And that’s very telling of me - I’ve always been someone who has always preferred the singles to the full albums. That’s not to say that some of my favourite songs from an album weren’t deep cuts, or that some of my top picks were necessarily the hit singles. No, whenever I could, I’d just make my own compilations of the songs I knew I’d love to hear all the time, without the need to force myself through a whole album that I might not fully enjoy. So that took the form of mixtapes, then later I’d burn from my computer to a CD, and now it’s all digital for me. I always preferred it this way, to cull what I really gravitated to, instead of wasting my time listening to songs I didn’t like.
So… to put myself through this exercise has been interesting. Though I’m sure I’ll not always succeed in doing this, the first selections of this year kinda sorta maybe had somewhat of a theme, but not really. I mean, it makes sense in my mind, maybe less so to others.
Every Sunday I’ll write about what I listened to that week. My goal with this is to try to listen to an album I’ve never listened to before, or, failing that, revisit an album I’ve not listened to in a long while. Occasionally, I might just play an album that’s of particular significance to me.
Here’s what’s been played so far :
Day One - Porcupine Tree - ‘Deadwing’
It’s a tricky one, this. Because, and as far as I know, I only know the one song from this band (Arriving somewhere but not here), but the sheer hype and legacy surrounding this record has always sort of kept me away from it. I never heard of the band until the early 00’s, when I was working in a music store, and we had these guys stocked in the pop-rock section. I remember looking at their records and thinking ‘jeez, what a stupid name for a band’. Many, many years later - my last relationship, in fact - I dated a girl who was so massively into both the band as well as the guy behind it, Steven Wilson, that the band became something to me that I’ll always be unable to dissociate from the girl itself. But that’s beside the point, the question is : did I like it?
Well, hum, sort of? I mean, it was OK, but I didn’t find it extraordinary or revolutionary in any sense. In the immortal words of Richmond Avenal : ‘Turning on my television set, I noticed the reception wasn't great. Not terrible, just not great.’, which is mostly how I felt about this record. I really liked ONE song on the record (‘Lazarus’) and the rest was pretty much forgettable. It’s good, I won’t deny it, but maybe my own expectations of it were for something… more. Good, but not great. Maybe a 6/10
Day Two - Anathema - ‘Weather Systems’
Way back in the early 90’s I loved Anathema to death, they - together with Paradise Lost and My Dying Bride - were the undisputed kings of doom-y/gothic-y metal. But then something happened : the main driving force behind the band - one Darren White - and after a trinity of wonderfully releases (2 EPs and 1 album), Anathema changed… a LOT. And I was never a huge fan of that iteration of the band. I have them a chance - I even bought some four or five albums, but only really listened to a couple of them. It’s just not the same thing, none of the magic was there anymore. And maybe that’s not so bad - I think the ideal thing to have happened was for that band to continue under a different name, but alas… that’s not what happened. And so I found myself listening to an album I thought had only recently come out, but as it turns out, it was released in 2012. And I still think that this is a perfectly fine album for the wrong band, or at least for the wrong band name. I dunno, slightly above meh, but much more enjoyable than ‘Deadwing. 7/10? Why not.
Day Three - Chick Corea ‘Return to Forever’
I gotta hand it to the ‘Sea of Tranquility’ YouTube channel, which I chanced upon a number of years ago, and which has contributed highly to me listening - if not maybe actually really enjoying - to a lot of different things that were way out of my wheelhouse. Including something that I have always truly disliked, which is Jazz. Now, there is a reason for this : when I was very young, my mother always made sure that we watched the Montreux Jazz Festival on TV, and I fucking loathed it. Especially when the free jazz gibberish would happen, it would drive me up the walls in a jiffy. So I’ve always considered Jazz to be no more than overrated muzak, and I could never tell one song from the other. Oh, I’ve tried to come back to it, here and there, even if it was just to impress a girl, but the end result is I just don’t get it. It’s dull, it’s drab, I find it lifeless, all things that most everyone will disagree with, right? That said, I didn’t really dislike what jazz-fusion I’ve listened to. It didn’t move me to tears, but I didn’t despise it either. My first one was by a band also called ‘Return to Forever’, pretty much the same ensemble that recorded this one with Chick. It was all right, I guess. Which is my exact assertion of this one - it’s all right. This is most definitely not my cup of tea, but I’ll give it a few more shots. I don’t even know how to rate this one. Part of me wants to give like a one or two, but I know that’s unfair. They really can play and do their things. So maybe a 5/10 will do.
Day Four - Star One - 'Revel in Time'
I have no idea why I landed on this one. This is one of the many projects spearheaded by Arjen Anthony Lucassen, maybe more famous for his Ayreon project. I once worked with a guy who swore by him, but then again he wore by many other acts that I never really got. I confess I've had somewhat of an urge to one day eventually get to know his body of work, but it never was a priority. So why now? No particular reason. I was looking for something to listen to, ideally something prog-y, and a number of candidates popped up, about 99% of which had (at least) this in common : I'd never listened to anything by them. Some of these may be future listens, maybe not. And if I'm honest... I didn't really like this that much. I got the feeling that I'd heard these songs before, and many times at that. The riffs seemed like they could have been taken from any number of 80's hard rock songs, and so too the vocal lines. Don't get me wrong, there's good stuff here, and they all play extremely well. It just sounds too 'been there, done that' for me. Just like the previous record, tempted to go low, but that would also be unfair. Maybe a 5/10 too.
Ah well, only 361 more records to go!
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