Stegzy's Music Project

A commentary on Stegzy's album collection

Apr 8

Goodbye Mr Pink Floyd – Roger Waters [#538]

by stegzy

goodbye-mr-pink-floydSeen by many as Water’s two fingered salute to the band that still to this day makes him a pretty packet of royalties, Goodbye Mr Pink Floyd is a live bootleg concert compilation album recorded in Canada in 1987.

The album features Waters performing Pink Floyd faves from Wish You Were Here, Dark Side of the Moon, Animals, Final Cut and The Wall with only Radio Waves and The Powers That Be from his solo album Radio K.A.O.S (which doesn’t feature on the music project).

Probably just to show Waters era Floyd was a golden age. Seeing as he wrote most of it.

 

1991 bootleg compilations Live Roger Waters

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Apr 7

Gong Est Mort, Vive Gong – Gong [#537]

by stegzy

Gong_Gong_Est_MortWhile, Pierre Moerlen’s Gong were churning out jazzy numbers and being all “normal” and long after teapots were flown about by pixies and Zero the Hero’s head floated up the vagina of a witch, Daevid Allen and chums had a bit of a break and entered a period of releasing “best of” compilations, live gig recordings and other such lazy productions.

Gong Est Mort, Vive Gong is one such live compilation from Allen’s Gong. Included are tracks from Flying Teapot and Angels Egg as well as a few tracks from You from the Radio Gnome cycle and some from Camembert Electrique.

Unfortunately, there is a wife imposed jazz embargo at Gnomepant’s cottage at present, so I am unable to report on the more jazzy tracks, however I did manage a good listen of the less jazzy tracks, and, do you know? I wish I had gone to see the band back in 1992.

1977 compilations Gong Live Progressive Rock Steve Hillage

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Mar 21

Glittering Prize: 81/92 – Simple Minds [#526]

by stegzy

Glitteringprize8192It’s 1992. School has finished. University has begun. Trudging the city streets of a rain soaked Sheffield is a tall fair haired male with a Sony Walkman. On the Walkman is a copy of this album.

That man was me.I’d embarked on a new phase of life. University. And with university as a young 19 year old male came new people, new experiences and, best of all, new music. Because, of course, a new phase in a new city meant new shops. Shops that didn’t feature in Liverpool. Or if they did, not on the scale they did in Sheffield or the Meadowhall.

And there, on Fargate, opening to much fanfare and huzzah, a Virgin Megastore, the size of which I’d not seen before; within, a selection of cassettes as broad and as vast as the selection of pastries in Greggs the Bakers.

I bought Glittering Prize:81/92 on cassette from the Virgin Megastore on Fargate, Sheffield using an opening day discount voucher given to me at the student union during Freshers week. So began many years of listening. I still have the cassette, granted with nothing to play it on, but it is still in my belonging.

As “best of” compilations go, this was an excellent introduction to the band for me. Of course I was already familiar with the band having heard their work on the radio while I was growing up, but there were a number of songs I was unfamiliar with. Later investigations into other Simple Minds works proved to me that this album was probably the best choice to listen to the band as a beginner. Other albums were difficult to digest and I never really explored beyond Glittering Prize.

However, considering the number of times I’ve listened to the album over the years, it has fallen relatively out of aural favour since obtaining it on MP3 in 2009. Yet everytime I hear a song from it, I’m there, in nineties Sheffield, walking around the ruins of an ancient cutlery empire on my way into town or into University.

1992 best of compilations Rock Simple Minds Virgin

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Mar 15

Ghosts of Oxford Street – Various Artists [#522]

by stegzy

Unknown-5 The soundtrack to Malcolm Maclaren’s Christmas film for Channel 4.

Like with the Kinks’ Return to Waterloo, I have an off-air recording of the film on VHS that I treasure. I’d even go as far to say it is one of the primary reasons that I still have a VHS tape recorder tucked away in the loft. Sure there are probably versions of this on Youtube or Vimeo, but they’ll only last as long as the copyright nazis allow them to stay up.

Home video taping is killing music.

That said, I did buy this (and still have it) on CD.

The film has Maclaren poncing around London’s Oxford Street at Christmas telling tales about the dark history of the world famous street of consumerism with each of the “ghosts” played (sung) by different artists. Tom Jones pulls off a great Gordon Selfridge while the Happy Mondays manage an excellent cover of the Bee Gees’ Staying Alive. While Sinead O’Connor, Kirsty MacColl and the Pogues remind us of the festive season with their  songs with a slightly Christmassy feel.

