Bells of Doom – Therion
We’ve met Therion before in this project. This is yet another early pre-choral backed death growly waste of bollocks.
The Bells of Doom toll for this album as it wings its way into the recycle bin….
#146 – Bell Boots & Shambles – Spirogyra
Bell Boots & Shambles – Spirogyra
The most influential prog folk band of their time and yet few people have heard of them. Spirogyra were formed at the height of the Canterbury scene and comprised of Martin Cockerham, Mark Francism Barbara Gaskin, Julian Cusack and Steve Borrill.
Angry progressive folk with political overtones. Just what today’s folk lacks. Significantly. Show of Hands doesn’t count.
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#145 – Belbury Tales – Belbury Poly
Belbury Tales – Belbury Poly
There was a time before 24hr TV when BBC programme schedulers did a poor job. People would turn their televisions off after watching their programme and return to strangling the mop or smoking a pipe in the parlour until the next programme they had selected came on.
Around this time, BBC schedulers were not focussed on things finishing on time. It was often the case that TV programmes would over or under run, leaving the station with the problem of finding something to fill the gap. Of course this is in the days before TV self promotion and when people could be arsed to turn off their telly.
But during those heady days of fill-in’s, viewers would often be subjected to educational shorts such as films about a potter’s wheel or a machine making pencils or trains going into tunnels. The soundtrack to these films would normally sound like Belbury Poly.
If you took a large drop of acid or a hallucinogen of your choice you could quite easily listen to this album and find yourself educated while your mind plays educational fill-ins like: Potters wheel, Telephone Exchange or Industrial Processes 1954-1974.
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#144 – Beginnings – Happy the Man
Beginnings – Happy the Man
This is yet another example of why it is never a good idea to get an album because you like one track. Happy the Man are a prog band that appear on The Best Prog Album in the World…Ever compilation. Originally an American prog band Happy the Man have had many line up changes over the years in true prog fashion.
I thought I’d take a punt. Bit too jazzy for me.
Guess I’m just not that into them.
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#143 – Begin to Hope – Regina Spektor
Begin to Hope – Regina Spektor
I had high hopes when I first heard Regina Spektor. Sadly they fell to earth with a smack after I heard this album.
One or two songs on here are ok. The rest….well I guess I’d need to be a bigger fan. She is kind of cute looking but yeah….that’s not a reason to buy an album really is it.
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#142 – Before the Flood – Bob Dylan
Before the Flood – Bob Dylan
Those that know me will already be aware of my feelings about Bob “Low powered moped” Dylan.
So it’s probably best that I don’t talk about him any more in this project.
I’m not a fan.
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#141 – Before the Dream Faded – The Misunderstood
Before the Dream Faded – The Misunderstood
John Peel once called I Can Take You To The Sun the best popular song ever written. The Misunderstood were the original performers of that song.
I got this album following the death of John Peel and the release of the John Peel memorial album on which Take You to the Sun featured. The Misunderstood are one of those bands that were very influential on others but nobody seems to have heard of them.
A bit like Randy California’s Spirit.
Still, this isn’t bad. There are a number of tracks that seem a bit out of place but as the band didn’t actually release a full studio album (this album released in 1982 long after the artists had disbanded) this is not surprising.
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#140 – Bedside Manners are Extra – Greenslade
Bedside Manners are Extra – Greenslade
Proggy keyboard twiddling from Dave Greenslade et al on their second “difficult” album.
This album screams prog.The title song Bedside Manners are Extra even appears on the compilation album The Best Prog Rock Album in the World..Ever; the cover was designed by Roger Dean and there are songs longer than 3 minutes.
Not an album for Prog0phobes.
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#139 – Becoming X – Sneaker Pimps
Becoming X – Sneaker Pimps
There is a certain sound of the 90s. Songs and artists that just scream 1990s at the listener. Sneaker Pimps are one of those bands and their first album, Becoming X is a fine example of the sound.
Like Eels, Portishead and other bands of the time, music these artists featured regularly on contemporary dramas (This Life, Game On, X Files etc) and are still able to set the scene for any new dramas set during those times.
Becoming X is one of the first albums I managed to obtain on MP3. Deliciously haunting and wistful tunes invoking post recession memories of unemployment and youth. The embarkation of adulthood. The vague optimism of a pre-internet age full of empty post industrial promises with no foresight.
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#138 – Beautysleep & Lovesongs (Demo Versions) – Tanya Donelly
Beautysleep & Lovesongs (Demo Versions) – Tanya Donelly
No specific album cover for this compilation of demo versions of songs from Tanya’s first and second albums.
As a fan, I was overjoyed at managing to source this nice little compilation with which you can actually hear how songs develop over time.
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#138 – Beautysleep – Tanya Donelly
Beautysleep – Tanya Donelly
Tanya, the former Belly leadsinger, and her second solo album. As a fan of both Belly and early Tanya Donelly, you can hear the maturity in this album. Quirky has gone out of the window and has uncovered, by its absence, songs and music of a different, more mature woman.
You can still hear the Belly influence but this is definitely the difficult second album.
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#137 – Beauty – Vargo
Beauty by Vargo
Sometimes you just want to chill. Sometimes you want some nice make out music. Sometimes you want some music to make lurve to. Sometimes you want to all the above.
This is an album you probably wouldn’t want to listen to when carving up families in the back garden or for those awkward moments between genocidal massacre and slaughtering kittens. Unless of course you’re a bit strange.
Vargo, it appears, are a European chill out artist. I’ve go no idea how I ended up with this album though. Completely off the scale of my music tastes. But it’s an ok soundtrack for a bit of romantic hows yer father..
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#136 – Beautiful Freak – Eels
Beautiful Freak – Eels
Just like Blur and Oasis were the sound of the 90s in the UK, Eels, to me, were the sound of the 90s and noughties for the grungy gritty indie yoof types. Ne’er a film or a television programme about teens or early 20 somethings would be broadcast or shown without some Eels writhing about on the soundtrack.
I like this album. There are a number of good tracks that automatically whisk me back to the midwest of America of the time that I never visited due to my opposition to the dictatorship of George Bush.
#135 – Beautiful Darkness – SoLaRiS
Beautiful Darkness – SoLaRiS
Remember those days way back when, when you may have played with a music keyboard for the first time? When you learnt that you could make sequences and layer and loop? And you made some interesting dance songs?
This is an album of when someone did the same.
A little unfair though. This is a little bit more professional than that. SoLaRiS (the capitalisation is important!) are a band who I stumbled across on the fabulous Jamendo website. I’m very keen on bands who use social media and technological opportunities to promote themselves from the crumby garage band practices to the center of public awareness. Jamendo does that. Much like Peoplesound did in the 90s and noughties.
Beautiful Darkness grows on you like a yeast infection and before you know it you’re looking for other stuff by the band.
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Beautiful Creature & Juliana’s Pony: Total System Failure – Juliana Hatfield [#134]
Beautiful Creature & Juliana’s Pony: Total System Failure – Juliana Hatfield
I have always been fascinated by how the bands and artists I like are all interconnected somehow, even though the apparent connections may not be immediately apparent to me.
The Tubes and Chris Isaak or Yes, Vangelis and Mike Oldfield or Juliana Hatfield, Tanya Donelly and Kristin Hersh for example.
All interconnected either by artistic merit or close personal links to each other. And yet each of these bands and artists I have discovered for myself independently of their connections.
I became aware of Juliana Hatfield when she was part of Ivo Watt’s This Mortal Coil project in the 1990s. Though not really paying attention to who was who, it transpired that my favourite song from the 4AD showcase album Uncut: 4AD (to be featured much later in this project), You & Your Sister, was a duet with Tanya “Belly” Donelly and Juliana Hatfield. Wow! Especially as I already really liked Tanya Donelly.
Anyway, Beautiful Creature appears here as a joint album with Juliana’s Pony: Total System Failure. No idea why. It just is that way in my collection. Two separate albums combined and presented as one. It has a distinct Belly-esque sound. Angry women with guitars. The stuff Avril Lavigne turned into sickly sweet teen angst more successfully than slightly miffed Generation Xers.
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Beatallica – Beatallica [#133]
Beatallica – Beatallica
Beatallica chucked out another EP in 2004 with 8 tracks. This is the EP that made people sit up and listen and realise that here was a band with a unique approach to family favourites. Bridging the gap between Granny and Kevin the Angry Teenager.
Unfortunately the joke was already now starting to wear thin.
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#132 – The Beat Goes On – Vanilla Fudge
The Beat Goes on – Vanilla Fudge
Vanilla Fudge are one of those artists that you’ve heard of but don’t know you’ve heard of them. The Beat Goes On is their second studio album released in 1968. Much like Randy California’s band, Spirit, Vanilla Fudge are light years ahead of their time. Using sounds and styles that seem out of place for their time and could almost be commonplace in today’s music.
The Fudgers have had a massive influence on today’s artists. If you truly want to be a hipster, this really is a band whose back catalogue you need to own. If you don’t you can never call yourself hip, cool or whatever. Nor can you comment on anyone elses cred.
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#131 – The Beast with Two Backs – Inkubus Sukkubus
The Beast with Two Backs – Inkubus Sukkubus
Back once again with the band that never fails to remind me of the film Razorblade Smile. I often wonder if the people who perform in bands like this take themselves seriously.
After the first listen to this I want to wear a black trench coat with some sunglasses and do lots of strolling through abandoned hospitals. Or running through ornamental gardens of stately homes wearing frilly cuffs and carrying a musket.
This is an album from 2003 and features a goth version of Kylies Can’t Get you Out of My Head.
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#130 – The Beach (OST) – Various Artists
The Beach (Soundtrack) – Various Artists
After surviving a fate worse than marrying a soggy Kate Winslet and the sinking of a cruise liner, Leonardo Dicaprio swims all the way to Thailand and begins a life of backpacking across Asia.
During his adventures, some drunken sop tells him, in whispered tones, about a beach so beautiful it will melt your brain.
So begins the story of 90’s hedonism and awareness that secrets are best kept to yourself as nobody can be trusted. The film rings true to me especially as how every year people go to my favourite holiday spot, enjoy themselves and tell others to go too. Over the years the area has gone from nice quiet relaxing holiday spot to approaching awful Guardian reading family friendly frightfest.
Only without the drug smuggling, violence and Lord of the Flies inspired committees.
The soundtrack isn’t too bad either. It’s a nice snapshot of the 90’s hedonistic holiday nightclub crap that seemed to flood the radio waves, peoples cars and CD racks of the time. Bands such as Blur, Moby and All Saints feature with summer holiday inspiring tunes to whisk you off to your favourite sandy hot spot with a stylus fall.
#129 – BBC Sessions 1975-1978 – Renaissance
BBC Sessions 1975 – 1978 – Renaissance
The third and final BBC sessions album in my collection. This time, Renaissance step up to the microphone.
We’ve seen Annie Haslam and her pals on this project before. This album highlights how popular Renaissance were at their time. Which only adds to the confusion as to why I had never heard of them until I was in my 30s. It was as if they never received any radio airtime during the 80s and 90s to wipe them from collective consciousness.
This is possibly my second favourite Renaissance compilation album. It’s a good showcase of the wide range of talent and output of the band especially to new listeners.
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#128 – BBC Sessions – The Who
BBC Sessions – The Who
Roger Daltrey and his mates perform a variety of their hits on the radio during their peak then release this album some decades later in an effort to boost their pensions.
Most of the classics and favourites are here as are some covers and alternate versions. Missing is Pinball Wizard.
No idea why I have it. Possibly I downloaded it when going through a phase. Or possibly I got it for or from a friend.
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BBC Live – Fields of the Nephilim [#127]
BBC Live Sessions – Fields of the Nephilim
I came to Goth quite late although I was a fan of Strawberry Switchblade when they came out in the early eighties. FON was my late introduction to the Goth genre arriving in my mid to late 20s.
Ginger Chris, a goth friend who dressed in black and sported a fine set of natty dreads, insisted that the best band in the world was Fields of Nephilim and that no Goth would be accepted into the fold without a prior love or experience of Fields of the Nephilim.
So he gave me a cassette with some of their music on.
During a very very dark period of my mid twenties, I broke out the cassette and lowered myself on the express elevator into darkness through the medium of Fields of Nephilim. The compilation tape had all manner of songs on it and many I enjoyed.
When the internet, free downloads and USENET arrived, I immediately took it upon myself to get as much FON as I could. This is the first in the 19 albums I’ve managed to obtain over the years.
More of a bootleg than an official album, this appears to be a fan recording of five songs as performed on the BBC sometime. Possibly in the 1990s. Tracks include: Endemonadia, Love Under Will, Moonchild, Bluewater and Chord of Souls.
#126 – Bayreuth 1 – Joachim Witt
Bayreuth 1 – Joachim Witt
It’s that German chap again. This time he’s here with his eighth album from 1998.
In the time before Rammstein, when Euro pop was something shunned by Brit landers as mistakenly being akin to the plinky plonky fizzy pop churned out annually during the Eurovision Song Contest, there existed a subculture of hard core Euro rockers who were slowly infiltrating the UK pop scene. Mr Witt led that vanguard with this album.
There are some good tunes on this album but my favourite, and the only reason I have this album, is the Peter Heppner collaboration Die Flut.
#125 – Bat Out of Hell (Re-Vamped) – Meatloaf
Bat Out of Hell [Re-Vamped] – Meatloaf
Nothing could be more rousing than a fat bloke bellowing out a good old rock song. Especially if that rock song involves motorbikes.
As an impressionable teen, I had Meatloaf served to me by older siblings but, unlike with Prog, Meatloaf did not feature heavily in my music collection. That is not to say it didn’t exist there. It did. I had two cassettes featuring Meatloaf. One was the Bonnie Tyler collaboration Heaven and Hell, a God awful compilation album but I didn’t really know any better then. The other cassette was the Best of Meatloaf. One track was consistent across both cassettes and synonymous with Meatloaf; Bat out of Hell.
If you’ve never heard of the fat boy’s hit Bat Out Of Hell, you’re either under 30 or you’ve been living in a monastery. Also on this album is the far superior Paradise by The Dashboard Light, a tale about why it’s best not to make idle teen promises to get some sex, and that song featuring Cher (Dead Ringer for Love).
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#124 – Barretts Revenge – Pink Floyd
Barretts Revenge – Pink Floyd
Rare recordings of Pink Floyd stuff from when Syd Barrett was steering and some nice bootlegs too.
This is one for the fans.
I am a fan.
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Stegzy's Music Project 