Your favourite albums and what they mean to you

~~Cuthbert~~ · 08-24-2013, 03:09 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ninetales

Just wanted to say that your review made me obsessed with this album again. Id heard it before but I was in the middle of a huge hip hop binge and decided to put this on after seeing it here. Havent really stopped listening to it since. Soo great! So thanks for sharing i guess haha

Thanks a lot!

Do you have a favourite track? Just whacked it on now.

Ninetales · 08-25-2013, 12:57 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Christian Benteke

Thanks a lot!

Do you have a favourite track? Just whacked it on now.

Hmm tough call. Probably one of Sittin' Here, Fix up Look Sharp, Jezebel or Live O. Cant really say for sure tho

14232949 · 08-26-2013, 11:30 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Christian Benteke

I'll go with this one as I reckon I can describe it the best. You guys are much better reviewers and writers than I am though.

Dizzee Rascal - Boy In Da Corner

Back when this came out, I was a Hip-Hop fan and only really listened to the mainstream Americans. I was familiar with the Garage thing happening in the UK at the time (particularly Oxide & Neutrino and So Solid) and I even liked some of it and bought the music but it was quite one dimensional and to be honest the MC's were shit, people were still spitting with American accents around this time, that's all there really was then. And then Dizzee came along with his high pitched, chirpy Cockney accent.

A mate had sent me
I Luv U over MSN that summer and I remember thinking 'WTF is this?'. It was being labeled as Garage but sounded nothing like it, or anything I'd heard before (or since actually.) The content was fresh and real, as opposed to the predictable shit that you'd already heard on Garage a thousand times over (clubs, champagne, girls, etc.) Dizzee was rawer than everyone else before him. And it was hard. It was a track that exploded out of nowhere, everybody rated it, it didn't get to number 1 but it was played everywhere. I think it's comparable to something like Anarchy In The UK in the way that it crossed over because of how shocking and abrasive it was.

This album's content is pretty much the polar opposite to the sort of thing that Garage MC's had done up until then. Tracks like Jezebel and Brand New Day... when you're a teenager at that time it's easy to relate to these tracks, it was the ugly side to the same culture Garage music encapsulated. We all knew a girl in the ends like the one in Jezebel and Dizzee's self expression on Brand New Day was concise and emotive; anyone who has been in a similar position will have felt like that at some point when you're growing up, it was a representation of you. 'Big shout to the boy who thinks he's a don, you're looking at your Avirex thinking you're a don' is a perfect description of how cocky and confrontational you can be at this point and how pointless a lot of teenage squabbling is when you're in school or in the ends. When I listen to the lyrics on this a lot of it reminds me of the people around me and myself, being a dickhead on the back of the bus, nicking phones and a load of other shit. That's exactly what was going on then and Dizzee is talking about it.

Everything on the album is composed and produced by a 16-17 year old Dizzee. The beats are all his with the exception of Fix Up, Look Sharp and Jus' A Rascal which were both co-produced. The production is completely unique, it's raw (I've had Americans tell me it sounds half finished) but it is meant to be that way, it's not supposed to sound polished, it's Grime music. There are no complex rhyming schemes on here or pretentious fast flows because he doesn't need to do it (other than on the last verse of Jus' A Rascal), he is succinct and he does not waste a word.

And it was actually Grime. In a time where the term 'Grime' has been used as a blanket term for any British rapping and the genre has lost it's identity, this production with it's warped bass, 'pots and pans' kicks and snares and Nokia 3310-esque melodies is the epitome of the Grime sound. Since then, it's all watered down and merged with Hip-Hop, artists now attempt to crossover to achieve the success Dizzee achieved with this album, success he achieved by being particularly aggressive and creative.

So that's my opinion on Boy In Da Corner, the undisputed peak of a genre and a genuine gem in a scene full of utter shit and creatively bankrupt dickheads. Regardless of your opinion on Grime (it's shit btw) this is an album I think anyone can appreciate.

Cheers.

Nice review man. I've always dug Mike Skinner's stuff as the pinnacle of British Urban Music, but I also enjoy this album.

Paul Smeenus · 08-26-2013, 04:42 PM

THIS will be my next album review. I put this in a little portable CD player in September of 2002 and finally took it out sometime in 2004. I'm quite serious.

I will discuss this album in length in an upcoming review.

galt54 · 07-06-2024, 05:41 AM

The first two Blue Öyster Cult albums motivated me to focus on *something* out there in reality instead of just daydreaming my psychotic daydreams during the year 1973, when I was committed to a Swedish mental hospital with a diagnosis of schizophrenia. I was *really* in a bad state - and the heavy metal gang from Stony Brook University helped to pull me out!

Thanks guys. Rock music can be good for your health!

Black Francis · 08-22-2013, 02:00 PM

Disclaimer: i have a cap limit, can't write much

Deerhoof: runners four

i found this band by accident in my friends ipod and at first i didn't like them much because i thought they were just trying to be avant garde and that's it..

i didn't quite get their vibe right away it took my awhile to get it but their guitars and song structures were so creative that i still liked listening to them even if i felt their music was way above my head at the time lol

Slowly but surely i started to get them and then that was it.. i became a total deerhoof suck up..

i remember the first song that really got me into them was this one

Deerhoof - Spirit Ditties of No Tone - YouTube

They really have broaden my horizons musically and they still do, they have influenced how i play guitar and how i want to play guitar and just how creativity is not dead in music yet.

Thank you Deerhoof for existing <3

YorkeDaddy · 08-22-2013, 03:14 PM

My favorite album to this day and nothing will beat it. I don't even really know why it mesmerized me so much, as I can't really identify with it on a personal level. I think I just love studying human emotions so much and this album oozes more emotion than most band's can ever hope to in an entire discography. It's truly a beautiful, hypnotic work of art, and the music itself is quite good too.

Justthefacts · 08-22-2013, 08:32 PM

Neon Bible - Arcade Fire

My personal favorite record. I've enjoyed everything Arcade Fire has put out, but Neon Bible has touched me on a very spiritual and emotional level that no other record has ever done. Something about each track (except Black Waves/Bad Vibrations) puts me into a whole different level of mindset that's very blissful, yet this is a very sad album.

Paul Smeenus · 08-23-2013, 02:13 PM

IMO the greatest live album ever made in the sense that it sounds for all the world like a STUDIO album, and AFAIK is the only rock/pop recording that was ever mixed BEFORE it was recorded directly to the two-track stero that's on the album without a single overdub. I just posted the full review here:

http://www.musicbanter.com/album-rev...ml#post1360808

FRED HALE SR. · 08-23-2013, 04:05 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Paul Smeenus

IMO the greatest live album ever made in the sense that it sounds for all the world like a STUDIO album, and AFAIK is the only rock/pop recording that was ever mixed BEFORE it was recorded directly to the two-track stero that's on the album without a single overdub. I just posted the full review here:

http://www.musicbanter.com/album-rev...ml#post1360808

Good taste Paul. That is one hell of a great album. Joe Jackson is a songwriter on a different level.

08-22-2013, 02:00 PM	#6 (permalink)
Black Francis Out of Place Join Date: Nov 2011 Location: in an abstract house Posts: 4,111	Disclaimer: i have a cap limit, can't write much Deerhoof: runners four i found this band by accident in my friends ipod and at first i didn't like them much because i thought they were just trying to be avant garde and that's it.. i didn't quite get their vibe right away it took my awhile to get it but their guitars and song structures were so creative that i still liked listening to them even if i felt their music was way above my head at the time lol Slowly but surely i started to get them and then that was it.. i became a total deerhoof suck up.. i remember the first song that really got me into them was this one Deerhoof - Spirit Ditties of No Tone - YouTube They really have broaden my horizons musically and they still do, they have influenced how i play guitar and how i want to play guitar and just how creativity is not dead in music yet. Thank you Deerhoof for existing <3 __________________ "Hey Kids you got to meet the MIGHTY PIXIES!" http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JbRbCtIgW3A

07-06-2024, 05:41 AM	#5 (permalink)
galt54 Music Addict Join Date: Dec 2013 Location: A suburb of Stockholm, Sweden. Posts: 191	The first two Blue Öyster Cult albums motivated me to focus on something out there in reality instead of just daydreaming my psychotic daydreams during the year 1973, when I was committed to a Swedish mental hospital with a diagnosis of schizophrenia. I was really in a bad state - and the heavy metal gang from Stony Brook University helped to pull me out! Thanks guys. Rock music can be good for your health!