#1001 albums

[1001albumsrated]

#25: Elvis Presley - Elvis Is Back! (1960)

Genre(s): Rock n Roll, Pop

He's back! I already said my piece on Elvis early on in this series with his self-titled debut, so I'm going to keep it short with this one.

What was he back from? The army! I imagine it's common knowledge, but Elvis very publicly was drafted and spent 2 years in active duty at the peak of his career. Despite the opportunity to join the Special Services as an entertainer, he opted to enlist as a regular soldier on a standard tour of duty. This was a brilliant move with the press, taking him from a figure who caused outrage in the 50s to a well-loved, warm-blooded American in the eyes of the public. He came back from deployment in West Germany to find that his fanbase was older and more conservative than it had been before, but still just as large or larger. However, his deployment also saw the traumatic death of his mother, and the beginning of his long history of prescription drug abuse that would eventually kill him.

After two years out of the game, Elvis was eager to get back to recording and develop a new sound. Elvis Is Back! finds him taking a poppier approach, more in line with the popular "Nashville sound" that would take over country music in the 60s. This sound suits him well, and feels a little more natural than his early rock n roll escapades. The band in particular is a highlight of this album for me. Boots Randolph (better known to most as The Yakkety Sax Guy, but in reality an all-star session player) is really on fire on this one. The tracklist is a little hit or miss, but the highlights are well worth it. I'd argue Elvis's version of Fever here is the best recording of his career (albeit frankly still a few rungs short of the Peggy Lee version).

I think there's an interesting alternate reality where Elvis could have pursued this sound further and done some interesting things with it. Instead he did a bunch of terrible movies for a decade, phoned in a bunch of soundtracks, quit performing live, burned out, started performing again 8 years later, and spiraled out over the next decade to eventually become the sad Mr. Las Vegas Revue man who would end up dead in the bathroom. I'm not a big Elvis fan, but he deserved better than what Colonel Tom gave him. Regardless, MUST you hear Elvis Is Back! before you die? I was on the fence with this one, but I'm leaning towards Yes purely on the strength of the band and the strength of Elvis's performance on Fever. I'd be hard pressed to give him two slots if I were writing the book, but I think there's a good enough argument here.

Next up: Miriam Makeba's self-titled debut!

[terrainofheartfelt]

my mother raised me on listening to the series of Rod Stewart sings the great american songbook so it was a while before i even learned that he was a rock guy first. but to me he's a crooner first!

[holdoncallfailed]

so many albums to catch up on -_____-

[ithinkineedamoment]

1. Neon Bible - Arcade Fire

1 of 1000 - Recordings

This project is almost 15 years in the making. Had I been wiser at the debilitating age of 12, I’m sure writing for the sake of writing would have come to me a hell of a lot more naturally than it does now.

Regardless of that, it looks like a 26 year old me is finally getting around to it.

At the tail end of 2010 - I was living in Ramstein, Germany where I found a copy of Tom Moon’s 1000 Recordings to Hear Before You Die. I (my dad) bought it for $15 and there I went becoming evermore insufferable thinking I’m the first person who ever discovered 10 by Pearl Jam. I quickly found two more versions of the “1000... before you die” list - movies and places. Armed with these three lists, I set out to conquer the “best” of the “best” and do obviously do it before I die.

Lofty goals.

But I’ll unpack that I’m sure in a later essay.

Since that time, I’ve plowed through 430 albums, 574 movies, and 142 places. But what of it? What does it matter? Is it enough to watch “Schindler’s List” in a double feature with “The Sound of Music” once and think I can fully process what I’ve experienced? Fuck no!

So in an effort to combat that insanity - I’m starting this project. I will write something on each and every entry of these lists. Will some be long? Absolutely. Will some be short? I hope so. But what is the point of consuming what is meant to be essentials of a lifetime and not give it a second thought? There is of course the argument that these lists are arbitrary and are actually heinously filtered through the lens of old, Cis, straight, white men and women. This idea will undoubtedly come up several if not a thousand times and I don’t think I can ignore it. What I’ve gained, however, from venturing down this yellow brick road of content is greater than the sum of its parts and that is what is interesting to me. How has inundating myself with this “canon” for most of my life shaped who I am and where has it led me?

So as an artist who is constantly stonewalled by the mere act of creation, I asked myself - where do I start? How does this project begin?

Randomly, obviously. I had Sergio scroll through the lists and pick whatever caught his eye.

Somehow, picking Neon Bible by Arcade Fire makes sense.

With this very first entry I begin with The Secret Life of Walter Mitty, the 2013 adventure comedy starring and directed by our pal Ben Stiller. For the uninitiated, this movie features Ben Stiller as Walter Mitty, an employee at Life magazine who is forced on a Carmen San Diego-esque adventure to find Sean Penn in the mountains taking pictures of snow leopards. And it ROCKS.

Everything from the settings to the humor to Adam Scott’s haircut screams the spirit of adventure. I remember sitting in the theater watching this movie having goose bumps down my arms as Mr. Stiller ran for that plane - reading the Life Magazine motto: “To see the world, things dangerous to come to, to see behind walls, to draw closer, to find each other, and to feel, that is the purpose of life.”

Fuck meeee, it’s good.

My depressed ass sat there smiling and crying - thinking of how much of the world was out there - all the places I’ve never been and the adventures I’ve never been on. It was enough to keep me going, even if it was only for the rest of the day.

The part that I really want to draw attention to, however, is the song that plays over the scene that I just mentioned. As the words of the motto appear hidden in the scenery, a sick fucking guitar lick kicks in. Suddenly, the absolutely bonkers Arcade Fire hit, “Wake Up” is blaring through the speakers and I am transcended. From their 2005 debut album Funeral, “Wake Up” has been included on all sorts of best songs of 2004, the decade, the century, of all time lists. With lyrics touching on the embarrassment of youth and the gift of growing up, it’s one of the most inspirational songs I’ve ever heard...

(until I listened to the soundtrack and realized that to SOME people, the song “Wake Up” was never in the movie and instead the absolutely DNA-altering Jose Gonzalez song, “Step Out” took its place. Dear Reader, please note it’s a detail I’m moving on from since these songs exist simultaneously in my head for the same reason and since I have Google I found out a licensing issue made us all watch a different version of the movie. Leave me alone).

Ever since that day - whenever I’ve embarked on a new journey, I’ve played these songs. When my plane took off from Germany back to the states, when I walked on my college campus for the first time, whenever I start a new job - they become the soundtrack to my life. “Children, Wake up” to “House on fire leave it all behind you”. It’s the music to my proverbial first steps into my new life.

So again, it’s fitting then, that the first recording, the very first essay of this project, is Neon Bible by Arcade Fire. Their sophomore album released in 2007, Neon Bible is an extrospective triumph of organs and religiosity exposing the world for what it truly is in this post-9/11 hellscape. Full of angst and persistent drums, it’s truly no wonder how this album crosses the boundaries of what is Indie and what is mainstream.

Relistening to the album this morning and thinking about this project, it almost makes too much sense to start here despite its randomness. Take for example the opening track, “Black Mirror” which in my sleep depravity I could have sworn was the intro to “Changes” by David Bowie. Here, Win Butler muses on the notion of the “black mirror”, an unrelenting echo of all the worst parts of ourselves and our world. Impossible to separate from the contemporary connotations of the words “black mirror”, we quickly realize this album is not interested in the joyous release of

Funeral. We’re confronted with screens, cameras, and content - the black mirror of a sleeping iphone or of a buffering video. What does it mean to see ourselves in that reflection? We’re beholden to it.

As we continue through the album, we’re bombarded with rising crescendos of emotions that dissipate uneasily like unlit waves at night - “Black Wave”. There is no comforting exaltation or resolution of discord. It’s isolating! Butler says so himself in “Intervention”: “We’ll go at it alone”. As the number of black mirrors around us increases, the time spent as an individual also increases. It’s interesting that so much of the imagery evoked in Neon Bible is that of the ocean - black, reflective, ever expansive. This brings to mind another song from a few years later: Los Campesinos!’s “The Sea is a Good Place to Think of the Future.” It should be obvious enough from the title as to why I think this is relevant. The rocking guitar of this jam sways back and forth like the crashing of waves as the lyrics wax poetic on what it means to be alone - “and all you can hear, is the sound of your own heart” - and how hopelessly small you can feel in front of an unchanging ocean before you - “A thousand years, no getting rid of me”.

This cynicism, this anger, I feel is what fuels this album. There is no joy in the face of the “Ocean of Noise” in front of us. There is no reconciliation at the church of the “Neon Bible.” There is nothing new I can say on our modern relationship with technology or media here that hasn’t been said already in a New York Times Op-ed. We are losing control of ourselves to an ocean of influences, media, thoughts, and content. We can scream, and we can shout, but the only escape - according to Arcade Fire - is the place where “No Cars Go”, the liminal space between turning off the lights and before we fall asleep. There, we are finally free from the world and all its power over us. This is the craven freedom that brings the album its only truly joyous song.

So I guess it’s now that I’ve realized the point of this essay - the point of this whole project. I’ve spent years of my life thumping the bible of a church that doesn’t care about me. These lists have become a religion - a system of other people’s beliefs in what should be exalted and glorified. I’ve consumed the content I was told to consume and thought what I was told to think. I don’t think that I’m alone in wanting to challenge “the canon” either. There will always be an unavoidable conflict between what is experienced and what should be experienced; I’m just no longer interested in justifying one over the other. I refuse to let the ocean carry me away. Just as Arcade Fire has ushered me into new phases of my life, Arcade Fire will now usher in a personal rebellion that hopefully will manifest itself across this project where I can Reflektor on what it means to be me.

I have no idea what this rebellion will look like - but my body will no longer be its cage.

[timefadesaway]

started 1982 on the list… stacked year kind of

[dancing-to-architecture]

I'M BACK? I'M BACK!

40 - Jimi Hendrix - Are You Experienced?

So happy to have an album that isn't going to be torture to get through. Almost every track on this album is on *at least* one playlist of mine.

Purple Haze-

An absolute monster opening riff leading into one of the better songs of all time.

So, i know i have Unusual Opinions regarding music and musicians, and one of my stronger ones that I have is that Jimi Hendrix was very likely bi.

"Hold on now!" come the cries of the boomers. "prove it! Prove that the always flamboyant, immaculate, WAY ahead of his time, extremely fashion-forward and highly passionate rock star who tragically died young might be bi!".

To which i say: "did you even hear a word of what you just said?" He straight-up says "excuse me while i kiss this guy" and the entire English-speaking world collectively went "no, no, that's not what he said, he said... Kiss... umm... the sky! Yeah, that totally makes sense!".

Except i used to have a live recording of this song where he very clearly said "while i kiss. that. guy." Keeping in mind that this was before Freddie Mercury or David Bowie could sit down for an interview and say something like "I'm openly bisexual, i fancy both men and women, to roughly the same degree." and the interviewer would then immediately say some dumb shit like :"yes, but why are you gay?"

In short: Jimi was bi, most music magazine interviewers are crap, they have been crap for a long time, bisexual erasure happens TODAY, so of course it would have happened 50 years ago, deal with it.

Manic Depression-

I absolutely love this song. Also, and more distressingly, I also absolutely relate to this song.

The solo is insane, the riff work is phenomenal, and the bass and drums are perfectly in the pocket. (Also, for what seems like a fairly simple drum beat, it's MUCH harder to keep that constantly-shifting time signature in your head than one would think.)

Hey Joe-

Is this the best song about "murdering your cheating spouse and then fleeing the country" ever written? I think so.

I mean, I'd put the Dixie Chicks' "Goodbye, Earl" up there, but I don't think she left her hometown after the murder.

At any rate, a psychotic psychedelic R&B classic.

Love or Confusion-

An anthem for all the autistic folks out there like myself who genuinely can't tell if a person is actively flirting with them or just being polite.

May This Be Love-

I will always be in favor of daydreaming like a lazy-minded fool.

Much more mellow than the earlier songs on the album have been, but Jimi still works in some outstanding guitar noodling.

I would bet money this song was an influence on Incubus's "Aqueous Transmission".

I Don't Live Today-

The biggest goddamn mood on the album, and how I feel almost every time I'm made aware of The News.

The Wind Cries Mary-

Another absolute classic song. Sad but beautiful.

Kurt Vonnegut's lament: "So it goes..." in song form.

When I was young, (for some reason) I thought he was referencing the Virgin Mary. Now, I think she might have just been more of "the one who got away".

Fire-

People of a certain generation and a specific level of culture will likely associate this song with Tia Carrera.

Either way, this song melts faces. The drummer is a goddamn maniac on this one.

Third Stone From The Sun-

I've never listened to this album on acid, but this song seems perfect for that exact mindset with the trippy, heavily-distorted vocals.

It kicks ass, though, don't get me wrong.

Foxey Lady-

People of a certain generation and a specific level of culture will likely associate this song with Dana Carvey wearing a flannel shirt tied around his waist.

(Look, if you haven't seen Wayne's World, you owe it to yourself to do so.)

Are You Experienced?-

The last line of this one (not necessarily stoned but beautiful) always made me figure that "being experienced" is a shibboleth for anything from "you smoke trees?" to "DO YOU KNOW ABOUT THE MACHINE ELVES?!"

and damn do I love the backwards drumming.

Stone Free-

Okay, Jimi, I'm pretty sure they DID realize they "were the ones who's square". That's why they would stare at your bizarre marching band leader outfits. (I'm absolutely Not knocking his bizarre marching band leader outfits, I honestly wish I had the panache to pull that kinda shit off.)

51st Anniversary-

Man, between Stone Free and this one right after, I'm guessing Jimi didn't think much of marriage, huh?

Idk, as a happily married man, this one just doesn't click with me.

Highway Chile-

This very easily could have been me after the army, if I had had a car that actually worked.

Can You See Me-

This one rings a bit hollow after all the earlier "yeah, baby, I'm out of here, see ya never, no strings on me" songs, just saying.

It rocks, nonetheless. Also maybe the only time "aww, shucks" had been uttered in a song that still goes this hard.

Remember-

See directly above, except the aww shucks part.

Red House-

And this one, right at the end, proves the hollowness of the last two broken hearted songs in my eyes.

"Girl left while I was gone? Welp. Fuck it, her sister was cute."

A monster of a blues track, regardless. One of my favorites, and that solo is INSANE.

Favorite Track: This is a tough one. A close race, but it's Purple Haze by a nose.

Least Favorite Track: Remember. It's barely about the girl in question! It's about the bird that won't sing and the dumped dude who won't eat because he has the sads.

Sorry about the long time since last time, full disclosure I got thoroughly addicted to a podcast called Kill James Bond, wherein three trans people discuss (and frequently skewer) the poster boy for toxic masculinity. It's fantastic.

[deianaracrush]

I dream of a world where an American came up with the idea to make the 1001 Albums list instead of a Brit.

[monsata]

2- 1001

Today's album: Alanis Morrisette - Jagged Little Pill (1996)

Another album where i know all the singles by heart, but had never heard the whole album all the way through, and I'm actually kinda mad at myself for that fact, to be honest.

This album brought me right back to junior high/high school, for good and ill. A weirdly large amount off memories seen to have one of the songs on this album as a part of the background, but then again it was pretty ubiquitous (33 MILLION copies sold worldwide, the singles were fucking EVERYWHERE).

Also, i don't think I've heard Head Over Feet since the late 90s and damn if that isn't one of the prettiest "i didn't think i wanted to be in love" songs out there.

I'm pretty sure I could have gotten a solid jump start on healing from some personal trauma had i heard "Perfect" ~28 years ago (which almost had me ugly-crying at work with how close to home it hit). Also holy shit, this album is almost 30 years old. Time ever marches onward, huh.

But yeah, every song on this album kicks ass to some degree, from the anxiously triumphant Right Through You to the beaten-down and traumatized yet still hopeful Forgiven, every track shines in its own way. There's no "polished singles mixed in with dull refuse" here, everything is solid and tight.

Favorite Track: There are a serious number of contenders here, but i think it's gonna be a tie between You Learn (the lyrics are every bit as true now as they were in '95, and goddamn that bass line is so smooth yet still funky as all hell) and Hand In My Pocket (the contradictory lyrics mixed with the overall sense of "things CAN still get better, god damn it, even if we have to drag them kicking and screaming" is basically "every day existence in the 2020's").

Least Favorite Track: ...i don't really have one?

Nothing on this album stands out as noticeably worse than anything else, which is honestly amazing. Every song could have been a single just as much as any other. This is a perfect album.

But, if i have to have a least favorite, I'll just say Ironic, and that's not a fault of the song as much as it is a condemnation of the radio industry in the 90s for playing it incessantly for like 5 years straight.

[knoetske]

leuke artjes voor weinig

#knoetske #tshirts #totebag #mugs #hoody #t-shirts #Phone cases

https://www.teepublic.com/user/knoetske-digital-art?sort=popular

[joecial-distancing]

Albums of the new year

MGMT Oracular Spectacular (2007): There’s a review of Spring Breakers that I really like, where the reviewer points out that it’s a movie that makes more sense now, in hindsight, because instead of getting Harmony Korine’s hot takes on America’s youth, you get a dead-on time capsule of a very specific time & place--a zeitgest, over now, that at the time didn’t seem aware of its own mortality.

I was thinking a lot about that when listening to Oracular Spectacular; I was actually pretty shocked to see it’s as old as 2007, because the era I vividly remember it from was 2011-2013 aka my college years aka a time when the hits from this were ubiquitous instead of showing their age. It’s another one of those where exactly half the songs on here got way too much exposure, while the other half you’ve never heard in your fucking life. Most of the unknowns were actually pretty fun, with the exception of “Youth” which was so awful it single-handedly knocks the whole thing down a rung of my esteem. Fun trip down memory lane!

UB40 Signing Off (1980): I’m slowly triangulating my reggae taste, for the most part this was pretty good, didn’t stand out very much, but a couple of the songs (”Signing Off”, “Reefer Madness”) are long instrumental pieces that I thought were really cool and engaging

John Lee Hooker The Healer (1989): I’ve learned through this project and after seeing Kingfish Ingram live that I really like blues, and this is tremendous stuff

Talking Heads Talking Heads 77 (1977): This was an interesting one for me; I consider myself a huge Talking Heads fan, but also their big deal albums for me all come from their middle/later years, like Remain in Light onward. So even having grown up with their stuff around, I never really checked out their earliest offerings.

All of which is to say I’m having a tough time with this one, I think I don’t like it as much as what came later, but I still like it a lot, but I struggle to get into the headspace of what I might think if I were coming to this completely cold

Madonna Ray of Light (1998): Outstanding side A existing in tension with kind of a dull side B. I dunno, this one really excited me at the start, but I didn’t end it with the same enthusiasm

Giving it another listen, am I crazy, of am I hearing shades of Moon Safari in this?

Oasis Definitely Maybe (1994): Knowing them only from “Wonderwall”, this was pretty good. At its best made me think about underwater cities, which is a winner for me.

iirc there’s like a fan feud between them and Blur? going off this, I think I’m probably Team Blur

Coldplay Parachutes (2000): Dire stuff, I was correct to give them a miss back in the day

Julian Cope Peggy Suicide (1991): I have no idea about who this guy is or his deal in general, but this was really interesting. Album length kind of uncalled for, but on the other hand a normal length wouldn’t have been enough to get lost in, which was very fun with this

Screaming Trees Dust (1996): Grungy, forgettable

The Smashing Pumpkins Siamese Dream (1993): Kind of mixed for me, fundamentally compelling, vocals have a weird quality that I’m kind of on board with, but also often the thing got boring

Nancy Griffith The Last Of The True Believers (1986): Spotify reactivated autoplay without permission, and it took me a solid hour to notice the album was done with.

Captain Beefheart & His Magic Band Safe As Milk (1967): Had to dig up a mono release because the stereo mixing was way too aggressive for headphones, but overall pretty fun weird folky mishmash thing

Soft Cell Non-Stop Erotic Cabaret (1981): “Tainted Love” is the thing they’re known for, but the actual highlight of this was “Sex Dwarf”. Otherwise forgettable Brit Synth Pop.

Pink Floyd The Piper At The Gates Of Dawn (1967): First time listening to a non-Dark Side Of The Moon or -greatest hits Pink Floyd album; since the last time either of them came up on the list, I head something about how Pink Floyd in general was kind of a predecessor to Radiohead; like even though the tone is different, both groups’ appeal lies in the sound mixing, and there’s audience overlap of people drawn to that.

Janelle Monáe The ArchAndroid (2010): This was fantastic! I feel like concept albums haven’t been in vogue for a good long while, so I really really appreciated how big she went with it here.

a-ha Hunting High And Low (1985): “Take On Me” is correctly the well-known song from them, but there were a few other gems in this

Pet Shop Boys Very (1993): Pet Shop Boys grates on me in general, and this one was done no favors by coming right on the heels of a-ha like that. I feel like by 1993 it was long past time to evolve past this kind of sound

Led Zeppelin Physical Graffiti (1975): Album went a bit too long. The number of songs was correct, lots to get lost in, and they go a lot of different places, but the songs mostly overstayed their welcome.

c. 2012 I was using Pandora a lot, and for some reason it was absolutely obsessed with serving me up instrumental covers of “Kashmir”. Which I guess was fine, just confusing.

Johnny Cash At San Quentin (1969): Johnny Cash is great and I like how much this benefits from being a live album, really shows off how charismatic of a performer he was

Devo Q: Are We Not Men? A: We Are Devo (1978): Foundational album of a low-key influential band, but not one of my preferred releases from them

Echo And The Bunnymen Ocean Rain (1984): More of a stereotypical ‘80s sound compared to Crocodiles, by which I mean less along the lines of synth pop, and more grandiose, lots of orchestral stings, etc. A Bigger sound that I think benefits them

Muse Black Holes and Revelations (2006): I expected to have a bunch of thoughts on Muse and whether their stuff has aged very well since my high school days when I was super into them, maybe some ideas on the distinctly Nolan-movie-style bombast, evaluating whether I still like it etc. What I thought about instead is how I never really listened very much to this as a full album, usually I just skipped between the singles. The big fuckoff Cosmic Arena Rock pieces show their age, but actually still land alright, but in between them are a whole lot of bad filler pieces that really drag the whole thing down

Orbital Snivilisation (1994): The type of techno that Strong Bad was making fun of

Arcade Fire Neon Bible (2007): Band continues to be mids

Dolly Parton Coat Of Many Colors (1971): I’m a tough sell on most post-50s/60s country music, and I liked this quite a bit

Tom Waits Heartattack And Vine (1980): Think I liked Rain Dogs better, he was sleazier for that

Tortoise Millions Now living Will Never Die (1996): I got excited when I realized it was going to be all instrumental, but it never really rose above passing the time alright

Arrested Development 3 Years, 5 Months And 2 Days In The Life Of... (1992): This is the most dated-90s shit I’ve heard in my life

[verian]

1001 Other Albums - 19 - Jimmy Smith - The Sermon

The Hammond organ, was, in my view, an awful instrument that makes an awful sound and they should all be collected in a big pile and burned. I was wrong about that, there are notable exceptions, such as the one played by Jimmy Smith who somehow makes it sound so damn cool. The Sermon is one of those albums that transports you to a dark, smoky club with a band on a tiny stage in the corner just…

[1001albumsrated]

#13: Miles Davis - Birth of the Cool (1957)

Genre(s): Jazz, Post-Bop, Cool Jazz

Welp, it only took 13 albums for me to screw up and skip an album by mistake. I went back and edited my prior posts to correct the numbering. Birth of the Cool is a pretty embarrassing one to skip too; like all self-respecting jazz listeners, I'm a big Miles fan, and had been looking forward to talking about some of his work (this is far from the last Miles album in 1001 Albums).

Despite being number 13 on the list, these are actually the earliest recordings in the whole book. Ironically, despite now being considered a classic jazz album and typically viewed as a single coherent album, Birth of the Cool is actually a compilation album comprised of 78 sides recorded by the Davis nonet for Columbia between 1949 & 1950 and later reissued together as an LP. This is more common in Miles' discography than you'd expect; many of his later albums were released a few years after the initial recording as his workflow shifted towards recording long sessions with a single band and then producing multiple albums from a few related sessions.

At the time of recording Miles was coming hot off his breakthrough success as part of Charlie Parker's band. These sessions were some of his first recordings as bandleader and established him as a pioneering voice in jazz. The cool jazz sounds on these sessions stand in stark contrast to the fast-paced technical showcases heard on most bebop albums at the time. He'd already made a name for himself as someone concerned with the aesthetics and timbral quality of sound with his unique approach to trumpet playing as part of Bird's band, focusing on playing "straight" with a pure, unembellished sound (this is a stark contrast to trumpet playing at the time, which had a strong Louis Armstrong influence with a highly embellished approach), and the Birth of the Cool sessions cemented it. The arrangement and instrumentation was highly unusual at the time (a nonet with a french horn!) but was crafted with intention to create the specific timbral textures present on the recording. This kind of thinking was mostly unheard of in jazz at the time (and arguably in music at large), with the main focus of most groups being the technical elements of the performance rather than the aesthetic ones. This approach is one of the few consistent elements in Davis' long, storied, strange career. While the aesthetic goal often changed as his sound evolved, the focus was a constant one that I personally believe is largely responsible for consistently setting his music apart from the crowd over the years.

The Birth of the Cool sessions also started to overarching trend of constant change in Miles' career. He was always trying to find the next new thing, and was never satisfied with resting on his laurels. It's as evident here as it would be throughout his career: by the time Birth of the Cool was compiled and released as an LP, Miles had already moved on to innovating hard bop, and was only a few years from pioneering modal jazz with Kind of Blue, which would turn the genre completely on its head once again. Frankly, most artists would have never left the immensely successful and influential sound of Birth of the Cool, but by the time it was released Miles was already honing in on the NEXT next big thing. To me, what's what made Miles different from the majority of his peers and earned him his legendary status today as one of jazz's finest composers and bandleaders. If you follow the careers of the other top jazz players in history you'll see similar trajectories of never being satisfied with stagnancy (artists like John Coltrane, Wayne Shorter, Herbie Hancock, and Sun Ra all come immediately to mind; incidentally 3/4 of those listed had large roles in various iterations of Miles' bands).

Another innovative element here was that the nonet was racially diverse and integrated. I need to remind you, this was in 1949. Brown v Board wouldn't come to pass for another 5 years, and the South was still steeped in segregationist Jim Crow thinking. While things were becoming more integrated in the jazz scene, racial tensions in the US were still high at the time and it was very uncommon to see a mixed group like this, both due to the tensions of the time and due to the challenging logistics of touring with such a group (particularly in the South). Miles always said that he simply picked the best players for the job when selecting band members for a session. In this case, he was heavily inspired by modern classical music and found that many white players played that style more to his liking. You could write a whole essay on the topic of racial politics in jazz at this time and I simply don't have the room in a Tumblr post to give the topic the time it deserves, but I'd be remiss not to put the band and recordings in the context they existed in.

Anyways, it probably goes without saying, but yes you MUST hear Birth of the Cool before you die. It's a spectacular listen, and a highly influential one. Also of note, it's a good starter album if you're just getting into jazz and don't know where to begin (I'd also recommend Kind of Blue, but we'll talk more about that when we get there). It has enormous music depth, but is highly accessible to a non-jazz listener.

For the nerds: I listened to this one in hi-res on Qobuz, purely because I was on a roll at the time and didn't feel like going to the other room and throwing the CD in my main system.

Next time (skipping ahead chronologically, because I fucked up and skipped this album): Jack Takes the Floor, for real this time!

[terrainofheartfelt]

a Song of All Time

[smashhitreviews]

Beauty and the Beat, the Go-Gos. 1981

Smash Hits Review

“It's musically competent, reasonably danceable, harmless, melodic...and dull...Nothing rears above the polite mediocrity, nothing reaches out to grab the ear. The Go-Gos are really nothing to go gaga about.” 5/10

Dave Rimmer

1001 Albums to Hear Before You Die

"The album is an intoxicating mix of punk attitude and pop sensibility."

[ithinkineedamoment]

2. Paris, France

1 of 1,000

I feel like it’s way too early in this process to even fully begin to unpack this one, but here we go. 

Realistically, it makes sense. Barely a month ago, Sergio and I got off a plane from attending the 2024 Summer Olympics in France. It was a once in a lifetime event that I had been planning and replanning tediously since January 2023. There were tickets to be won, booked out hotels, over priced planes, and a whole lot of unknowns. 

Sergio had never been to Paris or France. I, on the other hand, grew up no less than 20 minutes from the French border, in Germany, for my teenage years. Birthdays, long weekends, grocery shopping, flea marketing - it’d all happen in France. So in planning this Tour de France, it was less about me, and more about what I thought was worth seeing in France for Mr. Man’s first time. I stressed over every detail - was it worth going out of our way to Mont Saint Michel? Will he like staying in this neighborhood in Marseille or should I pick somewhere closer to the water? I begged and pleaded for his engagement for over a year and piecemealed together a plan. So much needed to be figured out, but not for a single minute did I worry about our weeklong stay in Paris. 

It was September 25th, 2010 and our high speed train from Kaiserslautern had just arrived in Gare Montparnasse. My family had barely been in Europe for two months and there we were, dressed in our American best pretending we were citizens of the world. The photos of this trip are hilarious given that these were before years of military propaganda and attempts at assimilation (our military TV, AFN or Armed Forces Network, showed several commercials threatening terrorist attacks if you left your military base looking or acting like an American). 

Regardless, we were there for one day to celebrate Mom’s birthday. It had not been an easy move to Europe. Over the past few months, Dad returned home from a year long deployment and he and I quickly fell into a quasi-estranged relationship. Weeks later, we found ourselves in Germany living in a concrete box on a military base, ostensibly, in the middle of nowhere. Mom would lash out, leaving scuffs and indents in the walls of the staircase that would never be fixed. The four of us were each other’s only support system, changed by the reintroduction of Dad to the mix after his yearlong absence. Who we were to each other and how we operated as a family unit was actively being rewritten in a militaristic world we had always been a part of but never formalized. It’s been 14 years, but I don’t remember we were ever happy in those early months. So stepping off that train felt energizing. Here we were in Paris - Paris! We were finally fulfilling the promise we were told of travel and seeing the wonders of Europe. It felt like the pain of getting to this point was finally paying off. 

Truth be told, I barely remember anything from this specific trip to Paris. Scenes of this trip playback like the photographic screensaver that used to run on the family computer. But there would be more trips. A Memorial Day foray through the Louvre and the Gardens of Versailles with family friends, a spring break stay at EuroDisney, the three of us zipping through the Metro to catch sights of Mom running her first and only half marathon, a couple days here, an evening or two there - all these visits from our time in Europe exist in my mind as a living map of the city. “Remember when we were here last?” we would ask each other, only to respond “of course! New years 2011,” while standing under the Eiffel Tower. Each trip was significant enough to be noteworthy, but when played back over and over again, they lose their place in time.

This timelessness, I feel, is the point. When you’re sneaking down the Cour du Commerce Saint-Andre, just off the Boulevard Saint-Germain on the Left Bank, it makes sense. The stories you hear of winding streets flush with candlelight, the chattering of wine glasses and the clinking of vape pens against the metal tables, and somewhere, a street performer playing an Edith Piaf song because beauty is innate in every Parisien (and not because they’re catering to a tourist economy) - all of this combines to reaffirm your preconceived notions. Some find it romantic, others, a caricature to be avoided at all costs. And yet, we visit - experiencing a city designed to be beautiful by people who inspired its destruction.  For every cathedral vault, there is a riot and barricade, for every newly built city wall, there was a force itching to invade. 

In the fall of 2019, in the “blissful” months of post-college “freedom” that usually consisted of downing a bottle of wine by myself in bed watching old seasons of “The Amazing Race”, I felt the need to leave. I had some extra cash, not because my job paid well, but because I was paying next to nothing to live in the converted living room of a shared apartment with two former classmates. It was lonely - feeling as if you were entering adulthood having spent the past four years destroying yourself for a chance at success. So I planned a trip that I knew would hopefully spark some joy into my life. I booked my first solo trip to Paris. 

Except it wasn’t solo. Within a few weeks of booking, I reconnected with Rick for the first time in months. I don’t remember who reached out first but after my fallout with Sergio, it felt harmless enough. While sipping a margarita at some restaurant in Midtown New York, long since closed, we caught up. He pummeled me with questions about what I was doing, where I was living, who I was fucking - convincing himself that the two classmates I was sharing an apartment with were my two boyfriends. I sipped on my drink and wondered what I was even doing there. It was just good to see him. 

Eventually, we parted ways, tearfully. Texts became more frequent and the fear of repercussions dwindled and I mentioned that I was going to France - had booked a whole trip to go to Paris and see other places in the country I had never been to as a treat for myself. I never asked him to or made any indication it was something I wanted, but the next thing I knew, I was planning a trip for two. It’s funny how organizing a trip with someone who has money makes the entire planning process significantly easier. I didn’t complain, but knew that it was most likely a disaster in the long run. 

A few days before the trip, Rick visited the doctor with a horrendous cough. He was told it was the flu and it’d pass, but it certainly wasn’t contagious anymore (Covid was knocking at the door). He could walk only steps at a time before needing a break and was constantly breaking out in a cold sweat. He was adamant that he’d still go on the trip. So there we went. 

The trip was emotionally brutal for the most part. Traveling to Paris with him felt like trying to recover from alcoholism in a winery. Insane on my part. But he was sick! He couldn’t do anything. I’d leave the hotel and roam for hours just to return back to sweaty and upset Rick. I didn’t blame him. He could barely talk yet wanted to know everything, he couldn’t walk, but wanted to experience the city. I felt bound by some duty to give up the things that I wanted to do to support a man who I had loved through the city of it. Suddenly, the sights and sounds of the city I had treasured as the escape from my life through my youth felt like a prison. I was there but I shouldn’t be, I wanted to grow but I couldn’t. I was reminded of all the ways I would minimize my existence growing up in my parents house and performed them with wine stained lips - filling the silence while refusing to acknowledge my part in it. I missed him and I missed his company. I still do now, at times. However, that shouldn’t have been the reason I let him come on this trip. A part of the depression and mess I had been recovering from in New York was now sitting across from me at the dinner table in a foreign country I wasn’t supposed to be in. He wanted so desperately for me to love him again, and I knew a part of me did, but to admit that would have destroyed what was left of me. 

So on the day before we were to leave Paris for our next city, I set off on the day’s journey. I remember the streets being quiet as I crossed the Île de la Cité. In December, the cold hangs over the city like a layer of frost no amount of warmth could penetrate. The buildings, the sky, everything seems a bit paler than it should be. I roamed and I roamed, climbing to Montmartre and realizing I had never been there. Ascending the winding streets and into Sacre Coeur, my mind flicked through the rolodex of bad ideas that could save me from my current situation. After cresting the hill, I found myself going west and eventually to Montmartre Cemetery. The sun was peeking through the grates of the Pont de Caulaincourt while the trees’ remaining leaves swirled down to their crunchy grave. It was cold, and it was quiet. 

I took to the uneven cobblestones that lined the cluttered pathways of the cemetery. The tombs and mausoleums crowded each other like the misshapen buildings of a neglected city. I was alone in this necropolis, the city of the dead.

At a certain point, surrounded by the silence, I found a bench under a Maple tree.  I don’t remember how long I sat there, sipping in the silence as one might a Vin Chaud, letting it numb me. Hector Berlioz, Edgar Degas, thousands of others all lay in their final resting place around me at peace and I was living. Why couldn’t I be at peace? Why did I have to be living? Living with the regret of not being strong enough to save myself, with the want of falling asleep there in the cold and praying I’d awaken to a different life. I had loved so hard and loved so deeply, but could never seem to love correctly. I gave everything I had to everyone else, and with everyone gone - I had nothing left. 

Almost in response to my isolation, a small black cat emerged quietly from the untrimmed brush that twisted between the two tombs in front of me. The only other sign of life in the cemetery curled their way to the top of the tomb and pawed gently at the leaves, clearing a place to rest. I don’t remember whose tomb it was but time seemed to collapse. It didn’t matter whether the interred died 100 years ago or 500 years ago. Side by side, they were all equal in death. And we, the cat and I, were there now.

In the epilogue of Alistair Horne’s Seven Ages of Paris, which I only read this past year, he muses on the significance of the French words for love and death being so similar. Paris, to me, had always been a city of history, of art, of good food, and of love. It was an escape - a vision of a better world, a better life. It was never anything real. Love, as I knew it growing up, was using and being used - it wasn’t care. Paris was a city I used. Now death - death I could understand. Growing up in the military, it surrounded me. I begged for death several times before I should have. Death is inevitable and everyone will know it. All around Paris are markers of this knowledge - these memento mori. Cemeteries, catacombs, monuments, statues - all in remembrance of those who have come before us and had made this city beautiful. It is on the mounds of the dead that the sprouts of new love and life are able to be shared. It is in death that a tomb can become a bed to a sleepy cat. 

I can’t say I bounded from the cemetery, energized by the notion of life. I did not run back to Rick and take him in my arms and promise myself to him forever. I knew that France would be the last time I would ever see him and as of today I’ve yet to be proven wrong. For the rest of the trip, I treated the death of our connection with patience and care, lulling it to sleep as you would a child. I knew that I could not give more of myself to him and I had to stop pretending that I could. What mattered more now was remembering that I will, in fact, die having lived a life for myself. I knew what was left of me was worth saving. I might have felt there was nothing left for me to give, but I could always create more. I couldn’t die without ensuring I left even the smallest bit of beauty behind. 

Now, almost 5 years later, I’m freshly returned from another stint in France, this time with Sergio. We still have never discussed what happened between Rick and I or what happened in France, and I don’t know if we ever will. As I stated at the beginning, we were there for the Olympics and I cannot overemphasize how incredible it was. Yes, most of the city was empty save for the hordes of tourists, but who am I to complain? We were tourists too. It was exciting to return to a city I felt I had history with and not for the city’s sake. Seeing Sergio witness the city with fresh eyes and fresh criticism brought the city to life. In walking hand in hand down the banks of the Seine, it didn’t matter that we were passing the Musée d’Orsay. It mattered that we were there together. We had multiple, lengthy conversations about the struggles of our relationships and the ways we don’t show up for each other while also unpacking complicated feelings of family and home. It was hard, tiring, emotional - but the person I was 5 years ago could never have done so. My parents, who were also attending the games, made guest appearances a few times during our trip. It’s worth noting that shortly after that cemetery visit in 2019, my parents and I fell out of touch - no longer on speaking terms for years. Yet, here we were, back in the city that started it all in 2010, each willing to give Paris and each other another chance. 

On our final night in Paris, as the Olympics drew to a close, Sergio and I grabbed a bottle of wine and made our way to the Jardin du Carrousel. The Olympic cauldron, as made famous by the fact it wasn’t a fire, was a giant hot air balloon whose basket was a ring of lights and smoke that would lift into the air at sunset and shine over the city and all the various arenas. I posited that it was most likely because the first manned hot air balloon ride that brought man to the skies back in the 1800s had taken place in Paris. Either way, we stayed in the garden commenting on the past 16 days of travel and what it meant to each other. For him, an opportunity to discover and appreciate a history he had always known but had strong prejudice against due to France’s imperialism (fair, lol). And for me, an appreciation of feeling present in a place with a history that had not always been easy. Home is a concept that I struggle with, but sitting there with him, it felt like home. 

The sun set and the crowd around us leapt to their feet as the giant balloon in front of us unceremoniously slid into the sky. The empty wine bottle laid at our feet as the two of us stayed seated. The city had never felt so magical and this love had never felt so beautiful. 

[timefadesaway]

i finished the 70s 😁 upcoming listens for 1980!!