***Official Album Of The Day Thread***

[Hatter]

I don't just want an album. I want a description of said album. I want to know why we should seek it out and listen to it. Even if you have to copy and paste from the web like I am doing for my AOTD here today. ADd artwork. Add your own commentary. We want to use this to expand our listening habits and for those of us that listen to a wide variety of music this will be a great thread and for those of you that don't please take the time to read and review the posts and you may find the desire to hear something you never thought about before. And one more note of importance. This is NOT a thread to bash people. We all have our own musical tastes . This is a place to share said tastes

Genre: Jazz
Ornette Coleman - Free Jazz: A Collective Improvisation


Free Jazz: A Collective Improvisation is an album by jazz saxophonist and composer Ornette Coleman, recorded in 1960. It involves two separate quartets, one to each stereo channel; the rhythm sections play simultaneously, and though there is a succession of solos as is usual in jazz, they are peppered with freeform commentaries by the other horns that often turn into full-scale collective improvisation. The pre-composed material is a series of brief, dissonant fanfares for the horns which serve as interludes between solos. Not least among the album's achievements was that it was the first LP-length improvisation, nearly forty minutes in length, which was unheard of at the time. It thus served as the blueprint for later large-ensemble free jazz recordings such as John Coltrane's Ascension and Peter Brötzmann's Machine Gun.


Left channel

* Ornette Coleman - alto saxophone
* Don Cherry - pocket trumpet
* Scott LaFaro - bass
* Billy Higgins - drums

Right channel

* Freddie Hubbard - trumpet
* Eric Dolphy - bass clarinet
* Charlie Haden - bass
* Ed Blackwell - drums

Ornette has always had faith that out of chaos, intuition and freedom, beauty will emerge. What emerged was, like a Pollock painting, a thing of primal beauty and power, formally strange and surprisingly dance-like. It is also (like a Pollock) better experienced than described. The music that comes out of the speakers is much more than an experiment; it's also much more than just the collective sound of all these wonderful musicians. It's an ecstatic work that has been an inspiration to creative musicians for over 40 years, and it will continue to be for many years to come.

See Also : Ornette Coleman : The Shape Of Jazz To Come

[Winsomemore]

This is a great idea.

[Mr. Irreverent]

Originally Posted by Winsomemore

This is a great idea.

[Fooferah]

Good thread, Hatter. Everyone please note the ground rules outlined above. No acting like jackholes.

[Hatter]

Genre: Art Rock/Pop
Talking Heads Fear Of Music / 1979


Being that today is Mr. Byrnes 55th birthday I thought it only right to feature a Talking Heads disc. I for one can't ever decide wether they were under rated or just mis understood though thinking on that now I guess they aren't neccisarily mutaally exclusive.

Brian Eno produced this LP and it even features a guest appearance by a certain Gene Wilder (yes, that Gene Wilder) on Congos on tracks 1 and 5.

The band's third album, 'Fear Of Music', appeared in August 1979.

By titling the album "Fear of Music" and opening it with the African rhythmic experiment "I Zimbra," complete with nonsense lyrics by poet Hugo Ball, Talking Heads made the record seem more of a departure than it was. Though Fear of Music was musically distinct from its predecessors, mostly because of the use of minor keys that gave the music a more ominous sound.

Previously, David Byrne's offbeat observations had been set off by an overtly humorous tone; on Fear of Music, he was still odd, but no longer so funny. At the same time, however, the music had become even more compelling. Worked up from jams (though Byrne received sole songwriter's credit), the music was becoming denser and more driving, notably on the album's standout track, "Life During Wartime," with lyrics that matched the music's power. "This ain't no party," declared Byrne, "this ain't no disco, this ain't no fooling around." The other key song, "Heaven," extended the dismissal Byrne had expressed for the U.S. in "The Big Country" to paradise itself: "Heaven is a place where nothing ever happens." It is also the album's most melodic song.

The first single from the album was 'Life During Wartime', which used many of the conventions of funk music to undermine rock's traditional concern with partying at all costs. The follow-up was I zimbra, which used meaningless words and african rhythms to point out the band's future direction. The rest of the album took the sound and spirit of the first two LPs to its logical extremes, and track for track 'Fear Of Music' was as strong as anything the band have recorded, before or since. The simplicity of titles like 'Cities', 'Drugs', 'Air' and 'Electric Guitar' bore no relation to the complexity of Byrne's lyrics, which were as thought-provoking and intelligent as anything that Seventies rock had to offer.

In Britain, recordcompany Sire completed their promotion job on the album Brian Eno had once again co-produced the album.


Tracks:

1. I Zimbra
2. Mind
3. Paper
4. Cities
5. Life During Wartime
6. Memories Can't Wait
7. Air
8. Heaven
9. Animals
10. Electric Guitar
11. Drugs


There was a dual disc released in 2006 . completley remastered with some extras that is definatly worth the price

See Also: More Songs About Buildings and Food

[Hatter]

Genre: Brit Folk
Pink Moon / 1971


My favorite of the Drake Trio of studio releases. Shoryly after this album was released Drake, who battled with depression and insomnia throughout his life, took an overdose of anti depressents and killed himself at the young age of 26.

Pink Moon is the third and last album by British musician Nick Drake. It was recorded at midnight in 2 two-hour sessions, over two days in October of 1971, featuring only Nick Drake's vocals and guitar, as well as some piano later overdubbed by Drake on the title track.

Initially, Pink Moon garnered a small amount of critical attention, but after Drake's death it received widespread public and critical acclaim. The music on Pink Moon is strikingly sparse and unadorned (especially in comparison to Drakes' previous recordings), leading some to consider it to be the least accessible of his three albums, though it nevertheless continues to be thought of by many as his greatest work.

In 2003, the album was ranked number 320 on Rolling Stone magazine's list of the 500 greatest albums of all time.

The title track was used in a Volkswagen advertisement in the US in 2000.


Tracklist.

1. "Pink Moon" – 2:06
2. "Place to Be" – 2:43
3. "Road" – 2:02
4. "Which Will" – 2:58
5. "Horn" – 1:23
6. "Things Behind the Sun" – 3:57
7. "Know" – 2:26
8. "Parasite" – 3:36
9. "Free Ride" – 3:06
10. "Harvest Breed" – 1:37
11. "From the Morning" – 2:30

This is a beautiful album. Just a man and his guitar. the emotions in the music and in his voice is high. This album is always a staple in my mental stable of discs that I reccomend. A good album for candlelight and nighttime.

See Also: Five Leaves Left. (Day Is Done is a beautiful song)

[adgy-san]

I think this should be a sticky!

This is what I was listening to on the way to work today:



I think Lewis Black is the closest thing we have today to Bill Hicks. His comedy is topical, frequently political, profane, and he gets just angry enough during his bits. He doesn't quite have the sense of purpose that Hicks had, but that's alright. He's still funny as ****.

[Fooferah]

There are too many stickies everywhere. Just actively post in the thread and it'll be here.

[Hatter]

Genre: Funk, psychedelia, hard rock, gospel and soul music
Funkadelic: Maggot Brain / 1971


One more for the afternoon.


Review by Ned Raggett

It starts with a crackle of feedback shooting from speaker to speaker and a voice intoning, "Mother Earth is pregnant for the third time, for y'all have knocked her up" and talking about rising "above it all or drown in my own *****." This could only have been utterly bizarre back in 1971 and it's no less so decades later; though the Mothership was well on its way already, Maggot Brain really helped it take off. The instrumental title track is the key reason to listen, specifically for Eddie Hazel's lengthy, mind-melting solo. George Clinton famously told Hazel to play "like your momma had just died," and the resulting evocation of melancholy and sorrow doesn't merely rival Jimi Hendrix's work, but arguably bests a lot of it. Accompanied by another softer guitar figure providing gentle rhythm for the piece, the end result is simply fantastic, an emotional apocalypse of sound. Maggot Brain is bookended by another long number, "Wars of Armageddon," a full-on jam from the band looping in freedom chants and airport-departure announcements to the freak-out. In between are a number of short pieces, finding the collective merrily cooking up some funky stew of the slow and smoky variety. There are folky blues and gospel testifying on "Can You Get to That" (one listen and a lot of Primal Scream's mid-'90s career is instantly explained) and wry but warm reflections on interracial love on "You and Your Folks, Me and My Folks," its drum hits distorted to give a weird electronic edge to the results. "Super Stupid" is a particular killer, pounding drums and snarling guitar laying down the boogie hard and hot, while "Hit It and Quit It" has a great chorus and Bernie Worrell getting in a fun keyboard solo to boot.


Track listing

1. "Maggot Brain" (George Clinton, Eddie Hazel) – 10:20
2. "Can You Get To That" (Clinton, Ernie Harris) – 2:50
3. "Hit It And Quit It" (Clinton, Billy Bass Nelson, Garry Shider) – 3:50
4. "You And Your Folks, Me And My Folks" (Clinton, Judie Jones, Bernie Worrell) – 3:36
5. "Super Stupid" (Clinton, Hazel, Nelson, Tawl Ross) – 3:57
6. "Back In Our Minds" (Fuzzy Haskins) – 2:38
7. "Wars Of Armageddon" (Clinton, Tiki Fulwood, Ross, Worrell) – 9:42

This is a must have for anyone that want's to be taken seriously in a music discussion with record shop elitests.

See Also:

[Hatter]

Genre: Mizzippi Blues
Howlin' Wolf - Howlin' Wolf / 1962


The Rocking Chair Album was Wolf's second and featured an outrageous set of sex songs written by Willie Dixon, including "Shake for Me," "The Red Rooster" and "Back Door Man.

The Wolf and Willie Dixon! As a sidenote the Grateful Dead used to cover wang dang doodle . Any other covers you can spot?


Liner Notes from one of my favorite blues albums of all time:

The 12 performances here are a combination of new and old material- so as to present the best possible cross-section of the artist's work to date. The arrangements and the instrumental accompaniments, particularly the guitar, harmonica and piano, capture the fullest the concept of 'blue tonality.'

The first two selections, 'Moanin' At Midnight' and 'How Many More Years' were big single hits for Howlin' Wolf. The former is a mood piece which captures the eerie, lonesome atmosphere of an isolated dwelling, is hard to match. The latter, with its strongly-marked piano figure, changes the pace and atmosphere entirely, for it presents the point of view of the man who finds his nagging wife too much to bear.

'Smokestack Lightnin',' a powerful side with a world of flavor, presents a picture of anguish as the man asks his 'baby' where she stayed during the night. 'Baby How Long' is in a brighter mood, relatively fast in tempo, and with an extrememly facile piano part abetting the harmonica and drums.

'No Place To Go' with its strong, repeating figure in the instrumental arrangement, is a powerful document- the story of an aging man who realizes he has lost his woman and has no where to go. Its structural simplicity, lyrically and muscially, is perfect. 'All Night Boogie' is an uptempo blues with a rollicking beat which bellies the essential sadness of the theme: that of the man who wakes up and finds his 'baby' gone.

'Evil' is sung in Howlin' Wolf's best shouting style. The lyric is vastly interesting and entertaining- being a catalog of things to be suspicious of, if one is to perserve a happy home. The piano here, particularly the right hand, is of amazing flexibilty. 'I'm Leavin' You' presents another aspect of domestic life- surely not one of bliss.

'Woman, I got to put you down,' the man tells his helpmate, who is described as rolling 'bloodshot eyes.' 'Moanin' For My Baby' presents the singer in a relatively relaxed, pensive mood. The theme is one well-rooted in the blues- longing for a loved one. The mood changes to bitterness in the next performance titled 'I Asked For Water (She Gave Me Gasoline).'

'Forty-Four' has an arresting arrangement, makred chiefly by an usual drum figure which is retained throughout the selection. 'Somebody in My Home' with its slow temp and reptitive musical figure in the arrangement, is another mood piece- typical of the artist's ability to paint a sombre scene with very few words.

Track listing

1. "Shake for Me" - Willie Dixon
2. "The Red Rooster" - Dixon
3. "You'll Be Mine" - Dixon
4. "Who's Been Talkin'" - Howlin' Wolf
5. "Wang-Dang-Doodle" - Dixon
6. "Little Baby" - Dixon
7. "Spoonful" - Dixon
8. "Going Down Slow" - St. Louis Jimmy Oden
9. "Down in the Bottom" - Dixon
10. "Back Door Man" - Dixon
11. "Howlin' for My Baby" - Dixon, Howlin' Wolf
12. "Tell Me" - Howlin' Wolf


Earlier I brought up Covers. Well this little list *snatched from Wikipedia* may shed a little light on the legacy of the Wolf!

Numerous artists have recorded cover versions of Howlin' Wolf songs:

