guggmo

I’m at a 2.5 that I’ll bump down to a 2.

I’m just left disappointed. I thought “Oedipus Schmoedipus” was at least sonically interesting, to the point of a 3.5. I bumped it down to a 3 because I couldn’t comprehend a plot that made any sense despite solid musical execution. This album has even less of a plot & a much less coherent musical execution. I liked the second set of tracks the best (tracks 5-8), but only two of the first 4 did anything for me & absolutely nothing hooked me in the final 4. I really have no idea what happened in the last 4 tracks; they all just got kinda noisy & abrasive in a way that doesn’t make any sense to me. There’s not a strong cohesion to them, and I simply refuse to believe that the words “The Most Beautiful Girl in the World” would evoke a soundscape like what Mr. Adamson put together for that track.

If Barry Adamson were auditioning these tracks as a showcase that he could do a video game soundtrack, I’d be a little more willing to be nice to them; “Central Control” feels kinda Crash Bandicoot-ish with a N64 Zelda lean, “Sounds from the Big House” feels a little MGS-y in its back half, & “Everything Happens To Me” somehow feels like a Mario Galaxy track. This is supposed to be a noir crime movie set in Moss Side in Great Britain though, and I have absolutely no idea what the throughline is here.

I assumed, from the song titles, it was a guy on his honeymoon getting popped with the murderers going to jail, and someone investigating the “why” & falling in love throughout the investigation. That’s every single crime film though, and nothing really makes this stick out in any meaningful way. From trying to look for the short story in the liner notes that’s meant to provide some context here, I found it to be an incomprehensible poem that only barely links things together & didn’t match up even remotely with the story in my mind. You can find it here: https://www.discogs.com/master/52717-Barry-Adamson-Moss-Side-Story/image/SW1hZ2U6ODk4MTQ2MA==

Ultimately, I’m just stuck at a 2.5 for solid musical chops & an occasionally interesting atmosphere, but I can’t think of a single good reason to bump this up to a 3, especially with the incomprehensible plot. I’m left disappointed, really. Someone needed to tell Barry back then that less was significantly more for film soundtracks. It’s just too busy, & the lack of a central musical motif shows a fundamental misunderstanding of a movie soundtrack to begin with. Hence, a bump down to a 2. I don't know that this had to be on the list.

I’m well above a 5. It's arguably a 10.

This is, in essence, Elis Regina’s 1980 album “Elis” (not to be confused with the same named album from 1966, 1972, 1973, 1974, or 1977) with a few extra tracks scattered in from other albums (including, oddly enough, a track from “Clube da Esquina 2”). Somehow, this album from Brazil & sung entirely in Portuguese manages to give off the closest energy to a Japanese city pop album that we’ve gotten on the entire list so far. There’s a wide variety of styles here, but all of them are anchored by Elis’ voice, which is nothing short of lovely. She can shift her power on a dime, and occasionally, the control she has over her voice carries a similar natural charisma to, say, Frank Sinatra.

I translated every track just to get a slight feel for the tone of each track. They’re all platitudinal; mostly about living life to the fullest, loving hard, trusting God, & ultimately, just trying to find the vibrance of life, even in its best & worst moments. It’s a positive album. The lyrics, however, do not matter, at least in terms of being able to enjoy this as a purely auditory experience; every track here has such a natural vocal progression with peaks & valleys that you can feel everything off the tone of her voice alone. Combine that with instrumentation that touches on practically every emotion you can capture (soft Spanish guitars, plunky bass, marimbas & sax, samba drums, city pop synthwork. etc), & it just hit my ears perfectly. This is such a damn delight to listen to, and I can easily look past any possible repetition because it just sounds that good. I genuinely can’t think of any knocks here outside of the track order (I’d have flipped the last two), but that’s an incredibly minor nitpick.

Hence, something well above a 5. Arguably a 10. It feels a bit cheap since it’s technically a compilation album, but even if this had just been 1980’s “Elis”, I’m pretty sure I’d still be at a 5. She just has a natural charisma in her voice that’s impossible to ignore, and with production that evokes so much of a genre that’s criminally not featured on the list, I’d have loved it regardless. The extra tracks just enhance that further & give a bit of extra spice in a way that showcases the breadth of her versatility, and I can hardly find fault in that. I’m so, so glad this is on the list. Mileage will vary, obviously, but the bare minimum floor should be a 3 here. For me, it’s just that much of a delight, & I'm probably a second great listen away from this being a 10.

I’m at a 4.

It’s a good bridge between early ‘90s house & the big beat stylings that The Prodigy, Fatboy Slim, The Chemical Brothers & many more would refine into the back half of the ‘90s. This gets pretty close to a Prodigy-esque energy at points, especially throughout the back half of the album when the drums get stompier, the bass booms a bit more & the tracks just have a natural energy that makes you wanna get up & move. It’s sonically interesting throughout due to a really strong sense of progression & a solid variety of instruments & vocal styles thrown into the House base that makes up each track. That said, too many of these are too long & do get stale at points, generally around the middle. A lot of them could’ve been trimmed, especially that last section of “Open Up”. I also think “21st Century Poem” is a weak closer. When this album hits though, it really hits.

The length / staleness is what has me at a 4, but make no mistake: this is a really good precursor to the big beat albums that would dominate ‘90s dance clubs. It’s striking how much more engaging this felt compared to “En-Tact” & how dreadfully bland that ended up being. It sure seems like Leftfield had a lot of influence back then, and I’m glad to see the seeds they planted blossom through other artists. On a good day, where I might pay just a little less attention to some of the repetition, this could go up to a 4.5 and maybe even a 5. I think it's just that enjoyable. I’m glad it’s on the list, but on a first pass, it’s a 4.

I’m at a 1.5 that I’m gonna bump down to a 1. I just can’t find the hook.

It’s fucking boring as shit, man. I love a good ‘90s House soundscape when it’s done well. There are plenty of House or House-adjacent albums on the list that I’ve given 4 or higher to. It’s a genre I tend to love because usually, there’s something dynamic to it all that feels like the video game soundtracks I tend to love. This album had absolutely nothing dynamic to it whatsoever. It gets the drums right. That’s about it; everything that layers around those drums is either useless or barely makes a dent on the soundscape in a meaningful way. When we got “90” by 808 State, I was blown away by “Pacific 202” and how much it felt like a cut from Sonic CD. It’s still one of my favorite discoveries on the list.

Herein lies the reason why I’m compelled to bump this down to a 1. I was prepared to admit that this album, however flawed it is & how boring it gets in the moments where there’s absolutely no sense of progression whatsoever (of which there are many), did at least hook me into a few tracks. I think there’s roughly 4 that kinda worked for me; “Move Any Mountain”, “Human NRG” (for the 808 State connection), “Make It Mine” (with the contrast in the guitar just kinda making me laugh), and “666 Edit”, for at least bothering to do something mildly unique. Those 4 tracks along with a general “it was mostly just kind of eh” vibe to it would put this at a 1.5 bumped up to a 2.

This album, however, commits a cardinal sin that I simply cannot let go unpunished. I hate every single time an album does a remix of an earlier track as part of its main tracklist. I knocked Limp Bizkit for it, I knocked George Harrison for it, I knocked Marvin Gaye for it, I knocked the damn Wu-Tang Clan for it, and I’m gonna knock the hell out of The Shamen for it. This album does the EGREGIOUS step of doing it twice: “Hyperreal Selector” is just “Hyperreal Orbit” again with a barely changed beat, & it has the GALL to title a track “Progen 91 (I.R.P. in the Land of Oz)” only for it to be a remix of “Move Any Mountain”. Hell, “666 Edit”, which is ‘mildly unique’ can basically qualify as ANOTHER remix of Move Any Mountain given that it’s just sampling that track to begin with. This album remixes itself twice & samples itself once in a way that makes it feel so, so stale that I simply can’t find a good reason to reward it by bumping it up to what would be the most pity-driven 2 I’ve given since “Haunted Dancehall”, which should’ve earned a 1 too.

I wish there were something, anything that I could find to justify going back up. There are a handful of decent intros & ear-perking moments, but those quickly lose intrigue, and losing intrigue for 11 out of 15 tracks is like hearing a baseball cracked so hard that you have high hopes for a home run, before ending up as a foul ball. Imagine that for an entire hour. I’m sick of this fucking at-bat, man; either pitch me a better song or just strike out so we can all get on with it. This album failed to pitch me a better song for pretty much the entire runtime, and it took an hour to finally strike out. It says something that the first one was the best one before it just kinda fell down entirely from there. I just don't know if it had to be on the list. Hence, a 1.5 that I’ll bump down to a 1.

I’m at a 5.

The last time we got Goldfrapp, with “Felt Mountain”, I described it as an album in a constant battle with itself about whether it hated its own concepts or was actively falling in love with them. This album feels like it’s constantly falling in love with its concepts, all centered around connection & desire & the never ending search for satisfaction. It’s just a matter of finding that love, and all of these tracks seem to be centered around that hunt. I don’t quite know where the title “Seventh Tree” plays into all of this, but it apparently came from a dream. I guess you can’t really deny what a dream tells you, and that feels like it fits right in with the crux of this album.

Instrumentally & vocally, this thing shines. This feels like MGMT mixed with the Cocteau Twins, pulling in the synthpop revolution they kickstarted a year prior on “Oracular Spectacular” & combining it with the surreal dreamy feel of a Cocteau Twins album, just with significantly more clarity & a softer overall tone. It’s a constantly evolving set of soundscapes too, always layering on extra instruments & finding cool ways to do drops that subverted my expectations. The delayed drop on “A&E” in particular might be my favorite on the whole album. Alison’s vocals are great, feeling like a mix of Billie Eilish’s more intimate tones from “Hit Me Hard & Soft” and a touch of Lana Del Rey in her little hesitations and slight twang. It’s surprising how modern it all feels for 2008.

Lyrically, I’d say it’s pretty good when it’s focused; the only track that I felt played itself a bit too loosely was “Eat Yourself”. Every other track has a good bit of substance to it, even if it’s in broader strokes. I think “Road to Somewhere” might be my favorite lyrically, just because treating delusional determination as a highway to get through is a surprisingly strong bit of imagery to my brain. “Monster Love”, if it really is about a love/hate relationship with the U.S., feels remarkably relevant with how the midterms just went. Portraying it as a relationship that feels impossible to come back to & yet giving it your all when the time calls for it feels pretty apt. My favorite track is definitely “A&E”; the structure & dynamic feel to that one really did it for me, and the framing of being abandoned after an overdose is compelling as hell. "Happiness" is a close second.

Overall, the entire 42 minutes comes together really nicely to create an album that’s more focused & appealing to my brain than “Felt Mountain” was. If anything, I might be just a little higher than a 5 here. It’s a really impressive project, and while I wish it transitioned throughout & didn’t often choose fadeouts (especially on the last track), it doesn’t really take away from the album for me. I could see the argument for preferring the more abstract feel of their debut, but I think this one wins out since it has a more consistent theme & a cohesive track order. I think “Caravan Girl”, for example, feels like a really earned love track after the sadness of “Cologne Cerrone Houdini”. That cohesion, in addition to all of the elevation in the production work & songwriting, just makes it a great album experience. I think it’s a 5, and I’m glad as hell it’s on the list.

“A&E” really deserves more than 8 million plays on Spotify.