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Take That - Beautiful World (2006)

This album legit sounds really familiar but I can't place my finger on it. However, it does turn out that I have not heard it before because it stops sounding familiar quite quickly. I really love the vocals and the easy listening guitar work they have going here. It's simple, but it works well together and makes for a fun album.

Snafu - Snafu

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Genre: Hard Rock
Year: 1973
Place of Origin: United Kingdom
General Pace: Moderate-classic: groovy and bluesy w/some country & bluegrass vibes

Summation: Dang I really liked this. Great mix of what I define as classic rock and it's also fused with some smooth groves with balanced structures that don't funk over the riffs and de-rockify everything. This was not a struggle to get through as both the band and the recording are well put together. I bet this sounds amazing on vinyl. Snafu only had a three-year stint? Dafuq?

Best Song: "Long Gone." Total banger and it's the first song in the video.

Would I return to this album?: Yes.

Shannon Stephens - Pull It Together

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https://shannonstephens.bandcamp.com...ll-it-together

Genre: Indie Folk, Singer-Songwriter
Year: 2012
Place of Origin: Seattle
General Pace: Slow to moderate acoustic w/piano, downtempo

Stephens's voice is clear and her sensitivity, humanness and effort doesn't go unnoticed, but this is one of those things where I don't have much of an opinion. Respect the output, but it's not my stuffz. No need to be more wordy than that as there's plentiful info on that Bandcamp link that's better than any nonsense I can spin on what her musical intent was for Pull It Together.

Best Song: "Your Fabulous Friends." She gets a little feisty about facades, and it's tongue-in-cheek delicious.

Would I return to this album?: No.

The Beatles - Help! [Motion Picture Soundtrack]

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Genre: Pop Rock
Year: 1965
Place of Origin: Earth
General Pace: It's The Beatles. You know what they sound like.

Never heard of these guys before...

If you don't believe that, this is legit the first time I'm listening to a full Beatles album. Ever. As much as this genre/era and The Beatles were a staple growing up -- nonstop -- in listening to this, it never registered to me that their songs are super short, as most are barely over two minutes long. In total, Help! clocks in at under 30 minutes. I don't know how to describe it, but the Beatles can pack in to two minutes what may take other bands' songs seven minutes to extend, and not be draggy about it. Perhaps it's because the songs are designed to continually loop in your head, which of course they do, whether you like it or not. I have my issues with classic pop/rock, but The Beatles have never been one of them.

This was the North American Capitol release that has songs from the film of the same name; 12 songs, five of them instrumentals. The instrumentals aren't memorable, but those aren't necessary unless you're a fan of the film.

Would I return to this album?: It's The Beatles.

Discogs: r:01990379 {using a random number generator}

An England Story (The Culture Of The MC In The UK 1983-2008)

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This is the 2 disc version of a difficult task of stuffing 25 years of
UK dancehall, reggae, ragga and assorted into about 85 minutes.
It’s got the first example on disc of UK “fast chat” with Papa Levi’s,
“Mi God Mi King” and Jah Screechy's “Walk and Skank” (think:
SL2: “On a Ragga Tip”). Ending with the faux-fun Cockney accent
of neighbors complaining of next door heavy bass: Tippa Irie -
“Complain Neighbour.” Too much hip-swivelin’ goodness for just
two discs … so a Volume Two followed.

The Weathermen - The Black Album According to the Weathermen

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Genre: Electronic Pop
Year: 1988
Place of Origin: Duo: Belgium/USA
General Pace: Moderate

Summation: Musically, The Black Album According to the Weathermen (BAATTW) is reminiscent of the style of the time, but it holds up surprisingly well audibly as the production sounds crisp. The Weathermen use talk-singing as their delivery device, overlaying the music's semi-industrial compositions, such as with "Tar Pit," but neither technique takes priority over the other.

Intended as satire, The Weathermen butter you up on the first two songs with the mention of George H. W. Bush and high-life icon Barbie, so I was preparing myself for a full-on onslaught against and/or treatise on American consumer culture as the album progressed. But that's not what happens. Instead, the rest of the BAATTW is pretty unimaginative throughout as it descends into a loose connection of dilly-dally directionlessness and half-baked ideas. For example, "Twisting Doorknob" & "R U New to the Bayou" have voice samples of a man blabbering on about all of modern society's ills, but the points seem to get lost in the clouds.

There is a lot more that could've been expanded upon with this release.

Best Song: "Barbie And Ken." This song was catchy and had some of better lines. Not that catchy has to be the end all, be all every time out.



Would I return to this album?: No.

(Max Hawkins' Daily Random for Spotify)

Deodato: Prelude

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There was a time (early 70s) when the jazz purists would sneer at anything coming
from Creed Taylor’s label - especially a minor “hit” with a funky large band version
of "Also Sprach Zarathustra" like this album had. CTI Records' reputation has actually
survived well-intact after all of these decades as it should with the resurgence of MOR
in classy leggings. Vermouth in its marrow cushioned by the likes of the creme of the
crop session-men of this era: Hubert Laws, Bill Watrous, Marvin Stamm,
Billy Cobham, Stanley Clarke, Ron Carter, a.o. Highlights: “Also Sprach…”,
Ravel’s "Prelude to the Afternoon of a Fawn" and Cobham’s "September 13."

(Max Hawkins' Daily Random for Spotify)

R. Stevie Moore ‎– Delicate Tension (1979)

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Celebrating the unpolished, the confidential, the defenseless and the crazed,
R. Stevie Moore is a great-grandfather of lo-fi and the wandering troubadour
of the American version of outsider music and hypnogogic pop. This album was his
first official studio album that was recorded for his uncle’s small record label and he’s
done over 400 records since this one. Beautifully sparse, rickety, outlooker songwriting
that’s gained the adulation of people like Ariel Pink, The Residents and Chris Cutler.
This, and his album “Phonography”, were good enough starts for him, so should it be for us.



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Akalé Wubé - s/t

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Before the era of the Derg in Ethiopia (during the reign of Haile Selassie),
you could count on top-notch ethio-stars coming out of Addis Ababa.
Mahmoud Ahmed, Tilahun Gessesse, Alemayehu Eshete, a.o. released
some fine LPs back then. I remember treasuring anything I could get by,
for example, the Wallias Band on LP or cassette back in those days.
But since the recording means were often crude, the sound didn’t always
capture their brilliance.

After the Derg era, things began to change musically with the introduction
of newer performers who could write songs that could criticize the government
without worrying about the hammer of censorship coming down on them.
New worldwide attention opened up to many of the older musicians as well as younger,
non-Ethiopian musicians who put forward their own take on the synthesis of free jazz,
psych rock, hard bop, funk and traditional music that Mulatu Astatke and compatriots
were exploring four decades ago.

This album is from a quintet of musicians from Paris keeping to more traditional
late 60s/early 70s style that’s more moody and modal than something that would
be closer to a modern fusion of disparate forms. For “authenticity,” this is something
that will transport you back a few decades while being able to catch every nuance.
Roll out the injera, here are Akalé Wubé.

Top tunes: “Jawa Jawa”; “Djemeregne” and “Yèkatit"

Two quick ones:

Thunderwar - Wolfpack [EP]



Genre: Death Metal
Year: 2018
Place of Origin: Warsaw, Poland
General Pace: Fast-paced but not speed metal

Summation: Dungeons, dragons and runes. Oh my! It was okay I guess. I wasn't much on the vocalist.

Best Song: "Wolfpack" had the most brutal guitarwork but "Circle of Runes" was the most melodic. Prefer the former in this case, actually.

Would I return to this album?: No.

Aschmicrosa - Incubus Black Metal



Genre: Black Metal
Year: 2006
Place of Origin: Slovenia
General Pace: Heavy but not speedy

Pretty much a black metal newb so I will do what I can here. Band was aight, not super horrible, but my metal-listening trend continues on not liking the vocals. The screaming didn't hit its mark either. This does have some symphonic vocal elements (chanting) in about 10% of the songs without feeling cheesy, so they did well there. Incubus Black Metal seems self-recorded but who knows. I did listen to the whole thing.

Would I return to this album?: No.