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Post by pacinoyes on Jan 18, 2020 11:52:08 GMT
See No Evil - Television - Marquee Moon
Kicking off an utterly unfuckwithable first album side (the 2nd side starts to slip slightly in comparison). It begins with a demand "What I want, I want now!" and at every other point it becomes vague in what exactly the singer wants "I get your point, you're so sharp!" or a sung "Get it?" merely makes the meaning less readable.
Musically the song is far better played, constructed and executed than any of their peers would have even thought to try - you'd have to wait until post-punk a couple years later to find anyone with their chops and formal technique.
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Post by pacinoyes on Jan 19, 2020 18:38:03 GMT
The Revolution Will Not Be Televised - Gil Scott-Heron - Pieces of Man
Ferocious (and funny) opener and it'll sound just as good in 2071 as it did in 1971 and no matter how many try to copy it or appropriate it - black or white or other..........they can't match it.
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Post by pacinoyes on Jan 20, 2020 17:39:46 GMT
Roadrunner - The Modern Lovers self-titled The brilliance of Roadrunner - indeed of this album/band itself is in how simple and direct it is - the count-off goes to six - who counts off to six? Jonathan Richman who even at this early age showed a fundamental understanding of contradictory behavior and how that formed a bands personality - he was Cale/Reed all at once. The song lists Massachusetts places and his love for them - they are the most Boston band ever in this way - and the fact that the band is speeding through the town while identifying it makes your listening to it as if you are part of the band too - you are in the setting. He likes girls, and he says so, he likes the radio, he says that too. Bye, bye...
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Post by The_Cake_of_Roth on Jan 20, 2020 19:54:38 GMT
Roadrunner - The Modern Lovers self-titled The brilliance of Roadrunner - indeed of this album/band itself is in how simple and direct it is - the count-off goes to six - who counts off to six? Jonathan Richman who even at this early age showed a fundamental understanding of contradictory behavior and how that formed a bands personality - he was Cale/Reed all at once. The song lists Massachusetts places and his love for them - they are the most Boston band ever in this way - and the fact that the band is speeding through the town while identifying it makes your listening to it as if you are part of the band too - you are in the setting. He likes girls, and he says so, he likes the radio, he says that too. Bye, bye... It's probably meant to be part of an 8-count (2 measures of 4/4 meter), but since the song actually begins mid-measure, the initial count only goes to 6. Similar to when you hear "5-6-7-8" at the beginning of some songs before they start, but in this case where the music begins on "7," just saying "5-6" would maybe be too short of a cue.
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Post by pacinoyes on Jan 21, 2020 9:45:24 GMT
No Reply - The Beatles - Beatles For Sale
In December 1964 there were certain obvious facts every person (with ears) could agree on - The Beatles were the world's biggest and best band - the first time that ever meant anything for a band at least.
But look at the album cover (below) where they all literally look like they're about to cry......look at the song titles - "I'm A Loser" (wtf), "I Don't Want To Spoil The Party" (wtf!!) heck the album title itself "For Sale" may have been called "Whoring Ourselves For Money" - so Punk Rock all this was in 1964 that The f'n Replacements named their live album "For Sale" too.
"No Reply", a song about being ignored, passed over, cheated on for Godsake (!) gets this party started - invents alternative Rock in many ways, gives a whole concept for existing at all to Big Star (among others) and is the most cynical, complex and darkest song they had written ...........well until 1965 at least.
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Post by pacinoyes on Jan 21, 2020 15:47:26 GMT
"45" Elvis Costello - When I Was Cruel
"Here is the song to sing, to do the measuring"
Costello wrote this song which (profoundly, coherently) links a 45th birthday to 1945 and World War II, a 45 caliber gun and 45 record on the turntable. In the hands of a lesser writer that's a cutesy conceit - in his it's something like a deeply affecting 3 minute short story ..........and his best opener in ages.
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Post by pacinoyes on Jan 22, 2020 11:21:39 GMT
Just Like Honey - Jesus and Mary Chain - Psychocandy
An absolutely classic 80s album but yet it's misunderstood - most people think of it as a 1986 album but it came out at the end of '85 which makes it far more important. When this record dropped there was no comparable British band using the guitar this much and for such intoxicating, hypnotizing effect.
The opener, a classic in itself, in that lyrically it was nothing like The Smiths who themselves were a guitar band too - but the JAMC were their dangerous, more erratic mirror - they really didn't give a fnck about The Smiths "poetry" or that bands guitar prowess musically either - as long as it felt good in the moment that was fine with them and that went for their drugs too.
