The Official Needles and Grooves 1001 Album Generator Project (aka Preachin’ about the Preachers if today’s selection sucks)

I love tom Waits, but I don't think I've given this album the required attention before. I do tend to prefer Waits earlier stuff, even though I think both Mule Variations and Alice/Blood Money are great. And I got nothing against the more rowdy scrap yard blues experiments either. I know Bone Machine has always been in high regard, but it somehow has slipped under the radar. After the first listen I'm pretty stoked. Like, how could I have missed this!? Will listen some more today, but this is probably a new favourite.
 
Lee Newman said:
4/26/23

View attachment 173034
Tom Waits - Bone Machine



Allmusic Review:
www.allmusic.com

Bone Machine - Tom Waits | Album | AllMusic

Bone Machine by Tom Waits released in 1992. Find album reviews, track lists, credits, awards and more at AllMusic.
www.allmusic.com www.allmusic.com
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Sometimes he overdoes the deep, dark, gravelly voice, and it just sounds silly; when he reigns it in, he sounds awesome.

I like the really stripped back bluesy ballads of murder, murder ballads if you will, like 'Murder In The Red Barn'.

Not bad.

3 / 5 stars.
 
Lee Newman said:
4/27/23
View attachment 173104
Anita Baker - Rapture

Not on Spotify, apple has it:


Allmusic review:
www.allmusic.com

Rapture - Anita Baker | Album | AllMusic

Rapture by Anita Baker released in 1986. Find album reviews, track lists, credits, awards and more at AllMusic.
www.allmusic.com www.allmusic.com
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I get the love and praise for Anita Baker and I love the love and praise for Anita Baker, but this album is not for me. This too sickly smooth 80s production for me. Reminds me of too much music I spent my youth trying to drown out in my mind in the doctor's office waiting room. 2/5
 
Reading up on Baker, do we have a resident Quiet Storm expert? I'd be curious to listen to other albums. This one is evidently some steeped in the 70's sound... This is not like the R&B/Soul I know from the 70's but R&B is a varied genre that shifts as the styles shift.

There is a sanitized feel to the music. There are moments like "You Bring Me Joy" when her talent is on full display and you almost think she is going to let loose, but she doesn't, really, it's still very calculated and timed with the band, which is all actually really impressive and boring at the same time. Like I said when I listened earlier this week, this all sounds like music my parents would have found sexy (grandparents to some of you, Great grandparents for the likes of @duke86fan). There's talent in spades and giving this music a gospel spin should be good (I mean that was Ray Charles' big controversial innovation back in the day), unfortunately 80's and 90's Gospel suffered from some of the shifting styles, over produced nonsense.

Christgau basically wrote this off as the Black version of Yacht rock, but it's too soft jazz to me. It is the same ilk as Kenny G and Fourplay, it's music that should be sexy and slightly dangerous, but it's all too clean and controlled. It loses the Rapture that she wants us to get caught up in.

Repeated listens do allow for you to note the artistry present, but beyond working this project, I would not be giving this another listen and this music doesn't speak to me. I also can't reconcile that this has anything to do with the great work of The Isleys, Al Green, Ann Peebles or countless other R&B/Soul acts from the seventies that do speak to me, very much.

This is sexy music for a party catered with little cucumber sandwiches and none of that makes sense to my puny brain.

As I said in the other thread though, Same Ole Love and Watch Your Step are straight up bangers that wake me up from the doze the rest of the album gives me. They belong on a different album or at least a better programmed album.

I remain at 2 stars, but want to say that I do not want to diminish the talents on display here just reiterate that this music is clearly not made for me.
 
Out of respect for the project and an immense sense of curiosity, I have queued up Chapter 8 next which was the band Anita was in and features Michael Powell who was the guitarist on Rapture and produced the majority of the album, including those two awesome songs at the end.
 
On second song of Chapter 8, it is very much the same kind of music, but the production isn't as slick. It may be as simple as Chapter 8 sounds like a band in a room and Rapture sounds like isolated performers in booths.
 
Some of her idiosyncrasies that bother me on Rapture are not present as well. When she hits those low notes, it doesn't sound like she clamps her mouth together. Then we get to the third song named Come on Dance with Me, which is disco funk that could have been on that Jazz Dispensary compilation a few years ago (the space funk one).
 
It's been pretty consistently Disco since those first two songs. Nothing particularly remarkable other than the fun space noises in Come On Dance With Me. Of course, then a ballad starts while I'm typing this. Next song is called Come and Boogie though. Talk about poorly programmed. Boogie, slow jam, boogie, slow jam.... But it's an interesting setting for Baker that is different from the 80s and 90s stuff I knew and is fun enough. I would be more likely (however not very likely) to listen to this before Rapture. I may try to listen to her first album (If it's on Apple) before listening to Rapture again later tonight.
 
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