to get a physical copy but I’ve never seen any update saying it’s actually been released or not.

Here’s the thing:  I’ve had Chinese Democracy for over a month now.  After buying it I popped it into the stereo to listen on the way home.  Two songs into it I got bored and listened to something else.  For the next week or so I kept thinking about listening to it but could work up any interest to do it.  After that I started listening to it quite a bit.  Not because I liked it - more because I couldn’t figure out why I didn’t like it.

Now I was fully aware of the lineup changes, so I wasn’t expecting Appetite for Destruction Part 2 or even Use Your Illusion 3.  What I was expecting was something more interesting, something that took a lot of chances.  When I read that Buckethead was being brought on to play guitar I started to think that it would be really good.  The sad fact is that it’s just incredibly average.

The harder songs sound like cookie cutter versions of what’s being played on rock radio today.  As my friend Brian pointed out, the ballads sound like Axl is trying to write another “November Rain.”  The songs aren’t horrible or anything, but just okay.

The biggest frustration is that there are some great bits in a lot of the songs, but none of the songs really come together except for “If the World”, which is far and away the standout song.  Songs like “Better” and “IRS” have the potential to be great songs, but fall apart for one reason or another - in the case of “Better” the chorus is terrible and the lyrics end up sinking “IRS”.

The other thing is that the last song released by Guns ‘N Roses, “Oh My God” from the End of Days soundtrack, is amazing and what this album should have been.  It wasn’t even included on Chinese Democracy, so I don’t even know what the deal is there.

The problem with a lot of instrumental guitar albums is that the songs start blending together and ends up being just a lot of wanking with the bass and drums plodding along in the background*.  Brad Paisley has overcome this with Play, a mostly instrumental album (five of the sixteen songs are duets with other artists, although one is an oddball “duet” with Andy Griffith).  These songs are spread out through the album and give it a nice flow with the instrumental tracks.

Each track has its own identity - “Huckleberry Jam” is a traditional country breakdown, “Turf’s Up” is a surf type instrumental, “Cliffs of Rock City” is an Eric Johnson-type song. Despite the different song types, Paisley’s guitar playing remains a constant and makes each song his.

I’m a mark for instrumental albums anyway, but this is one of most accessible ones I’ve ever heard.  The different styles keep things from getting bogged down and boring.  This is one of the better albums I’ve heard this year, and hopefully this will lead to similar projects by non-traditional guitar heroes.

* Of course, my music collection contains about 90% of what Yngwie Malmsteen has put out so guitar wanking isn’t always a terrible thing.

“About the time that a few folks were beginning to pay a little bit of attention and back up and say ‘Wait a minute, maybe he’s saying something’, along came Hee Haw.  That set me back.  It also set me up.”

- Roy Clark

It seems that there’s three types of music Roy Clark puts out:

1.  Country-tinged songs with incredible guitar/banjo/fiddle playing
2.  Novelty songs
3.  Schmaltzy, Perry Como-lite songs

The first type is unbelievably good - Roy’s playing is a real pleasure to listen to. I can handle the second type, and the third type varies from tolerable to cringe-inducing.

Timeless:  the Classic Concert Performances was released this year and combines what are presumably the best performances off two of his live albums, Roy Clark Live! (1972) and In Concert (1976).  Both shows took place in Las Vegas (except for two songs off In Concert which, according to the linear notes, were recorded in a Nashville studio) which gives the music an interesting sort of vibe.  In addition to his band, Roy is backed up by a full Frank Sinatra style orchestra.  I imagine that this album contains the only versions of “Alabama Jubilee” and “Foggy Mountain Breakdown” with orchestral backgrounds that I will probably ever hear.  In another Vegas show tradition, Roy tells jokes and stories between songs.

Some of the songs here are stellar, mostly the standards he covers, including “Rocky Top” and “Orange Blossom Special”.  Luckily, the schmaltzy songs are kept to a minimum so they don’t detract from the other performances.  There’s something great about listening to shows that were recorded in Vegas showrooms.  The smaller venue size lends itself to a more personal experience, and even though he probably played the exact same show dozens of times his performance is full of emotion and enthusiasm.

Listening to this confirms my opinion that Roy Clark is an incredibly underrated guitarist.  He’s also great playing the fiddle and banjo.  His playing on “Under the Double Eagle” and “Dueling Banjos” is incredible.  The latter is one of the highlights here with Roy laying down a challenge to Buck Trent to follow his licks, all the while warning Buck of the dangers of playing better than your boss.

As good as this recording is, another of his live albums, Live at Billy Bob’s Texas is so much better in every way.  It has better performances and less of a Vegas influence, so if I was going to go out and buy a Roy Clark album that would be it.

So I was listening to some Flatt and Scruggs stuff online when I came upon this album.  I don’t know why but I figured it was the television theme plus some background music and some numbers from when they guest-starred on the show.

That would have been nice.

Instead what I got was the television theme plus a whole mess of songs sung by the cast - in character.   Oh they all get their turn.  Jed, Granny, Ellie Mae, Jethro….even a duet between Mr. Drysdale and Miss Hathaway about the love of money.

At first listen it sounds like some kind of horrible novelty record.  After subsequent listens….it’s still bad.

For instance, everyone wants to know what’s in Granny’s pot in “Vittles:”

We got owl soup
jowl soup
and a little fowl soup
fried bits
dried bits
skinny and wide bits
hog belly
frog belly
cooked a nice possum jelly
that’s what’s a-cookin’ in my pot

So that’s pretty much how the whole thing goes.  Outside of the main theme the music itself isn’t that interesting and I feel strangely violated after listening to this. To whoever marked this as a Flatt and Scruggs recording, I hope you’re happy.

Oddly enough, you can but the whole thing on MP3 on Amazon.  Even more odd, someone gave it five stars.