Wednesday 4 May 2011

April 2011 - Popular Music

Right, time for the next exciting instalment!

Tori Amos
  • Under the Pink
  • Boys for Pele
  • Scarlet's Walk
  • Abnormally Attracted to Sin
  • Audience bootlegs - Phoenix 19 November 2001, San Diego 20 November 2001 (1st show)
The Badloves - Get On Board
Boom Crash Opera - Boom Crash Opera
Kate Bush - Lionheart
Kate Bush - The Sensual World
Toni Childs - House of Hope
City on a Hill (project) - Sing Alleluia
Frou Frou - Details
Patty Griffin - Downtown Church
Incubus - Make Yourself
Elton John - Madman Across the Water
Nik Kershaw - The Works
Nik Kershaw - To be Frank
Joni Mitchell - Night Ride Home
Moloko - I Am Not A Doctor
Roisin Murphy - Overpowered
Powderfinger - Vulture Street
Radiohead - The King of Limbs
Seal - Seal [1991]
Seal - Human Being
Something for Kate - Beautiful Sharks
Sting - The Dream of the Blue Turtles
Thrice - The Alchemy Index (complete)

So much music (considerably more than last month), and so little space in which to discuss it...

Abnormally Attracted to Sin officially becomes the first album to make multiple appearances, although it's by no means the first album I listened to more than once.

I've already noticed this blog affecting my listening in ways I didn't intend.  Suddenly I find myself thinking 'oh, I can't listen to that, I listened to it last month'.  Well, why the hell not?  It's as if I think people will be bored or roll their eyes if the list has repetitions.  Whereas I seem perfectly happy to listen to something multiple times within a month, because 'no-one will know'.

The new Radiohead album happened to be an April 1 purchase.  Yes, I waited for it to come out on CD, I'm quaint like that.  I don't know exactly how many times I listened to the album, but it was in fairly high rotation the first couple of weeks as I got to know it.  The very first listen didn't give me a favourable impression, particularly for the first 3 tracks, but then that frequently happens.  Music that's complex and interesting enough to sustain my interest in the long term is often too complex to be grasped the first time around.  The opening track in particular is something that takes some unpicking.

House of Hope was the very first CD I ever owned.  In fact, I got it for Christmas before I even had a CD player, as it was known I was getting the player for my birthday.  I still find it a satisfying album, nearly 20 years later.  Age has not wearied it.  I still have the CD player as well, although it's beginning to detiorate a bit and the cassette unit is shot to pieces.

No Australian acts last month, but I seem to have made up for it this time around with a healthy dose of Australian rock.  The Badloves (okay, they're not so rock), Boom Crash Opera, Powderfinger and Something for Kate all got some airplay.

Of those, SFK would definitely be my personal favourite.  Why they haven't had more success is beyond me.  Perhaps it has something to do with the fact that Paul Dempsey's lyrics frequently involve sentences that go for 3 or 4 lines, and that kind of stream-of-consciousness isn't something that fits with the easy, disposable qualities that radio requires.

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