Great Albums As Chosen By Me: Class of 2006 - by Liam R
KoRn – KoRn (from Volume Two, Issue 15)
This has absolutely nothing to do with the fact that there is bugger all news to report this week. Oh no young buck that is not true at all and this is not padding. It is in fact a feature I have been planning for quite some time and decided to implement this week because I suck at writing long album reviews. So what is this week’s album then? Why it is ‘KoRn’ by, erm, KoRn. The music world was a very different place in 1994. Rave had died, and slowly but surely new genres were beginning to rise out of its’ ashes. In the world of guitars, grunge had replaced hair metal as the music taste of the kids but with Kurt Cobain’s suicide the scene died with him. Enter KoRn. Taking the riffage of heavy metal, the angst of grunge and the beats from rap, they inadvertedly created nu-metal and in turn revitalised a metal scene that had been dying since Bon Jovi cut his hair. Now in hindsight we couldn’t have forseen just how crap Limp Bizkit would become, but thanks to bands like The Deftones, System Of A Down and Slipknot the metal scene still has bands that are willing to bush the barriers of the genre. All of this does come as a shame as the granddaddies of the scene have been lost in the shuffle, but you still can’t disguise just how fresh & innovative this record must have sounded back then. From the primeval rush of ‘Blind’, the nursery rhymes of ‘Shoots And Ladders’(complete with bagpipes) to the angst of ‘Faget’ and ‘Daddy’ this a record that shouldn’t be known as the album that gave us Fred Durst, merely one of the best of the last decade.
Music For The Gilted Generation – The Prodigy (from Volume Two, Issue 16)
Yeah it’s another one, and shock horror it’s one from 1994. In 1994 rave was dead, and apparently The Prodigy killed it. You see they released a track called ‘Charly’ which sampled a popular PSA which warned kids not to run off with strangers. Anyway the track was absolutely massive on the underground scene until it charted at number 3, which kicked off a rash of crappy impersonators (Sesame Treet anyone? Trip To Trumpton?). So the final nail was hit in the coffin of rave and dance music fractured into the many genres it now comprises. Prodigy mainman Liam Howlett then went back to the studio with a love of Nirvana and what resulted would kick dance music in the crotch. Stealing the Stone Roses’s indie dance blueprinet and turning it up to eleven, ‘Music For The Gilted Generation’ mixed heavy guitars with heavier breaks a killer album. From the rolling synths of ‘Break & Enter’, ‘Their Law’s metal riffage this was something both completely different yet familiar. The two big singles, ‘No Good (Start The Dance)’ and ‘Voodoo People’ are still weapons of mass dancefloor destruction today, and the closing three songs comprising ‘The Narcotic Suite’ push the boundaries of their sound even further. Most journalists point to ‘The Fat Of The Land’ as The Prodigy’s finest work, but they’re lying. ‘Music For The Gilted Generation’ maybe a musical snapshot of the dance scene at the time with kids fighting against the government’s clampdown on clubbing but more importantly, but that’s missing the point. This isn’t just the best dance album, it’s one of best albums ever made so get it. Now.
Headzcleaner – Gerling (from Volume Two, Issue 17)
As with many of the albums that I find great, they seem to have their own mythical and indeed magical way of finding their way into my life. Take ‘Headzcleaner’ by Gerling, which also happens to be this week’s entry into my own Hall Of Fame. Funny that. Anyway, it was way back in the mists of time (2002 actually) when I had a massive drink and drug problem and working in the job from hell. It wasn’t that bad, but I certainly didn’t enjoy it as much as I enjoy my job now (as much as is humanly possible anyway). One evening, some poor sucker had left behind a copy of Mixmag magazine which I immediately claimed as my own but not before having to toss a coin with one of my managers as to who kept the CD. I won and so put it on the stereo and was instantly mesmerised by the discotastic second track. After a bit of research on the internet, I grabbed myself a copy and fell in love. As to what ‘Headzcleaner’ sounds like, it resembles a fight between The Arcade Fire and LCD Soundsystem but infinitely more bonkers. ‘Dust Me Selecta’ (the track from that compilation) and ‘G House Project’ (with Kylie) are sublime pieces of disco house, while tracks like ‘The Manual’ and ‘Deka’ resemble The Strokes being spliced with a drum machine and pumped full of steroids and E-numbers. It is all very odd but by the time epic closer ‘We Design The Future’ you can’t help but feel that you’ve been attacked by hyperactive children as well as seeing that not all dance music has to be desperately sensible. [Liam’s note: You can only get this on import, but do so, it’s great]
Grand Prix – Teenage Fanclub (from Volume Two, Issue 18)
Tough choice this week, as I had a fair few albums I was prepared to sacrifice at the altar of the almighty Donkeys. But, at some point this week it hit me that I had to mention it at some point. You see, as teenagers we all go through a period of intense self-hatred and loathing where nothing and no-one, not friends and family makes any sense nor feel fair. That’s where next week’s selection comes in. ‘Grand Prix’ by Teenage Fanclub fall into the other end of that selection. Thirteen gorgeously crafted songs of, well, love and happiness: heartfelt lyrics, sumptuous melodies all put together by a band that have never gotten the credit they deserve. From the opening ‘About You’ through ‘Don’t Look Back’(which pisses all over Oasis’s slightly longer song of the sort of same name) through to the closing ‘Hardcore/Ballad’ there is not one throwaway lyric or wasted chord but simply one of the greatest hidden treasures anyone from these shores have produced. Do yourselves a favour and give yourself a musical hug.
The Holy Bible – Manic Street Preachers (from Volume Two, Issue 19)
After the events of the past seven days I was strongly considering not inducting this album into the Hall Of Fame. You see, I’ve had one of those weeks adequately described in the last verse of The Streets’ ‘It’s Too Late’ [http://www.lyrics4all.net/t/the-streets/original-pirate-material/its-too-late.php], where absolutely nothing makes sense at all. I’ve smacked my head against the wall, had periods of incredibly highs followed by barrel scraping lows. I’ve laughed, and yes I’m going to admit I did shed a tear or two and my brother’s music selection hasn’t helped. ‘Just A Day’ by Feeder? Now enshrined in my list of albums guaranteed to make me breakdown completely. Now back when I was a teenager, these intense periods of rejection by the opposite sex would lead me to one album, and one album only. An album so dark, it makes Metallica’s eponymous album look like a collection of nursery rhymes recited by kids on happy pills. That album, of course is ‘The Holy Bible’ by the Manic Street Preachers and in the last few years my opinion of it has changed. In my youth, it scared the ever living fuck out of me so much and that’s before you factor in the words. Trust me, no album made by two guitars, bass, drums and a sample machine has ever felt like Armageddon like this does. Of course the words are even more worrying, dealing with suicide (This Is Yesterday), self-mutilation (Die In The Summertime), the Holocaust (The Intense Humming Of Evil) but laying clear the mental state of guitarist Richey James. If anything, this record is essentially a diary of the human mind completely breaking down into the depths of despair. And don’t even get me started on 4st 7lbs, a song which I refused to play after the first listen because of the brutal imagery of anorexia. But like I said, my opinion of this record has changed. Yes it’s still depressing and evil but after listening to it now I get another feeling, that of relief and even a renewed sense of hope. After an hour of every human neurosis, failing and mental faculty being examined, stripped away and destroyed in the most vivid terms ever captured on a shiny plastic disc I get the feeling that maybe, if I can get over my hang-ups and become a functioning member of society and let everything go every so often, life isn’t so bad after all. Next week, we go on holiday.
If I Should Fall From Grace With God – The Pogues (from Volume Two, Issue 20)
Well I did say we were going on holiday this week but over the course of the last few days the destination changed. On Monday I was prepared to go to deepest, darkest California for a little bit of gothic emo but realised that that particular induction should come at another time. So instead I went back to my original plan. Now their ‘Rum, Sodomy and The Lash’ album has long been feted as their best work, but for me The Pogues best effort came with the album that followed it. You see I can’t remember how old I was but I was young and we had just been annihilated in a rugby match when a song came over the stereo which immediately filled me with two things: a primal urge to break shit and a massive shit eating grin. What line was it? “Twenty fucking five to one.” Yes, and so my love affair with ‘If I Should Fall From Grace With God’ began that very day, through wearing out the copy my dad made for me by overplaying all the way to the re-issued version which I have copied on my computer for fear of scratching the sacred disc. Now that’s not to say that ‘Rum’ is a bad album, because it’s not. But ‘…From God’ is just better in every way. The production is spot on, there is not a single line throw away for the sake of it, no wasted musical note. From the opening blast of the title track, through ‘Turkish Song Of The Damned’s demented solo, the political outrage in ‘Birmingham Six’ and the gorgeous ‘Lullaby Of London’ and ‘The Broad Majestic Shannon’ if you can find a fault you’re dead inside. That this album also inspired one of pop music’s finest moments (and best ever Christmas song) in ‘The Fairytale Of New York’ is testament to its finery, but it’s greatest moment comes not from Shane MacGowan but guitarist Philip Chevron. ‘Thousands Are Sailing’ was voted by me and Joey Sarajevo as the greatest Pogues song ever last Christmas and I don’t think that view will ever change, but it’s bittersweet anger at the fate of Irish refugees in America could be applied anywhere in the world. Plus it is also in my Top Three list of best songs ever. So do yourself a favour, and get yourself a copy. It might surprise you.