Moderately Acclaimed Albums 2019 - Round 1.9
Moderately Acclaimed Albums 2019 - Round 1.9
Welcome to the round 1.9 of Moderately Acclaimed Albums 2019!
Vote for your favorite album in each match-up.
Remember, anyone can vote as long as the voter has heard both albums.
Good-spirited comments are encouraged, but not absolutely necessary.
Deadline = May 28th at 10am EST.
Here's a link to the bracket for the entire tournament:
http://www.bracketmaker.com/tlist.cfm?t ... Moderately Acclaimed Albums 2019
Match-ups:
1. Bob Dylan - Desire vs. Killer Mike - R.A.P. Music
2. Global Communication - 76:14 vs. Au Pairs - Playing With a Different Sex
3. Beyoncé - 4 vs. Neil Cicierega - Mouth Moods
4. Billy Joel - Piano Man vs. Mitski - Bury Me at Makeout Creek
Buy the sky and sell the sky and lift your arms up to the sky
Vote for your favorite album in each match-up.
Remember, anyone can vote as long as the voter has heard both albums.
Good-spirited comments are encouraged, but not absolutely necessary.
Deadline = May 28th at 10am EST.
Here's a link to the bracket for the entire tournament:
http://www.bracketmaker.com/tlist.cfm?t ... Moderately Acclaimed Albums 2019
Match-ups:
1. Bob Dylan - Desire vs. Killer Mike - R.A.P. Music
2. Global Communication - 76:14 vs. Au Pairs - Playing With a Different Sex
3. Beyoncé - 4 vs. Neil Cicierega - Mouth Moods
4. Billy Joel - Piano Man vs. Mitski - Bury Me at Makeout Creek
Buy the sky and sell the sky and lift your arms up to the sky
- spiritualized
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Re: Moderately Acclaimed Albums 2019 - Round 1.9
1. Bob Dylan - Desire (7/10) vs. Killer Mike - R.A.P. Music (8/10)
2. Global Communication - 76:14 (9/10) vs.Au Pairs - Playing With a Different Sex (7/10)
3. Beyoncé - 4 (3/10) vs. Neil Cicierega - Mouth Moods (TBA)
4. Billy Joel - Piano Man (TBA) vs. Mitski - Bury Me at Makeout Creek (TBA)
Some listening to do....
2. Global Communication - 76:14 (9/10) vs.
3. Beyoncé - 4 (3/10) vs. Neil Cicierega - Mouth Moods (TBA)
4. Billy Joel - Piano Man (TBA) vs. Mitski - Bury Me at Makeout Creek (TBA)
Some listening to do....
Last edited by spiritualized on Mon May 27, 2019 4:42 pm, edited 2 times in total.
Re: Moderately Acclaimed Albums 2019 - Round 1.9
1. Bob Dylan - Desire
4. Mitski - Bury Me at Makeout Creek
4. Mitski - Bury Me at Makeout Creek
Re: Moderately Acclaimed Albums 2019 - Round 1.9
1. Bob Dylan - Desire vs. Killer Mike - R.A.P. Music
2.Global Communication - 76:14 vs. Au Pairs - Playing With a Different Sex
3.Beyoncé - 4 vs. Neil Cicierega - Mouth Moods
4.Billy Joel - Piano Man vs. Mitski - Bury Me at Makeout Creek
2.
3.
4.
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Re: Moderately Acclaimed Albums 2019 - Round 1.9
BOB DYLAN - DESIRE
AU PAIRS - PLAYING WITH A DIFFERENT SEX
NEIL CICIEREGA - MOUTH MOODS (somewhat of a gimmicky mashup album but certainly one of the most effective ones)
AU PAIRS - PLAYING WITH A DIFFERENT SEX
NEIL CICIEREGA - MOUTH MOODS (somewhat of a gimmicky mashup album but certainly one of the most effective ones)
Re: Moderately Acclaimed Albums 2019 - Round 1.9
Bob Dylan - Desire
Au Pairs - Playing With a Different Sex
Neil Cicierega - Mouth Moods
Mitski - Bury Me at Makeout Creek
Favorite album I couldn't vote for: Killer Mike - R.A.P. Music
I really like the albums in the first two matches; not so much the second two. That Cicierega album has some inspired moments, though, as well as a few that (IMO) go spectacularly wrong. (Though not as wrong as "Run the World" by Beyoncé, one of the few songs whose message I appreciate and still gets a 1 from me. Usually, if I give the song a 1, it's for the exact opposite reason - that the song's message offends me, like "Blurred Lines" or "An Open Letter to My Teenage Son.")
Au Pairs - Playing With a Different Sex
Neil Cicierega - Mouth Moods
Mitski - Bury Me at Makeout Creek
Favorite album I couldn't vote for: Killer Mike - R.A.P. Music
I really like the albums in the first two matches; not so much the second two. That Cicierega album has some inspired moments, though, as well as a few that (IMO) go spectacularly wrong. (Though not as wrong as "Run the World" by Beyoncé, one of the few songs whose message I appreciate and still gets a 1 from me. Usually, if I give the song a 1, it's for the exact opposite reason - that the song's message offends me, like "Blurred Lines" or "An Open Letter to My Teenage Son.")
Re: Moderately Acclaimed Albums 2019 - Round 1.9
Desire 84 - RAP Music 80
Piano Man 81 - Bury Me At Makeout Creek 78
Au Pairs and Niel Cicierega I could not find
Piano Man 81 - Bury Me At Makeout Creek 78
Au Pairs and Niel Cicierega I could not find
Re: Moderately Acclaimed Albums 2019 - Round 1.9
http://www.neilcic.com/mouthmoods/Jirin wrote:Au Pairs and Niel Cicierega I could not find
You can download mouth moods from here or follow the link to his SoundCloud. It's free because of all the sampling - but that also means it isn't on any streaming sites.
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Re: Moderately Acclaimed Albums 2019 - Round 1.9
Mouth Moods > 4
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Re: Moderately Acclaimed Albums 2019 - Round 1.9
Bob Dylan - Desire
Au Pairs - Playing With a Different Sex
Beyoncé - 4
Billy Joel - Piano Man
Au Pairs - Playing With a Different Sex
Beyoncé - 4
Billy Joel - Piano Man
De gustibus et coloribus non est disputandum.
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Re: Moderately Acclaimed Albums 2019 - Round 1.9
![](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/0/0e/Bob_Dylan_-_Desire.jpg)
1. Bob Dylan - Desire (1976) vs. 7. Killer Mike - R.A.P. Music (2012)
4. Global Communication - 76:14 (1994) vs. 3. Au Pairs - Playing With a Different Sex (1981)
5. Beyoncé - 4 (2011) vs. 8. Neil Cicierega - Mouth Moods (2017)
6. Billy Joel - Piano Man (1973) vs. 2. Mitski - Bury Me at Makeout Creek (2014)
Favourite song from every album:
Sara | Reagan | 5 23 | Headache for Michelle | Party | T.I.M.E. | Captain Jack | Texas Reznikoff
Favourite song of the week: Sara
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Re: Moderately Acclaimed Albums 2019 - Round 1.9
BILLY JOEL - PIANO MAN
Re: Moderately Acclaimed Albums 2019 - Round 1.9
1. Killer Mike - R.A.P. Music
2. Global Communication - 76:14
76:14 might be the lest "ambient" of my all ambient nomination list, but I think it delivers when it's slow and moody as much as when it's more danceable.
2. Global Communication - 76:14
76:14 might be the lest "ambient" of my all ambient nomination list, but I think it delivers when it's slow and moody as much as when it's more danceable.
Re: Moderately Acclaimed Albums 2019 - Round 1.9
3. Bob Dylan - Desire < 2. Killer Mike - R.A.P. Music
6. Global Communication - 76:14 < 1. Au Pairs - Playing With a Different Sex
7. Beyoncé - 4 < 5. Neil Cicierega - Mouth Moods
8. Billy Joel - Piano Man < 4. Mitski - Bury Me at Makeout Creek
I nominated Mouth Moods, and I hope it has brought some levity and laughs. I could barely contain myself at work the first time I heard it - each new song was a fantastic and hilarious surprise.
Killer Mike vs Bob Dylan was so very close. Both are excellent albums, but the second half of RAP cemented the victory.
Good to finally listen to the full Au Pairs album - I quite liked the one song provided to the 80's recommendation thread, and that turned out to be one of the (relatively) weaker songs for me!
6. Global Communication - 76:14 < 1. Au Pairs - Playing With a Different Sex
7. Beyoncé - 4 < 5. Neil Cicierega - Mouth Moods
8. Billy Joel - Piano Man < 4. Mitski - Bury Me at Makeout Creek
I nominated Mouth Moods, and I hope it has brought some levity and laughs. I could barely contain myself at work the first time I heard it - each new song was a fantastic and hilarious surprise.
Killer Mike vs Bob Dylan was so very close. Both are excellent albums, but the second half of RAP cemented the victory.
Good to finally listen to the full Au Pairs album - I quite liked the one song provided to the 80's recommendation thread, and that turned out to be one of the (relatively) weaker songs for me!
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Re: Moderately Acclaimed Albums 2019 - Round 1.9
1. Bob Dylan - Desire vs. Killer Mike - R.A.P. Music
4. Billy Joel - Piano Man vs. Mitski - Bury Me at Makeout Creek
4. Billy Joel - Piano Man vs. Mitski - Bury Me at Makeout Creek
I feel like that
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Re: Moderately Acclaimed Albums 2019 - Round 1.9
Desire
Playing with a Different Sex
Mouth Moods
Piano Man
Playing with a Different Sex
Mouth Moods
Piano Man
Music is a world within itself, with a language we all understand - Sir Duke (1976)
Re: Moderately Acclaimed Albums 2019 - Round 1.9
My picks:
1. Bob Dylan - Desire vs. Killer Mike - R.A.P. Music
2. Global Communication - 76:14 vs. Au Pairs - Playing With a Different Sex
3. Beyoncé - 4 vs. Neil Cicierega - Mouth Moods
4. Billy Joel - Piano Man vs. Mitski - Bury Me at Makeout Creek
Thanks!
1. Bob Dylan - Desire vs. Killer Mike - R.A.P. Music
2. Global Communication - 76:14 vs. Au Pairs - Playing With a Different Sex
3. Beyoncé - 4 vs. Neil Cicierega - Mouth Moods
4. Billy Joel - Piano Man vs. Mitski - Bury Me at Makeout Creek
Thanks!
- FrankLotion
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Re: Moderately Acclaimed Albums 2019 - Round 1.9
1. Killer Mike - R.A.P. Music
2. Global Communication - 76:14
3. Neil Cicierega - Mouth Moods
4. Mitski - Bury Me at Makeout Creek
Thank you Safetycat for that Mouth Moods nomination! I was surprised when I saw it since we don’t get too many silly mashup albums in this game but I’ve always found this album deeply funny so it’s a nice change of pace!
2. Global Communication - 76:14
3. Neil Cicierega - Mouth Moods
4. Mitski - Bury Me at Makeout Creek
Thank you Safetycat for that Mouth Moods nomination! I was surprised when I saw it since we don’t get too many silly mashup albums in this game but I’ve always found this album deeply funny so it’s a nice change of pace!
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Re: Moderately Acclaimed Albums 2019 - Round 1.9
2 | Bob Dylan | Desire
3 | Killer Mike | R.A.P. Music
5 | Global Communication | 76:14:00
1 | Au Pairs | Playing With a Different Sex
6 | Beyoncé | 4
8 | Neil Cicierega | Mouth Moods
7 | Billy Joel | Piano Man
4 | Mitski | Bury Me at Makeout Creek
Favourite song of the week: Au Pairs | It's Obvious
"The first word in this song is discorporate. It means to leave your body."
Re: Moderately Acclaimed Albums 2019 - Round 1.9
1. Bob Dylan - Desire vs. Killer Mike - R.A.P. Music
I'm not much of a Dylanist, so this one got no chance against one of my favorite hip hop albums of the last decade
2. Global Communication - 76:14 vs. Au Pairs - Playing With a Different Sex
A much closer vote. I didn't know Global Communication before but I very much liked this quiet electronical record. Still Au pairs was one of my favorite discoveries of the 1981 poll and wins this.
3. Beyoncé - 4 vs. Neil Cicierega - Mouth Moods
Difficult. Not my favorite Beoyncé record on the one side. One the other side there were quite a few times I smiled about Mouth Moods but my barrel of how much Smash Mouth I can listen to was full a long time ago (around about mid credits of the first Shreck). One the whole the record with the higher highs and lower lows wins.
4. Billy Joel - Piano Man vs. Mitski - Bury Me at Makeout Creek
Easy
I'm not much of a Dylanist, so this one got no chance against one of my favorite hip hop albums of the last decade
2. Global Communication - 76:14 vs. Au Pairs - Playing With a Different Sex
A much closer vote. I didn't know Global Communication before but I very much liked this quiet electronical record. Still Au pairs was one of my favorite discoveries of the 1981 poll and wins this.
3. Beyoncé - 4 vs. Neil Cicierega - Mouth Moods
Difficult. Not my favorite Beoyncé record on the one side. One the other side there were quite a few times I smiled about Mouth Moods but my barrel of how much Smash Mouth I can listen to was full a long time ago (around about mid credits of the first Shreck). One the whole the record with the higher highs and lower lows wins.
4. Billy Joel - Piano Man vs. Mitski - Bury Me at Makeout Creek
Easy
Re: Moderately Acclaimed Albums 2019 - Round 1.9
If you haven't dived deeper into this trilogy of albums, then I recommend Mouth Silence, where you will be able to hear absolutely no All Star samples at all http://www.neilcic.com/mouthsilence/rumpdoll wrote: 3. Beyoncé - 4 vs. Neil Cicierega - Mouth Moods
Difficult. Not my favorite Beoyncé record on the one side. One the other side there were quite a few times I smiled about Mouth Moods but my barrel of how much Smash Mouth I can listen to was full a long time ago (around about mid credits of the first Shreck). One the whole the record with the higher highs and lower lows wins.
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Re: Moderately Acclaimed Albums 2019 - Round 1.9
8. Neil Cicirega – Mouth Moods
A mash-up album. I have a soft spot for a good mash-up. Last year we had the great As Heard on Radio Soulwax, which transformed famous songs into new entities, revealing hidden depths. Neil Cicirega is less ambitious. His matchups aren’t all that unexpected and he treats it mostly as a gimmick. He also has a thing for songs that are already used as a punchline a lot of the time: Eye of the Tiger, Back in Black, Y.M.C.A., Wannabe, Ghostbusters and of course All Stars. Final Destination is curiously missing and I think it must have asked a lot of Cicerega’s restraint to not put that one in here. Songs like Smooth Criminal or Under Pressure aren’t perhaps already running jokes, but have been sampled plenty of times.
In the end what matters most is how it is done. I thought it was remarkable by how closely the melody of Back in Black matches A Thousand Miles by Vanessa Carlton, which initially is good for a surprised reaction, but after a while I also noticed that combining these two doesn’t make for great listening. The weakest spot of the album is that it doesn’t hold up for a second listen. The first time I enjoyed finding out what songs would show up and how they would be used. With the surprise gone I thought it wasn’t all that great or remarkable, whereas Radio Soulwax hold up on multiple listens. Heck, the first track here is so bad that it is hard to even want to start it again (although it is the only true fiasco).
Of course, there are inspired moments. Tiger is the most jokey of all, but I find it funny. Annoyed Grunt is silly, but in a good way. Stand By Meme is one of the few cases were the songs feel transformed in a worthwhile way. Above all, there is T.I.M.E., a mix between a track from Hans Zimmer’s Inception soundtrack and The Village People’s Y.M.C.A. The serious, dramatic sound of score give the pick-your-self-up lyrics of Y.M.C.A. a strange depth of feeling. Whereas the original is fun empowerment, the new take feels more sad and eventually the uplift feels earned. That’s what a great match-up can do: finding new meaning in songs, while also serving as a lesson on the effect of sound. Sadly, the rest of the album doesn’t even come close to that one.
7. Beyoncé – 4
This may not be known as a transitional album, but in a way it is. Before 4 I felt that Beyoncé’s albums were some good singles with filler. Later she would make more conceptual albums that actually eschewed the single. 4 is not conceptual and the songs feel closer to her earlier work, but this also feel like an actual album without filler.
That makes this album better than the three before it and although I love the self-titled and Lemonade for their production I find the way Beyoncé builds a cult of personality on these faux-emancipatory albums (in the end, the message of these albums translates to something like: If you want to be feel good about yourself, just be Beyoncé) hard to swallow. 4 could be best of both worlds, but it misses a real memorable killer track like on the earlier albums or the next-level production of the latter ones. You can’t win sometimes. Though Run the World is really a look at what is to come. Musically I love it, but as a piece of feminism it is absurd and the product of perhaps the only woman who had the luck of being born as Beyoncé. Indeed, you can’t win sometimes.
Concluding, this album is actually fine, it just isn’t essential to me.
6. Billy Joel - Piano Man
I think that I wrote about it here sometime before, but Piano Man, the song means a lot to me. It is the first song I really fell for and it was my #1 for a time. It is still in the #20. That portrait of bar regulars is a case were an artist seems to rise above his limitations to make something truly profound.
But an album is more than one track and I’m afraid that Billy Joel wasn’t quite as possessed writing the other songs. Which is not to say they are bad. Mostly they are fine. I feel that Billy Joel hadn’t fully found his voice here yet, so he tries some more standard singer/songwriter stuff. It finds him trying some English sounding folk that was fashionable at the time on You’re Me Home. That is a fine track, but it is also clear that Joel is not a natural here. The Ballad of Billy the Kid is one of those American myth songs that many contemporaries – from Dylan through The Band towards Townes Van Zandt - could write with seeming ease, but Joel comes with just the most standard version of such a song. That’s simply true for most of the material here. Everything is fine, but no remarkable. Except Piano Man and Captain Jack, another epic. I feel that these two tracks are closes to Joel’s soul and the others are more attempts to do what others were doing at the time. But these two are keepers.
5. Au Pairs – Playing with a Different Sex
That cover it something else and it made expect something totally different. Maybe something folky, or exotic, or weird. But no, we get post-punk a la Gang of Four, which means the songs are slightly jangly, but also have tireless bass that takes center stage and refuses to let things get out of control. Think of a punk record that is surprisingly in control of itself. Except the vocals, which are allowed to be more lose. It’s a fun sound and the way Lesley Woods sings around these bass lines by Jane Munro while Paul Foad sometimes seems to improvise some guitar riffs on the spot make this a fine listen. There are also some feminist lyrics from a time when they were not so common.
4. Bob Dylan – Desire
This was always going to be a difficult one to rank in this week, especially since its competitor is pretty great. But Dylan is my favorite artist and even in his discography I find it hard to rank as no single of his albums is such a mix between highs and lows.
Let’s start with the lows. There is Oh Sister, a strange song to Dylan’s sister that has some of the mystical quality of other songs, but is just sung badly. Sometimes his duetting with Emmylou Harris works wonders. Here, not so much. It’s just not a great song to listen to and it is followed by another song that is sung badly: Joey. In fact, Joey ranks near the bottom of all Bob Dylan songs for me. It’s lyrics hardly any great poetry and are somehow a completely unearned tribute to a violent gangster, who is here somehow portrayed as a pacifist saint… Why? Nothing can save this song, not the music, not the singing, but as lyrically it something of a low point for Dylan. And it lasts 10 minutes and is right in the middle of the album! There is also Sara, which is not so much a low point, but I go back and forth liking and disliking it each listen. It’s personal, but also a bit schmaltzy.
But there are great career highlights. Isis is a weird song too, but it’s unusual mix between a mystic adventure story and relationship drama affects me. One More Cup of Coffee is one of his great mood songs. The two-punch Romance in Durango and Black Diamond Bay up the adventure movie angle with memorable music. Mozambique seems like a looney holiday advertisement for an African country and I have no idea what it does in Dylan’s discography, but I like it anyhow. All these songs get a lot out of Scarlet Rivera’s violin, the secret weapon of the album.
The most famous song here is of course Hurricane. Rivera’s violin is at it’s best there and Dylan’s singing is furious and possessed as he only was in the sixties. It’s stunning, captivating, irresistible and kind of silly if you look even a little deeper into the story of Ruben Carter. Really, knowing that Ruben Carter could actually had a history of violence and might very well be a killer kind of ruins the song (or at least comparisons to Buddha). The trials for Carter were a disgrace for sure and racism played undoubtedly a part in the whole process, which at least makes Dylan’s song still relevant, but as a character portrait it is a little much. It summarizes this album well, actually.
3. Killer Mike – R.A.P. Music
Last week we already had an artist nicknamed The Killer and now we have another one. Of course, in hip-hop it is normal to take a cool sounding stage name and although “Killer Mike” is not high on the originality scale for nicknames, he earns it. No, not by actually killing people, but by sounding like he means to. In this decade were hip-hop posing is a little too common, it is almost refreshing to see a rapper so political, so angry and with such a hard edge. I’m not a genre fan, but this is the type of rap I can get behind.
Killer Mike has a great flow and words that sound both harsh and thoughtful. Important too, is the production by el-p, which is attuned to the content and is filled with a dark sense of drama. The album start with a bang in Big Beast. Reagan already appeared last year in a poll and impressed me. It’s just one hell of a ride. Few people could make a song about an already dead politician sound so of the moment. And that’s before the haunting spiritual Ghetto Gospel, the almost sweet Anywhere But Here and the tribute to Afro-American music in the title track.
By the way, why did it take 9 weeks for a rap album to show up. There are a lot of genre fans here, but nobody dares to nominate these anymore? I have too little knowledge of the genre to make sensible nominations myself. More like this are very welcome.
2. Mitski – Bury Me at Makeout Creek
Puberty 2 was Mitski’s breakthrough, but really this album could have been the one. The two are very similar in content and quality. And that quality is high. Mitski is definitely one of the best new artists of the decade for me.
The great title says it all: like a lot of Mitski this is an album about being wounded in love. As a master of the short song and the short album Mitski delivers 10 songs in 30 minutes that are straight blows to the heart. Most of the time that is, because Mitski also possesses a wry sense of humor that lightens the mood every now and then. She is a great lyricist, as proven by many great lines on especially Texas Reznikoff and the surprisingly sweet I Will. She has a powerful voice and a sense of melody (Townie, my favorite song here, simply has a great tune), but also a willingness to destroy each sense of beauty with a noisy guitar. In short, she is attuned to her feelings and knows how the turn them into pure music. Not all these feelings are pretty, but that’s life. And love.
1. Global Communication – 76:14
Electronic music at it’s best. It has the feeling of ambient, but it is at the same time more noticeable than your average music for airports. 76:14 achieves a rare balancing act: being both repetitive and varied and great in both ways. The songs themselves are long and keep a set rhythm, with some flow to keep things interesting. They are always followed by a song that’s clearly different; say more open structured, or more danceable, or slower. Yet despite this variety, there always remains a certain consistent feeling, like being in a very nice, very warm dream. It’s relaxing music that somehow elevates the soul too, like a good night’s sleep, without actually having to sleep.
A simple overview of my votes:
1. Bob Dylan - Desire vs. Killer Mike - R.A.P. Music
2. Global Communication - 76:14 vs. Au Pairs - Playing With a Different Sex
3. Beyoncé - 4 vs. Neil Cicierega - Mouth Moods
4. Billy Joel - Piano Man vs. Mitski - Bury Me at Makeout Creek
A mash-up album. I have a soft spot for a good mash-up. Last year we had the great As Heard on Radio Soulwax, which transformed famous songs into new entities, revealing hidden depths. Neil Cicirega is less ambitious. His matchups aren’t all that unexpected and he treats it mostly as a gimmick. He also has a thing for songs that are already used as a punchline a lot of the time: Eye of the Tiger, Back in Black, Y.M.C.A., Wannabe, Ghostbusters and of course All Stars. Final Destination is curiously missing and I think it must have asked a lot of Cicerega’s restraint to not put that one in here. Songs like Smooth Criminal or Under Pressure aren’t perhaps already running jokes, but have been sampled plenty of times.
In the end what matters most is how it is done. I thought it was remarkable by how closely the melody of Back in Black matches A Thousand Miles by Vanessa Carlton, which initially is good for a surprised reaction, but after a while I also noticed that combining these two doesn’t make for great listening. The weakest spot of the album is that it doesn’t hold up for a second listen. The first time I enjoyed finding out what songs would show up and how they would be used. With the surprise gone I thought it wasn’t all that great or remarkable, whereas Radio Soulwax hold up on multiple listens. Heck, the first track here is so bad that it is hard to even want to start it again (although it is the only true fiasco).
Of course, there are inspired moments. Tiger is the most jokey of all, but I find it funny. Annoyed Grunt is silly, but in a good way. Stand By Meme is one of the few cases were the songs feel transformed in a worthwhile way. Above all, there is T.I.M.E., a mix between a track from Hans Zimmer’s Inception soundtrack and The Village People’s Y.M.C.A. The serious, dramatic sound of score give the pick-your-self-up lyrics of Y.M.C.A. a strange depth of feeling. Whereas the original is fun empowerment, the new take feels more sad and eventually the uplift feels earned. That’s what a great match-up can do: finding new meaning in songs, while also serving as a lesson on the effect of sound. Sadly, the rest of the album doesn’t even come close to that one.
7. Beyoncé – 4
This may not be known as a transitional album, but in a way it is. Before 4 I felt that Beyoncé’s albums were some good singles with filler. Later she would make more conceptual albums that actually eschewed the single. 4 is not conceptual and the songs feel closer to her earlier work, but this also feel like an actual album without filler.
That makes this album better than the three before it and although I love the self-titled and Lemonade for their production I find the way Beyoncé builds a cult of personality on these faux-emancipatory albums (in the end, the message of these albums translates to something like: If you want to be feel good about yourself, just be Beyoncé) hard to swallow. 4 could be best of both worlds, but it misses a real memorable killer track like on the earlier albums or the next-level production of the latter ones. You can’t win sometimes. Though Run the World is really a look at what is to come. Musically I love it, but as a piece of feminism it is absurd and the product of perhaps the only woman who had the luck of being born as Beyoncé. Indeed, you can’t win sometimes.
Concluding, this album is actually fine, it just isn’t essential to me.
6. Billy Joel - Piano Man
I think that I wrote about it here sometime before, but Piano Man, the song means a lot to me. It is the first song I really fell for and it was my #1 for a time. It is still in the #20. That portrait of bar regulars is a case were an artist seems to rise above his limitations to make something truly profound.
But an album is more than one track and I’m afraid that Billy Joel wasn’t quite as possessed writing the other songs. Which is not to say they are bad. Mostly they are fine. I feel that Billy Joel hadn’t fully found his voice here yet, so he tries some more standard singer/songwriter stuff. It finds him trying some English sounding folk that was fashionable at the time on You’re Me Home. That is a fine track, but it is also clear that Joel is not a natural here. The Ballad of Billy the Kid is one of those American myth songs that many contemporaries – from Dylan through The Band towards Townes Van Zandt - could write with seeming ease, but Joel comes with just the most standard version of such a song. That’s simply true for most of the material here. Everything is fine, but no remarkable. Except Piano Man and Captain Jack, another epic. I feel that these two tracks are closes to Joel’s soul and the others are more attempts to do what others were doing at the time. But these two are keepers.
5. Au Pairs – Playing with a Different Sex
That cover it something else and it made expect something totally different. Maybe something folky, or exotic, or weird. But no, we get post-punk a la Gang of Four, which means the songs are slightly jangly, but also have tireless bass that takes center stage and refuses to let things get out of control. Think of a punk record that is surprisingly in control of itself. Except the vocals, which are allowed to be more lose. It’s a fun sound and the way Lesley Woods sings around these bass lines by Jane Munro while Paul Foad sometimes seems to improvise some guitar riffs on the spot make this a fine listen. There are also some feminist lyrics from a time when they were not so common.
4. Bob Dylan – Desire
This was always going to be a difficult one to rank in this week, especially since its competitor is pretty great. But Dylan is my favorite artist and even in his discography I find it hard to rank as no single of his albums is such a mix between highs and lows.
Let’s start with the lows. There is Oh Sister, a strange song to Dylan’s sister that has some of the mystical quality of other songs, but is just sung badly. Sometimes his duetting with Emmylou Harris works wonders. Here, not so much. It’s just not a great song to listen to and it is followed by another song that is sung badly: Joey. In fact, Joey ranks near the bottom of all Bob Dylan songs for me. It’s lyrics hardly any great poetry and are somehow a completely unearned tribute to a violent gangster, who is here somehow portrayed as a pacifist saint… Why? Nothing can save this song, not the music, not the singing, but as lyrically it something of a low point for Dylan. And it lasts 10 minutes and is right in the middle of the album! There is also Sara, which is not so much a low point, but I go back and forth liking and disliking it each listen. It’s personal, but also a bit schmaltzy.
But there are great career highlights. Isis is a weird song too, but it’s unusual mix between a mystic adventure story and relationship drama affects me. One More Cup of Coffee is one of his great mood songs. The two-punch Romance in Durango and Black Diamond Bay up the adventure movie angle with memorable music. Mozambique seems like a looney holiday advertisement for an African country and I have no idea what it does in Dylan’s discography, but I like it anyhow. All these songs get a lot out of Scarlet Rivera’s violin, the secret weapon of the album.
The most famous song here is of course Hurricane. Rivera’s violin is at it’s best there and Dylan’s singing is furious and possessed as he only was in the sixties. It’s stunning, captivating, irresistible and kind of silly if you look even a little deeper into the story of Ruben Carter. Really, knowing that Ruben Carter could actually had a history of violence and might very well be a killer kind of ruins the song (or at least comparisons to Buddha). The trials for Carter were a disgrace for sure and racism played undoubtedly a part in the whole process, which at least makes Dylan’s song still relevant, but as a character portrait it is a little much. It summarizes this album well, actually.
3. Killer Mike – R.A.P. Music
Last week we already had an artist nicknamed The Killer and now we have another one. Of course, in hip-hop it is normal to take a cool sounding stage name and although “Killer Mike” is not high on the originality scale for nicknames, he earns it. No, not by actually killing people, but by sounding like he means to. In this decade were hip-hop posing is a little too common, it is almost refreshing to see a rapper so political, so angry and with such a hard edge. I’m not a genre fan, but this is the type of rap I can get behind.
Killer Mike has a great flow and words that sound both harsh and thoughtful. Important too, is the production by el-p, which is attuned to the content and is filled with a dark sense of drama. The album start with a bang in Big Beast. Reagan already appeared last year in a poll and impressed me. It’s just one hell of a ride. Few people could make a song about an already dead politician sound so of the moment. And that’s before the haunting spiritual Ghetto Gospel, the almost sweet Anywhere But Here and the tribute to Afro-American music in the title track.
By the way, why did it take 9 weeks for a rap album to show up. There are a lot of genre fans here, but nobody dares to nominate these anymore? I have too little knowledge of the genre to make sensible nominations myself. More like this are very welcome.
2. Mitski – Bury Me at Makeout Creek
Puberty 2 was Mitski’s breakthrough, but really this album could have been the one. The two are very similar in content and quality. And that quality is high. Mitski is definitely one of the best new artists of the decade for me.
The great title says it all: like a lot of Mitski this is an album about being wounded in love. As a master of the short song and the short album Mitski delivers 10 songs in 30 minutes that are straight blows to the heart. Most of the time that is, because Mitski also possesses a wry sense of humor that lightens the mood every now and then. She is a great lyricist, as proven by many great lines on especially Texas Reznikoff and the surprisingly sweet I Will. She has a powerful voice and a sense of melody (Townie, my favorite song here, simply has a great tune), but also a willingness to destroy each sense of beauty with a noisy guitar. In short, she is attuned to her feelings and knows how the turn them into pure music. Not all these feelings are pretty, but that’s life. And love.
1. Global Communication – 76:14
Electronic music at it’s best. It has the feeling of ambient, but it is at the same time more noticeable than your average music for airports. 76:14 achieves a rare balancing act: being both repetitive and varied and great in both ways. The songs themselves are long and keep a set rhythm, with some flow to keep things interesting. They are always followed by a song that’s clearly different; say more open structured, or more danceable, or slower. Yet despite this variety, there always remains a certain consistent feeling, like being in a very nice, very warm dream. It’s relaxing music that somehow elevates the soul too, like a good night’s sleep, without actually having to sleep.
A simple overview of my votes:
1. Bob Dylan - Desire vs. Killer Mike - R.A.P. Music
2. Global Communication - 76:14 vs. Au Pairs - Playing With a Different Sex
3. Beyoncé - 4 vs. Neil Cicierega - Mouth Moods
4. Billy Joel - Piano Man vs. Mitski - Bury Me at Makeout Creek
- spiritualized
- Full of Fire
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Re: Moderately Acclaimed Albums 2019 - Round 1.9
It's a real shame Global Communication is getting slaughtered. What an album ! It was on my list of "must listen to", but it took this game to finally make me do it. Fabulous ambient, but so much more than that.
Re: Moderately Acclaimed Albums 2019 - Round 1.9
Agree - excellent album, real tough match-up against a forum fave. Nice nom!spiritualized wrote:It's a real shame Global Communication is getting slaughtered. What an album ! It was on my list of "must listen to", but it took this game to finally make me do it. Fabulous ambient, but so much more than that.
- FrankLotion
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Re: Moderately Acclaimed Albums 2019 - Round 1.9
My nomination for Missy Elliott showed up a few weeks back but got crushed by Blur (which is understandable). I’m a huge hip hop fan but I think this forum just skews to different tastes.Rob wrote:By the way, why did it take 9 weeks for a rap album to show up. There are a lot of genre fans here, but nobody dares to nominate these anymore? I have too little knowledge of the genre to make sensible nominations myself. More like this are very welcome.
- Rob
- Die Mensch Maschine
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Re: Moderately Acclaimed Albums 2019 - Round 1.9
A yes, of course! I voted for that one, actually. I somehow tend to think of that one more as a soul album, but hip-hop is more correct.FrankLotion wrote:My nomination for Missy Elliott showed up a few weeks back but got crushed by Blur (which is understandable). I’m a huge hip hop fan but I think this forum just skews to different tastes.Rob wrote:By the way, why did it take 9 weeks for a rap album to show up. There are a lot of genre fans here, but nobody dares to nominate these anymore? I have too little knowledge of the genre to make sensible nominations myself. More like this are very welcome.
Is, Playing With a Different Sex really a forum favorite? It does feel more like a typical AM album than Global Communication, yes, although some ambient-like albums have done well in this game before. A shame.Brad wrote:Agree - excellent album, real tough match-up against a forum fave. Nice nom!spiritualized wrote:It's a real shame Global Communication is getting slaughtered. What an album ! It was on my list of "must listen to", but it took this game to finally make me do it. Fabulous ambient, but so much more than that.
Re: Moderately Acclaimed Albums 2019 - Round 1.9
At least from an "AM Forum vs. AM" standpoint... #39 for the year per AM; we voted it #20 a couple months back. I realize that's not really the point, but shows forumers are generally both familiar and receptive in regards to PWADS. And often that familiarity makes a difference in this type of competition (for better or worse).
Re: Moderately Acclaimed Albums 2019 - Round 1.9
2 - 1/4 hours left to vote!
Re: Moderately Acclaimed Albums 2019 - Round 1.9
18 total voters this week:
acroamor
Bang Jan
bonnielaurel
Brad
DaveC
FrankLotion
Honorio
jamieW
Jirin
Nassim
PlasticRam
prosecutergodot
Rdwdbob
Rob
rumpdoll
Safetycat
spiritualized
StevieFan13
1. Bob Dylan - Desire over Killer Mike - R.A.P. Music 11-6
2. Au Pairs - Playing With a Different Sex over Global Communication - 76:14 10-4
3. Neil Cicierega - Mouth Moods over Beyoncé - 4 8-5
4. Mitski - Bury Me at Makeout Creek over Billy Joel - Piano Man 10-5
Round 1.10 up next!
acroamor
Bang Jan
bonnielaurel
Brad
DaveC
FrankLotion
Honorio
jamieW
Jirin
Nassim
PlasticRam
prosecutergodot
Rdwdbob
Rob
rumpdoll
Safetycat
spiritualized
StevieFan13
1. Bob Dylan - Desire over Killer Mike - R.A.P. Music 11-6
2. Au Pairs - Playing With a Different Sex over Global Communication - 76:14 10-4
3. Neil Cicierega - Mouth Moods over Beyoncé - 4 8-5
4. Mitski - Bury Me at Makeout Creek over Billy Joel - Piano Man 10-5
Round 1.10 up next!