707. Metallica - Metallica (aka. Black Album) (1991)

Track Listing

1. Enter Sandman
2. Sad But True
3. Holier Than Thou
4. The Unforgiven
5. Wherever I May Roam
6. Don't Tread On Me
7. Through The Never
8. Nothing Else Matters
9. Of Wolf And Man
10. The God That Failed
11. My Friend Of Misery
12. The Struggle Within


Review

Metallica have finally lost any pretence to being a Metal band by the time this album came out. It ends up being something like hard rock/pop. And, honestly, good for them. They were never a good metal band. They are not a good band here but at least they are more successful.

This is one of those album where you know at least half the tracks, which for such a hard album is quite weird. It is the culmination of the "mainstreamisation" of Metallica. And it has some catchy tunes, no doubt. Still, it is very much top-heavy and after Nothing Else Matters... well nothing else matters.

Unfortunately Metallica keep some elements of Metal which don't really work here, the lyrics are piss-poor... even if they are easy to memorise for the non-English speaking Euros who make up their greatest market. It is a not horrible pop album, but a pretty terrible Metal album... so let's take them as pop and give them a middling grade.

Track Highlights

1. Enter Sandman
2. Wherever I May Roam
3. Sad But True
4. The Unforgiven

Final Grade

7/10

Trivia

From Wikipedia:

While the album and the band were critically praised and commercially successful, some fans expressed disappointment in the new direction taken by Metallica. Gone for the most part were faster staccato riffs during verses and throaty vocals found on the band's first four albums; the overall speed and complexity of the music was greatly reduced. The Black Album presented a more radio-friendly, commercially accessible Metallica, especially evidenced by the ballad "Nothing Else Matters". Moreover, following the success of "One," the breakaway single from their …And Justice for All album, five videos were released from the Black Album. ("Enter Sandman", "Nothing Else Matters", "Sad but True", "Wherever I May Roam" and "The Unforgiven").

Enter Sandman:

706. Teenage Fanclub - Bandwagonesque (1991)

Track Listing

1. The concept
2. Satan
3. December
4. What you do to me
5. I don't know
6. Star sign
7. Metal baby
8. Pet rock
9. Sidewinder
10. Alcoholiday
11. Guiding star
12. Is this music?

Review

When this album came out Teenage Fanclub were derided as being derivative and unoriginal by the same people that would some time later be sucking Oasis' fat one. That to me is just one of those ironies of destiny... Teenage Fanclub were indeed being derivative and unoriginal but they were ahead of their time in being so!

At least Fanclub's derivativeness is more interesting than that of Oasis, they at least get more than one band's influence, and none of them are as painfully obvious as the Beatles. There is Byrds here and Todd Rundgren but in a nicely updated way.

So in the end, even with the fact that this is borrowing a lot from the past I liked this album, it is at least refreshingly different from what else was going on at the time. I don't know if I can forgive them, however, for starting the whole Brit-Pop trend which created more crap than good albums.

Track Highlights

1. The Concept
2. Star Sign
3. Metal Baby
4. Is This Music?

Final Grade

8/10

Trivia

From Wikipedia:

The cover is designed by Sharon Fitzgerald. When Kiss member Gene Simmons (who trademarked a moneybag logo) was made aware of the record he sent a letter to Geffen Records - who in turn gave in and sent Mr. Simmons a cheque, according to Simmons audiobook Sex Money Kiss. In 2006 the album was performed live in its entirety as part of the All Tomorrow's Parties-curated Don't Look Back series.

The Concept:

705. Primal Scream - Screamadelica (1991)

Track Listing

1. Movin' on Up
2. Slip Inside This House
3. Don't Fight It, Feel It
4. Higher Than the Sun
5. Inner Flight
6. Come Together
7. Loaded
8. Damaged
9. I'm Comin' Down
10. Higher Than the Sun [A Dub Symphony in Two Parts]
11. Shine Like Stars

Review

A bit all over the place and overrated are two things that can be said about this album. But I hear you say: "But this is a classic!". And then I raise two fingers at you if you live in Albion or just one if you live anywhere else.  Best thing about the album is the cover.

What is up with this album being the be all and end all of music? Yes, it is midly interesting if you were just listening to pop/rock in 1991 and suddenly you bought a Primal Scream album and dance music was revealed to you. If you were aware of what was happening around the world you would not be surprised.

The Happy Mondays did it better on the dance tracks. The Stones did it better on the rock tracks. Massive Attack did it better on the more chilly tracks. But people bought this album thinking they were getting something else and Primal Scream surprised them... they surprise no one now.

Track Highlights

1. Loaded
2. Movin' On Up
3. Higher Than the Sun
4. Shine Like Stars

Final Grade

7/10

Trivia

From Wikipedia:

The album was a massive departure from the band's early indie rock sound, drawing inspiration from the house music scene (and associated drugs) that was becoming popular at the time of its production. The band enlisted house DJs Andrew Weatherall and Terry Farley on producing duties, although the album also contained a wide range of other influences including gospel and dub.

The album's title track did not appear on the album itself; the ten minute dance track was also produced by Andrew Weatherall and sung by Denise Johnson. It appears on the Dixie Narco EP released in 1992, and featured in the opening credits of the now rare Screamadelica VHS video tape.

The album includes "Loaded", which was a top twenty hit single in the UK. Dance DJ Andrew Weatherall began remixing "I'm Losing More than I'll Ever Have", from their previous album, and the resulting track disassembled the song, adding a drum loop from an Italian bootleg mix of Edie Brickell's "What I Am", a sample of Gillespie singing a line from Robert Johnson's "Terraplane Blues" and the central introductory sample from the Peter Fonda B-movie The Wild Angels.

Loaded... what a fascinating video:

704. Massive Attack - Blue Lines (1991)

Track Listing

1. Safe From Harm
2. One Love
3. Blue Lines
4. Be Thankful For What You've Got
5. Five Man Army
6. Unfinished Sympathy
7. Daydreaming
8. Lately
9. Hymn Of The Big Wheel

Review

If we compare the house music we had yesterday with the KLF with this album we can find some similarities and differences. One of the similarities is the fact that both albums are pretty dated, the whole trip-hop scene, as good as it was has not dated well. One of the big dissimilarities between this and the White Room by KLF is that this is a pretty great album irrespective of how dated it is.

This is truly revolutionary stuff, and even if I only caught the end of trip-hop properly, from the second Portishead album on, I still have great memories of the music and the time. This was pretty smart, chilled and beautiful electronic music and the influence of Blue Lines cannot be overestimated, this is the blueprint for all trip-hop to come.

That said there are excellent tracks here, Unfinished Sympathy and Safe From Harm are only the most famous examples, the whole album stands up as a work of high quality. The sampling and scratching techniques are highly original but unfortunately this is an album very much of its time, trip-hop has run its course. But this album still deserves a place in my iPod.

Track Highlights

1. Unfinished Sympathy
2. Safe From Harm
3. One Love
4. Be Thankful For What You've Got

Final Grade

9/10

Trivia

From Wikipedia:

Daddy G says about the making of the album: "We were lazy Bristol twats. It was Neneh Cherry who kicked our arses and got us in the studio. We recorded a lot at her house, in her baby's room. It stank for months and eventually we found a dirty nappy behind a radiator. I was still DJing, but what we were trying to do was create dance music for the head, rather than the feet. I think it's our freshest album, we were at our strongest then."

Unfinished Sympathy:

703. The KLF - The White Room (1991)

Track Listing

1. What Time Is Love?
2. Make It Rain
3. 3 A.M Eternal (Live at the S.S.L)
4. Church of the KLF
5. Last Train to Transcentral (Live From The Lost Continent)
6. Build A Fire
7. The White Room
8. No More Tears
9. Justified and Ancient

Review

So many people suck this album's fat one that it might almost slip by you the fact that it is incredibly dated and pretty crappy. Before you come back telling me I don't get it, I will tell you that I have read and loved The Illuminatus! Trilogy, and that I did a Situationalist course last year. So yeah, I get it. Oh I have given a 9 or 10 to MC5. 

But this is about music not some philosophy underpinning some of the lyrics. Just because the Justified Ancients of Mu Mu are referred to I don't have to cream myself. The album starts of with something that would not be out of place in a Mortal Kombat film, the kind of apocalyptic rave music that has been justly condemned to oblivion.

From then on the album doesn't get any better, there is some soul vocals and some stadium samples that give a certain grandiosity to some of the numbers but that don't fool me. It is house music... just that, not better than much other house music, and there is a reason why this is a style not overly represented here. The only way to hear it is on drugs and with sweaty nubile girls with little fluorescent clothing blowing on whistles while dancing in front of you. I tried to get my wife to re-construct this, but she wouldn't do it.

Track Highlights

1. 3AM Eternal
2. What Time Is Love
3. Last Train to Transcentral
4. No More Tears

Final Grade

7/10

Trivia

From Wikipedia:

In October 1990, the KLF launched a series of singles with an upbeat pop-house sound they dubbed "Stadium House". Songs from The White Room soundtrack were re-recorded with rap and more vocals (by guests labelled "Additional Communicators"), a sample-heavy pop-rock production, and crowd noise samples. The "Stadium House" versions of "What Time Is Love?" and "3 a.m. Eternal" were immediate hits, with "3 a.m. Eternal" becoming the KLF's only number-one release. These "Stadium House" tracks made up a large part of The White Room when it was eventually released in March 1991, substantially reworked from the original soundtrack version.

3 AM Eternal: