848. Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds - The Boatman's Call (1997)

Track Listing

1. Into My Arms
2. Lime Tree Arbour
3. People Aint No Good
4. Brompton Oratory
5. There Is A Kingdom
6. Are You The One That I'Ve Been Waiting For?
7. Where Do We Go Now But Nowhere
8. West Counrty Girl
9. Black Hair
10. Idiot Prayer
11. Far From Me
12. Green Eyes

Review

So here's an album in a completely different register to Murder Ballads, the last Nick Cave work we've had here. This is not only a display of Cave's versatility but also a show of just how amazingly good he is in this different register.

Boatman's Call is an album infused with pain and heartbreak, possibly partly inspired by Cave's break up with PJ Harvey. This also make the musical arrangements much lower key than in the previous album, this does not mean that they any less impressive.

Boatman's Call minimalism works just as well as any of Cave's albums full of bombast, this other side of Cave's music making just goes to show how multifaceted his music is and he is as an artist. Beautiful, painful music which everyone needs to listen to.

Track Highlights

1. Are You The One That I've Been Waiting For?
2. Brompton Oratory
3. Into My Arms
4. Black Hair

Final Grade

10/10

Trivia

From Wikipedia:

The album's tone is sombre and minimalist. Stylistically and lyrically it marks a major departure for Cave, away from full-band arrangements and character-based narratives towards the more intimate sound of Cave's solo voice accompanied by piano or a few other instruments. The tempo is also generally slow. Many of the lyrics seem to reflect on Cave's personal relationships and spiritual yearnings. Some songs are thought to be directed at either the mother of Cave's son Luke, Viviane Carneiro ("Where Do We Go Now But Nowhere?") or PJ Harvey, with whom he had a brief relationship around that time ("West Country Girl", "Black Hair" and "Green Eyes").

Into My Arms:

847. Buena Vista Social Club - Buena Vista Social Club (1997)

Track Listing

1. Chan Chan
2. De Camino a la Vereda
3. El Cuarto de Tula
4. Pueblo Nuevo
5. Dos Gardenias
6. ¿Y Tú Qué Has Hecho?
7. Veinte Anos
8. El Carretero
9. Candela
10. Amor de Loca Juventud
11. Orgullecida
12. Murmullo
13. Buena Vista Social Club
14. La Bayamesa

Review

This album brought Cuban music to the forefront of the World Music scene and actually topped the charts in many countries with it's infectious but also supremely composed and played music.

Often on this list, when it comes to "world music", I disagree with the choices of the authors who seem to frequently reveal a lot of ignorance about the music of the countries they are picking. Buena Vista Social Club, in spite of being such a hit album, is not one of those cases. This album deserves all the praise heaped on it.

Each track is an amazing work, there is not a single less great track here, fortunately Ry Cooder does not seem to have tried to make the music more appealing to Anglo audiences by adding extraneous instruments or arrangements, so it sounds authentic and the quality of the production is such that you hear each single instrument clearly while keeping a certain intimate feeling. Amazing.

Track Highlights

1. Chan Chan
2. Dos Gardenias
3. El Carretero
4. Orgullecida



Final Grade

10/10

Trivia

From Wikipedia:

In 1996, American guitarist Ry Cooder had been invited to Havana by British world music producer Nick Gold of World Circuit Records to record a session where two African High-life musicians from Mali were to collaborate with Cuban musicians. On Cooder's arrival (via Mexico to avoid the ongoing U.S. trade and travel embargo against Cuba), it transpired that the musicians from Africa had not received their visas and were unable to travel to Havana. Cooder and Gold changed their plans and decided to record an album of Cuban son music with local musicians. Already on board the African collaboration project were Cuban musicians including bassist Orlando "Cachaito" López, guitarist Eliades Ochoa and musical director Juan de Marcos González, who had himself been organizing a similar project for the Afro-Cuban All Stars. A search for additional musicians led the team to singer Manuel "Puntillita" Licea, pianist Rubén González and octogenarian singer Compay Segundo, who all agreed to record for the project.

Chan Chan:

846. The Prodigy - Fat of the Land (1997)

Track Listing

1. Smack My Bitch Up
2. Breathe
3. Diesel Power
4. Funky Shit
5. Serial Thrilla
6. Mindfields
7. Narayan
8. Firestarter
9. Climbatize
10. Fuel My Fire

Review

The Prodigy are one of the more interesting electronica bands around in 1997, some of their tracks are truly infectious, and this is nowhere truer than in this album, their most famous and peppered with deserving hit singles.

Not all is rosy, however, with Prodigy comes the problem that after a while it all sounds like variations on a theme, a lot of the tracks bare enough similarities among themselves to make the album slightly boring on repeated listenings.

That being said, the album starts incredibly strong for the first three tracks and then dips a bit until Firestarter sparks it back to life (see what I did there?) only to return to two more forgettable tracks.

Track Highlights

1. Breathe
2. Smack My Bitch Up
3. Diesel Power
4. Firestarter

Final Grade

8/10

Trivia

From Wikipedia:

"Serial Thrilla" features a sample of a riff by Skunk Anansie, "Funky Shit" features a sample from "Root Down" from the Beastie Boys album Ill Communication, "Fuel My Fire" is a cover of an L7 song from Hungry for Stink. "Smack My Bitch Up" takes a sample from an Ultramagnetic MCs song, "Give the Drummer Some", and thus the Prodigy invited Kool Keith to do the lyrics and vocals for another track, "Diesel Power." Matt Cameron of Soundgarden and later Pearl Jam, who is falsely credited as "Mark" in the liner notes, is also understood to have contributed samples to the album, though it is not clear where.

Famous, yet hard to get and NSFW video for Smack My Bitch Up:


The Prodigy TV on MUZU.

845. Sleater-Kinney - Dig Me Out (1997)

Track Listing

1. Dig Me Out
2. One More Hour
3. Turn It On
4. Drama You've Been Craving
5. Heart Factory
6. Words And Guitar
7. It's Enough
8. Little Babies
9. Not What You Want
10. Buy Her Candy
11. Things You Say
12. Dance Song '97
13. Jenny

Review

Now this is a pretty great album, with a shared pop and punk sensibility which really makes it edgy and very appealing at the same time. This might sound blasphemous to some people but at times they sound to me like the Go-Gos with a punk element thrown in, and this is no bad thing.

Many of the songs here are instantly appealing and it is the kind of album that will repay repeated listenings after the first, quite pleasant go. Sleater-Kinney walk the tight rope of pop-hooks and punkish attitude perfectly, with some pretty good lyrics and relentless drive.

So this is definitely one album I can recommend, I really appreciate it when artists can be immediately appealing without sacrificing integrity and this is what happens with this album. Great.

Track Highlights

1. Little Babies
2. Words and Guitar
3. Turn It On
4. Dig Me Out

Final Grade

9/10

Trivia

From Wikipedia:

The cover is an homage to The Kinks' 1965 album The Kink Kontroversy.

Sleater-Kinney Listen to some Pixies before kicking into Dig Me Out at around 2.30:

844. David Holmes - Let's Get Killed (1997)

Track Listing

1. Listen
2. My Mate Paul
3. Let's Get Killed
4. Gritty Shaker
5. Head Rush On Lafayette
6. Rodney Yates
7. Radio 7
8. The Parcus & Madder Show
9. Slashers Revenge
10. Freaknik
11. Caddell Returns
12. Don't Die Just Yet
13. For You

Review

This is an album to take in small doses. The thing about it is that it is really pretty good but it gets tiring after a while, there are several tracks here which I really like and would sound great in almost any DJ set. Repeated listenings make it a bit boring, however.

The kind of dark sophisticate sound of the album works really well, and the track Don't Die Just Yet, a clear cover of a Serge Gainsbourg song is a more than knowing nod. It tries to approximate some of the ambience that Gainsbourg explored in Histoire de Melody Nelson while transporting it to a New York context.

It is partly successful in what it attempts to do. The voice samples that Holmes recorded in the streets of New York make a great effect in the album's overall mood. These elements make it approach the level of goodness of Barry Adamson's soundtracky albums, it does not quite get there, however.

Track Highlights

1. Don't Die Just Yet
2. Radio 7
3. Gritty Shaker
4. Slashers Revenge


Final Grade

8/10

Trivia

From Wikipedia:

Holmes used the recordings he made in New York of conversations and other street-level noise as samples on the album. These snippets of conversation were often spoken by people from New Yorks cultural underbelly, including prostitutes, pimps and drug-dealers. The samples were used in between the tracks on the album,and in some cases in the tracks themselves.

Gritty Shaker: