989. The Libertines - The Libertines (2004)

Track Listing

1. Can't Stand Me Now
2. Last Post On The Bugle
3. Don't Be Shy
4. The Man Who Would Be King
5. Music When The Lights Go Out
6. Narcissist
7. The Ha Ha Wall
8. Arbeit Macht Frei
9. Campaign Of Hate
10. What Katie Did
11. Tomblands
12. The Saga
13. Road To Ruin
14. What Became Of The Likely Lads

Review

I am very ashamed to realize that I actually quite like this album. I still hate Pete Doherty though. There is certainly an attractive sense of self-implosion in this album, however, a destructive behaviour which would then define one half of the band in his endless showboating.

This album works in the sense that it is very much a 00s album with a sense of the shambolic which is more associated with the 70s, and it sounds truthful to the fact that it is all falling apart, as it indeed was.

There is enough talent behind this album to actually keep it together for the duration but just bursting at the seams. Knowing the personal history between the two band members while the album was being made helps explain this but it is really admirable that the album manages to only constantly threaten to disintegrate and sound so good while this goes on.

Track Highlights

1. What Became Of The Likely Lads
2. Can't Stand Me Now
3. The Man Who Would Be King
4. What Katie Did

Final Grade

9/10

Trivia

From Wikipedia:

The album cover was taken by Roger Sargent during the emotional "Freedom Gig" at the Tap 'N' Tin club, Chatham, Kent, on October 8, 2003, when Pete Doherty reunited with the Libertines for a gig just hours after being released from jail. Pete Doherty returned to the Tap 'N' Tin club on 20 December 2008 for a one-off gig with Chas & Dave.

What Became of the Likely Lads:

988. Ozomatli - Street Signs (2004)

Track Listing

1. Believe
2. Love & Hope
3. Street Signs
4. (Who Discovered) America?
5. Who's To Blame
6. Te Estoy Buscando
7. Saturday Night
8. Dejame En Paz
9. Santiago
10. Ya Viene El Sol
11. Dona Isabella
12. Nadie Te Tira
13. Cuando Canto

Review

I think that when it comes to what the people who made this list think of as being "world music" they are somewhat uncritical. Ozomatli is a perfect example of this. Just because a hip-hop band has some elements from Latin and Eastern music does not make it any good.

The whole album ends up sounding pretty cheap, often like music you might listen to in a cruise ship disco in the south of Spain. Tacky party music with political pretensions which are lost in the fact that it is a bit shit.

So yeah it's crap.

Track Highlights

1. It all
2. grates
3. on
4. my nerves.

Final Grade

4/10

Trivia

From Wikipedia:

This album won the Latin Grammy Award for Best Alternative Music Album at the Latin Grammy Awards of 2005.

Better live than on the album:

987. Beta Band - Heroes to Zeros (2004)

Track Listing

1. Assessment

2. Space

3. Lion Thief

4. Easy

5. Wonderful

6. Troubles

7. Out-Side

8. Space Beatle

9. Rhododendron

10. Liquid Bird

11. Simple

12. Pure For

Review

Unfortunately for me the only great Beta Band album is the three EP's. Well it is not really an album but a handy collection of the first three EP's by the Beta Band where they really made their best music.

This is unfortunate for two reasons: first it means they did not get any better as time went on. But also because there is no 3 EP's on this list of album only markedly inferior offering from a band which too in love with its own blandness to do anything exciting.

So the album is perfectly listenable, it is nice stuff, reminds me a bit of Super Furry Animals and Belle and Sebastian but worse than those two because they are boringer. So this is not terrible music by any account but it is also supremely unexciting even if full of promise... oh well.

Track Highlights

1. Assessment

2. Lion Thief

3. Wonderful

4. Rhododendron

Final Grade

8/10

Trivia

From Wikipedia:

The cover illustration was created by comic book writer and artist Kaare Andrews.

The Beta Band logo for the album was created by comic book artist Dave McCaig, later to be reused on The Best of the Beta Band.

Assessment:

986. N.E.R.D. - Fly Or Die (2004)

Track Listing

1. Don't Worry About It
2. Fly Or Die
3. Jump
4. Backseat Love
5. She Wants To Move
6. Breakout
7. Wonderful Place
8. Drill Sergeant
9. Thrasher
10. Maybe
11. The Way She Dances
12. Chariot Of Fire

Review

Well what can one say about this album? It is quite fun and dancy, does a good job of marrying funk, rock, hip-hop and R&B which is pretty much what the whole album is all about. And it is entertaining.

This last point is the most relevant element about the album, although the music is quite well constructed and perfectly produced the most important thing here is really the album's entertainment value.

It is clearly directed for a segment of people with low attention span, however, instead of taking the easy route and just making the music sub-standard, because "Who Cares?", they put the effort in to make the music hooky throughout, harder and in the end more rewarding. Anyway still a really good album aimed at teens.

Track Listing

1. She Wants to Move
2. Maybe
3. Fly Or Die
4. Backseat Love

Final Grade

8/10

Trivia

From Wikipedia:

The band recorded its second album Fly or Die during 2003. The band actually learned the instruments needed to play the tunes, so they could perform live. As Chad Hugo told MTV News on December 9, 2003, "We're the ones playing the instruments live this time. I just started playing guitar last year so I'm learning as we go. Pharrell's playing drums. Last time, (on In Search Of...) we didn't have time to learn certain instruments so we got Spymob to help us out."

She Wants To Move:

985. Franz Ferdinand - Franz Ferdinand (2004)

Track Listing

1. Jacqueline
2. Tell Her Tonight
3. Take Me Out
4. The Dark Of The Matinée
5. Auf Achse
6. Cheating On You
7. This Fire
8. Darts Of Pleasure
9. Michael
10. Come On Home
11. 40'

Review

The British answer to the Strokes or the White Stripes was actually something very different from those American bands. Franz Ferdinand have made alternative rock-music with the single purpose of making you dance, rocking your socks off as it was.

And they are truly successful in this most impressive début album only challenged this year, as a début, by Arcade Fire's album. Each and every song here is designed to make you move, and it does. More than that the lyrics are funny, the music is attractive with a post-punk quality to it.

Taking inspiration from bands such as Talking Heads or Gang of Four, they had perfect blueprints which could easily be stripped of their political or artistic ambitions and directed much more strongly towards fun. And that is what they do, what they lose in depth they win in sheer "make-you-moveness".

Track Highlights

1. Take Me Out
2. The Dark of the Matinée
3. Michael
4. Darts of Pleasure

Final Grade

10/10

Trivia

From Wikipedia:

Franz Ferdinand received universal critical acclaim. The NME said that the band was the latest in the line of art school rock bands featuring The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, The Who, Duran Duran, Roxy Music, the Sex Pistols, Wire and Blur. It rated the album as 9 out of 10 and said: "This album is the latest and most intoxicating example of the wonderful pushing its way up between the ugly slabs of Pop Idol, nu metal and Britons aping American bands. What these blossoming bands have in common is the absolute conviction that rock 'n' roll is more than a career option."

The BBC's review of the album said: "At only 38 minutes long Franz Ferdinand may not be a particularly long album, but it is a masterpiece of funky, punky, suave cool from the first track to the last." Allmusic rated the album as four out of five stars and said: "Franz Ferdinand ends up being rewarding in different ways than the band's previous work was, but it's apparent that they're still one of the more exciting groups to come out of the garage-rock / post-punk revival."

Take Me Out: