I listened to it once before today and hated it slightly less.

Well if you tried your best ...
Anyway, can you send me the XTC - Drums & Wires album, so I could see if it's to be hated or if I'd enjoy it.

From NumberNineDream...

Marlena Shaw - The Spice Of Life

http://www.kalamu.com/bol/wp-content...fe%20Cover.jpg

I know I've heard a song of her's somewhere before, but I still can't figure out where for the life of me. Or, rather, I realised that upon having this album sent my way in exchange for the one I dished out myself. I snapped this one up partly because that god-awful sleeve art made me curious somehow, but mostly because while I own plenty of the stuff on v/a compilations, as far as actualy full-length studio albums go, I'm pretty low on any of the classic soul and r'n'b.

Or, rather, the classic soul/r'n'b tag is one I expected would fit this album comfortably. To my surprise, it's a whole range of African-American styles of music which is represented by Shaw's powerful, soulful voice. On the first side alone, there are representatives of the delta blues (Call It Stormy Monday), classic r'n'b with a northern soul-like lively rhythm to it (I Wish I Knew) and funk (Woman Of the Ghetto), setting the tone for a very politically-charged record with my personal highlights of it. I'm Satisfied shows off a gospel vibe, while Liberation Conversation gets going with some Ella Fitzgerald-esque vocal jazz techniques.

A very good, stylistically varied album so far then, but from California Soul onwards I feel the album started to get itself into trouble, with the second side kinda losing its edge for all the overblown horns and strings, which for me goes against the gritty, refreshingly down-to-earth vibe of the first side. Overall though, I thought it was decent album, but that the second side just lets it down. It was definitely worth hearing for the first though, so thanks to NND for sending this my way all the same.




Also, we're gonna need more than five people to get the next one going. Anyone else up for a bit of it?

^ I don't listen to the 3 tracks following California Soul much either, but those tracks you mentioned are quite worth the whole album. Specially, that I don't usually enjoy most of the RnB albums in their fullest.
It's an album that puts me in a good mood, and it reminded me of your Northern Soul comp. That's when I remembered I haven't sent you an album yet :p:

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Steely Dan - Countdown to Ecstasy

OctaneHugo sent me this one. I've kind of always avoided Steely Dan just because of their name. They sounded like an old guy's band. To a certain degree, their music is exactly as I imagined, but much more enjoyable than I had considered. When I was much younger, I would have hated this. Looking through my current music collection, I see plenty of bands that would have been considered old guy bands and I really like them so I figured it could be possible to like this album. The opener "Bodhisattva" is pretty energetic and typical classic rock fair. Plenty of decent jamming and catchy riffwork, but it didn't impress. It was the next song "Razor Boy" that first clicked with me. Classic rock fused with lounge is really damn good when done correctly. "The Boston Rag" is very CSNY inspired in the vocal harmonizing (well, in the whole song actually), but it pulls it off well enough to keep me going. The rest of the album is enjoyable, but nothing stuck out as much that second track. The closer "King of the World", however, ends things really well. This is one of the best songs on the album. I love the fluttering guitarwork. I'll probably give the album a few more listens since I liked it enough to warrant that, but I'm not sure I can be counted as a die hard Steely Dan fan just yet. I give it a solid 7/10.

"King of the World" is an amazing song. Personally my favorites besides that are "Your Gold Teeth" and "Show Biz Kids".

you can count me in....this seems like a great idea

Welcome aboard :thumb:

That makes it...

Me
Jim
OctaneHugo
NumberNineDream
BoardsOfCanada
Bob

I think I'll forget about giving this one a theme after all. Either way, start date's gonna be any time from Wednesday to Friday.

Anyone else wanna join the party?

so just to be sure of how this works and that it has not changed since the first page.....sorry i just don't think i muster 141 pages :)

you will pair me up with someone and i send them via pm a upload link to any album of my choice and visa versa.....listen to it and write a review here

correct?

That's the one :)

Plus, I'm being a lot more lenient with review deadlines than the thread title would have you believe. Usually I give everyone around a fortnight before trying to drum up any interest in a new set of swaps.