Magic and Medicine

Friday and penultimate C was the second album by cheeky bin dippers The Coral. You may recall I was not a fan of their debut and like the debut this album is my wifes, she suggested that I didn't have to listen to it and I said that breaks the rules.
I did listen to though, Magic And Medicine, and you know what, it wasn't half bad. Yes it still went for that "druggy bollocks" sound, but not as much as their self titled effort.
At times they even have stabs at proper songs, Pass it on and Bill McCai, sound quite pleasant, as does Don't Think You're The First. They almost blow it towards the end when they approach noodley on Confessions of ADDD, but even that isn't massively offensive. I must be getting old.
On the whole it was a middling album that performed much better than expected and that alone should garner a 10, but that is ridiculous, this is The Coral after all, its the coral and they still fall into that retro scouse sound that was hugely popular, and tiresome at the time, and that deserves nothing more than 4 out of 10.



Don't Think You're The First by The Coral

August and Everything After Review

Lets imagine a Rom-com, late 90’s Rom-com. To paint this picture completely lets put Meg Ryan as the female lead and maybe Hanks or some such as the male lead. Follows the standard rom com pattern, polar opposites dislike each other at first, through a series of events become close only for the female lead to break it all off due to an innocuous comment early on in the flick or a misunderstanding, finally the male lead will make some heartfelt plea to win the heart of the female, all interspersed with various montages.
Todays CD soundtracks all of that, today I was commuting to the sound of Counting Crows and their debut, August and Everything After. This album not only soundtracks the fictional rom-com’s opening titles, the montages, the break up, the thoughtful reflection following the break up, the punch the air in delight reconciling and the end credits, but also the opening, the getting together montage and all the bastard rom com clichés inbetween.
Counting Crows were made for rom com soundtracks and although the songs are ok, I can’t help picturing montages, segues and credits. This distracts me as I know that Perfect Blue Buildings is alright a song and not the incidental music in a date scene, but that unfortunately is what comes through.
Its not a bad album though it just conjures up clear images due to its use and sound, it sounds like late 90’s rom com soundtrack music. I think its fair to give it 4 out of 10, it has a few ok songs and its better than the follow up, less Meg Ryan on that though.



Perfect Blue Buildings by Counting Crows

Debut

As I approach the tail end of the B’s I know that todays offering is the final Bjork CD, her first solo album, Debut. That is unless little ern has bought another one behind my back. I guess I will know over the next two to three weeks.
I don’t really have much to say about this album, its one that I know reasonably well due to the play it received when me and the current Mrs D were courting. I was far too polite back then to say no really, Bjork is not my cup of tea at all.
Debut features singles such as Big time Sensuality, Violently Happy and Venus as a Boy. None of which mean shit all to me, her jazz ramblings on this album, mixed with outdated beats means that an album has been produced that for me has not stood the test of time and makes me wonder, even as her most accessible album, if she really doesn’t care about selling records.
Maybe that’s the point.
Maybe though she has caught me on an off day, maybe I caught her on an off day but at the end of all this I will be glad that I never have to return to a Bjork album. 4 out of 10.



Venus as a Boy by Bjork

Modern Life Is Rubbish

Today my CD of choice was Blurs second album Modern Life Is Rubbish, on paper this shut be a clear 8 out of 10. On paper. Lets talk about Blur for a moment.
People that I know and have had the pleasure of meeting Damon Albarn state that he is, not to put too fine a point on it, a shit of the highest order with an ego the size of Manchester. I have never met him, but would probably imagine that this is the case. The Drummer in Blur is a gentleman called Dave Rowntree, he flies planes and tries to get elected as a labour councillor, I can stomach the planes bit but the labour thing, well lets not get into politics. Alex James, I read his biography, a bit of a blur and ended up despising him, a truly selfish man with the morals of an alley cat that was an appalling boyfriend and who, it has to be said only has the cheese going for him, I quite like Graham Coxon though. So that’s Blur and my opinion of them.
I never really heard this album at time of release, I was working in the cocooned world of Butlins at the time and although I bought one or two singles, I never actually bought the album until I had bought the follow up, Parklife.
To be honest, I am not keen, it’s a bad album, really it is. Albarn is doing that dreadful thing that Ray Davies does so well of making the songs about people, Albarn explores it more on Parklife and the singles B-sides but here its clumsy and not engaging in the slightest. It makes, amongst other things sound dated and that’s what you get when you attach your self to a scene.

There was pressure on Julian
Pushing trolleys in the car park
From B to A then back to B
Pressure on Julian

Pressure on Julian

Not just Pressure on Julian though, the whole sound of the album is rather contrived, distancing themselves from the baggy sound on their debut Leisure, they could see that dead horse was flogged and they had to change for album two, as it is, the songs do not stand up, sure the singles are fairly inoffensive in Sunday Sunday, Chemical World and For Tomorrow, but they are extremely one dimensional singles. With hindsight its reasonable to assert that Albarn didn’t really hit his stride with his songwriting until the last two albums, moderately enjoyable songs such as This Is A Low from Parklife or Villa Rosie from this album, The Universal from The Great Escape, maybe a handful of songs more from those albums but as a band they never wrote great songs consistently until 13 and Think Tank.
So a disappointing album, a bad album, an album by a band trying to hold on to a record contract? Who knows 4 out of 10.



Villa Rosie by Blur

Reaching To the Converted

For commute purposes todays music was the 1999 album by Billy Bragg, yes, Billy Bragg, Reaching To the Converted. Effectively a B-Sides compilation.
Yes, I will be glad when the B’s are over too, I have the knowledge that I still have a lot of Bragg still to go through and I have hardly touched on Bjork, I will definitely be having a week off from the alphabetic journey through my CD’s next week.
So back to this, what is different on this album, well there is a ghastly previously unreleased version of Greetings To The New Brunette that has that Johnny Marr sound all over it, bloody horrible, that’s what happens when you give Marr free reign. There are also Ry Cooder tracks, Annie McGarrigle tracks and Smiths tracks, all excellent, I mean all of the tracks are excellent. Aside of the ones messed about with.
This also contains Billys version (with Marr) of Walk Away Renee, I must admit you will be hard pressed to find a better document of young love, the sister song to Saturday Boy and the last line sums up precisely the fickle nature of teenage love. “She cut her hair and I stopped loving her”. Genius.
So how are Billy locks on this album, I should do a plus minus convoluted process where I take the first track and deduct or add points for every song I like or dislike and see what it spits out…12 by the look of it, but no, the whole album, including the odd falsetto on Ontario, Quebec and Me, the accidental number one in she’s Leaving Home, all of this points to a better than average 7, but for Marr doing that Greetings to the New Brunette, then that’s 2 off for a start, the Red Stars version of Accident Waiting to Happen, that’s another one off, It’s a cynical disc marketed at the people that are likely to own the majority of songs already. Walk Away Renee would get ten though. 4 out of 10



Walk Away Renee by Billy Bragg Featuring Badly Drawn Boy

The Cult Of Ray

Today was the second offering so far from Frank Black, The Cult Of Ray, I think this was his third or fourth album and where the last album I listened to was a great surprise, an very enjoyable surprise this was like sucking porridge through a straw and as it finished as I passed the Belfry, I was happy to see it go.
Its not that it was bad, just not particularly interesting, Black was doing his post Pixies thing but at a tempo that I wasn’t particularly enamoured with. All squealy electric guitars and nonsense lyrics that didn’t really do anything for me.
On the plus side this album does contain my favourite solo Frank Black song in I don’t want to hurt you, but one swallow and all that and discarding that song there was very little meat on this bone. The final song reminded me of the Cher song, Just like Jesse James, which in all honesty, if Frank had covered that it might have been a gentle respite. As it was Frank chose to stick to topics that he knows and deals with well, namely, “bollocks”, well certainly on this album, and by bollocks I don’t mean that he has songs like the ballad of testicle joe, or John Waynes hairy saddle bags, (to be fair again if he had done songs called that it may have been a little more entertaining), no the bollocks I am referring to is the bollocks in the sentence “whats this bollocks”.
I don’t think this is the worst B, if it turns out to be the worst then it means the B’s have been very good, I just didn’t really enjoy it, 4 out of 10



The Marsist by Frank Black

Punk Rock Songs

The end of the A’s crept up on me in that it was an EP and not an album, so today its B’s, namely Bad Religions Punk Rock Songs, an anthology.
Now maybe it was my mood this morning, may be it should be Air in the mornings and Bad Religion on the way home but lyrically this album wasn’t good, I like the old American Punk Rock, that is after all the genre that NOFX peddle, but Bad Religion was a band that on the whole passed me by, partly I guess down to the anti religion, politico stance that they adopt with such vigour, you would think with all their experience they would be more lyrically adept than say Des’ree or some group of 15 year old punx from Worcester.
On stranger than Fiction Gurewitz writes that life is the crummiest book I read, in 94 when he wrote that line he had the birth of his daughter and his label Epitaph was enjoying some of their most high profile releases. Life really must have been crummy then.
Its not just that though, musically I really enjoyed the album, just the lyrics grated a little, but that may be just me and Bad Religion, I saw them once and I cant recall a single thing about them, and similarly if you asked me to sing back any song other than 21st Century Digital Boy, I would struggle.
So, and I may amend this after the journey home when I may be more happy to suffer the charms of 40 something punks, but for now, 4 out of 10.



Stranger Than Fiction by Bad Religion

Young Lust: The Aerosmith Anthology Disc 1

Continuing the Rock, Young Lust: The Aerosmith Anthology. One of many many Aerosmith Greatest Hits that exist, including boxsets I think they have about 8, they like compilations it seems. This album being long and a double album might mean that it stretches over two days. I am part way through the first disc, so in all likelihood it will be disc 2 tomorrow.
I asked for this one Christmas form Lisa and I think chopped down it would absolutely fantastic, of the 13 tracks listened to so far I like about half, that should indicate really that this is going to get a 5?
I quite like Aerosmith though, I like their image, their ethic, what they do and how they sound, I like that they remind me of the Stones, I just want more tunes out of them that this G.Hits isn’t giving me. It may happen on disc 2 and it this was an original album it would have got a 5, but as they are professing that the hits are great. 4 out of 10.