Busy signals are hoping to be the next, indie/easy listening Dust Brothers, but they’re just no good. Everything here is clumsy and awkward, unappealing and tiresome. I have to say though, this was one of the earlier records I gave a shot during the long months I spent with records from this year, and at the time I thought it wouldn’t get much worse. I was so very wrong. Hell, they give it their best shot. It isn’t any good, but it’s no major crime.
‘I’m tired of always going for the booby prize’, they sing elsewhere on the record. It’s a bit like that.
319. Fila Brazillia: Brazilification. Remixes 95-99
Jeez, what’s the point? Remixes of songs that have then been mixed again into one continuous 2hour listening experience. Every step in the process has smoothed over more of the emotional impact the originals might’ve once possessed. I suppose it’s very easy to listen to, but hard to remember.
318. Joseph Arthur: Come to where I’m from
318. Joseph Arthur: Come to where I’m from
I wouldn’t want to cause him any more pain than it sounds like he’s already in, but… maybe Joseph Arthur isn’t in the right profession.
Just cause Peter Gabriel liked one demo from the guy, all of a sudden he’s in Real World studios with a crack team of musicians. Records are pushed into the world without any sort of audience waiting. And why would we be, for another post-modern Bob Dylan, or another pre-post-modern Beck with religious guilt blues? He gives it his best shot (it certainly sounds like he doesn’t want to let any button in the studio go to waste), but what’s he expected to do exactly? The songs are sometimes better than average, sometimes not, the arrangements are expansive and not all of them are turgidly slow, but it never catches fire, you know. All he can hope for is another batch of reviewers faintly congratulating him before swiftly moving on to music they actually love (as I will soon).
It sounds to me like the best way for him to cheer up would be to get himself a real job, like interior decorator or the guy that shaves Peter Gabriel’s head every day. I’m just saying…
At its best: Speed of light
At its worst: Creation or a stain
317. Explosions in the sky: How strange, innocence
Epic nothingness – the demo.
Prince once said it’s a shame to let a good erection go to waste. Post-rockers feel that way about an e-bow.
I couldn’t exactly tell you what’s wrong with this, but around the time bands like Explosions… appeared I knew it was time to leave post-rock behind. It was going straight nowhere. In retrospect I was right.
316. Shellac: 1000 hurts professional
People who say Steve Albini has no sense of humor don’t have all the facts. Much of this atonal aural assault is plainly humorous. Albini praying to God to kill off his ex-girlfriend and her new lover – as painfully as possible. Brutal, but humorous. Too bad it’s not funny.
315. Kaija Saariaho: From the grammar of dreams
Two female voices go at it in operatic frenzy for about an hour. Every couple of minutes the vaguest hint of instrumental backing appears. Flimsy conceit, all told.
314. Enya: A day without rain
Just cause Peter Gabriel liked one demo from the guy, all of a sudden he’s in Real World studios with a crack team of musicians. Records are pushed into the world without any sort of audience waiting. And why would we be, for another post-modern Bob Dylan, or another pre-post-modern Beck with religious guilt blues? He gives it his best shot (it certainly sounds like he doesn’t want to let any button in the studio go to waste), but what’s he expected to do exactly? The songs are sometimes better than average, sometimes not, the arrangements are expansive and not all of them are turgidly slow, but it never catches fire, you know. All he can hope for is another batch of reviewers faintly congratulating him before swiftly moving on to music they actually love (as I will soon).
It sounds to me like the best way for him to cheer up would be to get himself a real job, like interior decorator or the guy that shaves Peter Gabriel’s head every day. I’m just saying…
At its best: Speed of light
At its worst: Creation or a stain
317. Explosions in the sky: How strange, innocence
Prince once said it’s a shame to let a good erection go to waste. Post-rockers feel that way about an e-bow.
I couldn’t exactly tell you what’s wrong with this, but around the time bands like Explosions… appeared I knew it was time to leave post-rock behind. It was going straight nowhere. In retrospect I was right.
316. Shellac: 1000 hurts professional
315. Kaija Saariaho: From the grammar of dreams
314. Enya: A day without rain
Few things in life would’ve given me pleasure like placing Enya in my top 10 for the year 2000. How bewildering would that have been? I’ve been known to doubt the difference between Enya and highbrow bands like Cocteau Twins, it’s not that different really.
Well, maybe for a song or two. Otherwise it’s really very dull and decent.
313. All saints: Saints and sinners
Well, maybe for a song or two. Otherwise it’s really very dull and decent.
313. All saints: Saints and sinners
A goddamn slog to get through, if you want to know what I hear.
‘Black coffee’ and ‘Pure shores’ (at least until a badly judged ‘dynamic’ bridge starting just over three minutes into it) are nice singles – nothing less, but nothing more either. I wouldn’t keep them on a reel of 2000 highlights - maybe that nice bit of underwater guitar on ‘Pure shores’, but that’s it.
But after four songs with William Orbit it seems their budget for a name producer was spent (and of those four ‘Dreams’ and ‘Surrender’ are decidedly makeweight). The rest suffer from non-existent arrangements. Just r&b breathing exercises shackled to generic beats. Not that the song input was particularly inspired: ‘All hooked up’, ‘Distance’, ‘Whoopin’ over you’, ‘Ha Ha’, ‘Love is love’, 'Ready, willing and able’, are you getting excited by these titles? I’m not. (I’m giving a pass to the last song ‘Saints and sinners’ – if the title turned up on a Bob Dylan album, it’d probably give me a nice chuckle – but by a band called All Saints?).
Anyway, all of this brings me to my main problem: by the end of the second song they’ve sung the word ‘arse’ at least 25 times already and there’s ten more songs to go.
At its best: Pure shores, Black coffee
At its worst: All hooked up
312. Das pop: I love
Bowie completists might consider getting this, right after ‘The laughing gnome’, if they’re interested in moderately talented people who try to sing like him. Otherwise, a Belgian alternative pop band that should be easy to ignore.
311. Bob Brookmeyer: Madly loving you
Ah, academic big band jazz. Done well, but still…academic.
‘Black coffee’ and ‘Pure shores’ (at least until a badly judged ‘dynamic’ bridge starting just over three minutes into it) are nice singles – nothing less, but nothing more either. I wouldn’t keep them on a reel of 2000 highlights - maybe that nice bit of underwater guitar on ‘Pure shores’, but that’s it.
But after four songs with William Orbit it seems their budget for a name producer was spent (and of those four ‘Dreams’ and ‘Surrender’ are decidedly makeweight). The rest suffer from non-existent arrangements. Just r&b breathing exercises shackled to generic beats. Not that the song input was particularly inspired: ‘All hooked up’, ‘Distance’, ‘Whoopin’ over you’, ‘Ha Ha’, ‘Love is love’, 'Ready, willing and able’, are you getting excited by these titles? I’m not. (I’m giving a pass to the last song ‘Saints and sinners’ – if the title turned up on a Bob Dylan album, it’d probably give me a nice chuckle – but by a band called All Saints?).
Anyway, all of this brings me to my main problem: by the end of the second song they’ve sung the word ‘arse’ at least 25 times already and there’s ten more songs to go.
At its best: Pure shores, Black coffee
At its worst: All hooked up
312. Das pop: I love
311. Bob Brookmeyer: Madly loving you
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