They'd rather evoke New Order's Ceremony - and drench it in feedback just to piss everybody off.
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Post by pacinoyes on Jan 23, 2020 12:22:46 GMT
Sonic Reducer - The Dead Boys - Young, Loud and SnottyLook, almost everyday I post a song in some way associated with Punk Rock - I do that because when I was 8 years old - the average age of this board I believe - Punk Rock saved my life so I try to pay it forward This song was one of those songs that was famous before it was ever recorded - the original by Pere Ubu was legendary and played and covered live - but The Dead Boys got the co-writer in their band and got it down on vinyl first. The Dead Boys had a genuine star singer and lots of energy but weren't THAT good - they weren't remotely close to The Heartbreakers or Ramones or several others - but this song is maybe the greatest single song associated with Punk at all. The one that kicked off their debut, and when you first hear it - well it's like the first time hearing My Generation or I'm Eighteen - it's that good.
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Post by pacinoyes on Jan 24, 2020 10:45:28 GMT
Respectable Street - XTC - Black SeaIt'd be hard to find many opening songs as stunningly complicated as this one - sardonic and satirical but that draws blood in a way that rivals Ray Davies - it's no mere joke. Insanely catchy and upbeat with complex songwriting structure (ever see a band try to cover it ) while describing the most horrible things and produced in a booming, anthem-style way - it almost dares you to completely misunderstand it. XTC at their best made some of the best singles in Rock history and Respectable Street is the best single they ever cut - it addresses class and hypocrisy in a way that's fully equal of the great Common People .........and more than a full decade ahead of it too.
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Post by pacinoyes on Jan 26, 2020 17:32:59 GMT
Sunday Morning - Velvet Underground - Velvet Underground & Nico
This song, gentle and lovely but also ominous and sinister was meant to evoke the feeling of being on the street on Sunday morning - coming down from a high, while seeing people going to church. That vague feeling of uneasiness and guilt and knowing - it started their classic debut in an unsettling way.
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Post by pacinoyes on Feb 8, 2020 19:54:32 GMT
Bob Dylan - Subterranean Homesick Blues - Bringing It All Back Home
20 years of schooling and they put you on the day shift....the best song he ever wrote.....until you get further on Side 1 and then on Side 2 and then the next album and well you know the rest......
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Post by pacinoyes on Mar 4, 2020 17:03:45 GMT
Begin the Begin - REM - Life's Rich Pageant
REM's best ever album opener - next to Radio Free Europe - and a song that hinted at a sound they never really explored too much - the frantic, sloppy rocker like Pretty Persuasion or maybe Can't Get There From Here. As The Replacements and Husker Du - REM's version of rivals - the 80s Stones and the Who to REM's Beatles (um, sort of) swiped elements of REM's existing sound - this was REM swiping their rivals back.
It's one of their best tracks of this era - it's funny too nicking Alice Cooper's School's Out joke - that sense of humor slowly left them.
Answer me a question - I can't itemize I can't think clear, you look to me for reason It's ......not ....there, I can't even rhyme!.....
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Post by pacinoyes on Mar 6, 2020 20:13:43 GMT
The Beatles - Come Together - Abbey RoadHave you noticed my posts have become more aggressive & confrontational today? Ranting at this boards treatment of Jessica Chastain and such? Sorry but as long as I'm at it .........I always considered Abbey Road a bit overrated. The first side has at least 3 filler songs - Oh Darling!, Maxwell's Silver Hammer and Octopus's Garden - I mean they're fine but they are filler..........the 2nd side has a medley of gibberish....it's great in a way but gibberish. But when it's at its best like the opener - by John, of course - it could be great and weirdly memorably quirky and right - "shoot coca-cola" etc. You notice every word, every instrument, every vocal inflection, the space between the sounds and as in all of their very best songs - you can't picture anyone else doing it.
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Post by pacinoyes on Apr 1, 2020 19:40:47 GMT
The Stooges - "1969" - The Stooges
For people who give The Stooges "credit" for inventing Punk - I could give other arguments - but its very sensibility in American Punk at least is in the first line of the first song on their first album.
"It's 1969 ok, war across the USA, another year for me and you, another year with nothing to do" - no protest, no involvement, no sense of country or community - almost nothing in 1969 besides Gimme Shelter evoked this vibe - and it still sounds scary af especially on the fade out where Iggy Stooge/Pop is howling like nothing so much as a feral animal.
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Post by pacinoyes on Apr 7, 2020 20:33:33 GMT
Spoon "Small Stakes" - Kill The Moonlight
First of the 3 superb albums in row (all with dynamite openers) - this totally sums up their minimal structures and wit "Can't think big, can't think past 1 or 2!".....dissing everyone - like a good band should - and it also sounded like Spoon kinda hated their indie-Rock ghetto overall even.......and once they stopped wanting to please everyone they became infinitely better too.
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Post by pacinoyes on Apr 14, 2020 23:56:56 GMT
Chris Bell - I Am The Cosmos - I Am The Cosmos (album)
I've confessed this a lot but I never really got Chris Bell - I don't like the first Big Star album nearly as much as others do because his songs don't match Alex Chilton's imo......... and when he left they got a lot better too......but this opener from his one solo album is not only his very best song, it's a pop masterpiece, he sings it great and it sounds like a song that Alex Chilton could have written too.
Sometimes it's great to be wrong....
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Post by pacinoyes on Aug 27, 2020 10:05:07 GMT
Glad To See You Go The Ramones - Leave HomeOn each of the Ramones first 3 classic albums there's a moment where you fear - or they literally tell you - that the dysfunction they're describing becomes well.......homicidal. On albums 1 and 3 it's there in 53rd & 3rd and (hinted at in) We're A Happy Family. Well on the 2nd record - they opened the album and closed it with songs about murder and on this opener they never sounded so happy about it.
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Post by countjohn on Aug 27, 2020 17:10:13 GMT
This song has a great moment when the powerful strings come in right after he says "god-tamers" (still an audacious line in the conservative 80's). I specifically remember hearing that for the first time when I was first listening to the album and I knew it would be a great album right then. It takes two of my favorite genres in New Wave and Beatles-esque barque pop and combines them into a original sound. I've never heard anything quite like it before and this song along with The Killing Moon encapsulate it. Forward energy and defining the sound of the album are the two things you want from an opener so this is perfect.
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Post by pacinoyes on Aug 28, 2020 11:10:00 GMT
Cheap Trick Surrender, Heaven Tonight
I always talk about "Power Pop" which is sort of like obscenity - it's hard to define it but you know it when you see it. Well this - the opener of their 3rd album - is the same way - it's a classic of Power Pop and you know it when you hear it .........and like all good Power Pop it underperformed naturally. It's an example of how to make this sound really big even though when they recorded it they weren't big yet....... and it promptly died on the charts at #62 from an album that only got to #48 too.
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Post by DaleCooper on Aug 28, 2020 20:20:23 GMT
Well, the obvious answer here for me is Shine On You Crazy Diamond as it possibly is the best song ever made. But I want to give a shout out to Dancing With The Moonlit Knight as well, a stunning opener to a great album
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Post by Mattsby on Sept 13, 2020 23:51:52 GMT
First song from his first studio album. Amazed by what he accomplished in his 20s with the first bunch of albums, masterpiece songs, and while some as beautiful you'll ever hear he could also be very witty and very disarming especially on the live ones like Old Quarter ('77) and Jester Lounge that was recorded in '66 but unreleased 'til '04.
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Post by Deleted on Sept 14, 2020 1:46:29 GMT
Another one for me, one of the most ambitious and interesting artists ever.
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Post by pacinoyes on Apr 18, 2022 19:19:34 GMT
Fontaines D.C. Big from Dogrel
What a way to start their brilliant (so far) career......
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Post by The_Cake_of_Roth on Apr 18, 2022 22:01:04 GMT
Ferociously funky first song off their best album, which marked a leap forward for RHCP in terms of their sound and musicianship. Flea said he tried a more restrained approach to his bass work on this album... but sometimes the best bass grooves are simple ones. Great interplay among the rhythm section overall on this song, like when the drums drop out for a second during the verses, allowing the syncopated descending bass line to really pop, or when everything drops out but the bass at 3:41 and then the drums reenter explosively. Love the brief pause at 3:11 where everything stops so that the reentry feels more aggressively forceful (people don’t talk enough about how much silence can be effective in music).
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Post by countjohn on Apr 19, 2022 1:14:54 GMT
Taxman- Revolver No Action- This Year's Model Accidents Will Happen- Armed Forces (two great ones for EC) Silver- Ocean Rain Airbag- Ok Computer
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