Because of the Christmas bias, it feels odd listening to the soundtrack out of season but it’s not impossible to do so. Skipping the four Christmas centric songs still allows the listener a good twenty minutes of interesting music. Even Ponchielli’s  Dance of the Hours (performed on the CD by the Academy of St Martin’s in the Field) isn’t too festive in feeling and is a really piece of driving Classical music.

1991 Collaborations compilations Kirsty Maccoll Soundtracks Various Artists

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Mar 10

Ghosts from the Darkside II [#519]

by stegzy

R-570247-1150308479.jpeg
A compilation of highlights of Goth, Darkwave and Dark Electro bands.

During my exploration of usenet newsgroups, specifically the goth-industrial binary group, I happened upon a whole treasure trove of gothic compilations (as you will hear about a few weeks later on in this project). In an effort to grow my “repertoire” with goth music I would download compilations as a way to find new bands.

Ghosts from the Darkside II is pretty hard going. I’d heard of a few of the bands featuring on this album through other explorations, such as Inkubus Sukkubus, Black Tape for a Blue Girl and Blutengel so it was natural for me to give it a go. However, I’d not really heard of any of the songs in the compilation either. There are quite a few German bands in this compilation so I suspect this is an album aimed at people who attend Wave Gothik Treffen.

After several listens I’m still not enamoured with the album. Perhaps it’s because I’m older now and I’ve reached “Full of Goth” or perhaps it’s because I just don’t like what I’ve heard.

Tracklist

1-1 –Swartalf Invocation 4:03
1-2 –Non Compos Mentis Without Bloodshed 6:10
1-3 –Ikon (4) Fatal Attraction 3:17
1-4 –In Extremo Ai Vis Lo Lop 4:02
1-5 –Morthem Vlade Art Beyond Sorrow 5:19
1-6 –WeltenBrand The Fall Of Trisona 6:35
1-7 –Diary Of Dreams Drop Dead 7:11
1-8 –Nekromantik Girlstickboy 4:05
1-9 –Blutengel Beauty Of Suffering 6:13
1-10 –Fiction 8 Second Skin 3:32
1-11 –Girls Under Glass New World Order 4:20
1-12 –Das Zeichen In The Garden 3:58
1-13 –Theatre Of Loneliness Holocaust 4:16
1-14 –black tape for a blue girl Given 4:20
1-15 –Hagalaz’ Runedance When The Trees Were Silenced 2:45
2-1 –Exovedate Ego Sum Mons 4:30
2-2 –Untoten Gothik Years 5:54
2-3 –Chaos God Judgement Day 5:36
2-4 –The Dust Of Basement God’s Own Fairytales 5:28
2-5 –The Second Sight Answer 3:29
2-6 –Die Form Spiral 2 4:12
2-7 –Vespertina De Profundis 4:20
2-8 –Inkubus Sukkubus Starchild 4:44
2-9 –Sanguis Et Cinis Nicht Mein Schicksal 5:33
2-10 –The New Creatures My Child Queen 4:53
2-11 –This Burning Effigy Exquisite 4:58
2-12 –Hexedene Only Human (Original Mix) 4:30
2-13 –Attrition The Thin Veil 6:12
2-14 –Louisa John-Krol Alexandria 5:30
2-15 –Summoning Angbands Schmieden 3:28

1999 Black Tape for a Blue Girl compilations gothic Inkubus Sukkubus Various Artists

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Mar 9

Ghostbusters OST – Various Artists [#518]

by stegzy

Ghostbusters soundtrack - various artistsThis is the soundtrack to the classic 1980s blockbusting movie Ghostbusters.

As a regular downloader from the alt.binaries.sounds.mp3.soundtrack newsgroup in the late noughties, I would frequently smugly mark for download the soundtracks for movies I’d always wanted but had been unable to obtain from crappy HMV or Virgin Megastores. One such prize was todays album.

I remember my brother taking me to see Ghostbusters in the Lime Street Odeon in Liverpool. I remember queuing up (in the cold) for hours before the doors opened so that we would be some of the first in the theatre and be able to get the best seats. I remember being excited to rent the video when it became available, and I still remember the anticipation and thrill of being able to video record it off the telly when it was eventually shown over Christmas for the first time on network television.

I also remember the disappointment at being unable to find the soundtrack on CD, a dissipating disappointment when I located it on Usenet.

Classic 80s soundtrack for a classic 80s film. Not sure why they feel the need to “reboot” it.

 

1984 compilations Soundtracks Various Artists

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Mar 8

Ghost Riders in the Sky – Various Artists [#517]

by stegzy

Ghost Riders in the Sky - Various ArtistsOne of the more quirky “albums” in my collection is this compilation, a collection of recordings of the same song by a variety of artists.

Ghost Riders in the Sky has been credited as one of the top 100 Western songs of all time and has been recorded by a whole host of performers since its first recording in 1948. Artists such as Elvis Presley, Johnny Cash and even death metal bands have recorded their own interpretation of the song.

This unofficial “not-available-in-the-shops” compilation was uploaded to Usenet newsgroups in the late noughties and contains versions by:

Boston Pops
Elvis Presley
Ennio Morricone
Frankie Laine
Lawrence Welk
Patrick Normand
Peggy Lee
Roy Clark
Roy Clark & Chet Atkins
Roy Rogers & Sons of the Pioneers
Shadows
Slim Whitman
Spike Jones
The Spotnicks
Tom Jones
Ventures
Wingy Manone and his Go-Group

Seventeen versions of the same song. My wife deserves a medal for helping me listen to them all.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A-sExIVBVaw

compilations Various Artists

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Mar 2

Geek Freak Stadium – Ban Jyang [#513]

by stegzy

51bsuZeDOoLWay back in the early days of internet and Windows Millenium, I obtained a compilation CD from an innovative music website known as Peoplesound. The idea behind Peoplesound was years ahead of its time, crowd funded/supported bands could sell their EPs, demos and albums via the site and hipsters everywhere could potentially discover artists years before anyone else. I claim that privilege with Mull Historical Society and Sugarplum Fairies. Another band I had hoped would blossom into something else was Ban Jyang.

Loud, brash and similar sounding to Rage Against the Machine, Ban Jyang had three albums to buy. Of course £10 an album was a lot of money to fritter away on music, so I bided my time until I could afford to buy them.

Unfortunately during this time, the band imploded. Folding in on itself, they vanished from Peoplesound. Previous searches had revealed a website but this had been hacked and warning messages appeared whenever it was visited. Eventually that too disappeared and along with it the “free to download” back catalogue of the band.

So more than “they were an artist who sound like Rage Against the Machine”, I am unable to tell you but remnants of their work remain on the internet. For instance you can still buy this album via Amazon and their MySpace page is still live (https://myspace.com/banjyang/music/albums).

Geek Freak Stadium is a live compilation of “hits” from their other albums Weirdo Side Effects and Religious Love Hater, possibly recorded at a gig they probably did sometime somewhere. It sounds like it’s really popular but then I suspect they just added a cheering audience backing track in the studio.

compilations Live Peoplesound Rock

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Feb 29

Gather in the Mushrooms – Various Artists [#511]

by stegzy

Gather in the mushroomsGather in the Mushrooms  is a compilation album featuring tracks by acid folk bands from 1968-1974.

As a prog fan, it is only natural that I have a penchant for music often classed as acid folk, which, one could argue, is a shared root for the mighty tree of progressive rock in the forest of alternative adult music.

This album was kindly “donated” to me by a dear ex-work colleague with whom we share similar tastes in music and interests in media and popular culture. When I saw the artist listing I was further excited to see artists such as Sallyangie (Sally Oldfield, Mike Oldfield‘s sister, with whom he began his career), Pentangle, Magnet and Spirogyra, all of whom have connection within this music project.

Hauntology at its best, Gather in the Mushrooms provides a soundtrack for a period when Canterbury was just begining to burgeon and fills the minds eye with images of green home county villages populated with beautiful long haired tie-dye be-dressed lady hippies like in some Avengers/Hammer Horror/sci-fi TV/Film that was never made. Beautiful tracks like Sandy Denny’s pre-Fairport Milk and Honey, Trader Horne’s post-Fairport Morning Way and the largely forgotten Forest’s Graveyard not only provide a powerful aural illustration for the genre but create a fitting tribute to a time that existed for a few but was appreciated by many.

This has largely become my third most favourite compilation of the past decade.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yFQrqzzcVjo

Read the rest of this entry »

2008 Acid Folk compilations Mike Oldfield neofolk Spirogyra Various Artists

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Feb 24

Galore – Kirsty MacColl [#508]

by stegzy

KirstygaloreThere was a fleeting moment when I thought relatives of Kirsty MacColl lived in my street when I was growing up. Instead it turned out Andrea McCann wasn’t related, but just happened that she looked a little bit like her. If you squinted.

This is another relationship legacy album, inherited when my previous wife and I split the MP3 library. I’ve never really been a fan of MacColl but I’ve always know who she was and enjoyed Christmas when she would grace my screens with the Pogues. Indeed, my knowledge of her sound is not limited to that song and, this album being MacColl’s best of album, this album features many of her top hits that were present in the charts during my childhood.

As a time machine, this album works, transporting me back to a time of paper rounds, Saturday’s working in Halfords and Christmases visiting Flannagan’s Apple for the  Guinness.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DL2GmaI3Xus

And so we reach G. A world of compilations and best ofs (eg Greatest Hits) and Gothic music by far the largest group of albums alphabetically. Sorry if you’re expecting me to get to L by Christmas….

1995 best of compilations Kirsty Maccoll Virgin

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Feb 17

From Wishes to Eternity – Nightwish [#503]

by stegzy

Nightwish_from_wishes_to_eternity1Scandinavian rock valkyries again, this time with a live set featuring Nightwish’s pre-breakup line-up and Tarja Turunen.

The album is a live recording of a concert performed in Tempere in 2000 and was originally released as a limited CD run and released in DVD format with footage of the actual gig. It features a number of my favourite tracks from across the Nightwish catalogue.
I was never at the gig. Nor am I likely to want to go to a Nightwish gig these days. But, like with all live albums, I can play it really loud while standing in the garden in the dark and pretend I’m at the gig whenever I like.

2000 compilations gothic Live Nightwish

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Jan 29

Forever Faithless: Greatest Hits – Faithless [#490]

by stegzy

Forever_Faithless_–_The_Greatest_Hits At this point, anyone who knows me personally will no doubt be thinking “Hang on, Dance/Trip hop? Isn’t Stegzy a hairy die hard Prog fan?”. Indeed, but sometimes, with every record collection, you find a “loved genre” busting album or band.  Faithless are one of those bands.

Please don’t think I’ve gone and burnt my Yes t-shirt or thrown out my Roger Dean posters, far from it. I liked a couple of songs by Faithless. Happy cheery dance numbers with a dark and foreboding political message for the youth of the day, which, no doubt, was lost on many. I liked those songs sufficiently to try a few of Faithless’ other albums, this one and Back to Mine.

I left it there. My two favourite songs appeared on the album, Insomnia and Mass Destruction but the other songs were a little bit too beyond my cultural tastes. While similar to Massive Attack in some respects, the later dance tracks take me out of my cultural safety zone. A prime example of when getting a greatest hits album will give you a good idea of whether or not you’ll like a band’s other works too.

2005 best of Cheeky compilations Faithless remixes Trip Hop

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Jan 28

Forever Delayed: Greatest Hits – Manic Street Preachers [#489]

by stegzy

ForeverDelayedNME dubbed this “the album that should not exist”. Bloody hipsters.

I totally wished that the Manics hadn’t been so bloody mainstream or as a youth I’d have so gotten into them. Or so I thought in the nineties, as the “Indie” scene was rapidly pulling the wool over the listening public’s eyes as more and more “indie” bands appeared in mainstream charts, programmes and chat shows.

The Manics were one of those bands that I liked but didn’t want to fully embrace by getting any of their albums. I suppose fear of scorn from my contemporaries added to that, especially as my “indie” mates were all “No mate, the Manics went shit after their lead singer jumped into the Avon Gorge at Clifton”, my goth mates sniggered and said they were too happy and my shoe gazer friends shrugged and gazed depressively into the tips of their brogues whenever I mentioned the band.

Yet nearly every song on this album I like. Yes, I know that’s the purpose of a greatest hits album, but I suppose it is an excellent example of the “if one likes the “best of” then buy it and nothing else approach” as I still like this snap shot of the band’s golden age; Songs so full of hopelessness against a joyful melody. Exactly how Abba are. Artists take note, this works.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B7dBBCHYcZs

2002 best of compilations Indie manic street preachers

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Jan 26

Forever & Ever – Fields of the Nephilim [#487]

by stegzy

R-571075-1165231721.jpegMore brooding beats from the cadaverous cowboys that are Fields of the Nephilim taken from the soundtrack of their video release Forever Remain.

I suspect after Ginger Chris’ cassette finally drove the music industry into an irretrievable spiral of descent, my enthusiasm for music waned too. As I wandered around the global car boot sale that was the early internet of 2004-2010, I would pick up remnants of forgotten things called albums from the digital flotsam and jetsam and store them for humanity on my hard drive. If it wasn’t for my actions I’m fairly certain the music industry would have been completely destroyed by home taping.

Forever & Ever is a rip of a live video album and features many of FONs “greatest hits”, all favourites of mine. I could have quite happily left my appreciation of the band there but subsequent releases enticed me in with the promise of good music. I suppose by then, the zeitgeist had leaked from the loosely sealed bottle of life and I began to realise that the new rules and flavours brought about by the demise of the music industry were bitter and unpalatable.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fd2xHIxb2r8

 

1991 best of compilations Fields of the Nephilim gothic Live Memories Soundtracks

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Nov 13

Exposed – Mike Oldfield [#443]

by steelrattus

Exposed Mike OldfieldHi there! Steelrattus again, on day 5 of his 10 day guest stint on Stegzy’s Music Project.

Today’s album, Mike Oldfield’s Exposed (1979). This is the second of the two that I vaguely know in this 10 day stint. This one is a bit more vague that the previous, Trevor Jones’ Excalibur OST, as I don’t actually own Exposed. Coincidentally I have covered another Mike Oldfield album, Discovery, while guest posting on SMP, and double coincidentally I didn’t own that album either. Call yourself a Mike Oldfield fan?!

Whereas Discovery is a proper studio album, Exposed is one of only two live albums that Oldfield released, with the first being an orchestral version of Tubular Bells. This live album again features Tubular Bells, unsurprisingly with it being his most popular album, and also Incantations. Just to further highlight how much of a rubbish Mike Oldfield fan I am, I don’t seem to own nor do I remember listening to Incantations (1978), which is his fourth studio album. Having listened to the live version perhaps that’s understandable, as I didn’t find it very good. To round off the album there’s a short track called Guilty, which was just a single release, during Oldfield’s disco phase apparently (!). The album was recorded during a European tour in 1979, although apparently the musicians supporting Oldfield on the tour did not know they were being recorded. A DVD was released much later on, in 2005.

I’ve sort of already covered my view of the album. Tubular Bells is fab. I found Incantations rather weak and minimal. Guilty definitely has that Oldfield feel to it, and yes it is oddly disco. Generally speaking I don’t tend to enjoy live albums, as typically they’re somewhat worse versions of a mix of studio tracks. Exposed is pretty much this, but I would listen to it, if stuck on a desert island with nothing else. As always, YMMV.

Here’s Guilty, put on your disco pants!

1979 best of compilations Live Mike Oldfield Soundtracks

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Nov 5

Eurovision Song Contest: Helsinki 2007 – Various Artists [#437]

by stegzy

500px-Eurovision_Song_Contest_2007_logo.svgPicture the scene. It’s 2006. Outsider, Lordi, have won the Eurovision Song Contest. Confused and out of touch officials around Europe scratch their heads in bewilderment. How can something as noisy as Lordi’s Hard Rock Hallelujah win by a land slide? Do the public know something others don’t? What ever the reason, imitation wins hearts and minds so let’s goth up our acts for 2007.

Which is exactly what happened. Especially with Switzerland.

The United Kingdom went all cheesy sleazy and failed.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f9y8hqsYXTw

Finland tried to win again (and this was my favourite)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dUagGZ21Cbo

But when it seemed that outsiders were going to win again, Plan B was put into action and Serbia’s entry won with Molitva.

After that, I lost interest in Eurovision for a few years…..

 

2007 compilations Eurovison Various Artists

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Nov 4

Eurovision Song Contest: Athens 2006 – Various Artists [#436]

by stegzy

For those not familiar with European traditions and culture, every year since 1956 European public broadcasters get together to find a song to unite Europe in culture.  In the UK, Eurovision is seen as a bit of a joke while the rest of the European Union see take it quite seriously. As a result it is often the case that the UK’s entry gets a low score while serious music producers across Europe are able to showcase a variety of talent which will never see the light in the UK because of inherent taught resistance to euro-culture, but will proliferate across more receptive mainland Europe.

Eurovision 2006 was possibly the most enjoyable Eurovision in the past 30 years.  2006 was the year that Goth and Rock culture broke onto the Eurovision stage with such ferocity that many returning countries in 2007 tried to mimic the whole scene too.

Unusually the contest started with quite sedate, run of the mill songs like:

Sense Tu Jenny (Andorra)

Je t’adore Kate Ryan (Belgium)

 

Other entries were more up beat such as Tornero (Romania)

and Congratulations Silvia Night (Iceland)

But while the tweeness of Switzerland’s Six4One’s If we all give a little was trying to capture the zeitgeist of peace and love arising from the conflict plagued noughties.

The shockingly bad UK entry, Daz Simpson and Teenage Life was like Timmy Mallet or Keith Harris trying to capture the gangsta culture.

But it was the winning entry, Hard Rock Hallelujah by Lordi (Finland) that resulted in the landslide victory that Eurovision needed to bring it back to centre stage.

 

2006 compilations Eurovison Various Artists

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Nov 3

European Tour 2005 – Dead Can Dance [#435]

by stegzy

Screen Shot 2015-10-24 at 12.51.27In 2005 an announcement was made to the effect that Dead Can Dance would tour again after several years of hiatus. Tickets for the few gigs that were to be played in the UK sold out like hot cakes.

I was unable to go.

What followed was months of people I knew saying how they were looking forward to going to the gig, followed by years of the same people saying how mind blowing the gig was. Yet all I have to remember the experience I never had is this “bootleg” featuring highlights of Dead Can Dance’s European tour in 2005.

Occasionally I listen to it from afar while sitting in an uncomfortable seat for full effect.

2005 best of compilations Dead Can Dance Lisa Gerrard Live Pieter Bourke

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Nov 2

Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (OST) – Various Artists [#434]

by stegzy

Eternal_sunshine_CD_coverThis will be the last week of Music Project entries before a two week hiatus unless someone comes forth offering to write for two weeks while I’m on the other side of the planet.

While not a great lover of  Michel Gondry’s 2004 rom-com starring Jim Carey and Kate Winslet, the soundtrack does have some nice songs on.

Which is, in part, why I keep the album in my collection. Happy Twee-rock and pop abound, with the likes of Polyphonic Spree, ELO and Lata Mangeshkar interwoven with Jon Brion’s equally twee romantic soundtrack.

Great for feeling twee.

 

2004 compilations ELO Polyphonic Spree Soundtracks

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Oct 30

Essential Bob Dylan – Bob Dylan [#433]

by stegzy

Bob_Dylan_-_The_Essential_Bob_DylanEssentially I want to like Bob “Moped starting up” Dylan. Essentially I have tried and really tried. I tried so hard to like Bob “Hair Drier” Dylan, to see why so many people put him on a pedestal, why so many people think he’s the best thing to have ever happened to music since Mozart. I tried. I tried so hard I have strain marks on my ears.

Essential is the “best of” Dylan, not that I’ve been able to distinguish any mind blowing tracks apart from the surprise that Dylan was responsible for a number of songs I had attributed to other artists.

Legend has it the young Dylan mooched about Liverpool before he hit the main stream.While there he met a young bloke who had just started to learn how to play music who was called John Lemon or something or some such bollocks. This is, of course, utter shite,  just like Dylan’s placement on the pedestal of musical greatness.

I’m sure I’ve upset a great deal of people with that last sentence but don’t misunderstand my supposition. Dylan certainly has his place in the hall of music history but the way many people, including my contemporaries, insist on placing the guy on this heightened throne of greatness has become irritating of late. The likes of Presley, Ray Noble and even Glen Miller who came before Dylan and equally had a prolific change on musical culture should also enjoy the same platform. Indeed, let’s be fair about the whole throne thing, let’s turn it into a musical SOFA of greatness. Dylan, Morrison, Presley, Noble, Gallas and whoever else deserves recognition can sit happily on the Sofa of musical greatness and entertain us all with their jostling for the pouffe.

2000 best of Bob Dylan compilations

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Oct 29

Essential Jean Michel Jarre – Jean Michel Jarre [#432]

by stegzy

Screen Shot 2015-10-24 at 11.55.04<sigh> I really could re-use the “Essential/Essentially” gag here too as Essential is, essentially the first Jean Michel Jarre Best of Compilation. But I won’t because re-releasing old material as new stuff is so 1990s it’s unbelievable.

And lazy.

Aero, Essential is a kind of “Best of” revisited. Nice if you want to relive the cardigan wearing, garish carpeted childhood of the 1970s. Nicer still if you just want to pop some acid with your hipster friend while staring at their Mathmos glooping and shlooping about on the table.

It’s kind of thought provoking that this music evolved into Air.

 

1983 best of compilations Jean Michel Jarre

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Oct 28

Essence of the Deep Forest – Deep Forest [#431]

by stegzy

Essence of the deep forestThis week, it seems, we will mostly be listening to French and Belgian artists.

Today, Deep Forest. Essence, is essentially Deep Forest’s Best of album, though arguably they really only have a couple of songs that they remix continuously. Never the less, Deep Forest remain a firm favourite of the music project. I’m kind of interested to hear what Steelrattus has to say about the band as I know he is a fan.

Anyway, take Enigma to the rain forest, add some indigenous tribal chants and add a sprinkle of wholesome “I’ve seen the world and its colourful diversity” world  traveller and you have, in essence, Deep Forest. Indeed, you probably have the best of. Which, in essence is, Essence. But I’ve already said that. Kind of like how Deep Forest, Enigma and Era take the same theme and remix it over and over again. Remixing works in music I suppose, but not in prose. Which in essence, is Essence of the Deep Forest.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZAEiFCkrOBg

2003 best of compilations Deep Forest

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Aug 21

Don’t Bore us Get to the Chorus – Roxette [#383]

by stegzy

Roxette_-_Don't_Bore_Us_2000More Europop, this time with late eighties popsters from Sweden, Roxette.

You might recall Roxette from such hits as Joyride, Listen to Your Heart and Must Have Been Love. I did. I remembered how much I liked their songs and realised, mid noughties, that I had none of their albums. So with copious amounts of internet to consume, I set about downloading their Best of compilation and this is it.

All their hits from 1988 through to 1995 are here including those already mentioned, The Look and Dressed for Success. Re-listening to the album for the purpose of the music project just kept shoving me into a mental Delorian back to my youth in the late eighties and early nineties.

Great stuff so have three!

1995 best of compilations Roxette

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Aug 19

Dogs and Sheeps – Pink Floyd [#381]

by stegzy

Dogs and Sheeps - Pink FloydMore bootleg nonsense from Pink Floyd. This time just before Animals was produced and just after Wish You Were Here was released.

Interesting if only for listening to the evolution of some of the familiar songs in Animals.

 

1975 compilations Live Pink Floyd

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Jul 16

Definitive Simon & Garfunkel – Simon & Garfunkel [#356]

by stegzy

440px-The_Definitive_Simon_and_GarfunkelRegardless of what my wife thinks of Paul Simon and the hirsute Art Garfunkel, I’ve never really gotten on well with the pair. I was forced up with Mrs Robinson as part of my life soundtrack in the 1970s, and, since establishing firm musical boundaries between myself and my parents, I have distanced myself from the artists known as Simon & Garfunkel. Sneering contemptuously whenever their musical prowess or influence is mentioned.

So why, you may ask, is this album in your collection? Well it’s there purely because, as highlighted on numerous occasions during this project, my collection is an amalgamation of my own musical tastes, music forced upon me by peers and music harvested from various relationships over the years.

What makes this the Definitive then? Well to me Definitive means exactly what it says, this album should therefore define the artists, Simon and Garfunkel. Like if you were to look up the band in a musical dictionary this is what you would hear.

So don your cheesecloth, your kaftan and your gingham. Get yourself into a car from the 1960s. Grow your hair like a hippy, wear flowers, tattoo yourself with Dharma initiative symbols and run off to join some San Fransisco based Manson-esque cult with this album on your in car 8-track.

best of compilations Simon & Garfunkel

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