Stegzy's Music Project

A commentary on Stegzy's album collection

Oct 19

#159 – The Best of & The Rest of British Psychedelia – Various Artists

by stegzy

 

Screen Shot 2014-10-19 at 09.51.41The Best of & The Rest of British Psychedelia – Various Artists

It was obvious from the out set that the compiler of this compilation thinks that psychedelia has to either sound like Village Green Preservation Society by the Kinks or like it should be played in some new town like Reading or Milton Keynes with lots of young people expressing themselves through dress and dance.

It seems also that to pass as psychedelia, both the lyrics and the band name has to be slightly odd and quirky. This compilation has the following:

1 Morning Morgan Town – Jude
2 Keep Hold of What You’ve Got – The Shots
3 Shirley – Cliff Wade
4 House of Many Windows – Motherlight (sounds a bit like Genesis meets Marillion)
5 Peru – Chimera (Should be a theme tune for some Youthwave devil worship film from 1970, possibly starring Beryl Reid)
6 Saga of a Wrinkled Man – Fortes Mentum
7 Baby You’ve Gotta Stay – Angel Pavement
(Track 8 is Missing)
9 Laura’s Garden – Orange Bicycle
10 It Never Stays The Same – Bob Grimm
11 All Of My Life – Pussy
12 Green Mello Hill – Magic Worms
13 Leilla – Chiitra Neogy
14 Look At Me I’ve Fallen Into A Teapot – Cliff Wade

Never heard of any of them.  Nice as non-distracting background music…

Various Artists

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Oct 9

#158 – Best of – Radiohead

by stegzy

Best of RadioheadBest of – Radiohead 

I came late to the Radiohead party. I think my invite was lost in the post. The buffet had been demolished, the DJ was playing the slowies and desperate singletons sat sobbing at their ability to scare off any potential mate. Probably a good thing really.

There are a number of Radiohead tracks that I like, but I think by the time I had got into Radiohead, the days of listening to albums in their entirety had long passed.

So, in an effort to discover more hidden gems, I obtained a copy of their Best of .  All but one of my favourite Radiohead songs appear in this compilation. That one would be released on a much later album. But this album/compilation is a good showcase. Not my cup of tea mind. But enough to convince me that I need not worry about obtaining their back catalogue.

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

Radiohead

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Oct 8

#157 – Best of – The Offspring

by stegzy

The Best of The OffspringBest of – The Offspring

Some time in the late nineties and early noughties, I must have liked this band for some reason. This is clear from how I appear to have quite a lot of their albums. I’m buggered if I can remember what the song I liked was though.

Or why.

The Best of has a slightly familiar song but I’m not sure if that is the one I like. It is possible that this is a band that the ex-wife liked or it is possible that someone asked me to get it for them. Either way, I don’t like it.

Offspring (The)

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Oct 7

#156 – Best of – Nouvelle Vague

by stegzy

Best of - Nouvelle VagueBest of – Nouvelle Vague

Sexy twee core covers of popular songs by those Frenchies.

Nice for those moments when seductive versions of popular songs are an absolute must.

I don’t know what it is about Nouvelle Vague. They always make me feel sleezy and unclean. Like I should be walking around semi dressed listening to them in my old town French apartment overlooking a market square, smoking Gitanes and looking moody while a sultry dark haired French type wearing one of my shirts and nothing much else drapes herself seductively over the furniture.

 

best of Nouvelle Vague

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Oct 6

#155 – The Best of – The Beach Boys

by stegzy

The Best of the Beach BoysThe Best of – The Beach Boys

Don’t know how this got into my collection.

I have a snooty contempt for the Beach Boys. Sure they’re a product of their time. That hazy clean living pseudo-America that only seemed to have happened in films or imaginations. But to me they have sinister overtones. That might just be me though.

There’s just something a little creepy about some of their songs. It makes me think of some tripped up psycho-hippie carving up bodies.I’m sure psychologists in the future will debate that statement for many years.

Beach Boys

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Oct 2

#151 – The Best Air Guitar Album in the World…Ever – Various Artists

by stegzy

The Best Air Guitar Album in the World...Ever - Various Artists The Best Air Guitar Album in the World…Ever – Various Artists

This is every Dad’s favourite compilation from the nineties and noughties. Glove boxes throughout the UK had a copy of this album in it and jukeboxes in dodgy pubs were required by law to have this album also.

As much a part of pre-MP3 music culture as Tubular Bells, Jeff Wayne’s War of the Worlds and other coffee table albums, The Best Air Guitar Album in the World…Ever is one of those compilations that seem to be in every collection. It’s not hard to see why. All the traditionally popular bands are here; Queen, Def Leppard, Skynyrd and Blur but there are also bands and songs that are missing – Stiltskin’s Inside and Mountain’s Nantucket Sleighride for example, surely two of the most prolific air guitar riffs ever? Also there are some bands whose inclusion seems to only be to hook the younger generation in, Blur and Robbie Williams for example.

Still as compilations go, this is one of the better more agreeable ones.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pi1xYki7Cow

Read the rest of this entry »

Various Artists

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Sep 8

#129 – BBC Sessions 1975-1978 – Renaissance

by stegzy

Renaissance - BBC Sessions 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.

BBC Sessions best of Renaissance

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Aug 27

#118 – Back to Mine: Faithless

by stegzy

Screen Shot 2014-08-19 at 17.36.28Back to Mine: Faithless – Faithless & Various Artists

Back to Mine, is a series of compilations where musicians remix or perform covers of other peoples music. Because rejigging other peoples work is art. Apparently.

Regardless, it’s lucrative isn’t it? What do I know? I’m not a hipster or in with the yoof.

This particular Back to Mine has 90’s Ibiza faves, Faithless, taking Bomb the Bass, Dido and Adamski back to theirs for a good old record playing session. As my first introduction to the Back to Mine series and the fact that out of the 28 volumes, this is the only one that hasn’t been deleted, it shows that Back to Mine: Faithless  is probably the best of the lot.

Even if it is just someone elses work played a bit faster or jiggered about by playing someone elses work over it.

 

Faithless Mazzy Star Various Artists

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Aug 23

Ayreonauts Only – Ayreon [#113]

by stegzy

Screen Shot 2014-08-19 at 16.35.34Ayreonauts Only – Ayreon

We talked about Ayreon back at the start of this project. Ayreon is one of those European rock stars that wouldn’t be out of place in one of those Euro Rock bands of the late 1980’s like Poison or Europe.

Except he’s far too good for that.

This album acts as a kind of “I can do better than what I did before” Best of compilation album. A Betterer Of, for want of a better phrase.

If the chugga chugga guitar of Into the Black Hole doesn’t get you fired up, then perhaps Eyes of Time or  Cold Metal will.

I love this album. Again, I have no idea why he’s not as well known in the UK as he is in Europe.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u5WdvMr5IHU

2000 Ayreon

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Aug 16

#106 – Auf Ewig – Joachim Witt

by stegzy

Album artAuf Ewig – Joachim Witt

German pensioner Rocker Joachim Witt is one of those rock stars all the old rock stars want to emulate. Nonchalance, no guitar wanking or face contorting, just nonchalance and an air of cool that would make Bryan Ferry feel a bit of a knob head. Thats Joachim Witt.

I came across Witt a few years ago while looking for some Euro pop. Of course, he’s been around since before Elvis learnt about burgers being tasty, which is fairly good all things considered. I vaguely remember a couple of Witt tracks appearing in the tail end of the Top 40 way back when.

Auf Ewig is nothing to do with earwigs, it is the best of Witt. Which I always think is a bit like drawing a line across your work and saying anything that follows is not the best of. Anyway, this IS the best of. All in one album. Typically, there are a number of tracks that are good, and a number which I wish I’d never heard.

best of Joachim Witt

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Jul 4

Album #63 – All Over the World – Electric Light Orchestra

by stegzy

Screen Shot 2014-06-03 at 11.52.16 All Over the World – Electric Light Orchestra

The Very Best of, apparently.

I really liked ELO when I was a kid. I suppose the tweeness and the optimism of their tunes lent some colour to my otherwise plodding teens. I can recall listening to them (on cassette of course) while doing my evening newspaper delivery round, whistling and singing away.

The selection of tunes here are what I’d probably pick if someone said: “Do us a compilation of ELO like”. But there are a few tracks I would have added that aren’t on this mix. I often wonder what goes through the head of people who make compilation albums like this. What makes them decide “Oh this is a banging choon, lets ‘ave that one on like” and yet neglect to put a song that is far superior in quality? I will no doubt explore this further when writing the reviews for the numerous Best Of compilation albums that will feature in this project.

Curiously, it wasn’t until recently that I actually found out what lead singer Jeff Lynne looked like.

Beards.

Says it all really.

 

1980 ELO

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Jul 2

Album # 61 – The Album – Various Artists

by stegzy

url-1The Album- Various Artists

Short of stealing a TARDIS and traversing the wibbly wobbly, time travel is a bit difficult. However, you can mitigate the lack of ornate chez lounges or blue police boxes by slapping on a good old compilation of music from the period to which you want to travel.

And that’s exactly what this album does. It transports the listener to the heady days of the late nineties and early noughties.

There are just as many artists I’ve never heard of on here as there are artists I have. Immediately I am there, mooching about Liverpool in the mid to late nineties wearing my scruffy jeans. Neo-Socialist optimism oozing out of the ground in a pre-911 hedonistic carefree era.

Bands such as Blur, Creed, Manic Street Preachers and Top”We now play at village fetes”loader strumming away in that plastic coated faux indie scene soundscape created in antithesis of the cheezy and garish eighties soundscape.

Not a bad compilation for long journey in the car. Or for when you’re writing one of those gritty dramas about young people flat sharing in the mid 90s early noughties.

 

Various Artists

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Jun 22

Accessories – The Gathering [#51]

by stegzy

Accessories – The Gathering

This is the second album alphabetically that I have from The Gathering. It is one of those filler albums. The ones that bands or record labels release to maintain interest in their music between albums. Accessories is a compilation of live, rare and b side songs.

Songs from Mandylion like Strange Machines, Amity and In Motion are joined by covers of Dead Can Dance (In Power We Trust the Love Advocated) and instrumental and orchestral versions of other classic Gathering songs.

I suppose it is one of my favourite albums by the Gathering, purely because it showcases most of their better songs. Spread over two discs, the playtime runs to just over 2 hours 25 minutes and is a good introduction to the band if you couldn’t face A Noise Severe.

2005 Gathering (The)

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Jun 12

Music Project – Album #40 – A Saucerful of Pink: A Tribute to Pink Floyd

by stegzy

A Saucerful of Pink: A Tribute to Pink Floyd by Various Artists

Somebody once said to me “You know when a band is good by the number of tribute acts”. Someone else once said to me “Turn this fucking racket off”. This album illustrates why both these people were correct.

This album is the result of a group of lesser known artists such as Psychic TV, Sky Cries Mary, Eden, Alien Sex Fiend and Controlled Bleeding gathering together to tortuously mutilate 2 hours of Pink Floyd instrumentals and songs. Some say imitation is the sincerest form of flattery. After 30 minutes of this album I challenge them to repeat that claim without a grimace on their face.

To be fair, some of it isn’t too bad. Nothing is “individual” or stands out. I suspect this is another album heading its way to the digital recycle bin in the sky. Of course, if you’re brave you’re welcome to ask me to upload it somewhere for you…..

I swear, my musical tastes have become a lot more conservative in recent years….

1995 Pink Floyd Various Artists

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Jun 9

Music Project – Album #37 – A Psychedelic Guide to Monsterism Island- Various Artists

by stegzy

A Psychedelic Guide to Monsterism Island by Various Artists

Towards the end of my most recent exploration of musical genres I kind of rediscovered Psychedilia for myself. One of the many trophies I gathered from my foray was this collection.

Of course, listening to it again I can only assume that somehow my ears had been affected by something. Not drugs. Probably tiredness.

Whatever the case..this is utter bollocks. Except maybe for the fact it has a Belbury Poly tune on it. Nah…it’s shite. Don’t waste your time….

Various Artists

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May 30

A Collection – The Doors [#26]

by stegzy

A Collection – The Doors

I remember seeing a film about this woman who collected plaster casts of famous people’s knobs. On the film Jim Morrison was having his knob cast. Whenever I hear The Doors, I think of that film.
But for me, the Doors will always be the band in that film with Val Kilmer. The film with Val Kilmer that I watched round at Beanhead’s place with Regzy.

This album is 3 hours long and feels like every song Jim Morrison wrote. I’m not a huge fan so I couldnt say if it is or not. I can say that it does have my favourite Doors songs on it: Riders on a Storm and Break on Through.

1999 Doors (The)

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Jan 11

4AD Presents…-Various Artists [#6]

by stegzy

4AD Presents the 13 Year Itch by Various Artists

This is the first of many compilation albums and the first of several sampler albums that I’ve collected over the years.

I’ve been a huge fan of Ivo Watt’s 4AD label since the early nineties. Watt’s distinctive production reverberates throughout all the artists borne from the 4AD stable. Throwing Muses, Belly, Lush, Cocteau Twins, Dead Can Dance, This Mortal Coil, Department of Eagles…they’re all 4AD bands. What is unusual is that I was unaware at the time that the vast majority of them were 4AD artists. Indeed, at the time I was buying CDs and it was only in about 1991 that I actually started to pay attention to the studio and record label. So when the download frenzy of the last decade began I eagerly sucked every album I could from the 4AD label.

It was interesting at the time because I found it difficult to get most of the stuff I wanted legally due to licensing and limited editions. I would look full of whist at the catalogues and try to imagine what the songs sounded like. When I gained super fast broadband I was able to source the actual tracks and, no, I wasn’t disappointed.

13 year Itch  is a compilation sampler of the bands that were available in 1993. It starts with a rousing dose of shoe gazing with Lush’s Desire Lines, passing by The Breeders brooding about the Invisible Man and heading briefly into shady Brendan Perry (Dead Can Dance) territory (Perry performs a cover of Tim Buckley’s Happy Time) before nose diving into the This Is the Way, Part 2 climax with Ultra Vivid Scene. The zeitgeist of the 90s lives on through these artists and the 4AD label . If I was to relive my youth, I would want this to be the soundtrack. I would want to be a little older and better off than I was. I would also want to be hanging round with moody gothesque shoe gazers, talking about the impending doom of the approaching millennium, whilst sitting in bed sitting rooms that stink of Patchouli, joss sticks and couscous.

Wait…

I did.

I just described my early 20’s.

Sadly this album wasn’t playing.

If I was to do it again. I would expect it to be playing on my Sony Walkman or at least on my Sony CD player.

If you’re interested in 4AD this is the second best compilation sampler to get hold of. The first is the Uncut freeby, which I will probably review sometime in the next year.

http://www.allmusic.com/album/4ad-presents-the-13-year-itch-mw0001811485

1993 Various Artists

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