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thelowartgloominati-blog1 · 7 years ago

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Indigo’s 10 favorite albums

(as of 9/16/17)

Hello! If you’ve stumbled upon this post in error then I’m sorry. I tag my stupid personal crap for that exact reason, I don’t want anyone subjected to my stupidity unless they choose to be. Anyway, I listen to a lot of music (and I mean a LOT of music), and I’ve been thinking for some time about what my favorite albums really are today. It’s a really tough list to make, but I thought I’d commit it to record somewhere, if for no other reason then so in 10 years (presuming this account is still active) I can look back and think “wow... I had shit, shit taste in 2017...” Also, I’m gonna cheat and put these in no particular order. I think, gun to my head, I could probobly rank these albums from 10 to 1, but it would be so close that there would just be no point, and I wouldn’t really love album #1 THAT MUCH more then Album #10, they’re all just THAT GOOD to me.

Anyway, here they are:

Ladytron - Velocifero (2008)

This was my first Ladytron album and it is still my favorite. Part of that is because I think it is the best showcase of the band at it’s height of creativity, and partially because I first got this album during a very difficult time in my life and it helped get me through all that nonsense in a very non-insubstantial way, so I’ll always have a soft spot for it. The music itself is often genera-ed as synthpop, which isn’t inaccurate, but it doesn’t really conform to the conventions of that label. It’s got a little bit of new wave, a little bit of world music, a little glam rock, a few songs are even sung in Mira’s native Bulgarian which creates a really nice contrast with the english vocals. Brian Eno is quoted in saying that Ladytron are the best British group of this century so far, and I am inclined to agree.

Marilyn Manson - The Pale Emperor (2015)

Spoiler alert: this may not be the only time we talk about Mr. Manson on this list... in fact it will definitely not be. Anyways, I am a huge Marilyn Mason fan (if my URL wasn’t a big enough give away), but even I’ll admit that after Golden Age of Grotesque his discography did start to get a little spotty. Albums like High End of Low were a step in the right direction, but there was a clear drop-off in creativity that made itself present post about 2005... until this album. This album completely blew me away. The sort of industrial blues rock instrumental style combined with Manson’s very distinct flavor of vocals and lyrical themes, made for a fresh sound that really doesn’t sound like any of Manson’s other work, but is still distinctly his own. And lyrically it almost sounds like Manson is analyzing this figure both himself and the media have built himself into over his career, it feels like he’s taken a step back and said “shit... how did I get here?”. It’s just a one-of-a-kind album, and it makes me very optimistic for Heaven Upside Down.

Jack Off Jill - Clear Hearts, Grey Flowers (2000)

This is one of the most addictive albums I’ve ever listened to, and that’s fortunate because it also happens to be among the best. I will warn you, it is an angry album. This album is meant to be screamed along to while you are mad at the world (and for me that is very often). The experience is cathartic and, for me at least, very very satisfying. Tonality aside though, it features some of the best song-craft of any riot grrl or gothic rock album I’ve ever heard, and Jessicka Adams remains one of my all-time favorite vocalists (look up her other band “Scarling” too, different sort of music, but still very very good). This album is a blood and tear soaked, eye-shadow stained, unapologetically feminist masterstroke. I consider it the high point of JoJ’s work, and I really hope they make some more some day (I’m not holding my breath, but I can hope).

New Order - Substance (1987)

I’m cheating. I don’t care. Yes, it shouldn’t technically count since it’s just a compilation, but I love this record so damn much that I just couldn’t not include it. It’s almost detrimental because ever since I got this record I keep going for other New Order records and just thinking “Wait, why don’t I just throw on Substance?” and I inevitably do. The album is pretty much what it says on the tin; two disks, disk one is the 12 inch version of every NO single up to and including True Faith, disk 2 is the B-sides. No frills, no bullshit, no flash, just substance. But that was always part of New Order’s whole minimalist aesthetic, they didn’t need anything else, their music spoke for itself. As for why I like this album particularly (in addition to having the full version of “Ceremony” which incidentally is my favorite song), it stands as a fascinating retrospective of the progression of their career, the band of course forming from the remnants of Joy Division after Ian Curtis’ tragic death in 1980, starting from a post punk sound off those heels, and moving onto dance rock and later synth pop. Disk one showcases the gradient of styles in their single catalog, whereas disk two highlights the experimentation going on in their deeper cuts. Anyway, it’s my favorite compilation of all time, and if you haven’t really gotten into New Order, you can’t really ask for a better “starter kit” so to speak.

Depeche Mode - Black Celebration (1986)

Yeah, I know Violator and Music for the Masses are probobly the better albums from an “objective” standpoint, and I love those albums too, but this album IS Depeche Mode for me. Every. Track. Kills. It is one of the only albums I can both wake up to AND fall asleep to. This album was the musical direction started with Construction Time Again, and refined with Some Great Reward, perfected to a mirror sheen. It is a very cold album, of all the “black” albums out there, I’d say this is the blackest. It’s dark in both sound, subject matter, and tone. Alan Wilder, Marvin Gore, Dave Gahan, and Andy Fletcher were at their absolute top of their game with this record, the ultimate culmination of their start as an OMD-esque new wave act that wanted to be the next Kraftwork, into this fully formed mixture of synthpop with german industrial music and a dash of krautrock that became their own musical identity. And on a personal note, the synthlines and hooks on this record specifically just do something to my brain, it has a flavor that’s all it’s own, and it’s one of the unique records that, for me at least, just does not get old.

The Killers - Day and Age (2008)

This one is REALLY personal for me. The Killers are probobly the first band I really “discovered” on my own. Nobody really showed them to me, I just heard the music somewhere (I think I actually heard it on the radio at a video game store), I liked it, and I bought the record. But man, this album and me have gotten to know each other very very well over the years. During most of high school I would listen to this album, beginning to end, almost every single night. I just loved it that much. I know every word on this album, I know every note. It’s so ingrained in who I am at this point that I have difficulty imagining my adolescent development without it. I was such a new thing to me at that time, this very European flavor of alternative rock with some light keyboards in there for good measure. And honestly, while I like all the Killers albums to at least some extent, they never really recaptured the magic of this album for me personally. They started leaning more into the rock aspect of their music after this, and I like Battleborn just fine, but this album was just pure gold (again, for me). Day and Age is not the best album on this list, but it is an irreplaceable part of my soul.

David Bowie - Diamond Dogs (1974)

Of the vast legacy of records the late, great, David Bowie left us, Diamond Dogs is my personal favorite. I understand why some people may prefer Aladdin Sane, Low, or Ziggy Stardust, and those are incredible albums too, but in terms of raw musical quality, creativity, and originality, Diamond Dogs has to win it. This record was the swan song of Bowie’s glam rock era, with shades of the soul style he would move into after period with the Young Americans record (which I also really love). The intro alone makes this record for me (that “THIS AIN’T ROCK AND ROLL! THIS IS GENOCIDE!” line gives me chills every time), and it just gets better and better from there (Rebel Rebel, Sweet Thing, and the title track itself all rank among my favorite songs). It’s a very dark album thematically, taking a lot of inspiration from George Orwell’s novel 1984, which Bowie was somewhat obsessed with at the time. Bowie had initially actually wanted to do an adaptation of 1984 itself, but was unable to get the rights, which forced him to get creative, and I think the album is all the better for it. For me, this album is a concentrated chunk of exactly what made David Bowie, quite possibly, the greatest musician of the last century, he is dearly missed.

The Who - Quadrophenia (1973)

This is the album that has been my “Favorite” for longer than any other. My relationship with this album actually started, if you’ll believe this, with the cassette version. My family had just moved and my dad and I were unpacking boxes, when I opened up a box of cassettes, randomly picked out this one, recognized the band name and said something along the lines of “Oh, The Who, I know them, this tape any good?” my dad looked over and said “That tape isn’t just ‘good’ it’s one of the best albums ever made! You should take that and listen to it, see what I mean.” I did. My dad was absolutely right. Quadrophenia is, in my opinion, the peak of what a rock opera can be. Every song could be listened to out of context and enjoyed for what it is, but IN context each song becomes a piece of a bigger story about, among other things, the violence between rival gangs of Mods and Rockers in England in the early to mid 1960′s (and The Who’s cultural place at that time, as they were a very popular group with many of those Mods when most of the big riots took place). Of course I didn’t fully understand that at the time (I was like 12 when I got that tape), I could tell there was some kind of story going on through, and I spent so long listening to this album, over and over, trying to “figure it out.” The fact that the music itself rocked too was just icing on the cake. Anyway, I love this album, and if were forced to actually pick an all time favorite, I think this one might be it...

Marilyn Mansion - Mechanical Animals (1998)

...But if you ask me what album I like listening to the most, this is the one. I don’t like using this term, but for me, this album might be the closest thing any record has come to “perfect” from a musical standpoint. It ticks ALL my boxes. When I first listened to this album I was going to play it the background whaile I did something else, I don’t even remember what that was because I just ended up staring at the album art for the entire record because I was so entranced by the music. There is NOTHING else like it. It’s this amalgamation of glam rock, industrial rock, electronic music, it it completely genera defying; and this is the point in Manson’s carer when he really started to understand where his strengths as a vocalist laid, his voice is absolutely entrancing on this album, his best vocal work by far. On that note, before Marilyn Manson, I didn’t really “get” the importance of lyrics and vocals in music, I mean I liked them as another set of sounds to compliment the instrumental aspect, but I always thought of the voice as another instrument more then anything else. Manson changed all that for me, his lyrics add such an intrinsic element to all his music, and are such an important aspect of the flavor and tonality it takes, that if you took the lyrics out of ANY of his songs they would simply not be the same song any more. And I’d observed that on Antichrist Superstar as well, but this album was what really sealed the deal for me. It actually opened a lot of doors for me, it’s how I first started getting into David Bowie and Bauhaus because I heard they were big influences, which got me branching out to new generas of music I hadn’t really tried before, it’s become a very special album to me. The best way to describe this record is actually something I once read in a Youtube comment section for The Dope Show music video (no really): “This song makes me want to drink six red bulls and roll around in glitter.” Couldn’t have said it better myself.

The Cure - Disintegration (1989)

I know what you’re thinking, what could possibly follow that last wall of text? Disintegration. That’s what. This album is pure, non-diluted, magic. The Cure might actually be my favorite band, I legitimately can’t think of a record of theirs that I completely dislike (Wild Mood Swings is probobly the worst, and even it’s got some good songs), and this album was the absolute pinnacle of their career, for me. They’d brightened up from gloomy stuff for a few records (namely: The Top, Head on the Door, and Kiss Me, all of which I love as well), so it was about time to goth it up again. And goth they did! But it wasn’t just a straight return to the gloomy goth rock of the first few records, this was something fresh and new, but still dark in it’s own way. It incorporated elements of dream pop and new wave into the aforementioned gothic rock style they themselves had pioneered in years past. What resulted is a record that is, quite simply, dreamlike. The instrumentation just feels like something out of a dream, it’s almost indescribable. I don’t even really know what instruments make half of the sounds on this album, I’m not sure I want to, tangibility might lesson that quality of the music. And not only that, but the lyrics and the music, despite the very overt melancholic tone of the record, have a strange sweetness to them, an almost optimistic undertone underneath all the sadness and the depression. “Bitter-sweet” is probobly the best way I can think to describe the feeling this album teases out for me. It’s the feeling of laughing and crying at the same time, that’s the best I can do to describe how this music makes me feel. Rain is a constant theme on this record it’s referenced both explicitly and implicitly, and I think that’s the best environment to listen to this album in; wait for a heavy rain storm, preferably morning to midday, put the record on in the middle of the storm, and if you’re lucky then just as the last chords of the untitled ending track play you can look out your window, and see the sun shining through the clouds. That is Disintegration, to me.

Honorable mentions!

Pink Floyd - The Wall (loved it as a kid, but it’s so overplayed that I’m sick of it) Gorillaz - Gorillaz/Demon Days/Plastic Beach (way too hard to pick one Gorillaz album) Morrissey - Your Arsenal (only first heard it recently, possible future top 10) The Smiths - The Queen is Dead (ditto) Joy Division - Unknown Pleasures (haven't had enough time with it) Nine Inch Nails - The Fragile (very very close #11) Siouxie and the Banshees - Juju (probobly even with The Fragile) Chelsea Wolfe - Pain is Beauty (need more time with it) The Birthday Massacre - Violet (#12) Skinny Puppy - Last Rights (probobly even with Violet)

If you’ve read this far then... I don’t know why frankly but thank you for humoring me!

#Long post #Indigo stuff

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