* Megadeth covered "I Ain't Superstituous" on their album Peace Sells... But Who's Buying?
* "Little Red Rooster" was covered by Sam Cooke in 1963, The Doors (which appears on their live album Alive, She Cried), and by The Rolling Stones in 1964.
* Both The Yardbirds and The Animals covered "Smokestack Lightning" in 1964 and 1966 respectively.
* Little Feat covered "Forty-Four Blues / How Many More Years" for their first, self titled album, Little Feat
* Led Zeppelin covered "Killing Floor" in 1968-69 concerts and used the song as the basis for "The Lemon Song" on Led Zeppelin II. "Smokestack Lightning" and "How Many More Years" served as partial blueprints for "How Many More Times" on their 1969 debut album.
* The Doors covered "Back Door Man" for their first, self titled album, The Doors
* The Electric Prunes regularly covered "Smokestack Lightnin'" in their live shows, a recording of which can be found on their Stockholm '67 LP.
* The Jimi Hendrix Experience covered "Killing Floor" at a BBC Saturday Club radio session in 1967, a recording of which is available on their 1998 BBC Sessions compilation, and opened with it at the Monterey Pop Festival (also in 1967).
* Cream also covered one of his songs on their double-album Wheels of Fire. They also covered his song, "Spoonful". On the first (studio) disc, Cream covered "Sitting on Top of the World". This song has also been covered by Bob Dylan in the 1992 album Good as I been to you. Howlin' Wolf's own version was a cover of the 1930 classic original by the Mississippi Sheiks.
* Soundgarden covered "Smokestack Lightning" on their first album Ultramega OK.
* Clutch covers "Who's Been Talking" on their 2005 release Robot Hive/Exodus.
* Stevie Ray Vaughan covered three Howlin' Wolf songs on his studio albums: "Tell Me" appears on Texas Flood; "You'll be mine" (written by Willie Dixon) on Soul to Soul and "Love Me Darlin'" on In Step. Vaughan also played "Shake for me" (written by W.Dixon) on the live album In the Beginning, even copying the original guitar solo, played by Hubert Sumlin and "I'm Leaving You (Commit a Crime)" can be found from Live-Alive album.
* George Thorogood covered "Highway 49" and "Smokestack Lightning" on Born to be Bad in 1988. He also covered "Howlin' for My Baby" in 1993 on Haircut.
* On The Crossroads Guitar Festival DVD, "Killing Floor" was performed by Hubert Sumlin, Eric Clapton, Robert Cray and Jimmie Vaughan. It is quite possible that the guitar riff from the song was written by Sumlin.
* "Little Red Rooster" was covered by British alternative band The Jesus and Mary Chain on their Sound of Speed album
* PJ Harvey covered "Wang Dang Doodle" in her early years and was released on a 2002 b-sides & rarities album
* Steven Seagal also covered the song " Little Red Rooster" with his band.
* Tom Waits has covered "Who's Been Talking?" several times during live performances.
* Iron & Wine released a live cover of "Smokestack Lightning" on a compilation CD entitled Hope Isn't a Word that came with issue 15 of the magazine Comes With a Smile.
* Monster Magnet performed their own rendition of "Evil" on their 1993 album, Superjudge
* "Smokestack Lighting" was a staple of early Grateful Dead shows during the Pigpen era, and was revived by the band (with Bob Weir on vocals) during the 1990's. The Dead also performed "Little Red Rooster", "Wang Dang Doodle", "I Ain't Superstitious" and "Meet Me In The Bottom" at various points in their career.
* Cactus (band) recorded their version of the song "Evil" on their 1971 album Restrictions. It also appeared on their best-of album entitled Cactology.

[Hatter]

Genre: Tom Waits
Tom Waits: Orphans Bawlers , Brawlers, & Bastards / 2006


This 3 disc cd set is not only, as far as I am concerned, the best cd set released in '07 but I would put wither of the first two discs up against any single disc released that year. It is also a special release to me due to the fact that I won a bet and Euchrid had to buy it for me (waves at euch)

Futhermore (one should never start a paragraph with furthermore) imho, Tom waits is in the pantheon of great songwriters. Time and time again my faith in the world has been renewed by hearing that he has been voted in the top 5 here and the top 3 there etc... He is just THAT good.

The set is a collection of 24 rare and 30 brand new songs. Each disc is intended to be a separate collection in itself; the first disc with the more roughcut rock and blues cuts, the second the more melancholy tunes and ballads, and the third disc having the more experimental songs & spoken word pieces. Although the liner notes claim "56 songs, of which 30 are new", there are only 14 songs on the collection which can readily be found on other albums.

Brawlers contains songs covering themes ranging from failed relationships ("Lie to Me", "Walk Away"), floods and subsequent havoc ("2:19"), bluesy gospel ("Ain't Goin' Down to the Well", "Lord I've Been Changed"), sentimental tunes ("Lucinda", "Sea of Love"), and a song about a Palestinian suicide bomber ("Road to Peace").

Bawlers is comprised of mostly downtrodden numbers, replacing the hope of ballads on previous albums with resignation (notably "Bend Down the Branches", "Little Drop of Poison" (an alternate recording, appearing on the Shrek 2 soundtrack, to the one found on The End of Violence soundtrack), "Fannin Street", "Little Man", and "Widow's Grove"). The track "Down There by the Train" was written by Waits for Johnny Cash, and was first released on Cash's first American Recordings album.

Bastards is concerned with Waits' more experimental musical styles, opening with an adaptation of Bertolt Brecht's poem "What Keeps Mankind Alive?" (music by Kurt Weill) and continuing on "Children's Story", which is en excerpt of Georg Büchner's play Woyzeck, the score of which Waits wrote and later released as his Blood Money album. The disc contains other literary adaptations, including a Charles Bukowski poem about a typical day in a cafe ("Nirvana") and two songs, "Home I'll Never Be" and "On the Road", originally penned by Jack Kerouac.

Waits describes the collection as "A lot of songs that fell behind the stove while making dinner".

[KickEm]

Jeff Buckley, Album: Grace.



1. Mojo Pin
2. Grace
3. Last Goodbye
4. Lilac Wine
5. So Real
6. Hallelujah
7. Lover, You Should`ve Come Over
8. Corpus Christi Carol
9. Eternal Life
10. Dream Brother

Recorded in the fall of 1993 at Bearsville Recording Studio in Woodstock, NY, GRACE features Jeff on vocals, guitars, keyboards, dulcimer and tabla; Mick Grondahl and Matt Thompson, members of his touring band, on bass and drums respectively; and production by Andy Wallace (Paw, White Zombie, Soul Asylum). Noted classical composer and jazz vibraphonist Karl Berger wrote and conducted string arrangements assisted by Jeff. Within the walls of this studio, Buckley and company created a unique blend of sound and vision: emotion-drenched vocals laced throughout extraordinary instrumental work. The record includes seven originals and one cover performed with his band and two covers done solo.

GRACE gives voice to those secrets of the human experience that lie mute and waiting for sound. "Eternal Life," is a sonically bruising plea for emotional tolerance and psychic liberation. "Eternal life is now on my trail," he sings, "Got my red glitter coffin, man, just need one last nail/While all these ugly gentlemen play out their foolish games/There's a flaming red horizon that screams our names."

"Lover, You Should Have Come Over," holds a candle in a dark circular staircase, lonesome vocals wrapped around slow tender chords and lines like "It's never over, she's the tear that hangs inside my soul forever." "Mojo Pin," co-written by Buckley and former Captain Beefheart guitarist Gary Lucas, is a powerful ensemble reading of a song first introduced on Live At Sin-é, a testimony to Buckley's avant-garde and free jazz proclivities. On the moody "Dream Brother," the singer offers a warning to a friend, a mysterious message swaddled in the unconscious. Tipping his hat to the master, Buckley renders his interpretation of Leonard Cohen's "Hallelujah," a solo track recorded live-in-the-studio; the song is one of Jeff's most enthusiastically-received tunes in-concert.

"The experience of creating and performing with a band was different from my solo work," Buckley says about the recording of GRACE. "All the spontaneity and attention to the dynamics of the moment is extended four times and maybe beyond. It's the difference between the eight year-old and the twenty-eight year old: you still contain the eight year-old, but two decades exist around you. The object of going solo was to attract the perfect band. All my favorite music has been band music. I love listening to Bob Dylan, Robert Johnson and Thelonious Monk alone, but, the fact is, there are so many other areas you can go with other instruments going at the same time. You can reach a trance-like stage where what's really going on inside the human psyche is being sung to...the music aims at what's really going on underneath...not what people pretend to be or what they hope they can buy at a store. The little scared kid or the full-on romantic lover is being accessed. There are really majestic qualities about people that can be reached through music. People are incredible to me even though I'm healthily cynical sometimes. It's because we are spirits and the whole tension is that we don't know we are. Yet, music is able to touch this."

OK that was the Copy/Pasted version. Jeff's music was just so deep hitting and painfully real, (not to mention his four octave vocal range) his lyrics hit me in the early 90's during a certain breakup and have eerily stayed with me since. I've shared his music with more people than I know (and they shared back more of what they did to the music than I would share here), or at least, a bunch of peeps. Made me cringe and very sad when I heard about his demise...he had so much more to share (but that is just me being selfish).

OK, next.

edit: Picture added

[mutt]

Artist: the Mighty Rime
Album: the Mighty Rime
Time: 34:13
Label: Caulfield Records
Number: CR041
Released: 09.17.2003

Track Listing:
1. Rio Grande
2. Loot'n n Shoot'n
3.