2024 Album-A-Day: Week 41

<p>I've recently decided to learn HTML5. I just think it's a good skill to have.</p>

<a href="https://tidal.com/browse/album/87138443?u">Click here for the playlist, and feel free to recommend albums you want me to write about.</a>

October 7th: Rogue's Gallery by Various artists

When I put this album on the list, my thought was, "Johnny Depp and Gore Verbinski were co-producers on an album of sea shanties? I have to hear this!" What I missed was that this album is over 2 hours long. This album is.... alright? Probably not actually meant to be listened to in one sitting. Given that it's two full discs of covers, the quality varies. Some of them are really enjoyable, such as Richard Thompson's rendition of "Mingulay Boat Song" and Mark Anthony Thompson's take on "Haul Away Joe" and Loudon Wainright III's hilarious "Good Ship Venus." Then, you have the initially novel but soon annoying "Bully in the Alley" rendition by Three Pruned Men, and Lou Reed singing "Leave Her Johnny" while clearly being consumed by the syphilis that would eventually take him. I think Van Dyke Parks' take on "Greenland Whale Fisheries" was my favorite.

October 8th: Take This To Your Grave by Fall Out Boy

Where is your Fall Out Boy tonight? Before this, I knew and loved many of the big hits from the first four albums, and liked everything after that less and less. This album is quintessential 2000s emo, with the first sign being FOB's trademark needlessly verbose song titles that don't relate to the song whatsoever. Examples: "Reinventing the Wheel to Run Myself Over," "Tell That Mick He Just Made My List of Things to Do Today," "Chicago is So Two Years Ago." That said, all of these songs kick ass. The best known example, "Grand Theft Autumn/Where Is Your Boy," has all the hallmarks of great emo, with the best example being the riffs and the chorus. I also must note that when I first heard "The Patron Saint of Liars and Fakes," I thought, "Did Taking Back Sunday directly copy this song on 'Cute without the E'?" Then I found out that song came first. My favorite track is "Reinventing the Wheel to Run Myself Over."

October 9th: Brothers in Arms by Dire Straits

I knew three songs from this album, those being "Walk of Life," "Money for Nothing," and the title track. The album as a whole is.... good, I think? They are all very talented, especially Mark Knopfler, but here's the issue: these songs are a great deal longer than they need to be. 'Money for Nothing" is a good song, so I don't mind its length, but I don't think "Why Worry" need to be as long as it is, nor does "Your Latest Trick." My understanding as to why these songs are so long is that the band were taking advantage of the newly afforded space on CDs, but I guess they were still used to writing eight songs per album because of 8-track tapes. I didn't dislike the album, but I don't know how much I'm going to return to it. My favorite new-to-me-song is "The Man's Too Strong."

October 10th: Let Love In by Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds

I've known a couple songs by this band, but this was my first time with a full album. I went with this one because it had "Red Right Hand," which I think is their most famous song. Nick Cave reminds me somewhat of Tom Waits, with the gravel in his voice and the dark subjects in his lyrics. What sets him and his Bad Seeds apart is a goth-rock sensibility shown on songs like "Loverman" and "Thirsty Dog." I enjoyed this album a lot, and I think that was aided by the fact that it's coming up on the Halloween season, and the darkness of this album really feels appropriate. "I Let Love In" was my favorite.

October 11th: Blur and 13 by Blur

WOO HOO! Blur distances themselves from their britpop roots, and takes two very different approaches on these albums. On the self titled, Blur take on a grungier, gritter sound, partially as a goof but partially because they wanted to break the britpop mold, exemplified on "Beetlebum" and "M.O.R.". "Song 2" was written as a parody of American rock, but it became their most famous song and omnipresent in all public events for all time. 13 is a departure from the self-titled just as much as the self titled was a departure from everything that came before. 13 experiments with sound, structure, and subject matter, with jazzy guitar noodling, electronic elements, ritualistic chanting, vocal effects, and so much more. This album makes a lot more sense when you learn that Damon was doing heroin and Graham was getting sober. My favorite tracks on each album were "Theme from Retro" and "1992" respectively.

October 12th: The Sky Will Be There Tomorrow by Charles Lloyd

This is another jazz album from this year that's getting a lot of acclaim, so I felt it would be good to check out. Charles Lloyd apparently has a really extensive an prolific career, working with the likes of Cannonball Adderly, Canned Heat, and Roger McGuinn. This album is a really dark, sprawling, exploratory kind of post-bop, with tunes going in all sorts of directions. It's complex, but very easy to follow, and Charles Lloyd has a gift with the saxophone. I could see myself exploring his catalogue more. I really enjoyed "Beyond Darkness."

October 13th: Confident Music for Confident People by Confidence Man

Y'know, it's possible that I would find an Australian band doing heavily tongue-in-cheek party songs annoying, but luckily, it's really good. CMFCP is full of slickly produced and crushingly powerful electropop bangers, and the two lead vocalists Janet Planet and Sugar Bones are having fun on both an ironic and unironic level. These songs work both as parodies of party music for people who hate parties and as lighthearted party songs for people who love

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