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

I have that Madness on vinyl that picked up at my local thrift store for peanuts a couple of months ago. Don't think I've listened to it in full yet though and will try to spin it later today.

I've continued to catch up on the summer. Terence Trent D'Arby was okay, but burdened by the 80s production.

I spent the rest of the day dwelling on Alice In Chains and Iron Maiden. Both Dirt and The Number of the Beast are transformative albums for me, but in very different ways. And I would put both in the canon of all time great metal albums without hesitation. Dirt could actually be a top 3 contender alongside Slayers "Reign in Blood" and Black Sabbaths "Paranoid".
I first heard Iron Maiden when I was like ten or eleven years old. I wasn't really that much into music yet, but my friend was a huge metal fan and played stuff like Iron Maiden, Accept and Judas Priest all the time, and after a while I just caved in and turned into a huge metal head too. The Number of the Beast was a huge part of that awakening and probably one of the albums I listened to most back then. I don't think I've listened to the album in full since those days though, although I've heard some of the songs here and there. Listening to it today I struck by how totally geeky it is, in the most charming way possible. Iron Maiden was metal for nerds (which I undoubtly was when I was eleven). I mean they made songs about viking raids, 60s tv-shows and sci-fi/fantasy novels. Yeah, they did touch on social issues like prositution (22 Acacia Avenue) and the genocide of native americans (Run to the Hills) but kinda distanced from the real issues and through a veneer of matinée adventure (see the video for Run to the Hills for example). Still this shaped me in my formative years as a music buff, and it brought a warm fuzzy feeling in my gut and a nostalgic smile to face when I listened to it yesterday.
"Dirt", on the other hand, is an album that hit me like a ton of bricks when it came out, and has continued to baffle me since then. This was also metal, but about as far away from the matinée fantasy of Iron Maiden as you could get. It was also something different from the thrash or death metal bands that were on the other side of the spectrum. The music is extremely melodic yet extremely weird, dark and brooding but also brutal and aggressive. Even in the pantheon of the Seattle grunge scene, Alice in Chains stood out as the weird, fucked up alternative somehow. The Seattle scene had a bunch of awesome bands, and AIC might not be the objectively "best" band of the scene, but listen to God Smack, Junkhead or Angry Chair and there's a malice and darkness on display here that stands out, and a pain that I can feel even though I've never even touched drugs other than alcohol. And oh, they still sold millions of records on the back of weird hit singles as the dark Vietnam trauma fable Rooster and Down in a Hole, a brooding power ballad about depression. The early 90s was a strange era for sure. Dirt is a perfect 5/5 of an album in my book, while The Number of the Beast gets a nostalgic 4/5.
 
MyWifeHatesTrain said:
8/8/24
View attachment 210690
The Velvet Underground - White Light/White Heat



www.allmusic.com

White Light/White Heat - The Velvet Undergroun... | AllMusic

White Light/White Heat by The Velvet Underground released in 1968. Find album reviews, track lists, credits, awards and more at AllMusic.
www.allmusic.com www.allmusic.com
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Id like to thank gouis for giving me this one for secret Santa, its lean and abrasive. The gift is uncomfortable both for it's subject matter and it's use of hard panning, and the music just screams grime and brutality
 
duke86fan said:
Id like to thank gouis for giving me this one for secret Santa, its lean and abrasive. The gift is uncomfortable both for it's subject matter and it's use of hard panning, and the music just screams grime and brutality
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The mono pressing eliminates that hard panning.

Also, she’s busy suckin’ on my ding-dong she does just like sister ray said I’m searching for my mainline…
 
Yer Ol' Uncle D said:
John Martyn is sorely missed and underappreciated. The emotion he could evoke is second to none. Sometimes the production of the era didn't do that justice. This one translates better than many others.

His cover of Portishead's 'Glory Box' is a powerhouse...



A latter era live one that is almost too much...

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I think hanging out with Lee Scratch Perry probably allowed him to really get all he could out of the studio on this one. It gives some context to the Live at Leeds album that @Gavaxeman picked. I understand what is going on that one a bit more.
 
Poly-Rythmo said:
It's worth saying that while One World and the live albums are great, Solid Air (at least to me) is on another level again. It's such a beautiful album.
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Yep, I put that on after One World had finished and I was floored! Sits firmly in the british singer songwriter tradition alongside Scott Walker and Nick Drake but with a fun funk streak. Discovery of the year so far! And I've obviously been missing out by not following the N&G AOTM stuff. Will try to correct that error!
 
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