1018. Radiohead - In Rainbows (2007)

Track Listing

1. 15 Step
2. Bodysnatchers
3. Nude
4. Weird Fishes/Arpeggi
5. All I Need
6. Faust Arp
7. Reckoner
8. House Of Cards
9. Jigsaw Falling Into Place
10. Videotape

Review

I expect so much from Radiohead by now that this album came as a bit of a disappointment. I always hope they are going to push the envelope further on strange music, but here it seems like they took a small step back.

The album feels like it is a continuation of their previous work, many of the sounds here would not have appeared if not for their earlier work. In that sense there is a very natural evolution that leads to this album.

However, the step back is taken in making their music more easily approachable, as such it doesn't really surprise that much. If Hail to the Thief was a return to a more traditional song structure after the great experiments of Kid A and Amnesiac, In Rainbows takes that further but it also conforms to more mainstream music. However, this is still a great album, don't get me wrong, still better than 99% of the stuff out there, just that my expectations are very high.

Track Highlights

1. Jigsaw Falling Into Place
2. Bodysnatchers
3. House of Cards
4. Nude

Final Grade

8/10

Trivia

From Wikipedia:

Days after announcing the album's completion, Radiohead released In Rainbows as a digital download that customers could order for whatever price they saw fit. Upon its retail release, In Rainbows entered the UK Album Chart and the U.S. Billboard 200 at number one; by October 2008, it had sold more than three million copies worldwide in both digital and physical formats. The album earned widespread critical acclaim, and was ranked as one of the best albums of 2007 by several publications. In 2009, the record won two Grammy Awards for Best Alternative Music Album and Best Special Limited Edition Package.

Jigsaw Falling into Place:

1017. LCD Soundsystem - Sound of Silver (2007)

Track Listing

1. Get Innocuous!
2. Time To Get Away
3. North American Scum
4. Someone Great
5. All My Friends
6. Us V Them
7. Watch The Tapes
8. Sound Of Silver
9. New York, I Love You But You're Bringing Me Down

Review

Let's get this straight, LCD Soundsystem are (is) beyond great. That being said I can now start gushing. How can what sounds like such a modern album be so unrepentantly retro and manage to do it all so well?

You can really tell that this guy loves his music. You could already tell it in his earlier release (unfortunately not present in this list) with a track like Losing My Edge, name checking great bands in a non-annoying way. But here he does more than name check, he builds whole tracks around great music from an earlier age.

There are tracks here which channel Kraftwerk and David Bowie from the Eno years (Get Innocuous!), 80s disaffected synth-pop (Sound of Silver), Modern Lovers (North American Scum), Joy Division (All My Friends) and so on and so forth, and all is done perfectly without ever losing originality even while being full of little tributes. A great, great album.

Track Highlights

1. All My Friends
2. Sound of Silver
3. Get Innocuous!
4. North American Scum

Final Grade

10/10

Trivia

From Wikipedia:

In 2009 Pitchfork Media named the track "All My Friends", the second best song of the decade, and a week later, Sound of Silver was ranked at #17 in the 200s albums of the decade list.

All My Friends:


2.

1016. The Good, The Bad and the Queen - The Good, the Bad and the Queen (2007)

Track Listing

1. History Song
2. 80s Life
3. Northern Whale
4. Kingdom Of Doom
5. Herculean
6. Behind The Sun
7. The Bunting Song
8. Nature Springs
9. A Soldier's Tale
10. Three Changes
11. Green Fields
12. The Good, The Bad And The Queen

Review

Damon Albarn is a Jack of All Trades and master of some. This project is not, however, one of the most masterful that he has been in. It owes too much to past artists such as The Specials to be truly original and doesn't really astound like that band did.

The music is expertly done as are the bleak lyrics, and it is very good indeed, but not particularly astounding. This might have something to do with a big level of expectation not only from Albarn but also from his collaborators in this project, coming from such diverse backgrounds as Suede, Fela Kuti's band or The Clash.

So again the album is very good, but it is nowhere near as good as could be expected from this set-up. It ends up being not particularly original or exciting while being definitely more than competent and actually quite good.

Track Highlights

1. Herculean
2. Nature Springs
3. The Good, the Bad and the Queen
4. History Song

Final Grade

8/10

Trivia

From Wikipedia:

Damon Albarn talked to NME in early March 2007 and discussed the band's future plans, which included a recording session in early September intended to produce a release not long after that: "We're going to do another whole recording session in early September. It will be totally different, more funky. We'll try to get it out in early autumn."

Herculean (someone needs to tell Simonon that he's no longer in the Clash and can therefore jump about a bit less):

1015. Arcade Fire - Neon Bible (2007)

Track Listing

1. Black Mirror
2. Keep The Car Running
3. Neon Bible
4. Intervention
5. Black Wave/Bad Vibrations
6. Ocean Of Noise
7. The Well And The Lighthouse
8. (Antichrist Television Blues)
9. Windowsill
10. No Cars Go
11. My Body Is A Cage

Review

Arcade Fire do it again! Against all odds they manage to make an album which lives up to their début and then some. It is in fact hard to tell if it is better or worse than their first album, but it is different which is good enough for me.

Clearly drawing not only from their own sound but from people like Bruce Springsteen (just listen to Antichrist Television Blues), they manage to inject the album with a different feel from Funeral while resolutely remaining themselves.

Interestingly the best track in the album is an old one, No Cars Go is a track all the way back from their first EP, but it is remade to fit the album in an explosion of epicness. However there is no a single less than great track throughout. Highly recommended.

Track Highlights

1. No Cars Go
2. Keep The Car Running
3. Intervention
4. My Body is a Cage

Final Grade

10/10

Trivia

From Wikipedia:

Following the release of Funeral, which had been recorded in an attic studio known as Hotel 2 Tango, Arcade Fire decided a permanent recording location was necessary. Following their tour in support of Funeral, the band bought the Petite Église in Farnham, Quebec. Being used as a café at the time of purchase, the Petite Église had once been a church and a Masonic temple. Once renovation of the church was complete, the band spent the latter half of 2006 recording a majority of the album there. They additionally recorded in Budapest, where a Hungarian orchestra and a military men's choir were used. Other sessions included one in New York, where the band recorded along the Hudson River to be near water.

Arcade Fire in Lisbon with No Cars Go:

1014. Joanna Newsom - Ys (2006)

Track Listing

1. Emily
2. Monkey & Bear
3. Sawdust & Diamonds
4. Only Skin
5. Cosmia

Review

While not the best album since the invention of the potato chip, no matter what they've told you, Ys is indeed a very great album. Consisting of only 5 tracks there is still a lot of variety to be had here, of course it is variety within a minimalist folk-harp style, but it never gets boring.

Newsom constructs ever shifting musical suites with some great lyric writing and non-traditional song-structures... there's not a chorus, bridge or guitar solo to be had here, but do not let that put you off... in fact that is exactly what should turn you on.

She definitely has a distinct vocal style, somewhat reminiscing of Björk without the silly accent or schizophrenia but with a drawl. All in all this is one of the great albums of new folk music, a very rewarding musical style indeed full of complexities and which rewards repeated listenings.

Track Highlights

1. Monkey and Bear
2. Only Skin

Final Grade

10/10

Trivia

From Wikipedia:

The album, particularly the length of the songs and orchestral arrangements, was inspired by the 1971 Roy Harper album Stormcock.

Monkey and Bear: