Stegzy's Music Project

A commentary on Stegzy's album collection

Dune – OST [#401]

Screen Shot 2015-09-14 at 20.20.28The beginning is a very delicate time. Know then that it is the year 2015, and I’m still only a hundred albums shy of being a third of the way through this music project.

Dune is a very special film and soundtrack for me. My oldest brother used to scoff that I couldn’t possibly have understood the concepts dealt with by the film, especially as Lynch’s version was edited to bits. The weird thing is, I got Lynch from a very early age. In fact, I got Dune on a deeper level through the film than I ever did with the novel. I think Lynch did a bloody good job making a sci-fi snob’s book accessible to many people.

My oldest brother repeatedly tried to “explain” his interpretation of the novel to me, but he had no need as I already understood what the author was trying to say. I understood the hidden depths, the concept of the Kwisatz Haderach, the Fremen and what the spice really was. Even the trope of the sandworms.

The film is also important to me because of how the music actually makes a good accompaniment in the way that Queen’s soundtrack to Flash Gordon makes Flash Gordon what it is. Toto do an outstanding job of the soundtrack especially considering their only other significant contribution to the soundtrack of my life is their hit song Africa and Brian Eno’s atmospherics also add to the whole parcel of the film.

Soundtracks for Lynch’s films appear several times in this music project but if asked to save one from deletion it would definitely be the soundtrack for Dune. A film that still sends shivers down my spine and, in some respects, seen by many as a premonition/allegory/parable for the events in Syria, Iraq and the Middle East as we live right now and, I believe, has been since it was written.

 

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Concerto – Roxy Music [#300]

Roxy_Music-ConcertoI had hoped that the three hundredth album in this project would have been a monumental one. Sadly it’s another best of/Live/compilation. It’s like all the albums this month have been compilations. I know they haven’t but it really seems like to be a successful musician you have to write about 20 songs on about 3 albums then release best ofs, lives and cover version albums for a few years then make a come back or reform.

Bryan Ferry is the master of come back. Concerto is the twenty somethingth release by Roxy Music and the sixth live album by the band. It is also noted for the fact that it was released in 2001 and is a recording of a concert in performed in Denver made in 1979.

Talk about milking your back catalogue and fans for everything they have!

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#111 – Avalon – Roxy Music

Screen Shot 2014-08-17 at 18.34.49Avalon – Roxy Music

If you survived the brain mashing of the last two Les Joyaux de la Princesse, albums you’ll be pleased to know they won’t resurface until we get to C.

Like a refreshing aural drink, Bryan Ferry oozes cool swarveness through your speakers and leads you into a seedy world of lounge bars, loafers and broken hearts.

I’ve got a thing for Bryan Ferry’s Roxy Music work. It just sounds and feels so sophisticated. Like a white suit and black shirt on the morning after a rather sensational party when you have stayed up all night with a bottle of Bolly stinking of tobacco and still not pulled the foxy chick who may or may not be a high class prozzie dressed in a red short dress.

Avalon is no exception. Listen to it, let it seduce you, have its wicked way with you and leave you with a feeling like you’ve just been used by some knob head in a white suit who stinks of cigarettes, has a nasty rash and is carrying a bottle of Bolly with some Asti decanted into it…..

 

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Album #82 – Apollo: Atmospheres and Soundtracks – Brian Eno

Screen Shot 2014-06-10 at 16.28.45 Apollo: Atmospheres and Soundtracks – Brian Eno

Ah coffee table albums. Bit like coffee table books. The kind of music brought out at middle class dinner parties to wow and seem hip and in touch with culture.

It’s mostly bollocks.

Like me ,you’ve probably got several coffee table albums in your own personal collections. Such as David Grey, Buena Vista Social Club, War of the Worlds and anything by Adele. Brian Eno is the reigning emperor of coffee table music.

This album consists of music and soundscapes that wouldn’t be out of place in a chapel of eternal rest or that place they send off Edward G Robinson in Soylent Green. 

Not for me. It’s a little too hip for my liking and pigeon holes the listener into the 30+ bracket. Kind of like how your grandparents were probably listening to James Last around the gramophone.

Tired overplayed coffee table tosh.

 

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