LISTND Hit of the Week Challenge 2020 • Page 4

I did Dylan's Slow Train Coming (1979), the first of his trilogy of faith-based albums after converting to christianity.

"i always suspected this album would be much worse than it actually was, based on the corniness of this period of Dylan's life, the savaging reviews of the three albums in his Born-Again stretch, and my general disinterest in the subject material. i was half right? lyrically, it's pretty weak and eye-roll inducing, but coming from possibly the greatest lyricist of all time, it's a high bar to reach. however, that is mostly from songs in the back half. the front half stands up with a lot of Dylan's best - specifically "Gotta Serve Somebody," "Precious Angel" and the title track. Additionally, Dylan's voice sounds about as strong as it ever has and Knopfler's guitar playing throughout when paired with Dylan is a bit of a dream team scenario. I would say this album, which represents a pretty wild turn for an icon of jewish men everywhere like myself, isn't nearly as bad as I expected, while also not being as good as I wanted it to be."

for the max martin themed one, i think i'll do ariana grande's dangerous woman. i've heard a lot of his big 90s credits, as well as the taylor stuff, and this one seemed most interesting on paper

 

I ranked Kanye albums because, why wouldn't I?
Listnd

 

mostly agree but i haven’t listened to him in years. doubt i ever listen to the post-pablo albums

 

ministry's the land of rape and honey
seems to be a more metal take on industrial, which is cool but im more interested in things that are slightly more electronic. still a very pummeling record with more variety in it than meets the eye. if youre into heavy music i think this is a must listen. drums are the coolest part but im a little conflicted on the vocals.

katy perry's teenage dream
the singles here are what makes this shine, godamn are they good. the title track is obviously immaculate but california gurls and firework are great too, and tgif is better than i remember it being. some of the other tracks though range from really terrible (peacock) to sort of forgettable (pearl). i dont want to say the album sounds outdated because it doesnt but it does feel like a product of its time, while listening i noticed how many tracks use a pop rock approach for the base, while i cant think of any recent pop albums (aside from taylor's) that havent completely moved towards electronic dance styles. very nostalgic and teenage dream is beautiful and ill probably be listening to the singles much more often now, but i think there was a reason i never bothered to hear the full album.

 

ariana grande's "dangerous woman"
"i am admittedly a bit of a herb when it comes to super-mainstream pop, but i found this super enjoyable! the production is great throughout, specifically on "be alright," "greedy" and "bad decisions," which were the tracks that stood out to me the most. also, uhh duhh, she can sing real good. somehow, "side to side" was the only track i was familiar with here beforehand, but i came away enjoying a lot of this. fun album!"

kinda torn on what to do for the next one, just bc i don't want to resort to a re-listen and have listened to so much of the post-beatles stuff already. i've never actually done band on the run in full, i don't think, so i think i'll go with that

 

"Into You" is one of the great pure pop songs I've ever heard. Especially in headphones.

Have you heard The Concert for Bangladesh? It's an intriguing historical document and easy to forget about it Harrison's career.

 

i have, yeah. can't miss clapton guitar playing. george is definitely the solo member that i've listened to the most.

 

wings - band on the run

"this is just fine by anyone's standard, and pretty bad by sir paul's. kind of feels like one or two almost blindingly good songs that carry and album of eight additional songs ranging from Fine to Pretty Bad. the songwriting is there but the instrumentation is pretty poor and Paul should be fined for letting denny laine sing on an album. yikes. i wanted to liked this more."

@Wharf Rat since you're the jazz king, have any recommendations from the verve records discography?

 

I’ll catch up next week

 

paul and linda mccartney's ram
i heard this a couple of times when it was rereleased some years back but havent heard it since. i was sort of surprised this time around when i heard some of the more elaborate arranged parts because i always see this mentioned as a homely and simple record. i guess thats emblematic of mccartney's songwriting, that even at its most stripped down theres still that level of craft that feels unnatainable for so many. lovely record, will continue to spin this pretty often i imagine, im pretty into most of mccartney's solo stuff though.

i would very much appreciate a rec for tomorrow's record. i am completely lost here

 

Lol I just looked through a little bit and you really can't go wrong. There's Charlie Parker, Diz, Billie, Art Tatum, Django, Basie, Lionel Hampton, Krupa, Buddy Rich. Seriously take your pick lol. All towering legends with incredible discographies

I have been trying to keep up with this it's been tough though. I might try to write some reviews tomorrow

 

If you're a total jazz neophyte I would suggest just picking an artist who's name you recognize or if you don't recognize any pick one off the list I just posted and search that wikipedia list linked in the OP for an album by them, then google it to see if it's a particularly well regarded one by that artist. Or if that sounds like too much effort just listen to Lady Sings the Blues.

 

i played in jazz band in HS and had to learn a charlie parker solo (lol) so i think i’ll do one of his

 

i find that i usually gravitate to pianists in jazz so ill go with something from bill evans, probably that live record

 

Lady in Satin would be my recommendation for a beginner. One of the truly great end-of-career ravaged voice records ever.

 

bill evans' alone
i could not find the live album on streaming services so opted for this one instead. i felt a little too connected to the themse of this album. being currently in self-isolation. but in some ways it also helped take my mind off of this stuff, since it was just piano it sort of gave me a feel at ease. technically very impressive, the amount of expression evans gets out of just one instrument is crazy. unreal how skilled you have to be to play some of these compositions (source: someone who learned the very basics of piano many years ago).

any recs for the thrash one? im not familiar at all with it, hell im not even familiar with anything outside of metallica and slayer.

also i told my dad about this and hes doing it too now lol. some of these categories he knows really well so theyll probably just be things he hasnt heard in a while. if anyone is interested heres what hes done so far
something by liszt
frank ocean's blond
bowie's let's dance
robyn's body talk
harrison's brainwashed
and the getz/gilberto album

edit: decided to go for testament's first album as recommened by my dad. who knew he listened to thrash metal?

 

weekends are probably gonna be impossible for me so i’ll do one a day M-F until we catch up to one a week. firing up charlie parker and dizzy gillespie’s “bird and diz” now

 

I have been so bad with this lol gonna try at least for one album today

 

charlie parker and dizzy gillespie - bird and diz

"i'm not really well-spoken in jazz, but this is pretty insane. what seems more notable, outside of bird and diz's obviously wild playing, is the playing of the dude's not on the cover of the record. thelonius monk's piano, buddy rich's drumming, and curley russell's bass is out of this world. definitely going to try to seek more."

gonna do sepultura "roots" tomorrow

 

Is Max Roach on that one, too, or am I misremembering?

 

yeah, on two of the tracks

 

Damn, talk about drumming royalty.

 

no joke lol. the playing throughout was super interesting. buddy was more in the pocket and probably "better" but the two max songs were total spazz outs that he dominated.

 

sepultura - roots:

"the inclusion of traditional brazilian music, specifically in the drums, was by far the most interesting aspect of this album to me. also with the acoustic guitar-led tracks of "jasco" and "itsari." it's also more groove-driven than most thrash i'm used to and enjoy, which was a cool twist. however, the vocals are kinda not for me quite often. not the main guttural tone of max, i actually kinda like that, but the high pitched vocals that seem like they're almost done as a joke at times. the length is also more oppressive than any of the vocals or riffs. whoof."

gonna finally take the plunge and do loretta lynn's "van lear rose" tomorrow

 

Roots is a record that I think I would have enjoyed a lot more had I not grown up with a bastardized version of that sound all over radio haha