The Random Album Club: Week 2
 

Discuss whatever albums come up on the random RYM link for this week here.

I issue my full and formal apology for this, but it is a random link...
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikiped...riah_carey.jpg


https://open.spotify.com/album/1ibYM4abQtSVQFQWvDSo4J

No.

Nope.

Nuh-uh.

Don't like it.

From the first song I could tell that it wasn't my cup of tea and it didn't get any better throughout the album.

I can tell that too, and I haven't even listened to it yet! :laughing: :beer: (don't tell yer da: there's no lemonade icon!) :pssst:

I need to rinse my brain after that Nadia Oh album, so I'm diving in now. Thoughts to follow.

You may as well be rinsing it in ****, if you want my opinion.

Well, I don't agree, but I'm not about to call it a great album either. Here goes:

Mariah Carey - Daydream
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikiped...riah_carey.jpg

I've heard this album a few times before so I'm feeling comfortable writing this before I'm more than ½ way through this time. I've been exploring all sorts of genres of music since 2009 and a couple years ago, the turn had come to modern mainstream soul and R&B. Basically, most of the artists I heard in this genre wasn't my cup of tea at all, but I did find Mariah Carey a bit more tolerable than most.

Basically, I think there's a few allright songs in her discography, but they're spread out really thin among loads and loads of goopy, syrupy power ballads and other mush like that. Carey has a tendency to over-do her vocals with lots of melismatic warbling - but I guess everyone does that in this particular corner of this genre of music. When she shows a bit of restraint and has a decent melody to sing, I actually find that she has a really good voice. Just a shame that she choses to use it on mostly pretty dull music.

Those slow, plodding Celine Dion drums and soft crescendos are overdone like almost nothing else in music and this album is quite overloaded with that kind of power balladeering. Somehow this type of music doesn't annoy me if the singer has a good color to her voice, but it isn't exactly very involving either. If I was at a dinner party at some friends' place and they put on some Mariah Carey in the background, I would be ok with it. It's pleasant muzak, sometimes even with some really musical nice details in the background if you listen carefully.

As far as listening to this album on my own time, so to speak. Well, that's a bit more tricky. I can find some decent songs, like Long Ago and Always be my Baby for example. Most of the album is sadly rather forgettable.

The album of hers I'd be most likely to put on would be her first Christmas holiday album.
https://i.pinimg.com/736x/ba/ca/63/b...riah-carey.jpg
That one has a few horribly cheesy tracks, but also some fun, catchy, feel-good music of the most inoffensive kind. We're not talking about that album though, so I'm not going to be too kind to Daydream here.

Too many ballads. Carey's in good vocal form, but the songs aren't quite there. Completely bearable, but nothing special at all what so ever.

This is what 5/10's are made for.

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikiped...riah_carey.jpg
Title: Daydream
Artist: Mariah Carey
Year: 1995
Genre: R&B, Pop
Nationality: American
Discography: Fourteen albums
Position in discography: Fifth

One thing I can't stand about this woman is her popularisation of what I call the “stretching to infinity” of phrases when she sings: you know the kind of thing - “Woah-oh-oh-oh-oh-oh-ohhhhhhhhh!” and so on. Drives me nuts. I also don't personally think she's that great a singer. But, the above may have coloured my perception of her music, so let's give this a chance before we shred it, huh? You know, “Underneath the stars” wouldn't be so cringey if she didn't “infinitise” it up at the end. “Underneath the ground” would be better. :laughing: Oh look: another ballad following it. Is that her singing? Surely not! That's a guy, no? Well, Men. Well, Boyz II Men. Oh, you know what I mean. Some singer in a band who were mildly successful around this time and ... oh ****! Speech a la Barry White except nowhere near as good. Man this is terrible. Boyband + Mariah = Barfbag please.

Oh ****ing Hell no! She's covering Journey's “Open Arms”??? Someone kill this woman! :mad: A terrible crime has been committed. :( Good lord: can this woman not sing without sounding like someone's slapping her repeatedly on the back? She's a human vibrato machine! Ugh. Okay, “I am free” is a nice kind of gospel-ly ballad, but she does ruin it by strrrrretttcching every syllable to its utmost. I mean, why? What purpose does it serve? Has she been told every song must be twice as long as its recorded version to fill up the CD or something? Ah sigh. “Forever” isn't terrible, but I'm not gong to be running out buying any Mariah Carey records. Ever. Unless it's to set fire to them in a desperate attempt to save mankind's ears. I'm the hero you need.

Well, I'm the only one you're getting, anyway.

http://www.trollheart.com/speed4.jpg

I totally agree she's overdoing that vocal thing (it's called melisma), but it doesn't bother me as much. If I abstract from that, I even quite like her voice. Especially during her younger years, like on this album.

Next up, eerily similar title to the last album notwithstanding....
https://img.discogs.com/OE_QRiPw-gWK...-2794.jpeg.jpg
https://open.spotify.com/album/1Y7pOuTbF47Qr4slUDkeEP

https://img.discogs.com/OE_QRiPw-gWK...-2794.jpeg.jpg

Title: Daydreaming
Artist: Murder Shoes
Year: 2015
Genre: Indie Rock
Nationality: American
Discography: One album
Position in discography: This is it

How ****ing weird is it that out of all the albums on RYM (which must number surely in the millions if not more) two random picks one after the other chose two albums with virtually the same title? Anyway, that aside, at least we're starting from the advantage of this not being Mariah Carey, so I already like it. Eleven tracks, nothing over four minutes (well,one, but just barely, a few seconds): I'm liking it more by the second, and I have yet to push play. Perhaps that will be the point where I stop liking it. Let's go.

Hmm. Decent voice. Didn't expect another female, don't know why. Kind of dreamy in a way, but the music has a hard edge. Kind of like this I must say. Yeah but it quickly becomes boring. Is it the “indie” curse? I think the music is pretty okay and she's a good singer but I just find myself failing to care. And caring less as it goes on. Meh. Did she just meow? Holy ****, now I'm bored.

In fairness, it's ok but I doubt I'd be coming back for more.
http://www.trollheart.com/speed6.jpg

.

She sounded fine but she was a bit boring and I was never grasped by the music.

It's a "meh" from me.

Two stars because I didn't hate it.

Towards the end I kind of felt I might be getting it, and after a few more listens, well maybe, but I have to listen to every album released this year and so I don't have time to revisit it. The last track was pretty good though.

I tried Rate Your Music for another random album and got some obscure album by "Mr. Curt" that wasn't available anywhere. Spotify did have another one, but I'm not even sure it's the same Mr. Curt since two appeared when searching Spotify... So... I tried RYM again and hit something actually quite familiar to me. An album I own, even, but rules are rules so...

Overkill - Killbox 13
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikiped...-Killbox13.jpg

https://rateyourmusic.com/release/al...l/kill_box_13/
https://open.spotify.com/album/6hM0QkgzL53H8eEO7bIEgv

Can't say that I've really listened to it properly for years. It's not really their best album as far as I remember it, but I did keep it when I sold some of the Overkill stuff I had a few years ago... Hmm... Well ok, guess it's a chance to reacquaint myself with this album.

I'm checking out the Death Metal Album Club album right now, so this will have to wait a bit.

https://img.discogs.com/OE_QRiPw-gWK...-2794.jpeg.jpg
Murder Shoes - Daydreaming (2015)

If there's one thing that's strikingly apparent about this album, it's that the shorter song lengths here work in the album's favor. If the songs were longer, many of these song ideas would wear thin after a while, hell some still do, despite the brevity of the songs. Also, some of these lyrics made me cringe a little; case in point: "do you think like Friedrich Nietzsch-ee? / And do / you smoke weed?":rolleyes:
Furthermore, most of these songs sounded like they could've been written in the mid-late 80s, making the album as a whole come of as very derivative, but I suppose that's par for the course.

Still, there were some songs that were good and consistent throughout. I especially liked the closer "How Does It Feel".
To me, this is a pretty clear 6/10
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@TH: Are you going to make a thread for week 3 of this btw, or are you planning on just dropping it?

I guess it depends on who's still interested. No point clogging up the forum with a new thread every week if only one or two people are bothered to post in it, myself included; and you know I'm seriously busy so the chances of me getting involved personally in this now are about as high as my suddenly developing a passion for Hardcore New York Punk.

Mind you, there's nothing to stop you (or anyone else) opening a thread if you want. Still, week 2 had two albums and something like fifteen replies, so, you know, maybe it's dead...

I could try making a Week 3 thread tomorrow, but if there's no interest, yeah, might as well let it die. Though I might keep listening to some randomly generated albums in my own time, you never know when something truly great could turn up.