855. Bob Dylan - Time Out Of Mind (1997)

Track Listing

1. Love Sick
2. Dirt Road Blues
3. Standing In The Doorway
4. Million Miles
5. Trying To Get To Heaven
6. 'Til I Fell In Love With You
7. Not Dark Yet
8. Cold Irons Bound
9. Make You Feel My Love
10. Can't Wait
11. Highlands


Review

Dylan is back! Back in time and back in top form. Time Out of Mind is a sprawling and consistently dark collection of songs where Dylan explores sounds that go further back than even is very long career.

Dylan draws heavily on the Blues for this great comeback album. If you had considered him a spent force by the late 90s you would be profoundly wrong. In fact you shouldn't do that now in 2009.

Admittedly this is no Blonde on Blonde or Blood on the Tracks, but it is still a worthy addition to any collection of Bob Dylan albums. Consistently good with an amazing 16 minute track to end it with. Recommended.

Track Highlights

1. Highlands
2. Love Sick
3. Standing in the Doorway
4. Cold Iron Bounds

Final Grade

9/10

Trivia

From Wikipedia:

The album features a particularly atmospheric sound, the work of producer (and past Dylan collaborator) Daniel Lanois, whose innovative work with carefully placed microphones and strategic mixing was detailed by Dylan in the first volume of his memoirs, Chronicles, Vol. 1. Despite being generally complimentary to Lanois, especially his work on the 1989 album Oh Mercy, Dylan has voiced dissatisfaction with the sound on Time Out of Mind. He has gone on to self-produce his subsequent albums.

Highlands part 1:



Part 2:

854. Supergrass - In It For the Money (1997)

Track Listing

1. In It For The Money
2. Richard III
3. Tonight
4. Late In The Day
5. G Song
6. Sun Hits The Sky
7. Going Out
8. It's Not Me
9. Cheapskate
10. You Can See Me
11. Hollow Little Reign
12. Sometimes I Make You Sad


Review

If I Should Coco is a great explosion of exuberant youth, this album shows a clear progression in Supergrass' career. What happened? They grew up considerably. The loss of the wide-eyed youth of before is compensated by some great music.

Supergrass are now more developed in musical terms, their endless influences are still present but the way they mix it is more original, going often to psychedelia for their inspiration.

So this is another great album by them. Finally coming out of the desert represented by Robbie Williams and Mariah! Maybe this is why this album sounds so great as well, by comparison to what I've been forced to endure lately.

Track Highlights

1. Sun Hits The Sky
2. Richard III
3. Sometimes I Make You Sad
4. Hollow Little Reign

Final Grade

9/10

Trivia

From Wikipedia:

It is speculated that Parlophone, the record label Supergrass were on, offered the band a sum of money to decide on a final name for the album, because they were taking too long to deliberate. However, the band themselves claim that they never received any of this money in return. Other suggestions considered for the title of the album included: 'Hold Onto The Handrail' and 'Children of the Monkey Basket' (which is now the name of the band's self-run website).

Sun Hits The Sky:

853. Mariah Carey - Butterfly (1997)

Track Listing

1. Honey Honey
2. Butterfly
3. My All
4. Roof
5. Fourth Of July
6. Breakdown
7. Babydoll
8. Close My Eyes
9. Whenever You Call
10. Fly Away
11. Beautiful Ones
12. Outside

Review

GROAAAAN! OOOOOOooooOOOOeeeeEEEeeiiiiIIIIooooOOOOOOooooooOOOO That's about it.

Track Highlights

1. Beautiful Ones
2. Butterfly
3. Honey
4. My All

Final Grade

4/10

Trivia

From Wikipedia:

Butterfly debuted at number one on the U.S. Billboard 200 chart with 236,000 copies sold in its first week; it remained there for one week, in the top twenty for twenty-one weeks and on the chart for fifty-five weeks (making one re-entry). The album sold more in both its fourteenth week and fifteenth week of release than in its opening week, peaking at 283,000 copies in its fifteenth (when it was at number eight). It has been certified five times platinum by the RIAA and produced two number-one singles on the Billboard Hot 100: "Honey" and "My All". "Honey" became the sixth single (and the third by Carey) to debut at number one on the Hot 100. The album also yielded the airplay-only singles "Butterfly" and "Breakdown". "The Roof" and "Whenever You Call" received limited release in some countries.

Honey:

852. Robbie Williams - Life Thru a Lens (1997)

Track Listing

1. Lazy Days
2. Life Thru A Lens
3. Ego Agogo
4. Angels
5. South Of The Border
6. Old Before I Die
7. One Of God's Better People
8. Let Me Entertain You
9. Killing Me
10. Clean
11. Baby Girl Window (Includes Hidden Track 'Hello Sir')

Review

Now we are in for a couple of crap days on this list. First up is Robbie Williams' Life Thru a Lens, his first post Take That album. A great reminder of just how horrible an effect Oasis had on popular music.

Robbie Williams tries to make himself sound more adult by borrowing a couple of pages from the Oasis songbook... and still he is better than them! His song-writing is wittier and just plain better.

That being said this album is still shit although not as shit as the one we have to look forward to tomorrow. At least that one is no fault of Oasis. So yeah Robbie Williams is not something I'll be playing again anytime soon.

Track Highlights

1. Lazy Days
2. Ego Agogo
3. Let Me Entertain You
4. Old Before I Die

Final Grade

6/10

Trivia

From Wikipedia:

Despite the album's success in Williams' homeland, it failed to make a bigger impact in the international market, perhaps, the other territory where the album enjoyed similar success was Argentina, where the album reached the top ten in early 1998. It has sold over 4 million worldwide.

Lazy Days:

851. Daft Punk - Homework (1997)

Track Listing

1. Daftendirekt
2. Wdpk 837 Fm
3. Revolution 909
4. Da Funk
5. Phoenix
6. Fresh
7. Around The World
8. Rollin' & Scratchin'
9. Teachers
10. High Fidelity
11. Rock'n Roll
12. Oh Yeah
13. Burnin'
14. Indo Silver Club
15. Alive
16. Funk Ad

Review

Another electronica album, this time from France. I actually really like Daft Punk but after three days listening to this album it does get quite tiring. That being said it is still more interesting to listen to at home than most contemporary electronica.

There is an expression I profoundly hate which is "Intelligent Dance Music" but this album is kind of integrated in what most people describe as IDM. Still, Daft Punk is still pretty danceable stuff in parts.

The best thing of the album really are the singles which is really a pity. Most other tracks are endlessly repetitive. That is the problem with much electronica the idea of music by the pound, lengthy repetitive tracks often with little to grab your interest at all. But these are not albums to listen to while sitting at home, so it should be judged like that.


Track Highlights

1. Around the World
2. Da Funk
3. Teachers
4. Dafendirekt

Final Grade

8/10

Trivia

From Wikipedia:

Daft Punk deliberately ordered the album's tracks with a two-disc vinyl LP in mind. As stated by Guy-Manuel de Homem-Christo, "We had many tracks and we had to put them on four sides... there was no intended theme because all the tracks were recorded before we arranged the sequence of the album. The idea was to make the songs better [more listenable] by arranging them the way we did; to make it more even as an album."

Da Funk: