I listen to MP3s. Shockingly, I actually bought a large fraction of them. This turned out to be a good idea, since I've decided to re-encode everything as oggs, so that I can fit a few more songs on my Zaurus (which I'm kind of treating as a portable audio player) at a comparable quality. While ripping's nice and fast on my new CD drive, my embarassingly out-of-date processor is making heavy weather of the ogg encoding, so I've decided to relieve the tedium by writing short reviews of the CDs as I rip 'em.
I have my doubts as to whether this will ever actually be of any use to anyone, but I suppose it could help people with vaguely similar tastes find things they might like they don't know about. I should probably mention allmusic about now, since they have an absolutely wonderful website that's recently introduced me to several new bands. Combined with being able to download mp3s to 'test-drive' the albums, it's great. In fact, most of my writing below is massively redundant, since their reviews generally say what I think, only they do it more eloquently. Then I go along to fopp, and they take all my money away. Five pounds for lots of nice albums... they're fantastic, and if you live in Cambridge (or anywhere else where they have a store) I highly recommend them.
My tastes basically run around noise pop/alternative rock (My Bloody Valentine and Smashing Pumpkins being great examples there), electronica (Aphex Twin and Orbital) and trip-hop (Morcheeba, Portishead). I don't understand why I like trip-hop so much, 'cos I loathe hip-hop. Almost as much as "r 'n' b". But that's another story. I also like classical music.
So, without further ado, my CDs:
Aphex Twin
90% of the time, Richard James seems to be taking the piss with his music. Irritatingly, I still find it incredibly listenable. His work ranges from near noise to very fluffy tunes. I rather like the fluffy end of things.
- Richard D. James Album: First Aphex Twin album I got, and still my favourite. Lots of fun tunes that never quite reach the silly and unlistenable stage. Odd drum'n'bassey drum beats. Disturbingly poppy. Mmmm.
- Come to Daddy: Another great album. Slightly disturbing in places, but has some very cute bits too.
- ... I care because you do: Seems a bit hit and miss to me.
- Classics: Lots of noisy stuff, but some lovely fluffy tracks, too. Digeridoo and Polynomial-C are personal favourites.
- Selected Ambient Works 85-92: Some relatively fluffy and listenable background noise. Almost has tunes, too.
- Windowlicker: A surprisingly popular single. I mean, it's really quite nice and all, but it stayed in the charts for a while. Odd. :)
- Donkey Rhubarb: An odd but fluffy single. Wonderfully weird video.
- Ventolin: Yet another single, and a great track with a continual, piercing high-pitched squeal. How he gets away with this stuff I don't know. :)
- Girl/Boy E.P.: A bit disappointing, really. Girl/Boy song is on the Richard D. James album, and while Milk Man is, um, amusing, the whole thing's a bit lacklustre.
- On: Mmmm. Great single. In fact, I'm going to listen to it right now.
- Analogue Bubblebath 4: A fairly short and nondescript CD.
- Drukqs: There was a long wait for this album. I'm not convinced it was worth it. 26 Mixes for Cash came out not massively long after, and is so much better. Some random piano tinklings.
- 26 Mixes for Cash: What a lovely cynical title. I actually really enjoy this album. I felt Drukqs was rather a let-down, and this album was a very pleasant surprise. Perhaps by remixing others works he's got a bit more variety in? Disk 1 is certainly the more accessible of the two, anyway.
Ash
Well, they were pretty much stereotypical teenagers-with-guitars. Nice enough, really.
- Trailer: And this is a nice enough album. If really rather short.
Boards of Canada
I started listening to BoC after they were recommended to me as something similar to Aphex Twin. They have some similarity, with an experimental electronica feel, but feel way more spaced out. Lots of synth and strange samples, and ambience, really.
- Geogaddi: I got this the same time as Come With Us, and they make a nice contrast (both with bright red covers, too. Ho hum). It feels less experimental to me than Music has the Right to Children, perhaps more polished, and I think I prefer it. It still has weird bits, though.
- In A Beautiful Place Out In The Country: This EP is some more of what you'd expect from BoC. I think I prefer it the Music has the Right to Children.
- Music has the Right to Children: This doesn't feel so much like an album to me as a collection of weird ambient bits and pieces. A kind of musical patchwork, although that doesn't get across how it all hangs together in a seamless manner.
Caustic Window
Yet another name for Aphex Twin....
- Caustin Window Compilation: Given this is fairly early stuff, it unsurprisingly sounds like fairly early stuff.
Chemical Brothers
Nice bouncy, um, 'electronica', I suppose. Saw them live a few years ago (not so much because I'm a great fan as it was what was on at the time), and they did an absolutely fantastic rendition of The Private Psychodelic Reel. They feel a bit commercial to me, but, well, they do lots of bouncy music.
- Come With Us: Blurs a bit with Surrender in my mind. Some nice bits, but it starts to feel a little formulaic.
- Surrender: Feels a little more relaxed than their earlier albums. Could just be me, though.
- Dig Your Own Hole: This was the album that went with the gig I saw. Mmmm, memories....
- Exit Planet Dust: Speaking of which, this was more or less the sound track for my final year at school.
Dinosaur Jr.
This was on the B-side of the copied JaMC tape mentioned below. I wasn't massively impressed with it at the time. Fopp then evilly sold the CD for five pounds. I bought it. I'm still not massively impressed. Don't get me wrong - it's not bad as such, just terribly... so-so, in my opinion.
- Green Mind: Allmusic says many consider this a 'weak, uninspired effort'. I'm tempted to agree. Ho hum. :)
Dire Straits
Yes, yes, I know, and I don't care. They're great.
- Brothers In Arms: 80s pop-like rock that was the main album of my childhood. I think my Mum had bought it, and well... it's excellent. So there.
Eels
Um, downbeat alt pop/rock, I suppose.
- Beautiful Freak: Quite a nice album, I suppose. Some good songs - I rather like Novocaine for the Soul, and My Beloved Monster. Can't think of much else to say. =)
Elastica
I bought the CD back in the days when I hadn't discovered allmusic.com, or anyone else with similar music tastes to help me find new bands. I more or less bought it because I liked the name (I may have heard one of the songs, but I'm not sure). In the end it seemed to work, as I rather liked the punky, britpop rock. Of the other *ica bands, I quite like Republica (who were at St. John's May Ball one year), and dislike Metallica. So, there you go.
- Elastica: Their rather good debut album.
Garbage
Allmusic seems to think of them as poppy, slickly produced alternative rock. That's probably right, but I like it anyway. :)
- Version 2.0: The title pretty much says it all. Not that much different to their first album, but hey, I like the formula.
- Garbage: Not much to say about this album - it's what defines Garbage for me, really, and I enjoy pretty much all the songs. I think my personal favourite is 'Only Happy When It Rains'.
Jefferson Airplane
Some bunch of American 60s hippie types producing American 60s hippie type music. They wrote White Rabbit, which rocks tremendously, and some other stuff in a similar style. So, there you go.
- Experience: This was one cheap-ass album. Having looked on the web since, it appears to be a bootleg record, including some songs by some other band, too, without actually mentioning it. Oh, and there's numerous typos in the track listing. Nice. It does have White Rabbit, however, though.
The Jesus and Mary Chain
I got a copied tape of Honey's Dead at school (going on a decade ago, now!), and thought it was great. A wonderful combination of lots of guitar noise, and popness. Then I stopped listening to it, and then recently bought a couple of their albums. They're still great. Yay.
- Psychocandy: Apparently this is a classic, and while it's very good, I think I preferred Honey's Dead. What absolutely stuns me is that this is from the mid-80s. It's just so different from the stereotypical 80s sound... until recently, I thought there was no good music from the 80s. =)
- 21 Singles: I'm a cheapskate who wants a whole bunch of good songs, but doesn't want to fork out for around half a dozen albums. So, this suits me better. Given it stretches over a decade and a half, it's got more variety than Psychocandy, and a lot of nice tracks. And it's got Reverence, my favourite track of Honey's Dead.
The Jimi Hendrix Experience
Apparently this group had some really good guitarist, but I can't remember his name...
- Are You Experienced? Well, it's a famous album, and I suppose it's got some good stuff on it. It's quite enjoyable, but all buying this album really showed me was that I'm not actually a massive fan.
Massive Attack
Hmmmm. I'm rather indecisive on this lot. They produce stuff I love, but also some tracks I really don't like. I suppose I just want 'trip-hop' without the associated hip-hop and rap elements....
- Mezzanine: The first Massive Attack album I got, with some great tracks, such as the excellent Teardrop. Still, it's a bit hit and miss for me.
- Protection: I got this some time later, and generally it's really good. There may be some rap-like-ness bits to it, in its more hip-hop parts, but that's nicely offset by the amusing Bristol accents (having come from vaguely that part of the world myself). :)
- Blue Lines: I bought this at pretty much the same time as Protection, so they blur together a bit in my mind. Another good album, though Light My Fire (live) kinda spoils it for me. :)
Mike & Rich
Squarepusher and Aphex Twin, collaborating on:
- Expert Knob Twiddlers: A really quite whimsical album.
Morcheeba
In the same vein as Portishead, but with more life to it. Skye Edwards does great vocals and the whole is pretty relaxing, in a dark kind of way.
- Big Calm: More stylistically varied than Who Can You Trust?, it's another enjoyable album, even if it wanders disturbingly close to genres I think of as 'crap'. Somehow it gets away with it.
- Who Can You Trust? Moody and dark, yet smooth. Nice to relax to.
My Bloody Valentine
Noise pop, shoegazing, whatever you want to call it, this stuff's great. Lots of guitar noise creating this kinda... blissful sound. Like Smashing Pumpkins having a nice dream or something. My only regret is that I only discovered it recently, some dozen or so years after its release.
- Loveless: Woo.
- Isn't Anything: Yay.
Nirvana
Well, the world's best grunge band.
- Nevermind: And their most famous album. Absolutely great. Shame my CD got nicked when our hostel got broken into a few years ago and a friend's discman was removed. Ho hum. All I have now is the mp3s.
Orbital
Yay. Lots of bleeps and drums. I'm not convinced by some of their samples, but they do nice and amusing remixes of some tunes. Feels more relaxed than the Chemical Brothers, and something like more of a sense of humour in the songs.
- The Altogether: It feels a bit hit and miss, but there are a few good tracks. Tragically, I love the Doctor Who remix.
- The Middle of Nowhere: I never really listened to this much, but I don't know why - there's plenty of nice stuff.
- In Sides: Similarly with this one. Maybe it's because I get it confused with Snivilization.
- Snivilization: I wasn't as impressed with this one. Ho hum.
- Brown Album: This is them very much on form. Some great tracks. Halcyon + On + On was very popular for a while when we realised it was just the right length to listen to during a 10-minute Quake 3 duel. :)
- Green Album: Nice stuff on this one, too. It feels rather like the early work it is, and you can see how they moved onto the Brown Album. I rather liked Belfast.
Pixies
Mad bloke plus guitars. Black Francis sings gibberish, and the guitars do pop-y rock-y struff. All kinda fun, although this is another band I was introduced to a little over a decade too late. How do I keep missing this stuff?
- Pixies at the BBC: This CD was very cheap, and it's really rather disappointing. The chronology's screwed up, and the tracks are all pretty short. Still, it gives me a little more variety on top of Doolittle....
- Doolittle: Mad songs, and fun to listen to. Debaser, Wave of Mutilation and Monkey Gone to Heaven are great (and all rather lighter than the titles make them sound).
Placebo
Um. Some guitars. Being fairly guitary. Perhaps a little overblown, but fairly fun nonetheless.
- Without You I'm Nothing: A decent number of good songs here. My favourite's still Pure Morning, though.
- Placebo: I bought their debut album after WYIN, and well, I don't find it so impressive. Don't get me wrong, the same elements are there, and it's not bad as such, it just lacks whatever caught me in the other album.
Polygon Window
Yet another psuedonym for Aphex Twin. Doesn't he ever tire of alternative names?
- Surfing on Sine Waves: Um. A bit so-so, really. It's like... a fair amount of his other stuff.
Portishead
Well, it's sort of bleak, slightly sad-sounding trip-hop. I've never really got the concept of 'trip-hip', given I rather dislike hip-hop, and I'm quite suspicious of anything towards that end of the spectrum by, say, Tricky or Massive Attack, but if this is trip-hop, I'm all for it.
- Portishead: I only got this album fairly recently, but... well, it's pretty good. Sounds like Dummy, but... different. Nope, don't know how to articulate it. :)
- Dummy: Well, this is pretty classic if you ask me. Not much I think I can say about it.
Prodigy
About the most mainstream electronica you can get. Yay. Or something.
- Music for the Jilted Generation: One of those consistently good albums. Lots of good tracks, and a refreshing lack of filler.
- Firestarter: Yep. I bought the single. I never really "got" Fat of the Land, and ended up with the single instead. Which is nice enough.
- Breathe: See above. :)
Propellerheads
Well, they seem to do the "big beat" thing.
- Decksanddrumsandrockandroll: Yep, the title's about it. Big beat in a kinda Chemical Brothers vein, but... without being the Chemical Brothers. Still, not bad.
Pulp
Jarvis Cocker's class-obsessed pop group.
- Different Class: I bought this album a long, long time ago, and I still rather like it. Their most famous album, with some good songs on it. Brings back school memories.
Radiohead
Bah. I can't seem to resist buying their albums. Not much I can say, given if you don't know much of them you've probably been living in a box. (Am I a philistine if I think they should cheer up occasionally? :)
- Amnesiac: It feels like off-cuts of Kid A, but it's still surprisingly good. I should probably listen to it more.
- Kid A: Guitar band experiments with electronica and gets it right. I'm a particular fan of Idioteque.
- OK Computer: Um. I find this their most depressing-sounding.
- The Bends: A personal favourite. Yay. All the tracks are great.
- Pablo Honey: I seem to like this album somewhat more than other people do. Especially Creep and Anyone Can Play Guitar. A bit of a contrast to their later stuff, really.
Ride
My Bloody Valentine-lite. Good songs, but the vocals really irritate me. Not as much as those on Dinosaur Jr, probably 'cos the songs are otherwise way good.
- Distortion plus tunes equals yay.
The Rolling Stones
Yay for the Stones. The Beatles may have been more fundamentally influential, but I don't care. The Stones produce much more my kind of music. Paint It, Black is a work of genius, as is Sympathy for the Devil. I can't believe they're still touring, though.
- Singles Collection: The London Years: All the A-sides and B-sides off the Stones' singles for over a decade. It's got a large overlap with the 40 Licks compilation, but misses out the late stuff. However, it's got way more of the earlier stuff, packed into 3 CDs.
Sleeper
Guitary pop stuff. That band with Louise Wener in. You know, that person.
- The It Girl: Bought during my 'buying CDs more or less at random as I have no way of finding what's good' phase. It's poppy. It's pleasant enough.
Sneaker Pimps
Yet Another Trip-Hop Band.
- Becoming X: More or less Yet Another Trip-Hop album. :) It's pretty good, with some nice tracks, but nothing particularly special.
Smashing Pumpkins
Pretty much the first 'rock' music of any type I listened to. I had a friend who introduced me to a bunch of bands. He lent me Siamese Dream, as far as I could tell against his better judgment, as he thought I wouldn't like it, for being too noisy. I loved it. Ho hum. :)
- Siamese Dream: More or less my favourite album, partially 'cos it's pretty much one of the first I listened to, and partially 'cos it's darn good. Today is an absolutely fantastic song, and many of the others are great too.
- Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness: Absolutely dreadful title for this double album. It just seems to mostly swing between being very heavy and cheesily fluffy. I'm really not a fan of it as much as Siamese Dream. Dunno why I like 1979 so much.
Tricky
You know, that guy out of Massive Attack. Not really my kind of thing in the end, but pretty good nonetheless.
- Maxinquaye: I hadn't played this for ages, but listened to it after re-ripping to ogg, and... it's rather good. I should listen to it a bit more, I think.
Underworld
What you'd get if you took some graphic designers (called, say, 'Tomato'), and made them produce music. They like their electronic drums.
- Pearl's Girl (short): I got this single when I was looking for the Born Slippy single (how incredibly unoriginal :), but couldn't find it. In the end I was quite glad, 'cos this is in the same style, but was at least something different and a bit more fresh to listen to.
- Beaucoup Fish: After getting Pearl's Girl, I thought I'd buy Underworld album. I found Beaucoup Fish rather a let down, and rarely listen to it.
- Second Toughest in the Infants: Mmmm. Nice. Much more like the Pearl's Girl Single, I definitely prefer this to Beaucoup Fish. Maybe I'm just a sucker for breakbeats.
Unkle
A group who I know very little about...
- Psyence Fiction: But that's ok, 'cos this album has them working with pretty much anyone - Badly Drawn Boy, Thom Yorke and the Beastie Boys (eugh) included. I think the Beastie Boys suck, but otherwise the album's pretty darn impressive with a nice range of stuff.
The Velvet Underground
Apparently, they were hideously influential, while pretty much ignored at the time. Lovely, eh? Late 60s, early 70s avant-garde rock, with Lou Reed. Randomly abrasive, fun stuff.
- White Light/White Heat:A bit of a disappointment for me. I'd heard bits of the Banana Album, and while the style is similar, this album lacks much to get your teeth into. There's the rather over-long Sister Ray, but otherwise there's a distinct lack of songs if you ask me. Ho hum.
The Verve
You know, that miserable-sounding band. :)
- Bitter-Sweet Symphony: The rather popular single. I suppose it's quite good, but I don't think I could stand much more than a single's worth. I think I'm secretly glad the profits went to the Stones. =p
Various
Here goes everything else....
- We Are Reasonable People: Warp album number 100. It's quite impressive, the range of stuff on here, given it's all blips and electronic drum beats. :) Probably a bit too difficult listening for me.
- WARP10+3 Remixes: Warp are celebrating their 10th anniversary by releasing a series of CDs. This double-CD contains a bunch of rather excellent remixes. Rather less harsh than We Are Reasonable People, the overall feel is reminiscent of 26 Mixes for Cash. It must be something about remixes.
- Trainspotting: Mostly a collection of niceish stuff. I thought the movie was good but not fantastic, but rather liked the soundtrack at the time. Saves getting the Born Slippy single, too. :p
The White Stripes
How you get a rock group made out of 2 people, I don't know, but they do it very effectively.
- Elephant: A fairly wide-ranging album with a bunch of good songs.
If any friends want to borrow any of this stuff, just mail me.
Last updated 5 February 2004. Mail me at random.user@arbitrary.name.