Moderately Acclaimed Albums 11 - Round 1.9

[Brad]

Welcome to round 1.9 of Moderately Acclaimed Albums 2020!

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 12th at 10am EST.

Here's a link to the bracket for the entire tournament:
http://www.bracketmaker.com/tmenu.cfm?tid=473090

Match-ups:
1. The National - Alligator vs. The Offspring - Smash
2. Premiata Forneria Marconi - Storia Di Un Minuto vs. Nina Hagen Band - Nina Hagen Band
3. David Bowie - Heathen vs. AlunaGeorge - Body Music
4. Iggy Pop - Brick By Brick vs. Nina Hagen Band - Unbehagen

Play it now
Play it now
Play it now, my baby

[Schüttelbirne]

1. 6 | The National - Alligator vs. 4 | The Offspring - Smash
2. 7 | Premiata Forneria Marconi - Storia Di Un Minuto vs. 2 | Nina Hagen Band - Nina Hagen Band
3. 5 | David Bowie - Heathen vs. 8 | AlunaGeorge - Body Music
4. 3 | Iggy Pop - Brick By Brick vs. 1 | Nina Hagen Band - Unbehagen


Best week yet. I enjoyed all of the Top 7.
Both Nina Hagen Band albums would probably make my All-Time Top 10.

[Rdwdbob]

OFFSPRING - SMASH
NINA HAGEN BAND - NINA HAGEN BAND
ALUNAGEORGE - BODY MUSIC
IGGY POP - BRICK BY BRICK (never listened to this Iggy album before. truly enjoyed it. an undiscovered gem for me. thanks to whoever nominated this one!)

[Gillingham]

1. The National - Alligator

[DaveC]

1. The National - Alligator vs. The Offspring - Smash
2. Premiata Forneria Marconi - Storia Di Un Minuto vs. Nina Hagen Band - Nina Hagen Band
3. David Bowie - Heathen vs. AlunaGeorge - Body Music
4. Iggy Pop - Brick By Brick vs. Nina Hagen Band - Unbehagen

[Jirin]

Alligator 92 - Smash 68
Storia Di Un Minuto 92 - Nina Hagen Band 72
Body Music 82 - Heathens 82 (Body Music wins by a hair)
Brick By Brick 78 - Unbehagen 73

Smash was one of my favorites as a teenager when I was first getting into music and the whole 91-95 era right before I started seemed magical to me. It's a lot of fun and has some nostalgia points. But other than on attitude it doesn't surpass the ordinary.

[Madzong]

OFFSPRING - SMASH
NINA HAGEN BAND - NINA HAGEN BAND
ALUNAGEORGE - BODY MUSIC
IGGY POP - BRICK BY BRICK (never listened to this Iggy album before. truly enjoyed it. an undiscovered gem for me. thanks to whoever nominated this one!)

That was my nomination.

I love this album too and think it should be on this site. It has a great rating on Allmusic for a start. This was Iggy's comeback album for the 1990's. After a great start with the one-two punch of the David Bowie produced 'The Idiot' and 'Lust For Life', he got a bit lost with drugs, making unusual albums (sometimes unreliable people - he deleted all of Steve New's guitar from Loco Mosquito!) making odd career choices until he recorded this album in 1990.

There were a few okay albums on the way like New Values and the attempted 1986 David Bowie produced comeback 'Blah, Blah, Blah'. But this album was much better. It was a REAL comeback!

It contained some of his strongest writing and best vocals in a long time, sympathetic band members (featuring Duff and Slash from Guns N' Roses) and production from Don Was, pop hits (!!!) featuring Kate Pierson on 'Candy', and great covers of 'Something Wild' (by John Hiatt who also adds guest vocals on Starry Night) and 'Living On The Edge Of The Night. The latter was written for the soundtrack for the movie of the same name and was added to the album in later repressings.

I'm super glad you have enjoyed it!

[Madzong]

1. TBA: This is going to be difficult - an old favourite vs. a new favourite
2. TBA
3. David Bowie - Heathern
4. Iggy Pop - Brick By Brick

[FrankLotion]

1. The National - Alligator
2. Premiata Forneria Marconi - Storia Di Un Minuto
3. David Bowie - Heathen
4. Iggy Pop - Brick By Brick

[PlasticRam]

In the first match-up I rate both 7.9 so it's a tie. I haven't listened to the others.

[Madzong]

1. The National - Alligator
2. Nina Hagen Band - Nina Hagen Band

[mileswide]

6. The National - Alligator v. 5. The Offspring - Smash

2. PFM - Storia di un Minuto v. 1. Nina Hagen Band - Nina Hagen Band

4. David Bowie - uǝɥʇɐǝɥ v. 8. AlunaGeorge - Body Music

7. Iggy Pop - Brick by Brick v. 3. Nina Hagen Band - Unbehagen

Standout tracks: Lit up | Self Esteem | Dove...quando...II Parte | Naturträne | Slow Burn | Just a Touch | Pussy Power | Hermann hiess er

[Listyguy]

1. The National - Alligator vs. The Offspring - Smash
Alligator was my nomination. Obviously tracks like "Mr. November" and "All the Wine" are great and what the album is best known for, but what really draws me in here is the emotion: the sentimental "The Geese of Beverly Road" is a favorite of mine, and so is the somber "Daughters of the Soho Riots." But I love almost every song on the album.

2. Premiata Forneria Marconi - Storia Di Un Minuto vs. Nina Hagen Band - Nina Hagen Band
3. David Bowie - Heathen vs. AlunaGeorge - Body Music
4. Iggy Pop - Brick By Brick vs. Nina Hagen Band - Unbehagen

[Bang Jan]

7 | The National | Alligator
8 | The Offspring | Smash

1 | Premiata Forneria Marconi | Storia Di Un Minuto
3 | Nina Hagen Band | Nina Hagen Band

2 | David Bowie | Heathen
6 | AlunaGeorge | Body Music

5 | Iggy Pop | Brick By Brick
4 | Nina Hagen Band | Unbehagen

Favourite song of the week: Premiata Forneria Marconi | È festa

[Myself]

The National - Alligator
Premiata Forneria Marconi - Storia Di Un Minuto
David Bowie - Heathen
Nina Hagen Band - Unbehagen

[Brad]

My picks:
1. The National - Alligator vs. The Offspring - Smash
2. Premiata Forneria Marconi - Storia Di Un Minuto vs. Nina Hagen Band - Nina Hagen Band
3. David Bowie - Heathen vs. AlunaGeorge - Body Music
4. Iggy Pop - Brick By Brick vs. Nina Hagen Band - Unbehagen

22 hours left to vote!

[Rob]

Outstanding week. No bad albums and a terrific top 4. Weird that two Nina Hagen albums show up together in the first week already, although they can't go head to head together until the finals. Now that would be something.

8. AlunaGeorge – Body Language
In a decade were pop music kept referencing to the eighties to a degree that can only be categorized as “deeply insane and seriously unhealthy” it is always nice to see a pop group turning their ears to another era. I mean, I would prefer it if they tried something new, but in a decade as the 2010’s, AlunaGeorge’s borrowing of a 90’s R&B sound is downright refreshing. I don’t think they did anything too interesting with the sound, though. As it is Body Language is not bad, but rather average. Not even the tracks that normally are thought of as standouts (You Know You Like It, Attracting Flies and Your Drums, Your Love) actually stand out to me, although I think it says a lot about the mindset behind this album that these three songs are near the beginning and right after each other: this was an album with hits on its mind and not ashamed of filler. Still, the filler isn’t bad. In fact, the only song I disliked was You Know You Like It, while the best to me was Lost & Found. This is all relative though, for me Body Language doesn’t have any really big high or lows.

7. Iggy Pop – Brick By Brick
Let’s not get ahead of ourselves. This is indeed a solid record by Iggy Pop, but not on par with his classics from the seventies, let alone the early Stooges trilogy. On Brick By Brick, Iggy Pop is in a far more mellow mood. Only occasionally the wild man of old makes a return, most notably on Pussy Power. That doesn’t mean it isn’t enjoyable. It starts off well enough with Home, but then we get the worst song of this week’s poll, Main Street Eyes, on which Iggy Pop tries to sing in a conventional way and it fares badly. Iggy has an appealing voice and that he started to trust his natural baritone more in his later career was not a bad choice, but he works best with a growl. Anyway, the best vocals on this album belong to Kate Pierson of course and Candy was the only song I knew going in. Outside of that song, though, I feel that the best tracks are in the second half. Before Neon Forest I thought it was just a nice, forgettable album. Starting with that seven second track things really pick up and it becomes above average, although not by a wide margin.

6. The Offspring – Smash
The nineties gave us the most iconic pieces of juvenile rock of all time, thanks to acts like Green Day (who I like a lot) and Blink-182 (who I dislike so much I always have to look up which numbers are part of the band name). In between these two bands we find The Offspring, perhaps the most boyish band of all time (which has nothing to do with the term “boy band”). Likeable rascals who probably like their fans fancy themselves as rebels without ever seeming even a little threatening. So few if any albums capture the juvenile spirit inherent in so much rock music like Smash. It really is childish in a teenage kind of way. Sure the band members were all in their late twenties or in case of guitarist Noodles in the thirties, but that is the best prove ever that age is but a number.

It’s easy to make fun of this album, but that’s hardly a problem since fun is what this is all about in the end. This is rock that is supposed to give you energy, a teen spirit that Nirvana could never really muster. Dexter Holland is not much of a singer, but he shouts his way through this album as if the party has just begun. Noodles is the secret backbone, though, with riffs that aren’t technical but fun. The Middle-Eastern stylings of Come Out and Play, a longtime favorite of mine, may not be original and actually be a case of plagiarism, yet they add so much to the go-for-broke spirit of the song and album. I do have to say, though, that near the end I tire of Holland’s endless shouting and it doesn’t help that I feel the last few songs are rather weak. Overall, though this is a fun album and I feel that it accomplished its mission.

5. David Bowie – Heathen
I thought I had heard Heathen at least once before and dismissed it as a lesser album, but hearing it now I’m not sure if that memory is true. It’s hard to understand why I would think of this as ‘lesser’. Sure, it hardly reaches the amazing peaks of my favorite Bowie records. Maybe it misses that one great song, even if Slip Away and Everybody Says ‘Hi’ come close. This isn’t too problematic as this feels like a conscious attempt to be more subtle and it seems a good precursor to those two career-closing albums The Next Day and Blackstar. Bowie is not in a particular theatrical and playful mood, but more introspective and calm and this might have been really the first work that shows he can do such a mode very well.

4. The National – Alligator
Alligator, I always forget about this one for absolutely no reason. I have listened a lot to The National through the series The Boxer, High Violet, Trouble Will Find Me and Sleep Well Beast (I Am Easy to Find didn’t quite win me over), but although I heard Alligator at least once before I never really thought of returning to it. I also never seemed to notice consciously how high it was on the AM list. If you’d ask me from the top of my head I would probably have answered that it was on the lower ranks of the top 3000, or perhaps honestly a bubbler.

So it is good to go back to it here, because really this album isn’t noticeably a lesser album than the four that came after. Plus it happened here first. There is already that peculiar feeling of melancholy that I really only find in The National. A sense that life was great, full of promise, full of action, but all that has gone now, God knows where, but it is all your own fault, even if you can’t explain why. Those type of poetic lyrics go oh so well with Berninger’s deep, lived-in, yet pretty voice and the gentle, expert playing of the band. Mr. November is the well-known classic here, but there is more to savor: opener Secret Meeting, Karen, Daughters of the Soho Riots, All the Wine and The Geese of Beverly Road all stick in the heart.

3. Nina Hagen Band – Unbehagen
From the first song on you can rest assured: the Nina Hagen Band is still as loopy as they were on their debut. It starts with a song called African Reggea, which is indeed a reggae tribute to Africa, but contains, of all things, extensive yodeling. No, I don’t know why either, but there is no arguing with Nina Hagen. Besides I really like the song. Unbehagen is almost as great and insane as the first album, even if every now and then it sounds a little less loose and a bit more forced. This is apparently because Nina and the band were no longer on speaking terms and recorded their parts separately. After that they split and although I’m not familiar with what Hagen did after the consensus says she never made anything near as good again. Then again, Unbehagen isn’t quite the classic that the self-titled album is and despite its flaws I think it can still stand up rather well next to the debut. Besides, who cares about flaws in a record like this?

2. Premiata Forneria Marconi – Storia Di Un Minuto
What immediately sets this Italian prog record apart is it’s gentleness. I don’t think I have ever heard a song in this genre that is as calm and soothing yet still expansive as Impressioni di settembre. No, not all songs here are like this, but frequently we return to such a quiet. And it is very welcome. It is not like every other prog album is filled with hard rock, but the genre can have a tendency to try to overwhelm you with instruments and histrionics. Premiata Forneria Marconi keep that to a minimum (though there are still moments like that) and keep things flowing along nicely for the most part. It still sounds noticeably as prog from the seventies, but I think the playing here is even better than on most classics from the genre, making it all sound a little more easy, a little less impressed with itself. I can definitely see why this is a rare non-English language prog album that has captivated the genre fanatics, as it is a real genre standout.

1. Nina Hagen Band – Nina Hagen Band
Unbeschreiblich Weiblich (Translation: Indescribably Feminine) is actually something of a radio staple in The Netherlands, can you understand that? It’s a pretty wild song, but it didn’t quite prepare me for the sheer all-out madness of Nina Hagen Band. This record came out during the hey-days of punk and although this album doesn’t quite fit in that genre it makes almost all punk seem tame in comparison. Nina Hagen is quite the personality and I actually feel sad for all the people on this forum who don’t speak German. Translating the lyrics seems like a waste of time, as these lyrics are not really poetic, but they are something you have to experience coming out of Hagen’s mouth. As a singer she was singular and if you are surprised that somewhere half-way she gives a spot-on opera performance it is interesting to learn that she did actually study as an opera singer before becoming a rock shouter. I think her vocals alone are enough reason to give this album the top spot for this week, but her band, also known as Spliff, match her in every way. The music is varied, loose, extremely well-played and seriously insane. You’ll never know what you’ll get next, but you’ll know that is going to be mad. Perhaps it sounds a bit hyperbolic, but this feels to me like one of the most free albums I ever heard: it just has a sense that anything – seriously anything – goes. And wat eventually turns up is a lot of fun.


A simple overview of my votes:

1. The National - Alligator vs. The Offspring - Smash
2. Premiata Forneria Marconi - Storia Di Un Minuto vs. Nina Hagen Band - Nina Hagen Band
3. David Bowie - Heathen vs. AlunaGeorge - Body Music
4. Iggy Pop - Brick By Brick vs. Nina Hagen Band - Unbehagen

[Safetycat]

This is a really good week, all 8 albums are legitimately great. Shame we have to lose 4.

1. Alligator > 5. Smash
4. Storia Di Un Minuto < 3. Nina Hagen Band
6. Heathen < 2. Body Music
8. Brick By Brick < 7. Unbehagen

[Jirin]

To me The National have released six year end top ten albums in a row, and are the only band to be able to claim that. Just, Alligator is the weakest link among them, the other five were all deep in the conversation for AOTY, so it’s easy to neglect it.

[rumpdoll]

1. The National - Alligator vs. The Offspring - Smash
2. Premiata Forneria Marconi - Storia Di Un Minuto vs. Nina Hagen Band - Nina Hagen Band
3. David Bowie - Heathen vs. AlunaGeorge - Body Music
4. Iggy Pop - Brick By Brick vs. Nina Hagen Band - Unbehagen

[Kingoftonga]

Winners in red:

1. The National - Alligator vs. The Offspring - Smash
2. Premiata Forneria Marconi - Storia Di Un Minuto vs. Nina Hagen Band - Nina Hagen Band
3. David Bowie - Heathen vs. AlunaGeorge - Body Music
4. Iggy Pop - Brick By Brick vs. Nina Hagen Band - Unbehagen

[Brad]

Light participation this week - only 16 total voters:
Bang Jan
Brad
DaveC
FrankLotion
Gillingham
Jirin
Kingoftonga
Listyguy
madzong
mileswide
Myself
Rdwdbob
Rob
rumpdoll
Safetycat
Schüttelbirne

Winners:
1. The National - Alligator over The Offspring - Smash 13-3
2. Nina Hagen Band - Nina Hagen Band over Premiata Forneria Marconi - Storia Di Un Minuto 10-5
3. David Bowie - Heathen over AlunaGeorge - Body Music 12-3
4. Nina Hagen Band - Unbehagen over Iggy Pop - Brick By Brick 9-6

Round 1.10 up soon!

[Rob]

It was a good week to be Nina Hagen.