Promises

Number 98 in the end of year top 100 albums of 2011 is Nero’s ‘Welcome Reality’.

Apparently, this is a concept album. I can’t work out what the concept is and the Wikipedia page doesn’t tell me. Helpfully, Wikipedia does tell me that there is no clear definition of what a concept album is.

My view is that a concept album should hold tracks which are all connected together. The best concepts, in my view, are those where the music creates a story – like an opera perhaps. Coheed and Cambria’s album ‘Good Apollo, I’m Burning Star IV’ is a good example. Later in the year, I will relisten to Iron Savior’s album ‘Dark Assault’ which was a clear concept album that I was unsure about last year. (side note, I was uncertain about it but put it on the playlist…that was the problem with the original playlist).

Then, there are other concept albums such as Tori Amos’ ‘Strange Little Girls’. I don’t think it’s a sane concept. However, she decided to sing songs originally sung by men, without changing lyrics or pronouns at all. Fine! I guess it’s a concept. I don’t know why it’s a thing but perhaps, it’s a thing.

One of my 2021 albums was a concept album. ‘Worship with Psalms’ was the Psalms set to modern tunes including pop songs….such as Psalm 107 set to ‘Crazy’ by Britney Spears.

If you release a concept album, I think it should be clear what the concept is… and if it’s not, you should explain the concept in so much details that people can’t reference the album without quoting the concept situation…such as people who love the Tori Amos album.

No one is talking about the concept of ‘Welcome Reality’. Although, one critic described it as ‘predictable’ which suggests they immediately understood the concept and knew what songs were coming next….which must make them some sort of musical understanding genius…. I want them to produce an Encanto Reaction video!

You may think that I’m this deep into dissing the album that I must not like it. No, it’s absolutely fine. A couple of excellent tracks, a few good tracks, nothing bad. The problem is that someone said it was a concept album.

If Nero classified it as a concept album, they did it badly and this is a terrible album. If someone else decided it was a concept album, it is a decent album with no concept.

More New Shoes

This is my second album by Paolo Nutini this year.

A few weeks ago I listened to Paolo Nutini’s 2022 album and today I listened to his 2009 album which was in the 2011 top 100 end of year chart.

‘Sunny Side Up’ was Paolo’s second album and honestly, I still prefer his first album which has ‘New Shoes’ on it.

Also, he continues to not sound Scottish on this album whereas his 2022 album is super Scottish.

If you have been following this blog since the beginning (I mean you, alien children (if you don’t get the reference you are going to fail your human random blogs assignment!)) you’ll know it began because of James Acaster’s book ‘Perfect Sound, Whatever’. You’ll be interested to know that I am now listening to James Acaster’s shows ‘Findings’. Some of this material was featured in his Netflix specials. Honestly, it’s been really difficult today not to comment on bagels following his bagel research. Mainly because (and I’m not boasting) I ate two bagels today.

Save Tonight

The album from 2011 was a Christmas album and I have no desire to listen to that in July. So I went to the 2022 album charts. Number one is still Harry Styles so I went to number two which is ‘About Last Night…’ by Mabel.

Mabel is the niece of Eagle Eye Cherry who sang the absolutely awesome song ‘Save Tonight’. Love that song.

Mabel’s album was created during the pandemic and is apparently influenced by her lockdown TV and music choices. I’ll be honest, it sounds as poppy and dancy as I remember any previous Mabel songs.

There is nothing wrong with this album. I like it far more than Harry Styles to be fair.

Love You More

Today I listened to the album ‘You and I’ by The Pierces. This is number 95 on the End of 2011 Top 100.

I’ll be honest, I’m confused how I’m on number 95 already. I’m going to have to listen to another year in music at this rate!

I’ve never heard of The Pierces but they are a sister duo. I love a family band.

I enjoyed this album. It was poppy and folky and a little bit country. I was caught by any of the songs, none of them stood out. It’s nice but it doesn’t stand out.

It had positive reviews, clearly, people bought it because it’s top 100.

It probably got played on radio stations I didn’t listen to in 2011….like radio 2.

Don’t stop believing

Today I listened to ‘Glee, the Music, Vol. 4’ from the 2011 top 100. It’s an album of excellent songs sung by not excellent singers.

Some excellent music on this album. Stronger by Britney Spears from her awesome 2001 album is covered on this album. Also Toxic by Britney Spears from 2003, great song, sung okish on this album.

Do you like popular music?

Do you like a TV show full of popular music surrounded by slightly non-realistic storylines which ended up linking to the songs?

You’ll probably like Glee.

I wasn’t anti-Glee at the beginning but it became dodgy real quick. TBF, it was pretty dodgy in the first series.

Anyways, I don’t really have to make a judgement call because it’s a compilation cover album. And they are only ever good if the covers are good songs. And in this case, they are. The singing doesn’t ruin them.

Running Up that Hill

Here in 2022, Kate Bush is a big deal again after one of her songs was featured in Stranger Things.

I haven’t seen Stranger Things, nor do I plan to. Although, it sort of sounds like something I should be into, but it also feels like too much concentration for me to get into.

Anyway, they played Kate Bush and now all the kids are knowing that she exists and had some awesome music.

I knew her before and often I can be found taking my shoes off and throwing them in the lake.

However, her 2001 album ’50 Words for Snow’ is not super awesome. More experimental than I think is necessary, even for Kate Bush.

Two of the tracks were over 10 minutes. One track features Stephen Fry reciting 50 terms for snow.

It’s not the greatest of albums but that shouldn’t detract from the awesomeness of Kate Bush.

Times A-changing

I was reading a list which was about traits of intelligent people. I’m not sure how scientific this list was, however, it said that intelligent people weren’t afraid to change their mind.

If that is true, then today’s post is a super demonstration of how intelligent I am.

Last year, I wrote that if I had a top 10 list of the best albums of 2001 then today’s album ‘Phantom Moon’ by Duncan Sheik would be on it.

I agree with myself that this is a calm, beautiful album. I disagree that it’s really that amazing. It’s so chill it almost put me to sleep and at one point I was thinking about how much it reminded me of the Lighthouse Family album – just fake emotion in beautiful songs. Another song robot.

And so, in a year, this album has dropped from top 10 out of the entire playlist.

Magazines

Somehow, despite me saying that ‘Living in a Magazine’ by Zoot Woman would not go on the playlist, they found themselves on the playlist and then removed again towards the end of the year.

Unfortunately, they still do not make it onto the playlist.

This is an ok album. It’s fine but it’s also a bit weird and initially annoying. The first song is repetitive in a way which is not as awesome as some other repetitive songs.

This time last year was my first time back in the world since the beginning of the lockdowns so I’ll forgive myself for getting confused about what I liked and didn’t like. I stayed in a hotel, I ate out, I stood in a queue without social distancing. It was a huge couple of days!

Of course, Covid hasn’t gone and the heady days of February 2020 will never occur again. In some ways, without Covid we didn’t know what was bad about the world until we had to remove everything and dial it all back to its purest form.

I’m worried that people want things to go back to how it was b4C19. I don’t. Things were broken then. Things are broken now but going back is not the answer. The answer to today’s problems is not to go back to yesterday’s problems but to move forward, hopefully fixing the problems as we go.

As Brandon Farris says ‘Have a good day, mainly because I told you to but mostly because you want to.’

Spoonerisms

Today, I re-listened to ‘Girls Can Tell’ by Spoon from 2001.

Last year I mentioned how short this album was – just over half an hour.

Today, it didn’t feel like I wanted more of this album. It was fine. I sort of liked it but I wasn’t super into it.

Also, Spoon remains a stupid name for a band.

This is another album where I recommend you listen to it once.

On Fire

Today I was back in 2011 with Kings of Leon’s fourth album in general, and second album on the top 100 of 2011 ‘Only By The Night’.

There are some big songs on this album ‘Sex on Fire’ and ‘Use Somebody’ which charted well and are still played on radio stations.

‘Sex on Fire’ was huge. It got to a point where, I swear, every other song played on the radio was ‘Sex on Fire’. I hated it.

As I mentioned during my last Kings of Leon blog, they were cool to me just before the release of their third album.

This fourth album continues to be full of the ‘cool’ songs that do not interest me.

I think….and I’m not talking to anyone in particular, especially not anyone in politics, but I think it’s much cooler to be yourself than to try to be cool to get people to like you.