#09 – Ten years later….

Ten years ago I made a blog that lasted about 3 posts. Ah, the amount of times I’ve started but not finished things! It’s the story of my life. Well, sort of… the channel seems to have fared better. In fact as it approaches its 5th birthday, I found this old blog post from a decade ago, and my thoughts of music at that time. Some of this holds up today, but surely this top ten would be quite different now. Maybe I’ll make a post about that in the future! But for now, here is where my musical heart was in 2013. This is the top ten most important albums to me at that time.

The Orb…. The Orb’s Adventures Beyond The Ultraworld – 1991

There was once House Music. At the polar opposite of the musical world was ambient music, spearheaded by Brian Eno. Somewhere along the way, Thrash and Alex Patterson combined the two to create Ambient House. The Orb was their vehicle for creating hedonistic, dub infused, ambient house. They created an entire new genre. And for me, it changed everything. The rule book was thrown out – verses, choruses, bridges…. they were rules that no longer existed. The music meandered and twisted seemingly aimlessly through entire sides of a record (hey kids, you used to have to turn the record over half way through). And it was breathtaking in its beauty and ambition. I love this record to this day and listen to it regularly.

http://youtu.be/aTxg-15TfHg

Radiohead…. OK Computer – 1997 

In the words of Dan Le Sac and Scroobious Pip…. “Radiohead? Just a band…..” But man alive, what a band. I know everyone harps on about OK Computer, and it routinely tops the “best album of all time” charts,  but this is my list! For me, OK Computer is the absolute pinnacle of song writing, musicianship and performance. The Bends was an amazing album, not one dud from start to finish, but then they released this. While Oasis and Blur were slogging it out for Brit-pop supremacy, Radiohead ignored what was going on and, with the luxury of self assurance, explored their music, their art. This is the antithesis of a commercial record. I very much doubt that if this had been written now, a major label would have released it. Of course, Radiohead don’t need major backing any more, but it makes you wonder. Paranoid Android, Kama Police, and Subterranean Homesick Alien are my highlights of a flawless masterpiece.

https://youtu.be/1uYWYWPc9HU

AC/DC…… Back In Black – 1980 

My mum bought this album for me shortly after the Iron Maiden awakening. It was two years since its release in 1980 but it sounded fresh and rocked like you wouldn’t believe to a twelve year old’s ears. Incredible riffs, meat and veg drumming, vocals sounding like they were forged from granite cliffs, and attitude in spades. Rock and roll ain’t noise pollution….

http://youtu.be/6vImyP5EYc8

Iron Maiden….. The Number Of The Beast – 1982 

At the grand old age of twelve I absolutely remember the moment I discovered music for me, a chance watching of Top of the Pops and a video of Iron Maiden. Up till that point, Adam and the Ants, Status Quo and ABBA was what I knew of “pop music”. This changed everything, and I remember the next day at school: Ed, James and Charlie had seen it too. We vowed to form a band. Zenator was short lived but the start of everything that followed! I will always have a place in my heart for Iron Maiden.

http://youtu.be/jsmcDLDw9iw

Leftfield….. Leftism – 1995

This! This is the album that made me realise that dance music could be intelligent, could inspire, could be adventurous, inventive, unexpected…. There is not one duff track on this record, I know every beat, every arpeggio, every drop, every bass line from start to finish and it requires repeated listening, over and over again. Next to AC/DC, Leftfield is one of the only bands that demand listening at extreme high volume, not because you want to annoy the neighbours, but because you need to FEEL the music, not just hear it. You know that.

Paul Daley and Neil Barnes agonised tirelessly over the production and composition of this masterpiece, and they never quite reached these heights again, though their follow up Rhythm and Stealth would be a career defining production for anyone else. Oh, and John Lydon 🙂

http://youtu.be/hZj9bi7YNmIusic

The The….. Infected – 1986 

Matt Johnson’s musical vehicle, The The was socially and politically right on the money in the mid to late 80s. With New Order’esque drums and synths and Johnson’s lyrics of alienation, solitude and despair, what self respecting 17 year old could resist? I missed the whole Smiths scene so feel slightly better that I encountered Johnny Marr’s guitar albeit in a different musical guise on The The’s next album Mind Bomb. The The’s lyrics are as relevant today as they were 27 years ago. Oh….. The Sweet Bird of Truth…….

http://youtu.be/psqk7gbRiDo

Depeche Mode…. Violator – 1990

Songs! Genius, stunning, rock, but no guitars. Electronic synth driven songwriting delivering chart topping, school disco troubling tunes like Personal Jesus, Policy of Truth and Enjoy The Silence. I think this was their 6th or 7th album and the only one I own, but it was (and is) a humdinger of a record. I listened to this quite recently and it hasn’t dated at all. Back in the day, I remember crafting tunes with Ben using our primitive synth set-up (hey Ben, I’ve still got the Yammy SY-22!) and being inspired by the precision of sequencer driven synth riffs and drum machine beats. We didn’t have a sampler so our rendition of The Breakfast Club consisted of VHS playback of film dialogue with our sequences and beats looped over the top. Mixed on a Fostex cassette four track recorder, I still have C90s of those sessions. (If you don’t know what a C90 is, you are way too young!)

http://youtu.be/k82MVc5cAso

The Cult…. Love – 1985

Sanctuary. That is all. Ok…. add to that Rain, Love, Revolution, Nirvana, Brother Wolf Sister Moon. The Cult went on to become trans Atlantic straddling rock behemoths but in 1985, they were GOTHS!!!! I was never a very good goth, I had a big coat and black boots, I even played some gigs with my band at the time with black lip stick and nail varnish but I didn’t really have the attitude for it. But I loved the music – The Cure, Fields of the Nephilim, Love and Rockets, Spear of Destiny and Sisters of Mercy… and then there was The Southern Death Cult that became just The Cult. Billy Duffy’s guitar playing is still arguably some of the best ever committed to record. She Sells Sanctuary has the greatest guitar riff of all time and is by law the final song played at every indie disco and pub covers band gig. If it isn’t you can sue.

http://youtu.be/8I8mWG6HlmU

Pink Floyd…. The Wall – 1979

I don’t remember hearing Another Brick In The Wall (part 2) for the first time. It’s always been there, like Help! or Whole Lotta Love or My Generation. That it formed part of a bigger work, told a chapter in a story was incredible to me as a 13 year old kid. At that age, hearing an adult singing “I don’t need no education, I don’t need no thought control” seemed like a call to arms, an encouragement and invitation to explore your own feelings to realise your “self”, to look inwards for the first time. Looking back, I think I was probably incredibly pompous and self absorbed, miserable even (that might have led to the Goth period). I don’t know what rang a chord with me on this record – tales of war, of solitude, of retribution – but it is still an amazing achievement. It’s pompous and grandiose in the extreme, but I know it and love it. David Gilmour not only co-wrote Comfortably Numb as Pink Floyd’s greatest track, but quite possibly the finest piece of music written in the twentieth century (feel free to retaliate!)

http://youtu.be/vi7cuAjArRs

Massive Attack…. Mezzanine – 1998

I can’t quite believe that this record is more than twenty years old. When I was a kid, records that old sounded old! Like The Beatles, or Bob Dylan or The Rolling Stones. This sounds as fresh as a daisy. It sounds contemporary and urban, dystopian and bleak. The production values are seriously from the future. The first track from the album Angel is my absolute highlight of this record, though everything else is just as good. For me though, the initial sparseness of the track opening up into fuzzed up guitar mayhem and then being reined back into submission… whoa, talk about dynamics!

http://youtu.be/ygw2zmEVsvchttp://youtu.be/w3mn7EC-skg