2024 Album-A-Day: Week 8

I would ask people to suggest albums but I know for sure that nobody is reading these. These are more for me than they are for anyone else.

February 19th: The Joshua Tree and Achtung Baby by U2

For some reason, I'd never listened to a full U2 album. They have songs I love, but I fell in love with those songs before I really became an album person, so I've decided to correct that here. The Joshua Tree is, upon my first full listening, a great reminder as to why U2 became so popular in the first place. Today, with U2's seeming omnipresence and Bono's well-intentioned annoyances, it's refreshing to hear, "Wow, they're actually good." "Where The Streets Have No Name" and "With Or Without You" still hold up, "Bullet the Blue Sky" is great, "One Tree Hill" is amazing, Bono's a great singer, and the overall sonic textures are very warm and beautiful. The only real problem with it is that it's frontloaded with singles. (never a good idea.) Achtung Baby is a change of pace (I deliberately skipped Rattle and Hum) being more electronic and dance influenced while remaining recognizably U2. "Mysterious Ways" is a banger, "Tryin' To Throw Your Arms Around the World" is probably my favorite song on the album, and I never really got "One" until I heard it in the context of the album. I think that this was a productive filling of a blind spot for me.

February 20th: A Light For Attracting Attention and Wall of Eyes by the Smile

Radiohead is one of my favorite bands, so I decided to check out this recent side project by Thom Yorke, Jonny Greenwood, and non-Radiohead member Tom Skinner. Both A Light For Attracting Attention and Wall of Eyes have more of a revitalized experimental energy than the previous two (and possibly final two- Pharotekton forbid) Radiohead albums. Songs like "Under Our Pillows" and "The Opposite" feel like Thom and Jonny are having the kind of experimental fun that they haven't had in years. "You Will Never Work in Television Again" is amazing, "Read the Room" is genuinely surpising, and "We Don't Know What Tomorrow Brings" has a kind of lyrical straightforwardness that hasn't been seen from Thom since The Bends. I'm probably going to write more in-depth reviews of these albums once I revisit them.

February 21st: On Avery Island by Neutral Milk Hotel

I'd listened to In The Aeroplane Over the Sea many times, but for some reason never felt compelled to listen to On Avery Island. Listening now, it's good, but I don't love it as much as I loved Aeroplane. I like "Naomi" and "Song Against Sex" and "Someone is Waiting" but the rough edges sometimes skirt the line between endearing and just plain annoying. I am not a fan of the ending track, because if you're going to do a long song, please make it a song and not just ambient noodling. Still, when the songswriting hits, it hits, like "April 8th" and "Avery Island/April 1st". So, good, but not Aeroplane good.

February 22nd: Zen Arcade by Husker Dü

Finally doing my duty to music nerd circles and listening to Husker Dü, I enjoyed this one. It's longer than most 80s hardcore punk albums, which I'm aware was rather transgressive at the time. It's also a concept album, but I couldn't really follow the story here. I like this album, and I'm inclined to check out more of them. The opening track "Something I Learned Today" kicks ass, "Never Talking To You Again" rules, and I think my favorite song is "Pink Turns to Blue". It's clearly a more progressive take on punk rock than was the norm at the time, introducing more emotional elements and the occasional piano, where songs were usually under 2 minutes and very sloppy. Nirvana cited them as an influence, and I definitely understand that. Even if it ends with yet another overly long instrumental track where nothing changes, I approve of this album.

February 23rd: Strange Mercy by St. Vincent

I like Annie Clark's weird combination of beautiful string sections, dissonant synths, and razorblade guitar shredding. And that's just "Cruel"; the whole album is that great. From the opening "Chloe in the Afternoon" to "Hysterical Strength" to "Northern Lights", St. Vincent blends the pretty and the unsettling deftly. I can't get enough of "Cruel", the song that inspired me to listen to this album, and "Year of the Tiger" is a great closer. St. Vincent is a different kind of musical mind, and I think I'm going to revisit her in this project.

February 24th: Parallel Lines by Blondie

For some reason, I'd never listened to a full album of Blondie, so I listened to what I'm pretty sure is their most popular album. I don't have to tell you that "Heart of Glass" rules, "Sunday Girl" is really catchy, "Hangin' On the Telephone" kicks ass (did you know it's a cover?), and "One Way Or Another" is just as good as the first time I heard it. This album achieves the rare feat of making the singles better in the context of the album that just hearing them on their own. Blondie would further diverge from their punk roots with songs like "Call Me" and "Rapture", which is a whole different story, but this album is a nice balance of both worlds.

February 25th: Take Me To Your Leader by King Geedorah

This is an album produced by MF DOOM under the alias King Geedorah, and as a big fan of DOOM I like it quite a bit. He doesn't rap on most of these songs, instead mostly creating the beats and letting other rappers take the helm. MF DOOM's trademark style of sample-flipping gives these rappers (most of which I'm not familiar with, the only exception being the mysterious Mr. Fantastik, who I'd heard on Mm Food and does not appear to have released any other music) a great backdrop to just go crazy, like Biolante does on "Fastlane", and Hassan Chop does on "I Wonder." When DOOM does pick up the mic, he's as smooth as ever, like on "Fazers" and "The Fine Print." I haven't spent enough time with it to say that I love it, but I'm totally willing to revisit it.